Consumerism is beyond disgusting when taken to these extremes:
Spikes have been fixed to trees in a leafy neighbourhood of Bristol in an attempt to prevent birds from perching there and creating a mess on residents’ cars.The spikes, of the sort normally seen on the ledges of buildings to ward off pigeons, have been spotted on trees in Clifton, near the wildlife-rich Downs and the Avon gorge.
They just look like tacky small-town Christmas decorations to me.
LikeLike
It’s a BDSM Christmas Tree!
BDSM (for the more innocent readers – Bondage, Domination/Discipline, Sado-Masochism)
LikeLike
Can birds give informed consent? All we know for sure is that they like scat play (nope, not telling; you guess what it is).
LikeLike
Where I live the spikes often don’t work. They put a bunch in at a covered streetcar stop and the pigeons just nudged down between them so maybe that counts as consent? Then they tried blocking it off with chicken wire but they managed to get through that too…
Scat…. you mean what they call Sperrgebiet auf Deutsch?
LikeLike
If it’s any consolation to all you animal lovers (actually consumer-haters) commenting on this post, spikes like those really aren’t an effective pigeon repellent.
My next-door neighbor bought a bunch of those spikes to put on the high columns on his rear patio deck to stop pigeons from building nests there — and the birds totally ignore the spikes and build right on top of them.
LikeLike
This is more than just rampant consumerism, it’s an example of the ignorant assuming that they have the absolute right to control everything in their environment.
From what I’ve read these monstrosities are in trees on private land. Some people don’t deserve to have trees, my sympathy is entirely with the birds!
LikeLike
“more than just rampant consumerism, it’s an example of the ignorant assuming that they have the absolute right to control everything in their environment”
That is virtually the definition of rampant consumerism
LikeLike
Exactly.
LikeLike
“…it’s an example of the ignorant assuming that they have the absolute right to control everything in their environment.”
Doesn’t this just sound like the stuff your average normal person does all the time anyway, par-for-the-course?
LikeLike
That’s exactly what I’m saying. Consumerism defines our contemporary state of mind for all of us. The most we can do, as anybody in the grip of an ideology, is to realize it’s there and how it works on us.
LikeLike
This is the definition of consumerism. The world is mine, to mold at will because there’s no morality, no value beyond my momentary whims. Utterly disgusting.
LikeLike
Haven’t rich people always been like this, tho’? Assholes with a huge sense of entitlement?
I hope those birds go all Hitchcock on them.
LikeLike
Consumerism is an affliction that strikes people of all incomes equally. Those who don’t have money to buy expensive cars, treat their friends, children, and spouses like objects of consumption.
LikeLike
Clarissa is appalled by bird spikes…
Take a gander at these anti-homeless spikes
From 2014:
Earlier this month, someone tweeted a picture of a series of metal spikes built into the ground outside a London apartment building.
The spikes were intended to discourage homeless people from sleeping in the area, and their presence sparked a public outcry. London’s mayor called the spikes “ugly, self defeating & stupid,” and the mayor of Montreal called similar spikes in his own city “unacceptable!!!!” Protesters poured concrete over a set of spikes outside of a Tesco supermarket. Then, after a petition was signed by nearly 130,000 people, the spikes were removed from the London apartment building, the Tesco, and downtown Montreal….
An example of a pervasive homeless deterrence technology is benches designed to discourage sleeping. These include benches with vertical slats between each seat, individual bucket seats, large armrests between seats, and wall railings which enable leaning but not sitting or lying, among many other designs. There are even benches made to be slightly uncomfortable in order to dissuade people from sitting too long. Sadly, such designs are particularly common in subway, bus stops, and parks that present the homeless with the prospect of a safely public place to sleep.
LikeLike
I was thinking of this too, the social attitude of authorities and corporations to the homeless is nothing short of diabolical.
There’s an example of ‘seating’ in a shelter on my local train station, deliberately designed to be very uncomfortable and impossible to lie down on. It’s almost impossible to sit on! – On my blog, sorry. I can’t persuade the system to let me post the picture here.
http://expertslife.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/anti-person-infrastructure.html
LikeLike
Of course, it can be much worse. But it’s still shitty to do this to birds.
LikeLike
A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment