Thungle

Dividing by Zero

2009-11-13T03:03:00.000-08:00

It's a common misconception that reason is the final arbiter in understanding our universe. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

“Don’t make common sense difficult.” So spoke Kerneels Young, a man you most likely never heard of before. Still, his words ring true.

The only problem is we don’t really know what common sense is. It’s like asking a psychologist what a “normal” personality is - we seem to recognize the term, but when we try to define it we run into difficulties.

According to Wikipedia, “based on a strict construction of the term, common sense consists of what people in common would agree on: that which they ‘sense’ as their common natural understanding.” But that is about as far as we get, because this “common natural understanding” appears as elusive as the original term.

Convictions, Beliefs and Decisions

We can however agree on one aspect of common sense – its reference to sound judgment. When a person has made a prudent or wise choice based upon the prevailing public opinion, we say that person exhibited common sense. So, common sense has a relationship to the way the mind comes to conclusions, or more accurately – how we make decisions.

Being human means we have feelings and emotions (our irrational side) that color the very way we perceive things. As António Damásio’s work has shown, it is not possible for people with damage to either their logical or emotional brain circuitry to make good decisions. We need both.

Taken this a step further, we can say that beliefs are therefore a set of convictions based upon a mixture of both our logic and our feelings. That is simply how our brains work. So when Atheists say they don’t believe in God, or the bible, it really is not that different from Christians saying the opposite. Since absolute proof for or against the existence of God seems impossible, we choose what to believe based upon how we see reality.

Science and Reason

Science has a similar problem. In the end, we simply have to believe that reality as we know it actually exists, or even science is toast. And in his criticism against the scientific method, Paul Feyerabend rejected the view that science is especially "rational" on the grounds that there is no single common "rational" ingredient which unites all the sciences but excludes other modes of thought.

If this sounds like an attack on the tendency to elevate Reason to the status of a god, the philosophers were not done yet. In the end, reason itself was used to show that reason is not enough.

This is pretty much what Kurt Gödel did with his Incompleteness Theorem in which he proved that within any consistent formal mathematical system there would always be some true statements that couldn't be proven using the rules and axioms of that mathematical system itself. You could of course go outside the system to prove those propositions, but then you would in effect expand the system itself – therefore just creating a bigger system with its own new unprovable statements.

Since this is true mathematically (which is not alive and has no motive), it presents us with a new challenge: our understanding of the universe will always have truths contained within it which cannot be proven using the laws of the universe itself. Or put another way - no matter how well we learn to reason, rational thought can never penetrate to the final ultimate truth.

As Steven Hawkins put it so elegantly, “Although Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, it can not answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist? Maybe only God can answer that.”

Faith

Houston, we have a problem. If science and reason cannot always verify our convictions or beliefs (because they depend upon their own set of suppositions), where do we turn? Is there even such a thing as the absolute TRUTH, or is everything relative? Can we even know the difference?

Amazingly enough, the bible seems to have anticipated this conundrum, despite the fact that it was written long before any of this modern thinking was even around. The kind of faith the bible talks about is more than just a set of convictions or beliefs – it is presented as a kind of first-hand knowledge gathered from an intense personal encounter or relationship with God.

Of course, this type of “knowledge” cannot be scientifically investigated, because science can only deal with phenomena which can be measured or inferred logically from repeatable experimentation. It also cannot be deducted from reasoning alone; that is why the bible is called a revelation. But it does not entirely upend reason. It just calls for a different perspective.

If God indeed exists and the bible is really his revealing Word to mankind, then (philosophically speaking) one has to admit the possibility that God might have created the universe in such a way that it would be impossible to prove or disprove his existence. This is indeed the message of the Bible, and the position of most theologians: Fundamentally, God has made it so that we have to choose what we believe (or not) without the benefit of first determining the answer using human qualities.

Therefore the real question becomes: Is there anyway that we could ask God (if he really exists and if he even cares about us) to give us the truth about this perplexing problem.

Some would say he already did.

As for the rest of us, we could do the same. If God is who the bible claims he is and we are sincere, he will answer.

10 Ways to STOP Somali Pirates

2009-04-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Art - Stage a Burning Man Project in the Horn of Africa. Afterwards they will be making love, not war.

Capitalism - Create a mercenary marketplace by offering a ransom for each pirate ship captured. Setting a minimum size limit will ensure that only motherships are taken, which will leave the smaller vessels for target practice.

Deceit - Convert several large old cargo ships into heavily armed Trojan Horses and run them up and down the Somali coastline. Leave no survivors so that the secret does not get out.

Demilitarization - Declare a no-shipping zone between 3 and 100 miles off the Somalian coast. Obliterate anything found inside the zone without explicit permission.

Export - Parachute captured pirates into North Korea. Kim Ill Jong does not have the money to send them back, or feed them.

Foreign Aid - Donate the Peanut Corporation of America to Somalia. The problem will disappear by itself

Money - Pay the ransom in Somali Shillings or Zimbabwean Dollars only. It should cost no more than the ink and paper.

Negotiation - Give the pirates 5 days to leave the country willingly. Then sink everything bigger than a canoe.

Religion - Ask Benny Hinn to hold a few Miracle Crusades over there. That will solve both problems.

Sport - Send Dick Cheney on a hunting trip to Africa. The pirates will leave voluntarily.

The Fall of Babylon

2009-03-05T11:05:00.001-08:00

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
It is murder.

- Leonard Cohen

Arnold Schwarzenegger called it Financial Armageddon, and he is not alone in describing the current meltdown in apocalyptic terms. It is quite amazing how many educated men suddenly use biblical imagery, now that the financial party is over.

We created this mess, then repackaged it and sold it to the rest of the world. And the world blindly followed and bought into our flawed reasoning. One can be excused for thinking this is a sorry reference to the basic state of human nature.

It might be possible to get out of this, but the repairs will have to start here in the USA. But the real problem is the unintended consequences of our actions and the damage it has done to the world’s financial health. If we think the carnage it has wreaked on the American economy is severe, let’s just pause a second to consider the plight of other countries. Iceland is bankrupt; Russia seems to be teetering; most oil producing countries are in trouble; Eastern Europe is sinking fast; and so the story goes. Worldwide job losses could exceed 50 million by the end of 2009.

So which way will it go? Is there reason to hope, or will the whole situation spiral desperately out of control?

The Root of the Problem

Any solution to this crisis will depend a lot on fixing the fundamental reasons why this happened in the first place. So was it greed (according to Main Street), lack of regulation and oversight (Obama’s position), or a few bad apples (Wall Street’s take)? Surely, all of the above played a role. But for a better understanding one has to dig deeper.

The best explanation I have heard thus far was voiced by John Bogle, retired CEO of The Vanguard Group, who claims that something profoundly has gone wrong with American style capitalism:

The classic system (Owners Capitalism) had been based on a dedication to serving the interests of the corporation’s owners, maximizing the return on their capital investment. But over time a new system (Managers Capitalism) had developed in which corporations are run to profit and reward their managers “in complicity if not conspiracy with accountants and the managers of other corporations”.

This happened because corporate ownership has been so diffused by the modern markets that no responsible owner exists anymore, and because of the unwillingness of the agents of the owners (the boards of directors) to honor their responsibility to serve, above all else, the interests of their principals - the shareholders themselves.

In the final analysis, Bogle’s ideas are not that far off from Obama’s understanding: Since men are no angels, how do we safeguard the system against behavior that can undermine its very foundation?

Is Recovery Possible, Or Are We Toast?

If the problem was smaller, maybe Obama's plans could have worked. But as the AIG disaster is starting to show ($180 billion bailout, with another $300 billion of potential losses still outstanding - possibly more), even the US government does not have the money to pay back all who lost money.

Actually, they are not trying to do so, but only to support those who are critical to the continued financial health of the system. But the sad reality is that even this "smaller" hole might be too big to handle. For that to work we hope that overseas governments and investors will continue to fund our runaway debt. Unfortunately their problems are also mounting. So the question becomes, at what point do they start to back off?

As Buffett has just said, our last resort (the US Treasuries) is a horrible place to park money now. Why, because everyone is doing so - in effect creating another bull market. This means our debt is overpriced, and the yields are miserable. At some point the $9 trillion in short term money now hiding there might begin to flee, leaving us no other alternative but to print what we need. (To put this figure into perspective, the value of the entire US stock market is around $8 trillion and falling).

In the end our only choices might be to get this over quickly, or to extend the pain (which is what we are doing now). Either way, the eventual outcome will be brutal, beyond our wildest dreams.

But undermining our best efforts we have an even more fundamental problem: if our best minds could not prevent us from getting into this, how are those same people going to save us?

Is this just another hiccup in the world’s history? Or are we witnessing the final fall of Babylon?

I am not sure we know the answer.

The Obama Express – and why it cannot be derailed

2008-06-07T13:50:00.000-07:00

As a foreigner, I find it interesting how most Americans use labels. The true meaning of terms liberal/conservative and socialism/capitalism does not seem to be clearly understood by the average voter.

This perhaps, is one of the major underlying problems the Republicans are facing this election. And the result: their inability to clearly define their target.

Obama seems to be more of a pragmatist than a liberal. Even his economic advisors are not weighed down by philosophical ideals; they are mostly a bunch of behavioral economists.

Their selection says a lot about Obama’s decision making process, and how he thinks, and how he approaches problems. As long as the Republicans choose to misunderstand this (indicating who he really is), they will fail to effectively counter his candidacy.

Or maybe they do, and that explains why they are trying to dig up dirt. Anything will do, as long as they don’t have to face their worst nightmare – a highly qualified, intelligent, imminently clear headed, and reasonable person.

Their second problem for the Republicans, of course, is that America has changed. It is a vastly different place today, compared to even 20 years ago when I came to this country.

Then I was struck by the absence of news about what happened in the rest of the world. But with the advent of the Internet, this has all changed. Even local debates now are often colored by the input of a worldwide audience. The new generation is used to associate and talk to people online, without even being aware of (or care about) in which country their counterparties reside.

The net result – young America’s thinking had been shaped by an entirely different process as that of their elders. And this is also why they can associate more closely with Obama than with the old guard. His thinking is closer to theirs.

Since the Republicans are still seemingly stuck on a group of older philosophical ideas, they are in deep trouble to counter the movement Obama has become the leading spokesman of. They are clearly in on the deep end, and I doubt very much that they will be able to derail the Obama Express – no matter what tricks they choose to employ.

Nothing False About Hope!

2008-02-10T15:47:00.000-08:00

“Nothing false about Hope!”

This man is still young, but already has shown some of the qualities visible in the great statesmen our world has seen. It is too soon to compare him with the likes of Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and others – but it does not mean that we cannot hope for such.

I am not an American, and therefore cannot vote in this election, but I share this hope with millions of others around the world; that we can again have an American president that will lead through inspiration rather than by threatening the rest of the planet.

“Yes, You Can!”

And if you do, the rest of us will be on your side...

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Update: 3/21/2008 after Obama's speech on Race

My grandpa was an Afrikaner. He supported Hitler, voted for Apartheid, hated the British, thought the pope was the Antichrist, and swore like a pig. Yet, he was the kindest man I had ever known. When grandma was not looking he would buy candy for the black kids on the farm, I saw him stop the car and get out because of his concern for a bird he had struck, and every night he would pray for us.

Although I strongly disagreed with his perspectives, I knew they were born from the suffering of the Afrikaner people during the Anglo Boer war. I loved him with all my heart. I could never ever disown him. Such is the complexity of human beings.

Nelson Mandela understood this. Obama's speech in Philadelphia shows that he does too.

Thank you Obama. You gave hope to a white South African that the world can be a better place. My wish is that the USA will see this truth as well.

You Meet the Nicest People in Omaha

2007-02-20T10:07:00.000-08:00

Omaha must surely rank as one of the safest cities in which to drive a taxi. Most customers are a joy to serve. There are also a few others…

You have to be pretty desperate to drive a cab - especially at night. As one customer bluntly told me, “Some of you guys look worse than those who walk the streets”. No wonder, a fellow driver recently remarked that we are not expected to possess such a thing as an IQ. We are the cave dwellers of the modern age.

This must be the reason why a sizable number of folks do not bother to inform us when they have found another ride. Like the Invisible Man I was supposed to reach in less than 10 minutes. Fortunately the next ride was honest enough to tell me she would take the first available cab, and that I’d better hurry. Maybe this would also explain why some people have the habit of calling more than one cab company. The driver who shows up last is the village idiot.

Then again, I was the dumb one in believing the guy who was on the way to rescue his four year old daughter from his ex - who was on the dope again. His story was so convincing I was willing to pray with him. Quietly content, I sat in the parking lot while he took off to save his precious little angel. I am still waiting…

There is always good money to be lost at the casinos. By the time you have found your fare, they don't have any cash left. But no worries, they will get home safely with the help of the casino cabs which always seem to go the other way. And don’t fret if your customer can’t pay - the Horseshoe will give you a voucher for the wrong cab company. If you don’t catch the oversight right there you can frame it, because collecting will cost you more than the ride, plus the aggravation.

We also serve the unfortunate. A young woman flagged me down. She was going to the Amtrak, and could she sit in the front, please? No problem. I considered myself lucky to have landed a good ride. Until her next question:

“Am I going to die?”

I struggled to unswallow my tongue. “Do you need help?” was the best I could muster. “Yes”, she said, then more forcefully, “YES!”

911 never seemed so hard to dial. Before I could reach them she developed a full blown panic attack and got out of the cab at 50 mph. I barely managed to grab onto her sleeve, while screeching to a halt at the same time. But she broke free and rolled across the road, narrowly missing a big rig doing that sideways thing.

After several feverish phone calls, help arrived. By now my medicine had stopped working and I was done for the night.

Some people disappear after you have them in the cab. A nice gentleman was helping Penny get in when she asked me to call the police. I turned around and the gentleman was no more. Only then did I notice her swollen face and the blood. Alarmed, I lunged for the radio. When I looked back again she had vanished as well. Just another figment of my imagination, I guess.

A stranger approached me at the hospital. He was leaving town, but there was a catch – the money was waiting on the other end. On the way I learned how he had tried to take his own life, and a whole bunch more. By the time we reached our destination I was suicidal myself. Well, what do you know? Suddenly he produced a $100 bill and told me to keep the change.

And don’t forget the perpetual thankful – those with a few DUIs under the belt. Through bitter experience they have concluded that a taxi is cheaper. Fortunately there are also some with the foresight to call a cab before they get into such trouble. Generally speaking, these are the nice folk. They strike up a good conversation, are polite, and compensate you well.

Then there are the old and the handicapped. Give or take a small number, you will have to go to Iowa to find such nice people. What a pleasure to help them out. They are always grateful. It does not matter that they cannot afford to tip; just having them in the cab is enough reward.

But as always, there are exceptions to the rule. Jeremy and Patricia like to empty Wal-Mart in the wee hours of the morning. As I found out the hard way, there is no gratuity for sweating their groceries to the front porch, while they wait inside. Also, beware if you had put the stuff in the wrong spot – after being severely scolded you will have to move all the bags three feet to the left, or you will not get paid.

The best rides seem to go nowhere. Take Johnny, for instance. Without even asking, he handed me $60 up front. After changing his mind several times, he wanted to pick up a friend. My pleasure; for sixty bucks I will do many things.

At one point the friend got out of the cab, while Johnny stayed put. “Turn your lights off and wait”, he informed me, “he will be back soon”. I started to get concerned. The alley was badly lit and several shadowy figures seemed to hang out in the dark. Suddenly there was this big menacing looking dude right by my door.

“What’s with the camera?” he wanted to know, pointing at the forgotten object around my neck.

“Lock the doors!” my passenger freaked.

“Oh, um, I take pictures of them Irish folk”, was all I could think of. It was St. Patrick’s Day anyway. The dude seemed pleased.

On the way back, Johnny opened the rear window and was having a cigarette, or something. I could swear I saw a blue flame. Did I just witness a drug deal? To this day I don’t know. Or maybe, I do.

Watching TV, one would get the impression that tons of people are having sex on the back seat. Not so, is my experience, although it is hard to be sure without looking. Twice I was too chicken to find out, but other than that my rides are pretty uneventful. In the final instance one can always crank up the radio.

I think I am pretty good at spotting the barfing kind, always ready to stop fast. But I must have been fooled by the quality of their clothes and rolls of cash the guy produced when he asked, “will this be enough?” In this case, after his wife emptied her stomach on my back seat, he handed me a whopping $3 to take the cab to a professional car wash. I must be a wimp, other cab drivers would have slaughtered cattle.

