Please enter your login details

You can also sign in with your Sowetan LIVE
and Sport LIVE account details.
   Sign Up   Forgot password?

Sign in with:

 
  • All Share : 40998.58
    UNCHANGED0.00%
    Top 40 : 3361.59
    UNCHANGED0.00%
    Financial 15 : 11703.85
    UNCHANGED0.00%
    Industrial 25 : 46637.62
    UNCHANGED0.00%

  • ZAR/USD : 9.5763
    UP 0.07%
    ZAR/GBP : 14.4987
    UP 0.23%
    ZAR/EUR : 12.3835
    UP 0.04%
    ZAR/JPY : 0.0947
    UP 0.12%
    ZAR/AUD : 9.2810
    UP 0.40%

  • Gold : 1386.6000
    UP 0.03%
    Platinum : 1452.5000
    UP 0.31%
    Silver : 22.4000
    UP 0.16%
    Palladium : 727.0000
    UP 0.55%
    Brent Crude Oil : 102.640
    UNCHANGED0.00%

  • All data is delayed by 15 min. Data supplied by I-Net Bridge
    Hover cursor over this ticker to pause.

New York State of Mind

Avatar

Author Profile

Name:
Lihle Z Mtshali


Biography

Lihle Mtshali is a South African journalist and former business editor based in the United States. She looks at life in New York through the eyes of a Zulu woman. Her column is also about her ongoing struggle to raise a South African child with strong African values in the middle of the concrete jungle.


Latest Columns

Trump joins White House raffle race

MITT Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and presumptive Republican presidential candidate, is taking a leaf out of President Barack Obama's book and offering a chance to win dinner with a celebrity as an incentive to potential donors.

Romney 'forgets' he was schoolyard bully

MITT Romney's skeletons came tumbling out of the closet this week, the day after President Barack Obama made history as the first-ever president of the US to come out in support of same-sex marriage.

Obama: 'way too cool to rule'

BACK in 2008 the John McCain presidential campaign ran an ad attacking Barack Obama: "He is the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?"

On the funny side, Romney's a real mutt

Mitt Romney, the most boring guy in US politics, said something quite funny this week.

Romney has to wait a bit longer

RICK Santorum, with his hungry political eye undoubtedly fixed firmly on the 2016 elections, quit the Republican presidential race this week, leaving Mitt Romney as the almost sure candidate to run against President Barack Obama in the November election.

US poll campaigns nasty and expensive

A MITT Romney lookalike runs around an empty warehouse wearing a wicked grin and carrying a machine gun firing mud shots at life-sized cardboard cut-outs of Rick Santorum.

Voter ID might stop fraud, but it's also a plot

DEMOCRATS are up in arms over stricter voter identification laws that Republican-run states are pushing to enact in this election year.

Disgusting seems to be the norm on sexist turf

THE Republican presidential nomination race expands to 10 states this week. Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia will hold primaries or caucuses on what has become known as Super Tuesday.

Race slurs fly incontest to take on Obama

I ATTENDED a discussion at the New York Times this week about race and politics, with particular focus on the impact race issues have had on the Republican presidential nomination contest.

The danger of treading on religious toes

YOU know an important election is coming up when politicians roll out the big guns in an effort to impress constituencies. In South Africa, President Jacob Zuma, with his eye fixed on Mangaung, blames the inherited problem of "structural unemployment, which goes back to the 1970s" for the fact that he couldn't deliver the 500000 jobs he had promised last year.

Immigrants, space ships and the Republican folly

The last four remaining Republican presidential candidates descended on the Sunshine State, Florida, this week to try to win votes ahead of Tuesday's primary in Miami.

Politics meets religion in this hustings brew

Most people steer clear of casual discussions about politics and religion in social settings because of the kind of fire those topics can fuel.

Introducing Earth Angel and a host of other US crazies

THERE is always someone crazier than you. That sounds like a line from a cool song, but it's something I find myself saying over and over in my head while walking the streets of New York City or riding the subway.

He may be the Republican candidate .... or he may not

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma has been accused by many of being a people-pleaser who tells everyone what they want to hear - but the worst flip-flopper you will come across in the political world has got to be Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who looks set to win the Republican nomination in the US .

Ordinary people are today's real heroes

AMERICANS love heroes. Any deed, no matter how big or small, can make you a hero, and the hero-worshipping can be fascinating to watch.

Future looks bleak for Iraq veterans

THE US war in Iraq is officially over - eight years and many billions of dollars later. In that time more than 100000 Iraqis and 4500 US troops have been killed.

What keeps a wife with a man like this?

I USED to tell friends that I would divorce my husband at the drop of a hat if he did the slightest thing wrong . I would not wait for any explanations, I told them, I would just leave. They all nodded their agreement and vowed to do the same.

Morals aside, Cain would never cut it

THERE are several ways someone who thirsts for fame can get their moment in the spotlight in this age of celebutantes and mindless TV.

The deadly duel for bargains

WHEN I was growing up, the festive season meant lots of time spent with family and friends we had not seen all year. It was a time of reflection, when even the worst drunk in the community would clean himself up and make his way to church on Christmas Day, even though, in the afternoon, he would be back to his old self.

