Copenhagen Summit

The world is being told to go green. Reduce carbon emissions or we will all die. The icebergs are melting, water levels are rising, and puny islands in the middle of the pacific nowhere are facing challenges in controlling the rising levels.
And yet with all this bleakness that surrounds the Copenhagen Climate Summit, people still have time to point fingers and blame someone else.

If I’ve ever heard a whole load of baloney it had to come from China’s vice foreign minister who said that the US climate negotiator (wow, they negotiate about the destruction of the world) is extremely irresponsible for saying that no US climate control funding should be going to China. Excuse me good people, but when did China get so barmy? They are the ones who have rising carbon emissions in the whole world and they want the USA to finance them.Okay.Interesting. Because the USA is also guilty of high carbon emissions. It is second on the list of carbon emissions; rivalled by China; and the latter wants the US to give them money to contain their emissions. This has to be a classic case of blind leading the blind.

Yes I know that the USA has been adamant on this issue of controlling global warming. They did not sign the Kyoto protocol because it would affect their “economic performance”. Look where that got them. A recession, job losses, and poor distraught bankers committing suicide. So much for maintaining the economy.

So it is amazing how 187 countries have signed this protocol ( a binding agreement that commits industrialised countries to reduce carbon emissions), and one of the major contributors of greenhouse gases does not sign. The USA is truly a global hegemon. They just have a way of getting away with it don’t they? But we must thank God for Obama. He is one US president who seems to be moderately concerned about the environment. So we wait to see what concessions the delegates at the conference will make. It better be good.

But, China and USA need to get their act together.

They seriously need to get it together.

Clint Eastwood does it again!

Mr Eastwood's new movie Invictus has written 2010 Oscar all over it!

As a South African, I was tremendoulsy excited when I heard that Eastwood was directing a new film that is a look at life for Nelson Mandela after the fall of apartheid during his first term as president when South Africa campaigned to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup. This historical event united many South Africans and bridged equility gaps.

Invictus stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as former South African rugby player Francois Pienaar. Hopefully, Damon masters the South African accent and we are not left with another Dicaprio Blood Diamond fiasco.

The film was shot in Cape Town and feautures a lot of South African talent. I cannot wait!

The film is being released 11 Desember 2009 from Warner Bros. View the trailer here.

Ghostwriter

The List

Assignment: Road-test your journalistic shoes by doing something you have never done before and blog about it.

Mission: Retrieve ‘The List’ from Cullen Bowles.

Warning: DO NOT GET CAUGHT.

The thought of the mission is making my heart race and my bones rattle. I am ready to seize the moment of excited curiosity in a realm that I have never encountered before; a boys residents on top of ‘Hate Hill’. The risky hill is as steep as scaling a pyramid. Luckily, it has never been necessary for me to conquer it, until today. This has to be done, I have to retrieve ‘The List’ no matter how much my body craves water and no matter how much my muscles throb.
My partner and I prepare ourselves for the ultimate mission, we both know that if we pull this off, it would be remembered as the greatest heist of the year. We adjust our black clothing and zip up our knee-length black leather boots. We commence our mission up the hill.
There are so many people around and hiding behind trees is starting to get annoying. As we draw closer, we hit the ground and drag our aching bodies the last couple of meters. I could hear voices nearby, my head starts rushing at the thought of getting caught. My fingers finally curl around Cullen Bowles’ brick pillars.
We find a great back entrance, but a little climbing is unavoidable. We hurl ourselves over the wall and cautiously approach the door. My partner swings it open and quickly pops inside. On her okay, I follow. Hastily, we started looking around for ‘The List’. I don’t see it. I spin around on the sound of movement behind me. Beady eyes blankly stare back at me; the cleaning lady looks scared but doesn’t make a noise as we single her the quite. My partner taps me on the shoulder and points to the wall – ‘The List’.
An overwhelming feeling of accomplishment sweeps over my whole body. My partner grabs ‘The List’ off the slab wall and we head for the exit. Unfortunately, our exit strategy was interrupted by the sight of the res’ roof. Bravado has the better of us and we climb up the fire escape to reach it. We arrogantly fish out a couple of cigarettes and light them with glee. The tobacco satisfaction and triumph can’t alleviate the panic I experience as I witness a small white ball slowly rolling down the corridor inside. I raise my head and catch sight of a handful of boys starting back at us.
The mission has been compromised. They immediately start towards us and suddenly every single body leaps towards the door. Relieve … the door is locked. My partner and I impulsively grab our belongings and ‘The List’ and vault off the roof to dash down the fire escape. We are not looking back, we dare not. We run down ‘Hate Hill’, trophy in hand, hearts racing, blood pumping, heels clicking. We finally touch safe ground and catch some air and surprisingly start laughing. We did it! We have acquired ‘The List’.

