The Opinion Pieces are an eclectic bunch on current affairs & history often with a human interest aspect. The Movie/DVDs reviews are mainly on documentaries with a smattering of movie reviews.
This is not a scare tactic or crying wolf to get everybody to adhere to the recommendations regarding Covid-19 but hopefully it will have the required salutary effect. Having had a wife who was intubated for six and half weeks, I can comprehend what these patients are experiencing. For them it is far worse as unlike Janine, these patients are not in a coma. And the ICU was 50% full.
This is a Facebook post pasted from a doctor in the Eastern Cape.
History did not end with the fall of Berlin’s “Schandmauer”, the “Wall of Shame” which brought down the shabby, rusted “Iron Curtain” of Communism upheld by outrageous “Stasi” and KGB violations of the most fundamental human right: Security defined as “Freedom from Fear”.
No! History is being perpetuated with daily human rights violations by over-grown school bullies running purported democracies with the support of anti-social voters who were mal-conditioned by parents, peers and majority electorates to believe that “might is right” and security must be sought from the worst bully they could possibly vote for.
I am increasingly of the opinion that the wearing of masks is an imperative. I have just finished listening to a Czech doctor who said that it is mandatory to wear masks the moment they step outside and their infection rate is testimony to those measures. I’m not talking about the N95 mask but the ordinary pleated mask. Its all about risk reduction.
When I was directed by an email
link to this video (https://www.youtube.com/embed/BC1l4geSTP8)
I thought I had been sneakily misdirected to a televangelist’s video – he
looked just like your common or garden mercenary TV pastor/charlatan.
I must admit that I did not get
past the first minute of his presentation when his earnest piercing eyes forced
me to shut him down before I did the coyote trick and chewed my arm off. So, this will not be a comprehensive
refutation of his claims but I got enough of his drift and arguments early on
and I did not wish to waste my life any further than I had to. It’s all been said before.
During the period June 2006 to June
2019, the traditional initiation procedure for African males has resulted in a
veritable genocide in South Africa. Yet year after year all that government provides
as a solution and solace for grieving parents are platitudes and promises.
What is the extent of this travesty?
Main picture: Xhosa initiates
The extent of this disaster is obvious
from the cumulative statistics for this period. These statistics relate only to
the Eastern Cape.
Consequence
Number affected
Hospital admissions
8218
Deaths
794
Amputations
317
What has been the response from the
government? Apart from some platitudes and proposals, no concrete action has
been taken. Has any person been charged for culpable homicide? Has anybody been
incarcerated or even fined? A deafening silence will be heard. Instead somebody
is fined R200,000 for uttering the word Kaffir. The use of such a pejorative
and demeaning term cannot be justified but none of the perpetrators of death
was even fined by a derisory R1. Where is the justice?
On the other hand what has been the
response when one black scholar was drowned while on school-organised adventure
in the North West? Immediately the Education MEC for Gauteng, Pansy Lesufi, was
baying for blood. The principal of the school was suspended, the South African
Human Rights Commission became involved and vitriol was heaped upon all and sundry.
Yet 794 black youths can callously die without nary a raised voice. The school
officials deserve to have opprobrium heaped
upon them as all the basic control procedures such as the issue of life jackets
seemed to have been ignored but what about the rights of 794 youths on the cusp
of attaining adulthood. Does tradition trump life itself? Any government truly
concerned about the rights of all its citizens would have put in place the relevant
controls and punishments to prevent this senseless slaughter.
Why the asymmetrical treatment? Surely one irregular death is the same as another. This demands equivalence in the treatment not only between the various methods of death but also the severity of crimes such as crimen inuria versus death.
At this rate, South African doctors
will become the most experienced in the world in performing penis transplants.
In fact we will be in the invidious position of inviting foreign doctors to
hone their skills in this little-practiced area in medical treatment.
I think we’re f%$@ed no matter
what we do. Perhaps that’s an
exaggeration, but I believe that unless we make radical interventions soon, it
will be too late no matter what we do then.
I’m not referring to the tearing of the social fabric of society due to
social media or violent pc games, or the destruction of rain forests, or the
bleaching of coral reefs – I am only concerned here with climate change.
Imagine that one has a net income of R10,000 per month but owes the bank interest of R15,000 per month on loans of R.5m. Despite this disastrous financial position one nevertheless decides to increase the children’s pocket money by 20% whilst simultaneously taking unpaid leave amounting to 20 days. To prevent one’s family from starving, one then approaches one’s retired parents for a stipend of R5,000 per month. This will keep the wolf from the door but unless drastic cuts are made to the expenses, reductions made in the number of free-loading married children, and boosting one’s income, one will have to approach one’s aging parents on a biannual, if not annual, basis for increases in one’s allowance.
In his book A
Descriptive Handbook of the Cape Colony, John Noble provides a description
of all the major towns in the Cape Colony in 1874. His narrative about Port
Elizabeth itself is glowing. However he concludes by stating that the “country about Port Elizabeth is very uninviting.”
Included in the blog are the census figures for 1874 as well as a detailed
description of the wool washing process which had by this time become more mechanised.
This is a verbatim transcription from Noble’s tome.
Over the years, I have read plenty of
articles on economists forecasting the future but what troubles me is why they
are so abysmal at getting them correct
Take the crash of 2008. Why didn’t they predict it years before based upon the facts on hand viz the granting of loans based upon dubious or non-existent security? Subsequently why didn’t they predict the rapid recovery – one can even call it an over-exuberant recovery.
Passionata, my enthralment with mills. I was terribly disappointed last year when I was unable to join the Border Historical Society, in East London as an invited speaker, on the subject of my passion, ‘mills’.
‘Raised’ in my formative years, in the NE Transvaal, by my beloved grandfather, {and orphan, escapee from Estonia 1917} he indulged my interest, as a true Rabbi by searching for mills while was away at boarding school. On my return, there would be an adventure to a farm in the district, to visit, that had a mill.
