Just by the Way

Last night on the news I saw coverage of the African Union Summit, which is being held in Sirte, Libya. The idea of an “United States of Africa” was brought around. This would “be modelled on the European Union” according to an article I read.

Well I guess it would be all good and well if it worked. If it worked. I personally do not see something like that working too well in Africa at the moment. There is too much conflict within single countries alone to get everyone on the continent to work together.

Few can see the big men of Africa who have ruled their countries for years ceding important powers and control to a distant federal government.

I also don’t see it happening for this reason too. A lot of our governments I would describe as arrogant in a sense. They all want as much power as they can get, no matter what it costs. Zimbabwe is just one example of this. Until all leaders leaned to sacrifice a bit of power to make things run smoothly, then this idea may just work. Other than that, it is just a pipe dream.

Yeah, one completely unified African continent would work (and be fantastic) in practice, but that is without the leaders who feel the need to have absolute power over everyone in order to lead.

Just some background information: For those of you who don’t know, SANRAL stands for South African National Road Agency Limited. They are in change of ensuring our roads in South Africa are in good shape, which we fund by using toll gates etc.

For the last few weeks, basically every morning on the radio, I have heard some or other advert by them. The first time I heard the ad, I was pretty impressed because the advertising scheme was good. Then when I heard what they were advertising, it confused me.

Ever since then, I have never ever figured out their reason for advertising the company(?). They have no need at all to get more customers, because people use the roads regardless. In addition, they have absolutely no competition whatsoever.

Surely they are wasting money on advertising campaigns when they should rather be spending it on our actual roads? What exactly are they advertising? Are they just looking for appreciation? All of these questions lie unanswered as there is no reasonable answer to any of them. All in all, I think they are wasting our good money in an act of self-appreciation.

Well this morning I woke up rather early and for some reason got to thinking about traffic (visitors) that websites receive. If you Google that, you will be bombarded with plenty of sites that are dedicated to creating web traffic.

Seeing as most of my posts are aimed at a South African audience, and my website is South African (hence the “.org.za"), the thought crossed my mind as to whether it would be true to say that South African websites get less traffic.

So I decided to go onto Alexa and take a look at a few websites. It is most definitely not the greatest way to compare, as their stats aren’t exactly too accurate (well for my site at least), but it does give a slight indication.

I decided to go to the Weblog Awards website and took a look at a few of the blogs there (for different countries), comparing their traffic to the top South African blogss according to Amatomu.

I was pleased to see that they don’t appear to outrank their South African counterparts, at least according to Alexa rankings.

From a personal perspective, there is quite a bit of international interest in South African websites. I state that based on the fact that the country I get the most visits to my blog from is USA, and South African users bring me the second largest sum of visits. A reason for this is most probably because we have lots of people who have left for other countries.

I guess this article could stand against an (international) consensus that African countries are behind in technology as it would appear that we aren’t.

I just read a comment in the Weekend Post by a columnist (Thabisi Hoeane) who wrote about the latest demands of our national soccer squad.

He criticised the players who, just this last week decided to “hold South Africa ransom” with threats of refusing to play if they did not receive certain (unreasonably large) sums of money if they won the (Confederations Cup) tournament. I agree with his criticisms of the team, even though I strongly support Bafana Bafana’s efforts to have a successful 2010 World Cup campaign.

It is understandable that they would want money to play for their country, as soccer has been associated with players being given large salaries to represent clubs etc. They are being paid to represent our country, but their request for more is just shallow and un-patriotic. What they did just went against the entire country’s world cup hype and the pride South Africans have with the fact that we are hosting the world cup.

Surely just being chosen to represent your country to do something that you love is enough, without demanding a million rand for it? Our team, as well as the country seriously need to ask where Bafana Bafana has its priorities. Is pride an emphasis? Or are the players just there for the money? They are far from “gods” and need to be brought down to earth. They must realise that they are in that team to represent the country and keep the pride of our nation strong. We are watching.

Lately, on the news, I have seen a few reports that have shown people complaining that they haven’t received housing etc. from the government. I do sympathise with these people who are currently living in shocking conditions, as the way that they live is pretty appalling. This sympathy is felt only to a certain extent though.

It probably strikes you as harsh when you read that line, but in all honesty, there is reasoning to this last statement. The government will always make promises that are slightly out of their capabilities, no matter who they are. This is how they win votes (especially in South Africa) from a large population of people who live in terrible, poverty-stricken conditions. They do this, and create a hope among the people that these conditions may be magically removed.

This is where the limited sympathy comes into play…

You have all these people who go from day to day just existing, they are just existing because they don’t do anything with their lives. A lot of these people tend to complain to the government, expecting everything to be given to them on a plate. They demand everything from the government. What they don’t seem to realise though, is that a lot of people have to work for what they want. The people demanding these things look at people more privileged than themselves and think that the things a more privileged person owns just arrived. They don’t see the hard work that has been put in to get those things.

