Katya Koren and Islam

I have wondered, and this wonderment has persisted consistently almost all of my life,  how it is that something as staggeringly dumb as belief in an invisible chap in the sky who runs the show and requires total blind submission to his ways, is not permanently and conclusively eliminated from the list of blights on mankind.

The great qualities we possess as a species have reached many fantastic landmarks. Great minds have turned to the challenges facing our survival and demonstrated just how amazing we can be when applying rational logical thought in a forward direction. We have managed to overcome many of the diseases that have blighted our evolutionary path -  TB and smallpox to mention but two - yet this much more sinister and murderous pox on humanity, one which could so easily with mere legislation be wiped out at the swish of a pen, continues to flourish. How is this possible?

I am reminded of this today looking at the picture of Katya Koren. A  Ukranian 19 year old who participated in a beauty pageant,  for which reason she apparently attracted the rape and stoning death attention of  3 Muslim youngsters including, Bihal Gaziev, 16, who suggested (according to the Police report) that his belief in the invisible man in the sky and his set of rules regarding how to live on Earth required killing young Katya, in an appropriately barbaric way. 

His claim, published in the Daily Mail, that she was in breach of Sharia values has a sound ring to it. Rape and brutal murder are far less likely to accompany the actions of a rational logical thinker than an adherent to blind faith. Although the story was later amended by the Daily Mail to exclude any religiously motivated thinking, Bihal Gaziev's actions represent his Religious belief.

One need look no further than Tony Blairs example to see how loosely Biblical interpretation, in his case 'Thou shalt not kill,' lend themselves to the illogic of the blind faith supplicant.

Bihal's claim is much like that of John Joe Thomas, 28, of Pennsylvania, who, just a few Months ago filled a sock with rocks and bashed 70 year old Murray Seidman, who had named him as his sole beneficiary in his will, to death, with the explanation that he read in the Old Testament that homosexuals should be stoned to death. "Thomas said he received a message in his prayers that he must kill Seidman." Well why not. If you believe in the invisibility of logic, then you can do whatever your prayers tell you to do.

Just another Biblical tragedy and there are no shortage of tragedies arising from that unholy book.

“The battle for mans extinction has never been more fiercely contested, on one side, the supplicants of irrational blind faith and on the other, rational logical minds.” The Emergency Bouzouki Player.

For those supplicants of blind faith, who number more than half of the Earth and who populate almost all of the most powerful offices – from the US Presidency to the Billionaire sheikdoms – there is no workable moral code. The premise of their position – scriptural prescription – is ridiculous. So much so that the only way it can survive is reliance on an idea called blind faith. Blind faith as an argument for believing anything is a ridiculous premise which cannot survive without defeating its ideological opposite. Rational logical thought.

Debating the merits of scriptural prescription is ridiculous, being the intellectual equivalent of debating the flatness of the Earth. The scriptures, the bible, the Quran and all their silly derivatives are ridiculous. Childrens fairy stories rehashed through the millennia to support the ‘my god is better than your god’ argument whose premise is an ‘eternity in heaven’ for submission, and an ‘eternity in hell’ for the rest. 

The purveyors of this cynical relief package for the desperate and needy – the Popes, Bishops, Imamsm Fathers and Padre’s – perpetuate a delusion they can only maintain through blind faith. They are, without exception, not only ridiculous, but the enemy of reason, in service to a system of social, psychological, spiritual and intellectual abuse. Perpetuating, often on pain of death, submission through the metaphorical equivalent of thought lobotomy, into their social order in which the right to independent thought is forbidden and non-conformity persecuted.

Mans great advances since the first thinkers began developing ideas and sharing them for the betterment of all, have, almost without exception, arisen from non-believers, often despite persecution by the Religious powers of the day. Often those thought-contributors who were under the influence of the Church - would have to suppress their inventions if they threatened the Church's absolute stronghold on stupidity. Were it not for non-believers pursuing logical rational thought and directing the benefits toward upliftment of our human race in general, we would in all certainty already be extinct as a species.

And yet, more than half the planet believe through blind faith in a scripture based prescription which relies on a logical argument that a 9 year old would easily discredit with basic thought. How is it that seemingly intelligent people defend this iniquitous, exploitative, divisive product whose purpose is no more than to offer ridiculous promises – heaven and hell  - while offering nothing in return. Perhaps this is related to the fact that more than 50% of the Earths population live in abject poverty, less than $2 a day. This poverty layer make prime harvesting fields for souls so desperate they will believe anything. 

Is it not the most cynical of devices for churches to recruit from the underbelly of those most dispossessed by economic misfortune, who will believe anything for the price of a hot meal?

In terms of the powers that be, using the example of the USA, the heartland of Christian belief with their ‘In God we trust’ approach, who could legislate to end the pernicious growth of this social cancer, the motivation to do so is at odds with the formula for success in a democratic election. (And I use the word democratic in its loosest American style interpretation.)  Dumbed down believers in blind faith prescription will vote accordingly - their vote is so easy to manipulate - believe in invisible things and you will believe whatever you are told - in his name. 

The words 'God' and 'Democracy' are so linked in American politics that the chances of a leader being elected who didn't openly and enthusiastically embrace the little mighty Jesus in his manifesto - would stand no hope.  America's leadership is limited to either a leader who believes in an invisible man guiding his hand - or one who lies about it. Any suggestion that this represents democracy - rule by the people - must acknowledge the distance America's democratic model represents from the Greek invention.

Oh well. Bihal Gaziev and John Joe Thomas have an important lesson for us all. As believers they are guaranteed a place in heaven, albeit two different heavens.  Another two good reasons to believe.

Book launch talk

Here is the transcript of my book launch talk in Hampton Court on 26 May. 

The Emergency Bouzouki Player is a war story.

I started writing this book in January 1979 when I found myself in a place called the shooting range, one week into basic training as an infantryman in the town of Kimberley, in a unit called 11 Kommando, being prepared for a war called the ‘Border war’, which we now know as ‘the war for apartheid’.

The border war as some of you will know was at the time Africa’s longest running conflict, going on for some 23 years and in 1979 it was at its height even though the terrorist leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Nelson Mandela had been captured and sentenced to life in prison.

My story started with a realisation. I had been press-ganged. Shanghai’d if you like out of my student life as a happy musical 18 year old and placed in a uniform under the life and death auspices of thoroughly unpleasant Afrikaner Army instructors charged with, in their own words ‘breaking down the person to build a soldier’.

I was at that time a soft skinned University student with liberal leanings, and did not take kindly to being ‘broken down’. To compound matters still further, I am a Libran, and as any Libran will understand, possessed with an advanced sense of justice and fairness. The shock of being threatened – on pain of death – with the prospect of becoming a soldier to fight the war in defense of apartheid was iniquitous to me. I literally could not believe that what was happening around me could be either legal or acceptable.

