Free mobile data cards for the bloggers?

Perhaps my blogging, or is it my writing, has become of an addiction lately. I find myself wanting to write about so many things all the same time, but less time to do so. I think, as of now, 01:35am is the precise time on this machine, I'll be blogging more often and expressing thoughts more intently.

Why? Well, I just managed to install, and set up my new mobile conntect data card. And the beauty of this thing is that as I write this, I'm just 'chillaxing' in bed - albeit a very hectic and bad day.

Daughter is sick. My toothache is murdering me and has in fact swollen the entire right side of my face. It looks disfigured and I'm sure my kids find me scary, hence Tinyiko, the two month old has been screaming the whole day. Seems the bones I was eating got lodged into one of the nerves. Yes, Ouch.

In any case, the blogflag goes on. The writingmast keeps standing high, sick or not sick. It's great to keep up with technology I must say though. No more writing on word first in the evenings, and posting the next day at work and no posting on the weekends. I'm seriously considering buying vodafone mobile data cards for all the serious bloggers on the SA blogosphere. I really am. Let me find the funds first. And will get back to you. Ok. The tooth fairy calls me to sleep now. What an ass the ache is.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

MXiT is like inescapable crack

It is reported that ‘a recent survey conducted on MXiT, found that sex was the biggest topic of discussion on MXiT and that it outweighed by more than 70% chats about sport, hobbies, education, jokes or politics.

So it’s simple. Be freedom of speech and pro-tech like me, but we have to agree that people flirt for sex on that thing.

GenerationX or is it GenerationMXiT Up?
For the youth, especially the 12-17 majority users group quoted by the Sunday Times GenerationX survey, MXiT is the in thing. “MXing it up is all the rage”. Because it’s cheap and these teens can misuse their time effectively with that Stellenbosch developed software. As I've written before here, MXiT culture, unfortunately, breeds a fcuked generation.

The Sunday Times did an extensive coverage of this new technology (they also tend to mention blogs a lot these days in their paper. Kudos for this one) and in fact, in praise of it as the new in thing for the kids. The benefits of it were weighed heavier in their articles than the side effects which are a lot more significant than the incentives - particularly in the survey supplement.


‘4 million’ logons a day, 10 000 new users daily
We just got to face it, even us who love and embrace new technologies and empowering the consumer, something’s just destroy the fabric of society and our cultures. Like I said before, MXiT takes the majority time of the kids (and surprisingly, some grown ups). Especially the ones who don't really understand the potential dangers of something that offers easy-come incentives. Talk of crack cocaine. The paper states that there are around 5 million logons a day, and a blog claiming that there are 10 000 new users daily. The virus is spreading fast, in the name of freedom of speech, consumer empowerment and cheap – and profit of course, for the developer.

Conversations become cybertic
Teens are spending more time on MXiT than really talking, naturally breaking bread with friends and family. The conversation, as we know, is moving to be cybertic in nature. Whether that's a good thing or not, depends on who benefits or is already addicted or is high on 'freedom of speech' as though they sniffed crack for too long than necessary.


The card of freedom of speech must be played when it makes sense and balances things in an equally beneficial manner. Not simply because freedom of speech is an important part of human interaction and communication. As I said in my first MXiT entry, you can't support something for the sake of supporting it or that it’s innovative technology. Some cultural disruptive technologies need not be or have to be regulated (read: regulated, not censored).


As worries of destruction cut into mainstream media parents are seeing smoke. Not that he meant bad when he gave birth to it. He just wanted, probably, too empower the consumer and open up communication platform whilst making money at it through bringing an audience together and selling their souls to the advertisers. But he knows, surely, that the side effects now outweigh the consumer's gain.


He claims that '95% of MXiT four million users employ the software as a replacement to SMS'. That to me, just sounds like bollocks supported by statistics. Why isn't he explaining, not that he is due to, that at the same time, such replacement takes a different form and incentive. With MXiT, the incentive is that you pick cyber girlfriends and boyfriends over the net and do whatever with them. What a perfect hunting field for the paedophile.


Flirting just like cybering on American ‘sex sites’
And most friends I have spoken to use if for flirting online (I know many also use it for replacement of costly SMS). And my little brothers are collecting 'hot' chics on MXiT like cheap sweets. However, Heunis distances himself from the reality that MXiT facilitates real life profile and cellphone number exchange where innocent and incautious teens swap such with paedophiles. See Sunday Times’ ‘MXiT at centre of nude teen photos uproar’ for more digital shock. MXiT version 5.1.1 is even a lot more advanced that picture exchanges will be done instantly on the chat program.


Paedophiles galore, a den of sick hornies let lose
Think of what happened last year. A 33-year old paedophile abducting an innocent 16-year old girl using tactics via MXiT. I'm sure many little girls out there believe to be chatting with peers but in fact it’s sometimes criminal-intent older men who are trying to lure them, if not simply introducing them to what they shouldn’t be at their innocent age


Brother’s confiscated multimedia phone
My sister had to confiscate my little brother’s phone just recently, after he stopped demonstrating his love for magazines and reading in general, and spending less and less time on his school books. He tells me he had 11 girlfriends on MXiT. All with pictures. Some sexy and scantily clad bodies. The girls looked her age, but fact remains, they are half naked. And there was porn too from Mig33 and peperonity.com.


Solutions?
Government can’t do much about it. Parents can’t succeed if they keep buying their kids hi-multimedia capability cellphones and expect flirts and porn not to happen on that hi-tech tool. I think that what Heunis has to think of doing, in the interest of preserving the safety of these girls, is to up the cost of using MXiT. Economic and marketing research has long shown that where anything is free and ‘useful’, it will soar in demand. Where a product is useful and price is up, then the demand will be less. He must not place it at the SMS benchmark, but at least to deter free access, which is the one that leads to abuse.

May be I’m digitally shocked with MXiT because I have brought two daughters in this world. And when things like these happen, it’s the girls that get hardest hit and abused and the price they pay is too high. And for the little boys, some paedophiles now prefer them too. And for the ‘freedom of speech’ card waving adults, your culture of natural interaction might slip off your life.

Or better still, and not that it's their problem, but may be Vodacom, MTN and Cell C should make SMS cheaper to cancel out MXiT's culturally distasteful advantage. They could make their SMS a bit lower without going straight flat on the ground as to render them free like MXiT (and I'm aware you pay for data transfers).

I was nearly arrested possessing 'crack'

Death. Death is a strange animal – if animal means something cruel. It so inexplicable and always been so. In my life and in my family, death has always played shy of making its grand statement. The only time that it kicked down my family door was when it took my cousin – a dearest friend whom I couldn’t say goodbye to (exams at Rhodes) and my grandfather – a true arch fountain of wisdom. And now that I’m feeling that I’m on, by metaphor, my deathbed, I wish he was here.

The pain is killing me, nearly literally. The toothache is going to bury me I tell you. I’ve been on Grandpa (painkillers) for the past 72 hours and at this moment, as I write this after some meditation and a silent prayer in this cold study – pale walls staring at me like death itself, I’m forced to reflect and draw the cold parallels with death.

