Visit the Republic of ANC
Oom Krisjan was a little confused (or a little more confused than usual, anyway), after a cyber visit at the South African embassy to the United States. Lemmer was surprised to see that the prez had written a letter especially for the website. Intrigued by what Oom Thabo might want to share with disciples of the Great Satan, Lemmer clicked on the link — only to be taken to a page where the most recent copy of ANC Today is shown.
As far as Oom Krisjan can recall, the Department of Foreign Affairs (which, presumably, is ultimately responsible for the website as well as the physical embassy building) is supposed to represent the entire country, not promote the aims of the ruling party. Lemmer knows the African National Congress received more than two-thirds of the popular vote in this year’s election, but aren’t we still pretending that we are a multiparty democracy and not a one-party state?
In case you thought this was a mere aberration from the embassy in Washington, the site for the South African embassy in Sweden had the same link.
More equal than others
Yet another example of the pigs of Animal Farm at play in SA. Just 10 years after celebrating democracy and a visionary Constitution that asserts that there can be no discrimination on the basis of sexual preference, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Party has excluded transvestites from membership to their little clique.
”Men dressing as women or women dressing as men harm the image of the lesbigay community beyond doubt,” they piously intone. No, skatties, it is hypocritical bigotry like this that gives moffiedom a bad name.
Oom Krisjan would like the opinion of Judge Edwin Cameron on whether this exclusion is permitted under the Constitution.
Eat the farmer
It appears that cannibalism is rife in the Eastern Cape. Even Pick ‘n’ Pay is dealing in human body parts.
Gong-ho movie
The Falun Gong, people who believe in meditative practice of compassion, truthfulness and tolerance (and the odd saron gas attack, if you believe the Beijing government), have been watching too many Bruce Lee movies.
At a hastily convened press conference after one of their members was injured in a drive-by shooting on his way from Jozi airport, sceptical hacks were treated to a tale that sounded just like the script of a karate movie: Chinese mafia, gunmen, spies, government agents, bloody clothes.
The reasoning behind blaming the Chinese government for the attack went something like this:
(i) After being shot at they were not robbed — the car with four gunmen drove away;
(ii) The Falun Gong doesn’t have any enemies in South Africa, so these gunmen were black Chinese mafiosi hired by Beijing to take them out to prevent Falun Gong protests against the four-day visit by Chinese Vice-President Zeng Qinghong and his Minister of Commerce, Bo Xilai, two big-time human right violators.
When hacks tried to point out that the local crime rate is rather high and tourists of any description are prime targets (witness the murder of one of the Lord of the Dance crew), the conspiracy theorists were not to be put off. The Chinese government was merely using South Africa’s reputation for violence as a cover for their continued persecution of peaceful protesters.
OK, Lemmer would like to amend his opening remarks. The Falon Gong have been watching too many Jackie Chan movies.
A hairy tale
Still on things Oriental, the Chinese government has ordered an immediate inspection of all domestic food-seasoning plants as a result of a bold media exposure of a scandal in which human hair was used to make soy sauce, Interfax reports.
China Central Television, the state TV station, first raised public worries over the quality of domestic soy sauce by uncovering a substandard workshop in central China’s Hubei Province, where piles of waste human hair were found. The hairs were treated in special containers to distill amino acid, the most common substance contained in soybean sauce. Human hair is rich in protein content just like soybean, wheat and bran, the conventional and legally accepted raw ingredients for the production of soy sauce.
UN-funny
Oom Krisjan hears that al-Qaeda has put a bounty on United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s head.
It’s the grrrravy
It seems South Africa’s favourite plagiarist, Darrel Bisto-Gravy, will bear his grudge against Lemmer’s colleague, Robert Kirby, to the grave.
In his column on Internet news provider Tiscali News (how the mighty have fallen) on June 25, Darrel was bemoaning how life-expectancy is increasing. Not in Africa, of course, where it is falling as a result of Aids, but then Bisto-Gravy was never too good friends with reality. ”My friends, it will be chaos,” he writes. ”When the geriatrics rule the world, they will be able to gang up on the rest of us, and force us to wear cardigans and eat our beef well-done and read Robert Kirby.”
Oom Krisjan is amazed. Bill Bryson denies reading Loose Cannon regularly, so it appears DBB managed to write that whole paragraph himself.