STILL ON THE RESERVATION

Great cosmic cycles make a mockery of our lives
Pinning black dust to the night sky where once there was light
We look to the stars then back down at our feet
Hermes The Thrice Great wrote this celestial script
It roils and it roars deep within our core soul
Yet we cannot discern what our own blueprint means
It is lost, overwhelmed by the chatter of man
Not a voice, a harmonic but the digital screams
Of a planet in anguish as she enters our dreams
Are we so lost to hope that we can't see the truth?
Meaningless trade and still governed by fools
Who appease us with trinkets and fire water haze
Right here in the United States of Reservation
Locked in the frequency of fear
Where we'll remain
Until we feel the stars in our hearts
See the sky in our eyes
And understand we exist in a handful of sand...

PUTIN IN THE FIX (with apologies to Irving Berlin)

Sung to the tune of Puttin’ on the Ritz…
(aka - The Fake News Shuffle)

Have you heard the latest news, Russians turning all the screws

Another global cyberscare, to elect president Goldenhair
Spy hacks and rigging voting, buy-backs and Clinton gloating

Accused of every crime, not once but all the time
US press crew they don’t know what to do
So they say, these stupid pricks:

“Putin set the fix!”

Bullshit hype running on the hour, this utter tripe

Making people cower, from rerun scripts

“Putin set the fix!”

Perpetuate this fantastical blooper

Smiling as they ram it up our pooper (pooper-scooper)

Screw these dicks the fake-news guys and chicks
False breakthrough just for kicks

“Putin set the fix!”

They say that Donald Trump would be real crappy

Hillary’s more erudite and snappy (happy-clappy)
The Russian bear was hacking with their cyberware

The system cracking everywhere

“Putin set the fix!”

HOMEOPATHY AND THE POPULAR VOICE

Homeopathy and the popular voice                                                                                

“Our expectation of an explanation for a mechanism of action is that it is both scientifically plausible and demonstrable. We should, however, add that, while we comment on explanations for how homeopathy works, it is not a key part of our Evidence Check. Historically, some medical interventions were demonstrably effective before anyone understood their modes of action. For example, after 150 years of use, there is still debate about precisely how anaesthetics work. It is more important to know whether a treatment works—its efficacy—than how it works.”

Extract from UK Department of Health Evidence Check 2: Homeopathy - Science and Technology Committee (circa 2010) (my bold italics)

The world is a mad place. Tears For Fears weren’t wrong when they penned that massive 80’s hit.  Despite the madness though, it’s still a very compelling and hospitable planet for the most part – some might say despite the human race yet I say, perhaps because of us.
We just haven’t been given our say; perhaps what we say is going increasingly unheard or more optimistically maybe we’re actually starting to be heard.

I recently engaged in a debate on social media about homeopathy, taking a devil’s advocate stance against some pretty heavy hitting ‘sceptics’.

While I firmly accept the crucial role of science in establishing the paradigm in which we exist in this material realm, I think we should take pains to acknowledge that honest scientists are the first to admit they don’t fully understand how certain things work and this may simply be attributable to an inability to adequately measure the efficacy of those things.

I’m neither for nor against homeopathy. However, I am sceptical that the means whereby the benefits of the modality are measured may sit outside the paradigm of the science that would attempt to understand it.

The UK Dept of Health evidence check report makes the point that any effects of homeopathy were placebo effects – it may induce improvement simply through belief in it. There have been exhaustive tests conducted over the years involving RCT’s (Randomised Controlled Trials) usually taking the form of double-blind medical studies, almost exclusively funded by the pharmaceutical industry with, it must be stressed, heavily vested interests in specific outcomes.

The definition of a double blind medical study is given as follows: “An experimental procedure in which neither the subjects of the experiment nor the persons administering the experiment know the critical aspects of the experiment; a double-blind procedure is used to guard against both experimenter bias and placebo effects" All of that makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make any scientific sense, however, are the psychological and psychophysiological impact of the placebo effect in these trials, effects which inevitably occur.

Dr Howard Brody, Director of the Institute of Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch defined the placebo effect as "a change in a patient's illness attributable to the symbolic import of a treatment rather than a specific pharmacologic or physiologic property". In other words, changes take place within a patient’s physiology either for better (placebo) or for worse (the so-called “nocebo” effect) simply as a result of that patient’s belief that a change is inevitable due to the medication that’s being taken.
This is an inexplicable, invisible paradigm that’s occurring that science cannot begin to adequately explain and we certainly don’t have the means with which to monitor or test the placebo effect.

Only one thing is for certain, however, faith, religion and belief often mixed with nutritional regimes – work. The belief in something (a thought sequence) has a manifest physical effect on matter. We can alter our wellbeing and wellness simply through a pattern of belief. It’s never worded that way in the double blind studies but indubitably that’s what’s happening.

It is perhaps most obvious in those who become convinced that their illnesses will kill them. Inevitably, however, all such discussions are cloaked by sceptics who argue against doctors holding strong religious beliefs because such beliefs, lead to patients living longer and so using up more money

Fritz Albert Popp, a bio-physicist, claimed to have discovered and even demonstrated that photons provide the vehicle for information transmission in living systems – “biophotonic” activity took place in specific cell tissues and organs within a patient’s body merely by concentrating one’s thoughts on that particular spot.

The Sceptic movement in its beginning was highly vociferous against such ‘science’ because it posed real problems for the profits of pharmaceutical companies. Sceptics have done everything they could to wreck such theories. The late French scientist, Jacques Benveniste was bitterly attacked when he discovered the invisible bio-messages travelling through water, because it enhanced the idea held by homeopaths that immeasurably small quantities of a substance could affect matter.

The idea of faith or even immeasurable (invisible) quantity may go a long way to beginning to explain the placebo effect (more plainly; mind over matter) and I have no doubt that it will be empirically measurable in time to come, however, it currently obtains as an effect that cannot be adequately measured or explained under the circumstances or with the equipment used in contemporary RCT’s.

