Congo Cash!

The title is the nickname to former Laker player and fan favorite DJ Mbenga. In 2009, he became the first Belgian Congolese player to win an NBA championship. I was a little sad when he left the Lakers after winning a second NBA title this past year. This guy would get pump up the crowd during garbage time. However, his journey to the NBA was not an easy one. He is a tough player and I always enjoyed watching him when he came on the court. As a Lakers fan, I wish him nothing but the best and whoever signs him will not regret it.

P.S.- He still has 2 more championships than LeBron James

Defining Moment of the 21st Century?

I've been thinking about this for a while. What if the entire continent of Africa decided to stop fighting and constantly shifting powers one day and decided to unify under a single government, currency, etc? Well after looking it up online, there is a proposed idea from Muammar al-Gaddafi, the leader of Libya. He proposed that the 53 African countries be transformed to sovereign states and unify as... ready...


the United States of Africa.


Nope this is not a typo or grammatical mistake: United. States. of. Africa.


USA! USA! USA!


You know how there are few events in our lifetime that end up become a permanent mark in the pages of history... well this would end up being one of them. Quite a number of African leaders support this idea and would love to see this happen very soon. Hell, the African Union has aimed that this dream would become a reality by 2025, 15 years from now! By my calculations, we be in our mid 30s, with a job (hopefully) and have kids of our. They would witness this shining moment in not only in African history, but in human history. The Unification of Africa would truly impact the entire world, from the smallest person to the big corporations. Here is a link from an African's perspective on this bold idea. The idea was first conceived as a poem by Marcus Harvey titled "Hail! United States of Africa!"So what do you think of Unified Africa? Good? Bad? Neutral?

www.africanloft.com/united-states-of-africa-a-wishful-thinking

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hail-united-states-of-africa/

Health Benefits

As citizens of the United States of America, we are all entitled to the most basic health benefits, such as medicine or clean facilities. We are fortuante to have such benefits since different parts of the world are lacking even the basic needs. I recently came across an article about an outbreak of cholera that is affecting West Africa. About 800 Nigerians, including children, have died in just two months of this epidemic. Not only that but because of the rain, it is spreading the infection to other neighboring countries like Cameroon and Chad. Want to know what the sad part is? This could have have all been avoidable by simple clean facilities and clean water. However sanitation is extremly awful in nearly the entire continent, save a few cities. The effects of Chlorea are quite hideous: it causes diarrhea, which in turn causes the infected person to become dehydrated and maybe even result in death. It will most likely continue to sicken and kill more people if government officals aren't doing anything to stop it. Here's a fact that you might want to know: Nigeria, which has half the population of the United States (150 million if you don't know), makes billions of dollars from oil exporting, yet half of its population (75 million) are lacking clean and sanitation. Hold up, wait a minute, could this be why chlorea is easily spreading all over West Africa? Why, it seems to be the case. It is quite amazing to learn that this isn't the first time Nigeria has dealt with such a monstrous epidemic. Back in 1991, more 7,600 people died from a deadly breakout. That's right you read correctly, more than 7,600! Now imagine all these deaths, infections and such and place it some country that is not in Africa, oh say the United States. If such a thing ever happened, everyone would be freaking out, the coverage will be the top news every morning, day and night, nationally and internationally. Like suicide bomb attacks, we are so use to hear about epidemic and death in Africa that is has become the norm. God knows what locals are feeling over West Africa. Here is the link from the AP article about the deadly breakout.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jz2In1zImIbezS40D5pXN9sDz2AAD9I550F80