There's a Somali on your stoep. Of course, it's insane to set up refugee camps across the road from nice, middle-class suburbs. They should put them in gated communities. There, at least, they'll be safe. Also, there will be no excuses for being late to guard the boom or dab the dribble off the little master's chin.
Another good place is a golf course, that lush, green, up-yours to the poverty gap.
But that's just a distraction and not what we need to talk about today. I've been waiting for the right time to bring this up, but there's always some sort of pressing need -- restless natives or the petrol price or trying to figure out whether brown shoes go with black pants.
This stuff all seems so important at the time. It's the big issues, however, that will get us in the end. The global ones.
So, let me take one of them off your mind: the food crisis.
Go get some scissors and sticky tape and put this up on the side of the fridge right next to the emergency numbers. Here's a guide to getting through the food crisis.
If you're poor
First, what are you doing with a fridge and a copy of the Mail & Guardian?
Second, don't expect too much.
I just read a report online that most of the poor survive on "just one meal a day". Which leads me to ask … who needs more than one meal a day?
Personally, I've switched from a meal-based diet to a snack-based one: handful-sized portions spread across the day to keep my metabolism ticking.
Wouldn't you like to feel a little less sluggish while loitering and talking to yourself?
Live your best life now.
I see what you're going for, bulking up on the starches, just try to replace processed grains with Low GI alternatives. I know, you haven't come this far in life to eat brown bread, but consider the benefits of products such as the Woolworths "Fuller For Longer" loaf. A bit like chewing wood chips, but better than huffing glue.
Also, most sushi restaurants have half-price nights on Tuesdays or Thursdays.
If you're rich
Eat the poor.
The 1973 film, Soylent Green, is set in a hunger-ravaged 2022. In it, Charlton Heston discovers that the moreish green biscuit most of the population survives on is made from … gasp! People!
Now, there's an idea. Think of all the varieties we could have. Biscuits made from the homeless could be marked "free range". The ones made from vegetarians could be marked "grain fed". The ones made from parliamentarians, "high in omega-3 fatty acids".
Eat your favourites now
You've heard that the world's ocean fish reserves are dwindling. All the more reason to order that seared tuna while you can.
The bleeding hearts will cry: "What about the children? And your children's children?"
Well, I say, if the children have never tasted it, they'll never know what they're missing so, if you have young kids, don't allow them to develop a taste for the good stuff. Shark fin soup is for mummy and daddy.
That goes for red meat too. Me, I like my meat so rare the World Wildlife Fund is outside protesting.
Convert all that biofuel back into mealies
It's quite a thing, turning food into fuel. A fine demonstration of human ingenuity.
Now change it back.
Ignore the problem till it goes away … Or we do.
Carl Sagan once called our attention to the fact that life on any planet will inevitably end. Sometime. Somehow. So, our choice is to die here or travel into space.
Well, we're a little behind on the last option, so our real choice is between being grumpy about the inevitable end or staring it right in the eye and asking it to dance.
Humans are a species that like a good time. I like that about us. I even liked that about the Romans. Sure, the city was burning, but apart from the horror of the end, they knew how to throw a party.
It's a pity that those of us in a position to extend the life of this species continue to will disaster on ourselves with our suburban hypocrisies, gluttonies, apathies and our carelessness with one another.
It's in the little stuff -- our treatment of the foreigners in tents across the highway -- that we reveal our lack of foresight; our unwillingness to accept that there will be consequences for our actions.
- M&G QUIET RIOT
Another good place is a golf course, that lush, green, up-yours to the poverty gap.
But that's just a distraction and not what we need to talk about today. I've been waiting for the right time to bring this up, but there's always some sort of pressing need -- restless natives or the petrol price or trying to figure out whether brown shoes go with black pants.
This stuff all seems so important at the time. It's the big issues, however, that will get us in the end. The global ones.
So, let me take one of them off your mind: the food crisis.
Go get some scissors and sticky tape and put this up on the side of the fridge right next to the emergency numbers. Here's a guide to getting through the food crisis.
If you're poor
First, what are you doing with a fridge and a copy of the Mail & Guardian?
Second, don't expect too much.
I just read a report online that most of the poor survive on "just one meal a day". Which leads me to ask … who needs more than one meal a day?
Personally, I've switched from a meal-based diet to a snack-based one: handful-sized portions spread across the day to keep my metabolism ticking.
Wouldn't you like to feel a little less sluggish while loitering and talking to yourself?
Live your best life now.
I see what you're going for, bulking up on the starches, just try to replace processed grains with Low GI alternatives. I know, you haven't come this far in life to eat brown bread, but consider the benefits of products such as the Woolworths "Fuller For Longer" loaf. A bit like chewing wood chips, but better than huffing glue.
Also, most sushi restaurants have half-price nights on Tuesdays or Thursdays.
If you're rich
Eat the poor.
The 1973 film, Soylent Green, is set in a hunger-ravaged 2022. In it, Charlton Heston discovers that the moreish green biscuit most of the population survives on is made from … gasp! People!
Now, there's an idea. Think of all the varieties we could have. Biscuits made from the homeless could be marked "free range". The ones made from vegetarians could be marked "grain fed". The ones made from parliamentarians, "high in omega-3 fatty acids".
Eat your favourites now
You've heard that the world's ocean fish reserves are dwindling. All the more reason to order that seared tuna while you can.
The bleeding hearts will cry: "What about the children? And your children's children?"
Well, I say, if the children have never tasted it, they'll never know what they're missing so, if you have young kids, don't allow them to develop a taste for the good stuff. Shark fin soup is for mummy and daddy.
That goes for red meat too. Me, I like my meat so rare the World Wildlife Fund is outside protesting.
Convert all that biofuel back into mealies
It's quite a thing, turning food into fuel. A fine demonstration of human ingenuity.
Now change it back.
Ignore the problem till it goes away … Or we do.
Carl Sagan once called our attention to the fact that life on any planet will inevitably end. Sometime. Somehow. So, our choice is to die here or travel into space.
Well, we're a little behind on the last option, so our real choice is between being grumpy about the inevitable end or staring it right in the eye and asking it to dance.
Humans are a species that like a good time. I like that about us. I even liked that about the Romans. Sure, the city was burning, but apart from the horror of the end, they knew how to throw a party.
It's a pity that those of us in a position to extend the life of this species continue to will disaster on ourselves with our suburban hypocrisies, gluttonies, apathies and our carelessness with one another.
It's in the little stuff -- our treatment of the foreigners in tents across the highway -- that we reveal our lack of foresight; our unwillingness to accept that there will be consequences for our actions.
But if it is all going to end, I invite you to join me in not being grim about it.
Tap your toe to the apocalypso!
Do not go gentle.
- M&G QUIET RIOT
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