Marked

The tattoo on this soldier's back spells kafir, the Arabic word for infidel. He is a member of the 10th Mountain Division, serving in Wardak province, Afghanistan.

An interesting reflection of our times as we head to 2010

See more here:

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1946595_2010996,00.html

25 December 2009

The truth of today will unravel itself and show it for what it is.
No more Mr Nice Guy.

Tiger Woods admits "transgressions", apologises...

The truth, like a cork in water, ALWAYS rises to the top. Take note.

A white Afrikaans bird........ who left the country for a better place!!

Unbelievable choice...

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/sports/45180-charlize-theron-to-be-leading-lady-in-world-cup-draw

CAPE TOWN, Dec 1 — South African actress Charlize Theron has landed the leading lady’s role in Friday’s draw for next year’s World Cup finals in her home country, Fifa announced today.

Theron will be joint host of the 90-minute show to be televised live to an estimated global audience of more than two hundred million people in 200 countries at 1900 local time (1700 GMT).

She will join Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke to host the procedure of placing the 32 finalists into eight groups of four teams for the tournament which runs from June 11 to July 11.

The show will include an African musical spectacular, including gospel and jazz.

A host of sporting celebrities will also take part in the draw including Ethiopia’s Olympic champion runner Haile Gebrselassie, England midfielder David Beckham, South Africa footballer Matthew Booth and cricketer Makhaya Ntini and the host country’s rugby World Cup captain John Smit.

South African president Jacob Zuma will be in the audience along with Nobel Peace prize winners Frederik de Klerk and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Fifa will announce which teams will be seeded for the draw at a news conference tomorrow. — Reuters

The Very Reverend Jason Selvaraj

I heard the story today of how when the Reverend Jason (the Dean at St Mary's Cathedral KL) is called upon to visit a member of his congregation who may be ill in hopital, he will do so.

In doing so he reads to them from the bible and says a small prayer for them.

On opening his eyes he sees patients in the beds in the ward looking at him with 'longing in their eyes'.

Being the man he is and not wishing to impose, he always simply asks whether anyone else would like a prayer said for them.

Many hands always go up.

And many are the hands of non-Christians.

I found this quite an interesting read today - the subject of racial stereotyping...

Marathon winner caught in American ‘race’ debate
NEW YORK, Nov 3 — As soon as Mebrahtom Keflezighi, better known as Meb, won the New York City Marathon on Sunday, an uncommon sports dispute erupted online, fraught with racial and nationalistic components: Should Keflezighi’s triumph count as an American victory?
He was widely celebrated as the first American to win the New York race since 1982. Having immigrated to the United States at age 12, he is an American citizen and a product of American distance running programs at the youth, college and professional levels.
But, some said, because he was born in Eritrea, he is not really an American runner.
The debate reveals what some academics say are common assumptions and stereotypes about race and sports and athletic achievement in the United States. Its dimensions, they add, go beyond the particulars of Keflezighi and bear on undercurrents of nationalism and racism that are not often voiced.
“Race is still extremely important when you think about athletics,” said David Wiggins, a professor at George Mason University who studies African-Americans and sports.
“There is this notion about innate physiological gifts that certain races presumably possess. Quite frankly, I think it feeds into deep-seated stereotypes. The more blatant forms of racial discrimination and illegal forms have been eliminated, but more subtle forms of discrimination still exist.”
There are few cases parallel to Keflezighi’s in American sports. Some are noteworthy because of how little discussion, by comparison, they generated over the athlete’s nationality.
For example, the Hall of Fame basketball player Patrick Ewing (Jamaica) and the gold medal gymnast Nastia Liukin (Russia) were born abroad, but when they represented the United States in competition, they seemingly did not encounter the same skepticism that Keflezighi has.
Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, said the argument about Keflezighi “tells us there are people that still have racial red flags go up when certain things happen.”
He added: “Many people think that with an African-American president, we are in a post-racial society. Clearly, we are not.”
The online postings about Keflezighi were anonymous. One of the milder ones on Letsrun.com said: “Give us all a break. It’s just another African marathon winner.”
A comment on The New York Times’s site said: “Keflezighi is really another elite African runner by birth, upbringing, and training. Americans are kidding themselves if they say he represents a resurgence of American distance prowess! On the other hand, he is an excellent representative of how we import everything we need!”
In a commentary on CNBC.com, Darren Rovell wrote, “Nothing against Keflezighi, but he’s like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league.”
Keflezighi said yesterday that remarks about his heritage were not new. “I’ve had to deal with it,” he said. “But, hey, I’ve been here 22 years. And the US is a land of immigrants. A lot of people have come from different places.”
The last American to win the New York race, Alberto Salazar, was also born in another country. He came to the United States from Cuba when he was 2. When he won, though, he did not hear grumbling about whether he should be considered an American. He pointed out two differences between his case and Keflezighi’s: Salazar is Hispanic, not black; and when he won in 1982, the Internet, in its current form, did not exist.
The argument that Keflezighi is not really an American makes little sense, Salazar said in a telephone interview.
“What if Meb’s parents had moved to this country a year before he was born?” he said. At what point is someone truly American? “Only if your family traces itself back to 1800, will it count?”
The issue previously arose when Keflezighi won a silver medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics, said Weldon Johnson, a founder of Letsrun.com. So when the negative postings appeared Sunday, he said, “I did not like seeing them, but I was not surprised.”
Perhaps the passion over Keflezighi’s victory stems from the despair over the state of American distance running. Americans used to be the best, in the 1970s and 1980s. But their time of glory waned as East Africans began dominating.
The success of distance runners from Kenya and Ethiopia fostered a lore of East Africans as genetically gifted, unbeatable, dominant because of their biology. Scientists have looked for — but not found — genes specific to East Africans that could account for their distance ability, said John Hoberman, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies race and sports.
But, he said, “there is a difference between saying we don’t have a scientifically respectable conclusion and the very broad and perhaps mistaken claim that there is no physiological phenomenon here whatsoever.”
Regarding the question of whether East Africans have a genetic advantage, Hoberman said, “We don’t know.”
“The more relevant question is, who gets to represent the country?” he said, adding, “Only racists will insist that ‘our’ athletes meet specific racial criteria.”
Consternation over the race of elite American athletes is not new. A century ago, the notion of a “great white hope” emerged — a white boxer who whites hoped could beat the black heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson.
In running, as African-American athletes excelled in sprints, they were said to lack the endurance or the fortitude to prevail in longer distances, Wiggins said. Then, when East Africans started to thrive, the argument changed to one claiming there are special East African genes.
“From my perspective, it is racist thinking at its utmost,” Wiggins said.
In Salazar’s view, Keflezighi’s victory is another indication that American distance running is coming back. Keflezighi never ran competitively before he came to the United States, and he did all his training here.
“Can American-born guys and gals compete?” Salazar said. “I think we are starting to see that.
“Does Meb resolve that argument? No. He wasn’t born here.
“And neither was I.” — NYT

Anachronistic Cowboy

Really?

This amused me.....

Canada, asylum and the sprinkler salesman

Canada is a very large place, seriously in the market for more people. It was not, however, aching for the company of Brandon Carl Huntley, 31, late of Mowbray, a Cape Town suburb.

He was in the country illegally. His resume, according to newspaper accounts, included stints as a carnival worker and as a garden sprinkler salesman, positions Canada is manifestly able to fill from its current reserves of human capital and which would not classify his departure from South Africa as contributing greatly to any brain drain.

So Huntley had to find some other means of persuading the Big Empty to have him. He chose to seek asylum, claiming he had been persecuted by muggers back home because he was white and the local police had done nothing to protect him.

Among the logical holes in his story was his admission that he had never reported being mugged to the police. He said did not trust them to act. Evidence of their inaction was therefore lacking.

