So there go 87 minutes of my life, wasted on a deplorable movie called 2010: Moby Dick, compliments of DStv. Based very loosely upon the 1851 Herman Melville classic, it ramps Captain Ahab and his ferocious nemesis, a gigantic albino man-eating sperm whale, straight into the 21st century. The unrepentant mariner is once again hell-bent […]
General
Posted inGeneral
Reconciliation at the Jewish Boer monument
Last week, I participated in an unveiling ceremony for a new monument in memory of 12 Jewish fighters who died serving on the Boer side in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. The monument is located near the Burgher Memorial on Platrand, a ridge bordering Ladysmith to the south-west, and was erected as a joint initiative […]
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The ‘crystals’ of time
It seems to me undeniable that the human sciences – short for the social sciences and the humanities – are facing a crisis of perceived irrelevance in a world suffused in unreflective technophilia and, concomitantly, indifference to the potential value of the humanistic knowledge represented by, and archived in these sciences. Among the many ways […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Women’s lives remain unchanged
This month is dedicated to women and the struggles they go through on a daily basis. I was wondering how I could pay tribute with an article to their heroism — as a son of a woman myself and a little brother to my sister. Then my new colleague and boss, Pregs Govender, wrote something […]
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Making peace with death
Not that I have died before to profess on death, but events in my life and those I know have convinced me that death can be sweet and something to look forward to. After all if there is one thing we all are privy to, it is that one day we will die. Death is […]
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Business gets social
Unified communications (UC) is changing the way organisations operate, as their employees tend to be more available, productive and effective when invested with UC tools. But a report published in July from analyst firm Canalys points out that many UC deployments fail or don’t meet their goals because their cultural (people) impact and the related […]
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It’s time to roll with a whole new crowd
For more than a decade, mobile retail occupied a very narrow, highly profitable but insignificant niche involving small-ticket items like ringtones and wallpaper. Unstructured and fragmented, the industry doddered around in extended infancy, suffering reputational challenges along the way due to the unscrupulous practices of some merchants who largely escaped accountability. Hit by a tsunami […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
ANCYL has no copyright on economic freedom
The struggle for economic freedom predates us all. It began many years ago. Long before the ANC or the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) ever existed, and even long before the arrival of the employees of the Dutch East India Company at the Cape in 1652. When Nguni tribes, moved south of the African continent in […]
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Why the data cloud’s bad for you
By Roger Diamond Hardly a day goes by without finding myself rained on by some aspect of cloud computing, even if it is just a profit driven promotion of this shift in information storage. People will make all manner of promises about how the cloud is going to make your life better and change the […]
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No space for bullshit
By Andrew Verrijdt I recently read an article in an important research journal that left me quite perturbed. The article was about how hypnosis can help us channel the wisdom of our ancestors that exists beyond time and space. The staggering implications of this were too much for me, and I promptly went to bed. […]
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Zim’s new constitution?
By Musa Kika So finally there’s news from Harare. The second draft of the new constitution was submitted to parliament and the not-so-united government of national unity this month. For over a decade we have tried to come up with a new constitution that reflects the people’s will and replaces the 1979 Lancaster House Constitution, […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Me trying not to be a sorrowful pain in the arse
“Just breathe deeply,” said James, ironically lighting his third cigarette in a row. “Just breathe … deeply … ” he muttered, placing his hand on his solar plexus and breathing in, “because all you have got IS now”. Or words to that effect. I noticed how James’s heartfelt, life teachings were a simple as a […]