Is it still okay to "say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud"?

I just don't get how pathetically sedated some people are!!

Europeans have voted right, right? Iranians have had their votes high-jacked, or have they? There really is a global economic financial crisis? Well, despite all this, I am more interesting in casting my vote "my way" of this tone of "arrogance".

Growing up in southern Africa I thought we grew up loving pets. But then I came to live in the western world and saw a new dimension of what it means to love a pet....

I have counseled heads of state and governments, dined with royalty, and sat at the feet of wise men and women in far corners of the world. Life has afforded me abundant blessings of opportunity and fortune and character-building challenges. And I have also benefited from the selfless insights of someone who clearly knows what it takes to excel in the realm of leadership. It is not often that I passionately recommend books because it is not often that I come across an absolute "must read". However, Ms. Benton has raised the bar yet again in "CEO Material". Do share a listen. And then do visit http://www.debrabenton.com for more priceless insights.

A powerful way for building and re-energising your personal and professional relationships. And so from now on, I will treat you as if you were a stranger.

Are you out of your mind? Do you feel overwhelmed by events around you, by the inconveniently (unless you are a corporate employer) shrinking labour market, by the threatening income insecurity prognosis that crowd the infowaves? Do you realise how little it takes to recharge your energy levels? Are you... out of your mind?

They are at it again, killing as if they haven't learned that killing - let alone doing so indiscriminately - can never be the seed that bears the fruit of peace. And the world hides again behind the sanitizing veil of geopolitical correctness.

How many must die?

There is no crisis. Well, there is and there isn't. Nevertheless, it is fascinating how most prefer to be panicked into creating a financial crisis. You too?

In these moments where some choose to not see the economic opportunities that are emerging, the legend of the lotus gains an even added relevance for your life.

http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=553677 - worth a shared visit?

The power of passion, empoweringly hyped hope, a world inspired by Americans' foresight, levelling the playing field without moving the goalposts. What are the "real" challenges facing the globally embraced "Brand Obama"?

There are fundamental global values that help to distinguish between relevantly experienced and competent leadership aspirants. Whether your perspective is global or local, regardless if yours is Asiatic, African, Latino, or European, these seven shared fundamental global leadership values apply with uncompromising relevance in equal measure.

Don't fuss about my cussing here because this time I don't give a damn - if anyone is more offended by my colourful choice of words than by the subject matter here, then I really don't give a hoot about their opinion. Here's what I mean...!

What are the secret nonsecrets to projecting 'all-day-long perkiness'?

Introduction to a deeper awareness, a clearer consciousness for your power and prosperity.

It’s not quite Valentine’s yet, so we’ll ease into the theme ... gently, shall we.

The Way I See It, to make love memorable, to ignite flamable passion in those who matter to you and for you, I am excited to share this podcast with you because I am consciously aware of the transformational impact it shall have - on your life – whatever your current life constellation is.

Grow and Glow
Imposition
Knowledge of the Day
Imposed Limitations
Power and Wealth
Cynical Minds and Skeptical Souls
Listen, Hear.

Your origins do not determine your legacy: it is your destinations and how you reach them that do.

Some of you will wonder what shade of tactlessness would ask such a private question? But then you would be missing the point, completely. And so, "who DO you sleep with?" Coworkers? Politicians? Neighbours? Ex's?

A conversation you probably will not love to have, one you will probably regret to avoid.

This discussion could be mischaracterized as a 'toast to arrogance'. Rather, it provides simple strategies to help decipher the razor-thin line between empowered self-confidence and self-defeating arrogance.

There are more chronically poor people in Western Europe and North America than there is in S.E. Asia, Africa, Middle East, or Central and South America.

A financial system designed by politicians, dominated by their benefactors, raining the corrosive debris of its inevitable implosion on ordinary citizens.

The solution: let the same politicians and their over-compensated benefactors fix it? Their way?

Really?

This time, this podcast is about you.

It is not only politicians who take themselves way too seriously. Personal relationships, social status, racial orientation, gender perspectives, national pride, international relations, and corporate identity can be too often like concrete.

This discussion shares an enlightening perspective for your reflection and discussion.

There is a good reason why Obama's attempts at oratory inspiration are ridiculed. Look back, look around, look within.

This discussion shares a powerful African parable for overcoming blind social compliance orientations.

Do yourself and us all a favour: do quit just one thing! Quit quitting!

(How) Is it possible?

Do you know who it is? Do you know why?

How often is too often to allow oneself to be abused, to be taken advantage of and left with nothing but the scars...?

Mugabe - tyrant, coward. African leaders and the West seemingly impotent in stopping Mugabe from terrorising his own people and ruining his country's economy.

Have you ever wondered why this is so?

