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licence in Britain and it is true that he published a paper in Lancet for peer review in 1998, which was subsequently withdrawn by that journal, although given the ultimate outcome of that issue, it should by rights be reinstated as its contents and conclusions still stand.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.

THE ROBBER'S STORY...

PROLOGUE
I've been told I'm not a nice guy. That's probably true. The fact that I don't care would seem to reinforce the evaluation.
It's not that I go out of my way to hurt people - not in the physical sense anyway - but I steal from them so that does kinda hurt I guess. But where's the harm when the victims can afford it and the stuff is just sitting there looking pretty?
My dad always used to say people would find ways to justify anything they did and the more they did it, the more they would justify it. I'd love to say that was a load of bollocks because my old man was a drunken dickhead but fact is - I can't because it's true.
From politics to religion to wife-bashing, the perpetrators all have arguments to support their case. Mostly anyway.
Me, I'm no different. Instead of languishing in squalor, living off state handouts and drinking myself into oblivion every day, I feed off the private sector like a ramora on the underbelly of a lazy shark.
Maybe you think that's a bad analogy. I mean there's supposed to be a symbiosis in those kinds of relationships but if you offer me some latitude here, I do provide a service. While I might not be freeing the mink and manure sharks of parasites, I am liberating them in another sense - and I don't just mean by purloining unnecessary assets - I am unburdening them from onerous attachment.
Yeah, I know. Sounds like bullshit and probably is but when you see how these sparkling-eyed socialites get hooked on material trinkets, it really shifts their focus from the more profound aspects of existence such as their emotional and spiritual needs. They're so wrapped up in the outer image that their inner selves are starving. It's a nauseating circus of nips, tucks, sports cars, lavish houses, designer labels, over-refined foods that are cooked by underpaid servants and expansive, unvisited gardens that could provide accommodation to thousands of underprivileged souls across the country.
And it's not just sour grapes either. They've got it so I wanna take it away. No. The backlash from disgruntled men who've cultivated a hatred for all things opulent and blame it on the previous regime, has resulted in mindless rape and murder whereas I rob the rich and it takes them until the next time they check the safe before they find out. I don't need to unload y'see. Even though the old man wallowed in a morass of loathing and self-pity for most of his life, my mom gave me a solid upbringing with a balanced set of values. Values, that is, that conform to a middle class, middle of the road, don't challenge the system kind of mindset.
I watched and I learned and ultimately I chose.
Not a career in medicine, nor in law (not in the conventional sense that is), nor in construction or in engineering (although I was adept in many of those areas) - I chose a career in property: other people's. And I acquired it through unlawful albeit creative, innovative methodology.
I was a thief. A damn good one. Or had been until now.
Let me tell you how I got here.
Where?
Standing over a corpse in a darkened bedroom - someone else's bedroom - with all escape routes cut off. I didn't do murder. I hadn't done murder. But looking at it from anyone else's perspective I would have nicked myself under these circumstances.
Fuck! This wasn't good.

(Would you want to read more of this story?)

THE SILENT WAR ON HEMP

This has been going on since the 1930's, folks and it's got nothing to do with the dangers of narcotics, despite the US maintaining its positively draconian stance on marijuana and listing it as a schedule 1 drug. That's in the same category as heroin and cocaine, for example.
Now, I'm no stoner - might have been once way back when - but any semi-educated person knows empirically that cannabis isn't in any way a schedule 1 narcotic - not even schedule 2 in my book but that too isn't the point.
Whenever anyone wonders about a controversial subject and why it has become controversial there's usually one simple answer - follow the money. 
And the marijuana/cannabis legacy is no different. In fact, it's probably one of the most extreme examples of how a wonderfully beneficial product with a myriad uses has been vilified by those groups it threatened.
At one time most American rope, textile and paper was manufactured from industrial hemp, the basic cannabis-sativa strain with a marginal THC content. There were manifold reasons this substance was so popular, not least of which are the following:


* it produces a 77% cellulose fibre yield as opposed to wood pulp which produces around 30% cellulose by volume - that's massive

