By the time sentencing came, I had already spent three months in jail.

Three months with nothing but time to think about how my life had ended up here.

Three months replaying every message, every moment, every decision that somehow led to this courtroom.

But nothing prepared me for hearing him speak.

When the judge asked if he wanted to say anything, he stood up and began describing someone who he had created in his mind.

He said he was afraid of me.

He said he didn’t feel safe if I was released.

He talked about me like I was violent, unstable, someone who had ruined his life.

At one point he started to cry.

I sat there stunned, listening to the man I had spent twenty years loving paint a picture of me that simply wasn’t true.

The woman he was describing wasn’t the person who had built a life with him.

She wasn’t the mother of his child.

She wasn’t the woman who had spent months trying to understand why he had disappeared without a word.

She was someone else entirely.

A character in a story he needed the judge to believe.

And as I listened, something inside me shifted.

For months I had been trying to understand him.

Trying to explain his behavior. Trying to find a reason that made sense of the silence, the accusations, the way everything had turned against me.

But sitting in that courtroom, hearing him speak, I realized something I had been avoiding.

This wasn’t confusion. It wasn’t misunderstanding. It was intentional.

The story he was telling protected him.

If I was the unstable, dangerous ex, then he didn’t have to explain anything else.

Not the affair. Not the silence. Not the manipulation. Not the choices he had made.

In that moment, I wasn’t seeing the man I thought I loved.

I was seeing the man he actually was.

And that realization hurt more than anything that had happened before.

Because the person I had spent years defending didn’t exist in that courtroom.

The man standing there had already decided who I would be in his story.

And no matter how many lies he said that day, one truth finally became clear to me.

The woman he described in that courtroom wasn’t me.

And maybe, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t need him to see the difference.

REFLECTION

THAT DAY TAUGHT ME THE TRUTH, IS NOT ALWAYS FOUND IN WHAT PEOPLE SAY.

SOMETIMES IT REVEALS ITSELF THROUGH WHAT THEY ARE WILLING TO DO.

I COULDN’T CONTROL THE VERSION OF ME. HE PRESENTED IN THE COURTROOM.

I COULDN’T FORCE HIM TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE YEARS WE HAD SHARED OR THE WOMAN I KNEW MYSELF TO BE.

BUT I COULD STOP LOOKING TO HIM FOR CONFIRMATION OF MY OWN REALITY.

THE JUDGE HELD MY IMMEDIATE FUTURE IN HIS HANDS, BUT MY IDENTITY WAS STILL MINE.

I DIDN’T LEAVE THE COURTROOM HEALED OR FREE FROM FEAR.

I LEFT WITH SOMETHING SMALLER QUIETER, AND PERHAPS MORE IMPORTANT.

THE UNDERSTANDING THAT HIS STORY ABOUT ME DID NOT HAVE TO BECOME THE STORY I TOLD ABOUT MYSELF.

THAT DAY MARKED THE END OF ONE CHAPTER.

NOT BECAUSE THE PAIN WAS OVER, BUT BECAUSE I HAD FINALLY STOPPED, ASKING THE PERSON WHO WOUNDED ME TO EXPLAIN WHO I WAS.

(NEXT – CHAPTER 15: HOLLOW)

Our Father Who art in Heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

Amen

Jesus is Lord! Come Lord Jesus!

Come Lord Jesus! Christ is Lord!

The apiary be Scottish run to mute Late December this hugger And seeing simply rise What time in Hearst for Will Enough of oak And seeming simpler For five octet and lane And pasture by the law Economy forever- and nines to the Moon Giving ray to God And night shall let us be- the end of war.

A Benediction in Christ

Sound out the early years Be humbled by God This is His Grand Season Fear not any judge, but In hand keep session- The care of others truly Be supplicants of joy Raise tidings to Heaven Reap the later harvest- And sow in yearly time At attire, be in grace These are tenets of the EU- Your days and the world Rolling up maps of your neighbour- Let him in.

The kindness and longsuffering of Women- In war and peace, recognize and relieve

Peace to all animals, shepherds, and life in the seas.

Forgive others- And be just in your decisions Lend Heaven to all.

