A SMAC in the Face #35:  Crime Scene

By Blaine McCleland in Opinion Pieces 0 Comment

When the 87-year-old internationally acclaimed Ndebele artist, Dr Esther Mahlangu, was attacked and robbed earlier this year, @kgadi_ZA tweeted that South Africa is a crime scene.  When the horrendous crime stats for the first three months of the year were reported this week, DA MP, Andrew Whitfield, also used that description.  I can’t agree more except to note that it is an active and evolving crime scene with little chance of resolution.

South Africa has lost its world status in most activities except for violent crimes.  We are right there with the best of the worst.  Excluding small Caribbean islands, Wikipedia puts us at 7th.  You are about 6 times mores likely to be murdered than in the US and about 20 times more likely than in Europe.  Outside of warzones, South Africa is an exceptionally dangerous place to live.  The total personal contact crimes for 2019/20 which, given the violent nature of SA, can be life changing is 621 262 or more than one incident per 100 people.  Since most times more than one victim is involved in, say, a house breaking or hijacking, the number of people affected is probably more than 1 in 50.  Its amazing that our society still functions.  With a few years of stats like these, just about everyone should be booked off work for PTSD.  

But the stats don’t reveal the associated level of violence and depravity.  In the mid-80s, I got a teaser of this new phenomenon, at least in white areas.  My wife and I were strolling through a parking lot in Sandton when we were set upon by four thugs.  One went for my wife and three laid into me trying to relieve me of cash and some superfluous red blood cells.  One rudely stabbed me before he even asked permission while another was waiting to get a clear shot at my neck with a sword.  The third, right in front of me could have had a gun as we later found out, but I was too busy worrying about the sword and running through my mind Monty Pythonesque images of lopped-off limbs and heads and fending off repeated knife attacks.  They were part of a large gang who terrorised Joburg for about three weeks.  When they were finally rounded up, they were charged with two or three murders, about 20 attempted murders and more than 50 cases of aggravated assault.  Today we routinely have criminal gangs of 10 to 20 armed with assault rifles that disdainfully treat cash-in-transit vehicles as their personal ATMs.  Or the farm murders where people are tied up and tortured before being killed. 

Then we have rape.  Take the October 2015 case where two couples were having an evening stroll in Rhodes Park, Joburg.  Their lives were shattered when they were accosted by a gang of 12 men.  One of the women was raped and the men tied up and tossed into the lake to drown.  What about an incident in April where a 15-year-old girl was raped and her eyes gouged out!  When it comes to rape in South Africa, it’s often not about power as some sociologist try excuse.  There’s an element of barbarity where no female from baby to 85-year-old gogo is excluded as prey.  I could accept it if these were isolated incidents, but they’re not.  Excuse me for being well adjusted, but I cannot begin to comprehend that depravity.

A SMAC in the Face #34 – Tanks for Saving PE

By Blaine McCleland in Jokes 0 Comment

What mirror did Port Elizabeth break?  It’s been in the grip of a drought for seven years now.  Worse still, for 28 years it’s also been in the grip of a useless municipality that shouldn’t be allowed to run a spaza shop, let alone a modern city.  The Bus Rapid Transport system that was hastily established to burnish PE’s image as a modern metropolis for the 2010 Soccer World Cup has gone nowhere and the buses parked.  The main Library had roof leaks in 2014 and closed up shop.  A refurbishment program was initiated which, with luck, might be completed this year.  Why should the response to the water crisis be any different?  With less than a month before Day Zero, one recent official response by the head of the Water and Sanitation Department, Barry Martin, is to pray for rain.  Ja, right!

Overlaying this Act of God, or whatever deity you choose, is the Act of Man or the lack thereof.  For the last year, my penpal (a bit of an old school word, I know) who inspired this piece has kept me apprised of the water situation in Lorraine and surroundings.  Hardly a week has gone by without water being cut off for days while some emergency repair was undertaken on the crumbling infrastructure.  In fact as I write this, 26 suburbs in Port Elizabeth were out of water today due to a burst pipe at Churchill Dam.  Compounding this Act of Man has been another, namely the copper theft at pump stations.  Vandals, it must be said, will never unionise as they don’t sleep on the job, they willing exceed 40 hours per week and happily do night shift.  The overall effect, of course, has been a huge uptick in gym membership in other areas for the sole purpose of a free shower.

