General

Writing in “A decade of democracy“, published by the finance weekly Financial Mail, President Thabo Mbeki says: “Those who tell the story of the past decade must show they have assimilated the spirit of new times and can speak in its language.” For me, at least for the purposes of this blog, I will misinterpret […]

Disclaimer: This is not a post per se, only a follow-up to my last piece, “Could Mbeki be too smart to govern?”. If you found that one mind-numbingly boring, sit this one out. I’ll post something tomorrow. The first time I heard about the existence of the worldwide web, my mind couldn’t even begin to […]

Dear Boet Well, if it’s a letter from you, it must be September. The same thing, year in, year out. You get miserable, maudlin and generally the moer in with the prospect of another winter in Europe and start pining for South Africa’s sunny summers. Frankly, I don’t know why on earth you don’t just […]

I read with interest a few posts on the local blogosphere about how South Africans whinge and whine about the crime rate, so I became curious whether this is true on the local blogosphere. I did some digging into the statistical data I have on Amatomu.com and found the following that only 0,3% of the […]

In my column in the Mail & Guardian I wrote that I was tired of blackness being an albatross around my neck (I suppose on the necks of other blacks too). The point I was making was that constant disappointments by those who expect black journalists “to know better” would be avoided if they just […]

Unless you’ve been held hostage by infidel-busters in Baghdad and featured in MTV videos next to angry guys wearing balaclavas for the past three months, you’ve heard about the book The Secret. Gazillions of people swear by it and have used it to cure themselves of all manner of ailments, from cancer to arsehole-ishness apparently. […]

It’s more than likely. No, really. Nick Bostrom wrote an excellent paper on this, and let me tell you: it isn’t just a new plot of a Hollywood blockbuster. I have summarised (greatly) the key issues as they are presented in the paper, but I strongly suggest you read the full paper before you dismiss […]

If you haven’t ever heard of Chris Langham, you’re missing out. He was the comic genius behind the toe-curlingly-delicious spoof documentaries People Like Us. In that series he took the role of investigative journalist Roy Mallard, and made “documentaries” about seemingly normal people and situations. It was understated, nuanced British comedy at its best. He […]

South Africa’s liberation would likely have been long delayed, had it not been for the brave leadership of Steve Bantu Biko — the struggle hero beaten to death at age 30, exactly 30 years ago this month. It was of course “his” Black Consciousness movement that reignited resistance and fed the youth rebellion, which in […]

Here’s a disruptive thought: life is a spectacular thing, all the time. Life is what we are given. Or, to put it differently, it’s what we have. It’s the brute, unchangeable fact that connects us all. It’s what we all absolutely have in common, the singular reality on which there is, and can be, no […]

In January 1984, a 12-year-old was shipped off to Catholic boarding school by his parents to begin his secondary education in Vryheid, northern KwaZulu-Natal. That young man was yours truly. Innocent and idealistic, I joined 200-odd other young people aged between 10 and about 20 years old at Inkamana High School. One of my mentors […]