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www.thevillagenews.co.za
19 August 2020
FROM THE EDITOR
Economy should be top priority The next edition of The Village NEWS will be available on 26 August 2020. The NEWS can be found at over 300 distribution points in the Overberg.
De Waal Steyn PUBLISHING EDITOR E: dewaal@thevillagenews.co.za T: 083 700 3319
Hedda Mittner
On Saturday before the speech by Pres. Cyril Ramaphosa social media was awash with predictions of doom and gloom. But in the end, the move down to Level 2 of the lockdown, and the lifting of the ban on the sale of alcohol and tobacco culminated in a cumulative sigh of relief from Covid-weary South Africans. However, the pessimism displayed by thousands of citizens indicated a growing sense of distrust in our government’s response to the pandemic. Suspect reasons for maintaining the ban on alcohol and tobacco sales,
We need bureaucrats who have reThis may be looked upon by some as just one unfortunate aspect of the ceived their full salary all this while,
Raphael da Silva
Elaine Davie JOURNALIST E: elaine@thevillagenews.co.za T: 084 343 7500
Taylum Meyer PRODUCTION MANAGER, PHOTOGRAPHY & DESIGN E: taylum@thevillagenews.co.za T: 084 564 0779
Charé van der Walt MARKETING REPRESENTATIVE E: chare@thevillagenews.co.za T: 082 430 1974
Nickey Jackson
We were asked to accept lockdown as part of our new reality, but now it is up to government to ensure that everyone is given the opportunity to assist in creating a new normal where economic growth, rather than disaster is the norm.
to realise that the time has come for them to contribute as much as every other citizen has been called upon to do. When a non-essential activity or project comes up for consideration, the question must be whether it will be to the benefit of all our citizens and the welfare of the country as a whole. Given the extent of poverty and other widespread social crises in South Africa, wasteful expenditure and nice-to-have can no longer be an option.
This is the good NEWS – Ed
A lift-jockey’s lament and The horns of a dilemma
E: hedda@thevillagenews.co.za T: 083 645 3928
E: raphael@thevillagenews.co.za T: 074 125 5854
new normal, but it should not necessarily be accepted as inevitable. We are in this situation as a result of a world-wide pandemic that has wreaked havoc on thousands of people’s lives and livelihoods in this country.
The effect the lockdown has had on most South Africans is clearly discernible. You do not have to look far to find households in distress. Neither do you have to search hard to find people desperately looking for jobs. In many instances financial ruin is just one pay check away.
CONTENT EDITOR
ONLINE EDITOR
together with questionable medical responses to the pandemic in some provinces and a growing discomfort over our slumping economy have left many with a bitter taste in their mouths.
By Murray Stewart murray.stewart49@gmail.com
alive, and after some medical treatment, was deposited into another lift to the ambulances waiting below.
T
he articles in the For Fact’s Sake columns are – according to Google and the Duck ’n Fiddle’s Explanation of Everything – based on facts. Occasionally though, names and places have been changed to protect innocent people involved. Take a plunge On a muggy summer’s day in 1945, twenty-year-old Betty Lou Oliver arrived promptly at work as an elevator operator in the world’s tallest sky-scraper back then – the Empire State Building in New York City. Lift-jockeys experience more ups and downs daily than we would in years, but little did she anticipate one of her downers would get her into the Guinness Book of World Records. As fate (and a dollop of pilot error) would have it, a B-52 service plane smashed into the 80th floor, a couple of levels above where she was working, and dislodged a concrete slab which crashed through her lift’s ceiling. Only slightly injured, she managed to crawl out, thankful to be
Well, that move didn’t go quite as smoothly as anticipated. The plane’s impact had severed most of that lift’s cables, and her extra weight was the last straw. Snap! She started free-falling. One can only wonder what goes through a lift-jockey’s mind – or anybody’s for that matter – on hearing the twang of the overhead cable, and starting to plummet inevitably towards death. Before smashing into the basement, Betty Lou had the horror of free-falling for a full 75 floors and the instant flash-backs of the joys and regrets in her short life seemed to take forever. Fourteen people died that day, but the fickle finger of fate favoured our Betty, and she wasn’t one of them. Although somewhat scuffed up – like a broken back, neck, pelvis, both legs and some fingernails – a couple of things miraculously saved her bacon. As it fell, the lift cage acted like a downward-moving blockage in the lift- shaft, and the air pressure under it increased as it approached the
ground, creating an air cushion and a slightly softer landing. Secondly, the cable attached to the underside of her lift cage – all 75 floors of it – was busy coiling itself on the basement floor as she fell, and although not quite as effective as a spring, it also softened the impact somewhat. After putting her together again, Betty Lou lived another 54 years and still holds the record for the longest surviving plummet down a lift shaft, mainly due to a dearth of challengers. Poker Face Over the years we’ve discussed some of the world’s more ridiculous sports, but this could only happen in America – inside a prison nogal. In Louisiana, the popular Angola Prison Rodeo draws thousands of local rednecks into the specially-built stadium to watch and bet on various competitions between inmates and angry bulls. There is the regular ‘how long can you stay on’ stuff, and the crowds lap it up raucously, but they go hysterical during the somewhat unusual events, unique to this penitentiary.
One challenge involves the removal and presentation to the judges, of a casino chip glued onto the forehead of a raging Longhorn bull. Another event – which doesn’t involve a bull – is Wild Cow Milking. Inmates armed with tin mugs chase ‘undomesticated’ cows around the arena trying to extract milk from the highly mobile beasts. The first inmate to somehow fill his mug wins. Then there’s Convict Poker. Four inmates sit at a table in the middle of the arena playing poker. An angry bull is released with the sole purpose of disrupting the game by violently unseating a gambler on each charge. The last man remaining seated is the winner. What an athlete. These so-called ‘sports’ wallow in the same swamp occupied by similar contests like shin-kicking, bog-snorkelling, dwarf-throwing or toe-wrestling. Fortunately, Virtual Sports have come to the rescue. Whether you log in and participate on your interactive Play-Station, or just watch on TV from your couch, there’s little chance of injury. Thumb cramps and obesity maybe, but no broken bones.
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