4 All Old Folks around the Globe Part 7 on dates and times on the Journey of Life

I have written on Life as a Journey:

https://ikejakson.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/life-is-a-journey/

 on Cycles and Circles on time in History of our Journey:

https://ikejakson.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/cycles-andor-circles-in-the-affairs-of-nations-and-countries/

And last for today, have a final look at:

https://ikejakson.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/things-and-time-get-better-with-age/

So, really, when are we ever old enough to be classified as Old?  When our daughter was in her mid thirties she did not understand that I called that the adolescent period with Adulthood starting at 40 …

On her 39^th birthday I wrote:

https://ikejakson.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/a-look-at-age-39-on-the-journey-of-life/

…. and I left it at that but on her 40^th birthday I wrote her:

https://ikejakson.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/40-today/

to welcome her to adulthood to which she replied [and her reply told me she had made it and was quite safe then] well, she replied with a “it feels good this side of 40” and peaked early in life after that so that she is now strong, independent, self-reliant, and beautiful at 44.  She is a brick in the BHS though that has virtually collapsed in recent years and, I am sure of it, she will be one of the few that can really help to pull it out of the doldrums.

So, when are we going to be old then, some will ask.  My advice is that you get through your golden years from 50 to 60; at that point you are young and beautiful and all you need is to mature gracefully.

So we come to the end of the line … and I will close this off with that; with just more than two months to get to 78 I look around me and see older folks of 85 and some close to 90 but most of my compatriots have gone ahead and I know of not one who tried to resist their time and neither will I when mine comes around.

I have lived and loved it; most were days of joy but some were sorrows though very few of the latter.

Go well, my friends.

Ike Jakson

In Americus GA saka Americoon

4 All Old Folks around the Globe a short interlude as Part 7 about pumpkins, yams, soil potatoes and corn on the cob before Part 8 and what will follow on that.

Sunday, 06 May 2018

I can, and I am sure there are still many other Golden Oldies who remember when we planted and harvested our own food in the backyard.

We had yams year round; the pumpkins were left until the plants were all dead and gone and then we stored the pumpkins on the corrugated iron sheet roof or under the back awnings [pumpkin pie and sweet pumpkin year round, better food than in any Trump Castle or Tower] when the onions were left in the soil until the plants dried out and then hung up under the awning; how good was the corn, eaten raw straight from the stalk when young; enough to get dry to be stored with the onions and the pumpkin under the awning; so hard by then outside that you had to open them with the large meat cleaver, then boil them till soft before Mom would add the dark brown sugar by the cup full.  Oh, I can go on and on.

We never used fertilizers in the garden; all fruit and veggie roots and peels, dry leaves, weeds, and chicken and cow manure did that.  I don’t use any worm or insect sprays in my place or in my outside soil; when I asked my wife to leave my house I chucked all insecticides and sprays out with her.  Yes, I swat flies and mosquitoes inside my dwelling [and I am deadly with a swatter] but I don’t kill them outside the house, nor any garden worms, flies or garden ants outside; some little worms like my sweet potatoes [yams as some call them] but I don’t kill the little worm.  I cut the piece out where he sits and put the piece with the worm back into the soil.

You know what this World will be without worms and cockroaches?  You know what will happen to you without them?  What?  You wanna tell me you don’t like them?  I don’t understand you because they keep my place clean and don’t charge me one penny for doing it for me.

They are the creatures of God in whom I trust.  I am 78 years old any day now; no aches or pains, just the darn eye and that is why I cancelled my Hospital Plan after an ophthalmologist messed up the one because I allowed him to do it because the Hospital Plan paid him to do it.

I believe very little about modern Science; very, very little indeed and I don’t care whether you agree or not.  In God I trust and will do so until I die.

