Malema tells it like it is

It does not amaze me that Malema’s popularity is growing.  Just days before the ANC Youth Legues National congress in Midrand, it is clear that all provincial Youth League structures are backing Malema for a second term…

This might come as a surprise to most white people, but the black youth love Malema and hold him in high regard. Do not get me wrong, I don’t mean all of the black youth admire him, but I can be safe to say most of those who are politically aware do. White South Africans on the other side seem to hate Julius, calling him all kind of derogatory words like – Stupid, Monkey, Garden Boy you name it. What I have failed to understand is how they come to the conclusion that he is stupid? Maybe they are scared because Julius says what they do not want to hear.

Some of his utterances can be irresponsible (Kill for Zuma) but definitely not stupid! For example, his call to nationalise the mines is long over-due. For the past I do not know how many years, the white minority has reaped rewards from the sweat of black migrants who spend their days making the “baas” wealthy while their families starve in rural areas without any quality time with their fathers. This we need to understand is not a race issue, but a serious socio-economic issue. Honestly speaking, I first did not understand the whole talk about the nationalization of the mines until I read an article about the stock-worth of The Naspers group (an Afrikaner owned Media Company which is said to be amongst the top 10 wealthiest in the world and is reported to be worth R162 billion in the JSE).

In a country where the majority of the population is starving, where some people still walk kilometers to get fresh clean water that is worth drinking, you still have companies who benefitted from a government that oppressed the masses, still reaping the fruits of their inhumane conduct and cruelty! If you don’t know, the Vosloos who own the Naspers group (which also owns Multi-choice) were supporters of the apartheid National Party government. Now if these guys had a part to play in oppressing the masses, then why would they still be fattening their – about to burst – bellies in a country where injustice is not supposed to go unpunished.

Honestly I believe Julius is a man in his own right, and a bold man he is. I respect him because he is not afraid to speak his mind. And I have come to realize that the white man is scared of Julius because they know that he is opening the eyes of South African black youth to the realities and injustices of the past, which continue to affect and impoverished South African blacks. Julius knows that the only way to be equal in South Africa is to spread the wealth, and the whites know that the only way they can truly be equal with the blacks is to lose their wealth! This is why they can’t stand Julius, it is because he is trying to temper with their monies!

All these guys, The De Beers, Oppenheimers and Vosloos do not deserve the wealth that they have, that wealth is the sweat of our great grand fathers! They lived hard treacherous lives making the “baas” wealthy, but died poor so that the “baas” could remain stinking rich for generations! It is time to say the truth as it is, because the truth shall set us free. I say nationalize the mines and if that means ending up like Zimbabwe then so be it(by the way Zimbabwe is not as bad as it is made out to be by the western white media), but let us eat the fruits of our labour, in our land now!!!

Long live the truth, long live Julius Malema.

http://www.leadershiponline.co.za/articles/leaders-on-leadership/1263-tea-with-ton-vosloo

Alicia Keys marries Swizz Beatz

By Dinilohlanga Mekuto

R&B Singer and actress Alicia Keys tied the knot this past weekend at a low-key ceremony in the French Island of Corsica.

The grammy award winning songstress who is famous for hits like Fallin’ and Try sleeping with a broken heart, married hip – hop producer Swizz Beatz (real name Kasseem Dean) at a ceremony last Saturday. They have been together since 2008 and are expecting their first child. Swizz Beatz recently divorced his first wife, to be with Keys.

Amongst the guests in attendance were Bono from U2 and hip – hop artist turned actress Queen Latifah. Well-known spiritual guru Dr Deepak Chopra officiated the wedding. 29 – year  - old Keys walked down the aisle with her parents, she was dressed in a Vera Wang creation and the groom wore a Tom Ford tuxedo. The couple announced their engagement and the news that they were expecting a baby in May this year.

Whilst it will be the first child for the pair, Beatz already has two children from his previous relationships. Alicia Keys recently performed at the Opening concert of the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa. Demand is high for pictures of the Keys-Beatz wedding, but images are somewhat scarce.  While some photos have been leaked, a major website that hosted many photos -aliciakeysweb.com – has since been shut down.

