Hooray

He won!
Watching the news unfold at the Australian Labor Party's HQ with colleagues. McCain has just conceded graciously, now we're waiting for Barack to speak in Chicago.
Needless to say, we haven't done much work today (luckily most of the bosses were out).

For a laugh, Moby had a rather humorous post recently wondering where right-wing Republicans could emigrate to if Obama won. He concludes that Oklahoma, Iran or Saudi Arabia seems the only solace for them.

streams of conscience

13 october 2008
streams of conscience/
stream of consciousness

Blah
I’m at home. Sick. On the couch. It’s windy and overcast outside. My body mimics the conditions inside. So I’ll take a break from work for a day (it was only a half-day in any case) and sleep, recoup and maybe write something. I felt it coming on for the last 3 days - a dry cough, general dis-ease and a need to relax. As always its timing couldn’t be worse - I’m off to Brisbane on Saturday for mixed nats.

Borndays
It was my birthday last week. Julie says Bornday. It was a good day. On my way to work I passed some cyclists on the cycle path. One of them said “Good morning Gareth.” It was Jess, a frisbee friend, who recognised me as we sped past each other. Starting to feel like I belong a bit more here in Canberra.

At work over lunch I was asked how old I was.
‘26’ was my reply.
Boss Barry recalled where he was at 26, and was frightened at the recollection.
‘I wish I was as wise as you when I was 26’ he remarked.
What a graceful statement. Hmm… yes. Thank you.

Again, at frisbee training that night, I was seen. Larissa saw my birthday on the afda website and brought honey cakes and rum balls for after training. I don’t like being the centre of attention. I like being the centre of attention.

Internet grace
Facebook is not something I’ve spent much time on lately, but last week I was thankful for it, and the way it reminds me of my full life. Friday morning I read through my facebook happy birthday messages. From close friends and distant faces.
Thank you, thank you.

Skype joined in on the internet birthday grace on Thursday. I spoke to 5 of my 6 family members. Parents and sisters are all well in Jo’burg. Mom sold 5 paintings at a recent figure studies exhibition in Melville. There were a few hundred people at the opening. And as a naked man.

[Naked man
‘There’s a naked man here!’ Tash shrieked to my parents.
He was naked, and clothed.
He had been body-painted. Tiger stripes on his upper body. Grass over his belly button. Olive green legs. Some men were shocked. A (conservative?) Afrikaans man captured it perfectly:
‘Daar’s a tier in die kamer, en ‘n slang in die gras’
‘There’s a tiger in the room and a snake in the grass’

I laughed!
I finished working at Fox Antiques on Friday. Having our beer at 5 after work we spoke of nakedness again. Barry sharing stories of co-ed saunas in Holland, topless beaches in Germany and Australian prudishness]

Family (ctnd)
Bronwen got a new job teaching reception class. Vicki is waiting for Uni to start. Jane is in Cape Town getting ready to lead a DTS. Dad told me that derth is spelled with an ‘a’. Dearth. I laughed.
I hung up with them at 11pm, warmed by the conversation. As if by grace Matthew came online from London, so we spoke for almost an hour.

Mat
is almost finished his London adventure. Told stories of Slovenia, poker and my aunt. I said he must add the Lake Districts to his Scotland trip in a few weeks. I miss him. There’s a photo of him and Gra mooning the camera, jumping into some lake in Slovenia!

Blogging
is rather taxing on me. I find myself thinking about what I should write, the opening line that will draw people in, and show off my deft use of language. As with many of my well intentioned ideas, I never get around to it. I have 5 unfinished posts in my drafts folder. If I wait long enough they will be so outdated that I’ll delete them. And delete the minutes they filled up running around in my head. For nothing. Making me agitated.

But then, sometimes, I’m sick in bed, and I write. Freely. Mostly.
I still try to show off (is any writing completely devoid of ego?).
I still censor. That’s okay. I’ll keep trying.

Julie
is beautiful.
Studying for her UNISA exam today. She’s next to me on the couch:

‘G. Guess what’
‘What?’
‘Women work 65% of the world's working hours. And guess how much of the worlds salaries they get paid?’
‘20%?’
‘No, 10%
And they own less than 1% of the worlds assets.’

The exam is on Theological Ethics: Human rights, values and social transformation. At the SA High Commission at 2 today. It’s a big white Cape-Dutch style house near to Parliament here in Canberra. I’ve been there once. They weren’t very helpful.

stream of consciousness
and conscience
to get out all the half-post I’ve been thinking about over the last weeks. I should try it again.

What else is there to say?
started a garden
got a black eye from a frisbee
got some good wine from Adrian & dad
saw Utopia: the Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye yesterday. Profound artist and messenger. What is the message?

This week
No more Fox antiques. 3 days with the ALP IP, 2 days with the ACC&C. Make that 1 day with the ACC&C - today I’m off sick.
I stopped working at Fox on Friday. The ALP wanted more days from me, and the work was too tiring.

I’ll miss:
the sweet smell of the wax we polish the antiques with,
the casual banter in the workroom,
the lunches out on the pavement in the sun opposite the Belgian Beer place.
I won’t miss:
the dirty dish-clothes
the heavy lifting.

Global economic crisis.
Crap.
I’ve not paid it much attention. (still have to study my Masters of Development Economics)
But I read this article today. It helped to outline what’s going on, and why this could well be the end of the current economic system as we know it. That’s a good thing - in my mind. However, as usual, the poor will feel it first and worst.

One last stream:

Clergy Gentrification
(what!?)
I heard about it at last weeks’ conference. Which went very well by the way. Maybe I’ll write about it. Or, more likely, I’ll plan to write about it. Work out some sentences, and then not write.
Back to the clergy and how they are like buildings.
Clergy are well educated, get a salary, their children then go to school, go to university and get an office job. After a generation or two you have a wealthy, educated clergy of and for the bourgeoisie, the status quo, those in power… with no connection to the working class any more.

Just a thought.

That’s maybe why liberation theology (take the text back to the poor and let them interpret it) and feminist theology (reading from the margins and the underside) make sense to me. Me - someone with no natural connection to the working class, though trying to follow/understand a Jesus of the poor?

End

I
am okay.
and happy.
and am not a poet.
(yet?)

Thankful for all the streams that have made, fed and changed me.
Got to take Julie to the High Com to write.
Okay bye.

Shameful dark days in South Africa

UPDATE: My friend Jo has just put together a moving video of the Cape Town situation, where things are still desperate and relief needed. If you are on facebook, watch it here.

cartoon © JONATHAN SHAPIRO. 26-5-2008

Man, SA is in a strange place. Crazy-ness has been going on here lately - horrible xenophobic violence, looting, raping and killing. It started in Alex (Jo'burg) two weeks ago, and reached Cape Town on Thursday. On Friday the air in CT was really tense, and we were worried about the safety of friends in the townships. Not fun at all! Jules and I had our farewell party on Friday night and it was hard for anyone to be really present knowing what was going on around us.

I’m sure people are trying to work out what went wrong and why SA (the 'rainbow nation') is so anti-foreigners. One of my surmises is that it is not really xenophobia, but systemic injustice. You can’t stand on people for so long without them getting angry. Scholars will talk about Gini coefficients and economic policies and crab-bucket syndrome, but, in plain talk, the poor had had enough of the poverty and unemployment levels here and were expressing their anger. (The interest rate hikes, huge food & petrol price increases and Eskom woes all contributing) Unfortunately the scapegoats were fellow poor people, who just happen to be born North of our borders, and their manner of expression was violent and destructive.

So, South Africa erupted, and we had some of our darkest days since Apartheid. Although xenophobic violence is not new to SA, something somewhere has tripped, and this was on a different scale. My question though is - once we have patched up this eruption, will there be structural change and action from government and the ‘haves’ to ensure the root causes are dealt with, or will we just wait for the next crisis? And, if things don’t change, who will be the recipients of the anger this time? Will it be the real creators and benefactors of the status quo - privileged whites? You and me?

I’ve been offline for a bit (reasons to follow on the blog) so I followed these developments via word of mouth, radio and newspapers. Today I was able to scour the net and read some of the online and international commentary on what actually happened, and how multi-faceted the issues are. If you want a brief synopsis of what happened, here are three helpful articles with background, commentary and interviews:

M&G - Hunted by gangs, migrants flee flames.
BBC - Tensions erupt in city of promise. (Joburg)
M&G - Is this the end of the rainbow nation?

