Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
MAKMENDE FEVER!
1. Makmende doesn't eat Honey, he eats bees!
2. Makmende counted to infinity - twice!
3. Makmende is the only one who knows Victoria's secrets!
4. Makmende killed the dead sea!
5. Bill Gates gave us Windows, Makmende gave us the rest of the house!
6. When Makmende was born, he held the doctor upside down and slapped his but till he cried!
7. Makmende once visited the virgin islands. They are now the islands!
8. Makmende does not cheat death he wins fair and square!
9. Makmende can divide by zero!
10. Makmende is the only guy who can pocket his arms when naked!
11. If Makmende says F**k.....you become pregnant!
12. Makmende doesn’t go on a date; he goes on months!
13. Makmende can unscramble a scrambled egg!
14. Makmende preaches water and drinks Oil!
15. When nature calls Makmende hangs up!!
16. Makmende doesn't keep his money in the bank its the bank that keeps its cash with him!
17. Makmende knows where deleted messages go!
18. Makmende washes his clothes using Mexican soaps on T.V!
19. Makmende can start a fire using only water!
20. Makmende drinks water from a glass...using chop sticks!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
10 things Women say during sex. :-)
1. The optimist- Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!
2. The pessimist- Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!
3. The confused- Oh yes! Oh no! Oh yes! Oh no!
4. The religious- Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!
5. The submarine- Deeper! further! deeper! further!
6. The fake- Am coming! am coming! are you?
7. The Suicidal - Kill me! Kill me! Kill me!
8. The Dramatic - Im Dying! Im Dying! Im Dying!
9. The Tired - Finish me! Finish me! Finish me!
10.The Sensitive - Aaaaahhh! Aiiiiiieee! Aaaaahh! Aiiiiieee!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Dear President Obama: What North Korea Might Say - Yahoo! News
By BILL POWELL Bill Powell – Tue Dec 22, 4:35 am ET
Dear President Obama,
So nice to hear from you, and let me just say that it's an honor to be pen pals with a third American President. (Your letter has joined the ones I received from Bush and Clinton in pride of place on my office bulletin board.) I know you guys all personally took the time to write me, but it's kind of funny - all your letters say more or less the same thing. Dear President Kim, before you stands a historic choice: you can either (A) join the family of nations, opening the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to economic benefits, new trading relationships and diplomatic recognition from Washington, or (B) you can continue down the road of isolation and penury if you continue to develop nuclear weapons.
One of my aides tells me that some psychiatrist in the West once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting to get a different result. I thought that was pretty good, though I imagine in your State Department there are some folks who probably don't get the joke. But never mind. As you guys like to say, let me cut to the chase: In response to the choices you offer me, I choose B. Isolation. Penury. And nukes. (Most of all, nukes.) (See pictures of North Korea going to the polls.)
Now I know that you think that makes me insane. After all, I run one of the most impoverished countries in the world. Here, a boom year is any one in which we manage to avoid a famine that kills thousands. But you have to understand, what I value most is control. That's what my father, our country's heroic founder, the Great Leader Kim il-Sung, desired; it's what I desire; and I've pretty much bet the family jewels that my 26-year-old son, Kim Jong-Un, will want the same thing when he takes over in a few years. Absolute, total control over pretty much everything.
I recently changed the denominations of our currency to wipe out the savings of anyone who possessed over 300,000 won (basically a few hundred of your dollars). Why did I do this? Because a lot of those people had earned that money in private markets - which the Party here didn't control - and that made us nervous. Was that beneficial for our economy? No. But it kept us in control. (See rare pictures inside North Korea.)
So, by your standards, we are not 'rational.' I mean, look, we just had a planeload of missile parts intercepted in Thailand. I think you know where that plane was headed. Why in the world would we be shipping parts for our glorious Taepodong 2 missile to Iran, when the entire world is worried about their nuclear program? Because some of my close comrades here in the Party run the trading company that sells the missiles, and the way I keep them loyal is to let them make some money.
Now don't me wrong. It's a problem that the plane was intercepted, mostly because it puts the comrades in Beijing in a difficult spot. You could lobby them for more restrictive economic sanctions against us, just as you are now doing with Iran, and they are not comfortable with either - even though they might go along, at least part ways, in order not to seem out of step with the rest of you. (Read 'U.S. Tries Direct Talks with North Korea.')
