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I’ve been out of Cape Town since mid-January, spending a few weeks in one of the world’s true Capital cities – London.

I’m so conflicted when I am in the London. It is such an incredible melting pot, a morass of people and cultures, languages and behaviours. And yet despite its many different people it somehow doesn’t resonate multi-culturally in the way that South Africa does for me  - even though South Africans all claim one nationality.

That may be because London is in many ways hermetically sealed. Everyone is together, but at the same time everyone is alone – there is a broad agreement that no one engages anyone else two specifically at the risk that some sort of boundary may be crossed that no one will be able to get back from.

To stand in silence in a bus or tube, as the many other people around you are folded into their books, newspapers, iPhones and iPods is a bizarre experience for me. London never stops moving, breathing, walking, clanging, driving, screaming, shouting or frowning – but it never smiles, or talks, or says thank you – it terrifies me that it may be the human base condition that in an anonymous world we are all antagonistic and ambivalent towards our fellow people.

London is not a place for the old – that is for sure. The loneliness and hardship of the old in this city, I suppose is no different from any other – but it plays out both in public (which is a good thing, a lesson – and an opportunity for others to help the elderly) and in silence (despite the opportunity few do anything to help the old.

As I often say to people when I return to South Africa after a trip to London, I am always struck with a melancholy. London, the UK, Europe – is filled with wealth and a social state. But in other ways it feels like a place of decline – a place where all ideas have been hammered out, where the society is set, and greatness has passed.

South Africa, for all its flaws, its violence, its danger, its heat, and its throbbing energy – is a place we can still make great, it doesn’t collapse under the weight of its own history – rather its history is something to be transcended and improved upon, rather than to be viewed with nostalgia and a sense of loss.

Nothing motivates me more to make a contribution, and to change my own society than to be in another. Not because I see England as a model to be emulated (as Thabo Mbeki, it is believed by some, saw it) – but rather as a place that we should never strive to see South Africa to become – a place in which the push for social welfare has stifled the surge for opportunity.

There is a lesson though – that a society can become so stable that the mundane occupies the body politic – that healthcare, education and a home are not simply hypothetical rights, but demonstrable realities for all citizens. The means in which we as South Africans achieve these goals I hope are more opportunity based than the way in which it has occurred in the UK – where it seems to a certain extent social welfare is a product of top down scrapsgiving rather than a bottom up groundswell of desire for equality.

I miss South Africa. I miss South Africans – who are loud, and colourful, and full of contradictions and hope. I find, sadly, the UK experience one of homogeneity even in the face of cosmopolitanism. I understand why this is the case, but I find it tragic. I understand that the stability that such a society provides, gives a platform for growth, and scientific and artistic endeavours that our country has yet to achieve.

But I suppose I see a more American vision for South Africa: A democracy that reinvents itself, that is built on self-sufficiency rather than state reliance, that achieves things despite the odds, and doesn’t sacrifice its diversity in the hope for some bland social cohesion.

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Filed under: Africa, Cape Town, Commentary, Ideas, Rant, Society by Andrew la Grange
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It speaks to the banality of Western civilization, that to those who once claimed to a noble aspiration for the second highest position in the free world, a bullet (or melanoma’s, in her case) breath away from being the leader of the free world – the correct course of action is to quit her public service job, write a book and get a talking head position at a news network

Sarah Palin is going to FOX News. And this is a shock?

As news making continues to splinter and diffuse to the disruptive free press of the internet, which has turned the economics of news on its head, and we risk a world in which broad based quality news is not affordable for the masses (Foreign Affairs in South Africa is R146 an issue – a sure sign of where quality newspapers and magazines are going), there is going to be a further rise in public demagoguery as the voices that lead the man in the street, whether in the US or in South Africa – into paths of ever greater crassness.

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Filed under: Government, Ideas, Media, Sarah Palin by Andrew la Grange
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In case you believe that the whole country is going to hell in a hand basket, and national enterprise is destined for absolute failure, think about the South African Post Office.

I can’t speak for its profitability, but then again the U.S. Mail is a loss leader for that country, and the UK’s service is on perpetual strike (and we had one just a short while ago…) – it must be said that our post office keeps on trucking pretty well.

