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Menahem Kahana / AFP - Getty Images
Arab Israeli children pose with a pet snake at an amusement park in the northern Israeli city of Acre on August 31 as Muslims celebrated the Eid al-Fitr holiday which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Menahem Kahana / AFP - Getty Images
An Arab Israeli boy cries as his family makes him pose with a pet snake at an amusement park in the northern Israeli city of Acre on August 31.
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Are these people insane? How could anything other than insanity cause one to believe children would be entertained by having a giant snake put on to a child or anyone else for that matter? Unbelievable!
Uh, children ARE entertained by that, Einstein.
To answer the headline's question:
So, how did you develop your lifelong fear of snakes?
The day my Dad killed one in our driveway after my older sister almost ran over it with her bicycle and started screaming her fool head off - I guess I come by it naturally!
I have a very similar story - my father killed one in my driveway right in front of me when I was 1yr. I think it horrified me and is permanently imbedded in my subconscious. I can't look at a picture of a snake without getting the chills. And forget if I see a rubber toy snake - I will scream.
I took my Columbia Red tailed Boa which is 7 feet long and 7 pounds to a childrens hospital that handled burns and kids with tumor and other growth anomalies. When I was first there there was a mixture of kids from ages 4-15 some were intrigued, some were fascinated, some were terrified.
There were around 25 kids and I was there for 3 hours and at the end of that three hours every kid in that place had eventually asked me if they could hold the snake.
It all depends on the environment and situation, kids are more likely to overcome their fears if other children are present that are not afraid.
I cant tell you know inspirational it was to see a 4 year old that was terrified of the snake come to me and ask to hold it and see her eyes light up when she touched it and said "its not slimy" Then ask if she can hold it and see her get all excited when she did.
If your 7ft snake only weighes 7pounds it is in need of some help. My 5 ft ball weighed in at 50lbs and as our vet said she was a very healthy girl. If you still have the animal and it is still only 7 pound do your poor snake a favor, give it to someone that knows how to take care of it. It is starving to death.
These people are morons!
Slow news day?
"Here, Fido....that a good reptile."
I still have nightmares about my son's pet snake meeting me on the basement steps. My husband stated he knew from my scream that the snake had finally shown up.
No snakes from that point on allowed in the house!
i heard of the one Child who died with a pet snake around his next due to Asphyxiation....
One should use some intelligence when choosing a pet snake for a kid- no constrictors and nothing poisonous. My mom wouldn't let me keep a pet snake, but the curator at the reptile house of the zoo used to let me check them out and take them to school for show and tell, and then return them. My son had pet snakes. Snakes do have their good points - they don't bark and howl, they don't chew the furniture, they don't have to be taken out for walks in the cold and wet weather....
you know what else has all those qualities? a rope
mitchrog - you're absolutely right! Good response;-)
I have six boys. Four of them would have been absolutely thrilled by such a snake (even if it tried to eat them!). Two of them would have shied away, or been terrified. As a parent, you just need to know your child and respond appropriately. I'd want all of them to try for a picture, but if that obviously upset, I'd give them a pass.
Out of my four girls, on the other hand, I think only one would have been interested in the snake...
Humming to myself and counting to ten...now twenty...good.
Hats off to you and yours for raising ten kids!
Somebody needs to stay away from the daddy "snake" and stop having so many babies!
@about that - that was our decision, wasn't it--not yours or anyone else's.
10 kids and your name is HikingStick lol
@HikingStick
I'm with "about that." What the hell gives you the right to eat up more natural resources with all of your spawn? You just can't get more selfish than that.
@Jack Baptist Tell me please do you go to the gas pump and repent for the used natural resources you're putting in your car/truck/van? Or can you honestly say you use none. Ever. I may not be a christian but one thing the bible taught me was that he without sin should throw the first stone. That goes to all of you idiots picking on this hikingstick they had ten kids so @!$%#ing what yeah it wasn't the choice you would have made, but guess what this is american and they made that choice. Picking on someone like a bunch of middle school punks is not what I would want to see from american adults. 1. Snakes are important to a ecosystem. Look it up they are needed, wonderful creatures that deserve our respect and love. Kids need to learn this most of all because they are here when we are gone. 2. Even though it is america cyber bullying is crime that even goes for adults if you don't want your kids to be like that don't you be like that. Teach be example its the best way to teach. You want to be D***s go to 4chan have fun they will rip you to shreds. 3. what with the atom bombs we Americans thought needed to be dropped. I think someones ten kids aren't going to but a dent in that damage. I would say having kids is the least selfish thing you can do. Can anyone here tell me how a species survives??
