B36Peacemaker

APATHETIC MUSEUMS IN AFRICA 🇧🇼 Interesting to think about what ‘returning Botswana’s artefacts’ ‘to give them meaning’ would look like in real life - especially since they would presumably be returned to be displayed in the country’s national museum. Presumably… Remember visiting Botswana’s ‘National Museum’ some years ago because had the expectation that a country with interesting geography like the Kalahari desert and the Okavango delta or peoples like the Tswana or San must be able to produce a ‘fairly interesting’ museum about itself. Actually even though Botswana does not have a large population it is comparatively not ‘that’ poor so you assume there would be no real obstacles to it creating engaging displays Unfortunately Botswana National Museum was one of worst museums I have ever visited. Space was a small dome building with a single main room decorated with a few low resolution print outs of ‘typical scenes’ of Botswana life. Mud huts in a village etc. Some traditional pots had been haphazardly placed around the ‘exhibit’, bunched up against each other according to some strange internal logic and often unlabelled. There were some traditional chairs (?) and carpets displayed in a similar way too. There were several other artefacts on podiums but they were also sparsely labelled. This was the extent of the ‘artefacts’ on show. The museum featured no panels with photos or expositions of Botswana’s history or anthropology The second floor featured ‘artworks’ about Botswana by local artists. Most of the artwork looked like a souvenir you would buy in a tourist shop while on safari or from a tout sat selling his wares on a large sheet on the pavement; ie Pinterest-type paintings of elephants or black women. You could see everything in the museum in about fifteen minutes. I did not felt like I learned anything about Botswana from the visit. There were no other visitors at the time

"In my 22 years at NIAID I have never seen a FOIA that turned up useful information" Sweetest of ironies that Morens might end up in jail *due to FOIA*.

First Lady Melania Trump has issued a statement demanding that ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel.