Unions oppose govt proposal to freeze public workers pay

The Public Servants Union says it will strongly oppose any attempt by the government to reduce or freeze salary increments for public servants who are union members.


The union has also threatened to sue the government in case it goes ahead to act on the issue.


The union, a splinter group from the Union of Kenya Civil Servants has supported former Prime Minister Raila Odinga over his pension.


The union’s Secretary-General Francis Ngariuku said the Cord leader’s retirement benefits should not be politicised and he should be paid his pension dues like any other retired public servant.


Speaking in Nairobi, the public servants union said it would oppose any attempt by the government or the Salaries and Remuneration Commission to change the salaries of public servants already in service.


BREACH OF CONTRACTS


It stated that the members were employed based on a contract and any alterations would be a breach of the same and would be challenged in court.


Mr Ngariuku said any measure affecting its members’ salaries must be negotiated.


“It is not a walk over for the ministry to think they can cut salaries just like that because there should be proper negotiation between all stakeholders involved in the public service,” Mr Ngariuku said.


The union spoke out following reports of plans by the government to enforce a pay-cut among senior public servants in an effort to reduce to the huge public wage bill.


President Uhuru Kenyatta is on record urging senior government officials to take a 10 per cent pay cut.


There has been concern that many public servants earn a lot more than they deserve in relation to the kind of work they do.


The other concern has been that some public servants earn much more than their colleagues in the same job groups and job description.

MP files urgent motion to discuss NYS

An Opposition MP has filed a motion urging the National Assembly to suspend its business on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the affairs of the National Youth Service (NYS) as a matter of “urgent national importance”.


Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi says in the notice of motion sent to Deputy Speaker Joyce Laboso that the Kenyan public is greatly concerned about the latest happenings at the National Youth Service.


“The NYS has lately dominated news for all the wrong reasons — reports of attempted fraud amounting to about Sh800 million, power struggles within its leadership, violent public demonstrations and counter-demonstrations regarding its activities, skewed recruitment of the youth contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and general corruption,” Mr Wandayi says.


UNDERMINE ITS CAPACITY


He says that if left to go on unchecked, the state of affairs at the NYS could undermine its capacity as an institution and render it unable to deliver on its mandate.


This would also jeopardise efforts at national cohesion and integration, he says in the notice addressed to the Speaker.


If Dr Laboso accepts this motion, the National Assembly could take at least one hour for discussion, which would give MPs an opportunity to discuss the NYS matter.


The NYS has been in the news since Wednesday last week after the Central Bank notified the Devolution and Planning ministry of large payments from their account.


Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru later said there had been an aborted attempt to irregularly pay out Sh826 million from the NYS.


This has sparked protests and demonstrations in Nairobi and Kisumu.

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Jadwal Nulis Ibu Rumah Tangga

Siapa bilang kalau ibu rumah tangga itu gak punya banyak waktu untuk menulis. Diantara rutinitas mengurus anak, merapikan rumah dan masak ternyata masih banyak waktu lho yang bisa digunakan untuk menulis. Apalagi kalau anak-anak sudah berusia di atas lima tahun. 

Jika si ibu bangun pagi hari, maka hanya perlu waktu tidak lebih dari 30 menit untuk menyiapkan sarapan pagi. Setelah anak-anak berangkat sekolah si ibu masih bisa merapikan rumh sekaligus mencuci dan menyetrika pakaian. Ini hanya memerlukan waktu antara 1-2 jam. Setelah itu masih bisa ke pasar dan menyiapkan bahan untuk dimasak nanti siang. Ini memakan waktu sekitar 1 jam. 

Misalnya saja si ibu bangun pada pukul 4.30 pagi. Maka semua rutinitas itu akan selesai pada jam 8 -9 pagi. Kegiatan mengurus rumah akan dimulai lagi pada jam 12 siang untuk menyiapkan makan siang dengan waktu memasak tidak lebih dari 30 menit karena bahan masakan sudah disiapkan pagi tadi. Jadi ada waktu luang sekitar 4 jam. Nah kalau kita menulis dan melakukan riset sekaligus, maka kita bisa lho mendapatkan sekurang-kurangnya 5-6  halaman A4. Yang berarti 1 cerita pendek untuk dikirim ke majalah. 

Kalau kita terbiasa menulis maka akan bisa menulis dengan cepat. Ini bisa menghasilkan sekurang-kurangnya 1 bab buku dengan jumlah halaman 5-8 halaman. NAh kalau kita ingin membuat novel dengan ketebalan 120 halaman, maka dengan waktu 4 jam yang ada ini kita bisa menulis dalam jangka waktu (120/8 =) 15 hari. 