I’m about to move, and the services that the post office have are consistent with what you’d expect from a first world service. Checking out ‘Easy move checklists’ online, the one recommendation was to go down to the U.S. mail and get them to simply forward your mail. I considered this an unlikely option for poor old SAPO – but nay, they do indeed have a change of address service, and its VERY reasonable – as are the post boxes which I’m going to be leasing shortly to save myself the hassle of changing addresses when I move.

The Post Office is Canal Walk is open till 9 each night, and I’ve picked up many a parcel there (Unisa and otherwise) with very little hassle – certainly less hassle and with far better service than I have received from many of the anchor tenants at the mall – Yes, I’m talking about you, incompetent, lazy and rude Edgars and Woolworths staff.

Go to any dorp in the country, and you will find a post office. It makes you wonder why they don’t get the Home Affairs (except refugee services) contract, so that South Africans can simply get their birth certificates, IDs etc from the Post Office.

Yes, you’ll queue from time to time in the Post Office – but certainly no worse than the bank.

Speaking of banks, millions of South Africans use the PostBank. It always seemed like the place where grannies banked, but the PostBank has some of the most affordable banking options available, and provide a valuable low cost banking framework for millions of South Africans without the exploitative lending environment that pervades most modern retail banking agencies – the PostBank is for banking, not lending – although I believe there are attempts to change that.

Overall I’m pretty glad that our Post Office continues to operate as well as it does, especially under the strain that post offices are operating under globally. It continues to offer a good service, and a letter I sent in CT can end in Joburg the next day with regular mail. I think that is a good service considering the distance.

That is not to say things are perfect. Theft remains an issue, especially with packages that come in from overseas.This is sad, and sees many overseas retailers refusing to use our postal services. I am quite sure this is a case of a few rotten eggs in the system – that should be corrected.

But overall I’m psych’d by our post office – crazy, and geeky I know – but when everyone else is whinging we should remember the little things that keep our country the greatest in Africa.

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Filed under: Africa, Business, Economy, Government, Language by Andrew la Grange
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I absolutely loved reading this article. My first job was on Pepper Street in 2003, the street had already started its metamorphosis into playground for euro trash, but walking up from the station on many a morning at 7am are some of my happiest memories; lunches spent digging around Serendipity book store, or going to the Original Mr. Price for some tailoring – those businesses who held onto the city when it could have gone the way of Johannesburg’s CBD are owed a real debt of thanks from the people of Cape Town.

FROM: http://www.tonight.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5078379

July 11, 2009
By Lynnette Johns
The Maharajah, the grand dame of Long Street, is bidding her neighbours adieu after keeping watch over the comings and goings of the buzzing strip for 30 years.

The move comes at the same time as Long Street undergoes yet another metamorphosis, from party central to playground for the wealthy.

The Indian restaurant, housed in a pretty colonial-style building at the top of Long Street, is a regular haunt of the judiciary, politicians and an assortment of local diners.
Next month the restaurant will move to Queen Victoria Street, opposite the planetarium - ending its reign as one of the oldest existing businesses in Long Street. Its lease has not been renewed.

The heritage building will undergo a facelift, but there is no clarity on who the new tenants will be, said Janet Ross whose family trust owns the property.

Three decades ago when Sunny Pillay first opened the doors at 230 Long Street, the view from the restaurant’s windows was that of brothels, a road lined with taxis disgorging sailors, and an assortment of bars, book shops and flats.

Logan Govender, a favourite waiter, has been working at the Indian eatery for 28 years. He has seen all the ups and downs in the street for three decades. He remembers the brothels and exactly where the shops, tea rooms, greengrocers and cafés were. He has seen many shops and establishments close down, only to have new ones open in their place.

Long Street has always had soul, Govender said.
A number of interesting shops thrived, notably bookshops, second-hand clothing shops and take-aways. Many of the older shops are owned by people who have traded along the strip for more than 20 years.

