Surviving the Circus

If you know me well, you know these things about me... I don't drink I don't do drugs I don't gamble I don't swear I don't sleep around I don't even buy lottery tickets My only true vice has been smoking cigarettes. And now I don't do that. I have been without a cigarette for a whole week. You may think that isn't long enough for me to say that I have truly quit, but I think it's a fair statement considering the circumstances. How did I quit? Our wonderful government decided to add a flame retardant to the cigarette papers, and I am allergic to it. How nice of them. I'm betting that more than 99% of  smokers have NOT caused any forest fires because if they had, there would be fires constantly burning ALL of the time all over this land and we would not be able to keep them down. So, let's insert an ingredient that is toxic and deadly to the smoker, so we can stop all of those non-existent fires. Some say the ingredien...

Should free speech, as it applies to campaign advertising and funding, be for people, or for groups and associations of people, which would include organizations and corporations? Apparently, 5 justices of our Supreme Court believe that it should include groups and not just individuals. However, how can they justify the fact that many of "we the people" are without associations of any kind, and therefore are not justly included in this particular ruling? This new ruling allows an individual to be represented by many different voices, via the groups, corporations and associations they belong to and contribute to. You can own part of a large corporation and make your preferences known by sponsoring full page expensive ads to promote your candidate, AND you could also be a member of a non-profit organization that is doing the same thing, AND, as an individual you could also contribute to the campaign itself. That gives you THREE voices instead of one. This is just pla...

I've read many articles over the years which referred to Wakefield's research linking Autism to MMR Vaccinations. They alarmed me, as they did many parents. I did have my child vaccinated in spite of the research, but I did not do it according to schedule. I waited much longer before I began the series of childhood/infant vaccinations, and then I waited longer between vaccinations. I don't know if it had any effect at all, except that it made me feel better as a parent. What I did NOT know is that the Lancet published this research knowing that only a dozen or so kids were in the study. Why in the world would such a study be published and allowed to frighten so many parents, when it was obviously not widespread enough to matter, no matter what the results? These are the types of questions we need to be addressing as a society. Research conducted among such small groups should only lead to further research. The media should report on it, but they should NOT neglec...