Author: manqindi

Post imperial wind drift. Swazi, British, Zimbabwe-Rhodesian, Irish, New Zealand citizen and resident, now in Queensland, Australia. 10th generation African of mainly European descent. Catholic upbringing, more free thinker now. BA and Law background. Altar boy, wages clerk, uncle, prefect, student, court clerk, prosecutor, magistrate, convoy escort, pensioner, HR Practitioner, husband, stepfather, father, bull terrier lover, telephone interviewer, Call Centre manager, HR manager, grandfather, author (amateur)

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose

So sang Kristofferson and Joplin after Bobby McGee left them heartbroken and bereft.

That may be true in the sense that relationships and possessions carry obligations which are fetters on your freedom.

Throughout Africa, freedom from colonial rule has led to continued corruption and tyranny, the destruction of agriculture and plunder of natural resources without regard for posterity and a disregard for welfare of the people, which will soon leave nothing left to lose.

In the supposedly more civilised ‘western world’, increased freedoms have led to the inability of governments to curtail or restrict the increasingly conflicted demands on the fiscus and the disempowerment of Police, Border Control and Armed Forces. Soon they too may have nothing left to lose, because everything is free.

But I digress.

I have recently done a course on What Works in Development Aid strategies

The course started off by saying that not many aid strategies worked because of the rip-offs by the empowered elites in recipient countries.

Somalis, Sudanese and Ethiopians are still starving after how many years and dollars of aid . In addition, because the development aid in health has been so successful, there are many more people doomed to hunger!

We are talking big money: $135 billion in 2014 spent by OECD countries alone!

The United Nations sustainable development goal number 1 is: to leave no-one behind by 2030. Cute, hey?

Perhaps consideration should be given to the existence of the development aid industry as a whole: from UN agencies, to government ministries, to universities to aid workers and supply chain operators – is it worth the significant expenditure of taxpayers dollars?

Should foreigners be intervening in sovereign states to prolong life expectancy in a world where natural resources are being depleted and destroyed by too many people?

Or is the development aid industry too entrenched to re-consider its roots. The disguise or suspicion of imperialism and market growth will remain.

Should we continue to shore up tyranny by removing the desperation of their populace, who eventually must be the authors of their own liberation? The alternative is the one that communism and agencies like the CIA instigated: arming people to enable them to confront abuses. Is the morality not the same?

The survival of our world is threatened by the wholesale destruction of our environment by unrestrained economies with burgeoning populations. The survival imperative is to safeguard resources. Economic and political interventions are apparently tenuous and entail the appeasement of tyrants for success, which is morally unpalatable.

Military intervention to impose and sustain appropriate institutions and practices is an alternative, but failed in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somaliland, Syria and is much more expensive and politically sensitive!

However, my putative rant hit a brick wall.

A little more research and thinking about the topic suggests that it is in fact very necessary expenditure:

On average, the richer states spend only about 0.7% of their gross national incomes on aid (relatively insignificant)
it curbs global spread of diseases
it buys friends, allies and access to resources
it provides markets…
the aid industry employs many people at home and abroad; e.g.: in the US all aid supplies must be made in the US.

In 1990, 1.9billion (36%) of the the world population of 5.3 billion, lived in extreme poverty. In 2010, only 1.2 billion (18%) of the increased population of 6.8 billion, lived in extreme poverty. Aid is believed to have significantly contributed to this reduction in poverty and increased life expectancy and the eradication of a number of diseases.

It also definitely contributed to the 28% increase in population.

There are other secondary (or maybe primary objectives), like the renewed

scramble for Africa, illustrated by the numerous and significant projects

funded and manned by China.

It is ironic that China was one of the main supporters of the spread of communism in Africa, until its loss of credibility.

However, over 150 countries (of the 196 in the world) have committed themselves to the United Nations Development Programme’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

This is where our hopes lie, as signatories can be held accountable to their commitments.

Here’s hoping!

Old Friends

Last week I wrote of the passing of a kinsman and how my world seemed to shrink, but the warmth of our association remains.

This week I write about old friends with whom my wife and I spent time over the weekend.

Old as in ‘older than us’ from where we lived before, who are still good friends.

We were neighbours and shared a love of plants, summer lunches, sometimes heated discussions, poetry and word plays. We shared similar Southern African origins and discovered that we were almost related, with a sister and an uncle romantically linked for a while.

The word “friend” comes from Old English “frēond”, which is actually the present participle of “frēogan”, which means “to love” and “to honor”.
a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.

Synonyms: 1. comrade, chum, crony, confidant. 2. backer, advocate. 4. ally, associate, confrere, compatriot.

Tick all boxes!

Our world shrinks as we age

I mourn the passing of an icon in my life today.
Energy and efficiency and focus were his middle names. Fast, impatient and so competent.
I bet he chastened his surgeon about the workings of his pacemaker and circulatory system that failed him!
And generous with his skills and abilities, especially with his bumbling brothers in law.
What a fisherman! And a sailor who instilled a love of the sea and sailing.

That’s 3 brothers in law I have lost in recent years. Good men, generous and competent engineers, all of them. Heaven will be much improved!

We mourn the circle of life as we enter winter.
But a new Spring will come – different, somehow smaller, but renewed and growing new shoots and flowers.

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” – Rabindranath Tagore

A new campaign

Our current campaign is a global war against that yoke of uniformity, the neck tie.

There can be no logical explanation why people continue to tie strips of cloth tightly around their throats and then dangle them on their chests.

This was blogged on 16 October 2005, but the real campaign against the necktie started in practice in the 90’s with the wearing of silly socks on Fridays. The more radical followers of the movement also began wearing outrageous and unseemly ties to draw attention to the folly of the fashion convention.

The recent neck-naked appearances of those prisoners of convention and foremost icons of the stiff upper lip Society, HRH Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, KG, KT, PC, ADC(P), HRH Prince Henry of Wales, KCVO and the Obamas indicates their clear support for the campaign and clearly demonstrates that the campaign is all but won. (The speculation that they read this blog can not be confirmed.)

no necktie nobles.jpg — Long live the revolution!

We will not be distracted by celebrations of victory but rather dedicate our considerable efforts to a new campaign.

Ban the Bag

The New York City Sanitation Department collects more than 1,700 tons of single

use carry-out bags every week and has to spend $12.5 million a year to dispose of them.

Clean up Australia informs us that plastic bags have been around for 30 years now. It is estimated worldwide that 1 trillion bags are used and discarded every year.

plastic picnic spot — Protected picnic place

Australians use 3.92 billion plastic bags a year, that’s over 10 million new bags being used every day. An estimated 3.76 billion bags or 20,700 tonnes of plastic are disposed of in landfill sites throughout Australia every year. Australians dump 7,150 recyclable plastic bags into landfills every minute or 429,000 bags every hour.

We know that we can do without them; they are a recent invention – we used baskets or boxes before, we can use them again. Aldi has none and we flock there!

ACT, Northern Territory, South Australia and Tasmania have banned single-use plastic shopping bags. Why do Queensland, NSW, Western Australia, Europe and the World not follow?

This is one way we can contribute to saving our world – work on it, work on your politicians, teachers and children: you can do it!

Start by taking your own carry bags to the supermarket and greengrocer – don’t use their bags. Not that easy – you have to put on your Crusader’s armour everytime you shop!

I personally will have to work out a solution to picking up dog poo, but I will try too.

I wonder if the Princes are good to go on this? (Not the dog poo bit, but lending their weight to a plastic bag ban…)

Our destiny is in our own hands! Seize the opportunity and strike a blow for everyone of us!

There is no stillness in life

The morning is cool almost clear, quite crisp;

There’s a hint of mist on the calm sea.

