...bringing with her the news that Ginny had argued with Dean. The drowsing creature in Harry's chest suddenly raised its head, sniffing the air hopefully.
- from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The End Of Flags

from my 2002 diary...
beyond these words
is a drop of rain
lost in the Earth
down the drain

beyond these smiles
is a cake of blood
served by a table
upon piles of mud

the twinkle in space
rubbed black and blue
now tawdry and dull
once me and you

the world is square
and squat and squashed
it's a drop in the ocean
a spark soon lost

Pretty morbid eh...

1 394/Vertigo

It's hard to tell, when you take flu medication, what part is the yuk of the actual infection, and what part is the wooziness of the medication. I once took flu medication for its drowzy-inducing effects and felt weak and sick the next day.

This morning though, I could barely croak out words, and spat out (this is disgusting) some palm sized gobs of green.

My philosophy when you are sick, is :
- get all the phlegm out of your body any which way you can
- rest (sleep is best)
- drink plenty of water
- figure out what you've done that has caused your body to break down and break the pattern

Believe it or not, I slept away most of the afternoon. The director called at 2pm on the dot, and even my husky voice wasn't enough to persuade him I wasn't well.
I explained that I had emailed one of the teachers to tell her I wouldn't be coming, and had also called the school at two different numbers and got a sing-song answering machine message. Not sure if he understood any of that. Once I told him I'll see him tomorrow, he seemed to feel better, and hung up.

Charles, a Korean guy, also called, wanting to know whether we were still going to get together for dinner. He's apparently going to study something in the States soon. Was quite funny talking to him. I must have sounded like Gollum, but he still wanted a decent chat.

Corneli, my guardian angel in Korea, just came over with some sandwiches and orange juice. She showed me a picture while she was here of her Halloween experience. Looked like a lot of fun.

My head feels dizzy and beaten up, even my skin feels raw. Throat is not so sore though. Hopefully after a good sleep I'll have some energy back. I expect I'll go to school tomorrow and hand out a lot of Hidden Message Puzzlers.

I also spent some reading my 2002 diary today. I was silently shocked at some of the things I read. I guess I have put a lot of that behind me, but it was like a chapter of horror reading this script, penned in my own hand. And no doubt I didn't put all that stuff behind me.

Diary Extract

October 28, Monday, 2002
Feeling pretty blue - don't know why? Maybe just disorientated. Maybe just feel pushed around and tricked a bit. In a few weeks I'll be back into a good routine I reckon.

I read, for example, about a guy I stayed with in 2002 who was coming into my room and using my stuff all the time, my computer, my CD player, my soap, food and water and for a while that was okay. I was open and flexible and tried to make the most of it and initially things were fine. He seemed like a happy and fun guy, with lots of enthusiasm. But then he wanted to meet my friends and go out with them, and then he started bonking various girls. After all that, he got this arrogant attitude that he was All That, and he started to make impertinent remarks. Why didn't I have a girlfriend, and was I gay? He seemed to think he knew all the answers. When I spoke to him though, he had a hard time understanding me. I had to translate English into English - like 'tap to faucet', and 'boot' to 'hood' and generally slow down my conversation so that he could get it. Everything he said was in Slanglish: "supercool, wired, let's bounce...'
I'll never forget one day in the elevator, on the way to school, he looked in the mirror and said, "I look really good today."
He was coughing blood a few weeks later. After an ongoing series of drunken late nights, night after night, he picked up pneumonia.
I first thought it was a healthy and abundant sense of self confidence. He turned out to be a loudmouthed dimwit who was just totally star struck with himself. He walked around shouting at Koreans, shouting 'Hello' and referred to girls he'd met as whores, even those who weren't in the oldest profession.
"I met some whores in Itaewon..."
His snide remarks and eventually insults (mostly concerning my not having a girlfriend, as if this was some kind of cardinal sin) then led to me putting my stuff off limits, and then he spread rumors at school that somehow got me booted out my apartment. Maybe he told them I was a hellraiser, drunk all the time, coming home shouting...or wait, shouldn't that have been my story?
Conveniently, his buddy moved in after I moved out. He didn't know it then, but that (my own place)was what I wanted all along. I was happy to move out, but not very impressed that this cheeky upstart was getting his way by false advertising. He owed me some money, not a lot, and when I moved out I asked him to pay for it. He said, "I'm not giving you any money. What you gonna do about it?"
Was I supposed to fight him for W10 000?
He tried one more thing. A bill for a correspondence course kept arriving at the school. The name though: Der Van, was incorrect. I had asked about the course but not signed up, but the inquiry seemed to have put in into an automatic mail billing. The upshot of it was, this roommate of mine, asked all the teachers if they knew anything about it, when they said no, he contacted the school and gave them my full details. I had to write back to them to remind them that I had just expressed an interest in the program and they were billing me even though I had was not involved in the course. They cancelled the bill, and nothing more was sent after that. Nice guy eh.

