Talking of downtime

This has not been a good year, neither for my blogging nor my life. My significant other of 37 years standing went down with Breast cancer last November. Although now, hopefully, in recovery, the journey has been a brutal reminder, that, notwithstanding the many glorious medical achievements of the 20th century and beyond, the road to cancer recovery is nasty, brutish and painfully excruciating for the sufferer: and hell for those who care. The crisis for me is that Madame has been my muse, in a serious sense. I started writing poetry soon after meeting her, and the shock of her unexpected illness has driven all inspiration from my soul.

Then as if that was not enough for a year; to add misery to horror, the main computer went down to one unscheduled loadshedding experience too many; and the main drive self-destructed. Forensic investigators have been able to find no trace that the hard drive ever contained anything of interest. That was a sobering experience. To be robbed twice, more efficiently than by any casual thief, is indeed a brutal reminder that we exist by the whims of politicians and the exigencies of nature. [Exigencies = circumstantial necessities: New Webster.]

This was a pair of low blows, followed in rapid succession by a [automatic] gearbox breakdown in the Nissan Maxima… not an easy model to repair, and then some cockpit meltdown in the dashboard of Madame’s beloved Audi: meaning the thing showed that boiling point was reached ten seconds after take off. When something like that happens on my old ’78 beetle I just change a fuse. Now there’s a whole dashboard change plus some thing to do with a computer. If the new part is not matched to the original computer configuration of the original vehicle then the car mal-performs.

That in itself was an interesting discovery: a practical demonstration of how the manufacturer seeks to exclude competition from the lucrative repair business. It’s an intriguing twist really on the supply chain consolidation that is bedevilling our contemporary global economy: and contributing to commodity price speculation. Should I ever buy another car, and strictly speaking I loath the unreliable things, I shall buy one that has a ten year warranty.

However it is enough already, Oyh!

But wait that was only the hardware part…

Along the way it became necessary to get a [non-local] passport for the baby [now 19 years old]. To get the passport in this post-9/11 polarising world, we now have to have the original birth certificate to demonstrate the causal [blood] relationship between father and daughter. That meant “home affairs”. You’ve dealt with home affairs: you know what is coming.

To cut a long story short after two and a half years and umpteen visits this child, who has an ID book, has passed matric and is a 2nd year uni’ student has just been recorded as a ‘late birth registration’ entry. This, it was decided was the most expedient way that a pleasantly helpful Home Affairs service person could suggest, to solve the dilemma of an apparently non-existent birth document. It must have existed once since someone once issued the abbreviated local variant. And of course we still don’t actually have the thing; meaning another trip to Disneyland to establish if this palliative has been effective. As for getting a vault copy of a marriage certificate… that is an even more complex task to which we have yet to find a solution. A luta continua.

The experience highlights for me one of the unspoken ironies of our post-liberation era: that young people [us: then] who struggled for years under the old regime with a lack of mobility, as far as gaining global work exposure and experience was concerned, are now, it seems, even worse off than ever. A South African passport, I discover, is so widely regarded as suspect, that our citizens are now being actively discriminated against, in an ever-widening range of situations: something that may, of course, be strategically useful for a region experiencing a severe skills exodus, exacerbated by the ongoing discrimination experienced routinely by all three of my children [and most of the people I know].

The increasingly onerous conditions applying generally to mobility seems also to be representative of a drift apart at the global level… The more we are together the more we are apart. There is a definite sense that the world is polarising into potentially acrimonious regional blocs.

So the result is that I have been distracted from my bloggish affairs; and have neglected you my reader who, I would have hang on my every syllable: I apologise for this.

In my all-consuming struggle to cope with disaster upon disaster, as well as perform the many duties relating to my everlasting day job, I have thus written fewer blogs and struggled with an inadequately restored computer network to upload what I have written. This means I have not dealt, for instance, with Russia’s unexplained volte-face over Zimbabwe. Apparently it was a lover’s meeting in Japan for the G8 ‘thing’, that saw Russia’s Medvedev agree to support sanctions against Zim [Rum ] babwe; only to step aside, presumably on orders from Csar Putin, as ole “porky” Brown went for the shot, missed, and was left in such an embarrassed heap that he just lost [one of ] the safest seat in British [Pomeranian] politics… Glasgow nogal a seat the labour party held since the beginning of the party’s history.

At this rate Brown will be gone before Mugabe, which should make Mugabe chuckle. And of course Mugabe hasn’t even begun to be gone.

Then of course there is that other dubious support base for governments that abuse their citizenry: China.
China’s snot drenched human rights record has prevailed notwithstanding all their bullshit pitch to get the Beijing Olympic Games. These games are a demonstration that notwithstanding their stated intent, and emotionally driven by the aspirations of the performers, expediency rules: circumstantial necessity requires that we deal with the reality that is China: and pay it the ultimate homage of hosting the great games even though the place is inherently a gangster State little removed from Hitler’s in ’36 and the equally late Soviet Union in ’80.

