Slumdog Millionare

Who wants to go see this with me?

http://www.inquisitr.com/8105/slumdog-millionaire-trailer/

Penguins Marching Towards Extinction

Those cute little penguins that waddle around Boulders Beach in Cape Town and swim with natives and tourists alike, have been put on the endangered species list. According to the U.S fish and wildlife Service (FWS) the African penguin is the "worst-off" out of all the penguins on the list. Oil pollution and over fishing are major threats to the African penguins. To read about this and other penguins that have made it onto FWS's list, read this short article:

March of the penguins--Onto the endangered species list

Sadly, since the FWS is an American organization, putting the African Penguins on the list only prohibits exporting the animals from South Africa and does not provide them with any other protections. Hopefully, South African groups will catch on and pass rules limiting fishing and the passing of oil ships in the area. But as we know things in Africa take longer than they do in other places. I fear the these diminutive little creatures don't stand much of a chance against the destruction of man.

Monogamous for the mating season

Top 10 George W. Bush Moments

Hello Everyone! Daniel sent this to me on Friday. It's pretty hilarious.

Christmas Tree

Our little fiber-optic tree and porcelain nativity scene are quite pretty, but clash with the African fabric. Oh well.

Doggie Christmas

Much to Daniel's embarrassment, I have followed through on my threat of purchasing the dogs "holiday outfits." I controlled myself when I saw the doggie Santa hats and red bows, however, seasonal shirts found their way into my shopping cart under the pretense of providing warmth for our poor little dears.

This year I am fully enjoying the benefits of embracing the truly garish and tasteless accessories of the holiday season. Every time the little fire hydrant on Sam's shirt lights up I chuckle and chase him around the living room.


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Happy Anniversary...

....to us! Yesterday (December 17) marked two years of being married to Daniel Glenn. What was I thinking? Only kidding. I often think of what a wonderful man I've married and how perfectly we fit together. Sniff sniff.

D came home with a vase of yellow tulips and my in-laws had some beautiful red flowers sent. Thanks you for thinking of us Paul and Marg!

Cholera in the 21st century?

President of Zimababe, Robert Mugabe has now been labelled a "21st century Hitler" by South African Bishop, Joe Seoka.  He continues to hold his people hostage in a failed state while they flee to surrounding countries for clean water and medical supplies. Bishop Seoka also urged people to pray for Mr. Mugabe to step down.  

Here's the latest on the Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe and Mugabe's attempts to transfer blame for the crisis onto the UK.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7780728.stm

And, in the spirit of the season, a Christmas card.

Elocution in the White House!

Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy

Stunning Break with Last Eight Years

In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.

Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.

But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.

According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a President who speaks English as if it were his first language.

"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."

The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate - we get it, stop showing off."

The President-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.

CNN Laughs It Up Over Sarah Palin Interview

An oldie but a goodie.

Tina Fey On Sarah Palin Impression!

Ag Pleez Daddy

Jeremy Taylor was banned from South Africa in the 1960's for his anti-apartheid stance. The song below was a favorite among South Africans. Here, he also speaks a little bit about the Afrikaners' English.

McCain Chips

No, not that McCain. This ad is for McCain chips. For those of you who have never heard an Afrikaans accent....here it is.

Conservative Columnist Kathleen Parker

P.O.W

Project Runway Winner

Unlike runner up, Kenley Collins, Leanne Marshal was never rude to the judges and didn't become obnoxiously over confident about her designs. I did love Kenley's girlie dresses and her feather wedding dress was fabulous in a swan lake kind of way. The judges, however, did not incorrectly notice that herwedding dress was indeed too similar to this dress by Alexander McQueen. This criticism, like many others, was ardently refuted by Kenley whose cockiness often bordered on the ridiculous. Leanne's line was an architectural dream. What girl wouldn't want to wear ocean blue clothes shaped like petals?

Sam's Suspect Lineage

The article below prompted me to think of the slightly smelly West Virginian who sold us our beloved Sam. In 2003 I told my parents the dreaded news that for my next Birthday I would like a puppy. My childhood dog, Boo, had died in the Spring and the heartbreak that had once afflicted my parents had settled into an unspoken, apathetic agreement that they were too old to keep any more animals. I felt a tad guilty for disturbing the peace, but a household companion was needed. I wanted something to lather with unconditional affection. After searching the Washington post for weeks, I finally saw an advertisement posted by one aptly named Mrs Husky for a litter of Shi-tzu/Maltese puppies. My mom and I made the trek to West Virginia where we were lead into her rancid basement to see the dogs. Sam, being the widest and most solid looking of the bunch, won my heart immediately. (Note, he is currently finishing his breakfast and Frodo's). My parents drove back 2 months later and brought him to me for my Birthday. We have loved him ever since and he turns Five on December 1st.

Today I looked at Sam's birth certificate. Under Breed it said Kyi-Leo. After some research on google I found out that Kyi Leos are listed under the rare breeds society. They are a cross between a Lhasa Apso and a Maltese. Mrs. Husky became awfully surreptitious when we asked her to see Sam's parents, so this news isn't terribly surprising. But I wonder about the ad in the paper? Anyway, we know Sam is definitely 1/2 Maltese. He gets his color from either being 1/2 Shi-tzu or Lhasa Apso.