But as far as we're concerned, this will blow over. If we've learned anything over the last decade, it's that China is never really going to isolate us economically. They don't want a repeat of the starvation of the late 1990s, which flooded the northeastern part of their country with our refugees. Without Beijing's help, you're never going to muster enough economic pressure to change our ways. And my nuclear ace-in-the-hole ensures that no one will really mess with us. Why in the world would I ever give that up?
So here's what I suggest: Let's take the three steps you guys always propose in your letters - denuclearization, leading to economic benefits, leading to diplomatic recognition - and flip them: Recognize the DPRK and normalize relations first, because it should be obvious to you guys by now that our regime is not going anywhere. Then, lend us some money, build a power plant or two, maybe help us with agriculture and food production. And then, after a while - a decade, perhaps? - if enough trust has been built up, then maybe we'd start to think about getting rid of our nukes.
Maybe.
Anyway, thanks for writing, Barack. Always good to hear from you U.S. Presidents, even if you do always say the same thing.
Yours truly,
The Dear Leader
Kim Jong Il"
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
A Tribute To The Late King Of Pop Michael Jackson ( R.I.P)
“If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.” M.J
In our darkest hour, in my deepest despair, Will you still care? Will you be there? In my trials and my tribulations, Through our doubts and frustrations, In my violence and my turbulence, Through my fear and my confessions, And my anguish and my pain, Through my joy and my sorrow, In the promise of another tomorrow, I'll never let you part,
Michael Jackson has set many records throughout his career and won many awards. From the early days of the Jackson 5 to the current day. Michael Jackson has been in a league of his own with his best competition being himself and trying to improve on what he has already achieved. He are a just a few of the record breaking achievements.
Biggest Selling Album Of All Time - Guiness Book Of World Records
Michael Jackson's "Thriller" Album is the biggest selling album of all time, with over 50 million copies sold worldwide. Thriller is also the biggest selling U.S album with sales of 25 million copies.Most No1 Hits in 1980's
By The End of the 1980's MIchael Jackson had more #1 hits than any other artist for the decade.Greatest Audience - Guiness Book Of World Records
The highest-ever viewership was 133.4 million viewers watching the NBC transmission of Super Bowl XXVII on June 31, 1993. Michael was spotlighted during the half-time peformance.Bad Tour - Guiness Book Of World Records
Michael Jackson's world tour brought in a record gross revenue of over $124 million during September 1987-December 1988.100 Million Records
Michael has sold over 100 million singles and albums outside of the U.S.Billboard Charts
Michael Jackson is the first person in the 37 year history of the Billboard chart to enter straight in at No1, with his single "You Are Not Alone". The previous record "Earth Song" which had debuted at No5 and also Michael Jacksons.Biggest Selling Video
Michael Jackson's "The Making Of Thriller" is the biggest selling video to be released by an artist.Billboard "Hot 100" Singles Chart
Most No1 Hits by Male Artist (13)No1 Debuts
Michael Jacksons "Bad", "Dangerous", and "HIStory" albums all debuted in at No1.Awards
Michael has won more awards than any other artist.No1 On Charts
In 1983 Michael became the first artist to simultaneously hold the number one spots on Billboard's rock albums and rock singles charts, as well as the R&B albums and singles charts.Consecutive No1 Singles
Jackson 5 were the first group to ever have four consecutive No1 singles.Sunday, June 21, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
If u did this or saw it......u probably went to a kenyan high school
1.Before uende form 1,u had to buy sanduku za mabati...ati burglarproof,and bado zilikuwa zikivunjwa.
2.U had to borrow a leave out kuenda nyumbani...which was like next to impossible.
3.Uliosha shati na troja za mafourth........na ukikosa hukuwa unalala chuo.
4.Siku ya first ulihandwa ati upatiane zile chapo na nyagu ulitoka nazo home,ati wewe tajiri.
5.For some of u,manze the fact that mlikuwa na entrance exams really f***** u off.
6.Manze siku za mail delivery zilikuwa the most important,especially kama ulikuwa na mamanzi.
7.In relation to number 6,the whole class used to write one mail,kila mtu na sentance yake,then use recycled stamps...tumia colgate na toilet role to recycle.
