Believe it!

A few days ago I had spent a lot of time on Google finding quotes which I wanted to put on my website, with, of course, a picture which I'd added to. I found one from Jesse Jackson, a pastor from the USA, who was born in 1941. This quote said "If my mind can conceive it, if my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it because I'm somebody!" This was confirmed by Wikiquote as Jesse Jackson. It was included in a speech at Andersen College in Indiana on 4 March 1979.

Trouble was, this quote was assigned by many other quote sites to someone else - Muhammad Ali! Brainy Quotes, where I often find good quotes, had assigned these words to Jackson. Goodreads also had - but then also assigned the same words to Ali. I looked in Wikiquote and couldn't find these words attributed to Ali. 

Try this. Go onto the page of Google and type this in the search: "did Jesse Jackson say If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it" and press the search button. The first page only lists 5 quote sites (including Goodreads). Then in the Google search, type "did Muhammad Ali say If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it". For Ali, in Wikiquote, this quote passage is mentioned in the "Misattributed" box, with the name of Jesse Jackson under it. Google listed, on the first page, 8 quote sites (including Goodreads) which attributed this passage to Ali!

This very much surprises me. I have no idea how many different quote sites ever check on who did say whatever they want to print. (Of course, from my previous blogs there are far too many quotes on far too many sites which are ever printed with no name!)

Don't roll your eyes at me. Just take this for real! The internet is f-a-r too big to believe it can be used for good stuff. I, personally, believe it has to change. For instance, in the past few years...

...Facebook has had so many complaints about Facebook pages which abuse children, abuse women, troll everywhere, print unreal "offers", print extremely bad videos - anything which Facebook seem too often to just ignore. I wonder, does FB's profit mean more to them than these kind of pages? 

...so many websites which publish pornography have been simply opened - and never closed down unless some government finds them. Will that sort of stopping them stop others? I really doubt it.

...advertising on any page you choose to be on - say, Facebook or similar - takes over your screen and you don't seem to be able to stop "suggestions" appearing before you move onto where you want to be. This has also happened on so many You Tube videos - with no "avoid" button on ads. Yesterday I wanted to look at a music video and got a 15 second car ad before that. That's something I couldn't click off but I wouldn't watch it, so I didn't watch the music video either.

...the "news" is very brief and doesn't give anyone a reality of whatever happened in the world that day. Too many people just don't even bother to watch "news" - unless it's of their own taste.

So many more issues. So little time to fix them. So much happens across the whole world, and most of my own time these days I just don't want to see anything. I guess I've pretty much made up my mind to live my own life, doing whatever I quietly enjoy - like quotes. I'll just forget the TV and newspapers and just roll on slowly.

Except I will still get really pissed off if quotes don't mention who said them!!!

Hang on... here it comes!!!

I think now that I can't even look at an un-named quote before I do some research. Today one appeared on the TBI Facebook page. It said "Life is all about finding people who are your kind of crazy". That sounded pretty good to me, but no name on this pic as to who they had quoted. So I went into Google and put those words in.

And I have found hundreds of image posts with no name as to who said this! LoveOfLifeQuotes.com was the first image, exactly as the one on the TBI, so I wondered if maybe TBI copied theirs. Then came ElectricFairground.com, LifeIfHappy.com, BrainTreeClothing.com, Flickr.com, 9LOLs.com, Pinterest.com, PictureQuotes.com, BeHappyMe.com, Amazon.com, SomeCards.com, MadisonParkGroup.com, and on and on and on... (no, these ones aren't linked... they're simply a list on this, my blog.)

I went through Google to see if they could tell me just who had said this. I got back as far as 2013 - on 11 June 2013 was Ron Kaisan at Ultimate Campers, there was a comment in Girl's Gone Child blog on the 29 March, and Pinterest was posted on 20 March. I couldn't find anything earlier than this, and no-one said who said it!

I don't like this!!! The person who said this quote should have been acknowledged, and if necessary they should have become famous.