I have felt a weird sense of Vertigo about the next week. Having taken the day off work gives me a sense of appreciation that I have a job at all...but also a sense that a change is, given my circumstances, certainly called for.
Like the above scenario, I think the danger is to remain too long in a place that isn't good for your health or wellbeing.

The Weather With You

There are huge fires all over the Eastern Cape and some areas had to be evacuated. It seems to be especially bad in the area from P.E. down to Knysna. Other areas have no water - I see that in Koppies there is no water as from today - no tap water, no toilet etc - things are really getting desperate. I see that from Pretoria to the north towards Botswana they are having temperatures of 34 up to the low 40's. Your Dad will probably get fried when he goes [to Botswana] next week. We've already been in the Kruger Park with temperatures over 44 - that's unbearable and one feels totally listless.

What's the weather like in your area?

Flubitten

Now I'm glad I didn't commit to telling David I'd go cycling with him this morning. I'm feeling sick; total body ache, even my ears hurt when I swallow. So I'm not going to work today. It will be the first time I've ever taken off sick in Korea.
Will just lie in bed and sleep, and maybe read.
Hopefully feel stronger so that I can work again tomorrow.

Unrest

If you're a bit dismissive of US and Allied (that means British, French and German) involvement in the Middle East, here's why that's a dangerous attitude. Basically it is a race of people (Christian Caucasians) making war on another race of people (Muslim Arabs). That's not because the US doesn't like Muslims, they just need to ensure easy access to more and more precious oil resources. Remember the US has one third of the world's 600 000 cars. It has to keep its industry (which is basically suburbia) running, and its an Empire based on oil. Problem is, none of that oil is in America any more.

Kindergarten logic says, when you've finished your cake, wipe your face and wash your hands. Not: get a stick and take out some pocketmoney and buy off your teacher and threaten the other kids to get the rest of your cake.

I've reported that there's been an unsurge in violent riots in Birmingham, a model of multiethnicity (supposedly).
The reality is, everyone who owns a car and who feeds off the global system has an interest in this. They want to be able to afford to do the things they want to do, and maintain their lifestyles the way they've always done. If they're told they can't, they'll revolt. They'll be enraged. Many US consumers are already angry about rising prices.
But on the other side of the coin, is the bought off teacher (which is a symbol of the real powerholder here, the populations beneath the governments of both the US and Arab States). The other children are other countries, like Russia and China, who also want cake, but for the moment go hungry because of a big, rich bully, who sometimes does nice things for them.

If you live in a community where Muslims live then that's where the fabric of society will begin to tear, and rip. These enclaves are everywhere. They're in South Africa, Britain, the USA, France, Singapore...
If we can't attend to the basic dignities of people around us, then people will get angry. If one person is favored over another, eventually the stick is less effective.

"Your country has abandoned you."
This is not a hollow tirade, it is increasingly true. Governments and multinationals don't really care about ordinary people, unless they are shareholders. The poor are pushed aside and overlooked, and of course the poor greatly outnumber the elites. Any kindergarten child who, through whatever means, tries to hog the whole cake (a cake meant to be shared equally) will eventually be overpowered, and probably ostracised. It's just not good manners. It's not fair. The world may not always be fair, but in some things, like basic equilibrium, the principle holds.

People need to remember that they, everyday, through their consumption, approve and endorse the systems of the world. I know, for the moment, that almost no person will willingly let go of their lifestyles, downsize etc. For the moment it's enough just to prepare ourselves mentally. When society starts to destabilise on a massive level, the instinct will be to blame. And get angry. We ought to be angry with ourselves, for our own pride and greed and vanity. That is what underlies our daily activity, and none of those motives serve us, or others, in the long run. Humility, sharing and sensitivity is what we need to bring back to our communities. In a word: manners.
It will be in our best interests to not resist the new urban reality of the next few years, but to concentrate on co-operation with like-minded individuals (forming co-operative local communities).

Seventh Day of Violence Erupts Near Paris
By JOCELYN GECKER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 36 minutes ago

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France - Menacing youths smoked cigarettes in doorways Wednesday and hulks of burned cars littered the tough streets of Paris' northeastern suburbs scarred by a week of riots that left residents on edge and sent the government into crisis mode.



In a seventh consecutive night of skirmishes, young people threw rocks at police Wednesday in six suburbs in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris — about a 40-minute drive from the Eiffel Tower. In one of them, Le Blanc-Mesnil, about a dozen cars burned and curious residents, some in slippers and bathrobes, poured into the streets.

