I knew it!

I’ve always had a general loathing for a particular fruit that Muv tried to get me to eat. She’d cut it in half, sprinkle sugar on it and grill it. It was too bitter for me, even with copious amounts of sweetness. Muv however, would eat it and make the sounds of a person really enjoying her food.  She loved it.


I try to have fruit every day and often I’ll buy a fruit salad on the walk to work. My regular place know my order and I’m often greeted with, ‘The usual?’

One day I spied something out of place in the lovely, brightly coloured bowl of lushness in the cooler cabinet.

I asked, ‘Have you boobie trapped the fruit salad?’

They had…and it’s no use picking out the offending citrus because it pollutes all that it touches.



Today the newspapers confirm my thoughts on grapefruit. I’m glad I’m right about somethings, this is one of them.

Grapefruit can kill you!

    PS.  My regular supplier never tried to poison me again :)

Pigs

I saw a story in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning and all I could think was surely the police aren't going to rule out foul play without any further investigation?  They have so far suggested he had a medical emergency, such as a heart attack.  You think? 

Have they not seen or read Hannibal where Mason Verger is planning on feeding Doctor Lecter to the piggies in the barn?

The perfect murder or just a tragic accident?

La Laa Laa!

Picture borrowed from here, I had absolutely nothing to do with taking it or making it and credit belong to the originator. 

World gone mad

Do you remember when you were a child? Playing on your scooter, push-bike or strap-on roller skates outside the house? Round and round you'd go for hours. Mum and Dad had told you where you could go to and you daren't go beyond those limits.

My brother and I were allowed to go over to the woods. A small crop of trees on the edge of a playing field across the road from our house. He was allowed to go into the field with his friends and play football while I was to stay in the woods, climb trees (yes, I climbed tress) or made Mud Pies.

We would be out of sight of Muv and/or Dad for hours. Muv would be inside cooking up a storm or out in the back garden tending the veggies, while Dad would be servicing the taxi.

Just to prove how crazy the world has become a woman, Tammy Cooper, has been arrested for letting her children (aged 6 and 9) play in the cul-de-sac outside her house unsupervised. Shock horror!

I wouldn't want to be the neighbour that reported her to the police for abandonment.

Is the world really such an awful place now that a mother can't watch her children from the kitchen or the comfort of a lawn chair? Do we really have stand over our children 24/7?

I'm so glad I was given the chance:

- to play in the mud without being told, 'get out.'

- to learn the hard way that sticks do not make good imitation cigarettes. I fell over and landed on the stick injuring the back of my throat.

- to learn, never borrow a bike from a kid you just met and ride it really fast down a hill, because the brakes may not work. Cue fat lip, grazed knuckles and scabs covering the right side of the face.

- Stinging nettles hurt a lot when you fall from a tree into a patch.

- and don't jump into the deep end of the pool when you can't swim, it get really ugly real quick until that 10 year old saves you.

Kids have to learn lessons. They only get some lessons when they go out into the world. The front garden and safety of the cul-de-sac you live in is the very edge of the world and needs to be explored when you're in running while crying distance from home.

The police need to question the intentions of the neighbour and how they reacted. Surely when the woman you've come to arrest approaches you because she's seen you arrive it's clear she hasn't abandoned her children in her own front garden.

Charges have been dropped and Tammy is going after the police by suing them. Only in America?






Picture borrowed from here, I had nothing to do with creating it!

Intelligence

Yesterday morning, Rizzo the chicken managed to evade me. She didn't want to go back into the chicken house after the morning scratch, so she squeezed her deceptively skinny body out of the run. After I'd tried to encourage her back, she used the compost bin and then the potting shelf to get onto the top on the chicken house. I couldn't get her up there.


After the roof, she moved into a tree.

This all took about three minutes. A bird that can't fly and is notoriously dumb figured out if she got up high, the predator (that's me) couldn't reach her.

I came home after dark and couldn't find her. I feared she may have fluttered down into the garden behind us. There be two big dogs there that wouldn't have taken kindly to her intrusion. She may have wandered a little further into the garden of the family I have no doubt would have had her on a spit by lunchtime (I know this from conversations and experience).

Turns out she was next door, she's safe there because the three lazy brothers live there. I'll go and get her when she roosts later.

