Arts and Culture

Showcasing the true sense of Africans 

 

Rueben is Dead-A Poem  

Pen Brutish Rueben is dead, cold blooded, and dumb
 

We shall not mourn,
 

Our first born scribe now buried in their ruins, as many of his likes
 

Weep not comrades,
 

Will he speak for himself?
 

Not again,

 

The rejoinder master lies on the laps of Delilah’s whom he once denounced
 

He shook hands with the devil and died
 

Ruben was not killed with their barrels when he ought to have been dead
 

He gave himself up willingly
 

And threw reputation to the mire
 

The columns of contradicted life condemns conscience
 

Disparaged pages of Jewish fated hypocrisies
 

Public circulated ranting at the Rutam House for advantage
 

Only reprobates, dares to defend these, justifying them in rejoinders
 

The obvious, we lost him
 

A consenting silence, the booing of legislators, the shock of commoners
 

No rejoinders, none till the expiration of his mingle after four years,
 

If it comes,
 

It will be weak, supportive of the evil he once decries
 

We lost him.
 

A rare obituary for comrade’s compromise
 

In honour, dishonoured
 

Gather yourselves together to the head counts

One man is missing again, amongst scrawl’s giants   

His price was paid, fully paid

 His dignity mellowed for pomp

Ruben,

Trapped by ganger wigs to the tricks of the Pol

Silence demeaning an age long chevron,

Now bowed to the “Yes-man-ship” of intelligential

Is this the manner of a fall?

“Unelected” Ruben,

Scoop the motives when deeds are done

Now, in reiterates, a kiss of betrayal

For $, £, #

Bring us no more juice of their scandals, wrapped around your neck

Reputation!

“Oft got without merit, lost without deserving”
And like the morsel of Esau,
Or the heel of Achilles
He fell headlong to his secret desired lust,
The motivation of his wittiness, “gain”
“Use to be”, delectable most read columnar
The guardian of innocent brave Negro clone,
A tutor to unsoiled zealous journalist
Until his price was determined in the closet of crafters
And as Judas, sold his master and friends the masses

Besmirched Ruben,
Farewell,
From the table of our pride and denouncement,
From the honour of untainted degrees,
From the circle of few men loyal to conscience,
From the gathering of consistent morality,
We bid you farewell,
When the roll call is renewed after this ruin, “sell-outs” shall not be there
Farewell Ruben, enjoy the loots
Farewell

http://www.poemhunter.com/members/mpoems/default.asp?show=poem&poem=2958...

 

 

Whitney: She could not have the kiss forever

The death of pop legend, Whitney Houston, three days to the Valentine’s Festival,evokes the ironies of her life, marriage and career, write AKEEM LASISI and GBENGA ADENIJI

At a Valentine season like this, Whitney Houston was a source of joy and inspiration to many lovers. Such people and other fans of beautiful music found many of her songs very relevant to the celebration of the love festival. But her sudden death on Saturday, three days to the 2012 edition of Valentine’s Day, has cast a sorrowful cloud on the sky of many of her numerous admirers.

While some may be consoled that her departure in this season appears to have reinforced her life of love, others will sourly recall that the woman who worshipped romance with her honey-sweet tongue eventually fell casualty of the phenomenon called love. Her failed relationship with R&B singer, Bobby Brown, frustrated her into drugs, which marred her life and even her career, until she eternally fell a day to the 54th edition of the Grammy Awards.

Thus, unlike what was projected in her  popular songs  like Saving All My Love For You, Nobody Loves Me Like You Do, Love Will Save The Day, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, Could I have This Kiss Forever, You Light Up My Life, Greatest Love of All, My Love Is Your Love, I was Made To Love Him and Where Do Broken Heart Go,  Houston could simply not have the kiss forever.

