Category: politics

Nanny State goes mad!

Posted on

A few weeks ago, we brought you news of Cape Town’s new and stupid liquor bylaws. We’re still waiting for some sort of rational explanation as to how those make sense, but there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon in that a public participation process seems to be being set up to discuss “possible amendments” to the bylaw (which, don’t forget, is already in force and will continue to be during these potential discussions).

But, my friends, no sooner is there light at the end of that tunnel, then we leap salmon-like from frying pan to fire. Because the Nanny State – so often negatively associated with the UK – is still here and it’s alive and well, having set up a summer holiday home in Camps Bay. OH, AND ANOTHER ONE IN OUDTSHOORN WHERE IT HAS ONLY GONE AND REGULATED OSTRICH RIDING!

OMG!

I know, right? Unbelievable.

Once common, traditional practices like having 200 bottles of wine on your premises, buying Milk Stout at 6:01pm and riding ostriches without a permit – let alone all three – will sadly die out under these new draconian laws and all we’ll have left to show for them are happy memories, a slight hangover and some peck marks.

Yes, try riding a big bird these days without the appropriate permits and Papa wag vir jou. And by Papa, I mean the Performing Animals Protection Act, the one that even the NSPCA admits “may be misleadingly named”:

It specifically regulates “the exhibition and training” of animals and states that anyone intending to do so must be the holder of a licence in terms of that Act.

How utterly ridiculous.
Fortunately, they then go on to assure us that:

The application process is straightforward and forms can be obtained from animalethics4@nspca.co.za.

God alone knows what animalethics1, 2 and 3 were about. Probably remembering to polish your tortoise or something.

Anyway, I’m going apply for my ostrich riding permit straight away. I don’t actually have any ostriches to ride, but I can only imagine that come the day I get one, I’m not going to want to hang around for three months waiting for some jobsworth somewhere up in Pretoria to stamp a few forms so that I can ride it legally.
What I get up to in the privacy of my own back garden is my business, anyway. It’s not like I’m planning to ride it to work or anything. This is purely a leisure activity.

Please. If you, like me, have ever ridden an ostrich, you’ll appreciate the tight bond twixt bird and jockey, a bond that shouldn’t be sullied and cheapened by paperwork and misleadingly named paternal legalities. Sadly, this is merely another unnecessary intrusion into our daily lives by the powers that be; powers that are already overworked and failing to enforce the rules and regulations already imposed upon us.

I’m not calling for protests or a campaign of civil disobedience here. I would hate you to be brought to book because you decided to unlawfully ride your ostrich on my account.
Just please, no more silly laws about beer and wine and ostriches, complicating people’s lives simply for the sake of it.

P.S. Don’t forget to polish your tortoise this evening, lest the NSPCA come a calling.

Danger! Common Sense Ahead!

Posted on

And we’re applying it to social media.

Yeah. Exactly!

Yesterday’s big news of Margaret Thatcher’s death was not entirely unexpected given her recent health issues, and nor was the mixed response to her passing. Much like Marmite, you either loved her or you hated her, but is there (or was there) really no room for any middle ground?

This article from Willard Foxton in the Telegraph shows us that social media forced us to see other people’s opinions which might differ widely from our own and reminds us that any form of unerring adulation or hatred here is probably rather ill-conceived.

The nail is pretty much hit on the head with this:

Surveying yesterday’s social media hysteria, the conclusion I draw is this: anyone who loved Margaret Thatcher as the perfect PM and is unwilling to accept any criticism of her, or anyone who thinks she was pure evil, like a medieval peasant recalling a folk memory of a tyrant king, is either disingenuous, ill-informed or a bit thick.

And often all three.

This could be applied to many (any?) other individual, situation or event as well. And probably should be.

Nearly there

Posted on

I was just going through my usual Sunday morning routine of curing inoperable brain tumours in little children by clicking Facebook LIKE buttons, when suddenly, there was incoming communication from @JacquesR:

Three years after launching it, this Cape Party petition for Western Cape independence is 4/10 of the way there: http://www.mypetition.co.za/index.php?page=sign_petition&petition_id=135

And he’s right.

Western Cape to become an independent state.

Why is it listed under “Crime”? The Cape Party are just a bit rubbish, they’re not criminals.

The other thing I can’t understand is how such a significant attempt to install an independent government in the Cape has slipped under the radar for so long. I think we’ve all had the feeling that too many political organisations rely solely on the ballot box and the democratic process.
But, as we know, that simply didn’t work for the Cape Party as they only managed to scrape 0.09% of the local vote.

It’s a tall order to govern any country effectively when fewer than 1 in 1000 people are supporting you. In fact, as the ANC have showed us, it’s apparently pretty tough to govern any country effectively full stop.

