When journalist Toby Shapshak first broke the news of Tshabalala-Msimang’s death over Twitter, there were very few condolences on the public timeline.
People tend to have long memories when it comes to hundreds of thousands of lives that could have been saved had Tshabalala-Msimang and the rest of the Mbeki-acolytes rolled out antiretrovirals (ARVs) instead of being drunk on denialism.
There is the matter of her legacy; a recipe for a good braai accompaniment. No doubt the beetroots, olive oil, garlic and lemons read like a meal on speed. However, it should also be noted that a lot of the media at the time did not adequately emphasise the link between a well-balanced diet and the efficacy of ARVs.
We all had our digs at Manto. Her reported drinking problems, controversial liver transplants and alleged kleptomania; these were enough for us to burn her effigies, stoking the flames with the newspaper accounts of a health minister who called time of death on the plot. Stephen Grootes has written an evenly-keeled piece on Manto’s passing in The Daily Maverick.
Now, I would like to speak ill of the living.… Continue reading
This is daddy and I on a novelty photo badge we got at the Rand Show when I was five-years-old.
You can tell from my chewed-on smile that I wasn’t feeling particularly photogenic that day… Continue reading
These n00bly executed desktop wallpapers are free for you to download, use and share. … Continue reading
For sure.
For so many of us.
Newly-married people. N00b-Earthling-rearing people. Single people. Mingling people. Committed relationship people. Constructs-beyond-definition people.… Continue reading
Two gunmen entered our home tonight. They locked my husband and helper in separate rooms and made off with my husband’s car and his bag containing house keys, store keys and wallet. No one was… Continue reading
A nine-year old girl was killed after a hit-and-run incident on Jan Smuts Avenue in Johannesburg this morning.The child, on her way to school, was waiting for a taxi when the accident occurred.The only passenger… Continue reading
Commune-living fast deflates the bubble of stoicism.
There lived amongst us one who seemed to consume anything that intersected with her marauding path. Some of it hearsay, most of it confirmed testimony; no consumable was… Continue reading
Last night may truly have been the “The Night of Power”, for a pair of black pants that went deep underground about two months ago, suddenly resurfaced in the fresh laundry pile.
A miracle… Continue reading
What is it with fasting muslim people who get a kick out of forwarding emails with pictures of food as attachments under misleading subject headers, to other fasting muslim people?… Continue reading
… and I’ll direct you to the front pages of South Africa’s major national newspapers to disprove you.
- A warrant for arrest issued for our National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi by National… Continue reading
January 8, 2009 - 10:26 am
im done saying theres beauty in sadness. but u capture it so well. its beyond sad. its heart wrenching imagery and a story that tells what u said b4: we’re a planet of people who have forgotten to be human. we do. then cut and hide. and life? carries on.
January 8, 2009 - 10:03 am
i don’t know why this post made me cry.
January 7, 2009 - 10:27 pm
Why God?
January 7, 2009 - 9:19 pm
The pictures so generously smattered for the infotainment of a jaded world show terrified children, dead children, bloodied and riddled with the holes of unfortunate circumstance and they horrify, they rob of us of language but this gives it words, conveying the heartlessness of a unjust war.