ANC MPs fail the Kid Test
I think it’s safe to say that parliamentarians of the ruling party, the ANC, are a pretty dismal lot. Since South Africa doesn’t have a constituency system, the Party’s representatives don’t have to display any qualities of character to voters. Criminals, homophobes, racists, sexists, liars, cheats, xenophobes, drunkards, wife-beaters, perverts, sociopaths, drug-addicts and paedophiles are all welcome and are well represented in the parliamentary benches – well at least those who bother to attend.
The only requirement is a slavish devotion to their political masters. If a boot needs to be licked, they’ll polish both with their tongues. If a bum needs to be kissed, they’ll get that tongue in – deep. That is the only qualification required. They understand that their livelihoods, cars, housing, overseas jaunts, kids schooling, medical care and fancy clothes are granted to them by the Party leaders and in turn blind loyalty is required. Otherwise it’s back to the shack, drinking sorghum beer out of a paint tin.
Certainly, intelligence is not a prerequisite. In fact, I would imagine that intelligence is specifically frowned upon, along with original thought. Nothing better illustrates this than the show put on by ANC MPs at the recent meeting of portfolio committees on the country’s space policy. They were discussing the launch of SA’s satellite, Sumbandila Sat, to be launched in Russia on September 15. These MPs asked a bunch of questions so peurile, so irrational and displaying such a breathtaking degree of ignorance, that one is left thinking that maybe the other prerequisite of becoming an ANC representative is deep stupidity. I guess it’s much easier to control dull brutes than those with functioning mental facilities.
But maybe I’m being a bit severe. Perhaps these cretins people are simply uneducated – victims of “no education before liberation” or something. In that case we could apply the Kid Test to them. Kids don’t have a lot of knowledge, but they display an appetite for it, a curiosity that requires an answer. None of us can know everything and we often reach for our inner kid, asking perhaps naïve, but searching questions.
Let’s examine the questions asked by the MPs to see if they pass the Kid Test:
How, one asked, do we protect our space from being used by other countries’ satellites?
I would give this one a PASS. This is the sort of question a kid would ask and would lead to an answer that could lead to a life-long understanding of what we mean by “space”.
Shown two comparative satellite pictures of Midrand, one dating from the ’60s and the other more recent, another MP asked what could be done to prevent satellites causing so much damage.
This is a FAIL. No kid would ask this question. It can only be asked by an idiot adult who has no idea what he is looking at and desperately wants his voice to heard.
Another MP said her suburb was frequently disturbed by the noise of satellites flying overhead taking these pictures.
This is a FAIL. Have you ever heard a kid making this sort of observation? This idiot needs to be locked up in a lunatic asylum.
Another suggested that indigenous knowledge must be applied to our use of space — and began to illustrate her point by telling a story about two women flying on a loaf of bread.
WTF? If this was a kid telling her story, it was a kid on LSD. FAIL.
At which point, the committee chairman shut down questions.
Well, yes. Perhaps he was just embarrassed but more probably he couldn’t think of a question to ask which would match the brilliance of his colleagues.
Shuttle against the Sun
Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault)
This amazing photo was taken of the space shuttle Atlantis during a “solar transit” – basically moving between the viewer on Earth and the Sun. It was taken on Tuesday, May 12, 2009, from Florida, before the Atlantis the crew had grappled the Hubble Space Telescope.
It was photographed by Thierry Legault using a solar-filtered Takahashi 5-inch refracting telescope and a Canon 5D Mark II digital camera.
For more on this photograph and others in the series, visit Solar Transit of Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope.
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