Sick entertainment

We’ve all got to go at some point, and that’s my justification for sharing this wikipedia page entitled:

A List of Unusual Deaths

In there, you’ll find a man who dropped a screwdriver into some plutonium (oops), a man who stabbed a war elephant (yes, there’s such a thing) in the belly and died when it fell – dead – on top of him and and ancient Greek lawmaker, who was smothered to death by gifts of cloaks showered upon him by appreciative citizens at a theatre.

I particularly like the possible explanation for this one, from 336 AD:

Arius, presbyter of Alexandria, is said to have died of sudden diarrhea followed by copious hemorrhaging and anal expulsion of the intestines while he walked across the imperial forum in Constantinople.

He may have been poisoned.

While there’s no specific evidence of poisoning, I think we can safely assume that there was something amiss to cause this incident. It’s not the sort of thing that happens on a regular basis around any of the town squares I have visited.

Sunset won’t get any earlier

We’re in the grips of midwinter here in Cape Town. It’s hell. Almost, anyway.

But the good news is that the shortening of the days is almost over and we are nearly able to look forward to SUMMER!
This week, the sun has been setting at 17:44, but despite the fact that the shortest day (our winter solstice this year is at 07:04 on Friday, 21 June) is actually still a couple of weeks away, the sunset won’t be getting any earlier now, 17:44 is the earliest it’s going to get this year.

The time of sunset in most major cities around the world used to be calculated by astronomers using complicated algorithms, but for Cape Town these days, a guy in a white coat just pops down to Green Point Promenade and counts the number of Instagrammers, before calling the results back in to HQ.

Because of the tilt of the earth on its axis, the sunrise does continue to get a little later until the end of the month, but by that time we’ve already gained another 4 minutes of light in the evening, so I think that we can basically say that summer is pretty much already here.

Some few facts for you:

Cape Town’s shortest day this year is 21st June, with 9h 53m 35s of daylight.
The longest day will be the 21st December, when the sun will rise at 05:32 and set at 19:57, giving us 14h 25m 03s of daylight. If you really think that you can do a lot more with those 4½ hours of light, you might want to consider using artificial light sources to lengthen the useful time each day during winter.

However, the latest sunset next summer will be on the 3rd January 2014, at 20:01. On this day, the sun will be “just” 147,098,000 km from Cape Town, compared with 152,094,000 km on 5th July 2013.

That’s a difference of about 5 million km. Wow. No wonder it gets warmer.

Data from here.

And while we’re talking about fishing…

(Because we were talking about fishing here.)

How’s this for a headline?

“Seal Harvest Would Create Jobs”

Yep, that’s the plan of ANC MP Meriam Phaliso:

The government should consider allowing the harvesting of Cape fur seals as a means of job creation to compensate for several fisheries that have collapsed through overfishing, says ANC MP Meriam Phaliso.

During a briefing to the National Assembly’s portfolio committee by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, about renewed rights allocations in eight fisheries, Phaliso said the only point of concern was to find a humane way of killing the seals.

Cue inevitable outcry from environmentalists, greenies and the armchairs of slacktivists everywhere. But, in actual fact, it’s not a new idea:

In 1990… a five-year concession allowing a Taiwanese businessman to kill seal pups was cancelled at the last moment by then environment minister Gert Kotze following a huge outcry.
The concession would have allowed up to 100 000 pups and a number of bulls to be killed and processed for pet food, leather and aphrodisiacs in a Port Nolloth factory that had already been built.

Wow. You can get a lot out of a seal, hey? Almost as good as a whale or a rhino. It all sounds like a splendid plan. If only they weren’t so lovely and fluffy and… awww… just look at his whiskers!

Hang on… I got sidetracked by his cuteness. Damn it.
Right, here’s Phaliso’s reasoning for the sickening bloody massacre of the sweet fluffy seal pups with their puppy dog eyes:

Seals are “the biggest poachers of some of the fish and nobody is arresting them… seals are a job-creating mechanism that can put food on the tables in some areas”.

Well, nobody is really arresting human poachers either, are they? But to be honest, Meriam, though your cull idea is a bit on the harsh side when compared with simply “arresting” the seals, it might be a more pleasurable end than being locked up in Pollsmoor overnight.