And for those of us in SA, the problems aren’t over. 45 000 displaced foreigners is not an easy task to deal with, nor are the sights and stories at the community centres and churches where those chased out are gathered. It is good to hear some stories of communities reaching out. I was especially glad to hear of the apology at Masiphumelele, where the community has asked the foreigners to come back, and are going around returning the looted items. Maybe there is still some rainbow here in our nation, barely visible shining through the dark clouds?

Hunger. Strikes. Riots. The food crisis bites!

Crap! This little planet is in for some rough times ahead. Here's a well written and researched article on the looming food crisis (seems to be all over the press here). The crisis has already sparked violent protests and riots in 10 countries. In SA we've felt an increase in the price of basic foodstuffs and the chances are it's going to get worse. Last year's price fixing scandal with the 3 main bread companies didn't help either.

The Crisis' two main culprits? Bio-fuels and Climate change. The supporting acts? The oil price, weakening markets, the palm oil crisis and China's burgeoning new middle class.
The victim? As always, the poor & Africa.

More breaking news: the World Bank president estimated yesterday that increasing food prices will push 100 million people deeper into poverty. Crap!

Budget time!

Tomorrow the SA finance minister (lets call him "Trev") is giving his budget speech outlining the midterm budget and econimic forecasts for the next three years. Many people will be listening to see what impact the allocations and changes will have on their bond repayments and investments. Nothing wrong with that. However, for the last few years, there has been another budget speech - the People Budget Campaign. The PBC is a coalition of the SACC, COSATU and SANGOCO (SA NGO coalition). These three groups, representing a huge swath of the SA working population, get together throughout the year and work on the PBC. I encountered some of this work while at the SACC, and found it most worthwhile. Trev and his economic gurus look at the national budget from the point of view of the government and big business, while the PBC looks at it from the point of view of the people on the street. Good idea! They were the folks who created and have been spearheading the Basic Income Grant movement here in SA, and continually call for a fiscal policy that takes job creation and welfare seriously. Our current macro economic policy, along the lines of the Washington consensus, grows the economy but does nothing for the unemployment crisis that SA faces.
(See all the new finance language I learnt at the SACC ;). See their 2007 input here)

Anyways, the People’s Budget Campaign said their thing today, in anticipation of Trev’s talk tomorrow, and they made some headlines. Hooray for the PBC. Now to hear what Trev says. He has made some mention of ‘greening the budget’ and must have a word to say on the Eskom power issue. We shall see. Who will be happier - international investors and big business, or local South Africans?

Lookin' good for Jesus

This story - Jesus' cosmetic row in Singapore - got me chuckling. How about a "Virtuous vanilla" lip balm or a "Get Tight with Christ" hand and body cream? We all use Jesus for marketing (think church capital projects, Christmas and Easter), but for some reason the local Roman Catholic Christians thought this was taking it too far. What a crazy world we live in! Kudos to Blue Q who thought up these products, they even got the blonde, blue eyed Jesus spot on!

oh no x2!

actors shot dead on set by Angolan police.

oh no, oh no! I don’t know whether to cry, gasp, laugh or just stand here in disbelief. this is like something out of those sick horror comedy movies, but only in real life. I guess the positive is that Angola is ready for any terrorism activity, but still… is this story real?!? what a crazy colourful world we live in.

Oh no! Bad news bear.

No, I’m not talking about this bad news bear, but rather the bad news that Terry Pratchett has Alzheimers. I’m a huge fan of the Discworld series (trying to collect them all), and am actually currently reading Good Omens which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman. Pratchett’s humour, satire and insights into the peculiarities of human nature always keep me entertained. This is terrible news, and I’m sure all the Discworld fans will be sad.

With his usual humour, Pratchett has said
“PS ... This should be interpreted as 'I am not dead'. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else.”

If you haven’t come across the series (shame on you!) you really should try find one at a bookstore and get hooked. The series starts with The Light Fantastic, and The Colour of Magic, but you can jump in anywhere in the 30+ books. For those of you with theological inclinations, Small Gods is fantastic and spot on in some senses. Unfortunately you won’t find many books at second hand stores as fans don’t seem to let the books go, so it will have to be a full price investment!

Here's a map of the disc if you want to see what it's all about: