Thursday, August 20, 2009

It Must Be New

It Must Be New

Well, I'm back--back from a good three days of pretending to be a tourist in this great country.  I'm back from that ridiculous fresh air to the city I love so much--dust, fumes and all.  I cannot pick and choose the parts I like and discard the others.  Me and Kampala:  it's real and it's deep.  I went to sleep last night to the sounds of insects chirruping and fiddling and frogs doing what they do best.  It reminded me of childhood nights in the sticks--a very soothing lullaby--and I slept amazingly well considering the mattress on my bed was almost non-existent, such that I woke up this morning (after an amazing sleep) with a really sore back.  I'll spill more details about my trip later; I need to sort through some photos first.  But I will quickly just recommend the Red Chilli's trip to anyone who's travelling on a budget.  I agree with their website that it is "the best value safari tour in East Africa."  I caught a few wisecracks from some friends when I told them I was doing this tour; they had a hard time accepting me as a backpacker... But I was... In a previous life.  And it was good going back to my roots.

So when I got back this evening, there was so much news to get caught up on.  The best of it all is that Britney was on David Letterman earlier this week.  Yes, our princess (now Queen) of pop was in her bikini-clad glory as she delivered the evening's top 10.  So if you've ever wondered about the top 10 ways the country [US] would be different if Britney Spears were president (if only we'd be so lucky!), wonder no more.  Here we go:


I'm all for free pie.  Free is for me!!!

Then there is Corbin Bleu, of High School Musical fame, naked.  That's right, Vanessa Hudgens is not the only person who gets to be found on the internets in the buff.

Hometown proud.  I read that these ads will decorate the billboards of Corbin's hometown, New York City.  Flashback to my second-last NYC visit--January 2001, Sandra Bullock, Miss Congeniality, Time Square, enormous, hand cuffs.

Finally, there was a bit of sensational news to liven up the Ugandan dailies.  A plane made an emergency landing on Masaka Highway.

The Portuguese couple celebrated their survival with a public display of affection.  Guess which paper, in it's childish immaturity, felt it necessary to report that a "romping couple" crash landed...

The Pepper's exaggeration is not what frustrates me with the reporting of this story.  It is Uganda's leading newspaper, The New Vision's, story by Jude Kafuuma that irks me.  Um, where exactly is Kisoro Gorilla Mountain Park?  I mean, is one that was created just for this couple's visit?  Kafuuma, did you pull the name out of your ass?  I mean, there is not a national park in Uganda with a name close to that one.  Sure, there is one with the word mountain (well its plural form:  mountains) and another with the word gorilla, but not both words.  Nor is there a park with the name Kisoro.  Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but this is the cover story of today's paper.  I think it at least merited a quick google search to find the correct name of the national part.  Uganda Wildlife Authority does have a pretty good website.  As inaccurate as one of my favourite reference tools, Wikipedia, can be, they got this one right (yet, Katonda is not a national park but a reserve).  Editor,  where are you???  I guess what frustrates me about this simple error is that if the journalism is so lackadaisical in this story, what are the chances that non-fluff stories are also mis-reported?

1 comment:

antipop said...

New here. Perused thru your other posts. The look like fun. hope to be back