Rod MacKenzie's Blog, page 3

Dear Aylan and Galip, drowned Syrian children, what’s become of us?

Dear Aylan and Galip Was the world ever not a frightening place for you? Did you ever see your mom and dad smile? Or was it all just terror and hell, nothing worth living for? Here I am, past the age of 50 and I am the one with all the questions for both of...

Liquid Viagra: Comparing descriptions of wines and rugby players

Have you noticed the rugby critics’ poetic descriptions of beefy rugby stars? Yes, those gladiators who are all about to knock the bejesus out of one other in the quest for victory in the new World Cup? Oh, those scholarly sports writers and their strained attempts to create an elegant portrait of yet another testosterone-laden...

Ashley Madison and the culture of shame and gossip

I confess I hadn’t even heard of Ashley Madison until the other day when the hack into their data base “went viral” as the saying goes. Oooh, how the human race loves to wallow in scandal. Oh to gossip and swim about in who is having an affair, or who has been caught out for...

Ashley Madison and the culture of shame and gossip

I confess I hadn’t even heard of Ashley Madison until the other day when the hack into their data base “went viral” as the saying goes. Oooh, how the human race loves to wallow in scandal. Oh to gossip and swim about in who is having an affair, or who has been caught out for...

‘Kist’ – did you know it’s a uniquely South African word?

Recently I finished writing a novel titled Orphan Country, which is partly set in South Africa in the Seventies and Eighties. One of my main characters, Ruth, is half-Chinese and was adopted at birth. She has little clue as to who her parents really are and part of the storyline is her finding out more...

“Kist” – did you know it’s a uniquely South African word?

Recently I finished writing a novel titled Orphan Country, which is partly set in South Africa in the Seventies and Eighties. One of my main characters, Ruth, is half-Chinese and was adopted at birth. She has little clue as to who her parents really are and part of the storyline is her finding out more...

Shouldn’t South Africa create a new flag?

The discussion here in New Zealand about Kiwis getting a new flag has made me wonder, as an expat South African, what South Africans see and feel when they look up at that rainbow bit of history rippling against an African horizon. Does the impulse rise to put hands on hearts while throats lump with...

The problem with “Why I can’t ‘get over’ apartheid”

I had the privilege of teaching both “white” and “black” children during the apartheid era, during the transition, and thereafter. This was from about 1988 to 2004.* Xhosa teenagers in Langa High** (I taught there in 1989 and 1990) were highly politicised, talked about oppression and how to dismantle apartheid. Once the ANC was unbanned...

What the trees and their friends try to tell us…

The sound of leaves in a wind is my earliest memory. When I was strolled in a pram, the branches above, bursting with leaves, were my first gift: consciousness. I emerged from this moment, long before recognising my mother or sister’s touch or my father’s voice. The moment was electric, a drawn-out hiss as gunpowder...

Charlize Theron, Caitlyn Jenner – is ugly the new beautiful?

Is it possible to have one’s fill of beautiful women? They gaze at us from glossy magazines, billboards, social media channels and OMG, even in real life. Oh, their huge eyes, rounded bottoms and slowly parting lips. If their visual allure could be turned into sound, what noise would they make? The hum of hovering...