More Mandela Memorial Musings

Seems I missed a few things that went down at the Mandela Memorial yesterday.

President Barack Obama shook hands with Cuba’s Raul Castro and some sections of the USA have their panties in a twist about it. Politicians shake hands with rival politicians all the time; it’s no biggie. Hell, I once saw Angela Merkel kiss Jacob Zuma. It’s all a show – I’m pretty certain she loathes the swine and had lip surgery afterwards.

And then there’s this brouhaha over Obama taking a group selfie with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and the UK’s David Cameron. It’s a fucking non-event. Anyway Michelle Obama seems to have sorted it out, if this series of pictures can be trusted.

And finally the one that’s making headlines at the moment: seems the sign-language interpreter (SLI) on stage was bogus. Yeah, according to all those who know about such things, the guy hired to interpret for the hearing-impaired was just waving his hands and arms about randomly. Take a look at this:

I have a perfectly feasible explanation for this whole mix-up. See, the guy was not hired to sign; he was hired to chase the flies off the stage, what with so many rotten politicians from so many different shitholes of the world sharing the same platform and all. He must be pretty embarrassed for being mistaken as the SLI, and he did a pretty good job because I didn’t see a single fly in TV footage.

Anyway, enough about these silly politicians. Here’s something to really smile about. A flash mob paying tribute to the man.

WTF Moment

49% of Americans think that ordinary tomatoes do not have genes, but genetically modified tomatoes do…

Okay that was back in 2008. Here’s some more [Infographic source: Less Wrong].

Do you think that scientific literacy has improved since then? I only managed to dig up some statistics as recent as 2010. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone with more recent figures, but it shows that things don’t get any better – only a 2% improvement for the question about tomatoe genes. [Table source: Discover, The Loom]

I have probably unfairly singled out the USA, but the above table reveals that the levels of scientific literacy are not that much better in other parts of the world. I sincerely hope that more recent statistics show a drastic improvement, but somehow I doubt it. And that’s worrying for the future of this planet.

Heatmaps to give a f@@k about

Fuck you!

A common enough phrase. But would you care how often it was being said? Would you actually keep count?

Seems a company called Vertaline did just that. They tracked tweets from 100’s of locations across the USA containing the phrase “fuck you,” over a 10-day period in July this year, and created a heatmap that recorded its distribution.

And the results?

New York City and Los Angeles take a bow. It seems you do indeed give a fuck about the usage of flowery language.

However this doesn’t mean shit according to the article from where I got this crap, because the heat signatures correlate with high population densities in those areas, and hence does not make for a very scientific evaluation.

Now after reading this, I wondered how this use of heatmaps could be put to use right here in South Africa. Since we’re all pretty much fucked under the current government, I wondered if Vertaline could find another way to use heatmaps that would amuse us, and keep us busy until our turn comes to bend over.

What if they could creat heatmaps that measured levels of bigotry and sophistry. We could then have hours of fun as we uncover the gatherings off our politicians, and posh meeting venues they favour. No points for figuring out which political party is raising the most “heat” – we all know don’t we; we’re just curious about how much more than the others. Naturally, Parliament would have to be excluded; we all know what a hothouse of “fuck the people,”  that place is.

Would you be interested in my fairly brilliant idea? Do you actually give a fuck?

The government totally sucks…

You all know that already, right?

In this video [watch till the end – it gets better and better] Jack Black may be singing about the US of A, but right here in South Africa, they’re doing their damndest to win the race for suckiest government ever.

*****

But on a serious note, Justice Malala, a columnist in the online Times Live had this to say about the ANC this week, all of it absolutely true:

This is not an organisation whose mission is to liberate ordinary South Africans from poverty. It is a party that has been hijacked by people whose aim is to loot the state as quickly as possible before the taps are shut.

Let the world, still enchanted by the South African rainbow dream, know that it has turned out to be just a fucking nightmare.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Having read Good Omens, Gaiman’s collaboration with Terry Pratchett, I certainly did look forward to reading one of his solo works. But like Good Omens, I felt unsatisfied at the end because it all worked out rather too neat.

Hang on to that thought because we’ll come back to it later…

The plot revolves around the likeable ex-con Shadow, fresh out of prison, who allows himself to be drafted into service as a bodyguard of sorts to an ageing con-man Mr. Wednesday, who later reveals himself to be Odin, a God of the Norse pantheon. The unlikely duo travel across America attempting to enlist the aid of various other mythological Gods, who we learn have been brought over to America [through the act of belief] from the old countries by an assortment of immigrants. The recruitment drive is to create a force to participate in an impending battle with the New Gods represented by modern technology, the media, celebrities etcetera.

