Shades of Life

I see happiness and sorrow

Success and failure

All as my partners in life

From moment to moment;

A day may start with brightness

Like the cloudless sunrise,

The eye of the mind then sees the day ahead

With hope and cheerfulness,

Every task I tackle to win

Every challenge I manoeuvre to overcome,

At the end of the day

I scream hurrah!

A bright day may turn gloomy

When all tricks fail

The eye of the mind then appears faint

Like trying to strike a snake

Armed with a stick

And a weak spotlight

In a moonless night

I struggle to succeed

But I am challenged

Like a blind boxer

Who can’t see his target

Then chance may put my target

To my advantage

And then I strike once

And finish the challenge

Again I scream hurrah!

A bright day may end without warning

When chance create an accident

To leave scattered pieces of flesh

All caused by chance

And no time allowed for manoeuvre

All the efforts of years are stopped

Without consultation

Chance again may save the body from death

But leave the person to suffer forever

As life returns

Hurrah may be said gradually

Day after day in crescendo

Culminating when all pain is gone

The eye of the mind

May see happiness or sorrow

Through those we love or live with;

We get entangled to each other

Like creeping plants in a forest

 Challenged to win happiness

But too entangled to part from each other

On a bright day we laugh together

But the eye of each mind

Is secretly poised against each other

Like an angered cobra

Waiting for the moment

To strike the fatal challenge;

Happiness may come to some

When the fatal blow succeeds

The mind then rejoices

When it sees the pain caused,

The eye of the mind

May be fuelled with impatience and jealousy

To scheme others into failure

So that happiness may come as they fail

Or happiness may come

To feel one is the only one;

What a strange partnership

In happiness and jealousy!

All minds have eyes

Which improve through learning

So learn to better the world

Others learn to destroy the world

And common to all efforts

We pursue happiness.

                                      By Everett Standa

Kenya's vision 2030 unattainable

The pronouncement by the Ministry of education that learning in all public primary schools will be interrupted come Thursday is uncalled for. As a country, how dare we waste a day of learning, oblivious of the compulsory recess come 28^th February to 11^th March, just to pave way for political parties’ nominations? This portrays Kenya as a country that value not education. If the trend goes on like this, then vision 2030 is inconceivable. Come to think of it, vision 2030 is meant for whom? Not that I am against setting goals but in this case, I beg to defer.

We have positioned Kenya as a country that thrives on hopes and dreams. That’s why a few people will sit and decide we need a vision. This by all standards, is an attempt by our leaders to keep the have-nots busy hoping for the best as they, the leaders, enjoy the fruits of the country. To be true to ourselves, visions without action are fantasies’ that make a man in trouble feel good for the moment. One is even left to wonder if developed nations had such departments to arrive at where they are. I doubt.

Why waste public resources to put up a division headed by a fully-fledged C.E.O? Yet we cannot even finance our annual budget without help from outside. Nonetheless, the government is busy importing goods that surpass our exports by far margins. On this, do we need a C.E.O to advise? To know that we are being duped, ask yourself how old you will be come 2030. Even the crop of leaders who set this plan, I doubt if they will be strong, if not dead to stand conviction on botched plans.

Of Gambling and Reward

Watching TV these days has turned into boring and annoying affair. Every station is flooded with mind-numbing commercials which run after every 10 minutes of normal programming. The trick has changed such that split screening has been introduced in this respect.

That aside; some companies conspire with media houses to cash in from never ending promotions, promising that you stand a chance of winning a set out prize. What these companies don’t tell us is who the true beneficiary of these promotions is.

The scheme of rewarding the so called customers or viewers is questionable. Why require me to send an SMS at premium rates for me to win? Why put loads of conditions, the ultimate one being, “the more SMS you send the higher your chances of winning”?

Let’s do some simple arithmetic here to find out my chances of winning in any competition. The number of mobile subscribers in Kenya is said to be approximately 25 million. Assuming company X run a promotion for a month, then give away one million shillings daily and five million grand draw.

What if five hundred thousand out of the 25 million subscribers send SMSes daily, my chances of winning will be one out of 500,000. In another scenario, assuming Company X does not let a participant win more than once, the likelihood of me winning rises to 30 out of 500,000. The probabilities of winning also increases with a decrease in number of SMSes received and decreases with an increase in the number of SMSes received. 

At the end of the promotion, what will company X get? Let us compute the amount before paying for publicity, taxes and charges by mobile companies among others. Using the numerical above, Company X will make 5 million and 12.5 million shillings per day on promotions run on radio and TV respectively.

Allow me to put this into perspective. A former employee of a leading radio station in Kenya revealed that the station made at least two million shillings per day from a promotion it ran. However, the station gave away five thousand shillings in each of its five show segments per day and five hundred thousand in the grand draw. The SMS were charged at Ksh.15 per SMS and the promotion run for 30 days. That was three years ago. What of now?

In that case, before participating in any promotions, do the math. Have a mathematical year.