We can be so busy with our restricted autonomy that we miss a deeper issue – the reason why we have such heavy restrictions is because we don’t have the infrastructure for the demands of an outbreak
General
Posted inBusiness, General
A brief history of the coronavirus pandemics
It’s creeping up on me and my people with devastation in mind slowlyThis lockdown, shutdown, breakdown, keep your head down, that’s controlling meNow into the third month of socio-economic life’s very own disruptionWith curfew and military policing on the streets as the new civic constructionIt’s playing with me and rolling my mind up like a […]
Posted inGeneral
Don’t let the arts cough, splutter and die
All forms from music and theatre to painting and sculpture offer us a mirror of ourselves and the world, escapism and understanding, and and expression of a range of emotions
Posted inGeneral, Media, News/Politics
The power of words to show how South Africa is fighting Covid-19
News headlines point to the ‘facts’ that citizens feel in charge of the virus
Posted inGeneral
Elon Musk’s tirade against ‘fascist’ stay-at-home order is boring, childish and lazy
Elon Musk has made me angry. You know, anger, the prerequisite emotion of a fascist. And fascism seems to be all the rage at the moment. But let’s put my anger aside. After all, what is anger but simply a vehicle for expressing a more complex emotion or discontent. In this instance, the discontent is […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Comfortably numbers: Reflections on Covid-19 data
Is the coronavirus mortality rate, fallible as it is, even the number we should be focusing on right now?
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Easing the lockdown like clockwork
As we move into coronavirus lockdown level four, a scene from A Clockwork Orange illustrates the eerie limbo we inhabit
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Please, Mr President, keep us weak at the knees
Dear Mr President, Before launching into this letter’s raison d’être, I want you to know that I am truly fond of you. Truly. I want to squeeze your plump cheeks, sit across the dinner table from you just to hear you speak, and give you a good old bear hug at the end of the […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, General
Gender-based violence: The epidemic that will take more lives than Covid-19
The relationship between gender-based violence and the home in South Africa means that lockdown leaves women particularly vulnerable, yet the government has been largely silent on this issue
Posted inGeneral, Health, News/Politics
Covid-19: South Africa’s fears… and some ways we can fight them
The novel coronavirus has taken over South Africans’ lives in the past month. At the beginning of the month, the country was still hosting major sporting events and big gatherings; now we’re in lockdown. Some quick research into news coverage from the past month reveals what South Africans are most afraid about, but also […]
Posted inGeneral
The Rain during Covid-19
* * * The rain has such precise teeth. She nibbles down the paths and through the bushes, along the gutters and around my veranda chair like a cat. Who knows that she is gobbling us up, swallowing us down? When will she finish? When eyes smell the stillness and see the music, droplets […]
Posted inEnvironment, General, News/Politics
Two dozen questions for the President
Dear President Ramaphosa, I have two dozen questions for you, please feel free to answer them in the comments section below. 1. Where are the success stories from Affirmative Action and Black Empowerment, that say the deserving beneficiaries as connected have started new businesses, not simply borrowed money to buy into existing businesses, that were […]