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	<title>Our Man in America &#187; Edwin Okong&#8217;o</title>
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	<link>http://ourmaninamerica.com</link>
	<description>If he doesn&#039;t make you laugh, he&#039;ll make you think</description>
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		<title>It’s official: President Obama is not a Kenyan</title>
		<link>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2009/01/22/it%e2%80%99s-official-president-obama-is-not-a-kenyan/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=it%25e2%2580%2599s-official-president-obama-is-not-a-kenyan</link>
		<comments>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2009/01/22/it%e2%80%99s-official-president-obama-is-not-a-kenyan/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:14:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Our Man</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Politics of the Free]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edwin Okong'o]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kenyan corruption]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama's first day]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://okongospolicy.com/?p=211</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On Sunday night, while performing at the African Inaugural Ball, I joked that we’ll know if President Obama is Kenyan if, after his second term he doesn’t change the U.S. Constitution to allow him to run for a third term. That fear intensified when I saw Obama in a bling-bling motorcade – bullet proof Cadillacs and all – comparable to those of Kenyan leaders. Thank goodness, we don’t have to live with that fear anymore. On his first full day at work, President Obama froze the salaries of his top aides at the White House who make more than $100,000 a year. “Families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington,” said the president. Let me paraphrase that: Obama is asking his staff to eat peanut butter and jelly for lunch and rice and beans for dinner like millions of poor Americans. Obama also banned gifts from lobbyist to government officials. His rules of conduct are also the strictest in American History. “Public service is a privilege,” not a right, Obama said. That can’t be the way of a Kenyan leader. Now compare that to when a Kenyan leader takes power: In 2003, Kenyan lawmakers increased their salaries, making them [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A salute to President Barack Obama&#8217;s father</title>
		<link>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2009/01/20/a-tribute-to-barack-obama-sr/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=a-tribute-to-barack-obama-sr</link>
		<comments>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2009/01/20/a-tribute-to-barack-obama-sr/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:46:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Our Man</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Memoirs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Add new tag]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[african comedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[african women]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american women]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edwin Okong'o]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kenyan comedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama Inauguration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama Sr. Barack Hussein Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama's father]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[okongo comedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[women's rights]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://okongospolicy.com/?p=193</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As I headed out the door to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44Th President of the United States, I thought about his late father. Much of what we’ve heard about the president’s &#8220;Old Man&#8221; has been from the president himself and others who knew very little about him. But the elder Obama’s is a story of the African immigrant — a story of a people who come to a new country and learn so fast to become the most educated group. What follows is an except from my stand-up comedy set performed on Sunday at The African Inaugural Ball in Silver Spring, MD. Part true, part fiction, the account is based on my life and the stories of other African immigrants in the United States. Knowing what I know about the Old Man &#8211;  and having grown up in the same area as he, I have no doubt he would have appreciated the humor. Don’t hate; Inaugurate! FOR MOST OF US, the story begins in a little hut in rural Africa and ends in a big white house in America. But that journey is not easy. It continues when you get to America as an exchange student. [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2009/01/20/a-tribute-to-barack-obama-sr/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>9</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>&#8216;Pigs, go home&#8217;: Oakland riots awakened my demons</title>
		<link>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2009/01/10/pigs-go-home-oakland-riots-awakened-my-demons/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=pigs-go-home-oakland-riots-awakened-my-demons</link>
		<comments>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2009/01/10/pigs-go-home-oakland-riots-awakened-my-demons/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 10 Jan 2009 05:56:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Our Man</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Legal Robberies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics of the Free]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BART cop shooting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edwin Okong'o]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oakland Police]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oakland protests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oakland riots]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oscar grant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oscar Grant III]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[police brutality]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://okongospolicy.com/?p=187</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My experience at the hands of the police – coupled with the news that on New Year’s Day a policeman had shot and killed an unarmed black man – explains why I would be tempted to violate the ethics of journalism that night by joining in the chanting.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Bush, al-Maliki mocking the dead?</title>
		<link>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2008/12/15/bush-al-maliki-mocking-the-dead/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=bush-al-maliki-mocking-the-dead</link>
		<comments>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2008/12/15/bush-al-maliki-mocking-the-dead/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:46:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Our Man</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Politics of the Free]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edwin Okong'o]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[George W. Bush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraqi journalist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraqi war dead]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nouri al-Maliki]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[war on terror]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://okongospolicy.com/?p=183</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In this Dec. 14 Reuters photo, it looks like U.S. President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are sitting in front a coffin, laughing their asses off.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2008/12/15/bush-al-maliki-mocking-the-dead/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Poor, funny me!</title>
