Thought Leader

By Guy Chennells This article is in continuation of a debate that I must admit I’ve only partly followed. It’s about race and being South African. If you know what you’re going to say in response already, this is not for you. If you feel a gnawing hunger for an unsure offering, like it’s a…

Last week’s post introduced the concept of economic indicators and why you should pay attention to them. This week’s post explains how to actually use them. As a general rule, with most indicators, you must look for four things: movement, magnitude, trends and context. Each of these tells you something interesting, but you only get…

I was born at Mamelodi Day Hospital in 1985. At a time when the apartheid government was getting anxious about the longevity of their antics, when the people were realising that perhaps they could really beat this thing, when everyone, white and black alike, could feel that the air was different. There were many of us…

Bathing in the warm, fuzzy glow of pay day, my boyfriend and I decided to head out for a drink this past Friday evening. We had set out later than planned, and it was a dark but warm night. The roads were busy, and we made our way from Illovo towards Melville via Parkhurst. The…

As many of you have heard, there was further violence against women at the Noord Street Taxi rank earlier this month. Two young women were assaulted by a mob of violent men, justified by the premise that they shouldn’t have been wearing revealing clothing. We have been here before, and this violence is evidence that…

The leading tagline of the Occupy Wall Street movement reads: “Protest for world revolution.” This is an ambitious claim. In most respects it seems to ring quite true: the movement has successfully taken root not only in cities and towns throughout the United States but also in major urban centres around the world. On October…

By Elsabe van Vuuren In 1994 South Africa rejoiced at the ordination of a new government. South Africans also celebrated the end of deeply unjust apartheid laws. This was a new beginning for Southern Africa. South Africa joined its neighbours, namely Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia and, Zimbabwe in the fight for more equal opportunities for…

I received a forwarded horrific tweet moments ago. The tweet in question came from Durex SA, and went as follows: @DurexSA: Why did God give men penises? So they’d have at least one way to shut a woman up. #DurexJoke When I pointed out to them that this endorsed violence against women, their response was:…

Come Dine With Me South Africa on the BBC Entertainment network, part of the DStv package, is undoubtedly the funniest show on television and this is down to the fact that its narrator, David Lamb from Sussex in England, delivers razor sharp commentary on everything and anything the contestants get up to. The 42-year-old Englishman,…

Judge John Horn, who was hearing the murder trial of accused Chris Mahlangu and a minor in the Ventersdorp High Court in North West on Monday, has been asked to rule on the admissibility of the accused’s bail application to form part of the evidence at trial. The pair is charged with inter alia the…