Assuming, in the absence of police reports, he truly was attacked six or seven” times – he had scars purporting to show it – he was also hard put to prove that the alleged attacks were racially motivated. We have only his word for it that the attackers used racial epithets if and when they set upon him. And even if they did use such language, that is hardly probative of his colour having been the decisive factor in their choice of target.

Canadian headline writers often play on the title of their national anthem, O Canada, when their countrymen do something particularly embarrassing. The ruling by William Davis, sole member of the immigration tribunal that heard Huntley’s case, surely qualifies for the Oh, Canada!” treatment. In granting Huntley refugee status, Davis agreed that the applicant would stand out like a sore thumb in any part of South Africa”. The evidence” showed a picture of indifference and inability or unwillingness by the government and security forces to protect white South Africans from persecution by African South Africans”.

This is ignorant on so many levels. Merely to have visited South Africa is to know that black people do not persecute white people there. It runs counter to everything that makes South Africa special to all of us who love it. Yes, crime is a serious problem. Dealing with it is in the top tier of the government’s agenda. By a huge margin, the majority of victims is black.A final verdict on Davis’s ruling must await the release of the full text. At this writing, we only have the bits Huntley’s lawyer, Russell Kaplan, a South African expat who has been living in Canada for 20 years, shared with the media. Still, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this was a most peculiar proceeding. Davis relied in good measure on horror stories told by Kaplan’s sister Laura, herself a recent immigrant. Well, there can’t have been an ounce of bias there, can there?

The case might well have passed unnoticed had not Kaplan, or his client, decided to let the world know about it. Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, home of the tribunal that heard the matter, renders more than 40 000 decisions are year. The proceeding was closed to the public. There is as yet no mention of it on the board’s website, no press release was issued and IRB officials have studiously declined comment citing privacy concerns.

Some if not all tribunal decisions are eventually published on the internet. Three of Davis’ rulings from 2007 can be found there. In one, he granted asylum to a former member of the Peruvian armed forces who feared reprisals for atrocities that occurred while he was on active service against the Shining Path in the 1980s.

Two other applications Davis rejected. One was from an Albanian who claimed his wife’s brothers were out to kill him after he was photographed having gay sex. Davis was not convinced he faced persecution. The man merely came to Canada to find a better life”. The second was from an Afghan who said the Taliban were after him. Davis found the timing of this application suspect. The claimant made his refugee claim on the very same day his status in Canada expired.” And yet Huntley’s claim, made long after his visa expired, was somehow not so suspect.You have to know what you are looking for to find these cases. Kaplan and his client might have done themselves a favour by simply shutting up, but no, they wanted their 15 minutes of fame.

Huntley would not have been missed in South Africa which, like Canada, faces no shortage of carnival workers or sprinkler salesmen. South Africa would not have had to publicly respond to the shameful distortions contained in Davis’s decision.

As it is, the Canadian government may well decide to reverse the decision and Huntley will be back to square one.

This is not, incidentally, the first case of its kind. In 1997, a Durban couple, Michelle and David Thomas, came to California with their two children on visitors visas. A year later they petitioned for asylum. They said they had endured and would continue to face reprisals because David’s father, Boss Ronnie”, was a racist thug who threatened and abused his black workers back in South Africa. Their case made it all the way to the Supreme Court which finally upheld its initial rejection by an immigration judge.

At least they had the good grace not to claim they were the victims of anybody’s racism other than Dad’s.

By Simon Barber

Simon Barber is the US country manager of the International Marketing Council

Source: www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com

Day 32...

Just in case anyone thought anything different..... day 32 is here.

I stopped counting at Day 10 which was the breakthrough milestone for me.

Weight: Holding at 96kg. STRONG!! But realising that my appetite is twice what it was - amazing. I do have to be careful until that settles down.

Lungs: Did 80m underwater at the weekend. For those that think that is not far - try it!!

Sleep: The biggest surprise of all is that I sleep better than I have for 30 years. If I wake, it is NOT to the urge of wanting to smoke, which I must admit, I used to. 24/7 it was for me. And best of all, that last cigarette of the day that used to be SO important...... Well, it no longer pushes my pulse rate up to clearly NOT a resting rate, because I no longer need the drug!!