A few are conscientious enough to puke outside of the cab. At least one guy was. The slight inconvenience was that we had to stop every 3 blocks for him to do so, and each time he leaned out he farted into the car. A most unpleasant experience, but even more so for his drunken pal sitting next to him. After I had dropped them off, his comrade rewarded him with a good whipping in the driveway. I declined to call the police. He kind of deserved it.

Some drunks want to perpetually kick your ass. “Don’t fear”, the bartender informed me while paying for my imminent demise, “he sounds aggressive, but he would not hurt a fly”. Sure enough, since I took him home against his wishes, he threatened to lick me good. Helping him out of the cab I had to duck under his swing to get him up the steps. But at the front door, he calmed down and thanked me profusely.

I was halfway back to the safety of my vehicle when I heard the crash. Somehow he had managed to fall backwards – into the arms of a thorn bush. I rushed to help. “You have hit the wrong man”, he informed me, “Look, I am bleeding. Now I'm going to kill you”. But it was all talk. This time I made sure he fell inwards, before I closed the door behind him.

Many midnight runners never get enough, so they buy some booze, and off to the Playhouse we go. It’s a good taxi ride, no matter from where you start. I am sure that is why they built the titty joint way out of town. Anyway, Joe was all worked up and ready to party. Would I be so kind as to be his friend for the night? He promised me $400 up front. Under normal circumstances I might have fallen for it, but there was one snag: the guy had $100 bills falling from several pockets. I would not bet a dime on him getting out of there without losing something important. It was time to for me to leave.

Then there is the big secret, the high school crowd who loves to sneak out at night. If only for a short while, they were some of the nicest people I knew. They appeared a bit young, but how do you distinguish some 15 year olds from college students? By the third time they wanted my number, and now I asked. It’s all innocent, they are just out visiting friends. Recalling an instance where an irate father almost peeled the roof off my taxi, I became duly concerned. Then again, these kids seemed well mannered and polite. They didn’t swear, they were always sober, and they paid their fare. What a break from some of the other rides out there!

I remembered how we also used to sneak out. Only difference, we had to walk.

Then the girls showed up. Again, they were nice and polite, but I couldn’t shake that uneasy feeling. I talked to the kids about my own sorry experience living with an alcoholic, and voiced my concerns. Slowly some ground rules emerged: To call 911 in any emergency, not to use me as a getaway driver, I would tell the truth if confronted, drinking would subject them to a stern lecture, and I would supply a free ride only if they were truly stranded.

But my worries persisted. After all, it was just a matter of time before someone got in trouble. Still, what was better; providing a safe ride, or leaving them to their own devices?

Then summer break arrived. Suddenly the floodgates opened and there were kids everywhere - going to Village Point, to Oak View Mall, to this party, to that event. Everyone seemed to have my number and know my name. The writing was on the wall, so I talked to the police, and then to my boss. Clearly this was a problem for the company as well. Do we ask everyone for their age? Is that even legal? Perhaps it is the parents’ responsibility? The answers were not immediately clear.

The situation resolved itself soon after I got my “new” cab. Like most taxis, this one had been bought after a lifetime of abuse. But the restored product appeared decent, and after my experience with a “loaner” I was only too happy to live with the few flaws. Until the next inspection. Complete with photographic evidence, the boss produced a $700 bill for the damage I had caused. This time I forgot about being a wimp. After proving them wrong, I walked. Who needs to do business with such people?

I don’t miss the job, but I miss the fun times, and the good people of Omaha. Especially, I miss the kids. I wish them well.

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I have been driving a taxi for 8 months in the 90’s, and again for the past year. For personal reasons I am taking a break from my regular occupation. All serious business folk should give this a try – for a totally new perspective on their customers and their own employees. At the very least, it is loads of fun.

The stories above are based on true events, although the details and names have been altered to protect the people involved. The photos are my own, and taken with the permission of the customers involved. They have been carefully selected not to pertain to any specific anecdotes in this essay.

From Boer to Broer*

2007-02-20T01:18:00.000-08:00

*Or: From an Afrikaner to his Arab Brothers (and Sisters) in the UAE.

You know, the more I read about your country, the more familiar it sounds. I grew up much like you. Our government was good to its people. They made sure that we could afford a decent living and adequate housing. We enjoyed all the trappings of the modern world.

Yet, we took great care in protecting our culture and our religion from the scandalous practices and influences of the secular West. We believed in God, and He was on our side. History was our proof. And we did not want our society to turn into another New York.

Like you, we had very little separation of Church and State. All our leaders were true believers. We had democracy, but that did not matter since we had an overwhelming majority, and therefore no fear. Our rulers were good people and we loved them. There was no need to criticize our government because we trusted them with our lives.

Despite all this, we firmly believed in kindness and tolerance. We never discriminated against non-believers. Our religious teachings in school were just for us. If you were of a different faith, we would respect your feelings and allow you to do your own thing. (We did however feel it was our duty to warn the unbelievers against the dangers of the Catholic Church and the Jews. And although we fought against the Germans, the English made us do so, and we never made much of the holocaust. Because many of us thought that Hitler was actually doing the world a favor).

The press was free. Government control was only indirect. Admittedly, we had censorship. But only the truly offensive was banned - and stuff that was clearly against our national interest. We actually preferred it that way. Why risk the unknown? For what?

Surely there were some mistakes made, we were not blind. But nothing like the rest of the world imagined. We did not mind change, as long as it was at our own pace. And we definitely did not need the rest of the world to tell us how to live our lives. And by golly, we also had domestic help.

I can go on. But I think that you get my drift.

Apartheid was a sin against humanity. We had our nice lifestyle at the expense of untold suffering of others. The fact that we somehow convinced ourselves that the situation was not that bad did not lessen this evil - it aggravated it.

We also were amazingly naïve. We somehow forgot that the world has always changed and it always would. And not in a way most people would hope for.

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Do you think I judge you? I hope not. But we are living much too close to each other these days to say that the opinions we hold are of no consequence to each other.

Just as you might criticize the behavior of Israel towards the Palestinians, the Chinese are still upset with the Japanese; while the American political establishment always hated the guts of Saddam, Osama, Fidel Castro, Saddam, Bananas, and of course Saddam. And anyone else who happens to disagree.

We all notice the splinter in each other’s eyes, but we fail to see our own. Modern science is just now starting to show why we are like this. It is the simple result of how our brains work. We all fool ourselves much more often than we like to admit.

This ability to find fault with other people is also one of the main reasons why a secular form of government works better than a religious one. It protects us from ourselves. The religious outlook always “knows” the answer, while we don’t. In reality, it has very little to do with the sincerity of the people in charge, or what they believe. Strangely enough, secular government makes us responsible for our own actions. Religious government places that responsibility on those in charge.

This “deficiency” also makes us dependent upon each other. Since none of us know the whole truth, we need each other. No matter what we believe, we all make mistakes. I am sure you have heard the saying about smoking – “10 million blue collar workers can’t be wrong”. Well guess what – they were.

Therefore, to assume that the Muslim viewpoint is the only one that is correct is no different from the idea we had when our church leaders claimed support for apartheid in the Bible. It’s not God who is wrong, but us. Through our interpretation of what he wants. (Think about this. I am not trying to belittle your faith.)

I agree, as a good Muslim it is your prerogative to assume that your belief is right and mine wrong. As a Christian, it is my right to hold the opposite point of view. All the while, our Atheist friends are entitled to think we are both going off the deep end.

But we all should be able to agree that knowledge though faith is different from cognitive knowledge. This is why we cannot assume that we know it all. God does not tell us the secrets of the universe just because we are faithful. If we knew everything, we would have all agreed on everything. We would have had no real choice. No, we have to be very careful when we try to impose our beliefs on others. Think of it this way – maybe God made us like this; with all our mental imperfections so that we have to choose based on what is in our hearts foremost – not our minds.

We all need a big dose of reality. It would make us all much more humble. When we realize how little we know, we also begin to understand why we should take great care less we impose our opinions and beliefs on our fellow travelers through time. And why we should grant them the same human rights we like to enjoy ourselves.

Like our Jewish friend Leonard said, democracy is coming - to the USA. Is it also coming to the UAE?

This article was first published on Thursday December 15, 2005

No Home, No Hope

2007-02-19T13:35:00.000-08:00

God is no real estate agent.
If we are really the children of God,
I don't think He would want us to fight over anything.
- Yahya Hendi

For 2000 years the Jews were sojourners, never totally welcome wherever they went. Today some of their descendants are bulldozing their Palestinian brothers and sisters out of their homes. But the problem is not only confined to the Middle East, it is everywhere.

Despite a concerted effort to redistribute land and widespread lawlessness, in South Africa the best agricultural property is still in the hands of a select few. In Zimbabwe white owners are being forcibly replaced, often by supporters of the current regime. Vast tracts of the Amazon still belong to a tiny minority, while some countries are only now starting to construct the legal framework to support land ownership. Even in the USA it only takes a trip to the local Indian reservation to witness the social devastation and hopelessness that resulted from the alienation of indigenous peoples and their land.

Living in the West it is often hard to understand the plight of those who have no place to call home. But in many parts of the world the situation is not as straight forward. Home or land ownership is not a universal right. As result many are at the mercy of governments or individuals who have the means to control where they can or cannot stay. Of course, the rich and the powerful always had the upper hand in this struggle. Various large scale social experiments (e.g. communism) have been tried as remedy. Most of these failed miserably in addressing the underlying problem of inequality. Instead they often replaced one type of injustice with another. Land reform is still a burning issue.

Land Ownership in History

Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the famine was too severe for them. – Genesis 47:20

As the quote shows, individual ownership of land dates back to Biblical times. At the same time, historically not all land was owned. Some was collectively owned; other land was not considered to belong to anyone. Nomadic peoples, for instance, often had no concept of land ownership.

The modern (Western) concept of property is based upon the owner being a legal individual. But even in the West many tribal cultures (including some Native American tribes) have a collective form of land ownership. The term “public land” is widely accepted to indicate land owned by governments, which allows unlimited access to everyone. And in some communist and socialist countries land was, and still is, considered to belong to everyone, and the use thereof decided by the state or polity.

Thus far, ownership of land has been related to scarcity and effort, and these factors have been accommodated in the modern concept of property rights, which is central to capitalism. The underlying belief is that that property rights encourage the property holders to develop the property, generate wealth, and efficiently allocate resources based on the operation of the market. This arrangement is seen to produce more wealth and better standards of living.

Current Problems with Land Ownership

But all is not well by the Money Tree. Although there are significant efforts in the West to counter the adverse effects, there will always be people who, for whatever reasons, are unable to effectively participate in the system. Lose your job or become sick and you are in grave danger of losing not only your property, but everything.

Another issue is taxation. Whether your land produces or not, you still have to pay tax on it. Even business is not immune. Excessive taxation can kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Then there is the issue of inheritance tax, which in modern times has caused many families to lose their land, simply because they did not have the means to pay.

Increasing regulatory complexity is also becoming a problem. This drives up transaction costs and increases the chances that buyers can choose the wrong kind of financial instrument to fund their purchase.

Our hard won freedoms are being eroded, and we have trouble recognizing the fact. True enough, in the USA there are valiant attempts being made to reduce taxes, but the tax codes are as unwieldy as ever. Regulation prevents abuse, but stifles innovation. New legislation continues to add to the overall complexity of transactions, and we seem powerless to simplify it. We have built a system that is hard to modify, and is getting progressively harder to live by.

For much of the third world the effects are even worse. Many countries still suffer under the legacy of Imperialism and the inequalities that resulted. In the modern world this is exacerbated by a new reality - colonial oppression has given way to economic exclusion. This was never intended to be so, but is the unfortunate result of a system that favors those with more money, better education systems, and better organized economies.

For these countries the only way out is to play catch-up. However their disadvantage is so large that this could take generations to do. While they expend all their energy trying to do so, the developed countries have time to use their resources to innovate. By the time the third world will get to the end of the rainbow, the pot of gold is bound to have moved out of reach again.

By far the biggest problem both in the West and in the third world is the issue of affordability. In California as well as South Africa the average worker has little hope of buying land close to the major cities. Brazil has the second highest concentration of land ownership in the world, but most of it belongs to the wealthy. (According to one estimate, 60 percent of the farm land in Brazil is idle, while 25 million peasants struggle to survive.) Slowly but surely, affordable land is becoming an obsolete term.

To compound matters, for the small farmer the ability to generate income from land is also disappearing fast. Due to intense competition from sophisticated and mechanized agricultural concerns the market price of certain products are below his production costs, effectively putting these people out of work. In addition, new scientific breakthroughs have made some products obsolete by replacing them with synthetic alternatives.

In a certain sense, we have all become slaves again. We have a new master and he is cruel.

Efforts to Counter Problems with Land Ownership

Whatever one’s opinion on the matter, it is clear that capitalism with all its imperfections is here to stay – at least for the foreseeable future. So instead of trying to come up with an entirely new theory, the prudent way might be to look for ways in which the current system can be reformed. Likewise, the modern concepts of personal property and land ownership will also not go away. Despite their drawbacks, they are rooted in history and answer some obvious needs.

There are increasing efforts in the West to counter some of the current problems with land ownership. To prevent alienation, or to protect sections of land against development, the legal construct of “trust land”, is often used. In order to provide affordable housing, various schemes such as cluster housing, rent-to-own, shared ownership, subsidized housing and more exotic schemes are used. New financial instruments are continuously being developed to assist in these efforts.

In the developed countries (especially the USA), nonprofits are increasingly becoming involved in addressing the problem of affordability, but most of these efforts are focused on local markets.

The rich countries are trying to assist poorer countries in growing their economies (via the World Bank and the IMF). Sometimes these efforts were successful, sometimes they had disastrous effects. Currently there are talks on a major debt reduction program to the third world but the verdict is still out on that one. In addition, several organizations are trying to address specific issues in developing countries.

Unfortunately, on the issue of land these efforts pale against the magnitude of the problem.

Future Trends and their Potential Effects on Land Ownership

Current efforts to address the issue of land often stare themselves blind against the situation as it is today. We often forget that the world is now on a fast track for change due to enormous investments in innovation globally.

Here I will try to paint a few scenarios, which if they become true will dramatically alter existing equations. Please understand that the future cannot be known, it can only be guessed at based upon current trends. Therefore, what follows here are a collection of somewhat rosy projections, and should be taken with the necessary amount of salt.

Due to the secondary effects of new technology, the current state of affairs is about to change in unexpected ways. Even today, the open source and open patent initiatives, and new social networks are pointers to what might be possible.

Over the next 100 years:

The farm will move to the factory. Steaks will be grown synthetically without the need to have livestock. We will manufacture crops, and those that cannot be done yet will be grown indoors in high density controlled environments. Quality control will increase efficiency, while prices will drop even further due to the automated nature of these endeavors.

Energy and transport will become cheaper. Because of advances in reversible fuel cell and solar technologies, electricity generation will become decentralized. Even though the net unit price will fall, electricity networks will become two-way and people will be able to buy and sell electricity on demand. (This is already happening on a small scale). In a sense, energy will become the agriculture of the future.

Due to wireless high speed Internet technologies, people will be able to work over much larger distances, communications will become both cheaper and more powerful, and reach remote areas. As a result, work will become much more decentralized and a significant percentage will take place from home.

(Coupled with new technologies such as software radio, the cell phones of tomorrow will be able to link directly to each other, forming peer-to-peer networks, and relay information across vast distances without the need to go through a communications company. In these cases communications will become entirely free of charge.)

In fact, the very nature of work will change. As social networks grow into prosumer networks, people will be able to buy and trade with each other as easily as they can share photos now. Most work will be much more collaborative and rewards will gravitate closer to the value provided, versus the current pay-for-time arrangement. At the same time, solutions will be found to translate intangible value into real money (which is intangible anyway).

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The downside to such developments will be significant for existing farmers. However, for the disenfranchised, there will be an enormous upside potential insofar as these developments will have a dramatic effect on the price of land.

As the farm moves to the factory, traditional farming will become obsolete and vast tracts of agricultural land will become available. It will create an oversupply, significantly reducing the price of agricultural land - until the investment community can find other uses for it.

This could present a huge window of opportunity to readdress the land issue. Although it now will not be possible to work the land for agriculture, except for specialized niche products, it will allow a whole generation of new landowners, each able to afford a few acres.

Current efforts by foundations and other nonprofits will be bolstered by this development, as they will be able to acquire vast tracts of land for redistribution to those whose forefathers have been subjected to injustice.

