Few would disagree that the hit fantasy-adventure TV series Game of Thrones is, from a purely aesthetic point of view, an outstanding achievement. Its production values are top notch and the acting and scripting are of a consistently high standard. Certainly, it is a yardstick by which the impressive advances made in television entertainment over […]
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Posted inGeneral
Zille: Three tweets to the wind
By Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh After the DA leader’s first Twitter-related faux pas, describing voters as “supporting the ANC because they were given KFC”, I winced, bit my lip, and continued with my day. After her second slur, depicting Simphiwe Dana as a “professional black” for apparently trading on her race in criticising the Western Cape government’s […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media
Beware the oracle
Chris Moerdyk states in his News24 opinion column of May 7 2012 that the editor of the magazine Health Intelligence (Mr Colin Levin) agrees with him (in an editorial on page 1 of Edition 15 – May/June 2012) about the latest food labelling regulations going “too far in their noble intention to (protect) consumers from misleading […]
Posted inMedia
Press clubs are for public engagement, not political intolerance
Following the fracas after Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson refused to enter the room or speak at a Cape Town Press Club breakfast until an opposition MP had removed himself, there is suddenly talk of the press club being some kind of front “infiltrated” by opposition politicians. ANC national spokesperson Jackson Mthembu, the office of the […]
Posted inGeneral
Meyer: a coach, not an investor
We’re heading into the Test rugby season, which will put the Super series on hold. From many quarters now, we’re hearing a call for investing in the youth and Fourie Du Preez saying that he is available for the Boks but preference must go to the next generation. That’s all good and well when you’re […]
Posted inLifestyle
Cervical cancer: We can, must and should do more
The Reuters article on cancer in Africa that appeared in the Mail & Guardian on May 1 was an important reminder to all of us that while head-butting HIV and tackling TB, rushing food parcels to the malnourished thousands around the continent and battling our way through the diarrhoeas and pneumonias that plague our sickly […]
Posted inGeneral
A crisis of moral leadership
By Gregory Solik The struggle against apartheid produced a long tradition of exemplary leaders. This tradition continued through the negotiations post 1994 during the years of transition. Yet despite this strong tradition, we currently talk very often about the “crisis in leadership”. Julius Malema’s recent expulsion from the ANC has been upheld and this marks […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The parable of the general and the prosecutor
Let’s call it the Parable of the General and the Prosecutor. It’s a sinister, yet vivid, illustration of how the tools of justice have been commandeered by African National Congress (ANC) cadres for close-quarter in-fighting, as they trample all before them in their quest for political influence. Lieutenant-General Richard Mdluli, head of national police crime […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Is it time for a South African Spring?
Let’s face it, our world is in a total mess right now. Social strife, political skullduggery and infighting, environmental degradation, and, for most, severe economic hardship, are pretty much the common denominators across every nation which makes up the global community. What makes this mess so particularly vexing to contemplate in South Africa is that […]
Posted inGeneral
Whiteness, shame and “this strange place”
“The liberals must realise that they themselves are oppressed if they are true liberals and therefore they must fight for their own freedom and not that of the nebulous “they” with whom they can hardly claim identification.” – Steve Biko So much has been written on whiteness recently that it hardly seems worth adding to […]
Posted inGeneral
Epic failure
“OMG! EPIC!!!” For anyone who regularly frequents online spaces, this is a familiar refrain. It is the default comment for even the most pedestrian or banal of content. So much so, that the word itself has taken on the same nature of the objects or events it is so undeservedly used to describe. Type “epic” into […]
Posted inGeneral
How humans ‘produce’ space
Space is one of the most intimately experienced, and probably least reflected-on phenomena of the human life-world. Like time, it is presupposed in everything we do, although – living, as we do, in an era of what Lyotard and others call “accelerated” time, and therefore constantly being aware of time – we are probably less […]