Why I love to read and write

From childhood, I have been found escaping the boredom of chores while I busy myself with reading. I read everything from news stories to comic strips of an old paper used as cupboard lining.

This was noticed by my aunt when I was 11 or 12 years old while I was in her home in iNanda, near Durban. I was supposed to be washing dishes and I was caught with my head in the cupboard under the sink reading a Madam and Eve comic strip.

I don't know how long they had been standing there, but my mother and aunt were smiling when I realised I was being watched. They were proud my enthusiasm for reading but that did not exempt me from finishing up with the dishes that night.

As a result of this, I was given permission to read one of my late aunt's books from her collection in her room at my grandmother's house. Sliding my fingers  on the spines I perused which book I should engulf myself in I finally settled on the weird of them all called Gobbledigook.

What I can recall from the book is that it was a science fiction novel made for young adults about aliens that mistakenly abduct a boy and his friends and taking them to their planet or something of the sort.

I dug into that book and I was transported to another time, another country and to another planet. It made me forget my surroundings and even hunger failed to interrupt me from my journey.

The first full novel I had ever finished took me four days and I was impressed then seeing as I went through 50 pages a day from three or four hours' reading. My best friend, who goes through all of 600 pages Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in a day and a half (without sleeping) puts me to shame. I don't know why I still keep her around.

After I had finished with that adventure of a book, I quickly discovered that my avid reader of an aunt was a fan of the Archie series of comics and I went through her whole collection in a matter of days laughing at old humour and enjoying the adventures of a cartoon I had absolutely no connection with.

Archie saved me from many chores during my visit at aunt's as she would defend with my mother with muyekeni usafunda! (leave him be, he is reading) and I'd pretend to be none the wiser.

From there, I have since buried my head in many books of all genres and subjects until I came across a science book about Space and Time. Having not known that there was a connexion between space and time before, I dived into the unknown and came out the other end confused.

The book had illustrations and text explaining how time and space are actually manifestations of the same thing and how they can be manipulated by gravity to create blackholes which can be used to traverse vast distances in no time.

Half of the things I read at the time made little sense to me but they stuck with me. I started seeing answers in different places such as on the television and other books. Synapses lit up in a flurry of activity in my brain with every 'aha' moment and I proceeded to smile like a retard with each new discovery.

I soon discovered that human beings wrote these books that took me on adventures, told me things about the universe and about people who once lived. I realised that these writers were speaking to me from beyond the grave; in a way, their thoughts live on. I do not know of a better way to live after death than leaving your words behind.

And this is why I choose to write essays and columns most of which are published in newspapers and in this blog. I guess it is my attempt at living forever and a way of tracking what I have done with my life.

My words will stay forever in cyberspace and I want them to be things that will make people think and let some of my ideas be known or rejected. We all leave a digital footprint in cyberspace with the use of social media platforms and with the power of publishing your own words as blogs.

What are you leaving behind with your status updates, your tweets and Instagram photos? What will people think of you? Will they see the real you, or the you you chose to publish?

Just remember that whatever you put on the internet stays forever and becomes part of your online identity.

These days, when I am home and the chores are waiting to be done by me, I escape with "I'm writing something important for my blog". How things change as they stay the same.

Taken 3 took me nowhere

WITH many an internet meme suggesting that Bryan Mills' (Liam Neeson) daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), stay home for a change, following the much anticipated release of the third (and hopefully) last installment of the Taken series of films, I could not agree more.

In what seemed like an attempt to revive a long-dead story, the producers decided to kill Bryan’s ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) and frame him for her death. I guess, this time round, the title ‘Taken’ is used in the figurative sense. Much of the movie’s plot centres around Bryan running from the cops and finding his wife’s killers as he is being hunted down by detective Frank Dotzler (Forrest Whitaker).

The first Taken movie, I thought, was one of the best action flicks I had seen in a long time as it revived the ‘sterring’ (sic) persona so many of us grew up with and admired in other sterings like Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, and various other members of the expandibles. I especially liked it for how clever it was made, how raw the action scenes are and the witty one liners:

               … I don’t know who you are,

               But I will look for you,

I will find you,

And I will kill you.

Okay, maybe that’s four lines, but my point is that the first movie was amazing only to be crapped on by Taken 2. Admittedly, I didn’t see the second one but I hear that everybody hated it.

