The Dish

"Wo nsa da mu a, wonni nnya wo."

-- "If your hands are in the dish, people do not eat everything and leave you nothing."

This symbol and its associated meaning is called an Adinkra. Take a look... http://www.welltempered.net/adinkra/. (My apologies to Ghana if I'm misusing the plural form. I'm a little rusty in my African linguistics.) According to my friends at Wikipedia, "Adinkra are symbols common in Western African societies, particularly the Akan people of Ghana, that represent concepts or aphorisms."

In other words, it's a little like when you're looking at a sign and you see the triangular outline of a skirt - you know the ladies' room is right around the corner. Or how those golden arches mean "loveless food crafted to make you large and unconcerned".

Anyway, what those savvy Akan folks in Ghana are getting at is the idea of participation, with respect in this case to government. If you don't want the bum end of the deal, get in there and start fighting. If you didn't notice (and I know you did, because I trust you), I like the idea so much I'm using it for the symbol of the pretty little blog you see before you. I drove through some mean snow and ice today to sign some petitions that will do some good things for my candidate and his delegates. Today, I had my hand in the dish. There are far too few people deciding the fate of far too many others, and that's one part of why we're in this mess now.

But one thing that doesn't quite get summed up neatly in original saying is that you darn well better know what dish you've gone and got your paws into. We think with the collective mind of the media. We let other people, people with vested interests alien to our well-being, make up our minds and our "truths". I'm not talking about conspiracies, I'm talking about good old American laziness. Do your own thinking! Do your own research! Don't trust the information you get from someone else, because these are matters too serious to be left in the hands of others. We abolished slavery long ago for good reasons - would you let your body belong to someone else? So why allow your mind to be likewise owned?

Own liberty. Live liberty. Be liberty.