By Brendah Nyakudya As a thirty-something born and raised in Zimbabwe, my generation had it easier than most. We could be termed the first fruits of freedom, the first generation to be raised in an independent Zimbabwe, a liberated land brimming with hope, excitement and possibility. The war for independence in the 70s was a […]
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Posted inLifestyle
Divided we stand
By Michael Baillie The idea of individualism is not new. What is new, however, is the importance and prestige attached to one’s individuality. We are constantly told to embrace it and to relish in our uniqueness. It’s a message pumped out by the mass media that is both insidious and ubiquitous: you are your own […]
Posted inGeneral
Google vs China
By Richard Catto This month Google announced via its official blog that it would no longer be co-operating with China over the issue of filtering search engine results on Google.cn (which is the localised Chinese version of Google’s search engine). If this was not acceptable to the Chinese government, Google would close its Chinese offices […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Beware the gay-bashing evangelicals
By Richard Kaplan There comes a moment in every young gay man’s life when he has the awful realisation that no matter how hard he tries, he will not become the president, the pope or the chief rabbi. This is followed by the second great realisation that at some stage he will have to tell […]
Posted inLifestyle
Doctor, doctor
By T Osiame Molefe Hello…my name is Osiame and I am a self-diagnosed chronic cyberchondriac. *Pause for group reply* It has been a day since I googled my last set of symptoms. Needless to say, despite the radiating headache and short-term memory loss, I discovered that I do not suffer from encephalitis as I self-diagnosed. […]
Posted inGeneral
A Shaiky start to 2010
By Richard Kaplan As the old year ended, Schabir Shaik was again spotted shopping in one of death row’s supermarkets. In the new year, he will presumably continue with this terminal preoccupation until he is struck down by a sudden surge of blood pressure. And while his good friend Jacob Zuma has ascended to high […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The war on counterfeit drugs
By Franklin Cudjoe and Julian Harris Deadly new mutations of diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis threaten over half the world’s population, the World Health Organisation and the Gates Foundation warned recently. One major culprit is counterfeit and substandard drugs that can provoke mutations that resist real medicines. Crackdowns, however, do not address the cause. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
In defence of questioning minds
By T Osiame Molefe Okay, so I’m going to get skieted, skopped and donnered for this one but it’s okay. In the past 4 hours, I’ve seen three ThoughtLeader blogs go up lambasting Gareth Cliff for his Manto comments. I won’t repeat, if you haven’t heard/read them by now…look a space ship! For the rest […]
Posted inGeneral
Cope: Time to stand up and stand tall
By Siyanda Mhlongo The ANC was elected on April 22 2009 on the promise that it would be pro-poor and anti-corruption. The triumvirate of Jacob Zuma, Blade Nzimande and Zwelinzima Vavi accused Cope of being elitist. It is the ANC of Nxamalala that has proved beyond reasonable doubt that is elitist, parasitic and wasteful. It […]
Posted inGeneral
Why does self determination have to be bought with blood?
By Niki Moore The campaign for self-determination for the minority Tamils in Sri Lanka should hold lessons for governments the whole world over. The question must be asked: Why self determination always have to be bought with blood? The three-decade-long civil war in Sri Lanka is over. For most of the world it was a […]
Posted inGeneral
If you like using Windows, you’ll love Windows 7
By Richard Catto Like most avid computer users, the whole concept of trashing my computer and reinstalling everything from scratch is not something I relish doing because it is a task fraught with many technical difficulties that could easily leave one without a functional computer, which would be a major disaster, of course. So when […]
Posted inGeneral
The electricity crisis: Are we making progress?
By Bryan Hadfield Some time ago, during the days of planned and unplanned load shedding, I wrote an article, published in this forum, in which I tried to throw some light on the origins of South Africa’s electricity crisis. My aim at the time was to dispel a lot of misrepresentation about the causes and […]