Well, maybe instead of griping so much from afar about what RSA has become, wouldn't the responsible thing be for all of you to return to your country and start fixing it? If RSA is as bad as all of you claim (mind you, um, all 3 or 4 I have found so far here), then why are many, many people moving there these days? Perhaps, to put it in a nutshell, it's because things are not rosy anywhere anymore. And throwing up your hands and saying "it changed" is a cheap shot. If you tried to change it and were made to leave (like I was the U.S. under Bush) or if you tried to change it and were met with apathy and total resignation (as here in Germany), then fine. But to leave, then sit back and take cheap shots from afar at everyone else willing to go to the RSA and give it a whirl is cowardly, low, and deserves no respect.

All of life is a series of trade-offs, and if the trades include "total security" (as many of us experienced first-hand under Bush) at the cost of everything that made life worthwhile, I'll be happy to move to a place with a good climate, an acceptable standard of life and yes, problems such as crime, sometimes dodgy politics (but actually on a par with both Ozzie and U.S. politics), comparatively low pay and other inconveniences, problems and challenges.

I have experienced a number of fun things in the oh-so-secure U.S. ranging from being completely robbed by a room mate referred to me by an agency which collected a stiff premium for "screening" all applicants (but which somehow managed to miss the fact that the guy had a criminal record and had been in and out of 4 cocaine-addiction treatment programs in the three years immediately preceding their referral), a car jacking in broad daylight in urban Boston, several breaking and enterings in various U.S. states and cities, to four car break-ins and thefts as well as vandalism in the smallish city I currently still live in in Germany, which used to be a safe place, too. My uncle was beaten to death in his own apartment in Berlin by a Russian immigrant looking for money. A cousin was raped in a city park in Cologne in broad daylight. In Germany, murderers serve a "life sentence" of 15 years. Crime is rampant all over these days - not just in RSA. And, as my father used to tell me over and over again, statistics can be laid out any which way the beholder, publisher, analyst or reader chooses to. And Germans say Papier ist geduldig - paper is patient...

Face it - crime is a problem everywhere, whether in RSA or aboard a cruise ship sailing towards the Suez Canal or in your own home in metropolitan Berlin, Boston, Cologne, or, or, or.

What I was trying to say in the other thread I started where I told MartinW not to bother posting his vitriol was simply that I am aware of the crime "statistics" and facts, I am aware that RSA is not perfect (having several RSA friends on active duty in H.M.'s Rhine Army here in Germany whom I've spoken with at length first-hand about it) and I am still willing to give it a try. After all, I have been given a contract and will be able to continue working - something which as a (nearly) 53-year-old I am unable to do in either Germany or America anymore... if the young leave RSA, fine. More jobs for us "old farts" who still would like to work rather than living on the dole or from the handouts of friends and relatives.

If you are happy with Oz, power to you.

I may be unhappy in RSA, time will tell. I'd just like the chance to make up my own mind without dire warnings and scare tactics you three or four seem hell bent on using all over this forum. If, in time, I come back here in time to join your chorus, you may all chide me with "we told you so's" then, but until then, stow the negativity and answer constructively. Thanks very much.