Follow up on the shoe guy

Well, it seems my fears were well founded. The journalist who threw the shoes has apparently had some 'accidents' in police custody.

Meanwhile, protesters in the street demand his release, and the Arab Lawyers Union is calling for the case to be tried in a different country. Curiously enough, Muntadhar al-Zeidi has been charged with "insulting a foreign leader", which apparently carries a two year jail sentence, or a small fine.

Insulting a foreign leader is a crime? What kind of a justice system does Iraq have, anyway?

Man throws shoe at Bush.

The blogosphere's been chortling over a recent incident where an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at George W Bush during a surprise presidential visit to Iraq.

What interests me is that the journalist has apparently disappeared, following the incident.

From the BBC article:

Al-Baghdadiya's bureau chief told the Associated Press that he had no idea what prompted Mr Zaidi to attack President Bush, although reports say he was once kidnapped by a militia and beaten up.

"I am trying to reach Muntadar since the incident, but in vain," said Fityan Mohammed. "His phone is switched off."

I'd really like to hear what's happened to him, before this story disappears into the ether of the 24 hour news cycle.

The problem with the ANC: Refusing to admit it when you're wrong.

Woo, lots to write about here.

For starters, let me be clear: I understand the difficulties in delivering on the scale that the ANC has to. I am not understating the difficulty of the task, and I am not attempting to claim that I have brilliant policy alternatives that will fix everything.

However, before people seize on this with shouts of “A HA! Put up or shut up!”, let me point out that the ANC has consistently made serious mistakes and underperformed to a degree that is undeniable. I don't need to be capable of generating ideal or optimal policy to point that out.

However, it goes deeper than that. The key problem that I have with the ANC doesn't even lie in the specific, initial mistakes. I'm not terribly concerned with, say, the fact that the arms deal was corrupt, in and of itself. What I am concerned about is the fact that every time the ANC is criticised the standard operating procedure is to obfuscate, deny, argue and generally be as unreceptive as possible, regardless of the facts on the ground. The problems, naturally, metastasize and deepen, while the ANC argues about them.

The same applies to the personal qualities of the leaders that the ANC elects. This, in my opinion, is actually less important than the policies that the government follows. However, it's still important, so I briefly examine it at the end of this.

Now, this might sound like a bit of a harsh assessment, but I think it's fair. I will use two examples to point out how the ANC has been failing, beginning with HIV/Aids and moving on to the arms deal. At the end, I will briefly touch upon the way that the ANC tolerates leaders who make inexcusable mistakes.

Hadebe, you claim that the toxicity of nevirapine was a legitimate debate. This is entirely possible – I'm not experienced in clinical trials or methodologies, and I won't pretend to be. However, significantly, you concede that, at least during the early periods of Mbeki's term of office., denialism was an issue. Frankly, I think that denialism was a serious problem throughout Mbeki's term of office.

However, even if there was room for debate around, say, Nevirapine, or the specific role of nutrition in fighting HIV/Aids, the ANC grossly mishandled this debate.

Whether HIV causes Aids isn't Mbeki's field of expertise. Nevirapine's toxicity isn't Mbeki's field of expertise. Yet, he caused enormous confusion and made South Africa look ridiculous in the process by diving into a debate that he wasn't equipped or required to enter.

Pretty simply, suggesting that HIV might not cause Aids, or issuing statements that suggest some ambiguity on the issue was grossly irresponsible.

More importantly, after it was clear that his statements were damaging both the fight against HIV / Aids (by confusing people on the ground) and South Africa's international image, he refused to climb down, and the ANC tolerated this.

Immediately after this issue broke out, the Presidency should have issued a statement along these lines:

“It is unambiguously clear that HIV causes Aids. Our policies are based on the best scientific knowledge available, and that knowledge indicates HIV causes Aids.

With regards to Nevirapine and nutrition, a healthy scientific debate is encouraged. The government is committed to a broad and comprehensive fight against HIV/Aids, using all the tools at our disposal, based on the best and most up to date scientific knowledge.”

Instead, the government ummed and erred, sending out confused signals. Manto maintained her association with Rath, a charlatan and fraud when she should have been distancing herself and the Department of Health as rapidly as possible.

The moment it became clear that there was any confusion, the government's response should have been clear and unambiguous. Instead, the media chased Manto and Mbeki, looking for a clear response, and they got more equivocation, with Manto issuing increasingly bizarre and irrelevant comments (garlic and beetroot, anyone?). Naturally, the entire issue snowballed into a massive public relations nightmare, when it could have been cut off at the root with some prompt and decisive action.

Post-Polokwane, ANC stalwarts will be eager to push the blame for this sad saga onto Mbeki. The NEC should have kept Mbeki in line, and not allowed the entire episode to escalate to the level that it did. The ANC should have stood up to Mbeki and told him to climb down from his bizarre stance long before it became such a mess. Instead, they let him do incalculable damage while he attempted to pass off an ambiguous, confused mess as a so-called 'nuanced' stance. Government is not one man, and the failures surrounding HIV/Aids policy generation must be shouldered by the entire ANC.

