Campaign 2008

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Courtesy of Marc Ambinder

Brain Scientist, Meet Stroke

A pretty great lecture by Brain Scientist Jill Taylor. She gets so into the retelling of her story, that you can hear just how emotional of an experience it was for her.

She's on the fringe when she starts talking of using her experience to transcend the global political landscape, but it is an extremely thought-provoking, emotional, and spiritually touching experience.

I'm having embedding problems. Find the video here: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

(Also, a transcript!)

More Videos From Josh

Josh is continuing to post videos to YouTube. He says he is now "hooked." I'll take his word for it. He's posting videos here. Keep an eye on his useful and rather humorous descriptions for his videos. On "Jomo Kenyatta... and his International Conference Center":

Here is a poorly filmed peek at the Jomo Kenyatta International Conference Center in downtown Nairobi. Jomo Kenyatta was Kenya's first president (1964-1978). The guy's on their paper money. The airport I flew into is Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. To make an American comparison, he's like Reagan on steroids over there.

Now, to be honest, I haven't viewed most of these videos because my internet connection is a little bit less than good.

Just a couple hours ago I did a test of my internet connection. This was the result:




Update: I tried again. This time I got a whopping 62kbps! I went ahead and opened all of the videos... Pretty good stuff. I also took another look at the KSL video. Must have been a bit nervous because I'm signing fast.

KSL on Mount Longonot

This is a video of me signing in Kenyan Sign Language about Mount Longonot, Naivasha, and the Great Rift Valley. We filmed this at the top of Mount Longonot, after a tiring climb.



Special thanks to Josh for putting this together and uploading it to YouTube. Most of my friends haven't really seen me sign, and most of the world hasn't seen KSL. I am not a Kenyan, nor is KSL my first language, so this isn't quite a perfect representation, but it's something.

Right now, there's no audio that goes along with it, which means those of you who don't know KSL are missing out. (I think that's about 90% of my readers.)

We also filmed versions of me speaking in English and Swahili. It's essentially the same message, though I could never quite remember all the details from one take to the next. Unfortunately the audio didn't quite work out due to all the wind.

Josh might be able to play around with the audio file to make it more audible, but I'm afraid that's too much work. I might try to record an audio file that we could dub over the video, one version in English, another in Swahili. Or I might just write up a brief note about what I've signed. What would you want to see? Add a comment or send me an email...

It's Funny Because It's True

Thinking about coming to Kenya, but not exactly sure if you want to commit the time or financial resources? Consider this video... Next thing you know, you'll be on a plane out here.....

Update: Where are my manners? Thanks to RPCV Hester D. for the heads-up...

MacGyver Meets West Wing in Kenya

I'm not sure when it started, but by the time I got back from Kenya, my brother's attachment to the TV show '24' was strong. He spends the entire TV season avoiding it. Trying not to watch commercials, read news articles, listen to water cooler conversations, and, of course, the TV show itself.

The show, which is like 'MacGyver' meets 'West Wing', is set into 24 episodes, each an hour long, representing a hellacious day in the life of counter-terrorist Jack Bauer. While always on the right 'moral' side of the equation, he often finds himself on the wrong 'legal' side in individual situations, which makes him a vital asset and a dangerous ally for the domestic security bureaucracy.

My brother watches '24' on DVD only. He does this so that he can watching them straight through, all eighteen hours in one sitting. “I watch it like Jack lives it,” he's told me more than once. He says this with pride, though he's aware that this pushes him toward the dubious category of being a fanatic.

Perhaps that is why he's not just content watching '24'. He pushes it onto his friends, loaning them the DVDs. And many of them find themselves wrapped up in Jack Bauer's world. Everyone is a possible target, everyone is a possible betrayer.

A few months ago, Geoffrey, an officemate of mine, asked me if I had ever heard of the show '24.' Of course I had and I suspected he was talking about it because it's being shown on one of the local stations (KTN; one of five, not four, local stations like I had previously written).

He told me that he had bought a pirated VCD of '24' and just watched all of Season Five the previous Friday. He too watched it “like Jack lives it.” Geoffrey lent it to us. It took us about three weeks, but we finished it.

'24' is now one of Halako's favorite shows.

We just bought a pirated version of Season One. It cost 250/- ($3). You can buy them openly on the streets and few people even seem to be aware that these are pirated. The police doesn't usually bother to enforce copyright restrictions and it's the heart of its own booning business.

I didn't think Halako would enjoy it as much as she does. The show is very fast paced, and hangs on suspension created by subtleties in the dialog, which is American English. Thankfully whoever put together the VCD burned it with subtitles. (Though the subtitles strangely replace all the lowercase l's with uppercase I's.)

(For all my linguistic ambitions coming to Kenya, I've found that Halako and I still primarily communicate in Swahili, though we've added a lot of English these past few months. Call it the Nairobi Effect. But I'm not entirely comfortable using my American English and slang American English with her. I probably should so that I can challenge her, but I'm not sure that constantly challenging in this way would be good for our relationship.)

We've watched a few American movies together and Halako isn't always the biggest fan. She was moved by World Trade Center, intrigued by The Last King of Scotland, but bored by Die Hard, Nowhere in Africa, and a couple of other random movies.

For Halako, most of these movies don't even hold a candle to a more local product: Nigerian movies. We'll save that topic for another time.