http://informage.net/articles/2007/05/21/leaving-on-a-jet-plane en-us 40 tales from anglospheric la-la-land <p>This week I fly from Cape Town back to the UK. As always, nothing is permanent, but it's a one-way ticket... next time I'm here I'll be visiting. I've been needing to snap myself out of a funk for sometime now, and a transcontinental shift might just do the trick. (I know, I know, it's really about me not where I am but it's worth a try and anyway it'll be great to spend unbounded time with family and old friends again).</p> <p>It's appropriate in the week I leave this nation that has been my adopted home for the last five and a half years to point to a couple of good S'African blogs. Firstly <a href="http://www.greenman.co.za/b2evolution/blogs/index.php">Ian's Neverness</a> has been subscribed in my newsreader for a while. He's a cool Capetonian who I unfortunately never engineered to meet, but I've enjoyed reading his writing on politics, free and open source software, Africanism and green stuff.</p> <p>Ian posted a link to a blog called Red Star Coven, written by Walton - a S'African in Scotland. His latest post <a href="http://redstarcoven.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-hate-series-part-1-i-hate-afro.html">"I hate Afro-optimism"</a> strikes a chord with me, partly because I myself have at times fallen into the trap of blind Afro-optimism in reaction to the obnoxious and racist voice of whiney pessimism that emanates from privileged whites here. </p> <p> <a href="http://www.greenman.co.za/b2evolution/blogs/index.php?p=398&amp;more=1&amp;c=1&amp;tb=1&amp;pb=1">Ian's response</a> is intelligent and impassioned, musing on the parallax of perception* between positivity and negativity, pessimism and optimism, that Walton's critique can be inverted into a positive appraisal by simple fact reversal. I spend a lot of time thinking in just this way. Great post Ian, thanks. </p> <p>Having said that, I find myself tending towards Walton's perspective. I'm extremely impressed with what I've read of his blog thus far and will be reading it regularly. </p> <p> * I've evidently been reading too much <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_Zizek">Zizek</a> but to my credit I used to be in a band called Parallax, and we chose that name because like Zizek we regarded it as word with a significant and underused denotation - that where you stand shapes your point of view. </p> Mon, 21 May 2007 18:08:21 +0100 urn:uuid:0af894d4-8e59-4e7d-a587-5160842217c1 Sean http://informage.net/articles/2007/05/21/leaving-on-a-jet-plane postage <p>Hey Sean, I am going to be in London from this Saturday for a week. RU around at all? Gonna be staying with Jon and Donna. It's funny I was just looking through old emails and found one I wrote to all my friends four years ago about how much I loved and missed them. And, you know what? Nothing has changed.</p> Wed, 25 Jul 2007 05:19:39 +0100 urn:uuid:3c2a3315-82ea-44b6-aae0-b8e1e607396b http://informage.net/articles/2007/05/21/leaving-on-a-jet-plane#comment-462 <p>SA's gonna miss you Mister. Pop by again soon...</p> Tue, 22 May 2007 13:11:34 +0100 urn:uuid:18cf3a77-0e7e-4f35-a7fa-c649a9dea09c http://informage.net/articles/2007/05/21/leaving-on-a-jet-plane#comment-445