Tags
facebook, harassment, humour, idiots, life, social media, stalking, stupid people
A link to an article giving some useful hints on how to stop people from stalking you on Facebook using a simple adjustment on your privacy settings.
16 Monday Jun 2014
Posted facebook fun, Life
inTags
facebook, harassment, humour, idiots, life, social media, stalking, stupid people
A link to an article giving some useful hints on how to stop people from stalking you on Facebook using a simple adjustment on your privacy settings.
04 Wednesday Jun 2014
Posted Animals, facebook fun, Glastonbury Festival
inTags
animals, Bear Hunting, Blood Sports, ethics, facebook, food, Glastonbury, life, Metallica
Following on from an earlier blog about the Metallic and Bear hunting issue currently being debated online, I am on one a bit and I just wanted to tackle the thorny issue being raised by the pro blood sports lobby about how “human beings hunt for food”. In fact a lot of their arguments and indeed grievances all seem to revolve around food of some variety or another.
Meat eaters, for example, are apparently not allowed to comment on hunting let alone be against it in any way shape or form. Well, for the record, I do eat meat. I also oppose hunting for sport. I am being deliberately specific about the “sport” part of this statement. If people went outside, shot an animal and used it for food, clothing and all the rest I would not have a problem with hunting. After all it’s what we did as a species before the advent of farming. However we are not talking food here. What the pro blood sports brigade actually do is chase down or shoot an animal for the fun of it or to use as a trophy. I am amazed at how many hunt supporters on this page use this non-argument about food as justification for trophy hunting. How many of them have ever actually eaten fox? Or badger? And of course, they all personally go and hunt down their beef, pork and chicken. Kill it, gut it and prepare it to eat. Do they hell! They go to the butchers or the supermarket like everyone else. My stance on this is simple: you can choose to eat meat, fine by me; you can choose to be vegetarian, vegan or any other ~an you like. Don’t force it on other people, and respect their choice. If like me, you do eat animal produce take some responsibility for the welfare of the animals that are bred and killed to feed you. There is plenty of ethically sourced meat out there.
Of course if you don’t eat meat you are basically just a hysterical hippy and therefore have no right to comment either. I mean after all, when you choose not to eat meat it is compulsory to also simultaneously undergo a process to have part of your brain removed and a new “hysteria centre” inserted in its place. This is an even more ludicrous argument than the eating meat argument. Just because someone has changed their mode of feeding themselves it does not mean they automatically lose the right to comment on blood sports or anything else.
Whilst your opinions may well determine what you eat, what you eat does not determine your opinions.
What the upshot of this argument is: If you eat (anything) you can’t oppose hunting, because we like to hunt. Or we just like Metallica. Either way, we don’t like to be questioned.
04 Wednesday Jun 2014
Posted Animals, facebook fun, Glastonbury Festival
inTags
Bear Hunting, Blood Sports, Glastonbury Festival, James Hetfield, Kodiak Island, Metallica, Michael Eavis, Trolls
Recently I have been following a discussion on Facebook regarding Glastonbury festival booking Metallica to headline the Pyramid Stage. The thrust of the argument seems to be that since the festival is closely linked to environmental, animal welfare and a number of other “Green” issues, using a headline act fronted by someone who is also (a few weeks before the festival kicks off) fronting a history channel documentary on Bear Hunting on Kodiak Island goes against the stated “Green” ideals of the festival itself. The page currently has about £16K likes. For the record, I am not a die-hard Metallica fan. I do like their music, but I also hate hunting for sport
I don’t believe the organisers see any possibility of removing Metallica. In fact the Admin has posted there a few times that they like the music themselves so I am not even sure they actually want them removed. It seems that the general aim is to use the public profile of Metallica to increase awareness of the issue of big game hunting, and to nudge the organisers of the festival in the direction of giving a lot more consideration to which artists they choose to have at the festival, in light of their “green” reputation.
I very much doubt that Michael Eavis has a lot to do with booking the acts that play the festival. Even so the pro bear hunt brigade had made a big deal out of Michael Eavis’ known support of the Badger Cull , and the fact that he has allowed the hunt on his land. Having trawled a few hunt sab sites I found a video of the hunt on the land but nothing to suggest that they had been chasing a fox there at the time. There are also other artists at this festival that support fox hunting, most noted is Bryan Ferry who is headlining on the West Holts stage this year. None of this negates the issue put forward by the admin of the Remove Metallica page….but it does highlight the need for the actual festival organisers to look at how they can continue to claim to be a “Green” festival if they don’t address some of these issues.
There is something about internet based campaigns that seems to unleash the worst in some people. Alongside each person who has joined the page and put forward polite and reasoned arguments in favour of retaining Metallica as a headline act, you have more who seem to be taking this as a personal slight against their own point of view, or against the type of music Metallica plays.
The pro blood sports lobby is nothing if not predictable, and sadly lacking in imagination: All the old favourite insults are getting hauled out of mothballs. Hippy, Hipster, Tree Hugger, Hypocrite, Pussies, Gay (?), Middle Class Tosser, the list could go on and on but you get the gist. All of these terms are liberally thrown around because somewhere deep down they have to realise, essentially, that there is really no way one can justify hunting down and killing something just for the hell of it whilst claiming to be an intelligent, rational, and civilized human being. Once you start to see this you can assume that they have pretty much exhausted their own intellect. In some cases, this does not take that long. What is even sadder is that they actually believe that this discredits their opposition when in reality it only serves to discredit their own arguments and make them look stupid. It’s easy to shoot an animal from a safe distance with a high velocity weapon. It’s easy to bully people who you can’t see.
When I was considering writing this blog this morning, I had an online chat to the admin of this particular page; he seems like a reasonable bloke, and apparently is now not only being told to go and kill himself on the page, people are also contacting him by PM offering to do the job themselves. Maybe they should grab themselves a sense of perspective?. Do they honestly think it is the act of a sane and rational person to make death threats in writing because of a rock band they like, and because someone else is voicing an opinion on blood sports? The Admin seemed pragmatic about it all – they are obviously a lot more tolerant of this sort of arseholism than I would be. I guess some people feel safe hiding behind a computer…and others feel safe with a rifle in their hand hiding from bears behind a tree.
04 Friday Apr 2014
Posted by Tea & Sympathy | Filed under facebook fun, Life