THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST FACEBOOK & ST TWITTER

Dear Facebook and Twitter worshipers,

With the tech aged now upon us it's open season

For destroying reputations without rhyme or reason.

On Facebook or on Twitter

The gutless can troll their dirty litter

Which will be picked up and hurled

To every corner of the world.

It’s according to the gospel of St Facebook and St Twitter

That’s all they ever think,

Not noticing the stink,

That’s such a subtle smell

It’s beckoning them all to hell,

As they go on worshiping according to St Facebook and St Twitter.

Followers are the coin of this shadowy crowd

Where true names get lost in banks of cloud,

But that’s okay according to the gospel of St Facebook and St Twitter.

Watch out; watch out for your little teen,

He could be paedo or he could be clean,

It’s nowhere there in the gospel of St Facebook or St Twitter.

He’s so smooth and so kind,

Mum and Dad will never mind

If I go on making love according to St Facebook and St Twitter.

Dad did you hear Mum scream

That’s sis’ dress they’re dragging from a stream.

It must be true it’s on Facebook…. and on Twitter.

This speaks for itself,
Regards,
Jon

MEET SOUTH AFRICA'S MOST MATURE SOCIAL MEDIA USER

Dear South Africans, 

The Black Education Minister in the Gauteng Province, Panyaza Lesufi has just shown that he is the most level-headed social media user in South Africa. He’s educated us all brilliantly. Thanks so much Minister for setting such a shining example.

Let’s hope you are followed by the entire country.

On Sunday when Lesufi went on Twitter he was shocked to be bombarded by an unprovoked racial attack. An anonymous user called him a “Fucking Kaffir” paedophile.

The cowardly racist hid behind the name “Summer Starstead” using the handle @uncucklord.

To illustrate his “cuck” he took a picture from Lesufi’s Twitter feed of the Minister in the jeans he wore in case he had to jump over a fence to get into a Johannesburg crèche that was said to be separating white and black kids during meal times.

“Here you have Gauteng MEC for Education @lesufi ready to jump a fence to take pics of toddlers. Fucking Kaffir pedo,” was his inflammatory comment

Instead of blasting off against his incredibly uncouth detractor he showed the kind of maturity not yet displayed in similar circumstances in South Africa. He also didn’t rush off to lay a complaint to the Equity Court in the hope that it would be able to track down and nail this racist in the same way it had done with former estate agent Penny Sparrow. She was fined R150 000 for calling Black beachgoers monkeys.

No, he did nothing more than to politely tweet, “Don’t call me with the K-word please.” This just goaded @uncucklord to hurl further abuse at him with the use of the K-word and the question as to why he was not wearing “piss-soaked animal skins” as this was his “traditional attire.”

The Minister was referring to Hendrik Verwoed,
            South Africa's Prime Minister who was credited
with being the architect of apartheid

         Again he kept his cool with this reply: “This one keeps calling me with the K-word. I’m not going to block him. He must just enjoy insulting me.”

It was obvious that this gutter snipe stuff was coming from a White person.

The Minister subsequently told his 27 200 followers: “Racists can insult me as they wish, but my commitment to a non-racial, equal and quality education for all our children remains unshakeable.

“Their children will study, dance and play with our children in one class and drink water from the same tap. If this hurts racists hard luck.”

The Times reported that he said his parents had taught him “to respect those who hate you, as it is through respect that you can change your enemy.”

Well done again Panyaza. Nothing annoys people more when you don’t react as expected however much they insult you.

By taking punitive action against these gutless snipers too scared to show themselves you only turn them into heroes among their own kind. You put them in the lime light they are craving. And then the racialism wrecking ball carries on dividing our society.

Regards

Jon, a Minister Panyaza Lesufi ADMIRER.

P.S. Here’s a group who would have done well Mr Minister to have had your sensible approach. The case of course was very different. There was no racialism involved. All I did was take four journalists to task for using foul language on twitter. The significance was that they wouldn’t be allowed to use the same words when writing for the publications they worked for, so I argued that by using them on Twitter they were damaging their own and the reputations of whoever employed them. And even though they were in the business of criticising other people, all but one of them could not take it from me, so they BLOCKED ME on Twitter. The Blockers

*Note: “Cuck” is short for cuckold. It has been given all kinds of meanings most of them very racist and disgusting. But it is apparently most commonly used on Twitter to describe anti-white Whites. I can’t see where that fits in this case. Another definition which is appropriate is that it is an “unscrupulous person.”

You can’t of course have fewer scruples than Summer Starstead who the Minister assumed is a man, but if Sparrow’s actions are anything to go by there could be a woman behind it. 

Can Swearing on Twitter & Journalism mix?

Dear Newspaper Readers,

Carien, ever the child



         Do you think it’s reasonable for journalists to play a dual writing role in the belief that the one can’t affect the other?

         What I’m talking about is hacks that are employed by newspapers and voice their opinions on social media at the same time using language that their papers wouldn’t countenance.

         For example I had a bit of an altercation on Twitter with Carien du Plessis who bills herself as a City Press political reporter. She claims: Love the job. In fact married to it.

         In my newspaper days political writers were in the top echelons of the profession, who you would not have expected to behave in a childish way; using attention seeking foul language for all to see. It would have damaged both their own and their paper’s credibility.

         But nobody seems to care now, least of all the City Press. This is a national Sunday paper with 1.6 million readers that claims to be the second most quoted paper in South Africa.

      Over a period of about a week I tried to get hold of City Press’ Editorial Policy. I got shunted from one person to another; given a wrong email address and then just when I thought I would get the answer from Gayle Edmunds, the Managing Editor, she referred me to somebody else.

      But not before confessing I don’t have a copy. How shameful. Needless to say I heard nothing from the person she asked to give me the information.

         Does the paper actually have one, I wondered

         Like a good journalist, as I don’t know what it contains, I will have to guess or better still quote an anonymous ‘source’.

         My source tells me that City Press journalists are not allowed to use swear words and any type of foul language to colour their reports.

         So if this is the case is it reasonable for Carien, who is actually their Senior Political writer, to spice up her Tweets with unnecessary words like crap, fukkit, shit and pee in my pants.

         My tiff with her on Twitter began after she Tweeted: Oh crap. I’m not good at this Lotto thing.



         The Twitter conversation then continued like this.

Jon - A lady doesn’t say ‘crap’. But then I suppose female journos have to keep up with the boys.

Carien - May be ladies don’t, but fortunately I’m not a lady. So I’ll say crap if I want to.

Jon - Thankfully some ladies are extinct because they keep saying ‘crap’ in front of your mother & they are proud of it. 

Carien - It’s my mom who raised me to be a woman, free from the crap that limits ladies to behave lady-like.

Jon - I’m surprised because in my limited experience Afrikaans vrous are extremely lady-like. And they would be shocked to have a daughter who craps on twitter for the world to see where she’s come from. Hopefully they’ve got good editors at City Press because people often complain that there’s a lot of crap in the papers.(That's two Tweets in one in case you are mystified)

Carien – Welcome to the 21st century, grandpa.

         Evidently I’m not the only media grandpa around who believes that foul language is not appropriate.

     

    Yusuff Abramjee the Head of News & Current Affairs Prime Media Broadcasting and Chairman of the National Press Council no less Tweeted this about Jackson Mthembu, the ANC party’s spokesman, Your language is a disgrace. Using the word “pissing” in not appropriate.

         I put this question about Carien’s language on Twitter to Ferial

Haffagee

Haffagee, the City Press’ Editor in Chief. Is it ok for your political reporter to crap on Twitter? Does that not reflect on your paper at all?

         And I added, Ferial don’t’ tell me it’s alright because she did it in her personal capacity, because reporters can’t divorce their Twits from their work.

         Has Ferial’s staff perhaps taken their lead from her? When she tells us about her background on Twitter she says I tweet what I like in my own capacity.

         I assume that means that whatever she says on Twitter will have no bearing on her work as the City Press Editor.

         What do you readers think? My view is that journalists on the staff of a newspaper are very much in the public eye and have a duty to behave themselves in a dignified manner especially when it comes to the very public medium of social networks.

         And they can’t expect people to believe that it is alright for them have split personalities that allows them to write all kinds of garbage in their own capacity on Twitter and in another capacity for their newspaper.

         Yours truthfully,

         Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman 

P.S. I noticed that Carien changed the Twitter picture of herself after our set-to. Is this her new, cleaner image? My mistake here's her latest Tweet   (the @ Jon is not me)
                          

                        Who is her admirer in the background?

Plessis
Note. Before posting this I sent it to both Ferial Haffagee and Carien du  and invited them to comment if they wished. Haffagee, who is also a board member of the International Press Institute and the International Women’s Media Foundation replied: Our editorial policy is guided by the Press Code which you can find on the website of the Press Council or I could mail you a copy. I’m sorry you had a run-around finding it. You will notice that journalists around the world add the rider that tweeting is in their own capacity. The Press Council has not yet included social media in its remit, though it may do so. Best wishes, Ferial.

Carien: I'll let the Tweets speak for themselves.

Crake, the little bird that became a twitcher star

Is this it?

Dear Normal People,

          The bird world is all of a twitter. It’s far worse than if every Twitter fanatic tweeted all at once.

         For most twitchers it only happens once in a life time if they are very, very, lucky.

       They go crazy and migrate to the scene like army ants on the move.

         They have to be able to say they’ve seen it. It’s the epitome of every bird lover’s existence.

         And as nobody’s word is ever good enough, long lenses have to be poking out from behind every bush and clump of reeds to record the event; to provide conclusive proof that nobody can dispute.

No I think it's this one

         When I tell you it was a Crake  even your average enthusiasts might not know what I’m talking about?

         I didn’t know either until it landed not far from my house in a Cape Town marsh for the first time ever.

You are wrong. Here it is.

         Then all the experts fluttered around trying to work out which one of this species had stupidly landed in the wrong place at the wrong time of year. They tossed coins to decide whether it was the Striped, Spotted or Baillon’s variety, because let’s face it one Crake looks much like another.

