The public gets what the public wants / But I want nothing this society's got

Over at Burnt Symmetry there are some interesting parallels and observations re: Chavez & populism.

Some additional thoughts.
Mugabe also began going popular in about 1992 (1992-1980= 12 years).
2006 - 1994 = 12 years (what happened in 1994 again?). But I digress.

The blame here is partly placed on shoddy journalism (absence of objective reporting). I’m not sure that this is the case though. More & more I see people clustering around the type of news that they like to read. Stories and opinions that resonate with their world view. So the papers write what most people like. I visit liberal blogs but pass only a cursory glance over the single thesis blogs like crimeexpo.

I don't think that this concept of opinion-loaded reporting is a recent phenomonen though. See here.

As The Jam so profoundly thundered in the 70's: (OK they hit number one with this in March 1980, but it is so 70's..)
What you see is what you get
Youve made your bed, you better lie in it
You choose your leaders and place your trust
As their lies wash you down and their promises rust
Youll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns
The public gets what the public wants
But I want nothing this society's got

I would go further to say that frankly I think it's always been the case that journalists write for their audience. Since the dawn of time.

For instance when my great-great-grandfather was jailed for two weeks by Paul Kruger when he was the editor of the Pilgrim's Rest based "Gold Fields Mercury" in the 1870's it was for writing for his audience (the miners) and criticising the actions of the government of the day. While his news may have had its roots in fact it was driven by his opinion. Such was his following though that the miners stormed the jail and released him. This was considered a revolt and a detachment of soldiers - 25 men and a cannon - was sent from Lydenburg, but good sense prevailed and it all came to naught.

The very fact that one can usually, and always have been able to, classify newspapers as left-leaning, right-leaning, conservative or liberal indicates that there is a bias inherent in the content.

The problem arises when we forget this. We just need to be aware that everything we read is clouded by opinion and most of the time we like it that way. Yes, sometimes this opinion masquerades as fact - and we do need to be awake to that. Engaging and blindly accepting the word of the media is a bit like entering a dark alley and not expecting to be mugged. Vigilance helps in this environment. In fact your very survival depends on it.

But all is not lost. If something is reported that is of consequence and is overly-crowded with bias then there is bound to be someone who challenges this. And the forum to challenge does exist. It exists in the shift that is coming for the “The people formerly known as the audience”. (That’s you & me, ladies and gentlemen).

Rick Astley

I don't know why this bugged me (and I am too scared to ponder on why any further), but more than once in the last while I have caught myself wondering whatever happened to Rick Astley. Fair enough he was pure bubblegum pop from the Stock-Aitken-Waterman stable but he had a decent voice and cross generation apppeal. I thought he would have at least survived, or attempted to resurrect his career at some point.

So eventually I just had to find out. It seems that he didn't really vanish at all. He had a sell-out tour of the UK in 2004, has had reasonable success in the States and last released an album earlier this year (currently ranked #526,554 in Music on Amazon). So now we know. Not that I'm rushing out for the Greatest Hits CD or anything.

Mulitasking is bad for you

Via Stuart Buck.He quotes from this article.

There's some impressive new scientific research on your side when you tell your kids they can't possibly do their homework with the TV blaring, instant messenger crawling or MP3 player pumping. ....
... A recent study shows that the ruckus of such multi-tasking may make them learn less, and to use the wrong parts of their brains to store information.

I think it's fair to say that it applies to me too. Blogging, googling, emailing, talking on my cellphone and trying to get some work done while following the cricket score on TV is bound to drive me insane eventually.

The study referred to is here.

2 kinds of beer

There are only two kinds of beer in this world.

1. Good beer, and
2. Better beer.

I could do with either kind right now.

Thailand Coup

I just received this note from a Thai friend in Bankgok. And hell, as a nation, they sure do love their king.

"There's no violence here, I just saw kids ride their bicycle to take photos with tanks and soldiers, everybody enjoy today as holiday.... and we are very happy to boot out the corrupting prime minister, then setup new democratic constitution.
As you may heard from the news that there were people setting up mobs in BKK and planned to move to parliament this morning, however the whole plan was timely stopped by peaceful military coup.
In my personal opinion, this is our king's plot to prevent violence."

Seems that there is such a thing as a benevolent coup. Obviously our government and the UN thinks differently.