Some said the unrest — sparked by the accidental deaths of two teenagers last week — is an expression of frustration over grinding unemployment and police harassment in the communities, where many North African immigrants live. "It is not going to end. It is going to explode," said an 18-year-old who would only give his name as Amine.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy both canceled trips abroad to deal with the unrest.

"The government is entirely mobilized. Its immediate priority is to restore public order, and restore it without delay," de Villepin said.

Muslim leaders at Clichy-sous-Bois' mosque, meanwhile, prayed for peace and asked parents to keep teenagers off the streets after skirmishes broke out after two teenage boys were electrocuted last Thursday while hiding in a power substation because they believed police were chasing them.

The unrest spread to at least nine Paris-region towns overnight Tuesday, exposing the despair, anger and criminality in France's poor suburbs — fertile terrain for Islamic extremists, drug dealers and racketeers.

The violence, concentrated in neighborhoods with large African and Muslim populations, has highlighted the difficulties many European nations face with immigrant communities feeling marginalized and restive, cut off from the continent's prosperity and, for some extremists, its values, too.

"They have no work. They have nothing to do. Put yourself in their place," said Abderrahmane Bouhout, president of the Clichy-sous-Bois mosque, where a tear gas grenade exploded Sunday evening. Local youths suspected a police attack, and authorities are investigating.

The violence cast doubt on the success of France's model of seeking to integrate its large immigrant community — its Muslim population, at an estimated 5 million, is Western Europe's largest — by playing down differences between ethnic groups. But rather than be embraced as full and equal citizens, immigrants and their French-born children often complain of police harassment and of being refused jobs, housing and opportunities.

"If French society accepts these tinderboxes in its society, it cannot be surprised when they explode," said Claude Dilain, the Socialist mayor of the Clichy-sous-Bois suburb.

Eric, a 22-year-old in Clichy-sous-Bois who was born in France to Moroccan parents, said police target those with dark skin. He said he has been unable to find full-time work for two years and that the riots were a demonstration of suburban solidarity.

"People are joining together to say we've had enough," he said. He refused to give his surname because talking to reporters was poorly regarded in his neighborhood.

"We live in ghettos," he added. "Everyone lives in fear."

Many immigrant families are trapped in housing projects that were built to accommodate foreign laborers welcomed by post-World War II France but have since succumbed to despair, chronic unemployment and lawlessness. In some neighborhoods, drug dealers and racketeers hold sway and experts say Islamic radicals seek to recruit disenchanted youths by telling them that France has abandoned them.

"French society is in a bad state ... increasingly unequal, increasingly segregated, and increasingly divided along ethnic and racial lines," said sociologist Manuel Boucher. Some youths turn to Islam to claim an identity that is not French, "to seize on something which gives them back their individual and collective dignity."

French governments have injected funds and job-creation schemes for years but failed to cure ills in suburbs where car-burnings and other crimes are daily facts of life.

"No matter what the politicians say, some neighborhoods are all but lost," said Patrice Ribeiro, national secretary of the Synergie police officers' union. "Police patrols pass through but without stopping and with their windows rolled up."

Police said 180 vehicles were torched overnight Tuesday, most in the Seine-Saint-Denis region that includes Clichy, Aulnay and other violence-hit neighborhoods. Police made 35 arrests in Seine-Saint-Denis.

Youths lobbed Molotov cocktails near Aulnay's town hall and threw stones at the firehouse. In nearby Bondy, a blaze engulfed a store.

Officials said police were harassed by "small, very mobile gangs."

De Villepin postponed a visit to Canada and Sarkozy canceled a trip next week to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

President Jacques Chirac told a weekly Cabinet meeting that "the law must be applied firmly" but "in a spirit of dialogue and respect" to prevent "a dangerous situation" from developing.

Chirac acknowledged the "profound frustrations" of troubled neighborhoods but said violence is not the answer and that efforts must be stepped up to combat it.

"Zones without law cannot exist in the republic," he said.

In Aulnay-sous-Bois, another northeastern suburb where riot police fired rubber bullets at advancing gangs of youths Tuesday night, workers cleaned up charred debris Wednesday. A group of teenagers chased and threw stones at Associated Press reporters, some shouting "Go home!" and others yelling: "See you tonight."

"I am afraid. I have children," said Aulnay resident Houcine Yahiaoui, who watched the violence from his windows. "I have never seen anything like this here."

 
Photos courtesy Joseph Tobias (www.neomorphus.com)

McDonald's Is For Losers

 I watched a documenatary, McLibel, which is about McDonald's sueing (with about 10 lawyers) a pair of activists who handed out leaflets in front of a McDonald's.
(For details visit: http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/ )


 

McDonald's 'won' a settlement after the longest court case in British history. The judge settled for 40 000 Pounds, but McD couldn't enforce it because neither defendants had any money (one was a postman and the other worked in a bar)and imagine how it would look if these poor people went to jail because McDonald's went after them. So technically, McDonald's did lose.


