Department of Education to give procrastination courses

South African citizens and university students across the country are rejoicing with the news that the Department of Education is working with other major governmental departments to give formal courses in procrastination.

Up until now, the courses have only been open to heads of state and government ministers.

According to head of the project Putin Offwerk, the project opened up to the public after the department saw parallels between key heads of state and students with essays due. 

"We realised that we could use this rough, undeveloped philosophy of 'Due Tomorrow? Do Tomorrow!' to teach our citizens this useful skill. This philosophy is a good start, but right now it isn't even coming near its full potential," said Offwerk.

According to officials in the department, the courses were a natural extension of their existing government policies.

"We see endless empty promises and Constitutional Court-appointed deadlines, yet not even a single iota of political fallout or consequences of any kind. There is no accountability for their lies election promises, and that is what we want our students to share," said Jake Gorens, who asked not to be named but didn't give us enough of a bribe this time. Thanks to him, I'm two grand short of a flatscreen TV."We want every student to be able to handle his or her essay in such a way that they won't ever have to do it, and never have anything bad happen to them."
This basis was confirmed by the lead lecturer of the program Fahk Ahlchildrin. The two-week course, he says, is structured directly around the government's simple approach to education over the last 12 years.

Many government ministers, such as Mkhangeli Matomela, Mahlubandile Qwase and Angi Motshekga, and even presidents (Thabo Mbeki) have flourished under thh course's instruction, says Ahlchildrin. "Many of these students even advanced to their Master's and Doctorate levels of study, surpassing even the course's lecturers," he said.

Government Ministers have shown their mastery of this course over the course of the past 18 years.

"In 2004, then-president Mbeki said: 'By the end of this year, we shall ensure that there is no learner learning under a tree, [or in a] mud school'. In 2006, Matomela, then MEC for education in the Eastern Cape, said: 'I'm ­confident we will eradicate mud schools in the next two financial years'. In 2007, then education minister Naledi Pandor said: 'Fifty percent of the mud schools will be rebuilt between 2007 and 2009'. In 2008, Qwase, then MEC for education in the Eastern Cape, said: 'It is my plan that the eradication of mud schools must be fast-tracked in the 2010/11 financial year'. In 2011, Basic Education Minister  Motshekga said: "By 2014, we will have eradicated all mud schools in the province", and in 2013 she said: "By 2015, in terms of mud schools, we should be done." said Ahlchildrin. "As you can see, this course proves invaluable to anyone wishing to get paid for a job they will never do."

The course includes crucially important sub-courses, such as Endless Promises 101, Passing the Buck 203 and Introduction to Blaming Apartheid 108. "We've found that this last course might as well be dropped entirely," said Ahlchildrin. "Most of our past students had already mastered the basics."

The program is set to stand thousands of South Africans in good stead.

"We realised that the whole of South Africa needs this. If a student doesn't hand in an essay on time, they lose their Duly Performed Certificate and eventually get academically excluded. Normal working people lose their jobs. But our ten-step program will end all that! Not even legal proceedings from Afriforum or the LRC will be able to touch you."

Students from across the country are jumping for joy.

"Now I'll be able to hand this essay in only in early in 2018. Using the logically-centred and complex science that this course has taught me, I know that handing in just a plan of a plan of the plan of my essay will be enough before March 15. I'm like a young Motshekga!" said Rhodes Law student Dooen Itlayta.

The department's procrastination courses will resume next week. Or the week after. Or maybe late August 2083.

SRC prepares real-life facebook replacement

 

Following the horrifying news that Facebook will be temporarily down for upgrades to its  major servers, forcing you to talk to real people, the Student Representative Council of Rhodes University has swung into swift action with a huge contingency plan aimed at helping students deal with the upcoming trauma.

"We know that you can't go a single day without liking or commenting on stuff, and so we have stepped in to make this terrible day all the more bearable," said SRC President Betha Thaan-Nhobadhi. "As such, we will have contingencies deployed all around campus."

Plans to ease the students' fragile frames of mind are extensive, ranging from impromptu walls to makeshift Instagram services.

"We will be handing out packs of 'LIKE' cards with the normal thumbs-up sign, and blank comment box stickers for students to pin up on whatever they want," said SRC Facebook Contingency Councillor Lyka Khomment. "This way, students will be able to leave their mark on the things that don't matter in their lives,"  

He went on to add that the university staff had approved a request to turn every wall on campus into a 'wall'. "Now there will be ample space to tell people about stuff that no one wants to hear."

The SRC has also secured plans to have a guy with a megaphone at the major locations around campus, so as to announce your presence every time you 'check in' to a different location.

