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Showing posts from 2012

Troops crush an opposition event while the CPDM feasts on tax money

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Frederick Ambe Reading all the analyses and comments on thirty years and the voilent repression in Douala. One thing is sure. The temperature is rising. Thanks, friends for sharing these stories. They convince fence-sitters that those in power today are truly sons of Satan and it is our holy duty to say NO. It is said in French and I paraphrase that 'you cannot sell the skin of the bear until you have killed it' but I think these Prefects, etc. will need some special treatment one day in this country. A very special pardon maybe. The crimes they have committed are unspeakable. They who should be more reasonable than halfbook soldiers, gendarmes and policemen... is there a special diet in ENAM, EMIA, etc, a special brain poison? Common, man, don't these guys read history?! Or do they soon forget the guillotines and Intendants in the name of 'Commandement' , a misconception that makes them see their fellow citizens as inferior beings. Do they ev
Meditating: How on this sad morning years ago calamity befell a nation. How a manmade night, a permanent eclipse was cast on the commonweal. How a floating island levitated from the S.E. Forests and pinioned over the state. How an era of unprecedented corruption and tribalism was ushered in by the 'peaceful revolution'. How the death warrant of progress, employment and happiness was signed. Oh Lord, to you I recourse! If a people get the government they deserve How have we deserved this who were born Thirty years ago and less? Certainly God is is with us in knowing No one ever deserved to rot under zombie king Eager to portray the semblance of life Than to lead his nation in the strive for wellbeing! I ponder over these and wonder: How is this nightmare going to end? Shall we, lambs of no living God But of a mere mortal, die on the Calvary Of vain labours and on our off-shoot Bequeath a harvest of another Faure or Ali? Or shall we at last see difference i
See original article and previous comments. To my TP colleague: a comment on complaints about low pricing and outsourcing to cheap destinations. A poster was very angry that Greek-English translations got outsourced to a very low paying and low time budget destination. Another further accused people doing this to be settling for Google Translate and later revision by an overzealous revisor. Well, someone will say that if a combination of Google Translate and eager revisor results in a usable translation what the hell? However, this combination usually fails. Unless the agencies spend less on the translator just to have the revisor re-translate. It will be a loss for the agency paying twice for the same job. If they continue to do it (which they surely do to warrant our complaints), it takes no magic to see they could be satisfied. The truth is that there are many young and hungry trainees out there, more eager to acquire experience than make money for now. If they ac
These posts are intended to cater to refined tastes, people like you. But if you find this stuff boring please ignore it and other posts;  if you have a curious mind then read on and let me share this strange journey I undertook in the UFO by telepathy. What strange lands I visited, what strange people I met, and what strange vehicles I moved in.... 1.      The Estuarine Race I came to a beautiful man sanctuary Surrounding a bountiful estuary Whose crustaceans gave the people its name And their chitin in the mind a game For digested, it gave the warless people a figment of armour Which begat in that great nation a gladiator’s fervour And tired of seeing theirs useless, the peers decreed rivalry For their offspring like Spartans of renowned chivalry So they will know life is not easy They stowed the commonweal in foreign vaults And ask their youths in self-employment to squeeze water from stones So they will know in their world, it is easy to fail Thou

My book of genesis or how it all began!

This is briefly the book of genesis for me, Friends, know ye I received each ideography From that intergalactic UFO by telepathy And being sworn to no secrecy, Unlike famed King Mydas’s barber of antiquity, Undertook not to whisper in a lone cavity But to print this tourist map for humanity That in this age of manned space discovery We may know which hosts will wreak iniquity And though he who bore Saul’s death to David met no pity If irked, blame but that flying saucer’s Muse whose ingenuity Imbued in this messenger this portentous creativity Else, board this spaceship with un-impugned felicity For Saul died, that David may fulfil Samuel’s prophesy

Development

Hi, all This is a poem I wrote in 1999 about the issue of development in our country. It is a little nostalgic and anti-modernist. Yet, it is true that those who do not enjoy the fruits of development will always look back to the "days of old when all was free". It is not a protest of development in itself but a reminder that not all is ok. Something should be done for those left behind. Hope you enjoy it and get spurred to do something for the poor. 1.       Development Once stately palms shielded these kids from the Harmattan’s hassling boo But a thing came called development and hacked away their soothing coo Once frolicking monkeys roamed these farms, our harvesting mothers to woo But a thing came called development and harried them away to a distant zoo Once peaceful days were ushered in by the enchanting cuckoo But development came with loud booming sticks and aimed away all that too Once, to be great, men wore a providential turaco’s quill But they now wear but imp
Ahahahahahahah, these examples keep coming up everyday. This proves that translation does have its limits. I am a translator and am ashamed to admit, but I don't think it is Google Translate that translated the BP Chairman's speech. But translation is not perfect, sometimes, speech writers or sports rule makers, writing in their mother tongues still make serious errors though. To err is human. Please, read these not so funny errors. http://americlic.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/translation-errors-cause-pr-nightmare-for-bp-and-major-league-baseball/#comment-2

The Youngman and the Sea

Once, while vacationing in Kribi, I was struck by how poor its inhabitants could get. There is virtually no form of cultivation and the local Pygmies, Batangas, Yassa, Mvais and Bulus live only by hunting or fishing highly depleted stocks. An odd kind of seaside resort if I ever saw one. The greatest spectacle, in fact all the spectacle, it had to offer was hungry fishermen with their hungrier wives and children screaming a silent indictment of the “new deal”. Then, I also learned that one of  the “sons of the soil”, Biya’s all powerful General Eno Benae, owned virtually all the shore line on which he had created a luxury hotel that cannot be built with the total of his wages for all his service life, a luxury so incongruous with the misery of Kribians that the behemoth goes empty roomed for years on end...ahahahaha! What did he think, that the world's rich share his spite for his fellow countrymen? Perhaps the gods were  teaching the greedy general a lesson from what the Oracle ov