VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN

In general, the share markets seem happy with the lack of a clear winner in the USA election and prices are rising. It’s probably just relief that the pollsters and pundits will be put on ice for four more years. Its very comforting to read that the head tax collector has embarked on a three-stage turnaround that will “Exit Out” (staff members) who are believed to compromise the organisation. Just so long as he also “Enters In” sufficient replacements to reduce the queue for telephonic help from the current “you are number one – one – seven – four in the queue and the wait rime is approximately one hour and forty seven minutes”! That last S, standing for Service in the SARS acronym, has always been a worry. Man, but this democracy stuff is hard hey? Firstly, you have to create a list of the names of people eligible to vote and then you have to tick them off when they do. Then you have to count the ballots. Stories emerging from the USA at election times always indicate that the nation that put a man on the moon still can’t do these simple three things. So far, the greatest surprise is that in many cases the number of people who voted exceeds the number of names on the lists. Surely that means that some people voted more than once, so should not that invalidate the election? Apparently not. Then it turns out that very large batches of sequentially counted votes are all for the same candidate which statistically is highly unlikely and suggests ballot rigging which also might be a case for invalidating the election. And then there is the collegial system which attempts to make all individual votes have approximately the same weight. Inevitably this final process drives the losers nuts! Sadly, the USA is slowly but inevitably losing its claim to be the moral and intellectual leader of the worlds “western” democracies. By the way, does anyone remember if we stopped counting the votes in our 1994 election? Meanwhile the Zondo Commission of Enquiry has unearthed some real beauties. Their attitude and responses to the questions have been hilarious but tragic. Ms Yakhe Kwinana who chaired the board of SAA Technical as well as sitting on the main SAA board has been exposed as having scant skills to offer in either of those posts except for scoring enormous kickbacks from any company trying to win contracts with the national airline. Her “boss”, Ms Dudu Myeni, erstwhile chair of the main board has become very edgy about incriminating herself and has declined to say much of anything except “I won’t answer that question”. The witnesses are fortunate to be present on screen only for that surely prevents either Judge Zondo himself or evidence leader advocate Kate Hofmeyr from walking over and delivering an attitude-adjusting klap. The astonishing thing to emerge from these proceedings is that none of the witnesses seem to keep any sort of diary or journal. They are always very hazy on who, where and when. This includes things like wedding anniversaries! President Cyril is going to address us next week. He has declared that he is worried that people seem to have given up caring very much about Covid-19. Given the really extreme measure being re-imposed in some nations overseas, he may decide to follow suit. The fact is that citizens have simply lost faith and interest in any government plan “to save thousands of lives” involving lockdowns. Most of the livelihood-destroying measures attempted since March have caused more pain than the pandemic. And the medical profession has sown confusion and dismay by continually issuing authoritative declarations that contradict the previous one. By now, we each have formed our own strategies about masks, sanitising (or is it Satanizing?) and social distancing. And we reject the notion that there are such things as non-essential businesses. So will government please now step away and go and do something useful like replacing the broken and stolen infrastructure that is having a far greater impact on our lives that this virus, which is doing its own thing, oblivious to just about anything we try. The new Supersport TV line up does have some nice features. Like screening sports where there are real live fans like baseball and American football. James Greener Friday 6th November 2020