The Big Five

Explosions in the Sky, El Alamein, September 1942

They say ev'rything can be replaced, | Yet ev'ry distance is not near. | So I remember ev'ry face | Of ev'ry man who put me here.

We all know the Big Five. Globalisation, peak oil, food scarcity, climate change, and global warming. Alternatively, we have the leopard, lion, rhinoceros, buffalo, and elephant.

Personally, the Big Five-Oh's been the elephant occupying my mind. I've avoided 'birthdays' to now, relating instead to the adage "You're as young or as old as you feel" — and, like most, I feel pretty good. Reasonably fit, healthy, and sane, I was always going to experience and consider the present and future as a seamless continuum.

For some reason, these photographs changed that. They'd been lying in a box for years and were scanned only recently.

Digitising the aging prints, I realised that, had we a wall on which hung a rogue's gallery of generational genetics, I'd be among the grey or sepia visages staring out at God knows what. However, had they remained in the box, they'd become the faded remnants of long-ago attempts to immortalise the living.

They'd be the memories of somebody other than the rummager and, lacking names, they'd mean nothing.

I'd hit a speed bump on my personal space-time continuum and I felt uncomfortable. The elephant had gone rogue and was destroying the suburban order of my psychic neighbourhood.

I know there's no avoiding our being forgotten and this is no exercise in trying to prolong memory. These pictures gave me something else, and what they gave me put the elephant out of mind. Merely acknowledging that these prints represent little more than items of future curiosity put everything into fresh perspective.

They hold nothing but sentimental value and belong in the box from which I had taken them — with the elephant. While I believe we remain every age we've ever been, I do acknowledge the importance of endings.

Over fifty years, I've been there, done this, thought that. I have the T-shirt and I'm comfortable in my own skin. I've no regrets and I regard our global Big Five as opportunities to learn from experiences we're all going to find uncomfortable. Quite frankly, and this has always been at the back of my mind, I want to be around when the shit hits the fan.

Now unencumbered by having to grow up through the Big Five of convention, i.e. childhood, adolescence, adulthood, marriage, kids, etc. I'm free to explore the world.

And few will pay me heed. It's a glorious thought. I've been set free to play in the fields of the Lord for as long as is my lot and fuck anybody who crosses my path.

Cracked? I don't know and it doesn't matter.


The World Is Not a Cold Dead Place, Cape Town 1974

They say ev'ry man needs protection, | They say ev'ry man must fall. | Yet I swear I see my reflection | Some place so high above this wall.

Revelling in my newfound freedom, I ran slap-bang into Frank Paynter. For those of you who know him, you'd know immediately that our meeting would demand of a rigorous re-examination of my newborn hypothesis. For those of you who don't know him, watch The Straight Story.

That's Frank. He is to blogging as Angelo Badalamenti is to David Lynch.

Disconcerted by my uncharacteristic exuberance, Frank suggested a visit to Ronni Bennett. In fact: he put it thus:

Ronni Bennett writes “Time Goes By — what it’s really like to get older.” She is conducting a survey on the universe of bloggers over 50 (”elderbloggers”).

“The goal,” she says, “is to find out what elderbloggers are like, how we may be similar and how we are different, how we relate to technology, how we came to be bloggers or blog readers, how we feel about it and what our demographics are.”

The survey is multiple choice, anonymous, and hosted at Survey Monkey (a reputable firm). There are 57 questions. It took me only a few minutes to complete.

NOTA BENE: This survey is for elderbloggers and elder blog readers who do not keep blogs. Readers and commenters are as important as bloggers to the elderblogging community and help equally to make it as lively and compelling as it is.

Now don't get me wrong — I love Frank Paynter. He is one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet and is, to put all doubt to rest, a founding member of Very Nice People.

In the far distance, I heard a trumpeting elephant. I immediately started a mail to Frank:

I've not thought of bloggers in terms of age. I count myself and those with whom I blog as 'bloggers' and the rest as Johnny Come Latelys or, for example, in the case of Selene or AKMA and Margaret's contributions to a saner, more civilized world, bloggers of the same age group as my daughters. My son, I believe I regard in much the same way as you do yours, i.e. as my equal.

Mindful of JP's recent birthday, a thought did spring to mind. I was recently a bit rocked to discover one of our fellow bloggers was a retired U.S. naval commander. His age? 50. It startled me and, thinking back on my reaction, wonder if my surprise was not a result of the cultural / national / lifestyle / geographic differences distinguishing us.

A South African, I expect to work to 65 or 70 and assume I'll need to work longer; till I drop. Until then, I compete against high unemployment (officially anywhere between 25 to 45 percent), youngsters pouring into the marketplace, changing employment practices and, in SA, an imperfect but necessary affirmative action.

In short, I cannot think of myself as 'getting on', let alone being an 'elder' anything. Nor do I regret it. I work with people I respect and admire. They're smart, sharp, and their ages belie their years. Hell, some are in their early twenties and I just don't see an "age gap." Perhaps I'm missing something ...

I was heading back to where this blog entry starts out.

Hearing the elephant climbing out of the box, I left the mail unfinished and dashed over to Ronni's to complete the questionnaire. I'm pleased I did. Having survived the shock of finding myself among ElderBloggers, I found much else on Ronni's site over which to enthuse.

A couple of weeks ago, Tom Matrullo sent me the second instalment of a friend's recollection of a trip to Southern Africa. A beautifully written essay, its author is in her eighties. Her insights and observations are those of a travel journalist sent in to get the story behind the story.

Nothing escapes her eye and as little escapes her considered and informed opinion.

In their own distinctive ways, Frank, the geriatric romper room at Very Nice People, Ronni's site, Tom's friend, my family, and my colleagues bear out my original thesis, i.e. "You're as young or as old as you feel."

Tossing the elephant a bottle of Amarula, I tipped my cap to those I know, and shuffled off to find my slippers.

I see my light come shining | From the west unto the east. | Any day now, any day now, | I shall be released.

Bob Dylan | I Shall Be Released

Oh yeah...

Brave Dullard Bullish No More...

"He is an institution in our media community... he’s the conscience of our country."

Carte Blanche executive producer George Mazarakis

On apologising on national TV this evening for his racist article having offended detractors (including most South Africans), self-professed 'celebrity journalist' Brave Dullard confessed no regret at having written it. Disingenuously distorting Vince Maher's brilliantly provocative suggestion in the Mail & Guardian that racism might sometimes be revealed by the reading rather than the writing of contentious columns, the Sunday Times hack fired last week by editor Mondli Makhanya may some day come to view his appearance on 3 talk With Noeleen as his Britney Spears moment.

But I doubt it.

Bullard, covering his over-exposed and to now over-paid ass, smugly asserted he'd not been online since penning his pernicious piece. Denying knowledge of white-supremacist FaceBook groups (there are none) and myriad virulently racist annotators leaping to his unearned defence — and emboldened by reported job offers from several so-called leading Sough African print publications (the Independent Group's The Star picked up his latest piece), he was barely able to restrain himself from accusing the Sunday Times's editorial team and his readers of having written the execrable piece themselves.

Look, we have some great journalists in this country but our newspapers are far from world class. Dave Bullard might, given luck, contacts, and some bent and twisted acts of an unknown nature, be able to inveigle his way into a British tabloid but, as a newspaper columnist, he's sadly over-rated.

South Africans are presently engaged in an extremely healthy, sometimes volatile debate on racism and its effect on our society. Bullard, with an eye to the main chance, exploited the moment but betrayed his employers and South Africans by attempting to pass off a highly offensive piece of race hate as a 'contribution' to the debate attending one of our most dehumanising and debilitating social ills.

Perhaps more stupidly, he tried to pass himself off as a good journalist. Maher's column put paid to that little deceit.

If our media learn anything from the Brave Dullard, they should remember that engendering conflict generally leads to its realisation. Worse, poor journalism perpetuating the problems it purports to address drags our print media into a spin cycle of the sort evident on Google's news page, where thousands of publications daily bombard a gullible public with millions of words posing as substantive reportage.

The nauseatingly embarrassing U.S. presidential nominations race, the Global War of Terror, the U.S.'s impending strike against Iran, an imploding global economy, resource scarcity, irreversible environmental degradation and rumours of rain are prime examples of subjects on which a great deal of time, money, and energy are spent — while avoiding their subjects altogether.

The opportunistic likes of Bullard slither from this swamp of relativist verbiage to poison us with their words. They create a form of post-modern confusion in which it's acceptable for Thabo Mbeki to claim no crisis in Zimbabwe and for ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe to accuse the Scorpions of "...sheltering former apartheid security police intent on destroying the ruling party."

I'm keen to communicate Mantashe's comment to one of my neighbours. A lawyer in the National Prosecuting Authority whose figure would lend a svelte allure to any SAPS uniform, she has assured me the Scorpions merely followed the money.

Cutting a somewhat forlorn and pathetic figure, Dave Bullard appears to be leaving the room.

"If something goes out with my name on it I want it to be excellent."

Dave Bullard

It is, Dave, it surely is... now remember to close that door behind you.

Bullard Apologises

Following threats to approach the Labour Court, Dave Bullard comes clean and apologises to his friends and readers in a column he cannot help but lace with implicit excuses for his loathsome behaviour:

"...I offer sincere and heartfelt apologies to those who were offended, including Mondli Makhanya, my friend and former editor, whom I respect enormously. Particularly offensive to so many was the suggestion that a family who had lost a child would mourn for a week or so and then have another child.

Despite my claim that this is a fantasy SA, I realise that this was an insensitive remark to make and I humbly apologise.

The use of the term "simple tribesmen" was never intended to imply stupidity but to suggest an uncomplicated lifestyle. Nonetheless it offended my readers and therefore requires an apology. Other critics referred to my cavalier disregard for ancestor worship and one even felt that my suggestion that huts were built to catch most of the day’s sun insinuated that black people are lazy. Once again, I am sorry to have caused so much offence to so many of my regular readers."

Dave Bullard

Isn't it amazing how swiftly "celebrity journalists", drunk with a power derived from the words they wield, distance themselves from any effect their words might have? Indeed, what can one do with a person like this?

You forgive him. I know I do. That said, I don't trust the Brave Dullard to behave any differently in the future than he has in the past. But it takes a big man to climb down and, for doing so, Dave Bullard has my respect.

China plays its hand in Zimbabwe

It's Bullard's sort of shit that made me momentarily sceptical of Martin Welz's motivation in alerting the media earlier today to a ship, the An Yue Jiang, now in Durban harbour. It's carrying 75 tons of Chinese armaments for the Zimbabwean Defence Ministry. Welz cited Noseweek's publication date being ten days away as his reason, but I suspected publicity.

To his credit, he appeared to be the only person with detailed knowledge and documentation of the 1,500 RPGs, 3,500 mortar bombs, and three million rounds of ammunition for AK47 rifles making up Zanu-PF's cargo of electioneering materiel. Furthermore, he cited an invoice date of 10 or 11 January, indicating a delay in delivery — which possibly explains the delay in the release of that country's election results (my assumption).

My doubt was strengthened by Welz's urge to compel South African authorities to deny the arms shipment transit to the Zimbabwean border. He argued the shipment's contribution to violence in Zimbabwe could escalate, requiring SADC intervention and our troops ultimately facing the very weapons transported from Durban to Beit Bridge.

Martin Welz is our leading and most-enduring investigative journalist. His publication is required reading for both the innocent and the guilty in this crime-ravaged country. Of all people, he would know that, once alerted, government would proclaim the shipment embargoed in the interests of regional peace and stability.

The powers that be, in the country that midwifed Executive Outcomes, Sandline, Blackwater, Titan and other mercenary outfits would then — with unseeming haste, probably dispatch to Harare Antonovs stocked with an equal cargo of death and destruction.

Hell, Britain was selling weapons into Serbia and Iraq hours before going to war with those countries. During the 1982 British campaign to retake the Malvinas from Argentina, the destroyer H.M.S. Sheffield sank on being struck by a single French Exocet.

Weapons are money and know no nationality. Having comprehensively covered the arms deal now denying us electricity while sustaining many of our leaders' lifestyles, Welz should know this better than most.

I stilled my doubt. Welz alerted the media because one arms shipment denied Mugabe will mean countless lives saved.

Nevertheless, the circus that our media has become, epitomised by Bullard and redeemed in small part by the Mahers, Makhanyas, and Malalas of The Fourth Estate, leads me to seek deception in every line.

Update: If this report is to be believed, the An Yue Jiang has cleared customs. Whether or not its cargo — contravening others' sanctions on Zimbabwe, will be confiscated, remains to be seen.

However, as the weapons threaten to leave Durban for their destination, Sokwanele reports armed Chinese soldiers in the streets of Mutare.

The Chinese, together with about 70 Zimbabwean senior army officers are staying at the Holiday Inn, in the city's central business district. There are about 10 Chinese soldiers. "We were shocked to see Chinese soldiers in their full military regalia and armed with pistols checking (in) at the hotel," said one worker. "When they signed checking-in forms they did not indicate the nature of the business that they are doing and even their addresses."

While one can hardly blame the Chinese military for keeping a watchful eye on Beijing's vested interests, the timing of both the arms shipment and the presence of suspected "military advisors" in Mutare is an unlikely coincidence. I'm pretty sure their presence means Western powers, while continuing to pump out vacuous rhetoric, will now urge an "African solution" to the "Zimbabwe crisis".

South Africa will not interfere with a shipment of weapons aboard a Chinese ship that is destined for Zimbabwe, government communications head Themba Maseko said today.

"We are not in a position to act unilaterally and interfere in a trade deal between two countries," he told a media briefing.

The Times | SA won’t interfere in Zimbabwe-China arms deal

In terms of 2002's National Conventional Arms Control Act, Maseko's lying through his teeth. The guiding principles and criteria for allowing the conveyance of these arms to Zimbabwe include:

• avoid contributing to internal repression, including the systematic violation or suppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms;
• avoid transfers of conventional arms to governments that systematically violate or suppress human rights and fundamental freedoms;
• avoid transfers of conventional arms that are likely to contribute to the escalation of regional military conflicts, endanger peace by introducing destabilising military capabilities into a region or otherwise contribute to regional instability;

Following the National Conventional Arms Control Committee's (NCACC) decision Monday to ship the arms to Harare many, like Ray Hartley, must be asking "...what Professor Kader Asmal, the author of the policy on arms shipments has to say?"

"Let the blood-letting begin?"

"Well, ask the Chinese ambassador. ... Durban harbour handles goods for many countries on the continent. If you say there are weapons that have arrived from China in the Durban harbour, I think you should ask the Chinese. There might be a consignment of coal that is being exported to the Congo or something; it is a port, those weapons would have had nothing to do with South Africa. I really don't know what Zimbabwe imports from China or what China imports from Zimbabwe."

Thabo Mbeki

Arms Shipment Blocked

Following receipt of a most-illuminating link from Madame Levy (a Great Daughter of Africa), which partly exposes the degree to which the South African government and our homegrown weapons manufacturers have conspired to keep Mugabe in power, I awoke from a pre-weekend power nap to an Eyewitness News item (not yet posted to the Web) reporting that a Durban court has ruled in favour of an urgent application brought by Bishop Rubin Phillip and Gerald Patrick Kearney against shipping the above arms to Zimbabwe.

"The world’s astonishment at President (Thabo) Mbeki’s political defence of Robert Mugabe will likely turn into outright anger as we are now not only denying the existence of a crisis in Zimbabwe, but also actively facilitating the arming of an increasingly despotic and desperate regime."

Rafeek Shah (DA)

Save me the indignation of politicians, most of whom appear to hold our Constitution in contempt. Give me the righteous wrath of true friends instead. And a few good journalists.

A ship that was carrying weapons and ammunition destined for Zimbabwe lifted anchor and sailed from Durban less than an hour after the Durban High Court ordered that its controversial cargo cannot be transported across South Africa to that country.

The An Yue Jiang lifted anchor between 18:00 and 19:00 on Friday evening.

Several sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the ship had set sail from the outer anchorage off the port of Durban.

News24 | Zim arms ship flees Durban

So what? Approached by the sheriff of the Durban High Court, it's safe to assume the ship's master — an employee of the state-owned Cosco Group, feared his ship being impounded. Nor does it break the rules of reason to assume such shipments have been clearing Durban harbour for years.

All in all, it seems Robert Mugabe has been protected by friends in all the right places. In short:

"President Mbeki needs to be relieved from his duty."

Zimbabwe Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai | 567 CapeTalk and Radio 702

Manifest Destiny

"Go West, young man..."

We should not condone China's actions. That is why I sent a letter to President Bush urging him not to attend the Opening Ceremony and why I am co-sponsoring the Defend the Olympic Spirit Act, which restricts funding to prevent any U.S. official from attending the Olympic Opening Ceremony in China, with clear exceptions for the security of any U.S. athlete and support staff. While I support our athletes and honor their achievements, the act of removing an official U.S. presence from the Opening Ceremony will send a clear message that we do not tolerate human rights abuses.

Representative Barbara Lee (D - CA) | China's record does not reflect the Olympic spirit

I had no idea Barbara Lee existed. Were it not for the San Francisco Chronicle, my blissful ignorance of her arrogance might have persisted.

My God, how swiftly the mighty have fallen and the deceitful and duplicitous have risen. This shameless hussy is certainly aware that America's proxy warlords — her bankers, having being flying in and out of Beijing, Singapore, and several Middle Eastern countries in recent weeks in a flurry of avionic activity not seen since Henry Kissinger circled the globe, sparking genocides, wars and coups in every country sullied by the imprint of his leather soles.

No, America's bankers have not made the trip to vent their spleens at regimes incapable of matching theirs for repressive brutality — they've groveled, wept, and wheedled their way to multi-billion dollar bail outs by the Eastern countries now propping up the U.S. economy. They own you, Barbara, and this is how you repay their largess?

Or, like our demented and much-ridiculed Deputy Minister of Safety and Security Susan Shabangu, are you merely playing to a gallery of fools?

Reverting to that which sparked my outrage — the "spirit" of the Olympic flame, I'll now pass the baton back to Howard Zinn.

The US mortgage crisis has spiralled into "the largest financial shock since the Great Depression" and there is a one-in-four chance that it will cause a full-blown global recession, the International Monetary Fund warned yesterday.

As finance ministers and central bankers arrived in Washington to discuss ways of tackling the crisis, the IMF warned, in its twice-yearly World Economic Outlook, that governments might be forced to step in with more public bailouts of troubled banks and cash-strapped homeowners before the crisis was over.

"The financial market crisis that erupted in August 2007 has developed into the largest financial shock since the Great Depression, inflicting heavy damage on markets and institutions at the core of the financial system," it said.

Guardian | We are in the worst financial crisis since Depression, says IMF

The new American militarism, as Andrew Bacevich calls it, encourages reliance on obsolete notions about power based on quantitative military advantage. Power now comes primarily from economic, financial, industrial, political, and cultural assets and influence, in all of which the United States is vulnerable. If American international hegemony is considered a threat, there are political and economic ways for international society to check it, not to speak of unconventional forms of military resistance, which have been employed with success in Iraq, in Lebanon last summer, and, much earlier, in Vietnam.

[...]

History does not offer nations permanent security, and when it seems to offer hegemonic domination this usually is only to take it away again, often in unpleasant ways. The United States was fortunate to enjoy relative isolation for as long as it did. The conviction of Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the country was exempt from the common fate has been succeeded in the twenty-first century by an American determination to fight (to "victory," as the President insists) against the conditions of existence history now actually does offer. It sets against them the consoling illusion that power will always prevail, despite the evidence that this is not true.

William Pfaff | Manifest Destiny: A New Direction for America

Mugabe—Tsvangirai Endgame...

"You blinked."

One morning, the blonde host began to tell me how much the world hated Robert Mugabe. The world, of course, called him a despot and considered his campaign against affluent white farmers, racist. "Even the blacks hate him," she said. That, I was not willing to believe. The Third World brain is universal and I knew that between the rich and their despot, the poor will always hate the rich more. Also, a man who is loathed by the liberal media usually has a covert mass support. In fact, Mugabe reminded me of Narendra Modi who had, the previous year, presided over very successful political riots in Gujarat.


"Did not."

We decided to ask the black maids if they liked Mugabe. The host told the maids softly, with an unnerving seriousness, that she had a question for which she needed a truthful answer. "Don't think I will be offended by your answer, don't think I'm your employer, don't think of anything, just speak the truth. Do you like Robert Mugabe?" The maids looked at each other and giggled. Then they said that they liked him. "He is for us," one of the maids said. The host was stunned. She would later tell me that the maids were ingrates, that she had fed them and clothed them and paid them handsome salaries, yet they loved Mugabe.

The Times of India | When Sehwag's Food Bill Was Just $150,000

"Zanu PF is for asserting our sovereignty and economically empowering Zimbabweans, but the MDC wants to surrender our sovereignty so that the country becomes a colony under the tutelage of the British. So clearly, we cannot see ourselves working with MDC Tsvangirai — it's like mixing water with fire! We believe our people are not daft and will make the choice based on the consolidation of the permanent changes that have been made." Zimbabwean Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa

The Zimbabwe Guardian | Zanu PF snubs MDC

Air Heads

Platboom, Cape Point Nature Reserve

from Robert < dumbass @ idiots.co.za >
to mgolby @free stuff.co.za,
date Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 10:43 PM

subject saw a pick of me pulling some airs @ platboom

howzit, saw a pick someone forwarded to me when i was surfing platboom sometime ago.

pick no: 13 looks pretty cool, but i cant save the pic ?? the one of the yellow town and county surf board

how do i go about doing this - nice work but please don't advertise surf spots in the reserve they are a sanctuary to a select group of us who hate the crowds,

regards,

robert

A direct translation of platboom would be "flat tree". Which, I guess, you could stretch to "plank". We have a saying in this neck of the woods, i.e. "as thick as a plank". It means "not very bright", "dumb" or, should one be more straightforward, "fucking retarded".

