Cute Guinea Pig Videos

My friend and I have been raising guinea pigs in South Georgia and we have collected some cute videos. Follow Grapevine Guinea Pigs on Facebook for more!

Cute Guinea Pig Puppies

Grapevine Guinea Pigs

More Cute Guinea Pig Puppies

Guinea Pigs Eating Watermelon Rinds

Baby Guinea Pigs Trying to Hide in the Grass

Baby Guinea Pig Eating a Carrot

Cute Baby Guinea Pigs Grazing

Baby Guinea Pigs Eating

The Man Laughs at Our Rioting - We Should Change Our Style of Fighting

We should see by now that the protesting – let’s be honest, the rioting – in the streets does not work. The problem lies within the system and the omni-unaffected owners thereof. The system abandoned the common people, we should go ahead and admit that too, and the ugly truth reveals that the few beneficiaries, the absolute elite by true definition will not get affected by the same situations that affect the common people; they have backup plans, they have resources to comfortably accommodate any situation that us commoners would consider catastrophic and life altering (assuming survival). It may in fact benefit them greater in times of crisis – their daily bread gets bought with wars, fighting and death across the world and right here at home. But let us also not forget that business as usual, well, they own all of that too: corporations, regulatory agencies, governments and intelligence agencies, the elusive invisible government that may take orders from Satan (not sure if I joke or not…). So, certain businesses thrive as a side effect of natural disasters or other massive destruction scenarios and the elite enjoy their share of that tragic success as well. All of this to say, we cannot literally fight the system and win; it cannot happen, we can’t even literally fight the system and hurt it. We have to stop reacting this way so we can come together and fix the system the right way.

We first need to learn to let go of our anger so that we can begin to control ourselves. I will not completely dive into the mind control rabbit hole with the intentional calcification of our pineal glands through water fluoridation and other FDA approved additives in our food to keep our mental abilities suppressed and our cognition slightly less than optimal, with unusually mild temperaments to what should be obvious abuses, but I will say we need better control of our thoughts, our philosophies, our reverence of other life (plants, animals, humans, humans of different ethnicities and races, probably extraterrestrial). We need to become physically fit and strong, eat nutritiously and naturally, and more importantly, become spiritually strong. I don’t say to go turn into yogis or monks and become too holy to exist in the common world, but I believe we need to find that balance, all of us, so that we may start to heal societal wounds together, through our exploration of our own feelings and the feelings of others. I believe through this balance we begin to identity the source of that anger and begin to heal it.

People who achieve this balance start to look at the world differently, they see their problems differently, they see their place differently, and they begin to live their lives differently. They call it awaking, or becoming enlightened. Now there exists much more to this concept, I give a highly oversimplified version to get us started on the right path to correcting our problems in an effective way. Once that anger that normally causes us to react too soon, or too harshly, generating internal angst and self-doubt and all sorts of negative juju dissipates, we free ourselves to see that solving the problem does not equate to hurting the man or even getting even with him: it starts at letting go.

Now, I do think they feel most comfortable when we feel most comfortable and so small in a big world – can’t help ourselves even if we wanted to. Fortunately, we can! But we have to come together to do it. I do not mean in a hippie, let’s hold hands at the park kind of way, I mean literally, we need to come together as communities and face our issues at City Hall – not to shoot up City Hall and shut down the system, where again the elite continue to benefit, but to do much worse and participate in our local governments. People who do not vote (especially in local and state government) cause a great amount of harm and dishonor to all recipients of civil rights, especially those who do not receive enough of them – you set us all back and you shoot us all in the foot! We should be aware of our elected officials, their functions, their views, and their potential power over us. We should understand our vote for local and state elected officials actually over powers our vote for President of the United States. It offers more impact on who may end up becoming President later on as some of the state officials will cast an electoral vote which currently overrides the popular vote (literally, the vote for President doesn’t count, it more accurately would get called a poll), a stupid aspect of the system that remains because we have not yet learned how to work together as communities coming together with other communities to absolutely insist a change in the magic language that controls the system (much like Latin chants cast magically spells).

We will not solve societal problems overnight. Racism will not die tonight and police brutality will not stop tomorrow morning. These problems get so deeply rooted in people that it becomes hard for them to even acknowledge, more or less let it go. All we can do amounts to exercising patience and encouraging people to find their balance so they may one day release their anger. This process seems painstaking and insufferable with some people, but we cannot fail them; we exist as one, they fall, we fall, you fall, I fall.

As our communities slowly start coming together, accepting and embracing diversity and moving past labels and pseudo-classes, we will slowly start healing as a society. Our increasing influence in our government, our vigilant oversight of their actions, our accountability that we demand from our leaders will all start to make the very real changes that will save us. We begin to become able to address and change more serious hurdles like the fact that free energy technology got created over a hundred years ago yet we continue to increase the ‘cost’ of electricity. We can learn to adapt to green energy industrially that will move us away from fossil fueled vehicles, much along the lines of Jill Stein’s proposed Green New Deal, based off the successful New Deal presented by FDR. We could eliminate the IRS, stop paying taxes, do anything we as common people, not corporations, agree upon. We can literally change the world in so many ways when we learn to wake up, come together, and actively participate in the system. Can’t beat them, join them?

We need to become the system and make the system work exactly how we want. Sure it will take time, sure it does not make such a visible impact at first – it won’t make the nightly news – but it will keep our communities that much safer, that much tighter, and over time, more and more together. With so many people in this country, a little coordination and no army could take us all down. Our power to heal and control the system frightens the elite – probably the only thing – but as people currently accept the corruption and inability to do anything, the notion that we might come together and hijack our system back has become so absurd to them they would probably laugh at hearing of it. They find comfort in our complacency.

By the time we have learned to manage our government, as a patriotic right and duty, these rich and powerful elite will still have their riches and their statuses; however, we will have learned that we do not need them near as much as we thought. We will no longer fear them nor be concerned of them. We will have learned that their powerful stronghold amounted to our weak perception of our own abilities, a strength that comes from the calm inside of us, even if surrounded in chaos like the eye of a storm. Our inability to embrace each other and work together remains the only thing keeping us down.

We will take our system back. We will not continue to fight in the streets and damage our own communities while the powerful elite sit back and laugh. We will find our balance, heal our own wounds, and release our anger. We will come together and uplift each other with respect and tolerance. We will unite and become active in our government so that corporations and the elite alike learn to submit to the power of our unity. We must make America (and the entire world) for the people again. We must awaken.

Another Day, Another Dollar; None the Richer, None the Smarter

In our world, which should reflect the will of people, money gets placed above all else, above every instinct, desire, and dream. I long for the day any textbook Christian convinces me that you can live in a capitalistic society and still live letter by letter the word of God. I long for the day that any sane person convinces me that I do not inherently have a right as a human being to stand upon, walk upon, and dwell upon the land of this earth without submitting to another and/or paying money (which includes a sacrifice of time – life itself) to a government entity, over and over and over until death pardons me my debt.


We all exist as a collective conscious that flows from outside of our physical bodies. Our ability to change the entire world around us closely resembles our societal role in democratic nations – enough votes changes the system; enough desires changes the world. Do you vote? Do you desire? The flaw in our democratic societies proves that government systems fail us every day as we have allowed the system to favor corporations and the mega rich, instead of the common people. This corruptions becomes foreseeable, predictable, and one hundred percent correctable; do we desire? This flaw in governmental systems gets reflected in our mentalities, but does not manifest naturally. In other words, a slave – forced to work to meet the needs of others and occupy space on someone’s property – becomes pacified, comfortable even, once placing aside his need for freedom – to live and choose for his own concerns – and accepting that the immediate needs of food and shelter get provided.

We have become happy, ignorant slaves. We have accepted money as the root of all happiness, all security, and all well-being. We have accepted that we have no right to drink clean water, we must buy it. We have accepted that we have no right to fresh fruits and vegetables, we must buy them. Sure we could grow our own food and raise our own livestock, but have not the time, as we have accepted that we have no right to live freely in the domain we were born into, we must buy that space (annually). We have accepted that we have no right to money, yet we must exchange it for the most basic of necessities, we must ‘buy’ it. We have accepted that we have no right to manage our own time as we must exchange our time for money, we must buy it. We have accepted our time, our life, as currency’s currency. We have accepted life itself as the pursuit of money, money that we cannot own, money that we cannot keep, and money that will not keep us alive alone.

We have become trained to exchange money for happiness – to live. Not only has this training dominated our very perspective on existing, it has taught us to assign value, to assign an individual’s worth, to this very currency. We have become trained to support the system of currency, to thrive in currency, and to protect the very structure of our economic society. When we meet people with lots of currency, we attribute our notion of success and happiness to them, yet when we meet people with little currency, we attribute our notion of failure and insubordination to them – we blame them, even, for not possessing an adequate quantity of currency. Likewise, we feel threatened by anyone opposing the financial laws of existence; the very notion to not pay taxes, live freely on our land while growing food and raising livestock to feed ourselves and create our own resources gets labeled as insane, idiotic, mentally unstable, utopian, a crack pipe dream. With recent interest in self-sustaining lifestyles, these same, seemingly inherit rights to life and living freely become in fact illegal and sometimes result in police, even military, intervention.