One scene that really killed what little tolerance I had for the film; is where Bryan hijacks a cop car like a bad ass and veers into on-coming traffic (because no car chase scene is complete without going the wrong way on an already dangerous highway). Gone are the days when action movies crashed real 18-wheelers for the enjoyment of the audience.

The scene with the jack-knifing truck was so fake that I involuntarily face-palmed the rest of the scene and all I could hear were the sound effects of that typical wheel-squeak from a jack-knifing truck. I also hated the rudimentary user-interfaces that Bryan used on every computer and cellphone which were designed to show what he was doing with the computer in case it was not obvious enough to the audience who have never used a computer before.

 I can count so many things wrong with this movie but all I want to say now is: do not go watch it…but you will because you’re rebellious and I’ll say I told you so.

The Hulk hates the SAPS

In this new Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer, the Hulk is seen kicking at a South African police van (or bakkie) with the guys in blue trying in vain to shoot at him as the car rolls over like a flimsy piece of paper.

In the scene, the Hulk is seen fighting with Tony Stark in a bulky Iron Man suit (armour really) without much detail to spoil the movie.

Early reports by Avengers directors indicate that the first 10 minutes of the movie was all shot in South Africa, and I can't wait to see it and see what got the Hulk so AAAAANGRY in SA but I can think of a few things...

The much anticipated film, a sequel to the first Avengers movie is due to be released in May 2015 and I am one of the many who can hardly wait!

You want to start seeing the cop car being trashed at 0:49, but I'd suggest you see the whole video so you'll get excited as I am.

A case for atheism

A case for atheism

I am an atheist. I have come to realise that I was born was born one just as everyone else is. This includes you, your family and all your friends.

Others may refer to me as an infidel, others a lost soul, some might even think me the anti-Christ. These labels and others are quite effective at turning many a heretic into a believer.

An atheist, by definition, is an individual who does not believe in god. Going further, not believing in god does not necessarily mean that you automatically are certain that he (or she or they) does not exist. Atheists do not generally claim to know for sure what they do not, but we can, with certainty, spot bovine feces.

If reliable evidence would be found and a falsifiable theory proving the existence of god, then the atheist would start 'believing' in god without the burden of faith, but by the fulfilling use of reason in light of reliable evidence.

Atheists do not try to disprove the existence of god as his existence has never been proven in the first place. The atheist would rather point out the holes in your religion, which there are in abundance both in the holy books and the actions of devout fundamentalists and extremists.

Children are born not knowing of god and it is at a tender age that they get indoctrinated into believing that there is a god. It takes a lot to convince a child that god exists as they are coaxed into foregoing their common sense and the use of their senses to believe in the unseen.

As a child, you start to believe in god yourself as you are told that the unconditional love of your god will unleash his wrath should you choose not to love him back. It is like this in some traditional religions, at least.

A lot of us get the atheist beaten out of us from subliminal threats of social exclusion if we do not conform. So we give in to the beliefs of the elders and our peers although it goes against all of what we have independently learned about the world.

We stop caring. We stop asking. We already know what the answer is for everything. Who needs evidence when you have faith? Faith becomes everything. We start seeing manifestations of it (god) everywhere, in places where there is no such god.

We start to believe that he has a predetermined plan for us, which we have no control over, yet we still find ourselves praying to him. The atheist in each of us keeps rearing its ugly head begging us to see reason. Reason? Who needs such sacrilegious nonsense? It is pure blasphemy, the works of the devil himself.

We are told of a god who creates the universe, creates us himself with predetermined plans for all of us. Knowing full well what would happen, he still kills almost all of us to start anew. We are made to subscribe in such a god’s morals.

We are told of a god who then sacrifices himself to himself to save us from himself. We are made to see love in this act - an unconditional love that asks me to love him back for it or else...

This atheist in each of us challenges our faith. So we gather with others like us to convince ourselves of the inconceivable, and re-enforce our unsupported beliefs.

This column was inspired, in part by a quote from a prominent atheist and well-known actor, Emma Thompson where she says:

“I’m an atheist; I suppose you can call me a sort of libertarian anarchist. I regard religion with fear and suspicion. It's not enough to say that I don't believe in God. I actually regard the system as distressing: I am offended by some of the things said in the Bible and the Qur'an and I refute them.”