Grey clouds muscle up above the island –

Gold rimmed as God looms over them

Surveying the creation, glowing heat and life.

sun clouds

The birds whisper: we all pause.

It is early and fresh and promising;

The beauty of the moment is short.

Another wishful dawn flowers.

Nothing stops until your own light sets.

Irish Poetry: Humour, Rhythmn, Ryhme and Reason

Delaney’s Donkey

Now Delaney had a donkey that everyone admired,
Tempo’rily lazy and permanently tired
A leg at ev’ry corner balancing his head, delaneys donkey
And a tail to let you know which end he wanted to be fed
Riley slyly said “We’ve underrated it, why not train it?”
Then he took a rag
They rubbed it, scrubbed it,
They oiled and embrocated it,
Got it to the post
And when the starter dropped his flag

There was Riley pushing it, shoving it, shushing it
Hogan, Logan and ev’ryone in town lined up
Attacking it and shoving it and smacking it
They might as well have tried to push the Town Hall down
The donkey was eyeing them,
Openly defying them
Winking, blinking and twisting out of place
Riley reversing it,
Ev’rybody cursing it
The day Delaney’s donkey ran the halfmile race.

The muscles of the mighty never known to flinch,
They couldn’t budge the donkey a quarter of an inch
Delaney lay exhausted, hanging round its throat
With a grip just like a Scotchman on a five pound note
Starter, Carter, he lined up with the rest of ’em.
When it saw them, it was willing then
It raced up, braced up, ready for the best of ’em.
They started off to cheer it but it changed its mind again

There was Riley pushing it, shoving it and shushing it
Hogan, Logan and Mary Ann Macgraw,
She started poking it, grabbing it and choking it
It kicked her in the bustle and it laughed “Hee Haw!” laughing ass
The whigs, the conservatives,
Radical superlatives
Libr’rals and tories,
They hurried to the place
Stood there in unity,
Helping the community
The day Delaney’s donkey ran the halfmile race.

The crowd began to cheer it. Then Rafferty, the judge
He came to assist them, but still it wouldn’t budge
The jockey who was riding, little John MacGee,
Was so thoroughly disgusted that he went to have his tea
Hagan, Fagan was students of psychology,
Swore they’d shift it with some dynamite
They bought it, brought it, then without apology
The donkey gave a sneeze and blew the whole lot out of place

There was Riley pushing it, shoving it and shushing it
Hogan, Logan and all the bally crew,
P’lice, and auxil’ary,
The Garrison Artillery
The Second Enniskillen’s and the Life Guards too
They seized it and harried it,
They picked it up and carried it
Cheered it, steered it to the winning place
Then the Bookies drew aside,
They all commited suicide
Well, the day Delaney’s donkey won the halfmile race.

The sugar snake

“When I have a toothache, I discover that not having a toothache is a wonderful thing. That is peace. I had to have a toothache in order to be enlightened, to know that not having one is wonderful.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

But we forget about that and still drink Coke. coke sugar

The average person in industrialized countries consumes about 33.1 kilograms of sugar each year.

Sugar has been implicated as chief culprit in the epidemics of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, tooth decay, hyperactivity and Alzheimer’s disease

My Dad died from dementia, diabetes and depression which are by-products of sugar consumption. I am overweight and my brother has diabetes.

Sweetness and sugar pervaded human taste buds and became embedded in our tastes. An injection of sugar into the bloodstream stimulates the same pleasure centres of the brain that respond to heroin and cocaine – it is literally an addictive drug.

Most modern day people are aware of this and cut down on sugar in their tea and stop drinking Coke.

But sugar is everywhere:

If a slippery slab of barbecued ribs makes your heart skip a beat, there’s a good reason why. Blame the 13 grams of sugar for every two tablespoons of BBQ. And with all that grilled meat to coat, who stops at just two. too much sugar

Fruit yogurt is one of the biggest sugar bombs on the shelves, with 19 grams of sugar, no wonder it tastes like dessert! Dried fruit might as well be candy. Just ⅓ of a cup can have 24 grams of sugar.

