Category: Rants

Let Me Grab My SoapBox

Let Me Grab My SoapBox

Last year Dr Lance O’Sullivan, 2014 New Zealander of the year, came out saying that the Welfare Benefit should be cut from parents who do not vaccinate their children.

lance o'sullivan

Note:  I am a huge admirer of this young Doctor and the work he has done in the far North, however, I disagree with his argument on this issue as pointed out below.

Regardless whether you are for or against or in the middle on vaccinations – to me this is a violation of rights. It appals me that both the USA and Australia have laws now that make vaccination compulsory for all children, the pregnant mother and grandparents etc. I sincerely hope N.Z. will not follow suit, although it is highly likely that they will as they will be lobbied by well-meaning but misguided doctors and money-hungry drug companies.

But back to the parents on benefits. On further reading from this doctor (and others), it appears that it is mainly the children from the lower socioeconomic group who get any of the diseases far worse than those from other groups. In other words, the poor kid’s whooping cough is far worse than the rich kid’s one. (Generalization, but you get the picture).

In my opinion, it is because the poorer areas do not have the ability to provide healthy, nutritious foods that help to build the immune system.
Show me a solo mum on a benefit who is able to buy organic food? Or, for that matter, even a family who are not on benefits but are still struggling to balance the money coming in with the money that has to go out – and that’s a good majority of New Zealanders.

FastFoodWhat is cheaper – McDonald’s or a homemade burger made with organically, nutritious ingredients?

Where’s the education on sugar?
Processed foods, which appear to be cheaper, are riddled with sugar which is known (researched and documented) to feed cancer cells, promote tooth decay and damage the immune system.

Note:  there are many “rich” kids whose nutrition is also sorely lacking.

It’s not the Doctor’s fault … I realise that doctors are only doing what they believe is the right thing going by evidence presented in medical journals and told to them by drug companies. It’s documented that a lot of what is written for those journals are slanted and biased and quite often not even written by the name that is assigned to the article.

Doctors do not receive any, well, maybe a few hours if they’re lucky, tuition on nutrition at any of the medical schools. They receive far more teaching on drugs, hence the reason they poo-hoo any ideas that food and natural remedies may be far better medicine than any of the chemicals drug companies bring out.

Andrew-Carnegie-John-D-RockefellerGo back in history to who really started the monopoly of the drug companies – Carnegie and Rockefeller … Rockefeller in particular. See, he made heaps of money with oil but then started looking for ways to use it. He came up with the idea of using coal tar (a petroleum derivative) and made drugs which affect the human mind, body and nervous system. Hey, an excellent way of masking or stopping symptoms, but not a cure.

To keep this history lesson short – Carnegie (and other industrial giants) came up with a plan and between them, they managed to get all the natural practitioners ousted (e.g. herbalists, homoeopaths etc) and “standardise” the teaching and clinics for their own gains. Rockefeller wanted to control the whole medical field, using the only remedies allowed, patented synthetic drugs. And he got it.

It’s a fascinating history and worth reading about because it gives a much clearer understanding of how Big Pharma has so much power and has influenced the way we have been brainwashed into this style of medicine.

vegetables-317497_960_720I believe that modern doctors should not be taking the Hippocratic oath at all …. it’s hypocritical. They DO NOT follow the teachings of Hippocrates whose famous quote is:

“Let food by thy medicine and medicine be thy food”.

and one more to end on….

“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”

Whether one agrees with vaccinations is not the issue here. It is using threatening and bullying tactics that I don’t believe in and certainly hope it never comes to that here in N.Z.

 

 

 

 

 




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The Phenomena That Is Donald Trump

The Phenomena That Is Donald Trump

Love him or hate him – you have to concede that “the Donald” has made a huge impact on the political scene in USA.

Thing is – it could happen here, and, in fact, could happen in any country that has a global capitalism mentality.
cd_570b432b037e2The way I see it the plebs are just simply over it. We, yes I put myself in the plebeian group, are over the large corporations, the big banks and the mega wealthy who have managed to re-organize the way the money flows.
What they have done in their bid for mega wealth is undermine and deplete the middle class. The middle class gap has shrunk so much that we no longer have the lifestyle I remember growing up in.

