= conduit =

2003-06-13T11:59:00.000+03:00

It's been a long time but I'm back and I seem to falling back in love with the Net after a long sabbatical. Many changes ... like

new webby techie type job, YAY!
jhg moved in
getting married in September
we have a greyhound.
and I visited a beautiful place recently - the Kalahari.

It's winter and I'm in love with the few yellow-gold leaves on the trees outside my office window. The sun is shinng but I know it's cold, so I'm wearing a red jersey and enjoying the huge pale sky. In the mornings we drive to work along the quiet roads, beneath the empty trees near the dam and the huge yellow-grassed park. I especially love the flaming aloe flowers.

Noooo... I must stop typing right now. I have to work but I'll be playing with my template this weekend; I know it.

2002-09-27T13:18:00.000+03:00

Google news - how you like it

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY,
ABOUT A LUCKY MAN WHO MADE THE GRADE.
AND THOUGH THE NEWS WAS RATHER SAD,
WELL, I JUST HAD TO LAUGH,
I SAW THE PHOTOGRAPH.

- The Beatles, A Day in the Life

I saw this article about the automation of news aggregation on Google [link: blogleft] and it's pretty interesting. I can see what everyone's talking about; Google News is excellent. That algorithm is scarily effective. I particularly like the time feature which alerts you to when the news item was generated. I always miss that on news sites. Tara Calaishan has summed up the improved features. There's also a speculative piece at Online Journalism Review about Google News and journalism.

I clicked on some cool links today

Make your own Bush speech.

At last! Greg Notess gets blogging. If you are interested in online research and information science - check it out. On the subject of searching the Net, take a look at the Super Searchers site. Daunting. [Source: SearchDay]

2002-09-18T14:43:00.000+03:00

On the 27th September, Amnesty International will present their open letter to the Nigerian president to the Nigerian High Comissioner in London. They have nearly a million signatories. The campaign is all about Amina Lawal (scroll down to link on left), who was sentenced to death by stoning after she had a child 'out of wedlock'

2002-09-10T11:45:00.000+03:00

oogly-googly-boogly

item 1 :: nice bloggy :: duh - Google blog.

item 2 :: rank stupidity & paranoia :: Google watch, where pagerank is original sin.

item 3 :: funky++ ::Google dance machine - more about google dance on the google blog.

item 3 :: human rights; funky - NEW SCIENTIST - NEWSFLASH - Google mirror beats Great Firewall of China

China’s widely criticised blocking of the web’s most popular search engine Google can be defeated by viewing a strange Google mirror site through a mirror, NEW SCIENTIST has discovered. The mirror site, called elgooG, is a parody of Google in which all the text on the web pages has been reversed. The site, which returns all the same hits as Google, can be accessed from behind China's "great firewall". read article.
[source: huridocs-tech mailing list]

item 5 :: human rights :: Human Rights Watch letter protesting China's reported blocking of Google andAlta Vista

(Addressed to Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, CEO, Google and James Barnett, CEO AltaVista Company)

Dear Dr. Schmidt and Mr. Barnett:
We are writing to express our outrage at the Chinese government's reported blocking of access to Google and AltaVista. We strongly suspect that this blockage is related to China's recent widespread crackdown on the free flow of information over the Internet, and to its growing pressure on foreign companies to comply with state censorship. We urge your companies to continue to resist the Chinese government's censorship pressure as a violation of internationally recognized rights of free expression.
As you know, search engines such as Google and AltaVista play a critical role in ensuring the free flow of information to millions of users in China. Chinese users who want to read objective news, and educate themselves on such restricted topics as human rights, Tibet, religion, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, often rely on your search engines. The Chinese government blocks access to thousands of web sites based on their content. Using Google and AltaVista remains one of the best ways to circumvent this censorship, since it permits searches that may turn up restricted information in unexpected locations that have not been blocked. We suspect it is just this formidable power that attracted the attention of Chinese government censors. Google's practice of keeping and permitting access to "cached" pages which are accessible via Google even if direct access is blocked may also have been a factor. Companies that do business in China have an opportunity to play a proactive role in opening space for Chinese citizens to express themselves freely. Unfortunately, Yahoo!, along with a number of Chinese internet businesses and research institutes, has voluntarily signed a public pledge on "self-discipline" in China that commits the company to investigate and block websites based on their content. We believe that signatories to that pledge risk making themselves partners in violations of freedom of expression. If they are search engines, they also risk undermining the power and reputation of their product.
We strongly urge Google and AltaVista to continue to resist any censorship pressure from the Chinese government. In the past, Google has resisted pressure from interest groups to censor content, and we understand that AltaVista is making an effort to ensure that Chinese users continue to have access to its site despite the recent blockage. As you continue these commendable efforts, you will have the support of nongovernmental organizations, as well as allies in the U.S. government and the broader private sector. History has shown that coordinated action can be effective in forcing the Chinese government to back off from efforts to censor the Internet. When the Chinese government tried to clamp down on the commercial use of cryptography in October 1999, coordinated efforts by various companies and trade agencies forced the Chinese government to drop the requirement that encryption codes be turned over. We see such censorship efforts as an emerging problem in China and elsewhere. We would greatly appreciate an opportunity to discuss this matter with you directly, and look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Roth
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch
[source: huridocs-tech mailing list]

item 6 :: Suggest a Site for the Search Engine Torture Test :: Help the editors of Search Engine Watch by suggesting an "ideal" site that should invariably appear in the top ten search results for a specific query.

Danny Sullivan and I are planning an extensive "torture test" of the major search engines, and would like some input from SearchDay readers. Specifically, we're looking for sites that should be a no-brainer for search engines to display in the top-ten for a specific query.
What do we mean by this?
Well, for the query "cancer" we'd want to see a widely recognized authoritative agency or government sponsored medical information site.
For "lionel trains" we'd expect to see the toy manufacturer's home page. We'd also want to see an authoritative hobbyist association, and perhaps an online retailer that specializes in toy trains.
For "Kofi Annan" we'd want the Secretary-General's home page at the U.N., and perhaps current news about his activities.
The possibilities are endless. What we'd like from you is just one example of your favorite "no-brainer" web site -- a site you're utterly familiar with, and are convinced that it's the single best information source for a specific topic.
Note: we're not interested in the search terms that would be used, only the URLs of specific pages. The idea is that the page (or site) should be such an excellent information source for a query that we should be able to deduce the query simply by looking at the page.
And please -- this isn't a popularity contest, so don't "vote" for your own site. We won't be publishing suggestions, just using them to help us formulate our own hands-on evaluation of the search engines.
Send your suggestions (URLs only, no search terms) to feedback@calafia.com. Important: Please put "Torture Test Suggestion" (without quotes) as the subject of your email.
[source: Search Engine Watch]

2002-08-29T10:38:00.000+03:00

RIAA hacked

Check out this mirror site for the RIAA hack (from atnewyork article, via fark). Gotta love it.

2002-08-22T10:19:00.000+03:00

....but then again...

Mike was interviewed. He says wonderful things. Like this:

We bloggers are capable of all things and we deny ourselves if we deny that. Writers using the tools of blogdom and the conventional media should read, digest, shut up, and write themselves into the full power of their beings. It is as David Weinberger said: "We're writing ourselves into existence."

Read it here - all four parts.

2002-08-21T17:39:00.000+03:00

Internet things

So I'm trying out news aggregation. I'm using fyuze, but I have to seek out most of the feeds myself and add them. Their directory sucks, although the concept is great. If you're looking for feeds, syndic8 is a good place to start. One of the reasons is that no feed gets on there without validation. So it's good XML or nothing!
Mark Pilgrim has a good rant about the difficulties involved with locating feeds. Now, if only all the sites I wanted to read would just get on the XML bandwagon and syndicate.

So this is one reason why I haven't posted for three weeks. The other reasons are ...

I needed to fall off the planet for a bit: process things
the poppies are flowering and they look so much moe beautiful than this
I didn't feel inspired (main reason), and
I've been busy learning CSS and XML and RSS stuff.

More, there are more. There are a few lengthy posts hidden in that, but I've come to feel that this medium is best for cryptic when I'm the one posting. Not as cryptic as robot wisdom, (which supplies gems like this poem), but short. Link rich. Something like that.

I'd love to generate XML for an rss feed from my blog, but honestly - I don't post much, so I really can't expect my devoted readers to bite the feed. I must add here that syndication isn't everything. I love the design of some sites, and I wouldn't miss my daily visit for anything. It's aesthetic pleasure. I'm afraid my aggregator can't deliver on that, no matter how convenient it is.

update - agregator list here.

2002-08-21T17:02:00.000+03:00

Women at WSSD

Here's a link to the WSSD Women's Centre. Women'sNet, where I used to work, are running the cybercafe.

2002-07-31T17:26:00.000+03:00

Typorganism: this is so cool.. I could only use it in Windows as it requires Flash 6, which isn't out for linux - but it was worth the reboot. I enjoyed the 'good and bad news' section most.

2002-07-31T16:39:00.000+03:00

Recently, Hacktivismo released Camera/Shy. It uses steganography (basically, data encrypted and stored in image files) for the free exchange of information over the net. So, if you're worried that freedom of speech isn't all it's cracked up to be, but you need to exchange information with someone, download Camera/Shy here.

Here's an article about Hacktivismo and their software.

2002-07-28T18:12:00.000+03:00

The ‘guy guy’

This morning I was lying on the floor, listening to Joan Armatrading. I sent my gaze out through the leaves of the tree outside and into the sky's blueblueblue.. "And those eyes are not for hurting," sang Joan. Her voice surrounded me. Each note was clear and slow. Thoughts drifted. I lay there, feeling as though I was floating free on the gentle breeze that leaf-whispered to me between CD tracks.

"Up, up and away
Beyond the blue"

I stretched my arms up and luxuriated. God, I'm so happy to be me. Finally. I can't stop marvelling at this. I don't want to analyse it; I'm revelling in this new experience of myself. I once heard someone say, "Would you deny someone this field of lotus flowers?" I think I’m finally getting moments of feeling as though I am in that field. I want everyone to feel it. On Thursday night, we did a Chi Kung exercise in Tai Chi and as I raised my hands and then slowly turned them over and pushed them forward, I thought, “I’m in heaven.” I was amazed to feel it. That feeling is here more and more often, lately.

However, all this potentially sick-making bliss is occasionally tempered with experiences that unravel into a shitload of doubt and insecurity.

Yes. Now that I'm single and feeling able to face men without cringing, dating is starting to happen. I met this guy. Greg calls him the 'guy guy' because he's one of those 'real men' types. I don’t think he runs around with a shotgun or anything (although nothing about this man would surprise me), but he’s just a hale and hearty male. I can't explain, he just is. Anyway, he came over for a drink, and I thought I would go home and bath and brush my hair and wear my new jeans and all that dating stuff... I felt really pleased: here I was feeling so happy and existence was giving me a little reward for all my hard work: a date! How delightful, what fun! I haven’t dated someone for a while and I have no clue how to do these things; I’m just really not good at them when the other person is super-confident and all that. I’m fine if he’s shy and I can feel more in control… but lack of feeling in control can lead to terrible clamming up and nerdiness on my part. My old pattern with men is to grab someone who needed looking after in some way (well, according to my deluded perceptions, anyway). The great thing is that I’m leaving that pattern behind. The terrifying thing is that I don’t know how to cope with men who are confident and good at looking after themselves. Who are responsible and committed and take charge of things. I hadn’t thought about all this before agreeing to see this man. I just thought it would all be easy. The hard work is over; I could relax into my new sense of self and everything would fall into my lap. So to speak. What a delusion.

On the day I was seeing him, I had a desperate call from my sister, begging me to baby-sit three dogs because she had to cope with twenty people for dinner. This wasn’t what I’d envisioned; I was going out on a date, after all – but how could I refuse? I was so happy that I could cope with anything, right? I was only dating some poor man who was probably unable to truly organise anything, right? What a weirdo I am – truly, I amaze even myself sometimes! I went by after work and helped while she got things ready, and then bundled the mad, undisciplined, attention-seeking animals into Nithia's car. A little voice was starting to warn that this may not have been such a good idea. We rushed home and by that time he was practically here. Aaargh. No bath. Not so bad – he sounded pretty hectic as well, so I wasn't too worried. At least he wouldn't arrive looking like a movie star and expecting me too as well. Wrong, wrong, wrong Alka. So wrong.

I deposited the hounds in the lounge and showed them the back door and garden. They rushed around madly, terrifying the cat. One of the little buggers left a charming deposit on the lounge floor. As I rushed to clean it, making attractive retching sounds, the lounge light blew. I desperately lit incense and about 50 candles and succeeded in creating a fabulous seduction scene. God, how embarrassing. We'd have to sit in the kitchen because I'd hate him to think I was thinking about SEX, although I hoped like mad that he was. Of course, I wasn't thinking about sex. No - I was thinking about how I would control a senile daschund while I entertained a very cute but very hyper mini-schnauzer, simultaneously keeping the furry terrier-type mongrel from peeing over the entire surface area of my home (I had a feeling she was the one who crapped in the lounge, but there was no time for terrible punishments now). I ran to change, but my new jeans had lost a button. Who had cursed me like this? The old ratty Levi’s would have to do. I began to feel a teensy bit frantic. I stared at Nithia and begged him not to go out. "Please stay - you can't leave me here alone!" I wailed, clinging to the wall. He looked at me rather strangely at that point. “Must I put lipstick on? Do I smell sweaty? Help me!”
"No lipstick. You look fine. Bye," he said, and drove off to a movie with Greg. How could he?

The 'guy guy' arrived. I walked out to greet him, praying to all the gods I don't believe in that I didn't smell of doggydoo and sweat. He got out of the car and he looked fabulous. Every hair was in place – and it looked wet! He must have had a shower – when had he had time? When I spoke to him on the phone he had to drop off his daughter, pick up his washing and collect something from a friend! His fingernails were perfectly manicured. His clothes were immaculate. They weren’t even creased. He was so impressive, how would I cope? I wanted to hug him (amongst other things) but I was afraid I stank, so I shrank against the front door instead and steered him rapidly past the seduction parlour (which he eyed a bit frantically) and into the kitchen. I must have seemed a bit creepy but too bad. I realised, too late, that he is one of those incredibly organised perfectionists who don’t do things unless they do them properly. I am incredibly unorganised under pressure. We both had a stiff whisky and then I had to tell him he couldn’t smoke inside. Fuck knows what he thought of me. I had to dash out into the garden every few minutes to throw the dog's toy owl for her, screaming, “Fetch Wowl, Grace! Fetch her my girl. Good dog!” at the top of my voice. Then it (the dog, not the guy guy) chewed my hand and covered it with saliva. Yep, I must have seemed the sexiest wench in Creation.

I felt all my fear rise up when he asked me if I liked clubbing and I said no. I do love to dance all night – now and again – but for some reason I didn’t say it. I hate clubs and drugs and all that shit. I must have come across as a bit hardcore because we sat in silence for a bit. My tactful remarks to a former nightclub owner. He’s probably used to supermodels and total babes and things. Well, I guess there’s nothing I can do to look like a supermodel or total babe – and I certainly can’t sustain it if I do. The only time I look worse than that evening is when I wake up after not removing my mascara. I tried to reassure myself that being natural is attractive, but… it didn’t work. What a nightmare. I really wanted to be playful and chatty but I just jammed up and said weird stuff from the harsh part of me that takes over when I’m tense. I wanted to hold out my canine-saliva-smeared paw and say, “Want to hold my hand?” and know that he would laugh, but I couldn’t. I was terrified. Mmmmmmmf!!! I wanted to tell him he looked great in black, but I didn’t. I wanted to say, “Take me dancing,” but I was afraid of rejection. I wanted to invite him to Tai chi and meditation, which he is obviously interested in, but I didn’t want to seem pushy. I kept staring at his hands, which were surprisingly graceful, and having erotic visions pass through my mind. I hope my jaw wasn’t hanging open. He must have thought I was a total spas.

Well - perhaps I’m being a bit hard on myself. Maybe he didn’t think I’m a spas. Maybe he just thought I seemed like another person compared to the one he met at the party the other night. The one who danced like mad and whose elbow he took on his way out the door, as he beamed at all her friends and said, “This is the most wonderful woman.” The one who reached out and smiled at him and felt totally relaxed and confident. Let me tell you, she was not around much on that date. But perhaps he did kind of see her a bit, because he said, “Call me next week; I’ll make you dinner. I am a qualified chef, after all. If you want to; you don’t have to.” So sweet! Perhaps he was a little bit scared too. I wanted to take his hand and kiss his forehead, but all I could manage was a brush of his arm and the words, “I’d love to.”

So maybe I’ll see him again, maybe not. The fantastic, wonderful thing is that I feel happy no matter what happens. My happiness no longer relies deeply on another human being’s appreciation and love. It’s a funny story and I hope he also gets a laugh out of it. I can’t take it too seriously. Even while he was there, I said to him, “I feel so happy. Life can be terrible, but then one day you wake up and you don’t care about whatever it was that was hurting so badly. It’s gone. This happiness may not last; nothing does – but I’m enjoying it while it’s here.” That’s what really matters: I can finally let things go and when only I remain, it feels wonderful. Ultimately, one weird date can hardly impinge on the basis of my daily experience of life. I obsessed about it for a bit and now it’s just back to being with me. I suppose it’s good that it happened, because I saw how easily affected I am by other people and how shaky my new self-confidence and sense of well-being is. I also noticed how deeply ingrained my need to look after people is, and how silly it is to hold on to that way of being. I want to celebrate the fact that people have gone through hell and really faced it and walked away from it – that takes courage and strength. I just felt a bit out of my depth when I saw it in someone I was attracted to. So I thought I would write a post about it, because it is kind of funny and writing this helped me let go of it and just enjoy the simple fact that someone really nice came and had a drink and sat outside talking. It doesn’t have to be anything else.

2002-07-26T14:10:00.000+03:00

National Lottery Scam? - update

LowVoltage is doing well. Check out the modified lottery boycott site, where he says:
"This is wrong - there are people who are starving, homeless, dying of cholera, AIDS and TB and enough money to solve many of these problems sits under The National Lottery Board and Uthingo's control. Yes, the winners do get a fair amount of money, but I do not believe that the winnings are spread enough to really empower the people and encourage social upliftment.
If more people won less it would do a whole lot better for the country and economy and people would be more willing to spend on the lottery because their chances of a higher return are so much better."

And.... the online media are waking up too. In a sad display of idiocy, an Uthingo[1] spokesperson produced this gem:
"To us this is an infringement ... what he is doing is diluting our brand. He's very obviously infringing our intellectual property.... I don't know how many people visit his site but he is discouraging them from playing in the National Lottery." >> read article

Missing the point a bit, methinks - and Low Voltage's actions are hardly illegal. Since when is freedom of speech and online activism illegal? This is only about freedom of expression on the surface. It's really about corruption and accountability, as well as bad PR. Where is the money? Why can't Uthingo or the Lotteries Board just respond to LowVoltage's questions? And if the answer is that they incapable and have mismanaged the lottery billions, yes, billions, they need to shape up or give the job to someone else.

[1]Uthingo administrates the National Lottery in South Africa.

Net searching

New search engine in beta - Gigablast. It has a small database now but the results aren't bad (from ResearchBuzz). Some nice features, too. And while I'm on the subject of search engines - try the new release of the graphical link tool, kartoo. It's fun to play with.

2002-07-24T16:14:00.000+03:00

I can't believe someone put all this effort into Me Human, You Alien: How to Talk to an Extraterrestrial. I can't say it's on my 'must read' list, but then I like Science Fiction. Kind of cute though. Here's a teaser from the Introduction:

This is your first meeting with an un-Earthly non-human entity: an Extraterrestrial (ET). If you handle it well, you will be the greatest hero alive, and be able to make a fortune selling your story to the media. If you blow it, the repercussions could be unimaginably terrible, perhaps an interstellar war that could annihilate humanity.

Feeling a little stressed out? Rule Number One: DON'T PANIC.

Just follow these simple guidelines, and all will be well. We hope.

These are the kinds of books nerds read before computer manuals existed.

2002-07-24T13:32:00.000+03:00

Good spirits

Fuuuuuuck! Never delete your backup before a reboot. I just lost about - oh, 400? 1000? bookmarks. *sigh*

Luckily I'm feeling incredibly, absurdly, wonderful lately and little things like losing a few months of research markers can't phase me. I feel good. Today. Now. Yesterday too; Monday even!

I emerged from a weekend Zen retreat to discover that over the last 10 days, I had left some sadness behind me. Some aching feelings. Some hopes and delusions. And I feel so light and airy and happy. Oogly-woogly gibberish-talking happy. I went home and put on music and danced. Yep - all over the house. Just like that. And I sat and grinned at Nithia and we laughed. BRING IT ON! I haven't felt like this in years. I'd actually forgotten that I can feel so strong and celebrate it too.

How can I be so happy, so content, when there are people being massacred in this unholy war? When my sister, my beautiful, beautiful baby sister, lives in Dubai and flies all over that region all the time for work? When people in the city I work in are shooting each other? When so many people are dying of this terrible disease, AIDS, that they just can't cope with, and there is noone to love and hold them and take care of their basic needs while they die, and their kids have nowhere to go? When there are people hurting all the time? But then, how can I be depressed and raging and tormented when I suddenly feel so clearly how beauty and grace crowd my life, all mixed in with the suffering? I've received some special gifts in this life: my wonderful housemate, my mad and loving family, friends like Marianne and Viv and Erika and Cez, my warm purring cats, the late-blooming agapanthus with the tiny mauve blossom that opened this morning, my valiant lettuces, the one butter-pale poppy that has flowered outside the kitchen door... my small, round black zafu that waits for me to sit on it every morning in a few precious minutes of silence and breathing, my friends and my sangha and the love and compassion I get to experience all the time... some sweet memories of loving and being loved...