Kalau kita seorang blogger, maka dengan waktu 4 jam tersebut bisa dihasilkan sekurang-kurangnya 4 postingan, dengan hitungan 1 jam untuk 1 postingan. NAh kalau 1 bulan berarti kita sudah bisa membuat (4 X 20 hari ) = 80 postingan. 

Itu kalau kita hanya memanfaatkan waktu luang di siang hari saja. Hari sabtu dan minggu si ibu masih bisa menikmati hari libur bersama keluarga. Sisa waktu masih bisa digunakan untuk kegiatan bersama anak-anak seperti nonton TV bareng, masak bareng ataupun ngobrol seputar kegiatan sehari-hari. Jadi masih banyak waktu menulis bukan? Walaupun ada banyak kesibukan sebagai ibu rumah tangga. 

Mengenal Karakter Penerbit itu Perlu

Penolakan naskah seringkali terjadi pada penulis baik itu penulis pemula bahkan penulis yang sudah senior seklaipun. Salah satu alasan naskah kita ditolak adalah karena tidak sesuai dengan penerbit. Misalnya saja kita mengirim naskah novel anak kepada penerbit yang lebih suka menerbitkan kumpulan cerita. Jadi bisa dibilang penolakan naskah kita karena salah alamat. 

Untuk mengetahui karakter penerbit tentu saja kita harus melakukan riset kecil. Seperti misalnya jenis buku apa yang lebih sering diterbitkan oleh si penerbit. Berapa ketebalan buku yang lebih disukai oleh si penerbit. Karena ada juga lho penerbit yang lebih suka menjual buku-uku tebal yang eksklusif dengan harga mahal. Tapi ada juga penerbit yang lebih suka menerbitkan buku-buku novel dengan jumlah halaman yang standar dan penampilan yang biasa-biasa saja. 

Indie Book Corner: Fantasy of Flight: The Tainted Accords #2, by Kelly St. Clare

What a gorgeous cover!

 Slow start but amazing payoff!

Abridged for you lazies out there.

The Good

+Characters with hearts of gold.
+Olina/Frost character development
+Smooth writing/Easy reading.
+The return of some cool characters.
+Plenty of humor and heart.
+A superb second and third part of the story that I just could not put down.
+Romance and sexiness.
+Epic revelations!
+Positive book for women with many strong female characters.
+The Harness!!!

The Bad

-Very slow start
-Pit fights required much suspension of disbelief especially during Frost's fights
-The mystery of finding the killer becomes so drawn out that I lost interest in it during the pits part.

If you don't know already Fantasy of Flight is the sequel to Fantasy of Frost. Both books star a queen in the making, Olina and her dealings with two worlds: the fire world Osolis and the ice world Glacium. Spoilers below!!!! Book received for an honest review.

Review

Okay so let's just get the bad out of the way. I didn't like the time I spent in the pits so much. The setup was just fine but it was pretty slow and everything that I found appealing about the first book was just derailed. Finding Kedrick's killer was just an afterthought as were the characters we'd just grown accustomed to. It seemed like a whole other book but that's not my main gripe.

My main gripe with this part was the amount of head shaking I did at 80% of Frost's fights. You see, I'm a combat junkie and a huge fan of the Davids of the world beating the Goliaths but come on this was ridiculous. We're told over and over by Frost herself that these men are 2, 3, and 4 times her size and yet she's the dominant one in each and every one of these fights. No real strategy but dodge and kick real hard. No pressure points, joint locks, or holds believable for a person of her size to perform to beat guys of this size. Even speed only goes so far against this much of a size difference. We're also not told she has super strength or anything like that so my conclusion is that these guys are made of glass or she was just lying about how tough they are. She's a great fighter sure, but she wasn't the underdog as much as she should've been and that hurt this part in my eyes. I could believe her crazy combat victories before because the advantage of speed with a weapon is very different than the advantage of speed with bare hands

By the end of the pits I had at least grown to like the characters but I was glad to leave. Then...

We get to the superb second third of the book. From here on out the book really shines and I now have a new appreciation for the part with the pits, really because it sets up the next part so nicely. This is the part of the book that blends what I liked about the first book with the new stuff introduced in this one and it’s a joy to watch the two parts merge. Here we got to see Olina try to balance her new arena/pits persona with the Tatuma Olina persona. We see her old friends and her new friends interact and attempt to get along and are given some truly heartfelt and humorous moments here. This part also reignited my interest in locating Kedrick's killer that had begun to wane since a little after the middle of the first book and almost vanished during the first part.

Olina and Jovan's relationship reaches new heights here as I believe they have exhausted every emotion possible towards one another and all that reaches its apex. Jovan is a really cool part of this series.

There's also a lot of huge reveals here that took me by surprise and I'm excited by how they'll affect the next book in the series, Fantasy of Fire that's due to release next January. I'll just say that the flight in the title really does come into play hehe.

