The Cyber Spy and the Marbles

In a bizarre case of art imitating life, it turns out that my gossip mongering about the Chinese telecommunications company that used British Telecom to send information back to the mother ship wasn’t all just heresay. It turns out they’re spying on just about everyone. According to one report there are only two groups a country or a company can fall into – those that already know about it and those who haven’t found out yet.

Alright, it isn’t as though they can come out and say they’re doing it. That would be like us South Africans admitting we were ever in Angola. It just isn’t done. Google didn’t outright accuse the Chinese government either; they simply said the hacking originated in a Chinese province.

Conspiracy theories are everywhere today.

While I sat in my little bubble on the fourth floor of a nondescript, let’s be honest, horrible ugly, office block yesterday, merely a block away some lunatic decided to walk into the local police station and gun down some officers. Such drama, so close by and I missed it. Shocking really – and here I thought I was the center of the world.

The story has some bizarre twists. The civilian who went postal was about to be fired from the police station for “misuse of firearms” or some other nebulous terms that is supposed to convey the fact that he gave gun licenses to people who shouldn’t have access to lethal weaponry. His response was to take a gun and kill everyone before killing himself. I have to say, it seems a bit of an OTT response.

There are always those people around that give off those vibes that they just might snap and go postal. I had a colleague once who if he was late for work our boss would come running up and ask if he’d gone off his rocker. He always seemed pretty calm to me, but then again those are the ones you have to watch for. Them and freakily happy ones. The ones that never have a bad day, those who are always perky, perky, perky! Everything they say has an exclamation mark at the end and one day that mask will just crack and then watch out. People will all shake their heads and say, “But she always so nice.”

That’s what the neighbours always say you know, “He was a nice quiet boy, never had parties or anything, never caused any trouble.” I’d rather have loud, noisy sane neighbours then quiet genocidal ones. I wonder what the Norwegians neighbours had to say about him? This is why I’d rather I inspired in people love or hate, then absolutely nothing. The last way I want to be described is, “Oh, her? She’s was nice… fine…um….” Fine? Nice? I’d rather be remembered as total bitch or a loud mouthed busybody than as someone who couldn’t even make an impression.

I suppose it’s a sign that I’m unlikely to kill off any office drones this week.

Someone tell Julius he doesn’t need to hide in his underground Hitler house just yet, I still have my marbles.

Eric Miyeni and the White Oppressors

Eric Miyeni’s vitriolic diatribe in Monday’s Sowetan says more about the sorry state of South African journalism than it does about a bigoted racist. After all, bigoted racists are a dime a dozen. Should he have lost his job? Damn right, but not for the reasons he did. His massacre of the English language should have been grounds for dismissal alone.

I am a white, English speaking writer. I do not pretend, nor am I so arrogant as to assume I can write in isiZulu, eKasitaal or Afrikaans for that matter. I stick to the language in which I am best able to communicate. I don’t commit genocide with your language, don’t do it with mine.

As for his Editor, the man should be shot (not literally – I am not advocating violence against journalists here). Slothful, lazy and ambivalent are the terms I would to describe the type of editorial mismanagement that allowed the column to printed in the first place. Unless, and here’s a thought for all you paranoid conspiracy theorists out there – it was intended to be printed with full knowledge of the outcome to flag failing distribution levels, boost PR and change senior management? Maybe Eric pushed it through because the ANC Youth League had already offered him a job (God knows poor Floyd can do with the help) and he needed a way out. Either way surely a sub-editor somewhere should have checked the grammar?

As for Eric’s little outburst? He writes an opinion column. It doesn’t have to based on fact, it’s allowed to be an emotional outpouring of racist hatred. The fact is if I support his being fired I wouldn’t be allowed to call him a hypocritical, racist bigot and I have every right to call him such – it’s my opinion. One day he may look back on his article and recognise that he echoes the sentiments of his “colonialist, white oppressors”.

Racism is racism and bigots are bigots no matter what colour their skin. So, you have tough time being black? Try being female or being a black female? Being a working mother? Or being homosexual? Or being a white male overlooked for promotion in favour of a less skilled person of a darker hue? Somebody once said to me that everyman’s burden is the heaviest. My advice – your hang-ups, chips on your shoulder, guilt, hatred, whatever, are your issues, not mine; I have enough of my own, thank you very much.

After being subjected to Julius Malema’s long-winded interview this morning on 702, I really don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It seems Nelson Mandela’s dream for this country is destined to die when he does.

For heaven’s sake JuJu, if nationalisation didn’t work for Mugabe, do you honestly think it will for you? Are you ready to plunge this country into famine, a spiralling cycle of poverty and destitution? You may get your wish and every skilled, white mampara who can, may leave for Nigeria or Tanzania (where they quite like us, by the way), and then you can pick up the pieces. Chances are all the skilled, educated black people will leave too and you’ll be left with a bunch of illiterates who failed woodwork just like you.