Although my circumstance was a common one in that every South African born white male of my generation had to serve 2 years of National service, I fell into a small minority group for whom reluctant compliance was replaced by obstinate commitment to fight the system, and so my war began. I was drafted into a war, and a war is what followed. Two years of bitter war with the South African Army.

I completed 5 days of basic training before I reached my self-determined tipping point, after which time I became a deceitful refusenik. Integral to my deceit was the claim to be a bouzouki player. This was especially significant in my story because my only hope of salvation from being sent to fight and kill on the border lay in being transferred to the Entertainment corps. A quite amazing unit tasked with providing a top class show band to service Government and senior military functions.

Being possibly the most desirable posting in the Army, many thousands of gifted musicians applied for a place in the Entertainment corps and the competition for selection was tough. When my turn came to fill out my application for the role of guitar player, in the column marked ‘do you play any other instruments’ I wrote Bouzouki, even though I had no skills on that instrument. I made this claim because, as a Greek, I obviously knew a bit about the Bouzouki, and understanding the South African stereotypical way of thinking, I bluffed that being Greek and saying I could play the bouzouki would add up to – aha – now we have a Bouzouki player.

By this slim thread of deceit and coincidence, I became the South African Army’s premier Bouzouki player and by devising a clever rolling plectrum style on my guitar, was able to approximate the sound of a bouzouki with sufficient conviction to fool even the Prime Minister with my smooth sultry bouzouki styling’s.

On one occasion where I was performing my bouzouki music for the Prime Minister, the odious PW Botha, also known as the great crocodile, possibly because he was so very ugly he resembled a crocodile, driven by his close proximity to a moment of sociopathic rage, I told him  that his ‘bum stinks.’

A modest footnote in the annals of revolutionary protest I know, but certainly the only occasion where a teenaged troop in uniform was able to insult a Prime Minister to his face, in the presence of half of his cabinet, and live to tell the tale.

That tale, and many more like it form the fabric of the book. Two years in the life of a Greek teenager at war with the South African army and two years that shaped the destiny of the emerging South Africa.

In my role as a bandsman in the Entertainment corps I traveled the length and breadth of South Africa and the war zone, which, when I look back on it, was a lot like watching surgery take place from the perspective of the scalpel.

A microscopic insight into the festering toxic puss rotting the soul of a diseased nation. South Africa in 1979 was a sick society. Driven by a fanatical fundamentalism, a religious belief system acquired through that cynical sickening confidence trick called blind-faith.      

With their blind-faith, their god and their iniquitous laws of hate empowering a tiny minority to persecute harass and kill at their whim, they, the devoutly Christian Afrikaner ruling elite, armed, trained and turned a generation of 18 year olds with white skins into the killers and persecutors of their black peers, on a scale that I still find quite incredible. Along the way they found time to kill off many of the very best South Africa had to offer, killing off almost an entire generation of future leaders, like the remarkable Neil Aggett, who I met not long before his terrible death after 70 days of torture in John Vorster square, and the equally remarkable Steven Biko.

I always found it a curious aspect of Christian belief that the Afrikaner Police who tortured and killed Biko and Aggett  are Church going Christians who are assured an eternity in heaven, whilst the atheists Biko and Aggett who gave their lives in service to helping those less fortunate are at this very moment serving their time in the burning pits of hell.

But the book is not limited to doom and gloom and self-limiting stupidity. There are many humorous moments along the way with many inspirational occurrences to raise the spirits, and looking back on it through the retrospectometer, it supports a principle that extends far beyond my own story. That bad experience is a far more efficient teacher than good. And so in that sense, it is a book with a happy ending, being a tribute to the resilience of youth and proof that the human capacity for optimism generates its own unstoppable force. 

Order Hard copy HERE  (With postage £22 to anywhere in the world.)

Order e book copy for Kindle HERE

Order ebook for ipad from itunes HERE

Israel 1967.

Is there anything more stomach turning than listening to an Israeli leader telling off an American President? Watching Netanyahu with his huge IQ rolling out the old platitudes for an embarrassingly docile Obama with his silly reference to the 1967 border is like watching a snake swallow a mouse.

The border change that came in 1967 following the so called '6 day war' saw Israel bombing and killing all around them with great success, including the American ship they attacked on June 8, 1967. 

The USS Liberty was in 1967 the US Navy's most advanced surveillance ship, patrolling the Mediterranean in International waters within monitoring distance of Israel during the 6 day war under the command of Captain William McGonagle, when IDF boats and planes launched a sustained attack on her, killing 34 Americans and wounding 171 crew.

This attack provides a pretty clear indication of Israels position when it comes to American interference with Israels right to self defense by whatever means necessary, be it the seizure of neighboring land, or the bombing of American ships and killing of American Sailors.

If ever there was substance to the idea that pro Zionist influence runs a controlling hand over News media, it may be found in the total exclusion of the USS Liberty's attack by Israel from any mainstream press. 

IDF Planes strafe an American Navy ship flying the American flag, repeatedly, while IDF Boats launch torpedoes and make every effort to sink her. 34 Americans die and only  heroic defensive action by the American sailors prevented the ship and all who sailed on her going to the bottom of the Ocean under the weight of IDF fired missiles and torpedoes, which we can safely assume were paid for by American Israeli funding.  
And the reaction from the Worlds press is - Nothing to see here.
  The surviving crew of the USS Liberty, led by Captain William McGonagle, must have been as surprised as we all are to see how quickly the entire event was denied. 

To this day, despite the heavyweight representations by high level US Navy leaders, there has never been any accountability for the attack and killing of American sailors by the IDF. 

This is because Israel can attack anyone with impunity, including American Navy ships. It seems strange that Obama would be the only recent American President unaware of this.

Following the swift burial of the USS Liberty story, survivors of the IDF attack on that ship presented a War Crimes report. 

"The United States is obligated by law and by international treaty to investigate all reports of war crimes by or against United States Forces. This report obligates such an investigation. We are still waiting patiently for a reply." 

Obama with his tremendous enthusiasm for promoting revenge on those who launch attacks on America may well be playing a double bluff with the brilliant Netanyahu. Perhaps this is his strategy all along. Does the US at last have a leader prepared to avenge the dead of the USS Liberty?
On 8th June it will be 44 years.

Here is the USS LIBERTY memorial  website, by survivors of the IDF attack, in case you are unfamiliar with the events of 8 June 1967, some 40 km out to sea.

 

Selling news

Increasingly since the advent of rolling live TV news, news agencies face the challenge of supplying demand for popular stories in a fiercely competitive market, where Political interests often require spinning of the subject matter. In this tripartite meeting place between profit making, reporting the facts and spinning the Government cheese, the one thing you can be sure of is that the news you are seeing places the traditionally understood model of journalistic integrity guiding honest reporting of events considerably below the other two.

The Lara Logan story demonstrates how far news agencies have strayed from the path of honest reporting quite well.

Remember just a few Months ago how captivated we all were with events in Cairo's Tahrir square. The brave protesters facing down the nasty Mubarak forces. How we cheered them on. Papers ran double page spreads showing where each group had their headquarters and where the toilets were and where the Human rights activists were. All jolly good reporting which we lapped up. Thousands of miles of newsprint sold. Tahrir square - right up there with Tiananmen. The tension grew and grew and wherever you went, anywhere in the world for that matter, the talk was all perfectly clear. Mubarak bad. Protesters good. Support change in Egypt. Then, overnight, Egypt disappeared from the news. The disappearance coincided with events following Mubarak's resignation announcement, 11 February, and in the time it takes to say 'Nothing to see here' Egypt's revolution was pushed down the pecking order with just a one line mention of a journalist being assaulted in the Cairo Square.

What happened to Lara Logan, South African born reporter for CBS, is of course not the news that suits the commercial interests of the broadcasters, placing itself so firmly at odds with the product on sale. Mubarak, established regime, bad - Protesters, change for the better, good.

Twenty five minutes after Lara Logan's horrific sexual attack by around 200 men, who committed acts so violent and debased that describing them as barbaric animals whose actions demonstrate with more clarity than any gifted writer could hope to achieve with the written word, the inherent vulgarity of their belief system, Egypt was no longer suitable front-page news.

The thought that for 25 minutes whilst the good men of Tahrir square repeatedly raped, bit chunks off, urinated and ejaculated over, and generally battered this woman, no one in the crowd saw fit to intervene, although some felt it appropriate to cheer and clap, while others photographed the attack on their cell phones.

Eventually, someone did step in. Gosh and darn. One of Mubarak's soldiers, who baton charged the raping protesters and carried her body, over his shoulder, out of further harms way. Almost certainly that mans actions saved Lara Logan's life.

That soldiers story would make a good feature, wouldn't it? Brave fellow who placed his own life at risk at a time when he was very much a villain of world peace. Well. of course not. He is/was a Mubarak employee and no one is interested in that story. (I wonder if Lara Logan ever found him with thanks.)

Even her own employers, CBS News downplayed the incident. Nothing to see here.

http://www.uncoverage.net/2011/02/lara-logans-rape-in-egypt-square-much-worse-than-reported/

News is a cynical business. I find its usually safe to assume 90% of what you see is split between Government cheese and broadcasters commercial interest. Coincidentally this is about the same percentage split Ronnie Johnson's formula for identifying idiots confirms.

Mothers day recipe

Here is my plan for Mothers day dinner, which comes with the following warning. If you are nervous about high cholesterol, butter rich tastes, then look away now.

I have 12 large Prawns from our local fishmonger. This will form the basis for the main course, to be presented in a chowder arrangement not dissimilar to the one I enjoyed in California's Paradise Cove.

My recipe (for 2) goes as follows:

Four baby onions. Chopped fine.  Placed in a heated frying pan with good quality, large knob of French butter.  When translucent, introduce an entire bulb of garlic, crushed in a press. Mix to a pleasant buttery consistency.

Eight Estima potatoes (Small buttery new potatoes). Chopped fine -with skin on. Introduced in a new pan with heated butter. Fried until cooked through. Add good amount of pancetta lardons. Heat through in the butter.

Base of onion and garlic added to a good sized saucepan. Add 250ml of single cream and a cup of milk. (about 250ml)  Stir. Add the potato. Add the ham lardons. Season with white pepper.

Add tub (good quantity) of Mascarpone cheese. Stir in well. Should by now have produced a good cream coloured, creamy soup like base.

Boil two corn cobs for ten minutes. Allow to cool. Strip off the corn. Run through a food blender very briefly to create a corn mush. Careful not to make it too mushy. Aim for 1/4 the size for each kernel.

Clean the prawns - butterflied and halved. Flash fry the prawns in butter.  Just literally a moment in the heat to turn their colour. If the prawns are overcooked, you might as well order a chinese.

Now add the corn mush to the cheesy potato base. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Sprinkle a good measure of freshly grated Parmesan over the top - to bond with the mascarpone in a fusion of cheesy goodness.

Add a sachet of bouquet garni and allow the pan to simmer at very low heat for 20 minutes.
Now add the prawns. and simmer the pan for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool in the pan for at least 3 minutes.

Serve in a bowl topped with fresh parsley.

Present with side dish of fresh bread and assorted steamed vegetables, in this case baby asparagus and purple sprouting broccoli stems, dressed with lemon, olive oil and a splash of Balsamic.

A nice dry white wine accompaniment is to be recommended. On this occasion, a vibrant Chablis.

Goes well with a few candles and piano based musical accompaniment, on this occasion we will rely on Brad Mehldau.


Ingredients:
12 large prawns
4 baby onions
bulb of garlic
250 ml single cream
Good quality butter
Milk
2 X corn on the cob
sachet of bouquet garni
tub of mascarpone
pancetta lardons
piece of parmesan for grating
fresh parsley
baby asparagus
purple sprouting broccoli
Fresh bread
lemon
Virgin olive oil
balsamic vinegar
bottle of (nice) dry white wine
candles (At least 2)
High quality piano based musical recording.

Televised football is fixed.

For many years now the technology that has removed human error from officiating in other sports has been rejected by footballs administrators. 

Cricket has benefited tremendously from the team challenge system, where we see umpires decisions proven wrong with regularity. The same in tennis. Spectators love it because it serves the best interests of fair play.

There is only one reason why Televised footballs controllers resist this advance and it is the most obvious one.  Almost every one of the big games I have watched this season have all been very obviously decided by incorrect refereeing decisions. More often than not it is the 23rd player on the field whose performance determines the outcome. The skills of a Messi or a Ronaldo having less bearing on a games outcome than that of the whistleblower.

There is no sustainable argument for preventing the third umpire approach with each team having a number of challenges to the referees decision. The only conclusion left to draw from this ongoing failure to implement the obvious, for many years since it first became technically feasible, is that its implementation would diminish the opportunity for officials to fix games.

You will know when Football games are no longer fixed when the TV referral system comes into play. Until then - Football remains the hijacked property of a corrupt self serving set of administrators who are getting away with murder - injecting the festering pus of their self serving corruption and infecting the beautiful game.

Islamic prejudice

Today's TIMES has an exclusive feature following a comprehensive ten year study by child protection experts of a repeated pattern of sex offending across Northern England and the Midlands. Where groups of older men approach vulnerable girls 11 - 16 on the street and groom them for sex. The girls are almost all white. The men are almost all Muslim Pakistanis.

