The million Rand question today is of course where Julius Malema gets his money from to fund his lavish lifestyle.

Malema tried to get a court interdict to stop City Press from publishing the results of their findings, but lost the battle. He has to pay the court costs.

Another expense to be deducted from the R20 000 – R25 000 a month he earns from the ANC Youth League.

Add that to the rates he must be paying for a R4 million house in Sandown, Gauteng, amenities bills, petrol, food, jewellery, child support, etc. Then what’s left over for renovations at a cost of R16 million?

Shame, poor Julius!

City Press though claims Malema is getting more than just a salary. (Actually anyone with half a brain knows that.) Now though there seems to be proof, in the form of The Ratanang Family Trust of which Julius is the only trustee.

Funny that…

But who is paying money into the trust’s ABSA bank account?

There seems to be truth in the claims of rewards being paid to the trust for assisting business people with getting tenders, but would that add up to R16 million for a house alone?

(BTW, I wonder if Julius also receives those constant e-mails from ABSA asking him to verify his login details.)

My colleague and I have been speculating for a while that Julius Malema is a mere puppet for someone who wants more political power. And the name of a certain rich Minister who wanted to be president after Nelson Mandela, keeps cropping up.

Who knows.

Malema must think Bantu education robbed all of us of the ability to do Maths. Or he is so supremely arrogant that he doesn’t even care what anyone thinks of his obvious display of wealth.

Either way, Julius Malema is once again under media scrutiny. This should be fun!

So last night Julius Malema on e-tv news, fresh from being re-elected ANC Youth League president, apologised to the Jacob Zuma’s rape accussor (and all the women of South Africa).

He is apparently sorry for saying she enjoyed being raped. Of course he was ordered to do so by Human Rights Commission and also ordered to pay a fine of R50 000 as retribution.

But, he concluded, his apology did not stretch as far as DA spokesperson Lindiwe Mazibuko.

He apologised to all the women of South Africa, but not to that tea girl, he said on the news.

Because she only says what her madam tells her; she doesn’t have a mind of her own.

During pre-local election campaigning, he also called her out in the media, refusing to debate with a tea girl, claiming he would only debate with her madam Helen Zille.

As amusing as I find the comments, it does make me wonder about Julius Malema’s motives.

Could our Julius have a little school ground crush on the very colonial sounding Ms Lindiwe Mazibuko?

Could she represent the clever girl at high school who was way out of his league and who he teased mercilessly just to get a bit of her attention?

Be a man! Time to own up Julius!

My sister and I went to our old neighbourhood to cast our votes today.

We chatted in the car about Patricia de Lille – my sister votes for her regardless of which party she is in.

As we arrived in the neighbourhood, my sister asked if I knew who the candidates are. I didn’t.

“It’s uncle M.” An old neighbour.

And lo and behold, there was his poster – an ANC one! Thank goodness I could vote for someone I know!

So we saw and chatted with some old neighbours, which was fun.

We were in and out of the polling station in no time at all. No queues, or anything.

I was happy to cast my vote today and appreciative towards the people who fought to give us all that right.

Can you believe there was a time we couldn’t?

my ballot

I was thinking about whether to write about politics again – with the elections coming up on 18 May.

The first time I blogged about it in 2009 was so much fun, it provided me with the direction I wanted take this blog.

Oh, the nostalgia!

The late night debates with people who were as likely to change their votes as I was. But to be fair there were one or two who were conflicted about who to vote for and why.

I was called an idiot a few times. A lot of times by one person, in particular.

That upset people close to me, but I didn’t mind one bit.

I banned him eventually, when all did was to spam me with the same message many times per day. The first and only time I had to ban someone on this blog.

I gave as good as I got most of the time, though.

But since then the fun has pretty much gone out of political discussions. The vitriol is not something I want in my life anymore.

Come 18 May, I will be voting ANC, as I usually do. There is no doubt in my mind this time.

The alternatives are not an option for me. Maybe if the Independent Democrats were truly independent they might have been an option.

The Democratic Alliance has no chance at all of getting my vote.

So with decision made, there is nothing left to discuss. We (and I include myself here) are no longer open to others opinions.

Which is a pity, because it seems like we’re as polarised as the USA and other countries. There is no middle ground anymore.

The Congress of the People might have provided that option, but since their spectacular rise and fall, we’re left with only two real choices.

My decision about whether to blog about politics or not, was up in the air until yesterday when Gareth Cliff’s Facebook feed appeared on my screen.

All he did was to wish President Zuma a happy birthday, but the responses he received were mind-blowingly rude! And that’s an understatement.

Who are these people who are so mean-spirited they can’t wish someone a happy birthday? Are they in the shopping malls I frequent, do I pass them on the streets? Are they family, friends, colleagues or neighbours?

So that was that.

I would prefer to live my life on my little fluffy cloud and believe the lie we told the world during FIFA’s soccer world cup in 2010, when we provided them images of us as a nation of smiling faces.

Sunday at around 11.56 I heard the big bang. The one that was supposed to go off at exactly 12pm! “That’s a bit early,” I thought.

Turns out the powers that be – Dan Plato to be exact – decided to surprise the waiting crowds and news media by setting the explosion off early. According to them, at that exact moment all conditions were perfect.

As far as I could see, so was 3 and a half minutes later.

For the last week, Capetonians were warned to arrive early at their viewing points. And many did, even though it was cold and wet.

But this should not came as a surprise as it isn’t the first time the Mayor of Cape Town has amused us with his antics. Although he has only been in his position for about 18 months.

