An interesting article from Slate:

From 1977 to the present, have you had sexual contact with another male, even once? You’ll have to answer that question, word for word, on a donor form if you want to give blood in this country. The form, authorized by the Food and Drug Administration and reaffirmed 10 days ago by an FDA advisory panel, offers three possible answers: “yes,” “no,” or “I am female.” If you check “yes,” you’re done. You’re forbidden to donate blood.

Why? Because, as the FDA explains, men who have had sex with men—known in the blood world as MSM—”are, as a group, at increased risk for HIV, hepatitis B and certain other infections.” To protect blood recipients from this risk, your blood must be excluded.

Maybe you fooled around with a guy 30 years ago and have spent the rest of your life as a celibate priest. Maybe you’ve been in a faithful same-sex marriage for 40 years. Maybe you’ve passed an HIV test. It doesn’t matter. You can’t give blood, because you’re in the wrong “group.” On the other hand, if you’re in the right group—heterosexuals—you can give blood despite dangerous behavior. If you had sex with a prostitute, an IV drug user, and an HIV-positive opposite-sex partner 13 months ago, you’re good to go.

Read more

According to today’s statement by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition:

A meeting convened by COPAC yesterday at Parliament ended without substantive agreements on key issues such as coming up with a concrete schedule of activities. The meeting was characterised by a lot of disagreements which resulted in many of those who attended walking out of the meeting. After the meeting, the select committee was scheduled to hold a press conference but due to disagreements among the delegates, the press conference was cancelled.

According to a COPAC official, the disagreements stem from the accreditation of teams and transport arrangements which the select committee is failing to solve amicably. This in turn has pushed further the deployment of outreach teams to Monday 21 June, with the public consultation phase commencing on Wednesday 23 June according to a reliable source.

Patricia McFadden might reckon Zimbabwe’s Constitution making process is less about the substance of the document it delivers, and more about its potential as an opportunity to heal the fractures of our past. But it can be neither substantively or symbolically useful if it isn’t treated seriously, and doesn’t get organised and underway.

I’ve just stumbled across Memory Chirere’s blog.

Highlights include an interview with Brian Chikwava, Reflections on Zimbabwe turning 30, and an obituary for Ruzvidzo Stanely Mupfudza, which features this paragraph:

A week before your death, I bumped into Ignatius Mabasa at an Avondale ice cream shop and he said he had seen you! He said you had talked. And as the kids ran around, licking their ice cream and bantering amongst themselves, Ignatius said you said that you felt that most of what you had written in the past was rather bleak and you were reworking some of your unpublished stories and poems (and novels too) because you now realized that, after all, life was a positive thing. We were impressed and were almost certain that one full volume of your work would eventually come out.

I’ve just been reading Upenyu’s recent interview with Patricia McFadden, and these two parts really stood out for me:

Zimbabwe really needs a constitution, not because it’s going to give the poor rights, but because it’s like a salve, the healing balm after the fractures. It’s a site where people can come together and collectively imagine themselves as one people. To have common identity, we need that so much in Africa.

But constitutions are deceptive because they appear as though they are giving people rights, but there are no instruments that can endow you with a right. You have to struggle for a right as a collective. You have to conceptualise it, you have to imagine it you have to engage with those who control the sites where your rights are located and then you can create the possibility for that right to be not only located in the state and then the state can protect it, but you’ll also have to have access to it.

You can read and listen to the whole interview here

For fear of being massacred I would wish that this blog did not have my name but for the hope of starting a ka anti soccer society I will gladly like this blog to bear my name. I hate soccer, why on earth would grown men run around chasing a ball. Of all the things to run after a ball it’s hideous. Thank God this world cup frenzy comes once after four years. Don’t get me wrong I am glad it’s happening only next door and I have watched a match or two. That’s just the problem – I have been forced to watch these matches coz the people I live with watch the live match then the retake and the analysis never stops. What I hate the most is that everyone has got something to say; everyone thinks their point makes sense more than other people talking at the same time. OK back to the so-called sport to those that are anti soccer we could start a society. And if you are not convinced why you should join the society here are ten good reasons:

1. Soccer encourages child labor. What are all those children doing on the pitch before the match? Are they are going to be paid for standing there with those soccer players?
2. You have to keep on cheering even if your team is losing. You can’t just leave the match after paying an arm and a leg to be there.
3. What’s with soccer players thinking that soccer is the only worthwhile sport? I guess it takes skill and class to understand another sport
4. They pay the announcers to say, “Oh he runs after the ball and now he throws it.”Yes he kicks it away. I don’t get that
5. I really would like to agree with the people that say we must ban the vuvuzelaz. What’s the point of watching the game when you are almost deaf?
6. You can head the ball but you can’t use your hands?
7. The throw in all of a sudden and you can use your hands. They should make up their minds.
8. The players run for 90 minutes only to lose. Save my energy for the better!
9. The referees: so much power given to one man gives me the creeps.
10. Why is it when a player scores he runs off to celebrate on his own. Most of the time his other team members have to run after him but he keeps running away.

A week before the FIFA hoopla in South Africa began Minister of Energy Elias Mudzuri made the following announcement:

“I have directed ZESA to suspend disconnections to allow the public to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Zimbabweans have had to endure persistent power cuts for as much as 10 hours per day in some case while ZESA battles to meet demand.”

Essentially ZESA would suspend its regular programme of load shedding so that football fans would not miss the World Cup.

While I’m not a soccer fan I was happy, actually jubilant, that we would have a few more hours a day of electricity. I even considered that I might be able to take a proper hot bath, with more than a bucket of water and perhaps even some bubbles. I admit I may have misinterpreted the Ministers remarks. I thought that it would follow that those customers who had been loyal, i.e. had been paying their bills, to the power utility, would also be rewarded.

As with most promises made by politicians, this one failed and even went backwards. I have been disappointed by Ministers before. In fact I’m still recovering from the promises made to me by another Minister regarding the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe issuing radio and television licences.

In the case of ZESA, and the electricity delivered to my house, the disappointment is particularly bitter. Our loyalty as ZESA customers feels like its being violated. We paid our bills regularly, even in the confusion that followed dollarisation, the few US dollars that we had went first towards the ZESA bill, even when the meter wasn’t being read. When we had faults, we drove the ZESA people around. Under the circumstances, I think we as customers have done more than our fair share of maintaining a cordial relationship with our power utility.

Yet following the Minister’s announcement, it seems that now that we have even fewer hours if any power per day. There has been no explanation of this in the paper, and instead ZESA sees fit to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on an advertising campaign, which most notably features half a page of solid black ink. Moreover, the Minister’s statement undermines the entire purpose of the advertising campaign, and indeed ZESAs recovery. It’s simple, if you didn’t pay for the service, you shouldn’t get it. The World Cup is no exception.