Please grab your nearest festive intoxication paraphernalia and find yourselves a comfortable seat, dear readers. We’re about to get slightly…bizarre. Allow me to explain.
I spent the last year or so reading a lot of material for the purposes of populating this project’s flagship data library. In it, you can find a veritable goldmine of all things corrupt and shady, if I may say so myself.
However, there were loads of things which I came across during my research that I couldn’t quite fit in, for various reasons. One, for the sake of being practical – I had to make plenty of judgement calls about what qualified as important enough to be included, simply because there is a limited amount of space in which prompts can be squeezed in. As is, it is already packed to the point of being overwhelming if you don’t know how to navigate it well, so I tried my best to make it manageable. There is still plenty more that needs to be added, so bear with me.
Another reason for excluding certain material which was still nonetheless noteworthy was due to its lack of significance when compared to the major investigations which dominate the data library. Anecdotal stories about minor events which nonetheless provide telling details about a politician’s character are one example. Hilarious gaffes which expose a lack of coordination within the state’s apparatus are another.
There are also moments which can be described noteworthy in the sense that they are worthy of mockery and derision, because sometimes highlighting the banality of evil is more effective than informing people about the intricacies of power, organised crime, and corruption.
Needless to say, amidst all the drudgery of the hundreds of news articles I had to read through to build that data library, these moments of surreal banality were precious nuggets of comic relief amid all the chaos I documented. I made it a point to bookmark references to these fascinating snapshots to make sure that I don’t forget about them.
I figured it would be amusing to share some of these on this website’s Facebook page throughout the holiday period, along with my thoughts on each one. The intent is to start a more light-hearted discussion on nonetheless serious matters, because at the end of the day, beneath the veneer of flashy publicity stunts and studied scripts, the politicians who are responsible for the failures of our country are nothing short of ridiculous.
On that note, welcome to The Odd Bit series. I’ll be posting these updates mostly on our social media page, although I may post a few of them here if they’re a bit more elaborate, or perhaps compile them here if they generate enough interest.
Off we go! You can read the first installment of the series here.