See, if Eric is silenced we’re back to Apartheid when you couldn’t say stuff like that. I know many of the journalists (white) who during those years didn’t pack up and leave for the BBC, but decided to fight for freedom of the press, freedom of association and freedom of opinion instead. I know what it was like to have your calls tapped, your bags packed and wonder if you’d ever see your father again. To know it was in vain, that the press is more a political puppet than ever is saddening, but not unexpected. After all the Catholics adopted many Pagan practices throughout Europe in their quest for global domination, so why shouldn’t Eric and his friends at the ANC Youth League use the very practices they abhorred under the National Party? A rose by any other name, anyone?

As an afterthought, when does one stop being a youth? I thought it was 21, but apparently it is now in your mid-thirties, which is great for me actually, because I’m tired of being told that I’m hitting middle-age at 35.

The Junkie and Psychopath and my Bathroom

In the news, a psychopath tried to start a revolution in Norway. Hang on, where? Norway. Pause. Why? I have no clue. Of all the places to try and start a revolution Norway has to be the last on my list. Off hand, what do I know about Norway? Fjords and salmon, yup that’s about it. They are a nice people, a quiet people. The last big thing to happen in Norway was the Second World War. You’d have better luck trying to start a revolution in a nunnery.

The psycho posted his manifesto online somewhat like Hitler and Mein Kampf. We covered that volume in school history lessons.

Teacher: “Hitler wrote down his plan for Europe in his manifesto, Mein Kampf.”
Me: “Excuse me, if he wrote it all down why was everyone so surprised when he set it action?”
Teacher: “Go to the library and take out a copy this weekend and then come to me on Monday and tell me what you think.”

Monday
Teacher: “Did you do what I suggested?”
Me: “Yes Ma’am.”
Teacher: “And now do you understand why his actions came as a surprise?”
Me: “Yes Ma’am.”

It’s so awful, turgid and incomprehensible that no-one ever managed to read all of it and so no-one knew about Hitler’s plans for mass genocide. The same could be said of the ramblings of the Norway psycho. His online Mein Kampf makes no sense whatsoever and simply sends out a clear message that this man is need of psychological counselling, some good drugs and a writing course.

The psycho didn’t manage to keep the front-page spot for long though as Amy Winehouse decided to shrug off her mortal coil this weekend and join the infamous 27 club. It seems a bit ironic that she apparently died of natural courses (still to be determined, but her family is convinced she was as clean as a whistle) after a lifetime spent ingesting every pharmaceutical concoction known to man and single-handedly keeping a small South American country in the black.

I cannot idolise the woman, she had an amazing voice and a more amazing talent for making a fool out of herself. To have so much talent and waste it so spectacularly is astounding. Her life and death and music serves to underline the truth of my naming theory. What you name your child can to some extent determine the path of their life. For example: Virginia. A Virginia can go one of two ways, she can be a nun or she can be the opposite. I’m a Wine house? She was going to be an alcoholic since birth. Every time she introduced herself the neuro-linguistic programming kicked in until she lived out the truth of it.

Amy’s ability to kick a mass serial killing off the front page certainly highlights the fickle nature of the reading public. We are all far more interested in the junkie tabloid queen then the death of what is probably half the population of Norway. Her death even put Rupert Murdoch on the back burner and Shrien Dewani? Who the hell is he again?

The ANC Youth League’s website had a bumper day yesterday with the highest number of hits every recorded after the site was hacked. Floyd Shivambu must have the hardest job in the world and my heart goes out to him. He spends every waking moment trying to make Julius Malema seem vaguely sane justifying his crazy words and actions. It’s not like he can resign is it? It came home to me when a Sunday paper asked him for comment on the R16 million mansion with bomb shelter and he was quoted as saying: “I don’t care. Just print whatever you want.” I hope the job comes with excellent benefits, like a slush fund, oh sorry, I meant trust fund.

On the home front, my relaxed journey through the nation's newspaper's was interrupted by a very uncomfortable domestic employment situation. My domestic helper was once married to the gardener’s brother. The gardener is a suave and charming young man. Usually the two don’t meet, but circumstances this weekend meant that we had a full house. I hadn’t seen either of them for a while and thought nothing of it, when I went to my study to check my email. The soundtrack from the en-suite bathroom was x-rated to say the least. The two of them were doing it like they do it on the Discovery Channel. IN MY BATHROOM! The only person allowed to get busy in my bathroom is me. I retreated to the living room and a short while later they strolled out blissfully, said their goodbyes and left.