		<link>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2008/11/03/poor-funny-me/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=poor-funny-me</link>
		<comments>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2008/11/03/poor-funny-me/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 02 Nov 2008 22:12:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Our Man</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Funnies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edwin Okong'o]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kenyan comedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pan african film festival]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the Africa channel]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://okongospolicy.com/?p=81</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When I'm not writing and editing the news, I'm telling jokes. Here is a video of me performing at the Pan-African Film Festival in Los Angeles, California.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The day I became a man</title>
		<link>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2008/08/30/the-day-i-became-a-man/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=the-day-i-became-a-man</link>
		<comments>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2008/08/30/the-day-i-became-a-man/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 30 Aug 2008 05:23:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Our Man</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Memoirs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[african memoirs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[circumcision]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edwin Okong'o]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gusii]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kenyan memoirs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kisii]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[passage to manhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rites of passage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[southwestern kenya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://okongospolicy.com/?p=15</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In my culture, the circumcision ritual marks the passage from childhood to manhood. When I turned ten, I had to face the knife. We lay face down on the grass, two ten-year-old boys, completely naked, outside my uncle’s saiga, a hut where young Gusii men live until marriage. The cold from the mid-December dew cut through my tiny body like the knife I was about to face. The tips of my toes and fingers hardened from the cold and felt as if they were going to explode. Ants bit various parts of my body. In Makairo, my rural birthplace, a village nestled in the Gusii highlands of southwestern Kenya, only fireflies illuminate nights. I was scared. My heart was pumping fast. Yet this was only the beginning of a three-hour wait. And I couldn’t complain: I had asked for the harrowing experience. It was time to prove that I was capable of becoming a man. The men who ordered us to the grass, and were now indoors, drinking, cracking jokes and talking about girls, had arrived at dusk to guide me in my painful journey to manhood. They said that at three o’clock in the morning, we would start a [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>16</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Corruption kills a dream: a tribute to Joshua Orina</title>
		<link>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2008/04/05/corruption-kills-a-dream-a-tribute-to-joshua-orina/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=corruption-kills-a-dream-a-tribute-to-joshua-orina</link>
		<comments>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2008/04/05/corruption-kills-a-dream-a-tribute-to-joshua-orina/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:08:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Our Man</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Legal Robberies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Memoirs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics of the Free]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edwin Okong'o]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joshua Orina]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kenyan corruption]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saboti CDF manager]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://okongospolicy.com/?p=9</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Throughout my life in the United States, news of the death of a family member or a friend back home has lost some of its power over me. In the last 13 years I have lost a father, two grandparents, an aunt, four uncles, and five cousins. Then there are the countless friends I grew up with who are no longer alive. One committed suicide because an accident had left him blind, another killed himself because his parents would not approve of the girl he was courting, and the third one hanged himself for as yet undiscovered reasons. On two separate occasions, two friends were killed by speeding cars. A childhood buddy drank himself to death, while several others have fallen victim to that villain whose name my kinfolk are still too ashamed to utter, AIDS. After the tragic loss of so many young lives, of people who as children had shown so much potential both for themselves and for their community, I became numb to the pain – so numb that I could no longer summon tears upon learning that a friend had died. But the news from home last week sent me bawling once again. In fact, as [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Raila to outlaw ‘p.m’ in Kenyan time, Kibaki approves</title>
		<link>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2008/04/01/raila-to-outlaw-%e2%80%98pm%e2%80%99-in-kenyan-time-kibaki-approves/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=raila-to-outlaw-%25e2%2580%2598pm%25e2%2580%2599-in-kenyan-time-kibaki-approves</link>
		<comments>http://ourmaninamerica.com/2008/04/01/raila-to-outlaw-%e2%80%98pm%e2%80%99-in-kenyan-time-kibaki-approves/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:37:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Our Man</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Funnies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics of the Free]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edwin Okong'o]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kenyan Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mwai Kibaki]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Raila Odinga]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://okongospolicy.com/?p=10</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Raila Odinga, the man designated to become Kenya’s prime minister, vowed yesterday that his first order of business when he takes office would be to outlaw the use of “p.m,” the abbreviation that indicates the beginning of afternoon in a 12-hour time clock. “The constitutional amendment that created my post clearly stipulates that there should be only one PM in Kenya,” said Raila, the longtime kingmaker who’s soon to be finally crowned King. “Therefore, it would be a breach of the power-sharing agreement for Kenyans to say, 2:00 p.m, 3:00 p.m, 11:00 p.m and so forth.” There will be an exception, however, as Kenyans will be allowed to use 1:00 p.m to constantly remind themselves and others that there is only one PM in Kenya, he said. In response to Raila’s decree, President Mwai Kibaki said he fully supported his former bitter rival. When asked about the utility of changing a format most of the world has been using since time immemorial, Kibaki said it was “a common sense” part of the power-sharing deal. “Kenyans don’t go around every day shouting, ‘two president,’ ‘nine president,’ so why should they insult Raila by calling for more than one PM?” the president [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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