Please accept my apologies for my lack of enthusiasm for activism this year. I am worn out, and have neither the energy nor the inclination to find out exactly what activism activities are happening in my part of the world. I also have no desire to wear a symbolic white ribbon. (I don’t do ribbons.) […]
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Posted inLifestyle
Conned by a crooked, sweet, big old lady
Hailing from the once-great and still-proud Zulu nation, I was brought up in a home where good traditional values were taught and guarded jealously. Among these values was respect for your fellow man, in generally, but most importantly was respect for your elders. The matriarchal female in the traditional Zulu homestead was always the most […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Aids, poverty and racism: A further complicity of opposites
As I pointed out in my last post, “Gevisser on Aids”, the Aids-drug lobby (which has long overstated the centrality of antiretroviral treatment in an effective Aids policy for Africa) join in a complicity of opposites with the Aids denialists (who deny that HIV causes Aids and that Aids exists) when it comes to President […]
Posted inGeneral
David Irving and Nick Griffin must be allowed to speak
There is no question that David Irving, the convicted Holocaust denier, and Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, espouse views that are abhorrent and even dangerous. There is also no question of my distancing myself unequivocally from their views. Notwithstanding, they have been invited to address a debate on free speech at Oxford […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Palestinian peace in our time?
If you want to know why you should not take seriously reports promising that the US “peace initiative” in Annapolis will end conflict in the Middle East, it may be useful to recall something of our own journalistic past. During the height of apartheid, some of our newspapers had a stock headline they would trot […]
Posted inGeneral
The Mbeki biography — the good one
I have just put down of Mark Gevisser’s Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred and I have to say I am disappointed, but only because the end came too soon — I thought I had at least a chapter to go, but in fact the pages under my fingers were the 90-odd pages of footnotes, bibliography […]
Posted inGeneral
Mearsheimer and Walt: The Israel lobby and US foreign policy
John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard, published what they have styled a working paper (updated from 2002 through 2007) on the Israel lobby and its effect on US foreign policy. The March 2006 version may be seen here. The latest version […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Did you ever sleep with Mbeki?
Minutes before the Wits University book launch of Mark Gevisser’s over-hyped book on Mbeki, the traffic was forced to part on Jan Smuts outside the university as The Leader zipped past in RSA1 with a siren-blaring retinue of seven vehicles across three lanes. It lent an authentic African feel to the event. It is the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Pete Townshend and the missing paedophiles
There’s something uncannily similar in the eyes of the faces that have allowed themselves to be seduced by child pornography. Look, for instance, at the faces of Pete Townshend and the recently convicted British actor Chris Langham. There’s an icy hollowness there that looks like a soul that has erased part of itself. Townshend, the […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media
Blogging the road to international design success
Blogging has opened up a remarkable new vista of opportunity for designers, artists and crafters to tap into overseas trends and market their work internationally, but it seems that few South Africans are taking notice. One exception is Heather Moore, a self-taught illustrator and fabric designer. Working out of her studio in Long Street, Cape […]
Posted inGeneral
Are atheists more rational than the Reverend Meshoe?
A few weeks ago, I wrote about my irrational, superstitious belief in God in a piece entitled “An irrational believer in God”. The sheer volume of emails I received in response was a bit overwhelming. The emails can be divided into four categories: 1. Other consciously irrational, superstitious religious types who emailed me to tell […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Gevisser on Aids: A complicity of opposites
The Aids debate has entered a fascinating phase with Mark Gevisser’s nervous and hesitant — yet unmistakable — admission that President Thabo Mbeki is not now, nor has he ever been, an Aids denialist. Queried by the Sunday Times on Mbeki’s Aids stance, Gevisser replied: “He [Mbeki] doesn’t call it denialism, and I agree with […]