Songs of Experience

"That free love with bondage bound."

O rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

William Blake | Songs of Experience: The Sick Rose

On politics...

Ever heard yourself say: "Could Zimbabweans not have read the writing on the wall?"

What are South Africans waiting for, a plane to write it on the sky? Simply put, the choice at Polokwane is: Would it be better to remove my left arm or my right arm? Pundits have proclaimed Jacob Zuma is better; no, Thabo Mbeki is better. Actually, the real question is how after only 13 years of attempting democracy is ons so diep in die kak?

...crime...

This week a guard starts patrolling the beautiful, tree-lined street in which I live. Since January there have been 13 criminal incidents, including five armed robberies and five house-breakings, in our block of 20 houses. A woman was badly beaten in one incident and needed 13 stitches in her head.

There has not been a single arrest in any incident this year or last. The only arrest any of us knows of in our community was the arrest of the person who raped and stabbed me eight years ago and that was because a private-investigator friend drove the investigation. The area we live in falls under the policing precinct of Parkview, reputedly the best in Johannesburg.

...inequity

Let’s look at Mbeki’s South Africa: the Sunday Times reported early this year that South Africa is the world’s fourth-largest creator of new dollar millionaires with close to 50 000 in the country.

Since 1994, according to the BusinessMap Foundation, there have been R225-billion-worth of BEE transactions, with 173 empowerment deals, worth R75-billion, in 2006 alone. The recent University of Cape Town/Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing and TNS Research Survey estimates the buying power of the country’s 2,6-million black diamonds at about R180-billion.

Not bad — but this in a country that added a million more unemployed in the past 10 years. We have 40% of our nation unemployed, according to Stats SA. The Human Sciences Research Council tells us that 54% of our people live in poverty.

Charlene Smith

Okay, so she's a rich white bitch. So what? She's also one of the best journalists operating out this Godforsaken patch of Heaven on Earth. Much like Tom Feeley's InformationClearingHouse, you'll find every kind of irrational, illogical, or mentally deranged attack on the author cluttering the comments feature of Smith's blog.

Why the hell South African media-blogs persist in highlighting comments features is beyond me — they detract from the article. If people feel strongly enough about an entry, let them write their own. Thus is the hyperlink spread and the geography of the Web expanded.

ThoughtLeader's also a miserable fucking idea — perpetuating a closeted elitism blogging was first used to subvert. An invitation-only gaggle of eclectic and indifferent blogs, it sets itself up to embarass itself — and all-too-frequently does.

Based on her above entries, and those putting the increasingly facile Ronald Suresh Roberts, Mark Gevisser, and other Mbeki sycophants firmly in place, Charlene Smith is an exception to the norm. Her writing springs from the catholicism of charterism and a natural allegiance to The Freedom Charter as the most profound but difficult of all South African manifestoes.

Hers is one of the more 'objective' voices you'll find.

I need to point to her blog here. She holds to a belief that we'll see our way through increasingly dark times (Eskom's propensity to turn off the lights and everything else at any time of day adding to the gloaming). Coming from an economically differenct perspective than does Smith and viewing South Africa as a bit player on a far larger stage, I most certainly don't entertain such beliefs.

But I do hope she's correct.

Father Christopher's Picture Show

"In Just Seven Days...."

Disillusioned words like bullets bark | As human gods aim for their mark | Made everything from toy guns that spark | To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark | It's easy to see without looking too far | That not much | Is really sacred.

Indeed. My work is never done.

Still, who am I to complain?

I'm human, for Chrissakes. So there was no need for my Spiritual Guide and Mentor (SG&M) to be so rude.

"You fucking lazy white shithead!" he screamed.

I withdrew the phone from my ear and stared at it.

Gingerly placing it back against my ear, I asked "Father Christopher?"

"...less than twelve days to go and you've missed your fucking copy deadline," roared the unmistakebly Omnipotent Voice of The Jesus Bunker (Boulder, CO HQ).

His Immaculate Finger more perfectly placed on the pulse of popular culture than any other so-called Sentient Being, I felt my SG&M's rantings equated to those of an arrogant boor. I am, after all, a man of honor. Separated by an ocean, several thousand miles, and hidden at the foot of The Dark Continent, I felt sufficiently empowered to answer back.

"Huh?" I replied, trying to remember what deadline I'd missed. "What's it now? The bombing of Iran? An EGR Irregular AGM? The sub-prime lending chickens coming home to roost? Christmas?"

"Yes!" he screeched, his voice akin to electrical feedback generated by young James Marshall Hendrix on one of his better or (remembering my parents' reaction to him) worse days. "Christmas!"

Even Hendrix was mild by Father Christopher's standards.

"So?" I responded, "Who gives a damn? We get to take the day off."

Father Christopher is nothing if not patient. Nevertheless, I felt a searing pain separating my occipital lobes.

"You Goddamn baboon," he roared (I think the phone — Stateside — was hurled to the floor at this point). "I need the blurb for this year's release of Father Christopher's Jesus Bunker Joke Book. It's the thirteenth edition and I've had Locke working on it for weeks."

Editor's note: Chris Locke, a sometime blogger, new-age mystic, eugenicist, and resident of Boulder, works as Father Christopher's stenographer.



D'ja ever hear th' one about th' hooker and th' pit bull?

While preachers preach of evil fates | Teachers teach that knowledge waits | Can lead to hundred-dollar plates | Goodness hides behind its gates | But even the president of the United States | Sometimes must have | To stand naked.

I noted my mortality at the start of this entry but, Jesus H. Christ — I'd forgotten all about the cover blurb for this, the thirteenth (or Judas) edition of the annual Jesus Bunker Homily to the Faithful.

Strictly interpreted, such an error might be construed as Mortal Sin.

It's been a special year on the financial front too. Embracing globalization, Father Christopher has had his assistant, RageBoy — a social-suicide bomber in training, put together a massive marketing package including toy figurines, metallic bumper stickers, a cartoon series, a soon-to-be-released movie with Jennifer Aniston as Jesus, as well as the soundtrack of the movie (Radiohead).

All I had to do was deliver on the copy.

"But wait, there's more, you low-rent jerk," I heard RageBoy bellow in the background. "We're releasing a Slimline edition for the illiterate, the weight conscious or morbidly obese, a New Age++ edition for the Mystic Bourgeoisie or those otherwise uplifted, and a Charlton Heston edition for religious freaks and those who've read Ulysses from cover to cover."

"What about the Cecil B DeMille limited edition?" I asked snidely.

"We'll release that on CD at Easter," answered RageBoy without hesitation. "We'll bump it up with some Old Testament jokes and call it The Director's Cut."

What can I say? I felt bad. Father Christopher's Jesus Bunker Joke Book keeps Amazon afloat and the publishing industry in the disgustingly opulent style to which it has so readily become accustomed. My SG&M refuses to speak to J.K. Rowling in general and Sixpack Chopra in particular, snubbing them at book signings, circle dances, and Magic School swap meets. These people are, after all and when all is said and done, what we in the EGR Irregulars like to call "small fry".

FC and RB cut me some slack — they always do, and I put down the phone and returned to doing what I do best, i.e. nothing. Let the copy write itself; it always does.

The extraordinary irony behind megachurch philosophy is its conspicuously Darwinian core. In order to compete in the 21 st century for that unsaved, consumer-junkie soul, it's clear: Adapt. Evolve. Or die.

Exit: crown of thorns. Enter: the swoosh.

Maryann Mann | The Megachurch Juggernaut


Sponsored by Paypal Encyclicals Online, Inc.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged | It's only people's games that you got to dodge | And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Bob Dylan | It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Images courtesy The Jesus Bunker Archives, Inc., Boulder CO.

Martians

Beyond reason...

CNN tells us:

Two Mormon missionaries found in Martinique

This is news? Hell, more than thirty years ago I found two Mormon missionaries in Pinelands, Cape Town.

It didn't make the papers.

I was skateboarding a gentle incline in the middle of the cocooned suburb when I espied two strapping young men dressed in flannels, short-sleeved white shirts, USMC-issue haircuts, and black bicycles.

To a seventeen year old, it was kinda like meeting Martians. We had such things back then — Martians, that is. Or Orson Welles. Something like that.

We chatted. One of the guys hailed from a Californian break called The Wedge, then regarded as one of the most extreme U.S. bodysurfing spots. This appealed to me far more than my newfound friends' Martian origins, so I invited them around to my parents' place.

We got along great, but for the fact that we were a Catholic family and they were, well... Mormons.

Eventually, we decided our weekly chats were enough and gently introduced our young friends to the idea that we considered Joe Smith a deluded crackhead (or whatever passed for a drug-addled New Age evangelist back in those days).

One thing I never understood about those two Mormons though. They exuded an air of unnatural serenity not attributable, in my experience, to pharmaceuticals.

Now, thanks to the Bush Broadcast Media, I know how Mormons attain serenity. They might not visit Mars to acquire their other-worldly demeanour, but they do holiday in Martinique.

Say It's Not True

46664 World AIDS Day Concert

You can say it’s not true | You can say it’s not right | So hard to believe | The size of the crime

Queen | Say It's Not True



See The Origins of AIDS below. Better, watch the movie.

We don't need no...

I watched an armed employee of our largest suburban security company draw money from an ATM this morning. Despite the screen displaying a large notice proclaiming "Being serviced", the security guard persisted in his attempts to draw money. Eventually, whoever was servicing the machine allowed him to proceed.

I realised immediately the guard was illiterate.

Millions of South Africans cannot read or write. To supplant the ATM's iconic crossed circle with text was a dumb move by the bank. I also realised that — if they are to survive the coming war between the rich and poor, those now quick to complain that we have no police force, no health services, and no transport, telecommunications or Internet infrastructures should move beyond their "Government should do something about it" mindset.

I mean, for God's sake, the guy paid a pittance and charged with ensuring the safety and security of fat-walleted suburbanites wallowing in the ignorance of cosseted splendor cannot read and, therefore, probably cannot write. What the hell is government to do about it?

In a country where obscene wealth flaunts itself in the face of grinding poverty, the rich need a wake-up call. To hell with health, transport, and telecoms. We need an education system way more effective than that which have do not have now. And to get one off the ground, we need a wealth tax with bite.

I was wonderin'...

Table Mountain [3.5MB]

...what to do tomorrow.

Passing for Penguin

Simonstown, Cape Town.

A most terrible tale of bigotry and prejudice in a small coastal village.

The Origins of AIDS

Hilary Koprowski: The Man Who Sold The World?

We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when | Although I wasnt there, he said I was his friend | Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes | I thought you died alone, a long, long time ago.

"While AIDS may be one of the deadliest and most feared diseases of modern times, there is still a degree of scientific debate over the subject of just how the disease originated, and how the first cases spread. Peter Chappell and Catherine Peix, two filmmakers with a background in science, directed this documentary, which explores a controversial theory about the beginnings of the disease. In the 1950s, American and Belgian missionaries in the Belgian colonies of the Congo widely distributed polio vaccine to children in a bid to wipe out the crippling disease; however, evidence now suggests that Hilary Koprowski's oral vaccine may have been tainted, and that the first instances of the disease may be linked to these inoculations. Using interviews, newsreel footage, and documented research experiments, The Origins of AIDS examines how a combination of benevolence, careless lab procedures, and the need of a desperate few to cover their tracks could have led to one of the most serious pandemics of the 20th century."

New York Times | The Origins of AIDS

Oh no. Not me | I never lost control | You're face to face | With the man who sold the world.

"Despite the many international awards it has won, and its substantial reputation (much of it via word-of-mouth recommendation), many people have found that it is very difficult to access (let alone purchase) The Origins of AIDS documentary, in any of its formats.

"Feedback from visitors to this site who wanted to buy The Origins of AIDS on DVD indicates that despite the official line from the producers that they are marketing the documentary, The Origins of AIDS is frequently listed as "not available for sale", or else is offered for sale at a ridiculously inflated sum (such as $195).

"Experience over a number of months [see below] suggests that the producers may not be interested in actively marketing the documentary, but that they may be collaborating with an attempt to suppress it. By contrast with their lackadaisical approach to selling the DVD, they have been judicious about threatening legal action against the owners of different web-sites that have broadcast The Origins of AIDS. Usually this approach has persuaded the web-site-owners to remove the film from their schedules."

Ed Hooper | Author of The River — A journey back to the source of HIV and AIDS 1999

I laughed and shook his hand, and made my way back home | I searched for form and land, for years and years I roamed | I gazed a gazely stare at all the millions here | We must have died alone, a long, long time ago...

Watch the movie. Decide for yourself. Umm... read this first. Why the hell not?

"That the Belgium Congo was chosen as the location for the first mass testing of what was an experimental polio vaccine also speaks reams about the attitude of the West toward people of colour. We should also remember that the Congo was still a colony of Belgium at the time and a major source of uranium for US nuclear weapons. As one Congolese employee at the Stanleyville laboratory said of the time, 'you didn’t question [your colonial masters].'

"The history of the emergence of the deadliest disease ever to afflict humanity, AIDS, should be an object lesson for us all, especially those in the so-called civilised world who call themselves scientists, for what is clear is that we produced a disease which will over the next fifty years be responsible for the deaths of perhaps 100 million people, most of them in the under-developed world.

"There are those who claim (and not without good reason) that the AIDS retrovirus was created as a deliberate act aimed at exterminating people of colour, after all, the history of colonialism, for example in the Americas, reveals the deliberate infection of the indigenous peoples’ with diseases like smallpox, but what is revealed is in many ways far worse, for it’s the history of denial, indifference and downright lies about the way the West behaves toward people of colour, using them as unwitting guinea pigs."

William Bowles | See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

Who knows? Not me | We never lost control | You're face to face | With the man who sold the world.

David Bowie | The Man Who Sold the World

GUTs

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Well, that's my theory anyway.

The exception proves it...

An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which has received rave reviews from scientists. Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii, where he has also been a hiking guide and bridge builder (when he slept in a jungle yurt). ...

The new theory reported today in New Scientist has been laid out in an online paper entitled "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" [pdf] by Lisi, who completed his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1999 at the University of California, San Diego.