With the proximity to the Grammy too, the death of  the artiste, who was captured in the Guinness Book of Records in 2009 as the ‘most awarded’ female act,  invokes more coincidences.  Her demise on the eve of the awards can also be interpreted to indicate her passion for the industry, and a certain love to be part of the game till death.  Unfortunately, however,  the timing brings circumstances of her death closer to those of other fallen popular stars, especially like Michael Jackson.

MJ – as Michael Jackson is popularly called – and Houston were pop legends, even if the latter was not as phenomenal as Jackson.  Also, while Houston died a day to the beginning of the Grammy, MJ died on June 25, 2009, three days to the year’s edition of the BET awards.  Jackson was 50 while Houston was 48

The American actress, singer and model was so successful that she got two Emmy Awards, six Grammy awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards and 22 American Music Awards.  Indeed, online sources noted that she earned a total of 415 career awards in 2010.  

The world is saddened by her death, but no one can deny the fact that she was a giant star. The Mail Online indicates this much in a critical tribute it pays to it. 

In some of the tributes that industry stars have been paying to her:

R&B act,  Akon,  wrote on his Twitter handle, ‘We’ve lost another Legend. RIP WHITNEY HOUSTON. I’m honoured to have had the chance to work with such an amazing human being.’

His colleague,  Usher Raymond, says she was a star and “a true icon of our time. Gone too soon.”

The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is not left out as he tweetes, “R.I.P.,  Whitney Houston. Thank you for the amazing music you brought into the world.’‘

Celebrated act, Dolly Parton, equally says, “Mine is only one of the millions of heartbroken over the death of Whitney Houston. I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, Whitney, I will always love you.!”

Mariah Carey notes, ‘‘She will never be forgotten as one of the greatest voices to ever grace the earth. My heartfelt condolences to Whitney’s family and all her millions of fans throughout the world.’’

Houston was born to a middle class family in Newark, New Jersey in 1963. She was the third and youngest child of Army serviceman and entertainment executive John Russell Houston, Jr., who passed away in 2003, and gospel singer, Cissy Houston.

The Mail adds that she first became interested in being in the music industry after frequently accompanying her mother Cissy who often performed in nightclubs.

“Sometimes the teen would even take to the stage herself and perform,” the newspaper adds.

Houston was offered her very first recording contract at the age of 14 by Michael Zanger, after she wowed him with her back-up singing on a record for his group, Michael Zanger band.

But she was forced to turn it down as her mother determined that she should instead finish school. However, in the years that followed she lent her voice to albums of both American soul, jazz, and blues singer Lou Rawls and Michael Jackson’s father, Jermaine Jackson.

Naturally stunningly beautiful, Houston began dabbling in modelling after being spotted by a fashion photographer whilst she was performing with her mother.  She went on to become the first ever woman of colour to appear in a fashion magazine after gracing the pages of 17 magazines in the early Eighties.

Subsequently she appeared in Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Young Miss magazines, and also in a TV advertisement for Canada Dry soft drink. It was around that time when music mogul Clive Davis first heard Houston perform.

“The time that I first saw her singing in her mother’s act in a club … it was such a stunning impact,’ the American record producer told Good Morning America. To hear this young girl breathe such fire into this song. I mean, it really sent the proverbial tingles up my spine.”

Houston, who also starred in some films, especially The Bodyguard made her album debut in 1985 with the self-titled record Whitney Houston.

It sold millions and spawned hit after hit including Saving All My Love for You, which won her her first Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal.

Other tracks such as How Will I Know, You Give Good Love and The Greatest Love of All also went on to become giant hits. Another multi-platinum album, Whitney, came out in 1987 and included hits like Where Do Broken Hearts Go and I Wanna Dance With Somebody.

Houston would blame her rocky marriage, which included a charge of domestic abuse on Brown. They divorced in 2007.

Houston would go to rehab twice before she would declare herself drug-free to Oprah Winfrey in 2010.  But in the interim, there were missed concert dates, a stop at an airport due to drugs, and public meltdowns.

