An excellent editorial by political analyst Prince Mashele on the HRC ruling against the Forum for Black Journalists makes me sorry I didn’t post my position when the furore first broke. In my defence, I was swamped by a furore with white racists, not black racists, at the time.
2008
Posted inLifestyle, Media
The Will Ferrell Fan Club
I used to find Will Ferrell extremely irritating. All that posturing, those dumb voices, that enforced stupidity. But then I watched Stranger than Fiction, which immediately zoomed to one of my top three favourite movies of all time (and which was on M-Net last night, if anyone happened to see it). Will Ferrell in a […]
Posted inTech
Fun toys or maybe the next big technology thing
Watching what my younger daughter gets up to in geekland is always interesting. She is one of the early adopters of digital technology. Thanks to her, I have been a Twitter member since January 2007, months after she had joined, of course, and had a page on Facebook before most other old-timers. An iPhone made […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Life expectancy in Zimbabwe
Life expectancy for a woman in Zimbabwe is 34 years. So, if I were a Zimbabwean woman/statistic, I would have been dead for 16 years by now. I’d be a very faded memory, a big grin in a yellowing photo tucked into the dusty pages of a novel that no one had picked up for […]
Posted inLifestyle
Hippocrates and hypocrisy walk hand in hand in wellnessland
I have spent the past four years immersed in the alternative-health sector, becoming increasingly aware of the interconnectedness between food, environment and health. Over the next few months I want to explore some of these connections and invite a broader conversation. I don’t claim to be an expert. I’m just another web surfer vacuuming up […]
Posted inLifestyle
Fake crack for the elderly and a six-year-old sex offender: Bring back corporal punishment!
This week the Sowetan ran a poll to try to assess its readers’ views on the best way to ensure safety at schools — turns out that corporal punishment came romping in as the “weapon of choice”. Sucks to all of you who gave me an earful for daring to raise it on Thought Leader. […]
Posted inLifestyle
Positively positive
I am tired. Flippin’ tired — of all those folks who spend their days complaining, bitching, moaning, whining and whingeing about how bad it is in South Africa. A week or so ago, I had breakfast with a friend and her buddies. One of them — a platinum blonde with well-manicured French nails and a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Denying the denial
Ours is not a nation in denial. Sure, much has been said — and denied — about the president’s views on HIV and its causal link to Aids. Comparable stuff has been written about his views, and those of the Cabinet collective, on crime, corruption, energy and Zimbabwe. And until very recently, I subscribed to […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
The racism is in the reading
The “firing” of David Bullard has kept my mind busy all weekend because I have an uncomfortable sense that something is very wrong with the situation and its various interpretations. Aside from these concerns, something that concerns me even more is that I don’t feel safe writing this post because I suspect the same mindset […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Hey Bob! Don’t forget some other people who helped put you where you are
Dear Mr Mugabe Do you get the feeling you are running out of friends? Sure, Thabo and a few other leaders in the region who believe that friendship and old school ties are far more important than petty little considerations such as national interest and starvation are still holding your hand. It’s a friendship that […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
In defence of David Bullard …
(I must be out of my flippin’ tree! … Writing this particular blog, I mean. Might just as well swim out past the shark nets after acupuncture. Oh well, bring ’em on …) Let’s be perfectly clear on one thing. I do not particularly like David Bullard. I would not invite the man to dinner, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
All aboard Shabangu’s Bang Bang Club
After the startling success of her president’s Native Club (the koeksisters at their Tuynhuys imbizos were reputed to have been a particular hit), a deputy minister has made a desperate escape from obscurity with the launch of the Bang Bang Club. At the launch last night, Susan Shabangu’s corpulent beam — previously only seen framed […]