Watch out for the crocs!

No, I am not talking about those excuses for shoes that seem to have taken South Africa by storm. I mean the real deal, green, low slung, long nosed, sharp teethed and extremely aggressive remnants of pre-historic times. I mean these guys are dangerous.

What am I on about you may ask? Well I recently took the family on an extended long weekend up to The Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, proclaimed South Africa's first World Heritage Site in 1999. To be more precise I was in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, recently renamed which means "wonder" or "miracle" in isiZulu. It is a place you have to visit to understand the beauty.

We had two excursions into the nature reserves, one that ended badly thanks to the obnoxious owner of Kabanga Tours (I think that's what they are called) who are licenced to guard the gates to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. Thank you Steve...for nothing! The Second excursion was into the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park which ended with us about five metres from an elephant grazing on some trees. While he seemed pretty chilled and uninterested in us, I did decide after about 8-10 minutes of watching this beautiful beast, that discretion was the better part of valour and proceeded to drive off in my seemingly small Renault Scenic. By the way my car was giving trouble, definitely not for the first time in its life.

In approximately two hours we had seen a lion's buffet of buck, literally hundreds of impala, waterbuck, kudu...but no lion, three giraffes, maybe 12 zebras and a foal, hippos, warthogs, wildebeest (poor man's Buffalo), a rhino and don't forget the dung beetles rolling balls of dung across the road. I thought they only did that for Discovery Channel! While the rhino was impressive, he was quite far from us, you could still appreciate its size, the zebra foal and mom were right next to our car and it was awesome to see. My highlight though was definitely the elephant as we saw him only a few kilometres from the exit and I thought I wouldn't see what I believe is one of the most beautiful creatures to grace our planet. It definitely made my month.

We also visited the crocodile park (pools) and that is where my short story actually begins. The kids loved this place. There were baby crocs, adolescent crocs, adult crocs and even a croc old age home for three of their older citizens. My oldest daughter loves Snow White and believe it or not there is a dwarf crocodile that gave birth to 7 dwarf baby crocs and she was therefore named Snow White.

While I know that we as South Africans have a great sense of humour, in fact we pride ourselves on it, I was really amused by the warning signs at this crocodile park. As South Africans we can never be the most politically correct nation on the planet and who would want to be? I mean the Brits are so tied up with it that they have almost completely hogtied themselves.

Anyway, as you walk through this croc park, which is basically wheelchair friendly, there are a series of up and downhills along the way. There has to be a whole number of ways to warn people in wheelchairs of the steep downhills and to be careful other than the sign above...if we were P.C. that is. I don't believe a South African wheelchair bound person would take offence to it but what about our European and American visitors? Is this sign a red flag to a lawsuit frenzy or will it be taken as a funny yet very clear warning? I guess only time will tell.