Ultimately, we have become trained to dehumanize ourselves and fight for that very right to become devalued. Human life preceded currency, yet currency completely dominates every aspect of our lives. We supply our own insistencies to perpetuate this philosophy: it costs money to eat, or the land does not pay for itself, or the government needs money to protect us. Contrary to popular belief, each statement reflects a cultural opinion, not a natural law of sustaining life. Not only do these lies prevent us from valuing our own life, look where they have led us. Money, which initially existed as an I-owe-you of sorts, has morphed into an abstract concept – there no longer exists a set value to keep the system of currency bound to the limits of a physical valuable object like gold. Currency now simply exists because we agreed that it exists. Furthermore, due to ridiculous laws designed to suppress the common person even more, there exists more debt of currency than currency itself (the amount that we agreed existed). This results when the entity that we decided could make money charges money to borrow money. If currency gets capped by the physical existence of a valuable object – gold – then a loan to increase the amount of currency a person has directly reduces the amount of currency available in the whole economy as the beneficiary of the loan has received a larger portion of economy and the cost of the loan becomes property of the institution. Thusly, the very act of issuing a loan would suppress the economic power of everyone except the beneficiary and the institution. Our economic system does not work like this, if it did, loaning money would conceivable have been illegal from the very beginning. Our economic system actually does worse: when money gets loaned, the charge for the loan actually expands the economy without a physical representation of said currency getting produced, meaning the institution owns more money than currency to back it up, although we already agreed that neither money nor currency exist beyond what the institution provides, beyond our beliefs. This economy dominating faith has led us to an inescapable system of financial servitude that eviscerates our humanity. Most cannot fathom this and may never admit to it.

Beyond the absurdities of this financially oppressing system that we attribute to our greatness as humans, it has done even worse still. It has created familiar wealth that rivals, even surpasses, national wealth. It creates national, or governmental, wealth that far surpasses our perceptive abilities; we talk about trillion dollar budgets as if we understand the concept of that much money. We now have corporations and governments that have amassed so much money that these entities could eradicate hunger and poverty. The rich have become so rich that all diseases could be cured, prevented even. Our country, through the wealth of itself and the corporate entities that thrive within it, could pay most people to stay at home and grow gardens and raise livestock on free land, making so many lives better, healthier, and more spiritually sound. Does this happen? Will it ever?

No, because we have accepted the system for the way it is, because we have accepted that wealth gets rewarded (with more wealth) and poverty gets punished (with more poverty). We accept that we should not aspire to live happily as a right, concerning ourselves only with our needs of survival. We accept that we cannot share our land with one another without paying taxes and submitting to government. We accept money, blindly, whole-heartedly. We admit that we have become lost without money and through money we become found. We admit that we have become blind without money and through money we see. A rose, by any other name, would smell just as sweet. We worship money, and have the audacity to imprint ‘In God We Trust’ on the portion of it that physically exists. We worship money to live by sacrificing our very lives. We worship money because we have been trained not to think for ourselves, not to question the system. We worship money, for very little benefit, if any, and cannot even admit to the sin.

We worship money and still we cannot afford to live.

When Patriotism Becomes Deplorable

God be with those who self-identify as deplorable, a word among the worst in our language. To self-identify as a deplorable actively starts pushing civil rights back in time. Pretty soon, I will hang in a tree next to some other pseudo-classes because we emote evil as savages in the eyes of the just deplorables, who will swear God smiles down upon their acts of terror.


I don't support Hillary or Trump, and I continue to lose faith in this America that I heard of as so damn great, because I constantly witness everyday Americans falling into boxes in which they become labeled and trapped. In my childhood, I remember America as a proud and honorable country. Women, treated as second class citizens, worked together and fought for unity and equality, and although met resistance, demanded their place at the table as the weak minded cowered to the power of unity, the voice of reason. African Americans, treated savagely as animals and slaved to work as such, worked together and fought for unity and equality while meeting even greater resistance, yet they too demanded their place at the table as even more weak minded souls cowered to the power of unity, the voice of reason. Civil rights movements continued long after the women and the blacks achieved their allotted rights. No matter the fight needed in the name of civil rights, the people of this country always won the battle and we always pushed civil rights just a bit further. The progression of our civil rights became so revered that we became the nation of tearing down walls even in other countries.

Now, I start to see a shallower version of America. We want to build walls, separate ourselves from the others, a critical flaw in the citizenry of America because a true American in terms of race does not exist. When the great melting pot builds walls, we become trapped inside a huge box where we learn that walls protect us from the others, the different. Now we must build more walls within our walls. These savages call the same God by a different name, we must not tolerate them. These savage men sleep with other savage men, we must not tolerate them. These savages have skin of a different color, we must not tolerate them. How many walls can we truly build?

