Repair (Heal) Your World

Yesterday an 8 year old domestic servant's child died in a friend of a friend's pool. She couldn't swim. Only the domestic servant and her child were in the house. Who is responsible for this accident? The pool? The child? The mother? The owners of the house? The Government? Legislation? Who? As far as we know, the domestic worker is blaming the home owner, but even if the pool had a fence, the child would have been tall enough to open the special hook on the gate. We have a swimming pool. Our pool is surrounded by walls. When we have guests we ensure that someone is watching the pool at all times. Or we keep the house gates locked and we keep everyone inside. As it is our house gates are locked most of the time, so no one can get to our pool unless they climb over a wall. We don't have a net. And even if we did, the child could get tangled in it and still drown, whilst the parent fumbles around trying to untangle the kid from the net. So much easier to just dive ...

South Africa has a number of problems, which are starting to flood and overwhelm the tax payer. President Zuma, in his state of the nation address proudly said that there are 15 million employed people and 16 million people getting grants. Some people say a family needs R30,000 per month just to survive. Perhaps because 70% of our taxes, ie rates, taxes, electricity, water, transport, etc, prices are going to grants, and funding such as free electricity, free rates, free transport, free housing, etc. Under this regime, people get a free house and then say its to small!! If only jobs could be created, South Africans would be so much better off and we would all feel much better off. But how to stop this flood? 1) Eskom can only supply about 30% of South Africa's current electricity demand. So many companies have to move elsewhere to get electricity. Hence the reason why our top 40 companies are doing so well, but the SA economy is doing so badly. Almost all the top 40 are slowly mo...

We put money away for a rainy day. We have insurance to cover us if something gets stolen or if our house burns down or if our property is damaged. We have pension plans. So from these things that we do, we can see that we think about the future and we prepare for it. However, we are really only between 2 and 4 days away from catastrophe at any time! So why are we planning for events in perhaps 30 years time, but not being prepared for events tomorrow? So what can possibly go wrong in the next few days which should concern us? Our electricity supply is becoming more and more precarious. Eskom should be able to supply 42 GW of electricity but on a regular basis it can only supply only around 30 GW. The grid infrastructure is overloaded which puts a large burden on transformers which are reaching end of life in half of their usual life, ie 12 years life instead of 25 years life. Our grid itself is behind with maintenance and many of our power stations are alr...

The storms continue. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2559186/UK-weather-80mph-winds-2in-rain-snow-sweep-Britain-storms-misery-goes-on.html Note the house in the middle of the water. This guy wanted to actually build the house 2 feet higher than it is and the planners said no! So he said, ok, and he built his own Berm around his property. The neighbours laughed at him until it started raining! We need to protect ourselves from events that can happen this year, before we concern ourselves about retirement! And if we have systems to supply our own water and electricity and deal with our own sewerage, then we will in effect already be retired for these components of our existence. What if these bad winter storms and terrible weather in the UK and USA hit South Africa in our coming Winter? It could be much hotter (like in Sochi) and it could be much colder and wetter. The only way we can protect ourselves is if we decide that local water and electricity backup s...

In the following video the former Chief Rabbi of England tells us exactly where our problem is: http://www.torahcafe.com/chief-rabbi-lord-jonathan-sacks/covenant-conversation-parshat-terumah-video_b714c0618.html i.e. in a very simple sense, we just need to work together. I said this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7W6kn9M8pI So as long as we blame and have expectations that someone else will save us, the current politics will ensue. As soon as we take responsibility for ourselves, we will be saved. Simple? Love David

Has anyone read the article in the Tabletalk (or the other free local papers) about the guy who wants to recycle the Turpentine? And he wrote to OffMyTrolley (Brian Joss) to ask what to do and Brian wrote to the City (Water department, etc) and asked what to do. The City of Cape Town says there is nothing they can do to help because there is no law about Turpentine recycling!! If we need laws for everything we do, then I think it is time for new leadership. Doing the right thing should be way above the law! The reason the City wants to develop Princess Vlei and the Philippi Horticultural Area is because they can do this in terms of the law they uphold, but are they doing the right thing? And what about the law for the rest of us? Why are there different "laws"? So the law is the law, but it doesn't imply ethics and it doesn't imply responsibility and it doesn't imply doing the right thing!