Aya

First, I’ve been following discussions on the new guidelines on mammograms and some of the outrage has left me fuming.  It is clear to me that most people don’t understand that recommendations for ALL people are different from those for high risk individuals.  If there is breast cancer in your family, especially a first degree relative, then you are at high risk.

If you don’t have an immediate family risk, then getting a mammogram every year in your 40s exposes your premenopausal breast tissue to radiation that may actually make you susceptible to developing the disease.

You can disagree with conservative approaches to preventive imaging but why the hell are all these women screaming about irradiating their otherwise healthy breasts?

Second, I can’t catch my daily news without some mention of Wasilla girl’s book.  I am talking about Sarah Palin’s ghostwritten ode to roguehood and other absurdities.  What is bothering me the most is that no one, and I am talking about journalists, is challenging this woman.  She is never asked difficult questions and hardly ever questioned about her commitment to ignorance.

There is only so much you can blame on being flustered in an interview; she really has to read more and pretend to be interested in world issues.  Mistaking Iraq for Iran?  And obsessing about wardrobe costs and her hick almost-son-in-law’s trysts are just not going to cut it.  If she wants to run for president in 2012 and she probably will, crack open an Economist or something.

Finally, Oprah’s show ends in 2011.  It was news to me.   I remember running home from middle school so I can watch her show.  Love everything she stands for and respect her work so much.  What the hell is the world going to do at 4p.m. now that Oprah is leaving?

Dear friends, today’s the first anniversary of Miriam Makeba’s death.

You must know by now that she is one of my all time favourite singers and her songs were the soundtrack to some delightful childhood memories.

Mama Africa died on November 10, 2008 and remembering her was bitter sweet as I’ve enjoyed listening to songs I’ve nearly forgotten.

I’ve kept a close watch on awards shows in 2009, expecting that an icon of beautiful music and global goodwill would get at least a posthumous mention.  Nada, of course.  Nothing but the vomit that passes for music nowadays.

But we don’t need their stinking awards to celebrate and play one for Mama.

Into the gentle Pata Pata of night

♫ One good thing about music

When it hits you feel no pain

So hit me with music

Hit me with music now

I got to say trench town rock  ♫

You gotta love Mr. Marley’s ode to Kingston 12.  I’m having that kind of mellow weekend, how is everyone doing?  I did something I haven’t done in some years.  I went out for a downtown walk to gaze at the natives and see if there are any H’ween costumes that would make me giggle like an 82 year old nun in a strip joint.  Unfortunately, if you’ve seen one pot-bellied, middle-aged man in a spandex wedding gown, you’ve seen them all.  My sister and I did get an offer from a little man in a dominatrix outfit.  Thanks to his, ahem, challenged stature, he was at eye level with our chests.  And he smelled as though he’d been under a bottle of gin since lunch.

The little man staggered and then said ‘Whoa!’.  I looked around and wondered what he was exclaiming about.  ‘Are those real?’, he asked in the way only a little man could.  I knew what he was asking but we both chose to ignore him.  ‘Can I touch them?’, he asked, pointing a child-sized hand in our direction.  Sigh.  How come I never get an offer like that from a tall black man in H’ween?  Why is it always the garden gnome with wispy, balding hair who is clearly blind as a runner girl can never boast a can-I-touch-it kind of bosom?

In other news, I had lunch with a friend and a married couple I haven’t seen since university.  This lovely nomad couple were several years ahead of me (in law and journalism when I was a freshman), and they married while graduate students.  Quite casually, I asked if they had any children and they said no.  I left it at that but the discussion came back to the topic and they easily shared that they’ve made a decision not to have children.  They were childfree.  Interesting!  I couldn’t even fathom how their respective families would deal with this most egregious of decisions in our culture.

I’ve learnt since then that this easy going couple are dedicated to their respective families.  The wife came from a family of 15 or 16 children (her father married 3 times) and she is financially responsible for all 5 children of the last step mother.  She is putting the children through private schools in Nairobi so they have a shot at a decent education.  The husband’s been shuttling his ailing mother from country to country to find an appropriate kidney donor for the past few years.  I think even if they were not both mentally and financially self-sacrificing, I believe it takes some courage and honour to not bring forth a child into this world.

I’ve always imagined myself as a parent of at least one child someday.  I have so much parental guilt and mental screw-up to pass on, I would surely become ill if it stays with me and doesn’t get passed on to an innocent child.  Of course, if the universe were to twist my arm and make me make a choice between my own DNA replicant and something else, I would (with a heavy heart, no doubt), accept this Bugatti: