During the twilight of his presidency, Ronald Reagan was known to be forgetful. While traveling in Latin America, he was mixing up countries. “I am very happy to be in Argentina,” he was reported to have said when in actual fact he was in Brazil.

Then, the media laughed it all off. Some within the inner circle of the Reagan’s White House did suspect something was wrong but kept mute. Years after, Reagan himself came out to acknowledge that he had Alzheimer.

Many politicians who are constantly on the road, speaking and taking questions, do make mistakes. Even young ones like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had been caught in slips of tongue.

Obama once spoke of 57 states in the United States. He also referred to the Canadian Prime Minster as President.

But the spate of recent misstatements by John McCain is troubling even to his most ardent supporters.

It is understandable if a 71 year old man confuses Shiite with Sunni. After all, I do confuse dodge with doge.

Even when McCain is speaking of Iraq but referring to Afghanistan, that is a long stretch, but hey, it may be that the long campaign days was beginning to get to him.

But to refer to Russia’s Vladimir Putin as the president of Germany, now that is over the bar. First of all, Germany has no president. They have a Chancellor. Second of all, Russia and Germany, at different points might have been in America’s black book, but one has emerged from rehab a reformed nation while the other is still going through relapses.

Also for one whose strongest point has been foreign affairs to state that Iran was training Al-Qaeda was baffling.

What is troubling with McCain’s gaffes are that they are severe. Sudan is not Somalia as McCain said. Because if Sudan is Somalia, then where is Darfur in McCain’s mind? Czechs and the Slovaks are no longer in Czechoslovakia as McCain said. Because if that was to be true, then East Germans may still be climbing over the Berlin Wall in the mind of McCain. Confusing Bob Dole with John McCain will not be troubling. But confusing Flavor Fav with Bill Cosby is a cause for concern.

While Russia enthusiasts like Kim Zigfeld will never forgive McCain for the Russian mix up, he probably has lost the Pennsylvania electoral votes for calling Green Bay Packers the Pittsburgh Steelers

Let us hope it is just old age and not something as impairing as a serious medical condition. In November, we should be electing a president and not a man who will set up a committee that will actually run the country on his behalf.

In the meantime, we wait to see if he will confuse his poster girl second wife, Cindy, with his limping first wife, Carol. If and when that happens, nobody needs to announce that the basket has lost its base.

I have always considered myself a decent guy. The measure of my decency is based on my mockery of those who believe that the United Nations army in dark helicopters is preparing to take over the United States. I also measure my decency against that of those who believed that the CIA was behind the September 11 attack.

I have watched my own share of thrillers and spy movies. I know there are conspiracies being carried out by individuals, government agencies and mobs even as I sleep. But I have never seen the world from that prism. I do not think life on this earth is predominantly controlled by conspiracies and similar nefarious activities. I pride myself as one who believes more in the manipulation of events by the Supreme Being than by mere mortals like me.

I believe if anyone is playing a dice with people on earth, it is the one up there.

Yet, I could not help but think that the death of Kenneth Lay, founder of Enron, may just be another of those manipulations by the founder of the-more-you-look-the-less-you-see Company.

What if Kenneth Lay simply staged his own death? What if he is now on the Alps of Switzerland sipping wine? What if he is, again, laughing at the foolishness of those of us who trust the statement from the Sheriff’s Office and the coroner of Pitkin County.

For one, I know that George Bush’s Kenny Boy did not want to go to prison. Secondly, he wasn’t facing a small number of years in prison. He was potentially facing a lifetime. Thirdly, what remained of his assets was at the point of being seized by the government.

Essentially, Kenneth Lay and his family faced a riches-to-rags reversal of role. And from what I have heard from my rich friends, it was one position everyone who had drank from the fountain of riches abhors.

I feel ashamed thinking like this, but that is an indication of the amount of distrust Enron has put into me. As a human being who will one day die, I feel sorry for what coronary artery disease does to people. I feel sorry for Kenneth Lay’s family, especially his 12 grand children.

But still, I want a DNA test to ensure that the man in the grave is really Kenneth Lay.

With Enron people, you never know. With Enron people, you never can be too cautious. And with Enron people, the only closure acceptable to me is the closure that is widely open.

It is okay to have a president of the United States of America who does not know how to drive. But to have one that does not know how to use the internet? Now that is a disaster in the making- for the country as well as the president.

What is surprising is that John McCain was still a young 70 year-old man when Al Gore, then a colleague of his in the senate, invented the internet.

