Saturday's Weekend Argus column, as submitted. -- AD
I READ the following in one of the newspapers this week: “If you spot one rider zipping past in a colourful Pedal Power Association (PPA) cycling shirt, then another and then 10 more, you will not be hallucinating.”
And more’s the pity, I suppose, for here at the Mahogany Ridge, there are a few regulars who fondly recall when the bicycle menace used to pass through the village.
In those days, the cyclists came barreling down Slangkop, hit the rough patches on the approach to the village, left the road altogether and plummeted down the mountain to come to a sticky end in the prickly vegetation specially grown for this purpose. As one old-timer put it, “Shame, but they don’t do fun like that anymore.”
Wisely, the race now avoids us altogether. But even though they don’t race here, the cyclists still practice here. In the last few months, the roads around the village have been thick with them, particularly on Sunday mornings. After doing their best to fall under the wheels of the boat trailers, they’d stop off at the local superette and, leaning against their cycles like cowboys, guzzle power drinks. They’d stare at us through mirrorshade wraparounds and we’d have to explain to our womenfolk that the bulges in the lycra shorts were really padding, a safeguard of sorts against saddle sores. If you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Sometimes, a few of the cyclists would actually wheel their racers into the superette and, cluttering up the aisle at the energy bars and chocolates section, have a loud debate about sell-by dates. Obviously these people were from Johannesburg and were worried that their ultra-lightweight, titanium-framed jobs would be pinched if they left them outside, and we’d have to tell them that it was okay, we’re all poachers here, we don’t steal bicycles, only fish.
Which is a bit of a porkie, of course. Although we say that’s we do here, just to freak out the visitors, we don’t actually poach fish. In fact, we are rather concerned about such activities, and the danger they pose to the planet’s dwindling fish stocks.
Think of it like this:
In 1968, the population of the planet was two billion. In July this year it will reach seven billion. It is, of course, not a question of space, but whether we can sustain such a population. Right now, potable water tables are falling, soil erosion is rampant, fish stocks are dwindling, and glaciers are melting. About a billion people go hungry every day. By 2025 that figure will have doubled.
Put another way, the world’s population increases by 180 people every minute, and the vast majority of those people -- some 97% of them, in fact -- are born in what is now referred to as the “developing” world, and that’s us, I’m afraid.
Which brings me to the point: can we afford to tolerate ANC Youth League president Julius Malema any longer?
Last weekend, he told followers that, in order to prevent “the revolution” from losing steam, they must have as many babies as possible. “Having babies is a revolutionary thing,” he was quoted as saying, “You must reproduce!”
A week later, and we’re still waiting for the youth league’s spokesman, Floyd Shivambu, to explain to us the “correct context” of Malema’s extraordinary call. But, in the meantime, we may choose to dwell on the news that some 17 260 pregnancies were recorded in KwaZulu-Natal schools last year, according to provincial education MEC Senzo Mchunu. That, by any measure, is a lot of revolutionary things.
However, and this may or may not signal relief for the planet and its dwindling stocks of fish or, indeed, expensive whiskies, but the unhappiness with Malema’s unhinged behaviour is growing within the ruling party.
Thabo Masombika, a former youth league leader who is now a senior empowerment manager with the Department of Trade and Industries, has done a bit of a Trevor Manuel on Malema, and penned an appeal to ANCYL members to vote their foolish president out of office at the league’s elective conference in June.
Although not as harsh as Manuel was in his open letter to government spokesman Jimmy Manyi, Masombika nevertheless makes the point that Malema’s growing arrogance and fascist behaviour, not to mention his utter vapidity and boorish drunkenness, have done the league and the party no favours.
The league, naturally, will draw ranks around Malema in much the same way as the ruling party has done around Manyi, and Masombika may find himself out in the cold for speaking his mind.
But he is correct. It is time we saw Julius off on his bicycle.