There's Something About Harry

Washington Post Article

Not long before his death, Harry and I headed out for a walk that proved eventful. He was nearly 13, old for a big dog. Walks were no longer the slap-happy Iditarodsof his youth, frenzies of purposeless pulling in which we would cast madly off in all directions, fighting for command. Nor were they the exuberant archaeological expeditions of his middle years, when every other tree or hydrant or blade of grass held tantalizing secrets about his neighbors. In his old age, Harry had transformed his walk into a simple process of elimination -- a dutiful, utilitarian, head-down trudge. When finished, he would shuffle home to his ratty old bed, which graced our living room because Harry could no longer ascend the stairs. On these
walks, Harry seemed oblivious to his surroundings, absorbed in the arduous responsibility of placing foot before foot before foot before foot. But this time, on the edge of a small urban park, he stopped to watch something. A man was throwing a Frisbee to his dog. The dog, about Harry's size, was tracking the flight expertly, as Harry had once done, anticipating hooks and slices by watching the pitch and roll and yaw of the disc, as Harry had done, then catching it with a joyful, punctuating leap, as Harry had once done, too.
Harry sat. For 10 minutes, he watched the fling and catch, fling and catch, his face contented, his eyes alight, his tail a-twitch. Our walk home was almost {lcub}hellip{rcub} jaunty.
Some years ago, the Style section invited readers to come up with a midlife list of goals for an underachiever. The first-runner-up prize went to:
"Win the admiration of my dog."
It's no big deal to love a dog; they make it so easy for you. They find you brilliant, even if you are a witling. You fascinate them, even if you are as dull as a butter knife. They are fond of you, even if you are a genocidal maniac. Hitler loved his dogs, and they loved him.
Puppies are incomparably cute and incomparably entertaining, and, best of all, they smell exactly like puppies. At middle age, a dog has settled into the knuckleheaded matrix of behavior we find so appealing -- his unquestioning loyalty, his irrepressible willingness to please, his infectious happiness. His unequivocal love. But it is not until a dog gets old that his most important virtues ripen and coalesce. Old dogs can be cloudy-eyed and grouchy, gray of muzzle, graceless of gait, odd of habit, hard of hearing, pimply, wheezy, lazy and lumpy. But to anyone who has ever known an old dog, these flaws are of little consequence. Old dogs are vulnerable. They show exorbitant gratitude and limitless trust. They are without artifice. They are funny in new and unexpected ways. But, above all, they seem at peace.
Kafka wrote that the meaning of life is that it ends. He meant that our lives are shaped and shaded by the existential terror of knowing that all is finite. This anxiety informs poetry, literature, the monuments we build, the wars we wage, the ways we love and hate and procreate -- all of it. Kafka was talking, of course, about people. Among animals, only humans are said to be self-aware enough to comprehend the passage of time and the grim truth of mortality. How then, to explain old Harry at the edge of that park, gray and lame, just days from the end, experiencing what can only be called wistfulness and nostalgia? I have lived with eight dogs, watched six of them grow old and infirm with grace and dignity, and die with what seemed to be acceptance. I have seen old dogs grieve at the loss of their friends. I have come to believe that as they age, dogs comprehend the passage of time, and, if not the inevitability of death, certainly the relentlessness of the onset of their frailties. They understand that what's gone is gone.
What dogs do not have is an abstract sense of fear, or a feeling of injustice or entitlement. They do not see themselves, as we do, as tragic heroes, battling ceaselessly against the merciless onslaught of time. Unlike us, old dogs lack the audacity to mythologize their lives. You've got to love them for that.
At the pet store, we chose Harry over two other puppies because, when wrestling with my children in the get-acquainted enclosure, Harry drew the most blood. We wanted a feisty pup, and we got one.
It is instructive to watch what happens in a tug of war between a child and a young dog who is equally pigheaded, but stronger. Neither gives an inch, which means that, over dozens of days, the child is dragged hundreds of feet on his behind.
The product of a Kansas puppy mill, son of a bitch named Taffy Sioux, Harry had been sold to us as a yellow Labrador retriever. I suppose it was technically true, but only in the sense that Tic Tacs are technically "food." Harry's lineage was suspect. He wasn't the square-headed, shiny, elegant type of Labrador you can envision in the wilds of Canada hunting for ducks. He was the shape of a baked potato, with the color and luster of an interoffice envelope. You could envision him in the wilds of suburban Toledo, hunting for nuggets of dried food in a carpet.
His full name was Harry S Truman, and once he'd reached middle age, he had indeed developed the unassuming soul of a haberdasher. We sometimes called him Tru, which fit his loyalty but was in other ways a misnomer: Harry was a bit of an eccentric, a few bubbles off plumb. Though he had never experienced an electrical shock, whenever he encountered a wire on the floor -- say, a power cord leading from a laptop to a wall socket -- Harry would stop and refuse to proceed. To him, this barrier was as impassable as the Himalayas. He'd stand there, waiting for someone to move it. Also, he was afraid of wind.
While Harry lacked the wiliness and cunning of some dogs, I did watch one day as he figured out a basic principle of physics. He was playing with a water bottle in our back yard -- it was one of those five-gallon cylindrical plastic jugs from the top of a water cooler. At one point, it rolled down a hill, which surprised and delighted him. He retrieved it, brought it back up and tried to make it go down again. It wouldn't. I watched him nudge it around until he discovered that for the bottle to roll, its long axis had to be perpendicular to the slope of the hill. You could see the understanding dawn on his face; it was Archimedes in his bath, Helen Keller at the water spigot.
That was probably the intellectual achievement of Harry's life, tarnished only slightly by the fact that he spent the next two hours insipidly entranced, rolling the bottle down and hauling it back up. He did not come inside until it grew too dark for him to see.
I believe I know exactly when Harry became an old dog. He was about 9 years old. It happened at 10:15 on the evening of June 21, 2001, the day my family moved from the suburbs to the city. The move took longer than we'd anticipated. Inexcusably, Harry had been left alone in the vacated house -- eerie, echoing, empty of furniture and of all belongings except Harry and his bed-- for eight hours. When I arrived to pick him up, he was beyond frantic.
