NO KNEES NEEDED

Tidemarks’ favourite hobby horse is that many of our ills in this nation have their origin in the state’s program of distributing various grants to the needy in lieu of lifting the many barriers they have imposed on enabling the needy to get gainful employment. So proud are they of this redistribution system that the department of Social Development this week claimed that it was on a par with the world’s best. This dreadful boast is on a par with the reason offered by an unemployed young woman standing in the ruined litter-strewn wasteland of what used to be Krugersdorp city centre as to why she will use her first ever vote to support the ruling party. Her cross will be “In honour of Nelson Mandela.” Was this really Madiba’s vision? Mind you, pretty much any result is possible. It is reported that the huge number of candidates offering themselves to the electorate has overwhelmed not only the IEC organising the show, but the candidates themselves. Allegedly one candidate appears on a ward ballot paper representing 3 different parties. No conflicts there then? The number of injunctions on our behaviour these days requires a fully charged smart phone loaded with the latest software to keep track. What levels of lockdown and load shedding am I under at this moment? Can I buy liquor without a mask on Sunday? Is my vaccination passport up to date? Can I drive to the Kruger? Is the polony safe? Where is my polling station on Monday? Whew! But elsewhere on the globe they have similar problems. In about half a dozen years we will be able to rent a private space station named Orbital Reef from Jeff Bezos (the Amazon man). It will be a “mixed-use” facility “suitable for commerce, research and tourism”. Apparently, Sandton parents are already asking about booking it for a so-called Matric Rage venue. Ballito, you know, is so last year. What we should be proud of, however, is that this nation has eliminated discrimination against women when it comes to employment opportunities. The deputy national police commissioner is Lieutenant-General Bonang Christine Mgwenya and she strengthened her credentials for high office this week by being arrested for fraud, corruption and theft involving a R191-million tender. Atta girl. Anyone standing for election and the opportunity to become a tax-eater should be required to pass a test that ensures that they understand long division and the concept of the resulting two-part units. Like “rands per tax-payer” and “kWH per kg”. The former is tripping up the brains that run the USA as they find out that even if they were to confiscate all the transferable wealth of say the thousand richest people in the land of the (sort of) free, it converts into a rather modest once off payment to each of the rest of the population and critically, it can happen only once. Understanding the amazingly inconvenient truths lurking in a study of the second unit will not feature at all at the COP 26 Jamboree about to take place in Glasgow. A few years ago Durban hosted this gathering of the lethally hypocritical and they mostly were not very nice people. Their meetings are become Councils of War about how to rid the world of one of its most important gaseous compounds – carbon-dioxide. The fact that it can’t and won’t happen is no deterrent to the angry and tearful delegates who will themselves generate tons of this colourless and odourless gas. Travelling, shouting, sluicing and browsing on the taxpayer’s dollar in comfy and salubrious surroundings is the real objective. Will there be a weigh-out of the of single use plastic waste items the eco-warriors will leave for the Glaswegians? It’s a hypocritical circus run by clowns who have managed to convince everyone else that their cause is so just and important that they need not wear the surgical masks that they want the rest of us to do. The reappearance of the attention-getting stunt of gluing ones more prominent body parts to roads and other silly places is amusing while you are not the one rushing a sick child to hospital. Oh, for the days when “Taking the Knee” would be redlined by your teacher as ungrammatical and anatomically nonsense. James Greener Friday 29th October 2021