So everyone heard of the controversy about the moron who pretended to sign as many heads of state talked about Mandela at his memorial yesterday.
I found it funny as it looked straight out of a comedy. The deaf people watching did not and I don't blame them one bit.
“He was a complete fraud,” Cara Loening, director of Sign Language Education and Development in Cape Town, told Agence France-Presse.
“He wasn’t even doing anything. There was not one sign there. Nothing. He was literally flapping his arms around.”
He said that during Obama’s speech, the interpreter looked as if he was “trying to swat a few flies away from his face and head.”
Several complaints were called into the St. Vincent School for the Deaf in Johannesburg, said the school's principal, Ingrid Parkin - who said the man's gestures looked "like he's signing gibberish."
"This man himself knows he cannot sign and he had the guts to stand on an international stage and do that," Parkin said.
What is more troubling is how these morons in the government gave this guy a job possibly because he is connected to someone. They should have known that any incompetence would be pounced by racists all over the world, especially at an event this visible. If you can't refrain from doling out favors to friends, do it at a less visible event instead of becoming the laughingstock of the world. Give him a job as a driver though pretending to drive can be more deadly. How tough is it to get someone to check this guy's credentials? Is it really that tough to find a deaf person to validate this clown before he made a mockery of himself and the speeches?
And the government had a prior warning about this idiot.
Druchen said the same man provided sign language interpretation for an event last year attended by South African President Jacob Zuma.
A deaf person in the audience videotaped that appearance and sent the footage to the federation for the deaf — which submitted a formal complaint to the African National Congress, Druchen said.
But the ANC never responded to the complaint, which also suggested that the man take the five years of training required to become a qualified sign language interpreter in the country, Druchen said.
He said a new complaint will be filed about the "fake" interpreter at the Mandela memorial service.
One off incompetence by the ruling party? Or part of a trend related to government patronage?
Jokes, thoughts about this?