He has high hopes that his new theory could provide what he says is a "radical new explanation" for the three decade old Standard Model, which weaves together three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force; the strong force, which binds quarks together in atomic nuclei; and the weak force, which controls radioactive decay.

Telegraph | Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything


Surfer dude's picture of everything...

Thanks Doc, Frank...maybe he's on to something or just on something. The dissenters are already slinging everything from names to boiled frogs at each other.

Surviving neoliberalism...

Happy Birthday Chris Locke

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...unless, of course, you reverse the entropy gradient — which, God knows, you have done.


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60? Who'd a thunk you'd make it? Here's hoping you give us many more grey hairs and a 70th to remember.

Reservoir Blogs

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What do you give a girl who has everything? And I mean that in nicest possible way. Yeah, Jeneane. Her sixth blogday came and slipped by a couple of days ago and I was left gawping. I call her BlogSister because, well, she is kind of like a sister to me. Smart, sassy, clued, generous, loving, quick, sharp, insightful... and Sicilian. Not that I have any Sicilian blood, you understand. I just respect those who do.

I enjoy life and intend to continue doing so.

As does BlogSister. And she has shared hers since 2001 when a perfect intellectual storm hit the blogs in a never-to-be-emulated surge. So what does one give someone who continues to epitomise what blogging was 'back in the day'? I couldn't think of anything worthwhile...

...until just now. The girl who has everything gets four of everything. And there they are, the Reservoir Blogs. Ugly bunch of fuckers, aren't they? Well, for those wondering who the hell these evil looking bastards are, they are not Al Gore or Dave Winer. They did and do, in fact and theory, lend substance and meaning to the Net, the Web, and blogging.

By 2001, we'd been reading these guys for years.

OK, so maybe JP Rangaswami wasn't there at the outset but, when he wandered into the Jesus Bunker (Operational HQ, Boulder, CO), he slipped in like the key to the proverbial well-oiled Locke.

I say 'proverbial' because BlogFather Chris Locke (fast closing on sixty and blogging at his best) was last conventionally well-oiled sometime around 1984. Doc Searls is a renowned BlogBabe aficionado of discernment and repute and David Weinberger is a miscellaneous philosopher loosely joined.

Locke is into loosely joined philosophical BlogBabes.

They form a killer team. And they'll clip your ear (metaphorically, of course) if you mess with them or their friends. That said, we are fortunate to have direct access to them. And they, like many of us, are fortunate enough to call Jeneane their friend. She can clip their, our, or anybody's ears whenever she feels like it. She's that kind of girl.

Note: Given my propensity for light-hearted banter, I should point out to those who've not been blogging that long that these guys are the real deal. Without them, you'd probably have a life (as well as a job, a house, a car, a family and all that other good shit).

Life's a Beach...

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Two days at Platboom, lousy weather, a howling gale, and close on five-hundred shots shots later, I get two I like — those at the top; the panorama is of Diaz Beach, on the False Bay side; last weekend's break from city life.


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I must be doing something right...


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My growing addiction to the place is but a pleasant spinoff.

Down here, one can sometimes almost believe overpopulation's an overrated issue.

Almost...

Note: I've trundled across the Peninsula for close on two years now. Few places remain unvisited or unphotographed. I'm filling in the blanks as I return to old haunts. Wherever I've been, I've walked sturdy, secure, and clearly demarcated paths or boardwalks built by labourers working for Table Mountain National Park.

Ostensibly, these paths — the result of often back-breaking labour, lead nowhere. Practically, they've led me everywhere, and I owe those who built them enormous thanks. I've no idea who you are — I have some idea you seldom, if ever, get to enjoy what your work gives me.

Cops Admit Defeat

A risk-free activity?

Police have finally admitted that they have not made a significant impact on crime. This admission is contained in a document outlining a new policing plan by National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. ... Some of the wide-ranging proposals of the plan include:

• a comprehensive 12-point plan detailing how investigations should be conducted and improving the ability of police detectives to assess crime scenes
• providing a 24-hour service, with proper management of crime scenes and ensuring that police take quality statements from witnesses and complainants
• decisions on case dockets being taken within 24 hours, and
• addressing the number of dockets with investigators that are not court-ready and monitoring new and outstanding cases to ensure investigations are completed within a reasonable time frame

Selebi said the strategy would become official only once he and his management team had adopted it. "It’s designed to get the maximum out of commanders and police officers." He said if the strategy was implemented it would make a huge difference to reducing crime levels.

Between April last year and March this year there were 19202 murders, 21142 attempted murders, 52617 rapes, 467 cash-in-transit heists and 14491 hijackings.

The Times | Criminals rule the roost, cops admit

Cool potatoes. Should we adopt this plan, cops will be trained to assess crime scenes, take statements, file dockets, investigate criminal activity, keep an eye on outstanding cases, and be available 24/7.

So, yes, you might well ask: "What the fuck have they been doing to now?"

A man who was allegedly beaten up badly by a group of policemen on Thursday night after making a U-turn on the N12 highway, died of his injuries two days later.

Koos Myburgh, 51, of Upington was allegedly assaulted at about 00:30 on Thursday night when between four and six policemen forced him to stop between the Groenfontein and Balmoral exits, on the section between Delmas and Ogies, after he had made a U-turn and driven his truck on the wrong side of the road.

News24.com | Man beaten to death for U-turn

Ho hum... I don't have it in for the cops, by the way (not that I condone them beating motorists to death, you understand). I was speaking to one Friday night. He pitched up to kick us off the mountain. They shut it down at night. Too many dead tourists.

An Angolan war vet with sixteen years on the force, he's joining Blackwater and heading off to Iraq. South Africa's presence there is third only to the U.S. and Britain.

My cop buddy reckons it's a good gig. "I'll score ten times my salary and, considering the number of cops killed in Cape Town so far this year, it'll be way less risky."

Conditioned by the media, I'd not considered Iraq a haven of safety and prosperity but, forced to look at it from a local policeman's point of view, I can see how it must look like Heaven on Earth.

Pap Snuki

The SABC would not have broadcast stories about Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s behaviour during her hospital treatment, or on her conviction for theft for stealing a watch from an unconscious patient — because the public broadcaster only carries stories that aid the country’s development.

"We are guided by the constitution not to incite violence or hatred in our reporting," said Snuki Zikalala, the SABC’s chief of news yesterday.

"Publishing such a story is disrespectful."

The Times | No news is good news, says Comrade Snuki

Snuki, you're a bent and twisted boy. Such casuistry might work in corridors lined with the offices of those whose boots you lick, but it won't wash my old Cats. You're being fucking disrespectful to me and, may I remind you, I pay your salary as well as those of the knuckleheads whose interests you so assiduously protect.

Face it, Snuks, as a state apologist of note you've passed your sell-by date and you're starting to smell like a well-known Cape fish left too long in the sun. Your redeployment as news commisar to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation might lift standards there but anywhere else, your presence is bad news for good news.

The main ZBC TV News bulletin opens with a guy in traditional costume beating a drum. You'd fit right in. Think about it.

"As a journalist, I am going to expose all forms of corruption in government and the private sector. Seventy percent of the people of this country have voted for the ANC. I lost my youth fighting for this country. Why would I allow this organisation to disappoint so many people who voted for it?"

Snuki Zikalala

Indeed. Why should you?

