Kanthan's blog

1 March 2023 — Russia’s president Vladimir Putin announced last week that Moscow was suspending participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (“New START”), a pact signed with the United States in 2010, which put limits on the number of strategic nuclear warheads. US Secretary of...

1 November 2022 — Self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur and angel investor”, Jason Calacanis, is running a poll on Twitter. The question: “How much would you pay to be verified & get a blue check mark on Twitter?” Possible choices: “$5 a month”, “$10 a month”, “$15 a month”, “Wouldn’t...

6 August 2022 — Today is 6 August. On this day in 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. Between 70,000–80,000 people were killed by the blast and resultant firestorm. I’ve no doubt that the use of nuclear weapons would have become a regular...

1 July 2022 — I’ve had a basic internal rule in place over the years whenever I began a new position — I would make sure that I paid back the cost of my salary to my employer in the shortest possible time. “Paying back” in this case in this case is not a once off thing, but instead refers to...

18 June 2022 — I have said it before and I will say it again – Thabo Mbeki was the best president in the world at the time of his sacking. (It's at this point in the conversation that most people huffily declare: "How can you say he was the best in the world?!!!" My response is simply, "Tell...

20 May 2022 — Yesterday, in response to rising inflation, the South African Reserve Bank raised interest rates by 50 basis points. Once cannot really blame the team at the SARB who voted unanimously1 in favour of raising interest rates — “The primary object of the South African Reserve Bank...

23 April 2022 — For decades, Russia has been selling natural gas to countries in Europe. Initially, those countries would pay Russia in their own currencies (Example: Germany using Deutschmarks). In the modern era, those payments have been made in Euros. This year, after Russia began its “...

21 April 2022 — Finland’s government is toying with the idea of joining NATO. And the decision will be made in weeks, not months, according to Prime Minister Sanna Marin. Finland has worked closely with NATO since the organization was founded in 1949, but has not made overtures to formally...

19 April 2022 — Is low fat milk is healthier than full cream milk? If you’re fanatical about this because you think one is healthier than the other, let me set you straight: 1. Whole-fat dairy food intake is inversely associated with obesity prevalence. "Odds for global obesity (body mass...

17 April 2022 — The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function, F Scott Fitzgerald said. And as I recalled those words, it sparked a David Bowie ear worm: 'Tis a pity she was a whore 'Tis my...

15 April 2022 — Durban, like many great cities around the world, is built on a river. The mighty Umgeni runs some 230 km from the Natal Midlands down to its estuary in the Indian Ocean (which Durban natives like me know as “The Blue Lagoon”). The Umgeni literally cuts the city in two. To...

13 April 2022 — The world is melting! The planet is breaking down! The outpouring of hysterical headlines over the devastating floods in KwaZulu-Natal have been enough to make a jackal puke.1 Let me take y’all back to Easter weekend of 2019 when the South African Weather Service issued a...

11 April 2022 — There are a number of ways we shut down conversations as human beings. In recent years, we created a term for one of those. We call it whatboutism or whataboutery (or variations on that theme). Example: “Black lives matter!” “What about Arab lives?” “That’s whataboutery....

9 April 2022 — I have a particular point of personal pain in this sixth decade of my life — the number of books that are being pulled from libraries. I don’t want to get sucked into the destructive maw of assigning blame — this stupidity extends across political and religious lines. For some...