South Africa's Reputation... Positive σ_σ

I recently read about a survey conducted in an unspecified place or manner, which had declared that South Africa’s general reputation internationally, was positive…. σ_σ

http://za.news.yahoo.com/sa-rep-positive-abroad-090813209.html

It goes on to say how foreigners view South Africa in a favourable light, though there was that little ‘dip’ with the Marikana incident and then the unfortunate scandal with the Oscar Pistorius at the beginning of the year, all was still looking good and then when the good President of the world USA, Mr Barack Obama popped in, while on his way to some important people summit, our popularity seemed to climb higher.

But, then you have the South African peoples who disagree with these faceless foreigners. The people of SA view their country on a very negative scale, disagreeing with the rosy glasses they believe the foreigners have been given.

I’ll be honest; I’m with my peoples on this one. At first I had to think about it objectively, but after reading one of the comments on the article, I realised where my loyalties fall.

That comment went as follows:

‘I honestly think we are so ignorant and not appreciating what our government is doing for this great country ....our government deliver , every1 has a job ,home , books for school ,grants for having babies , hospitals are running proper ,police stations / prisons arent packed everything is just...’

There’s more, but what’s the point? We all know where it’s going to -_-

Are there really such blinded people still around these days, so convinced by lazy attempts at brainwashing, that they argue things that you need only a window or a road to disprove?

I don’t mean to disrespect anyone, but come on!

Foreigners may not stay around here long enough on their holidays to notice, but nationals? Really!? You live here. All it takes is barely a day and 30 minutes or less of news to know how bad things are getting and have been.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we live in different countries, or maybe you have not read…-no walked down the street lately.

Unemployment is at its highest and people line the streets looking for piece-work or dark opportunity. Jobs are being given to the wrong people, who are either ‘window-dressing’ or a friend of a friend who might have slept with a friend.

And books for school? You’re kidding right? It was headlines for months how government was failing to deliver books to certain schools, which eventually had to shut down due to the horrible service delivery.

Hospitals aren’t even guarantees for health in some places anymore. An earlier article covers how one minister states herself that the conditions of some health care facilities are so bad it’s inhumane, but what can they do… budget cuts, Oh! And that new house the president just had to buy for wife No. XX…

Oh, let's not forget the other day's article on one of SAPS chief of police being caught without valid documents to actually be in his appointed position. By the way have you even been to a prison lately? Saying prisons aren’t full? Who told you that? If that is empty, then I wonder and quake at the thought of what you consider a full house… O_O

Look, SA isn’t all bad. Our landscapes are breath-taking. Our sunsets and sunrises are unbelievable. Our diverse cultures remain exciting and so enjoyable. Plus we have LIONS, they may not roam the streets and live in our backyards [most days…] but we have them… and the other wild life the foreigners travel forever to see.

But you cannot ignore the fact that we literally have criminals in parliament, not being convicted or tried doesn’t change or wipe away their actions and past. We hold records in being famous for high rape statistics and murder statistics. When people think of HIV/Aids they immediately think of Africa. These are still things out there, but most of all inside our lands.

Smiling pretty for the foreigner’s camera isn’t going to make these things go away, nor will it bring in investors, Mr Trevor Ndlazi. You really think those guys with the money don’t do research before jumping into bed with anyone? They look beyond the smiling photos and no amount of discount on protex soap is going to encourage them to buy into a failing economy, being run by a corrupt government, on the verge of being taken down by its own people.

Just sayin’

Tragic Pinetown Crash - Trucks & Taxis

Can I just put it out there, say what many have probably asked already, or at least thought about.... How weird was it, that there happened to be a guy with a camera just driving conveniently on that road at that time ○_○, I'm just saying, that's pretty interesting/lucky/depressing/cool/weird stuff right there...

Seriously tho: car accidents are nothing to laugh or joke at, let alone beat around the bush about.
It doesn't matter if it was a minor or major crash, lives will always be affected by these horrid occurrences and I say this from a personal standing. Lives are especially changed when out of these accidents we are met with loss of life.

