Ultimate cell phone gets the creative juices flowing

We've all been in the room when the human race's answer to the Blue Footed Booby's ritual-to-impress gets underway. As with the birds, it's usually the male of the species that whips it out first, rapidly followed by similar, competing displays from all the other males in the room.

“It's got ten quadzillion gigs of memory and can transfer a 100 gig file so quickly it actually does it in negative time.” “Ja, well mine stores the entire output of Warner Bros and MGM ever and I don't even have to open it to watch, it transmits it straight into my head.”

It's amazing, but no one ever simply says “Mine makes calls” any more. It's only a question of time before your office Booby boasts that his cell phone makes a mean cup of Columbian, after he's used it to shave, right?

Well, the wait is over. Say hello to the Pomegranate NS08, the ultimate smart phone that not only lets you take photos and browse the Internet, but also functions as a 72” projector, makes your choice of four coffees and, for the full-on road warrior, also offers a shaving facility for those early morning meetings.

Oh, and did I mention it also has a handy harmonica feature? All with 120 hour battery life, thanks to the “power kernel” technology inside. The “ultimate all-in-one device”, as the developers claim on their Web site, offers ultra-thin, touch-screen functionality to power users.

While few people are actually big enough Boobies to swallow the above, it says a lot about the zeitgeist that the Pomegranate was part of an elaborate (and, to date, very successful) campaign to promote the Canadian provin ce of Nova Scotia as a desirable location for entrepreneurs and business people. The tagline: “Having everything you want in a phone may be a stretch, but a place that has everything definitely exists.”

The chat rooms and forums have been hopping with discussion on the topic of what the ultimate phone would offer users and many bloggers have linked to the site; it's hard to know who was taken in by the seriously-impressive design and who just liked this campaign for what it is – clever. In a world where we're bombarded and, dare I suggest it, bored silly with extravagant claims, gizmos and boondoggles that we'll never understand how we lived without once we try them, it's hard to stand out from the crowd. This $300,000 campaign undertaken by the Nova Scotia government has already resulted in over 200,000 hits since launching a month ago – and reports are that the majority of people stayed around for long enough to check out the Nova Scotia site, which the Pomegranate one eventually leads browsers to.

The website – www.pomegranatephone.com – certainly proves the popularity of any technology with a fruity moniker. Whether people are tempted to take a bite out of Nova Scotia, however, remains to be seen.

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Digesting the Crap Sandwich

It's been called a crap sandwich and an outrage, but what else can we expect from a financial collapse-and-bail scenario that involves players with names like Fanny and Boehner?
CNN's split screen showed politicians wandering around as the vote see-sawed while Wall St dealers effected a similar rollercoaster ride on the tickertape. You couldn't help but savour it all for the joke it so clearly is.

Some of the most intelligent comment of the evening's proceedings came from Barney. Although neither purple nor a dinosaur, Barney Frank is definitely a larger-than-life character and his appeal to all Congressmen to join in a collective reindition of "I love you, you love me" in the interest of applying the defibrilator to the American economy was admirable. Ironically, given the age and propensity to apoplexia of their presidential candidate, the Republicans were having none of it.

The initial requests from the battered financial sector in America that the government simply hand over the readies and trust them to do the right thing with it would have been tantamount to handing a cleptomaniac your life savings to take to the bank. If only the bank wasn't packed to the rafters with similarly-afflicted creatures.
The concept of shorting has always put me in mind of those movies where a couple of buffoons charged with looking after some mafia boss's money hit on the idea of betting it all on a “sure thing” and pocketing the difference. We all know what happens. Sitting in the cinema, we laugh at these poor fools and marvel that anyone would trust them with so much as a box of matches. Why is it, then, that when a similar scheme is hatched by well-groomed men in expensive suits, we swallow it?

