Happy Birthday Barack

Dear Barack,

I do not know you but I Know of you. I have heard a helluva lot about you. The most important thing I have heard is that you are, currently, president of the United States of America. That, if what I am told is true, makes you the most powerful man in the world. (In the big world out there, of course, and not my little one here where the most powerful man in the world is the Administration Policeman with a gun on my head and a paw in my pocket).

Now here is the deal, I live in a small corner, of the big Island of Africa, called Kenya. That Kenya where, the internets keep reminding me, your roots run deep. Good for you. Good for you, I sometimes think, that all you have here is roots because most of us that have more than roots have a lot less than you do. Because you have the world beneath your feet and we don't. We have roots, trunk and head in Kenya (and maybe because of that)we cannot see the world for all the shit that is above us. That does not mean that I am not proud of Kenya, just not a fan of myriad of its everyday realities.

But why am I wasting rare and expensive internet time to write you? It is simply because today is your birthday and I was once told that birthdays are important dates in the West. There seems to be a problem though, some people think that you were not born in America but here in Kenya. That maybe a big deal, I do not know, but beyond suggesting to me that today might not even be your birthday, that matter does not change my life. You only affect my life as much as the next US president. And as long as you remain in office, then it is the great influence that you will continue to wield over the entire world that will always have an impact on my life and not the small matters of your place of birth, your wife's favourite colour or the fact that your grandfather and mine were kicked by the same pair of boots.

I do not know if I am making it clear enough but the name of the place you were born is as valuable to me as knowing whether or not Mwai Kibaki has a second wife. Well, I have lied there because if Kibaki has a second wife, then I want to know whether or not I am paying her rent even though I do not have a house of my own... But you get my general point, Barry, no?

Anyway, I really have to go, and meantime you do your thing son and lets hope that all the wacko people in the internets can go back to providing me with what I follow them for: Good Porno.

Happy Birthday Barrack (alleged or else)

Potash