What does it actually mean to be a man? My job in the publishing industry often bumps up against this question since a lot of what we do is about creating content for men. What I find most interesting is how so much of what we create is informed by a particular idea of masculinity […]
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Posted inGeneral
The stupidest invention this century
I’m sure many a man has heard of the vagina dentata — a mysterious and powerful vagina with teeth that will devour a penis in seconds. It is a fearful picture to create in anyone’s mind, especially when the vagina is not like that at all. Somehow this crazy idea has been extended to build […]
Posted inGeneral
Bafana, amagents & a little passion at the urinal: The new, new SA
I am not sure which was more scary. The hairy, heavy Vry Staater in a boep-clinging Bafana shirt or the big black dude beneath a Bloem Celtic cap I encountered in the gents at half time on Tuesday. As I manoeuvred between them to attend to pressing matters I was caught in the vice of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Working with the Root
The following is an eight-part series about Danielle Nierenberg’s visit to the Ecumenical Association for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development’s (ECASARD) work in Ghana. Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. Part I: Working with the Root The Ecumenical Association for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (ECASARD), based in Accra, Ghana, is a unique […]
Posted inEnvironment, Lifestyle, News/Politics
One more for the denialists
A new study is out, and the denialists of human-generated climate change are going to love it. Basically the authors of the study in question were puzzled by the level of public doubt and scepticism regarding anthropogenic climate change (ACC). As they saw it there was a “striking agreement” among scientists on the causes and […]
Posted inLifestyle
Is this Jo’burg’s most expensive haircut?
I think I may have just had Johannesburg’s most expensive haircut. I’m still completely traumatised, but I’m starting to emerge from the dazed and confused state that inevitably results when one has had a dreadful shock. I’d put off getting my hair sorted because I know that all hair salons see women coming, but not […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Feeding Cope to the dogs
In politics, and in Cope in particular, sometimes it is necessary to “cut through the spin” of that spun by those claiming to cut through the spin. Especially when their cutting lacks surgical precision and leaves much to be desired. I was rather amused by the virtually instantaneous return of two of Cope’s most notorious […]
Posted inGeneral
Lovelock’s ‘final warning’
In Leonard Shlain’s wonderful book, Sex, Time and Power (2003), he makes the following observation: “Our ancestors would … bring about the greatest mass extinction of large animals since the dinosaurs abruptly disappeared 65-million years ago. Through their ever burgeoning technological prowess, humans would plant crops, tend herds, invent writing, build the Parthenon, discover gunpowder, […]
Posted inLifestyle
Secrets from the ladies’ locker room
There is something that each one of us has in common. Underneath all of our clothes, we are naked. Yes it’s true — even in winter, beneath the layers of clothes, scarves, gloves and thick socks, there is a live naked person waiting to get out. If you don’t believe me, visit your local gym […]
Posted inGeneral
The World Cup fever catches on!
By Lenox Mhlanga Feel it … it is here! The Soccer World Cup is finally underway in South Africa. It was surely a long wait but it was worth it. If you have not caught the football bug then you must be dead, or worse. Alain de Botton, a newspaper columnist puts it this way, […]
Posted inGeneral
Vuvuzela wars: The philosophy
South Africans should reject any suggestion that the vuvuzela is unpopular because we could not embrace such assertions without contradicting our own experience. The reality we know is that the horn epitomises the spirit of a football loving people, and any criticism devoid of the desire to understand the deep connection we share with the […]
Posted inSport
Love in the time of vuvuzelas
When I woke up on the morning of June the 11th, I had a strange premonition, an indefinable feeling of exhilaration and dread. I glanced at the date on my Blackberry screen and I knew: this date means something important, but what? Where had I seen it before? After some mental arithmetic, I worked out […]