Many a slip 'twixt campaign and the lip

THE US Republican Party presidential hopefuls are a laugh-a-minute. I took the liberty of compiling some of my favourite flubs heard on the campaign trail.

Guilt in Jacko's death lies closer to home

A FEW years ago I attended a cousin's wedding where Durban funny man Felix Hlophe was programme director. He threw in a few jokes while the speakers walked up to the podium.

Wall Street occupiers need a rethink on strategy

THE Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement in lower Manhattan enters its eighth week and before they go any further, the occupiers need to either re-evaluate their strategy or go home.

Madoff, the poster child for loathsome top 1%

BERNIE Madoff, the disgraced Wall Street financier who is serving a 150-year prison sentence for running the biggest Ponzi scheme in US history, says he knows he ruined lives.

Americans set to profit big time from death of a despot

THERE are two subjects American politicians will always agree on: terrorists and dictators.

Cain raising eyebrows in US

In Herman Cain's Utopia, racism does not hold back anybody in the US. It exists only in lazy black people's minds. Poverty is self-inflicted, the federal tax system can be revolutionised with a simple mathematical plan, and unicorns roam the land, healing it of all its social ills.

Democracy dons a suit or goes topless to serve notice on Wall St

'WE are the 99% ," a phrase chanted by the protesters who have taken over Lower Manhattan as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, will reverberate in the minds of everyone who has been anywhere near that area in the past two or three weeks.

When real life imitates TV crime

I have an unhealthy relationship with Law & Order, the crime TV drama series that's been going for over 20 years. I'm not picky either. I'll watch anything from the franchise, whether it's the original Law & Order or Criminal Intent orSpecial Victims Unit.

Death penalty is just vengeance in a mask

TWO men were murdered in two southern states in the US on Wednesday night. Both were killed under that heinous, but legal, form of homicide known as capital punishment.

Who knew? Sarah Palin loves brown sugar

There are new rumours of a sex scandal in US politics and this time a woman is making the headlines. The long-awaited unauthorised biography of Sarah Palin by Joe McGinniss, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, comes out this week.

Bad time for airlines to get lax on security

TODAY is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, that fateful day which forever changed the face of the US, in a matter of minutes. Many, including President Barack Obama and former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani, say the US is stronger and safer than it was before the attacks.

It's summertime and the inner city is hell

The threat of Hurricane Irene hitting the New York area and causing as much damage as Hurricane Katrina was scary but fascinating.

A reminder of what so many can never forget

ONE of the worst feelings in the world is being robbed. Most people who have gone through this will tell you that, while they may be upset about the loss of their belongings, the trauma lies more in the loss of their security. They feel violated. If their house was robbed, they imagine these masked strangers invading their private sanctuary and desecrating it. If they were mugged, the memory of the mugger's hands on them as he grabs their personal property traumatises them.

Fear of global warming on the campaign trail

The two Republicans who have emerged as the party's chief challengers in the 2012 presidential race think global warming science is "phony" and "a hoax".

Black days for Obama as gilt wears off the US

PRESIDENT Barack Obama's birthday month has been less than enjoyable. First there was that foolishness with the debt deal, which led to Standard & Poor's downgrading the US credit rating from AAA to AA+.

There's a lot SA can learn from New York's revival

Johannesburg's new executive mayor, Parks Tau, and his team came around to my side of the world this week to meet the mayor of New York City, Mike Bloomberg.

Don't demean the noble profession of teaching

I REMEMBER my grade 1 teacher vividly. Well, back then, in 1983, when I was five-and-a-half and had just started boarding school in Harding, KwaZulu-Natal, grade 1 was known as sub A.

SA's got talent - let's not be the last to realise it

I went to see a South African Off-Broadway play, MoLoRa, on Wednesday night, which, after the Sade concert last month, was the most moving event I have experienced in a while.

Surveillance cameras are a necessary evil today

WHEN the June 30 deadline to Rica sim cards loomed, I watched with amusement as some social network status updates bemoaned the violation of the updater's right to privacy and people cursing "the Man" for seeking to bug their cellphone conversations.

No justice for little American girl as mom walks

It may be a hard truth to swallow, but Casey Anthony's acquittal of the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee, is proof that the US's justice system works.

Gay or straight, marriages are all about love

THE New York Senate voted last week to legalise same-sex marriage, a huge victory for the gay and lesbian community in this state.

Hard to forgive mothers who murder their own

THE little girl was two months shy of her third birthday. She had brown hair, beautiful, big brown eyes and a smile that could have probably won over the hardest cynic. Home videos of her running around, laughing, playing with her mother and her grandparents show her as a normal, energetic, happy toddler.

Bountiful behinds are attracting new followers

WHEN I was in high school, one of the worst days of the week for me during the warmer months was when we had to hit the swimming pool for physical education class.

Can you imagine umshini wam with a weenie?

Here we go again. Another week, another US male politico caught with his pants down - this time in a Twitter peep show.