8.Mlikuwa mnaimba national anthem on Mondays or fridays or both,half the time off tune or corrupted words.
9.Guyz used to skive preps kuenda kulala ama kuwasha.
10.Guyz used to extend kwa CU room ati ndio msihandwe na mafourth.
11.Breko ilikuwa kuhatishana....unahatisha wadhii mkate na blueband.
12.U had the most insensible prefects...manze unambaiya keroro sato usiku lakini monday yeye ndio anakukinda kwa princi...ati uliskive chuo.
13.Guyz used to skip showerz like crazy...unashower siku tatu kwa term;siku ya kuopen chuo,siku ya kuenda home mid-term,na siku ya kufunga chuo.Ukijaribu sana ni siku nne aterm,with the fourth one being either siku ya music fests ama CU weekend.
14.Maboyzz used to soma mail zilikuwa zimetoka kwa mamanzi zao to the whole class,unamark na kuweka marks,then return the mail to whoever wrote it.
15.Music fests.....hebu jitokeze,jionyeshe....skills za kukatia.
16.In relation to number 15,manze mono angeslice fourth former manzi wake....ati kamutii
17.Time ya music fests ilikuwa time ya kuamshana mashati...if u left urs hanging ukirudi kumbe ilicrossi kitambo...or ilibadilishwa ukaachiwa the dirty one.
18.Siku ya box inspection......manze mna keroro kwa keja lakini ondiso hataiona...wherever watu walikuwa wakificha.
19.Siku ya challenge weekend population ya wakristo used to go up...kuimpress mamanzi.
20.U had more role calls on the weekends than on the weekdays.
21.We had the most ridiculous names for schools....Quabzz,changez,ditchez,boma,bush,quortet,patch,patch fake,chox.
22.The Insyder....enuff said!!
23.Academic Bonfire after KCSE....who wouldn't miss that??
24.U actually knew colors za tai za every school,na during music fests ulisove moja plus sweater yako from someone from the other school.
25.U went to a symposium kuhanya.....ehh i know i will hear an amen hapo!!
26.After KCSE....Leaver's Rock.
27.Uliperfect skill ya kurewind skirts,blouses na shati during the school term.
28.Ilikuwa inafika friday afternoon unaanza kutafuta ni trip gani to a certain school utadandia.
29. Manze guyz used to ngojea mpaka stima zilost....NO PREP.
30. Githeri 24/7....change only occured when u go home.
31. How about monolization....manze u r told shika shoe brush usugue mti hadi it becomes as clean as ur home.....na unaambiwa utumie OMO.
32. Who kumbukaz the sign DO NOT STEP ON THE GRASS.Do that and u would regret it.
33. In relation to funkiez,the school bus would come back with more people than actually left the school to begin with.
34. Wakati wa breakfast,lunch or dinner,u had to pray with one eye and the other eye opened,otherwise by the time umemaliza kuomba,fourth former alishacrosi na dibre ama nyagu za table....talk of the table system.
35. Break time the shopkepper was the best friend.Everyone used to scrum hapo...ati vibrator and half loaf.
36.Who remembers the crap which was called sato entertainment???
37.For some of you,mlilala na chuma chini ya godoro...ati weapons of mass destruction!!!
