Another Photo

I have been a bad boy and have not written for a week........bad Mark.....and to compensate, here is a photo....okay, weak gesture I know...but hope you like the pic anyway....

The Geezer Bandit

As it is custom for a Friday, we deal with real life crime stories.....

Today we go to San Diego in the USA. It turns out that five banks in San Diego have been robbed by one clever crook, who is still on the run- he has been labelled the 'Geezer Bandit' because our bank robber appears to be about 70 plus years old.

Law enforcement officials are offering a reward of $16 000,00 for information leading to the arrest of our aging robber.

See, there is a career where you are not kicked out for being a pensioner.

Need For Greed

As everybody in RSA knows, the Football World Cup is almost upon us (250 odd days or so I think). Then we will be bombarded with an expected 5-600 000 soccer tourists. That does not bug me, as I am sure whatever thugs the world can produce, we can produce worse....we know we can. It is the one thing we are really good at and our number one spot in the world for crime remains unchallenged. (The criminals must be licking their grubby little lips at the prospect of getting their dirty hands on some foriegner and his currency....and of course his expensive electronic equipment as he stupidly walks around at night.)

But that is not my gripe- my gripe is over FIFA and their restrictions. Any trader or shop may not sell products that compete with FIFA sponsored products in and around certain zones, on major routes to the stadiums, in FIFA approved hotels, fan parks, beaches (can you understand that one?), park and ride facilities, city squares...and that is not all. Their greedy reach further places restrictions on competitive advertising on any building wraps, billboards or wall covering-even if they are outside of the demarkated zones. But wait, that's not all- the Nazi like ideals further impose these restrictions upon public parks, city halls, churches (I know churches always have major advertizing on their walls), heritiage buildings and my favourite, pavements next to ATM machines. Some businesses in the Zones, like China Mall at Ellis Park will be shut down for the duration of the competition. (I am unclear if they would be compensated). Businesses outside this magic zone, will still be restricted from advertizing products that are not part of FIFA's sponsors. Vodacom will have to switch off their Ponte tower advert as well- and that has been there for years. Fans have to dress in blank T shirts etc for fear of being driven out the stadium with a crowd of guards with pitchforks for displaying a forbidden image.

Of Course FIFA do have an explanation for this. The reason they give- 'it is meant to protect the federation's official trademarks and intellectual property rights against ambush marketing'- roughly translated this means they are like a spoilt child that is too greedy to share!!!!

I do understand the need to clamp down on counterfeit goods and illegal items, but do not see the need to get all communist and ban the sales of goods if they are not your sponsors. That is pure opportunist greed and drunk on the power the host country stupidly gives them.

Of course, the host country is like a well trained dog and will pass by-laws (as most of our towns and cities already have) to help assist FIFA in the need for greed. This will allow them to use the SAPS and Metro cops to help hunt for the evil doers who dare contravene these laws.....and luckily in South Africa there are not much bigger fish to fry than that. I mean I would rather see somebody arrested who advertises Pepsi instead of Coke than a mall robber any day. Bad shop owner.

So basically valuable resources will be wasted to enforce these selfish rules set by a multi-million Dollar earning organisation, to make them richer at the expense of the little shop owner and trader. Seems fair.

I think it is nothing short of disgusting and unfair business practice to allow this type of self serving in a seemingly democratic country. FIFA and Sepp Blatter, are on such an ego trip and the host country obviously buys them the ticket and still does tricks to amuse them. It is supposed to be a free country, with free trade. FIFA are more controlling than Mugabe.

I still think the money spent on the stadiums could have been spent on more important things like healthcare, education, poverty relief......we know there are many more causes and I do not see the World Cup benifiting the average man in the street. Granted the travel and hospitality industry are drooling at the prospect, but I do not think the benifts will be spread far enough. .
Furthermore, based on current infrastructure, how will the staduims look in say 5 years from now.....?

