From Joy to Retribution
The Toddler-in-Chief throws a tantrum following the No Kings rallies, releasing a juvenile AI poop video and tears down the East Wing of the People's House.
Shortly after I got my clock cleaned in the 1994 Governor’s race, I did some consulting work for Stephen Farrell who had been hired to try and save a struggling foundation called The East West Education Foundation. As a result of that work, I wrote a piece, published in the Christian Science Monitor, about how we could bridge the digital divide in our country and elsewhere in the world by taking advantage of all the companies that were upgrading their technology and surplussing millions of computers that could be placed into schools and nonprofits to enhance technology proficiency.
Within days, I got a call from Dr. Adhiambo Odaga, a brilliant young woman in the West Africa office of the Ford Foundation. Adhiambo, a Rhoades scholar, had developed a reputation as a rapidly rising star at Ford, and an innovative and persistent believer in the possibility of unleashing economic opportunity in Africa by investing in developing capacity among the leadership in Africa’s NGO (non-governmental organizations) community. Ahead of her time, she was looking for a way to introduce the Civil Society community in West Africa to the Internet and she asked if I would be interested in putting together a team of people to develop a strategy for getting started. What was born from that conversation was The Electronic Community Project and I was launched on a ten-year adventure that brought us into nearly every country in West Africa, developing a network of NGOs that would lay the foundation for a generation of computer and Internet-literate leaders, many of whom would go on to lead the technology revolution in Africa.
I tell this story, not because the Electronic Community Project changed lives, including my own, though it did, but because, among other things, it introduced me to a remarkable fellow named Chidi Nwachukwu. Chidi was my first hire for the project. A Nigerian-born American citizen, who at the time was living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Chidi had an abiding love for both his adopted home in the US and his native Nigeria. I had hoped that by hiring a Native Nigerian he would help us navigate the cultural challenges of a team of Americans in West Africa. I was right about this, but what I didn’t count on was his utter contempt for corruption.
Our first visit to Nigeria in 1997 was at a time that Nigeria was still ruled by a dictator named Abacha. Chidi had warned us that this first visit would be a challenge, and as our other partner, Philip “Kip” Bates and I groped our way out of the plane inside a gangway that was pitch black - without a single working lightbulb - I can tell you we were both glad that he was beside us.
Luckily, there were at least a few working lights once we had found our way into the terminal where we walked together along escalators and “people movers” that were all non-functional as well.
At one point, Chidi jokingly said, “I told you we had all the modern conveniences, I just may have forgotten to add that they were probably not working!”
As we drove away from the airport that night, we were almost immediately stopped by uniformed soldiers. Chidi suggested that we remain in the jeep while he spoke with the soldiers.
It was a warm night, I cracked the window to bring some night air into the vehicle, when suddenly I heard Chidi’s booming voice as he shouted SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! and in a brief burst of emotion he chastized the soldiers for shaking us down for money.
Shortly, Chidi returned to the Jeep and we were on our way again as he explained to us that it was really not the soldiers’ fault, more that they had been infected by the totalitarian winds blowing through his native land because of a dictator who was systematically stealing the wealth of Nigeria.
But, more than this, Abacha was stealing the soul of his native country, and Chidi would not be silent.
And so it was, when I first saw the destruction of the East Wing of the White House, wrought illegally by Donald Trump, that the first three words escaping from my mouth were: SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
On Saturday the 18th of October, 7 Million Americans took to the streets, Joyfully singing out for Democracy, reminding Donald Trump that he was not a king.
His response: First, he issued a childish poop video, an AI-generated video which showed him dumping mass quantities of poop on Americans exercising their Constitutional right to speak out. Then his juvenile joke was replaced with an act of cultural vandalism. The toddler-in-chief threw a temper tantrum. and began tearing down the people’s house just to show us who he believes is the boss. . . he’s wrong.
Our dear friend Chidi has been gone for more than two decades now, felled, too young, by leukemia in 2003. But in that moment, as I gazed upon the images of the backhoes tearing at the East Wing, I held him close and stood a bit taller as I repeated his words.
At the end of that first African trip, with joys and challenges every day, even an arrest in which we were held for 5 hours at gunpoint by the military (What is your mission? they asked persistently.) I knocked on Chidi’s hotel room door. I had brought him a gift. It was a T-shirt depicting a large stork eating a frog. The frog’s hind legs were poking out of the stork’s mouth, but its front legs and hands were wrapped firmly around the neck of the Stork. The caption beneath said: “Never Give Up!”
Spirit of Freedom Buffalo
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Wayne is a North American “mutt” with a family heritage that winds through his Native American, Canadian and US Colonial roots. His love for the philosophical founding documents and sacred stories and dreams of both the Abenaki and the Iroquois, the US Founders, and the sacred artists, musicans, writers and poets whose works and images are a celebration of the circle of life continue to be the source of his inspiration.
An author, podcaster, artist, activist, and recovering politician, including three terms as a State Senator and 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor. His art (WayneDKing.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published five books of his images, most recently, “New Hampshire - a Love Story”. His novel “Sacred Trust” - a vicarious, high-voltage adventure to stop a private power line - as well as the photographic books are available at most local bookstores or on Amazon.
Wayne lives on the “Narrows” in Bath, NH at the confluence of the Connecticut and Ammonoosuc Rivers and proudly flies the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags, attesting to both his ancestry and his spiritual ties. Anamaki is a derivative of an Algonquin word meaning “abiding hope”.
Art, Columns, and Podcasts are produced at Anamaki Productions, Winter Warrior Studios in Bath, NH. Join the mailing list and be first to see new images and to receive special offers on cards, prints, limited editions and more at his Anamaki Chronicles Substack
From the Gallery
We do not have a paywall at the Anamaki Chronicles substack. In the spirit of native people we welcome what you can share with us and we offer what we have that you may find enriches your experience. Art, Columns, and Podcasts are produced at Anamaki Chronicles’ Winter Warrior Studios in Bath, NH. It is free to join the mailing list and to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Your donations and purchases of art and merchandise help us to cover the costs of production, and we hope to avoid advertising that we feel detracts from our mission. We invite you to join with us to support the creation of art, podcasts, and writing that serve to bring us together through truth and reconciliation. Anamaki Chronicles Substack
Dusk on the Rumney Common
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Maples in the Wind
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Pink at the Beach - Dakar, Senegal
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Dusk on the Franconia Range
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Appaloosa Grazing Under Stormy Skies
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Speak to the Sky - Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian
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Shirts in a Floodplain Forest
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Manufacturing Clarity
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