NOT so long ago, our affable Minister of Safety and Security — him of the broad smile while expressing discomfort — announced the unfreezing of some 2000 posts in the South African Police Services. (Actually, this was a couple of years ago, but no matter.)

Some months later, we in the news business began to ask the usual questions related to delivery; such as: "When will these 2000 positions be filled?"

Here they are -- the wholly unofficial top 10 signs that you are in a banana republic...

A RATHER large Afrikaner of our acquaintance -- known affectionately to those of us who like him as "The Big Boer" -- has very definite ideas about our continent.

"Look at Africa from the sky at night. There is only darkness. Johannesburg is a glittering jewel. Cross the border and the lights go out. Ja boet."

'In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty,' Phil Ochs once said ...

DAWN was breaking over the magnificent desolation of the Karoo landscape as cats eyes flung themselves towards me along the road pointing toward an infinite horizon.

This is the 9th month of the year 1999. There are 99 days to go to the last year of this century. Do you feel a sense of destiny?

A BUTTERFLY flapped his wings in East Timor, setting up gentle spirals of air currents that grew as they intersected harmoniously with others nearby. He lived gloriously for a few short hours, mated, and died. Night fell and the remnants of his wings tossed and turned, no longer with life of their own, in the now strong breeze.

The stars looked down silently upon the scene. They had seen it before.

How we deal with death is as important as how we deal with life...

If you knew that a rose would scream, would you still pluck it?