I'm so in love with life. Rodney, who was leading the retreat with Heila PSN and Ricky, spoke about a moment he had whilst watching birds flying over a valley. They were swooping in the currents, over and over and over, and he realised that they were doing it for the sheer delight of it. I know you must have had those moments. So I will have to see how long I can maintain this equanimity (I can't call it ecstasy, it's too content for that). When I have felt terrible, the one thing that comforted me is knowing that nothing is permanent. When the suffering feels so close and deep that nobody can possibly understand it unless they experience it too, and nothing is beautiful because my perception is deluded, no matter how bad anything gets, I know that the sheer delight comes and goes again. And that's what happened.

My moment feels - distilled.

2002-07-17T13:08:00.000+03:00

Just say no to centralised government

Last night I dreamed I was in Israel. It wasn't nice. There are so many scary things happening, and it's so illogical. It just does not make sense to kill people. At all. Ever. You can't fix things by killing people.
It's interesting that so much creativity gets on the boil when oppression kicks in. Does it mean we have to suffer, or become deeply aware of suffering, to be creative? I think we often do. Perhaps only some of us do, but it seems that some wonderful and beautiful art has flowered from suffering. I need to think about this a bit more before I keep muttering on about it rather messily here.

There are these comic strips - Get Your War On (thanks robot wisdom for the link). Nithia's post about TIPS for RATS also made me feel something along the lines of, "Thank God I don't live in the USA right now." But then there are so many amazing people there - I love plenty of work from writers and artists and bloggers who are there. Go bloggers, go. Blog for peace and don't stop until there really is that much-touted Freedom of Expression and PEACE. And that goes for South Africans too. Thabo Mbeki, our president, visited the SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) yesterday and the Minister of Safety and Security spoke about encouraging a friendly relationship between government and media. Well, if he did say that (and I just heard from a colleague that he said it on tv last night; I didn't hear it personally), I certainly feel safer and more secure now. What is a 'friendly media' to a government that is being overruled in the Supreme Court? A non-investigative, non-corruption-exposing, non-critical media? Ahem. I shudder. Under Apartheid, the SABC was a tool of propaganda for the government, and I really don't want to see this country slide backward into fascism. I'm not calling Mbeki a fascist. Not yet. But I certainly won't shut up - not for him, not for Bush, not for anybody. And if nobody else will shut up either, if everyone is very, very vocal and ridicules the very idea that anyone can actually even hint, no matter how obliquely, that our Constitution, which incorporates Article 19, can be violated - then it might not happen. Mugabe and Zimbabwe are not encouraging examples of what can happen in a country filled with hope after an oppressive, racist government, but I'm hoping that we don't have to go there and that there are enough people with enough courage and integrity not to let that happen in South Africa.

How about that fat profit scam, then?

Our national lottery is under scathing scrutiny from some angry locals. And they're being sued for it, too. Check it out. My personal opinion,
without seeing the running costs and an audit (woops, then again.. there's Enron to think about), is that the advocacy style could do with some, er, refinement. But I did feel rather astounded to see the calculations published on the site. Aisch!

2002-07-16T13:27:00.000+03:00

This email left me feeling angry and sad. There are plenty of good things happening in the world, but I can't ignore the cruel brutality we impose on each other.

A third of all women canvassed at three ante-natal clinics in a study in Soweto, South Africa, admitted to having had "transactional sex" in return for food, clothing, transportation, school fees, cash or gifts for their children - and were HIV positive.
In Uganda, a law prohibiting any form of prostitution has led to an increasing vulnerability among sex workers to HIV-AIDS through violence, rape and other forms of sexual and human rights abuse by clients and security personnel.

Why do they not legalise prostitution? The criminilisation of prostituion, or sex work, is not only illogical in my mind, but it also allows for the brutalisation of women (and men) wiht no recourse to legal protection. Or no recourse to legal protection that cares, anyway.

These were some of the key findings reported by researchers delivering papers in a session entitled, "Turning Tricks: Sex Work and AIDS." Violence was found to play a key role in both cases.
University of Michigan epidemiologist Kristina Dunkle, who is working for the Gender and Health Group of South Africa's Medical Research Council, reported that many of the respondents taking these risks had a history of violence in their partnerships.
Dr Simon Sentumbwe, Director of Kampala's Centre of Peace Research, said that 56% of 500 commercial sex workers his team interviewed believed that the penal code played a role in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.
They said that this happened when they were forced into unprotected sex by clients (84%), that they had no legal recourse to rape and abuse (70%) and that the law itself undermined efforts to design and implement interventions among prostitutes (22%).
None of the 1,395 Sowetans perceived themselves as sex workers. They said they saw themselves as leading ordinary lives, doing the best they could to survive and feed their children.
Among the 64% of women who reported ever taking casual partners, those who reported hunger in their households were more likely to report transactional encounters.
In another presentation to the session, Augustine Ankomah of the Society for Family Health in highly religious Nigeria conducted focus groups in eight brothels in four cities and found the faith of sex workers to have potentially lethal consequences.
He said they believed that they would never get infected because of their faith and dismissed condoms as irrelevant because "only God can protect an individual from infection."
A related finding was a strong belief in predestination and that those who would die from AIDS had already been numbered, so taking preventative measures made no sense when one's fate had already been decided by God.
Copyright GENDER-AIDS 2002

I don't want this to be reality. I don't want to walk down the street in Johannesburg, and think, "Every fifth person I see is HIV positive." (UNAIDS) I don't want to see the women who can't afford medicine and are beaten if they are found using contraception or condoms. I just want to walk to work and see people who have access to treatment and a life without violence. But that just isn't the way it is.

2002-07-12T17:15:00.000+03:00

Well, I wrote a looong luxurious post about women and blogging and feminism, mostly inspired by Shelley's post on the interview with Dorothea Salo and the Paynter interview itself, as well as Elaine's post on blogsisters. Got to link to these women - must update template, must update template. I love the way they write.
Unfortunately I had too many processes running on my pc and it just froze so my posts are lost. I was posting at the edge, directly into blogger without a text editor.. oops. There are all the links without my cognitive meanderings; they're worth reading. I had to push the bad button: reset. Not even ALT-CTRL-DEL was doing it this time.
That post from Dorothea on impermanence.. well, I found it beautiful and I geuss I'll just have to let my looong post go and be happy with this one. So, to keep it sweet and brief: post gone, here's another, I'm going home and I think I'm in time for the Joburg sunset. They are spectacular.

2002-07-12T11:03:00.000+03:00

Africa just switched on a Cray SV1 supercomputer at the University of the Western Cape. Apparently it will be devoted exclusively to research - HIV/AIDS and humane genome research are two areas with gauranteed computer time.

2002-07-12T10:51:00.000+03:00

Nithia, you're the only other Johannesburg blogger I know. I have heard rumours of others, but they haven't started blogging yet - you know who you are. Does it count as a blogmeet if you live in the same house?

2002-07-10T17:20:00.000+03:00

Another South African blogger - self-styled 'new kid on the blog', Farrago. Now, that picture of Frankenfurter and Yoda does somethng wierd to me. And while I'm talking about Yoda, did anyone see that there are actually female jedi knights in the latest star Wars offering? Like it, I do. About time, it is. I think I may be about 2 months behind on this observation, but no matter. I loved the scenes with Yoda - "Much to learn yet, you still have." Adorable. Nithia told me Greg calls him the ninja turtle. He's small, he's green, he's cool.

2002-07-07T15:48:00.000+03:00

Anger, compassion and insight

So many people are angry. I get angry when I am frustrated or hurt, or when I feel some kind of suffering has passed my capacity for endurance, in me and sometimes in others. I become angry when people I love are hurt. I become angry about – too many things to name. David Rogers wrote a wonderful post about anger, but maybe he misunderstood what burningbird meant? Perhaps I have too. I’m not sure, so all I can write out here is what I understand and feel about anger, and my personal experience of anger, and what reading Mike’s and Dorothea’s responses to Shelley writing about anger made me think about. I read all these posts and while I agree with the insight that anger can be good, I disagree with the assertion that getting mad will make me feel better. [I’m just inserting this because I checked out Dave’s site and he has written more on this since I sat up last night trying to get this written – and it’s interesting and good stuff, I think]. All getting mad does is make me (and those around me) suffer. I am currently reading a book on transforming anger. Anger has destroyed a lot in my life and I don't want that to happen again. I appreciate the spirit of burningbird’s post, if I understand it correctly, but my personal experience is that anger is something that indicates a need for healing, not something that effects it. I feel that understanding, awareness/mindfulness and compassion are what heal us as individuals and as societies.

I've been convinced by a man who is one of the greatest peace activists of this century: Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. He watched his nation dying in a terrible war and has had to live in exile from Vietnam for many years. One of his brother monks sat down in perfect stillness and illuminated suffering to the world by dousing himself with petrol and burning to death – “a lotus in a sea of fire” - an island of compassion and stillness in a place that had become hell: he did just as much to end the war as any act of anger, I think. He acted form compassion, not from hatred. He sacrificed his life to increase the awareness in others of a desperate situation. Did angry people stop a war in Vietnam? Perhaps. Did they start it and prolong it? Definiteley.

Anger is strange because so often, anger happens and we act, not because we are angry, but because the strength of our feeling has caused us to look more deeply into some situation and seek alternatives to it. So in that way anger is good. It can alert us to the fact that something is wrong and needs to be transformed. For that, I thank my capacity for anger. But I certainly don't trust it - I'd rather trust my capacity for compassion because even though that is not as highly developed as my capacity for anger, it is something I prefer to nurture and consider more able to relieve suffering.

I don’t advocate the suppression of anger. I think suppression is ignorant and a tyranny of the psyche. I also believe that actions, speech, emotions and decisions that are fuelled by anger lackmindfulness and insight. It can lead to horrible, horrible mistakes. It can take possession of your being. But to embrace that emotion and try to heal it by understanding it and trying to find a stillness within… For me that is a better option. That’s the way I choose, even though I have a bad temper and a cruel tongue sometimes and it’s really difficult. Should I use those qualities in myself to try and make something untenable right? I think there are many more ways to generate enough energy in ourselves in order to change things and anger can be put aside as too dangerous, too destructive, too indulgent. Speaking from my personal experience of anger, it is not an emotion that fuels me but rather one which requires fuelling. I am drained after anger. I am depressed after anger. It is not a sustainable state in which I can remain while I try to conquer apathy. In fact, it is the reverse.

The other day I was sitting in a car and I suddenly felt an enormous rage build inside me. It was a physical sensation, I felt as though I was being consumed by fire, as though my body was hot and about to explode. I was in hell. Now and again I am taken aback by the realisation that I really hate being epileptic. I hate my body for betraying me like this, I hate the limitations, I hate the way I have to depend on people, I am revolted by those 8-10 pills I have to chuck down my throat every day. I feel it as a huge ugliness in my being. Isn’t that a sad thing? I can’t change it. I work on it; I can meditate and do Tai Chi and not take drugs and not drink too much – and I can not have kids and not drive and not deep sea dive… let me not get started on that list. But most of all, I have to deal with this anger. Because anger didn’t start me doing all these healthy things that assist my body and somehow heal it or keep my synapses from short-circuiting again. Anger paralysed me and made me experience an anguished self-hatred combined with a low self-esteem that led to me being pretty nasty to be around sometimes. Mindfulness and compassion – I try to at least be a little bit mindful, and more compassionate towards myself. I try to embrace my anguish when I am raging. I see the anger – it’s huge and I’ve fed those flames for ages, so I know it will take a good while before they are reduced to harmless ashes. I acknowledge it and I try not to share it with the people I know – whether I love them or feel an aversion to them (and with all this anger in me, who can tell how much my aversion is based in my deluded passion and how much it is based in ultimate reality?), I have to try to respect them. My friend Alex said to me, “Alka, if it moves, you bow.” Humility and respect are not subjugation. They are not equal to the denial of the need for change and the fact that people act from their own distorted perceptions, needs and ignorance and wrong others. I’m not an enlightened being. I am not a great bodhisattva. But I bow down before all the buddhas and bodhisattvas because they see the beauty and love and compassion in every single human being. Do you think, really, honestly, truly, that this is not a force powerful enough to change people? That it is not a force powerful enough to work where anger doesn’t? I don’t want to act from anger. I want to act from an understanding that when people are causing suffering it is because they are suffering and they do not even know. That is a very terrible suffering, I think.

