Death In A Toilet - by Nick van der Leek

If you were after a pleasant read, best to skip this piece of writing altogether.  The intention is to take a long hard look at the cold, hard truth.  To examine death, and the cosmic ash of nothing it represents. Still here?  You’ve been warned.

One day you will die.  Everybody you see around you will soon be dead too.  Some sooner than others.  It’s 2014 now. By 2100 virtually everyone you know, and you, won’t be up here living and breathing, you’ll be down there rotting and feeding worms. 

It seems very unfair doesn’t it? Or is it completely fair.  Is it just life?  What after all is unfair, we get life, we lose it. What’s unfair? Well, just this:

"To have emerged from nothing; to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feeling; an excruciating yearning for life and self-expression. And with all this; yet to die. Human beings find themselves in quite the predicament. With our minds we have the capacity to ponder the infinite, seemingly capable of anything, yet we're housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping, decaying body. We are godly, yet creaturely." 

That quote comes from the award-winning 2006 documentary Flight From Death narrated by Gabriel Byrne. 

Since we need to make provisions for human nature, its sensitivities and proclivities, let’s turn the conversation now to the dead.  The dead who have no rights.  Let’s be voyeurs, and so, face away from looking at (or dealing with) ourselves.

Poor Reeva Steenkamp.  What were those final moments like?  Can we dare imagine?  At one point in the Oscar Trial we came close.  When an old grey man with a funny name (“Vollie”) played model for us behind that door.  I don’t understand why the prosecution didn’t get someone who looked like Reeva, to model exactly how and where she would have been wounded through that door, and how she would have fallen.  Instead, we have to imagine.

We have to imagine we are her at 3am in Johannesberg, with chicken stir fry in our stomach, on a warm evening in February, staring at a door, shouting at the wooden surface, at someone without proper legs or feet on the other side.  We know now that Reeva would not live to fight another day.  But did she?  A witness suggests that from the escalating pitch of her screams, Reeva knew what was coming.  What do you do when you know you are about to die?  Beyond the fear, what is there to say or do?

Unfortunately, even after 4 bullets ripped through that door, it wasn’t over for her.  The pain would have come as a shock.  But as she lay, her broken body, her strong beautiful body draped over a toilet, her precious blood flowing out of her head (where the worst bullet had penetrated her) she may have pondered the tragedy of living.  For such a beauty to find herself in such an ugly place. Why? She may have felt her killer pick her up, and stabs of pain as he struggled, and moved her.  Unable to blink, or speak or breathe, the exquisite sharpness of the painful fire was slowly subsiding.  But no pain would mean death.  Did she wish for it? Did she wish for the dream that was slipping so quickly away from her, to linger, for just one moment more?  Did she wish for a chance to finish her life’s work? A chance to speak to Gina.  To say goodbye to June, and dad.  No-.

And a year later her mother would drive to court, and on the way, the bitter realisation would hit her.  Reeva isn’t here.  The streets are going on without her. They will always go on without her.  They seem to have forgotten her already.  My daughter made this place her home, but now that I’m here, searching for her, she’s gone.  And I couldn’t protect her. 

Oscar may be aware of the profound simplicity of death.  That the dead can’t be brought back. They are mute forever.  They can’t testify on their own behalf.  They can’t contradict what is said, but neither can what was done that caused a death be contradicted.  Death is final.  We can speak on their behalf, we can argue for or against their rights, but they remain silent.  They remain missing.  They consent in their silence to our dignified responses and our ignorance.  And what we finally see when someone very close to us dies is really the spirit of ourselves trying to live in a vacuum.  It is a doomed reflection. It is a lost voice, crying, unconsolable, in the wilderness.  Time does heal wounds, but not in the way we think.  Time erases our memories.  In the end, all we remember is what we say we remember.  Do we really remember faces, the sound of someone’s voice, a moment? 

So what is the point of living if it ends like this?  Indeed, this is a question asked by every dying person, and the odd existentialist.  Memento mori is Latin.  It means 'remember that you will die'. But what should we remember, and why? What is the point of the mountains of dead creatures for each human life?  How many chickens, and lambs, and pigs, and bulls and fish have we torn to pieces with our teeth? How many voiceless lives have we gulped down, laughing, tasting more the wine or the cola than the oysters, or the snails, the prawns or the mussels.  How high is that mountain of dead prey that we ate without thinking? That we took pleasure in eating, rather than because we were hungry.  That we doused in sauces and spices in order to overlook the underlying inanimate, authentic flesh.  Is that what life is for, in all its forms, mouths connected with pipes to anuses, tearing at living things and pumping their digested remains out in stinking piles?

Is the world anything better than a toilet, with a locked door?  Because make no mistake, once you’re in it, there’s no way out.  Whether you’re safely in God’s Book of Life or not, your body will fail and rot and disappear.  And then what?  Who will we be then?  Will it even matter that we lived?

What we fear most of course is what happened to Reeva, and the Steenkamps of Griekwastad.  A nameless, faceless death.  Only the killers know the real reasons, and the real sights and sounds of what they did, how they did what they did, and why they did what they did.  But it makes one wonder.  If murderers must live a lie (despite their obvious crimes) in the hopes that society may forgive them, what about the rest of us?  Given how we live our lives, and the mountains of death we leave in our wake, do we not also live a lie?  The lie that we live is the shared pretence that everything is normal, and everything is the way it should be.  (Except, everyone is going to die). Is death the way it should be?  If we say that, are we being honest?

All of us are guilty.  Guilty of what?  Of being alive.  We’re guilty by association.  We’re guilty of all we do (and don’t do) with our lives.  We’re guilty of months, years, wasted on meaningless distraction.  We’re guilty of mindless materialism, and social bankruptcy.  We’re guilty of not listening, and not caring.  We’re guilty of laziness.  We’re guilty of wasting vast swaths of time, and wasting the time and lives of other people. We’re guilty because we cling to the mistakes of yesterday more than we do to the hopes and dreams of tomorrow.  And all the while, the present just slips from our grasp.  Like a candle flame brushing a fingertip, so quick we hardly feel it.

So what should we do?  Bemoan death?  Celebrate death as the ultimate measurement of a well-lived life?  Alan Harrington suggests there is a window in that toilet.  There is a way out that does not involve bullets and a locked door, or blood dripping onto the toilet tiles, or a life needlessly flushed away.  What is it?  What if we could engineer salvation?  What if we could hold off death?

“The beautiful device of tragedy ending in helplessness,” says Harrington, “has become outmoded in our absurd time, [it is] no longer desirable and not to be glamorized. The art that embellishes death with visual beauty and celebrates it in music belongs to other centuries. Anything that celebrates or bemoans our helplessness has gone as far as it can. We are done teaching accommodation to death and granting it static finality as the 'human condition.”

Really?  Because if we take Harrington seriously we have to turn our backs on Christianity and the crucifixion.  Why?  Because both glamorise and celebrate death.  Surely, death is natural, and part of God’s plan for us.  Surely, if death is natural and life after death part of a divine plan, cheating death is the real abomination.

Except cheating death is what religions and miracles specialise in.  Lazarous did, and he was a hero.  Jesus did, and became God, and saviour to billions.  You can’t get more heroic than that.  And so isn’t this the final question we face.  To be truly heroic, can we transcend our own mortality.? In this life, on this planet, in this Solar System?  Surely the question is, should we or shouldn’t we?  Or is death in a toilet the least – and most – we should expect from our lives?

Note: Nick van der Leek is a freelance photojournalist.  

Oscar Pistorius and Our Denial

Reading Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer prizewinning book* I found my thoughts turning again and again to Oscar Pistorius. Becker’s book is a great book to take on a quest, a quest to find the answers and solutions to the existential “why?” of life and death. Why did Reeva die? Who is the real Oscar? Is he a real hero?