Okay, so let’s accept for a moment that homeopathy is nothing more nor less than a placebo form of treatment - to accept this we have to forget about using homeopathic principles with children and animals. If we accept that as offered by the mainstream medical establishment as a dismissal of homeopathy, we see how truly disingenuous that argument appears to be. If the effects cannot be understood or adequately measured during the double blind studies, how can the medical professionals analysing these data, call for the results to be dismissed if there is even the possibility of a placebo effect or, as the homeopaths claim, the stimulation of the body’s self-healing mechanisms? They have no demonstrable way of measuring this unless we begin to introduce the complexity of Popp’s experimental methodology into the mix.

The concluding dig of the UKDOH report runs: “Our expectations of the evidence base relevant to government policies on the provision of homeopathy are straightforward. We would expect the Government to have a view on the efficacy of homeopathy so as to inform its policy on the NHS funding and provision of homeopathy. Such a view should be based on the best available evidence, that is, rigorous randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses and systematic reviews of RCTs. If the effects of homeopathy can be primarily attributed to the placebo effect, we would expect the Government to have a view on the ethics of prescribing placebos.”

Indeed and why not, with costs to consider one might have imagined that this was, in the absence of scientific ‘proof’ one of the first principles of policy?

It goes on: ‘Homeopathy is a 200 year old system of medicine that seeks to treat patients with highly diluted substances that are administered orally. Homeopathy is based on two principles: "like-cures-like" whereby a substance that causes a symptom is used in diluted form to treat the same symptom in illness and "ultra-dilution" whereby the more dilute a substance the more potent it is (this is aided by a specific method of shaking the solutions, termed "succussion"). It is claimed that homeopathy works by stimulating the body's self-healing mechanisms.’

My own experience of homeopathic remedies utilising these solutions (not to be confused with herbal or natural remedies) was one of distinct success when I sought them out to aid with seasonal allergy problems and viral conditions such as colds and flu. They appeared most efficacious, however, that could simply have been my belief in the remedies or even my own natural immune system kicking into gear or my focus on my personal restoration in the vogue of Fritz Albert Popp – through thought and intention. I don’t really know but the results were always more rapidly efficacious than the conventional meds my buddies were taking. Or at least that’s how it appeared to me.

The point is, one cannot rule out the importance of the symbolic and psychological factors on the outcome. They’re manifestly evident. To this end, we had forgotten the popular voice on these matters – had that is until the populist call in Switzerland circa 2005 and again in 2016 (intended to be reintroduced in 2017) demanded that homeopathic practitioners and medications be included in their national health care system and subsidised accordingly.

This simply reveals that there is a significant number of people who either know it works or at very least believe it does, which, if it’s merely a placebo dynamic, should surely be sufficient. In Switzerland, according to a recent article on the topic, “homeopathy, holistic medicine, herbal medicine, acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine will acquire the same status as conventional medicine by May 2017 when it comes to health insurance. 

“After being rejected in 2005 by the authorities for lack of scientific proof of their efficacy, complementary and alternative medicines made a comeback in 2009 when two-thirds of Swiss backed their inclusion on the constitutional list of paid health services.”

Let me reiterate that statement - two-thirds of the population backed the move. Unlikely that it was an initiative of a financial thrust alone – this is health management we’re talking about.

People have a voice and they are making it heard when it comes to health and wellness.
We cannot and must not lose sight of the significance of that collective popular lay voice.

Two of the largest consumer organisations on the planet – viz: McDonalds and Coca-Cola have been forced through public demand to offer healthier options to their consumers. It isn’t that they grew a conscience overnight – their businesses are still driven by profit – the crux is though, that the people spoke in sufficient numbers to make that demand viable on the balance sheet and more importantly, we started to make better choices about our health. We forced a change.

Another manner in which people lack the insight into their innate power is to apply the don’t-go approach. You want to make people change a pricing structure or a service offering? Then simply boycott that business. Collectively, if people did this, businesses would have no choice but to accede to these ‘demands’ or face financial ruin. We have that power. We don’t use it. We tend to make much more acquiescent choices in our daily lives.

That said; many are starting to make the same noises about vaccines and demand that they be made safer and that all information being suppressed regarding that safety should be made public so that ‘informed consent’, a fundamental democratic right, can be realised instead of the medical fascism that currently obtains in the US, UK and Australia to name but three modern democracies forcing unsafe vaccines on their populations against threat of financial punishment or even incarceration.

I’m not for one moment advocating that we suspend our faith in medical science or technology but I am saying – use your voice and demand that what we partake in and of, is designed to be safe and the best it can possibly be.

Medication is understandably crucial in aiding the correction of imbalances in the body but there is a growing consensus of people who posit that one’s health is more holistically maintained through proper balanced nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices, which more often than not is distinguished by a marked absence of prescription drugs.

At the very least, you should be able to make up your mind about what goes into your body regardless. Remember well - there are corporations out there relying on you not making that choice.

POLLEN MURRAY REPORTING FOR DUTY...

I spent the first forty five years of my life quite perfectly adapted to the environment in which I lived.
What happened to suddenly make me incompatible with the planet?
When did Gaia arbitrarily decide that I was no longer going to just breathe normally without being subjected to itching nostrils, sore eyes and the manifestation of Niagaran volumes of snot from a seemingly endless source - enough to glue wallpaper from here to Timbuktu?
What did I do wrong to be rejected so callously by my planetary mother?
It was like somebody flicked a switch. One day it was all hunky dory and the next I was a raving, mucous-riddled ratbag. No gradual easing into this bitch. No little exploratory pollen-induced sneezing sessions just to warm me up - nope - I just went full slant-eyed, double-barrelled snotgun.
And it was the same for Karen. Decades of harmonious existence with the plants of the world then one day - boom! Have some of this hay fever, bitch!
I mean, what the fuck!
The only thing I can come up with is that it's revenge, vigilantism on the part of the plants that I, as a vegan, am not consuming.
"Hey, that sonofabitch is dedicatedly eating our veggie brethren, it's time we fucking showed him that that kind of irresponsible behaviour comes at a price. Bottlebrush, give him a dose of your finest and then you slinky little grasses, hit him with the next salvo. Then, just when he's taking some form of medication to ward you off, we'll come up with a covert combination cocktail that their chemists haven't even heard of. Ready?"
Well here's the thing - I'm not going to say fuck you, Gaia nor am I going to cease and desist from my wanton consumption of plant matter by way of sustenance. If you are what you eat then I should be the most compatible planetary plantman going. Not so. Just have to keep trying...
Although admittedly, once the pollen pulverising ensues, I do kinda devolve to a semi-vegetative state so perhaps my transmogrification into the Swamp Thing is progressing as planned. 
And as if that wasn't the strangest part of it all, the plants conspire to occasionally release me from this torment while directing their assault on my wife and as soon as she emerges snot-free from a three-day bout of this, I plunge back into the pollen purgatory while she looks on agog.
It is spectacularly bizarre.
The season has, however, almost run its course this year and soon we will be the merry, skipping free-breathing kids we once were for another eight months or so before the cycle resumes...
Achoo.
Namaste, mothersuckers.