She was so startlingly thin during a 2001 Michael Jackson tribute concert that rumours spread she had died the next day. Her crude behaviour and jittery appearance on Brown’s reality show, Being Bobby Brown, was an example of her sad decline.

 

Why the World Needs America

Foreign-policy pundits increasingly argue that democracy and free markets could thrive without U.S. predominance. If this sounds too good to be true, writes Robert Kagan, that's because it is.

 History shows that world orders, including our own, are transient. They rise and fall, and the institutions they erect, the beliefs and "norms" that guide them, the economic systems they support—they rise and fall, too. The downfall of the Roman Empire brought an end not just to Roman rule but to Roman government and law and to an entire economic system stretching from Northern Europe to North Africa. Culture, the arts, even progress in science and technology, were set back for centuries.

Many of us take for granted how the world looks today. But it might look a lot different without America at the top. The Brookings Institution's Robert Kagan talks with Washington bureau chief Jerry Seib about his new book, "The World America Made," and whether a U.S. decline is inevitable.

Modern history has followed a similar pattern. After the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, British control of the seas and the balance of great powers on the European continent provided relative security and stability. Prosperity grew, personal freedoms expanded, and the world was knit more closely together by revolutions in commerce and communication.

With the outbreak of World War I, the age of settled peace and advancing liberalism—of European civilization approaching its pinnacle—collapsed into an age of hyper-nationalism, despotism and economic calamity. The once-promising spread of democracy and liberalism halted and then reversed course, leaving a handful of outnumbered and besieged democracies living nervously in the shadow of fascist and totalitarian neighbors. The collapse of the British and European orders in the 20th century did not produce a new dark age—though if Nazi Germany and imperial Japan had prevailed, it might have—but the horrific conflict that it produced was, in its own way, just as devastating.

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U.S. Navy

If the U.S. is unable to maintain its hegemony on the high seas, would other nations fill in the gaps? On board the USS Germantown in the South China Sea, Tuesday.

Would the end of the present American-dominated order have less dire consequences? A surprising number of American intellectuals, politicians and policy makers greet the prospect with equanimity. There is a general sense that the end of the era of American pre-eminence, if and when it comes, need not mean the end of the present international order, with its widespread freedom, unprecedented global prosperity (even amid the current economic crisis) and absence of war among the great powers.

American power may diminish, the political scientist G. John Ikenberry argues, but "the underlying foundations of the liberal international order will survive and thrive." The commentator Fareed Zakaria believes that even as the balance shifts against the U.S., rising powers like China "will continue to live within the framework of the current international system." And there are elements across the political spectrum—Republicans who call for retrenchment, Democrats who put their faith in international law and institutions—who don't imagine that a "post-American world" would look very different from the American world.

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U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kenneth Abbate

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis transits the Pacific Ocean.

If all of this sounds too good to be true, it is. The present world order was largely shaped by American power and reflects American interests and preferences. If the balance of power shifts in the direction of other nations, the world order will change to suit their interests and preferences. Nor can we assume that all the great powers in a post-American world would agree on the benefits of preserving the present order, or have the capacity to preserve it, even if they wanted to.

Take the issue of democracy. For several decades, the balance of power in the world has favored democratic governments. In a genuinely post-American world, the balance would shift toward the great-power autocracies. Both Beijing and Moscow already protect dictators like Syria's Bashar al-Assad. If they gain greater relative influence in the future, we will see fewer democratic transitions and more autocrats hanging on to power. The balance in a new, multipolar world might be more favorable to democracy if some of the rising democracies—Brazil, India, Turkey, South Africa—picked up the slack from a declining U.S. Yet not all of them have the desire or the capacity to do it.

