Ideas from the
ancient writings
of the Aztecs
WELCOME back from the holidays. As the internet message has it: "Apparently the guy who switches the power on and off is back from leave."
Yes, load-shedding is back, welcome to the New Dawn. It came in earlier than promised and the experts predict it's going to get a heck of a lot worse.
I had a taste of it the other evening as I walked down Florida Road in an unannounced blackout, from a book club evening. I was approached by a cheery fellow who asked for a light. When I told him I don't smoke, he shook my hand, embraced me and declared that we are all heirs of Shaka.
A few paces on I discovered my cellphone was gone. Ja, tog. Eskom strikes again.
And if we think load-shedding is bad and horribly inconvenient, spare a thought for those fellows who spend their time trying to attract overseas investment. A thankless task if ever there was,
When, oh when, will somebody in Pretoria blow the dust off those studies and plans – the work of many people over about 50 years – and discover that we don't need a coal-fired Eskom nor a nuclear-powered Eskom?
The Tugela Basin, here in KwaZulu-Natal, has the hydro-electric capacity to provide everything the country needs, plus plenty for export. This isn't pie-in-the-sky stuff. The old Natal Town and Regional Planning Commission and the old national Department of Water Affairs had identified various hydro-electric generation points on the Tugela and its tributaries; an elaborate system of water retention and rotation. They'd also planned on catchment transfers from the rivers of the Eastern Cape.
The planning's already been done. Imagine the job creation, the economic revival that would go with actually building these vast aquaducts. It would be an equivalent of the Tennessee Valley Project in America, started by Roosevelt in the 1930s and still going strong.
Add to this solar generation and we'd be up and skipping.
But – sigh! – the dust keeps gathering in Pretoria. Those plans for the Tugela Basin are as buried and forgotten as the ancient writings of the Aztecs.
Aliens among us?
THE first British astronaut to go into space says aliens exist and it's possible they are living among us on earth.
Interviewed by the Observer magazine, in the UK, Dr Helen Sharman says there can be no doubt about it.
"There are so many billions of stars out there in the universe that there must be all sorts of different forms of life."
The aliens might not be made up of carbon and nitrogen like humans but "it's possible they're here right now and we simply can't see them".
Fifty-six-year-old Dr Sharman was part of a mission to the Soviet modular space station Mir in 1991.
It's an interesting hypothesis, yet I wonder about not being able to see these aliens in our midst. Many believe aliens from outer space are to be spotted in all kinds of areas. You have only to switch on your TV to start wondering. Where did these weirdos come from?
Most are politicos, local and international, with strident, voluble – and often dangerously inflammatory – talk. They could be from another planet, another galaxy.
Tailpiece
What did the alien say to the petrol pump?
"Take your finger out of your nose when I speak to you."
Last word
The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organisation of non-violence has been the organisation of violence.
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