Tag Archives: politics

We’ve Spoken About Striking Before, But I Think You Missed My Point

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Your Grass vs Greener GrassLets pretend just for a second you are a cattle farmer.

Every year you know you need to sell a specific amount of cattle to break even. 30 cows to cover the food and medicine. Another 20 cows for salaries. 50 cows to trade for new cattle  (fresh blood to keep your stock strong). 100 cows to pay salaries. You get my point.

So, every year you feed your cattle, and you give them medicine, you brand them so that they can’t go missing (read as stolen) etc. You as the farmer know exactly what is needed to not only break even but make a profit.

If the cows don’t give birth to new cows each year, your herds will not grow. You need your herds to grow to make more money. You need more money to pay increasing costs of having more cattle. Its a vicious circle.

Now that you are a well educated and well equipped farmer, can you explain to me what happens if all your cows decide they don’t like being cows, as they have heard that walruses have a much better deal. So they decide that either you give them the same deal as the walruses or they are not going to carry on doing cattley things? What happens to your cattle business?

Yes! You are right! Your business will soon look worse than the undies of a man caught in a horny horse’s paddock.

Right! Now that you have got the concept lets look at the same story from a different angle. You are in fact a cow. So am I. And so is everyone else (we will get to the walruses in a moment). South African business is the cattle farm, trading cattle for profits to grow the economy. You still with me?

The walruses are different to you and I. They are huge. They have big tusks. They swim and they walk funny. They get milkshakes to drink, and they are fed only virgin fish (because you can taste the innocence). They are not forced to live in a kraal, but rather have open access to the ocean. There are numerous reasons for this but that’s not important right now. All you need to know is that they live a different life to you, and as such the grass is greener on their side…

So you decide that unless you get open access to the ocean, get to eat sushi, and get to drink milkshakes, you aren’t going to carry on cow-ing… At the very least you want two of the three perks. But you draw up a list of demands which includes: regular massages, at least one trip to Europe a year, 1 less pint of milk milked a week, and shares in the farm. AND! You stop doing your cow duties with IMMEDIATE effect.

What happens to South African business? They can’t afford all your demands, and while you don’t cow, they lose money, making it even more difficult for them to afford even your simplest demands. So they capitulate to the farthest degree that they can afford. They offer you fish flavoured milkshakes and reason that you don’t swim so why do you need access to the ocean. But because you know that the walruses got what they want by sticking to their guns, you decide to reject the offer.

What you don’t understand is that the longer you strike for, and the more strikes there are, the more difficult it is for the economy to handle the loss of production, resulting in a loss in revenue. You and all the other cows from the mining farm, or the bus drivers farm, or the education farm, each of you demands more from South Africa, while offering less while you demand it. So basically, every time there is a strike, South Africa takes a knock. Lets not even talk about the farms that will never be started, because the foreigners don’t think investing in an unstable country is a good idea.

So, if you Mr or Mrs Cow feel your deal is kak compared to everyone else, then you have a few options which won’t cost the rest of the country.

Firstly, if you can be a walrus, then become a walrus. For most cows, being a walrus would be rather difficult, as they aren’t properly equipped with whats needed to do the things that walruses do. But maybe you are special, and you have learnt how to do the things that walruses do. If so, then you should benefit from the walruses deal.

Secondly, if you have to be a cow, then don’t demand what the walruses have. Demand something reasonable, take 1 DAY off to march to the farmhouse to hand over your REASONABLE demands, and then go back to work. The farm should be able to meet your reasonable request, without suffering any losses, so everyone will be happy.

Your other option is to quit. I don’t mean quit being a cow, I mean quit life. You aren’t blessed with many talents  except being a cow, yet you won’t be reasonable enough to make demands suitable for cows. Nobody wins in this situation, the farmer can’t afford your demands, and neither can the country. For every day that you hold on to your stupid demands, the chances of you getting any of them get less… There are PLENTY of unemployed chickens looking to take up your spot as a cow. So get out of the way. Stop wasting air.

Striking is a great social tool to get what you want, don’t get me wrong. But I have a problem with striking when its starts to cost the country. Too much time and money is wasted on week long strikes, because more often than not the workers demands are ridiculous.

So there you have it! Be a cow, or be a walrus (or whatever you are good at), work hard and make something of your life for YOURSELF

Whiteness is a Thing of the Past, or so it Should Be…

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whiteEish…

The whites have been called out AGAIN for being bad losers…

We’ve all heard it, whether in the office, the pub, the Kulula flight, the bathroom stall, just like every time Bono claps his hands, a child in Africa dies (someone has told him to stop clapping, but I guess he doesn’t care…), every time I press the letter E on my keyboard, another white grumbles about how the blacks will usurp the whites.

Now I could stop using the letter E, but lts face it, pople lik to moan rgardlss of what I typ. Plus, it reduces what I’m trying to say to meaningless rubbish, and the point of my blog is to have impact somewhere on someone, it seems a little senseless if that someone somewhere won’t understand a word of it. So lets move on.