As far as I am aware, the ANC has yet to resort to online petitions. Given their efficacy (the petitions, not the ANC), one has to wonder why. After all, recently, several petitions on Change.org have been attributed the reversal of a United Airlines Dog Policy. And if clicking a checkbox means that your spaniel can fly across the States, then I’m obviously all for it.

In fact, many people believe that online petitions are the worst examples of “slacktivism”, like dancing on a beach, wearing a certain colour of clothing or sticking a red plastic rhino horn on the front of your car. That is, it’s an all too easy way to make yourself feel that you are doing something, when actually, you are having no effect whatsoever. It’s merely a panacea for your conscience, not for the problem you are supposedly highlighting.

To me, it speaks volumes that the Cape Party’s online petition  is floundering at 40% completion after three years of trying. So even when all people have to do to express their support is to click a link , they don’t.

Someone once said: “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results”. The fact that the Cape Party continue to push for Cape independence and expect people to agree with them simply proves that they are all quite, quite mad.

When We Win

Posted on

In the lead up to the World Cup in 2010, Bafana Bafana (the local name for the South African national football team) were undeniably brilliant. They won friendlies against everyone, and suddenly the nation believed we had a chance. Even in the competition, they played well: beating France and drawing with Mexico (including “that goal”). They went out in the first round, but they went out with their heads held high.

However, it’s been a different (or rather, indifferent) team since then. One miserable performance after another has left them the laughing stock of the nation. They slipped to 84th in the FIFA rankings (albeit with no lucrative Afcon qualifiers to play).
This year, nothing improved: a 0-1 defeat against Norway’s B team, followed by a goalless bore draw against Algeria further depressed and angered us. Then only managing another 0-0 against the Cape Verde Islands (population 500,000) in the first Afcon game had most of us reaching for the bottle. Again.

But suddenly, somehow, the nation believes once more. Because Bafana beat Angola 2-0 on Wednesday evening and suddenly everything is rosy again. Helpful results elsewhere mean that even a draw against Morocco will see us through tomorrow evening.

People are excited and none more so than our erstwhile Minister of Sport and Recreation, Mr Fikile April Mbalula, who… er… had this to say:
(Please excuse me for reproducing it in full, but really, you must read it in full for the “full” effect.)

We stand here this morning as a proud and confident nation imbued by the resounding thrashing, walloping and gregarious defeat of the Angolan national football Team in Ethekwini by the our astonishing and call-heading warriors Bafana- Bafana, the crown jewel of the nation of the most popular sport in our country and the world over.

Like true warriors and combat ready soldiers, our national Team turned the misfortune of being denied goals in the warm up matches and first game versus Cape Verde into a promising and pending festival of goals during our last game against Angola. You the people of South Africa headed the clarion call:

To support our Team in the spirit and dictum of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Seaparankwe) our national hero and international icon when he said that leaders and winners show the stripes of their true colours not in conditions of easiness but it is through difficult circumstances that a real leader emerges and survive. As we have come to know and acknowledge that social condition throw up concrete circumstance from which leaders emerge and chart a new a path into the future.

To this day we know that the nation was disappointed and dismayed that Bafana Bafana were not resolute and determined in our quest for excellence and for quality and thus succumbing to foreign tendencies of negative media reporting and being bullied on the social networks. Not that they were not patriotic, but, it was a sign of not accepting the fact that in sport there is lose, draw or win. But your characteristic of a leap of hope and faith in our national team and never die spirit gave rise to our deep understanding and personification of the adverb that – “birds of the same feather flock together” and which propelled our Team to the 2 – 0 victory in our last game against Angola.

After all you remain a constant reminder to the national Team never to abandon a sport code that is an oasis of hope, livelihood and symbol of nationhood to us and billions of people around the globe.

To this extent your wish and hope that Bafana Bafana must win came through two days ago and for the reason that prompted Chief Albert Luthuli to pronounce at his life time and age that the Tempo is quickening- Asijiki, Siyaya phambili.!!! The Cup will be hoisted aloft by President Jacob Zuma and will be delivered to our people as a symbol and meaningful contribution to the quest for peace and unity of purpose amongst Africans here at home and in the Diaspora.

Our Team has once and for all unequivocally demonstrated that there is neither room nor place for prophets of doom and unpatriotic Johnny-come-lately in our national fiber, constitution and make up. We are a unique brand! Born in struggle and baptised in revolutionary fires!

In defeat we show unreserved humility and in success we deservedly glow and shine amidst the thunderous ululations, passionate singing, salutations of endearment and deafening blowing of the Vuvuzela’s that have become a trade-mark of football culture in our mother-land South Africa.

