Comments on: Missing Link Daily

By: Graham Bell

Graham Bell — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 23:38:55 +0000

KP:

At last! The padlock has been taken off comments box in the Rudd R Less blog.

I’m going over to the Oz Ideas blog now then back to my own rough-as-guts Counter Summit.

By: Sinclair Davidson

Sinclair Davidson — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:05:29 +0000

I think Savo Helenta’s article is too pessimistic. The facts are broadly as he describes them (although the ‘whites only’ signs at beaches and park benches etc. disappeared long before Apartheid ended - that is a minor criticism). He concentrates on the poverty and it is a terrible thing to see, and on the HIV/AIDS crisis - a sure sign that civil society is broken. But the point is civil society in South Africa was broken before Mandela walked from jail. It was broken before he went to jail - if civil society hadn’t been broken Mandela would never have gone to jail. He overlooks the improvement in inter-personal relationships that have occured and under-estimates the impact the burgeoning black middle class. I also think he (and many others) under-estimate the time and effort it’ll take to fix a broken civil society.

Sure the current government are corrupt and the power blackouts are an appalling display of government failure. But let me say unambiguously South Africa is a better place now than it was. Crime and violence have been democratised and in many areas crime is on the decline.

Anyway just some thoughts - many South Africans, I suspect, would agree with every word he wrote.

By: Savo Heleta

Savo Heleta — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:24:42 +0000

Thank you Ken for adding my article in your digest of the best of the blogosphere for March 6.

Savo Heleta

By: Ken Parish

Ken Parish — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 02:57:12 +0000

Yes, strangely only two posts yesterday with local Australian political focus that had any significant element of originality. I wonder why? Probably just that when you do a ML feature every week day there are bound to be occasional slow days.

By: saint

saint — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:20:09 +0000

“Hot candidate for time-wasting post of the week IMO” LOL, slim pickings yesterday.

By: Niall

Niall — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:44:58 +0000

Ye Gods…..that sounds like a description out of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

By: gilmae

gilmae — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:19:02 +0000

KP: No one will ever work out how to a) Send tweets to tens of thousands of users while also b) not causing Twitter’s ruby on rails back-end to achieve sentience in a spasm of distress-driven rapid evolution and delete itself to end its own suffering.