With power cuts soon to go up to 11 hours a day, the Ass would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the staying power of our rulers. Anywhere else they would have been strung up on poles.
Here we are, sitting in the dark and we still look on the bright side of things. Our national credo is: "It could be worse". Given the foresight of our planners, we can now sell darkness as a tourist attraction. \'Visit Nepal, Go Back To The Dark Ages\'.
We count our blessings. We will wait for eight hours to get five litres of adulterated petrol once a week and we'll still say: "Hey, that's still better than no petrol at all." Our cell phones always have a network busy signal, but we are so happy to have iphones in which we can play Tetrix in traffic.
...
Speaking of which, the Traffic Police's campaign to eradicate congestion on the streets was doomed even before it started, but they have just extended it by a month. Have to give them credit for persistence.
You can get the cops to don the flashiest fluorescent jackets and give them those wands that glow in the dark, but it won't make an iota of difference as long as buses drop passengers in the middle of the road, taxi drivers think parking close to the kerb is an affront to their manhood, motorcycles are omnidirectional, and everyone from the Seven Party Conglomerate to the Federation of Disaster Preparedness insist on staging street rallies at rush hour. The Ass has a plan: on-the-spot public flogging of all violators.
...
The only good news is that the petrol station queues have started again in anticipation of the blockade of the tarai by madhesi groups from Saturday. That should bring down the traffic volume and make the capital's streets manageable again. Actually, why doesn't the government just close all gas stations, announce 24-hour load shedding, turn off the water mains, and shut the whole country down? Let's all hibernate till spring and wake up to vote in April.
...
Every time our political figures open their mouths, they get themselves into trouble. Fhut the suck up, already. The main problem in this country is the verbal diarrhoea pandemic among our leaders. Whenever a microphone is thrust on his face, the Fierce One can't help jeopardise the 23-point agreement yet again. Girja goes to Biratnagar and invariably says something so controversial that the media reverberates for a week. Like father like daughter, Minister-sans-Portfolio Frau Jost also goes to Koirala Nibas to shoot her mouth off. Comrade Makunay, of course, long ago mastered the art of publicly exposing the lacklustre performance of a government of which his party is a member. And every time General Ajaya P Nath goes off anywhere these days he can't resist putting his jack boot in his mouth. There should be a moratorium on public statements by all politicians and a media boycott of anyone who tries to even get a word in.
...
The Election Commission could include that in its Code of Conduct instead of having clauses in it that prevent the media from criticising the Commission. In fact, from next week we can't even poke fun at the Code of Conduct anymore. The Code of Conduct sucks. There, the Ass said it. Arrest the Ass.
...
The Maoists have the knack of coming up with real gems. The latest from Awesomeji is that he wants the EC to postpone the Code of Conduct (not the election this time). This must be so that the YCL has some more time to spread mayhem. The young commies make the Mandalays look like traffic cops. At the Kabhre Central Committee meeting, Badal & Co agreed to go along with elections only if they win. In other words, they said they'll go back to war if they lose. Naturally, therefore, they don't want a code of conduct to restrict their freedom of speeches.
ass(at)nepalitimes.com