It maybe nature that send her high and hide when she perceives danger, but I think it's pretty smart she figured out how to get high so quickly while running around clucking. Most animals will avoid danger rather than run headlong into it.


So why is it that humans, supposedly the smartest creatures on earth can't figure out that avoiding agro is better than starting it? That violence begets violence and posters and banners spewing hate messages only affirms what some were already thinking, which in turn leads to more violence.

Live in peace, spread no messages of hate and remember when you're out on your own, you're much more vulnerable and more easily picked off, which no one really wants...

...unless they fancy chicken for dinner.

Temper temper

I have noticed recently people are getting angrier on the roads.

This morning when I was driving the train station I was on the receiving end of driver aggression.  I’m not sure it would classify as road rage.  I was caught in the wrong lane and put my indictor on.  I then slipped into a space that was more than large enough to fit my tiny car into, in front of the white van of a plumber.  I know he was a plumber because his branding was all over the van, along with his phone number.  What happened next was the start of a few minutes of road harassment.

First he lent of his horn for a prolonged period of time.  More than enough to show his displeasure you’d think.

Then he proceeded to tailgate me for a about a kilometre, all the time making hand gestures that would make a sailor blush, of course I just laughed it off and resisted temptation to brake suddenly.

Then, as the road widened to two lanes, I moved over to let him pass, and pass he did, only to rapidly pull back in front of me (sans indication), before speeding off and into the other lane.  Further up the road he pulled back into the left lane without indicating. 

Over now you’d think.  Ohh now…he was now still really angry about my indication and moving front of him over five minutes ago.

As I pulled up level with him again at traffic lights, two lanes away, I caught him make gestures at me from the corner of my eye.  I didn’t feel the need to look at him and give him the satisfaction of screaming at my silently and I really didn’t want him to see me smiling at his ridiculous behaviour.

Of course, I second guessed myself.  Had a cut in too close?  No, I could clearly see his entire front in my side mirror and over my shoulder.  I’d been indicating for at least 20 seconds…which we all know is ages when sat in a traffic queue and I know he’d seen it because we’d got eye contact in the mirror.

Yesterday, in the news was a story about a young woman being followed home before the attacking driver ran over her Dad and threatened them with a knife, all because she merged in front of him.

Are we losing all perspective of what’s a good thing and what’s a bad thing?

An actor gets saved while out kayaking – he gets blasted for pulling a publicity stunt, maybe he really was lost and was genuinely thankful for the save.  While not really news, kinda of feel good story that should be taken for what it is, not vilified.

A woman gets abused so badly online she makes an attempt on her own life after being repeatedly told to ‘go kill herself’ – she gets blasted for bringing it upon herself, she should have just turned off and heeded the old adage of stick and stones.  No, she should be able to conduct her life and work without being abused by hidden cowards with anger issues.

A woman tries to merge on a busy highway, a requirement of getting from A to B in a motor vehicle and experienced countless times a day by hundreds of thousands of drivers around the world - she gets followed home and threatened with a knife

I get abused for changing lanes while indicating and called an ‘attention seeking whore’ for looking for my dog.

I do believe the world really has gone crazy.

Can we all just calm down and look at our behaviour towards others.  We all have a life to lead.  For the most part we try to do so without interfering too much in each others lives.  We’re all busy, your time is worth no less than mine.  We all just want to live peacefully.  In the end it all comes back to what George Bernard Shaw said in 1903:

'Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.'    

Karma?

I’ve grown up hearing the names Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. Their images are instantly recognizable to me, just as I could tell you who Pope John Paul II, Clint Eastwood and James Cagney are.
They are famous, or should I say infamous, murderers and rapists from 1960s England.

Like all people of infamy they have been glamourised by some, but for the most part vilified as they rightly deserve. Between them they sexual assaulted and tortured five children (that they admitted and where convicted of, but unofficial numbers are higher) between July 1963 and October 1965. They were convicted in 1966. Before I was even born, but their names often popped up.

In the mid 80s they gained a tremendous amount of press when they returned to scene of their crime to find the graves of their victim, but could only find one.

In 1995, Hindley was in the news again, but this time for her mugshot being used as the basis for a portrait painted by Marcus Harvey using children sized hand prints.

Hindley died at the age of 60 in 2002 in jail.
Today I saw the name Ian Brady in the paper and though, surely he’s dead now, but apparently not.

