Thursday, June 21, 2007
Stranger












He is a stranger, she is not,
An sms to call, made her voice familiar,
Soft she speaks not to hurt, even the eardrum,
Sweet laughter, when I blush or blast,
I haven't seen her!!

She knows little nitty gritty of I,
I know her voice well, even when she changes numbers,
Her strong broom wipes all points
She has seen me!!

When I sleep, she wakes,
We don’t share the day pattern, the night pattern either,
Well will I see her? She feels it I guess?

I look back, she zooms my back,
Now hazy, she shakes, "It is long"
Which way? "I hope to see you"
My stranger!!
 
posted by ombui at 4:44 AM | Permalink | 3 comments
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
A “young” journalist in the field
The Uganda society was privileged to host a distinguished guest from the commonwealth H.E. Hon Donald McKinnon early today.

In a sunny afternoon, the eleventh day of June 2007, media persons too had to endeavour to grip a scoop; at least something for the editor or file something. The venue was at the Uganda Museum in Kitante, Kampala.

From town, my team arrived with what they know best to use. Edy Mondo had his digital still-photo Camera while Dynoh held tight his not book and a ball pen. Renee shouldered the video camera bag and a stand and as I resigned from my co-driving job that was very temporal.

So, we dashed out of the special hire car as if we were one of the intelligence agents chasing a criminal that is almost detonating a bomb. Past the door the other three positioned themselves well not a word to pass them. For me, I had to look for a paramount spot for video coverage. Hurriedly, I moved to put my stand a metre away from the one that was highly jerked just above my shoulder. Even before I placed my stand that I had jerked a height slightly above my waist, some one poked me toughly on my back and he said,

“don’t you see this stand behind belongs to Simon Kasyate of NTV? You are going to block him. Move away”

“Ohhh” I answered reluctantly.

In a twinkle of an eye, Kasyate move closer to his stand from no where and panned his head and hand asking me to move. My intention was to kneel; to provide ample space to capture good shots of the subject. I lifted the lowly jerked stand and moved to the right wing of the room.

Yes, I was a “young” journalist, unknown journalist. Thank God where I went was the best because H.E McKinnon moved from his seat to the pedestal that was only four metres away my stand. It was the best position and I got twenty five minutes of professional shots.We left immediately only to catch up with an issue unfolding in town that was Newsworthy.

May be to ask, how long or what does it take for a “young” journalist to be known not to be bullied? What happened to the co-relation of journalists in the field and out of field?
 
posted by ombui at 12:47 AM | Permalink | 2 comments
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Your President?
A few minutes before I went out for lunch, a friend made a statement,

“Do you know that George Bush is the World’s President, Vladmir Putin being the World’s Vice President and Tony Blair its Prime minister?”

"So, what about the Kibaki of Kenya, Kikwete of Tanzania, Kaguta of Uganda or other African Presidents?" I asked.

“They are class monitors?” she lamented.

How do you rank you President?
 
posted by ombui at 5:57 AM | Permalink | 3 comments
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Smoking 'sigara' !!
In December 2003, Philip Karugaba an environmental lawyer in Uganda won a landmark victory in the high courts declaring smoking in public places a violation of non-smokers’ constitutional rights to life and to a clean and healthy environment.

The judge ordered Uganda's National Environment Management Authority to make regulations to ban smoking in public places within one year. On 12 March 2004, Uganda’s smoke free regulation came to effect.

Since then, there have been few publicized arrests and prosecutions. Fines for those who defied the ban ranged from 20,000 to 100,000 Uganda shillings and the owners of public places who failed to enforce the ban were to face a fine of between 50,000 to 300,000 Uganda shillings.

Today, when you move around Uganda, you will find smokers feeling freer to smoke in public places as if there is no maxim that bans smoking in public environment.

To the non-smokers, a minute figure knows about their right of having a clean and health environment or can have the audacity to tell a smoker to leave a premise (because they are smoking) or seek assistance from an environmental inspector.

It is said that, send a thief to catch a thief. What would happen when a Police officer smokes in public places? How many will be imprisoned?

Think about this, how easy is it to trace a smoker who cause a non-smoker to be ill or spoils the environment of a non-smoker?

Picture by http://www.everestuncensored.org/archives/no-smoking2.jpg
 
posted by ombui at 7:12 AM | Permalink | 1 comments