Hello and welcome! This little column will present politics at its most absurd. SAtired supports freedom of speech, small government and free markets. This means we’re centrists. This is NOT a safe space!
The Fortnightly Squib*
- squib /skwɪb/ noun: squib 1. a small firework that issues a hissing sound before exploding into a short piece of satirical writing.
Minister of Oxymorons
SAtired has to give full credit and gratitude to columnist Andrew Donaldson and his column David Mahlobo: Teflon Tubby in Politicsweb on 15 April 2021.
Donaldson describes the former minister of the intelligence services (oxymoron and all that) as having run ‘the intelligence and was greatly feared’. Donaldson made this observation in the context of Mahlobo’s appearance before the Zondo commission last Friday. Mahlobo was described as ‘a shadow of his former self. A very large and defensive shadow.’
Donaldson and his comrades at the Slaughtered Lamb (“Finest Ales & Pies”) recalled the old Mahlobo of old, ‘the big pudding who ordered the jamming of cellphones in Parliament in 2015. He claimed there was drone activity in the area. (There was: it was another of Accused Number One’s state of the nation addresses.)’
Mahlobo suggested former public protector Thuli Madonsela could be a CIA spy. More presciently Mahlobo knew of the May 2016 riots in Vuyani, Limpopo, a year before they actually happened. Yet he did nothing to prevent them; ‘this presumably would have blown his cover’.
Donaldson goes on to recall the height of Mahlobo’s career – ‘his patronage of alleged rhino-horn trafficker Guan Jiang Guang’s Chinese massage parlour in Mbombela’. It was during these heady (horny?) days that ‘reports emerged of Mahlobo’s “friendship” with parlour employee Wei Chelsea, a slip of a girl a third his size, and that the place was actually a knocking shop. How opposition MPs mocked him then, with their jeers of “happy endings”’.
And going from the sublime to the cor’ blimey!, Guang claimed Mahlobo’s wife was involved in rhino horn smuggling and he considered Mahlobo, ‘who allegedly visited his massage parlour sometimes weekly, to be a useful contact’.
Donaldson reminds us that in October 2017 he was made energy minister, but lost the job in February 2018, when Cyril Ramaphosa became president.
‘Squirrel later appointed him deputy minister in the department of human settlements, water and sanitation. There he bobbed about like a toy duck in a bath, doing little but perhaps longing for the old spy days. But he may now finally be out in the cold, a not very happy ending for the teflon tubby.’
W-O-K-E-N-E-S-S
And once again, my indebtedness to Mr. Donaldson. He notes the wokeness that has hit the board games industry.
Mattell, which owns the rights to Scrabble outside North America, has removed from official lists of permissible words, some 400 derogatory terms which, it claims, “have no place in a family game”.
The company refuses to publish these terms, but a report in The Times suggests they include “epithets against black, Pakistani and Irish people”. Other forbidden slurs are directed at white people. The Jewish words “goy” and “shiksa” are also out.
The Sun newspaper has suggested that “goolies”, “arse”, “fatso” and “boffing”, among others, may too be banned. Donaldson suggests, however, that such speculation ‘could be dismissed as an example of the tabloid’s potty-mouthed editorial style’.
Mattel boss Ray Adler says the ruling is political and a direct result of the Black Lives Matter protests. At least he’s not pretending not to suck up to a a Marxist movement, which states among its aims the overthrow of capitalism as well as the very nuclear family which is most likely to play Scrabble.
Prominent members of the Scrabble community argue that playing a word is not insulting in itself. “Darryl Francis, a British author who has helped oversee official word lists since the 1980s, has resigned from the World English-Language Scrabble Players Association in protest, saying:
“Words listed in dictionaries and Scrabble lists are not slurs. They only become slurs when used with a derogatory purpose or intent, or used with a particular tone and in a particular context. Words in our familiar Scrabble word lists should not be removed because of a PR purpose disguised as promoting some kind of social betterment.”
‘Terms surviving the purge include “wrinklie”, “milf”, “slut” and “chav”, the latter being an “insulting word for a young working class person who wears casual sporting clothes”.’
“Goy” and “shiksa” are only derogatory; they’re not insulting (Ed.)
Yes we do! No we don’t! Yes we do….!
On Wednesday Minister of Mineral Resources Gwede “Gweezy” Mantashe defended the ANC’s deployment policy at the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture.
Mantashe appeared to give commission chairperson Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo parliamentary oversight-related evidence in his capacity as the national chairperson and former secretary-general of the ANC.
Zondo had heard testimony from former and current MPs earlier this year on how Parliament failed to prevent large-scale looting of the state and how Parliament’s oversight function wasn’t properly funded.
ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule was scheduled to appear, but the ANC sent Mantashe instead.
The minister then defended the ANC’s deployment policy, saying the party does not have a “cadre deployment” policy.
“I address the issue of cadre deployment in my affidavit for two further reasons: to give the commission an appreciation of the genesis of the ANC policy development and deployment so that it can evaluate and pronounce on the validity of the request made by the leader of the opposition, Mr John Steenhuisen, on the third of February 2021 that the state capture commission should tackle and end the ANC policy of cadre deployment,” he said.
“The deployment committee doesn’t deploys (sic) directors, deputy directors. It is limited in the state to director-generals and deputy director-generals that’s it. Below that is normal.”
He further said the deployment committee did not make appointments, but instead it just made recommendations.
In March the DA submitted a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application to President Cyril Ramaphosa in order to obtain records of the ANC’s “cadre deployment” programme.
The DA argued that revelations at the commission were sufficient proof that the ANC’s policy of cadre deployment was “the fundamental cause of state capture and corruption in our country”.
You can’t make up this stuff. Well, Gwede can.
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[Photo: Kempton Express]