Margaret Atwood wrote: “Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like paté.” She continued by saying “that’s a light enough comment upon the disappointments of encountering the famous, or even the moderately well known — they are always shorter and older and more […]
Charlene Smith
Charlene Smith is a multi-award-winning journalist, author and media consultant. She has had 14 books published, one of which was shortlisted for an Alan Paton award.
Television documentaries for which she has worked have also won awards.
She has worked as a broadcast journalist and radio-station manager. Smith's areas of expertise are politics, economics, women's and children's issues and HIV. She lives and works in Cambridge, USA.
Posted inBusiness, General, Lifestyle, Media, News/Politics
Hope returns: Obama’s victory and global politics
Damn, I love Americans. Just when you’ve written them off as hopeless, as a nation in decline, they turn around and do something extraordinary, which tells you why the United States of America is still the greatest nation on earth. But too, what is happening in America and Kenya holds lessons for politicians everywhere, and […]
Posted inBusiness, General, Lifestyle, News/Politics
Talent is the new oil — why SA is running on empty
“Talent is the new oil and demand far outstrips supply,” executive search firm Heldrick & Struggles, in partnership with the Economist intelligence unit, noted in its Global Talent Index released late last year. But South Africa is getting it wrong if it wants to become globally competitive.
Posted inBusiness, General, Lifestyle, News/Politics, Tech
Ten Predictions for 2008
Hillary Clinton will become the 44th US president on November 4 2008 and if she is wise and the world is fortunate she will select Barack Obama as her vice-president or appoint him to a senior position dealing with internal US policies. The world will shift intense and expensive efforts focused on HIV and Aids […]
Posted inBusiness, General, News/Politics
Matric results: Fire Naledi Pandor
Polokwane taught us that South Africans are tired of promises and of people with posh voices telling us what to do and doing nothing themselves. We begin 2008 with dreadful matric results — 21 500 young people failed in Gauteng alone. How is that possible in the wealthiest, best resourced province in Africa?
Posted inBusiness, General, Lifestyle
Service in South Africa: Heroes and zeros
South Africa has one of the worst service ethoses in the world. I’m trying to think which nation in the world that I have travelled to is worse and can’t. And yes, I deliberately avoid Nigeria, there is just so much trauma I’m prepared to experience in one lifetime.
Posted inLifestyle
Letting the sky into your heart
It’s Christmas and I’m tired of politics, I want to inject some meaning into my life. It’s fashionable to scoff at Christmas but I’m impressed by the way Muslims respect Ramadan, Jews observe Hanukah and the Passover, and Hindus celebrate Diwali and Holi, because these special times are designed to make us pull back and […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Today is the first day of our democracy
Today is the first day of our democracy. Polokwane has been seminal. The African National Congress is no longer an idealised liberation movement, but is now just a political party and as such it has to pull finger and perform. Effective work must begin to balance the interests of the rich and the poor. It […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Hamba Mbeki! Welcome, hope
It’s raining in Johannesburg. In Africa, we believe rain is a blessing, that it cleanses, brings new life. This week African National Congress delegates at Polokwane make the most important political decision the movement has taken since 1956 when it voted to allow white members, and pan-Africanists under Robert Sobukwe broke away. In the same […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Right or left? The arm struggle and Polokwane’s choice
Ever heard yourself say: “Could Zimbabweans not have read the writing on the wall?” What are South Africans waiting for, a plane to write it on the sky? Simply put, the choice at Polokwane is: Would it be better to remove my left arm or my right arm? Pundits have proclaimed Jacob Zuma is better; […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Where the truth lies: South Africa’s crime statistics
This week a guard starts patrolling the beautiful, tree-lined street in which I live. Since January there have been 13 criminal incidents, including five armed robberies and five house-breakings, in our block of 20 houses. A woman was badly beaten in one incident and needed 13 stitches in her head. There has not been a […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
How can we save polar bears if we can’t even protect Cape Town’s pelicans?
One person can’t make a difference. So my mother used to say, but being a parent, she was wrong, of course. But without misguided parents, there would be no psychiatric industry. Pharmaceutical companies would not earn zillions by persuading us that sadness and disillusionment are unnatural and if we only take a tab a day, […]