Tiger Woods undesirable publicity

They went for the story like a hungry pack of stray dogs would go for a rotting turkey. They barked and whinned, they bayed. Press, that is.

Tiger woods must have been, and still is (and will continue to be, likely) an enigma, something you cannot decipher with commonplace science, religion maybe, only an average paparazzi is a non-believer. So when this thanksgiving-day accident met this hero, they loved it: talk about Delilah discovering where Samson's strength arose from!

I, however, am taken aback, looking at the man, Tiger, a black person, a successful one at that. Sooner or later a scandal had to come, looking back at the long list of celebrities like Tyson, Jackson, Vick, Brown, Simpson, (Marion) Jones. I choose do doubt all I hear for some reasons. One, Tiger is like a goldfish in a glass bowl, he's a popular public figure. If there was anything even remotely resembling what is being written about, then the whole world of scribe is asleep most of times until accidentally awakened by an suv hitting a fire hydrant. Two, these girls are gold diggers. I can easily picture something innocent-looking going to him requesting for his auto, "No, do me a tattoo, i got the pen and all, let's do it in your room, you can't do it here on the poolside with everyone watching....giggle..."; off they go, it takes a minute, cellphone camera of gold digger has incriminating evidence ("been in tiger's lair, i can show you!").

Going by the comments on online news, fact that Mr Woods had a white wife fuelled the fires of the scandal. I am of the opinion that if he carries on with life as usual the whole excitement will die out and whoever wrote something stupid would wish they didn't in the first place.

Obama US President-elect: Long way coming...

Racism is an old-fashioned fad. The few who still clutch it could be regarded as peculiar. Possibly, looking at history of such persons it might be proved that their minds were warped by teachings of older generations (parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, their "role models"-ugh!). This sad chunk of humanity isn't much different from children who are afraid of spiders.

Black persons have been prominent world over for a long time. Those in sports has a following of a multitude of fans. Jesse Owens, Mohamed Ali, Arthur Ashe, down to today's Brian Lara and Tiger Wood. Entertainment world has Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy and a million more.

When a black person does a good turn, reporting of such story carefully shrouds anything about his origins, his colour. A Tanzanian colleague working in Silicon Valley some three years ago was awarded an information technology patent, something about routers, IP and DNS (computer jargon). We only got to know about it because of email forum with a large following of Tanzanians in diaspora. When a black person makes a hiccup, the world will hear about it. At about the time of patent I just described, another Tanzanian had slaughtered a couple of goats in his apartment in the US, some neighbour rang the cops from the noises the goats made, and prompt arrests were made. The story hit the wires and was all over the place about an African from Tanzania who murdered goats in cold blood showing high degree of cruelty to animals. Some goats that had not yet been slaughtered were "rescued".

Now, by Americans deciding solidly to elect Mr Obama, I can only say, yes, the playing field is getting level. And it is not merely campaigning for one year by Camp Obama. The trail leading to thawing of sinful souls from the days of slavery was long, hard, disherartening. With occasional spikes like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, time moved steadily on towards Obama 2009.

The tiles on that road include Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Richard Roundtree, Diana Ross, Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, Isaac Hayes, LeVar Burton, all. Any person of colour that threw in their lot to receive recognition of the World. Not limited to America too. We have had Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, Asha-Rose Migiro, Olushegun Obasanjo, Miriam Makeba (recently deceased, RIP). African soccer stars world over has done a black man proud over years.

I'm feeling good. Things will never be the same again. The Change We Need Is Here!