Nonqaba said ...

We vote for political parties that promise a few items on our voting list: health, jobs, living wages, farmers’ subsidy, that sort of thing. That has been going on for years. Therefore, it was a big surprise when the Green Party, which is synonymous with safeguarding the environment took 32.7 percent of the vote in the Toronto Centre by-election, in October 2020. Annamie Paul is the newly minted leader of the Green Party. Marci Len, took home 42% of the vote on behalf of the Liberal Party, which is hobbling along because it lost its majority status in the last election. ONE ITEM POLITICAL PARTIES The Green Party’s win forced me to do some homework. Is it possible to vote for a ONE ITEM political party, just the environment? The by-election took place in a COVID-19 year, but we can’t say for sure that it prompted Annamie Paul’s leap. Other factors must have come to play. Paul is the first black woman to head a political party in Canada. The Liberals had their own dirty linen in public w

Spike Lee has been called proud bc he knows what films he wants to make and how . She’s very proud. It depends. Negative vs positive. The negative sees the positive as proud. I came across a new word some months ago in a book. The character says, “Niki is very prideful.” Fine. Niki is full of pride I suppose. You call Niki proud. She’s not. She has self-esteem. She knows that there are things she cannot change. She also knows that there is nobody who will look after her interests. We have marriages, relationships, friends, co-workers, followers but nobody will sacrifice anything for you. They only take. Pride is self-preservation, especially in relationships and at work. Boy meets girls. He says I love you, the only passport to get to where he wants to go. He arrives there. After a few months he gets tired of girl, finds another one. A girl who knows her worth will walk away, not leave ten phone messages everyday, or destroy his career on Twitter and Instagram. Walking away is top of t

Blessing Egbe's movie One Room, starring  Rita Dominic. We never appreciated the symbiotic relationship between home and work, until now. We are marooned at home and we are miserable. The kids are disturbing us while we work (on Boxing Day?). They are messy and noisy, spouses want us to take a bath, walk the dog, do laundry and other things we don’t do at the office, workshop, factory, construction site etc. All this leads to resentment or the realization that we don’t like the people we are married to or live with. Space aggravates matters. The apartment is too small for five people; neighbors are banging the wall because we live in a semi-detached; the small house has no veranda or backyard; or we live in a trailer park with music blaring 24 hours. The Pandemic and Rich People We are not handling this lockdown very well because we feel boxed in. Rich people on the other hand have the space alternative. They have his and hers study, the music room, guest rooms, the library, the co

Photo Credit: online pic. The middle class home has a lot of electronics, for him and her and separate ones for the kids, but kids love playing with their parents and it’s still the best teacher. Try playing restaurant at home, since you can’t dine out. Most restaurants are on lockdown by government decree. Where do you start? Determine how much they know. Some kids are used to restaurants. They went there as toddlers. Reluctant or eager serving staff perched them on high chairs. Other kids are used to sitting in the car while parents lean out of the window and place orders through a speaker phone. Doctors and dentists have their own protocol, so do restaurants. This is what you can recreate during the make believe. One thing you don’t have to worry about is the kitchen. It’s right there. Question for the kids, what do we need? The answers will surprise you.   1.  The menu. 2.  Designing the menu. Give them printer paper. 3.  Allocation of roles. Who will greet guests and hang their co

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada was born on the 25 th  of December. They call birthday born day  in South Africa.   It comes  from   ‘usuku loku zalwa’,  in Zulu, one of the languages spoken in that country .   COVID-19 Press Briefings How old is the Prime Minister? Canadians play hide and seek in their heads instead of taking in the grim skating marks, the pandemic is scratching on the nation. Facts and figures. Unfortunately, that is television’s downside. We tend to look at the person’s eyes, clothes and hair. That’s why publicists give politicians bullet points, or ‘sound bites’ as they call them. In other words, viewers are too busy looking at the face to soak in important information, such as the extension of COVID-19 money for workers and businesses. How old is the Prime Minister? Perhaps he also wonders. Is that why he grew a beard? Granted, Trudeau spotted some beards before the pandemic, but he wore a beard consistently in

COVID-19 and this Christmas. The virus kills. Others survive. Government and health experts caution, trim down year-end gatherings to reduce funerals and cremations. People with common sense understand that, but the practical side is bound to dent family relationships. Christmas dinner for example. It was bigger last year, has always been bigger. Who do we exclude from the dinner table this year? I’m using this meal because I’m writing from a North American perspective. People celebrate Christmas differently all over the world. Millions are not even Christians. They regard the holiday as a venue for a pause, a pause from work and hustling in general. Grandmothers and grandfathers will be excluded for obvious reasons. They are perceived as high risk carriers because their bodies are fatigued, from other ailments. Excluding them is a painful decision for most families. The pain is acute because of the Thanksgiving experience. They did not fetch old people from care homes. Who else will b

Winnipeg, Canada Day celebration, B4 Covid-19. What would you like for Christmas? I prefer ‘ like ’ to ‘ want ’ because we cannot always get what we want. Farmers want rain, but nature has its own agenda, which might be drought. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas. No! I don’t agree with the song. I’m dreaming of a recycling Christmas where I’m one or two years old again. It will remove cobwebs from my brain. There’s a problem. I’ll try and solve it this way. Kids that age do it all the time. One woman tried to get her one-year old of the breast to no avail. She resorted to applying something on them. The son went to the mother and helped himself. He tasted something bitter. He went to the bathroom, rolled out some tissue, came back, wiped them and ate happily ever after. The women in the room looked at each other with shock, then delayed laughter. If I hadn’t been one of them, I wouldn’t have believed it. I would like to be recycled to a toddler for Christmas so that I can be sharp like

We’re mad at the pandemic, not because we cannot go to work, run our small businesses, catch a movie, go to the gym, dinner, pub, church, outdoor concerts and NBA games. We’re mad because lockdown forces us to admit the possibility of driving to pawnshops. We hope it won’t come to that. We hope we won’t be forced to sell the house and downgrade to an apartment, which means selling bulky sofas in exchange for bean bags. We hope we won’t have to take lawnmowers, BBQ stands, chest of drawers, humidifiers, waffle-makers, fur coats and costume jewelery to the pawnshop.   If we do, we can get them back after three months. I didn’t know. Movies gave me the impression that when your life falls apart, you take your precious things to pawnshops, never to be seen again. Two novels, Soon After  and Wanna Get To Know Ya  gave me a fresh insight about pawnshops.  Soon after  has a pastor that owns a pawnshop. Wanna  has a character that keeps items well beyond the time regulated by law. Forget what

Book Title : Soon After Author : Sherryle Kiser Jackson But why did aunt Elaine burn down the church? That is the burning question. My mind should not be on this book. I reached THE END, so I must move on to other books, I didn’t finish months back. I have quite a few. I stop reading when I come across yet another New York Times best seller  which ‘reads’ like a Hollywood movie: a reporter, crime committed, wrong suspect, detectives. God! Detectives! Why must most books have detectives? What’s the point of buying books when you know what will happen? Slow down, take a deep breath. I will. Soon After  has all of the above except detectives. It has a fire chief  instead. The title could easily be soon after the fire, because someone  burnt down the Harvest Baptist church. Soon After  works though, short and sweet, and there’s fire on the cover. COVID-19 lockdown is forcing me to attend all unfinished business, including books. Aunt Elaine is an enigma because she doesn’t feature that muc

"Mama I’m hungry.” “Is the kitchen closed?” “Please mama. My stomach is hurting.” “Honey, you should say, mama there are no eggs.” “I can’t cook. I’m too little.’ “Learn how to cook honey. Mama won’t always be here.” “Mama don’t play. You’ll always be here.” “Go brush your teeth, I’m coming.”   Once upon a time, people died of old age. Then we became sophisticated, tried to ‘improve’ nature with things and how our bodies work, ate new food and new people. We ended up with new diseases that love young people. That’s why kids should learn to cook, as soon as possible because mama won’t be there all the time. When though? Difficult question, because of age. Come to think of it, kids learn unconsciously just by being around adults. We even complain that they are getting under our feet. They hang around because they love us, they mimic what we do. They are rookies in this world. They want to know how things work. “ Mama, I’m hungry. ” The right thing to say is: ‘ Mama there are no eggs

Photo Credit: online pic   COVID-19 and school, virtual school. Virtual classroom, college, tuition, online learning or whatever you call it, needs a computer. What happens to parents that cannot afford it because they don’t have silver, gold, platinum, black, blue, orange or red credit cards? This post was prompted by laptop sales, the cheapest being R800 for top of the range machines. Refurbished ones cost less but few people want yesterday’s problems, today. Christmas is scaled down this year because one parent or both aren’t working, or are working reduced hours. Reasonable kids (depending on  age) understand that 2020 is a no-gift Christmas. A computer however, is the ideal gift because it will be used 24/7 and for a good purpose: online classes. The problem however, is ownership, making the family understand that the only laptop in the house should be shared like the kitchen table and the bathroom. Kids already have their own phones they do not share with brothers and sisters, le