“South African Violence” Only Explains Pistorius If You Think He’s Not Guilty

There’s a please-click-thru-six-screens cover story just published by TIME about the shooting, by track athlete Oscar Pistorius, of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius, if you don’t know, is a darling. Handsome. Charming (“but with a fiery temper,” says The Australian ). And fast, even as a double-amputee — so fast that in London last year, he became the first Paralympic athlete to compete against able-bodied contenders in an Olympic Games. In a country that “articulates its dreams through sports,” Pistorius is, in writer Alex Perry’s words, the “latest incarnation of South African hope.”