The above is the sort of mail that leads me to a generalized view of surfers as trust-fund kiddies with five centimetres of nothing between their ears. It is devoid of the fundamentals of civilized discourse. "I saw this. Give me that. Don't do this. I want that. Because I say so. Regards..."

Whoever sent it can thank God for surfers like Hugh du Toit. Hugh, the Queens and OTW locals, and a few surfers I've known most of my life, remind me that not all those braving the ocean wave deserve watery graves.


Platboom, Cape Point Nature Reserve

I've given pictures to more surfers than I care to remember. As somebody put it: "There are none so vain." But hey, they deserve the pics. And there are three people out there yet to get their shots. I remember those I've neglected rather than those to whom I've given. There's a mail and e-mail address I can't find, and another e-mail address (of a Queens local) I've forgotten. I owe those people.

Perhaps the guy in the mail above just doesn't know how to say "Please". It's a word with which we South Africans tend to have great difficulty. Nah... I don't think so. This one's about entitlement and arrogance. And white South Africans generally have no difficulty exercising those traits.

Look at it this way. Last year, the USPS gave me US$300 to license a picture of a seagull for a postage stamp — due out in 2009. Yeah, that's right. It works out to R3,659.65 at today's exchange rate. Why? Because the picture, like the one in this case, belongs to me. So we have two options. "Please" or a sizeable fee.

Whichever one you choose is fine with me.

Fun with Eugenics

"All your base are belong to us. Take me to your leader..."

Indeed... Fishrush meets RB? Why not?

This is a "science" evoking images of Hillary.

The blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus) is a fish that inhabits the deep waters off the coasts of Australia and Tasmania. Due to the inaccessibility of its habitat, it is rarely seen by humans.

Blobfish are found at depths where the pressure is several dozens of times higher than at sea level, which would likely make gas bladders inefficient. To remain buoyant, the flesh of the blobfish is primarily a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less than water; this allows the fish to float above the sea floor without expending energy on swimming. The relative lack of muscle is not a disadvantage as it primarily swallows edible matter that floats by in front of it. It is often caught by bottom trawling with nets.

Pic of Mr. Blobby courtesy NORFANZ.

Wikipedia | Blobfish

BadaBing!!!

The Cat that Stole the Cream

Does this guy look self-satisfied or what? Marek J. Maybe Elvis (aka Brother Marek) and his Peekaboo were married today in Plano, Texas. On 1 April. Seriously. As Marek so eloquently puts it:

"Some of you for years have heard from me this strange story about Love and Loss and Foolishness and you wondered: "Will I ever have such an exciting story like this guy?" The answer is 'Probably Not' but don't worry - you can participate as if you did. We are gladly giving this story away to you dear fools.

So today, on Saint Fools Days, we have gotten ourselves married. Let me present to you the history and future of us in three simple scenes.

Scene 1: it is 1988, 20 years ago - We are in Love. Those Fools we were thinking we can have this Foolish happiness for ever.
Scene 2: it is 2003, 5 years almost ago - We have just met again after 14 years of Foolish living, getting married to other people living in strange countries halfway around the world.
Scene 3: this morning, just being foolishly married.

Nice, isn't it? To all you fools, 'Have a wonderful day.'"

Is it possible to be truly happy for people one's not yet met? Well, Brother Marek puts these sort of things in perspective and to the test. In this case, the answer is an emphatic yes.

The Jesus Bunker poet laureate, executive officer of the Titanic Deck Chair Rearrangement Corporation®, gunslinger extraordinaire (he has a 30mm cannon mounted on the hood of his Caddie), founder of Kombinat!, midwife of RGE©, and Teacher in Residence at Father Christopher's Boulder-based Love Clinic, has done it again — proving love conquers all.

Mugabe Unlikely to Stand Down...

Cape Point Lighthouse...

Diplomatic and Zimbabwean sources who heard first-hand accounts of the Joint Operations Command meeting of senior military and intelligence officers and party officials on Sunday night said Mr Mugabe favoured immediately declaring himself president again but was persuaded to use the country's electoral commission to keep the opposition from power.

But in an unexpected twist, two senior sources in Mr Mugabe's ZANU-PF last night released their party's projected outcomes, which had the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, ahead on 48.3 per cent, against Mr Mugabe's 43 per cent. That would result in a re-run of the election, with a candidate needing 51 per cent for outright victory.

The atmosphere remained tense across the country yesterday with riot police in armoured carriers deployed in two of Harare's opposition strongholds. The commission continued releasing a trickle of results, but the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said it believed the count was being manipulated.

[...]

A senior diplomat who received accounts from two people privy to the Joint Operations Command meeting said it discussed shutting down the count, or the army declaring martial law on the pretext of defending the country from instability caused by the opposition claiming victory.

"They did not consider conceding," said the diplomat. "We understand Mugabe nearly decided to declare victory. Cooler heads prevailed."

Sydney Morning Herald | Mugabe plots to stay in power


Sunrise, Booi Se Skerm

Mugabe's security cabinet decided on Sunday night not to recognise defeat after the state election commission forewarned the president that he had lost the vote.