Pillay too stayed put, even as crime rose and street children become a growing problem.
In the late 1990s buildings, many of them in dilapidated condition, were bought and spruced up. Long Street was reborn, growing up to be the CBD’s clubbing mecca and home to a number of backpacker’s lodges.

When Pillay handed over the reins to his son Jeeva and grandson Roland, Long Street was deeply entrenched as a tourist hub but it still held on to its seedy side as the area is still known for drug dealing and petty crime.

Lately though another wave of change is coming.

Buildings are being given huge makeovers. The Solomon Brothers have taken over the area between Long, Loop, Bloem and Pepper streets.

The brothers are constructing a massive 19-floor, five-star executive apartment hotel block. The fully furnished penthouse will be sold for R20-million.

Godfrey Shev, financial director at Solomon Brothers, says The Pepper Club, which is due for completion by the end of the year, already has bookings for the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
Some shop owners, like silversmith Abduraghman Sonday said Long Street may no longer be for him.

"Wherever you look there are cafés; Long Street has become about wining and dining. You can no longer see us (the myriad tiny shops) - you have to look for us."
For Kathy Sullivan, the Long Street she traded in has changed irrevocably.
Sullivan’s Serendipity Book Shoppe moved to Kenilworth last year when The Pepper Club development began.

The facade of Rodene House, where Serendipity was located, will remain, but Sullivan said she feared the frail building may collapse around her, hence her move.

She doubts that she will be able to afford the new rent once the development is complete, even though Solomon Brothers have indicated that they would like to keep her on as a tenant.
"Long Street used to be the poor cousin, now it is the place to be, but it is sad that a lot of the character may be lost. Slowly those who traded in Long Street are being pushed out," she said.
One place that will not be pushed out, however, is Atkinson’s Antiques.

Owners Alex and Julie Atkinson bought the building 20 years ago. Originally a house, built around 1770, the building is also where Clarke’s Book Store, another Long Street institution, can be found.

Julie Atkinson said change is good and the new developments should see more people coming to Long Street, which could mean more business.
Tailor Shakir Price, 75, has rented his little shop for the past 32 years. He is one of the city’s last remaining true craftsmen.

He enjoys Long Street. "It’s always busy, there is never a dull moment." But rent has become unaffordable and Price will soon have to close shop.

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Filed under: Business, Cape Town, Nostalgia by Andrew la Grange
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Increasingly I am making links between the ANC of today, and the NP of the past. In the coming weeks I am going to be writing a series of articles on the present nature of the ANC and how the transformation of South Africa since Freedom has mirrored the transformation of the ANC.

The core idea I want to explore, is that in taking over the Nationalist government of the Republic, the Nationalist tendencies of the ANC were inflated to the detriment of the Congress principles. I will aim to prove conclusively that the internal political irreconcilability of Nationalism and Congress-ism will ultimately rend the party in two, that COPE is simply a precursor of this political divorce, and that ultimately the South African state will experience a philosophical war – which in fact has already begun and which will be ended either through the failure of the state, or the establishment of a new constitutional, legal and strategic equilibrium.

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Filed under: Africa, Commentary, Decision Theory, Government, Ideas, Law, Philosophy, Politics, Reconciliation, Society by Andrew la Grange
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Jacob Zuma’s first speech to the parliament on his election as State President, has the blogeratti bubbling along, full of hope that Zuma will walk the walk, as he has talked the talk quite well since the mandate was handed to the ANC, and thus him in the April elections.

Let me be honest, I believe that Jacob Zuma was corrupted by receiving money from Schabir Shaik. I think it takes mental gymnastics of the first order to presume that someone who is involved and rewarded by government contracts, who then picks up the tab for the deputy president’s entire life for over a decade, as Shaik did with Zuma, doesn’t result in the corruption of the government official.

That said, Jacob Zuma is known as a mediator and an open, if not honest, man. Should Zuma be a success over the next five years, and our country manages to do better than it has thus far under his stewardship of the government and the ANC, a VERY dangerous precedent will have been set, far worse than simply a corrupt African leader.

It will essentially signal to all politicians and power grabbers (Malema?), of all political hues, that corruption on the way to the top is acceptable as long as once you are there you aren’t corrupt and/or you improve things. This will make it harder for the electorate to decide on which people they would like to support in government, because quasi-corrupt politicians will always be able to hold up Zuma as a test case, that even those under suspicion, etc. are capable of leading well.

And that would be an interesting and very dangerous precedent, since it would insinuate that the highest office in the land has almost a baptismal quality on its occupiers – that is simply not true, but a successful Zuma presidency may make such a line of argumentation another tool in the ANC electoral toolbox.

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Filed under: Commentary, Crime, Decision Theory, Politics, Society, Zuma by Andrew la Grange
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South Africa is a country recently liberated from the yoke of Apartheid, but as the years drift away, and the end of the Zuma presidency, assuming the ANC kick him out before hand, will see a half way point between the time (48 years) of National Party rule, and ANC rule, South Africans are slowly being forced to discover that liberty, like a marriage, is not simply an event of a single day, a vote falling into a ballot box, but rather a daily choice and commitment to an ideal. You have to work and strive for liberty - it isn’t simply delivered for free. 

We might like to look at other countries, such as the U.S. and pretend that liberty doesn’t have too high a cost in comparison to prosperity. But countries such as the U.S. fought for liberty when there was seemingly little to fight for beyond hearth and home. It surprises me when liberals decry the civil strife in Iraq, and say that the men and boys who fight there, fight for sectarian ideals, sunni vs. shia, and that Iraq will simply disintegrate because that country has only been in existence since the 1930s. Let us not forget the United States, not even a hundred years old also descended into civil and sectarian strife, without the help of a foreign power crushing the uneasy unity of disparate states and peoples. 

Liberty comes at a cost. You have to fight for liberty. We hope, that in a time of reason and global transparency that fight can be a clash of ideas and beliefs rather than on skin and steel. Any financier will tell you that a cost must be financed, and often, since liberty is first bought with blood, the first set of terms must be bourne out of debt. We live in an increasingly indebted world, and therefore the paradigm should be increasingly understood by the common man - we South Africans, like all who now enjoy liberty, had our liberty bought by others, and now we must pay them back with interest. 

Who bought our freedom? The exiles and the party apparatchiks, such as Jacob Zuma and Julius Malema would tell us that the ANC bought us liberty, and therefore we owe the organisation a debt. That debt must be paid at the ballot box, because they and only they, the ANC can be trusted with the National Democratic Revolution - the convenient academic construct of one Thabo Mbeki, former president of the ANC and the country. 

This may well have been so, perhaps the ANC has deserved its mandate over the last 15 years, and may well deserve so for several more terms, simply because the organisation, along with others (but never mind them), paid the price over the decades to secure freedom for all South Africans. The cruel irony of course is those who actually paid with there lives go uncelebrated, there families return to the earth to scratch a living from the barren former homelands, while those who sipped whiskey, murdered potential rivals, and plotted in African capitals reap the rewards of holding the public purse. 

Firstly let me say that not all members of the ANC are of this class, indeed it is in all likelihood the minority. But like any criminal cabal, they the few destroy the hard work of the many. And just as the criminal minority in our country today make our society often intolerable the many, so too do the shameful collective in ascendancy make the hard work and fidelity of loyal ANC members naught in their land grab for the wealth of the people. 

Of course a core aspect of debt is being forgotten by those who now clip the coupons of the liberation bond : debts eventually are paid, and capital is freed up by the debtor to be allocated elsewhere. The sooner the South African electorate pays the debt of liberation, the sooner those who collect on this purchase will be sidelined and a new generation of leaders and policy makers, either within the ANC or outside of it, will have to make new promises to the people and fight to receive the vote of the people. 

The peace and order, and large turnout, of the 2009 election speaks to the ordinary South African’s desire to have their voice heard - either in support of the ruling party, or against it. This is a good thing, with each election the politics of identity and liberation debt are slowly eroded, and the concerns of the new nation will slowly edge out the politics of the past - this is a slow and natural process - and while it happens we must remain ever vigilant that those who facilitated past liberation will not be transmogrified into those who wield the chains from which we as a common South African people must break from next. 