 
This means if you eat McDonald's, you're a loser.

I want to cover, in this article, a few of the points this pair of activists covered. One of them (which the judge said was obviously true) is that McDonald's is guilty of cruelty to animals. In the footage provided, you see cows hanging upside down, still alive, shaking where their one leg is tied to some kind of belt. Later you see a sort of meaty stew. It's basically liquidised cow, which is used to make the patty.
Below is how young chicks come into the world. Sometimes there are too many chicks and they are simply destroyed; incinerated. But notice how they are conveyed. Any one of these movements off the conveyor could cause injury, broken bones etc.


 

 

Their advertising is deceptive. That means, they ask you to 'enjoy' their product, making you think certain good things about it (like it's healthy) when it isn't. On their posters they talk about 'good food' and 'nourishing' and this is the ultimate junk food. You'd struggle to do worse.

McDonald's exploit children. They pay absolutely the lowest wages for people over the age of, 17 I think, and due to specific exceptions to the law, are allowed to pay less than minimum wage to younger workers. Their turnover rate is very high, because it is a high stress, high noise, low health job, and of course, people who work at McDonald's are not only taught nothing, they are expected to learn nothing - just to follow orders. Do this, then do that, then at this time, do this, and repeat, over and over, every day.

It's just a nasty business. It's food is not healthy - that's been documented by an ordinary guy in the movie Supersize Me. If you eat McDonald's regularly, expect to get seriously sick. It's seen to be a direct cause of heart disease.
Now you know some of the basics. So if I or anyone else sees you at McDonald's, we both know where your standards lie.


 

And it's success has led to such ravenous demand that wildernesses continue to be wiped out to open up fields for graising cows (beef). Of course, if you apply the same standards to McDonald's to the rest of the food industry you ought to stop going to KFC, Burger King and other similar conveyors of Junk Food. If you knew you were eating garbage, or contributing to the garbaging of our planet, would you still do it?


 

 

 

How was your weekend?

I went shopping at rifestur*.

*rifestur = LaFesta

everyday stuff

[I'm] training my counterpart in Mumbai over the phone - so tired. I was in India for 3 weeks - what an experience - saw the Taj Mahal - see photo! India is hetic, 1 billion people, very poor and dirty - SA is great compared to this - but I had a good time.
Photo courtesy Joanne Schrock, emailing from Canary Wharf, London

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Rowling's an inventive writer. I'm enjoying Harry and Dumbledore's voyeurism through other people's memories. And Ron seems to be getting tired of trying to make Hermione jealous with Lavender Brown.

Last night at about 1am my throat started feeling scratchy, and by 5am it was a full blown sore throat with associated fever and weakness, and inflammation.
I believe I've been fighting off this virus for a while, since I already felt unnaturally drained on Friday night, and very tired after that 14km run...I felt that fatigue hanging on me the whole day Saturday...which was why I was not up for anything on Saturday. I thought a lot of it was moodiness, but it was actually just the fatigue from the infection building up.

Felt like death this morning. Speaking feels like light rubbing of my throat with sandpaper, but as the day wore on I felt it was at least manageable.
In my second last class a student coughed on me while I marked her work and I reprimanded her very sharply. She didn't expect it at all, and I think something clicked in her mind, (me being sick today) that it's this sort of indiscrimate bellowing of phlegm that spreads the flu.

I also walked into the director's office at one point, to get a handful of new textbooks, and his fiance jumped about a vertical foot in the air. They were both on the couch, doing something, and my appearance was like being hit with a cup of ice cold water.



I managed to catch the 3300 (Airport) bus back again. Lots of coughing in the bus, and obviously if I read a lot more reports of H5N1 spreading, I'm not going to catch that bus any more. I am just one person with the flu, but in a single day I touch at least 20 people, and am in close quarters with maybe 100 more. Some of these people, at least a handful, do long distance trips to other continents. That's how effectively globalism works in favor of virusses.
Lots of bald guys on the bus today, for some reason. Also saw quite a few foreigners stepping out of buildings or walking miserably down the street (on the way to work this morning).
I hope I don't look that bad.

Obviously I am not swimming today and I won't do the marathon now. I will probably pack my bike away by this weekend. The only exercise I'll probably do from now on is an occasional swim (maybe next week), and maybe a rollerblade or two. Hopefully I'll be good enough next week for one more run, and a last set of pullups.

Gobbled up some pizza as I am too tired to cook, and have been eating noodles a few too many times in a row. Spicy food is not good for colds or sore throats (irritates the already inflammed linings of the nose and throat). I am not sure if greasy food is much better.

More interesting emails today, including one from my Father. He has some interesting news; says he bumped into my girlfriend when she was on her way to buy new shoes and...he says someone has made an offer on our farm, but even more importantly, the swimming pool is no longer the color of the lawn, but sparkling silver, and I'm expected to come and make a big splash. I think I will.



