Reverend Theunis Botha has taken President Jacob Zuma to task for ancestral worship practices which he suggests are a primary cause of Africa’s failure to advance beyond superstition and poverty rather than colonialism. The leader of the Christian Democratic Party described Zuma’s traditional wedding to his fifth wife, Thobeka Madiba, as a “giant step back […]
2010
Posted inMedia
Bono vs The internet
The interwebs were buzzing angrily yesterday because of something Bono* said. Bono, remember him? He’s the frontman for that famous Irish rock band U2. In a recent op-ed piece for the New York Times, he suggested that the net should be policed to a certain extent to stop what he dubbed reverse Robin Hooding. He […]
Posted inGeneral
Potholes: The solution to our speeding problem
I think I may have come up with a solution to South Africa’s endemic speeding problem. It’s not billboards reminding the poephol in the Porsche screaming by at 190kmh that speed kills. It’s not speed cameras, or Metro Cops sleeping next to the road at regular intervals. No, the solution is much, much simpler. All […]
Posted inBusiness
How to bridge the promises and results gap
The strategy discipline, in all its manifestations, has grown in popularity, stature and usage, especially considering the fact that Peter Drucker was forced to change the title of his book from “Business Strategies” to Managing for Results partly because then strategy was deemed to belong to the military or perhaps political campaigns but not to […]
Posted inGeneral
No new light, just recycled trash: Anthea Jeffery’s People’s War
Anthea Jeffery commits 634 pages to a study of the “people’s war” in the South African context in an attempt to debunk what she claims to be a false conception of how the ANC gained power, the nature of the political violence that characterised South Africa from the 1980s up to 1994, and a special […]
Posted inGeneral
A multifaceted mirror for individuals (1)
In Either/Or, Volumes I and II, Kierkegaard constructs different models of human existence. They seem to be primarily intended by him as mirrors in which his readers may recognise themselves, or as fictions which could function as indications of different ways in which individuals may live their lives, with a view to highlighting the implications […]
Posted inGeneral
Proteas must believe again
Sport, being the great equaliser that it is, simply waits for no man and respects no reputations. This time last year, the world was Graeme Smith’s oyster as he led a team brimming with talent, luck and confidence to burst Australia’s bubble in unforgettable fashion in their own backyards. But was it unforgettable? Certainly for […]
Posted inGeneral
2009: What did we learn?
2009 revealed some incredible things to the ordinary person. It was a startling year jam packed with scandal, drama and some serious historical events. A blog is just too short to list all of them, so excuse the number of links here. Hope you enjoy. We learnt that… Nothing is impossible. Nobody is predictable. Nobody […]