Rhodents desperately seek new scapegoats

pic: Flicker.com, Kleinz1

Following yet another April graduation weekend in which thousands of students received their degrees and diplomas despite the majority of them having at some stage walked through the the infamous Drodsty Arch pillars, Rhodes University students have today announced their search for something else to blame their various failures on.

According to Rhodes University student superstition, walking through the wooden pillars underneath the iconic white archway below the Administration building and those flowers they plant twice a year to wow parents is an automatic guarantee that the student will fail and not receive their degree.

“I don’t get it,” said Bachelor of Social Science conferee Dow Ndowen. “We all know that a Rhodes degree can survive endless reckless partying, irresponsible substance abuse, overindulgence in a hectic sport schedule, back-to-back seasons of Breaking Bad and How I Met Your Mother, and even an overdependence on all-night last-minute cramming, but these pillars? No! These used to be the straw that broke the Purple Rat's back.”

Ndowen said that the failure of these pillars to produce, er, failure must be down to a sudden lack of potency.

“Their evil degree-ending magic must have run out,” he said, “because it definitely can’t be due to anything else, say, a student actually being responsible and managing his or her time wisely. In fact, I'm tempted to say that the only reason why any of us are graduating is because of God's personal intervention.”

This is not the first time, however, that traditional superstitions have been brought into question by the Rhodes body, with many students now pointing equally damning fingers at other much-loved scapegoats, the SRC and the statue outside the Great Hall.

“I used to be able to blame the Student Representative Council for everything,” said ex-Rhodes student and unpaid intern Jessica Myers, “but now that I’ve graduated I just can’t blame them anymore. It's like they actually have very little to do with my individual shortcomings, failures and daily gripes, or something. Something must be broken in its inner workings.”

The statue, too, has been called into question.

“I know that I use every possible opportunity to deride women and talk about how I’d totally fuck bitches and smash vagina and just generally squeeze in as much manly, misogynistic charisma into my anecdotes,” said BSC graduate Jeremy Atkinson, “but it might surprise many, many people to know that I’m actually still a virgin.”

According to Rhodes legend, if a virgin graduates, the statue’s sword will fall to the ground.

“I checked it today. The slut bitch still hasn’t dropped her whore sword. It makes no sense - why would someone just make up a baseless, silly superstition that sneers on the very idea of scientific reality?" said an angry Atkinson, addding that "[he]’d still totally bang her though, not in a weird way, like, if she wasn’t made of metal, and maybe wore something nice and tight, china.”

Rhodes students were reported also able to graduate despite the years-long arduous daily mental violence they've suffered because of the uni's name.

"Something is going very, very wrong," said Journalism Honours recipient Noam Thompson. "People say, 'oh, those are all just weak excuses to justify your failures' - but somehow, despite the daily trauma we've all suffered having to go to a place called Rhodes, we've managed to graduate. It's insane."

In light of all this, the SRC has brought the issue to the fore, and has since confirmed that they are hard at work finding other things for students to blame for whatever difficulty or discontentment they may have.

“We’re thinking of following the crowd with this one and blaming the popular things,” said incumbent SRC President Parson de Buk, “and so in future we’ll just do the South African thing and blame Apartheid or the ANC.”

Those offended by this article can contact anyone but us – preferably the ANC. It’s probably their fault.

Santa Claus charged with trespassing, breaking and entering

Tens of thousands of children and parents have been left in shock and the Christmas season has ground to a halt after police announced the arrest of ages-old bringer of seasonal joy and merriment, Santa Clause.

Police now say that the global gift-delivery boy and poster boy for generosity and Coca-Cola has been charged with over four billion counts of trespassing on private property, breaking and entering, and violating international airspace restrictions and travel laws. Mr Claus also faces possible terrorism charges, having left more than eighteen billion million unmarked and suspicious packages in homes across the world.

He also faces charges of operating an animal-powered category five air vehicle without the requisite licences and registration.

“For a number of years now we’ve been issuing warnings to Mr Claus and his band of outlaws, but every December 25th, like clockwork, we see him ignoring us again and again,” said Lead Commissioner of Interpol Harry Dee Tainsbhadi. “This kind of contempt for the law is unacceptable. So this year we set up a sting operation, and we’ve caught him red handed.”

Parents have expressed resounding happiness at the police’s swift action, condemning Santa "The Sick Fuck" Claus as a “criminal” and “maybe even a paedophile, who knows?”

“Santa puts across this image of him being a jolly, friendly chap who hands out gifts to children from his sleigh – doesn’t that sound creepy to you?” said one concerned parent. “And every year, he sneakily breaks into hundreds of houses with sleeping, innocent children in them. Last year we found stockings hanging at the feet of my children’s beds. The sick bastard was that close to them! Who knows what twisted, perverted things he could have tried?”

However, Public and Federal prosecutors say they are having a tough time pinning the charges on the 400-year-old Father of Christmas, saying that his team of personal lawyers have established a very difficult set of alibis and counter arguments in his defence.

“We’re having difficulty proving the facts of the case to the judge,” said Federal Attorney for the State Amica Skewray. “Like how he was able to commit several thousand possible cases of breaking and entering in countries thousands of miles apart in just a few hours, and how he fit his fat arse down so many tiny chimneys.”

In light of these difficulties, the Prosectution has had to let many thousands of charges slide.

“We were forced to drop four billion charges of theft because, but we just can’t prove how one man ate and drank that many mince pies he ate and glasses of milk and sherry.”

Santa Claus and his team of lawyers are now preparing a last-ditch defense saying that he has been framed, and wrongfully arrested.

“It wasn’t our client who went into those houses and left all those presents,” read their statement to the media, which were delighted because a story like this is basically Christmas come early, “but instead thousands of insidious mothers and fathers whose lies to their children might put an innocent man in jail.”

Prosecuters now say they are working on debunking this claim.

“It’s a very flimsy defense,” they said. “I mean, are you honestly expecting me to believe it was actually my mom and dad who wrapped up all those presents and put it under the tree in the dead of night after taking a bite out of the treats we left and leaving sooty bootprints in the fire’s hearth, and not an elderly Gandalf who travels millions of miles from his North Pole home with his team of elves and reindeer to leave gifts under my tree when I’ve been good all year? Yeah, right. Pull the other one. It has jingle bells on it.”

Picture (edited) of Santa Clause by Jonathan G Meath (in Wikimedia Commons CC license 2.0 share-attribute)

"It was my pleasure" - God to exam candidates

Following the end of another period of university exams and yet another conferral of bachelor's degrees to students, God, our Almighty and Heavenly Father, the Creator and Saviour, took time out of his busy schedule today to receive thanks and praise for letting so many students pass their exams and finally obtain their university qualifications.

"I'm glad they all remembered to thank me. You know, there are many naysayers who doubt me, who say that I never answer prayers and that I leave the world in a ceaseless cycle of misery and suffering while turning naught but a blind eye to the unending horror many hundreds face on a daily basis," said the 6000-year old Best-selling author in a press conference held in front of a burning bush earlier today, "but I think that all these Facebook statuses are proof enough that I'm here and that I do actually do stuff to help when it matters most. I really help out with the more important things in life."

Experts and university professors have since come forward to confirm the Divine Father's majesty and exam-beating power.

"As we all know, the makeup of a University course and the fact that it's broken down into three or four years to spread out the central concepts of the various fields of expertise into a structured and thematic development of knowledge was specifically crafted to be unbeatable without divine intervention," said the Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Prax Marice. "Even our exams are physically impossible to pass. The questions are literally unanswerable, and even if they were, we employ teams of blind monkeys (which we didn't evolve from) to scribble on the answer sheets and make them illegible and unmarkable."

That so many students passed, say professors and course coordinators, is testament to the unknowable and incomparable magnitude of the Holy Trinity's awesome potency.

"I spend hours a week preparing lectures filled with lies and red herrings that are aimed at misleading our students," said Journalism and Media Studies lecturer Cato Stropteros. "Then, to make matters worse, I routinely set tests, quizzes, essays and semesterly evaluations to ensure that each term's horrendous disfigurement of the truth is being fully absorbed. On top of this, each semester has an extensive collection of hundred-page-long Manifestos filled with falsehoods and slander that are branded ‘required reading’. I don't know how God undoes all my hours of hard work, but it gets me every year."

He added that many students had received God's blessings despite having spent hours in the Temple of Lies, known by many Satanists as "The 24-hour Section" or "The Library".

