Nonqaba said ...

Chris Boucher, Toronto Raptors . Minimum payment due. That is what Toronto Raptors need to maintain scoring consistency. Apologies for belaboring the point, but I have to because I always cringe when other teams have the ball. It means deposits will be approved. Whoosh! Whoosh! Now that is called banking. Minimum payment. Maybe this is a bad choice of words because professional basketball players have obese bank balances and pay off their plastic cards every month, not like the rest of us. Minimum payment, that is what we squeeze through the needle, if we pay at all. Credit card companies salivate at the thought of all that interest on unpaid balances. Please don’t depress me. Back to minimum payment. We the North or should I say, We the Fans would like the six designated shooters to deposit in the basket 15 points each, and we are talking about the 1-2-3-’s, (3 pointers in basketball lingo). 15 X 6 = 90. It’s a free country, so anybody can score if the opportunity arises

Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang. My best friend? Inequality is the formula. One is short, the other one is tall. Just think of some of the ‘best friends’ you know. One is hauntingly beautiful without the borrowed hair or make-up. The other one is not ugly, as such, just comforting. One lives in a house the other one lives at home or in a one-room apartment. One says ‘I need a new wardrobe.’ T he other one takes over the old jeans and handbags. What about means of transport? That is the most important aspect of ‘best friendship’. If you don’t have a car, you wouldn’t dare say Portia is my best friend. She picks you up and drops you off. DECLARATION Portia makes that declaration, not you Temi, because she has money, house, car and family connections. She is the driver, the pilot, the webmaster or producer. She controls the podcast. She might even control your thoughts about clothes, carnival costumes, air pollution, plastic roses, the exchange rate, house cleaners, men and other

Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang This is a general blog about anything under the sun. It also provides mini Zulu lessons for those interested in the language, spoken in most countries in southern Africa. However, its umbilical cord is buried in the KwaZulu Natal Province, in South Africa. Worry is kha-tha-za  in Zulu. Being worried is life itself I suppose and we deal with it in various ways. People who struggle to make ends meet because of poor harvests, lack of rain, floods washing away crops, being laid off, being paid $50 U.S. dollars a month or losing kids in civil wars because some man wants to be president, take it in their stride. They live with the worry. Rich people in Europe, Canada and the U.S. pay doctors to sleep on a couch and tell them why they are worried about husbands that deleted love or wrinkles that refuse to keep quiet. Meanwhile, the real world is worried about coronavirus. The Chinese are worried that it will raise racism against them. Justin Trudeau, Canadian

Knock. Knock. Who’s there? Book covers will always be the front desk when we browse at land-based bookstores or online. Photographs as covers, are taking a back seat because computer generated images - even stolen photos mutilated by photoshop - are as abundant as sand on a Miramar beach in Argentina. The cover compliments the title of the book obviously and we cannot scientifically say, which comes first, or is more important. Remember the unsolved dilemma? What came first, the chicken or the egg? I’m partial to book covers with photographs because I’m a photographer. Partial because some computer-generated images attract me as well. Here are two examples from my latest excursion to the local bookstore. 1.   Double Cup Love by Eddie Huang 2.   Boy Shopping by Nia Stephens I picked up Huang’s book because of the cup which looks like the millions of paper cups office workers clutch every morning, on their way to work. The title is also coffee related. Is it double espres

Mum and dad bond with baby. Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang. People find conversation-creators irritating, very irritating. That is why it leads to the question: Don’t you have a phone? They just don’t understand why someone with a phone would want to talk to a breathing, smiling human being. Boys tending cattle high up the Lesotho mountains, where the Lesotho Highlands Water Project dominates the scene, keep an eye on two things: the four-legged kids and their phones. They are on Facebook and YouTube. Conversation-creators are enemies of progress because they interfere with our reason for living, which is being online. That is why we become suicidal when friends, lovers and haters switch off their phones. In fact it should be a criminal offence the world over, tried before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague. However, there are legitimate reasons for switching off your phone. You are at a meeting, driving or having a five minute quality time with the love of