Identifying as a deplorable does not endorse your party affiliation; it does not show your support of a candidate. It defines you as a person.

What God fearing person justly explains abstract hatred?

I don't care who you vote for, but please do not feed the fire of hatred, the fire of hell. This deplorable phenomenon could violently ring louder than presidential campaigns and could echo in time way beyond this rigged, fake ass election if it becomes glorified and upheld in our collective conscious.

To use one of the shallowest arguments from a childish mentality I have ever witnessed: if you have a problem with America as a free nation where all lives receive civil liberty, dignity, and respect, you could just leave…

Yet we all know that this corrodes true American ideology. As true Americans, we slay those existing in peace on land that we would like to claim as our own, we enslave those existing in peace on land with different ways of life, and we continually root out differences encountered in our ‘home’ land through violent acts of crime, rape, and murder.

It takes a cold hearted, shallow minded, evil, despicable person to find honor as a deplorable – please, I beg you, do not find comfort or complacency in such a deplorable label. Stop building boxes. Stop fostering hatred and discrimination. Please remember your spot at the table as just as earned as the person next to you, regardless of skin color, religious affiliations, or geographical location of their birth. Every being on this planet exists as one, and until we embrace that in this country, pride in America means nothing. Another lie we hear, like our history, like our out of control government.

My individual good will always surpass my nationalism; patriotism means nothing to me when patriotism becomes deplorable.

Remembering 9/11, the Questions to Come, & the Questions that Remain

Today citizens of the United States remember the victims and brave firefighters and volunteers that all starred in a horrific moment of world history. Thousands died, and several thousand more suffer greatly even to this day over the murder of their loved ones.

The 9/11 Legislative 2 Step

Friday – September 9, 2016 – seemingly to provide legal closure to families of victims, a bill passed allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudis for damages. While receiving overwhelming support from our governing body, the White House threatened to veto the bill over diplomatic concerns with Saudi Arabia as an ally.


Interestingly enough, however, that same day, the White House declassified 28 pages of a 9/11 report – previously classified by President George W. Bush, protecting either intelligence of financier leads or the diplomacy between an allied nation, or both – that generated much speculation while resting quietly out of public scrutiny for over 13 years in a Capitol basement. Those 28 pages admit we have not linked possible financiers of the terrorists to the Saudi Arabian government definitively.

The release of these 28 pages received support from family members who intend to take their cases against the Saudis to court – possibly implicating the Saudi Arabian government if able to establish those connections – and from the Saudi Arabian government who states this measure will squash the notion that their government facilitated the attacks.

"Since 2002, the 9/11 Commission and several government agencies, including the CIA and the FBI, have investigated the contents of the '28 Pages' and have confirmed that neither the Saudi government, nor senior Saudi officials, nor any person acting on behalf of the Saudi government provided any support or encouragement for these attacks," Abdullah Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States.

Many thought these 28 pages would offer more concrete evidence – a smoking gun – against the Saudi Arabian government, yet only offer leads and more questions.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Saudi-Secret-Pages-New-York-City-911-Sept-11-Attacks-Officials-386991701.html

It seems to me these two acts suggest our government hopes that family members of victims will somehow find evidence in their cases against the Saudis that national intelligence could not produce. If these family members that pursue cases against the Saudis do not generate enough evidence to receive financial compensations – which I see as a very likely scenario – then after all of the hassle, we will still stand in this same place, unable to link these horrific attacks to the Saudi Arabian government. Conversely, if family members do succeed, new questions will arise:

• How could these families of 9/11 victims, pursing their cases, generate more evidence than our national intelligence regarding the financial associations between suspected (possibly confirmed) financiers and the Saudi Arabian government?

• Why would President Bush keep this information classified, even through the end of his second term, knowing that the information would alter, for better or worse, our ability to implicate the Saudi Arabian government, or not?

• Why would President Barack Obama continue to keep classified these 28 pages knowing that no implicating information had been obtained and the matter of diplomacy void as even the Saudi Arabian government requested the declassification of this information?

Considering the lack of information obtained from the 28 pages, considering the conflicts existing between the declassified information and the bill passed on Friday, did we do anything? Will families win their cases, or will these cases become highly profiled exploitations with empty results predicted, empty results achieved?

The 9/11 Shuffle Before the 2 Step

These questions in the air and the multitude of possible questions to arise out of this situation could distract from the current issue that many vocalize on this anniversary of 9/11 – the simple fact that hundreds of other questions regarding that faithful day – very real, honest, rightful questions – remain unanswered to this day.