MDC officials said the accounts they received of that meeting hours later had the party worried that the government might cancel the election and arrest opposition leaders, or that the military might intervene.

Yesterday, the MDC presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, approached the former army chief, Solomon Mujuru, who is still a powerful figure within the military, to say the MDC is prepared to reassure the security establishment that a transfer of power would not lead to prosecutions for past crimes or a purge.

Guardian | Zimbabwe opposition in talks with military


Realpolitik

Even should Mugabe go, the MDC election campaign — manipulating its external power base and mainstream media in much the same way Ahmed Chalabi and the Bush administration revised reality to suit their deadly purpose in Iraq, will remain guilty of having endangered the lives of perhaps tens of thousands of ordinary Zimbabweans.

Ignoring history and Mugabe's stated intent to remain in office, the MDC has used last weekend's elections to further only its objectives. Like George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Robert Mugabe, and the murdered Saddam Hussein, Morgan Tsvangirai did not become a serious power broker by being a nice guy. He is, after all, a prominent politician from an extremely tough school located in an extremely dangerous neighbourhood.

Whatever the outcome of this election — and Mugabe will not step down lightly, Zimbabwe and its people face extremely tough times. For South Africans or Americans — or any so-called democratic nation to decry Zanu-PF's electoral chicanery is duplicitous at best and potentially lethal at worst. In a corporate world, elections serve as increasingly dubious indicators of sentiments generally held by and favouring those with access to media and money.

No country has survived the globalisation of politics. In 1994, KwaZulu Natal was handed to the IFP by the ANC. In 2000 and 2004, the Bush regime stole the White House. Such perversions of the democratic process automatically disqualify most so-called democrats from pronouncing on the free or fair nature of any election. More, the hypocrisy of our bought-and-paid-for politicians lends great respectability and credence to the recent elections held in Russia and Iran.

Who knows how this will pan out? Certainly not the New York Times or Reuters. I'm betting on Bob not leaving until given an offer he cannot refuse.

The outline of a deal has almost been reached for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to step down, opposition sources have told the BBC. They say representatives of Mr Mugabe, military chiefs and the opposition have held meetings chaired by South Africa since Saturday's elections.

The sources say Mr Mugabe is to give an address to the nation but urge caution until the announcement has been made. Zimbabwe and South Africa's governments denied any negotiations or a deal. But the US embassy in Harare said President Mugabe was expected to address the people of Zimbabwe shortly.

BBC | Deal 'close' for Mugabe to leave

An official in Mugabe's ZANU-PF party said the president was prepared to step down after 28 years in power but was still trying to win agreement from the army's chief of staff Constantine Chiwenga. Three European diplomats meanwhile said opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was ready to deliver a press conference to confirm the news.

"He is prepared to step down because he doesn't want to embarrass himself by going to a run-off," the ZANU-PF source said on condition of anonymity. "There is only one person still blocking him, the army chief of staff."

Senior diplomats in the capital Harare meanwhile confirmed that a deal had been done for Mugabe to step aside in favour of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. "Everything indicates that Mugabe will leave power smoothly," said one of the sources.

Sydney Morning Herald | Mugabe ready to step down: sources

Zimbabwe's opposition leader and a government minister have denied reports that a deal has been reached for President Robert Mugabe to step down. Morgan Tsvangirai said he believed his Movement for Democratic Change had won Saturday's election but declined to declare himself the winner.

He said his party would reveal their tally of results on Wednesday. Bright Matonga, Zanu-PF's Deputy Information Minister, also rejected reports of a deal.

BBC | 'No deal' for Mugabe to step down

Yes, well... and we're supposed to rely on these people for serious reportage?

BMO Crucifies the Kraut

All my loyal and much loved companions | They approve of me and share my code | I practice a faith that's been long abandoned | Ain't no altars on this long and lonesome road

Krauthammer offers The Official Line with a big Death of Thought Squad rap on the knuckles, a fuck you to an entire nation within a nation (the world is no longer listening) — and goes apeshit whacked-out demonizing rhetorical on the Phantom of Obama with a bumptious display of dyslexics writ for some large.

I saw a mad person in the subway station the other night. He was boxing with his reflection in the glass. He seemed to be winning. It was Krauthammer. On his way home. Self-satisfied. Back to his hovel, to mine his withering ass for ideas, a self-loathing propagandist for the late stage dementia of a crumbling Statesism, whoring stale turds with biblical zeal, delivering them with the slothful logic of a sports page editorialist. Anything not on track — by its non-aligning nature — is to be totalised and dismissed. Out of bounds crys The K Hammer.

I suppose it’s the wilful lack of empathy that galls. The White ‘tightlement ‘tude. The monstrosity it fronts reps and cheers for. Voices are not appropriated here, they are silenced and consigned to the death camp.

His writing here is vile. His attempt theft of the human narrative by labelling and dismissing the stories of the nonaligned is a passive-aggressive hate. Hate me! Why do you hate me? Word Goons like the K Hammer are abundant and testament to the health of a flawed species. We can take solace. The K Hammer will rot in hell. The transition will be seamless. He will be home. It will seem like the here and now.

Ain't talkin', just walkin' | My mule is sick, my horse is blind | Heart burnin', still yearnin' | Thinkin' ‘bout that gal I left behind



It's bright in the heavens and the wheels are flying | Fame and honor never seem to fade | The fire's gone out but the light is never dying | Who says I can't get heavenly aid?