         Everybody breathed a sigh of relief when one of the coins fell with the Little Crake side up. Porgana Parva to its intimate friends and it was female. But don't rub it in about the fairer sex having no sense of direction.

This is so rare that my South African bird book doesn’t even mention it. But then my edition dates back to Audubon’s time so perhaps I mustn’t be too critical.

         When word got out people flew from everywhere. Families had burnt dinners as mothers left everything and dashed to the vlei to see this rarity.

       It seems that if you are a Crake that wants to make a name for yourself and fool the twitchers into thinking you are something special all you have to do is fly in the wrong direction. It’s a simple as that. And they’ll love you for it. 

Some don't know their Crake from their Eagle

         It’s nothing special really. It’s a dirty brown colour and it skulks around among water weeds and grass trying its best to maintain its never-seen value.

         An Eastern European/Asian species it has just become a star by losing its Garmin and ending up at the bottom of Africa instead of back home after wintering in the North of the continent.

Yes, yes this is it. It's the one we saw the first
time

         Unfortunately it arrived in the Cape just in time for the beginning of our snowy, wet and windy season. I hope it’s got its woollies on.

         It’s got a bird brain alright. That’s one thing the top ornithologists have all agreed upon.

        Then there are some misguided people (I’m not one of them I must add) who say the same thing about that flock of humanity that came to see the Crake of their dreams only to find it was rarer than they expected, and had departed, possibly back to where it should have gone in the first place.

         I’m sorry I missed it too.

         Regards,

         Jon, a bird lover, who prefers watching them on the beach with his high powered binoculars, than up to his ears in a bog somewhere.

Buy my book ‘Where have all the children gone?’ on Amazon Kindle  It’s a thriller with an underlying love story that defied generations of prejudice.

Man's real forte`- buggering up our planet

Dear Green People,

         All this Greening nonsense is wishful thinking in the extreme. Thousands of delegates have attended the BO17 (there’s no deodorant yet invented for that) conference in Durban where they waffled away for days and came away with nothing that will have any noticeable affect on Global Warming.

         Polar bears will continue to be on ever thinning ice and so will the rest of us while the real problem will go on being ignored.

         The South African Government wasted R200-million on this junket and if you add on what the thousands of delegates spent on flights, their accommodation etc the total cost could have been double that or more.

        Could any of those who attended tell me how many trees you can plant for 200 – million grand?

         To coincide with this massive holiday by the sea the local papers and TV channels were full of ridiculous advertisements telling us how everything would be rosy if only we would turn off the lights and that sort of thing.

         They also ignored the real problem.

         Probably half the 7-billion people in the world don’t even have lights to turn off. And even if they had and we all agreed to have two nights a week in complete darkness it wouldn’t help one bit while the factories in the industrialised nations like China and the USA continue to belch out hot air in ever increasing volumes.

         Added to this lethal concoction you have nuclear power stations that melt down every now and again. And ironically South Africa has plans to build plenty more of these as well coal fired ones while it’s Government was trying to convince the conference that everybody else should go Green.

So it’s obvious that you might as well leave you lights on 24/7 because that’s not what’s doing the damage.

         Still the real problem went unrecognised.

         If the rich nations don’t care about putting a break on Global Warming unless it can be done without affecting their pockets who in their right mind can expect  the poor to do anything about it. If you’ve got nothing, a tree is something to be cut down for firewood or to sell. It’s not something you plant when it won’t benefit you in your life time.

         All those delegates spent days at this COPOUT 17, trying to agree on a repeat of the pathetic Kyoto Protocol. That momentous non-event committed 37 developed countries to reduce their stinking footprints to 5% below their 1990 levels (whatever they were) by 2012. Five percent; that’s just a couple of fags for every person on the planet.

         Even if these squabbling countries agree to continue this charade it will take them 220 years to get to a 50% reduction and by then we will all be underwater or gassed by an atmosphere that you’ll have a job cutting with a knife.

        As man can’t even run many families successfully let alone entire countries what chance is there that he can put the world right when he has buggered it up himself.

         That’s why nature is stepping in as it has done since time began. And when it gets going democracy goes out of the window and it doesn’t waist time in endless, fruitless conferences.

         Over population that’s our real problem, which nobody wants to mention. No wonder you can’t see the trees for the people.

         Man might have come up with fantastic inventions but his real forte` is letting his you-know-what and his uncontrolled greed ruin our planet.

But don’t worry nature will sort this out in its own ruthless way without the help of Facebook or Twitter.

         It will take out those who man doesn’t kill with earthquakes, tsunamis, famines, floods, droughts, hurricanes, diseases and a few other things that it will no doubt come up with along the way.

         And when the population has been cut by half perhaps the world will cool down and get back to normal so that man can start buggering it up again.

More ominously nature might not give him a second chance.

         Who was it that wiped out the dinosaurs?

         Yours despondently,

         Jon, who is desperately trying to find a desert island that won’t be under water. 

P.S. While the delegates were procrastinating in Durban nature was getting on with  the job very efficiently outside the conference centre where its wild weather brought floods that killed eight people. 

Buy my book ‘Where have all the children gone?’ on Amazon.com  It’s a thriller with an underlying love story that defied generations of prejudice.