Becker, quoting William James, writes about mankind’s common instinct for reality, and calls the world “a theatre for heroism”. That’s exactly what Oscar was doing, he had made the world literally his theatre, and he was playing the hero. But was he a hero, and if he was, when did that change? Did it change when he fired those four shots? Or did it change before that? Or was Oscar never a real hero to begin with? In the Pretoria Court this Monday, the stage is set for a different kind of theatre. Tragedy. The Destruction of Beauty, and Truth. The Fall of the Hero. And perhaps most important, Denial. Denial of death, denial of who we are, denial of truth. In this South Africans are supremely culpable, for we have much to deny, and much to answer for.

Gareth Cliff recently chided people “(especially pious people)” because they “keep telling me not to judge.” Writing on his personal website, Cliff observed that “Judging is what got us to this point in our evolution. You judge the distance between the sabre-tooth tiger and the tree, and you make a dash for it. You judge that the ledge is too high to jump off of, and you survive. You judge another person’s trustworthiness and you either do business with them or you don’t. When people tell you not to judge, they usually mean you shouldn’t criticise them or their decisions – or a situation where they have the opposite opinion to yours.”

What does Becker say about this? “The great characteristic of our time is that we know everything important about human nature that there is to know. Yet never has there been an age in which so little knowledge is securely possessed, so little part of the common understanding.” Becker goes on to describe how specialisation makes us experts at one thing, and idiots at everything else. How many people today can fix their cars, change a light bulb, or repair a piece of broken furniture? How many people are experts in their office cubicles, but their general knowledge is entirely absent. Becker says “imbecility” is the result of both specialisation and “mountains of fact”. With all the information at our disposal, what do we do with this wealth? Can we even recognise the truth? Or common sense? Or do we need armies of experts and consultants to tell us what we ought to know intuitively?

 “Is a man,” Becker asks, “an animal who seeks...heroic transcendence of his fate?” We see that transcendence in Oscar, would wanted to rise above his leglessness. But who is the Oscar we see then in court? Who is that mewling boy-man? Becker writes that “mental illness is a way of talking about people who have lost courage...it reflects the failure of heroism.” Doesn’t it!

 Becker also provides another surprising insight into Oscar’s mindset when he says “fear of life leads to an excessive fear of death.” Is that what Oscar suffered from? He tries to persuade us, after all, that this was the reason he shot Reeva. He suffered from an excessive fear of death. He felt vulnerable. He was anxious about crime and intruders.

But in the testimonies we heard in court, Oscar was certainly living it up. He was one side of the world, then another. He was in fast boats, fast cars, often with people. He was eating in restaurants, at weddings and awards. In fact, with Oscar, the opposite was probably true, his fearlessness to live probably made him blasé about the possibility – and the reality – of death.

 Killing Reeva may have seemed a simple idea to him at the time. But death is quite different to what he may have thought. The cerebral idea of death on the one hand, and the torn tissue, reek of blood, and most of all the indifference and sheer banality of a corpse on the other, are utterly at odds. And somewhere in this is a lesson. Many of those obsessively watching the Oscar Trial will say they are realists. And that through reality we can make a better world. But what do those same people do but simply watch, observe, interpret and comment on an unfolding spectacle. They are merely an audience taking in a theatre. Becker reckons “the person who prides himself on being a ‘hard-headed realist’ and refrains from hopeful action is really abdicating the human task.”

 If one looks at a crime, and testimony, and Rieff talking about “character as the restrictive shaping of possibility” the thought does surface that character is the very thing under scrutiny here, isn’t it? If we consider the way in which Oscar has ‘shaped the possibilities’ in this trial, the most paramount of them that he screams like a woman, we do have to examine (or ‘judge’ as Gareth Cliff might say) Oscar’s character. What sort of person shoots four bullets into a closed door at the slightest provocation (based on his version, a window sliding open)? What sort of person shifts versions of the truth to suit themselves? What is narcissism, and if one wakes up and finds themselves to be a narcissist, how can you ‘get over yourself’, so to speak? What process is there to be better listeners, better sons and lovers, more understanding, more connected to other absent fathers and each other?

 When Becker talks about the enemy of mankind he means “basic repression, the denial of the throbbing physical life and spectre of death.” It makes one wonder, in Oscar’s repression of events (he disassociates when it comes to Reeva, he obfuscates) do we recognise that basic repression, that basic and base deceit in ourselves? Do we see our own cowardice to be truthful? Despite our efforts to be heroes, to transcend our fates, we can’t be honest about who we actually are... When Becker describes “the ideal human character” he says this can only be achieved “from a perspective of absolute transcendence.” For a moment Oscar represented both. The ideal human character and absolute transcendence. But were they both really real? Was he ever an ideal human character? Was his transcendence ever absolute?

If we fail to recognise fraud in others, is it because we can’t face it in ourselves? One must realise that in Oscar’s case, his own body is his betrayal. His parents have abandoned him (in terms of death, absence and neglect). Schizophrenia is inevitable when one walks the world with such vulnerability, such a combination of a doting then a dead parent, only to emerge and portray oneself as a conquering hero. Becker writes that such a person “lives reflexively towards [others and] comes to be controlled by them...” In fact the risk one might disappear is so great, “he has to suck in an entire human being to keep from disappearing...” Is this what Oscar did with Reeva? And found it wasn’t working?

Here Becker cites Freud, talking of “narcissistic neurosis” and says “the ballooning of the self in fantasy [or perhaps celebrity], the complete megalomanic self-inflation as a last defense, [is] an attempt at utter symbolic power in the absence of lived [or real] physical power.” The scale of this theatre reminds me of something Churchill said, although its meaning has changed to something rather more ominous with time. You’ve heard it before: Never was so much owed by so many to so few. What does this amorphism say about our enslavement to celebrity? What does it say about the cult of celebrity, and our values? 

Despite our over-indebtedness, despite our quotidian debts, we still worship heroes who already have it all. We want our presidents and priests, our heroes and icons to be above us. But what about Mandela, who came from the rural soils, and the pedestrian brevity and humility of prison? Why must our heroes be better and brighter and taller than us? Why can’t they be us? And when our heroes turn out to be counterfeit, why can we not even bear to watch? An ex-girlfriend of mine’s father was brutally murdered when she was a young woman. Today, about twenty years later, she is a wonderful woman, and mother, and a very giving person. One might suspect, since her father was a white man in a rural area, and her murderers were three black men, she might be a racist, but she isn’t. But she won’t watch the Oscar trial.

 Another woman’s mother was gang-raped and murdered, and she is a functional, strong and happy person today. She’s not interested in the Oscar Trial either. To her the orgy of attention on this case reminds her of the gross neglect the justice system gave her family. Quite frankly, when I think about it, I am reminded of my own experiences in South Africa’s police stations and court rooms and they were all pretty horrible. This was police corruption, intimidation and justice denied in full focus. Do I want to think about it? No, I do not. Yet some of us are voyeurs in this theatre. Obsessively so.

 Becker is correct when he says “we don’t want to admit that we are fundamentally dishonest about reality, that we do not really control our own lives.” Becker goes on to discuss the trauma of emergence. It’s a trauma we all endure, and some spend a lifetime wrestling with. As children we all go through it. It is a fear of standing alone, as Becker says, “helpless and afraid”. Then Becker notes that a child’s character is essentially based on using the power of others, the support of things and the ideas of his culture, to banish from his awareness the actual fact of his natural impotence...not just to avoid death...but impotence to stand alone.” We get an uneasy impression from this. If this is a child, what is a man? Man, says Becker, is a lie. All of us are.