Along the way we meet crotchety characters such Czernobog and Mama Ji who is the Indian God Kali, and rather likeable Gods such as Mr. Ibis and Mr. Jacquel representing the Gods Thoth and Anubis respectively. But there are other in-between Gods such as Easter (Eostre) and Mr. Nancy (Ananzi), and the supposed bad guys representing the New Gods with names like Mr. Town and Mr. World, who is also the known as Low-Key Lyesmith, otherwise known as Loki.

The human characters along the way do not play significant parts in the plot except for Shadows’ dead wife [yes, dead wife], Sam Black Crow and girl he meets while driving across the States and Chad Mulligan, a police officer in a small town which features prominently in te book.

Not wanting to give away too much about the myriad twists and turns and the special reltionships between the various characters, both Gods and humans alike, I’m going to leave it at that. But I now go back to the ending which I mentioned earlier.

I would have liked to see a messy ending, where either the Old Gods get their asses kicked, or even the New Gods. But Gaiman decided to let Shadow intervene between the warring sides and end the battle peacefully, with hardly any casualties. Maybe he was trying to tell us that the Old Gods can live side by side with the New. Or that the Old Gods are so inbuilt into our psyche’s that they will stay there for a very long time, if not forever. Or that the New Gods can’t be killed as they are the future.

However you look at it, it’s a compromise we’ll have to live with…

At the time of writing this review, HBO is developing a TV series of the book for airing some time around 2013, with Tom Hanks producing. It’s something to look forward to.

A sikh joke you say?

The Indian population of India and abroad really have to get over this ridiculous insecurity about their many religions.

Hot on the heels of India’s pathetic dispute with Facebook and Google over content that they myopically view as hostile to local religions, comes the Jay Leno affair. And only recently, celebrated author Salman Rushdie was forced to cancel a planned appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival after threats and protests from Islamist groups, while the Indian authorities apparently turned a blind eye.

Back to the Jay Leno affair: Jay Leno, host of the Tonight Show is in hot water following a quip he made about the Golden Temple in Amritsar being the holiday home of Republican, Mitt Romney. While some sensible Indians (Sikhs included) appreciated the joke and accepted it as quite normal,  it has apparently angered the Sikh community in the USA and in India. They believe that the joke is a deliberate affront to their religion.

However if you watch the clip below, you’ll find that Leno made no reference to Sikhs or the temple itself. So you have to wonder what all the fuss is about.

The obvious answer is that like the adherents of all other religions in the world, the Sikhs have this obtuse notion that their god or gods require constant defending against perceived attacks, both from adherents of competing religions, heathens and non-believers alike.

How utterly pathetic?

It’s time you life-sucking god-botherers grew up and started attending to the real problems in the world, not the imaginary ones that seem to make up all these pointless religions we have.

Cometh the hour, cometh the Rapture

According to Harold Camping who predicted that all righteous Christians in the world will be Raptured on 21 May 2011, 6PM is the magical hour when it will start.

While Camping didn’t elaborate in which time zone it would occur, we would have to assume that he either meant 6PM local time California where he is based, or 6PM simultaneously around the world. I’m sure all of you who don’t qualify to ascend to Heaven on May 21 because you’re ridiculously rational, will immediately see the problem with the magical hour put forward by Camping. Those of you who are non-Christian believers shouldn’t even bother.

But rather than spoil the last moments on Earth for the selected few by posing these scientific questions which you no doubt have no appreciation for, I would just like to wish you well on your flight upwards to Heaven. May you get great service and an open bar.

I would like to dedicate the song Rapture, by Blondie to all you good Rapturees. I hope you take one last listen to some good earthly tunes before you subject yourselves to an eternity of harp music. This particular version which is a clever mix of Blondie and Jim Morrison of the Doors, may not be to your purist tastes, but just live a little before you depart.

I’m sure those of you who will remain behind like me to face the Tribulation, will appreciate this too while we party on regardless.

I care about the future of my country…not the future of a political party

It’s finally here. One more sleep until the election that’s being billed as a watershed event in the recent history of South African politics. But will it be?

Oh, it’s just a local government election, nothing as dramatic as the election of the first Black President in the USA, but it’s a very important event in the history of South African politics. Seventeen years of democratic [I’m not amenable to that word] elections has produced a pattern of voting that hasn’t changed all that much.

But tomorrow, will South Africans vote with maturity for the first time, or will they continue to vote emotionally along narrow racial and egotistical lines like they’ve always done in the history of voting in this country?

