This Malema idiot is getting away with way too much. On being questioned on where he is getting the money for his R16m bunker/mansion on a salary of R25,000 a month, the Mugabe-in-waiting's response is "I am not a pubically elected ofishool. I don't have to tell you where I get the money from."
O yeah? Let's apply something to which Malema is totally unaccustomed: logic.
Let's assume he has a number of patrons who are bankrolling his mansion - among other expenses. The logical question to ask is 'why would they do this?' In the cut and thrust of politics, no-one does anything for nothing. The patrons obviously believe Malema will one day become a publicly elected official. They are investing in that belief and expect to be recompensed by his largesse once that becomes a reality.
Another glaring piece of logic everyone is ignoring is that although he is not a public servant, he IS an elected official. As such, his electorate, the ANCYL, has every right to demand full disclosure of his income. The fact that they haven't shows just how easily they are beguiled by Melema's bullshit. Idiots.
But getting back to Malema's patrons. How do they stand to benefit? Tenders, of course. This country has a long history of 'tenderpreneurs' - Roux Shabangu and others - who ride the gravy train to Lamborghini bling-paradise through winning contracts via irregular and illegal means.
So, Malema is basically promising to assist his patrons by using his influence unconstituionally, and therefore illegally, IF he becomes a political kingpin. Note I said IF, not when. I live in hope.
As Roux Shabangu has recently found out, the patron's scenario doesn't always work out. Public Protector Thuli Madonsela is making Shabangu's life a living hell, and even Shabangu's mate, General Bheki Cele can't dig him out. Cele should be unceremoniously fired for awarding the contract to Shabangu in the first place, but this is Zuma's ANC, so instead, Cele will be 'redeployed' to inflict untold damage on the hapless Japanese as SA Ambassador/Bull-in-a-china-shop.
How stupid are these patrons? Throw money at a fascist megalomaniac who counts Bob Mugabe and Brother Leader Gadaffi among his heroes, in the hope that he will become, erm, another Mugabe/Gadaffi. If, God forbid, that nightmare does come true, the country will be so fucked that the patrons will be the last things on Malema's mind as he goes into perpetual denial that the country is becoming ungovernable, while simultaneously siphoning billions off to his Swiss bank account. Talk about backing a lemon.
But this is Africa, and stranger things have happened.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
WHEN GOD GETS YOU BACK
The day before my son went back to Cape Town, we went on a hike in the Magaliesberg. Well, it started out that way. It ended up by God getting me back for all the horrible things I've done to Him.
My nephew, who's done this before, warned us: "Don't go in the fast group. They're insane. Go in the middle group." So when the guide said "Leisure over there, Medium minus over there, medium plus over here," we went with medium plus. I thought there would be a fast group that followed. Big mistake. Medium plus is hike-speak for fast. These long, sinewy silent types that look sardonic even when they'e pissing into the wind. The tall woman's badges on her backpack said: "Santiago de Compostela Pilgrimage Walk - 880km", and "Drakensberg Grand Traverse - 220km". These weren't poser-badges. She'd actually done them.
By the time my son and I realised that our group's cracking pace was not just a warm-up burst, it was too late. "Our friends seem to have lagged behind," I said to our guide during the twenty second drinks break. "We'll wait here for their group to catch up". "Oh no," he says, "They turned right about four kilometres back. They're slow." The last phrase was said dismissively, as one might disregard a lower species.
This posed a problem. "What time will we get back? We're all in the one car," I said. "The same time," he said, cheerily. "But this group is hiking 22km," I pointed out. "The middle group is only doing twelve."
"Exactly," he said, and walked/ran off to lead our group of sardonic former Reconnaisance Commandos. Then the penny dropped, and with it, my stomach. We would be hiking 22km in the same time my nephew and his friend - oh you lucky buggers - would be hiking twelve.
I don't know if you've ever hiked cross country before, but it's an entirely different experience from walking on even ground. There are no footpaths, roads or anything vaguely flat. There are thick, snagging tufts of grass which hide rocks just loose enough to deprive you of a firm foothold. For the inexperienced hiker trying to keep up with those who can read this terrain like a book, you don't walk so much as lurch. It's a fast-forward stumble, and it was due to continue for the balance of our 22kms.
It was about this time that I realised I was wearing the wrong shoes. Somewhere among our many moves my hiking boots had been nationalised by the cleaning staff, and I was wearing some very upmarket black suede ankle length boots. Not appropriate I grant you, but in my outdoor-challenged wardrobe, they were the best of a bad lot. Just how bad, my feet were now beginning to tell me. And the right boot was beginning to complain audibly. Step groan. Step groan. Please God, stay in one piece, I prayed. We were too far gone to be bootless. In this terrain, to be bootless was as good as being quadriplegic.