Buzz off…..to a mediocre start

by Dinilohlanga Mekuto

By now you should have heard of social networking sites, websites where you can connect with friends and share your thoughts and pictures with people you know and those you may not know. One such website is Facebook, which is reported to have over 200 million active users world-wide. There is nothing new here ofcourse, but interestingly enough, there might be a new kid on the block, one that threatens to give “fb” – as Facebook is known by its regurlar users – a run for its money.

This new kid on the block is called Buzz,Google Buzz.Like any product Buzz as it is known, was launched amidst great media hype. But many avid social networking sites users sought to know what Buzz would offer, that Twitter and Facebook didn’t.
Before we get to what Buzz offers,let me first give a brief explanation of Twitter and Facebook. Twitter is an online medium where you share your views or comments (via tweets) with your “followers” by texting or typing no more than 140 characters. It allows users to post links of websites or webpages and allows the user to respond,by re-tweet – RT @ someone, through a public platform. Facebook is more complicated than that, it allows you to invite people as friends,request friendships,reject friends,comment publicly (status update) or privately (inbox message), and allows you to do million other things because of it’s application features! All these media are a way of keeping intouch with the world.
Now buzz is Google’s other attempt at unsitting Facebook as the number one choice for online social networking. It’s prior attempt Google Wave did not quite take off as expected. This can be blamed on the process for joining the service (google-wave). You had to be invited by someone to be part of Google wave,i.e. you couldn’t just go to the website and register. Things are a little bit different with Buzz, you have to have a G-mail account to be a buzzer.Two weeks back as I was logging in to my gmail account, I was asked if I wanted to join Google Buzz by an automated message,I accepted the invitation but have not yet used the service. My failure to do so cannot be blamed on google but on the recent internet connection problems I have been experiencing at work.
So in my quest to find out what Buzz brings to the table,I decided to ask a few Facebook friends to give their own opinion on this new google product.I received mixed re-actions, one friend said “It’s more like twitter but much better. There’s just one thing that annoys me: they send you an email everytime someone comments on your buzz(like FB). They don’t have to because buzz is within gmail so you can see when you have new buzz. other than that,it’s the best thing ever!”.
Another friend responded “I thnk its a fail! Wldnt leave Twitter 4 it. Just gr8 coz its an extension of Gmail, but i wldnt use it tho”. What I gathered from these responses is that there isn’t much of a difference between the two – Buzz and Facebook – services.
Judging from what I have heard, I don’t think Buzz brings anything new to the table besides privacy! And this has been a major concern on Facebook for quite some time. For example,I happened to log on to my facebook account only to find that my profile picture had changed to a pornographic image! Such problems and the fact that the Facebook interface or lay-out changes no less than twice each year can be annoying. It is funny that everytime there is a new Facebook lay-out people vent their anger and frustration on their status updates but three days down the line,they seem to be happy and comfortable with the new lay-out. This shows that though people are reluctant towards change, in the fast paced age of information technology,people adapt easily to change. And that is why we keep logging on to “fb”.
Buzz is new and is a product of one of the biggest internet companies which seeks to take over the world wide web and its resources. This might even be a way of Google trying to lure everyone to use gmail as their preferred email service provider.They have managed to unsit Yahoo! as the premier search engine,and now seek to do the same with Facebook. Whether buzz succeeds to unsit the addictive Facebook or not, it remains to be seen, but it surely brings worthy opposition to the bullying facebook. To tell you the truth I do not think there is anything new with buzz, it is only another alternative to what we already have. On that note let me update my Facebook status…

Hip Hop is not Dead Nas!!!!