All of those mentioned earlier, and all of those which appear in Google and I haven't put on here, should not just use a quote without saying 'Unknown'!!! Every quote pic on my website will always use a name that I agree with, and if a name is ever not known I will always use "Unknown". I think there's a real discrepancy from anyone who will claim they said something, when it's been posted months or years before they said it. (This happened earlier, previous blog about that...)

Just a tip to any person who talks and allows whatever they say be quoted - tell them your name!

Feeling good!

Yesterday I went to the PACE (Positive Action towards Career Engagement) event in Brisbane central where I was presented with a certificate. And I spoke. I hadn't realise that Steph and I would be the only ones talking!! After Steph spoke about our meetings which she thought went very well, I was asked how the mentoring went on for me. I told everyone how I had started in this program, I explained about my brain aneurysms and my stroke, and told them that Steph has been wonderful, giving me thoughts to think about... as long as I write them down!

I now have a certificate which I feel very proud about. Sounds weird, eh?

I have looked back into my training over so many years. In NZ I did much training in the Army (which resulted in my promotion to Corporal), a Diploma of Management, a Diploma of Business, First Aid, ISO audit, membership of the NZIM (New Zealand Institute of Management) and countless training with groups whose courses were valuable in a workplace. I still have all the certificates. In Australia I started with a Diploma of Workplace Health & Safety which I upgraded to the Graduate Diploma of WHS with 2.5 years training through CQU. I was First Aid trained, RABQSA (audit) trained and certified, QComp trained as a RRTWC (Rehabilitation and Return toWork Coordinator), trained in fire building regulations, NCSA (National Safety Council of Australia) and SIA (Safety Institute of Australia) registered, and much else. I still have all of those certificates too.

I can't do WHS any more. Long story, but it ended up with my stroke which has drawn me backwards from where I was. My history is now a record which I have to look at if I want to remember it. My working doing what I used to do is no longer my real future. The PACE program I went to has bounced me forward, and I feel very grateful to them and Steph. I can move into my own future with my head up. I know I won't be able to get another job - I'm on a DSP and I'm old (59 FPS!!!) but I'm sure you readers know what I do now.

I write.

I have written for so many years, and this is like my history and my future, and I don't need to "remember it". I have written for magazines, written stories, poems, letters, emails, blogs and posts and written through all my training as well as my own time. I have now published my first book and the second one is due very soon. And there's more...

I've done a couple of short stories this year in the "Prose" page on my website. I've joined a local author's group (I am writing a story for their latest book) and I go to their meetings every month.

My website has a "Quotes" page. Almost every day I do the artwork on the sub-pages, so I can see what's

said. I can't remember it, but I can look through it and feel good about what I have done.

I've joined the local poet's group and I've been writing more poetry this year than I had at all last year or the year before that. It mightn't make sense yet - but it will when my brain works.

Laurie Graham said "I've never minded solitude. For a writer, it's a natural condition." Perhaps now, many months after my brain surgery and stroke, I am started to feel pretty good in solitude. My advice? Love your own life if you can. Never mind any people who have upset you or dumped you. Never mind living with what they did to you. Live for yourself.

Have a great day!

Take a letter Maria...

My last blog post was 26 November. The break since then wasn't because I was depressed, it was just because I forgot about it. That, readers, is my "normal" reality. Oh dear, how sad, never mind. I'm not depressed right now.... just frustrated! But yes, I know that it can lead to my depression, so here I am, writing and hoping that I don't lose my stuff.

My lovely sister popped in for 3 days and nights last week before she flew on to NZ. We had a wonderful visit, and I didn't go to the paddling group the morning I took her to the airport. Not because I was too tired (that came later) but because I needed to think. Having her here for 3 days and nights pretty much disconnected me from Facebook pages, news articles and TV shows, people... and money. Janice paid for getting some light bulbs changed in my car (they work now!), took me into shoe stores (we didn't buy), bought dinner (lovely!) and lots of other wee things we did which I - unfortunately - have forgotten! But we talked a lot over those 3 days and nights, and I felt that I had seen someone I really needed.

