Low Down Dirty Shame

It’s been exactly a week since Thuli Madonsela the South African Public Protector, released a report into the outrageous spending of R246-million of public funds on security (sic) upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s private compound residence Nkandla.

Oh there’s been the usual ducking and dodging, disingenuous comments and feigned outrage by the President’s hand-picked cronies Ministers and acolytes, but Zuma himself has kept mum except to utter these condescending, yet self-reflective remarks at some political rally today:

Some take the people of South Africa for granted and underestimate their intelligence.

Be an example and lead.

The guy’s such a smug piece of political vermin, he’s blind to the irony.

Off course, Zuma’s henchmen are not the only people rallying to his defence; ordinary members of the (credulous) public such as this one in an open letter, tried to cast veiled aspersions at the Public Protector, but failed gloriously – and not because of his atrocious spelling and grammar. It was actually quite hilarious to read (if you can stomach the grammar) in the end.

Others however were not fooled by the claims of innocence, as the The Lone Groover’s (rather good) attempt at poetry demonstrates:

My president is a fool,
he has no understanding
of the difference
between
serve and rule.

My president is a liar,
he lines his pockets
and he lights the fire
giggling
over his objects
of desire.

My president is a thief,
rotten to the core
way beyond belief
living in the past
and thinking like a chief.

My president makes me sad
as he squanders all the resources
that we have.

My president makes no sense
with his claims of innocence.

And my people make me cry
when they vote once more
for this guy.

However, the best riposte by far has to be this cartoon:

So for now, the long-suffering public is in for the long wait, as it appears likely that Zuma will waste yet more of our taxes fighting this thing in the courts.

If you’d like to wade through the rather lengthy Public Protector’s report on the Nkandla scandal, here’s a PDF version:

Secure In Comfort

Let’s hope not…

Could it be possible that Muammar Gaddafi is on his way South looking for asylum in South Africa, and Julius Malema is heading North escaping prosecution for grand theft?

I most certainly don’t want that deranged tyrant living in the same country as me, nor do I want that fascist thief escaping the punishment that’s his due…

© 2011 Zapiro (All rights reserved)

Printed with permission from www.zapiro.com

For more Zapiro cartoons visit www.zapiro.com

 

What are atheists up to?

I wonder?

Well, wonder no more!!!

Show me the funny…the laughter continues, # 1

I’m often accused by believers of posting caricatures that belittle Christians only. Here are a few examples posted on my Show me the Funny Page:

Gabrielle (20:17:32) : edit

Wow, y’know I’ve got some comic strips showing the atheists being just as dumb, if you’d like to see them sometime. Y’know, to make it fair and all :).

anonymous (06:54:08) : edit

Lenny,

Please do not get angry or take offense at this. I am only curious. Why is it that all your little cartoons are aimed at Christians when you claim to be against all religion?

 And my personal favorite:

Febe (10:58:20) : edit

Is there any comic strips of Hitler , lenin or even of stalin? These great athiests , how about hitlers SS , But Jews were not the only group singled out for persecution by Hitler’s Nazi regime. As many as one-half million Gypsies, at least 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, and more than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to Nazi genocide. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, partisans, trade unionists, Polish intelligentsia and other undesirables were also victims of the hate and aggression carried out by the Nazis.

While the last comment continues to proliferate the oft-debunked myth about Stalin, Hitler and Lenin killing and sowing the seeds of destruction under the influence of atheism, the simple truth of the matter is that there is just so much more caricatures of Christianity easily available, than any other religion. The even harder truth to swallow may be that while believers, especially of the Christian faith spend an inordinate amount of time defending their myopic views, other more creative people are giving the world thought-provoking caricatures which are not only intended to make us laugh at ourselves, but to create social commentary about our ignorance and unjustified fears.

And politicians who are caricatured daily in the newspapers and magazines, are also not immune from the treatment meted out to religion and culture. If you invite ridicule, don’t cry foul when you become cartoon bait. While watching a video posted on an on-line newspaper this morning, about a documentary which was canned by the South African public broadcaster, the SABC,  South African constitutional court judge, Albie Sachs was quoted as saying “A society that takes itself too seriously risks bottling up its tensions and treating every example of irreverence as a threat to its existence. Humour is one of the great solvents of democracy.”

