African Road Blocks

By Dean McCleland in Animals 0 Comment

This is why I love Africa. A trip to the bush is what reconnects one with nature and its primal soothing influence. As one basks in the wishful thinking that this represents the idyll before the advent of mankind, reconsider one’s opinion.

The stark reality is that for both predator and prey life is precarious. For the prey especially herbivores, a carpet of vegetation is all that is required for sustenance. Just as crucial, if not more so, is the tenet of the survival of the fitness or in some cases the survival of the lucky. Any ailment however trivial or bad luck by being in the wrong place at the wrong time is hazardous to one’s longevity.

Continue reading

Spectacular Pictures from around the World

By Dean McCleland in Landscapes 0 Comment

Have you ever wondered why my blogs have an overabundance of images in them? Even if I cannot find appropriate images on Google for an arcane subject such as euthanasia, I will instead embed images of winter scenes to evocate the response that I am endeavouring to achieve. According to the Pew Research Centre, the emotion and attention engendered by an image will result in an Internet User being 7.4 times more likely to click on the content.

Evocative images can more succinctly represent the essence of a story than a thousand worlds.

Continue reading

To be or not to be euthanised

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Opinion Pieces 1 Comment

The recent case in South Africa in which Advocate Robin Stransham-Ford made a High Court Application to be afforded his constitutional right to human dignity respected and freedom to bodily and psychological integrity guaranteed has brought this issue to the forefront in South Africa. Rather than retrace the sanctity of human life versus the free will/ right to human dignity debate, the focus of this blog will highlight the human cost of not allowing euthanasia under certain rigorously controlled conditions.

The detractors of the dignity of life advocates base their opposition to assisted suicide on the principle of the sanctity of life. The medical profession in particular is incensed at this possible amendment to the Hippocratic Oath. Simply put, this tenet entrenches the right to life as being paramount to the exclusion of all other considerations including severe pain and imminent death.

Continue reading

An Array of Stunning Photographs

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 3 Comments

Perhaps this series of photographs should be called eclectic as there is no overarching theme aside from their evident beauty. Perhaps one can invent a collective noun for stunning photographs. I propose an old English word now is disuse but which I can still recall from studying Latin under the tutelage of Mr Wright at Alexander Road High School in the late 1960’s. How about pulchritude of photographs? No. It doesn’t take your fancy. Too old fashioned?

 

Continue reading

Pre-Occupation with the Past

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Opinion Pieces 0 Comment

This is not a uniquely South African phenomenon or even the propensity of the ANC. The previous Nationalist Government aka “The Apartheid Regime” would without qualms use the British atrocities during the Boer War as a point of argument. The Arabs used it against the Americans when George Bush Junior obligingly used the “inflammatory” word “crusade” to describe the American invasion of Iraq. So why do certain peoples, nations or political parties have a predilection for harping about the past?

Main picture: President places the blame for South Africa’s “challenges” squarely on the first white in South Africa – Jan van Riebeeck

The fact that President Jacob Zuma stirred the racial pot before the ANC’s meeting in the Western Cape by proclaiming that the landing of Van Riebeeck in Cape Town in 1652 was the commencement of South Africa’s problems was both a blatant lie and vicious distortion of the facts was ignored by most commentators. Instead with the proverbial racial hackles raised, the Rainbow Nation bifurcated into racial segments as if cleaved with a meat chopper.

Continue reading

Mampara of the Week: Mcebo “I Love Hitler” Dlamini

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, SA Heroes and Mamparas 1 Comment

One wonders what level of general knowledge that the average university student in South Africa possesses today? Look no further than the Wits University SRC President and fifth year law student, Mcebo Dlamini with his contentious comment “I Love Hitler”.

Earlier this week the SRC President posted a photo on Facebook comparing the Israeli Government to the Nazi Regime. As if the ire the Jewish Students were not sufficiently incensed by that photo, he added “I Love Hitler” in the comments section.

Main picture: The Mampara himelf – Mcebo Dlamini
Continue reading

Aspirant Engineers at Work

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 0 Comment

Everybody has to be a handyman periodically. In these cases the person who performed the occasional domestic repairs and minor renovations around the home clearly had pretensions of becoming an engineer. It is not that these improvisations do not work – they clearly do – but they lack the finesse of a properly executed engineering job. From the obvious crudity, the term Heath Robinson springs to mind as they all bear this hallmark.

 

Continue reading

The Spoon Rest: Lost in Translation

By Blaine McCleland in Family Histories, McClelands 0 Comment

One day when I was in about standard 4 Mom decided that she needed a spoon rest while she was cooking.  I asked her what it was and I said that I would make her one, in fact I would make her a double one.  She described it as having a concave part where the bowl of the spoon could lie and a raised bit at the back for the handle.  With these scanty design specifications, I went to work.  I incorporated the technical features and added some customisation of my own.  After a few days of cutting, filing and sanding pieces of fruit case wood, I produced my masterpiece piece

Main picture: Lost in Translation

Continue reading