Showing posts with label bicycle menace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bicycle menace. Show all posts
Monday, March 14, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
A Famous Grouse: February 5
Latest Weekend Argus column, unedited. -- AD
WE should be pleased that Tony Ehrenreich, the perpetually whining Cosatu provincial secretary, has stepped forward to take on the bicycle menace, particularly with regard to the cycle lanes running from Woodbridge Island to the city centre.
Ehrenreich has declared that the lane is for wealthy white Capetonians. It is therefore elite and racist, nothing more than a brutal instrument with which to bludgeon the poor and keep them in their depressingly oppressed corner of the Peninsula.
What’s more, the poor probably don’t even have bicycles and, as Ehrenreich will tell you in that unfortunate tone of voice, must instead make do with overcrowded and unsafe trains, buses and taxis if they wanted to get from one place to the other.
We could, at this stage, take note of transport and public works MEC Robin Carlisle’s comments on the matter, that it was thanks to the neglect of Ehrenreich and his colleagues in the ruling party that the city’s public transport was in such a parlous state. But then this is exactly the sort of thing Carlisle would say. It is, at best, informed opportunism and it is surprising that newspapers still pay attention to such nonsense.
It would be better for all if Carlisle and company could stop harping on about the old days when things ran smoothly. There is a democratic revolution afoot -- and why should Cape Town have an operating metro passenger rail system when, let’s say, Polekwane has none at all?
The city has, meanwhile, pointed that there are also dedicated cycling lanes in Belhar, Athlone and Gugulethu.
Highly unlikely, you’d think, given the general contempt for the people living there.
Nevertheless, one enterprising newspaper duly despatched a team to Gugulethu to check these claims and, lo, there was indeed a cycling lane. But without cyclists.
For 40 minutes the team “monitored” the lane and it just lay there, indolent, untrundled by a single bicycle. Eventually a nearby resident explained that the lane was used in the morning and in the evening when people weren’t at work.
Quite why the team did not return to “monitor” the cycle lane at these times has not been explained. Editorial budgets being what they are these days, a second trip was perhaps out of the question. That was a cheap shot at the accountants, I know, but I feel that, in our age, a newsroom without enough bicycles for its staff is a newsroom that has little regard for its readers.
But, suffice it to say, had the team returned, five would get you ten that most of those making use of the lane would be pedestrians, not cylists -- something that would no doubt please Ehrenreich.
The ANC’s constituency is the downtrodden. As long as they’re mired in neglect, the miserable drones remain ballot box fodder. That, at least, is the apparent thinking in Luthuli House. God forbid the city dare suggest the masses even begin to enjoy a leisure activity like cycling. Next thing they’ll be happy and thinking for themselves -- and that’s bad news for the revolution.
Besides, the revolution’s vehicle of choice is not the bicycle. It is the luxury high-performance motor car. With a price tag of a million-plus. And a classy hood ornament. Like a 19-year-old girl with raw fish on her groin.
Which brings us to the vulgar businessman Kenny Kunene, who served up sushi in such a manner at his trashy waterfront nightclub last weekend.
Guests included the ANC Youth League’s celebritarded president, Julius Malema, who typically made most of nearest microphone, this time to inanely challenge the authorities to enforce liquor bylaws at establishments frequented by the ANC's nob class.
And typically, especially where Malema is concerned, the ANC leadership has once again defaulted to damage control mode, and has distanced itself from the incident.
Kunene, too, has foresworn nyotaimori, or “body sushi”, which he once defended as a noble and ancient Japanese custom.
It is nothing of the sort. The practice is rare in Japan, and its roots probably lay with the Yakuza, or Japanese mafia. This of course would explain why Kunene and those like him so often dress like pimps and gangsters -- because they eat like them.
Another ancient Japanese custom is seppuku, or “stomach cutting”, a ritual suicide formed part of bushido, the samurai code.
In order to attenuate shame, a disgraced warrior -- or revolutionary, if you will -- would plunge a sharp knife into his abdomen. Hacking at himself in a sidewards motion, he would attempt to disembowel himself. At the same time, he would bare his neck, so that his kaishakunin, a personally selected attendant or second, could lop off his head with a sword.
There’s a lot to be said for the old ways.
