Annick Lentacker

11.000 minderjarigen slikken antipsychotica

2012-02-24T16:39:00.000+01:00

Steeds meer kinderen en jongeren krijgen antipsychotica voorgeschreven. In 2010 kregen 11.000 minderjarigen de genees-middelen. Daarvan waren 485 kinderen jonger dan zes. Een gevaarlijke evolutie vanwege de vele bijwerkingen, stellen psychiaters.

4.380 kinderen tussen 6 en 12 kregen in 2010 medicijnen voor de behandeling van een psychose

Het gebruik piekt vooral bij zes- tot twaalfjarigen, met 4.380 patiëntjes, en bij twaalf- tot vijftienjarigen, met 4.581 patiëntjes, zo blijkt uit cijfers van het Rijksinstituut voor Ziekte- en Invaliditeitsverzekering (RIZIV).

De gebruikte antipsychotica zijn olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidon en aripiprazol. Vooral de laatste twee producten worden veel aan jonge patiënten voorgeschreven. Zij zijn ook verantwoordelijk voor de stijging van 9.066 minderjarige gebruikers in 2007 naar 11.008 in 2010.

Officieel worden de middelen voorgeschreven om schizofrenie, manische episodes of een bipolaire stoornis te behandelen. Risperidon geldt ook als behandeling van agressiviteit bij 'alzheimerpatiënten' en bij 'kinderen vanaf vijf jaar en volwassenen met een intellectuele achterstand.'

Bipolaire stoornis
De toename is een gevolg van de omzetting van manische depressiviteit naar de veel ruimere bipolaire stoornis door farmabedrijven, zegt gerenommeerd Iers psychiater en criticus David Healy. "Meer dan honderd jaar lang zei de hele wereld: kinderen hebben geen bipolaire stoornis. Sinds een jaar of tien geldt dat ook kinderen bipolair kunnen zijn. Soms zelfs tweejarigen. Het ene moment zijn ze gelukkig, dan ongelooflijk stout, dan plots kwaad of hysterisch. Dat hoort bij die leeftijd. Wij noemden dat the terrible two. Nu noemen ze die mood swings bipolair. Om dat zogezegd te voorkomen, wordt aangeraden kinderen antipsychotica te geven."

"De laatste jaren zie je een enorme tendens om die diagnose ook bij jongeren en kinderen te stellen", beaamt professor psychiatrie Walter Vandereycken (KU Leuven). "Na de kritiek op ADHD-medicatie zijn veel ADHD-diagnoses nu vervangen door bipolaire stoornis." Enkele symptomen: verlatingsangst, driftbuien, veel mood swings.

Vandereycken: "Vaak gaat het om opvliegende kinderen met wisselvallige stemmingen die moeilijker handelbaar zijn. Voor die gedragsproblemen wordt naar antipsychotica gegrepen. Die zijn bedoeld om wanen en hallucinaties aan te pakken, maar worden hier gebruikt om emotionele stemmingspieken te onderdrukken."

Hoger zelfmoordrisico
Nog een verklaring voor de toename: de hypothese dat psychoses al bij vijftienjarigen voorkomen. Vandereycken: "Bij het minste signaal wordt ingegrepen met medicatie, terwijl het ook tijdelijke tekenen van experimenteergedrag met drugs of alcohol kunnen zijn. Als je meteen medicatie geeft, kan je niet meer achterhalen of het echte psychoses waren."

Het gaat om zware medicatie met veel bijwerkingen. David Healy: "Ze kunnen ernstige gewichtstoename veroorzaken, diabetes, leiden tot premature cardiale risicofactoren, een verhoogd zelfmoordrisico en neurologische problemen. En je hebt amper levensvreugde."

"Probleem is ook dat je ze in principe levenslang moet nemen", aldus Vandereycken. "Dat is een heel zware beslissing. Bovendien heb je geen idee van de langetermijneffecten. Een ouder antipsychoticum, haldol, bleek een onherroepelijk parkinsonachtig probleem te geven. Daar zijn duidelijk te weinig lessen uit getrokken."

Vandereycken: "Bij sommige agressieve mentaal gehandicapte kinderen die een gevaar kunnen zijn voor zichzelf, kan het hun levenskwaliteit verbeteren. Maar het zou een uitzondering moeten zijn. Moeilijke kinderen d'office in een chemische dwangbuis steken, is een gevaarlijke evolutie."

Bron De Morgen - Nathalie Carpentier −24/02/12, 04u55
http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/989/Binnenland/article/detail/1399190/2012/02/24/11-000-minderjarigen-slikken-antipsychotica.dhtml

Psychiatric Disorders: The Facts Behind the Billion Dollar Marketing Campaign

2012-02-15T20:00:00.001+01:00

20 million children are labeled with "mental disorders" that are based solely on a checklist of behaviors. There are no brain scans, x-rays, genetic or blood tests that can prove they are mentally ill, yet these children are prescribed dangerous and life-threatening psychiatric drugs. Child drugging is a $4.8 billion-a-year industry.

1) THERE ARE NO TESTS IN EXISTENCE THAT CAN PROVE MENTAL “DISORDERS” ARE MEDICAL CONDITIONS. PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS IS BASED SOLELY ON OPINION.
The psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars a year in order to convince the public, legislators and the press that psychiatric disorders such as Bi-Polar Disorder, Depression, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, etc., are medical diseases on par with verifiable medical conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. This is simply a way to maintain their hold on a $84 billion dollar-a-year psychiatric drug industry that is based on marketing and not science. Unlike real medical disease, there are no scientific tests to verify the medical existence of any psychiatric disorder. Despite decades of trying to prove mental disorders are biological brain conditions, due to chemical imbalances or genetic factors, psychiatry has failed to prove even one of their hundreds of so-called mental disorders is due to a faulty or “chemically imbalanced” brain. To counter this obvious flaw in their push to medicalize behaviors, the psychiatric industry will claim that there are certain medical conditions that do not have a verifiable test so this is why there isn’t one for “mental illness.” This is frankly a lame argument; Whereas there may be rare medical conditions that do not have a verifiable medical test, there are virtually no psychiatric disorders that can be verified medically as a physical abnormality/disease. Not one.
In fact the “brain scans” that have been pawned off as evidence that schizophrenia or depression are brain diseases, are simply bogus. Most have not been done on drug naive patients, meaning someone who has not been on psychiatric drugs such as antipsychotic drugs, documented to cause brain atrophy (shrinkage). Other brain scans have shown the brains of smaller children to show smaller brains in comparison to larger/older children and then claimed children with ADHD have smaller brains. None have been conclusively proven to verify mental disorders as abnormalities of the brain.

The Difference Between a Medical
Disease and a Psychiatric Disorder

If there were such verifiable brain scans, or in fact any medical/scientific test that could show a physical/medical abnormality for any psychiatric disorder, the public would be getting such tests prior to being administered psychiatric drugs.
This is fact: There are no genetic tests, no brain scans, blood tests, chemical imbalance tests or X-rays that can scientifically/medically prove that any psychiatric disorder is a medical condition. Period. Whereas real diseases are discovered in labs, psychiatric disorders are invented by committee and voted into existence.

2. YES, PEOPLE CAN GET DEPRESSED, SAD, ANXIOUS AND EVEN ACT PSYCHOTIC. THAT DOESN’T MAKE THEM MENTALLY “DISEASED”

No one is saying that people don’t get depressed, sad, troubled, anxious, nervous or even sometimes act psychotic. The question then is simple—is this due to some mental “disease” that can be verified as one would verify cancer or a real medical condition? And the answer is No. For example, can soldiers returning from war experience extreme and often debilitating stress? Yes. It is something wrong with their brain? No. It’s the horrors of war. Can children become distracted and not pay attention? Since time immemorial, the answer is yes. But psychiatry has pathologized childhood behaviors into a “mental illness.” The same is true of mothers. Can a new mother become distraught after a joyous occasion such as the birth of a child? Yes. Is it a brain abnormality or mental disease? No. And is the most humane solution to put these people on drugs documented by international regulatory agencies to cause mania, psychosis, worsening depression, heart attack, stroke, sudden death? Or for new or nursing mothers to risk birth defects or damage to their infants from being prescribed such powerful drugs?
This is also true of people diagnosed “schizophrenic.” There is no medical test to verify someone has a brain abnormality or medical condition of schizophrenia. And while no one claims people can’t become psychotic, the fact remains there is no biological evidence to support schizophrenia as a brain disease or chemical abnormality. And consider this, if people do become psychotic, or irrational, is it in fact caused by some underlying medical (not psychiatric) problem? And why did a 15-year multiple follow up study find that there was a 40% recovery rate for those diagnosed schizophrenic who did not take antipsychotics, versus a 5% rate for those who did? What happened to their supposed “brain disease?” Did it simply vanish? Moreover, if they could recover from such a mental state, do they deserve the “stigma” of “schizophrenia” still being part of their permanent medical record? For life? Think about it. Imagine you were extremely overweight—obese. You lose all the weight so you are no longer obese. Yet your medical records continue to say that you are.
And if schizophrenia is in fact a “disease” despite the fact there is no medical or biological evidence (note we did not say speculation, or theories, but evidence) then why is it that psychiatrist Loren Mosher, the former Chief of Schizophrenia Research for the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) would openly state there is no biological condition of schizophrenia as a disease or brain malfunction? And why didn’t the mental health industry take advantage of his 2-year-outcome studies proving that those diagnosed schizophrenic could recover without the use of drugs? Is it because this proved that recovery was possible and thereby disproved the theory that something was wrong with their brain? Or was it the fact that they recovered without the use of drugs, thereby threatening a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry? Maybe this explains why Mosher was fired from his position at NIMH.

The Side Effects of
Common Psychiatric Drugs

3. THE CAMPAIGN TO “STOP THE STIGMA OF MENTAL ILLNESS” IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY… BIG PHARMA
With a seemingly altruistic agenda, the fact is the campaign to end the “stigma” of mental illness is one driven and funded by those who benefit from more and more people being labeled mentally ill—pharma, psychiatry and pharmaceutical front groups such as NAMI and CHADD to name but a few. For example, take NAMI’s campaign to stop the “stigma” and “end discrimination” against the mentally ill—the “Founding Sponsors” were Abbott Labs, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Pfizer, Novartis, SmithKline Beecham and Wyeth-Ayerst Labs. (For an in-depth look at what else Pharma funds and how this funding not only helps set mental health policies but campaigns such as this, read Pharmaceutical Industry Agenda Setting in Mental Health Policies at the bottom of this post)
The fact is that the “stigmatization ” is coming from those that benefit from people being labeled/stigmatized with mental disorders that have no medical/biological evidence. Case in point, if you are rebellious, you are “stigmatized” with the label “oppositional defiant disorder.” If your kid acts like a kid he is “stigmatized” with the label “ADHD.” If you are sad, unhappy (even temporarily) you are “stigmatized” with the label “depressive” or “bi-polar disorder.” If you are shy you are “stigmatized” with the label “social anxiety disorder.” Moreover, you or your child are now stigmatized for life as this label, which is based solely on opinion, is now part of your medical record, despite the fact there is no medical evidence to prove you are “mentally ill”.

4. PSYCHIATRIC “LABELS” ARE THE PROBLEM
Increasing numbers of people realize that just because a child fidgets, or loses pencils or toys—criteria for an “ADHD” diagnoses, this doesn’t mean a child is mentally ill. In fact many now claim that children diagnosed “ADHD” are really suffering from lead toxicity, or allergies, or poor diet, or lack of reading skills, and not a mental “illness.” The problem is that they continue to use the psychiatric label, ADHD, which stigmatizes a child as “mentally ill.” If in fact a child suffers from led toxicity, then why not call it lead toxicity? If he hasn’t been taught to read, why don’t we just say he hasn’t been taught to read? The same is true of all psychiatric diagnoses—every single psychiatric label stigmatizes the person being labeled. Psychiatric diagnoses are simply lists of behaviors that psychiatrists have compiled into little lists, given a name, added “disorder” on the end— then voted them into their billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as “legitimate.” This is big, big business, but it isn’t even close to legitimate diagnoses. Not in any medical or scientific context. A profit making context? Sure. Because coming up with new lists of behaviors and new “disorders” is the bedrock of the multi-billion dollar psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry. Its how they get paid. Remember, no psychiatric label, no billing insurance. No psychiatric label, no drug prescribed. So until we stop using these psychiatric labels, which mean nothing other than what some psychiatrists decided was a mental “illness, ” we will never stop the “stigma.” Because the psychiatric labels are backed by corporate interests—not medicine, and not science.

5. PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS ARE BIG BUSINESS—AND THE PSYCHIATRIC/PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY IS MAKING A KILLING—$84 BILLION PER YEAR.

The primary reason people take psychiatric drugs is because they’ve been taught to believe they have a medical condition called a psychiatric disorder, which then justifies taking drugs to treat it. This is a brilliant marketing campaign, but it is not science. Any drug changes behavior or mood, whether cocaine, alcohol, marijuana or heroin. This does not mean someone who acts or feels differently on cocaine does so because they had a cocaine imbalance which the cocaine then corrected. It means that drugs changes mood, emotion and behavior. But while the illicit use of drugs is universally frowned upon, and considered a bad way for people to deal with their problems, psychiatric drugs are made out to be “good” drugs, despite the fact many are more addictive than cocaine or heroin, and have side effects that rival such hardcore street drugs as LSD, heroin and crack cocaine.

6. WHERE TO GET THE FACTS ABOUT PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS RISKS AND SIDE EFFECTS

Because the public has been so mislead by the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry on the dangers of psychiatric drugs, CCHR has created a one-of-a-kind, easy to search psychiatric drugs side effects database, containing all international studies and drug regulatory warnings that have been issued on both classes of drugs (antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety drugs, stimulants, etc) and brand names such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ritalin etc. These are provided by CCHR as a free public service to help people make educated decisions based on facts, not marketing campaigns

7. WHY SAFE, EFFECTIVE TREATMENTS TO MENTAL DIFFICULTIES ARE KEPT BURIED
The larger problem is that the biological drug model (based on the bogus mental disorders are a disease marketing campaign) prevents governments from funding real medical solutions for people experiencing difficulty. And there are workable, non-harmful medical treatments that do not receive government funding because the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars on advertising and lobbying efforts, including hundreds of their pharma funded “patient’s rights” groups to counter any medical modality that does not support their biological drug model of mental disorders as a disease. Why? Billions of dollars in revenue for the psycho/pharma industry would be lost. This is an industry that time and again, has been proven to put profit above patients lives.
See various non-drug solutions/alternatives here:
http://www.cchrint.org/alternatives/

Bron: Citizens Commission on Human Rights International

Vaccinatie veroorzaakt opschudding in Groot-Brittanië

2012-02-10T09:46:00.002+01:00

7 februari 2012

Geachte,

Officieel zijn vaccins niet verplicht. Dat is de theorie.

In de praktijk wordt het wel opgelegd. Zo vragen kinderopvangcentra dit en ook vele werkgevers nemen het als een voorwaarde op in het arbeidscontract.

Dit laatste geldt voor heel wat mensen die in overheidsdienst werken en in de gezondheidszorg : geneesheren, verplegers, brandweerlui, politiemensen, gevangenisbewakers. Vooral de inenting tegen Hepatitis B wordt geëist.

In Groot-Brittanië is er nu grote beroering ontstaan omdat enkele honderden mensen blijvend slachtoffer zijn van fysieke en mentale bijwerkingen, die soms al korte tijd na de spuit zich aandienden. Het gaat vooral om chronisch vermoeidheidssyndroom, spierpijn, algemene zwakheid, cognitieve problemen, evenwichtsstoornissen.

Experts vermoeden dat vooral aluminium hiervan de oorzaak is .

Er bestaat wel een fonds dat hiervoor vergoeding voorziet, nl. het Governments Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme, maar om een of andere reden is het Hepatitis B-vaccin niet opgenomen.

Meer dan 150 parlementsleden hebben nu hun steun toegezegd om ervoor te zorgen dat deze mensen hun vergoeding krijgen.

Dit is de bron van dit bericht : http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/150804/Fury-at-vaccine-scandal.

Conclusie : alweer bericht over vaccinatieschade en alweer wordt het verband gelegd met aluminium. In een eerder bericht ( http://belfort-group.blogspot.com/2012/01/aluminium-notre-poison-quotidien.html ) hebben we al aangegeven dat dit ook algemeen een van de voornaamste ziektemakers is . Het zit overigens ook in de chemtrails die sproeivliegtuigen op bepaalde dagen verspreiden in de atmosfeer waarin wij trachten ons leven te leiden .

Hoe lang nog vooraleer men gaat wakker worden en gaat beseffen hoe u en ik, wij allemaal, structureel ziek gemaakt worden ?

Hoogachtend,

Peter Vereecke

Een politieagent schreef dit speciaal voor vrouwen

2012-02-07T15:33:00.002+01:00

Door de recente ontvoeringen en overvallen gedurende de dag is het goed om de volgende zaken in gedachten te houden voor ingeval van nood?
Dit is voor jullie, deel het met uw echtgenote of partner, uw kinderen kortom iedereen die u kent.
Nadat u deze 6 cruciale tips hebt gelezen stuurt u ze best door naar mensen waar je om geeft.
Het kan nooit kwaad om extra voorzichtig te zijn in deze gekke wereld waarin we nu leven.

1. tip van Tae Kwan Do:

De elleboog is het sterkste punt aan uw lichaam. Wanneer je dicht genoeg bent en je denkt die nodig te hebben gebruik hem dan..!!

2. Ooit geleerd van een toeristische gids:

Wanneer een overvaller uw portefeuille of portemonnee eist, NOOIT zomaar overhandigen..

Werp het van u weg ? De kans is reëel dat de overvaller meer geïnteresseerd is in uw geldbeugel/of portefeuille dan in uzelf. Hij zal voorzeker achter de portefeuille aangaan. Loop dan zo snel mogelijk in de andere richting.

3 Mocht je ooit in de koffer van een auto geduwd worden, stamp dan zo rap mogelijk het achterlicht eruit en steek je arm door het gat en begin dan als een gek te zwaaien. De chauffeur zal het niet zien maar anderen wel en zullen de politie verwittigen. Dit heeft al menig leven gered.

4 Vrouwen hebben de neiging om na het boodschappen doen, na de lunch of wat dan ook in de auto te stappen en even te blijven zitten om hun rekening te bekijken of een lijstje na te zien of hun make-up bij te werken>> NIET DOEN! Iemand met slechte bedoelingenheeft waarschijnlijk hierop zitten wachten en zal de gelegenheid gebruiken om bij u in de auto te stappen via de passagierszijde, en soms een pistool tegen uw hoofd houden en u gebieden ergens naartoe te rijden.

ZO GAUW U IN UW AUTO STAPT, SLUIT UW PORTIEREN AF EN VERTREK.

Mocht er toch al iemand in uw auto gestapt zijn, die u bedreigt met een pistool, rij dan niet door! Maar..

drijf de motor op en rij ergens tegenaan , uw auto zal wel beschadigd zijn. Uw airbag zal u wel beschermen. Maar ...Diegene die achterin zit zal er niet zo goed vanaf komen.

Zo gauw de auto ergens tegenaan botst, spring dan uit uw auto en loop de andere kant op. Je bent beter af met een beschadigde auto dan dat men uw lichaam ergens ver weg terug vindt.

5. Enkele notities i.v.m. het instappen in uw auto op een parkeerplaats of een parkeergarage.

A) Het is best altijd even in uw auto te kijken alvorens in te stappen. Zowel van voren als achterin. Stel dat je eens je auto vergat af te sluiten!

B) Wanneer je vlak naast een grote camionette geparkeerd staat, stap dan langs de andere zijde in. De meeste seriemoordenaars vallen hun slachtoffers aan door hen in hun camionette te trekken, op het moment dat die vrouwen in hun auto willen stappen.

6. In hoge gebouwen neem je best een lift al moet je maar enkele verdiepingen op. Een lege traphal kan angstaanjagend zijn en is een perfecte misdaadplaats. Vooral ?s nachts.

Dit zijn maar enkel tips die u kunnen helpen in geval van nood. Deel ze gerust met anderen. Denk niet dit zal mij nooit overkomen. Je weet maar nooit.
Het kost maar enkele minuten om dit te lezen maar het zou wel ùw leven of het leven van een dierbare kunnen redden.

Twitter en Facebook verslavender dan sigaretten en alcohol

2012-02-06T11:43:00.000+01:00

Sociale media zijn verslavender dan tabak of bier. De drang om Twitter en Facebook te gebruiken is voor veel mensen zelfs lastiger te weerstaan dan verlangens naar slaap of seks.

Het gebruik van sociale media lijkt onschuldig. Bedrijven en scholen stimuleren werknemers en leerlingen juist Twitter en Facebook te gebruiken. Dit terwijl de sociale media verslavender zijn dan bier en sigaretten.

De onderzoekers claimen zelfs dat sociale media verslavender zijn dan slaap en seks, schrijft de Britse krant The Guardian vrijdag.

Onderzoekers onder leiding van Wilhelm Hofmann van de Universiteit Booth Business School in Chicago vroegen 205 mensen uit het Duitse Würtzburg zeven dagen continu naar hun verlangens en hoe sterk die waren.

In die week gaven de ondervraagden duizenden verlangens door. De sterkste drang ging uit naar slaap en seks. Maar als mensen zich eigenlijk moesten inhouden, omdat ze bijvoorbeeld aan het werk waren, konden ze het verlangen naar sociale media het slechtst weerstaan. Bij drank, tabak, slaap en seks beheersten ze zich beter.

Volgens de onderzoekers komt dit omdat Twitter en Facebook altijd beschikbaar zijn en het weinig moeite of geld kost om de sociale media te gebruiken.

Nog slechter
Sociale media zijn dus al verslavender dan drank en sigaretten, er kleeft nog een nadeel aan Twitter en Facebook. Eerder onderzoek van de universiteit van Columbia toonde afgelopen zomer aan dat mensen die veel gebruik maken van sociale media vijf keer zo vaak roken dan anderen.

Bron: http://www.z24.nl

05-02-2012 | Gepubliceerd 11:33
06-02-2012 | Laatst bijgewerkt 08:11

Britse stad verbouwt eigen voedsel

2012-02-06T08:46:00.000+01:00

Toen de Britse stad Todmorden moestuinen begon aan te leggen als onderdeel van het programma Incredible Edible had men geen idee dat het simpele innovatieve concept de stad een buitengewoon inspirerend en zelfvoorzienend model voor de toekomst zou maken.

Verse kruiden, lekker fruit en sappige groenten groeien nu bij overheidsgebouwen, hogescholen en supermarkten.
Tuintjes, kweekbedden en zelfs parkeerplaatsen staan boordevol verse producten die iedereen op elk gewenst moment gratis mag consumeren. Het is allemaal onderdeel van het programma Incredible Edible, gestart door Mary Clear, grootmoeder van 10, en Pam Warhurst, oud-eigenaresse van een lokaal restaurant. Het duo had het gezamenlijke doel voor ogen om Todmorden de eerste Britse stad te maken die geheel zelfvoorzienend is in voedsel en tot nu toe is hun onderneming succesvol gebleken.

Respecteren
Op dit moment zijn 70 grote kweekbedden gerealiseerd in de stad om frambozen, abrikozen, appels, zwarte bessen, rode bessen, aardbeien, bonen, erwten, kersen, munt, rozemarijn, tijm, venkel, aardappelen, boerenkool, wortelen, sla, uien, groenten en kruiden te verbouwen. Niet alleen deden de lokale bewoners al snel mee aan het programma, ze respecteren ook het systeem en maken er geen misbruik van.
“Als je een berm neemt die als vuilnisbak en hondentoilet werd gebruikt en je maakt er een kweekbed vol kruiden en fruitbomen van zullen mensen de boel niet vernielen. Ik denk dat we geprogrammeerd zijn om voedsel niet te beschadigen,” gaf Warhurst als reactie op uitspraken dat het aanbieden van gratis fruit en groente zou kunnen leiden tot misbruik of ander crimineel gedrag.