As millions of our South Africans patriots, African compatriots and curios and friendly spectators are witnessing and bearing testimony to another African extravaganza and spectacle unfolding and beaming in front of their human and mortal eyes, we are re-assured by our own collective realisation and laudable foresight of our fore-bears that the time for the re-awakening of the embedded and God-given talent within the African continent and her people looms largely on our horizon.

The evolutionary and revolutionary duty lies with the current generation to discharge its historical mission of delivering human solidarity, social progress, peace and stability through-ought the nook and cranny of our beloved continent leveraging on sport, amongst others, as a platform and medium for peace and total emancipation of the toiling and down trodden peace-loving people of Africa.

It is in this context that our eyes are cast way beyond explosive celebrations and symbolic ceremonies to embarking on concrete steps for the realisation of the African dream of a meaningful transformation and impactful development. Our National Development Plan, of which the National Sport and Recreation Plan is an intrinsic part and the Millennium development goals, lends to us the possibility and ability to lay and consign the ghosts, of Jan Van Riebeek, of Cecil John Rhodes, and of Verwoerd to the dustbin of history as we unite and democratise our country through sport and recreation.

The moment for which the majority and caring South Africans have been waiting for have now arrived. South Africa this is your time, we must all seize the moment as we take on Morocco this Sunday at the magnificent and majestic Moses Mabhida stadium.

We must support our brothers as we did amidst thunderstorms and heavy rains as our peoples’ determination and soul were not deterred by the bad weather as they gathered at the national stadium in Johannesburg, in South Africa for the official opening of the Orange Africa Cup of Nations 2013. An African extravaganza and humdinger that was also observed and broadcast live through the nook and cranny of the African continent.

We ourselves as South Africans have been engrossed in the preparations to ensure sufficient readiness of our national team Bafana Bafana! Whilst at the same time extending our warm reception to our fellow African compatriots imbued by the spirit of Ubuntu, the highest state of humanity.

As the games progresses without any major hindrances, a sigh of relief beaconed our souls and fuel our patriotism and hope for the renaissance of the African Continent.

In the forthcoming games we need to ensure that our team score the requisite goals to reciprocate the good gesture of support from the Commander in Chief, President Zuma and from fellow South Africans. We must all play our part in ensuring that we all feel the stadiums in all the remaining and support all the teams and beat the drums for all the teams, right at the foot of the African Continent.

From now going forward we have it within ourselves to ensure that our national symbols such as our flag, the National Anthem and the Bafana Bafana jersey reign supreme in our consciousness and visibility throughout the length and breath of our country. We appeal to the host cites and all provinces to devise go to war plans and game plan campaigns that will sustain the current moment and lift us all to highest heights of the prestigious championship.

Government has also noted with shock the 419 scammers who are using the AFCON and Government respectable logos to attempt to solicit money from our soccer-loving nation. Please be warned that no Government Department is currently running any competition on the Afcon 2013. You would therefore not allow yourself to present any individual with your banking details or any personal information.

Wave the FLAG. We can see the colours of the rainbow.

Phambili Mawethu!! Ukwanda Kwaliwa ngumthakathi!!!

No. That’s actually genuine. Not a lost page of the pilot script for The Dictator.

There’s plenty to analyse and decrypt within that press release, but since I firmly believe that Bafana will get through to the quarter finals (thus succumbing to foreign tendencies of negative media etc etc.), I think I’ll save it to see what sort of reaction Fikile has then.

Expect fireworks.

Three times nothing is still nothing…

Posted on

I’ve been doing some rudimentary calculations again.

During January – November 2012 (remember back then?), I was stopped a total of zero times in roadblocks in and around Cape Town. But hey, I’m an individual case with a propensity to stay home with my family on Saturday nights, so maybe that – while demonstrating that if I had been doing anything naughty on the roads (which I wasn’t), I would have got away with it – is actually fine.

Then, early last month, we were informed in an interview by Robin Carlisle, MEC for Transport in the Western Cape, on a local radio station that motorists were “three times more likely” to be stopped in a roadblock in the province during the “holiday season”. During that “holiday season”, I racked up well over 2,000km on the roads of the Western Cape. I was stopped a total of zero times.

Those rudimentary mathematicians among you will have already done the sums (or read the title of the post) and worked out, like me, that Robin was absolutely right.
The upshot of his worryingly accurate prediction has been a 6% increase in the number of deaths on the Western Cape roads during December, something Robin refers to as “disheartening”.

I’m well aware that the issues of drink driving, dangerous driving, cellphone use and not using seatbelts should be negated by sensible and responsible individual choices. Sadly, we also all know that that’s not going to happen.

But that aside, as we have mentioned many times before, it’s all very well for the authorities to go making these promises and commitments, but unless they’re actually going to back them up with solid action, things are not going to improve.