I finally got to view Alan Taylor’s Terminator Genisys (2015) on the plane to Korea, which we are visiting for the third time to attend a conference in Seoul on posthumanism, and to do some mountain climbing in the beautiful Seoroksan mountains near Sokcho, a stone’s throw from the demilitarised zone and the North Korean […]
Lifestyle
Posted inBusiness, Environment, General, Health, Lifestyle
Give your car a hug
So here we are, little more than a century later, and the car is as welcome in every home as the chamber pot was before inside toilets arrived. It wasn’t always so, though. When the first adventurers took to the roads in steam and electric and clockwork and petrol-engined cars in the 1890s only the […]
Posted inGeneral, Health, Lifestyle
Lost causes
Okay, I might as well get it out in the open. I’m a loser. Luckily, most of the things I misplace turn up somewhere, sometime, and then it’s like Christmas at chez Foster. Some of my items that go AWOL are repeat offenders, and my bunch of house keys with the large magnesium and flint […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Ashley Madison and the culture of shame and gossip
I confess I hadn’t even heard of Ashley Madison until the other day when the hack into their data base “went viral” as the saying goes. Oooh, how the human race loves to wallow in scandal. Oh to gossip and swim about in who is having an affair, or who has been caught out for […]
Posted inEnvironment, Lifestyle, News/Politics
Cecil, the dentist and a mass extinction event
By Darius Guppy Hunting is a passion of mine – and there is no greater place to hunt than Africa – so I understand what motivated an American dentist to pursue a magnificent lion in search of a trophy. Contrary to hysterical and politically correct pronouncements on the part of those who know little of […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Is trying good enough? A reflection on motherhood
By Hameeda Bassa-Suleman I have learnt a lot about mothers and mothering in the past seven years of studying, training and then practicing as a psychologist. For the most part, I knew what would theoretically make a “good enough mother”, according to Donald Winnicott, and what would make a “not-so-good” mother. When I began seeing […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Time for a truce between Art and the Public
Is a truce needed between art and the public? Art is often criticised for being elitist, a “luxury” enjoyed by collectors, art aficionados and the bourgeoisie. Art is perceived to have some quality, some distinction that prevents it from pleasing mass palates. There is some truth to this view when one thinks of commercial art […]
Posted inLifestyle
Eduf**ktion: Out of the mouths of teens
“In high school, we should be learning about the real world, how to pay my (sic) taxes, apply for jobs, mortgage my house, buy a car, things that we will actually use in the future. So far, I’ve only learned that whatever I manage to get done in a short amount of time isn’t enough. […]
Posted inEquality, General, Lifestyle
What makes diversity dialogues relevant and meaningful?
By Curwyn Mapaling “We were like best friends and yet we just met that day. It’s so cool that you could come from such different places in the world and still form that kind of connection.” What happens when American post-grad counselling students from Indiana start talking to a bunch of post-grad psychology students from […]
Posted inEquality, General, Lifestyle, Media
The pointless hypocrisy of pretending to be homeless
The eThekwini Municipality recently offered “an opportunity of a lifetime” for residents to sleep on the streets – for a night. Along with I-Care, a non-profit helping homeless kids, the purpose was to give people a taste of the hardships experienced by being homeless. “Participants will spend one evening with homeless people of the city […]
Posted inEquality, Health, Lifestyle, Media
South Africa is not a ‘fatherless’ country
By Nick Malherbe In the lead up to Father’s Day, one is often made to think of those who are “fatherless” and the high rate of father absence as a “crisis” of fatherhood. But such thinking cannot continue. I would argue that such a “crisis” stems primarily from the narrow way in which we think […]
Posted inEquality, General, Lifestyle
Please, mind your language
By Yolanda Mitchell Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms. This is a core value on which the Constitution is founded. Who doesn’t want to live in a country founded on such a noble base? It sounds like the Promised Land after all — especially to as many […]