Homeless Soccer

Rockin' in the Third World...

"Hire the handicapped. It's a gas watching them work."

James A. Michener | The Drifters

It was an interesting few years. I was mugged, burgled and branded a liar. I betrayed the confidence of someone with HIV and chased a stranger in the hope of stabbing him. I listened to people moan from want of medicine while the wind howled through their shacks. I watched the country inch closer to a one-party state, and that party slide into scandal and crisis. I would like to say I fell in love with South Africa, but I didn’t.

Rory Carroll | Why I never quite fell for South Africa

...home truths via Anton Harbor, the man who — with the Weekly Mail staff and readership — kept journalism alive through the Botha years...

Meanwhile, on the other side of the screen...

Pondering back past my addictions (above) to Rory Carroll's article, perhaps I suffer Foetal South Africa Syndrome (FSAS).

Dunno, but it bears thinking about.

I wonder if, in the interests of cross-monetization, they'd let the other millions of homeless into the Arabella Sheraton?

It'd be good for the tourists.

Yeah.

Y'know what they say; "Life's a conversation"?

Actually, maybe I said that, but so what...

Everybody'd get together and...

Umm...

Actually, maybe not.

Anyway, it's all Brian's fault.

Tag: Reason to blog...

Cape Town's Somali Genocide

While South Africans bleat and moan about crime, I'm still having fun with my budget Canon. I took these Sunday, down at Llandudno, where a chunky swell gave the body boarders something to smile about. It seems I missed a big swell Saturday, but so what?

We were on the mountain at Devil's Peak, below Rhodes Memorial. It seems some people were mugged there earlier today.

Leaving Llandudno after sunset, I asked a surfer washing down his wetsuit how large he thought the waves were. "Depends what you mean," he answered curtly.

"I mean how big do you reckon the waves are out at the back?" I persisted.

"About three foot," he muttered, turning back to his wetsuit.

I dunno. I put him down as a typical Capetonian, unwilling to chat and unfriendly to boot. Some six-foot waves were coming through at the back, a break called The Wedge, and the body boarders made merry with them while the surfers messed around in the shore break — a vicious enough wave, as small as it was.

Yeah, crime. Apparently, Capetonians are doing something about it. Alarms, security fences, armed response, bicycle patrols, and ADT huts on every second corner are the order of the day. Now, whenever suburbia is rocked by a robbery, every Tom, Sipho, and Sally e-mails hundreds of other besieged residents.

Quite what they hope to achieve by doing this, I've no idea.

Unfortunately, I'm unlikely to find out. Those now doing something about crime tend to be those 300,000 ADT customers who can afford to do something about it — even if only by regaling the neighbourhood with personal Tales of the Terrible.



There are a couple of breaks out at Llandudno. When the tide comes in, the body boarders get a good ride off incoming swells pushed up by the outgoing wash from both the beach and the rocks. Their boards have a far better shape these days too — the concave tail offering a better and more comfortable fit around the waist, stomach or chest.

Oh, yeah, the Somalis. Rethabile posed an interesting question quite some time ago. Are Basotho racist? Or something similar. I remember the post because it gave us something to chew on. Refugees finding their way here generally find South Africa a living hell. Most South Africans give them an extraordinarily hard time and I can quite easily see why some would label such aggressive behaviour 'racist'.

It's not. In my book, racism carries with it an assumption of one's culture being superior to others. Xenophobia, on the other hand, explains things pretty well. It's a cultural thing and as old as humankind. Basically, it boils down to a fear of the Other manifested through violence.

Mohamed Hassan Ahmed, a Somali refugee living in Cape Town, was murdered this past Friday night. I believe xenophobia played a large part in his needless murder.

Now, Cape Town's a pretty cosmopolitan place. We have Rwandans, Burundians, Congolese, Senegalese, Tanzanian, Zimbabwean, Nigerian, Kenyan and other nationalities fleeing to Cape Town in large numbers. Somalis, fleeing the civil war and genocide in that country, make up a pretty small part of the cultural brio we have going down here.

Yet Mohamed was the twenty-seventh member of the Somali community to be murdered this month. During July, twenty-one Somalis were murdered. In Cape Town. The police aren't that concerned.

Forget Darfur. Come to Cape Town.



We spent quite some time on the rocks yesterday, enjoying the sun and watching the sea. Although only a moderate swell was evident, the insanity of surfers was on full display. Not only do these body boarders kneel or stand on their damned boards, they paddle dangerously close to the rocks when making their way out to their chosen spot.

One guy popped into view beneath me. He didn't seem to be making much headway, a set was coming in, and he was being pushed back onto the rocks time and again. I was worried. Calling out to him above the roar of the surf made no sense, but I felt maybe I could ascertain whether or not he was in trouble before calling for some help.

It seems he knows Llandudno well, and within minutes, he'd escaped the rocks and was doing 360s on some fast-breaking rough stuff.

Umm... yeah, the refugees. That they might be, but it seems we offer them no refuge. Accorded refugee status if not deported to the charnel houses they've fled, they're not allowed South African citizenship. Children born to refugees remain refugees.

It seems we don't want them here.



Okay, so I'm working through this crime thing. Why? I don't know. I guess I want to understand where everybody's coming from. Although my extended family has been hit hard by violent crime, I've not been mugged, hijacked or shot.

I've a feeling most people have escaped such trauma. And I've a feeling most feel there's more mileage to be made from scoring points from and speaking about crime than there is in doing anything about it.

Meanwhile, the rich folk erect ever-higher electric fences, send each other e-mails and get shot in their drives while the poor get blown away wherever they happen to be. It's said that about three percent of white South Africans, who make up less than twenty percent of the population, are affected by crime.

Black, predominantly poor South Africans and refugees from all over Africa are taking a beating. For some reason, white South Africans, because they take their security fences and year-round sunshine for granted, remind me of the surly twat I encountered at Llandudno.

It seems there's a little bit of xenophobia in all of us and it sure as hell doesn't help...

Note: I gave Independent Online a hard time yesterday...or the day before. All the stories linked to here come from their site. Ehem...

Cape Town Weekend...

Saturday...


...in the forest, and...


...Sunday...


...on the coast.

Spring is, as they say, in the air...

Daylight Robbery

Above the fold...

I knew a man who lived in fear | It was huge, it was angry, it was drawing near | Behind his house, a secret place | Was the shadow of the demon he could never face.

Okay, so it turns out it was a heist (see post below) and the local paper did cover it — if only because a reporter happened to be passing by. I don't know. I can't speak for the papers, but these things are so seldom regarded newsworthy I can't believe they have staff they send out.

You can't read the story, of course. The Cape Argus may be an 'online' paper, but it is only nominally so. As far as news sources go in this country, a recent 'reputable' poll found only News24.com drawing millions of hits. No South African newspaper approaches one million.

Hard to believe, eh? Not really. Just have a look at the Cape Argus's front page. I mean, for fuck's sake, non-subscriber lockouts have been dead on the Web for years.

And, bar the Mail & Guardian, other South African papers — many of which are owned by the Independent Group — have a similar Web presence; including the main IOL site. It gives precious little in-depth news. Nor does the Mail & Guardian get off Scott free. It still errs on the side of being tight-fisted with good pieces, generally using its agreement with the Guardian to replicate that paper's content.

Why? With the exception of the M&G, I suppose management, living a lifestyle to which it has become accustomed, has to give its advertisers some exposure in the face of abysmal circulation figures. It's a vicious circle. Print editions are execrable, cost the equivalent of a US dollar on weekends, and look set to enjoy ever-dwindling readerships. So, as far as the boardroom's concerned, if you want to know about it, you'd better buy the paper.