"Some students passed even though they spent sometimes whole nights in these Bible-denying hate-houses," said Stropteros. "Hell, half of them even preferred a diet of caffeine and energy drinks over holy water, wafers and unleaven bread. It just shows you the extent of God's generosity."

And despite mounting criticism that God had done nothing to prevent war and death in Syria, Ebola, or the abhorrent and not-yet-fully-declassified report into the State-sanctioned human rights violations and atrocious allegations of torture and murder by the CIA, and that even Satanists, atheists, Muslims, and Jews had also passed their exams, many have remained thankful, with Universities across the world introducing sweeping changes to their fundamental structure.

"Clearly, the entire concept of a University is utterly pointless and meaningless, so we're just going to change the university year to be just a two-week period of exams," said Marice. "This way, no one will have to sacrifice thousands of rands and hundreds of hours all in the name of becoming unemployed and overqualified."

At the time of going to press, a thousand other deities had not responded to requests for commentary, leading us to assume that they obviously don't exist.

Pic: wikimedia commons, public domain.

Government begins campaign to improve graffiti

Bad graffiti and the defacement of public property has long been a stain on our society, but finally the Department of Education is striking back. Today, the Minister of Education has announced a much-needed injection of almost 3 billion Rand into South African schools, aimed at improving students’ grammar and punctuation so that, “at the very least, our schools will be vandalised and defaced in an educated and correctly-spelled manner.”

“Have you seen some of our students’ tags and ‘art’?” asked the Minister at a press conference in Pretoria. “I mean, Jake waz heer? Blu Klan Gang 4 lyf? Have we so failed our children that they can’t even deface public property in a respectable, grammatically sound way? They say ‘fuk da police’, but why? We hope that this new boost will enable our children to at least have an empirically-based and nuanced critique of our problematic police force and why, exactly, we should ‘fuk’ them.”

The cash boost follows on the heels of a damning study commissioned by the Institute of Public Art, which recently found that a “made-up but very high” percentage of gang-affiliated graffiti contained innumerable spelling, grammar and punctuation errors.

“While this widespread creativity and love of art is a sign of promise in the next generation,” said the sixty-page report, “their inability to differentiate between ‘to’, ‘too’ and ‘two’, or ‘your’ and ‘you’re’, or even ‘were’, ‘we’re’ and ‘where’, is something that needs to be immediately addressed.”

This isn't the first time South African education has been drastically altered to suit contemporary trends, and despite government officials remaining obstinate that "a Matric isn't easy", teachers have embraced the new introductions.

“The system of basic education is failing many thousands of little obnoxious shits I’m legally obliged to call ‘students’,” said a High School maths teacher in Kwazulu-Natal. “If we don’t do something now, we’ll forever be doomed to see ‘fuck’ spelt without the ‘c’ on our trains, buildings and public spaces.”

The new educational fund is also aimed at improving students’ limited or incorrect knowledge of human anatomy as depicted in erroneous and crude tags.

“Most graffiti pictures of genitalia are not anatomically correct,” said one biology teacher. “For example, most crudely sprayed penises on industrial buildings disregard the usual kinks, bends and demographically relevant size proportions of the average male; the same can be said for roughly painted breasts or hastily tagged vaginas. They are just in no way indicative of real breasts, and don’t convey even half the complexity or sophisticated anatomical structures of the female reproductive organs.”

Government opinion remains divided on the matter, with some claiming that "education is not in a crisis in South Africa" and others admitting that education in South Africa would be "a terrible idea", but at the end of the day, the decision has excited great number of school kids.

“I’ve already been working on a new series of tags,” said a grade-ten learner. “I think it’s gonna blow people away.”

Artists depiction: before education program.

Artist's depiction: after education program.

Pics: Grafitti, Matthew de Klerk. Wall (both edits): Creative Commons.

Asian schoolchild drops out to complete maths doctorate

Citing his inability to grasp basic concepts that his classmates have already mastered for months now, School Administrators at the Xin-Xu Juan Middle School in Beijung, China, have today announced their reluctant decision to temporarily expel eight-year-old Xiang Luan and send him on a remedial catch-up maths camp at Harvard University’s Department of Advanced Theoretical Mathematics.

“He’s been falling behind his classmates for some time now,” said class teacher Lu Shao. “It’s all that Grade 8 Master’s violin and Grandmaster Chess that he’s been spending his idle time on. If he’d focussed more, it wouldn’t have had to come to this repeating a year.

