Gerald’s update on South Africa

 

Jeffrey Zetler was murdered on his farm while we were sitting in the rugby box on Saturday afternoon watching the test at Newlands. Stabbed six times. He died in his chair in his office as thugs in balaclavas attacked him at the gate of his farm and then dragged him to his office in an attempt to steal money. Another violent robbery gone wrong and a family man, an icon in the Stellenbosch farming community and a friend to all of us, is gone. We are devastated. He was one of us. The chairman of the local Jewish Community and all round nice guy, who headed-up the huge farming business that the Zetler brothers took over & built up magnificently from their late Dad. Famous for their strawberries and those most photographed scarecrows in the world, strategically placed among the fields on their Mooiberge farm, the business has developed into an enormous success that includes retail, wholesale and export. We will miss the calm, deliberate man who was a support to so many.  His staff of a thousand tell that he treated them like a father treats his children. They were at his funeral in big numbers.

The humble, humble family man is no more.

We are devastated at another senseless killing. Crime is out of control. The police are asking the public for leads in this case. They are pathetic!

  

I am angry that this is what SA has become. We are all scared. Alarms, fences and continuous check-up phone calls have become our way of life. Yet another indictment at the parlous state of affairs that the ANC have allowed to develop. I am sad. No, I am angry.

  

In his column, this week Max du Preez tells of the uselessness of the ANC as governors. The wastage in the ANC-run institutions is immense and now they want to take land away (from whites) for nothing. The war-cry of the EFF, now propagated by the ANC as though they were always the one's to call for it is: Expropriation (mostly, of farm land) without compensation.

(Four white farmers were murdered this weekend in SA. This is intimidation of the harshest kind. Afriforum has been on about how many white farmers are being killed, for years now.)

Du Preez gives many examples of ANC disastrous management, but the story he tells this week is merely one example of what is going on here. He writes about the Great Kei municipality where after years of maladministration the corruption is totally crippling. Here the council hasn't paid its workers (almost everyone black) in two months, but the elected councillors receive not only their full salaries but all their perks as well. The council is completely dominated by the ANC who received far more than 70% of the votes in the last election.

Du Preez then goes on to discuss the wastage at Eskom and SAA but I won't go there. Those figures are so big that they are meaningless to me.

  

Making news this whole week, and most of last week, too, has been the Health Minister’s push for a National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme. It won't work. I went for my annual medical check-up early in the week and my physician, a very bright guy, who sometimes shares his views with me, sat across his desk discussing this very matter. Everyone is talking about it. While discussing this new governmental plan that will cost not millions, but billions, that SA just doesn't have, Graham said that it would fly. He clarified that as I looked up sharply at him, saying that all the doctors in this country will fly right out of here if that ever became practice.

Both Graham and I read the Daily Maverick and I know that many of you do, too and there have been several starkly damning articles on the folly of this potential scheme that has no financial top limit. It can only lead to a total disaster for this country, that is in any case almost completely bankrupt as I write.

 

A crook and a liar, who has been convicted of fraud and corruption, has been elected by the ANC as the new head of the committee dealing with crime and corruption. This is not one of my jokes. He is Tony Yengeni and are you surprised? The ANC justify this selection by saying that he did his time. Did he? He got a lenient four-year sentence and spent all of four months in jail before he was miraculously released to drive around in a Maserati, no less. That is how well the ANC look after their own. It is a highly offensive but emblematic appointment.

  

A little bit of good news is that some of the people elevated into top positions by Accused No 1, now fired or suspended by Cyril Ramaphosa, are slowly being gotten rid of. Yet proper consequences have not yet been seen.

One such top appointee, Tom Moyane, was almost certainly appointed as head of SARS to see that no-one went after either the Guptas or Accused No 1. The revenue services were world class under Pravin Gordhan, in the day, but under Moyane it became a total disaster like so many other institutions here that have fallen into the gutter. Listening devices and cameras were planted all over the offices at SARS after Tom Moyane was appointed.

This week Moyane is the Sunday Times’ Mampara of the Week. The commission of enquiry into SARS, now sitting, is hearing evidence how this caught-out liar spread such fear into the staff who were world class operators, that they one-by-one all left the institution. Their places are now filled with mamparas willing to do their boss’s wants. He broke the entire system.

To explain what a total mampara Moyane is; he was offered a very generous package settlement to go by Ramaphosa when he became President four months ago, but he opposed that with a court application, hence this commission of enquiry.

