NVDL Marketing Madness

I'm printing new business cards (above show front and back of cards) and some stickers (similar to top image) to advertise my blog on my car and other vehicles. Have a look.

The God Con (LUXURY TRIP TO HEAVEN and all that)

In Bloem right now they are a building ginormous cathedral - it looks more like a Hypermarket - in Langenhovenpark, a stone's throw from another Monolithic superstore - er, church, the Baptist church.

It seems that in the same way that people want to worship celebrities for their wealth and good looks, or just because they're celebrities, we want to vote for people with big glossy cars, and when it comes to men of the cloth; it's no different.

It took me a while to realise:"Wow, when you give money to the church, although they may say it's for the poor and quote some awesome verses, it's really going to the preacher's salary." Given this convenient overlap, it makes sense that your preacher, who must be wanting to earn top dollar, will say wjhat is most MOST APPROPRIATE, most conducive to a collective opening of purse strings. Is he going to berate you for being stupid, for your own indulgences? No; he's going to congratulate you on your blessings.

I realised the facile nature of this whole thing - let's call it a CON - when I was in Korea. There they don't even go to the trouble or the pretence of building churches (you know, tall, atmiospheric buildings with steeple, stained glass windows and such). They just plonk a cross on a part of a square mausoleum, and churches do their thing beside massage parlours, schools, internet cafes, restaurants and all the rest. Some go even future and demand a 10% tithe - where workers give back that fraction of their salaries to their bosses. It's got something to do with the boss doing the work of God, so a tithe to the boss is just like a direct donation to God.

If that sounds ridiculous, it's really not a much longer walk than what you're doing in church. If churches didn't care about money - beyond subsistence - I wonder how many church men we would see. It's been rumored that the ginormous church in Bloem is used to bankrool a shopping mall. When I confront Christians there about this they are completely unsurprised. They bravely say: Even if they are using their money for that, I dopn't care. I'm giving it to God. Meanwhile some people are laughing, chuckling, giggling on their way to another sizable dank deposit.

9/11: Is this Video Footage For Real? (DEBATE)

CNN FAKE FOOTAGE BLASTED - Pumpitout.com Reveals WQ2RX SPY - Watch a funny movie here
NVDL: At the end of the day, the twin towers are gone. Why get bogged down with the analysis of how it happened? It happened; it's done. The important aspect I think for Americans to focus on is this:
Terrorists - mostly Saudi's and Yemeni's - hijacked plans and hit the USA. Why did they hate America so much?

The response was to invade Iraq. What would have been a more appropriate response? And doesn't [what America did, how they responded] say an awful lot about being completely disconnected to reality, wanting something for nothing, invading a country because it's on your list, not because of any evident connection. Even worse, that Americans consented to this was a signal to the world that the USA finds excuses (rationalising to its own citizens)for doing what it wants to do anyway.

Woe betide us when it no longer makes excuses, but goes into first strike, unilateral mode. Since it is the country with by far the most nuclear weapons, when its economy crashes, and the beaching whale starts to flunder, how do we expect America to save itself other than militarily?

Do we expect them to diminish? Do we expect them to retire? Of course not. The best response to the 9/11 incident, in my opinion - and I said it at the time - was to find out why terrorists hated them so much. You can't have a war on terrorism (can you have a war on poverty or AIDS, or prostitution) - it doesn't make sense. You can find ways to make people feel less alienated, you can tighten domestic security and surveillance, sure. And the way to do that isn't by going to war. Will human beings EVER learn this lesson?

VDL's WIN

On Wednesday my dad's 'Bobbejaan' video scooped second prize in the KYKNET competition, today it turns out my sister's first story on Reporter (OPen Letter To Virgin Mobile) reached a credible 6th (in Top 10 stories for the week). My brother has also arranged his first exhibition in Bloem - a landmark event since the oke has been painting, exhibitionless since he was a boytjie. And guess who is doing the catering for the show? FN herself. And while all this has been going on, what have a achieved? Give me a moment to think about that...

Will Gore be the Next US President?