One of the simplest unanswered questions comes from Dr. Judy Wood, who has presented her disapproval of the findings of 9/11 commission in court, and to the public for over a decade in books and presentations all over the world:

Where did the towers go?

Dr. Judy Wood and hundreds of other people of different professions, with varying degrees of education and political experience, have pleaded extensively to all Americans to ask why the official investigations do not accurately, scientifically reflect what happened on September 11, 2001.

15 years later and people still believe jet fuel can melt steel beams https://t.co/nKZYyibF04

— tommy (@fine_assfinch) September 11, 2016

The Great 9/11 Cover-Uphttps://t.co/F41NwMvKoW #NeverForget #911Truth pic.twitter.com/buO5z4At9R

— David Icke(@davidicke) September 11, 2016

Are you spreading some #911truth today? 💪 pic.twitter.com/qYCyhVC0em

— 9/11 Documentary (@911dokumentar) September 11, 2016

15 years is long enough. Lets make this the year we pull some heads out of the sand. #911truth #911WasAnInsideJob pic.twitter.com/CupXr3ijrl

— PISSEDOFFtinfoilhat(@AzulayRomond) September 11, 2016

Green Party’s Jill Stein pledges 'Truth' about 9/11 attacks if elected President. =S #JillNotHill #911truthhttps://t.co/YzC1txLlxF

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) September 11, 2016

Countless people know the official story is a lie..
Not just the "conspiracytheorists"
Yet...#911truth pic.twitter.com/3uUlK4NNvI

— special k (@karentalford66) September 8, 2016

Many people become offended and enraged at the mere thought of official reports containing any fallacies, the mere idea of any inaccuracy, especially with any implied malicious context, equates a huge disgrace to the countless victims of those tragic attacks. I just do not know how to console people with those views, especially as the number of people stating simple facts that discredit official reports grows daily. Other nations have even expressed conflicts of our official story and the intelligence that they have gathered.

Many people may even become offended by accepting international criticism of the 9/11 attacks as those countries have no business or no role in our country. To people agreeing, I ask, does America treat other nations with such impartiality? Of course not! Our involvement in foreign nations, most certainly post 9/11, has led us to a very unstable moment in history where international conflict threatens peace and the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians exceedingly – in fact, many have died and die at this very moment due to our involvement, that escalated exponentially as a result of the September 11, 2001 attacks, attributed to terrorists.

After fifteen years has passed, there exists no atrocity greater to the lives lost than not finding the real truth behind those terrorist attacks. To anyone claiming questions disrespect the lives of thousands lost, I say your silence disrespects above and beyond any terrorist. We must not let these lives lost remain without true explanation. We must seek the truth, which unfortunately requires our admission that official reports reflected errors. The day that our government truthfully explains exactly what happened to the Twin Towers, to the Pentagon, to World Trade Center building 7, might become the day we begin to track the real terrorists. We must not allow our government to rewrite the history of what really happened on September 11, 2001 and we most certainly must question profusely why they have tried – and so far has succeeded.

#NeverForget

That Time I Saw A Ghost / Spirit / Angel / Whatever You Want to Call It

I have raised many a chill bump recounting this story. It took place several years ago in a small doctor’s office where I solely conducted an overnight sleep study on a patient. I share this story with no fabrication and with no intentions of altering anyone’s beliefs – I get confused as to my own – but it might resonate with you, and it might force you to ask yourself questions. Many of you may even find nothing strange or unusual to this story at all.

Only my patient and I occupied the building that night, which I always locked and secured after my patient or patients arrived. For those of you unfamiliar with sleep studies, a patient simply gets monitored overnight while sleeping and various information gets recorded for analysis, including breathing patterns, heart rates, brain wave activities, and much more. Unfortunately for patients, this requires a multitude of straps and wires that get plugged into a box which in turns allows one cable to be connected to the computer that sends all of that information onto my computer screen in a separate room. In the event that the main cable gets disconnected, say for a patient to go use the restroom, all of the recorded information displays as thick black bars, indicating the loss of input.

Conducting sleep studies, alone, becomes very boring after wiring the patient and calling lights out. There exists a need to make movement notations as needed, yet after conducting so many studies, movements can be identified and notated after the fact by recognizing patterns in the various monitors – a certain chaos in all of the readings typically appears. This said to note the importance and the struggle of forcing myself to stay awake! I had previously worked in a sleep lab connected to a hospital where I worked with others and after leaving, we would often chat with each other on the phones at work as the interaction kept us alert. However, this night, a small 2:30am-ish nap became inevitable.