There is no real evidence however that China has done what it said it would, with regard to improving human rights [in China], and embracing democratic values. This was demonstrated most revealingly in the recent Tibetan uprising. In the lead-up we also had, for instance, the abusive eviction of citizens to make way for the Olympic paraphernalia, suppression of opposition bloggists, and the evidence that they are [apparently] suppressing some 30,000 outbreaks of civil unrest annually. The Chinese position on Climate abuse is also seriously flawed.

In my view China has cheated. They have cheated over the Olympics, an event dedicated to honesty and fair play. This is one more thumb in the eye of freedom, and reinforced by the country’s support for evil regimes in Africa lends credence to a cynical contempt, that is gnawing at the fruits of freedom worldwide. While shopping for goods made in China we should remember that the great discoveries of our age were made by free people … little of use has emerged from the totalitarian dictatorships of the past ten decades and that is unlikely to change soon.

How can I make my displeasure felt?

The only thing I can do apart from writing this blog is to withhold my consent to the Games. This means that I shall boycott the Games… I will listen to nothing relevant to the games, watch nothing and discuss nothing, and any joy I feel regarding the participation of our own household’s special entrant, one who had to leave home to gain recognition, and whom we truly hope will attain the accolades she has worked for, will be communicated privately.

Will this matter to the Chinese… I am sure it won’t, nor will it matter to anybody else I guess other than me. It is not as if this will even be a punishment [to me or them] since there is so much else happening also that is more interesting… like the Tri Nations, CSI and Classic FM.

So: not only will I boycott the broadcasting of the games, I shall also boycott the products that have made these “disgraceful games” possible. Any organisation that has sponsored the games, or is appearing to profit, at the expense of Tibetan liberty, shall never receive my endorsement ever again. If it’s a soft drink I shall guzzle down their worst enemy. If it is a fast food chain, I shall do the same. And ditto for shoes, tracksuits, coffee, tea and booze, airlines and whatever else. Each one has a competitor who is not at the Games: and to them we say Farewell Olympia: we do not sponsor horror. Sell us your goods instead.

Down with tyranny and those who would sponsor it.

The slow death of a tyrant

This blog was written weeks ago after the Au conference in Egypt at which Mugabe appeared in search of affirmation. It was n't published for technical reasons which i don't understand and ended up stored in the drafts pages.

Nothing that has subsequently taken place has changed sufficiently to negate what i said then regarding the inevitable disintegration of the Mugabe regime and the probability that what comes next will be worse.

It is now a week later and i still had not been able to load this blogpiece to my blogsite due to technical reasons which i do not understand... this is an attempt to load from a different machine to my usual one which was loadshedded earlier this year... thus sending me into a frenzy of inactivity
Maybe i can begin my path to understanding along this alternate route...
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In the meantime Mr Bob the roz Mugabe has been playing a deadly game of possum. He is pretending to negotiate and has even shaken hands with his enemy.

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Original Blog written on eve of AU appearance by Bob in Egypt.


Weblog 1 July 08
Jozi

Perhaps Mr Mugabe fears the repercussions of losing power. He knows what he has done to his enemies and knows what his enemies will do to him. And it is obvious that he sees almost everyone as an enemy.

The African Union has debating whether he should form a government of national unity and whatever he may say in Egypt he will renege when he returns home because although he is the President he is no longer in power. The country is controlled by gangsters and thugs, and they will turn on him in an instant if they suspect he will ruin their game. In reality the AU indulged Mr Mugabe by even deigning to debate a government of national unity since his presidency is illegal and it is questionable that he should have been allowed to speak. By giving him the right to speak they gave him de facto recognition.

The leader of the opposition lacked the intestinal fortitude necessary to take power through the ballot and now, it seems, wants others to do his work for him. He justifies this by commenting that the situation is too dangerous to stand and he is probably right. His life hangs on a whim.

Rationally there is no reason why the AU should rebuke Mr Mugabe. He won the election. The fact that it was rigged was inconvenient but the margin of inconvenience is not sufficient to cause serious discomfort. There has never been any significant indication that the members of the Au are anything other than they have always been, and there were always unsavoury elements whose position was stolen, even in this era of greater democratic representivity. This is also an era steeped in expediency.

Modern politics like those of auld are based on expediency and expediency suggests that the sum total of development aid being dispensed to all the beggar nations that make up the AU is currently uncertain. The global economy is currently insecure and uncertain.

What is certain though is that a settlement in Zimbabwe will see [possible] massive amounts of reconstruction aid going to the place in an attempt to repair the enormous capital drain wreaked by a decade of suicidal politics. The country‘s mining industry is chaotic and they have just experienced the worst harvest since the 1940’s. That heap of development money will probably be money that doesn’t go to the rest. In economic language the opportunity cost of solving Zimbabwe’s problem is the diversion of hard to get aid from the other AU members.

At the same time the world is in a crisis of almost unprecedented proportions. Climate change, extreme weather conditions, food consumption generated food price increases plus famines and rampantly exploding cost of energy are wreaking creeping havoc on our global society and that means one thing… less largesse to go around.

Therefore the members of the AU will take the inherently rational position that they do not individually stand to gain from the addition of one damm hungry beggar to their alms conference. Collectively they will placate Mugabe and let well alone… If it’s broken why fix it?

The Blogospherian.