In an article I came across recently, I was saddened by the tragic news of a truck smashing through '4 taxis and one VW car' resulting in a major loss of life as these taxis were fully loaded and no one from the VW is said to have survived [having watched the video, I can understand why...]. This crash occurred in Pinetown, KwaZulu-Natal on 6 September 2013 around 19:00 pm, receiving quite a bit of coverage for obvious reasons and some sadder reasons which make me wonder why I still believe in people.

As I understand it, the truck driver's brakes had allegedly failed, making it impossible for him to slow down and thus unable to stop at the red light, as it changed, thereby ramming the vehicles as they pulled away upon seeing the green light, as it changed.

See where I'm going with this? No... okay, maybe a bit more.
The series of events I have just mapped out inevitably led to the unfortunate loss of 23 lives, along with 33 injuries. That gives us a total of 56 lives changed forever by something no one could have seen coming, or could they?

Apparently this stretch of road has had visits from the Reaper before and is considered a risky road [not that you can see any signs to this indication on the road =_=] making it something close to common knowledge to any regular drivers to be wary. Take that with the fact that it was night, we have the other non-regulars covered with the general expectation of both observation and vigilance.

Still with me? Good, now let's get to it!
Is no one going to say anything about how the taxi drivers where already over the line and in effect jumping their red light?

While I understand this doesn't justify a company not keeping the required maintenance on all their vehicles, it can't be ignored that s*#! happens. Surely the taxis saw that the truck wasn't/wouldn't/couldn't stop. 

After watching the video, we see that a smaller car in the fourth lane sped like a bat out of hell after a slow pull away. It is glaringly obvious this person was way over the line, more so than the two taxis in front of the camera, but they clearly understood that with such risk comes the need to have a keen vigilance and observation of their surroundings, so what is it they saw and the drivers of the taxis didn't? 

Can you really only blame the driver of the truck for the other driver's negligence?

 In SA, taxis are a very well known form of transportation and to many the only form, being affordable and convenient. But if anything, our country has taught us, such good things come at a price, with taxis it is the price of safety [come at me all you want, you know it's true]. Seating limits have long ago become jokes and interior decoration. So it is not hard to imagine how the Reaper reached his quota that evening.

Whether or not the drivers of those taxis survived, they are just as at fault for not taking into account the lives they themselves were responsible for. Those innocent passengers put their lives in his hands when they climbed into that vehicle, a transaction of more than just money was made, there was the exchange of trusting another with your most valuable possession ever, your life.

Now everyone knows that when that drivers test is passed, plus no signs of traffic cops visible on the side lines [those moving bushes], speed limits become things you glance at for general reference, just in case that corner comes up...
But when you're driving a fully loaded truck, from a company you even slightly suspect cuts even an inch of costs, anywhere, you don't speed past a number at least lower than the 'reference'. You're a truck, it's your job to annoy us with your slow progress and half an hour turn. More so if you've been on the road for long and it's dark out.

So I find it sad, after taking all this in, that people are focusing only on the truck driver. Yes, I get it - they want someone to blame, but I can guess at least a few are doing it for monetary gain, something my soul cries at. It also doesn't help that the company that owns the truck is taking advantage of their grief and selling the driver out to save from forking out the cash, a penalty for their own stupidity on cutting costs in the wrong area, in my opinion. I mean, false documents all of a sudden popping up? Seriously? O_o...

My heart aches for the lives lost, but along with that, it hurts with the slow decay of common sense mankind seems to be experiencing.

So the Government is watching the Internet... Figures

When it first came out that the American government was spying on pretty much everyone, the world went nuts. Obviously their own citizens were first in the monkey tantrum line, but as we all know, the West is like that big brother/sister we just HAVE TO listen to and follow their example, and so... the rest of the world joined the line. Well it was that, and mostly because when s*%t goes down in the US we stop and listen, 'There be nukes all over that place, yo.'

From what I came across, which I should make clear was a very limited amount of news articles and other stuff, was how the NSA have been secretly keeping tabs on all of Americas 'personal' information.