The Headmaster now hopes that the course at Harvard will help young Xiang to revise basic concepts covered in their lower grades so that he can one day re-join his classmates.

“It shouldn’t take him too long I hope,” said seven-year-old classmate Jiang Xu-bai (BSC, MA, PhD). “Hopefully we’ll see him for the start of the new year in January.”

This is just the latest in a string of controversies in the Chinese education sector. Earlier in May of this year, a scathing educational report found that over 70% of Chinese school children aged six and below had the mathematical abilities of only a 25-year-old American graduate.

“Our school system has taken a huge knock in the past couple of years,” said Chinese Minister of Education Byang Bai-Li. “Some of our middle-school entrants can’t even compete against their 28-year-old American counterparts.”

In any case, Luan’s parents say that young Xiang should graduate summa cum laude by November at least, making him eligible to go into grade 10 next year.

“We just hope that this minor setback and waste of a year redoing his childhood tutoring won’t knock his self-confidence too much.”

Third-year student is “totally screwed”

Friends, family and university peers of third-year BCom student Jake Henderson told reporters at Muse and Abuse yesterday that he is “totally screwed” for the upcoming exams.

According to those he loves most and the girl whose notes he begs for every Tuesday because he didn’t’ go to the Monday lecture, the 21-year-old Accounting and Theory of Finance major, who started studying for his June exams last night, is not prepared at all.

“It would be funny, if it wasn’t so desperately sad,” said Intha Frendzhone, without whose notes half of the Accounts 3 class would be homeless and DPless.

Henderson, however, has denied these allegations.

“Bru, like, I’ve been busy, okay? That fist isn’t going to pump itself in Friar’s, and you know how they say ‘all work and no play makes Jake a dull boy’,” he said. “Now can you get that microphone out of my face? I’ve got books that need reading.”

Early indications have suggested that Jake has started the long journey of catching up on twenty readings – a feat that is akin to the government promising textbooks to schoolkids: it’s a nice thought, and he’s supposed to be able to do it in time, but it’s not going to happen.

Study experts agree.

“He’ll probably work all night, fueling his study-determined state with endless cans of Redbull and black market Ritalin,” said study expert and misguidance analyst Hugh Ahreffed.

Ahreffed went on to say that this 16-hour marathon might help him in terms of confidence only. “He’ll go into the exam feeling confident and prepared, if a little tired,” he said. However, this would be short-lived.

“His first mistake will be asking friends and colleagues how much they studied and if they’re ready. They’ll give a worried smile, and then talk in depth about how they didn’t understand the first three modules, but are really hoping that McHenderson, 1981, Jeffries, 1993, and Thompson, 2002, appear in the exam.”

This specificity, Ahreffed said, will set up a chain reaction of doubt. “He’ll smile, but inside he’ll be like, ‘who the fuck is Jeff… Jefferson?’”.

This will only worsen as time goes on.

“His heart rate will probably increase, and his palms will go sweaty, and he’ll start to suspect he should have started studying three weeks ago. There will be a resurgence of hope when the papers are handed out and Father Time tells them that they if they don’t have ID, they will attempt to identify them via the university facebook, but this will fade when they announce 10 minutes reading time,” said Ahreffed.

The exam, to anyone watching, would be brutal.

“He’ll write some half-hearted stuff, bullshit his way through essay two, fall asleep during essay three, wake up and panic, and then finally throw down his pen in frustration, and then sit there in a kind of braindead trance,” he said.

According to Ahreffed, this is where it will become most interesting.

“He’ll go through motions of depression, and then, as the end of the session approaches, will find it sickeningly funny. Upon walking out Barrat, he’ll even laugh about it, saying the exam ‘raped’ him. As if rape or failure is the highest form of comedy.”

Other friends, however, have suggested that Jake is not as screwed as the media is making him out to be.

“He’ll be fine,' said equally screwed Dhoz Noahwerk. "That oke can talk SHIT, and there’s always a chance that he’ll get a script marker who hates his life and just wants it all to be over and gives J-boy a vacillator’s mark.”

Jesus, to whom Jake has been praying every night, could not be reached for comment.

Angie Motshekga – Matric is “not that easy”

The government has struck back at critics of the Education System and the Department of Education this morning, after a statement released by somehow-still-Minister for Basic Education Angie Motshekga and signed by almost 100 Members of Parliament declared that “Matric exams aren’t easy” and that “we’d know, because we tried to do one.”

“Everyone is criticising it, saying it’s simple, it’s too easy, that the standard of education is falling quickly, but it really isn’t,” said Motsekga at a press conference in Johannesburg today.

Many MPs have agreed, having taken the exam themselves.

“The first question was quite challenging, but I eventually figured it out after maybe fifteen minutes of thought,” said Minister of Agriculture Lander Eforme. “But after I wrote down my name in that first blank, I realised that being asked my name isn’t actually a part of the question paper - and then I couldn’t go past the real Question One, which was something about two numbers and a small cross between them. I put my head in my hands and looked around Parliament at everyone else’s anxious, confused faces and thought, ‘Jesus, what are these hieroglyphics? Have we done this in class?’”

Minister Motshekga has slammed criticism of Matric,
saying, "Me, Malema, Zille and Zuma all agree - that's
seventeen people who prove my point."
pic:Flickr, Governmentza

According to Motshekga, 100% of the MPs who sat the exam failed to get over the minimum 33% pass mark, proving that the exam isn’t as easy as many claim.

“These critics, people like Johnathan Jansen, they are wrong about the exams,” she said, “and by wrong I mean more wrong that you’re allowed to be to be deemed eligible to get a Matric.”

Though some of the submitted papers did garner a few correct marks here and there, exam markers have now determined this to be “merely coincidental.”

“If we look at the papers themselves, statistically speaking they could only have gotten a few lucky ticks,” said script marker Nawt San-Krosis, “because the ANC just filled in all the (A) and (C) boxes on the multiple choice grids, with Helen Zille and her cadre of counterrevolutionaries filling in all the (D) and (A) choices. COPE and Agang didn’t provide any of their own problems to the solution, but probably just tried to peek over their neighbours' shoulders to steal some answers and points and pretend it was their original thoughts.”

The full results of the experiment, however, are not known.

“We don’t know what how the EFF did, because firstly there aren’t any (E) or (F) choices on the grid, and secondly because they staged a mass walk-out when the Woodwork Exam Question Papers were handed out. “

Despite all this, Motshekga says that she and other Organs of State were not worried by these Parliamentary failures.

“You don’t need a Matric to run a country,” she said. “Just ask Jacob.”

However, to combat possible issues they have announced new legislation and changes in law and education, such as protecting doctors in medical malpractice suits who only get one or two things wrong.

“If he cuts you open, fixes your liver, and then sews you up nicely, but accidentally leaves a box of needles in you, that’s okay, because that’s more than 33% correct.”

Motshekga and her coworkers are also excited to announce a new series of Matric Examination Papers, such as Put The Coloured Blocks In The Right-Shaped Holes and new multiple choice style papers in fitting with today’s high standard of education.

Man leaves insightful comment on News24, apologises, crashes internet

pic: atom.smasher.org

A man left almost 4 billion people without an internet connection after he left an insightful, non-racist, non-sexist, non-inflammatory post on the News24 comments section.

The post, which was based on real, peer-reviewed, well-published and trusted studies and called for a move away from fragmentary knee-jerk hateful responses to the articles, was left at about 4:14pm yesterday, said Internet Specialist and Network Analyst Maus Kliken.

"As soon as he clicked 'Enter' and posted the comment, the Internet went under incredible strain, trying to figure out why there was someone constructive and non-racist on this particular page," said Kliken.

According to Kliken, roughly 14 racist and hateful replies later, the man posted an apology.

"Never, in the history of the internet, has anyone publicly apologised and accepted fault on their own part for their posts," said Kliken."The Internet just didn't know what to do. Hell, it didn't even have an error message for this kind of problem."

This is not the first time the internet has been brought to its knees by an internet user, and once again, the Rhodes Student Representative Council is finding itself having to prepare real-life replacements of social media sites in order to prevent riots and violence.

Social Psychologists and Online Persona Theorists are baffled as to why the man would do such a thing.

