Tom Soper gives some pause for thought. He writes about the “hooks” he uses to connect with the good that life dishes up. Get hooked here.

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Just thinking about Marko’s blog on the national census, have you noticed the large, full colour adverts about the census in our newspapers? The latest advert suggests that if you cooperate with the census process your participation will help ensure the provision of water … something that we haven’t had a consistent supply of for the last several years. You’ve really just got to wonder at the lengths the Zimbabwe government will go to with their propaganda on the one hand, and their heads up their arses on the other. I mean, let’s face it, the mismanagement of the economy and a politics based in patronage and self enrichment have been central to the erosion of the standard of living of the average citizen in this country. A national census isn’t going to remedy this. Kicking out all the useless politicians will.

I wasn’t shocked when I read the findings of a recent report in the UK on parenting which revealed that most fathers and mothers lie about their baby’s sleeping habits. One in every three parents of the more than 11,000 parents interviewed on Netmums lies about their child’s sleeping habits to show they are perfect parents. The reason being there is so much pressure faced by mothers and fathers to show that they are good parents.

Luckily I don’t belong to this one third, my numero uno (my number one), which is what I call my son, who is 7 months, picked up his sleeping routine naturally. I tried to work on a routine when he was a month old and after three nights of trying I gave up. Now he is able to put himself to sleep and can sleep ‘well’ at night. When I say well I mean he doesn’t cry, in fact I don’t give him the chance to cry when he is hungry. I’m very alert so I can hear him toss and turn and before he knows it, milk is delivered. He sleeps for his 10+ hours, which means if he goes to bed at 7pm I expect to be woken up by him playing and humming at about 5am.

I have been one very lucky mother. But still at times I find myself under pressure to compare him with other babies. Being a first time mum I read a lot of baby magazines. You know how professional editors are, when they write that a baby at such a certain month should be able to do this, they quickly write at the end ‘Note that babies are different and their development will differ too”.

Having been hit by this true line in magazines I resorted to looking around for babies at church or in a kombi or in the supermarket and comparing them with my numero uno. At times especially at church I would ask how old the baby was and I would weigh the baby in my hands and do a silent eye-to-hand-heart comparison. This was becoming more of a bad habit for me and I had to face the reality that not all babies are the same. I quickly knocked some of level of sense in my head that, yes I can compare my numero uno, with Betty’s sunshine but these two are different and yes I should take heed of the editors note and live by it.

I have learnt that there is more I can gain from engaging in a conversation with the mother at church sitting next to me than calculating the baby’s weight. There is more to benefit from having coffee with Betty and have our angels play together. And definitely my numero uno will benefit a lot if I take him out of those walls he is used to seeing everyday.

You just have to ask yourself if any national project will ever escape the opprobrium of political interference. Now we read that the the feared spooks are taking over the Zimbabwe national census as Zanu PF proxies. Small wonder then some people have no problem giving false information to enumerators or simply telling off the enumerators like they would do to ZBC license inspectors. All this because members of the public think the CIO feeds this into data some database to monitor their political activities! People believe these things, and it is thanks to reports that the not-so-secret agents are doing the bidding of Zanu PF in the counting project for nefarious purposes. And who will be surprised if the census findings are disputed as we have seen in the past?

The battle to control the Internet rages on as some countries push to have Internet governance fall under the United Nations (UN). Countries like Russia, China and India are at the forefront to have the UN granted the mandate to run the Internet. The United States of America is currently enjoying the dominance in running the Internet space through bodies like ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) which co-ordinates codes and numbering systems and deciding on new Internet addresses. The US feels the current Internet regulations are working effectively and any proposals for change will create  “greater regulatory burdens on the international telecom sector”.