There are some unpleasant realities here that have far farther reaching consequences than the defiling of my bathroom. There’s an HIV positive status to contend with, two children out of wedlock already and don’t forget the gardener’s brother. To have achieved this amount of complication by the age of 22 is a real feat. By getting busy in my bathroom they have managed to bring all these very real issues to roost well, in my bathroom.

I could handle talking to the domestic helper who spent R20 000 on my telephone, to the one who borrowed my clothing and even the one who stuck a knife in a wall socket. For some reason words desert me when I have to say something about this. Should I start to stock condoms in the bathroom? Should I mention that free contraceptive injections are available at the clinic? This goes beyond normal employer-employee situations for me. But in my bathroom? Hell no!

Office politics seems positively tame after that.

James Bond and the Chopstick Wars

The Chopsticks Wars. That’s what they’re calling it. Two Chinese mobile network operators are competing in the same market. Both have just had an enormous amount of employees escorted in handcuffs out of the country as illegal immigrants. (Read about it on www.itweb.co.za)

Now Company A wants to sue Company B for shopping them to Home Affairs. Bear with me; perhaps I am the crazy one here. Company A has broken the law (so has Company B but lets not snap chopsticks). Whether or not Company B shopped them, they have still broken the law. Surely, this not being America, they have no grounds for a legal case?

What punishment should be inflicted on the companies concerned? A fine? Pennies. How about rescinding their BEE status?

Around this whole saga I have heard some fascinating stories aka rumours that make for amusing retelling, but I must admit I have no proof of their validity, so don’t hunt me down like a rhino and chop my horn off okay?

So here is a round-up of some of the best:
1. They were evicted from a swanky office park for slaughtering the tame impala and barbequeing them up for dinner as well as using the second floor as a permanent residence.
2. They offer white-collar criminals the opportunity to work off their jail terms here, in my country, as little more than slave labour. Hence, the whole lack of immigration paperwork thing.

The most high profile was the CEO of a top Telco network who owns Company A. The press say he resigned on the same day as the mass deportations for “personal reasons”, but I heard he was set packing back to whatever European country he came from as an illegal immigrant! It’s nice to know Home Affairs don’t only target poor Zimbabwean refugees.

Now this whole saga segues into the UK phone hacking scandal quiet smoothly. Another story is that one of the companies above won a multi billion Pound tender from British Telecom. They installed the entire telecommunications network for Great Britain. In due course another tender came up and they were asked to set up a dummy network as proof of concept. BT then went through the code line by line and lo and behold they found a little programme running on the side.

“Oh no,” said the service provider, “That’s nothing.”

Turns out it was something, a very big something. Every activity on the BT network was being reported straight back to the Chinese government in some demented James Bond parody. So as long as you have the telephone number of the person you want, you can access their Internet records, SMS, phone calls, bank security, you name it. More than that, the Chinese government could shut down the system with the flick of a switch. BT threw them out and now have to reinstall the whole damn thing. So, every network installed throughout the world by the same company has the same little programme. Welcome to world domination.

I am unsure of my reaction to the phone hacking saga. I couldn’t care less about soccer stars, movie stars and TV wanna-bes getting their phones hacked. I don’t think it is in the public interest, but I don’t honestly give a damn. If News of the World had stopped there, it all would’ve blown over.

Taking on the most powerful family in Europe? Not the brightest idea ever.
Hampering a police investigation into a kidnapping of a child? Criminal.
Listening in and cashing in on the grief of victims of terrorism? Beyond the pale.

Regardless, should Rupert Murdoch be held responsible? Does the head of an international conglomerate really micromanage to that extent? Sure he is a difficult man and a difficult boss who placed enormous pressure on his employees to deliver, but wasn’t it the editor who should be to blame, or that terrible woman with the ghastly hair? In their defense they say all the papers do it. Maybe. But they didn’t get caught.

Despite this latest scandal, Murdoch is the last of the great newspapermen. He may own gossip rags, but he also owns the Times, Fox entertainment and a host of others. If he is forced to sell his network, it will be the end of an era. Is that a bad thing? Maybe not, but it is sad to witness nonetheless. He won’t be remembered now as the man who built the world’s biggest media empire. He’ll be remembered as the idiot who hacked the phones of the Royal Family.

I feel like I am living the through the last days of the Roman Empire, powerless to do anything except watch it topple. The rot has spread so far and goes so deep that it has become a cancer that we cannot cut out. Now we have some idiot who claims to live on a R25 000 a month salary, building a R16 million home complete with a luxury bunker. And they say I have illusions of grandeur? Either he is totally off his rocker or he knows something the rest of us don't. When asked for comment his spokesmen, who has probably the hardest job in the entire world, exclaimed: "Oh print whatever you want". Poor Floyd, it can't be easy continuously trying to make Julius says sound like anything less than the ravings of a madman.