Not sure about these pictures. I don't think there are snow covered mountains in Northern Israel in August. Current temp is 30 C, or 86 F.
It's a backdrop.. if you look at the image quality you can tell easily.
I love snakes actually, I did as a kid too... Spiders on the other hand (only spiders, not scorpions) scare me enough that I will have nightmares about them and I almost can't breath if one larger than a quarter shows anywhere near me... I've been trapped in rooms before because there have been spiders between me and the door. I've had people tell me "get over it"- there is no 'getting over it'. Learning about them doesn't help... Even a picture of one makes me cringe and my heart rate go up.
Zeke....Vacuum cleaner, that is how I get rid of spiders. Little hand held one, works great on spiders and crickets, possibly snakes if there were any allowed in the house!
Zeke, I hear you loud and clear! the only 8 legged critters I like are octopus and squid - and the latter prepared properly and on my plate;-) I've been known to throw shoes away because i used one to kill a spider and just couldn't put it back on my foot. Yes, Lynnw, those little vacuums help, but when I'm trapped in one room and it's in the other, doesn't do much good. and then, they have to be emptied. Gives me the shivers just thinking about it.
Snakes, on the other hand are by far easier for me to deal with.
I'm OK with spiders until we start talking about the big, hairy ones. I can't even look at a photo of a tarantula. Snakes don't bother me much at all, although here in AZ we know to be watchful of snakes when we're outside, and know how to recognize the rattlers. I'm not going to be running screaming from a snake the way I would from a tarantula or brown wolf spider.
sloooooooow news day
The only thing a snake is good for is a new purse or pair of shoes/boots!
you are not too bright when it comes to the concept of rodent and disease control are you.
This isn't a cuddly puppy or cute kitten, it's a snake!! A very big snake!! Only an idiot would force a child to pose for these pictures. Neither child looks to be enjoying the moment.
As a very young kid I use to handle snake until my half brother took a cottonmouth to my face one day, with the mouth open yet. From that day on the only good snake is a dead snake.
I was young, still in elementary school when my tomboy older sister Lydia decided to keep a snake in our bedroom that we shared. The snake escaped the cage and slithered into our closet. Lydid asked me to stand in the closet doorway with a bag and she would "shoo" it out..into the bag. Needless to say, the snake "flew" out of the closet...into the air towards me...I screamed, threw the bag down & ran. If someone put a snake on me, my eyes would roll up into my head and i would pass out with convulsions...I just know it!! I would be like PeeWee Herman in that scene from his movie where he saved the snakes. haha It won't be pretty....
I was young, still in elementary school when my tomboy older sister Lydia decided to keep a snake in our bedroom that we shared. The snake escaped the cage and slithered into our closet. Lydid asked me to stand in the closet doorway with a bag and she would "shoo" it out..into the bag. Needless to say, the snake "flew" out of the closet...into the air towards me...I screamed, threw the bag down & ran. If someone put a snake on me, my eyes would roll up into my head and i would pass out with convulsions...I just know it!! I would be like PeeWee Herman in that scene from his movie where he saved the snakes. haha It won't be pretty....
Wow, way to scare the crap out of your kids, folks. Good way to give them nightmares for the rest of their lives too.
Actually, posing with a large albino python in the 3rd grade was actually what gave me my lifelong facination with snakes! I've had several as pets. Smaller species though, I also worked for an exotic vet so I know what a burden caring for a large snake can be.
Many people have an inherent fear of snakes because all of humanity is being seceretly controlled by highly advanced reptilian humanoids. These reptilians are millions of years ahead of humans technologically and are actually responsible for human existence on earth. They control us through several means, most notably that they are among us. They are our most powerful people; political leaders, media figures, wealthy civilians. To learn more, I encourage everyone reading this to youtube "reptilian shapeshifters" and see for yourself.
roflmao
I guess it all depends on how you were raised, if one or both of your parents or siblings are afraid of snakes, then more or lesss your gonna be freaked out by snakes. Also, the added effects of a trauma can cause this sort of phobia. I was raised in a positive towards reptiles enviroment and never had any problems with them even when I did get bittten by one, I think snakes and lizzards manke good pets. They're also quite kid-friendly if your smart about NOT getting anything that could wrap itself around their necks and also, contrary to common beleifs there are poisonous snakes but there aren't that many. Garden snakes, King snakes, and Gopher snakes are good examples of small non-poisonous snakes- tho Gopher snakes can get a litttle large- had a 4 foot Gopher snake in high school that liked to be my belt.