The world needs good, intelligent leadership after at least a decade without it

Thanks to the recent awarding of Nobel Peace Prize, Climate Change has effectively been thrust into the political Zeitgeist, and simultaneously, shoved American Al Gore onto the political platforms. His country is due for another election next year. While Gore maintains that the climate crisis is not political, many Democrats seized the opportunity following Gore’s acceptance of the prize (which he shares with the UN climate change panel) to politicize the issue, and isolate the current US president and his Republican party.

Candidates were quick to praise Gore*, but this stream of political flattery would undoubtedly slow if Gore were to run himself. Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama and John Edwards were all effusive towards the man who was narrowly edged out of the 2000 US election. A White House spokesman, rather than the president himself, said Mr. Bush ‘shared’ the thrill of Gore’s achievements.

“We Want Gore”

Meanwhile, according to The Times (London), Gore’s supporters took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times essentially ‘begging’ him to announce his candidacy. Apparently, for now at least, this remains an improbable scenario.

In fact, astute leadership is sorely lacking not only in the USA, but all over the world. In Africa, even in the so-called ‘model’ democracy of South Africa, there’s a leadership vacuum as this country heads to a crucial election in 2008. Just north is Zimbabwe where leadership has gone awry as Robert Mugabe continues to turn Zimbabwe into the world’s basket case.

Leadership in South Korea

When I lived in South Korea I was astonished to learn of the political intransigence – the nothing-doing attitude towards North Korea. To allow a situation for both countries to remain ‘technically at war’ seemed to me to be very risky. So perception of South Korean leadership was, to my mind, a bit ‘iffy’ in terms of North Korea. It is good to say that this unpleasant situation – the North-South stalemate – has seen significant progress in recent days.

In other countries too, Britain, the Middle East and the United States in particular, we’re not seeing the sort of charismatic leadership that the world needs to see.

I suspect the reason for this is that voters worldwide are too distracted to care. Happily this is happening, but for a slew of very unhappy reasons.

Future Shock

Ignoring the converging bad weather systems was always going to allow us temporary party time. Now those storms are upon us. A future characterized by unaffordable oil is now undeniable, along with its concomitant side-effects: housing markets going into recession, inflation, and reduced buying power – worldwide – for the consumer.

The Cost of Bad Weather

At the same time, the weather is becoming a phenomenon that is increasingly intruding into our daily lives. Now high food prices are being blamed not only on higher fuel inputs, but on crop failures due to severely erratic weather. This two pronged devil’s fork is only likely to get worse. Other side-effects of extreme weather storms include massive infrastructural damage, electrical blackouts and other injurious effects at a time when costs are already hurting both macro and micro-economic units.

Austere Message

And that’s the urgent and austere message we’re faced with. Things are likely to get worse. Which means even under the best leadership, there is very little we can do beyond what we are increasingly being forced to do. The planet’s weather is now so far along it’s feedback loop that cutting emissions now will have negligible effects for this generation.

Stabilizing Force

What a leader like Al Gore can bring to the world, is a sense of sanity; a restored sense of humanity. This is a vital ingredient as resources become increasingly depleted, and countries find themselves tempted to go to war for what they don’t have. With Al Gore at the helm of the world’s most powerful economy, and the world’s most powerful military, one assumes this either would not happen, or that he would temper the severity of whatever the crash (economic, environmental and geopolitical) when it comes.

The likes of Noam Chomsky would have us believe that, in the end, our leaders are really just speakers, puppets really, for a powerbase. This ought to be composed of voters, but is usually a subtle and unseen power club of corporates and other economic and political players. While it is true that government’s overt mission is to serve it’s constituents (it’s voters), their feedback is seldom fair or transparent. We know that government often find ways not to invest taxpayers money in the interest in their shareholders, so that over time increasingly substantial fractions are withered away.

Thus wherever there is a leadership vacuum, two primary requirements must be met. An activated and interested set of constituents. These voters need to remain involved, and actively pursue accountability, results and responses. The second is a leader and leadership team who are genuinely altruistic, honestly engaged as agents and representatives whose interests are their own. This implies that we and our leaders need to refocus on urgent priorities, as the world changes gears and the storm clouds gather.