Now, while I go on and assume that this probably has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the world, it does lead to the question of whether or not the 'other NSA's' are doing the same thing.

You see, unlike NSA, those institutes haven't been caught [yet], let alone been proven in existence, but I'm pretty sure this is an issue that concerns everyone all the same, because let’s be honest; our information is everywhere. This is, after all, the Age of Information where all one needs is the internet and you are good to go.

But can we really be surprised that all that information is being monitored? Frankly, I think not.

We have all seen the movies and cheered the good guy on to get the bad guy, while using all his gadgets that did basically the same thing. It was only a matter of time before someone out there went, ‘Hey that looks cool, let’s make it!’ or were probably even inspired by a prototype of something already in the making.

In all honesty it shouldn't come as a surprise that the government is monitoring our information, who did we think was processing it all in the first place?

What would be a worry is if that information was being misused, but that’s a whole other section of complaints that should be left at the ‘handling’ of the information. [And no... not even with a stick shall I go near that •-•]

I don’t know, maybe my logic is wrong, but it seems pretty pointless to me to get angry at the NSA. I can only see the good that having access to that information has, or would we prefer they catch the terrorist, paedophiles, rapists and murders after the fact? 
I personally feel profilers could do a whole lot with this kind of advantage.

Maybe I'm wrong, it could just be that everyone’s actually angry that the NSA got caught and now they feel obligated to go with the flow and act all surprised, who knows? Either way, it seems like some people argue about ‘privacy’ in too many contradicting terms.

I'm not saying I have a clean browser history, but I’d rather have to stand red-faced in front of an officer explaining why my bank account got drained because of my overly curious nature, than stand in front of a judge and jury being falsely accused for embezzlement and card fraud under a false identity that the authorities couldn't identify because of all the red tape and decided to use the only name that popped up on the screen, which thanks to my luck would of course be mine.

Of course on the other hand ,I can see the possibility of abuse thanks to man's ability to smug the rules and blur the lines to their liking, but hey, who are we minions to the ones in the big fancy houses?

But then again, that’s just how I see things in my opinion…

SA Youth, we are being 'misled'... ◘_◘

So I was reading the news right, 'cos lately it's actually getting interesting, and one of the interesting articles that I came across provoked some words within me. It was a pretty short one, but still, the ignorance and self-pity between the lines was spitting at me =_=....

SA Youth being 'misled' - YAHOO News

An ANC veteran said on Tuesday that young people were being "misled" by other political parties because they didn't know the pain of apartheid.

Nathaniel Mmusa said that these young people were betraying the sacrifices that MK soldiers made in years gone by.

"If you move to the red berets [Economic Freedom Fighters] you do not respect what these comrades died for," Mmusa said, according to News24.

"Young people do not know the pains of apartheid. They never experienced it. That is why they are being misled."

Primedia Online – Wed, Sep 25, 2013

http://za.news.yahoo.com/sa-youth-being-misled-090903840.html

Now, don't get me wrong, but after reading this [about fifteen times] I found myself commenting on the article, something I rarely do.

I tried very hard to see both sides of the acorn, hell, I even brought in a third side, you know the one, it's like that annoying person you sort of know who says so much about nothing... all the time.

Anyway, this was my point of the stick,

'Apartheid is not our 'younger' generations pain to be felt. 

It is our history to be remembered, our lessons to be learnt and never again to be repeated.

Not our scars to pick and scratch at, our wounds to salt and cry over.

It is what the Romans and Aztecs and Egyptians and all the others that have been before us, have become:

A point in history that has happened, the stepping stones towards our future, points in time that leave us with the knowledge of what was done right and what was done wrong and all the lessons born from it.

That being said, I do not support the Red Berets in any way.

Their top guys can't even keep their lies straight, at least assume we all aren't as dumb as you want us to be =_='

Why does it seem like the line between what's right and wrong has blurred itself away...

*sigh* I'm feeling these coming elections are going to be a very annoying thing, and some how... just-somehow, the petrol price will probably be affected @_@.