Good News Out of Africa

That's right, Good News Out of Africa. Africa has lot's of good news stories, everyday. It's the bad guys like Omar al-Beshir (el-Bastado of Sudan) that try to steal the light from Africa and her people and the rest of us around the world. Speaking of Sudan, let's start with the good news there today.

Sudan Has More Pyramids than Egypt !!

When I first began to learn about African history in middle school in America (a long, long time ago) we of course were taught a great deal about ancient Egyptian dynasties and civilizations. Back in those days textbooks contained practically nothing about the great cultures and civilizations of sub-Saharan Africa. There of course was a purpose to this madness, which I hear has since been rectified to some extent in American school textbooks for young people.

Anyway, did you know that Sudan has (and had in the past) more pyramids than Egypt? Did you know that they have a culture (on record) dating back more than 200,000 years and that there are artifacts in a museum which prove that? This is news to the culturally and historically illiterate amongst us, probably most of us. This is good news on Friday the 13th! Check out the link above if you don't believe me.

Oh yeah, there is some bad news connected to this story. Certain highly developed and civillized peoples of Egypt (and Europe) robbed "cleaner than a camel's carcass" practically every ancient holy gravesite and pyramid built in Sudan during the last 100,000 years or so. Na ya.

BBC African Photo Essay Contest

More good news out of Africa. Buried in one of my earlier postings this month (see "Sudan's Army Anger Over U.N. War" dated August 02) I made mention of a nice little contest for ameteur photobugs and unemployed pro photographers sponsored by the BBC World News online team. It's a rather easy way to pick up a new digital camera worth USD$ 300.00 bucks (retail, not black market price). In case you didn't catch the original posting perhaps you might check it out today, if you are interested that is and/or need the camera or the money. I'd love to enter, but I am not in Africa, and I would like to see someone there win the prize. I'm also interested in seeing the photography, such as the 11 photos displayed in the BBC Africa Photo Contest Gallery.

Somalians Find a Good Life in the U.S.A.

This is some of the best news "Out of Africa" I've seen all day. Actually it's about some very persecuted folks gettin' the heck out of Africa. It seems that Omar over in Sudan has some real like-minded buddies just across the border in Somalia. What I mean is that apparently there are some black North African "Arabs" (I know, they don't look like Arabs to me either) who have a lighter skin complexion and other dubious differences which give them the right to persecute, murder, rape, and conduct other general human rights abuses against their fellow black countrymen and countrywomen. These incidents over a long period of time would make a movie like "Blackhawk Down" look like a Disney family film. No, I haven't seen the movie Blackhawk Down___waiting for it to come to German T.V. in the next century or so.

Anyway, it seems that the Government of the U.S.A. (GoUSA) made a decision last year to accept the immigration of 12,000 Somali bantus (ooohh, bantu is a controversial word) to the United States. According to this news story things are working out really well for most of the families presently located in New York State and South Carolina. I think that it is a real nice story and I am eager to see life become a success for these new immigrants. I hope that some of the families settle in my hometown, one of the best cities in the world (naturally).

200 years of slavery and persecution under their fellow Africans before they get a break. You need to read this story (see link above) and I need to contact my friend Yvette (author of the weblog Inside Somaliland) to see what she has to say about these people. This is cool enough to encourage me to get back to the States sooner and help out with our new African residents.