Consider Noziswe Madlala-Routledge. Her firing was a joke. Allegedly, she was fired due to a failure to obtain permission to travel to a conference in Spain. Allegedly, because the presidency never gave a reason, arguing that it was his prerogative to remove ministers without giving a reason.

Excuse me? The president fires the Deputy Minister of the Health Department, a woman who's heading up the fight against the HIV/Aids pandemic and receiving widespread applause for doing a good job, and he refuses to explain himself to the nation?

Pfft. The President may not be legally obliged to give a reason, but he's damn well morally obliged to explain himself, particularly in a firing as controversial as Madlala-Routledge's.

Of course, people will attempt to handwave this onto the “Mbeki Regime”. Well, where the hell was the rest of the ANC at the time? Why didn't they back Madlala-Routledge up, or at least get an explanation out of Mbeki – an explanation that could be shared with the nation?

Moving from HIV to the arms deal fiasco. The initial expenditure was absurd. R50 billion worth of arms, when South Africa has a mass of priorities.

But, putting that aside for now, the corruption scandal that grew and metastasized was far worse than the misspending. Money is just that – money. R50 billion could have built plenty, but there's more money where that came from. Institutional integrity is a lot more intangible, and a lot harder to regain.

It began with Yengeni's 4x4, and it spiralled out of control. Every year the timeline grew longer and longer and more contorted. From BAE to Thyssen Krupp, it eventually resulted in the Mbeki administration falling – because it pursued the prosecution of Jacob Zuma.

If the ANC had been on its toes, this scandal should have been chopped off a long time ago. For starters, any arms deal should have been accompanied by unprecedented levels of scrutiny. There's a reason that arms deals have a slimy reputation – they involve lots of money, and plenty of opportunities for corruption. Even so, the entire deal should have been dismantled and examined very closely following Yengeni's conviction. But, at every stage where the ANC could have stepped up and demanded a massive, thorough forensic investigation, they were silent. And the entire mess grew and grew and grew, like a malignant cancer.

By the way, what happened to old Yengeni? Oh wait, he was elected to the NEC. A criminal, on the NEC.

The ANC tolerates far too many mistakes, and far too much corruption. People who screw up to the point that they get put in jail should be fired. Period. Criminals have no business in government. Regardless of whether we should forgive these kinds of mistakes in our day – to – day lives, there should be no way that high level officials should be allowed to do this kind of thing. Yet, the ANC appears to have incredibly low standards for selecting its leadership.

The same applies to Zuma. As soon as he admitted to A) having unprotected sex with an HIV+ woman and B) taking a shower afterwards, his political career should have been over. Never mind the arms deal. Never mind his leadership – no one is expendable, and everyone can be replaced. Someone who says something so outrageously stupid is in no position to be in power.

To date the ANC has displayed a consistent pattern that looks like this:

Make a mistake / run into trouble.

Ignore the problem until the criticism becomes too loud to ignore.

Obfuscate / argue / accuse the critics of ulterior motives

grudgingly do something about it, half heartedly, while claiming to have been right all along.

The ANC tolerates incredibly low standards of behaviour from its leadership. Making mistakes is inevitable, but the way in which they are dealt with is the true mark of a good organization. The ANC, sadly, seems more interested in arguing with its critics and justifying its actions than actually getting things right. And boy, do we have a lot of things to get right in our country.

Bad writing, damaged mind

I've been reading some of the plays written by Cho Seung-Hui, the VTech gunman. It's pretty bad writing, although I've read worse. The 'pull' factor comes out of the strange dialogue, and the macabre fascination of reading something written by someone who's essentially psychopathic. There are no sights into the dizzying depths of madness, Necronomicon style. Rather, it only shows that Seung-Hui was angry and fixated on his victimhood, particularly by older male figures. There are no deep insights or amazing thoughts that resound within this kind of mental damage. It's just unpleasant and sad.

A couple of notes on the gun control chatter that's arisen following this event:
Firstly, America is so awash in guns, and gun culture is so deeply embedded that removing the Second Amendment or instituting comprehensive gun control isn't really possible.

Secondly, it's absurd that someone so disturbed could have bought a gun. Even with a Second Amendment, Americans should really look into either tightening up gun controls for mentally ill people.

This is pretty much the first and final post I'll do about American gun control issues. I've gotten into the issue before, and I've decided that Americans have the gun control laws that they deserve.

Splashy Horribilis

Well, I went to Splashy Fen. It was an experience that was comprised of massive amounts of both win and fail.

The fail: Well, we headed off in the early afternoon, planning to arrive before dark.

We got lost.

You wouldn't think this is possible, seeing as at least one of the people in the car would have a good idea of where Splashy Fen is. You would think that we'd notice the R617 turn off before Midmar. You'd think that we'd notice before getting to the Mooi River Toll Plaza that we'd gone too far.

In any case, we set off and merrily missed our turn off. Turns out Keeda, who was sitting in the back, saw the turn off, but didn't know that Splashy Fen was in Underberg.

About 40 minutes into the drive we saw rainclouds sweeping across the landscape with veils of rain below them, descending like cascades of black smoke. You get lovely weather like that up in interior KZN.