True to my unusual self, I managed to achieve a full fetal position in the seat of an office chair with my head resting on the arm of the chair, feet completely tucked under my body in the chair. This way I could still see the computer monitors as I never intended to actually sleep. But I did and to the point that I was able to have a very vivid, very short dream.

In this dream, I simply woke in this chair that I napped in, immediately aware that eyes were gazing upon me. The entrance to the office I occupied was to my left, so with a very slight pickup of my head, I looked into the doorway to see this woman standing in the hall way, facing me through the open doorway. I saw this joyous smile on her face which did not alter or fade as she simply extended her hand out towards me and gently motioned down, as if saying, ‘go back to sleep.’

I have never experienced anything in my life like the calm and peace that overcame me as I, without thought or hesitation, put my head back down on the arm of the chair and surrendered whole heartedly to blissful sleep.

Later, when I came to from the nap, I felt so light, calm, and peaceful – until it hit me that my patient woke up in the middle of the night while I slept. I panicked! The screen saver had appeared on the monitor and I became horrified at not knowing how long I had slept for and how long I had allowed this study to run without input being received.

I hit the mouse and became so thankful to see data recording. I thought to myself, ‘thank you, lady, for having the wits to plug the box back in to the computer after getting up and walking around, thank you, thank you, thank you!’ But now I wondered how long she had unplugged. I scrolled backwards through the study, not immediately seeing the disconnection point. I scaled the view of the monitors down to almost nothing, to the point where only a disconnection would show. Nothing. I scaled the data back up to normal, began at the beginning of the study and scrolled all the way to the current reading. No disconnect.

Words will not adequately express the state of content and confusion that I found myself in. Fear that I would get terminated for ruining a sleep study declined marginally, but there was still this huge uneasiness about the person I saw in the hallway. Who stood there?

Later, it would occur to me how oddly I reacted to waking up in the middle of the night with a complete stranger standing at my office door – to just go back to sleep – but in this moment, I decided to check the perimeter of the building. I had never visited the other rooms in this office building, but I cautiously entered each one. I checked the lobby door (which we never used at night) and found it secured. I walked to the back of the building and found that door secured. I found no signs that anyone had entered, and it should be noted that for security purposes, each door sounds an alarm when opened, and I could not recall hearing that painfully annoying door alarm at any point.

So, I went back in my office and checked my computer data again, just to be sure I could not suddenly find a point of disconnection. At this point, I began to understand the stupidity of my response to waking and seeing someone in the hallway. I remember the sensation that I felt when I saw her, the easiness she had about herself, and the ecstatic peace that she simply casted over me with a simple motion. Dreams get pretty weird, right?

Now the clock shows a few minutes past 4:00am, I have distracted myself with the sleep study and social media, and the phone rings – my friend at the hospital’s sleep lab. We have our usual ‘stay awake’ conversation, and I even shared with her that I had accidentally fallen asleep for a quick nap, sparing the dream sequence altogether. But before our conversation ended, she had some news to share. As my office extended from her office, she had access to my patients’ information. My friend spoke with a nurse at the hospital who shared a story about a patient she was caring for and my friend became able to link that patient to my patient.

She connected the lady in the hospital as my patient’s aunt. She had passed away just an hour or so previously.
My friend had to abruptly end the conversation at that point to attend to a matter in her office. I could only concentrate on the fact that my patient’s aunt had died, and I had seen her. As illogical as it seems, I could settle for no other explanation. I woke and saw her, shrouded in peace, to later fear my job over the sighting, thinking it my patient, and then, anybody – she existed so surely.

She did exist, and I knew she stood there in that hallway. She had come to visit her niece, possibly for the last time in this physical world, although she herself no longer existed physically. As I woke to her apparition, or even dreamed of her likeness, there existed an awareness that I would later decipher: she allowed me to see her and to understand that she needed to visit her loved one without the possibility of my interruption.

A couple of hours later, I woke my patient. Sleep technicians rarely loose patients or carry the burden of breaking terrible news. Technically, I should not have known of her aunt at all. I disconnected all the wires and straps silently. I resolved not to share the passing of her aunt, not wanting to explain how I even knew, not wanting her to drive away immediately after hearing such news. I had many reasons not to break the bad news to her. As many times as I have shared this story in words, it never occurred to me that maybe I should have told her, so I could tell her what I experienced. Maybe her aunt materialized before me so I could have told her that her aunt loves her still and exists happily even after her death.

I might never learn those questions before meeting my own demise, but I know certainly that she posthumously visited us in the doctor’s office that night – life does continue on the other side.