 

Gordhan has had a “go” at Moyane, but it has been quite gentle. There may be worse to come.  What we are hearing at the enquiry is mostly what we already know. Will there be consequences now? Cyril is not accused of anything and will not interfere to save Moyane, like his predecessor would.  These commissions are good news indeed.

 

Some good news as far as I am concerned is that the noose is tightening around Dudu Myeni. That girlfriend of Accused No 1 who was so utterly useless as Chairperson of SAA for so many years while we all watched at how she was destroying our national airline, is being brought to book, at last. This week two of her henchmen at SAA were found guilty of gross negligence in their role in the BnP Capital fundraising scheme. The net is surely closing in on her.

  

Also good news, very good news, is that Mercedes Benz is investing R10 billion to make the new C-class vehicles here in the Eastern Cape, to export around the world. The factory in East London is to be furthered expanded, and there is reason to believe the AMG engines will also be manufactured in SA. This is part of CR’s $100 billion 5-year investment plan.

  

The DA lost its case to have Patricia de Lille expelled from the party. This makes de Lille look like a hero and I am sorry about that. She is aloof, doesn't answer emails and thinks she is always right. Why doesn't she explain the sms she sent? This judgement is being taken on appeal......but the DA have already lost this battle. They handled this whole matter so badly. Sympathy went to de Lille instead of to the party. They need much better PR. The DA needs to get onto TV and onto the radio and it needs to be showing what it is doing for the people. It needs to project positivity.

 

The Eskom salary dispute has net been settled yet. To quote a wag “there is no light at the end of this tunnel” yet. Are we in for more load-shedding?

 

What is disturbing is how anti-Israel and anti-Semitic SA has become.

To gauge the partiality in SA the story of Shashi Naidoo, a young model, is a story is worth telling. This young girl after a ’do’ said on her twitter page something very complimentary about Israel. Then the world came down on her. She received everything from death threats to losing her business sponsorships. So she ”changed her mind” and agreed to go to Gaza to ”see for herself”.

The very best letter to an editor that I have read in a long, long time was the letter that Monessa Shapiro sent to the Sunday Times. It was the headline letter this weekend and I have sent it on to some. I add it here for you to read:



I do not often come across too many pro-Israel cartoons here but yesterday I opened a Jeremy Nel email and I found this Jerm classic:



 

The city council has scrapped ideas of getting a desalination barge to supplement water supply in our city. The recent rains have brought some relief but we are not yet out of the woods and water-savings are to be continued until we are sure that we have enough water in our dams to guarantee full water supply for next summer.

This coming weekend and several days thereafter will see me on the touring with The Famous Tour on the road, walking with my historical tour of the Cape in the city as well as touring generally with two overseas groups and the forecast for rain, rain, and more rain may well spoil my touring-week to some extent. But I am really not complaining.

  

The highlight of the weekend was being at Newlands for what was (probably) the last test match played at that hallowed venue. It very much seems as if test rugby at Newlands will soon become a thing of the past. The rugby union is in financial trouble and the much nicer and more modern facility awaits in Green Point, at the stadium that was built for the Soccer World Cup in 2010.

The test against England was a bruising affair on a wet and miserable day. But such days are so very welcome here and in spite of the weather Michael and I were wonderfully treated by Dennis, that character of note. We had a great experience and I sat in the box with Dennis and his pals and Michael was on the grandstand.

In the match, we were out-muscled in this final test by a very determined English team. Our coach said, after the match, that the Springboks were terrible and that he had learnt a lot. I hope so.  The England team saved face and went home having beaten the team that had twice beaten them this month.

Bruce managed another goodish round on Monday evening.

  

As always, love to all,

Gerald

Better Out Than In

South Africa’s 2018 Ze-bra awards

Italian Funeral - with man and his dog

A Jewish man was leaving a convenience store with his espresso when he noticed a most unusual Italian funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery.  A black hearse was followed by a second black hearse about 50 feet behind the first one.  Behind the second hearse was a solitary Italian man walking a dog on a leash.  Behind him, a short distance back, were about 200 men walking in single file.

The Jewish man couldn't stand the curiosity.  He respectfully approached the Italian man walking the dog and said: "I am so sorry for your loss, and this may be a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen an Italian funeral like this.  Whose funeral, is it?"

"My wife's."

''What happened to her?"

"She yelled at me and my dog attacked and killed her."

He inquired further, "But who is in the second hearse?"

