Tired of Facebook Manipulation

A couple of weeks ago I took a decision concerning Facebook. I have decided that I won't re-post any posts that use strategies of emotional blackmail in order to be reposted. I do love looking at pictures and messages that my friends post on Facebook. And I like to share them as a see fit.

However, requests of highly manipulative content, such as, “if you have a heart,” “if you love God,” “if this post had been about sex you'd have shared it, but...”, will be automatically eliminated from my decision-making process of “to share or not share – that is the question”.

Yes, I have a heart, and yes, I love God, and, boy oh boy, do I like sex! But I don't want to be coerced or guilted into sharing anything. I share pictures or messages when I believe them to be of some value and when I think it is worth the space on my page. I don't share all of them. Not everything I enjoy on Facebook has to go on my page, because I also have concerns about visual pollution and limiting my amount of contribution. So even wonderful messages might not be shared because I decided it was time to stop the postings for that day.

My major concern is not whether or not my criteria is fair. My point is – it is I who gets to decide what I share, based on my own criteria and not on cheap manipulation techniques that imply that I might not have a heart, love God, or that I might have some weird addiction sexual content.

I am standing up to say "NO" to Facebook emotional blackmail. So if you are one of those who posts messages that contain such techniques, I just want to let you know that I won't share them and let you know why. Will I make a huge difference in the world of Facebook? Who knows, and who freaking cares? I'm only one among many. Will my attitude be enough to stop Facebook manipulation? Who knows and who freaking cares? But I am doing what I think is right. If were you, I'd do the same. But I am not you, and your standard might be completely different than mine. Maybe you really don't give a dime about it and I will not say you're evil for doing that, but I will say I think that is a bad idea.

Share this link on you Facebook, if you agree with me. Or don't! The choice is yours!

Kitty dreams

Someday I will do something to that cat. Someday, when Dean's feelings are less important than my mental health (and, believe me, that day will come), I will do something to that cat. 

Oops! Off the window she goes! ... ... Gee... Did I just do that? 

"Sorry, baby! I accidentally opened the screen and my hands accidentally pushed the cat towards it."

Someday, when I'm on the verge of losing any trace of sanity, at the height of my PMS, with two children playing tag around my legs and tattling, something really bad will happen to Kitty.

"Mommy, why are you pouring gasoline on the cat?" a tiny voice will inquire.

 

"That's what happens to little spoiled brats who don't listen to Mommy! Who's next?"

Obedient and traumatized children will follow for the rest of my life! It will all be worth it!

Blood cleansing

In Brazil we say, or at least we used to say, that we wanted the children to marry well in order to cleanse the blood.

Cleanse the blood!!! Believe it or not! Cleansing the blood meant marrying someone with lighter skin instead of someone with darker skin. The point was to rinse the non-whiteness out of the bloodline - to whiten the family! Good Golly! As if that were a good thing!!!! Cleansing the blood!!!

Yeah... cleansing the blood. Thanks to this cleansing I lost the good Indian traits of my grandma's side of the family. I was a little lucky to have been born with the baby face gene. But the never-aging skin? Oh, no, this one I didn't get. I got the regular aging white people's skin. It will be nice and wrinkly when I get old. And , oh, my poor unborn children!!! Guess what I did to them!!! I married a guy whiter than me! I'm cleansing the blood alright! My husband is so white himself that he doesn't even consider me white! Are you for real? My poor children will have a cleaner blood than me! Do you know what that means? Read on...

Thanks to this blood-cleansing fashion I lost the ability to keep my hair dark. My great-grandma had them nice and dark all the way to age 86 when she died. Yup! Great-grandma Joaninha, age 86, had a handful of white hair - you could count on your fingers! As for myself, I've had to hide undesirables since age 17, making me burn my brain cells with hair dye!

Oh, yeah, let's cleanse the blood, gang! Thanks to this cleansing the blood thing, the good things from the non-white ethnicity were going, going, gone… the only thing that the dark part of my heritage left me was this black people stinkiness! You know, it's that stink that everyone who's ever had to catch a crowded bus, at noon, in Salvador-Bahia knows very well. Yup, that smelly stink! I know it's black people's stink, because most of us in Salvador are anywhere from 100 to 50% black. And if there is one thing that gets passed on with the genes, if there is one thing that the cleansing of the blood can't get rid of is the stink. So I could literally define this cleansing of the blood in two syllables – it stinks!

So much for cleansing the blood.

Like a little child

About 5 years ago I was an au pair for a family of baptist faith. Mom, Dad, and three adoptive children of 3, 4, and 5 years old.
The girl in the middle, a sweet little thing, was in that time of life where everything is a major discovery.
That's when holy week came along. At church, during that week, they were learning about Jesus' final days - his going to jerusalem in triumph, the last supper, and, on Friday night, the service ended with Jesus' death on the cross to pay for our sins.
Since it was the weekend, I had taken off to stay at a friend's house in the town I used to go to church.
When I got back to their house, on Sunday after the worship service, the little girl was going up the walls with excitement. She had to tell me these wonderful news!
"Virginia! On Friday Jesus died. And I was so sad because I thought Jesus was dead, but he rose again!!! He is alive!!!"
Do we understand this truth as a child?
Happy Easter Sunday, everyone!