JADB

While I don’t know who actually wrote this, like most such bon mots it’s made even more amusing due to the fact that it contains more than just a grain of truth…

Vleisbraai is die enigste tipe kosmaak wat ‘n ware man sal doen. Wanneer ‘n man besluit om te braai, word die volgende ketting-reaksie aan die gang gesit:

1. Die vrou gaan koop die kos.
2. Die vrou maak die slaai, pap en sous.
3. Die vrou gooi speserye op die vleis, sit dit in ‘n bak saam met die nodige braai-gereedskap en souse en vat dit na die man wat langs die braaier rondsit met ‘n dop in sy hand.
4. Belangrik: Die man plaas die vleis op die rooster…
5. Die vrou gaan na binne om die borde en eetgerei reg te kry.
6. Die vrou kom uit om die man te vertel dat die vleis besig is om te verbrand. Hy bedank haar en vra of sy nog ‘n dop sal gooi terwyl hy die situasie onder beheer bring.
7. Weer belangrik: Die man verwyder die vleis van die rooster en gee dit vir die vrou aan.
8. Die vrou sit al die kos gereed op die tafel.
9. Na ete dek die vrou die tafel af en was al die skottelgoed.
10. Almal bedank die man vir die heerlike braai-poging.

Later vra die man of sy vrou darem haar “aandjie af” geniet het. Wanneer hy die reaksie op haar gesig sien, besluit hy daar is ook niks wat sommige vrouens tevrede sal stel nie!

Braaing meat is generally the only type of food preparation a real man would do. When a man decides to braai, the following chain reaction takes place:

1. The woman goes to buy the food.
2. The woman makes salads and “pap en sous”.
3. The woman prepares the meat, puts it into a container with the braai-tools and spices and takes it to the man who is sitting next to the braai fire with a drink in hand.
4. Important: The man puts the meat on the grill…
5. The woman goes back inside to prepare the crockery and cutlery.
6. The woman comes back outside to tell the man that the meat’s busy burning. He thanks her and asks her to pour him another drink while he brings the situation back under control.
7. Important again: The man removes the meat from the grill and gives it to the woman.
8. The woman puts the food out on the table.
9. After the meal the woman clears the table and does the dishes.
10. Everybody thanks the man for the wonderful braai.

Later the man asks the woman if she at least enjoyed her evening off. When he notices the expression on her face he decides that nothing could ever satisfy certain women!

Gabbahead started on interesting rant before he got distracted.

As an overview, he’s making the point that “African American” is a hell of a lot more American than African. Now here I must admit, that that is the one thing of Black Americans that really get on my groat.

Just because you are black, does not make you an African. Now we can go into the whole Nature vs. Nurture debate, but suffice to say that being African has a lot more to do with environment than with delusional self perception.

I will not have any damned one telling me that I am not African, I really don’t care whether they are dark Yanks or whether they’re Nguni. I am a hell of a lot more “African” than Oprah Winfrey — who claims to be (yeah right) of Zulu blood — could ever hope to be.

And don’t try and use the whole “Blacks were here first” argument, either. The only people with real ancestral rights in most of Southern Africa are the KhoiKhoi and the Shona. Everybody else are invaders of some sort. Yes, especially including the Zulu and Xhosa people.

What it boils down to is not where you are from, but where you are.

It’s amazing, given the context, how much effort people will put into finger-pointing exercises. Not that I’m excluding myself for even a second, mind you, but it still is quite fascinating.

Equally engrossing is how a democratically elected president of a First-world country, arguable the country with the best communication and transport infrastructure in the world can take nearly a week to respond in earnest to a calamity that’s devastated one of his nations great cities.

Very few people outside of America really like the Americans, but some things are not wished upon even your worst enemy, let alone people you merely feel ambivalent about.

That being said, it is another American president’s administration– Theodore Roosevelt’s, 99 and a half years earlier — that gives one of the best examples in modern history yet of how a calamity like this should be handled.

On 18 April 1906 the San Francisco great earthquake struck at 5h13. By 7h00 the first troops reported to the Mayor of the city; by 8h00 they were patrolling the streets.

By 10h30 on the same day, the USS Preble had already landed a medical team and had set up an emergency hospital.

Within two days, the USS Chicago had reached San Francisco, where it evacuated 20,000 refugees.

Now please compare that to how the current president of America handled New Orleans. 100 years later and incomprehensibly more advanced with infinitely better infrastructure.

America needs another statesman, and they need to get rid of the politicians running the show at present.

And, Thabo, if ever something like this had to happen in South Africa, I will expect considerably more from you than your American counterpart managed to achieve…

I must admit to being mildly amused by the Yanks from time to time. Here we have a people so intent on making the world a free and fair place — and securing the oil reserves, of course — that they will send their young people to go wage war on the forces of terror, on the axis of evil.

At the same time they seem to be giving up their rights at a rate that would make their founding fathers spin in their respective graves…

Here is a prime example of that behaviour.

Now instead of having civilian thugs running the show, we have military thugs ruling the roost. Well done, guys!

Let’s see if I have it right then. Your bill of rights should now read something like this:

1. Freedom of speech, press, religion, peaceable assembly, and to petition the government.
2. Right to keep and bear arms. New Loss
3. Protection from quartering of troops.
4. Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
5. Due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, private property.
6. Trial by jury and other rights of the accused.
7. Civil trial by jury.
8. Prohibition of excessive bail, as well as cruel or unusual punishment.
9. The Bill of Rights does not take away any right already held by the people under the Constitution.
10. Grants residual power to the states and to the people.

I got these from WikiPedia, and this would admittedly be a nice Bill of Rights to live under, but the Yanks have systematically been giving these away at an astonishing rate, apparently in the very mistaken belief that politicians and big business will protect them. Unfortunately the people they really need protecting from the most (besides themselves, of course) are the very politicians they are giving their rights to…

In case any Yank reading this feels like arguing any of these points, go read what these rights supposedly give you. And then you ask yourself if you actually still have this right. Do the poor bastards in Guantanamo bay? The people in the concentration holding camps in Houston and elsewhere?

Honestly?

It’s a hell of a thing, liberty. It’s the one thing in the world which, once given up, will never be freely handed back to the people by those in power. I’m a South African, so you may take my word for that…

You want to tell me the damned Yanks haven’t realised that the politicians want nothing more but absolute control? Nice thing living in a Third-world country: You know not to trust politicians further than you could chuck them.

“Land of the Free and Home of the Brave”?

Erm… I think I prefer it right here at the Southern tip of Africa, thanks….

Update:

Rebecca Solnit at Harper’s Magazine wrote The Uses of Disaster, an essay on the relationship between disasters, authority, and our understanding of human nature…