Robert Reich, who was Secretary of Labour in the Clinton administration, knows a thing or two about capitalism. He’s all for it, but done in the right way, not where the rules have changed in favour of the top 1%.
I bring him into the post ‘cause he’s written a very fascinating book ‘Saving Capitalism’, where in it he defines reasons why the Trump phenomena is happening – actually you can put Bernie Sanders in this equation as well because it all boils down to people being totally fed up with they way life for the majority is.

imagesNow it relates to USA – but have a read ….. you can see N.Z. and any other capitalist country in there as well

    •    In the 1950s a schoolteacher, baker or mechanic could earn enough to buy a house, purchase two cars and raise a family but this is no longer possible unless they are willing and able to borrow substantial sums of money.
    •    CEOs of large corporations now earn more than 200 times the average worker’s income compared with 20 times 50 years ago.
    •    The richest 1 per cent of Americans now receive more than 20 per cent of the country’s income compared with 9-10 per cent in the 1950s and 1960s.
    •    Politicians pay more attention to the needs of large corporations, compared with individuals, because these corporations are successful lobbyists and make huge political donations.

So why couldn’t there be a Donald Trump here in N.Z.? Personally I can’t think of anyone who would fit the bill – but that’s not to say that he’s not out there.

I’m not naive, I realise we can’t go back in time, but we should be able to do something that will get the numbers of middle-class built back up, get the working class paid better and get more of a balance so more people are able to get ahead.

And just to put it into the N.Z. perspective – the average CEO remuneration for 2015 was $2,868,300 and the average N.Z income was $52,800.
It’s time that the ‘free market’ actually had some rules that gives a fair go to everyone who wants to get ahead and prosper and get the middle class back to having a combined wealth that makes it the richest of all.

It’s going to be interesting what happens in USA – If neither Trump nor Sanders get in (which is very likely), then it will be business as usual, but if one of them does, then, I believe, there will be a change – be it good or bad, but there will be change and it will affect N.Z. one way or another.

Source:  BreakingViewsNZ

 

 

 

 

 




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Colorado – Home To Legal Dope & Illegal Rain Barrels.

Colorado – Home To Legal Dope & Illegal Rain Barrels.

An odd tidbit crossed my vision the other day about how Colorado has a law that bans the use of residential rain barrels.

rain in colorado

In other words, if you live in this particular state you are not allowed to collect rain for your own use. Try as I might, I can’t seem to find out why this law was passed in the first place.  Rain is rain and it will fall where-ever it chooses. Besides their Fifth Amendment establishes property rights and if rain falls on your property then isn’t the water is yours by right? … Does that make sense?

The reason I saw this snippet of news was because apparently there are some changes in the wind, well that’s if it can get passed through the Republican-led Senate, (naturally it’s the Democrats leading the charge).

Surely the good citizens of Colorado should be able to catch the rain and use it to water their tomatoes or their marijuana plants.

legal marijuana coloradoSpeaking of which. Colorado was the first state to legalize marijuana fully, (not just for medicine), and the industry is booming. In fact, the tax that has been collected has actually gone over the capped amount of tax which, by law, is allowed to be collected at any one time.

This meant that the good people of Colorado are supposed to be paid back the excess. (I believe the Republicans and Democrats are still arguing about whether that should happen – what’s new!)

In 2015 sales were more than $996 million – geez, that’s nearly a billion which means that the tax was more than $135 million.
O.k. so their population is a bit more than ours here in N.Z. – coming in at 5.35 million, but holy camoly, even if we got a tax increase of 100 million, imagine what that would accomplish here.

So what are they doing with all that extra money?

  • Apparently, $40 million is for school constructions, marijuana education and prevention campaigns.
  • Some even going to bullying prevention.
  • Money is spent on preventing school drop-outs and for youth mentoring services.
  • Then there’s the poison control centres that need money and substance abuse screening, intervention and referral.
  • Tack onto that money for substance abuse treatment
  • And there’s a bit of money for roadside impaired-driving enforcement training for peace officers.
  • There’s also money going to the Future Farmers of America and the 4-H programs which are programs designed for youth to teach leadership etc.

