The Tipping Point

...Cape of Needles

Cape Agulhas is the southernmost point in the continent of Africa. It is located at 34°50'00”S, 20°00'09.15”E, in a rural area 170 kilometres (105 mi) south-east of Cape Town. The cape was named by Portuguese navigators, who called it Cape Agulhas — Portuguese for "Needle Cape" — in reference to the rocks and reefs that have wrecked many ships in the area...

The cape is defined by the International Hydrographic Organization to be the dividing point between the Indian and Atlantic oceans. South of Cape Agulhas the warm Agulhas Current that flows south along the east coast of Africa retroflects back into the Indian Ocean. While retroflecting it pinches off large ocean eddies (Agulhas rings) that drift into the South Atlantic Ocean and take enormous amounts of heat and salt into the neighboring ocean. This mechanism constitutes one of the key elements in the global conveyor belt circulation of heat and salt.

"A sailor's geography is not always that of the cartographer, for whom a cape is a cape, with a latitude and longitude. For the sailor, a great cape is both a very simple and an extremely complicated whole of rocks, currents, breaking seas and huge waves, fair winds and gales, joys and fears, fatigue, dreams, painful hands, empty stomachs, wonderful moments, and suffering at times.

A great cape, for us, can't be expressed in longitude and latitude alone. A great cape has a soul, with very soft, very violent shadows and colours. A soul as smooth as a child's, as hard as a criminal's. And that is why we go."


Meisho Maru 38

The sea off Cape Agulhas is notorious for winter storms and mammoth rogue waves, which can range up to 30 metres (100 ft) high and can sink even large ships. These conditions are caused by a number of factors. The naturally strong winds of the roaring forties, which blow from west to east, and the cold Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing in the same direction, come up against the warmer Agulhas Current in the region of the cape. These conflicting currents of water of different densities, and the west winds blowing against the Agulhas Current, can create extremely hazardous wave conditions; these are further exacerbated by the shallow waters of the Agulhas Bank, a broad, shallow part of the continental shelf which juts 250 kilometres (155 mi) south from the cape, after which it falls steeply away to the abyssal plain.

These hazards have combined to make the cape notorious among sailors; the coast here is littered with wrecks. Cooranga, Elise, European, Federal Lakes, Geortyrder, Gouritz and Gwendola are just a few of the vessels lost at the "Cape of Needles". Owing to the hazards and following the loss of several vessels, a lighthouse was built in 1848.

"I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth. A nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea."


...Indian Ocean sunrise

Unlike its better-known relative, the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Agulhas is relatively unspectacular, consisting of a gradually curving coastline with a rocky beach. A survey marker indicates the location of the cape, which would otherwise be difficult to identify. The waters near the coast are quite shallow and are renowned as one of the best fishing grounds in South Africa.

The rocks that form Cape Agulhas belong to the Table Mountain Group, often loosely termed the Table Mountain sandstone. They are closely linked to the geological formations that are exposed in the spectacular cliffs of Table Mountain, Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope.

Source: Wikipedia

"You do not ask a tame seagull why it needs to disappear from time to time toward the open sea. It goes, that's all."

Bernard Moitessier

I can't but think of a couple of... well, three bloggers here, people who travel — whether they do so physically, mentally, or emotionally: Peter, Mark Woods (who pointed me to John S. Kiewit and inspires in so many other ways), and Leslie. Why? I've no idea. They do, that's all.

Travels with Zonker

On the Road with Zonker

A trip to Cape Agulhas, the southern tip of Africa, is no doddle. It demands a couple of hours' deliberation, planning, victualling, and a good car.

We got the first three right, but loused up on the last. Zonker's 18-year old Mercedes spent three days outside Struisbaai's Nostra restaurant, an electrical fault stranding it along a 14-kilometer stretch of white sand, azure water, and sun-puffed clouds sailing a deep blue sky.

"So what?" we thought. "We have better things to do than repair Mercedes Benz's signal failure to live up to its promise of engineering excellence."


Struisbaai — in the lee of the Southern tip...

We took pictures instead. This activity involves a great deal of walking, climbing, and other physical discomforts. But no matter — we are, when all is said and done, professionals, bloggers, and hard men to boot.