What about the economic order of free markets and free trade? People assume that China and other rising powers that have benefited so much from the present system would have a stake in preserving it. They wouldn't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

A Romney Adviser Read by Democrats

Robert Kagan's new book, "The World America Made," is finding an eager readership in the nation's capital, among prominent members of both political parties.
Around the time of President Barack Obama's Jan. 24 State of the Union Address, Washington was abuzz with reports that the president had discussed a portion of the book with a group of news anchors.
Mr. Kagan serves on the Foreign Policy Advisory Board of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but more notably, in this election season, he is a foreign policy adviser to the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney.
The president's speech touched upon the debate over whether America is in decline, a central theme of Mr. Kagan's book. "America is back," he declared, referring to a range of recent U.S. actions on the world stage. "Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about," he continued. "America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs—and as long as I'm president, I intend to keep it that way."
Says Mr. Kagan: "No president wants to preside over American decline, and it's good to see him repudiate the idea that his policy is built on the idea that American influence must fade."

Unfortunately, they might not be able to help themselves. The creation and survival of a liberal economic order has depended, historically, on great powers that are both willing and able to support open trade and free markets, often with naval power. If a declining America is unable to maintain its long-standing hegemony on the high seas, would other nations take on the burdens and the expense of sustaining navies to fill in the gaps?

Even if they did, would this produce an open global commons—or rising tension? China and India are building bigger navies, but the result so far has been greater competition, not greater security. As Mohan Malik has noted in this newspaper, their "maritime rivalry could spill into the open in a decade or two," when India deploys an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean and China deploys one in the Indian Ocean. The move from American-dominated oceans to collective policing by several great powers could be a recipe for competition and conflict rather than for a liberal economic order.

And do the Chinese really value an open economic system? The Chinese economy soon may become the largest in the world, but it will be far from the richest. Its size is a product of the country's enormous population, but in per capita terms, China remains relatively poor. The U.S., Germany and Japan have a per capita GDP of over $40,000. China's is a little over $4,000, putting it at the same level as Angola, Algeria and Belize. Even if optimistic forecasts are correct, China's per capita GDP by 2030 would still only be half that of the U.S., putting it roughly where Slovenia and Greece are today.

Getty Images/The Bridgeman Art Library

Multipolar systems have historically been neither particularly stable nor particularly peaceful. Nearly a halfmillion combatants died in the Crimean War (depicted in "The Taking of Malakoff" by Horace Vernet, pictured here.)

As Arvind Subramanian and other economists have pointed out, this will make for a historically unique situation. In the past, the largest and most dominant economies in the world have also been the richest. Nations whose peoples are such obvious winners in a relatively unfettered economic system have less temptation to pursue protectionist measures and have more of an incentive to keep the system open.

China's leaders, presiding over a poorer and still developing country, may prove less willing to open their economy. They have already begun closing some sectors to foreign competition and are likely to close others in the future. Even optimists like Mr. Subramanian believe that the liberal economic order will require "some insurance" against a scenario in which "China exercises its dominance by either reversing its previous policies or failing to open areas of the economy that are now highly protected." American economic dominance has been welcomed by much of the world because, like the mobster Hyman Roth in "The Godfather," the U.S. has always made money for its partners. Chinese economic dominance may get a different reception.

Another problem is that China's form of capitalism is heavily dominated by the state, with the ultimate goal of preserving the rule of the Communist Party. Unlike the eras of British and American pre-eminence, when the leading economic powers were dominated largely by private individuals or companies, China's system is more like the mercantilist arrangements of previous centuries. The government amasses wealth in order to secure its continued rule and to pay for armies and navies to compete with other great powers.

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Granger Collection

Increasing tension and competition saw its climax in World War I (U.S. troops in France, 1918, pictured here).

Although the Chinese have been beneficiaries of an open international economic order, they could end up undermining it simply because, as an autocratic society, their priority is to preserve the state's control of wealth and the power that it brings. They might kill the goose that lays the golden eggs because they can't figure out how to keep both it and themselves alive.

Finally, what about the long peace that has held among the great powers for the better part of six decades? Would it survive in a post-American world?

