Speaker is knee-deep in poop

There’s a museum in Sweden called the Jurassica. S’trues njannies. One of the people who works there is a poop detective and she says we have some of the world’s finest fossil burrows which “can preserve evidence of excavation with scratch marks from claws and teeth and even the animal’s butt imprint being preserved”.

Dr Lara Sciscio, postdoctoral research fellow at the Jurassica Museum, says in the article on page 4 these fossil burrows are found in the Karoo Basin.

However, I think, one could find quite a lot of poop at Luthuli House (McPoopy House?), especially around the office of its secretary-general, Fikile Mbapoopyla.

Apologies, all this poop has gone to my head. Much like all the poop around the speaker of parliament, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who wants to dictate the terms of her arrest. These include being summonsed to court, having access to the docket before going to court to evaluate the strength of the case against her and even if on bail attending the trial would limit freedom of movement and the right to liberty.

S’trues njannies.

Bad news for la présidente de l’assemblée nationale (speaker of parliament). Yes, I’m using French because madame thinks her poop doesn’t stink. One, we don’t have a constitutional right to liberty. What we do have is the right to freedom and security of the person. One would expect la présidente de l’assemblée nationale to know the difference.

This isn’t America in 1775, after all, with Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” and we’re not at war. Yes, there’s the occasional blue funk of expletives colouring the air when someone steps in poop… much like Mapisa-Nqakula. Mbalula and Mapisa-Nqakula have found themselves in a world of poop and if today’s judgment over the ANC claiming uMkhonto weSizwe goes south, there’s going to be a lot more dung flung around.

And I’m trying to imagine Joe Blogs at a road block, drunk as a lord, arguing with Travis the Traffic Cop. Blogs may find himself wearing steel bangles for the trip to jail and blue eye-shadow when he wakes up. Because you know he’s going to get a thumping of note.

Or a housebreaker trying to explain to a police dog why it should not make more puncture marks because, in the words of Mapisa-Nqakula, “the state’s case against me is nonexistent and contrived”.

And that finding by the speaker is based on media reports, no less. The lady is a marvel. But she is still knee-deep in the poop.