I read this story and felt hope for the family of Keith Bennett.

It was the last line of the story was what caught my eye and brought out a very rare, extreme, non-humane reaction from me.

‘The tribunal was to consider Brady's application to be transferred to a Scottish prison and be allowed to die. He has been tube-fed since refusing food 12 years ago.’

My immediate reaction to this was ‘Let the f*cker suffer!’
Then I reconsidered.  At 72, is it right that he be allowed to die or should he be forced to continue to suffer?  Does that make his captors as bad as he?

I know say, let him die and maybe, just maybe his name will cease to reoccur in our lives to remind us of the evil he and his girlfriend perpetrated forty odd years ago.

    NOTE: the image was taken form here and the copyright belongs to them, not me.

Just when you thought...

…it was safe to go back into the water.

The other day a surfer was attacked and killed off the coast off the Western Australian coast by a great white shark about 180km north of Perth.

Shock horror. Yes, it’s a nasty thing to happen and those that were on the beach when it happened, it would have been partially horrible thing to witness.

Family and friends are devastated by the accident. They have my sympathy because losing a loved one is awful and has a profound effect on the rest of your life.

The authorities are now combing the water for the offending creature so they can kill it so it doesn’t kill anyone else.

I have a solution to this. Don’t kill the shark for doing what sharks do, eat things in the water. Stop people going in the water or let them go in the water and let Darwinism take its course. It think it called the natural order of things. I stay out of the ocean. I understand they are many things in it that can move quicker than me through water and would, if given the chance, could kill me. Not just sharks, but jelly fish, snakes and fish with spines that have toxins that can cause heart failure in minutes.

How many sharks will they kill in the search for the ‘maneater’?

Why do sharks now feel the need to attack humans? Is it because they look like seals? It could be. Is it because the fisherman are denuding the water of natural prey, fish? Maybe. Are we just hearing about more attacks because of the internet and social media?

I really don’t think killing off white pointer sharks is the solution to this issue. Killing the sharks will only leave the oceans devoid of predators and every environment needs predators to keep a balance.

Is the next step to bring back capital punishment for killers. Are we going to bring back lynch mobs and dispense with the court system? Hang ‘em high from a branch.

That’s what we’re doing to the sharks. I understand we can’t have a trial for a shark, lack of a speech centre in the brain and need to keep water flowing over the gills being an issue. But why punish an animal for simply surviving.

I find the imbalance between human and animal rights disturbing.

We need to think about what we’re doing. Wake up and see that it isn’t all about us, humans. Animals deserve a lot more respect and the rights to do what they need to do to survive.



http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/surfer-taken-by-shark-north-of-perth/story-e6frg13u-1226425990874

Bad for you?

I’ve been thinking about exercise lately. Yes, thinking about it.

Those of you that know me, know my philosophy that ‘exercise is bad for you’. This is born of knowing no one that partakes on a regular basis that hasn’t sustained an injury from it and my own experience of having to having my hip reconstructed at the age of 18 because of my love and vast abilities at hockey, field, not ice.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not a complete couch potato. I walk, a lot. I dig the garden. I cycle on occasion, but not so much since my cycle buddy went missing.

I’d like to use the stairs more often, but despite having to travel between levels 3 and 2 a lot when at work, I am forced to use the lift due the fire doors being closed off except for an emergency.

With recent studies showing too much sitting is likely to end your life earlier, I would have thought offices would be encouraging the use of stairs between floors. No, they would like us to inconvenience our fellow office dwellers by making us go one floor in the lift.

Considering I’m more than 40% likely to die in the next three years because I spend more than eight hours a day sitting, I’d like to use the stairs a bit more.

Let me break it down…
Car to station: 10 minutes
Train trip: 45 minutes
Desk time: 8 hours (that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it)
Train trip: 45 minutes
Station to car: 10 minutes
Telly watching and evening computer time: 2+ hours

That adds up to far too much sitting. A bit scary really and no wonder I have the fitness of a 80 year old.

How about exercise for the day, I know it isn’t nearly as much.

From car to station x 2 : 10 minute walk
From station to office x 2 : 5 minutes including 35 steps
Lunch time stroll/walk: 50 minutes

At the weekend, maybe a few hours of walking in total. I do plenty of standing too. I stand when I do my music practice and I stand to cook. I also stand at the photocopier/printer waiting for my latest masterpiece to pop out.