Pray against war, and serve victims as if royalty. Be well and steadfast, humble, and true,

We pray in Christ Jesus,

Amen

OpenBSD

How I’ve grown Layers of travel to each quantum bit In parity,- a desk drawer Lighting chances to be fate,- I love what I have found Nothing to censor and I believe- The surest bet is OpenBSD Waves of cool choices like time,- Nothing to expend- Taking the reins that we will be together Horses drawn and the wheel ready I want on that USB The Romans were here and stole our code Ready-made stuff Thoroughly imbued what’s important Home for the living- Having bettered our world- to join.

Vlad (part six)

Alight in fever As this day long and better The white man was there And the French are the poor For settling the highs And light pollution our thread For the sins of the father We made it one day And cryptic to him The Earth was created to empire For all we explore As doorbells to fire And they see No hope in rain But the heights of East Fire Ebola these firsts And where they are, I cope To trail with a summons The Earth is strong And scourge, and infirm The maddest reply For history the ruler We rhyme calcitrant- when they call Our African view And his ninety year end The likes of me Places at noon Pre-tensile and needy A thousand yard realm Of steady proper And waiting for dawn The dust by our engines A small thought for noon By the lakeside And the memory That time is without us A stale intervention If we shore up the herds And prophecy seeing No place to hide And low sales And a victory at war For Korea the near And expressed Our enemy of never Never Kate or the picture We stashed all align This courtesy sharp Only castles to bear And history before that I was long to before And why I don’t drink On a date with the hero By generation be better As I flew to Kiev The licensure plane To better my options Accepting the ruse And the rule And for treason Alight for the town And dressed just the same To Chernobyl.

Thank you for singing for me. Thank you for taking me to the rocks so I remember where I am from. Thank you for making me jewelry. Thank you for seeing the light in me and for seeing beyond what I saw in myself. Thank you for telling me that. Thank you for trusting me despite how little we know about each other in earthly ways. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with me. Now go home to the rocks where there’s nothing but peace, love, and music. I hope you get to relax. I hope they see you for who you are. I hope you sing again.

Stop me if you’ve seen this one before. A big old house, Victorian, ideally, with too many rooms on too many floors, and loads of dark wood paneling. Faint eerie sounds and brief glimpses of vague unsettling shapes. Lights and electrical devices that flash or fail at the most inconvenient times. Objects that move or morph without visible causality. Poorly lit spaces that suddenly and randomly require dozens of lit candles. Artifacts or personal items that go missing only to reappear later in other spaces inexplicably. A priest, psychic, or some other spiritual medium as witness and guide. A jump scare every 8 minutes or so.

These are just some elements of the often formulaic production of a typical horror movie these days, filled with pastiche and tropes. Taken together, they can be entertaining in the same way a haunted house at a local carnival can. But some will likely confuse their entertainment with reality and mistakenly believe or imagine that what they see on their screen accurately portrays real experiences with the liminal, uncanny, or anomalous.

Now, granted, what people consume as entertainment should never be confused for reality, even when ambiguous claims are sometimes made stating a work is based on “actual” or “true events.” Horror films are not documentaries, and they don’t purport to be, although some documentaries can be horrific and terrifying. Yet, I’ve always felt that confusing or conflating such things with someone’s actual lived experience doesn’t do anyone any good. If anything, it harms.

And that leaves me with a sense of grief mixed with frustration.

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There’s a kind of desecration at work when the entertainment industry, or any industry, actively works to exploit the experiences of others’ inner lives where phenomenological encounters are reduced to quick audience shrieks, graphic spectacle, and the all-too-consumable “creepy” aesthetics in the way that something sacred and profound is cheapened when it becomes a commodified product. Pimping spirituality should feel icky because it is not a victimless crime. The harm is that those who have experienced the uncanny and anomalous become invisible—even irrelevant. And the lifeless derivative shell becomes accepted knowledge and mindset for the masses to devour and inhabit. A poor artifice of lived inner experience. An illusion of truth.

The non-material deserves just as much serious attention as the material. Subjective experience deserves rigorous, multidimensional engagement rather than the petty scoff that accompanies easy dismissal. Modern society’s reflex to pathologize, religionize, trivialize, or force such experiences into reductive binaries such as “either it’s scientifically validated, or it’s nonsense” is a failure of the imagination and a failure of a basic understanding of the human condition. It forecloses the possibility that reality might be stranger, more complex, layered, and nuanced than what consensus allows. The result is isolation for people with unusual experiences.

But I’m not someone who demands everyone share my ontology, cosmology, and point of view. My objections against the entertainment industry and pop culture regarding the uncanny aren’t that either one gets the metaphysics wrong. Rather, it’s that these are the dominant modes of representation, whether it’s horror, parody, New Age commodification, mega church evangelism, clinical reductivism, etc. They all share a refusal to simply sit with and listen to anomalous experiences on their own terms without defensiveness, diagnoses, or dismissiveness. By avoiding, deflecting, or outright denying the unusual experiences of others, we cater to the popular consumption of ideas that misrepresent what may be a key, critical facet of our reality and existence. Such reframes do a disservice to individual experiences and humanity as a whole.

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We need, then, some kind of middle ground between these competing extremes, especially in this age of willful ignorance and systemic mass media manipulation and deception. I’m not suggesting compromise. I’m suggesting active listening and openness to what we may not agree with or can't easily categorize, without rushing to judgment, reflexive explanation, or mining for entertainment fodder.

There’s no way pop culture will do this kind of work. It has evolved for a different purpose entirely and cannot be commandeered to do otherwise. But for those of us who have slipped into, or even past, liminality and remember what we’ve seen, heard, touched, and felt, we can at least refuse to participate in the further flattening of our reality. We can unapologetically hold our truth in the face of those who would rob us of our dignity. And we do that by keeping our hands, minds, and hearts open.

So by all means, let’s enjoy the next horror flick. But when we do, maybe ask ourselves if our own lived experience might have just become someone else’s entertainment.

Hablar de política es hablar de poder. Esto puede parecer una perogrullada para algunos, pero la polisemia de la palabra “política”, que además está llena de matices, puede llevar a graves malentendidos.

En primer lugar, ¿de qué política estamos hablando? En este caso, entendemos por política la actividad destinada a la toma de decisiones colectivas, es decir, la gestión de conflictos. Sabemos que el conflicto es inherente a las sociedades humanas, por lo que debe ser considerado como un fenómeno natural dentro de ellas.

Un esbozo de marco conceptual

En este contexto, dado que el surgimiento de conflictos parece inevitable, surge una incertidumbre respecto al futuro. Dicho de otro modo, si en cualquier momento pueden aparecer problemas de convivencia social, el statu quo no puede permanecer inmóvil ni invariable. El conflicto, o la amenaza del mismo, genera cambios en las circunstancias, lo que hace necesario lidiar con nuevas condiciones.

Para establecer la relación entre esta definición de política y el poder, es necesario aclarar también qué entendemos por poder. Dentro del contexto político, el poder tiene dos elementos clave: la autoridad, es decir, la capacidad de garantizar la obediencia, y la legitimidad, que es la aceptación de dicho poder por parte de la comunidad. En el contexto actual, la política se hace desde o a través del Estado(1) y este es el que ejerce el poder, para ello hace uso del monopolio de violencia para ejercer su autoridad y de la estructura democrática, en sus distintas formas, para henchirse de legitimidad.

Un ejemplo típico de la relación entre poder y política se encuentra en la educación primaria. Existe un consenso social, ya sea implícito o explícito, de que la educación primaria es tanto un derecho como una obligación. Por tanto, los niños hasta cierta edad deben asistir obligatoriamente a un centro educativo para ser instruidos. Incluso si esto va en contra de la voluntad del menor o de sus padres. En el Estado español es el Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional el responsable de diseñar el currículo que dicta los contenidos de ese aprendizaje forzoso.

El caso valenciano

Muchas regiones del mundo, como es el caso de Francia, buscan eliminar cualquier lengua distinta de la oficial para así crear una identidad homogénea en el Estado que legitime su territorio como unidad política inalterable. Por suerte, en España estas lenguas gozan del estatus de cooficiales, es decir, son lenguas que deben tener el mismo rango de oficialidad que el castellano dentro del territorio regional. Retomando el currículo educativo, esto introduce un componente lingüístico en la gestión educativa. No todo el currículo escolar está redactado por el Estado central, sino que se cede cierta competencia a los organismos regionales de las diferentes comunidades autónomas. La decisión de qué lengua y en qué proporción se enseña durante la etapa primaria de la educación en cada región es un reflejo directo de la intervención del poder político en la gestión de este conflicto.

Un caso especialmente interesante es el del País Valencià, donde en la educación primaria se enseñan dos lenguas: el castellano y el catalán. En esta región, existe una legitimidad tradicional para que los niños aprendan catalán, ya que es una lengua de arraigo histórico y uso habitual en gran parte del territorio. Al mismo tiempo, al estar esta comunidad dentro del Estado español, también existe una justificación legal-racional para que todos los niños aprendan castellano. Se ha generado una situación de bilingüismo territorial que ha sido y sigue siendo fuente de fuertes tensiones sociales y un campo de batalla político. Lo que lo convierte en un ejemplo relevante para este análisis.

Extensión del Valenciano en la Comunidad Valenciana. fuente: Joan M. Borràs (ebrenc), CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

No solo eso, sino que existe una peculiaridad más dentro de València: no todo su territorio es de tradición catalanoparlante. En algunas zonas, históricamente, nunca se ha hablado esta lengua. A pesar de esto, la Ley 4/2018 aprobada por la Generalitat Valenciana, establece un mínimo de horas de enseñanza en valenciano. Esto implica que en áreas donde nunca se ha utilizado esta lengua de forma habitual los estudiantes deben aprenderla ineludiblemente.

La legitimidad en este caso es más difusa, no se puede justificar en la tradición. Lo que sí existe es la autoridad de la Generalitat, por los poderes conferidos por parte del Estado, para llevarlo a cabo e imponer este currículum en las escuelas. Este proceso refleja el ejercicio de poder político a través de la regulación educativa y la autoridad para imponer decisiones que afectan a la población.

La imposición en este caso parece un proyecto a largo plazo: un intento de crear esa homogeneidad lingüística —de inspiración francesa— en todo el territorio, que dote de cohesión identitaria y que, con el tiempo, genere aceptación y, con ella, legitimidad.

El cambio de gobierno y la consulta a las familias

Sin embargo, con el cambio de gobierno hubo un cambio en la política lingüística. Ahora ya no hay “mínimos”. Sin embargo, si con la ley anterior podíamos ver la capacidad de imposición del regulador ahora podemos ver el uso de la democracia como legitimador para, una vez otorgada esa legitimidad, ejercer su proyecto político con independencia del deseo de cada centro y familia.

Me refiero a la famosa consulta a las familias, que fue una votación en la que se pedía a los tutores de los alumnos votar qué lengua será aquella en la que se impartirán las clases, si castellano o valenciano. Como adelantaba, esto tan solo es un legitimador pues, en la práctica, institutos con mayoría de votos a favor de usar el valenciano como lengua vehicular siguieron dando las clases en castellano.

¿Y otras asignaturas?

Para contextualizar mejor la naturaleza del poder político en el ámbito educativo, resulta ilustrativo comparar esta situación con la regulación de la asignatura de religión. De acuerdo con el Real Decreto 243/2022, al principio del curso se debe dar la opción a las familias de cursar o no la asignatura de religión. En el caso de que una sola familia en todo el centro elija cursar religión, se fija la obligación del instituto de garantizar que el alumno podrá asistir a dicha asignatura.

Esta comparación revela una asimetría significativa en el ejercicio del poder político: mientras que la demanda lingüística expresada democráticamente por una mayoría de familias puede ser ignorada en la práctica, la demanda religiosa de una sola familia genera una obligación ineludible para el centro. Asimismo, la fijación del currículo de religión no corre a cargo del instituto, ni de la Generalitat, ni siquiera del Estado central: es la propia confesión católica quien decide los contenidos de la misma. El contenido de la asignatura Valenciano no lo decide una autoridad lingüística o filológica, sino que es marcado por la Generalitat Valenciana, lo cual ha propiciado la aparición nuevos conflictos.

Conclusiones

El análisis del caso valenciano nos permite observar cómo el poder político se manifiesta en la regulación educativa a través de distintos mecanismos: la imposición normativa, la consulta democrática como fuente de legitimidad y la aplicación selectiva de los resultados de dicha consulta. La comparación con la asignatura de religión revela, además, que la autoridad y la legitimidad no operan de manera homogénea, sino que se despliegan de forma diferenciada según los intereses en juego.

El conflicto lingüístico valenciano, lejos de ser una simple disputa educativa, constituye un ejemplo paradigmático de cómo el poder político gestiona —o deja de gestionar— las tensiones inherentes a toda sociedad plural.

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1 – Uso aquí la concepción weberiana del Estado como conjunto de personas que ejerce la dominación sobre otras personas mediante la violencia legítima. Se encuentra desarrollada en varios de sus libros. Muy explícito al respecto es El político y el científico.

Nota: El valenciano es la denominación estatutaria e histórica de la lengua catalana en el País Valencià. A lo largo del artículo se utilizan ambas nomenclaturas indistintamente.

#Artículos

Wherein I go all Indiana-Jones on my psyche.

Egypt.

Stone.

Tomb.

Sarcophagus.

Ancient artifacts.

Customs.

Roofing.

Falling.

Another dream:

I am excavating a pyramid in Egypt. It is Ng, another woman, a local guy and myself. I explore passageways. No treasure. Just interesting things. Artifacts stacked everywhere.

Find some kind of sarcophagus. Sealed. Big and shiny, covered with blue and gold. It reminds me of a paper maché we made in 4th grade. Breaking open it is full of fresh oranges. We bag up and haul them all out. We discuss how they are worth a fortune.

The exit is at the bottom of a looong steep stone ramp. I tell the girls to wait snd let me carry down the heavy bags everyone waits and I make several trips. At one point I pass a roofing crew and I remind them all to be careful, not to fall off the high ramp. An old boss, DO (now dead) is in the group, he says, “Me? Fall off? Wish someone would what reminded me of that  in New York. Would have saved me a lot of suffering.’

I do not know the NY reference, but in the 30 years I knew him, he’d fallen off roofs several times, once almost dying.

I get back to the top but the stranger with us insists on carrying her bag down herself. I spy a customs agent who stares at me. I insist I take her bag and start to walk away when she tackles me, snatches the bag and we both tumble downed the long ramp. Her bag spills open and all the brilliant orange splay everywhere.

The dream ends with us all picking them up.

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“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” — Rumi

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The pyramids of Egypt and the Americas always fascinated me. These structures, similar but separated by 3 millennia and an entire planet, survived when the building cultures did not. Big piles of stone, it seems, are quite indelible.

I always wonder if the similarities are physics or some common intelligence. As in, are they shaped the way they are because that is the most efficient way to make a large monolithic structure that stands the test of time and may be constructed with rudimentary equipment, or was there a shared knowledge the builders carried from a common ancestry?

Like the Tootsie Roll Pop, the world may never know.

Still, I find them interesting. Mesoamerican structures are more fun to draw because the iconography is more organic and, to me, more interesting.

Pyramids: big tombs, essentially. So my dream is set in a graveyard and surrounded by memoribilia of the interred. Who? When? Who knows, maybe i’m diving into dead parts of my pscyche. That sounds intelligent, let’s assume this.

Discovering my grade-school sarcophagus, inside should be dust and bones, but instead, it’s full of life, brilliance and color. Food: the opposite of death, it is the sustenance that keep us going and in the case of a good orange, very, very enjoyable.

My house burned down in 4th grade. It’s also the year that my shoes got so bad, I had to wear my mom’s, which happened to fit perfectly just then. I was so embarrassed. They were girls shoes. We were homeless and living with grandma.

Yet, what i found buried there, even connected to an old wound, was good, enriching, and beautiful.

It should be noted that I thought that paper maché sarcophogus was one of the most beautiful things I ever made. I don’t know what color blue we used, but in my memory is is positively ALIVE!

So much good and wonder is in us!

The dream resolution is interesting in that it pulled in old memories of dead friends and the solution was one of my favorite story-telling devices: working together to solve a problem that benefits us all. In a word: cooperation.

My insistence to take over was divisive and thoughtless, and didn’t give the other parties any agency. As a result, an accident occurred. Think of others, helping them isn’t doing for them, it’s working together.

The appearance of the dead friend with his commentary matches his insistence that he always knew best. That might be just a ‘voice of wisdom’ thing or it might represent some resentment I always harbored against someone who was inadvertently taking on a fatherly roll.

Roofing was 25 years of my life and represented a lot of anxiety for me when I was doing it for a living in my teens and early 20’s. Roofers exist in that space in life where they are doing the work of necessary business, and are constantly on the edge of danger. Warning them might just be me saying hey, this is serious, you could really get hurt. Really make a mess, which i did.

it might even be teh NY reference was me dredging up dangerous actions when I travel. Thoughtless acts that cost me dearly on occasion. In other words, when someplace new, take care you don’t let your guard down and do things you’ll later regret.

Like spilling your oranges down the ramp.

Metaphor much?

What we’re filled with is not just beauty, but wonder and joy. Here, my subconscious painted it to look like oranges: nourishing and attractive. And it seems, worth a fortune. And something we all carry around in us even though we usually forget it’s there, or ignore it intentionally.

Extracting it is the difficult part. We have to choose to do it and dig through some darkness to find it. Wander through the graveyard of our hearts, if you will.

We might even make a mess in the process.

But that’s fine. Messes can be cleaned up and in them, we find those treasures we thought were lost entirely. And who of us doesn’t love discovering treasure?

The best part of my dream? I wasn’t doing it alone. We all have our tribes. Some are born to us, some are found. But we love them. We want them to succeed. And they want the same for us.

Dream work, lets the team work.

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Lydia's Weekly Lifestyle blog is for today's African girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things that may interest today's African girl.

This week's contributors: Lydia, Pépé Pépinière, Titi. This week's subjects: Mini skirts 1, Miss world and emancipation, Kumasi by night, Extraditing scammers and other criminals, and Tomato Italian Restaurant

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Mini skirts 1. Who said corporate fashion has to stop above the knee? Definitely not us! The mini skirt can have a place in the Accra office wardrobe—yes, even when the weather is doing the absolute most. The secret is balance. Because there’s a fine line between “young boss lady on her way to a board meeting” and “I thought this was a Saturday night outing.” Here’s how to make the mini corporate skirt work without compromising your polish. Let the skirt be the “fun” piece: If your skirt is short, keep everything else relatively sophisticated. Think a structured blazer, crisp button-down shirt or elegant knit top. The shorter the hemline, the more refined the rest of the outfit should feel. Translation is If the legs are making a statement, let the neckline take a seat. Go for structured minis: Not every mini skirt belongs in the boardroom. Choose styles with structure—think tailored A-lines, pencil skirts, pleated skirts or clean, straight silhouettes. Avoid anything excessively tight, sheer, distressed or designed primarily for the club. A structured mini immediately says “corporate girlie” rather than “Friday night plans.” The blazer is your best friend: Nothing rescues a mini skirt from looking too casual quite like a good blazer. Try a matching skirt-and-blazer set for maximum sophistication, or pair a neutral mini with an oversized tailored blazer. The blazer adds coverage and creates that effortless “I have a meeting at 10 and a cocktail at 7” energy. Keep the top classy: A mini skirt and a plunging neckline at the same time? Your office might not be ready for that level of confidence. Instead, opt for button-down shirts, high-neck blouses, polo shirts, elegant camisoles layered under blazers or modest fitted tops. Remember: Corporate sexy is about suggestion, not exhibition. Consider your office environment: Let’s be realistic: not every workplace has the same dress code. If your office is conservative, keep your mini closer to the knee and add tights or a longer blazer. If your workplace is fashion-forward and relaxed, you can experiment with slightly shorter lengths while keeping the overall look polished. And if you're heading into a serious client meeting? Maybe save the micro-mini for brunch. Miss world and emancipation. In a test 60 students were randomly placed in a classroom. All those who were seated on the left were told that they were good students and would likely pass the exam, all those seated on the right were told that they’d likely fail. Result? Of the “good” students 70% passed, of the ‘bad” students 70 % failed. In other words, to achieve you need to believe in yourself, if your opinion about yourself is that you can’t achieve you most likely will not achieve. And Miss World? All African contestants think their African hair is not good enough so they have put western style. What’s wrong with our hair? We spend millions every year straightening and attaching, the chemicals used are poisonous and cause cancer, but we insist, we want to look like what we are not. We don't accept the way God made us. And what happens if you think you are not good enough? 70 % failed. But finally a different wind is starting to blow. Ivory Coast only allows natural hair for the Miss Ivory Coast competition. Nana Tamakloe, founder of Ghana Fashion Week is complaining. We just need a few role models showing the right direction and we’d follow. AI Generated Any candidates?

Kumasi by night. Going to Kumasi? Coming back it took my friend 9 hours with STC VIP. No breakdown, just a bit of traffic here and there.

