Five Easy Ways to Turn Your Man On.

Are you sick and tired of magazines like Cosmopolitan promising to show women what men crave in bed? Are you at the point where the mere sight of a magazine cover claiming to know men’s deepest, darkest desires makes you want to kick a passerby? Well I am! Generations of women have been fooled into believing that the key to finding a life partner lies between the covers of a glossy magazine. These rags make readers think that finding a partner for life is as easy as getting men to go to bed with them, but it’s all nothing more than a marketing gimmick that lets them to sell their trash to thousands of unsuspecting women. I, for one, can no longer sit idly by while this travesty continues.

Every issue of Cosmo—and other magazines of that ilk—claims on the cover that it can show women how to drive their men wild in bed. Or how to turn them on. But it’s all a load of baloney. First of all, these articles are clearly not having the desired effect of turning men into drooling sex addicts who worship the very ground on which Cosmo readers walk. If they were, fewer and fewer women would, after having landed the man of their choice, need to buy this garbage, resulting in the ultimate—and long overdue—collapse of this particular branch of the publishing industry. Since Cosmo continues to roll out a new issue every week, I can only assume business is good.

Ladies, don’t waste any more of your money on Cosmo or any other publication that promises to show you how turn your man on. While it is indeed very easy to get your man—or any man for that matter—hot for you, generations of Cosmo writers don’t seem to know how to. You want to know how to turn your man on? Forget Cosmo’s 20 “Sexifiers!” I can give you five easy ways to turn your man on? Ready? Here you go:

1. Take
2. Your
3. F*cking
4. Clothes
5. Off!!!!!!!!!

There you have it! It’s bloody simple! If you want your man to spring a boner for you, get out of those f*cking clothes. Don’t go wasting your money on Cosmo? All that “literature” you devour about lingerie and massage and oils and candles is nothing more than a steaming heap of bull manure. Men don’t care that you maxed out your credit card at Victoria’s Secret, or that you spent the past three hours soaking in a tub full of honey-milk-vanilla-soybean bubble bath! When it comes to sex, only the actual act of intercourse excites a man more than the sight of the naked woman with whom he’s about to have sex. In fact, men get excited just seeing any woman naked. Why do you think the average man—over the course of his life—will spend the equivalent of Botswana’s GDP at strip clubs? Because naked women are hot, that’s why! So ladies, the faster you get out of your clothes, the faster your man will be turned on. Now I know you’re thinking, “What if he thinks I’m a slut?” I say, “Good for you!” Why? Because men love women who love to have sex, especially with them. They love them so much they’re willing to pay women to pretend to be sexually interested in them. This is what keeps prostitution alive. At the end of the day, nothing makes a man happier than a woman who is willing to engage in sexual intimacy with him. With the possible exception of the sight of said woman without her clothes, of course.

Now, once you’ve driven him wild with the sight of you naked, you must make sure to keep him coming back for more. How do you do this? Simple. By being a total freak in the sack. I know Cosmo authors claim to have 101 ways to make your man think you’re a wild woman in bed but trust me, they’ve got nothing on the internet. If you want to know what your man wants—nay, yearns for—in bed, check out some internet porn. Don’t worry, internet porn is very easy to find. In fact, it’s the easiest thing to find on the internet. It doesn’t matter what you’re looking for, you will always end up at a porn site. Spend a couple of hours a day looking at online porn and pretty soon, you’ll be rocking your man’s world. And the best part is, internet porn is free. No need to spend the equivalent of a day’s lunch every week on some silly magazine.

“But,” I hear some of you doubters ask, “What if I don’t have a perfect body?” Well, I’ve got good news for you. Most men don’t have perfect bodies either. Your man doesn’t have a perfect body but it’s not keeping you from wanting to drive him wild in bed. And you know what? Your imperfect body won’t keep him from wanting you to drive him wild in bed. Why? Because, as I’ve already stated, men are seldom happier than when someone wants to have sex with them. It doesn’t matter who it is or how they look. Even the slightest hint of sexual interest from a woman is enough to preoccupy a guy’s mind for days. Sure, most guys think they can go out and have sex with someone really fit but, at the end of the day, most of them are too lazy to bother and too insecure to try. Like toads, they tend to sit around hoping a tasty fly will come within range of their tongues. Trust me on this one.