THE COLŁECTIVE CAT CON CONUNDRUM

This involves a cabal of cats, as many as seven (in our case) or more. 

The conspiracy commences over food, despite their usual disparate hierarchal infighting.  

On this topic they all agree. Nothing that their humans provide for them, unless it's hand delivered coconut oil or cheese, is good enough. And even then, some will balk at the delivery method of coconut oil on the hand, preferring to lick it off the spoon simply to ensure the humans have another washing up item with which to contend. 

The staff must earn their right to serve cats. 

One of the seven likes only the cheapie pellets and nothing else, another likes these mixed with a better product but only if served in her bowl - no other bowl will do despite impending starvation when that bowl is empty (read: containing pellets but bare in the middle section - cat empty). 

Yet two others will sit and stare longingly at the backs of the feeding cats wondering why the humans have chosen to feed only them and not us...until one of the humans scoops them up and deposits them in front of their regular unattended bowls just beyond the feeding cats where they've eaten for the last two years...

One snoozes contentedly on the humans' bed knowing he can eat at his leisure once the rabble have completed their stupid daily ritual. He's the leader. Even if the rest of the mob don't know that yet. He doesn't have to demean himself by showing a need for these human handouts. He will wait. 

And once it's all over and at least one of them has vomited (not on a wipeable tiled surface or outdoors - it must be on a carpet or rug - staff must earn their keep), the mob will engage in a range of activity that mostly involves - well - sleeping. Eating and puking is tiring work, don't you know. 

Once settled and the humans have embarked upon their own daily routine, any staff member alighting from a chair naturally signals a return of at least two or three expectant souls to the kitchen area just in case the staff have decided to replenish the (cat) empty (see above) bowls with new, decent food worthy of feline consideration. 

Collective coaxing and cajoling may produce handouts from the shiny cold box or not but the demands must be relentless and varied. 

Any other form of human movement, regardless of its non-feline intent, must be regarded as a potential feeding opportunity and the designated spokescat must meowl appropriately on behalf of the group. 

Worst case scenario, the staff will repeat the ritual at around five o'clock whereupon the idiosyncratic pantomime shall reprise. 

And that's why we love cats. 

THE TAO OF SOCKS....

My sister, Norma, dearly beloved - recently a very welcome visitor to our humble abode here in Antipodian Adelaide, will understand this comprehensively.
In fact, we spoke about it while she was here.
Socks - the singularity of those little foot wrappers and their necessary partnerships with like-fashioned companions - especially during the laundering process - is a topic upon which my big sister and I wholeheartedly agree. They cannot be separated during this process - it is a crime against some cosmic code or something and it jangles the sensibilities of the chronic process control freak who wants to see a beautifully ordered clothesline with socks pegged up in pairs, wafting in the tepid breezes of these fair climes.
Anything else simply breaks down that immutable cosmic order.
It must do, surely?
Socks should not be washed apart from their "sole" mates - that's wrong, that's just plain wrong...
My wife, through disbelieving eyes, sighs as I dump the single socks she's just washed back into the washing machine....
"But they'll be paired up when we do a third load," says she, quite calmly and unarguably logically.
Equally logically I counter, "There isn't space on the line for a third load, babe. That means two options face us - you (I'm not wrestling with the portable clothes line) will have to do the third load and hang the stuff on that infernal contraption or we simply leave the lonely single socks in the washing machine to be reunited with their partners when the current laundry is removed from the sensible outside, no-fuss clothesline. I admit that the socks currently reposing in the machine will undergo a further washing cycle thereby rendering them arguably cleaner than their temporarily displaced companions but that is infinitely better (to me) than having single socks drying in isolation and deposited somewhere (there is no feasible holding zone for them) before being reunited with their sole mates prior to rolling and placement within their designated drawer space - white sports pairs - top drawer, day-to-day lightweight working socks one drawer down and heavier winter socks on the top shelf of the closet adjacent to my tracksuit pants...."
I mean that's all perfectly sensible and normal isn't it?
My wife's eyes had glazed over at this stage and a slightly twisted, beatific smile creased her lovely features.
I could see that not only was she grappling with the prospect of tangling with the portable clothesline (only to be used in the direst of circumstances), she was contemplating whether or not she would ever understand the foibles of my domestic mind.
She said, "Okay."
That was that.
And thus these lonely, frightened, wet, cold single units repose at the bottom of the washing machine drum like inmates in a sterile prison chamber and this fills me no undue distress but less, I admit, than the prospect of dealing with washed and dried single socks reposing somewhere in limbo, unwearable and desolate, craving to be reunited with their rightful companions.
Is it just Norma and me or is there some form of feng-shui taoist sock code at play here that affects everyone other than my wonderful wife?
I'll wager she is alone in her disdain for forced sock separation through the laundering process.
I think I'll check in on the little guys when I make the tea just now. I'm not obsessing, you understand, but I do need to know if they're still okay...

HILLARY CLINTON - THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

On being told that Hillary Clinton is a good choice for the US presidency and that I know so little about her...