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Filed under: Government, Ideas, Politics, Society, Zuma by Andrew la Grange
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We are a back water technologically – and lots of the fanboys and technical South Africans might like to decry that its simply because of the high cost of limited internet access in South Africa.

This morning I got into work at 6am to find that SAIX, the main backbone of internet in the entire country, was having a DNS problem – what a cruel April Fool’s joke – leading to all access requiring a DNS lookup outside of the country as a complete an utter stuff up.

As I tried to find another set of DNS IPs to use, I was crippled to only be able to access the South African web – and it was at that point I realised what a desert our part of the web really is – funnel.co.za? Give me a break.

South Africa doesn’t have any online email providers, doesn’t have its own practical search engine, or wiki, or media platform (even the BBC has iPlayer) – No, South Africa is a waste land.

And in seeing this, I realised there is a phenomenal opportunity. Yes, it may well be that there are very few internet users in our country compared to our total population – but there are many millions of us anyway – and we should be demanding more from our local internet.

A lot of that is up to software developers, such as myself, to build the services, products and platforms that South Africans can use – there are huge benefits to local access to rich services, and as today’s outage shows, it shouldn’t always be left to huge vendors outside of the country.

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Filed under: Ideas, Rant, Society, Web by Andrew la Grange
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What can I say… http://academicearth.org/

The site aggregates some of the amazing web video resources of lectures from the best universities and institutes in the world.

Who can imagine the technology and human endeavours that will be sparked by sharing such a wealth of experience and knowledge freely with anyone with the internet. A truly fantastic resource!

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Filed under: Education, Ideas, Internet by Andrew la Grange
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Everyone is running around like a headless chicken in the US at the moment about the Recession/Depression that the country is facing.

The government is printing money at a truly impressive rate, making Robert Mugabe look like a fiscal conservative. With all the TRILLIONS of dollars being pumped out by Treasury and the Fed, the people who should be worried are:

1. The Chinese
2. Anyone else who holds American government bonds

Just like everyone was loving being rich because there house valuations were going up - now the crowds (where is the wisdom!?) are so worried about negative growth (??? isn’t that just shrinkage?) that they are standing outside the Fed with pitchforks begging for stimulus - which is a nice way of saying printing money - which is a nice way of saying inflating the money supply - which is nice way of saying stoking inflation - which is a nice way of saying: devaluing your debt obligations by devaluing the currency.

Why can America do this? Because they won the second world war? Because they print the de-facto base currency of the world? Because their economy is still the largest in the world? Yes, all of this. Also, say what you will about China, its domestic consumption and its command economy, nothing beats the United States when it comes to avoiding the issue economically until its too late. Following the reporting on most U.S. news and finance channels, NO ONE is discussing inflation. Fascinating.

In South Africa, we have a national fascination with inflation. CPI is deeply understood by swathes of the populace, even the illiterate. South Africans understand that they need wage increases to match price increases and the inflation stability we’ve all seen over the past 15 years (last year being a fairly unwelcome change) has allowed our country to understand that inflation is a part of our economic make up.

But inflation in America is a very 70s concept, and would have remained in Paul Volcker (who is now helping Obama) hadn’t had the balls as Fed Chairman to raise interest rates in the U.S. to 15% for years (sound a bit like us doesn’t it?)

Instead, America still likes to lower capital lending rates - forget it - it bring about double harm. Firstly, money remains too cheap - and who cares if money is cheap if no one is lending. Secondly it allows inflation to run amok - the way to reign in the inflation bubble being surreptitiously created by the Fed and Treasury is to increase rates - but right now with the economy in free fall that looks to be a bitter pill to be swallowed in future.

Above all, this is not Depression 2.0 - why do I say that? Because the tools (weapons) being deployed by the U.S. government, like its army did in Vietnam, are the weapons to win the last war. Deficit spending will help the United States out of the quagmire - protecting against protectionism and the raising of tariffs is also a good start - but the fix to this depression will not be found in the theories of how the last one could have been forestalled or avoided - rather the nature of this depression can be defined by a few steps:

1. Over lending (Asian saving culture)
2. leading to Over borrowing (Western consumerism)
3. leading to Leverage (Debt) spread
4. leading to Obligation insurance (insuring the debt)
5. leading to asset price inflation.

