The good news is that the South African government and Eastern Cape government, along with the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, have collectively spent R2 billion in developing a magnificent and spectacular multipurpose sports facility in the Eastern Cape for soccer and rugby. This excludes the billions going into support infrastructures to ensure the stadium becomes an […]
2009
Posted inLifestyle
Apparently, I have no fashion sense
A few weeks ago I was invited to an ANC election rally in Sandton’s trendy Taboo nightclub. I think they called the rally the Fikile Mbalula Birthday Bash. I went because I can’t resist free beer. Also, the Afro-pop songstress Kelly Khumalo was performing there. I like looking at listening to her. Because the invite […]
Posted inGeneral
Old South African flag must be banned
As I celebrated the emphatic victory of the Blue Bulls over the Chiefs on Saturday, a bad taste was left in my mouth when I saw an old South African flag waving in the stadium. That flag is right up there with the use of the word “kaffir” as far as I’m concerned. If you […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The new morality? Selling Mandela’s ‘funeral viewing rights’
Everything in our age has become a product. Now the news has broken that television rights to view Nelson Mandela’s funeral have allegedly been bought by the SABC, I have realised, even more, that everything is marketable. Is there any longer a distinction between the marketable and the sacrosanct? If they were collected, warehouses would […]
Posted inGeneral
Personality development: The schooling of our future?
This comment was shared with me last night: “With the ever-increasing amount of graduates coming out of university and the shortage of jobs to be filled, we are faced with many people with the same qualifications competing for very few positions.” So what will differentiate the candidates from each other in such a way that […]
Posted inGeneral
Racing through Rhodes
With a month and a half to go before one of the top trail runs on the SA calendar kicks off in the snow fields of Rhodes, last years adventures are a reminder of how frosty it gets in sunny SA … It is the day before the Rhodes Trail Run and we are sitting […]
Posted inGeneral
Zim government of national unity a failure
Let’s face it: more than three months since its inception, Zimbabwe’s so-called government of national unity is a failure. This is a unity government in all but name. Oppression and coercion is embedded within its architecture, with the impotent opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) serving as little more than a legitimising mechanism for ruling […]
Posted inGeneral
Will mobile applications kill Web 2.0 freebies?
Since the launch of the iPhone, the application development scene for mobile handsets has gone ballistic. My history is most likely wrong, so don’t be pedantic, but Symbian and Windows Mobile drove the mobile application market with its Java and Win32-driven applications way way back in the day when phones first added cameras in the […]
Posted inGeneral
Is there really a ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’ point of view?
“If you’re a university student and you’re not a communist, start worrying. And if you’ve left university and you’re still a communist, start worrying,” someone once told me. In my case, there was no cause for anxiety. At university, I initially drifted into a lukewarm flirtation — including a bizarre and mercifully brief championing of […]
Posted inGeneral
Professor De Vos vs David Bullard…where’s Qwelane?
Professor Pierre de Vos is an expert on constitutional law at the University of the Western Cape while Dave Bullard is a professor of street smarts from the university of life. As a huge fan of both I was intrigued to see the professor respond to David’s column on “The new media racists” with one […]
Posted inSport
Blue Bulls batter Chiefs
Jacob Zuma — in the finest tradition of South African presidents confirming the support of a nation for the country’s top athletes — wished the players well and assured them that they had their countrymen behind them. Zuma magic, like that of former president’s Mandela and Mbeki before him, worked wonders at what had been […]
Posted inLifestyle
SA: Best place for kids to grow up
I’ve met many people who have left South Africa or are planning to leave because of their kids. I think it’s a lousy reason. It’s seldom about the children and even if it was, it’s a mistake. Our children get more out of growing up in South Africa than they would in some safe little […]