Global Voices Online

The kenyan blogosphere has grown by leaps and bounds, it is very vibrant and thus this roundup is just but a glimpse of what is going on. An aggregator similar to BlogAfrica was launched to make tracking the kenyan sphere easier, and you can check it out here.
This roundup will focus on posts that in one way or another highlight ideas or thoughts not covered/highlighted in the mainstream Kenyan Press. That will be the theme for today, and thus the short post. At the end of this post is a link to the clippings of other posts that might be of interest.

Deno points to an article that is blatantly pro-Kibaki, the current embattled president of Kenya who has had to deal with scandal after scandal and declining credibility especially in the fight against corruption. He wonders whether the journalist Kwanchetsi Makokha was paid to write the piece, stating

I think we need a new means to hold each author accountable for each article they publish..good or bad…

Whispering Inn rails against the complacency of Kenyans in the face of gross misuse of power by the likes of John Michuki (The govt official who ordered the raid on the standard newspaper), saying

The Gikuyu have a saying.
“Ngoma iturikagio ni guthinjirwo”
If you excuse reprehensible behaviour, you embolden the perpetrators.

Gikuyu is one of the tribes in Kenya.

You missed this ponders …Kenyan Politics since independence noting

With the general elections looming it is clear that for the first time candidates will be facing some very angry and skeptical voters who already feel that they were cheated in 2002. This sets the stage for voters to vote in a totally new generation of politicians. Already there is talk doing the rounds in Nairobi that this time voters should make a point of not voting for anybody who has been in parliament before. Bold move indeed, and a golden opportunity for the generation born around the time of independence and immediately after to move their influence from just the corporate world into mainstream politics.

Ziwani wonders about Kenya's lack of disaster preparedness, urging kenyans to volunteer at their local emergency service or form their own emergency response team.

Recently i read a book by the usual disillusioned foreign correspondents that claimed “Nairobi is the East African centre of Everything and the centre of Nothing at the same time”.
Having now visited many western capitals it is hard to defend this point .
One thing close to my heart and of major concern that needs urgent attention is the lack of emergency response services of not only Kisumu but all Kenyan cities. Kisumu as an example boasts only 1 run down fire station with one engine for its entire half a million inhabitants.The glaring inadequecies of our emergency response is exhibited for all and sundry everytime their is a minor or major disaster to deal with. The recent disaster that killed kenyans after the collapse of the building is one example.

Kenyan Pundit says its about time Kenyan courts had stenographic services.

Kenyan Villager writes about the challenge of getting online in Nyahururu, a town in Kenya, and the unhelpful attitudes of the staff at the cybercafes.

Kikuyu Moja suggests that “someone should run a list of GoK websites that work and of those that are “temporarily” offline or “under construction”, and points to a case where he found the information he was seeking and in other cases where the sites are purpotedly “under construction”

White African writes about ‘Mobile Technology Success in Africa'

Jikomboe, GV's swahili's bridge blogger points to the blog of the President of Benin, which is written in french and you can have a look here.

Miscellenious - These posts did not fit neatly into a category.
Unganisha shares a beatiful picture of the rift valley and a great story too.

Curious writes on The case for adaptive economics in an evolving world.

Ziwani points out an interesting aspect of Kenyan life, the assigning of Aliases or AKA's to everything to places and people too.

A new blog called Kenyan Soccer is “All about Kenyan soccer: this site is meant to culture the Kenyan soccer passion; to fill our stadiums; to love our game”

RSS Feed Link to Clippings, turns out the post wasnt as short as i thought it would be…

The Kenyan blogosphere will be recognizing its bloggers in the first Kenyan blog Awards. Click on the button below for more detail.