A granola bar can pack 12 grams of sugar, so be sure to read the label before demolishing one.

Some types of energy drink pack 83 grams of sugar – no wonder we get a buzz. killing me softly

Sooo … what’s the point?

My point is that we are not just talking toothache here – we are talking disease and death. Don’t be blasé about this – it’s a real threat to all of us!

Taxing sugar is probably a good way to go. Education and example are even better. Become knowledgeable and talk to your children about controlling their own destinies.

But it’s not easy, you have to be strong … not many succeed.

If you acknowledge your addiction, you can significantly better your own health.

But if you don’t, you won’t.

sugar diseases

Once, twice, three times a lady!

My sister, who is a Sistah if you know what I mean, takes offence at the usage of the fwmale power word lady, to wit: The common use of lady referring to woman is pretentious, bourgeoise, obsequious, euphemious, ignorant and incorrect.

That statement of facts is a perception, not factual, and is contentious.

Dictionary.com states the origin of the word woman was Old English wīfman, equivalent to wīf female + man

language: a feminist guide states ‘lady’ was the female analogue of ‘lord’, and it can still be a title for the wife or daughter of an aristocrat. But it has undergone a process known as ‘semantic derogation’, where the female term in a male-female pair gets downgraded in status. ‘Lady’ was initially downgraded to apply to bourgeois women as well as aristocrats. Later, it became a polite way to refer to a woman of any social class.

Usage in society changed: formerly ‘woman’ was regarded as demeaning and ‘lady’ was the term of courtesy; now ‘woman’ is the designation preferred by some modern female adults. The word ‘lady’ has been perceived as a classist tool to divide society.

I remain divided. When I use the word ‘lady’, I do not intend it to convey disrespec women are already strong t for a female. However, I would not be respectful if I persisted in addressing my Sistah as a lady, so I will avoid doing so; but I reject her right to require me to do so generically to all women.

That is my choice.

Emily Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward wrote in 1873: Burn up the corsets! … No, nor do you save the whalebones, you will never need whalebones again. Make a bonfire of the cruel steels that have lorded it over your thorax and abdomens for so many years and heave a sigh of relief, for your emancipation I assure you, from this moment has begun.

download I can’t fault her viewpoint and admire her radical standpoint. Women are in no way inferior beings and I wholeheartedly support their rights to equal treatment and demands for the removal of impediments to social, economic and political and any other type of equality they seek.

Womens’ struggle against centuries of cultural domination is justified.

Most men educated in the European norm agree, I am sure. Not sure about African, Arab or Asian men, though.

I did continue but in retrospect, discerned that what I wrote was not respectful, so I cut it out.

cartoon

Autumn Leaves (one for my brother – he ain’t heavy)

This time of year brings to mind that song sung by Doris Day on her Day by Day album, released in 1956, music of my older brother who went to boarding school in a far-away city. He also introduced me to Rosemary Clooney’s (yeah, Georgie’s auntie!) Come on-a my house and Irma La Douce, a fairly risqué musical about a mec (cool dude/pimp) – who fell in love with his poule (prostitute). This is the story: Valse milieu

Inadvertent education for a 6-year old (me); my brother was a sophisticated sixteen.

Talk about being led astray… this was supposed to be about the changes in nature that Autumn brings, but I wandered away down memory lane. Oh well, I enjoy doing that!

We don’t have a dramatic leaf colour display apart from a few exotic trees in public places that I try to avoid. However, trees like the paperbark gum Paperbark flower and the Golden Penda, come into flower and lure birds in flocks; driven to fatten up before winter. golden pendas tree

The ground below the trees is littered with flower wreckage. The raucous Rainbow Lorikeets are there and thus absent from our garden, so Bluebird, the ring-necked Indian Lovebird who has adopted us, comes to dine 5 or 6 times a day!

