Canada has been absorbing this week the revelation of the burials of 215 children at the Kamloops Residential Schools, many of them completely undocumented in our past, and mostly completely unknown to most Canadians. In an important sense every one of these children is a crime victim, the least of which is neglect the most serious of which is genocide. Worst of all, most of us had no clue that this burial ground even existed, although that’s just a little too convenient an excuse.
This week thousands of articles have been written on the subject, news stories broadcast on radio and television. There is much hand wringing and guilty statements about Settler privilege.
What I haven’t heard enough of, or even any of, is the genocide underway in Canada today across the country. Every day children are still being taken away from aboriginal families and forced into “care” where they are neglected, abused and abandoned, with many of these children dying while in care, or shortly after “aging” out of foster care. These kids are removed from families, single parent moms mostly, because of a system that still sees “drunken indians” instead of struggling people who have been largely dispossessed from their tribal history and context by colonial exploitation and continuing subjugation by the settler cultures.
Sometime today I had my 2000th reader Follow me on WordPress and 750th Follower on social media outside of WordPress. Wow! Thank you to everyone who has followed this blog, as well as to the many people who have responded to my blog with numerous “Likes” and even more views. 2750 Followers as of today’s date.
Blog Statistics January 1st, 2019 to January 15, 2020
Pied Piper fable is a curious analogy to a 21st Century blogger on health and lifestyle.
TOTAL POSTS 60
TOTAL COMMENTS 472
AVG COMMENTS PER POST 8
TOTAL LIKES 4,194
AVG LIKES PER POST 70
TOTAL WORDS 44,081
AVG WORDS PER POST 734.68
When I first started writing this blog in 2011 I expect to have only a very few followers, likes and views, and didn’t really take blogging all that seriously until spring of last year, when I started to blog about the health challenges I am currently facing, as well as about various strategies related to a lot of different issues. Still, it is currently focussed around health issues, with a subtext running through about the story of my family and my romantic relationships.
So my blog is being read by a lot of you, and I really appreciate your genuine responses and comments over the past year. You’ve given me a lot to digest, and have made me feel both heartbroken, from time to time, and inspired, from other letters and comments. Your courage at facing real physical and emotional health problems inspires me to continue with this blog. If the information the blog conveyed gives anyone comfort knowing that they are not alone, or inspiration to take action to improve their situation, or simply education that allows them to understand someone with these problems, then I have done a service.
I am a true believer in the concept, “Tu Um Est”, which roughly means, It is Up to You! which is the motto of my undergraduate university, The University of British Columbia. I’m also a strong believer in lifelong learning, and acknowledge that while knowledge and information are purely temporary, changing moment by moment in ways we can’t even begin to anticipate, learning is an abiding, persistent process resulting in our constant evolution as human beings.
This blog celebrates these processes, and are in themselves evidence of constant change in my understanding of life today. Diseases thought to be incurable are now cured on an everyday basis. Things we thought were immutable truths have been proved false, or, if not totally false, incomplete. As I write into the future I will continue to seek out new ways to improve the quality of my life, through sharing the wisdom of others, passing on the things I’m learning as I go, and hopefully continue to illuminate and educate my followers, casual viewers, and fellow readers.
Once again. Thank You. It is humbling to realize that people appreciate what I’m writing, and are kind enough to say so.
Global Warming is not the most important crisis facing the world’s human population at the moment.
One of the things that really concerns me about the current mass political movement around global warming is that it is distracting the human race from several other issues that are of far more immediate concern, and which also require a global response if there is not to be catastrophic outcomes, some of which are already far advanced.
And I am NOT saying the Global warming isn’t a serious danger to the health and quality of life of millions of people around the earth, mostly in the mid to long term, anywhere from twenty-five to fifty years from now. And while I believe that it is important, if we don’t address several other, far more pressing issues, half of the population of the globe with sick and dying, directly because of these other issues.
I specifically referring to serious medical problems arising from really bad lifestyle choices being promoted by governmental agencies, national and international disease associations, doctors, international food industry giants, dieticians, and the public media.
So what the heck could I possibly be ranting on and on about? There are three health crisis catastrophes happening right now that can have a bigger effect on the human race, today and tomorrow, than global warming.
