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.

The Blogger's Cat

Trouble

"So what's her name?" my colleague enquired on hearing I had a cat.

"Trouble," I replied.

"Yes, but what's her middle name?" he asked without hesitation.

When you notice a cat in profound meditation, | The reason, I tell you, is always the same: | His mind is engaged in rapt contemplation | Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: | His ineffable effable | Effanineffable | Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

T.S. Eliot | The Naming of Cats

Watching the River Flow

Moonset at Sunset...

If I had wings and I could fly, | I know where I would go. | But right now I'll just sit here so contentedly | And watch the river flow.

Tomorrow I go back to work after a week-long break. I'd recommend it to anybody — the break, that is. Work, as a great man once said, is for other people.


Sunrise at Silvermine

Before heading out to Bon Echo, Mark Woods pointed to a wonderful 2005 conversation between Phil Rockstroh, Joe Bageant, and John Steppling.

Recommended... umm, required reading for those unable — or unwilling — to take it easy.

But this ol' river keeps on rollin', though, | No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow, | And as long as it does I'll just sit here | And watch the river flow.

Bob Dylan | Watching the River Flow

Destinations...

The beginning...

Now, I don't care just what you do, | If you wanta have a picnic, that's up t' you. | But don't tell me about it, I don't wanta hear it, | 'Cause, see, I just lost all m' picnic spirit. | Stay in m' kitchen, have m' own picnic... | In the bathroom.

Despite giving only twenty-or-so metres to Table Mountain, Devil's Peak is much overlooked. We walked up Wednesday, setting out at around 08:00 in dense fog. It persisted, giving way to cloud that dissipated briefly only on reaching the peak at 10:30.

Given our early arrival, I lay down under a rock for a nap — to dry and wait out the cloud howling across the mountain on a gale-force westerly. While dozing, a bunch of walkers reached the summit and stopped for a break. Around my age, they were obviously seasoned hikers — as in "good, healthy exercise" being their gig (it's certainly not mine).

A jocular, chatty lot, they jabbered away above the gale until I felt like throwing all of them off the edge. One guy was going on about setting his GPS to Google Earth and finding, on arriving at a destination such as Devil's Peak, the instrument telling him ten metres remained to be climbed.

For some reason, his cheery chums found this a source of great amusement.

I thought of Whiskey River and the old Zen master who, on being asked by his student what he should do when reaching the top of the mountain, answered "Keep climbing."

The old buggers eventually checked their watches, made loud happy noises, and returned to the invisible city beneath.

I giggled and went back to sleep.

Now, it don't seem to me quite so funny | What some people are gonna do f'r money. | There's a bran' new gimmick every day | Just t' take somebody's money away. | I think we oughta take some o' these people | And put 'em on a boat, send 'em up to Bear Mountain... | For a picnic.

Bob Dylan | Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues

The Bigger Picture

Cape Town breakwater [2.32MB]


V&A Waterfront [11.2MB]

On the Beach...

Sunset comes good...

After an unusually mild winter, summer hit Cape Town with a good solid 12-15' punch. Wandering down to Long Beach on the rumour of a swell, I found a blustery offshore molesting a psychiatrically disturbed ocean. Decidedly antisocial, showing signs of a fast-fragmenting personality, and as unpredictable as hell, it kept itself to itself and surfers to the shore.


Tracking and tracing...

Turning to Sunset in the far distance, the 5m groundswell was thumping some good waves shoreward. From the car park and with binoculars, I was able to make out several jet skis and a 15' set that said "Stay". It sounded familiar. I'd been here before. Good surf and a camera incapable of taking advantage of it.

So what? After a long, drear winter devoid of sun and surf, I decided to watch some good surfing by people obviously accustomed to dealing with the potentially heavy consequences of Mother Nature's perverse mood swings.


Barrelling through...

