Law and Order

Scarborough 2008

Ten meetings with prosecuting boss Vusi Pikoli - as well as a "top secret" letter - did nothing to convince President Thabo Mbeki that there was a corruption case against Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi.

In an affidavit filed on Monday, acting National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head Mokotedi Mpshe also revealed that Pikoli informed six top government officials — including Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula and Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota — of the "serious" graft claims against Selebi.

Independent Online | Who is lying?

Need we ask? Who's lying, that is. That many believed Mbeki's assertion he had no evidence to support allegations against Selebi stupefies me. When did so-called educated people come to take a politician at his / her word? What is said has no, and has never had, bearing on any action taken.

Pikoli was booted out because he informed Cabinet of the case he was building against Selebi, under whom any Scorpions remaining in the public sector will now "serve" and suffer. And Mbeki virtually told us as much by citing, as his reason for firing Pikoli, a breakdown in the relationship between the Scorpions' boss and Justice Minister Mabandla.

People fail to understand the depths of ties that bind the old "struggle-istas" — they enjoy relationships forged under circumstances about which most know nothing. "Jackie" is secure — if anybody does take him down, they'd better have equal resources backing them.


Scarborough 2008

President Thabo Mbeki tackled the ANC head-on in Parliament today, proposing a new, bigger specialised unit incorporating the Scorpions to fight organised crime. In direct repudiation of Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula, who promised earlier this week that the Scorpions would be completely dismantled, Mbeki said he would propose a new specialised unit including intelligence capacity and still guided by the national prosecuting Authority.

Mbeki’s comments beg many, many questions, but they do not reflect the decision of the ANC National Executive Committee that the Scorpions should be disbanded and their investigators scattered across the police force. Mbeki appears to be proposing a new institution outside of the police service, which is exactly what the NEC does not want.

The Times | Mbeki proposes new Super Scorpions

As if to bear out my statement above, i.e. words have no bearing on action, President Thabo Mbeki ducked behind an obfuscatory smokescreen of ambiguity in Parliament today. Let's look at the thrust of this morning's speech.

First, the President's humiliation at Polokwane left him powerless, a vassal of Zuma's newly elected NEC. Secondly, it was Mbeki that fired Ngcuka and Pikoli. Thirdly, it is he who is neutralising our crime-fighting capabilities.

The adversarial relationship enjoyed by the DSO and the Executive goes back years. Thabo's bullshitting again and this amounts to no more than an attempt to appear assertive — to manufacture a confused consensus and illusion of heated debate. But his authority is ephemeral, vapid. He takes his orders from Zuma through the NEC and, in this instance, the Minister of Safety and Security has more credibility than he.

They are pulling his strings.

This speech, whatever its raison d'etre and which does not preclude the Scorpions and other agencies being incorporated into the devastatingly counterproductive and ineffective SAPS, will change nothing as far as the Scorpions are concerned; it will do little to resurrect Thabo Mbeki's sadly tarnished image, and it won't secure his future as a force in the ANC.

Thabo's words are the stuff of smoke and mirrors. If he was articulating real intent, why disband the Scorpions in the first place? Why not beef up the existing, functional organisation?

Disputes within the Alliance, e.g. the Zuma, Selebi, inter-alliance partner tensions, etc. are fought on different, often-overlapping levels. The Mbeki—Zuma feud has no bearing on this specific issue, i.e. the two adversaries are of like mind on it, and old hands know when and how to appraise and separate sites of struggle and degrees of reprisal.

Whichever way one looks at it, the Scorpions' dissolution is a stuff-up of epic proportions with far-reaching implications and potentially devastating consequences. South Africa — powerless, leaderless and rudderless is drifting up an extremely rocky creek without a paddle. Many South Africans, who played no part in the development of our leaders' blind loyalty to each other, will die.

Internationally, we're being written off. The only upside to this tragicomic situation — compounded by our debilitating energy shortage, economic slowdown, infrastructure implosion, descent into anarchy, etc. is that, somehow, our ability to draw from a bountiful fount of growth appears unimpaired.

And if we ever are ejected back into the mainstream from this succession of fast-flowing follies, we'll certainly be the better for having survived what appear now to be insurmountable crises of our own making.

Democratic Principals

"Parliament is supreme."