We position the list in proper lighting to examine it and it turns out to be exactly what we expected; the list contained the rankings of the girls res’ according to achievements and eligible dates. Our res appears second last. No one will ever see the list again and our reputation will forever be safeguarded, well that is, until they print out a new copy. Mission accomplished.

Ghostwriter

A life as a journo after all

As first year Rhodes bloggers our first mission with our blogs was to give them a name, which for any blog is crucial in out lining the theme as well as well as the target audience you want to attract. Of the blogs that I searched for review, the title “What life I do journ?” appealed to me because, one of the main challenges that we were tasked with, was to create a blog that was relevant and one that students journalists could be able to relate to their own daily path of learning and practicing the craft. Out of a scale of 1 to 10, they were very successful in attracting me to their blog because as a student journo, the name led me to expect them to find innovative ideas through the narratives published, in detailing their own experiences that caused them to believe that a life outside of our craft is impossible. When I logged into their blog, I found that their palette which is painted with different colours that complement each other and interesting gadgets, although menial allow one to search the blog without trouble. Their titles were striking and fairly well written, particularly Camagwini Dolweni’s (Blogging Shmogging), an opinion piece on how she does not consider blogging as journalism. I must confess myself disappointed that the blog does not do enough to convince us that journ students do not have lives. The blog could have stuck to the title by publishing and engaging first year experiences of journ students more.

The click on my X

Ndiye emva kokuba ndive ukuba bazakuqala isiXhosa apha kwesi sikolo semfundo ephakamileyo…….I really never imagined that as a first language Xhosa speaker I would never be able to speak, pure, untainted Xhosa with no ishaas for the whole day let alone for an hour. In the event that there will be a Xhosa course being introduced to the Rhodes bjourn degree I attempted to get with the program and prove myself worthy of this language. Xhosa people in general are renowned for being unable to speak their language with conviction, something I have always refused to admit. It just hit me and I realised that as a “patriotic” Xhosa speaking individual I really have never spent one day, not one day apart from the days before I could speak English, speaking traditional, home grown Xhosa. I spent the whole of Wednesday morning without having said anything besides Molo (morning) to my roommate who is Zimbabwean and cannot speak a word of Xhosa. I’d told myself that I had to stay clear of all my Xhosa friends of for the day. To my own utter dismay, by the time I got to my first lecturer, even though I had spent time with only my Xhosa friends, they too were no help at all. I had already started mixing all languages with my Xhosa. Now I wonder whether or not I will ever be able to speak proper Xhosa. I wonder if this is even possible.

Res-food theory

And herewith my final blog post as a first year journalism student…

As future journalists, or so we are told, we shall work in a very diverse field and find ourselves in an array of scenarios very different to our own backgrounds. From this came our last assignment in which our lecturers required of us to go out and do something we’ve never done, and blog on it. Having done several drastic things throughout the year, I decided to take a subtler approach and instead look into the res[idence]-food-theory, one that states that res-food (doesn’t matter which dining hall) will never match mom’s cooking (with the only variable here your mom being a bad cook!). For this experiment I went to dine with my friend Dee at her dining hall on the other side of campus so to speak. The result - simple:

On arrival I was surprised by how different the dining hall looked to the one I usually eat at: this one being much older and lacking the modern design of all round glass windows and sliding doors. Once you enter through its old wooden doorframes you enter a whole different era and space than that on the other side of the threshold you crossed a second ago. Dee summed it up very well when she told me a while ago that it has “a Harry Potter feel to it”. This was quite clear, with the wooden floor, wooden chairs and tables – all probably older than me - and a collection of coats of arms of all the residences making up the hall, hanging on the wall opposite of the entrance, boasting with a definite authority that speaks of valued tradition.

The line to get food was also much shorter than the usual one I wait in, and apparently always is. They have a functioning toaster too, one people in my dining hall would kill for, and a practical layout of the juice machine, coffee mugs and other minor things. Once through the food line I joined Dee’s friendly table, and there I found the universal truth in their first words: My mom said it, my dad said it, my friends from all over the country say it, and probably anyone who ever lived in a varsity residence said it…so you can now take their word for it: res food will never match mom’s cooking! You might however want to try out the different layouts and toaster though…

One Brick Short of a Load

Bam! An explosion of URL’s; the list of my fellow journalism student’s blogs is daunting. We were assigned to select one and write a review. In all honesty, I started filtering through them based on their titles. One in particular caught my eye; Yellow Brick Rhode.

I instantly identified with the title seeing that I am a huge diehard fan of The Wizard Of Oz (novel and film). Yellow Brick Rhode is structurally clever and provokes ideas associated with its genre, as all students are on a journey – a road leading to somewhere incredible.

