I hope this finds you well

Readers of a certain age (in this case, I suspect this means anyone over 30 or so) will remember that there was a time when nobody started an email with the sentence “I hope this finds you well”.

Sometime in the last 5 or so years, some evil cabal has decided to tell secondary school pupils – and even (theoretically) fully-hatched people in the workplace – that all emails have to begin with this sentence.

Noakes and vaccine-assisted herd immunity

Professor Tim Noakes has published a response to Nathan Geffen’s criticism of a recent radio interview, where Geffen argued that Noakes was running the risk of misleading the public and “demean[ing] the scientific and medical community”.

One reason I haven’t written about Noakes for 18 months or so – despite his recent interest in climate-change scepticism, and his continued misrepresentation of his critics – is that I thought he was doing enough to demonstrate his epistemic irresponsibility without people like me having to point it out.

Steve Bannon and no-platforming

Steve Bannon was invited to speak at the New Yorker Festival, then promptly disinvited after Kathryn Schulz (author of Being Wrong, which I can recommend as an accessible, yet very thoughtful, account of some basic errors in inductive reasoning), Judd Apatow, Jim Carrey, Ally Fogg and others indicated that they were opposed to his presence there, and (in some cases) that they would not appear at the festival if he did.

Kevin Anderson: who gets to be South African?

Kevin Anderson, a South African citizen, defeated John Isner 26-24 in the final set of the Wimbledon Men’s semi-final yesterday, in what ended up being the second-longest ever match at Wimbledon. (Isner won the longest match, back in 2010, when he beat Nicholas Mahut 70-68 in the final set.)

Does Anderson’s victory make him the first South African to reach the singles finals at Wimbledon? No, it doesn’t, regardless of how you classify Kevin Curren, defeated by Boris Becker in the 1985 final. Does Anderson’s victory beg(gar) the question of who gets to be called “South African”? No, it doesn’t – but it does perhaps raise the question.

Free speech and the problem of binary responses

Leaving character judgments aside, videos such the one made by Mark Meechan, of his dog responding to the phrase ‘gas the Jews’ with a Nazi salute, should be legally permissible.

Legal questions don’t answer ethical questions. I think that this joke’s concept is grossly insensitive, and I do think that people need to spend more time worrying about what they find funny, and why.

Goree Island

Since South African Airways dropped Dakar as their regular refueling stop, getting to Goree Island (a fifteen-minute ferry ride off Dakar’s coast) can be quite a journey. It took around 24 hours for me, flying from CPT to JNB-NBO-ABJ, then DKR.

Eighteen bloggers from Uganda, Zimbabwe, DRC, South Africa and elsewhere have gathered for an annual workshop, thanks to the generosity of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, who brought us together as AfricaBlogging around three years ago.

Signs and significance, Vol. I: the UCT Library

In what will probably not ever become a series, consider this sign, displayed in the library of the University of Cape Town. The casual observer might simply pass it by, given that the casual observer is typically not that observant.

The slightly less casual observer might pause to reflect on the irony inherent in the fact that a university library approved, printed and now displays a sign that contains two spelling errors. Or, they might reflect on this a little later, shaking their heads while sipping their cognac.

Helen Zille and “valuable aspects of colonial heritage”.

Readers will know that I’m not partial to shaming others, and that I try to avoid polarised viewpoints. I also try to apply the principle of charity – in other words, try to understand what someone was trying to say, rather than simply judging their statements based on surface-level meaning.

And while it’s fairly easy to imagine what Helen Zille thought we should take from her tweets yesterday, it’s very difficult to comprehend how someone with so much experience and knowledge of South African politics could be so naive – or ignorant – as to tweet what she did.

Gender dysphoria and gender reassignment

A journalist friend recently asked me for comment on the issue of gender reassignment, and as usual, I went overboard. Given that only a few sentences of what I provided will make it into her piece, here’s a longer version of my take on some of the ethical issues involved with hormone treatment or gender reassignment surgery for under-18s.

Sugar, the SAIRR and conflicts of interest

The South African Institute for Race Relations (IRR) identifies itself as a liberal think-tank, focusing on research and ideas that might conduce to investment and economic growth.

As you’d know, the term “liberal” means many different things to different people. On my terms, the IRR has often been empathy-light, in that its idealistic vision of what the data tells us we should do can sometimes appear blind to important social and political contexts.