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Is this realistic, or are we talking science fiction? Most probably both. However, in this section I am not attempting to be right. Instead, I am trying to fire up the imagination and invite ideas.

Correcting the Past

Many countries still struggle with the lingering effects of injustice. But although this situation can be seen as unfair, it cannot be corrected by simply taking the land away from its current owners. To do so would punish a select few for the mistakes of our common history. So what now?

If the future scenarios painted above materialize it would be a tremendous help. But even though the future might assist us in correcting the injustices of the past, it is not guaranteed to do so. Therefore, it does not absolve us from our responsibility to do something now.

In various countries such efforts are already underway. These attempts have to be supported. At the same time, care should be taken to avoid the mistakes of the past. We cannot replace past injustices by creating new ones.

Unfortunately, the way in which current governments (and even business) are developing strategy falls far short. Too often, the strategy formulation process becomes imprisoned by our limited understanding, is heavily influenced by political concerns, dominated by untested theories, or hijacked by strong personalities. So, we have to find ways to become self-critical, to question our deepest held beliefs, and to deal with reality as is, which is not necessary the way we see it.

Keeping this in mind, the best way best way to go about the matter is still to support the organizations (and governments) that are currently working on this problem. We need to create a special dispensation to assist these efforts by removing legal barriers, creating tax breaks for companies willing to help fund these efforts, and by establishing incentives that will entice the current owners to sell at a discount. Above all, the process should be transparent and fair.

Another requirement - land redistribution has to be tied to responsibility and to performance. We must recognize that agriculture could suffer as a result, and that redistribution of land does not guarantee that the new owners will be successful in working the land. Therefore, training programs will have to be established and there should be oversight after the land has changed hands to assure that productive land does not turn into wasteland.

Perhaps it would be prudent to lease the land for a nominal sum to the new owners first, and they might be required to prove their mettle before they can claim full ownership. To do otherwise would remedy the injustice at the expense of the whole society, a situation that is clearly untenable.

In the last instance, the new owners will need financial assistance. Programs will have to be designed, perhaps even new financial instruments, to help them realize their full potential.

This essay was originally posted here.

Apartheid - Another Ideology Bites the Dust

2007-02-18T20:39:00.000-08:00

Contrary to what many think, modern Apartheid was not borne from the idea of racial superiority, but rather out of an anti-imperialist feeling and nationalistic fervor. This does not mean that a substantial number of Afrikaners did not eventually think that whites were superior, just that the roots of the racial disaster in South Africa had a deeper origin.

Overview

Although a feeling of racial superiority did play a role in the development of Apartheid in Southern Africa, it was not the primary factor. Instead, the policies of racial segregation had its origins in the long process of alienation of the white settlers from Europe, first by their treatment at the hands of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), and afterwards by successive Dutch and English colonial governments.

Most of the colonists had left Europe not because they had wanted to, but because they had no other choice. Some were in severe financial difficulties, while others had fled for religious reasons. Many were poorly educated and heavily indebted to the authorities. After the arduous voyage to the Cape in which significant numbers died, the newcomers found life harsh and unforgiving in their new home.

In order to escape the hardships imposed upon them by corrupt officials they started to move inland to escape. There they encountered the native peoples. Often these encounters resulted in mayhem. Eventually significant numbers managed to escape far enough inland that they could form their own independent “homelands”. But the discovery of diamonds and gold brought unwanted attention and they were soon again subjected to the will of their former colonial masters.

Finally the various groups were united under British rule, and the country of South Africa was established. After a period of consolidation the descendants of the colonists grouped together under leaders who continued the message of their forebears. Accordingly, the newly formed Afrikaner Nation tried to preserve their religion, their culture, and their way of life, in the only way known to them – though their physical separation from everyone else.

This history lies at the root of Apartheid, which was in fact an ideology designed to protect Afrikaner interests. Like so many other social experiments, it would eventually turn into unimaginable hardship for the many who would suffer under its effects. On paper the concept of “equal but separate” sounds almost sanguine. However, given the nature of man, in practice this led to a disaster.

However much the Afrikaner nation had been guilty of the terrible injustice that resulted, the biggest share of the blame should be laid at the door of the Afrikaner intelligentsia and leaders who – for political reasons - kept on propagating this bankrupt ideology long after its cost in terms of human suffering became clear.

History of the Afrikaner

Afrikanerdom was born from the untold suffering of many.

Around the middle of the 1600’s the Dutch East India Company (VOC) decided to establish a halfway station at the Cape of Good Hope to supply their ships with fresh water and food. In 1652 commander Jan van Riebeeck arrived at the Cape with 5 ships and a party of about 90 people, mostly bonded servants from the lower ranks of the VOC.[1] [2] (Prior to embarkation these folks were made to take an oath of allegiance, which entrenched their inferior position within the Company hierarchy virtually forever.[3])

This endeavor started innocently enough when the initial settlement started to trade with the indigenous Khoikhoi for their sheep and cattle. They also planted a garden and managed to grow several crops, but after a few years it became apparent that the settlement would need a lot more effort to become successful. In response the first nine free burghers were released from their contracts and granted “free citizen” status. Each was allocated 28 acres of land from which they would supply the VOC with grain.[4]

From the perspective of the VOC this move was highly successful as production increased substantially. More and more employees were granted free burgher status. But the progress was still too slow for the liking of the company as the free burghers could only do so much. Although the company had issued clear instructions that the indigenous population was not to be enslaved, they had no such misgivings about importing slaves, and a great many were brought in via Madagascar and sold to the free burghers (on company credit). These folk mainly originated in the Far East (India, Indonesia, and Malaysia) and a few came from the current Angola and Mozambique.

Because men outnumbered women by a substantial margin, numerous mixed marriages resulted between white men and slave women (the first slave was freed in 1656 to marry a Dutch settler). The passing sailors also fathered many children of mixed descent.[5] These people would eventually form the backbone of the so-called coloured community of the Cape Province, but many were assimilated in the greater population and would later pass as white. (According to one genealogist[6] the modern-day “white” Afrikaner is of mixed descent - 34% Dutch, 33% German, 13% French, 7% Coloured and 5% British).

Finally in 1685 the Cape could report a surplus in the production of most foods.[7] That same year the VOC started advocating a substantial emigration drive from Europe by offering free passage to the Cape. This brought numerous new immigrants from all over Europe, including a substantial number of refugees from religious oppression (the French Huguenots).

However, as the free burghers had found out before them, these newcomers did not land in a bed of roses. The VOC provided them with implements, seeds at cost, and credit. In lieu they had to turn over ten percent of their harvested grain and they had to sell the remainder to the company at a low fixed price. Free trade was banned and everything was controlled by the company. The VOC also viewed their success in the Cape colony as dependent upon their strict rules of conduct between the settlers and the native population. All unnecessary contact was discouraged, and no trade or missionary ventures among the Africans were permitted without the permission of the company administrator. (Stealing or shooting cattle was especially forbidden as this would have led to conflict). In one sense the Cape was a walled garden, with Africa on the outside and Europe within.

The Trekboere

This state of affairs inevitably led to corruption. Company officers helped themselves to the best tracts of land and used company resources to develop these farms into estates - which would compete with the farmers in supplying the company. Significant ill will against the company developed amongst the farmers and resulted in a number of disagreements with the authorities, often leading to the incarceration of the rebels (see Adam Tas). A number of farmers simply abandoned their farms and started moving north, away from company control. They were called Trekboere (wandering farmers).

Right from the beginning there were occasional skirmishes between the company and the Khoikhoi. Most were due to simple matters (trade disagreements, cattle rustling), but the growth of the colony also deprived the indigenous population (who led a nomadic lifestyle) of pasture. Now, with the Trekboere moving away from the settlement at the Cape the number of conflicts increased. In the north and northwest the Trekboere also encounter the San people (Bushmen), and in the northeast they ran into the Xhosas. Some of these encounters were benign, but soon trouble developed as opportunists on both sides would forage cattle from each other. As more and more grazing land became occupied by the settlers many indigenous peoples took offense, and this led to further friction. Many Trekboere began living a semi-nomadic and hunter-gatherer lifestyle, in some ways not far removed from that of the people they were displacing. In many cases the displaced (especially the Khoikhoi) became hired hands on the farms, while others were incorporated into existing clan and family groups of the Xhosa people.

The VOC held a dim view of the independent actions of the Trekboere as it meant losing control and tax revenue. The increasing conflict between the Trekboere and the indigenous populations also alarmed them. On several occasions they expanded the boundaries of the colony and started allocating farms in these new areas. However their efforts to control the rapidly expanding colony had limited success. Due to its numerous conflicts with the English, by 1795 the VOC was in dire financial straights. Perhaps sensing weakness from the VOC, the farmers at Graaff Reinet expelled the officials of the VOC and established their own an independent government. Six months later, Swellendam did the same.

The colony now had two groups of settlers from European descent – some who were successful in the Cape and decided to stay, and those who despised the harsh control of the company and tried to escape. Due to their relative isolation and the many influences of the multiracial mix at the Cape, the Dutch dialect spoken in the colony slowly started to change and eventually would develop into Afrikaans, a distinct language.

By the turn of the 18th century the British seized the Cape and claimed it as their property. They inherited an established colony with power residing solely with the governing elite in Cape Town. Differentiation on the basis of race was already visible, but not yet formalized. The English instituted free trade, stopped the import of slaves, and changed many other laws, but not always for the better.

If the VOC government had been authoritarian, the British rule was in many respects equally harsh. In 1809 the Governor of the Cape, Earl of Caledon, declared that the Khoikhoi had to have a fixed residence and could not migrate between regions without written authority. In a move which he later came to regret, Caledon gave permission for Saartjie Baartman, a Khoi woman, to travel to Europe to be exhibited for her "unusual" bodily features.

Attempting to provide a buffer zone, in 1820 the British authorities persuaded about 5,000 middle-class British immigrants to leave England and settle in the colony. They were allocated tracts of land between the feuding Boer (farmer) and Xhosa groups. However, most of the British subjects had no desire to live in the crossfire and moved to the towns. There they became highly urbanized and eventually they would dominate politics, trade, finance, mining, and manufacturing, while the largely uneducated Boers were relegated to the countryside.

The Great Trek

Now the European descendants had two language groups and two cultures. In 1833 the British abolished slavery. This caused some financial hardship for those farmers who viewed their slaves in investment terms – some had even used the value of their slaves as collateral to obtain loans. To offset the sudden dearth of workers caused by the freeing of the slaves, the British the authorities passed a Masters and Servants Ordinance in 1841. This effectively perpetuated white control. Already rebellious under the yoke of the VOC, the Boers now became increasingly dissatisfied with British rule. Beginning in 1835, several large groups, together with significant numbers of Khoikhoi and black servants, decided to trek off into the interior in search of independence. This migration was called the Great Trek.

Beyond the frontier the Voortrekkers (pioneers) found vast tracts of apparently uninhabited grazing lands (the Zulu Kingdom under the reign of Shaka Zulu had largely annihilated the tribes living there before their arrival). Following disagreements among the Boer leadership, the various Voortrekker groups split apart. While some headed north, most crossed into Natal with the idea of establishing a republic there.

Even at this late stage, almost 200 years after the establishment of the settlement at the Cape, racial prejudice was not a large factor in their thinking. Since the Zulus controlled this territory, the Voortrekker leader Piet Retief paid a visit to King Dingane to negotiate a land contract. Dingane agreed to Boer settlement in Natal for a price - to recover cattle stolen from him by a rival tribe. The Boers did so, and after returning the stolen cattle Dingane signed the deed of cession (by imitating writing).

While celebrating their deal, Dingane had Retief's party killed and he subsequently launched an attack on the Voortrekker laagers. The unexpected strike plunged the entire Voortrekker movement into serious disarray. The hostilities culminated in the Battle of Blood River, when an army of 15,000 Zulus attacked the Voortekker party of 570. Prior to the battle the Boers took a vow before God to forever celebrate the day in His honor, if they were granted victory. The Zulus suffered a major defeat with around 3,500 killed, versus no loss of life for the Boers - reportedly causing the river’s waters to run red. This event would forever change the Boer perspective regarding the black nations in Southern Africa. Now they not only had to escape imperialism, they could not trust anyone but their own kind.

The Boers’ hopes for establishing a Natal republic remained short lived. The British annexed the area in 1843 and most of the Boers, feeling increasingly squeezed between the British on one side and the native African populations on the other, headed north again.

Because the Boers and their servants left en masse and Zulu men refused to work as laborers, the British turned to India to resolve their labor shortage, and the next 50 years 150,000 indentured Indians arrived (as well as numerous free "passenger Indians"). This mass immigration formed the base for what is today the largest Indian community outside of India. (As early as 1893, when Mahatma Gandhi arrived in Durban, Indians outnumbered whites in Natal.)

Boer Republics

The Boers meanwhile persevered with their desperate search for land and freedom, ultimately establishing themselves in the Transvaal Republic (ZAR) and in the Orange Free State. For a while it seemed that these republics would develop into stable states. However, the discovery of diamonds (1869) and gold (1886) turned the Boers' world on its head anew.

The first diamonds came from land belonging to the Griqua, but to which both the Transvaal and Orange Free State laid claim. Britain quickly stepped in and annexed the area for the Crown. The establishment of the Kimberley diamond-mines unleashed a veritable free-for-all. The lure of easy riches caused an influx of opportunists and within a few months an estimated 50,000[8] people from all over the world[9] (including the entire African continent[10]) flooded into the area. Multiracial towns sprang up in which the inhabitants freely mingled regardless of race.

In 1877 the British took over the Transvaal. This resulted in the First Boer War in which the Boers dealt the British a crushing victory.[11] After the discovery of gold Johannesburg's population exploded, and the Transvaal suddenly were hosting thousands of foreigners (mostly British). The gold rush was even more massive than the rush to diamonds, and within 10 years Johannesburg grew into the largest city in Southern Africa.

Again the Boers felt squeezed to the sidelines, and fearing that they would be overrun by uitlanders the Transvaal government imposed strict control of all aspects of mining, and restricted citizenship and voting rights. Meanwhile, the British, who viewed their defeat as an aberration, forged ahead with their desire to federate the Southern African colonies and republics. The situation peaked in 1899, when the British demanded voting rights for the foreigners on the Witwatersrand. After four years of fruitless negotiations with the British, during which no concession by the Transvaal proved acceptable, Kruger concluded that suffrage for the uitlanders was a red herring and that the real British objective was the Transvaal's gold.[12] He issued an ultimatum that British troop concentrations on the borders of the Transvaal and Orange Free State be withdrawn. This was ignored and the Second Boer War resulted.

By June 1900, Pretoria, the last of the major Boer towns, had surrendered. Yet resistance by the Boers continued for two more years via guerrilla-style battles, which the British met in turn with scorched earth tactics. This took the form of the destruction of farms in order to prevent the fighting Boers from obtaining food and supplies, and to demoralize them by leaving their women and children homeless and starving in the open. When this proved unsuccessful, the British herded the Boer women and children into concentration camps. Inside these camps the conditions were appalling and disease and death was rife, and 27,927 Boers (22,074 of which were children) and 14,154 black Africans died due to overcrowding, starvation and poor sanitation. Peace was declared in 1902 with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging. Under its terms, the Boer republics acknowledged British sovereignty, while the British in turn committed themselves to reconstruction of the areas under their control, and in 1910 the Union of South Africa came into being. For the first time the British relinquished control to democratic elections.

Afrikaner Calvinism

After the Second Boer War large sections of the Afrikaner population was utterly destitute. The Dutch Reformed Church played a major role in trying to rehabilitate these people. Ever since the British had gained control of the Cape the church had been effectively isolated from the mother church in Holland. This period of cultural and religious isolation, the Afrikaner’s fiercely anti-imperialist outlook due to their own experience under colonial rule, and their staunch beliefs, now all started to play a major role in shaping Afrikaner Calvinism.

To make sense of their many trials and tribulations as a nation, the consensus had developed that God had preserved them for a purpose. In tune with the Calvinistic belief in predestination, the idea developed that the Afrikaner was elected to bring the Gospel to the natives and their children. These attitudes were very early adopted, and were reinforced by subsequent conflicts. The things they suffered, and the strong bonds between them that were formed through it all, seemed to confirm the idea at every turn that they were preserved by God's very own wisdom and providence.