So, I do my 150 minutes of exercise and more per week which increases my chances a bit, but the odds still aren’t great. I repeat, I think I’d like to use the stairs at the office more.

Or… I need a dog that forces me outside. Or as noted in previous posts, a different form of employment ;-)

How does your sitting to exercise ratio stack up?


http://news.yahoo.com/too-much-sitting-kill-study-suggests-200408243.html

Boys

There has been another scandal involving sporting folk in Australia. Shock horror! In a nation that worships participants of sporting activities like the deities of ancient cultures it's not an uncommon occurrence.


When a rugby player assaults his wife, it's fair enough, pres coverage is expected and yes, he should get into trouble. He behaved like an ar*ehole and committed a crime.

When Australian Football League players goes out on a bender and fall asleep in a bush, yes, the papers have a right to report that, but it's hardly a capital crime. He was an idiot, no harm done except for a few broken branches.

When a cricketer sends saucy text messages to a lady other than his wife. Again idiot, but do we really not have enough drama in our own lives that we have to feed off others?

The most recent trouble is because two Australian swimmers posted a picture of themselves on Facebook posing with guns in a gun shop while taking a break during a training camp in California, America, where it legal to own and shots guns. The Aussie press went crazy, calling them 'Bad Boy Swimmers' and the act 'a gun-toting lark' suggesting the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) ban them from attending the Olympic Games in August. One paper accused them of looking 'smug', dare I suggest they looked like young men having fun.

It's ridiculous. Yes, their judgement may not have been completely tip top, but I know a couple of people that have visited the States and spent time on the firing range, because they can. One of my mates even had a go with an Uzi. On the plus side of this, when the zombie apocalypse comes, he’ll know what to do.

Swimming Australia has said as a punishment they will be sent home as soon as their events are completed and will not be allowed to stay to enjoy rest of the game or take part in the closing ceremony.

Yesterday they came out and announced that they are imposing a ban on themselves using any social media before or during the Games. Stating they need to have no distractions in the seven week run up to the games.

Incidentally, it's also legal to own and shot guns here if you have a licence, but anyone can walk into a firearms shop and browse the cold hard steel and highly polished wooden butts. I’ve done that. There’s something quite intoxicating about the smell of gun metal. And I’m a girl.

Boys will be boys.

Leave them alone and focus on something important. Like that Milat kid killing his friend and getting 43 years…you practically skipped over that nugget.

Oh yes, and what about the participants of the Shooting events at the games in 2012. Air rifle, rifle and pistol, I'm pretty sure they'll be posing with guns at some point in the next few weeks.

How much money?

Last night Oz Lotto had a $74 million jackpot after rolling over from fifty million last week. I felt I had to donate to the prize pool, after all, you have to be in it, to win it.


Today there was an article in the paper with the headline, ‘Would $70million make you happy?’

My immediate response was ‘hell ya!’

One of the comments said ‘It’s not the money that makes you happy, it’s how you spend it.’ I agree with this and I have to say, I would have much fun spending it.

One of the first things I’d do is buy the house in Spain that Muv built. Then I’d repair it and get rid of any beige feature walls. I would also purchase myself a modest terrace within walking distance of Sydney. I’d also pay off all my debts (with interest to those that aren’t charging it).

Then I’d travel, see the world and help out communities that needed it. I’d teach in African villages (but not maths), I’d help out in wildlife conservation areas and more than likely become known as that lottery winner that loves cats and dog more than people.

So yeah, I think I could be very happy with $70 million burning a hole in my bank account.

No more public transport with sniffy, snot sounds in my ears.
No more having to get up and go to a job I hate.
No more renting for a landlord that will do anything to save a few dollars but end up spending more in the long run.
And most of all, no more worrying about money.

I’d like not to have to worry about money.

Use by Date

This year I’ll be 40. The big four ohh.

It’s still a few months away, but some seem to think this is my last year to do the things I set my sights on earlier in life. I actually had someone I considered to be a friend tell me, ‘you need to find yourself a man this year, or you’ll never get one.’ I haven’t spoken to her for a while. I never have and never will define my self worth by my relationship status.

