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Saturday, December 03, 2005

I was just looking up a book on Wikipedia, and the front page presented an interesting bit of information. It had an article discussing the recent Gabonese election. The winner? President Omar Bongo Ondimba, who has ruled Gabon since 1967(as long as I've been alive), and who is Africa's longest currently serving leader.

To a North American seeing a President Bongo is a bit odd. His name sounds like something from an old film, and its not hard to imagine that many people on this side of the Atlantic, not knowing of his existence, would consider naming an African character Bongo in a piece of fiction, movie, or TV show to be bordering on the edge of racism. Yet he's a real person, not a fictional character. Most peculiar.

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