Adventures of an Atheist Minister

Through a strange confluence of circumstances, involving a pastor that didn't arrive and illicit alcohol at a dry wedding, I am now an ordained minister.

As it turns out, you can totally do it online, no questions asked. It is easier than joining the Boy Scouts or Fight Club. The only requirement is that you are over 13 years of age.
According to the email I got after filling in the form, I can now perform Weddings, Christenings, Last Rites and Absolution of Sins.

I have also joined a list of illustrious people that includes all the members of the Beatles,  Mel Blanc, Tony Danza, Richard Branson, Johnny Carson, Sammy Davis Jnr, Doris Day, Hugh Hefner, some members of The Village People, Alanis Morrisette, Conan O'Brien, Kevin Smith, Barbra Streisand, Hunter S. Thompson, Russel Brand, Sir Ian McKellen and Bryan Cranston.

The creed is also pretty easy, freedom of religion and 'Do only that which is right'. As a person lacking in any beliefs, that is something I can agree with.

Of course I did splurge on the Ordination Package and got myself a certificate and press pass as well as wallet credentials and parking permit, recently I also received a cap and lapel pin. All of which is only for show.

The day I received my certificate in the post I was at a party which moved to a club, I was also convinced by two pretty little things to dress up in full regalia before going there. 

Considering that this was a goth/alternative club with people in leather and gas masks, I was still pretty surprised that some people noticed the collar and got upset.  

The ones that actually spoke to me were cool with the idea of a Reverend without belief, that could absolve their sins by sprinkling whiskey. The other ones just glared at me and I could tell that they were not very keen on the desecration of cloth and symbolism.

All of which got me thinking about the relation some people have with the symbol vs the belief.
By definition, a symbol is only the thing that stands for something else, a type of shorthand for a greater and bigger concept that would be way too long to put on a bumper sticker.

A symbol is nothing in itself, it does not carry any weight or power, it only serves to indicate or show something else and can be used by anybody to indicate anything.

I had a very one sided conversation regarding the Pentagram, which has alternately been used by the early Christians, Sir Gawain of Arthurian fame, the Bahá'í, Wǔ Xíng Chinese Tradition, Latter Day Saints and Modern Wiccans.

It does not mean the same thing to all of them, and can be co-opted by any new belief and any meaning can be ascribed to it by anybody. To me it does not mean anything, yet the person I was talking to wanted to get into a discussion about whether it is good or bad if pointing up or down. All of which are artificial constructs.

Another good example is the Swastika, it was in use in India by the Indu Valley Civilisation way before the Nazi's were a thought, yet they co-opted it and ruined it for everyone. Even so, it is still being used in Asia, without the Nazi connotation.

That is the nature of symbols, they have no inherent meaning in themselves.

Me having the title Reverend and wearing a collar at a club, should not affect anyone's belief, nor should they be bothered by it. Yet in their minds the symbol and the thing it represents has become one and the same.

Sprinkling whiskey and repeating the 'this house is clean' line from Poltergeist to absolve sins may be pushing the envelope, but if I am mocking the idea of religion as opposed to your specific religion, should you not be able to have a conversation and reasoned debate about it?

I do realise that not all people are as enlightened and intelligent as others, but they can at least try to defend their viewpoint instead of dirty looks.

The next step is to be registered by the government so that I can also legally perform marriages, there seems to be a need for a non-denominational, non-religious service.  

So do not be too surprised if an Irreverent Reverend arrives at your local pub, looking to get drunk, I am not too hypocritical about that either.

Cruciferous Vegetable Man

A straw man argument if ever there was one, take two things similar enough and confuse them.

Saw this on a Facebook photo and couldn't resist to tear it apart. Fascinating and interesting reading, until you come to the last line.

 

Comparing the calories without looking at the required weight is a bit fallacious, considering you have to eat almost 15 times as much broccoli as the measly 24g of steak.15 fucking times more! That 'steak' is a tenth of the size of the most common portion size you can buy in restaurants, a mere snack.

If we were to do a direct weight for weight comparison, both ways, who will win?

Dividing on the one side to get the equivalent values for the same weight in broccoli and multiplying for steak gives this. As the difference in weight is so big, if we even it out for both, they are actually pretty even, the 'winner' is highlighted.

