Save Dusty, the most loving, gentle dog ever

Dear Dog Lovers,

         HELP, HELP.

         If you live anywhere in the Cape Town area PLEASE take Dusty, the most loving, gently dog ever. He would be absolutely perfect for a family.

         He badly needs to be rescue for the second time in his young life.

         As you can see in his picture he’s a sort of Maltese crossed with your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine. He has been spayed and has had all the right jabs so there are no costs involved.

        It’s so terribly sad. My wife and I got him from an animal rescue organisation a couple of weeks ago and we’ve become very found of him in this short time.

But we’ve found his youthfully enthusiasm too much for us old fogies. It’s not fare on him and we now realise we couldn’t give him the kind of life he deserves.

         So on Saturday I will be returning him to the place where we got him unless we can find someone who will take this extremely friendly little chap.

         He will enthusiastically lick you all over as a thank you that’s for sure.

         PLEASE HELP DUSTY,

         Thanking you in anticipation,

         Jon & Gayle

            Email us if you can help 

         dearjon@webafrica.co.za       

Man's Best Friend - Working Women

Dear Kajal Singh, BCom Marketing & Management (UKZN,Howard),

         I don’t know if you are the originator of this huge libel on me and my male relatives, but as your name appears at the bottom I think it’s fair to blame you entirely for compiling this and putting it on the internet.

         You can imagine how upset I was when this turned up on my computer. I can’t bear to think how my other relatives feel about it. It is particularly depressing as our family was originally split up by wars and other catastrophes and were forced to flee to all parts of the world.

         Just because I haven’t seen some of them for years it doesn’t mean that I don’t feel deeply hurt to have them publicly ridiculed like this.

         For readers of my blog who don’t know what I’m talking about I feel duty bound to repeat your insults against our family, so that they can judge for themselves how shameful your actions have been. But I must emphasise that this does not mean I condone what you have done and nor does it mean that I will be reducing the substantial claim for damages that I intend instituting against you. 

         It was entitled: HUSBAND OF THE YEAR AWARDS and then continued as follows:

         The Honourable Mention goes to The United Kingdom.

 

 

         Followed closely by the United States of America.

      

And then Poland in 3^rd Place.

 

         But 2^nd Place must go to Greece.

 

 

         It was very, very close with the Wooden Spoon being awarded to Serbia.

 

The Winner of the Husband/Partner of the Year is: IRELAND.

Ya gotta love the Irish. They are true romantics. Look he’s even holding her hand.

 

         And then you’ve got the cheek to add: Remember you don’t stop laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop laughing.

         I and the rest of my family don’t think this is a bit funny and I have instructed my lawyers to locate you and then we will see who has the last laugh.

         Disgustly yours,

         Jon 

Buy my book “Where have all the children gone?” on Amazon.com  It’s a thriller with an underlying love story that defied generations of prejudice.        

Can Swearing on Twitter & Journalism mix?

Dear Newspaper Readers,

Carien, ever the child



         Do you think it’s reasonable for journalists to play a dual writing role in the belief that the one can’t affect the other?

         What I’m talking about is hacks that are employed by newspapers and voice their opinions on social media at the same time using language that their papers wouldn’t countenance.

         For example I had a bit of an altercation on Twitter with Carien du Plessis who bills herself as a City Press political reporter. She claims: Love the job. In fact married to it.

         In my newspaper days political writers were in the top echelons of the profession, who you would not have expected to behave in a childish way; using attention seeking foul language for all to see. It would have damaged both their own and their paper’s credibility.

         But nobody seems to care now, least of all the City Press. This is a national Sunday paper with 1.6 million readers that claims to be the second most quoted paper in South Africa.

      Over a period of about a week I tried to get hold of City Press’ Editorial Policy. I got shunted from one person to another; given a wrong email address and then just when I thought I would get the answer from Gayle Edmunds, the Managing Editor, she referred me to somebody else.

 

      But not before confessing I don’t have a copy. How shameful. Needless to say I heard nothing from the person she asked to give me the information.

         Does the paper actually have one, I wondered

         Like a good journalist, as I don’t know what it contains, I will have to guess or better still quote an anonymous ‘source’.

         My source tells me that City Press journalists are not allowed to use swear words and any type of foul language to colour their reports.

         So if this is the case is it reasonable for Carien, who is actually their Senior Political writer, to spice up her Tweets with unnecessary words like crap, fukkit, shit and pee in my pants.

         My tiff with her on Twitter began after she Tweeted: Oh crap. I’m not good at this Lotto thing.



