the corner office

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

On the upside, the Constitutional Court said that it's OK for Laugh It Off to flog their "Black Labour, White Guilt" parody t-shirts, and that South African Breweries can get stuffed. I don't know that SAB did themselves any favours by pushing this issue for so long. Ironically, Laugh It Off have won the case, and will call it a day after auctioning off the remainder of their stock and giving the proceeds to charity.

On the downside, the Mail & Guardian were gagged today, because of an article on an ANC-related funding scandal. This is juicy stuff - the same oil company that crawled up Saddam's bum and had hissy fits about the Iraq invasion a while back were also donating taxpayer's money, basically, to the ANC. Oilgate, it's being called. Will anything come of it? Probably not, but respek to the M&G for making this an issue.

It's funny. The M&G's parent newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail, was famous in the early 80s for being banned and censored silly by South Africa's apartheid government. So much so they eventually shut down for a number of years. Two decades later, the paper's still getting censored by the government (or its lackeys, at least). Some things change, but others seem to stay the same.

(via Commentary and Joblog).