The grooming usually begins with older groups of men befriending girls aged from 11 to 16 they meet on the street. In a typical scenario, the victim is initially treated as a girlfriend and showered with presents and attention. But the relationship quickly becomes more sinister as the abuser plies the child with drink and drugs before effectively pimping her out to friends and associates.
The worst cases involve young girls being moved around the country to be repeatedly abused.

There have been 56 successful prosecutions since 1997. Fifty three were Asians. Fifty of those were Muslims.

The real story in all of this is that despite this 'Tidal wave' of horrific abuse, the story and action against those involved has been subject to a dreadful prejudice. Fear of offending the Muslim community.

A report by the Derby safeguarding children board in the wake of last years multiple arrests said there should be greater consideration of 'whether the ethnic background and culture of the perpetrators had any bearing on their decision to take part in this activity'. 

Does it seem remotely possible that believers in a religion whose prophet famously enjoyed sex with a 9 year old and whose holy book encourages the diminished importance of women through polygamy and the husbandly right to disciplinary spousal violence might in any way make believers more likely to participate in this abusive behavior or not?  

If we accept their right to practice Islamic submission in our Non Muslim Country then surely we cannot impose our Non Islamic consideration on their right to properly express the behavioral consequences associated with and arising from this same belief. That would be an infringement on their freedom of religious expression. Surely.

This tale of Islamic influence in our multi-cultural society, of how young girls are harvested straight from the street in those British towns with a high percentage of Muslim population serves as a practical metaphor for what happens next. And talking about it is simply not allowed.

Sir Simon Cowell

In light of the outraged and indignant flurry of objection to the mention of a Simon Cowell knighthood, I am moved to comment.

Simon Cowell is an unusually talented businessman.  He has made millions upon millions on a simple premise.

You cant overestimate the public stupidity. 

Personally I am in awe of his achievements. Making people stupid enough to pay you in direct proportion to their stupidity. It has a beautiful symmetry to it. He is a true revolutionary capitalist. He has exposed with a surgeons precision the nations desperate need to feel superior to those even less talented than themselves. Making stupid people perform for stupid people in a self perpetuating ritual of mutual intellectual mould and moral abuse whilst demonstrating a quite brilliant ability to turn every aspect of the dumbing process into a personally remunerative opportunity. Record Companies pay TV for promotional time for their acts. He gets the TV to pay him to monopolize air time for his sole use. 

He embodies the spirit of capitalist greed better than anyone - expect perhaps the guy in the Michael Moore movie who put innocent kids in the Prison he owned for his personal gain- but give Simon a little more time and I'm sure he will come up with something even more tasteful than that. All in the name of ''Light relief'.

In terms of British excellence in a specific discipline - in this case Capitalist greed - he is without peer. Clearly, if Simon wanted to be made a peer, he could have made that happen with ease and no doubt he will decide when the timing is right for that to happen. He has the dumb vote and if we have learned anything from the Simon Cowell success story, it is the dumb who decide.

Spin gone mad

Just watched the John Pilger movie 'The war you don't see.' 

Of course it will really make no difference because nobody cares that we murdered all those Iraqi kids in cold blood. Why learn about the world when you can watch Eastenders and X Factor and pretend Blair is anything less than a mass murderer, immune to accountability through our collective indifference. 

By way of explanation:

In the mid 80's I met Kaveh Golestan, the fabulous Iranian photo journalist who covered the Iran/Iraq war for many major publications including Time magazine.  Over the next several years we enjoyed a good friendship. From 1980 until the end of the war in 1988 Kaveh would spend 6 months of the year in the war zone and 6 Months back in his Eton Terrace home, where I would join him and his lovely wife Hengameh for coffee, endless cigarettes and long conversations about the circumstances of his experiences on the Iranian front line. As a participant in war myself, I found our conversations to be especially insightful and rewarding. It was he who first made me aware of the Iranian military tactic of Human wave child sacrifice. Mothers so demented by the heady cocktail of Islamic belief and Nationalist rhetoric that they would drive their children to the front line to deliver them to certain death. (For a Paradise Key.)

One day in 1989 I found myself sitting in Kaveh's Eaton Terrace apartment when he asked me to review a book he intended to present for publication. I was seated in a drawing room and presented with a folder containing  some180 Black and white pictures. These were to form a pictorial record telling the story in a way no words could ever do. Kaveh's photos had featured regularly in the worlds leading publications reporting on the war and he had perhaps the most extensive photographic record of that war, having invested 8 years of his life in pursuit of that very thing. Over the course of an hour, I turned page after page, reviewing the pictures he had chosen to tell the story of the Iran/Iraq war. By the time I reached the end I felt I had seen the most powerful and insightful record of war and the horror it represents  that I had ever encountered. All told through the device of black and white photographs.

I was reminded of Lloyd George's famous quote to the Guardian editor during WW1.  

"If people really knew the truth the war would stop tomorrow. But of course they don't know and cant know." 

Unsurprisingly despite his enormous reputation and the incredible value of his work, Kaveh was not able to find any publisher willing to take on this extraordinary record of war.

"Nobody wants to know" is how he put it to me. And thats the sorry conclusion that I take from Pilger's excellent movie. Who cares. We live in an age where mass murdering ex-leaders collect tens of millions for consultancy whilst never being brought to account - because  "Nobody wants to know."

Our collective dumbness - designer dumbness emanating from a highly evolved scientifically designed psychological model for mass manipulation by media - the success of which can readily be demonstrated by the popularity of dumb-market television like X Factor - means the likelihood of anything changing toward making criminal leadership accountable and working towards a better world for all - is somewhere between very low and lower still. Where there is no will its hard to see the way, and through the mind-numbing mind-altering techniques emanating from Edward Bernays onward, the will to think has been steadily eroded. 

Designer delusion based on the understanding that a thought-disempowered conformist, living in fear of an almighty and under crippling economic pressure, cannot properly exercise independent thought which might challenge the controlling hegemony. 

17 Million British people invest an emotional hour of their lives watching this X Factor show - but, outside of a very small minority, none care enough about Iraq and their complicity in events there to even bother finding out what really happened. I doubt even 1% of that number will watch Pilgers challenging documentary. Blair remains free and happy to party with Cliff Richard, who, we must assume is equally indifferent to the brand of christian fair play Blair visited on the lives of an entire generation of Iraqis.

Thank heavens for John Pilger.

Remembrance day

The 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11 day of the 11th Month this year leaves me with more mixed feeling than any previous year.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
 
Anyone familiar with this ceremony will recall the phrase 'The War to end all wars.'
   Surely the point of remembrance of this war is that we do not forget the mistakes of History thereby repeating them.
   The so called Great War is where men empowered by privilege and social position gave orders to men, from less fortunate backgrounds, forcing them to commit acts that fly in the face of every natural instinct.
What happened at locations such as the Somme truly beggars belief - where young boys standing in rotten feet in rotten boots with lice offending every orifice had to watch the first wave go over the top into 100% certain machine gun scything down death - and then follow orders as a second wave to do the same. And then a third wave. All of whom knew beyond all reasonable doubt that the orders they were following were lunacy. And those who refused were simply shot by their own officers.