38.People did everything possible to have a funkie their school....in the name of kuleta members of the opposite sex.As a result,hungejua there were some clubs in some schools hadi you see mabasi za chuo ya opposite sex...thats when u realised there was a club like that.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Kenyan women hit men with sex ban
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
For people who really have experienced life in Russia and those who wish to know how it feels to live in Russia
You have been a student in Russia if:
1. You take your shoes off every single time you get into some ones house even if you don’t have to
2. You know at least three Dima Bilan’s song, even though you say you don’t like him
3. In fact you kinda cry when he won Eurovision 2007
4. Viagra is not just a medicine, it is also a music group that has the exact same effect
5. You know that Russia IS NOT Europe
6. You know that matryoshka is not only a tipic toy, but the reality of the Russian woman past her 50s
7. You know 50 Sashas, Sergeys, Olias, Lenas and Katias
8. You found out that the Russians won World War 2 and the Americans just showed up at the end
9. You lived in the общежитие
10. You used to hide the bottles of beer and vodka from the вахтершка
11. If the вахтершка finds out you just pay her for the комендант not to find out
12. If somehow the комендант foud out and enters your room the exact moment when you are having a toast with your friends, you just offer him a drink
13. He actually accepts the drink
14. The most horrible times of your life have to do with the сессия
15. You took care of your зачетка more than your passport
16. You know what a Зачет and an Экзамен is, and that the difference between them is that one is more expensive than the other
17. You loose the tension drinking
18. You drank vodka when you were sad
19. You drank vodka when you were happy
20. You drank vodka because there was nothing better to do
21. You made a toast before every drink and sometimes you even tell jokes
22. You heard Russian jokes, you get to understand Russian jokes, you get to honestly laugh with them, you learn to tell them and people really enjoy it
23. Beer was and appetizer to vodka
24. You drank the beer hot and with Рыбка (smoke fish)
25. At least one time you sat in a public place to drink vodka in an under zero day and by your own will
26. You start to drink with strangers and they became your lifelong pals
27. Пельмени was your favorite meal because it cooks in 10 minutes
28. You put сметана to everything
29. Борщ is the most delicious soup there is and you cannot picture your life without it!
30. You drank Чай in winter and Квас in summer
31. When you feel cigarette smell you remember Russia for some reason
32. You use the word Прикин anytime you wanted to add emotion to a conversation
33. You think Putin is the best president ever
34. You hate cats!
35. You found out about what happen in world war 2, in the soviet union, after the soviet union, about Putins former job as a spy in Germany not from your history teacher but from the old lady sitting next to you in the bus that for some reason started asking you the time and end up with a whole life biography with real history events
36. You have argued more than one time with a бабушка that doesn’t respect the line in the bank
37. You no longer ask for ice for your drink, and don’t even think about looking in the store
38. You know more bad words in Russian than in your language, because simply there is more bad words in Russian than in your language
39. You are always worried about the weather
40. You are surprised that there are no 24 hour shops in your country
41. People scream at you in the street and you have no reaction what so ever, in fact you start to scream too, not because your angry, is simply the way we speak in Russia
42. …you hate Russia, you wait eagerly the moment to return to your country, but once you are in your country you found that you actually miss Russia, in some tiny little hidden place of your heart, really inside you LOVE Russia. You can’t live with her, you can’t live without her. Without notice it she’s already part of you, and you will always have a special place in your heart for her, Великая Россия, a Russia that is not ours but we love her as she was, we can call it ours наша, наша Russia!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Ryanair mulls charge for toilets
Ryanair mulls charge for toilets
Michael O'Leary: 'People might have to spend a pound to spend a penny'
Irish budget airline Ryanair has said it is considering charging passengers for using the toilet while flying.
Chief executive Michael O'Leary told the BBC that the Dublin-based carrier was looking at maybe installing a "coin slot on the toilet door".
Consumer group Which? said the airline was putting "profit before passengers".
Ryanair's PR chief Steven McNamara later played down the idea, saying: "I don't think it's going to happen in the foreseeable future".
"Will it happen long-term, I'm not really sure," he said.
"It's one of those things that when Michael starts looking at something, you know, it's always up for discussion."
Last week Ryanair confirmed it planned to close all of its airport check-in desks by the end of the year in a bid to reduce the cost of its flights.
'Fast buck'
Ryanair aims to offer low basic ticket prices, and then charge extra for items such as checking in at the airport or for additional luggage.
"One thing we have looked at in the past, and are looking at again, is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door, so that people might actually have to spend a pound to spend a penny in future," he told the BBC.
He added: "I don't think there is anybody in history that has got on board a Ryanair aircraft with less than a pound."
But Rochelle Turner, head of research at Which? Holiday, said: "It seems Ryanair is prepared to plumb any depth to make a fast buck and, once again, is putting profit before the comfort of its customers.
"Charging people to go to the toilet might result in fewer people buying overpriced drinks on board, though - that would serve Ryanair right."
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
THE STELLA AWARDS
It's time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards." The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck of New Mexico who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's. That case inspired the Stella awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States. Here are this year's winners:
7th Place:Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.
6th Place:19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
5th Place:Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of $500,000.
4th Place:Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams, who had climbed over the fence into the yard and was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
3rd Place:A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
2nd Place:Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms.Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.
