Saturday, February 19, 2011

Malaysia's Plague Of Frogs

The remarkable increase in the number of frogs in and out of Malaysia's Parliament building is a real cause for concern.
We are not certain whether it is caused by Parliament's constantly leaking roof, but we rather doubt it.
For we have seen these frogs hopping jauntily through the doors.

While we have no quarrel with amphibians as a rule, these seem to be of a particularly toxic, irritating and avaricious variety.
The government appears to be doing nothing about these pestilent creatures. In fact they seem to be encouraging them! We have witnessed on many occassions, ruling party politicians expressing their support of them. Considering that we depend on the government, through their various agencies; to protect our nation from pests; we find their behaviour exceedingly strange.

We have therefore been forced to set out to investigate the malaise ourselves. And we feel it our duty to share our findings with our long-suffering readers.

The plague appears to have started in the state of Perak, where three frogs first emerged. Two of them were male, and were apparently facing various charges in court.
It seems ludicruous, but the government was apparently prosecuting a couple of frogs. But perhaps they did not yet know they were frogs. Or it could be that they were human beings, who because of the curse of this prosecution, morphed into frogs.
Once they proved they were frogs (by hopping); naturally all charges were dropped. We are unable to establish which witch or witches exactly turned them into frogs. But we are sure that they were evil witches.
They were then joined by a female frog, an unhappy, bitter creature who, we are told, was happy to cut off her nose to spite her face. Despite a vigorous inquiry, we are unable to establish whether she was ever human.

Right-thinking Malaysians had hoped that the plague would stop with the events in Perak. But, no!
There was more to come.

It spread to the delightful Island of Penang. Two frogs suddenly appeared there one day. These appeared to be a tag team. One backed up the other, and sometimes they croaked their discordant notes in unison.
Apparently, they had both requested various favours.
When denied their requests; as is in the nature of all frogs; they hopped uncharmingly away.
One of them then subjected us to listen to a torrent of venomous croaks all over the country, untill finally, its day of unglory over, it faded away.

Then came a double-hopping frog. An unlovely creature, it took a long time between its two hops. We predict it will hop again, but to where we don't know and cannot say that we particularly care.
We hear that it suffered from delusions of grandeur. And it too, in a remarkable coincidence, was being prosecuted. And was suspected to be of an avaricious nature.
It had always been a small, not very clever frog, but was convinced that it was a big frog. An all too human failing. And so, it insisted on sitting in a chair that was really far too big for it.
When its betters wisely denied it this privilige, it transformed from a small, not very clever frog into a small, angry, envious and still not very clever frog.
And here is the remarkable thing about this frog.
It does not croak.
It tweets, instead.
But no, not sweetly.
It tweets like an insane, raving bird.
A repititive, dull, insane, raving bird.
We could not ascertain what specific species of bird it fancied itself to be.
But if persuaded to guess, we would hazard that it is a hideous cross between a maniacal crow and a carrion-eating vulture.

We must note that we saw a pleased frog in the news today. It was smiling unintelligently, in gap-toothed glory, happy to have won a court case.
Yes, these frogs have lawyers. And they don't even have to pay for them.

And one has been appointed, in a rare honour for an amphibian, Senator.
Yes, really.
A Senator as in Roman times.
For it fancies itself a Cicero, when it is in fact a Brutus.

There were other frogs, of course, but if we were to delve into them, this post would become over long.
And there will be others, no doubt. This plague, we are certain, has yet to end.

We must now come to the conclusions of our investigations.
We have discovered no way to eliminate them.
But we have found that these frogs, if we are to avoid such plagues in the future, have several remarkable similarities.
They are generally of an avaricious nature, they may very well be facing prosecutions, are particularly self-serving, may recently have lost in internal elections and often have delusions of grandeur about their place in the world.

The good news is that most of them have queitened down. But do not be relieved, for we have it on good authority that they will start up again during the Election season.

For they have found a new master.

Who feeds them little flies.

And tells them when to croak.

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