South African newspapers fail to recognise the value of ostensibly giving something away for nothing. It's not for nothing that the New York Times, Washington Post and Guardian carry such clout worldwide. Until recently, I could read the likes of Krugman and O'Dowd for nada. And even though the Brits are as hard-nosed as they get, The Independent still gives me the occasional dose of Fisk.

Would I buy these papers' print editions? Going on what they give away, hell yes I would.

And the same goes for magazines. The New Yorker gives Seymour Hersh's articles away. This sort of loss-leader, brand-building shit is anathema to South African marketers and those paying their over-inflated prices. They don't, and won't — unlink the Asia Times, al-Ahram, or al-Jazeera, ever get it.


Fender benders as art...

He built a wall of steel and flame | And men with guns, to keep it tame | Then standing back, he made it plain | That the nightmare would never ever rise again | But the fear and the fire and the guns remain.

Umm... yeah. The other daylight robbery. The good thing about front-page stories is that you can read them in the store without having to buy the paper. From what I recall, the victim — a building contractor carrying his company's payroll of ZAR24,000, was driving a courtesy car when he ran out of fuel on the freeway running past the University of Cape Town. He telephoned somebody for assistance, but was approached by three guys who demanded that he gave them what he had. which he did.

Having taken care of their side of the deal, the three guys made off. The contractor then pulled a gun on them in an effort to reverse what he felt was pretty much a win-lose transaction. So the guys on the winning side pulled their guns and all four blazed away at each other. All being lousy shots, it appears nobody was hurt and the police are, as ever, investigating. Again, from what I can remember, the contractor told the paper it was the second time he'd been robbed. "Crime in this country is out of control. Something needs to be done. It cannot go on like this," he added for emphasis.

It's one of those dime-a-dozen robberies that seldom make the papers. This one, however, proved a traffic stopper.

And it made me think. In my entry below, fire personnel, paramedics, traffic and police officers, and who-knows-who-else attend a road accident. For the armed heist mentioned here, I spotted at least five police officers, including a detective at the scene. We've so many private security people driving about, we export people to the U.S. military. Very few Capetonians live out of hearing distance of a police or ambulance siren and they wail all day (the sirens). Crime is out of control, but I still cannot see logic motivating hosers like Neil Watson, who blame government for it.

Watson, derided as a racist on this blog when first he launched his site, is taking a hammering. His is one of those stories IOL is more than happy to tout.

Were we to recall and deploy all South African mercenaries or give the army policing power and turn it loose on the populace, crime would not subside. We are a violent, aggressive, and fractured society seething with resentment, self-righteousness and a sense of entitlement. In short, we want what others have got and have few qualms about taking it from them. The largest, most efficient police force in the world would not change that.

All we can do is change the circumstances fostering crime against persons and property. i.e. inequity, unemployment, and pervasive poverty living cheek by jowl with obscene wealth. Yeah, yeah... the song remains the same. And it'll do so until South Africans throw away their guns and start bridging economic, racial, and cultural divides to solve common problems. Unfortunately — for the formerly advantaged, government and not Neil Watson are correct. The legacy of apartheid lives on. And it will do so until we deny it the air on which it feeds; arrogance, greed and stupidity.

And that starts with each of us.

It doesn't matter now | It's over anyhow | He tells the world that it's sleeping | But as the night came round | I heard its lonely sound | It wasn't roaring, it was weeping | It wasn't roaring, it was weeping.

Bright Blue | Weeping

Survivor #45,432,969

Diana — Survivor: Claremont, Cape Town...

In its latest contribution to society, the CBS reality show Survivor has announced that in its upcoming season the competing teams will be chosen according to race, much to the concern of US minority rights organisations.

[...]

The programme's executive producer, Mark Burnett, went as far as to suggest to Variety magazine that it might help soften the ethnic boundaries in American society. "Maybe that taboo could disappear through this," he said, drawing a sarcastic response...

Guardian | Reality TV turns to race 'tribes' to survive ratings war

Note: Diane (see comments) of Packing for Prague — her blog name derives from a peculiarly South African political joke, is another local ResearchBuzz subscriber. She put me on to the 'Survivor' story, for which I thank her. My chosen survivor, to whom I introduced myself this evening (she lives about a mile down the road — give or take one or two shopfronts), just happens to share a similar name.

Traffic...

"Bad start to Friday..."

The percentage you're paying is too high priced | While you're living beyond all your means. | And the man in the suit has just bought a new car | From the profit he's made on your dreams. | But today you just swear that the man was shot dead | By a gun that didn't make any noise. | But it wasn't the bullet that laid him to rest | It was the low spark of high-heeled boys.

Nope, this has nothing to do with Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, or becoming a link whore (sorry, sex worker) like Frank. This is opportunistic posting — Friday in the big city, preceded and followed by hours spent dull-mindedly snarled in traffic of a vehicular nature.

Taxis are not as bad as most make them out to be. Given our lousy public transport system, they get the job done. And, considering the number of people they carry each trip and each year, you're probably safer in a Cape Town taxi than you are in a private car. There's a simple reason for this. Much like Hezbollah's rockets, they lack guidance systems, are aimed in the general direction of where they're going, and are launched.

All other traffic gives way. You get used to it after a while. My reflexes are so finely honed, and my internal radar systems so acute, I'd probably fall asleep driving on a North American, European, or Australian road.

The guy driving the taxi in the above picture was thinking of the weekend as he headed towards the intersection leading onto the freeway some time this morning. As a self-made rule, taxis treat traffic lights with disdain, but slip seamlessly into unseen gaps between fast-oncoming cars, trucks, and buses.

A Jeep took this guy out. His taxi's on its side in the centre of the picture, and there's a fat SUV sandwiched between a paramedic vehicle and the fire engine on the right.

"Bad start to Friday," commented one of my colleagues, stubbing out his cigarette and heading indoors.


Just traffic...

If you had just a minute to breathe | And they granted you one final wish | Would you ask for something | Like another chance | Or something similar as this. | Don't worry too much, it'll happen to you | As sure as your sorrows are joys.

Trouble is, what goes in must come out. And I don't mean the taxi driver and his passengers — our traffic officials are quite used to these things and cleared the road in no time. I mean commuters locked into the city for a day. Starting at 07:00, I head back out at 16:00, catching the early rush.

Today, it was nose to tail all the way around the mountain.

An ambulance howled past, but that's par for the course. I had no idea what the hold-up was. It might have been anything from a fender bender to a Baghdad Bomb Blast.

Funny how you get a feeling about things. This photograph above gives little evidence as to what went down, but I've a strong hunch it was a heist of some sort. It's in the attitude of the cops and the lounging detective, the tape tied to and from the cop car and the forlorn look of the small truck at the side of the road.

There'll be nothing reported. It happens all the time. On Wednesday night, I saw a police car pull somebody over outside my place and, within minutes, another two cars arrived. I didn't bother to try establish what happened. The driver was either drunk, armed, or had a stash, or the car might have been unlicensed or hot.

Or the cops might have been looking for trouble.

You never know. It's just traffic.

And yet, somehow, my indifference to our daily dose of canned carnage disturbs me.

Dunno why, but it does.

And the thing that disturbs you is only the sound | Of the low spark of high-heeled boys.

Traffic | Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys

General Jocularity

Hot Buttered Mirth from General Jocularity...

I bumped into Patrice this morning. He sleeps across the way from Lunga (see Tuesday's post). Lunga's South African, but Patrice is from Congo.

Anyway, I'm not at my best at 06:45 so when, on climbing out of the car I was faced with a giggling alleged racist, I felt decidedly edgy.