Now repeat after me: 'Look at the numbers properly, before they confuse you'.

You will notice that they each 'win' 9 times, whichever way you cut it, provided you are comparing them weight for weight and not based on the calorie count.

That being sad, we are not comparing apples with apples, as vegetables are not meat and thus will have very little protein and no fat, whereas a big beautiful steak is meat, protein and fat. A better way to try and convince me to go vegan would have been using an actual protein containing non-meat, such as nuts, but of course this would mean fat again and the big killer cholesterol, with very little of the vitamins.

And would you be allowed in the room after eating so much broccoli in any case?

We hear methane gas contributes to global warming, so that would just move it from the cows to your living room.

What a benefit!
 

Virginity, but why?

Watching the Penn & Teller, Bullshit! episode regarding abstinence education and the push on 'saving' oneself and 'staying pure' made me wonder.

Who decides that it is pure?

Who decides that being a virgin is bigger and better than not being one?

Why is the first act of sex such a big deal?

The first time I had sushi wasn't built up to be this massive big and great thing, even though you may get parasites from eating raw fish.

The same with when I climbed onto a motorbike, it is probably orders of magnitude more dangerous than un-protected sex, the chances of dying are definitely higher and it will be a lot faster than catching an STD.

Why is it that some simple and silly thing such as doing something for the first time is such a big deal in this case?

There are a lot of firsts that require a lot more time to actually think about it and consider the risks, scuba and sky diving comes to mind.

These are activities that carry real risks and require actual training, not just a fumble in the dark, whether drunk or not.

You can't just go out and find a willing partner to help you, you need to be certified and licensed.

Wouldn't it be great if we could divorce a perfectly natural act from all the stigma that surrounds it and just get on with it?
 

Religion should be Pro-Abortion

Allow me to expand on this simple idea.

The religious right will hammer on about the sanctity of life, but one of the biggest arguments with regard to abortion is that it is a sin. I disagree, it is a blessing.

Consider the case of a hardened criminal who has not repented and finally dies violently, he will end up in hell, correct?

Now the innocent baby that has not committed any sin whatsoever goes to heaven, correct?

Based on those two assumptions I can make a case that aborting a fetus, zygote or collection of cells; is the best thing that you could do.

The big question is the existence of the soul, with religous beliefs this is a given as well. The next question then is whether the soul exists beforehand and enters the body at the moment of birth or during conception.

One can also argue that the soul gets created by the same god that would condemn the person to hell or allow to enter heaven. The general consensus from the religious standpoint is that the soul comes into existence at conception.

With those assumptions agreed upon, and without getting into arguments about when the soul gets created or becomes part of the body, what would happen to a soul-containing fetus that gets aborted? The body dies, but the soul lives forever and either enters heaven or spends eternity in hell.

A merciful god would not send this soul that has not committed any sin to hell for the sins of the parents, the other option is that the soul gets destroyed by the same god that created it.

This too does not seem feasible according to the scriptures.

The only option, logical conclusion or result - according to scripture - is that this poor innocent soul ends up in heaven.

Thus the only argument that can be used with regards to anti-abortion from a religious point is that the parents have commited a sin, the soul from the fetus being innocent and without blame, it basically gets a free pass.

Consider now that the parents or doctors were responsible for preventing another soul from committing any sin and ensuring that it ends up in heaven. Is that not the purpose of all priests and holy men? Is that not the purpose of religion itself?

The parents and doctors have actually  committed a 'perceived sin' which is no sin in fact.

They can be described as martyrs at worst, by doing something that society frowns upon, and leaving them open to condemnation, but the results of which is for the glory of their God.

By the abortion that they have been part of, they have ensured that another soul enters heaven.

Is this not the best thing that they can do?

The God of It

In a perfect world we would not need to have this debate at all, but seeing that the US Presidential Election are coming round and half the people voting do so based on their religious beliefs, allow me to piss them off.

When faced with the two most incompatible super powers of their god, I ask myself whether the omnipotence can override the omniscience?

If he knows already what he will do (omniscience), did he choose to do it (omnipotence), or did he know that he was going to make the choice? If he knew that he was going to make the choice, did he make it at all? If not, then he did not have the free will and is not omnipotent anymore. If he didn't know that he was going to make the choice, then he is not omniscient either. This can go in circles all day long, and the question I want answered: Can he change his mind?