So in the spirit of promoting social dialogue about irrationality, here are a few more cartoons which I have stolen from a social networking site of which I’m a member. Unfortunately they are all aimed at Christians. However, my offer to Gabrielle and anonymous still stands: if you find any material which casts the other religions and atheists, in a similar light, please make them available to me for posting here.

 

Sanctimony, is not a virtue

Yep, the clergy sure are (applies to all religions)

Quite strange why all-powerful gods do not have access to all-powerful technology

So, I look forward to posting some material that is not complimentary to the other religions and atheists, especially atheists.

SA Elections 2009: Campaign promises, I mean lies, being flogged to death

by Zapiro - The Times, 01 March 2009

Brilliant isn’t it. Jonathan Shapiro, better known as Zapiro is a true artist and is famous for his incisive critique on politics and religion. The cartoon refers to the advent of television adverts in South Africa for the promotion of political parties campaigning for the upcoming elections. Thankfully, I have been spared this visual assault, because for some reason they aren’t aired on sports and documentary channels which I spend most of my time watching. If they are actually aired on these channels, it seems I’ve been most fortunate in missing them altogether.

However, I cannot escape the auditory assault; every morning on my way to work, there are adverts on the radio, from all of the major political parties being broadcast in between Britney Spears and your favourite hair shampoo. Then there are the unsightly poles of all shapes and sizes lining the streets I drive through, plastered from top to bottom with unsightly election posters of more or less the same size. This I’ve become used to, and can ignore quite easily, but not so the tiresome voices on the radio, promising the earth to the electorate.

The political parties who sponsor these radio adverts make no attempt to sugar coat their blatant lies which masquerade as promises, to fix damn near everything. I can feel the bile rising even now, as I contemplate the utter contempt these lying bastards have for the electorate, by spewing out such empty rhetoric; laced with bragging over expected accomplishments, which they now paint as major achievements. The need to fill a few minutes of air-time to catch your attention, triumphed over the need to make sense, and being at least a little honest at the same time. It truly sickens me, but it is obvious that a large majority of the electorate in South Africa think that these scumbags deserve another five years to fix all the things they have probably screwed up in the first place; otherwise the adverts would have had a completely different approach altogether. And apologising, pleading, begging and groveling comes readily to mind.

Now, there are probably some of you who, will righfully reprimand me for just complaining, and will want to know what alternative I have to offer. Honestly, I don’t have an alternative right now. However, I am proud to be part of an iniative by relatively young South Africans, who recognize that we need to re-introduce true democracy and its associated ideals, to this country. Right now, I’m merely placing all politicians on notice; we are onto you, your time is ending. South Africa deserves a new breed of politician who understands what honesty and accountability really means; what being a servant of the public is all about.

Another Hoax Mail: Protest at Film Depicting Jesus and His Disciples as Gay

Gullibility and superstition are bosom buddies. Thus those who tend to be superstitious (usually the religious) are bound to be susceptible to gullibility as well. So, it was no surprise to me when I received another hoax email just the other day, in the form of a petition against the supposed release of a new film called Corpus Christi, and which claimed to depict Jesus and his disciples as homosexual; there were already 580 South African signatures appended to the mail.

In reality, there is no such film! How 580 people allowed this obvious hoax to spread, without even a cursory check on the veracity of the claims, is beyond me. According to Snopes.com, this hoax has been circulating since 1984 in one guise or another. But the thing that really bothers me is a reference in the mail to actions taken by another religious group when they perceive that their religion, gods or prophets are being maligned: “If the Muslims do what they believe to be right against their religion , where do we stand as Christians?” Are the originators of this hoax actually suggesting that Christians should resort to the same violent protests that sprang up all over the world recently, over some cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper? A total religious onslaught against freedom of speech is a serious cause for concern to all freedom-loving people.

Anyway, back to the 580 gullible South Africans who actually signed the petition: Where were you lot when Bill Maher’s Religulous was screened just a month or so ago at several cinemas across South Africa? I don’t recall any mails or petitions or protests. There was not so much as a whimper from the religious crowd when the film was advertised in the mainstream press, and eventually screened.  This inaction just confirms a very important observation: Religious folk are fixated with things that don’t exist (as in this Corpus Christi film, for example), but are  seemingly oblivious of real things (such as Bill Maher’s film, Religulous).