This podcast discusses how to overcome the tendency for selectivizing your self-awareness. After all, it is all about your greatness - do live it!

Yes, I know it is still early days. The question still pertains though: Could Barack Obama be the new Madiba Nelson Mandela?

(pic by Joe Crimmings Photography)

I do hope that this podcast is not about you. But if it is, what are you going to do about it?

It's not what most think it is - or is it?

Visit zaniphilosophy at thokobanda.com or the "Seven Wisdoms" storefront for more (lulu.com/wisdomworld)

Educated, culturally open-minded, spiritually grounded, rational, gifted, intelligent, neighbourly and worldly.

Really?

When it comes to the Holy Lands of the Middle East, don’t you just wish there were more peanut farmers in this world? The peanut farmer from Georgia is showing them how it is done!
(text available at http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=4210&uid=9279212210)

It is not permitted to call one who tells untruths "a liar", in the blood sport that is 'democratic politics'.

It's easter all over again, another chance for the easter refrain all over again.
"Enjoy".
[for a text version, do visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zani/9279212210 and invite yours to share a read and listen]

Is it that people like to tell lies? Or rather, that people prefer to hear convenient untruths and thereby encourage the telling of lies?

There is an economic slowdown at hand - we all know that.

Yes, I know that they don't teach this model of economic understanding at 'varsity, but, hey, what they do teach clearly doesn't work.

For a textual version of this podcast, visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zani/9279212210?ref=s.

Speak word to truth freely - just don't say it in public. The preference is to keep the social realities hidden, to fester, un-aired in the healing filter of mature public discussion.

In the name of political correctness, in the name of tolerance and respect of one another, there is a growing list of things one cannot, dare not, must not say in public.

America - the joke is on you !

British Prince Harry's majestic self-professed highlight in his life opens the door for a more than timely discussion on chilling killing highlights. Do join the discussion.

When the silence begins to quieten.

She wants the world to know, wishes for 'you' to feel, make the abstract be more real, and for her people - change, rearrange.

Who loves America more? Who loves America the most?
Who should invoke the Hill-Bill McCain refrain?

What you fear out of ignorance will destroy what you love in greed.

They say most minds are like concrete, all mixed up and permanently set. But minds function best when, like the universe, they are open.

This podcast is about the conversation that should not be, or should (as shared at the 12th Karlsruhe Gespräche (visit http://www.zak.uni-karlsruhe.de/ for more on these discussion series).

These are the "Seven Clarities Of Love".

Shared, with love.

Have you heard "Scrambled" before? Well, if not, here it is. I'll resist the temptation to be side-tracked by McCain's shuffle to the right and the scramble for more power that's the focus of the lady on the left. As it is Valentine's week, I choose to remain... SCRAMBLED

Oh bummer!!! I'm going to leave Hillary to deal with her Obamaranged weekend. It's Valentine's week and, do lets fall in love all over again.

You're afraid to be wanted
Aren't you?
You are scared to feel wanted
Important
To someone else
To feel special
Desired...

featuring photo's of Si, by Si.

It isn't too late, almost. Yes, they are killing Kenya, foreclosing America, dancing around Darfur, melting the ice caps.

But they remain your servants, the public's servants. Tell them what they 'must' do.

In traditional robes, white, Ghandi, Stomach empty, challenged humanity, enriched society.
Feet planted, Rosa Parks, refused to be set back, sent slavery packing, to history's past, dark.
With resonant themes, Martin Luther King had a dream, let freedom ring worldwide against racist lies.
With strength of character, while young, then older, Nelson Mandela's charisma persevered.
The champ Ali didn't stand by quietly as families in a war so ugly were bombed, napalmed, indiscriminately.
Though herself so young, an outsider, she cradled the orphaned, the feeble. With her royal touch the humble Princess, to the limbless, she gave so much, before her own saddening demise...

I am sure some of you will be offended by this particular podcast, and some of you will feel guilty at participating in it. Others will even get angry. But I promise to not let any of that get in our way.

I know that there are some topics that are better left untouched, not because they are not worthy of discussion, but because of the vogue convenience of avoiding or glossing over them.

Hungry, anyone?

As requested, here is a more concentrated analysis of the 'real' distinguishing factors between the Super Tuesday contenders. Is the choice really about conservative versus liberal, female versus male, or white versus black? Or are they about the past versus the future, about cold war mentality versus new world leadership? What are the real challenges that await?

This discussion encourages a more empowered citizenship.

It's never easy to share political advice - but it is necessary.

So here goes.

Can we avoid being Duped on Super Tuesday?

Some wanna-be leaders will tell you to not dream, to trust them instead.
Some wanna-be leaders will tell you to not hope, to fear instead, and so to count on them nevertheless.
Some wanna-be leaders will try to convince you to not believe in change.
Maybe it is because they themselves cannot ... change.

