7 am and its boiling in the city, not sure if it’s the aircons in the building not at full tilt or its just that hot, but its getting ridiculous…ag sorry to all the guys living in the UK and the rest of Europe the cold will pass soonish J, but hey its still R10.85:1 pound. And so the year runs on, hoping it would slow down, most of us born in the year of the dragon (those born in 1976, cos there are other years that are also of the dragon) are about to hit 30 this year, it doesn’t seem too long ago that I used to laugh at 30 year olds and now here we are…youngsters are laughing at us now! As I am writing I think eureka how about we go and do some research on the Chinese zodiac year of the dragon and highlight some characteristics for y’all.

The year of the dragon refers to persons born in the following years: 1904, 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988 and 2000. Dragons are generally free spirits, quite sure of themselves, ambitious etc. here are some characteristics:
Innovative, Enterprising, Flexible, Self-assured, Brave, Passionate, Conceited
Tactless, Scrutinizing, Unanticipated and Quick-tempered.

If you fall into this star sign and are looking for a vocation here some suitable options:
Computer analysts, Inventors, Engineers, Architects, Lawyers, Philosophers, Psychoanalysts, Brokers, Managers, Salepeople, PR People, Advertising agents
Officers in the armed forces, Campaigners and Politicians.

16 years ago today (2nd Feb 2006) FW de Klerk, the then president of the Republic of South Africa, effectively declared an end to apartheid and said that Nelson Mandela would be freed.

Plenty different topics to be spoken about here, I guess it’s a reflection of the current state of my mind, all over the damn place…anywayyyyy

Sorry to harp on about this (not really) but I don’t get what the big deal is to be quite honest (and i'll get to it in a moment), yes its taxpayers money blah blah, but tell me something the deputy president using state assets to go on holiday with her family etc. is it corruption as its been so loudly touted in the media. I am not too sure about this, but lets open up the debate please. Lets say for example Dick Cheney, deputy president of the USA, do u think he takes Jetblue or American Airlines when he and his family go to Florida for holiday, I am not an authority on this but for some reason I think not, he will most probably catch a ride in Airforce 1 or some other plane/military chopper and the taxpayers will fork out for it, does anyone raise as much as an eyebrow…mmm lemme guess!!! Yes I know, we have people who have no food, people who are sick, people that live in shacks, but tell me something, had this trip not happened will any of these issues have been resolved, my guess is I think not. Does it make it right? Absolutely not, but is it worthy of clogging up every local news publication for weeks, I think not. I would not be remotely surprised if Pik in his time as deputy president did the same sort of thing. This topic bores me tremendously.

Yesterday, 2 of my colleagues and I were shooting the breeze and having a chat about basic stuff like the state of the universe, the impact of the thermonuclear-fission of the earths epicenter on the strange weather patterns we are experiencing and then we ended up on fashion and name brands…as I am sure you have figured out, those other conversations didn’t happen, we were just rapping about fashion. I would quite like to see people’s opinions on this. My take is as follows:

I am a fan of name brands cos thanks to our exposure to tv, the lifting of sanctions, and advertising, we have been brainwashed into buying into brands, and good on the marketers etc, I mean even a (in my opinion) disgusting and loud brand like Von Dutch is huge?! But I struggle boys and girls and not cos I am a miserly accountant, but I struggle to fork out R300 odd for a t-shirt, just because it has a badly stitched green crocodile on it…come-on now. Even worse still paying R400 for a tie, just because it has the name Polo on a tag stitched to it.
If I am not mistaken most if not all of these items of clothing are sourced from Malaysia, Chile, China etc. and you can never ever ever convince me that it costs even R70 to make. If I am not mistaken these same people, in the same factories, from the same yarn and textiles produce similar quality goods at a mere fraction of the price of branded goods, yet we look down on such products.

Next we move on to a story that has been getting some airplay on Sky, BBC and CNN. It’s the story about 12 editorial cartoons printed in Jyland Postens in September 2005 a Danish newspaper that depicted the prophet Muhammad, here is a link to this picture http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b0/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_drawings.jpg, its not that clear but it will give you an idea.

The drawings, one of which portrays Muhammad wearing a bomb in his turban were made in 'protest' against the fact that many cartoonist or children’s book writers had to remain anonymous when they drew pictures of Muhammad in children’s books, this was done out of fear of violent attacks by extremists. The reason for these attacks was because the teachings of Islam forbid the depiction of Muhammad, particularly by way of caricature. Basically, these cartoons were printed to promote freedom of speech and expression. But this action has led to many an unhappy Muslim. There was a little murmur last year when the cartoons initially came out, but that died down until a Norwegian, a French and a German newspaper decided to reprint these stories and some more European newspapers have been reported to have followed suit. The result of the anger of the many Muslim people…Danish flags have been burnt, Danish foods have been boycotted and removed from the shelves of many stores in a fair amount of Middle Eastern countries, such as Kuwait, Saudi. There have been mass protests and marches, calling for the Danish government to reprimand the newspaper and to offer the nation of Islam an apology; even sanctions by the UN against Denmark have been called for. Apparently 2 of the cartoonists have gone into hiding because of the death threats they have received. All good and well, but I am sure Islam teaches against murder/death threats, I am sure that Islam is against suicide bombings in the name of Allah, yet I see no protests and calls for sanctions against the countries from which such elements stem. The flag of a nation is pretty sacred, perhaps not as sacred as the Bible, Torah or the Koran, but I am well sure that burning either is considered sacrilegious.

Here’s the catch 22, freedom of speech I am fully for it, but what to do when a religion prohibits you from drawing such pictures and you are not a follower of the religion, firstly how do you know, secondly do the teachings apply to you? I don’t know, comments please

There were plenty of topics covered in this weeks email, but all topics that were of great interest to me this week, hope you all have a comment on them. www.mondaymail.blogspot.com
Birthdays
27th Jan - Ingo
28th Jan - Belinda
- Gareth
29th Jan – Anna
31st Jan – Refilwe

Out of here, maximum respect and have a great weekend!

Y