It really gets me upset when people tell me this. That Radiohead is a cheap version of Coldplay. I don’t understand it. In fact, it makes my blood boil. No, they are obviously not as iconic as Coldplay. I will give you that. They will never fill a stadium like Chris Martin. But not everyone […]
Lifestyle
Posted inHealth, Lifestyle, News/Politics
The Silk Road: should drugs be legalised?
Please excuse the brief nature of this blog, the subject definitely merits a longer discussion at some point, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the recent closure of The Silk Road drugs bazaar and the arrest of the person whom the FBI believe to be its founder, Ross Ulbricht, and more generally on […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
I love and hate Mitchell’s Plain
By Kirk Krotz This has been one of the most interesting weeks of my life. I posted a music video on YouTube last week about my experience of growing up in Mitchell’s Plain and, for reasons unknown to me, the video has gone viral with over 200 000 hits. For the first time in my life […]
Posted inGeneral, Health, Lifestyle
Six observations about penises
“My friend told me about a man with a large penis,” said one of the other students. “She said his technique was terrible. He just rammed and rammed. It was actually painful.” Her eyes widened. So did mine. These were the sort of conversations that make an impact on a rather sheltered 22-year-old from the […]
Posted inEquality, Lifestyle
A call to kindness
At about 6.15pm on Friday evening Leah buzzed my home intercom. She was crying. An urgent, panicked cry that drew my attention away from the Seinfeld reruns I was watching on my laptop. The more I tried to tell her that I was busy, that I had no money or clothes to donate, the more […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle, News/Politics
The braai or shisa nyama is not heritage
By Unéné Gregory We brand our beautiful country as a rainbow nation, one with people of various backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities. We are a country unlike any other and one of the days to acknowledge our diversity and actively learn about one another is Heritage Day. Formerly celebrated only in KwaZulu-Natal as King Shaka day our […]
Posted inEquality, Lifestyle
An Afrikaans arts festival and fish out of water…
I always wondered about that phrase, “a fish out of water”. To me, it always seemed like a chosen emotion. That is, you can only be a fish out of water if you chose to be one. In my head, any situation can be accommodated by opening yourself up to it, learning about it and […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, Gender violence, General, Health, Lifestyle, Media, News/Politics
Living in constant fear
ON Thursday 19 September, South Africans heard why this remains a country where its people are still living in constant fear. Two decades of African National Congress self-interest and bungling have failed to curb crime, despite the asinine claptrap with which SA’s minister of police Nathi Mthethwa insulted the country. Millions of ordinary South Africans […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, Lifestyle
Abuse of the sacred
A campaign called “Abused Goddesses” is drawing massive engagement and attention around the world. Initiated by a women’s empowerment organisation in India, called Save our Sisters, which helps prevent the trafficking of women and children, it makes use of a series of images of Hindu goddesses, Saraswathi, Lakshmi, Durga with bruises and cuts in an […]
Posted inHealth, Lifestyle
A little known history of cocaine (Part 6)
For part five of the series, please click here. History has a number of valuable lessons to teach us not only about drugs, but also about ourselves. Problematically however, we still have yet to learn many of those lessons. While the “war on drugs” has begun to fade from view, at least in official rhetoric, […]
Posted inHealth, Lifestyle, Media
Social media in healthcare and why the doctorsaurs became extinct
Sometimes I feel very alone and vulnerable here. You see, it is rare that doctors air their views on social media (SM), and I have done a fair bit of that on this forum. If you sift out all my posts pertaining to healthcare and read them in sequence, you will have a pretty representative […]
Posted inLifestyle
Hunger pains and the Thursday meal
By Khanyo O Mjamba Excluding Phuza Thursday, I had other reasons for liking the 5th day of the week. The most important of these being that of my municipality’s sanitation services’ weekly collection visits. Every Thursday morning, bearing the formidable mass of black plastic, men and women of complex odours and bright orange overalls hop […]