You have probably heard the phrase made famous by Nas, ” Hip Hop is dead!” , well he was proven wrong on a one-way platform though during the 2009 Grammy Awards ceremony. It went like this…… Darius “Deezle” Harrison, who co-produced Lil Wayne’s best rap song-winning “Lollipop,” countered Nas’ famous suggestion that hip-hop is dead. “People are trying to emulate what they know works,” said Harrison, but emphasized that’s nothing new. “You have people trying to copy Picasso, you have people trying to copy Van Gogh. Is painting dead? No … it is alive. It’s just taking different forms, brother.”

So there you go Nas and everyone who believed Nas’ lie, HIP HOP IS NOT DEAD, it will never die, well atleast in this time and world. But I will tell you one thing that is dead – KWAITO! LMAO!!!

Death you silly enemy!

I just lost a cousin’s eight year old child! He was run over by a car! Why?

 

I just cannot answer such a question. Death is one life experience that never ceases to surprise, especially in the case of a sudden death. Its better if you see a loved one lose their life through a sickness, seeing someone suffer makes it easeir to let go and accept anything that might happen.

 

But in cases like someone leaving the house fresh and healthy to see them in the mortuary a few hours later must be traumatic. Somehow sickness prepares you emoptionally to accept the loss. But an accident is a shock. Especially that of a child. Only eight years old! Why let such things happen Lord?

 

I do not wish this on even my enemies!

There is no crisis!

I’m sure you have heard the phrase-”There is no crisis!” A phrase made popurlar by former South African president Thabo Mbeki. He made this statement famous when asked about the situation in Zimbabwe.

But lately, the ANC leadership has warmed up to Mbeki’s words, denying that there is any crisis in the state affairs of the country. The most memorable to me is ANC president Jacob Zuma saying “No..there is no crisis, where is the crisis? there is no crisis.

Tell you the truth, I don’t think there is a crisis either, well not yet. But if ministers,mpls and premieres continue to resign or being sacked then we might be headed for a crisis. With the recent credit crunch – volatility of the world markets and the bankrupcy of Lehman Brothers, and the continuing global food crisis, I think within a space of 3 months we will be deep in ish!

So no, no crisis here, but come back in three months or so, then my firend I will show you a catastrophe. God forbid!

It could have been worse

Surely when a mishap occurs one of the questions we ask ourselves is “why me?” or maybe “why now?”. I had something bad happen to me today – messed up my dad’s car!

 

Well the fault is mechanical i.e. could have happened to anyone, I think. On my way to work just a few 100 metres from home I could not change from 2nd to 3rd gear. I could feel some smoothness in the clutch and I knew something was wrong. My mind worked quickly though and I managed to turn back and park the car back in the drive way. Luckily for me I was on an incline and on my way back I had a slope and the car had enough power to climb up our steep driveway.

 

After I had parked the car I wondered – why me? why now? But after some deep thinking I realised it could have been worse. What if I was moving up a busy road? What if I was in town? surely it happened at the right place maybe not the right time as I was rushing to work. This “unfortunate” situation made me realise that we can see the good in bad situations!

 

Count your blessings, analyse every incident and think of a quick solution before you start ranting, swearing and cursing. It could have been worse, but thank God it turned out like it did. Now I have to figure out a way to fix that car. Word of advice, buy a brand new car and you probably won’t get caught up in an unfortunate situation.

Thats life!

History in Beijing

 

The biggest sporting spectacular has ended, it has been a drama filled two weeks at the Beijing Olympic summer games.

 

These Olympic Games surely rate amongst the best ever, despite fears of protest prior to the opening ceremony and concerns over the air-pollution in Beijing, more than 36 world records and 74 Olympic records have been broken, most of which came from the water cube during the first week of the Games. American swimmers did not disappoint with Michael Phelps over shadowing every other swimmer in the pool. Phelps had Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in one Olympic Games in mind, which was set at the Munich games in 1972. He managed to accomplish and surpass that goal, by winning eight gold medals breaking seven world records in the process and earned himself the title of – The greatest Olympian of all time. 

