L'America

I took a trip down to L'America | To trade some beads for a pint of gold | I took a trip down to L'America | To trade some beads for a pint of gold | L'America, L'America, L'America | L'America, L'America, L'America

Bush would like to conceal his attack on Iran behind a mask of international legitimacy. But even without Security Council approval the plan will move forward. The current showdown has nothing to do with “noncompliance” or imaginary nuclear weapons programs. It has everything to do with consolidating the vast resources of the Caspian Basin under the Stars and Stripes and fending off future threats to America’s global domination.

Mike Whitney | Shock And Awe; The sequel

Bush’s deal with PM Singh allows him to provide technology and fuel to a nation that has stubbornly refused to comply with internationally-accepted standards for the supervision of nuclear material. The agreement flaunts the NPT, the IAEA, the United Nations, and the US Congress, which is the body that is supposed to ratify such pacts before they are enacted. ... Bush hands out technology to a "nuclear cheater" like India while his UN ambassador, John Bolton, is busy threatening Iran with “tangible and painful consequences” for complying with the terms of NPT.

Regrettably, it looks like the only principles guiding American foreign policy are cynicism and self-aggrandizement. India gets the royal treatment because it’s seen as a strategic ally that will help contain China. It also promises to lift limits on foreign investment ensuring that more of America’s high-paying, high-tech jobs will continue to flee the country. Pakistan has less to offer by way of market-potential, but is still a valued ally in the war on terror. Iran, unfortunately, sits atop an ocean of oil which is coveted by American petroleum giants and guarantees that it will receive a laser-guided dose of shock-and-awe, followed by "liberation" of its vital resources.

If these aren’t the Machiavellian principles that underscore Bush’s foreign policy, then what are? ... The threadbare treaties that once slowed the production of nuclear weaponry have all been tossed overboard. Now development is to be decided according to the whims of Washington mandarins and their corporate colleagues.

What kind of fool would ever listen to them?

Mike Whitney | Welcome to the United States of Duplicity

C'mon people, don't ya look so down | You know the rain man's comin' ta town | Change the weather, change your luck | And then he'll teach ya how ta...find yourself | L'America

You have to hand it to him. No matter how desperate the situation, Mike Whitney—a consistently prolific and balanced writer, retains his sense of sardonic irony. "What kind of fool would ever listen to them?"

Indeed. And while I sincerely hope the neocon crazies do not bomb Iran in March or April, I fear my desire for surcease, an end to this endgame—which we bluntly called when in 2003 the first USMC boot crossed the line in the sand separating Kuwait from Iraq, amounts to no more than wishful thinking.

Holding back will cost America too much, i.e. humiliation, ignominy and grinding poverty. In short, you'll lose face and that'll be too much for you to bear. But I've no wish to engage or discuss your vanity. Bar pointing to a) the inexorable march from the Eisenhower years to this moment, and b) the U.S. government's inability to offer the world anything but unending war and infinite servitude, I no longer wish to debate the subject.

The result of your lies, distortions and untruths constitutes little more than an unending litany of broken words and bodies marking a bloody journey to an Armageddon of your making.

Could we, separately and collectively, be trapped in a strongman's amplified bluff? Perhaps. But, ultimately, even should Iran capitulate absolutely, the bombs will fall sooner rather than later. You of the West have this end imbued in your psyches. For sixty years, the so-called First World has been nursing and nourishing an irrational, all-consuming will to a self-destructive war to end all wars.

Against reason, common sense, and the promise of a better, perhaps tougher way, the march of your latter-day Hitlers and their craven Chamberlains has, through the practice of a suicidal statecraft—proxy wars do not, when all is said and done, satisfy—led us all to an apocalyptic climax befitting Beethoven on a blinding mix of acid, coke, and speed.

Your journey to our joint end—fed by empty promises that there is always more—has been relentless, remorseless, blind. Sometimes, when you break something, it is broken, gone, kaput. Locked in the Disney world of commodity and consumption, we quickly forget that constitutions are not, when all is said and done, pieces of paper.

