For a country that is expecting to host the football World Cup in less than 900 days, here’s how the International Arrivals section at OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg is currently going about its business. I arrived at the dire baggage claim area just after 17:00 on Tuesday 4 March after a flight that had […]
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Posted inGeneral
The thin wallet and sheer bliss on tap
A few years ago I used to play in an inter-departmental indoor football league at work. The departmental team I played for was, at that time, an assembly of pathetic riffraff masquerading as football players. In short; they sucked seventeen lemons and their peels. I remember one particular fellow who used to take tiny Mr. […]
Posted inTech
Google sets your calendar free!
It’s been a long time since anyone thought of Google as “the good guys”. Though they have waged a war with Microsoft for everything from search to word processing, they have become more like the Redmond clan than they would ever want to admit. But, still, how can you not love them? And now they’ve […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zuma meets Jewish community while Afrikaners meet prejudice
Why is it that we tend to look at the components rather than the whole when assessing South Africa? Isolate the negatives and aggregate them into a false reality that, looking forward, will translate into a bleak future without any prospects of redemption. Jacob Zuma’s meeting with the Jewish community was not only a success […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Free State Four: Blame the government
Submitted by Peter Griffiths Over the past week, many people have reacted with outrage to a video made by four University of the Free State students. For the most part I believe an opportunity for debate has been missed by media capitalising on sensationalist reportage, commentators quickly making sure they couldn’t possibly be caught on […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
Salad-bar diversity
A few months ago I wrote a piece titled “The Oros Man” in which I detailed the pressures and inhumanities to which fat people are subjected in order to fit in the corporate workplace. In that particular piece I used the illustrious year-end office function as a tool to illustrate my point of view on […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Coconuts, racism and SABC politics
Since the debate about the (re)launch of the Forum of Black Journalists (FBJ) refuses to die and since it will be given new life on Wednesday at the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), I thought I would add my own little bit of noise into the cacophony that already exists. No doubt the SAHRC […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Surviving an economic downturn: Philanthropy and the non-profit sector
Working in the philanthropy field gives me some idea of how confident people are about South Africa. Until 1976, huge philanthropic investments were made in the country by the then white elites — they established charitable foundations to ensure that their legacies endured into the future, and we still reap the benefits of some of […]
Posted inLifestyle
Taxi life: What a ‘joy’-ride!
Submitted by Judy Sikuza Many constituents have labelled the Gautrain as “a train for the rich” and feel that the project is a waste of funds that could go to alternative transportation projects. I am sure numerous taxi drivers would agree with the latter component. After all, who needs a fast, high-tech transport system like […]
Posted inGeneral
The times, dreams and cinema
Freud called dreams “wish-fulfilments”, inviting the obvious objection, that this would fail to account for nightmares. Except … if we think of nightmares as negative wish-fulfilments — whatever it is that haunts you in your dreams, is precisely what we wish to avoid. The father of psychoanalysis also pointed out that dreams unfold in the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
I’m sorry, but if 1994 wasn’t an apology for apartheid, I’m a blue Martian
If actions speak louder than words, the relinquishing of power by white South Africa in 1994 was worth far more than the mere mouthing of an apology by “whites” in 2008. Knee-jerk responses should always be regarded with cynicism, and the call this week for whites to say sorry for apartheid — in the wake […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
An idea so good you can eat it
Anne Taylor blogs for Thought Leader from the Design Indaba in Cape Town. Dutch designer Marije Vogelzang laid out a feast of delicious ideas that the audience gobbled up at this year’s Design Indaba, now on in Cape Town: tablecloths of dough draped over shapes so it dries into edible bowls, revolvers made out of […]