The Third Slip Issue 36: Do not book a judge by his power
Hello, Slippers! Before we get on with this issue, we feel the need to acknowledge how mind-blowingly jobless awesome you guys are. When we sent out the Slipperfie Challenge, we didn’t think our inboxes would be inundated with pictures of your most intimate footwear. But now, we’ve seen deep into your soles. We can’t thank you enough for the slippers love you’ve showered on us and this week’s header image is a selection of the first few Slipperfies to reach us. Your love keeps us going, the Chappal Brothers continue to walk underarm in underarm (dei stop making cricket jokes, da).
This is issue 36. 36, of course, is the number of possible outcomes when two dice (dices? dies? diocese?) are rolled together. The Third Slip is many things, but most importantly its humour is dicey and the collective term for the two squares running it is Dei-s! So, let’s roll with it...
At home
Chances are, if you’ve opened mainstream media in the last one week, you’d have been distracted by the noise around a movie. Much like how pre-placement talks use nice acronyms to distract from a low package. Don’t be fooled. Here are some actual things happening which the party in power probably doesn’t want you to know about.
No justice, just ice - This chilling story that no one is talking about involves a judge who was in charge of a case where Amit Shah was accused. Turns out he didn’t die of a heart attack as was thought a few years ago. (Although, to be fair if you are offered “100 hundred crore rupees” as a bribe to favourably close a case, your heart would possibly race dangerously towards a cardiac arrest. Give it the benefit of the doubt is all we are saying). Today, Shah controls India’s most powerful PR organization, er, political party. The judge’s family came out with damning details which, no doubt, the BJP will try to treat with the same decency and tact it’s been known for. Anyway, we’re taking our addresses off this newsletter footer.
Oxygen masks will drop from a cabinet above you - Remember the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy where kids died because of (eventually) government neglect? One heroic doctor spent all his own money buying oxygen cylinders to save the kids. The government rewarded him with… Corruption and murder charges. Thankfully, these charges have been dropped.
Swachhe Din - The Swacch Bharat campaign managed to spend 530 crores in 3 years (take that, Alibaba Singles Day!) but here’s the clincher - all of it was for PR & noise (din?) creation and nothing on actual grassroots awareness. Result? The same filthy country can feel a little better about it because our new banknotes have a logo.
Lolz all around
Karma Sutra: BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is also the health, education, and finance minister of Assam said this week that cancer was caused by karma - because of sins committed in the past. He clarified the next day that he was quoted out of context without clarifying what the context was, but he managed to say that Karma (not sure if this was a typo for Sarma) would catch up with journalists who were trying to smear him.
At least the trains run on time: If you are a group of farmers who are so pissed off with the government that you go to Delhi to protest, what is the worst that can happen to you on your way back? Apparently, your train could end up in a completely different state than the one you wanted to go to! The ministry of metaphors approves of this most efficient routing of trains.
Funniest headline of the week award: Goes to Scroll: “How the BJP can be a true champion of Muslim women”
More cheerful news home
Why isn’t anyone pissed off at the fact that Hafiz Saeed (of 2008 attacks fame) is freed and is going to become a politician now?!
For some reason, the VHP thinks there’s an attack on Hindus - in much the same way that a Bangladesh-Zimbabwe test match is a threat to the IPL.
To paraphrase Henry Ford, you can vote for any party as long as it’s the BJP. EVM trouble in the UP civic polls.
Bye, Channel V apparently. It was still around? Next, you’ll tell us that Cartoon Network is still awesome and that we are not old people desperately trying to remain children for as long as we possibly can (he said, typing out these words while wearing a Mojo Jojo tee shirt).
Oh yeah, that thing...
Padmavati. BJP leaders want to behead Deepika & SLB. Set fires to theatres. It all makes for good sensational headlines. But ignore them. The true story is somewhere else (see above).
Around the world
Din mein kasai, Ratko Mladic: Finally, the Butcher of Bosnia has been sentenced to life imprisonment. For our Indian readers, we feel the need to clarify that this was not a butcher running an abattoir in UP whose life has been made difficult because he sold beef. Ratko Mladic was responsible for the deaths of over 7000 people. The sentence comes 20 years too late, though.
Not neutrality: The one Indian who should have been deported from the US - let’s call him the Butcher of Free Internet - Ajit Pai, plans to scrap Net Neutrality next month, and that’s huge. He won’t face any resistance from dinosaur Republicans - most of whom still use smoke signals (smoke screens, too!) to communicate. In case you are not familiar with why this is a big deal, just look at what happened in Portugal.
A very liberal idea of a coup: Mugabe stopped being president but will receive millions of dollars, state-sponsored aid and continue living in a mansion. For those worrying about whether this means something new for Zimbabwe, don’t worry! His replacement is a man cheerfully nicknamed the Crocodile, who when we last checked has not been approached by Lacoste for some prime product placement (Hey Lacoste, if you want 2 innovative marketers to consult for you, we will take your money in any currency other than Zimbabwean dollars). Emmerson Mnangagwa's potential reign is one that Boris Johnson himself has dubbed ‘From one tyrant to the other’. Yay!
If nukes don’t get ya, nature will! 2018 will see a lot of earthquakes.
Yay Capitalism! The state of the world in two consecutive headlines:
Apocalypse Update
Not buddies yet. North Korea and the USA are still unlikely to send each other Christmas cards. Not unless those have plutonium in them.
That was close! Germany - who remains the face of sense in a Europe veering so dangerously to the right it could hit ongoing traffic - almost faced a political crisis. Thankfully, Merkel’s party is likely to form a coalition with the center-right SPD which will ensure the fringe AfD doesn’t claw back.
The perpetual comedy show that is the USA
The below tweet is self-explanatory. Trump is a path liar and a narcissist. Also, overheard from the Oval Office “What do you mean time and tide waits for no man? They can’t do that if I don’t wait for Time. Hmph”
The good that Tillerson does (Finally declared that Myanmar is doing ethnic cleansing) is overcome by you-know-who (who, after helping with the release of a basketball player from China, called his dad a fool for not giving Trump credit)
Business
You can call China many things (unless you’re in China, of course) - but ‘smart’ has to be one of them. Sensing the boom for autonomous/electric vehicles, the company is cornering the market for… Lithium (no, not the Nirvana album).
Tech
Facebook will tell you if you are a gullible denizen of the internet that fell prey to fake propaganda from Russia. Yes, really.
LinkedOut
Refugee camps are giving rise to a new variation of English!
Mark Manson on Living in the age of outrage.
That’s it for this week. If you like The Third Slip, do pass it on to a friend. If you do not, bad karma will catch up with you and give you cancer. You've been warned. If you have something to share with us, you can reach us on Twitter (Tony | Chuck), or you can send us love poems via email. Until next week, please do not succumb to Russian propaganda on Facebook. Bye!