ANC treasurer-general Matthews Phosa

Parliament is indeed supreme. One might say that congress is good. But neither of these truths lend any weight to assertions that politicians are above the law or that the African National Congress is beyond reproach.

That said, you know you live in a democracy when, dishevelled and dressed in an equally dishevelled suit, ANC treasurer-general, chief flak catcher and court jester Mathews Phosa trundles in to Cape Town's free-to-air TV station to take a happy pasting by 3rd Degree anchor Deborah Patter and political commentator Justice Malala.

Malala is our Paganini Penman, a wickedly sharp journalist enjoying Mondli Makhanya's patronage at the Sunday Times. Justice has thrown many punches at government and he has pulled none of them. Accused by former small-town lawyer and sometime snake-oil salesman Phosa of cheap journalism, he's astute, on the ball, and as sharp as a new razor blade.

Mathews Phosa? You gotta love the guy. He comes across as a laid-back gangsta with a good heart of democratic spirit blessed with great political acumen. However, his conviction's a bit too thick for a decidedly thin skin that covers myriad misconceptions. He gave as good as he got, but he was on to a hiding to nothing.

Not that he minded. In a country where the ruling party is all there is to politics — sparing a thought for Helen Zille, government will do as it pleases. At issue is the disbanding of the Scorpions (Directorate of Special Operations in The National Prosecuting Authority), an independent, elite crime-fighting and anti-corruption unit based on outfits such as the FBI.

Note: We are speaking of the FBI circa 1990. Today's Infragard, a corporate TIPS program, smacks of the apartheid regime's Joint Management Committees.

Launched in 1999 with great fanfare by the ANC, the Directorate of Special Operations found graft and corruption too close to home and is now being summarily dissolved — or integrated into the South African Police Services (SAPS) which, represented by alleged criminal mastermind and former Interpol chief Jackie Selebi, amounts to the same thing.

In short, its autonomy is being revoked and its direct link to the National Prosecuting Authority, essential to formulating strong cases against sophisticated crime syndicates, is being severed. For NO GOOD REASON. And, let it be said, no-one is pushing Thabo, our lame-duck president, for explanations. For those working for the DSO, the future is decidedly bleak.



Phosa's main gripe with the Scorpions rests on his reading of an affidavit wherein a high-ranking Scorpion spelled out to staff that convictions of Jacob Zuma and Selebi would secure their future and make their name. This does not sit well with our Mathews, who sees a dark and nefarious political agenda at work — an agenda targeting his old friend "Jackie" and new president, "Awuleth' umshini wam" Zuma — as bent and twisted a politician as any that has wriggled free of culpability.

It might come as news to Phosa and his pals that politicking is not reserved for politicians — especially those who, according to acting Scorpions chief Mokotedi Mpshe, knew of Selebi's activities early last year but — rather than rid the country of the alleged criminal, rid the NPA and DSO of Bulelani Ngcuka (2004) and Vusi Pikoli (2007). Following such meddling by a government desperate to hide its indiscretions from the public eye, the Scorpions would understandably go for broke on cases involving those politicians.

The fact is, they've solved more crime and recovered more money and taken more drugs off the streets than the SAPS have in the past twenty years. Yet their profile remains low; they're perceived as existing at the whims of political hacks. In many ways, they need convictions against Zuma and Selebi to raise their profile and put a damper on rampant corruption.

Phosa, government and the South African people stand to lose a great deal — in every sense. Following what some perceive to be a Constitutional coup crime stands to become accepted social practice. South Africa's morale has sunk to all-time lows and the powers that be now pull the plug on our most efficient and successful antidote to despair. The Scorpions, who dared challenge the rot within, will go and Zuma and Selebi — perhaps guilty of crimes that would put the average voter behind bars for years, will escape prosecution.

No matter how democratic our TV debates and no matter how much I appreciate the openness of politicians like Phosa — and there are many like him, honest displays of unhinged self-interest tinged with an "I'll get you later" acrimony count for little when the activities of hoodlums take precedence over the Constitution our leaders swore and now profess to uphold and serve. They reduce a document they wish kids to live by to something akin to the American Constitution, i.e. nothing more than a goddamned piece of paper. Putting their self-enrichment before the interests of others, they might as well tear it up.