This picture (above) was taken a few weeks ago. Did I ever post it? I thought I'd put it up as Allalie is apparently at TGI's right now with David and and co., celebrating payday I think.
Corneli just called and told me she is on TV again, so her celebrity status has been re-instated. She also says a friend of hers (whose wedding I went to a few years ago) has just become pregnant.
Song also called asking about tonight's dinner. I actually completley forgot about it. She says she also feels sickish, so that's fine then (the dinner being off, not her being sickish;-).

Good news is my friend Alex is going to London the day after tomorrow, and his return flight and mine arrive within minutes of each other. That means we both have our darlings picking us up at the airport, and we can have a big, chatty, breakfast catch-up at the airport. I imagine I'll be more jetlagged and worn out than he will be. London is virtually on the same timezone, and it's about 6 hours less than my flight.

I have some Tylenol, so will curl up with Harry Potter (sounds a bit sick :-O) tonight.

UFS professor regarded as world expert

Prof. Rob Bragg of the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology at the UFS, who is widely regarded as one of two world experts on poultry diseases such as infectious coryza, attended the American Federation of Aviculture Congress in Miami, Florida, in August 2005.

He shared with delegates methods for controlling diseases in captive bird species and the work done to develop a vaccine to control beak and feather disease virus.

Prof. Bragg was the only South African attending the congress. There are only a few researchers worldwide working on the virus, and the research work being done by the research teams at the UFS and the University of Cape Town is making a valuable contribution to the knowledge about this disease.

At the Association of Avian Veterinarians Congress held in Monterey,California, he discussed the work which had been done towardsinvestigating the antigenic and genotyping diversity of the beak andfeather disease virus. From the USA he flew to Turkey where he trained a group of veterinarians in biosecurity in the poultry industry. He also attended and addressed delegates at the World Veterinary Poultry Association Congress in Istanbul, which is the main gathering point for researchers involved in poultry diseases from around the world. Prof. Bragg is one of only two
researchers in South Africa who have ever presented research data on poultry at this highly prestigious congress.

In Turkey he also presented data on the disinfection programme which he developed over the last number of years. This concept has revolutionised disease control in the poultry industry and has been used successfully to control, amongst others, Newcastle Disease, in a number of countries around the world.

During this congress, he was asked to assist vaccine manufacturers in Israel, Italy and the USA with their infectious coryza vaccines and to develop a serological test for a company based in the Netherlands.

Photos courtesy Joseph Tobias (www.neomorphus.com)

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The Harry Potter book is coming along. So far Harry has scheduled Quidditch practise so he has an excuse not to go to Slug Club. Seems a bit like me, by the sounds of it.


And there is an awkward romance developing between Hermione and Ron and between Harry (although Harry's not acting on it, yet)and Ginny (Ron's sister).



Harry is apparently too embarassed to talk to an Asian girl he likes, someone called Cho Chang. Hmmmm.

I bumped into Rowan just before I caught my 9700 bus to work today. He'd just come back from a run, and some shopping. He pointed to where a sauna is (never been to one yet)almost right next to my building. He sent an email last night with a lot of pictures showing exactly how his marathon in Chungcheon went. The running shirt they gave the competitors looks damn nice. I tried to enter that race but missed the deadline. There's another marathon that I've entered though, and that one's coming up this Sunday.

I bought W5 000 worth of nartjies at a street vendor today. It may seem like a lot but I think I got ten of 'em.
I have been teaching without textbooks for over 2 weeks now.
But today the new books finally arrived, and the director almost walked into me when they did, boldly declaring, "Books are here!"
I'd prepared some materials about the Amazon Rain Forest, so I decided to teach the easiest classes these (and use up the photocopies already made). I decided to launch the new books on the hardest classes to teach (just two really), because the book does all the dumbing down, and even talks to itself (when I play the CD).
The material I produced today was interesting, if for no other reason than because I taught the students how to Google Search Images. I asked them to google 'macaw', 'sloth' and 'anaconda' and bring me pictures of those creatures (handdrawn), tomorrow. If there's a really quick way to learn english, you type in a word, and google images, and you very quickly match a word with an approximate image. That's also pretty much how our brains work. Google is good, but I'm quite sure if you google 'sloth' you won't necessary have a slightly mossy colored Amazon creature hanging from a tree.
We'll see if those efforts fell on deaf ears or not. It's ideas like this, that for some children, can cause breakthroughs in their education.

When I elected to use the new books, it turned out the director had ordered the same books we're already using. WHAT A BOZO!

I sprinted after school to catch the 3300 airport bus. Very comfortable bus, and filled with some interesting people. One air hostess with ribbons in her hair was playing with an iPod...it's screen glowed with a rosy pink hue.



