Jo Robinson's Blog, page 91
May 28, 2014
The Joy and Peace That Comes With Being Yourself…I Mean, REALLY Yourself
Originally posted on People's Court:
Take a good look at that picture; I mean a GOOD look. I will be turning 35 in a little over a month. That is the look of a CONFIDENT man who is VERY comfortable in his own skin. However, I’m not ashamed to say that I have honestly NOT always felt that way about myself.
I look at my life right now and I can truly say that I’m blessed. “Blessed” doesn’t mean “perfect” as some seem to think. When I say that my life is blessed, I look at where I am now and where I’ve been. I look at the problems I’ve encountered throughout my life. I look at the “tests” that have come my way. I look at the people I’ve met. I look at the places I’ve gone. Right now, I’m in Afghanistan and I can STILL say that I’ve been blessed.
Today, I have…
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Originally posted on 
Originally posted on 
Where Have All The Heroes Gone?
Nothing like a nice little rant to get you back in the saddle. I’m not very happy with my wheels still on sick leave, but I’m going to practise patience today – easier said than done. Anyway. Quite a few things have scared me over the years, but very few things have scared me enough to make me want to run or hide. Being an indie author cruising around the interweb generally makes me pause for thought these days before I weigh in on any subject close to my heart, because most people are afraid to get involved with publicly contentious issues. But a couple of things mean more to me than keeping my face clean, and I’m not afraid of any sort of bully.
Freedom of speech is good. Go and stand under a tree and spew your filth, and see what cretins emerge from beneath their rocks to listen to and adore you. Well done. But hurl your crepuscular self viciously at normal decent human beings, and if I’m in the neighbourhood and eyeball this, I will probably be absolutely incapable of stopping myself from inserting a large boot into your rotten backside. That’s freedom of the boot in my book. Consequences – there should always be consequences.
I have been reading about these people who go on shooting rampages, killing innocent strangers, and then themselves so that they don’t have to face the consequences of their actions. Cowards. They go about their business for years, with people too afraid to step on their toes, or rock the boat. Political correctness more important than human decency, and fear of being seen as a radical weirdo more important than stepping up to do what really is right. Students refusing to read books that could possibly upset them. Trigger alerts for the classics – really!? Higher incidences of mental illness and anxiety related disorders than ever before. Something is very, very wrong. Smack those deviant little tools man. Boot them in their insignificant backsides. Show them that their behaviour is unacceptable. Before they get to their impressive killing rampage.
From a scribblers perspective, I’ve already seen the self appointed political correctness police in action. A writer I knew was once attacked because she had a rape scene in one of her books. Just writing about it apparently condones rape in the eyes of some people. Sorry to say, she actually changed it – she altered her story to make it more politically correct. Bad, bad, bad! We allow weirdoes to say and do what they like because they scare us, and responding to them is always a no no. Mostly I agree with and recommend the ignore troll rule, but sometimes you really should just grow a pair and step into the fray. Some “people” really do need to be shown that their words or deeds are not acceptable to decent human society. I’ve seen so many people freak out at images of animal cruelty, especially on Facebook. I totally get that these are not the sort of things that you want to see – ever – but before blocking and banning the sharer I reckon it might not be a bad idea to take a deep breath, look again, and ask yourself if seeing what is being done hurts more than the thing that you’re seeing being done to whatever person or creature it’s being done to. You don’t have to rage out of your house with guns ablazing to protect the innocent – there are plenty of incredibly brave souls already doing that. But be aware of your world. Know what is happening in it. If you fancy lending your voice to help then do that, but if you’re too scared of repercussions then don’t. It’s a shame though. There is a lot of power when people get together to stop evil. I reckon that we’ve all gone way too far with this fear of getting involved, and fear of having our reputations tarnished by being seen to be supporting a supposedly radical cause. When did it become radical to tell a bully to shut up anyway? When did it become the thing to do to never voice your opinion when you come across someone attacking another? We really need to stop being such craven ninnies.
Call it political correctness, fear of personal disfavour or attack, call it whatever you like, but from what I’ve seen lately it’s all just fear. And as long as we cowardly allow deviants to blossom in public, spreading their hatred and filth to shockingly receptive audiences, they will continue to grow their sick and twisted egos unchecked until they end up doing something just grand in their view. Something that usually ends up with innocents losing their lives.
Kudos to those of you who speak out against evil of any kind – whether done to humans or animals. And bigger kudos to those of you who have the balls to bite back, and send those crappy little zombies tumbling from their stupid little soapboxes of self pity and self entitlement. Just being aware of what goes on in the world can only make you a kinder person, so even if you are too afraid to lend your voice, at least have the courage to not turn your face away. I won’t ever shut up about things I believe in, and I won’t ever feel bad about hurting those who wilfully hurt. Why not? One thing that I learned in Africa is that sometimes you can only quench a fire with a much bigger blaze. Anyway. Back to books now.
Bloody Stupid Troll Lurgies
I’m having serious radiator issues. These fancy modern cars have got bits and pieces all over the place, so for now I’m grounded, but hectic – wow – slow down life! I just arrived back and came to shut my computer down for the night, and I spotted a lovely South African writer friend being attacked by a white supremacist whack job. I know it’s a big ask, but it’s not writing or review related, and I’d REALLY appreciate any of you who use G+ to read this guys words, and what he shares on his wall, and if you feel so moved, report the idiot. You do this by clicking on the downward arrow at the top of his post to Rea de Miranda.
