8
www.thevillagenews.co.za
FROM THE EDITOR
6 January 2021
Reimagining the road forward
Whichever way you look at it, 2020 was a year of loss – not only of those near and dear to us, but acquaintances and frontline medical personnel; a loss of income and freedom of movement, human contact, food security, trust (remember the Zondo Commission?), and more than anything else, as the second wave of the pandemic hit us, a loss of hope. If we look back at large-scale catastrophes, both man-made and natural, over the last century or so – World Wars I and II, the Spanish flu, the Chernobyl Di-
saster, the great Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 – one thing is clear: the world was never the same again for those involved. Old routines and certainties were gone forever. They were required to imagine a new way forward, to go back to basics and start over. Although in the early days of lockdown, there was constant reference to the ‘new normal’, many, if not most, South Africans seemingly could not let go of the old, and at the first opportunity, alcohol flowed – bottles were passed from one mouth to the other – and
NEWS WhatsApp or SMS your stories and photos to 083 700 3319 De Waal Steyn
E: dewaal@thevillagenews.co.za
Hedda Mittner
CONTENT EDITOR T: 083 645 3928
E: hedda@thevillagenews.co.za
Raphael da Silva ONLINE EDITOR T: 074 125 5854
E: raphael@thevillagenews.co.za
Elaine Davie
JOURNALIST T: 084 343 7500
E: elaine@thevillagenews.co.za Taylum Meyer PRODUCTION MANAGER, PHOTOGRAPHY & DESIGN T: 084 564 0779
E: taylum@thevillagenews.co.za
Charé van der Walt MARKETING & SALES MANAGER T: 082 430 1974
E: chare@thevillagenews.co.za
ADMIN & FINANCE
E: admin@thevillagenews.co.za
www.pressreader.com www.issuu.com/dwaal
www.thevillagenews.co.za
As fellow citizens crowd together in unventilated shacks where social distancing is impossible, others shop till they drop in crowded supermarkets. As global warming threatens to fry us all in our tracks, both rich and poor, we disrespect and rubbish nature. With many of us wondering if all our lockdown efforts were worth nothing, the good news is that while there may be no quick fix when it comes to social transformation, there is a fail-safe solution – it’s been there for millennia – and it’s within the grasp of every one of us.
But this lack of responsibility goes way beyond ignoring physical protocols. It has to do with a failure to recognise a fundamental principle of human survival. As some guzzle at the trough of dwindling resources, others starve.
It involves taking responsibility for our own well-being, protecting and learning from our exquisitely balanced natural world, and, importantly, reaching out to ensure our neighbours’ well-being and dignity. The simple truth is that nobody is safe until everyone is safe. ‘I am, because you are’; ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ – sound familiar? We wish all the members of our community loving-kindness, good health, resilience, peace and prosperity in 2021. That is the good NEWS - Ed
What do you do with a drunken Sailor?
THE VILLAGE
PUBLISHING EDITOR T: 083 700 3319
hordes of raging teenagers descended on holiday venues, sans masks and social distancing, to jol the night away. And surprise, surprise, a new, more transmissible wave of Covid-19 infections engulfed the nation, resulting in overflowing medical facilities and many more people losing their lives.
By Murray Stewart murray.stewart49@gmail.com
daughters and hide the family jewels. This was the era of the eye-patched, peg-legged, swash-buckling Pirate, when blatant robbery on the high seas reached boiling point.
T
he For Fact’s Sake columns are – according to Google and the Duck ’n Fiddle’s Explanation of Everything – based in fact. However, some names and places have been changed to protect innocent people involved. Highway robbery on the high seas The concept of stealing other people’s possessions goes way back to the Flintstones. If you had something desirable in your cave like a bearskin rug, a Tretchikoff original or a yummy wife, some scoundrel would connive to relieve you of at least a couple, if not all three, either by stealth or force.
co Jack, another infamous pillager.
Now, although piracy had been festering since the mid-1600s, a few decades either side of 1700 was the Golden Age of the Buccaneer. With the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1714, thousands of sailors from various European countries – fighting either for or against Succession – were no longer needed, and put out to pasture.