It’s almost as though my own life is slipping out of my mouth. The pain telling me that I’m gripping you until you give in. Almost like the roots of my life and this air I breathe, is steeped in my gums – which at this moment, the part to the left is nearing blue/black and collapsing inside – useful information courtesy of wifey dearest who had to act dentist several times throughout the night between 1am and 5am.

I haven’t slept an hour. Everytime the crack-like painkiller faded, I’d wake up in pain, tossing and turning needing more. Now, I’m facing the death of my tooth. I have faced it before, and it was pulled out with a pair of dentistry pliers – wish such force the pain was in the motion of force than in the pulling by that man in a white coat. I face the reality of pulling another one. Why the parallels of death?

Because this time the tooth is a front one. In less than six months I’m losing my second tooth. And this man, this husband, this father, is only 25. What the fuck? Can’t I be left alone by this strange death and the tooth fairy so that I be the handsome looking hubby and father, than one with gaps when he smiles – and for me, smiles are life. Taking away smiles is taking away my life [Uncle Sam’s When I See You Smile plays in the background].

Only if my old man was here. That wise traditional healer would now be putting some African concoction together. Spit a passionate prayer into it. And voila. My tooth stays and the worm eating its nerve falls out for me to kick its ass into the middle of Modo. When last I was this miserable, it was when me and my wife faced the devil. Face to face. Literally. The meet was about brokering a deal. To decide whether we give our last daughter life or not. Beautiful Tinyiko is now two months. Hail pro-life.

So that’s where the death parallel kicks in. The misery of choosing to keep or to let go. Give life or take life. I’m going to try and stand the pain. Find some alternatives. And first, I have to look to African culture practices before I go European. For my grandfather always went Africa first before chopping and pulling things out.

When a man is on his ‘deathbed’, his mind starts really working in congruent with his heart. And all that he wanted to do, he swears that given a second chance (out of this one), he would do it no procrastination. That’s me. So much in grave pain that the emotion makes me pledge that if go through this one – bring on the game. Lord just this once, I say. I will live by my word and achieve all that I wanted to. That’s death for you. When it stares you in the face and looks up your mouth, you start calculating in reflection.

I frankly don’t know what was the point of this entry. Especially since I’m in so much pain and here am I seating in a cold study blogging. I guess death can’t rob me of my writing. For I am expressive. I’m an expressive soul.

PS: The only excitement over this miserable weekend was to shop for straight three hours at the mammoth Menlyn Mall with Princess Talia – just the two of us, albeit the tooth fairy kicking my ass. Talia even made us eat Wine Gums regardless of daddy cool’s grave misery.

I sure looked dangerous, black face covered up to eye level with a scarf. Somebody must have thought Laden’s man in the house. Duck duck everybody. Duck. What with all those stares. If arrested for questioning, they would have found crack in my pockets as I carried the white dust with me to chew on every 30min. Grandpa does look like crack right?

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

The SA blogosphere is 'entirely' white

Not that it's worrying. But a small concern it is. The SA blogosphere is nearly entirely white - I realised since starting to blog. I went across many blogs on Amatomu, the SA blog aggregator, and you hardly ever come across a blog by a black person. I asked qDot, one black who features reasonably well on the SA blogosphere, what the cause may be. He briefly explained it this way:

Why the lack of [black] bloggers. I think...

1. Expensive bandwidth
2. Technophobic apathy
3. Some just don't know

I don't doubt that he is right about any of these, generally. But I really believe that anyone who wants to express themselves will find a way of doing so - all the better fast ways let me rather say. Even if it means stealing a moment of their own lunch time to propagate their own cause, their laundry, or the hot night they had yesterday with their unsolicited partner. Whatever choice of topic.

I suspect that, worryingly, black people may be turning more and more less expressive and opinionated in some spheres of life - so anti-1976 youth spirit. They maybe becoming less mouthpieces of their own cultures and somewhat feel a bit off-ish for laying bare their writings in a blog for fear of judgement. True, 'some just don't know'and I've come across them whilst publicising my own blog.

But they speak, mostly, of a phobia of reading and the lack of writing ability - the kind that may be of palatable chew to other people. I don't know if that's such a good shot that people love reading and writing less and less. And on chats with friends, I noticed that it is not really that - the issue I mean.

The problem is that of incentives. And yes, blogging is not very good or good at all in offering much of materialistic incentives or return on (time) investment - and us blacks, as Chika Onyeani of Capitalist Nigger fame said, we love material and we want to show it all off. Can you realy show off a blog? Well, I'm showing off mine. And in fact, it inspired me to re-incarnate that long lost dream of writing my debut book.

And more for, as this black man that I'm, I get incentives in that by blogging, I sharpen my writing daily. I discover new technologies of my generation and thus, am embracing them, such as blogging. I also get to write what I like (albeit responsibly because my name is laid bare here) and I feel, somewhat like Biko when he said, "I write what I like".

I feel that blogging can do a lot of good for the black people, notwithstanding the lack of resources to doing so. But one thing for sure, resources are available (limited of course) and are accessible. Down-town Johannesburg is laid with salon/internet cafes opened by ever-joyful and restless entreprising Nigerians and Sunnyside in Pretoria is also nicely-ridden with same salon/tech shops with cheaper internet-user rates.

More so, there is internet access of great bandwidth in companies where we all work and we can always spare a moment to Shakespeare or Biko a word or two. Especially if we are able, already, to spare time to read and forward all those interesting jokes in viral mass emails (which work nearly alongside blog concept, in terms of syndication and extensivity of reach).

I think apathy is rather extending itself from the black individual to the black mass - certain groups together, not entire mass as such. The struggle youth, those in Fred Khumalo's group/'generation', are the masses that embraced the prominent cultures and trends, although with caution, of their times and came out to be the kind of admirable writers they are today - and lead in other fields.

So the problem is only partially,

• 'Expensive bandwidth'
• 'Technophobic apathy'
• 'Some just don't know'.

The answer is more cultural than just resources access one.

I'm not choosing blogging for the black brothers and sisters for there is more to life than to blog. And I'm not speaking to those who don't like the arts or new technology - 'every man his own'. They can express themselves in other ways.

But would black people really want to remain under-represented in a phenomenon where interesting and insightful debates take place? I know Patricia De Lille didn't choose to be left out of this blogcake.

I didn't mean to write this entry. But the blues song In the mood by Glenn Miller inspired me to kill my fingers a little. Haaah, what relieve to write! You so maar forget it's cold outside.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

The famous stutterers in the world and me hating God

[The complete story is here.]

I wrote only one short story in my life. It was exactly 6 years ago as a first year at Rhodes University, just before I called papa in the village (Pankop) and told him, "I'm coming home. I'm dropping out of Rhodes and coming home tomorrow. I need money for the bus".

And on that near-fateful day where my future hung between a stutter and a fatal string - that string, well, it snapped. Literally.