All good!! And smiling.

The Meaning of Life

NEW YORK — What’s life for? That question stirred as I contemplated two rhesus monkeys, Canto, aged 27, and Owen, aged 29, whose photographs appeared last week in The New York Times.
The monkeys are part of a protracted experiment in aging being conducted by a University of Wisconsin team. Canto gets a restricted diet with 30 percent fewer calories than usual while Owen gets to eat whatever the heck he pleases.
Preliminary conclusions, published in Science two decades after the experiment began, “demonstrate that caloric restriction slows aging in a primate species,” the scientists leading the experiment wrote. While just 13 percent of the dieting group has died in ways judged due to old age, 37 percent of the feasting monkeys are already dead.
These conclusions have been contested by other scientists for various reasons I won’t bore you with — boredom definitely shortens life spans.
Meanwhile, before everyone holds the French fries, the issue arises of how these primates — whose average life span in the wild is 27 (with a maximum of 40) — are feeling and whether these feelings impact their desire to live.
Monkeys’ emotions were part of my childhood. My father, a doctor, worked with them all his life. His thesis at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, was on the menstrual cycle of baboons. When he settled in Britain in the 1950s, he had some of his baboons (average life span 30) shipped over, ultimately donating a couple to the London Zoo.
Upon visiting the zoo much later, he got a full-throated greeting from the baboons, who rushed to the front of their cage to tell him they’d missed him. Moral of story: Don’t underestimate monkeys’ feelings.
Which brings me to low-cal Canto and high-cal Owen: Canto looks drawn, weary, ashen and miserable in his thinness, mouth slightly agape, features pinched, eyes blank, his expression screaming, “Please, no, not another plateful of seeds!”
Well-fed Owen, by contrast, is a happy camper with a wry smile, every inch the laid-back simian, plump, eyes twinkling, full mouth relaxed, skin glowing, exuding wisdom as if he’s just read Kierkegaard and concluded that “Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backward.”
It’s the difference between the guy who got the marbleized rib-eye and the guy who got the oh-so-lean filet. Or between the guy who got a Château Grand Pontet St. Emilion with his brie and the guy who got water. As Edgar notes in King Lear, “Ripeness is all.” You don’t get to ripeness by eating apple peel for breakfast.
Speaking of St. Emilion, scientists, aware that most human beings don’t have the discipline to slash their calorie intake by almost a third, have been looking for substances that might mimic the effects of caloric restriction. They have found one candidate, resveratrol, in red wine.
The thing is there’s not enough resveratrol in wine to do the trick, so scientists are trying to concentrate it, or produce a chemical like it in order to offer people the gain (in life expectancy) without the pain (of dieting).
I don’t buy this gain-without-pain notion. Duality resides, indissoluble, at life’s core — Faust’s two souls within his breast, Anna Karenina’s shifting essence. Life without death would be miserable. Its beauty is bound to its fragility. Dawn is unimaginable without the dusk.
When life extension supplants life quality as a goal, you get the desolation of Canto the monkey. Living to 120 holds zero appeal for me. Canto looks like he’s itching to be put out of his misery.
There’s an alternative to resveratrol. Something is secreted in the love-sick that causes rapid loss of appetite — caloric restriction — yet scientists have been unable to reproduce this miracle substance, for if they did they would be decoding love. Because love is too close to the divine, life’s essence, it seems to defy such breakdown.
My mother died of cancer at 69. Her father lived to 98, her mother to 104. I said my mother died of cancer. But that’s not true. She was bipolar and depression devastated her. What took her life was misery.
We don’t understand what the mind secretes. The process of aging remains full of enigma. But I’d bet on jovial Owen outliving wretched Canto. I suspect those dissenting scientists I didn’t bore you with are right.
My 98-year-old grandfather had a party trick, making crisscross incisions into a watermelon, before allowing it to fall open in a giant red blossom. It was as beautiful as a lily opening — and, still vivid, close to what life is for.
When my father went to pick up his baboons at Heathrow airport, he stopped at a grocery store to buy them a treat. “Two pounds of bananas, please,” he said. But there were none. “O.K.,” he said, “Then I’ll take two pounds of carrots.” The shopkeeper gave him a very strange look before hurriedly handing over the carrots.
I can hear my 88-year-old father’s laughter as he tells this story. Laughter extends life. There’s little of it in the low-cal world and little doubt pudgy Owen will have the last laugh.

