Life in the times of Corona. And why the lockdown and ANC rule will kill South Africa

15 April 2020: Day 20 of lockdown in Randburg, South Africa.  

It's fucking tight fisted prohibition.  Alcohol and tobacco sales banned.  Army and SA Police threatening the masses with pointed guns, exercising the regimes wishes with lashings, bullying and humiliation. 

Sanity is restored when I am surrounded with a multitude of like minded individuals who share my zeitgeist. 

@RussLamberti has nailed the current situation with this assessment (twitter thread):


1. The state doesn't have the capacity to enforce lockdown or deal with its resultant chaos. The president made one of the most fundamental strategy errors - committing his govt beyond its logistical capabilities.

2. Expecting the poorest SAns to endure lockdown itself and theresulting economic fall-out reveals detachment from reality, far too ensconced in palace affairs and nursing the patronage networks of his elite circle to realise how unpopular his plan is with the masses.

3. Applying a one-size-fits-all plan for 60 mil ppl shows the president doesn't grasp social complexity, regional differences, uneven risk vectors, or managing scarce means for various ends. We must see this as a glaring intellectual failure, lacking imagination and analytical understanding.

4. It is clear that even commonly-accepted claims that the president is a consensus-builder are nonsense. The breadth of input for lockdown seems to have been a) copy other govts, b) listen to socialist public health advisors, c) listen to a dirigiste cabinet. How much consultation there was with sycophantic corp boards is unclear.

5. The president's decision to flip society on its head, with CERTAIN economic damage for UNCERTAIN health benefits is beyond reckless. The decision betrays an embarrassingly low regard for the intricacy of the social order & a disturbing revolutionary bias.

6. Lockdown reveals a weather vane leader, swept along by unverified hype. At ease going along with the Davos set, even to the detriment of the country he so precariously leads.

7. The ease with which the state not only instituted lockdown but also the additional draconian rules further reveals a leader most at ease with dirigiste centralisation. This makes him dangerous, not a lovable teddy bear. One could go on, but the point is this: COV19 didn't heal the leadership void at the helm of South Africa's failing state. It laid it bare.

Susan Sontag sums it up beast.  10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.  In South Africa, the 60% that voted the government into its majority dictatorship are having their liberties violated.  In 4-years will they have such short term memory loss and vote the ANC in again?  Yes.  This is the comeuppance that Africa deserves.

Ps. Alcohol stocks nearly depleted, I am off to make pineapple beer. Bless the miracle of mould and fermentation. 

Popcorn has NO calories?

Growing up in the 80’s all our mothers were on diet. ALL THE TIME.

I can’t remember a time when the old duck wasn’t trying the latest fad. From Fibre Trims to Slim Slabs, and the weekly weigh-ins at Weight Watchers, the cycle never ceased - nor did the weight gain!

What I remember most about Weight-Watchers was how the whole family suddenly had to be on diet too.

Let me explain the idea behind Weight-Watchers.

Food is grouped into various categories like starches, fats, fruit, protein and vegetables. Each food is given a mass equal to 1 unit, hence every food has to be weighed so that it is 1 unit.

A plump 75kg woman would be allowed a daily unit-allowance similar to this:

5 units starch, 2 units protein, 3 units fruit, 2 units fat, and unlimited amounts of specific “free” vegetables with popcorn being one of them!

Suffice to say the 2 fat units where used up in your morning coffee creamer, and the protein unit was a Lilliputian-sized chicken breast. Don’t even get me started on the fact that 1 starch unit was a Provita.   No wonder my growth was stunted and I sprung my first pubic hair at 17.

I am now a healthy 35 year-old man with a BMI of 30+.  Okay, that’s obese.  I blame popcorn. I was of the understanding that popcorn was a “free” vegetable.

As the title of this book suggests, don’t believe everything you think.  I some how doubt that the Weight-Watchers founders actually listed popcorn as a “free”. My skeletal siblings and I made it up as a survival strategy during the diet-years.  We convinced ourselves, and mom, that it was “free” so as to avoid malnourishment!   As time passed by this delusion became etched as fact and is now the reason for my roundness. 

Throughout my early 20’s I would eat popcorn guilt free.  1 large box a day.  “It’s only air,” I would tell myself, “I saw it in the weight-watchers book as a free.”

The facts of popcorn’s calorie content  are:

1 cup of air-popped popcorn (8grams) is 31 calories.  A large box of popcorn is 15 cups or 496 calories.  *

This means I was eating 3472 calories too much every week for 10 years.

Assuming I was living a sedentary lifestyle, the “free” 3472 calories extra per week for 10 years equates to 241 kg of weight gain! ** Thank goodness I exercised and didn’t live a sedentary lifestyle.  But it does explain my current BMI of +30!

      I still thank popcorn for saving me from starvation in the 80’s  

      though!

*             www.caloriecount.com

**             3400 calories = 1 pound of fat  / 7480 calories = 1 kilogram of fat

Best Seat on the House

Why sitting at the back of the theatre is the ‘worst” seat in the house

Friday night ticket counter at East Gate

Cashier chewing gum. 

“Where would you like to sit?”

Danny K look-a -like with gold chain and popped collar.

 “Howzit! At the back please. It’s the best place to sit. Shweet Bru”

WRONG!

Why do you believe this?  Another piece of misinformation probably passed down from your grandmother ‘cause she was too frail to walk down the stairs of the theatre after her hip-replacement. 

The idea stuck and now you only get 50% of your movie going experience.

Think about it.  Not only are you at the furthest place possible from the screen, but the genius of 7,1 Dolby digital surround-sound will be removed from your silver screen encounter.

The idea of the big screen is that you get lost in the picture.  You are not here to view game from a distance.   Move forward to a place where the whole screen is in your peripheral vision.  Then make sure you have a level eye-line to the screen.  There is nothing worse than leaving the cinema with a crookneck from looking upwards for 2 hours.

Most importantly look at where the speakers are positioned.  You want to be smack-bang in the middle.  That where the sound technician has pointed them and that’s where you should sit.  Not to mention the Oscar wining sound design that creates the feeling you are being surrounded by dinosaurs or swimming with the dolphins.

How the Friday night ticket counter conversation should read is like this.

Cashier still chewing gum. 

“Where would you like to sit?”

Danny K look-a -like with gold chain and popped collar.

 “Howzit! Middle row, middle seat. Shweet Bru”

There is however one exception to this middle-middle rule.  3D glasses have brought an added dilemma to the equation.

Chances are you will be seated in a cinema with a centre-isle.  If you watch a 3D film seated at the isle you will have the reflection of the stairway rope lighting in your glasses.   Always ask to be seated two seats in from the isle to prevent this reflective irritation.

The revised Friday night ticket counter conversation for 3D films goes like this.

Cashier playing with chewing gum. 

“Where would you like to sit?”

Danny K look-a -like with gold chain and popped collar.

 “Howzit! Middle row, middle seat, 2 rows in from the isle. Shweet Bru”

Repeat after me. The best seat in the house is not at the back.

To nuclear or not nuclear?

Japa-Nami 2011 Response to THE STAR

To nuclear or not nuclear?

In a country besieged by rolling blackouts and an aging power infrastructure what option do we have? In South Africa’s case apparently only one. We have increased the price of unit-power to bridge finance a few coal power stations that will only be on line, according to Eskom, in 2016.

But we need power now.

As urban areas continue to grow, these new power stations will still not cater for the future demand. We are back to square one.
It seems that if this is our only considered option, the headline should read, “I regret to inform you that some of you will be reading this with a candle in 2016.”

So why not nuclear? With reference to 14 March 2011 page 10 opinions & analysis: Quakes and Power “Do we still have an appetite for nuclear generated power” is the kind of one-sided journalism that is epidemic and is gripping newspaper headlines worldwide post “Japa-Nami 2011”.

It creates the deliberate impression that nuclear is bad. It asks the all-important question and then answers it with bunny-hugger bias, “Capetonians look at Koeberg tower across Table Bay with some trepidation.”
Well the answer it would seem amongst the headline creators is emphatically NO. So have we lost our appetite for nuclear power? I too prefer hunting and gathering and telling stories around a candle flame.

These headline stir the naysayers into a frenzy. References to Chernobyl and images of 2-headed chickens become the defense. The louder they scream their incredulous opinions, the more they fail to see their light bulbs glowing dimmer.

Before we discount whether there is place for nuclear in our future, South Africa should look at the hundreds of reactors working safely and efficiently in dozens of countries. Excluding force majeure, the chances for a melt down, and its negative effects, are far outweighed by the pros. It’s the same odds we chance when we drive in peak traffic or fly in a commercial jetliner. If we applied the same logic, we should ban cars, and relegate airline travel to the annals of time.

What ever happened to the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) Project?
In February 2010 the South African government stopped funding of the PBMR because of a lack of customers and investors. On 17 September 2010, the South African Minister of Public Enterprises announced the closure of the PBMR.

In the hysteria of the World Cup and the Toll Road scheme, this multi-billion Rand project was conveniently forgotten about and swept under the rug. In much the same way that hydrogen and Tesla Cars never made it much past the starting line due to pressure from oil producers and car manufacturers, it would appear that coal mines and the employment they provide in coal-generated power have won the day - for now. Japa-Nami is just the propaganda Eskom and the government needs to line its pockets and perpetuate the demise of nuclear. You will probably hear statements like this in high level cabinet meetings. “We have enough coal reserves to last 200 years, and to hell with the environment. Lets sell them the usual anti-nuclear dribble to keep the mines alive”

My condolences to the people of Japan. I cannot ignore that there is a real threat to human life and the environment with the melt down of its nuclear plants. I run the risk of being callous, and perhaps this remark should best be left a year down the line, but why build nuclear reactors on fault lines or historically geographically unstable locations? It is unfortunate that human error once again removes the option for clean power for the rest of us.

And to the nuclear naysayers, your anti-nuclear sentiment is merely propoganda-regurgitatate you parade around as fact.

Pro-nuclear, pro-light, pro-Mpumalanga-that-is-not-raped-by-coal-mines!

See the URL for the suicide table

the reaon people in Lithuania kill themselves

http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9410a&L=balt-l&T=0&F=&S=&P=666

Independent Lithuania's population problems. After Cairo conference there was a report published in 'Diena"claiming thatfor last 25 years there are 1114 women for 1000 men. During last threeyears of independence death roll increased 17%, bbirths declined 20%. Menlife avarage was shortened 4,5 years, female - 2 years. People can't affordfood, in Lithuanian history there never were so many suicides, killed onroads, guns...by cancer. Soon Lithuania will become dieing nation unlessthere were increase in births. 110,000 children are fatherless, 10,000motherless,20,000 orphans...

Suicides...is it Spain?

The answer appears to be Lithuania, with the good 'ol USSR in a comfy second place.

The stats begs the question, "why do more men want to kill themselves than woman?" Quiet simple really. It's cause they want to.

Not too starnge to see Spain up there in the top 15. I guess my theory on the wind making you do crazy things holds some weight. So, do people who live in Port Elizabeth (the windy city) have more suices per capita than other citoes in the RSA?