Sales and Marketing

I have friends whose career it is to get people to buy things, entice people into liking something, or make something look its best. I respect and love these people. I don't their trades, though.

I've never been one to tell people about something they didn't ask for unless it comes up as directly relate-able to the conversation, and I'm certainly not going to weave a conversation just so we can talk about something (as a recent employer had goaded us again and again to do). I really dislike that.

Yes, life is easier without having to barter. This obsession that especially this country has with amassing material wealth is insane, though. It's not this country though. You have Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe that have these witch doctors who entice people to believe other human beings' body parts will get them the wealth they seek.

They've conned people into believing bald men's heads have a trove of gold within them. And people are killing for that "gold".

People think that because I want to hear people's stories that I want to use that information to sell them something because I "know them". No! I want to know people's stories because they're unique and because it's the story itself that's valuable.

I can't buy a meal or pay rent with those stories, though there probably are illicit or illegal markets for certain stories, but they're valuable to me.

I just wish people did things because it's nice rather than because you might make money off it.

Rape/Sexual Violence/Stuff I Don't Get

I'm a fan of The Handmaid's Tale series on Hulu, and had been anticipating it since practically they'd put it up that they'd be broadcasting it. They go into a lot of heavy things, including rape.

So, this on top of, especially via the BBC World Service Africa Today podcast, hearing about "corrective rape" and just a casual rape culture in especially Africa, I've tried to fathom why these especially men (or "men", since what true man actually does that?!) feel they need to do this.

It would require a lot of reading into probably a bunch of stories that would probably make me cry and hate humans more, but I'd been mulling over some possible underlying "provokers" to "induce" a "rape culture".

That's a lot of scare quotes.

I think those cultures that really, really make masturbation taboo make a powder keg. This itself may not be a reason, because I think they might combine that with sex having to mean something (so, if they rape someone, they can get their sexual urges out of the way doing it the "proper way", but not having to care about the person; it's not legitimate sex of you don't view the "thing" with what you're copulating as anything, right? 😤).

Then they're doing it in groups, which makes them no better than their primate cousins (and even cetaceans too, I think I've read) that have their own rape gangs. And they, conceivably, don't realize consciously and thoughtfully what they're doing, either.

Then, bringing it back to the phrase "corrective rape" I'd used earlier, some people use sex like a weapon, that they use something God has given us and made it into something to shut someone up violently, or using it to meld someone to one's will (like God didn't give us free will and choice).

I'm kind of scared to research this.

Goodluck Jonathan, Style Magnate

It wasn't until this Nigerian schoolgirl/#BringBackOurGirls crisis that I'd ever really seen press footage of Goodluck Jonathan, the often-criticized Nigerian president who'd won somewhat substantially in a re-election campaign a few years ago.

I subscribe to the BBC's Africa Today podcast, and so have heard about him and heard his voice somewhat frequently, but I'd never taken the time to look up what he looks like. Partly it's because the majority of African leaders haven't fit my viewing æsthetic historically, but it's just never come up.

So, one day I'm watching the news and I see this fedora-ed dude walking alongside François Hollande and I think, "Does he dress like this all the time???".

The answer, it seems, is yes. Is the majority of Google Image search results I'd called up (including the one above), he is wearing about that same hat. There are a few with him not wearing it as well, and he actually looks better without it.

My question is, then, why? Why does he wear it? Is he like his predecessors and comrades-at-arms in other African nations who've done things because they think they look good even though they fall — often quietly, sometimes publicly — in the ridicule of their people for these faux pas of fashion?

Perhaps this is worth some research. It may even be in his Wikipedia entry…

… after looking up …

Alas, no dice. But his wife's name is Patience. How interesting.