Jo Robinson's Blog, page 121
March 24, 2013
Cyber Bullying
Watching a documentary on a little girl called Megan Tyler Meier who committed suicide in 2006 just before her fourteenth birthday because of cyber-bullying. She’d stopped being friends with another girl, so by way of revenge this child’s mother opened a MySpace account in the name of Josh Evans, started communicating with Megan and they became friends. After a while the messages from “Josh” started to get a nasty – “I don’t know if I want to be friends with you anymore because I’ve heard that you are not very nice to your friends”.
Other messages followed were shared with others, and nasty posts were made about her. The last message sent by “Josh” said, “Everybody in O’Fallon knows who you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you.” Less than half an hour later she hung herself in her bedroom cupboard.
The thing that amazes me more than anything is that this foul deed was perpetrated by an adult. She laughed about it and said that she had intended to “mess with Megan”. She got away with it too for some legal reason. A foundation has been set up now in Megan’s name and cyber-bullying is now not so easy to get away with any more.
I wonder what it is about Facebook or any other online site that often brings out the worst in some people. Is it because they don’t have to look whoever they’re picking on or fighting with in the eye? Certainly not communicating face to face is going to lead to mistakes, sometimes in judging who you’re dealing with, and sometimes in misunderstanding what they’re saying. As a matter of interest I googled “Facebook Fights”, but I won’t be sharing what I found because it really just is too depressing. A lot of laws have now been put in to place to protect children from these sorts of attacks, and also laws to protect adults.
We as adults choose to be active on social networking sites for work or social reasons. We choose to make friends with people we will never meet, without knowing who they really are, or if they are indeed who they say they are. I use a dragon gravatar, so my friends are taking my word for the fact that I’m a harmless adult female. In reality I could be anyone or anything. The point I’m trying to make is that you could very well be besties with someone you wouldn’t let into your front gate in real life. In my own experience my online experience has been mostly good, and I have made some lovely friends in the time I’ve been there. One or two things have been not much fun, but too few and really not bad enough to mention. I like to think that I’m strong enough to deal with online nastiness, but I can see where it could easily really hurt those less able to cope with this sort of thing. Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean you’re strong enough to deal with a cyber bully, and these attacks are very real to the people involved, so… If you think you should pick on anyone for any reason at all – don’t, and if you think that anyone in your cyberworld is causing you any sort of pain, dump them or report them. Be nice to each other. I for one aim to be. I’m tacking on a few of the legalities (Wikipedia) on the subject. Till next time friends. xxx
Legal definition
Cyberbullying is defined in legal glossaries as
• actions that use information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm another or others.
• use of communication technologies for the intention of harming another person use of internet service and mobile technologies such as web pages and discussion groups as well as instant messaging or sms text messaging with the intention of harming another person.
Examples of what constitutes cyberbullying include communications that seek to intimidate, control, manipulate, put down, falsely discredit, or humiliate the recipient. The actions are deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour intended to harm another. “When the Internet, cell phones or other devices are used to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person.”
A cyberbully may be a person whom the target knows or an online stranger. A cyberbully may be anonymous and may solicit involvement of other people online who do not even know the target. This is known as a ‘digital pile-on. Common tactics used by cyberstalkers are performed in public forums, social media or online information sites and are intended to threaten a victim’s earnings, employment, reputation, or safety. Behaviours may include encouraging others to harass the victim and trying to affect a victim’s online participation. Many cyberstalkers try to damage the reputation of their victim and turn other people against them. Cyberstalking may include false accusations, monitoring, making threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, the solicitation of minors for sex, or gathering information in order to harass. A repeated pattern of such actions and harassment against a target by an adult constitutes cyberstalking.Cyberstalking often features linked patterns of online and offline behaviour. There are consequences of law in offline stalking and online stalking, and cyber-stalkers can be put in jail
Methods used
• Cyberbullying involves repeated behaviour with intent to harm and repeated nature
• Cyberbullying is perpetrated through harassment, cyberstalking, Denigration (sending or posting cruel rumours and falsehoods to damage reputation and friendships), Impersonation, Exclusion (intentionally and cruelly excluding someone from an online group).