Not that these things matter either.

I have a new camera now and am trying to wrap my hands, mind, and whatever creativity I might have around the damned thing. It's a digital, but it offers more than the smaller PowerShot. 'More' means complex and I'm a sucker for 'complex'.

Rather than take a straight snap, I'll try something. The result is most often, as we professionals put it, unfit for human consumption. Sometimes, I reckon these damned latter-day cameras are better left to their own devices as most of the snaps that work were taken at default settings.


...and Zonker's car's home for the weekend

Format is a new complexity with which I'm grappling. Given a wide-screen (rather than wide-angle) picture-postcard option, I couldn't resist the damned thing and, because it saves space, took most snaps using that layout. The result is a nightmare to fit to an album designed to tell a story of a weekend rather than offer pretty pictures.

Never mind. I'll get it right.

Some day.

Unseen Spectacles

Guiding lights...

It's a bugger. I've a pair of spectacles at Elands Bay and, now, another at Llandudno. Quite where they are at these places, I've no idea. I have, as we say, mislaid them. Quite how I manage to lose items of value in Godforsaken places, I've no idea, but I've a feeling it derives from my singular focus on whatever it is I'm doing at the time — trying to capture halfway decent surfing shots.

Recently, though, I've come to realise that perhaps I've been viewing the targets of my lens through tinted glasses. Without them, it becomes quite apparent that, given half a chance, my photojournalism associate, companion and assistant (without whom I would probably lose myself), is a damned side better photographer than yours truly.


Hard knocks walk a straight line...

Well, okay, that's not going to stop me pointing cameras, so I should perhaps rephrase that. Looking at some of Wendy's shots, taken at the same places, it amazes me how different her pictures are to mine. Photographs reveal to us as much as does writing and, because we understand the medium less, perhaps more.

These shots were taken at Thermopylae. While I focused on the wave (and, given the poor lighting angles, botched ninety percent of what I was trying to capture), Wendy did her thing. The results are way better than anything I can muster. While I go for the conventional, journalistic shot, she indulges a creative, spontaneous flair and takes, in moment, whatever catches her fancy. It makes for eye-catching pictures.


Surfing to summer...

I'd love to put up an album of shots taken at Thermopylae for my friend Hugh, but messing around with tough lighting has made for lousy pictures thus far. The break works when the swell swamps Queens or Off the Wall, and it delivers a powerful, fast-breaking left. We've seen some good waves over the past couple of weeks and, as winter fades to summer, we're unlikely to see such surf for some time to come (unless I get lucky on the False Bay coast). But I'm getting it right and, by next year, should be able to deliver some halfway decent surfing photographs.

Quite what my photo-journalism associate will be photographing by then, I shudder to think. She has talent, and is putting it to good use. Mind you, if I buy myself a pair of rose-tinted shades, I'll probably view my pictures in equal light and spare myself great shame.

Myopia can be a beautiful thing.

Borat Quashes Ouster Attempt

Borat celebrates the ERA...

"I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, down to the lizards...and may George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq."

Borat

Considering Laura Bush's influence on U.S. President George W. Bush, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev's forthcoming White House Summit with his American counterpart is unlikely to yield much.

The summit, during which the cultural regime change of Kazakh folk hero, TV presenter, gypsy catcher, country music star, and film producer Borat will top the agenda, comes shortly after the First Lady's unveiling in the West Wing of a full-length portrait of the Kazakh superstar.

Mrs. Bush, a country fan, is known to have become greatly enamored of the smash-hit country single, Throw the Jew Down the Well and, to coincide with the release of Borat's Oscar-nominated movie, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan has invited him — as the de facto Kazakh cultural ambassador — to dine at the White House. "He has a certain, uniquely Texan smell," said Mrs. Bush during a trans-Atlantic telephone call.

A fan of Joseph Stalin, an enemy to all with chocolate faces, and an ardent advocate of Western democratic values and other forms of bestiality, Borat's unvarnished expose of Kazakh life has angered the ruling elite, which seeks to enlist U.S. support for his permanent removal from society. "Nazarbayev will leave town a skinned poodle," snarled Fox News spokesman Tony Snow. "Not everybody gets to fuck with the First Lady."

With Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton (D) now expected to ask Borat to stand as her 2008 running mate (Cosmo Kramer has signed with Senator John McCain), the Central Asian national is presently enjoying publicity ratings surpassing those achieved during his stormy, much-publicized relationship with British media magnet and Staines gangsta rapper, Ali G.

Commenting for the first time on his forthcoming attempted ouster and the persecution of a Jew named Cohen, the ever-humble Kazakh national has appealed for calm and greater investment in Kazakhstan.

"In response to Mr. Ashykbayev's comments, I'd like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government's decision to sue this Jew. Since the 2003 Tuleyakiv reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world. Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old. Please, captain of industry; I invite you to come to Kazakhstan where we have incredible natural resources, hardworking labor, and some of the cleanest prostitutes in whole of central Asia."

Unlikely support for Borat has come from within the anti-Semitic and primitive former Soviet republic from Dariga Nazarbayeva, the daughter of President Nazarbayev.

Speaking on national TV, Nazarbayeva stated, "We should not be afraid of humor and we shouldn't try to control everything." After pausing to glance briefly off camera, she added, "I think."

Borat refuses to be drawn on his relationship with the First Lady, Ms. Clinton, or Ms. Nazarbayeva.

Throw the Jew down the well | So my country can be free | You must grab him by his horns, | Then we have a big party.

Borat | Throw the Jew Down the Well

The United Colors of...

Queens, last week...


Off the Wall, this evening...

...Water.

Singularities...

The Eternal Circle...


...leaves Blood in the Cracks.

Crying in the Beloved Country

"Lousy surf today...

I was chatting to Jeneane over the Net. She reckoned I should blog this slightly amended, off-the-cuff response to Esther Dyson's unimaginatively titled article, Cry the beloved country!, a worthwhile read over at ZDNet. It's about growing broadband in South Africa, by the way. You wouldn't think so reading my response to it.

Say what?

Do I do everything Jeneane suggests?

Pretty much. It works for me.

Conferences are crap. A buncha people pay plenty money to the organizers, sit around in cocooned hotel conference halls (most of which are jerry-built at First World prices), and waffle about a perfect world. Though I'd not like to prick Esther's bubble, Goldstuck, the Dubliner and the Eastern Cape tourist [see comments appended to the foot of the article] are more sussed on South Africa than she.

But I'm no techie. Let's get political and draw an analogy. George W. Bush, the MI-Lobby Complex have U.S. government sewn up. Do they have competition? Sure. Ostensibly, they're all for free speech. You have your Michael Moores and Krugmans and Ivinses and Dowds...and of, course, the conspiracy freaks like Chomsky, Fisk, and Pilger writing on the internets.

Not enough competition for you? How about an alternative? The Democrats. There you go then; democracy is alive and well and firmly entrenched in the American psyche.

Anything's arguable, but the truth is generally found elsewhere. I shared broadband with my son ten years ago, using a home network. It made it affordable. When he moved out a few years ago, I went back to dial-up and stayed a hole-in-the-wall blogger until about two months ago. Why? Because the Web's a priority for me and prices have come down on ADSL (we're still the most expensive worldwide — a home Internet account is typically 192K (at a base cost of $100, including line rental, ISP fees, and local phone calls) and 1GB boosters on a 3GB cap cost $17 — a fair whack for people earning around $1500 monthly — about 10 percent of one's salary).


But so what?

The Second National Operator? Esther says it; "...another giant, state-connected entity." Just like the Democrats. Deference might be accorded competition initially, but once the advertising brouhaha's died down, it'll be back to cartels as usual. Telkom's not dumb. They own the lot and when you're in a position to create your competition in your image (and take a 50 percent share in it), you do so.

Like the Democrats.

Business is, after all, politics.

Look, for example, at the cell phone market. Two companies, MTN and Vodacom (Vodafone and Telkom), financed by ridiculously high rates paid by South African subscribers, built an empire spanning Africa. The result? Eighty million subscribers across the continent. The other half of Africa just made a phone call.

Locally, lobbyists were antsy. Price-fixing and collusion demanded a third operator so, after much vetting, Cell C (a predominantly BEE entity) was brought into being. Great ads and, for around a year, good prices in the domestic market. Could MTN and Vodacom give a damn? Hell no, they have Africa in their pockets and Cell C's star is fast a'fading.


