politics – Page 40

That’s not how you get cholera

Posted on September 5, 2016September 28, 2016

Look, as a description of the current state (and oh, what a state) of affairs in SA right now, this tweet is pretty accurate.

However, as a description of how you get cholera, it’s wildly inaccurate. That is, unless the carrot in question has been washed in cholera-infested water.
And I wouldn’t put anything past the Gupta family, to be honest.

Cholera is an infectious disease that causes severe watery diarrhoea. It’s spread via the faecal-oral route. That means that the bacterium in question – called Vibrio cholerae – er… “exits” the body of a cholera sufferer and somehow ends up being ingested by another individual. This is often via it getting into the drinking water system through poor hygiene and inadequate water treatment though.
You don’t get it from eating carrots (with the caveat above firmly in place, that is).

And anyway, even if you did cholera from eating carrots, there’s no evidence that donkeys can get cholera. In fact, in their 1996 book “Cholera and the Ecology of Vibrio cholerae“, Drasar and Forrest cite a 1974 study by Sanyal et al. in which 195 animals (including donkeys), living in a cholera endemic area in India were routinely tested for the bacterium over a period of a year. Pathogenic V.cholerae was only isolated from 3 cows, 2 dogs and 2 chickens. (NB – no donkeys).

And then, even if the donkey did eat the carrot and you could get cholera from carrots, and even the donkey could get cholera, it’s a big stretch to suggest that the entire nation would then become infected with cholera, just because a donkey got it from a poisinous [sic] carrot. Just what was this donkey doing? How on earth would it successfully have infected 55 million people? That’s biological warfare on a massive scale. I’m not sure anyone could carry that out, let alone a lone donkey, who, lest we forget, is allegedly rather unwell.

So, no. As an accurate account of the source of a cholera infection and how it might be spread, this tweet is rubbish.
As a metaphor of what Jacob Zuma and his friends have done to South Africa though – pretty good.

I got 90% problems…

Posted on August 30, 2016September 2, 2016

…and the SABC is behind all of them.

SABC COO, Zuma stooge and media clown Hlaudi Motsoeneng recently decreed that all SABC radio stations would now have to abide by a new local music quota. This populist move brought SA into line with other international broadcasting behemoths like Canada, Mexico, the Philippines and Jamaica. The only difference is that those national broadcasters chose what many considered to be reasonable quotas – maybe between 30% and 60%. But Hlaudi almost went full North Korea, insisting that 90% of the music played on SABC radio stations would have to be locally produced.

Don’t get me wrong. I do understand the reasoning behind a) The local content rule and b) The ridiculously high percentage Hlaudi chose. (It’s ‘trying to assist the local music business’ and ‘because he’s a desperate, populist goon who hasn’t got a sodding clue what he’s doing, save for serving his allegedly (but almost certainly) corrupt boss like the pathetically weak, pointless, trivial, obsequious lickspittle that he is’, for those of you at the back who are struggling to keep up.)
There’s even a pisspoor song with a cringeworthy video thanking the SABC and all-round professional brown-noser Motsoeneng for the wonderful new quota:

Sweet baby cheeses.

The choice of radio station in the laboratory is 5fm – a national popular music station run by the SABC. It’s generally middle of the road stuff, fairly meh, but equally fairly inoffensive. There’s no Afrikaans, not too much talk, and it’s neither Death Metal, nor RnB-orientated. It’s not full of god-botherers. It’s a decent compromise. Or rather, it was.

Previously, 5fm used to play a mix of local and international music. It wasn’t something I’d particularly concentrated on back then, because it just worked. I’m recalling that it probably looked (sounded?) something like this:

Best of Local Music
Best of International Music

But then, in May, in came Hlaudi’s ridiculous 90% rule, and now the playlist is formulated more like this:

Best of Local Music
Rest of Local Music

If Hlaudi wanted to introduce us to more local stuff, then well done, he did. If he wanted to increase sales, that’s failed badly. I’m now more convinced than ever that a lot of local music is actually dreadful. And in order to make sure that the best stuff is played, it’s played in every show. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that there was always a pool of songs which was played in every show, but this pool now seems to be smaller, and the extra space is filled up with local crap.

I do get that musical taste is subjective, but the reaction to this 90% change has been generally negative, and it’s widely expected that listenership figures will drop. Anywhere else, this would be an issue, but that’s not how Hlaudi works – he just gets more money from government, who get more money from taxpayers. Insult to injury, anyone?

And yes, we could look (listen?) elsewhere, but there’s nothing that works quite as well as the old 5fm did, otherwise we’d have been listening there instead. There was a niche that it occupied, which was why we went there. It’s gone.

I wonder what the DJs think about this. Obviously, those who have commented on it have commented positively. Given the way Hlaudi operates, you can understand why you might not want to publicly express dissent at any part of his Glorious Masterplan.

I’m not employed by Hlaudi’s organisation though, so I can tell you that it’s shit.

Done

Posted on August 5, 2016August 5, 2016

I’m finished. Someone call a doctor. My sides have split.

This then, is the response of the official ANC twitter account to their defeat in Port Elizabeth and their utterly dismal showings in Johannesburg and Tshwane.

If you don’t laugh, you have to cry. It’s either hilarious or it’s tragic. It’s both.

For the other parties, this seeing the ruling party adopting this stance must be like manna from heaven. If this seemingly blind obliviousness continues towards and into the next (general) election in 2019, the ANC is not just going to be beaten, it’s going to be obliterated.

However, for the people, with another 3 years to go before the start of any possible change in government and/or attitude, it’s pretty galling. I don’t think (and the election results do kinda support my view) that things are going well here at the moment. There is a massive amount of dissatisfaction, irritation, anger. I’m not saying that the ANC is solely responsible for this, but nor do I see their current, rather apathetic approach doing enough (read “anything”) to combat it.

Incidentally, I’ve left JZ in the background there on the screenshot because his imperious, somewhat sour, face seems to me to be the perfect analogy (and possibly the biggest reason) for the ANC’s – and therefore South Africa’s – current woes.

UPDATE:

It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if they’ve actually seen the results…

It’s Election Day

Posted on August 3, 2016August 2, 2016

Oh joy! The Municipal Elections 2016 to be exact.

And, for just about the first time since 1994, we could be looking at some big changes.

Always a politically active country, South Africa is not a particularly happy place right now and this has been a bitterly fought campaign. But with big cities like Johannesburg and Tshwane, and villages like Port Elizabeth (Nelson Mandela Bay) virtually neck and neck in the opinion polls, the previously all-powerful ANC looks set to incur significant losses.

Quite how they will take that remains to be seen.

Things Mmusi (actually) said

Posted on August 2, 2016August 2, 2016

Much mirth and merriment yesterday as DA leader Mmusi Maimane told us all how “he voted for Mandela” back in the 90s. Trouble is, Mmusi was only 13 in the only presidential election in which Nelson stood (in 1994). Mmusi was old enough to vote in the following election (1999), but Mandela had already decided to move over by then – the ANC candidate that year was Thabo Mbeki.

A politician, lying? Colour me utterly flabbergasted. And wow, just a bit of a faux pas right before an important election. The ANC jumped straight in on it and it spawned the (actually rather amusing) #ThingsMmusiDid hashtag on twitter (I may have even joined in a bit).
But whatta mistake-a to make-a!

That’s why Phillip de Wet had to listen again:

Joke or no, #ThingsMmusiDid had me doubting my recollection. So I went back to the tape.

And it said?

Yep. You read it right. He never said that he voted for Mandela. He said he voted for the party of Mandela.

But let’s not let the truth stand in the way of a good story. And that’s why I’m just putting this out there. Not because I’m a DA fanboy: merely because of the Trevor Mallach effect. And that quote, ironically by the Mmusi-supported Thabo Mbeki:

It seems to me that the unacceptable practice of propagation of deliberate falsehoods to attain various objectives is becoming entrenched in our society. I also call on all of us as leaders and citizens critically to reflect on this practice in order to avoid the entrenchment of a culture which may eventually corrupt our society.

Vote how you want, and why you want. But don’t believe everything you read or hear.