I work in an industry renowned for bullshit artistry. We’re in the business of selling after all, and it’s our primary function to create and influence perceptions; perception, as we all know, is reality. While we’re at it, we may produce communication that is brilliant, concise and stands the test of time (some of it […]
2010
Posted inLifestyle
F*** her and her violated vagina — an ode to commenters on TL
To all of you who go on about women having equal rights, this is for you. To all of you who condemn feminism and liken it to an impediment, this is for you. To all of you who think your children will be fine growing up in a society that espouses violence against women, and […]
Posted inNews/Politics
‘It’s the ANC that decides, not the youth league’
After a national general council, which can only be described as a triumph for South African and African National Congress President Jacob Zuma, the party returns to business-as-usual on Monday. It goes without saying that the ANC has done a lot of soul-searching — following the insurrection that was gaining momentum within the party — […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The ANC’s young lions get mauled
Junior needs a good caning in the headmaster’s study rather than just a public slap. Already, by the end of the week, Malema was again causing trouble.
Posted inGeneral
Choice in relationships, and the price people pay
In her incisive book, Choice (2010) Renata Salecl — colleague of redoubtable philosopher and psychoanalytical theorist, Slavoj Zizek, and a formidable thinker in her own right — probes what she calls the “tyranny of choice” in the present era. Everywhere we turn in our capitalist society (which thrives on variety), we are confronted by a […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
I’m weeping for our rhinos
Twenty. That’s how many rhino are being lost to South Africa every month through poaching. A creature that first emerged during the Eocene and lumbered through the aeons to walk the Earth today is being shot and hacked in numbers that are truly terrifying. The horn that makes it among the most distinctive creatures on […]
Posted inGeneral
Ink
I’m at the tattoo parlour, mulling over why the baby didn’t make it. It crosses my mind, all things considered, that it’s because there is a God, and not because there isn’t one. The man finishing off is large and parades his tribal lines as if they’re his. Paris Hilton has adopted 20 rabbits. They […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Booted out of school for speaking Xhosa?
Sixteen-year-old Luthando Nxasana was allegedly asked to leave a class at Roosevelt High in Johannesburg for speaking Xhosa. This, on the face of it, sounds scandalous and has managed to make news internationally. But it becomes less scandalous when one realises that the class she was attending was given in the medium of another language, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Make Poverty History (Bono Remix)
Despite what John Pilger, or any other investigative journalist might have to say, I have always been a big U2 fan. I was hooked with Sunday Bloody Sunday back when Radio 5’s Barney Simon would play it practically every night, along with The Cure and other alternative gems. By the time I made it out […]
Posted inBusiness
Investee cynicism won’t help us
As a university student, I often mistook cynicism for being smart. “I abhor enthusiasm”, I would say, puffing a cigarette while ogling the “sheep” around me sent hoop-jumping by the “pseudo-academics” at the “employment shelter” I called my university. Just as I learnt that smoking can seriously dent your health, I also discovered that such […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Gender equality an unrealistic dream for SADC
Gender-based violence (GBV) is not a single crime committed in a vacuum. It is committed daily and targets “women, gay men, lesbians, transgenders, transsexuals, intersex, girls [and] boys”. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Gender Protocol [1] signed by all states except Mauritius and Botswana [2] states that GBV “Means all acts perpetrated against women, […]
Posted inLifestyle
Rapists are not monsters, they are men
Discussions about rape and rapists often seem to end up in the declaration that rapists are monsters. They are evil beasts who prey on women and children. Often they are spoken about as sub-human, or not human at all, they are animals. I disagree. For starters the discourse of rapists as monsters has the effect […]