By the time the British annexed the Cape the Enlightenment was sweeping Europe, and the British appointed zealous propagators of these ideals as administrators. Although they instituted many repressive racial laws themselves, they loosened trade and labor regulations, were speaking of blacks as 'noble savages', and outlawed slavery. In many ways they treated blacks as equals, and gave them access to the courts in suits against white landowners. Finally, they professed to believe in their own autonomous Reason above all else. A more antithetical message could hardly be imagined, as the English version of Enlightenment forced itself upon the Afrikaners. From the Boer point of view, the Enlightenment invaded their shores, seized their properties, annexed their farms, imposed alien laws, liberated their slaves without compensation, justified these actions by appeal to Reason alone, and claimed in all of this to be more virtuous than God. They were exposed to the Enlightenment, and it appeared to them to be a revolution against God.[13]

Afrikaner Nationalism

The new Boer states which arose after the Great Trek needed a comprehensive philosophy upon which to organize a genuine Afrikaner society. Paul Kruger, first president of the South African Republic openly expressed the idea that the Afrikaner had a special “calling” from God, not unlike the people of Israel in the Bible. Others waged an intellectual war against “uitlander” cultures which were flooding into South Africa through the mass settlements of foreign squatters lured by gold and diamonds, accompanied by British armies. To the Afrikaner mind, the British represented imperialism, viciousness, outlander oppression, covetousness, envy, and unbelief. The Afrikaner's experience during the Second Boer War reinforced their laager mentality, so as to preserve themselves and their way of life against the British melting pot.

After the British victory the two Boer republics were combined with the Cape Colony and Natal, and reorganized into the Union of South Africa and the British relinquished control to democratic elections. A small, anonymous group of young intellectuals formed the Afrikaner Broederbond to design strategies for addressing Afrikaner interests and to deal with the overwhelming social problems of poor whites. Later the Broederbond's aims changed into promoting Afrikaner Nationalism as a lever to gain control of the South African government. The organization also actively initialized efforts to maintain Afrikaner culture, and to broaden the largely rural Afrikaner economy.

The Broederbond formally adopted the Calvinist philosophy based on the work of the Dutch theologian/politician Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper’s concept of Sphere Sovereignty had resulted in Pillarisation in Dutch and Belgium societies as a way to deal with multicultural societies. (Under the system, societies were "vertically" divided in several smaller segments or "pillars" according to different religions or ideologies, which operated separately from each other.) These ideas now served as a strong basis for the philosophical framework for the Afrikaner Nationalism that the Broederbond adopted – they firmly believed that it would provided them with a model of anti-imperialism, self-discipline and responsibility, which in the end would preserve justice for all: for blacks, coloureds, and whites; and against Communist deceit. In 1948 these views would officially culminate in the establishment of apartheid.

Though Afrikaner Nationalism never implied a belief in the superiority of one nation over others, in practice a significant number of Afrikaners did think that way. Some members of the Broederbond preferred the philosophy of Ethnic Nationalism as expounded by Fichte. As a result, during World War 2 sympathy with Hitler arose among some groups and became an unwelcome ally in support of the Broederbond policies. The Calvinist party within the Broederbond tried to distance itself from this movement, but had limited success because of the secrecy of the organization.

More support for a form of Ethnic Nationalism came from the Ossewabrandwag, a militant Afrikaner organization which was violently opposed to any participation by South Africa during World War 2 on the side of the British. However, even here racial superiority was never espoused as their primary motive. Instead their statements were peppered with intense disdain for the British, the roots of which can be traced back to the hardships the Afrikaners had to endure during the Second Boer War.

The last two Afrikaner State Presidents (BJ Vorster & PW Botha) who supported Apartheid did however come from their ranks.

Modern Apartheid

In 1950 the anti-Calvinist nationalists, led by HF Verwoerd (considered to be the primary architect of "modern" apartheid), overcame the Calvinists and used the Broederbond to advance their own political ambitions. It had been proposed that Verwoerd was a proponent of Social Darwinism, but this theory cannot be sustained because his lecture notes and memoranda at Stellenbosch stressed that there were no biological differences between the big racial groups. Instead, he was more of an admirer of the Separate but Equal movement in the USA.

Well before the National Party came to power in 1948, South African governments had established "reserves" in 1913 and 1936, with the intention of segregating black South Africans from whites. In a desire to protect Afrikaner culture, and under the banner of Afrikaner Nationalism, Verwoerd introduced a series of measures that were intended to reshape South African society such that whites would be the demographic majority. To this effect he instituted the policy of Separate Development, which went beyond existing policies of residential segregation to insist that black South Africans could only claim citizenship in their traditional areas – the Bantustans (Native Reserves). Under the Separate Development plan, these reserves would become independent “Homelands" and eventually separate countries, each with their own elected government.

After instituting the Black Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970, which forcibly made blacks citizens of Bantustans and cancelled their South African citizenship (even if they had never set foot in their nominal "homelands"), South Africa's black population was subjected to a massive program of forced relocation. It has been estimated that 3.5 million people were expelled from their homes during the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, many being resettled in these Bantustans. The government made clear that its ultimate aim was the total removal of the black population from South Africa.

Resistance

As a result internal pressures escalated sharply. The ANC changed their conservative stance from passive acts of civil disobedience (based upon Ghandi’s influence), to support for open resistance (in the form of strikes, acts of public disobedience, and protest marches). For the first time the ANC formed an external military wing.

The forced removals worked both ways; and the actions of the South African government also alienated many whites (although far less than the other way round), especially since large tracts of farmland bordering the Bantustans were expropriated against their wishes to increase the economic and geographic viability of the Homelands.

International pressures also mounted, increasingly isolating the Afrikaners and identifying their policies with the worst kind of godless oppression. Attitudes hardened on both sides, and some ANC members defected to form the PAC with its own military wing and battle cry of “One Settler, One Bullet”.

The Turn-around

After the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, enormous internal and external pressure resulted. Even the Afrikaans press, normally blindly supportive of the policies of the government, started asking some uncomfortable questions. Throughout this period of soul searching, slowly the conviction started to grow that for the Afrikaner culture, language, and religion to survive, the Afrikaners had to emerge from the laager and invite the rest of South Africa in.[14]

At the Broederbond the massacre triggered a deliberate and quiet process of re-examination, which over time would lead the organization to declare Apartheid an irreparable failure. Later the Broederbond would change its name to the Afrikanerbond and drop it’s the policy of secrecy. It began proposing initiatives for land reform, and the reversal of Apartheid.

Although Verwoerd and his successors (Vorster and Botha) cannot be technically classified as white supremacists, their policies had a disastrous effect on race relations in South Africa. By trying to ensure the survival of Afrikaner Nationalism through forced separation of the races they practically destroyed Afrikaner unity. As the full effect of their policies became clear, more and more Afrikaners started to balk at what was happening to the country. Numerous prominent individuals became activists critical of the government, including Beyers Naudé, Van Zyl Slabbert, Danny Jordaan, Breyten Breytenbach, Andre Brink, Patrick van Rensburg, Antjie Krog, Bram Fisher, and others.

To counter the growing discontent brewing amongst Afrikaners intellectuals, the regime resorted to portraying the struggle for the Afrikaner soul once more in an “us versus them” light. Terming the assault on their policies as a Total Onslaught against the Afrikaner Nation, they played upon the fears of average South Africans to stay in power. In the end the injustices heaped upon others as a result of their policies did more than superficial damage to the greater South Africa, and moved the country to the brink of a full scale civil war.

The Last Crocodile

Despite his reputation for being autocratic, PW Botha was the first South African Prime Minister (later President) to realize that change was inevitable. Shortly after he came to power, he surprised the right wing of his own party by calling upon white South Africans to "adapt or die", and by repealing and softening many of the Apartheid era laws (the pass laws, the laws on mixed marriages, the group areas act, and the prohibition on multiracial political parties).

These largely unexpected actions caused a conniption fit amongst the radical right wing of the National Party and amongst certain right wing segments of the Afrikaner population, resulting in the formation of several political and paramilitary organizations, including the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), led by Eugène Terre'Blanche, and the Afrikaner Freedom Foundation, formed by Professor Carel Boshoff. Connie Mulder, started the Front for National Priorities which later wound up as part of the Conservative Party led by Andries Treurnicht (popularly known as 'Doctor No') and Ferdie Hartzenberg.

A new constitution was introduced, which gave limited representation to Coloureds and Indians, although not to the Black majority. Botha however stopped short of full reform, often reiterating that he would only negotiate with groups who did not have a policy of violence. Many blacks and the international community viewed these changes as cosmetic. Searching for a solution, under the leadership of PW Both in 1985 the decision was made to release Mandela, and to allow blacks to vote. Pik Botha who helped draft the upcoming speech, advertised it as a crossing of the Rubicon.[15]

It is unclear what happened to change PW’s mind, but perhaps because of the leak, or because of a major revolt brewing in the National Party, in this widely anticipated speech Botha appeared belligerent and refused to give in to pressure for concessions to the black majority (including the release of Nelson Mandela). His defiance of international opinion in this intransigent speech led to immediate further isolation of the country, and calls for economic sanctions to be applied. The South African currency lost two thirds of its value almost overnight. The following year, Botha declared a nation-wide state of emergency that was to stay in effect for the next five years.

Under the state of emergency the media was censored, and by 1988, 30,000 people had been detained without trial. The media clampdown and the draconian measures employed led to widespread abuse by militant Afrikaner members of the police and the armed forces. Thousands were killed and tortured as senior officials turned a blind eye and in many instances became the instigators of violent actions against blacks.

Atrocities occurred on both sides, and black-on-black violence increased substantially in the townships. Kangaroo courts sprung up, and often resulted in the accused party being necklaced. As the situation spiraled out of control, many individuals took matters in their own hands, with little fear of being prosecuted.

The Death of an Ideology

At this stage media sympathy to the system in both the English and Afrikaans presses was reaching an all time low. As the security situation in South Africa continued to deteriorate, many white South Africans fled the country. Inside the ruling National Party another revolt was brewing, which culminated early in 1989 when Botha suffered a stroke. Realizing the opportunity, an entourage of the enlightened members of the party confronted Botha in his hospital bed and forced him to resign on 13 February 1989.

Later that year he was succeeded by FW de Klerk. A year later, in his opening address to parliament De Klerk announced the repeal of all discriminatory laws and lifted the ban on the ANC, the UDF, the PAC, and the Communist Party. Media restrictions were lifted, and De Klerk released political prisoners not guilty of common-law crimes.

On 11 February 1990, 27 years after he had first been incarcerated, Nelson Mandela walked out of the grounds of Victor Verster Prison as a free man. The first multi-racial elections were held in 1994, which the ANC won by an overwhelming majority. They have been in power ever since.

[1] http://www.34south.com/capewinecountry/winehistory.htm

[2] http://www.angelfire.com/folk/brinkfamily/files/hoofstuk1.pdf

[3] http://www.capetranscripts.co.za/final%20abstracts.pdf

[4]http://www.tanap.net/content/activities/documents/resolutions_Cape_of_Good_Hope/Introduction_Afrikaans_Resolutions_of_the_Council_of_Policy_of_Cape_of_Good_Hope.pdf

[5] http://www.iziko.org.za/sh/resources/slavery/slavelodge_life.html

[6] http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/history/mixedmarriages-genealogy.htm

[7] http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-06142004-094752/unrestricted/02chapter2.pdf

[8] http://www.farlang.com/diamonds/williams_history_diamond_mines/page_243

[9] http://www.farlang.com/diamonds/williams_history_diamond_mines/page_233

[10] http://www.farlang.com/diamonds/williams_history_diamond_mines/page_235

[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Majuba_Hill

[12] http://about-south-africa.com/html/johannesburg.html

[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_Calvinism#Nationalism

[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_Calvinism#Afrikaner_Broederbond

[15] http://africanhistory.about.com/od/biography/a/BioPWBotha_3.htm

History Lesson

2004-12-31T13:29:00.000-08:00

Before 1488 the people of South Africa could not read or write. But that all changed when Bartholomeu Diaz, the Portuguese seafarer, got lost sailing around the Southern tip of the continent. He was so pleased to see land that he called the place the Cape of Good Hope.

His next stop was at Mosselbaai where he established a post office and mailed a letter home. In the letter he said that he would never reach America this way. Upon his return, his ship sank when it fell into the gap between the Indian and Atlantic oceans. He renamed the spot as the Cape of Storms. Then he took the Blue Train to Dar es Salaam where he boarded a camel for home.

In 1652 Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape, which was now called Kaapstad. He grew rich by selling fresh fruit and vegetables to the passing tourists. Soon the Huguenots heard about the good grapes and came to make some wine. They have been drunk ever since.

When they discovered diamonds at Kimberley, Cecil John Rhodes convinced the British to start the first Boer war. The English lost because the Dutchmen fled to Pretoria, and the Hottentots to Upington. The Germans left for Lüderitz, but the French were too drunk to escape.

Not too long afterwards Paul Kruger discovered gold and made a mint. Then the Queen of England wanted the gold, resulting in the second Boer war. This time the British won because they made a deal with Shaka Zulu. Dingaan also did something.

Peace retuned and the British brought in many Indian people to work on the sugar plantations in Durban. But Mahatma Gandhi fled and went back to India to become a famous statesman. Due to public pressure Prince Charles was forced to abolish slavery.

Hendrik Verwoerd reintroduced it under a new name. In 1961 he declared independence and changed the currency from the Pound to the Rand. Immediately everything cost twice as much.

Pounds and ounces turned into kilograms and the farmers’ crops were halved. Fahrenheit turned into Celcius and the corn stopped growing. Miles turned into kilometers and now everyone had to travel twice as far. Even the weather turned metric, and since then no one has ever seen an inch of rain again.

After all these plagues PW Botha told the rest of the world to get lost and the currency turned into diarrhea. Now only foreigners could afford anything.

Alarmed, PW had a stroke, and FW de Klerk took over. He freed the oppressed and released Mandela. Peace and prosperity returned. Bill Clinton reintroduced tourism with a swim at Sandy Bay.

All the freedom fighters came back home to look for jobs. When they could not find any, they were forced to rape and plunder. The illegal immigrants left because of the escalating crime rate. Bishop Tutu went to the U.S.

Finally Thabo Mbeki took over and outlawed AIDS because it was seen as foreign interference. By now the people had learned to read and write.

Jan Tik

Reluctant Genie

2004-12-29T21:03:00.000-08:00

Van der Merwe is walking along the beach at Knysna, and between the dunes he discovers a Persian lamp. He rubs it, and to his surprise a genie appears. “Your wish is my command, master!” the genie says.

Not knowing how long his luck would last, van der Merwe has to think deep. Finally he says, “I would like to have a bridge between South Africa and Australia. Most of my family now lives over there, and this will allow me to visit them over weekends”.

The genie shakes his head. “Impossible. Do you know how much concrete is needed for such an affair? And where am I going to get all the steel for the cables? I am not even talking about the millions of lights we will need to illuminate the thing.”

“Anyway, even if it was feasible, you would never make it to Australia in a weekend. It would take you two weeks of driving, if you are lucky. Perhaps you want to reconsider?”

“All right”, van der Merwe says, “give me a moment to think it over”. But he has trouble coming up with an alternative idea, and he grasps onto the first thought that crosses his mind: “OK, I would really like to understand women.”

After a moment of hesitation, the genie replies: “How many lanes do you want each way?”

Pieter Schutte

Babalaas

2004-12-28T20:46:00.000-08:00

A South African term for hangover. From the Zulu word ibhabhalazi.

The Bar in De Aar

Two gentlemen walked into at a bar in the town of De Aar. “So tell me”, the tall one asked as they entered: “Where are you from?”

“From the Orange Free State, the smaller man replied.

“Same here! What a great place to live”, said the tall guy as they were sitting down. Imagine the chances of us meeting here in the middle of nowhere. Let’s toast to that!”

“Where were you born?” the small man wanted to know. “In Bloemfontein”, came the response.

“You must be kidding”, the inquirer remarked, sounding pleasantly surprised. “It's my birthplace as well. Let’s have a glass on the strange coincidence that brought us together here tonight!”

Thus the conversation proceeded and the two guys were having one drink after another to celebrate their remarkably similar experiences. A third man could not help but overhearing the conversation, and soon his curiosity became too much to bear. “What’s with those two?” he asked the barman.

“Oh, you can ignore them”, came the reply, “It’s just the Fouché twins getting drunk again.”

Jors Visser

On The House

It’s Friday night and the bar doors open with a bang. “A Whisky for me, a whisky for you, and a whisky for all my friends here”, shouts the guy who came barging in.

“Thank you”, says the barman“, and he starts pouring drinks for everyone, including himself. Not long afterwards, the jolly newcomer is at it again: “Another round on the house!”

“You are a very nice guy”, says the barman, “but before I do, would you mind paying for the first round?”