In this regard, the unconstitutional transfer of power from whatever quarter and in pursuance of whatever objectives should never be encouraged anywhere in the world," Pahad stated.

I don't buy that statement. If the objectives (and apparent outcome) are the diffussion of forthcoming violence and the creation of a government that reflects the will of the people then why not encourage this.

UPDATE: The Bangkok Pundit has some very interesting insights into the whole situation, the broader political history as well as the spectre of censorship that the coup has brought on. Also a fascinating point about the 'vicious circle' of Thai politics. Read this man's work. He is informed.

Loaded Gun

I once witnessed a colleague entering a meeting room with a loaded machine gun. She calmly sat down at the end of the meeting table and waited for our boss, who was sitting at the other end of the table, to issue a list of demands and mildly contradict her (just once). At which point she stood up, raging. She switched the rifle off safety, onto automatic and fired the entire magazine of live bullets at the poor man. He fell back in his chair, eyes agog. As witnesses our eyes and mouths were equally agog as we cleared away from the sides of the table in shock.

OK, it wasn’t quite so dramatic. She didn’t have a gun (thank goodness). But she clearly went into the meeting waiting for the boss man to say something, anything, that she disagreed with. With the aim of responding as vigorously as possible. And then she pounced. Perhaps it wasn’t pre-empted but it seemed that the boss man was doomed from the first moment and if it hadn’t happened then, it would have happened soon thereafter. Although clearly angry and shocked beyond compare the boss man responded remarkably calmly to the assault, addressing his long response (after we had all taken a huge breath to recover from what we had just witnessed) to all of us but clearly with a single audience in mind. Shortly thereafter I was running the project on my own.*

What struck me in this tale is the similarity to the current furore regarding the Pope’s recent comments on Islam. What he uttered was insensitive and for someone who should be as circumspect in his speech as Ben Bernanke it does seem a little rash. But I see a remarkable similarity between this and the incident I have just described above. The reaction to the Pope’s utterance is the result of similar type of build-up of tensions, unresolved differences of opinion and frustrations as that experienced by my colleague. Somewhere along the line these frustrations manifest into a caged reaction that waits desperately for the opportunity to break free and pounce on its victim. If the caged reaction didn’t get the chance to pounce on the Pope last week it would have simply pounced on someone or something else this week (or next week). Sadly by the time that these frustrations get to this level of impasse there is little that can be done to salvage the relationship.

The grave problem here is that the build-up and the release of this tension will have a profound impact on all of us. For the first time ever in my life the horrific thought has crossed my mind that I may become a participant in a world war in my lifetime. Hopefully this prediction is as flawed and off target as my regular sports predictions but it will take great leadership to diffuse this global time bomb that we are all sitting on. I'm just not sure that such leadership exists.

UPDATE: I finally got around to reading a translation the Pope's full speech . A solidly argued piece of work it is, and read in context I retract my previous conlcusion that the use of the quote was rash. It's part of a well structured argument - not a voicing of his own opinion. Laurence has more commentary here. My loaded gun analogy remains relevant though.

*Interestingly this incident, which is still regaled today by those who were there, would seem to be career suicide (on the part of the 'shooter'), but it hasn’t been at all and now some years later she is on a par in the hierarchy with the said boss man. But that is another story...

The New Bono

George Clooney is fast taking over the showbiz mantle of U2's Bono in being an agent for humanitarian change.

He is having a fair go at the UN in trying to get them to step up to the plate in Darfur, Sudan.

[He] warned the UN security council that Darfur would become the scene of the "first genocide of the 21st century" if peacekeepers were not sent to Sudan by the end of the month. "After September 30, you won't need the UN," he told the council. "You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones."

If estimates of between 170,000 and 255,000 deaths since 2003 are correct then the situation is already as dire as the Bosnian tragedy of about 200,000 deaths from 1993-1995.

If the failings of the UN, the US & NATO in Bosnia were, according to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, "the greatest failure of the West since the 1930s", then what on earth are we to make of a situation which is already worse in terms of lives sacrificed?

Nacho Libre vs RV

I've been in a reviewing mood of late. Books .. and now for the silver screen (OK rather one of those screens that pops out of the airplane roof and that keeps getting interrupted by the "chicken or beef" of the air hostess).