It's a truly sad state of affairs when Americans are faced with a choice between Clinton or Trump and are blind to the fact that they do have other choices, not that the media ever talks about that.

Sharyl Attkisson, for example, a real journalist - not one of the corporate-owned media drones - has written some very insightful, factual, exposés on Clinton (among many other topics) and if anyone believes for a moment that Clinton isn't a sociopathic narcissist then I'm afraid her lobbyists (including most of the mainstream press) are right - we probably exist in very different realities.

Clinton's track record (sic) as secretary of state alone should give any rational person pause but there is so much more.

I have indeed looked at the background and the legacy of HRC (both mainstream and more honest) and the glib premise whereby people are lauding her against an unarguable buffoon like Trump as a yardstick and promoting her cause as potentially "the first female president" as if those are somehow legitimate credentials to enter the Oval Office, are facile and without any substance whatsoever.

It's like saying we should vote for the paedophile babysitter instead of the child serial-killer because at least then the kids will still be alive...

Not - fuck this, let's find a babysitter we know we can trust.

Is she a cunning, savvy, effective, manipulative, assured politician? Without question.

But is she a rational, even-handed, broadminded, honest, ethical and visionary leader?

Not even close.

She, like that teflon-coated tapdancer in South Africa going by the name of Zuma, manages to wriggle and squirm and stay one step ahead of prosecution, nefarious and unarguable criminality notwithstanding.

She's the worst thing imaginable that could happen to the US or the world right now.

And, no, I'm not a Trump supporter either.

There are other, better choices but the mainstream media has convinced Americans that there aren't.

Still, given the fact that they elected (albeit illegally on at least one occasion, it must be said) someone like GW Bush for consecutive terms, speaks volumes about the American ethos and in that sense, if they aren't looking harder and further than hyperbole and campaign circus rhetoric, I guess they and sadly - we - get what they deserve.

And to think that not being American disavows the rest of the world from having an opinion on this topic, I'd counter by saying simply that this is probably the election that prompted more global citizens to start looking into the background of US politics than any other. Why? It affects us all - profoundly.

Only time will tell.

If ever there was an instance when I'd love to be wrong - this is it.

I'm not holding my breath...

Dear, US of A

An open letter

The United States of America 

Any zip code 

Dear (North) Americans 

Although we may not always like the way you go about things, we cannot but acknowledge the principal role you play within the strategic global hierarchy. To pretend it's otherwise would be utterly nonsensical. 

Ergo: you wield enormous political and cultural power and you've produced some darn fine people, innovations and other neat stuff that influence cultures everywhere. 

We might not agree with your strange spelling and pronunciation but that's small potatoes in the scheme of the world AND you gave us this little old thing called the Internet and what's not to like about that doozie? 

So please tell us why in the "land of the free" you haven't seemed to realise that the corporate mercenaries who sponsor your major politicians also sponsor (read: own) the media which is why they persist in telling you that the two newsgrabbing clowns aka Clinton and Trump are the only choices you've got. 

They're not. 

And you should be mightily glad about that. 

YOU DON'T HAVE TO VOTE FOR EITHER OF THEM! 

Really. 

There's Johnson, Weld, Stein and other independent politicians who aren't psychotic, sociopathic megalomaniacs hellbent on a path of totalitarian insanity that's going to be bad for us all, campaign rhetoric (read: bullshit) notwithstanding. 

There are options. There really are. 

Stop reading the Washington Post and the other sycophantic media outlets that want you to believe this is all you've got. 

It's not. 

You've got the power. 

Use it. 

Please. 

Because frankly, we like you - a lot actually - but you're scaring the shit out of us... 

Sincerely 

A lot of us in the west

DECOLONISE THE WORLD - NOT A TERRIBLE IDEA - JUST BEING PRESENTED BADLY?

The current decolonisation of westernised ideology that's doing the rounds in South Africa and which is being ridiculed brutally (oftentimes understandably given the idiotic ranting that we see on social media and newswires) - is it such a radical and stupid concept in reality?
We must presuppose that the world in which we live is on the pinnacle of success and balance as driven by westernised culture and if that were the case then all well and good - no argument.
But it isn't. It's anything but and I can't believe there's anyone among us that would assert we've created a workable model across the board.
It's broken.
The decolonise concept is, for me at least, actually quite simple but is being perverted fad-like by those who seek to use this mantle for other agendas and/or those who misrepresent the ideology through ignorance.
The problems that westernised thinking and culture have manifested (and we must admit there are plenty especially through its colonisation model of "civilisation") have resulted in a polarised world that's poised on the brink of self destruction if we aren't very careful.
It's also pretty much been a my way or the highway state of governance and indoctrination that's been imposed from the get go.
I think any rationally minded person would admit that we currently exist in an unsustainable world model that's run by people we both distrust and despise within governments that feel exclusive and dictatorial regardless of this illusory concept of democracy which has been failing for a very long time.
It's paradoxically exploitative and perhaps that's being realised fundamentally by black people even though the present government claims to represent them despite being within this westernised construct.
The problem with all of these worldview models is that they tend to be exclusive and comparative and dismissive of any thinking or modality that doesn't fit the prescribed worldview. And they all rely on the premise that the majority are right and dissenters are fools, however, history repeatedly shows us that the Mavericks change the world not the majority despite the freethinkers being subjected to mass peer ridicule so much of the time.
Materialist science is a great example of this - it shapes everything in our current reality as it's the accepted norm even when much of this thinking is based on ideas and "laws" that emanated from the 16th and 17th centuries and aren't questioned especially by scientists when much of that thinking is merely a perpetuation of dogma and doesn't stand up to any real form of scientific scrutiny. The establishment is unyielding and the dogma is enforced almost militantly.
Check out Rupert Sheldrake's work in this regard - a scientist who continues to question everything.
I'm all for a return to traditional ways and values that engenders inclusivity and an unbiased evaluation of the plethora of cultures that make up the whole. The sum may be greater than the parts but every part is vital to the whole.
That isn't what the contemporary or legacy driven westernised worldview has created or perpetuates.
I agree. It needs to change but not to supplant one set of imposed dogmas for another.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT...

