Tweets Are Hazardous To Health

-

 

Barack Obama and baby talk. Don't own a cellphone if you want to be U.S. President one day. LOL.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

President. Prime Minister. German Chancellor.

Then you cannot have a cellphone. Ten year-old kids with such lofty dreams will find it hard to understand how a cellphone is an obstacle to the White House, Canada’s Sussex Drive, the German Bundeskanzlerant, or Pretoria.

Parents will then explain that in addition to video games, cellphones contain a porcupine called the internet, where they can send photos and videos, ‘like’ and share with the whole world what they see, and even send comments.

The porcupine has thorns to look pretty, but the main reason is protection. Even the mighty lion doesn’t think porcupine when it wants a snack.

Parents will try and make kids understand that all the cellphone ‘fun’ up to when they vote and run for office, might be thorns that will bleed political ambition. There is a legal age for driving. What is the legal age for owning a cellphone?

You want to be the next president or prime minister? No problem, but you’re also giving the Party permission to pluck your feathers to see if you have any lice. It has to. If your Party’s handlers don’t, opposition parties will.

Plucking your feathers means analyzing every tweet you’ve ever sent and dropping it into voting boxes: indigenous affairs, gender, race, labour, immigration, eating meat or not, education, climate change, tax cuts or no tax cuts, voter suppression, pro-Chinese or anti-Chinese, the list goes on.  It can include the following.

1. What you wore on Facebook when you were 15. Maybe it was a T-shirt with Japanese writing. You didn’t know what it meant, but voters of Japanese origin know, and they don’t like it.

2. Your high school photos with a sports’ coach accused of sexual misconduct.

3. Masks with slogans, you wore during the Covid-19 pandemic.

4. Your Instagram photos with friends that ended up as right wing terrorists.

5. Your comments about Prince Harry’s daughter.

“But mom, this is harsh. It means no life. No phone, no life.”

By:  Nonqaba waka Msimang. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Elections And Political Bullies

-
Image
Forget democracy.   It should be called political bullying. We are watching it in the prelude to the Canadian election on the 19 th of October, 2015.   Americans have also started their political bullying for the looming presidential election next year. So many trees wasted on books about democracy.   Some countries have big budgets for invading other countries ‘ to defend democracy’ but it is seldom practised in campaigning for elections.   Calling opponents names and printing flyers attacking each other is behaviour that will not be tolerated in kindergarten, but it is all legal, in campaigning.   It is irritating and such a let-down to the whole notion of democracy.   Grown-up men and women behaving like Grade One kids. It is also misleading because many voters believe it is real hatred.   Don’t let that fool you.   These politicians play golf together, attend the same dinner parties, eat and drink at the same social events, share jokes and cut deals in parliament.   They
Read more

Comfort Food As Regret Food

-
Image
Chicken curry. Comfort food is good for the soul, which usually bleeds in winter from icy roads, bad drivers that want to annihilate pedestrians, frozen fingers and toes that take a sabbatical.   What happened to my toes?   I thought I was wearing special socks for boots? We therefore have a right to comfort food which throws doctors’ orders out of the window and has no loyalty to calories.   No calculator on the table, thanks very much.   Piece of bread 5 calories, half a banana 10 calories, sugar-free cheesecake 2,000 calories.   Ah! Ah!  We only live once. Naw!   Comfort food is old school food with its compulsory second helping.   It involves licking fingers and giving a big sigh, about the good life, which is shelter, food, love and debt.   The problem is the zip.   The jeans remind you that comfort food can also be called you will regret food .   Home sweet home is even sweeter in winter after surviving blowing snow and bumper to bumper traffic. What is more welcoming th
Read more

Einstein Passengers

-
Image
Being a passenger is very stressful.   You must listen to the owner of the car, nod and grumble yes to everything he says because you don’t want to piss him off. Two things can happen if you disagree with the driver: he can lose concentration and you all end up in a mash-up accident or stop the car and ask you to get out.   That is the driver’s prerogative.   You must listen to me if you are a passenger in my car.   Let’s flip the script for a minute and sympathise with the driver if she has a passenger who is more intelligent than Albert Einstein. He talks non-stop.   It is all about himself, how right he is, how good he is, how stupid his boss is. Einstein is also a driving instructor.   “Careful.   Look at that guy.   Is he crazy or something? ” says Einstein. Einstein is the unofficial pilot.   He presses imaginary brakes in the passenger seat when the driver stops abruptly for a guy who is texting on his bicycle. A certain Einstein took it to another level.   S
Read more