Get active!

If you have had political posters pasted on your wall or gate, and if you don’t want them there, stand up to the abuse of power and remove them. It is your right to do so. Don’t be intimidated.

You can also email the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) on: inquiry [at] zec [dot] gov [dot] zw and file a report.

You add, we multiply!

Want to vote for a party that believes private property is fair game for their promotional political posters? Where’s the respect Zanu PF? Oh sorry, not sure you can even spell that word. I drove past a lot of houses this morning that had had their walls plastered with Zanu PF posters; sometimes gates to properties had been Zanu’d as well. So now … if you support Zanu PF, or the MDC and want their posters on your wall or gate, all well and good. But if you don’t, have the bollocks to remove them.

It’s your right.

Diamonds are a Chef’s Best Friend
(With apologies to Marilyn Monroe)

The poor are glad to share their food,
They love to sing and dance;
But I prefer a man who’s good
For an interest-free advance.
A shake of the hand
May be quite sentimental
But diamonds are a Chef’s best friend.

A view may be grand
But it doesn’t squeeze the rental
From the sick and lame,
And sanctions – sanctions are to blame.

Comrades cry,
Comrades die -
There is nothing for them in the end;
But these rocks infernal
Will give me life eternal;
Diamonds are a Chef’s best friend.

Marange!
Chiadzwa!
Chimanimani!
Kimberly Process!
Talk to me, Cecil John Rhodes -
Tell me about your lodes.

There may come a time
When a dude needs to borrow,
But diamonds are a Chef’s best friend.
There may come a time which some fools call ‘tomorrow’,
Try to stop the clock…
But get those rocks or lose your socks.

Fools will fly
When stocks are high,
With nowhere to go when stocks are low.

It’s then that they panic
And become quite manic;
Diamonds are a Chef’s best friend.

I’ve heard of teachers
Who come out on their wages,
But diamonds are a Chef’s best friend;
And I think that preachers
Who enrich themselves by stages
Are better bets
If they let it get bigger yet.

Time goes by,
The people cry
All the same – sanctions are to blame.

Diamonds!  Diamonds!
Pear cut or square cut -
Diamonds are a Chef’s best friend.

No Laughing Matter? : Humor And Protest Arts
Deadline: 30 July 2013

The University of Zimbabwe and Savanna Trust invites you to submit your abstracts for conference presentations on the 24th and 25th of October 2013 in Harare, Zimbabwe.

In both popular and academic imagination, protest arts have been generally associated with ‘angry’ and ‘gloomy’ ‘subversive’ images. Consequently limited attention has been paid to the use of humour in protest arts. The possibilities, complexities and limitations of humour in protest arts deserve serious recognition. Several questions can be raised in this regard.  Why in the first place do artists and the public include humour in their protest arts?  Is humour compatible with radical transformative protest arts?  What are the aesthetic and ideological implications of deploying humour in protest arts?  How have state actors, elites and the general public responded to humour in protest arts?

Sub-Themes
-Aesthetic quality, humour and protest arts
-Ideological possibilities/complications of humour in protest arts, (eg gender, class, race, ethnicity disability political identity etc)
-The reception of humour in protest arts
-Humour, ethics and morality
-Writing/performing humour in protest arts
-Media/technology, humour and protest arts v    Protest music and humour
-Humour in protest marches and demonstrations
-Humour in protest and graffiti
-Popular jokes and/as protest arts

Submit your abstracts in not more than 350 words to: kchikonzo [at] arts [dot] uz [dot] ac [dot] zw and copy paifst [at] gmail [dot] com

Last month images from the Worldwide Developers Conference depicted that the technology industry was male dominated. Just recently a Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) event was held in Harare and the images too lamented on how males dominate the technology industry. Setting aside an absence of our sistas, I just loved the whole idea behind this RhoK event where the techies used existing platforms such as Ushahidi, biNu and FrontlineSMS to build software to help fight corruption.

TechZim has published a part 1 report from the RHoK team. In this report of the day one, the biNu challenge winning applications were:

- An app which allows you to submit to and read reports in an Ushahidi installation from within biNu and

- A ‘Neighborhood watch’ application which allow you to report crimes so that people are better able to avoid dangerous areas.

Other applications which came up were:
- Work Board – A biNu app which allows people/organisations to outsource skills. It’s going to kill the CV
- biNu Browser – An app which allows you to browse the web from within biNu. Think of it as ‘Opera Mini on steroids’
- Recipes – A cooking assistant for cultural food. Those who watched David Bhers presentation where he said that ‘the internet is currently in America but we can bring it to Zimbabwe’ know the value of this app for Zimbabwe
- Vota – A voter registration app for Zimbabweans. Don’t tell anyone but I’m kinda glad this app wasn’t launched sooner because then I’d have no excuse for not being a registered voter
- Lotto – A mobile lotto from within biNu that lets you bet with small amounts. In his presentation, the presenter mentioned something about there being a gambler in every one of us. Very true (IMHO)
- biNu WhatsApp – An app that lets you send messages to WhatsApp users from within biNu. I know what you are going to ask and the answer is: Yes! It actually worked
- Crime watch – A biNu app which lets you capture what crimes have happened in our area. And I mean capture as in ‘with the camera on your feature phone’
- COZW – A local news aggregator. They are trying to make the RSS news reader that comes with biNu look amateur
- Bonki – A dating application which lets you pick which of you Facebook friends you want to date and will only send you both notifications when you select each other

I found all these interesting. Looking forward to reading the second report on the next challenge carried out. Zimbabwe surely has some creative minds in the technology industry; more should be done to bring this major talent out and who knows in our next election we will register to vote online.