South Africans against a backdrop of xenophobia, racist remarks being made freely and without sanction by the chairman of the parliamentary sports portfolio committee and homophobic nonsense from Jon Qwelane, need to intervene immediately and with venom against the preacher who made Islamophobic remarks at a Cape Town school yesterday. The Christian preacher allegedly made […]
Lifestyle
Posted inLifestyle
Why I love South Africa…
… One of the reasons, anyway, is that you can (quite literally) be walking down the street and be handed a piece of paper that says (and I quote): Marriage Consultant For Women Only Dr. Mama Fatuma & Kibo Cheapest & Cures Relationship: 1. Is your husband having an affair you suspect? 2. Is he […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
Exploiting of new technologies for common good
Alan Greenspan observed that, “… New technologies that evolved from the cumulative innovations of the past half-century have now begun to bring about dramatic changes in the way goods and services are produced and in the way they are distributed to final users. Those innovations, exemplified most recently by the multiplying uses of the Internet, […]
Posted inLifestyle
The apostrophical catastrophe of being punctuationarily illiterate
Pity the poor apostrophe. Just when it thinks it can park off unnoticed in a quiet corner somewhere, along comes another berk who doesn’t know how to use one. And you know what apostrophical illiterates do for fun, don’t you? If they see an ‘s’, they fling one in. Before it, after it, it doesn’t […]
Posted inLifestyle
The sharpened outline of a South African
Thought Leader often becomes the platform for The Great Emigration Debate, probably because there is such a collision of minds reading, writing and commenting in one place: expats who have left and who are defensive about it, expats who are dying to come home, those in South Africa who are thinking of leaving, and those […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
Ritalin: Tik for the middle classes
I received an email this week from a parent who had read an article I wrote a while back on Ritalin, asking whether we are poisoning our children with the stuff or paving a better future for them — though somewhat numbed! Ritalin is a metaphor for everything ugly about modern medicine — a form […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
SA’s first online reality show!
“Can You Twist is South Africa’s first online reality show featuring six of the country’s hottest young female storytellers … and your votes. Six weeks, six women, six twists and one ultimate winner!” How could I resist? How could anyone? To be honest, though, it wasn’t the online reality-show line that got me. Nor being […]
Posted inLifestyle
To therapy or not to therapy …
Lately I feel as though I am going through life angrily. I have no idea what the problem is, but I seem to snap and explode at the simplest of provocations. For the first time in my life I have even considered therapy. Thing is, I don’t believe in sitting in front of someone I […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
The 4-Hour Work Week
Sound like a dream? Nope, it’s a book by Timothy Ferriss. And a pretty inspiring one at that. “Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich” it promises. I know what you’re thinking — just another cheesy motivational book. But this one’s a little different. One of my favourite, cheesy, motivational business books, […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Warmest 90th birthday wishes to ntate Nelson Mandela!!!
The nation in unison rejoices in celebration of man; we sing praises overwhelmed by joy and pride; we celebrate the birth of one of our brightest hopes – shining brighter now and forever more. For the masses he has worked, sacrificed, struggled, fought and emerged victorious. It is in this ordinary man that this fortunate […]
Posted inLifestyle
Of false prophets and swindlers in the Lord’s name
Religion is always a very sensitive subject, particularly to the conservative and Christian fundamentalists, but however sensitive, certain things need to be subjected to scrutiny and let out in the open for the brainwashed to see the light. Christianity, given the proliferation of televangelists and charismatic evangelists, has transformed to become some means of social […]
Posted inLifestyle
Let’s talk about sex — South African style
Dear Silwane Files reader, This post is an experiment designed to elicit information to be used in a non-scientific study. The following categories of people are strongly encouraged to sit this one out: 1. People who were last sexually active when ‘Saturday Night Fever’ was the coolest movie ever made. 2. Catholics who believe that […]