General

Having been outside South Africa for ten days, I found myself playing a silly game as I re-entered the territory of Afrika Dzonga. How do you know that you are back in South Africa? You know you are back in South Africa when you switch on your radio and you hear episode 901 of Julius […]

My mom’s best friend had a really tough year in 2009, and it had nothing to do with the financial crisis. Her husband was dying of cancer. It was a long, slow and painful death; not something anyone should go through, but unfortunately one that many do. Anyway, on Thursday, after a year of caring […]

South Africa is experiencing an epidemic of reckless behaviour where the thoughtless, careless and irresponsible are getting away with too much.

By Mncedisi Mashigoane The crisis in Haiti has elicited all kinds of generous global responses. Of all the pledges to Haiti so far I find Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade’s the most ingenious. On behalf of the 13 million citizens of Senegal, Wade pledged R7.4 million in emergency aid and announced plans for a televised fund-raising event. On […]

By Brendah Nyakudya As a thirty-something born and raised in Zimbabwe, my generation had it easier than most. We could be termed the first fruits of freedom, the first generation to be raised in an independent Zimbabwe, a liberated land brimming with hope, excitement and possibility. The war for independence in the 70s was a […]

It was a so-so day, with the humming of work and industry (there is an auto-repair shop adjacent to my office) filling the air with rands and cents. During a moment of “downtime” (ie procrastination), I was surfing the web and was surprised to read of the departure of Mickey Arthur as South African cricket […]

The previous decade was rough, at many levels. This new decade, the 2010s, brings some hope. However, the risks remain on the upside — politically, globally, personally and so on. The 1990s were said to be a lost decade — Adam Roberts thinks the 2010s might be “decadent”. The Americans are suggesting that this decade […]

I note the extent to which the talks around ownership to the vuvuzela have since degraded to the shallow, and shudder with remorse as to how Africans continue to be accomplices in the death of their own destiny. But frankly, I couldn’t care less about who owns the vuvuzela concept, but rather about justice being […]

An interesting email did the rounds last week. It was an open letter/apology from a former South African Breweries (SAB) employee to Proteas batting star Hashim Amla, which was posted by Bobby Skinstad on his personal blog. The story goes that when Amla requested to be exempt from advertising the alcohol beverage sponsor on his […]

Bulls Established Fourie du Preez. The IRB brainfart notwithstanding, he was indisputably head, shoulders and socks above every other player in the world last year. The question this year will be whether he can maintain that level of performance and even more crucially, what that will mean for his fitness and motivation levels heading into […]

James Cameron’s latest film, Avatar, is, as far as I can judge, a highly significant film, at least as important as the first two Terminator films (and in a related sense, Titanic) directed by him. It has been criticised in various quarters as just another maudlin love story (it recalls the story of Pocahontas, among […]

It has been difficult in Haiti. Decomposing bodies still buried beneath the rubble and the stench that comes with that; survivors searching for bodies of their next of kin; the hungry and destitute turning to looting and violence; relief agencies in sixes and sevens; the army and police doing their best to control and calm […]