When I was at school the street was where children played. We played soccer, cricket and touch rugby in the street.
At any point in time you can leave your homework and walk onto the street, there will be someone else also avoiding homework and we could develop our social skills. Before you go to bed you can simply walk onto the street and there will be someone to talk to. This is where you got to know the other children in the street, and, if you were lucky, get to meet girls.
During the day there would be the jingle of ice-cream carts (children today do not know what I am talking about) and even fruit and vegetable vendors. Children today do not realize the origin of the vendor shouting Mielies in the comic series.
Now you can drive through the streets I used to play in (Bellville and Parkhurst) and you will be lucky if you see even one kid. Children don’t know the other children in the neighbourhood. They play in hidden places where their parents cannot see them, and hence they can easily start to take drugs.
This decline of the social role of suburban streets happened so slowly that people did not realize the big threat it is to society. People also did not realize that this is nearly 100% due to joggers and cyclists.
Dogs recognize joggers and cyclists as people involve in something that is not natural, and therefore try to chase them away from their area.
Generally dogs do not bother people that walk past at a reasonable pace and who will be saying things like ‘Nice Doggy’ and getting of their bicycles to give them a pat on the head. At least, they did not when there were people like this on the streets. Now there are not people like this on the streets – only joggers and cyclists. Look out of your window, if you can see the street, if you do not believe me.
Joggers and cyclists were never nice about dogs chasing and biting them. They did not attempt to take any of the blame. They are not the type of people that think they are to blame for anything.
So, during the 70’s and 80’s when joggers started to jog one would regularly have someone in funny clothes ringing your bell:
“YOUR DOG BIT ME!”
“The little fox-terrier standing behind you waving its tail?”
“YES YOUR DOG BIT ME, LOOK HERE”
“That little scratch? There is no blood”
“YOUR DOG BIT ME, I AM REPORTING YOU TO THE POLICE”
“They are going to take my fox-terrier to jail?”
“YOUR DOG BIT ME, THEY WILL ARREST YOU”
“I did not nip you!”
“I’M CALLING MY LAWYER, YOUR DOG BIT ME. HE IS A MENACE TO SOCIETY”
“Did you do anything to provoke my fox-terrier? Tease it? Dress in funny clothes? Behave like a mad man?”
“MY LAWEYR WILL SUE THE HELL OUT OF YOU AND THE VICIOUS MONGREL THAT BIT ME!”
“But the fox terrier does not have any money.”
“THIS IS NOT A JOKING MATTER! YOU ARE THE OWNER AND YOUR DOG BIT ME. I AM SUING YOU!”
“Actually my 5 year old son, who is hiding behind my legs because you frighten him, is the owner, and he also does not have any money.”
“DON’T BE FACETIOUS, YOUR VICIOUS MONSTER BIT ME. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT”
“Say ‘I’m sorry’?”
“IF I COME PASS HERE AGAIN AND SEE YOUR DOG I AM GOING TO KILL IT! YOUR DOG BIT ME.”
“It did not kill you, it nipped you. If it will make you feel better I will hold it so you can give it a nip?”
“STOP BEING FACETIOUS. YOU ARE IN DEEP …”
“Please don’t use language like this in front of the kids”
Joggers do not learn. The next morning ones bell would ring again, again at 7am. And the same jogger wearing the same ridiculous clothes will report that your fox-terrier viciously mauled him.
Non-joggers were being polite – which is in their nature. Instead of trying to placate joggers we should have said things like:
“Just wait here, I want to bring the pit-bull from the back yard.”
“So why did you not run a bit faster to get away from the dog?”
“F… Off!!”
What we did was to build walls around our properties to keep our dogs inside. Fox terriers jump over 6 foot walls so our walls are 10 to 12 feet high.
Along with the dogs we were now keeping our children inside. They stopped playing touch rugby and cricket because it is no fun if you cannot kick/hit the ball into someone prize rose garden. One can clearly see the effects of this on our national rugby and cricket teams. (Jacques Kallis comes from the platteland where they still played cricket in the street.)