“My mother-in-law. She came to help my wife and the dog turned on her and killed her also."

It was a very poignant and touching moment of Jewish and Italian brotherhood.  Silence passed between the two men.

The Jewish man then asked "Can I borrow the dog?"

The Italian man replied, "Get in line."

Learning to read and write your Cells and DNA to heal thyself

How do the trillions of cells that make up your body stay in touch? Apparently The same way we used to: 

sending notes through the post.

Learning how to read and write “letters” and post them through our intra-body postal system running through our blood, could give us early warning about cancer and Alzheimer’s and potentially finding a cure!!

What we need to do is to work out how to read the mail,  says University of Sydney associate professor Wojciech Chrzanowski, and understand our bodies at a cellular level.

This is how the Prof says it works :- 

All the cells in our body are constantly producing tiny bubbles which the body (or something) fills with a cocktail of DNA and other molecules and are sent into the bloodstream. 

These cells are called extracellular vesicles 

These Cells have special receptors to read the data in the bubbles. The data lets cells send messages to each other. 

Those messages can tell our body what to do.

Professor Chrzanowski is particularly interested in the Stem cells that heal damaged tissue – without physically touching the damage. 

He theorises they are sending out tiny bubbles filled with DNA. When the damaged cell receives the bubble, it follows the DNA instructions and heals itself.

Professor Chrzanowski and teams at the CSIRO are trying to decipher and potentially write or code those messages. 

Imagining being able to inject these regenerating cells into patients with cancer or autoimmune conditions.

It’s like force-feeding the body a message that says: heal thyself.

Want to win a Nobel prize? 

All we need to do is work out how to read the mail.

“You could envisage this cellular system as a post office system – a letter is sent from one cell to another. And the letters contain programs for the cells to run,” says University of Sydney associate professor Wojciech Chrzanowski.

We still don’t quite know how the system works – “If we can figure that out, we’ll probably win a Nobel, to be honest,” says Professor Chrzanowski – but here’s how the leading theory goes

HOw we are trying to solve the puzzle 

This is how Professor Chrzanowski and doctoral candidate Sally Yunsun Kimthey have been learning to read these letters .....

The pair warmed a group of extracellular vesicles with a laser, and then measured their vibrations using a tiny needle about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair.

Hot molecules vibrate at different rates depending on what they are made of. By measuring the vibration, the team could tell exactly what was in each bubble.

It was like reading someone else’s mail without ever opening it.

“This is going to be a pretty important development,” says Professor Andrew Hill, president of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles.

Long lost Cuzzin

From my friend Paul Mirbach (PEM)

I was a young boy in Bulawayo, when a man walked into my father's photographic shop. He asked for Boris Mirbach, my grandfather, who had died a few months previously. My father introduced himself and told the man that my grandfather had passed - and the man burst into tears. 

His name was Irving. He walked with a limp. Irving was a few years older than my father and as it turned out, my father's second cousin, the son of one of my grandfather's sisters, who had remained in Kovno, Lithuania.

One day, while sipping his gin in my father's study, he told me his story. They lived in a two storey house in Kovno, when one day the SS came to the street and banged on the door, until they broke it down. He was in the attic, playing. While they were rounding up all the Jews in the street, he opened the attic window and crept out onto the roof, to the back of the house, and jumped. He broke his leg in the fall, but he managed to drag himself away and finally made his way to a forest.

After the War, he made his way to America, believing that his entire family had perished in the Holocaust. He started a successful clothing business, and one day once he had made enough money, he decided to travel the world, to look for survivors of his family. He found none, until he came to Rhodesia, following a lead he had picked up somewhere. 

My father was the first family he had seen in in thirty years! From his visit, he learned that my late grandfather had a sister who survived Auschwitz, who lived in New York - where he lived, and he didn't even know. Her name was Sonia.

I will never forget that story. I will also never forget what he said afterwards. He said to me, sipping his drink, "Paul, the thing about gin is you never know when you're drunk, until it creeps up behind you and knocks on your door".

Dedicated to Irving and all families who found long lost relatives, years after being torn apart in the Holocaust.

The Pesach story according to Johnny

Nine-year-old Joey finished Hebrew school and hopped into his mom's car for the drive home. "What did you learn today?" she asked. 

"Well, Mom, our teacher told us how G‑d sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he had his engineers build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely. Then he used his walkie-talkie to radio headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved." 

"Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?" His mother asked.

"Well, no, Mom. But if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it