While reading an interview with Barry Hilton, the following revelations about his marriages caught my eye: “Then after I wrote off marriage and cursed it I met my darling Sandy, who is 19 years my junior, but you’d swear she is the older one in the relationship,” he told the interviewer. “When she met me […]
2009
Posted inNews/Politics
Balfour must fall on his sword over Shaik
If ever a government and a ruling party was capable of getting foot and mouth disease then the ANC and South Africa has to be it. Sometimes it gets so bad that it seems as if the only time that they open their mouths is to change feet. The Balfour-Shaik-Zuma debacle being the latest offering. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
All I’ve got is a vote for the Soccer Party
When Tony Leon left, the DA had a golden opportunity to re-position itself as an African party, or at the very least the kind of party that recognises the importance of an African identity. But they chose Helen Zille. Now some people love Helen, but to me she is the living embodiment of the dangers […]
Posted inGeneral
Are Cape theatres alive with the sound of racism?
Being in the New Space Theatre for the first time since the old New Space closed nearly three decades ago — and only hours after reading Sandile Memela’s indictment of supposedly racist Cape theatre — had me wondering about his diatribe and the state of protest theatre right now. (Yes, I know, what protest theatre? […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Dalai Lama debacle as a case study on SA foreign policy
On May 28 last year, Washing Post columnist, Michael Gerson coined a phrase which is finding increasing resonance in the international corridors of power: “Whatever the reasons, South Africa increasingly requires a new foreign policy category: the rogue democracy. Along with China and Russia, South Africa makes the United Nations impotent. Along with Saudi Arabia […]
Posted inLifestyle
My favourite Bible story: Mayhem at the temple
[Disclaimer: If you’re a religious nut who gets offended easily, please sit this one out.] Being the irrational believer in God that I am, I do actually believe that the Holy Bible is the word of God. Perhaps not always in the strictest literal sense, which is probably where the Rev Benny Hinn and I […]
Posted inGeneral
Now I really want the 2010 World Cup to fail!
Every great multinational sports match, from annual events such as Formula 1, the Super 14 and TriNations, the Uefa Champions League soccer, the tennis Grand Slam and the barrage of golf tournaments, to quadrennial events such as the Olympics, the Rugby World Cup and the Soccer World Cup, has long been tainted by the stain […]
Posted inGeneral
The Pope is in my bedroom again
Religion and those who make a living out of pandering its simplistic and defunct notions are unable to stay out of our bedrooms it seems. The Pope has recently hit headlines again with his decree that HIV “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”. People like to have sex. […]
Posted inGeneral
Julius fails Rhodes
“Julius Malema is a bit of an idiot,” claimed Jonathan Griffiths, a cartoonist and Rhodes student, while waiting outside the General Lecture Theatre for the 5pm lecture by ANC Youth League national chairman Julius Malema at Rhodes University on Thursday March 19. By 4.45pm already, dozens of students were gathered at the entrance of the […]
Posted inGeneral
Saffron robes and sackcloth
You have to wonder what liberation really meant for the ANC if the organisation can bar one of the world’s greatest beacons of freedom and enlightenment so as not to offend a repressive but powerful regime. You have to wonder whether it was more about achieving power than attaining freedom. There are a few rare […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Of Cape, coup and country
Submitted by Fran Blandy It is still a mystery what caused the fire leaving Cape Towns’ glorious centrepiece a giant piece of rather misshapen charcoal, but I suspect greater more noble forces at work. Self-immolation, considered by Buddhists to be the ultimate form of sacrifice, is the rather violent practice of setting yourself on fire, […]
Posted inGeneral
Dalai Lama: Do I feel guilty?
While studying in Delhi some years back, the sociology department organised a “study trip” for our class to the north Indian hill station town Dharamsala, where his holiness, the Dalai Lama has lived in exile for the last five decades along with about 8 000 Tibetan refugees. Like most “study trips”, there was no studying as […]