Children, now hiding inside their gardens, had privacy to start taking pot and drink their fathers’ whiskey. It is even probable that since they did not develop any social skills with other children in the street they also became joggers.
I recently went to Soweto for a wedding. There children are playing in the street. Grownups are standing at their gates socializing. Dogs wag their tails. Ice-cream carts are ringing their bells joyously. Everybody knows everybody on the street. People are relaxed and smiling.
The reason is that large parts of Soweto are juppy-free. I did not see one jogger in Soweto’s streets. (I saw aspirant boxers running, but they were swinging their arms, had an upright posture, lifted their feet, occasionally made a few dance-steps and waved at people because they had to practice how they would wave in the ring after knocking the other guy out. So they do not count as joggers.)
Compare this with the streets in Sandton where the up-tight, juppy joggers live. It is very difficult to understand why anyone would want to live in Sandton given the type of neighbours you are likely to have.
The biggest exodus from South Africa to places like Australia comes out of up market juppie neighbourhoods like Sandton, Rivonia, Waterkloof, Sea Point, Kloof, etc.
People in these areas look at the social decline that has set in upper-class suburbia.
To rectify this they set up neighbourhood watches, and the first advice given to a neighbourhood watch is: GET TO KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOUR. Which is exactly what the neighbourhood made impossible by the big walls they built to keep the joggers away from their dogs.
When the neighbourhood watch does not work, because not enough people join, because they don’t want to meet their neighbours, these people blame the neighbourhood. They believe that the solution does not involve moving to Soweto they move to other countries – like Australia.
What they don’t realize is that the neighbourhood is what it is because of the people that form the neighbourhood (this is the dictionary meaning of neighborhood). When these people move to other neighbourhoods they are taking the problem with them, they are the problem. So then end in places like Perth (Australia) which has the biggest population of South Africans outside South Africa.
I lectured in Perth for a few months so I can comment on the neighbourhood there with great expertise.
Because the type of people that emigrate are the type of people that they are nothing changes. The Australians do not want to make friends with them either. Soon these emigrants end up with only South African friends – who are mostly the same type of people as them because they also emigrated because they are also the type of people that emigrate.
So Perth comprise of little groups of ex-South Africans that are friends only with ex-South Africans and all that they have in common is that they all come from neighbourhoods that did not like them, and now live in neighbourhoods that does not like the. This means that all they can talk about is how bad the neighbourhood was that they came from, or, how unfriendly the neighbourhood is to them now.
Obviously the exodus from the country would be much less if places like Sandton were just nicer places to live in. But, given the type of people that live there, this is unlikely to happen.
I am not suggesting that as part of the Lion and springbok exercise program you should sell your house in Sandton and move to Soweto. You will probably feel out in Soweto, because they do not like joggers there either. You can, if you happen to live in Sandton start the Exercise Program and try to turn Sandton into a friendlier environment in which to live.
As Sandton becomes friendlier and people walk in the streets (instead of jogging or power-walking or cycling) the people will get to know their neighbours. Since people are on the street they would not need a neighbourhood watch which co-opt residents to drive patrols at night, the streets will be automatically patrolled because of the residents walking around in them. Crime will decrease. Walls will come down so that the dogs can also patrol the whole neighbourhood instead of providing burglars the easy option of just poisoning ones dogs.
With the walls coming down the neighbours can now keep watch on each others house. Neighbours will also know when a car that should not be in the drive is in the drive because the neighbours will know each others cars.
There are a lot of social wrongs, other than just the anti-smoking laws, that the joggers should be called to responsibility for. I envisage a Nuremburg type trial, but maybe we can just ask them to confess in front a reconciliation commission – non joggers are forgiving types
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Exercise 5: Heart rate monitors, walking and jogging
The Heart Rate Counter
If there is anything that gives one a great insight into the joggers mind then it is the piece of equipment they strap around their chest to measure their heart rate. (Some work on one wrist, but is not so obvious that others can see it.)