In an article I read the other day, the author thought 35 was her ‘cut off’ date. Her article annoyed me a bit.

As I was reading it I realised I have achieved many things in the last five years, post 35, some that were never on my ‘to-do-list’ of life. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like the first 34 years were uneventful, but the last five have been a rollercoaster when you condense the thing I’ve done.

I’m thankful for my age and I have no problem with the clicking over of the time piece into the forth decade. I shall continue along my current path of near crimpling debt, having adventure when I can and towards a change of career. Age is a mere number to be ignored. Apart from mild stiffness in the joints when I get up in the morning I feel better now than I did when I was 18.

I’ve actually matured, rather than behave in a manner I believed a mature would behave in. I was falsely mature.

I tut tutted at the idea of Muv smoking a joint.
I never drank to excess, except by accident at Jan’s birthday party when I ate a whole Vodka jelly
I never wore belts masquerading as skirts because I thought I didn’t have the body for it, now I really don’t have the body for it and I accept that.
I refused to jump walls when I could use the gate, not the gate is just a bit too far away

Make the judgement call. Are you not doing something because you think ‘I’m too old to behave like or do that.’ Or are you not doing the things you want to do because you are physically unable to do them.

I’m not too old to a photographer at music concerts...with ear plugs, I’m making that happen
I’m not too old to start stand-up comedy again (done it once before)... I’m going to start again (thanks CP)
I’m not too old get out of an office environment...I’ve got the qualification, so I’m working on making that happen

I say bring on the next decade. Bring on the challenges. I’m not a yoghurt, no use by date here.

Moggies and Mongrels

Yesterday I went to the Opera House with Cara to take part in a photo opportunity for Oscar’s Law. The founder Debra Tranter was visiting from her home in Melbourne, so it was a great chance to meet her and little Oscar, the dog that started it all.

It was lovely to meet a woman so passionate about her dog that she endured a little hard time to save him. (You can read more about Oscar and his Law, here).

Debra Tranter and Oscar

I’ve always been a fan of animals. I have a few myself, that I consider to be my family. This week when I didn’t get paid due to an office snafu, I brought food for them, before myself. Some may say this was daft, but then those people don’t know me very well, and it’s unlikely they ever will because they clearly aren’t ‘my sort of people’. Everyone of the people I met yesterday would buy food for the pets before themselves in a pinch.

The premise behind Oscar’s Law is stopping the sale of live companion animals (puppy and kittens) in pet shops and ban puppy farms. This in turn will reduce the amount of impulse buys and animals being put down in shelters. It will stop unethical and cruel breeding practices of breeders out to make a buck or several.

Reducing the number of animals bred, could also, have an impact of problems such as the kidnap and murder of little Lilly. Without impulse buying people would be able to do their research between choosing a puppy after seeing it with its mother and picking it up, and therefore know exactly what they are getting into. Up to twenty years with a family member that never matures beyond that of a six year old human. You can’t leave them alone with no stimulus, and they need exercise.

In Australia, 250,000 companion animals are put to sleep per annum in a country with a population of 22 million people. Compare that with the UK that has a population of 59 million people that enthuses about 36,000 per annum. In Australia, you are nine times more likely to know an animal that is put down than those in the UK (any statisticians or maths whizzes out there, I’m happy for you to check my sums ;-). It’s a horrifying number.

I’m not unrealistic, I know that this will never disappear. I acknowledge there will always be a place in society for pounds, but the volume of our four legged friends passing through them can surely be reduced significantly.

This time of year is the busiest for pounds. Those Christmas presents are starting to grow. With children and parents away from home most of the day, now they’ve gone back to school and work, the bored pets are starting to chew shoes, walls and sofas. They are pooping where they shouldn’t because they haven’t been out of the back yard for a week and energy levels have soared to the point where they’re jumping out of the poorly secured garden. They are barking all night because they are alone and frightened. These pets end up in the pound where they are enthused, because they are unwanted.

What you can do to help out our furry friends:
· Visit Oscar’s Laws and sign the petition
· Foster an animal if you can, it gives them a better chance of finding a new home.
· If you can’t foster donate to those that can. It doesn’t have to be cash, put a couple of cans of food in your shopping trolley each week and give that.
· If you plan on adding a pet to your household; Adopt. Don’t Shop. There are always plenty of animals just crying out for a loving home in the pounds and they aren’t all moggies and mongrels. My Cara is a pure bred Chihuahua, with a little time and effort you can find exactly what you’re looking for and help to save a live.