By now, I’m sure you’re wondering how I can be so sure of what I’ve just written. It’s quite simple, really. Ladies, if what you want is a guy to be hot for you, there’s no need for fancy magazines. It’s a pretty simple process. Higher brain functions like reading—which I presume even Cosmo readers possess—are regulated by the larger, newer and more sophisticated part of the human brain, the Cerebral Cortex. Sex, on the other hand, is a pretty basic function for humans. It is regulated by the limbic system, also known as the “primitive brain.” This is the part of the brain that regulates such functions as sleeping, breathing, and blinking. It’s the oldest and most primitive part of the brain, and it is also the part of the brain we share with reptiles and other animals that have—without any help from Cosmo—been doing “it” for millions of years. A heterosexual man can no more resist getting wood at the sight of a naked woman than he can keep from blinking.

At the end of the day, I suspect getting a man into bed isn’t so hard for women that Cosmo has to devote part of every issue to this topic. And, I’m certain that’s not what Cosmo readers are really after. The majority, I suspect, are hoping to find a nice, handsome, well-educated, emotionally and financially stable guy to raise a family and grow old with. The trouble is, magazines like Cosmo trick their readers into thinking that getting a man to be sexually interested is the same as getting him to commit to a lifetime together. It’s not, and you don’t need a Cerebrum to know that. Sex is a basic, primal impulse in humans—as it is in all animals—whereas commitment, raising families, and growing old together are learned behaviors reinforced through social convention.

Ladies, next time you’re interested in getting a guy into bed, appeal to his primitive brain and take your clothes off. Getting him to marry you, though, will be a little more complicated.

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Ignorance Loves Company: Miss Teen South Carolina Knows Little but She’s Not Alone.

During last week’s Miss Teen USA pageant, eighteen-year-old Lauren Caitlin Upton—now better-known as Miss Teen South Carolina—fumbled her way into infamy with a rambling, disjointed, and generally appalling response to a simple question, demonstrating to me that she is neither well-informed nor well-educated. But Caitlin Upton is merely a symptom of a larger problem.

That larger problem, my friends, is that Caitlin lives in a country where knowledge—especially the kind that may be acquired through schooling—is not valued. That’s why the most popular kids in school are never the top students. That’s why the smart kids get picked on. That’s why millions of people who can’t name the capital of Burundi flock to their TVs to watch beauty pageants instead of the international news. And that’s why, as a nation, Americans are woefully deficient in their knowledge of the outside world. Only 21 percent of Americans follow international news closely, while 65 percent admit they lack the background to follow overseas news. Ignorance is part of the American way of life and people like Caitlin Upton merely serve to illustrate this.

Basically, Caitlin’s ignorant because she can get away with it. How else could she have reached the age of 18 without having acquired sufficient English or logic or rhetoric or whatever other foundational skills one needs to answer a question as simple as the one she was asked? Clearly, she’s never had to! She’s pretty, she’s blonde, and that’s enough to have gotten her this far. Her inability to think or articulate opinions is irrelevant to her day-to-day life. As the Young Turks point out, Caitlin took fourth place in the pageant, despite her moronic response!!! Obviously, the message is that nobody cares that this woman is an idiot, as long as she’s pretty. Millions of Americans are getting that message loud and clear.

Caitlin is not unique. She’s not a bad apple or an anomaly or a black sheep. On the contrary, she’s a typical American teenager. Even worse, she’s an archetypal American teenager. She is the American teenager that millions of other American teenagers aspire to be like. And our values do little to help. Beauty pageants are elegant, elaborate affairs that showcase beautiful people wearing exotic costumes. Geography bees, on the other hand, are far less glamorous and receive far less publicity. How many high schoolers would rather win a geography bee than be Miss Teen USA?

Popular culture provides even more prosaic examples. Take country music legend Alan Jackson, for example, who proudly proclaims in a hit song that:

I’m just a singer of simple songs.
I’m not a real political man.
I watch CNN, but I’m not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran.

But country singers are by no means the only Americans who revel in knowing nothing about the outside world. The system is rotten from the top down, and even political figures go out of their way to prove how provincial they are. How many of our political figures can speak a language other than English? How many of them have lived or traveled abroad? In fact, to have done so is considered a political liability. Remember Sen. John Kerry, who challenged George Bush for the presidency in 2004? He caught flack for having lived in Europe, for being a Europhile, and for “looking French.”

