Futility of boots and guns in a pandemic
THERE’S an old saying, of unknown origin but popularised by Mark Twain: ‘There are lies, damn lies … and statistics’. Each day in this world of pandemic we are bombarded by figures and graphs. They […]
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Militaristic response to crisis
SOUTH Africans woke up on Friday March 27 to the grim realisation that they are again living in a police state. A nondescript government whose norm is irrationality has chosen a threatening, militaristic response rather […]
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Blame lies with an authoritarian China
FAMINES, according to the renowned economist Amartya Sen, do not happen in functioning democracies. Nor do epidemics. There has been no better illustration of this than the Covid-19 pandemic that could become a turning point […]
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A day of infamy, sadness and shame
FRIDAY, January 31, 2020 will be recorded in British history as a day of infamy, sadness and shame. Brexit represents the triumph of English populist nationalism with its toxic baggage of xenophobia, philistinism, ignorance, nostalgia, […]
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Obscene language in cricket
HERSCHELLE Gibbs and Kevin Pietersen shrug off Joss Buttler’s expletive-laden rant at Vernon Philander in the recent Cape Town test as typical of what ‘happens on the field most of the time’ (Witness, January 9). […]
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Broadcasting meltdown
CHICKENS are at last coming home to roost for South African Airways. Business rescue basically means it will survive in some form in private hands, or simply disappear into liquidation. Either way it will be […]
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South Africa’s economic saboteurs
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa reckons that economic sabotage is partly to blame for Eskom’s recent level-six load shedding; eerily reminiscent of Alec Erwin’s loose bolt at Koeberg in 2006. How, then, would Ramaphosa describe the systematic […]