My Beauty Best Teacher

George Ayittey of the Free Africa Foundation writes:

1) Never Forget Your Roots

Africa's traditions, institutions, and customs are integral part of your heritage. This heritage includes participatory democracy based on consensus, free village markets, free enterprise and free trade. You cannot reject this heritage and remain African.

2) Seek Ye First the Economic Kingdom in the Private Sector

There is nothing wrong in wanting to be rich, but nobody became rich working for a wage/salary, unless he was prepared to steal or embezzle, like the African kleptocrats. But that does not pay in the long run. Earn your wealth in the private sector by actually producing something, even charcoal. If capital is a problem, do as the illiterates do by pooling savings as in the revolving credit schemes.

3) Privatize the Universities

Africa's universities should be privatized. They may be given a fixed annual government subvention and then allowed to raise their own revenue and manage their own affairs. This way, they can uphold academic freedom, which is currently not possible with the head of state, often a military imbecile, as the chancellor.

4) Demand and Defend Freedom of statement/Media

Recall that the first critical step in problem resolution is the exposure of the problem. Without freedom of statement this is nearly impossible... "African governments are responsible for the underdevelopment of African literature. Among the four main problems inhibiting the development of African literature is the expulsion of prominent African writers . . . the absence of African writers in international debates, absence of integrative policies and lack of publishing infrastructure" . All African intellectuals must demand the right to free speech and defend the rights of others for the freedom to speak, publish and write...

5) Practice Intellectual Solidarity

Respect and assist members of your own profession, regardless of differences of opinion. If one is under siege, all wherever they may be --- in or out of government, in or out of the country -- must go his or her aid. You may need group assistance yourself in the future. And extend this solidarity to other groups fighting the same cause as well...
6) Demand National Conferences

When a national crisis erupts, demand that a national dialogue or conference be set up to resolve it, as is done in African villages. The national conference must be sovereign and its decisions binding on all parties, including the government...

7) Disband the Military or Cut It in Half

No African intellectual with an iota of intelligence and a modicum of Pan-Africanist spirit would support, much less serve, a barbarous military regime. Ever! All those African countries that imploded were ruined by the military.

8) Pan-Africanism

Pan-Africanism, originating from the belief that African countries share common problems, common solutions, and common destinies will remain a dream unless you learn more about African countries other than your own.

9) Set Up a Rival AU
The time has come for the useless OAU(nowAU) to be disbanded or for a rival body, the Organization of Free African States to be set up. It should be made up of strictly democratic countries. OFAS can be set up under the aegis of President Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

10) Selectively Repudiate Foreign Debt

Insist that foreign aid be given only to democratic African countries. Time and again, foreign loans are taken by corrupt, illegitimate and repressive African regimes without the approval of the people.

Tina Korbe at HotAir explains the picture perfectly:

A new report out yesterday from The Heritage Foundation shows private sector job creation dropped dramatically almost immediately after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) into law.

From the recession’s low point in January 2009 until April 2010, when Obamacare went into effect, the private sector created about 67,600 jobs a month. After the president signed PPACA into law, that number slowed to a meager 6,400 jobs a month — a more than 90 percent decrease or less than one-tenth the previous rate.

As the report states, correlation cannot prove causation — but the change in course is statistically measurable and testing reveals a structural break between April and May of 2010. Moreover, small-business owners have said Obamacare is a deterrent to hiring. Take Scott Womack, the owner of 12 IHOP restaurants in Indiana and Ohio, as just one example. Before Obamacare became law, he had development plans in Ohio. Now, he’s worried he won’t be able to carry out his original plans unless Obamacare is repealed. Those restaurants he planned to open would provide jobs not only for his future employees, but also for everyone involved in the construction of the restaurant buildings themselves.

As the Heritage report explains, Obamacare discourages hiring in three important ways:
Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty; Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.

Democrats once touted that Obamacare would create jobs, but the data underscore the reality that that’s not true for the private sector. The only jobs Obamacare created were within the new agencies and layers of bureaucracy the law added to the federal government.

The Heritage report recommends repeal — and comes as a welcome reminder that the health care law can’t be ignored as the president and Congress attempt to address the debt and deficit or as the nation attempts to right the still-struggling economy. Nor can it be ignored in the upcoming presidential election. Likely U.S. voters have said jobs and the economy are their No. 1 issue. That means the repeal of Obamacare should be a top priority, too.

Over the last several months, I bravely snuck into Michigan Congressman Gary Peters office and filmed some video. The Democrat's office was littered with stacks of miniature Constitutions (Congressmen get a certain amount to give to constituents, but Peters just uses them as recycled toilet paper), with piles and piles of literature extolling the virtues of recycling and lowering consumption, and with giant statues of our Dear Leader. I shot two video's, possibly more, while I was in there, and captured Congressman Peters talking with his staff about how to avoid showing up at townhall meetings and about how to hide his votes on spending spending bills. Here are the videos:


Just kidding- these aren't of Gary Peters, although they might as well be, since he has run his campaign the same way he ran away from his constituents all summer- by running away from his stance and votes on major issues. They are from Heritage for America. Peters is a tax-raising, energy-destroying, job-killing, regulating Democrat, and yet is trying to run from that record this election. We'll throw the bum out.

Suggested book to read related to this post: Heritage Pocket Guide to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States

Lugard Ehimatie Aimiuwu makes suggestions on how to turn Benin-City's heritage into a tourist attraction:

Benin has, in its extensive military moats and mounds, described in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest earthworks in the world ( in the pre-mechanical era), a major tourism potential. Yet, a new creation Tinapa, is much better known not only abroad but also at home. It will most certainly become tomorrow’s money spinner because of purposeful management. Action: (a) rehabilitate the moats; (b) canvass for and secure UNESCO World Heritage Classification; (c) create and promote an annual tourist-attracting international event. Build pathways and driveways along the works and have Great Benin Moat Marathon, Great Benin Trek and perhaps African Grand Prix. There are so many possibilities; (d) also exploit the domestic potential by networking them into new canal system to help de-flooding and promote inland transportation.

George Ayittey suggests that we evolve a form democracy more in line with our heritage:

...let each group choose their leaders and place them in a National Assembly. Next, let each province or state choose their leaders and place them in a National Council.Choose the president from this National Council and avoid the huge expenditures on election campaigning that comes with Western-style democracy. Those resources can be better put to development in poor African countries...Next, let the president and National Council take their decisions by consensus. If there is a deadlock, refer the issue to the National Assembly. This type of democracy is in consonance with our own African heritage.

More here

On Congressman Gary Peters' (a liberal Democrat Congressman from Michigan's soon-to-be-eliminated 9th District) website, via RightMichigan:

On Tuesday, June 28, Representative Gary Peters will host a Federal Budget Workshop to discuss - and find solutions to - the fiscal challenges facing the United States. Teaming up with experts from the Concord Coalition, a non-partisan budget watchdog group, Representative Peters will give 9th District residents a hands-on chance to tackle America's budget crisis.

Participation is free and open to residents of Michigan's 9th Congressional District. To RSVP (required) please complete the form (found on the website) or call 248-273-4227. If you have any questions, please call us at 248-273-4227.

What: Budget Workshop with the Concord Coalition
When: Tuesday, June 28 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Where: Berkley High School Collaborative Center
Address: 2325 Catalpa Drive, Berkley, MI

If you live in Michigan's 9th Congressional District, please make an attempt to go to this event. Make sure you RSVP- Peters is legendary for only talking to constituents who have gone through the proper screening process, and his thugs will run you off if you are not on the guest list to talk to him.

Although the Concord Coalition bills itself as 'non-partisan', it is the exact kind of non-partisan that Gary Peters loves- it is liberal poppycock that on its website accuses Republicans of sabotaging the budget process, encourages 'fiscal reform' (code for more taxes), characterizes conservative views of death panels as 'misguided', and in testimony to Congress argued to let the Bush tax cuts expire and increase revenue by eliminating deductions. So, although Peters might continue to pretend to be some sort of moderate, realize that he's the kind of slime that uses words to disguise his intentions rather than illuminate them, and so he is going to try to use what little time he spends in district to host this sham of a 'budget workshop' to try to convince constituents that we need to raise taxes. Although I do see that the Heritage Foundation is a partner with this group, so I could be wrong and it could be more balanced- someone please leave comments and let me know how it goes.