         The Twitter conversation then continued like this.

Jon - A lady doesn’t say ‘crap’. But then I suppose female journos have to keep up with the boys.

Carien - May be ladies don’t, but fortunately I’m not a lady. So I’ll say crap if I want to.

Jon - Thankfully some ladies are extinct because they keep saying ‘crap’ in front of your mother & they are proud of it. 

Carien - It’s my mom who raised me to be a woman, free from the crap that limits ladies to behave lady-like.

Jon - I’m surprised because in my limited experience Afrikaans vrous are extremely lady-like. And they would be shocked to have a daughter who craps on twitter for the world to see where she’s come from. Hopefully they’ve got good editors at City Press because people often complain that there’s a lot of crap in the papers.

Carien – Welcome to the 21st century, grandpa.

         Evidently I’m not the only media grandpa around who believes that foul language is not appropriate.

     

    Yusuff Abramjee the Head of News & Current Affairs at Prime Media Broadcasting and Chairman of the National Press Council no less Tweeted this about Jackson Mthembu, the ANC party’s spokesman, Your language is a disgrace. Using the word “pissing” in not appropriate.

         I put this question about Carien’s language on Twitter to Ferial

Haffagee

Haffagee, the City Press’ Editor in Chief. Is it ok for your political reporter to crap on Twitter? Does that not reflect on your paper at all?

         And I added, Ferial don’t’ tell me it’s alright because she did it in her personal capacity, because reporters can’t divorce their Twits from their work.

         Has Ferial’s staff perhaps taken their lead from her? When she tells us about her background on Twitter she says I tweet what I like in my own capacity.

         I assume that means that whatever she says on Twitter will have no bearing on her work as the City Press Editor.

         What do you readers think? My view is that journalists on the staff of a newspaper are very much in the public eye and have a duty to behave themselves in a dignified manner especially when it comes to the very public medium of social networks.

         And they can’t expect people to believe that it is alright for them have split personalities that allows them to write all kinds of garbage in their own capacity on Twitter and in another capacity for their newspaper.

         Yours truthfully,

         Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman 

P.S. I noticed that Carien changed the Twitter picture of herself after our set-to. Is this her new, cleaner image? My mistake here's her latest Tweet   (the @ Jon is not me)                          

                        Who is her admirer in the background?

Note. Before posting this I sent it to both Ferial Haffagee and Carien du Plessis and invited them to comment if they wished.

Haffagee, who is also a board member of the International Press Institute and the International Women’s Media Foundation replied: Our editorial policy is guided by the Press Code which you can find on the website of the Press Council or I could mail you a copy. I’m sorry you had a run-around finding it. You will notice that journalists around the world add the rider that tweeting is in their own capacity. The Press Council has not yet included social media in its remit, though it may do so. Best wishes, Ferial.
Carien: I'll let the Tweets speak for themselves.

Read my book 'Where have all the children gone' on Amazon.com  It's a thriller with an underlying love story. 

Britain's Madness- bumbling cop to star in new Pink Panther film

Dear People of Britain,

          How can you possibly allow this kind of thing to happen? Has the old country now got the worst case of Mad Brits disease that it has had in the many centuries of its existence?

          Talk about getting soft in the head, this latest madness takes the Queen’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service by a long way.

          A Policewoman, who you would have thought had a duty to make Britain proud, is busy turning the entire country into an April 1^st joke.

          And what makes it even worse is that her Police bosses are standing idly by evidently powerless to stop this cancer in their midst.

          Petrol station owner Steve Jones called the Police one night after his burglar alarm went off. And along came the Norfolk Constabulary’s equivalent of Inspector Clouseau of The Pink Panther comedy series fame.

    

Scruffy cop

      Playing the part magnificently, bumbling Constable Kelly Jones, 33, tripped over the roadside curb as she came to investigate.

          Of course it couldn’t possibly have been her fault so she has hired a top London lawyer and is suing poor old Steve for 50 000 pounds. She claims she injured a leg and wrist in the fall and that Steve was negligent because he did not have sufficient lighting or warning signs and exposed her to an unnecessary risk of injury.

          The Mail on Line reported that Steve said, I thought nothing of it, other than she must have been a bit embarrassed. I helped her up and she continued to search the premises for an intruder.

          I am incredulous that I am being sued by a Police officer whose duty it is to protect the public, he added. How can anyone feel safe calling the cops if they size you up for compensation while they’re fighting crime?

          If this mother of two has made a laughing stock of Britain’s entire Police Force she has been ably abetted by her Chief Constable Phil Gormley, now known as

Steve & dangerous curb

Gormless Phil.