An Empty Cup?

That Zapiro can righteously draw parallels between a time we'd rather forget and now is a fucking disgrace. What the hell has happened? Who's going to take the rap for this one? Thabo? You up to it? Like it or not, it's your baby.

Given time's passing, that most cannot remember the horror of Vorster and Kruger rampant is a fact. They should be grateful for it. They're spared terrible memories, nightmares, cold sweats, and sudden bouts of nausea. And maybe a bar of soap or three.

That year, it started with COSAS. Immediately thereafter, a host of organisations, movements, groups and individuals were banned. Many were locked up, not a few were tortured, and some were disappeared. This just a month after Steve Biko's murder and a year after Soweto. It was the start of a filthy, all-out war that was to last ten years.

Today, journalists — facing repressive legislation and under constant threat of intimidation or arrest, work to extricate meaning from the obfuscatory shroud of smoke and mirrors that our 'transparent' government has become. Subject to vitriolic personal attacks by cabinet ministers appointed on a jobs-for-pals basis and myriad other political opportunists from the public and private sectors, theirs is an unenviable task.

Vorster's Minister of Police was a smug, mean, vicious, corrupt and murderous thug. The sclerotic alcoholic's cabinet comprised apparatchiks of the first order. So-called intelligence agencies run by Calvinist warlords permeated society, running hitsquads for pecuniary gain. State propaganda was obediently and incessantly broadcast from Auckland Park by mediocre masters of slime, epitomised by the unctuous and oily Cliff Saunders.

Little has changed. Sure, we've rid ourselves of apartheid, but social engineering and weasel words remain our stock in trade. A cynical eye on the run up to the rugby world cup final had me marvelling at the short-term genius of our perpetually bent and twisted overlords. A country desparate for good news was primed for and pumped to hysteria by every arm of the broadcast media and, as the seconds ticked away for England on Saturday night, the push to impose a new order on an old sport became crushingly inevitable.

With victory imminent, the commentary changed to Xhosa. Immediately after the game, TV cameras opened their eyes on festivities countrywide. Not a white in sight. A moment to celebrate? Nah, it was so contrived it might have backfired. But it didn't. And won't. Propaganda is an ugly business more frequently wielded with the finesse of a club than that of a rapier. No matter how it's conveyed, an image or idea persists. And we will lend it whatever meaning we are told it has.

The push for 'transformation', i.e. the transfer of power from one power elite to another, is remorseless. Driven by neo-liberal economics, it's a high-profile, high-stakes game of take and take. The poor are becoming increasingly poor; the rich, ever more greedy, corrupt and voracious.

There'll be no more World Cups after this one. In four years' time though, we'll not have B.J. Vorster or Jimmy Kruger to blame. We'll have isolated ourselves. Madiba offered us a shot at glory and we failed him and the old men at his side. Sadly, with Thabo at the helm, we've risen only to new lows. We need radical change.

It might yet come.

Lucky Dube Shot Dead

Lucky Dube

Reggae legend Lucky Dube, one of South Africa's most famous musicians, was killed in an attempted car-jacking as he dropped his children off at a relative's house, his record label said Friday.

Dube, 43, was killed in Johannesburg around 8 p.m. local time Thursday after someone tried to steal his car, Gallo Record Company said in a statement. Police said he was shot. The statement said Dube attempted to escape but died almost instantly from his wounds.

CNN | Car jacker kills reggae star

We could not afford to lose Lucky Dube. But, by becoming one of the day's 50 murder victims, we did. His wife has lost a husband and his seven children, a father. A great musician is dead, lost to an anarchy the state denies.

"Lucky Dube was probably the greatest reggae artist in all of Africa; in fact I have heard people say he is the King of Reggae. His violent, untimely death doesn't surprise me. I lived a few years in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, but left the country in a hurry after a stray bullet missed my ear by an inch, but hit a friend standing opposite me in the forehead".

Dandy Ahuruonye, Dublin, Ireland

"They can continue to whinge until they're blue in the face, be as negative as they want to, or they can simply leave this country so that all of the peace-loving South Africans, good South African people who want to make this a successful country, can continue with their work."

Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula

Lucky Dube did not, can not, will not, leave.

Series of Dreams

Sunday Times Editor Faces Arrest

No Holds Barred

Sunday Times reports claimed that, in two stays at the Cape Town Medi-Clinic for a shoulder operation in 2005, Tshabalala-Msimang sent staff to buy alcohol, threw drunken tantrums, abused nurses and washed down medication with wine and whisky.

It also said she had used her position to secure a new liver while hiding her alcoholism from the public and had been convicted of stealing a watch from a patient while superintendent of a Botswana hospital in 1976.

Mail & Guardian | Sunday Times editor to hand himself in

The amount of money and energy government has expended on defending the drunken excesses, petty thievery and vituperative viciousness of our criminally negligent and inept Minister of Health would probably power Johannesburg for several weeks. Eskom has set up a panel. It's investigating.

The editor of the Sunday Times and one of its journalists will be arrested this week to face charges of illegally being in possession of the minister of Health’s medical records.

Editor Mondli Makhanya and deputy managing editor Jocelyn Maker will be hauled off to Cape Town in connection with charges of theft and for contravention of Section 17 of the National Health Act.

Sunday Times | Editor, journalist to be arrested

Understated always works well...

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has expressed "deep concern" at reports of police plans to arrest Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya and journalist Jocelyn Maker over the theft of Health Minister Manto-Tshabalala-Msimang's medical records.

"It is an extraordinary irony that, 13 years into our democracy, the same governing party who fought for freedom from oppression and for freedom of expression is now seen to be increasingly clamping down on those precise freedoms," DA leader Helen Zille said in a statement on Sunday.

Describing the move as a step in the erosion of "constitutional rights", Zille said it is evident the state's security machinery is being used to pursue those who fall foul of President Thabo Mbeki and his allies.

Mail & Guardian | Editor, journalist to be arrested

Zille is, as usual, blunt and to the point.

Government spokesperson Themba Maseko declined to comment when phoned by Reuters. But an ANC member of parliament told SAFM Makhanya should face the consequences if he broke the law.

"This kind of development is most unfortunate, but... it is alleged that he transgressed the law, and therefore he is being brought to book," Roy Padayachee told the radio station.

"We want the media to stick close to the truth and we welcome a diversity of views. But the media has taken on a role of being an opposition to the ANC and the government."

Independent Online | Is the government targeting Sunday Times?

A case of foot-in-mouth disease?

Reports of police plans to arrest Sunday Times Editor Mondli Makhanya and journalist Jocelyn Maker has provoked a mixed reaction from editors and political parties.

The South African Editor's Forum (Sanef) (sic) on Sunday welcomed the news that the duo could be soon arrested, saying bringing them to court to answer allegations surrounding the theft of Heath Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's medical records, would ensure that the matter comes to a rest.

"Sanef welcomes the move in that the state and the Sunday Times will have the opportunity to state their case to an independent arbiter and both have to accept and live with the decision of the arbiter," Sanef's chairman Jovial Rantao said.

SAPA | Mixed reaction over editor's arrest

It is fitting Mr. Rantao should lend his name to such a statement.

