An open letter to Zapiro from Sandisiwe Vilakazi Why, Zapiro? During any kind of disaster there is always room for criminal elements to take hold. Looting during floods, xenophobic attacks and marches is a common enough occurrence. So it is with malicious intent during times of change. South Africa is going through trying times and […]
Media
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Will Mondli fire Zapiro?
Zapiro’s cartoon in the Sunday Times, depicting a woman symbolising the justice system being held down by the ANC, SACP, ANCYL and Cosatu, with Julius Malema telling Jacob Zuma, who is unbuttoning his pants, to “go for it”, may well have crossed the line of what constitutes fair comment. The cartoon seems to suggest that […]
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The Sunday Times has lost all its credibility
On Sunday August 24, the Sunday Times ran a headline story titled “Transnet sold our sea to foreigners”, which reported as fact that Transnet had sold “our sea to foreigners”, referring to the 90 square kilometres of sea and the 22km of coastline stretching from Table bay to Robben Island. Transnet refuted these claims as […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
Big Brother Africa 3: who chose our genius?
Forget an enquiry into the Olympics, the Para-Olympics or even the arms deal, the people who need to face up to an oversight committee and then a firing squad, are the wenners who select our Big Brother Africa contestants. Wherever they found this genius should be fenced off just in case the personality disorder is […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Are all racist scum equal?
“A R10 000 reward has been offered to anyone who identifies the racist scum who marred Saturday’s Springbok victory at Johannesburg’s Ellis Park.” It was an opening paragraph designed to attract attention and it certainly caught mine. I was appalled by the boorishness of the drunken yobs who picked on Ziningi Shibambo and told her: […]
Posted inBusiness, Media, Tech
Google does evil?
Google South Africa has abused its position of dominance in the online advertising market and has used underhand methods to win a major online advertising account with the SA Yellow Pages website. [Update: Allegedly, of course.] You can read the full press release here. In a nutshell, Entelligence was awarded the online marketing contract for […]
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Are you aspirational?
“Aspirational”. Of all the words I encountered whilst working in the advertising industry in South Africa, it was the one I came to hate the most. Every consumer was aspirational. Every marketing manager and her shih tzu wanted her brand to be aspirational. Cars were aspirational. Bank accounts wanted to be aspirational. Deodorant, toothpaste, even […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media, News/Politics
Happy birthday Mr Morris
“It was the worst of times, it was the best of times; it was the age of foolishness, it was the age of wisdom; it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the epoch of belief; it was the season of Darkness, it was the season of Light; it was the winter of despair, it […]
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Travel blog Pt 1: how SA fell off the world
Is it only me, or has South Africa fallen off the world map? It’s bad enough we have Eskom, The Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Sport rubbing salt into our wounds every day. Now it seems our power needs are out of step with […]
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Knightrider, A-Team or Airwolf?
One of the themes I’d like to explore down the line in this blog is the power of popular culture to define generations and transcend boundaries, national and otherwise. Ask anyone who grew up in South Africa during the 1980s about their favourite TV shows and you will get a list encompassing everything from Maya […]
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Sisyphus in Ikea
An alternative title to this entry could just as well have been Vladimir and Estragon in Ikea, but it wouldn’t have had quite the same ring to it. And technically, neither Sisyphus nor Waiting for Godot are perfectly analogous to my situation. But I feel like Sisyphus, so that’s the one that will stay. That […]
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Silencing the patriots: from UKZN to parliament the voices of freedom are under attack
Tyrants dance when the voices of civil society are silenced and in South Africa the band is starting to play. There are many reasons for disquiet; an array of laws have been lined up over the last two years focussing on curtailing liberties, particularly freedom of expression, and now the University of KwaZulu Natal is […]