Let's tackle this evil!
IT'S GRATIFYING that the vexing question of substance abuse is being addressed at a "summit" right here in Durban.
Substance abuse is a growing evil. It threatens to undermine our youth and eventually our entire society.
In fact it's perverse. Why do people abuse substances in this way? Why do they push putty up their nostrils, pour custard into their shirt pockets and secrete jelly in their underpants? It's got to stop.
What's that you say? Substance abuse means drug and alcohol abuse?
Well why don't they just say it then?
Drinking age
MEANWHILE, former provincial MP Lynn Ambler hits the nail on the head when she says (in a letter in yesterday's newspaper) that raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 will do absolutely nothing to reduce teenage binge drinking.
Many of the binge drinkers are younger than 18 so they are already breaking the law anyway. And, as the experience of America shows, prohibition mere stokes demand for alcohol. It also introduces criminality. To raise the legal drinking age is no answer at all, it sidesteps the real issue of why this kind of thing is happening.
In fact, the call to raise the legal drinking age is a prime example of Canutism, the belief that anything can be resolved merely by passing a law. You don't like something – you get parliament to pass a law against it. You want to stop the tide coming in? You get the King to order it not to.
There's a lot of Canutism around these days. You want to reduce unemployment? You get parliament to pass a law making government the employment agency. You want to create five million new jobs? You tell parliament and get a standing ovation. Then it all happens.
Or so say the Canutists.
Good lesson
HOWEVER, in fairness to the much-maligned King Canute he himself did not believe he had the power to turn back the tide. When he sat on the beach at Dover, in all futility ordering the tide not to come in, it was to convince his adoring courtiers that he had no such powers. He might be King but he was still governed by the laws of nature.
It's a lesson that cannot be emphasised too often.
Parole puzzle
THERE'S something puzzling about this Schabir Shaik business. The continuation or otherwise of his parole from prison appears to depend on whether or not he slapped or punched certain people.
Now his parole terms no doubt do prohibit such behaviour. But he was actually paroled because he was said to be at death's door.
Is this still the case? Is it not this that the parole board should be considering?
Dem bones
The only thing archaeology proves is that our ancestors were skeletons, and they lived underground.
Interesting survey
A NEW study in America on women, and how they feel about their bums, yields some interesting results.
Thirty percent of women think their bum is too fat; 10 percent of women think their bum is too skinny; and the remaining 60 percent say they don't care, they love their bum, he's a good man and they wouldn't swap him for anything.
Men can't win
IF YOU PUT a woman on a pedestal and try to protect her from the rat race, you're a male chauvinist. If you stay home and do the housework, you're a pansy.
Evangelical ad
Jeff Gaisford, of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, wants this limerick to be placed in the Classified Advertising columns because that's how, he believes, it originally appeared in a newspaper.
But our Advertising people aren't too keen. Who would pick up the tab? So here goes:
Evangelical vicar in want
Of a portable second-hand font;
Will exchange for the same
A picture (in frame)
Of the Bishop-elect of Clairmont.
Tailpiece
THIS FELLOW has been sitting in the bar staring at a blonde wearing the tightest pants he's ever seen. His curiosity gets the better of him so he walks over and asks: "How do you get into those pants?"
She looks at him coolly: "Well, you could start by buying me a drink."
Last word
Before I met my husband I'd never fallen in love, though I'd stepped in it a few times.
Rita Rudner
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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