He met me at the door and embraced me around the waist in a way that is not immediately reconcilable with the musculature and skeleton of a dog's front legs. I could not extricate myself from his grasp. We walked out of that house like a slow-dancing couple, and Harry did not let go until I opened the car door.
He wasn't barking at me in reprimand, as he once might have done. He hadn't fouled the house in spite. That night, Harry was simply scared and vulnerable, impossibly sweet and needy and grateful. He had lost something of himself, but he had gained something more touching and more valuable. He had entered old age.
Some people who seem unmoved by the deaths of tens of thousands through war or natural disaster will nonetheless summon outrage over the mistreatment of animals, and they will grieve inconsolably over the loss of the family dog. People who find this behavior distasteful are often the ones without pets. It is hard to understand, in the abstract, the degree to which a companion animal, particularly after a long life, becomes a part of you. I believe I've figured out what this is all about. It is not as noble as I'd like it to be, but it is not anything of which to be ashamed, either.
In our dogs, we see ourselves. Dogs exhibit almost all of our emotions; if you think a dog cannot register envy or pity or pride or melancholia, you have never lived with one for any length of time. What dogs lack is our ability to dissimulate. They wear their emotions nakedly, and so, in watching them, we see ourselves as we would be if we were stripped of posture and pretense. Their innocence is enormously appealing. When we watch a dog progress from puppyhood to old age, we are watching our own lives in microcosm. Our dogs become old, frail, crotchety and vulnerable, just as Grandma did, just as we surely will, come the day. When we grieve for them, we grieve for ourselves.
The meaning of life is that it ends.
In the year after our move, Harry began to age visibly, and he did it the way most dogs do. First his muzzle began to whiten, and then the white slowly crept backward to swallow his entire head. Pink nose, white head, tan flanks -- he looked like a stubby kitchen match. As he became more sedentary, he thickened a bit, too.
I remember reading an article once about people who raised dogs for food in Asia. A dog rancher was indignantly defending his profession, saying that he used only "basic yellow dogs." As I looked down at Harry, asleep as usual, all I could think of was: meat.
But Harry's physical decline was accompanied by what I will call, at the risk of ridicule, a spiritual awakening. A dog's greatest intelligence is said to be his innate ability to anticipate and comprehend human feelings and actions. It's supposedly a Darwinian adaptation -- dogs need our alliance in order to survive. In earlier years, Harry had never shown any particular gift for empathy, but as the breadth of his interests dwindled, and his world contracted, he seemed to watch us more closely. My wife, who is a lawyer, also acts in community theater. One day, she was in the house rehearsing a monologue for an upcoming audition. The lines were from Marsha Norman's two-person play "'Night, Mother," about a housewife who is attempting to talk her adult daughter out of suicide.
Thelma is a weak and bewildered woman trying to change her daughter's mind while coming to terms with her own failings as a mother and with her paralyzing fear of being left alone. Her lines are excruciating.
My wife had to stop in mid-monologue. Harry was too distraught. He could understand not one word she was saying, but he figured out that Mom was as sad as he'd ever seen her. He was whimpering, pawing at her knee, licking her hand, trying as best he could to make things better. You don't need a brain to have a heart.
Harry was always terrified of thunderstorms, but as he aged and his hearing waned, as if in a benign collusion of natural forces, this terror subsided. He became a calmer dog in general, if a far more eccentric one.
On walks, he would no longer bother to scout and circle for a place to relieve himself. He would simply do it in mid-plod, like a horse, leaving the difficult logistics of drive-by cleanup to me. Sometimes, while crossing a busy street, with cars whizzing by, he would plop down to scratch his ear. Sometimes, he would forget where he was and why he was there. To the amusement of passersby, I would have to hunker down beside him and say, "Harry, we're on a walk, and we're going home now. Home is this way, okay?" On these dutiful walks, Harry ignored almost everything he passed. The most notable exception was an old, barrel-chested female pit bull named Honey, whom he loved. This was surprising, both because other dogs had long ago ceased to interest Harry at all, and because even back when they did, Harry's tastes were for the guys. Though he was neutered, Harry's sexual preference was pretty evident.
But when we met Honey on walks, Harry perked up. Honey was younger by five years and heartier by a mile, but she liked Harry and slowed her gait when he was around. They waddled together for blocks, eyes forward, hardly interacting but content in each other's company. Harry reminded me of an old gay man who, at the end of his life, returns to his wife to end their time together on a porch swing under an embroidered lap shawl. I will forever be grateful to Honey for sweetening Harry's last days.
I work mostly at home, which means that during the weekdays Harry and I shared an otherwise empty house. Mostly, he slept; mostly I wrote and paced, and my pacing often took me past his lump on the floor. I would always mutter, almost unconsciously, "Hey, Harry," and he would always respond in the same fashion: His body would move not at all, but his tail would thud, exactly once, against the floor.
I didn't really know how important that ritual was until there was no thud anymore.
One night at 3 a.m., a smoke detector in our house began to bleep in that water-torture way, signaling that it needed a new battery. It was mildly annoying, but to Harry it appeared to be a sign of the Apocalypse. He began pacing and panting, and actually tried climbing our stairwell to hide under our bed. His rheumy legs buckled; we caught him before he fell.
So I mounted a ladder, disconnected the bleeping thing, and took out the spent battery. Then my wife spent two hours talking Harry down into a semi-sane condition. She slept on the floor by his side.
It turned out to be Harry's final eccentricity. When he awoke the next morning, he could no longer use his hind legs, and we trundled him off to the vet. Harry had timed his departure thoughtfully. Had he waited a few more hours, my daughter would have been unable to hug him and tell him what a good boy he had been. She had known and loved Harry more than half of her life, and I believe this was not incidental to her choice of career. She was leaving, that next morning, for her first day of veterinary school.
For nearly a week after Harry's death, my wife and I shared a knowledge that we left unspoken, even to each other. It was simply too heart-wrenching to say out loud.
As he lay on the gurney and the doctor began to push the poison into his vein, Harry had lifted up his head and kissed us goodbye.

