Nonqaba said ...

  I’m going to retire and spend more time with my family. That sentiment is quite common, but the reality is that there’s no family to retire for, for a variety of reasons. 1.  Kids are all grown up and have jobs or businesses. 2.  Younger kids are in college out of town. 3.  Spouses, usually wives, might be deeply involved in interests outside the home. SCENARIO : Bob was a successful surgeon. Babs, his wife, a housewife. She brought up the three kids driving them all over the place and cheering them at every school event. They became teenagers and drifted away, lost online in various sites and chat rooms. They got irritated when she asked questions. A friend introduced Babs to women’s groups fighting for social justice. She has never looked back. Then Bob retired. Babs complained to her friends that she didn’t know what to do with him. Bob didn’t know what to do with himself, but Babs felt she was the wronged one. Bob never cared about the home front and problems she had as a single

Residential schools were cancel culture. Cancel indigenous culture in order to steal the land. The modus operandi  was two-pronged, the gun and the bible. The Catholic Church and other European religious sects brainwashed Africans and other indigenous people with the bible, the so-called good book. They were told to turn the other cheek, when someone slapped them, but settlers did not practise what they preached. For example, when Hitler was wrecking havoc in Poland, Europe did not take it lying down. African men - British subjects - were huddled into ships to help the Queen’s war effort by emptying chamber pots of British soldiers. The bible is a dangerous instrument because it has always justified murder with the intention to invade foreign lands. The church taught conquered people that material things like land were not important, because glory awaits in heaven. Priests told the ‘heathens’ to close their eyes and pray. When they opened them, England, France and Spain had title deeds

Photo credit: online pic. Human beings are animals although they pretend to be a better species. Nature has a pattern on how babies in animal country and human country explore their new environment. Unfortunately, wi-fi fractures that pattern in human country. Human babies envy animal babies because their parents don’t have laptops and cellphones. Animals do not sit on their fathers’ laps as he works or entertains himself at the computer. Exploring the new world can be dangerous. Don’t touch that, it’s hot, but who will give the warning because mom and dad are busy online?   Not in animal country. Nature still rules. For example, geese have long necks, but they become longer when the mother detects human presence around her six babies. Don’t even think about it with mother lion. That’s why I respect wildlife photographers, who gave us images of mama and baba lion with their kids. Exploration, how do I teach my kids to kill? That is what is on mama lion’s mind as she sits there and look

Twitter, massive as it is, still wants more butts to warm the seats. That’s why Twitter Business has all kinds of ads to entice us. In its latest love letter, it says Twitter advertisements gives us access to its ‘premium real estate. ’ Quite a lofty goal, but it’s based on how wealth creation works. The ‘real’ part is land. Diamond necklaces, cars, fur coats, floor to ceiling libraries, British designer Ozwald Boateng suits or sneakers that cost $1000 are not real. They are just bling bling, that goes down in price when you die, but land? That’s real estate. You want to be rich? Buy land parcels. Do your research and identify land the government might want to build a nuclear weapons factory. You don’t like weapons of destruction? Too bad. You will never be rich if you have a conscience. Billionaires own land because they understand the game. That’s why some of them own whole islands, but they’ll never catch up with banks. Banks have more money than most governments because they own la

Online pic. We slide in and out of dollar stores for necessities like shower curtains, brooms or detergent. We also shop for special things we use for one day celebrations. l  Christmas l  Halloween l  Valentine’s Day l  St. Patrick’s Day While these days are a good reminder of what’s happening around us, the items associated with them are difficult to recycle. Factories also produced them in processes harmful to the environment. Climate change is not on our mind when we drop them in the shopping basket. The price propels us. Cards and hats cost about $2 to $4 including taxes. The price is also a magnet for first year university students and new immigrants. Some schools also mount some of the above celebrations, therefore forcing parents to visit the dollar store, so that their kids are not left out of the fun. Once upon a time, these one-day-use items were made at home, and could be re-used. Today’s reality is that parents don’t have the time or inclination to sew a Halloween costume.

