‘Twas the Night ‘Fore Christmas (2011 edition)

‘Twas the night ‘fore Christmas, just after I had retired to bed;

I was reflecting on how mankind had become somewhat mad;

I was pondering on mysteries that made me somehow sad;

It was quiet; there was nothing but silence to be heard.

‘Twas suddenly that the silence was punctuated by a loud thud;

I rushed downstairs and there I saw a little being, covered in mud.

Clad in a red coat, he laughed mischievously and zipped around like a scud.

Everything he touched in the house collapsed with a thunderous thud.

“Y-o-u-u are not Santa?” Stuttered I. “Speak not you Doofus!” was his answer.

“Y-o-u-u are not human?” Stuttered I; searching within for courage to muster.

“Human?” He answered from under the table as he proceeded to gander.

“T-t-hen what prey are you?” Stuttered I. “Speak now, I need an answer!”

“Why, sir I be a fairy!” Said he, in a tone that was jovial and merry.

“Fairies are not scary” Replied I. “Your revolting face only makes one wary”.

I had to parry as I said that, because he hurled a bottle of Christmas Sherry.

Suddenly, he proceeded to chirp hysterically, like a demon-possessed canary.

“Your lunacy makes me sore!” He cursed.”Aren’t you acquainted with Irish Lore?”

I lurched up and bludgeoned him savagely; in a manner that anyone would deplore.

“Let me be! You whore!” He swore. “Look at the fine coat that you just tore!”

“I won’t! until you grant me wishes galore”. Said I. “Take me to the North Pole!”

Suddenly, I was in Santa’s cold lair, where the elves were staging a revolt.

The scene looked familiar; I could see the permutations that would unfold.

“We are the 99!” Proclaimed they. “Like Santa, we demand to be extolled!”

“We don’t want gold!” Said they. “All we want is for our stories to be told!”

“I wish they could just have what they want”, I quietly said.

Said the Leprechaun: “This be the second wish that you just made!”

The elves were ecstatic; they awarded me an accolade.

But, slowly I started to realize the mistake that I had made.

On Christmas, the world woke up to a different set of carols;

When people sang, they ended up screeching like a flock of sparrows;

Santa’s name was prefixed with the names of a million elves;

I ruined Christmas by responding to the demands of a million elves!

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, while I strolled along a woodland trail;
The breeze was punctuated by a stench that made the air stale.
On the horizon was a bizarre being that looked awfully frail;
It appeared to have rending claws and a spiny extended tail;
It was adorned in straw, and sauntered at the pace of a snail.

Tugging behind it were revolting people, clad in garments coloured red;
They were sadistic little beings that had gaunt bearded heads.
They were elves with a look that only inspired feelings of dread.
They were grasping blades that could dice anything into shreds.
Tugging behind them were reindeer that were towing a belled red sled.

In the sled was St. Nicholas; appearing venerable like a deity of old.
His companions bound me, and he pelted me with flaming coals!
They flogged me with clubs that were fashioned from refined gold.
Whenever they took respite, St. Nicholas would hotly scold.
They lapped-up my blood, and left me to perish alone in the cold.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, while I was perishing on the woodland trail;
The breeze was punctuated by a stench that made the air stale.
Peering over me was a bizarre being that looked awfully frail;
It wasn’t real; just an entity in my tall Christmas tale!

Why Africa has a high HIV/AIDS infection rate

Note: The use of racial/gender references does not imply bias or discrimination. This blog post is just a dispassionate interrogation of scientific data.

A map of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the world:

I’ve been browsing through Nicholas Christakis et al’s book entitled Connected: The Surprising Power Of Our Social Networks, and I think I now understand why Africa has a higher HIV/AIDS infection rate than Western Europe; it all boils down to differences between the mating habits of Caucasians and Native Africans.

According to Messr. Christakis, whites with many sexual partners tend to have sex with other whites with lots of partners, and; whites with few partners have sex with whites with few partners. Whereas, blacks with many partners have sex with blacks with BOTH few and many partners. [1]

[What does this mean: This could mean that mating relations in white people follow the homophily principle; ‘like people mating with like people’, and mating relationships in black people follow it to a lesser extent. I would be interested in finding out why…]

Hence, STDs, like HIV/AIDS are held in the “core” of white sexual networks. Whereas, in active black partners, they tend to spread to the periphery of the sexual network, as shown by the blue and purple nodes in the diagrams below.

In the sexual networks below, a line represents a sexual relationship between two people. The central nodes represent the more embedded people; the people with the most overlapping sexual partners (which correlates with a high HIV/AIDS infection rate) and the peripheral nodes represent the people with fewer overlapping sexual partners:

Network illustrating HIV Infection Rate in White People:

Network illustrating HIV Infection Rate in Black People:

This ‘mating disparity’, among other things, contributes to the differences between the HIV/AIDS infection rates in Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe OR among white populations and black populations in the same localities.

