The political situation in our country at this moment can be described in many ways, few of which are salutary. We are directionless, we have no government, we are leaderless, we have no national unity and we lack national cohesion
COLUMN: Alex Tabisher writes that the young people who are either newly qualified to vote should not become like folks who regard election day as a fun day. He urges them to avoid the powerful and cunning rhetoric that appeals to the basic human inclinations.
‘It is a cruel vote, a crucial vote, a vote that will either effect change (but not just for the sake of change), but a collective voice saying: 30 years of messing around with our dearly bought freedom is not now, nor in the future, going to happen again. ’
COLUMN: I find myself doing little personalised inventories on and of myself. It is in my conscience every day, but sometimes – and these days it’s “more of than not” – when I hear of a friend’s death. Up to a short while ago, friends used to send me ridiculous clips of octogenarians cavorting to the crude early Elvis songs.
COLUMN: I am not launching a personalised attack, as I am only a columnist. I look at my own experiences, try to make them resonate with my readers and then we move to the next step, which is national cohesion for the good of the nation.
COLUMN: There have been those who sneered and asked: “What makes you think you are a columnist?” My answer has been that I was lucky to have been involved in language teaching for many decades, with an emphasis on the AngloSaxon arena.
COLUMN: Two deaths during this period left me disconnected and confused. I could not function creatively, nor could I understand or explain my surreal disconnection with reality.
COLUMN: My column is driven by my direct involvement with my youngest grandson, Zachary, who is now in matric. I am conflicted, because I do not want him to see the ordeal of the matric examination as a gauntlet to be run.
COLUMN: We can become proactive in living in a way that assumes that each day is your last, each breath your final gasp
COLUMN: We must bear in mind that in the international family, our country resorts among the bottom feeders, the failures, the junk status in the world of economics and most assuredly is a woeful example of the dehumanisation of its people.
COLUMN: Finally, it can be illustrated by the incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs, for example, being knocked down on the street by an ambulance.
As the opening gambit for my first column for 2024, I wish to thank the Almighty Giver of Life and Love for mercies to all, past and present. May the coming year be kind to us all. To all my loyal readers, thank you for staying with me all these years.
COLUMN: I read a report of a woman who was on her way home with her young daughter along Voortrekker Road in Maitland. That was at three in the morning. Somehow, the child fell into a drain that had no cover. It took police divers and other tactical personnel two days to recover the body. This is my information on a tragic event.
COLUMN: The folly of the projected National health pie-inthe-sky drivel currently being touted by our favourite cousins, the ANC. As noble as it appears, it is fiscal suicide.
OPINION: My essay is triggered by the alarming metamorphosis that is evident at the centre of Bellville. This area used to house supermarkets and insurance brokerages, legal firms and real estate agencies.
COLUMN: I shall deal with some truths that I have circumvented since the advent of this column because I am not the conscience of a society, nor a trained researcher nor a know-all in the affairs of men. But I have a notion of the truth which I shall expound.
COLUMN: I have no illusions that I speak for anybody or that I have found the magic cure for our national ills. I try to spice up my efforts weekly (weakly) with exhortations for us to find some joy in the miserable life that those in power inflict on us.
COLUMN: A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity established by an act of legislation to earn profit for the government so that they can provide products and services to citizens at a lower price, particularly to the more remote locations of the country.
COLUMN: Alex Tabisher writes that all the miserable purveyors of inefficiency and lack of expertise are walking about freely, waiting patiently to be voted back into power by a nation that itself is as clueless as they.
COLUMN: Alex Tabisher writes that we have made fear, and blame the chief players in the field of health and health-giving discourse that might move us towards the truths that can set us free.
COLUMN: Alex Tabisher writes that the rulers in the country loll like fat swine in a mud bath while children, women and the aged are brutalised.
COLUMN: Alex Tabisher writes that the country, and its citizens, can learn from my own experience showing that success only equals the effort one puts into the pursuit thereof.
OPINION: Where in the world can illiterate taxi drivers hold a whole society to ransom because they have a problem obeying laws designed for safety and efficiency? And then everything grinds to a halt, with empty shop shelves and worst of all, empty eyes of hungry children for whom there is no food.
Last week I wrote what I considered a passionate piece based on the shenanigans going on in the streets of our province. The piece was not published because my day in the lights is a Wednesday, and last Wednesday was a public holiday.
COLUMN: The task of improving literacy is traditionally left to the teacher, but the parent is really the first epistemic agency in the child’s journey towards literacy. The opening sentence in Nadeem Aslam’s The Blind Man’s Garden, adds: History is the third parent.