1st Place:This year's runaway winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, (from an OU football game), having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back & make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mrs.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising her in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded her $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons around.
Kenya Steals the Show With Upset Win
Kenya beat New Zealand for the first time in 14 attempts to proceed with them and the rest of the top seeds to the Cup quarter finals at the USA Sevens in San Diego.
Los Teros of Uruguay gave the USA Sevens its first shock result by upsetting the Kenyans 14-12 in their opening match, but the African side performed the ultimate recovery job in beating the Kiwis at the end of the day. South Africa, Samoa and Fiji were all unbeaten at PETCO Park
Knowing that only victory against the kiwis was enough to stay in the Cup, the Kenyans started well with tries by captain Humphrey Kayange and Brian Nyikuli. New Zealand, missing several key players but still a force in the game, hit back through Tu Umaga-Marshall to trail 14-7 at the break but two tries by Victor Oduor sparked mass celebrations from the thousands of amassed Kenyan fans present in the generous crowd.
Earlier, World Cup-bound Uruguay caused an early upset by beating the Kenyans 14-12. The Uruguayans scored two tries through Santiago Carracedo and Santiago Gibernau and then defended with their lives to shut the Africans out for much of the match. Matias Arocena slotted both conversions for Los Teros, while only one of Kenya's tries by Lavin Asego and Collins Injera went converted.
Benjamin Ayimba, Kenya coach
"It was a very bad start and we knew we had to raise our game. It was probably a blessing in disguise losing that game [against Uruguay] because then we always went a notch higher in the next games that we played and ultimately of course playing New Zealand and beating them three tries to one, which is definitely an achievement.
"The commitment of the boys has been exemplary. Back home they've had to leave jobs and school and sometimes it weighs down on them but this time they responded."
Humphrey Kanyange, Kenya captain
"What a day. We like doing it the hard way and really responded well in the last two games, it's a sign of what's going to come in the World Cup.
"What we want to achieve in the World Cup now looks much more possible."Tuesday, November 11, 2008
My money has been acting funny lately,
My money has been acting funny lately,
I don't mean haha funny, am talking strange, weird, different type funny.
This time money is going on all out.
Leaving me, showing up then leaving as quickly as she came.
Ignoring me treating me like a poor man.
"What did I do boo? All I ever did was love you,
may be too much couse right now it's like we aint cool no more!"
We use to be roll dawgs, inseparable!
But lately my money has been acting funny, and
I haven't seen money in months.
I got more than a hunch she is playing me.
Trying to make me jealous,
hanging out with other fellows,
always in some other brother's pocket.
I try to tell her man,
"those other guys, those other guys are just using you,
THEY ARE JUST USING YOU MONEY!"
She doesn't hear me,
she doesn't hear me.
she doesn't even return my phone calls,
she doesn't stop by the crib like she use to,
she won't go to the movies with me.
She won't even go to get something to eat,
And you know a brother cannot eat without money!
Don't you know I miss you?
I want you!...Okey.
I need you to survive.
My life revolves around you.
I cannot replace you money,
believe me I've tried!
There's only so much water and bread I can take.
Call me spoilt,
but I remember the days people use to see us at the hottest clubs,
expensive restaurants all the hottest places.
I made sure I looked good with money
"I TREATED YOU RIGHT!"
'I never abused you. Did I?
did I get used to you hanging around,
and now you are giving me a taste of what it feels to live without you?'
People still think we are tight.
I mean they still ask about you.
I don't like them in my business,
so I reply, "money and I are not as close as we use to be."
My money has been acting funny lately.
I can't even call out her name when am shooting ball.
"Oh! oh! I saw her the other day at Beverly Hills..."
she didn't even acknowledge me, she looked at me like,
"How did you get to Beverly Hills?"
Like I don't belong
Ever since money hasn't been around,
am feeling am losing my other friends too;
American Express, Visa,..Discovery..
They starting to act shaddy
I think she is spreading lies on me.
Tell you ,
I don't know what I did but my money has been acting real funny lately,
and I don't know her anymore.
And my life ain't the same, never will be the same until money comes back into my life.
So if you see her or any of her cousins
(cause she got a whole bunch of family running around)
let her know that I MISS HER,
THAT I LOVE HER and I want her to come home!!!
Monday, November 10, 2008
A Legend lives on in our hearts
Miriam Makeba – African Mama and Queen.