Here goes.

Yunus Kemp spells out my sentiments exactly on the movie : Nacho Libre . He does this so well it requires no further comment in fact.
Jack Black's spandex doesn't stretch

"Nacho Libre is not as much a comedy as it is an exercise in silliness and inanity. There are bits that are funny, but overall, it is a half-filled, bland enchilada that no amount of guacamole or salsa could spice up."...

On another note I really enjoyed the sometimes over the top, farcical and critically slammed excursion of Robin Williams in RV.

I identified well with Williams' character as he tries ever so hard to simultaneously please his boss and his family, while at the same time trying to get some meaning out his job.

And insight into the 21st century family:
Favourite Quote: "We watch TV in four separate rooms and IM each other when dinner is ready."

It's silly but I loved it.

Freakonomics: Levitt & Dubner

A few more reviews to go, but the pile of books next to my bed is getting smaller.

So Freakonomics....
Great hype, great title (although that is disputed), some great ideas, but largely a gimmick. Levitt has been hailed as groundbreaking and has made economics fashionable. But sadly in this book he comes across as a one trick pony, once you’ve been amazed by the new trick it becomes passé and you’re left hanging and hungry for more but no new tricks appear. He reveals his hand too soon and the game is over.

I first came across Levit via this http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2003/08/steven-levitt.html
brief report by blogger Stuart Buck which then led me to read Dubner’s NY Times article that provides the basis for the above book. (you need to register [free] to view it sadly). The article intrigued and I was looking forward to reading the book.

Disappointingly the book is really just a drawn out expansion of the original article. Not to say that Levitt’s work is not groundbreaking or the product of profound insight and couched in genius. It is, but it’s not a book’s worth.

The introductory chapter sets out the entire thesis of the book and then is padded with the readable and interesting supporting detail until there is enough writing to call it a book. Once you’ve been made aware of the correlation between the Roe v Wade abortion ruling in 1973 and the decrease in urban crime in the late 1980’s (a mindblowing correlation it must be said) the supporting anecdotes are all a bit of an anticlimax. The one trick pony is just given too much time in the ring.

What I am judging here are not Levitt’s ideas and the genius behind them. He changed (or at least alerted me) to a way of thinking that I have absorbed into my consciousness to the extent that I am now constantly looking for the relatedness between seemingly unrelated events. But I did this on the basis of Dubner’s article and a bit of web research without the need for the book.

I also wonder how much the success of this book can be attributed to the marketing tactics applied in pre-releasing this book (for free) to a number of influential US bloggers (Stuart Buck & who else?). What better way to create some positive hype. Any blogger who starts getting free books is hardly likely to write a damning review & risk drying up a source of free books. Ironically this is the type of behaviour (the response to, sometimes hidden, incentives) that Levitt tries to highlight.

I don’t mean this to be a negative review. The ideas and claims are great it’s most rewarding to quote the following “proofs” at dinner parties and braais.

1. A swimming pool is MUCH more likely to kill a child than a gun.
2. The drop in crime in the 1990's was due to the legalization of abortion in 1973.
3. Teachers often help their students cheat on standardized tests.
4. Drug dealing pays less than the minimum wage.
5. Estate agents do not act in your best interest. (Funny that!)
6. Reading to your kids won’t improve their marks
7. Will having the right name provide you with success in life?

Etc, etc.

I conclude then that you should read this book, in the same way that you should read The DaVinci Code, but you’d get by on stopping after the first chapter. As if to support this thought I was offered pirate copies of both these books at a Mumbai traffic light.

The Wisdom of Crowds

The Wisdom of Crowds – James Surowiecki
Subtitled: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations

What a great book. It gives insight into all sorts of social conduct from mob behaviour to riots, stock market behaviour, the benefits of diversity, elections and democracy. It got me thinking why South Africa is such a great place at the moment, why the structure of certain organizations is a clear recipe for doom and why we need to radically rethink our approach to traffic.

It gave me goose bumps twice and I flattened the book of 338 pages in one sitting (OK it was a long plane trip!). Gripping, engaging and intelligent.

I’ve come away believing that crowds are wise, that the masses collectively have a form of knowledge that they may not hold individually and that there is no virtue in being above average (or considering oneself to be so).

