Send sis Zanele to Iraq
Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula knows a thing or two about keeping the boss — and the boss’s wife — happy, more so given the fact that she is a woman employee. So out came her tribute to ”sis Zanele Mbeki” for her ”efforts to bring together women from different warring factions in the Congo to a dialogue on the problems facing their country. I firmly believe that this intervention has today laid a strong foundation in building the peace that is holding on in Congo.”
Wonder what the Zumas — the foreign minister and the deputy president — who have been logging several hours in that troubled spot for more than a year have to say to that?
Die patriot
Mad Bad Bob Mugabe often says that people opposing him are not patriots. But Oom Krisjan would like to remind troubled Zimbabweans of what the author Edward Abbey once said: ”A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government.”
Mondli who?
The government has often upbraided newspapers for going to print without ”correctly checking the facts”. Well, Lemmer was looking up a couple of things on the Government Communication and Informations Systems (GCIS) list and was tickled to find listed for the Mail & Guardian: Chief Editor: Mr Sharry Carry
Sky-high stakes
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, the manne were distressed to learn that a giant asteroid is heading for Earth and could hit it by 2014. Considering the seemingly indestructible Bruce Willis might be a little old to go rushing off into space to get rid of it, Oom Krisjan was pleased to read that American astronomers have calculated that the chances of Armageddon caused by a catastrophic collision are just one in 909 000.
Well, relieved until someone pointed out that there’s more chance of the asteroid eliminating life as we know it than of Lemmer winning the lottery.
Keeping tabs on Essop
Essop Pahad, Minister in the Presidency and self-confessed propagandist, got a taste of the bek and quick wit of the Cape Flats during the presidential imbizo.
Factory worker Whilma Liedeman told President Thabo Mbeki he should install a swipe card outside Pahad’s office to check when he arrives for work, how long his lunch breaks are and when he leaves.
”It’s a difficult day,” smiled Pahad, who is also in charge of the offices of the disabled, youth and elderly in the president’s office.
He promised Liedeman he would check on the implementation of an earlier decision of the Housing Ministry to build wheelchair-friendly homes and to ensure that, 2% of the workforce of a company comprised disabled workers, in line with government regulations.
”You can take me along. I’ll help you sort them out,” Liedeman responded.
Pahad’s boss was stopped in his tracks by one much younger than Liedeman. ”Why are you always so angry?” a slip of a schoolgirl asked our president. ”I’m not angry,” he assured her — probably mentally noting that he should flip through those Dale Carnegie books again.
Familiarity breeds…
Not everyone was enamoured by the presidential imbizo in the Cape as the convoy of a dozen or so official cars, plus accompanying media convoys, caused traffic snarl-ups. Oom Krisjan has sympathy for the taxi gaardjie who moaned: ”Why must I stop? I can mos see him on TV every day!”
Fair cop
Here in the Groot Marico we’re not in the privileged position of having one of those stores that sell little miracle pills that guarantee you’ll lose all those extra kilos while you sleep. After last Sunday’s Carte Blanche there’s sure to be significantly fewer trips by the kerk’s vrouekomitee to the closest shop, stocking such paraphernalia, in Zeerust.
The manne and the vroue were shocked to find Isabel Jones, the doyenne of consumer journalism, on the incriminating side of the microphone after she had endorsed a product that has no scientific basis for its claims to help people lose weight. Being frank with Derek Watts she admitted that she did indeed change her diet — but none of the tannies from the vrouekomitee seems to remember her saying as much in the adverts.
Changing stripes
Indestructible political yo-yo Peter Marais — one time Cape Town mayor and Western Cape premier for the Democratic Alliance and the New National Party — is on the comeback trail yet again. This week, Oom’s sources in the visdorpie say, Marais officially launched his latest political platform: the New Labour Party, based on the one of the tricameral parliamentary days.
The inaugural meeting took place at the church of his spiritual adviser, Pastor Theo Noble, above the McDonald’s in Mitchells Plain town centre.
Styled as the political home of working-class coloureds — the forgotten tribe, according to Marais — the banjo-playing, crooning Teflon politician bemoaned how the rainbow nation had turned into a zebra.
He sounded his clarion call: ”I’m calling on you like Joshua to shout and blow your trumpets so that the walls of poverty, the walls of crime, the walls of prostitution and drug abuse can come tumbling down before the might of a third force that has released your full potential. The rise of the coloured people can best be summed up in the words of the old Transvaal Volkslied…”