I just had to laugh! Australian Rugby kicking coach and former rugby league star Andrew Johns was arrested this week in London for possession of an Ecstasy tablet. The unlucky bugger got caught in a random search by London police. The part that had me in hysterics, though, was the spin-doctoring by Johns’s management who […]
2007
Posted inLifestyle, Tech
Facebook: None dare call it Web 2.0
The most visible evidence of the rise of Web 2.0, or at least the social media and social networking that tends to define it, is the astronomical growth of Facebook. Many Web 2.0 role players, including some prospective members of the Amablogoblogo, reject Facebook as a member of the Web 2.0 family, because it makes […]
Posted inGeneral
Zuma, the monster, does not exist
Angry groupings of Africans chanting struggle songs and shouting “Amandla!” have always invoked fear in the hearts and minds of the elite or cabals that defend unfair systems of government celebrating inequality as normalcy. Armed with heavy military artillery, young recruits in the South African Defence Force and the police trembled with fear as thousands […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Yet another empty promise
On Thursday, BBC News published an article titled “Bush marks two years from Katrina” where US President George Bush promises an audience at a New Orleans school flooded in 2005 that “better days are ahead”. Isn’t that the exact same message — now without the strong rhetoric produced by his republican spin machine — many […]
Posted inGeneral
Science is a lot of hocus-pocus. Ask Mark Shuttleworth
It’s almost been a year since The-Dwarf-Planet-Formerly-Known- As-Planet-Pluto was exposed as a fraud. On August 24 2006, 2 500 scientists congregated on a convention centre in Prague, the Czech Republic, and voted on Pluto’s planetary status. Yes, you read correct: THEY VOTED. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/5282440.stm And now it’s a done deal. Pluto is not a planet. And that’s […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The ANC: The end of the empire or just annus horribilis?
Since the end of the first decade of freedom in 2004, many political commentators have been looking for signs of that watershed moment when the ANC electorate stops voting solely for the party of their liberation, and starts voting for the party of their relevance. The ANC has traditionally gained from being the instrument of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mbeki’s inbox: Part 2
I see in this week’s Mail & Guardian that the paper decided to take my post from Thought Leader and expand on it a bit, with some help of two of their journos (check out page four of the paper). While all that was going on, I was sent another screen grab from the president’s […]
Posted inGeneral
Is it possible that crime is good?
We’ve all heard, ad nauseum, the analysis of how terrible crime is, and how it’s wrecking South Africa, chasing away tourists and creating a general lawlessness in our society. But what benefit does crime bring to the South African economy? For a few years now, I’ve been tossing out this question as soon as I […]
Posted inLifestyle
The ‘not so handy’ man
Sometimes I feel I’ve been sold short by my dogged pursuit to become that elusive and sought-after creature — the modern man. I’ve come a long way in recent years. I’ve personally supported my wife through three home births, can change a nappy in my sleep and even listen to Dolly Parton (when my mates […]
Posted inLifestyle
Full-contact learning
In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned find themselves equipped to live in a world which no longer exists. — Eric Hoffer Almost all grown-ups living on the planet today were shoved, compressed and packaged through production-line education by well-meaning adults, who knew no better what […]
Posted inLifestyle
What if you and a porn star share the same name?
My name is Eve Dmochowska, and trust me, there are a lot of downsides to that name. How do you pronounce that? How do you spell it? Is it Russian? (I think I am the only one who knows the answer to all three questions) But the upside is that www.evedmochowska.com was available, and that […]
Posted inGeneral
Don’t keep working class real
You might not have noticed, but the Mail & Guardian is increasingly accused of abandoning its leftist leanings. Now, I am not one to pronounce on the ideological shifts of newspapers or whether they are correct. I do know, though, that there appears to be a romantic view about what it means to be a […]