Day 3 of TED2012.

11.53am:

Sherry Turkle up now with a profoundly interesting but disturbing talk. She’s one of the most influential theorists of the online world, whose 1996 book Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet put her onto the cover of Wired magazine.

“I’m still excited about technology,” she says. “But my new book isn’t going to put me on the cover of Wired magazine.”

The devices in our pockets, she says, are removing us from our own lives. Are impacting upon our most meaningful relationships. And actually changing who we are.

As a psychologist, she studies people’s relationships with technology, how people will now text in board meetings, in classrooms, while having breakfast with their children. “Even at funerals, I’ve studied people texting. They are taking themselves out of their grief and into their phones.”

“Human relationships are rich and they’re messy and they’re demanding. And we clean them up with technology. We sacrifice conversation for mere connection.”

Technology appeals to us where we’re most vulnerable, says Turkle. “It gives us the illusion of companionship without the means of friendship.

“It feeds the fantasy that we will always be heard, and we will never be alone.”

Couldn’t agree more. Ever had a lover text over your shoulder whilst in a clinch? I haven’t. Yet.

A Herald editorial in the run-up to the 1990 Zimbabwean elections is pretty telling when the 2012 buzz is that 88-year old President Mugabe (who is 5 years younger than Nelson Mandela) will again fight it out in the coming polls. In the Herald of 14 March 1990, the editorial titled “Punishing Campaign for a man of action,” wrote that: “at 66 and assured of victory in the…general and presidential election one would have expected President Mugabe to slow down a little and spare a thought for his personal health.” Calling him a “sober workaholic whose track record is as impressive as that of the party itself,” the editorial continued: “only the dim-witted would expect anyone to effectively challenge Cde Mugabe.”

And that my friend was in 1990. Go figure.

Interesting that the much talked about Marange diamonds are creating tens of thousands of jobs in India, at least according to international media reports which have been picked up locally. According to these reports, up to USD1,5 billion worth of Marange diamonds will make their way to India this year alone. Remembering of course that media reports remain the primary source of “the truth” for millions under the sun, the incredibility thereof notwithstanding. And you have to go “wow”, remembering that this national money is headed to one country when bogus Dr. Mpofu has said – apparently much to the consternation of the fiscus point man Biti – that the Marange godsend will “easily” pour into the national purse USD2 billion annually. Ehe. With these Indian reports claiming USD1,5 billion, one obviously has to question where the bad doctor gets his civil-servants-pleasing numbers when it is apparent the country (and of course the civil servants) stands to get stupendous returns to what Zanu PF is claiming as its birthright: much love to compatriots who are neither MDC-T nor MDC-99! Can’t a country get honest people who will share the resources with the ordinary man? I ask this deliberately perhaps as that Panglossian trait that, despite all pointers to the contrary, you would still expect the best from mortal men who themselves expect the best from everyone else but still continue to controvert those very same expectations! Talk about the painful contradictions of contemporary Zimbabwe. Yet the Indian reports bring bad vibes when you recall that Zanu PF has only seen benefits accruing from the mining sector as deriving merely from the community share ownership when the bigger picture demands employment creation proper as the Indians. “We believe that the flow of Zimbabwe diamonds will create over 60,000 jobs,” a diamond buff in India swooned. Yeah, Zimbabwe has over 80 percent unemployment with swarms of korokozas and one dead ZBC News at 8 expert caught with a Lebanese trying to smuggle the “tsotsi khiphi daimani”  (thief, hand over the diamond) helping themselves to the wealth that has stomped even the granddad of liberation politics.

From the Independent:

THE Government of National Unity (GNU) turned three on Monday. Zimbabwe Independent Senior Political Editor Faith Zaba (FZ) spoke to MDC-T Secretary-General, Tendai Biti (TB), also a negotiator, on elections, constitution-making, successes and of the current coalition.  Find below excerpts from the interview.

FZ: There have been contradictory statements on the expiry of the GNU among parties to the agreement. What is the lifespan of the GNU?

TB: Anyone who says the GPA had a lifespan of two years clearly did not read the agreement itself or constitutional Amendment No 19. The only sunset clause is the constitution which demands that whether we like it or not, elections must be held in 2013.

FZ: Why have those 24 agreed issues (in the GPA) not been implemented? Is it lack of commitment on the principals’ part?

TB:  I think the principals are committed but I get the feeling that there is a gap between the principals and the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy must implement agreements and directives of their principals. One of the greatest weaknesses of the GPA is that while we created an oversight role in Jomic, it operates at macro-level.

So in retrospect, maybe there should have been a sub-committee of cabinet consisting of vice-presidents and deputy prime ministers to deal with implementation.

Some “respected” news agencies still refer to Zanu PF as Zimbabwe’s ruling party. Another did call Mugabe the “Zimbabwean tyrant”! Talk about accuracy issues in the media!!!

This morning I phoned COPAC Communications to try and get an electronic copy of the first draft of the COPAC Constitution. Maria, the Communications Assistant refused to give it to me, saying that they didn’t have an electronic copy available and in fact had no idea how it had been published in The Herald.