By Samantha Fleming Last week’s political fiascos (gosh, the choice of links is dazzling — Malema, Terre’Blanche, Visagie … or Malema?) brought a new kind of revolution to the social media landscape in South Africa. The frenzy of activity in a week of political theatrics brought new local subscribers to twitter and ramped up comments […]
2010
Posted inBusiness
‘Nikey’ and the price war
Prices lie. Well, at the best they tell a half truth, masking a lot of what the full cost of a particular product is. A price tag will tell you, for example, that the bottle of Coke you’re holding costs one thing, while in actual fact the real cost is usually far more. I am […]
Posted inBusiness
Cutting off the nose…
By Dave Harris Cutting off the nose to spite the face is exactly what the leadership of the Democratic Alliance (DA) leadership has been doing all along. The DA’s active lobbying against the $3.7 billion World Bank loan to SA has cleared all doubts as to whose interests the DA really serves — certainly not […]
Posted inLifestyle
Would you come to my terror camp?
I went for a run tonight. And I had a business idea. Terror camp. It is like one of those fitness boot camps. But run by jihadists. Now before you click on the home button or do something silly like go read an article about Juju or ET, let me lay this plan out for […]
Posted inGeneral
Eugene and Malema, sitting in a tree…
Right-wingers continue to huddle and mutter about Armageddon. The Youth are supposedly led by a confused victim of social Down’s syndrome, and homosexuality has never had such a bad month. Ricky Martin and ET? Ouch. Obviously, the local crime scene experts have never watched CSI — letting an imaginary condom vanish, and failing to notice […]
Posted inGeneral
How many black intellectuals would it take to change the light bulb in Steve’s head?
The realisation hit me around one o’clock in the morning, as we were jiving to the crazy guitar notes of a hastily assembled jam outfit called “The Albert Frost Trio” in the packed auditorium of the so-called “Club Al Capone” at the KKNK festival last Thursday night. I had accompanied my friend Theresho to the […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
‘I’m South African Neutral’ and what it really means
Being a South African over the past few weeks has been a turbulent experience. The excitement of the looming Fifa World Cup has been tempered by a degree of racial polarisation not seen since the apartheid era. Instigated largely by Julius Malema’s inflammatory style and culminating in the murder of Eugene Terre’Blanche, this polarisation has […]
Posted inLifestyle
In defence of bread
You may have come across Michael Pollan’s book In Defence of Food, a wry and fascinating critique of the dangers of the ideology of nutritionism where we hapless and relentless seekers of good health (or is it really immortality?) spend our lives sacrificing taste and joy for recommended daily allowances of vitamins and minerals; where […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Around the world with Malema and Terre’Blanche
Upon finding out that I was going overseas last Thursday (April 8 2010) a friend suggested that I was fleeing from Terre’Blanche and Malema. I wish I could have. Terre’Blanche and Malema have haunted my brief traverse through three countries. From the other side of the grave, Terre’Blanche crawled into the TV screen in my […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Political parties must stay out of business
So former Eskom chairperson Valli Moosa, under whose watch the ANC entered into a dubious deal linked to the building of the Medupi coal power station, has asked for a post-facto national debate on whether political parties should enter into business. Well, the debate has been raging for a while now since this shameful revelation. […]
Posted inLifestyle
Caution: This will make your eyes water
This weekend I ended up in the emergency room thanks to a contact lens. The simplest way to explain why is to declare upfront that I am an export grade idiot. Simply put, contact lenses and I are not a good combination. Over the years, I’ve had some eye-watering experiences with these slippery little pieces […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Cosatu vs ANC
Tripartite alliance partner Cosatu has once again advised the African National Congress that the centre of power should be the alliance and not the ANC. This coming at a time when Cosatu and the SACP are frustrated by the lack of material leftward movement on economic policy by the government and not having a substantial […]