Category: politics

Meanwhile, running our country…

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Gotta love politicians, right? Right.

ANC MPs John Jeffrey and Buti Manamela are in trouble for comments they made regarding DA Parliamentary Leader Lindiwe Mazibuko.

During a parliamentary budget vote on Wednesday, Jeffrey said: “While the honourable Mazibuko may be a person of substantial weight, her stature is questionable”.

While Manamela used her attire as an example of how everything – EVERYTHING – is blamed on Jacob Zuma:

Manamela’s comment was a reference to Mazibuko’s dress sense, saying that if she was arrested by the fashion police, the DA would blame President Jacob Zuma.

Cue complaints to the ANC Chief Whip and Jeffery withdrawing and apologising for his remark.

Also cue the SACP issuing this statement, featuring more comedy gold:

 The SACP contends there is nothing inherently sexist in the example made by Cde Manamela in parliament when he sought to explain how opportunistically the opposition blamed the President for things he didn’t have control of and indeed it is true that the President doesn’t choose Lindiwe Mazibuko’s clothes. This has nothing to do with being a man or a woman but with the fact that Lindiwe Mazibuko leads the opposition in parliament, an opposition that has resorted to a blame game.

Well, ok. So maybe the remark was misinterpreted. They weren’t being nasty about Lindiwe at all.
But then it continues:

Lindiwe Mazibuko is nothing else but a disrespectful kid who has used every single parliamentary debate to treat the President with disrespect and with a condescending attitude. Her level of disrespect has reached completely unacceptable levels. Cde Zuma besides being president is an elderly citizen and struggle hero who deserves to be treated with respect especially by young ones like Lindiwe.

Oops.

Never mind. Just thank goodness these people aren’t in positions of authority and responsibility. Oh… wait…

But here come the ANC Women’s League, taking time away from praying for Madiba’s health with a very sensible statement on the whole matter:

We commend Jeffrey for acknowledging that his comments may have been misunderstood and for apologising. Parliament is no place for tit-for-tat games.

But then ruining it with:

the DA did it first and has not yet apologised: DA leader and Western Cape Premier Helen Zille was yet to apologise for reportedly calling ANC MPL Zodwa Magwaza an elephant, neither had Theuns Botha, who likened Lynne Brown to a hippopotamus.

Zille’s was clever, referring to Magwaza as “the elephant in the room”, so actually technically not a direct insult and probably legit. Botha calling Lynne Brown a hippopotamus was slightly less defensible.

The playground will be open again after the long weekend.

And while we’re talking about fishing…

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(Because we were talking about fishing here.)

How’s this for a headline?

“Seal Harvest Would Create Jobs”

Yep, that’s the plan of ANC MP Meriam Phaliso:

The government should consider allowing the harvesting of Cape fur seals as a means of job creation to compensate for several fisheries that have collapsed through overfishing, says ANC MP Meriam Phaliso.

During a briefing to the National Assembly’s portfolio committee by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, about renewed rights allocations in eight fisheries, Phaliso said the only point of concern was to find a humane way of killing the seals.

Cue inevitable outcry from environmentalists, greenies and the armchairs of slacktivists everywhere. But, in actual fact, it’s not a new idea:

In 1990… a five-year concession allowing a Taiwanese businessman to kill seal pups was cancelled at the last moment by then environment minister Gert Kotze following a huge outcry.
The concession would have allowed up to 100 000 pups and a number of bulls to be killed and processed for pet food, leather and aphrodisiacs in a Port Nolloth factory that had already been built.

Wow. You can get a lot out of a seal, hey? Almost as good as a whale or a rhino. It all sounds like a splendid plan. If only they weren’t so lovely and fluffy and… awww… just look at his whiskers!

Hang on… I got sidetracked by his cuteness. Damn it.
Right, here’s Phaliso’s reasoning for the sickening bloody massacre of the sweet fluffy seal pups with their puppy dog eyes:

Seals are “the biggest poachers of some of the fish and nobody is arresting them… seals are a job-creating mechanism that can put food on the tables in some areas”.

Well, nobody is really arresting human poachers either, are they? But to be honest, Meriam, though your cull idea is a bit on the harsh side when compared with simply “arresting” the seals, it might be a more pleasurable end than being locked up in Pollsmoor overnight.