I've far better things to do...

The Eastern Cape tourist is correct. Cell phones are the future in Africa and Telkom — through Vodacom, owns a big share of it. Perversely, the Internet/Web (broadband or dial-up) — which offers the most promise — is not a priority. Why? Because we just don't get it — in every sense. Just as Esther quotes Goldstuck articulating the short-sighted marketing policies of the stink-rich few, few southern Africans have access to the Web and fewer use it as they could and should.

Again Esther says it: "...there are about a million dial-up accounts and about 280,000 broadband accounts, some of them residential." You probably have more people on the Web in Atlanta, Georgia than we do in the whole of Africa. As for those that do use it...

Well, okay, I've given my jaundiced opinion of them often enough. Predominantly white, filthy rich and dumb, they wouldn't know a good thing if it hit them between the occipital lobes. They visit chatrooms, watch porn, spout racist shit, or send the occasional email.

Give them their due. We do have a crime problem here. It's not as bad as my Web compatriots make it out to be but, tonight's been drowned out by sirens and flashing lights. It must be Friday. And I live in a predominantly white suburb. Still, although colleagues and their families are being hijacked, knifed, shot, raped and mugged, whites are not affected by crime in as much as those 'not white' are.

Well, I'm not. I walk around with a camera and have yet to be be approached by somebody seeking to relieve me of my worldly or other goods.

By far the majority of South Africans aren't as fortunate. They live in tough areas. Where would they keep computers? Seriously, it's a practical problem.

The average person, who wouldn't have a clue what to do with a PC, wouldn't keep it longer than a day before being shot for it. School laboratories are being set up by the Shuttleworth Foundation et al, but they're heavily secured and are located in wealthier areas or universities — where the electric fences are.

(Why that's the case, I don't know. These people with electric fences and armed-response signs on their walls are always moaning about being shot or raped.)


...than surf...

Either way, a lack of domestic money — the private sector has lots, concentrated in the hands of very few — crime, and other priorities make computing impractical. Wi-fi is not for the poorer areas — cell phone masts are cheaper to replace.

South Africans are gougers. We have many entrepreneurs. They sell to business. They love foreigners too, because they're so fucking gullible. They tell them what they want to hear (these providers will go back to work, continue to beat their staff and treat their short-changed customers like whining ingrates).

They're in it for the house in Camps Bay, the Merc in the drive, the monthly alimony payment, and their erotic-club membership fee. Or something.

Were Telkom to experience any significant competition from the little guys (referred to by the commenter from Dublin), it would regulate them out of business in a day. And can you blame it? I mean, why spoil a good thing like a monopoly?

George W. Bush and the neocons wouldn't. The Democrats, MTN, Vodacom and the singular exceptions making money out of the Net in South Africa won't either. Having no appreciation of the bigger picture, they're determined to play the winners even though it means we all end up losers.


...the internets."

Yep, conferences are crap. Like call centres here and in India, they're big business. As somebody commenting on Esther's article points out, South Africans are good at making a plan. Taking money from tourists and foreign businesspeople who have no idea how vicious we are is one of them.

Screwing their fellow South Africans is another. In fact, it's an art, honed over centuries.

I like smart people. So I like Esther. I like people who question smart people even more. And that's why I put such a premium on an open line to you, Chris, Frank, bmo, WonderChicken, Turner, Shell, Tom et al. Call me cynical, but at least I'm informed by the best...

This was going to be a short note, so I'll leave the pleasantries aside. It's a weird country this, Jeneane, but it's fucking amazing. I don't give a canned damn for exclusivity (I can't afford to) so I get to meet the most remarkable people in the world.

If the bloggers mentioned above were to spend several weeks here, they'd return to the States or Canada with a knowing smirk on their faces; because they'd appreciate the irony of and dig the country.

But Esther's cool. She's working on it and that's a good thing. If I were her, I'd go slow on the advice though. And it's always best to get the low-down from the street rather than the convention centre.

Some of Neotel's clients include Cell C, MTN, Vodacom, Internet Solutions, Telkom, MWeb and Transtel.