Review: Exodus: Gods and Kings

I WENT to see Riddley Scott's latest epic film on Christmas Day with my family and I was not disappointed. Scott's interpretation of the classic-biblical story takes some unexpected turns and keeps you enthralled to the very end.

Having made Gladiator, I was sure Ridley Scott would produce an epic picture worth watching, but I was disappointed with the quality of the 3D version of the film, which was the only one available at Ster Kinekor, Richards Bay.

After getting used to the first 20 minutes of the movie squinting over the war scene by the beginning of the film -which was compounded by the troops looking like ants on a stereoscopic table- I finally acclimated to eye pain.

The movie is based on the story depicted in the book of Exodus in the Christian book; The Holy Bible. While many are familiar with the story from the book itself, many know the story from the Disney Classic: Prince of Egypt.

Instead of starting with the story of Moses' (Christian Bale) birth at a time when his life was in danger of being ended by the Egyptians, as the overlords of the enslaved Hebrews, the film focuses much attention on Moses and Ramses (Joel Edgerton) as brothers.

Having a brother myself, the film resonates with me quite a lot and I was delighted to see Scott's tribute to his brother, Tony during the end credits (yup, I read those). Their brotherhood is tested throughout the film in a fresh new look at the original Exodus story.

I'm also glad they didn't get Morgan Freeman to play God in the movie (SPOILER alert ahead). Instead, they got an 11-year-old boy (Isaac Andrews) screaming dramatically with his tiny voice at Moses when God justifies his punishing the Egyptians with the seven plagues.

There is one scene (spoiler) with Nile crocodiles first on the plague agenda killing so many people in the river Nile so viciously that it stains the water red with blood for days. I found the scene incredibly gruesome but in tasteful way suited for the whole film.

Now, I am no movie guru but found the film to be beautifully done with as little CGI as possible, impeccable acting, a fresh look at an otherwise washed out biblical story, I think the film was seriously awesome in scale and Egyptological authenticity.

Overall, I like it.

Have you seen it? Tell me what you think by commenting on this blog post or pestering me on my Facebook or my Twitter accounts.

“No pressure,” my beep

Schools opened in early January this year but messages of support are only flooding in now on radio and print, and we seem to be only concentrating on grade 12 pupils, at what seems to be the eleventh hour. What does this say to us and what effect does it have on the pupils themselves?

I was a matric student in grade 12 and for the most of us, there is nothing more difficult. We used to be told that grade 11 was the toughest grade and this resulted in the grade being called matric 1 and grade 12 downgraded to matric 2.0. One does not understand the 'truth' behind the statement until one is overcome by the fear of receiving one's report card on D-day only to wait six hours and remain the last class in the whole school to get their results and fail..

Yup, I failed grade 11 with a mathematics mark of a staggering 18% but instead of being sent back to matric 1, I got parole in the form of "condoned" (the grey area between "pass" and "fail" and the epitome of the standard of education in South Africa). Anyway, I got away with murder and "snuck into" matric 2 on the basis that I was disadvantaged by the teachers strike of 2007 that lasted six weeks.

I seriously sucked at math and no amount of last minute catch-up programme would have likely saved my ass. Over the years, I have noticed how the focus of matric 2 has intensified and wondered if this is a good thing. First of all, I found that the standard of grade 12 has "changed", and not for the good, I think.

While I was terrible at math, I was not so bad at science and I usually enjoyed going retro on the science books I read. I noticed during one visit at the local library that the biology (life sciences) textbook prescribed for grade 12 had the about the same content as an older (by give-or-take 5 years?) prescribed for grade 10!

If you go look at the books for other subjects you will also notice this trend. It seems that in an effort to increase the "pass rate" in grade 12, the government has not only turned "30%" to a pass but they have made things "easier" for matrics. That sounds like a conspiracy theory, I know, but if I am somehow "neutralised" in the near future, please lookout for chalk marks and leather-jacket residue at the scene of the crime, #justSaying.

What I have noticed in my township are the highschools’ obsessive attempts at getting 100% pass-rates. My problem is that extra classes are now being conducted all of a sudden where pupils are made to attend "extra classes" on top of the two extra hours added to the school day. These extra classes suddenly spur just a few weeks before the final exams.

Are highschool principals suddenly shocked by the advent of The Final Exams, jolting them into rapid action to "catch-up"? Why are we having Saturday classes only now as opposed to the eight months of school? Did we not know the exams were coming?