Patrice put me at ease immediately. Because he's always smiling, I call him General Jocularity.

"Good blog post, man."

"Thanks, General. You read it?"

He patted his duvet and laughed. "Always have the old laptop under here."

I made as if to head off to the office, wondering at his good humour. Patrice called out. "Hey, you read that arsehole over at Modern Tribalist?"

I stopped and turned. "No. Modern Tribalist? What's that? One of your kung-fu-juju African stunts?"

"No, lame brain. He's a white-American fuck nut who considers himself a racist. Now that we've cornered the market, he's nothing short of pathetic."

"How come?" I was intrigued.

"I told you I was reading the blogs last night," he said, pulling a serious laptop out from under his covers. "I'm not buying any fucking newspapers. Why pay for them to keep the advertising industry alive?"

I wasn't getting into that one. "What about this Modern Tribalist idiot? What's pathetic about a white supremacist?" I asked Patrice.

"Well, besides Shelley and Jeneane picking up on your post, as well as a great pic from Farrago, it seems he was the only other person who saw fit to mention the article. In fact, he quoted it at length as an authoritative statement of fact."

"Dumb bastard."

"Yeah," nodded Patrice. "That's what I thought. Until I read the comments. And that's when I started laughing. I haven't stopped since 04:00."

"Don't you sleep?" I asked him.

"With this traffic?" he asked in return, nodding at the freeway a few meters from us.

I said nothing.

"Anyway," he continued. "I wasn't laughing so much at this sick bastard. I was having a hoot at Anonymous. He or she commented on the article."

"What'd he say?" I asked.

Patrice pulled a printout from under his pile of covers. "Here. I printed it out for you."

I stared at the printout. 'You have a laser printer under there?"

"Oh, yeah," he chuckled. "Read the thing."

I did.

I live in Gauteng SA,

I don't think apartheid was right. But didn't America have slaves?? Weren't they also seen as a minority race? They just didn't give it a name but wasn't apartheid also present? I was a small kid who didn't know about all the things going on around the country why am I being punished for things that I wasn't part off?? The guys running around blaming apartheid for things are my age... apartheid happened to their parents and grandparents not to them why are they carrying on about it? I thought we were all free since 1994? They had opportunities since then to study and learn but are still relying on afirmative (sic) action and blaming apartheid to find jobs because they didn't take the opportunities given to them. Afirmitave (sic) action was a good idea for awhile to get black south africans (sic) into the loop but now it has been taken too far...Half of black South Africans sitting in possisions (sic) they are, are not qualified and can't do the job but they are there because they are black.

Some one mentioned yesterday that a march is going to be held at Loftus this weekend because there are to little blacks in the Springbok Rugby team...quota hasn't been met... what about the soccer team Bafana, Bafana? There are almost no whites in the team and you don't hear anyone say "hey what about the quota?" APARTHEID IS TURNED AROUND! Blacks and Whites have swopped (sic) places.

I felt slightly queasy. This was not the sort of thing to be reading before a day's work.

"This is pretty ugly stuff, General," I remarked. "You mind if I finish it in the office? It looks as though the Sunday Times may have unwittingly done us a favour."

"Not at all, but I need the printout. I'm running low on paper, so I'll mail the link upstairs. That guy's either fallen off the left-hand side of the Bell Curve or he's been scared shitless. Anyhow, it's well worth reading. You go on up and get yourself some coffee."

"Cool. thanks a million, man. And thanks for stopping by at the blog."

"My pleasure, Mike. You have a good day now, you hear?"

"Yeah, man. You look after yourself too, eh?"

Smiling, Patrice pulled out a shoulder-fired rocket launcher. "Hey, don't you worry about me. I can look after myself."

I don't doubt it.

This Just In!

you sexist denier of male linkers

oh sure jeneane and shelley were the only ones...

NOT

Of course, since I am a link whore i can see why you discount me.

But that doesn't make you any less sexist. In fact link whore discrimination is one of the worst things you can be accused of.

j'accuse

Christ! It's the Colonel...the one and only Frank Paynter. What the hell do I do now? The viciousness of the accusation; the vitriol with which it has been put...I am immobilized. I am mortified.

Indeed my friends, in this business, you can safely take on racists, politicians and other twisted perverts across the spectrum. But one thing a blogger NEVER, NEVER does, is cross a link whore.

Especially a sweet and charming old slut like Frank.

"Blacks are the Biggest Racists"

Mama Africa... leading racist commentator

Africans are South Africa’s worst racists — and fellow Africans are their main victims. These are the findings of a nationwide survey conducted by Plus 94 Research, a marketing research company. An affiliate of the Gallup group, it interviewed 2000 people about their experiences at shops, hospitals, transport outlets, municipal offices, financial institutions and other places.

Yeah, well, there you have it. I knew there was something about them I didn't like. They're a bunch of bloody racists. Plus 94 Research tells me so and the Sunday Times, our largest-circulation paper, spells it out. The poll results headlined this past Sunday's edition, which was avidly snapped up by countless millions who've always suspected our black brothers and sisters of having it in for us.

It goes to show. The Nats weren't so bad after all, eh?

Pity about the Indians, Muslims, coloureds and assorted others. The poll tells us they really get stick from our indigenous rednecks.

Some 44% of respondents claimed to have experienced an attitude from Africans they believed bordered on racial discrimination, against 27% who had received similar treatment by whites when seeking out services in public places.

Not only are they racist, they're twice as fucking racist as we are. But this doesn't bother me. I am, after all, a blogger, a professional, and a hard man to boot. I have nothing to fear but blacks with white teeth and big guns. Given this, I decided to tackle the racists head on, and so beat a path to their favoured hangout, Muggers Alley, on Cape Town station's upper deck.

Traveling incognito, I wandered into Mama Africa's cafe and immediately took my racist hostess to task.

"So Mama," I sneered, laying the paper before her. "What's this I read about you people being racist? It's all over the Sunday Times."

Mama Africa, not bothering to look at the article, smiled at me, shrugged her shoulders, and stretched out her upturned palms. She had few customers in her shipping container and was washing a couple of battered dishes in a plastic tub.

"Mike, Mike... I really don't know why they'd disclose this stuff now. It's beyond me." She paused. "It's supposed to be a pan-Africanist secret," she giggled.

"But I thought things were hunky-dory...that we were all starting to get along?"

Her deep brown eyes softened and, taking my hand in hers, she sat me down at an upturned cable drum doing duty as a table.

"Mike, take a long, hard look at your people," she said quietly. "You should be able to discern something from their behaviour."

"Yeah, well," I mumbled, "I know we're pretty dumb, but if it wasn't for us, you people still wouldn't have the wheel. I mean, we've transplanted hearts, put a man on the moon..."

Like a musician — blacks have natural rhythm, she plugged in. "...colonised the world and killed hundreds of millions of people. All for fun and profit. And you're still doing it. I know these things."

She does too. A Rwandan refugee denied South African citizenship these past ten years, she's packed in quite a bit of learning for a single person looking after sixteen orphans. I kid you not; as you know, I'm no bigot and would not resort to stereotyping. Mama Africa has this thing for children, so she looks after them.

No white kids, of course. Being a racist precludes that, I s'pose...

"Well, at least we're polite about it."

"Huh?"

"Colonialism. We call it democracy. It's polite. Unlike you people. You're bloody rude. You talk at the tops of your voices, speak Xhosa or Zulu in front of English speakers, piss and spit in the streets, never say please, push ahead in queues, bum smokes and money without qualms..."

Mama, smiling, held up her hand. "I'm from Rwanda. I wouldn't know about this."