Accepted, he got scared like many when told at the early years of the internet that you must know Html codes to be functional. Being that McCain was terrible in math and graduated 894 out of 899 in his class at the U.S. Naval Academy, you can understand why he chose to give the internet a pass.

However, one would have thought that when he sent the very last telegram before the service was discontinued worldwide, he would have mustered the courage to learn how to use the internet.

As a public service and my contribution to the McCain campaign, I present to John McCain the top ten surprises that await him when he enters the world of the internet and googles himself.

1.) His Vice president has been chosen by Dick Cheney. His name will be leaked to the press by the Chief of Staff of the Vice President as soon as it is declassified by the president.
2.) His first wife, a former model, Carol Sheep, is writing a blog from Virginia Beach. In her blog, she talks about how John McCain left her for a rich young teacher after she had an accident that disfigured her.
3.) His black child is begging on his Facebook page for a 50 Cent endorsed bling bling for Christmas.
4.) He bought his Straight Talk Express bus on the recommendation of an Anger Management specialist after he punched his opponent in the face at a Town Hall meeting for asking what dealer supplies his wife, Cindy, with drugs. The unlucky man was referring to Viagra but instead he used a generic name, drugs, just to be polite.
5.) He participated in the 1770 Olympic as a star boxer representing the Thirteen colonies.
6.) An email has been waiting for him in his mail box. The email is from Charles Keating (III) who now resides in Nigeria. He wants to transfer a sum of $100 million which is proceeds from Lincoln Savings and Loans Association offshore account. Mr. Keatings is willing to share the money 50-50 with John McCain if only the Arizona senator sends the wife’s account number.
7.) Ross Perot while talking about how he helped McCain’s first wife, Carol, with medical bills following her accident, wrote this on his MySpace page: “After John McCain came home, Carol walked with a limp. So John threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona and the rest is history.”
8.) 40 million unemployed Americans without medical insurance have gone to www.statedepartment.gov to apply for the post of the U.S. Ambassador to Belarus which McCain offered Senator Gramm and it was declined.
9.) Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a note on his Facebook Funwall thanking McCain for opposing the creation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It has been there since 1983.
10.) Like his father and grandfather, Panama has promoted him from a captain into a full admiral. On November 6 2008, Panama will have a special election where they will name McCain the president of Panama.

My perspective of humanity is influenced by the admonition of an African novelist named, Chinua Achebe. “Our humanity,” he once said, “is contingent on the humanity of our fellows. No person or groups can be human alone. We rise above the animal together, or not at all.” It is from this basic standpoint that I glance at life.

I am guided by Rank Xerox advert that challenged us to “keep the discussion going – share the knowledge.” I aspire to keep the discussion going and share the knowledge. And sometimes my ignorance, too.

In October of 2006, in a speech at the University of Michigan Business School, Ralph W. Shrader, the CEO of Booz Allen Hamilton, outlined the three principles of life of no excuses and no regrets. The first is that all work is honorable. The second is that wisdom knows no rank. The third is that time should be precious, but not anxious. To achieve the first, he urged that we make the best of our efforts. To benefit from the second, he asked that we make the best of our relationships. And to attain the third, he charged us to make the best of our time.

Shrader also talked about his friend, Paul Anderson, who has a theory about how to respond to imperfections in any organization. Anderson, acknowledging that even the best company in the world is not perfect, reasoned that a worker could respond in one of four ways, three of which are acceptable and one is not.

According to Paul Anderson, one way is for a worker to choose to focus on the positive and overlook the “bad things”. The second way is for a worker to try and change things for better. The third way is for a worker to decide that the shortcomings really bother him or her and leave. The fourth way, which Anderson described as invalid is for a worker to dwell on and complain about things that trouble him or her and yet fail to move on or take positive action.

As the world becomes more diverse and more integrated, the challenges become more intense and more interesting. Recently, the managers of Pepsi found that out when they went to China to promote their signature soft drink with the unique slogan – Pepsi, the choice of a new generation. Upon translation into Chinese, the slogan read; Pepsi, the drink that will awake your ancestors from dead. To the Chinese, the translation was anything but refreshing.

Life is propelled by ideals. Most often, the ideals of life are not being tried and found wanting. Rather, the ideals of life are being found difficult and left untried. But to achieve a life of no excuses and no regrets, these ideals of life must be tried in spite of the difficulties.

There was a scene in Robin Hood when Little John said to Robin Hood, “Are we the good guys or the bad guys - robbing the rich to feed the poor?”