Meanwhile, just up the road in Elgin (a thankfully seal free inland town), fruit flies were ruining the local apple crop. This was costing food, jobs and livelihoods. In fact, many people in those fruit growing areas called the fruit flies “the biggest poachers of some of the apples”, yet remarked that “nobody is arresting them”.
At first, I put this down to the fact that it’s really difficult to get handcuffs small enough, but then I realised that there was no need to arrest the fruit flies, because we humans are already massacring them with insecticides and genetic modification.

Innocent lives were lost. And yet where was the outcry? Where?

Could it possibly be that because fruit flies don’t bask on rocks around False Bay looking lovable, and instead merely go about eating their natural diet and destroying human livelihoods – i.e. just like the seals apart from the rock bit?

Yeah. It’s damn hard to love a fruit fly, isn’t it? And you need loads to make any decent volume of pet food.

For the record, and belatedly because you’re already on your green high horse, I’m not necessarily suggesting that the seal harvest idea is a good idea. It came from a member of parliament and those two things rarely go together. That said, it would provide jobs, money, and increase local fish stocks. Thus, I am suggesting that a bit more thought than just, “Seals?! OMG! No!” be put into your response to Ms Phaliso’s scheme.

I’m also willing to bet that the rate of objection will be far higher among those who can easily put a meal on the family table for their kids each evening. That’s because there are plenty of people out there who can’t afford to do that and would surely jump at the chance to put a seal on the family table for their kids each evening.

An Absolute Pearl!

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Oh shucks, this is wonderful.

Many thanks to The Guru for alerting me to this one. And those thanks may seem strange given that “this one” is actually the:

DRAFT REVISED POLICY FOR THE ALLOCATION AND MANAGEMENT OF FISHING RIGHTS IN THE OYSTER FISHERY: 2013

which isn’t something you’d want to thank anyone for sticking in your inbox, right?

But that would all change once you got to Section 4.1 (c) on page six, under the heading “Objectives”.
And that change would be brought about by reading these words:

Co-manage oyster fishery with other spheres of government and the fishing industry in a manner that recognizes government priorities, strategic objectives of the spheres of government, the interests of fishing industry and most importantly in a manner that would please, praise and glorify the one who provided and gave man the power to rule over the fish (including oysters)

I’m sorry, what was the “most importantly” bit again?

I know you won’t believe me, so in an effort to convince you that this is genuine, here’s the passage in question:

oysterand for those continuing skeptics, here’s a link to the original document (and I’ve popped it here too , just in case it disappears from the DAFF website).

Looking at the objectives around (c), it’s easy to understand where the DAFF are wanting to take this. (a) is important, if still politically charged, (b) is an absolute no brainer and (d) is just pure common sense: symbiosis twixt oyster and man, albeit with a slight leaning towards the latter when it comes to overall benefits involving Tabasco sauce and lemon juice.

Indeed, even (c) begins with the best of intentions. In a democratic society, one cannot simply ignore the policies, aims and responsibilities of the leadership which was voted in. But then, even pleasing, praising and glorifying JZ et al pales into insignificance when compared with “the one who provided and gave man the power to rule over the fish (including oysters)”.

Note that the bracketed phrase is important, because this is a government document and must be accurate at all times – oysters are not fish, they are saltwater clams; marine bivalve molluscs of the species Crassostrea gigas (in the commercial sector, anyway).

Far be it from us to please, praise and glorify the one who provided and gave man the power to rule over the fish, because suggestions of that sort of behaviour would have absolutely no place in a draft policy document about allocation and management right within the oyster fishery.

And what fools we would appear then, hey?

This being a draft document, it seems likely that the “most important” part of Section 4.1(c) will probably not make the cut and get through to the final policy document. And that’s not just sad, it’s potentially dangerous too, for what ‘the one’ giveth, he can taketh away just as easily. Which would surely leave all the power with the fish (including oysters).

That being the case, I’d like to be the first to say that I, for one, welcome our piscine overlords.

UPDATE: Jacques points out that there is a serious side to this too.