* its variant cannabinoids produce a natural insecticide thus there is no need for chemical pesticides whatsoever - compare this with the cotton industry being one of the largest users of chemicals in the world - 50% of the chemicals sold in the agricultural industry in the US go to the production of cotton

* The nature of its growth prevents the proliferation of weeds, they simply cannot survive below the hemp canopy - ergo: no chemical weedkillers are necessary 

* the yield of hemp against cotton is staggering as it outperforms cotton by 200% on average and even more under "ideal" conditions 

* it has a rapid harvesting cycle and can thrive on effluent water that would ordinarily be dumped into viable water streams thereby causing widespread pollution which is the norm in the wood, paper and textile industry generally

* similarly - hemp can be processed entirely without any harmful products being used thereby reducing the creation of pollutants even further 

* It's a superbly versatile and cost-effective building material producing bricks, mortar, plaster and even hemp-based concrete all of which are non-flammable and high-grade insulators, allowing buildings to actually "breathe". 

* in just 14 weeks 1 hectare of hemp can produce enough raw material to build an entire house - not just that, during the growing process, that single hectare absorbs around 18 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere making hemp houses actually carbon-negative. The same house built with conventional materials produces on average around 450 tonnes of carbon dioxide!

* given the nature of the hemp fibres, which are long, continuous strands, the basic premise of "longer is stronger" applies making hemp based products 3 times stronger than timber ones 

* the seeds are rich in protein and produce oils which can be used for a variety of purposes

* the seeds provide high levels of natural Omega 3 and 6 oils - hell even dogs love the stuff and get a whack of nutrients from hemp seed products. Hemp seed is regarded by nutritionists as a super food for very good reason

* it's now been shown that even industrial hemp when ingested helps us remanufacture and retain our own natural cannabinoids which are essential for health - cannabis is the only plant on this planet that produces these chemicals as do humans - so there may be a clue in compatibility right there...

* if we move over to other strains of hemp, there are cannabinoids within them that, when distilled, have been shown empirically time and again to manage, treat and cure conditions as far ranging as epilepsy, autism, Aspergers and even cancer...

* and perhaps one of the most important facets of hemp - it is entirely sustainable and has an ongoing positive impact on the planet. With hemp's significantly shorter harvest cycles, its use over trees counters the enormous problem of rampant deforestation and the consequential impact on the environment, other flora, fauna and associated ecosystems. 

Now take all of the above and ask yourself why any sane, humane, compassionate society would seek to repress this substance...
And I refer you back to premise Number One - follow the money.
With the rise of the petrochemical, textile, pharmaceutical industries in the 1930's - up until that time, the farmer essentially produced food, medicine and other base commodities from the land.
Hemp needed no chemical "protection" and provided a whole range of beneficial products in a fast, easy cycle.
Dupont and the US congress wanted a different model though - they didn't want fresh produce in grocery stores - they wanted chemically enhanced foodlike products in big supermarket chains and they wanted to sell their chemicals to the wood and textile industries so hemp, not being a team player, had to go. And that it was a plant with a range of medically beneficial properties couldn't be tolerated either so suddenly the demonisation of the plant began through a campaign of disinformation which commenced (Donald Trump-like) by changing the name of the stuff to marijuana - give it a Mexican sounding name and show people stoned off their faces, promote it as a dangerous, addictive drug and before you know it, cannabis will be made illegal.
And that is exactly what happened.
In their fervour to protect a vulnerable public from the creeping "reefer madness" that was sure to afflict you if you as much as sniffed the stuff, they quietly succeeded in having industrial hemp banned too as nobody really had any idea that hemp was a strain of the same plant - the deadly marijuana - the one causing all the murder and mayhem...
Then followed the rise of the corporations, the elevation (sic) of cannabis to the level of a Schedule 1 banned substance and generationally, the bullshit and disinformation was passed on.
Now we find a resurgence in the hemp industry around the world where the Chinese (who else?) have probably the biggest industrial hemp production facilities in the world and have even resorted to producing high quality hemp paper without the use of chlorine bleaching - all eco-friendly and all readily available.
One can readily understand why the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want people having direct access to the beneficence of the effective cannabinoids that aid and cure the most chronic of ailments - it would also explain why this same industry (including the US government) has taken the time and trouble to synthesise these chemicals and take out patents on them. They fully intend to let you have medical marijuana one day but oh boy are you gonna fucking pay for it. This is the dynamic that will maintain the product as illegal - ownership of the chemical patents on the plant - yeah, thats right - how can anyone own the formulae for plant-based compounds?
In the same way they're patenting certain genetic coding so they own the rights to viruses, human gene-sequences and by extension the cures to diseases. You wanna get better, then pay for the formulae that will do that.
I keep telling you - follow the money. It's all there - it's happening and it's been happening for a very long time.
So if anyone thinks that TTIP or TPP or any so-called global trade partnership is about broadening the base whereby ordinary people can do open-ended business - think again. Those "agreements" are in no way contracts that have been endorsed by the public sector, the public hasn't even had access to most of this information and wouldn't have had, had it not been for that nasty global security threat organisation, Wikileaks and their radicalised despotic leader, Julian Assange...they've got him nicely hogtied at present. Can't think why...
As an upshot of this all, I have decided to do everything within my power to explore the world of hemp production as fully as I can as I'd like to involve myself in this in some way in the foreseeable future.
The saddest part of this entire story is that we know our governments pretend to have our best interests at heart but they're really all about population management and profiteering. Within the mix are some genuine people who are fighting for the greater good and we should be part of that but for the most part, they're trying to fuck us and they don't give a rat's ass about your welfare or indeed your future. 
And that is the inconvenient truth.