Read and be outraged. Word of mouth is the best way to pass the message that it isn’t ‘just’ an animal, that they are sentient beings that feel pain, love and abandon.

Bring it on!

Reading the paper today I came across a story about an App (Grindr) being hacked for all it's user data.

I didn't get past that the part were it mentioned the hetro equivalent. Awesome!

Now commences the year of me. five minutes after signing up I had 12 emails :-)

Law Abiding Citizen

There’s an article in the paper today about a riot in a Victorian (http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/toothbrush-fury-triggers-prison-riot-20120119-1q73i.html)(as in, in Victoria, rather than in the 1800s) prison.  The article states that the reason is the switch from hard toothbrushes to flexible toothbrushes.  How would a flexible toothbrush work? I don’t know about you, but I’d be pretty miffed about have to use something akin to an odourless haddock to clean my teeth. 
 
I’m not sure it would drive me to sit on a roof for 12 hours but I know something that would.  Over-crowded living conditions.  The article touches briefly on this in the 14th out of 16 paragraphs.  Maybe, it isn’t a soon enough mention of population explosion.
 
Of course the comments raise a few eyebrows; broad sweeping statements with no facts to back them up, judgements on the types of people in prison and compassions of prison live verses the great outdoors. Of course this, and the fact my local shops were closed last night because there had been a stabbing, led me to think about how I would reform the prison system in a manner that made people think twice about committing a crime where they could end up there, thereby end population growth.
 
I would reinstate chain-gangs.  Make them work for their supper and toothbrushes.  After all, most of this country was built off the back of convict labour, it worked then, why wouldn’t it work now?
 
Why not get the prisoners working for society it has let down with their unruly behaviour.  Can you image the network of roads that would crisscross this wide brown land it we didn’t have to pay for anything except the materials.  And the surface of the existing roads would be awesome.  It would give them a skill and they’d be so tuckered out at the end of the day they’d be too tired to fight in the food hall and cells.
 
It wouldn’t just be the roads.  Railways, storm drains and parklands would get a much needed boost in maintenance.  For good behaviour and well performed duties they could then be rewarded with the good jobs about the prison (laundry, cooking etc.), then television and education.  I think anyone would tow the line with the promise of a good steak and a beer.
 
I understand the logistics of guarding them would be a pain, but we have GPS tracking these days, why not microchip them? Civil liberties be damned, they lost that right when they broke the law.  I know they could remove a microchip themselves if they ran away, but put it somewhere they wouldn’t want to dig at with a shiv.  It could be removed properly when they are released after serving their term.  Or they could just wear one of those tracking ankle bracelets when out working.
 
Of course I have absolutely no research to back up the feasibility of my ideas.  They are just pie in the sky ideas from a person with an over active imagination and a desire to smack someone naughty, why couldn’t they work?

Dallas Flight

This is a very nasty accident. It's a tragedy that should never have happened and I really hope she recovers with her sight intact.

But I curious. Why has this made the front page of the newspaper in Australia?

Is it because she's a model/beauty? If it had been me, would it have been reported? Just wondering.

Viral Veronica

There is a debate today in the paper about whether the recipe for a bird flu virus should be published. This flu has a 60% mortality rate and spreads in the air as easily as the common cold. While, based on recent shock stories of a growing world population and the problem that will cause, it would seem killing off 4.2 billion people seems like a good idea, the thing that concerns me most is in the second line of the story.

‘The question gripping scientists after virologists said they had developed a bird flu virus’

The key word here is developed. The buggers made this killer bug...what were they thinking!?

It starts, and ends, with education

During a short break at work today I took a look at a leading Australian newspaper and it led me to two stories that piqué my interest.

The first was about the death of a 15 year old while she was playing ‘The Choking Game’. According to the article she and her friends had been texting each other about the natural high that it gives. I have a confession to make. I was due to give a talk to a group n Montreal in September, but due to financial issues (they plague me) I was unable to attend. The subject of the talk was ‘Breath Play’; this is where two consenting adults play with the oxygen supply, or lack of. It’s a sexual kink. Autoerotic asphyxiation (playing solo) is responsible for a remarkably high volume of accidental hanging deaths around the world, but often written down as suicide. More often than not, it’s boys or young men looking for the sexual high caused by the deprivation of oxygen to the brain during, self-pleasuring. No one wants to die at this time, but sometimes the complex rigging systems put in place in the case of ‘passing out’ fail.

