Some years ago, at 19841, by dint of the impulsive generosity of Mr Maeder Osler, I ‘came by’ a flute. It is Maeder’s, but on loan to me. Or, maybe I ’liberated’ it. Well, that is what we liberationists do, isn’t it? I simply follow ’the leadership’ example. With the purloined vs permanent loan question still unresolved, I conclude, since ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’, I surely owe it to Maeder’s one-tenth to set down some gramophonic graphomania.
Wendell Berry is a farmer, essayist, novelist, poet, activist, and teacher who has farmed a Kentucky hillside for over half a century in his native Henry County, where his family has lived for eight generations.
In the excerpt below from his well-known The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, Berry draws a distinction that feels as urgent now as when he first wrote it: the difference between exploitation and nurture
My purposes in beginning with this survey of history are (1) to show how deeply rooted in our past is the mentality of exploitation; (2) to show how fundamentally revolutionary it is; and (3) to show how crucial to our history—hence, to our own minds—is the question of how we will relate to our land. This question, now that the corporate revolution has so determinedly invaded the farmland, returns us to our oldest crisis.
Maeder Osler notes:
This was inspired for me by a recent article in The Daily Maverick, on justice and judges, by our admirable contemporary Judith February - whose writings- in the opinion section of opengates - is also honoured.
We have come to expect only a mixed bag from the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) these days.
And so it was last month when it held its first sitting of 2026. The JSC recommends the appointment of judges to the superior courts. Except for appointments to the Constitutional Court, where the President has a discretion to select from multiple candidates, the JSC’s recommendations are binding on the President. Its public interview process is therefore a crucial component of our constitutional democracy.
“We get there, and who the hell cares how.”
… was a saying of one of my teenage whodunnit heroes, Peter Cheney’s Irish sleuth, Slim Callaghan. It became a mantra throughout the years I spent in the quest to get cataracts removed by SA public health. Short story. It took six years.
What follows is a rear view mirror look at what passed for my life-long health care summary of Private vs Public medical care. Shortest possible conclusion: NHI has a case …
First and foremost: this is no racist article—so far from it. I am just astonished at the creativity, positivity and conviviality of some white people in South Africa. Amidst the ugly politicking, the bad governance and the poor service delivery, some white people are still able not only to remain positive, but to organise or support events that can make South Africa and the lives of its citizens significantly much better.
THE RHODES BEIT BAILEY (RBB) FARMING SYNDICATE IN THE NUWE HANTAM, COLEBERG.
A FARM MANAGER’S SUNDRY PACK OF SIX MEMORIES
The final toverview archive instalment of estate farm manager Morton Banes-Webb’s memoir in retirement, on the Rhodes Beit Bailey (RBB) syndicate of some 45 farms in the nuwe hantam district of Colesberg, in the very early 1900’s, is a fascinating grouping of a number of topics, jointly headed SUNDRY, and concealing a range of information and surprises to do with the land and things upon and around it. Here Maeder Osler sets out the memoir’s six pack of sundry selected items, for much consideration.
By Phakamisa Mayaba
Forget Ramaphosa or the GNU, it has been an unlikely Dr Pieter Groenewald, leader of a minority party, who has unexpectedly found his name thrust into the national political discourse.
The 2026 Budget Speech for once will have a positive backdrop across four key dimensions
Nonetheless, a substantial fiscal challenge remains, with an elevated interest burden, persistent spending demands and economic growth rates that are still too low to ensure long-term debt sustainability.
A WAENHUIS WELCOME TO STORY TELLER, DAVID MULLER
17 October 2025. By Maeder Osler.
I’m told that us wise humans (homo sapiens) deserve better to be known as the species homo narrans – that is, story-telling humans.
And now, to fit this version of ourselves, here comes a distinguished example to this very grassy karoo waenhuis and Umsobomvu municipal area of the nuwe hantam ward, a one man band story teller entertainer, David Muller: in early November, fresh from the Groot Marico Bushveld and the Kwa-Zulu Natal midlands..
How I do miss stoeptalk, especially on ‘farming’, now that I have sort of reverse-semigrated into an aged retirement bubble as a tenant at Somerset West in the Cape. Even so, I am rediscovering much stoeptalk, also on farming: because I am lucky to be as alive as you are; reading.
One major salvation here is reflected – admittedly some 125 years later, and on a different scale - from an extract of a toverview donor’s nuwe hantam archive. This, recorded on farming around 1904, is bequeathed in the Rhodes/Beit/Bailey (RBB) syndicate by farm manager, Morton William Barnes Webb’s memoir - headed, simply, FARMING.