“Shorry, old chap”, said the man, “I do not have a cent on me.” Highly upset the barman grabs the perpetrator by the collar and summarily kicks him out on the street.

A few hours later the man is back, twice as drunk and loud as before: “Whishky fo' me, and whishky fo' all my friendsh”, he hollers.

“I imagine you are including me”, the barman replies in a sarcastic tone.

“Nope”, says the drunk, “You get mad when you drink!”

Elsa Mouton

The Train to Matjiesfontein

Two old gentlemen visiting Matjiesfontein received news that their train had been delayed. They decided to get out of the cold and headed for the only bar in town.

As they got ready to return to the station, the barman made a quick call and had bad news: “Sorry gents, but you your train is stuck in Laingsburg due to the heavy rains. The new estimated arrival time is two hours from now.”

By now, they both had a few drinks under the belt, and their mood had improved considerably. No, they did not mind waiting. In fact, they would celebrate their delay by having another brandy each.

Soon afterwards one said, “This is not a bad place at all. The only problem I can see is that it is too damn lonely”. Then he pointed straight to the large mirror on the wall. See those two guys over there? Why don’t we go and visit with them for a while?”

The other agreed, picked up his drink and started walking towards the mirror. Then he hesitated: “Wait… See, they are already coming to join us!”

Fanie Ferreira

Bushman Bible

2004-12-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

Now children, the Good Book, I know him like the Bible.

Long ago there were two people. They lived on a farm and could eat all the prickly pears, but they could not eat the sweet ones. But the tree snake said to Eef - him with the big fat buns, "Don’t talk nonsense, they look so good because they taste so good." So they stole some.

Then Ad'm saw his pants were gone, and Eef was looking for his bloomer. Auk! Now they had to make clothes from an aloe plant, and because the Farmer was mad they had to skedaddle from the farm. By the gate was a big Herero with a sharp spear.

As they left Eef looked over his shoulder a bit, and right there he turned into salt. By the next day the cattle had eaten him. Now the poor Ad'm was without a woman.

While he was walking he saw X!ain and asked him: “What are you doing?” But X!ain hit him with a stick and threw stones at him. Fortunately a good Somaritan was passing on a zebra and helped him beat up X!ain.

Later his hair got stuck in a thorn bush and there he had to wait until D'lilah found him and gave him a haircut. When his hair came loose he fell into a lion’s den, but his stomach was so upset that the lion he did not want to eat him.

There the Jewelers found him and tried to sell him to the Parasites but he ran away until he got to the big water. He hit the water with his stick to feel how deep it was, and it dried up like the Namib. Now there was a long road running to the other side.

As he walked down this road it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. When he was halfway the water came back and wanted to swallow him. Just before he died a big fish tasted him, but the fish did not like his smell and spit him out in the land of sour milk and porridge.

There he took two wives and had more children than all the sand in the Kalahari. Some had more food and water than the others - that is why they are fighting until today.

See, I know him the Bible.

Loosely based upon the tale as told by Jonas

The Road to Stilbaai

2004-12-23T20:06:00.000-08:00

Stilbaai, also known as Still Bay, is a little seaside hamlet on the Garden Route, about 200 miles northeast of Cape Town. This picturesque little town with its collection of vacation homes, rondawels[1], and thatch roof cottages, is located at the estuary where the Goukou River and the Indian Ocean meets. To get there you have to veer off the N2 between Riversdale and Mosselbaai, and head east for approximately 16 miles.

The first time I ever visited Stilbaai I was hitchhiking and got dropped off at this intersection. As it goes with the young and the overoptimistic, I had no idea how close I was to my destination. The last time I looked at a map was the day before I left, and I was sure I was only a stone’s throw away from my family - some of which I have not seen for over a year.

It was just after midnight and there was a new moon. Riding high on confidence, and with the stars to guide me, I decided to head for the coast. I could hitch a ride while walking, rather than hang out at the crossroads.

Two hours of brisk walking ensued, and slowly my spirit was starting to turn. Only two cars had passed me by since the start of my journey, and rather than being of nice Christian disposition they seemed to speed up when they saw me. It was the end of the hippie era, and looking like one of the twelve apostles might not have worked in my favor.

Another two hours passed and I realized that I was done for - I was going to walk the whole way. By now, four cars have passed me by; I could almost set my clock to them. Little things started to bother, my shoes were chafing, my jeans kept on slipping, and I had a sore knee - from tripping over, what could only have been, the white line in the road.

I was thirsty. Twice the road passed within shooting distance of a windmill, but since I could only see the eyes of the livestock and not the actual beasts themselves, my nerves insisted that I stick to the road.

Later I could discern the first glimmer of light. Now the traffic also started waking up, although mercy and sympathy were still out cold. The lone wanderer was left to his thoughts, and was fast losing faith in basic humanity.

With increasing visibility came another problem. I needed to let nature take its course. But here the road was boxed in between cliffs, and with cars buzzing by every few minutes there was no place to go. Perhaps if I could make the bridge I saw in the distance, I could duck underneath. But when I got there, folks were fishing off the side.

Around seven, I reached the outskirts of town. On a desperate gallop and with moments to spare I made it to an outhouse at the back of a derelict building. I must have spent a good thirty minutes recouping, and finally regained enough composure to venture out on the last leg of the journey – to the telephone booth across the road.

After taking a day or so to recover from my all-night ordeal, I realized that I had been mistaken. The world was good after all! Between friends and family, and with plenty of braaivleis[2], boerewors[3], and potjiekos[4] the days were full of lazy fun and joy.

I was happy and content.

Jan Tik

-------------------
[1] A circular building, architecturally related to the African hut, consisting of brick or clay walls, and often with a thatch roof.

[2] Barbecued lamb chops.

[3] A kind of South African sausage made from roughly equal amounts of beef, lamb, and pork, and laden with roasted coriander and other spices. The best varieties replace the approximately 10% of fat content with the tail fat from a lamb.

[4] A three-legged African pot containing a mixture of fresh food over an open fire.

King of the Jungle

2004-12-12T20:33:00.000-08:00

The Lion came to an ant and said: “Who is the King of the Jungle?” “Why, you, your honor!” the ant replied, while bowing deeply. “Make sure you don’t forget”, the lion said, and walked on.

A little later, it spotted a baboon, and asked the same question. Beset by fear, the baboon managed to reply, "Your Honor, my Master, my King! What a great privilege to even talk to you!" With that it buried its face in the sand.

And so the day went.

Later that afternoon, smug with self-righteousness, the lion approached an elephant. “Who is the King of the Jungle?” it demanded. The elephant did not reply.

Indignant, the lion uttered a great roar: “Who is the King of the …” Just then, the elephant grabbed the lion with its trunk and gave it a few good smacks against a tree. Bedraggled the lion came to its feet while trying to regain its composure.

“Now look here”, it said, “You don’t have to get mad if you don’t know the answer.”

Submitted by Louis Koorts

Loaded Duster

2004-12-10T17:06:00.000-08:00

For students at the University of Pretoria, the Fuel Research Institute was a wonderful place to work. It was practically a part of the campus, and since the job consisted of performing a set number of experiments each day, one could schedule those around lectures.

One day towards the end of the semester, a few of us decided to conduct our own experiment. We decided to determine how many calories a yellow dust rag might contain.

The first step was to put the rag in the "bomb", which consisted of a heavy stainless steel cap screwed onto a solid metal base. Normally a pressure of 30 atmospheres of oxygen would suffice, but my helpful accomplice managed to squeeze 200 into the container. Everyone got carried away. While the device was being rigged others were preparing the bath, which was roughly the size of a hot tub.

By now I had developed a sense of foreboding. But before I could say "stop", the bomb was ready and someone flipped the trigger.

The next few seconds were wiped from my memory forever.

The first thing I can recall is getting up from the floor behind some cabinets at the far side of the lab. To my astonishment I was not alone – the entire staff was heaped in a pile behind this shelter.

I was stone deaf, but my remaining faculties seemed sharper than usual, and I noticed several things almost simultaneously:

The lights were out, and a fine dust was settling down on everything. There was a hole in the ceiling where the top of the bomb had shot into the lab above us, and there was another hole in the floor where the bottom went through to the basement. The “Jacuzzi” which used to be square, now looked like a balloon, and water was flowing from every seam.

Then I could hear again. As if in a tunnel, people were shouting and running.

Through the glass divider I noticed our boss in the office next door. He was experiencing considerable difficulties getting up from his chair. The poor man always had a nervous twitch, but now he was in the midst of a whole body spasm.

That is when I started to laugh. The more I tried to stop, the more I laughed. They gave me some sugar water, but it did not work. I was still laughing when they fired my ass and threw me out on the street.

Jan Tik.

Fire Brigade Stories

2004-11-25T14:26:00.000-08:00

Image used with permission from Currier and Ives

Growing up in an Afrikaner family, when I left school my English was very rudimentary. But at the Cape Town Fire Brigade I had no choice. About half of the firemen seemed to come from the British Isles; they all spoke with some Cockney, Irish, or Scottish accent, and everything seemed to happen in English too.

For me it was sink or swim, so I did the best I could. Until I took a fire call from the Strand Street Concourse, a labyrinth of underground shops crisscrossing Cape Town’s downtown area. With no idea as to the gravity of my mistake, I dropped the bells, and loudly announced to the running men that there was a fire at the Strand Street Intercourse.

It took a real long time for them to forget that.

Although they all would mercilessly pounce on others’ mistakes, they also had a real camaraderie. Beneath the rough exteriors, there were some truly nice people.

According to the men, just before I joined they had some sort of show and tell. Dignities arrived from all over. The Chief was all dressed up in his ceremonial outfit, while the men were working hard at a demonstration of their skills. But when they tried to use foam, the hose severed right next to the chief. Before he could move out of the way he was covered in the smelly goo. Only his eyebrows were visible.

There were many stories about other mishaps, not all of them funny. One fireman broke both ankles when he rushed from the shower covered in shampoo, and projectiled down the fire pole. Another got his hand almost severed when he tried to pocket an expensive bottle of champagne during a fire at the opera house. (Proof that crime does not pay was the general agreement, although he always maintained that he just tried to move the stuff!)

Then there was the guy that got sick to his stomach when he used an axe to clear some smoldering rubble. When he pulled it back it was crimson with blood. On closer inspection, it became evident that he actually buried his hatchet into a bag of beetroot, fused together because of the heat. Even so, the poor man took a couple of days to get over his grim experience.

However, my most memorable moment occured one Saturday evening. As usual the families of the firemen showed up for a free movie. I was on duty in the control room when one of the cleaning crew proudly came by to show me his new suit and radio. Then he left for some party.

A few hours later just as the moviegoers were exiting the meeting hall, the front door opened and here he was again - wearing nothing but yellow underpants. Obviously roughed up, and seemingly unfazed by the crowd of astonished onlookers he asked me to call the cops.

I quickly hid him in the control room, and found out he had been beaten and robbed. Within a few minutes the police arrived, and while I was taking a fire call the cop mistook the situation and started to strong-arm the character. Astounded by what was happening I shouted some obscenity at the cop, but had to continue with the call.

By the time I was done, the policeman had determined the true state of affairs. Ashamed by his initial reaction he offered to take the unlucky fellow back to where he was robbed to look for the perpetrators.

Afterwards I heard that they never found the bad guys, but that the cop had been so embarrassed about his earlier mistake that he gave the man enough money to make up for his loss.

Jan Tik.

The Lion Hunt

2004-11-20T17:07:00.000-08:00

About 100 years ago, farmer Swartz had a lot of trouble with a lion that had developed a taste for his livestock. One Sunday after church he related his predicament to some friends, and they quickly agreed to a hunting expedition.

Those days there were no phones, so he had no way to know how the story grew and spread almost overnight. The first sign of trouble came when he woke up early the next Saturday morning to the sound of people arriving. By noon the place was humming with folks from near and far, offloading wagons and pitching their tents.

Although the turnout had exceeded the farmer’s expectations he was in quite a good mood. No doubt, that night was going to be the lion’s last.

Later that afternoon the brave loaded their weapons, got on their horses and took off into the sunset. A wagon accompanied them to bring back the trophy.

First they tied a goat to a tree in a nearby gorge, and then the party split in half and fanned up the two ridges overlooking the site. The horses were left harnessed to the wagon and tied to a tree downwind from the ravine. There was nothing more to do but wait.

As the night wore on it was getting cold, and still no sign of the lion. By midnight they were miserable and stiff. One by one they dozed off, and soon all but a very few were in dreamland.

Suddenly there was a ruckus at the wagon. Something was spooking the horses. In the rush to get on their feet a weapon discharged, which panicked the men and a full-scale firefight broke out. But as soon as it started the mayhem subsided and they were up and running to protect their transport.

The war on the hills behind it, followed by the sound of men approaching from two different directions, must have confused the lion, for it jumped straight into the covered wagon. At the same time, the guard who had been sleeping inside catapulted out - so close he could feel the lion’s breath, but narrowly avoiding a real tight situation.

That very moment the panicked horses managed to break the rope and took off.

Afterwards, no one had a good explanation as to why the lion had stayed inside the canvas for the short but wild ride to the house. By now a few men had reached their horses and were chasing the runaway wagon, firing warning shots so that the women and the children could get out of the way.

As they were coming out of their tents, the wagon reached the farmyard at breakneck speed and sideswiped the gate. One wheel came off, the wagon overturned, and the lion came cart wheeling through the dazed assembly.

The full truth will most probably never be known, but it had been said that the resulting pandemonium was like a great work of art:

Several people ran for the backdoor of the farmhouse, and one of them slammed it behind her. The next in line, not exactly belonging to the featherweight division, made absolutely no effort to open the door, but body slammed it with such force that she took entire frame out of the wall.

Some went up a tree with not even a thought as to the snake the kids had found in it earlier, others made it to the barn, and one person jumped down the drink-water well. Incredible as it may sound, no one was seriously hurt.

The lion took off in a hurry, and was never again seen or heard of.

Afterwards some old guy said, “You cannot blame the lion. With a bunch of idiots like that… If it was me, I would have emigrated as well!”

Jan Tik
Origin unknown.

Noah’s Ark

2004-11-13T02:17:00.000-08:00

In the year 2004, the Lord came unto Noah, who was now living in South Africa, and said, "Once again, the earth has become wicked and over-populated and I see the end of all flesh before me. Build another Ark and save two of every living thing along with a few good humans."

He gave Noah the blueprints, saying, "You have six months to build the Ark before I will start the unending rain for 40 days and 40 nights."

Six months later, the Lord looked down and saw Noah weeping in his yard but no ark.

"Noah", He said, "I'm about to start the rain! Where is the Ark?"

"Forgive me, Lord," begged Noah. "But things have changed.”

I needed a building permit. I've been arguing with the inspector about the need for a sprinkler system. My neighbors claim that I've violated the neighborhood zoning laws by building the Ark in my yard and exceeding the height limitations. We had to go to the Development Appeal Board for a decision.

Then South African Transport and Eskom demanded a bond be posted for the future costs of moving power, trolley and other overhead obstructions, to clear the passage for the Ark's move to the sea. I argued that the sea would be coming to us, but they would hear nothing of it.

Getting the wood was another problem. There's a ban on cutting local trees in order to save the Giant Spotted Owl. I tried to convince the environmentalists that I needed the wood to save the owls. But no go!

When I started gathering the animals, an animal rights group sued me. They insisted that I was confining wild animals against their will. As well, they argued the accommodation was too restrictive and it was cruel and inhumane to put so many animals in a confined space.

Then Kortbroek (Short Pants) of Environment Affairs ruled that I couldn't build the Ark until they'd conducted an environmental impact study on your proposed flood.

I'm still trying to resolve a complaint with the Human Rights Commission on how many previously disadvantaged individuals I'm supposed to hire for my building crew.

Also, the trade unions say I can't use my sons. They insist I have to hire only Union workers with Ark-building experience. To make matters worse, Customs and Revenue via the Scorpions seized all my assets, claiming I'm trying to leave the country illegally with endangered species.

So, forgive me, Lord, but it would take at least ten years for me to finish this Ark."

Suddenly the skies cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow stretched across the sky. Noah looked up in wonder and asked, "You mean you're not going to destroy the world?"

"No", said the Lord. "The South African Government beat me to it!"

Submitted by Vera Jordaan
.

Tinkie's Big Time

2004-10-25T08:15:00.000-07:00

In the far north of Namibia, in the days when the Transnamib was still a part of the South African Railways, Tinkie earned his keep as a shunter. It would have been a mistake to see him as a person who stood out from the crowd, for that he was way too thin and slender.