Our ignorance of the outside world is not only a part of our way of life, it is an essential component of our very understanding of how we live. Ignorance allows Americans to believe that the US healthcare system is the best in the world, despite studies that rank it far behind those found in other countries. If the majority of Americans don’t even know the names of other countries or where on the map to find them, how can they be expected to know about social and economic systems in those countries? This same ignorance allows us to defend our petroleum-based economy while the rest of the industrialized world is exploring clean and renewable energy alternatives.

Most seriously, this ignorance enabled the Bush administration to successfully conflate Osama bin-Laden’s Al-Qaeda network with all Muslims and all Arabs. Only ignorant people could have been led to believe that a secular Ba’athist like Saddam Hussein would ever collaborate with a theocratic zealot like Osama bin-Laden. Yet this is precisely the argument put forward by the Bush Administration as a pretext for invading Iraq, and the majority of Americans—knowing next to nothing about the Arab and Islamic worlds—swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Today, the people of Iraq are paying the price for our ignorance and gullibility.

In Caitlin’s case, the worst consequence of her ignorance was humiliation. For millions of other people the world over, the consequences of Americans’ ignorance may be far more dire.

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Deja-Vu: Another Gay Sex Scandal Hits Republicans.

Another rabid homophobe in the GOP has pleaded guilty to indecent conduct in a public men’s bathroom.

Three-term Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho was arrested on June 11 in a men’s bathroom at the Minneapolis airport after allegedly using coded signs to solicit an undercover male officer, who was in an adjoining stall. Craig apparently tapped his foot in a certain way, which the undercover officer recognized as a coded indication of interest in sexual activity.

Craig, who has consistently run on a “family values” platform and spoken out against the “homosexual agenda” was sentenced to a $500 fine and one year’s probation.

I’d go on and on but it’s easier to just link back to an earlier posting.

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New Radio Show: August 13, 2007

So today, I decided to only play female musicians. It felt like male musicians have been dominating the show lately.

I recently got my hands on a couple of Les Nubians CDs, from whence comes the ”Brothers & Sisters track.” I’ve also got a couple of tracks in there by local musicians: DC’s own Princess of Controversy (“A Soldiette’s Story”) and Wayna (“Secret Identity”).

As usual, you can listen to the show online or download it to an mp3 player and listen later.

Click here to see the playlist.

Listen to the previous show here.

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Hiatus

I’ll be traveling down the East Coast for the next two weeks so I might not be able to post regularly. Currently looking for a guest blogger. If I can’t find one, things might be pretty quiet here at T’ings ‘n Times for the next fortnight or so.

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Plans for World Domination Well Under Way!!

My plans for dominating the world are finally beginning to take shape!

Just kidding, of course. I don’t even have plans to dominate my bedroom, let alone the world.

I am dominating Google’s internet search engine, though. My name is, at least. Type in “Abdul K. Kargbo” and the majority of hits will be links to my blog.

Finally! This whole blog thing is beginning to pay off!! It’s only a matter of time now before hot women start lining up at my door.

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Republicans Gone Wild!! or, Why is the Republican Party Home to So Many Sexual Deviants?

I have a theory.

I believe that many (if not most) male right-wing politicians are hypocrites. They rail against homesexuality and infidelity while, at the same time, they fight the urge to give in to their “immoral” or ”indecent” desires. And, as recent sex scandals prove, they don’t always win.

Take, for example, the cases of abstinence-only campaigner Randall Tobias, gay-bashing reverend Ted Haggard, and family values champion Senator David Vitter? All these men publicly promoted such “family values” as marital fidelity, heterosexuality, and other manifestations of moral fortitude and Christian values. Yet Tobias and Vitter were both exposed as clients of the DC Madame, who ran an escort service specializing in sexual fantasy and roleplay. It turns out Ambassador Tobias likes to have sex with women who are not his wife while Senator Vitter enjoys being diapered by them. For his part, Reverend Haggard, a relentless anti-gay campaigner, was outed by a male prostitute who revealed that he had received money and oral sex from Haggard.

More recently, Florida State Representative Bob Allen (R-Merritt Island)—sponsor of legislation against “Lewd or Lascivous Exhibitionism,” “Sexual Solicitation,” and ”Lewdness and Indecent Exposure”—was arrested in a public men’s restroom after offering to pay an undercover cop $20 for the pleasure of performing oral sex on him. To clarify, Allen offered the cop $20 if he (the cop) would let Allen fellate him. Allen later told a news conference that he was so intimidated by the cop (who was Black) that he offered to suck him off just so he could walk out of the public bathroom alive. At least Representative Allen is well-rounded in his bigotry.