“[Man] lives by lying to himself about himself and about his world...and character...is a vital lie.” Freud says it differently: “[The] great cause of much psychological illness is the fear of knowledge of oneself – of one’s emotions, impulses, memories...” Think of Oscar unable to remember, vomiting, wailing... On the other hand, what we admire most is the courage to face death. Becker reminds us that “everything that man does is religious and heroic, and yet in danger of being fictitious and fallible.” Becker believes if everyone admitted honestly their urge – or desire – to be, or to remain a hero, “it would be a devastating release of truth.”

Imagine Gerrie Nel or Barry Roux asking Oscar, “Why is it important that you be found not guilty?” Imagine if Oscar answered that honestly. His answer would touch on his image in the world as a hero, and his ability to make money from the commercialisation of that heroic image. Man’s tragic destiny, says Becker, is we must justify ourselves, and we do so “desperately”. We do so in order to justify ourselves as objects of “primary value”. We must show that we count, and also that we count more than anyone else. This urge to heroism is natural, and in Becker’s view, it’s what society is made of. It’s the fabric of who we are and the society we collectively stitch together.

Becker describes the whole thing as a “symbolic action system, a structure of statuses and roles, customs and rules for behaviour.” Despite writing his brave and important book in 1974, here Becker seems to be describing Facebook (more than 30 years before it came on the scene).

In Oscar we see ourselves. The hero and the fraud, the conquering champion and the blathering child. We see the peacock and the victim, pride juxtaposed with pathetic wretchedness. Above all we see the meaning – and the meaninglessness – of the entire human drama. It is a theatre we can ignore, but it’s one we’re fated to live in, whether we choose to or not. The horror of this story is that we watched a man fashion something out of nothing for the Life Force. This is the most we can do with our lives. In Oscar we see the terrifying possibility where that object – fashioned out of nothing – is an insignificant lie. It is terrifying precisely because it reflects that lie at us, and asks us who we are, and what object we are fashioning ourselves into, and what will it mean when it’s dropped into the confusion. Do our lives ultimately mean anything? Are our lives anything more than a lie?

*The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker.

Read More:
Recidivist Acts: Oscar Pistorius and the crime that shocked the world
Reeva Steenkamp - in her own words
Speculations on what REALLY happened
An Easter Statement Analysis on Oscar Pistorius - Additional Inconsistencies

Kitesurfing The Namibian Dream [VIDEO]

2014 Discovery World Triathlon Cape Town - Elite Men

Impressive runs from #4 and #5.

The ascent (or is it descent) of Man?

2014 Cape Town ITU World Triathlon Series - Elite Women

Notice how the winner collapses on the mat, and the 2nd place finisher doesn't. That's why winners win, and second place finishers finish second.

And now my DAD has been published in TIME magazine!

Got this message from my dad yesterday:

I see the vd leeks are going places in the literary world!! Even me... TIME Magazine printed a letter I sent to them.

 

when I asked my dad what the letter was about, he said:

"The letter is a 'Green' letter regarding animals of course and eating meat in reply to an article published in TIME.a spur of the moment thing that took 5 minutes. Hav'nt actually read the published letter yet... just saw my name there before I hurried out this afternoon.Will read it sometime. .... Hope the letter helps the world. ..only TIME will tell!!"

Click on the image to enlarge and read.

Artscape Exhibition in Cape Town - 2 early reviews

Amazing opening night at Artscape, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ronnie Kasrils, Africa Melane from Cape Talk and other ordinary people. Treated visually by photographs from a couple of amateur and experienced photojournalists, depicting ordinary life in SA and celebrating 20 years of democracy and freedom. Closing my eyes and hearing Diana Ferrus recite her poem "I've come to take you home" (in honour of Sarah Baartman) so, so beautifully...

Opening address delivered by Minister Ivan Meyer was to the point and reminded us about Madiba reuniting all people - "your" culture, "my" culture, "our" heritage, always in this order. To illustrate this, he mentions one particular picture that has touched him. It is a photo of a man and a boy on a horse, the man looking ahead, into the future and the boy looking back, also into the future - "our heritage"! Congratulations, Nick van der Leek-Photo, it is a great photo. This is building the future, not brick by brick, but photo by photo.
- Sonja Hibbers
 Project Partnerships & Operations Manager at World Design Capital Cape Town 2014

I just came home from the Artscape, and it was awesome. Guys, if you do one thing on Freedom Day (or any other given day), go see the exhibit. Mucking Afazing. 

Eric, you did an awesome job in putting this exhibit together. Well done. *applauds*

- Miriam Mannak

Cape Town-based journalist and photographer

We have had a request from the SA Embassy in Congo/Kinshasa to ship the exhibition there for a showing in June.
- Eric Miller
Curator and well-known Cape-based photojournalist

More info on the exhibition here.

Fucking Gorgeous Wave Photography [VIDEO]

If there is a soundtrack to Reeva Steenkamp's life it's this haunting but beautiful song: "My Blood, by Ellie Goulding" [Listen while reading the lyrics].

"My Blood"

That feeling that doesn't go away just did
And I walked a thousand miles to prove it
And I'm caught in the crossfire of my own thoughts
The color of my blood is all I see on the rocks
As you sail from me

Alarms will ring for eternity
The waves will break every chain on me
My bones will bleach
My flesh will flee
So help my lifeless frame to breathe

And God knows I'm not dying but I bleed now
And God knows it's the only way to heal now
With all the blood I lost with you
It drowns the love I thought I knew

The lost dreams are buried in my sleep for him
And this was the ecstasy of a love forgotten
And I'm thrown in the gunfire of empty bullets
And my blood is all I see
As you steal my soul from me

Alarms will ring for eternity
The waves will break every chain on me

And God knows I'm not dying but I bleed now
And God knows it's the only way to heal now
With all the blood I lost with you
It drowns the love I thought I knew

Ohhh, ohh oh [x6]

And God knows I'm not dying but I bleed now
And God knows it's the only way to heal now
With all the blood I lost with you
It drowns the love I thought I knew

And God knows I'm not dying but I bleed now
And God knows it's the only way to heal now
With all the blood I lost with you
It drowns the love I thought I knew

Oscar Trial - Speculations of what REALLY happened, a new contextual timeline and the best graphic yet of the crime scene

This is the best graphic I've seen thus far of the crime scene at Pistorius' Silver Woods Country Estate.

A few things that stand out:
1. Notice the television cabinet in relation to the passage to the bathroom.  Remember, in Pistorius' version Reeva slept on the left side.
2. Notice where her bag (fully packed) and shoes are lying (on the right side).
3. Notice where the jeans are lying.

A few statements I'd like to highlight from Pistorius' testimony:

1. When asked by Barry Roux if he consciously pulled the trigger, or not, he answered - somewhat cryptically - 'Not'.

2. Pistorius described the terror of not being able to defend himself, yet that's exactly what he did.  If there had been an intruder there, Pistorius would have succeeded - with flying colours - at defending himself.

3. Have you thought about how Reeva felt?  "I've thought about it (not Reeva) many times...in my own...answering of the question."  This is a wildly bizarre response to Nel's question!

4. When Nel specifically asks Pistorius whether Reeva wanted to leave he dodges the question.  He never answers it directly.

And two hypotheticals:

1. In the reality of Pistorius' version, having just fired 4 shots and after screaming, why would Pistorius expect to find Reeva lying in bed.  After shooting through the door he says he retreated to the bed, and she wasn't there.  By why would she be.  If you hear an intruder and gunshots in your house, will you simply lie inert in bed?

