Swine flu and drug mules

So swine flu is fast emerging as the next big story as it goes global. The World Health Organisation has upped the swine flu pandemic alert level to four - still well below the maximum rating of six. International travellers have been photographed wearing face masks, Mexico has dropped completely off the popular destination list and airline stocks are slipping.

Then today South Africa became part of the action when OR Tambo International Airport had thermal scanners installed - apparently to detect passengers who have an elevated temperature and therefore potential carriers of this new disease. Ah - and there's another bonus too. Apparently drug mules - those smugglers who swallow numerous little condom-wrapped packages of contraband substances hoping the stash will go undetected in their stomach - also have high temperatures. So this swanky new machine will be able to detect swine flu carriers AND swallowers. Plus, of course, every person who is coming down with plain old ordinary flu. Gosh! I am wondering, as the weather turns cold and winter sniffles set in, how many swine flu alarms will be sounded as snotty travellers take the temperature test.

And then the government put out a public warning: people must not panic, yet they must not be complacent. So now I am confused. What does this actually mean? What is the midway line between panic and complacency?

A bus strike and a broken window

This past long weekend break - a very much needed, hard-earned bit of timeout following last week's manic elections - was quickly shattered early this morning by a Metrobus strike.
I got into work early this morning, rested and ready to run. Very quickly Supergirl and I were put onto the story. For some or other reason a crippling bus striked destined to leave thousands of commuters stranded all over the city this morning had been slashed into a brief in the early edition. But a whole lot more information was needed for the afternoon edition.
We started on the phones - but as is often the case in the very early morning, people didn't answer. We left messages, we sent e-mails, we Googled up a storm. The striked story started coming together.
I managed to get hold of a call centre operator at Joburg Connect who seemed to know a little bit. She knew that Metrobus normally had over 500 buses driving all over the city every morning, but today there were none. If I wanted more info than that, I had to phone Metrobus head office which did not open until 8am. A time that, as fortune would have it, coincided with my very deadline!
Then one of my many early efforts paid out when the Metrobus spokesperson responded to one of the messages I had left. Yes, there was indeed a strike on the go he said. The courts had ruled on Friday that they could legally go ahead with a bit of strike action. All 510 bus drivers employed by the city were not working today.
"They belong to two different unions. The guys from the one union said they were happy to work as long as we could offer them protection. Obviously we couldn't do that, so nobody's driving buses today," he said. Hmmmmmm. Obviously! Last year three diligent non-strikers got killed, so I figured he had a point.
So what's happening? Is there any kind of trouble or violence anywhere?
"Erm ... ja. There are some guys who are blockading the street to my office. They aren't letting Metrobus people through. I had to do a helluva fast u-turn and now I am parked in some side street in Braamfontein talking to you while my phone battery goes flat because people haven't stopped calling me for hours," he said.
Oooookay. I took what info he could give me and offered him a desk in our newsroom to work from for the day. He chose not to take me up on it. I suspect he realised intuitively that I might possibly harass him constantly. *Sigh* At least I tried.
The story was done quickly. Supergirl had charged out to bus stops all around and spoke to commuters. Diva had paired up with a photographer and managed to get some cool stuff with the blokes at the barricades. We were THE team!
By 9am we were all done and seated in the newsroom for the day's genteel diary meeting. The peace was shattered - literally - when a missile of sorts came crashing through the window, sending glass shards hurtling down mere metres away from us. We jumped up and figured that a towering crane and busy builders on the high-rise construction site across the road were the cause of this mysterious distraction.
We peered down to the street below and saw a guy with a bakkie looking seriously perplexed by the serious dent in the roof of his vehicle. Discussions mounted as we tried to figure out what had smashed our large tinted window, leaving a hole bigger than a tennis racquet. And how had it come hurtling at such a speed, a good three storeys above ground? We failed to work it out. A chilly wind now whistles through our newsroom.
Life can indeed be strange.

Election Day!

Election 2009!
A momentous day.
A long day.
A huge turnout at the polling stations.
A long time in the queue.
Now for the long wait...
Let's all pray for the best possible result.
Yay, South Africa!!

Nandos, the A-Party and the election.