"The Internet is a battlefield that eats considerate, kind people up  for breakfast," said Social Psychologist Dr Qwak Sharlottan. "Why anyone would go on the internet and willingly destroy one of its key pillars is just bizarre. We can only assume that the man is an uttter Internet Sociopath. He probably doesn't even LOL, and doesn't find Bacon or pictures of kittens in little bibs all that appealing. The sick fuck."

However, some specialists have other theories.

"We think we know who the man is, after sifting through the debris of the internet, and we checked out his online presence. According to his facebook and twitter profiles, he only has 8 friends and started serious online activity last week. He just didn't know what he was doing," said Internet behaviourist John Angers. "How was he supposed to know online comments etiquette without the necessary lived experience?" 

Artist's rendition of a typical day on the internet.
Pic: Flickr, Matisse_Enzer

 

Angers went on to suggest that some sort of sandbox unconnected internet should be created to prevent these kinds of issues.

"We need people a space to practice small-minded bigotry without endangering other 'net users," he said.

Meanwhile, Internet specialists have called on a huge global network of trolls to restore the Internet to its former balance.

"Right now, a highly-trained team of crack keyboard professionals are calling each other 'mindless fucktards' and 'dum niggars ruining ths gr8 county'," said Lieutenant John Web of the Internet Restoration Committee. "The internet should be back to normal within days."

Racist whites accidentally go into hiding

Hundreds of terrified white people accidentally ran into their panic rooms this afternoon, after a link on social media site Twitter announced that Nelson Mandela had died.

The totally legitimate news site, which isn't owned by some Los Angeles-based writing workshop and obviously has an outstanding history of ground-breaking reportage, broke a story this morning that the world-renowned icon had died last night.

This is the, like, fourth time in recent memory.

"We were already a third of a way through our first can of stockpiled Oom Tony's baked beans when our friend tweeted at us that it was just a media scare hoax," said 56-year-old ex-NP member Johannes van Der Merwestuysen.

Officials of the right-wing extreme have, however, told its sheep followers not to dismiss the notion."This was just a practice run. Keep those panic buttons handy," said Ewjean Tirblanch, leader of a party that holds these beliefs.

However, some biological, political and religious analysts have suggested that perhaps the report was true.

"What if he really DID die and is now still alive? The implications are massive..." said Jake Manders, a professor of something at some university somewhere. "He might be a vampire."

However, ANC officials (who took time off their busy schedules waving the "remember Mandela and vote for us again as if the two are related" flag) have been quick to debunk these rumours.

"Mandela is still very much alive. We just aren't going to show him to cameras or have a press release unless it directly benefits our political agenda in some way," said spokesperson Moore Bidity.

In spite of this, many conspiracy theories still prevail.

"They are using him! They are sucking the blood and warmth and money from this country - imagine if they get his DNA and use it? We'll be dealing with super-vampires! [rest of comment censored due to the hateful nature of its bigoted, racist content]" said news24 commenter a conscientious, experienced political analyst.

However, in light of all this, South Africans have had to deal with the idea that Mandela could, at any moment, die. 

"It's a horrible thought," said television news editor Vuyo Ristic. "What we are focusing on right now is exercising our Constitutionally-enshrined right to access of information and freedom of speech to get a camera in his room. Hopefully we won't be too late - imagine if we can't catch the big moment on full 1080p High Defintion TV?" 

Hundreds of other editors across the country are also worried.

"We've had these stacks of M-day obituaries, histories, timelines, interviews, profiles and features pieces stacking up since he first coughed loudly seven years ago," said Pippin Tom. 

Even political leaders have voiced their worries.

"He's kind of the last visible link to the struggle," said ANC campaign organiser Fan Tomvhotes. "People might get shocked into realising the truth of modern SA."

Even the DA aired their thoughts.

"zOMG WE WERE  A PART OF THE STRUGGLE TOO WE WERE THERE WITH BIKO AND MADIBA FORM THE BEGINING RAGERAGEERAGE VOTE FOR US THIS TIME #knowyourDA" they said in a Tweet, which you can't fling poop at.

Following the brief controversy, hundreds of newspapers, twitter feeds, and news organisations reported that the family would like the media to respect their wishes and keep their distance from the family.

SRC reopens poster design contest

In a move that has been met with widespread approval, the Student Representative Council of Rhodes University has today reopened its infamous yearly competition for poster design, also known as an "election".

