Tracking #Swine Flu Contagion [+ Special Notice to Bloggers]

SHOOT: Please see below for useful source sites to stay informed. Please exercise discretion with information.

Advisory: Bloggers please do be as discerning as you can be with the information you're putting out there. Do not send PANIC or hoax messages. Lives may depend on the accuracy and even the tone of the messages we pass on. At the same time, comminques from government ought to be treated with a certain amount of skepticism. They've lied to us before, possibly for our own good, but there you have it.

Bloggers can provide a vital service by providing on the ground insights into what is happening in your country on the ground. To differentiate these high quality messages SHOOT suggests tagging your content as follows: #swine flu. People searching for these distinctive high quality messages can then google #swine flu. Use #swine flu with discretion, let's keep the 'non-essential noise to a minimum.

clipped from mashable.com Step 1. Check the WHO Disease Outbreak News Center Step 2. Set up Google News Alerts Step 4. Find Where the Flu has Spread with HealthMap Stay Calm, Stay Informed While there’s likely to be much concern on social networking sites about public health incidents, it’s important to keep things in proportion, and go direct to the sources of news rather than spreading panic.

The Bermuda Triangle in Pictures

SHOOT: Some interesting shots.

clipped from www.wired.com The Mystery: On December 5, 1945, five torpedo bombers took off from a US Naval base in Florida for a routine training flight and were never seen again. That's just one of about 70 such incidents that have fueled the legend of the Bermuda Triangle, a roughly 450,000-square-mile area of sea between Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. Mariners and aviators alike fear an "electronic fog" in the region's atmosphere that some say spins compass needles, jams radar signals, and consumes planes and ships. The Reality: Statistical coincidence and sloppy research, according to the US Navy, which doesn't recognize the existence of the Bermuda Triangle. "When we are in the darkness," she says, "the brain fills in what the eye can't see. Darkness is a fundamental instrument to induce terror, it can trick our minds into thinking a simple creak in a floorboard is an intruder." A cruise ship sets out into the Bermuda Triangle from Miami Beach. clipped from www.zeemaps.com

South Africa elections in pictures

Mandela votes in Killarney.

Flowers

Strelitzia is a genus of five species of perennial plants, native to South Africa. The genus is named after the duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, birthplace of Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom. The common name of the genus is bird of paradise flower, because of a supposed resemblance of its flowers to the bird of paradise. In South Africa it is commonly known as a crane flower. - Wiki.com

Black and White

Christina Aguilera Pregnant [COVER PHOTO]

I find this an incredibly sexy photo.

Should South Africa's Politicians Be Obsessed with Race?

SHOOT: If they want to win, yes. because the ordinary citizen is very race conscious. Morally though, it is a device, a ploy that really amounts to a focus on finger wagging, rationalising and justifying and defending. There's not a focus on the merits of what needs to be done for all. South Africa, or any country, can't afford to operate in such a divided and divisive manner. But are unfortunately in the habit of doing so. Imagine an elections in the USA or Britain where one candidate effectively says: I represent the interests of blacks. The other says: I don't represent your interests, I represent the interests of my race group. Isn't it better to - as sincerely and genuinely as possible - represent interests, economic goals and civic values of service delivery for all?

clipped from www.sowetan.co.za During a recent interview with Sowetan, DA leader Helen Zille, pictured, was asked about the continuing racial inequalities in Cape Town – a city which her party wants to project as a Mecca of racial harmony. In response, she argued that she lived in Rosebank “a suburb which is more racially integrated than any other suburb in Johannesburg”. “Johannesburg is much more segregated than Cape Town. I live in a black majority suburb – coloured and black majority suburb, and I have never found a place in Johannesburg which is as integrated,” she said. Either Zille does not know Johannesburg and has a parochial view about it; or she ascribes to the dictum by a former Mpumalanga premier that it is okay for politicians to lie. I suspect the latter is the case. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Zille’s response about racially integrated suburbs is a manifestation of the DA’s even worse flaw – its superficial, and therefore racist, approach to non-racialism.

Postcards from South Africa

If you would like a photographer based in Johannesburg to cover the 2010 World Cup contact me here.

Water

Baby

Photos I like...

...but didn't take.

Photos I like...

...but didn't take

Birthday snaps

If you're in Johannesburg and would like me to shoot your party get in touch.

Photos I like...

...but didn't take.

Colors and Hues