Saturday 1 November 2008

Like, shoo-wow Jacob bru! -puff puff-

Rule #41 of The Supervillain's Guide to Super Villainy:

  • Ensure that your statements, threats & declarations of evil intent on your way to World Domination, are clear!
There are plenty of stupid people out there. And while that means an endless availability of possible minions, it also means that you are going to have to explain yourself often. Very clearly. Id est; you're going to have to spell it out for most people!
For instance, should you go public with your Super Evil Plan to induce an ice age across the planet, there are going to be those that interpret your threat as a kindhearted gesture in affording them the opportunity to build snowmen, go ice-skating, sing Christmas carols all year round!
And so while you're thinking annihilation of idiots, they're thinking winter wonderland...
As a SuperVillain, it's important to be specific, clear to the point that your words cannot be interpreted in any other way than the one you initially intended.
Let's take a lesson from one of my favourite politicians; Jacob Zuma.
During a speech at Thursday's funeral for "freedom fighter" Billy Nair, Zuma is quoted as saying that he "used to smoke zol" together with Nair.
For those international readers, "zol" is a colloquial term for cannibis and is mostly used by the smokers of the substance.
Naturally you can imagine the uproar over the statement, much like the furor over Bill Clinton's 1992 response of "I did not inhale". And of course, the ANC very quickly released a statement saying that Zuma had been referring to hand-rolled cigarettes and not cannibis. Uhuh...
Nice one Zuma!
Frankly I could care less about whether he smoked cannibis many years ago. He's still an absolute idiot for making a sentimental statment with such ambiguous and incriminating information. And even if he didn't smoke cannibis, there's always going to be that speculation in the minds of the public in future.

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