Confused Hen

An Exodus of South Africa's Educated Workforce?

The Economist
SOUTH AFRICA
Sep 25th 2008 


Violent crime and political turmoil are adding to South Africa's brain
drain

FIRST he thought it was a mouse, then a rat--and then the rat shot him
in the face. That is how Andre Brink, one of South Africa's most famous
novelists, described the recent killing of his nephew Adri, at home at
3am in the morning. The young man was left to die on the floor, in
front of his wife and daughter, while his killers ransacked the house.

Such murders are common in South Africa. According to Mr Brink's
account, published later in the SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, 16 armed attacks
had already taken place in a single month within a kilometre of the
young couple's plot north of Pretoria, South Africa's capital. Soon
afterwards--this is more unusual--the police arrested a gang of six.
They recovered a laptop and two mobile phones. That was the haul for
which Adri paid with his life.

A decade-and-a-half after the end of apartheid, violent crime is
pushing more and more whites out of South Africa. Exactly how many are
leaving is impossible to say. Few admit that they are quitting for
good, and the government does not collect the necessary statistics. But
large white South African diasporas, both English- and
Afrikaans-speaking, have sprouted in Britain, Australia, New Zealand
and many cities of North America.

The South African Institute of Race Relations, a think-tank, guesses
that 800,000 or more whites have emigrated since 1995, out of the
4m-plus who were there when apartheid formally ended the year before.
Robert Crawford, a research fellow at King's College in London, reckons
that around 550,000 South Africans live in Britain alone. Not all of
South Africa's emigres are white: skilled blacks from South Africa can
be found in jobs and places as various as banking in New York and
nursing in the Persian Gulf. But most are white--and thanks to the
legacy of apartheid the remaining whites, though only about 9% of the
population, are still South Africa's richest and best-trained people.

Talk about "white flight" does not go down well. Officials are quick to
claim that there is nothing white about it. A recent survey by
FutureFact, a polling organisation, found that the desire to emigrate
is pretty even across races: last year, 42% of Coloured (mixed-race)
South Africans, 38% of blacks and 30% of those of Indian descent were
thinking of leaving, compared with 41% of whites. This is a big leap
from 2000, when the numbers were 12%, 18%, 26% and 22% respectively.
But it is the whites, by and large, who have the money, skills,
contacts and sometimes passports they need to start a life outside--and
who leave the bigger skills and tax gap behind.

Another line loyalists take is that South Africa is no different from
elsewhere: in a global economy, skills are portable. "One benefit of
our new democracy is that we are well integrated in the community of
nations, so now more opportunities are accessible to our people,"
Kgalema Motlanthe, now South Africa's president, told THE ECONOMIST.
And to some extent it is true that the doctors, dentists, nurses,
accountants and engineers who leave are being pulled by bigger
salaries, not pushed by despair. But this is not the whole story. Nick
Holland, chief executive of Gold Fields, a mining company, says that in
his firm it is far commoner for skilled whites to leave than their
black and Indian counterparts. "We mustn't stick our heads in the
sand," he says. "White flight is a reality."

Another claim is that a lot of leavers return. Martine Schaffer, a
Durbanite who returned to South Africa herself in 2003 after 14 years
in London, now runs the "Homecoming Revolution", an outfit created with
help from the First National Bank to tempt lost sheep back to the fold.
And, yes, a significant number of emigres do come home, seduced by
memories of the easeful poolside life under the jacaranda trees,
excited by work opportunities or keen--perhaps after having children
themselves--to reunite with parents who stayed behind.

In some cases, idealism remains a draw. Whites who left in previous
decades because they were repelled by apartheid, or who expected
apartheid to end in a bloodbath, can find much to admire. Whites build
tall walls around their houses and pay guards to patrol their
neighbourhoods; they consider some downtown areas too dangerous to
visit. But on university campuses and in the bright suburban shopping
malls it is still thrilling to see blacks and whites mingling in a
relaxed way that was unimaginable under apartheid.

REASONS NOT TO PANIC?
So South Africa certainly has its white boosters. Michael Katz,
chairman of Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs, a law firm in Johannesburg,
hands over a book with the title "Don't Panic!", a collection of
heartwarming reflections by disparate South Africans on why there is,
even now, no better place than home. Mr Katz ticks off the pluses as he
sees them: minimal racial tension (a third of his own firm's 350
professionals are black); a model constitution that entrenches the
separation of powers and is "revered" by the people; a free press and
free judiciary; a healthy Parliament; a vibrant civil society; good
infrastructure and a banking system untouched by the global credit
crunch. The "one major negative" Mr Katz concedes is violent crime. If
only this could be brought under control, he says, the leavers would
return.

But would they? Violent crime is undoubtedly the biggest single driver
of emigration, the one factor cited by all races and across all
professions when people are asked why they want to go. Police figures
put the murder rate in 2007-08 at more than 38 per 100,000 and rape at
more than 75 per 100,000. This marks a big fall over the past several
years, but is still astronomical by international standards (the murder
rate was 5.6 per 100,000 in the United States last year). It has
reached the point where most people say they have either been victims
of violent crime themselves or know friends or relatives who have been
victims. Typically, it is a break-in, carjacking, robbery or murder
close to home that clinches a family's long mulled-over decision to
leave.

All the same, crime is far from being the only cause of white
disenchantment. Some say that 2008 brought a "perfect storm". A
sequence of political and economic blows this year have buffeted
people's hope. Added together they provide reason to doubt whether the
virtues ticked off by the exuberant Mr Katz--a model constitution,
separation of powers, good infrastructure and so on--are quite so
solid.

Good infrastructure? At the beginning of the year South Africa's lights
started to go out, plunging the thrumming shopping malls and luxury
homes into darkness and stopping work in the gold and diamond mines.
This entirely avoidable calamity was caused by a distracting debate
about the role of the private sector in electricity supply. Eskom, the
state-owned utility in which many experienced white managers had been
too quickly pushed aside, is now investing again in new plant under a
new chairman, Bobby Godsell, a veteran mining executive. But for the
time being power will remain in short supply and rationing and
blackouts will continue.

As for that model constitution and the separation of powers, Desmond
Tutu, the retired Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, was moved this week
to describe the sordid battle between Jacob Zuma, Thabo Mbeki, the
party, government, prosecuting authority and courts as suggestive of a
"banana republic". As well as being appalled by events at home this
past year, whites have watched Robert Mugabe's pauperisation of
neighbouring Zimbabwe and wonder whether South Africa will be next to
descend into the same spiral.

Besides, fear of crime cannot be separated from the other factors that
make South Africans consider emigration. People who do not feel safe in
their homes lose their faith in government. John Perlman, who worked
for the SABC, the state broadcaster, before resigning in a quarrel over
political interference, does not believe that most people leave because
they are afraid. "I think they leave when they lose heart," he says.
One white entrepreneur about to leave for New York says that it was not
being held up twice at gunpoint that upset him most: it was the lack of
interest the police showed afterwards. Tony Leon, the former leader of
the opposition Democratic Alliance, claims that policing has been
devastated by cronyism and that the entire criminal-justice system is
dysfunctional. The head of the police, Jackie Selebi, is on leave
pending a corruption investigation.

How much does the outward flow of whites matter? South Africa can ill
afford the loss of its best-trained people. Iraj Abedian, an economist
and chief executive of Pan-African Capital Holdings, says a pitiful
shortage of skills is one of the main constraints on economic growth.
He concedes that the ANC has pushed hard to give every eligible child a
place in school, but argues that a "politically correct" focus on
expanding access has come at the expense of quality. With virtually no
state schools providing adequate teaching in science or maths, he says,
the country has added to its vast problem of unemployment (every other
18-24-year-old is out of work) a no less vast problem of
unemployability.

THE GAP THEY LEAVE BEHIND
On Mr Abedian's reckoning, about half a million posts are vacant in
government service alone because too few South Africans have the skills
these jobs demand. Not a single department, he says, has its full
complement of professionals. Local municipalities and public hospitals
are also desperately short of trained people. Dentists are "as scarce
as chicken's teeth" and young doctors demoralised by the low standards
of hospital administration. Last May Azar Jammine, an independent
economist, told a Johannesburg conference on the growing skills
shortage that more than 25,000 teachers were leaving the profession
every year and only 7,000 entering.

A blinkered immigration policy makes things worse. Nobody has a clue
how many millions of unskilled Africans cross into South Africa
illegally. But skilled job applicants who try to come in legally are
obstructed by a barricade of regulations. Mr Abedian says that the ANC
used to think that relying on foreigners would discourage local
institutions from training their own people. Now at least the
government earmarks sectors where skills are in short supply and for
which immigration procedures are supposed to be eased. In April,
however, an internal report by the Department of Home Affairs showed
that fewer than 1,200 foreigners had obtained permits under this
scheme, from a list of more than 35,000 critical jobs.

In fairness, South Africa has been through far worse times before.
Whites streamed out during the township riots of the 1980s. It is far
from clear how much of the present dinner-table talk about leaving ends
with a family packing its bags. Alan Seccombe, a tax expert at PWC in
Johannesburg, says that many affluent whites have moved money offshore
and prepared their escape routes, but that his firm's emigration
practice is doing less business today than it did in 1995.

Perspective is necessary in politics, too. Raenette Taljaard,
previously an opposition member of Parliament and now director of the
Helen Suzman Foundation, a think-tank, says that events this past year
have raised profound concerns about the rule of law and the durability
of the constitution. But Allister Sparks, the author of several
histories of South Africa (and a former writer for THE ECONOMIST),
maintains that the ANC has done as well as anyone had a right to expect
after apartheid's destructive legacy. Some whites even express
enthusiasm about the advent of Mr Zuma. How many other African
liberation movements, they ask, have been democratic enough to vote out
an underperforming leader, as the ANC has Mr Mbeki?