By Roger Cohen, published in the New York Times 15 July 2009

Ha ha ha

hahahhahahahahhahahaha

Day 9

Awesome. Not a single thought of wanting a smoke this morning.

Day 6

I know, it's only rock and roll, but I like it like it yeah yeah yeah!!!!

Day 5

Tick tock.

The cravings gnaw at me.

Powerful and overwhelming urges to smoke.

To light one up.

To draw in that lungful of poison and because I think it will make me feel great.

But I will not.... I will NOT.

Day 3

Who would have thought that I would make it to day 3?

I bet no one!

I have and have avoided one or two crises this morning during which I could have set myself on fire to have a smoke..... got through them though and so far have been smoke free for 69 hours.

No more Carbon Monoxide in my body.

No more Nicotine in my body.

Day 2

09h40 Sunday morning. I have been through the Friday night and Saturday night of a weekend.

On both nights I was out with friends, some of whom are smokers, and I must say that it was not as bad as I thought it would be.

I do have to be careful not to gulp gallons of alcohol down my throat every time I feel the urge to grab someone by the neck and steal their cigarettes from them!

By no means out of the woods yet, but a damn fine start.

Tick tock tock tock

Thanks you those of you who have been encouraging and supportive. Much appreciated.

Day 0

It has started. I extinguished my last cigarette at 14h52 today local time in Kuala Lumpur.

31 years a smoker fool.

3 hours and 50 minutes a non smoker....

Nic Benson - you are a scholar and a gentleman for your words of support.

Non Smoker

Tomorrow, 26 June 2009, I will attempt to become a non-smoker. It is time.

What is wrong with people???

Honour (from the Latin word honos, honoris) is the evaluation of a person's trustworthiness and social status based on that individual's actions. Honour is deemed exactly what determines a person's character: whether or not the person reflects honesty, respect, integrity, or fairness.

Accordingly, individuals are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions, code of honour, and that of the society at large. Honour can be analysed as a relativistic concept, i.e., conflicts between individuals and even cultures arising as a consequence of material circumstance and ambition, rather than fundamental differences in principle.

Alternatively, it can be viewed as nativist — that honour is as real to the human condition as love, and likewise derives from the formative personal bonds that establish one's personal dignity and character.

Dr Samuel Johnson, in his "A Dictionary of the English Language" (1755), defined honour as having several senses, the first of which was "nobility of soul, magnanimity, and a scorn of meanness." This sort of honour derives from the perceived virtuous conduct and personal integrity of the person endowed with it.

On the other hand, Johnson also defined honour in relationship to "reputation" and "fame"; to "privileges of rank or birth", and as "respect" of the kind which "places an individual socially and determines his right to precedence."

This sort of honour is not so much a function of moral or ethical excellence, as it is a consequence of power.

An interesting piece by John Malherbe

Just some more ramblings which you might find interesting or not. The essay is far from finished. I’m tending to narrate the ideas from the inside-out so it gets a little gappy and convoluted at times but the extrusions are inverting which is good.

I believe that our reactive society prevents us from seeing the magic and any communication needs to somehow convey the message so that we can stop apologising and making excuses. Retrieving a Soul Quote: R. W. Emerson “Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the Soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with all its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and ever more goes forth anew to take possession of his world. He said in this jubilee of sublime emotion, “I am divine. Through me God acts; through me speaks. Would you see God, see me; or see thee, when thou thinkest as I now think.”

