Women are like Politics...

I like to look at women...

Excuse me - you ask. Okay you're excused!

I say again, I like to look at women they remind me of governance - they are fairly expansive and well represented... You have the tall, the short, the skinny, the fat, the shapely, the shapeless, the dazzling and equally undazzling, the lovely and ugly...

Bottom Line: They are fairly representative of the differences that can occur within the same.

Like governance: There are implied differences, I came across a hilarious site that took its merry little time to explain to me the differences and I just had to share this with you guys out there...

In case you wish to visit the web site I cuddled from: click here...

Politics Explained

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FEUDALISM:

You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM:

You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM:

You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM:

You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM:

You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM:

You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM:

You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP:

You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY:

You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY:

You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY:

You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY:

You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM:

You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM:

You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Mind matters...

The Human Mind...

One of the greatest tools every created - highly adaptable and progressively superior and to think that we're only utilizing 10%...

If you consider this statement simplistic then you have obviously come to the wrong place.
I have come to this conclusion - based on how solutions are proffered to problems.

We can chose to apply long or short term strategies.

I have observed the way solutions are proffered and the manner that our minds especially when applied together to solve the same task can harness a collective power (referred to as the master mind group)

There are of course rules that we must apply consistently to get to this stage of thought - where the bigger picture becomes the road map which guides our path towards a series of solutions.

I found an archive of adages that one can use as a set of "rules" to guide thought and action:

Mental Heuristics

Consider the following rules and see if you can "apply" them to your life.

If you want something done, do it yourself

Comment: Obviously true, and doing it is usually very good for your self esteem. A surprising amount of work can be done this way, and experts are not always necessary. However, there is a risk of becoming overworked if you try to do everything yourself - we all need other people after all.

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Never procrastinate anything you can do right now

Comment: Very powerful. There are many things that can be fixed or solved with a minimum of effort, but are often pushed aside as unimportant. Unfortunately they won't go away, and in time the feelings of guilt for not having done them will make you even less likely of fixing the problems.

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When you have several things you could be doing and don't know which to do: Just do any one of them!

Comments: If you cannot decide between two or more possibilities, then there is a good chance that the differences don't matter. However, most people begin to hesitate in this kind of situation (Fredkin's paradox). If you are conscious of this, you can just choose one choice randomly or according to some standard method.

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Always assume that you will succeed

Comments: If you don't expect to succeed in an endeavor, then you will not do your best and will not notice possible solutions, while if you feel that you will eventually succeed you will concentrate all your power at the problem. Of course, there is no point in attempting what you cannot do, a certain amount of self-knowledge is always needed.

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If you can't find a solution, change the rules.

Comment: Remember that there are no no-win scenarios.

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If you cannot do anything about something, there is no point in worrying about it.

Comment: Worrying is stressful, and in most situations doesn't accomplish anything - it just wastes energy. Instead of worrying about things, either do something about them or find ways around the problem. One useful idea is to write down your worries on slips of paper, and then put them away in a box. Regularly, once a week or so, you open the box and see what you can do about the worries that are still relevant.

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Do not rely on conscious decisions for speed - Just Do It

Comments: The conscious mind is surprisingly slow, conscious choices and actions are delayed for a significant time (a reflex acts within some tens of milliseconds, an unconscious reaction to external stimuli circa 100 milliseconds and a conscious choice several seconds). The duty of the conscious mind is usually to inhibit rather than start action, and if you become too conscious of what you are doing in a tense situation you will hesitate or slow down.

It is a good idea to learn to rely on your non-conscious mind, since our conscious mind is slow and has very low bandwidth while the other systems in our brains have a tremendous capacity and actually do most of the real work anyway.

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Don't try to explain away your actions for yourself

Comment: While we often do things we do not want to explain our real motivations for before other people (out of fear of embarrassment, anger or loss of image), it is a bad idea to try to convince oneself that the motivation was anything different from what it was. It will only reduce your self-knowledge with deliberate misinformation, and it is often valuable to understand what motivations you have (even if you dislike them or would never admit them in public).