Doctors warn their patients that it is not a good idea to get your heart rate up too high, and also not your blood-pressure. This is when things like cardiac failure occurs and also strokes. Blood vessels in the brain can burst. Etc.
Yet this is what the jogger is actively striving to do!
If you feel you need to buy any equipment for the Lion and Springbok Exercise Program then a heart rate monitor would be a good thing, especially if it includes a blood pressure meter.
If you stick to the program as we will set it out you will never have your blood rate or pressure increase to uncomfortable heights as a result of anything in the program.
Now take a brisk walk, with the meter attached, and note how fast your heart rate and blood pressure goes up. Stop when you start to feel uncomfortable, and note how it goes back to what it was. Now imagine how uncomfortable you would feel if you had to push these measures to an extreme.
Yet, this is what the joggers do daily.
The obvious question is: Why would they? Well the answer is that they are druggies; they just don’t buy their drugs.
Nature has given us the ability to produce heroin in our brain when we are in extreme pain. This is what the joggers do. They just call it ‘hitting the wall’, heroin users that buy their own heroin calls this ‘hitting the needle’.
What the heartbeat monitor does is to tell the jogger how far he is from the heroin kicking in!
Then they take great pride in watching their heart rate coming back to normal, which is the heroin doing its work.
Now sit back with your own heart rate monitor, have a whiskey, and watch your heart rate and blood pressure decrease. You can get the same effect as the jogger, and any other druggie, by using your drug of choice (not amphetamines, or other stimulants – like coffee.)
The difference between a druggie and a jogger is that only the former is conceited about what they do.
The difference between Walking and Jogging
The Lion and Springbok exercise program is, as its name implies, not against exercise itself. It is anti un-natural exercising like jogging, cycling, swimming and other extreme activities.
It will be about to any observer that jogging is not just a form of walking faster, nor is walking a form of slow jogging. Even when a jogger jogs at a ridiculously slow pace, about the speed that many people walk, it is obvious that he is jogging not walking.
The first difference is in the body posture. When you walk your posture is upright – like what your mother suggested it should be. Your head is mostly upright. Your lungs are open. Your arms will swing giving your shoulders some exercise. You look at the environment and appreciate nature. You will mostly seek out beautiful places in nature to do this, not crime ridden streets.
Walkers look as if they are enjoying it. They smile and greet the people they pass. If there is more than one then they will be talking to each other, saying things like: …
You will feel like saying ‘hi’ to them because they look like pleasant people enjoying themselves.
They often will have their family with them, and all would appear to be enjoying the family experience.
Walkers will not be wearing equipment that measures their heart rate or blood pressure. Just wearing such equipment show an unnatural approach to what they are doing. In fact when a walker wears a pedometer we would immediately disqualify him as a walker in our definition. We also discount power-walkers for the same reason.
If they feel like something to drink they will stop and drink, not gulp things down on the run.
If they see something beautiful like an unusual bird on a branch they will stop and appreciate nature.
Mostly they will be lifting their feet and look natural.
They will not look dehydrated, lacking the juices of life, or in pain.
Some will be whistling. When last did you see a whistling jogger?
It will be obvious that they are not on their way to get some dope for another high.
Some walkers will smoke while they walk. The whole activity is about relaxation.
The medical profession insists that walking is very good exercise. Since we are not anti walking we are obviously not anti exercise.
If you have time then listen to Bob Dylan sing “I’m walking, and talking..”. The slow relaxed melody is what we are talking about. Joggers do not listen to Bob Dylan, this distinguishes them from other drug addicts. (Except Rastafarians, I think).
If there is anything that gives one a great insight into the joggers mind then it is the piece of equipment they strap around their chest to measure their heart rate. (Some work on one wrist, but is not so obvious that others can see it.)
Doctors warn their patients that it is not a good idea to get your heart rate up too high, and also not your blood-pressure. This is when things like cardiac failure occurs and also strokes. Blood vessels in the brain can burst. Etc.
Yet this is what the jogger is actively striving to do!
