Marianne Thamm There are those who are of the opinion that art is a sacred calling and that the artist, like the young Catholic nun or Buddhist monk, should relinquish the pursuit of material gain to meet the rigours and demands of the vocation. Alone and poverty-stricken (well, at least some of the time) in […]
Anthea Garman experienced the !Xoe Site Specific exhibition around Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo `Do you have a believable sense of place?” is the simple, cheeky, and only bit of written information about the first installation we stop to see outside Nieu Bethesda. This is artwork number five by Marco Cianfanelli and we’ve chosen to […]
Howard Barrell The Angolan government has moved troops and heavy artillery into position for a large-scale offensive against rebel Unita positions in the central highlands of the country. South African-based security analysts expect an assault to commence in the next few days. The government in Luanda is understood to have sought, and got, the permission […]
Barbara Ludman SA 98-99: SOUTH AFRICA AT A GLANCE (Editors Inc) This slim little volume is a publishing success for its owners – former Star editors Harvey Tyson and Richard Steyn; Rex Gibson, last editor of the Rand Daily Mail; and George Trail, a former United States diplomat. This is its fourth edition; there are […]
Vera Rule investigates Chris Carter, the mysterious force behind The X-Files He’s from Bellflower, southern Los Angeles, a “burb” for guys who used to make aeroplanes; a part of what Chris Carter’s writers call the military- industrial-entertainment complex. Teenage Chris and a classmate drove 30km to Westwood, Los Angeles. The boy looked nervously around a […]
Has Apple turned the corner at last? Leander Kahney sees Mac fans swoon in the face of the greatest showmanship The 2 500 Macintosh devotees who packed the opening session of Macworld Expo in New York earlier this month were expecting Steve Jobs, Apple Macintosh’s acting chief executive, to deliver a short pep talk via […]
Who is . . . Graa Machel?
Consider comfort as well as cost when you choose an airline, writes Belinda Beresford Legs all the way up to heaven may be considered desirable in some quarters, but they are a definite problem when it comes to flying. Cramped legroom ranks up there with the lousy food and disgusting toilets in economy class. Given […]
Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD Let me establish one fact from the outset: I am not an animal-loving person. I possess two beautiful mink coats, adore wearing ivory and my dietary maxim is: if it moves, kill it, cook it and eat it. So why, you might ask, have I opted to partake in […]
Iain Banks writes books about sex and drugs. Iain M Banks is a sci-fi nerd. Are they related? Phil Daoust investigates on the eve of the author’s visit to South Africa What the hell are you doing in a place like this? It’s a question you have to wrestle back down your throat when you […]
Neil Manthorp in Nottingham Cricket Napoleon may have been a great general but it doesn’t mean to say he would have been as successful today as he was then. Nonetheless, the study of Napoleon remains as intrinsic to the modern soldier as it is to the student of European history. The same applies in sport […]
Douglas Rushkoff Online So far, only my Melbourne sponsors have let me keep the original title of the talk I’ve been giving around the world this month: Why Futurists Suck. I shouldn’t have been so surprised that 500 concerned Australians would fill the cavernous Malthouse Theatre to participate in a free exchange about our collective […]
Mariam Mayet The draft Environmental Management Bill (“Putting the people in charge”, Monitor, July 17 to 23) marks an extremely important departure from previous environmental policy and legislation. Unlike most current environmental legislation, which has been criticised for being a paper tiger, this Bill contains provisions that empower citizens to take up the cudgels for […]
redistribution’ Derek Hanekom Ann Eveleth’s article “Land reform targets are far, far away” (Monitor, June 5 to 11) ignores the remarkable progress we have made in the past four years and the complexity of land-reform processes. The central argument is that we will never meet “the reconstruction and development programme promise to redistribute 30% of […]
Wally Mbhele The head of a KwaZulu-Natal prison who was recently suspended after his alleged involvement in the death of a prisoner is back at work. Minister of Correctional Services Sipho Mzimela promised an inquiry into the actions of Sipho Dlamini, head of the Ingwavuma prison. Prisoners claim they were not informed that the inquiry […]
showing Brenda Atkinson wonders why ads in trade magazines are so bad – and who creates these sub-standard promotions I was paging through a copy of Engineering News recently. I know less about engineering, but I maintain a healthy interest in a wide variety of topics, and have been known to frequent garages and hardware […]
Andrew Worsdale Russell Thompson says he’s not a shy person. “Hell, I’ve been known to take off my clothes and scream loudly from the tops of tall buildings,” he tells me over a demure coffee in Melville. It was a pleasure meeting the man – should I say director – who at 39 has the […]