Extraditing scammers and other criminals. Not long ago becoming a cyber scammer was a serious option for earning money in Ghana, and sometimes a lot of money, and quick. The romance scammer is a favourite, fleeing thousands of lonely people off their savings in return for a never arriving lover. Though one wonders how stupid some people are, really. This put Ghana on the world map as a money laundering scamming narco-state, and the good ones are suffering it, the bad ones often not. The recent good news is that one of Ghana’s scam kingpins got extradited to the USA, Ghana has an exrtradition agreeement with them. Finish the bottles of poor quality champagne at 10,000 GHC in some of the night clubs. And I read that nr 2 will soon join his comrade to visit to the USA, courtesy Mr. Trump, long term visa approved. The USA claims that the scammers damaged USA citizens, thus must be punished. I think we can agree. But do monkeys play by sizes? Our very much wanted top scammer Mr. Ken Ofori Atta, our beloved former Minster of Finance who almost managed to collapse the entire economy including a sovereign default, the deepest you can go, is still arguing things out in the USA. He did not commit any crime against any American citizen, only against 37 million African blacks, and I do not see the USA being in a hurry to extradite him back to Ghana for crimes he committed against all of us. Let’s hope the USA does the right thing, or in my eyes they sink even deeper than the sovereign debt Atta caused.

Tomato Italian Restaurant 6 Dodi Link, Airport Residential Area, Accra. I am sure there are other worthwhile Italian restaurants in Accra but if I want a decent spaghetti or thin crunchy pizza this is the place for me. We had a classic Bolognaise which was very nice and a spaghetti Carbonara which could have been better, don't deep fry the bacon! The pizza was perfect. The owner really likes local painters, the place almost looks like a gallery. Maybe not a bad idea, sell spaghetti and in addition artworks for thousands of dollars.

Lydia...

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“Cut them down, rip them all down..”

A while back, I took our music down from streamers. It wasn’t hard, didn’t feel ever like a sacrifice once I finally did it, and it didn’t hurt at all. But at the time I felt like Joan of Arc. I actually made it harder for others to do. Who wants to be Joan of Arc?

Well, that wasn’t so bad.

The fact is not having music on streamers has been nice. Maybe numbers go down somewhere that doesn’t pay me for them, but the positive interactions about my music have skyrocketed. I am no longer a musician in the crowd. There’s no crowd.

What am I in this for?

I value things like warm conversation and exchanging favorite works. I don’t need to monetize that or incentivize it. I already enjoy it. In fact, if I made enough money, I would probably figure out how to buy it. But I have to resort to writing and music, the old-fashioned way. It’s a damn good perk of being a writer and musician that I enjoy those things too. Otherwise this gig would suck. But fortunately I enjoy writing, music, and talking about them. That’s what I aim for, that’s what I get. When I realized that leaving the streamers actually helped me with my goals, I felt vindicated. It wasn’t the annual distribution fee that chapped my ass, it wasn’t so many links to store and copy/paste (although..), it wasn’t even the scammy playlists and folks paying for spots. It was having to partner with such loser companies to “keep up.” Software has always had that pitch. I don’t know why it took me so long to recognize it with music. But I am glad it is recognized.

Want to look at my music? It won’t cost a penny.

So I decided to make a free folder of all the music I have released, (and even not released). It is clearly labeled, what band, what album, what song. Not a mess like a record store. A neat folder. You might appreciate a rundown of what you will find there. This is that.

3 bands to rule them all.

Boots on the Ground – This is a band with BK Birge, (who also writes for the mag). Keri and I drove to his place when he was in Houston not long ago. He had an amazing all analog studio set up there. The board was owned by The Cars! Stuff I had read about, but never heard in real life before. He got me started, The Doc’s fault. We made protest music for a few days, ate delicious food. We will do it again soon.

The Kintners – Keri and I like to sing, write lyrics, record, play small shows with acoustic guitar, and he even help when we can on others’ stuff. The Kintners is the sing-songy band I have always wanted. There's usually harmony, there’s typically lyrics. There’s often big arrangements so far. The next album coming this Christmas 2026, is a double-album of smaller arrangements. Keri writes lyrics like in “Picking Flowers” and it gives me chills for years.

Djembe Funk – This band is me. If anyone is helping their name is part of the title. This is my one-man can do anything band. Djembe Funk’s self-titled record came out June 4, 2026. It is a zany record. Spoken word to protest to punk to acoustic firesides. Before that record, I made a ton of solo stuff, all in the folder.

Shout out to The Horse’s Mouth.

The Treasure is simply the Treasure Chest on The Horse’s Mouth Linktree below my signature at bottom. There, you will find all the free bonuses to the magazine. Art from Chris Triggs, Writers reading audio versions of pieces they wrote, even folks who pitched in the magazine hung around to make music and that is there too.

I need nothing. Just take.

This is a good amount of stuff, it’s all free. I hope you take me up on it. I am done with it, but it really helped me out to make. I’ve learned those kinds of things can help other folks when they’re in the mood for listening. I don’t want numbers going up, I don’t need money, I am counting nothing, except maybe warm conversations where we swap favorite novels.

