Man who snapped 98 pencils in one minute has nothing on SA’s destruction champs

Every year on 9/11 (that’s September 11) I keep an eye on the news. It’s become a ritual that I can’t – and don’t want to – break. I just can’t help myself. Channel-hopping between Sky and CNN, I try to stay on top of the news of the day, because it is after all 9/11.

And you never know… While most of the coverage centres around the events commemorating the people who died in the attacks in the US on that day in 2001, there are other topical news snippets that make it onto the screens watched by billions around the world.

This year, one news snippet that didn’t make it to the main stream media, but was published on the internet, was the incredible feat of destruction performed by one David Rush in Idaho.

Rush, according to UPI.com, has more than 100 Guinness records to his name, and added another on America’s most fateful day by snapping 98 pencils in one minute. Rush reportedly addressed an Out of School network conference about the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.

And during his coffee break snapped 98 pencils in one minute, breaking the previous record of 90.

Rush said he prepared for the record by practicing with bamboo chopsticks so he wouldn’t have to buy hundreds of pencils just to destroy them. It is, however, unknown how may bamboo chopsticks were annihilated in preparation of the mass destruction of 98 pencils.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I really don’t want to rain on Mr Rush’s parade, but puh-lease! If breaking stuff is a gateway to getting one’s name in the Guinness records, we South Africans should have the monopoly.

Just the other day an entire second-hand car dealership in the Joburg CBD was torched in just seconds. And if destroying 98 pencils in a minute is such a feat, consider the prowess of the persons who can break every shop window from Eloff to Ockerse Street while dodging tear gas and rubber bullets, but still managing to stop for a TV interview along the way.

Danie Toerien.

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