I’m not entirely sold on the entire “wise crowds” thesis of the book as there are moments of contradiction that make no sense or are not convincingly dealt with. If, for instance, there is so much knowledge and wisdom in the crowd why do we have stock market crashes and bubbles? Suroweicki does grapple with these issues but I’m not convinced he takes them to a meaningful conclusion though.

But, this book is one which I’d clearly endorse because it has made me confront my own bigotry toward the common or average man.

The crowd is better than me, more intelligent, wiser and on the whole will make better decisions than I can. I never thought that way before.

If I manage to beat the crowd, then well, I’m just lucky.

The Splog War (or should that be truce?)

A bit of fun banter in the SA blogosphere got going recently when blogger Peasontoast found that her blog posts were appearing unattributed on the blog aggregator GrantAvenue. The site does provide a link through to her site. Peas ranted here and sent the site owner an email politely asking for the feed to be removed.

I understand that the site owner duly obliged and all is patched up. His detailed and thorough response is here at mediacozw.

The response however seems to assume that the primary motivation of bloggers is to gain readers and make money. I would dispute this. If I spent my time idling away only for the handful of readers of I have (as amazing and wonderful as you are) it would be time poorly spent. And as for making money the google adsense ads you see on this site were an exercise in futility from day 1 ( I haven't been bothered with updating my template to remove them). I have accumulated about 36 US cents so far. They will pay me out when I hit $100!

I do agree that bloggers would like more readers and would love to make money. But it not the primary motivating factor. Peas for instance has no monetization effort at all on her site, despite her large readership (she should speak to someone savvy about making some money off her site to fund her booze bills.)

I just like the opportunity to express some of the diverse thoughts that cross my confused brain. The fact that I do this in a forum that allows others to torture themselves on my utterings is great but I write because I enjoy it. It's an opportunity to leverage off their comments and insight into my thinking. One commentator on my site provided me the telephone number of a fantastic tour guide in Mumbai who I plan to use this weekend. It's about creating a little community of like minded souls in which I can be the centre of and control. Yes it's incestuous - we post reciprocal comments on each other's sites and scratch each other's backs and console and counsel as we see fit. But we choose and we're in control. We can opt out whenever we want.

So I agree then with this argument from the Lemur (also read his other 8 posts on the matter) against aggregators which argues that ... "It is about the lost opportunity to engage in dialogue. You cannot comment from a news reader, aggregator, social links page, you have to come here. This is where engagement and dialogue takes place. That is at the end of the day, what it is all about.The internet is the one place where it is easier to ask permission that ask forgiveness. "

I think there is a win-win situation and mediacozw in fact does allude to it. Most blog hosting domains (like blogger) have some sort of Atom or RSS feed option on their sites.

One can elect to provide a full feed, a partial feed or none at all. Find out how here.

I think the win-win situation comes in if you allow a partial feed only which will only feed the first 255 letters of each post. That is approximately the length of the opening paragraph of this post. So if you want readers who are interested in your posts, make the introduction juicy so that they will follow the link to your site and join your community. If you really wish your blog to remain closer to home then elect the no-feed option.

The downside is that if folk want to take your feed into a personal aggregrator like netvibes (great tool by the way) then they will be limited to your intro only.

So to conclude, from a bloggers perspective I don't think splogs are necessarily a bad thing as long as we're aware of them and are educated with the tools to be able to control our site feeds (which is partially why I wrote this post).

Weekend at Bernie's

The last time that the Australia beat the Springboks at Johannesburg was in 1963.

“Oh what a night
Late December back in '63
What a very special time for me
As I remember what a night”

So crooned Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons. The tale behind the lyrics is disputed. The lyrics seem to refer the loss of virginity, but arguments have been put forth that it relates to breaking of the 1933 Prohibition or is the tale of a cocaine high. If the latter it’s a pity Wendell Sailor is gone from the current picture.

Whatever the true tale I have the sneaky suspicion that this may be the theme tune for the Wallabies this weekend. We will leave it to them as to how to substitute August 1963 for December 1963. Although how they will achieve this sober will be tough. This is a drought that they will be desperate to break.

This weekend’s match between these 2 sides at Ellis Park marks the final rugby match of the 2006 Tri-Nations series and thought it might be interesting to research this event a little. Along this road of research I stumbled on an uncanny number of links and associations between these two matches, some 43 years apart.