          His pathetic, wishy washy response was that this undermines the public’s trust in the Police and he did not support her action.

          The lady was conveniently on sick leave over what was said to be an unrelated problem.

          But as soon as Gormless Phil heard about what had happened he should have immediately ordered PC Jones to apologise in writing to Steve and the Chief should have added his own apology on behalf of the Norfolk Constabulary as a whole.

          My sources now tell me that the lady cop doesn’t have to worry about whether or not she will get any money out of Steve because she is heading for the big time. She has fallen, this time with her bum in the butter.

          She is to be asked to star in a new Pink Panther series that will have her as the female Inspector Clouseau.

         

Gormless Phil

In the popular series the incompetent Inspector played mainly by Peter Sellers did things like falling down stairs while trying to interview a witness to a crime and accidentally shooting another cop in the backside.

          So you can understand how ideal PC Jones is for the part, especially as she has already got such widespread publicity for her new role.

          Have fun watching the show although you must all be cringing at the way one scruffy Police woman has ensure that the word Great will never ever be associated  with Britain again.

          Regards,

          Jon

Buy my book ‘Where have all the children gone?’ on Amazon.com  It’s a thriller with an underlying love story.

Catholic Paedophile Factory

Dear Catholic Parents,

         You have just been warned by none other than a Cardinal, who was one of the men who chose the new Pope that you should keep your children well away from any Catholic priests because you never know if they happened to have that illness.

         I’m not sure if it is air born or spread by close contact. But what is certain is that it ruins people’s lives forever.

         It’s been rife in the Church for centuries, but it is only now that it has been diagnosed as an illness by none other than South Africa’s Cardinal Wilfred Fox Napier who is also the Archbishop of Durban.

         But perhaps I am taking a liberty when I say diagnosed because although Napier told BBC Radio 5 in a live interview that from my experience paedophilia is actually an illness, it is not a criminal condition he has been back tracking ever since. 


O'Gorman raped in his teens by Father Sean Fortune, one of Ireland's most norotius paedophiles

 What gets me is Bishops appoint priests that they know have abused children to new parishes & more abuse happens, Colm O’Gorman, who now helps an Irish charity that assists abused victims. 

         Napier told the BBC that two priests he knew had been abused as children and had later started doing the same thing themselves. Because of their background he believed they were not criminally responsible for what they did.

That’s the modern cop out for crimes by turning them into an illness to make them seem less serious than they are by making out that the perpetrators can’t help what they do.

Some expert will tell us one of these days that murder is an illness.

         Napier has since claimed he was taken out of context. But how you get taken out of context in a live broadcast only a Cardinal will know.

         He has been Twittering away with these conflicting words of wisdom. I apologise to Victims of Child Abuse offended by misstatement of what was & still is my concern about all abused including abused abuser. Therefore Paedophilia must be treated. What must be punished is the Crime of Sexual Abuse of Children. As if there is any difference.

            How can society deal justly, fairly & equitably with the abused, who has suffered incalculable damage, then goes on to abuse? was another one of his quotes. Such abuser should received treatment to make good the damage done to him.

In prison or out of it, that’s for experts to decide, he added after having given us the impression that he was the expert on the subject.

His remarks also gave us a good idea of which side he is on.

         So it seems that if anybody has an illness it is this Cardinal. He has foot-in -mouth disease. And one wonders if any criminal action was ever been taken by his church against those two abusing priests he said he knew.

         If we assume that this is an illness that is passed from generation to generation, that makes the Catholic Church even more culpable for the spread of the disease among the children of its 1.2-billion followers.

         When it comes to paedophilia the Church has been a rabbit warren of deceit with cover ups being far more important than a cure. Victims were bribed or threatened with excommunication to ensure their silence.

         The situation was so bad that even Pope Benedict XVI, who has just resigned, issued a document telling Bishops to hush up cases of abuse.

         And the Church’s condonation of the practice couldn’t have been better illustrated by the attendance at the Vatican of Cardinal Roger Mahony, who was among the 115 cardinals who have just chosen the new Pope.

By hook or by crook was what he preached

         He was there even though he retired in 2011 after a huge cover up scandal that he admitted orchestrating.

         He had been Archbishop of Los Angeles (1985-2011) which recently paid $10-million compensation to four men molested by the Rev Michael Baker.

            Mahony’s contribution to the spread of the Church’s sickness was to allow Baker to continue as a priest for four years after he had admitted molesting children. Mahony’s cover up was eventually blown and Baker was jailed for 10 years in 2007 after pleading guilty to 12 offences.