These are not Fallen Hero's. These are victims of social crimes. Class crimes. Empowering unqualified men of unconvincing intelligence to knowingly execute hundreds of thousands of unfortunate victims of their callous disregard and respect for life.

There were many voices at the time pointing out the ridiculous aspect to paying for a few miles of front line with hundreds of thousands of lives. No one listened then.
The lesson we should take away from all of this is that War is horrible. It debases everyone involved.

There is no need for war at all but for one exception. When a country comes under attack from another bent on military destruction. In no other circumstance is War superior to diplomacy and the tools available to the diplomat, most notably through economic manipulation.

I have been horrified and fascinated by the WW1 stories in equal measure. The only sense that can come from remembering the sacrifices made on the bloody battlefields of the Western Front is that through their deaths we learn something to ensure that we don't repeat the same mistakes.

That we continue to make war since the sorry reflection following WW1 is self evident however my umbrage at this time of year lies with the hijacking of a noble memory - remembrance of victims of callous cruel execution in the name of an ideal not of the choosing of the vast majority - who were led sheep like into the conflict without the opportunity to exercise choice.
Translating their tragedy to muster support for the current wars is quite clearly in my view, revolting.

They were not fallen heroes who died to inspire a new generation to follow in their footsteps.
They were tragic victims of failed leadership. Duped by circumstance and by deliberate targeting along class lines into a slaughterhouse that should have given rise to many criminal charges, instead of the medal count that the likes of Hague went on to enjoy.

My remembrance on 11/11/11 this year, as it is every year, will be a moment of misty eyed silence for the victims. I will not be buying the fluffy Tommy doll with a string you pull that makes him say 'Over the top' or the ridiculous sound of silence CD that is as much an affront to the environment as it is to basic common sense. Or even listening to speeches by the social inheritors of Hague's mantle, like silly Prince Andrew in his ridiculous hat playing soldiering that has no connection or appreciation of the real tragedy that remembrance day represent.
The execution of almost an entire generation of youth in service to the vainglorious idiocy of a deluded few.

Christianity and Biko

Stephen Biko died almost exactly 33 years ago. I am reminded that not much has changed since. The nature of man to behave with basic decency remains afflicted by the consequence of reliance on delusional belief as much today - with a child molesting pope swanning around London - as it did 33 years ago.
Once delusional belief is accepted - through the vehicle of blind faith - any instruction can be followed in the same way.

To illustrate the point I am making - that delusional belief in invisible forces corrupts the innate humanity of the individual by acting at odds with the basic intuitive means by which the individual connects with his own morality - and is therefore unhealthy at best and murderously dangerous the rest of the time, here is a tale of two christians. Church going believers of the highest order.

Gideon Nieuwoudt and Harold Snyman.

In August of 1977, relying on a law devised by christians of the highest order - The Terrorism Act no 83 of 1967, which gave practicing christians (and only practicing christians) the legal right to arrest and detain anyone without any accountability, these chaps in their uniforms of the South African Police picked up former medical student Stephen Biko - a 30 year old writer, consciousness leader and atheist. Biko was interrogated in a police cell (6-1-9) for 22 hours hours, wherein he was pummeled senseless. His skull cracked leaving him in a coma state. Obviously no contradiction here with christian belief. Beaten to an inch of his life, the biblically named Gideon and his buddy Harold then thought it a good idea to drive the battered Biko 750 miles to a Police hospital. Clearly they had good reason to not take him to a nearby Hospital in Port Elizabeth, which might have taken all of 5 minutes, so they put him into the back of a land rover, naked, a nice christian touch in the circumstances, and bleeding with a major head injury for a 750 mile  across the country. Anyone who has been in the back of a police land rover in the 70's will know the degree of discomfort represented here. Its little more than a metal box with virtually no shock absorbers.

Biko died of his injuries shortly after arriving at the Hospital in Pretoria. The Land Rovers speed of around 50 miles an hour means the journey would have taken at least 17 hours. A crucifiction would have been a considerably more christian way to kill a man, but not for these christians.

I struggle to imagine the nature of a man that would put another man into the back of a metal box - a man already beaten to an inch of his life with a cracked skull - and drive him across a country, naked, knowing and rejoicing in his  experience of the most dreadful agonies before his certain death. What kind of belief system could turn any man so against the natural order as to make him debase his humanity in this way?

To demonstrate that delusional belief in one thing encourages it in another, these devout christians when called on the explain why this chap was dead, said he had killed himself by going on hunger strike. Not even honest enough to stand up and express the truth of their actions.

In the subsequent Police inquiry the Attorney General of the Eastern Cape, another devout practicing christian, ruled that there was no case to answer for officers involved in the arrest and detention of Biko. During the trial it was claimed that Biko's head injuries were the result of a self-inflicted suicide attempt, not those of any beatings. Believe one delusion and its so easy to carry on in the same vein.

So that was that. Black atheist kills himself. His own fault. Nothing to see here.

This is one small illustration of why delusional belief is not a harmless right to be enjoyed free from any persecution.

And on a happy note of conclusion, Harold Snyman died in 1997 of lung cancer. He is now in heaven where all christians go for eternity in paradise, many with an option on virginal pleasures. Meanwhile Steve Biko continues to rot in the fiery pits of hell that is the christian message to all non-believers.

You have just got to love the christian way.

God is the truth.

My reply to a Faithbook message from Ursela advising me that 'God is the truth'. 

If god is almighty and the creator of everything and is responsible for the placement of everything in the celestial order; then he made all the little animals. And all the people too. And he made cancer. And he made the mosquito. And he made Sara Palin's brain. And he made mutating illnesses that paralyze and leave people howling in pain for years as they scream their way to sorry death. And if god see's everything and he has almighty powers to do anything. Then god willingly and knowingly allows catholic priests to serially bugger little boys in his name. Its not as if he doesn't know about this stuff because he knows everything and its going on in his own house, which could not come to pass without his approval. Otherwise it wouldn't be happening. So this almighty god is clearly responsible for a lot of nasty stuff. Whereas. I am not. I differ from your god in a few small but significant ways.

I am a happy little sailor through the universal hand that I have been dealt by complete random evolutionary procedure where I may or may not become the best human being I can possibly be. That's what I try to be on a daily basis. I don't require anyone to endorse my belief. And I don't seek to recruit anyone to conform to my will. I don't threaten anyone who fails to bow to my will with a life of damnation and I don't insult anyone's basic intelligence by claiming to be all around and omnipotent. If 'I see my brother standing by the road with a heavy load' I will always try to show kindness. 