She had a point. "Sorry, Mama, I've never seen you people do things like that. It must be the French influence. We had the Dutch down here."

"The ones who wiped out the Khoi-san?"

"Yeah. That bunch of savages. They were always blind drunk or pilfering cattle."

"The Khoi-san?"

"The Dutch. They hunted the San for sport."

Pleasantries done with, we got to talking about genocide. Hutus hunting down Tutsis and that sort of thing. Next door, the Millennium Barbershop's hairdresser shaved muggers' heads before they set out to beat up on white people.


Racist muggers getting ready to beat up on whites...

Falala said the survey was aimed at measuring overt resentment, where people deliberately treated others in a way that was prejudicial and could be perceived as racism. “What I found most interesting was that black people were the largest group with this problem, both as victims and as perpetrators." ... "This is something that people need to know because it’s a reality for many people when dealing with a security guard or a bank.”

Zamile Mbanjwa, of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said the findings were consistent with her recent experience at a Ladysmith restaurant. “I wasn’t served because the waiter made it his policy not to serve black people because they don’t tip.”

I told you they were fucking rude.

But anyway, back to business and the source of the article — which you should read; if only for educational purposes. As for the article's source, Plus 94 Research is a Gallup affiliate and must therefore be a reputable outfit. The country's leading newspaper would hardly publish a banner headline proclaiming Blacks are the biggest racists were Plus 94 a gimcrack outfit.

Such a finding, if not true, might upset South Africans unwilling to face hard facts uncovered by our fastest-growing market research company.

Let Plus 94 Research speak for itself. "Plus 94 Research is a marketing research company that is so unique in its thinking that it is set to change the services experience of clients from one of missed opportunities and goals into a rewarding business experience," it tells us. "Not only does the pleasure of dealing with Plus 94 stem from the fact that innovativeness is a tradition at the company, but also from the knowledge that the company is not bound by tradition itself."

Yeah, I noticed. No traditional, peer-reviewed or published report. Phoning 2,000 people and drawing a blanket conclusion is a sure break from tradition. But lest you have any doubts about such departures from so-called best practices, let me assure you I know class when I see it. A company linking "innovativeness" to "pleasure", while eschewing "tradition itself" epitomises innovation and is certain to "change the services experience of clients."

To what, I've no idea, but I'm always willing to learn.

"Plus 94 is a dynamic, authentic and intellectual organization that has achieved the most rapid growth in the history of market research in South Africa."

Question answered. I mean, are these people shit hot or not? How'd they grow so rapidly? "Innovativeness", that's what. The stamp of the dynamic intellectual.

Face it, people. This company's self-appraisal reeks of authenticity. In fact, it's so "authentic" I'm willing to bet it didn't hire an overpriced marketing company to set up its site. It probably had the tea boy do it after hours.

"The company prides itself in guaranteeing its customers a rock solid compliment of services delivered honestly and professionally. The key project management personnel consists of hand-picked individuals with outstanding personal track records ."

Nah...it must've been a professional outfit. See the subliminal shit. The mention of rocks and the space separating 'record' and the closing period? The last is to let the company's vision sink in. I sat back in Mama Africa's plastic chair and did just that.

Plus 94 is not only 'so unique'; it's 'savvy' too. A 'compliment of services' is bound to give customers exactly what they want or pay for.

"Plus 94 prides itself in having done and continuing to devise many successful business strategies for its key customers." Lot of pride there. Call on Plus 94 Research today and it'll do you immediately.


Crazed racist bastard...

The results showed that 38% of all respondents said they had experienced “discrimination” from people of all race groups in these institutions, and 45% claimed to have experienced discrimination particularly from black Africans.

Mama Africa was nodding off. I smacked the top of the cable drum. "Wake up, you racist bitch," I screamed. I am, after all, an African. "How can you be so fucking rude? You're a disgrace to your French ancestry."

Mama jerked awake. "I'm sorry, Mike, but this is all meaningless to me. If you ask me, you South Africans are all bat-shit crazy. Besides, the Sunday Times is a rag. I know nothing of this market research company and, frankly, couldn't care less about it or the report."

I was stunned. How the hell could she say that? The Sunday Times has always promoted itself as 'The Paper for the People'. It's proved itself a bastion of liberal democracy and is renowned for its scintillating journalism, hard-nosed editorials, and cutting-edge investigative reporting.

I was about to take up cudgels on behalf of our newspaper of national record when a couple of crazed blacks charged in. One of them grabbed me by my right arm.

"Come, come, you must leave now. There is danger. It is not good for you to be here."

And without as much as a 'By your leave', the demented bastards hustled me out of the container — leaving me barely enough time to gather my wallet, camera, and iPod from the table.

On my way in to work this morning, I kicked Lunga awake. He's a shiftless layabout who sleeps on the sidewalk across the road from my office. I keep telling him to get a job but, like all racists, he thinks he knows better.

"Hey, Lunga! You a black supremacist?"

"Get stuffed, you fuck-witted mlungu," he muttered, crawling back beneath the covers.

"Say no more, Lunga," I laughed, putting one in his ribs. "But let me tell you this. I know exactly where you're coming from, you racist pig."

The sentiment was most obvious in Durban and academic and activist Ashwin Desai said this was not surprising. "You tend to compare yourself with somebody across the road from you. Therefore the conflict between Africans and Indians happens ironically in places where they live next to each other," he said.

Sunday Times | Blacks are the biggest racists

Not the Sunday Times

Apparently we all have implicit racial prejudice, and not only that, we also harbour negative or positive feelings based on sexual preference, gender, age and other, usually non-determining factors. An Implicit Association Test, or IAT, gauges the relative ease with which participants are able to link certain groups of people, for example, gay people, and the concepts of "clean" and "soiled." Ease of association, determined by judgment speed, is considered evidence for an implicitly-held attitude toward that particular social group.

[...]

Folks who have implicit racial prejudices are left mentally tired after interacting with a person or people of a different race. Hidden racial bias makes them stupid. The study suggests that it may be because they're trying to quell their prejudice. Use the Harvard IAT to measure your own non-bias, or bias. Ponder this post, your score on the IAT and decide whether it all teaches us anything worthwhile about ourselves.

Rethabile Masilo | Racial bias makes you stupid

The truth is that humans and most other animals are conquerors. Dogs piss out a territory; humans kill or enslave those they find on a territory. Throughout their history, those humans with more advanced technology were able to travel wide, and wherever they did, they killed or conquered other humans they found there. It is amusing that as we plod onward as a species we’re only just beginning to realise the value of protecting other species. Protect and feed the panda, but expose and starve Darfur.

There are more genetic similarities between blacks and whites than among whites themselves. Black people in one part of the world differ with those in another part in a significant way. And that gap is wider than it is between blacks and whites. Simply put, the criteria that you, Mr and Ms Racist, usually refer to when you distinguish race, are but skin deep.

Rethabile Masilo | Dear Mr & Ms Racist

Now, had the Sunday Times carried the above two posts, it might have been well worth buying. The Harvard Implicit Association Test (Black-White IAT), by the way, tells me "Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for White American compared to African American." Then again, I'm left-handed. See how you fare, read Rethabile's posts and, as he suggests, reflect on them.

The Battle of Thermopylae

Sunset at Thermopylae

Last night, we watched the sun set off Thermopylae, a steep and fast-breaking wave off Moulle Point, around the corner from Cape Town's CBD and harbour. I was preoccupied and Wendy was left to kick her heels. Tough. I think I'm in love. A colleague brought his Canon S3 IS in to work Friday, and I've thought of nothing since. A compact digital as opposed to an SLR, it allows the amateur to take what might look like pretty professional shots. A six-megapixel, image-stabilizing, super-macro enabled work of art, it has 12x optical Zooom.