And now I have a trip to NZ, paid for by my sister, between Christmas and New Year to spend with my son and partner AND my grandchildren! Yesterday I was fairly wound up knowing I had to arrange somewhere for my beautiful dog, Jordie, to be looked after whilst I was away. I tried a few of home-care places, but the only response I got would have charged me $150 - which I certainly can't afford. I have a couple of friends who have possibly suggested how they can help me - and I love them! I don't give up yet... I am certain I will find something.

I was going to feed your minds for this year. I decided that you didn't want to be involved in information about me, so I deleted what I'd typed. This is how I live with thoughts. But good stuff now...

I've just been accepted as a citizen and I would have to do the Pledge thing probably next year. Only 8 months after I applied... The other thing I'm waiting for is getting up to 7 months. I need someone to move it forward. Still, in my pre-Christmas couple of weeks I actually have some stuff going on which I haven't been involved in for far too long. Friday is the paddle team's Christmas party, on Monday I have a PACE event from where I will be "awarded" by my mentor, and next Tuesday I'm taking Jordie down to my friend's place in Logan so she will hopefully display how well she would be, and she'd be able to stay there while I'm on my way to NZ!

Right now I am very much looking forward to going to NZ, the first time in more than 2 years, and visiting my grandchildren - two of them after 4 years and two more I've never met! If I can't find anyone to look after Jordie... well, I'm sure there will be someone out there.

I should say "thank you" now!!

Singular person

This is my book. It is advertised on my website. It is in the Redcliffe Library. I’ve lodged it with the State Library and the National Library. I’m on Amazonsite. I’ve been to the Enoggera Writer’s Festival, I joined the North Lakes Writer’s Group, and I had thought of starting a Redcliffe group. This morning I had an email from the Avid Reader Bookstore who talk about the “Summer reading guide launch”.  Sounds like a very good thing… but I have no idea if I can get there. 

Have I done enough “work”?

Three years ago I wrote a blog called “Finding Me”. Earlier in 2012 I lost my grandchildren – their mother took them back to New Zealand without telling me. Yet I still knew that I had “a wonderful husband – much luckier second time around, I wasted so much life on the first time.”

He left me in January 2013.  

I loved my job. I wrote about that in the same blog. I had “a job I enjoy and a (mostly) good boss”, yet after 7 years there, only 2 months after I had my brain aneurysm diagnosed, my “good boss” fired me.

That was in September 2013.

I wrote that “one day in the not too distant future I will have found for myself a road to take that

doesn’t entail dead ends but leads instead to who I was born to be.” This doesn’t sound real these days. What did I mean by that?

It’s 1 year and 7 months since my surgery and my stroke. I have moved twice since I got out of hospital because it was considered that I would need to be closer to my daughter. Big mistake. I live on my own, with my dog, and with virtually no visitors. Sometimes I feel like I have drifted off this planet, my home is out on an island which no-one can reach. I don’t get to talk to anyone unless I get in my car and go somewhere. Friday mornings are good as I am volunteering for the local Art Gallery. I get to talk to one person. I have a lovely group of friends in New Zealand whom I have known for nearly 15 years. I visited them in Auckland 2 years ago. I love them. They follow me on Facebook, yet I don’t really get to actually talk to them while I am living in Brisbane.

Here, I can’t remember “friends” I had when I was married – and I am forgetting most people I met 3 years ago. Most of the people I contact now came into my life after my surgery. Very few of them will contact me on Facebook, and their lives are tied up with their own family and friends who live close to them. They are lovely people and I do love them, but I need someone like that in my own life.

