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First, a moment of silence for our brothers, police constables Samuel Kaetuai Tompoi, who fell in Haiti, and Benedict Kabiru, who is still missing in action. To be honest, Kenyans expected worse.

This week, Kenyans on social media laughed themselves senseless, amused that the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) kicked out 1,500 recruits from army training school for walking into a military establishment with traces of marijuana in their veins. The army, they giggled, would quickly run out of recruits to train if they insisted on enlisting only marijuana-free lads because, hey, weed smoking is now more widespread…

We all know the rage and sense of loss that engulfs those who find their homes sacked by burglars. Even thieves, ironically, have been known to bristle with fury when they, too, fall victim.

If founding President Jomo Kenyatta woke up from the dead and heard that John Harun Mwau single-handedly stopped a police recruitment drive as the government merely coiled tail and watched, he would summon certain people to Gatundu and whip them a good one. How?

Yesterday, I woke up to news that a petrol tanker had exploded in the night, its hellish flames engulfing 13 poor souls and sending 11 to hospital in a critical condition. It wasn’t the first time this is happening, and it won’t be the last.

As you read this, there is a government ghost worker someplace who, like everyone else, is complaining how times are tough and how difficult it has become to make ends meet on the miserly pay their employer scornfully doles out to workers. Not surprisingly, the government has been unable to rout these ghosts from the payroll despite a series of headcounts over the years.

In the 1990s, I was a frequent user of Machakos Bus Station. Each visit filled me with trepidation.

There is nothing more exciting than being pulled over by traffic police when your vehicle and papers are in order. The man, or woman, hails you with a “good afternoon sir” but you know they don’t wish you one or consider you a sir.

It appears our heroes are limited to sportsmen, politicians and rabble-rousers — at least those are the ones who hogged the media limelight during the Kenya@50 bash. And that’s why we are dirt poor.

The young may not know that not too long ago, everyone bathed in the river. We were so proud of our bodies that we stripped naked before the entire village, even when there was nothing to write home about our assets.

I hear the government wants us to love our neighbours, a policy that is bound to excite bachelors who have been trying without success to whistle at the snobbish lass with wriggling bottoms in the upstairs flat. It would, however, be a good idea to remove the log in one’s eye before nosing around the neighbour’s flat.

I was amused to learn that someone somewhere dreams that Botswana is the most business friendly country in Africa. What baloney.