Waardering
Ze merkte op dat juist het tegengestelde zichtbaar is geworden. Door het programma zijn relaties in de gemeenschap verbeterd en daalt de criminaliteit elk jaar steeds verder.
Het programma is zelfs zo succesvol dat vele andere gemeenschappen in zowel Groot-Brittannië als daarbuiten geïnteresseerd zijn in hun eigen openbare tuinbouw. Incredible Edible heeft er niet alleen voor gezorgd dat het gemeenschapsgevoel is verbeterd en de criminaliteit is teruggebracht, maar het programma maakt in de mensen een hernieuwde waardering los voor voedsel en de manier waarop het wordt verbouwd.
Bron: Naturalnews.com

STIGMA EN ONBEKENDE HULPVERLENING VERHINDEREN VLAMING HULP TE ZOEKEN

2012-02-04T09:08:00.000+01:00

ONDERZOEK - Weliswaar berichtte drie jaar geleden al dat een neerslachtige Vlaming te weinig praat en te laathulp zoekt. Nieuw suïcideonderzoek van Alexandre Reynders en Chantal Van Audenhove (LUCAS, KU Leuven),bevestigt die conclusie en trekt lessen uit regionale verschillen in de suïcidecijfers. TEKST NICO KROLS

Jaarlijks sterven in Vlaanderen ongeveer duizend mensen als gevolg van suïcide. Dat zijn er drie per dag.

Van 1995 tot en met 2008 is het suïcidecijfer bij mannen gemiddeld bijna dubbel zo hoog in Vlaanderen als in Nederland. Het suïcidecijfer bij Vlaamse vrouwen is in dezelfde periode gemiddeld 57 % hoger dan bij Nederlandse vrouwen.

Het onderzoek toont aan dat Vlamingen minder vaak hulp zoeken en krijgen voor psychische problemen dan Nederlanders. Hulp zoeken wordt voor een groot deel bepaald door de toegankelijkheid en de beschikbaarheid van hulp. Hierin speelt de organisatie en de
bekendheid van het zorgaanbod een belangrijke rol.

Ongeveer 18 % van de Nederlandse mannen en 10 % van de Nederlandse vrouwen is niet vertrouwd met eerstelijnswelzijnszorg (CAW) en tweedelijnsgeestelijke gezondheidszorg (CGG). In Vlaanderen is dit respectievelijk 45 % en 35 %. De hulpverlening van psychologen en psychiaters is zowel in Vlaanderen als in Nederland goed ingeburgerd.

Naast kennis van het zorgaanbod bepalen ook attitudes en stigma het hulpzoekgedrag. De gemiddelde Vlaming heeft een minder positieve attitude ten aanzien van hulpverlening voor psychische problemen dan de gemiddelde Nederlander. Vlamingen
voelen zich vaker minderwaardig en ervaren meer schaamte indien ze hulp zouden zoeken voor psychische problemen dan Nederlanders. Daarnaast ervaart 70 % van de Vlamingen in zijn omgeving een negatieve houding tegenover personen met psychische problemen. Dit percentage is hoog en kan een drempel vormen om daadwerkelijk hulp te zoeken.

Voorts leert het onderzoek dat er belangrijke regionale verschillen zijn. Bepaalde regio’s kampen met hoge suïcidecijfers terwijl de intentie om hulp te zoeken er laag is en de schaamte groot.

CGG EN CAW TE WEINIG BEKEND

De onderzoekers concluderen dat de toegankelijkheid van passende hulp voor mensen met suïcidale gedachten of psychische problemen groter zou moeten zijn. De bekendheid van het CGG en CAW is een belangrijk verbeterpunt. En de stap naar professionele hulp psychische problemen en suïcideneigingen “zou positiever gewaardeerd moeten worden”.

De overheid heeft een belangrijke rol in het meer toegankelijk en maatschappelijk aanvaardbaar maken van hulpverlening voor psychische problemen. Hierbij kan ze overwegen meer middelen in te zetten in regio’s waar suïcide het meest voorkomt.
Het overheidsbeleid kan onder meer opteren voor de uitvoering van de voorstellen van de werkgroep GGZ van de eerstelijnsgezondheidsconferentie in 2011 ( zie ook pagina 35 ).

Belangrijke innovaties zijn nieuwe vormen van ondersteuning die aansluiten bij coaching en herstel, en die online worden aangeboden.

Campagnes die inspelen op de beeldvorming rond depressie en geestelijke gezondheidszorg kunnen in belangrijke mate bijdragen tot de strijd tegen stigmatisering en discriminatie van mensen met psychische problemen. Op die manier zal professionele en informele
hulp toegankelijker worden.

Bron: Alexandre Reynders, Dr. Gert Scheerder, Prof. Dr. Geert Molenberghs, Prof. Dr. Chantal Van Audenhove, Suïcide in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Een verklaring vanuit sociaal cognitieve factoren en hulpzoekend gedrag , LUCAS, KU Leuven, 2011.
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www.kuleuven.be/lucas
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Menopause

2012-01-28T11:37:00.000+01:00

First we were told HRT could cause cancer. Now, herbal remedies for the menopause have been branded dangerous, too. So what SHOULD we be doing? Here, writers who’ve coped in very different ways share their wisdom . . .

When did 'menopause' become a dirty word? It is a stage every healthy woman will face, so why do we allow it to remain clouded in confusion?
Just yesterday, we were warned that herbal remedies used to combat symptoms of the change can actually cause harm. And there are new reports that hormone replacement therapy, which has long been the source of cancer scares, can create brain shrinkage.
So where does a woman turn when she feels that first hot flush? Is it not unthinkable that a condition affecting more than half our population is so mired in misinformation?

What should we be doing? Writers offer their advice on how to cope with the menopause

If every man on Earth saw looming on the horizon promises of hot flushes, memory loss, dwindling desire and other nasty side effects, you can bet there would be better advice and treatments available.
After all, the only real side effect of the so-called 'male menopause' is gradual impotence, and Viagra has come along, or sprung up if you prefer, to deal with that.
For a long time, the female change of life has been regarded with horror - a change very much for the worse.
'No one wants the menopause,' writes Louise Foxcroft in her enlightening book, Hot Flushes, Cold Science. 'It is an age under siege, riddled with treacherous cliches - and subject to an onslaught of medical treatments.'
But why the blazes do we find it necessary to treat a natural and universal stage in nature as a disease - and a shameful disease, at that?

Irma Kurtz: Do not let menopause be a full stop

Even women friends who discuss among themselves every detail of their sexual adventures will not mention the 'M' word when the time for it is approaching.
We are scared of coming to 'the change' because we do not know what we are going to change into. We only know - because we have been told it for generations - that once a woman has changed, she is 'past it' and 'all dried up'.
My own mother, who got a real kick out of telling me the facts of life when the time came for me to learn them, never so much as mentioned the fact of menopause.
It was not something to talk about. To this day, plenty of young women who write in to agony aunts with detailed and sophisticated sexual problems cannot imagine a life after their 'monthlies'.
Some of them do not know what the menopause is. Or how to spell it. Naturally, women hoped for a detour, or at least a delay, before the unthinkable, and of course medical science came up with help.
HRT, when it hit the marketplace, was received by laymen (or should that be laywomen) not as a medical breakthrough so much as a magical one.
They did not see it as merely the treatment for a few specific and relatively rare physiological conditions occurring in early menopause, but as an elixir of youth that would prevent the dreaded 'drying up', and what we women continue to believe is the end of practically everything.
'Are you on it yet?' was a question whispered between middle-aged women in the early days of HRT.
And names were dropped, too, sometimes in print, of those who were on 'the new pill', or were rumoured to be: Maggie Thatcher, Joan Collins, Elizabeth Taylor and similarly eternal chicks.
Why did we fall for it? Surely, the recently reported dangers of indiscriminate HRT, the documented increased threat of breast cancers and strokes, for instance, can come as no surprise to those of us who do not believe in magic potions.
And now so-called 'natural' remedies for the menopausal syndrome have been found to be dodgy or, worse, outright dangerous to long-term health, which is only to be expected.
How can nature remedy what is natural in any healthy woman's life? Why should we expect nature to correct what nature itself has imposed?
It was back in the early days of female liberation that the brute unfairness of a female menopause demanded the naming (and shaming) of a male menopause, too.
But the so-called male menopause comes on gradually and its symptoms boil down to hardly more than one.
No hot flushes for the 'menopausal' bloke, no headaches, temper tantrums, reserved place for him on the shelf, where a woman, to this day, still expects to end up after menstruation ends.
Fortunately for me, I had it relatively easy. I suffered no upset or trauma, and a supply of Evian Water sprays chilled in the fridge was all I needed to cool the flushes.
And eventually the day came when I was absolutely sure that I was over the change: I had changed! So I poured myself some wine and made a little celebration of chucking out the last box of tampons, which had been stashed in my bathroom cabinet.
It was a week later that I recollected, suddenly, how I had slipped a small diamond ring - a gift from my mother - into the box for safekeeping. Surely no burglar, I reasoned, would venture in there. Now the little diamond was gone for ever; out with the trash.
Yes, of course, we women do come to the end of something precious when our periods stop. But we still have time, and a new freedom, and we still have plenty to do.
So forget about herbs. Forget about HRT. We women are lucky that we come to a point, clearly defined, where we can take a breath, look around and find new ways to be. Do not let menopause be a full stop. Make it, instead, a pause for thought.

JACI STEPHEN, AGED 50

Jaci Stephen: Herb convert

Just a few weeks ago, on these pages, I wrote a piece about my experience (so far) of the menopause. Of all the pieces I have written in more than 30 years of journalism, not one came close in attracting the anger or passion of those who agreed - or disagreed - with what I had written.
To summarise: I wrote about my forgetfulness, physical discomfort at times, but also a really great feeling of having got to a stage in my life where I felt at ease with who I was and what I had accomplished.
The women whose experiences had been worse than my own appeared to wish me to burn in hell - preferably on Earth and through more hot sweats than I have so far encountered.
But many others contacted me to say it was as though I had been writing about them.
They said the article gave them hope that the menopause did not mean, as they had been led to believe, that they were doomed to spend the rest of their lives waiting for the Grim Reaper to take them to a place even worse than the one they were already in.
But why are we not, as women, getting together and uniting in what is going to affect us all?
Why, if information is not available, are we not screaming for more research to guide us through this deeply significant part of our lives?
But in the absence of any real information, you can only go on what feels right for you.
Personally, I have gone down the herbal route - at least, for the moment. I take nothing with soya in it (I read some years ago that soya was linked to breast cancer), but rely on ancient plant and Indian remedies, notably Ayurvedic treatments.
I also drink less, take long walks and feel fitter than I have ever done - all of which undoubtedly helps.
I go to a Holland & Barrett store in Cardiff, where the male staff appear to know more about the menopause than any doctor I have ever been to, and can tell me about every aspect of it.
In London, I go to Fresh And Wild, where, again, the staff can take me through every herb on the shelf.
Where conventional medicine has failed, these herbs are doing the trick. I spent six months waiting for an NHS appointment, endured a year of treatment for an unpleasant aspect of the menopause (let's call it internal flora and fauna) and nothing worked.
The herbs have. Whatever the new research says, I am not going to give up an unconventional treatment that works where conventional medicine has failed.
Women are in a no-win situation throughout their entire lives as a result of their hormones, but with the menopause, there seems to have been little research into how those hormones might be managed.
When we get to 50, society pretty much regards us as either being on the shelf, or certainly pending. But we still count. We still work. We are still willing and able to work when all those younger women are off work because it is the time of their month or having babies (Sir Alan, take note).
So let's stop whingeing and fighting among ourselves, and demand that someone out there give us the facts about what is really going on with our bodies, and what is good for them.