         This however was just a small part of Mahony’s Christian work in trying to ensure that the Roman Catholic name remained pure.

         As part of the 2007 agreement the diocese paid a record $660-million to settle 500 clergy abuse lawsuits. Documents showed how Mahony had done his utmost to protect molesting priests.

         People say, Why didn’t you call the Police, the unrepentant cleric said. In those days no one reported these things to the Police, usually at the request of the families. What I did was consistent with what everybody did, in the Boy Scouts, in public schools and private schools across the country.

         That seems as good an excuse as any don’t you think, especially for a pillar of the Catholic Church.

         I liked that usually at the request of the families bit. And you would expect a church to set a far better example than to go along with what everybody else was doing that was so utterly reprehensible.

         Thankfully with the help of Cardinal Napier’s vision the Church has another heaven sent excuse for keeping the law at bay. Priests who molest little boys and girls are not criminals so there’s no need to call the Police.

         Now, with a clear conscience, the Church can administer its tried and tested remedy for this illness – move the bastards to another parish.

         Yours faithfully,

         Jon, who thanks God for his good luck in not having gone to a Catholic school and for having a voice so bad that I would never have qualified for a Catholic Church choir and that I didn’t have an angelic face that might also have got me in.  

Buy my book ‘Where have all the children gone?’ on Amazon.com  It’s a thriller with an underlying love story         

AP Jones Bra Shocker

Dear Ladies,

         This is something you are not supposed to know.

         An upmarket, store that stocks expensive brands like Pringle is selling you bras made for a middle to lower income, predominately cash only chain, with the labels removed.

         At least that’s what’s supposed to happen, one of the owners told me. But oops - on this occasion the labels were left on.

         And when I tried to establish who was supposed to remove them, that’s when the mystery really deepened.

         It happened at AP Jones the 80 year old, family owned clothing shop at Fish Hoek in Cape Town’s southern suburbs that has been patronised by generations of the area’s high society elite.

         Nothing attracts them more than an AP Jones sale. It’s the talk of the town.

         A tennis enthusiast friend looking for a bargain tried on a black Shock Absorber bra made by Playtex. It was marked down from R200 to R89.

         It fitted perfectly, but she didn’t like the colour so the shop assistant brought her a white one which she bought, assuming it was the same fit as the one she had tried on.

         But when she got dressed for a game it was uncomfortable. The fit was different so she looked at the label.

         It was Mr Price’s Maxed brand and there was no absorber for the shock she felt.

         At a Mr Price store I was told that their most expensive Maxed bra was R179.99.

         When my friend returned to the AP Jones shop she looked at the sports bra section and there were numerous others with the Mr Price label on them.

         Furious she spoke to Rick Bing one of the owners and a nephew of the founder. He went a bit red in the face, she said. He told me, ‘This is very embarrassing. We got these from our wholesaler and they should have cut the labels off before supplying them to us.’

         She returned the Mr Price bra and was given her money back even though notices in the shop say, Sales Goods - No Appros; No Returns; No Exchanges.

         The scandal spread rapidly through the tennis club where it was dubbed Bra Wars.

         When I spoke to Bing, who runs the business with his brother Greg, he said he knew about the incident. He then told me, She’s misunderstood me the way I meant the label should have been taken off. I prefer this wasn’t printed.

         He went on to say they often did stock clearance from factories and, We would buy it from Playtex or whom ever and usually what happens is Playtex would obviously remove that label so that we didn’t know that it was a Mr Price style and more importantly the customer wouldn’t think they were buying Mr Price garments from us.

         So it’s clear that the last thing he wanted was for his posh customers to know about this devilish merchandising ploy.

         It’s a style that we carry as a regular product, he went on. And it just so happened they had 120 units at a significantly better price which we bought and sold on. I’ve taken it up with Playtex today and I’ve had no response.

         However John MacDonald the Managing Director of Playtex denied that his firm cut off Mr Price labels; relabelled Mr Price stock or that they did this for any other brand.

But they did supply Bing with end of range Shock Absorber stock and a similar range that had been made for Mr Price got mixed up in the distribution area and ended up being sent to Mr Bing as part of his order, although labelled corrected as Mr Price product.

What was Mr Price’s reaction?

Paul Knoop, the Merchandising Direct of Mr Price Sport, appeared extremely agitated when he phoned me. He said things like, We feel seriously aggrieved. It is fraud. We take steps to close people down for something like this.