Of one thing I am certain. When all this is over, and the West has beaten itself to a terrible obscurity, nobody will mourn its passing.

Can this slow Holocaust be averted? I believe so. But it will need tens of millions taking to the streets of their towns, cities and countries in a last-ditch, violent bid to wrest government from the corporate malefactors now holding arrogant sway over our collective future. America and the West's last hope for peace lies not in civil wars breaking out on foreign shores, but in a civil war tearing apart the macadamised wastes of your home soil.

Why not? Your homeland is no more. With the promulgation of the revised and strengthened Patriot Act, your leaders have handed your country and your souls to George W. Bush and your conscienceless masters of war. Your Constitution means little. Without second thought, you have relinquished it to an obvious madman.

It will have value again only when you take it back and begin, with others, to rebuild your broken Dream. I, for one, certainly don't foresee such a miracle in my or your lifetime.

Is this wrong-headed? Am I bent, twisted, or deluded in thinking as I do? It doesn't matter. We may be backward down here at the foot of Africa, but we remain human. Can you say the same of yourselves? We see the bodies. Do you?

You may deny and decry all you wish; for me, it is as Mike Whitney says: "What kind of fool would ever listen to them?"

Friendly strangers came to town | All the people put them down | But, the women loved their ways | Come again some other day | Like the gentle rain | Like the gentle rain that falls

Jim Morrison | L'America

Jacob Zuma

The complainant in the State v Zuma said she was already asleep when the former deputy president entered her room. (It is against the law to name a rape accuser, unless she gives consent.) He offered to tuck her in and massage her. She said to him: "I'm already asleep, I'll see you tomorrow."

Zuma replied that he could massage her while she was sleeping. She again said she was sleeping. Zuma then removed the blanket she was sleeping under.

"I was lying on my side. He started to massage my shoulders. He then held me on my shoulders and turned me around facing upwards. I then felt his knees on both sides of my legs. He once again started massaging her shoulders, "and I said 'no'. After I said this, he didn't stop massaging me. At that point I opened my eyes and saw that he was naked."

News24.com — The Zuma File | Accuser gives graphic details

Jacob Zuma's defence was set to go on the attack today, seeking to expose gaps or evasions in the graphic State evidence by his accuser on the first day of the rape trial. Zuma pleaded not guilty to rape in the Johannesurg High Court yesterday. The State alleges he raped a 31-year-old woman he has known since her childhood at his home in Forest Town, Johannesburg, on November 2 last year. Zuma has admitted sex took place but says it was consensual.

The HIV-positive complainant, an Aids activist, gave her evidence in camera yesterday. She said Zuma had raped her despite her protestations. ... A more complicated and sensitive issue with which the defence will have to deal is the allegation by the complainant that Zuma had raped her without a condom, even though he knew she was HIV-positive. Until he was dismissed as vice-president last June by the president, Thabo Mbeki, Zuma was in charge of the government's "moral regeneration" campaign and was chairman of the South African National AIDS Council.

Cape Argus | Zuma accuser faces grilling

"Burn the bitch", yelled supporters of South Africa's former deputy president Jacob Zuma outside the Johannesburg High Court on Tuesday, as the woman he is accused of raping prepared to testify. Faced with these attitudes, it is little wonder that just one in nine women raped in South Africa report the crime, say activists.

The explosive rape trial of the man once tipped to succeed President Thabo Mbeki has thrown a spotlight on sexual violence in a country with one of the world's highest rates of rape. Activists say the case illustrates a deep-seated misogyny in South Africa, where rape -- particularly when the accused is known to the victim -- is often dismissed as a private matter, and many accuse women of bringing violence upon themselves.

Some 55,000 rapes were reported in South Africa last year but since only one in nine women raped actually report the crime, according to activist group People Against Women Abuse, the figure is closer to 450,000, in a population of 45 million.

