There is a temptation to see South Africa as a self-cannibalising charity case. Given the vast number of charitable causes, NGOs, NPOs and beggars on the streets, it seems everyone has a hand out. And given the ANC government’s appalling record on social upliftment issues from health to housing to employment, even the ordinary individual […]
Llewellyn Kriel
Posted inGeneral
Democracy — the South African version
I have taken enormous liberties with this blog. Liberties which I trust the original poet, a legend in his own lifetime and an enduring icon in my life, will forgive because I am unable to improve on his evocative, lyrical, astounding work. Along with Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, John Lennon, Carole […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Wanted: Lessons in what’s possible — contact Luthuli House
Just as physicists, astronomers, molecular biologists, mathematicians and the greatest minds in the world discover more and more bizarre and jaw-dropping new things in the macroverse and microverse, they are realising that fundamental laws of science remain incontrovertible and more sound than ever. Of course, they still battle to reconcile things that are mathematically proven, […]
Posted inMedia
Why aren’t we alive with probability?
South Africa — Alive with Possibility. So trumpets SA Info, self-proclaimed “gateway to the nation”, and echoed by Brand South Africa, “custodian” of SA’s image. SA Tourism opts for the slightly less in-your-face “It’s Possible”, but the theme remains common. It’s an alluring slogan. It speaks of vibrancy and vitality. It resonates with promise and […]
Posted inNews/Politics
SAA and Acsa’s secret 10 commandments finally unearthed
Having spent two-and-a-half hours wandering, lost, dazed, misdirected and alone, through the confusing labyrinthine catacombs of Ortia (m.c.k.a. Johannesburg International Airport) last night, I beg some wealthy and wise entrepreneur to urgently begin marketing a “Survivor SA” kit to save body, sanity and soul. The airport ordeal followed a horrendous 110-minute hellride from the West […]
Posted inGeneral
Hey, wena, what you got to say?
Many of Thought Leader’s regular bloggers worry whether the people who read these blogs actually do so with any measure of intellectual diligence. The cause for our concerns is the very low standard of almost half of the comments readers take the time to write. We often look at the garbled, nonsensical, immature inanities commentators […]
Posted inMedia
The unbearable fiction of facts
Don’t you find it amazing that in a country where people’s feelings, sensitivities, moods, prejudices and perceptions are such a dominant social phenomenon so little study is done into emotion? We are constantly hearing politicians, media analysts and every kind of researcher chirping on and on about facts and, in the process, decrying perceptions. I […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The first 100 days of what?
Who needs PR agencies or spin doctors? Certainly not Jacob Zuma, judging by the breathless adulation of the media yesterday. Even the opposition parties went a little gaga over the guy. You would have sworn Zuma had actually done something praiseworthy in the past three-and-a-half months. He has talked a lot, but he has done […]
Posted inGeneral
Something is wrong, very wrong
You know that numinous, uncomfortable feeling you get when you sense that something is very wrong? It kind of ties a knot in your belly just below your breastbone and sometimes even hurts at your temples and between your shoulder blades. Your brows involuntarily furrow and your eyes widen as your pulse quickens. And what’s […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Is this SA’s silence of the lambs?
It boggles even my mind how South Africans can be so docilely satisfied with the way things are. It defies comprehension by correspondents in Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, the US and Canada. Well, except for the vast and growing network of expats in some of those countries — they are […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Africa-time is alive and deadly as usual
Almost within minutes of moving into the White House, US President Barack Obama was issuing orders, addressing priorities and meeting ordinary Americans on their terms, in their towns and face to face. He even wrote a note for a 10-year-old girl to be excused from school for attending a town hall meeting with her dad. […]
Posted inBusiness, Media, Tech
Meet Al Caphone, capo de tutti capi of SA’s telecommunications cartel
In the past six months Vodacom made more than R14 billion, 12.2% better than it performed previously. While millions of South Africans suffer the very worst of the global economic crisis, it seems counter-intuitive that a telecommunications company can bask in that kind of profitability. This should spark great admiration. Until you come face to face […]