So, the Springboks last lost to Australia in Johannesburg on the 24 August 1963. Some two months later on 3 November the current ‘Bok coach, Jake White, was born. The score was a close 11-9 (although in today’s parlance with a try being worth 5 points it would have been 13-9).

It was an interesting tour in that the Australians omitted Lloyd McDermott from their team. McDermott was the first Aborigine to represent his Australia, having played against the All-Blacks in 1962.

As McDermott says “blacks or coloureds weren’t allowed to tour South Africa. So I was placed in a very difficult position at the end of the 1962 season, where if I had have been selected for the Australian team, I might not have been allowed into the country because of the apartheid laws. On the other hand, if they wanted to relax the laws somewhat, I would have had to be seen as some sort of token white, an honorary white for the period of my tour, which I didn’t find very tasteful at all. So I resigned from the Queensland squad and I forfeited, because of my beliefs, any chance of getting selected in the team.”

The Australians only really began to react politically to the South African tours in 1971 when they protested on a large scale against the Springbok tour. The tour went ahead as planned despite these protests and interestingly has a connection with John Howard, current Prime Minister of Australia. John Howard, an accountant by trade, was then treasurer of the NSW rugby union. He was handed the task of dealing with the Springbok needs on this protest marred tour. He was quite frank in fronting up that at the time he had no problem with the tour. More here. On the back of the this tour the scheduled Springbok cricket tour of Australia for following year was called off.

But back to 24 August 1963.

This was the third Test of a four-test series and the series was well poised at one-all. Springbok captain Nelie Smith had kicked 3 penalties against a drop goal and a penalty from the visitors. The score was 9-6 South Africa.

Speedy Australian winger, John Williams, sealed the match for the visitors with a converted try. This marked the first time that a touring side had beaten the Springboks in consecutive tests since 1896.

The Springboks had to clamour hard to square the series in the follow up decider in Port Elizabeth.

Nelie Smith, returned as coach of the Springboks in another protest ridden era. That of the 1981 “Flour Bomb” tour and the
first game against the United States on the way home from that tour.

So by what commodius vicus of recirculation do we attribute anything to the ties between the two games? I've no idea but I have a feeling that this is one long standing bit of history that a well-rested and sharp Australia with Bernie Larkham on song might well extinguish this weekend.
I hope that the efforts of the Battle of Bafokeng will ensure a decent crowd at Ellis Park.

I hope that on Sunday morning John Smit and the his merry men are not the ones left pondering and mumbling the part of the tune that goes: “I felt a rush like a rolling bolt of thunder, Spinnin' my head around and taking my body under.”

And for myself,
I hope that I can, with all honesty, continue to repeat the opening line of this post. “The last time that the Australia beat the Springboks at Johannesburg was in 1963.”

Single Thesis Sites

Single thesis sites that bug me more than crime at the moment. (in no particular order)

http://therightperspectivepodcastblog.blogspot.com/
http://stopboergenocide.com/
http://www.crimexposouthafrica.org/
http://www.southafricaiscrap.blogspot.com/
http://getoutofsa.blogspot.com/
http://deathofjohannesburg.blogspot.com/

The list probably goes on but I was getting ill on an overdose of false propositional logic so I stopped searching.

Neil Watson in particular uses arguments that invariably go like this. "If you don't support what I'm doing (ie by attending my protests, boycotting Pick & Pay etc) then you are supporter of crime." This is a logically flawed argument.

Why flawed you ask. OK Logic 101 here I go.


Assume the left hand circle is circle "A" and the right hand circle is circle "B".

A represents all possible worlds/situations/state of affairs where A is true.
B represents all possible worlds/situations/state of affairs where B is true.


Assume that two statements are in question. They are either True (White Space) or False (Blacked out).

A = Raymond Ackerman supports Neil Watson.
B = Raymond Ackerman supports crime.

Watson's argument is that if A is false then B is true. He presents this as the only option. But as in any logical argument there are 16 options available.

It is possible that a state of affairs exists where both A & B are false (ie. Not A and Not B).








This state of affairs is neither contradictory nor tautolgous. Simply put "IF A is TRUE" does not imply that "B is TRUE". B may be true but on the facts given one cannot argue that as Watson has.

