Friday ephemera

The June 1st edition:

Because I have been busy fighting with the outrageous sling and arrows of the WfHII (which is now over and wasn’t actually that bad), I have been left with no clue of what has happened in the outside world over the past few days. Given the state of things when I descended into said week, that’s probably no bad thing. But since I am playing catch up, please enjoy some ephemera with me.

Text from Dog continues to amuse | Someone did a map of where Ludacris has “hoes” | I took a photo of Table Mountain from miles away | Here are the 11 greatest ManBabies ever | Brian Micklethwait described some blog issues hilariously and said some nice things | That slinky on a treadmill video | An amazing collection of contrails pictures | People on twitter use an unfunny phrase | More videos of Apocalypse sounds | 180,000 post-it notes | Firefighter practical exam | Eduard Khil is in a coma 🙁 | The despicable HIVEX has closed down.

There. I hope you clicked through to every single one of those. They are ALL totes worth it.

Racial hatred in SA – there is Hope

Sadly, the Hope in question is Christopher Hope, writing for the Guardian on Eugene Terre’Blanche – his life, his murder, the trial and what it does (or rather what it doesn’t do) for South Africa.

It’s been a while since I’ve been drawn into an article in the way I was drawn into this one. Informative, personal and brutally honest, it’s a really interesting view into Terre’Blanche’s life, his views and his attitude. He even (quite rightly, in my opinion) compares ET to Julius Malema:

It is said that Terre’Blanche has no heirs but I’m not sure about that. He constantly vowed he would die for the volk. This is one of those coded games the power-hungry have always played in South Africa and it rarely fools anyone. Pious protestations to the contrary, what drives politics in this country is fear and anger, and what counts in the end is firepower.

When people speak of dying for their beliefs, they mean, all too often, that they will kill for them.It is a sentiment that has even been set to music. Julius Malema, the ANC youth movement leader until he was suspended recently, has made a song of the struggle years, Kill the Boer, into his theme tune and though a court has condemned it as “hate speech”, it continues to be sung. Hatred is not something that can be suspended by court rulings. There is very real anger in the country and it has not been addressed.

And in closing, more honest truths:

Outside the Pennywise Pawn Shop an old ox-wagon waits on the sidewalk, unlikely ever to find a buyer. The clocks on each bell tower of the three Dutch Reformed churches had stopped; the old order they represented has gone. Gone, too, is Eugene Terre’Blanche. What remains is the bitter disillusion on all sides of the racial divide that his murder has laid bare. You may kill the Boer, as the song invites, but the anger – what will anyone do about that?

It’s something that was unsurprisingly brought out into the open by the murder of Terre’Blanche, but these days, almost everything seems to elicit the same sort of reaction. The DA march to COSATU House was, apparently, not about politics, but about whites inciting  black on black violence. The Spear saga turned from being about having the rights of dignity and of freedom of speech, to being a debate on racism – forget the fact that JZ is the President, how could a white artist have portrayed a black man in that way?

In backing down and removing the artwork from their gallery and website, The Goodman Gallery has apparently saved themselves a court appearance but their action risks the issues which divide the country being swept back under the rug. The trouble is, each time this has happened, it results in a bigger and bigger lump and I have this horrible feeling that someone is going to trip over in front of the fireplace very soon.

So yes, however uncomfortable this is, we need to get these issues out in the open.
The trouble is that those who should be leading the process and guiding people in this regard are actually the ones crying foul.

Heron

This is just a test post to test something out on the blog. You can ignore it if you wish, but after the recent Jacob Zuma art furore, I have put an arty picture in to make people look.

(Never fear, there is no spear):

This should cause thousands of people to bunk off work and walk to my gallery blog, hopefully subscribing and clicking on some adverts along their way.

(Hello Nicole. Did it work?)

Bump your photos onto your PC

I’ve got bump on my smartphone, but I’ve never actually used it. But all that may change now that I’ve found I can do this:

All you have to do if you already have the app is log on to bu.mp, select the photos you would like to transfer from your phone, and bump the phone against the space bar (although we’re pretty sure you could just hit the spacebar with any apendage…). After that you can download them straight to your computer to get them off Bump’s servers or share them with your friends via permalink. There’s not much “professional” application here, but it’s a great way to quickly transfer photos from your phone to your desktop when you’re in a bind.

Which is exactly what you need when you’re in a bind: a simple and “great” way to get the pics from where they are,  to where you need them.

I have the Week from Hell II happening at the moment, but when I get a moment, I’ll give it a go and report back. If any of my intrepid readers have easier lives than me, please feel free to play and  leave me a comment below.

Incidentally, that WfHII means that I’ll probably be pretty scarce on the interwebs for the duration. You can, however, rely on at least one post a day on here. Join the 6000 miles… Facebook page and get it delivered to your choice of device both free of charge and gratis.