Muniini K. Mulera

Are computer and cellphone screens safe for your eyes?

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksDecember 22, 20210 comments

In a discussion about our preferred reading media, my friend Manuel J. K. Muranga asked me whether e-book reading was safe for human eyes. Manuel and I share a passion for printed books, and we readily plead guilty to being more comfortable with Johannes Gutenberg than ...

Professor Jack Ja’bi Ngalamu, my classmate with healing laughter

By Muniini K. MuleraSouth SudanDecember 20, 20210 comments

#Ngalamu #Ngalam #Tabi #Jabi #Budo #Juba #South #Sudan #Mundri

Photo: Jack and Haida Ngalamu (photographer unknown) High school brought us together. We were the class of 1967, King’s College, Budo. One girl and twenty-seven boys, freshly arrived from every corner of Uganda, to embark on a journey whose course we could not have imagined. ...

Beti Kamya destined for disillusionment in anti-corruption fight

By Muniini K. MuleraDecember 14, 20210 comments

#Beti #Kamya #Corruption #Museveni #Uganda #Lifestyle #audit

Let us talk corruption, but first things first. I readily acknowledge that corruption is a universal phenomenon. It is not unique to Uganda. Transparency International told us earlier this year that multinational companies based in “clean” or seemingly corruption-free ...

Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers / First Flight to Tokyo:The Lost 1961 Recordings

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of Music Jazz MusicDecember 11, 20210 comments

#Art #Blakey #Jazz #Messengers #Lee #Morgan #Wayne #Shorter #Bobby #Timmins #Jymie #Merritt

The contents of the recently discovered tapes of this January 14, 1961 concert in Tokyo Japan are now on two vinyl LPs. Released on Friday December 10, 2021, the double LP package is as one would expect. It is Art Blakey (drums) with Lee Morgan (trumpet), Wayne Shorter tenor ...

Walter Davis Jr: Davis Cup

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of Music Jazz MusicDecember 8, 20210 comments

#Walter #Davis #Davis #Cup #Jazz #Blue #Note #Donald #Byrd #Jacke #McLean

Walter Davis Jr (September 2, 1932 – June 2, 1990) was one the most underrecognized top tier jazz music pianists of the twentieth century. A native of Richmond, Virginia, he played with, among others, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Art Blakey ...

Good things happening with driver licensing in Mbarara

By Muniini K. MuleraDecember 7, 20210 comments

#Mbarara #Kabale #UDLS #Uganda

Last week, two of my friends from Kabale visited Mbarara to renew their drivers’ licences. (The correct names of these towns are Kabaare and Mburara, but I must obey the rules of this newspaper which adheres to corrupted African place names.) Their separate experiences with ...

Childhood memory of a cold tropical Africa

By Muniini K. MuleraNovember 30, 20210 comments

#Kabale #Kabaare #Kigezi #Kigyezi #Weather

In a conversation this weekend with a friend in Kabaare, Kigyezi, she reported that it was distressingly cold in her house, even for one born and raised in that land of beautiful mountains and valleys, famed for its cold nights and mornings, and perfectly warm afternoons. I quickly ...

Kampala bombing: my nephew’s very close call

By Muniini K. MuleraNovember 16, 20210 comments

#Phillip #Kimumwe #Kampala #bombing #Uganda

Images and reports of perfectly innocent people killed or injured in the suicide bombing in Kampala today ignited emotions of anger, helplessness, and renewed incredulity at humanity’s self-destructive nature. My anger turned to transient paralysis when I learnt that my nephew ...

Apartheid South Africa’s rulers better than terrorist ones north of the Limpopo

By Muniini K. MuleraNovember 15, 20210 comments

#de #Klerk #apartheid #Africa #South #Africa #Lesotho

I was saddened by last week’s news of the death of Frederik Willem de Klerk, South Africa’s former president. My sadness was deepened by his video-recorded “last message”, a deathbed apology, “without qualification” for “the pain and the hurt ...

Someday My Prince Will Come - Miles Davis

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of Music Jazz MusicNovember 13, 20210 comments

#Miles #Davis #Jazz #Someday #my #Prince #Will #Come

One never tires of Some Day My Prince Will Come, a masterful 1961 recording by Milers Davis. This is Miles at his most tender, whistling through his horn, dispensing musical bliss, shielding me from the noise of our schizophrenic world that pollutes our souls. Hank Mobley ...

Rhoda Kalema's story of triumph over tragedy

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksOctober 4, 20211 comments

#Rhoda #Kalema #Uganda

My Life is But a Weaving: An Autobiography by Rhoda Kalema. Nairobi: Moran (E.A) Publishers, 2021. At 92 years of age, Rhoda Nakibuuka Kalema has a story to tell. She successfully uses her 268-page autobiography to summarize a journey that has been mostly in the ...

Who will tell her the stories of her ancestors in her mother tongue?

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda CultureNovember 8, 20210 comments

#Culture #Kigyezi #Kigezi #Rukiga #Tibihika #oral #stories #Mubangizi #Tibaanyendera

I love a good story, told the way my grandmothers and other elders held me captive on many unforgettable evenings during my childhood. Those stories, narrated in Orukiga, my mother-language, were laced with idioms, proverbs, songs and sounds that would quickly transport me to ...

Blowing in from Chicago - Clifford Jordan and John Gilmore

Blowing in from Chicago - Clifford Jordan & John Gilmore

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of Music Jazz MusicNovember 6, 20210 comments

#Clifford #Jordan #John #Gilmore #Jazz #Bebop #Blue #Note #Chicago

Blowing in from Chicago Clifford Jordan – tenor saxophone John Gilmore – tenor saxophone Curly Russell – bass Art Blakey – drums Blue Note BLP 1549 Mono Recorded March 3, 1957 Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder Hackensack, New Jersey Produced by Alfred Lion ...

Florence Lubega and other pioneers: who will tell their story?

By Muniini K. MuleraNovember 3, 20210 comments

#Florence #Lubega #Sugra #Visram #Uganda #Parliament #KY #Mbire #Manga #Wesonga #Frances #Akello #UCW #Kalema

Mrs. Florence Alice Lubega, who departed Earth on October 28, just eight days shy of turning 104, may well be the last member of independent Uganda’s first parliament to die. My uncertainty reflects the awfully inadequate documentation of the lives of our immediate post-independence ...

Hope Kivengere finished well

By Muniini K. MuleraOctober 25, 20210 comments

#Hope #Kishande #Kivengere #Uganda #Press #secretary #Kigezi #Kabale

Hope Kivengere (August 19, 1949 - October 19, 2021) Eloquent eulogies for Hope Kishande Kivengere, who departed Earth a week ago, have reminded us about who and what she was. She was kind, generous, bright, independent-minded, non-conformist, courageous, patriotic, honest, ...

Museveni on corruption: a tired song in discord

By Muniini K. MuleraOctober 19, 20210 comments

#Museveni #corruption #wealth #cows #Uganda

It is rather tempting to ignore President Yoweri T. Museveni’s latest denunciation of corruption in Uganda. After all we have lost count of the president’s numerous speeches against corruption since 1986, the year he captured power with promises of destroying the ...