General

By Millington Gumbo A couple of things intrigue me in life. Politics is one, history is another, but it is football which trumps them all. Football is the ultimate meritocracy wherein skills and teamwork and not money or privilege determine the outcome. Life however, can be a little bit more complicated at times. The it-is-not-what-you-know-but-who-you-know […]

Social media is almost as ubiquitous as the cellular phone (if it isn’t, it will be soon). The widespread ease of setting up your business in the social universe and the inherent low cost in doing so, has spawned many attempts both successful and some not so — by businesses trying to harness the power […]

By Gcina Ntsaluba Cape Town was a bit of a buzz this week with celebrations to mark the 30-day countdown to the kick-off of the 2010 Fifa World Cup. Even the mayor, Dan Plato, showed up at the celebrations to share the spotlight with local artists, including JR of “make da circle bigger” fame to […]

Just in case Steve Hofmyer reads this, let me preface so that we are clear: it is never good when anyone dies. Especially when it is an unnatural death, as this implies a violent violation of their rights, obviously. Now, when someone dies, and you ponder aloud the idiom “live by the sword, die by […]

That didn’t last long did it? While South African cricket fans have become used to being underwhelmed by our national team, our recent exit from the World Twenty20 was even more whimpering than usual. What we are used to is a barnstorming start, then the inevitable loss in the knock-outs. Maybe Corrie van Zyl and […]

Memory is pain. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet portray a couple who each undergo a procedure to erase any memory of the other from their minds. The whole idea is to remove the pain and anger inevitably associated with a failed romance. But there’s a twist. The Jim […]

By Yoav Tchelet Steve Jobs has openly displayed his disdain for Flash in his recent letter to the Adobe faithful. The Adobe faithful have long been hoping for Apple to include support for the Flash platform in its devices, but this recent spat has cemented the fact that Apple will not support Flash in any […]

A commentator on one of my recent posts on discourse asked a question about the discourse analysis of capitalism. Lacan had something interesting to say about that — he remarked that the discourse of the capitalist is the “cleverest discourse” ever devised by humans. One may wonder why, but it is only when one has […]

Upon the murder of their leader Eugene Terre’Blanche, the AWB confirmed they would be meeting with government on a new Volkstaat where they could be the authors of their own destiny. While there was anger and emotion in the days following the brutal killing, the movement displayed a maturity that somehow seemed to have eluded […]

We have had the Terre’Blanche and Lolly Jackson deaths so far this year. The press that followed proved that more is said about the person or personage after his death. Well I remember the “truths” about incest that emerged after novelist and poet Lawrence Durrell’s death (brother to the perhaps more famous Gerald Durrell). It […]

Industrial companies have never had an easy relationship with the public. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, when these behemoths were first born, they have been blamed for all manner of things, ranging from child labour to global warming. But it wasn’t till about 30 years ago that industrial companies were viewed not only as exploiters, […]

It is said that it is “not the done thing” for an author to engage with a reviewer of his book. Notice the passive structure of the previous sentence. There is no agency. Nobody knows who came up with that tradition. Anyway, my criticism of Capazorio’s review is mostly with a glaring factual error, not […]