Pro-knowledge rant
ELECTION news from America. President Obama is said to have handed the Republicans a gift for the November election by making a series of offensive pro-knowledge remarks at Rutgers University.
According to the New Yorker, Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, says Obama's inflammatory comments of praise for such controversial fields of knowledge as maths and science are sure to come back to haunt the Democrats in November.
"If President Obama was trying to alienate millions of Americans in one speech, mission accomplished," Priebus told Fox News. "When I watched him speak, I said to myself: 'Well, Christmas came early this year.' "
He said the party was already creating negative ads that would make extensive use of the president's polarising pro-knowledge rant.
"This fall, we will ask the American people: 'Do you want four more years of knowledge, or do you want something else? Because the Republican Party has something else.'"
This is, of course, the work of satirist Andy Borowitz. And the entire world is apprehensive of that "something else".
The classics
IAN Gibson, poet laureate of Hillcrest, breaks with tradition to address us in prose. He shares with us a piece he read in the Spectator while in a dentist's waiting room recently. It is by that magazine's excellent regular contributor on the classics, Peter Jones, and Ian feels it has a relevance to South Africa today.
"Jones remarks that regulation of MPs by MPs is a futile exercise: 'Oligarchs .know how to look after themselves.'
"However committed to the Rule of Law the Romans were, 'it was a commonplace that to reach the top of the greasy pole, one needed to make three fortunes: one to get there, one to fight subsequent charges of corruption and one to support you in exile after you were found out.' "Classical Athens, Jones reflects, had the only culture where getting away with it was least likely: 'The citizen body, whether in Assembly or law-court ... was the final arbiter over such charges.' As all officials were subject to public scrutiny, 'at the end of their term of office their record was assessed. Punishment ranged from fines through exile to death.'
"Any chance of our parliament adopting some of these strictures?" he asks.
Ian, I'll hazard a guess: Zero chance!
Shark attach
A YOUNG woman reported to the outpatients department of a hospital in Boca Raton, Florida, the other day with a small shark hanging on to her arm.
The nurse shark, less than 1m in length, had bitten her while swimming, according to Sky News, and would not let go. Paramedics splinted her arm, shark attached, and took her to hospital, where her condition was stable.
Nurse sharks grow up to about 4m in length and are placid, often remaining motionless on the seabed. They are known to bite defensively when somebody steps on them.
Maybe this unnamed 23-year-old lass was doing handstands in the surf.
Mynah mug
HEY, here I find myself owner of a splendid mug with the Kingsmead Mynahs logo on it. I go to Country Club for a breakfast celebrating the 180th birthday, er 70th birthday, of Danny Flower, president of the Mynahs and former president of the Natal Cricket Society, and I come away with a mug dished out by Danny.
The Mynahs, a club with their own premises in the grandstand at Kingsmead, were in a way the creation of master cartoonist Jock Leyden. During a tour yonks ago, England fast bowler Peter Loader was repeatedly dive-bombed by mynahs nested in the casuarinas at the Umgeni end, as he fielded on the boundary. It seemed his height invaded their space because they didn't bomb anyone else.
This inspired Jock. Mynahs in full cricket kit became a feature of his cartoons. And thence the Kingsmead Mynahs club.
Jock's cartoons hang in Buckingham Palace, Blenheim Palace and the Pentagon. And now on my coffee mug also 'Tis, a pleasure to be reminded of the maestro, who was a dear friend.
Tailpiece
PADDY is taking the underground after an evening in the pub. A sign says: "Dogs must be carried on the escalator."
"Dat's ridiculous! Where am I expected to find a dog dis time of night?"
Last word
I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.
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