H.J. Jenkins is very unhappy

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I think it’s fair to say that here was a mixed reaction when Margaret Thatcher died last month. And I’m not here to comment on any one of them.
What I am going to say is that there was also a reaction to those reactions.

Private Eye’s take on it (I felt) wasn’t particularly spectacular. Here’s the cover.
Nor was it particularly offensive, especially when compared to some of the other stuff going on.
However, some people seem to have taken exception. And one of them was H.J. Jenkins of Messing Park in Essex.

I think that you should read his (or her) letter to the magazine:

DSC_0404-1

So, summing it up paragraph by paragraph:

  • I used to like your magazine.
  • You were really horrid to Mrs Thatcher and because of that, I have pooed on your magazine and posted it back to you.
  • That was really nasty and not very British of you.
  • If you send me money, I shall flush it down the loo.

Now, I’ve been fairly upset about a number of things in my life. But I’ve drawn the line at maybe shouting a bit or writing an angry letter. I have never (yet) pooed on a magazine and posted it back to whence it came (the magazine that is). H.J. Jenkins must have been really annoyed.

Picture the scene. Enraged by the “anti-Thatcher sentiment” within the pages of issue 1338, H.J. Jenkins has considered his (or her) actions, probably including some shouting and a bit of angry letter writing and thought: “No. I am so annoyed that a shouting session or an angry letter just simply won’t cut it. Not this time.”
“No, I need to wipe my bottom on this magazine and return it to those individuals that published it. There’s a lesson that they won’t forget in a hurry.”
“Yes. The poo that will be left on this horribly… this distressingly… offensive issue, once it arrives at their offices, will let them know that I really did not appreciate the words and the images contained therein. They won’t write anything like that again and even if they do, I won’t read it. I really won’t.”

Seriously, exactly how annoyed do you actually have to be to do that?

It’s not even particularly absorbent.

I’m (Still) Not Finished With You.

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Big News today is that Liepollo Pheko has decided to lay a charge of intimidation against Andre Visagie.

Who they?
Well, they were some of the parties involved in the notorious “Touch me on my studio” incident back in April 2010. You can see the video here, but in case you had forgotten, Times Live has a handy reminder for you:

In April 2010 Liepollo Pheko and Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging secretary-general Andre Visagie were debating race relations in post-apartheid South Africa on the set of Africa 360.

When neither would let the other speak Visagie lost his temper, pulled off his microphone and started walking off the set. He turned back, walked towards her and said “… and you won’t dare, you won’t dare interrupting (sic) me…”.

Host Chris Maroleng intervened, during which he famously ordered Visagie not to “touch me on my studio”.

And then, as Pheko classlessly smirked, came Visagie’s pièce de résistance:

Visagie walked around the desk at which he and Pheko had been sitting, turned to face Pheko, and said: “I am not finished with you.”

Those words struck deep, it seems. So deep that only now, 1096 days on, Pheko has realised that she felt intimidated by Visagie.

Heaven only knows how she has carried on with her normal life, of being a policy analyst, social entrepreneur, senior executive, thought leader and social activist plus Managing Director and co-owner of  management consultancy, Four Rivers Trading and Executive Director at NGO/think-tank, the Trade Collective, in the intervening period.

Quite what Mr Visagie had – or perhaps has – in mind for Ms Pheko is unclear. That’s probably why at each and every public event she has attended in the last 3 years, she must have been hugely concerned that the aging Mr Visagie would perhaps turn up and talk loudly at her in broken English some more.
In some ways, maybe she was almost desperate for it to happen, praying for that defining moment of release when Mr Visagie, having said his piece turned to her and added “Now I am finished with you”. But that moment has never come and it seems that the last three years have been nothing but a waiting game for Ms Pheko – and indeed for Mr Visagie, one would imagine.

And so, after somewhat belatedly realising that she was being intimidated back in 2010, Pheko is to finally lay a charge of intimidation against Visagie. These cases do tend to go on a bit, so one wonders exactly how long it will be before she is finished with Mr Visagie.

It should be noted that the timing of her decision has everything to do with the constant worry she has felt since Mr Visagie informed her of his lack of closure back in 2010 and nothing to do with her name being put forward as a possible presenter on Given Mkhari’s new Gauteng based radio station Power FM.