These few qualities quite clearly place me many layers above this malicious and unkind god of which you speak, who is responsible for atrocities so gross even speaking about them diminishes me.

I understand the need for a god. The key is 'need.' Your need to believe in a god. And I can see the temptation arising from the promise of a heavenly ever after. But really this arrangement only works with blind faith. Once common sense breaks through - the argument falls over. 

Historically god is a coping mechanism invented by man in times of uncertainty as a one size fits all placebo. Sadly this basic need and its remedy has developed into a sinister underworld where the church and its believers have become little more than an exploitative mafia - preying on the needy and vulnerable for the benefit of the few. The only thing shielding any believer from this realty is. Blind Faith. And its not called Blind Faith for nothing.

And in reply - Ursela advised me that  I was wrong. God didn't make all the bad things, that was the Devil. Which reminded me that I had forgotten that the devils stuff was still being used in the agenda, but replied none-the-less.

Ursela. I don't mean to alarm you however I can assure you that I can make up far more credible tales of good and bad demonstrating the duality of human nature and a set of rules to live by than the bible or the quran. And this is not a skill unique to myself. There are many writers above a certain level who can invent infinitely superior story lines to those two books. 

Consider L. Ron. Hubbard. The most published writer in the world. Gets divorced - needs some money quick - writes a book called Dianetics - identifies that people need answers - so he sells in a designer model - and presto. New religion with Millions of people paying in their money and believing the fairy story. Supply and demand. There is a need for a solid belief. And that demand is serviced- cynically and with an ever decreasing degree of credibility by big religion.

The fairy story about the devil and the other guy is not well constructed. Any informed debate looking to prove the mechanics of the argument will fall on its face trying. Its full of holes - from the garden of eden apple story, to the virgin birth, to the idea of original sin. There simply is no devil just as there clearly is no god. There are avenues of belief which convince individuals that god exists and that a devil exists. This is a response to a need but is not  a logically realistic proposition. 

There is no need for any argument to prove something doesn't exist. That would be ridiculous. Proof of somethings existence relies on proof that it exists. 

I cant say to you - there are fifteen fairies at the bottom of my garden - and expect you to believe that, unless I can service the burden of proof. The onus is not on you to disprove the fairies in my garden. That would be ridiculous. If I make an assertion without a shred of tangential evidence in support - then it is a delusion. I am attempting a deceit. I am trying to make you believe their are fifteen fairies at the bottom of my garden and in so doing I am attempting to deceive you. It follows that if I am prepared to deceive you on this matter - I would attempt to deceive you on any other number of matters - because I rely on delusion to promote my belief. This is one of several dangerous elements that allowing blind faith to lead you to belief in an invisible god/devil introduces. If you believe that delusion - you have agreed a process of acceptance of things based on delusion and this means you will believe more or less anything. It is dishonesty at its most cynical because it requires you to actually believe the lie.

Human nature and the workings of the brain encourage acceptance of that which we most need to believe. The process is driven by the need. We adopt a 'The truth is what I choose to believe' approach. And that becomes 'the truth'. So you believe a powerful omnipresent good god controls everything - and a bad equally powerful other god - who is called the devil - counteracts all the stuff the good one does. And that is your truth. But it is not a reliable truth. Just one that you have elected - through the device of blind faith - to place your belief in. I know people who believe they have fairies living at the bottom of their garden. They believe. They truly believe. But that doesn't make it so.

Your previous comment about scientists implying that evolution means  god was an ape' is best addressed by the all powerful all seeing, quite brilliant commentator - Frank Zappa. 

Herewith - from the book of Zappa. 
Album: 27. Side: 2. Song:5 
Dumb all over.

Whoever we are, wherever we're from, 
we shoulda noticed by now our behaviour is dumb
And if our chances expect to improve 
it's gonna take a lot more than tryin' to remove 
the other race or the other whatever 
from the face of the planet altogether
They call it "The Earth" which is a dumb kinda name 
but they named it right 'cause we behave the same
We are dumb all over
Dumb all over, yes we are, dumb all over, 
near and far, dumb all over, 
black 'n white, people, we is not wrapped tight
And nerds on the left, nerds on the right
Religious fanatics on the air every night, 
sayin' the bible tells the story 
and makes the details sound real gory 
about what to do if the geeks over there 
don't believe in the book we got over here
You can't run a race without no feet
And pretty soon there won't be no street 
for dummies to jog on or doggies to dog on
Religious fanatics can make it be all gone
I mean it won't blow up and disappear, 
it'll just look ugly for a thousand years
You can't run a country by a book of religion
Not by a heap or a lump or a smidgeon 
of foolish rules of ancient date, 
designed to make you all feel great 
while you fold, spindle and mutilate 
those unbelievers from a neighbouring state
To arms, to arms
Hooray! That's great, two legs ain't bad
Unless there's a crate they ship the parts to mama in
For souvenirs: two ears (Get down)
Not his, not hers but what the hey
The good book says, "It's gotta be that way"
But their book says, "Revenge the crusades"
With whips 'n chains and hand grenades
Two arms, two arms
Have another and another
Our Cod says, "There ain't no other"
Our Cod says, "It's all ok"
Our god says "This is the way"
It says in the book, "Burn and destroy"
And repent and redeem and revenge and deploy 
and rumble thee forth to the land of the unbelieving scum on the other side
'Cause they don't go for what's in the book and that makes 'em bad
So verily we must choppeth them up and stompeth them down
Or rent a nice French bomb to poof them out of existence 
while leaving their real estate just where we need it to use again 
for temples in which to praise our god, 
'cause he can really take care of business
And when his humble TV servant 
with humble white hair and humble glasses 
and a nice brown suit 
and maybe a blonde wife who takes phone calls, 
tells us our god says it's ok to do this stuff, then we gotta do it
'Cause if we don't do it we ain't "Gwine up to hebbin"
Depending on which book you're using at the time
Can't use theirs, it don't work, it's all lies, gotta use mine
Ain't that right?
That's what they say
Every night, everyday
Hey, we can't really be dumb if we're just following god's orders
Well let's get serious, god knows what he's doin'
He wrote this book here and the book says
"He made us all to be just like him"
So, if we're dumb, then god is dumb 
and maybe even a little ugly on the side
Dumb all over, a little ugly on the side
Dumb all over, a little ugly on the side

Andrews Fish Pie recipe.

An easy to prepare meal for 4. About 40 minutes preparation time. And 45 minutes cooking time.