Cape Town faced its own existential crisis a few years back.  More than a year before we were staring down the barrel of Day Zero, a massive publicity campaign was launched to keep the city updated on the situation and citizens cajoled to save water.  A daily water dashboard was published giving current water consumption, graphs of the trends with targets and the various dam levels.  The most effective measure though was to raise the water tariffs to extortionist levels early on and this was what probably saved the city blushes more than anything else. 

In the absence of an effective official response in Port Elizabeth, the residents have taken the initiative themselves with water tanks growing like pestilential weeds in the courtyards of middle-class houses.  This is not cheap and prices seem to range from about R7 000 – 13 000 for a small installation as everyone jumps on the only growth industry in town.   Obviously, this leads to a fair amount of tank envy as everyone compares sizes of their equipment and their ability to pump.  Catholics are lucky as they can easily assuage their guilt each Sunday.  “Forgive me Father for I have sinned.  I have coveted my neighbour’s tank and been having wet dreams and shameful thoughts.” Tank you!

SMAC in the Face #32:  The War of the Wordles

By Blaine McCleland in Jokes 0 Comment

Who would have thunk that a silly but harmless little computer game would cause a rift between the two greatest English-speaking nations.  I refer of course to Wordle.  The outbreak of linguistic war between the Old and the New Worlds has its genesis in the fact that the game’s developer, Josh Wardle (believe it or not) is a Welshman who sold his Celtic soul when the New York Times bought his program.

First, the normally phlegmatic Brits provoked a trans-Atlantic twar when they complained bitterly about the American spelling of the word HUMOR on the 9th of February. Little did they know that the word, humor, was used extensively in Old English.  In the Middle Ages, they believed that a person’s health and disposition were the result of a balance of four fluids in the body – blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.  These fluids were called humors and there was nothing funny about them.

On the 24th of February the New York Times evened things up with the wordle of the day being BLOKE.  This time it was the turn of the Americans to spew bile, both the yellow and the black varieties and probably indulge in a bit of bloodletting too.  To them, a bloke is just a guy but that does not signify to the Brits as they killed that Guy off with extreme prejudice on 5 November 1606.  A few days later Wordle had the poor Americans up in alms again with the word RUPEE.  “It’s not even an English word,” was one of the more benign tweets.

South Africans have grown up in the middle and are confused, particularly my generation who were brought up speaking and spelling British Standard English but are now force fed a diet of simplistic American English without the mystique and eccentricity of British spelling – what’s the difference between practice and practise or does the word end in -ise or -ize.  But we are lucky now with Wordle as we slide seamlessly between the two English languages and can solve AITSA as well.

Wordle has about 10,000 words that are valid entries to stop people randomly going through the alphabet.  It also has a predetermined list of about 2300 answers which will take us deep into 2027.  What are we addicts going to do then, huh – take up knitting when our bladder wakes us up in the wee hours and there’s no the new wordle of the day?  Since the takeover by the New York Times, they have removed at least 19 words from the possible inputs and 6 from the answers.  The reasons cited have been: offensive words straight out of Trump’s and rappers’ lexicons like PUSSY, WHORE, BITCH, etc.; triggering words such as LYNCH; obscure ones like PUPAL; confusing spelling between the Brits and Americans such as FIBRE/FIBER or current news items as in FETUS (which also has the confusing spelling – to Americans that is – of FOETUS).  Interestingly, towards the end of March the woke worthies of the NYT removed HARRY as an answer.  It could have fallen foul of a number of categories: it is offensive or a swearword to a lot of Brits in these post markle times, it is a current news item and, as a verb, it has an obscure meaning to illiterate Americans, or is triggering to some snowflakes. 

Take your pick but The War of the Wordles continues unless PUTIN presses a button which will be the end of Wordle and the World as we know it.  As Einstein said, “World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”

A SMAC in the Face #31: Hollow Victory Day Parade

By Blaine McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

All autocratic systems share a common weakness – they just love martial parades with serried ranks of men and weaponry.  Russia and Putin are no different.  Coming hard on the heels of their May Day celebrations is the Victory Day celebrations on May 9.  This day commemorates the final surrender of Nazi forces in WWII.  The USSR, as it was then, suffered the most of any country and rightly holds the day dear.  Confusingly, the Western Allies celebrate it as V-E (Victory in Europe) Day on the 8th of May when the definitive surrender document was signed.  V-E Day has become an anaemic celebration consisting mainly of wreath laying.  Russians, on the other hand, have used their Victory Day Parade through Red Square to demonstrate their military might like a steroid-enhanced bodybuilder pulling poses.  He could have a glass jaw, but he looks pretty impressive.