When you were once King, and now have to fight for scraps from the new King’s table, there will always be some bad feelings. Or that’s what the whites want you to believe when they moan about how tough life is in the New South Africa. Ferial Haffajee attended a whiteness conference (this must be like the black meetings my black friends attend where they decide who is going to strike for what), and she detailed her experience in this article for City Press.

What she said is that whites need to stop lamenting how terrible it is to be a white South African, and rather embrace being just a South African. That’s it. Actually, that isn’t it. She actually said that time and money is being wasted on turning white groaning into a pathology. She said that South Africa would be better served to dedicate that time, money and effort into something like righting the sinking education ship, and focusing on a non-racialised South Africa. She feels that like pulling a plaster, the “rip it off as quick as possible, lets get it over with” approach should be taken, and that whites should rather get behind black empowerment and employment equity, and shut their mouths about problems like the potholes in the roads and the filthy shambles that are our hospitals. The sooner us whites get behind transformation in South Africa, the better for everyone.

Except it doesn’t work like that. Dan Ariely is an Israeli American professor of psychology. He was burned over 70% of his body in a fire inspection accident. While in hospital, he would have his bandages changed daily. The nurse who put him through excruciating pain daily when she would rip off the bandages (and half of his newly formed flesh). Together they worked out scientifically that it hurt less to slowly ease off the bandages, than to rip them off quickly. This was his rabbit hole into Alice’s Wonderland, through which he uncovered a LOT about how people think and act. More on him here if you are interested. So Ferial, you are wrong… Pulling the plaster off quickly is the wrong approach, Dan proved that.

So understand that because whites were winning yesterday, and losing today, they are going to grumble. They aren’t just going to roll over, grease up their bum holes, and wait for the BIG cock that is BEE to penetrate them.  They are entitled to a grumble, because in this game of South African life, the whites are losing in comparison to what they had before.

If you disagree, and you think whites should be grateful for what they have, and be good losers, then we need good winners too. Everyone who is benefiting because they aren’t white then needs to be happy with their lot as well. Whites may have benefited from better economic conditions, better education etc. during apartheid, but now they are not reaping the rewards they did during apartheid. They have laid down that cross, as others agglomerate themselves on the spoils that were reserved for the whites before. That is the only option. Either the whites get to grumble, or EVERYONE (that includes you, regardless of your colour, social or economic standing, culture, religion, creed, whatever) shuts the FUCK UP, and gets on with transformation.

Ferial is right. Whites do moan a lot. They are turning their problems with being white into a pathology. It is a waste of time and effort. She is correct. But the same can be said for EVERYONE else.

I also agree that once the process of transformation is completed, that South Africa will be a wonderful place for everyone to live in. However, for the process to be completed efficiently, EVERYONE needs to play their part. There is an equal amount of give and take needed. The privileged (ALL the privileged, not just the rich white man) need to give without complaint, and those taking, need to take graciously, and not take more than what is deserved or needed.

Ferial, I agree with you. As a white male, at the very bottom of the wanted list in the changing South Africa, I agree with you… to a point. I have avoided making this about me. But here are my thoughts. I fucking hate losing. I sulk when I lose. Ask the small handful of people who have ever beaten me at anything. There is two things you can learn from this. Firstly, I won’t play unless I think I can win. I may decline playing until such a time that I have learnt how to play well enough to win, but the point is, I like to win, so I will only play if I can win. And secondly, if I do lose, i lose ungraciously. Maybe that’s because I am white, but I think it has more to do with the fact that I am a human, and that is human nature.

So if you would like me to stoically stand silent, and let the process of transformation happen, I need to feel like I am winning, just like everyone else. Nobody wants to lose, everyone likes to win. I will go as far as to say that anybody who likes losing will inevitably lose. So don’t let me and don’t make me feel like the I am giving without getting in return. If whites must give economically, let them get some stability in return, let them get some happiness in return. Aunty Ferial, I don’t want to complain, so don’t make me pay e-toll and more for petrol and more in tax when the whites are giving already. You get what I am saying. Don’t try to sugar-coat the dog turd, because ultimately it will still taste like a turd.

This process of transformation is inevitable. Nature likes the scales to be balanced, so there will always be a shift of weight from one side of the scale to the other, until society reaches an equilibrium. There can be no more middle ground. We either are ALL for it, or ALL against it, there is no trying to find a middle ground. In the wise words of Master Yoda:

Do. Or do not. There is no try. 

Why Are You Still Pretending JZ? Nkandlagate happened!

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Jacob+Zuma+at+NkandlaRight now, I am not smiling like J-Sizzle in the picture. I have my angry-writer face on. Let me explain why.

A while back I was going to have a rant about this whole Nkandla thing, but binned it in favour of the “The 7 Commandments of ANCism” post instead. I can’t remember why, but I’m sure I had a good reason.

