No Woman, No Drive

Last month I published a post concerning the ridiculous assertion by a Saudi cleric that driving vehicles causes harm to women’s ovaries and pelvis. Women drivers are frowned upon in Saudi Arabia and although there’s no actual law forbidding them from driving, licences are not issued to them.

This weekend, there were reports of at least 14 women from Jeddah, Mecca and the Eastern Province being arrested for participating in a defiance campaign. It’s likely that they’ll be fined, or some could even lose their jobs.

Saudi Arabia features prominently on this BBC News World report, as a country with the least equality between men and women. The map below actually fingers most of the Middle East and large parts of North Africa as the worse places a woman could find herself. And I’m going to refrain from pointing out the correlation between degree of religiosity in these countries and the disdain for women’s rights… Oh crap! I just did!

On a lighter but welcome note, there are still good men in Saudi Arabia, as this YouTube video which has gone viral points out. Comedian Hisham Fageeh and some friends did a send-up of Bob Marley’s No Women, No Cry to illustrate just how absurd this driving ban is.

One can only hope these pathetic clerics relent and allow women to drive soon, among other human rights they’re currently denied.

We will not be silenced

Despite the large-scale opposition to the Protection Of Information Bill [POIB] from all the opposition parties, civil society, the media and other interest groups, the ANC majority in the National Assembly steam-rolled it through the first stage anyway.

The ANC has, during its tenure done many loathsome things that demonstrated it’s utter disdain for the people of this country, but I don’t think anything said “fuck you” quite like this event.

The jackasses who voted for this abhorrent piece of legislation have very short memories about the involvement of their predecessors [albeit more honourable persons] from the ANC, in the fight for justice and freedom against the previous apartheid government. Even in the shadow of world events, especially in North Africa where ordinary people have ousted the tyrants that have dared to go too far in toying with their aspirations…

Perhaps all tyrants need to learn the hard way, fall the hard way; the ANC are no exceptions.

But all is not lost. The Bill still needs to be ratified by another House of Parliament. And if they should also piss on the protestations of the people, there is the Constitutional Court.

Let’s hope it does not have to go beyond there, because we will not be silenced.

17 shopping days until the end of the world?

Image via Wikipedia

October 21, 2011 approaches!

According to Harold Camping, the world is supposed to be in the final stages of 5 months of horrible torment since the fabled Judgment Day which passed with hardly any fuss, on 21 May 2011. With just 17 days to go before that supposed all-defining moment in the brief history of mankind, die-hard believers are presumably wringing their hands in glee, while those who have not accepted Camping’s Lord, should either be wondering if there’s anything to all this flim-flam, or laughing hysterically.

To be fair, the last five months have been kinda unusual. Could Camping be onto something? Or is he on something, which seems to be the consensus of opinion?

World events over the last 5 months have been rather unusual. Or so it would have seemed to the casual observer. I’m not even going to try to imagine what it must have seemed like, to the stoned observer.

Despots who were apparently well-loved by the people being ousted in North Africa, the darling of the freedom movements, the ANC revealing themselves to be plain old scum, economic crisis in Europe, snow near Sun City and tornadoes in other parts of South Africa, Julius Malema being disciplined and the ANC Youth League losing popularity, and Arsenal languishing just above the relegation zone in the English Premier League table.

Now those were just some of the mighty unusual occurrences over the last 5 months. Or Harold Camping will have you believe so.

Either way, whether you’re a believer or not, it’s the ideal time to get in some shopping. Whether it’s to buy some wine for that last supper, a gift for Harold for warning everyone, a new bible to search for those passages to help you repent, or a bottle of the usual plonk, to ease those mouth muscles while you laugh at those who fell for it again…

Horror from Japan excites horrid little minds

As the true extent of the damage from the massive earthquake that struck Japan begins to be realized, the crazy warped minds of the world’s religious lunatics are working overtime churning out ignorant theories about the wrath of the gods, the end times, the return of Jesus, and the power of the Supermoon.

Every time there is a natural disaster somewhere around the world, you can bet your bottom dollar that some religious looney-tune is going to mouth off about god’s wrath against gays, lesbians, heathens, Atheists or whatever conflicts with their warped sense of morality.

String together a series of natural disasters, political revolts and other forms of turmoil such as economic downturns, and the horrid little minds of these god-botherers goes into myopic overdrive.

The earthquake in Japan follows the recent heavy flooding in Australia, and earthquakes in Chile and New Zealand and citizen revolts in North Africa. The aftermath of the earthquake resulted in tsunami’s causing destruction elsewhere, a nuclear power plant about to go into meltdown, and a volcano eruption. This much chaos seems to have gotten the religious doomsayers into a monumental frenzy.

Just this weekend I’ve read that god is punishing the Japanese for killing and eating whales, the end-times is very close, Jesus is about to make another appearance, the bible predicted everything, and that the poor old moon is responsible for setting off the whole catastrophe.

But somehow, while god is supposedly laying on the death and destruction everywhere, he’s positively smiling down on South Africa’s favorite convicted fraudster. Schabir Shaik who was released from prison apparently because he was terminally ill, seems to become livelier by the day, as he goes about his way assaulting and intimidating reporters and even worshippers.

Go figure!

Ghost Town by The Specials

Watching the zombie classic Sean of the Dead for the third time recently, I made a mental note to look for the video of the song Ghost Town featured in the film.

Here it is with the lyrics if you’re interested. The message contained in the lyrics are rather appropriate considering the depressing statistics released recently about South Africa’s appalling unemployment rate among the youth, and the warning by the World Bank that it [unemployment] is a contributor to the recent uprisings in North Africa.

But don’t let that stop you from enjoying the song.

Ghost Town

This town (town) is coming like a ghost town
All the clubs have been closed down
This place (town) is coming like a ghost town
Bands won’t play no more
Too much fighting on the dance floor
(A-la-la …)
Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town?
We danced and sang as the music played in any boomtown
This town (town) is coming like a ghost town
Why must the youth fight against themselves?

Government leaving the youth on the shelf
This place (town) is coming like a ghost town
No job to be found in this country
Can’t go on no more
The people getting angry
(A-la-la …)
This town is coming like a ghost town
This town is coming like a ghost town
This town is coming like a ghost town
This town is coming like a ghost town