WE should be pleased that Tony Ehrenreich, the perpetually whining Cosatu provincial secretary, has stepped forward to take on the bicycle menace, particularly with regard to the cycle lanes running from Woodbridge Island to the city centre.
Ehrenreich has declared that the lane is for wealthy white Capetonians. It is therefore elite and racist, nothing more than a brutal instrument with which to bludgeon the poor and keep them in their depressingly oppressed corner of the Peninsula.
What’s more, the poor probably don’t even have bicycles and, as Ehrenreich will tell you in that unfortunate tone of voice, must instead make do with overcrowded and unsafe trains, buses and taxis if they wanted to get from one place to the other.
We could, at this stage, take note of transport and public works MEC Robin Carlisle’s comments on the matter, that it was thanks to the neglect of Ehrenreich and his colleagues in the ruling party that the city’s public transport was in such a parlous state. But then this is exactly the sort of thing Carlisle would say. It is, at best, informed opportunism and it is surprising that newspapers still pay attention to such nonsense.
It would be better for all if Carlisle and company could stop harping on about the old days when things ran smoothly. There is a democratic revolution afoot -- and why should Cape Town have an operating metro passenger rail system when, let’s say, Polekwane has none at all?
The city has, meanwhile, pointed that there are also dedicated cycling lanes in Belhar, Athlone and Gugulethu.
Highly unlikely, you’d think, given the general contempt for the people living there.
Nevertheless, one enterprising newspaper duly despatched a team to Gugulethu to check these claims and, lo, there was indeed a cycling lane. But without cyclists.
For 40 minutes the team “monitored” the lane and it just lay there, indolent, untrundled by a single bicycle. Eventually a nearby resident explained that the lane was used in the morning and in the evening when people weren’t at work.
Quite why the team did not return to “monitor” the cycle lane at these times has not been explained. Editorial budgets being what they are these days, a second trip was perhaps out of the question. That was a cheap shot at the accountants, I know, but I feel that, in our age, a newsroom without enough bicycles for its staff is a newsroom that has little regard for its readers.
But, suffice it to say, had the team returned, five would get you ten that most of those making use of the lane would be pedestrians, not cylists -- something that would no doubt please Ehrenreich.
The ANC’s constituency is the downtrodden. As long as they’re mired in neglect, the miserable drones remain ballot box fodder. That, at least, is the apparent thinking in Luthuli House. God forbid the city dare suggest the masses even begin to enjoy a leisure activity like cycling. Next thing they’ll be happy and thinking for themselves -- and that’s bad news for the revolution.
Besides, the revolution’s vehicle of choice is not the bicycle. It is the luxury high-performance motor car. With a price tag of a million-plus. And a classy hood ornament. Like a 19-year-old girl with raw fish on her groin.
Which brings us to the vulgar businessman Kenny Kunene, who served up sushi in such a manner at his trashy waterfront nightclub last weekend.
Guests included the ANC Youth League’s celebritarded president, Julius Malema, who typically made most of nearest microphone, this time to inanely challenge the authorities to enforce liquor bylaws at establishments frequented by the ANC's nob class.
And typically, especially where Malema is concerned, the ANC leadership has once again defaulted to damage control mode, and has distanced itself from the incident.
Kunene, too, has foresworn nyotaimori, or “body sushi”, which he once defended as a noble and ancient Japanese custom.
It is nothing of the sort. The practice is rare in Japan, and its roots probably lay with the Yakuza, or Japanese mafia. This of course would explain why Kunene and those like him so often dress like pimps and gangsters -- because they eat like them.
Another ancient Japanese custom is seppuku, or “stomach cutting”, a ritual suicide formed part of bushido, the samurai code.
In order to attenuate shame, a disgraced warrior -- or revolutionary, if you will -- would plunge a sharp knife into his abdomen. Hacking at himself in a sidewards motion, he would attempt to disembowel himself. At the same time, he would bare his neck, so that his kaishakunin, a personally selected attendant or second, could lop off his head with a sword.
There’s a lot to be said for the old ways.
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