See the story of my real life pain here. And for some members of my family, the pain goes on as they haven't found ways, as yet, to kick this throat devil in to mid-hell like I did. I'm lucky to have my speech back with all the disability sorted, or rather, perfectly managed.

An excerpt:

But Vusi interrupted him. He effortlessly told him that he wanted to say something to his classmates. "J-just one thing please", he begged for his own time.

"Sure, go on please", the co-ordinator permitted.

"I love God, but I hate his authority", he declared to the class without a stutter.

He meant it. And everyone in that theatre could realise that he did.

My story as a stutterer, as published by the Minnesota State University, Mankato. Read it complete here or click on the link below.

http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster/PWSspeak/israel.html

Famous stutterers - they couldn't be stopped
A list of the most famous people in the world who stutter or kicked stuttering here. Most are actors and singers and politicians or are involved in speaking a lot daily as part of their careers. Amongst them:

Tiger Woods — one of the most successful golfers of all time
Jack Welch — General Electric
Julia Roberts — Academy Award-winning actress
Marilyn Monroe — actress and singer
Nicholas Brendon — TV star "Xander" in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
James Earl Jones — Broadway, television, and movie star
Bob Love — legendary star of the Chicago Bulls
Winston Churchill — statesman and orator
Bruce Willis — Leading actor
Lewis Carroll — British writer, Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass
Bo Jackson — Multi-sport professional athlete
Jack Ebert — producer "Dances with Wolves"

See this list on an official website. Pity I couldn't find a non-American list anywhere. But then again, they are stutterers and share the same disability they either won over, like me, or are busy enjoying kicking it in the ass and loving every moment of it - and making lots of dough whilst at it.

Informative and useful links:
http://www.stutteringhelp.org/
http://www.stuttering.ch/?gclid=CKKNh6bsqIwCFSeRXgodEWHELg
http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/stutter.asp


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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Clothes maketh the man

I don’t collect clothes nor am I a keeper of a load of shoes. To be precise, and by design, I have three pairs of ‘proper’ shoes. Fine by me. One reason for this is that naturally I have, some people, favourites of anything and I get too biased and end up not using what I spent hard earned cash on.

Yesterday morning, just after that heated shower I dashed for my clothes. Then just before putting on those fashionable sharp nose shoes, my wife stopped me. She instructed that I haven’t worn my square nose shoes in about four months.

I went on to grab my favourite shoes – I can be monotonous with good looking items, like I said. She gave me that no ‘bullshitting you’ look. Well, I swapped the sharp noses for those less liked – to put it lightly – shoes.

I spent the entire day feeling low note in my mood – like 2 degrees Celsius, if mood were to be Pretoria’s weather. The only highlights being my 30 minutes power workout at the gym and listening to Bob Marley’s Rastaman Chant as I blog this.

It was precisely those shoes that sacked my smiles and confidence. They made me feel uncomfortable in my own ‘skin’. This set a precedent. I started feeling that they were out of sync with my favourite jeans and shirt – cramping my whole style. My mood. My walk. My smile. And by that, my confidence went on vacation for the day.

It reminded me that whilst I was working on the personal confidence thing some months ago, I singled out the most culprit there to be the image (the clothes). They did not make the man.

I’m a relatively confident guy (and I’m being modest about this), but needed a new wardrobe to up the levels to, erm, call it super-ego (no, not vanity). And that worked wonders, until yesterday in those shoes, which my best colleague confirmed I look good in them. She was being nice – she is a family friend.

But without doubt, I’m going to conveniently go into permanent amnesia about where I last took them off – remember the playground and soccer in the first few grades (I left my shoes there whilst scoring some goals and they were not there the next day).

Hey, my point, clothes maketh the man.


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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Gmail does it, again, with 20MB attachments capability

I wish Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google paid me for posting this. I believe I'm making small difference in increasing their audience.

I'm on gmail (email) and I'm yet to discover anything as amazing, flexible and convenient like it. The gmail interface is so easy to navigate and everything is discoverable and accessable in a jiffy, like finding all the emails that Richard Branson, Mark Shuttleworth and Patrice Motsepe sent me. They are all organised in conversation and logged in one place - that's the best feature. But the latest, 20MB attachments, is just 'off the hinges' (as Lesley Mofokeng would put it).

See for yourself, and may be you might decide to abondon your stone age, unintelligent email account.

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about_whatsnew.html


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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Vanity! All things equal, it isn’t that bad

Vanity is good. Vanity makes you feel great about yourself. Like nothing’s better than you. You own the world in your own way. Vanity, that egotistic and pompous trait, kind of shields us sometimes against the next fellow who thinks they are better than us. And for me, my narcissism was crushed by the little one the other day – princess Talia.

I was singing during our evening walk. Talia was serenading mommy too along with me. She must have not liked the impromptu song along with its forged tune because she all of a sudden, stopped. I went on like a confident soloist, only this time with more passion. Fire in my lungs. I could almost feel my throat drying up. When I ‘sing’, my brow wrinkles and there’s some oddness about my face. Well, Talia had this to say (out loud) to her mommy as I was pop-starring the night away:

“Mama, papa is crying,” no wonder you stopped singing with moa you little thing you.

She went on, “Papa why are you crying?”.

By the time she finished her last words, or is it sarcasm (if 2 year olds are capable of such) I had stopped and was all but cracking up uncontrollably. Silently, I decided to keep the irregular melody that is my voice in the shower.

Interlude: Whilst I write this, the wifey says I must shut up my mouth as I’m busy trying to sing along with Brandy’s Never Say Never. Too bad for me I’m also writing this in our marriage bed. ISRAEL!!!

My own daughter, at 2, just partially disapproved of my award winning singing. To me, there’s totally nothing wrong with the tune, the sync, the voice. To me, it is perfected melody. And a marvel at that. But then again, vanity is king you see. Each one of us needs to feel self-important about things they hold close to their hearts.

Even if, somebody says you your (anything) is not up to scratch, you always convince yourself you are. Be it with that car you drive, the kids you have (I believe mine are smarter than the most - vanity! oh yeah baby!), your uber-label clothes and the way they suit you, your address, your travels, your wallet, and all that list you can come up with. David Bullard put it better when he asked at Out to Lunch, 'What would be the point of being ostentatious if there were nobody to impress?' . And yes, without an audience, vanity is wooze.

May be I should enter the next poep stars. Who knows. There may not be the Talias there to get unsettled by my 'cries'. The judges may be less critical compared to the harsh panel of Talia and her mommy.

PS: For me, as long as it is not vanity for vanities sake, then voila.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

From a Virgin with love

I was browsing the Virgin Mobile site for some marketing management essay I was supposed to have finished some time in April, and I came across this 'Propaganda Busta' by the restless entrepreneur Richard Branson himself - well, more like by his lieutenants actually. Check it out here so that you can get cheated, knowing that you are being cheated off your pants by some of these cellular network operators.

http://www.virginmobile.co.za/virgin-portal-customer/MobileNumberPortability.do?method=init

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Strictly come dancing: Lesley Mofokeng goes boogying.

He didn’t tip me he is now in the A-list of the head hunted celebrities for glitzy shows. Lesley Mofokeng a former colleague (of the Sunday Times) and friend, is boogying for more dose of fame on the sleek SABC2 TV show, Strictly Come Dancing.

When I called him yesterday morning, after realising he has joined the inevitable world of blogging, he informed me of his new body twirling venture and took pride, which I shared, in not forgetting to make mention that he was ‘personally head hunted’ to strut his tuxedo at the historic Carlton Centre alongside some uber-celebs in the gaze of millions of eyes – no that Les will be a stranger to such overwhelming spectatorship.


He becomes one of those people, as Tertia so said, ‘you just gotta envy’. Imagine the world of SA being entertained, expertly or not, by your dancing moves that you learn under pressure within a few weeks – juggling daily between your salaried life and fame dose. (That, my friend Les, I can’t let pass but envy. Not that I’m a celeb by any means, but you should passed the producers my number).

In any case, I have no doubt that it’s in opportunities such as this that one does it more for the exhilarating experience it is than to flabbergast the judges, after only a couple of weeks of practicing – although impressing those voting at home can stand one good and push you to the finals.

But more than anything, it’s for the experience and the fun. And Les put it well on that phone conversation: “… I will have enjoyed myself. The whole experience…”. So SA, let’s vote Lesley Mofokeng the king of the dance at Strictly Come Dancing. He tells me he goes to gym too in the hope to impress, even with the tux on.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Plato and the humbling, admirable, odd white man

A total rarity it is for one to come across humbling moments from complete strangers. Let alone one that leaves you in near-paralysis. More like arresting flabbergast that leaves you jaw-dropping as you try to catch your breath.

Well, I felt like that emotional cocktail was served me cold last week whilst I went to order my latest book, The Republic, Plato – at Exclusive books, Woodlands Boulevard. Whilst at my business, this odd looking, but interesting white man started talking on his cellphone.

For a moment I refused to believe what my ears were clearly hearing, until – yes I snooped on someone’s conversation – I confirmed my total disbelief. The old, odd man was speaking an African language. To add voodoo to my ears, the tongue was my home language, xiTsonga (Shangaan).

I admired that and him. I found it humbling that somebody from a race that popularly disregards indigenous languages could speak, not Zulu, not Xhosa (most farm whites speak those two), but xiTsonga. My admiration was dampened a bit with a pint of jealousy. Why? He spoke the Shangaan the real ‘makoya’ way. Like they speak it in Mozambique and Giyani (in the Northern Province), respectively.

I approached him with the barest confidence I could muster in a spare of the moment.
“Is that shagaan that you just spoke so eloquently and originally,” I asked in Shangaan too – although the watered down version which I felt didn’t compete with his. He spoke his with finesse. To paraphrase him:

“Yes it is. You see, we live together. In a changed world. And I work with people who speak these African languages… God meant for me to learn other people’s languages… God be with you...,” he bade me farewell as the phone rang again.

He said all that speech without allowing me to cut in with more questions. (I wished to invite him to lunch with my family, but the magical spell in the emotions carried me away – and as I write this, my wife asks me ‘why didn’t you get his number for now’).

And somewhat, I felt it in me that I was blessed to come across a man who saw value in other peoples culture. The indigenous and rich culture elements of South Africa that often go ignored by those whose culture our total educational and business system is based on. Not that I’m a complaining. That’s just a known statement.

This odd man just humbled me and I went on to remember the many intricate but insightful passages in Plato’s book, The Republic, which advocates the understanding of one another, the need for regulations and social structures that compel us to leave together in harmony.

Can’t wait to lay my hands on that all-time great piece of philosophy (by the way, I dropped out of my philosophy class thrice and flunked it twice back at Rhodes University). Let’s see if I will finish this 500-pager without dropping it.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

I’m a ‘half-50’ and life begins with a game in bed

When you’re 25 you feel young still. You feel that your entire life is still ahead of you. That you got all the time ahead of you to perform all the voodoo in your head to make something of your life. The material possessions, the friendships (quality ones at that), the family, the soulful life partner, the travels, the advanced education, the self-love but more so, the love of others and the appreciation of every single moment.

For me, and I’m sure for the many other half-50s out there, there is no other option but to begin embracing the beauty of life now and moulding all those material wet dreams into touchable bricks and mortar – reality.

For me, I feel I’m left no option but to get on with it. And not as a bullshit New Year’s resolution or birthday resolution (I’m 25 as of yesterday). But rather as a half-50 resolution. I mean, think of it, when you put 50 in it, you do really feel that you have burnt quite a chunk of the numbers you’re allocated in this life. In that kind if space, you better start living. Like really living. Representing your one man/woman team as both the player and the obsessive fan. For me at least, that’s the highway that’s going to be taken.

The ‘dream team’ better become the ‘real team’ or else I may be 50 (-something) like David Bullard find myself busy bragging to 12 year and 24 year olds on the blogosphere about my life as a salaried top journalist and the fast cars, the SUVs, the Cuban cigars, the globetrotting and the Playboy mansion parties. Is it ideal to have that ‘lustful’ activities list at 50-something? Yes, when paired against the average.

But a big NO. When pitted against the best. The unsalaried bold of the world like all those entrepreneurial human brands I won’t mention here. So my goal, in short, is, as of this half-50, work on being unsalaried at 50-something. And better still, be with the Bullard ‘lustful’ list but on the entrepreneurial human brand names. But better still, to be touching lives.

“I have all the money I’ll ever need and a bunch of homes scattered around the world along with a ton of public acclaim. But I’m desperately unhappy,” that’s what a top executive lamented to management coach Robin Sharma once. Do I say that when my head turns grey? The game plan is to live so that I don’t have to – at least I've got to trust in my head, heart and guts.

For nearly everyone with a heart and some grey matter on their shoulders, the goal is to be at one’s personal best consistently as that can bring loads of comfort and fulfillment – not forgetting the realisation of all those dreams. But that goal ranks as the single most simplest thing, which, ironically, is the most difficult to achieve, consistently.

This is when the drown-some life long habits kick in. They plot against our goals. Some inhibiting boundaries that keep us average – reducing us to admiration of the Bullard’s of this world, and envying the entrepreneurial human brands that grace the black card list of American Express. Or is it the black card of life itself?

I’m probably bullshitting because I’m writing this on the morning of my birthday and life feels like it has just begun and everything so great (Stevie Wonders’ Happy Birthday plays in the background). But in reality, for me life begun the day my second daughter, Tinyiko, was born. It struck me that, even if laziness and procrastination and mediocrity and averageness were an option, they were one I couldn’t take any longer.

That would be painting a destiny of the future of my two girls, (Talia, is first born) as one of total mediocrity – rather than a masterpiece. For theirs depends on my venturing into my dreams to turn them into the bricks and mortar that can lead to an inevitable invitation to the black card list of life (forget platinum. That’s where the Bullard’s get invited).