The two main contenders up for elections are the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the African National Congress (ANC). The hundreds [yes, democracy tends to become farcical] of other parties and independent candidates vying for contention will get a small percentage of the vote, but will become irrelevant in the larger scale of things. But they’re important nonetheless, catering for either refined thinkers on the one hand and self-seeking interests on the other.

The DA and the ANC have both conducted intensive election campaigns in the run up to this elections. While both had their unsavory moments, one in particular conducted a particularly nasty campaign that set new standards of low for electioneering, in this country at least.

The ANC being the dominant party continued to make the same promises which they have been making for the last 17 years and broken repeatedly. Their campaign featured elements of the bizarre on far too many occasions – contending that a vote for the ANC was a guarantee of a ticket to heaven, and pandering to the superstitious inclinations of the older generation of the vast Black population by stating quite falsely that their deceased elders would be angered if the ANC was not favored in the election. These were among the more despicable acts perpetrated during their increasingly desperate campaign. The ANC campaign was also noteworthy for the manner in which it manipulated emotions and entrenched racial divisions in the country. In short, the ANC did a remarkable job of promoting themselves, at the expense of the country as a whole.

The DA campaign on the other hand, while not standing out as a shining beacon for morality and potential good governance, was at least realistic and concentrated on what local elections are all about – service delivery. They did not stoop to the abominable depths of using religion and culture to gift-wrap their campaign; instead they focussed on highlighting their successes at local municipalities where they were in control. The important thing for me was that they were convincing about their concern for the future of the country.

And that is where the ANC failed dismally. They merely managed to convince me that they were more concerned about protecting their own self-serving interests by retaining power both nationally and locally. Anyone who actually bothers to analyse performance and can see through the myriad deceptions that politicians routinely employ, will realise that the ANC does not deserve to be trusted with a vote of confidence.

For this reason, I will not vote for them tomorrow, but will trust the DA to prove that they deserve a chance at local government.

Drop Everything and Read…DEAR

Today, April 12 is Drop Everything and Read Day, or D.E.A.R Day.

I heard about it on local radio this morning, but it doesn’t seem to be an international event. It appears National D.E.A.R Day is commemorated annually in the USA to remind and encourage families to make reading together on a daily basis, a family priority. It’s celebrated on 12 April each year to honour American author Beverly Cleary who wrote many books for children and young adults.

Setting aside a day for encouragement of reading is a marvelous idea, and should be celebrated internationally. The statistics for literacy in South Africa is appalling and I’d venture to assert that the figures for the rest of Africa is not much better, probably worse. So any initiative to improve these statistics should be seized upon and disseminated widely. Sadly the government in South Africa seem set on a path to diminish the standards of education further and further each year and need constant reminding about their inanity.

However, the rest of the world should consider themselves lucky to not be governed by dodgy miscreants; so grab yourselves a book and get stuck into a few chapters. But for the love of literacy, please let it not be the Bible or the Koran or the Bagavad Gita or any other religious text. Please read something that imparts at least some intellectual enlightenment, not useless dogma.

Now that I’ve done my bit for R.E.A.D Day, I’m off to complete the last few chapters of The Form of Things by A.C Grayling…

Being human is so damn hard…

Just when you think you have things all figured out, you soon realize that you don’t. Or worse still – that you probably never will…

We formulate our opinions on life based on the quantity and quality of the information we receive, or allow ourselves to receive in the absence of any inhibiting factors such as censorship. However we may also be prone to wilfully self-censor because of inculcated beliefs, ideologies and even prejudices, which off course leads to the formulation of rubbish opinions.

Let’s assume that in most cases censorship is non-existent or very limited, which would mean that our opinions are limited in their [truth]value only by the paucity of information available and our own inherent limitations in comprehending and reasoning, or by wilful ignorance.

In either case most people who formulate opinions on life should be assumed to have good intentions. Or at least, that’s how I’d like to assess all humans.

So, as of last week I thought I had the Libyan situation all figured out. There was a leader ruthlessly killing his own people, behaving like a madman…or so most of the media reports and opinion pieces published, led you to believe. Having a strong respect for the sanctity of life and an aversion to genocidal tendencies, I supported the UN measures to impose a NO-FLY ZONE in Libya and the subsequent military action that followed. My argument in support was based strongly on Objective Morality.

However, with new information available this week, I realise that maybe the whole decision to intervene militarily in Libya may have been wrong. And while I concede that the intentions of the ring-leaders the USA, Britain and France in formulating that decision, may have been somewhat honourable, is in fact very wrong on many other levels. I now have to concede that the net bad that will result, outweighs any good that can be gleaned from this whole wretched affair.

Off course, I may have gotten it all wrong once again. It’s so tough being human…so much easier being a politician!