The outlook for cloud delivery of unified communications platforms is getting ever brighter as bandwidth supply restrictions are lifted and high cost is addressed. On its own, the value proposition of cloud-based computing delivery is very compelling – with unified communications (UC) as well as most other applications. – At low upfront cost and […]
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Posted inGeneral
Do schools kill creativity?
By Athambile Masola As a new teacher, I have a vested interest in education and I’m always wondering about how to be innovative. I recently had a SMART Board and a data projector installed in my classroom. I was astonished as my learners entered the classroom agog, declaring, “Ma’am your classroom’s been pimped … upgraded!” […]
Posted inGeneral
Sharks need a plan and fast
Well that’s a pretty disappointing start, isn’t it? A moment of magic sparked by Paul Jordaan in the 72nd minute of that dull arm wrestle in Tshwane. And that’s pretty much it as far as bothering the tryline has gone for the Sharks in 2012. Its been pretty moribund stuff really. Not poor, but certainly […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Traditional Courts Bill: Colonialism warmed up
The retabled Traditional Courts Bill, if adopted in its current form, will relegate at least 17 million South Africans to a separate and unequal judicial regime merely because they happen to live in the rural areas – a situation in many cases imposed on them by the apartheid regime. While cabinet’s planned “review” of Constitutional […]
Posted inBusiness
Property: buy, sell or hold?
This week we’ll take a look at the property market and what it can tell us about the broader economy. Certain measures of the property market are leading indicators because they signal the future direction of economic activity. The issuance of building permits and new home sales, for example, telegraph future construction. An uptick in […]
Posted inGeneral
Situating (university) research in an encompassing social theory
As far as I can tell, research at most South African universities – and I would even include overseas universities in this – is conducted in such a way that it is guided principally by individual researchers’ interests, and/or their interests in so far as they overlap or dovetail with those of other researchers under […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
The unions: For whom do they speak?
When it comes to the Tripartite Alliance, Oscar Wilde’s observation that the proper basis for a marriage is a mutual misunderstanding seems rather apt. ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe has himself used the matrimonial metaphor. When Zuma invites the unions to join the national executive council (as he did this past week), he is extending […]
Posted inGeneral
Malema swaggers to the gaming table in the Last Chance Saloon
Expelled African National Congress Youth League leader, Julius Malema, may know how to whip up a paramilitary posse of slathering, beret-wearing fascists, but when it comes to taking strategic decisions he just hasn’t a clue. When the chips are down he behaves like an alcohol befuddled gambler in the Last Chance Saloon, rashly doubling and […]
Posted inGeneral
A man who is not a man
By Fundile Majola There was a mixture of excitement and anxiety in the Port Elizabeth air on that sunny Monday morning of November 24. I was ready for my last matric examination paper, Geography. I was also ready to be made and declared a man – the initiation process was to start that evening. I […]
Posted inGeneral
South African enough to take to lunch?
By Duncan Scott What’s in a nationality? In a country in which political rhetoric and common sentiment towards foreign nationals is often belligerent, quite a lot. A South African – let’s call him K – recently put it to me, “When it comes to nationality, like in every other civilised country in the world, there […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Airbrushing the boesman
Just what does a coloured have to do these days — short of knocking out the rest of his teeth or picking up the banjo — to get noticed in South African national debates? One really wishes the government would make up its mind. First they were saying there’s historically been an ‘over-concentration’ of bruin-ous […]
Posted inMedia
The Medicines Control Council and a decade of deliberate deception
The South African Association for Responsible Health Information and Advertising (ARHIA) – of which I am a founding member – has called on the Medicines Control Council (MCC) to remedy the untenable situation in which over 155 000 medicines on the market have not had quality tests verified by the MCC. This creates a serious public […]