In the weeks preceding, Russia had repositioned its forces after its attempts to defeat Ukraine by main force had failed dismally.  It seemed that Putin was opting for a quick small solution in the East which would allow him still to declare victory on May 9.  Embarrassingly they failed again.  This year’s parade was eagerly anticipated, not for the military hardware, but to see what illogical distortions would Putin spew out and what dire tub-thumping threats would he make.  He generally disappointed but nevertheless creatively hailed a ‘great victory’ and devoted the rest of his speech to whingeing about American hegemony and Ukrainian Nazis who seek to destroy Russia.  ‘Russia’ he said, ‘preventively rebuffed the aggressor. It (the special operation/invasion/war – author) was necessary, timely and … right.’  The parade itself was anaemic with up to a third fewer vehicles than normal.  The obvious conclusion is that they are desperately needed elsewhere.  The Russian losses have been staggering – 1130 tanks, 2741 armoured personnel carriers, 509 artillery pieces, towed and self-propelled, 179 multiple rocket launch systems, 156 helicopters and 199 planes*.  To put the numbers into perspective, this represents 5-10 times the equipment owned by the SANDF, working and not-working. 

It is not an exaggeration to state that the Russian war chest is beginning to look bare.

*The numbers have been supplied by the Ukrainians but have been largely backed up by independent sources from photographic evidence.

A SMAC in the Face #30: Adolf Hitlowitz

By Blaine McCleland in Jokes 0 Comment

During the lead-up to and the prosecution of the war against the Ukraine, Russia, via Putin, his fellow travellers and his apologists have trundled out lies ranging from the ludicrous, through the outrageous to, the grotesque.  Russia claimed its ‘Special Operation’ against the Ukraine was aimed to de-nazify it.   This claim served not only as a hastily plucked fig leaf against world opprobrium, but also to mobilise the Russian people.  The Russians react with particular horror at the word Nazi who were responsible for up to 27 million deaths in WWII, directly and indirectly.  To reinforce this, Russia routinely publishes pictures of satanic symbols etc found on buildings that had been occupied by Ukrainian soldiers.  Lying has become part of the DNA of Russians to ensure personal safety, so I would not trust their authenticity.

The de-nazify lie failed to gain traction internationally, particularly since President Zelensky of the Ukraine is Jewish.  In an attempt to bolster their position, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, floated the bizarre lie during an interview on Italian TV on 1 May.  He claimed that Hitler had Jewish roots.

The Russian propaganda machine also indulges in a disgusting amount of bluster and dick swinging about how Russia is going to nuke puny Britain off the face of the Earth complete with graphics, not to mention other European countries.  But even more sinister for the Russians themselves, and I presume captured Ukrainians was a statement by Karen Shakhnazarov.  He leads the state-backed Mosfilm film studio and said on the state-owned Russian television channel Russia 1 a few days after the Hitler claim, ‘The opponents of the letter Z must understand that if they are counting on mercy, no, there will be no mercy for them.’   He then went on to add, ‘It’s all become very serious. In this case, it means concentration camps, re-education and sterilisation.’   Not only does this harken back to the bad old days (not that Russia has had many good days in the last century or two) of the Siberian Gulag but also has shades of the evils of Nazism – a case of the pot calling the kettle black.  Not quite the tone to take when accusing the other guys of being Nazis.

A SMAC in the Face #29:  MAD Vlad

By Blaine McCleland in Jokes 0 Comment

Apart from the odd granny who was mad, my generation grew up with two other meanings of MAD.  The first was benign and a lot of fun.  I am referring to the monthly MAD magazine which, together with the Goon Show and Monty Python, I credit with helping us navigate the confusing modern world.  It was launched in 1952 and at its peak in the mid-70s was selling 2 million copies.  It satirised, parodied and lampooned movies and the political and cultural world around us with fantastic cartoons during the height of the nuclear war paranoia and the general culture of establishment’s censorship.  In so doing, it provided a teething ring for future comedians, radicals and well-adjusted people too.  Unfortunately, it fell on hard times and published its last edition in April 2018.

The other connotation of MAD was the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction which was a Mexican Standoff with nuclear weapons instead of revolvers in the cold war years.  This fragile strategy proved successful in maintaining world peace and was allowed to atrophy to some extent after the breakup of the Soviet Union.  Unfortunately, it has reared its radioactive head with the unstable Vladimir V. Putin, or MAD Vlad, threatening nuclear Armageddon, the first leader (apart from the Young Un) to do so since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.  This is a weak and infantile reaction by someone who didn’t think things through properly, particularly what he wanted to achieve and what would be his exit strategy if things went wrong.  He is now up the creek without a paddle and, with his old cold war foes and political opponents circling, his war chest is as bare as his heroic photos except for Russia’s nuclear arsenal – his ass in the hole.