I recently read that Apple has not been able to penetrate the Asian market, and especially Korea, with their MP3 players, and that Samsung are going to vigorously launch their own product. It was interesting to see this world traveller, in this Korean air hostess, who had obviously been to a few shopping malls and made her pick.

I also got a note from Rachael on my desk today. She's a Kiwi girl I met 3 months ago. I called her after school, somet time after 10pm tonight. She said she wanted me to teach 3 middle school privates from 7pm to 8pm. Perfect. Except for one thing. So I gave her David's number.

David says I missed out on a fun night on Sunday. I imagine I've missed hundreds. The point though, is, I miss me. I wrote to a friend recently to say that after becoming an Ironman, it may be okay for everyone else to be merely human, by how do you think it feels for me. It's like...ummm...Superman (in my case, Ironman) wandering around being Clark Kent/Nick Teacher. If you want to know, it's not that bad, but also, it's that bad. Just watch Smallville. It creates all sorts of problems with Lana, and he has to duck and dive to get things done, and he ends up being everywhere and nowhere.
I'd like to ask Clark one thing: "Wouldn't it be better to live just the one life? And wouldn't you chose that life to be the life of Superman?"
I think Superman found at at some point, when he gave up his powers, that things weren't quite the same with Lois, and life is, after all, a lot better as Superman.

I'm not very happy with the person I have to be in Korea. Overweight, doing pretty much nonsesensical work, struggling to do nonsensical exercise workouts (which are more like dodgem or bumper car than actual training), having nonsensical conversations (with no one listening to anyone else). I guess my life is moving according to certain forces, and with environmental factors becoming increasingly urgent, I'm seeing my happiness in a different order of things.

I'm a believer of The Party's Over, a book by a fella called Heinberg. Now wouldja really want someone who scrutinises material like this, who delves into why The Party's Over back to front, coming to your party? What if I ("Call me PK*")said something and someone actually heard what I said? Having some real conversation could be a potential Party Over. So I am supporting all the (handful)people who invite me to these things by not attending them. If I did attend them, they wouldn't invite me any more, and then where would I be?

Now there's a marathon this Sunday and I'm not certain if I'm going to run it. I know I CAN. I'd prefer to race in an event where I have trained properly.
I am considering , at the moment, running half or three quarters, and then catching the subway home. I don't want to force myself to go the whole distance and then get sick or hurt. So I'm listening to my body and trying to see what will inspire me most and be the best... At the moment I see it as a festive way to do a long fat burner and then pull out when I feel it's been a decent workout. I just need a better idea of the route before I make a final decision. So hopefully I'll get clarity from Rowan before then.

*Party Killer

Prices

In Korea, produce costs are staggering. It almost makes sense to rather by a Burger King than to spend W4 000 on a few button mushrooms, W7 000 on grapes, W7 000 on nuts or strawberries. All these items have to be imported. Yes, it almost makes sense to eat Fast Food, instead of cooking up a vegetable stir fry. Almost...because of course if you eat junk food you'll have to buy vitamins, headache pills etc to balance your diet, and join a gym etc. Anyway, I will paint a fuller portrait of Fast Food in a different letter.

One of the major areas of concern, in the Peak Oil era, is simply that rising energy costs mean rising costs of everything. Especially food, and especially food that has to travel a long way to reach us. Like beef.

In South Africa, while beef, milk, bacon and apples have recently become a lot more expensive, peanut butter, maize meal and peas have become a lot cheaper.

It's important to remember this basic concept: the reality of Peak Oil means that we have pumped out half of the world's oil. That also means we've used up the easy half of what's available, and even if we're brilliant with our technology in ways that completely outperform our past performances, we're still stuck in a cycle of increasingly difficult extraction, increasingly tough costs to mitigate.
And Peak Oil implies another simple reality: very long term (over decades), spiralling global inflation.

At ground level this translates most simply into less and less means to buy less and less food. This why it is imperative that we look to growing food locally, and begin to learn (and live) a lifestyle without fast food.

We're already paying more for food, so we ought to make large scale local changes now.

SA paying more for food
Oct 31 2005 09:28:01:873PM

Johannesburg - Based on a basket of 75 goods survey by the National Agricultural Marketing Council, year on year food price inflation for August averaged 1.37%, the council said on Monday.

"This is basically saying that if prices in August 2005 are compared to prices in August 2004, consumers are paying on average 1.37% more for the same basket of food products," the council said.

The prices of a number of food products decreased by more then 10% over the period August 2004 to August 2005 and include: super maize meal (- 18.95%), frozen peas (-10.5%), peanut butter (-12.9%) and cauliflower (- 15.5%). There were however products whose prices showed some rapid increases of more then 10% in the same period.