To enjoy my birthday and start to live up to what my heart desires and mind dreams of, I spent the entire morning in bed with the two girls playing a new family game: the ‘World Takeover 2.0’. In it, father and daughters don’t become billionaires, but achieve the soft and the hard material balance. Affecting the world in the most positive of ways whilst creating a huge dent alongside Zola (ghetto is part of us) , Shuttleworth, Motsepe, Branson (we stay crazy), Bullard (we make people laugh and take life less seriously) and Fred Khumalo (guarding elements of black culture).

And at the end of the game, we’re faced with the reality of carving such dreams into bricks and mortar masterpieces. Touchable masterpieces pushed out of all those wet dreams. Will I be that masterpiece, will Talia be. Perhaps Tinyiko? Well, at least the ‘World Takeover 2.0’ game has been devised on the 20th of May at half-50 and has these as its blueprint:

• self-love
• family
• quality life partner
• quality friendships
• health and fitness
• love of others
• travels
• advanced education (and wide reading)
• the appreciation of every single moment
• the material possessions
  

As of half 50, I hope I get it right. With that achieved, the game of taking over the world will be accomplished and a legacy created.

What’s your game plan?

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Book review: The Search by John Battelle

The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture

I’m most intrigued by this book by some of the startling revelations on how Google came to be a business, let alone a billion dollar one, that it is today. Most captivating though, was a quote I read in Tom Peter’s Re-imagine. It went something like this: “Google is a bit like God.”

That for me, from outside the pages of The Search by John Battelle, summarised that 300-word paperback in six words. And when I think of it, although a dicey exaggeration, Google shares elements with something a lot more powerful than many modern day blue chips combined.

From the book though, I got the idea that, Google, at least as a business that it is today, is one big accident that happened in a bedroom (dorm). The technology that Google runs on is not necessarily Google's exclusively (the spider-index architecture including the business model).

The author, a dotcom crash martyr, tells a story of two Burger King fans, Larry Edward Page and Sergey Brin and how they took a myriad of ideas of other people, added their youthfull chutzpah and vision to turn them into what is now Google - the second fastest growing tech company in the US.

The main guy, who for me took prominence in the book than the star Phd student pair, was Bill Gross. Gross is credited, based on the author’s research, on inventing the business model of pay-per-click advertising and in fact, leveraged the few other models that failed other companies. His (company) was not a lasting start-child success because it lacked the advantage of Google – search. On search is where the ‘paranoid’ but ‘arrogant’ Brin and Page sold their text ads. And this was leveraged with Gross’ business model. (Google is obviously expanding to other types of ads placement which are more display driven).

But to Google, there is nothing more profitable than text ads. That’s where their bread is buttered and Battelle, seems to suggest, fittingly so, that they owe it all to Gross – the father of pay-per-click. “Indeed, had Bill Gross not given up his argument, had he just followed his gut, there might not even be a Google. Brin and Page might have sold out to Yahoo or Excite or Microsoft, or merged with Ask Jeeves, or gone the way of AltaVista – sinking slowly into the dark oceans of corporate M&A."

On the more cultural transformation side of the Google blinding gold coin, Battelle illustrates vividly what Google seems to achieve: reaching millions not only with search, but a critical cocktail of technological convergences. A global cultural situation where only two men, plus their ‘puppet’ CEO, control what is today the largest database of human knowledge and culture - the "Database of Intentions". It all sits on their fingertips and to paraphrase Battelle, ‘we hope they never get a tempting incentive to sell or hand this sea of information in the devilish hands’. Hopefully, they only hold the keys to the over 130 000 computers that run Google.

Gross 'expertly' convinces you that Google owns the total human clickstream (and you better believe him, unless you also had a lunch with the three musketeers at Google HQ). They own the pulse of the very existence of global business, if not of mankind. And Battelle convinces you to start worrying about government’s bullish interference and the control of such ‘google’ (endless) data. Impressively enough, or scary if you like, Google is said to have grand intentions of turning search into something that has a ‘heartbeat’ of its own. Meaning that it must morphosise to a near-human intelligent ‘being’ that can read what the user/searcher wants and serve it not only the way you wanted it, but tell you what you wanted but did no know you wanted.

For all the techies, try and converge all the internet and web technologies of today, then stir them together with all the Google innovations in a Google blender and drink – tell me the results. We may not leave to tell the showdown in our lifetime (neither may Brin and Page, or better yet, Gross himself). I think the answer there treads sheepishly alongside the concept of “God” – so guess that somebody in Tom Peter’s book may have a point of the potential power in Google.

PS: Google shot from zero to 3 billion dollars from 2000-2004 (‘one nickel at a time’).

For me, The Search was a great read. As educational, informative and scary as Google and search are.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

David Bullard cloned, this time by a namesake!

Interesting accidental find whilst googling the bullog url to make a link to. I punched in David Bullard +The Times. I came across this striking similarity in brand: http://www.thetimes.davidbullard.com/. Ironically the bullog 'brand' is positioned strongly against The Times so the two live off each other. I wonder between David Bullard the singer and David Bullard the air guitarist who cloned who!

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Earn a million dollars in 30 seconds

Like the many other itching wanderous souls out there, I’ve been making repetitive batterings to mould my soul and my mind into something extraordinary – in my books at least. And the failures in my attempt, I’m told by friends, are successes in miniature and the win will come in grandiose someday (hopefully not when I’m all grey – or dye-hair – like David Bullard).

This small failures are perhaps the reason I stopped being a fan of the millions of commercial self-help books out there. But this one, The Greatness Guide by Robin Sharma, does it for me and as I already said, it’s become like a hymnal for adding grace to my days.

Regarding my batterings and the far-forthcoming dye-grey hair (luckily I'm still 24), I took comfort in this passage from The Greatness Guide whilst reading last night:

One day a woman spotted Pablo Picasso in the market and pulled out a piece of paper. “Mr Picasso,” she said excitedly, “I’m a big fan. Please, could you do a little drawing for me?” Picasso happily complied and quickly etched out a piece of art for her on the paper provided. He smiled as he handed it back to her, and said, “That will be a million dollars.” “But Mr. Picasso,” the flustered woman replied, “it only took you 30 seconds to do this little masterpiece.” “My good woman,” Picasso laughed, “it took me 30 years to do that masterpiece in 30 seconds.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

I love smiles: Pricessless quality

I wake up later than I plan to each morning - and yes, I'm working harder on kicking that lifetime nasty habit. But I'm sure I'm not a soloist in what I presume to be a worldwide habit. Having woken up, following uncountable alarm re-schedules, I just feel irritated at my bad habit. I forced to rush everything (thank God for showers) and walk out without breakfast and bad enough, yesterday I walked out without my office keys. I worked from outside the office - peace, freedom from closed places, fresh breezes and thoughts of priceless, yet cherished things.