My friend and teacher Heila Downey works with some Buddhist practitioners in prison. These guys are not in a maximum security prison because they acted with mindfulness and compassion. They have been possessed by rage and violence. They have raped and killed. Now they practice Buddhism. I admire them. Every morning when I sit in meditation, I think of them and feel inspired to continue. They have transformed, or are busy transforming, their rage into compassion and awareness. They have taken a very deep look into their beings and they have taken responsibility for their actions and are working to change themselves. It is that simple. It’s hard work but it’s that simple. God, it is hard work: how filled with rage and desperation do we have to be before we do that? We all contain rage and we all contain compassion. Which one we decide to feed and allow to grow – that’s a difficult choice sometimes. Anger is often so much easier, and so gratifying! I often succumb. But when I allow my anger to pass, when I see it, acknowledge it’s existence in me, and then understand it, I usually don’t have to engage in conflict to win a victory. I just have to ask for mutual understanding to happen. Mutual understanding, compassion and less suffering – those are the only ‘victories’ I want now. Well, not quite maybe, I’m human, but I’m a lot less invested in being right (righteous?) than I used to be. And it is liberating. It is good. I can’t impose my will with anger – that’s violent. I don’t want any more violence in me or from me. I think it’s going to take a good while to transform my anger but I have faith that I have more useful ways to make myself understood and to represent what is right than shouting with a red face, or feeling as though I am raging inside. Torment is not all it’s cracked up to be. Jimi Hendrix said, “Manic depression is a frustrated mess,” – any emotional possession is a frustrated mess. Anger might stir me to action when I see injustice – like the fact that Thabo Mbeki, our president, has not dealt responsibly with HIV/AIDS. I definitely feel anger when I see that. I mostly just don't understand it. I think if it could be completely understood, it could be changed much more radically than with court battles. I might be wrong. But presenting the facts and trying to share an understanding of what suffering is, thiers too - because an inability to act for the good of others just means an inability to act from our own nobility of spirit, and I refuse to believe that any human being is incapable of being noble at all. Getting people to change things - you might be angry and then decide to do that, or you might be angry and decide to act in a way that only uses blame.

It takes a Master to turn over the tables of hypocrisy in the temples. I have every faith that Christ acted from compassion and not from anger when he did that. That’s using anger (or it’s appearance) correctly, and perhaps that is what burningbird and Mike mean when they discuss anger as a healing force or an enzyme for change. I can’t say ‘anger is bad’ because I think bad implies wrong and evil. I do think that anger is a less useful way to feel than other ways. Anger is merely the warning light for me; I want to move on from there whenever I see it. Of course, that’s denial, that’s escape from what is happening inside my being. So I have to learn to understand my anger and then try to transform the causes of it, or to transform myself so that those causes are no longer present in my life in such a way that I am tormented by them. I’m still learning about all this, but I know that when I am angry I am suffering and if I share my anger those around me suffer. I don’t want that. I want to find another way no matter what.

And now I have two more things to say and they don’t come from me: the first is from Dave’s post and I think it’s wonderful:

People can be, and are, passionate without being angry, joyful without being fearful, and progressive without being pissed. More good things have been done out of faith and compassion than have ever been done out of fear.

And the second is from a poet who read this to the United Nations Special Session on Disarmament in 1982. Read it aloud. Just read it aloud.

Please Call Me By My True Names

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow-
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin a bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.
Thich Nhat Hanh

2002-07-05T18:00:00.000+03:00

Karate

I've started Karate. It's Ryukyu KobuJitsu, and I love it. I make quite a fool of myself a lot of the time, but I like to think that I look more endearing than pathetic as I gasp in the dust while everyone else does situps with their cast-iron stomach muscles. Sensei just smiles.

I've done Tai Chi on and off for years, but not Karate. It's nice to do both and to remember that I'm not doing this to be a warrior but to control the 'passions of the heart'. I wouldn't mind having a fabulously fit bosy to go with, of course...

I like the discipline and the way we all respect each other in the dojo. The people are wonderful. It's good to master my body when for so long, I have felt held hostage by it. Especially by my epilepsy - and in some wierd way the martial arts stuff seems to help that. I haven't had a convulsion with all that grunting and frothing at the mouth stuff (I do the whole show except incontinence) for ages.

We start off learning to use a 6 foot oak staff called a bo (or kon) and progress to other weapons and open hand kata as we learn and become more able. I'm a white belt, and the most junior member of the dojo. There are 15 year olds who are my senior. It's quite fun. The other day I was pretending to use the Force (yes, I had just see the latest Star Wars movie) to move thing around. It reminded me of how much I loved working (playing?) with adolescents when I was a teacher a couple of years ago. Ah well.

I usually arrive early and sit at the school where we practise, watching the dusk soften the sky into darkness. The stars appear with the moon and I walk around in the cold, crunching over the crispy brown grass and waiting for 6 o'clock to come.

Last night I watched the class while they went through some - er, stuff. I don't know what it's called yet. Anyway, they did all these blocks and punches with their fists and all the students in their white ghi and black pants, moving together in silent, rapidly defined motion, ending with a folding of the hands and a bow, was graceful beyond speaking. I loved it.

I don't feel as though I am merely learning to fight people. I feel as though I am learning to change my demeanour and avoid conlict. And there is so much respect - we thank our Sensei, we thank each other, we bow to each other and Sensei and our Master and we bow to the dojo.

2002-06-28T11:03:00.000+03:00

My blogswop offering

OK Nithia. Here's my half of the blogswop.. and you are EVIL to email me a link to the worst poetry in the world!!! I thought I would keep -vaguely - the theme of the odious The Beautiful Sun, which "sheddest [its] effulgence among the yellow corn" (is that a joke web site? ag shame man):

One Billion suns

There are one billion suns
I have looked into them
I have hung in the spaces in betwen
I gaze up and out

Those one billion suns
Wait for me to get ready
I look toward them
Loud and silent in great space

They burn and tumble
And I am set alight as I spin
Though infinity
Waiting to take my place

Among those one billion suns

I am not some lonely star
I feel the bliss of hanging
as an icy fiery supernova nebula
I am, I will be, one of these one billion suns

I want to look towards this place, this now
with light and beauty and no other self
but dissolution into
one billion suns

I am all the galaxies
they sing and spiral in my veins
I am one billion suns
one billion billion trillion suns

AL [25 May 2001]

2002-06-25T11:45:00.000+03:00

I have challenged Nithia to a blogswop. It's all in the comments. Let's see if it happens.

2002-06-25T10:42:00.000+03:00

Rex and Phil are the new kids on the blog. More South African bloggers at last! They easily post more often than I do - not difficult. I've worked out that I post in sync with my menstrual cycle - too wierd.
Now, Golby... that's a different story. An epic, different, powerfully written story. I load his page in fear of timeout but it's usually worth it.

2002-06-21T17:12:00.000+03:00

Poetry

I’ve been rediscovering poetry lately. Nithia gave me a collection of Pablo Neruda’s poetry for my birthday this year and I love it so much. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the year I was born, so it was … a good one. Neruda had such passion and genius. I look over my poetry and feel even less convinced that I should attempt to publish it or share it at all. How can I write anything after poems like his have been written? Although, they just make me want to live in a cave near the sea and wait for the big emptiness to talk to me too. It does sometimes. When I’m sitting with people being loud or walking up the road with the wind and the day so grey and all these words just start flowing through my head. When I start writing prose and suddenly, suddenly, verses and lines form into perfection. It’s not a decision I take: write a poem about this or that. It’s just that sometimes I get overwhelmed, and then don’t speak, don’t touch me – I’ll explode or be self-immolated if anything has to be disturbed while this happens – just leave me be and let these words feeling emotions flow.

But I don’t often write it down and then, words and phrases follow me like orphans for days and weeks and I have to resist them. No, I have to stop resisting them. I have to sit down and write them and love them and laugh and go wild with them; they are dancers and I need them expressed. I don’t know why. When I read this - I see that it’s felt by others: god, just like this:

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
- Pablo Neruda, Poetry

And... who cares if noone likes it, or thinks it’s crap? Actually it’s just funny then, funny-sad. When I write it it’s beautiful and it means something and then it’s blown away like dry seedwings in autumn.

Bersee

I discovered a new poet – Joop Bersee. Just read some of his poems – I loved his poem They Won’t Leave Me Alone.... Look at those lines; those lines say everything; how can I comment and try to express it more? That’s making poetry not poetry. Unless somehow, someday, there’s a perfect glimpse and understanding and it’s seen perfectly. I sent the url to a friend and he picked out the same three lines which had gobsmacked me about it in the first place, and I loved that I had shared something with someone who just got it.

And I have to write more, to blog more, to be more still with this. It’s such a joy in aloneness when I do that. I can’t explain more.

2002-06-20T12:41:00.000+03:00

I finally have comments working, thanks to my new commenting system, courtesy of enetation. Looks good! I thought I would have to queue for Yaccs but luckily not.

2002-06-12T12:30:00.000+03:00

But this dedication is for others to read:
These are private words addressed to you in public.
- TS Eliot, A dedication to my wife

I promised myself I wouldn't contact you anymore, and now all I can think is that it is so hard to break these habits. When I want to share something, when I want to say, “No, this is wrong - I know we can be friends” – it’s incredibly difficult not to call you or email you. So I’m chickening out by blogging instead because I tell myself that I only blog for me, even though that’s laughable because it’s ridiculous to do that, by definition. But it feels right to do this. I don’t know if you will read it but to anyone who does, all I can give you really is the beautiful insight I learned about love.

I want to call you, I really do. I went to Kobu Jitsu last night and I thought how much fun we would have had, starting together. God, it just hurts so much when you let me down and I don't want to blame you or me or anyone, I just don't want to feel like that anymore. Can you understand? I don't want to be the friend of someone I love but who can't give me the things I expect.

I'm sorry if I ask too much. You see, I know love - true love - isn't a bargain; a trade. "I'll love you if you give me these things: be on time. Keep your commitments. Return my calls and those three messages I left. Tell me honestly when you can't make it." But I also know that it isn't simple for you just because I see it a certain way and you don't do it a certain way. I know that you have suffering or pain or hurt that I don't fully understand. So I don't judge you.

A part of me feels angry and hurt but I see it in a strangely detached way now. I know you do care. I know that you just have other things in your being that take up more space than meeting my expectations. And I don't limit you to that. I know how fast you grow and how much power and love and gentleness you are capable of. And I’m certain that one day you will have taken the things that are available to you and have used the alchemy of self-love to nurture yourself into someone who can love another human being without all that crazy painful stuff that gets in the way right now. I also think that deep down you understand what I feel, so I don't really feel it too badly. It's more of an aching regret at bad timing. I didn’t want to hear you when you said that before.

I could beg you (again) to get to therapy and to find your way back to your spiritual path, because I know that helps you and I truly want to see you released from suffering. And I hope you don't have to get too desparate before you do that. But that is none of my business, that's just one of my desires.

Thich Nhat Hanh says that true love requires deep understanding of the suffering of the other; I know that's true. He also says that when you truly love someone you can't help loving them, no matter what they do: because you have true understanding. When I read that I felt so small. I've been sititng with that for ages and trying to let it sink in. I think it is. Slowly. Because I do love you, no matter what. I don't mean I love you lets-be-man-and-wife. I don't mean I love you lets-be friends. I don't mean I love you let's-never-ever-break-our-word-to-each-other. I just mean that in this universe, in this moment, there is a woman called Alka who loves you because I have seen you are beautiful and it feels good to know that. And I hope you can see it too. Soon.

2002-06-10T17:59:00.000+03:00

Back on the blog

I had to go right inside for a couple of weeks there. It's so nice and simple to have calmed down and relaxed a little. I don't know what happened over the the last month or so - I think I just survived one of those life-changing inner metamorphosis times. So many things have been tormenting me for ages and I've had the keys; I just couldn't quite figure out how to turn them, or which locks to slot them into. Reading over my blogging and other writings has been alarming - I sound insane. I geuss it happens from time to time.

I don't know if this is sanity, but it is a hell of a lot closer to serenity. I put away a major obsession. It's so gone and I feel free and happy. The place where it was attached is a bit of a raw patch, but I'm closer to waking up and not caring about it any more. Perhpas it's obvious by now that I'm writing about love that didn't work, not even as friendship. I think fear is so sad, it's almost immeasurable. But the really immeasurable thing that happens between people is compassion and love. I'll go there if it comes my way. I won't try to push someone else over the edge with me. Especially if they are scared. I had to try, but I have. I gave it everything, at an incredible cost to myself, but I had to know absolutely that it couldn't be on any level I know. I thought it would burn but it feels okay.

I pause to wonder why I make something so private public, but it doesn't matter anymore. I feel so filled with peace and happiness and relief that I can easily share this. One of my favourite realisations about this is that everybody has to jump into their abyss sooner or later and I geuss I jumped with a bit too much gusto. Hey, it was worth it. I paid in every way you can imagine - spiritually, emotionally, physically, intellectually, materially, psychologically. When I fuck up I do it totally. And when I recover I embrace this universe with all it's nutty beauty and ugliness and mystery, because I've learned so much and every morning I bow down to the lessons. What else is there?

she's got herself a universe..
quicker than the ray of light she's flying
Madonna, Ray of light

2002-05-22T16:34:00.000+03:00

Ok, I'm on my own out here. Out on a limb. Stretched. I'm starting to like it, too. I'm beginninng to appreciate the solitude and the loneliness is morphing into aloneness and it's fucking good. It's raw, it's edge. It's scary. The abyss is all around me and it is so beautiful and still and roaring with blood in my ears. It's crying at work (I can't do corporate cool - not an asset, even though I work in a supposedly progressive NGO). Life is rough on humans but I like it muchly, mostly, extremely, insanely. I can't stop pouring our how fabulous it is to just get typing and not stop, to pour out all this bloggable stuff and let it go into the solar winds that whip out into space. ("I don't know if they do, but that sounds damm good" - internal editor-run-amok).

I love the fact that I'm growing up and I'm growing into myself at last. Just letting it all hang out. "Privacy is for idiots," a wise master said.

This should be a poem really, but I have no time for craft now, it's a wild solo jamming session. It feels so good.

2002-05-22T16:12:00.000+03:00

I was trotting around the web, doing research for work (yes, really), and I came accross some fun things. The good places to start are always ye olde slashdot, of course - although I've been off them lately (my PC broke and I didn't want to see anything to do with Linux for a while), although we've made friends again now that Johan has fixed me up with Debian. Mandrake is NOT for me. When in doubt, call in the cavalry.
Anyhow, Nithia emailed me a slashdotter's long comment that got me laughing. The evil empire. Makes you think, doesn't it? It's all about perspective I geuss. I was reading Thich Nhat Hanh today and it was all about Right View. He says

"Relatively speaking, there are right views and there are wrong views. But if we look more deeply, we will see that all views are wrong views. No view can ever be the truth. It is just from one point; that is why it is called a 'point of view'. If we go to another point, we will see things differently and realize that our first view was not entirely right. Buddhism is not a collection of views. It is a practice to help us eliminate wrong views. The quality of our views can always be improved. From the viewpoint of ultimate reality, Right View is the abscence of all views.
- The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh

When you're as attached to your opinions as I am, that's hard to read. Or perhaps it's simply that I know that many of my opinions are expressed without real awareness, maybe just to be argumentative. I know how much I hate to be wrong. What is that? A self-esteem thing? Maybe. Ego I geuss, but my ego is still going strong. aaargh. On to something lighter....

Now, I love blogdex. There's nearly always something fun to check out from my fellow blogpersons. I had lots of fun with Google Labs today. The keyboard thingy does it for me, especially because my shoulder and neck muscles go into spasm from using the mouse.

Another good spot is the Internet Scout Project at Wisconsin University. In the Scout Report blog, under the heading "J Edgar Knows" (uh huh), is the following little teaser:
Under the Freedom of Information Act, many old FBI files are available, and some of the more interesting ones (such as Albert Einstein, John Lennon, and ... Lucille Ball?) are viewable on this site.
Read the FBI.
The NSDL report on Mathematics, Engineering and Science featured a fabulous web site - go EVL. The medical and data-mining categories were fascinating. What I liked was the way practical applications of the research are presented clearly, for example by mining medical data from ICU units, the following statistic was retrieved:
2 additional days in Intensive Care Units results in fewer re-admissions of HIV patients with pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.

And there's so much more, so much more, so much more.

2002-05-16T10:42:00.000+03:00

I went to visit my sister last weekend. My sister is a jewellery designer, and she is also a wonderful discoverer of secret magic and intricate delights, she works with arcana in an everyday way. I walked into her little house and was greeted by Grace, who presented her much-gnawed stuffed owl (Grace, by the way, is the cutest miniature schnauzer and has excellent manners).
Shirl gave me a piece of blank paper and said, "Hold it over a flame." As I moved the paper over the heat of a candle, words burned into the creamy surface. Movements in the kitchen murmured promises of tea as I watched the sepia revelation: "Patience" by Elaine Feinstein. It's a beautiful poem...
The fugitive slips into the river I know that. I need to hermit-hermit often. My favourite is this part:

She imagines herself clean as a fish,
evasive, solitary, dumb. Her prayer:

to make peace with her own monstrous nature.

My sister is wonderful in the way she presents people with exactly what they need in the most beautiful and creative ways. I felt speechless, like the "evasive, solitary, dumb" fish-fugitive.
.....
And I think it is a day for Elaines. Visit kaliliy now.

I discovered that by clicking through Mike's post yesterday, but not before I had read his speculation about future happiness:

To take the edge off expectancy but not to detract from the content of our meeting, it appears that bloggers-in-the-flesh do an enviably good job of reflecting the content of their writing. (This leaves me somewhat worried about my prospects for leading a simple and happy life.)

I confess to wondering, in the past, if Mike was more than one person[ality], and that even before I encountered posts about Porridge Boy, et al. When I questioned Nithia he informed that "Mike is legion," and had no further comments. The first thing that shot through my head is this quote from walt Whitman:

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

Enough - I feel as though I am making notes on an interesting and wierd social experiment.
I also feel as though I may lose my job if I don't stop blogging compulsively and begin to code some php scripts. Right. Now.

2002-05-15T18:01:00.000+03:00

David Gray Gray Gray

Crazy skies all wild above me now

Winter howling at my face

This man's lyrics made me terribly depressed on Sunday, but I love them. I love his intensity - there is so much burning in each note, in the way the syllables are packed together and strung out on guitar notes that carry me all the way to... Babylon. Sunday night I dreamed I was blogging the most eloquent prose about ol' Dave, and here I sit, blank as the RAM of a recently rebooted PC.

God. He can sing and play and write and I want to listen to him right now. Why are words with music so powerful? How is it that they can reach into me and pull out all the tears and emotions I have been hiding - even from myself?

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope
Now can you tell me why
Time after time
They drag you down
Down in the darkness deep
Fools in their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep

Step into the silence
Take it in your own two hands
And scatter it like diamonds
All across these lands

I listened to that after dreaming about my monsters. Sometimes I regret saying, "Whatever it takes - bring it on."
Let the truth sting.

Musicians, mathematicians, poets, mystics - they know.

My bus doesn't wait. I want to write and write and write, but my bus won't wait. I want to pour it all out right here and just watch this stuff that needs to get out, needs to be expressed get printed in little words on my one web page among billions. And if I rush I'll just mess it up and be angry and type about how beautiful the stars were last night and how I looked at Venus above a crescent moon that was orange and slippery with earthshine. I'll talk about my nightmares and how music stays them. All these random pieces and bits and letters will get thrown together in a rush and I won't be able to edit it or think or regret.
Done.

2002-05-15T17:36:00.000+03:00

Nithia returned form Cape Town where he attended the First Annual South african Blogger's Conference. Wish I could have been there - next time it's Gotham City. Hmm, a little bird tells me that Golby reckons I don't post often enough. Well - I don't post often, that much is true.

Further information (what the hell, I'll rat for all)... He who speaks with alien tongue may be the treasurer in Mike's revitalised war on Porridge Boy (say it's not true!!), but rumour has it that he is keen to divert any funds coming his way. Bad. Very bad - I like it. (Especially if it pays anything towards the bond.)

2002-04-30T17:51:00.000+03:00

The life cycle of your weblog - hmm. From hack the planet.

2002-04-25T15:35:00.000+03:00

I wannabe an ... amateur cosmonaut?

Many will be eagerly awaiting news of Mark Shuttleworth's arrival at the International Space Station (ISS). Shuttleworth will be the first African to have travelled into space. I'm putting on a few links about where to get more news about his extra-terrestrial journey, and when to watch the (southern) skies for a glimpse of the ISS while he is there.

The aptly-named Shuttleworth will be launching into space from Baikonour launch pad in Russia. The Johannesburg Planetarium says that the launch has been delayed until 8:30 South African time, tomorrow.

He will arrive on Saturday - watch for evening sightings in Southern skies from Sunday (thanks to Claire Flanagan, Wits PLanetarium). Check the planetarium's web site for times which will be posted on Friday (in case the shuttle orbit changes). The ISS site will also have details. Easier sightings are ones with lower "mag".

Shuttleworth has a web-site here. DSTV are showing material from the NASA channel on channel 38.

He is also involved in projects to improve education in Africa. As a committed open-source fanatic when it comes to education (and as much else as possible) I enjoyed reading The Shuttleworth Foundation's response to Micosoft's offer to provide software to schools.

Daypop Mark Shuttleworth here.

Hamba Kahle Mark!

2002-04-23T16:00:00.000+03:00

I discovered this (rather old) news while surfing for information about Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. That is just incredible. It blows my mind and I love it. I hooked up with the Incompleteness Theorem while reading Uncle Petros and Golbach's Conjecture, and I had to go and see what it was all about.

Apparently someone is claiming - if rather hesitantly - to have proved the Poincare Conjecture. I don't know what that is - I mean I don't know enough to understand what a 'simply connected closed 3-manifold' is yet. I definitely don't know enough to contemplate conjectures about them. But on a level I can understand a bit more (I geuss my number theory is a teensy bit more robust than my branch-of-Mathematics-where-manifolds-are-found is), some new big prime numbers with special properties are being flung about with gay abandon.
Nithia will have to attempt an explanation of the Poincare thingummy when he returns to the wintry South next weekend. It's convenient to have a mathematician-type lurking about the house sometimes...

2002-04-21T22:03:00.000+03:00

This is the most beautiful thing I have read for ages:

burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

- 'Archaic Torso of Apollo', Rainer Maria Rilke

2002-04-20T19:57:00.000+03:00

I haven't become a part of the blog community really. I've never been very good at group identity - team playing - all those things are something that I have to learn still. But I have to agree with Nithia, who has definitely caught hardcore blogomania, and become a peace blogger. War is stupid. Violence is futile. I understand it not. I sit here and look at the garden outside and the light on the leaves and the cats and the sweet domesticity of my home and wonder how people can contemplate killing and maiming other people. I remember one of my psychology lecturers telling us that it's impossible to kill somebody if you see their humanity. If that is true, and for the moment I'll assume it is, then how do murderers get to that point? Soldiers - that I understand; that's shooting 'the enemy', not an individual (not that I support it, I just understand that it may be easier to kill when you never see your victims). But one-on-one violence?

I heard Heila Downey (a buddhist teacher) speak about this in a dharma talk. She spoke about the rage and suffering that people who perpetrate acts of violence live with. She works with prisoners and I asked her how the prisoners who practise buddhism are treated by the other inmates. This is in Malmesbury maximum security prison near Cape Town. It seems as though they are just filled with rage and torment. Heila is not some bleeding heart liberal - she had to identify her father's body after he died from multiple stab wounds (thirty of them). I'm in awe of her compassion.

So, it seems that people can find redemption from that torment by taking responsibility for their past actions - but others simply exist in hell. And they deal with it by perpetrating incredible acts of violence and hatred.

But can the same be said for war? Can the same be said for acts of institutionalised violence, like those perpetrated under the apartheid system in South Africa? Nithia wrote a sad and lucid post about apartheid - and post-apartheid - South Africa the other day. It was inspired by Mike Golby's ruminations about apartheid and other South African horrors. It was strange to read because I have been thinking so much about these kinds of issues lately.

Last week I was helping a friend's daughter with her History homework. She had to write about the differences beteen pre- and post-apartheid South Africa. I told her about living under the State of Emergency in the eighties, when it was absolutely normal to see tanks and ratels moving through the streets. I remembered seeing a policeman running after a screaming child - she couldn't have been more than seven years old. He had a baton raised. I still can't really feel that police are the good guys. The ANC said, "Make the country ungovernable". I suppose that we are still living with that now. South Africa is in no way easy to govern. All the youth who sacrificed their racist education by living the slogan 'Liberation before education' are paying for it - literally. I'm lucky that I had a better education (revisionist history and banned books excluded) and a priviledged upbringing. But I still find it difficult to reconcile the historical and contemporary national parts of myself. I'm South African, and like most of us here, I think that also means that I'm complex.

But I love it here. I don't include myself in the groupp of people who want to rush out of the country. I mean - where to? George W. Bush's America? No thanks. It may be taking a while for our liberal legal system to help most people live a better life, but I see housing projects being built. I see urban renewal. I see hope and tears and laughter and anger and beauty and ugliness and corruption and idealism and genius and stupidity co-existing. I see heaven and hell twined around each other, and that's how existence works. It seems to be the DNA helix of human being. It seems that South Africa epitomises what is means to be born human on this planet. I celebrate the fact that as a woman I have my rights entrenched in the constitution. I celebrate the fact that I can share a house with a wonderful friend who happens to be a different race to me. I work with people who are different colours and speak in different accents, because we have so many official languages now. I celebrate the fact that when I was a teacher I had the opportunity to go back to school and see kids of different races giggling and fighting together as they struggled through adolescence. I don't idealise it. There is plenty of ugly racism in this country. There is hard work ahead. There is poverty in the streets I walk through to get work in downtown Johannesburg. There is dirt and suffering. But I love this place where there are cafe au lait kids and black people holding white people and vice versa.

2002-04-17T12:45:00.000+03:00

"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror."

- Burnt Norton, T.S. Eliot

I am connected again. Two weeks leave and a disconnected telephone line - ouch. I forgot to clear Nithia's post box and so - the telephone bill languished, unpaid. Well - there was gardening and T'ai Chi and painting the cottage and studying, studying, studying... so much of that.

On Saturday morning I went to T'ai Chi and we were working outside. It was wonderful. There was a soft, misty rain and I could smell red and yellow leaf mulch. I was in the front row and moved through the Form before an old oak tree. Breathing in; sap rising. Slow grace. All the pain and suffering in life - it's worth it to get to these moments of stillness. I don't know how many I have left. Maybe we get a fixed number, but I prefer to not think about it too much. I consider myself lucky to experience them. I look at some people and feel my heart contract. I wonder if they have had any? Surely they must. It just wouldn't be fair. Existence would be utterly unendurable. But then, existence is not necessarily endurable. And my unendurable seems to be perfectly ok for others. I couldn't live without silence, or without respect, for example. I have tried in the past, but I couldn't endure it for long.

And then there are my friends: I would find life thoroughly bleak without friends to share a bottle of wine with. You know the kind of friends I mean? Those people who know what you're laughing at when everyone else has a poker face. Those people who hold you in your grief and ugly sadness. Those people who sit and chat about the mysterious beauty this universe has to offer. Those people who can sit with you in silent companionship and dance with you for raucous hours at all night parties.
Sometimes I think I've lost a part of myself when a friend like that disappears. Or when a friend I've thought was that turns into something different - 'delusions are endless, I vow to cut through them all'... But I'm realising that sometimes, the dead wood has to go. That's just how it works. Sometimes people are together in life for a while - friends, lovers, whatever - and the time is short. The paths diverge quickly. That's heart-wrenching but I just have to remember that although the lessons can hurt, there are no mistakes.
When I first heard that I dismissed it as new-age claptrap, but now I'm realising that it's true. I think there are inappropriate actions (after all, I'm a wannabe Budhhist) but I don't think that they have to regretted as mistakes. Guilt is so destructive. I'm so tired of it; my own and other people's. No, I think these little mistakes are closer to learnings. Lessons. I have what I call the 'theory of increasing devastaion' - if you don't learn the first time, you'll have to keep on learning but the lesson gets harder and harder. That's true for my life. I've observed that. And I get angry when I do this, but it's ok I geuss. It's alright to mess up. It's unavoidable. I would never have learned anything if I had never messed up anywhere.

2002-04-08T17:30:00.000+03:00

I get childish about George W. -

- becuase I hate seeing morons throw death around. I hate seeing anyone throw death around, but I can't help feeling that it's easier for this to happen when a moronic public elects a moronic president. But then, I geuss Thabo Mbeki isn't doing too well lately either. What is it with these power-mad fucks that rule countries? Since when did democracy become defined as a nation giving one person the power to wage war and ignore science?

Did you know that there is an entire radio station dedicated to slagging off George W? Support them by buying select items such as the following bumper stickers:
'If you can read this, you're not the president'
'YOU voted for Bush and all I got was this lousy recession'
..and my favourite: 'Milosevic, Suharto, Bush: pioneers in electoral innovation'.
For those who lack the mature humour and satire displayed in these examples, there's always the 'The pretzel lives!' option.

Also of interest is this web site about running for president: Candidate 2012 (thanks JOHO).

Have you ever noticed that George W. looks like a monkey? Sorry monkeys, but that's the way it goes. Note great potential for Google bombs on =conduit= today - so go for it and link George W. Bush to this post in my blog.

2002-04-08T17:05:00.000+03:00

Would you look at that archive link on the left? I mean - what is that? Where are they? I'm not dealing with that now. Yuck man, sis, no - this Blogger thing is being very badly behaved lately.

2002-04-08T17:00:00.000+03:00

Yay! Apache is up and running at last and I can finally access localhost documents. My struggles with httpd were ugly, with lots of bad words, but at least now I can work properly. It feels good to see my phpinfo() working sweetly. All this time, I've been slapping MySQL together and banging around in the dark with php here, HTML there - but I couldn't see anything in order to test it. So now I'm polishing up a little snoop script for my login page. Moenie met my box vok nie! Well. You know what I mean...

Nithia seems to have gone all silent. I hope he hasn't become trapped under a tunnel below the river in a train again.

I've done enough work today.. I'm trotting home to cook, eat and slip into bed with Sherlock Holmes. Ah yes - it's the little things.

2002-04-05T15:50:00.000+03:00

I posted a bad link a couple of posts ago - it was for IMC Palestine. You can use that link, or you can read the original post with it's corrected link here.

2002-04-03T14:42:00.000+03:00

Your wondrous toe nails grow; impervious, fumbling.
Licking from the slippery hollow of a mannish hiker.

Like it? Get more at the barefoot press.

2002-04-03T14:22:00.000+03:00

I've posted the NAPWA statement because I agree with it wholeheartedly. I support their action and their demands. I was horrified last week when a medical aid rep from Liberty Life (haha) made a pitch to us about health insurance. What did this darling of corporate ethics have to share with me and my colleagues? The knowledge that her company's HIV cover is higher for people who become infected 'by mistake'.

I have to say that I haven't met many people who caught AIDS on purpose. Is the insinuation that people who get infected with HIV through sex are somehow 'guilty' and should, literally, pay for it with their lives -- or at least the quality of their lives? Pathetic. I'm getting a persistent logic error on that one.

2002-04-03T14:12:00.000+03:00

The National Association of People Living With HIV/AIDS (NAPWA-SA) strengthens its rolling action against the discriminating policies of the financial institutions.

Unfair and discriminating treatment posed by the policies of the insurance companies, finance institutions and banks to the people living with HIV/AIDS can no longer be tolerated by the National Association of People living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. It is against this background that NAPWA members from Gauteng, Limpopo and Eastern Cape are embarking on a series of picketings and sit ins inside the offices of Sanlam, Old Mutual, Metropolitan, Hollard, Standard Bank, First National Bank, ABSA, Nedbank, NBS. Gauteng Province is starting today with National Banks, tomorrow we will be targeting insurance companies.

The Eastern Cape Province will hold its picketing on the 4th and 5th of April 2002 at Goven Mbeki Avenue, in the Nelson Mandela Avenue.

In Limpopo Province Cde Daisy Sikali (NAPWA Provincial Coordinator) is leading a picketing of about 50 NAPWA members at ABSA and much troubled SAAMBO, while in the afternoon they will be picketing at Standard Bank and First National Bank near Landrose and Marray Street in Mafikeng.

We are intending to force these institutions to close down rather than continuing with their inhumane practises. It is high time that we are all equal in the eyes of insurance premiums irrespective of HIV status or else we will make their operations very difficult so long as they remain adamant. NAPWA picketing is starting today the 2nd of April 2002 and will continue indefinitely until our demands are met.

Our protest will be in a form of peaceful picketing and sit-ins targeting Banks and Insurance companies in some Provinces. This protest will be part of our struggle against unjust policies by Banks and Insurance companies, which discriminate against PWA's. We are going to station about 15 people in each and every targeted bank and insurance company.

We felt that PWA's are the ones who must take a lead on issues, which directly affect them, as April is a health month. Our members have been encouraged to do voluntary work at clinics and hospitals as part of Letsema/Ilima during the health month.

NAPWA felt that the Banks and insurance companies should review their policies, which discriminate against people living with HIV/AIDS (PWA's) and treat them equally like other citizens of the country, as the law requires. Targeted insurance companies and Banks are Metropolitan, Old Mutual, AVBOB, Sanlam and Hollard; Standard Bank, First National Bank, NBS, and ABSA.

We are also targeting medical institutions such as Oliver Tambo memorial hospital that also has health officials who are still discriminating against PWA's who attend the hospital.

The struggle for treatment has raised debates, which has brought about confusion to our people. We have cautiously noted that once the dissidents raised their views there is confusion and we urge all stakeholders to concentrate on finding solutions rather than creating more problems. A bosberaad of all the stake holders including the government, pharmaceutical companies, NGO's, CBO's, HIV/AIDS Service Providers, etc must be organized to resolve the treatment problem in this country.

Our position has always been conspicuous on antiretroviral drugs that as more than 30% of the people of our country are unemployed and poverty stricken they will be unable to afford these drugs because they are expensive. We fight for cheaper generic antiretroviral drugs, which will be affordable to our people, more especially those in the rural areas.

As NAPWA we believe that women should be given a chance to discuss and debate about NEVIRAPINE as it directly affects them. NAPWA also believe that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), South African Med Control Council (MCC), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Borhinger and Ugandan health authorities should provide us with information and/or facts on the latest reports on nevirapine before it can be dispensed to public hospitals whilst government continue with its pilot project.

As NAPWA we are encouraging our people to use condoms, solemnly to avoid infection and re - infection by HIV because we believe by doing so we will prevent more infections and prolong the lifespan of those already infected by HIV.

We hereby invite all the citizens of our country i.e. churches, NGO's, Political organisations and other stakeholders to join us in a fight against unjust policies by Banks and Insurance companies.

Long Live NAPWA Long Live

Yours in a struggle for equal treatment

Nkululeko Nxesi
NATIONAL DIRECTOR

For more information, contact:
Joe Manciya on tel: 011 872 0975.
Nkululeko Nxesi National Director on tel: 083 478 9462.
Thanduxolo Doro on tel: 083 498 3912.

2002-04-03T13:18:00.000+03:00

Have you seen the IMC in Palestine? Our world is filled with war. Last night I felt so calm and relaxed; I do still. It seems absurd that over he border, people are being persecuted for their sexuality. In Ramallah and Bethlehem, people are being shot. Bethlehem is filled with tanks and journalists are no longer allowed in.Breyten Breytenbach is there and the Palestinian Solidarity Committee is calling on Mbeki to cut diplomatic ties with Israel and order South African representative Hannelie Booysen to join Arafat's compund in a show of solidarity. Well, I don't know if I would have the guts.

I am starting to wonder if we ever break free from the persecutions of the past, or if they only revisit us in the form of the persecutions we learn to perpetrate when we have power and freedom. I can't imagine that that is truly being liberated.

When Zimbabwe was liberated from colonialism, how many of the horrors of the past were really sloughed away? When the Jews were given Israel as a refuge, whether or not that was correct, how many of the horrors of their history have been cleansed from their memory? Either human nature is prone to horror and destruction and fear - well, yes. Or - and I prefer to think that this is more true because it gives me hope - or, we are bound up in our past until we have the courage to let it go. And I have to be convinced that we can let it go, because not all people who have experienced horror and destruction and persecution are filled with hatred and anger and that special brand of self-righteous conviction that leads to destruction and war.

I wonder what the US has to do with recent developments in Palestine?

2002-04-03T10:11:00.000+03:00

Touching the earth

I am filled with a strong inclination to blog today. Let me hope for time later - because it's in short supply right now.

I started Tai Chi again last night. It was wonderful - I didn't realise how much I have missed it.

We all walked down the pathway which twists under tall, leafy trees and leads to a small hall in the grounds of the school where Leo's dojo is. I did the beginner's class and it came back so easily. The movement, the way it feels, the way I feel my breathing and my body and a relaxing strength afterwards. I felt rooted in the ground, as though my feet were planted in the earth and spreading out from the toes. After my class I watched the intermediate class, which works with broadsword. They trained outside under the indigo of our autumn night sky and the soft brightness of the lights in the parking lot. Everything was silent, except for Leo's voice and the sound of feet slapping the ground.

I love that silence and discipline.

Erika still insits on paying for my class in exchange for my teaching her daughter Maths. I think it's a good deal for me - I get to do two things I love every week.

2002-03-22T14:04:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was fun. Justine called me an "international birthday babe" because I had a call from Nithia in Chicago and fom Debs in Singapore. I feel loved.

Nithia called and said, "did I wake you?"
"Yes, it's 7am..."
"I'm about to go to bed!"
So - he spoke into the future. His voice was in tomorrow. I was listening to the past. God, Chicago is far away.

So, Lord Grolkin - this is a blog. Now you know. You make me smile.

2002-03-19T15:36:00.000+02:00

I just saw on /. that a huge ice shelf in the Antarctic has given way. This is scary stuff - I don't know why it happened, but I'm thinking 'global warming' and feeling too close to the Antarctic for comfort. And yet... and yet.. take a look at some of the discussion and comments and get another perspective on so-called global warming. I must confess to near-total ignorance on this subject. Some reading up to do, I geuss.

2002-03-19T15:18:00.000+02:00

Aargh, my blog needs so much work that I feel daunted just looking at the web page. I think I'll talk about something else instead.

I installed Mandrake 8.1 (the week before 8.2 is released - very funny) and downloaded the newish Opera browser for linux (NOTHING beats Opera. Nothing). Believe it or not, blogger works on this version whereas I have to use stinky IE on Windows to post to conduit. hmmm - interesting.
. Now, all I need is open office and my migration from Windows is complete. Well, almost. There's that little problem I'm having with Audio Galaxy. It doesn't want to work in linux. But why.....? Galaxy quest, you know. If you don't get it... watch the movie. I have to go and find all sorts of interesting information for Africa Pulse to celebrate my birthday, which also happens to be Human Rights Day.

2002-03-19T15:07:00.000+02:00

I can't help sparing a few thoughts for what people in Zimbabawe are going through right now.
Can you believe that these elections are supposedly 'free and fair'!? Give me a break. I have friends there who have been telling me about their experiences over the last year, and they are horrific. If you don't believe me, then read it from the voters. There is also lots of information on our portal, Africa Pulse.

2002-03-19T15:02:00.000+02:00

blogslobbing

Hello my little bloglet! My darling, unmaintained, ignored, unvisited, neglected weblog... but here I am, back to take care of you. I shall post away for a bit because so much has been going on and it's all quite strange.

2002-03-06T12:09:00.000+02:00

Hell's teeth, it ages since I blogged. Don't you love the saying 'hell's teeth'? I do, and it always reminds me of my uncle. He used to say it in his best colonial accent, which was not ersatz. He also called me 'little girl' until his death when I was 26. I remember his speech mannerisms that my high school friends and I eventually adopted because they sounded so way out - like 'absoloodle!' He was also a Pisces, so perhaps that's why he's in my mind today. Just passing through, a few sweet memories and away they go.

Google Bombs

I am thinking of writing an article for Pambazuka about the applications of blogs in a non-profit context/ work environment. I think they could be really useful and I'm sure many people are using them that way already. I was originally thinking more about using them in a project-management context, but then - there's a whole advocacy angle I hadn't explored:
I was reading today about how they can be used to make Google Bombs, and these can be used for justice. There's a good example over at Microcontent using the R Kelly Videotape story. And so, I've added my link to the list...

2002-02-27T16:15:00.000+02:00

Phew! So long and no blogging. I started to feel anxious, but then I remembered that three people (maybe) read my blog, so it doesn't matter. I like that. I have a web page on this huge network and no-one knows. I think. No performance anxiety here! Feels so good to be me today. I had a wonderful dinner, and a wonderful evening. Somedays I begin with a deep scared feeling, and then suddenly it changes and I'm honest and I end up feeling as though everything is just right.
Last week Heila, a buddhist teacher, came up from Cape Town and it was so good to meet her. I met her master, Seungh Sahn, a couple of years ago and he asked if anyone wanted to ask him anything. I felt this burning need to ask but I didn't have any specific question formulated. I can't explain it.
I stood up and I said, "Well, I have a question, but I'm not sure what the question is. I just know that I have to ask it." I felt desperate and not a little mortified by my inability to wax eloquent and articulate. I said, "Do you know what I mean at all?" He looked at me, then he suddenly leaned forward and said "WHO ARE YOU?" I was struck dumb. Even more dumb! I was struck, yes I was, by a Zen master! how many people get opportunities like that for insight? I just stared and said, "I - I don't know!" And he replied, very gently - "Well, that is your question. Do you think you can answer that question?" I gulped, "I'll try!" and sat down. Now I understand more what I was asking. But I odn't answer it often; I occassinally feel the answer and that's wonderful, but just being is hard when I'm so wrapped in fear so often.

Other things:

Nithia, my house mate, has finally started to speak in an alien tongue. I once asked him what he would call a band, if he had one - and he came up with Alien Tongue. Well, there is no band, but there is a blog. Apparently this will only last for his sojourn in Chicago. I hope they let him out alive - the States seem to be a scary place to live right now.

Meanwhile, I will be home in South Africa, blogging the domesticity away into the hours of the early morning and racking up hours on the ISDN line, growing vegetables, that sort of thing. My sister is even crazy about plants now - I grew some seedlings for her and they are all snugly growing in her tiny garden patch. Naturally, Grace (who looks like this), tries to dig them up all the time...

I'm more and more in love with my garden every day. Summer: the lights through the leaves - the new plants - all of it. Autumn: I woke up and found red leaves on my bedroom floor yesterday morning. They looked like perfection on the polished wood.

2002-02-19T15:41:00.000+02:00

Well, I finally saw my blog front-paged on blogger. Only under the 'last updated' section, but hey - it's a start. But I'm doing this for me, right (see second-last post). Ahem - oh whatever!

Check out this fab article from Dan Savage (thanks to rocketwhores for the link). hehe. oooh, Dan you are NASTY. Go girl.

2002-02-19T14:05:00.000+02:00

Posting on the fly - I liked this site.

2002-02-19T12:58:00.000+02:00

Blogging about blogging

I liked this commentary at Doc Searl's blog about the piece on blogging in Wired.

I have no problem with the fact that blogging has gone mainstream. Perhaps that's because I only began to blog once it had become mainstream. Perhaps it's because I see no reason to object to lots of content and to people expressing themselves and commenting on their interests. I don't care if people want to write about what they ate for breakfast. If I find that boring then I'll give the site a miss. Is it a bad thing for us to have a place forthe indulgence of self-expression? I think it's healthy. Beyond that, not everyone is a good writer or finds captivating links to share with the blogging community. These things can take time. Writing is craftsmanship and requires fine-tuning and practise.

My blog is no attempt to write captivating prose, but it is a laboratory for me to log my thoughts and practise how I write. It's also a tool for me to watch my thoughts and see, over days, how things change and move internally. Ye olde journal. What is unique about blogging is that these things can be expressed in a format which makes them immediately accessible to other people and the linking thing makes it so much fun. There's an elegance to it, somehow, which I don't really have the words to express right now (I need to eat lunch).
I enjoy having my mind stimulated in that way. I enjoy discovering new things and feeling the richness of humanity (ok, and the banality of it) recorded in little zeros and ones all over the world. It's about awareness, too. I feel that I am more aware of my own emotional and mental processes because they are blogged - I like that - it's fun and I find it useful: two good reasons to keep on blogging.

2002-02-18T09:13:00.000+02:00

I like JOHO. Nice cool stuff, yes. You have to look at The Secret Lives of Numbers. While you're at it, if numbers and problem solving and Escher and fractals and all that funky stuff give you goosebumps, take a look at this.

2002-02-18T09:03:00.000+02:00

I love this - the real blogger's manifesto, 'because parody is the sincerest form of flattery'.

2002-02-15T16:20:00.000+02:00

Lord Grolkin : sounds like a horrid day - take a look here. (Thanks Alan for the link).

2002-02-14T10:33:00.000+02:00

Some days I find my hideaway and peep at things like this. Yes.

It's Valentine's Day. Often I feel filled with love and happiness and all the good juicy stuff - but today I have to say: there's a crust of sadness on the top

It's so rainy. I dropped my bag in the gutter and the stormwater drain was overflowing. Eck. Got soaked. My plants will like this rain. The sunflowers - hmmm. Well, tomorrow, perhaps we sunworshippers can prostrate ourselves before that fiery orb and make food, etc. But not today. Nothing to turn our wonderful faces to today. Sunflowers are very beautiful. I love their seed patterns - Fibonacci all over the place. I walk to the bottom of the garden and stare at them and wonder how people don't see this all the time and long to study the patterns and numbers that penetrate everything.

Thank you Erika for the email about breathing and sitting.

Days like this are for reading Pablo Neruda and wearing thick socks.

2002-02-12T15:23:00.000+02:00

I set up the book club blog. Let's see if anybody posts to it! A fun experiment.

2002-02-12T14:27:00.000+02:00

I want to set up a blog for the book club too. But hey, I'm supposed to figuring out database stuff now - got my permissions all messed and must sort out the passwords for phpMyAdmin. Which is a cool little tool, I think. In the meantime - maybe you're bored. So do a tarot reading.

2002-02-12T12:11:00.000+02:00

I want to start blogging proper - I've tested it out now. Templates can just wait. I want to start making this blog mine - making it special for me. I like the idea of weaving in different threads and ideas with my daily experiences, and using an electronic medium to make it happen. I certainly don't feel as though I'm publishing this for anyone else - it's just straight through onto the page. I'm more in love with the medium than anything else. I don't really like the idea of my personal thoughts and web travels being revealed to all and sundry. Why blog then? This is a dialogue with myself. I am the writer and the reader. Reading the Blogger Manifesto, I agree with lots of it. It's a cool list.

2002-02-12T11:50:00.000+02:00

So. Slobodan Milosevic is at The Hague - this report from the Gaurdian illustrates the surreal: everyday life side-by-side with genocide.

2002-02-08T16:17:00.000+02:00

There, isn't that better? I'm still not happy, but at least it's more restful than the flourescent lime font colour I used before.

2002-02-08T16:04:00.000+02:00

Yeuuuuch. This lime green has to go. It's just too much. The quest for the perfect colour scheme will only be satisfied when I create my own template, I know...

I have to do something really raw and say hi to Debs - hey bubboon! Enjoy London and sms me when you're home. I'm adding you to the team, woman! That was fun, not raw at all. Hi mom! Hi cats! Like I said - mania.

So much to do - have to set up a blog for our book club (tres Oprah, huh? I love it though). But you'll have to go there if you want to read about it. Writing like this is so different to writing without direct publication - I feel as though I have an audience even though no-one really knows about this blog.

2002-02-08T15:50:00.000+02:00

I am still feeling totally wild and insane. Ready to jump into the abyss - do you know that [life]long period of awaiting being only yourself, knowing only yourself, understanding and just flowing totally into your own self? If you answered yes, mazeltov. Close to enlightenment, I reckon. If no - you - hmmm. Let me say I: If no, I am hovering on the edge and taking the leap and praying to take flight. Aren't you?

Viv, you gorgeous, wonderful woman, you sent me urls to love, live and die for. I liked this but the dick list made me sad. I suppose it's good to get that out. Hnnf, it's sad. I could have added to that list - my bitch energies have sustained me when I've needed them I geuss.

2002-02-08T15:37:00.000+02:00

Here it is - Friday again. Today is mad and sad inside. So let me concentrate on something that matters - like making databases. I am pissed with phpMyAdmin, so I'm talking to MySQL from the command line for now. Nice tutorial at DevShed but it helps most, for me, in conjunction with the tut in the MySQL documentation. Just got to see if php and MySQL are communicating with each other properly. All this is new and fun. So much better than writing manuals...

Have been thinging a lot about writing (not code, not manuals) and chatting to people about it too - fall into this donga to see what it's like down here, and then go visit pif. Very slick design and I love the art on there.

We (housemate + me) have this theory that our garden is so fecund it promotes creativity - nay, demands it! (I always wanted to say nay in that way).
So - all thse new things are happening and there's so much that I feel as though I'm exploding. Blogging is new and pressured; like writing to deadline - I still haven't adjusted and I'm throwing together all this stuff at once but I like that too. Let me see if I can work through my mania. I'm catching myself smiling.

2002-02-05T10:28:00.000+02:00

That bit about listening to Bush on the radio reminded me... heehee, I had fun. The radio started blaring out a kid's program - "Morning children! Morning teacher!" Oh yes. "Let's all sing our favourite morning song - all together now -" and the taxi driver slammed in a casette that blared kwaito music. Everyone in the taxi deadpanned. Am I crazy that I see humour in these things? So I laughed loudly and everyone just sat there, staring straight ahead.

2002-02-05T10:25:00.000+02:00

George W is such a moron. But I am enjoying some of the satire he and his staff are generating - take a look at this alternative State of the Union Address (needs Flash, high bandwidth). Of course, Satirewire is going wild, and I liike this little piece, which is totally old news now (4 days?) but excrutiatingly relevant. Boy am I glad to be living in the most violent city in the world where we have the Bill of Rights enshrined in our constitution. I heard Bush on the radio this morning: he actually spoke about other US allies not being advanced enough to keep up with the States. What?! I can't remember the exact words - something along the lines of "we are too technologically advanced for them to keep up to our speed, let alone our bandwidth". I swear I heard him say that bandwidth thing. What, there's limited axis, I mean, access to evil?

People voted for this man.

I'm going to work and listen to Astral Projection and pretend none of this exists.

2002-02-04T13:53:00.000+02:00

Welcome back, And... I didn't look at the Net once (ok, maybe... once...) over the weekend. But -

I'm a Wind Spirit

What type of spirit are you?

Gotta get back to training paralegals to design their web site. Too hot for this today!

2002-02-01T11:34:00.000+02:00

Sies! as we say in my country. A whole day without blogging! There were only two people in my registration queue (Science Faculty) yesterday. God, that's so depressing. How many scientists and researchers will there be in Africa in a few years time, I wonder? Schools need to take a serious look at boosting Science and Maths education in this region. There are endless articles and ideas around it, even a few government tenders for projects to build capacity in schools. Many of the Mathematics and Science teachers in this coutry are not formally qualified. I think they have low self-esteem and lack of confidence: that's a death knell for teachers. I know, I used to be one of them. I feel sad and depressed and more determined than ever to get my degree and stay in this country. It can't be healthy for educated and brainy people to be isolated from and unstimulated by others with similar interests. It happened to me throughout high school. And that is what will happen if there are not enough scientists and technologists in this country. Very few people have the drive and ability and determination to discard their 'you're so dumb and shit at science and maths' conditioning from school in order to educate themselves. I know one.

I waited 4 hours to process my sister's re-registration for her commerce degree, though. So there will be plenty of economists to analyse how the economy is fucking up without any technologists and scientists or engineers.

My new studies look interesting. I love the cover of one of my tutorial letters: it's a C++ module on OOP programming and has a picture of a gnu and the word 'win32' linked with the name of the programming language (why don't plus symbols post? Got to work that out fast). Hey, my lecturers have a sense of humour. They use an open source compiler on Windows but I haven't crunched anything through it yet - must install it and play.

= update =
+++++++++ symbols do publish, QED, they just don't post into the preview pane of blogger.

Pre-calculus Mathematics looks a bit boring but wait! There's stuff on complex numbers and that will be fun. I was chatting with my house mate about it and it sounds as though the whole imaginary numbers vs other numbers (ok, I'm new at this) thing is analogous to the Theory of Everything, or GUT, um, stuff, in physics. As I understand it, all imaginary numbers are some number, x, multiplied by the square root of -1 and maybe another number. (I am going to have to go check up on that over lunch). So? you may ask. Why is that imaginary? That's real, isn't it? Ja but - take a look at arithmetic, darlin' - it won't let you take a square root of a negative integer. So there. It's real, but it's imaginary. Oh god this is so fabulous.

Why can't I just grow vegetables, love my cats, read science fiction schlock, eat, write bad poetry, get laid and study for the rest of my life... and do a bit of space travel? Just a little.

2002-01-30T14:05:00.000+02:00

OK, my first post worked and I'm so heppi. I wanted to hyperlink 'my first post' to - well, to my first post, but I don't know if I can do that yet. I like the self-referential thing. Must be able to, surely - where are the man pages, she wonders? Ah well, I can see that this could get addictive but I have to go be exploited for a while. It's something to do between blog-posts.

Stuff it. I can't work; I have too much to do: register for university, hand in library books that are almost a year overdue (the shame! the embarrassment!) and eat a mango.

Meanwhile, try out this cool ESP (cough, cough) trick on Clifford Pickover's web site. Visual people seem to get it more quickly.

2002-01-30T13:38:00.000+02:00

Well, I got hooked on blogdex and here I am. Slogging and blogging. (Of course I'm at work - do you think I'd use my bandwidth for this?)

Will anyone ever read this? Perhaps I'll get desperate and mail the url to my entire family.

Right then: I'm going to post this.