Or so everyone thought. Until the day he announced that he was sick and tired of working as a shunter, and sick and tired of being shunted about. He was about to show the world his true mettle.

There and then he resigned from the railways.

Tinkie and his cousin Hennie had it all planned. With Tinkie playing the bass, and Hennie as singer and lead guitarist, they were heading out on tour. At that time not many people knew about Tinkie’s musical abilities, but Hennie was well known as a man who yodeled like few others could, and when he sang “Ramona”, all the old ladies burst into tears.

As the plan went, the tour started in Windhoek, in the Sam Cohen Hall, and from there they were heading to Upington, and then on to Durban. They were convinced that by the time they reached Natal, they would be world famous.

In Windhoek the turnout was surprisingly good. As the evening progressed the bootleg was doing its job, and a little later Hennie saw his chance. “Tinkie”, he said, “That blonde has been checking me out the whole evening. Take over for a while so I can ask her for a dance”.

One dance turned into three, four. Tinkie was sweating it while Hennie had the time of his life. Nevertheless, by the last number of the evening, “Goodnight Irene”, he was back on his post to sob the affair to a dramatic close.

But this was not all. He had good news. Very good news, Tinkie heard. The blonde had invited them over for some drinks in her apartment.

As Tinkie said afterwards, “Guys. Don’t laugh, but that evening my own demise was staring me in the face. She invited us in, and I will never forget, as we passed her by she gave Hennie a pinch on the butt. "

"If she had only tried that with me…"

"The apartment was nice and roomy and there was a large white wardrobe against one wall, which according to her covered a doorway that led to the neighboring flat. In the other corner there was a type of bar where we made ourselves at home. I said, at home, but that is not exactly the right word; because we were barely sitting down, when with a terrible bang the front door was knocked open, clean out of its lock."

"And there in the doorway, with shoulders touching both doorposts, and with red curly hair scraping the lintel, stood Torokkolos - the biggest man I have ever seen. Just the thought of his words gives me the runs, to this very day. He didn’t talk; he roared: 'What are you guys doing with my fiancé?'”

"Hennie was still getting up to try and explain, but with one step the man was upon him and hit him so hard that he ran the length of the room on all fours. As he was passing me by I realized that the END was here."

"But adversity teaches prayer, they say. I can today as I stand here testify as to the truth of that statement. Hennie still had not reached the far wall when I grabbed that heavy white wardrobe, lifted it clean out of the way, and ran through the divider into the next-door apartment."

"Right into another girl’s bedroom, just as she was putting on her nighties."

“'Oh! G__!' She screamed. Luckily I was still able to put her at ease while running past. 'No', I said, 'It’s not Him, it’s only me. But I am on my way out.'”

"Later that night, safe in our train compartment, but still shivering, I said to him: 'Hennie, on this tour we are going to get knocked senseless yet.' And I was right."

As told by Pierre.

Judgment Day

2004-10-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

Namibia is a country with relatively few people and with large distances between towns. Except for the most severe cases, in this part of Africa justice is doled out by the circuit court.

This means that the court personnel often have to travel several hundred miles between appointments. Like everyone else, the judge and the prosecutor would increase their gasoline consumption to shorten the distance.

In a small town where they would meet once a month, the local cop went on leave and a keen young policeman stood in for him. With not much else to do, he set up a speed trap outside of the town - on the same day the circuit court was supposed to meet at the local police station. As a result, both the judge and prosecutor were caught exceeding the speed limit.

Though the judge pointed out that he was the Magistrate of this District, the youngster showed no respect and played it by the book. Speeding was speeding, and you had to pay your fine irrespective of status or rank. Otherwise you had to appear in court.

So when they set up court that day, they each discovered that the other had been booked. Then one of them had a bright idea. Since they had to appear in the same court one month hence, they could easily remedy the situation out here at this remote outpost, way out of the public eye.

Come the day, the judge appointed a police sergeant as temporary prosecutor for the case against the prosecutor. The latter was duly called to stand in the dock, the charges were put to him, and he pleaded guilty.

"Is there anything you wish to say in mitigation of the sentence?" the judge enquired, and the prosecutor proceeded to explain how he was too poor to pay the fine, that the road was completely devoid of traffic that day, how important it had been for him to get to the court on time in order that justice might be done in the district, and so on. He spoke for quite some time.

The judge then considered the prosecutor's statement, and decided that the fine was unreasonable under the circumstances. The prosecutor was cautioned and released. Now it was the judge’s turn, and the court went into a short recess for the swearing in of the acting magistrate.

The acting magistrate, of course, was none other than the prosecutor. He took his oath, put on his gown, and waited to be called into court. When he took the bench, the sergeant acting as prosecutor called the judge’s case, and the judge took to the dock as the accused. Like the prosecutor, the judge pleaded guilty, and he used a similar argument explaining the mitigating circumstances. Then the acting magistrate pronounced his verdict:

"This court takes a very dim view of speeding," the prosecutor began. "It's a well-known fact that speed kills. In spite of this, it is also known that in this district certain people completely disregard the speed limits imposed for the safety of other road users.”

“Lately there has been an alarming increase in the number of speeding cases. Why, on this very day there are TWO speeding cases on the roll of this court. It would be a complete dereliction of this court's duty if I were to treat speeders too leniently.”

With that, and with a huge grin on his face, he treacherously imposed a stiff fine. It took the judge a long time before he was able to see the humor in the situation.

Submitted by Slow Eddy

The Reverend and the Longdrop

2004-10-23T22:34:00.000-07:00

A young vicar started working in a rural community, assisting the older cleric who was close to retirement. He was still fresh on the job when he took an urgent call from one of the farms in the parish. According to the hysterical person on the other end of the line, some sort of calamity had befallen the old farmer, and he had to come without delay.

Expecting the worst and fully prepared to deliver the last rites, he arrived at the farm. As he stopped in front of the house, the farmer’s wife was waiting for him. A bit calmer now, she explained to him that something terrible had happened to her husband. The reason why she called him, instead of the older minister, was because the farmer did not want anyone he was acquainted with to be aware of what had transpired.

As they were entering the house, she told him that the old man was real conservative and did not see the need for a toilet inside the house. They were still using an outhouse. But termites must have been working the wood, because this time, when he sat down the seat broke and he fell onto the hole.

“You know, vicar, it’s a longdrop* and very deep, and we had struggled for hours to get him out from there. Now he is in a very bad mood, ten times worse than usual.”

Inside the house the old lady showed him the way to the master bedroom. A little unnerved he walked down the long and dark hallway, greeting the man coming towards him, when he realized that he was seeing his own reflection in a mirror. With an embarrassed smile he knocked on the bedroom door.

“Come in”, a loud voice boomed and the vicar bravely entered. On the bed was something out of a hieroglyph, wrapped from head to toes in bandages. Two smoldering eyes stared from the one end of the apparition, and a strong smell of perfume permeated the room.

“Good day, sir”, the vicar said, “how are you?”

“Don’t ask me how I am. You’re not the doctor”, came the brash reply. “Do your job so that the old lady can have some peace!”

With hands slightly shaking, the vicar decided to read a psalm, and he opened his bible in that region. It fell open at Psalm 88, and without thinking he started to read. At first it went well, but then with dismay he heard his own voice recite the seventh verse: “I'm battered senseless by your rage, relentlessly pounded by your anger...”

In shock, he jumped to the next verse, “You have made me repulsive to my friends, and you have sent them all away.”

Now horrified, but unable to stop in time, “I am stuck and cannot escape…”

The next moment the mummy had enough, and started speaking Egyptian. Then it thundered, “Out! You heard me, GET OUT!!”

“And tell my wife I am in no mood for apprentices!”

Once outside, the old lady wanted to know what had happened.

“Let’s just say”, the vicar replied, “I took a longer drop than your husband.”

Based upon the original story
as told by L.W. (Ollie) Olwagen

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* Longdrop: Afrikaans slang term describing a derelict borehole being used as a cesspit.

Bad Karma

2004-10-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

I was paying close attention to the lecturer when the unthinkable happened.

About ten rows ahead of me, a student brought his hands up to his face to stop it, but too late. Instantly, he was violently ill, and his hands merely served as deflectors for the rapidly escaping contents of his stomach. The explosion was so fierce that he spray-painted everyone inside a five-yard radius.

If you had thrown a snake amongst a troop of baboons, you could not have hoped for a better reaction. A visible wave of revolt rolled trough the lecture room as everyone simultaneously attempted to move away from the carnage.

That was the first time I had noticed Hein. He had the unfortunate privilege to take the brunt of the blast right in the neck, and was dripping from head to toe. I fully expected his shoes to slosh when he started walking.

No one had any desire to learn for the rest of that day.

Afterwards we became close friends. Slowly I learned that his accident was not an isolated incident. Every now and then something unpleasant would happen to him. I do not know why; trust me, it could not have been to a nicer guy.

One day he showed up with both thumbs heavily bandaged, and with a huge gash on his forehead.

Apparently he had been changing the oil in his car. Being the perfectionist that he was, he ran the engine until it was hot so that the old oil would drain easily. After he was done he realized that he had overfilled the engine with lubricant, and again he was under the car and undoing the oil plug to release the excess.

But the engine was hot and he was in a hurry. He fumbled and the plug fell into the catch pan.

As students we did not have a lot of cash, and he desperately wanted to preserve his new investment. Therefore he put his thumb on the hole, while with his other hand he was searching around in the scalding hot used oil.

Soon the pain became unbearable and still he could not find the plug, so he switched hands and tried again. Unfortunately, because he was in great haste, he did not put his cigarette out before going under the car. Now in the commotion, it fell out of his mouth and in between two buttons on his shirt.

What he said is best not printed. According to his girlfriend, while he was frantically trying to slither out from under there; between all the shouting and expletives she heard two loud thumps as his head was hitting the undercarriage of the car.

Smoking was obviously detrimental to his health. But then again, life itself did not always agree with him.

Jan Tik

The Boabab Tree

2004-10-18T23:38:00.000-07:00

Many thousands of years ago, before human beings inhabited the earth, the trees were the most important of all life on earth.

Each god made a tree and bestowed on it properties to be enjoyed by the other gods. Some trees were made with good fruit to eat, some were made strong and hard for furniture, others were made for security and still other were made just for beauty.

The gods loved the trees and would come down to earth and sit in their shade, eat of their fruit and place the flowers in their hair. They assured each of the trees that they were all created equal and that no one tree was loved more than another.

Finally a group of gods decided to make the best tree of all, so they combined their talents and made a tree so big, so beautiful, with such fruit and so useful that they were amazed and they clapped their hands with delight. They called it the Boabab.

It had rainbow coloured flowers that shone as if the heavens had just rained them down onto the tree. It flowered all year long with no regard for the seasons. It produced the sweetest, juiciest cool fruit. Its leaves were used for healing and its wood was good for furniture.

But the baobab tree grew haughty as a result of its great size, and even greater beauty and usefulness. It started to give orders to the other trees and soon the other trees became afraid of the baobab tree, and were resenting it.

When the gods came down to sit under the trees they heard the rustling of the leaves and branches, and the saw that the other trees were most unhappy. This saddened them, for they truly loved all the trees, so they approached the baobab and spoke to it. They asked it to be gentle and kind to the other trees, and reminded it that its properties were gifts from the gods, not something that the baobab had learned to do.

But the baobab grew prouder still, even proud of the fact that the other trees resented it. It started to taunt the other trees. The other trees became even more unhappy. The useful trees closed their leaves, the branches died and their fruit didn't develop. The beautiful trees shed their flowers. But the baobab continued to flower and fruit and heal.

Then the gods grew alarmed and held a council. They then approached the baobab and gave it one last warning. "If you don't stop making the other trees unhappy, we will be forced to withdraw the properties we gave you at creation". But the birds in the branches whispered that the gods could not withdraw a gift once given, and the baobab just laughed.

Now the other trees started to droop, refusing to drink water, even when rained upon them gently from the sky. The gods had to do something.

Then one delicate little tree died. This so angered the god who created that tree that he swept down, grabbed the baobab, pulled it up by its mighty roots and turned it upside down. Now it's beautiful leaves and flowers were in the ground and the roots were in the air.

Then one by one the trees began to drink. This is how the mighty baobab became a tree with its roots in the air - so that all the rest of creation can see how the haughty are humbled.

An African Folk Tale
Submitted by Moira, the Faerie Godmother

The Power of Prayer

2004-10-16T01:09:00.000-07:00

Although Gramps had a reputation for being a bit rough in his younger days, I knew him as a deeply religious man. Every night at bedtime he would do a sincere and heartfelt prayer for us. Here, bent over in the candlelight he was nothing but a kind and gentle soul.

On one of these occasions grandma called from the other room. To let her know what he was doing, he continued his prayer in an elevated voice. Even though they were right next to us, she must not have heard - for a few moments later she called again. For the second time he turned up the volume.

But, as I had found out later, grandma was a woman who loved her nightcap, which had the tendency to make her slightly belligerent. Not about to back off, she persisted. An octave higher, he increased the decibel count. By now the whole house were reverberating, and the good Lord himself must have been looking for some earplugs.

To my astonishment she hollered again. That's when grandpa flipped: "Damn it, woman, can't you hear I am praying!" he shouted. The outburst was so sudden that I turned stone cold. As I opened my eyes I saw the ashen face of my pal on the other side of the bed. We both expected God to smite someone dead, any second now.

Slowly, grandpa got back on his knees and stood like that for a moment. "Shit, no-one can say a prayer now", was all he said. Then he got into bed and turned around to sleep.

Grandma did not make another peep and neither could we. For the rest of our stay, she was very nice and polite to us. And we treated grandpa with a new kind of respect.

Jan Tik

Boxing Match

2004-10-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Willie’s best friend was an avid boxing fan. At the last moment his pal had managed to obtain two tickets for a fistfight, and he was invited to come along. Not really a great sporting enthusiast himself, he didn’t have any particular desire to go. But it was a title bout and the promise of ringside seats sounded too good to forgo.

Only when they got ready to enter the big tent did the picture become clear. His friend had obtained two press passes, and they were working for some obscure newspaper outfit! Being a person with an easy disposition, this did not bother him unduly and he decided to play along. At worst they could be asked to leave, but so what!

Finally, the main bout was about to start. All of a sudden there was a tension in the air, and the whole place became pregnant with anticipation. A short while ago, they had the press table almost exclusively for themselves, but now they had to move up. People appeared from the thin air and all had to squeeze in.

A reporter sat down next to him, and she introduced herself as representing one of the big Sunday papers. She quickly explained that her paper’s boxing correspondent had fallen ill, and that she was the stand-in. As she did not normally do boxing, would he be so kind as to provide her with some background information, please?

There was no way out - he had to either tell or fabricate the truth. He chose the latter. After all, if she did not know the difference, how could she possibly judge the validity of his statements?

For the next hour and a half, between blows, he filled in the blanks. He knew the boxers personally, down to the fine details of their personal lives. Being blessed with a good sense of humor he managed to construct a scene so colorful that Nixon himself would have blushed.

She slurped it all up. Expecting to be exposed at any moment, he found it amazing that she was feverishly writing it all down in shorthand, and at the end of the evening she thanked him profusely for his help.

On the road home they had a good laugh. He felt a little guilty about what he had done. She was about to find out from her editor that she had been fed a bunch of drivel, and that she had wasted her whole evening.

The next morning, he had an early wake-up call from his boxing friend. He was instructed to get a copy of the Sunday paper. There, in a prominent place on the sport page was his whole fabrication, verbatim!

Shocked at the enormity of what had transpired, they tried to anticipate how the story could be traced back to them, but there was no attempt to do so.

The following weekend the paper published a retraction and a small apology. They never did find out if she got in trouble for the mishap. She kept on writing for the same newspaper, so they could only assume that she was OK.

However, she never covered boxing again.

Jan Tik
Source: Willie Jordaan

Road Trip

2004-10-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

Talking about hardship, you have not met David yet.

Work was scarce then, and often of the backbreaking variety. As butcher boy he held a privileged position. It meant that he had access to a delivery bicycle. One of his duties was to take the bike home every night, maintain it, and lock it up in a safe place.

He had recently met a girl in a chance encounter, and she had invited him over for the Easter weekend. Only problem - she lived several hundred miles away. Without other options, he decided to use pedal power to reach his destination.

Soon the trip turned into a personal ordeal. He had one flat after another. When he eventually ran out of patches, he was forced to cut out leather strips from the tongues of his shoes.