The fact that the Nkandlagate spectacle continues astounds me. You must remember the reason that public funds had to be used for this upgrade was because a security audit was done, and a “to do list” of upgrades for the Presidents homestead to be made safe for Jeezy was then handed over to Minsiter of Public Works Thulas Nxesi. They followed the list and Hey! PRESTO! They spent R260 million. These were just the necessities,  the very basics as far as security goes, that are needed to make the place secure.

photo (1)The picture above is supposedly a screenshot of a conversation between JZ and Barack Obama. Apparently they are big tjommies! He sleeps over at Jakes house often enough that it should be considered when deciding on the upgrades. If you believe the hype, this was the reason the “security” upgrades were considered in the first place. The idea is that when Barack comes to visit, we wouldn’t want Meneer Obama to trip and fall over a criminal, chip a tooth and then sue the South African government, so we need to make sure there are no criminals  in the house for him to trip over.

I have two issues with this. In America, they have 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (The White House), In the UK they have 10 Downing Street, and Buckingham Palace (it doesn’t have an address… Really. It doesn’t.). These are Estates where the important people live. When  Bumbling Bush was voted out, he had to pack all his things into a suitcase and move out, so that Obama could move in. When David Cameron is replaced as Prime Minister of the UK, he too has to vacate 10 Downing Street. Even HEUIR MARGESTAY (that’s how its pronounced isn’t it? In Queens English?) has to hand over the palace to her heir (although its more likely that she pegs rather than hands over the reigns, in which case Chuck would get it anyway). My point is that even my hard earned money is going to be spent upgrading the President’s Residence, then it should be spent just once. When Jeezy is eventually replaced as El Presidenté he will keep Nkandla. Even if they go back and “un-Presidentify” Nkandla, that R260 million will be lost. Then the next President can spend the same to bling out his pad too! I agree that the residence should be up to Presidential standards, but then lets build a state owned Presidential Palace, so that its passed on to the next President. We can make it A presidential Rondavaal or Kraal, or Homestead, or whatever PC term you like (they could even have a South African version of the American Oval Office, it would have to be round though, as that is the traditional shape of the grass houses). The point is that it would be owned by the country, so the money would only need to be spent once! For R260 million, they could buy Malema’s Sandown home (the one with the bomb shelter, that he can no longer afford), and make that into the Presidential home.

Thats only half the problem. The other half of the problem is  what WE all KNEW to be true, that the money wasn’t only spent on security upgrades. City Press revealed today that of the R260 million, just under R500 000 was spent on building Makhumalo’s Tuck Shop (read here). I don’t mean its where she goes and queues with the other wives during first break to buy Simba cheeeps and a Too Leetah for ten bob, I mean its a Tuck Shop which she runs. Yes. You read that correctly. The First Lady of South Africa runs a spaza shop. She runs a spaza shop inside the Presidential Home. How African are we?! Huh?  So when Barack visits, he can buy a soda, some candy, some Omo, and Jik-ama-Jika, from MaKhumalo’s little shop. For half a bar, it must be a fucking hypermarket!

ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING?! The fact that everyone is still sticking to the story that everything was above aboard, that there was no misuse of public funds, yet details like this are slowly creeping out makes it that much worse. Give it up. I know I’m stupid, but don’t make an ass-clown out of me.

The fact that one of my colleagues’s gardener was discharged from a hospital to die at home, because they don’t have the necessary machinery to check what is wrong with him at a government hospital is a big issue. I think the machinery is more important  than a fucking tuck shop. Don’t you think? Doctors and nurses aren’t paid overtime, yet they have to work the additional hours as there are not enough doctors and nurses to fill the schedules, and if they don’t do it, people die. How do you justify spending that much on your PRIVATE residence when your countrymen are dying in ill-equipped hospitals Mr Zuma?

There was an email from former CEO of Gold Fields, Chris Thompson which details the corruption that not only happens with Zuma’s knowledge, but with his CONSENT! (read here). Now I can’t vouch for that particular emails authenticity, but I do believe that you would notice if R260 million was spent on your home, supposedly on security upgrades, and after all the construction there is a Tuck Shop there that wasn’t there before. The President of South Africa has knowledge of where the money is going, and he and his spokespersons are FUCKING LIARS!

Am I F#ck!ng Stupid? Did I Miss Something?

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What happened? When did South Africa lose its collective mind? Is it only me that didn’t get the memo? AM I STUPID?

To straighten things out here, please correct me if I’m wrong.

  • All employees have the right to go on strike.
  • In order to be a protected strike, the strikers have to comply to 3 requirements of the Labour Relations Act. This includes referring the matter to the CCMA first, reffering the matter to the respective trade union, and giving your employer notice of intent to go on strike.
  • Only if these criteria (as well as others I’m sure) are met, can the strike be considered protected.
  • Should these requirements not be met, the strike is deemed unprotected, and the worker may then be fired.
  • The mine workers strikes were unprotected.

Am I right?

Ok, so now that we have cleared that up, why is COSATU saying that the trade unions are upset with the dismissal of striking mine workers? (read here). I think the fact that most of the mining companies tried so hard to come to a fair conclusion with the striking workers should be something to be commended.

Up until the point where COSATU’s spokesperson Norman Mampane opened his mouth, I was kind of siding with the workers. My thinking was there are mine bosses with mansions and a different colour  Ferrari for each day of the week. If they have to halve their annual bonus for the workers to be able to afford a better life, then I’m OK with that.

