2010

The last twenty years have seen the death of intellectual debate in South Africa. In the book The Poverty of Ideas, edited by William Mervin Gumede and Leslie Dikeni, a set of authors mourn this death by tackling head on the uncomfortable issue of the “devaluation of ideas in the public sphere in post-apartheid South […]

So what is my opinion of the iPad? Well first off, I do like it. Despite all its shortcomings, I think it might be a game-changing device. I read somewhere that the iPhone should be renamed the iPad Nano. And that might be a very apt description, seeing as the iPad is actually very similar […]

In my last post, I placed Cameron’s Avatar in the interpretive framework of eco-political thought and practice. One could approach it in different ways, too, of course, one of which is to look at its interesting configuration of the relation between myth and science, which is also related to what I said before about the […]

I find that far too many people crave social attention and desire praise for any little thing they do. This is a serious problem that perhaps reveals deep-seated feelings of inferiority and self-doubt. It has bred a culture of sucking up where people go out of their way to please or gain the approval of […]

Some of our campuses are on fire with predominantly black students running amok, again. The deep rumbles of discontent on these campuses like the Tshwane University of Technology, for instance, can easily be mistaken for a yearning for access to education and training, if you like. As much as this government is committed to opening […]

I never believed Sonono Khoza. Not because I thought that she deliberately lied about having sexual relations with President Jacob Zuma or because the issue of sleeping with a married man, especially a president, is trivial. I did not believe her because she seemed to be denying the obvious to the wrong people, at the […]

Source : Sapa /dbm/tk An email joke doing the rounds at the moment is titled “An incredible story of luck and inspiration for us all!” It shows a picture of an extremely ugly, fat man with a gorgeous blonde clinging to him. Let’s call them Simon and Gwen. Simon is a cultural stereotype of ugliness. […]