Cyberbullying can be as simple as continuing to send e-mails or text messages harassing someone who has said they want no further contact with the sender. It may also include public actions such as repeated threats, sexual remarks, pejorative labels (i.e. hate speech), or defamatory false accusations), ganging up on a victim by making the person the subject of ridicule in online forums, hacking into or vandalizing sites about a person, and posting false statements as fact aimed a discrediting or humiliating a targeted person. Cyberbullying could be limited to posting rumours about a person on the internet with the intention of bringing about hatred in others’ minds or convincing others to dislike or participate in online denigration of a target. It may go to the extent of personally identifying victims of crime and publishing materials severely defaming or humiliating them. Some cyberbullies may also send threatening and harassing emails, instant messages or texts to the victims. Others post rumours or gossip and instigate others to dislike and gang up on the target.
There are laws that only address online harassment of children or focus on child predators as well as laws that protect adult cyberstalking victims, or victims of any age. Currently, there are 45 cyberstalking (and related) laws on the books. Stalking online has criminal consequences just as physical stalking
March 23, 2013
In memoriam across the globe: Chinua Achebe
Reblogged from african perspectives:
Chinua Achebe (pron.: /ˈtʃɪnwɑː əˈtʃɛbeɪ/, born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. He was best known for his first novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart (1958), which is the most widely read book in modern African literature. [...] (Wikipedia, Chinua Achebe, as of Mar. 23, 2013.)
More Tributes for Chinua Achebe.
Chinua Achebe
One of my favourite writers and source of much inspiration, Nigerian, Chinua Achebe, author of the 1958 novel “Things Fall Apart,” has died at the age of eighty two. He was teaching at Brown University in Rhode Island, as professor of Africana Studies, and Bard College in New York. He wrote a couple of dozen books in his time and received honours and awards in his country as well as the rest of the world. “Things Fall Apart” has sold millions of copies world wide, and interests me not only because it is a fantastic story, but also because it is set in pre-colonial times. The lost culture and history of Africa are very important, and have to be searched for and revived to help with the healing of the people of this continent.
The depiction of Africa as the “Third World” has always bothered me, and authors and activists like Chinua Achebe will always inspire me. Africa was the “First World” to begin with, and the cradle of civilization. The amazing ruins and history slowly surfacing, show that Africa’s people were culturally, architecturally, and intellectually much more advanced at the time of their building than many other cultures around the globe. The incredible damage inflicted by the years of colonialism and oppression is not going to be fixed overnight, and it has to be recognised for what it is. Even though this generation isn’t guilty of it, it’s important that they understand it, because Africans can’t be expected to forget it. The results of colonisation = the mess that is Africa today. Africa should not be expected to follow current “First World” rules. They will have to stumble forward and find their own way, according to their own rules and beliefs. People like Chinua Achebe have helped people all over understand this a little better. He coined a lot of proverbs in his books which succinctly point out the some of the problems of post colonial African identity as well as being generally wise or witty.
“There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. … Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian,” he said. “It’s not one man’s job. It’s not one person’s job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail — the bravery, even, of the lions.” Chinua Achebe
He famously criticized Joseph Conrad (author of Heart of Darkness), referring to him as a “bloody racist”, which if you read some of Conrad’s passages seems fairly plausible. He was outspoken on many issues, including poor governance in Africa and often turned down awards given to him by his own country in protest.
Corey D. B. Walker, an associate professor and chair of the department of Africana Studies at Brown University, said Achebe’s loss was a great one. “He was more than just a colleague, faculty member, and teacher at Brown. He was a gift to the world. At a time like this we could draw many words of wisdom and comfort from the deep wells of various African cultures and traditions to honour him. The most fitting is the simple and elegant phrase – A great tree has fallen.”
Here are some of my favourite Chinua Achebe quotes:
“I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past – with all its imperfections – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them”
“I believe in the complexity of the human story and that there’s no way you can tell that story in one way and say, This is it. Always there will be someone who can tell it differently depending on where they are standing; the same person telling the story will tell it differently. I think of that masquerade in Igbo festivals that dances in the public arena. The Igbo people say, If you want to see it well, you must not stand in one place. The masquerade is moving through this big arena. Dancing. If you’re rooted to a spot, you miss a lot of the grace. So you keep moving, and this is the way I think the world’s stories should be told—from many different perspectives.”