The sooner we abandon the notion that markets are sentient, self-righting beings, the better. Those who have made billions based on this concept are no doubt adverse to the suggestion that the market maybe is now righting itself – nature abhors a vaccum and anything that is wildly out of balance, like the system we've lived with for the past 50-odd years. Running into a brick wall is okay once; it's when you keep doing it that people start to question your intelligence. Rather than constantly malign governments for attempting to regulate it, it's time the business community showed an understanding of the concept of symbiosis. Governments create and support the legal and social frameworks, the infrastructures and the education of people that allow business to do its thing. What's more, as the current situation shows, governments are also the real bankers of the planet; without their guarantee, no one's going anywhere for a buck.

It's worth remembering that one of the main reasons that South Africa has, so far, been able to weather the storm is because our banks haven't been particularly heavily exposed to America – thanks to the oft-bemoaned exchange controls enforced here.

The suggestion that it's somehow different when the private sector demands state support while harping on about the relentless demands of the undeserving poor is nauseating. Persistent suggestions that “big government” holds back free enterprise falls flat in the face of the evidence of what some businesses really do get up to if they're not closely monitored.

The truly galling thing about the situation in Congress the other evening was that many of the Republican no-voters rejected the plan not because it would scandalise their constituents but because they were concerned about its impact on the wallets of the people they really believe are responsible for their political elevation: the bag men who pour money into their campaigns.

We are increasingly being left with a hollowed-out shell where society used to be. Maybe a bit of goodwill could be restored with the restoration to taxpayers of a “defined outcomes” pension system for all. Maybe those with an unhealthy appetite for risk would show a little more care with other people's money if they knew they'd be making up the balance for any losses. If America allows these people to walk off with their wallets and bonuses intact, along with the assurance that – heaven forbid – their taxes won't be increased, the only certainty is that we will be right back here again in about five minutes. The simple reality is that only governments can solve these problems through reform, clear penalties and an insistence on accountability. We need to take the box of matches back off the buffoons with the cans of petrol.

For years, ordinary people have had to listen to billionaires lecturing them on the evils of “big government” and how we'd all be filthy rich too if only we'd get off our lazy arses and work as hard as they do. Margaret Thatcher's government famously suggested that the disaffected unemployed of England “get on your bike” and come to London where, it seemed, the streets were paved with bottles of Bollinger and red braces. In a matter of a few short years, she was out of a job and forced to make a living sniping at her successor and defending the honour of despots. Her mission to sell off virtually every state asset of value to the private sector for a quick buck offers an interesting slant to our situation today, with governments the world over forced to buy a pup so that the profligate can keep buying Hugo Boss.

Whatever happens, John Boehner was right about one thing: this bail out is a crap sandwich – the more bread you've got, the better it tastes.

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Mixed Race Marriage is NOT okay...

Oh dear, here we go yet again. Society is under threat thanks to the rapid degradations of values and traditions and black people are the reason. This time, some leftists among the black and white South African communities not only want black people to be allowed to vote and be treated equally in society at large (including, incredibly, church hierarchies), but they're actually demanding that black people be allowed to have sexual relations with and marry white people! I blame it all on the so-called liberal influences of nowadays; you regularly see white women kissing black men in public, walking holding hands and shamelessly flaunting what are misleadingly termed their “lifestyle” and “sexual preferences.”

There could be a few things I take issue with with D.F Malan and J.G. Strijdom, but their unflinching and unapologetic stance over blacks (who are worse than pigs and dogs) and mixed race marriages are definitely not among those. Why, only this very month – you'd better believe this – a black woman, in an immoral relationship with a white man, gave birth to a child! Bringing a coloured into the world like that, to be raised by such people...it makes me wonder what it is these people have against the natural order of things.

Here, in South Africa, we have a senior businessman and former politician named after a city in the Far East parading his “mixed-race lifestyle” openly. Soon, our government may have to gather to deliberate the delicate matters of female and black equality. Before you know it, the Jews and Muslims will be demanding the same rights too. And with all these interacial marriages, heaven knows how many coloureds will soon be clamouring for recognition as natural human beings.

