ALL IN CAPITALS
OBSERVERS have noted President Donald Trump's use of capital letters in his alarming tweet to Iran threatening all kinds of dire consequences if Iran persists with its conduct.
The New Yorker quotes him announcing a discontinuation of the Obama era practice of using lowercase letters.
"In a series of early-morning tweets, Trump announced the ban on lowercase letters, calling them 'SMALL' and 'WEAK.'
"'I WILL KEEP AMERICA STRONG BY USING ALL CAPS,' he tweeted. 'THERE ARE NO SMALL LETTERS IN USA! LITTLE LETTERS BAD!!!' he added for emphasis.
"Trump's policy of zero tolerance for lowercase letters could have a sweeping impact on the federal bureaucracy if, as rumoured, all government agencies are required to retrofit their computers and mobile devices with a permanent caps-lock key," the New Yorker says.
"Additionally, civil-liberties groups argue that Trump's war on lowercase letters flies in the face of the First Amendment, which implicitly protects the right to use letters of all sizes and fonts.
"Amid the controversy, the White House appeared to walk back the new policy later in the day, as aides revealed that Trump will still use lowercase letters, in the style of the poet e e cummings, when communicating with Vladimir Putin."
Yes, that's satirist Andy Borowitz. The guy's having a lot of fun these days, even as many of us quake in our boots.
Huffington Post says Twitter users responded to Trump with a deluge of Tweets using capitals, many of them somewhat mocking.
Example: To Iranian President Rouhani:"BAWITDABA DA BANG A DANG DIGGY DIGGY DIGGY SAID THE BOOGY SAID UP JUMP THE BOOGY BAWITDABA DA BANG A DANG DIGGY DIGGY DIGGY SAID THE BOOGY SAID UP JUMP THE BOOGY BAWITDABA DA BANG A DANG DIGGY DIGGY DIGGY SAID THE BOOGY SAID UP JUMP THE BOOGY BAWITDA."
No, I'm not familiar either with the subtleties of the Twittersphere, nor with what Huffington Post calls "rickroll". But you can be sure this shakes 'em up in Tehran.
Puker taxis
UBER taxis in Florida, in the US, have some of them taken to fleecing customers by claiming they vomited in their cars.
According to Huffington Post, a clean-up bill is added to the fare charged, backed if necessary by stomach-churning alleged photos of the mess in the car.
This is not on. The people of Florida need to fight fire with fire. They need to mobilise.
There must be the equivalent of rugby clubs in Florida. Get them to ride about in ubers all night, quaffing beer, singing vulgar songs and throwing up from time to time. Give 'em the real thing! That'll larn those vomit fraud shysters.
No takers
ROMANIA is looking for a chief anti-corruption prosecutor after the previous one was eased out of office for being "too authoritarian" by justice minister Tudorel Toader.
But the odd thing, according to Sky News, is that nobody has applied. Cut-off date was last Monday but applications are zero.
Toader suggests potential candidates have not applied because they know what an immense task it would be to root out corruption in Romania.
But maybe they just don't like his name. On the other hand, maybe they're waiting for vacancies in South Africa when our own government gets round to properly tackling corruption.
Mars discovery?
ITALIAN scientists claim to have discovered a 20km lake under the southern icecap of Mars, re-analysing data obtained by ground-penetrating radar on an earlier Nasa exploration. They say the water is at a temperature of minus 68 degrees Centigrade but has not frozen because of the presence in it of salts.
They say this is highly significant because the presence of liquid water makes possible the presence of life, even if in a very basic form.
We hope these Italian johnnies are not abetting Nasa, who have been hoaxing us for years with photos ostensibly of the arid, flinty, leafless surface of Mars, while all along it's the Griquas rugby field at Kimberley.
Who knows, they might have found Vladimir Putin's swimming pool in Moscow.
Tailpiece
A GOLFER slices his shot into a wooded ravine. He takes his seven-iron and clambers down.
He spots a gleam in the underbrush. It's a seven-iron in the hands of a skeleton. An old golf ball lies nearby.
"Oi!" he shouts up to his partner.
"What's the matter?"
"Can you throw down my eight-iron? You can't get out of here with a seven."
Last word
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
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