Nonqaba said ...

Literature students that copy book reviews from the internet short change themselves because professors are aware of it. How? They see the same book review injected with Botox here and there, from 20 other assignments. College teaching staff, who silently admit that the internet diminished their value long before COVID-19, turn a blind eye and grade copied book reviews with tepid marks, 50-53%. Life is too short to try and fight the tiger: the internet. However, they reward literature students that read books and write their own analysis handsomely. Professors enjoy reading original student assignments because no two students are the same, even twins, the wonder of nature. Students that make time to read the book come up with original answers to who, what, why, when and where. They are not yes men and yes women. The author is not available to explain why the woman in the story has a whole walk-in closet full of white clothes. Students from India might bring a unique insight to the anal

New York State Governor A. Cuomo On 25 November, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down an opinion that pitted government attempts at containing COVID-19 against the First Amendment. The court said, among other things: “ …….while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edits   that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues and mosques .” WHO l  Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York l  Agudath Israel of America These two religious organizations are the applicants. They went to the Court to seek temporary relief from Governor Cuomo’s ‘color-coded’  classification of the city, that would limit the number of people in churches and synagogues. Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, Agudath Israel of America,  died from COVID-19. In order to contain the pandemic, most cities are divided into red, orange and yellow zones. The applicants maintained that the following classifications were discriminatory an

We don’t need most of the things we will buy on Black Friday. They are just extras, but the environment doesn’t have extras. That’s why we wear face masks. We polluted the air through our ‘economic development.’ Translate that into producing extra jeans and tops, extra cosmetics, kitchen appliances, plastic cards in our wallets, pumps for every product in our bathrooms and kitchens, drinking straws, soda cans, cellphones, computers, cars, sneakers, music speakers etc. Black Friday extras were made in a factory somewhere and factories have waste just like us, in that can under the sink. Factories dispose of industrial garbage in rivers and the air, when they burn it. Climate change is a boring subject. It is political. You shy away from talking about it for fear of being labeled socialist or leftist. There’s only one label trending now, SCARED. COVID-19 is in your face, in the form of a mask. Scientists are working on vaccines around the clock, but will they find a cure for a water COVI

Donald Trump will be a problem for the media after Biden’s inauguration because he is not Rihanna. He won’t take a bow like her song, work on his memoirs, golf to his heart’s content and live quietly like all former presidents. His modus operandi  will be to destabilize the new administration, through Twitter and other digital platforms. Yes he can. The current strategy to nullify voters’ wishes that led to Biden’s victory, is just a test drive. The destabilization drone will be in full throttle in 2021. Nothing can be done about his Twitter soapbox. Anybody can have a  account. What about American-based electronic media: CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox etc.? How will they handle him, because his tweets are bound to multiply, when he is without a formal job? The first item on the agenda for news directors is classification. Will they classify Trump’s tweets as news, in the traditional sense of the word? If they do, they’ll rehash them, which is a countless exercise, because  haters and adoring fans

Bahamas education. Online pic. Canada, U.S. and Europe think they have the best educational system in the world. They don’t, because of the volcanic crack. What crack? In rural Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South America, there’s no missing link or a gaping hole between the classroom and home because kids know, that teachers hang out with parents. They go to the same church, mosque, temple, building society, market, financial co-op, choir practice, harvest or festival committee. Teachers drop by the house at any given time. ‘Thami, is your mother home?’ ‘Mama, Miss Deavoir is here to see you.’ Therefore, parents and teachers are one step ahead of kids. Kids know that they cannot punk the teacher because mama will know about it. And, what’s your point? The point is: because of iPad education, kids do not fear the link between school and home. Therefore, they can do whatever they like without the possibility of teachers walking through the door to see Mama. Kids are therefore

  COVID-19 is a wake-up call about knowledge and what we perceive as knowledge. For example, the bank wants a business plan that will demonstrate that your plan to dry pork bellies and use them as pizza toppings, will be a stock market home run. COVID-19 has made cities ghost towns, which were planned based on what governments and business know about human traffic in search of food, sports, services and fun. Town planning is joined at the hip with business. Towns need to grow, otherwise they become ghost towns. So, cities create basketball, baseball and football clubs, man them with American players on mega salaries, thus generating wealth for businesses within the perimeter. Families drive down from suburbs on game night, park the car, catch dinner, do some shopping and drive back to rural tranquility.   Town planning. Big question? Should it follow how a child is born and grows or how trees do their thing? The first example is the origin. Trees and other plants have their beginnings

Stacey Abrams. They say democracy is for the people by the people. That is why it baffled me when opponents mocked Barack Obama when he ran for president, dismissing him as nothing but a community organizer. Americans voted for the Democratic Party and Obama became the 44 th  U.S. President in 2008.   I don’t know how you describe community, but for me, it is a collection of human beings in a place somewhere, trying to come up with ideas of solving their problems here and now. Before the White House, Obama won the Illinois Senate seat from 1997-2004, based on community organizing, driving around the state, talking to people. Opponents ridiculed him because he immersed himself in various communities, some of them totally against each other politically. His opponents were on higher ground, they were campaigning. What is the difference? Community. His opponents ‘campaigned’ while having a pint in restricted men’s clubs, playing golf, sailing, relaxing in Martha’s Vineyard, skiing in Switz

Teachers not only teach, but they prepare students for exams, as well. It’s one and the same thing, isn’t it? Not necessarily. Understanding or comprehension is the goal, when teachers stand in front of the class. We’re using understanding or comprehension deliberately. They mean one and the same thing. Students might be comfortable with the term understanding, because teachers use it all the time. It becomes a problem when exam questions use comprehension. Exams are the highest level of testing. Teachers test all the time. There are in-class tests, homework, assignments, all kinds of testing. Students may be used to ‘understanding’ not ‘comprehension.’ We are not talking about language as in English language exams. We are talking about a chain of learning, where exam questions should be an extension of what teachers delivered in class. Exams should not be teachers’ enemy, springing on students new methods of asking questions. When I still had the brain to learn, I never discussed exam

  Christians and finger pointing. ‘You don’t go to church?’ It sounds like a guilty verdict. Not anymore. COVID-19 is here and there’s no church, so both sinners and saints are home staring at online images they are not supposed to be checking out. Some places of worship like television churches are not affected I guess, because they were on the screen, long before the pandemic broke window panes, leaving us exposed. The accusing finger is what gives religion a bad name. Accusers are free to do hateful, down right evil and even criminal things during the week, but come Sunday, they are pure like falling snow, because they are in church pews and altars. Book Review - Before Redemption Author, Teresa McClain-Watson presents Nikki Lucas, a character that doesn’t go to church thanks to her hypocritical aunt, who refused to take her in when she knocked on her door, young and pregnant. The aunt went to church every Sunday without fail. Years later, Nikki comes face to face with her old boyfr

This piece is posted at the crossroads of American democracy, 6 November 2020 where there is still no winner for the U.S. presidency. Biden or Trump? We don’t know. This stalemate is a wake up call, a reminder that voters’ minds are closed to the public. They act this way, in protests, podcasts, Twitter and Facebook feeds, but act that way when they are alone in the voting booth, or voting by mail. They are like snakes. They shed their skin. That’s why there’s a deadlock after the 3 November election, when the world assumed that it was going to be a walk in the park for the Biden/Harris duo. Why? Not because they ran a meticulous campaign, but because Donald Trump was regarded as a suicidal president through his actions, lies, Tweets and denial that COVID-19 exists, until he caught it. That assumption was wrong. The votes he garnered tell a different story. He represents millions of Americans.   The fact that there was no winner on 3 November, is the bitter realization that his support

Black Panther scene Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan. Before Netflix, we used to love going to the movies. We used to line up for tickets, later we bought them from machines. We used to buy popcorn, buttered or straight. Filmmakers somewhere in Mumbai, LA,  Tokyo, Lagos, Toronto or Hong Kong made movies. How do movies end? With THE END. Ironically, the end is here for big movie production because of the pandemic. COVID-19 is like bed bugs. It loves warm blood, loves crowds, 50 people making a movie in one location: setting up lights, cameras and tripods, laying dolly tracks, fitting costumes, carpenters making ‘bedrooms’, hair and make-up fixing hair and faces, preparing food for cast and crew, all in preparation for the magic words from the director ACTION! Because of COVID-19, scenes with many actors and extras are history. 1.  New York City street scenes, actors walking with computer bags clutching coffee cups during rush hour. 2.  Train scenes, crowded subway trains. 3.  Cops

This new cellphone that is driving me crazy, is indicative of worse things to come, which is the brain phone. It will read my brain that i feel like pizza tonight and bham! all the huts that sell pizza will send texts about the game night pizza package, election night vegetarian special or, Halloween combo complete with pumpkin toppings. I kid you not. It’s possible. Remember the book 1984 by George Orwell? The government is watching the nation. Cameras everywhere, they know what citizens are doing and what is going on in their brain. It was no big deal for Africans in apartheid South Africa because we lived in a police state. We were used to police dogs, surveillance, and being tortured to death like Steve Bantu Biko, of the Black Consciousness Movement. This new cellphone constantly interrupts my search with pop-up suggestions. The brain cellphone they are secretly developing with be worse than current phones, which already put us in the same situation as George Orwell’s book. Cellph