Birds of an ornithological type, planes (I'm thinking Hueys), and surf — anywhere around the Western Cape, are on my mind. Those bloody crows I've been chasing for six months would be stopped dead in their flight path by an S3. Not only do they persist in avoiding me but, when I do frame them, they render as a fuzzy blur — no matter what I try. The family's worried about me. Bugger cameras. I'm obsessed with crows.


Off the wall... [Robben Island in background]

I've badmouthed my PowerShot A520 long enough now. It doesn't deserve it. I've seen fit to throw more than a thousand snaps into the old image gallery and wouldn't have done so had I thought them to be execrable. This little budget baby is idiot proof. Okay, I've learnt nothing about Paint Shop Pro and how to resize or crop, but so what? These things have survived a fair amount of mangling. One thing I've not enjoyed on the A520 is the flash. Though it's given good ratings, I've not been able to get the hang of it and avoid it whenever possible. The resulting natural-light pictures haven't been too bad and have taught me quite a bit.

Thermopylae has the kind of wave that made me swap surfing for skateboarding after three years. You know what's in store for you when you hit the road. A sickening thud, grazes, perhaps a bone or two that'll take some time a'healing and there you go. Breaks like those I watch others surf always promised me far more. All you have to do is watch and appreciate from close up the awesome power and energy coursing through those waves and you're done for. They promise permanent injury, drowning, or something equally bad, a broken board.

There were four guys out at sunset last night and, almost ritualistically, they watched the golden orb slip beneath the sea before continuing to savage sets that rolled in with remarkable consistency. I didn't expect to find any waves there, by the way. It just so happened that there were some, and they made the evening. I give you these seemingly pointless observations to highlight the fact that I'm not pissed off at my camera because it is useless. It's not. I took the above picture several minutes after sunset, in fast-falling near darkness. The ISO800 quality's lousy but, again, so what? I'm told very few cameras give decent resolution quality at that speed.

So, yeah, it's served me well these past six months but, hey, that S3...


Fading to black...

True to expectation, the FPSO Dalia made it out of port today and headed off past Robben Island towards Angola. We just happened to head to the Atlantic side this afternoon, which constitutes a lucky break. This rig's the quintessential outsized ugly duckling of Western engineering and I have a soft spot for it. On the downside, we caught it long after it had passed the breakwater, a great pity. And herein, once again, lies my A520 vexation. No zoom. Okay, zoom wouldn't have cleared the haze, vaporized the mist, or set the sun to her port side, but it would've given me far more options than those presented me.

In the city, we have several Hueys flying for those with deep pockets who want to either get up there or make like Vietnam. These choppers illustrate my point perfectly. Yesterday, I caught one coming in over the Dalia but, shooting into the sun, I ended up with a very ordinary, overexposed shot carrying little detail. I really wanted that shot. It epitomised the U.S.-ian capacity for innovation cocked up its propensity for adventurism. It coulda bin' good. Today, while watching the rig head for the ocean, another Huey buzzed the Sea Point coast, affording the chance of capturing some colour, clarity, shape and, hey, perhaps even the heat from its engines. No chance. Another far-off silhouette.

Yeah, that S3 again...

It'll have to wait a while though. Although several colleagues have shown me damned fine cameras, they're all too expensive for me. Just as I maintain none of us had happy childhoods and we all come from long lines of undistinguished people, so I believe we all live in different worlds. Nothing's going to change that and, for now, it's just out of the question. At least my mind's made up. And once my mind's made up...

Although I do have a nagging question. It has been mentioned that the S3's "...results look a little on the soft side." Then again, perhaps I'm just keeping my options open. I've a feeling I'll be using my Baby Canon for some time yet. It's time to start learning to optimise jpegs for the Web from RAW, I guess...

Taking a look at Shelley's latest pics, it seems I've quite some way to go yet...

South African AIDS Policy Vindicated

Cape Town Garlic Gusher Crushes Critics

Following United Nations special envoy for Aids in Africa Stephen Young's racist diatribe against our fledgling democracy at the International AIDS conference in Toronto, Canada, South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang [see third entry] has hit back against allegations that the government is "...obtuse, dilatory and negligent about rolling out treatment."

"Fuck Stephen Young," said the Minister, sucking on a lemon. "What the hell does he know about AIDS? What does he know of government, for that matter. The man's an arsehole. And probably has AIDS too," she sniggered, nudging Ministry spokesperson Sibani Mngadi in the ribs. Mngadi burst out laughing. "He's probably a fucking queer," she snorted. "He deserves everything he gets. Why must we pay to enable a bunch of pooftahs to avoid the consequences of banging each other?"

She looked at the Minister. The Minister looked at her. Both shook with barely concealed hysterical laughter. The minister's face grew suddenly serious and she gave Mngadi a stinging slap across the face. "Shut up, you bitch," she snarled at her spokesperson. "We have the media here. Behave yourself. Just think of what those white moffies get up to at night. That'll straighten you out."

Mngadi sobered immediately, but she and the Minster were plainly far from over their laughing fit. I coughed and restarted the interview. "Well, yeah, I don't know if he's a pooftah or not..."

I left when Tshabalala-Msimang and Mngadi wet themselves. It was clear, even to me, that I'd get no sense out of them.

I phoned Thabo. "Mr. President, Msimang's a stupid fucking bitch and deserves to be fired. She's a PR nightmare. Do something about it now."

The President, always imperturbable and quite used to my outbursts, answered calmly. "You know I can't do that, Mike. A favour is a favour and all that."

He had a point. If you have any idea how these people become ministers in the first place, you know exactly what I mean. And it's typical Thabo. Oil on troubled water. I calmed down immediately.

"You coming to the Lake Poets Evening this week?" he asked.

"Nah, sorry, I can't make it. I've an appointment in Samarra. Maybe next week."

"Good, good..." answered the President, adding, "By the way Mike, when you get back to those dullards in Toronto, spread the good news."

"Ermm..." I was somewhat flummoxed. There didn't appear to be much good news to spread.

He picked up my bewilderment. "You haven't heard? The rig we've had drilling Table Mountain has hit a massive fucking bed of garlic juice. Our AIDS problems are a thing of the past. By next month, we'll be producing a million barrels a day. We're swimming in the stuff."

"Garlic juice...?" I mumbled. "What the hell has garlic juice to do with it? You can't treat AIDS with garlic juice..."

The President chuckled benignly. "Too much hiking of late?" he smiled (I have Skype — for Presidential calls). "Of course garlic juice will do nothing by itself. It's part of a three-part regimen dreamt up by Pahad (the Minister in the Office of the President). He calls it a cocktail."

I could swear I heard the President snigger.

"Cocktail?" I asked.

He chuckled like a grizzled WWII vet who mutters disparagingly of 'tailgunners'. Turning away from the mouthpiece, he coughed, composed himself, and continued. "Yes, we ask them to mix garlic, beetroot, and lemon. We get plenty of lemon from the DA, by the way."

"Understandable. Lot of sourpusses over there. Or should that be sour cream?" I snickered.

Thabo chortled on the other end of the line.

I was kinda at a loss. I mean, what do you say to an astute, smart, usually impeccably informed head of state when he starts mouthing off like a meathead?

"Umm..."

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," he replied, followed by a brief silence. "Well, not really." He began to laugh as he spoke. "'Meathead' is what set me off. Essop's reading Beavis and Butthead recently and we get no end of information from it."

I could hear old Pahad choking like a 1932 Ford in the background.