For the average white person, South Africa continues to offer a quality
of life hard to find elsewhere. And there are other compensations. Mr
Brink says in the article on the murder of his nephew that people who
ask when he will be emigrating are perplexed to hear that he intends to
stay. There is, he says, an "urgency and immediacy" about life in South
Africa that lends it a sense of involvement and relevance he cannot
imagine finding elsewhere.

All the same, he is staying on bereft of some former illusions.

The famous novelist will stay. Many other whites are making plans to
leave, and will be taking their precious skills with them. 

Changes in South Africa's government

Rise and fall of Tabo Mbeki

Life after Mbeki

The demise of Dr. Beetroot

Please global warming, can I just have this?

Updating is Fun!

Fortunately, my in-laws are quite handy around the house. Andrew came around yesterday to help us install a new chandelier in our dining room. Our apartment is finally rid of the 1980's brass chandelier with those weird "candle" light bulbs that emit no light.

New Couch

Hey Everyone! Daniel and I are thinking of getting a new sofa.  We want something firm so that we both can sit on it and in the past, when going to furniture stores havn't seen anything even close to what we want!  Yesterday while going through our junk mail I randomly saw these two in the Target catalog.   We are undecided but are leaning towards the first one.  Let us know what what you think.

New Pictures

Some new pictures of Beatrice taken last week.



Looking pretty in the garden:



Not particularly pleased with how playing the garden makes her hands dirty.

Old Pictures

I thought I'd re-live my last trip to Kwasizibantu Mission in South Africa by posting some pictures. I went with my mom in 2005 . It would be fabulous if we could all go one day!

The mission is completely self sufficient and never solicits for money. They grow all their veggies and have chickens and pigs and cows. God has been good to them and a while back they found a fresh water spring on their land. Now they have started a plant and bottle and distribute their own spring water.


I kind of wish they didn't have to kill the piggies but I know they need the food.



The mission is nestled in the hills of Natal. This is at the top of a hill called "die kop" (the head). Making our way up to the Kop, bare-foot children came out of their huts to wave at our little car which groaned and coughed up the dirt path called a road.

The old auditorium that recently burned down. Here you can see it held thousands of children for the youth conference.


I wanted to take this guy home but I think we might have ended up with his entire family, so I settled for giving him chocolates.


This wild horse just wandered up to us one day and started following us around. I think he thought we had food.



The couples who live and work at the mission get to stay in Rondavels like the one below.


They have an AIDS hospice, an orphanage, and a few different schools (the Tabitha adult school where people can get their high school equivalency, a K-12, and a creche called the Tembaluthu play center---ssooooo cute!)
Mission Schools

Who knows what will happen in our lives, but perhaps one day Daniel and I can work there for a year or two. I could work in the school and he would definately find himself to be a valued commodity. They need a lot of technical support running their website and the computers for their radio station. I thought he might like to work in the hot houses with the veggies.

Merely the birth pangs of democracy...

This latte-drinking, bleeding heart liberal....

is asking you to consider voting for Barack Obama this November. I just watched his appearance on the Ellen show (shut up, you know you've seen it) and asked myself, how could anyone not vote for someone with such a trustworthy brow? I'm just kidding. Here is a cartoon I found:

MAX BRUCH VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 1 GIL SHAHAM

Itzhak Perlman 13 years old Mendelssohn Violin Concerto

What a cutie!

Soccer highlights

August 10th

D and I watched a little soccer on Sunday. Brazil, a team made up entirely of professionals played New Zealand, a team comprised solely of college students. Seeing as how New Zealand doesn't have a professional team, it wasn't really a fair match. Nonetheless, we enjoyed watching that goofy Brazilian with the contagious smile win us over once again with his fancy footwork and goal assists. I am of course speaking of Ronaldinho.

We also watched Cameroon score a goal against Honduras. In true African style they all gathered after their goal and performed a celebratory dance. The crowd followed by chanting the name of the player who had scored the goal: Ole, ole, ole, ole...ole! How appropriate that a man with this name became a soccer player!

Unfriendly Frenchies eat their words!

Hey, I won't pretend to know what Michael Phelps was thinking when he decided to show the entire world his butt crack while cheering for his team. I'll just assume he was swept up in the almost palpable excitement that filled the stadium as his team-mate barely reached past his French rival in the last stretch of the 400X100 relay. Gosh, even I (and I'm no sports fan or avid patriot) felt a touch of patriotism as the U.S swimmer powered passed the pompous Frenchman who over-confidently claimed that his team would "smash" the Americans during this event. It was undoubtedly moving.

Even if you're not a sports' fan, follow the link below and/or find the video titled "U.S men win 4X100 free relay." I tried to embed the video into the blog but NBC is serious about those ridiculous copy right laws. (Just kidding. I'll work on an easier way to watch the videos from here.)


swimming videos

Best Car Wash Ever!

African style....

Remember to check YOU'RE grammer?

I agree that Linguists who write lists such as the following can certainly seem stuffy. However, my personal study of linguistics has led me to become aware of how we judge people based on the way they speak and try to view linguists' writing as personal guides.
I usually try to only to judge people based on their written communication, which is usually quite different from the way they speak. One must also consider the contexts: for example, facebook vs. academic paper. But, to be on the safe side, read this short article and don't send your boss an email that says: Thanks for the day off. YOUR the best boss in the world!