I don't get down to Sunset that often. It seldom works well enough for a non-surfer to pay it heed, but today everything seemed to have been turned on its head. Long Beach was out of the question — an unseemly mess boasting only a few diehard surfers scattered by a miserable wind. Offshore, given a swell larger than the wind, the characteristically deep-throated Sunset was, while sometimes crumbling, pumping.

I decided to put the old digital to the test.


Rescuing the rescuer...

Watching jetskis and rubber ducks risking horrible wipe outs to give some hardy bastards a good ride, I thought of old Hugh — probably suited up and in the water at Queens, Off The Wall, or Thermopylae. With Chapman's Peak Fucked Up Beyond All Repair, heading up the Atlantic was out of the question. Travelling back up and over the mountain to the City Bowl and beyond is going to be a hell of a problem for years to come. With the Muizenberg—Clovelly road out of commission for three years from February next year, travel is going to be severely restricted during the run in to 2010.

You need an SLR for tow-in surfing or, better still, a boat. I'm not planning to acquire either in the foreseeable future. Given the S3's limitations and my inability to appreciate much unless it's through a lens, I found trying to get these shots challenging but worthwhile.

You can't see these guys through the viewfinder and have to use a degree of digital zoom. Again, so what? The images we can now capture with over-the-counter technology is bloody amazing. I'd have come away empty handed a couple of years ago.


South Atlantic warfare...

Hope you had a good wave today, Hugh...I most certainly did — my feet planted firmly on solid ground. The swell drops tomorrow and the offshore will blow this swell to hell and gone.

Never mind — there's always more where this one came from ...

U.S. Nukes Cape Town

Blown away...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned the official version of the Sept. 11 attacks and defended the right to cast doubt on the Holocaust in a tense appearance Monday at Columbia University, whose president accused the hard-line leader of behaving like "a petty and cruel dictator."

msnbc | Iran leader responds to 'unfriendly treatment'

The United States earlier today detonated a 10-kiloton nuclear device over the South African capital, Cape Town. Although initial reports indicate the twin towers of the old Athlone Power Station withstood the blast, South African emergency response crews say the Cape Flats has been "obliterated".

Responding to the unwarranted attack, U.S. president George W. Bush confirmed the detonation, saying it "...speaks volumes about really the greatness of America."

Asked whether the loss of several hundred thouand lives justified America's continuing arbitrary tests of its 'really the greatness', Mr. Bush responded, "I guess it’s OK with me."


...by astonishingly uneducated Americans

South African President Thabo Mbeki, roused from his bed at The Presidency in Tshwane, expressed dismay at the loss of Cape Town. Describing Bush as a "...petty and cruel dictator", Mbeki challenged his slaughter of millions worldwide and queried his willingness to allow others' their views.

"Frankly, in all candor, I doubt Bush has the intellectual courage to answer these questions," he added.

Turning to the Cape Town Holocaust, Mbeki described his American counterpart as "...quite simply ridiculous" and accused him of being "...either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated."

Reporters chuckled knowingly at the president's last remark.

"Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere."

George W. Bush

"Umm... but that wasn't Tehran, Mr. President. It was Cape Town."

"That's OK with me."

"Yes, Sir."

Given the hysterical, propaganda-driven public response to Ahmadinejad's visit — nine times out of ten he'd pass unnoticed through New York, is it any wonder America's media, business, and political leaders treat 'their people' with such derisive and dismissive contempt? Continuing saturation media coverage of the most distasteful type convinces the world USians are capable only of making absolute asses of themselves.

This Side of the Mirror

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez

Oh a false clock tries to tick out my time | To disgrace, distract, and bother me. | And the dirt of gossip blows into my face, | And the dust of rumors covers me. | But if the arrow is straight | And the point is slick, | It can pierce through dust no matter how thick.

Need a film for modern times? Forty-three years in the making, Murray Lerner's The Other Side of the Mirror is the movie. Due for release with the 3-CD, 51-track Dylan box set on October 30, fifty minutes of the eighty-minute feature showed up Sunday night on our national free-to-air TV channel. Featuring Bob Dylan's Newport appearances '63-'65, it offers a disturbingly immediate reflection of present uncertainty.