Those Rohan days, of letter writing, of sneaking around in dream world, I did ask myself such questions. “Am I the good guy or the bad guy?”

Though Robin Hood ended up marrying MM after King Richard returned and banished Prince John, I wasn’t that lucky. For Robin Hood, the outlaw became the in-Law. For me, the Enemy of the State became the Exile of the State.

But it is all good. Often our people say that after men had fought the battle, women live to tell the stories. Moses parted the waters but it was Joshua who went to the Promised Land. We cannot all be as lucky as the disciple. If you are not the chosen one, we simply are not the chosen one. I am sure Moses must be satisfied just seeing the Promise Land.

What really matters is that if we are asked, “What did you do with your life?” and we can, in all honesty, give the Robin Hood’s answer, “I spent it loving MM”, nothing surpasses that. With the initial MM carved on the tree or in a heart forever, it is enough proof. Hopefully, history will be kind to us.

Still on that song aptly titled Love, as I listened to it, I remembered lazy days:

• Of watching chapatti spread and rolled by those slim fingers that wouldn’t rub my itching chin.
• Of typing verses in that first apartment, verses made of words that lips can’t mutter.
• Of waiting for emails from borrowed mouse
• Of trooping to see You’ve Got Mail, an apology for quiet moment we can’t have.
• Of finding roommates when our roommate has gone mad again.
• Of watching soft tears drop on a fluttering heart...
• Of that first dance that lasted for eternity

“It seems like only yesterday
You were just a child at play
Now you’re all grown up inside of me
Oh, how fast those moments flee

Love will live
Love will last
Love goes on and on and on”

Happy Birthday, MM

By now you must have read that the Civil Rights leader, Rev. Jesse Jackson said he would want to cut off Barack Obama’s nuts for talking down on black people. Rev. Jackson considers any attempt to remind black folks to take care of their kids and family and stop depending on Jackson and Al Sharpton as talking down on black people. If that was not shocking enough, he was also reported to have used the N-word. In his angst, Jesse Jackson called black people nigga.

Very interesting. I think the nigga, Jesse Jackson, is losing it completely. And the reason is not far-fetched. The guy is jealous of Barack Obama. Jackson sees Obama as the big eared, skinny looking guy who was not there when the game was killed but is now sitting at the head of the table. It must be hard on our once beloved Jesse.

In the spirit of people we wish to cut off their nuts, here are my top two:

1.) Craig Ferguson: Early this week, Craig appeared on his Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson spotting tiny tiny mustache. I didn’t care for his mustache and the valuable time he spent talking about it. But what got me pissed off was that upon all the millions of names in this world, the only name he chose to call his tiny mustache was Rudy, my pet name. Craig made me hate my pet name.

Though I watch Craig instead of Conan O’Brien each weeknight, I have consistently had this one issue with Craig. He makes fun of Jay Leno who I watch at 11.35 pm before I switch to Craig. But I never heard him make fun of David Letterman, who deserves to be made fun off for his meanness to Drew Barrymore after she flashed her boobs to him. Image such affront by Letterman to all decent people world over. I have told Craig several times that this is not Scotland. He is allowed to make fun of his boss. (Yes, Letterman owns World Wide Pants that produced Late Late Show.) But Craig is still in his old country mind set.

Now that he has messed up my pet name, Rudy, I want to cut off his nuts.

2.) J. K Rowling: This British writer makes me mad each time I hear the number of books she has sold. Or whenever the ranking of the richest people in Britain comes out and she is placed above the Queen of England. It doesn’t really make sense. That woman was on welfare not long ago. And then, she met Harry Potter and her life was transformed.

What irks me most is that the woman knows nothing about witches. I lived in London for two year and I never saw witches. Not even a rat or a bat crossed path with me. Meanwhile, I come from a society where people can shake your hand and your nuts will disappear. Yes, in Lagos, Nigeria, people go out in the morning and come home without their nuts – lost from a casual handshake with a stranger. Though censorship has not permitted newspapers to publish photos of manhood without nuts, I am aware of where the nut collectors live and what they do with the nuts.(Don’t expect me to reveal it here. It is highly classified.)

I have seen people confess that they killed a rat at night and that their mother-in-law died the same minute the rat died. One actually cut off the leg of a bat and there on her bed was her mother-in-law with her leg cut off. It was only in one instance that the bat’s right leg was cut off and the mother-in-laws left leg was severed.