Mail & Guardian | Say hello to Neotel, SA's second national operator

Note: I guess I had a bad week, huh? Check out Esther's article. She's really trying to get people off their backsides. I support her in her efforts. But I reckon a social revolution rather than a "kick in the pants" is needed to get the Internet, those selling it, and those abusing it, up to speed in this, the beloved country.

Alan Paton used a typewriter to commit his legacy to paper, by the way. And were he alive today, he would probably still use the damned thing.

When the Whales Came...

Kalk Bay Reef


Roman Rock


"Howzit?"

...they came.

Right whales are baleen whales belonging to the family Balaenidae. Three right whale species are recognized in the genus Eubalaena, while the Bowhead Whale—also a right whale—is placed in its own genus, Balaena.

Right whales can grow up to 18 m (60 feet) long and weigh up to 100 tonnes. Their rotund bodies are mostly black, with distinctive white callosities (skin abrasions) on their heads. They are called "right whales" because whalers thought the whales were the "right" ones to hunt, as they float when killed and often swim within sight of the shore. Populations were vastly reduced by intensive harvesting during the active years of the whaling industry. Today, instead of hunting them, people often watch these acrobatic whales for pleasure...

Wikipedia | Right whale

For the Birds...

...a story with no words.

The Merry Pranksters Welcome...

We live in a political world, | Love don't have any place. | We're living in times where men commit crimes | And crime don't have a face

Twenty years ago, were anybody — and I mean anybody — to have told the average South African that Nasionale Pers, publishers of the Afrikaans daily Die Burger, would one day bankroll state visits by Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, they might have been locked up.

Thirty years ago, were the same person to have told the average South African that a 15-floor banner on the side of the NasPers building would welcome the Russian president to Cape Town, they might have died of injuries sustained slipping on a bar of soap while showering during a stint of detention without trial.

And the average South African would have regarded them as nuts worthy of an end befitting weirdos contaminated by Marxist ideology. Whatever might have happened to the harbinger of such news, the 'average' South African would not have believed him or her anyway.

Nasionale Pers and its flagship publication, Die Burger, voiced the ethos and diktats of the ruling National Party. Steered by members of the Broederbond, NasPers was synonymous with apartheid. In much the same way the Dutch Reformed Church constituted The National Party at Prayer, Die Burger articulated the grave and imminent threat posed by Communism and its proxies, the "terrorists" of the African National Congress (ANC).

The evil manifest in Die Rooi Gevaar and its equally unpleasant sidekick, Die Swart Gevaar, was lent immense weight and dominated the lives of all South Africans. Especially white South Africans, some of whom still maintain they did not benefit from apartheid.

I'm a blogger and, therefore, not your average South African. I am also a Catholic, a professional and a hard man to boot. Had anybody — and I mean anybody — told me that Nasionale Pers would one day host the state visits of Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Russian President Vladimir Putin, I would have smiled. Why? Because I understand these things.

I regarded the National Party a formidable enemy and a grave threat. I did so, not because they so blatantly displayed all the behaviours of National Socialists around 1939, but because I believed BJ Vorster and PW Botha's governments knew exactly what they were doing. They were extraordinarly astute, single-minded, and ruthless people — as were those chosen to serve them.

Everybody loves a winner and, back then, the United States looked to be a banker, a dead cert, a sure-fire, happening champ. With its European allies, the US floated like a butterfly and could bomb whoever it pleased. Remember, this was post-OPEC crisis days. The global economy had moved off the gold standard, and the dollar — tied to oil and the MI Complex, was king.

The Nats, following Reagan and Thatcher's leads, forged close ties with the West, contributing perhaps more (size wise) to Israel's onetime military dominance of the Middle East than any other country in the world.



We live in a political world | Where mercy walks the plank, | Life is in mirrors, death disappears | Up the steps into the nearest bank.

Others took a longer-term view. At bottom, social and political ideologies are used to mask the machinations of practices driven by fundamental economic philosophies. When Alvin Toffler warned of a Future Shock stemming from our ever-accelerating pace of change, relatively few paid him heed. Fewer realised the implications of his premise.

China, India, and their allies were always going to come out on top and Western rhetoric, backed increasingly by bombs rather than butter, sounded hollow.