Essentially the value of things (I.e. Assets) has been overstated. Now one of two things can happen (although in reality, both have and will continue to happen).

1. Assets must be revalued at truer values (lower)
2. Money supply must be revalued at truer values (lower - I,e. inflation)

Essentially a new equilibrium must be reached between cash value, and asset value. Stimulus accelerates inflation, leading to the correct devaluation of specie. Economy in recession leads to asset revaluation leading to greater margins of safety in investment and better opportunity cost, leading to an environment that is beneficial for investment.

HOWEVER, all those who had grown used to the inflated valuation of both assets and cash are going to ’suffer’ in the sense that there capital would appear to be diminished - however the truth is that capital is effectively being revalued. Yes, those who disposed of assets at the peak have effectively been able to avoid the first round, namely the revaluation of assets, but if they retain there capital in cash, they will not escape the second wave - namely the revaluation of specie : to avoid this, capital will have to return to equity markets and allow for growth to resume in the economy.

The sooner that happens, the better - which means the time for inflation of the dollar may well have come!

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Filed under: Business, Dollar, Economy, Finance, Government, Ideas, Irony, Philosophy by Andrew la Grange
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It seems we, the people of South Africa, lack an emotion. We lack it to such a degree that the absence of it in our hearts is distilled and purified in the halls of our nations power, the Union Buildings, the Parliament, the party National Committee and the halls of academia. We lack shame. We seem to have inherited the most seemingly benign of Apartheid’s crimes, which in fact is deeply malignant - namely the absence of shame when doing little or nothing to correct the wrongs that surround us.

In the stern words of Barack Obama’s inauguration speech I was reminded that America, and often only America, seems to hold itself up to a higher standard, and is willing to translate its founding principles into action. America has, does and will always fail to a certain degree in its quest to export its ideas and beliefs on a sometimes willing and sometimes unwilling global public. But America feels shame when it doesn’t act, and Americans, such as Susan Rice the new US Ambassador to the United Nations, look at America’s failures, such as inaction in Rwanda and swear: Never Again!

However South Africa is not America. Indeed we are not only lesser because we haven’t been blessed with such resources and diversity; one could argue we have been offered much by providence. Rather South Africa is lesser in the college of nations because we have no shame. We have no shame for our internal failings, and clearly we have no shame for our international ones. We stand beside a dying child, the nation of Zimbabwe and we are impotent and complicit in its self-destruction - handing the switch blade to a man sworn to cut his own heart out lest he feel love.

We are a shameful nation. A nation the world didn’t forget when we struggled under our self-made shame and cruel injustice. Now we forget everything we asked the world to remember when thinking of us. We were a plaintiff in the world’s court who once justice was found, have walked away never to give any heed to others who might plead there case for justice, and to whom we could give assistance.

South Africa’s leaders, and therefore its people’s, failure to act in Zimbabwe is a manifestation of the inability to empathise, and thus feel shame for doing nothing that is endemic in all tiers of our society. It would appear South Africans only believe in human rights and justice for themselves, and in fact it goes further than desiring it for the whole nation, South Africans are selfish enough, best exemplified in the Dear Leader, Jacob Zuma, to want a different set of rights and liberties per person.

Would it be too much to say South Africa may be the first libertarian state? How often I have dwelt on the fact, that as a white South African there is very little government for me, and what is worse there is even less for the poor, and mostly black masses of the population. The influence of government in our nation has shrunk, as it has collapsed in a morass of self-promotion and internal theft of the common purse.

Some cynics may see this as the inevitable decline of our civilization, a common descent to African failure, but I believe they are wrong. South Africa needs to rebuild its sense of shame when it does wrong, when it sides with despots and cruel regimes in the corridors of international diplomacy, and realise its moral bankruptcy in protecting a cruel despotic neighbour, to whom we should be strangling through the cessation of energy and food to him and his regime.