Since my brand new family came back on Sunday - courtesy of my good friend Mpho Mokete, the Godfather to two, Tinyiko and Talia - I seem to be happier in the mornings (although still in rushes). I wake up to pretty faces with wide smiles. Pure new white teeth on one, and just red spanky new fresh gums on the other. I wake up to smiles from my two daughters and not a day has gone by since they came back had I been short of a smile. It's like second nature to them: It's almost like they wake up and look at who's around and they just go wide in smiles, one at a time, then in unison. Those smiles radiate some energy in me for the entire forthcoming day. From the morning I see those smiles I'm just forced to keep mine for the next day light.

And as my wife has so often realised, I value smiles in relationships, in friendships and in life in general than anything else. To me smiles are one of those tax free, priceless qualities that just humble you and say: 'life 's beautiful, smile back and keep it on when you see the next person'.

But the reality is that smiles are only (except for my house) in places where hospitality is valued and people pay an arm and a hand to get them. At work, very often, or in every second person you come across, a smile is missing. May be I defaulted on my smile-tax. In the streets, smiles are missing and generally, all over the place smiles are missing. And it's only a few people who keep them on and flash them when you come across them.

But go to any damned good hotel or restaurant. In these places of hospitality, you will be met from the first person at the door, with a pricessless flashy smile. Almost magical. So much that you get humbled - except for the reason you are in that place is to part with you small fortunes. Nevertheless, they are smiles and when I come across them, regardless of the motive, I'm humbled. (Rememer, a devil smile is easy to tell: the teeth pitch black to render the smile pitch dark).

Well, for me, home is where the smiles are at. I think by the time Tinyiko's gums start showing some bright white teeth, I must invest in shades for the mornings so that I don't get blinded by a combo of two of the best waning smiles in the world.

The price: well, pricesLESS. The tax: well, FREE. And as for the struggle with slumber, amidst this premature winter, I'm sure I will make it - how, I don't know. The solution eludes the world, not just me. May be their smiles can inspire me in a way.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Small consumer helplessness, but the company gains

Helplessness #1
The other day, I went to a vending machine just after gym and popped a few coins in, R4.00 to be precise, nearly my last in the day's spend, and guess what? The worst case scenario that I have often toyed with happened: the damned stone-aged (snack) vending machine chewed my last coins, pretended with some tempting sound and a roll, to be serving me with a packet of cheese snacks. I didn’t even bother to call the P.R Vending cell number that was listed on the machine alongside an arrogant label that read: “… DO NOT SCRATCH COINS AGAINST THIS MACHINE”. To say the least, I was left looking like a maniac, kicking the machine and pushing it in all directions. I felt helpless. Because I knew there was really not much I could do at that moment to get my snack.

Helplessness #2
I’m on prepaid. Had a really bad experience with Cell C before defaulting forever on my contract – of a cellphone which was pick pocketed down-town Pretoria within a month of taking ownership. Well, this month end I’m finally paying up after they chased me for straight three years. I'm now on Vodacom (prepaid).

Back to the frustration. I had supported Vodacom so much that they decided to reward me with talking points (that I had accumulated every time I splashed on airtime vouchers). An automated sms said I could redeem my points for either 150 ‘free’ smses or get a discount on my next airtime voucher. I followed all the steps to redeem the said smses and completed the prompts. Then I started frantically sending smses to nearly any number on my phone saying 'wassup to the world'. Surprise surprise! I was using my own purchased airtime. And when I demanded my free smses, more like my earned points, I was told that I had redeemed them and they were subsequently used. Alas! I once again, felt helpless.


Helplessness #3
Izz still hasn’t got his drivers license. However, I’m going for my fourth learners license in 7 years on the 17th of May. This is after trying for months to secure a testing slot for the learners. The frustration: I got that date finally through the nightmarish eNatis via sms. All I had to do was go pay for my booking following a 1 minute eye test. The whole actual process is about 5 minutes. My test is to be at Centurion, Pretoria. I got to the queue at 9am. I queued. And queued. And queued. And queued. And finally just after 2pm I did my 1 minute eye test and paid my R67 reservation fee after waiting for about 200 people to go before me. I felt helpless as my sugar levels were dropping and the dizziness was settling in, whilst those in the know relaxed in their camping chairs stools amidst the snailing-snake queue. Inside the offices, many workstations were left cant without workers.

During that time, I heard how eNatis disappoints people day after day. One lady said she had to wait the painstaking 3hours three times, and just as she got to the door and was next to be helped, eNatis crashed and she was send away. Each time. Waisted effort. Helpless? Yep. And the government doesn’t give a hoot.

PS: This time I’m nailing that drivers license ‘thingy’ because the incentive is bedazzling: a never-driven before 2007 Mazda3 Sport 2.3 Individual ‘zoom-zoom’. Mmm! Nearly had an orgasm when I sat on its drivers seat the other day.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Book Review: The Greatness Guide, Robin Sharma

“Your days are your life in miniature. As you live your hours, so you create your years. As you life your days, so you craft your life. What you do today is actually creating your future. The words you speak, the thoughts you think, the food you eat and the actions you take are defining your destiny – shaping who you are becoming and what your life will stand for.”

I thought to start my review of the book, The Greatness Guide by globetrotting executive coach, Robin Sharma with that verbatim piece. That paragraph, an introduction to the chapter “Your days define your life”, sums up the entire book.

Sharma, I find him to be a bit different to the overly commercialised motivational gurus. He attempts, wittily and with simplicity, to guide you on to becoming the better your. He runs you through such a personal journey with less bullshit-speak of most gurus – who are better characterised by perfected mumbo-jumbo. I enjoyed reading him for a couple of reasons. But most so for the sharpness of his writing, the punctuated presentation style off his brief but insightful chapters that one can relate to.

His laymen, less psychological garbage writing also helps one to connect with him in a way. Meaning, I easily got the message without feeling that the writer was a psychology salesmen selling me his product/ideas based on is ‘expert’s’ writing riddled with expert verbose so that you hold with him with undeserved authority.

What I also like about The Greatness Guide is that Sharma doesn’t distance himself much from the book. He is there with you, personally. As part of the succinct stories, he tells you about his kids and how much he loves them and how such love affects his work, his days and his life, professionally and personally. He tells you about his trips all over the world and the crème de la crème of global business that he comes across and coaches. And these are big business executives who listen to him and in fact, share their stories with him. In turn, Sharma shares such personal conversations with you. These personal trips help you to see him as the usual guy than a guru or an expert.

A thought that stayed with me long after I had finished reading the book was this: his father told him once, “cut back on your rent or cut back on what you spend on food but never worry about investing in a good book”. This thought has inspired my book-a-month venture. And I find that I’m in fact more than for myself, building a home library for my kids, Talia and Tinyiko.

I feel this is one of the best uplift books bought. Lately, I have been treating it a bit like cereal. Morning staple, if you like. I wake up each morning and just pop a chapter and serve it hot, and somewhat, reading it each morning – those short, one-to-two page chapters help me get through days, whilst putting things in perspective for me.