Yes, they may not have as many opportunities as lots of people, but that is no excuse to stop trying to do some hard work to get somewhere in their lives. They simply just cannot expect to sit around and have everything delivered to them, they need to realise that things will come to them if only they work towards it.

Those of us that regularly visit forums will know all to well that it is inevitable that people will always ask questions that are seemingly “stupid” because they are just too lazy to go look it up themselves. Well now instead of taking time to explain to them how to use a search engine when these questions come along, there is a tool that is appropriately called Let me google that for you.

You type in the search query and this site generates a rather interesting illustration as to how someone should go about googling something.

Example: http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=test
URL: http://www.lmgtfy.com/

Petition To BAN HOMEWORK - Need 5,000,000 Members - INVITE ALL FRIENDS

Mkay… This is one, just one, of the groups that you can find on facebook that are “petitioning” for the banning of homework. Well all I can say is good luck with that one It is not going to work, and that is coming from a student himself.

Yeah I know that homework isn’t the favourite pastime in the world of many (all) people who need to do it, but unfortunately it is essential. If you want to do well that is, and if you’re going to school to not care then it is pretty pointless for you to be there in the first place.

The one argument used in this particular group was that teachers should stop being lazy and start teaching us everything in class. I don’t know about you, but I know of practically no one at school who can just go to a class, listen to a lesson and then know the work. This is especially true for subjects like maths, science and accounting where it is essential for practice to be done. The teachers aren’t giving us homework because they are lazy, they are giving it to us so that we do work and make sure that we know the work by practicing it.

No one really appreciates homework when we get it but when the marks come in I’m sure it is appreciated because it pays off. A pretty weak post, but it should be said that this is just like everything else: You reap what you sow. If you want to get decent marks which will help you go places, then you shouldn’t complain about working to get there. It all pays off in the end.

About 300 people were camping out on Sunday afternoon to buy tickets for the final against the Chiefs, which go on sale at 08:00 on Monday.

Found here.

I know, I’m a couple of days behind… Forgive me, exams have been laid upon us and they are pretty important.

This news article gave me a surprise when I read it. I have always known that people love their sport and are heavy psyched on supporting their teams. I also know that some people do some stupid things for their team.

I never realised that people were so obsessed about watching their team play. Sacrificing your life like this is a bit extreme really? Personally, I would not mind waiting for a few hours to get a ticket to a game I really wanted to see… BUT that gets a bit extreme when those hours turn into days. I guess every man to his own, no matter how absurd it may seem to others.

From the time that we learn how to speak, we are taught by whoever teaches us life skills that we must always say “please” and “thank you” to people when we request something or when we receive something. If a youngster would question this practice, they would get told that it is because it is “the right thing to do” or that it is courteous etc. Well, it is the right thing to do - there is no doubt about that being true. We should just think about it a tiny bit more…

How many times do we say please and thank you to various people who assist in in whatever way per day? Hopefully you do it all the time so you can’t really give an answer to that question. It is a habit that we do that, which brings me to the point: How many times do we actually mean what is being said?

We hear ourselves saying thanks to someone, but do we always mean that thanks completely, or are we just being well-mannered? It would be true, in most cases I’m sure that you are just saying it out of habit. (There isn’t anything wrong with that in my eyes.) It would have more of an emphasis though, if we decided to think about every time we show appreciation for something and actually think about why we are saying thank you. I guess it wouldn’t make a huge difference to someone else’s life but we would just truly start to appreciate things more if we realise what we are saying.

In the Sunday Times newspaper this morning, there was a small article about a programme that is going to be run by the government. As I’m sure you can tell by the title, it is an initiative where unemployed youth are “used” to help fight crime. I am not 100% sure on the details, but they will be equipped with two-way radios, torches and uniforms. There doesn’t appear to be anything specific on it, but they will be receiving some form of income, but that information is going to be released later.

I think that this is a really good idea, if it is implemented correctly. It gets people “off the street” and at the same time improves living areas for people. I was glad to see that the people who partake in this are volunteers and will get screened for any criminal history that they might have. That just shows that this is a serious initiative and has a great potential to yield great results. This may just be one step towards a large depletion of crime in out country.

Social networks like Facebook and Myspace are nothing new to the world, and these days nearly every person who has access to the internet will have a social network account. This is because they are so popular, for example, Facebook is ranked fifth for traffic rankings and Myspace is ranked ninth.

There is one simple reason for this in my opinion that sprang to my head the other day while I was reading a note someone posted on their Facebook profile. Stalking. No I lie, well not really… It is not exactly stalking, but rather curiosity, something that people are naturally born with. The vast majority of people in the world have a natural interest in other peoples’ lives, for some or other reason. Yes, there are various degrees, but it is interesting to know what is going on in your friends’ lives. Social networking websites make that so much easier, with updating news feeds etc, you manage to satisfy that thirst that your friends have to see what other people are doing.