Ten days ago I wrote “Still waiting”. It seems to me that how I felt then seems to be my usual life now. “One day in the not too distant future I will have found for myself a road to take that doesn’t entail dead ends but leads instead to who I was born to be.” Even though I wrote this in November 2012, I think so often about it. Waiting, for a person who lives just alone, can definitely take over their life. I am still standing at the crossroad, waiting for the two issues which have logged up my entire life this year – citizenship and QIRC. I have no idea how I will turn out when they finally finish. Yet, now, I have no funds, I can’t finish my second book, and I get very, very depressed.

Have you actually read this? Thank you.Would you like to buy my book? Email me. Talk to me.

I really need people.

Misguided power

Tobacco in Australia says that the population worldwide smoking is 17% (over aged 15 unknown, this is total population).

They say 1.25 billion in the world are smoking and 6 million will die from this. (That is only 5% deaths.)

They say: “The marketing practices of the tobacco industry in developing countries are particularly aggressive, and the international tobacco industry's efforts to subvert tobacco control activities in developing countries are well documented.”

Image from Trillion Dollar Zeigeist

I don’t think they have looked at any other industries.

Tobacco industry makes billions, but…

Land/housing sold makes billions.

War industry makes billions.

Car manufacturing makes billions.

And many, many more which I've mentioned later.

Wikipaedia provided a list about smoking: Australia ranks at 50 (1,034 smoking per person per annum) in the list of 189 countries, while NZ is 84 (only 579 smoking per person per annum). US is only one place after Australia – 1,028 smoking per person per annum. Those who surprise me are very good countries which smoke more than Aussie: Denmark, 1,413, 32^nd; Italy, 1,475, 30^th; Austria, 1,605, 22^nd; Japan, 1,841, 17^th. And at the top? Greece, 2,996. First. How many Australians have been to any of these countries? How do you feel about what they are doing? Do you protest about it in their country?

WHO made up some very wrong “facts”:

• Tobacco kills up to half of its users. (Very wrong, they need to learn their math!!)
• Tobacco kills around 6 million people each year. More than 5 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while more than 600 000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke. (5%, not 50%. Are there any statistics from any country on WHO??)
• Nearly 80% of the world's 1 billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries. (This is very wrong – have a look at the Wikipaedia National Wealth. Where is Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Japan, Spain, Austria, China??? Oh, btw, Japan is the third richest country in the world! Italy, China and Spain are in the top 10! What, exactly, are "middle-income" countries considered?)

How can they say tobacco kills “up to” half of its users, when they even said that it was killing 6 million, and only 5% of a smoking population of 1 billion? FIVE percent!!!

The Trillion DollarZeitgeist listed the top 10 richest industries throughout the world. These figures were 2013: 

• BP (formerly known as British Petroleum) – everything to do with fuel - $132 billion
• Ebay – online sales - $175 billion
• Google – internet user’s daily life - $187 billion
• Microsoft – computer products - $224 billion
• Walmart - retail - $228 billion
• Worldwide TV industry - television industry and market as a whole - $364 billion
• Apple – “i” products - $300 billion
• Global pharma market – prescription drugs - $950 billion
• OPEC revenue – oil - $1,027 billion; and number one (did you know this??)
• Alcohol industry – beer, wine, spirits - $1,161 billion

Who would have thought this? Alcohol is legal in Australia – pretty much everywhere in the world, certainly not chased by politicians the same as tobacco, and yet in 2011-12, 19.5% of adults consumed more than two standard drinks per day on average, exceeding the lifetime risk guidelines. At no extra cost.

Alcohol doesn’t turn up in Wikipaedia, but their list includes individual richest company’s turnover and they say that “the most common industry is oil and gas, with nearly one third being classified as such.” US of A has 42% of the top companies. China has 13% (and 30% of theirs are in the top 10). None of these companies include tobacco.

Yesterday I read an article which said that Labor would increase the tax on smokes which would take a packet up to $40. $40???? Why? We are paying far too much for cigarettes now, but the price for alcohol has gone down. Alcohol is only 1% behind smoking to cause death. The price for take-away food has gone down, but the obesity has grown. This is depleting healthcare, but the government is pretty much ignoring it. Yet they will charge smokes out of the door.

