Monthly Archives: August 2025

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

Numerous incidents happened in June during which mask wearing United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) goons were conducting raids apprehending suspected undocumented people in Los Angeles. Many of the people ICE targeted were not violent criminal suspects but day laborers at Home Depot, farm workers, children, street vendors and car wash workers. Some public protests happened against ICE raids with some limited violence in one city block near a Federal Building in the large city of Los Angeles of 500 square miles and 3.8 million people.

President Trump seized the opportunity to swiftly deploy 700 marines and 2,000 National Gurd troops. Two months later, a former young Dodge employee in his 20s was apparently assaulted at 3.00am in Washington, D.C. President Trump seized the event to deploy 800 National Guards to fight crime in D.C and to assist the mask wearing ICE agent goons to apprehend any suspected undocumented citizens walking the streets of D.C. who tend to be brown people.

One incident documenting the patrols in the fight against violent crime in DC caught my attention. A resident of Washington DC is shown on the pavement of the city block approaching two National Guards shouting at and berating them. The resident is seen wagging his finger at them when he suddenly hurled an object at the one National Guard troop that landed on the left side of his chest. The 2 guards gave chase as the suspect turned around, crossed the street and sprinted away as fast as he could as the two guards furiously gave chase down the block until they apprehended the suspect and cuffed him. When the report said the hurled object was a Subway sandwich, I could not stop my loud laughter with my chest rocking up and down. I felt awful that I could not stop laughing with tears in my eyes over the serious incident.

However, my laughter suddenly turned into utter dread and fear after watching the former Judge Jeanine Pirro of Fox News video clip. Jeanine Ferris Pirro is now President Trump’s Department of Justice Attorney for the District of Columbia who was bragging in the video clip that throwing a sandwich at law enforcement officers had earned the suspect going to jail. She further emphatically said the suspect was going to be charged with a felony which, if convicted, would earn him many years in prison.

This tragic news sobered me so much that I secretly schemed to save some money by earning some free food since I am a retired poor senior surviving on a limited social security income. I hatched a plan. The suspect was now nicknamed the Sandwich Slinger. The Trump DOJ hauled him to court and as expected charged the suspect with a felony. But the Judge released the suspect on bail under his own recognizance. The trial might be next month.

Since the suspect Sandwich Slinger was out on bail, I intended to travel to Washington DC and scout the Subway fast food places he likes to patronize. My friends and relatives who live in DC were in on the scheme. They texted and updated me on the suspect’s every move up to the last minute. The Sandwich Slinger would be purchasing a sandwich from the Subway fast food restaurant on 14^th Street downtown DC at 4:00pm Eastern Standard Time.

I quickly hopped on the Metro underground train, briskly walked 20 minutes and stood waiting fifty feet or 15.00m on the sidewalk next to the Subway Restaurant exit door. I could see through the glass doors that the suspect had just bought the sandwich and was coming out. He walked out about ten feet or 3meters when I suddenly jumped in front of him 20 feet or 6ms away.

“Hey!! Sandwich Slinger!!!” I growled at him. He froze.

“Hear you hurled a Subway Sandwich and hurt a National Guard!! You sun of a gun!! F bomb you F bomb your girlfriend and your mom!!! Explicative you!!” I wanted to really rile and piss him off. He uncorked the Subway Sandwich and seemed unsure whether to hurl it at me.

“Go!! Ahead!!!” I growled with my ugliest Clint Eastwood scowl with intense eyes, twitching nose, and quivering lips.

 “Make my day!!!” I growled angrily, jabbing my forefinger on my forehead. “I bet you can’t hit me with a man’s hundred mile per hour deadly major league fastball!! I bet you can’t  hit me with a  deadly strike right here on my forehead!!!” I angrily jabbed my forefinger on my forehead several times.

The suspect unwinded and angrily threw the 6inch or 152mm sandwich at my forehead. I snatched the sandwich out of the air with my quick reflexes before it could slam into my forehead and I took a swift bite at it.

“You just made my day!!!” I growled as I chewed, squinting with my Clint Eastwood scowl. “Make my day again!!!”

To my surprise, the Sandwich Slinger dashed into the Subway again and this time bought a 12inch or 304mm sandwich which he hurled at me again. I snatched it in midair again.

“Call the police!!!” the gathered crowd was now shouting.