*Background for this article from ‘Nobel prize puts Gore at centre of election’ – from The Times (London)

NVDL Makes Top 10 (NEWS&POLITICS)

The South African blogosphere is a brighter, more luminous community than it once was. I've setup what I believe is an important experiment: can a blog that sets out to do good, to communicate an important, meaningful and urgent message (for the most part - but still retain a sense of humor and throw a few pieces of popcorn) - can such a blog do well? To be honest, I feared the worst. Mindless mumbo jumbo blogs, the sort of stuff that is the reason we're in such a mess to begin with, they have until recently done very well in the blogosphere.

About to Overtake Mushy?

My favorite example of these caught-in-the-collective-delusion-of-sex-shopping-and-the porn mentality, is Mushy peas On Toast [AKA I-cause-my-own-chaos]. I feel it's a particularly vulgar way to waste one's life - by living a pretentious blogger-as-wannabe-celebrity existence just to score hits. This means you must pursue a delusional lifestyle on purpose just to be interesting. How nuts is that? But Mushy has, until recently, had a huge flock following her decadent philanderings. She's won awards, been published in COSMO and been interviwed in the Sunday Times magazine.

Time to Sober Up is Nigh

Of course, reality is sobering, especially when reality starts to interrupt our collective daydreams. Interest rates, food prices, oil prices, unsually bad weather, diseases - all these not very glamorous issues - the sort of thing you don't find at the shopping mall or in a glass of wine, these impact on our lives. The question will be raised, not so long from now: How could we not know where we propelling ourselves (and the world) giving our access to information, and given the mounting evidence. The answer will be a weak one. We were distracted. We were delusional. We were reading Mushy peas on Toast.

Concerned

As I say, it's gratifying that that's changing. Am I glad? It actually worries me. I don't welcome these changes. It means austerity is going to visit everyone, and obviously that includes me. I want us to accept that and start factoring that into our lifestyles. Otherwqise the shock, the crash, the collatoral damage is going to be far more severe than it's already looking to be.

I'd like to encourage the visitors to this blog to share their ideas on how better to care for the community - hyperlocal communtiies, and world communities in general. For these I do believe we need a few basic values: an awareness of Nature (the natural world, our own nature's and weaknesses, and our connection to everything - where Nature is interchangeable with 'God'. Virtue is a first step to wiping out the smut that has invaded suburbia, and with it, the nuclear family. Our greatest asset, is family, and we're losing families as quickly as they're being started. That needs to change.

Decency is how we begin to manifest our virtues. It's how we beahve and practise being better citsens. It's about learning some manners. Manners have deteriorated since we've gone digital and virtual. It's commonpractise to write off friends, burn bridges, rant and rave on the basis of a slightly biased comment.

Logic is the reasoning behind why all and any of this is necessary. It also balances the intuitive sense we have of what is Nature, and what is Natural. Logic on its own is dangerous. Science is why we are in this mess - we've rationalised a lot of the delusional mentality at work now. You can use logic in a small context and it will make sense (such as powering suburbia on cheap fossil fuels). Once you look at a broader picture, and think of things like sustainability, long term efficiency, opportunity costs, health etc, you find that your orginal logic starts to break down. It disintegrates, and you need to fashion yourself a new Weltanschauung*.

I believe the purpose of NVDL is urgent and vital. I hope you will join me in disseminating, aggregating and sharing meaningful messages for the world community. Lets stab a light of consciousness in the dark, try to accept what is out there, and then move bravely forward and begin to do what must be done.
*'world view'; personal philosophy of life.