I am sick and tired of reading this sort of stuff. I am sick and tired of hearing people putting smoking down in front of people who smoke. I am sick and tired of governments charging unreasonable taxes when there is NO PROOF that a person has died from cancer but not from smoking. I am sick and tired that so many in the population know nothing about the profit from cigarettes and don’t mention at the least the profit from so many other industries. I am sick and tired of the voracious bad attitude from the government and people in this country who do not ever accept a person with their own habits. If anyone has used Ebay, you have given the huge profits to them. If anyone has an Apple, you have contributed to their “i” profits. And if you drink, how many you drink, you have joined the massive group who are increasing the profit for this largest industry.

But if this government, or any future government, continues to increase the future taxes on cigarettes, without any interest in alcohol or petrol/oil, takeaways, health or any other stuff which is dragging money out of our pockets, blame them for how people are truly being affected.

I feel like I’m telling you.

WHO said it?

On 7 October this year I posted about how so many people will quote something but never say who originally said it or will not say that it is "Unknown". This morning I am saying the same stuff.  Am I ticked off? Hell YES!!!

I did a pic for a quote I saw this morning, and this says it is "Unknown" as to who said it because I couldn't trace it. Every quote which can't be traced to the real sayer should acknowledge "Unknown".

This morning on Facebook I saw this post which had come up on a friend's page which came from another FB page called Your Tango where it is not identified. Your Tango certainly wants to be identified! They identify as "news/media website" with 446,301 "likers". But this post had no "quoter" named on it; wasn't them - why would they care??

So this lead to my research to try and find who said this. I found:

• 3 November - Damn Depression on Twitter quoted it without any name or acknowledgement
• 12 August - Your Tango's unnamed quote - and with no acknowledgement - was "liked" by 184,687 people, and shared(!) by 679,789 people!!
• 11 weeks ago - Tessa Richens through Lessons Learned in Life and on PinIt quoted it without any name or acknowledgement
• 18 weeks ago - Stephanie Hoang through Higher Perspective and on PinIt quoted it without any name or acknowledgement
• 19 weeks ago Amber Thaxton through The Idealist and on PinIt quoted it without any name or acknowledgement
• Whisper had quotes without names or acknowledgement 4 months ago, 6 months ago, 7 months ago and 2 x 8 months ago
• Funkyjunk quoted it in April, without a name or acknowledgement
• Another one in Pinit was unlocked and shared around - quoted without any name or acknowledgement

The only decent quote page came from Book of All Quotes which said Unknown. Yes!!  THIS is exactly how any quote MUST be regarded when it is illustrated and a person was unable to identify the speaker.

But that wasn't the end! I found a different quote which intrigued me - "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will only cause permanent psychological damage". This one had just happened to turn up in Google whilst I was researching. No name quoted. No acknowledgement. I went into PinIt and found the person - Jen Barton - who had put this up. And I found that she had probably got it from Heathshire, which is a UK organisation which says about itself that they are an "online mental health resource. We help patients find local mental health services and aid mental health professionals with marketing, mental health news and business support." The trouble is, this organisation has a page with "93 Depression Quotes and Images from Social Media". Most of which are not given any sort of acknowledgement!

Hell, how unreal is this trite idea? How many people throughout the world have done a quote which is never acknowledged to the person who said it and have posted their artwork which is found and shared? Is there ANYONE who agrees with me that this sort of bullshit is NOT GOOD??

In my 7 October post I had found a lot of people who would say that they had said whatever they had posted, when proof would show that this quote went backwards time and time again. The trouble which I can see now is that ANY quote which is NOT acknowledged to the person who ACTUALLY SAID IT will be claimed by ten - a hundred - a thousand! people throughout this world.

That, as far as I am concerned, is bullshit which will kick the head of the actual person who actually said something. I have never had 679,789 shares. Or even 67, but it doesn't worry me. What does worry me is seeing so many unacknowledged quotes on other websites. I only do them because I believe in acknowledgement, but perhaps I should now drop my quote pictures.