Metabolic Syndrome
Antibiotic resistance and superbugs
The explosion in pollution of the world’s oceans
Religious and political fundamentalism in the political area, and erosion of political and religious freedom
Industrial corruption around the world, and its impact on the peoples of the world.
No one article could even begin to explore these five serious hazards to humanity, and the quality of our existence on the planet Earth.
Canada’s north is suffering from accelerated climate change, threatening our wildlife and the quality of our own lives.
Personally I’m optimistic that the human race will figure out how to reduce or eliminate the human contribution to global warming. It won’t stop the climate from changing, either continuing to warm for the next few hundred years, or crashing into a new ice age, which is what many scientists were concerned about only a few years ago. It took a lot of effort to stop using fluorocarbons in spray cans, which was attacking the ozone layer only a couple of decades ago. Global warming is more of a concern than fluorocarbons, and will require a much more consequential response if the human race is to find solutions that will resolve our contributions to it. But call me Pollyannaish but I do believe that we will find technological solutions to a problem fundamentally caused by technology. As someone said to me, “it’s not rocket science.” No, it’s harder. But it be done.
I’m far less optimistic about our response to Metabolic Syndrome. Only recently have scientists started to realize the breadth and seriousness of the syndrom, which is directly caused by the consumption of excessive carbohydrates and sugars by populations of all ages, and is a now a global problem facing all of the nations of the globe. Recent research and publication have demonstrated a direct causative relationship between the over consumption of carbohydrates and sugars to the following disorders and diseases.
Diabetes
Liver disease
Cancers of the pancreas, heart, liver, kidneys
Crohn’s disease
Chronic lung disease and cancer
Heart disease including cardiac arrest, arrhythmia and death
Alzheimer’s
Inflammatory diseases
May be related to several mental disorders underlying depression and mania
The number of deaths in the world from the above categories of diseases, in 2019 caused by carbohydrate and sugar far exceeds the projected loss of life in the world from Global Warming by 2050 or even 2150 assuming that we don’t do anything to stop it. There is now solid evidence that over a third of all human beings alive today are suffering from Metabolic Syndrome, and many many many people die from it every single day. Far more than from wars, automobile accidents, distracted driving, alcohol abuse and drunk driving – all put together.
Superbugs
Superbugs present a slightly less ominous threat, if you don’t think about the fact that without effective antibiotics we are all vulnerable to diseases we once believed we had wiped out.
One in four infections is already resistant to antibiotics and other known forms of treatment, and 5,400 Canadians died last year from infections that until recently had been treatable. That’s according to a comprehensive peer-reviewed report presented by the Council of Canadian Academies this week.
That’s roughly double the number of Canada’s annual traffic fatalities and homicides combined.
These infections range from pneumonia to infections of the urinary tract, the blood stream and the skin. And their numbers are rising everywhere as international transportation carries every infection-causing microbe to every part of the world.
The report, When Antibiotics Fail, was prepared for the federal government by an expert panel. I was a member of this panel, chaired by Brett Finlay of the University of British Columbia.
Gerry Wright is a professor of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences and the Scientific Director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Oceanic pollution, including plastics and other waste
Ocean Pollution: The Dirty Facts
We’re drowning marine ecosystems in trash, noise, oil, and carbon emissions.January 22, 2018 Melissa Denchak
The fate of our seas is not only up to the government or industry. Our individual, daily actions matter, too. You can start by reducing water pollution and runoff at home, being more mindful of your plastic consumption, or organizing a cleanup of your local waterway. You can also support the work of NRDC and other environmental advocacy groups as well as other businesses and organizations that work to preserve our coasts and waters.
Religious and political fundamentalism in the political area, and erosion of political and religious freedom
The news is full of examples of political terrorism around the world, including bombings and individual acts of terrorism against innocent civilians. This is terror on a retail scale and pales into insignificance against the damage being done to our political and religious freedoms around the world as a result of religious or political fundamentalism that denies people the right to their own religious beliefs, personal development and gender identification, even the right to exist as ethnic minorities in various parts of the world.