Where I come from in South America, anacondas eat people and even alegators. It would be no fun to have a creature such as that wrapted around your body. Yes, I don't like snakes an I have no idea how to break this fear of them.
Green anacondas are the largest of snakes by weight, however, there are no credible documented fatalities by these snakes in the wild over the last few decades. Attacks, yes, but no fatalities. There are many reasons:
1) human pressures that tend toward killing these snakes on sight. They simply don't have the opportunity to get big enough to take down a person.
2) People don't go where these snakes are common.
3) It's a desparate snake that chooses to attack a potential dangerous prey over a preferred prey. It happens usually when the animal is very very hungry.
4) Even given that these snaks can reach 20ft or more and 250lbs. They tend to flee from people of any size.
Interesting reading: Google Dr. Jesus Rivas.
when I was young, I was rollerskating on my aunt's driveway and was greeted by a garder snake.. Said snake appeared to follow me until I got to the door, screaming and struggling to skate.. so I understand that fear as that day still haunts me 30 years later.. so thank you MSNBC.. when can I expect you at my house to rock me to sleep?
What are they afraid of? Snakes are niether slimy nor prone to bite. Snakes defensively always flee, ** except king cobras which will advance on you. People are universally afraid of snakes. I would eat lunch at five years old with a snake in my lap. The snake is the photo is a larger constrictor, it looks like an albino reticualted python. I would stipulate that it probably is a bit big for a photo op.
Here in the US people pose with alligators in Florida, swim with dolphins and now cage-dive with great whites.
My own cunundrum is this: small snakes such as garden snakes make me uneasy. That said, I have gone snake hunting (to cpature not kill) in Venezuela and Colombia for anacondas and boas. For me a photo op with a giant python would be fine, a two foot corn snake, no thanks. But I do believe that people should try to confront irrational fears (heights, snakes, flying, spiders, et al).
The fear of snakes is umbued in all of Christianity since the time of Augustine. Using snakes as a method of fear that wraps around the person through repeated use of it's symbology allows the Church's Empire to use the symbol of the snake to control and manipulate people to follow the dogma of such STATE mandated beliefs.
So now you know why August is the most repressed month of the year. The Catholic Church is still using dogma that was created 3000 years ago to control people across the planet to mandate that they are in charge because of their overall lack of any type of control theirself over their own actions. August is the month of Catholic Repression on everyone within the the realm of Christianity so any thoughts of freedom not so created by the Catholic Church would be erased from the persons mind to be replaced with what - ever the Catholic Church wants the person to think.
Come to think of it the Patriot Act is written the same way that any actions and thoughts so related to any Internet activity taht does not fit within the dogma of Augustine Mandates can be seem as problematic where the Patriot Act could then be used to repress such thoughts or actions until the person conforms with the thoughts of the Catholic Church. After all Augustines Mandates have clearly dictated that humans cannot think for theirself and theirfore must be controlled.
I agree with you that the Church throughout it's history has been the agent of extreme and sometimes horrifically violent repressive acts. However, the month August was named for Augustus Caesar not Augustine, as July was named for Julius Caesar. These two new summertime months (if you're gonna add a new month for yourself you might as well put it the middle of summer!) pushed the rest of the calendar back by two (now shorter) months, making OCTober which was the EIGHTH month into what it is now, the tenth month, NOV (which was NINTH) became the 11th, and DEC (which was TENTH) became the 12th, but the original names were still kept all the way to the present.
Then of course, you've got the days of the week:
SUNday
MOONday
TIEW'sday
WODEN'sday
THOR'sday
FREYA'sday
and
SATURN'sday
The Church never could stamp those out though I'm sure they tried!
Pet snake?, thats a oxymoron, a pet is something warm and cuddly, that comes when you call it, that greets you when you come home, that you can take for walks etc. A snake is a cold blooded creature that crawls around on its belly, a pet?, not hardly!
Fear of snakes comes naturally. The fear trigger comes from an ancient part of our brain. When we as humans lived in trees in Africa, snakes made their way up trees to steal, kill and then consume our babies. We developed this fear of snakes to preserve our species. This fear is still resides in the oldest part of our brain. These people are not "morons" for having this fear of snakes. But demonstrates a clear sense of survival.