Serge Ibaka, of the Toronto Raptors persuasion is not amused. O.G. Anunoby, his team mate wears the arrogance of youth on his sleeve. No. Make that on his head. Just look at how he ties his scarf. I’ve never seen my kidneys but they must be better organized than that. He looks like a 3-part series: human, android and emoji . Serge Ibaka however, just threw it over his neck. Voila! Bloor Street West chic. A fan's O.G/Ibaka scarf. Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang. Serge Ibaka then got even, and gave his team mates scarves, call it an early Valentine’s Day treat, but he isn’t done with the precocious O.G. Anonuby. Ibaka, being older and wiser (mama’s wisdom) said O.G. should provide better scarves. O.G. Anunoby : No sweat man, my credit card doesn’t have a glass ceiling. Serge Ibaka : Don’t buy them. Knit them. O.G. Anunoby : What is knitting? Valentine’s Day. Great idea minus the bling. How can you come to the conclusion that someone doesn’t love you because they didn’t g

'I'm staying,' said Masai Ujiri in the 3 June 2021 tweet. Masai Ujiri, Toronto Raptors President of Operations has said it before that he will stick around Canada for a while, put on his mitts, zip up his parka, lace up his snow boots and go about his business, like folks called Canadians. His reasons for staying put are on record but people with digital megaphones do not want to listen. They like speculating that Masai is the messiah to save the New York Knicks. He will leave Raptors in the distant future because basketball jobs are fluid between Canada and the U.S., but he will never work in the Knicks office. Why not? From what I hear, it is a toxic working environment where people text the owner every evening: Boss, should I come in tomorrow?   It’s like post impeachment White House with Donald Trump the avenger, getting even with those that testified at his impeachment hearing.   Masai Ujiri is a thinker. He needs calm, to think outside the box, his favourite p

Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang. Tangiiri , a Yoruba (Nigeria) movie about seven kids fighting for their mother’s corpse, is a reminder that theoretically, women have a choice. They can self audit or take the group audit format. However, the reality is that group audit is the preferred column for most women globally because self audit leads to isolation from the group. That column is fed at birth by mothers who got it from their mothers, who got it from billions of mothers before them. Ibiyemi , the main character in the movie constantly audits her life. When she feels that a man doesn’t live up to his promises, she leaves him. She definitely does not tolerate being beaten. That is how she ends up with nine children with different fathers. Ibiyemi dies and seven of them fight for the right to bury her. Her body is stolen, re-stolen and finally secretly buried. It is fiction yes, but it is very disturbing seeing a coffin manhandled from pillar to post, with guns drawn. Pic: Non

Corporate Canada likes rewarding employees that increase profits. That is why they have awards called Employee of the Month and Employee of the Year. Employee of the Month could be for selling a large number of units in a particular month for example, Peter sold 20 microwave ovens in January. Thami sold 11 and Lee 9. That is easy. It is quantifiable. Therefore, giving Peter the Employee of the Month Award is justifiable. These awards are an incentive for employees to go the extra mile to help the company stay afloat. Unfortunately it rests with human beings: managers. Sales departments cannot deviate from the criteria of giving these awards because numbers speak for themselves, like in Peter’s case but in other departments e.g. Finance or Human Resources, it is easy for managers to be subjective. Let’s use another hypothetical case. Thika in Finance is the first in the office every morning and puts in long hours, crunching numbers. Tate is not a born again Christian. Call hi

Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.   I must book a flight to Toronto and stride into the lobby of 50 Bay Street to talk to these people that own Toronto Raptors. They must donate globes to Ontario schools. “No, I don’t have an appointment, but I have a gift for Masai Ujiri. Security please, it’s not a bomb. See, it’s a globe, the map of the world.” Toronto Raptors must donate globes to schools to help kids understand circles. Yes, they know what a circle is because of the shape of a basketball. After all, mom and dad support Raptors, injury or no injury. I know, the little darlings tout the latest cellphones and they can call up the map of the world with a finger, but globes will enable teachers to structure lessons around globes: physics, geography, astronomy, diversity, etc. How will it work? Classrooms and laboratories will have six globes each. Teachers take them out of the cupboard and arrange six kids around each globe. Teachers will be

The U.S. Senate will not impeach Donald Trump the sitting president, for the simple reason that you are not expected to go against the family, the Republican Party in this case. Kids from the same mother might vary in height, intelligence and temperament but they all call her mama. Ukraine is watching the impeachment proceedings, so does the rest of the world. President Trump will walk out a free man, with just a milligram of a historical stain that he was unsuccessfully impeached, but that outcome might have an adverse effect on Americans abroad. U.S. citizens who have never lived outside its borders have no idea of how some countries feel about their presidents, especially Donald Trump. Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang. Trump will walk after the impeachment attempt. When he walks, he might deliver the main course after the Iran starters, where he ordered the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the man in charge of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Should he order anoth