Hoity Toity

All in one day (yesterday)

• Total “Page Views” on the CU wikispace web site went above 300,000 for the first time.
• Visits to the CU blog are not so easy to discover but seem to be averaging at least 400 per day.
• The register of daily postings since we started using the CU Google Group passed 300.
• The number of subscribers (including those who get attachments only) went above the 900 mark.

In addition, the Communist University live session at Con Hill last Friday was well attended and lively.

The Communist University started using its present system during November 2006. It is simple and it works. It would work better still if there was a collective doing the manual inputs. The wikispace technology is designed precisely so that such collective working can easily be achieved, given the requisite organised human factor. We have seen the future, and it wikis! Kgalema Motlanthe, Secretary-General of the African National Congress, is a naturally dignified man who needs no extra props or defences when moving among his fellow human beings. He knows who he is, and he is a true democrat and indeed a gentleman, in the best sense of the word. Both the Sunday Times and the Sunday Independent yesterday reported his timely remarks about the wide gap that has opened up between ministers and “ordinary” citizens. Read the two articles by clicking on the link below. Whatever your reaction to the great Gwen Gill’s glimpses of the “Social Scene” in the Sunday Times, you have to admit that she is a super reporter. The picture she paints may fascinate or it may repel, but it is incomparably well done. Click on the link below to read about the larney bash given the previous weekend for the “Top 100 Black Businessmen” (Touch of sexism there? “Fiddle-de-dee, I’ll think about that tomorrow”). “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may” wrote Robert Herrick. “The grave's a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace.” wrote Andrew Marvell. The Internet is a fine and public place. Sometimes surprising things can be found there. Let’s hope Gwen Gill will not be embarrassed if the Communist University repeats the editor’s note that inadvertently got left on the Sunday Times web site next to the link to her article, as follows: NOTE TO SUB: HAVE LEFT A NOTE FOR GWEN TO EXPLAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INFLUENTIAL AND POWERFUL There are some questions which vex the Social Scene just as much as they bother the Socialist Scene. Another great journo is the Sunday Independent’s Jeremy Gordin. In the article linked below he sums up the Schabir Shaik case as heard in the supreme court of appeal in Bloemfontein last week, and lays some tentative bets on the outcome. He thinks the “encrypted fax” is a dead duck, but reckons that Schabir will still go down for at least three years on the debt write-off matter, while the “generally corrupt relationship” rap will be kicked upstairs to the constitutional court, where it has a snowball’s chance in hell. It is not easy for people with accounting experience to see why the courts have made such a meal of the writing off of debts in Shaik’s company’s books. Diligent accountants have to do this if there is enough doubt as to whether the debt will be paid. Writing off a debt in the books does not cancel the liability of the debtor. These are two different matters altogether, and if not kept separate in law will cause great difficulties for commerce. Therefore it is still a fairly safe bet that Shaik will walk on this count too. Don’t forget that Raymond Suttner is presenting his thoughts about what he sees as the “dominance” of the ANC this afternoon at 16h00 at WISER, 6th floor, Richard Ward Building, Wits University East Campus, Braamfontein. The old Reader’s Digest used to have a section called “It pays to increase your word power” and another one called “Laughter, the best medicine”. Barry Ronge skilfully combined both these facilities into one yesterday. Don't miss the last link below. Never commit vanillacide! Click on these links: Hoity-toity politicians rapped over knuckles, S Times and Sindy (2 articles, 1090 words) Everything comes up roses for top guns, Gwen Gill, Sunday Times (700 words) Bench reserves judgment in Shaik appeal, Jeremy Gordin, Sindy (1065 words) Shoot the puppy, jump the shark, Barry Ronge, Sunday Times (685 words)