Weird stuff!   

[1] Generally, at a global level, people prefer to have intimate relations with people of their own race.

Jaggers: The Fall Of An Illustrious Zimbabwean Titan

Jaggers Wholesalers Zimbabwe was founded in 1910 by an Englishman named Messr. John W. Jagger. It opened its first branch in Bulawayo, and its sales team traveled around the country by ox-drawn carriage, peddling goods imported from South Africa.

By 1998, the entity’s branch network had exploded to fifty-two branches that were scattered across Zimbabwe. And thanks to a substantial equity injection from, and the technical expertise of, Metcash - a company domiciled in South Africa, the company had access to a global procurement network and a state-of-the-art computerized inventory management system that bolstered its efficiency.

Just before the beginning of the new millennium, Jaggers expanded its operational focus and built a mini-hypermarket; a one-stop superstore that sold high quality goods from every corner of the globe. The new facility offered end-consumers a wide assortment of goods that were sold ‘in bulk’ and regular quantities; a concept that was relatively new in Zimbabwe at the time.

The target-customers of the store were affluent, discerning customers, who couldn’t be satisfied with the ‘regular’ products: people who only desired the best quality products. Jaggers, the hyper-market, exponentially expanded its range of high quality offerings to attract its target customers. In short, it is safe to say that Jaggers configured its systems, processes and operations to increase the quality of its product offerings in a never-ending self-reinforcing cycle.

Because of this, the organization became unassailably successful; it became an industry leader in the high-end retail sector, and as far as hypermarkets in Zimbabwe were concerned, Jaggers, the hypermarket, was the industry. The adaptation of Porter’s 5-forces model below, illustrates the firm’s dominance of the high-end hypermarket industry:

At that time, it seemed that the only way for Jaggers to go was up, it had a solid and profitable business model, and it continually optimized it, to supercharge its engine of growth; the high-end superstore.

…Then the Zimbabwean economy began to wither at an exponential pace.

The declining economic fortunes of Zimbabwe spawned a phenomenon known as ‘brain-drain’. Simply stated, the poor economic prospects of the country were a push-factor that drove away its best and brightest minds; the socio-economic strata that Jaggers, the hypermarket, catered to. Incomes in Zimbabwe also plummeted to pre-1960 levels, and the ranks of the affluent were shrinking at an increasing pace.

Surprisingly, Jaggers’ / the hypermarket’s business model did not adapt to this changing reality. The entity kept on multiplying its ranges of high quality offerings, and operating with the outmoded mindset that was responsible for its past success.

Zimbabwe had shortages of basic foodstuffs (like bread, rice and maize meal), and Jaggers was incongruously expanding its offerings of tinned salmon (from increasingly exotic geographies). In fact, you could say that the product offerings of Jaggers had shot beyond the prevalent needs of its target-customers.

While Jaggers was busy importing high quality goods, other players saw an opportunity in trading exclusively in basic goods, and there sprawled-up a diverse range of small stores that sold low quality basic commodities (bread, sugar, milk, soap, toilet paper, and cooking oil). These ‘stores’ had unimpressive instore layouts, poor merchandising and unskilled workers, but their business models allowed them to make profits at very low prices; largely owing to their low fixed costs.

The events that followed are best explained through the use of the adaptation of Dr. Clayton Christensen’s model of disruption below:

In the model of disruption above, the vertical axis represents improvements of stock quality, which is largely calibrated by a qualitative assessment of consumer perception of stock quality. The horizontal axis represents time. Points that lie to the right represent a ‘higher level of stock quality’, while those that lie to the left represent a lower one. The blue trajectory, labeled sustaining business models, represents the business model that Jaggers, the hypermarket, applied. On this trajectory, very few new entrants could compete with, or challenge the superiority of Jaggers’ business model; that chiefly focused on high-end retail. The brown trajectory that is lower than the blue one represents disruptive business models that cater for the very basic needs of customers who are being ‘over-served’ by incumbents.

Hence, when the economy of Zimbabwe went into a moribund state, Jaggers, a company that had a sustaining business model, represented by the blue trajectory, had a rate of improvement of stock quality that was increasingly outpacing the needs of its customers. The point labeled (a) represents new players entering the markets; selling very low quality products that are relevant to consumers’ dominant needs. Jaggers’ new competitors had business models with low fixed costs and product offerings that were in alignment with the new reality of Zimbabwe. Because of this, the new entrants ‘outcompeted’ Jaggers (and increasingly displaced it from its ‘leadership position’ with every incremental improvement they made in the quality of their offerings).

Will Jaggers survive into the future?

It’s hard to tell, but my bet is they won’t. Although the company is now under new ownership, it is still trying to re-establish a business model that was discounted by the ebb and flow of Zimbabwe’s economy.

Maybe business sense won’t save them; maybe dame fortune will intervene in the firm’s affairs and alter its destiny!