Lucky Dube's unlucky killers

I was extremely saddened to hear of the tragic passing of a South African music legend. Not only was his music of the highest calibre but his words were about peace, family values and a call to his listeners to respect each other, the world and all of creation. Yet he knew, wrote and sang about the terrible violence we as South Africans face every day.
This great icon of our beautiful country was murdered in cold blood, killed in a hail of bullets in front of his children. What barbaric and savage psych allows a human being to commit such a heinous crime? In another mindless attack a young father's throat was slit in front of his two children two months ago in Johannesburg. He was tied up and immobile at the time. His children watched him die as he bled to death in the same room as them. No arrests have been made to this day.
Why then are Lucky Dube's killers unlucky? Every year nearly fifty five thousand reported rapes occur, some of them due to a bizarre belief among some African black men that sex with a virgin can cure HIV/AIDS. An unbelievable figure of over nineteen thousand people are murdered in South Africa every year. That is about fifty murders per day! While some perpetrators are caught most aren't. Even if they are, the inefficient and corrupt criminal justice system cannot cope with the amount of criminals resulting in high escape and low conviction rates.
Who is responsible? Is it the sometimes inept police department. Just try report a crime at your local police station and see what the odds are of walking out feeling confident of a favourable result. In all fairness though, there are some phenomenal police members out there who put their lives on the line for minimal salaries so no, I don't believe the individual members are responsible, I think they are working their butts off for the most part.
I have called the police twice this year, once to arrest a criminal I had caught myself. After two hours I called our private security company to escort the criminal to the police station as they had not pitched. I was rather dissapointed 3 months later when the court date was set for a later date due to a strike. The second time I called was for an attempted break in at my home at midnight on a Thursday a few months ago. Three cars and six police arrived within 12-15 minutes which was extremely appreciated. Thank you again to the guys at Durban North police station!
I won't even start on our illustrious Jackie Selebi who is beyond reproach...yeah right. I think only Jacob Zuma and the Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang believe he is completely innocent. I would mention Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula at this point but hey, he just wants us folk who complain to leave the country. I wonder if Charles and our Northern neighbour Robert Mugabe compare notes each evening. I think Charles is a little jealous as ol' Rob gets to beat the crap out of his citizens on a regular basis. OK I finally think I am starting to zone in on those who have the power but maybe not the inclination to do anything about the crime in South Africa.
What about those over-crowded prisons you may ask? How can we send criminals to jail when there is no space to put them? Well, what about the billions of rands being used to build new stadiums for the 2010 world cup, when some of the older stadiums could have been enlarged and refurbished at less than half the cost. That money could have been used to build prisons and wait for it...yes you could have built houses, hospitals, infrastructure and actually brought amenities like water and electricity to hundred of thousands, maybe millions of impoverished citizens. Imagine that, what a crazy idea. Am I the only person to have thought of this?
Well here I am rambling on but I have not answered my own question. Why then are Lucky Dube's killers unlucky? Because you killed a CELEBRITY you idiots! The chances of you being caught for killing a normal South African of any colour or creed were really slim. But you went and killed a celebrity. That is news that travels around the world in minutes and you know how our politicians hate bad publicity. Just in case there are one or two people worldwide that don't know that South Africa's crime situation spiralled out of control years ago.
The crime was committed on a Friday and by Monday five people were arrested for the crime. They were found in possession of illegal firearms, stolen cars and other presumed stolen items. My question is how were they found so quickly? I may be wrong but I believe that the crime fighting authorities are aware of crime syndicates and are either too scared, too under-equipped (think billions spent on soccer stadiums) or too well paid (at a senior level) to want to do anything about them. Strange that JS has been linked to a notorious cartel or two.
Come on government, get your priorities straight. Stop worrying about what the rest of the world thinks about you. Sort out the mess that we are in, in a logical and sensible fashion. The rest of the world can then enjoy our shores by visiting us as tourists, unafraid of violent crime and just enjoying our beautiful people, sea-sides, forests and mountains. This will in turn bring much needed foreign currency to us as well as kick starting job-creation: The only truly sustainable way of reducing poverty and crime in our South Africa.

Your memory will live long Lucky Dube...Jah Rules

White must stay...white's must go

Let it be noted that I am a huge rugby fan and I love the Springboks one and all. Hence I may become emotional while writing this posting. Those of you averse to emotional outbursts even though they may have a hint of truth, stop reading now and pick up your Archie comics. Those clowns at SARU need not as you are living out comical lives.

I do however sometimes wonder what drugs those idiots are on!

Here we are with the worlds best rugby player, the world's best rugby coach and the world's best rugby team and these politicians still believe that they know what is best for rugby. We have a nation united for the first time in a long time, Bokken proud of their sporting heroes and the crap is still flying. Even our president Thabo Mbeki has stated that Jake should stay. Why break-up the best side in world rugby, arguably the best side in Springbok history because some tosser has decided that transformation is too slow.

Go a step further Mr. Mbeki and tell Hoskins and his cohorts that players playing for international clubs must be considered for selection too. Don't go half way and then back-up into your shell! Remember that Percy was gone for 2 years and came back to score all but 3 points in the Springbok's 2007 world cup final game. We may still have won without Percy but why even consider it when it's not necesary.

I was watching the Monday night soccer program on TV 1 last night with the presenter wearing a Springbok jersey...a world champion's jersey. Most of the SMS's received on the show, tongue-in-cheek called for Jake White to coach the national soccer team now. They called for our soccer stars to play as a team, to be patriotic and have as much national pride as our Bokke. The people, the men on the street, South African soccer supporters, recognise the difference between the pride of our rugby team, the "gees" of the men involved in this world cup side compared to the attitudes of our Bafana Bafana brigade.

This is where it all seems to fall apart. Politicians...if you want to do some good and make changes, then cast your eyes over your soccer development schools and clubs. Get those right because at this moment in time I believe that we will not even qualify for the 2010 world cup in our own country. Who will you blame for that? I'm intrigued who will be the scapegoat for that when in fact the problem is a general attitude.

