Get Back to Basics

Today, president of the South African Students Congress (Sasco), Mbulelo Mandlana, said that all matrics should receive free university education from 2011. He stated that South Africa is a 'knowledge economy' and not a 'labour-intensive' one. He also referred to a 'liberal notion...that [a university education] is a privilege'.

Sadly, I agree that it is still a privilege. Sadly, because I would love it if all South Africans had the chance to reach their potential. Sadly, because my days at university were some of the best. Because I know I learned so much, and not just in the lectures but in and around the campus.

But, in a capitalist society, surely a tertiary education is the privilege of those who can afford it?

Mandlana went on to say that there could be an education tax on all South Africans to help shoulder the burden. The whole thing, though, is broken from start to finish: we have an ailing educational system as it is, with thousands of primary and high schools already classed as 'dysfunctional'. Matric exams have just begun, and we all await the results anxiously following the long teachers' strike earlier this year.

With fewer learners passing high school, or even passing but from a 'dysfunctional' school, many of them enter the job market with few skills and no money for a university education. These will become the adults who Mandlana proposes we tax so that others after them have a chance.

The solution is not free university education, but a proper educational system that will produce functional members of society who have the skills to start working. Those who excel will be granted bursaries, those who can afford it can study further.

Then once we have a population with a basic education, with jobs, and that is contributing to society, then we can consider an education tax. Until that day, university education will remain a privilege and not a right.

Unfortunately, we need to start with the ABCs before we start handing out free degrees.

Rather Chew on your Fingernails

In 2000, seven rhino were poached in South Africa. This year, already 230 have been killed. It's a question of limited supply and increasing demand. I always believed that rhino horn was sought after by people in Asia with flagging libidos (and no access to Viagra). After a bit of Internet research, however, I stumbled upon this article:

http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/2010/07/rhino-horn-and-traditional-chinese-medicine-facts.html

Apparently, ground-up rhino horn is believed to cure almost any ailment including loss of voice, fever, pus-filled boils and even devil possession. About the only place it supposedly has no place is, ironically, the bedroom. This may explain the growing demand, as it seems to be a cure-all. But as Rhishja Larson explains, rhino horn is really just agglutinated hair, much like fingernails. And a WWF study in 1983 concluded that it has no proven medicinal properties.

Phila is now the face of the anti-poaching movement. She is a brave female rhino who survived being shot in two separate poaching attempts, and who is now recovering at the Johannesburg Zoo. They hope to release her into the wild, but I ask if that is the answer. Surely she can't survive a third attack? Instead, why not educate the people who believe this beautiful animal is the answer to their prayers.

Phila, as taken by Tawanda Mudimu for AP

How about an ad campaign in countries like Vietnam or China, where rhino horn is coveted, that asks people that when they feel sick, to grind up their own fingernails and ingest that? I know which finger they could start with.

Exercise Caution when it comes to Bad Advertising

I really love the idea of tactical advertising, where the ads relate to their specific environment. There are some great examples out there, like the famous BMW vs Audi billboard battle that took place in California. Audi had a billboard up saying 'Your move, BMW.' To which BMW replied simply, 'Checkmate.' Check it out at http://www.bmwblog.com/2009/04/13/billboards-war-bmw-vs-audi/

Another good one is when the two ad agencies Ogilvy and the Jupiter Drawing Room entered into a rivalry at Cape Town International Airport: http://10and5.com/2009/04/ogilvy-vs-jupiter-agency-beef/

And then there are the times when a good old generic ad may have been better. I was driving home on the N1 North, and just before the Neotel offices there's been a billboard up for a while in the signature Neotel orange. It says something like 'Change your service provider without changing your number'. Fair enough.

Now their arch-enemy Telkom has placed a billboard quite a distance before theirs. It is in the bright Telkom blue, and says something to this effect: 'Remember to exercise caution when you see orange.' The word 'orange' is in a shade similar to Neotel's.

The average person battling through the traffic is not going to a) read Telkom's billboard and remember it until b) they actually notice and read Neotel's before c) putting the two together and going, 'Ooh, clever, clever, Telkom!'