South Africa, and South Africans, should bring Robert Mugabe to heel. Our inability and refusal to act speaks to our light possession of the freedoms, rights and justice we claim to entrench in our common statement of purpose: the Constitution. We are not a pacifist nation, we retain an army for self-defence. We are the mightiest economy in Africa, with resources of labour and treasure incomparable on the continent. It is in our strategic interest to bring peace and prosperity to our neighbours so that we may trade with them and share in a common era of African prosperity.

No nation on earth would doubt South Africa’s commitment to soft power, especially in a time when some may have seen hard power to be the path of resolution. But now, even as the United States seeks diplomatic resolution to its security concerns, South Africans should think of the proverb favoured by Teddy Roosevelt; speak softly and carry a big stick.

The truth is, the mere threat of military action in Zimbabwe would bring Mugabe and his general’s to their knees - where they belong, begging for the mercy and amnesty which tragically should be granted under a balanced foreign policy from Pretoria. Let them go, and live in Europe with their ill gotten riches, to live their lives until time takes its justice on them, and let the people of Southern Africa join together in the task of rebuilding our neighbours home, which has been washed away with the flood we could have protected them from.

Until we feel shame, we cannot act. We must see the cruelty and inhuman nature of our inaction, and we as a country must recognise our responsibilities to our neighbours.

Until shame is rediscovered, we are a shamefully people, our eyes covered with scales, unable to see our own corruption.

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Filed under: Africa, Commentary, Corruption, Crime, Decision Theory, Diplomacy, Government, Ideas, Obama, Politics, Zimbabwe, Zuma, ethics by Andrew la Grange
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Both men hail from Chicago. One is a world famous celebrity, wielding dominion over hoardes of fans. The other is Kanye West.

Check Barack during his student day’s doing a pretty good Kanye impression. The real question is, how prescient is Kanye West - to channel Barack Obama’s youthful ghost before the pics were released: the man is a media god.

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Filed under: Ideas, Irony, Media, Obama, Politics, Society, U.S. Elections by Andrew la Grange
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Last night I was telling a friend why I thought, on balance, Israel was justified in its actions in the Gaza strip, and that comparatively the death of 555 in 11 days of full on modern warfare, including several days of house to house street battles is a testament to the low casualties that the total knowledge of the battlefield, that a modern information systems based military has, can acquire. (Horrible sentence!)

Yet people are still shocked by the humanitarian strife in Gaza, and protests fill the streets of the world. This is wrong. It is a disproportional protest response for an action, which if done in a less volatile part of the world wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. 

For me, the fact that citizens of free countries, such as the UK and Canada, choose to protest in large numbers in the capitals of their states, as emissaries of the Palestinian people, many of them Muslims, says more about the inextricable political aspect of Islam as a religion, and the assumption that political pressure can be placed on foreign governments because of the actions of Israel through Muslim citizenry in those Western nations, than it does about the so-called horrendous acts of Israel.

Let’s have some perspective for a moment. Hijacking 4 planes, killing nearly 3000 innocent people, that is an act of terrorism - no one would call it genocide. To then go as far as to say that the Israeli government executing a legitimate act of self-defence and eradication of a paramilitary organisation on their borders, attacking their communities, with the loss of only 555 casualties in 11 days, suggests an restrained, if disproportionate response, on the part of the IDF and civilian authorities.

I think the expedience and efficiency of the operation, and its understandable tactical objective, the cessation of rocket fire into Southern Israel, is completely justified. The Israelis have the right to adjust the security equation in Southern Israel. Hamas is an organisation which wants to destroy the state of Israel, saying it has no right to exist. This should be an affront to all member states of the United Nations - the election of Hamas may have been legitimate - I can’t comment on that - but democracy is not a pick and mix - you either subscribe to democratic, liberal and capitalistic ideas or you don’t. Hamas winning an election and calling it democracy is no different to calling the pig circuses of the Politburo elections in the USSR democracy in action: It simply is not.

Of course the victims of violence, in both Gaza and Southern Israel are the ones who suffer due to both sides inability to come to agreements on peace and security. I believe the Israel, despite its militaristic stance, and paranoia towards Palestinian intentions, will one day welcome the formation of a Palestinian state. BUT I think any thinking individual would see that as it stands at the moment, an organisation like Hamas, with a founding tenet being the overthrow of Israel as a state cannot be a partner for peace.