But now COSATU is saying that those dismissed for not returning to work after being ordered to do so, once the whole process fell apart, actually deserve their jobs. Where is the logic in that? That’s like taking a stick and beating a dog with it, until the dog gets angry and bights you, then you saying the dog needs to be put down because its vicious.

Seriously?
SERIOUSLY?

Apparently COSATU is going to organise a strike to protest the fact that workers on strike were fired. Isn’t this tempting fate? Didn’t I already discuss this in a previous blog? (read here). Is there someone in a dark room, whose torch has run out of batteries, and is now finding furniture with his shin, and therefore having a kak day, now making the decsions at the COSATU HQ?

Stephen Grootes penned a fantastic article stating a solution to the unemployment problem in South Africa is simply to fire those that don’t work, in order to replace them with someone more capable or willing to do the required work. By making the process of firing someone difficult, the Unions and the CCMA are actually making the unemployment problem worse. He suggested that starving people aren’t looking for “good” work, but rather ANY work. He wrote this almost 2 years ago, so its not a bight from an angry dog after a beating, its actual sense. You HAVE to read the whole article, it will really make you rethink the way South Africa should hire and fire its workers (CLICK HERE! NOW).

When COSATU is acting like this, its like the SA government having a suicidal guide dog, that walks into traffic every time it feels a little depressed. How can the trade unions go on strike in protest of people being legally fired for going on an unprotected strike? It makes absolutely no sense. Its plain fucking stupid!

Or did I miss something?

The 7 Commandments of ANCism

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I asked Elizabeth what she thinks of the current state of affairs in South Africa at present. She stunned me with her answer. This is what she said. Verbatim.

“Orwell”.

Stunned, I just shook my head. She looked at me and shook her head too.

I got the reference to Animal Farm. And I understood what she meant by it. I was shaking my head because I was dumbfounded by the fact that she knew who George Orwell was, let alone the books he had written. Apparently, they are taught these things at revolutionary school or something…

Never-the-less, this got me thinking.
Is it possible that we as a country are more animalist than we’d like to think?

From the perspective of the common man on the street (with an intellectual refreshment consultant) maybe South Africa is a little more Orwellian than even animal farm was. For those of you who can’t remember the book cartoon, here are the original rules:

  1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
  2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
  3. No animal shall wear clothes.
  4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
  5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
  6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
  7. All animals are equal.

I think Madiba may have plagiarised these commandments a little when he wrote South Africa’s constitution. Not all of them, because walking hasn’t been outlawed in favour of crawling, and I am allowed to sleep in a bed, and wear clothes, and drink alcohol. But apart from that he copied them, I’m sure of it.

Anyway, this was written on a farm and the rules were for pigs. The point is that these rules were put in place to ensure a better farm for the animals to live on. One where everyone was treated fairly.

That was the idealistic South Africa of 1994! Equality was the name of the game!

But just like the commandments were broken and amended in Animal Farm, the same is happening here.

Don’t believe me?

How about this? In Animal Farm the commandment that said no animal shall sleep in a bed, was amended to say that no animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets. In South Africa, El Presidente has taken this one step further to say that No President shall sleep in a bed with OLD sheets. You see he needs to upgrade his Nkandla home, because what happens if Barrack Obama BBM’s Msholozi and says “hey guy. i need to crash at ur haws 4 a couple of nights. Kewl?”. Jeezy needs a place for the Kommanduh in Cheef of the United America to stay. Back in the old day, he would have been cool with offering the couch, but now Egyptian Cotton is expected. So R200 million of the country’s hard earned money will be spent on upgrading the house. NEW SHITS FOR EVERYONE!

What better example of the Commandment “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” than Sheryl Cwele’s arrival at Westville prison. She certainly feels she shouldn’t be there! Even though she had been convicted, she appealed. She said to her lawyers “tell the court, I want the “Shaik” treatment.” She lost that appeal and ended up in prison with an extra couple of years slapped onto her sentence. Even after reporting to prison, she said she was waiting for her doctors letter from Selebi’s Doctor. But it appears that she isn’t equal enough to get that treatment. (I could have made some reference to the strikes here, but I’m tired of that now. I believe the term is saturated?)

I don’t think anyone ever listened to the “no alcohol” rule. But the amendment about excessive drinking might still be applicable. Just yesterday a “spiet-kop” (metro police – pronounced “fucking pig”) was arrested for accepting a bribe, from a drunken taxi driver. This career policeman, with 15 years in the service under his belt, was caught accepting a R20 bribe from a taxi driver who had had a few pots of umqombothi. The pig thought he had been drinking in excess, and felt that the “spot-fine” of R20 would do as penance.

I can go on and on! And so I did! About how Julius likes nice clothes and Breitling watches, and Range Rovers… And on and on. Elizabeth eventually got bored and switched on the TV. She told me to shuttup because her favourite soapy was about to start on African Magic channel. I said to her; “Elizabeth, you are a genius! You shouldn’t be cleaning my house, you should be an advisor to the President!”