OF SHEDS AND METAPHYSICAL APPS - NO, NOT REALLY - IN FACT, NOT AT ALL...

Karen and I went to look at a shed yesterday. 

It's not that we have a fetish for utility space voyeurism or anything like that. Is that a thing?

I'm sure it must be a thing. Everything is a thing nowadays. Perhaps it's always been, they just didn't have an app for it until this present decade. 

Won't it be cool when there's an app for nutrition in the interactive world we're entering... Maybe it will dispense with our pathological obsession with cooking shows on tv - just figuring out how to make the app transfer nutrition from the ether to our energy bodies. 

I mean, I know it sounds out there - it IS out there but if we are nothing more nor less than individual energy centres that process nutrition in an energy transfer, using the fuel and discarding the unwanted byproducts then there's no reason why an app cannot interface with that energy system and link us to the zero-point field to allow the exchange to take place... 

Where was I again? Oh yes - sheds. 

Every person needs a shed, maybe even two sheds. Sheds are the bomb. Especially when one is married to a magpie, a creature attracted to the accumulation of shiny things. 

Ergo: one needs a shed, we don't have one, it's on the agenda, one became available through friends so we decided to call the guy for a shed viewing. 

But this isn't about sheds at all nor, it must be said, is it about metaphysical apps. It's actually about the wife of the man to whom I'd spoken earlier in the day about coming through to check out their up-for-grabs utility facility aka - their shed. 

I collected Karen from her studio en-route as the UF (utility facility aka shed) was close by. 

We arrived, parked and I negotiated my way down the steep driveway to the windowed facade of the house where I rapped firmly on the glass. 

An olive complexioned woman of distinguished looks approached the glass door wearing an utterly bemused expression on her face, this expression dedicated entirely to me. I was the source of her perplexity, it seemed. 

She swung the door ajar and gazed at me quizzically. 

"Hi," I boomed, "I'm Paul. I spoke to Ruhi earlier. I've come to look at the shed...."

She smiled then, immediately at ease, which relieved me mightily. Then she said something extremely peculiar to me. It was as surprising as if she'd just shapeshifted into a mermaid before my eyes. 

She said, "Oh, the shed. It's just that you look like a rock star..." 

Say what? 

"Wow!" I said, laughing uproariously at this pronouncement. "Well that's the nicest, weirdest thing anyone's ever said to me..."

I know my hair is much longer than it's ever been, I was donning a checked shirt, skinny jeans and biker type boots - and I suppose there are my bangles too but it was a quantum leap. 

I told Karen who too thought it to be wonderfully funny. 

The shed was okay, large, utilitarian and full of stuff. It would be a while before it was ready for disassembly. 

