From chapter one of the DA’s manifesto, pages nine and 10 of “21941 DA Manifesto Eng.pdf” Only when the people of South Africa can vote freely for the public representatives of their choice, and demand that those who are elected put their personal interests aside and act only in the voters’ interests, will our democracy […]
2009
Posted inGeneral
Super 14: Are we looking at the semifinalists?
Now the drama starts to increase after 23% of the competition has passed us by. All visiting teams won their matches except for the Cheetahs. The top three — the Bulls, Waratahs and Sharks — have won all three of their games and the last 3 — the Chief, Highlanders and Cheetahs — have lost […]
Posted inLifestyle
Coffee and tik and a desperate shot at getting it right
Miles has learnt to hate Cape Town. Where the rest of us see the beauty, the splendour, the Cape Town of tourists marvelling at its wonders, he sees the depravity of its underbelly. He sees the lice and smells the rancid odour of nights in a sordid Somalian backpackers. Sitting in the passenger seat of […]
Posted inBusiness
Bribery and corruption
Why did graft become just another line item at a world class company?
Posted inGeneral
Trust me
Do you have faith in internet content? As search marketing soars, insidious content spammers are overwhelming and choking the net. Only a return to value will restore the balance. I love Seth Godin. Who doesn’t? The best-selling author and Business Week’s “ultimate entrepreneur for the information age” is a smart guy. A genius who tells […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
South Africa first, but I’m voting ANC
South Africans are heading for probably their most important election since 1994 when voting in the next government in April 2009. Unlike the post-apartheid elections — which simply confirmed what we have always known — that the majority would endorse the liberation party, this time the electorate will give us a clearer indication of where […]
Posted inGeneral
The woman who mooned the Queen Mary 2
I was sitting on a lawn in Sydney’s botanical gardens, trying to fit the whole of the Queen Mary 2 in my camera lens, when the woman in front of me started to take her clothes off. I first noticed her when I chose my spot on the slopes opposite the wharf where the world’s […]
Posted inGeneral
What’s colour to a blind man?
As a UCT student in ’88, I once lived in a commune which included a blind man. His name was Ivan and we often chatted in the kitchen while we made our separate lunches. Once Ivan said to me, “I went to see a movie the other week in Claremont, it was really interesting”. “Oh, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
A detailed review of the DA’s manifesto
Page 1 — It is clear that the DA’s new iconography and message were borrowed from the Obama campaign in the United States, with a little inspiration from the PSL. (minus two points) Page 2 — Isn’t it a crime to distort and deface the flag of a country, even if you are simply trying […]
Posted inGeneral
ANC, DA and Cope nursery rhymes for the elections
Over my bank manager’s dead body will I be putting up with soppy TV adverts of the party faithful waffling the same old tired garbage at us day in and day out. The adverts will feature party hacks extolling the virtues of some really shady looking characters and expecting us to believe how much these […]
Posted inGeneral
Five amazing mobile projects
At the Web4Dev conference in New York I met with the founders, inventors and creators of some pretty amazing mobile-for-development projects. Below are my top five with some thoughts on how they could be used for education. Ushahidi Ushahidi — which means “testimony” in Swahili — is a free, open-source platform to crowdsource crisis information. […]
Posted inGeneral
Men of God … and state?
It would seem that political leadership, suddenly, is being engineered in such a way to reveal the supposedly gentle, caring, uncorrupted and revolutionary face of a modern-day Jesus Christ. I don’t know what we should make of this development where men of God, mostly, who dress in the white collar are rushing to become the […]