Meanwhile, just up the road in Elgin (a thankfully seal free inland town), fruit flies were ruining the local apple crop. This was costing food, jobs and livelihoods. In fact, many people in those fruit growing areas called the fruit flies “the biggest poachers of some of the apples”, yet remarked that “nobody is arresting them”.
At first, I put this down to the fact that it’s really difficult to get handcuffs small enough, but then I realised that there was no need to arrest the fruit flies, because we humans are already massacring them with insecticides and genetic modification.

Innocent lives were lost. And yet where was the outcry? Where?

Could it possibly be that because fruit flies don’t bask on rocks around False Bay looking lovable, and instead merely go about eating their natural diet and destroying human livelihoods – i.e. just like the seals apart from the rock bit?

Yeah. It’s damn hard to love a fruit fly, isn’t it? And you need loads to make any decent volume of pet food.

For the record, and belatedly because you’re already on your green high horse, I’m not necessarily suggesting that the seal harvest idea is a good idea. It came from a member of parliament and those two things rarely go together. That said, it would provide jobs, money, and increase local fish stocks. Thus, I am suggesting that a bit more thought than just, “Seals?! OMG! No!” be put into your response to Ms Phaliso’s scheme.

I’m also willing to bet that the rate of objection will be far higher among those who can easily put a meal on the family table for their kids each evening. That’s because there are plenty of people out there who can’t afford to do that and would surely jump at the chance to put a seal on the family table for their kids each evening.

An Absolute Pearl!

Oh shucks, this is wonderful.

Many thanks to The Guru for alerting me to this one. And those thanks may seem strange given that “this one” is actually the:

DRAFT REVISED POLICY FOR THE ALLOCATION AND MANAGEMENT OF FISHING RIGHTS IN THE OYSTER FISHERY: 2013

which isn’t something you’d want to thank anyone for sticking in your inbox, right?

But that would all change once you got to Section 4.1 (c) on page six, under the heading “Objectives”.
And that change would be brought about by reading these words:

Co-manage oyster fishery with other spheres of government and the fishing industry in a manner that recognizes government priorities, strategic objectives of the spheres of government, the interests of fishing industry and most importantly in a manner that would please, praise and glorify the one who provided and gave man the power to rule over the fish (including oysters)

I’m sorry, what was the “most importantly” bit again?

I know you won’t believe me, so in an effort to convince you that this is genuine, here’s the passage in question:

oysterand for those continuing skeptics, here’s a link to the original document (and I’ve popped it here too , just in case it disappears from the DAFF website).

Looking at the objectives around (c), it’s easy to understand where the DAFF are wanting to take this. (a) is important, if still politically charged, (b) is an absolute no brainer and (d) is just pure common sense: symbiosis twixt oyster and man, albeit with a slight leaning towards the latter when it comes to overall benefits involving Tabasco sauce and lemon juice.

Indeed, even (c) begins with the best of intentions. In a democratic society, one cannot simply ignore the policies, aims and responsibilities of the leadership which was voted in. But then, even pleasing, praising and glorifying JZ et al pales into insignificance when compared with “the one who provided and gave man the power to rule over the fish (including oysters)”.

Note that the bracketed phrase is important, because this is a government document and must be accurate at all times – oysters are not fish, they are saltwater clams; marine bivalve molluscs of the species Crassostrea gigas (in the commercial sector, anyway).

Far be it from us to please, praise and glorify the one who provided and gave man the power to rule over the fish, because suggestions of that sort of behaviour would have absolutely no place in a draft policy document about allocation and management right within the oyster fishery.

And what fools we would appear then, hey?

This being a draft document, it seems likely that the “most important” part of Section 4.1(c) will probably not make the cut and get through to the final policy document. And that’s not just sad, it’s potentially dangerous too, for what ‘the one’ giveth, he can taketh away just as easily. Which would surely leave all the power with the fish (including oysters).

That being the case, I’d like to be the first to say that I, for one, welcome our piscine overlords.

UPDATE: Jacques points out that there is a serious side to this too.