And thumbs down to Terry Leonard of Associated Press in Johanessburg for managing to rehash enough braai talk and sensationalise this article enough to get it syndicated to all manner of publications.

And kudos to http://www.realsouthafrica.co.za , particularly for hijacking the URL for http://www.crimexposouthafrica.co.za and redirecting traffic to their site.

Von Dutch

It’s not the sort of thing that I’d normally be interested in but my curiosity got the better of me. I have been struck by the ubiquity of one particular brand in Seoul. That of “Von Dutch”.

It may be because a number of their products are manufactured here but they are available on almost everywhere. While there is always the chance that the products available are knock-offs I don’t think that they are. (And if they are, they are indistinguishable from the real thing – down to the matched quality, sewn in labels, stickers of authenticity etc).
But who, or what the hell is Von Dutch itself?

Well, sadly he, one Kenneth “Von Dutch” Howard died in 1992. He was according to this tale a maverick mechanic and vehicle pinstriper as well as excellent gunsmith. An all round interesting character. That said, not exactly a great guy as this article that indicates this king of cool was probably a racist alcoholic. Do those trendy teen folk have any idea what they are wearing?

Quite how did the work of this maverick head into purgatory to emerge resurrected as fashion label some ten years later? How did he get his name on Paris Hilton’s head?

Along comes small time surf clothing marketer – one Mike Cassel who took the brand, slapped Von Dutch’s unique logo onto a trucker’s cap trying to market it to hot-rod enthusiasts. But he made it trendy and with an old marketing trick - getting “cool people” to wear the things by sending freebies to them and getting them to wear them – he was soon onto a good thing.

OK, it’s a brand that has been milked and after 3 years or so has had its day. The trucker look has done it’s time – to be piled on the scrap heap of dead fashion. But what does one make of taking someone’s life and art and exploiting it posthumously.

Is it justified in the way that Mike Cassel, the guy that started the whole thing says :

"Everything cool gets packaged and sold to somebody," Cassel said. "If I make some money out of it, and his daughters make some money out of it, I think that’s the American way. If somebody does that to me after I die, I’d be honored."

Would you be honoured?

Or is it rather as this guy who used to run the now defunct parody www.vonsuck.com website a rueful situation?

"Von Dutch is pretty much finished as an artist. It’s like Picasso being known for furniture.”

What value is posthumous fame or infamy? Should we care?

Sometimes I wish I was a chick, a quick Seoul snapshot

Seoul is one neon megaplex of shopping malls, stalls and eateries, and more shoping malls, stalls and eateries until you cannot shop or eat anymore. It's overwhelming. 1000 Sandton Cities on steriods. 500 Long Streets and Hatfields of student hangouts. Everything works, it's clean and the people are beautiful (Maybe it's just because I'm staying near Hongik University but I have never seen this many attractive ladies per square metre outside of Hamburg's HerbeStrasse.

Never having been a good one for aimless shopping I just do not not where to start. Give me a list to tick off to search for something particular and I'm your man, but to be presented with this wide array of anything and have to choose something that I like, I'm paralysed. Picture exiting the subway and navigating 2 kilometres of pavement stalls of clothes, and nicknacks and then entering a building with 6 floors of high end stalls selling waist high stacks of designer clothing (pick a brand - any brand). And there are hundreds of these buildings. Then specialty streets of food, a street that just sells shop mannequins!, malls that sell electronics, more fashion, toys, everything. Paralysed by choice I may be but I will try to empty my wallet as best I can.

The food is absolutely mindblowing. These guys love their food and yet I've hardly seen a flabby waistline since landing here. At dinner last night which was , according to our hosts,  a modest cheap traditional meal I counted at one stage no less than 30 bowls on our table serving four. I hate to say I'd left my camera behind to capture this. But to cheat have a look at this guy's very thorough Seoul food blog to get a very solid flavour of Korean chow. Note to self l- learn to use chopsticks properly -  restaurants should be about me enjoying the food, not me being the entertainment for the locals! The streets with restaurants lining both sides, all weird and wonderful meals. Restaurant windows a fish tank full of swirling octopi and shellfish. Wow, wish I had more time and some like-minded company to share this experience with.