there is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,
FOR the last few years of my formal working life, I was employed in the newsroom of a medium-size, well-established paper. It was a happy experience in a non-hierarchic, team-orientated environment and a relief after […]
THE rather crude image of a political tent with one’s adversaries outside pissing in, or alternatively inside pissing out, is attributed to US President Lyndon Johnson. In South Africa, following the 29 May elections the […]
‘THE constant rolling of the vessel coupled with my intense occupation in the wheelhouse with the screen of the Gee machine soon brought me to the extremes of sea-sickness. I felt absolutely dreadful and was […]
DENIALISM is an understandable human reaction – and a dangerous one. Those with faith in democracy tend to employ it when faced with populist threats from right and left: ‘they don’t really mean it’; ‘our […]
LIKE Kafka, George Orwell (Eric Blair) left his eponymous mark on history; plus anticipation of a particular forthcoming year. It’s now forty years since 1984, which turned out not to embody the dystopic future Blair […]
MUCH is being made of the fact that a large number of the world’s nations will be holding general elections this year. Some will of course be a farce: Vladimir Putin will be reaffirmed as […]
WE may never know exactly how Alexei Navalny died. One possibility put forward by someone familiar with such matters is that he was forced to stay out in sub-zero temperatures and then punched in the […]
UNBRIDLED adulation: that seems to be the default reaction at the passing of any prominent figure closely associated with the ANC. We’ve seen it again recently with the death of Mbongeni Ngema in a head-on […]
IT’S been a grim year. Extremism and fundamentalism have taken a tighter grip on the planet; the conflict in Palestine being yet another instance in which the forces of reason and moderation have been sidelined. […]
Narcissistic, thin-skinned, unprofessional, threatening, intimidating and abusive on social media; with an inclination to create and exploit racial divisions. These are some of the descriptors used by an independent panel chaired by Lex Mpati tasked […]