"Mr. President, is there something you're not telling me?" I asked. "I mean, this is all bullshit. It's surreal, if you ask me. Look, if we've an arrangement with the pharmaceutical people, I'd understand and accept it. If we see AIDS reigning in population growth, I'd accept that. I mean, politics is a tough gig. I understand as much. It calls for hard choices."

I paused. "But a Garlic, Beetroot and Lemon Smoothie?"

Thabo sounded businesslike. "Look Mike, I know appearances can be deceptive, but it's none of those things. I mean, for God's sake, we've one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. We fought for that; put our lives on the line, promised the people we'd deliver on it and we did. Our constitution's far more than a piece of paper to us."

'Not like that arsehole overseas' I could imagine him mouthing. Essop nodded sagely in the background.

"So what is it?" I asked.

The President sighed. "Ah fuck, Mike, do I have to explain this one to you? You know the MSM overseas is having a field day with it."

"Frankly, I'm not surprised, given the way you've handled it," I responded. "But no, not really, you don't have to explain it to me. I'll make up my own mind."

I don't know if Thabo liked the sound of that. "Mike, Mike, Mike..." he intoned. "Look, let me put it this way..."

He looked across Essop's way. Pahad gave him the thumbs up.

"You still there," he asked.

"I'm in no hurry," I replied.

"Mmm..." he murmured. "Look, this week it's the gays, okay? We're having a bit of a giggle about the gays. I mean, we're so over-fucking politically correct in this country, we all have to let off a little steam every now and then..."

"You needn't tell me," I responded. "Does that mean I can apply for a state job?"

He laughed. "Look, I might have laid off the 'racism' thing for a couple of weeks, but that doesn't change the colour of your skin."

"I didn't think it would," I answered. We both chuckled. Thabo and I share a dark sense of humour.

"So tell, me..." I started.

"Well, basically, it's rather like explaining to the Yanks why they're such a bunch of hosers, y'know? I mean, I wouldn't like to say we're cynical or anything...we're not. But really, we have more important things to deal with."

"Like crime," I suggested.

"Exactly," he smiled.

"So what you're saying is that selling government on the antiretroviral thing is like selling a Greater Palestine to the Israelis. It just ain't on and what will be will be, no matter what. Will be..." I tailed off.

"You my man," the President smiled. "We're all Jewish now."

"Holy crap." The penny dropped. "Is that why Kasrils and Ozinsky have taken vacation leave next week?"

The President and Pahad were laughing so hard I decided to leave it there.

But anyway, there you have it, from the horse's mouth, so to speak. I mean, if you get the gist of it, you should get the message. It's not that we don't care...and we know it's not that you don't care but, really, shouldn't you stop fucking up all those Middle Eastern countries?

There's a strong smell of garlic about the place. My wife tells me it has antibiotic properties, but I wouldn't know.

What Could Jesus Do?

Jameson Memorial Hall, University of Cape Town

So tell me. If Jesus© was such a bright spark, how come he ended up a carpenter?

Hey?


FPSO Dalia, Cape Town [August 2006]

He coulda been a marine engineer or somethin', for Chrissakes...

Umm... yeah, the FPSO Dalia's leaving. Quite when, I'm not sure...but any day now. She's been with us a coupla months and I'll miss the ugly beast.

She reminds us we're a city small enough to have our skyline altered by a piece of spectacular engineering ... a vehicle designed to move people and perceptions.

Link: John Pilger | Despatches: The real threat we face is Blair

The Road to Damascus

The Empire's facade...

In my rear view mirror the sun is going down | sinking behind bridges in the road | and I think of all the good things | that we have left undone | and I suffer premonitions | confirm suspicions | of the holocaust to come

Does the United States any longer believe Israel's claims that it will destroy Hizbollah when its army clearly cannot do anything of the kind? Does Washington not realise that when Israel grows tired of this war, it will plead for a ceasefire — which only Washington can deliver by doing what it most loathes to do: by taking the road to Damascus and asking for help from President Bashar al-Assad of Syria?

Robert Fisk | A terrible thought occurs to me

In the sparse Baathist drawing rooms of Damascus, reality often seems a long way away. But it was a sign of the times that President Bashar al-Assad was able to bring the great and the good of Damascus to their feet by the simple token of telling the truth — which no other Arab leader has chosen to do these past five weeks: that the Lebanese Hizbollah guerrilla army has, in effect, won this round of their war with Israel.

Robert Fisk | In the face of Bush's lies, it's left to Assad to tell the truth

Defense Minister Amir Peretz did well when he hastened to inform the public of the necessity of preparing the ground for negotiations with Syria. Without fearing that such a proposal, coming even as the war in Lebanon is perceived as a searing failure, would be viewed as another capitulation, Peretz is advocating negotiations with Syria as an important element of Israel's security. One hopes that Peretz is thereby distinguishing between "the small war" against Hezbollah as a terrorist organization or a local Lebanese organization, and the big, regional war, which requires building a new strategic reality.

Haaretz | The non-partner in Damascus

the wire that holds the cork | that keeps the anger in | gives way | and suddenly it's day again | the sun is in the east | even though the day is done | two suns in the sunset | hmmmmmmmmm | could be the human race is run


Two suns in the sunset...

like the moment when the brakes lock | and you slide towards the big truck | you stretch the frozen moments with your fear | and you'll never hear their voices | and you'll never see their faces | you have no recourse to the law anymore

By the way, I'm not all that impressed with Hezbollah's Divine Victory. I'd expect nothing less. I'm concerned about its downside and the inevitable (and marketable) consequences flowing from it.

A stunning achievement, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran have played right into the hands of the Bush cabal. While the Israeli invasion might have been planned back in '98, I believe its motive and goal differed from those borne in mind six or eight years ago. This was not, as so many have reasoned, a failed dry run for Iran and an attempt to reverse Israel's earlier defeat at Hezbollah's hands.

Bush, in proclaiming the invasion of Lebanon a success for Israel, is no fool. It was. More, it was a stunning success for the neocons. Though racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic, Westerners — inured to an unceasing bombardment of false 'terror alerts', fear Israel's demise. The self-proclaimed 'Jewish' state symbolises much to the Western mind and, with its nuclear arsenal well hidden, it is most often erroneously cast in the role of David.

Through this latest venture, which gave the Israelis opportunity to test new weapons, give their air force a flip, and send a small, probably untried section of their military into battle conditions at the cost of only a hundred or so lives, Bush's 'enemies' have been given a substance they hitherto lacked. Westerners now see 'Islam' as a 'real and imminent threat', and will now all too willingly urge their leaders to sign up for Washington's Jihad.

Just as Britain joins the U.S. in milking faux terror attacks to the last, a successful tactical switch has been made with this UN-brokered ceasefire. The West is now faced with a media-hyped 'formidable foe', one capable of striking fear into the hearts of those living in the North. Israel has given Bush a threat far more credible than the flim-flam, Pentagon-paid patsies and spectres he's been touting to now.

The invasion and destruction of Lebanon was a trial balloon. The Israelis chose to lose a battle in order to win the Long War®. I'm disinclined to believe anything else. The Israelis could turn the Middle East to glass should they so wish. They didn't.

They've merely brought the day they will do so far closer to all of us.

Link: John Pilger | Empire: war and propaganda

and as the windshield melts | my tears evaporate | leaving only charcoal to defend | finally I understand | the feelings of the few | ashes and diamonds | foe and friend | we were all equal in the end

Pink Floyd | Two Suns in the Sunset

Note: This one's for all those on my blogroll. I've been reading you, but not commenting. I'm on sabbatical. Well, not really. I've been lurking. You're all so bloody brilliant, I feel like a klutz.