So the ANC Youth League has had another outburst. They have decided to take exception to a Nando's advert which, although it has been running for yonks, has suddenly come to their attention and they think it makes their sweet leader Julius look ... erm ... stupid. They weren't bothered when he called Naledi Pandour with her plummy accent a spoilt minister with a fake American accent, or when he declared that the league would kill for Zuma. But a tongue-in-cheek Nando's ad apparently calls for militant mass action against the grilled chicken outlet. Strange, yet arrogant.

So anyway, apart from that, what does one write that's worth publishing in a daily newspaper on the day of a national election?

One editor had a bright idea. We would put together a big story in which each of the 26 registered political parties can have 50-or-so words to say why people should vite for them. And if we divide the parties up, this project won't be too labour intensive. Not a bad idea!

So the dishing out process goes ahead. First party I get is the ACDP. Not too bad. I've heard of them. They have a known leader. And a spokesperson. And even a landline telephone number. No problemo.

Not so lucky the second time round. I draw The A-Party. Huh? The what? I check the replica ballot paper printed in the paper. Yip - there they are. It's a smiling white guy with a beard wearing a cowboy hat. Ooookay. So this is where Google comes in handy. Thank heavens - they have a website - I recognise the guy posing on the home page even though he is hatless. A drawing of a broeder-bond-looking bearded guy with a hat above his head is my clue. I check it out and discover that there is not a single person's name listed, nor a phone number. Their stuff is in Afrikaans and English, and their appeal for donations is in US dollars. Go figure!

Ah, they have a link to events. No can do. "Our first public event will be held soon...." it states, followed by a suggestion that you fill out an online invitation asking 'Mr A' to come and address your meeting. It appears as though no one took him up on the offer. Too late, Mr A! The election is upon us.

Then I discover to my horror that the only way to contact this clandestine organisation was via e-mail. And nowhere do they have a 50-word summing up of why you should vote for them. Crisis!!! I have a deadline and no guarantee that The A-Party checks their mail.

So I call our parliamentary bureau and am told that the politics team doesn't deal with the small-fry parties and don't have their contact details - I need to contact the IEC for assistance. This is less than cheery news following my three-day effort to get IEC accreditation - "sorry the photo your paper mailed is not suitable you have to come in so we can shoot you ourselves, sorry that you came all the way we can't print your accreditation as the toner ran out, please don't come and fetch it because we have run out of lanyards rather try tomorrow".

But hope arises as ParliamentaryBureauPerson remembers an e-mail she once got from the A-Party. She locates it and forwards it to me. Fantastic! There are contact details on the bottom.

So Mr A, I discover, is one Anthony Penderis.

"Why should people vote for you?" I ask.

Mr A: "Because our motto is 'We have plans. We deliver'."

JJ: "So what do you plan to deliver?"

Mr A: "Well, we are only six months old but already we have taken the government to the Constitutional Court on the expat issue and won."

JJ: "That's fabulous, but I seem to remember that it was the Freedom Front Plus who did that. For Willem Richter?"

Mr A: "Um, ja. There were actually six parties altogether working on that one, but it was us who actually initiated the whole story. So it proves that we can deliver."
Hurrah! I had my 50 words.

Now it's time to vote. May South Africans go out in their throngs and make their mark! Happy voting everyone, may the process be smooth and pleasant.

Eina! A new threat hits Jozi...

Most Joburgers are tough people. I mean, we live on the edge. Every day we face crime that's unacceptably high - even the ANC admits this so it's pretty damn bad, lawless taxi drivers, infinite roadworks, non-functioning traffic lights and even moms with tiny babies have adapted and can survive happily without electricity for untold periods of time. And most times we are alive at the end of the day.
However, today I discovered the emergence of a new threat. The drive-by paintball shooting! I am NOT kidding you.
I swear, we go the press release today. Apparently on Friday night some dodgy characters drove slowly past two women on the side of the road. It's not clear what the women were doing - sitting, walking, waiting for a bus. Whatever, I think it's safe to assume that they were not armed with knives dripping blood, running from the scene of a crime, jumping from a taxi without paying or doing anything whatsoever to prompt an attack on their persons. And then, out of the blue and for absolutely no apparent reason, the dodgy characters started firing off pot shots at them.
One of the women was hit, and went hysterical. Someone called for an ambulance and the paramedics arrived to examine her injured left leg.
"Her small round non-penetrating injury was consistent with that of a wound caused by a paintball gun. The victim experienced moderate pain and although was shocked by the attack seemed to calm down when she realised that she had not been shot with a 'real gun' and she refused hospital transportation," the press statement explained.
The report continued: "There was not much that the medics could do to treat the bruise that may remain for some period of time."
So I am thinking this is maybe not so bad. Like nobody got maimed or burnt to death by a runaway tanker ploughed into their car in morning traffic like happened to another poor lady this morning.
But the bad news continued: this is NOT the first case. Indeed! Paramedics have been called out to a very similar drive-by attack in Pretoria. And another one in Honeydew. It seems we have a gang dangerous paintball gunmen roaming the streets, targeting innocent victims. And paramedics are getting called out to treat hysterical patients with small, round bruises that hurt like hell.
This is not good news. Although I figure that with the number of licensed and unlicensed gun owners in Jozi, it's just a matter of time til these lunatics provoke a gun-toting victim and get popped themselves. Only with a real bullet.
May the police catch these bad boys soon.

