You think we have problems? 

Ok, we do. There was a guy called Murphy – why are they always Irish? – who once predicted “if anything can go wrong, it will.” And that’s happening right now in Malaysia with a vengeance. There are over 3,000 Covid-19 cases currently in the country, and, at the time of writing, 50 have died.

And yes, we have some ministers who think that it’s OK to pander to some man’s sexist and misogynistic ideas of how women should behave and then attempt to pass it off as a national ideal. Alas, we also do have many holier-than-thou people continuing to urge congregational prayer when all the warnings scream against gatherings in large numbers.  

Whatever happened to “God helps those who help themselves”? 

On the other hand, we don’t have a leader who first downplays the pandemic and, on grudgingly accepting its reality, insists on having his say over the arguments of his scientists. It easily might have been worse: we might have had a stable genius at our helm. 

At a time of great national distress, at a time when the United States has the greatest number of infections in the world, at a time when Washington’s Governor is contemplating lockdown, there is this….

…A resident of Washington in the US was arrested following a high-speed chase that left officers dumbfounded after they found the man’s pit bull behind the wheel.

The incident unfolded early in the week after police received calls about a driver hitting two vehicles in an area south of Seattle and then speeding away, state trooper Heather Axtman told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

She said the emergency services subsequently got multiple calls about a car traveling erratically at more than 100 miles per hour (160 kilometres per hour). It transpired later that only people already exceeding the speed limit were the ones calling because they deemed the driver reckless after he’d passed them. 

Axtman said that as officers gave chase, they got close to the vehicle — a 1996 Buick — and were shocked to see a pit bull in the driver’s seat and a man steering and pushing the gas pedal from the passenger side.

The pursuit ended after police deployed spike strips and arrested 51-year-old Alberto Tito Alejandro, who was booked on multiple felonies including driving under the influence of drugs. Mr Alberto said when Raphael, the canine suspect, asked for driving lessons, he did not want to stand in its way. 

The police also noted grimly that Mr Alberto was a cab driver in real life which only went to show that practice did not make perfect. He’d also made the error that all gullible dog lovers do: the fact that your dog thinks you are smart is not conclusive evidence that you are. 

Actually, he seemed to be about as smart as the President.  

“When we took him into custody… he admitted to our troopers that he was trying to teach his dog to drive,” Axtman said. “I’ve been a trooper for almost 10 years, and I’ve had a lot of excuses when I’ve arrested people or pulled people over, but I’ve never had an excuse that the dog was driving.” 

Axtman said she had only one objection against the driver, a female pit bull. Apparently, she’d been on the phone when she was pulled over. 

Maybe it was true what they say: life was a bitch and then you had puppies.