In fact I have no doubt the some of the blame will fall on the previous apartheid government, ousted in April 1994 for the failure of the soccer team pre-2010 more than 16 years after the ANC came to power. Remember my politician friends, a simple rule most of us learned in our years as children. When you point a finger, there are three pointing right back at you!

Recently we had Benny McCarthy's little temper tantrum and yes Carlos you should have thrown him out on his ass. What motivation is there for young players where that little upstart can cause such a ruckus. Soccer is a 11 man sport just as rugby requires 15. How many trys would Habana have scored without the dominance of the forwards and the skills of a fast and exciting backline?

Jake White stood up to all those politician layabouts and took the right people for the right job and got it done. Yet still we hear that quotas must be introduced. Anywhere between 7-10 players of colour must be represented in the Springbok side...if they are still called the Springboks. Well my feeling is that if you introduce quotas you will be doing us a favour by calling the team something else because the Boks are chosen on merit and associated to with pride. By all means, choose your quota team and you may as well call them The Tokens.

Another issue is that our soccer players can play for international clubs but our rugby players are banned from playing for the Springboks if they join international clubs. Yes Mr. Hoskins, I believe that you are a racist with the rest of your cronies on SARU. Why don't you get your SAFA colleagues to ban Benni McCarthy while you're at it and to do the same with their other prima donnas playing in Europe?

The winning situation would be that the politicians stuck to politics and kept their grubby hands out of sports. But if politicians want to become involved, then you President Thabo Mbeki, with your new found appreciation of the Springbok's nation building powers, need to throw down the gauntlet in its entirety and not in a half hearted attempt to back-up just the coach.

Well done Jake, Eddie and the rest of the coaching and management team that actually pro-actively made this awesome moment in history come true. Thank you for this time, effort, heartache and angst endured. Those of you that were just hanging on to the entourage and are more trouble than what you are worth...thank you for nothing. Thank you to the players for your commitment, your self-belief, your team spirit and all that you sacrificed to bring the trophy home.

Last but not least, thank you to the people of South Africa who supported our boys as South Africans and not as individuals with different colour skin. Thank you to the people who lauded the Bokke as the world cup heroes of an entire nation, united by their love of their most beautiful South Africa.

Condom Nation

First of all thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read my comments.

Is it not an interesting topic for the birth of my blog...this whole condom debacle in South Africa?

For the second time in weeks our illustrious health minister has to explain how the SABS (South African Bureau of Standards) managed to approve millions of condoms not considered safe for consumation (not consumption Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang). It is thought that an employee at the SABS was bribed to allow these condoms to be passed. This is the second batch that has been identified as defective yet government clinics countrywide are not aware of this life threatening issue. Should we be surprised that this employee was bribed amidst the allegations against Mr Jacob Zuma and Jackie Selebi? In fact Vusi Pikoli, director of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the only guy with the balls to take on the police commissioner gets fired by the president. Now come on Mr. Mbeki, what kind of message are you sending to criminals, potential criminals as well as the victims of these crimes?

Besides all of this, condoms that are actually safe are found dumped on the side of the road and the company responsible for their distribution is allegedly being traced. As a South African fed-up with the current allegations against our esteemed politicians and police commissioners and even more fed-up with their less than satisfactory reactions, I must feel that somewhere, somehow this distribution company is owned in some way by a fat-cat politician in local or national government or at the very least by a close member of their family. Remember how much trouble that rugby ou was in because his wife supplied catering services to Ellis Park?

To top it all off our extremely intelligent health minister anounces in an interview that people using these government-supplied condoms, must check them before using them in case they are faulty? She did not however elaborate on the procedure to follow when checking said condoms. The other option she gave is to report to a AIDS clinic if you think you have already used a condom from the faulty batches?

I must surmise from these comments that Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang uses an alternative form of contraception. Are you sure you don't want to advise people to eat African potato, lemon and garlic before/during/after they use the condoms because then even the faulty condoms will work? Your partner may still fall pregnant but according to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang HIV/AIDS will not be contracted and in fact if you have the virus already it will probably be cured.

I wait with anticipation to see whether this debacle is actually sorted out or whether our government's very effective sweeper manages to get this dirt swept under the carpet with all the rest of the hidden and not so hidden agendas.

Thank you once again for reading this post, as my literary skills or lack of are relatively untested in the public domain.

Please feel free to post comments as your feedback will be most appreciated. My goal is to entertain and inform you the reader with my outlook on certain matters.

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