"We want to keep your 754 friends, acquaintances, old highschool friends that you never even talk to, and that guy who always creeps your profile and invites you to events all the time constantly updated with your changing social life," Khomment said. According to the SRC, this megaphone wielder will also act as an impromptu newsfeed, informing you of the most pertinent events in the Rhodes social sphere, for example  'zOMG Lara was tagged in 212 photos: thirty people like this'.

"We know that your life cannot be lived to its fullest without being notified every time one of Lara's friends post about how 'zOMG babez u so gorjus luv u xxxxox'," he said.

However, a real-life facebook would be nothing without crappy artistic photos - but the SRC has students covered.

Thanks to the SRC, the world will still be able to know about it every time you eat or drink something.

"A team of highly-trained instagram reproducers will walk around with polaroid cameras, taking pictures of your breakfast and of you pouting and pretending that the photograph wasn't totally preplanned and carefully posed," said fourth-year photography student Haza Ritchdhad.

"These professionals will try as best they can to give you, our Rhodes Students, the best real-life instagram experience possible," she said. She also added that these photographers will even soak the polaroid in tea to make it all blurry and sepia-toned. 

Students have reacted to the news with fervent excitement, including first-year journalism student Stacey Blake.

"I can barely wait, smiley face, smiley face, thumbs-up, winking smiley, party hat emoticon!" she said.

Readers looking to get their Muse and Abuse fix will sadly have to go cold turkey. I don't get paid for this, and I am not running for an SRC Portfolio do not have unlimited printing credit for a print edition.

Thanks to the SRC, the world will still be able to know about it every time you eat or drink something.

American anti-terrorism measures stop terrorist

After years of systematic discrimination scrutiny, the United States Department of Counter-Terrorism has finally caught a terrorist.

John McCorrin, whom the media have dubbed Mohammed Al Shazir Al-Habar Muhammed Mahalamoud, was caught trying to enter the country yesterday afternoon with almost 1 kilogram of explosives. 

"The man was apprehended at Los Angeles airport with a bag of explosives in his luggage," said DCT spokesperson Miss Repree Zentation. "We can neither confirm nor deny yet whether or not the material was nuclear, but we can tell you that they all came in packages with frightening codenames."

Among the explosives found were small bombs codenamed "Roman Candles".
 
"We also found a small amount of projectname 'Tom Thumbs' and a few insidious-sounding 'Birthday Sparklers'. While we're not sure of the significance of these names, we can only assume they have something to do with rampant Islamic militant violence and democracy-hating right-wing religious facism,"  said Zentation.

Their suspicions were first raised when an alert came through on their global telecommunications monitoring network. According to senior analysts, the message sent between Mahalamoud and an as-yet unnamed accomplice was spine-tinglingly chilling. 

"I've got everything we need to finish off tomorrow night with a bang," the message read. "We're going to drop a lot of jaws with our little show. I'll see you soon, brother. Allah hu Akbar."

The system, which has been coded to pick up keywords like "bomb", "terrorist", "nuclear" and "muslim", been illegally monitoring calls, smses, and emails since before 2001. According to head of the project, Ian Ternet, this is the first time the system has picked up a media-branded confirmed terrorist.

"We usually a lot of false pings, like from any message talking about basically any video, internet post, movie or television show that has a muslim in it. We also get a lot of false hits from Star Wars," said Ternet.
 

Admiral Ackbar's name is often confused with praise to Allah, says Ternet

"You know, movies show us that terrorist carry around AK-47s, have turbans and scowling dark faces and inevitably scream "allah who allackbar" in crowded airports. It turns out that this isn't really the case all the time," said LAX arresting officer Ray Sist.

According to Sist, Mahalamoud almost snuck by airport staff by using an extremely cunning disguise. "To the untrained eye, he almost looked like an innocent, law-abiding citizen: no giant beard, no burkha, nothing. He almost got away," said Sist.

It was only after frisking twenty men who didn't have names like "Brett", "Kyle" and "Dylan" that their suspicions were aroused. "He had a very funny accent," said Sist. According to current security policy, funny accents are ground enough for a full cavity search.

However, Mahalamoud has been quick to defend himself. 

"I'm not a terrorist, for pete's sakes! I'm an architect living in Florida!" he said in an interview with those bastards from the loose, bleeding-heart, America-hating liberal leftist press.

Mahalamoud is expected to go on trial next month, with movie production for the series of events already underway. The movie, entitled "America fucks up another terrorist, booya" and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone, will hit god-fearing, gun-loving cinemas in early May.

Admiral Ackbar's name is often confused with praise to Allah, says Ternet