I do however think, and the PLO is proof of this, that Hamas could change, that many of its members have been radicalised by depression, poverty and frustration with the Palestinian Authority and the siege of Gaza. In this Israel must take blame too… Israel must extend the hand of peace, but at times will have to use the stick to eliminate the hard line elements in Hamas who will NEVER come around to a two state solution. When that stick is wielded though, the world should leave it to the diplomats, and not protest in the street and pick a side.  

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Filed under: Commentary, Government, Ideas, Society, War, ethics by Andrew la Grange
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I haven’t blogged in a long time. I’ve been pretty busy with life and living, proving the living vs. blogging ratio is inversely proportional.

I’ve just returned from a funeral. The funeral of a great friend, a friend of mine for the last 10 years, a friend lost to a car accident, Ashley Buti aka Ashley Ngcelwane.

I haven’t been able to really articulate to anyone the feelings I have about Ashley’s death. I have known him under many conditions, at school, at varsity, as a house mate, and socialised with him in many settings, revealing the social chameleon that he was, as well as the resolute character and person who shared with everyone.

When you go to a funeral, and many people say that the young man who died was destined to one day become president of the country, you must know that you are witnessing the setting down of a great soul, and a man who inspired other men.

It seems again I am called to voice my feelings, and my memories, and once again in this year of 2008, I cannot find an answer in my own voice, my voice of prose, but rather in the voice of verse. For like Homer, I am blind in the world of my own silence, I can only find my vision and voice in the rhythm of verse.

Death of a Future President

Come now, and hear the church bell’s ring.
The people come, the people sing
Tears are shed, flags fly low.
The king is dead. The king no one else will ever know.

Come now, and listen to the people speak.
Words pouring out on the floor like flooded milk
All to turn sour in the church’s heat.
For words cannot serve as balm, to a mother’s ache.

He was my friend. He was my brother. He was a true son.
The wails and songs, trying to bring comfort to everyone.

Future president in our hearts, we know vote for him.
Truth is he would tell us to sing a different hymn.

The world is ours to change in service and deed.
His message to us, one of friendship indeed.
Our lost friend, our voice of wisdom and reason.
We will be reunited, but only after many seasons.

The heat of the sun fills my head.
I cannot believe the future president is dead.

Now in silence his voice whispers in my ear
“Do not worry”… “I am here, I am hear”.

Silence broken at night by falling glass
Dreams lying shattered on Christmas morning’s dewy grass.
Returned to Christ, the saviour and king.
But lost to us now, lost to our future.

Smile now, smile as he does now in heaven.
Smile for the future we will work and sweat to bring.
Learn from the lessons of a life fully lived.
Do not be afraid, to live to the full.

Politics, people, religion and life
Those are not all that defined his life.
But rather love of family and friends.
Now gone for a little while, just a little while.

I will never know how to expresses my feelings of sadness and apology to his family and other friends. What I can say is that I am confident my friend is pleased with his life, maybe a little frustrated that he wasn’t able to achieve all he thought he would, but time will show us all that the seed planted in everyone he knew, simply by knowing him, will grow into a fine tree of legacy that will exceed his earthly expectations.

Go well Ashley, we all loved you.

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Filed under: Memoriam by Andrew la Grange
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Common Craft is a pretty cool company. They make complex things understandable to the common man. So I could help but laugh when I hit there web page today, and splashed across the front in bright red was a Drupal error that only a SQL-Talker (there is a good reason for SQL  being a mandatory second language) would understand.

Hate to give them bad PR, but

“user warning: Got error 28 from storage engine query: SELECT t.* FROM term_node r INNER JOIN term_data t ON r.tid = t.tid INNER JOIN vocabulary v ON t.vid = v.vid WHERE r.nid = 1667 ORDER BY v.weight, t.weight, t.name in /var/www/DRUPAL-5/html/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 172.”

is not common craft for anyone!

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Filed under: Business, Design, Irony, Language, Rant by Andrew la Grange
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