There are more people in concentration camps today, than during the second world war, with the vast majority of them in China. We in the west have been negligent in this, but mostly because we are also complicit in our own attacks on minorities and aboriginals. The United States and Europe are split right down ideological and religious seams that threaten the future safety of the world because of the increasing intolerance being shown to people with different religious or political beliefs of large parts of the population. Christian, Muslin and Atheist fundamentalists deny the very right to exist for anyone who dares believe something different than they. The intolerance of a pulpit bully today is the concentration camps of tomorrow.
Industrial corruption around the world, and its impact on the peoples of the world.
A new report has alleged that international medical and pharmaceutical companies are complicit in China’s organ transplant scandal.
The report has, for the first time, named 20 global companies profiting from China’s transplant trade, where innocent people are murdered in a state-sponsored campaign of forced organ harvesting.
The report, entitled the Economics Of Organ Harvesting In China and conducted by the Institute to Research the Crimes of Communism, finds that the companies from Western countries are ‘taking part’ in China’s organ harvesting crimes, including Pfizer from America, OrganOx from the United Kingdom and Roche from Switzerland.
The report supports China Tribunal’s Final Judgement in June 2019 which exposed China’s ‘wicked’ organ harvesting crimes and murder of innocent people as ‘Crimes Against Humanity’.
Western companies allegedly involved
The new report emphasises that China’s transplant system is ‘dependent on the import of devices for organ preservation’ from the West and has accused the Western pharmaceutical companies of using Chinese prisoners for testing transplant products.
Over 1.5 million people detained in Chinese ‘camps’ are seen as ‘ideal source of organs’ according to the report and the authors are calling for companies named in the report to answer to allegations or for state offices to “investigate international criminal activity”.
Global pressure is now mounting on China to stop the brutal murder of prisoners of conscience in a scandalous industry estimated to illegally earn the People’s Republic of China over $1bn (~€0.89bn) per annum.
Susie Hughes, Executive Director, International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC), stated: “These companies are in a very powerful position because China’s transplant industry would falter without them. It is imperative they withdraw from China immediately to help save innocent people who are being killed for their organs.”
Hamid Sabi, Counsel to the China Tribunal, who recently raised the issue of forced organ harvesting in China for the first time at the United Nations said: “I welcome all new research confirming this horrifying issue. Organ transplantation to save life is a scientific and social triumph but killing the donor is criminal.”
Industrial greed and complicity in the dangers to human survival, both individually and collectively cannot be pursued with enough vigor. Companies are responsible for causing untold health hazards and killing millions upon millions through smoking, dietary corruption of the food chain, false information distribution to the public over years and years.
Global Warming is a Safe Enemy
I started this blog by saying that I don’t think that Global Warming should be at the top of our concerns about the future (and present) of the human race. There are lot of things to be concerned about, and Global Warming is just one of them.
Photo by StrahilDimitrov/Getty Images
The massive obsessive focus on Global Warming is a little like the obsession in the 1960’s with the nuclear threat and the idea that the Russians were going to wipe out the human race in their global arms race with the USA and the West. The obsession wasn’t totally misguided, it just missed the point that there were other things which should have been addressed and were not. The consequence of obsessing over one significant challenge facing the world, without paying attention to many of the other issues is highly risky.
To you this day am I wed And to you do I make these promises:
I will love you from my deepest self Sharing my life with you, I will be joyful In your sharing your life with me
I commit myself to you , to a life Of service to our marriage, and our family And will keep my agreements with you In a spirit of love and acceptance.
I will love you without conditions No obstacle, no action will divide this pledge And I will take you as you really are And as you will become, as you grow Into the person you shall become
I will be joined with you in a common bond To a life of love, acceptance, and growth To reach out beyond ourselves, and make Our contributions to the future of our family, Our people, and our world
I will love you without seeking to own you Give freely of my abundance, while Receiving joyfully from yours.
I wrote this poem in 1984 and my wife and I based our marriage vows on it. Our marriage was my second marriage, but her first, and so far, only marriage. These words bound us together in a marital relationship for the last thirty-five years. Our marriage was always unconventional in many ways, and the way it started made it necessarily so.
It turns out that we are quite different in our points of view, on a lot of issues, including, and maybe, especially, what marriage means to each of us. For many years we chose to leave our differences unfocussed and just slightly behind a curtain of apparent and superficial conformity. To our community, and mostly to our children, our marriage appeared to be pretty much according to common community values, one man and one woman, with a raft of kids, going through the process of life. Our initial agreement to be unconventional in being polyamorous was a whisper in privacy.
It was implicitly and explicitly understood that I would be discrete in my external relationships and not bring them home, even in discussion. The policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell applied because she really didn’t want to deal with it, and as long as I stayed away from her circle of friends, she was mostly fine with it. In a sense, she had been a special “friend” with me and mothered our first child while I was in an “open marriage” with my former partner.
Over the many years which followed those early times we both followed what we believed was applicable under the terms of our promises. Suffice it to say that my external relationships and experiences were kept away from the family, and never discussed with her. Any time she did bring up the issue of marital fidelity, I would always remind her of the agreement we made at the beginning. She believed that our agreement was purely a “pro forma” agreement, an agreement made purely to serve as an artifact of our original relationship.
Most importantly, she believed that I merely maintained my commitment to it to retain my intellectual independence, and was not involved with any outside relationships or sexual engagements.
And so we continued until a few years ago, when a time came when I had to explicitly introduce evidence that I had not only engaged intellectually, but had also engaged in sex with someone else. In my view, I was never unfaithful, as our promises never included any promise from me that I would not be involved with other people. In her view, when confronted with specific evidence confirming my external relationships, I’d been screwing around, and unfaithful, for all of the last 35 years.
There’s no place like home?
It didn’t matter that we had this agreement, because she felt that it was obtained under duress, or without her full understanding of what it really meant. Over the years when she challenged me on whether or not I was seeing other people, I had always confirmed our original agreement as still being valid, and refused to specifically acknowledge when or with whom I was involved. She’d had many suspicions over the years that I was sexually active outside of the marriage, but had never felt that she wanted to push the issue, knowing that I would continue to adhere to our agreements, regardless of her fears.
The proof that I had been sexually active for years came when I took a battery of blood tests, including one for STDs, that indicated that I was a carrier of Hepatitis B, a disease that is generally contracted by an exchange of body fluids during sex. The first thing I did when this result was made known to me, was to inform my sexual partners, including my wife. Ironically, the test was a false positive, which the specialist stated to me when I went to see him, upon referral by my family doctor. So I’m not a carrier, not even remotely, but by then the damage was done, and the cat was out of the bag.
Suffice it to say, my wife decided that she no longer considers us married, and wants a divorce. I urged her to reconsider on the basis that nothing really had changed, our agreement from 35 years ago is still in place, and I still consider myself bound to its terms.
All of that took place about a year and a half ago, and we’re still living together and cohabitating. We no longer consider ourselves “married’ exactly, but we are both comfortable that we are still “partners” “nesting partners” or even just “friends” living in a common household. Sexuality has not been a facet of our marriage for a long time, so it really wasn’t an issue for either of us.
We have had a really difficult set of discussions and for now are in agreement to stay together for mutual benefit, if not in fact in a marriage, we are still in fact deeply caring people who still love each other, if not the way either of us had wanted. She will remain monogamous and I will remain polyamorous. Where we go from here is anybody’s guess.
Today is Canadian Thanksgiving Day. This is the day when I’m supposed to be grateful for all the good things in my life, and emotionally let go of whatever negative things are holding me back from a happy and productive life.
All of that is good. In theory.
But it’s hard to do. It’s a lot easier to list the things I’m mad about, or for which I’m resentful, than to account for all the good things in my life, for which I’m grateful. That’s not to say that I’m not, that is, not grateful.
I’m grateful for the people in my life who go out of their way to make my life better, of which there are any number, including my domestic partner who puts up with my frustrations and anxieties, and continues with me in her life, despite no longer wanting to be married to me, or believing that there is any romantic future for us. She’s probably right but still has simply accepted me as I am, despite my faults. So the two of us struggle to go forward in this fundamentally undefinable relationship and cause each other, and ourselves, the least emotional damage possible. And although this relationship isn’t what either of us imagined forty years ago, it continues to sustain me in the present. She still inspires me with her generosity of spirit towards.