Immoral blacks and their pinko-lefty backers will call me names, printable and not for stating as I have always done my serious reservations about their “lifestyle and sexual preferences” but quite frankly, I don't give a damn! Wrong is wrong and its just not natural for the races to mix.

I do pray that some day a bunch of politicians with their heads affixed firmly to their necks will muster the courage to rewrite the constitution of this country and reinstate such legal pillars of moral society as the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages and Immorality Acts. Ditto for the homosexuals (who are cut from this same immoral cloth), for whom I propose the establishment of Moffiestans for all the homos, so people like me won't have to live alongside them and their offensive lifestyles. The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act should also be brought back into play – otherwise, at this rate, how soon before some idiot suggests that we have to share a swimming pool or a park bench with these people and our constitution allows it? I mean, you never know – it could be catching.
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Before anyone has a heart attack, this is in response to Jon Qwelane's "Call Me Names, but gay is NOT okay" column in the Sunday Sun of July 20th (check it out here: www.mambaonline.com/images/features/sundaysun_small.pdf). Unlike Mr. Qwelane, I am not a fan of prejudicial treatment of my fellow human beings.

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I'M ON THE PLANE, DAHLING

No one on this planet could possibly hate flying more than I do, but I have a feeling that's about to change, courtesy of the EU's announcement that its scrapping its ban on cell phone use on planes. EU officials state emphatically that additional safeguards have been put in place to “protect against terrorism”, but have any of these morons stopped to consider the inevitable fist-fights that will almost surely follow when someone decides they've had enough of “I'M ON THE PLANE, JA, DAHLING”?

The prospect of queuing for hours with your shoes and belt off while rude, power-drunk airport officials manhandle you “in the interests of your own safety” has, of late, been enough to send many travellers into overdrive. Terminal Five at Heathrow has already given most of us yet another reason to avoid flying anywhere near London, but do the powers-that-be really want to give weary, harrassed and inevitably-delayed air travellers the incentive to go completely nuclear?

As bearers of conflicting security messages extract lipsticks and jars of Pond's cold cream from old ladies, acres of half-drunk bottles of Coke and water sufficient to wash the world's laundry accumulate and arguments ensue about whether it's actually reasonable to alleviate travellers of their Duty Free purchases. All this after someone has smiled while telling you that you can't in fact take any luggage on board (“Madam, are you becoming aggressive? Because I must tell you, if you become aggressive I will call security.”)

No wonder many of us are only too pleased to avail of the booze the trolley dollies insist on plying us with. Problem is, we all know what happens when you combine a seriously pissed off person with, um, a seriously pissed person....

The irony is that, even as the beaurocrats tell us that cell phones pose absolutely no terrorism threat whatsoever (and I'm sorry, but if ever there's a trigger of choice, the cell phone has to be it), security staff the world over will continue to convince us that that emery board, “travel” tube of toothpaste and – horror of horrors – bottle of Fanta you're carrying constitute a clear and present danger.

After all that, you sit down thinking it's time your head got a little peace when ““I'M ON THE PLANE, JA, DAHLING” starts before the drinks trolley has even been unclipped and you're included in the finer details of little Brittany's piano lessons, how Frikkie really stuck it to those okes in sales or the not-so-quiet whispers of extroverts who have decided that, just because they're travelling alone, doesn't mean they can't at least try and join the Mile-High Club.

All this before the person in front of you reclines their seat all the way?

www.seat61.com. You know you'll thank me for it.

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No Affinity for Women

Research undertaken by the University of Wisconsin's Kathleen Dolan has found that while women voters support female candidates in elections, “they are evaluated in the same way that all candidates are evaluated, through the lens of personal and political considerations that take many forms.” Having examined American National Election Study (NES) data, Dolan concluded that there was no evidence for a consistent or marked gender swing, with information about the candidate and their stance on important issues being the main yardstick by which women assess female candidates.

While none of this surprises me in the least, neither does the ongoing waste of column inches dedicated to Hillary Clinton's hair, “power/dyke suits”, feminism and other spurious rubbish that apparently informs the need to undertake a study of this nature in the first place.

Former Clinton Advisor Dick Morris dedicated almost an entire book (“Re-writing History”) to attacking the former First Lady almost exclusively on the grounds of her duplicity and false image projection – as demonstrated by her changing hair-dos, fashion choices and attempts to appeal to ordinary American women by referring to her life with her husband (everyone knows the bitch hates stay-at-home moms, so why pretend?). When Slick Willy engaged in a little showmanship, that was different, for some reason. Hillary's abandonment of her jam-jar-glasses and bad hair are trotted out as evidence of her single-minded mission to deceive voters into liking her; meanwhile, her husband's endless prevarication on a variety of issues was evidence of his pragmatism. Even when she stood by him in the midst of the Lewinsky scandal, she couldn't win.

Which brings me back to the research which, for me anyway, underlines the prevalence of sexism in society every bit as much as some of the unadulterated misogyny that passes for comment in some anti-Hillary Clinton circles (if you think I'm being over-the-top by calling it misogyny, take a look at the web site for Citizens United Not Timid, which asks the seemingly-rhetorical question “What is Hillary”?). Interpreting the suggestion that women voting for women is proof of some kind of gender-induced idiocy (academics prefer the slightly-less-insulting “gender affinity effect”) not only leaves you wondering what a woman has to do these days to not have her opinion discounted, but also begs the question of why no one seems to think it might be just as informative to examine whether or not men wouldn't vote for women purely on gender grounds as well. Indeed, Dolan's research indicates that “women are more supportive of women candidates than are men”, suggesting that there is a case to answer.

That a female professor of Political Science thinks such a study – entitled “Is there a 'Gender Affinity Effect' in American Politics?” - is necessary in 2008 indicates that we still live in a world where women seem unable to seek political office or power without being chained to a stereotypical version of their gender.

Slice it whatever way you like it, but a study such as this, in some way “proving” that women can be trusted with their votes, is as much evidence of how far we haven't come as it is that it's time to simply let women “be”. It seems that there's even a glass ceiling on having an opinion. Worse still, given male responses to women candidates, it seems that issues around topics like birth control, education, social justice and gender equality continue to have a similar, see-through lid firmly in place over them. Le plus le change...

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You did it, Milton. Say sorry.

On the occasion of Milton Friedman's 90th birthday in 2002, his friend Ben Bernanke of the U.S. Federal Reserve said of The Great Depression: “You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again.”

Given the economic meltdown taking place Stateside as we speak, maybe it's time to change the quote to “You did it, Milton. Say sorry.”

It's not stretching the imagination too far to suggest that America finds itself in trouble thanks in no small part to a bloody-minded adherence to a Friedmanite, laissez-faire interpretation of what a free market really means. Such an ideology has, in many cases, done little more than grant permission to a cohort of greedy individualists and corporations to pursue profit at any cost and reduce the role of government to little more than a war chest for their ventures. The same governments they expect to bail them out financially when the logical conclusion of their reckless pursuit of profit is reached. Enron, anyone? Halliburton? Bear Sterns?

According to a report in the New York Times today, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year. Maybe its time we returned to the middle ground and adopted an approach that recognises that, “free as in beer” seldom works and markets are no different. They're not sentient, living entities any more than the earth is some kind of society-free vaccum. The “Quants” might have been all the rage in recent years, but the sub-prime crisis has demonstrated something that you don't need a Nobel Prize to understand – the market is essentually a gamble; you can make educated guesses, but pure maths will never measure human behaviour precisely – or the consequences of it.

Maybe when we learn to do business in that reality, we'll find a more sustainable profit base. Not to mention a nicer world to live in.

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Is sorry all that we can say?

According to Elton John, it's the hardest word to say but the past couple of years have certainly seen something of an outpouring as the human race engages in some kind of stampede to apologise for everything from the sublime to the utterly ridiculous. These days, if you're not taking responsibility for something someone else did 300 years ago or last week, you're simply not worthy of your political salt. What's going on?