Her reply stunned me again! Her reply. Verbatim.

“Oh well…”

Where is Papa J?

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Hmmmm your breathe smells like shit!Your name is Helen Keller if you aren’t aware of all the upheaval and unrest currently rocking South Africa because of the strikes. Its on every radio station and every news report. It’s everywhere!

It seems that if you are black, and are within arms reach of a rock or long stick, you are allowed to go on strike and demand a higher wage, and that you should carry on striking until you get that higher wage (maybe it applies to whites to?! I didn’t receive a memo from the DA though). I’m not sure what happens if you are on strike for longer than a month though, do you get paid for that month? Worrying to think that people may be on strike for more money, only to get none at all. They might then go on strike from striking because they didn’t get the higher wage they were striking for, as they got nothing. Does the rule of double negatives apply here? A striking striker therefore goes back to work? This is very complicated. My little brain is just going to leave it there, as it cannot go any further without hitting the “blue screen of death” and restarting… (nerd joke, sorry!)

I can’t even count how many strikes there are at the moment. The truck-drivers are on strike, there are still miners on strike too. Its entirely possible that tea ladies are on strike, as there are quite a few coffee cups on my desk, and no sign of the refreshment consultant who usually comes to fetch them. Elizabeth has been seen with her feet up on the coffee table kicking back and watching AfriMagic, I’m not sure if this is a strike or the usual Wednesday routine though… All these strikes have marred together to become a collective of “the strike” and it no longer matters who is on strike but rather how many have been shot by a racist pig  the police.

Fuckit! I want more money! So I’m going on strike too!

 

 

 

Except, I’m not. Because this is a one man show. So if I don’t write this, no one will. And then you, my dear reader, will be left not knowing my 10c on this whole situation… And that just wouldn’t do! You would go to bed tonight feeling slightly uneasy, like there was something missing… I just couldn’t live with myself if that were the case!

My question is, where is The Big Man? Where is Jacob Sanex Msholozi efff-u-too-juju Zuma?  He is the father of the nation (and father to the nation too)! As far as I know, he isn’t on strike! He isn’t busy getting married again either. He certainly isn’t busy reading the report on the Limpopo textbook saga either, as Angie “Poephol-for-a-mouth” Motshekga made it through another Cabinet reshuffle as the Minister of Basic Education.

So why hasn’t he come out and said: “Be still, my children. I will look after you. Do not throw that rock. Do not swing that stick. I don’t want you to be shot’. Why hasn’t he ordered all businesses who are paying their workers peanuts to pay their workers money instead? He has told news people and other non-important people OVERSEAS that this is not the norm here, and that everything will be OK soon, and that they shouldn’t cancel their  December holiday trips to Cape Town’s luxury hotels just yet. He has said bugger all, to the South Africans who are the people being stoned and shot at. This is rather worrying.

President Zuma, please remove your penis from Minister Motshekga’s mouth/poephol, and focus. We need you to do what you were put in power to do. We need you to lead. Things are looking shady for you coming up to Mangaung as it is already. Don’t give them a reason for your supporters to “mbeki” you at the conference.

Although, as the saying goes: live by the sword, die by the sword…

I F#@%!NG Hate Queues! And Julius Hates God…

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I would rather poke a turd with a stick than stand in a queue… Nobody in history has ever said “this queue is awesome! I hope it doesn’t move quickly, because I want to stand in one spot for as long as possible…”

After reading about the logic behind the kak feelings behind queues (here if you are interested) I learnt about the shhhneaky tactics that clever people with calculators and thick books have come up with to make queues more bearable…

The idea of being in stasis is what irritates people. We are all VERY important! With VERY important things to do! Our lives are short, and we don’t have much free time as it is. Its a categorical waste of time to be standing in a queue. I want to buy a box of toothpicks, but I have to queue for 37 days behind the entire population of China, who are all queuing with trolleys full of rice and fish biltong… WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!

So the shneaky scientific bastards have come up with ingenious ways of making the queuing experience less of an assault on my overactive sensitivities.

  • Impulse buying: Fill the shelves around the queue with kak. I’ll buy a drum magazine only because I started reading about Tutu’s third nipple on page 5, and I’m going to take approximately 38 days to finish reading the article. Swak okes… I’m poor, I can’t afford this crap
  • Overestimating the time its going to take to get to the front: Often those serpentine queues hide just how long the queue actually is. So the shneaky bastards will put up a clock to say it’ll take you “approximately 32 years, 21 days, 14 hours, and 16 minutes to reach the front of the queue.” The sense of achievement when you beat the clock by 30 seconds makes wasting half your life in the queue worthwhile. I’m not sure if this would work in a emergency rooms waiting area… I’ve just chopped off my arm during a fight with my lawnmower, and I’ve calculated that I’m going to die in approximately 38 seconds, hopefully the clock is wrong…
  • The shneakiest of all of these tactics is one employed by Houston Airport in the US. People were complaining about waiting too long at the baggage claim carousel. They tried speeding up the process, yet the complaints persisted. So they made the walk from the plane to the baggage claim carousel longer! People spent a longer time walking to the carousel, and less time waiting, and this put a stop to complaints about the long wait for the bags to come out… The cheeky fuckers! (I hope the amount of complaints dramatically increased regarding the kak far trek to the baggage claim carousel)

I told my friend Rich about this. He thought this was a spark of brilliance, and immediately set up Navy Seal type obstacle courses in the queuing area of his supermarket! It worked brilliantly! Not only were the people queuing kept busy, but those who couldn’t complete the course, tended to perish before they could lay any formal complaints.

