Good Morning World! I’m still enjoying photographing bird visitors through my office window. Yesterday I was fascinated by my junco visitors. Though they don’t use the feeders, they do enjoy picking up many of the seeds that the finches scatter to the ground as they eat. I swear that often the finches spread more seed on the ground than they eat.
Today I am digesting news of a diagnosis of cancer that one of my college roommates had during the past year and news that the husband of another college roommate has been having treatment for cancer as well. It was disheartening news.
I’ve also been reading some interesting articles suggested by another friend that contain a different view of the pandemic and the world’s response to it. It’s all…
Food for Thought
Just now, in the middle of writing this, I received a phone call from our oldest daughter. She was in tears, telling me that our grandson’s high school in Stillwater, MN, is under lock-down with reports of someone with a gun at school, and police now on sight. Fortunately while we were talking she received a text from our grandson reporting that he is okay.
Earlier this year there was a heavy police presence at our granddaughter’s middle school in Stillwater because of a gun threat a student made on social media. Fortunately the threat was reported and nothing bad happened that day.
But the threat of gun violence is all around us now, in every school and in our communities. It’s no longer something that happens somewhere else. Reports of growing violence, killings, and car jackings are now occurring throughout our community.
When are we going to learn that more guns in our homes and on the streets means more violence in our communities and schools? What is it that is triggering the increased violence?
Okay, I’m feeling a bit better now. My daughter just called and she is on her way to the school to pick up our grandson. Whew! Giving thanks and praying that no one was hurt at the school.
Pandemic, violence, climate change…
We Need a New Story
I’m going to share a quote here that you may take umbrage with. But the more I think and read and ponder about our world today, the more I believe that everything is connected and much of it has to do with the stories that we tell.
Covid is a revelation. It has lain bare splits in the social fabric that were always there but could be ignored in better times. It has revealed the compliance of the legacy media and the power of Silicon Valley to curate and control the public conversation. It has confirmed the sly dishonesty of political leaders, and their ultimate obeisance to corporate power. It has shown up ‘The Science’ for the compromised ideology it is.
— Paul Kingsnorth, The Vaccine Moment, Part 1
I know that many of us believe that if only those stubborn dissenters would get vaccinated that we could put the pandemic behind us. We are assured again and again that the vaccine is safe. And for me that has been the case as far as I can tell.
But counter stories are emerging. Recently I listened to the testimony (at a Congressional hearing) of a physician who voluntarily participated in a vaccine trial. When she had an adverse reaction to the vaccine she was dropped from the vaccine trial, because she did not receive the second dose of the vaccine (because the drug company recommended that she not receive the vaccine due to her previous reaction). Then because she was no longer a part of the trial, her adverse response to the vaccine was not reported in the trial data because she had been dropped from the trial. This is not an isolated event.
When the physician had long-term negative health effects from the vaccine, the trial’s promised reimbursement for medical care for any damages was denied to her because she had not completed the vaccine trial. She is not the only one telling a story like this. There are many who are experiencing long-term effects from the vaccine.
Silver Bullets are an Illusion
When I worked as a software engineer, we often searched for a silver bullet to solve problems. And I learned there (often the hard way), that there are no silver bullets. Problems are systemic and require a systems approach. Tugging on a single thread is unlikely to do nothing more than tighten already negative events into a tangled knot.
Many of us are viewing the vaccine as a sort of magic silver bullet that will “fix things.” But the truth is, that many so-called silver bullets have down-sides (remember DDT?) and we only learn later through hard experience that there is collateral damage or that the so-called solution doesn’t really do what we thought it would do. Yet we cling to the idea that the vaccine is the only solution for the Covid crisis.
A friend told me about the release of a peer-reviewed study that published information on the effectiveness of Ivermectin in treating Covid if the treatment was received early enough. Within days the media was flooded with statements from the CDC that Ivermectin was horse medicine and not meant for humans and that it was unproven, despite the fact the Ivermectin has been being prescribed for humans for 40 years! Yes, it is used in veterinary care but it has also been used on humans at lesser dosages. Yet physicians who want to prescribe Ivermectin are often shunned or threatened with sanctions. And we are told that there is no PROOF that it is effective. The media has played a large part in making Ivermectin treatment seem dangerous and ineffective.
In my opinion the current trend towards so-called Evidence-based medicine is geared towards pharmaceutical interventions because most of the scientific studies are done by the big pharmaceutical companies. And most of the reporting on television is funded by and owned by large corporations and the stories that they tell us are often not the full story.
Reports of nutritional or herbal remedies solving health problems are called “anecdotal”. Yet we know from experience that prescription drugs that were touted as wonderful when they were released, have often been shown to have quite dangerous and negative side-effects. We also know a lot about how processed foods and excess sugar in our diets negatively affects our health. But I never hear about modifying my nutrition or using herbal remedies when I see my doctor.
Some links to articles that are food for thought…
If you are interested in reading the articles that prompted much of this post, here are links to to them. While I don’t agree with everything they say, they are food for thought. It’s important to examine the stories we tell about the world and always always to question stories of separation and exclusion.
The Vaccine Movement, part one by Paul Kingsnorth
The Vaccine Movement, part two by Paul Kingsnorth
And here’s an update about my grandson—Katie just picked him up from school and I talked with him as they were driving home. Apparently there was a gun threat on social media that was reported today and then while at school everyone heard what sounded like 3 gunshots. The school went into lockdown and is now allowing parents to pick up kids to take them home. No news on whether there was actually someone with a gun at the school or not.
May you walk in beauty.
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