Life Poetry & Tracks-Melodies of Unsung Victories

Life is a rail station
Three Men, Three Struggles
Strutting all along
Three tracks all wound up as one

Like a Snake in the desert sand
Wriggling throught crispy dirt
Life beckons to the journey man
Hot or cold - the vagaries to withstand
Hurt encased, deeds unearthed

Like a snail in the forest
The carriage of life thumps through it all
Problems sways the beasts
Caverns and Traverns of Hopes and Destinies

Presenting its own diversions,
Dreams and crest fallen,
Just another station to stoop over,
Drooping in a loop,
It throws curves over the glaciers & passes

Elephant problem?
Shake down the swath of dirt
On fallen limbs & figs,
The snake makes headway,
Beneath dragged dug epiphytes
The snail burrows & prys

Working away at life's obstacles?
It never seems to matter...
Life is radical
But from the death of one trunk
Rises the roots of another forest tree
Crushed and shaken together?
So that dreams can rise like an Iroko
From the rot of your current condition

The trees that make up the forest
The train that trails through it
On tracks unlike another
The forest of mankind
The Triumph of fortitude
The reward of perserverence

Tales of a journey man
Life is a track of many stations
The melodies of unsung victories
My Body, Your Body
Spirit and Soul...

Cities, Urbanization & Lagos

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I was born in the biggest city by land mass in africa- Ibadan. I grew up in Warri the oil city, which truly looked like an oil Hamlet when I arrived there. I left Warri to school in Nigeria's biggest city- Lagos. Lagos remains an urban jungle- a true eyesore and shame to the Nation, Ibadan seem stuck in time but Warri has indeed transformed in the last six to eight years. Such is the story of cities. I have always been fascinated by urbanization; the rise, making, decay and remake of cities. True, cities are people and infrastructure- it is also culture, traffic and economics. I enjoyed my regional and human geography classes back in high school so much that I considered briefly the idea of becoming an architect, regional planner or something of sort. Of course my engineering instinct drove me to Civil Engineering and then Electrical. While I might be many places remved from building parks, side walks, or designing museums and urban landmarks- urbanization, moreso the human aspects of it still enthralls me.

Today I live in Houston, a city much in the midst of urban spiral sideways. The Downtown used to be an eyesore when I first moved here, but now it is much better. Much of Houston upper middle class population stil persist in their flee to the outskirt surburbs of Woodlands, Surgarlands, Katy & Cypress but the Downtown-Midtown-Galleria areas appear to be re-opening to the upper class. The never ending cycle of occupy-decay-flee-gentrify-bidup seems to be in progress. Midtown is slowly regaining its strenght as the never ending traffic and influx of Mexican drivers to Houston road is increasingly discouraging young professionals to follow in the parent's footsteps to live in the surburbs. So in many ways, the same fleeing instinct breed the need to return to the city center when all is said and done. It so interesting to watch except of course you are the poor who is continously bidded out of the city as the property prices shoot through the moon roof. Between the inner loop and the outer loop now lies the low middle class with pockets of ghettos in it- this of course is now being squeezed on both sides. What gives will only be known with time.

This weekend, I was in the state Capital- austin. It is a more beautiful and scenic city in many ways than Houston but is also undergoing similar changes but less so as a result of immigration influx- legal or illegal. On 6th street rave scene there are more Latino clubs than it used to be . Heck, the Mexicans took over Exodus and Vicci on Saturday night. Overall though, the convivial Lake Travis or austin set against the hill sides makes this a cleaner, and more easy on the eyes city than Houston. The crowd is also younger and more liberal of course thanks to Univ. of Texas than you will get in this Deep Red state.

Talking about cities, a friend sent me an email with Lagos supposedly of the future. Dreams aside, something need to be done fast to save that city. Even though I know the omo Eko crowd are quick to defend their crumbling city, the recent collapse of the legendary Ikorodu bridge is foretelling the absolute collapse of infrastructure the city under seige faces if it is not rescued from the crutches of under investment and over population.

China's Stock Bubble & Parson's Tryst

The Chinese is here! Looks to me like this is a bubble or how else do you describe Petro China's rise as the world most capitalized company to the 1 trillion dollar mark ahead of Exxon Mobil-valued at half of that, on the first day of listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Given, PetroChina is benefitting from a deepening economy but I doubt it is worth that much. PetroChina's profit is said to be about $21bn compared to Exxon's $40bn last year; its margin is way less as it can hardly pull those capitalist stunts XOM regularly pulls on North American consumers at the pump and its reserve accounting estimates are questionable. It is said to have reserve of 20bn barrels compared to 22 bn by Exxon. Given, that its reserve is growing (due in part to its govt. readiness to engage in blood trade with Sudan and other dictators), but I can hardly depend on Communist accountingf or insight. Shell must have a disciple in PetroChina that believes in obfuscating those reserve numbers- as those familiar with the industry knows..this is more voodoo art than science.

Noted: Corporate America Mafia Don Dick Parsons resigns CEO job and continues as Chairman of Time Warner. Teaching that brother in Merryl Lynch -Stan O'Neil some lessons on how a black man should govern in corporate America. Board packing is the name of the game- don’t be lonely at the top. If one compares Dick's battles with the likes of Icahn and his ability to withstand his nemesis to O'Neil one off and you are out mistake, there are underlying lessons for the wannabes out there. It is still not a fair world. O'neil thought position and power immunizes him, but the board was so not amused. I bet if he took notes from Parsons he could at least still be Chair as we speak. Heck, it didn't go down like Chuck Prince under him. Click Here for an inetersting article on yahoo on the diminishing ranks of black CEOs in the past month.

P.S: I have decided to merge my life interests- reading, politics, investment and travel on the new busanga.com . It is hard to maintain two thoughts and two blogs. Hopefully more personal insights will come with less focused blog. The hipvestor site will be discontinued forthwith but should still be up for reference. One reader complained that I hardly go personal on here- may be it is because you people will not just stop hounding my controversial views.