Crazy world (oct 10)
I walk around for a while with the idea to send Filip Norman a letter. He reads several dailies and I do not know if that is so good. I myself sometimes feel like reading no newspapers at all anymore and only watch nature films on TV. Because one time I wonder if there is also GOOD news, another time I ask myself if this world has become crazy.
FOOTBALL
Take a man like Tevez for arguments’ sake. He is a soccer player I barely heard of, but he plays in China where he joins Lavezzi (do not know him), Oscar and his associates. Those guys get a salary of nearly 800,000 euros. WEEKLY! Although "play football?" That money they also get when they do not play when they are not in good shape. Poor Messi. ‘How unfair this world is’. He should do with ‘only’ 400,000 euros per week. But I guess that amount should be enough to pay his bills. Take also Neymar. He was sold for 220 million euro’s. I find it scandalous! My mom is in a home for the aged. What a misery you see there. 50,000 Euros for such a home would give those old people that have worked hard all their lives a much better life. But this money is not available. With ‘this money’ I am talking about a half day salary of such a football player.
Can it get worse? Very sure. In pigeon racing. Those soccer players have at least proven something. But prices of 30,000 to 40,000 euros for a baby that has not proven anything yet? It is the world upside down. Both in soccer and pigeon sport.
ICONS
You could also read about all these pop idols that passed away in 2016. Am I such a music fan? Well no, at least not anymore. Once that was different. Because I was so improbably lucky as to experience the indescribably beautiful sixties. It is useless to try to explain what I mean, since I cannot explain. That feeling you just have or have not. Elvis, Cliff Richard, Marty Robbins, the Beatles, the Stones, Chubby Checker, Paul Simon and so many others have shaped the subsequent pop music. Music from the past we did not have in the sixties. Now you can hear almost just music from then. Paul Simon, Cliff Richard, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Co. are still among us, but if I were them I would have my blood pressure and urine regularly checked. These are difficult times for pop idols, as it seems. Too many left us.
TAXES
Taxes is another item that I read about, eyebrows frowned. You should know that I have the annoying habit to pay as little as possible. Honestly speaking I sometimes feel like trying to hide some of my income, but that is risky in this country. That's a felony. You fly with the head forward to jail. The "other party", read the government, however is allowed to rob from with impunity. I find 'inheritance taxes' sheer robbery. Pay so much of your savings of which you already have paid taxes all your life? I find it just as objectionable as the way murderers are dealt with. At least in this country.
CRIMINALS
Nobody feels sorry for those that sinned a bit concerning paying taxes. Murderers are better off. They are soon surrounded by an army of social workers who worriedly ask the murderer if he has not hurt himself by killing someone.
-Most of them are said to be mentally unstable.
-or abused in their childhood.
-or never get over the fact that they had to play with broken toys as a child.
-or had no job and for such people you should have compassion.
-or they did have a job and therefore also deserve compassion because of a possible burnout.
-Young killers should be understood because they had no chances in life.
-Older murderers you have to be committed because they had no chance to seize their chances.
Should those people not work I sometimes think when I see young people hang out. Some call themselves ‘creative artists’. I would say: Stop giving them money that they get from welfare and they will really become creative. There is too much pampering in this world. Also in pigeon sport!
PAMPERING
I am not one of those people who claim that everything was so much better in the past. But then we did not lose pigeons. To-day, now that we know so much more about the weather, the organisers always find a reason not to release the birds. A furrow, inversion, a convergence line, occlusion, a single shower, too warm, too cold. Unbelievable. Foreign fanciers who are in Holland or Belgium during the season will know well what I am talking about. "Pigeons not released yet with such nice weather? Unbelievable!” How often have I heard this.
ALWAYS
Of course there are difficult flights. Even smashes. But shall I tell you something? Difficult flights and smashes we are going to get more and more if we continue to pamper our birds as we do now. See what happens in the One Loft Races around the world. The winning pigeons are often from countries where a shower, some fog or warm weather is not a reason to hold the birds. We ourselves are cultivating a kind of pigeons that only appears more suitable for indoor competitions. Because let's face it. Only by flying, even under less favourable conditions, the strongest and smartest pigeons can distinguish themselves to later pass on their genes. It is the alternative ‘animal protectors’ we fear. On social media they call us executioners every time pigeons are lost. I would say, do not read newspapers and do not read social media.
FAILURE INSURANCE
Pampering is also the reason why many will never make it in pigeon sport. Play poorly and still have 40 racers and 15 breeding couples? That is very wrong indeed. Fanciers always find an excuse for birds that should not be there. ‘These 3 birds had no fair chance last year as they were sick,’ a fancier once told me. Three birds sick? Come on. If the others were healthy get rid of them! And get rid as well from 3 year old breeders that failed to give a good baby still.
ALSO "GOOD" NEWS
I have not written Norman, for quite sometimes there is also good news. I saw a bird in my yard of which I thought it was extinct and ... you do not believe it, we got a new member. Well, "new"? Hmm. He came from another club.