General

By Candice Holdsworth A female protestor wishes to make it perfectly clear: “This isn’t a political issue it’s a sensitivity issue.” A sentiment shared with the multitudes marching alongside her on the streets of New York, united in their vehement opposition to the building of a mosque in lower Manhattan, two blocks from Ground Zero. […]

I love following SA news. The kiwi stuff is lukewarm potty water compared to the fiery mampoer of the SA film scripts that get dished out every week. Yes, they’re potential film scripts: from the shenanigans of Julius Seizure to the recent, apparent uncovering of the first democratic election in 1994 being rigged in places […]

My grandfather was a remarkable man. Although his life was far from easy at times, he in every sense was the personification of humanity, dignity, strength, loyalty, generosity and honesty. He was always there to help someone out, even strangers. He was free of prejudice. He never judged a book by its cover. He travelled […]

As the global economy slowly emerges from the rubble of the devastating 2008 financial crisis, developed and developing economies are beginning to review their macro-economic policies in a collective attempt to spur sustainable global economic growth and avert a similar crisis. The US has been largely to blame for initiating a crisis that caused global […]

By Lee Hall Mr President, you state that “ … this right [media freedom] cannot not be allowed to enjoy greater protection than [other freedoms] enshrined in the Constitution”. Strangely enough, it is not so much “media freedom” that is under threat here. Rather, it is my constitutional right to choose freely what information I […]

In the first of their trilogy of books — Empire, Multitude and Commonwealth — Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri make a distinction between two kinds of racism: “modern racism” and “postmodern racism”. The first, they point out, is recognisable by an essentialism of biological properties, specifically the pigmentation of one’s skin, which is supposed to […]

It appears it is an open season for launching cowardly attacks on Archbishop Desmond Tutu. One thing that we have come to learn about Tutu is his unwavering resolve in the pursuit of justice, equality, peace and freedom of the downtrodden, persecuted and oppressed. He has never been intimidated into silence by those who wield […]

Breaking news: Peter de Villiers, the Springbok coach, will at the conclusion of the Springbok’s end-of-year tour to Europe, vacate his position as the No 1 brain with the world champions. Rumours have surfaced, via a high-level source, that De Villiers finally went too far and bluntly put, pissed off his bosses real good. Many […]

Up until the beginning of the 20th century, the island of Martha’s Vineyard, off the east coast of the US, had 20 times more deaf inhabitants for its population size than the rest of the country. But the islanders didn’t consider this hereditary deafness a disability because the entire community, both hearing and deaf, were […]

By Julie Reid My mother was a remarkably intelligent, though unashamedly outspoken and un-politically correct woman. One of the things which irritated her most about the public rhetoric of the post-1994 “halo period” was the politically-correct tone of discussions; in the media, between politicians, among public figures and so on. Remember those days? When we […]

By Mohamed Fayaz Khan The recent news that the PSL (of all organisations) is considering banning the vuvuzela from all future PSL games came as a shock especially after the vociferous support it received from Safa and all “true” South African soccer supporters in the run-up to the World Cup. If one recalls, Fifa actually […]

Wayne Rooney’s surprising agreement to a new five-year contract with Manchester United, considering the amount of press coverage his apparent fallout with manager Sir Alex Ferguson generated in the space of days, is only a respite from the club’s current problems. Granted, Ferguson once again showed his managerial skill in keeping Rooney for another five […]