People (my generation and older) like to post memes about how hardy we were, didn't know about ADHD, autism, childhood allergies and how we played outside in the sunshine until all hours, messing about in dirt, soil, grass, water - you name it - and (pretty much) everyone was the better for it.
I remember those days fondly.
It's not just that we were stronger kids, it's more complicated than that. We weren't subjected to the barrage of toxic chemicals that now assail the current generation. We still bought organically farmed produce and the supermarkets stocked that stuff. It's all there was - thank goodness.
Chemical and factory farming was unheard of.
And we got maybe a handful of vaccines....no, this isn't a vaccine rant - nothing like that.
What changed to give our current crop of kids an autism rate that went from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 50 in the space of 35 years?
If anyone isn't disturbed by that, then they seem to miss the gravity of the exponential nature of that increase. If that were any other disease or condition, the world would call it what it undeniably is - a pandemic. Autism - meh - that shit just happens - bad luck - move on. That's the approach, I kid you not.
Astonishing. 
Two things become abundantly clear: first, the money the medical establishment is ploughing into autism research is going almost exclusively into genetics and by dint of the timing we've seen, this isn't a genetic or hereditary condition and if it were, genetic predisposition to a condition does not lead to epidemics. The numbers simply cannot do that in plain mathematical and statistical reality. It isn't a genetic problem.
Second: the suggestion that the diagnostical methodology has improved thereby identifying a lot more cases of people/kids on the AD spectrum also doesn't stack up in any way - it falls apart quite emphatically in fact when we suggest that the medical establishment has failed over a period of two decades to identify neurological developmental problems within the population to this degree that this would surely render the entire industry incompetent at best and downright dangerous and untrustworthy at worst.
Something this prevalent could not have slipped under the radar.
And it didn't. The fact is simply that the prevalence of the condition continued to grow - exponentially. 
Then there are the plethora of ailments that plague kids today - allergies, infections, digestive disorders even cancers, which are much more common in the young than ever before - the list goes on - things that we really hardly, if ever, saw when we were kids.
I'm no scientist or medical expert but I was always taught to follow my gut, rely on my instincts and apply my commonsense to life experiences and I've always done just that. A bit of research doesn't hurt either but there's always a little nagging needle when you know something isn't quite right. 
And something isn't right with our society, our system of food production and delivery and it certainly isn't right within our medical establishment when the very thing that's been fundamental in bringing this species to the point we're now at - i.e. maternal instincts - is ignored completely when a mother presents her thoughts to a doctor about her child. A mother knows when her child is well and she certainly knows when something is wrong. I challenge anyone to say otherwise. There are certainly exceptions but the motherly bond and instinct is a fundamental force of nature and nine times out of ten, mothers are usually right when it comes to their kids.
In the case of anecdotal evidence when something happens to transform a normally developing healthy child into a completely different and dysfunctional human being within the space of (sometimes) hours, days, weeks or even months - it's a good bet that the mother will be able to pinpoint what caused that change. But not apparently when it comes to autism and certainly not when they might suggest vaccines as a cause, even when the manufacturers themselves admit that this is a possible adverse reaction. Nope, again - not an anti-vaccine rant.
So if autism and all these other conditions aren't the result of genetics or superior diagnostical techniques, what causes them?
Why are there so many sick kids today? And there are more than ever before. We are the most medicated generation to have ever existed and although we have technology to prolong life, we should not be as sick as we are.
Stephanie Seneff, a professor of some renown at MIT, with hundreds of peer-reviewed published papers to her name has a very novel and, when you listen to her for half an hour or so, compelling case for causation that fits the current ailing society profile very snugly. (find her here: Stephanie Seneff home page) 
We are slowly but systematically being poisoned. Not in some grand eugenics conspiracy enacted by extraterrestrial shapeshifting reptilians but in the name of profit and monopoly.
If anyone hasn't noticed (and if you haven't, you're already in a coma, buddy) governments domestic and foreign are quite unashamedly implementing policies that seek to own us genetically and whether or not you think vaccination is a good thing (not the point of the discussion), mandatory vaccine programmes certainly play into that agenda. Informed consent and democratic choice over our own and our children's bodies is being handed to the state to do with as they see fit. That is a very unhealthy precedent to set and has potentially even more onerous consequences especially when it's being implemented through the machinations of playing on our fear.
In the US, viruses, diseases and unique human genetic sequences are patentable and many of them are already owned by pharmaceutical corporations. While it seems like a good thing that cannabis is being slowly decriminalised, the drug companies are synthesising the active cannabinoids that do the good work and you can bet your bottom dollar that the medical components of the plant will remain illegal and the public will be forced to purchase lab-synthesised medicinal cannabis from the industry at prohibitively expensive prices. In fact, it's already underway.
Taking a step back - we have to (if you're a true born cynic) admire the business model that's in play here. Not just from the cannabis perspective, which is unarguably an effective panacea for chronic conditions ranging from epilepsy to cancer - whether anecdotal or not, people have reported miraculous results all over the world. Correlation may not be causation as many a skeptic likes to spout, except of course when it is.
I'm talking about the business model that ensures a profit in every link of the circular chain we serve in modern society.
Seneff has conducted intensive research over the last 25 years into the pervasive chemical glyphosate which is the active ingredient in Monsanto's so-called herbicide, RoundUp. It's so much more than a herbicide. And it is everywhere. Especially in America. But it's commercially available over the counter in every country I know at any local hardware store and we're told it's harmless to humans.
It's anything but.
I'm not about to even attempt to explain what Seneff posits (google her - it's all there) but her studies have shown that this poison not only seriously damages the biology of the soil and the plants on which it's sprayed, it actually permeates the tissue of the plants and they cannot be cleansed of the toxin. When fruit, veg, grains (especially GMO ones) are harvested the glyphosate is liberally sprayed onto the grains again, this time as a desiccant to accelerate the drying process and the stuff is sent on for food production or delivery. The Round Up "ready" grains are also fed to livestock and they ingest the glyphosate which permeates the tissue (meat), the milk - everything. The livestock manure which is used to fertilise the land, is filled with the stuff and thus it gets mixed back into the soil, it pollutes the water - there is literally no escape from it and it's maintained in a horrible, toxic cycle even down to the rainwater - it's in that too.
Sadly, it has the same effect on the human biology as it does on the plant biology - it inhibits certain natural biological processes, bonds with metals, creates chronic deficiencies and through Seneff's analysis she concludes that it is so pervasive and biologically damaging that its effects could certainly be linked to heart disease, autism, Alzheimers, Parkinsons, cancer, obesity and a range of other (now) common diseases that are impacting our population - especially children. The evidence is compelling.
And with our ongoing exposure to it through processed and non organic foods, we just keep upping the dosage on a daily basis. The human body cannot rid itself of the glyphosate and when it crosses the brain-blood barrier, that's when the neurological damage begins.
Now the fact that so many vaccines are cultured using animal tissue such as bovine gelatine (fact) Seneff proposes that glyphosate contaminated tissue is often used to do this and, in fact, many vaccine samples they harvested, tested positive for glyphosate contamination.
Now when an industry is telling you it's safe, they don't see an issue with someone pointing out that their vaccine has the chemical in it but they base their safety findings on studies that show exposure to glyphosate for 3 months only. No statistically relevant damage occurred within that time - ergo, it's good to go.
But here's the thing - independent research that protracts that time and analyses results on rats exposed to glyphosate for longer than 90 days, found conclusively and repeatedly that tumours began to form in the fourth month and got progressively worse thereafter - particularly in the reproductive organs. 
Great when you can write the rule book on these issues though - no problem.
So in a nutshell, when in the late 70's early 80's we began chemical farming, the increase in all of these conditions began to rise in that hockey-stick exponential graph that dovetails so neatly with that great technological chemical farming phenomenon and more specifically the use of Round Up/glyphosate in our food chain.
Don't listen to me - do your own research - it will scare the bejesus out of you I can assure you.
And it's in the vaccines too, none of which are subjected to proper drug safety trials.
But everything is perfectly safe - the government and the drugmakers say so - so why worry? 
I noticed when I came to Australia how I began to have digestive issues which is one of the reasons I moved from a vegetarian to a vegan diet and I've just made the transition to a purely organic vegan diet and am feeling the benefits already.
It's the only way to avoid this shit until the world wakes up and bans this insidious toxin completely as should undoubtedly happen. 
And for the world to wake up - WE need to wake up and talk about this instead of imagining that it's someone else's problem and simply walking away.
For the record, research has also shown empirically that a change to a fully organic diet (doesn't have to be vegan) in kids that have autism (they also present with serious gastrointestinal disorders) has a profound effect not only on the gut issues but on the neurological symptoms and behaviour too and if this condition is indeed shown to be environmental as I too believe it to be, then it's not only something that can be managed, it can potentially be cured.
Literally - food for thought.