I expected a burst colour and images, but when the page finally loaded, the palette 101 Beige blankly stared back at me. I despise beige as my mother insisted on painting almost every wall in our house a different shade of brown. Our house was a big taupe mushroom hell. Despite my extreme dislike of the layout, I continued.

I was surprisingly impressed by Welcome to the Yellow Brick Rhode, the first post I read. I enjoyed how the blogger utilises the ‘Oz’ imagery. With every click, my mission became more and more interesting. The jargon is structured with proper grammar and spelling (thank goodness), yet remains engaged with the audience with youthful diction. The blog features posts on world affairs, politics, entertainment, sports and exciting community events.

Yellow Brick Rhode might not be the brightest crayon in the box, but it offers stimulating posts and has heaps of potential.

Ghostwriter

The Horrors of Hat Head!

A cowboy hat on a cold, yet still supposed ‘summer’s day’ in Grahamstown, who would dare pull off such a fashion faux pas? I did despite an assortment of mixed emotions because, after all, I would be ruining what I like to call my own style by wearing, oh the horrors, a cowboy hat. I expected to feel out of place yet maybe experience a different side of Grahamstown by wearing the dreaded cowboy hat. The feeling of being ‘out of place’ is something I am not used to, being a very friendly person, and I believe I needed to step out of my comfort zone by doing something that I view as strange.

Stepping out of my residence, I felt anxious about what was going to happen and who I was going to see because, after all, I looked rather weird in a cowboy hat and a hoodie. This look is not exactly in Vogue’s (or any fashion magazine) top ten best looks category and I do enjoy dressing nicely. The wind, blowing my hat off at every opportunity it got, making me feel even more stupid than I already felt. People walking past me oddly enough did not really pay me much attention which is not what I expected at all. A few perplexed glances were the most attention I got from strangers and even then, I probably imagined most of it owing to my own insecurities about wearing the cowboy hat. My friends walking past did however comment on my unusual attire and asked “What the hell are you wearing Kait? Are you going somewhere?” or went “Yihaaaw ride ‘em cowgirl” which did bring a smile to my lips. At a friend’s braai, in the afternoon, my friend hosting the party kept stealing my hat off my head and it became almost a novelty item funnily enough!

These reactions were totally unexpected and for the most part I found the day to be rather entertaining than awful. People laughed at my hat but I would also laugh and think it was for some special occasion. The hat became a talking point and no-one (that I know of) judged me for wearing it! What I did not foresee, however, was the hat head that I discovered on taking the cowboy hat off, and this was the worst thing that had happened the whole day, which I see as having a great day! A cowboy hat on a cold day, I could see myself wearing that…

Spotlight on the Pencils

BluntRedPenicil, a fellow journ-student blog, falls under the spot light. It seemingly fails to impress with its very basic layout that looks slightly dull, although it saves one having to search the site to get around. I also miss the “About” box somewhere close to the top of the page. There is also the issue of consistency, with different fonts and font colours being used, and occasional typo or spelling errors occur. There is however a “blog archive” section on the right-hand tab that further eases navigation, and there are also some pictures uploaded.

Don’t let looks fool you however, as the other side of the coin is shinier with their posts: Even though not all posts are specifically journalism/journ-student related, with random posts ranging between anything from an ANC/Malema article to “free the weed”, it offers commentary and thoughts, interesting and entertaining, for both journalism and other students. One of my favourite articles is “Attention to detail or the lack of it”. You’ll find it a very opinionated blog, and you have to look no further than their first article to see that. Although I don’t agree with all they say (such as their weed article), it comes to show that they live up to their promise made in their manifesto, of a blog “…dripping with the honesty and conviction that only an opinionated young student…could give!”

Overall a very good first try at blogging and worth spending a few minutes browsing.

Is “Tree Pants” a blog because it isn’t worth the paper?

Glancing at the title of “Tree Pants” blog I immediately assumed it was just another forum to post love letters about saving the trees and other clichéd ideas. I was wrong. “Tree Pants” applies journalistic skills in a very student orientated manner, for example, reviewing the latest CD’s and generally having a colloquial, yet still appropriate tone throughout the blog. This blog also assumes a delightfully humorous tone with sexual innuendoes such as “we are not talking about the tree in our webmaster’s pants”. Sexuality, politics, writing, reading and religion are all topics you can expect to read about on this blog as they all relate to student life, in particular, a student journalists life. The links are a nice touch because they relate to the blog, its interests as well as the blogs target market. However, I did find a few minor problems with blog such as: consistent spelling errors, some topics have been overdone (politics) and it is missing a Twitter feed, which I believe would enhance the blog. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the blog because it is attractive, funny, interesting, and relevant to its target market and it gives the reader a unique view on the world. Instead of saving the trees, save some time to check out this blog!