 

The second week at the Beijing Olympics saw the start of the Track and Field events. Much debate was on who will take the crown of being the fastest man on earth, with American Tyson Gay, Jamaicans Asafa Powell and in form current world record holder over the 100 meters Usain Bolt being the favourites for that title. As it is now known Usain Bolt won these coveted 100 and 200 meter titles with two world record times of 9.69 and 19.30 seconds and the 4x100m men’s relay also in a world record time. Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia won gold on both the 5000m and 10 000meters.

 

 Tyson Gay began U.S.A’s woes at the Track and Field by failing to qualify for the 100 meter final. And gold medal hopeful on the women’s 100 meter hurdles American Lolo Jones led her final race and  tripped on the second last hurdle to come seventh in that race. But that was not the end of U.S.A s misery, Jamaica made a clean sweep over the woman’s 100 meters winning the gold and two silver medals in the process, together with the women’s 200 meter gold medal by Veronica Campbell – Brown . With both the American and Jamaican 4x 100m women’s relay teams failing to perform, Russia won the women’s event. No one anticipated the drama at the Bird’s Nest, but China’s hopes also tumbled when gold medal favourite and current Olympic record holder over the 110 meter hurdles Liu Xiang failed to make it to the second round of the event, after pulling out on his first round race with a foot injury.

 

With the South African swimming team failing to win a medal during the first week of the games, the countries hopes were revived by a silver medal from Khotso Mokoena in the long jump.

One question lingers among the South Africans, what went wrong for our team in Beijing? But the question on the mind of sport lovers around the globe is, who is the star of the Beijing Olympic Games, and two athletes come to mind, Usain “Lightning” Bolt and The phenomenal Michael Phelps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Greatest Olympian, Phelps or Bolt?

Bear in mind I am writing this an hour before the Beijing Olympics Athletics, 200 m men’s final. But I can safely predict that Bolt will win in a world record time of between 18.99s and 19.15s. And Michael Phelps is just out of this world! He is phenominal! The question remains, who is the best athlete at these games.

 

I’m going to be a little biased on this one. I used to be a track and field athlete, and I was pretty good too. Considering the time it takes for track and field records to be broken, (sometimes more than a decade) I should say that it probably is more difficult to break a track and field record than a swimming one.

 

 So based on this seemingly weak argument I would say, Bolt is my athlete of the games. Taking nothing away from Phelps, he is an outstanding, great athlete. But after that photo finish( in his last solo event I think) I both saw his strength,weakness and tactics. Now when it came to Usain in the 100m final, it was clear by two metres or so, who the winner was.

 

If Bolt takes both the 200m and 4x100m relay gold in record time then I will be right don’t you think?

Reality T.V is getting too REAL!

A couple of years back I heard Gareth Cliff comment on the state of reality television. His opinion was that this genre will one day soon take it too far. Cliff commented on how our society is amused by other peoples misery (Him included – he once made fun of a business owner who cried because something happened to his business).

Gareth Cliff said that the amuzement that the ancient Greeks or Romans found in the Collesium will soon hit our t.v screens(people would be thrown in the arena with lions and scores of spectators would cheer as someone would get eaten by lions.) Recently a reality Television show called the Contender was produced.This boxing show has people fighting their way to getting a professional boxing contract.

Yesterday I watched Khumbula Ekhaya and the reality aspect of that programme is too much. Why solve your family affairs infront of millions. Thats plain dumb, or are too bored with our own lives that we entertain ourselves by seeing other people have a hard time? Our situation as the human race is bad. At a time like this we need a savior.

Two weeks ago I watched the Irv Gotti’s reality show on DSTV. His soon to be ex-wife and son kept crying on camera! For me that was too much, I can’t stand to see another human being cry because of hurt.

My only question is how far will it go? With people requesting Saddam Hussein’s excetution to be played live, what else are we going to request? We are so obsessed with violence on television that we can’t live without it.

Maybe I’m a softie but it won’t be long and you will agree with me.

p.s I don’t even watch reality t.v shows (Apprentice,Amazing Race, Fear Factor, Survivor – you name them). I don’t even watch soapies! Give me news anytime. Ironic neh?