It’s getting later and it is now Sunday night.  The Lord is resting and I am going to bed now; tomorrow is the eighth day and we must get on with that in Part 8.

ke Jakson

In Americus GA saka Americoon

4 All Old Folks around the Globe Part 5 on the Dawn of the Day that we call Today in the year of 2018

Monday, April 30, 2018

I do try to avoid discussion of religion[s] in my work to avoid the accusations and arguments that go with it.  People must in my view respect the religion or the Faith of their neighbors [in this sense the entire World is one neighborhood] if they want the respect of the neighbor for their Faith.  Period.

Let me complete that [what I have said before] to me:

Creator=God=Allah=Yahweh=Jehovah=Allah=God=Creator.

Anyone may add other names [depending only upon where each one was born and grew up.

I demand respect for the religion of my neighbor and if that is not there I walk away from the discussion.  Period.

I therefore ask my Readers to allow me to use the Biblical reference to the Creation just this once.  In the World of this night of Sunday April 29^th in the year of 2018 according to the Gregorian calendar our Creator is resting.  In the morning We the People will wake up to the eighth Day; we will have to decide what to do about it.

The way I see it [as in Parts One to Part 4 of this series] we need to refer to just a few events of late afternoon and evening of the 7^th day.

In 1793/94 the French cut the heads off the Aristocrats and freed the people; the free French joined up with the American Colonists in 1812 to kick England in the ass and that helped to destroy England’s chances of Ruling the Waves forever, so they went on to conquer Africa.  Following that America fought a brutal “War of the States” [don’t you dare going around America of today and call it The Civil War; you are likely to be punched on the nose by many] and in the period that followed the American Colonists invaded the lands previously inhabited by independent peoples of many other natural pursuations; that set England free to conquer Southern Africa where they did the same thing as the American Colonists were doing in their parts of the World.

I shall come to War and Wars in Part 6; suffices for this Part to sum it up with.  The Spaniard had ended his invasion of the World; Portugal had their small pieces; the French had Canada and decided that was enough; in Africa the Netherlanders moved North while the American Colonists went on their “Manifest Destiny” to rule from the Atlantic to the Pacific [Lordy, Lordy, late afternoon on the 7^th Day they would help the Dutch invaders [by now starting to call themselves Afrikaners which was a handy word to use instead of the English word African, which of course, they were not, but anyway, doing what the American Colonists were doing in America, which happened to be the same that England [having lost their Rule of the Waves, were doing in the lower central Parts of Africa] namely to invade and grab the lands of the people who just happened to have been born there.

America had decided to aid the “Afrikaners” for a short while purely because of the American dislike for Cuba but when Americans discovered the fine cigars that the Cubans were making they dumped the Afrikaner in Angola [at that time still run by Portugal].

Then, all of a sudden Americans, English, French [only half of the latter] realized Germany was becoming a threat and we had World War One.

That brings us to the World almost exactly 100 years ago late afternoon on the 7^th day.

Part 6 will deal with the evening shadows and my hopes for the eighth day.

Ike Jakson

In Americus GA saka Americoon

4 All Old Folks around the Globe Part 4 on the Truth of why the World is in the mess that we are in today

We are celebrating Independence Day in South Africa today, the 24^th year since that Great Day on 27^th April of 1994.

I beg of my Readers to allow me to explain; once and for all.

I am a follower and admirer of Freud on the influence of the environment in the formation of character.  In science I believe in gravity and never understood that some silly asshole had to stand under a tree with an apple falling on his head to prove the Law of Gravity; that apple was never going to fall anywhere else in the first place.  In matters of Economics I still believe in the Adam Smith analysis of Supply and Demand economics.I do not believe that Wars solve anything; the only War that ever served any purpose was when the American colonists kicked the English in the ass to become the first Nation ever to kick Mother England in the ass; the only problem was that it allowed England to proceed and set them free to exploit their positions for power in Africa and India.  There is a lot in written records about their efforts to Anglicize Africa; the pity is that nobody stood up against them.  The greatest pity is that America [where they had kicked all the “Royalists’ in the ass and confiscated their American property without any “compensation” after the 1812 War of Independence stepped forward in World Wars One and Two to save England from Germany and subsequently allowed them to grab ownership of South Africa’s mineral riches.

At that time the rest of Africa except Egypt and the northern part of the Continent had been invaded by the English [then the leading seafaring nation] but assisted by Portugal, Belgium, Italy et al, each one grabbing any slice that they liked.

By the time that England forced South Africa to form a Union of South Africa under the flag of England [very conveniently excluding the original populations of the land] and only allowing participation of the colonists, at that time a mix of English, French, Hollanders and somehow enough foreign religions to call them all a “Christian Nation” and as such they were obliged to rush to the defense of England in World Wars One and Two against Germany.  I got to admit that I would not have liked being Part of a “Greater Germany” during World War Two but I wasn’t born yet; must have been conceived by Mom and Dad just about the same day that England Declared War on Germany in 1939 because I saw the light of my first day on August 3^rd 1940.  Mom told me in later years that it was on a Saturday.

However, Russia saved us from that potential disaster by defeating Germany and mercilessly hunted the remnants of the invading German armies down following their defeat in the fight for Moscow and saved England in the process.  Let us get this point clear once and for all. One: “Russia won World War Two”; it was not America that won it.  That America saved England is a fabrication of very tiny minds.

Two: “Were it not for Russia, and for China that stayed out of the silly war, the World of today would have been a different and a much better place” to live in.

America should thank their lucky stars for that and I shall deal with the South African situation in Part 5 in due course.

Ike Jakson

In Americus GA saka Americoon

4 All Old Folks around the Globe

Now watch me soon; one of these days I am going to publish a Post in the language of Afrikaans, which is derived from Dutch, or Netherlands as it is more often referred to by one Geert Wilders [a fiery politician as never before he arrived in that Old Land] from where we hail from and occupied the land that is now called South Africa.

When we arrived here England wanted to grab it too, and soon did but the Dutch fought back like tigers in a cage; some Frenchies arrived, some Germans too and soon after a fair bunch of Portuguese; for some or other reason Spain stayed out of here, or perhaps they were already to busy in the New America, and that gave you guys out there your Mexico, and of course, your Cuba.  Portugal invaded South America and gave you Brasilia.

It is one helluva story.

Eventually the Brits prevailed after some crazy fellow discovered diamonds in a place called Kimberly and soon another crazy buggar picked up a rock in a place that is now called Johannesburg and found the darn rock was solid gold.  Of course he then started digging into the ground and realised that the entire reef he was walking on was almost solid gold.

That was too much for the Brits; they had established their ruling in the Cape and later on in Natal [where they had first shot the hell out of the Zulu Nation] and now descended on the remaining porion of the land called South Africa and took it by brutal force.  Some idiot remembered William Tecumseh Sherman and his march to the sea in America and did same out here; following Sherman’s rule of leaving “a scorched earth” policy’ women and children were put behind barbed wire fences to care for themselves with whatever they had; all able bodied men were rounded up and those who did not want to stop fighting were packed off and shipped out to a place Brittain called Ceylon [where they had previously done the same, and where all the “prisoners” from South Africa were dumped to care for themselves.  Oh yes, almost forgot, Ceylon was the name the Brits gave to what is today Sri Lanka during the time they invaded India.

Our Dad [see my Post about my Brother Dirkie] was 5 years old at the time of the annexation of the gold reef up in the Transvaal Province of South Africa but he was living the life of a young boy, the son of an itinerant farm hand and general labourer on dry land some awesome 140 miles north of Cape Town

That is not the lowest point of Africa BTW.

The lowest point on the African continent is at L’Ugulhas:

Latitude/longitude:34°49′20″S20°01′02″E
Decimal coordinates:-34.8223 20.0173

As a bit of mirth for those who understand Dutch, the name of L’Agulhas is a difficult word for us and we just call it Ugallas because at low tide the water on the beach comes up to your ankles before it goes higher up as the tide come in but you retreat before it reaches above the knees and you will be washed out to the seas when it reaches your ……where the sharks will eat and feast of your …….

Anyway, of those who came most merged with others except for the British; they, the British, came to conquer and grab the land.  The Dutch merely wanted to use what is now Cape Town [then called The Tavern of the Seas] as a half way station to take in fresh food, water and repair damages to the leaking wooden tubs that they called ships in those days; the French came to plant grapes to make some good wines; some Germans came as artisans and stayed behind.

It is a long story with many versions of truth and lies nut one fact stands out.  The Englishman came to conquer and to rule whereas the others just stayed because there was space and good land.

You must remember that England was England at the time.  Scotland ad Ireland were independent monarchies and both would not have felt sorry for England if old Guy Fawkes had succeeded to blow up the England parliament in 1606.  Some McGregor’s and MacDonald’s made good husbands and wives for the Dutch [at that time called Netherlanders or Hollanders] in need of spouses.  They were more amicable than the English and with Dutch majority [apart from the English majority of the Ruling class who would remain England pretty soon started an Africanised version of Dutch with their exposure to the African Sun and the original tribal groups of the Aboriginals of the regions north of the Tavern and eventually east in what is today called Kwa-Zulu Natal, but that name came much later.

England was pretty much dominant in the now called Cape Town area and finally ended all Dutch dreams of resurrection of some Dutch influence early in the 1800 hundreds.

Shucks Folks, I have just realized the Ole Jan van Riebeeck stepped ashore in Table Bay on this day in 1652 and he story is much too long to complete in one Post.

See you all soon with Part Two.

Ike Jakson

In Americus GA saka Americoon

Why and who is closing SASSA Bank in SA?

A letter circulated by Piketberg Municipality just before this weekend informed the poor that SASSA Bank is about to be closed.  I can only suppose it has happened elsewhere too because Municipal Authorities are responsible for the identification of and records of recipients of grants

It is with a little wry humor that I noted the date on the letter was 7^th December 2017 but only reached our town on Friday 26^th January to inform SASSA grant recipients that unless they supply details of their banking accounts where future SASSA grants can be deposited they will no longer receive their grants.  Don’t they understand that a SASSA recipient cannot afford a banking account, even if there was a bank in town, which is not the case in hundreds of small communities in small towns all across the country?

We can talk about this for months but everyone knows who is behind this.

JULIUS MALEMA, THIS IS YOUR TIME.  SPEAK OUT, RAISE HELL, LET THEM HAVE IT BETWEEN THE EYES; YOU WILL FIND ME RIGHT NEXT TO YOU.

 Google January 28, 2018

 5 months to go and SA no closer to Sassa grants solution | News24

https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/…/5-months-to-go-and-sa-no-closer-to-sassa-gr…

 Nov 1, 2017 – This team will comprise officials from Treasury, the South African ReserveBank, as well as Sassa and SAPO’s technical teams. It would need until Tuesday or Wednesday next week to review the deal in its entirety and provide suggestions. Only then will Parliament hear if a deal can be struck, seven months …

Expiry of SASSA Card

http://www.sassa.gov.za/index.php/newsroom/301-expiry-of-sassa-card

Oct 16, 2017 – The issues of the South AfricanSocial Security Agency (SASSA) expiry card has brought a lot of uncertainty among social grant beneficiaries who are now living in fear of what will happen when the card expires on 31 December 2017 . SASSA would like to assure beneficiaries of social grants that the …

Sassa to reactivate bank account to diversify payment of grants – EWN

ewn.co.za/2017/…/sassa-to-reactivate-its-bank-account-to-diversify-payment-of-grants

 Sep 16, 2017 – JOHANNESBURG – Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini saysSouth Africa Social Security Agency (Sassa) is in the process of re-activating its bank account by January. Dlamini announced the progress being made by the social security agency yesterday to appoint a new service provider to pay …

Five things Sassa is doing to take social grant payments away from CPS

https://www.timeslive.co.za/…/south-africa/2017-09-15-five-things-sassa-is-doing-to-t…

 Sep 15, 2017 – The outcome of the assessment and how the Post Office can support grant payments will be announced next week‚ said Dlamini. 2. The South Africa Social Security Agency (Sassa) is opening a new bank account for the monthly R10-billion that is paid in grants with support from the Treasury and South .