Shortly thereafter he ran out of glue as well, and now his prospects were looking decidedly bleak. But he was desperate and not about to give up, so he cut the inner tube at the leak and tied the two ends shut with his shoelaces. After stuffing the tube back into the tire, he pumped it up, and it held! Now he had to pump every few miles, but it was progress nevertheless.

Then he blew a tire.

It was the last straw. With his mind firmly made up, he pushed the bike to the closest farmhouse, and proceeded to strike a deal with the farmer. If the kind man could lend him a horse then he would pay him a few bucks, and leave the bicycle as collateral. The farmer did not have a horse to spare, but was quite willing to contribute a mule. Desperation settled the deal.

It almost worked. However, several miles from his final destination, the mule decided it had enough, and would not budge. As he dismounted it took off – back into the direction it came from. He had little choice but to watch it until it disappeared over the horizon. Then he walked the rest of the way.

He never returned to face the farmer or the butcher again. But the story does end well – he married his sweetheart, they had 4 children and lived till a ripe old age.

Jan Tik
A story originally told by Dawid Kruger Sr.

Helpful Dog

2004-10-14T23:42:00.000-07:00

Not all animals are as obstinate as a donkey. Some have genuine empathy and would gladly like to help in any way possible. Take dogs for instance.

According to the legend our great grandfather had a jalopy that could barely make it from here to there. Most days it needed a bit of tweaking and a lot of muscle power to crank the rattletrap into life.

Now, the old man was not known for his patience, so the car often tested him sorely. Many times he had threatened to set the S.O.B. on fire, but with no money to replace it, no one took him seriously.

This particular day, the family had to attend a funeral and everyone was dressed up in black for the occasion. Great-grandpa took off his jacket and draped it over the hood of the car, and then proceeded with the customary starting ritual. It was a nice hot day, and that gave him hope that the car would fire up a little easier.

Alas, that was not the way it turned out. After about 20 minutes of priming interspaced with heavy exertion at the crank handle, he was in quite a state. Sweating profusely and saying things no god-fearing soul should ever have to utter, he was starting to upset the whole family.

Finally, he snapped, and calling upon the powers of thunder and lightning, he said, “Die, devil, die!” In his rage he struck the car with the crank handle - which careened off the hood and shattered one of the headlamps.

Apparently that was the cue the family dog had been waiting for, and it started to attack the car ferociously. In shocked disbelief the family was still looking at the broken headlight when the dog got its angle of attack just right, and popped the rear tire.

I believe they missed the funeral.

As the story goes, it was not too long afterwards that the old geezer blew his fuse for the last time and made good on his promise. After he had the family get out of the car, he set it alight - in full view of everyone.

Source: Doreen Koorts

"Evel Knievel"

2004-10-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

I have already mentioned my cousin in the story about the accident with the Austin Healy. As you might have gathered from that tale, he was an unconventional fellow that often managed to get himself into some rather unique, if not bewildering, situations.

In those days I had a Triumph Tiger motorcycle as my sole means of transportation. I had rescued the bike from being a fixture in some chicken coop, and was quite proud of the restoration job. This effort had inspired my cousin to buy himself a brand new Yamaha scrambler as his first vehicle.

The day he acquired the bike he showed up at our place. It was so new that he did not have time to remove the protective sheet of plastic covering the seat, but he was eager to go get some action, and he knew just where. There was this railroad bridge not too far away, with a long set of steps running down the side. It was the perfect spot to put his new bike through its paces.

Soon we were there, and I looked at the scene with trepidation. This staircase to heaven had three risers joined by two landings, and from our vantage it was looking quite steep. The only way one could pull this off was to do so in one shot.

There was no room for error, and no way I was even going to attempt this. My bike was not built for this kind of thing, anyway. I strongly cautioned him to think again, but like most humans he had an aversion to advice not asked for, and soon enough he was crawling up and down the staircase as if he was doing this kind of thing for a living.

His initial success was rapidly boosting his confidence, and he was busy goading me for being chicken when he spotted two gals walking on the bridge. Instantly his demeanor changed from being amicable and he became deadly serious.

He turned his bike around and roared off a few hundred yards. Perplexed, I was looking at the dust cloud he was leaving behind when I realized he was only getting ready for the run-up to his special trick, number 404. After a few seconds he was turning around and here he came, accelerating fast.

I gave him a wide berth, and the girls, realizing that they were about to witness an important event, had stopped at the top of the staircase and were watching the show.

Instead of approaching the problem slowly and deliberately as he had done before, I could hear him picking up speed and working the gears. Then miraculously, only a few feet from the staircase (he must have had a moment of doubt) I saw his brake light flicker. But too late – by now he was on the staircase and climbing.

Unlike his previous attempts when he kept the bike in first gear, this time he started his ascent in third. Alas, that was no good and the bike ran out of steam about halfway to the top. He was forced to downshift.

By the time he attempted to change gears, the bike was already going so slow that he was in danger of stalling. He only had a split second left. In his rush he tapped the gearshift, then immediately had to put his feet down to keep the bike upright. However, the shift was indecisive and he only succeeded in positioning the selector between third and second. Effectively the bike was now in neutral. Or, in reverse if you want.

There was no space to jump clear or turn around, and no time to attempt any number of other possibilities. Desperate to protect his brand new bike from damage, he got his right armpit over the banister and attempted to grab onto the supports. With his left hand on the handle bars and his body between the bike and the railing he was fighting feverishly to keep the bike from touching the metal.

Then he started to slide backwards. As the man and his machine were gathering speed towards the base of the staircase, his body was being folded in between the bike and the metal railing. All the while his ribcage was hitting the steel supports, making a sound not unlike a stick being pulled down an old fashioned washing board.

He did survive to get in even greater trouble later on in life, but for now he was in pain and that was all that mattered. The exhaust left a baseball-sized blister on his right knee (which healed relatively fast), but it took him several months to loose the technicolor bruises on his back and chest.

Somehow, he forgot all about the girls he wanted to impress, and he managed to restart his bike and take off. I did not see him for a week or so.

Did we learn from his misfortune? I wish I could say so, but we were young then and destined to learn the hard way.

Jan Tik

Jack, my Ass

2004-10-10T01:35:00.000-07:00

A little more than a decade ago, there was a talk show on South African TV, named after the two producers, Jan Spies and P.G. du Plessis. The show became famous by inviting a variety of unknown but often colorful characters to recount folklore and other stories from long, long ago.

One of these unlikely storytellers was an older gentleman, uncle Lourens Erasmus. Now obviously, here was a man with deep insights into the psyche of the donkey. For many years this was his only form of transportation and it was clear that he was intensely familiar with the topic. He even intended writing a book on the subject.

One day, on the way home from school…the African sun was hot, and both the rider and the donkey were tired and half-asleep…suddenly a pheasant took off from a raisin bush right next to them.

For those of you that know your pheasant, you will recall what an unearthly sound it makes when it takes off. Needless to say, by the time he woke up, the donkey was gone! He was still stretching out his arms to grab the animal by the neck, but was too late. (Actually, he reckoned he came a lot closer to catching the pheasant than to grabbing a hold of the donkey.)

The terrain was rocky and he came down hard. As he sat there, tending his wounds, he decided that he was going to kill himself an ass. That very day, still. In his fury, he wanted the biblical pleasure of formally stoning the animal to death.

At first he tried by throwing rocks at it, but all to no avail. Every time a stone would leave his hand, the donkey would move its head, and he would miss. A while later, after his efforts had removed most of the bark from the nearby trees, he realized that this plan would never work.

So he decided upon a different tactic. He proceeded to cut himself a nice knobkerrie* from a nearby tree, and he made an effort to befriend the animal. Soon he remounted the donkey and was on his way home again. He intended to wait until the donkey was asleep, then he would hit it with the stick just behind the ear, and finish the job once and for all.

As predicted, a few hundred yards further down the road the donkey was walking in its sleep. Slowly he reached behind his back, got a good grip on the club, and then brought it down with a sharp and decisive action; swinging the club over his head and carving it down towards the skull of the donkey.

What he did not know at the time was that a donkey could see though its ears. As he was aiming for the final deathblow and the kerrie was accelerating down its trajectory, the donkey spied his movement - and moved its head ever so slightly out of the way. As a result, the club missed its target and connected with his kneecap. That's when his lights went out.

According to uncle Lourens, it was through bitter personal experiences like this that he came to understand that the donkey was man’s superior. Trying to tame it was a futile affair: If you tried to lift its hoof, it would step on your foot. If you tried to harness it, you had to stop with the precision of an engineer - if you overshot the mark by two inches you had to lead the donkey around and repeat your whole approach, or you had to drag the wagon closer. No way you could get him to back up.

About donkeys, there was nothing you could teach him.

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* The word knobkerrie is originally from the Afikaans word “knopkierie” denoting a Zulu club with a knob on one end. The Zulus often used this instrument as a missile or for close combat.
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Trouble for Sale

2004-10-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

It was a nice Sunday morning, and I had just finished polishing my bike when my cousin showed up. He had heard about a great deal on a restored Austin Healy, and wouldn’t I be so kind as to give him a ride so that he could take a look at it? It was all prearranged, and the owner was expecting us.

Soon we were on the outskirts of Pretoria, and on a dirt road. Before long we arrived at our destination. I immediately saw the car - a mosquito with a V8: a beautiful red monster.

It was parked under a carport right next to a Harley Davidson. Obviously, whoever lived here had some taste! While I proceeded to appreciate all the metal, my cousin knocked on the front door, and was waiting for a response.

A woman opened the door, and evidently expecting us, she told us to go ahead and to take a look. The owner had just left to pick up some cigarettes and the Sunday newspaper. He would be back shortly.

Noticing the key in the ignition, my cousin enquired if we could start the car, and she said yes, although I might have seen a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. Don’t worry, he assured her. We would leave my bike as security, and were just going to run the car a short distance up the road.

I immediately objected to this idea, but he was already in the car and had it pulled out into the driveway. While we were getting into an argument, the woman had left to do something else.

Not knowing that she was actually calling for some help, I ascribed her disappearance to indifference, and I capitulated. Getting into the car, I cautioned my cousin to be exceedingly careful.

Slow it was – until we got out onto the dirt road and to the next crossroad, where we turned around. Then it all changed.

Instantly my cousin was transformed into something worse than a Hell’s Angel. While releasing some deep-seated primordial bellow, he floored it. You could feel the power of the beast.

Sudden apprehension had me by the throat. White-knuckling the door handle, and with my feet pushing dents into the floorboards, I tried to talk reason, but to no avail. We were hell-bent for leather and screaming down the road.

About halfway up the stretch, the car became light and it started to dance on the gravel. I could not speak anymore; my tongue was stuck somewhere between my tonsils. Surely, my cousin was aware of this sideways movement, and any moment now his foot was going to come unstuck from the throttle!

Regrettably, that was not to be, and our fate was sealed. I remember vaguely that we left the road, and seeing us heading for some barbed wire and an orange grove. Somehow a few neurons to my neck muscles were still responding, and I managed to pull in my head like a tortoise, just before the wire left me decapitated. (Remember, this was a sports scar with no top.)

Especially the trip through the orange grove was surreal. Trees jumped in our way at will, and through it all I could hear the engine revving like it was stuck in high gear.

Then we were out in the clear and heading for this enormous water tank. Surely, if we connected with the platform on which it stood we were dead on arrival.

But God had mercy. We struck the pump house right next to it.

We took the front wall out, and I remember the roof coming down on us. With the dust slowly settling I became aware of the deathly silence. Even the grasshoppers and the crickets were quiet and a great and solemn stillness ensued. It was so real you could touch it.

Then the moment was lost to the sound of people running.

I was remarkably unscathed. Except for a deep flesh wound on my right leg everything appeared to be in place. My cousin was not as lucky. He had nicely clipped the steering wheel in half with the bone between his eyebrows, and was slow in waking up.

With the help of some bystanders I managed to free him from the remains of the car and the pump house, while I was trying hard to explain to them what had happened. Someone went to call the police, and I realized that it was going to take a lot more than talking to get us out of this one.

Everyone present seemed to know the owner of the car we had just wrecked. They spoke in hushed tones about the guy. From all accounts he was a big and violent man, and not someone to toy with. There was some talk about the odds of us actually managing to escape with our lives.

Those words were barely cold, when the hulk arrived, clearly with great urgency.

My cousin decided to be brave, and started to approach the owner with an outstretched hand, loudly admitting our guilt and promising that we would pay for every cent of the damage.

Without saying a single word, the man chopped my cousin a good one, landing exactly on the spot where he had previously connected with the steering wheel. He went down like a bag of potatoes, and I was next.

This was no time for bravery, so I let go of all pretenses and I ran for the shelter under the water tank. Thor was still trying to flush me out from there when the cops arrived, and without shame I loudly hollered for protection.

Since the local cops apparently knew the owner it quickly became clear that safety was only a relative concept. However, after I mentioned that the local police chief was our neighbor, they allowed us one phone call and decided to lock us up instead.

We could already see the gates of prison when the message came that we were to be released. I think the cops were as surprised as we were. Subsequently, the courts cleared us of the charge of car theft. With my cousin promising to make full amends, we were also found innocent on all other counts.

Somehow, these developments must have given him the idea that he could get away with it all, and soon he moved to some one-horse outfit in Namibia - never to be heard from again.

That is where they found him a few years later and impounded all his earthly possessions. According to his own account, at one stage it was not clear if they would let him keep his underwear.

Jan Tik

African Lotto

2004-10-09T01:17:00.000-07:00

Brain Farts and Donkey Bridges

2004-10-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

A great deal of background understanding is often required to successfully convey the original flavor and meaning of a story from another tribe. Without the vibe, much is lost.

On the other hand, it is the unexpected twists and turns that give most tales their appeal. This much seems to be common across all cultures. It is the capability of the human mind to spot the strange and the unconventional that makes the difference.

Most of us appreciate this kind of warped thinking – as long as it is harmless. Unlike the person¹ who became so upset in church that he jumped up and publicly protested his innocence, we seem to know where to draw the line between what is real and what not.

Or do we?

The Cul-de-Sac Conundrum

There is a class of problems that cannot be solved by looking at the facts alone. Often there is insufficient data, some crucial details are missing, there are too many variables to consider, or the system is dynamic and we do not have an adequate understanding to model its behavior. Unfortunately for us, most human problems are of this nature.

Simple multiplication gives us a good example. Although it’s a tedious exercise, most people will be able to multiply 167285276699 by 19965746109787 without the help of a calculator. However, if presented by the problem to split up the number 3339975362477701126953113 into its prime factors, everyone is toast. There simply is no easy way to do so.

Everything we know about securely doing business on the Internet is built around the irreversible nature of this problem. Worldwide we are literally entrusting billions of dollars in transactions to the RSA encryption algorithms used on the web, algorithms which are based upon the non-reversibility of multiplication. Even the US government is in on this one, and uses several methods based upon this same principle to encrypt their classified stuff.²

There is a dirty little secret, though. Until now, no one has been able to prove that no solution for this factorization problem would ever be found. In other words, we are entrusting a large part of our economy, plus our national security, to methods that can at best be presumed safe. No wonder polls show that more than 76% of Americans are religious.³

How we Cope with Reality

Is this a significant oversight? Well it depends.

Very few world governments truly considered large-scale terrorism imminent until 9/11, while it took the threat of SARS to initiate a period of unparalleled cooperation between many different nations.

Risk is a strange animal. As long as we can consider our chances statistically, very few people will have a problem with the fact that airplanes fall or that bad things happen. Under risk of catastrophe we have traditionally bundled things such as earthquakes and hurricanes, but totally ignored the unthinkable such as terrorist acts, total system failures, or major environmental disasters.

Those things happen to other people, not to us. When it becomes clear that we are next, our mindset changes significantly and we tend to take immediate action. The story about the guy who misunderstood the sermon as a personal attack appeals to our sense of humor when we hear it for the first time. However, the joke’s off when our own future is at stake.

As these examples indicate, we are selective in what we consider important enough to warrant our attention. Living in a reality that contains more variables than we can possibly consider, we are forced to judge and to choose based upon insufficient data. It comes with the territory.

Deliberation and Learning

Although we have no choice in the matter, we are built for this. Our brains have an uncanny ability to make sense of our surroundings, and to act upon insufficient data. Foremost amongst our survival traits, is our ability to panic and to flee.

But whereas animals and even insects can learn through simple association, humans routinely take this ability a whole lot further. Almost effortlessly, we can construct links between existing knowledge and new information, resulting in the new data being remembered much easier. No wonder the Internet has been such a success – it has been a natural extension of how our brains work anyway.