What is the difference between a culture and a civilization and what might unite them or fuse them? A Soul? For the purpose of this discussion or task let us assume that the collective consciousness of South Africa is united. What do we mean by collective consciousness? There have been many descriptions of this phenomenon mostly characterized by a group identity, sense of humour, negative sentiment (doomsayers resistant to change or progress), a state being where it is characterized by fear or paranoia (violence stats.) or sense of inadequacy especially when applied to the developing countries in relation to the developed world. We might have the luxury of describing this state as a consciousness in formation or in an early stage of evolution but making progress, hold that thought.

If we perceive this united consciousness as a single person and forget the complexity that makes up this person or psyche, then we may see that this person is evolving. The hardship or friction they may be experiencing at any one time can be seen philosophically (in retrospect perhaps) to be the only thing that could have happened at that time to make them grow or progress to their next stage of evolution. The only thing that prevents them from seeing this fact is that they can’t see. They are in fact a bunch of thoughts, opinions, fears, regrets, reconciliation’s. In fact with all these thoughts they can’t see what they are, let alone what they should do.

It could be said that this person through all their trials, doubts and fears was evolving into a new state of Being but perhaps only if they realise what is happening to them and behave in a way which allows this to happen. If they do this they might be able to become what they are supposed to become and actually evolve.This new state of Being displays some remarkable but familiar behaviour. Listed these may include humility, empathy, tolerance, which collectively might be summed up as a “State of Grace”. In fact these familiar emotions are not emotions at all, they are a state Being that we are evolving into.

A significant proportion of South Africans were surprised but relieved that when Nelson Mandela and others were released from prison there was not a rampage of revenge and bloodshed. Perhaps this new state of Being doesn’t need revenge. In fact not only did this new state of Being not take vengeance, they accommodated the “enemy” and bent over backwards to make them feel that they belonged. This is a peculiarly South African characteristic, we are, I believe, the most hospitable, accommodating nation on earth. This thread unites us, black, white and everything in between. There is a strange something that, only here, makes it possible to be truly cosmopolitan. Everybody who comes here is made to feel at home, like they belong. As hard as we try to behave in this way as individuals from all our different perspectives and fears perhaps there is something else that unites us. Maybe Africa is home, a place where we can put up our feet, be silent, rest and recuperate, regenerate. Maybe Southern and South Africa is that place where we can all come to regenerate, to realise that we are evolving. A place where we can in a sense shed our skin and accept graciously this new state of Being. It can only happen where we belong, in the wilderness, in silence. If we tell people this in the simplest way they may also realise that this place, home, is where they need to come to find relaxation and respite, the only real opportunity to regenerate, something not available elsewhere. Maybe the only way to explain it is to tell the world to come home. That this is the only place where you can come and experience this new state of Being, what it feels like to be human.

Throughout history the great civilisations have one thing in common. They gave everyone a chance to feel what it was like to be human. Maybe South Africa will be considered to be the next great civilisation….It won’t if we don’t see what we are and what we are becoming. Whatever we do and whoever we are we all need to go home sometime to understand what it feels like to be human because we are human for a reason. Not only are we human for a reason, but male and female, rich and poor, black and white for the same reason. As each individual must learn to know themselves through their own eyes, their own perceptions, naked and raw, they must learn to see, so must a nation or a country or a civilisation. At best the current perception of itself (SA) must seem psychotic if not schizophrenic. This quest for seeing or perception is how we must begin to find our relationship with the world around us, it is our navigational tool. As the individual must take stock of what and who they are to begin regeneration so must the civilisation. As the individual or civilisation begins to see they will also know how far they can see, who they can reach, and in context, their role in the order of things will extract itself. They see what they are.This perceiving quest is how we must begin to find our relationship with the world around us. As the individual must take stock of what and who they are (take back their power) to complete their own creation, they will see how far they can see, who they can reach and in context their role in the order of things will extract itself.

The responsibility to take that essence (SA = Healing and Regeneration?) and in turn complete its creation becomes a part of the perceiving quest and a new mythology is born, one in which we unfold our own myth. The responsibility in the context of SA is perhaps more about perceiving or seeing itself before others can see it.