It's far too late in this world.

Still waiting...

Today I received an email saying I hadn't send in something I was asked for. Yes, I had sent it back on 22 October. I re-sent it to them this afternoon. But this is frustrating, hold me back on the timeline. This one relates to my application for citizenship which I put in sometime in March this year. Now 9 months and waiting.

A different thing I am waiting for was done in May this year. Now it's into 7 months.

I seem to be living a timeline, held up by things that happen that I have no control over. This has been happening for 3 years, since my ex walked out. I won't bore you with details of what I've been waiting for, but the one which first upset my entire life was the 293 days after I was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, before they operated on me. And stuffed up. This particular event has lead on to why I now am waiting. And waiting.

I wish I could just get the 7 months mentioned fixed. I wish I could get the 9 months mentioned fixed. I wish I could really get my next book finished, but that has to wait for the 7 months to finish. Please dude, before Christmas??

In the last month I sent two parcels over to my grand-children who spend time at my sons' place. Going to see them after Christmas would be so wonderful! I've only met the two oldest ones. Getting something from my timeline would be awesome! Visiting my grandkids would be awesome!

Getting my second book finished would be awesome! Am I still sighing??

The second book is a non-fiction, about my brain aneurysm and my stroke. I certainly intend for everyone to read this, because nowhere enough people already know what an aneurysm is - and what it can do for you. Like, killing you.

But, for me, a timeline will just simply drop me off when it's finished. I don't need to think about death because it will finish me off! Flirting with death. Just cause death. Messing around with death. Does everyone have a timeline?

Yes, I AM FRUSTRATED!!!

Re-Tilting at Windmills

I originally wrote this back in December 2013. These thoughts are still with me - so I'm republishing it. Read it and see if you feel the same way.

Burned sausages

Tonight I cooked sausages. I burned them. Why?

Why do you want to know?

I was playing cards. Or talking to my dog. Or thinking about how frustrated I was last night. Or the night before. Or whatever. They burned. Was I supposed to stop them?

The last couple of weeks I’ve been very busy. Out of home every day, off to whatever is in my calendar, if I was late or missing it I’d feel very upset. Last night, after a busy travel-covered day (into town , home, into the library, back home, into Cultural Centre, back home again…)I was buggered. So very tired. I could have just contacted the group and said I couldn’t be there, but I was now the Secretary – silly me, I’d taken it because I knew I could have done it. At least, years ago I could have. But these days I had a stroke which has taken over my life and I fight it.

Until I am so goddamned tired that I just can’t.

I live alone. Am I okay with that? Hell no!! I haven’t ever lived alone. Until now. I used to think that this was bliss, but now I feel so alone. I make myself busy, but I don’t get paid for anything I do. I worked most of my life. Until the last two years. These days I watch people who really don’t work but are paid… for what? Why can’t I get some sort of money for what I do? I have a website. I wrote a book. Paid? No. Why can’t I just feel good about working for the people I do?

Why can’t I even get any Q-Comp funds which are OWED to me?? 6 months next week. It’s causing me grief.

Today I felt pretty good when I went to the post office and sent off a book and some t-shirts to my son for my grandchildren. I am so looking forward to seeing them – the four of them – after Christmas, but I can’t even afford a ticket. Why do I feel pissed off? Work that one out. Is this the way so many other people feel, when their income is cut off and dried up? It’s 18 months after my stroke, and I appreciate the comments from other people that I’m good. I wish I was. But when I’m tired, after so many calendar days, my language has taken off, again.

Today I convinced a friend to walk around the block with me, so I could add to my Stride-4-Stroke. Any supporters? Only 2 (I’m 3). Why won’t you??

My burned sausages are still in the frying pan. 7.34pm and I need some dinner which I would normally have at 5pm. I’m just going to eat a couple of burned sausages, and I think I’ll like them. Why?

Why don’t you tell me?