Two Bits

I know lots of people laughed or were disgusted at our President Zzzzzuma when the cameras caught him dozing off during Pravin Gordhan’s interminable mini-budget speech last week, but c’mon people, play fair. Imagine if you had all those demanding wives that you could just manage to count on the fingers of one hand, plus two and eleventy something tiresome, snot-nosed little brats squalling around the presidential palaces day and night – you’d be catching up with your kip in the Assembly too! I have to admit that I tried to listen to the whole speech and nodded off for an hour or so somewhere in the middle, it was that interesting.
As for Pravin, the stress rolls off his back like water off the proverbial duck. The NPA wants chuck him in jail and he just carries on, calm as ever. But can you believe Abrahams and our esteemed National Prosecuting Authority, dreaming up fraud charges against the minister of finance for approving an early retirement scheme? Like, ‘hey guys, what can we charge him with?’
As on Monday, Shaun “Eyebrows” Abrahams is in full reverse, dropping the charges and trying to run for cover. Did he only just realise that the whole business was going to cause a storm of note? The man’s clearly an idiot or a puppet, or both, and should resign asap.
What is going on with Des van Rooyen exactly? First the Weekend Special attacks Gordhan, out of step with the rest of the cabinet, and now he’s trying to get Madonsela’s state capture report canned. Is it because his name appears prominently in it, alongside the Guptas?
People talk of the Zuma conspiracy, of what he must be holding on people to get them to fall into line so passively. What’s going on here brings to mind Hanlon’s Razor, an aphorism expressed in various ways including “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”. Another way of putting it is, what you think is conspiracy might easily just be a cock-up.
There is no leadership being displayed by Zuma and his 75-member cabinet (one of the largest in the world) on the university fees issue, on Gordhan, on controlling Van Rooyen, nor on the comedy show without the laughs going on at the SABC, SAA and many other places.
He is behaving like a ‘lame duck’, our president in name alone, without the backing of his party or cabinet. The party cannot afford to allow him to serve until the next party conference, but the national executive seems frozen like rabbits in the headlights. The DA and EFF are rejoicing because they are stealing ground as fast as they can.
But my favourite story of the week has to be the extraordinary behaviour of the Health Professions Council of South Africa over Prof Tim Noakes. Their PR department put out a press release saying that he had been found guilty of misconduct – six months before a verdict is due! (He is facing what I see as a trumped-up charge for giving out medical advice on social media.)
Some underling will get the chop for pressing the ‘send’ button, but clearly they had written the ‘guilty’ statement long before the legal arguments had ended.
If it were a regular court, Noakes’ lawyer would be fully entitled to demand a mistrial. The groveling apology put out by the council doesn’t come close to changing everybody’s belief that Noakes is being railroaded, so expect more fireworks from his lawyers.
If you’re interested in the background on Noakes’ thinking, get hold of his book ‘Changing Beliefs’ for an eye-opener on what happens to scientists who try to swim against the stream.

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To change the subject entirely, what do you think – are schoolchildren ‘pupils’ or ‘learners’ or ‘students’? Reason I ask is because we receive a ton of material from schools for publication, in which their charges are called all three. I like to be consistent and adopt a uniform style for the news paper.
South Africa is one of a tiny minority of countries where schoolchildren are referred to a ‘learners’ and their teachers as ‘educators’. How come?
A teacher friend thought the terminology might have come to this country courtesy of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE), which was shelved long ago, but does the malady linger on in the shape of these names? Another teacher friend in Scotland says teachers call them pupils and only experts talk about ‘learners’. (He is very contemptuous of ‘experts’).
The term ‘pupils’ is certainly part of the British system and most countries formerly of their empire (including many countries in Africa) still use ‘pupils’ and ‘teachers’, while Europeans and Americans prefer ‘students’ and ‘teachers’.
So what do you think? Do we go with the flow? Drop me a line at editor@northcoastcourier.co.za  or  look up this column on our Facebook page and add your comments. I look forward to hearing from you.
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Mary had a little lamb
You’ve heard this tale before
But did you know she passed her plate
And had a little more?