charge Sechaba ka’Nkosi Inkatha Freedom Party moderates have bounced back to centre stage in championing the party’s election campaign for next year. As the IFP grapples with its image as a Zulu-based provincial outfit, its national council has carefully avoided choosing people associated with violence in KwaZulu- Natal and Gauteng in the 1990s to lead […]
Tangeni Amupadhi A Northern Cape doctor has called for the mandatory use of protective clothing after an outbreak of chemical poisoning affecting dozens of farmworkers. Many labourers in the Kakamas and surrounding areas have fallen ill during the past month after coming into contact with Dormex, which contains a highly toxic chemical called cyanamide. The […]
Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week In 1947 Vladimir Nabokov started writing what he dubbed “a short novel about a man who liked little girls”. Seven years later he finished it but it was rejected as pornography by American publishers and was finally published in Paris by Olympia Press. After a rash of glowing reviews […]
Superficially, the former minister of law and order, Adriaan Vlok, may appear to be deserving of some credit for his performance before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission this week. Unlike his former colleagues (Magnus Malan, the former minister of defence, is one name which stands out starkly), he at least had the guts to face […]
Coenraad Visser Escapism, or realism. Pretty girls in pretty dresses singing pretty, or the glamourless homeless, evicted from land and love. These are the opera choices in Gauteng this week. The Three Sopranos is, above all, a feast of glitz. Producer Tibor Rudas, the man behind the ageing three tenors extorting vast sums of money […]
Mungo Soggot About a year ago at the Land Bank it took 13 signatures to authorise a cheque for R1 500. Non-menial staff at its Pretoria head office were all white, women had to wear uniforms and there were several married couples. The men in these couples were never managers, because of a rule which […]
Ferial Haffajee As former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok came clean before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission this week, a smaller act of absolution was happening in Potchefstroom. Willem Boshoff, a destitute 58-year- old, has apologised to journalists Laurence Gandar and Benjamin Pogrund for his role in a trial which chalked up a dark […]
David Coldwell It may be little consolation if you lose your job, but those at the top argue that downsizing is a management tool, to be distinguished from redundancy. Redundancy occurs as a result of sudden large-scale economic crises, or when large industries are no longer able to compete, for example, the decline in the […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon It has taken France – at long last – to realise Oscar Wilde’s famous parody of a dreary Victorian homily. Wilde turned the phrase around and made it: “Work i s the curse of the drinking classes.” What French bureaucracy is now doing is realising controversial legislation that will reduce the […]
Phillip Kakaza and Alex Dodd preview the Gift to the Nation Concert celebrating Nelson Mandela’s 80th birthday Gift to the nation indeed! And the nation is duly looking forward to tonight -Friday July 24 -at Kingsmead Stadium in Durban and Saturday night at the Johannesburg Stadium, like good children look forward to Christmas. Set to […]
Phillip Kakaza Live in Johannesburg Difficulties with the political situation at home in Kinshasa, Zaire, prompted them to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. Their first stop was Cameroon, second Kenya and then Namibia. They later settled in South Africa where, on arrival, they were faced with humiliation. But The Fantastique Guys, a 12-piece band, never […]
Wetsho-Otsile Seremane Personal History The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s decision not to hold public hearings on human rights violations by some African National Congress members in Quatro and other camps (“TRC ducks Quatro”, June 26 to July 2) is shocking, to say the the least. It is a slap in the face for those families […]
FRIDAY 3PM: MPUMALANGA’S sacked deputy speaker, Cynthia Maropeng, and two senior suspended legislature officials had their passports confiscated on Friday morning after being arrested on nine cases of fraud and theft in Nelspruit, Justin Arenstein reports. The visibly surprised suspects were granted R5000 bail each by magistrate Willie Wilkens at a hastily convened court hearing […]
Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg In the year 2013 AD, planet earth will witness that old nuclear havoc: the final, inevitable, apocalyptic spectacle of destruction. A blinding flash, pandemonium, rancid corpses twisting with the hot breeze . But all will not be lost. No siree. Because way above the messy implosion there rests a […]
David Shapshak South Africa’s strength in science gives it a prime position to help drive scientific development and research in Southern Africa, says one of the United Nations’s top science officials. Professor Maurizio Iaccarino, assistant director general for science of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), was in South Africa this week […]