MARCELLE D'ARGY SMITH, AGED 62

So what are we women supposed do? Put up with hot flushes, loss of sex drive, mood swings, mad depression, night sweats, bone thinning?
Well, you do if you're remarkably stoic, don't mind your sex life going down the drain and believe menopause is just another thing to be endured. Not me. I rushed to Professor John Studd, who pioneered HRT in the UK.
I trust his judgement implicitly. He measures bone density, and won't give you HRT if there's any breast cancer in the family. I had HRT implants with a little testosterone boost. Wonderful, I tell you.
I was frisky, full of energy and my brain seemed to be in overdrive. Sex was remarkable. I'm off HRT now (after ten years). But I'm hoping I still have the oomph it gave me.

MAEVE HARAN, AGED 58

My mother died of breast cancer, so there was no way I was going to go for HRT. Even if it wasn't for the health risk, women who took it seemed to lose their good sense along with their hot flushes.
At the first sign of menopause, I turned to Holland & Barrett. I started with the gloriously named dong quai, then I tried milk thistle.
Finally, I swallowed handfuls of the sinisterly named black cohosh, which always made me think of something Baldrick would have dreamed up.
While researching a novel set in the 17th century, I was amazed to find herbs like these were given to women for menopause back then.
Nothing seemed to make any difference, though, and I decided to forget about the whole thing. The truth is that for many of us, menopause is just that: a transition between youth and maturity.
And unless it causes you serious depression or makes you unable to function, I found it best to avoid all treatments and sit it out.
Although it is horrible for a while, after it's over you get a whole new flush of post-menopausal energy. And all without dying your hair blonde and trying to get off with your daughter's boyfriend.

SHYAMA PERERA, AGED 50

For years, I've suffered hot flushes and creaky joints, so I was a sucker for any remedy that would help manage my body's perimenopausal breakdown.
I acted on every recommendation I received. My first port of call was the menopause cake - an item that you buy online in batches of ten and contains more seeds than London Zoo's aviary. It seemed to do the trick.
My body cooled and so did my temper. But I spent a fortune on dental floss, dislodging the detritus from between my teeth. Then came the gingko biloba for memory lapses.
I still have days when I can't find the words for the most basic items, but since starting gingko I am unquestionably sharper of wit and mind.
It's still on my shopping list - but red clover and badger balm are not. They were recommended for my restless nights.
Nor is oil of evening primrose, apparently brilliant at stemming mood swings. Why not? Because I've discovered HRT - a one-stop solution to virtually all these ills.
A lot of my friends are disapproving because HRT carries a small health risk. So, it now appears, do herbal remedies.
For me, the choice has never been between natural and synthetic solutions, but on whether the alleviation of the symptoms justifies any risk. My answer? Yes.

CHRISTINE HAMILTON, AGED 59

Christine Hamilton: Recommends sleep and an understanding man

I didn't notice my menopause. We were battling through a high-profile court case, so when I bubbled over or snapped I put it down to general stress and strain.
I had no hot flushes so it never crossed my mind I had reached 'that time of life'.
Depression, irritability, mood swings - all that was put down to outside circumstances. I dealt with it by hitting the bottle (disastrous) and letting off steam shouting at my nearest and dearest, who needed the patience of a saint to cope.
It is still a bit of a taboo (more people will talk about orgasms than menopause) and it continues to be used as a derogatory word.
The big difference now is that women of 55 (average age for menopause) are still vibrant, attractive and certainly not on the sexual scrapheap.
I wouldn't touch HRT with a bargepole, and some of the herbal remedies sound more like voodoo. But each to his own. Keep calm, keep off the booze, get plenty of sleep - and find an understanding man!

JILL PARKIN, AGED 50

When my ovaries and womb want to shut up shop, that's fine by me. I have three children and nothing but gratitude for my reproductive equipment. It deserves to retire.
What is the point of pumping yourself with HRT when you're simply putting off the evil day? Why bleed until 60 or 65? Why put up with flushes at that age when you can get them out of the way now?
Every few months, there are new scares linked to HRT - everything from brain shrinkage to strokes and cancer. We're waiting for definitive proof, of course, but why run the risk?
For thicker hair and better skin? It's all vanity. Not just in the sense of caring too much about your looks, but in the sense of emptiness.
Sorry, but by our age you should have got a life of your own - not one that belongs to the children.
The menopause comes late to women in my family and I probably have a few years yet - but mentally I'm ready for it.
If it wakes me up at night, I'll drink iced water and read. If it puts my husband off me, then he's not the man I thought he was. They say the menopause leaves you with more energy. Perhaps he's the one who should worry.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1116561/Menopause-survivors-guide-Women-whove-coped-different-ways-share-wisdom.html#ixzz1kkRMA12u

Do you think there is Life after Birth?

2012-01-27T09:20:00.001+01:00

Met dank aan Anja Caers

EEN GESPREK TUSSEN EEN TWEELING IN DE BAARMOEDER

Er was eens een tweeling en ze zaten in de baarmoeder. Toen ze langzaam in hun foetale bestaan rijper werden en hun hersenen begonnen te functioneren, werden ze zich ook van hun omgeving en hun eigen bestaan vaag bewust. Na enige tijd ontdekten ze ook elkaars bestaan. Weken gingen voorbij en werden maanden. Ze merkten allerlei veranderingen op in hun lichaam en hun beleven. Er was verandering op til. Er ontspon zich een gesprek.

"We zijn aan het veranderen," zei de een, "Wat kan dat betekenen?"

"Dat betekent," antwoordde de ander, "dat we geboren gaan worden."

De twee huiverden en werden bang. Want ze wisten dat met de geboorte het leven hier ten einde was en dat ze de wereld waarin ze nu leefden zouden moeten verlaten.

"Geloof jij eigenlijk in een leven ná de geboorte?”, vroeg de een.

“Jazeker, dat is er. Ons leven hier is enkel bedoeld om te groeien en te ontwikkelen zodat we ons op het bestaan na de geboorte kunnen voorbereiden en er sterk genoeg zullen zijn voor dat bestaan.”

“Nonsens, dat bestaat toch niet. Hoe moet dat er überhaupt uitzien, zo'n leven na de geboorte?”

"Dat weet ik ook niet precies. Maar zeker zal het veel lichter en helderder zijn dan hier. En misschien zullen we dan rond kunnen lopen en met de mond eten”.

“Wat een onzin! Rondlopen, dat gaat toch helemaal niet. En met je mond eten, wat een raar idee. We hebben toch de navelstreng die ons voedt. Bovendien gaat rondlopen ook daarom al niet, de navelstreng is nu al vaak veel te kort.”

"Toch, ik weet het zeker dat het kan. Het is allemaal alleen een beetje anders dan hier”.

“Er is er nog nooit iemand teruggekomen van 'na de geboorte'. Met de geboorte is dit leven ten einde. En het leven hier is alleen maar donker en een kwelling. Als de zin van conceptie en al ons groeien en ontwikkelen niets anders is dan dat het allemaal eindigt met de geboorte, dan is dit bestaan werkelijk absurd”

“Ook al weet ik niet precies hoe het leven na de geboorte eruit ziet, we zullen dan in ieder geval onze moeder zien en ze zal voor ons zorgen.”

“Moeder? Jij gelooft in een Moeder? Waar is ze dan?”

“Nou hier, overal om ons heen. Wij zijn en bestaan in haar en door haar. Zonder haar konden we überhaupt niet bestaan.”

“Quatsch! Van een moeder heb ik nog nooit iets gemerkt of gezien, dus bestaat ze ook niet.”

„Toch, toch, soms, als we stil zijn, kun je haar voor ons horen zingen. Of voelen hoe ze onze wereld streelt”

Waarschijnlijk naar Henry Nouwen (Hollandse priester en schrijver, 1932 - 1996)

Een deelnemer aan de cursus Studienhaus Kaiser, Schlangenbad-Hause von der Höhe, heeft me dit mooie verhaal in november 2004 overhandigd (Jaap van der Wal)

Food Democracy Now

2012-01-27T09:08:00.001+01:00

On January 31, family farmers will take part in the first phase of a court case filed to protect farmers from genetic trespass by Monsanto’s GMO seed, which contaminates organic and non-GMO farmer’s crops and opens them up to abusive lawsuits. In the past two decades, Monsanto’s seed monopoly has grown so powerful that they control the genetics of nearly 90% of five major commodity crops including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets.

In many cases farmers are forced to stop growing certain crops to avoid genetic contamination and potential lawsuits. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America’s family farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. Due to these aggressive lawsuits, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy. Please join us in standing up for family farmers everywhere against Monsanto's abusive seed monopoly.

http://fdn.actionkit.com/cms/sign/farmersvs_monsanto?referring_akid=.370717.vimiWA&source=taf

S510 (Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010) - Illegal To Grow, Share, Trade, Sell Homegrown Food ... SB S510 Will Allow Government To Put You In Jail By Steve Green 8-6-10

http://www.rense.com/general91/dehe.htm

"Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US..."

"..."If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public's right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one's choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God." It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food." ~ Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower.

Monsanto says it has no interest in the bill and would not benefit from it, but Monsanto's Michael Taylor who gave us rBGH and unregulated genetically modified (GM) organisms, appears to have designed it and is waiting as an appointed Food Czar to the FDA (a position unapproved by Congress) to administer the agency it would create without judicial review if it passes.

S 510 would give Monsanto unlimited power over all US seed, food supplements, food AND FARMING..."

MORE: http://www.rense.com/general91/dehe.htm

New Edible Microchips to Alert Doctors, Mobile Phones if Patients Do Not Takes Meds

2012-01-21T07:43:00.000+01:00

Every day it pains me to see in what a complete and utter mad, sick world we live in.

New ‘edible’ microchips will soon be available to alert doctors and mobile phones if patients are not taking their medications, each smaller than a grain of sand. The chips record the ‘precise’ medical details of a patient’s pill regime and are scheduled to be available in Britain by the end of the year.

The microchips will be unleashed by a partnership involving both an American biomedical company and a British healthcare firm. Labeled as ‘digestible sensors’, the microchips are set up to send alerts to the mobile phone of a doctor or designated ‘caretaker’ if patient has strayed from their specified pill routine. The companies say that they are attempting to develop ‘intelligent medicines’.

Microchip Uses Electric Currents, Embedded Bluetooth Technology to Alert Mobile Phones

Upon taking the pill, it will be digitally recorded and time-stamped as they are digested in the body. The chips themselves are activated by stomach acid.
A spokesman for the healthcare company, Lloyds- pharmacy, cited the difficulties involved with remembering medications as a need for the invasive chips. Steve Gray, healthcare services director of the company launching the chips, stated:

“Anyone taking several medications knows how easy it can be to lose track of whether or not you’ve taken the correct tablets that day.”

At the center of the chip is a small silicon wafer that separates minor quantities of copper and magnesium, which in turn creates a microscopic battery that emits and electric currents upon coming into contact with the acidic environment of the stomach. The currents, given specific signatures to identify the drug taken, are picked up by a patch stuck on the skin of the patient. The patch records the information transmitted by the chip, and sends it out through Bluetooth technology to a mobile phone.
The maker of the chip, Proteus Biomedical, plans on rolling it out as a fully integrated system that can send out detailed alerts if an individual strays from their pharmaceutical schedule.

“In the future the goal is a fully integrated system that creates an information product that helps patients and their families with the demands of complex pharmacy,” said Andrew Thompson, the chief executive and founder of Proteus Biomedical.

Source: http://naturalsociety.com/edible-microchips-alert-doctors-patients-do-not-take-meds/

Baby Dies After 9 Vaccines in One Day

2012-01-21T07:36:00.002+01:00

Als eerbetoon aan de familie Sirjacobs

Ik was verbaasd dat er gisteren maar 30 ouders zijn meegestapt met de familie. Voor wie niet op de hoogte is: eerst een tekst van vactruth.com daarna een Nederlandstalige tekst uit Knack.be

Babies Stacy and Lesly Sirjacobs

The end of last year was masked with sadness for Belgium parents Raphaël Sirjacobs & Béatrice Dupont, as their nine week old daughter Stacy Sirjacobs lost her fight for life. Stacy died just one week after her first vaccinations and left her twin sister Lesly behind. Devastated by their loss their parents are convinced that vaccines and hospital failures were the cause of their beautiful daughters death.

Stacy and Lesly were born one month premature by Caesarean section and spent the next four days in an incubator. Stacy needed resuscitation at birth.

Following medical advice parents Sirjacobs and Dupont decided to have the twins vaccinated. Stacy was slightly unwell with a cold on the day of her vaccinations but doctors assured her parents that it was safe to give her the vaccinations.

(It is worth noting that there is a history of Sudden Infant Death and allergies in the family. The twins were being prescribed a milk supplement due to a milk allergy at the time Stacy became ill)

The twins received Prevenar, a vaccine against meningitis and pneumonia, Infanrix Hexa, a six in one vaccination for diphtheria, tetanus, polio, pertussis, hepatitis B and Haemophilus type B, and finally the Rotarix, a preventive vaccine for gastroenteritis.

This means that these tiny vulnerable babies received a staggering nine vaccines in one day, vaccines that may have caused one of them to die.

A week after her vaccinations Stacy became unwell with a fever of 39.9 degrees C. Her parents decided to administer Perdolan to lower her fever. As their daughter was still very poorly they called the hospital who advised them to bring their daughter in.

The medical staff diagnosed Stacy with a slight chest infection and infection in her blood and told her parents not to worry as this was “not serious”. Stacy was then given medication and put on a drip feed and kept in for observation.

Stacy’s father informed me that all links to the vaccines were strongly denied.

Dertigtal ouders stappen mee in mars voor vrijheid van vaccinatie

vrijdag 20 januari 2012 om 15u19

(Belga) Een dertigtal ouders zijn meegestapt in een mars van het Zuidstation in Brussel naar de federale overheidsdienst Volksgezondheid, om de vrijheid van vaccinatie te eisen voor hun kinderen. Het initiatief ging uit van Raphaël Sirjacobs en Béatrice Dupont, de ouders van Stacy, een baby die in oktober 2011 overleed nadat ze gevaccineerd werd met Prevenar, Infanrix Hexa en Rotarix.

Dertigtal ouders stappen mee in mars voor vrijheid van vaccinatie

Officieel overleed Stacy aan de gevolgen van een hersenvliesontsteking, maar volgens haar ouders is haar dood het gevolg van de driedubbele vaccinatie, die uitgevoerd werd ondanks de familiale voorgeschiedenis van allergieën.

Eén van de geneesmiddelen is in sommige landen van de markt gehaald na de dood van andere baby's.

De ouders klagen over het gebrek aan informatie over de bijwerkingen van die vaccins en eisen de vrijheid van vaccinatie.

Sirjacobs verwijt het ONE (Office de Naissance et de l'Enfance), de Waalse tegenhanger van Kind en Gezin, ook dat het ouders dwingt om hun kinderen te laten vaccineren, anders worden ze niet toegelaten in een crèche.

De ouders willen nu aantonen dat de bijwerkingen van vaccins onderschat worden, hoewel ze ernstig en zelfs dodelijk kunnen zijn. De manifestanten willen ook dat de wet van 2002 op de patiëntenrechten wordt toegepast. Die bepaalt dat de patiënt alle beschikbare informatie over zijn behandeling kan krijgen. (OSN)

Als therapeute met ruime ervaring kanik ouders maar 1 raad geven: denk aub twee keren na voor jij je kind laat vaccineren!!

Why It Is Wise to Worship a Woman

2012-01-05T10:56:00.001+01:00

For all the men in my Life: a wonderful blog posting by Arjuna Ardagh

A few days ago, after a particularly exquisite evening with my wife Chameli, I put this post up on Facebook before going to bed:

"I have had many, many great teachers in my life. A super abundance. No one and nothing comes close to the woman who is now asleep in the bedroom. My marriage has become the guru, the salvation, the muse, the crack through which the divine shines through."

When I woke up the next morning, there were the usual offerings of people who liked the post as well as comments. One man had the vulnerability and courage to post this on facebook:

"Thank you Arjuna for this sharing, I feel like [I'm] in front of a choice which is between feeling envious of what you have and I don't, or instead to decide that 'I want that too,' and, as you show, it is possible..."

I was touched.

Over the next days, I got several more messages like this from men: vulnerable men, honest men, rare and courageous men. They came in as private messages on Facebook or through our website, and they all said basically the same thing:

"I read your Facebook post. I want what you have. Show me how to get it."

So, friends, here it is. The short guide on how to worship a woman, and why it's the wisest thing that a man can do. First of all, lets pop a few very understandable doubts that you might have. I'm familiar with all of them.

1. "I'm wounded and damaged in my relationships to the feminine."
So am I, dear brother, so am I. My parents divorced in a messy way when I was four. I grew up alone with my mother. She did her very best to provide for me, but she was unhappy and insecure. By the time I started to have relationships with women myself in my early teens, I discovered that I had a mountain of resentments, fears, and separation in my relation to the feminine. The conscious practice of worship can become a part of healing the wounds.

2. "Arjuna, you're lucky. You've got an incredible partner. I'm together with a woman who's not like Chameli."

I really don't have the ultimate answer to that doubt or question. It certainly could seem to be the case that I've been lucky in finding a great woman, but here's how it happened for me. I've had a lot of less lucky connections in my life. I've experienced my share of the manipulative side of the feminine: the victim, the rageful, the vengeful. And I have seen the ugly side of the masculine psyche in myself. A few weeks prior to meeting Chameli, my wife, something deep and profound shifted in me, which I believe can shift for anyone in the same way.

3. "I don't have a partner at all, and I sometimes doubt if I'll ever meet anybody."
Being with a partner where worship is not flowing, or not being with a partner at all, are basically two aspects of the same situation: you've had an intuition or a glimpse of the possibilities of a deeper love, and you want more of it. The solutions are the same.

4. "I feel my heart is closed down. I live in my head a lot, and I wouldn't even know what worship was if it broke into my house at 2 o'clock in the morning and held me at gunpoint."
That's where the whole thing starts for all of us, when we realize that we don't yet know how to love. And that's that the big question that you have to consider: "Is that okay with me?" Never mind how much money you make, or how many friends you have on Facebook, no matter how nice a house you live in, or no matter how big a car you drive, no matter how impressive your partner's bust size, or how much you meditate and become spiritual... have you loved for real, in a total and undefended way? If not, and here's where you have to be honest with yourself, is that OK with you? Is it OK to die one day without the heart's gift having been fully given?

Eight or nine years ago, I came to that question in myself, exactly that, and I discovered that the answer was, if I was was raw and vulnerable and uncomplicated, that it was actually not OK. If I died one day without having fully loved, it would not have truly been a life well lived.

Many many years ago, I went to Bali for a vacation, on my own. I met up with some other young travelers there and we hired a Jeep to take us on a tour of the island. We drove up right to the highest point of the island, where Tourists don't usually go. Our guide took us to one of the most sacred temples. It was surrounded by a big brick wall with an ornate entrance. After removing our shoes and wrapping scarves around our heads, we stepped together through this entrance. Inside, there was a short courtyard and then another brick wall with another entrance. After more preparations of lighting incense and giving offerings, we stepped through the second entrance. We were allowed to go through the opening in one more wall, but that was it. All together there were ten walls around the deity in the middle. Hindus could go beyond the fourth wall. Devotees of that particular deity could go beyond the fifth wall, and so it went on. The only people allowed to approach the deity directly were those who had given their lives completely and totally to its worship. Everyone else could come a little closer, a little closer, to the innermost beauty, but not all the way to the center.

I'm not a big believer of the worship of statues, but there's a beautiful symbolism to what I saw there, because a woman's heart is just like that. At the essence of every woman's heart is the divine feminine. It contains everything that has ever been beautiful, or lovely, or inspiring, in any woman, anywhere, at any time. The very essence of every woman's heart is the peak of wisdom, the peak of inspiration, the peak of sexual desirability, the peak of soothing, healing love. The peak of everything. But it's protected, for good reason, by a series of concentric walls. To move inwardly from one wall to the next requires that you intensify your capacity to devotion, and as you do so, you are rewarded with Grace. This is not something you can negotiate verbally with a woman. She doesn't even know consciously how to open those gates herself. They are opened magically and invisibly by the keys of worship.

If you stand on the outside of the outermost wall, all you have available to you, like many other unfortunate men, is pornography. For $1.99 a minute, you can see her breasts, maybe her vagina, and you can stimulate yourself in a sad longing for deeper love.

Step through another gate, and she will show you her outer gift-wrapping. She'll look at you with a certain twinkle in her eye. She'll answer your questions coyly. She'll give you just the faintest hint that there is more available.

Step through another gate with your commitment, with your attention, with the small seedlings of devotion, and she'll open her heart to you more. She'll share with you her insecurities, the way that she's been hurt, her deepest longings. Some men will back away at this point. They realize that the price they must pay to go deeper is more than they are willing to give. They start to feel a responsibility. But for those few who step though another gate, they come to discover her loyalty, her willingness to stick with you no matter what, her willingness to raise your children, stick up for you in conversation, and, if you are lucky, even pick up your dirty socks now and then. And so it goes on. You've got the gist by now.

Somewhere around the second wall from the center, she casts the veils of her personality aside, and shows you that she is both a human being and also a portal into something much greater than that. She shows you a wrath that is not hers, but all women's. She shows you a patience that is also universal. She shows you her wisdom. At this point you start to experience the archetypes of women, who have been portrayed as goddesses and mythological figures in every tradition.

Then, at the very center, in the innermost temple itself, all the layers of your devotion are flooded with reward all at once. You discover the very essence of the feminine, and in a strange way that is not exactly romantic, but profoundly sacred all the same, you realize that you could have got here with any woman if you had just been willing to pass through all the layers of initiation. Any woman is every woman, and every woman is any woman at the same time. When you love a woman completely, at the very essence of her being, this is the one divine feminine flame. It is what has made every woman in history beautiful. It's the flame behind the Mona Lisa, and Dante's Beatrice, and yes, also Penelope Cruz and Heidi Klum. You discover the magic ingredient which has lead every man to fall in love with a woman.

When you learn how to pay attention to the essence of the feminine in this way, you fall to the floor in full body prostration, tears soaking your cheeks and clothes, and you wonder how you could have ever taken Her, in all of Her forms, for granted even for a second.

So just a couple small questions remain. First, do you get what I'm talking about? Does it jive for you? Does it make sense? And second, if yes, how are you going to get from where you are now to being able to the full capacity of your heart to love for real? I'd be glad to share more about this if we get to know each other better, but here's how you get started.

First, do what I did, and create an altar in your room dedicated to Divine Feminine. Put only symbols of the feminine on it. I have a painting called "Beatrix" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I have a statue of Quan Kin. Populate your altar with anything that reminds you of the feminine, and spend a few minutes of the day in worship. Yes, worship. Adoration. Devotion. Offer up rose petals. Offer poems. Offer everything, and beg Her to reveal Her innermost essence to you. This will work miracles whether you're single and waiting to meet the right woman or whether you're already in relationship and long to meet your woman in a deeper way.

The second way to get started: make a practice, a discipline, of telling your woman, or any woman, ten times a day something which you adore about her. "I love the smell of your shampoo." "I love the way you laugh." "The color of your eyes is so beautiful." Of course, you need to keep it appropriate. You can go as far out on a limb as you like if you're in relationship with a woman, but with anyone else remember the gates. Keep you communication appropriate to the gate number that you find yourself at. Appreciation the curve of a woman's breast, for example, if she happens to be the cashier at the supermarket, would equate more to harassment than worship.

So here's enough to get started. Of course, there's a lot more we can say about this. Feel free to post your comments below, and I'll use them as the foundation for future blogs.

Moeten we bang zijn om onze waarden op te dringen?

