Category: Sparrow Chat

…but what happens when the small fish are all gone?

ANSWER: the big fish begin eating each other, until only one huge monster is left. They call it “MONOPOLY”.

The name is aptly derived from two Ancient Greek words: mónos, meaning “alone, only, sole, or single”, and POLY, from ‘polus’, meaning “many, or much.” The ‘single’ engulfs the ‘many’.

It’s obviously a very bad idea for fish, so why does society not do more to prevent it happening in business? “Ah,” I hear you cry, “but we have the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.”

“And when,” is my response, “did you last hear from them?”

Sparrow Chat has been web-hosted for many years by a company called, ‘IX Web Hosting’, but they’ve recently been taken over by ‘Site5’, who, in turn, are owned by an international conglomerate called EIG (Endurance International Group). EIG has been called ‘the world’s largest web-hosting company you’ve probably never heard of.’ It’s one of those vile monsters that has grown huge by engulfing smaller companies, often at the expense of employees who end up unemployed, and customers who face ever-rising fees.

To date EIG has hoovered up over eighty web-hosting and tech companies.

The concept was to roll up small ISPs into one large national ISP and achieve economies of scale. Endurance is acquiring hosting companies domestically and internationally…the company made four buys in 2014. The largest was a $109.8 million cash and stock deal for the web presence business of Directi from Indian-based Directi Web Technologies. Directi provides services in various countries, including India, the U.S., Turkey, China, Russia and Indonesia.

In March 2015, the company announced an investment in Netherlands-based technology startup AppMachine, acquiring 40% of the company.

In August 2015, EIG announced the acquisition of Site5 and Verio Web Hosting from NTT. It is estimated that EIG gained 86,000+ new subscribers through these acquisitions.

In November 2015, the company acquired Constant Contact, and days later laid off 15% of their workforce.
Also in November 2015, EIG acquired the assets of Ecommerce, LLC for $28 million. This acquisition included a total of 72,000 subscribers from three different hosting brands: IX Web Hosting, Cloud by IX, and Host Excellence.^[1]

It’s yet another tale of hedge funds and investment bankers sweeping up small companies to make themselves even richer. It stinks and Sparrow Chat will not be a part of any money-making game where the majority are impoverished so a few can grow obscenely wealthy. It’s a common practice these days and one accepted by a society rapidly losing all moral fibre in the rush for greed-fuelled riches.

I’m happy to report that EIG is about to lose one customer. Over the the next few days/weeks Sparrow Chat will be moving to a new webhost – ‘A2 Hosting’.^[2]

A2 is an independent and founder-owned company, which categorically states it is not part of EIG, or any other of the monsters out there lurking in the deep, murky, waters of corporate takeover.

Hopefully, ‘A2 Hostings’ will survive that way for a long time. If not, Sparrow Chat may have to move on again.

^{[1] “Wikipedia, Endurance International Group}

^{[2] “A2 Hosting”}

Two years ago, while Barack Obama was still President of the United States, I wrote a short piece in what could loosely be called ‘poetic’ style, as part of my Christmas message to the people of the Earth (hold on, my coronet’s slipping – ah, that’s better). I believe Her Majesty was ill-disposed that year.

The ‘message’ still holds good this Christmas, with a few slight modifications, so with apologies (yet again) to Clement Clarke Moore I present once more my ‘slightly adapted’ version of Moore’s famous ditty.

Assuming we all survive until 2019, may I wish all Sparrow Chat readers a truly wondrous Christmas, and a prosperous, if environmentally-friendly, New Year.

“T’IS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS”

T’is the night before Christmas, all over the earth
Terrorists are plotting for all they are worth.
The Donald sits musing, which country to strike?
China? Korea? Maybe both could be right?

His hand on the button, surely now is the time,
He thinks, “My life’s truly awful, it’s not worth a dime.
Who thought being Pressy could cause me such strain,
And Melania’s in bed with the butler – again!”

The Arctic is melting, the earth’s growing warm,
Droughts, floods, tornadoes, becoming the norm.
“Don’t blame us,” says the Donald. “It’s not me!” he cried
As New York washed away on a rather high tide.

Donald knows Mueller’s watching, and scheming to get him,
A Pressy in prison would not be a good thing.
He’ll blow up the world, end it all with a bang,
They’ll remember him then, or they all could go hang.

John Bolton had shown him the right way to do it,
But he’s off to bed with the wife of Scott Pruitt.
Donald grabs hold the briefcase with codes and iPad
He’ll nuke them all up, there’ll be no more jihad.

