WE start the year with a little story of the dangers of a reckless mouth. Muckraker will write it as if you are listening to your granny’s tsomo. The point of it all will be revealed before the kettle boils.
So here goes.
Some two centuries ago, Czar Nicholas I, the ruler of Russia, faced a rebellion from some renegades who demanded democracy and other things. Qoi!
The Czar reacted with a brutal crackdown that included the chopping of heads.
Kondraty Ryleyev, one of the rebels, was caught and sentenced to death by hanging. On the day of his hanging, the trapdoor opened but the rope around Ryleyev’s neck broke.
In those days, a rope breaking during an execution was considered a miracle which compelled the authorities to pardon the convict and spare the convict’s life.
With rope broken Ryleyev, thinking he had been saved, stood up, looked at the crowd that had gathered to witness his execution and shouted: “You see, in Russia they don’t know how to do anything properly, even to make rope”. A messenger was sent to the Palace for the Czar to sign Ryleyev’s pardon.
The disappointed Czar was about to sign the pardon when he asked the messenger: “Did Ryleyev say anything about this miracle?”
“Sir, he said that in Russia they don’t even know how to make rope,” the messenger replied.
“In that case let us prove the contrary,” said the Czar as he tore up the pardon.
Ryleyev was hanged the next day and the rope held tight until he kicked the bucket.
Muckraker read that story from Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power. The anecdote accompanies Law 4: “Always say less than necessary”.
Ryleyev would have lived to see another day if only he kept his tongue on a short leash.
Did Muckraker hear you say qoi?
The story is not about what happened to a reckless mouth in Russia two centuries ago but what is happening to Knorx Molelle because of his mouth.
Muckraker’s grandfather used to say the three things that get a man in trouble are the mouth, the hands and the ‘member’. The hand does things to things and people. The mouth says things. And the ‘member’…we all know the David story. Molelle is a victim of his mouth.
Nka! Ichuuuuuuuuuuu!
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