Reuters | Zuma trial highlights S.Africa's rape crisis

Robert Fisk

One of the Middle East's most experienced observers is warning today that we should prepare for another major catastrophe in the region. Robert Fisk says that in his three decades of reporting from the Middle East for British newspapers, he's never seen it more dangerous, and that he's certain another major crisis, possibly even another September 11, is coming.

The veteran war reporter also says he remains baffled by just who is trying to generate civil war in Iraq.

Robert Fisk is in Australia this week to promote his latest book, The Great War for Civilization, and he joined me in The World Today studio a short time ago. Now, you've been a bit of an optimist about Iraq and civil war, but do you think what's going on now is already civil war? ...

ABC Australia | Fisk paints a Middle East in crisis

Noam Chomsky

"All of this is under our control if we're not willing to observe passively and obediently. Take democracy seriously."

Noam Chomsky

Just do it...

George's Media Whores

Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press | Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out but when they will I can only guess.

Bob Dylan | Idiot Wind

Iran and EU officials failed yesterday to resolve a standoff over Iran's nuclear work before a United Nations atomic watchdog meeting Monday that may lead to Security Council action. In his book, State of War, James Risen includes the startling claim that the U.S. actually handed Tehran the blueprints for an atomic bomb in 2000. The CIA scheme was to introduce intentional flaws in the design plans that would delay or derail Iranian work. ... Risen is the reporter who revealed a secret domestic U.S. wiretapping surveillance program exists in the United States.

Toronto Star | CIA used A-bomb plan as bait

It seems I credit the C.I.A. and U.S. intelligence apparatus with a damned side more professionalism than do most newspapers. And it seems most newspapers credit their readers with very little in the way of gray matter. Then again...

Early in January, under the somewhat cumbersome headline "George Bush insists that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. So why, six years ago, did the CIA give the Iranians blueprints to build a bomb?" the Guardian published a similar or identical extract from James Risen's "...explosive new book." I questioned its veracity then and I do so now.

Given its muted reception — I mean, the man's saying the C.I.A. gave Iran the Bomb, George his excuse to go to war with that country, and threw in a list of C.I.A. Iranian assets to boot — why the hell should I believe it? Nobody else appears to have done so. Lending Risen's story credence makes about as much sense as failing to credit the Bush administration with criminal complicity in 911.

And were the C.I.A. and U.S. federal government as dumb as they enjoy making themselves out to be, I should have expected boatloads of blood-crazed, saber-wielding Arabs in traditional regalia to have levelled the land of the brave and home of the free by now (yes, neither brave nor free, the phrase now borders on bathos). Instead, not one act of so-called terror has been committed on American soil by anybody since September 2001.

In yesterday's entry, wherein I credit the Bush administration with enough nous to carry through a comprehensive Middle Eastern Divide and Rule strategy (dividing even its own intuitively cunning support base), I illustrate the administration's intent by dredging up a link to a story written during Clinton's tenure, A Nuclear War Feared Possible Over Kashmir, co-authored by one of Risen's former colleagues, Judith Miller.

Yes, that Judith Miller. The article, citing "...officials with access to ... secret intelligence", was written in August 2000, around the same time as the C.I.A. was allegedly sending lists of its Iranian assets to Tehran and posting plans of nuclear bombs to the minions of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

"Several analysts who took part in drafting the assessment said the report had succeeded in underscoring the importance of working to ease political tensions between two rivals that have fought three wars in the 50 years since their independence. In the past, the administration had focused mainly on trying to stop the development and spread of nuclear weapons on the subcontinent,"

...writes Miller. In deciding to sell nuclear weapons expertise to India, George W. Bush appears to have eschewed diplomacy in favor of the best form of defense being attack.

Never mind. Back then, in 2000, it seems threats of a nuclear holocaust proved as interesting to the U.S. public as they do today. But it didn't matter. 911 and Judith Miller came to the Bush administration's rescue. Or vice versa. Whatever... Interestingly, Judith Miller's co-author of the Kashmir article was James Risen, who uses the piece to tell us...