Cycling: A New Sport For the New Man

Fascinating. The sport that once elicited giggles and derisive comments has become the fastest growing sport in South Africa, and is moving up the charts of the world’s most popular sports. Have a look:

1. Soccer
2. Basketball
3. Tennis
4. Gymnastics
5. Swimming
6. Cycling
7. Rugby
8. Cricket
9. Baseball
10. Field Hockey

Cycling Sensibility

It’s no accident that cycling makes sense. Of the above sports, it is the only one that combines an almost seamless synergy between man and machine. Machines play an integral part of the daily grind; most people in the western world spend most of their working week hunched over computers, then drive home in machines.

Metaphor

What is the metaphor then, that cycling has for life in the New World? Firstly, and most obviously, it is a sport based on effiency. It is the world's most efficient transport mechanism - BY FAR. Cycling is a complicated sport requiring consistency and strategy in order to excel. Co-operation is one of the highest virtues in cycle. In cycling, the strongest rider doesn’t always win. This is a sport where brawn has to be matched by brains.

Brawn remains important. You need a strong, light rider (power to weight ratio) and a bicycle made with cutting edge technology, light and strong materials (carbon fibre, titanium, aluminum etc). Brains are required to drive innovation behind the brawn - the aerodynamics of the frame, the heart rate/lactate and power thresholds, also the most suitable cadence, for the brawn.
In life, knowing about tech, being able to use it easily, efficiently and intelligently - being able to outmsart, but also to express (sometimes to decieve or conceal information) and market oneself in a particular way, and having the confidence and wit to be competitive – these are the vital ingredients for the ambitious performer.

Cyclists are typified as follows:

Perfectionists
Highly competitive
Intelligent
Disciplined
Integrated mindset

The last implies the ability to manage a number of things at once. When cycling, you are juggling road hazards with momentum, with slipstreaming, with strategy and ability, and factoring in the performances of those around you, the route and the weather.

It’s the holistic approach that wins, and a sound, cogent strategy allows for the most vital adaptation of the bike: the ability to be efficient. Teamwork is implicit.

Speed, Efficiency and Collaboration

In the New World, speed and efficiency are crucial keywords. The New Man will need to be a lightweight tightrope walker, able to adapt strategies, and quickly find and adjust to new alternatives (based on a co-operative/collabortive mindset). The winners will be able to maintain a consistent pace while things fall apart around them, whatever the weather. Here a last skill becomes important: anticipation. Cyclists, unlike many other athletes, can outwit their rivals by making accurate predictions not only while they are on the road, but beforehand.

It’s possible that if things pan out really badly, we’ll all be cyclists. Would that really be so bad?

More Cycling Articles written by NVDL:

Read The Psychology of Cycling here.
Read The Best Driver's Are Also Cyclists here.
Read The Cycling Conundrum here.
Read The Secret of Lance Armstrong's Success here.
Read Simon and the Cyclopede - A New Film For Pixar here.

NVDL Cracks Top 100 (SA Blogs)

A lot can happen in 10 minutes on the internet, and in the broiling sky above our offices. In about that space of time this blog has rocketed from around 120-something to around 90th place (SA Top Blog's, by reads).

This is not only a factor of being relevant to South Africans. Right now Google Analytics puts the total number of visitors from the UK just edging out SA surfers, with the USA in 3rd.

The top stories right now on this site:

1) Alert: Storm Warning in Gauteng at 17H00
2) Chaval - The Caveman Cometh (PICTURES)
3) Ngwenya vs Habana

Meanwhile, outside the clouds are gathering, and there are reports of police being dispatched in Pretoria in lieu of the approaching storm. If it gets any darker I think I'm also going to get out of here in the next 20 minutes, but something tells me, so is everyone else.

It also occurs to me that the internet is an incredibly vital and useful tool for the dessimnation of extreme weather warnings, at least, while the power is up and running in those HYPER-local areas. It's likely to become a trend as climate change intensifies around us.

Unclutter Your Life

Organising, simplifying and refreshing your life starts with a thorough spring clean

Clutter causes confusion. It causes lives and systems to become disorderly. And clutter is everywhere.

What is Clutter?

It’s the multitude of things that distract us, things we don’t want in our living and thinking space that keep getting in our way.
With spring having sprung, organize and simply your life by cutting out ALL the clutter. The more merciless you are, the more organized you’ll be.

