Call Someone a "Coconut", Get in Big Trouble, in South Africa

From The Star, a South African newspaper, comes this story:

The Democratic Alliance is taking African National Congress MP Cameron Dugmore to the Human Rights Commission for referring to a radio presenter as a "coconut".

Is it racially offensive for a white politician to jokingly call a black Springbok supporter a coconut? The DA certainly thinks so. The radio presenter does not.

In a submission to the commission, the DA asked it to investigate a recording of a recent 567 Cape Talk call-in show in which Dugmore called radio presenter Kieno Kammies a "coconut".

It says the comment constituted hate speech and caused harm as it implied that a black person supporting Bok rugby was white on the inside and brown or black on the outside.

In the U.S. this would, I suppose be like calling someone an "Oreo". Funny how calling someone a "coconut" would probably not mean anything at all in North America (or am I wrong?)

You can read the full story here.

"The coconuts were more scary than anything else."

From a story in today's Royal Gazette out of Bermuda, a story about surviving Hurricane Fabian:

As frightened islanders sheltered in their homes during the height of Fabian's fury fisherman Blake West and his son James were diving in Flatt's Bay in a bid to save their boat. The pair ran from their Shelly Bay home in swimming shorts, while coconuts rained down in 100 mph winds, after learning their boat Troubadour had bust one of its moorings. Fearing the loss of his livelihood if the 42-foot craft was scuppered Mr. West Sr. ignored the pleadings of his wife Jennifer and set off after being tipped off by friends shortly after 6 p.m Friday.

Full story available here.

Coconut Oil Salesmen

It sure looks like somebody fooled Google News. That site is supposed to catalog current and recent news headlines in some 4,500 news media outlets worldwide.

So how is it that a Coconut Oil salesman named "Dr. Joseph Mercola" has a page on wonders of coconut oil referenced in Google News?

Not only that, it's referenced as being from Mercola, Illinois, as if it's a local newspaper (what, does the good Dr. have a town named after him?). Pretty clever if this is a case of hacking Google News. Actually, if you do a Google search for "Mercola, Illinois" (including the quotes), you discover that Google News is not the only site that thinks Dr. Mercola is a town...

World Coconut Day

Well, another World Coconut Day has come and passed. Now comes the cleanup after the parties, parades, fireworks, barbecues, luaus, and other festivities . . . oh. Wait. I didn't even know it was World Coconut Day (Sept 2nd) until today. Oh well. I have my calendar marked for next year.

I also missed the fact that the Philippines just got done celebrating National Coconut Week.