Category: Articles of Interest

Zika- a rushed response?

Doctors Name Monsanto’s Larvicide As Cause of Brazilian Microcephaly Outbreak

Could it be that the very organizations set to make money from developing insecticides against mosquitoes blamed for spreading the Zika virus, helped create the problem in the first place?

Silvia Leandra de Jesus Pinheiro with baby
Silvia Leandra de Jesus Pinheiro with baby

A report from the Argentine doctors’ organisation, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Villages regarding Dengue-Zika, challenges the theory that the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil is the cause of the increase in the birth defect microcephaly among newborns. Continue reading Zika- a rushed response?

Cutty Sark, 1922

Cutty Sark by Cornelis de Vries as she appeared in the 1870's
Cutty Sark by Cornelis de Vries as she appeared in the 1870’s

Cutty Sark is a famous three-masted clipper ship, launched on the river Clyde at Dumbarton on 22 November 1869 for the Jock Willis shipping line. After a few short years as a record breaker in the China tea trade, she shipped wool from Australia to Britain. In 1895 Jock Willis sold Cutty Sark to the Portuguese firm Joaquim Antunes Ferreira. She was renamed Ferreira after the firm. Her crews referred to her as Pequena Camisola (little shirt, a straight translation of the Scots cutty sark).

Continue reading Cutty Sark, 1922

Saving the War objector’s Graffiti

Richmond objectors

Fragile walls at Richmond Castle bear rare first-hand testimonial from men who refused to be conscripted during the First World War. In 1916 a conscientious objector, condemned by a tribunal for refusing to serve in the armed services, took up a pencil and expressed his plight on the whitewashed wall of his cell in Richmond Castle in Yorkshire.

“‘I Percy F Goldsbrough of Mirfield was brought up from Pontefract on Friday August 11 1916 and put in this cell for refusing to be made into a soldier”

Continue reading Saving the War objector’s Graffiti

Trust- Given or Earned?

How easily do you trust other people? What is it that determines your ability or inability to trust certain individuals around you? Do you feel people need to earn your trust? Or are you willing to extend trust ‘unearned’?

Indian Fusion

An Edmonton, Canada,  restaurant is gaining international attention for its efforts to help feed those in need. Indian Fusion is a small, family-run restaurant with fewer than ten tables, but it’s making a big difference for the homeless. This is no publicity stunt. They trust people understand their motives.

“It’s giving back to the community, it’s part of community spirit. We need to all look after each other,” said Greg Pyra. “It’s not just about profit and making money.” Continue reading Trust- Given or Earned?

The case of the unpaid prize

It can be instructive, as well as mildly entertaining, to review legal cases of yesteryear, as I have occasionally  on this site ( The Tichborne Claimant).

victorian court

In 1898, an English journal, the Rocket, had offered a prize of £1000 to anybody who could predict the exact number of male and female births, together with the number of deaths, in London for the week ending December 11th. Continue reading The case of the unpaid prize

Recovery from Colon Cancer – Diet, Herbs, Detoxification and Cellular Regeneration

This article by Teresa Tsalaky, first published in August 2003, can be accessed at Positive Health online. It is important not simply because of the implications for overcoming cancer, but the extraordinary lengths that interested parties go to with the apparent attempt to silence him. I am publishing his story here without promoting his or any particular course of treatment, that is a personal matter best made with the advice of a professional healthcare practitioner and your own research.

David Walker wanted to live long enough to see his children graduate from high school. He asked his oncologist if he’d make it that long. The doctor hung his head and said Walker had no more than three to five years before the colon cancer would take his life.David Walker

Nearly a decade later, Walker is cancer free. Thanks to his training as a biophysicist, he was able to decipher a biochemical riddle that enabled him to cure himself. He created a treatment protocol that consists of herbs, enzymes, phytonutrients, detoxification and a bio-resonance therapy that recharges depleted energy in cells. He then shared his knowledge, helping hundreds of other cancer patients successfully treat the disease.

Continue reading Recovery from Colon Cancer – Diet, Herbs, Detoxification and Cellular Regeneration

Belief and Disbelief, (Part 2)

"A familiar landscape of almost magical richness"
“A familiar landscape of almost magical richness”

In this second article, on the same general theme as Belief and Disbelief , material is based largely upon G R Elton’s The Practice of History, and Huston Smith’s Forgotten Truth: The Primordial Tradition. Brief biographical information is at the conclusion.

“The study of History amounts to the search for the truth”

Today it is almost taken for granted that man cannot be certain what is truth. Continue reading Belief and Disbelief, (Part 2)

‘How to run a company with (almost) no rules’

Interviewing Ricardo Semler of Semco Partners, for TED.com.  Technology, Entertainment and Design, is a clearinghouse of  knowledge from the world’s most inspired thinkers.

Ricardo Semler montage

Ricardo Semler advocates revolutionary stuff that only a handful of companies worldwide practise. He dismisses as corporate window dressing ‘mission statements’ and ‘employee consultation’ and points out how far we claim to defend democracy, but practice Eastern bloc centralisation in our workplace.

He encourages people to start where they are and affect the few people under them, instead of moaning that it’s impossible. He notes how many business schools and consultants preach empowerment, but run autocratic, tightly controlled organisations themselves.
He writes about how he works constantly to pull back from being placed in the role of a guru with the Midas touch, how he wants the business to be sustainable through the efforts of all employees, not only the one with a reputation.

Continue reading ‘How to run a company with (almost) no rules’

Unlimited Vacation-time Policies Work

 

vacation timeAt most companies in the United States, vacation starts in the most un-relaxing way possible: filling in a permission form. Accruing enough time to go on vacation then having to go and ask for permission felt more like a school field trip than a grown-up getaway. Worse, many companies insist employees take vacation time before a year-end deadline or lose out.  Is there a better way to care for every companies greatest resource – their employees?

At HubSpot , they designed a progressive policy that allows employees to build their work around their life, not the other way around. They are part of a growing trend, now around 3 percent of US companies.

Continue reading Unlimited Vacation-time Policies Work

The Prisoner (17 TV episodes,1967–1968)

The Prisoner – The Complete Series DVD Rating: ★★★★★

“I will not make any deals with you… I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own…”

The PrisonerThe Prisoner was one of the most original dramas ever aired on television. Brainchild of producer and star Patrick McGoohan (1928- 2009) the series portrays a high-ranking but un-named secret agent in the Government who resigns from his position and while leaving for a holiday, is immediately abducted and taken to what looks like an idyllic resort, but is really a sinister prison known only as “The Village.”  No one has a name. Everyone has a number, all are watched continually by unseen eyes, both in and out of the homes that are given to them. Escape is regarded as impossible by those who have come to accept their captivity. The residents generally appear very ordinary, but there is no knowing who are friends and who are enemies; who are fellow Prisoners and who are spies.

 “I am not a number. I am a person”.

Number 6 ( the new “identity” given to him by his captors) soon learns that no one can be trusted, not even one of his oldest and closest friends whom he finds is there, and certainly not the girls who come into his new life, right from the start.

Continue reading The Prisoner (17 TV episodes,1967–1968)