In the Independent:

Ever since a pure copper sculpture was found buried in a palm grove near the Nigerian city of Ife, experts from the West have argued that the artefact was a fake that was too sophisticated to have been created by African hands...At the time of discovery, the head was considered too great a masterpiece to have been created by indigenous African artists – a reflection of prevailing attitudes of the early 20th century. Some Europeans even theorised that the work was a remnant from the lost city of Atlantis. A spokeswoman for the British Museum said when the head travelled to the West, it caused a huge stir because "it flew in the face of Western perceptions" (of African heritage and cultural achievements).It is now accepted by the curatorial community that the advanced artistic techniques used to create the sculpture were "more advanced than those of Renaissance Italy, and comparable to those of [the artist] Donatello".

More here

In a recent Heritage lecture Karol Boudreaux stated:

Africa’s future lies in the entrepreneurial spirit. More and more young Africans are being entrepreneurial, and as they move Africa forward in the 21st century, they need for their leaders to fix governance problems; they need a better rule of law; they need other strong institutions like secure property rights; and they need more and more expansive economic freedom.

The Benin Moats (Iya) have been described as "a complex system of moats and ramparts spread over some 6,500 square kilometers". The aims of the Benin Moat Foundation are to:

Restore the integrity of the moats integrate them into park systems for tourism. Find the sites of the Nine Gateways into old Benin and in each, acquire land large enough for buildings for the needs of history, relaxation, transportation and tourism.Do the utmost to realize the moats’ tourism potential for Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria and the World.Work to find the moats their respected, permanent and revered places, and eventually as a World Heritage Site .

Image courtesy of Benin Moat Foundation

In Bizcommunity

The African Film Library, launched on Wednesday, 23 September 2009, consists of award-winning works from more than 80 filmmakers including Senegalese Ousmane Sembene and Djibril Mambety, Yousef Chahine from Egypt, Kwaw Ansah from Ghana and Haile Gerima from Ethiopia...The online library aims to create a new audience for existing and emerging African filmmakers through the digital archive of the continent's cultural cinematic heritage, and making African artists' works easily accessible via the internet to a wide viewership around the worldwide.

More here

Ndiva Kofele writes:

I have somewhat immodestly taken the liberty of inventing the word ‘patrimonicide’ as the name for this new international economic crime. The word comes from combining the Latin words ‘patrimonium’ meaning “[t]he estate or property belonging by ancient right to an institution, corporation, or class; especially the ancient estate or endowment of a church or religious body” and, of course, ‘cide’ meaning killing. It is submitted that indigenous spoliation is the very essence of the destruction (or killing, if you please) of the sum total of a nation's endowment; the laying waste of the wealth and resources belonging by right to her citizens; the denial of their heritage.

More here.

Mutumwa Mawere writing in the African Heritage Society:

Africa’s future belongs to builders. Our civilization has evolved and contemporary African civilization is dualistic with one part based on laws and other institutions underpinned by a market system and another that is based on what can be described as African norms, traditions and custom...I have come to the inescapable conclusion that business development is unsustainable without moral capital investment.This view is not only supported by my personal experiences but by the notion that markets and morals evolve together and are, therefore, aspects of the spontaneous order of any society.

More here

Teddy Ruge Co-founder of Project Diaspora writes:

For the first time, Africa is also adding its rich history and collective voice to the human archive. No longer is Africa’s rich cultural heritage, development and identity championed and hijacked by those from outside and treated as a footnote to human history. Increasingly, Africa’s dispersed Diaspora are amassing a collective intelligence of their own; earning and editing their own Wikipedia entries...

More here

Related articles by Zemanta

• Africa fact of the day (marginalrevolution.com)
• Teddy Ruge and the online African diaspora (ethanzuckerman.com)

Usually I don't like to blog about messed up individuals that do messed up things- their isn't a whole lot to read into when a crazy person acts in a crazy way. But I do want to comment on the recent incident involving environmental activist James Lee, who was sadly shot and killed after taking over the Discovery Channel headquarters. Something about this incident bugged me, and I was unwilling to simply shrug it off as the usual 'crazy people doing crazy stuff means nothing'.  It took Richard Fernandez over at the Belmont Club though to articulate what I was thinking:

But one way to detect logical fallacies is to see what happens when you scale them up. Those harmless ideas when projected onto a horizon ten miles high and fifty miles wide are so awe-inspiringly crazy that either you say “what the f**k?” or “why not?” James Lee said “why not”.

Scale up all my harmless ideas about freedom, liberty, protection of life, protection of property, founding principles, etc, and imagine the world that you get. It isn't really that bad, is it? But scale up the harmless ideas of the liberal left- promoting birth control in Third World countries, abolishing all advanced combat systems, ridding the world of the Judaeo-Christian heritage, fighting Climate Change, building down the US economy, handing out subsidized housing, increasing the power of the state, etc- and you get James Lee. Here is what he wrote at a site believed to be affiliated with the suspect, Save the Planet, where he set forth his creed as the “sayings of Lee”. Some of his demands were

•All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infant.
•All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease.
•Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed.
•Immigration … Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US.
•Find solutions for Global Warming
•Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy.
•You’re also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing.

These are simply scaled up versions of mainstream Leftwing notions. If you're going down that road, seeing what happened to James Lee should cause you to pause and reconsider.

For those of you who are administrators, headmasters or coaches and even teachers, you will love this conversation we recorded at our school for the 40 year anniversary of the school. We've been going back and recording for posterity things that will help students understand what our school means and who we are.

These three men have led our football team to 7 different state championships. They talk about their wins, their losses, their pains, their struggles both as teachers, headmasters, and coaches.

Ross Worsham, the man on the left is my current headmaster. Coach Graham Lowe is "my" headmaster. He was at Westwood for many of my years. I sat in his office the ONE time I skipped class (to read the book Sounder which I had forgotten to read the night before - I skipped PE and hid under the bus - thank goodness we got caught . He is also the principal I wrote about in my post about standing up to the class bully Be Hope-Full and Power-Full. I don't think Coach Lowe will ever understand what he means to me as a person and a teacher.) Coach Greene was there when my youngest sister was in school and my first or two at Westwood. He made a big difference for the boys.

I know sometimes teachers throw stones at coaches and vice versa but we are on the same team. I love when Coach Lowe talks about what he told his son to do when his son wanted to coach. He said something like "Son, be a teacher who coaches not a coach who tries to teach."

Coach Lowe teaches French at Deerfield Windsor High School today and coaches middle school boys. (His son is the head coach for the varsity team.)

Anyway, after this trip down memory lane, I just think it is great to hear and remember your heritage.

Have you thought about a history project like this for your school?

Over at The Corner at National Review, some perceptive observations are made about Obama's budget-

1) Remember the President stating his budget "identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade?" It actually increases spending by $1 trillion. But he classifies as "savings" $1.4 trillion in tax increases (apparently savings for the government, not for you) and $1.5 trillion "saved" in Iraq relative to a fantasy baseline that otherwise assumes current spending levels forever. The Iraq gimmick is the equivalent of a family deciding to "save" $10,000 by first assuming an expensive vacation and then not taking it.

2) Real federal spending per household — $24,000 before the recession — would reach $33,000 per household by 2019. Between 2008 and 2013, the $5.7 trillion in new debt will come to $48,000 per household.

3) It is easy to "cut the deficit in half" after you've quadrupled it. Furthermore, three upcoming developments — the end of the recession, troop pullout in Iraq, and phase-out of the supposedly-temporary "stimulus" spending — would, by themselves, cut the 2013 budget deficit in half. President Bush was slammed for averaging $300 billion budget deficits while funding a war. President Obama will be praised for running $500 billion deficits in 2013 at a time of (assumed) peace and prosperity.

4) The President's budget proposes a new PAYGO law — and then violates it by $3.4 trillion.

5) The tax increases are staggering. The President would raise taxes by $1 trillion on the top 2.5 million tax filers. That comes to $400,000 per tax filer over ten years. And despite these harsh tax hikes (and a $646 billion cap-and-trade tax hike), the President's rosy budget assumes a much faster economic recovery than CBO or the Blue Chip Consensus.

This research was put together by Brian Riedl, Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

As the new year dawns, I find myself wondering how long I will continue to be employed as a teacher once the Democrats pass Obamacare. Last week I had a chance to hear on WJR760AM an interview with Michigan's Speaker of the House, Andy Dillon (D-17), and it kind of scared me a little. When he was asked what Michigan's state budget looked like next year, he said "very bad- there will be substantial cuts everywhere." Then he was asked what Michigan's budget will look like after the health care bill is passed, and he said "destroyed- I don't even know how we are going to pay for what the national Democrats are asking for."

Both the Senate and House bills greatly expand eligibility for Medicaid, the welfare program that provides health care services to the poor. The Senate bill would require states to expand their Medicaid programs to cover all Americans up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, ie, to provide free health care to a family of four making under $29,326. The House bill would require states to expand eligibility for Medicaid to 150 percent FPL, or $33,075 for a family of four (see The Heritage Foundation analysis).

The key to this provision is that it is not going to be the national government footing the bill for this touted expansion of coverage, but it is going to be the state governments. The national government is going to tell the state of Michigan, which already is facing a massive budget disaster, that it now will need to cover an estimated additional 500,000 people. There is no way that the state of Michigan can do that without making massive cuts.

Personally, I've put together recommendations on how to cut dozens of useless programs and save our state government millions of dollars. But once this healthcare bill goes through, it will not be a matter of cutting a program or two or trimming a departments budget- it will be about wholesale cuts to important programs.

Those cuts will include massive cuts in the school aid budget (I'm guessing two to three times the massive cuts that we had last year) and the likely elimination of all funding for higher education and community education. Yup, the total elimination (or at least massive cuts) to higher education and extensive layoffs and cuts in pay for primary education.

These massive cuts will likely be offset by a huge decrease in services in other areas and a rise in fees and taxes in a large number of places. Even still, anyone who supported this healthcare bill has made the choice to trade expanded healthcare coverage for people making 25K to 29K in exchange for teachers, professors, fishing, hunting, roads, historical markers, libraries, police, and fire services.

Everyone who works in state government, public education, fire, police, or any industry that the state government helps fund should be totally 100% against this bill, and contacting their organizations and representatives and telling them this. If this bill goes through, you and I might not have a job next year.

Within an analysis of Hillary Clinton's scathing speech to Nigerians Salisu Suleiman writes and asks:

True, our backs are broken, our dreams stolen, our resolve molten. But we must ask: Where are those to fight to change? Who will tell Nigerians that dying in silence would be a great betrayal of our heritage? Are Nigerians ready to fight for true liberation? Are we ready to wrestle our fate from with the motley that claim to be Africa’s biggest party; but have reduced governance to a banal cabal who only pledge the perpetual pillaging of public property for private purpose?

More here

David Kaiza writing in the East African discusses the wider cultural impact of Nollywood:

The future impact of this is beyond what Pan Africanists a generation ago would have dared dream: Almost at one stroke, these films have ring-fenced the African world. Once, not too long ago, scholars looked at the African world as a fractured existential context in which Africans craved for Western objects by which to present themselves.

Elaborating on the burgeoning cultural capital of West Africa in comparison to East and Southern Africa he asks:

Were they more gifted? No. They had the advantage that the pre-colonial cultures their peoples developed remain, to this day, intact and wholesome. Along the length and breadth of Nigeria, annual cultural festivals provide a rich heritage of types, symbols, language, narratives and drama that creative Nigerians dip into time and again.