I think that the clever people that figure these things out  also work for my domestic worker, Elisabeth (who writes Julius Malema’s speeches, remember?). Juju came out with a brand new pearl of wisdom last week. He schemes that Zuma should step down as president, because he was President at the exact moment when the striking mineworkers were shot dead by police last week. I agree thaqt this shouldn’t have happened, but blaming Zuma for it makes zero sense to me. If you follow the same logic, the machine gun manufacturer should be forced to shutdown too, because the police used their guns… There would be no more sing of Umshini Wame if that is the case.

Julius believes in God. Tell me Mr Malema, should your God resign too? Not only was he on duty when the miners were shot, but he created the miners, the police and the strike. So ultimately it is your God’s fault?

I asked Elisabeth what her thinking was when she wrote this particular speech. She said her brief was that she has to work into every speech from now to Manguang a good reason why President Zuma should go the way of Mbeki at the next conference. As a link to this isn’t always easy, Elisabeth said she had to get creative. She used similar logic to that used at Houston Airport. Instead of firing the policemen who opened fire, she tried to create a route that would  take Mr Malema’s supporters longer to figure out, thereby giving them less time to get bored of Malema’s nonsense. So by sprouting absolute rubbish as to why the President should step down, Malema’s followers will spend a longer amount of time arguing this point with Zuma supporters, than if Malema had suggested that the police that were responsible be fired… And in doing so, it’ll eliminate the downtime during which the Malema supporters would formulate negative impressions of Juju himself!

Ingenious Elisabeth! Ingenious…

You Are Not Just “A Racist Too”… You Are Also Stupid!

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To understand this blog post, you might want to read these two articles (here and here), which appeared on MyNews24.com, the opinion section of News24.com. Everything here is user generated, and therefore mostly pretty shitty, and biased, incited etc, in other words mostly as meaningless as Julius Malema’s rhetoric… (although, SHOCK! HORROR! I agree with him on THIS one tiny point he has about City Press… That’s off topic, so we won’t go into that here, maybe another blog post)

Lets discuss these articles. The first article, written by a non-black was posted last week, called “I am a Racist” by TheFridaFactor was actually quite well written. The writer was obviously tired and angry at a few people, and felt she couldn’t be angry with them without being labelled a racist. She wasn’t angry with them because they were black, but rather because they were stupid or arrogant or lazy… Some might say these are black traits, others will say I’m racist, but that’s the whole point! Allow me to explain…

I can label myself as many things. By doing so, it takes the gunpowder out of the potentially fatal bullet. I can call myself white. No big deal. I can call myself fat. You may guard your food around me, but again it’s no big deal. I could say I am a male. This means I can read a map, but also means I will pee on the floor around the toilet. I’m okay with that, so no biggy. These are all pretty obvious, and the list is endless.

But what happens if I say I’m a male chauvinist? By virtue I am saying I am loyal to my brothers in arms, my fellow toilet seat sprayers. Or if I say I’m anti-Semitic? Not a fan of the “black hair, glasses, big nose” look. By admitting these things, it means you are aware of these things, and you are also aware that I am aware of these things. This means that you can’t hurl them at me as insults, because they will have little effect.

This is compounded further, when I take known facts and generalisations  to prove my point. I can prove that men are better than women, by not getting lost while using a map, and pee on the side of the road too. Or that Jews all have the Jew look by showing you 100 different pictures of Jews who all look related because of the Jew look. These are silly examples, but you get my point. I remove the sting by labeling myself these things, and when I can back myself up with a sound argument, these insults turn into facts that EVERYONE can relate to.

Let me give you a better example. There is a section of road on my usual path to work that is single lane in both directions. As this bit of road is usually very busy, it is almost impossible to overtake. Enter a taxi into this equation, and you can already see the slapstick hilarity that will soon unfold. The taxi is full to the brim with overweight passengers, of the well tanned older woman persuasion (fat black mama’s for short). At regular intervals, the driver, who I must assume is either mentally disabled, or an asshole, stops in the middle of the road to let out and pick up passengers. As this is his job, I HAVE to accept that he HAS to drop off and collect passengers in order for him to make money. What I can’t accept is stopping every 13 metres.

If someone on the bus needs to get out on this street corner, and another passenger needs to get out on the next street corner, it makes sense in my mind for them both to get out at the same place, instead of the taxi stopping, letting one person out, driving 8.3 meters and then stopping again. “Get out and walk you fat arse! It can only help!” is what I shout from my window, as we stop for the 11th tim in the last 17 metres.