2012-01-04T12:16:00.000+01:00

MOETEN WE BANG ZIJN OM ONZE WAARDEN OP TE DRINGEN?
LUCKAS VANDER TAELEN (Groen!) is het beu naast een getto te leven waar allochtone
jongeren hem behandelen alsof hij op hun privérrein loopt. 'Waarom durven
wij niet opkomen voor wat eigenlijk essentieel is: respect voor de wetten en
de waarden van het land waarin wij leven?'

Ik woon vlakbij een buurt in Vorst, van de Merodestraat tot het Zuidstation, die je zelfs met de meest multiculturele vooringenomenheid niet anders dan als een getto kunt omschrijven.

Mijn dochter heeft het al lang opgegeven om in die wijk te gaan. Daarvoor is ze net iets te vaak uitgescholden voor veel onfraais. Ik fiets er elke dag door en beleef steeds een ander avontuur. dubbel geparkeerde auto's, bestuurders die een kruispunt blokkeren om met elkaar te praten, rondhangende jongeren die je bekijken alsof je op hun privémein komt.

Probeer vooral niets te zeggen als je weer eens bijna omver gereden wordt: de laatste keer dat ik dit toch deed, werd ik de huid vol gescholden door een omstaander van geen zestien jaar, die zijn beledigende tirade afsloot met een boodschap die ik niet vertaal: 'Nique ta mé.' Dat was minder erg dan de vorige keer, toen een andere jonge Maghrebijnse chauffeur zich door mijn gedrag beledigd voelde: ik had het aangedurfd mijn voorrang te nemen. Zijn eer was dusdanig gekrenkt dat hij dit blijkbaar enkel kon rechtzetten door me in het gezicht te spuwen...

Dus vooral: zwijgen. Want als je probeert duidelijk te maken dat 70 km per uur veel te snel is in een zone 30, dan heb je meteen recht op een confrontatie met het eergevoel van een jonge nieuwe Belg die het niet kan hebben dat iemand hem ook maar iets verbiedt en die bereid is je daarom in elkaar te rammen.

Twintig jaar geleden was ik ervan overtuigd dat de jonge nieuwe Belgen snel geassimileerd zouden worden. Maar nu is in Brussel een generatie van rebels without a cause opgegroeid die zich altijd verongelijkt en te kort gedaan voelt. Nooit voor iets verantwoordelijk, het is altijd de fout van iemand anders: van de overheid, van de racistische Belgen. En ook binnen hun eigen families blijven de jonge Maghrebijnse mannen onaantastbaar. Toen de politie in Molenbeek een jongen oppakte, organiseerde de vader meteen een betoging omdat zijn zoon 'nog geen appel zou stelen.'

De inspanningen van de overheid in de probleemwijken hebben ervoor gezorgd dat de jongeren de noodzaak niet voelen die te verlaten, toonde een ULB-studie vorig jaar aan. Zo creër je de bekrompenheid van een dorp in de grote stad.

Een dochter van Marokkaanse vrienden heeft een Belgisch vriendje. Met hem gaat ze nooit uit in de wijk, omdat ze meteen wordt nageroepen. Want bijna al de jonge allochtonen mogen dan wel de Belgische nationaliteit hebben, enige identificatie met dit land hebben zij niet. Integendeel: 'Belgie' is een scheldwoord...

Jonge vrouwen alleen zie je overigens bijna nooit in de wijk. En zeker niet in de café daar worden ze zelfs niet gedoogd. Toen een medewerkster van de gemeente er een koffie vroeg, werd haar snel duidelijk gemaakt dat ze er niet moest op rekenen om bediend te worden. Als ik de Merode-wijk binnenfiets, dan weet ik dat ik tot ver voorbij het Zuidstation niet één vrouw op een caférras zal zien. En dan heb ik het nog niet over de dubbele seksuele moraal die van jonge allochtone vrouwen nog steeds verwacht dat ze tijdens de huwelijksnacht hun maagdelijkheid bewijzen, ook al weet iedereen dat Brusselse hospitalen met een eenvoudige ingreep maagdenvliezen herstellen...

Een gerenommeerd Frans-Marokkaanse kunstenaar stelde tot vorige week een merkwaardige installatie tentoon in Brussel: een reeks bidtapijtjes met schoenen. De kunstgalerij kreeg onmiddellijk dreigtelefoons, het glas voor het kunstwerk werd bespuugd en beschadigd. De commotie kwam er omdat er bijhet bidtapijtje rode vrouwenhakken te zien waren. De kunstenaar wou op die manier 'de plaats van de vrouw in de Islam' aankaarten. Maar dat kan al niet meer in Brussel: na een paar dagen werd het kunstwerk verwijderd.

Misschien moeten we ons eens afvragen hoe het komt dat we aanvaard hebben dat principes als de vrijheid van de kunstenaar en gelijke rechten voor man en vrouw niet voor iedereen gelden in dit land. Waarom durven wij niet opkomen voor wat eigenlijk essentieel is: respect voor de wetten en de waarden van het land waarin wij leven? Een hoofddoekenverbod is geen oplossing. Maar misschien moeten we toch eens nadenken over hoe we op een assertieve manier kunnen duidelijk maken dat wij durven verdedigen wat wij belangrijk vinden.

Het is de verdienste van links geweest om meer aandacht te vragen voor discriminatie en sociale achterstand. Het probleem ligt jammer genoeg dieper: we zijn bang geweest om onze waarden op te dringen aan allochtonen.

Die waarden zijn mij echter te dierbaar om ze verloren te laten gaan.

LUCKAS VANDER TAELEN

A Victim Treats His Mugger Right

2011-12-27T17:08:00.000+01:00

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.
But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.

He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.
As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."
The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'"
Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.
"You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help," Diaz says.
Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.
"The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi," Diaz says. "The kid was like, 'You know everybody here. Do you own this place?'"
"No, I just eat here a lot," Diaz says he told the teen. "He says, 'But you're even nice to the dishwasher.'"
Diaz replied, "Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?"
"Yea, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way," the teen said.
Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. "He just had almost a sad face," Diaz says.
The teen couldn't answer Diaz — or he didn't want to.
When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, "Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you."
The teen "didn't even think about it" and returned the wallet, Diaz says. "I gave him $20 ... I figure maybe it'll help him. I don't know."
Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen's knife — "and he gave it to me."
Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, "You're the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch."
"I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."

Produced for Morning Edition by Michael Garofalo - March 28, 2008

13 Foods that Fight Pain

2011-12-20T10:42:00.001+01:00

While many foods taste great, they are also powerful healers in a vibrant multicolor disguise. The best healing remedies also taste fabulous (I can’t say that about any prescription medications). Plus, foods won’t cause the nasty common side effects that most drugs cause.

1. Cherries
Muraleedharan Nair, PhD, professor of natural products and chemistry at Michigan State University, found that tart cherry extract is ten times more effective than aspirin at relieving inflammation. Only two tablespoons of the concentrated juice need to be taken daily for effective results. Sweet cherries have also been found to be effective.

2. Blackberries 3. Raspberries 4. Blueberries and 5. Strawberries
Dr. Nair later found the same anti-pain compound in berries like blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries

6. Celery and Celery Seeds
James Duke, Ph.D., author of The Green Pharmacy, found more than 20 anti-inflammatory compounds in celery and celery seeds, including a substance called apigenin, which is powerful in its anti-inflammatory action. Add celery seeds to soups, stews or as a salt substitute in many recipes.

7. Ginger
Ginger reduces pain-causing prostaglandin levels in the body and has been widely used in India to treat pain and inflammation. A study by Indian researchers found that when people who were suffering from muscular pain were given ginger, they all experienced improvement. The recommended dosage of ginger is between 500 and 1,000 milligrams per day. If you’re taking medications, check with your health practitioner for possible herb-drug interactions.

8. Turmeric
Turmeric (curcuma longa) is the yellow spice commonly used in Indian curries. In research it has been shown to be a more effective anti-inflammatory than steroid medications when dealing with acute inflammation. Its main therapeutic ingredient is curcumin. Research shows that curcumin suppresses pain through a similar mechanism as drugs like COX-1 and COX-2 inhibitors (without the harmful side effects). Choose a standardized extract with 1500 mg of curcumin content per day.

9. Salmon 10. Mackerel and 11. Herring
Many fatty fish like salmon, mackerel and herring also contain these valuable oils. Omega-3s convert in the body into hormone-like substances that decrease inflammation and pain. According to Dr. Alfred D. Steinberg, an arthritis expert at the National Institute of Health, fish oil is an anti-inflammatory agent. Fish oil acts directly on the immune system by suppressing 40 to 55 percent of the release of cytokines, compounds known to destroy joints. Many other studies also demonstrate that eating moderate amounts of fish or taking fish oil reduces pain and inflammation, particularly for arthritis sufferers.

12. Flax Seeds and Flax Oil
Freshly-ground flax seeds and cold-pressed flax oil, contain plentiful amounts of fatty acids known as Omega-3s. Do not cook with flax oil otherwise it will have the opposite effect-irritating the body’s tissues and causing pain.

13. Raw Walnuts and Walnut Oil
Raw walnuts and walnut oil also contain the same powerful Omega-3 fatty acids that fight pain and inflammation in the body.

When it comes to pain, food really is the best medicine.

Source:

Dr Akilah El – Celestial Healing Wellness Center

The Natural Health and Holistic World According to Dr Akilah El

The Muff March against 'designer vagina' surgery

2011-12-09T10:55:00.001+01:00

On Saturday morning, women will march down Harley Street to protest against the pornification of our private parts

Viv Groskop · 08/12/2011 · guardian.co.uk

Kate O'Brien and Sinead King, members of theMuffia, in London in 2009. Photograph: Anna Gordon

"Keep your mitts off our muffs!" "I love my vagina!" "You've put my chuff in a huff!" These are some of the slogans of the Muff March taking place along London's Harley Street Saturday morning.

Its aim? To raise awareness of the increase in gynaecological cosmetic surgery – both on the NHS and in private clinics. The march, which has more than 300 supporters on Facebook, is organised by campaigning group UK Feminista and performance artists The Muffia, who dress up in nude bodysuits decorated with lavish pubic hair.

At its most modest, the Muff March is against the pornography-influenced obsession with removing pubic hair. But it's also about protesting against the sort of surgery that makes you cross your legs. Typical procedures on offer include labiaplasty (trimming or removing the labia) and vaginal rejuvenation (tightening – usually referred to by "designer vagina").
In the US this industry is worth $6.8m (£4.4m). In the UK the latest figures come from a 2009 report in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. It revealed that in 2008 the number of operations increased by 70% compared with the previous year: 1,118 labiaplasty operations on the NHS. (There were 669 in 2007 and 404 in 2006.) And that's just the NHS. The Harley Medical Group reported over 5,000 inquiries about cosmetic gynaecology last year, 65% for labial reduction.

Professor Linda Cardozo of King's College London recently warned of the risks of labiaplasty: permanent scarring, infections, bleeding and irritation. "The private sector is not recorded, audited or regulated. At least if you have it on the NHS you have to go through your GP and that's a gatekeeper." (Although one anonymous blogger writes on the NHS website: "I have flaps of skin everywhere and the whole thing is a total mess. I will never be able to be intimate again.")

I recently heard of a woman GP very concerned by the number of girls in their mid-teens coming to her worried about what their genitals looked like: she thought it was becoming an issue largely because of the fashion for shaving off pubic hair, which made them more self-conscious. Of course, there are rare cases where there is an underlying medical reason for this surgery, but they are just that, extremely rare. A doctor who has treated women seeking labiaplasty told me: "When you examine them, they are completely normal."

Some experts suggest this is a new form of body dysmorphic disorder. Others see it as a depressing but logical extension of the pornification of our culture. As it becomes more acceptable for young people to watch porn (where a "standardised" genital appearance is encouraged and many of the women have no pubic hair), so young women having their first sexual experiences are being measuring – and measuring themselves – against this weird porn "norm". As one woman who has sought surgery says: "I browsed through one of my brother's Playboys to see what the girls looked like. Some seemed to have very small or almost no labia."

In a world where not even your labia can ever be pretty enough, it's time to fight back. Forward march, muffs!

