Nearly there

I was just going through my usual Sunday morning routine of curing inoperable brain tumours in little children by clicking Facebook LIKE buttons, when suddenly, there was incoming communication from @JacquesR:

Three years after launching it, this Cape Party petition for Western Cape independence is 4/10 of the way there: http://www.mypetition.co.za/index.php?page=sign_petition&petition_id=135

And he’s right.

Western Cape to become an independent state.

Why is it listed under “Crime”? The Cape Party are just a bit rubbish, they’re not criminals.

The other thing I can’t understand is how such a significant attempt to install an independent government in the Cape has slipped under the radar for so long. I think we’ve all had the feeling that too many political organisations rely solely on the ballot box and the democratic process.
But, as we know, that simply didn’t work for the Cape Party as they only managed to scrape 0.09% of the local vote.

It’s a tall order to govern any country effectively when fewer than 1 in 1000 people are supporting you. In fact, as the ANC have showed us, it’s apparently pretty tough to govern any country effectively full stop.

As far as I am aware, the ANC has yet to resort to online petitions. Given their efficacy (the petitions, not the ANC), one has to wonder why. After all, recently, several petitions on Change.org have been attributed the reversal of a United Airlines Dog Policy. And if clicking a checkbox means that your spaniel can fly across the States, then I’m obviously all for it.

In fact, many people believe that online petitions are the worst examples of “slacktivism”, like dancing on a beach, wearing a certain colour of clothing or sticking a red plastic rhino horn on the front of your car. That is, it’s an all too easy way to make yourself feel that you are doing something, when actually, you are having no effect whatsoever. It’s merely a panacea for your conscience, not for the problem you are supposedly highlighting.

To me, it speaks volumes that the Cape Party’s online petition  is floundering at 40% completion after three years of trying. So even when all people have to do to express their support is to click a link , they don’t.

Someone once said: “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results”. The fact that the Cape Party continue to push for Cape independence and expect people to agree with them simply proves that they are all quite, quite mad.

Why not buy Zimbabwe?

As Patrice Motsepe gives half his family fortune away to charity, 6000 miles… favourite Ben Trovato has some better advice for him (and a little poke at the ruling party):

If I were you, I’d buy Zimbabwe first thing Monday morning. Imagine the fun you could have with your very own country. Come to think of it, you could buy Jacob Zuma for a lot less and still have your own country. This might already have happened.

The rest of the post it well worth a read. It’s classic Ben.

Let Me Despair

You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting many of my photos lately. Other people’s photos, sure, but none of my own. And the reason for this is pretty straightforward – a lack of hardware.

The rocker zoom switch on my lovely camera has malfunctioned and Panasonic’s official repair agent in SA is the George-based LetMeRepair. A look at their website doesn’t inspire confidence. Unless perhaps you’re still residing in the early 1990s.

But the website might be misleading. Maybe they’re not utterly useless.

No, sadly, they are utterly useless.

5 days for a quote, 9 days for the part, 2 days to repair and then back to me, I was told. So, 16 days in total then. This doesn’t quite explain why they’ve still got my camera, unrepaired, some 65 (sixty-five) days after I handed it over to them for repair.

But things can go wrong. And when they do, it how you deal with them that makes the difference. Sadly, letmerepair haven’t done very well with this aspect either. My requests for information are generally ignored, but when I do mange to get a human on the other end of the line, they blame customs, citing delays for the part entering SA. One would perhaps imagine that letmerepair would have some experience of bringing camera parts into the country. But obviously not.

Perhaps I should have looked at popular consumer website hellopeter before I used letmerepair, but these guys are the ones who Panasonic chose to repair any of their devices over here. It seems that, like me, they may have made a big mistake.

So, a 6000 miles… tip: If you need something repaired and letmerepair are suggested as the company to use: Don’t.

Balls

Man moves to golf course, complains about number of golf balls in immediate vicinity of his home.

Yes, really.

Eric Schoeman turned to the Pretoria High Court to interdict the owner of the Emfuleni Golf Course on the Emfuleni Golf Estate from allowing anyone to play golf on the 14th hole unless the green is relocated to a position not closer than 40m from his premises.

Ah yes, the tricky fourteenth. Especially difficult with a  following northeaster, which often leads players to underestimate the distance to the pin and play their shots too long.

Many players, he said, play their shots too long [see? – Ed.], with the result that the house and adjacent living area are often hit by fast-travelling golf balls. He said apart from causing damage to the property, these balls may cause serious injury or even death if a person is hit by them.

I was once hit in the chest by a golf ball when I was about 12 years old. It remember that it left a very interesting bruise.

Schoeman said before he took steps to alleviate the situation somewhat, the house was hit by about 100 balls a month. Some of the balls hit the patio, some the porch, others the outside of the house, while some went right into the house.

These often damaged the furniture or pictures on the walls.

The danger with golf balls repeatedly hitting your pictures, of course, is that you’ll end up getting a hole in one.

Sorry.

At first sight, this may seem like choosing to live in the woods and then moaning about the bear excrement, or moving to the Vatican and being unpleasantly about the number of Catholics, but there is more to this story, including (allegedly) broken promises and property transfer.

I wood just hope that they can iron out their differences.