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The good and bad news show of today

I have been walking around for a while with the idea to send Filip Norman a letter. He reads several newspapers every day and I do not know if that is good. I myself sometimes feel like reading no newspapers at all and only watch nature films on TV. Sometimes I wonder when there will be any GOOD news, other times I wonder if this world has become crazy.

 FOOTBALL
Take Tevez for arguments’ sake. He is a soccer player I barely heard of, and is going to play football in China and thus joins others who went there before. Tevez would get a salary of nearly 800,000 euros. Note WEEKLY! Converted that would be 100,000 PER DAY. Although "play?" That amount he also receives when he does not play, since he is injured or out of form. Poor Messi. ‘How unfair this world is’, he must think. He should do it with ‘only’ 400,000 euros  PER WEEK ! But I guess 400,000 euros per week should be enough to pay his bills. 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 people that have worked so hard for our welfare a much better life. But this money is not available. Imagine that! I am talking about a half days salary of a football player.    

Can it get worse? Very sure. In pigeon racing. Those soccer players have at least proven something. But 30,000 euros or more for a baby that has to prove anything yet? It is the world upside down.

 ICONS
In the papers you could also read about all those pop idols that passed away in 2016. Am I 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. I will not try to explain because I cannot. The 60s-feeling you have or you do not. Elvis, Cliff Richard, Marty Robbins, the Beatles, the Stones, Chubby Checker, Paul Simon and 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.

In the sixties

 TAXES
Taxation is another thing. You should know that I have the annoying habit to pay as little as possible. Sometimes I even feel like trying to hide some of my income, but that is risky in this country. That's a felony. Trespasser fly with the head forward into jail. The "other party" however, so the government, is allowed to rob from me with impunity. Take 'inheritance taxes'. I find it 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
Murderers are better off than those that ‘forgot’ to pay taxes. 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 got over the fact that they had to play with broken toys as a child.

-or they had no job and for such people you should have compassion.

-or they did have a job and therefore deserve compassion because of a possible burnout.

-Young killers should be understood because they had no chances in life.

-Older murderers you have to spare because they have not seized their chances.

Should those people not work I think sometimes when I see young people hang out. Some call themselves ‘creative artists’. I would say stop the money that they get from welfare and they will really become creative. Too much pampering leads to nothing. We also see that in our sport.

 PAMPERING
I am not one of those people who claim that everything was so much better in the past. But then pigeons were still released when the weather was reasonable. To-day ‘reasonable’ does not seem good enough. Now that we know so much more about the weather, they always find a reason not to release the birds. A furrow, inversion, a convergence line, occlusion, a single shower, too warm, too cold. 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 weather? Unbelievable!” How often have I heard this.

 OWN FAULT

Of course there are difficult flights and smashes as well. But shall I tell you something? Difficult flights and smashes we are going to get more and more as 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 and not open the baskets. We ourselves are cultivating a kind of pigeons that only appear suitable for indoor competitions. Let's face it. Only by flying, even under less favorable conditions, the strongest and smartest pigeons can distinguish themselves to later pass on their genes.

It is those alternative ‘animal protectors’ that are to be blamed. On social media they call us executioners every time pigeons get lost. And we get scared. I would say, do not read newspapers or social media.

 BOUND TO FAIL
Pampering is also the reason why many are doomed to fail in pigeon sport. Play poorly and still have 40 racers and 15 breeding couples? That is very wrong indeed, far too many from both of them. For every pigeon that should not be there anymore some find an excuse. ‘Those birds had no fair chance las year as they were sick,’ a fancier told me. Sick? Come on. If the others were healthy get rid of them. Away also with 3 year old breeders that failed to give a good baby still. Pedigrees do not count. Away with them. SELECTION has been the first step to success, as long as this sport exists.

 ALSO "GOOD" NEWS
I have not written Norman, for 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.

IN CONCLUSION 
For those who did not get the message, sorry, I am to be blamed. My English is not what it used to be.