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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Weird and normal observations, but coincidental

Following my white-beggars-observation entry, I thought of other weird observations that I make daily. And I came up with some sort of list. Unfortunately some of the points in the list trail on the side of race and racism. But then again, to me race and racism is always, anyday, anytime, interesting when I come across it in my daily go-abouts or in readings. Here we go:

1. Whenever I go to the bank or anywhere the crowd may go, I am always the last in a long queue. Five minutes in the line, it moves quick, then thereafter it stops moving nearly-completely. Most of the time I just leave - and that's why I end up being behind with some of my payments. Thanks to Tim Berners-Lee, the 'father' of the web, I now bank from the comfort of my office.
2. Doing work in time always gets my energies and zeal and chatzpah and ideas underperforming. Almost like my performance is out of sync with feeling - of pressure. Under pressure, I produce the best and things I would, under normal feeling, would not have. Think of it as the blacksmith in the lab, working on a horse shoe. He is nothing without the 300degrees fire.
3. White people in South Africa (more so Pretoria) will not give a black man (and even most black women) a lift. Even if clearly, you needing a lift (hitch-hiking) to work - laptop in hand and looking decent in a jacket and looking helpless as opposed to harmful. That still beffles me each morning when I come to work that my finger goes down when white driven car comes. In six months, in an 80% white area, I hitched to work only with blacks. Eish, is't that crime factor in South Africa still continuing to separate us?.
4. If you got nothing, you got nothing in abundance. If you got something, you got something in abundance (in most cases). I guess that might explain why in South Africa, the poor are just that, poor (and even poorest). The haves, well, always have loads and stax of what they need and do not need.
5. When you pressed and you try and keep it in, it works, works, works, works, and works, and works until you see a sign written Toilet or you see the toilet door or you approach the toilet seat... the flood gates just want to floodout. I guess that thing of image-mental stimuli really works. Evidence found. You read it here first baby!
6. BBBEE (BEE), whenever it is mentioned in prominence, is when a black company has stolen, misused or squandered money. Also, it takes prominence too when a white company has called itself BEE to get a gov contract and fronted an unprofessional unskilled black man who get's peanuts for having signed up as top shareholder.
7. With my new year's resolutions, I have observed, have been the same things for the past 5 years or just under. They just come back every December rehashed. More like pimped up with more ego and turbo chargers - oh, yes, without the ignition key.
8. Traffic on the South African roads can change dramatically within 5min. Especially if you decided to catch that quick breakfast and it makes all the difference in you sitting in traffic.

That's all for now folks!

Some of these observations you may have made yourself silently but never really thought of.
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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Rise and rise of YouTube

Forbes ran a piece on the ten videos that made YouTube what it is today: A famous star on a perfected cocktail of steroids and viagra and a pinch of crack. That makes for a near-perfect monstrous performer who MAY go non-stop on the dance floor of Web2.0.

http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/30/youtube-videos-hits-ent-cx_jg_07networks_0430tube.html

One of the reasons I had to join the bandwagon, because so much can be done with YouTube as a tool. On a near different note, I have always wondered why the Forbes site takes sooooooooo forever to load. Is it perhaps the many videos they have there including pics? By then again, YouTube loads fast and hosts more videos on the web than any other site.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

David Bullard fears being perfectly cloned?

Eish, David David David. Always in the spotlight. But I love you still because you are funny and a good writer and liberal!

That's all I should be saying and nothing more regarding David Bullard’s column on blogging and the ill-thought parallels he draws in his 'professional' journalist column. I, for one, have joined the blogosphere and for reasons other than those mentioned by David. And therefore, defending myself against David's scathing attack is pointless. But as me, Israel, as some have gotten to know, I always got a word or two to say about anything. So here we go, and yes, David, you don't have to read through this one mundane junk:

Classified mission
1. Blogging to me, and to some other bloggers, MAY not be TOO MUCH but a great past time filled with simple fantasies of being a good writer to oneself. Think of a daily journal where thoughts are put down. And in the vast infinite cyberspace, you don't really count on the David's of this world to read you and praise you. But now I will count on them shaming some bad bloggers, which by the way, I advise you don't do as you will earn the charf, as Mike Stopforth puts it, a lot of free traffic. But I would love that un-earned for this bad blog of mine. But I more than blog to fill up my time, I’m doing something else – that I mustn’t mentioned lest I blow my classified mission.

Unilateral
2. Bloggers, like me (even though I'm pretty much a newbie as opposed to my friends like youngBLOOD and Vincent Maher), do not aspire to become SA's top journalists selling cars for the Aston Martin’s and the SUVs of this world or having a prime column in the paper with heavy-hard-to-understand words in every sentence - I stopped reading Out to Lunch after I needed a dictionary by my side although I past English damned well at school and varsity. And again, I'm a Sunday Times trained-and-once-paid journalist so I wouldn't be, as a blogger, be having wet dreams of being a print journalist. I know the taste, and will come back when the time is right and blogging will not have eroded the skill I learnt at the Sunday Times under masterful mentors, whom I hope to respect the wheat-bloggers. The long and short: bloggers, at least the wheat of them, don't wish to become journalists, particularly in print, but I'm sure they are so flexible and less unilateral that they wouldn't mind joining the online versions of the SA papers. Evidently David would mind to blog - but read this one interesting beat though:

Open minded in a new media world
3. The editor of the forthcoming The Times - a newspaper of the Sunday Times - Ray Hartley blogs. And according to Prof Anton Harber Ray, of the Wildfrontier, made history as the first South African traditional media boss (editor) to blog. I think Ray is way ahead of the game and less unilateral and is where David may wish to be 10-years later. I hope it won't be too late Dave. And again, nearly half the 'fiery talent' he recruits at The Times is so young, and up with the times that they blog - and I think it's because they see value in it.

Amatomu wheat over charf job
4. Blogosphere surfers/readers choose. You can either read the trash that makes up the large percentage of blogs and waste your time or you can spot quality and good taste and stick to it and have a good laugh or even insight. Just like Dave would with cars - you choose the good over the bad. I don't see him driving any trash because the manufacturers or marketers wanted him to showcase it on national TV. It's got to be worth it. Same goes for blogs and I think that Mike Stopforth put it better when he said, the blog aggregators see the wheat from the charf and AMATOMU does a great job at that and it will evolve, I believe.

School kids
5. Blogs are different animals, different skin. You don't get 12-year olds working at the Sunday Times, but you do have unpaid school-going children blogging about the mundane and trivia that makes up their days because, blogging is free. Once again, you got to know what's worth reading and not.


Gotta catch up baby, or eat dust
6. Technology and the web have changed the world of communications and media in so many ways and it has impacted on print. So much that the Sunday Times keeps revisiting the blog subject, albeit through contradicting voices (which is good for debate), that nearly for the past month, blog was mentioned in all the prints. In the magazine of the 29th April, the second lead feature, the most prominent and interesting, was on blogging and that it is the next big thing and that SA has caught up and that 'here are some few tips on how to make it worthy and make money out of it' - read: preserve it and nurture it.

