Driving back from an appointment at the state-run Helen Joseph Hospital — how she would cringe at the “place of weeping” that bears her name and which most people call the Hell & Joseph — I see the massive traffic jam snaking back a kilometre down Hendrik Potgieter Road in Roodepoort. The words of a…
Maybe rising to the challenge would be a good start. Sociologists agree that few facets of the human experience so effectively transcend divisions to unite people as being able to communicate with each other effectively. To do this, a shared “language” is indispensable. Whether it be the spoken word, signing for deaf people, semaphore or…
Most of us ordinary, reasonably decent people have difficulty wrapping our minds around the legal notion of a company being a “person” in the same way we are. People are people and companies are, well, just, y’know, companies. People have feelings and morals. Companies don’t. It never was that simple and it never will be….
When he was only 12, William Ernest Henley contracted tuberculosis of the bone. Eventually his left foot had to be amputated just below the knee. He spent many years in and out of hospital because the disease also infected his right foot, but he refused to have it amputated as well. He was eventually discharged…
Almost from the moment the rag-tag gaggle of erstwhile freedom fighters took over the reins of power — and, boy, did they love that power, like a kid who had just got his driver’s licence and was put behind the wheel of a Ferrari — they realised that, even under someone of the statesmanship and…
There is a temptation to see South Africa as a self-cannibalising charity case. Given the vast number of charitable causes, NGOs, NPOs and beggars on the streets, it seems everyone has a hand out. And given the ANC government’s appalling record on social upliftment issues from health to housing to employment, even the ordinary individual…
I have taken enormous liberties with this blog. Liberties which I trust the original poet, a legend in his own lifetime and an enduring icon in my life, will forgive because I am unable to improve on his evocative, lyrical, astounding work. Along with Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, John Lennon, Carole…
Just as physicists, astronomers, molecular biologists, mathematicians and the greatest minds in the world discover more and more bizarre and jaw-dropping new things in the macroverse and microverse, they are realising that fundamental laws of science remain incontrovertible and more sound than ever. Of course, they still battle to reconcile things that are mathematically proven,…
South Africa — Alive with Possibility. So trumpets SA Info, self-proclaimed “gateway to the nation”, and echoed by Brand South Africa, “custodian” of SA’s image. SA Tourism opts for the slightly less in-your-face “It’s Possible”, but the theme remains common. It’s an alluring slogan. It speaks of vibrancy and vitality. It resonates with promise and…
Having spent two-and-a-half hours wandering, lost, dazed, misdirected and alone, through the confusing labyrinthine catacombs of Ortia (m.c.k.a. Johannesburg International Airport) last night, I beg some wealthy and wise entrepreneur to urgently begin marketing a “Survivor SA” kit to save body, sanity and soul. The airport ordeal followed a horrendous 110-minute hellride from the West…