Best prepared whilst playing the '7 Bach Meditations' album which infuses the process with positive energy. (View here)
 
Raw Ingredients:
Fish:           Use 3 different pieces. Try - Salmon, haddock and cod.
Shellfish:    A goodly amount of king prawns.
Potatoes
Onion
Garlic
Bacon
Flour
Butter
Cheddar cheese
Parmesan              
Leek
Shitake Mushrooms
Milk

1.   Chop 4 potatoes into small cubes. Really small. Add to pot of boiling water. Simmer for ten minutes. Drain and put to one side on plate.
2.   Chop one onion into tiny cubes. Clean one entire bulb of garlic and press into crushed pile. Heat frying pan with butter. Shallow fry the onion and garlic until translucent. When ready, add the potato and mix evenly. Place on plate and put to one side. This will form the bottom and top layers of the dish.
3.   Slice shitakes into fillet style pieces. Shallow fry in butter until tender. Put to one side on plate.
4.   Grill four pieces of bacon until very well cooked and crispy. Allow to cool. Chop up into tiny pieces. Put to one side on plate.
5.  Use frying pan with shallow base of butter to heat the prawns. Don't overcook. Just turn in the butter long enough to change color. Just a few minutes. Place on plate and put to one side.
6.   Heat saucepan with enough milk to boil the fish parts. Add the fish to the simmering milk and leave to cook for about 5 minutes - until fish looks reasonably cooked through. Then extract fish in colander while reserving the fishy milk for later use.
7.   Prepare your roux. Butter in saucepan - carefully add flour until you have a nice thick roux. Dont be shy - be sure to make enough.
8.   Into your roux,  carefully introduce some of the reserved fishy milk. Until you have a nice looking quantity of creamy looking fishy smelling off-white sauce.
9.   Grate a pile of cheddar (don't be shy quantity) and a quarter of that amount of parmesan into two plates.
10.   Chop leek (using common sense) and boil for 5 minutes. Place on plate to one side.

And now arrange the ingredients into the Cooking bowl. Use a proper oven bowl of reasonable depth and width for purpose.

1.   I add about 1 third of the potato/onion/garlic to the base of the cooking dish, pressing it down to form a base layer.
2.   Onto that - I place a layer of prawns. About one quarter of the total amount reseved.
3.   Over that Place the milk boiled fish. Spread evenly. Over that place the rest of the prawns.
4.   Over the top of the prawn layer - evenly spread the shitakes and the leek.
5.   Now pour the roux/fishy milk mix into the bowl, covering everything inside until it reaches the level of the mushroom/leek top.
6.   Now mix the chopped bacon into the remaining potato/onion/garlic mush and spread liberally over the top of the dish.
7.   Now spread the grated cheeses over the top of that.

Note: I don't use salt at all at any stage in the preparation. But cracked black pepper goes well with the prawn layer and over the top of the cheese.

Place in oven - at around 170 degrees - and cook for 45 minutes. Top should be browned off.

Serve with a Fresh baguette, a cherry tomato and green leaf salad, and, preferably a chilled white wine.

Viva Vuvuzela.

Bring me my Vuvuzela  by Julias Malemo.

Firstly, if you look at who is criticising the Vuvuzela you will see it is only one very small sector. And there is a very good reason for that. White people hate anything the Black man does to advance his cultural interests. The Vuvuzela is a part of our culture.

2010 is our World Cup. Africa's first world cup and we are in charge. We call the shots here. Why do you think you can hold the games in Africa and then tell us what to do. Those days are over now. I say to those who criticize our African ways 'If you don’t like you can go. Nobody here is forcing you to watch our games.'

...  It may be true that the Vuvuzela is loud. So loud it causes permanent damage to hearing. Good. It is loud because it is strong.
...  It may be true that the saliva build up in a Vuvuzela will drip out of the end.
...  And it may also be true that this dripping saliva will frequently fall onto the person in front and below.
I wont deny that many of the people blowing Vuvuzelas have AIDS, but it would be discriminatory to object to have AIDS rich saliva dribbled onto you at a football game.

In some Countries where football has been played for many years, the fans of football have devised orderly means by which to register support for their teams as well as means to register disapproval for the opposition. To support their team these fans often use song. Choirs of voices singing well considered musical pieces. To put off opposition they often chant derisory verse, usually with some topical reference that incorporates wit. We in South Africa do not consider this discrimination appropriate. The Vuvuzela deals with this approach to viewing football in two ways. Firstly the Vuvuzela does not discriminate between the teams. Neither the one you support nor the one you oppose will know the difference because one loud constant note is all you get. You see how far ahead of you we are here?
   And secondly, the one loud constant note serves the additional purpose of drowning out any of this singing nonsense whereby smart-ass westerners try and impose some superiority complex on us. They think they are so clever with their singing and so superior. Well - we have the Vuvuzela to put them in their place. I would like to see Liverpool Football club try and sing their song of 'walking on' in South Africa. Then they would understand the power of the Vuvuzela.

Now let us consider these football players, like Ronaldo and Evra, with their disgraceful criticisms of the Vuvuzela. Who do they think they are. It is our world cup and if they don’t like it they should go now. The same is true of the whining managers. If they cant manage properly then they should go now. Not blame the Vuvuzela for their incompetence.

The Vuvuzela is a symbol of our Country. It represents the will of the people and it enables every South African to be equal. It requires no preferential skill to play and it makes the same noise for everyone. Nothing symbolises the new South Africa more appropriately than the Vuvuzela. The great leveller serving notice that the Black man has found his voice in Africa.

Do not bring your Western criticism to our door. Remember you are only here for as long as we let you. You don’t like the Vuvuzela? Then you must go now.

Stadium naming policy

There are 10 stadiums being used for the 2010 FIFA world cup. Two of the stadiums represent contentious naming policy.

Consider the Peter Mokaba Stadium.

Named after one of the renowned sons of the struggle and emancipation of South Africa against the apartheid regime, the Peter Mokaba Stadium holds much  historical significance in South Africa. Peter Mokaba was born and bred in Polokwane and was renowned for his fighting spirit and for his inpirational leadership.

Pete's inspirational leadership is not always regarded with such reverance by those who abhor racism - or by those who believe AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease that kills. According to Jacob Dlamini, a renowned South African journalist writing in Business Day newspaper Mokaba was a "a confessed apartheid agent and a man as corrupt as they came." He was also the man whose business plan revolved around singing  'Kill the Farmer, kill the Boer' whilst simultaneously denying the existance of Aids, despite the fact that it would kill him at age 43. Surely a case of  'dumb and dumber.'

Then there's the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban. Moses of course was a lifelong communist, trained as a terrorist and went on to lead Umkhonto we Sizwe, a terrorist organisation, in a bloody conflict, responsible for many deaths including some of their own members. Whilst these two qualities, communism and terrorism,  may have their historically redeeming merits, surely naming a sporting arena after him is inappropriate, especially if anyone considering playing there should come from a communist/terrorist victim background. How for instance, if America progress in the tournament, would world leaders like Barrack Obama, attend a game at a stadium named after a man whose politics represent such an anti American poisition?