I'm a trained journalist and untrained blogger
7. I don't imagine, for the SA blogosphere, that the likes of Ray Hartley, Prof Anton Harber, Vincent Maher, Colin Daniels, Matthew Buckland, Israel Mlambo (yes, that's me), all trained in Media and Journalism at varying levels - and journalists in their own right, in the past or current – would blog if all they were doing was wasting time on the mundane whilst hoping that David Bullard would give them a call to submit their CVs.

Pity I was playing Eminem’s Lose Yourself when I wrote this. I had planned to write only one paragraph but got carried away because I LOVE WRITING. Read by the world or by myself. Dave, every man his own (taste). And know, we are not on a mission to clone you. We prefer you stay one of SA's best columnists. But when the story breaks, we will, at times, break it on the blogosphere before you, roving with our 3.2 mega pixel Sony Ericson camphones pictures.

How I see the Best Blogger List in the next 2-5 years: #1. David Bullard (why, because he sees the fun in anything and is so open-minded that he will catch up fast and surpass any of us bloggers).
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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Amatomu is somethin' else

Ok. I admit it. I am a slow learner sometimes, mainly due to my ignorance. I have just sunk in what AMATOMU really is and does. I went on the site several times but didn't really register to realise it's true power and potential.

I just did today after registering yesterday afternoon and listing izzonline on it. On cheking my stats from OneStats.com, I realised that 80% of my referrals come through AMATOMU. I think the gurus who work on it are doing a great job, especially for the networking and promotion of the South African blogs and its blogosphere in general.

It's great to see great products or services like Amatomu come out of SA. I'm sure I 'ain't seen nothing yet'!.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Do white beggars have a say in the future of SA!

One familiar observation I've been making lately on the SA (South African) roads along traffic lights is the increasing number of beggars since democracy and BEE. Not that anyone hasn't been noticing them, but of interest to me is that the beggars have changed to be mainly Zimbabwean and often, blind and elderly, assisted by a younger able-bodied person. Of eye catching and thought provoking interest though, is the increasing visibility of white beggars at the traffic lights.

• I have noticed this in both Pretoria and Johannesburg alike. I always try to read a bit too much into it when I see a white beggar. Many questions spring up to mind.
• Where did he go wrong? Was he kicked out of a job?
• Is it the result of economic restructering in SA?
• Couldn't he outsmart the BEE engineers?
• Doesn't he have access to family, friends and relatives to help re job or small provision or newer guidance? Does this mean or say anything about where SA is and where it's going?
• Can this say anything about SA economic and social future?

Those are just the questions I think of and I have zero answers for each one of them. But nevertheless, they're interesting to ponder and the answers can be insightful. I can't even explain to myself why I never asked such questions re black South African beggars. I guess it's because it's a familiar face of any major city in South Africa to find black beggars across, but surprising to come across a white beggar.

My suspicions: a thourough thought around the presence of the white beggar can say a lot about where SA is and where SA will be in the foreseable future. It could say something about the working and destructive policies. This makes me recall a newspaper street-pole teaser screaming something like "BEE failed: Manuel". Trevor Manuel is the 10-year plus serving South African minister of finance. Probably the longest serving in the world. Makes me think of that white beggar on Atterbury Road and N1 offramp twice.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Best dressed Nigerians hated by South Africans

Yesterday at lunch time I went to chop off my guru-look hair (because wifey insisted). I had a hard time choosing the right barber as everytime I get a cut, these barbers seem to move my hairline back by some inches - they must wish I was bald. So I decided to not pay a fortune at a pro salon to chop off hair that in fact I wanted to keep. I went to a flea market behind Sunny Park Mall, Sunnyside, Pretoria.

My Nigerian girlfriend
The flea market is reminiscent of my village - a bunch of a clustered decent looking shacks, all in light blue. A Nigerian girl at a salon ushers me to what seemed like her friend. A tall, dark Nigerian man with a beaming smile. The guy to chop my hair for the next half an hour. Chatty dude. Asking all sorts of questions. It wasn't my first time visiting this Afro flea market - with everything African to on sale. But it was the first time, this visit, that I realised nearly all the business-tenants there were Nigerian, with the exception of some Zimbabweans.

Entreprising Nigerians, silverspoon-demanding South Africans
We had a conversation with my little sister about it on the way back to work. In our conversation, we just confirmed what I had been silently aware of for some time. That most Nigerians and Zimbabweans (or rather, foreigners in general) in South Africa work harder and are nicer than the typical lower class (and even middle class) South African. They tend to be more dedicated, more entrepreneurial and taking any job that is available to avoid sitting on their laurels waiting for gov to churn out jobs through ASGISA. This good spirit is without exception to the foreigners who are here only to scam my fellow country man, sell drugs, pimp young girls and more of such evils. But then again, somebody will say South Africans, on average do more evil, and that's unfortunately true).

The good, the bad and the ugly
In Sunnyside, more the Hillbrow of Pretoria, life is characterised by the concept of the 'melting pot'. All nations, the majority being Nigerians and just a few Zimbabweans (they crowd in Hillbrow - my sister tells me), behaviours and cultures start to interact in the good, the bad and the ugly. It is just emperical that when nations start to mix in a rapid way, some dichotomy comes forth: cultures start to understand each other as much as cultures clash and conflicts (immaterial mainly), like xenophobia raise their heads higher. And in Sunnyside, xenophobia is ripe.

Punishing the hard-working South Africans
In Sunnyside, by far, the best dressed (decent mannered) man are Nigerian - and I personally admire that. And I admire also, the fact that they seem to understand the concept of family or community very well, just like Indians and Pakistanis do (as evidenced by Chika Onyeani in Capitalist Nigger). But South Africans, and I'm talking black South Africans specifically, seem to detest each other. The turf for the detest is mainly material in nature. If you seem to have more than I do, then I suddenly don't like you, don't support you as a friend or family/relative, or I just punish you by denying you that of most importance in human cultures: friendship or even friendliness. And in Sunnyside, you can see the direct contrast of how other cultures live together or treat each other as opposed to how black South Africans look down on achievers - if not credit card swipers infested by long standing debts.

Kaleidoscope of cultures
My point, we can learn a lot from places that are melting pots of nations and kaleidoscope of cultures such as Sunnyside. Even if we reached it by chance whilst looking for a reliable barber. The xenophobia in that pot says a lot. Nigerians and Zimbabweans, like fellow South Africans, are African brothers and sisters. Hating them just says how much insecure we are about ourselves and our zeal for achievement through hard work and entreprising behaviours. Loathing them just says we loath anyone, regardless of nationality, who has better material display than we do. May be I'm saying this because I'm busy planning my first visit to my fatherland, Zimbabwe, where my grand father left in 1945 to start a nation in the village of Pankop.

PS:
That barber-man did such a great chop on my head that I will be motivated to go back, sit, and enjoy a great conversation whilst worrying less about losing my grown guru-look hair.


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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire