A yellow-billed kite swooped over our heads during our morning walk last week, the whales are leaping and splashing their way up to Madagascar and the lovely, soaking rains over the weekend are all welcome signs that Spring is on her way.
It will be such a relief to be warm again, after one of the coldest winters in recent memory.
Sometimes it felt as if the wind was blowing off snow at Esenembe, instead of all the way from up there on the Berg.
Stanger just can’t stay out of the spotlight.
Hot on the heels of former Stangerite Tahera Mather hitting the headlines for her involvement in the apparent Digital Vibes fraud against the department of health that cost health minister Zweli Mkhize his job, another Stangerite is in the news.
We ran a story back in 1995 when John Hlope became the first black judge to be appointed to the Bench of the Western Cape high court.
Judge Hlope was born and bred in Stanger and if memory serves, much of his education was funded by the late Ian Smeaton – a farmer whose abiding memory for me was seeing him driving around the North Coast in a Rolls Royce with the number plate NT1.
He wasn’t the mayor – that was back in the day when the mayor of the dorp didn’t have an official car – he just had the number.
Judge Hlope’s career has been mired in controversy, particularly because he apparently tried to convince two Constitutional Court judges to rule in favour of then president Jacob Zuma in cases that implicated Zuma in corrupt activities.
The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow and 13 years later there is an overwhelming storm of calls for him to be kicked off the Bench.
We’ll have to wait and see about that!
The former president was also in the news (when isn’t he!?) for posting an appeal on social media for crowdfunding of his multi-million legal bills.
I don’t know the exact amount, but if his lawyer Dali Mpofu is paid by the word, it’s a lot!
My hackles rose on first seeing the appeal, then I decided not to be churlish.
Actually, I could use it to my advantage.
So I deposited 2 cents in his Capitec bank account – That, I reckon, gives me the right to give Zuma some advice – my “Two Bits Worth,” so to speak.
Mr Zuma, your brashness knows no bounds.
Why don’t you ask your friends the Guptas to help pay your bills?
What, they don’t answer the phone?
They’re no longer your friends?
How strange.
Don’t you think your son Duduzane will pause long enough from living the high life in Dubai to send some of it back for you.
What, he doesn’t answer the phone either, even for his dear old Dad?
Aay, our children will be the death of us.
I know it must be so hard for you, sitting in your hospital bed in Estcourt prison, with your incurable case of the Shaiks.
How you must envy everyone else out and free as birds, while you have to face the music.
Where’s your machine gun when you need it?
Well rest easy, because it would appear from the support on social media that there are still many misguided fools out there who are prepared to contribute their meagre savings to Dali, I mean your trial.
Even after they lost their jobs because their places of work were ransacked and burned down in your name.
They don’t seem to make the connection, luckily for you, that the same person who allowed the country to be stolen blind now wants even more from them. Shem.
But if their savings don’t cover your bills – don’t forget my 2 cents – my advice to you is to come clean.
Throw yourself to the mercy of the court, tell them you’re a stupid old man who was fooled by the old three-card trick by three clever fellows from Mumbai.
Do it well and you’ll never see the inside of a cell again. You’ll put sent to Nkaaaandla to count your cattle and relax by the firepool.
You can’t believe that the stolen money and the racial hatred stirred up by that WMC (White Monopoly Capital) nonsense truly served the noble tradition of the ANC of John Dube and Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela, do you?
Would you want to be remembered as the arrogant conman or the repentant servant of your movement?
Spend my 2 cents wisely.
Heh-heh-heh!
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