 Ike Jakson

In Americus GA saka Americoon

Of Vodacom and Orwell 1984 to Animal Farm 2084

Much has been said about Big Brother of 1984 but the People never understood and still don’t because the Machine took over.

The People were given cell phones thus creating the massive fences surrounding the cities where all the People were herded in.  Big Brother said “OK, now you all have cell phones and should be happy.”

So, all the Animal species were set free; they graze and flourish, moving freely but gaze in wonder at these strange creatures behind the barbed wire fences.  There is no escape.

Vodacom got what they wanted; all animal life got their freedom to roam and multiply and the People have cell phones.

The Machine is in charge.  To understand this, read Steinbeck in Grapes of Wrath and follow that up with The Winter of our Discontent.

Thus we will get to 2084; life is great and everyone will have the choice of two cell phones for the parents; all the kiddies will have tablets and unlimited access to Cyber Space.

Reality?  What the heck do you want to talk about reality?  Virtual reality is so much easier; you have no responsibility and you do not have to think; the Machine does all the thinking for you.

Life has never been as good; why, oh me why did we wait so long to get here?

Hey, stop asking questions about poverty!  There will be no poor; press the cellphone button and the machine will bring you all the food you can eat.  Just think about what is going to be in the cinema tonight; press the button and you will have it.

We will all be equal and FREE AT LAST, courtesy of the Machine.

 Ike Jakson

Saka Americoon in Americus GA

The Power of One

What would happen if someone steals the Atlantic Ocean tonight and we find it’s all gone when we wake up in the morning?

By mid morning the rot has set in on the West Coast of Southern Africa and will reach Maine in the USA by evening.

What will it look like in a week?

Impossible you say; it cannot happen others will laugh at you.

Well let me tell you, the Vodacom accounts or billing clerks think they can do it and get away with it.

I AM GOING TO STOP THEM!

https://web.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100014154821462

 

Ike Jakson

In Americus GA saka Americoon

Attorneys versus Robots

I am well qualified through experience to handle this important matter and invite you all to join me here in the course of the next few weeks.

 The articles will be of fun and of tragedy; of reality and the bliss of total ignorance and from farce to hard facts.

 Come join me and make your contributions.

 Ike Jakson

Saka Americoon in Americus GA, the seat of Sumter County, and just 9 miles East of Plains GA where “Djimmie” became President in 1976.  I actually shook his wimpy hand on three occasions and attended a Sunday school Class by him in December of 1987.

Going Blind Getting Old Going Home and getting ready to leave

This has been in my mind for some time now and when I turned the computer on I noticed that the clock had just clicked over into the new day in our part of the Globe.

I don’t at this stage know how it is going to end but that is of no concern to me; it is something that I have to work out for myself as I go along.

Of course, it was triggered by my Post immediately before this one but I did not have this in mind when I did the first one.  Either way, this may become my swansong or it may not.

I have had this in mind with many headings for it; picked the one I am using on the spur of the moment because there is a link somewhere.  It does not matter really, not this time anyway.

Why I do it needs a few words.  Maybe it is for my children; maybe it is for my family; some of it is certainly for my friends, but none of it is a cry for help, a scream of anguish or just empty words.  Maybe it is all of that in parts; it is of no concern to me what or how “the World” will interpret it but my intentions are certainly in part some sort of a desire to tell the world what I stand for.

