Dear Comrade Govender, You seem to forget the reality that:- We cannot say, “Top 8” – because then we’re broke; We cannot say, “Top 7” – because then we’re dead; We, as the ANC, are saying, “Top 6” – and we are hoping that you (Victoria Island) will carry us as we pay-off the factions […]
Environment
CR17: Please fill in the blanks
We are not confused, we can say, “Top 8”, without referring to football and/or soccer. Therefore will CR17 please fill in the blanks publicly – because we are not afraid of “slate politics”. CR17 Candidates: President General: Cyril Ramaphosa Deputy President General: Naledi Pandor Chairperson General: Gwede Mantashe Deputy Chairperson General: Unknown Secretary General: Senzo […]
Does humanity have enough redeeming features to deserve to survive?
The short answer is a resounding ‘NO!’ The long answer takes a bit longer to formulate, but here goes. Humanity does have redeeming features, or virtues, if you like – of course it does. The human species is a very creative bunch. Humans created the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, […]
Creating social capital for mental health: A case study of the Durban advocacy walk
By Suntosh R Pillay On October 15, the Durban community will meet at the North Beach amphitheatre and ‘Step up for Mental Health’. This will be a mass community initiative for Mental Health Awareness Month, organised by the KZN Mental Health Advocacy Group, of which PsySSA KZN is a partner. It is community and social […]
Harm reduction versus abstinence: experts debate drug laws
By Ian Broughton A protest march during SA Drug Policy Week in Cape Town. (File photo: Ashraf Hendricks) South African drug policy is rooted in racism and class discrimination. This was the view expressed by Dr Ethan Nadelmann at the opening of SA Drug Policy Week in Cape Town earlier this month. Nadelmann is the […]
‘Only when the last fish has been caught, will you realise that you cannot eat money’
‘Only when the last fish has been caught, will you realise that you cannot eat money’. We are moving perilously close to the actualisation of my paraphrase of these words from the well-known saying attributed to Alanis Obomsawin of the Abenaki tribe northeast of Montreal in Canada. The usual wording of the saying is: “When […]
Selfies, the disappearance of the natural world and nihilism
I don’t like shopping malls; they remind me of the weakness of our species when it comes to commodities that they ‘must have’, according to the spurious ethos of the prevailing economic system. Hence, when the woman in my life asked me to accompany her to that monstrosity known as the Baywest mall, outside the […]
Single vs two-parent families: A Western Cape study of well-being
by Dr Eugene Lee Davids Several theories exist within the field of psychology. These theories act as lenses to make sense of the world we live in and are important in understanding our interactions within the world as human beings. In South Africa, a country rich in diversity, a theoretical framework that I find very […]
The technology that is threatening life as we know it
We are currently witnessing a pervasive and accelerating recording, modelling and processing of data pertaining to human beings as well as other living species (and even inorganic things) on a scale that surpasses what most of us can imagine. This has been made possible by bio-technologies which seem as if they are the incipient actualisation […]
Our troubled world
A number of things have struck me since we arrived in Europe to attend a number of conferences, travelling from Ghent in Belgium through Munich in Germany to beautiful Venice in the Veneto of Italy, and they do not augur well for the future of human society or the planet. These range from observations in […]
Is it time to boycott the US?
After multiple delays, and the building up of a twisted reality television-like suspense, Donald Trump has finally announced that he will take America out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Among all the fluster of his presidency, this may be one of Trump’s most consequential decisions, and the one with the most long-lasting negative, if not […]
The age of anger
A friend of mine – Avril Gardiner, art-fundi and owner-curator of the Liebrecht at gallery in Somerset-West – recently reminded me of a piece by Bryan Walsh in TIME magazine of 20 February (2017: pp. 15-16), in which Walsh talks about what he calls “this age of anger” in the context of the claim that […]