But yes, I'm left with mixed feelings. South African politics takes place within the ANC. Debate is robust, healthy, and sometimes downright ugly. That the ANC allows and unwittingly encourages a free press is extraordinary in a world where a healthy and vibrant Fourth Estate is not appreciated for the good it does. Such tolerance exhibits the depth and strength of our ruling party and it bodes well for our country.

That government will do as it pleases bares the flip side; a tendency towards totalitarianism that is alarming beyond quantification and measure.

With the Scorpions' ousting — and, no doubt, the court cases flowing from it, we'll quickly find out whether or not Beeshop Zuma's ANC (read Nat Nakasa) is a broad church built on Ma Sisulu's rock or a bush chapel thrown up on a bed of clay.

Afterthought: OK, so I'm bitching about the state of the nation. It's easy to do. At least we have a free press and don't face a future as bleak as this:

Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.

SF Chronicle | Rule by fear or rule by law?

At least I don't live in the States. Railcars and detention camps...kinda creepy, no?

Political World

"...a 'shadow government' of senior federal agency officials..."

We live in a political world | Under the microscope, | You can travel anywhere and hang yourself there | You always got more than enough rope.

The greater risk facing the United States at this juncture is that it will squander the opportunity to bring about a world supportive of its core interests by doing too little. Imperial understretch, not overstretch, appears the greater danger of the two.

Richard Haass (CFR)

The most obvious changes in policy practice have been a 78 percent real increase in defense expenditures since 1998 and a dramatic surge in US military activity abroad. US spending on national defense and war is now about $650 billion (FY 2008) per annum, which constitutes 50 percent of the world total. In real terms, the United States has not spent so much in any year since 1946. As for military activity: The current (2007) number of US armed forces personnel deployed in crisis operations abroad exceeds 200,000. This is almost 300 percent of the average level of crisis deployments during the years 1989-2001, measured in terms of the numbers of people deployed and the duration of their deployment.


"...remains in place at secure locations outside Washington..."

We live in a political world | Turning and a'thrashing about, | As soon as you're awake, you're trained to take | What looks like the easy way out.

What's the point of having this superb military...if we can't use it?

Madeleine Albright

What the "new imperialists" prescribe is not an explicitly exploitative or extractive enterprise. Rather they see US hegemony as the best or only guarantor of a relatively peaceful global system and the most reliable agent for the stable advance of market democracy. According to Haass, the effort would entail America enacting "a foreign policy that attempts to organize the world along certain principles affecting relations between states and conditions within them" – a new rule set.

The sphere of Pax Americana would expand by a process of integration involving, to varying extents, the direct management of key unstable areas and some failed or failing states. There is an "inside" and an "outside" to the schema – or in Thomas Barnett’s rendering, a "core" and a "gap". The former comprises the hegemon and its partners; the latter, those states and areas subject to compulsion, control, or management. Thus, at its outer edges, the expanding sphere of hegemonic peace takes on a distinctly imperial aspect.

Carl Conetta | Cul de sac: 9/11 and the paradox of American power

Good paper. It echoes much of what the Happy Tutor posited several years ago, i.e. the collapse of the Soviet Union signaled the end of democracy. So where to now? I'm afraid it looks like more of the same...

We live in a political world | Where peace is not welcome at all, | It's turned away from the door to wander some more | Or put up against the wall.

Bob Dylan | Political World

Memory and Forgetting

"Then time will tell just who fell..."

There's a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door, | You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done, in the final end he won the wars | After losin' every battle.

"We the youth of South Africa, recognising the injustices of our past, honour those who suffered and sacrificed for justice and freedom.

"We will respect and protect the dignity of each person, and stand up for justice.

"We sincerely declare that we shall uphold the rights and values of our Constitution and promise to act in accordance with the duties and responsibilities that flow from these rights."

Proposed pledge for recital in schools

CapeTalk gave a couple of hours to the pledge to be recited by kids at school. It might be amended slightly, but its sentiments are nicely balanced.

Our schools, where corporal punishment is banned, are the most dangerous in the world. At least we can give our kids this, drawn from the Preamble to the Constitution, which details their rights and responsibilities as citizens.

Let them put it to good use. It's better than most of the crap they get shoved down their throats and they're likely to do a far better job with it than we.


"...And who's been left behind."

You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies. | One day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzin' around your eyes, | Blood on your saddle.