Being a part-time tutor for highschools students, I am very familiar with the frustration of grade 12 students scrambling for revisions and a plethora of "extra classes" they are being forced to attend. In my own experience, many teachers are lazy to keep up with the (now reduced) science and math syllabi and these extra classes seem to be eleventh hour efforts at covering for this.

The pupils are the victims, right? No, some are just as lazy (I've been a super lazy scholar myself, so I know). I have noticed how some pupils have questions that should have been answered by teachers, questions that leave me asking "what have they been teaching you the whole year?" and "what have you been doing in class while the teacher was teaching you?".

It looks all -doom-and-gloom right now and I am yapping about a problem I have not put forward a solution to try fix. Right now, I do not know, perhaps the reader may have a few pointers. Right now, I really hate seeing my sister having to make arrangements to find accommodation by her school because they decided the grade 12 learners need to have extra classes from 4pm to 7pm just two weeks before the beginning of the final exams.

Yes, but no one was around during the big bang!

No-one was around during the big bang, no-one has ever seen a star’s lifecycle from birth to clataclysmic death, and we can’t put these things in the lab to test them, so where do scientists get the audacity to claim that these things happened and are happening?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column in the Zululand Fever where I put the discipline of science within the confines of testability. I said that when one makes a claim on how nature works, then we can test it and prove it wrong or right and I claimed that anything outside this “testability” perimeter is therefore “unscientific” and “supernatural”.

A friend of mine then asked me about the Big Bang theory and how it is accepted as the origin of the universe, being an event that occurred only once, if it indeed did occur. He said, “We can’t conduct an experiment in the lab where we see the big bang again.” He also listed other things rendered “unscientific” by my testability assertion, such as multiverses and black holes (those massive stars that are so hefty that not even light can escape their gravity).

xkcd

Well, the universe acts in mysterious ways but we can find generalisations from observing how it works, like noticing how objects fall the same way every time you drop them. Scientists then formulate mathematical explanations that need to satisfy these generalisations and once they are up to par, we test them on nature. And if they pass these tests, we call them "laws of nature".

Now, each of these remains "true" until a more efficient explanation comes along. In other words, we use Ockham's razor, i.e. we cut the rubbish.

Edwin Hubble in 1929 observed that galaxies seem to be moving away from each other, as if the space between them were expanding. This changed the static view of the universe accepted at the time. Around the same time, Georges Lemaitre theorised that if the universe is expanding then it means if you extrapolate backwards it must have existed in one point in space, thus the big bang theory was born (though it was not called that at the time).

It became popular among the scientific fraternity because it was the simplest explanation for the origins of an expanding universe amidst other explanations that were much less elegant.

But we still needed to ‘prove’ the theory by finding evidence for it in nature. Obviously we couldn't use the same physical phenomenon that gave birth to it to prove it so we turned to mathematics and the mathematical results resulted testable (observable) physical phenomena.

One of these was the cosmic microwave background (CMB) which heralded indirect evidence for the big bang as it was found completely independently in 1964. At the moment there are scientists looking to disprove the big bang theory by finding phenomenon not predicted by or against the theory and until that happens, we accept it as the origin of the universe, and all major theories go through this baptism of fire all the time.

“But we can't test it in the lab,” he said. Well, astrophysicists almost never get to touch or experiment on their specimens, but they can construct good enough theories to explain phenomena from little more than star shine and use those to predict other phenomena which

when found to be true are then accepted as true until Ockham comes in.

What of multiverses and black holes? Well, the idea of multi-verses theorises that there are other universes existing outside of ours and this crazy idea came from the observation that some subatomic particles (which operate on a completely different set of laws called Quantum Theory) can exist in two places at once and even disappear here and appear somewhere else.

At the moment, the idea of multiple universes in existence are the best explanation for this and other funny behaviour and it has given birth the mathematical model of the universe called String Theory (or M-theory) which is yet to be proven but is our best bet that can be tested as we get better sophisticated scientific instrumentation.

As for black holes, they were predicted by Albert Einstein in his theory of General Relativity and later found in nature through the powerful gravity they exert on other stars, the x-ray radiation emitted when they devour hapless stars and plumes of gas in space.

Sometimes you just have to observe and deduce and test those deductions by observing somewhere else in nature.