This article and song is dedicated to all the people out there who have joined the movement to never answer unknown or private numbers on our cellphones.

Ok check it out – have you heard bout the rapper by the name of Busy Signal? Absolutely no problem if you haven’t. Grab a seat and let me tell you:

Reanno Gordon, better known by his stage name, Busy Signal, is an artist from St Ann, Jamaica. He has also lived in Tivoli Gardens, Papine, Spanish Town and other areas in West and East Kingston Jamaica and is a past student of Brown’s Town Comprehensive High School. Known as one of the artists leading the contemporary Dancehall movement, Busy Signal has been a large part of the scene since 2003.

He was nicknamed Busy Signal by his friends because of the fact that he is constantly busy. .

As you can imagine, the following song of his is my favourite “track” :

Read More on 2oceansvibe.com – Work is a sideline, live the holiday. Cape Town Lifestyle.: BUSY SIGNAL – THE “UNKNOWN NUMBER” RAP

I love nothing more than leaked anonymous emails. Especially when they contain things I know nothing about. Like the one I got this morning from dangerdoll27@hotmail.com, which was clearly created for this one act of espionage-type behavior.

All it said was, “Seth, enjoy this. Top secret film shoot.”

Wow, I clicked the attached jpeg file named “bafunny-bafunny.jpg” and the following image appeared.

CLICK IMAGE to enlarge..

From where I’m standing, that looks like a gathering of quite a few local comedians. In fact, I’m not sure I can remember seeing so many prominant SA comedians in one place.

I spy Barry Hilton and Lottering and the other faces look familiar.

Does anyone out there have all the names above?

Does anyone have any idea what this is about?

Read More on 2oceansvibe.com – Work is a sideline, live the holiday. Cape Town Lifestyle.: “BAFUNNY BAFUNNY” – HUH?

Harders sent in this beautiful pic taken very recently. You’ll notice how a hose pipe can very easily be used as a tyre.

What’s going on here?

Oh hello!

Absolutely brilliant!

Not a bad idea at all – especially with the price of tyres these days – I may well do the same thing.

Although, to be honest, I am slightly concerned about performance and, in particular, handling..

Hey, while I have you here, I must just say, “YOO DRAHVIN MARMEES CORR!!!”

Adverts Soon!

Read More on 2oceansvibe.com – Work is a sideline, live the holiday. Cape Town Lifestyle.: WHO NEEDS ACTUAL TYRES?

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Nice. I’ll even throw my tickets in the mix, not because I don’t want to go, because I’ll be in Mauritius from the 17^th snorkelling in crystal clear water, sipping cocktails on the beach and looking for a French-Mauritian wife.

You should probably go through. You’re bound to bump into some interesting people, and I heard a little rumour that the thought to be dead Shaun Oakes will be there. He’ll be standing in for me at the bar.

For your chance at a ticket all you need to do is leave a comment at the end of this post. It’s that easy.

Winners announced on Monday.

Nash…
Out!

Read More on Bangers and Nash: WIN 10 Tickets To ‘The Vibe’ At St Yves

What does it mean to lead on divided campuses?

This was the theme of the evening as vice-chancellor, Dr Max Price, shared the stage with the outspoken vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State, Professor Jonathan Jansen, on 9 March.

First at the podium was Jansen: “It’s absolutely crucial for a leader in higher education to recognise the problem of distance between black and white. Unless you recognise that, you will not understand the enormous tension, pain, aggravation and bitterness that continues to exist on campuses across this country.”

Jansen outlined the differences between co-habitation and integration, arguing that leaders can’t force students to be together in a social sense: “While our campuses are desegregated, I don’t know of a campus in South Africa that is integrated,” he noted. He added that students are alienated by a leadership that self-righteously lectures them on race relations, especially if they’re not setting a credible example as leaders themselves.

In building a sense of non-racial community, Jansen argued, leaders have to take both black and white communities into account, and learn to understand their anxieties and fears.

“Unless you can feel and deal with, as a leader, that emotional distress on each side of the equation, you will not be able to lead together a student body that overcomes the sins of their fathers.”

Price noted that transformation on different campuses, specifically at English- and Afrikaans-speaking universities, faced different challenges. Where Afrikaans universities have to overcome a huge ideological shift, their English counterparts faced a sense of smugness in the belief that this transformation had already successfully occurred in the ’70s and ‘80’s.

“Our challenge is to persuade staff and students that there’s a problem that still has to be fixed,” he said.

He argued that universities could play a key role “in creating transforming agents who graduate from us”.