I've always seen politicians as failed or aspirant businessmen. Not being one who understands the means by which money is acquired, used, and manipulated, I viewed business as an outsider, amazed at the vindictive ruthlessness of its practitioners. From home executives (heh) to multinational CEOs, these people pull the strings that move the pulleys that turn the world.

The faces they put on to meet the faces they meet range from lipsticks to ICBMs. Politicians are, and always have been, the bumboys of business.

The National Party were businessmen who practised politics. They understood the nature and aim of the game. They knew what was going down and the smoke and mirrors they employed were deftly handled. In 1994, the Broederbond and with it, the National Party, disappeared. They either took fat golden handshakes to Cape Town's northern suburbs or they retreated to Nasionale Pers's headquarters on Cape Town's foreshore, the place they first arrived to 'do business' and 'spread democracy' some four hudred years before.

Having served its apprenticeship, the ANC — aided and abetted by and sympathetic to Eastern interests — took political office. A predominantly black movement, it acceded to negotiated demands (on the home front) and blunt threats (by the IMF, World Bank and WTO) that economic power remained in white hands.

"In a globalized world, your turn will come," they were told.

Down at the Nasionale Pers building, the manne could focus on doing what they do best, i.e. business. Having watched the West fold like a pack of cards with the ascendence of the Russian oligarchs and other private economic interests transcending politics (see Soros, Murdoch, et al), they restructured their future.

After coming out to press flesh, take photo opportunities, show off freshly enamelled teeth, and wash the feet of their local black clergyman, they butchered all competition in the business arena. Realising the value of the media they owned (didn't J.B.M. Herzog do so when he called TV "the Devil in the black box"?), they bought up the lot so that they too might win hearts, minds, and wealth beyond imagination.

White, English-speaking business practitioners and hastily cobbled Black Economic Empowerment groups were taken along for the ride. Since the Brits lost the Boer War back in 1910 (economically speaking — trust me on this), white business has traditionally dominated the mining and other industries. The broeders are not insensitive to their value or blind to their charms. Natural resources are not to be scoffed at. They are to be exploited or 'developed'. Business, after all, has always used beads, baubles, and costume jewelery to good effect.

That's where Nasionale Pers and the Russian oligarch and former KGB functionary come in. Ostensibly out on a state visit, Putin is here to discuss gold, diamonds, manganese, oil and our strategy for backing Iran.

In a fast-globalizing world, you get two types of people; winners and losers. With ANC, Afrikaans, Russian and Chinese business interests steering our fledgling democracy to a 'bright' and 'democratic' future, I've little doubt the U.S. Constitution will one day become what its president calls it: a piece of paper.

Like the dollar. A currency backed by all the F-22s in the world, it cannot prevail.

Thirty years ago, if anybody had told me I'd be sharing this with you from the warmth of my kitchen, I'd have thought them stark raving mad. But I guess that's cold comfort when faced with a fifteen-floor banner welcoming (a la the Merry Pranksters) the Russians to Africa.

Bit of an embarassment to Bush, I'd say; this Soviet-era, pop-and-folk art poster thing, eh? Given his 'welcome' here.

Note: I'm aware, having written this, that I — in large part — owe my motivation for doing so to all the gormless goons that derided, mocked, or scorned us when we pointed out to them the obvious conclusion on the wall. Yeah, fuck you, Bunky. Now drag that footbath over here...

We live in a political world. | The one we can see and can feel | But there's no one to check, | It's all a stacked deck, | We all know for sure that it's real.

Bob Dylan | Political World

Pilger argues that the harsh reality of life in black townships is that poverty has increased and income disparities have widened since the end of white rule in 1994. He says social grants are too small to make much difference and many poor rural children do not qualify because they have no birth certificates.

He notes that while the government has been rolling out piped water and electricity to communities that previously lacked them, it has also been cutting off these services when poor households cannot pay for them. Meanwhile a wealthy black elite has emerged through a process known as Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), an affirmative action programme which the government says is aimed at redressing the imbalances of apartheid.

"What this means is the inclusion of a small group of blacks in the country's white corporate masonry ... This co-option has allowed white and foreign capital to fulfil its legal obligations under new corporate charters and, more important, to gain access to the ANC establishment," Pilger writes.

