Dear Mr President, Before launching into this letter’s raison d’être, I want you to know that I am truly fond of you. Truly. I want to squeeze your plump cheeks, sit across the dinner table from you just to hear you speak, and give you a good old bear hug at the end of the […]
News/Politics
Posted inGeneral, Health, News/Politics
Covid-19: South Africa’s fears… and some ways we can fight them
The novel coronavirus has taken over South Africans’ lives in the past month. At the beginning of the month, the country was still hosting major sporting events and big gatherings; now we’re in lockdown. Some quick research into news coverage from the past month reveals what South Africans are most afraid about, but also […]
Posted inEnvironment, General, News/Politics
Two dozen questions for the President
Dear President Ramaphosa, I have two dozen questions for you, please feel free to answer them in the comments section below. 1. Where are the success stories from Affirmative Action and Black Empowerment, that say the deserving beneficiaries as connected have started new businesses, not simply borrowed money to buy into existing businesses, that were […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, Gender violence, General, Health, News/Politics
At the trough or the bowl
Imagine for a moment that the human race was extinct and that instead in its place several billion humanoid pigs had taken up residence on planet earth. Pigs, yeah let’s say pigs — or dogs, or cats or birds for that matter, it doesn’t really make a difference. Let’s say that these pigs (or dogs […]
Posted inNews/Politics
What Ramaphosa announced, and what he admitted
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address contained all the usual announcements of new government initiatives, but was marked for what he admitted about the country’s huge challenges. This comes out clearly in a look at how this tough SONA was reported on in the media. The name “Ramaphosa” was mentioned 80 times in […]
Posted inEnvironment, News/Politics
Patriotism is the last refuge of the coward
There are many things that signal the virtue of cowardice. A prolonged and deep reliance on patriotism is just one of them. To say that the South Africa in which we now live is a project in progress is to deny two things. Firstly that the republic is the same republic as from 1961 and […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Zille is gone, Twitter is empty
I do not have any reason to Twitter I joined just to follow Helen Zille I thought we’d have great adventures Propounding Liberalism’s virtues Then the haters and the hatred could Be defeated with rational looks At arguments and mindful logic applied To unwind, untangle and internalize The great social problems of the day The […]
Posted inBusiness, General, News/Politics
Eskom is bent
If Eskom is bent, what is it going to take to straighten it out?
Posted inEnvironment, Gender violence, General, News/Politics
It’s official, I’m a twit!
I swore off social media rubbishcapades more than a decade ago. I still have all my records from the early and mid 90s regarding my orders for a social media. I still listen to all my records from the mid and late 90s regarding my orders for a Web 2.0 and a social media. I […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics, Tech
Can SAA attract the “one percenters”?
By Dale van der Lingen My previous piece here centred on lessons for South African Airways (SAA) from Ford’s upending of Ferrari’s decades long dominance at Le Mans in the 1960s and our very own Springboks’ miraculous turnaround from a place where, to paraphrase Mike Tindell’s post-match analysis, they couldn’t win a raffle 18 months […]
Posted inEquality, General, Media, News/Politics
Trump: The Emperor without clothes
Everybody knows the story of the emperor’s new clothes — where a vain emperor contracted two so-called ‘tailors’ to make him a new set of clothes, not knowing that they were con artists. By flattering the emperor about his handsome appearance in the supposedly new clothes, when in fact there was nothing, and assuring him […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Fixing SAA: State-owned does not have to mean state-run
By Dale van der Lingen I love going to the movies, enjoying the popcorn, and switching off my phone for the duration of the movie. The cinemas, along with flying, are two of the last escapes we have from the bombardment of life in the smartphone age. This last weekend I sat down to watch […]