10.000

Red seats. These are now available to sit on in busses in the Danish capital Copenhagen. A few per bus.

These red seats have a symbol to it. A gesture. A message. When you – the bus traveller – decides to take a seat on/in the red seat you indicate to fellow commuters that you are open to communication with strangers. As simple as that. It’s like “Yo! I’m sittin’ here so ya can talk to me!”

A chat room on the bus. A mobile chat room. Chat on the go. Indeed, a red seat passenger gives the green light for any stranger to come and chat to him/her. And because these random chats sometimes can / could lead to something more, the red seats have informally been called ‘love seats’.

Martin Wex from the Copenhagen bus operator said that the aim is to attract more commuters. He added that the red seats offer passengers a chance to talk, chat, converse, laugh and maybe even to fall in love. How a bus ride in a red seat can change your life.... for the better or sadly for some for the worse.

As simple as that. From former warmongering Vikings to love-matchmaking public transport. Public blind dating. Love on wheels. Getting up to go to work is just looking a bit more brighter and more fun in Copenhagen.

From love bugs to corrupt cops. Lots of them! Human behaviour remains an unlimited source of adventure. Kisses and sleaze.

More than 10.000 cops are serving jail time in South Africa. Yes, ten thousand police officers broke the law themselves. Serve & Protect!!

General Bheki Cele, the national police commissioner, made this nearly surreal statement at a funeral of a cop. K.I.A.

That’s 10.000 crooked cops out of a total of 150.000 men and women in blue. Kick that! Wondering if they are trying to get into the Guinness Book of records, cause it’s pretty insane. The rot within. The stench coming from the police stations.
So that means that 6.66% of South African cops are dirty. Corrupt. Helping criminals. Part of gangs themselves. Fraudulent. Murdering. Stealing. Raping. Dealing dope. Forging legal documents. Pimping. Trading in weapons. Smuggling. You name it, some South African cop is doing it.

Did some Google search. This 6.66% is 20 times more than the likelihood that the average South African citizen is a criminal. Serve & Protect indeed.

Some more numbers to crunch. In 2008 South Africa had 340 prisoners for every 100.000 citizens. That was back then the 7th highest rate in the world. The police ratio comes to 6600 per 100.000. Insane. Abuse of power?

But put that against the background of total population and it’s more frightening. In 2008 South Africa had 166.267 jailbirds for a population of 47 million. Mexico had 217.436 inmates, but against a population of 104 million. Puts a hell of a different perspective on some numbers.

But sticking to these dirty cops. Soon there will be the need to built prisons just for cops. The blue prison. And free access 24/7 to episodes of CSI on TV. Or the Crime Channel. Ten thousand cops that just could not resist the temptation to abuse the badge and the gun. They just could not stick to their pledge to serve and protect. They took a dirty side road. Serving the community as just too good to stick to, so 10.000 flicked the switch and went rogue. From serve & protect to kill, maim, steal, rape,...and so much other crap. Cops playing bad guys should get double sentence cause besides becoming criminals they also abused trust and dirtied a profession where many die in the line of duty,... especially in crime-ridden South Africa. Kick that.

Human behaviour sometimes just stinks.

And oil on the shores of Louisiana stinks too. Obama got some headaches at home. A very ugly oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico because oil giant BP didn’t install some kind of special emergency cap as was needed. Saving money to make a bigger profit. The environment can go to hell and so thus the livelihood of the fishermen in Louisiana. The arrogance of big companies. Sue the hell out of them!

And then Times Square escaped a bloodbath. On the edge of purgatory! A nutter with insane views on how to solve his disagreements filled his Nissan Pathfinder with a homemade killing machine. Thanks to the vigilance of a t-shirt selling army veteran, the carnage was avoided. And the nutter from the Pathfinder will now find his path to jail. Caught and handcuffed he will face justice! What a sad story. How hatred and narrow-minded dumbness can lead to innocent deaths.

New Yorkers are surely a bit edgier again. Let’s hope the Bush and Cheney lovers don’t play political gutter-games and use this near-disaster to score ugly political points for the upcoming Congress elections. But something tells me they will.... Scum remains scum.

And the Iranian nuke-freak was in Zimbabwe meeting mad Bob. That’s a pair from the freak show of insanity. A mentally unstable dictator who turned his beautiful African nation from breadbasket into starvation, and an Iranian extremist who wants to wipe Israel of the map. Nice duo. A meeting of minds. Troubled minds. Short-circuited minds. Dictators always come together for champagne and caviar. Alcohol free champagne for the man from Tehran I guess. Anyway, the handshake smells of a dirty deal of Iranian cash for the bankrupt Zimbabwe against Zimbabwean minerals (uranium??) for the angry Iranian.

Human behaviour always has a price.

Throw out. The lads from New Jersey have done it again. The Gaslight Anthem has released a new album called “American Slang”. And it’s another great collection of fine, rocking tunes. Maybe a bit more polished than their previous stuff, but still sounding great and fresh. They still have that New Jersey, underground-ish Springsteen feel to it. Some tracks on “American Slang” explore a bit wider musical avenues but The Gaslight Anthem lads are still going for it a 100%. A great listening pleasure.

C - Ya

collateral – May 2010