So you can see, the money is being channelled to the youth of Colorado, which, I think is excellent. Imagine what we’d achieve if we did the same with our youth????

raining

Bloody hell, I’ve gone off-topic again.

My point is that here is this forward-thinking State and they are denying their citizens the basic right of being able to collect water …. go figure!

Feel free to comment, would love to hear (well read) what you think.

 

 

 

 

 




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Water, Water Everywhere ???

Water, Water Everywhere ???

We have lots of water, right? – Why don’t we give it away?

cd_56ecd1078f4ae

Read an article about the issue of freshwater, bottled here for free in N.Z. then shipped off overseas making money for the overseas-owned companies.
Now, according to Nick Smith, there is plenty of water and currently only a few companies involved. – so he’s not about to put a stop to it.

cd_56ecd1e1ad9cdAs an aside:  China sent back two shiploads of the stuff because it was dirty (contaminated) … yup, dirty – and that’s on China’s standards, so it must have been bad. Holy hell, what is our water coming to?

Talking of China – did you know that China has an area in drought at the moment and is actually going to release water from a dam which will not only help their drought-stricken province but also Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam which are suffering too.  For once I’m going to say – well done, China.
Source: Yahoo News

Perhaps I’m naive, but my thought is that we should clean up our water first so that we can drink it, swim in it and enjoy it … after that, we can consider sending it off around the world to places that really need to have it.

cd_56ecd2290a0cfAnd, because water is an absolute necessity for survival – here’s an “off the wall” thought – why don’t we give it away to those who are really in need?

So instead of sending aid money off, we could use that money to produce the bottled water and cut out the ‘middle man’ who only want to profit from the suffering of others.

There are two things we need that should be a basic right of every human – oxygen and water. It’s such a pity that we are doing our utmost to destroy both and/or make it so only those who can afford it will get it.

Too simplistic?

I know, but that’s my little rant for the day.

 

 

 

 

 




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The Big Boys Are In Town – G7

The Big Boys Are In Town – G7

What’s in the news at the moment …. that is, world news, is the G7 meeting that’s just ended in Germany.

A quick definition of G7 = The Group of Seven is an informal bloc of industrialised democracies – the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom – that meets annually to discuss issues such as global economic governance, international security, and energy policy.

In my opinion I don’t think that these topics are as important as the topic of the health of our planet. Well, maybe you could put in there “energy policy”, but that’s just a red herring in my book. They want us to believe that they are all for sustainability but then they go home and nothing gets done.
Although, I have to hand it to France with the latest news that new commercial buildings have to have 50% green on their rooftops …. solar or plantings. More Info

So back to G7. What are they discussing under “global economic governance”. The one mission that Obama had going into this meeting was to get the European community to continue with the sanctions again Putin.  Duh … they’re not working anyway!!!! There’s still fighting going on in Ukraine and the Russian economy is picking up – not going down.  So what’s the point?

Next, “International security” – well, that’s a given – ISIS and what they can do about that. Not a lot really.  Fundamentally ISIS has risen up because of corrupt politics and people in poverty and despair. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not in favor of ISIS in any way, shape or form and they’re sure not helping their people at all.

Now we come to “Energy policy” – climate issues, which, in my opinion, should be the most important. Why?  Well, without a planet nothing else matters. I’ve had a look at the agenda of this two day event and there was 45 minutes designated to this important topic.

I don’t like these power hungry countries and their “meetings”. They’re like the big kids in the playground huddling together to work out who to bully next instead of looking at how to deal with the kids who don’t have food in their lunchbox or how best to fix the environment our children have to play in.

I should have titled this post “One Big Boy and One Big Girl” – that’s who is really wielding the power.

big-boys

I know I look at things in a simplistic way, but then I believe life really is quite simple. We all need food, shelter, compassion and love and the great majority of us are not getting these basic requirements.

 

 

 

 

 




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fee o'shea

Thanks for dropping by. My name is Fee O’Shea. I’m a mother and grandma, an author, and a Comedy Improver.
This blog is for my thoughts, my rants, raves, reviews and things that have grabbed my attention. From politics to social media to beauty, health and the environment. Fee’s World Over Coffee is written to bring you a smile or get you thinking. Enjoy.

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