It's not just teenagers - David Carradine, who died in a Thailand hotel room in 2007 was a well known player of 'the choking game'

While I’m sure the girl in the story wasn’t doing this for a sexual high, it’s never advisable to play these ‘games’ alone. Kids experiment. It’s a matter of fact. Accept it. We’ve all done things alone, that maybe we shouldn’t have. I know I have, many times, (although not recently). The important thing has to be stopping tragedy befalling others. This is one of those things that needs to be spoken about and not brushed under the carpet. When a parent, friend, sibling, or other unfortunate soul finds a loved one hanging, they should never touch the victim or scene and should immediately call the police. When these ‘games’ are being played, schools need to be aware in order to put a stop to them happening. Her parents, bless them, are, in this time of grieving and mourning choosing to send this message. They are to be commended for doing this at such a difficult time.

My thoughts are with her family at this time.

The other story was a resurrection of an old piece of trash talking from a politician, well there’s a surprise!?. This one is about a Queenslander Fiona Simpson saying you can ‘grow out of being gay’. Now she said this in 2002, but now refuses to confirm or deny her current sentiments on the issue. I’m guessing when I say, she’s still a fan of the Exodus Ministries and she still believes what she said nine years ago. The issue here is that she is now a frontbencher and should her party be elected in the next state elections she will have the Community Services portfolio. Not an ideal fit, I would say. But that’s my opinion. You can have your own. I’m glad I don’t live in Queensland, but to be fair NSW has its own twits in power. Equal rights are a right, not a privilege.

And this is why I don’t generally read the newspapers.

Moral Compass

There have been a few items in the news recently that have got me thinking about my own level morality.

I like to believe that I was dragged up by the scuff with quite a high moral grounding. My Muv and Dad instilled in my brother and sisters a belief that lying was bad, stealing was wrong because you have to earn the things you have and being a pyromaniac, while it fun to watch flames licking around logs in the fireplace, it’s not good burn things that aren’t in the hearth.

We were also taught to respect your elders, even if they are being a git. Smile and move on.

Don’t put your feet on seats, in public or your own home, you don’t know what you’ve stepped in. I never really understood this one, I got the public part, but I was pretty sure I didn’t have mud (or dog poop) between my toes. So I often engage in feet on sofa heresy, but never with shoes on.

***

I recently read that with the hike in banana prices in Australia, people using the self serve check out are putting bananas through for the price of carrots, or whatever is seasonally cheaper than $17 per kilogram. The question the press was asking was, is this stealing?

I say a resounding yes. It is stealing.

But when surveyed, the general public leaned more towards no, it’s not. The reasoning was that they had been paid for, even if not the full price, therefore it was OK. Before I read about the banana switch, it hadn’t even occurred to me that I could just press a different button in the check out. Even now it has been planted in my mind, I find the idea deplorable. I know that big business will bear the brunt of the theft, but do I know what other the consequences are?

Will the check out chick who’s supposed to ensure the self serve checkouts aren’t abused retain her position, if not job? Will prices elsewhere in the store rise? Will the banana farmer be screwed down on price? Will the truck driver who delivers them to the store be expected to drive that little bit quicker to ensure timely delivery…did I suddenly get into the Butterfly Effect?

My point here, is: I don’t do it, because it never occurred to me in the first place, but when I think about it, it makes my brain hurt.

***

Meanwhile, in the UK, scumbags where rioting in towns across the small island. One victim was Aaron Biber, no relation to Justin. The 89 year old barber survived the Second World War only to see his shop ransacked by looters, just for the hell of it. He didn’t have anything of value to steal, no plasma telly on the wall, no expensive hair product and even his scissors and certainly his door curtain, would have been older than most of the vandals.

Why would people do this. To me, and most of my peers, it’s unfathomable. We simply cannot comprehend the idea of trashing a place just because.