They are: potatoes (31.9%), rindless back bacon (11%), boerewors (16.7%), skimmed milk powder (12.7%) and Granny Smith apples (34.8%).

According to the council, cake flour prices continue to decrease, which has been a consistent trend since September 2003.

"Overall, cake flour prices have decreased by 20% since September 2003 and 5.1% in 2005 alone."

Prices of cooking oil have followed a similar trend to that of cake flour with year on year price levels dropping by approximately 9.7%. For the period January 2005 to August 2005 prices decreased by 3.7%.

Over the last four months prices for fresh milk stabilised and have begun to show a downward trend, the survey shows. For the period January 2005 to August 2005 fresh milk prices increased by 4.8% and 4.4% for a 1 litre sachet and 2 litre carton respectively.

The retail price of a 2 litre carton of full cream milk decreased from R10.31 in March to 10.05 in August - a 2.5% drop.

"The price of skimmed milk powder over the past four months has stabilised at approximately R53.65/kg, while the price of long life milk has decreased by 3.7% in 2005."

From January 2005 to August 2005 the price of frozen chicken increased by 6.7%, while the price of fresh chicken decreased by 0.21.

"These price changes have caused the price of frozen chicken to be higher then that of fresh chicken. High stock levels of eggs have contributed to the decrease of 4.8% in the price of eggs as stores and suppliers are running various promotion campaigns on eggs," the council said.

"The different cuts of beef tend to follow a similar trend. The prices of brisket, beef mince and stewing beef in the past were quite different.

Over the past year and a half the prices of these three cuts have converged to an average of R25.50/kg. Year on year beef prices increased on average by 7.1%

"Pork and lamb chop prices are highly volatile from one month to the next as they are largely effected by seasonality and supply and demand fluctuations.

Year on year inflation however shows that both prices are in fact fairly stable with the price of pork chops decreasing by 0.98% and lamb chops increasing by 1.34%."

And at the same time, in America:

A number of Fed officials have openly worried about the potential threat of rising inflation. The Fed's most recent survey of the economy, the Beige Book, noted that prices were increasing for everything from lumber and hardware to hotel rooms.

Also, the Labor Department reported that consumer prices in September shot up by 1.2 percent, the biggest one-month increase in a quarter-century, led by a record rise in energy prices, reflecting the impact of hurricane-forced production shutdowns along the Gulf Coast.

"There is a risk that energy could break out into a bigger inflation problem," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York. "We have gotten through Katrina and oil prices have backed off a bit, but there is a risk that if we have a harsh winter, energy prices will rise again."

Han River Ride

Media Stirring Again

This is an Open-Ed article written for The Washington Post. Obscurely, the writer is not identified. The term 'brought to justice' is a premise to war. And you know, who really cares about a country called Syria. It might as well be Gabon. Get ready for more stirring...and soon you might care about Syria as much as we supposedly care about Iraq. We shouldn't care about Syria. We should care about our own countries and the governments running our countries.

Don't read the article below, just follow the highlighted bold bias of the writer...

Signal to Damascus


Tuesday, November 1, 2005; Page A24

BY MOST accounts Syrian President Bashar Assad is a political naif who has repeatedly misread the cues of a changing Middle East and disastrously miscalculated Syria's responses. That's why it's helpful that the message the U.N. Security Council sent to Damascus yesterday was forceful and unambiguous, backed by all 15 of the council's members in a session attended by a dozen foreign ministers. The council's resolution requires Syria to detain and provide for questioning anyone deemed by U.N. investigators to be a suspect in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri -- a crime that has been compellingly linked to Mr. Assad's regime. Surely even this dim dictator must now understand that his choices are to dramatically break with his past or risk isolation and sanctions he could not easily survive.

Now the writer suggests that even if bullying Syria works, they're still going to be in trouble: in simple terms...whatever you do we're going to get you...we're going to go after you...

Compliance won't be easy for Mr. Assad, even if he chooses to cooperate. Among the prime suspects in the killing of Mr. Hariri, who was resisting a crude effort by Mr. Assad to reinforce Syria's domination of Lebanon, are the president's brother and brother-in-law. Brother Maher Assad commands the elite Republican Guard forces that are Mr. Assad's last line of defense against a domestic rebellion; brother-in-law Asef Shawkat is the chief of military intelligence. The resolution gives U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis the prerogative of determining where and under what conditions suspects will be questioned, and Mr. Mehlis may want to transport Mr. Assad's relatives or other suspects out of Syria. He should also interview Mr. Assad himself, since, according to the preliminary report, Mr. Assad directly threatened Mr. Hariri at a meeting several months before his death.