If you are a Watchmen fan you will know about the difficulty Doctor Manhattan has in relating to human beings as he can see the past, present and future all at the same time. (Just like Death in the Terry Pratchett novels.)

Towards the end of the movie he decides to leave humanity behind and spend a bit of time alone on Mars. This illustrates the foreign and strange personality and intelligence of a god quite clearly. He has no way to relate to humans as he can see their fleeting and insignificant lives against the backdrop of a whole universe that is there to explore and control.

With the power to accomplish anything, would you still even try?

I remember an argument with my sister a good couple of years back regarding the sex of god, she insisted he was a man because the mysoginistic bible writers said so. End of case. It was bad enough looking at a blue glowing penis for 3 hours, would you want to do that for the next few millenia in heaven?

We tend to anthropomorphize god and ascribe feelings and viewpoints to him based on our own belief systems and mores/values, which are pretty flexible and change over time. If you really believe in the existence of a god with the powers that you want him to have, you would have to admit that he is beyond comprehension and take the agnostic viewpoint.

That being said, it makes whatever he/she/it may be much closer to a complete and utter alien lifeform that we will never be able to understand and turns god into a a Lovecraftian intelligence that will devour us just as easily as save us. It would only use us for its own pleasure and amusement.

This god would be beyond any comprehension as it is literally able to move through time. It would be the most strangest and weirdest thing that we have ever encountered.

The religious can counter that their god is personal and cares and looks after them every day, but lacking any proof to the contrary, I can only think that this makes him the ultimate voyeur in charge of his own Truman Show.

This strange and incomprehensible being/intelligence will have no human morals or values as we understand them. And we still haven't answered the conundrum I posited earlier.

With no human morals or limits, would you really want to depend for your future on such a being? Would you really want this kind of stange alien life to have control over you?

We may just as well start praying to Cthulhu.
 

Tsunami causes Emotional Meltdown

Accidents happen, they always have and they always will.

The trick that any right thinking person learns during the formative years is to use those accidents and see where you went wrong and ensure that you don't do what you did before. You learn from your mistakes in other words - the end result is that you are able to walk, run, talk and not bumble around making random noises while falling on your face.

With the unfolding events after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the possibility of a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, the tree-huggers are having an emotional meltdown as well.

Earthlife Africa is 'horrified' and immediately compares this disaster to Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Paks.

Courtesy of Wikipedia we can safely say that they do not bear any relation to each other. Chernobyl in 1986 was caused by inadequate training combined with human error and an unsafe design which was recognised as being out of date at the time it was built. The Three Mile Island partial meltdown in 1979 was also caused by flawed design and human error, with minor effects on the surrounding area and it was mostly contained.

The two incidents at Paks in Hungary does not have any reported effects on the operators or the surrounding towns, and it is still operating as we speak, a non event it seems. We seem to have learned a few things since 1979 and the mistakes of yesterday may just be making a difference today.

What happened in Japan then, was not caused by human error or a flawed design, but the same mother nature that the tree-huggers are so in love with, fucking with us.

The design withstood the type of disaster that it was designed for, the tsunami caused additional problems which we are sure will be taken into account when building future power plants.

If we stopped designing or building or inventing each time that something bad happened which was not foreseen, there would have been very little advancement in the history of mankind.

Imagine the inventor of the internal combustion engine being 'horrified' when the first car accident happened and everyone stopped designing? We would still be traveling at 4 miles an hour with a person walking in front of the car waving a red flag to warn people.

Because of an accident we cannot say that we should not be investigating and pushing the boundaries, if we knew exactly what we were doing, would we be doing it at all?

Christiaan Barnard took huge risks when he did the first heart transplant, a procedure that is almost routine today, but he unfortunately caused the death of his test subjects before he tried the first human.

Should we not take any risks at all? Should we not push the boundaries of knowledge and science because of risks involved?

If we are too afraid of adverse results and end up doing nothing, the result would be no advancement in knowledge or humanity, and we may as well return to living in caves and eating fruit, because inventing the first flint knife may have unforeseen results.

14th of Feb

In the year of our lord two hundred and forty nine,
One poor martyr, with the name Valentine;
Was made to suffer and tortured till dead,
Now we celebrate love and going to bed.