In my humble view, FIFA is a self serving organisation who looks after their shareholders and board before the fans or footie. Football (or Soccer) is a universal game, and it seems only because the royalty at FIFA allow it to be. I am sure they will ban kids from playing soccer in the streets as it may steal a fan away from the stadiums, and thus will result in a revenue loss that will cripple them.

It is time to put the game and the people who support it first. Greed should not be a factor. FIFA earn so much money, yet want to strangle the market further when they ride into Dodge City.
The LOC and other's concerned should grow a pair, and negotiate a deal that will allow more people to benifit and not ony those who are on FIFA's 'good list'.

Clever Criminals

Our Friday crime storys are two good ones.

The first comes from Tampa in the good old USA. Joshua Basso was sitting by himself when he encountered a rather big problem.
His airtime had run out and Joshua really needed sex. So, doing what most horny people do, he called the one number he knew was free-911. Despite them cutting him three times, he felt this need to phone a fourth time. It was then when they dispatched a unit to his home to give him a bit of bondage.
He is now in a dungeon in Hillsborough, where he is being held without bail.
His arrest record is rosey as well- he has convictions for assualt, grand theft auto, drug possession, violation of probation and so his honour roll goes on.

Our second story comes from Salem (same place John Black comes from).
21 year old Calvin Hoover phoned poilice in a state as his pick up truck had been broken into. He reported stolen a Carhartt Jacket, $400 in cash and about an ounce of marijuana. 
Police immediately began searching for him.

After about an hour, he phoned the police again, complaining because they were not doing enough to recover his electric spinach. They evetually found him in his truck, also looking for the weed and arrested him of suspicion of driving under the influence of intoxicants. He was taken to the Marion County jail.

His luck was improving because tests showed he was clean and the police warned him that if he had been caught with the wacky weed, he would have been arrested. Upon his release, they did warn him that reporting having drugs stolen from you, may not be the brightest thing to do.

The rugby player, the hooker and the athlete

I was not going to write about this topic, as I think it has been beaten to death. But, then I felt I had to beat it further as it gets on my nerves.

To those of you who live on Mars, let me add a bit of backround. We have two 'celebs' in South Africa, who love the media attention. They actually thrive on it. You magazine has them on the cover every second or third issue-they invited them to share their wedding, the honeymoon, the birth of their kids....you get the picture. They have been called the Beckham's of South Africa- They are (drum roll...trumpets ..)-Joost Van Der Westhuizen and Amor Vittone. Their likeness to the Beckams does not stop at their continuous need for public attention, like David, Joost was a successful sportsman, and like Victoria, Amor tries to sing. (Both have sold many albums though.....another day I will comment..)

A couple of months ago a video tape was released that showed Joost and a woman (stripper or hooker) snorting the good stuff and getting really friendly. It sent shock waves across the country..how could this happen to this perfect couple.
Of course Joost denied it and hired a mafia type PI to investigate...a lie detector test was even performed by the Victim (his outlook). The hand picked PI announced that Joost had passed the lie detector test and he was not lying...turns out the lie detector test said he was lying like pinochio on a good day and it was Pretoria PI and Joost who were lying-about everything. Funny when a Celeb screws up, they always portray themselves as such a victim.

After a while it blew over, as most big story's do.......until......and this came as a shock to ALL of us......
A book was released. Now who saw that coming.....

The publicity was awesome. Then it dawned on me what a clever bit of pre- marketing the video was. It created massive free advertising, he could NEVER have bought that. Since the announced book release, he has been interviewed on every radio station, in every newspaper- and once again, in his favourite publication, You magazine. Free advertising. Amor has also done her share of tearful adverts as well.  (watch out for a future book deal here I am sure.)

As a result, the book was sold out on it's first weekend of release. Joost maintains that he is not really benifiting from the book sales (ja, right) and that he did it to clear the air, to set the record straight so to speak (pretty noble). Of course, many will buy into this, as they have bought into the brilliant advesrtising campaign that has cost Joost little more than his dignity, and book wil be a success. Small price to pay I guess.

