From Zuma, with love - 14 February (V-day) 2014

No roses. No flowers. No invitations to become the sixth First Lady. But the message from the Prez in the State of the Nation address is gushing: Fracking is a game-changer for the SA economy and the Karoo.

Looks like this is the spin-term doing the rounds because last week Minister of Mineral Resources Susan Shabangu also gave fracking the thumbs-up at a mining ‘indaba' in Cape Town where she also called it a ‘game changer’.

All looking a little stage-managed, no?

The Daily Maverick opened Valentine’s Day with an unexpected cautionary note on fracking, from the Treasure the Karoo Action Group (TKAG) activist Jonathan Deal: ‘Our government hasn’t adequately done its duty in researching the implications of shale gas. In election year, it is up to citizens to decide whether they want to continue eating the fruit of the poisoned tree.’

I wasn’t expecting that, especially since the Daily Maverick usually runs a column by Ivo Vegter, the pro-capitalist-free-market columnist and ‘extreme environmentalist’ (who seems to have styled himself on Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish ‘skeptical environmentalist’) whose entire brand is built on being the neo-liberal contrarian on matters green.