Monthly Archives: April 2023

What ails our gaffe-prone president?

“Senescence” is defined as the condition or process of deteriorating with age. This week’s video announcement by President Joe Biden that he will seek re-election as US president next year sent the commentary class into overdrive on the risks of senility or physical impairment afflicting Biden, who would be 82 at his inauguration. Cognitive decline [...]

WASP patriarchy leaps from pages of Oppenheimer biography

On July 25 2000, the night the Concorde crashed shortly after taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport  in Paris, I was a guest of Harry and Bridget Oppenheimer at their sumptuous beachside home outside Durban. The purpose of the dinner was to explain to one of the most significant economic players in SA’s history, [...]

There’s a mess all right, but unfortunately no Messiah

February’s explosive eNCA interview with former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter sucked all the oxygen from the ailing body politic. Understandably, since his assertions on high-level corruption and criminality were entirely plausible. His claims on the complicity of at least two cabinet ministers, and the connivance of a third who ignored it, in the malfeasance [...]

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