Check out Leslie Winer. Now there's a weird chick for you (I mean that in the nicest, most complimentary way, Leslie). I cannot — and probably should not — begin to describe my feelings for her.

Look at...nah, forget it, I'll be up all night coding links. But this is mostly Frank, Bruce, and Mark's fault. I was reading them sometime last night when, suddenly, I had one of those moments in which The Great IT® seemed instantly Glorious and Pointless.

A feeling, brought on by the aforementioned miscreants, that we are — all of us — simultaneously heroes and zeros.

Everything came together in a moment.

It was a real bummer, I tell you.

Dunno...just thought I'd mention it.

All of you...fucking amazing people.

Hook, Line, and Sinker...

"The United States and Israel..."

The United States and Israel have shared intelligence and enjoyed close military coöperation for decades, but early this spring, according to a former senior intelligence official, high-level planners from the U.S. Air Force—under pressure from the White House to develop a war plan for a decisive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities—began consulting with their counterparts in the Israeli Air Force.

“The big question for our Air Force was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully,” the former senior intelligence official said. “Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It’s not Congo—it’s Israel. Everybody knows that Iranian engineers have been advising Hezbollah on tunnels and underground gun emplacements. And so the Air Force went to the Israelis with some new tactics and said to them, ‘Let’s concentrate on the bombing and share what we have on Iran and what you have on Lebanon.’ ” The discussions reached the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he said.

“The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran.”

Seymour Hersh | Washington’s Interests in Israel’s War


"...humiliating defeat..."

Israel’s sudden push to the Litani River is a blatant act of political desperation intended to conceal the humiliating defeat the IDF has suffered at the hands of Hezbollah. It comes in the wake of a UN ceasefire agreement worked out by friends of Israel in the Bush administration who were looking for a diplomatic way for Olmert to climb down from Israel’s greatest debacle since the Yom Kippur war.

The so-called ceasefire is tailored to stop the victim of Israeli aggression from defending himself, but provides the IDF with the go-ahead to continue its rampage. Such is the Kafkaesque logic of the United Nations and their puppet-masters in Tel Aviv.

There is no longer any reasonable expectation that Israel will accomplish any of its stated objectives. The mighty IDF has been slapped around by a handful of tough-minded guerillas who kept Israel pinned-down to within a 5 mile radius of the northern border for a full month. It is, without question, one of the greatest triumphs in the history of asymmetrical warfare.

Mike Whitney | Ceasefire or Trojan Horse?


"...they have a terrible smell."

Dr. Bashir Sham, member of "French Association of Cardiovascular Surgeons", explains that the way the corpses look when they reach the hospital, especially those from the 'air strikes' in Doueir and Rmayleih, is very abnormal. "One might think they were burnt , but their colour is dark, they're inflated, and they have a terrible smell. All this, and the hair is not burnt nor do the bodies bleed.' Several doctors have claimed that white phosphorus has been used in the south of the Lebanon. They have no doubts. Certainly cluster shells have been used.

The claims of these very hard pressed doctors require proper investigation in their own right. Respect for the injured and the dead is the dominant reason. The number and variety of lethal weapons expands daily. It would be perverse on these grounds alone if there was no international assessment of these claims. The WHO is said to have been handed samples in the Lebanon. If they are pursuing these avenues so well and good. The Morning Star of 12-08-06 reports that the new UN human rights council is to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes at the request of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

David Halpin | Are New Weapons Being Used In Gaza and Lebanon?


"...Hizbollah's onslaught..."

The real war in Lebanon begins today. The world may believe — and Israel may believe — that the UN ceasefire due to come into effect at 6am today will mark the beginning of the end of the latest dirty war in Lebanon after up to 1,000 Lebanese civilians and more than 30 Israeli civilians have been killed. But the reality is quite different and will suffer no such self-delusion: the Israeli army, reeling under the Hizbollah's onslaught of the past 24 hours, is now facing the harshest guerrilla war in its history. And it is a war they may well lose.

Robert Fisk | As the 6am ceasefire takes effect... the real war begins

I fear Fisk is, as usual, correct. Any satisfaction one might feel at Hezbollah withstanding the savagery of one of the world's most technically sophisticated, ruthless and vicious armies — for a month, is bound to be as shortlived. The United States, embodied by those behind this fast-evolving nightmare, has many options and it will use them all.

For now though — as the Palestinians take up Fox hunting — in a fair and balanced way, of course...

"We are before a strategic and historic victory, without any exaggeration," Nasrallah said in a televised address 12 hours after a UN truce halted the war between the group and Israel. "We emerged from the battle with our heads high, and our enemy is the one who is defeated." ... He also said teams from Hizbollah would from Tuesday start repairing homes damaged by Israeli strikes and said the guerrilla group would pay one year's rent and the cost of furniture to every owner of about 15,000 destroyed homes.

The Scotsman | Hizbollah Declares "Strategic" Victory Over Israel

The Admiral's Walk

The fleet is back in port and the admiral takes his walk...

Sea Fever

The French Lieutenant's Woman

Full fathom five thy father lies; | Of his bones are coral made; | Those are pearls that were his eyes: | Nothing of him that doth fade | But doth suffer a sea-change | Into something rich and strange.

Shakespeare | The Tempest

Before walking up Eagle's Nest, we stopped off in Kalk Bay. It's not exactly on the way, but something continues — after many years — to draw me to this place. In these pictures, I find myself; not, I hasten to add, in the way the Mystic Bourgeoisie do so, but in memories of long ago and far away. The night after cropping the picture below, I recalled one of my earliest memories and perhaps my reason for making it. The picture above reminds me of the first halfway decent creative writing essay I knocked out, at age 11 or 12. Generally, it would seem, everything has its origin in something else, usually something close to home. We make of these things what we do.


The Scend of the Sea

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, | Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell | And the profit and loss. | A current under sea | Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell | He passed the stages of his age and youth | Entering the whirlpool.

Gentile or Jew | O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, | Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

T.S. Eliot | The Wasteland

But for someone who enjoys being certain of where he's coming from, I too frequently find only ambiguity. It's an occupational hazard, I guess. The picture below is of Lebanon, for some or other obscure reason. Oh yeah, the juxtaposition of wealth and creased-and-calloused harbour-hand clutter reminds me — probably for some other obscure reason — of those who ponder Israel's onslaught on its northern neighbour. Much as I ignore Fisk's barracking of Hisbollah (he doesn't explain his dislike of them or his blaming them for the present war), I don't really find the need to explain my interpretation of it as the U.S. facing up to Iran.

If I do so, it's because I have time on my hands. Looking at local history, the last time a superpower took on local militia — towards the end of the 19th and at the turn of the 20th centuries, Britain (based in the Cape Colony) squared up to the Boers ensconced in the Transvaal and Orange Free State republics. The Boers, sitting on the world's largest deposits of diamonds and gold, formed a real and imminent threat to the British and, by logical (albeit British) extension, the world.


Revisiting Axel Heyst

I must go down to the sea again | To the lonely sea and the sky. | I left my shoes and socks there | I wonder if they're dry?

Spike Milligan | Pie Tray in Motion

The Brits tried regime change through the Jameson Raid as far back as 1895 but, like the Yanks forever after, they fucked up. Painting the boers terrorists guilty of human rights' violations, they forced the Anglo-Boer war [note: follow the link to Wikipedia; it gives a good synopsis]. After being hammered by the boers for four years, the Poms resorted to massacre, torture, concentration camps, and a scorched earth policy reducing the boers' infrastructure to nothing. (It does sound familiar, doesn't it?)