Most commentators who welcome this scenario imagine that American predominance would be replaced by some kind of multipolar harmony. But multipolar systems have historically been neither particularly stable nor particularly peaceful. Rough parity among powerful nations is a source of uncertainty that leads to miscalculation. Conflicts erupt as a result of fluctuations in the delicate power equation.

War among the great powers was a common, if not constant, occurrence in the long periods of multipolarity from the 16th to the 18th centuries, culminating in the series of enormously destructive Europe-wide wars that followed the French Revolution and ended with Napoleon's defeat in 1815.

The 19th century was notable for two stretches of great-power peace of roughly four decades each, punctuated by major conflicts. The Crimean War (1853-1856) was a mini-world war involving well over a million Russian, French, British and Turkish troops, as well as forces from nine other nations; it produced almost a half-million dead combatants and many more wounded. In the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the two nations together fielded close to two million troops, of whom nearly a half-million were killed or wounded.

The peace that followed these conflicts was characterized by increasing tension and competition, numerous war scares and massive increases in armaments on both land and sea. Its climax was World War I, the most destructive and deadly conflict that mankind had known up to that point. As the political scientist Robert W. Tucker has observed, "Such stability and moderation as the balance brought rested ultimately on the threat or use of force. War remained the essential means for maintaining the balance of power."

There is little reason to believe that a return to multipolarity in the 21st century would bring greater peace and stability than it has in the past. The era of American predominance has shown that there is no better recipe for great-power peace than certainty about who holds the upper hand.

President Bill Clinton left office believing that the key task for America was to "create the world we would like to live in when we are no longer the world's only superpower," to prepare for "a time when we would have to share the stage." It is an eminently sensible-sounding proposal. But can it be done? For particularly in matters of security, the rules and institutions of international order rarely survive the decline of the nations that erected them. They are like scaffolding around a building: They don't hold the building up; the building holds them up.

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US Great Seal/Illustration by The Wall Street Journal

International orderis not an evolution; it is an imposition. It will last only as long as those who favor it retain the will and capacity to defend it.

Many foreign-policy experts see the present international order as the inevitable result of human progress, a combination of advancing science and technology, an increasingly global economy, strengthening international institutions, evolving "norms" of international behavior and the gradual but inevitable triumph of liberal democracy over other forms of government—forces of change that transcend the actions of men and nations.

Americans certainly like to believe that our preferred order survives because it is right and just—not only for us but for everyone. We assume that the triumph of democracy is the triumph of a better idea, and the victory of market capitalism is the victory of a better system, and that both are irreversible. That is why Francis Fukuyama's thesis about "the end of history" was so attractive at the end of the Cold War and retains its appeal even now, after it has been discredited by events. The idea of inevitable evolution means that there is no requirement to impose a decent order. It will merely happen.

But international order is not an evolution; it is an imposition. It is the domination of one vision over others—in America's case, the domination of free-market and democratic principles, together with an international system that supports them. The present order will last only as long as those who favor it and benefit from it retain the will and capacity to defend it.

There was nothing inevitable about the world that was created after World War II. No divine providence or unfolding Hegelian dialectic required the triumph of democracy and capitalism, and there is no guarantee that their success will outlast the powerful nations that have fought for them. Democratic progress and liberal economics have been and can be reversed and undone. The ancient democracies of Greece and the republics of Rome and Venice all fell to more powerful forces or through their own failings. The evolving liberal economic order of Europe collapsed in the 1920s and 1930s. The better idea doesn't have to win just because it is a better idea. It requires great powers to champion it.

If and when American power declines, the institutions and norms that American power has supported will decline, too. Or more likely, if history is a guide, they may collapse altogether as we make a transition to another kind of world order, or to disorder. We may discover then that the U.S. was essential to keeping the present world order together and that the alternative to American power was not peace and harmony but chaos and catastrophe—which is what the world looked like right before the American order came into being.