Wall Street's Arab Spring?
IS THE WEST experiencing its own Arab Spring? Thousands of people try to "occupy" Wall Street in protest against the financial system that has served society so dismally in recent years. Thousands more camp outside St Paul's Cathedral, in the City of London, financial centre of Europe.
Are these the great unwashed, mindless anarchists who have found another issue on which to confront authority? Or is it something else?
We see wholesome-looking youngsters engaging in earnest debate with senior Anglican clerics outside St Paul's. The clerics themselves agree that they have a point; there is much that needs correcting. Even though the campaign is termed "anti-capitalist", nobody seems to offer Marxist alternatives.
Could this be a turning point? Will the financial/banking system be reformed? Can it be reformed? Was the meltdown caused by rotten apples or by systemic failure? As with the Arab Spring, there's the sense of a turning , but no indication of direction.
Meanwhile, the stand-off is being brilliantly parodied in America. Andy Borowitz writes on his satirical website, The Borowitz Report: "Millions of Americans cheered the news on Friday that arrests had finally been made on Wall Street, but were soon disappointed to learn that the wrong people had been taken into custody.
"'I was like, finally they're going to get those bastards,' said Tracy Klugian, 27, of Queens, New York, whose hopes were raised by an 'Arrests on Wall Street' graphic he saw on CNN. 'I guess it was too good to be true.'
"New York Police Department spokesman Frank Hannefy explained the controversial decision to arrest Occupy Wall Street protesters while leaving unmolested the people who had brought the nation's economy to the brink of Armageddon.
"'As far as soulless individuals pillaging the country for their personal gain, that's none of our business,' he said. 'But we'll be damned if we're going to let people march on newly seeded grass.'"
Borowitz quotes Lloyd Blankfein, chairman of banking giant Goldman Sachs, saying when he heard police sirens outside his building "I was sure they were finally coming for us." The Goldman chief said he started running up and down the halls "screaming at people to feed the document shredder like Chris Christie at a pie-eating contest." He felt "palpable relief" when he realised the police had come to arrest the protesters and were leaving the bankers at large.
"'That was a close one,' he said, chuckling. 'We're all going to have a good laugh about this next weekend in the Caymans.'"
Pub quiz stuff
FOR THOSE of us who are always stumped by anagrams in pub quizzes, Lylie Musgrave, of Durban, sends in some mental limbering up:
· Presbyterian - Best in prayer.
· Astronomer – Moon starer.
· The eyes – They see.
· The Morse Code – Here come dots.
· Dormitory – Dirty room.
· Slot machines – Cash lost in me.
· Animosity – Is no amity.
· Election results – Lies! Let's recount.
· A decimal point – I'm a dot in place.
· The earth quakes – That queer shake.
Boom and bust
IN HIS LATEST grumpy newsletter, investment analyst Dr James Greener questions the appropriateness of a Nobel Prize for economics. No amount of research and development has enabled to planet to avoid the savage cycles of boom and bust, he says.
"That said, I am obviously disappointed that the committee this year again failed to spot my contributions. I have never been to Stockholm.
"Another local contender must be the salesman who flogged 10 electric bicycles to the Durban Metro Police. This event was celebrated with a photo of the mayor on board one of these machines cruising along the (flat) beachfront boardwalk and an enthusiastic promise by him to ride to work at least once a week.
"The forthcoming Climate Conference to be held here in Durban is spawning limitless foolishness. The blurb trumpeted that battery bikes are 'eco-friendly' because recharging is achieved simply by plugging into a domestic power socket. Oh dear!
"Prizes should be offered to the first reporter who snaps His Worship pedalling uphill to his Pinetown home once the juice runs out."
Tailpiece
YOU KNOW that your divorce proceedings are getting bitter and malicious when your lawyer no longer seems like a blood-sucking leech.
Last word
The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.
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