All this is not a bad thing, it helps keep us in contact with each other, which is great. Just give a thought as to how much “snooping” you do into other peoples lives on social networks without them knowing, I think that if some people realised how much they were engorged in the affairs of others, they may scare themselves.

On my way to Joburg this last weekend to go row, there was a radio station that was interviewing the different party leaders. As you can guess by the title, one of these leaders was Helen Zille, from the Democratic Alliance (DA).

One thing that struck me as I was listening to the interview was that she was completely straight with her answers, not stressing about what she said. They were honest and she didn’t seem to worry too much about being “politically correct” etc. When I heard her answers, I remembered their advertising campaign that was mostly based on “Stop Zuma!” At that moment I realised that she was doing what she believed was right and not hiding behind any barriers.

All people in the world will “hide” away certain things if they could possibly offend other people, especially leaders. We are all so dam worried about not offending people and keeping a good image, when the thing our leaders need most is to be straightforward and honest. Instead of hiding behind something and worrying about what’ll happen, our country’s politicians (all countries in fact) should stand up for what they believe is right. Then, maybe, the country wouldn’t be torn if we saw our leaders’ true sides. Helen Zille does it, and in my eyes she is an amazing leader.

Well we have our general elections next week Wednesday. Unfortunately I am not old enough to vote by a couple of months, but I am still interested to see the outcome of the elections.

I found a nice questionnaire thing from the Mail & Guardian website this morning. You answer a couple of questions and it “matches” you to the party’s views that you would most likely agree with. It also shows how much the other parties suit you. I guess it is just an indication, as there would be many more factors that would add weight to your decision. It is interesting nonetheless as it opens your eyes a little, if you could say that.

View here: Elections ‘09 : Mail & Guardian Online

60% of SA Positive About Future

Well that article (that surveyed 2000 South Africans) came to the conclusion that 60% of our country’s population is positive about our future. Well that has improved from 2008 apparently (2008 was 49% according to the same survey), which I would say is a good thing. All in all though, the percentage of people who don’t have positive attitudes is rather scary, and that is coming from someone who is a youth of the country.

I have just recently personally been affected by emigration and it has made me think a lot about what I see in this country. The people that left were really close to me and it hurt me that they were leaving, but it frustrated me that they had “given up” on our land. As I said, it made me think a lot about the country, and personally, I do not see what is bad about South Africa. Yeah sure, we may have corrupt politicians and whatever else, but we also have great, positive aspects. I don’t want to slander anyone, but look at the youth in places like the UK and America… There are constant reports about their bad behaviour. I remember once someone saying that in terms of the students, South Africa is the best place in the world to teach. All I am using those examples for is to illustrate that every country will have it’s problems. To add to that, every country will have people complaining about stuff that doesn’t make them happy for whatever reason.

What our country needs is pride and positivity. We seriously need to take a look at what has happened in the past, put it behind us by accepting that that is our heritage and start looking to our future. The thing is, that saying that life is what you make of it applies to our country too. Our land is what we make of it. If you see this country through positive eyes then the country will appear as the great place it is. If you adopt the negative attitude then I have nothing to say to you. Stop complaining about this country. If it is such a bad place to you, then do something about it! We really have so much to be proud of, I hope and pray that South Africans would just get their pride back. We have an amazing country, if we all adopt positive attitudes and have pride in what we are, then that is a huge step to making everyone happy, even the pessimists.

Well the US elections are well over and the president of the United States is well into his work, trying to run the country (and fix what was broken) the way he said he would. We all know that during his election campaign there were many people making stories etc. about him that were supposed to kill peoples’ impressions of him.

Just recently I was fiddling around looking at some stuff and came across a whole bunch of stuff claiming that he (Barack Obama) is the Antichrist. Their reason? One video compares him to Adolf Hitler where they show us footage of young Nazis singing to hail Hitler and then footage of young children singing about change with Obama shirts on. In addition to this, the Bible Code has (apparently) discovered his name in the verse in revelation about that monster rising out the sea with all it’s heads and crowns.

Well… Of course some guys hating the guy are right! I mean he wants change… No one likes change. He is different so he must be bad… Say what? Really now… Comparing him to Hitler because some children sing about him is ridiculous. Hitler forced the youth to follow him. Barack Obama doesn’t go around telling people to do stuff and punishing them if they don’t. Comparing him to Hitler is honestly far fetched. He is a nice guy.

Now the bible code… Well I don’t doubt the existence of it. Generally though the verses aren’t really relevant to what is found within them. Most “codes” are accompanied by words that describe what is going to happen that are within the code.

I suppose these are just two things that I highlighted, but if I had to do them all I’d die before I finished typing. If you honestly and truly believe this stuff, I think you should open your eyes.