So all that leaves is Olina/Frost I guess and I must say that despite her many times annoying me, I have grown to like her a lot as a character. Her rashness and sometimes selfish actions do always have a good reason behind them and ultimately define her as a hero because of her will to be a force for good and a champion for those without champions. I've begun to see her for what she really is and what she really brings to the table. She is strong-willed, confident yet sometimes self-conscious, analytical, naive yet willing to learn and participate, open minded despite her conservative upbringing, and extremely big hearted despite the horrors done to her and witnessed. Good or bad this is her and she definitely sticks to her guns! And her narration seems to be improving as she opens up more to the world. I like this effect.

There's much more to say but I won't draw this out. I ended up liking all the characters from the pits so much that I was actually sad to see them go. That surprised me. I like Alzona's crusade for helping those downtrodden and thought she was a very subtle and positive character. Kudos to Ms. St. Clare for putting her in and not overusing her. And the rest of the pit fighters, even Sin, showed some great depth to them. So while not my favorite part, the pit did have some really cool moments.

Overall I believe this is a better book than the first one but the beginning nearly drags it down for me. I love the second and third parts of it so much though that I still think it’s worthy of 5 stars. Not perfection but a damn good time!

Book Links:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24866809-fantasy-of-flight
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Flight-Tainted-Accords-Book-ebook/dp/B00TXWVMHQ
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fantasy-Flight-Tainted-Accords-Book-ebook/dp/B00TXWVMHQ

Mencari Ide Cerita Dengan Mudah

Salah satu alasan klasik untuk menunda menulis adalah tidak ada ide. Berlama-lama didepan komputer hanya untuk mencari ide. Padahal yang namanya ide itu ada banyak sekali. Saking banyaknya bahkan bisa dibilang bahawa ide itu beterbangan di sekitar kita dan menunggu untuk kita tangkap salah satunya. 

Sebuah cerita akan menarik kalau ada masalah atau konflik. Tapi setiap masalah yang ada dalam cerita juga harus ada penyelesaiannya lho. Setiap orang pasti pernah punya masalah bukan? Nah masalah yang pernah kita alami ini bisa jadi salah satu sumber ide yang bagus. 

MAsalah yang kita temui biasanya disebabkan oleh kebiasaan buruk kita sendiri. Nah dari kebiasaan buruk ini kita bisa kembali merunut hingga menjadi ide cerita. Misalnya apa kebiasaan buruk kita, kemudian apa akibat kebiasaan buruk itu bagi orang-orang yang ada disekeliling kita. Lalu bagaimana caranya supaya kita menjadi jera dan tidak melakukan kebiasaan buruk itu lagi. 

Enaknya kalau dalam membuat cerita fiksi, maka kita bisa melebih-lebihkan kejadian yang kita alami hingga menjadi cerita yang menarik. Kebiasaan buruk ini bukan saja berasal dari diri kita sendiri lho. Bisa saja kita mendapatkan ide dari kebiasaan buruk orang-orang yang ada di sekitar kita. Seperti misalnya kebiasaan buruk adik, paman, tante, bahkan binatang peliharaan kita. 

Selain dari melihat kebiasaan buruk, kita juga mendapatkan ide dari kejadian-kejadian yang ada di sekitar kita. Dengan mengisi titik-titik dari pertanyaan , "apa yang terjadi jika ...... " maka kita akan mendapatkan ide cerita. 

Misalnya saja " apa yang terjadi jika air dalam gelas itu berubah menjadi warna pelangi?"

Kemudian dari pertanyaan yang ada kita bisa melengkapinya dengan pertanyaan-pertanyaan lainseperti misalnya : 

• "Apa reaksi orang-orang yang melihatnya?" 
• "Apakah air pelangi itu punya khasiat tertentu?" 

Dan masih banyak pertanyaan lainnya yang bisa kalian buat sendiri. Yang perlu diingat adalah kita harus bisa memberikan jawaban yang masuk akal atas pertanyaan-pertanyaan tersebut. 

Kita juga bisa lho bermain angka untuk mendapatkan ide cerita. Misalnya kita punya angka kesayangan yaitu "33". Nah kita bisa mengambil sebuah buku dan membukanya di halaman 33. Dari halaman yang kita buka itu , kita bisa ambil kata ketiga yang ada di tiga kalimat pada paragraf ke tiga. 

Nah dari tiga kata tersebut, maka kita bisa merangkainya menjadi sebuah kalimat baru. Dari kalimat baru itu kita perpanjang lagi deh jadi paragraf baru. Nah satu paragraf baru ini bisa kita jadikan ide cerita untuk kita buat sinopsisnya menjadi satu halaman.  

JAdi tidak ada lagi ya alasan untuk tidak menulis karena tidak punya ide cerita.