AN interesting comment on the recent UCT revolt which comes from my old friend Balt, himself a retired senior academic (Wits):
A bucket of ordure is a not transformative act. Adam Habib immediately stiffened his spine when Dlamini started his anti-white rhetoric. UCT allowed such violent and racist acts and utterances to escalate to mob rule completely cowing its near-entire senate to allow the poo-thrower to dance in triumph on the empty pedestal. Pure jackboot tactics that have set a dangerous precedent which all universities will be and are already facing.
Shakespeare is NOT a dead white man. He is very much alive to anyone with a modicum of appreciation of the language that is the acknowledged – and widely abused – lingua franca of South Africa. If the discipline of English literature has not diversified its curriculum in this country, as it seems to be doing elsewhere, perhaps one should investigate what has happened to tertiary education.
Universities are expected to churn out criminally under-educated job-seekers en masse into an already eroded job market.
The brunt, by the way, is carried by an overworked, still mainly white, body academic that has precious little time or remaining energy to explore more diversified ways of enriching the very language we employ in this conversation.
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A 26-year-old man decided to have a cup of coffee. He took a cup of water and put it in the microwave to heat it up (something that he had done numerous times before). I am not sure how long he set the timer for but he wanted to bring the water to a boil. When the timer shut the oven off, he removed the cup from the oven.
As he looked into the cup, he noted that the water was not boiling but suddenly the water in the cup ‘blew up’ into his face. His face is blistered. He also may have lost partial sight in his left eye.
While at the hospital, the doctor who was attending to him stated that this is a fairly common occurrence and water (alone) should never be heated in a microwave oven. If water is heated in this manner, something should be placed in the cup to diffuse the energy such as a wooden stir stick or tea bag, but nothing metal.
General Electric’s response was as follows: “Thanks for contacting us, I will be happy to assist you. The email that you received is correct. Microwaved water and other liquids do not always bubble when they reach boiling point. They can actually get superheated and not bubble at all. The superheated liquid will bubble up out of the cup when it is moved or when something like a spoon or tea bag is put into it.
“To prevent this from happening and causing injury, do not heat any liquid for more than two minutes per cup. After heating, let the cup stand in the microwave for thirty seconds before moving it or adding anything into it.”
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Life Died In Auschwitz – a comment by a Spanish journalist:
“I walked down the street in Barcelona and suddenly discovered a terrible truth – Europe died in Auschwitz: We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Arabs. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity and talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.
“The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.
And under the pretence of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Arabs, who brought us stupidity, ignorance, religious extremism, lack of tolerance, crime and poverty.
“Probably due to their unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.
“They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred; creative skill for destructive skill; intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the Jews of Europe and their talents for people who pursue death.