The way I see it, the way I am certain you see it, Yes We Can Change.

In this season of air-brushed images and populist political slurs, there still are some in our communities whose wisdom is grounded, worth our concerted efforts to seek them out so we find it - wisdom. We walk past them on the sidewalks in the city, we look down upon them in our perverted sense of superiority. They see all (without electronic intrusions) just as they are grounded in the finer art of meaningful selflessness, yet we, in many of us, in our rush to judgement, in our digitalized impatience fail to pause for their "wisdom's touch".

This discussion begins with the chance encounter with one of the wisest persons in the world - the Sax Philosopher
(excerpted from "Seven Wisdoms: the legend of the lotus")

Wisdom said to politician: you don't own me.
Wisdom chastised scientist: you disown me.
Wisdom told journalist: you don't create me.
Wisdom whispered to citizen: look within yourself if you need me.

Wisdom is of nature.
She is universal.
She is simple.
She is timeless.
Often, she reveals herself most unassumingly, at a timing and in a medium of her own choosing, to those who are open to her counsel.

Wisdom is the vocabulary of the Almighty
Of the forces that shaped the earth and all that are in it.
Wisdom is of nature.
Nature is of God.
We are all created of nature.

Can there ever be peace via war?

With all this talk about ending the war in Iraq and "bringing the troops home", do you or I or they know "how to" proactively end a war?

Do join this storyteller's discussion.

In the old spiritual refrain, can we get a place where we "study war no more"?

If minds could feel
And hearts could think
What a wiser world
We would live in.

Where the stream
of Common Sense
Ends
Begins
The river
Reservoir
Of Uncommon Wisdom

While Common Sense
Like Intellect
Is merely learnt
Uncommon Wisdom
Like no other
Is more profoundly yearned.

(extracts from "The Storyteller: an amazing poetic journey of hope and happiness" and "Seven Wisdoms: the legend of the lotus" (http://www.lulu.com/wisdomworld)

This podcast is dedicated to the Tsunami Survivors.

Soul to soul, do you see, what she sees? Do you feel, what she feels?

"She sees
As
They hold
Onto each other
Tight"
excerpt from "Ms. Forever".

Photo/Artwork by Melody Koert © (http://www.artattacktogo.com)

More American get their news from comedians than from mainstream news sources. And so, in their savvy, politicians have chosen to become comedians themselves. One of the popular themes this campaign season, is the comical proposal (a racially off-color one at that) to build a wall between the USA and Mexico. With respect, this opens the door for an epidemic of "political leadership populism".

This discussion attempts to encourage a re-look at the thinking behind this comical, politically expedient and ill-advised policy direction.

[See also the podcast "Borders" posted below on 17 January 2008]

We have all been rudely reminded, again, that even those who are held up as social icons of wisdom, of peace, of leadership, of stature and statesmanship, even they need reminding of the ingredients of genuine wisdom. From the fear-of-failure induced outbursts of Bill and Hillary Clinton to the fatal power-grab tussle between Kibaki and Odinga in Kenya, the world is full of examples of people-who-should-know-better forgetting (or not having meaningfully ingrained) the basic wisdoms that can best assure a truly better world environment.

This discussion overviews the messages in "SEVEN WISDOMS" of nature, a harnessing of universally relevant wisdoms, wisdoms for greatness, wisdoms for success, wisdoms for love, wisdoms for life.

This discussion will serve as a useful prelude to upcoming podcasts on events in the news around the world, including what some might consider to be "politically incorrect" perspectives and reflections on issues such as immigration, financial systems, electoral truths and lies, opinion makers, war and peace, and much more.

Do join the discussion.

You are invited to more on "Seven Wisdoms" at http://www.lulu.com/wisdomworld.

This brief discussion is not about me. It is not about you. It is not at all personal.

Or, respectfully, is it

Brief tongue-in-cheek reflection on the imaging we prefer to ... well ... see and what we choose not to see all too often until its too late. This applies with frustrating consequences in personal friendships, expensive consequences in our public life, and devastating consequences when it comes to choosing political leaders.

See the realities concealed...

This conversation is about a very special group of people. They are a group of people who have shown a unique commitment to their cause, people who show up consistently, never missing an opportunity to demonstrate their masterful art.

Making 2008 a memorable year is a lot simpler than most think. Where to start - or restart - on the right note, and how?

Borders: what kinds of people build borders - borders of the mind, borders of the soul, borders of land and possession. Borders - build them, if you must, in wise-sight rather than from complexes of inferiority.

The question remains, when will Americans awaken America to a more positively global relevance, one that has been handicapped by fear-mongered geopolitics, one that has thus far been undermined by misplaced delusions of grandeur relative to other regions and nations?