Here's a quoted comment (off a news story) referencing the same idea:

He walks backwards to the bedroom on his stumps still in darkness, and only when he doesn't feel her in the bed, that's the FIRST time it crosses his mind that it could have been her in the toilet! Really?? I would argue that this is the LEAST possible time I would expect to find her in bed. He just fired 4 shots a few meters away from the bed she was supposedly sleeping in! He expected her to still be fast asleep or sitting in bed? 

2. In the reality of Pistorius' version, wouldn't the easiest and quickest way to open the locked door be to shoot the lock? By firing from the opposite angle, at an angle close to parallel with the wall,  you'd minimise harm to the occupant. Perhaps not, perhaps there's a danger of a ricochet both to the shooter and the occupant.  At face value though, it does seem a little odd to fire four rounds through a door and then to try to open the door with a wooden bat.

A Timeline of Circumstantial Evidence:

Wednesday 14:45.  Reeva meets her management team at Capacity Relations in Woodmead, Sandton. Simphiwe Majola, her manager says she was excited about upcoming projects.

Capacity Relations has already admitted that they did not consider a public relationship with Pistorius beneficial to Reeva's brand.  

Reeva also said in her messages to Pistorius that she wanted to give her career precedence in terms of their relationship.  In terms of her/their decision to stall Heat magazine's expose about their relationship (Heat wanted the couple in a Valentine's Day splash) this would confirm a specific strategy aimed at trying to protect her brand.
She leaves the offices at around 15:40.


It's likely that immediately after this meeting, on the way to Pistorius' house, Reeva called her mother.

According to June Steenkamp, Reeva's mother: On the night she died, when she was on her way to Oscar's house, we talked about her sending us money to pay our cable television bill.

At 16:45 : Reeva emails Nimue Skin Technology SA. She is an ambassador for them and apologises that she won't be attending the announcement of a new jewellary line.  Reeva's email reads: “I would like to wish Sarah all the best for her launch later today if you could please pass on my blessings! Reeves.”

Reeva's last tweet: “I’m there like a ­bear!!! Yayyyy!!!! X” after an invitation from Candy McKenna (general manager at Mini's Sandton-branch) to have cupcakes at Sandton Mini Cooper on Thursday (Valentine's Day).

Now considers Reeva's mindspace:

1. She's hard at work managing her brand
2. Her ex-boyfriend, though putting on a brave face, is still insecure and still not over her.
3. Her parents are struggling financially and she is trying her utmost to assist them.
4. She's had encouraging news from her management company of upcoming projects.  It's likely that they've reinforced the notion that her relationship with Pistorius must be placed on the 'backburner', and somewhat out of the public eye.  Given that neither Reeva nor Pistorius publically say they are spending Valentine's Day together, or even publically interact on twitter or facebook, this may have irked Pistorius.  Extremely aware of his personal brand, it's likely he saw Reeva as someone who could help his brand, leverage his celebrity.  For her to request that they keep their brands separate, and worse, refuse to publically mention him was tantamount to sabotage.  It was her not endorsing his global brand and it was not helping, and it's likely this came up over dinner.
"So how did your meeting go with Capacity Relations?"

Now, given the facts above, let's draw a few inferences. Let's speculate, let's imagine, let's intuit what could conceivably have happened given the information we have.

1. According to Pistorius they had dinner at 7pm and were done after about 20 minutes.  It's unfortunate that Nel didn't ask Pistorius to talk about what he and Reeva discussed over dinner.  That said, Pistorius probably would have said "I don't remember." It's possible though that an argument may have started at this point in the evening, which led to Reeva not eating or not finishing her dinner (hence she was still hungry a few hours later).

When asked to explain Saayman's (the pathologist's) assessment, Pistorius admitted that he couldn't.

Gert Saayman said Steenkamp had eaten about two hours before her death, around the time a neighbour heard an argument at the house. Pistorius, who claimed they were both asleep at that time, admitted: “I don't have an explanation for it.” 

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/world-news/oscar-pistorius/53387/oscar-pistorius-trial-reeva-had-no-time-scream#ixzz2zQZz4REo

Since Pistorius was helping Reeva with her contracts, he would have known exactly what was happening in her career, and crucially, how that affected him, and his brand.

2. They could have argued over a range of topics, among them Capacity Relations strategy to keep Reeva's relationship with Pistorius under wraps.  Pistorius wouldn't have liked that.  Another possible issue: Reeva's meeting with ex-boyfriend Warren Lahoud 36 hours before she was shot to death.  During that meeting Pistorius called her twice in 20 minutes, prompting Lahoud to ask if everything was okay. Look carefully at Lahoud's last tweet before Reeva's death. It was on the same day of his meeting with her:

Sometimes, all you have to do is forget what you feel and remember what you deserve!

What does Lahoud tweet after he finds out she is dead? Miss you Reeves you didn't deserve this #ReevaSteenkamp. (so he was clearly referring to her in that post-coffee tweet.)

But consider the significance of these tweets by Lahoud:

“Do not chase people. Be you and do your own thing and work hard. The right people who belong in your life will come to you. And stay,” Lahoud wrote on Nov. 27, 2012.

“As long as there is a small flame the fire is never out!” he added on Dec. 2, just two months before Steenkamp’s death.

[Note: Incidentally but not insignificantly, Warren Lahoud's Twitter feed has since been protected.]

Reeva presents herself on social media, that afternoon and evening,  in a good mood.

On the 13^th she tweets:

What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow??? #getexcited #ValentinesDay

But she doesn't mention Pistorius and Pistorius doesn't mention her.

On the same day she retweets this message: WEAR BLACK THIS FRIDAY IN SUPPORT AGAINST #RAPE AND WOMAN ABUSE #BLACKFRIDAY

Her second to last tweet is to punt a ‘sneak peak’ of her appearance in the reality show, Tropika Islands of Treasure.

Previous whatsapp messages highlight Pistorius' insecurity about her trip to the island.  Her response is that she's not a 'ho'.  Her appearance on TV is a big breakthrough for her, while at the same time Pistorius' face is splashed across Johannesburg as part of a MNET 'Oscar' (as in Academy Awards) campaign.  Pistorius' last tweet on February 13 is a retweet about exactly that:

‏@mnetmovies  13 Feb 2013

Tonight’s #OscarMonth movie is The Town which is written, directed and stars Ben Affleck. http://ow.ly/i/1vYVi 

A further possibility for an argument may have come from her final message on facebook.  Which was to say ‘Thank you’.

February 13

Thank you Tim Tim Hulme-Photo and People Mag for an amazing shoot! Just in time for Valentines Day :)

This may have reminded Pistorius that instead of the couple appearing together on Valentine's Day, Reeva would be appearing on her own.  He may have resented this 'one-upmanship' in the media, and felt he wasn't 'getting the goods' he needed for his brand and image.

3. Now, did Reeva intend to spend the night of the 13th at Pistorius' home?  Given the clothing she was found in, hardly pajamas, this seems, on the face of it, unlikely. The short pants she was wearing, it has been established, were Pistorius'.  Recall she had an overnight bag with her, but she'd slept the previous night at his home, and possibly only intended cooking him dinner before going home.  If she did not intend to sleep over on the 13th, specifically to 'slow down' the relationship, it's possible she slept over on the 12th in order to ward off any possible resentment for not sleeping over on the 13th.  The fact that she had a meeting scheduled that same night may also have impacted her decision on whether to stay over, or not.  

In her final text message, Reeva SMS’s best friend Gina Myers and Cecil Myers (her 'Joburg dad') a man who thinks of Reeva as his own daughter. Her message reads: "Hi guys, I’m too tired. It’s too far to drive. I’m sleeping at Oscar’s tonight. See you tomorrow."