Politicians don’t take the bus. That is why it comes as a shock when they lose certain constituencies. Not everybody on the bus is a potential voter, but it is a tourist guide that shows an area’s metamorphosis. Oh! Pet food shop gone. It’s rented by pizza slices now. Fish and chips gone, replaced by a barber shop. Synagogue gone, replaced by a mosque. Shoe cobbler gone, replaced by a pedicure shop. Politicians that are not slaves to Wi-Fi will take the bus and hopefully know how to ring the bell to get off. Walking six blocks is an eye-opener. It will give them valuable information that will enable their political party to tailor effective targeted messages. Better still, that short walk gives them an opportunity to talk to ordinary people who have never had parking violations, because they’ve never owned a car. Such talks should include homeless people who cart their life around. Waste of time, they don’t vote. We don’t know that, do we? You can’t win elections if you don’t take the

Photo: Nonqaba waka Msimang . Covid-19 vaccination. We’re busy rolling sleeves to get the jab, so that we can go back to the, before pandemic normal of running away from home. Because of lockdown, we cannot run away and go to work, coffee shops, the boardwalk, restaurants, the gym, church, swimming pool, weddings, naming ceremonies, lavish funerals, the pub, Oktoberfest in Munich, concerts, jazz festivals, basketball and soccer, Olympic games, or just sit in the town square and watch people playing chess. It’s not called running away from home. We should not even entertain that notion. Home improvement, furniture and other industries that thrive on the assumption that home is where we want to be, will be out of business. We vaccinate because we fear death, which is ironic since we don’t know anything about it, but we know a lot about depression caused by the inability to run away from home. We need to run away because home is claustrophobic. It’s a confined space, not infinite like the

Arrivals in Canada from Europe. Capitalism can be described as a create, consume and discard process. Immigration sustains it, as older people lose the propensity to buy at a whim. Most of them have lost the appetite for travel and entertainment, and that makes them low impact consumers. Immigration provides new consumers to buy winter clothing, video games, food processors, lawnmowers, cars, laptops, diapers, strollers, bicycles, start small businesses, rent apartments or buy houses. Most importantly, immigrants pay tax on these goods and services like everybody else. That’s money for the government, but it short changes the public because it doesn’t stress the connection between immigration and the dollar. For some political parties, anti-immigration is bait for elections. Real estate companies and used car dealers depend on immigration, but they’re not standing in front of the Twitter class extolling its virtues. Capitalism creates a need, that we need the latest model of everything

It's not breaking news that Toronto Raptors are not in the playoffs. It was clear at the beginning of the season that Nick Nurse, despite a competent coaching staff, did not want to be in the playoffs, and blaming COVID-19 is a cop-out.  Throwback to September 2020, when Raptors, an NBA team with the best bench at the time, was hammered by Boston Celtics. Reason? Nick Nurse the coach ran the main squad ragged and refused to tap into the bench for help. Reason? He was in a hurry to get out of the ‘bubble’ and rush off somewhere for reasons best known to himself. Same strategy to start this lost season. He did not use that same bench, although it’s now minus three/four men. We won’t count Norman Powell because he left for the Blazers only yesterday, in March when the damage had set in. New players joined the fold. Nurse decided not to use players like Chris Boucher, Stanley Johnson and Paul Watson, but experimented with new men like Aron Baynes. It was obvious that Baynes was a bad f

Online pic. Pull is donsa in Zulu. Rescue teams send ropes down a cliff to pull up stranded hikers. A car is stuck in a ditch and the whole community tries to pull it out. Little boys love helping.   Pulling is not good at home when man pulls this side, woman the other side. Kids feel the tension and start crying because they’re ultra sensitive. In the U.S. Democrats pull this way, Republicans that way. Voters used to decide the direction until 6 January, when supporters heeded Trump’s call and stormed Congress. Do-nsa . You say the first part like door, the second like bonsai , a Japanese word. ZULU ENGLISH Donsa kancane. Pull gently. Donsa kakhulu. Pull harder. Ba-donsa imoto. They’re pulling a car. Ba-donsa imbongolo. They’re pulling a donkey. Musa ukudonsa ingane. Don’t pull the child. Musa ukudonsa izinwele zam. Don’t pull my hair. Badonsa nge-ntambo ende. They’re pulling with a long rope. O-thisha badonsa izi-ndlebe. Teachers pull kids’ ears. Ngikudonsa ngendlebe ngoba awuzwa. I’

  Your first novel huh? How is it going? Fiction has its advantages, especially with crafting pages. One of them is creative writing but the question is: How much? Do you throw in a creative phrase in every page? Bad idea. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. Some readers might like it. Personally, I wouldn’t. It will read too much like a minister’s speech which says a lot, but not nothing, because he must not anger any of his 10 constituents. I don’t envy politicians. It must be difficult to say it’s not raining, when everyone is under an umbrella. Writers should limit creative writing to appease readers like me who detest assembly line writing. Oh! No! You don’t have to say I’ll only throw in a creative line after every 20 pages, no. It’s all seamless. You’ll come to a stop street. You’ll look right and left and proceed with a creative line. Wonderful, just wonderful. You’ll smile and wonder at the wonder of you. The joy of being a writer is self-indulgence, saying aren’t I clever? I must cal