Thanks.

Kelly Kintner, Editor

The Horse’s Mouth Magazine

There are moments when I look at the absolute weight and caliber of who he is, and it commands my total respect.

It is impossible not to admire him.

He lives life with this quiet, grounded mastery: building things with his own two hands, navigating the rivers and the mountains with such ease, training his dogs, and showing up for his community when people need help. He doesn’t just move through the world; he builds a life in it, piece by piece, with intention and strength. He has done so much, seen so much, and holds this effortless capability that I’ve always found so

deeply attractive.

That strength was magnetic. To be seen by him, to share that sharp, undeniable spark and the fierce alignment we had, it was electric. It was strong, real, and undeniable. I’m sitting here holding all these big, tender feelings while the silence stretches out between us, and I’d be lying if I said a part of me didn’t still wonder: What if? What if the timing was just wrong? What if the distance closes one day? What if, somewhere down the road, when the air clears and the pieces fall into place, we actually end up together?

The truth is, I really don't know.

It is hard to hold on to a hope like that, but it’s also hard to just turn off the light on something that felt so real to me. Maybe I don't have to figure out the final chapter today. Maybe I can just honor how much I admired him, appreciate the connection we shared, and leave the rest sitting gently in the unknown while I keep moving forward.

Let the tide rise. Let the moon burn. Still, we bloom.




It’s a full moon tonight—
 high, tipped slightly south,
 pouring cyan across the fields like breath on a mirror.
 The whole world glows.

I want to sleep out.


To camp in the tall grass,
 barefoot under the stars.
 To dance with fireflies,
 to spin in the firelight, 
to sing songs we haven’t written yet.

How can a night like this end?


It is summer—perfected. And it begs to drag each moment into eternity.

Just in case the next one doesn’t quite measure up.

This soul is troubled— thinking of the year behind: Subduction of change to the Orogeny of beauty and wreckage.

But the moon keeps rising. The tides go on.
 Stars burn and shine. They do not slow for me.

And they never will.

I sit beneath my ancient sky,
 chasing satellites to dawn—
 and I pray.


How small a creature I am in all of this scheme, created for me and yet— not at all.

Planets turn overhead.
 The cyan has deepened to indigo.
 And just now,
 crimson seeps into the eastern edge of the world.


Every moment a miracle.

The weight of sleep is coming.

But before I am claimed— the flash of dawn blooms wetness and blurry vision.

A lavender vine the last thing
 that crosses my mind
 before I drift
 into the blue of day.

---

Moon Song – Karen O

---

2025-07-10 07:30:00

16 August 2026

Saw some more John Smith today at Whitechapel:

Record (2021) The Black Tower (1985-87) Blight (1994-96) Dad’s Stick (2012) Twice (2020) Lost Sound (1998-2001)

The Black Tower is the one still lingering. A simple, intuitive construction from elements that I couldn't help but see as painterly while I watched. I'm first thinking of drawn-out close-up shots of bare blue sky that are then revealed to be a kitchen counter surface or a piece of paper—as the narration and the plot devolve from something linear and trustworthy into a kind of relaxed mania, so do the film's formal elements. I remember one part where the tower's silhouette segments the sky, creating an arrangement of triangles in black and blue, then rhythmically expands and contracts with the sound of footsteps until the blue is compressed into one small triangle in the top left corner, which then also appears to expand and contract as the eye loses track of which shape is the agent of movement. And so I was thinking about painting ground the whole time, of toggling containing edges on and off, how extreme close-up can manipulate perceived distance, and ways to convey proximity.

Another way it is particularly successful is that it circles around something that has come up in conversation a lot recently, which I can maybe describe as an engagement with the inherent blind spots of phenomenal perception. The narrator in this film seems to always be holding himself at a remove from foreboding implications, even when he feels the presence of the tower encroaching on his life. I'm remembering now how the film starts with him noticing the tower but putting it to one side in his mind. He's curious but forgets about it over and over again until it is too intrusive to ignore. There are also shots of the same tree viewed from a high residential window: bare in winter, green and full in spring, and having its leaves shorn by a shirtless man—felt like a sequence of memories struggling to reorganize and make sense of themselves. And yet it's not as ominous as its reputation might suggest from a Google search. It's a really funny film, allowing and encouraging us to laugh at the looming omnipresent specter throughout.