The Pointlessness of "Liberation"

In a NY Times story about the the continuing legal problems of professional sleazeball Jacob Zuma, next El Presidente of the Republic of South Africa and unconvicted rapist there is this quote on "liberation" movements.

“In the African context, liberation movements have been very successful at bringing an end to colonialism, but their record in instituting a democratic political order and protecting and consolidating democracy has been abysmal,” said Achille Mbembe, a political scientist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. “South Africa has found itself in a state of uncertainty — radical uncertainty and extreme volatility.

I would point out that their [liberation movements] record in instituting any order is also dismal. Forget about making the trains run on time it is too difficult to make the trains run at all. Things rapidly go down hill fast as maintenance declines and trained engineers and specialists leave. Let us remember that liberation movements are primarily about taking power and dividing the spoils. Many things get broken in a revolution, glass, eggs, skulls, machinery, people. In the African context there is also crippling racism on the part of the new governments that mean human resources are dismissed if it is the wrong skin tone/religion/tribe. At the end of the spasm of liberation there is oftentimes less spoils to divide.

In time South Africa will decline. Natural resources and natural resource income is not enough to keep Nigeria and the Congo from being hell holes.

Head Hunting

The graveyards are full of indispensable men (De Gaulle)
Great! Lets recycle them! (Dr. Frankestein)

William Blake, the AH.com poster not the poet.

Lego Simpsons

(from BoingBoing)

Photos of China's Destruction

Here are some images of the environmental degradation of China. While not as as powerful as Edward Burtynsky's work it is still very interesting. In the above photo a bootless man is mining coal using very primitive methods

Manson and Harper Agree - "Family is Everything"

Television and Distraction

We didn't make you head of television to shorten your attention span.

Bertram Cooper, Mad Men S02E07

Star Trek / Love Boat Mashup

Obama Victory Riots or Obama Election Loss Riots

The Ungrateful Younger Generation

I fought the war for your sort.

Commuter in a Hard Day's Night

I bet you're sorry you won.

Ringo Starr

Train compartment exchange in A Hard Day's Night.

Forrests as Lungs

More Living Cars

Here is an Honda Ad from Australia that is set not in Australia but in London. It shows a city filled with anthropomorphizing cars. See an earlier post that also includes speculations into these car cyborgs. Also here is a casting video for the ad.

Guide Dog Assisted Squash

POW Camp Made McCain

Gitmo isn't a prison, it is leadership academy,

Jon Stewart 20080903

Democracy versus Feudalism

In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

Calgacus, AH.com

The German Games

The Economist has an article on the cottage industry of the German board games, An affinity for rules?. The article in a little bit of pop psychology of how Germans are oppressed with rules which is why there are so many complicated rules.

From my perspective there is a major genre of games that is not done by the jerries, war games. Kriegsspiel was originally a creation of some Prussian staff officers, Von Reisswitz father and some, who created was is essentially table top miniatures, see here for photos of rare surviving copy. That was the 19th century after the great loss of WWII Germany was under new management that banned the use of nearly all WWII symbols, no swastikas. I have a sub game wherea red diamond is used instead of that symbol. Also WWII put militarism out of fashion so economic games are produced instead. Avalon Hill was an American game company that could be seen as a counterpart to German board game industry except nearly all their games military and most of these were set in WWII. Sadly Avalon Hill is now owned by Hasbro and most of their back catalog is out of print.

Chart Your Last Name

From AH.com comes an a link to web applet that allows you chart the relative popularity of last names. Publicprofiler/Worldnames has the census data for only for most of Western Europe, North America, Argentina, India, Japan and ANZAC. So it has some limitations but it is still gives some interesting answers. The statistical model seem to fall apart when it deals with subregions smaller than 100k it returns weird numbers. In the AH.com thread many people were discussing the frequency of their "real" names not their user names.

• "Mulroney", as a last name not as swear word, is more common in Quebec than in Ireland as a whole.
• "Ruggles", are densest in the NWT. However the numbers might be deceptive since at a frequency of 275 per million only about a dozen in the NWT must be named Ruggles for that rate.
  
• "Campbell" is densest in PEI with 1% of the island with that surname.
  

Ronald MacDonald - Raver

Looking for a Quiet Life

Errol Flynn is gone and so is my taste for swordplay.

Roger Sterling. Mad Men S02E06

Ruins From Old Detroit

While reading the comments in another blog, The Death of Johannesburg, I came across another blog of urban decay. Forgotten Detroit is about the great marooned and abandoned builgings of downtown Detroit. I have only visited Detroit once but it is hard not to impressed by these empty buildings surrounded by empty sidewalks, with non stopping/slowing cars speeding by. The site also includes before and after photos and floor plans.

Angry South Africa Expats and Wrecked Buildings

Following a link in some comments I came across a blog The Death of Johannesburg, that chronicles the deterioration of that city since the ANC took power. South Africa, in the bad old days, was pointed as an example of racial oppression. It was also one of the richest cities in Africa if not the world. Now "Free" South Africa has a sky high murder and rape rate and many downtown Jo'burg buildings have been abandoned for security concerns and occupied by squatters.