Will you be my Valentine Bunny?

I started this blog with an entry about a stuffed foodstuff known as the Turducken. I explained that even though it was October, I could just about handle the fact that in every mall it was already Christmas.

Forget that.

It is February, yes? So I am okay with the Valentine's Day displays in the shops (never minding that they were up since early January). It is a time when transactional love is not only legal in this country, but encouraged. What would you do for a chocolate-coated, marshmallow heart? Or should that be, what would you not do?

Perfect ValentineEaster garb

My problem, though, is that although the front of this particular store is all about V-Day, and though the red splatter of cards and candy looks like someone killed their fairy godmother in Woolies, something sinister lurks just inside the dairy aisle. The only rodent you wouldn't mind seeing in a food store. Of course, the Easter Bunny.

Lo, right there opposite the yoghurts, is an entire homage to chocolate eggs, chickens and bunnies. This in February. My mind is confused: which is more important? The two days compete in my brain for the title of What I Really Don't Care About Most. Who does their Easter shopping in February anyway? And if it's there just for impulse buying, who really craves chocolate specifically hollow and in egg-form?

They may as well create one huge event all-year round (and marketers could sell, sell, sell this to the hilt):

Happy NewYearValentineSt.Patricks'DayEasterSecretary'sDayWomen'sDayThanksgivingChristmasBoxingDay!


Now that's a display I'd like to see.

Where Politicians [should] Fear to Tread

With an outpouring of concern over former president Mandela's health earlier this month, it was easy to see how much South Africans love and respect him. So much so, that he could, and even should, be South Africa's very first saint.

But religion should have no place in the run-up to an election, local or national. With President Zuma's comments to a crowd of prospective voters this weekend, he has managed to incite not only leaders of various Christian churches and of other political parties, but even the most staunch of atheists. After all, if we had the Ten Commandments of Common Sense to follow, maybe we would all go to some logical heaven where presidents do not need to promise us entry into the afterlife for a cross on a ballot.

Talk about over-promising, though. Whatever happened to free housing, better taxes, creating more jobs? Why use your platform to punt paradise? Maybe if President Zuma and the rest of those in power spent more time fixing the country and less time insulting the electorate's intelligence, we could make South Africa a more heavenly place now.

I can't believe that the ANC now claims that the dangerous comments were only meant metaphorically. Spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said that if the word 'heaven' were inappropriate such names or phrases as 'Sweets from heaven' or a 'marriage made in heaven' would not exist. That's true. That's fine. But part of what President Zuma allegedly said was:

'When you get up there, there are different cards used but when you have an ANC card, you will be let through to go to heaven.'

There is no alternate or 'figurative' meaning to that statement. Forget your Dischem card, your Makro card, even your Blockbusters video card, only the ANC card can guarantee an eternal lifetime in heaven.

So as long as President Zuma is wielding his fork of power, and I do mean 'fork' in the exact figurative sense that he did, South Africa will be putting up with someone whose promises belong back in medieval times. Soon we may be burning witches at the stake again.

But as long as we only light the fires in a figurative sense, I guess they'll be okay.