Article

Oh, by the way when I was growing up I was always taught that to express the possessive with a word that already ends in s, just add an apostrophe, don't add an extra s. (See the word linguists above.) I was recently told by a linguistics professor that the rule had been changed and that in writing, it is now correct to add an extra s. To me this looks funny because you wouldn't say linguists's. So, until I am able to fully digest this world shattering news I am sticking to my old ways and will not add an extra s to these possessives.

Quote

"But it's surely more noble to aim at a vocal style you admire than to talk down just for the sake of being matey."

--Andrew Martin's article: Our assault on class has led to the triumph of vulgarity

Activism with a sense of humour

Magnets available from cafe press

Water Aerobics

Hey Everyone,
As you know, upon the recommendation of my doctor I have been taking deep water aerobics classes here in Gaithersburg. I take the classes through a program called "wet yet water fitness" who coordinate with county and private pools in Montgomery County. I will be taking the classes in Fairfax at Providence Rec Center starting in the fall. Here is information for both the Montgomery County and Fairfax County classes. They should post the fall schedules soon.

http://wetyetwaterfitness.com/

Fairfax County Aqua Fitness

Revisiting a great

Anglophiles rejoice. A saucy new film version of the beloved BBC series Brideshead Revisited begins showing everywhere on August first. With Charles (originally brilliantly portrayed by Jeremy Irons) the audience is drawn into a sordid wold of sin and decadence.

I have completed the 10 episodes which comprise the old series and found the role of the Marchmain's Catholic faith a confusing aspect of their lives. I suppose that's the point as it was confusing for them as well.
I suspect the new film will be more of a feast for the eyes and senses and hopefully will leave me feeling less despondent than the series did. Although the old series kept to the original text very well and satisfied my thirst for hearing good English, I am glad the depressing hours of watching Sebastian and the Marchmains self-destruct are over for now.

Crabby Lady

My elementary school, Fairhill elementary, kept a pair of pet hermit crabs in the library. We were given instructions on how to hold them and were allowed to pick them up on visits. One day a delicate, fair-skinned boy had his finger penetrated by one of the creature's strong pincers. He reacted by forcefully propelling the animal across the room. I'm not sure if the crab lived.

Aside from childhood interest, I cannot think of why a lady, set to retire, would choose hermit crabs as her household companions. I suppose it's slightly touching that these ugly crustaceans, sold with conch shells and dead blow fish in trashy beach- side stores to inevitably die in some child's room, have become precious pets to this particular person. The critter appealed to some part of her humanity and for this, I like her.

She had bible study in one of my mom's groups but has since moved to Florida (as you will see in the article.) I never met her but my mom, knowing my love of all things wild, sent me updates. It seems she and her molting friends have become small-time celebrities:
Hermit Crabs

Bermuda Pictures

Bermuda Cruise

Lab humour:)

Who knew scientists had such a sense of humour? Well, I guess it's more the advertising company than the scientists but anyway ....
Just imagine yourself monotonously pipetting reagents and other scientific um, thingies hour after hour....when all of a sudden EP motion comes to your rescue with an appropriately corny boy band offering to automate this entire process for you. What could be better?

Good evening here's the news...

And all of it is good.

So anyway,

for more information on the summit (which actually is an excellent idea and still promotes a lot of good things for the world), check out this site:

http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/

G8 Summit

Every year eight of the most influential powers in the world meet with top economic and financial analysts to assemble plans that will address the most pressing matters affecting our world today. On the top of this list of issues are: disease and poverty in Africa, global warming and humanitarian violations such as the election in Zimbabwe.

Just in case demonstrators become too zealous in the expression of their frustrations and need to be contained, the summit is well prepared with numerous officers and the perimeters of the buildings are heavily barricaded. This year demonstrators were kept 2 miles from the actual meetings sites. Protesters are always reliable fixture at this event, their presence conveying their disappointment with nations who have the wealth and clout stop millions of peoples' suffering and yet every year, fail to do so.

The summit is essentially groups of a few wealthy people sitting around, determining the fate of everybody else. Most often, it results in empty promises and provisions for the distribution of less than inadequate funds.

It goes without saying that being the leader of the free world, the United States should set an ideological standard: it should be a role model for developing nations willing to sign on to the plans proposed during the summit. So, when the United States only promised to cut its current emissions by 50% by the year 2050, a goal that is much lower than could be accomplished, the rest of the world was a tad irritated.

This promise, however, was indeed quite ground breaking for our dear president who until recently, has failed to even acknowledge the effects of global warming. Scientists at the summit said that this was a missed opportunity and we will have to wait for the next president to commit to making substantial cuts in global warming pollution. Until we have a leader who is willing to take the necessary strides for humanitarian and environmental causes, the arctic will melt, animals will drift into extinction and millions of children will die while diseases eat away at their bodies and their parents are slaughtered by their own governments.

South Africa also had higher expectations:

The South African environment minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, called the long-term goal expressed by the G-8 to be an "empty slogan" and seemed to take a shot at the United States.
"We know very well that there are many countries in the G-8 grouping that share our ambitious expectations, and therefore it is regrettable that the lowest common denominator in the G-8 determined the level of ambition" in the declaration, van Schalkwyk said. (Washington Post).

By imposing sanctions on South Africa for the apartheid regime in the 1980's the United States caused the suffering and starvation of thousands of South Africans (black and white) who had little to do with the Apartheid government. This example merely illustrates how easy it is for the U.S to remain sanctimonious about their actions while the rest of the world suffers as a result. Perhaps those over zealous activists are partly correct in calling the leaders at the G8 hypocrites.