But if these conservatives like to blow men and/or cheat on their wives, why can’t they just be honest about who they are? I mean, although they still face a lot of bigotry—most of it coming from people like Haggard and co.—millions of gay men and women live honest lives outside the closet. And while there is nothing commendable about marital infedility, many swinging and swapping couples manage to work out arrangements that work to the detriment of none. While I know Democrats and liberals cheat on their wives and engage in other “immoral” behavior as well, it seems like the conservative ranks—home to those who most vociferously denounce anyone who doesn’t conform to their idea of decency and morality—produce the most sexually deviant and hypocritical public figures.

As I see it, people like Allen, Haggard, Tobias, and Vitter affiliate themselves with the conservative party and adopt the most anti-gay and moralistic stances in an attempt to distance themselves from who they really are. I think they do it to avoid suspicion. After all, who would suspect a leading gay-basher like Haggard of wanting to suck another man off ? Who would suspect that a family-values politician like Vitter enjoyed cavorting with hookers while wearing diapers? Who would suspect that Randall Tobias, a champion of abstinence and fidelity, enjoyed paying for extramarital sex? By denouncing the people who openly do the things they themselves secretly do or would like to do, these conservative hypocrites hope nobody will ever question their moral fortitude or discover that they are not 100% morally upstanding.

And it usually works.

Not on me, though. By now, whenever I hear a conservative ranting and raving against homosexuals, I think to myself, “Somebody stick a c*ck in this dude’s mouth already so he’ll shut the f*ck up.”

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When did I stop giving a f*ck?

Last night, two very unusual things happened. Unusual because they haven’t happened in a long time. I had a dream and I actually remembered it.

Remember that dream where you show up to class and discover that you have an exam that you completely forgot about? It’s a pretty common anxiety dream that a lot of people continue to have even after they leave school. I used to have them all the time but I hadn’t had one in the decade or so after I graduated college. Until last night.

But last night’s dream had a slight twist. In previous dreams, I show up to class totally oblivious to the fact that I have an exam that day. It always comes as a surprise. In last night’s dream, however, I was in the middle of finals so I knew of the exams. I had just been putting off studying, planning to do it “tomorrow”, i.e., the night before the exam. I got the days mixed up, however, and the exam ended up being a day earlier than I had thought. So I came to class on the day of the exam, not having studied or prepared for it in any way. I don’t remember how I did but I remember I had to answer three out of however many questions. I think I nailed two but the third was about something I’d never seen or read about.

Normally, whenever I had this particular anxiety dream, I’d be stressed out throughout the exam and I’d wake up and heave a sigh of relief that it was all only a dream. This time, however, I felt nothing beyond a slight and short-lived feeling of embarassment at having walked into an examination hall totally unaware that an exam had been scheduled for that day and completely unprepared for the exam at hand. Once the embarassment passed, I felt strangely confident that I would pass anyway, despite my lack of preparation. On one hand, this could be interpreted as optimism, a sentiment I’m not normally given to. It could mean that I have faith that things will turn out OK in the end, regardless of my own efforts. But on the other hand, it’s more likely that this dream points to a general feeling of apathy. The fact that I didn’t care about my exams and didn’t bother to make an effort to prepare might all indicate a deeper belief that no amount of effort or lack of thereof will change the eventual outcome of anything.

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New Radio Show: August 5, 2007.

In honor of Jamaican independence, we have a Jamaica-themed show this week.

Listen online or download to an mp3 player and listen later.

Click here to see the playlist.

Listen to the previous show here.

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Killing Them Softly: Sierra Leone’s Leaders Get Away with Murder.

Today, 50 Sierra Leoneans drowned (100 are still missing) when their boat capsized shortly after hitting rough water at the mouth of the Great Scarcies river. The boat was travelling from the capital, Freetown, to the northern village of Rokupr. Of the undetermined number of passengers who departed the capital, only two have been found alive. Last week, another boat capsized in northern Sierra Leone, killing all 30 people on board. In spite of the shocking casualty figures, I am sure nobody will be held accountable for these disasters. People die, nobody answers for their deaths and nothing is done to prevent future deaths. In this way, Sierra Leone’s leaders continue to get away with murder.