CapeTalk callers were virulently opposed to the pledge. All were adult. Most were white. Six words got to them, i.e. "...recognising the injustices of our past".

• These are the people who, having learned to sing "Die Stem" at school, find it so difficult to "memorise" Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika.

• These are the people who advise youngsters different to them: "What you need is a couple of years in the army, young man."

• These are the people who, in South Africa, will call on you to let go of the past while reminding you that "blacks have no experience of government".

• These are the people who so gleefully adopted, without question — and, it seems, without reading — the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa way back in 1996.

• These are the people who are so into forgetting, I frequently think they have.

I'm all for this pledge. It might prevent our kids becoming the adults we were, are, and will fight to remain.

Bittereinders.

Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves, | We're idiots, babe. | It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

Bob Dylan | Idiot Wind

Most of the time...

...I just mucked about in the garden.

Most of the time | I'm halfway content, | Most of the time | I know exactly where I went, | I don't cheat on myself, I don't run and hide, | Hide from the feelings, that are buried inside, | I don't compromise and I don't pretend, | I don't even care if I ever see her again | Most of the time.

Bob Dylan | Most of the Time

Merry Christmas...

...and an electrifying New Year.

That's what did it. Raw power. On Christmas Eve, a short lightning storm over Cape Town fried my motherboard and modem. Businesses were closed until January 3, when I replaced the motherboard, and it took a further three weeks to sort out the router. Looking at what's happened since, i.e. the country's collapse into darkness, I reckon that storm was more significant than it appeared.

Note: I wasn't nervous. I just didn't have a tripod with me at the time.

Would the last to leave...

...kindly turn off the lights.

The main problem is that the developmental state model can succeed only if it is driven by a highly efficient state bureaucracy staffed by the nation's brightest and best. That's why it can be so spectacularly successful in a country like Singapore, which has perhaps the world's highest skills level where the economic and business savvy of its ministers and top civil servants is every bit as high as those in the private sector.

As the Eskom debacle has demonstrated, we don't have that not by a long shot.

Indeed, I don't recall any other event in recent history that has so shaken the confidence of ordinary South Africans in the future of this country as the incompetence revealed by the breakdown of our largest and most important state corporation.

Alistair Sparks | 'Now is the time to be realistic'

Like Alison Tilley, the naked racism surrounding Eskom's 'catastrophic cock-up' leaves me loath to comment on South Africa's descent into perpetual darkness. For that is where we are and few realise the severity of our predicament.

No matter that power outages are common in California, New Zealand or Brazil — load shedding in Pakistan during 2007 saw long-suffering villagers close the Pak-Afghan highway. As Sparks's commentary suggests, we're closer to Zim, Kenya and Pakistan than we in the know care to admit and those in the dark dare face.

Reality is a hard dollar and the Rand is taking more than a beating right now. What pisses me off is the insouciance with which the media and business continue to swan into a bleak future. Despite finding massive new coal deposits, resources are scarce and The Global War on The Poor gains momentum and viciousness.

The worldwide use of state-sanctioned terror by those wielding the looted capital of others' economies gives meaning to war criminal Donald Rumsfeld's promise of a Long War.

As our bread and milk producers are slapped on the wrist for decades of price fixing, we need to realise we've not yet reached the end of the beginning. And we're already taking strain. Get ready for the Long Haul.

As for Eskom? Eish!

Songs of Experience

"That free love with bondage bound."

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

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

William Blake | Songs of Experience: The Sick Rose

On politics...

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

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

...crime...

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

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

...inequity

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

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

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

Charlene Smith

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I do hope she's correct.

Father Christopher's Picture Show

"In Just Seven Days...."

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

Indeed. My work is never done.

Still, who am I to complain?

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

"You fucking lazy white shithead!" he screamed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even Hendrix was mild by Father Christopher's standards.

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

All I had to do was deliver on the copy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exit: crown of thorns. Enter: the swoosh.

Maryann Mann | The Megachurch Juggernaut


Sponsored by Paypal Encyclicals Online, Inc.

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

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

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

Martians

Beyond reason...

CNN tells us:

Two Mormon missionaries found in Martinique

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

It didn't make the papers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Say It's Not True

46664 World AIDS Day Concert

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

Queen | Say It's Not True



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

We don't need no...

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

I realised immediately the guard was illiterate.

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

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

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