Yes, we are late coming out, but this time we have a halfway palatable excuse.

As you know, things at SELEDA have been turbulent these past few… well, things have always been turbulent at SELEDA, but these past few months… beqa, even the extreme alen-alen bai masochist amongst us have been teetering on the verge of some goofball "gimme liberty, my own office or ye mesheNa wereqet" gimmick that has served as a thorn in the hinies of certain SELEDA shumamint.

Tadiya indEt y’honal? Ayhonim!

Inconsolably annoyed at having to take time away from the ye Tof’e conversation they were having with their newly found inner children in order to mollify the wez-slash-lab — aderoch-slash-CHiqun hzb negeroch, upper management pronounced last week (deadline week) the "Week of Truth and Reconciliation." It was, the memo said, "where grievances will be aired and listened to" with "fairness and sensitivity." Yeahhhh, right. Like we’re gonna fall for that dbibiqosh again! "Imbiyo, never again," we, whose hearts have been singed by upper management’s malfeasance, said. "We won’t be duped again." (Reports that certain staffers in accounting wept like a BolE child whose zilzil Tbs was served lukewarm are not that highly exaggerated.)

Curiously emboldened by… we don’t know what, we braced for the umpteenth SELEDA intifada, and this time, we said, ere qoi.. this time…. Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-! Victory to the semi-washed masses.

Upper management shot off a new memo - "Week of Truth and Reconciliation" will culminate in a retreat for all staffers.Gulp!- Us? In a retreat? WITH them? Ya-hoo… Ehem.

No, we shot back. We were boycotting the "so-called" retreat. "Lemanim leminim!" Ha! Let’s see them call us tosstuwassa now!

Enter an extremely bored upper management messenger casssssssually into our Ground Zero, our commando central…headquarters of Operation Nega Belew. He nonchalantly announced that "The retreat will be at the Pocono Mountains." -Gulp times two!- P…P…P… Poconos??

And thus the first sign of fracture among the disenfranchised. How, some of us said, HOW could we possibly justify passing on the opportunity to sleep on crushed velvet comforters, drink brut champagne, swim in heart-shaped pools and make merry with upwardly mobile rednecks? Qelduss qeld new… but this standing for our rights thing was getting to be a royal pain in the arse.

After hours of fracas while messenger boy was cooling his heels by the cappuccino machine, the declaration was made to cunningly and strategically retreat to the retreat with the express intention of not forgiving the past. If we are offered a free meal, after all, why punish our stomach… . Ok, you had to be there to understand that axiom. But at the time it was profound.

First day of retreat… we are given handouts.

10:00 a.m. Breakfast ("Cereal and plums… or whatever the crap it is that those people eat.")

Hmmm. Tone? Not so reconciliatory. But, "Cereal and plums?" Yummy!

10:30 a.m. Session I: "We forgive you for being you."

Whaaa?

12:00 p.m. Lunch: "Lasagna and Qei sr. (What, we’re in Kokebe TSebat komprehensive, now?")

Ok We are so sensing... sarcasm... but LASAGNA AND qei sr??? Good times.

Bottom line: we all got free T-shirts.. "I have been forgiven for who I can’t help being." Hey, a free T-shirt is a free T-shirt is a free T-shirt. Especially when it is 100% cotton.

Selam senebetachihulin, SELEDAwiyan?

Welcome to the Modernity Issue. Occasionally, and no one is more grateful than us that this happens only very occasionally, the intellectual love bug bites us where no bite should happen and we manage to eek out an issue that might give reason for our dying brain cells to struggle for life. Yetabatachew! We are proud to have assembled some of the great Ethiopian thinkers this side of ibdEt be hbrert to officiate on what modernity is in the intellectual circles we try to melkesses at. We are, as always, grateful for this month’s contributors, new and old. There truly is no justice in the world when intellectual pygmies like us can dare share oxygen space with our writers, but be comforted that this is the clearest sign that ye alem meCHeresha is right at Bulgaria mazoria and heading straight to a fErmata near you. Presented for your mrmera, SELEDAwiyan, ineho, the Modernity Issue.

As you are well aware, we won’t be back until September. Ifffoyyy…, but, as they say on the Hill, make no mistake about it, we shall be back. Not necessarily any better, but we shall be back.

Which reminds us to remind you that that September will be the " Serg enna Leqso Issue." EcH," you say, you who have been mummified by cynicism, "huletu different yelachewim!" We’ll leave the details in your capable hands. All we know is that the Ethiopian Wedding as well as the Ethiopian Leqso…too much to talk about. Deadline for submissions is August 25, although depending on how hard you cry at weddings and how merrily you laugh at leqsos, that deadline can be stretched to the 16^th.

October will be the "2015 Issue". A little SELEDA Sci Fi, or just a little looking forward? Whoooowahi not? Imagine the future, then imagine a future with you in it… and then write about it with "Anchim ZEro ZEro. Hulum ZEro ZEro" blasting in the background. Deadline is September 15, the 16^th if silly deadlines mean nothing to you.