"I write to please myself."

The Duchess of Newcastle

That's what Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, declared in her "Orations of Divers Sorts", 1662.  

So do I.  I love writing and I have a plethora of opinions I like to get out there.  I am also writing to ensure my grands have some idea about what their grandmother is like.  Right now, they have no clue, but I hope they will read the volumes I have published after I am gone.  Will they be shocked?  Not sure, but all grands should know about their elders.

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I have been blogging about this forever.

The author, Robert Calderisi, knows all about how giving money to Africa is a bad idea.  He was the World Bank loan officer for Tanzania in Washington.  In his experience, financial projects and assistance to African countries never works because of corruption.  He calls it a "clash of values", but it's plainly corruption.  

Among his ten recommendations for the future (this was written in 2006, but nothing has changed) was the introduction of mechanisms for tracing and recovering public funds.  You'd think this would have been basic, but apparently it wasn't.  Sounds like how we fork over bags of money carte blanche to first nations with absolutely no accountability whatsoever.  

He also wants to require all heads of state, ministers and senior officials to open their bank accounts to public scrutiny.  Ha!  Just ask Charmaine Stick how that's working on the Onion Lake reserve, where not even a court order has succeeded in getting her band leaders to show her where the members' money has poofed to.

So thanks, but no thanks.  I'll keep giving to the Salvation Army.