We thanked Ruhi, a lovely Persian-English- American-Australian and took our leave. 

"Please tell your wife that she made my day," I said as we pushed back up the crazy driveway. 

A rock star indeed. 

I always knew it. 

Now, I think I'm going to forego the shed idea. 

I might start looking for a second hand Stratocaster instead...

What a life.

THE RAVEN

The Raven – An Epic Tale

© Paul Murray 

(A small village - The Languedoc – France 1252 AD)

The raven he curls his claw · round the cold fingers of the dead
The night sky is bright with flames · in a shimmering choking red

And as the snow melts away · from the blast of the searing heat

The raven plucks the eye · from a skull of decaying meat

He takes to flight in the darkness · with a rustle of oily wings

Knowing his prize will imbue him · with the vision of future kings

The pyres of a nation lost · still smoulder on for days

And thence is the knowledge placed · that somewhere within the maze

Of corpses and boiling blood · a boy child still lives and breathes

Our raven must find this king · to fulfill the prophecy

The moon vacated the sky · as the sun burned her into day

Aloft midst the murky smoke · raven searched through the sad decay

At last when his heart was cold · and it seemed that his quest would fail

From under a mound of earth · the raven heard somebody wail

At first the child was afraid · and he screamed at the bird to go

But the raven beckoned him come · lest he perish alone in the snow

The boy scrabbled furs and boots · from the corpses of the dead

And somehow he knew he must go · on where the raven led

It was quite a sight to behold · as the raven strode from the field

Pursued by a filthy child · with a sword and a battered shield

For fifteen long winters then · the pair would become as one

And Obert had learned to shift · like he’d heard gods of yore had done

The raven was he and he was the raven · at once or as need arose

And thus through the wise bird’s eyes · he saw what the gods had proposed

In the orb of the vision quest · he saw his great land’s demise

How he would be called upon · to rally crushed people to rise

To vanquish the bloodlust of Rome · who slaughtered with no remorse

Then to face his ultimate foe · on a sinister, black spectral horse

And then as Obert returned · the vision began to fade

The raven could not reveal · the name of the man it displayed

The prophecy ran and unfurled · like a sail in the teeth of a gale

Thus Obert’s exploits became legion · and the subject of many a tale

And eternal as mournful war horns · as drums rolled and sabre did rattle

The raven would merge with his soul · at the onset of each savage battle

And Obert would fight like a lion ·  ‘til the enemy cowered and turned

And their ranks would be cleaved as a tree · while their weapons of evil were burned

In this manner Obert reclaimed · both the land and the faith they had lost

The people would have him as king · as each stronghold was challenged and crossed

In each battle he looked for that horse · for that rider he one day must face

At each siege as the skirmish was won · of this rival there wasn’t a trace

One night in the troubled king’s dreams · he imagined the raven transformed

And there at the foot of his bed · stood a maiden with hair like fresh corn

She lay with King Obert that night · their bodies entwined, trembling, sore

Their union had caused him to weep · for a love that he thought was no more

In the morning when Obert awoke · to a lingering scent in his nose

Of the maiden there wasn’t a sign · just a bloom on his pillow - a rose

From his window he saw the full moon · and Venus appeared in the sky

In the distance he thought he could hear · a newborn babe’s lone, plaintive cry

He called all his servants to task · and asked whence the infant was born

They all bowed their heads from his gaze · said they’d found her abandoned that morn

Then a peace hitherto strange to all · would descend on King Obert’s domain

The vanquished surrendered their swords · and the wiser ones chose to remain

For Obert bore malice to none · he revered life and ruled worldly wise

His people could never have known · the torment behind those blue eyes

No enemy challenged his realm · no more was there reason for force

Yet Obert would thrash in his sleep · waiting for that accursed black horse

And still no dark rider would come · instead his dear raven grew frail

‘Til at last with the gentlest of breaths · his lifelong companion’s heart failed

And in all of his conflicts and wars · where good friends had been injured or slain

Poor Obert could not comprehend · how this loss could bring with it such pain

He retired to the depths of the keep · and within it alone with himself

He pondered the trinkets of war · that were strewn like loose stones on the shelf

And the claw marks where raven had stood · were like scars in the base of his soul

