Let's be serious now
AN IRANIAN news agency has been fooled into publishing a fake poll from a satirical US website that claimed many Americans prefer Iran's leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Barack Obama.
The Onion, based in Chicago, said 77 percent of rural workers would rather go to a baseball game or have a beer with Ahmadinejad than Obama. The piece was repeated word for word by Fars News Agency.
Another piece in The Onion depicts Ahmadinejad glowing green and telling UN delegates he's an actual weapon of mass destruction.
Not too long ago it reported that Congress is considering moving from Washington, and this was given splash treatment in China in the state-run Beijing Evening News.
All this is irresponsible and childish. I hope it doesn't detract from the credibility of my own despatch to Fars News Agency, to the effect that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is 43 percent more popular in South Africa than Jacob Zuma; that he's 48 percent more popular than Julius Malema; that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is considered a certainty to win the Idols song competition; and that Heyneke Meyer has selected him to play fly-half against the All Blacks on Saturday.
Let's have none of this frivolity. We foreign correspondents have standards to maintain.
Prison bars
TWO MEN LOOK out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars …The lines by Frederick Langbridge came to mind as Paulette Barker presented the remarkable splashes of colour and skillful portrait work achieved in a programme at Westville Prison where inmates with absolutely no previous training were put through a painting course.
The presentation was at the resumed Mondays at Six soiree that is being held this month at the Alliance Francaise in Sutton Crescent, Morningside, and will resume in November at St Clement's, in Musgrave Road.
Also in the presentation was Lenny Pillay, a former Westville inmate and participant in the art programme, who accompanied himself on the guitar as he sang Starry Starry Night, the tribute to Van Gogh.
Stirring stuff!
Read all about it!
DEBRA Bouwer sends in some headlines from American newspapers:
· Missipi's literacy program shows improvement
· Bugs flying around with wings are flying bugs
· Marijuana issue sent to joint committee
· Homeless survive winter: Now what?
· 17 REMAIN DEAD IN MORGUE SHOOTING SPREE
Great stuff! But nothing beats my favourite in the erstwhile News of the World: "Nudist camp manager finds model wife naked in bed with Chinese hypnotist from co-op bacon factory."
The ocean wave
SOME thoughts on oceanography from small children:
· If you are surrounded by ocean, you are an island. If you don't have ocean all round you, you are incontinent. (Mike, 7)
· Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson. She's not my friend any more. (Kylie, 6)
· Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves into chargers. (Christopher, 7)
· My dad was a sailor on the ocean. He knows all about the ocean. What he doesn't know is why he quit being a sailor and married my mom. (James, 7)
Tailpiece
A YOUNG Irish student is in the countryside hitchhiking back to Dublin on a very dark night and in the midst of a big storm.
The night rolls on and no cars come by. The storm is so strong he can hardly see ahead of himself. Then a car comes slowly towards him and stops.
Desperate for shelter and without thinking, he gets in and closes the door ... only to find there's was nobody behind the wheel. Nor is the engine running. Yet the car starts moving slowly. Then it gathers speed slightly.
A curve is approaching. Then a hand appears out of nowhere through the window and turns the wheel.
Then the lights of a pub appear. The student leaps out of the car and runs to it. He bursts inside and starts gibbering about his unearthly experience.
Then the door opens again and two men walk in from the storm, also soaked and out of breath.
"Look, Frank, dere's de eedjit dat jumped in your car while we was pushin'."
Last word
Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
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