When one is a public figure making public statements (or, if one wants to be pretentious one can call them “pronouncements”), it is probably better first to think before you talk. I am a bit late to come to this, but I was reminded of this fact when I read the hilarious or embarrassing (depending on [...]
Posts under ‘Sunday Times’
Don’t hold your breath for an arms deal commission of inquiry
A joint letter signed by Nobel Peace laureates Desmond Tutu and FW de Klerk has been delivered to President Kgalema Motlanthe’s office on 2 December 2008, urgently requesting that he institutes an independent and public judicial commission of inquiry into the arms deal. The letter argues that:
the widest possible investigation into impropriety and corruption is [...]
On free speech and the firing of David Bullard
A few months ago I got rather hot under the collar on this Blog about the firing of Rapport columnist, Deon Maas, for writing a column in which he wrote that Satanism was a religion like any other and that it was therefore constitutionally entitled to the same kind of protection as any other religion.
Why [...]
Satanism the downfall of Rapport columnist, but why?
The Afrikaans Sunday newspaper, Rapport, is not on my list of must-read publications. Ever since it paid Wit Wolf Barend Strydom R25 000 for a post-prison interview in the early nineties and then treated the mass murderer as if he was a hero of the Volk, I have struggled to regain any respect for the [...]
Mbeki ducks the real lies
President Thabo Mbeki was at it again on his Blog, talking about canards and quoting Percy Bysshe Shelley. A canard – apart from being the French word for duck – is apparently a deliberate falsehood and President Mbeki is upset because so many deliberate falsehoods are being spread about the ANC and the country. Says [...]
Manto officials unwise (perhaps even stupid)
The Department of Health really knows how to generate bad publicity. Just as the controversy about the Minister alleged alcoholism and liver transplant queue jumping was dying down, its officials takes out a huge advert in daily papers to attack the judgment of the High Court in the case of Tshabalala-Msimang and Another v Makhanya [...]
Manto and doctors must sue or else….
The Sunday Times is now being attacked from all sides for publishing the sensational allegations that Health Minister Manto Tshabalala Msimang was convicted thief and alcoholic and that the real reasons for her liver transplant (alcoholism) was covered up by medical staff. The National Working Committee (NWC) of the ANC (but not Kgalema Montlante!) issued [...]
Sunday Times advert circa 1985. . .
If only Ronald Suresh Roberts had seen this TV advert for the Sunday Times made in 1985 he would have had more to say about the sexism, racism and deeply obnoxious prejudice of this newspaper. Particularly shocking is the headline: “Exclusive picture interview with South African dying Aids victim…” Almost as bad as a headline [...]
ANC paranoia is troubling and childish
Maybe there is something in the water at Luthuli House that makes people paranoid and stupid. The vehement response of the ANC to the report in last weeks Sunday Times that President Mbeki was defying the ANC is a case in point.
The report argued that because the policy conference had said it would be [...]