I am grateful to my family, including my kids and my siblings, trying not to let resentment fill my heart for all the things I’d hoped would be, but are not. When people love me its hard when its not exactly the way I’d like to be loved. But who am I kidding? The fact that they are willing to be a part of my life is what is important, and I am appreciative when they do spend some time with me.
I’m also happy with my progress towards a healthy future. Intermittent fasting and lifestyle changes I’ve already made are making a real difference in my health, even just a few months into the process began with my decision last spring to reevaluate my medications and side effects. My son’s consistent input about carbs and sugar has encouraged me to stick to my guns when comes to fasting, and has helped me to lose 35 pounds. I do feel better, and I’m grateful for that.
But I still have a hard time not being angry about the things I’m facing in the future. It doesn’t matter really if they are a direct result of my own actions, or not. Chronic pain is very difficult to ignore, especially when it is quite severe, most of the time. I’m taking it on faith that losing weight will improve matters a little, but I’m not counting on it. Pain has become my constant companion, and it’s damned hard not to complain about it. Not that it does any good, but saying something does relieve some of the pressure of feeling so isolated and alone in the pain. Sometimes people think that I resent them because they don’t really express much sympathy, or even really seem to understand what the hell I’m talking about. Actually I don’t resent them, what I resent is the pain itself, and the fact that nothing really helps.
I’m also really resentful about the total destruction of my business and professional career, as a result of having made some stupendously stupid mistakes which cost me everything, including putting limits on my future I’m not quite sure how to endure. It doesn’t actually help to know that there were things I could have done differently that might have made all the difference. I didn’t do those things, so here I am. I’m critically broke, impoverished by the consequences of these mistakes. I also resent being ashamed of my mistakes and lack of better judgment. How can I be sure that I’ll do any better in the future?
International Symbol of gratitude
But today is Thanksgiving Day, so I’ve thought a lot about those things that matter to me. There is a better future ahead, even if I’m not quite sure how to get there. I’m still alive, and I’m in better health than for a long time, and have more energy than for probably ten years. So I grateful for that.
I’m also grateful for my blog. Expressing my deepest feelings helps me come to terms with them. So I’m also grateful for my faithful readers, who have been so encouraging to me as I have been on this fasting journey. Thank you.
Sometimes I feel as if I have fallen down the rabbit hole into an alternate universe, one in which I’m no longer a person. The world has also changed, seemingly irretrievably, into a place without any kind of safety, security, and surety.
Mum used to complain to me, from time to time, when she was retired from teaching, that she felt invisible, of no consequence, and therefore, of no value to anyone, including to herself. I remember telling her that, of course, she had meaning and value, at least to her children, and that we value her for her wisdom and accumulated life experience. I believe now that my comments were, at best, well-meaning but false.
Feelings are not facts, although they weigh us down as if they are real. I am going to be celebrating my sixty-fifth birthday in less than a month. Supposedly this means that I should be enjoying the opportunity to retire from active working life, and into a pleasant meander down the road of a new journey, not so bound up in ambition or goals.
Instead, I head into retirement with serious complications of diabetes and COPD, chronically exhausted, in constant arthritic and neuropathic pain. My professional life is in disgrace, and my finances are completely destroyed. My marriage is a shambles, a mere shadow of meaning and purpose I believed it to be. Whatever self-esteem I once enjoyed has been systematically eroded to the point where I have become self-effacing and ashamed.
Accomplishments once achieved with pride, are now rued as pointless, as they were not sustained, nor followed up with long-term success. Professional competence and pride in my knowledge and skills are now the pathetic memories of a fallen champion.
I have crashed and burned before, and arose from the ashes to take on new challenges and build a life again. I’m told by professionals that I need to let go of the past, forget my shortcomings, and learn to live with my current life and health circumstances. In short, I need to refocus on a new future. Build again a life worth living, a life into which joy and laughter can once again be a part.
There is still much of value in my life, and turning to those people who continue to befriend me and support me is a part of that future. Gratitude for what I have now will be a good start.
Still, it is difficult to look around me and see a landscape filled with characters I don’t recognize and don’t think I really want to get to know. What would be even more helpful would be if I could find a mirror that shows me the man I once thought I was. The mirrors in Wonderland show me a person I scarcely recognize, and who I really don’t want to be.
Rain Coast Review 