“Racists don't read, don't listen, don't learn and don't repent. It's not the truth they're seeking. It is to inflict more pain. But still, even in death, Mama Winnie rises above them all.”
These were the words of a woman who calls herself “Mats” on Twitter, who follows 185 people and who is followed by 200. She describes herself as an academic and businesswoman and a “daughter, mother, wife, best friend and colleague”.
Her comment in the heat of the social media debate around the late Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was retweeted dozens of times and liked more than 100 times.
Her words struck a chord.
What is Jacob Zuma up to?
Everything he has done since his rambling, mad and dangerous interview with the SA Broadcasting Corporation on the afternoon of February 14 points to a man who is either brewing a revolt within the ANC, planning a breakaway party or trying to instigate violence in the land.
For a man who has always portrayed himself as a servant of the ANC, Zuma seems to be preparing to destroy the very organisation he professes to love.
Worse, he seems to be prepared to push the country he once led back into the violence of the late 1980s and early 1990s in KwaZulu-Natal.
On Friday, surrounded by supporters after his court appearance on corruption charges in Durban, Zuma broke into song and led the crowd in a rendition of Sengimanxebanxeba (I am full of wounds), a famous Zulu song which the City Press has described as being associated with regiments and which talks of betrayal by one’s own comrades.
When last did you pay a company for goods or services using online banking, having been sent their invoice by e-mail?
For me it was five days ago: I did an EFT payment to a computer company which had installed a new hard drive on my laptop.
What should have been a quick and easy process took me about 20 minutes because I obsessively checked and rechecked that my money was going into the right bank account.
Thanks to the now-prolific bank account details scam, such distrust is essential.
It’s the all-the-rage banking fraud currently catching thousands of unsuspecting consumers and businesses and causing havoc in those professional relationships.
My inbox is full of their stories, hence my paranoia about paying a fraudster by mistake.