Please do not misunderstand me. It isn’t only mother-in-laws who are witches. Some wives are witches, too.

Anyway, I want to cut off J. K. Rowling’s nuts for stealing our stories about witches and making a fortune out of them without paying restitution.

There are more people I want to cut off their nuts but these are the two I am after now. When I get their nuts, I want to joggle them along Fleet Street and see what headline News of the World will give to the story.

He did not leave a note.

By doing so, he left many - his family, friends and colleagues at a loss as to why.

Death, in and of itself, is traumatic. Death by suicide must obviously be the most traumatic of them all.

Not long ago, I wrote a short story I called “A Long Suicide Note.” It was a twist in the typical story of a young man who killed himself when he lost out in a love quest. After writing my story, I decided to google suicide and see if I could see a real suicide note. To my surprise, I encountered a site that published real suicide notes of people who died. It was creepy reading them. The weight of their suicide notes reduced my fiction to sheer intellectual exercise.

Whatever the medical, cultural, legal, philosophical and religious interpretations of suicide is, the central theme is that those who commit suicide see it as the only option in the face of unbearable pain that could come from depression, shame, financial challenges, medical conditions, cultural circumstances, political situations and social state.

What causes pain varies from one person to another. Our tolerable threshold of pain also varies greatly. When weighed down by pain, our ability to withstand depends on the pain absolving resources at our disposal. Like car shock absolver, the one found in Mercedes is far superior to the one found in a Kia. Driving on the same road with the same potholes one feels the bumps according to the kind of shock absolver one has in the car.

Often, people who kill themselves are those who feel they could not bear the pain any longer. They feel they have come to the end of the road and the only way out is to take their own lives. But is it really the only way out? Does killing oneself provide an escape? Is there really no other way to reduce pain? Do we really run out of ways to cope with pain?

I come from Igbo society where suicide is an abomination. Someone who commits suicide is going to be buried like a dog. This is usually done by strangers as the victim’s kins are not allowed to touch him or her. That is why Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart was dumped into the evil forest despite his heroic achievements for his hometown.

While some plan their suicide, others do not plan. When they are suddenly overwhelmed by pain they act.

In trying to prevent suicide, it may be important for everyone to have a plan for the worst possible pain imaginable. Just like a fire drill is aimed at practicing what to do in the case of fire. I have told those around me that in the worst case scenario, I will move to Brazil. It will be a foreign land where I can have a new beginning, a new language and hopefully a better luck. I believe I may touch the rainbow in that Amazon rain forest. A chance that is better than death. It is my drill. And chances are that in the face of unbearable pain, I will access that option before I consider suicide.

About one million people kill themselves each year across the world with another ten million attempting suicide. In the United States, 55% of suicides that occurred in 2005 were committed with guns. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suicides accounted for 55 percent of the United States’ 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005. Suicides typically outnumber homicides by 2:1 in the U.S. While females attempt more suicides than males, males are more likely to die from suicide. Only 12 – 37% of people who commit suicide leave notes.

Because only 22% of those who commit suicide were diagnosed as mentally ill before they committed suicide, this phenomenon deserves greater attention. It starts by asking the simple question: is suicide the answer?

It is an easier question to ask now than when one becomes a survivor.

He did not leave a note. Now I am at a loss as to why he did it?

With veins thirsty for the absurd
I bring you Barry and Mimi
After a fabulous flip-flop
On the floor of the Oval Office
Bumped fists melt into a Harvard grasp
Coal skin blends with White House décor
Exit the donkey, enters the puffed Cadillac
Barry in three piece dark blue suit
With tie, hat, walking stick and umbrella
Speaks through his stretched nose
About tomorrow that passed.
Mimi in conservative skirt- suit,
White gloves, arm purse
Her long straight hair descending
She spends her patriotic days
Selecting china, reviewing menus
Dreaming about asparagus soup.
On the East Wing deck
Star-spangled flag for wall paper
Constitution pages as ceiling board
Washington priests as door mats
Lincoln’s face on pillowcases
Apple pie for side dishes
A saluting eagle for daughters’ pet.
End this brouhaha
And do what then?
Watch real McCain drool?

The craze in recent months has been to climb the New York Times 8th Ave building in order to bring attention to ones pet cause.

Recent climbers include French climber and daredevil, Alain Robert, Brooklyn copycat Renaldo Clarke and David Malone of West Hartford. While Robert and Clarke were promoting causes, Malone was promoting his book. Malone’s move was described as unusual because while other authors aim at climbing the New York Times’ best-seller lists, Malone choose to climb the New York Times building itself.