He’s managed to offend quite a few people.

Remember when he first became Mayor. He came with a sex scandal of sorts. Most of us good citizens of Cape Town who don’t read Die Son, a tabloid, knew anything about the scandal, until Dan Plato himself mentioned it. The Mayor denied the scandal and wanted to sue those responsible for publishing the claims.

This is Cape Town, South Africa. Not the US of A. We don’t care about sex scandals around these parts. Well, except if it involves religious leaders and rugby players.

Not only did Dan Plato want to sue people we don’t know, about things we don’t care about, he wanted to use our taxpayer money to do so.

Eventually the whole saga disappeared.

But not Dan Plato’s arrogance.

Next thing we know he’s giving news conferences wearing a yellow Bafana jersey. Not that unusual in itself as many other politicians were doing the same thing.

But he was doing it will aggravating citizens of this country and city. He firstly had open air toilets built in Khayelitsha and when residents took offense and demanded enclosures for their toilets, he had them removed.

He was quoted as saying that he had the toilets removed because the world’s news media were focussed on SA for the Soccer World Cup – in his Bafana t-shirt no less.

At least he hasn’t yet offended the taxi drivers. Yet. We can only pray.

So things have been on a relatively even keel lately. Home life is as content as can be and work is…well work.

I’ve not even used my earphones all that much at the office in the last week.

However…

Being content and even happy makes for rather slim pickings on the blogging front. Who wants to read about my lovely visits to the lavender garden every day. Or about my relaxing baths or even about the birds humming outside my bedroom window every morning.

Once in a while is okay. But every day?

While I enjoy being in that good space, I yawn just thinking about writing about it.

I’ve even back-burnered my colleagues to unimportant in the grand scheme of things in my life. Other than being people I have to work with daily.

Did I mention I passed three of my four UNISA subjects? I decided to just focus on the three I passed instead of freaking out about the other one.

Some irritations have started showing through though. So this contented blogger might have a high horse or two to saddle soon.

For example…

Helen Zille and Patricia de Lille – need I say more? Regular readers of this blog know my opinion on those two.

Jacob Zuma and his nepotism that continues unabated…

The new Information Act law…

Fairlady Magazine’s August issue so disappointed me with their fashion pages! Pretty much the only reason I usually buy the magazine. That and the crossword puzzles.

You magazine and their international celebrity covers! Even in the aftermath of the most locally is lekker month and a half.

The Springboks!

But then this morning I received an email from UNISA giving me an extension on an assignment, so even that irritation has somewhat dissipated.

It was with a great deal of sadness that I heard of the death of Dr Frederik van Zyl Slabbert on e-tv news last night.  He was 70 years old (very hard to believe!)

If ever there was a politician and then later political analyst/commentator I admired, it was that man.  There are few enough of those who speak with seemingly little bias.  Now there will be one less.

When he spoke about the country’s problems, which he seldom glossed over, he gave the impression he was speaking without hidden agendas or criticising just for the sake of it – unlike other other opposition politicians.

He made sense to me a lot of the time – even for someone like me who generally supports our current government.

I admired him for his fight against apartheid, for not remaining in the apartheid government - and for the establishment of the Institute for a Democratic alternative in SA ( IDASA).

Dr van Zyl Slabbert has defintely made a difference in South Africa’s history and he certainly made a huge impact on me.

It came as a surprise to me that Julius Malema got any real punishment at all from the ANC, but it seems he had gone too far with his taunts and other outrageous behaviour.

However he was more than just reprimanded this time. Apparently the ANC hierachy have decided to lay down the law. And the worse of his punishments could turn out the be the two year suspended sentence, which might result in him getting suspended from the ANC.

Just watching Malema try to be quiet for 2 years should be entertaining enough.

He might think going to leadership and anger management classes is beneath him, plus we know he isn’t the world’s best student. Or he could think paying R10 000 (of the R20 000 he claims to earn per month) is a heavy price to pay.

Now that the punishment has been dished out (and we hear there was a plea bargain of sorts) will Malema be able to tow the line?

Does he have it in him to not offer an opinion or not allow himself to be provoked by the media?

Or will he use someone else in the ANCYL to be his spokesperson or rather mouthpiece.

Somehow I doubt that Julius Malema will remain out of trouble for any length of time. He is supposedly giving another press conference later today.

We may not have to wait too long.

President Zuma goes from one blunder to the next. Now he’s gone and declared his HIV/Status, supposedly his intention was to encourage people to get tested.

When I heard him on the news say that he was HIV negative, my first thought was disbelief.

Because we all know he knowingly had sex with a woman who is HIV positive.

Other than the fact that the woman did not willingly agree to being intimate with him, the president made matters worse by testifying in court that he hadn’t used a condom, but showered afterwards. Implying it was enough to avoid contracting the disease.

We also know that the president has three current wives and a fiance. And he had an affair with Irvin Khoza’s daugther, resulting in a pregnancy.

While knowing how sexually irresponsible Jacob Zuma is – how can he be the spokesperson for safe sex or anything around HIV/AIDS?

The man has just been lucky that he hasn’t contracted the disease and passed it on to his wives and girlfriends.

Lesson 1 anyone can learn from the Zuma situation is that you can go around and have irresponsible sex, take a shower afterwards and move onto the next woman.

Get tested and continue on your merry way while some other random person can have sex just once and contract the disease.
Lesson 2 we can learn from our President Jacob Zuma my fellow South Africans, is to grow a thick skin. It protects you from political enemies, courts of law, as well as from HIV.