Sure, the boat that collapsed today was—like all other means of motorized transport in Sierra Leone—old and rickety, overloaded with passengers and cargo. Sure, the water was rough where the Great Scarcies, swollen by recent rains, met the Atlantic. And sure, when God calls you, you can’t avoid it. Nonetheless, somebody should take responsibility for all this loss of life. Somebody should be held accountable. Somebody must be punished so that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. But nobody will be.

Ultimately, no matter how this story is sliced or diced, one thing is certain. The government—the people who are supposed to be responsible for the welfare of the nation—bears responsibility for this catastrophe. But one question will not be asked: “Why were there so many people packed into a rickety, overloaded boat traveling up the Atlantic coast during the rainy season?” The answer is simple. They have no choice.

And why do they have no choice? Because the government has not bothered to try to make sure that people can travel from one part of the country to another without taking  their lives into their hands. And because there is virtually no public transportation network in Sierra Leone. Or in most of West Africa. The old colonial highways (and I use “highway” loosely because these roads are seldom wider than one lane in either direction) are in poor condition, unpaved, bumpy and barely navigable at speeds greater than 20 miles an hour. To go by land, would-be passengers have to cram themselves into . . . you guessed it . . . old, rickety, and overloaded minibuses. Secondly, there are no major roads that run from Freetown due north. Passengers would have to go towards the center of the country and transfer at one of the major junctions. Finally, the transportation system is a neoliberal freemarketeer’s wet dream come true. Drivers only go where there is demand, and the evidence of demand is a full vehicle. Passengers wait, sometimes longer than an hour, until the vehicle cannot hold another person or item of luggage. If you’re traveling from Freetown to another part of Sierra Leone, it doesn’t matter how you decide to get there. Traveling by sea or road is a costly, crowded, and uncomfortable experience. And you may not survive the trip.

Since independence, the country’s infrastructure has slowly been falling apart. Official corruption and public apathy—more accurately fatalism—have resulted in the literal and physical deterioration of every aspect of social life: housing, health care, education, transportation. Everything is falling apart. The recently ended civil war, which raged for a decade and a half, did nothing to improve the situation.

Now the war is over. It’s been over since 2003. And what has this meant for infrastructure in Sierra Leone? Not much, except that the international community has done a good job of rebuilding and refurbishing the main commercial and administrative buildings in the capital’s city center. When I was there last September, my guide pointed out all the buildings that had been rebuilt by the British, the French, the EU, the UN but I didn’t see a single building that had been rebuilt by the Sierra Leonean government.

“But,” I hear you say, “isn’t it a lot to ask of the fragile new administration of a post-conflict-country to invest huge sums of revenue into reconstruction?” Fair enough. But if they can’t or don’t spend money on rebuilding the country, what can or do they spend revenues on? Last time I checked, it was the duty of a government to provide for the wellbeing of its people. Certainly I’m not naive enough to believe that the government must do so out of altruism but the Sierra Leonean government is failing at performing its basic role even if we look at it from purely economic terms. How can the country progress economically without a reliable and comprehensive transportation system, a requirement for even the most primitive systems of trade and commerce?

Besides, not having enough money is no excuse. Isn’t it part of the government’s job to have money? Whether through loans or foreign aid or domestic revenue generation, it is up to the government to generate revenue, which can then be reinvested into the economy. Despite what we hear about the role of government in the US, this is actually how modern, industrialized and—dare I say it—civilized countries function. Sure there’s a role for the market and the entrepreneur and all that good stuff but even the most die-hard advocates of the free market would never claim that the market exists to serve the public good. Entrepreneurs will tell you that they are in the business of seeking profits, not serving the public good. So, if the market won’t do it, who should? I say the government should. Find me one modern, industrialized, civilized country in which the government does nothing to provide for the public good.

Which brings me to my greater point. The government of Sierra Leone does not give a sh*t about the people of Sierra Leone. Since indepencence—46 years ago—Sierra Leone’s leaders (like the leaders of much of the “developing” world) have been busy enriching themselves. Sure, colonialism left homogenous, un-diversified economies throughout sub-Saharan Africa that were dependent on European economies for their survival. And yes, structural adjustments took a grievous toll on social welfare programs in developing countries but the time has come to call a spade a spade. African leaders don’t care about their people. They have never cared about their people. In the ’60s and ’70s, Sierra Leone was a decent place to live, with passable roads, round-the-clock electricity, and running water in the capital (the “provinces” were always a different story).