In emails he added, It is for the law to investigate and for a magistrate to rule. Our supplier manuals are exceptionally clear as to protocols that any supplier needs to follow and we cannot just let them sell our stock anywhere.

Strangely enough, believe it or not two similar situations were discussed with our CEO and my MD this week.

However when Rick Bing told me there was nothing untoward about what had happened my conversation with him went like this.

Jon - I have spoken to Mr Price and they say it’s extremely untoward.

Bing - Yes, of course it is.

J - They say it’s a criminal offense.

B - Mr Price is more than welcome to take it up with whoever they wish to.

         It was so untoward that a couple of days after my friend had seen all those Mr Price bras and spoken to Bing I went there with my wife and we couldn’t find any of them.

         So there you are ladies. If you continue to shop at AP Jones and you see bras or clothes without labels on them I’ll leave it to you to work out who might have removed them and where they might have come from.

         But one thing is certain. I’m sure you won’t appreciate having the wool pulled over your eyes.

         Regards,

         Jon, your Consumer Watchdog who will always expose what you are not supposed to know. 

Note: AP Jones is a one shop business whereas Mr Price is a huge group with branches all over the place and a 10-billion a year turnover.
 

Buy my book ‘Where have all the children gone?’ on Amazon.com  It’s a thriller with an underlying love story.

New Age's Moegsien Williams & a Question of Morality

Dear South African Newspaper Readers,

         I want to share this with you although it concerns a question of morality I would love Moegsien Williams to answer.

         Last year Williams became the 4th editor of the fledgling and controversial, two year old New Age national, daily newspaper.  It is owned by the Gupta family which has been accused of benefiting substantially from their links with President Jacob Zuma and the ANC Government.

         It is keeping its circulation figures secret so it evidently has nothing to brag about and needs all the help it can get.

         It claims to focus on the positive side of news and to only make constructive criticism of our leaders. Could this be the definition of a government lap dog?  

         Ryland Fisher, the New Age editor who resigned after just 17 months to be replaced by Williams, said this of him: He is a respected name in South African journalism and it says something about the New Age that they can attract a person of his calibre.

         He certainly has a long and distinguished career on papers that would have been more likely to attack the South African government than to praise it. He has been the Editor in Chief of The Star, the flagship of the Independent Newspaper Group, and he was also in the hot seat at the Cape Argus, the Cape Times and the Pretoria News. His other achievements include being Chairman of the International Press Institute and Vice Chairman of the South African Editor’s Forum.

         With that kind of background it is hardly surprising that he was a member of the Press Council’s task team that last year compiled a 98 page report ostensible to improve South African journalism.

         But its real purposed appeared to be to tweak the existing Press Council’s mechanism so that the newspaper industry could go on policing itself in the face of mounting pressure from the Government to replace it with a statutory, media appeals tribunal.

         Not having read the report I can only assume that one of its aims was to also try and maintain the utmost integrity among journalists.

         So in view of Williams’ vast experience of newspapers and being an adviser to the Press Council, the question I want to ask him is this: If a freelance journalist submits a story to a paper he is editing, does he think it is morally right to print the story under the byline of a member of his own staff?

         A couple of years ago The Star, which Williams was editing at the time, carried splash after splash about the horrific deeds of orthopaedic surgeon Dr Wynne Lieberthal. It was a huge story that I knew something about.

         I was a journalist, turned private business investigator, who looked into the doctor’s nefarious activities long before the stories about him broke in the media. My inquiries related to a life insurance scam so I had thoroughly researched the doctor.

         And having once worked for The Star as a reporter I gave it a report about Lieberthal, which was a development the paper had not yet cover.

        The story was used quite big but not with my byline on it. It was credited to a Star reporter who had done a lot of the previous reports on Lieberthal.

         My name was not mentioned anywhere as the author.

         I protested to the News Editor and other high up members of the staff to no avail. Eventually I emailed Williams complaining that his paper had ‘hijacked my story.’

         I got no reply from him. A senior editor merely assured me that I would still get paid for my efforts, but no apology of any kind was forthcoming.

         It would be nice if Mr Williams would now tell us all if this is the kind of morality he will be following at the New Age and whether he will continue his publication’s stated policy of only recording the positive side of life and only publishing constructive criticism of our leaders?

         Regards,

         Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman

Note: I emailed this to Williams before I posted it and invited him to make any comments he wished. But as was the case when his paper hijacked my story I got no reply. It seems when journalists are in a corner they are as likely to remain silent as anybody else.

Buy my book ‘Where have all the children gone’ on Amazon. com  It’s a thriller with an underlying love story.