The botanic photo was taken at Dunedin Botanic Garden on 20 May as I was walking along a grassy path and suddenly noticed a sunlit palm frond that I thought very dramatic and eminently worthy of being photographed! It also suits today’s post because I was looking through my photos for something sharpish, possibly with a suggestion of death although I didn’t think I’d find anything like that -but- the palm frond has dead ends ~this pic is what I sought. New Zealand.
Click on either photo to enlarge.
So.. my post today has a sharp edge. Recently a NZer I follow on twitter shared a photo of a message that’d been left in a mailbox belonging to her family (not resident where she is). Fortunately her family aren’t swayed by this garbage. That said, it’s truly outrageous a message like this would be left in anyone’s letterbox and frankly I’m utterly horrified. Both of us were aware anti-vaccine messages are being distributed but we’d no idea language used might be this drastic.
~ Wherever you are in the world, have you come across anything similar to this?
Text and palm photo by Liz; Exploring Colour (2021)
~image of message used with permission
Exploring Colour 
That is crazy!
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Sure is. I’ve no idea from where this nonsense has sprung.
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Yikes!
I love the palm frond, though, a very common and pleasant sight here in our marshes and swamps.
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How interesting .. I imagine the fronds add a very dramatic element to the marshes and swamps!
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Yes, they are really fascinating to observe closely, too!
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Kind of hard to like this, but I did. Within the last few years we have discovered that there are among us many more truly awful people within our midst. Hateful, sadistic, and uncaring about others. OTOH, we should be buoyed by the wonderful spirit of the health care people who have worked so hard. I wanted to say tirelessly but of course that is not even close to accurate as most I am sure are exhausted every day. All one has to do is read some of the terribly sad posts and see all the laughing emojis to recognize the lowest among us. That is a truly horrid message and similar in nature to the post you made the other day about the RNC leader and “the mark of the beast”. Really useless terrible people.
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Thanks for what you’ve shared here Steve, I find it’s helpful to process these things with others and find further understanding and perspective. The bad stuff is very bad as you’ve outlined in your comment, and then there’s the remarkably good stuff from which we gain hope and strength – even if it’s bitter in part. And as I write this, I’m thinking of the “health care people” you mentioned – those people doing their best under awful conditions – often helping the very people who’ve been doing and saying outrageous things. Their suffering is obvious when you see the tiredness in their eyes and the marks on their faces from the protective gear they wear. I’ve seen their personal accounts and photos on twitter and in articles I’ve linked to from twitter. There are others who, at great personal cost, do their best to encourage folks to get vaccines and wear masks. It’s really brought home to me how much we need strong communities ..as I’ve commented already in a brief catch-up with Robert Parker in these comments.
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I think these people and their attitudes have always been among us in the numbers we are now seeing but the internet has magnified that with the ease of spreading hate and misinformation. And many governments, ours especially, have been found often enough with their hand in the cookie jar that many feel that we just can’t trust them anymore.
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Yes, agree. I was just reading about the My Pillow guy, I hadn’t realised he goes on about the ‘dangers’ of Covid vaccines and promotes something called oleandrin. Makes me wonder if a lot of Covid misinformation hasn’t originated from people like him who have money, connections and platform to spread bogus info far and wide. Once they got the ball rolling it’d become self-perpetuating. I’m not naturally so cynical but big corporates seem to have an endless appetite for money and power and no conscience or care.
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That’s an apt image, Liz, and the message is horrifying on many levels. That anyone would take that as credible defies explanation, and yet the fear-mongers have a following.
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Thank you Ellen, I was pleased at finding the palm frond image and I didn’t even spend long looking for it – in the first folder I opened! Something I really hate is that the ‘fear-mongers’ accuse people who are trying to keep people safe from Covid of being ‘fear-driven’ .. how dare they!!!
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Ha, that hardly ever happens!
It is just so hard to understand what those folks get out of dragging others down with them. And how they don’t think for themselves.
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Good grief. We need a vaccine for stupidity.
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I’m guessing that awful messages like this prey most on the lonely, weak, sick and vulnerable. We need strong communities. Maybe that’s the vaccine for stupidity.
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I’m already angered by all the nonsense that is circulating. What is wrong with people.
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I don’t know; ~there’s something terribly wrong with some people!
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How horrifying.
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I simply can’t fathom why anyone would drop stuff like this in anyone’s mailbox.
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That is absolutely awful – evil even! I can’t understand why someone would distribute this sort of misinformation, with the chance that it will cost lives through the spread of Covid. Unfortunately people I know have decided not to have the vaccine because of ridiculous ‘information’ they’ve got from the web…so they’re unprotected and vulnerable.
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Fully agree with you Ann, I’d also class this as evil. I can’t understand why some people are swayed by absolute garbage ‘information’ even though they’re not folks who you’d describe as under-educated, under-privileged or lacking in anything at all really. Defies all logic!
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It’s weird that people who should know better are so easily taken in by these ideas!
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Yes it is weird. I’m wondering if it’s been made a lot worse by the increasing levels of corruption we’ve seen in recent decades – dirty politicians, corporates, and scientists that can be ‘bought’. Seems there’s a lack of trust in institutions and science, leaving people who are easily manipulated by conspiracy theories (and the c.theories themselves may originate from the aforementioned corrupt entities). I just replied to Steve G. in these comments, and I mentioned that US ‘My Pillow’ guy. He goes on about the dangers of vaccines and seemingly has a financial interest in an unproven remedy called oleandrin that he promotes. So my mind’s been working along these lines this evening!
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I would be suspicious too – a financial interest rings alarm bells! But what a greedy swine!!
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Yes! and now Afghanistan. This morning I RTed a video clip of Biden at the beginning of July at a press conference saying that withdrawing from Afghanistan wouldn’t be like Vietnam, there wouldn’t be helicopters taking off from the roof of the embassy. Well, it’s a proper mess there now isn’t it? He had all the confidence in the world. The saying “pride comes before a fall” comes to mind. Grrrgh!
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Politicians make me despair! There are so many things at the moment that are way out of control and I really don’t think any of our governments or politicians are committed to working to sorting out the mess we find ourselves in. (Global warming for instance – will they actually take action or just talk and make excuses…?)
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Oh I know .. their climate discussions to date offer little cause for us to be confident in their commitment! Sadly it’s no better down our end of the world 😦
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To be honest, I think ours would rather ignore climate change, grr!
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That’s truly horrible. What a ghastly thing to do.
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I’m lost for how anyone could possibly push something like that into anyone else’s mailbox. I can’t comprehend it!
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