Political parties have expressed mixed reactions to the possible arrest of Sunday Times Editor Mondli Makhanya. This follows reports that Makhanya and deputy managing editor Jocelyn Maker, will have to appear in a Cape Town court this week on charges of illegally being in possession of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's health records.

Independent Democrats (ID) leader Patricia De Lille, says everyone is equal before the law, and it should apply to every citizen in the country. The United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa, believes the state will have to prove that Makhanya personally stole the medical records if he's charged. If not, Holomisa says the theft case may take another dimension.

SABC | Mixed reaction to newspaper editor's trial

Trust the SABC to take a "different", i.e. vacuous, uncritical and essentially meaningless angle.

Bakeries in Zimbabwe remained closed on Sunday and shop shelves were empty of bread despite a 300% rise in the official price of a loaf.

The state Sunday Mail, a government mouthpiece, said the National Prices and Incomes Commission allowed the bread price to increase to Zimbabwe dollars 100 000 (US20 cents) on Friday as part of a review to help businesses remain viable.

News24 | No bread in Zimbabwe

Sorry...wrong story.

South Africa's Sunday Times said on Sunday its editor and deputy managing editor may be arrested this week on charges of illegally possessing the health minister's medical records.

Editor Mondli Makhanya and deputy managing editor Jocelyn Maker are expected to appear before a magistrate in Cape Town to face charges of theft and contravention of Section 17 of the National Health Act, the paper said.

The Act states it is an offence to gain access to a person's confidential records. The Sunday Times quoted Cape Town lawyer Steve Broekman, representing the two, as saying they would be taken to court before the end of the week.

Reuters | S.Africa editor may face arrest on minister expose

Reuters ... will ... not ... offer ... an ... opinion.

I am angry and I am afraid. I am deeply afraid for my country.

The sound of silence has fallen over our country while the government of President Thabo Mbeki, in its anger and its shame over its numerous failures and acts of deceit, uses state security apparatus to go after every man and woman who dares to speak truth to power.

While all this happens, the many good men and women in Cabinet, in government, in business, in the trade unions and in civil society, keep quiet. Where are the good men and women of the United Democratic Front? Where are the many good men and women of the SA Council of Churches, such as Brigalia Bam?

They are silent. They are in agreement while the democracy they fought for is abused to protect the increasingly paranoid and discredited presidency of Mbeki and to settle petty personal scores.

We should all hang our heads in shame.

Justice Malala | Deafening silence as Mbeki and Co reduce South Africa to a state of fear

Well, some of us should.

I also desperately want to believe that not everyone in the ANC has been sucked into Mbeki’s web of evil. I really hope that there are some senior politicians who are reeling in shock at the daily revelations.

It’s a pity they haven’t the guts to speak out, but the ANC is run along the lines of a charismatic religion, and independence of thought is not encouraged. That doesn’t necessarily make those who remain silent guilty, but it is still disappointing. Several articles have asked rhetorically what Nelson Mandela makes of this sacrifice of the South African dream. Well, why doesn’t somebody ask him — or is he, too, not allowed to break the sacred law of omerte?

Under Mbeki this country has become a quagmire of corruption and vice. The media is often accused by politicians of stooping to offensive racist stereotypes, but when your country is run by offensive stereotypes, what choice do you have?

Dave Bullard | Are those killed by crime seen by Mbeki as dispensable?

A hardarse loudmouth, the Brave Dullard hadn't the legs for blogging but, in this article he hits his subject right in the meat of the bat and sends it soaring above and beyond the stands.

It is no exaggeration to state that this country stands at the edge of a precipice. If it is possible that the editor of the Sunday Times, Mondli Makhayna and journalist Jocelyn Maker face arrest for their part in the publication of a story about the misbehaviour of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, we are in dire straits.

This is despite the fact that a judge has already stated, (when the minister tried unsuccessfully to have the newspaper gagged from discussing her stay in the hospital) that there was a pressing need for the public to be given the facts exposed by the Sunday Times in the Manto saga.

Such action will have massive internal and international implications.

Internally, it will signal the beginning of the end of freedom of the press. Media freedom is a fragile thing. A vigourous and critical press does not make friends easily. But it ought to enjoy the protection of the powerful in government and business who must surely understand that it is not possible to build and defend a democracy without a robust press, even if it does not always rub your way.

Ray Hartley | Makhanya’s arrest a bleak and ominous moment for our country

It's called the Cost of Living.

But it was notable that he [Pallo Jordan, Minister of Arts and Culture] eschewed the current accusation that an irresponsible media is trammeling on citizens’ freedoms and need to be contained in some way.

"It has always been my contention that the truth can be arrived at only through the untrammeled context among differing opinions, in which as many points of view as possible are given a fair and equal hearing. Laws and mores that repress freedom of expression cannot be anything but a disservice to society. I would even say that censorship, the suppression of information and the repression of those who bring us information, are devices employed by falsehood".

Strong words, indeed. And he offered no qualification to his support for free speech.

He went on to say that "the value we place on a free, independent and outspoken press in democratic South Africa cannot be overstated". He included "a free press (which) can temper the appetite of any government to amass power at the expense of the citizen" and "a vigilant watchdog".

Anton Harber | Pallo speaks against the tide on media freedom

You can't keep an old struggle-ista down. Pallo...Harber...Pallo...aghh, either will do.

The picture? It's part of a bigger picture. Read Tom Barnett's articles or books. Find out where he comes from. Read Nick Turse's article Slum Fights: The Pentagon Plans for a New Hundred Years' War. Figure out where we fit in.

Thabo's not dumb. He's busy. And accountable.

Update: In a fresh article, A National Disgrace, Anton Harber and Helen Zille sound pessimistic. We could be headed the same way as the U.S.

Journalism professor Anton Harber, founding editor of the Weekly Mail [now the Mail & Guardian] and head of the journalism department at Wits University, said: "It’s a major attack on freedom of expression. They’re targeting him [Makhanya] because they don’t like what he’s done."

Harber predicted that "journalists around the world will rally to the support of Makhanya and the Sunday Times". He said any arrests would be a setback for the progress South Africa had made in creating a free press since 1994.

Patricia de Lille, leader of the Independent Democrats, said it was sad day for press freedom in South Africa. The DA’s Helen Zille said: "The state’s security machinery is being used more and more to pursue individuals who fall foul of the president and his allies. It is alleged that investigators are under pressure 'from Pretoria' to finalise this investigation.

"It is further alleged that Makhanya’s and Maker’s cellphones are being tapped and that intelligence operatives were trying to dig up dirt on them."

The Times | A national disgrace

Fears of a possible apartheid-style clampdown on journalists and newspapers that publish information critical of government have been expressed.

News that Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya and deputy managing editor Jocelyn Maker are to be arrested this week — the 30th anniversary of the banning of World and Weekend World newspapers and crackdown against journalists by the former apartheid government — was described as a "sad day for press freedom".

The Sowetan | 30-year circle

It's good stuff, but I can't see journalists around the world being of any use to Mondli Makhayna and Jocelyn Maker. They allowed Iraq and they're facilitating Iran. They wrote the Occupation of the Horn of Africa and the plundering of the Bight. They've been bombed, imprisoned, tortured and shot.

It's a sad fact. When push comes to shove and money's at stake, guns and unfettered power will always speak louder than words.

The press is toast.

President Nelson Mandela preferred to have Cyril Ramaphosa as his successor rather than Thabo Mbeki. Billy Masetlha, the spymaster acrimoniously sacked by Mbeki, described recently how Govan Mbeki — our president’s father — was not convinced about his son’s readiness for office.

Masetlha said: "We wanted Tata Govan Mbeki’s support ahead of the conference. uTata said: 'Are you sure this boy has grown enough to be president? Do you know what it takes to be the president of the ANC? No, akakavuthwa kakuhle lomfana [this young man is not yet ready].'"

The elders were right. We should have listened to them.

Justice Malala | SA waits for a political hero

City Slickers

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Yeah, we work in the city. Pinstripe suits, ties, alligator-skin shoes. Come lunch though...

My colleague, Dave, is weird. Whereas I went out and bought a skateboard a couple of years ago, he's made one. It's a longboard, around 46", and it has a deck made to break heads. Heavy as it is, it's flexible and perfectly shaped for maneuvering or bombing. He adapted a set of trucks and another colleague brought a set of 70mm wheels out from the States. Dave threw it together earlier this week and we've been trying it out in the parking garage during our lunch break.


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A surfer, he's built his own sandboard and, for all I know, surfboard as well. A natural-born hellfiend. You get 'em. He took a look at the slope, checked out the dust, eyed the corner at the bottom and took off. Hey, what can go wrong? A couple of our colleagues who've tried the board have yet to join us in breaking in Dave's wheels. Tod did. I believe he got what's called a 'roaster' and he wasn't out at lunchtime today. But we'll work on him...

We work in the city. Pay's up to maggots but it's a good company — Google without the money. Lotta smart people. Weird too. In the best possible way.

They gave Al Gore the Nobel Peace Prize? Can you believe that? Fucking hell! What is the world coming to?

People are Baboons Too

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The South African Web's finest blogging is not, unfortunately, available on any weblog. Aly Verbaan's a journalist working for a Cape Town "community" paper, her remarkable writing delivering ad revenue to her keepers and advertising to her readers.

Never mind. What's a writer in search of a paying gig to do? Besides, I'd allow myself to be influenced by anybody touting anything to read Aly's weekly insights into a small-minded, fast-unraveling society of natural-born losers redeemed by few saints.

In her first year on the job, the one-horse-town reporter from Hermanus scooped, among other awards, the Journalist of the Year Trophy at the annual Sanlam Awards for Community Press. Deservedly so. The voice of the People's Post, Aly's column epitomises all that which blogging should be.

The trite and the true hold good. Her work is authentic, iconoclastic, humorous, intelligent, gentle, multi-faceted, upbeat, empathic, civil, relevant, etc. Its comprehensive scope, informed by a wellspring of obvious intelligence, weaves an intertextual web offering the reader clear and concise insights into the miasmic mess we label "our socio-economic reality".

The personal nature of her columns informing her output, she is a blogger by default. I hope to hell she doesn't get suckered into the lucrative mainstream as a cut-and-paste wordprocessor for the bent and twisted.


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What inspired this eulogy? Other media, National Geographic in particular. Under a headline screaming Baboon "Gangs" Run Wild in Suburban South Africa, the magazine's Jo'burg correspondent tells us:

Conflicts between baboons and humans in the suburbs of prosperous Cape Town have gotten so bad that monitoring teams have been deployed to keep the animals away. The large monkeys invade people's homes in the coastal Table Mountain region, sometimes confronting people who try to scare the baboons off. Some residents have retaliated by shooting and poisoning baboons and by running them over on local roads.

There are many inaccuracies in those three sentences and the overall impression they give is negative at best. A video, captioned "Baboons casually open car doors and climb in, rob homes, and otherwise terrorize residents of South Africa's Cape Peninsula" shows one of our local troops to be little more than marauding thugs.

Having been mugged by a Buffels Bay baboon (entrance to Cape Point is definitely not free — if you're human) that nicked my Coke, you'd think I'd agree. I don't and they're not (marauding thugs), but you'd have to read the whole article to realise it. We've some 300 Chacma baboons on the Peninsula, and they're in danger of being wiped out. They're docile but smart and mischevious creatures, dangerous only when cornered, and humans — who have invaded their space, continue to reinforce their foraging by feeding and fearing them.

Aly takes a decidedly different, over-arching view. A typical weekly piece, it's worth quoting in full.


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With the way things are going in the Deep South, I may actually be able to afford a shack in the sticks out there one day soon.

William the Conqueror and Maud the Marauder (okay, I made Maud up) are apparently holding the sleepy hollow of Scarborough hostage, eating their way through fridges and freezers and then locking the terrified owners inside their own homes while making off with the antique cutlery and the Ming vase, using the Mercedes ML 350 as the getaway car.

If reports are to be believed, you are probably as incapable as I am of working out which part of that sentence is not true. But the Deep South's riveting social scene has apparently been split asunder by the emerging left and right wing factions in the Great Baboon Debate of 2007.

There are those who swear they have seen the leader of the pack, Billy the Kid, teaching the laaities to climb through the air vents and unlock the front door for the rest of the clan. "Outraged of the Outback" has written to the city council demanding the vermin be settled in a township on the outskirts of Nabyniksfontein as has always been done in the past.

But, even as these plans are being hatched, baboon boeties are said to be bringing more in through the back valley.

It is unclear which political party the newcomers will back, but "Outraged" says that as long as the baboons don't pay rent and rates, they shouldn't have the right to vote at all.

With half of the peninsula aiding and abetting the troop and half turning them in for malingering, a full-scale war looks set to take the south by storm, after the current round of political apery on floors all over the country is settled, that is. Of course, the baboons are expected to sit on the fence, eating figs and roast chicken as they usually do, and perhaps tossing the odd Rottweiler from its kennel when things hot up a bit.

All this will mean that property prices will plummet and I will be able to acquire a mansion in the mountains for just three times what the bank is prepared to lend me.

That is neither here nor there, however. I will raise the money by hook or by crook, as is the custom in Cape Town, and when the dreaded new road constructions tourniquet the peninsula's arteries at the elbows, I expect it will become even more affordable.

I am never on time for anything so a three-hour traffic jam is unlikely to make any difference to me (although I can see that other people may be a little put out). In fact, if I know from the outset there is no chance of making it, I will simply turn up the radio and let my road rage float away on the sea breeze.

And when I get home to my house on the hill, I will not be at all outraged to discover the baboons have emptied the liquor cabinet and slept between my freshly-laundered sheets. In fact, I have run out of outrage. I'm fresh out of fury. I have been robbed and burgled so many times that I know the insurance company's number off the top of my head. I don't get angry any more. I just get the phone, if it hasn't been stolen. I haven't tried the baboon story on the insurance firm yet, but I dare say not much surprises them these days. I come from Hermanus, so I am well-acquainted with monkey business.

(Don't believe what they say about baboons not being scared of women. If you are cornered while making a sandwich in the kitchen, turn on the beast with the bread-knife. It's a language we can all speak — the new lingua franca, even.)