Don’t get me wrong, I have felt the rush that illegal activity gives you, but I’m a firm believer of ‘Make love, not war’. ;-)

It’s a thrill, but running through the streets setting fire to things, stealing things, smashing, just to smash and worse, running someone over that was trying to protect their property, leaves me scratching my head in a way that could leave scars.

Where these people not taught basic morality in their formative years? Video of a boy being helped with the right hand and being robbed with the left hand makes me think not.

Can we blame politics for taking away the rights of parents to give their kids a good clip round the ear? I had many, and worse, and it never did me any harm.

I know several people that have been too afraid to speak up in adverse situations for fear of harm. Instead, they have put their head down and kept quiet, unnoticed.

Are adults now being bullied by children in a passive aggressive way? Sometimes that’s how I feel. I have been on trains where teenagers in a group have had their feet on the seats, I desperately what to tell them to put their feet on the floor, but simple eye contact has lead me to think that I would be smacked or verbally abused if I dare to say something. Isn’t that bullying? We’re too sacred to stand up and say, enough is enough.

In the UK, they have. We used to complain about CCTV camera popping up all over the place like mushrooms. ‘It’s an invasion of privacy,’ was a common cry. Now they are being praised.

People are taking up brooms to battle and clean. It’s fabulous. In some ways I wish I was on the tiny island right now.

From a few nights of bedlam a mighty uprising of good has occurred. I hope this continues. People of all nations coming together to improve relations and the moral fabric of society.

I would never dream of saying my moral compass faces a firm North, but I do believe in thinking about my actions and the outcomes before I do them. I hope we can all learn a lesson for the last few weeks, think about the outcome of your actions. You’ll be surprised how often you cease to do what you were about the do.

Thank you to the following for the images:
Compass
Aaron Biber (this is a good story too)

Missing Kids

They have charged a 41 year old father of three for the murder of 13 year old Daniel Morcombe, that went missing nearly eight years ago.

I’m very pleased to hear that someone will finally pay for this shocking incident.

The parents have appeared on every news program this evening and some reporters have been saying by way of introduction to the story ‘For a parent, it’s the worst nightmare…’

Why does it just have to be the worst nightmare just for a parent?

Aunts, uncles, grandparents; are these not close enough to be affected by a child or family member going missing?

Club 27

Amy Winehouse died over the weekend, at the age of 27. It makes her eligible to join other famous singers that have passed away at the same age. Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix. Current speculation is that it was a drug overdose, there has been no official cause of death released.

I’m not sure it club anyone would aspire to be a member of.

Amy Winehouse was an undeniable talent that deserves to receive the tributes she will receive. If the news was a contest there would always be a more deserving case in someone’s eyes. But I would like to say, every life lost is a tragedy, no matter what the circumstances. If a death is proceeded by years of addiction, eating disorders and every wrong move being reported in the press then I hope peace has finally been found.

But what has really interested me about this death, while tragic, she was after all a woman in her prime with a talent that a lot would kill for, is the online reactions of some people on groups, social networking sites and in the comments spaces under online media. Frankly, I’m disgusted.

It appears that it is completely acceptable to write derogatory comments about the way she lived her life. Apart from I have gleaned from the media coverage of her career and troubled private I wouldn’t dream of assuming that I know anything about what was REALLY going on in her life. Therefore, all I can say is:

Rest in Peace, Your music will be your legacy.

I wish others could have been as neutral, but sincere. Comments such as ‘Glad she’s dead, hope Lady Gaga and Beiber are next’, are simply uncalled for. The amount of, ‘she wouldn’t go to rehab, no, no, no’ is astounding, and the number of folks saying she choose a life of drugs and alcohol and she choose her end so she deserved to die, makes me think that they were probably puffing on a cigarette as they typed.

I have seen this before and it always annoys me. People hiding behind their computer.

Whenever a posting from NSW Police tells of a death on the roads, posters start blaming the driver that died. I’ll never forget the day that the wife of a truck driver had also posted early on in the thread saying her husband was driving that route that day. She would have been alerted every time a nasty comment was posted, because so many don’t read earlier posts, he’d crashed into a car and all had died.

I have a personal policy. If I wouldn’t be prepared to say something to the originator’s face or the family of the victim, I don’t post.

Isn’t this one of the cardinal rules of Netiquette?

Please people, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything.



Pinched the image from here