It is not a perfect World we live in at this time; there was a time when it was almost perfect but then We the People of the World screwed it up.  Now I have it; something tells me that is the point that has been nagging me into this direction.

The World, or the Globe as we sometimes call Earth, was made to perfection by the Grace of God the Creator of all Life.  Let me re-state and add one word to my previous definition; it is my firm belief and I will never change on that:

 God=Creator=Allah=Jaweh=Jehovah=Creator=God.

People who know me will notice that I do not participate in discussions on this point.  I respect all the Great Religions of the World and there is no place in my Home for anyone that does not adhere to that principle.  I fail to understand how someone that does not respect the Religion of another one can expect that one to respect the prejudice of the first one.

On the Earth?

Man and Life of flesh and blood as we know it are Earthbound; the seas and the rivers are for fish and other water creatures; space is for birdlife and millions of other little creations that are there to contribute to life on earth but otherwise space is there to give us space to breath and to replenish life as we consume it.  The Moon and Mars, to mention these two because it is in the News Media, are not the terrain of Mankind; we don’t belong there; we have no business to be there and we won’t get anywhere near to ever living there.  Life as we know it is Earthbound.  Period!

Race and skin color as so often in the Media must be mentioned.  To me these two concepts are not even remotely connected; to equate the two concepts is fallacy and distortion of the facts.

Skin color is no indication of good or bad; it was part of the Creation and that is all that needs to be said about it.  Skin color does not make you good or bad, inferior or superior, or equal to any other skin color.  I reject the notion that it does and I have lived my life on that principle.

Race to me refers to what you may loosely call nationhood, and that in turn will take you to customs in Race and Nations.

Customs may be good or bad; we have both of them in the World and that is what divides us for very logical reasons but we must tread with care not to confuse good or bad customs with skin color and race.

Good customs can make strong Nations and Races; in this Russia and China are the best examples of this day and age.  Americans are not a Race or a Nation neither is Africa nor any of the islands scattered around the oceans.  They are at best the product of migration through the centuries of time.

Migration is not a new thing; neither is tribal movement.  These two aspects have developed since Mankind was created and will continue as long as we remain, or until we destroy ourselves.  The latter is however, most unlikely; that we shall have to curb population growth is a hard fact that will have to be faced pretty soon [and it is good to see some efforts in that direction] or Nature will do it for us by means of food shortages, plagues or afflictions that will reduce our numbers.

War may help to diminish over population; in fact a good size War may be a good idea right now but the wrong people will die.  I don’t see War as the solution.

So we come to generations.  In human terms one generation roughly translates into 25 years, or four generations in every one hundred years.  New generations produce more migration and changes in cultures of nations and races [the latter distinctly the opposite of races by skin color] and this may increase the possibility of War …..

That gets me back to where I started and it is now 1:36 AM on this new day.

Maybe a good size revolution, make that plural for the world round, will be the initial answer to curb the excesses of the rich and the privileged that are only interested in getting richer, for whatever reason I have never been able to understand.

The French Revolution was a good thing in more ways than one.  Signs from America and Africa signal the possibility of such action and it may become impossible to stop it; it surely will reduce the influence of the “undesirable” in Politics and control of the Money supply in goods and services.

My oh my, here I almost forgot about the reason for this Post.  I am now just into my fourth generation [at 77 soon to be] and can’t have much time left.  All the Great Books of all the Great Religions more or less concur on the lifespan of three score plus ten, and I am now in three score plus 17 well over the period of grace.

But I just recently managed to prevail over an adult life long affliction of the mindset that I was born with.  I have a fight on with two bastards that asked for it and I am going to let them have it before I pack up to go home to Centurion, to be followed or preceded by going Home to the place across the river, or the sky as you may prefer, to join my parents and my two beloved brothers.  I am hoping for the first one because that is the only one I can influence.

This Post is dedicated to Iowa Jim and Jay from NC USA.  Thank you guys.

Ike Jakson

saka Americoon in Americus GA