The real threat Wright poses — which is not in the least way exciting, but valid — is not his worked up AntiAmericanism, it’s the challenge his view (and the like) present on the christian plane, or as a support pillar of The Exceptional States of America. Wright’s words are revealed to us, the heathen in the rest of the western world, in this part of North America at least, as Christian, as in the teachings of Christ. With America it’s always fucking biblical. In this case New Testament versus Old.

There’s work to be done before there is a resurrection of the Great American Spirit. And many travails. Plus the diaspora. Oh, yeah. That.

And as a christian nation-state — debate that if you will — Americans may look to Jesus on this day and find humility in a radical man who walked amongst the dispossessed as an equal. Frame that around your window on the world. Nix the thundering bipolar Moses schtick.

In other words, be fucking human.

The K Hammer’s Industrial Thought is a big spongy purple finger; We’re Number One — his thoughts, willnots, poised, witless, fresh with the bouquet of his stale pale ass.

Brian Moffat | Cabbage in, shit out

What can I say? Great blogging? It's something more — but then BMO has always been someone else. Would that we had such commentary in South Africa. Mind you, we'd need more Krauthammers to generate such pyrotechnic flair.

Most of the above piece is replicated here. For more of the same, follow the links.

Ain't talkin', just walkin' | Carrying a dead man's shield | Heart burnin', still yearnin' | Walkin' with a toothache in my heel



The suffering is unending | Every nook and cranny has its tears | I'm not playing, I'm not pretending | I'm not nursing any superfluous fears

Yet another genuinely batshit-crazy Web hooligan? Ahfukit, conscience to the stars, comments on Saturday's post below:

Naked slippery flagpole climbing in my town.

Flagpoles greased with bashedmananas.

First to touch old glory's hem

winnadinna

or hightea with umaoprah

on the lawn

He speaks, of course, of the tortoise, the hare, and our mindset. Malnourished babies, we suck the base of the mast with ravenous, single-minded purpose. It feeds us while offering us the promise of a saccharin-sweet ride to the top — a Nirvana of consumptive plenty (in both senses) lit by the warmglow of umaoprah's all-knowing smile.

Rationally, of course, as the bashedmanana transfers from the pole to our ever-greater girth, so our mass increases, making the ascent of a still-slithery staff increasingly difficult. We become retarded, distracted, dissatisfied (ADD anybody?). So what do we do? We remain rooted to the stump, settle for our diet of bashedmanana, and bawl for umaoprah as the winds above unravel the dumb memory of our deluded dream. Freak flags flying indeed.

Needless to say, we never do grow teeth.

Twas ever thus...but we rely on the few to remind us of it.

Ain't talkin', just walkin' | Walkin' ever since the other night | Heart burnin', still yearnin' | Walkin' ‘til I'm clean out of sight

Bob Dylan | Ain't Talkin'

International Herald Tribune | Clinton says she would have split with Obama's pastor

I do not, for a minute, doubt it.



"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles."

Slate | Hillary, Lies, and Videotape

Once again, America's white leaders play footsie with white intolerance while Obama was pressured to bring the nation the head of Jeremiah Wright. Once again, a black person holds the nation's bag of racial burdens. Whatever discussions Obama started across America with his speech, the fact that Huckabee and McCain offer more comfort to Obama than Clinton is evidence that at the top, the conversation is tongue-tied.

Boston Globe | The Black Man's Burden

Small Beginnings ...

...can lead to great things.

The transcript of the speech gives a clear insight into the Democratic candidate’s thinking on the state of race in America today and more importantly, from a South African perspective, throws light on issues which still divide us 14 years post-apartheid.

It also demonstrates what a powerful force for positive change in Africa Obama could be, if he were to be elected as president of the United States of America. His understanding of the racial divide, what causes it to shift and the ways in which it might be bridged, may well prove to be invaluable in putting this continent on the right track.

[...]

The problems of our fellow South Africans are the problems of us all — if we can use that as our starting point we will make progress far quicker than looking after ourselves. For example, if people are squatting that is not a black problem it is a South African problem. It touches on crime, health, poverty and too many other issues to list here. By dealing with it you reduce many of the problems facing this great nation. This must apply across the board.

Obama’s speech was more than just a Lincoln moment, it was a reaffirmation of the ideals and aspirations of one of the greatest human beings that ever lived — Nelson Mandela — that a rainbow nation, working and living together as one, would occupy the Southern tip of Africa.

Michael Trapido | Barack Obama echoes Mandela: The rainbow nation address

The freedom of the blogs has allowed many of us, e.g. Jeneane, Frank, Bruce (who links further afield), me, and others to bat this one about a while, i.e. since Jeneane and Frank's posts of March 18. By the time our Designer Bloggers had brushed and buffed their contributions, we — with the exception of Jeneane who really probes the implications of wounds over time, had moved on.

To Tibet. But that was the Locke Lama's fault and we have no need to apologise for our meandering. The link between Obama and Mandela had been made and its import dissected and digested.

Now Traps Trapido, one of our better Polished Pundits, gives cause for pause. Taking a couple of steps back to the miracle and wonder of Obama's Mandela Moment, I found — in Traps's entry — clear reinforcement of the ideas tossed about these comments' boxes.

Matching the men to their words, Trapido not only makes the Mandela link — he gives a peculiarly abstract sense of hope to my initial feeling of despair on coming across Obama's speech at Listics.

I had wanted to comment on Obama's speech immediately, Frank having replicated it, but it was too much, too soon... and I was left feeling depressed. Here we South Africans, capable of appreciating a leader of Obama's potential, find ourselves leaderless at a defining time in our history and, across the pond, a potential statesman is being eviscerated by his own people on Fox News.