Captain Henry Morgan was another rogue with such influence in the Caribbean that they still make a rum to honour his villainous exploits. Stinking rich, he evaded capture and died peacefully in Jamaica in 1688.
But these blokes were salty sea dogs. That’s all they knew, so they had to turn to piracy to survive. Fortunately for them, lucrative trade routes had started opening up again, which meant ‘many a vessel of valuable bounty’ was fair game, and the game was brutally dirty.
Throughout history, thieves have somehow been glorified as villainous heroes, often creating a global cult-following. Robin Hood, Black Beard and The Highwayman spring to mind, as do Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone or Billy the Kid. They have inspired films, books, songs, comic-strips and whimsical poems – many of which seem to condone their blatant skulduggery as perfectly acceptable, if not admirable.
With looting and pillaging on these routes spinning out of control, Britain, among others, created The Privateer. These guys were like the Ocean Police. They were meant to rob the pirates, commandeer their ships, and schlep the bounty back to the Crown’s coffers – for a fair slice of the pizza of course.
Now, as far as flags go, the Jolly Roger is perhaps the most recognised worldwide. The name though, is somewhat misleading, and has nothing to do with being merry or playing hip-hockey with your partner.
Well, it didn’t take long before some privateer captains realised they could easily eat the whole pizza and bugger the Crown. Crew members were also delighted to get a larger wedge, and so a fresh swathe of ex-privateers turned swash-buckling pirates took to the ocean waves with unbridled enthusiasm.
No. On the contrary, the white skull and crossbones were a warning to lock up your
Meet Anne Bonny, who together with her piracy partner, Mary Read, was as ruthless and successful as her male counterparts. Captured in 1720 and sentenced to hang, she dodged the noose by having a bun in the oven. Then she, the bun and the oven, simply disappeared, and her whereabouts and demise remain hazy.
No such luck for Captain Kidd. Caught and hanged, his rotting body was left dangling beside the River Thames as a warning to others. But Bartholomew Roberts – Black Bart – having ‘taken over’ 450 ships, was probably the most famous of them all, although nobody named a tipple after him. He too suffered a gruesome death when grapeshot shredded his throat during a skirmish. Serves him right. The Golden Age of Piracy was eventually snuffed out around the mid- 1720s, and world leaders began revising their international ethics, morals and codes of conduct. Plunder and pillage segued from cutlass and gunpowder into more sophisticated methods of blatant theft, like fraud, tax evasion and ante-nuptial contracts orchestrated by creative accountants and shrewd lawyers – proving once again that the pen is mightier than the sword.
One rather unusual pirate was the wife of Cali-
FORECASTS: HERMANUS, OVERBERG Proudly sponsored by Talisman Tool Hire Hermanus
LEGEND / KEY
Wed | 6 Jan
Thu | 7 Jan
Fri | 8 Jan
Sat | 9 Jan
Sun | 10 Jan
Mon | 11 Jan
Tue | 12 Jan
Wind
17°/21° Clear
18°/23° Clear
19°/23° Clear
18°/22° Partly Cloudy
19°/22° Cloudy
19°/26° Clear
19°/24° Clear
21km/h
22km/h
32km/h
20km/h
28km/h
28km/h
28km/h
05:38/19:59
05:38/19:59
05:39/19:59
05:40/19:59
05:41/19:59
05:42/19:59
05:43/19:59
Sunrise/set Tides
De Bos Dam 95.66% Last week N/A Weekly Rainfall 0mm Last week N/A
LOW HIGH LOW HIGH
02:09 08:38 15:16 21:17
LOW HIGH LOW HIGH
03:24 09:51 16:36 22:41
LOW HIGH LOW HIGH
04:45 11:07 17:49 23:58
LOW HIGH LOW HIGH
06:01 12:18 18:52
HIGH LOW HIGH LOW
01:03 07:05 13:17 19:46
LOW HIGH LOW HIGH
01:57 08:01 14:09 20:33
LOW HIGH LOW HIGH
02:44 08:50 14:56 21:15
