See Spot embrace multiculturalism
It’s been a while since Lemmer straddled a desk at the Dorsbult Christelike Sekondêre Skool vir Moedswillige Seuns, but he can still remember the pleasure of opening brand-new textbooks: Die Bantu Hordes was a favourite of the district inspector, who translated it into English as Die, Bantu Hordes! It saddens him, therefore, to read a report from News24 that new South African textbooks have been found lacking in gender sensitivity, while skimping on coverage of disabled people. At least they’re not Die, Bantu Hordes!, which not only depicted women killing as eagerly as men, but also dealt in depth with hundreds of disabled Zulus.
Fauxnami
At first glance, Oom Lemmer was appalled by the photograph on The Citizen‘s front page (above) on Monday, apparently showing the tsunami about to crash down on dozens of fleeing Sri Lankans. But then he began to wonder why all the scampering Sri Lankans were smiling. And why they all looked Chinese. And why there was a large Oriental high-rise peeping up from behind the ferocious wave. Five minutes online at the Dorsbult public library revealed a different picture: the photograph was taken in China in October 2002 at the annual flooding of the Qiantang river. Lemmer’s tjommies at The Citizen later told him this and other ”exclusive” pictures had been e-mailed to the newspaper, which left him wondering if he shouldn’t send some more e-mail classics — the shark jumping up under the United States Army helicopter, the dog standing against the wall being frisked — to see if they’ll make headlines.
Not the news and information leader
Meanwhile, swift action from a longtime Dorsbult regular prevented SAfm, the nation’s ”News and information leader” (Nail), from disseminating some serious misinformation. Last Friday morning he had his feet up, his socks off and several Klippies already punished when he received an urgent call from Nail: his presence was required 90 minutes later on Midday Live, to explain a story he allegedly wrote on page 4 of last week’s Mail & Guardian. Puzzled, he checked the offending page closely: he had written nothing there. Asked to supply the headline, Nail did so: ”Corruption studies to be included at schools”. Since this totally fictitious story was indeed on page 4 — of Not the Mail & Guardian — the Dorsbult regular declined to be on radio by gently hammering a nail into a very thick piece of wood, and ordered a stiff mampoer.
Let my people go
Things were also getting heated outside the Dorsbult Bar last weekend after the Sunday Sun ran a headline insisting that ”Fag slaves should break free”. Dok Rabie’s observation that it was about time outraged Vrot Snoek Fouchée, who was heard to bellow, ”They’ve made their leather-and-chain harness, now they must lie in it,” before they read further and found it was a report about giving up smoking.
Uncivil war
Doing its bit for xenophobia, the Sunday Sun ran a headline (in red, without quotation marks) that read ”They kill our businesses”, about Pakistanis enraging local hawkers at Mabopane station by (as far as Oom Krisjan could tell) existing. But the fracas was dwarfed by an alarming first paragraph explaining that ”civil war is tearing nations apart in Eastern Africa”. It sent Wollie Malherbe sprinting to the public phone to check on the safety of her family in Mozambique, Kenya and Tanzania, a not inconsiderable feat given Wollie’s girth. They are all fine, and Lemmer can only assume the Sunday Sun was referring to those countries east of west, like Sudan, which is east of Mauritania.
… and all who sail in her
The manne are always bok for a maritime story on SABC news, and for a change Monday night’s wasn’t Charl Pauw dangling out of a stricken trawler 2 000 miles from Cape Town, but rather the launch of new anti-poaching patrol vessel Sarah Baartman. ”It will patrol coastal waters and in some small way pay tribute to an icon of the Khoisan community,” said newsreader Joanne Joseph, sounding uncertain. Lemmer hopes they figure out which small way that is …
Figure fiddler
Now that great fiddler of figures, the Statistician General Pali Lehohla has railed off at the United Nations for making the country look bad. ”Only 28% are unemployed,” he wailed at poor Kofi Annan this week; ”and our life expectancy is 51,4 years, not 48,8 years”. Big difference, dude — that means we peg it less than three years later than the UN claims. ÂÂ
Of course, old Pali forgets to mention that his great fiddling ways mean that everyone too tired of looking and looking for work is not counted as jobless. And this from a man who managed to get wrong almost every statistic last year.