AND the passengers waiting to board the taxi, if there is a recess where the taxi can pull out of the way of the rest of the road users, and collect all of them in one stop, this makes more sense than spreading out at arms lengths from each other so the taxi has to stop every few meters to collect each of them. The taxi driver could save wear and tear on his taxi too, by being a little more selective on where he will stop to load and unload passengers. This really happened this morning, had I been driving something bigger than my Polo, maybe something with a bullbar or cannon mounted on it, I would have forced the taxi driver and his passengers to keep driving all the way down the road. That taxi would not have had the opportunity to make any stops until we were much further down the road, where it widens out and I could drive passed. I would have had much applause from ALL the other drivers behind me.

Now we can draw all sorts of things from this example. I can tell you that I am impatient, and that I am a hypocrite, I’m not averse to confrontation, and am probably quite stupid. These are based on the fact that I am fat, and driving a car, so I should also walk my fat arse off, I got angry because of having to wait, and in the spur of the moment, I was willing to confront the taxi driver, which we all know never ends well for anyone! We can assume that the women in the taxi have large bums not only because its hereditary but also because they are lazy and don’t like to walk. The same goes for the passengers waiting to board. The taxi driver is a different case as there is no rationale behind the way he drives, so it will be difficult to pinpoint any specific reasons for his actions. The fact of the matter is this; should you be a driver stuck in a similar sort of situation, you would probably have wanted to do the same thing. If each of these things are assumed to be true, and each party involved accepts the labels, and wears them proudly, what do I shout out of my window  at the driver and his passengers when I go roaring passed? What do the people shout back? There is no argument to be made in either case, as I already know what he is going to say, and he knows it too.

So The FridaFactor has a point. If you would like to label this white woman a racist for shouting at a black person for being lazy or arrogant, you can go ahead because she has accepted your biased reasoning, and your label, and is going to wear it proudly. From the 165 000 views the article has had, and the many many many comments from people of all creeds and colours agreeing with her wholeheartedly, what she has said resonates well with the general masses (at least the people intelligent and capable enough to read News24). Some of her logic may be a little flawed, but she made a valid point, and by her definition, anyone who doesn’t support the ANC, or has an opinion, or a brain, or skin (of any colour) is a racist, and should wear the title proudly!

What doesn’t make sense is the second article in response to this, titled “I am a racist too” (here for you lazy gits who didn’t read it the first time). The writer FaithKos tries to incite me as a white South African to feel sorry for the black population, using the traditional definition of a racist. I don’t mean the Oxford Dictionary definition, but the very definition that The FridaFactor had spoken against. Faithkos says that 400 years of Apartheid can only be undone by 400 years of black oppression of the whites. Now there are just too many flaws in her arguement for her to be any real threat to the new FridaFactor status quo. More than that though, FaithKos went on to show how bigoted she and people that think like her are. She pulls all the usual lines like my grandfather shot and killed her grandfather, and so I should work as her gardener before things will ever be equal. What FaithKos did in her article was highlight that she is the Oxford dictionary definition of a racist. This makes her very stupid.

For those who would like to argue that I missed the point of the second article, answer these questions for me:

1. If 400 years of whites suppressing the blacks got us to where we are today, if we do the reverse for 400 years won’t we just end up with the whites in the same position that the blacks were in, and therefore not have remedied the situation at all, but merely inverted it?

2. What happens if by some divine intervention, all the whites left/died/disappeared? Who is all the anger and frustration of a bygone era aimed at? Who pays for those sins? Who has to lose out in order for the blacks to win?

3. There aren’t enough white riches to be redistributed to make every single impoverished black person wealthy. Can the same be said for the Kenny Kunene’s and Patrice Motsepe’s black wealth?

4. During the past 18 years, a very broad black middle class has been created, to bridge the gap between poor and rich, as is the purpose of BEE. Is your understanding that BEE is going to create white maids and gardeners? If this is the point of BEE, when do you suppose this is going to happen?

5. For the whites to become maids and gardeners, they would have to give up the fight for equal opportunity in a free and democratic society. Isn’t that the opposite of what Nelson Mandela preached against when he was released from prison? Surely, when he said South Africa belongs to all those who live in it, there was no proviso that said “except if you are a wealthy white person”?

My point is this, be a racist for the right reasons… Be a racist because you can use something other than “because I said you are” as your justification. Be a racist because you hate stupid people. Be a racist because you are truly against the scourge that is tearing this country apart.

Don’t be a racist because your next door neighbour has a nicer house than you…

The Fuss Over JZ’s Spear Continues

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You know that moment when you realise you have pulled the pin on a grenade and thrown it, and then realised afterwards that you have thrown the pin at your enemies, and that you have just dropped the grenade at your feet, and you are waiting for the inevitable explosion?

It seems the explosion has finally happened. All the usual insults have been thrown. “Its degrading” and “shows no respect for the president” are but a few of the complaints about Zuma’s cartoon winky. My favourite comment though, is “the picture and the artist are racist.” How is a picture of a black man with a fair sized penis racist?

