My Life on this planet.

Saint Nicholas Last weekend was 6 December and that meant Saint Nicholas  day in a number of countries such as Belgium and The Netherlands. This is a day when children receive presents from their parents and at school while even employers can organise a Saint Nicholas celebration whereby the children of parents working for the company can come to collect a gift and enjoy a small party with e.g. facial body painting and sweats. It should be a fun day for everyone, a little like Santa Claus in the English-speaking world (that is based upon the same person) who also gives toys to children during the Christmas period and is now also widely celebrated in other parts of the world. Except that it has become politicised to an extend that some people are calling to end the whole thing and as a result children will no longer receive something on that day although its end will also be cost-effective for society when no longer presents need to be bought - and this ...

Dear Mr Nelson Mandela, May you rest in peace as you were really a remarkable man who had to live an extraordinary life. As a younger man, you came up for your own oppressed people, i.e. black people in a racist South-Africa, ruled by white people. However, you quickly understood you had to defend everyone who has fewer chances. As a result, you spent many years in prison, so that 27 years of what could have been your best years were wasted. Still, after your release you embraced everyone: black people but even those white people who sentenced you to jail. You had one condition: they had to speak so errors could be acknowledge and then corrected. As a result, a society developed where black, white and other colours can live together in what is today known as the Rainbow Nation . Although, we should not forget President F.W. de Klerk who liberated you because another person holding the office may have resulted in another outcome. Of course, it is still not perfect, and many...

Example: South Africa and its mines. The world's biggest platinum producer, Anglo American Platinum or Amplats, fired 12,000 South African miners when they were on strike for higher wages. A few weeks before, 34 people died during strikes at Lonmin, another mine. How would one describe these managers? Are they good? I don't think so: Their employees are unhappy and strike because they say they earn too little for the dangerous work they do. And as I understand it, life in South Africa is becoming more expensive and thus people need more money.  Most of the managers live far away and earn enormous amounts of money, therefore they do not know (or bother to know) prices are increasing in South Africa and thus life becomes more difficult for everyone, including miners who have a dangers job (to understand the bad working conditions of gold miners, search the web for pictures). Three weeks of strikes cost the company about 700m rand ($82m; £51m) in revenue. Indeed, n...