Beyond learning, in humans the novel association of concepts in new and fresh ways also leads to humor and to creativity. These emerging properties of the human mind are what make us so different from our tree-bound relatives.

Logic and Faith

We trend to do things a bit differently when it comes to “real” life, where we have to judge and choose based on incomplete evidence and rely on our limited insight and reasoning ability. Here things are much more serious, and we do not find fresh thinking nearly as appealing as in environments conducive to comedy, art or learning.

Sure, we invite new theory - subject to peer review (in the sciences), or from people we trust (in business) – but credibility is everything. It takes a long time to build, and it can be very quickly lost. Once your credibility is shot, you can forget any future contributions to the human race. Then you will have to take your rightful place amongst the sinners and the outcasts of modern society.

The Need for a New Kind of Business Intelligence

But here’s the rub: Just like the pilots of Spaceship One, we have to fly without knowing if it’s truly safe to do so. That is the paradox we are all faced with – it is dangerous to be alive. After all, one could perish.

The same thing applies to business. We have to plan and act, even though we are unsure if our strategies will get us where we hope we are going. For that very reason, some have developed tools⁴ to help us measure and correct our flight paths as we go.

But one thing still appears missing from most of our modern business landscape – the ability to be self-critical. Maybe that is why so many Martha Stewarts and Kenneth Lays land in hot water. It is highly unlikely that they are so much worse than the rest of us; they are just the few who got caught. (Be careful now, before you pick up that stone...)

Wisdom is hard won. Private as well as business knowledge comes at a price. And it takes us a long time to sort out what is important and what not. Maybe that is why we find it so hard to consider unfamiliar options.

As global change accelerates, so the need increases to find alternate ways to do business. But we are hampered by our very nature, and are loath to consider stuff that question and contradict our own set of beliefs. Not that long ago our society thrived through the banding together of the like-minded, while we enslaved others.

Today it is well understood that we can actually make more money if we hire people of diverse cultures and backgrounds. Business is global, so this physical diversity is helpful. It also brings diverse opinions and modes of thinking. Some of which we are not always at ease with.

If only they knew. If business would have paid some attention to such thoughts and insights they could have made some serious money. There would have been no large Internet brokers if Merrill Lynch was not asleep at the wheel, neither would Kodak have taken so long to embrace digital photography. And Xerox…mercy…will there ever be any hope? At least, IBM belatedly understood when it embraced the Open Source movement. But will the entertainment industry ever comprehend that it is setting itself up for failure by threatening it’s own clients?

As Christensen⁵ has shown, in spite of our best efforts (often because of our best efforts) we fail to see the disruptive innovations that could harm our business. Maybe its time that we appoint a few people to ask those questions we always seem to fail to ask ourselves. To stir up the pot: The hoi polloi versus the subject matter experts.

The same kind of thinking that makes us laugh is what we are so desperately in need of today. It is time that we reappoint the court jester – to the Corporate Strategy Team. And we need to find ways to really mine the creativity of our employees.

The answer has been working for us - but it knows that it’s still unsafe to speak. When our employees are finally able to tell us what’s on their minds, no matter how strange that might sound - only then we will be able to compete in the business of tomorrow.

----------

Notes:

This is apparently a true story. During this particular sermon the minister was talking about the sinful nature of man, when it all became too much for the poor gentleman. He jumped up, accused the cleric of talking about him, grabbed his coat and left.
Just for the record, large numbers can be factored. It is only because our current methods are so crude that we basically have to run through all the possible combinations in order to unlock the keys. Therefore, by arbitrarily adjusting the size of the keys, we can assure that our secrets stay safe longer. Even for the fastest computers we have today, it is quite easy to present them with a problem that will take them 20 years, or more, to figure out!
According to the American Religious Identity Survey (ARIS) conducted in 2001, with a sample size of 50,000 Americans.
For Instance, the Balanced Scorecard – developed by Kaplan and Norton
Clayton Christensen: The Innovator’s Dilemma.

Jan Tik

Fish Teef

2004-10-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

Most people were poor then, and every penny was squeezed hard before it was spent. I recall grandma complaining that her dentures were so used up that she had to chew them with her food. Still, she could not afford a new set.

Today was a beautiful morning off the coast of Blombos, close to Jongensfontein, and not far from the incident relating to the anchor. The fish were biting, and boats were coming in from Stilbaai and Puntjie. Pretty soon, the ocean was busy with activity. On a good day like this, even the inexperienced could make a little money off their catch. At the very least you’d save some on your food bill.

On one of the boats, a bunch of vacationers were out fishing with hand-lines and the action was brisk. One of the guys on the boat had a new set of dentures that had been bothering him, so he took them out and stuffed them in his shirt pocket. Later that morning, as he was leaning over to snare another catch, his teeth fell out and disappeared under the water.

This did not go unnoticed and soon a great deal of good-natured bantering ensued. At that moment, one of the would-be fishermen decided to play a trick on the unfortunate fellow. Gutting the next catch, he took his own set of teeth and swiped it through the fish’s intestines, and then presented the result to the toothless wonder: Lo and behold, the missing dentures - soiled, but intact!

As could be expected, this created quite a stir. After all, what would the chances be of such a coincidence? At the very least, the story was going to make the local paper.

Old rabbitmouth** could not believe his luck, and as he was loudly proclaiming his good fortune, he proceeded to wash the enamel substitute in seawater and promptly put it back in his mouth.

Just then he realized that the dentures would not fit. He turned green at the thought. Who knows, he could be mouthing some unknown skeletal remains from the bottom of the ocean!

Like in slow motion he removed the set, looked at it and said: “Hell no, this ain’t my teeth!” And with obvious disgust he threw it overboard.

----------
** Afrikaans: "Haasbek" - someone with only a few teeth.

Jan Tik
Source: Dawid Kruger Jr.

Anchors Away

2004-10-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

According to those who were present, there was this party coming from somewhere in the Transvaal*. No one seemed to know them, but for this vacation they decided to show up in Stilbaai.

Full of bravado, and not very sensitive to the feelings of the locals, the leader of the pack had something to show. He continuously paraded up and down the few streets with his enormous boat and the best equipment money could buy.

Now the old-timers had to compete against this baboon with a reel. Soon he was following the local fishing boats to the best fishing spots. Once there, the newcomers would turn up the music and proceeded to have a jolly good time - rapidly upsetting everyone else’s sense of respectability and often chasing the fish away.

Then one fine day the fish was running strong just outside the harbor. Since the swell was quite formidable, most folks decided to wait it out rather than risk their boats. The new troupe had other ideas though, and dropped their anchor in a strategic spot.

By now a whole crowd had congregated on the harbor wall. After the visitors caught more fish than they could possibly handle, they finally decided to call it quits. However, it soon became apparent that their anchor was stuck. The easy solution was to cut the line and lose the anchor, but ostensibly this was too much to bear. So a mighty struggle ensued.

After an hour or so, the owner of the boat became desperate enough to consider the unconventional. Between swells, he wound the line to the anchor around a rope hook, as tight as he could, apparently expecting the buoyancy of the boat to pull them loose.

That is where it all ended. A few seconds later the crew came into sight, swimming for their lives. Unfortunately all survived.

On a positive note – they packed up and were never seen again.

--------------

* The Transvaal was established in 1910 as one of the provinces of South Africa. In 1994 it ceased to exist as its territory was split up between the provinces of Gauteng, North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.

Jan Tik
Source: Dawid Kruger Jr.

The First Time I Went to the Dentist

2004-10-07T01:30:00.000-07:00

(A loose translation of a story told by Tolla van der Merwe)

This happened quite a few years ago. In those days dentists still had glass injectors, which they filled with poison to put you under.

Our folks had such a struggle just to survive then that they could not pay much attention to one's teeth. By the time you finally made it to the dentist, a few were in such a state that you had to have them pulled.

I finally showed up at this dentist. I was afraid, but one could not afford to show it. As I walked in the door to the waiting room, I saw that the whole place was full of people reading magazines. So I also took one from 1957 (if my memory serves me right), but I saw nothing - I was just paging through it.

In the background I could hear a child scream something terrible. The woman next to me said they must have struck a raw nerve, and I thought to myself: Lord, what is going to happen to me?

In my discomfort I moved a little, and the chair gave a funny creak...the kind of noise that causes everyone look at you. I tried to move again to repeat the noise - so that the people should know that the creaking came from the chair, and not from me - but to no avail. It would not do it again.

Later, someone called me. I closed the magazine and I put it down, not knowing on which page I was. As I walked in (they even politely kept the door open), I noticed the pretty young nurse in a miniskirt, and I sat down.

Here above me, it almost looked like a satellite launch pad with all the tongs, the bent arms, the drilling equipment and other pointy things. I have to tell you, I might be shy, but now I was truly terrified.

Just as I sat down, the dentist stepped on something and the chair fell backwards with such a force that my mouth opened by itself. He turned his back on me, but I saw him filling the plunger with poison (the thing has a syringe the size of my little finger). As he squeezed the air out a few drops of the toxin escaped.

Then he said: "Open your mouth as wide as you can."

I opened my mouth...just far enough that I didn’t open it all the way. Then he dove into my mouth with his syringe and he tried to find a place where he could zap me. At first he got it wrong, and I felt him striking a root. The needle bent, but I said nothing, because I was brave (and the nurse pretty).

He squeezed this venom until I could feel it running down my gums. Then he pulled out the bent syringe to attach a better one, this one the size of my middle finger. He stuck this in a little bottle with a rubber hole and he filled the spout, and blew out the air. This time he meant it!

He speared me under the tongue, and then I felt it: Ohhh ... I almost said it...

At that very moment he struck a gland, and as he injected it, I could feel this merciful numbness... Then, here in the back he hit a tonsil or a thing... (It feels as if they never want to take the needle out, they just keep on turning it!)

Once he injected this tonsil, that's when I realized I had a stroke, because half of me fell asleep and I felt my arm slipping.

Finally he pulled out the syringe, and now he started talking to me as if he had known me for years... He even asked how it was going at home...

"No mpfh hjdss allright man"... was the best I could do. With this piece of lip hanging down, it was like talking with someone else's mouth.

Then the nurse came with a shiny little dish full of pliers and they started working here in my mouth. I had to listen to all this, so I closed my eyes, and handed myself over to the mercy of the Lord.

You could hear the tooth popping. He even said, "What an ugly sucker!" Then it broke loose. I could feel my jaw give...and "Ping" it fell in a bucket

Now I started recovering fast because I knew it was over.

Here came the nurse with a silver can - it almost looks like miniature bed pan – and she held this thing next to my mouth and said: "Spit Uncle..."

I was already miffed that she called me "Uncle", but somehow I still wanted to spit with dignity... So I let go, "Pffft", but too polite - it ended up in my beard. (Life can be so bitter!) Anyway, she wiped it up and said, "Try again, sir..."

Then I fixed my mind on it - this time I was going to get it right! So I ratcheted it up a notch and threw again: "Ffflep"... right on her chest. She kept her pose and wiped it off, but I was so ashamed…

I closed my eyes...then they pressed a piece of cotton in the cavity and they told me I was done.

As I got ready to go, I was planning to light up a cigarette while walking though the crowd in the waiting room, but the cigarette was stubborn, and I could not find my mouth. By the time I reached the car I decided to settle for a piece of gum instead. Now I was in a hurry just to get home and I was chewing the gum... then the cotton... then my tongue...

With all this I must have sped up, because all of a sudden this cop jumped out from nowhere. He walked up to the window to tell me that I have been driving too fast.

"Damn, I can vvvragag not brtfd…” - I tried to explain…

That's when he said, “Sir, it looks like we have a problem. Please step out of the car and come blow in this thing."

"Vait... hdsjkagd kjbkasd jkh", I tried again.

Then he said, "And you have been in a fight as well - look how your mouth is bleeding!"
.

Tender-Hearted Neelsie

2004-10-06T22:39:00.000-07:00

A Few of His Words

"Half of you (the South African Parliament) are a bunch of donkeys." Upon the demand that he retracts or be censured, he replied: "I stand corrected. Half of you are not a bunch of donkeys."

God made the world like a knife. We have the choice to take it by the handle or the blade.

Don't listen to a man who says we have to work together as a team. He means we have to work as he says.

There are dogs that only have to growl. They have already proved that they can bite.

Some parents warn their kids, but never get so far as to actually punish them. It would be better if they just gave their kids permission to do wrong.

Avoid being a bad fighter - it is bad enough that you got into the fight in the first place. If you lose, then the at least you should be proud of the way that you have conducted yourself. If you win, then do it in such a way that you will not have the same trouble tomorrow.

There are people who are so cautious that they are careful not to waste their fear.

To tell untruths is like hiding in a house with no back door.

We all take good care of our health after we had damaged it beyond repair.

It takes a well-practiced thinker to keep his own opinion in check.

It does not help to have your oxen die from the thirst while you debate over which road will get you to the waterhole first.

You have the right to be a coward regarding your own stuff. You have no right to be a coward regarding someone else's - it is not yours to give up.
Being right in an argument usually has a negative profit.

Always look men in the eye: your father was also a man; but take your hat off for women, because your mother was a woman.

Perform good work, even to those who do not care. The man who cares will see it and order something from you.

It does not mean much to be important. The most important man at a burial is dead.
Your eyes are open, unless you shut them. Your mouth is closed unless you open it. Nothing is ever said, unless you said it on purpose.

For every happy tongue, there are many unhappy ears.

Be careful if you mix friendship and business. You might ruin both.

To test a man, determine how much it takes to make him lie.

Yes is like credit, No is like cash.

Be kind to your enemy. Even if he is wrong, he has the right to differ from you.

It could be disastrous to speak your mind while you are deep in thought.

People who do not like to work like to keep others from their work.

Don’t come to someone with an argument. He might think you always look like that.

Before you envy my shining shoes, take a moment to think about the bunions that they cover up.

Plow the rocky soil yourself, and let your servant plow where the dirt is soft. This way you will retain them both.

Many people better than you and me have been here before us. After they have died we have somehow managed to survive.

One time I have decided to be straightforward and to tell everyone exactly what I thought. I quickly changed my mind when my neighbors started doing the same thing to me.
On his gravestone: "Do not analyze my strengths and my weaknesses. God will do that much better.". (Liberal Translation).

More Information on C.J. Langenhoven

Mark Twain

2004-10-06T19:28:00.000-07:00

Selected Quotes

When in doubt, tell the truth.
France has neither winter nor summer nor morals - apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.
For the majority of us, the past is a regret, the future an experiment.
In God We Trust. I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
Travel has no longer any charm for me. I have seen all the foreign countries I want to except heaven and hell, and I have only a vague curiosity about one of those.
We may not doubt that society in heaven consists mainly of undesirable persons.
As a rule, we go about with masks, we go about looking honest, and we are able to conceal ourselves all through the day.
The human race consists of the dangerously insane and such as are not.
Humor is the good natured side of a truth.
The man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds.
The fact is the human race is not only slow about borrowing valuable ideas- it sometimes persists in not borrowing them at all.
You can't depend on your judgement when your imagination is out of focus.
The greatest of all inventors is called Accident.
Grief can take care of itself, but to get full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Man is a figment of God's imagination.
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
Man is a Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute.
Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.
All of us contain Music and Truth, but most of us can't get it out.
It was not best that we would all think alike; it is the difference of opinion that makes horse races.
All good things arrive unto them that wait - and don't die in the meantime.
Man is kind enough when he is not excited by religion.
A scientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not start himself.
The first time I ever saw St. Louis, I could have bought it for six million dollars, and it was the mistake of my life that I did not do it.
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be led by the nose.
It is wiser to find out than suppose.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
I do not like work even when someone else does it.
We write frankly and fearlessly but then we "modify" before we print.
We ought never to do wrong when people are looking.
The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

More about Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Children of The Wind

2004-10-06T13:19:00.000-07:00

From the Afrikaans poem “Kinders van die Wind”
by Koos du Plessis.

I know an age-old song
about life’s joys and woes;
about shipwrecks long gone
to the cellars of the sea.

The words are lost forever
but still, the tune persists —
like a dimly recalled image
from a very old folk tale.

Visions, dreams, and names,
have been scattered by the wind
and where all the words went
only a child could see.

Nomads, with no direction;
Seekers that never find…
In the end, we are all just
children of the wind.

Jan Tik

2004-10-06T08:40:00.000-07:00

Jan tik
Jan tak
Jan hawersak
Jan vinger in die mond
Jan suikerklont

--- Afrikaans rhyme of unknown origin.