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Beware the Dirty Liberal
Why is the word “liberal”a dirty word in South Africa? Why is the centrist conservative leader of the opposition Mmusi Maimane, who is also an Evangelical who believes sodomy to be an abomination, often wrongly accused of being a liberal as an insult? This is the country with Africa’s (and arguably the world’s) most liberal […]
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Tax & Public Spending: Not as easy as Pie
This is a response I wrote to an article from rollingalpha.com ( a Finance quip I presume). I being a generalist often stay clear of specialists in their natural habitat; but this particular piece began as disdain for the Finance Minister’s mention of “tax evasion” and “profit-shifting” in the Mid-Term Budget Speech and descended into […]
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10 Reasons You Shouldn’t Learn Chinese
South Africa’s Education department has supposedly suggested that Mandarin is to be taught in schools. While there may be proponents to the idea (certainly has been a popular one) here are ten reasons why I don’t think it’s a great idea
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Size Matters: Macro vs Micro Finance in Africa
Tale of Two TED Talks First by young entrepreneur Sangu Delle on how large-scale finance would lead to large-scale impact across the African continent. Second one by Joy Sun, who advocates for microfinancing as a means of allocating funds efficiently. Going Big Think the Marshall Plan … for Africa. After the devastation following World War […]
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Longform’s Picks of the Week
Longform’s Picks of the Week.
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The Truman Show: 5 Ways to Navigate Through Your Fake Life
You won’t get a five point listicle because I lied. Truth is however, we might just learn to deal with dishonesty at the end of this. Earlier this year it was found that there were some inaccuracies in the US Government’s recantation of the Bin Laden raid. Veteran journalist, Seymour Hersh, found that Bin Laden […]
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Part II: Moer en Soek
Where are we? In the first edition to our “Is South Africa Great?” series we unpacked the makings of the basic state, we agreed that what would then define whether or not South Africa had the makings of a great nation-state would be its performance in those areas. Our analysis came down to two definitions […]
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Lost & Found: Took a Break to Get Better
It’s been exactly a month since I’ve published an entry. This isn’t due to a loss in enthusiasm. I’ve changed my process and now instead of taking a day off to put together a moderately lettered post, I’ve decide to work on multiple projects at once, and publish twice weekly. This is where we are. […]
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Quickie: How a brief conversation about Whiplash helped answer a question on “Greatness”
(whiplash is a great movie) On Wednesday morning two enlightened individuals on Twitter mentioned what is arguably my favourite movie of the 2014/15 Award Season – Whiplash (I will admit to not having seen The Imitation Games nor The Theory of Everything). I’d go as far as to say the final scene might have been […]
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Part I: The National Quagmire
As a South African I get aroused, as many of my compatriots do, at the mention of our country in any international media outlet, whether the news is good or bad [See Twitter]. We love the sound of our own name, and it goes without saying that there is some sense in how we speak […]