Carnivorous Cow

"No tummies!" declared Prof Ritalin, emphatically. "I don't want any tummies - in my office, in my lectures, in the passages..." The Cow was amused by his vehemence. Naked tummies, according to Prof Ritalin, provoked inappropriate stimulation, which MAMAs could ill afford.

The Cow wondered whether they could afford any, appropriate or not. And not just because of policies; there were also the attendant health risks, productivity risks, and economic risks to consider. But it was easier to hide behind the policies than admit to those. Troubled, she reported the incident to Gramsci.

"Is political correctness the new fascism?" Gramsci asked. It seemed like an odd question, conflating historicity and political philosophy and vernacular use of terminology in mind-boggling ways. She wished she had a drink at hand, hoping to trigger some link to IQ.

On reflection, she recalled a recent meeting where an academic had called for closer interrogation of the messages being put out on the public spaces on Campus, and had gone on to cite an example from her - the lecturer's - own recent experience. She had, she told the meeting, just been teaching a text on rape, and making the connection to the students between the way women's bodies were portrayed and sexual violence. She'd then walked to the Library, where she was confronted with two young women in extremely short skirts handing out flyers. This portrayal of women's bodies immediately brought to mind the text she'd just been teaching, leaving her with a great sense of unease.

At which point, the Cow rose to chair the next session. Dressed in a rather short skirt.

It wasn't quite a call for a dress code - unlike Prof Ritalin's. Nor did the lecturer actually say that women who dressed in short skirts were responsible for their - or someone else's - subsequent rape. But the message was out there - short skirts were not good. Exposing women's bodies was not good. Women's bodies were not good? Perhaps.

"So is raunch culture liberating or oppressive?" sighed the Cow. Opinion was divided on this, it seemed. Even - or especially - feminist opinion. She longed for the Old Days, when the enemy was easy to identify by the dangly bits between his legs, or what he drank, or where he lived. These days, it was all much too complex. Perhaps a dress code would make things simpler. If everyone dressed the same, looked the same, thought the same...

Gramsci shrieked. "You're suggesting a return to adolescence?!?" he gasped in horror. The Cow pondered. Hmmm... Yes, perhaps middle age was a good time for a midlife crisis. She should make the suggestion to Prof Ritalin...

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The Cow shook her head slowly. Some things were really difficult to understand. Like the fact that the most popular story on the Guardian Unlimited site last week was about the man who rejected the first successful penis transplant... while, elsewhere, a survey revealed that forty percent of Britons would willingly give up sex in order to live to 100. It didn't seem to make much sense - this fascination with penises, but a clear lack of interest in sex. "No wonder the 'Carry On' movies were so popular," Gramsci ventured.

But the Cow found South Africans equally difficult to understand. Another survey, of urban dwellers, found Capetonians less positive about SA and its future than people living in Gauteng. "Perhaps they're planning on emigrating to Cape Town?" suggested Gramsci, "Whereas Capetonians have nowhere to go that would be better than where they are?"

Gramsci retreated under the keyboard and took his head in his hands, muttering darkly. The Cow was rather more stoical about uMalume's reprieve, divided between relief that the judiciary still maintained enough independence from the State to toss out a bad, albeit politically convenient, case, and abject disappointment that the State seemed to employ prosecutors solely from the extended family of the Marx Brothers.

Gramsci had heard from his UK cousin Bronstein that reporting and comment in the UK media had all made a point of mentioning that the judge had stopped short of dismissing the entire case, merely dismissing the current indictment - something which hadn't enjoyed nearly the same prominence in local media. At least, not in the liberal, white-aligned media that tended to cross his attention span. Where most of the staffers were probably on the Net applying for jobs in other countries rather than picking up news off the wires, their partners at home packing up and selling off the suburban house with swimming pool and 2.2 children and electric fence, he assumed, a Zuma presidency now looking ominously imminent.

The Cow wasn't so sure. There were other contenders in the wings, younger, smarter, better looking. Mind you, she conceded, youth was neither here nor there, and pretty much anyone was smarter and better looking. Come to think of it, wasn't that what Miss South Africa was about, these days? Not just who looked best in a bathing costume, but who could most authentically convince the judge that they cared very, very much about world peace and starving children?