On my recent trip, however, Freetown had become like the provinces. Roads in the once-affluent western suburbs were now rutted and potholed, the asphalt broken up by tank treads from the days of the war and the soil underneath washed away by rain. Where there were once sidewalks, I saw deep ravines and gullies where water had eroded the soil on the side of the road. In some places, so much of the road had been washed away that two cars traveling in opposite directions could not pass each other along the same narrow stretch of road. And the roads are just the most visible part of the decay. Schools, hospitals, homes are all in a deplorable state of disrepair. More and more people live in slums and shanties.

Not everyone lives in dilapidation, though. I saw the president’s house. It’s a mansion that sits on a hillside overlooking the capital. Paved driveway, fence, swimming pool. But this man presides over a country that is slipping further and further backwards. But here’s the rub. The very poverty of Sierra Leone is what keeps these people in business. Millions of dollars and euros in foreign and development aid are funnelled into Sierra Leone—and many other impoverished countries—but how much of that money gets to the people who really need it? Having seen the president’s mansion, I have to say, not much.

The government of Sierra Leone is parasitic, and that corrupting mentality trickles all the way down through the society as low-level civil servants, underpaid and undertrained, scrounge around for scraps—bribes and other forms of official theft. How many people get into government because they want to make a difference, to help lift their country out of poverty? Not many, I imagine. After all, why has it taken so long to make that difference, and why is the country so much worse than it was at independence? Yes I know, colonialism and the international financial institutions must bear some of the blame but let’s not forget, Africa was not the only colonized continent. Yet today, Africa is by far the most impoverished region in the world.

Why do so many Sierra Leoneans who have attained professional and financial success abroad give it all up to pursue a political career in Sierra Leone? Because that’s where the money is. Take the former ambassador to the US, who had been a successful attorney and businessman prior to his appointment. Why did he go to Sierra Leone to try to get involved in politics? Why not lecture at the university there? He has a law degree and legal experience after all. Why not find investors and open a factory or some other revenue-generating business? After all, he had worked in the private sector before. Because he was not interested in doing anything to make Sierra Leone a safer, cleaner, or more comfortable place for its citizens to live. But he’s not alone.

Post-independence administrations—from Siaka Stevens’ on—have demonstrated a stunning lack of vision and imagination. As the rest of the world has moved forwards, Sierra Leone has slipped backwards. Why has no post-independence government implemented any policies for sustainable development? No large-scale, industrialized agriculture; no modern land, sea, or river transportation network; no new schoolhouses; no new hospitals; no modern air- or seaport; nothing! Just a government that maintains form without function.

When the president travels abroad, he is treated with all the respect befitting a dignitary. But every day in Sierra Leone, and in much of Africa, how many people die daily from easily preventable accidents and diseases? How many lives could be saved if the government committed itself to improving road networks and making transportation a faster and less dangerous business? Would the president be treated with such respect if he had lined the casualties of today’s boat catastrophe up against a wall and shot them all in the head? Sierra Leone boasts the world’s highest rates of infant mortality, with measles and malaria respectively accounting for 48 and 33 percent of all under-five deaths. What if, instead of having succumbed to easily prevented diseases, all these children had been gassed to death on the orders of the present government? There would be an international outcry, that’s what! No member of the Sierra Leonean government could travel abroad as smugly and proudly as they do now.

However, these people are not dying from accidents and disease. They are dying because the people who were elected or appointed to provide the basic amenities that would prevent their deaths are failing to do their jobs. Not having enough money to fix roads, build hospitals, or educate children should no longer be an acceptable excuse! Finding the money is part of the job description. Using the money to improve the country for everyone is another part of the job. Failing to do either of these things is the same as failing in the job. And failing to do one’s job is negligence. Every day, in Sierra Leone and all around Africa, people are dying from government negligence. But because they are dying from negligence instead of deliberate government action, the world looks the other way. Nobody is held accountable. The negligence goes unpunished.

Today, as 50 people go to their watery graves, we have seen one more demonstration of this negligence. With elections around the corner, let’s hope the next government is better than the previous ones. Let’s hope the next government values the lives of Sierra Leoneans enough to actively attempt to prevent such catastrophic accidents.

But I’m not holding my breath.

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