“While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.”
“If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.”
“That we are surrounded by deep mysteries is known to all but the incurably ignorant.”
“The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader, who then becomes ready to be drawn into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, toward a deeper understanding of self or society, or of foreign peoples, cultures, and situations.”
“We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya: “He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.”
“There is no story that is not true, [...] The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.”
Hamba kahle Chinua Achebe.
March 21, 2013
The moment you've been waiting for! Woo Hoo...
Reblogged from Parenting And Stuff:
OK, I know, not all of you waited for this moment exactly, but I worked so hard on it, I needed to get your attention, didn't I? ;-)
For those of you who followed my journey, and for those who have no idea what I'm talking about:
I promised (here)
I complained (a lot, here )
And finally I made it!
March 20, 2013
Reviewing Amazon Reviews
It’s considered “uncool” as a writer to give nasty reviews the time of day. But. When I got my first (so far only, thank goodness) one star review for Fly Birdie it hurt. Fly Birdie is a little tale very close to my heart, and it baffled me that anyone could find gentle Hannah “disgusting” in any way. The hurt gave way to wondering if the reviewer had actually read the story. I always find one liners that say nothing at all about the story a bit suspect in any review. Then I felt terrible that she had actually been so grossed out at anything that I’d written. I really hoped that it had been a free download and that the poor lady hadn’t actually forked out .99 cents for it. All of these emotions were gone in an hour, and then I started laughing. I realised that I’d had a very sharp spike in sales since the posting of that review, so I sort of started to like it. Of course not everyone is going to like what you write. One three star review for The Visitation I have totally taken on board. While the reader really enjoyed the story and got into it, she felt that it ended too soon. She wanted more. Excellent feedback as far as I can see. I loved that she liked it, and I’m grateful for her suggestion. While that is originally exactly what I wanted to do with that particular short story – I wanted it to be short and shocking – I am now considering fattening it out a bit and sending that lovely helpful reader the new version as a gift.
Ignoring bad reviews isn’t going to make them go away. I for one am not ever going to try and hide a bad one. I trust that genuine readers are intelligent enough to decide for themselves whether a review is worth taking into account or not. If you want to sell books on Amazon you have to have reviews. Anybody can post reviews on Amazon whether they’ve bought the book or not, whether they’ve read a book or not, and regardless of their credentials as far as commenting on literature is concerned. These are mostly real opinions from real readers. Some are fairly obviously not real, and nobody with half a brain is going to be swayed one way or another by lonely onions in petunia patches. I spend a lot of money on books. I buy loads every month regardless of the fact that I don’t have much time to actually read them. I will get to all of them at some point in my life. I only started looking at reviews when I first published Fly Birdie. I still don’t often look at reviews, but when I do, spotting a really vitriolic one star review often has me hitting the buy button. I read the blurb, have a look inside, and then I decide whether I’ll buy the book or not.
As far as reviews for my own books are concerned, I hope that everyone who reads my scribbles will leave a review for me, to tell me what they thought. Good or bad, all of these opinions can only help me. Why announce rave five star reviews from the rooftops, and ignore the bad? From now on I’m going to take note of all reviews that I get. That’s the beauty of publishing on Amazon. You can fix problems. Bring on the reviews I say! I love every one that a reader has taken the time from their lives to give me. Thank you, lovely guys. To be honest, I haven’t actually roared too loudly about my five star reviews, so you might wonder why on Earth I’m going to share my really crappy one star review with you. Well. Because I’m sharing a couple of one star reviews from some really famous and outrageously wealthy authors, and I’m thinking that it’s only fair to tack mine on at the end. So – for all my lovely author friends that have ever got less than a five, here’s to let you know that you’re in the illustrious company of book selling rock stars. Rock on reviewers! If reading rotten reviews offends you, stop reading now, otherwise join me for chuckles. I’m very seriously compiling a little book of the worst reviews ever written. It will get loads of rave five star reviews and earn me millions. Ha haaaaa!