Reuters | ANC 'has failed'

The chapter "Apartheid Did Not Die" is just as contrarian and just as true. Pilger returns to South Africa after 30 years, the ban imposed by the apartheid tyranny having dissolved into dust. He finds that the ultra-neoliberal policies imposed by the IMF and World Bank - with the complicity of the ANC elite - have pickled the racial divisions of the old regime and suffocated dreams of black freedom. More black farmers have been evicted under ANC democracy than under apartheid, and the World Bank is even lobbying the ANC to stop paying wages to whole sections of public sector workers, suggesting instead they offer "food for work".

He offers a blizzard of bleak human stories that lie behind the figures: while white average income has risen by 15 per cent under the ANC, average black household income has fallen by 19 per cent. Yet again, the promise of Thatcher-style trickle-down economics is a hallucination, and yet again racial divisions become stronger. This is an end to apartheid?

The Independent | Freedom Next Time, by John Pilger

Another Cape Town Weekend

What is there...


...to do...


...in the day...


...when the day is done?

Yeah, I'm still completely at sea...

Sue me.

One Way or Another...

...did you ever get the feeling?



Not that one.



This one.

Huh?

Learning to Surf

Still learning...

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame | And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.

Besides trying to capture images of those riding the ocean's energy to an elusive, momentary freedom being far easier than attempting shots of birds in flight (the Dutch Boy is determined to get me into bird watching), surfing's served as a personal metaphor for as long as I can remember.

Quite why, I've not yet told myself.

On the practical side, surf photography — with my much-abused Canon A520 — is a lot of fun. Come the S3 (some day) and the lens extension (quite some time after that), and it might not give as much satisfaction. Surfing's allure has (I told myself at around age 20) something to do with there being one person in picture; and sometimes nobody at all.

The wave, and our riding of it, are what matters.

I was a very intense child.

But that metaphor, like others, has followed me down the long years to... erm... fast-advancing middle age. OK, so there, I said it. I thought I'd dealt with my own mid-life histrionics at age 12, but it seems I left some things undone. And sorting these things out over the past couple of years has been tough.

I still have myself to deal with.

And that's a job probably only I would ever choose to do.

Surfing, Formula One, skateboarding, karate...pretty solitary pastimes when you look behind the marketing hype.

But, yeah, I guess the insanity's gone. Sort of...


...to surf...

Then onward in my journey I come to understand | That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

I was sitting on the rocks at Queen's Beach off Sea Point today, getting as close to the sea as possible, when I realized the value of my presence; metaphorically. There I was taking snaps of surfers, just as Surfer magazine legends Scott Preiss and many others did and continue to do so.

Reporting from the front line. Together with countless middle-aged hosers who've little idea what the hell they're doing here, there, or anywhere.

But it fit. Though still a goofy footer, the balance has shifted and I'm back with that other metaphor, the line that divides land and sea. And much else; life and death, being and not being, etc.

That line — the one dividing land and sea is, like the river (now there's a metaphor for you), a constant.

I prefer to see it as the patch of firm sand across which the sea has washed before sliding back, as though joined by some invisible cord, to that which it is; the ocean.

I'm comfortable walking that stretch; the one on which the water melts back to mirrored memory; I'm neither in nor out of the ocean, on or off the land, but always and simultanously watching and participating in whatever happens — both sides of the line.

It might make no sense but, to me, it's about becoming as much of me as I possibly can.


...after all these years.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea | Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me.

One thing about 'growing' old is having to get over the mortality bit. I just hope I go with some dignity. Set an example for the kids. For now, though, I'm besotted with life. I'm addicted to and enslaved by it.

There is just so much out there, and not all of it's bad.

And that's another thing. A painted cynic, I find myself a naif. I dunno what makes others tick. I'm a hopeless romantic and idealist. In short, I'm pretty clueless.

But I'm okay with these things. I am, after all, a professional. There're plenty of cynics and hard-ass amateurs to go around.

As far as I'm concerned, everything's going to be all right just as long as that surf keeps on rolling in.

And I'm happy with my camera. It does a good job. For a metaphor, of course.

I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man | Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

Bob Dylan | Every Grain of Sand