We are also visited by the Butcher Birds who gather in choirs and sing and whistle at each other in some sort of boundary identification ritual. Sometimes a few of them will fly straight up, high into the sky, then tumble and glide back down in graceful arcs. They too drop in for a crust quite often. Butcher Birdsong.

Magpies also start policing their boundaries, viciously chasing away juveniles. A pair swooped onto a young bird in our garden recently, pinning it to the ground and stabbing at it with their vicious pointed beaks.

Lulu 22 Oct 2016 Fortunately, Lulu took exception and ran over and barked them away. I watched them chase the bewildered bird into the distance at great speed. A hard way to start adult life away from home

I suspect my thoughts are about growing old gracefully and accepting nature’s inexorable cycle.

Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall

What’s okay?

Most of my readers know me for a delicate, sensitive, if not always sensible sort. I must confess though, that I am given to slightly warm feelings when irked in particular, by banal, inappropriate or feeble utterances.

seeing red

So when I heard a television talking head describing some deed, word, action or inaction which I do not recall, as “not okay”, my hackles rose a tad.

However, being a man of experience and some sagacity, I approached the matter with my usual caution; something whispered in my mind: Beware! Here be dragons!

What did it, was the not okay bit. Not okay was not okay with me: it is banal, bland, fence-sitting, wishy-washy, bunny hugger drivel. It is the other end of the spectrum of revolting language usage from awesome!

Before I slip into full rant mode and start frothing at the keyboard, let me say that I did some research into okay. The word apparently originated in the US (where else?). It was the initials of a facetious folk phonetic spelling abbreviation for ‘orl korrekt’ representing ‘all correct’. It was absorbed into the common usage as a verb, adverb, noun, and interjection and spread worldwide.

It has morphed (not sure about that word either) into one of the English words most utilized in all languages.

I was flabbergasted to discover that 14 September is R U OK? Day.

That nearly set my fuse off too! Just invent a cause and appropriate a day! You can start a website, market merchandise and away you go! Hmpfff!

Just in case you missed it, today is National Chipotle Day – May 5th is dedicated to the chipotle, a smoked, dried jalapeno pepper. I kid you not!

Anyway, back to okay/not okay.

R U OK? Day was started by the relatives of people who had committed suicide. Its purpose is to encourage people to check on their loved ones by asking them that simple question. In this context not okay is a sad, terribl ok ok e and terrifying condition in which to be. I strongly endorse the practice of checking your loved ones’ mental strength. Asking shows you care and provides an opportunity for a release or a cry for help.

What I object to is that the expression not okay has been incorporated to signify anything that may not meet the rapidly replicating rules which require society to behave in such a way as not to miff anyone who might be sensitive about something. Like, it’s not okay to call some behaviour gay (or a person gay unless he/she is…).

Ever since I saw West Side Story in the 60’s, the word ‘gay’ has been one of my favourite words. ‘Gay’ used to mean cheerful, cheery, merry, jolly, light-hearted, mirthful, jovial, glad, happy, bright, in high spirits, joyful, elated, exuberant, animated, lively, vivacious, buoyant, bouncy, bubbly, perky, effervescent, playful and frolicsome. Now tell me that is not a delightful word!

If you check the lyrics online of the song “I feel prettty” now, you will find that the word ‘gay’ has been scrubbed from the song and replaced with ‘bright’. Is that okay?

Do the gentle, inoffensive, protectors of those that they think may be easily bruised, have the right to change the language icons of our past, because gay now refers to things homosexual. Why has that lovely word been appropriated for the exclusive use of such an historically fraught set of people?

Granted, buggers was not a nice label, nor was queers or poofs.

Dearie me, I do get easily distracted.

What I want to say is that not okay should not be used when there are many, far more appropriate words such as indelicate, offensive, awful, inappropriate, unacceptable, extraordinary, extreme, bad, abnormal, impolite, unreasonable, bloody rude …oops!

Here is a little guide – hope it helps.

Different-forms-of-saying-Okay

ok in bath