Till next time friends. xxx
Stephen King – Night Shift
(MY COMMENT: I LOVED this book – I would give it 5 Stars)
1.0 out of 5 stars One of the most horrible books I ever had the displeasure of reading., September 25, 2008
By
E. Adam Galmor – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: Night Shift (Hardcover)
I am a Stephen King fan. In fact, my most favorite book to date is his masterpiece, The Stand.
But the stories in this book are just pointless, uninteresting, uninspiring and downright awful.
I am simply dumbfounded at how this became a #1 best seller, or why it has such great reviews on this website. Rarely have been so utterly disappointed in a book.
Maeve Binchy – Lilac Bus
(MY COMMENT: I loved it as much as all of Maeve’s books – 5 Stars from me)
1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible, February 10, 2013
By
hope sank – See all my reviews
This review is from: The Lilac Bus: A Novel (Kindle Edition)
Awful book not up to authors standards. As if she didn’t finish it. Nothing came together. Don’t read this one.
Hugh Howey – Wool Omnibus
(MY COMMENT: Still on book one, but I really like the way Howey writes, and everyone I know who has read it, loves it)
1.0 out of 5 stars A complete dud. Seriously??? Five stars?, March 13, 2013
By
HouseofG – See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This review is from: Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1 – 5) (Silo Saga) (Kindle Edition)
It’s easy to see why the author self-published this book- his very poor writing style, dull plot, and weak characterization would have been rejected by editors a thousand times over. Having said that, I surmise that his success derives from one thing only: the originality of his general storyline, however poorly executed it was. The overall dystopian concept of an entire civilization living in an underground silo has apparently not been done before, and is the only reason I can give this series even one star. We can only hope that Ridley Scott, who surprisingly optioned the film rights, can turn this lumbering, slow-paced read into a compelling cinematic experience. I suspect that was what he had in mind.
J K Rowling – The Casual Vacancy
(MY COMMENT: Haven’t read it yet, but did buy to see what all the fuss was about, so $17 in JK’s pocket anyway)
1.0 out of 5 stars 100 shades of “meh”, October 2, 2012
By
Amanda Richards (Georgetown, Guyana) – See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This review is from: The Casual Vacancy (Kindle Edition)
Man down
In little town
Council seat
Incomplete
Nothing more
What a bore
This tedious, overstuffed, character-heavy story takes you through the machinations of finding someone to fill a vacant council seat in a little town. After countless repetitive chapters about the lives of the unlikable characters, each stuck in their own personal imbroglio yet linked in one way or another, you may feel the need to take a break to watch the grass grow on your front lawn.
The main problem with this book is that the most interesting character physically leaves the scene in the first chapter, and by the time you finish dragging yourself through the painful ordeal of completing the book, you’ll feel that he’s the luckiest one of all.
Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg – Nightfall
(MY COMMENT: Speechless!!)
1.0 out of 5 stars Blah, November 27, 2000
By
Shane Tiernan (St. Petersburg, FL United States) – See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Nightfall (Mass Market Paperback)
I haven’t read the short story but I would recommend it – even if it’s terrible at least it’s short and terrible, not long and terrible like this waste of trees.
It’s everything you would never want in a novel: boring, repetitious, filled with generic writing and dialogues; and all this is heaped onto an idea that probably would have made a good short story – oh wait from what I hear it did.
Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games
(MY COMMENT: Not read but really wish I could sell as many books)
1.0 out of 5 stars Panem is Snoozeville., March 2, 2012
By
Alex – See all my reviews
This review is from: The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, Book 1) (Hardcover)
I’m seventeen, and everybody and their mother told me to read The Hunger Games, because “it’s incredible!”. I finally decided “Why not?”, despite the fact that I have long given up on Young Adult novels. Sure, I’ve come across some good ones, but The Hunger Games is a prime example of why I don’t shop in that section anymore.