Most likely that people will just wonder what Telkom means with the message. Hey, maybe they'll get some credit for helping us out with the rules of the road.

P.S. I owe Telkom an apology. I noticed yesterday that their billboard is actually close to Neotel's offices, which are bright orange. So the chance of someone noticing 'Remember, exercise caution when you see orange' and then seeing the Neotel offices is quite high. That said, I still don't think the message is that clever. 


It just feels a little lukewarm. It's not a 'shut up' message like BMW's 'Checkmate'. Instead, it's a verbal shrug that says 'be a bit careful' - but once I check Neotel's rates and find them favourable, then is it a green all-systems go?

Put a Muzzle on that Thing

I heard another song by Pitbull on my way home. This man symbolises everything wrong with popular music. Like David Guetta or Timbaland, just slapping his name on a track makes it an instant hit. He is also so overtly crude with his lyrics (supposing he does write his own) that I am stunned that hardly any of his songs is censored.

It all began badly with 'I know you want me / You know I want you / I know you want me / You know I want you'. If these two want each other that badly, then go ahead and do it. Just please, please, stop singing that catchy-as-an-STD refrain.

Then we had 'Hotel Room Service' with its witty title (a play on 'service', just one of the many 'puns' that slowly eat away at your soul). The words leave nothing to the imagination: 'Your man just left, I'm the plumber tonight / I'll check your pipes, oh you the healthy type / Well, here goes some egg whites'. Talk about mixing metaphors.

Oh, and if that bald cucaracha showed up at my hotel room door I'd squash him and his eggs.

'French' Women Fake It

Richelieu was already on the rocks with me. After a television ad where a young man celebrates his birthday with about five beautiful women, who show up in turn on his doorstep with various gifts that all seemed to have been bought at the French Stereotype Store. Berets, boules etcetera. None of the girls knows about the other, until, it is revealed, when they turn the tables on said young man by crashing his party with an accordion that opens up (quelle surprise!) with a bottle of Richelieu inside it.

None of the women is shocked, hurt or angry about the fact that this guy (in fact, we can call him Guy) has been seeing them all. Maybe it's a French thing.

What's decidedly un-French, then, is their latest radio ad.  Never mind the content. It is the ghastly faux-French accent of the woman speaking that makes me want to go and buy French fries, scoff them down and then throw them back up. I hate how saying 'zee' instead of 'the' seems to make you sound French. It really doesn't.

So the French are striking because the government wants to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. Or maybe they heard the ad online and wanted to stick within the stereotype of 'zee temperamental French'.

FIN

A New Age Yawns

The launch of a brand new newspaper should be a cause for celebration. I suppose that's if it manages to launch, unlike the New Age which was meant to be on stands today and isn't. In fact, it won't be for another two weeks or so, according to managing editor, Gary Naidoo. Is it simply a case of running out of time? No. It's because five senior staff members resigned yesterday.

On John Robbie's show this morning on 702, Naidoo gave us all the runaround about why these top people have left the team, claiming to have no idea why they resigned. Perhaps the New Age needs to invest in some investigative journalists.

Then there's also the shadowy 'Gupta family', close friends of President Zuma, who are funding the paper. Did the staff resign because they refused to slant their voices a certain way? Or was it just money, plain and simple? And all this as the media tries to lose the would-be muzzle of the Protection of Information Bill.

Read all about it in today's papers. Just not the New Age.

And a Turducken in a Pear Tree...

Welcome to the first post. And Merry Christmas. It's not Christmas yet? But it's already October, which is why I see most shops have set up the trees and strewn tinsel over everything except the customers. And you know what, I can live with it. I even appreciate that what the managers and marketers are trying to say with all the December decor is 'we love your money'. So do I. I love my money, so thank you.

What I hate about Christmas, though, is the turducken. Perhaps you have not glimpsed into the icy depths of the supermarket deep freeze lately, in which case don't. For there looms a freak of nature, a boneless, amorphous testament to greed, gluttony and genetic modification. It's like the Crocs of the food world, for no matter how good it may be, I won't be caught dead trying it.