A SMAC in the Face #28: The Power Behind the Drone

By Blaine McCleland in Jokes 0 Comment

I was conflicted with the title – whether to call it The Power Behind the Drone or The Power Behind the Moan – after all, Harry changed from a bloke to a woke with mommy issues.  He has become exceedingly boring in the process, spouting baby psychobabble at the merest whiff of a TV camera and patting his shoulders with crossed arms to deal with his emotions.  Only Woody Allen can make more money out of his neuroses.

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A SMAC in The Face #27: Herd Immunity

By Blaine McCleland in Jokes 0 Comment

Was the concept of herd immunity just a will o’ the wisp conjured up by fearful governments to give people something to hang on to until a vaccine could rescue us, or another example of bad advice given by medical professionals?

When Britain entered its third wave late last year, double vaccination rates there were approaching 80% yet their infection rate far exceeded previous waves.  The upside was that hospitalisation and death rates were lower.  The anti-vaxxers touted this as proof that, while not producing genetic modification (yet), vaccines didn’t work either and were just a profit-making venture by a vague group of people trying to control the world.  The cynical amongst us explained it by saying that all the vulnerable had already been killed off in the first two waves.  The few sober Brits who weren’t catching up on their pints at the pub attributed this high infection rate to the relaxed restrictions.  Still others stated that the Delta variant was more infectious but less deadly.  Whatever the truth, it didn’t bode well for the idea of herd immunity.

What about South Africa?  With Christmas approaching, less than 25% of South Africans were fully vaccinated when the Omicron variant hit.  This caused a frisson of excitement under the doek of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, our resident Grinch.  Her dear little heart was doing flick-flacks at the thought of cancelling Christmas again and closing beaches.  Unfortunately for her, some cool heads prevailed and she was left to fumigate herself in a dark corner somewhere.  The Omicron variant proved to be far less deadly than previous variants and only caused a minor flirtation with draconian measures.  But again, what was the truth.  We definitely couldn’t claim that vaccines were responsible for the lower death and hospitalisation rates.  The cynical view that the vulnerable had already died has some truth.  While SA only boasted around 90,000 dead – lower than the UK – the real figure was more likely around 150,000 as calculated from the excess death rates.  The discrepancy is easily explained by the chaotic state of SA’s health system that can barely dispense an Aspirin in some places.

So what is the truth?  My qualitative assessment of vaccines is that, if all the vulnerable had already been killed off before, then ICU’s should see a distribution of 25% vaxxed patients and 75% unvaxxed if vaccines didn’t work.  The reported experience has been that ICU patients have almost exclusively been unvaxxed and therefore vaccination must confer a large measure of protection against the worst outcomes.  But what about herd immunity?  Like the zero Covid strategy of New Zealand and China, I don’t think it’s achievable.  After all, have we ever achieved herd immunity against fast mutating viruses like the common cold or flu.  The answer is a resounding no, so why should we buy into this notion that the politicians, (ill)advised by their medical professionals, assuaged our fears with.  I think that Covid-19 is something that we’ll have to learn to live with

A SMAC in the Face #26:  Putinocchio

By Blaine McCleland in Opinion Pieces 1 Comment

Victory in war has many fathers but defeat is an orphan, is a truism of war.  I wonder which of Putin’s Generals will see out the year, or Putin for that matter.  Another truism is that the first casualty of war is the truth.  That saying has been attributed to a variety of people ranging from Aeschylus around 550 BC – “God is not averse to deceit in a just cause” – through the more verbose Dr Samuel Johnson in 1758 – “Among the calamities of War may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth …” –   to many others who got close to the modern cliché.

In the case of Russia’s attack on Ukraine the distortions of truth, the unashamed peddling of falsehoods and the ridiculous inversion of facts started long before the boundaries were actually crossed.  In fact, they started before when Russia actively assisted Ukrainian separatists annex two regions in the east of Ukraine.  Not all the whoppers in the cartoon are his, but, since he is the puppet master, they can all be attributed to him.  It’s like classical paintings where experts find it difficult to distinguish between, say, a Rembrandt and one from the school of Rembrandt.

Whilst not the spittle-flecked rants of Hitler, anyone who has seen his rambling TV diatribes connecting dots from all over the place must wonder about his state of mind – no wonder Zuma and him are mates.  Perhaps they are not cynically constructed lies but merely the product of years of KGB-trained delusions and old-school Soviet paranoia writ large. 