Had I not been afraid of heights… because there is no parking space in the air; if not that had I not been afraid of ladders… because a stumble could lead to death; if I climb the New York Times building, these are the causes I may try to promote as soon as I get to the roof of the 52-story building. There I will display a banner that will say:

•Autism is not natural. It is caused by something. And somebody knows what it is. He just ain’t telling.
•If Kosovo could be a separate country of its own, why not Biafra?
•Support People for the Ethical Treatment of Witches (PETW).
•Cloth the bones, Feed the Models.
•Dear Media people, what happened to the Avian flu that was supposed to wipe us out?
•If your mechanic is not your doctor, how come your marriage counselor is your Rev. Father?
•If the American dollar is soft currency and the British pounds sterling is hard currency, what then is the Zimbabwean money? Toilet currency?
•What if your phone stores all the conversations you ever had somewhere?
•We protect the Ivory, we protect the rain forest, but who is protecting the indigenous people?
•If your God is great, why do you have to fight for him?
•I wash my rented car, what about you?
•Support the natural character of our Zoo. Keep Hugo Chavez alive.
•If Tom Cruise is the greatest movie star in the world, how come he is so short?
•Who is more dangerous? Someone who has used nuclear weapon before or someone who might use it in the future?
•If our scientists are that smart, how come they can’t make petrol/gas in the laboratory?
•If your religion is peaceful, why must you kill in its name?
•Do you know how many people AIDS killed today? Do you care?
•What did we ever do when we had no cell phones?
•Someone knows what is causing all the cancer but he is not telling.
•Save a hungry writer – buy Children of a Retired God.
•Why is Al Qaeda not outraged that Muslims are killing other Muslims in Darfur?
•The world is obviously poorly governed. Isn’t it time to try the government of scientologists?
•What if your TV can see you and hear all you say in your house?
•If the world out there, of galaxies and stars is shrunk to planet earth size. The earth will be like a bus on the road. And we, on earth, will be like ants on a bus. How does that make you feel? Small?

Senator John McCain’s top economic adviser, former Senator Phil Gramm, Republican of Texas, last week in an interview with Washington Times said that the United States was only in a “mental recession” and that the country has become a “nation of whiners.”

Many disputed the accuracy of Dr. Phil Gramm’s observation. Others agreed with Gramm who has a PhD in economics.

As a public service, I hereby present a clarification that will help you know if you are a whiner or not.

• You are a whiner if you leave your Hummer in the garage and move around with sissy Prius or Yaris because gas price is just $5.00 a gallon when it is over $10 a gallon in Britain.
• You are a whiner if Indymac bank is foreclosing your reversed mortgaged home and you are still complaining about high toxic level of formaldehyde in FEMA trailers made available to you free. Do you prefer homelessness to breathing difficulties and nosebleeds?
• You are a whiner if your grandmother is receiving social security – that disgraceful government money John McCain will soon “fix” instead of Roth IRA and proceeds from offshore tax shelter investments.
• You are a whiner if you have cute daughters and do not know how to pimp them for cash or credibility. Don’t you know you can get Access Hollywood to interview them and soon after you will announce your regret in giving media access to your girls?
• You are a whiner if you are crying over closing Starbucks stores near you instead of using the money you spend there to buy cigarettes and ship to Iran. It is McCain’s new plan to kill off Iranians.
• You are a whiner if your kids are born one at a time at Kings County Hospital in New York instead of being popped out in South of France, two at once – a boy and a girl, for that matter – like Brad and Angelina Jolie.
• You are a whiner if you sit at home roasting chemically enhanced hotdogs and mad cow meats rejected by South Koreans instead of going over to Iraq to collect your own free American money that prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is dishing out.
• You are a whiner if you cannot yet figure out which of the Williams sisters the family has decided will win the U.S. tennis open championship coming up soon.
• You are a whiner if you are still hugging trees and crying over skinny birds in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge while your mates are digging up oil in their backyard and around their beachside properties.
• You are a whiner if you have no job and yet you have not applied to be John McCain’s U.S. ambassador to Belarus.
• You are a whiner if you claim that groceries are expensive yet you want dog meat off the menu until the Beijing Olympic is over.
• You are a whiner if you are wretched and yet will not rushing to Pakistan, where Americans are not allowed, to find Osama bin Laden and collect the bounty on his head.