This SMS, if one compares it to the exuberance and exclamation marks of her tweets, seems subdued. By saying 'I'm too tired' there's a hint that she's explaining a change of plan.  She's saying in effect why she's not returning home as planned/arranged.  Gina could comment on this.  On the other hand, even if she had intended to stay all along, at that late stage of the evening Reeva may also have felt tired and drained from arguing.

It's possible that after an extended period of bickering and arguing going on through the night, Reeva changed her mind.  She wanted to leave, said so, and this caused Pistorius to snap.  A night he'd hoped would produce romance and intimacy besides dinner (rather than a discussion about her career, her TV appearances and her commitments) may have been a devastating and disappointing blow to him.  Had she had a change of heart?   Was Lahoud back in the picture? No, he wasn't interested in reading her card, or opening her gift.  Well, where was his gift to her?

Then it only escalated.  At one point, later in the evening, following her late night SMS, Reeva ate something. Possibly she felt trapped, wanting to leave, wanting to sleep, but Pistorius couldn't settle down, and wouldn't calm down. Possibly neither could sleep after the initial argument. Possibly she was in two minds about leaving, but he wouldn't stop arguing with her. She would have tried to avoid an argument, avoid confronting him.  When Reeva finally told him she wanted to go home, Pistorius may have shouted "Get the fuck out of my house."

After Reeva packed her things she struggled with Pistorius, trying to get dressed.  At this point he may have wrestled with her or hit her. Then, realising she couldn't get away, Reeva fled to the toilet and locked herself in it.  At this stage he was in a vicious rage, and Reeva was terrified. She was screaming for help.  To cover himself (still very aware of his reputation, and a possible incident in the media) Pistorius went to the balcony and also shouted help.  But what could he do now?  How could he prevent this story from coming out?

What was worse, Reeva had her phone with her in the toilet and he had no way of knowing whether she was about to send a message that would mean the collapse of his celebrity house of cards.

This (Reeva with her phone behind a closed door, whilst arguing) may well have made Pistorius feel trapped and terrified. Reeva may even have said, "If you don't let me go, if you don't stop, I'm calling the police."  If Reeva were to tell the media (or anyone) about the catastrophic evening his brand would suffer a colossal blow.  He would have felt like he couldn't afford that. All his carefully co-ordinated efforts to craft his image would be undone.  Based on a quick assessment, the only way to silence her was to kill her and then cover it up somehow.  At least then his brand would have a chance, because there'd only be his story, and he could tailor it any way he wanted.  A calculated risk, and took it.

Reeva isn't going to help my brand anyway...as it is...he may have rationalized.
It's three o' clock in the morning, no one's going to be sure what they heard.
Half the plots of land around me are vacant, so no eye witnesses. 
I'll buy off the neighbours, gardeners, whoever I need to...The Hawks will help with that.

The fact that he shot her whilst on his stumps is interesting.  It suggests a spontaneous, impulsive act, but it's also possible with her behind the door, he had a chance to think, and when the intention formed to murder her, so did the idea of an intruder.  It's possible that he was on his prosthesis all along, but with her behind the door, he removed his prosthesis when he shot her, specifically to give merit to his I-was-a-helpless-victim-I-thought-she-was-a-burglar charade.

Of course the testimony of witnesses such as Ms Burger has been devastating to his case.

“I heard her voice just after the last shot,’’ Ms Burger said. “It faded away.’’

If it was intentional, once he discovered her body, still alive in the toilet, he would have to make sure she died before anyone arrived.  This meant he needed time, but at the time needed to appear to be trying to help her.  
It's possible that in that moment, seeing her bloodied body, he regretted his actions (personally I doubt it). Instead of calling the ambulance himself Pistorius calls the estate manager and tells him to call an ambulance. This buys him some time.  When security calls him he says, "Everything's fine."  For the same reason.
When the paramedics arrive, he has a last chance to run upstairs and change the scene the way he wants it to look.  This may include putting her bag on the chair, deleting phone messages etc.

Given Pistorius' behaviour since the incident (going to a party in April 2013), and hooking up with a new girlfriend by December, it's likely that he feels fully entitled to a chance to resume his celebrity lifestyle.  Judge Masipa may think differently.

Postscript: Has it been fully and finally established on which side of the bed the pistol was?  In this graphic it suggests the left side (Reeva's side), but other information (including photos) suggest the right.  Either way, Pistorius has a problem when explaining the retrieval of the weapon and why he failed to confirm where Reeva was (when she ought to have been within a metre of less of his head).

In his version he needs a scenario that allows the room to be completely dark with his back turned to the bed, so as to allow Reeva the possibility of getting to the toilet unsighted.  And thus this is the only version Pistorius could come up with to explain how that might have happened.  But it's clearly improbable.

Read More:
1. The Untold Story Surrounding Reeva Steenkamp
2. Oscar and Our Denial
3. Motive - is this why he did it?

David Goldblatt: The ultimate portrait

An Easter Statement Analysis of Oscar Pistorius - Additional Inconsistencies

by Nick van der Leek 

It’s Easter, a celebration of the March equinox. It’s that time of the year when day and night are of equal duration. It happens twice a year; the second equinox is in September. Easter, lest we forget celebrates death, fertility and resurrection.

The name itself derives from Ēostre, a dawn goddess from Germanic paganism. Even the pagans celebrated Easter; the beginning of spring, a time for planting crops, newborn lambs, the darling buds of May and a season of warmer weather. Of course in South Africa Easter heralds the opposite. The onset of winter here heralds a deadline. By now all crops ought to have been harvested, all stalks reaped. But not Oscar Pistorius.

 The case continues, and is likely to take us well into winter. Will we have a verdict by September? Probably. But as the trial unfolds, those Easter themes don't disappear. Yes, they aren’t going away. What were they again? Death. Fertility. Resurrection. Let’s examine them in reverse order.

Resurrection? 

On the 10th of April, Rebecca Davis wrote an analysis published in The Daily Maverick titled: WILL THE REAL OSCAR PISTORIUS PLEASE STAND UP. In her analysis Davis astutely highlights one aspect of particularly Christian import. In fact it was a specifically ‘Easter’ pledge. With Reeva bleeding to death in his arms, Oscar cried out (to an audience of at least three people) that he would dedicate his life (and Reeva’s) to God, if she would only live. Of this, Davis writes: “We can’t know the precision with which Stipp recalled Pistorius’ exact words, but there’s an intriguingly proprietary aspect in promising someone else’s life to God on their behalf.” Indeed.

In the same article Davis highlights something else worth noting. Oscar’s uncle Arnold, just two weeks into the trial, approached June Steenkamp and told her: “Like you we are trying to fight for a life and a life lost.” But think about that for a second. No really, take a second. What life are we talking about that is lost here? In Oscar’s own words: “I’ve taken responsibility, by not wanting to live my life but waiting for my time on the stand to tell my story.” Davis suggests that Oscar sees his year waiting for trial as ‘a form of sufficient penance’.

Of course we know during this time he had his bail conditions relaxed, he was seen in Mozambique, he resumed training and was spotted visiting the odd watering hole. In April last year, on the heels of an apology posted on his website, Oscar apparently flirted with women at a party at the Kitchen Bar restaurant. It was the party of tow-truck baron, Craig Lipschitz, a man who hit the headlines himself in 2008 for his involvement in a vicious brawl with an ex-bouncer in Sandton. Just prior to this appearance Pistorius’ spokesman said: "There is not a moment in the day that Oscar does not mourn for his girlfriend, and Reeva's family and all those who were close to her are in his thoughts constantly."

Yes it does seem as though he has thought a lot about her. And what was in it for her. And what happened to her. And what it must have felt like being dead for the past year. All this whilst entering into a new relationship with a brunette teenager.

Fertility? 

Make no mistake, celebrity is a form of idolatry. But this hero is a fake. And there is no end to it; the fakery, the theatre and the mockery goes on. The Pistorians (oddly enough all women) want to be clear that even a murderer is worthy of hugs, balloons and our love. Really?

More recently, Jani Allan has expressed the outrage that is so sorely missing from every discussion of this case. If there is outrage, it’s measured. It’s stoic, just as the Steenkamp family have been stoic, and even forgiving. But if our authentic feelings aren’t good enough, what is appropriate under these circumstances?

Here’s a shocker. It is not the public’s job to reserve judgement. We are not lawyers, we are society. We aren’t judges either, it is true, but we are (or should be) the arbiters in the end of our own culture, and standards. Our job is to care and to develop a public response. A social reaction. The question we're being asked is this: Is this world we live in the world we want? Are these the sort of people we admire? Do we want people like this to be an integral part of our social fabric? Should we aspire to this? Are these people of the sort we ought to accept? And is this who we are?

 Allan writes: “...the life you led was without spirit. It was a wasteland filled with expensive toys and recidivist acts. The sound of your delighted cackles as you shot at a watermelon – a zombie-stopper – I believe you called it, was so disparate from your whiny-girly mimsy court voice that it’s difficult not to burst out laughing while listening to you. Oscar, I look at you mewling and puking in the witness stand. You truly represent everything that the West loathes about white South Africans who live extravagant lives in their expensive laagers.”

In a word, Oscar represents entitlement. Entitlement is another word for privilege. What privileges do the rich enjoy? Is the life of another expendable to my own hearts desires? Can the life of a person be compared to sums of money hanging in the balance? If you can offer up someone’s life to God while they are dying (and on their behalf) to save yourself, you are suffering from narcissism of the highest order, and that's low. Underneath that narcissism, beneath the veneer of manicured suits, clipped fingernails, acting lessons and PR is something of incomparable ugliness.

 And now, without further ado, the inconsistencies 

1.Whilst on the stand, during cross-examination by the state prosecutor, Oscar made this slip. “The more famous I am the more money...” He started saying this and then corrected himself: “The more famous I am doesn't mean the more money I make”. Let's forget for the moment that this is in itself both untrue and disingenuous.

Gerrie Nel had just referenced Oscar’s message to Reeva: "Angel please don't say a thing to any one..." Asking to explain this message, Oscar (avoiding eye contact with Nel) said, "I didn't want [it]to be in the media.” Why wouldn’t he though? Because of the money that would be at stake. Oscar says as much when he uses the word “afford”. He can’t afford this to be in the media, he says, but he can. He’s wealthy. It’s not a positive story by any means, but it wouldn’t be the end of his world. Would it dent his image and perhaps curtail a bonus here or there, absolutely. What is important here is the admission. Because it points directly to avarice.

2. "No, My Lady, Reeva was never scared of me, My Lady.” This was Oscar’s response to Reeva’s whatsapp messages, with Nel putting it to Oscar that she was often afraid of him. The question is: Are we supposed to take this denial at face value? Bearing in mind Michelle Burger’s testimony of terrified screams, screams of a woman who knew her life was in danger, screams that were reaching a climax, screams like jackals that still haunt her a year later. Screams that reduced her to tears when Nel asked Burger to recollect them. Those same screams launched two husbands out of their beds and onto their balconies in the dead of the night. The critical slip of the tongue here? It’s in the word ‘never’.

 Has Oscar forgotten when Reeva phoned her mother whilst in Oscar’s car?  When Reeva told June Steenkamp he was scaring her by driving recklessly fast? June Steenkamp says this was the one and only time (until Reeva’s death) she spoke to Oscar, and what she said was: “I warned him that if he hurt my baby in any way I would wipe him out.”

Death?

But South African society seems to have adopted the same polite stoicism in the face of a man who not only hurt that baby (whom he called ‘baba’), but shot her to death. It’s difficult to overemphasise the violence of her death.

3.A pathologist recently described the bullet wound to her arm as the equivalent of “an instant amputation.” When Oscar describes it he uses the most benign euphemism possible. “Her arm was broken.”

4. When Oscar describes Reeva his descriptions are mute and constrained. But his descriptions of everyone else are in the finest details. “The officer had shorts on...they were casually dressed...” He even tells us where they were standing, what they say to him, their gestures and movements. About Stipp we even get a psychological assessment. “He seemed overwhelmed by the...the situation.” Stipp was a doctor, and what he discovered was basically a young woman who had been shot to death. If her injuries had not killed her, the loss of blood had. If there was nothing he could do to save her, this does not mean he was overwhelmed.

Oscar describes himself shouting and screaming, but would probably stop short at using his own word (overwhelmed) on himself.

 5. When Oscar describes finding Reeva in the bathroom, breathing again, he describes sitting on his ‘bum’. When he describes how she is sitting, in later testimony, he uses the word ‘buttock’.

Of the incident itself he says: “I perceived someone coming out of the toilet...” Perceived is another manufactured word. We don't speak like that. Imagined is better, but ‘I thought I saw’ (if it really happened) is the most authentic.

6.Speaking about her corpse, Oscar asks us to believe how sensitive he is:“When I saw Reeva I got sick.” Yet he was able to carry her body downstairs, and put his fingers in her mouth.

7.Consider the detail in Oscar describing where he stood when the medical team attended to her body. “I stood where the dining room and kitchen kind’ve meet...” He’s describing in detail his open plan house and uses a casual term like ‘kind’ve’ to describe the scene and context when Reeva was pronounced dead.

Conclusion 

Life is not fair. People get away with things all the time, from the lowest bottom dwellers to the highest pond scum. Politicians and pickpockets. Jilted lovers and the jobless. Absent parents and their ungrateful offspring. We care about accountability because accountability matters. Accountability is part of the Natural Order of Things. It’s a key tenet of every faith, but you don’t have to be a believer to know or appreciate the idea of responsibility. It is not enough for justice to be done, we need to see it being done, so that we have at least some confidence in society, in authority, in our fellow man and ourselves. We enjoy the freedoms we have exactly because we know others respect our personal rights, and we reciprocate. When this social contract breaks down it matters. It’s worthy of our attention.

 If anything good can be resurrected out of the interminable Easter-time of this trial,this movable feast, it is this: we need to be honest with ourselves. We need to recognise when others are not being honest with us. In our relationships, in our families, in our living and the sharing of our lives with others in this world. We must remember that justice and accountability are one and the same. When we self-examine ourselves, as this trial asks us to do, we become better people, and we make a better society. When we examine ourselves life becomes fairer. When we remember accountability integrity returns. When we’re honest, living becomes authentic and the people around us more genuine. More real. Isn’t that a result worth celebrating?


Further Reading:
1. The Untold Story Surrounding Reeva Steenkamp
2. Speculations as to what REALLY happened.

Oscar's crazy answer to this simple question from Barry Roux.... [Audio]

For more background and insight into the Oscar Trial, go here.

Oscar: the mouse behind the mask

“I was more into her at times than she was into me.” This was one of Oscar Pistorius’ opening gambits on Day 18. Ironically, at that very moment the camera focused on Reeva’s blonde cousin, Kim Martin. Martin, seated beside Gina Myers (Reeva’s best friend), made a grim remark that looked like “No wonder”.

Stoic is the word being used to describe the Steenkamp camp. June Steenkamp’s stoicism is nothing short of remarkable. This is the vital clue to understanding the ‘unbalanced’ dynamic of Oscar and Reeva’s relationship. Reeva Steenkamp was the older, more secure and stoic of the two, Oscar had more of the power and authority, but also an immature obsessiveness and insecurity that even Reeva described to Oscar as frightening.