But high in the Heavens Mohammed and Jesus,
Mithras, Athena, and Zeus with his aegis,
Look down on a world they had brought into being
And cannot believe what the hell they are seeing.

They’ll not let a mortal destroy their creation,
They’ll do it themselves and to Hell with salvation,
Donald thinks he’s a god, but he’s sadly mistaken,
A god with such hair! And a mouth so mis-shapen?

They speak not a word, but go straight to their toil,
Call forth the angels, their Godblood a-boil,
Blasting the earth with hot fire from their noses,
They consume it all up – despite firemen’s hoses.

Then summoning chariots of fire with a whistle,
They fly off to heaven like the down of a thistle.
Only one of them speaks, the one they call Mithras
Mutters, “Bloody little shits! They just didn’t deserve Christmas.”

This last ‘school bus’ essay, and the one previous, concerns a place called Hope Estates. There are a plethora of ‘Hope Estates’ in America. They rarely make the media headlines, Hollywood has certainly never heard of them. They’re places of squalor and degradation, ramshackle trailer homes where exist those for whom the American Dream never, ever, could come true. Christina Holsapple was one little girl from Hope Estates who rode School Bus 13 each day. The driver took a special interest in her, as he realised she was a deeply troubled child. Then, suddenly, Christina Holsapple stopped riding the bus.

CHRISTINA HOLSAPPLE DOESN’T RIDE SCHOOL BUS 13 ANYMORE.

Christina Holsapple doesn’t ride the school bus anymore. Neither do William and Rashon Jordan. A few weeks ago William told the driver they were moving out of Hope Estates Trailer Park. They were going to live with their cousin and his family on the other side of town. The driver was pleased for them. Living anywhere was better than the trailer park.

The last day they rode the bus, the driver brought candy for all the kids, and allowed them to eat it on the journey home from school. It was a rare treat. It broke the rules to eat on the bus – but what did that matter? It was a party to say goodbye to William and Rashon; to wish them well in their new school, in their new life.

The driver noticed Christina had been quiet and withdrawn for some days. He asked her once, “Is anything the matter?” She shook her head before descending the bus steps and walking off up the path to the classrooms, yet he sensed a sadness; grief too deep for a little girl only nine years old.

The driver liked Christina. She could be a difficult child. Though sad and withdrawn much of the time, she could also be full of mischief; cheeky, yet often bright and cheerful, even when he’d written the referrals for misconduct on the bus that fetched her to the School Principal’s office on more than one occasion.

On the morning following William and Rashon’s departure, he noticed Christina was not at the bus stop, but thought nothing of it. Kids often missed a day or two, and he knew that sometimes one of the other parents took them into school by car. He hung around for five minutes. With Rashon and William no longer riding, Christina was the only child from Hope Estates to ride School Bus 13, and kids often overslept on schooldays. He’d learned to keep an eye on the bus’s side mirror when pulling away from a stop. It wasn’t unusual to see a half-dressed kid running along the sidewalk behind the bus, arms flailing, trying to grab his attention.

But Christina failed to appear, and there were lots of other children to collect on the way into school, so the driver left Hope Estates and went on his way. A week went by and still there was no sign of the girl. He asked another student about her, to be told she had been in school as usual. That eased his mind. Obviously, she was getting a lift.

Weeks went by but Christina never returned to the school bus. The driver thought of her from time to time, but was eventually told by his superintendent not to call at Hope Estates anymore as there were no longer any kids to be collected there. He wondered if Christina was okay, but failed to see her in the school playground, or leaving of an afternoon. Until one Wednesday, he’d been running late and had just picked up the kids when, as the bus was pulling slowly out from the schoolyard, he heard one of them say, “Look, there’s Christina!”

She was standing with a small group of children and a teacher, and was about to be picked up by a large black car. She looked up and saw the bus; the kids all waved to her. The driver stopped the bus, opened the doors, and waved. She turned and took a quick step forward towards the vehicle, like she might run and jump on board, but the teacher caught her by the shoulder. The driver saw that same look in Christina’s eyes he’d seen before – unfathomable sadness. The grief of an older woman emanating from a little girl’s face. He closed the bus doors and drove on up the road, then turned to Madelaine Bell, a sixth grader in one of the front seats, and asked, “Why doesn’t Christina ride the bus anymore?”

“Oh,” replied the girl, matter-of-factly, “Her parents do drugs. She was taken away. She’s in a foster home now.”