For what was advertised to me as an “awesome, fast-paced adventure”, I was bored out of my mind from start to finish. With every turn of the page, I thought it’d get better, thinking surely something interesting had to happen or else people wouldn’t be so obsessed with it. Twilight should have taught me that people can go nuts over poorly executed literature, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt.
The book is poorly written, in the POV of the main character, Katniss. When I say “poorly written”, I mean both in the construct and execution of plot and characters, AND the writing style (e.g., Lots of cliche ideas, like “it feels like I was just dreaming”, and one line I remember reading was “the saltiness of the soup reminds me of my tears”. I find that ridiculous, like some moping Emo-stereotype) And, because the story is in first-person, I (*spoilers*?) started the book KNOWING that she wasn’t going to die (not to mention, two books follow). I didn’t feel any danger for her and I didn’t like her. While, admittedly, I like the CONCEPT of the book, I didn’t enjoy anything about it while reading. The characters and plot are one-dimensional. It was painfully predictable. Cliche. Boring. Immature.
The sad thing is, I think teenagers like this book because it requires no thought–it has no sustenance by means of developed characters or intricate plot. If we want people my age to start reading, should we really settle for feeding them empty stories like this one?
E L James – 50 Shades Of Grey
(MY COMMENT: Not read – or bought, but reading EL’s reviews is a hobby of mine. They’re hilarious. Good for her causing such a stir!)
4,884 of 5,134 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Not the worst I’ve ever read… No, wait. It IS., March 6, 2012
By
Ebeth822 (Tx) – See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This review is from: Fifty Shades of Grey (Kindle Edition)
I downloaded the book to my Kindle because it was on the best seller list and had 4 stars overall rating on Amazon. I wish I’d taken the time to read some of the reviews. As it turns out I agree with the negative.
I found myself thinking “Twilight, plus some spanking, minus the sparkly vampires.” Here, I’ll save you all some time (SPOILER ALERT):
Once upon a time…
I’m Ana. I’m clumsy and naive. I like books. I dig this guy. He couldn’t possibly like me. He’s rich. I wonder if he’s gay? His eyes are gray. Super gray. Intensely gray. Intense AND gray. Serious and gray. Super gray. Dark and gray. [insert 100+ other ways to say "gray eyes" here]
I blush. I gasp. He touches me “down there.” I gasp again. He gasps. We both gasp. I blush some more. I gasp some more. I refer to my genitals as “down there” a few more times. I blush some more. Sorry, I mean I “flush” some more. I bite my lip. He gasps a lot more. More gasping. More blushing/flushing. More lip biting. Still more gasping.
The end.
The bad:
It was an interesting concept – for a “romance” novel. However the story is weak, the pace is slow and awkward, the characters come through as more schizophrenic than complicated, the “romance” is a jeuvenile and dysfunctional crush, and the “erotic” scenes alternate between “Penthouse Forum” and something that sounds like it was written by a painfully shy and sheltered 13 year old. I have now read through some of the rave reviews and I have to assume that these were posted by people easily shocked and/or titillated. I can’t imagine what fans are comparing this to when they describe this as “good.”
The good:
Nice cover art.
Jo Robinson – Fly Birdie
(MY COMMENT: Erm…..)
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Wasted my time, March 3, 2013
By
Linda Hutson – See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This review is from: Fly Birdie (Kindle Edition)
Grade school quality SHORT story. Not enjoyable at all. I was disgusted by the actions of the “heroine” of the story.
March 18, 2013
Bad Is Bad
It’s totally untrue that science fiction fans (and writers) are silly, nerdy, oddballs that like to dress up in Star Wars outfits, and believe in aliens. Well… they’re not silly at any rate. Sci-fi geeks are very clever people. Morgan Freeman is clearly one as the host of my favourite documentary, Through The Wormhole, and he has to be the un-geekiest person I’ve ever seen. I am a fully paid up member of the geek club, and have no shame in admitting to dressing up as Catwoman for a fancy dress party many, many double moon systems ago. Nothing wrong with that at all apart from slight difficulty breathing.
A lot more research goes into writing science fiction than you would think. Even though you’re reading about something or some place that (apparently) doesn’t exist, the actual idea for it probably came about while the author was pulling on his Captain Spock leotard in front of the television set, watching a geeky science documentary. Theoretical science is my favourite playground, but actual science is very often a lot more mind blowing. Especially when it comes to the mind.
Good versus evil, reincarnation and time travel are all large parts of Shadow People and the stories to follow in the series. Do we have souls? Are these souls reborn good or evil? Is life all just about a physical form that is born and dies – The End. Not in Shadow People. Dragons reincarnate as humans, and angels become demons. There is lots of zooming around through time and space, and the fight between good and evil decides the fate of the universe. So. Even though none of us can prove any of these theories beyond a doubt, I do like to at least have a little insight into what I scribble about. This means that I have to find out as much as I can about these things from the actual current proofs and theories that are floating around. I’ve been amazed at how much I’ve found. Right now I’m eyeballing the evil. My dear Morgan explored the brains of truly evil people.
There is a part of the brain that controls empathy. If this doesn’t work you’re apparently not going to feel sorry for anyone or thing in pain or suffering. In the brains of psychopaths this area comes up cold blue in MRI scans. Aah, you say. It’s a physical thing then. I don’t think so. The doctor who discovered this did scans on his own family, and discovered to his horror that not only did he have the brain of a psychopath, he also had people in his family tree who actually had been cold-blooded, convicted killers. He’d never had vicious urges though. The only compulsions in his life had led only to him being an overachiever. He thinks that his saving grace was his incredibly loving family and idyllic childhood.
Aah, you say. It’s an environmental thing then. Maybe not. Another doctor conducted tests on babies around six months old. She put on little plays where one teddy was nice and another teddy was really nasty. Over eighty percent of the babies liked the nice teddies. This sort of shows that we have some small clue about good and bad way before anyone tells us the difference. She also found that even young babies tend to group with other babies who agree with them and shun those who don’t or are different to them. Again, way before their parents tell them it’s not cool to play with children that are “different” to them. These tests made it clear that while similar, babies know what they want or like from very early on. Just because they haven’t figured out how to chat, doesn’t mean that they each are not born as the person they’ll become.
I honestly didn’t come away after this particular programme with any good reason why people turn out to be killers or torturers. Definitely one or two have been made so by tumours pushing on relevant parts of their brains or have some other physical issues there, but not by a very long way for the majority of them. Some people have zero empathy and view the rest of the people in the world as objects. They don’t all turn in to rapists and killers. I’m sure there are quite a few that maybe don’t make a lot of friends, but harm nothing more than a turnip for their soup.
Then you get to that belief that both good and evil exist as forces in the universe, and that it’s up to those with free will to decide who wins in the end. I like this idea best. I’ve gotten a lot of things wrong in my life, but I like to think that once you realise you’ve done something horrible, and hurt someone or something with your actions, you really don’t have to do it again. That’s free will. If these cruel killers really and truly did not believe that what they do is wrong, why do they hide it so well? They don’t want to be caught, you say? Fair enough.
But still. I think that on some level they do know that their deeds are evil. It’s often hard to do the right thing for all of us, let alone for someone with a damaged brain, but the fact that they get through life for so long having everyone around them thinking that they actually are kind and nice, makes me think that they know exactly what kind and nice is. There are some people on this planet who get up to such awful things, that I personally would be more than happy to stomp on them with hobnailed boots. So – my opinion — Evil exists as a force in the universe, and should be exposed for what it is, and duly stomped on. Enough with the excuses already.
Till next time friends. xxx
March 17, 2013
What is Friendship?
Friendship is a dynamic social framework that satisfies the basic need for meaningful positive interactions and relationships. Friendship provides a safe structure where loyalty, love, trust and respect are commonplace. Patinspire
Friendship is a social system that provides reciprocated comfort, protection and support. Friends share grief, pain, happiness, excitement and disappointment. They become "A single soul dwelling in two bodies." Aristotle…
March 16, 2013
A Bird In The Hand Shouldn’t Be
I read that after the Harry Potter phenomenon, children all over wanted owls as pets. This had me remembering how I cringed when the movie Paulie came out. It’s story about a parrot that talks and thinks like a human, and finds his way home after all sorts of tribulations – blah blah blah, and so on. The reason for my cringing was because I knew that parents all over the world would be off to the nearest pet shop to buy the most expensive parrot they could afford for their little darling. I also knew that ninety nine percent of those birds would spend the rest of their lives locked in cages in dingy corners, being given crap to eat – if they were lucky, and probably covered every time they fancied a shout. Parrots love a good shout – they think it sounds cool. I understand that people don’t just suddenly decide that they like the idea of abusing and neglecting some poor creature for the rest of its days. They just don’t realise what they’re taking on. These movies give unrealistic impressions of these animals, and parents cater to the whims of the children that they love. There are also some people that really couldn’t give a damn, but those sad sacks are another story altogether and generally a waste of oxygen only. Now it occurs to me that my sharing of my feathered flock’s antics might encourage someone to sally forth to buy themselves a parrot, or worse still, go and hoik some wild baby out of a tree somewhere. I wouldn’t want that sort of thing earning me black crosses on my karma. So…
My parrots are eighteen and sixteen years old respectively. They could very easily expect to live another fifty years failing some horrible accident. They are therefore a major consideration in my will. Personally, though I love them with all my heart, having had them for so long has taught me that I really shouldn’t have them at all. Nobody should purposely set out to have any sort of bird live anywhere other than in their natural environment. The weavers being here came from a choice between them being dead or having a life indoors with me. They have a very good life, so my choice was fine. I’m at home pretty much all the time, I try and make sure that nothing can hurt them, and they get on with their crazy little existences just fine. None of my birds has ever been caged for a minute of their lives, and they eat rather better than most humans, so while not ideal, this is alright. My birds do exactly what they want and have the run of the house. They yell, chew, play, and zoom around. They get three fresh meals a day, have piles of assorted seeds, nuts, fruit, salads, veggies, dry dog food, bowls of cereal, water to drink and to bath in, and marshmallows all over the place. They’re particularly fond of marshmallows and cheese. They also eat meat – bacon and sausages being favourites. In the wild they wouldn’t eat these things. I know that it sounds excessive, but in the wild they would get to choose what they want to eat, and those choices would include protein in the forms of bugs and worms as well as seeds, fruit and greenery. Parrots in the wild don’t perch on sticks when they sleep. They generally sleep in hollows in trees. They’re pretty heavy birds so it makes sense that they wouldn’t want to be on their feet twenty four hours a day forever. They need somewhere comfy to sleep. They mate for life and are the most caring of parents too. Such social guys should never be kept alone in a cage for their lives. It’s cruel. I doubt that there are too many people that treat birds as I do, although I’m sure there are a couple. They make a mess, a noise, chew holes in pretty much everything, and need as much love and attention as your average three year old human, if not more. I don’t mind these things, but that’s just me, and I do rather love my feathered flock.
Please don’t buy a live creature unless you really have its best interests at heart, and are sure that you can give it the best possible care. If you find a wild creature that you think is really cute, but know you don’t have the time to care for, take it to a sanctuary, or if necessary a vet to be put down. If you’ve already made the mistake of buying a bird that proved a little more difficult to care for than you realised, again, take it to a sanctuary, or find it a home with someone who knows how to care for it – and wants to. Remember that a parrot is very likely to outlive you. And if you do have any sort of bird as a pet, try and remember that of all the creatures on this planet they were specifically designed to fly. Why take that away from them? Would you cage your cat or dog? No? Why cage a bird then just because you can? Please don’t ever lock a bird in a cage just to look at or say “Hello Pretty Polly” to now and then. He’s alive, far from stupid, and not an ornament. Don’t feed him irregularly on only seeds or expect him to drink stale water. He deserves fresh food as often as you would have, in a variety that he would have access to if he was not behind bars. That cockatiel that scampers madly up and down is exhibiting the results of mental disturbance from being locked up all his life, not cuteness. And don’t ever expect a child to understand any of these things. It’s your responsibility. If you bought it, you make sure that it has the life that it deserves. Or as close to anyway. Otherwise take it to someone who could do better.
Till next time friends. xxx