PC, Phone and Office Space

Use today to focus on weeding out the clutter. If you don’t get done, finish up on what you start today tomorrow, but get it done.

Start where you are right now. Your computer. Get rid of those files and desktop icons you haven’t used for the past month or more. Spend 20 minutes cleaning out your machine, and while you’re at it, refresh your desktop. Those things you want to hang on, put them in a folder named ‘To do this week’.

Next, pick up your phone. Erase all or most of your inbox, and then go through your contacts. Any person you have not called in the last three months should be deleted. Going through your phone will also remind you of those people you have lost touch with. Get in touch today.

After your computer and your phone, have a look at your office environment. Get rid of the paper on your desk, throw away all the junk. Put pens in the same place, and sort out those drawers. Those important things you don’t want to throw away – put them in a stack. If you haven’t looked at them by the end of the week, do it, file it or throw it away.

From Mobile Home to Car

Now, your car. Go through your car. Sort out your glove compartment, ashtrays and all the rest. Essentially your car should have nothing in it besides the essentials: the maintenance books, garage cards, perhaps your license. Get rid of the rest and take it for a good clean – inside and out.

A Decent Living Space

When you get home, focus on your private space. Hey, you live here every day, make it a livable space. Throw out the trash, go through cupboards and drawers and get rid of the clutter. Old socks, old worn out underwear – out! Broken or cracked glasses – get rid of it. Replace lightbulbs that don’t work with low energy light bulbs. While you’re at it, buy a new toothbrush.

Focus on You

Last, and certainly not least, let’s focus on you. Believe it or not, you are carrying a lot of clutter, in terms of excess weight. Get yourself some good gear, and then get into gear. Get yourself to the gym. Slim down, streamline your body from slug to toned, wiry speed machine.

There. Now doesn’t that feel better?

Buffalo Bay: Scenes From a Beach

These images were photographed on September 23 on the Garden Route in the aftermath of a cold front. Light was glassy clear and the scenery pristine. Buffalo Bay is a long astretch of Beach in the Goukamma Nature Reserve, close to Knysna.

Cycling: Best Training & Racing Mantras

You snooze you lose

Each morning you lie in you miss out on life my man. It's another day of laziness and underachieving. You think it's worth it? And when race day comes, another mediocre performance. So when that alarm goes off, don't think, don't negotiate, JUST GET UP AND GO. Once you're on the road you'll be happy to be where you are.

Real life after all is about the wind moving over your skin, being in the company of other guys (on or off their bikes), moving through the world, watching the sun come up. What we do at work tends to be hamster-on-a-treadmill stuff. So make sure you get the all important real life fixes - like face to face conversation and exercise.

If you go, we go

While it doesn't take a drammatic 'BACKDRAFT' moment to make this sort of commitment, this is a useful mantra to get yourself training. But in the end you shouldn't be out there just to keep your mates happy. The locus should be an internal sense of: I want this because it's good for me. It is.

Now once you're strong and racing (from all those early morning commitments) and you're in a bunch with someone who is doing random breaks, pull up alongside and issue this stern warning:

If you go, we go.

You can also use it with teammates. Just make sure when you use it you'll be able to follow through.

With preparation comes confidence

Enough said.

The New Look

This is the 3rd (and hopefully last) name change for this blog.
It originally came into being in October 2004 as:

• 3 x luck (3rd Time Lucky)

In March 2005 it changed to its longtime title:

• The Road to a Home, a thinly veiled environmental activism site.

The idea with NVDL is to go in the 'brand me' (brand new me?) direction. The idea is to link the 'me brand' with other issues that individuals, groups and communities ought to pay attention to for affirmative living (as in living a life affirming life).

Interestingly, NVDL also stands for Namespace-based Validation Dispatching Language.
NVDL allows for interaction and validation between various XML schema languages.
The metaphor is that NVDL is a universal construct, a universal language, an agent provocateur -like Kunstler - of sorts that wakes the collective from its collective delusions.

If you approve, leave a comment!