simply oroque's view

i know that by now you have already heard the story making the rounds...and you know i am not one to get overly emotional about sensational news items in the media but this is different. as always, certain things baffle me to the point of stupor and call me naive, but i don't think age or experience will ever make it easier to understand. below is a couple on their wedding day. 'aww nice' i hear you think. i thought the same too. but she's dead now. and according to report, he killed her. 3 years down and one child later. after she was killed, we all now know she was consistently beaten throughout her short marriage, she had left the marriage one and then returned. she didn't tell her family but confided in a colleague about the abuse. and the male audience insist the man must have been drunk when he did it. but she's dead. the ensuing scandal is not why this news is interesting, but the discussions arising from it. while everyone i know seems to remembe

look, today i'm going to sound irreverent and this is pre-warning. whats this about, i hear you ask? its what family get togethers do to me. i swear i should have been a higher being than a mere human. so y'all know that my dear aunt died two weeks ago. i had promised myself that in honour of her, i was not going to write my blog until after her funeral. we had the funeral yesterday. everyone was there as expected. the too-good-for-the-world cousins, the always-asking-for-a-hand-me-down relatives and everyone in between. i'm used to it. when my aunt was alive, she was really all that and a bag of chips. you hear stories of people who came out of not so wealthy backgrounds, marry up, and then completely abandon their own family while swimming in the new found wealth. my aunt was a rare breed. she wasn't from a poor home, far from it, but my grandparents had what i would term "old money". the sort of money that is anchored on past wealth but no real present va

its not always that i write a moody blog . i really don't know what to write today, and its not because i have nothing to write but because my heart is really heavy. it is true what they say: "you don't know what you've got till its gone". it has never been truer for me until today. a few years ago when i finished law school and was loafing around for two months eager to show the world how intelligent i am, i didn't think for a minute that work life would be consuming to the point where its all you can do to sleep out weekends just to avoid a complete breakdown. in just trying to stay afloat and keep your desk clear and keep yourself from a query, you put in more and more into the job. you put in more time, and realize thats not enough. you acquire more knowledge and hope that it will make you better able to cope, and that fails too. then you decide that maybe if you had more authority at work, it would let you do the work your own way and thus free your tim

you know, there was a time when you could virtually be dying and noone would know, or care? well, those days are gone. and i'm not even sure their being gone is altogether a good thing. seriously. i watch the news all the time and often wonder how white folk live literally neighboured by serial killers, murderers and kidnappers for tons of years and never figure it out! i mean, you should try black folk, or better still black folk women. you cannot keep a darn secret! it always starts with the traditional doey-eyed: "are you okay?" even when you look perfectly fine and no different from the last time they saw you. any response other than "i'm fine" immediately translates to an interrogation. "whats the matter?" always comes next also with the over-concerned look. if that doesn't work to get you to spill, then comes the "you look funny" phrase to justify their insistence on hearing your life history...and of course in trying to defen

okay, i'm going all americano today cos my friend on facebook says she can't understand when people use words like "y'all" and "gonna"...and it downright pisses her off. so look, i ain't even gonna front like i don't want no recognition. the truth is, that most bloggers are inherently attention seeking bastards and even though they may pretend to be modestly trying to just put their noble ideas out there, and sometimes believe their own hype that they are changing the world, the truth is, we are all narcissistic. we welcome attention, nay, we court it. we beg people to look at the stuff we have, marvel at what we know, and pay attention to what we have to say...all under the guise that we are undertaking a noble cause of cultural change and voicing painful truths. balderdash. if any writer is going to be honest, it makes no sense writing lengthy creap where nobody is reading. it is the very crux of writing itself, to have someone who finds it w