And Robyn chose this time to mention that her windscreen wipers didn't really work. Well, to be precise, the one on the left didn't work. This was because the clip had come lose, so it twirled around, and rather than the blade cleaning the rain off the screen, the back part described a parabolic arc across the glass, leaving a nicely curved scratch.

We drove on for maybe another 20 minutes with this squeaking trying to kill my sanity.

As it is, we pulled up at the big Shell Ultra City on the other side of the Mooi River Toll Plaza.
Robyn and Keeda went to go and buy energy drinks or bioplus. I went to ask for directions.

Me: Hey, we're looking for the Underberg turnoff.
Petrol Station guy: *Stares*
Me: Um...
Petrol Station guy: Underberg?
Me: Yes.
Petrol Station guy: Uh...the turnoff's before Midmar.
Me: Oh dear.

So, we drove back the 50 kms, spent another R25 going through the toll, and finally got onto the right road after about an hour of time, R50 of toll fees and another R60 or so of petrol.

We finally got to Splashy after dark, and were made much mock of by our companions, who were comfortably ensconced in their chairs, saying uncharitable things about getting lost 50 kms away from home, on a route that had precisely one major turn, which was well signposted.

I set up my tent, with some assistance from friendly neighbours. At this point we had one of the more idiotic conversations I've had in my life. The executive summary: it's dark, this is good enough, there's no need to bother with pegs.

Famous last words.

I wandered off and got merrily drunk. Beer and Klippies and coke.

At some point in this it was raining, but I was concentrating too hard on imbibing alcohol to notice, or associate the massive gusts of wind and downpour with my unpegged tent.

Get back, and discover that my tent has been flattened. It resembles a rather full portapool more than a habitable dwelling. A couple of token pegs have been bent like liquorice sticks. I'm later informed that at one point it nearly blew into the fire, and my companions had been forced to rescue it.

Of course, I'm so inebriated that this was no more than a tiny surprise. Oh well, my tent's flat and full of water, might as well get some sleep.

So I crawled into the wet and flat tent.

Tania saw me doing this and took pity on me. She ushered me to the car and dumped me in the back seat with a box of provitas and some water.

The back seat of a citi golf isn't the best sleeping place, so I got the obligatory sore neck, cold, stiff muscles. I woke up, sober and unimpressed with the day's prospects.
However, a brilliant African sunrise was about to break over the hills, so with any luck my stuff would dry out.

As the sun rose, clouds appeared as if by magic. They neatly tracked the sun in its parabola, so it looked as if it was climbing an extendable ladder. The sunny day was not to be.

I grabbed the tent, and emptied the water out of it, physically pouring it out. I hung my clothes out, more out of hope than out of a real belief that they'd dry.

Day two my chair broke.

Day three I lost my sunglasses. I LIKED those sunglasses. Black plastic, wrap around. As a replacement I had to buy a pair that looked like they were made on a forge by paralytic dwarves that got kicked out of Moria for turning in substandard work. 50 bucks for the horrible ones, hundreds for the ones I lost.

It rained every single day. It was cold, every single day.

Anyway, I woke up on the last day to the news that Robyn had already left, with Keeda and Wesley. After a moment of worry, it was settled that I'd ride back with Evan, in his car.

As we're discussing this we get a telephone call. Robyn's been in a car crash. Some idiot rammed into her car from behind. Everyone's relatively alright, although Wesley got some whiplash. The car was sort of alright to drive, although it was pretty dubious before the incident.

It's agreed that we'll meet Robyn in Underberg, where the accident happened. It takes us ages to get out of Splashy, as usual. Eventually, we got to Underberg. After some discussion and a lot of waiting around, it's decided that Tania will drive Robyn's car. I'll stay in Evan's car, etc.

As Tania's pulling out of the Engen in Robyn's car, someone rams her from behind.

....

Evan sees this and tries to pull over into a side lane. He nearly puts his car into the ditch.

Looking at the tyre tracks afterwards, I see that we were about 3 cms from having to call a tow truck.

Luckily, there's no damage to Robyn's car. A bit of paint comes off Robyn's car, but we don't see anything structural.

Finally we drive off.

We get stopped at roadblocks, but they don't go through the hullaballoo of searching us.

Eventually, we get to Pmb, driving in convoy. Evan nearly drives us into the truck lane at one point (we're lead) but we get to Grey's Hospital to get Wesley's whiplash checked out. Of course, Grey's can't do this, they're a "specialist referral hospital", so at this point we break things up and everyone goes off their separate ways. I get dropped off at home with all my stuff, and stump into the house to discover that a...curious odour is pervading the air.

The power tripped about .3 seconds after I left the house, from the smell that's coming from the fridge and the chest freezer.

I spend the next 40 minutes lifting the rotting corpses of chickens and the like out of the chest freezer. Of course, all the other food is contaminated with bacterial meat juice, so that's mostly a write off.

In other news, Splashy was awesome. Great bands, lots of drinking, nice girls and friendly people. But next time, I'm going to bloody well peg my tent down.