The death of South African icon Miriam Makeba brings to an end an illustrious music career spanning over four decades.
Makeba, who died aged 76 years in southern Italy on Sunday night, was an inspiration to many worldwide.
She will be remembered for having vowed to "continue singing and never retire".
Her illustrious lifestyle ranged from earning the fame of "Mama Africa", being a symbol of fighting apartheid in her home country, through song and dance.
During her life, she weathered many storms including several car accidents, a plane crash and even cancer.
To her thousands of fans, the musical inspirational voice of Makeba will still live on in many forms.
May her soul rest in eternal peace.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Why We Need to Call a Pig a Pig (With Or Without Lipstick)
We know Orwell for his novels, but it's the way he saw the politics of language that makes him relevant.
In 1944, a young British writer named Eric Blair sent the publisher Jonathan Cape a manuscript for a novel-length parable about the rise of Stalin. The book had already been rejected by one editor for its inflammatory content. Cape also declined. While he personally enjoyed the manuscript, he wrote, he believed it was "highly ill-advised to publish at the present time." Perhaps Blair might have better luck were he to change the identity of the main characters? "It would be less offensive if the predominate caste in the fable were not pigs," he wrote. Blair finally found a publisher, and the book, "Animal Farm," released under Blair's pseudonym, George Orwell, became a bestseller. But the experience proved instructive. The next year, in the essay "Politics and the English Language," he wrote that degraded, unclear language was both symptom and cause of the decline of contemporary culture and political thought. "One ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end," he wrote. In other words, it's important to call a pig a pig.
Since its publication in 1945, "Animal Farm" has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, and become a standard text for schoolchildren, along with Orwell's other dystopian vision of the future, "1984." But it is the writer's essays on the importance of clear language and independent thought that make him relevant. Consider this, from "Politics and the English Language": "The word Fascism has now no meaning except insofar as it signifies 'something not desirable.' The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another … Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way." Substitute "anti-American" for "Fascism," and you've summarized the tenor of much of the public conversation regarding the current election and the war in Iraq. "We're so saturated in media today that anyone who is following it is bound to think, 'This is terrible language; what are the effects of these clichés on my mind?' " says George Packer, a staff writer at The New Yorker who has edited two new collections of Orwell's essays, "Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays" and "All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays." "God knows, I've wanted to use that essay as a purgative. Orwell tells you how to cut through the vapor and get the truth and write about it in a way that is vigorous and clear. Those skills are particularly necessary right now."
Eric Blair was born into what he described as "the lower-upper-middle class" in 1903 in Southwold, England, and spent most of his adult life trying to undo the comforts and privileges his station afforded him. He attended St. Cyprian's prep school, where, he wrote in the essay "Such, Such Were the Joys," he learned "life was more terrible, and I was more wicked, than I had imagined." As a writer, his greatest aim was to ameliorate the conditions that made life terrible; as a man, he lived as though forever attempting to atone for his own wickedness, real or imagined.
After prep school he attended Eton, but instead of going on to university, he joined the Imperial Police, requesting the remote post of Burma. As David Lebedoff writes in his new dual biography, "The Same Man: George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh in Love and War," "it was a desperately lonely life. Some of his colleagues committed suicide and others went mad … he was in a far-off land whose people did not want him there." It was in Burma where Orwell would learn to hate all forms of imperialism. "In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters," he wrote in the essay "Shooting an Elephant." Pressured by an excited mob to kill an elephant, he perceives "that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom he destroys." After five years in Burma he returned to England, where he slept in homeless shelters and scrounged for work in restaurant kitchens to experience how the poor lived, then went to the dreary, economically depressed north of England to document the condition of the miners. A self-described democratic socialist and fervent anticommunist, he volunteered to fight with the republicans in the Spanish Civil War, where he stood up in the trenches to light a cigarette and promptly was shot through the throat.
All this time he was writing, or trying to. According to Lebedoff, Orwell was not a naturally gifted stylist: "One young lady to whom he showed his first efforts thought they were 'like a cow with a musket'." He persisted, and began publishing regularly during World War II. In addition to his war reporting, he wrote reviews, essays, memoirs, novels and a regular newspaper column, "As I Please." He also was a faithful diarist. Since August his entries have been published as a blog (orwell diaries.wordpress.com) on the same date they were written 70 years ago. (So far, his subject matter runs to the weather and the doings of his livestock—"Another hen bad in the legs this evening. Examined & found enormous black lice"—but the action should pick up once the war gets underway.) The publication of "Animal Farm" brought financial security, but again he sought out misery, moving to the remote, rain-plagued Scottish island of Jura. He died of tuberculosis soon after completing "1984," at the age of 46.
Orwell's lifelong inclination toward deprivation and asceticism may seem an appealing corrective to the pleasure principle of our times. "It might have been absurd for him to live like an unemployed laborer when he was an Eton graduate, but his obvious disregard for materialism or hedonism is attractive today, when there's an extraordinary emphasis on making a lot of money, having expensive toys and having fun," says Lebedoff. "Orwell's life, because it was so monkish, shows you can have a life of value without those things." But his miserliness was offset by a generosity toward the victims of the systems he despised. In the essays "Clink" and "Spike," about his stints in jail and a homeless shelter, he describes his fellow unfortunates without condescension or caricature.
He was extraordinarily tough-minded, most of all toward himself, vigilant against sentimentality or self-aggrandizement. In "A Hanging," about an execution he witnessed in Burma, he allows himself a few grace notes ("the Indians had gone grey like bad coffee") but never at the expense of brutal honesty: after the hanging, the Indians regain their color, Orwell finds himself "laughing quite loudly" at a joke, and soon thereafter "we all had a drink together, native and European alike, quite amicably. The dead man was one hundred yards away."
Though many of Orwell's essays describe single incidents, his concerns are political, in the largest sense: the way human dignity is corrupted by false phrases. He was less interested in what motivates people to act without integrity than in the words they use to camouflage and perpetuate their dishonesty: for Orwell, bad language and bad politics were one and the same. Yet for all his penury and despair, his faith in the power of clear, strong language can only be read as optimistic.
Today, the writer's name is invoked to describe anything involving surveillance, paranoia or even books about animals. Orwell's ideas have been bastardized and simplified over time, so that "Big Brother," the totalitarian, state-run citizen-control mechanism of "1984," is now the name of a reality-TV show that bears little resemblance to the book, except for the fact that contestants are watched by cameras. "When writers use the word 'Orwellian,' you can be pretty sure they've read very little of him," says Packer. Rather than describing surveillance devices, or pig farms, a more accurate application of the adjective would mean something that aspires to the lucidity and integrity of Orwell's writing. In that case, it would be the highest praise.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
- Wife Software Query Dear Tech Support
- Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 and noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. No mention of this phenomenon was included in the product brochure. In addition, Wife 1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during system initialization where it monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Drunken Boys Night 2.5, and Saturday Football 5.0 no longer run, crashing the system whenever selected. I can not seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run some of my other favorite applications. I am thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0 but un-install does not work on this program. Can you help me, please!!!
- Thanks, Joe
- Dear Joe:
- This is a very common problem men complain about but is mostly due to primary misconception. Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 with the idea that Wife 1.0 is merely a "UTILITIES & ENTERTAINMENT" program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and designed by its creator to run everything. It is unlikely you would be able to purge Wife 1.0, and still convert back to Girlfriend 7.0. Hidden operating files within your system would cause Girlfriend 7.0 to emulate Wife 1.0 so nothing is gained. It is impossible to un-install, delete, or purge the program files from the system once installed. Some have tried to install Girlfriend 8.0 or Wife 2.0 but end up with more problems than the original system. Look in your manual under "Warnings-Alimony/Child Support." I suggest installing background application program C:YES DEAR to alleviate software augmentation. I recommend you keep Wife 1.0 and just deal with the situation. Having Wife 1.0 installed myself, I might also suggest you read the entire section regarding General Protection Faults (GPFs). You must assume all responsibility for faults and problems that might occur, regardless of their cause. The best course of action will be to enter the command IAPOLOGIZE. In any case avoid excessive use of YES DEAR because ultimately you will have to give the IAPOLOGIZE command before the operating system will return to normal. The system will run smoothly as long as you take the blame for all GPFs. Wife 1.0 is a great program, but very high maintenance. Consider buying additional software to improve the performance of Wife 1.0. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0.
- Best of luck, Tech Support.