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Listen to your intuition, but do not believe it unconditionally

Comments: Intuitive or emotional thinking, analogies, "gut feelings" or "flashes of inspiration" can sometimes give fantastic new insights or show problems from a new direction. Unfortunately such thinking isn't always reliable, and quite often completely wrong! Such insights should never be accepted because you admire their beauty or they are intuitive, only because they fit with reality.

Music: For the Mind & Soul

Music is a language for the mind and soul – it resonates in each one of us strong needs, desires and passions – it is different things to each one of us and sometimes a comfort and sometimes a message - a reflection of our varied tastes and personalities…

I have fondness for string based instruments and certain songs rip into me and unleash a torrent of goose bumps – the adage is that you are witnessing the passage of an entity. I couldn’t careless if it was an entity or a bowl of spaghetti – I just love the feeling that such songs evoke…

Music unites and cuts across language and cultural barriers…
I may not understand a word of the song or any part of its lyrics but I feel it somewhere - this is especially true if the song resonates within you.

I could give numerous examples – George Michael – his songs: (Faith & Freedom) – old songs but I still feel that twitch in my head when I hear those songs…

Could I fail to mention – Take that (now disbanded) and their song: (Want You Back for Good). The first time I heard the song – I went into a trance of contentment that left me praying that the song shouldn’t end… It ended and I renewed my relationship with the rewind button – it was a cassette player for heaven’s sake…

Then there’s the Corrs, and a personal favorite of mine: (I will runaway) – I confess to running away every time I listened to or heard that song – I would wake up in the dead of the night just to listen to that song after which I would fall asleep promptly…

This is not to say that I don’t have any preference in the modern category – think R Kelly, Lighthouse Family, Seal, Shade, Michael Jackson, Mario etc – the list is endless.

Of course - how can I talk music without a reference to the Nigerian scene?
It cannot be left out of the round up as that would be smacking of unpatriotism – I can say that there is an almost systematic improvement in the quality of our songs – of course I have come to the very realistic conclusion that we’re better off singing about our peculiar reality and situation (think 2FACE, Faze, Tribesmen (now defunct or splintered), Jerimayah Giyan, Obiwon, P Squared) although variations do exist – A Nigerian is first of all a skeptic and/or Cynic and this makes for an attitude found both in the artist and the audience from the word go.

In most of our songs we talk about the challenges of life: girls,boys, men, women, hardship, poverty, suffering, breakup, makeup, cheating, pain, death etc
Then there is the need to harass and criticize the ruling class/government to change or make changes so that Nigeeria becomes better: Think Edris - (Nigeria Jaga Jaga)...
Perhaps this makes the quality of our songs fairly hard to define – think Majek Fashek: (Send down the Rain) – which I chanted when I was much younger and probably accounted for the reason why the floods for that year where unpresidented but the song still has a timeless ring to it…

Mode9, cino, sasha, Ruggedman cover our rap scene and even when shows like Idols, Nokia First Chance provide us with a genuine opportunity to discover talent even at the risk of ear cancer and/or an ear drum rupture…
We are still willing to take the risk - even for those who actually created a new category titled "how not to sing…"

For the esoteric but truly African music forms think FELA, Lagbaja, Femi Kuti and recent new comer ASA with their strongly African interpretations, each a paradigm in his/her own right.
On a daily basis – we are discovering new and diverse ways to express out thoughts, needs, passions, motivations, interests through the music medium.


Music embodies a philosophy - a way of life, a means to describe life in rich melodic details. A language understood by the soul.

With music there are no countries or boundaries – there is just us and the swirling mist of melodies defining movements for the moment and bring us together.
A few links to get you started on the journey of discovery for Nigerian music and her various styles:

Check out:
1. http://www.naijajams.com – for some takes on the music scene by Nigerians for Nigerians and others….
2. http://www.nigeria-arts.net/Music - generic approach that should provide some additional revelation.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Nigeria - Wikipedia also have a take on the music scene in nigeria
4. http://www.radiopalmwine.com/ http://music.calabashmusic.com/world/africa/nigeria
6. http://www.agidi.com/music.html
7. http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2005/feb/271.html - Article titled: WHITHER NIGERIAN MUSIC?
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If you happen to cruise through Youtube or Google – do a search for our artists(as listed above) and listen to some of their songs and you’ll agree with me that we’re finally getting our shit together…