Stoic is the last word that comes to mind if we we’re describing Oscar right now. Increasingly there are whispers that Oscar’s weepy testimony, in fact his entire defence, is simply a perpetuation of his original narrative – which is playing to an audience all the time. Arguably, Oscar has been doing this since his school days. Because his sense of self is derived through the eyes of others (the world, the media, brands, women, friends and the able-bodied world) he absolutely cannot abandon his own ‘melodrama’. To do so is the equivalent of self-destruction. His ‘performance’ therefore is his supreme effort at self preservation.

This is a crazy case where Oscar is both the perpetrator and the victim. And because Oscar is the only person who really knows what happens, he is writing the script, and will write it as long as there is an audience to appreciate its veracity. The script, currently a work in progress, is reshaping the ‘I-am-the-bullet-in-the-gun’ narrative, the hyper masculine, confident, handsome champion into an inversion. Oscar now wants nothing to do with guns, is so terrified he hides in a cupboard like a child, speaks like a child, doesn’t even have the constitution to see pictures of blood or to hear about what he did on that fateful day. Instead of the virile victor who overcame enormous odds, we’re seeing a crying ‘boy-man’ carefully taking us through ‘smiley faces’ and counting the number of kisses.

The terms of endearment the couple used may seem cute, but using baby names after arguments is hardly the stuff of mature argument resolution. Rather, it appears to be one-dimensional appeasement. It has suggestions of passive-aggressive personality. This trial is nothing if not an enormous backward flip from aggressive to the point of overkill, back to passive to the point of a crybaby.

Worringly, we see Reeva trying to adapt to Oscar’s expectations. Both had made it their vocations to court public opinion, and so measuring themselves up to others opinions may have felt natural. Reeva herself admits the difficulties she was having in trying to sculpt her body down to the required 52kg. At the same time, Reeva was instinctively trying to play the nurturing and supportive role. She said, “I don’t want to make a spectacle out of us.” Did he? Following the 2012 Olympics, and his defeat, Oscar’s star was waning, and he desperately needed a new narrative. Reeva fitted the bill, something Oscar alludes to on numerous occasions (“I was bowled over by her.”) Reeva’s concessions to him may have achieved little more than enable his vanity, his possessiveness, his moodiness and his controlling behaviour.. Reeva, a well known personality in her own right, and a professional model, asked Oscar, for example, if she could wear a certain leopard print dress for a formal occasion. This concession alone ought to have indicated to her that their relationship lacked fundamental substance.

In terms of Oscar’s descriptions of his own actions at Tasha’s and driving from the Vaal, and his precise description of objects of furniture (but not what Reeva was saying or doing) on Valentine’s Day there is more than a mere suggestion that Oscar has a knack for whitewashing his narrative. Samantha Taylor, Oscar’s girlfriend before Reeva Steenkamp, immediately deleted this emotional tweet during Oscar’s testimony on Day 18: “Last lies you get to tell. You better make it worth your while.” Are Oscar’s versions of events accurate? Thus far he has contradicted close to a dozen witnesses, including going so far as to say he never fired the shot through the roof of the car.

What we do see plenty of is disassociation. This is illustrated by repeated head over hands, fingers in ears and he never really assumes accountability. We saw the same thing when he was beaten unexpectedly by the Brazilian in 2012, and immediately Pistorius – feeling himself invalidated, his ego bruised – publically lost his temper. During his testimony his evidence is whitewashed, describes Reeva's arm as 'broken' and that she is not 'breathing'. He can't remember fetching plastic bags but he remembers a policeman putting his hand on his shoulder. He describes being told by a paramedic that "Reeva has passed", and blames Stipp, saying "he seemed overwhelmed, didn't seem to know what he was doing." Interestingly, Stander and his daughter both seemed to be asking Pistorius to leave Reeva (or leave her body) alone, saying the ambulance was on its way. But Pistorius took total control of her body throughout.

The stage management of the Oscar Pistorius trial is also impossible to ignore now. While it may seem that Oscar’s lengthy testimony is all about providing relevant biographical details, the rehashing of innumerable lovey dovey whatsapp messages ad infinitum hardly addresses the heart of their relationship. In fact, his failure to get away from these endless whatsapp quotes suggests the exact opposite, that there wasn’t much substance to go on to begin with. The stage management by Oscar’s defence team can be ‘felt’ not only through the “I’m-a-poor-boy-from-a-poor-family” vibe via Oscar’s trembling voice, but also through the precision and co-ordination of the blocks of testimony fitted in between tea and other breaks. Oscar’s apology to June Steenkamp did not take place by accident. It was a calculated ploy to play to an audience when that audience would have been at its maximum. He had over a year to write a private apology, and if written words were not sufficient, were words in court and on camera any more so?

There are also some basic and fundamental questions that still need to be answered. One, where are Oscar’s next door neighbours? What happened to Oscar’s phone in the period between the killing and after he handed it in? Why did Oscar have his fingers in Reeva’s mouth at the bottom of the stairs if she had stopped breathing when he found her in the toilet? And what were Oscar’s real intentions at 03:16 on 14 February 2013. In a word, why? For more background and insight, go here.

Barry Roux prepares Oscar for 'sympathy vote'

It's easy to imagine that when Oscar Pistorius testified on Monday, the 7th of April, following an expert witness, that this was 'spontaneous'.

 Of course the defense has been preparing Oscar Pistorius for over a year, and had a full week gifted to them prior to Monday thanks to illness of one of the assessors.

 Except the illness of the assessor now makes Oscar's testimony, in retrospect, somewhat less authentic.

 Here's why. First of all, the opening 3 acts of Oscar's testimony (all conducted in the first half hour)are as follows.

 1. A tearful apology, while at the same time making no concessions, and at the same time giving reasons why no apology was given sooner (I couldn't put it down in words, words would never be enough etc).
 2. A weepy admission by Oscar that he is on antidepressants, suffering from insomnia, weightloss and 'scared at night'.
 3. A trembling anecdote about him waking up terrified and hiding, and because he will never touch guns again, was so scared, he called his sister to babysit him. All these formed part of Roux's opening gambit, and all three were clearly calculated to solicit sympathy.

 None provide facts crucial to the case, or concessions of any importance, except for the first, where the timing of Oscar's apology could be argued as strategic, opportunistic and performance contrived for his first and biggest public declaration since killing Steenkamp in February 2013. The contrivance is even more credible given the timid 'baby voice' of Oscar Pistorius, apparently close to tears, even after the lunch break, close to an hour later, when testifying about his successes, and travelling abroad. Does this 'little boy' voice sound much like Oscar Pistorius does during his many recorded interviews?

 There was a further card played by the defense basically portraying Oscar as a 'good guy', a Christian from a Christian family who was only following his late mother's example in terms of his fondness for guns (she kept one under her pillow).

 More sympathy was solicited based on the focus of the circumstances of her death, and the pain and discomfort surrounding abrasions caused by having to wear his artificial legs (especially during long flights). The boating accident is painted in meticulous details, sights and smells, but Pistorius is vague about what object was hit in the water, and who was at fault, if anyone, and what was the actual cause of the accident.

 The point of this scenario is to say that it caused a 'turning point' in his life, which led to Oscar becoming very careful, and taking pains to look after himself and presumably, live more responsibly. (This added caution apparently did not encompass a love for deadly weapons, habitually driving well over the speed limit or any admission of anger problems). 

It will be interesting to see how Oscar Pistorius stands up to cross-examination from Nel. If it is a performance, perhaps his best strategy is to cry and have breakdowns throughout. If that is the case, the cross-examination is likely to last for the rest of the week, and even longer. But expect plenty of opportunities to 'feel sorry' for Oscar. This has been his defense from the beginning.