The dungeon master was so very cruel,
He lashed him with whips and nails, not cool.
Now we go forth and buy undies with feather,
And all sorts of toys, and garments of leather.

What once was a dream, nay a true fact,
That he’d rather die, than sign the devil’s pact;
Is now a big farce of chocolates and roses,
Of lovers and admirers, statements and poses.

Do you not think it would truly vex,
St Valentine to find, we celebrate sex.

Night of the Long Bullshit

With Madiba in hospital and the world press waiting to see what happens next, we are sure that the same old crap has been going around on email again.


We also reckon that the guys at Stormfront are having a field day, if it wasn't that they were out shopping for candles and canned food.

But to get back to the title of this post, The Night of the Long Knives, or operation Hummingbird as it is also known, already took place under Nazi rule in Germany in the 1930's, so even the name is a rehash. If you prefer the other term, Uhuru, it is either a reggae band from Jamaica or the Swahili word for freedom.

You must have received the email at least once, telling the story about how the Swart Gevaar! are waiting for Madiba to pass away before rising up and slaughtering all the white people, woman and children included.

But what about other race groups and foreigners? If you skim the news there has been more violence against people from other African countries than other Race Groups, no matter what the Freedom Front (there's that word again) wants you to believe about farm murders. Will there be special attention or special dispensation? What if you don't want to join, do you also get murdered then and another embassy have to get involved?

Now, have you seen your gardener, domestic or factory worker skulking around with a panga or AK47 today? Just watch out tomorrow, and the next, and the next and so on, until Madiba gets out of hospital.

Because the moment he does not and gets driven away in a hearse, the Swart Gevaar! will come. (Unless they have to quickly pop home to go and fetch the panga because it started getting ridiculous carrying it around. And they will probably ask you for extra taxi fare as there is no way that any taxi driver will allow free rides, no matter the purpose.)

Pathetic as it may sound, some people believe it, but let's consider for a bit.

At this point Mandela is a trending topic on Twitter, the CNN regularly switches over to Milpark hospital, Google is awash and the whole world is watching. Then if he should pass away, we will have a state funeral with more coverage than when Princess Diana died.

With that kind of exposure, what will be the result if the Swart Gevaar! does rise up and kill all the white people?

Foreign Investment will go down the drain, who will want to invest when your CEO gets killed when he sets foot at the office? The JSE will crash bigger than 1929 as all of a sudden in one day or week there are no more leaders in the big international listed companies.

The Rand is also the most actively traded emerging market currency in the world, what would happen if it were to drop to R50 or R100 to the dollar?

Sure, the events in Rwanda can be taken as an example, but the death toll is estimated at 800 000 over a period of three months and it did not happen at a time when the whole world was watching, neither did they have a World Cup in the last year with an estimated 860 000 tourist entering the country every month. The figures speak for themselves, and then the white race in South Africa are around 4.6 Million.

So do you really think that the logistics are possible with a government that can't even fix potholes but have to rely on an insurance company to do so? When the Major of Johannesburg tells everyone that there is no billing crisis when 8% of all invoices sent are queried? When it takes months before a real crisis with acid mine drainage that threatens a World Heritage Site is still awaiting the final report?

And then we have one last question: Why kill and murder off your tax paying residents that ensures your Breitling watch gets you to the exclusive Sandton restaurant on time in your luxury car to feast on Cristal and oysters at their expense?

Isn't it so much easier to just fleece them every month and raise the petrol price and other taxes every so often?

A Virtual Fuckfest

Consider the irony...You decide to finally join Facebook because you feel left out. Then you suddenly get all these new friends, some of them from school.

The next step is to look up the hot girl from math class that you never stood a chance with, maybe she is married or divorced, else still single and you are in luck. You friend her and then you don't know what to do anymore, exhausted all your options, you play around with messages and wall posts until you get bored.

Until one day you get the light bulb idea, let's Poke her!

Seriously, now you have entered the territory of virtual sex without having to mess around in chat rooms and looking for Hottie18 or Stan24.

With over 600 million users, if only a quarter of them Pokes one person per day, that is still 150 million Pokes a day.

According to the Penguin Atlas of Human Sexual Behaviour, there are only 120 million instances per day of people doing it for real.