Breakthrough for Blairgowrie - take 4

Another manic, crazy day. Especially in Blairgowrie! Man alive - those poor people must be going nuts.
So late last night they came up with two scenarios that led up to the scrambling of radio waves in the area and therefore the jamming of all remote control buttons for gates, garage doors, alarm systems, cars and all that kind of thing. And then people's geysers stopped working and suspicions turned toward all the little smart boxes installed in Blairgowrie homes to allow Joburg council the power to turn geysers on and off to save electricity. Poor Blairgowrie residents have been the guinea pigs for this evil plan by the way, so those of you who live in Jozi and find the idea amusing or freaky - be warned. Smart boxes are not simply coming to a cinema near you - one is going to be impanted in your very house. But anyway - let's not borrow any future terrors.
So the wireless communication experts from Icasa have been patrolling the suburb in their gizmo mobiles decked with aerial box jobs that reach into the sky and pick up readings on all signals buzzing around on the airwaves. And - aha - just as was suspected, the signal jamming waves were tracked to: the not-so-smart boxes.
The Hefcom guys who manufactured these little control devices were called in and told to please just fix this problem very damn quickly. Oh no, they say. Tis not our fault. Somebody else out there is to blame. It is that dude who is putting out a signal for some or other reason, purposefully or not, which somehow scrambled the brains of the smart boxes, turning them stupid, and causing them to start "communicating". This apparently means that they started emanating their own signal/screaming silently, thereby causing masses of radio communication on the 433 MHz band (I know it sounds cool and like I really know my stuff, but I am just repeating the excuse as I understood it).
Anyway - the upshot is that Hefcom personalities are now making a mad dash around the entire Blairgowrie - only about 4000 houses, guys! - and upgrading the software on the smart boxes to make them stupid again. The upgraded software will apparently give them new powers to receive bogus signals, identify them as messages that should just be ignored and then hopefully not try and talk back.
The guys fixing the boxes reckon they can do this chop chop. Blairgowrie people who have been taking cold baths since Monday are not so optimistic. Time will tell.
But at least the mystery has been solved.
At long last.

Power outage and Blairgowrie Take 3

This morning I had to man the newsdesk as EarlyMorningNewsEd took off for a long weekend thanks to having worked on Easter Sunday and Monday. His payback time off meant time on the desk for me, and no chance to go back and squirrel about in Blairgowrie to find out if the technical whizzes had managed to work out what the heck was happening in the suburb.
But while I was unable to go out to the news - the news came to me. People started mailing me. Seems things were still berserk. More people were without hot water. Someone reported that the weather service radar wasn't working. Somebody else mentioned that Lanseria Airport - situated out Randburg way - was shut down for half an hour yesterday because of interference that interrupted communications between the control tower and planes, and pondered if this was perhaps linked to the sinister signal jamming problem in Blairgowrie.
I was ready to assign reporters to the story when all of a KLUKS! the power went out. In 40 suburbs around the city. Technicians rushed out to work out the cause and fix it, but got stuck in Joburg's legendary peak hour traffic and ongoing roadwork complications.
Apparently something caused a "substation" to trip. And this particular substation was a power feeder for a few other substations, and so a giant part of Jozi was without electricity for varying amounts of hours as the techies slowly restored order.
In the mayhem, Blairgowrie was a bit forgotten. I still don't know what's happening there. Maybe things are back to normal and everyone is comfortably celebrating in hot bubble baths. Maybe the area is now flooded with scientists in gadget mobiles armed with gizmos and weird equipment...