Bang, crash, whizz!
THIS COLUMN doesn't normally engage with rodents but a letter from a creature calling himself Water Rat, of La Lucia, provides an interesting angle on the whizzbang business of Diwali and Guy Fawkes.
On Wednesday last week, he says, anticipating that some neighbours would break the law by setting off fireworks, he plied himself with a soothing glass of red wine and dosed the four household pets with sedatives. One slightly inebriated Water Rat, one doped up Jack Russell and three very chilled cats then retired to the study to discuss the festivities.
"Purdey, a beautiful Persian, pointed out that turkeys dread Christmas and Einstein, an intellectual cat, expressed his opinion that encouraging children to burn effigies of a notorious political dissident on November 5 is barbaric. Slum Dog, the Jack Russell, muttered darkly that dogs abhor 'meat free Mondays'. But Elvis, whose au pair (cat parlance for Owner) frequently packs him off to cat shows in the local shopping mall, so knows about piped music, hit the nail on the head; he reckons the noise is collective revenge in anticipation of the upcoming auditory barrage of six weeks of Boney M!"
My guess is that Water Rat had more than that single glass of red wine.
Lawsuit
ANIMAL rights activists in America have brought a lawsuit against the chain of Sea World theme parks, citing the constitution's 13th Amendment which outlaws slavery. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) names five performing whales - Tilikum, Katina, Corky, Kasatka, and Ulises - as plaintiffs in the complaint.
"All five were violently seized from the ocean and taken from their families as babies," says Peta president Ingrid Newkirk. "They are denied freedom and everything else that is natural and important to them while kept in small concrete tanks and reduced to performing stupid tricks." Peta wants the court to order their release.
Legal circles describe the action as frivolous and outrageous, but I'm not so sure. For too long humans have been subjecting animals to pointless and degrading activities – dogs sitting up and begging, or rolling over and dying for their country; budgies being forced to utter inanities like "Pretty Boy". Time for a class action in the Constitutional Court, I say. The only domestic animal that is truly free is the cat. It obeys nobody.
Time and motion
READER Tom Dennen, recently returned from his native United States, appears to have been putting in analysis of the workings of government. He sends in this example of the way things happen.
The goverment has a vast scrapyard of serviceable (but out-of-date) military vehicles out in the middle of nowhere.
Auditors raise a concern that, the vehicles being in working condition, somebody might steal them at night. A night watchman is needed. So the government creates the position and a person is hired.
Then the auditors question how the watchman can do his job without instruction. So a Planning Department is created and two people are hired - one to write the job description and one to do time-and-motion studies.
Then they creat a Quality Control Department to oversee the watchman's performance and hire two people - one to do the studies and one to write the reports.
Then they have the problem of a pay scale. So they create the positions of Time Keeper and Payroll Officer.
But who will be accountable for all these people?" An Administrative Section is created. It hires three people - an Administrative Officer, an Assistant Administrative Officer and a Legal Secretary. All the new these positions require the appropriate government salaries and benefits.
At year-end the auditors do a Return On Assets Managed (Roam) and conclud:
"We have had this organisation in operation for only one year and we are R180 000 over budget. We are now forced to cut back our overall costs."
So they lay off the night watchman.
It has the ring of truth.
Tailpiece
A SCIENCE graduate asks: "Why does it work?" An engineering graduate asks: "How does it work?" A business studies graduate asks: "How much will it cost?" A media studies graduate asks: "Do you want fries with that?"
Last word
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.
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