You’d be forgiven if you thought the beginning of 2025 was directed by #DavidLynch. Sadly, he died this week, but you’d still be forgiven. I’m back from a generous media break and I was never ready for #Stilfontein and #ValaUmgodi, #CloseTheHole.

Our curtain raiser to the new year began with hoisting dozens of decomposed bodies up from the deep during a three-day rescue operation at #Shaft11 in #Stilfontein this week. This crisis began in October, four months ago, but we only decided to bring them up this week. South African headlines were tame and almost mute compared to the international media. Strange how others can see what is in plain sight. I learnt more from the likes of Al Jazeera and Sky than I learnt here in SA. We heard our minister say “smoke them out” but they didn’t use smoke, they used starvation and a broken pully to commit murder. Did we bring back the death penalty South Africa? There are crimes that I think deserve the death penalty: paedophilia for example, but being an illegal immigrant is not one of them, neither is being an illegal miner. We starved and suffocated dozens of people, some trafficked children as young as fourteen. Don’t act surprised, do you think all those #ZamasZamas are there because they want to be? I’m not being sympathetic to criminals, and I’ll tell you who deserves the death penalty: the head honchos behind this mining malarky. I read an account of the first man who went down to rescue the miners, he found them delirious and feeding off the dead. One of the miners asked him if he was God, this story is too surreal to comprehend. Cannibalism or death by starvation, something even #DavidLynch wouldn’t tackle. I get that these are criminals; I get that they are very dangerous, but SA literally had the ground swallow its reputation through gory headlines about “artisanal miners”. Yes, that’s what they refer to the #ZamaZamas as now. That made me furious, there is nothing artisanal about it. It’s slave labour. Why didn’t we round them up and deport those that are not here legally and arrested the rest? Difficult, because most of these men were armed, difficult but not impossible.  Apparently we can do this in three days. Unreal and here’s the real kicker… within a few days these men will be replaced with others. Why are we not addressing the problem? Cyril called it worse than #Marikana, forgetting he is responsible for that too. Yesterday afternoon they shut the entrances to the shafts. Vala umgodi, close the hole. You and I both know what that means. They didn’t get all the people out.  Some will die in a deep grave dug by commercial giants that have no plans to resolve a national crisis.

What scares me most of all is that I don’t think anyone in SA has the power to stop this mining mafia. These people are level up gangster. #ValaUmgodi #CloseTheHole.

And then this: The #DrunkFish. A man on his vacay caught a fish and decided it would be hilarious to pour beer into the fish’s mouth while it was gasping for life. Intolerable cruelty. It made me mad as hell. He was arrested and is charged with animal cruelty.

The case of Selby #Mbenenge unfolded in our courts. X-rated texts were read out live on television by his then secretary who has accused the judge of sexual harassment. The conversations will make your ears bleed. The defense are giving this secretary a hard time for what is quite obviously a randy old man wielding his power. Do we have to put this poor woman through this? #ValaUmgodi

Talking about sexual deviancy, ex-rugby coach #PeterDeVilliers was forced to leave the #GOODParty now he has crossed the floor to join his people at the #MKParty. I mean just this week #Zuma said that MK is the ANC actually and he wants his membership reinstated. Look, he’s not wrong they are primarily ex-ANC members that have been, in one way or another, legally challenged by SA courts. What was that about our new death penalty #ValaUmgodi? They’ve all stolen gold in some shape or form so why don’t we treat them the same way? Why does a fourteen-year-old trafficked child need to carry a gun to defend himself while he claws at the earth to feed some rich pig at the end of the chain? Sorry, rant over.

Let me cheer you up by telling you that the #Matrics soared home with the greatest pass rate ever recorded in South Africa. Nice stat hey? The problem with being a statistician, you’re always looking for the anomalies. I’ve found two: the first is that the pass mark is 30% so we shouldn’t be that excited because the base line has shifted dramatically to accommodate the mediocre performance of our schooling. And the second, even more worrying anomaly, is that three hundred thousand pupils never got as far as matric and are unemployable in today’s marketplace. But I’m trying to cheer you up, so I’ll tell you about the littleys that wore their school uniform for the first time, some with bright smiles and others with teary eyes. All of them precious. There was the usual shambles: kids without a school to attend, etcetera and this year we also saw some children being told to bring their own furniture to school in order to have a place to sit. Who is responsible? #ValaUmgodi.

There were mass shootings in #PienaarTownship. #AKA murder accused denied bail and then the moment we were all waiting for, drumroll please… #Ndlozi resigned from parliament. #Malema didn’t flinch as the #EFF disappears before his eyes. He said that #Ndlozi was not on his priority list. #Malema was interviewed on his favourite station to hate, ENCA. You’ll know that Juju boycotted ENCA for years but here he is. How the mighty have fallen. He was like an anti-Darth Vadar telling #JJTabane that his is not #Ndlozi’s father and he is not responsible for him. You really can’t make this stuff up.

We all lived through the 113th birthday celebrations. The #ANC cut their cake and ate it while ignoring the hunger created by the highest unemployment rate in the world (bar eSwatini). Yes, that is a fact. And where was Cupcake? Well, he did a tour of #RobbenIsland as if it was the very first time he had ever been there. He asked them most elementary questions about #Mandela, it was embarrassing and completely lackluster. #ValaUmgodi

And then there was the brand fail of the year: #Safair. They overbooked flights across the festive season, particularly those that were returning to Joburg. Overbooking is common practice in the industry, but you should be smart about it. #Safair came out and freely admitted that this was industry practice, and then the lynching began. Social media took off like a 747 and flew right to the bull’s eye citing the Consumer Protection Act and now there is a commission of enquiry, and their reputation took a nosedive.

Let’s take a trip across borders now to Mozam. Many people that had holiday plans in Ponta ended up in Sodwana due to border’s closing and an increase in political tension. Some tourists tried their luck and were probably fine until they weren’t. We witnessed the swearing in of the new president against a backdrop of violence and tension across the country.

We saw the doors of hell open up and swallow LA in fires that are the worst the country has ever seen. Still raging today, the images of LA are startling and devastating. We saw the rich homes reduced to rubble and celebrities scramble to recover whatever they were able to. The blame game was in full swing as we learnt of empty reservoirs and chain gangs being used to extinguish flames. The stories keep coming and all eyes are on LA.

It’s all about Merica, isn’t it? There was a massive announcement by both US presidents that Israel and Hamas had struck a #ceasefire deal that would be implemented on Sunday 19 January. This just happens to be the day before Trump takes office and the tangerine made it clear that if the hostages were not returned by the time he took office there would be dire consequences. The deal they struck was the same deal that was on the table as far back as May 2024. The deal is that all hostages and prisoners are released on both sides of the war and that Israel leaves Gaza. Israel agreed to the number of prisoners to be released but yesterday Netanyahu said he didn’t like the names on Hamas’ list. This man never wanted a ceasefire, it was never about the hostages. #ValaUmgodi.

And then there’s Elon #TheChop Musk: Oh, my goodness I can’t with this man! He’s my new Trump to hate. He’s being sued by the SEC for irregularities in the Twitter deal, but he doesn’t care. He put his money on the table to buy America’s #TikTok as a ban on the platform draws close. Word on the street is that he was refused and so he’s building his own. Why not make your existing platform a better competitor instead of buying freedom of speech Elon? There was a rumour that he has a fake account on Twitter called Adrian Dittmann who regularly responds to Musk’s tweets. What is wrong with this man? This week he said there is no such thing as Islamophobia. Is delulu contagious? He’s been hanging around with Trump too long. Trump came out the gates with statements that you couldn’t make up. He changed the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”, to which the Mexican president held her own presentation and called America “Mexican America”. I quite like #MexicanMerica. Got a nice ring to it right? I digress. Thumper didn’t stop there; he was off to seize Greenland next and make Canada the 51st state. It’s like he took a leaf out of Putin and Netanyahu’s real estate book and decided to take whatever land he wants. I don’t make this stuff up, to be fair I couldn’t make this stuff up.

Rockets hit the sky as Bezos’ #BlueOrigin was sent to orbit. Him and Musk are now playing Star Wars. Guys what’s happening? Walmart changed its logo; it made the font bold, that was it. Imagine the expense of rebranding the entire #Walmart conglomerate by making the font thicker. Happens here sometimes someone gets a tender. #ValaUmgodi.

I didn’t get to everything, but you get the gist, right? Go back to bed and try again in February. I’m Tonya Khoury and thank you for scratching the surface with me and Acumen Media.