Jonathan's Musings

Alex's streets run with blood
- IOL

This story sent shivers down my spine! Can you imagine the pure terror of being a Zimbabwean in Alexandra at the moment!!

Whether you are there illegally or not, no one deserves to die at the hands of a mob!

"The IQ of a mob is inversely proportional to the square of its size"
ie. The bigger the mod, the more stupid, violent and brazen it is.

I pray for speedy resolution to these xenophobic attacks! Godspeed to the police, reservists and medical officers in the area.

'I knew I'd lost my family,' says Burma fisherman
- M&G Online

Everytime I think that life has dealt me a blow, I try to remember that there are many, many people in the world far less fortunate that me.

Like the Tsunami, this will serve as a harrowing reminder of how bad things can truly get!

I cannot begin to imagine the sheer pain and anguish of people such as this in Mynamar/Burma at the moment! It is truly heart-renching :-(

And even more sad that their stupid military junta is delaying aid to the country...

This public servant's strike is really annoying me!

I generally do not condone mass action (although I believe that it is sometimes the only way to stand up for what you believe in), and am vehemently opposed to it in this current situation where a group of people are holding another group of people at ransom just so that they can squeeze more money than they deserve out of the system!

I mean, a 12% pay increase! You've got to be %^&$ing kidding me!

What makes you think that you deserve a 12% pay increase for doing the same job as last year when CPIX is an average of 5.5% (Jan - Apr 2007, Stats SA)?!?

It must be said however, that this goes for all those in public office, including the fat cat politicians who are shoving the 6.5% increase down the throats of the workers while patting themselves on the back for poor service delivery and giving themselves increases far in excess of this!

President Mbeki himself was presented with an offer of a 57% increase which is absolute madness! Granted he hasn't accepted it yet, and rather urged the board who suggests such things to reconsider it in light of the current situation, but the fact that it was offered is absolutely crazy!!

And let's not forget all the peripheral costs and fringe benefits enjoyed by the politicians which do not (I believe) form part of their salaries: security guards, housing allowances, entertainment allowances, free transportation, overseas trips... you know... all the stuff us regular folk actually have to pay out of our salaries!

This whole strike disgusts me and I believe that both sides are in the wrong! The ruling elite for rewarding themselves ludicrously for poor service while the country suffers, and the public servants for striking for greed rather than a legitimate grievance.

I pray that all parties involved will stop being so damn greedy, look beyond themselves for a moment and come to an amicable agreement which is to the benefit of the country and its people (Including the 25% unemployed (StatsSA, Sep 2006) who would love to be receiving any salary at all!)

PS This whole situation drives home the truth of one of my favourite sayings, "Politicians are the lowest form of life" ;-)

Have you heard of the concept of Web 2.0?

It is a concept referring to the new trend in collaborative technology and the Internet (As always, it can be far better explained by Wikipedia than by me, so check out Wikipedia's definition here)

With the web development I'm working on at the moment, it has been a particularly hot topic for me and I have been investigating various tools and technologies to implement in my upcoming site.

As such I have been looking around at various Web 2.0 articles and came across this video on YouTube (created by a Professor in Cultural Anthropology) which I found both enlightening and inspiring!

Watch it both for its succinct look at the evolution of digital text as well as for its thought provoking look at collaboration amongst the human race with the Internet as the medium.

PS Make sure you have your sound on, as the music adds a lot to this video