Carpe Diem Ethiopia

Find out what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them. Frederick Douglas Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love, only for their fear. Heinrich Himmler 1977 No one mentioned how long she labored to bring me into this world. Or what my birth weight was. My mother birthed me. And that was it. The earliest memories of childhood emerge from a kaleidoscope of marbles: s mall marbles, large marbles. Bright, colorful marbles. And then there were the buddies. Oh how I loved playing marbles with my buddies! Barely five years old, we hit marbles with amazing precision—one eye closed shut, head cocked to the side, tongue flicking from corner to corner of our mouths . . . and swoosh! And one day, someone came and said something like “hey guys, I think they took the Negus away!” My buddies and I stopped our game and glanced at each other for a full two seconds. The event sufficien...

Ethiopian prosecutor Abaraham Tetemke's closing argument yesterday calling for death penalty snapped us from a self-induced reverie. We took a brief hiatus from blogging: needed to recalibrate, re-synch; regain lost time with good friends—old and new, and our families. The horror taking place at the federal "high" court and the government's sickly recommendation for the ultimate sentence prompted our return. We hope to soon return to our attempt to become, as Ethiopian Politics urges, one of the fleas arrayed against injustice. Until we publish our own writing, we took the liberty to repost a brilliant op-ed piece by Ethiopian Politics. It is rare to agree with everything we read on the issue of Ethiopian democracy and governance, but we almost always do with ETP. The Millennium Disconnect is one of those writings that remind us of the cyclical and cynical nature of power and politics in Ethiopia. The piece also reverberates our own disgust with the ...