I had connected my iPod to Banshee on Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop to sync and charge, something I had faithfully done for two years prior to the incidence. One faithful morning, on plugging it, I noticed the sided crunched recognizable apple icon go on an off, in an endless loop of restarts and shutdowns. I reckoned the OS must have hit a snag and since I didnt have a windows machine nor a mac nor was there any known way of flushing its OS, I laid it aside and retired to the entertainment -less travails of West African airlines. So much for proprietorship. Deciding to move houses, and going through my study, I came across several gadgets and toys that boys like us found of utmost importance, life saving devices and necessities you should not be caught dead without. Things we justified to our wives and partners, were absolutely necessary and demanding of our family budgets over that dinner dress, that Christmas toy for junior or even that pre-dinner snack (friends can wait patiently while the real food comes to the table. Snack is over budgeted). I came across, a charger for my whal shaver. Shaver has always remained in my bathroom, but my hectic travel schedule had left its charger displaced between suitcases or shelves. Plus, its input voltage was 110 and not 220 thus special stepdown apparatus was required to juice it up – a tradition I could not patiently and meticulously sustain. Then I stumbled across my Palm Pilot Treo – one of those technologies that told me Palm had visions of the future way ahead of its time similar to IBM’s Lotus Notes/Domino which is still struggling in today’s wed development and application’s world. LN/D has elements of security that amazes the FBI, rapid application development that my eight year old could easily use to develop a web-based home-work tracking system and lots of in-betweens to cater for any cadre of technology user. I remember the Palm version with an inbuilt Wifi adapter coming out at a time when data over mobile technologies was still in its experimental stages. I didnt have one of those but I envied Sonnie who had purchased one in the guise of a Christmas gift – to himself. I postponed my purchase till the next holiday but alas, there were more appealing gadgets this year. I further stumbled across one of those portable DVD players which I remember buying to keep kids entertained but at the same time, quiet, focussed and ‘busy’ while you concentrated on the holiday route ahead traveling at dizzying speeds. I would forever be grateful to it for that 18 hour drive from Dallas, TX to Destine and Orlando, Florida months after Katherina hit.. What was I thinking? The painful part of this exercise was the lockdown of the car stereo system through a self generated FM transmission to the booming soundtrack of Muffet Comes to Town, the bold voice of Kermit and the high pitched sound of Ms. Piggie, or those sounds of Dr. Seuss on some adventurous path to certain discoveries. Something’s got to give, and it was my music. These Chinese version portable players could play anything. From region 1-4 DVDs to MP3s, MPEG Videos, and VCDs which underscores the amazing distributions systems of Nollywood – the Nigerian movie industry. It came in handy, patched through series of red, white and yellow cables to my flat screen TV when my heavily expensive Samsung DVD hometheatre system decided it would only play DVDs it wanted. I needed to watch Prison Break. I am still way behind in season 2 but I will take my time and be patient with my new found old toy. I stumbled across my slim Canon digital camera and an old Sony camcorder. The camcorder died because I believe it had a time bomb in it. It worked perfectly until a certain year when it clearly said, ‘I am old enough, I need to be replaced with a more modern Sony version.’ And then it gave up the ghost to this day. I am still tweaking it with the hope that it would come back to life like my iPod which when I plugged to my Ubuntu Hardy-Heron 8.04 decided it would be recognized and would trip off my current radio session playing on Rythymbox 0.11.5 on Gnome ending one whole year of mourning. Hurray!

These events do not so much amaze me as the comments I received on my facebook page after posting the message about my iPod coming back to life. Two of my friends linked it to the Obama presidency. Cathy says “Obama is President……don’t ask me where the connection is….look deep within…” and Yiso says “”Yeah…Apparently there will be a lot of unexplained occurances, a black man runs the world… today the sun is shaped like a moon, at least in SA. Your ipod is merely going with the flow….”

I could not understand the linkages between the Obama presidency and the resurrection of my gadgets except perhaps that the only common denominator is the timing of the happenings. Coincidence? Perhaps. Luck? I am not sure. I may not believe in luck but I do believe in time and chance happening to all. You must be situated at a particular position at an opportune time in which you are hit by a brick load of embarrassing favors or disasters, as the case may be. It only happens once – when the earth, sun, moon and other cosmic bodies are aligned in a straight line.

Why was Laurent Nkunda, the Congo rebel leader arrested a night or two after the Obama inauguration? What has that got to do with happenings miles and continents apart? I stopped by in Kivu late last year for one of the most memorable 3 days of my life. The peace and tranquility of lake Kivu and the relative calm in Gisenyi on the Rwandan side when thousands are being killed just 10 minutes away. And I worried that the heavily mineral deposits of this region will be siphoned out unaccounted until something happens in the Western world that brings transparency to governance, to international trade, to the interests of the African people. To understanding the inequalities of classing Africa with Europe and the Middle East in the so called trade classification of the EMEA region. What commonalities exist between Europe, the Middle East and Africa that would warrant such classifications? What implication does this have on the purchasing power of the African continent, its countries and people, on software, hardware, DVDs, iPods, iPhones and all the gadgets that Sonnie and I would like to have for Christmas. Where does transparency in trade come into the picture? When is the African continent liberated from these so called international trade/business classifications? When does transparency come into the diamond trades of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia; the black oil bunkering deals off the Niger Delta coasts of Nigeria; or the gold and methane from Lake Kivu and other parts of Rwanda and Congo? Me thinks that the capture of Nkunda has a whole lot to do with the American administration. The same way the influential cabals of the Texan oil trade affects global oil pricing. For the first time we begin to see what may have been considered secretive and suitable only to a select few people – the insides of the white house, the swearing in ceremony of government admin staff, the commissioning of peace envoys to the Middle East, Afganistan and Iraq, Senate hearings and approvals of the American Secretary of State – linens and all, laid bare in public places for persons to criticize and agree with lesser evils. In a one phrase sentence, Obama, in his inauguration speech sums up the despondent images of the African presidency. Paraphrased, it would sound like, ‘woe to him or her, that holds on to power for their selfish gains…through corruption and deciet and the silencing of dissent. You are on the wrong side of history.’ They are old fashion. Transparency would reveal those US based and off shore accounts maintained by several links far removed from the average African president and politician, past or present but yet tied to them by a fiberglass thin umbilical cord of control. Transparency is the opposite of corruption. My iPod became transparent and thats why I would come back to life and I could read it on a linux based PC instead of its proprietary Windows or Mac machine.