Happy 69 Year Old Lady Has Not Used Money For 15 Years

2011-11-26T22:21:00.001+01:00

Beautiful article of a lady who certainly does not look 69 years old at all!

(By odditycentral.com)

Heidemarie Schwermer, a 69-year-old woman from Germany, gave up using money 15 years ago and says she’s been much happier ever since.

Heidemarie’s incredible story began 22 years ago, when she, a middle-aged secondary school teacher emerging from a difficult marriage, took her two children and moved to the city of Dortmund, in Germany’s Ruhr area. One of the first things she noticed was the large number of homeless people, and this shocked her so much that she decided to actually do something about it. She had always believed the homeless didn’t need actual money to be accepted back into society, only a chance to empower themselves by making themselves useful, so she opened a Tauschring (swap shop), called “Gib und Nimm” (Give and Take).

Her small venture was a place where anyone could trade stuff and skills for other things and skills they needed, without a single coin or banknote changing hands. Old clothes could be traded in return for kitchen appliances, and car service rendered in return for plumbing services, and so on. The idea didn’t really attract many of Dortmund’s homeless, because, as some of them told her to her face, they didn’t feel an educated middle-class woman could relate to their situation. Instead, her small shop was assaulted by many of the city’s unemployed and retired folk eager to trade their skills and old stuff for something they needed. Heidemarie Schwermer’s Tauschring eventually became somewhat of a phenomenon in Dortmund and even prompted its creator to ask herself some questions about the life she was living.

She started to realize she was living with a lot of stuff she didn’t really need and initially decided not to buy anything else without giving something away. Then she realized how unhappy she was with her work and made the connection between this feeling and the physical symptoms (backache and constant illness) she was feeling, so she decided to take up other jobs. She began washing dishes for 10 Deutchmarks an hour, and despite many were telling her things like “You went to university, you studied to do this?”, she felt good about herself, and didn’t feel like she should be valued more because of her studies than someone working in a kitchen. By 1995, the Tauschring had changed her life so much that she was spending virtually nothing, as everything she needed seemed to find its way into her life.

So in 1996. she took the biggest decision of her life: to live without money. Her children had moved out so she sold the apartment in Dortmund and decided to live nomadically, trading things and services for everything she needed. It was supposed to be a 12-month experiment, but found herself loving it so much that she just couldn’t give it up. 15 years later, she still lives according to the principles of Gib und Nimm, doing various chores for accommodation in the houses of various members of the Tauschring, and loving every minute of it. Schwermer has written two books about her experience of living without money and asked her publisher to give the money to charity so it can make many people happy instead of just one. She’s just happy being healthier and better off than ever before.

All of her belongings fit into a single-back suitcase and a rucksack, she has emergency savings of €200 and any other money she comes across, she gives away. Heidemarie doesn’t even have health insurance as she didn’t want to be accused of stealing from the state, and says she relies on the power of self-healing whenever she gets a little sick.

The Vagina Monologues - Hair

2011-11-14T14:46:00.001+01:00

Aan de hemelpoort

2011-11-14T14:00:00.001+01:00

Wanneer iedereen op aarde dood was en voor de hemelpoort aan het wachten was, verscheen god die zei: "Ik wil dat de mannen twee rijen maken. Eén rij voor de mannen die het ware hoofd van het gezin waren en een andere rij voor de mannen die onder de sloef van hun vrouw lagen. Alle vrouwen rapporteren bij Sint-Pieter."

Zodra de vrouwen weg waren bevonden er zich twee rijen mannen. De rij met de mannen die onder de sloef lagen was kilometers lang en in de rij met de mannen die waarlijk het hoofd van het gezin waren stond welgeteld één man.
God zei tegen die lange rij mannen dat ze zich moesten schamen, dat hij hen had gemaakt om de leiding te nemen. "Jullie waren niet gehoorzaam en voldoen niet aan mijn wens."
"Slechts één van jullie voldoet. Leer van hem!"
God richtte zich vervolgens naar die ene man en vroeg hoe hij erin geslaagd was om als enige in deze rij te staan?
De man antwoordde: "Ik moest hier gaan staan van mijn vrouw."

New Fad in Japan Promises to Make Your Teeth Look Worse

2011-10-25T16:49:00.000+02:00

Most people fly to Japan for medical and cosmetic procedures that might otherwise bankrupt you in the States. But people in Japan apparently stay in their country and pay to look worse.

In Japan, having perfect teeth is often frowned upon as it is often seen as intimidating to others who might be tempted to strike up a conversation. The result is “imperfect” veneers — “Tsuke-yaeba,” or “stick-on crooked teeth.”

The procedure is done at a dental salon known as Plaisir and involves gluing the fake teeth directly onto the real teeth. The procedure, which costs ¥30,000, or about $390, is not advised, says Tokyo orthodontist Masaru Iwatsuki.

Teeth need to breathe, he says, and by gluing fake ones directly onto the real ones you run the risk of permanent damage. Of course, he’s not too concerned. He goes on to say that it’s a passing fade, and will fade away within six months.

By Lycurgus on 25-10-2011

De Occupy Wall Street beweging groeit en ontwikkelt zich. Reflecties van een Occupy Wall Street betoger.

2011-10-18T13:43:00.000+02:00

De Occupy Wall Street beweging groeit en ontwikkelt zich. Reflecties van een Occupy Wall Street betoger.

Liberty Plaza wemelt van de mensen die zich verzamelen voor bijeenkomsten, praten over politiek, of bij elkaar komen in werkteams. Driehonderd bezetters luisteren aandachtig naar een lezing over participerende economie, terwijl anderen poseren voor foto’s met het enorme gouden kalf, gemaakt en geschonken door lokale interreligieuze leiders. Er komen mensen langs die op weg zijn naar hun werk, reizigers die uit de tourbus stappen om foto’s te maken, studenten van lokale middelbare scholen die worden rondgeleid. Er zijn mensen van de Bronx en Bed-Stuy, Minneapolis en Madrid. Mensen doen aan yoga, geven les in compost-technieken, maken het plein schoon, en hebben een livestream van de bezetting voor miljoenen kijkers wereldwijd. Sommigen lukt het zelfs om een paar uur te slapen te midden van alle commotie.

Gisternacht, tijden een telefoongesprek met een journalist (die twee weken geleden onze telefoontjes niet wilde beantwoorden, maar ons nu smeekt om iets te zeggen), zag ik een geïmproviseerde demonstratie bij de befaamde Charging Bull. Het was slechts enkele straten van een Occupy Wall Street kunsttentoonstelling, die toevallig aan de overkant van de straat plaatsvond van een torenhoog financieel gebouw met een spandoek met de slogan – “Banken werden gered van de ondergang, en wij zijn verraden.” Het centrum van Manhattan is een bezette zone, een bruisend revolutionair stadscentrum. Mensen voeren actie op de weg, breiden het uit, en voeren de druk op. We maken de beweging een deel van ons leven, en ons leven een deel van de beweging.

In meer dan 100 steden in de Verenigde Staten zijn er nu actieve bezettingen, en meer dan 1300 steden in de VS zijn bezig met planningen hiervoor. Honderden steden in de Verenigde Staten, en meer dan 1500 steden in de hele wereld, hebben gisteren op 15 oktober gezamenlijk demonstraties gehouden. Vakbonden en maatschappelijke organisaties hebben zich aangesloten bij de actie, en nationale organisaties proberen te beslissen hoe ze de beweging het beste kunnen steunen zonder het te hinderen of tegen te werken (wat eerlijk gezegd onmogelijk is, al zouden ze het proberen).

De geleerden blijven gissen, terwijl politici als kippen zonder kop rondrennen, proberen uit te vinden hoe ze ons kunnen gebruiken. En ja, ze hebben het over ons in het Congres en in het Witte Huis, en ze sturen zelfs hun boodschappers naar de bezetting.

Ze zouden dom zijn als ze het niet deden. We zijn aan het winnen.

Van tijd tot tijd, in de loop van een enorme strijd, hebben de strijders die gedreven, moe, uitgeput zijn een periode waarin ze even stoppen en een denkmoment hebben, opgewekt raken en naar de toekomst kijken. Ik had zo’n moment een paar dagen geleden, en toen raakte het me – als een slag tegen het achterhoofd. We zijn aan het ontwikkelen. We zijn aan het winnen.

Natuurlijk, we hebben de overheidsinstellingen niet bezet en ingenomen, hebben niet alle banken en de klassen die ze beheersen gebroken, hebben zelfs geen concrete hervormingen teweeggebracht of solide instellingen bedacht om onze overwinningen te beschermen. We zijn niet eens dichtbij het einde van de actie of bij de wereld waarin we willen leven.

Maar – samen met revolutionairen over de hele wereld – hebben wij geholpen het verborgen en sluimerende potentieel van miljoenen mensen te ontluiken, mensen die nu klaar zijn om weer te geloven in een alternatief. We hebben de hoop op een nieuwe samenleving nieuw leven ingeblazen, hebben een klein gat geslagen in de hegemonie van cynisme, hebben wat plaats in onze harten en onze hersenen vrijgemaakt om de kracht te verzamelen om te vechten en te dromen. Wat een maand geleden onmogelijk leek, is nu de realiteit.

En toen raakte het tweede deel van de gedachte me: Als we aan het winnen zijn, wat willen
we dan?

Wat willen we?

De media en politici noemen ons warhoofden, en zeggen dat we verward zijn. Ze beweren dat we geen eisen of doelen hebben. Nou, laten we dat even recht zetten. Het is niet zo dat we geen eisen hebben; het is dat we ze in een andere taal uiten. Onze beweging bestaat uit mensen die vechten voor hun baan, voor scholen, voor schuldverlichting, voor eerlijke huisvesting, en voor de gezondheidszorg. We verzetten ons tegen ecologische vernietiging, imperialisme, racisme, patriarchisme en kapitalisme. We
doen het allemaal op een participerende, democratische, felle, en onwrikbare manier. Er is niets vaags aan.

Maar daar stoppen we niet. Dat is misschien wat ons onderscheidt van diegenen die onze enorm groeiende macht willen gebruiken voor kleine overwinningen en bescheiden hervormingen. We want more. We want it all. We willen een politiek en economisch systeem dat we daadwerkelijk samen kunnen controleren, een systeem dat rechtvaardig en humaan is, een systeem dat mensen in staat stelt zichzelf te managen en te handelen vanuit solidariteit, een systeem dat participerend en democratisch is tot in de kern.

We willen een wereld waarin mensen recht hebben op hun eigen identiteit, samenleving, cultuur, en de vrij van onderdrukking en dwang. We willen een wereld met instellingen die onze jongeren, onze ouderen, en onze families op een zorgende, bevrijdende, en op consensus gebaseerde manier behandelt. We willen een wereld waarin de samenleving geen belemmering is op de
individuele vrijheid, maar een uiting is van zijn volle potentieel.

Als deze verklaring van onze eisen niet duidelijk genoeg is voor jullie, CNN, dan weet ik niet wat ik jullie moet vertellen. En weet je wat? We beginnen pas net warm te draaien.

En zoals we blijven actievoeren, zullen we onszelf constant goede vragen blijven stellen. Wat voor wereld stellen we ons voor? Met welke waarden willen we leven? Welke instellingen hebben we nodig om met deze waarden te kunnen leven? Wat voor structuren willen we bouwen om te beschermen wat we gewonnen hebben en om een platform te creeëren voor onze idealen? Wat willen we voor onszelf bereiken, en wat willen we bereiken voor de komende generaties? Hoe zullen we deze beweging ontwikkelen op een effectieve manier die een afspiegeling is van de nieuwe wereld die we inluiden?

15 oktober en verder

Laat er geen misverstand over bestaan, we zijn niet zonder doelen; we spreken simpelweg een andere taal – een taal van wederzijds respect, participatie, self-management en actie. We maken onze eisen in deze taal die duidelijk maakt dat we hier zijn om te blijven, en dat ons doel niet alleen hervorming is, dat onze visie diep en radicaal is, dat we niet afgekocht of meebestuurt willen worden, en dat we bereid zijn door te zetten voor niet alleen de winst die we nu kunnen uitspreken, maar ook voor de winst die we nog niet helemaal kunnen benoemen.