So definitely more cyber Poking going on then, but it does not stop there.

To help you along, they even offer a Poke fan page and there is an offical Poke Day...

So get in there and become a fan of Poke! Or you can even Poke yourself.

Just so long as it does not get any worse.

Super Strikas

Not the comic as nothing is funny about thugs leaving babies to die.

We can't help but think that in this case the striking is more akin to blackmail of the worst kind than a geniune request for more money.

A person earning R10 000 will only get R160 extra on the 1.6% being fought over, so it will take a while to get back the R5000 they will be docked if on strike for two weeks. So what gives?

Of course COSATU is the main instigator, but they are also part of the Tripartite Alliance, which makes them playing on both sides - a clear conflict of interest if ever there was one.

What if they are flexing muscles in order to show the ANC who is boss? Can we even consider this? The strike as a cover to demand not more money for the workers they claim to represent, but to get more of a say in the policy decisions and economic direction of the country?

COSATU blowing their vuvuzela and shouting about the power they have from the top of the dung heap. Look what we can do, make the country ungovernable, kill innocent people, listen to us!

Truly scary, and a thought we think should be considered and perhaps become a parliamentary question - which will not happen as COSATU is not a political party but merely an alliance partner, perfect cover for getting away with the worst abuses without the responsibility.

Being on strike is one thing, but picketing and protesting while preventing volunteers from saving lives which you do not care for is something else altogether. Go home, but do not kill in the name of money.

FIFA Marketing Sucks

What is the Confederations Cup and what is it all about?

Which Confederation of what?

Read in the paper today that it kicks off sometime in the next week, surprise, surprise.

And then another article that compares the Confed Cup with the IPL promotion and marketing campaign which made the same point we have been spouting around the braai fires the past few weeks.

How quick did the IPL happen and how fast and good were the ads?

How long have we known about the Confed Cup and how much time has there been to prepare and promote it?

What little ridiculous promotion has been done?

All I remember is the one silly TV ad with the guys in cheap halloween masks scaring the kids with their dribbling ability.

And tonight a brand new one with stupid graphics and Joseph S. Blatter spouting crap about Telkom while you can see his eyes following the lines on the teleprompter.

The quality of some YouTube clips are better than the stuff they have come up with.

With the prices they charge for the matches we would actually like to see, we would have thought that they could at least hire someone with more than an attendance certificate in video 101 and access to a dictionary to look up what marketing and promotion means.

We do not want to blame it all upon whichever company they hired, but we do wonder who came up with the ideas and how they got approved.

Perhaps that is the problem? Brilliant ideas lying on the boardroom table while the lawyers haggle over the legalities of the soccer ball logo used on the proposal cover?

Maybe it will get better, but we are not holding our breath; and looking forward to the next IPL.

BEE en die Bybel

there has been talk about a sunset clause, about making the so-called born-free's exempt and various other ideas when a mention was needed in the press or political points to be scored.

but seeing that according to the lies we tell the Census people, just under 80% of the population is Christain, we would need to turn to another source to see what it says.

Genesis 4:15 '...Wie vir Kain vermoor, sal sewe maal gestraf word.'

of course, there is some interpretation and what it comes down to is that if you kill your brother you should/will be punished as well as your children and their children until seven generations has passed.

so if we believe that BEE is punishment or even not, brother killing went on during the Apartheid era. (brother in this case being another person, another human being with no regard to race or colour.)

thus the 'punishment' of BEE will have a specific end, not through the government, but a higher power and it cannot be regulated by the government either because the generational time frame would be different for each person who was guilty.

the unpopular implication is of course that thus BEE is also sanctioned in the bible and based upon biblical precedent.

just try and tell Pieter Mulder this one.