If you feel you need to buy any equipment for the Lion and Springbok Exercise Program then a heart rate monitor would be a good thing, especially if it includes a blood pressure meter.
If you stick to the program as we will set it out you will never have your blood rate or pressure increase to uncomfortable heights as a result of anything in the program.
Now take a brisk walk, with the meter attached, and note how fast your heart rate and blood pressure goes up. Stop when you start to feel uncomfortable, and note how it goes back to what it was. Now imagine how uncomfortable you would feel if you had to push these measures to an extreme.
Yet, this is what the joggers do daily.
The obvious question is: Why would they? Well the answer is that they are druggies; they just don’t buy their drugs.
Nature has given us the ability to produce heroin in our brain when we are in extreme pain. This is what the joggers do. They just call it ‘hitting the wall’, heroin users that buy their own heroin calls this ‘hitting the needle’.
What the heartbeat monitor does is to tell the jogger how far he is from the heroin kicking in!
Then they take great pride in watching their heart rate coming back to normal, which is the heroin doing its work.
Now sit back with your own heart rate monitor, have a whiskey, and watch your heart rate and blood pressure decrease. You can get the same effect as the jogger, and any other druggie, by using your drug of choice (not amphetamines, or other stimulants – like coffee.)
The difference between a druggie and a jogger is that only the former is conceited about what they do.
The difference between Walking and Jogging
The Lion and Springbok exercise program is, as its name implies, not against exercise itself. It is anti un-natural exercising like jogging, cycling, swimming and other extreme activities.
It will be about to any observer that jogging is not just a form of walking faster, nor is walking a form of slow jogging. Even when a jogger jogs at a ridiculously slow pace, about the speed that many people walk, it is obvious that he is jogging not walking.
The first difference is in the body posture. When you walk your posture is upright – like what your mother suggested it should be. Your head is mostly upright. Your lungs are open. Your arms will swing giving your shoulders some exercise. You look at the environment and appreciate nature. You will mostly seek out beautiful places in nature to do this, not crime ridden streets.
Walkers look as if they are enjoying it. They smile and greet the people they pass. If there is more than one then they will be talking to each other, saying things like: …
You will feel like saying ‘hi’ to them because they look like pleasant people enjoying themselves.
They often will have their family with them, and all would appear to be enjoying the family experience.
Walkers will not be wearing equipment that measures their heart rate or blood pressure. Just wearing such equipment show an unnatural approach to what they are doing. In fact when a walker wears a pedometer we would immediately disqualify him as a walker in our definition. We also discount power-walkers for the same reason.
If they feel like something to drink they will stop and drink, not gulp things down on the run.
If they see something beautiful like an unusual bird on a branch they will stop and appreciate nature.
Mostly they will be lifting their feet and look natural.
They will not look dehydrated, lacking the juices of life, or in pain.
Some will be whistling. When last did you see a whistling jogger?
It will be obvious that they are not on their way to get some dope for another high.
Some walkers will smoke while they walk. The whole activity is about relaxation.
The medical profession insists that walking is very good exercise. Since we are not anti walking we are obviously not anti exercise.
If you have time then listen to Bob Dylan sing “I’m walking, and talking..”. The slow relaxed melody is what we are talking about. Joggers do not listen to Bob Dylan, this distinguishes them from other drug addicts. (Except Rastafarians, I think).
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Lucky 8: What will Lucky become?
WHAT WILL LUCKY BECOME?
All parents are concerned about the careers that their children will one day follow. From a very young age parents (and especially grand-parents) start to speculate whether their child will become a doctor, or preacher, or lawyer, or stockbroker, etc.
The children themselves want to become firemen, lion-tamers, ice-cream merchants etc.
When they grow up they become criminals, drug- addicts, wife-beaters, etc.
Very often they are unhappy in their profession because it was their parents choice, not their own.
Maybe if the parents left the children alone to become what they wanted to become they would be better of.