TO WAKEFIELD OR NOT TO WAKEFIELD...

Debating any controversial issue on social media is as futile as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest. 
What's most interesting, however, is that both sides, as in the vaccine debate (yep, that old chestnut) claim to be upholding the science while accusing the other side of fraud or pseudoscience or plain distortion. Neither side can prove it either way and it usually devolves into ad-hominem slagging matches. Interesting as a sideshow but absolutely pointless in the scheme of the matter. 
I'm no scientist - not even close - but there's a much simpler perspective here. The money. Follow the money. 
Fundamentally, however - the premise for the debate is usually spurious:
In the first instance, the pro-vaccine lobby make the quantum and erroneous step of assuming that anyone with whom they're debating is anti-vaccine. In many, many instances that simply isn't the case. So the argument for the baseline science surrounding vaccine efficacy is immediately binned. In most cases, it's out of our purview in any event.
Moving on. 
I've seen too, with critics of the documentary, VAXXED, many make the same "anti-vaccine propaganda" claim about the film indicating quite emphatically that they cannot have seen it as the film is neither anti-vaccine nor about debunking the efficacy of vaccines. The topic isn't ever part of the discussion. Watch it. You'll agree. It's impossible not to. It's not there.
But the truth is - they don't want you to watch it and it's been labeled a fraudulent misleading film as it's been put together by a fraud anyway, someone who was struck off the British medical register for a) publishing a fraudulent scientific study and b) misleadingly stating there was a causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism, therefore the film has no legitimacy. 
The subject of those allegations is Dr Andrew Wakefield. 
Yes, it is true that he lost his medical licence in Britain and it is true that he published a paper in Lancet for peer review in 1998, which was subsequently withdrawn by that journal, although given the ultimate outcome of that issue, it should by rights be reinstated as its contents and conclusions still stand. (find the paper here)
But what the Wakefield critics don't tell you is that a) the study was coauthored by 12 other scientists and b) the paper made no such conclusion whatsoever between MMR and autism. 
The paper was a study involving a group of children who had presented with gastric complications, the parents of whom had approached Wakefield (the top gastroenterologist in the UK at the time) and his research team to try and assist them with their children's condition, which is exactly what they did. During this investigation 8 of the 12 parents revealed that these symptoms, along with the so-called autistic regression had started coincidentally with the administering of the MMR vaccine and what the scientists discovered was that when they treated the bowel disorders, the neurological and behavioural aberrations were similarly ameliorated. Ergo there seemed to be a link between the gastrointestinal disorder and the neurological symptoms as shown by repeated testing which produced replicable results. This was unarguable. They thus concluded that there should be further study into the MMR vaccine as the claims of the parents had seemingly turned out to be valid. 
It was also later recommended by Wakefield that instead of continuing the combined vaccine protocol, the GMC should perhaps revert to the single shot mumps, measles and rubella vaccines until conclusive studies had been undertaken on the combined MMR vaccine. 
Where in any of that does it show that Wakefied was making a causal link? It was simply never stated - ever. In fact, Wakefield was advocating vaccine alternatives - he was pro-vaccine but pro SAFE vaccines. 
But here's the kicker. Merck, who owned the exclusive licence (and obviously the British monopoly) for the MMR vaccine brooked no debate about withdrawing it for further study and the GMC backed this decision, in fact they actually went as far as to remove the single shot vaccine option altogether which had, up until the time of the Wakefield study, been available. Once this had been published, the single shot vaccines were no longer commercially available in the national vaccine programme. 
Coincidence? Perhaps. But unlikely. 
Moreover, the two other doctors who were accused of fraud and misrepresentation and who lost their licences along with Wakefield, were exonerated in an appeal wherein the judge ruled that they'd been treated outrageously by the GMC. The balance withdrew their names from the paper under industry pressure.
Wakefield had, as the research principal, no such luck and was being pursued by the GMC and the mainstream media on various other fronts at the time. He wouldn't back down and pursued the study in spite of the GMC and pharma industry pressure. He went from being the top gastroenterologist in the country with over 140 scientific papers published, leading a team of 19 researchers at the Royal Free Hospital in London to becoming an unscrupulous liar with no credibility. Overnight. Yeah, okay then. Sounds legit. 
One of the paper's co-authors, who stood accused of the same misconduct as Wakefield, John Walker-Smith won his appeal (here) some 14 years later against the United Kingdom’s General Medical Council regulatory board that had ruled against both him and Andrew Wakefield for their roles in the 1998 Lancet MMR paper. The victory meant that Walker-Smith had been returned to the status of a fully licensed physician in the UK, although he had already retired in 2001 — six years before the GMC trial had even begun.
Justice John Mitting, in Case No: CO/7039/2010 in the Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, ruled on the appeal by Walker-Smith, saying that the GMC “panel’s determination cannot stand. I therefore quash it.” He said that its conclusions were based on “inadequate and superficial reasoning and, in a number of instances, a wrong conclusion.” 
The verdict restored Walker-Smith’s name to the medical register and his reputation to the medical community. This conclusion was unsurprising as the GMC trial had no actual complainants in the first place and more important - no harm came to the children who were studied, and the parents of the children, to a person, had supported Walker-Smith and Wakefield through the trial, reporting that their children had medically benefited from the treatment they received at the Royal Free Hospital. It was the GMC who had thrown the doctors to the wolves.
Another key fact that is never mentioned in the character assassination of Wakefield is that while John Walker-Smith received funding to appeal the GMC decision from his insurance carrier, Andrew Wakefield did not (one can only imagine the magnitude of the costs) — and was therefore unable to mount an appeal in the high court. In 2012 however, Wakefield, who had by then conducted his research in the US, filed a defamation lawsuit against Brian Deer, Fiona Godlee and the British Medical Journal for falsely accusing him of “fraud.” The suit, case number D-1-GN-12-000003, is still currently underway in District Court in Travis County, Texas, where Wakefield now lives. The ruling fully exonerated Walker-Smith and is of enormous significance for Wakefield’s suit against Brian Deer, the reporter on whose reporting the entire GMC hearing was based.

Years after the Lancet debacle - in 2004/2005, one of the top scientists at the CDC, William Thompson (through an intermediary, Brian Hooker) contacted Wakefield to confirm the causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism and that is the story that's told in the film, VAXXED, William Thompson's, not Andrew Wakefield's. But it would seem Dr Wakefield continues to be vindicated as time rolls on. 

Follow the money.

And it's a story that everyone should hear and see, free from the media and populist propaganda that's doing the rounds. It's not about Andrew Wakefield at all and if we are to review the facts of the man's discrediting, given the ruling of Justice Mitting in Walker-Smith's case, Wakefield should not have been blacklisted at all - his credentials and goodstanding should be restored alongside his colleague's.
Despite all of this, Wakefield refused to be cowed and just kept on keeping on.   
When people stand against the system, a very twisted system while being subjected to the most insidious attacks from every quarter, attacks filled with distortions of the facts to try and discredit the whistleblower, I'm more inclined than ever to listen to those the establishment would attempt to silence. In Wakefield's case - there was no issue of whistleblowing - it was a straightforward study subject to no wrongdoing that had been sanctioned both by the GMC and the parents of the affected children themselves and in the long run - it benefited the children substantially. The only threat this paper ever posed was the suggestion in its content that the parents had made the connection between the MMR and the gastrointestinal morbidity that ensued hence their approach to Wakefield et-al. Not all the parents made that claim, however - this too is reported in the document. But nobody is talking about that...hmmmm...
In my humble opinion, Wakefield  should be in line for a Nobel humanitarian award - instead he's reviled and the medical industry want you to think that he's a fraud. 
He's anything but. 
He's as genuine as they come. 
Do the real research - not the google "Andrew Wakefield fraud" research but that will dredge up everything the mainstream has thrown at him if that's what you crave to see. Yet he's still standing. Taller than ever.
So to wander across this web of distortion to divert attention from the crux of this matter is absolutely nonsensical but it seems to work for those who don't want to face the horror of this situation.
Just like Andrew Wakefield, I am pro-vaccine too - yes indeed. So let's not debate that.
That isn't what this is about despite the best efforts of the pharmaceutical industry and the pro-vaccine lobbyists to try desperately to make it so. It simply isn't. It never was. 
And it's not about the science either. It's about the money.
What is at issue here is that the establishment would have us believe Andrew Wakefield, the guy who put his patients' welfare first (upholding the Hippocratic Oath while his colleagues folded from career pressure all around him) suddenly became a scoundrel overnight and did all of this to try and promote his own vaccine in favour of the MMR, another fabricated fiction to smear the man's name. This is the guy who was advocating the single shot vaccine alternative that had never produced any of the harmful adverse (wow, what a euphemism that is) reactions that had coincidentally albeit anecdotally occurred following the MMR shot. 8 out of 12 may be "coincidental", "anecdotal" and "correlated" to the MMR shot and the scientists will love to tell you that "correlation is not causation" but when coincidence puts the "correlation" rate at approaching 70% and this begins to happen "anecdotally" all over the world where there are all these thousands of anecdotally damaged (let's not call them autistic even though they are) kids who regressed that way following an MMR vaccine then it is not up for debate between you or me or anyone else - it is the JOB of the medical fraternity to investigate that anecdotal correlation and rule it out entirely. But that (despite what spin my have come your way) has not been done.
In fact, in the fifteen years that the CDC was testing vaccines, one of their top scientists (another who apparently went from being super-competent to notoriously unreliable overnight, the  label applied to all whistleblowers while their detractors build a cover story) actually confirmed that these MMR vaccines were harming specific groups of children at an unprecedented rate. When the data was confirmed, the CDC didn't come clean about this revelation, they sought to bury it, falsify the damning records and destroy others so that the vaccine programme could continue unimpeded.
Come on, folks - forget the science - follow the money.
All the way back to the manufacturers who have no liability in this gig. 
They are legally exempt from any liability by dint of legislation they lobbied to have sanctioned in the 1980's, at which time the Vaccine Injury Compensation Act was passed - funded by the US taxpayer and at which no pharmaceutical drug manufacturer need be present as vaccines are not drugs - they were reclassified as "biological agents" at the industry's behest thereby exonerating the manufacturers even further - they no longer even have to put them through double blind clinical trials to prove their safety never mind their efficacy...
Can one see a pattern beginning to emerge here yet?
To date the Vaccine Injury Compensation fund has paid in excess of $3 billion in compensation to vaccine damaged people, mostly kids.   
There is no ambiguity here. The fund would not pay out if the injury had not been the result of a vaccine. Ergo: vaccines can and do inflict harm on those they're designed to protect, much more frequently than the medical establishment and your government would have you believe.
So the only fiction that one might conclude from this is that of the bold throwaway statement that vaccines do not cause autism or even injure people.
They do - guilty on both counts. 
The less than "anecdotal" payouts confirm this...
And as someone said recently - imagine your kids are at school and there are 50 of them in the class each having been given an apple. Now it's known that there is a poisoned apple in that batch. The poisoned apple is going to permanently damage the child who gets it - maybe even kill them but the kids are forced to eat their apple anyway.
The state says so and you as parents have no choice in the matter.
And that is the Mandatory Vaccine Programme in a nutshell.
I'm all for giving the kids the apples - sure. But not apples mixed with all sorts of other stuff that don't belong in apples in the first place. Clean apples, pure apples, and apples of my choice for my kids.
And if I don't want them to have an apple - that too should be my choice.
If the vaccines work as claimed, any unvaccinated child poses absolutely zero threat to anyone else.
Handing your child's body over to a state organ that's owned by the pharmaceutical industry  that has colluded and lied to us all about their products and the harm they might pose - they are the ones who should be vilified and scrutinised and brought to book - not the parents of the victims of their poisonous concoctions and certainly not Andrew Wakefield who has repeatedly proved to have the welfare of his patients at heart despite the onslaught he's undergone.
Support forced vaccinations at your peril. 
And it won't stop with children. 
That is already on the cards. They are lobbying for seniors to be compulsorily vaccinated - yet another vulnerable group. 
The money - follow the money. Forget the science. We can't argue the science.
Follow the money. 
It's going one way and one way alone.
And we may be going right along with it.
Democracy is about the choice of the people not the choice of the state being forced on the people.
Watch VAXXED - it will be here soon. (info here)

FAREWELL

I've held beloved pets in my hands at times where I've been instrumental in the decision to end their lives as humanely as is possible. 
We might all have done that.
We can relate to that despair, that anguish, that grief.
And though we might know it is the best decision for the animal who's been loved and is perhaps ready to move on, it's the hardest thing in the world to experience that moment when they are simply no longer there - they have slipped away. We know it's the right thing to do yet we are racked with guilt and profound sorrow, understandably so. 
As I write this, I recall one those moments when we made such a decision and I was alone in the vet's surgery cradling the soft, furry bundle that was my Puggle cat - here then gone in an instant - and how the young veterinary understudy stayed far from that room as I sobbed my heart out at this separation. It was a visceral weeping from deep within.
I remained there for a long time. I was heartbroken. I miss her still. 
I miss all of my departed companions. 
You all get that, I'm sure.
Yet today I experienced something that was perhaps even more profoundly sad - another parting - a final goodbye.
But it was the other way round.
A dear, dear friend was readying to depart for the airport on a journey to her homeland where reunions could be held with family prior to her passage beyond this mortal realm. It was time. She was ready.
We were not. I was not. The selfishness of the helpless friend who feels cheated by this thing called death when it seeks to embrace those we would have remain a little longer. 
I sat with her and we talked. I cried. I tried not to cry, which is simply silly under the circumstances. And we laughed and we remembered and we shared.
She gave me a task too.
I was sanctioned to assist in the rehoming of her rescued dog, a beautiful greyhound with whom I'd bonded quite closely and who I'd take in a heartbeat if it wasn't for the circumstances of seven cats and a small enclosure that just wouldn't work in any way at all. Admirably, however, the greyhound rescue organisation insists on these dogs being returned to them if foster parents can't keep them for any reason and this, sadly, is one of the most valid reasons there can be...
I pledged to visit Ellie (Needlenose to me, Needle for short) and take her for walks as often as I could. I would follow her progress until she had been safely rehomed. I held my friend's hand as I made this promise and we both cried a bit in that moment.
The pact was made.
A short while later, just before departing for the airport, Ellie came over and rested her long, slender snout gently on my friend's lap and gazed up at her with those dark, baleful eyes. 
She knew. She had been told. 
She understood. 
And I swear she went over to say goodbye...
There was an exchange between them, a most touching exchange. It overwhelmed me.
I have held animals and I have said goodbye to them from the depths of my soul but I have never seen an animal behave the way Ellie did this morning.
I had to leave the room to ventilate my sorrow such was the emotional depth of the parting.
I have a duty to perform.
I will miss my friend. 
Profoundly.
I will make sure I don't miss Needle.
But I'm sure I will cry when I see her again... 
I am bereft. 
Farewell.