The Secret Benefits of HIV / AIDs

We the people cannot understand the greatness of HIV / AIDs and all the benefits it has offered our country and our planet. This extraordinary laboratory creation acts as but one example of why we can never reduce or question military and national security budgets. We simply would not exist as a great nation if we questioned and provided any oversight of our government; we would ruin things with our lack of intelligence. The government has our best interests at heart and we must believe that. Although it may appear a horrendous infection to us commoners, our great government patiently awaits the day they can share the classified greatness of this man-made disease that we simply cannot see. I hope that we evolve enough as a people to receive and understand such enlightenment before the day I die.



Disclaimer: Satire

#HackingHillary's Labor Day Coughing Attacks & Hillary Clinton's Potential Health Problems

As mainstream media assures us Hillary Clinton suffers no medical conditions, a contrary hashtag trends in social media – #HackingHillary – which follows another recent hashtag that placed Clinton’s health at the center of the national spotlight: #HillaryStools.

#HackingHillary #Cleveland #HillaryClinton look who's lurking in the top left hand corner 🚑 https://t.co/IrlpfLJck6 pic.twitter.com/IdJdWBmZ2n

— BenGarrison Cartoons (@GrrrGraphics) September 5, 2016

Mainstream Media "Reporting"

Mainstream media, per usual, quickly divided into two polar extreme opinions: Clinton remains in perfect health and all occurrences of her sickly appearances amount to simple conspiracy attacks from the right; Clinton suffers extremely from medical issues, including brain damage, that the left conspires to hide from the eyes of the public. In true American fashion, only these two options exist, no need for corporate media to waste time looking at any evidence further.

In fact, not only did corporate media deem her alleged health problems unworthy of coverage, but they may have completely refused to tolerate any such coverage. Dr. Drew Pinsky, board-certified medicine specialist and television personality, spoke about Clinton’s health, citing information she released publicly, “based on the information that she has provided and her doctors have provided, we [became] gravely concerned not just about her health, but her health care…”



Subsequently, Dr. Drew’s television show “Dr. Drew On Call” got cancelled. According to online reports, CNN demanded that Dr. Drew retract his comment on Clinton’s brain injury, he refused to comply, and his show got terminated. Officially, Dr. Drew and HLN, CNN’s sister company, state the show would have ended on the same date of termination due to programming changes, although online reports state sources claim Dr. Drew fears angering Clinton further and will not push the issue forward.

Another instance of this intolerance of Clinton’s health reporting surfaced when The Huffington Post abruptly terminated one of their reporters, David Seaman, and deleted two of his articles from their website that referenced Clinton’s health, without even informing Seaman of his termination. The two articles deleted appeared as “Hillary Clinton’s Health Super (Aside from Seizures, Lesions, Adrenaline Pens)” and “Donald Trump Challenges Hillary Clinton to Health Records Duel.” As Seaman discovered his firing on his own, he uploaded a video to YouTube stating “I’ve honestly never seen anything like this, and happening in the United States in 2016. I frankly [feel] a little scared.”

Clinton Coughs Through Labor Day Appearances

From either side of the fence, however, Clinton’s Labor Day campaigning resulted in two separate coughing attacks that cannot simply be dismissed, one coughing fit even rendering her incapable of continuing with her speech.



Clinton joked that thinking of Donald Trump made her allergic. While mainstream media did acknowledge these two coughing fits, they still continue with the previous narrative that Clinton’s health remains excellent, while many still feel very skeptical of her actual state of health.

More #HackingHillary

Do We Subconsciously Erect Extra Hurdles for Third Party Presidential Candidates to Jump Through?

The 2016 presidential elections document a very interesting time in American history. Five major presidential candidates emerged in this White House race, and in this digital age of instant gratification, where almost any topic imaginable awaits online dissemination, to have explained in depth from several different perspectives, instantaneously with just a few clicks, a majority of people can only name the two establishment party candidates: Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton.

The three other candidates, Bernie Sanders (may his campaign RIP), Dr. Jill Stein, and Gary Johnson vaguely exist as part of the election show. Probably the most interesting aspect of these elections, the majority of people disapprove of these two main candidates basking in the media’s spotlight. This election could officially get coined the election of the two lessor evils when clearly, that outlook defies the fact that three other, now only two, intelligent candidates aspire to participate in the presidential conversation and present their presidential platform.

How do we have an historically embarrassing approval rating of two major candidates while at the same time marginalizing, almost downright ignoring, two (previously three) other candidates, in the media and collectively? How does one major party claim ‘anybody but Trump’ while the other claims ‘anybody but Clinton’ and no one finds any interest in a shortlist of anybodies? My only theory has to do with a phenomenon that I am noticing and can only describe as a psychological disadvantage to joining the presidential elections as a third-party candidate.

