For thousands of years, a diagnosis of leprosy meant a life sentence of social isolation.
People afflicted with the condition now known as Hansen’s disease were typically taken from their families, treated with prejudice, and cruelly exiled into a lifetime of quarantine.
Does this sound familiar? Isn't this happening all over again with the vaccinations? But who will be the lepers? Us or them?
That is the question.
Read more: Who will be the lepers in 2023? The vaxxed or the unvaxxed?
The current US president finally said it during a 60 Minutes interview: “The pandemic is over.” Though obviously true by the classical definition, Biden’s comment seemed almost accidental, said as an echoed response to a direct question.
Consider, however, that many times as many people die from Covid daily in the US (300-400) than when the US first announced the outrageous lockdowns of March 16, 2020. In those days, deaths were approaching 50 per day, mostly in New York. It will very likely get worse over the winter months.
When I think about horses in times of war, it is hard not to immediately think about the most famous horse of all: the Trojan Horse.
I must admit that I have always found it strange that the Trojans can't have been the sharpest knife in the drawer. They fell for a trick that even the most naive of us would have yelled most loudly " Don't do it! "
Still, perhaps times have not changed so much: we still appear to let the enemy in, don't we?
But, of course, the real war horses from history were not made of wood. They were heroes and served alongside their mates as earnestly as their human masters.
So today, I want to pay homage to the brave horses and the dogs who served us so well in times of war and perished in piteous circumstances. They were among the mightiest of the mighty and dear and trusted mates.
“The Chief of the European Central Bank (ECB) has said that climate change is behind soaring inflation, stating that droughts and famines are driving up prices.
“If more and more climate disasters, droughts, and famines occur throughout the world, there will be repercussions on prices, on insurance premiums, and on the financial sector,” Lagarde said.
“We need to take that into account.”
No, what we actually need to take into account is that the so-called Climate Crisis is complete hogwash, starting with the basics of so-called man-made global warming. The fact is, the present era is one of the coolest and least carbon-intensive periods of the last 600 million years.
Read more: Why “Global Warming” Did Not Cause Today’s Economic Disasters—Governments Did
When I was a child, my teacher taught us the story of Grace Darling, a heroine of enormous courage. I wonder how many of us have heard her name today or know of her incredible act of heroism one dark and stormy night in 1838?
For there are many heroes in history whose names have been forgotten and whose acts of bravery have been washed ashore on a beach and taken away by the waves of indifference.
This is our salute to one person whose name and deed should never be forgotten and, in the words of Wordsworth " "But courage, Father! let us out to sea,
A few may yet be saved."
Read more: Grace Darling - a woman whose bravery overcame a tempest. We all need a beacon of hope
“Dad, why are the cops bad?”
This was the question I had to answer when I recently watched First Blood with my son. Only eight years old, he still lived in a world that was simple: cops are good guys, and their job is to catch the bad guys.
I explained to him that cops are just people like everyone else. Some are good and some are bad. That answer seemed to satisfy him, and soon he was watching Rambo II and Rambo III, films he favored even more, perhaps because they were less morally complicated.
Read more: How 'First Blood' Foreshadowed America’s Policing Problem
Queensland and other parts of Australia are overrun with Cane Toads. They have destroyed so much of Australian agriculture and people have forgotten how they arrived in the first place.
In 1935, the toads were not native to the country and they were brought in to control the population of beetles that were damaging sugar cane crops. However, rather than doing good, the cane toads became the first invasive species to be introduced deliberately in the state and they became pests.
Rather than solve the problem, they became a problem.
Read more: An analogy about Cane Toads and... invasion of foreign species
Government officials, public health officials, media and a whole host of other talking heads that parrot official talking points have repeatedly lied to us. We knew this, but now — without apology — they’re all starting to “admit” it by subtly changing the narrative.
As noted by comedian Jimmy Dore in the August 3, 2022, episode of “The Jimmy Dore Show” (video below):
“This story is very close to my heart, because it exonerates me. They’ve been lying about COVID, they’ve been lying about the vaccines, they’ve been lying about herd immunity, they’ve been lying about natural immunity, they’ve been lying about masks.
They’ve been lying about children — they’ve been lying about everything! Who’d have thunk the government and Big Pharma would lie to us? For profit? I am flummoxed. I am beside myself with slack-jawedness.”
When I was a lad, life was simpler, harder yet straightforward and honest. As the world is flooded with newfangled gadgetry and newfangled woke spoke, I find myself looking back on the post war years with a strange regret. Life is so newfangled that it is a complex place of ever-increasing innovation, and gratitude for the simple things in life is a far distant memory. We should consider how imprisoned we have become in this newfangled world which has rewarded us with so much and yet taken even more by stealth.
Read more: Days when newfangled stuff didn't exist - summer wine was not some whine
When remembering the past, and the way things used to be, one date has particular significance … 15th September. On that day in 2002 a man who had a huge influence in my life passed gently to another life. Extremely talented, always cheerful and willing to help his customers, well liked and highly respected Pharmacist Alf Dlugaj had managed a pharmacy in Ayr, and I had the great good fortune to have been his first, and only, apprentice.
We learn many things in life, from a range of different people and random events, and the course of our life is often changed in a manner completely unexpected, which was demonstrated in spectacular fashion by the way in which the life of our dearly loved Queen Elizabeth moved in new directions from carefree childhood to assuming the onerous duties which she willingly accepted and discharged so well as promised, all her life, whether it be long or short.
It is always interesting to remember how things used to be, but much more hazardous to attempt to anticipate the future.
The question is not whether children or adults should be given Covid vaccines. The question is who gets to choose.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced last week that children under the age of 12 will no longer be offered Covid-19 vaccines, unless the children are deemed high risk.
The decision appears to have rankled The Guardian, which quoted several physicians who criticized the move.
“When we know there is a safe and effective vaccine available this seems unjustifiable to me,” Professor Christina Pagel of the University College London told the newspaper, noting that deaths from COVID shots are rare.
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