The legacy of colonialism

According to economic principals as well as the recorded history there are certain stages in the development of a society or nation. These stages account for the different degrees or levels of knowledge reached by a country as a whole in any given time of it's development.
During the high season of colonial anexation and slavery the European community destroyed the culture of a phenomenal amount of countries and tribes. But this damage could have been reversed, had it not been for their insistence of stamping their own image upon the indigenous people of Africa.
By exposing a country or nation to different mores and beliefs, you cannot but affect them. What made this worse was the fact that most of these nations were not ready in their development to accept or to control the level of advancement demanded.
Most of Europe had progressed beyond the basic levels and was moving into a heavily industrial age when they started to demand the same type or kind of understanding from their subjugated slaves. They failed to realise that they were dealing with a people that were still subsistence farmers, living of the land with the most rudimentary metal working skills, who had not yet advanced beyond it.
Even now, this same lack of understanding has not dawned on the European community, and they have not realised that to expect the nations and countries of Africa to respond in a like manner as they would, is futile. Africa has yet to engender that same level of knowledge in the people and has still to come to the same level of understanding as Europe. As a continent, they are still about 400 years behind in development.
It is easy to reach the same technological level, because there is such a proliferation of communication and information sharing. But having the cellphone and understanding how it works are two different things altogether.
Being given things will not change a person's outlook about them, beyond the use he can get from it. If that same person were to discover the same thing by himself and understood how it works and what it would take to maintain it, he would have a greater understanding about his role in relation.
Teaching a person how to drive will not automatically create an understanding of the inner workings of the engine. But by teaching a person how the engine works, you will give him more information and knowledge about how to drive and he would be a better driver, as he could then use that information to get the most out of the engine.
This is the crux of the problems facing the European communities' inability to communicate with the nations and countries of Africa and their lack of understanding about the problems being faced. Until they can realise and work on it, there will just be talk and rhetoric, without real change.

Mister Bob Mugabe

We don't want to rip him off, or say how badly he is running the country, (into the ground). Killing off his own people by misconstrued and idiotic policy, chasing away foreign investment and making himself and his political party the laughing stock of the world.

Supporting a mockery of free trade and democracy while siphoning the money for his own gain or anything else in that vein.

We just want to ask Mister Bob a few questions.
If he is so vehemently opposed to the Western Powers and all that they stand for, then:

Why does he have foreign investments in dollars and pounds?
Why does he drive around in a Rolls Royce, the epitome of British Rule?
Why does he wear a suit and tie instead of traditional dress?
Why does he rule as president with a parliament?
Why does he define his country according to the European borders set down in 1922?
If it is all that bad, why is he clinging to all the trappings while saying something different?

Come now Mister Bob, tell the truth and let us know, we are very curious indeed...

The Psychology of Intolerance

Robert Mugabe is a racist and a xenophobe. There is no distinct difference between him and others such as Adolf Hitler, Ghengis Khan or any other person who hates.

Hatred breeds hatred. Any action that he takes is driven and pushed by his hatred of others who are different than him. This is an all-consuming, mindless and insane hatred, bred and driven by hate.

Racism and xenophobia, fear of anyone who is different: gays, women, coloureds, Italians or Portugese, Muslims or Pagans, all this falls under the same banner. The mindless intolerance that is bred by fear and hate feeds on itself.

There is no distinct reason, or one cause, beyond that he believes what he speaks and what he professes. No person can stand to be wrong, this is why some will hold onto their mindless beliefs and refuse to listen to reason, even in the face of truth.

There is no thing worse in the world than a person who believes in himself and what he stands for with such an all-embracing closed mindset that he cannot listen. What ever the cause or reason that made such a person think with that mindset, be it circumstances, experience or indoctrination, he will continue to think in that insane manner. Tell yourself something for long enough and you start to believe it, whether true or not. It may have started as a political ploy, or excuse, but in time it turns into belief.

This belief, fed to enough people and repeated often enough, can change the mindset of a whole society. Driven by the need to fit in and be recognised as "one of us", people will do anything to belong. Witness the genocide in Rwanda, the Rape of Nanking and the Murder of the Jews.

All we can do is hope.

Unless you are willing to take a stand and speak out.

Leaders have Followers

This simple fact seems to be missed by all and sundry, who strut around, condemning Robert Mugabe.

They do not realise that there is more that just a leader running the country. Sure, he is a fool and is busy screwing the world and his own people for personal gain, but he is not alone.

He may be giving the orders, but others are carrying them out. Others are doing his bidding and demolishing homes, arresting innocents and murdering people.

The same happened in Rwanda, Burundi, Iraq, London and Afganistan.

One person makes a decision, but there are countless others who follow it through. They may do it out of fear, under force or duress or because they have no choice. This all are reasons given, but have they tried to do anything else?

What if all of them refused? Will Robert Mugabe kill everyone himself? Will he personally drive the bulldozers instead?

If the whole of the Police, Army and Security services as well as the Governmental workers went on strike in protest, what could Mugabe do?

If he gives the order to kill a person, the Security Police does not have to torture that person to death. They do not have to demolish a house with people still in it.

We are all faced by choices, and how we choose and carry out instructions says a lot more about us than who's direction we follow. It says a lot more about the country and the people in it that they would rather run than do anything about it.

What if Mugabe is a puppet? What if he is a figure head, on display for all to see, while others are running the show? What then?

Those damn Warnings

According to a recent article, the Department of Health has proposed to put warning labels upon liquor bottles, similar to the ones currently on cigarette packets.

We strongly oppose the proposed messages as biased and unsubstantiated.

If a man is a wife beater, he cannot blame it upon alcohol. If a person is a criminal, he cannot blame it upon alcohol.

A moral problem that is being exacerbated by the abuse of alcohol, cannot be compared to the consumption of alcohol.

We would like to see the Department of Health withdraw the Draft Regulations and embark upon a campaign to educate; much like the current one supported by the Association for Responsible Alcohol Use and other major role players in the industry; which will educate people about the dangers of alcohol abuse, but based upon scientific fact.

By trying to control the result and not the underlying cause, the Department of Health is moving into the domain of the Spiritual and Religious and taking over the responsibility of the family unit and parents, something for which they have no mandate.

(Of course, since this piece was written, the Department have gone ahead, blustering their way through the public debate and doing what they do really well: Telling us what is good for us.)

Acquiring Education

This past week I was walking with a friend in a bookstore and we discussed the book 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' by Robert M. Pirsig. The 25th anniversary edition was out and it was interesting to read the blurbs about how it was supposed to revolutionize the world, something which a quarter century on we were still waiting for.

It made me wonder about the way that we acquire education and what it actually means to us. Learning something by rote from a book is fine and well if you want to regurgitate it at a later stage to a professor as part of an exam, or to impress someone who may not know what you are talking about. But being able to repeat facts and the words of others does not mean that you have been educated.

Similarly, reading a book by a avant garde thinker may stimulate your thoughts and make you realise that there are more to life and inspire you to do more and follow your dreams. For at least a week.
For surely if you do not follow through and carry on and go further, which surely the author meant you to do, what is the purpose of even reading the book? You have gained a momentary enlightenment and saw something bigger, but ignored it and there was no point in reading the book beyond being able to comment on it when you see it displayed on the shelf of your dinner party host. A few minutes of faux intelligence and a half-heartedly discussion about garbled concepts which you dimly remember is all it has meant for you.

It has failed to bring you closer to the self realization and higher plane that you saw and envisioned. It has failed to put you where you belong and you are still drudging along in the same rut, waiting for that moment which will not find you unless you go looking for it. Reading and learning by rote should rather be shunned if that is the only thing that it will do for you.

It is better to go sit on a mountain top and medidate than to try digest second hand facts which does not touch you.

It does not mean that you have to go out of your way, but that you should start looking and know that there is more. This will put you faster on the path as 'Man does not have to strive, but only to realize the spiritual reality of the world in which he actually lives.'

different master, same sambok

Macambini residents near Mandini do have cause to be upset, even if the government does not wish to admit so.

what really makes the story interesting is that there are laws protecting people from forceful removal and more laws that allow people to claim their ancestral land back.

but in the name of progress, development, Dubai billions and 'the best interests of the people', the residents may lose their land.

i fail to understand how a government that is outspoken about taking farms away for restitution is also planning to remove people to make way for another rich playground? is this because the deadline for applications has lapsed, so if the planning goes ahead against the will of the community they will not be able to use the same law to protect themselves?

if the project does go ahead, how long before we find out that one of the official's wife's sister's daughter was a director of a company that supplied 'documentation/support/consultation/insert favourite euphimism for kickback here' to one of the preferred biders?

on a final note, the residents are free to burn tyres and protest but pelting innocent travellers with stones and damaging their cars is taking it a bit far, i would suggest rather to take that protest to the government buildings or they should take aim at the blue light brigade when next it passes. perhaps then the premier will stop and listen.