Out of this, they fashioned a media-friendly victory back home and wangled their way to a decades-long dominance of the gold and diamond industries.

Politically, things didn't work out too well for the superpower. Ostensibly, the boers lost the war. Yet, in 1910, what we today know as South Africa became the self-governing Union of South Africa. It took close on fifty years for South Africa to opt out of the commonwealth, declaring itself a republic. We then started the fight for democracy. Through preceding centuries, apartheid had flourished below the fold.

My point is that, besides these things taking time, the Anglo Boer War — in which tens of thousands died, was fought mainly in the Northern Cape (South Africa's Lebanon) and areas far from those under immediate dispute. And the dispute centered on resources.

All the rest boils down to fishermen and fat cats, tourists and locals, haves and have nots. We are Phlebus, the coral, the French Lieutenant's Woman, the lost ship, Axel Heyst, and the Snakes on a Plane. Like Sylvia Plath's Mushrooms, we're everywhere — speaking a language we no longer hear. Our foot has always been in the door. Trust me on this.

Eagle's Nest

Orange Kloof, Table Mountain

Before being attacked by a swarm of killer germs sparking virulent sinusitis and a shape-shifting tooth abscess, my loyal photographic assistant McCracken McCracken and I headed up to Eagle's Nest, in search of a geocache. Whether the name applies to the cache or the miniature peak tacked to the backside of Table Mountain is of little import: it fits.

Geocaching, like most things, can teach one much. Having climbed Elsies Peak twice and circled it clockwise the previous weekend, I again — on Saturday — fell prey to my propensity to take the shortest route linking A to B.

I'm a slow learner. Crows, which avoid my camera like the plague, are able to fly direct. McCracken McCracken and I should stick to charted paths. I've yet to find a short cut taking me to my destination in less than twice the time it would have taken me to get there had I followed clearly marked trails. "Yeah, but that's a cairn over there. It's definitely a path," I told her, before smashing my way through the fynbos leading to the base of the cliff beneath the peak. Stuck within 10 metres of the cache, we circled the rock, looking for a way up. Again, the "shortest distance between two points" principle applied and I led us up many a vertiginous dead end.

Eventually, sanity and my photographic assistant's good sense paid off and I slouched gloomily around the face and up towards the beacon topping the hill. "What a crap cache," I muttered to myself, trudging a well-worn track towards our waypoint. "We might as well have walked along the gravel road," I moaned, forgetting Kulwinder promised only a thirty-minute walk.

I'll learn. From the top, the view contradicted my grim outlook. Eagle's Nest overlooks the back end of Table Mountain and the Hout Bay valley, affording stunning views. Better still, lazily circled by cliff-nesting crows, it offers a contemplative overview of Orange Kloof, the forested depression behind Table Mountain, walled on one side by the crags of the Twelve Apostles and on the other, by the peaks and buttresses looming over the southern suburbs.

A short walk means few pictures. But so what? For mid-winter, it was a damned good afternoon out and a cache well worth finding.

The Long-lens View...

Big Wave Africa Day #3

Late in the afternoon on Sunday 30 July, a freak set rumbled into Dungeons that all present are calling the biggest waves seen or surfed in Africa. After giving some of these pics the once over, Bill Sharp (director of the Billabong Odyssey and XXL Awards), reckons there’s a contender for each category of the 2007 XXL Awards - biggest wave ridden, biggest tube and heaviest wipeout…all from the same set. There’s been much talk around the images, with evidence being kept tightly under wraps. Fortunately, Zigzag photographer Alex Bootsma had made his up the Sentinel in the icy squalls, hid behind some bushes and fired off a few shots of history in the making, capturing it all on film. This is a first proper glimpse of the set — stand by for even bigger and better coming in the next issue of Zigzag.


Into the Dungeons...

We had a few words with an unassuming, well-built guy with close-cropped hair on the top of the Sentinel that day. He said some chick had told him it was big enough to be ridiculous, and he made off toward the peak and, possibly, down the hill a ways. You've heard me bitching about my camera? For good reason, eh? Alex Bootsma has done the trick, and his pics — of which there should be more, will be in the next issue of Zigzag, due out mid-month.

As a blogger, it's been a gas for me getting something out onto the Web immediately after the event, and I've enjoyed the support of spike and the guys at Wavescape, as well as Jean Tresfon at Underwater Images.

I see Zigzag touts Bloody Massive Sunday thus: "You saw It Here First..." For now, bullshit. Those waves are of equal magnitude. I want to see this freak set of which they speak, which apparently came in about 15 minutes after we ducked. Until we do, the Web takes it. You saw it first at Wavescape, Underwater Images and right here.

For nothing, nada, zippo... as it should be. If you didn't, you're either waterlogged, not paying attention, or haven't a clue.

That said, until I do get that long-lens RPG-type Canon and dump stuff of a quality similar to Alex's on my and others' Web sites, we'll have to rely on the professionals. Not that I am anything but professional, of course (and a hard man to boot). But these guys, as do those riding the waves, make a living from pictures like these. And much as the result may be worth the effort in and of itself, they deserve every penny.

Note: For some really stunning surf photography online, check out Frank Quirarte's work at Mavsurfer. Those slide shows must be about as good as it gets.

I Had A Dream...

"You know all those security scenarios we ran? Well I'm smack in the middle of one we didn't think of."

Neville Flynn | Snakes on a Plane


...there will be another 9/11

I had a dream last night | What a lovely dream it was | I dreamed we all were alright | Happy in a land of ours.

Does the United States any longer believe Israel's claims that it will destroy Hizbollah when its army clearly cannot do anything of the kind? Does Washington not realise that when Israel grows tired of this war, it will plead for a ceasefire — which only Washington can deliver by doing what it most loathes to do: by taking the road to Damascus and asking for help from President Bashar al-Assad of Syria? ...

Israel's threats of enlarging the conflict even further are now met with amusement rather than horror by a Lebanese population which has been listening to Israel's warnings for 30 years with ever greater weariness. And yet they fear for their lives. If Tel Aviv is hit, will Beirut be spared. Or if central Beirut is hit, will Tel Aviv be spared? Hizbollah now uses Israel's language of an eye for an eye. Every Israeli taunt is met by a Hizbollah taunt.

And do the Israelis realise that they are legitimising Hizbollah, that a rag-tag army of guerrillas is winning its spurs against an Israeli army and air force whose targets — if intended — prove them to be war criminals and if unintended suggest that they are a rif-raff little better than the Arab armies they have been fighting, on and off, for more than half a century? Extraordinary precedents are being set in this Lebanon war.

In fact, one of the most profound changes in the region these past three decades has been the growing unwillingness of Arabs to be afraid. Their leaders — our "moderate" pro-Western Arab leaders such as King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt — may be afraid. But their peoples are not. And once a people have lost their terror, they cannot be re-injected with fear.

Robert Fisk | A terrible thought occurs to me...

All of the players | Were playing together | And all of the heavies | Were light as a feather | And all I'll remember is a feeling tomorrow | But as I recall, the rest will just follow...

John B Sebastian | I Had A Dream Last Night

"I've had it with these mother fucking snakes on this mother fucking plane!"

Neville Flynn | Snakes on a Plane

Note to self: It's either the Canon EOS350D or the Fujitsu 9500...you can't continue like this...

Update [10 August]: MI-5 in ludicrous Heathrow terror stunt

Prescience is, I think, the word. As soon as RageBoy put out the word, our friends in high places got to work and within days, we had snakes on some 20 planes. As the article above posits, things must be going awfully badly in the Levant.

Umm... yeah, for today? Snakes. And dumb people.