I wonder how many little kids attending games at these stadiums will pause to reflect on the inspirational example shown   
'Mummy when I go grow up I want to be just like Peter - and Kill White  farmers and deny the existance of Aids, or if that's beyond my means can I just be a communist terrorist. Please mum.'

David Cameron

‘Children are our future – teach them well and let them lead the way’ wrote Michael Masser.

I think this sentiment is universal. Any parent would want the best possible education for their children.

Not everyone can afford private education. That's economic reality. I cannot imagine any scenario where a parent unable to afford a top flight private education for their child would refuse their child the opportunity were it presented to them.  Can you?

NO responsible parent would deliberately, knowingly and willfully under-educate their child. Or would they?

Imagine being in a position where funding a private education would not make the slightest dent to your multi-million pound trust fund, but denying your children the opportunity for a better education because it is at odds with your political ambitions.

David Cameron’s ambition demanded that very sacrifice from his state-school children. A man who put his own career ahead of his children’s education.

Whats up with that? If he turns over his own children to advance his career, what do you think he will do with the Prime Ministers office?

Anika Smit.

Today Anika Smit, 17, was buried in Pretoria. Last week, 11 March, 2010, she was killed and raped in her own room. Her arms were cut off from the elbow and taken by the perpetrators. No one has been charged with her murder.

I was so horrified by this story that I sent it to all and sundry. No mention could be found in British press. I wrote to the Guardian and the Daily Mail. With the Soccer world cup looming, there is simply no interest in frightening visitors to South Africa.

Correspondence with South African friends revealed a consistent trend 'This is not news. It happens every day.'

One correspondent told me that racially motivated murder in South Africa since the end of Apartheid exceeds 300,000. More than 45-1 higher than racially motivated deaths during apartheid.

Crime in South Africa is a real and present issue. But the crime in Anika Smits case goes beyond anything that we, outside of South African experience, can relate to. This behaviour is a uniquely South African variant of tribalism enabling sexual incontinence that effectively normalises rape. Maintaining manifestly unhealthy arrangements in the name of tradition is a recipe for disaster which should be a matter for Governmental review, but in light of a Polygamous President with a history of defending rape charges, is not.

Considering these uniquely perverse crimes - raping and hacking body parts off people who are still alive, the better to make muti with - the issue of Apartheid is often presented as a contributory cause. I grew up in Apartheid South Africa and remember well the British approach of 'No normal sport in an abnormal society.' One I wholeheartedly agreed with then as I do now.

This is not a time for the world to be normalising South Africa's collapse into tribal barbarism and lawlessness by enjoying games of football in Stadiums whose cost cannot possibly be reconciled with the decayed lifestyles of South Africa's dispossessed majority even as their falsely elected new class of cuntocrats swan around in the accoutrements of obscene wealth.

No normal sport in an abnormal society. Why did that make sense in 1976 and not now? How many South Africans consider theirs to be a normal society?

Playing games of soccer in the shadow of 17 year old girls being raped and mutilated, whose killer might be the person sitting next to you at the games, smiling and cheering Bafana Bafana, is not the way the issue of barbarous decline in South Africa is best addressed. It maintains the delusional precept of a 'rainbow nation' thriving on 'the miracle of Mandela.'

I imagine all media coverage of South Africa today will be about football games and ticket sales and travel opportunities for visitors, leaving little interest ina story about Anika Smits father, as he buries those body parts of his butchered daughter that the rapists left behind. 

I certainly will find it difficult watching Dave Beckham swish around the England camp promoting football and talking up our chances against Germany knowing how far apart the world his values represent is from the reality of South Africa. This is not a normal society. Leaders like Zuma and Malema are not credible and one can but wonder how the legacy of Mandela arrived here in 16 short years.

Continuing unchecked at this rate, in another 16 years time there will be no opportunity for this subject to be raised again. 

For me these football games will be remembered as The Anika Smit Games. 
.......

Fallen.

'And ye shall know them by their words'.

And here is one great word. 'Fallen.'

Instead of describing the process of taking (mostly) underprivileged young men from low-income under-educated backgrounds and using the bait of three meals a day, free clothing and the opportunity for playing with guns as a device for maintaining an optimal defense budget before putting them in 'harms way' which might involve having a piece of searing hot shrapnel penetrating the left side of the head before turning the brain into a mushy by-product of traumatic impact, or even experiencing the blast of a landmine underfoot as the explosive rips away the bottom half of the body, or indeed any in the number of ways that young men sent to fight wars they don't understand based entirely on words they are fed by unscrupulous agenda driven recruiters serving the purposes of budget driven government ministers on an upward career curve, might find themselves being brutally separated from body parts, if not from life itself, for what it is. Gruesome bloody death, what these young men get in exchange for this 'sacrifice' is the word 'fallen.'

They are not victims of a system that empowers a rich minority by using the lower class as cannon fodder for their various empowerment agendas, but instead they are 'fallen heroes'.

For 'fallen' read 'another victim of the business of war.' They are not fallen. They are brutally killed almost entirely because they come from low income backgrounds.

The implication with this word is that the worst that can happen to a soldier is to become 'fallen.' That doesn't sound so bad now. Does it. And the immediate word association is 'hero. So if perchance you do become 'fallen', you will also become a hero. Another good reason not to worry at all. 

Current lists of our 'Fallen Heroes' show they are almost all of low rank and young.

Beware those who rely on the word 'fallen' to describe KIA.

A nasty piece of work.

'If god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him' said Voltaire many years ago.

Epicurus paraphrased reads;

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. 
 Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. 
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? 
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

If god does exist and he is the all-powerful all-seeing deity responsible for everything, then it is abundantly clear that he is a pretty nasty piece of work.

The majority of the Earths population live in spirit-killing-poverty. Young men, heirs to millions, choose to blow up their underpants in praise of god. Believers throughout history have done more to defile and debase the human condition than any other single cause. All believing they are created in gods image and serving his will.

Anyone possessed with omnipotence who chooses to destroy and debase the human condition in the way that mankind's record presents as self-evident can only be described as 'a nasty piece of work.' Or a Very nasty piece of work.

 

How fortune works.

This farmer had only one horse, and one day the horse ran away. The neighbors came to condole over his terrible loss.
The farmer said, "What makes you think it is so terrible?"

A month later, the horse came home - bringing with her two beautiful wild horses. The neighbors became excited at the farmer's good fortune. Such lovely strong horses!
The farmer said, "What makes you think this is good fortune?"

The farmer's son was thrown from one of the wild horses and broke his leg. All the neighbors were very distressed. Such bad luck!
The farmer said, "What makes you think it is bad?"

A war came, and every able-bodied man was conscripted and sent into battle. Only the farmer's son, because he had a broken leg, remained. The neighbors congratulated the farmer.
"What makes you think this is good?" said the farmer.