The real cost of Aids is emotional and spiritual, that death is priceless. This is what we have to tell the world. Not that we’ve beaten it through science and technology or suppression or interpretation of the facts, but through understanding. The only price to pay for Aids is that of not understanding, then we fight the war of inflation and poverty on other peoples turf and terms.

South Africa is one of the only places in the world where you can cultivate understanding but we know as South Africans we can cultivate that in most climates. In the late 60’s while everyone was focussing on the USA going to the moon a miracle happened in SA. A South African showed how it was possible to fix things inside. A heart was transplanted. Some dismissed this as tricking God or cheating death but Chris Barnard knows that all he did was buy us a little time.

Lets not forget the other Chris, Chris Hani and Nelson and Steve. They all knew this too and paid a huge price to buy some time.

Time for a Soul transplant. In Jerusalem one man died so that we might live? In SA many men died and maybe the really big miracle is still happening. What is a miracle but a massive contradiction. In SA we are living a miracle daily, in fact SA is a living miracle. One day people might find a computer disc or clay pot which when interpreted will carry the legend of a great civilisation with great leaders who built things. This won’t happen unless we see what we are and then go tell someone. The lungs of the earth are the rainforests, the heart perhaps the U.K., USA or Europe, the remaining organs can be assigned but what is missing is the Soul which is in SA. We know what happens if the Soul dies.So if we are ever going to be proud to be South African, black or white, maybe all we have to do is see that we are in the right place at the right time, see what we are or what we have the potential to be and what we can do. You won’t believe how far that can reach.

We can guess at what the sixth sense is and it will have a different slant for each one of us. I believe that as humans we have a seventh and more senses but the seventh is that which unites us. It is a sense of Being Human and a sense of Belonging. Mother nature or the nature of the Mother can only really be universally experienced in South Africa. In the country where black women raised white children with no bitterness or malice, with no reward or recompense to speak of, at least not in this life, in fact with extraordinary devotion and love. Everywhere else in the world we are humbled by nature or we “humble” it. We are isolated or alienated from nature and only return to de-stress or unwind. There are many beautiful places in the world that we escape to according to our means, creating memories and leaving mementoes (mostly litter). Sadly there is a sense that nature is subordinate, such is the way of our various western egocentric consciousnesses (consciencelessnesses), we visit condescendingly and return home “renewed”. I think we are missing the point.

Regeneration is the goal and we can settle for nothing less. In South Africa lies the possibility of Regeneration. In South Africa there is a sense of Being Home, a sense, not of humbling you or of quieting your soul but of making you understand that you belong. In many ways this is not a holiday destination, nor should that be the intent of the traveller to these parts.We have the possibility of creating a civilisation, that is what the African Renaissance is about. We need to take the time and the care and have patience, some people have already paid a huge price. Our attitude must not be “how do we beat that” or “how can we compete with that”. We don’t have to if we create something new and unique, we have all the materials. Time is both our worst enemy and our best friend. Most of us will not be around (in the final sense) to see the real fruits of the work that must begin now. How do we start something knowing we may never see its conclusion? What is a miracle but a massive contradiction (would suffice).

In South Africa where we sit on the side of the road the secret is that we are regenerating. Come home where you belong, put up your feet, relax see what you are and let Grace serve you………..

The legacy, apartheid and oppression, the debt absorbed, the Soul retrieved. It is up to us to live the completion of creation.

The Hairy Book

In December 2008 the first words of a book were penned. Many have said that I should write a book and finally it is so that I am. Finally I am motivated enough to do so.

It will take some time to complete as the story will be a long one and will eventually encompass and represent all that I am as a person.

Its chapters will be varied and will tell a story that I hope will inspire anyone who reads it when it is ready to be read!

It will be a tale of dreams fulfilled.

It will be the truth of how quiet, buried ambitions can be realised with patience and persistence.

2009 - have a good one everyone

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you."

Something to think about as we start the year.

Or more simply put:

CARPE DIEM