Now that Uncle Bob has “won” the election up north, his team are already planning ways to avoid the next. South Africa might have broken ranks with the Commonwealth (not to mention common sense) by declaring Zimbabwe’s elections to have been credible, but the condemnation of the rest of the world is a burden sometimes.
No sooner had the trumpets blared in the Zanu-PF camp, but Bob’s spokesmen were on the job. Proclaimed one in the state-owned rag called the Chronicle: “Sons and daughters of Zimbabwe, you have proved gallant in the presidential elections by standing firm before the British and American people that our people should never be a British colony any more after the liberation struggle, and given our president again a victory. Therefore grant our president the Life Presidency for championing Africa’s struggle of independence, unity, peace, land, development, etc, etc.” Seems like even this most ardent of brown-noses couldn’t bring himself to lie about the food issue.
Couldn’t care less
Morgan Tsvangirai’s party took a beating – literally and figuratively – at the Zim polls. This prompted an occasional visitor to the Dorsbult bar to suggest that his MDC now stands for “Mugabe Doesn’t Care”.
Black flagged
Oom Krisjan is pleased to note the strides being made by cricket administrators to make that rooinek game more appealing to the rest of the mense. Expressly prohibited for Sunday’s game at Centurion Park ? along with guns, glass bottles and over-sized deck chairs – are old South African flags. That’s the vierkleur and the orange, white and blue – not Y-front models you bought in 1994.
Feng Shui muti
After the outcry over Jomo Sono’s appointment of “muti men” as advisers for his national soccer team, Lemmer is happy to report that such superstitions are not limited to Africa. Apparently in the eight finals so far hosted at the Millennium stadium in Cardiff, the losing side has always had the same dressing room – and officials are now calling in Feng Shui experts to remove the hoodoo.
Family firm
Another thing we Africans are always being accused of is nepotism. Whenever someone appoints his nephew or niece to a post, the West screams about abuses of democracy. So the manne were very amused to read, in the Washington Post, nogal, that Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of the United States vice-president, will become a deputy assistant secretary of state and her husband, Philip Perry, has moved from the justice department to be chief counsel for the office of management and budget. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s son Michael is chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
And so it goes throughout the Bush administration, which is not very surprising come to think of how Old George sort of handed down the presidency to George W.
The US has had laws against nepotism since John F Kennedy appointed brother Robert as attorney general, but administration officials, says the Post, insist the appointees are qualified in their own right.
Macabre Mokaba
African National Congress firebrand Peter Mokaba became notorious for his “Kill the settler, kill the Boer” slogan of the struggle years. He’s since turned into an apologist for President Thabo Mbeki’s unusual views on Aids, so is his new battlecry “Kill the mother! Kill the child!”?
Sartorial snub
Oom Krisjan is sometimes invited to some splendid occasions, and the recent call from the Free State legislature to celebrate the “achievements of the Department of Health” seemed to fit into this category. But what made Lemmer finally – reluctantly – decline the invitation, was the question of attire. “Dress: African traditional”, they insisted for the daytime function. Does a safari suit complete with comb in sock qualify?
Enronomics
Oom Krisjan is sure most people are aware of the “economics for beginners” that goes along the lines of: in feudalism, you have two cows, your lord takes some of the milk; in fascism, you have two cows, the government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk; in communism, you have two cows, you must take care of them, but the government takes all the milk, and so on.
Well using this cattle-based economy here’s how to explain what happened to Enron:
You have two cows. You borrow 80% of the forward value of the two cows from your bank, then buy another cow with 5% down and the rest financed by the seller on a note callable if your market cap goes below $20-billion at a rate two times prime. You now sell three cows to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at a second bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more and this transaction process is upheld by your independent auditor. You issue a press release that announces that Enron as a major owner of cows will begin trading cows via the Internet site COW (cows on web). Ja, now you also understand.
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