“Starting today, we’re opening up the competition for entries,” said SRC Competitions Councillor Lota Ree. “We’ve already had three entrants, and the competition is heating up! May the best poster win!”

The competition, which runs every year, judges contestants off a stringent set of criteria. However, the competition completely breaks established convention in that the judges are the students themselves.

Last year saw a flurry of big contenders who really pushed the limits on good design.

"We put all the posters up around campus for a few weeks, clog up their facebook feeds with our designs, and then we have a big campus-wide election voting process where students themselves decide which poster they love best," said Ree.

The competition has, in the past, been marred by low voter numbers. 

"Sometimes we have to run the competition two or three times a year," said Ree.

According to Ree, the panel takes into consideration where the pictures are posted and how many times they are stuck up. 

"The best contenders are often stuck up in the most obnoxious, in-your-face places, with the big-league competitors being pasted up as much as five times in a row. You know, just in case you didn't read the incorrect spellings of 'accountability' and 'Councillor' and how they're the candidate who will change the whole world the first four times," she said.

...by leaving res and resigning.

According to inside information, especially powerful submissions are those that make use of REALLY LOUD AND AGGRESSIVE BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS EVERYWHERE BECAUSE IT REALLY MAKES PEOPLE PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU’RE SAYING.

Our insider, who we made up because we can't be bothered going out on a Saturday and finding real sources to interview, also said that models in suits and short pink dresses pulling sexy or quasi-confident, pseudo-impressive power poses are a powerful tool in the competition.
"The judges also look for certain Key Words, such as 'accountability', 'honesty', 'transparency', 'change' and 'transformation'. Bad spelling and a horrific and utter disregard for grammar is a plus," he said.

Pink worked in 2012 - some students speculate that it'll be just as effective in Round Two. or Three. Or whatever.

The competition will award each of the winners with a slot in the SRC. First prize is the title of Media Councillor, with second and third being awarded Student Benefits and Residences Councillors respectively.

Due to its lack of bright colours, stupid typeface, bold lettering, Key Words, and its usage of clean photo-cropping and good layout, Sekele's poster was immediately discounted from the entries.

Unfortunately, professional designers and design students are not allowed to enter. The posters submitted are also restricted to being made with only Microsoft Paint and terrible Photoshop, with some small allowances for windows word-art and poorly cropped photos.

According to Will Bhevhoting, a first-year Bachelor of Arts student, the decision for this year’s winner is harder than ever. 

“One makes me feel like my eyes have been maced with a mixture razor blades and Autumn Harvest Crackling, and the other makes me want to vomit until I die. They really went all out this time,” he said.

Voting starts next week.

Global shortages could destroy Valentine’s

Massive shortages of many of the traditional gifts exchanged on Valentine’s Day have swept across the world, sending many would-be wooers into frenzies of anxiety.

“I can’t buy roses, chocolate, champagne, lingerie or crappily-made, vomit-inducing slogan-wearing teddy bears – how will I ever show my date that I truly care about her?” said an enraged lover, Givemore M.T Jestures.

Since the days of the Classical Greek Period, Valentine’s Day has been celebrated with cheap roses and tacky, too-expensive gifts. With this strong tradition rocked to its core, many are expressing concerns over whether the day will work at all.

“In the earliest of Greek mythological texts, Cupid is portrayed as having a magical bow and arrow that he used to make famous romantic figures fall in love. However, a new text unearthed and translated by the Woolworth’s Ancient Text Translation Division has shown that it was the fluffy cotton puppy (R895) and matching his-hers red heart-covered towels (R12 560) that sealed the deal,” said historian and sales rep Dusty Toams.

With gifts like these unavailable, statisticians across the world have predicted a 100000% rise in the divorce rate

Thousands of woman across the globe are expressing concerns that these shortages will affect the purity of this traditional day of romance.

“Up until yesterday, when Woolworth’s still had fluffy hearts and overpriced chocolates in small, red, heart-shaped tins, I was certain that my husband loved me deeply,” said one wife. “Now that there’s nothing to get tomorrow morning, how can I be sure that he still does?”

Many of the Valentine’s celebrators are steeling themselves for the day, preparing for the worst.

“I’ve already called my lawyer and had the divorce papers pre-signed and waiting in a DHL RushXpress box,” tells 28-year-old Janice Koldhaart. “I haven’t been able to get my husband anything yet – I just know he has divorce papers of his own squirreled away somewhere.”

