Well done on having the courage to read this! Don’t be afraid. Think of why you need to abstain from (or at least minimise) using smartphones and other devices. Make a list of reasons. This will require a lot of honesty. But by being honest you are being kind to yourself and others. These reasons […]
General
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Keeping shtum*
When I was a young woman just out of school and during a state of emergency, while on a visit to my beautiful Boba, we were talking politics and I told her I was in despair and hoping for the Messiah. She said I could put out my cigarette for starters. Let me say this […]
Posted inGeneral
We need to talk about Greece and other spendthrifts
Neoliberals and fiscal conservatives, look away now … In response to my last blog posting a few people raised the following argument in relation to state spending: if you spend more than you consume, at some point you have to cut back and live within your means. After all, as an individual or company, if […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Escape velocity
The astronomer Fred Hoyle once observed: “Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards.” Which is to say it’s twelve hours nearer to us than Cape Town is to Johannesburg. Imagine such a perpendicular journey: 100km above sea level we cross the Karman line — […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
A little known history of cocaine (Part 5)
For part four of the series, please click here. While some of the most interesting anecdotes and stories of cocaine’s convoluted history originate in the US and UK, Africa has its own tale to tell. While recent documents, reports, and sensationalist articles have reported an “explosion” of drugs on the continent, this is simply not […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, General, Lifestyle
Chess the thing for Joburg inner city
Indifference is a powerful weapon, easily injected into entire atmospheres, hearts and minds. Since the beginning of The Troyeville Bedtime Story, a never-ending Joburg tale that began with a stinking pile of neglected rubble in 2011, my eyes and heart tend toward what appears to be impossible, dysfunctional, overwhelming. I am long suffering from a […]
Posted inGeneral
Safe, warm and dry
“Our love was like our house. There were cracks in the walls and chips in the paint, but it kept us safe, warm and dry.” His eyes were hollow. His wife, the love of his life, died two weeks ago after a stroke. I was there to give him the painting inspired by one of […]
Posted inGeneral
Some thoughts on the crisis in higher education
The recently released Council on Higher Education (CHE) report on the state of higher education in South Africa is ringing alarm bells all over the country at universities, as may be expected, given the dismal picture it paints of the higher education landscape. Understandably, school education is implicated, and identified as the main reason for […]
Posted inGeneral
Democracy is coming
FROM the moment Leonard Cohen entered my life back in 1970, his poetry and his music have profoundly influenced me. They have haunted my conscience, pestered my self-awareness and influenced my writing. You probably have similar influencers — painters who guided your expression, writers who moulded your experience, leaders who formed your social consciousness, preachers […]
Posted inGeneral
What does authentically African mean?
Over the last 20 years, self-appointed custodians of “authentic Africaness” have derogatively referred to fellow blacks as “coconuts”, that is, citizens with black skins but white souls or cultural tendencies. Perhaps instead of feeling indignant and insulted, it is important to provide a context for what is meant by this label. It may be long […]
Posted inGeneral
From science fiction to fact? “I, Robot” and real robotics.
In Alex Proyas’s I, Robot, a relatively recent science fiction neo-noir film, Spooner, the noir detective tasked to solve the suspected murder of a brilliant scientist and robotics expert in the not-too-distant future, hates robots. The reason? When he was involved in a car accident some time before, he was rescued from his sinking car […]
Posted inGeneral
Is there a need for cyber-ethics?
The recent spate of events where governments, magazine-employees and various other social actors have acted in ways that have invited spirited debate about the justifiability of their actions, lead to an unavoidable question: Is there a need for cyber-ethics? It all depends on what one means by “cyber-ethics”, of course. If this means the need […]