In her fascinating and important study Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (1995), Sherry Turkle — professor of the sociology of science at MIT (at the time) and cyber-psychoanalytical theorist — explores the social and psychological effects of the internet on its users. One of her startling findings is that […]
2007
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
Hawkers: I admire their spirit
Hawkers: the guys who are at almost every single robot at which you stop; the reason you keep your windows rolled up and enjoy your air conditioning. I spend a considerable amount of time in traffic, like every other Johannesburg resident. The one thing that never ceases to amaze me is the spirit of these […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Aids, poverty and racism: A further complicity of opposites
As I pointed out in my last post, “Gevisser on Aids”, the Aids-drug lobby (which has long overstated the centrality of antiretroviral treatment in an effective Aids policy for Africa) join in a complicity of opposites with the Aids denialists (who deny that HIV causes Aids and that Aids exists) when it comes to President […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The politics of redistribution
What does it mean to govern effectively in a highly unequal society? The African National Congress answer to this question is that governing is about “advancing the national democratic revolution”. At its essence, the NDR is about changing social and economic conditions created under apartheid, through tackling structural nature of poverty, inequality and unemployment. There […]
Posted inTech
Facebook winner but broadband loser
If Facebook is revealing about individuals, it is no less so about countries. South Africa may have startled the world with the number of its people engaged in social networking, but now it can offer as much of a surprise about the quality of our broadband connections to the internet. First, an update on the […]
Posted inGeneral
David Irving and Nick Griffin must be allowed to speak
There is no question that David Irving, the convicted Holocaust denier, and Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, espouse views that are abhorrent and even dangerous. There is also no question of my distancing myself unequivocally from their views. Notwithstanding, they have been invited to address a debate on free speech at Oxford […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Palestinian peace in our time?
If you want to know why you should not take seriously reports promising that the US “peace initiative” in Annapolis will end conflict in the Middle East, it may be useful to recall something of our own journalistic past. During the height of apartheid, some of our newspapers had a stock headline they would trot […]
Posted inGeneral
The trouble with blogs
The trouble with blogs is that you have to be opinionated. That is, you have to have opinions. And observations. And comments. And when you live your life (as I do) in a charming little bubble far removed from current affairs, the news, sport, politics, business and all other Opinionated Sectors, it becomes a bit […]
Posted inGeneral
‘Never’ is a dangerous word to use
Just to have some fun, here are some predictions by more or less famous people about all sorts of things. One thing this list teaches us is to be careful when saying “never”! When I wrote an article on the death of the PC, several people shot back at me that the PC would never […]
Posted inLifestyle, Tech
‘Never’ is a dangerous word to use
Just to have some fun, here are some predictions by more or less famous people about all sorts of things. One thing this list teaches us is to be careful when saying “never”! When I wrote an article on the death of the PC, several people shot back at me that the PC would never […]
Posted inSport
Gary Bailey and the sycophants! The Man United story
If there’s one thing that is guaranteed to get me going, it’s a season-long attack on Derby County. My form, every time I turn on to SuperSport 3 to watch Derby being whupped by somebody, I get Bailey and his sycophants going on about “the worst team since the Triassic … most pathetic effort ever […]
Posted inLifestyle
Medical aid to die for
You know all those stories about near-death experiences? The loooong passage, the beckoning figure silhouetted against a bright light at the end of the tunnel … Well, that wasn’t exactly my experience, but it came close, even though I was nowhere near dying — I simply had a broken wrist after tossing my KLR into […]