Holding on to my 2 free subway sandwiches, I sprinted escaping to the Metro that took me to Manassas.  I jumped into my car and drove for 2 hours back home to Virginia  Shenandoah Valley. I learned on the evening news that the National Guard and FBI could not apprehend the suspects in the DC 14^th street Sandwich Slinger duel despite numerous 911 calls to the police from the public. The law enforcement officials were too distracted looking at the Epstein Files in the White House.

by

Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

I woke up at 3 am facing a star-studded sky under an open tent sleeping in my clothes surrounded by maize fields at a remote rural village farm in Africa. Dozens of other funeral goers around me were still sleeping. This was during a 3-day funeral wake and burial for my 84-year-old brother-in-law who had passed away a few days earlier after a long illness. This was near Muyayi in remote Chief Mwase Mpangwe in the Lundazi district in the Eastern Province of Zambia in Southern Africa.

My challenge that caused me anxiety in the wee hours is that I was supposed to be back in the capital city of Lusaka before sunset that day; a distance of 433 miles or 696kms or 10 hours of bus ride. If I missed my only bus ride, I risked losing my Service Apartment reservation and forfeiting my prepaid deposit. My 30-year-old nephew volunteered to drive me in his small car for 15 miles or 24Kms to the Lundazi-Chipata main road for me to catch the Lusaka bus at 4 am.

The 51 miles or 82kms of this part of the paved road was horrible. There were rough monster potholes all over the road. I had travelled on it by bus since 2012. I ask each time I ride the bus to get a seat near the front of the bus from the capital city of Lusaka. Would I be able to get a seat near the front of the bus this time going back to the city?

When I heard the loud sound from the distance in the pitch darkness and saw the bus headlights emerging, I raised my bright small one double AA battery Redline flashlight to the rapid flickering emergency mode, high above my head to draw the attention of the driver. I made sure the bright flickering flashlight was pointing to the ground because I did not want to blind the bus driver. The bus stopped as I rushed to the door with my backpack and carry-on bag.

“How far, Sir!” the young conductor shouted as he swung the door open.

“Lusaka!!!”

“Hurry Get in!! Go to the very back where the only empty seats are!!!” The Conductor tossed my bag in the bus undercarriage and slammed it shut.  The bus moved on.

“Sir! Can I get a seat near the front?” I asked the conductor again. “I get sick if I sit in the back!!!”

“Unfortunately, sir,” he replied. “There is nothing up front. You have to go to the back!!!”\

I knew then I was in deep trouble or even danger. I awkwardly sat down on seat number 27 as the bus swung and bounced my large stomach around for one minute. I quickly pulled from my 65 years of rural travel experience from 1960 when I was 6 years old and rode on the Central African Bus Services (CARS) when Zambia was Northern Rhodesia during British Colonialism. I travelled on some of the most primitive early dirt or gravel roads. I am now 70 years old.

First, I had to stand in the isle with my feet spread three feet or one meter apart. I leaned the small of my back and tail bone against one of the seats. The bus was wildly swinging side to side of the road and bounced up and down and suddenly braking avoiding deep lethal potholes. I remembered a page from the professional downhill snow skiers, including the famous Lindsey Vaun who often go at speeds of 60 miles per hour skiing on their two legs. When downhill skiers fly at that speed, they use the tendons around their knees as hydraulic springs with shock absorbers. I lowered my upper body by about half a foot and slightly bent my knees. My knees and tendons were now shock absorbers for my body.

I actively used my hands to hold on to the head seat rests in front and behind me. As I bobbed my head up and down, swung back and forth and sideways, I felt like the famous boxer Smoking Joe Frazer trying to avoid the barrage of swift dazzling boxing jabs from the Greatest boxer ever, Mohammed Ali.

The sick looking passenger in the next seat had his head hanging out of the window as he was vomiting. The six passengers being tossed around at the very back of the bus were having it the roughest. The many sudden numerous movements in virtually all directions would require expert explanations from the eminent Astro Physicist Neil de Grasse Tyson. My memories of kinetic, potential energy, and Newtonian Physics from my Grade 12 or Form V Physics class from 54 years ago in 1971 Chizongwe Secondary School, would not do enough justice to understand all the numerous physical traumatic movements and challenges I was experiencing all at once.

After two hours or 51 miles or 82 Kms after Mgubudu Stores, the bus suddenly was quiet and smooth riding. This silence was probably what Astronauts feel once their capsule breaks through the gravity barrier and becomes weightless.

I sat down with a huge sigh of relief. The rest of the bus ride for the next 382miles or 614kms or 8 hours was very smooth all the way to the capital city of Lusaka. The Zambian government needs to repave those 51 miles or 82kms part of the Chipata-Lundazi road which has been horrible since 2012 or during the last 13 years. Warning: Readers are strongly advised not to try to risk travelling like this if you are over 70 years old as it could be dangerous and perhaps even deadly