In addition to all the above, another reason hiking is one of the most character-building activities I've done, is that the hills in the Magaliesberg are cruelly dome-shaped. They're not honest. In the Drakensberg, the terrain is lest duplicitous. You can see the top of whatever mountain you're hiking toward. Not the Magaliesburg. What looked like the top of the hill turns out to be a nipple on a convex slope that teases you with one mock-summit after the next, all the while leading you inexorably upward. If the Magaliesburg was female she would be the ultimate tease.
Fortunately, unlike the female variety, the Magaliesburg is a tease that delivers. After about eleven kilometres of lurching up one side of innumerable domes and staggering down the other, we slotted into a ravine drenched with greenery and the clearest, coolest water I've ever seen.
The ravine sloped gently upward, and after a few easy rock-climbs we found ourselves at a place my sardonic colleagues called 'Dome Pools'. Six metre deep granite pools so clear you could make out the grains of sand at the bottom. Waterfalls and rapids so crisp and cool you could fill your water bottles from them. Evian and Perrier tasted like drain water by comparison. There was no road, footpath, contour path, cattle path - nothing to give away their existence.
They were literally in the middle of nowhere. We stretched out and unpacked our lunches from our backpacks. The silence was so complete that for awhile, talking felt like sacrilege. Just a forty minute drive from Joburg, and we were in a cathedral so gentle, calm and sacred just thinking about leaving filled you with regret.
Realizing we had to, and that we had eleven more kilometers to cover at the same pace we'd hiked the first eleven, filled me with undiluted terror.
But that was in fifteen minutes. Right now, my son and I looked at our reflections in the water, ate our sandwiches, and chatted about small, insignificant things. It was the best time I'd spent with him in months.
The journey back would be hellish (for me, not for him), and it was. The next day would be even worse. (It was. Getting out of bed felt like being tortured by a hundred gargoyles while walking on red-hot coals.)
But for those moments at Dome Pools, it was as if all our arguments turned into water and dissipated into the cold Magaliesburg granite, and all that was left was each other, stripped down to the silent basic essences of who we were.
And in that essential solitude, we saw and valued what was in the other. Like the hike home, there was a journey to come. It would not be easy. But now we knew each other. We were a team. And that made all the difference.
Yes, God got me back. He got me back like He always does - by giving me unexpected gifts I don't deserve.
My nephew, who's done this before, warned us: "Don't go in the fast group. They're insane. Go in the middle group." So when the guide said "Leisure over there, Medium minus over there, medium plus over here," we went with medium plus. I thought there would be a fast group that followed. Big mistake. Medium plus is hike-speak for fast. These long, sinewy silent types that look sardonic even when they'e pissing into the wind. The tall woman's badges on her backpack said: "Santiago de Compostela Pilgrimage Walk - 880km", and "Drakensberg Grand Traverse - 220km". These weren't poser-badges. She'd actually done them.
By the time my son and I realised that our group's cracking pace was not just a warm-up burst, it was too late. "Our friends seem to have lagged behind," I said to our guide during the twenty second drinks break. "We'll wait here for their group to catch up". "Oh no," he says, "They turned right about four kilometres back. They're slow." The last phrase was said dismissively, as one might disregard a lower species.
This posed a problem. "What time will we get back? We're all in the one car," I said. "The same time," he said, cheerily. "But this group is hiking 22km," I pointed out. "The middle group is only doing twelve."
"Exactly," he said, and walked/ran off to lead our group of sardonic former Reconnaisance Commandos. Then the penny dropped, and with it, my stomach. We would be hiking 22km in the same time my nephew and his friend - oh you lucky buggers - would be hiking twelve.
I don't know if you've ever hiked cross country before, but it's an entirely different experience from walking on even ground. There are no footpaths, roads or anything vaguely flat. There are thick, snagging tufts of grass which hide rocks just loose enough to deprive you of a firm foothold. For the inexperienced hiker trying to keep up with those who can read this terrain like a book, you don't walk so much as lurch. It's a fast-forward stumble, and it was due to continue for the balance of our 22kms.
