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Performance-enhancing substance (PES) use in sport is most likely the chief source of distress 1 facing sport in modern times 2. According to Clisby 2, the use of drugs to boost performance is common among athletes, despite strong efforts to hamper its use by sports organisations. The Olympic Charter’s vision of “friendship, solidarity and fair […]

Just over three years ago, shortly after my agonising crawl towards formal employment ended, I acquired a winter sweetheart in one of the winelands’ politically more fractured enclaves. When spring finally sprung I found myself unready to let my winelands honey go — in fact, things became rather serious — so I took the plunge […]

A couple of weeks ago, the Mail & Guardian featured a “for” and “against” exchange on the subject of women going bare-breasted on public beaches. It virtually goes without saying that both viewpoints were advanced by women. What possible right, after all, would a man have to express an opinion in an area that is […]

Fifteen years into our young democracy and democratic leadership is severely lacking and sorely needed. Across all sectors in society, from the halls of Parliament, the lawns of our academic institutions, the fertile fields of our farmlands and in company boardrooms, it seems as though democratic leaders are either lacking altogether or incredibly thinly spread. […]

By Dr Michael ‘Buchi Eze The ideological platitude on which the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and later African Union (AU) came into being was primarily to challenge colonialism, neutralise any lingering influence of imperialism and gain political independence for the rest of Africa. Thus Kwame Nkrumah in the heydays of independence struggle echoed this […]

By Jennifer Thorpe Male circumcision has been linked to the decreased transmission and contraction of HIV for men. It is being celebrated by scientists as an almost too obvious answer in the struggle to decrease HIV transmission. In South Africa, a country steeped in cultural and traditional ties to circumcision while at the same time […]

In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy Joseph Schumpeter makes an observation that may prove rather sobering for the pseudo-socialist peddlers of “vulgarised Marxism”. He says The Communist Manifesto is “an account nothing short of glowing of the achievements of capitalism”. Karl Marx noted that the bourgeoisie “accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts and Gothic […]

One of the most powerful texts ever written, The Communist Manifesto, opens with a very instructive statement: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. This statement still holds and will probably hold for another century or so. Almost all the nations in the world have to contend with this […]

“The purpose of engagement,” said Kate Philip to a small but packed lecture theatre at UCT’s Hiddingh Campus this weekend “is to change the world, a world that is shaped by power. Power itself is not random, it is organised, and therefore to tackle forms of power, one must be organised as well”. This was […]

The Chinese worker suddenly and loudly laughed at me as I strode under my umbrella into the parking lot where our apartment building is on Beijing West road in downtown Shanghai. He stood directly in front of me and laughed, smirking at me: it was a loud, mocking, donkey’s bray. He shouted something at his […]

Being a communicator and debating knowledge is probably a central (and mostly subconscious) concern of most skills and traits. Sadly though, it seems that the skill of interpersonal communication or facilitating the “sympathetic meeting of minds” is only briefly fondled by most formal programmes; often only as an “add-on” or an “optional extra”. Most of […]

A while back I wrote about the Battle of the Browsers between Opera’s Opera, Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox versus Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. From the look of things, the axis of good have won with the recent announcement by Microsoft that they will be shipping Windows 7 to Europe without IE. It just makes me […]