Although Bush doesn't believe in evolution he sure seems to believe in survival of the of the fittest. Born into privilege, he only looks out for himself and thoughtlessly destroys everyone in his path. One would hope that he would have used his privilege to help those less fortunate countries who so desperately need it. But then... we would be assuming that he himself has fully evolved. And we all know that's not true.

You've got the Wright stuff baby

I know this is old news but I stumbled upon this video today and thought it was funny.

Whose line is it anyway?

That catchy comedy show's title is pulled together by one very important word that many people mix up: when to use who's vs. when to use whose. It's one of those things that you don't think about until you have to use it correctly.
The confusion here is due to the apostrophe, which on 99% of English words indicates possession, but here simply indicates a contraction. If you can replace the word with who is or who has, use who's. If not, use whose.

When researching this, I thought that it seemed to be the same rule that applies to it's vs. its. Many students write it's thinking that the apostrophe shows possession when in fact it indicates a contraction of it is. Similarly, Who's=who is.
A simple explanation of this idea can be found at a blog called check grammar .


EXAMPLES
Who's
Who's watching TV?
Do you know who's going to speak?
Who's ready to go?
Who's in the kitchen?
Who's this?
Who's already eaten?
Whose
Whose is the possessive of who or, somewhat controversially, which.
Whose book is this?
Do you know whose car this is?
I know a woman whose kids study there.
Whose side are you on?
An idea whose time has come.

For those desiring more practice, this page provides some examples:
practice


Although I often use it in this way, using whose as the possessive of which is somewhat controversial with some professors.

Breaking News from the Onion

Bush Acknowledges Existence Of Carbon Dioxide

Onion News WASHINGTON—In an unexpected reversal that environmentalists and scientists worldwide are calling groundbreaking, President George W. Bush, for the first time in his political career, openly admitted to the existence of carbon dioxide following the release of the new U.N. Global Environment Outlook this October.
"Carbon dioxide, a molecule which contains one atom of carbon bonded with two atoms of oxygen, is a naturally occurring colorless gas exhaled by humans and metabolized, in turn, by plants," Bush told a stunned White House press corps. "As a leading industrialized nation, we can no longer afford to ignore the growing consensus of so many experts whose job it is to study our atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is real."
Because carbon dioxide, which was first described by 17th-century Flemish physician Jan Baptista van Helmont as a gas he referred to as "spiritus silvestre," has long been denied by the Bush administration, the president's speech was widely hailed as a victory for advocates of empirically established scientific fact.
"This has been a major step forward for national basic-chemistry policy," said longtime CO2 proponent and eighth-grade science teacher Linda Mattson. "By taking this brave stance, Bush has opened the door for the eventual acknowledgment that other molecular compounds, such as H20, for example, may in fact exist as well."
Many of those whom Bush has long considered to be his most loyal followers, however, have expressed disappointment with the development.
"There is nothing about any 'carbon dioxide' in the Bible," said Rev. Luke Hatfield of Christchurch Ministries in Topeka, KS. "What's next? Claims that so-called 'fossil' fuels come from mythical creatures like dinosaurs? This has been a sad step backward for our nation."
A White House spokesman was careful to categorize the announcement as "cautious," and reiterated that the president is still not ready to take any position on the existence of polar ice caps, ozone, or a controversial idea held by many scientists and often referred to as "weather."


Nuh uhhh. I simply don't believe it. Carbon Dioxide?

What's in a name?

For me.... a lot. Say the name Umhlanga Rocks and my heart sinks a little and my mind is whisked back to a simpler time. Standing on the balcony of the flat we rented for our holiday watching dolphins play in the ocean, thinking that nothing could be cooler than spending the winter in Natal with my family. Nearly 20 years later, I've come full circle and wish for nothing more than to return to a simpler way of life.

Last time I was at the mission I spoke to an African man who had lived in America for some years. When I asked him if he would like to live there he said, "Oh no, life there is very hard. People there are very hard on other people." So, despite the poverty, the crime, and the diseases, he thought that the better life was in fact in South Africa. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now, looking back, I think I'm inclined to agree with that sweet man.

As my mom is currently at the mission in Natal and very close to the beach of which I spoke earlier, I thought it fitting that I provide a little information:

For anyone curious about the location of Natal (a province in South Africa whose name means Christmas in Portuguese), here is a Map of South Africa.

The coast lies on the warm waters of the Indian ocean whose warm breeze makes the leaves on the banana trees rustle and greedy little monkeys scurry for their food. Locals go to Natal in the winter because it remains fairly warm all year round. The tropical climate here is quite unlike the cape on the other side of country which gets cold in winter and is generally dry and arid.
.

Carb Face

In The Thin Commandments Dr. Gullo (a really creepy looking guy) says that one of the first places we loose weight is our faces. Conversely, one of the first places we gain weight is in our faces. We get what he so astutely calls "that puffy carb face."

By convincing myself that the sweet, yogurt covered gewy things at my parents' house aren't that bad for me, I've gained 3 lbs and a bit of a carb face. Thus, Daniel has to suffer the consequences and be put on a carb-free diet. For 10 days we are not allowed to consume refined sugar in any form.

Egg whites, Low fat cheeses, white fish, vegetables and the occasional fruit is essentially what will be consumed. Hopefully my inner thighs and carb-face will thank me.

...And oh yeah, it might also be good for us.