"...Mr. Clinton and other top officials have urged senior Indian and Pakistani officials in public and private meetings to open a direct political dialogue and give up their nuclear programs, warning them of the growing peril of an accidental or deliberate nuclear exchange."

Despite the Clinton administration's urging...

"India continues to see its nuclear arsenal as necessary for its status as an emerging power and to deter not only Pakistan but also neighboring China, a Pakistani ally. Pakistan, less populous and poorer than India, sees its nuclear force as essential to counterbalance its rival's larger conventional forces."

One cannot fault the logic now that we see the U.S. again putting the squeeze on Pakistan. What I do question is Risen's familiarity with "officials with access to ... secret intelligence", his relationship with Miller, his supposed knowledge of Iran's more-than-easy acquisition of nuclear blueprints at that time — a supposed knowledge he has withheld for an indeterminate period (as he did in withholding the NSA wiretap story), and his motivation for giving George W. Bush, the man now backing India against Pakistan, the reason he believes he needs to bomb Iran — not that he need do so immediately now he has New Delhi in his pocket.

The only conclusion I can draw is that James Risen, serving 'a higher cause' than his profession and neatly positioned to the left (with the ageing NSA wiretap story to lend him credibility), is another paperback whore and Fourth Estate novelist aspiring to become Iran's Judith Miller.

Motel Money Murder Madness | Let's change the mood from glad to sadness | Mr. Mojo Risin', Mr. Mojo Risin' | Mr. Mojo Risin', Mr. Mojo Risin' | Got to keep on risin'

Doors | L.A. Woman

Mucking About In Boats

Oh, yeah, blog till the lights go out. Here's another for Peter, courtesy Mark Woods. It's one of many Joseph Hoflehner photographs viewable online. Peter set sail for Santa Catalina late February and hasn't been heard of since. Can't say I blame him. The place looks like Cape Town, the north-west point resembling Cape Point — without Capetonians. Beautiful.

George Goes To New Delhi?

"With one simple move the president has blown a hole in the nuclear rules that the entire world has been playing by. It empowers the hawks in every rogue nation to put their nuclear weapons plans on steroids."

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass

When the world's greatest rogue nation makes up the rules as it goes along, it certainly has nothing to do with nuclear proliferation, which succeeding U.S. administrations have encouraged at every turn.

Markey's speaking hogwash.

Nope, it's about oil and the dollar — Why do you think port authority is being handed on a platter to Arab [UAE] investors who already own much of the U.S. economy? — and George wants to sew up Pakistan and Iran before he's out of office.

[This blog entry makes more sense than any I've come across thus far. If your oil-linked currency faces possible problems at the front end, secure its value at the back end.]

Vilifying Iran, a compliant NPT member, he strikes lucrative nuclear deals with non-member and soon-to-be economic superpower India, showing a very different agenda. With India as both a rival and a buffer state (China), the U.S. is free to lend an air of prophecy to the words of New York Times' DVD-shopping Islamabad psychologist, Ambreen Mirza.

"That kind of recognition is good," said Mirza, of Bush's cold-shower visit to staunch ally, local strongman, and Indian arch-rival General Pervez Musharraf. "Most people dislike his policies," says Mirza of Bush. "Pakistanis were gripped by a fear that the U.S. is friend now but one that we will lose, which has happened before."

And will happen again. With Israel and its Gulf and Djibouti-based fleets and bases quite able to take care of Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the U.S. is well-positioned to lock up Iran's south-western oil-producing province, Khuzestan, and will look to once again put the squeeze on Pakistan—thereby locking down the Middle East.

To the north? Fug-ged-aboud-it for now. The former Soviet—Commonwealth of Independent States—Russian Federation is littered with U.S. 'core' bases ready for occupation. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are the former corrupt, oil-soaked playgrounds of the Russian oligarchs and are easily watched from U.S. bases there, in Georgia, and elsewhere.

George goes to New Delhi? Kiss my ass. New Delhi's just gone to George. He's stitched up the Middle East and all that remains is war.

"I explained that Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories. So as we proceed forward, our strategy will take in effect those well-known differences."

George W. Bush

How much clearer does the man have to be? Like I said. It's called Divide and Rule and, although it works—usually before the Left has cleared the sleep and self-interest from its eyes—it just ain't crcket.

"What else can you expect from a dictator?"

Former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan, detained protesting Bush's visit

Ntini puts Aussies Lights Out

2005 Cricketer of the year Makhaya Ntini stole former record-holder Allan Donald's thunder by taking the best figures by a South African in one-day international cricket as South Africa crushed Australia by 196 runs in the second one-day international at Newlands, down the road from us.

Ntini took four wickets in a devastating opening spell and finished with six for 22 as Australia were bowled out for 93, their fourth-lowest all-time total.

With Donald commentating his record's demise, Hurricane Ntini was bowling at full power and Australia had crashed to six for three when our power went out. It's a bad situation, and it's fast turning ugly. You can do many things to a South African, but you don't fuck with his or her sport, especially a bowling blitz of such intense and focused ferocity.

It now looks as though Cape Town will be consistently underpowered for at least six months.

It is likely to be halfway through July before both units of Koeberg nuclear power station are up and running, leaving embattled Capetonians vulnerable to power blackouts in the middle of winter. ... Weekend Argus has also learnt that the ageing electricity infrastructure in Cape Town, with its underground cables - 60 years old and older - and its ancient transformers won't cope with being constantly turned on and off, which could add to the crisis.

Independent Online | No magic solution for Eskom, Erwin warns

Normally Koeberg supplies a little below 1 900 MW, but until the end of May it will generate only 600 MW and then raise it to 900 MW up to the end of July. All the bigger role players in the electricity scene, Eskom excluded, such as big coal mines and large-scale buyers, have been predicting for the past two years that Eskom's ability to supply in peak demand would be exhausted by 2006.

[...]

The looming power cuts would already have surfaced in 2005 but South Africa had a milder winter than normal and the issue was delayed. Last year the peak demand - during an exceptionally warm winter - increased by 3.2% to 35 289 MW. Eskom's total installed generating capacity is 39 154 MW, which includes 2 740 MW only available during peak demand periods and that can only be utilised for short periods, provided by turbine boosters, the hydro-electrical plants at the Gariep Dam and the Drakensberg and Western Cape pump schemes, which can only generate for a maximum 12 hour period. ... Procrastination on decisions regarding possible privatisation of certain Eskom sectors meant that no new construction for power stations had been initiated between 1999 and 2003. "Government has accepted the responsibility that new power stations were not built in time," Alec Erwin, minister of public undertakings, said on Friday.

News24.com | SA 'must cut power'

It's good to know that, unlike the U.S. federal government in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, somebody's prepared to take the blame. Unfortunately, accepting blame, unlike six wickets in fifty overs, is all too easy when the consequences are borne by others.

Government and Eskom management have loused up big time on this one. To use a well-worn phrase, our national economy is in real and imminent danger of taking a beating from which it will not recover.

And that just ain't cricket.

al-Cadac Claims Koeberg Hit

al-Cadac claims responsibility for Koeberg sabotage

South Africa's Public Enterprises minister Alec Erwin's allegations of sabotage at Koeberg, Cape Town's nuclear power station—which will leave Cape Town and its surrounds as much electricity as Baghdad for up to nine months, were vindicated today by photographs of gas cookers released to a well-known extremist Web site by al-Cadac, the world's most sought-after range of gas-fuelled barbecue, camping, and outdoor accessories.

Indeed...

Repairs at the Koeberg nuclear power station could take - in "a worst case scenario" - nine months to carry out, says Eskom's acting chief executive Jacob Maroga.

Maroga said South Africa was still looking for the required parts to repair the "unit one" generator at Koeberg, at Cape Town, and while the intention was to return the generator to service in the shortest possible time to meet electricity demand, it would take a minimum of three months to repair.

However, he acknowledged that the repairs "could take longer" or as long as nine months.

News24.com | 'Nine months' to repair Koeberg

"Koeberg is currently in the top quartile of performers using the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) Index as a benchmark,"

Department of Public Enterprise November 2005 [Now that's a contradiction in terms]

I-Net Bridge reports Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin told reporters at the plant outside Cape Town that the parts would be brought by barge from France, most likely within a month.

He said President Thabo Mbeki had been in contact with the French to ease the passage of the relevant parts. Eskom Chief Executive Thulani Gcabashe said: "We plan to synchronise Koeberg Unit One to the power grid in the middle of May and commence the refuelling and maintenance outage of Unit Two in the third week of May."

There will therefore be a week's "overlap" between starting the operation of Unit One and the shutdown of Unit Two. Eskom acknowledged that power cuts were likely at peak times in areas of the Western Cape including Cape Town, in the morning and in the afternoon.

Over the next three months Eskom will run Koeberg Unit Two at a decreasing power output until the refuelling and maintenance outage towards the end of May. During this time the balance of electricity needs of the Western Cape will be supplied via the high voltage transmissions lines as well as peaking generation in the region.

It is estimated that during peak periods there would be a shortfall of some 300 Mw.

News24.com | Good news for Koeberg

Two outages of two to three hours once or twice a day and your blogging's in trouble. We've been out 14 hours in the last 24. It's due to go on like this for the next three to nine months. Businesses are investing tens of thousands of dollars in generators.

Mark Shuttleworth is punting gas-powered open-source laptops (they don't freeze; they explode). Politicians are having a field day, small businesses are closing, factories are shutting early, industry is suffering, the destitute are going hungry and the rich are making fat and handsome profits. How they manage it, I really don't know.

Winter will be hell in the poor areas. Sewage is already backing up. The stores are out of candles and gas cylinders. The roads are chaotic. There are no police and the mayor has disappeared. Our decision to convert our one nuclear power station to a weapon of mass destruction—in solidarity with Iran, of course, was ill-conceived and poorly timed.

Trust me. I know these things. The Americans start bombing at dawn.


"There are no outages. We're merely load shedding."

"Would the last person to leave the country please turn out the lights?"

"Hullo?"

"Hulloooo....

"Shit."

[click] [click] [click] ...

Note: Those seeking al-Cadac's South African web site, needn't bother. Its failure to load indicates it using a Cape Town-based ISP in need of a generator.

Mokoum

The bushman was no longer a savage like the rest of his race, the ancient Laquas; for, born of an English father and a Hottentot mother, the half-breed, through his association with strangers, had gained more than he had lost, and spoke the paternal tongue fluently. His costume, half-Hottentot, Half-European, consisted of a red flannel shirt, a loose coat and breeches of antelope hide, and leggings made of the skin of a wild cat; from his neck hung a little bag containing a knife, a pipe, and some tobacco; he wore on his head a kind of skull cap of sheep skin; a belt, made from the thick thong of some wild animal, encircled his waist; and on his naked wrists were rings of ivory, wrought with remarkable skill. From his shoulders flowed a "kross", a kind of hanging mantle, cut out of a tiger's skin, and falling as low as the knees. A dog of native breed was sleeping near him, while he himself was smoking a bone pipe in quick puffs, giving unequivocal signs of impatience.

"Come, let's be calm, Mokoum," said his interlocutor. "You are truly the most impatient of mortals whenever you are not hunting; but do understand, my worthy companion, that we can't change what is. Those whom we are expecting will come sooner or later—tomorrow, if not to-day."

The bushman's companion was a young man, from twenty-five to twenty-six years of age, and quite a contrast to him. His calm temperament was shown in every action; and it could be decided without a moment's hesitation that he was an Englishman. His much too homely costume proved him to be unaccustomed to traveling. He gave one the idea of a clerk who had wandered into a savage country, and one looked involuntarily to see if he carried a pen behind his ear, like a cashier, clerk, accountant, or some other variety of the great family of the bureaucracy.

In truth, this young man was not a traveler, but a distinguished savant, William Emery, an astronomer attached to the Observatory at the Cape—a useful establishment, which has for a long time rendered true services to science.

The scholar, rather out of his element, perhaps, in this uninhabited region of South Africa, several hundred miles from Cape Town, could hardly manage to curb the impatience of his companion.

"Mr. Emery," replied the hunter in good English, "here we have been for eight days at the place appointed on the Orange, the cataract of Morgheda. It is indeed a long time since it has befallen a member of my family to remain eight days in one place; you forget that we are rovers, and that our feet burn at lingering here."

"My friend Mokoum," replied the astronomer, "those we are waiting for are coming from England, and surely we can allow them eight days of grace; we must take into account the length of the passage, and the hindrances which a steam-vessel must meet with in ascending the Orange; and, in short, the thousand difficulties belonging to such an undertaking. We have been told to make every preparation for a journey of exploration in South Africa, and that being done, to come here to the Falls of Morgheda and wait for my colleague, Colonel Everest, of the Cambridge Observatory. Well, here are the Falls of Morgheda, we are at the place appointed, and we are waiting: what more do you want, my worthy bushman?"

The hunter doubtless did want more, for his fingers played feverishly on the lock of his rifle, an excellent Manton, a weapon of precision with conical shot, and which could bring down a wild cat or an antelope at a distance of eight or nine hundred yards. Thus it may be seen that the bushman had put aside the quiver of aloes and the poisoned darts of his fellow-countrymen for the use of European weapons.

"But are you not mistaken, Mr. Emery?" replied Mokoum. "Is it really at the Falls of Morgheda, and towards the end of this month of January, that they have appointed to meet you?"

"Yes, my friend," quietly answered William Emery, "and here is the letter from Mr. Airy, the director of the Greenwich Observatory, which will show you that I am not mistaken."

The bushman took the letter that his companion gave him. He turned it over and over like a man not very familiar with the mysteries of penmanship; then giving it back to William Emery, he said, "Tell me again what the blotted piece of paper says."

Jules Verne The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa Sampson, Low, Marston, & Company: New edition 1896 Translated from the French by Ellen E. Frewerpp131—135

The measurement of longitude is important to both cartography and navigation. Historically, the most important practical application of these was to provide safe ocean navigation. Knowledge of both latitude and longitude was required. Whereas latitude was easy to determine by celestial navigation using the elevation of the pole star or of the sun at noon, for longitude early ocean navigators had to rely on dead reckoning. This was inaccurate on long voyages out of sight of land, and these voyages sometimes ended with shipwrecks.

wikipedia | Longitude

Don't look to Amazon for information on this one. I can't recall it in detail, but it reduces Verne's account of mapping the meridian to a nineteenth century safari. It's a bloody interesting book and worth a damned-side better review—no, I don't have the time. I hauled it down off the shelf yesterday and have reread several chapters. What really intrigues me, though, is not Verne's work so much as...

One-hundred and ten years after this particular book's printing—it's my oldest, I think—I'm living in the shadow of a nuclear power station, a reactor of which was sabotaged late last year by racist public servants hacked off with affirmative action (no, I'm not culling this from the news, so you needn't tell me Eskom's fucking useless and, yes, things will get worse; I've spoken to people directly involved and know racism to be at the heart of a problem affecting all of us).

Power cuts are a hassle and will cost the country dearly. Knocking out a capital city is not a risk or consequence-free activity. But we can live with these things. Well, I certainly can. The reactions of several groupings, political parties (local-government elections were held today), and individuals fascinate me. All in all, the action taking place at the intersection of race, culture, and society is fascinating and, for this reason, I hope Chris Locke just keeps on keeping on. There's a lot of stuff in there and, as with most things, people have absolutely no idea...