What a fucking waste. Or so it seemed.

What Traps does is hammer home how South Africans, deprived of an Obama, can learn from the nominee's words and use that learning to realise the future envisioned by Madiba.

But we've a way to go yet: "We are still far too close to the end of apartheid to start thinking of it as the past; it is very much part of the here and now. While many of us would like to draw a line in the sand the reality does not allow for that just yet."


Observer status...

If I do have a problem with both Obama's speech and Michael Trapido's blogging of it, it's that both see a need to distance themselves from the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Obama's pastor certainly does not merely "...simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality." He eschews mealy-mouthed political correctness and tells it like it Goddamn is (and all strength to him for doing so).

Simplicity, stereotyping, and amplification are Obama's stock in trade. On March 15, I labeled our New World Madiba a coconut, a six-time loser, an unmitigated asshole, and a two-faced, double-dealing, low-rent hypocrite.

He deserved it.

Go over to Winter Patriot's. You'll find a very different take on Obama as a whole. WP's saved it all for last and his words pack enormous punch. And not only is he as right as you or me: as one of my political touchstones, I believe he's far better informed than you, me, or both of us put together.

But just as Winter Patriot pens a piece seemingly diametrically opposed to views articulated by Marc Lord, we should remember that nothing and nobody is as clearcut as they seem.

Martin Luther King Jr. frequently behaved like a pig and Madiba was an authoritarian of note. We're dealing with people here and they're inherently flawed.

We discuss in comments how it's unlikely Obama will find himself in the Oval Office this time round. But he has made a name for himself and, in time, a movement — born of globalization and socio-political polarization, and divorced from the AIPAC-vetted, Diebold-fixed mockery of democracy foisted on US-ians, will arise and he will be needed and used.

That is our way.

Neither view excludes the other.

Nevertheless, it's a great blog and, hey, it needed time to gestate. Where I do fault it in favour of the rough-and-ready nature of our day-to-day discourse, is in its tendency towards abstraction in the sense that great sentiments are a bugger to translate to generally accepted practice.

Having been guilty of that ourselves in our entries, we have been able, through interaction over time in the comment box, to grapple with inevitable questions arising from ugly realities. And Jeneane's still hammering away at the Wright stuff and more.

Our questions will not disappear into a mist of media as they tend to do in the rarefied air of Thought Leader.

As Traps himself points out: "In essence, ... a Constitution constructed with all the good intentions in the world, is not enough to set us free or mend the damage caused by the past. It takes South Africans, willing to go about their daily lives with the determination to make those words a reality. This does not happen overnight."

To paraphrase the Locke Lama: "Instead, try thinking of Americans and South Africans as normal human beings like you and me..."

Right on...

And for more on Tibet, refer to Father Christopher and his Garden Tripper, Chris Locke...

Free Tibet?

Life is suffering...

Chances are good that most of you would balk (to say the least) at the idea of living under a born-again evangelical Christian theocracy. Uh, that's OK, thanks. I'm trying to cut down. Or how about an Islamic theocracy? That'd be cool, right? Well, hmmm, on second thought, maybe not. But a Buddhist theocracy? Especially a Tibetan Buddhist theocracy? Double-down super-especially a Tibetan Tantric Buddhist theocracy? A-OK! Bring it on!

[...]

Instead, try thinking of the Tibetans and Chinese as normal human beings like you and me, trying to work things out on the ground instead of allowing themselves to be used as pawns in the hyper-abstract geopolitical war games still being played on artificially intelligent supercomputers by dried up old military geezers in Washington and Beijing. And yes, Virginia, on the equally bizarre prayer wheels of Dharamsala.

Mystic Bourgeoisie | uma's dad and america's favorite theocracy


Orion — The Hunter 21 March 2008

As Father Christoper — or Locke Lama as he is known in the East, so eloquently points out (as transcribed by his Garden Tripper Chris Locke), nothing is free.

Get used to it, get over it, and start cleaning up your own backyard.

And get the CIA the fuck out of there.


Table Mountain — under an Equinox moon...

Many Buddhists maintain that, before the Chinese crackdown in 1959, old Tibet was a spiritually oriented kingdom free from the egotistical lifestyles, empty materialism, and corrupting vices that beset modern industrialized society. Western news media, travel books, novels, and Hollywood films have portrayed the Tibetan theocracy as a veritable Shangri-La. The Dalai Lama himself stated that "the pervasive influence of Buddhism" in Tibet, "amid the wide open spaces of an unspoiled environment resulted in a society dedicated to peace and harmony. We enjoyed freedom and contentment."

[...]

Seen in all its grim realities, old Tibet confirms the view I expressed in an earlier book, namely that culture is anything but neutral. Culture can operate as a legitimating cover for a host of grave injustices, benefiting a privileged portion of society at great cost to the rest. In theocratic feudal Tibet, ruling interests manipulated the traditional culture to fortify their own wealth and power. The theocracy equated rebellious thought and action with satanic influence. It propagated the general presumption of landlord superiority and peasant unworthiness. The rich were represented as deserving their good life, and the lowly poor as deserving their mean existence, all codified in teachings about the karmic residue of virtue and vice accumulated from past lives, presented as part of God’s will.

Michael Parenti | Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth

Speaking of normal human beings...


Battle at Kruger

The winner in an Eyewitness category is "Battle at Kruger" a video graphically documenting a battle between lions, a crocodile and water buffalo they want to turn into a meal in Kruger National Park in South Africa.

News24.com | Kruger video a web hit