Only Lerner, director of 1967's Festival can tell us whether this is intended but, given the playlist, we can safely assume it is.

Mashing a narration-free eighty-minute film into an hour is difficult and the South African Broadcasting Corporation does not "do" difficult. Lopping the final section in which Dylan "goes electric", it unintentionally leaves us hanging suspended, awaiting an unknown inevitable.

Introduced by Joan Baez's views on Dylan's value as the 'voice of a generation', the 1963 footage is wonderfully raw, distilling the past four decades of the Twentieth Century into North Country Blues, With God on our Side (a powerful duet with Baez), Talkin' World War III Blues, Who Killed Davey Moore?, Only a Pawn in their Game, and Blowin' in the Wind.

The 1964 tracks echo our millennial confusion clearly — Dylan's laid-back rendition of Mr. Tambourine Man contrasts starkly with the bare-bone definition of his previous year's songs. Mirroring the fractured nature of the 911 years, which threw globalization, neoliberal economics, and resource wars into an already heated mix, Johnny Cash's truncated Don't Think Twice, It's Alright continues the disjoint and a focus that shifts between Dylan and Baez entrenches the neither-here-nor-there atmosphere of a short-lived interregnum.

Lerner includes some humorous material at this point, illustrating an attempt to shrug off looming issues. Baez sings a Dylan-style Mary Hamilton, Baez and Dylan perform an out-of-sync It Ain't Me, Babe, and the Queen of Folk offers her views on the "idolatry" she and Dylan enjoy. A second strong rendition of the final verse of With God on our Side performed with Baez precedes the final song taken from '64, a 'return to concern' in Chimes of Freedom.

1965 didn't happen on our public broadcaster. For the rest of the world and those who buy the movie though, it was the year Dylan turned Newport on its head, redefined music, and hit his own sometimes faltering, sometimes blundering, always visionary stride. The Other Side of the Mirror includes If You Gotta Go, Go Now, Love Minus Zero/No Limit, Maggie's Farm, Like A Rolling Stone, Mr. Tambourine Man, and It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. I'm sorry I didn't get to see the final set. Maggies Farm and Like A Rolling Stone are contrary and confrontational. Their lyrics feed an event during which the audience at which they were directed could not appreciate their value.

Many turned on the performer. The infamous "Judas!" hurled at Dylan lends the film's two renditions of With God On Our Side added import.

Lerner draws a direct line between then and now, melding the two to the present to give us an uncertain future. Closing the movie with It's All Over Now, Baby Blue leaves much unsaid, but says much as well. Dylan no longer projects his vision fifty years down the line. Having done so then, perhaps there is no need for him to do so now.

Dylan's listeners generally look to him to explain that which most wish explained away. His words, far larger than he, explain all. Opening the film, All I Really Want To Do clearly separates the singer from his song. The minstrel's message is deceptively simple: We do not learn from our mistakes and will repeat them. Lerner's inclusion of more than one rendition of several songs forgives us this small failing.

1997's haunting Time Out Of Mind saw Dylan relinquish his visionary past to become the DJ of our times; still tracking the future, but with a reporter's eye. Love and Theft, released on 11 September 2001, contains much pertinent to the day itself. High Water (for Charley Patton) has been credited with far more than Dylan ever intended, but its words were certainly prescient.

The credits of Murray Lerner's The Other Side of the Mirror, a film "...dedicated to those who dare to be different", roll to the final verse of Restless Farewell — a warning to those whose false clocks render them incapable of telling the time of day.

So I'll make my stand | And remain as I am | And bid farewell and not give a damn.

Bob Dylan | Restless Farewell

Win Friends?

"Fuck that..."

Prominent politicians, religious groups and some alumni were outraged yesterday at Columbia University's decision to allow the accused terrorist and Holocaust denier to spew his hate on campus.