At the time of the Video release, a then unamed athlete claimed she has also taken a ride on the Joost express and now she has proudly given her name- Charmaine Gail Weavers. (Another book?)
In the You interview Joost stated that he will not comment on claims by other woman that they have had an affair with the player (see the double meaning here)..where there is smoke hey!

The book, 'Joost: The man in the mirror' is sold at all good bookstores. Seriously though, this is a lesson for people. If you live in the public eye, and you sell your soul to be famous, you can also learn to use it effectively to sell many, many books as people stamped to read your dirty little not so secrets...and save millions of Rands on advertising. Watch this space in the future and I will probably announce the second in  the series of the Joost novels or the film version perhaps.

Out thought

Friday again....this is more of a scam than anything else, and one that has the Aussie police in a spin as they do not know how to charge them as they are essesntially doing nothing wrong.

This company places adverts in the local newspapers, advertising imported hard -core pornography. It invites people to send cheques and money to them to purchase these items. Due to the price being so good, they get a terrific response.

Then, a couple of weeks later, the people recieve a letter, advising that because this type of material is illegal in Aussie land, they are unable to send it to them. But they are kind enough to issue a cheque to refund them.
Herein lies the problem- due to the name of the company, very few people actaully cash or c\bank the cheques...the company's name, which it reflects so proudly on the cheques is -'The Anal Sex and Fetish Perversion Company'.....only in Australia...

SABC drain

The SABC has been in the news for a while now, especially with their esteemed board of dirctor's and the public war they have been waging amongst themselves. The CEO who is kicked out, then brought back, then kicked out...and of course, they company is run worse than a bankrupt spaza shop, running at a major loss.

The latest come from the news that they pushing through a bill to scrap TV licencses- Yipee...then the flipside- they are to increase income tax by 1% to cover this and to fund the SABC...not so yipee...

As it is the programming is a fine mess. We see brand new programmes or new series broadcast after ten at night. Pretty much the time most people are running round dreamland. Then they pepper us with repeats of programmes they broadcast before during peak viewing times. I mean some of the Afrikaans programmes being repeated are 20 years old or so. Then then on a Saturday night, in prime time viewing, instead of the new Navy NCIS or a good movie, we get a repeat of that captivating competition- Strictly Come Dancing. And the winner stays the same , amazing, even if it is repeated. When there is a major sports event or series, regular programming is flushed down the toilet to cater for this, despite millions hating sport. A Sports channel would solve this.

To their credit, there are still some sitcoms, like Two and a half me, that see the early slot. And of course Survivior and the Amazing Race- they are very popular and placed in an early slot. But what about NCIS, Law and Order, Without a trace and many more? Surely there are more than enough prime time spots for them?
The excuse or lousy reason given is that these items were purchased on the condition that they are not broadcast during prime time. Sure thing. Why would you purchase programmes under such a condition? Furthermore, it is a fact that dozens of programmes purchased, were not broadcast within the time they should have been, and thus, are unable to be broadcast now. Millions wasted.What a bunch of brilliant people these are.
It was reported that many programmes are purchased through another company, who purchases them cheaply and sells them to the SABC at an inflated price. Obviously there are links to the board and this company.
Due to space constraints, I am not going into an massive study of the SABC here though. It would take pages....

There are some of us who are only lucky to only get the four stations (SABC1-3 and E-TV). We have no say over the running or missuse of the public broadcaster.Some of us pay the license fee, many more don't. With the 1% tax, they will have much more income as tax payers will pay, whether they like it or not and the poor will not have to pay as millions don't pay tax.

Now, the the SABC income will be incredible, but do we really buy into the promise of better programming...hell no. We know the money will find pockets and holes to hide in and the government will still need further tax payers money to bail them out.....we just have to look at other state run enterprises to have proof of that- SA Airways, Eskom....all badly run...despite billions of Rands in funding, they run an a gigantic loss. How will the SABC differ with a new massive cash injection?

Privatise them, let them get a real board of directors and I am sure we will see a turn around. Make them asnwer for misuse and pay the price when they do.
Until then, the taxpayer will throw their hard earned money into the government's shredder and see no benifit from it at all.