HOLD ON A SECOND! WOOOOAH! Look at the picture again… It is in fact a yellow man with a red penis. Hmmmm… I suppose you would see this as racist if you were Chinese, but would probably also keep your mouth shut as as it depicts this Chinese person as being well endowed!

Its difficult therefore to say it is JZ, and also that the picture is racist. How then did the President see the portrait as depicting him as “a philanderer, a womaniser and one with no respect”? Those were the words he thought of when he saw the painting of a well endowed Chinese person? If the shoe fits Mr President… (Or in this case, the condom)

This explains why what I can only imagine is a rogue street artist and his older gentleman friend were caught painting the person on the picture black yesterday afternoon. They realised that the President had outed himself as “a philanderer, a womaniser and one with no respect” and needed to cover up his blunder before anyone else noticed. The hard headed approach of the security guard (check this video) doesn’t help the young black man in the slightest, but it does make the video a lot more entertaining. Iman Rapetti from 3rd Degree was there recording what will be a very boring, argumentative and tedious report (if Debora Patta has anything to do with it) on the painting when the artists started repainting the painting, so there is some great footage. The older gentleman friend first painted two red X’s to show exactly where the picture needed to be “coloured in” to make JZ’s comments viable, then the youngster got stuck in with the black paint. They didn’t do a very good job though… The painting is now a bit of a mess.

And now the picture has made international news! Luckily only after it was repainted, otherwise I’m sure Sky News would be wondering why Jacob is labeling himself as  “a philanderer, a womaniser and one with no respect” when looking at a portrait of a yellow man with a red penis. They can now safely make the assumption that because the person in the painting is “black” and he has said this, it must therefore be him…

JZ’s Spear Causing a Fuss (again)

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Let me hazard a guess as to what the outcome of the court action against the Goodman Gallery and City Press will be…

But first, lets get everyone else’s opinion on the picture. News 24 reported that Mr President has already said that his feelings have been hurt. He says he was shocked, offended and violated… (I think he asked his young next door neighbour to help him write that? In between her showers, homework and shaking his spear?)

JZ’s daughter said in a statement that the picture “seeks to take away our ­father’s dignity, and destroy his true character and stature as a man, a father, and a leader of the ANC and South African society at large.”

Oliver Tambo’s daughter wrote on a social networking site: ”So the Pres JZ has had his portrait painted and he doesn’t like it.”

“Do the poor enjoy poverty? Do the unemployed enjoy hopelessness? Do those who can’t get housing enjoy homelessness? He must get over it. No one is having a good time. He should inspire the reverence he craves. This portrait is what he inspired. Shame neh! [sic]” (full article here)

Seems JZ’s member has given people some balls to say what they actually feel (sorry, its just too easy!). Damon Kalvari from Gareth Cliff’s morning drive show on 5FM spoke to some people at the gallery over the weekend, the recordings of which were played on live radio this morning. Apart from offending someone, and getting lost in a art critics take on the  picture, he also spoke to some ordinary black women. They asked how JZ satisfies 6 wives with such a small ‘machine gun’, and also commented that they expected more of his “machine”. This brings new meaning to Umshini Wame doesn’t it? (for those ignorant whites who read my blog, umshini wame literally means my machine, the struggle song relating to a machine gun being brought to the singer…) Who knew he was actually asking for his penis and not a machine gun? When you’ve had as much sex as he has, it doesn’t surprise me that its detachable.

So onto the court case! The ANC would like the picture to be taken down, both from the gallery and from City Press’s website (I’m not famous enough yet so I’m sure I don’t have to remove it from here…). The ANC is going to complain that this denigrates the office of the President, and that as the President, Jacob should be above this kind of slander. Anyone with a brain cell will rebut that any penis that has been in the spotlight as much as the President’s deserves to be displayed wherever there is a need. In this case, the need is to generate visits to the Goodman Gallery, and some money for Brett Murray.

Mr President (yes I’m speaking to you now, Jacob), Bill Clinton’s sperm was put on display after he biffed on Monica Lewinsky. He didn’t like it, but there was nothing he could do about it… The fact of the matter is that if YOU live a life in the public, you are going to be drawn in many different ways. Those that like you will draw you with your zip closed, those that don’t like you will draw you with a shower extending from the top of your head. Those that like to have a laugh will draw you with an oversize penis hanging out. (Ask any high school or varsity guy, this is the height of good toilet humour).

If the court case is argued logically, the Goodman Gallery will say “OK, we will take it down.” City Press might say the same, but it doesn’t matter. Its been in all the major newspapers, and is pasted all over the internet, the picture has done what it set out to do; and that is to cause a stir. Its not the first time the President’s winky has done that…

The bigger question is, if you were an upset President, who didn’t like the picture being shown off in the media, and you had the tools to limit what the media is allowed to say, something like… I dunno.. ummm… the Protection of Information Bill (that seeks to be able gag the media and prosecute people who disclose state secrets), would you not just push this through, fueled by such defiance as is being shown at present? If I wanted to give the middle finger to the press, I would…