Making a Decision

Back in 2022, I received an Offer of Publication, from a major publisher. That was my 380-page book Everything, Briefly. What? What should I do? I examined the offer. I checked them out thoroughly. Then I decided to go to one of my favourite benches in Cape Town (the one in this photo) and pray, and not leave the bench until I had made a decision. I decided to accept the offer. You may click on the photo to enlarge.

Learning About Fund-Raising

When I first entered ministry, I knew very little about fund-raising -- and I mean that in the broadest sense -- keeping a Church afloat. Nobody taught us that in seminary! Yet in general, ministers become first class fund-raisers -- and they may underestimate the vast experience they have gained. I myself, as time went on, understood more and more about funding a Church. At one of my lowest moments, back in 1994, the Church treasurer told me that the Church was insolvent. I went to an older minister for help and advice. Ultimately it is a raft of strategies that makes a Church work, not a single one. That same Church where the treasurer announced insolvency ultimately saw its highest income in generations. OBSERVATION: One also learns a lot about how one should view the finances of a Church. I have often said, it is not the same as a business. The photo shows a busy clothes sale.

Seven Lectures

I have forty-two lectures -- maybe more -- this coming semester. I decided to prepare seven lectures yesterday (outlined in the image) -- which is to say, revise them. Each of them was about 5,000 words. Alas, I failed in my quest. By 11:00 pm I had done five lectures. OBSERVATION: This morning I reached seven lectures. My students complained about lecture seven. They said it was too hard. So I rearranged it -- not to make it simpler, but to make the presentation simpler.

Life Not Uninteresting

Oy vey. Life has not been uninteresting. This is me in the High Court this week. I am advised: “Your story is not completely safe to publish.” So, yes, the pressure was intense. I needed to work through the night to rise to it – but it paid off. OBSERVATION: How do you like my colour co-ordination with the court? Impeccable, don’t you think?

Fatal Dose

I handed a prescription to a chemist. He looked at it twice. He said: "We have a problem with this, Sir." I said: "You haven't got it." He said: "It's a fatal dose. You'll be dead in a day." OBSERVATION: If the chemist hadn't picked it up, I would have picked it up. It was 30 tablets a day, instead of one tablet a day for 30 days. One wonders, though, how many such mistakes didn't get picked up. It does happen. I know one old man whose doctor, just recently, stopped his medication and he was instantly recovered!

Image Manipulation Tools

Recently I had to replace my Chromebook computer (Chromebook computers run Chrome, Android, and Linux side by side on the same desktop). So I installed the powerful Linux GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). But oh, where did all the functions go? It was a stripped down version. Here is a fast way to add a massive suite of features to GIMP via the terminal in Linux: a collection of 500+ artistic filters and image manipulation tools. In the Linux terminal,

enter: 

sudo apt update

then enter:

sudo apt install gimp-plugin-registry gimp-gmic -y

Foothills of Catastrophe

There is a worrying heat wave in Europe. Hugh Montgomery, professor of intensive care medicine at University College London, says, “This isn’t the new norm at all; this is the foothills of absolute catastrophe.” Unfortunately, I think he is quite right. OBSERVATION: And yet, I think that our approach to this problem is still reactive. We don't yet have the understanding to correct it on this or that philosophical principle.

POSTSCRIPT: The "father of environmental ethics", Holmes Rolston III, rightly saw that "the epistemic crisis is as troubling as the environmental crisis, and one must be fixed before the other can."

Two New Designs

Just when you think you are all washed up ... I am pleased to see that two of my electronic designs are published in the July 2026 Silicon Chip Magazine: 

1. Random Traffic Lights, and 

2. A Proximity Sensor. 

They both have special features. At the push of a button, the Traffic Lights randomly fail (a nice South African touch), and the Proximity Sensor is diode-based: by using reversed diodes for a potential divider, an op-amp input becomes very sensitive to the nearness of a human body. I took the photo of South African traffic lights in Thembalethu.

Cape Town Hotel School

It's just a pretty picture today -- a photo of wife E at a function at the Cape Town Hotel School last week. As a guest there, one is in fact a guinea pig. Yet they offer first class service and food.

Nearly 10,000 Reads

It's been a busy day. But I see, at the end of the day, that nearly 10,000 people have read my blog today. It mystifies me, sometimes. I just "write what I like", as the late Steve Biko once said. Compare this to reaching, say, 100 people through a sermon, or a few dozen through a lecture. OBSERVATION: Then again, sermons and lectures are a lot weightier than blog posts!

POSTSCRIPT: My blog reached a daily high of 16,000 reads during this week.

Cyborg Soloist

OK, this is interesting. Two years ago, I wrote on this blog, "During a concert, one hears the physical effects that performers have on musical instruments -- and of course their voices. However, one does not highlight any physical effects besides. One might think of jumping on stage, moving a microphone, even such actions as a performer moving their eyebrows or turning their wrists." Today there is a video on CNN of someone who has now done just this, titled Cyborg Soloist: https://edition.cnn.com/world/video/uk-cyborgpianist-transformers-hnk-spc OBSERVATION: You saw it first on this blog! Which would suggest: this was indeed a good (mental) invention. I think my inventions (almost) all are good ones, on this blog.

In the Name of Mercy

It's not dead, it's ... alive! I am the editor of Pi Gamma, the successor to Pi Beta, of which I was an editor. That reached no. 7 among philosophy publications in the UK. Pi Gamma has a far more modest boast, with less than 150,000 page-views. Anyway, there is now a new poem up on Pi Gamma, by the renowned author Yahia Lababidi, In the Name of Mercy: https://philosophical-investigations-mirror.blogspot.com/2026/06/in-name-of-mercy.html

Christmas Lunch

This one's just a pretty picture: Christmas lunch in the townships -- not yet fully loaded up. A chop still came on top of this. The meat is typically barbecued outside. Beans are always popular in a township meal. A classic is samp and beans. 

New Chromebook

Alas, one-third of my computer screen blew out -- a Chromebook which ran (mainly) Chrome and Linux operating systems. It was time for a new computer. So I bought a new Chromebook (the Chromebook has impressed me). I powered up my new computer, and it requested my router password, my e-mail address and password, and ... up popped my old computer! I was astonished. Where did it get that? Now I just needed to copy my files across -- which was zippy. However, I needed to recreate the Linux section of the computer -- but that was easy. OBSERVATION: It's all very well for Google to have such magic powers over my computer -- and millions like it -- but what if somebody somewhere turned malevolent?

Single Mothers: My Experience

There is, in our Black and Coloured communities in particular, a very big problem with single parenthood. For instance, over 40% of mothers are single parents. This often has a degrading effect on both mothers and children -- and makes life hard for the mothers. From this point of view, it has been interesting to see 15 years of development now in my wife's community. A child of, say, 5 years old is now 20 years old ... I can think of one who got married. A few fell pregnant, then married their lovers -- which is the next best option. A few fell pregnant and stayed with their lovers. A few fell pregnant and suffered the degradation I speak about. Some had close shaves -- for example, one was expelled from school. And a few kept themselves pure. OBSERVATION: It is a very big clan.