in bocca al lupo to the dog star

An uneasy calm now exists in South Africa since earlier this month after having seen the worst violence since apartheid. The violence and looting followed upon the jailing of the President Jacob Zuma, who was sentenced to 15 months in jail for contempt of court on 29 June this year. That was after he refused to appear before a commission investigating corruption during his nine years in office. He handed himself over to police on 7 July. His arrest led to protests, violence and looting in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng and consequently spread to Gauteng province. Zuma was a controversial figure to say the least. But that is not what concerns us here. What led to the protests and why, and what is it about South Africa that would lead to such large riots? We’ll have a look at those matters here and South Africa’s astrology. Continue reading “The 2021 riots and looting in South Africa”

On the 25^th of May this year in a suburb of Minneapolis, George Perry Floyd was murdered by a policeman during a routine callout. That is the public perception (see update at end for more details). He wasn’t shot trying to flee. He apparently wasn’t even resisting arrest. He was instead pinned to the ground by three police officers because he was afraid and claustrophobic, pinned to the point that he was suffocated and later died of a heart attack, according to the autopsy report. And yes, he was black. It was a strange thing to have happened, though, for several reasons. The arrest and pinning, with his loss of consciousness, was recorded for posterity on two cell phones and a security camera and soon went viral. The police seemed nonchalant. The nation exploded in protests and riots as a result. The world stood in solidarity with the protests. But why has this event caused such an outpouring when people die at the hands of police nearly every day in the United States? We’ll look at why here. Continue reading “The George Floyd riots: A closer look (Updated 4 June at end)”