Highveld Stereo’s Darren “Wackhead” Simpson’s prank call to ANCYL president Julius Malema is all the proof that we will ever need that the Youth League leader has clearly been wasted on local politics. The time has surely come for him to be sent to Paris or Rome … or anywhere. Not since Grace “Raging Bull” […]
2009
Posted inLifestyle
Armed response … eventually
We were having after-dinner coffee with friends when my husband’s cellphone rang at eighteen minutes past ten. The signal was bad and he had trouble hearing what the caller was saying. “Is that ADT?” he asked, and my heart sank. The alarm had gone off, they said. The dinner party came to an abrupt end […]
Posted inLifestyle
Keepsakes from China
Keepsakes from China I. From Shaoxing City In The Food Market In the food mart the dusky frogs’ stomachs Are slit open, surrendering ruby. Their skins are waistcoats Unzipped to plunder the glistening fob watches And spilt moneybags of lungs, hearts and intestines. Their arms and legs stretch into martyrdom And culinary destiny. The table […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Israel vs Hamas: will it ever end?
The usual partisan articles and rallies have sprung up over the past few weeks regarding Israel’s devastating incursion into Gaza. The well worn labels of “terrorism”, “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” are being thrown around by people desperately trying to swing public perception favourably in one or another direction. Israel has been branded the heartless monster […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Irony and youth: warhorses for more virtuous politics
Submitted by Coenraad Bezuidenhout Activist filmmaker Michael Moore made three of the five highest grossing documentary films of all times (Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko). Most recently, he drew attention with a free, feature-length online release — one of the first by a known director. Slacker Uprising documents Moore’s personal 42-day, 62-city crusade […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Barack Obama and the burden to be great
Barack Obama expects to be great. Please allow me to digress before I delve into the reasons. Rarely has any American president inherited a country in such shambles. And so it is with great interest that the world looks at this defining moment in the history of America. Because, let’s face it, people generally have […]
Posted inNews/Politics
What “Yes We Can” means for SA
The one word that permeated President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech like a thunderclap n Washington DC yesterday was “Unity”. It and numerous synonyms created the touchstone in what authoritative pundits have called the “most important inaugural speech in American history”. And Barack touched it many, many times. He directly linked unity of purpose, of national […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Barack Obama’s new era of responsibility in a winter of hardship
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Displaced South Africans: Fish discover water last
The Chinese love doing the peace sign for photos: the index finger and forefinger held up like a pair of rabbit ears. Children use the sign and waggle the hand to show they are happy. It is even a way of saying hello. Sometimes the use of the gesture is deliciously resistant to meaning, or […]
Posted inGeneral
Smokers on Canderel and other random joys
When you border on extreme corpulence as I do, and happen to live and work in the most Godforsakenly humid environment outside the paedophile section of Hades, you and the water station tend to become very close mates. This is especially true when the air-conditioning is always kindly set to imitate the natural conditions outside. […]
Posted inLifestyle
Chopsticks and impromptu slapstick
I always love watching an unfortunate situation sneak up on an unsuspecting victim if it is going to be for my pleasure and amusement, but often it is only in retrospect that you realise just how utterly terrified the unfortunate victim was during the sequence of events leading to his comedic demise; only at the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Manuel, Zille and that little thing called the economy
When the ANC launched its elections manifesto recently, two senior South African politicians (Zille from that party of the rich and arrogant and the other, Trevor Manuel, from the ANC — monopoly capital’s new kid on the block) expressed their concern for this supposedly “left turn” of Zuma’s party. Now, it must be said: the […]