If Mr. Assad ordered the killing of Mr. Hariri, cooperation might only ensure his own trial before an international tribunal. If he did not, he will have to turn on those who did conspire, even if that means breaking with family members and close collaborators. Either way, his best hope of redemption with the outside world may lie in rapidly liberalizing his authoritarian government and reversing his foreign policies, which include backing Iraqi insurgents and Islamic terrorists, supporting extremist Palestinian groups, and using murder and intimidation to destabilize Lebanon.

More likely Mr. Assad will choose, like Saddam Hussein before him, to stall and prevaricate in the hope that the Security Council will shrink from taking action against him. The Bush administration was obliged to drop mention of sanctions from yesterday's resolution in order to win the votes of several governments, including Russia and China. And there is no shortage of Western apologists for Mr. Assad, who claim that he is a victim of hard-liners around him, or that the United States and Europe would be better off striking a deal with him than supporting action that might "destabilize" his country. The regime they would accommodate murdered the prime minister of a neighboring state and has done its best to sow chaos and kill Americans in Iraq. There are better ways to handle it than backroom bargaining: As a start, the United States and its allies should continue to insist that the murderers of Mr. Hariri be brought to justice.

How Does Syria React? Well how would you react if a lot of people you bearly knew ganged up on you, and said, "Do this and this, and change your behaviour. We know you did this, so that's why we're forcing you to do things our way now."

Syria Angrily Rejects U.N. Resolution
By NICK WADHAMS, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 40 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS - Syria's foreign minister faced off with the U.N. Security Council, angrily rejecting a unanimous resolution that demands Damascus cooperate fully with an investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Diplomats said they were shocked by Farouk al-Sharaa's response on Monday. He said accusing Syrian security forces of having advance knowledge of Hariri's killing was tantamount to saying U.S. officials knew ahead of time about the Sept. 11 attacks, Spain knew about the 2004 train bombings or Britain knew about this summer's London transit bombings.
And he went one step further, raising questions about why Britain had trained for similar scenarios soon before the London attacks.

"We know that such security organs, particularly the British, were fully aware that such attacks would take place and had prior training to face up to them," al-Sharaa said, jabbing his finger toward British Foreign Minister Jack Straw as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other foreign ministers looked on.

Britain, along with the U.S. and France, co-sponsored the resolution which passed with the support of all 15 nations on the Security Council, including Algeria, the only Arab nation on the council.

Al-Sharaa's reaction visibly angered Straw, who called it "the most grotesque and insensitive comparison," "appalling," and "absurd."

Rice called his outburst "a tirade which made the most bizarre connection."

The resolution threatened "further measures" if Syria does not start cooperating fully with the probe of Hariri's Feb. 14 slaying which also killed 20 other people.

Bird Flu in Bangkok

Thailand Confirms 20th Flu Case
Oct. 31, 2005

(CBS/AP) A woman in a northern suburb of the Thai capital of Bangkok has been diagnosed with bird flu, Deputy Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Monday.

The 50-year-old woman, who is recovering in Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital, is the country's 20th human victim of the disease since 2003, and the third this year. Thirteen of those infected by the virus died.

"Perhaps what we should do is give each person a gun, and when we see a migrating bird, we can just shoot it down, so Hong Kong would be a much safer place."
Hong Kong lawmaker Tommy Cheung.

Maybe after that we can shoot each other...just to be sure.

Life Is Fragile

Photo courtesy Joseph Tobias (currently in Bolivia). Please have a look at the research work they are undertaking in our most fragile and far flung wildernesses:
http://www.neomorphus.com/

The Face of Evil

UN (aka US's puppet) demands Syria cooperate in Hariri probe

By Evelyn Leopold and Irwin Arieff 29 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Monday for a resolution demanding Syria cooperate with a U.N. probe into the death of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri or face possible "further action."

The United States, France and Britain sponsored the measure in response to a tough report earlier this month by a U.N. commission that said Syrian security forces and its Lebanese allies organized the bombing that killed Hariri and 21 others in Beirut on February 14.

The report, by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who heads the U.N. probe, also accused Syria of lack of cooperation.

Some 11 foreign ministers or their deputies among the 15 Security Council members traveled to New York for the meeting, underlying the importance of the vote and negotiated the text until the last minute.

"With our decision today we show that Syria has isolated itself from the international community through its false statements, its support for terrorism, its interference in the affairs of its neighbors and its destabilizing behavior in the Middle East," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

"Now the Syrian government needs to make a strategic decision to fundamentally change its behavior," she said.

The resolution was adopted 15-0 after the principal drafters, the United States and France, agreed to delete a specific reference to economic sanctions. Instead the resolution would consider possible unspecified "further action" if Syria did not comply.

We know what further action implies. Because we know their intentions. The West intend to broaden their influence in the Middle East, and the consequences will be a de-stabilised world. The key players believe this imperialist approach is worth the risk. The risk of widening a war is never worth it.