“We can expose students to inequalities in the society around us; we can expose them to debates addressing that, and we can try to influence their values and commitment.”

Another key role for Price is ‘the knowledge project’: what is taught, what is excluded and what opinions are promoted in the students’ academic life. “Transformation also includes creating a curriculum and a research focus that helps students to identify with their own heritage and culture, so that they don’t always feel alien in that environment.”

Price noted the importance of institutional climate in transformation.

“This, I think, is the toughest challenge because it’s the most difficult to put your finger on. It’s in the air we breathe and the buildings we work in.” He described subtle ‘micro-environment behaviours’, such as ignoring certain people in meetings, that make people feel excluded.

“It’s the role of leadership to be tuned in to these behaviours, and to highlight them in a gentle way,” said Price.

The forum, which was organised by UCT Press, was hosted by former Minister of Education, Professor Kader Asmal.

Listen to podcast of the speeches.

Read More on University of Cape Town / Daily News: Vice-chancellors debate leadership

Helping first-year UCT students adapt to academic life is the goal of the Student Development Programme, a new R500 000 initiative by Student Wellness, a unit in the Department: Student Affairs.

Taking part in the pilot programme are 65 fine arts and 40 geomatics first years, who will attend weekly lectures, facilitated by psychologist Kim Foster and social worker Carmelita Lee Shong, which will address common problems faced by students adjusting from a high school to a university environment. The lectures, titled >i>Odyssey include issues such as time and stress management, and exam preparation and anxiety.

“All these factors can potentially affect academic performance,” says programme co-ordinator, Kehiloe Ntsekhe of Student Wellness. “Our goal is to support first years in a non-academic way as they go through this transition.”

Alongside this will be mentor training and support for the mentors of the first year students involved. The Student Development Programme is also involved in giving ad hoc workshops in different faculties and plans to give training and support to faculty staff involved in student support.

Funded through the vice-chancellor’s strategic fund on transformation and basing itself on research undertaken by the Centre for Higher Education Development, the pilot programme will run throughout 2010. The programme will work closely with the working group set up by the Senate Academic Planning Committee to look into the First Year Experience for all undergraduate students at UCT.

Once complete, the programme’s effectiveness will be evaluated using various tools to examine the effectiveness of the intervention. This evaluation and a clear indication of the future sustainability of the interventions will be the determining factors in the programme’s future.

Read More on University of Cape Town / Daily News: New programme helps first years adjust

The Faculty of Law is trailblazing the Afropolitan path, signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), Mozambique’s oldest and largest university, at UCT on 10 March.

Actually, UCT signed two such MoUs with UEM on the day. The first – initialled by UCT vice-chancellor, Dr Max Price, and UEM rector, Professor Filipe Couto – is an overarching one, pledging the two universities to broad collaborations and staff and student exchanges.

The second one is more specific, built on a standing partnership between the universities’ faculties of law. Since first making contact at the First International Conference on Regional Integration Issues and SADC Law, held at UEM in April 2008, the faculties have been collaborating around that common theme.

As UEM has a centre dedicated exclusively to the topic, research and teaching exchanges have proved invaluable to UCT, says Professor Evance Kalula, deputy dean for internationalisation and development in UCT’s Faculty of Law, responsible for striking up such partnerships with African institutions. Such has been the strength of the UEM collaboration that UCT launched a master’s course in regional integration and SADC law in 2008, based in large part on UEM’s work.

That programme has taken off with a bang, with 24 students already signing up – a sizeable number for any LLM course, observes Kalula. In addition, an undergraduate course has also attracted a dozen or so students.

But it’s not a one-sided relationship, notes Kalula. UCT has plenty to offer UEM- as Couto noted as well – and will be offering assistance in developing young, emerging researchers there, posting its academics to teach and work in Mozambique, and helping with curriculum development.

It’s that kind of two-way that traffic bodes well for the MoUs.

“Agreements like this do not add up to anything if we haven’t started to do something concrete,” said Couto at the signing. “This is something which is just confirming what we are doing already.’

The occasion was a memorable one for Price as well, as it’s the first MoU he’s signed with an African university since taking the helm as UCT vice-chancellor in 2008.

“It’s an important development for us because we’re trying to strengthen our links with African universities, more than we’ve done in the past,” he said. The agreement with UEM would also, perhaps, spark contacts with other Lusophone countries in the Southern Hemisphere, added Price.

Read More on University of Cape Town / Daily News: Law hooks up with collaborators from Mozambique