Tidemarks has a thesis that the absence of even the most basic skills in arithmetic, like counting and multiplication and division is increasingly responsible for the nation’s poor choices. Amongst the leaders and opinion-formers the concept of “per capita” is not widely grasped. For example, the popular political policy of confiscating the wealth of the presumed rich of this country and distributing it among the rest is all but pointless because the number of beneficiaries is so large. This simplest of sums is not meaningful for a dangerously large number of people.
This week, the worse than expected GDP figures for the second quarter of 2020 were published. The headline result was that our economy slumped at an annualised rate slightly worse than 50%pa. It is not really much fun to dissect this horror limb by limb, as hopefully, this will never happen again in anyone’s lifetime. The sole thing that deserves to be emphasised, however, is that the government sector suffered not a scrap in this period and it was from this place of comfort that the politicians and bureaucrats told the rest of us how to survive. Also this week, the State of Disaster was renewed for another month. There is probably no supporting evidence for such a decision beyond NDZ’s explicitly expressed threat to find a reason to reimpose the bans on our pleasures. The interesting Covid research emerging these days are “sotto voce” admissions by the medics that perhaps their worst fears were a tad overly pessimistic and that their counting was a bit wrong. Once again if maths understanding were more widespread the nation should be able to enjoy a huge sense of relief and prepare to defenestrate those who think that hundred of thousands of arrests for breaching lockdown regulations is a satisfactory sign of great policing and wise infection control measures.
But the big news of the moment, which is impossible to explain to friends overseas, is that some of the biggest corporates on the block bought off a handful of mostly male, stupid and nasty troublemakers with a truckload of tampons. An advertisement commissioned by the Clicks pharmaceutical chain store for a hair shampoo targeted at young women was angrily identified by the EFF political party as racist. These incensed guardians of the country’s hair-care choices picketed, and, in some cases, trashed Clicks stores. The revelation that the advertising campaign was the work of a black executive team intent only on growing sales amused everyone, except for those who suffered from the violence. This included an elderly woman who on being manhandled produced a handgun from her bosom and was immediately hailed as a heroine. The donation of female hygiene items to disadvantaged communities was a very clever idea. Provided of course that the thugs don’t nick the shipments and try to sell therm.
My spirits sank when I read the news that Cricket South Africa has appointed someone to the post of “Acting Head of Pathways (Development)”. This is part of a press release about many other posts with fancy names and including something called a “high-performance team” who “will work with the Proteas men’s and women’s coaching staff in ensuring (that) a steady flow of talent reaches the national team(s) when needed”. A few of the names whose shiny suited bottoms will soon fill the plush chairs at the CSA offices, are surprisingly familiar, despite last week’s racist policy dictat. But just the idea that CSA employs someone to write that sort of guff, is depressing. The raw materials for selecting teams of any sport at any level is a pool of gifted and self-motivated individual athletes who have been willing, and more importantly, able to train and practice for many long hours both alone and if they are lucky, under the guidance of an experienced and dedicated mentor. The nature of sport is that talented people appear without much warning or heed for needs that are neatly typed out on a meeting agenda. The very name “selector” reveals that filling a team sheet is more about who to leave out. Socialist theories about equal opportunity don’t win games.
James Greener
2020 anniversary of 9/11