Let me get one thing straight: I actually do believe that white South Africans, as Desmond Tutu has said, missed out on a golden opportunity to engage in a meaningful process of apologising for the apartheid past during the TRC. It matters not if you and your family didn't actively engage in racist behaviour or vote Nat; if you were white, like it or no, you benefited from apartheid in some way. That's just how it is, it doesn't make you a racist in 2008, but that's not really the point. The point is that we have to address the problems arising from a past that we either take ownership of in order to move on, or we leave the lid on a seething pot of shame, anger and inequality and wait to see when it will blow up in our faces. Be that as it may, I'm not so sure that an apology today will do anything to help the situation we find ourselves in. Events of the past couple of weeks – the Forum for Black Journalists, the appalling video from Bloemfontein and Irvin Khoza's unapologetic use of the k-word because he didn't like the questions he was being asked – leaves me pondering the value of “sorry” and whether we're not bandying it all around a little bit too much. And in the process, devaluing it.

It's not just in South Africa: Tony Blair apologised to the Irish people for the Famine in which an estimated one million people died – more than 150 years ago. He was lauded for his attempt to heal the wounds of centuries of British oppression in Ireland but many of Northern Ireland's Catholics would have preferred an acknowledgment of guilt for something like Bloody Sunday; if you really want to heal the hurt, try tackling something that resonates in the here and now, they say.

London's Mayor Ken Livingstone apologised for Britain's role in the slave trade; again, the sentiment was in the right place but many felt it inappropriate for Britain to shoulder all of the blame when you could just as readily point the finger at Arab slave traders and the African chiefs who willingly supplied “product”. More than a millennium ago, marauding vikings and others like them did a brisk trade in kidnapping forays to Ireland and Wales; in the 17th century, almost everyone living in the west Cork town of Baltimore in Ireland was abducted by North African pirates in search of fuel for the Mediterranean slave trade.

Then you've got Australia's attempt at grappling with its own racist past with National Sorry Day and new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generation. An apology that, far from earning white Australians absolution or bringing closure to the Aboriginal peoples who continue to suffer the consequences of a racist past, came across as a pathetic attempt to sidestep any real compensatory activity and return to the sort of head in the sand approach that allows everyone to forget about it all and “move on”. The flip side of this, of course, is the sense of political correctness that it has delivered a system that returns young Aboriginal girls to their abusive families rather than face the suggestion that placing them with white foster parents is a return to the old, evil days.

The question we need to ask ourselves is whether any of this is actually achieving anything more than salving the consciences of people with an inherited sense of guilt for the sins of their fathers. Does any of this actually make the recipient of the apology feel better? The TRC was supposed to achieve that in South Africa, but when people descend to the sort of stereotypical generalisations of “coconut”, “kaffir”, “boer” and “racist” faster than you can jerk your knee each time we try and visit our past, you have to wonder whether it's the right approach.

Only a complete moron would attempt to deny that apartheid raped this country and that the scars run deep and profoundly affect us all. Only a fool would deny that the social and psychological fall out from all of this will dog our country for generations to come. What we do need to start considering, though, in light of everything from our worryingly poor performance in delivering services, education and personal safety to our people, is that there is irresponsibility inherent in putting the righting of past wrongs over and above our need to address the problems that we face today. Our apartheid and colonial past does not – and should not – alleviate the current, democratically-elected administration of its responsibility to educate our children and give people brutalised by history the dignity of housing, jobs and medical care. Too often, history feels like a convenient distraction – would a white apology really allow us to move on and, acknowledging the whys of our challenges, finally start addressing them for what they are?

James Joyce wrote that “history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” Others point to the importance of acknowledging your past if you are to create a positive future. All of these things are true. But it's also true to say that its very hard to go forward with certainty if you are looking over your shoulder all the time. We need to find a way to embrace our past, warts and all, without becoming bogged down in it to the detriment of our future. What we need to figure out is whether or not “sorry” is going to get us there. If it's just going to be another word, pap for the dispossessed, I'm not so sure that it can.

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