Have you wondered how artists find the stamina to keep creating in the face of all these challenges? Do you long for a full theatre, the roar of live applause and gathering after a show at the Festival? We’ll get there but to ensure there is a theatre of tomorrow we have to keep the dreams of artists alive today. Standard Bank – Arts Bank of Dreams campaign to support our Fringe artists runs for just two more weeks and is moving towards R150 000 raised so far. It needs a good push for the home run to R500 000.…
Author: Rod Amner
Performance, film, live music, a street market, and newly-published books will feature at the 2021 Schreiner Karoo Writers Festival (SKWF) on 3 and 4 September. As part of the SKWF programme, Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit will chat about their new book, The Flanagan Journey: Extraordinary South African Women profiles 45 scholars awarded the Patrick and Margaret Flanagan Scholarship between 1985 and 2020 for postgraduate studies at top overseas universities. Isobel Dixon from Graaff-Reinet was one of them. Now based in London, Isobel is one of the top literary agents globally and represents Deon Meyer and many other South…
By Rod Amner and Bianca McLean “No work, no pay” is Rhodes University’s response to a week-long strike by over 100 workers affiliated with the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw). Nupsaw and Rhodes are locked in a dispute over whether the union is sufficiently representative to qualify for organisation rights on campus. Nupsaw is a South African Federation of Trade Unions affiliate, but the university will only recognise and negotiate with the Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), affiliated with the Federation of Unions of South Africa, and the National Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), affiliated with…
Rhodes University management and the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw) are locked in a stand-off over the union’s demands to be given organisational rights on campus. Rhodes claims Nupsaw is not representative enough. In this video update, Bianca McLean interviews the union’s provincial leader, Lerato Thethe, who disputes the university’s position. We were awaiting further clarification from the university and will update the story once received.
Rhodes University Virologist and member of the Provincial COVID-19 Expert Panel, PROF ROSEMARY DORRINGTON, explains the different coronavirus variants in circulation in South Africa. The nature of viruses is that they mutate over time – they evolve. Most changes don’t make too much of an impact on the viral lifecycle, but sometimes a change will often affect the properties of the virus enough to cause concern. These affected properties could impact disease severity, virus transmissibility and potentially the performance of vaccines. The coronavirus that causes COVID-19, called SARS-CoV-2, started showing mutations that posed an increased risk to global public health…
Vaccines are ultimately the only way to ensure that we beat COVID-19, yet vaccine hesitancy remains a threat to attaining herd immunity and protecting the whole community. A virologist at Rhodes University and member of the Provincial COVID-19 Expert Panel, PROFESSOR ROSEMARY DORRINGTON, addresses misinformation and fears about the possible adverse effects of being vaccinated. We need to look at the clinical evidence. There have been anecdotal stories of people dying from the vaccine, but the evidence does not confirm this. In these anecdotal stories that claim a person died from the vaccine, it is much more likely they died…
Book Review: Blood Trail by Tony Park By STEVEN LANG Blood Trail, the latest novel from Tony Park, is frantically exciting and just about as authentic as can be. It is packed tight with heaps of action unfolding in two adrenaline-charged days on a fictitious game lodge located in a real game reserve on the border of the Kruger National Park. The time frame plays a pivotal role in the story. It takes place soon after lockdown is declared as a result of COVID19. The almost immediate shutdown of the tourism sector has devastating consequences for the game lodge and…
As shared in my brief introduction last week, I am the new Grocott’s engagement editor. Over the coming months, I will be working closely with the editor, our student journalists, freelance journalists, and community contributors to build a digital community around Grocott’s and Makhanda, primarily through our social media platforms. When people think about social media, they may think of cute cat videos, rants, their information being harvested by advertisers, and collecting likes. They are not wrong, but that is not all social media is. It is also a space to establish a connection, a sense of belonging, and community.…
By ROD AMNER, learning editor, Grocott’s Mail Over the next few weeks, several Rhodes Journalism students will begin actively contributing to GMDirect and Grocott’s Mail’s online platforms. Under the guidance of their learning editors, they will attempt to produce truthful, fair and independent journalism. But, they will aspire to do so in innovative ways that get far more of our citizens directly involved in communication. They will cultivate relationships and networks and seek sources and ideas that do not automatically appear on journalists’ radars. They will accord those voices the appropriate respect in ways that helped bridge the faultlines that, historically, have…