Category Archives: Africa

Hero & Ho Athletics @ The Fascistic Olympics

Africa, Homeland Security, Human Accomplishment, Sport, The State

As a longtime-medium distance runner (and a one-time sprinter at school), my Olympic heroes are always the runners. And, in particular, the African marathon runners. They seem to embody the spirit of the marathon.

The pampered runners of the West, with their coaches, sponsors and carefully honed running techniques, don’t do it for me.

(The high point of the competition is still, however, the testosterone-fueled, always magnificent, 100-meter men’s dash.)

You know that Geoffrey Mutai got good at distance running because he had to ran to school every day, and then stuck with this grueling sport—way of life, really—against all odds.

All interested eyes will be on Wilson Kipsang, who won the 2012 London Marathon.

What a shame that the cameras at the fascistic Olympics—what a production of the police state this Olympics is proving!—will be on ho athletics, or Beach Volleyball, rather than on the games’ real heroes.

UPDATE II: Priority Mail International To South Africa (5 Weeks & Counting)

Affirmative Action, Africa, Government, Human Accomplishment, South-Africa, Technology, The West

Will I ever learn? I’ve written a book about the New South Africa, yet I still attempt to get a priority envelope to my father (at a cost of $53.50), who lives in that country. Accepted in the US on Feb. 6, with a promise of a 5 to 7 day delivery, the item is currently STILL in transit to the destination. It is being stalled in South Africa.

Although the USPS has more or less completed its part of the deal, the onus is on the USPS stateside not to offer a “Priority Mail International Parcels” service to South Africa. I use the Mail-Clinic interface, which although more pleasant than the toxic USPS, is, nevertheless, still beholden to it.

Here is the USPS tracking data, beginning from the bottom:

7. PROCESSED THROUGH SORT FACILITY ON FEBRUARY 14, 2012, 3:51 PM, SOUTH AFRICA: THE ITEM IS CURRENTLY STILL IN TRANSIT TO THE DESTINATION.

6. Processed Through Sort Facility February 10, 2012, 12:58 pm, ISC LOS ANGELES CA (USPS)

5. Arrived at Sort Facility, February 10, 2012, 12:58 pm, ISC LOS ANGELES CA (USPS)

4. Electronic Shipping Info Received, February 07, 2012

3. Processed through USPS Sort Facility, February 06, 2012, 8:20 pm, WA

2. Dispatched to Sort Facility

1. Acceptance, February 06, 2012, 6:42 pm

[SNIP]

I’ve been through this many times. As a Pope once said, hope springs eternal in the human breast.

UPDATE: Mail and parcel theft is rampant in SA. It’s not so much political, as criminal. These are the things one takes for granted in the West. However horrid and monopolistic is the USPS, it does get a thing from A to B, generally “honoring” the contract with the American forced to purchase the service.

UPDATE II (March 15): JP, I thought the ANC was too much of a disorganized criminal syndicate to compile a list of subversives and chase the listed down. Do you honestly believe they have one such list and are capable of flagging “suspect” material?

‘South Africa’s Bloody Freedom’

Africa, Conservatism, Constitution, Crime, Journalism, Media, Political Correctness, Race, South-Africa

There is none so complex and politically charged an issue as the new South Africa. Cosseted American journalists, for the most, can’t and won’t deal with it honestly. Barbara Simpson, WND colleague and beloved KSFO talk-show host, is not a member of the pack. In reviewing “Into the Cannibal’s Pot – Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” Barbara castigates “a world media” that are “complicit in the massive, politically correct cover-up of the gradual destruction of that country.”

In her WND column, “South Africa’s Bloody Freedom,” this grand lady reaches beyond the remit of the Mandela-worshiping masses, among whom are the insular, petty, provincial penmen of the American conservative press (pulp and pixels).

I was especially interested in her book because I’ve been to South Africa twice, not as a tourist, but spending time with people who live there, talking with them, seeing how they live, reading local newspapers and seeing it, not through rose-colored glasses, but as it is. It led me to pursue the horrors of Zimbabwe as well. The pattern is clear and almost identical.
Unfortunately, the blindness of our country continues, most recently with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg traveling in Africa.

‘Light Unto the Gentiles’ (But the Gentiles Aren’t Listening)

Africa, IMMIGRATION, Israel, Nationhood

“Israel’s legislature,” writes John Derbyshire, “passed a law against illegal immigration “that allows indefinite imprisonment without trial for illegal aliens and 15-year sentences for those who assist them. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported the legislature and called the African illegals ‘a national scourge.’ Israel is also building a 150-mile fence to seal the Sinai border.”

A good candidate for the title of World’s Most Dysfunctional Region is the belt of six sub-Saharan African countries from Somalia through to Chad, total population 153 million. People who live there often want to live somewhere else. They trek north into Egypt and Libya. But those nations were no better than semi-civilized even before the past few months’ ructions. The nearest functioning state the East Africans can get to by land is Israel. They have to go through Egypt and then the Sinai Desert, but what took Moses forty years is a lot easier now.

The Israeli government estimates 50,000 came in the past seven years, most from Sudan and Eritrea. That 153 million figure I quoted is close to Mexico and Central America’s combined population, which is around 156 million. East Africa’s failed states are to Israel what our southern neighbors are to us, except the USA has 307 million citizens while Israel has fewer than eight million.

Hence the law the Israeli legislature passed last week.

As a nation, Israel will probably outlive America. Into the Cannibal’s Pot examines the issue.

(“The Titan Is Tired” was my last meditation on Israel and The National Question.)

“Not only is a highly selective immigration policy an effective, non-aggressive tactic against terrorism—it is also the perfect complement to a peaceful foreign policy, predicated on the negative, leave-me-alone rights of the individual, and not on the positive, manufactured right of humanity to venture wherever, whenever.” (“Ron Paul Should Take the Lead on Immigration”)