However, international suppliers of sweat-shop handmade fluffy toys and unfair child labour intensively-produced red roses have issued statements saying that contingencies are falling into place and that customers should not be worried.

“We’re working as hard as we can to right the wrongs and end these severe shortages. We care very deeply about our customers, and would hate to inconvenience them,” said spokesperson for international rose supplier C&K Jones. “Also, if this day doesn’t happen, we’ll lose millions.”

Customers have reacted to this news with savage relief.

“I don’t know what I’d have done,” said 22-year-old student James Mooney. “Imagine if I’d had to do something… dare I say the word… meaningful? Eugh!”

Economy, citizens take massive knock as exams end

South Africa as a whole has been left reeling this morning, as exams ended across the country, with many citizens reporting massive trauma and memory loss, and financial experts saying that the economy might take years to recover.

South Africa ten minutes before losing economic stability.

"The unemployment rate rose drastically this morning," said financial analyst Luke Atstats. "Even taking into account our provisions for degrees we knew would definitely end up with unemployment, the figure is incredibly higher than we first predicted. The country may take years to recover."

The South African economy has been left in shambles due to other massive knocks stemming from this occurrence, too. 

"Entire sectors of the economy, such as our energy drinks industry and our homeopathic study aids and stress-reducer production industries have both been hit by their lowest recorded sales, ever," said Minister of Finance, Miss Spen Daquash.

"However," she continued, "this has been counterbalanced to a certain degree by a marked increase in sales of wine, hard liquor, and late-night pies."

The sales figures speak for themselves (not literally, of course. Because that would mean that an inanimate graph has the ability to reason and state opinions/facts on its own behalf, which would require some higher levels of intelligence, thus opening the door to all kinds of theoretical debates concerning whether or not a chart has a soul. Which it doesn't.)

However, the economy is not the only thing to have suffered a massive knock: peoples' brains have been left scrambled, thanks to this new event.

According to post-exam surveys conducted around the country, many students have been left with massive memory loss and confusion.

"I walked out of my Maths exam, and looked down at the paper," said student Joel N. Hard, "and all of a sudden I couldn't understand a single sigil or sign on the paper. It was like reading gibberish, hieroglyphics, or my doctor's prescriptions."

Other students are reporting similar loss of memory. "I looked through [the paper] afterwards, and now I'm not even sure that "despatialised commonality" and "geosyncrinocity" are real words," said 20-year-old Gohan Toufeil.

Youtube and many other internet sites are also reporting a massive drop in numbers of people spending hours and hours on their sites playing games or repeatedly watching and sharing that hilarious video of that monkey accidentally hitting itself in the nuts with a rock.

"People just aren't bored anymore, Now they have better things to do with their time, and it really has hit us hard. We've had to lay off at least one guy in our offices," said CEO of Youtube, Wayne Stintime. 

However, many parents and lecturers have reacted positively to this sudden event.

"Thank god. If I had to repeat that whole 'ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Great Hall, blah blah, cellphones are switched off, blah blah' I would have killed myself," said Physics lecturer Oliver Newton. "I'm just glad it's all over," he said, before bursting into tears when we told him about aegrotat exams.

"I have no comment," said Dean of Students, Divian ke Vlerk. "Why are you still writing down what I'm saying? Stop it. Stop writing. I mean it. If you don't put that pen down, I'll call security and have you taken out. John, call CPU," she said.

"I'm glad exams are over," said your father with relief. "That means I don't have to pay for so-called 'books' and 'sundry expenses' every weekend. Like I don't know where my money is doing," he said, rolling his eyes. He went on to add that this new phase of life did come with many particular challenges, particularly on how, exactly, he is going to spend all this money that he has now that your ass has to get a real job.

Many students have also reacted positively. 

"I don't care if I can't remember a single thing I studies for. It's all in the past," said Tony Jones, cracking open a beer as if he hadn't been drinking during exams anyway.

Experts, however, have been quick to warn of an impending rise in depression.

"Analysis of historical trends have shown that this burst of elation is only temporary," said lead researcher Alan Yze. "There is always a boom that lasts a few weeks, but suddenly, in mid-December, there is widespread depression and bitter remorse."

Expect to weep bitterly and an existential crisis as you reconsider your choice of career sometime in late December.