In Hermanus, the baboons have worked out which days are garbage days in the different suburbs and time their visits accordingly. They are more efficient at taking away the trash than the municipal workers are. There is a strong temptation to see them (the baboons, not the municipal workers) as indigent and offer them employment and, by extension, ask them to pay rates and taxes.

But that is where the mistake lies. People need to understand that baboons are not people, no matter how much they might resemble a politician you know.

And just as we don't hold politicians responsible for their actions, we should not imagine that baboons are accountable. They are animals and do not have criminal capacity. Neither do baboons.

Aly Verbaan | Baboons aren't people too


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As always, she includes allusions to corporate and political malfeasance — including floor crossing, income disparity, cultural divisions, social gradients, financial divides and prejudices, parochialism and self-interest, infrastructural issues, services delivery, transport and property problems, and something seemingly favoured by my now-favourite journo — the blind greed of the ostentatiously opulent and disgustingly rich.

Not good enough? Perhaps the effect of several columns might influence your views as it did me. I have drafted a proposal of marriage — Wendy is going through it at the moment and has served notice on Kate Moss and Jodie Foster. However, given that Aly too is married, she (Wendy) tells me it might take some time to sort out the mechanics of our new troop's harmonious relationship — a marriage made in Cape Town©.

But I'll keep you posted...should we have a postal service worthy of the name and should Aly start a blog — something I am sure she will do. As we all know, it is always summer on the Web, peace and justice prevail, and everything is possible.

Now, just who is Jenni Trethowan?

Pic of the week

Yo, Thabo. How you doing? [Pic: Reuters]

"You my man. Still riding point on the Gap, I hear?"

Yeah, okay, it's dated September 25, but who woulda thunk it, eh? Over at thoughtleader, Chris Moerdyk ain't too happy about it either.

Not that I agree with Chris that Thabo should quit while ahead. Thabo's in no position to do so as his mimicking of Bush's obseqious duplicity and slippery evasiveness has caused him to disappear from credibility's radar.

God forbid we find a National Director of Public Prosecutions willing to lift the lid from the can of worms the ANC's NEC has become.

Go Home

Azadi (Freedom) Tower, Teheran

But by what law of nature does Iran, with its resources, fall within Western dominion? The bland assumption that it does is most revealing of deep-seated attitudes toward the conduct of foreign affairs.

Noam Chomsky | The Responsibility of Intellectuals

On every point, the case made against Iran collapses upon closer scrutiny. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), mandated to investigate Iran’s nuclear programs, has concluded that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Furthermore, the IAEA has concluded that it is capable of monitoring the Iranian nuclear program to ensure that it does not deviate from the permitted nuclear energy program Iran states to be the exclusive objective of its endeavors. Iran’s support of the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon — Iranian protestors shown here supporting Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during an anti-Israel rally — while a source of concern for the State of Israel, does not constitute a threat to American national security primarily because the support provided is primarily defensive in nature, designed to assist Hezbollah in deterring and repelling an Israeli assault of sovereign Lebanese territory. Similarly, the bulk of the data used by the United States to substantiate the claims that Iran is a state sponsor of terror is derived from the aforementioned support provided to Hezbollah. Other arguments presented are either grossly out of date (going back to the early 1980’s when Iran was in fact exporting Islamic fundamentalism) or unsubstantiated by fact.

Scott Ritter | The Big Lie: ‘Iran Is a Threat’

Well, there you have it. Short, sharp, and succinct. No excuse whatsoever to perpetuate The Long War. It turned out to be shorter than expected. You lost. And now that Iraq's been destroyed, you can pack up and go home.

The threat of nuclear war is extremely serious, and growing, and part of the reason is that the nuclear states — led by the United States — simply refuse to live up to their obligations or are significantly violating them...

Noam Chomsky | Derailing a deal

And yes, this entry does serve merely to direct you to Chomsky's comprehensive and timely essay, The Responsibility of Intellectuals — from which I extracted the short, opening quotation. It is a wonderful article, well worth reading and digesting.

American Sacrifices

Archbishop Desmond Tutu banned from U.S. university...

"We had heard some things he said that some people judged to be anti-Semitic and against Israeli policy," says Doug Hennes, St. Thomas's vice president for university and government relations. "We're not saying he's anti-Semitic. But he's compared the state of Israel to Hitler and our feeling was that making moral equivalencies like that are hurtful to some members of the Jewish community."

Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages | Banning Desmond Tutu

Fuck the so-called 'Jewish community' of which Hennes speaks. Fuck him and fuck Dennis Dease too. And fuck America while you're about it. I've had enough of this bullshit. "Moral equivalencies" my ass. According to Wikipedia, Tutu's banning from the University of St. Thomas — coming hard on the heels of the carefully orchestrated Ahmadinejad ambush, was organized by the Zionist Organization of America, a loathsome arm of The Lobby now running the USian police state in much the same way it does Israel.

In addition, Cris Toffolo, an associate professor who supported inviting the South African archbishop and activist was removed as director of the St. Paul university's justice and peace studies program in August.

Star Tribune | St. Thomas won't host Tutu


America's ultimate sacrifice... [Andrew Lichtenstein]

People are scared in this country [the U.S.] to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful — very powerful. Well, so what? This is God’s world. For goodness sake, this is God’s world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosovic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu | Occupation is Oppression

Desmond Tutu has talked the talk. Having walked the walk, he's earned the right to do so as few others have. For good, pragmatic, and common-sense reasons, he is one of the world's most respected religious leaders. Perhaps it's fitting that the exemplary cowardice of USia should be so vividly highlighted by the 'Catholic' University of St. Thomas, an institution of higher learning motivated by noble and spiritually uplifting ideals.

God is omnipotent, all-powerful, but also impotent. God does not dispatch lightning bolts to remove tyrants, as we might have hoped he would. God waits for you, for you to act. You are his partner. God is as weak as the weakest of his partners, or as strong as the morally strongest.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu | Occupation is Oppression

Note: Given the content of this entry, I feel I should point out that I am Catholic.

Frank's embarrassment (see comment), albeit understandable, is unnecessary. He, and millions of Americans of conscience, could not have foreseen the consequences of neoliberal globalization.

That Desmond "Just Call Me Arch" Tutu, unquestionably a "man of peace", should be hounded from a Catholic university by a bunch of Zionist thugs now calling the shots on virtually every U.S. campus is, as Frank says, a sure sign his message needs airing.

The fascist coup facilitating USia's descent into totalitarianism was not covered by the media. Advertisers, who profited hugely, enforced a blanket ban. Besides, they had Bill O'Reilly and his mob covering their backsides 24/7 — a position our favourite Catholic commentator undoubtedly enjoys.

My embarrassment, however, is acute. The Vatican, increasingly divorced from the Catholic Church and little more than a refuge or clearing house for paedophile priests, no longer speaks for Catholics.

The American franchise not being subject to satisfactory quality controls is inexcusable. It renders its product unsaleable. I mean, for Christ's sake, Bennie should be in a position to call up Ehud and settle matters once and for all.

"Get your thugs out of there or we'll cry havoc, let slip the altar boys, and start a good, old-fashioned pogrom," should do the trick.

Wearing's Disease

"It's not dark yet..."

Now, he's hell-bent for destruction, he's afraid and confused, | And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill. | All he believes are his eyes | And his eyes, they just tell him lies.

English musicologist Clive Wearing's 1985 loss of all but a few seconds of present-time memory to herpes encephalitis changed his life.

Stripped of his sense of identity, Wearing is a prisoner of his immediate consciousness. Incapable of appreciating his life's narrative, he describes his predicament. "I am completely incapable of thinking." Lost forever in the present, his view is grim. "I haven't heard anything, seen anything, touched anything, smelled anything," he would say. "It's like being dead."

Oliver Sacks's article in The New Yorker, The Abyss: Music and Amnesia, chronicles and examines the tortured twenty-year struggle endured by Wearing and his wife Deborah to come to terms with the musician's bewildering, fear-filled, near-total amnesia.

It's a compelling, touching story. Wearing's appreciation of Deborah's love for him and his ability to find solace in music now form a bridge spanning the chasm forever separating his 'now' from 'then' and any imagined future. His newfound repetitive loquacity connects moments, lending him a sense of time.

Sacks does more than tell the musicologist's story. By researching his strange 'condition' of living new to every moment, he gives the reader an appreciation of the delicate, ephemeral, and multilayered nature of our lives' most mysterious storyteller, memory.

Left with something of a residual memory 'about' rather than 'of' the past, Clive Wearing makes us ask questions of our own memories. He owes much of his ability to function to a subcortical 'implicit' — rather than a higher-level 'semantic' — memory, an unthinking awareness of that which he knows rather than that which he knows he knows.

Even were his semantic memory or general knowledge intact, his ability to use facts to reflect would be incapacitated by his near absolute lack of a malleable, ever-changing episodic, or conscious, memory.

Quoting neuroscientist Neal J. Cohen and a paper published in Neuro-Psychoanalysis by Oliver J. Turnbull, Evangelos Zois, et al., Sacks attributes Wearing's love of his wife to his little-understood emotional or 'associative' memory, rather than any implicit or unconscious appreciation of her significant role in his life.'

A parallel explaining his musical skill is found in Scoville and Milner's 1957 patient, H.M., "...rendered amnesic by the surgical removal of both hippocampi, along with adjacent structures of the medial temporal lobes." Deprived of his past, H.M retained the ability to practice previously learned skills and, importantly, to master new skills.

Unlike procedural or episodic memory, both implicit and emotional memory are formed early, and both are etched deeply into our limbic systems.

It is the interplay of these memories, the implicit, the semantic, the episodic, and the emotional, that intrigue me. Although, as Sacks points out, no two amnesias are the same, without memory, we become Clive Wearing. We lose our identity. With bewilderment and terror too frequently our only companions, we experience the death of our selves.

With memory and, most important, with emotional memory tempered by our ability to frame context through long-term consciousness or filtered episodic memory, we become ourselves through other people — shaping them as they shape us.

Were my implicit and episodic memories to chart a trail on a map of my mind, they'd be thinly dotted lines meandering vaguely towards the top. My short-term memory is shot and my connection to large areas of my life are not repressed — they're beyond recall.

I tend to march along broad paths of emotional and semantic memory crossed here and there by context-sensitive trails of episodic deja vu.

On the one hand, I cannot remember a movie immediately after viewing it; the lyrics of a song, the plot of a novel, the thrust of a poem, or the taste of a meal. Because of this, my wife's cooking is a constant delight and I eat like a pig.

I seldom remember my day's work and...well, yes, I go beyond absent minded.

On the other hand, my so-called general knowledge is excellent and I can be relied on for the dumbest, most inconsequential facts. I intuit situations and their implications or consequences, relying on what I feel to be an informed empathy for those unknowingly "in the know".

You don't think Lee Bollinger planned Ahmadinejad's "ambush" alone, do you?

"...but it's getting there."

Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool | And when he sees his reflection, he's fulfilled. | Oh, man is opposed to fair play, | He wants it all and he wants it his way.

We're all, to a greater or lesser extent, woven by strands of memory — some plaited, some thicker than others, yet others frayed and worn.

I used to suffer migraine and, one night, experienced such aphasia and amnesia I could not remember my family members' names, could not recall the words starting the sentence I was completing, could not remember what I was doing or where I was going, and could make no sense of what my wife was trying to tell me.

Worse, I couldn't remember who the hell I was. My remarkably resilient yet, paradoxically, remarkably pliant memory had deserted me. I was left without a narrative to explain myself to myself.

Disconcerting as it was, it wasn't such a bad gig. I was doing karate at the time and was probably dehydrated. I went blind (as one does with migraine), drank a lot of water, and decided to go along for the ride. I also allowed a still-functional inner observer examine from within the symptoms of my sudden and incapacitating idiocy.

It's not that we might all become Clive Wearing — in so many ways, we already are. Mr. Wearing is different to most people and, given that he suffered encephalitis, his case is marked by his being different to himself.

Not that he'd be in a position to remember that.

So what is it about Clive Wearing's story that makes Oliver Sacks's article so compelling? I suspect it has something to do with choice. As with death, the Wearings' had little say in the nature or timing of Clive's disease. Its onset terrified and bewildered a forty-something master musician who died before his own eyes.

It's a tragic story redeemed by love.

It is also an extraordinary story. Today, hundreds of millions of capable people choose to suffer Wearing's disease. Saturated by information, we have become inured to the narratives of our times. Numbed by media, we are compelled to forget so that we may feel.

Yet, having turned memory and forgetting on their heads, we continue to lose ourselves and our identities — seeking continuity and meaning by turning to the Internet in much the same way Clive Wearing turns to his piano.

Lacking casus belli in the multi-billion dollar run up to war with Iran, engraving a single phrase, i.e. "You are a petty and cruel dictator" onto the superficial memory of 300 million was a small but necessary operation.

Lee Bollinger is not a stupid man. Given the scale of the present campaign, his ludicrous 'performance' was not difficult to arrange.

Strangely, his biography appears to have been erased from Columbia's servers.

Our denial of memory — our refusal to face the horror we have created might allow us indulge increasingly small pleasures a while yet. However, it won't be long before all that which we have chosen to forget will return to crush us.

And those who would take advantage of our state of living death, effacing our remaining memories to replace them with others, delude themselves. They too are locked into our greater Danse Macabre.

Today, we've lost sight of how deeply our manageable memories matter to our essential being. In our rush to forget, we have surrendered our memories to others. We've told ourselves that what they allow us to think matters more than that which we remember as true.

And they are free to use this knowledge as they please.

When all is said and done, we all suffer Wearing's Disease.

Now, there's a woman on my block, | She just sit there as the night grows still. | She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Bob Dylan | Licence to Kill

Afterthought: That Dylan's apt lyrics are taken from his albums Infidels and Time Out Of Mind is no coincidence. Nor is it synchronistic or serendipitous. Bob Dylan consistently taps rich seams, deep veins, or thick threads of memory to bring us to ourselves. Consciously or subconsciously, we make necessary associations and act on them — or use them to engineer situations suiting us or others. Coincidence, i.e. "The chance concurrence of two events having a peculiar correspondence between them", is way overrated. The word is frequently used dismissively, derisively, or pejoratively. Like so many other words, it has become part of our lexicon of forgetting.