Want to know why YOU are being inconvenienced by power cuts?
Posted on December 11th, 2007 by Richard Catto 2,236 views
I’ll tell you why – rich whiteys who don’t give a fuck!
While driving through rich whitey neighbourhoods in Cape Town, I’ve seen the new imported American trend of decorating your entire house with fairy lights for Christmas has taken over. Whole streets are now competing with each other to see how fast they can drain the national power grid of all available power.
None of these rich white arseholes give a fuck that South Africa is struggling to provide power to meet all our needs. As long as their house is ablaze in a shower of colour, the rest of the country can just go fuck itself.
Why is it that so many white arseholes in South Africa struggle to come to grips with the idea that we are a Third World country and that they should act accordingly and try to conserve as much energy as possible?
Live down, whitey. Don’t live it up.
Tags: punks of south africa
Filed under rich whiteys | 28 Comments »
A worldwide crisis – income disparity – a letter from a Zimbabwean
Posted on December 11th, 2007 by Richard Catto 1,766 views
I love getting emails from my readers and a couple of days ago I received a rather lengthy one from Crosby, a Zimbabwean staying in London, who expressed his enjoyment of my blog articles. Here is a quote from his email:
Most white and black people still live parallel lives more than a decade after the end of Apartheid. Considering that the majority of black people live in poverty while their white counterparts enjoy relative prosperity. That is wrong and the importance of interaction between black and white people cannot be over-emphasised. A hungry man is an angry man and this interaction will hopefully help prevent a surprise scenario where one day the level of anger and resentment felt by the majority of blacks one day spills to the surface.
I agree with those sentiments. Income disparity is something which is on my mind often. I believe the chief reason why the gulf opens between the wealthy and the poor has much to do with ENTRY BARRIERS to the economy. For instance, trading in the property market is an excellent way to become wealthy. Buying, selling, improving and renting out property makes many people very rich. The problem is that to enter the property market is extremely difficult for most people, the world over, because property is so expensive, and few affordable opportunities exist. So for a person without the capital stake to begin with, they have to be able to qualify for a mortgage, and that is out of the reach of most people. Most people cannot afford to own property. The people who really benefit are those that can buy property for cash, improve it and sell it within 5 years for massive profit. Some of them then purchase land and build shopping malls and make absolute fortunes. But those who cannot afford to own even the smallest property are kept locked out and in poverty. This is a problem in every country and I believe it is the cause of enormous frustration.
When the farm seizures started happening in Zimbabwe I was completely shocked by the level of anger felt by my disenfranchised fellow citizens, and I’m black. Imagine how much more of a shock this was for the white Zimbabweans.
I wasn’t shocked. Rich white people are hated in Africa. They love their wealth so much. They love it more than life itself.
In addition I think that to further encourage this interaction, everyone (black, white, Zulu, Xhosa – everyone) should learn at least one vernacular language (that means an additional local language for the black people other than their own). Speaking another person’s language tears down social and racial boundaries like you would not believe. It says "I am one of you". You can ask any white farmer/supervisor/manager who works with black employees for proof of this.
I agree, yet in South Africa it remains compulsory to learn Afrikaans at school to graduate. I don’t know why we haven’t changed that to allow people to choose English and any one of the other 11 official languages to study.
I have a lot of respect for the way you see racism in South Africa and I think you are a brilliant impartial social observer. I therefore think that I speak for many of your readers if I suggest that you run for Member of Parliament or Mayor of Cape Town – whatever takes your fancy.
Haha. Politics is not for me. I’ll stick to writing. 
Thank you for writing in, Crosby. I appreciate the time you took.
Tags: Afrikaans, barriers to entry, Income Disparity, property, Racism, reader's letters, wealth, Zimbabwe
Filed under Income Disparity, Reader's feedback, Zimbabwe | 4 Comments »
Bloggers need legal protection
Posted on December 10th, 2007 by Richard Catto 1,452 views
I was just having a conversation about blogging with a Facebook friend who I met more than a year ago on OkCupid.
She’s a teacher (outside of South Africa) and because of her profession, she told me, she feels she has to be circumspect in what she writes about in public. She told me that if she "had ANY OTHER JOB it would probably be acceptable."
So nevermind journalists who get fired for blogging about their screwed up working conditions, it’s practically EVERYONE who has gotten the message that if they blog about something their employer doesn’t like, they could get fired.
THIS HAS GOT TO FUCKING STOP!!!
What is the fucking point of having Freedom of Speech if citizens are not legally protected by their governments from their Evil Employers from censuring them using the threat of financial ruin? How can a blogger freely blog with the Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads?
The question really revolves around the scope of the protection offered.
So what do you think should be protected and what should not be?
Tags: Legal protection for bloggers
Filed under Legal protection for bloggers | 3 Comments »
some dance music
Posted on December 10th, 2007 by Richard Catto 1,375 views
Relax – Frankie goes to Hollywood – this is what I danced to in 1983
Depeche Mode – Shake the Disease – another one from the 80s
Depeche Mode – People are People
Nena – 99 Luft Balons – Also known as 99 Red Balloons (In English)
Cyndi Lauper – Time after Time
Cyndi Lauper – Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Tags: dance music, frankie goes to hollywood, songza
Filed under songza | No Comments »
Is friendship a transitive relationship?
Posted on December 9th, 2007 by Richard Catto 3,465 views
According to Mathematics, hereinafter referred to as Maths (not fucking MATH), friendship is INTRANSITIVE.
I suppose I need to clarify what a TRANSITIVE relationship is. I’ll do this with an example:
LESS THAN is a transitive relationship. Suppose you have three variables: A, B and C.
A < B and B < C => (implies) A < C
I’ve experienced situations which seem to indicate that friendship may involve some transitivity. For example, consider these three statements:
- The friend of my friend is my friend also
- The enemy of my friend is my enemy too
- The enemy of my enemy is my friend
All three of these statements are technically / logically FALSE, however I have discovered that befriending someone often leads to me becoming friends with (some of) their friends as well.
Conversely, when someone has attacked a friend of mine, I have sometimes felt angered by their attack on my friend and rushed to my friend’s defence.
And lastly, when someone has attacked someone I consider an enemy I have felt a desire to approach the enemy of my enemy to befriend them.
This has come to mind because of an incident I had on Friday evening with some crazed lunatic woman on facebook who was / is a player in the "Friends For Sale" (FFS) app that I’ve recently begun to enjoy so much. Needless to say, (but I’ll say it anyway, bitches) is that her actions have cast a momentary damper on my enjoyment of FFS.
This woman went nuts because I nicknamed her "Ho #6". I got called a kaffir, a child porno freak, and various other mind-numbing epithets. Worse than that, though, was the fact that this guy called Rolando also joined in the fray and inputted his own stream of colourful adjectives into my wall post.
Rolando, apparently, was / is a friend of hers. I proceeded to call Rolando an arsehole on a friend of mine’s facebook note about FFS, and she swung round and chastised me because apparently she’s on first name terms with Rolando’s uncle’s dog’s parrot’s first owner.
So Maths tells me that friendship is intransitive!?
Somebody fucked that one up big time. What do you think?
Tags: i'm right and they're wrong, support me bitches, what the fuck is wrong with you
Filed under Friendship | 16 Comments »