I’ve noticed that some of the new book covers don’t have recommendations by established authors and newspapers. Publishers just use paragraphs from the book itself, to entice readers. This is a good move by the few publishing houses still standing, despite the deluge of e-books. Recommendation is a bad tradition because of its foundation: class. It is like the dinner table at The Everglades , The Pines, The Gables  or other English mansions with a name. The author went to public school with the host, who is his brother-in-law. The host’s wife is a Countess whose grandfather fled to Sweden or England because of the Russian Revolution. The owner of the local millinery shop at the table, is married to a nice fellow who has a modest publishing house in the City. One guest is a famous playwright. Another has a 'society page’ - basically a gossip column - in the local weekly newspaper. Therefore class determined who got published. Esteemed people at other dinner tables, reviewed new book

Online image. Rich people who have foundations to help ‘the poor’ got their money from two streams. The first stream is entertainment related (sportsmen, actors, Oprah Winfrey etc.). The second stream is business-related and we cannot say business, without saying workers. The difference between billionaires and workers is paying the government. Businesses pay less taxes than workers and it’s quite legal. Business creates jobs, permanent or temporary. It makes governments happy. Business spends money to set up offices, mining or factories. That’s why governments reimburse them part of those business expenses. The key phrase is 'business expense' and billionaires are very good at it. WORKERS BILLIONAIRES Workers pay for food. Meals with clients are a business expense. Workers pay for the bus and cars to work. Fuel for pick-up trucks or limo’s is a business expense. Workers pay for the family vacation (if they can afford it at all). Vacations can be deducted as a business expense,

Online pic. There’s no water! You don’t know how you look like when you say that. It’s an image that cannot be captured in a selfie. It’s one of shock and anger, as the tap gurgles, ‘Sorry man.’ You’re so mad you forget to close the tap. Water comes back after four hours and you’re not home. Flooding, and you have no insurance. There’s no water, is the end of the world in entitlement countries like Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, U.S. and continents like Europe.  That is not the case in other parts of the world, where people worship the rain, not Wi-Fi. Water has to be collected from somewhere away from the house. There’s a time for going to streams, rivers and waterfalls, and it’s usually early morning before the sun stretches, like peacocks displaying their finery. In credit card countries, there’s no water shifts the blame to somebody else, usually your municipality. Maybe there was a notice under your door or in the mailbox telling you that water will the switched off Wedn

Political parties in Canada, U.S. and all over the world in fact, do not believe in variety, in the right to be different but still be beautiful like a bouquet of flowers. I was born in South Africa and lived in a tiny house with no room for a garden because apartheid racism did not regard us as human beings, let alone citizens with the right to vote. We were in cities to serve the Queen of England, by being cooks, cleaners, nannies, gardeners and policemen. That’s why flowers fascinate me. I don’t know their names, just the sunflower because it’s so defiant and the rose, because of the Hollywood lie with the thing called romance. Political parties are a bouquet in a way. Members sign up because they like what’s in it. The final bouquet is the country, or should be. That seldom happens because personal aggrandizement muscles out the country. Donald Trump is a case in point. He is so hell bent in claiming his election was stolen, he doesn’t care that it is withering his own bouquet, the

  Photo: Nonqaba waka Msimang Zonda is hate in Zulu.  Hate results in bloodshed, that’s why there are wars, mostly religious wars. The false hypotheses that Covid-19 came from a lab leak in Wuhan China has led to Asian hate. Hate at home is sad and can lead to wife abuse and women’s death.  Intense hatred of African Americans led to lynching and George Floyd’s murder last year. In Rwanda, hate led to the Tutsi massacre. Hate led to the persecution of Jews, not only in Germany, but in Europe  as a whole. Zo-nda . You say the first part like Zobra, the second like Shonda Rhimes, the extraordinary television series producer, with shows like Scandal, Gray’s Anatomy, Bridgerton  on her epaulettes. I-nzo-ndo  is hatred. You say the first part like e-mail, the second like Enzo Fusco the fashion designer and the third part like Lindo. ZULU ENGLISH U-Jill u-zonda u-Jack. Jill hates Jack. Ngiya-mzonda. I hate him/her. Ngenzeni? U-yangi-zonda. What have I done? You hate me. U-baba u-ya-wa-zonda a