New York Daily News | Columbia University ripped for inviting Iranian thug

South Africa's Minister of that which once exhibited Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is, without a doubt, a liar, a drunk, and a thief. Responsible for withholding treatment from AIDS sufferers and guilty of presiding over the collapse of a formerly functional healthcare system, she has proved herself an inept and brutal thug.

Tshabalala-Msimang hauled the Sunday Times before the courts for having filched her health records. The court demanded that all but one copy of the relevant documents be returned. They were. Sure, although it's not altogether clear how the Minister's health records came to be in the Sunday Times's possession, the facts contained in them and subsequent reports were found to be accurate and have not been refuted.

On Friday 21 September, the Department of Health, using R380,000 of taxpayers' money, took out two advertisements in five mass-circulation dailies across the country. One criticised the court's judgement and the other, abusing the National Health Act, stated: "As the Health Department, we celebrate the vindication of rights of patients to confidentiality by the High Court and we salute all those who contributed in ensuring that the National Health Act does not indeed encompass the caring values of our democratic dispensation as contained in our Constitution."

While the budgets of our few remaining hospitals are being slashed, beds are being closed, and babies in hospital care are dying in droves, the fucking Department of Health spends R380,000 defending a criminally incompetent psychopath driven mad by power.

Long may the Sunday Times rock on. Let's see the broad-beamed backside of this juice-junkie Jezebel booted from the corrupting corridors of unfettered power...


"Influence people."

Some things are beyond discussion, and some people deserve to be shunned because their criminal actions tell you all you need to know. Ahmadinejad is one of them. The NYPD recognized as much in banning him from Ground Zero. He ought rightly to be tried for offenses against humanity rather than given a polite hearing.

Iran has been killing and kidnapping Americans for three decades. Iran gave safe passage to thousands of Islamic radicals headed to Afghanistan for weapons training, including a number of the 9/11 hijackers. Iran has openly talked about annihilating Israel. Right now Iran is providing armor-piercing explosives that are slaughtering U.S. troops.

New York Daily News | Columbia's disgrace

At least the Sunday Times, often accused of sensationalism or 'tabloid journalism', sticks to the facts. These covers from New York's 'hometown newspaper', the New York Daily News, really rocked me. Is this what passes for journalism in the States and elsewhere? In terms of our law, which guarantees freedom of speech, such trash would see any newspaper closed down.

None of this shit, bar the skeletal facts of Ahmadinejad's New York visit, has any basis in fact. Ahmadinejad has not called for Israel's destruction. Nor has he ever denied the Holocaust. For these untruths, he is crassly slandered by a mass-circulation daily?

Despite being well aware of how advanced plans are for an unprovoked, airborne onslaught of truly horrendous proportions on Iran (which explains the massive increase in propaganda from politicians, newspapers, and myriad other social sectors), I had no idea America had sunk this low.

That these covers are published in a country whose soldiers — spanning the globe — murder, torture, rape, and thieve; whose government (guilty of countless crimes against humanity) routinely ignores international treaties governing civilized behaviour so that it may, contrary to its Constitution, spy on, kidnap, indefinitely detain, and 'disappear' its citizens while systematically depriving them of health care and environmental protection; whose ChickenHawks habitually commit genocide (the Iraqi Holocaust now mirrors the Jewish Holocaust more than it does the Rwandan Genocide); whose agents and agencies constitute the world's greatest sponsors of state and privatized terror; whose military-industrial complex destabilises entire continents and forms the greatest threat to peace the world has known, and whose businesses support a weapons-based economy which, while profiting the obscenely wealthy, impoverishes the average global citizen, beggars belief.

Next to George W. Bush, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — whom I would trust about as far as I could throw two 107-floor buildings, looks like a saint.

The New York Daily News needs no comparison. It looks and reads like shit.

And, as Bruce points out, Barbara Kingsolver, angelic environmentalist, bears some responsibility for this state of affairs...