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Wilco – Sky Blue Sky
CD REVIEW
Wilco is really Jeff Tweedy’s band vehicle. While the line-up keeps changing, Wilco’s quality in output is consistent. This is why every new album is an event for the serious music lover. Read more…
SA sits on a ticking social timebomb
The spreading cancer of xenophobic attacks, with an opportunistic criminal element clearly taking advantage of people’s frustrations to foster atrocities, brought to mind Aeneas in the temple of Juno at Carthage as he watched a picture of fighting in the Trojan War. He sighed with painful words: “there are tears for things, and what is mortal touches the mind”. Read more…
Fix this!
Pope Benedict places his concern for the world’s hungry at the centre of the Church’s social justice platform. Earlier this month he told global leaders attending the World Food Security Summit in Rome that starvation and malnutrition were unacceptable in a world that can produce plenty to eat. Read more…
Poor leadership led to attacks
When I started this column, I argued that leadership is one of the most important issues of our time, and that leadership affects all of us in fundamental ways.
In the edition of September 19, 2007, I wrote: “What is often not realised, though, is that…the root cause of many problems facing humanity in general, and Southern Africa in particular, is the issue of leadership.” How is leadership connected with xenophobia? Read more…
Mugabe’s Lost Destiny
The outcome of Zimbabwe’s parliamentary and presidential elections in March took many commentators, including this newspaper, by surprise. Read more…
St Francis digs up tales of fools in the garden
Have you ever sat back, put your feet up, and thought about what God must think of this modern world of ours?
I don’t mean all the horrible things; one does not have to be a rocket scientist to work out what he thinks of crime, corruption, nuclear weapons and man’s inhumanity to man. Read more…
Alcoholic anulment
Can a marriage between two baptised Christians be annulled if one spouse is an alcoholic? Read more…
What is youth?
As the SACBC family life theme for June is “Me and Youth”, I offer a few thoughts on this topic from the angle of youth and their families.
There are some very different definitions for what we mean by youth today. For some of us it is a general kind of group of young people who are not yet married. For others it is teenagers, possibly from 13 up, or most often from around 15-20. Formally, as per the government, youth can be from 15-35 (this has been clear from various ANC rallies and meetings recently where some of the demonstrators didn’t seem particularly young). Many people would consider anyone over 20 a young adult and someone needing to take up adult responsibilities. Read more…
Government could cut the petrol price – if it wanted to
When Jacob Zuma voiced his concern in a speech last month about escalating fuel prices, I was sure that every South African—with the exception perhaps of the current cabinet incumbents and the managers of Sasol—would have been willing to forgive him all his past indiscretions in exchange for the prospect of seeing just one member of the ruling party doing something about the crippling effect high fuel prices will have on the poor. Read more…
The culture of impunity
The distressing attacks on African expatriates in many parts of South Africa can be explained partly with reference to poor service delivery and competition for scarce resources. Read more…