He returned in his mind to that field · where began his life quest to be whole

As he opened his eyes to the room · and the looking glass next to the door

His reflection sat tall on that horse · and he wondered of vengeance no more

The figure dismounted the steed · and beckoned him enter the glass

And Obert felt tears stain his cheeks · from the pain that his life had amassed

And the face of the man was his own · and his eyes were the raven’s for sure

He embraced him and wept for his soul · in that looking glass next to the door

And inside him a burden was gone · while the tears ran in streams down his face

He heard one last flurry of wings · and at last was alone in this place

From the gloom of the keep he arose · and his armour he placed on a pyre

Thus purging his soul in the flames · his last conquest ascended in fire

When they breached the king’s drawbridge at last · and they searched every inch of that ground

Not a sign of King Obert remained · just the ashes he’d made could be found

And a girl’s laughter rang from the dark · all around them yet nowhere in sight

Ere the bloodline and relics were safe · from the forces that worked in the night 

Then high over castle and cloud · rose a raven like soot in the sky

And he soared over village and field · with a glint in his strangely blue eye

© Paul Murray  – all rights reserved

SIEGE MENTALITY

SIEGE MENTALITY

Human behaviour - the herd, the collective influence of the swarm through nothing more than autosuggestion until outcomes manifest as self fulfilling prophecies. 
You know what I mean. 
Jeremy Rifkin posits that capitalism as it stands will be subsumed by a process he calls collaborative commons, (find it here) a system of trade and commerce that's already underway through the advent of technological trading and where the power sits with the smaller online dealers - the real masses. It will inevitably and inexorably depose the centralised capitalist system much like the frog in the boiling water analogy. 
Within this dynamic he speaks to the paradox around the fear of scarcity - when everything is so open and accessible, driven by "zero marginal cost", won't stuff run out? 
And that's the point - paradoxically it doesn't. It never does. 
Yet humans exist in this paradigm whereby the suggestion by someone - especially an "expert" - creates a behavioural response that fulfills the prediction. 
Take a holiday long weekend for example. That's when siege mentality really kicks in. Nobody has even suggested that general retail supplies will be depleted - it's just preprogrammed into us, augmented by a holiday when the stores are closed. 
Frenetic, binge buying ensues. It's not that everyone is entertaining guests or really need the tons of shit they buy for the long weekend but the siege mentality dictates that one must stock up and by fuck do they ever. 
Come Tuesday, amazingly, stock has arrived on the supermarket shelves once more and the zombie apocalypse is averted. Yet again.
But the singular example of this self fulfilling prophecy paradigm has to be economic recession. 
Other than total devastation of economies through war, rampant disease or famine, almost every recession is fabricated out of nothing. 
We aren't in a recession - everything is trundling along hunkily-dorily but experts say due to such-and-such a condition and this-and-that situation, we are heading for one. Presto, people hear this, become apprehensive, withdraw from their usual market activity and trade slows, money flow reduces from the fiscus - and in no time at all, we, the traders have created a recession. The prophecy is fulfilled. 
Just because a bunch of douchebags suggested it, we bought the play and inevitably the recessive trading behaviour ensued.
This has been going on for millennia and it beggars credulity that humans haven't cottoned on to the simple premise of being played to create the desired outcomes of the manipulators.
It even stretches to seasonal colds and flus. The same people buy into the reality / they create it - that when the broadcast media starts talking about the onset of winter and flu, flu-shots, the prevalence of these creeping viruses, nine times out of ten, the same group of people who came down with flu the season before are the ones that get nailed again. And again. And again.
There are two words that describe this phenomenon - fear and belief. 
In the same way the placebo effect manifests physical benefits to a person who believes they are ingesting something that will make them "better" - the same paradigm applies to the belief that what you're being told (an impending recession, a scarcity of food supplies and so on) is inevitable therefore it becomes so because you behave as if there is no way out of it.
There is.
Don't believe the bullshit. Believe only the good shit.
If one's beliefs can exert manifest influence on the outcome of phenomena in the physical/material world we all occupy - and they can - then there's much more sense in projecting that belief onto positive things.
Try it.
It works.
Believe me...