The late US Senator John McCain reinforced his best self against the worst instincts of his own supporters Country First was the inspiring slogan that headlined Senator John McCain’s doomed 2008 campaign for the US presidency. I was resident in Washington DC during the last stretch of that historic election, which the Republican lost handily [...]
“Resilience!”. That’s what two business mavens advised me was the secret sauce which allows South Africa to power on. Even with blackouts from Eskom and other daily travails from our failing state. “Africa’s grocer” as resilient Shoprite Checkers is dubbed displayed some of this sauce, not on its aisles, but in its annual results published [...]
When the economy is spluttering at 1% growth it is time to put on the hair shirt, not to go on a drinking binge Visionary leadership is much commented on these days precisely because of its absence. It has almost disappeared from public life and politics, here and everywhere. When you think of Winston Churchill [...]
Two versions of her speech at Gibs, in text and orally, show little regard for dire state of public accounts. Presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s recent speech at a high citadel of capitalism — the Gordon Institute for Business Science — caused much controversy. In her actual remarks Dlamini-Zuma bemoaned the "dissonance" between the government and [...]
Our security services and minister are fast friends with their Russian counterparts. Just on Monday the two countries signed a co-operation agreement on "cyber security" The Sherlock Holmes story The Silver Blaze gave us the famous tagline of "the curious incident of the dog in the night". The curiosity in that tale of the kidnapping [...]
'South Africa is the Mugabes' destination of choice for depositing wayward sons and for minor shopping needs and medical procedures' Be graceful for small mercies, to adapt a phrase. Two Sundays ago 20-year-old Gabriella Engels was, along with two other unnamed women, allegedly assaulted by Zimbabwe's Grace Mugabe. In the presence of the Zim power [...]
'South Africa is the Mugabes' destination of choice for depositing wayward sons and for minor shopping needs and medical procedures' Be graceful for small mercies, to adapt a phrase. Two Sundays ago 20-year-old Gabriella Engels was, along with two other unnamed women, allegedly assaulted by Zimbabwe's Grace Mugabe. In the presence of the Zim power [...]
President’s enemies in the ANC probably decided not to hand opposition parties the gift of an indebted leader Like pupils at a Montessori School, all the dramatis personae in last week’s long-running parliamentary no-confidence saga — the eighth such motion to date in an eight-year presidency — against Jacob Zuma could award themselves a gold [...]
Meanwhile, Putin reduces the reputations of Zuma’s SA and Trump's US to the level of his kleptocratic regime About 120 years ago, my paternal grandmother, Tamara Drusinsky – then a babe in arms – left Russia for Constantinople, and eventually arrived with her family in SA More recently, when President Vladimir Putin visited Parliament in [...]
For students of American politics, there are at least three reasons to remember the late U.S. Senator from Arizona, Barry Goldwater. First, as the Republican presidential nominee back in 1964 he posted one of the most catastrophic losses in modern American politics. Incumbent president Lyndon Johnson demolished him by the extraordinary margin of 22.58% of [...]