It was about this time that I realised I was wearing the wrong shoes. Somewhere among our many moves my hiking boots had been nationalised by the cleaning staff, and I was wearing some very upmarket black suede ankle length boots. Not appropriate I grant you, but in my outdoor-challenged wardrobe, they were the best of a bad lot. Just how bad, my feet were now beginning to tell me. And the right boot was beginning to complain audibly. Step groan. Step groan. Please God, stay in one piece, I prayed. We were too far gone to be bootless. In this terrain, to be bootless was as good as being quadriplegic.
In addition to all the above, another reason hiking is one of the most character-building activities I've done, is that the hills in the Magaliesberg are cruelly dome-shaped. They're not honest. In the Drakensberg, the terrain is lest duplicitous. You can see the top of whatever mountain you're hiking toward. Not the Magaliesburg. What looked like the top of the hill turns out to be a nipple on a convex slope that teases you with one mock-summit after the next, all the while leading you inexorably upward. If the Magaliesburg was female she would be the ultimate tease.
Fortunately, unlike the female variety, the Magaliesburg is a tease that delivers. After about eleven kilometres of lurching up one side of innumerable domes and staggering down the other, we slotted into a ravine drenched with greenery and the clearest, coolest water I've ever seen.
The ravine sloped gently upward, and after a few easy rock-climbs we found ourselves at a place my sardonic colleagues called 'Dome Pools'. Six metre deep granite pools so clear you could make out the grains of sand at the bottom. Waterfalls and rapids so crisp and cool you could fill your water bottles from them. Evian and Perrier tasted like drain water by comparison. There was no road, footpath, contour path, cattle path - nothing to give away their existence.
They were literally in the middle of nowhere. We stretched out and unpacked our lunches from our backpacks. The silence was so complete that for awhile, talking felt like sacrilege. Just a forty minute drive from Joburg, and we were in a cathedral so gentle, calm and sacred just thinking about leaving filled you with regret.
Realizing we had to, and that we had eleven more kilometers to cover at the same pace we'd hiked the first eleven, filled me with undiluted terror.
But that was in fifteen minutes. Right now, my son and I looked at our reflections in the water, ate our sandwiches, and chatted about small, insignificant things. It was the best time I'd spent with him in months.
The journey back would be hellish (for me, not for him), and it was. The next day would be even worse. (It was. Getting out of bed felt like being tortured by a hundred gargoyles while walking on red-hot coals.)
But for those moments at Dome Pools, it was as if all our arguments turned into water and dissipated into the cold Magaliesburg granite, and all that was left was each other, stripped down to the silent basic essences of who we were.
And in that essential solitude, we saw and valued what was in the other. Like the hike home, there was a journey to come. It would not be easy. But now we knew each other. We were a team. And that made all the difference.
Yes, God got me back. He got me back like He always does - by giving me unexpected gifts I don't deserve.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
PROF GUY BUTLER
I'd forgotten just what an exceptional man Guy Butler was.
Go to:
http://www.ru.ac.za/6246
Or if that's too much effort, just read this, one of his poems:
Go to:
http://www.ru.ac.za/6246
Or if that's too much effort, just read this, one of his poems:
The Divine Underground
Souls in flagrante delicto or in extremis
stretched on the rack or Cleopatra’s bed,
you have no news for me,
me, not fit to tread
where hawk-sure men of the media
zoom lenses down on your limbs in spasm
or claw at your grunts or ululations
with glittering microphones.
Souls in flagrante delicto or in extremis
stretched on the rack or Cleopatra’s bed,
you have no news for me,
me, not fit to tread
where hawk-sure men of the media
zoom lenses down on your limbs in spasm
or claw at your grunts or ululations
with glittering microphones.
No, I go hungrily slumming for those who wear
a habit of discipline on every gesture, armed
in still affection, steel-bright after years.
a habit of discipline on every gesture, armed
in still affection, steel-bright after years.
I find them poorly disguised as morons,
under distorting stars,
lost in their lands of birth, quite ousted by
smooth bastards or daughters in gorgeous gowns:
in the cold, in the shade,
like lepers, like untouchables, in whose eyes
our storms of guilt dissolve in their light of forgiveness:
they know what they have lost,
they guess at what they have gained;
divining an innocent justice, they endure
our grand and murderous razzmatazz
as if they were God’s spies.
under distorting stars,
lost in their lands of birth, quite ousted by
smooth bastards or daughters in gorgeous gowns:
in the cold, in the shade,
like lepers, like untouchables, in whose eyes
our storms of guilt dissolve in their light of forgiveness:
they know what they have lost,
they guess at what they have gained;
divining an innocent justice, they endure
our grand and murderous razzmatazz
as if they were God’s spies.
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