Blog Entries
KZN Floods: The cure for high prices
14 April 2022 — There’s a quote from one of my favourite books : “When I have water, I must drink wine; but when I have no water, I must drink water.” I arrived in my home town, Durban, Tuesday night, 12 April. Earlier in the day, eight weather stations in KwaZulu-Natal recorded new highs...
KZN floods: The world is melting!
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...
So, who is your favourite diplomat?
12 April 2022 — When I was a kid, someone told me that “a diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a tactful way in such a way that that you’ll look forward with pleasure to making the trip.” I thought of this earlier today watching yesterday’s press conference with US...
What about whataboutism though?
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....
No, I don't work there anymore...
10 April 2022 — Five years ago today, I stepped down as MD of the Yired group of companies and Chief Executive of YFM. It was a symbolic departure date exactly 10 years to the day I had started, 10 April 2007. I probably would have forgotten about this if not for that fact that a former...
In this era of book banning, a ray of light...
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...
The green energy way to save the bald eagle...
8 April 2022 — The Seal of the President of the United States came about after an executive order issued by then US president Dwight D. Eisenhower becoming effective 4 July 1960 which reads: The Coat of Arms of the President of the United States shall be of the following design: SHIELD: ...
Punch-drunk idiots
7 April 2022 — I’ve never been a fan of boxing, mainly because I think brain damage is not the way I want to shuffle off this mortal coil. But I’m always fascinated by the concept of people being “punch-drunk”; they get dazed or stupefied by repeated blows to the head, and still they stagger...
Fake news, it's for real...
6 April 2022 — Got a shared video today via WhatsApp (as one does); security cam footage shows the inside of a barbershop, patrons having their haircuts. Two gunmen enter, ten shots are fired into the head of a customer, they flee the scene. “This jst happened in Umhlanga” said the...
Going after oligarchs? Dumb move...
5 April 2022 — The word “oligarch” was derived from the Greek word ὀλιγαρχία “ Oligarkhia” meaning ὀλίγος “oligoi” (few) and ἄρχω “arkhein” (to rule). The word originally referred to provincial lords in the Kingdom of Hungary in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Today, it generally...
Is this the real 'Great Reset'?
4 April 2022 — A number of significant events over the past few days. Let’s note some of them and look at what pulls these together. 1. In Hungary: The party of nationalist prime minister Viktor Orbán has won a landslide victory in the country’s general election in spite of western media...