Oscar Pistorius Apologises During His Testimony for killing Reeva Steenkamp in Court [AUDIO]

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Irving Feffer's Gamebreaking Speech (from Along Came Polly)

Irving Feffer: It's not about what happened in the past, or what you think might happen in the future. It's about the ride, for Christ's sake. There is no point in going through all this crap, if your are not going to enjoy the ride. And you know what... when you least expect something great might come along. Something better then you even planned for.

22 Questions For Oscar Pistorius

Link to OP's original affidavit here.

1. At 22H00 your legs were off and you say you were in bed watching television.  What did you have for dinner, and when did you and Reeva have dinner?  What were you watching on television, which side of the bed were you on, on which side of the bed is your handgun, and on which side of the bed are your fans?

2. Reeva's shoes and overnight bag were on the left side of the bed.  Your gun was under the bed, on which side?

3. What woke you up early in the morning of 14 February?  What did you say to Reeva when you got up to get the fan, and why were the fans outside to begin with?

4. If you were hot, why not simply open the door to let cool air in?  Why not turn the air conditioner/thermostat on? As it was you brought the fans in then did nothing with them because you thought you heard a noise? Could that noise not have been Reeva opening the bathroom window because she was also hot?

5. After you say you heard the bathroom window slide open, you screamed for Reeva to call the police.  What did she answer?

6. You were too scared to switch a light on, it was pitch dark in the bedroom, yet you were able to find your gun and walk towards the bathroom? How long did that take?  While you were walking in the pitch dark, did you not hear Reeva in bed behind you or any other sounds coming from the bathroom?  Or was it a case that in your terror you walked quickly forward screaming, and thus screaming, were deaf to any noises coming either from Reeva or the intruder? In other words, you weren't listening to ascertain what was happening either in front or behind you.

7. Did the light in the bathroom not provide any light to make it less pitch dark in the bedroom?  Also, did the lights from the house opposite yours (opposite the balcony with the curtains, blinds and fans) not produce ambient light against the curtains?

8. You heard movement in the toilet, and the door was closed.  What sort of movement did you hear?  Did you ask who it was?  And having shouted to call the police, did the 'intruder' behind the door, who was Reeva, remain silent throughout?

9.  If the intruder (Reeva) remained silent, did you scream hysterically, and this sounded like a woman?

10.  Can you demonstrate, right now, how you scream like a woman?  Possibly the witnesses can listen and see whether these sounds coincide with the sounds they heard.

11. If you were so terrified, why did you approach the danger?

12. If you were so terrified, why did you not make any attempt to find out where Reeva was, and how she was?  If there was an intruder in the house, was it not possible that Reeva and the intruder could have been in the toilet at the same time?

13. You found the toilet door closed.  In fact it was locked and bathroom light was on.  Even so you elected to shoot through the closed (locked) door. In your affidavit you say: "I fired shots at the toilet door and shouted to Reeva to phone the police." Did you know at that point that both phones were in the bathroom?  Was it also pitch dark in the bathroom, is that why you didn't see your/her phone?   So you were firing shots whilst shouting?  Could you not have shouted, who is there?  Could you have fired a warning shot? Why did you fire four shots?  Why did you fire four shots in four different directions? Why did you fire shots directed towards the toilet?  If the intruder was using the toilet, or sitting on the toilet, you should have been aware that you were not in any imminent danger. Why not one or two?  Also, why did you stop shooting after the fourth shot?  Also, why did you stop shouting after the fourth shot?  Surely you had no idea who was behind the door and if there was still a danger?  Why did you stop shouting to Reeva after the fourth shot?

14. At what point did you shout Help Help Help?

15. When you reached the bed you realised Reeva was not in bed.  How come?  Could you see her, or did you feel that she was not there?  Once again, with the bathroom light on, how could the bedroom still be pitch dark?

16. After you found your toilet door locked, and realised Reeva wasn't in bed, you say you opened the balcony door and went outside and screamed for help.  Is that when you screamed Help Help Help?  And it was only you screaming at this point?  And this was after 03:17?  Did the nieghbours opposite your balcony with all the lights on not hear anything? Why have the neighbours nearest your house not testified as to what they saw or heard?

17. Why did you not call an ambulance at this point?  And why call for help if you had shot through a door and had no idea what happened, if anything?  Reeva may have been downstairs?  Why not check downstairs and try to find out where she is. Why would she be in the bathroom necessarily, and not an intruder? How would you have known anyone was necessarily behind the door?

18. You put on your prosthetics presumably with enough light coming through the curtains, and then went to the bathroom to kick the door on, during which time you 'think' you turned the light on.  Did you or didn't you?

19. You bashed the door open with a cricket bat.  How long did it take to break open the locked door? By this time you had still not called for Reeva, or the police or an ambulance.

20. You found Reeva still alive, slumped over the toilet. You don't mention that she was bleeding or any of the wounds you'd inflicted on her.  You also don't mention the bullets you used, how many bullets you fired, or the blood on the floor.  What did you do to help Reeva besides drag her out of the toilet?  Did you say anything to her, did she say anything to you?

21. Surely, given the extent of her injuries, it would have been better to treat the deceased where she still was, and carrying her downstairs, on prosthetics, risked further injury to her.  Why was no attempt made to stop her bleeding upstairs?  Was a tourniquet used?

22. You tried to render assistance to Reeva, but she died in your arms.  You had two fingers in Reeva's mouth when the doctor arrived.  If she was trying to speak or breathe (since she was still alive) and your intention was - after all - to kill her, surely by controlling her airways you could control whether she could incriminate you or not?

Reeva in her own words (via Whatsapp)

27/01/2013

16H17:34

I’m not 100% sure why I am sitting down to type you a message first but perhaps it says alot about what’s going on here. Today was one of my best friend’s engagements and I wanted to stay longer.  I was enjoying myself, but it’s over now. You have picked on me incessantly, since you got back from CT and I understand that you are sick, but it’s nasty. Yesterday wasn’t nice for either of us but we managed to pull through and communicate well enough to show our care for each other is greater than the drama that attacked us. 

I was not flirting with anyone today. I feel sick that you suggested that and that you made a scene at the table and made us leave early. I’m terribly disappointed in how the day ended and how you left me. We are living in a double-standard relationship where you can be mad about how I deal with stuff when you are very quick to act, cold and offish, when you are unhappy. Every five seconds I hear how you’ve dated another chick. You really have dated a lot of people, yet you get upset if I mention one funny story with a long term boyfriend. I do everything to make you happy, and to not say anything to rock the boat with you. You do everything to throw tantrums in front of people. I have been upset by you for two days now. 

I’m so upset, I left Darren’s party early.  So upset I can’t get that day back. I’m scared of you sometimes, and of how you snap at me, and how will react to me sometimes. You make me happy 90% of the time, and I think we are amazing together but I am not some other bitch now trying to kill your vibe. 

I am the girl who let go with you, even when I was scared out of my mind to.  I am the girl who fell in love with you and wanted to tell you this weekend. But I am also the girl who gets sidestepped when you are in a shit mood. When I feel you have done so why try anymore?  I get snapped at, and told my accent and voices are annoying. I touch your neck to show you I care.  You tell me to stop.  Stop chewing gum. Do this.  Don’t do that. You don’t want to hear stuff.  Cut me off. Your endorsements.  Your reputation. Your impression of someone innocent blown out of proportion fucked up a special day for me. I’m sorry if you truly felt I was hitting on my friend Sam’s husband. And I’m sorry that you think that little of me. 

From the outside I think it looks like we are a struggle and maybe that’s what we are. I just want to love and be loved, be happy and make someone so happy. Maybe we can’t do that for each other because right now I know you aren’t happy and I’m certainly very unhappy and sad.