In South Africa the situation is a little bit different from elsewhere. Until a few years ago the white parents knew that if their children are not all that bright they will find a career in the railways or the post-office. The public sector was some kind of safety net for whites against being jobless. Even if you are useless, and do not want to work, then you could go to the public sector – but, mainly only if you were white.
This has changed, the public services now have to be staffed non-racially in such a way that each race is present in the ratio that it occurs in the population – and this is true for every level of the hierarchy.
As a result the civil service is still as ineffective, lazy, etc. as what it was before the political changes in South Africa, but at least it is non-racial because the racially set quotas are adhered to. (One really would have wished that the change were more in terms of effectiveness, than skin colour.)
Off course if the racial bias in such a non-racial structure is biased toward black employees then it does not matter because this is not racial bias. It is only non-racial if it is not biased toward white employees.
In the past companies tried to be politically correct by being non-racial and not recording the races of their employees, so that they can truly say that promotions were not based on race. This has now changed; it is politically correct to be non-racial by recording the race of ones staff!
In fact, if a company wished to be a supplier to a government organisation, which is now non-racial, then this non-racial civil department insists that the supplier submits a form showing the races of its staff members at different levels in the organisation – especially the racial composition of the shares of the company. When a supplier can demonstrate that it is non-racial, based on this recording of races, and balancing of races, the non-racial government department will give it preference in the tender – just to demonstrate that they are not racist.
As a result the parents of white children now do have an even greater concern about their children’s future careers: not only might the child be a bit stupid and lazy, but it is a fact that if he is white, and he will probably not find a job in the civil service.
On the way back from school, in the car, our children started a conversation about their careers, what they thought they might one day become.
After some discussion, Charl said: “Lucky, you are lucky; you don’t have to worry about these things. You know that when you finish school you will have a job.”
Mariki was very impressed that Charl, even at such a young age, already has this appreciation of the racially bound political nature of our non-racial society and how it is a great benefit to be black in the new non-racial society of the new South Africa.
Until Charl explained to Lucky: “You know that you can always be my father’s gardener.”
It is interesting to speculate about his career: he has great people skills, speaks Afrikaans very well, does not like numbers or computers (every-one in our house does), is especially good with younger children.
Maybe he will a teacher?
Would be even more interesting if he becomes a dominee in the NG Kerk! I think this is a possibility because Lucky likes to act and make speeches.
2009: We now know that he chose a career in advertising, having graduated from VEGA. Although he still would like to be an actor – and can soon be seen on “I want to be..” on television.
All parents are concerned about the careers that their children will one day follow. From a very young age parents (and especially grand-parents) start to speculate whether their child will become a doctor, or preacher, or lawyer, or stockbroker, etc.
The children themselves want to become firemen, lion-tamers, ice-cream merchants etc.
When they grow up they become criminals, drug- addicts, wife-beaters, etc.
Very often they are unhappy in their profession because it was their parents choice, not their own.
Maybe if the parents left the children alone to become what they wanted to become they would be better of.
In South Africa the situation is a little bit different from elsewhere. Until a few years ago the white parents knew that if their children are not all that bright they will find a career in the railways or the post-office. The public sector was some kind of safety net for whites against being jobless. Even if you are useless, and do not want to work, then you could go to the public sector – but, mainly only if you were white.
This has changed, the public services now have to be staffed non-racially in such a way that each race is present in the ratio that it occurs in the population – and this is true for every level of the hierarchy.
As a result the civil service is still as ineffective, lazy, etc. as what it was before the political changes in South Africa, but at least it is non-racial because the racially set quotas are adhered to. (One really would have wished that the change were more in terms of effectiveness, than skin colour.)
Off course if the racial bias in such a non-racial structure is biased toward black employees then it does not matter because this is not racial bias. It is only non-racial if it is not biased toward white employees.
In the past companies tried to be politically correct by being non-racial and not recording the races of their employees, so that they can truly say that promotions were not based on race. This has now changed; it is politically correct to be non-racial by recording the race of ones staff!