Transparency would soon come to my iPhone and to Africa. I have hope. But the discussion on hope is yet for another time.

Can the world’s financial institutions think of a better way of verifying the finanacial suitability of an individual besides owning and using a credit card?

Way before the recent global financial turmoil, the credit card seems to be the only means of verifying financial stability and suitability for a service by service oriented  institutions; hotels, car rentals, airline agents, etc. Until debit cards came along, one could hardly transact business online or at hotels. I recall the difficulty of checking in at a Seattle hotel in 2006 even though I had cash to pay for my stay. Though  card custodians may be  hugely indebted and financially sunk beyond timely redemption, there seems to be  a certain degree of self worth associated with the flashing of this piece of plastic. And the banks continue to honor them!

This may seem all well and good but not when it pertains to matters of grave importance such as buying a house or a car. If credit history as determined by the frequent minimum payment to a credit card debt is the only factor that qualifies one for such benefits then we have only seen a tip of the iceberg of the global financial crisis as defined by the wall street. The gross consequence is, of course, that those who have decided to stay debt free – far away from the clutches of the plastic ‘god’ would forever be unable to afford these necessities which hitherto (and for a long time) have been seen by the banks as luxurious.

Do not step close to a financial institution if you are not indebted to it!

Given my understanding that a credit card may only be issued after some  security verifications, and that banks have a large degree of self interests and benefits that come with society’s indebtedness to it, it is utterly ironic that debt is used as financial viability.

Couldn’t the combination of ones employment contract, months and months of banking history (and a trend analysis from monthly expenses as defined by this history), an annual or biannual balance sheet be sufficient to determine financial viability? Or some rental agreement, utility bills, etc all strengthen the financial position of an individual?

Financial stability is not determined by the minimum balance paid to a credit card but to the credit worth an individual has. That worth is only known to the individual and the banks should seek better forms of eliciting this worth in order to avoid future global collapse of self worth as recenly (and currently being) experienced.

There is a black man in the white house and modern culture had a whole lot to do with it.

The simple statements, ‘go vote’, which President elect Obama often made appealed to popular culture but mostly those, youths, new voters and internet and technology saavy generation. Telecommunications had a lot to do with it and the average age group of supporters and voters bringing the first African American to the white house is a reflection of modern ‘culturism’.

What I would term modern culture is all the elements of popular culture plus today’s concept and culture of openness facilitated by technology. The culture of openness, freedom, rights and expression becomes more profound in recent times. Larry Lessig, Yochai Benkler and Pierre Levy would talk about the culture of the internet and postulate on the openness and freedom that it should have. Open access movements, in the last decade have kicked every ethics of knowledge out the window, challenging the culture of hoarding knowledge for power. Indeed, empowerment has come with a large degree of openness. The advancements of the internet, user generated content, the bottom up approach to information and creation becomes additional elements of traditional culture, making it more modern.

Modern culture does not primarily erode aspects of traditional culture. It however, enforces it and gives it an opportunity to thrive using modern technology as a medium for widespread dissemination. The traditional social element would fit into modern culture when they spread technology enablers on their bread of traditionalism. This is the dividing line between modern and traditional culture. The ability for one to recognise the gulf that separates modern culture from tradition, and the bridge that links them.

Obama recognised this and therefore took the approach of modern culture that such entities like facebook, linkedin, myspace, google, etc are characteristic of. He challenged traditional culture of allowing a cap over his campaign finance and would rather take the approach of unlimited possibilities when every one dollar from unseen, unknown millions would amount more than $85million dollars of tax payers money.

Obama would use the internet to facilitate pyramid marketing techniques to encourage voters, volunteers, and donors to move one candidate forward.

He would use the mobile phone knowing clearly, that communications is the oil that wheels mass mobilisation. And though he could stand at a podium and do the famous, ‘I have a dream’ speech, he would rather disperse his ‘voice’ via sms and mobile phone calls.

If the world were to vote, it would be a landslide. The seesaw would tip as all weights shift to one side. The appeal to global audience, knowing the support that comes from the international scene was capitalised on by media networks. Though journalists feign fairness, one could tell certain biased reporting to global audience. He is much liked and thus appealed more to global consciences, a reflection of the after effect of modern culture.

The face of todays internet is the face of the average youth. The average youth, well mobilised can change anything including change itself. Thats modern culture and that was the difference between Obama and McCain.