Most days i wake up and am excited to try and do my little bit to hopefully help make things better in South Africa. i write blogs, i engage with people in conversation online and offline, i use the platforms i have to create spaces for other voices to speak boldly about important and significant things. tbV and i try to use our time and money and energy and work to help make things better [...]
It has been a heart-breaking day… i’ve known Sindile for close to a year and a half now i think. Known as in i’ve never met him in real life [yet – hopefully remedy that in the next ten days!] but he has guest posted on my blog a number of times and he has this way of blogging within his Facebook status which inspires and challenge and calls to action and pauses and so [...]
This morning i posted this: Maybe Financeministergate was a sneaky ploy to unite the country cos I have not seen quite so much unity online for a long time… …after one of the funnest thirty minutes i have spent on Facebook and the Twitterer in living memory [Except perhaps on Wednesdays at 1pm when i’m hosting SA’s premier Hashtagging game @AFrikkinHashtag of course]. […]
I never fully realised what an impact one little girl could have on a community, just by being herself. Adoption has always been on my heart. I can remember asking my parents, repeatedly, for years, for a baby sister for Christmas. Preferably adopted. It’s obviously something that I’m meant to be involved in. I got my baby sister when I was thirteen. And then a baby brother when I was nineteen. And there have been [...]
Someone you know has just suffered the death of a family member or close friend. Or is struggling through a serious disease. What do you do? What do you say? Yesterday i wrote a post giving what i suspect were some helpful ideas, especially if you are not the closest person in the situation so take a read of them over here. But i also had some comments from some people who have been or are [...]
Sometimes well-meaning people do bad things. Let’s work together to not be one of those… i have two good friends who have recently faced different kinds of grief – one is desperately sick at the moment and the other lost his mom a couple of weeks back. They are surrounded by a lot of well-meaning people. Which sounds like a good thing. But sometimes it’s not. Here are a few things i’ve learnt/observed: [...]
With great Social Media activity, comes great Responsibility. Or something like that. A short while ago i wrote this piece urging you to take a moment to fact check before sharing something newsworthy on Facebook. Especially if something is particularly dramatic or inflammatory or involves the supposed death of some celebrity. There is a lot of rubbish that goes around on the internet and when we share a hoax or a scam that we could have [...]
On the 11th of July 2012 this popular meme illustrating the day Marty McFly [from the classic movie, 'Back to the Future'] arrived in the future started flying its way around the internet. You know, cos look out for Marty McFly or something. The only problem being, that it was not true. Back to the Future was released in 1985 and in the movie Marty Mcfly travels 30 years into the future [making it 2015, [...]
Sometimes as i am typing a comment on Facebook i pause for a moment to think of all the people going, "Oh man, there he goes again." i imagine for a lot of people i am THAT GUY. i found out years ago at church that there was a certain lady, who, anytime i opened my mouth at a meeting, switched off immediately because she knew i was going to rant about a certain thing. [...]
Let me begin with a disclaimer: What follow is not true of all smokers. In fact, most of the smokers I know are very much not like this. But I strongly suspect we will all know exactly who these particular offenders are. The signs will be your head nodding along as you read this, or your fingers starting to, on their own accord, clench into the angriest of fists if you're actually shouting out loud, "Yes! [...]