The Putin created or orchestrated sea of lies seems to be largely successful within Russia with the population being force-fed this diet in the state-controlled media and regulated internet access.  Behind the scenes, the sea of lies, which was part of the DNA of the old Soviet Union to ensure survival of the nomenklatura, created the delusion for Putin that the army could walk through Ukraine in days and wrap it up before the West got all precious about it.  That didn’t work out so well and now the lies concern the extent of the military losses as the wily Ukranians have picked off Russia’s inept army – death by a thousand cuts.  They are now desperately scrambling around to secure their few territorial gains and securing the odd cow shed before possibly claiming victory on the holiest of days, 9 May – the day Germany surrendered in WWII.   Actually, they had surrendered to Eisenhower the day before but Russia did not recognise that so it had to be re-enacted.

More worrying is that parttime stage-extras like South Africa are genuflecting to Russia by ignoring the facts and perpetuating the deceptions.  Even more worrying is that the dictatorial China, the world’s dominant country in a decade or so, is just one small step short of actively siding with Putin and is parroting the notion that America caused it all.  According to the hoary old communist playbook, it’s all about America trying to establish hegemony over the world.  In the years of the Cold War, it was by means of the arms race, star wars and propping up tinpot dictatorships.  Today, it’s Apple, Twitter, KUWTK and McDonalds (they have a lot to answer for).

Maybe the answer is simpler – he needs the big whoppers to make up for his small size.

A SMAC in the Face #25:  The End of Genesis

By Blaine McCleland in Jokes 0 Comment

We have become inured to the sight of decrepit Pontiffs being trundled out onto the Vatican balcony probably held up by a steel brace on wheels hidden by their baroque robes.  It was hard to tell if they were sentient or dead.  Such a sight confronted rock fans – some as young as 50 – for the sell-out final concert of Genesis on the 26th of March.  With a combined age of 214, the O2 Arena in London was appropriate as it looked like Phil Collins needed O2.  Thank god all the musical instruments are wireless these days so we wouldn’t have the embarrassing sight of Collins with his walking stick tripping over a cable and doing his hip in on his way to his chair on stage.  One could palpably sense the tension in the audience – will he make it.  He was like Capt Tom Moore who got the world to follow him during lockdown as he zimmered framed his way across his garden 100 times.  To the audience’s relief, Phil made it to his chair.  Many rockers of old used the microphone and its stand as a supporting act.  Who can forget Freddie Mercury imperiously colonising the stage with his phallic half mic stand.  Phil Collins also used his mic stand as a supporting act but more in the walking stick sense.

Whilst not the greatest fan of Genesis and Phil Collins, it is difficult for me to gainsay his influence.  He is one of only three musicians who have sold more than 100 million albums.  The others are Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson.  There are many others in the Rock and Role of Geriatric Honour Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

At 78 we have the spritely Rodger Daltrey Who still sings My Generation.  I’m not sure if it’s the Beat Generation anymore or rather the retirement home and false-teeth-glue generation.  I think it’s time for This Song is Over.  Also at 78 we have Jagger whose sensuous child-bearing lips will soon become drooling lips.  What about the sylphlike Debbie Harry and her bewitching lips?  She is now 76 and while her lips can still do a stage act all on their own, she is not quite so sylphlike and performs as Platinum Blondie.  Robert Plant is 73 and it is a competition between the Stairway to Heaven and the #MeToo movement catching up with him and sending him to prison for sex with underage groupies, a perfectly natural Rock and Roll phenomenon of the time along with loads of drugs and eccentric behaviour.  Then again what has changed. 

Among the real oldies, we have Cliff (over the hill) Richards, the Peter Pan of Rock.  Unfortunately, he is a wrinkled Shadow of his former self.  Joining him on 81 is Tom Jones who used to wear pants so tight that you could see if he was circumcised.  Now It’s Not Unusual that he has to wear a strap on, sort of like a bodybuilder’s or a ballet dancer’s posing pouch.  We also have a relative youngster in Paul McCartney at 80.  He is now Sir Paul or perhaps Sore Paul, what with his cranky hips, but still manages to headline at Glastonbury.

What have we got to look forward to?  What about a snappy Goodbye to U2 at O2 – Bono is a pensioner at 61 after all.  Or maybe Cher (75 going on 42) appearing in her gilded Botoxed plastic sarcophagus at Las Vegas.  By the way, when will Boy George drop the boy bit – he is 60 you know.