http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360?tag=mantle_skin%3Bcontent

It is at moments like this that I sympathise with the demonization of monopoly. What apple is implying by this declaration is akin to the flour manufacturer telling you that because they manufactured the flour, the cake you’ve baked belongs to them. If you find such reasoning preposterous, then that expresses what you think of Apple’s audacious declaration.

“A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.”

Saw the above on the profile of a male friend recently, and i must say that never was a truer observation made.

And so it begins…

Hardly was the announcement of Kate Middleton’s engagement to Prince William out when the nit picking began.  First it was a report about Ms Middleton’s style of dressing – how much skin she could or could not show without appearing common. Then came the comparisons between her and her would-have-been mother-in-law, Princess Diana; followed by professed shock at the amount said to be set aside for the young couple’s wedding in April (40 million dollars, alleged a source).

And now the latest clamour is about her weight: how skinny, or not skinny, she ought to be.

Every bride wants to look her very best on her wedding day: Kate Middleton is, or should be, no different. But to hear, or read, the brouhaha going on in the British media at the moment, one would think that just because she is marrying a prince Ms Middleton should stifle that which makes her human like the rest of us by not exhibiting this most common of bridal’s fretting.

One can’t help but wonder what Princess Diana would have thought of all these.

As a tribute to their love for her, it is alleged that the British public left between 10,000-15,000 tons of flowers at St. James Palace, Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace, after her death in a car crash on August 31 1997, in Paris. The flowers, along with thousands of poems, letters and children drawings were their way of expressing their love, and sorrow over the death of their beloved princess.

Ten years later, on August 31 2007, the 10^th anniversary of her death, the British public still mourned their “Princess of Hearts” – as Diana was often fondly called – as more flowers were laid at Kensington Palace, her former residence.

These are all good initiatives to honour a woman who did a lot to alleviate the sufferings of the less privileged, especially that of children – she was one of the few public figures who openly touched and hug AIDS victims.

But one wonders what they would ask for, if the dead had a say in the kind of tributes they were offered.  What kind of tribute would Diana, the “People’s Princess ” request from her people, if she could speak?

With the current craze to excavate and dissect even the most minute detail of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s life, that, indeed, is a question worth asking.

Those who knew her during her lifetime knew of Diana’s great love for her children, Princes William and Harry.  Even within the confines of the ultra-formal life of the British monarchy – and probably because of it – she was never at pains to hide the love she had for her children.

The say that to whom much is given much is also expected.  If British public really values the memory of their “Princes of Hearts,” and the impact of her selfless services to the less privileged, isn’t it time it rewarded her selfless services by giving back something that would be of more value to her than mountains of flowers?

If Diana, the Princess of Wales could speak now, I bet that like every mother the world over, her heartfelt request would be for the benefit of the children she left behind; that those who profess to love her should allow her children the one thing that would have meant the world to her, which she never had – a certain degree of privacy in their personal lives.

The only constant thing in life, they say, is change.  But if there’s an issue that will never change, it is mankind’s obsession over beauty: with the aid of the cosmetic industry, it is an obsession that’s guaranteed to remain on the agenda of everyone for as long as there’s life on earth. However, while beauty may be an obsession in every society, what is perceived as beautiful is different from one society to another.

And so…

Here are a few things you probably didn’t know about beauty…

• A woman’s hair is her crowning glory, so goes the popular saying: but not to the Mursi tribe of Ethiopia. To them, to be beautiful is to be shorn.  Also, going by their unusual head decorations, hairlessness is next to creativeness.

• Stretch marks!  Just the name gives most women the shivers. In the Hima tribe in Uganda, however, stretch marks re considered desirable, and a sign of wealth!

• The Kayan Lahwi tribe in northern Thailand regularly wears neck rings to elongate their necks – an extremely painful process, I have been told. While the Efik of southern Nigeria scornfully refer to people with long necks as, gamma lizards, or vultures!

• In some African and Amazon tribes big lips are beautiful: these tribes often go as far as taken out some teeth to be able to fit in the wooden plate that stretches the lips!

• In America, women with strong purposeful walk are considered very attractive.  In Fiji, soft, graceful movement is a thing of pride both to the person and her community; whilst strong, purposeful walk is considered ‘clumpy’ and ‘graceless.’

• In Korea, women pay lots of money for surgeries to make their eyes wide and round.  The Ibibio of southern Nigeria believe that the best eyes shapes are the ‘sleepy-shaped’ ones.

Dreams may be seedlings; but faith is the water that nurtures the seedlings. while words- yes word, easy to utter, easily forgotten words, are the matured seeds. Plant it and care for it fervently and it will surely bear fruit. It is for that reason that we ought to be mindful of the kinds of words we utter. For as surely as seeds will grow when planted, so also will uttered words take root, germinate and bear fruit. Now, whether they bear negative or positive fruit, depends on the kinds of words that were uttered. My bit of homlies for the day, people:-

Are recent events in the Middle East the beginning of the end of the regions preference for the old ways of doing things?

‘We are tired of authoritarian government,’ that seems to be the message coming from the Middle East. In a move that spells doom for totalitarian rule in the Middle East, old-entrenched authoritarian regimes have been booted out of power between January and February of 2011.  It began with the ‘Jasmine’ Revolution in Tunisia when Tunisian strongman President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was forced out of office after 23 years of authoritarian and repressive rule. Ben Ali resignation came on the 14^th of January, after several failed attempts by his cabinet to placate demonstrators with promises of elections.

Ann Pettway, the North Carolina woman accused of stealing a 19-days old baby from a Harlem Hospital in 1987, has admitted to the kidnapping, but said that she committed the act because she became ‘despondent’ after several rounds of miscarriages.’ If convicted, Ms Pettway faces a mandatory minimum of 20 years, to life, in prison. And the miscarriages issue is bound to be one of the defending lawyer’s important arguments for a more lenient prison term.

While not excusing her heinous act, lots of women with difficulty to conceive will likely empathise with Ms Pettway’s ‘despondency’ over being unable to conceive and have her own children when she wanted.

The question therefore, is…

If convicted, should Ms Pettway’s sentence be reduced because of the psychological trauma she is sure to have suffered as a result of her miscarriages?