General

The Hunter S Thompson title for his 1972 collection of articles, “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail”, told of a US presidential election which came at a time of change in western popular culture. Vietnam was still raging, the Cold War was still very alive and Richard Nixon was president, a figure Thompson despised. […]

I saw something very shameful today. Plainclothes police officers from the JMPD, well they were in JMPD vehicles while all clad in suspiciously fake-looking football shirts, rained down on a group of mostly foreign men who offer cheap haircuts on the pavement outside the taxi rank at Boulders, Midrand. Tents and tarps were torn down […]

A debate has been raging recently, led by self-appointed economic moralists and social activists, who have been on a war-path against conspicuous consumption; something they perceive as unethical consumerism and an affront on the moral principles of society. Anyone with a shade of active grey-matter would realise that such moral arguments are absolute nonsense. This […]

Orlando Pirates must be having nightmares ahead of their Telkom Knockout cup final game against arch-rivals Kaizer Chiefs. Flashes of the 3 – 1 beating they received the last time these two giants played must still be playing with their heads. The Bucs still need to figure out how to stop the “smiling assassin” who […]

In the latter half of 2006 former chief justice Pius Langa delivered an address titled “Transformative Constitutionalism” at the University of Stellenbosch law faculty. In this address he described a link between transformation and reconciliation, stating: “Transformation is not something that occurs only in courtrooms, parliaments and governmental departments. Social transformation is indispensable to our […]

So author Annelie Botes has caused a storm with her recent comments over crime and black people. Now I agree with Mrs Botes on some of her points. Most contact crimes in South Africa are perpetrated by black people. Note I explicitly said contact crimes because the debate over which crimes are more damaging to […]

To grasp what Jean Baudrillard in his book Seduction (1990) understands by “seduction” where technology is concerned, one has to take note, first, of the way he displaces seduction: instead of employing it in a “lifeworld” sense, he transforms it into a metaphor which encompasses, not merely a psychological trait of lifeworld-communication, but the entire […]

I recently rediscovered, in DVD format, one of my favourite films of all time — a musical, as it happens, which won no less than 10 Academy Awards way back in 1961, including that for Best Picture. The movie in question is West Side Story, a 20th century version of the immortal story of Shakespeare’s […]

I have just started reading the prolific philosopher-psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj Zizek’s latest book (as far as I know), temptingly titled Living in the End Times (Verso, 2010), and already I am excited. On the cover, Zizek is described (by New Republic) as “The most dangerous philosopher in the West”, and with good reason. Unlike those […]

“Hiya, do you mind just looking after my handbag?” the stranger, a pretty twenty-something woman in a bikini asked us as we lay on the beach in Long Bay, Auckland. “No problem,” I replied, looking around to see if there was a camera filming this for some Leon Schuster film. I looked at Marion in […]

Joyful news for all our ANC alliance-phobes. Good tidings for those sick to death of ANC incompetence, corruption and maladministration. Hope for those despairing over our so-called monocracy. We’ve been saved. The South African Community Government Union (SACGU) has heard our anguished cries for a party that can actually take on and beat the ANC […]