In fact, if a company wished to be a supplier to a government organisation, which is now non-racial, then this non-racial civil department insists that the supplier submits a form showing the races of its staff members at different levels in the organisation – especially the racial composition of the shares of the company. When a supplier can demonstrate that it is non-racial, based on this recording of races, and balancing of races, the non-racial government department will give it preference in the tender – just to demonstrate that they are not racist.
As a result the parents of white children now do have an even greater concern about their children’s future careers: not only might the child be a bit stupid and lazy, but it is a fact that if he is white, and he will probably not find a job in the civil service.
On the way back from school, in the car, our children started a conversation about their careers, what they thought they might one day become.
After some discussion, Charl said: “Lucky, you are lucky; you don’t have to worry about these things. You know that when you finish school you will have a job.”
Mariki was very impressed that Charl, even at such a young age, already has this appreciation of the racially bound political nature of our non-racial society and how it is a great benefit to be black in the new non-racial society of the new South Africa.
Until Charl explained to Lucky: “You know that you can always be my father’s gardener.”
It is interesting to speculate about his career: he has great people skills, speaks Afrikaans very well, does not like numbers or computers (every-one in our house does), is especially good with younger children.
Maybe he will a teacher?
Would be even more interesting if he becomes a dominee in the NG Kerk! I think this is a possibility because Lucky likes to act and make speeches.
2009: We now know that he chose a career in advertising, having graduated from VEGA. Although he still would like to be an actor – and can soon be seen on “I want to be..” on television.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Lucky 7: Lucky fails grade 2
LUCKY FAILS GRADE 2
The ‘new’ approach to education, in South Africa, specifies that children cannot really fail a grade.
Obviously if one is going to have a society where there is no discrimination based on skin colour, one should have a ratio of black doctors vs white doctors that matches the population profile. This means that the universities have to produce Black and white doctors in the required ratio; which means their intake has to be proportional to the population profile; which means that the schools system has to produce candidates in this ratio; which means that in each study year the pass rate has to be maintained at this racial ratio; etc.
To maintain these ratios it was decided that children should not be failed.
When Lucky came to the end of grade 1 it was obvious that his grades are not really very good.
The school called Mariki, in locus parentis, to tell her that they suggest he repeats the grade, but that they cannot fail him. The decision is ours.
We said that this is a good idea.
Wonderful things happen.
Where Lucky was a withdrawn shy child lacking confidence, he suddenly blossomed.
The reason for this was simple: as the new grade 2’s started the year insecurely, Lucky knew what to expect, and was seen to be natural leader. This newfound confidence changed Lucky’s personality.
Suddenly he was a ‘achiever’, and not a laggard struggling to keep up with the rest.
Maybe the education authorities can learn something from Lucky: It is sometimes a good thing to be kept behind for a grade to establish self-confidence.
The ‘new’ approach to education, in South Africa, specifies that children cannot really fail a grade.
Obviously if one is going to have a society where there is no discrimination based on skin colour, one should have a ratio of black doctors vs white doctors that matches the population profile. This means that the universities have to produce Black and white doctors in the required ratio; which means their intake has to be proportional to the population profile; which means that the schools system has to produce candidates in this ratio; which means that in each study year the pass rate has to be maintained at this racial ratio; etc.
To maintain these ratios it was decided that children should not be failed.
When Lucky came to the end of grade 1 it was obvious that his grades are not really very good.
The school called Mariki, in locus parentis, to tell her that they suggest he repeats the grade, but that they cannot fail him. The decision is ours.
We said that this is a good idea.
Wonderful things happen.
Where Lucky was a withdrawn shy child lacking confidence, he suddenly blossomed.
The reason for this was simple: as the new grade 2’s started the year insecurely, Lucky knew what to expect, and was seen to be natural leader. This newfound confidence changed Lucky’s personality.
Suddenly he was a ‘achiever’, and not a laggard struggling to keep up with the rest.
Maybe the education authorities can learn something from Lucky: It is sometimes a good thing to be kept behind for a grade to establish self-confidence.
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