All this talk of elections and constitutional reform frightens me for one reason.

Zimbabweans are short-sighted. That is our handicap.

There are signs and portents enough. If disaster strikes, we must blame ourselves for misinterpreting them. Of course, our handicap in no way impairs our marvelous hindsight.

Fools can make an omen of ANYTHING in retrospect. “We should have seen this coming,” they say. “We should have been better prepared.”

Well, here is the forewarning. An election without electoral reforms, a level playing field, equal media space, and a new constitution would be an unmitigated disaster, potentially leading to deeper partisan division, political violence and the real threat of a military coup.

See, Zimbabwe totters perpetually, ready to stumble over a precipice into chaos. Africa’s breadbasket is old and decadent and mad, filled with the stench of degeneracy and moral dry-rot. Only a fool would be surprised by anything that happens here.

Zimbabwe is misery personified, but also ancient and intriguing. Our history is a bottomless well, though filled with murky waters. I sometimes amuse myself plumbing those shadowy depths, trying to isolate fact from fiction, legend, and myth. No easy task, of course, for the contry’s earlier historians wrote with an eye to pleasing the powers of their day, before and after Independence.

The question at this moment is who gets to write the next chapter in our nation’s history? Will it be a story of prosperity, of our people rising above our troubles to rebuild this awesome place? Or one of chaos, of brother killing brother over petty party politics?

The country is poised as still as an old battlefield. And like a battlefield, it is filled with stench, flies, scavengers, the barely living and the long-dead. We can only hope the voices of truth, reason and justice emerge from this muck, and the forces of violence and carnage are stilled forever.

Too often the price of order is confused with the cost of chaos. It is not the same thing; where the price of order may be the unknowing loss of freedom, the cost of chaos could be a more obvious destruction of our national fabric – junta.

I do not wish live under a military bootheel; order at the cost of freedom is not an option, and the only way to avoid such a fate is having a transparent, and credible, civilian electoral process.

Let’s do this right – we can’t afford not to.

My nookie days are over-
my pilot light is out,
what used to be my sex appeal,
is now my water spout.

Time was when of its own accord,
from my trousers it would spring,
but now I’ve got a full time job-
to find the fucking thing.

It used to be embarrassing,
the way it would behave,
For every single morning,
it would stand and watch me shave.

As my old age approaches,
it sure gives me the blues,
to see it hang its little head,
and watch me tie my shoes!

And now, a word to the budding (and established) bloggers, writers, comedians, artists, publishers, entertainers, actors, musicians, poets, dancers, teachers, professors, philosophers, ministers, scientists, mathematicians and businesspeople of this country who struggle every day to nurture their own odd ways of doing things, their own unconventional or unusual designs or artistic notions, their own original, risky approaches, to those who look at what Zimbabwe currently believes, enjoys, expects, embraces, and say, “I have a different idea of what this could look like”.

Stick to your guns. The day you listen to the know-it-all in the navy-blue suit is the day your soul fucking dies.

The most brilliant and original novels and works of art and ideas and discoveries of recent history were all greeted as idealistic, impractical, bizarre, delusional or utterly wrong at one point or another.

This is how good things come into being: someone listens politely to the opinionated asshole pulling the financial strings, shakes his hand, and forgets all of that priceless advice within seconds.

Unfortunately, the man in the navy-blue suit may quickly grow impatient. Whether you’re working on your painting or coming up with a new marketing model or writing experimental fiction or challenging the current notions about online buying habits, you may not have a lot of time to try out your approach.

And sure, plenty of experiments fail. But what’s the alternative? A nation of copycats and Chicken Slices and Chickenza Inns, playing it safe, catering to the lowest common denominator.

So, whether or not our innovators make a million every month, let’s give them a round of applause for their moves to stand their ground, to ignore lame advice about dumbing things down and making their complex weirdness more clunky and obvious, since Zimbos apparently aren’t smart enough to appreciate anything new.

But there’s nothing in the world that’s more gutless and chicken-hearted than assuming that your market is stupid, and serving them up something stupid to please them. Great products are created by passionate people who actually believe in what they’re doing. That’s why the great producers do it.

And that’s why I’ll always say no to shoddy service, and given the choice between supporting a large corporation and a small startup, I’ll choose the new guy every time.

Despite what all these selfish monopolies run by accredited geniuses assume, I’m not that stupid.

Excite me.

Dear Soon To Be Former Cellular Provider

Die.

Die a long, horrible death, preferably engulfed in your own flaming ignorance.

Oh, and stop fucking around giving ‘bonus’ points when the *140# menu to access said bonus points is fucked.

Many thanks

Joe Black

So here I am trying to use *140# on my new Windows 7 Phone, and I’m thinking oh maybe it’s the phone, let’s try the other phone.

Only to find out that NO the *140# thingy doesn’t actually work anymore. So after buying all that credit, $50 to be exact, just to get to the magic number, I can’t even redeem those ‘bonus’ points for ONE FUCKING DOLLAR of airtime so I can make this call?

Not that I can’t go down the corner and get more credit, but it’s a matter of principle at this point. If the faceless morons at Econet would pull their thumbs out their butts and fix this damn system, then this screaming would be pointless. Fuckwits.

It’s very big of you to take out all your frustrations on the poor customer service people.
I tried, but the retards didn’t even pick up.
So you’re having what amounts to a nervous breakdown, and it’s the cellular company’s fault?
Exactly. Fuck me, you’re perceptive.
Yes, I am. And that’s how I know this has nothing to do with 500 points, and everything to do with Jack Bauer.
Come on. I always knew that’s how it would be.
But now he’s actually gone. 24 ended.
It was inevitable, really. Sad, though. That even though we’ve been together for such a long time, it’ll never be …
Permanent.
Nothing is.
As your Inner Child, I’d just like to point out that when we chose roles, MINE was the cynic. Where did this pessimism come from? Besides, it’s not true. There’ll always be Game of Thrones, and Sons of Anarchy.
Yeah? Name one thing, besides this stomach, that’s going to be with me forever.
Me.
Oh God. Kill me now.

This is The Ballad of Justin Bloody Bieber, sung by an 82-year-old gentleman.

It is reckoned that he’s hotter
Than Harry fucking Potter,
His hairdo like some wagging gold retriever,
Looking lovely, looking cute
In his pater-knity suit,
Our Justin, bloody Justin, bloody Bieber.

This old barley is so bad-ass, he nails fucking scorpions to his wall.

Viva.