I am SO offended by his racist slurs, use of the most disgusting language to attack Rea, and trashing of Nelson Mandela, and I’m so angry, that if he suddenly appeared in the same room as me now I would punch his stupid lights out and kick him right in the nuts.
Ahem….. Sorry for that – but please look….. https://plus.google.com/u/0/113441653002883214934/posts
May 27, 2014
Kev’s Author Interviews Presents… Jo Robinson!
I am really honoured to be interviewed by awesome author, musician, blogger, and man of many, many talents today. Thank you Kevin Cooper!
Originally posted on Kev's Blog:
Kev’s Author Interviews
Presenting: The wonderful, Jo Robinson!
Town: Louis Trichardt
Country: South Africa
Background:
I was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. My mother moved up to Johannesburg with my sister and I after my father passed away from a brain haemorrhage when I was six. Those were the days of apartheid, and there was no better place to see the horrors, big and small, of the white regime in power back then.
All of it had a large effect on me. I hated it all, and still do detest racism of any sort. My mother lost her life to cancer when I was eighteen, and I moved to Cape Town after that.
The early deaths of my parents had a massive effect on me – I always assumed that I would pop my cork young too, but I’ve since learned that we each have our allocated time, and…
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The Afternoon video – Swallows take on crows in the intelligence game.
Birdies rule! :)
Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:
Automatic doors were fixed to a campus underground car park where swallows nested, within days the birds had figured out how to activate the motion sensors to open the doors to let them in and out!
We have swallows in our garage and we have a covered stored car that rarely moves. When we took it out to clean and service the birds became confused and sat in the trees waiting until the car was replaced.
Excellent Freebie Today Only
I see that the Giveaway of the Day today is the AllMyNotes package. I’ve already got it, and use it to keep notes about relevant happenings, characters, scenes, and so on, especially in my Shadow People series. It really is very useful and easy to use too. You probably have another few hours to download the freebie if you’re interested. Click on AllMyNotes.
May 25, 2014
Candida are REALLY Nasty Little Buggers
I’m really sorry that I’m so late with comments, and everything else right now. Things have been a bit hectic this last week, and I have to be heading out to town sort out a misbehaving car and things in a minute, so pretty please have patience with me.
In case you noticed that my popping in and out of interweb world has been erratic and stranger than usual last week, I’ll just tell you why before venturing forth into the cruel, bitter wind outside – it really is rotten cold here. So.
After my mini detox the week before last, I did a spot of research because my physical reaction seemed way too extreme. Adding bits together (the addition of coconut oil, and the total exclusion of sugar and carbs to my diet) I deduced that I must have an excess of something called Candida in my old bod. So – being me – I googled like crazy, found a thing called the Candida Diet, and proceeded to hop right on in. I’m used to excluding things from my diet because I have celiac disease, but I can tell you that giving up anything at all would have been easier than giving up sugar those first couple of days. But I managed to stick to it religiously, as well as munching on raw garlic cloves, and swallowing lumps of coconut oil down with apple cider vinegar. I always do what I do to the max, but this time I probably shouldn’t have. Anyway. And then…
Wow, did I get sick. When I googled some more, I discovered a thing called Die Back – too late for me though. I can honestly say that nothing I’ve ever had before has made me this ill – not even malaria. Kidneys, liver, intestines, head – all felt like they were going some bad rounds with several large and mean wrestlers. Not to mention a rotten fever. I’ve also never slept so much – I reckon I slept at least 16 hours a day, right up to Saturday. Yesterday after a major morning snooze, I started to feel better, and today I feel amazingly better than I’ve felt in years, in every way, including, strangely, seeing better. My thinking seems to be much clearer, and as well as losing a couple of unwanted pounds I’m really feeling good. Weird I know, but true. Anyway, I’ve done a bit of research on this Candida crappy thing, and even though I’m no health expert, it seems that too much of it in your body can seriously damage your physical and mental wellbeing, even causing things like anxiety and allergic responses and all sorts of other things. It gets into all your body parts too – insidious and seriously dangerous from what I can see.
I don’t think that it’s a bad idea for anyone at all – especially anyone that takes antibiotics now and then – to google this, because it’s not an obvious thing to have – I never had a clue until I accidentally took something that killed some of the little buggers, and they fought back – boy did they fight back! I reckon I’ll be alright now, and by way of revenge, I don’t think that I’ll ever stop sending things inside that kill them – I quite like killing in this instance.
Anyway – got to go sort out my wheels now, and I promise to catch up with comments and everyone shortly. I’ll see you lovelies in a bit.
Read the instructions
Originally posted on Ailsa Abraham:
I completed one of those tests on line recently that proved that although a woman, I think more like a man. Hardly surprising, then, that I have an in-built aversion to reading instructions. I did this with social media. Knowing there was a wealth of information about it out there, including Nicola Morgan’s excellent book “Tweet Right”. I bashed ahead and made just about every mistake possible.
A few years down the line now, I thought I’d share a few of the hints and tips I’ve picked up, learning the hard way. As you probably know by now, I see Twitter and most especially FB as a large party where you mix and mingle with everyone there.
Don’t take it personally. Even when it is directed at you personally, it is far safer to walk away. Those who know you well won’t believe whatever is being said and if…
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