Gramsci emerged, looking hopeful. Perhaps the process of choosing a new leader might be interesting, after all - only, in the interests of world peace and celestial harmony, please don't ask uMalume to parade in a speedo...

Carnivorous Cow listened with interest as Gramsci told her about the article he'd just read about the negative correlation between hangovers and intelligence. It reminded her of other conversations about the connection between whisky and higher education, somehow.

Still, correlations, as she knew well, did not in themselves speak to causality. It could mean nothing more than that kids who were already marked as swots and nerds at the age of 11 were doomed to a life of social exclusion and solitude, and thus avoided social spaces like pubs in favour of long nights in the passionate embrace of Warcraft or Neverwinter Nights.

Or, as Gramsci suggested, if some correlation between intelligence and academic life could be argued, it might be simply that their salaries precluded them buying enough to get sufficiently intoxicated to produce a hangover. But the Cow wasn't convinced on this last point - academic staff earned more than non-academics, after all. Unless Gramsci was implying that opting for an academic position rather than a non-academic one was linked to lower intelligence? She couldn't quite see it.

Still, the link between IQ and hangovers seemed something worth exploring. Strictly in the interests of science, of course! Now, if only she could afford sufficient quantities of single malt to set up the experimental apparatus...

Carnivorous Cow shook her head sadly. It seems that every Afro Pessimist came equipped with a modem and a website, these days. A high speed modem, judging by the numerous comments they posted on each others' blogs.

"Gmf!" mumbled Gramsci. "You can tell they're posting from Canada or Australia! No way do we have that kind of bandwidth available locally!"

The Cow concurred. Most of them seemed to need a reason to justify their having given up the sunny climes for the icy Canadian wastes, or the barren Australian outback, and posted to remind - or convince - themselves they'd done the right thing in leaving. "Crime", they all muttered. "AIDS. Loony Manto. Corruption. Shaik, Zuma, Yengeni."

And then, of course, the sensible-shoes-and-long-skirt brigade trotted out PC denialism to counter their mutterings. "Of course they're exaggerating!" these ones proclaimed. "Of course Manto was never suggesting replacing ARVs with amadumbi and garlic!"

Which was a bit odd, as Gramsci swore blind that was exactly what she had said, adding that ARVs were toxic, just to confuse matters a little more.

"Can't they just find some real things to be happy about, instead of fighting disinformation with more disinformation?" sighed the Cow dramatically. "Like what?" asked Gramsci, muttering darkly about strangled Google searches.

"Well, like how 40 years ago today, Dimitri Tsafendas stabbed Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd to death in Parliament. Remarkably, the 'national mood' at the time was one of mourning. Today, any parliamentarian taken off the gravy train would be cause for celebration, no matter which party had put them there originally."

"Ah!" Gramsci could see where this was going. "So all those knifemen out there threatening the Tony Leons at the gates to their expensive mansions in Houghton are really not adding to the crime rate they bleat about - they're really building the national project by freeing us of political parasites!"

Now, he muttered, if only he could get enough bandwidth, he'd put up a post of his own...

Carnivorous Cow read with interest about the axing of David Beckham and the implications for football branding. While the new English captain wasn't quite an aspirant George Best - that role was probably left to Wayne Rooney - it was at least a step in the right direction, she thought.

Not that the Cow had anything against men in kikois - on the contrary, a decent body dressed in as little as possible, particularly when a quick tug could render that even less, was always a good thing - but when a man spent more on cosmetics than all his wives and girlfriends-on-the-side combined... well, that might be taking "getting in touch with one's feminine side" a little too far, she reckoned.

Gramsci, unsually, agreed. With eight legs, he had a lot of waxing and buffing to do, and preferred to use the energy elsewise. Besides, spiders' "feminine sides" tended to involve more rugged pursuits than wallowing in moisturiser - cannibalism after sexual gratification being but one.

Still, the Cow couldn't help wondering what the Next Big Thing would be now that pink shirts and manicures had become passe. She fervently hoped it didn't involve neanderthal pursuits like rugby...