We eisen onze ruimte door middel van acties die duidelijk maken dat we hier zijn om te blijven, en dat deze beweging niet naar huis gaat, dat we aan het ontwikkelen zijn, en dat er geen weg terug is. We bouwen deze beweging door middel van de sterke en onbevreesde overtuiging dat een betere wereld mogelijk is, en dat alles wat minder is, onaanvaardbaar is.

Je zal onze eisen om de muren van de metro’s zien, gekrabbeld op hangende spandoeken, getweet over de oceanen, gemarcheerd op de schouders van honderdduizenden, in koor geschreeuwd door miljoenen in de straten, achter ramen, en computerschermen. Je zult ze over de hele wereld zien, van postindustriële steden tot het platteland, van hoofdsteden tot kleine dorpjes. Je zult ze zien in de straten van New York City, je zal onze eisen zien als we afdalen naar de fluorescerende decadentie van Times Square en we het opnieuw decoreren met onze menselijkheid.

Ja, we spreken een andere taal, een onbevreesde taal en een taal met een visie. We schreeuwen, met elk grammetje van passie en kracht die we kunnen opbrengen. Natuurlijk is er een alternatief. Wij zijn het.

Yotam Marom

Mama's slikken tot 30 pilletjes Motilium per week

2011-10-13T12:05:00.000+02:00

De Vlaamse Organisatie voor Vroedvrouwen (VLOV) adviseert vrouwen die moeite hebben met borstvoeding, grote dosissen Motilium. Het maagmedicijn verhoogt de melkproductie, maar zou volgens recente studies hartstilstand veroorzaken. ‘Maandenlang heb ik tot zes keer per dag Motilium genomen. Wat heb ik in hemelsnaam gedaan, denk ik nu.'

Volgens recente studies verhoogt het maagmedicijn Motilium de kans op hartritmestoornissen, zo berichtte deze krant gisteren. Dat is problematisch voor de kersverse mama's die op internetfora honderduit vertellen over de hoge dosissen Motilium die ze - vaak op doktersadvies - slikken. Daarmee willen ze borstvoeding vergemakkelijken.

‘De belangrijkste tip die ik kreeg om mijn melkproductie te stimuleren, is tot vier keer per dag Motilium nemen.' Of nog: ‘Al bijna drie maanden neem ik Motilium. Afbouwen durf ik niet, nochtans slik ik meer dan dertig tabletten per week.'

Verboden volgens bijsluiter

Hoewel veel mama's hun bedenkingen hebben, stellen ze elkaar gerust: iedereen kent wel een gynaecoloog, lactatiedeskundige of vroedvrouw die verzekert dat Motilium veilig is voor mama en kind. Alleen: recente studies tonen aan dat Motilium, en zeker hoge dosissen ervan, de kans op hartritmestoornissen en plotse dood met vier keer kan verhogen (zie Het Nieuwsblad van gisteren, nvdr.).

‘Angstaanjagend nieuws als je het medicijn maandenlang genomen hebt', vertelt Mine Dalemans (40) uit Lummen. Zij nam Motilium tot zes keer per dag op aanraden van haar eigen gynaecoloog. Nochtans is het medicijn verboden: Motilium wordt uitgescheiden in de melk die baby's krijgen en het is onduidelijk of dat schadelijk is voor het kind. Maar, net als veel andere vrouwen, werd Dalemans verteld dat er absoluut geen gevaar was.

De Vlaamse gynaecologenvereniging ontkent dat ze Motilium aanbeveelt aan vrouwen die borstvoeding geven. De Vlaamse Organisatie voor Vroedvrouwen (VLOV) daarentegen geeft de praktijk wél toe. ‘Wij raden inderdaad maximaal drie keer per dag twee tabletten aan', zegt voorzitster Marleen Reys. ‘Maar dat is pas de laatste optie. Natuurlijk proberen we eerst andere, natuurlijke methodes uit.'

De organisatie zal naar eigen zeggen nieuwe onderzoeken aanvragen en haar praktijk aanpassen, als zou blijken dat de verontrustende bevindingen over Motilium kloppen.

‘Voor mij is het nu te laat', zegt Dalemans. ‘Hoeveel pillen ik in totaal genomen heb, weet ik niet, maar het zullen er genoeg geweest zijn. Nu weet ik wel beter. Als ik vandaag opnieuw zou bevallen, geef ik nog liever flessenvoeding dan dat ik Motilium slik.'

The Feminine Divine

2011-10-04T16:44:00.001+02:00

In honor of all my darling brothers and sisters of Avalon. <3

Wangari Maathai: Death of a visionary

2011-09-29T09:49:00.000+02:00

Wangari Maathai receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo - the first black African woman to do so

Wangari Maathai's compelling life story is inextricably linked with the social and political changes that so much of Africa has been through since the idea of throwing off European colonialism began to gain traction shortly after World War II.

Her unique insight was that the lives of Kenyans - and, by extension, of people in many other developing countries - would be made better if economic and social progress went hand in hand with environmental protection.

The Green Belt Movement, which she founded in 1977, has planted an estimated 45 million trees around Kenya.

The straightforward environmental benefits of that would have been important enough on their own in a country whose population has grown more than 10-fold over the last century, creating huge pressure on land and water.

But what made the movement more remarkable was that it was also conceived as a source of employment in rural areas, and a way to give new skills to women who regularly came second to men in terms of power, education, nutrition and much else.

Now, she has succumbed to a battle with cancer. But if cancer was new to her, battle was definitely not; it was a way of life.

Opposing a major government-backed development in Nairobi, she was labelled a "crazy woman"; it was suggested that she should behave like a good African woman and do as she was told.

Her former husband made similar comments when suing for divorce: she was strong-willed, and could not be controlled.

This alone gives some idea of the battles Dr Maathai fought in the politically active phase of her life, which encompassed and indeed wove together the ideals of helping Kenya develop sustainably and helping Kenyan women achieve equality.

But without the progress of post-colonial reforms, it's doubtful that she would have been able to achieve a fraction of what she did; the times she lived in generated the tides she fought against, but they also provided the means with which to fight.

Dr Maathai highlighted the damage that illegal logging was doing to forests and livelihoods

Post-colonial links with the West offered Africans of great intellect but poor background the chance to study abroad, in the US and Germany.

This brought her the knowledge of biology and the PhD that both opened doors in corridors of influence and gave scientific underpinning to the environmental restoration work on which she embarked.

Another vital strand in her life was the creation of global environmental organisations, in particular the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) in 1972.

These organisations desperately needed to tap into expertise in the developing world, especially because it was in these countries that the vicious circle of environmental degradation, unsustainable population growth and poverty was at its most grinding.

With its headquarters situated in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, Wangari Maathai was one of the first people from the developing world adopted into the Unep "family", which meant global exposure and, relatively, a huge influence.

Among other things, that meant the capacity to spread the Green Belt philosophy to other countries where the ecological and economic need is even more pressing than in Kenya - notably the Congo Basin, where warring factions and deep poverty have put huge pressure on forests and the wildlife they maintain.

Eventually, this would all lead to the award in 2004 of the Nobel Peace Prize - the first time it had gone to an African woman, and arguably the first "green Nobel".

Tourists flock to Lake Nakuru's flamingos - an example of environmental protection bringing revenue

I say "arguably" partly because previous prize-winning work had contained an environmental component, such as that of Paul Crutzen, Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina who deciphered the chemistry of ozone depletion.

And partly because the citation itself does not explicitly mention the word "environment", reading: "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace".

In other words, it's not just planting trees - it's the reasons why trees are planted, it's the social side of how the tree-planting works, it's the political work that goes alongside tree-planting, and it's the vision that sees loss of forest as translating into loss of prospects for people down the track.

There is, in some parts of the world, a backlash now against these ideas.

Every couple of days an email comes into my inbox asserting that the way to help poorer countries develop is to get them to exploit their natural resources as quickly and deeply as possible with no regard for problems that may cause.

Organisations promoting this viewpoint are not, to my knowledge, based in the developing world but in the Western capitals that might make use of the fruits of such exploitation - cheaper wood, cheaper oil, cheaper metals.

It is the opposite of sustainable.

But the existence of these lobby groups can be seen as a testament to the influence that Wangari Maathai and others like her have had on global debate.

The UN initiative on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (Redd), the linking of biodiversity to livelihoods, moves to strengthen the rule of law as a pre-requisite for environmental health, and the notion that communities should gain when the natural resources they maintain are exploited - all these in part trace their roots back to Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement.

A Facebook page for tributes is laden with short but moving comments that in a way sum up everything she was and achieved.

"If all us who loved her will plant a tree on her hon: she will smile from the windows of heaven seeing green world. I will plant one today".

"You have been a true inspiration to those who love and care for nature".

And perhaps the most moving of all: "You made a difference".

Bron: www.bbc.co.uk

The White Rose

2011-09-26T10:03:00.000+02:00

Read this on Misty Harris' profile on Facebook today:

I was walking around in a supermarket when i saw a cashier hand this little boy his money back, the boy couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old. The Cashier said, 'I'm sorry, but you don't have enough money to buy this doll.'' The little boy turned to the old woman next to him, ''Granny, are you sure I don't have enough money?'' She replied, ''You know that you don't have enough money to buy this doll, my dear.'' Then she asked him to stay there for just 5 minutes while she went to look around. She left quickly. The little boy was still holding the doll in his hand.

Finally, I walked toward him and I asked him who he wished to give this doll to. 'It's the doll that my sister loved most and wanted so much for Christmas. She was sure that Santa Claus would bring it to her.' I replied to him that maybe Santa Claus would bring it to her after all, and not to worry. But he replied to me sadly. 'No, Santa Claus can't bring it to her where she is now. I have to give the doll to my mommy so that she can give it to my sister when she goes there.' His eyes were so sad while saying this, 'My Sister has gone to be with God. Daddy says that Mommy is going to see God very soon too, so I thought that she could take the doll with her to give it to my sister.''

My heart nearly stopped. The little boy looked up at me and said, 'I told daddy to tell mommy not to go yet. I need her to wait until I come back from the mall.' Then he showed me a very nice photo of himself. He was laughing. He then told me 'I want mommy to take my picture with her so she won't forget me.' 'I love my mommy and I wish she didn't have to leave me, but daddy says that she has to go to be with my little sister.' Then he looked again at the doll with sad eyes, very quietly.

I quickly reached for my wallet and said to the boy. 'Suppose we check again, just in case you do have enough money for the doll!'' OK' he said, 'I hope I do have enough.' I added some of my money to his without him seeing and we started to count it. There was enough for the doll and even some spare money. The little boy said, 'Thank you God for giving me enough money!' Then he looked at me and added, 'I asked last night before I went to sleep for God to make sure I had enough money to buy this doll, so that mommy could give it to my sister. He heard me!'' 'I also wanted to have enough money to buy a white rose for my mommy, but I didn't dare to ask God for too much. But He gave me enough to buy the doll and a white rose.'' 'My mommy loves white roses.'

A few minutes later, the old lady returned and I left with my basket. I finished my shopping in a totally different state of mind from when I started. I couldn't get the little boy out of my mind. Then I remembered a local newspaper article two days ago, which mentioned a drunk man in a truck, who hit a car occupied by a young woman and a little girl. The little girl died right away and the mother was left in a critical state. The family had to decide whether to pull the plug on the life-sustaining machine because the young woman would not be able to recover from the coma. Was this the family of the little boy?

Two days after this encounter with the little boy I read in the newspaper that the young woman had passed away. I couldn't stop myself as I bought a bunch of white roses and I went to the funeral home where the body of the young woman was for people to see and make last wishes before her burial.

She was there, in her coffin, holding a beautiful white rose in her hand with the photo of the little boy and the doll placed over her chest. I left the place, teary-eyed, feeling that my life had been changed forever. The love that the little boy had for his mother and his sister is still, to this day, hard to imagine, and in a fraction of a second, a drunk driver had taken all this away from him.