It seems many, if not the majority of, Americans, when confronted with someone different (politically or otherwise), subconsciously need to find a ‘place’ for that person. Finding the place – label – of that person, here a presidential candidate, takes precedence over all other logistical functionality regarding that person, meaning that before the candidate gets thought of as possibly offering useful information or as having a serious platform that could benefit the greater good of the country, the candidate must pass an internal verification process of each voter. The candidates of the firmly established parties, the republicans and the democrats, simply avoid these special, collective conscious discriminations that greatly reduce legitimacy of the third-party candidates.

This psychological disconnect of third-party candidates appears on television just as surely as it exists in your Facebook and Twitter feeds; it certainly exists in mine. This seemingly illogical ‘block’ that requires further processing may start simply enough with our words, as the most effective slight of third-party candidates stems from use of the phrase ‘third-party.’ With little imagination, use of third-party offers as much appeal as the third-wheel on a date and provides the same bad taste in your mouth. But I fear its use does much more than that…

Simply saying 'third-party' should obviously reinforce the idea that the system optimally operates in two parties, yet the subtleness of the phrase affects us subconsciously more than we may believe, allowing us to consciously ignore that connotation. Democrats and republicans do not make the first and second parties, yet all nondemocratic and nonrepublican candidates fall into the third-party label. Now that all opposing forces of the primary parties exist in this third-party box, the potential for group invalidation – much harsher and less fair than individual invalidation – becomes an instinctual option. Not only does label validation and invalidation exist, it becomes much easier to get invalidated as a third-party candidate since that box identifies with many people from many different political perspectives. Also, as third-party candidates do not often win, this box also fills with losers, and Americans do not like losers.

So for Sanders, Stein, and Johnson, somewhere between announcing their candidacy and laying out their platform, they already have to fight down all the randomly assigned modifiers of that third-party other box, which includes: not qualified, not represented in congress, not experienced (my favorite), not able to win, not to mention the less polite modifiers like kooky, radical, and extremist. This only happens because we collectively accept that third-party candidates, like all others before them, offer dreamers and losers, not potential respectable presidents. These third party candidates face scrutiny like no others all the while, in this election, the two major parties offer the people little in the way of change and little in the way of practical political conversation at all. They offer entertainment, insultingly unintelligent smear campaigns that dominate our daily news while real message offered by third-party candidates get little to no coverage.

Collectively, we have allowed this to happen and accept it. We do not want change because we fear it. While the media finds every way to invalidate third-party candidates in massive conscious altering campaigns, we reflect that same mentality in our own conversations, on Facebook, Twitter, and in real life. This psychological block allows us to watch the presidential election show comfortably, accepting that the ability to change what happens evades us. It allows us not to question that lack of media coverage from third party candidates, not to question the lack of politics in the coverage of the elections as a whole.

Most profoundly it, it allows us to very safely, very comfortable, ignore any voice that might exists somewhere inside that says, “maybe I should research this person or this campaign more, to see where their energy focuses, which issues they address, and whether I agree or disagree with their general platform.” In the same way, it allows us to avoid a much scarier question, “what if I agree more with a new candidate than my previously selected, party loyal choice?”

Sadly, without ever consciously becoming aware of any of these notions, otherwise open and highly intelligent people continue to write off third-party candidates without due process, without researching those candidates, without researching their platforms, really, with very little interest.

Where Does a Real Cop End and a Real Person Begin?

I know a few cops and would love to hear their real cop opinions on events at the construction site of the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as their philosophical stance on public policing in general.

As a cop, where do you draw your professional line?

When do you decide to stop following marching orders – or just do your job – when it conflicts with the protection and service to which you swore an oath? Likewise, at what point do you become consciously aware that your orders conflict with that service and protection?

For what, if anything, will you place your personal conviction to protect and serve other Americans over your professionalism?

I almost refuse to believe that the officers lack awareness of the fact that this water source supplies the only clean drinking water to these people, and if anything goes wrong with the pipeline’s construction or everyday use, from completion until forever, these people will simply thirst to death and die – a second gift of genocide to the native Americans from the contemporary Americans. The police officer sawing that cast-like restraint with a handsaw (no possibility of harm there, right?) totally knows that, right?

Actually, he if knows not, that suggests an entirely different, uglier problem that could exist within the policing regimes: brutal, unadulterated ignorance. Sadly that possibly and probably exists, although a separate issue and topic to tackle, compounding bad situations much like this, and creating an environment where people seemingly get murdered by police officers, execution style, for what appears as not adequately stroking authoritarian ego – my, harsh perspective and opinion that I do not apply to every police officer.

So how do real police officers perceive the actions of these police officers installed at the Dakota Access Pipeline construction area? Do real cops believe that corporations over step the rights of humans for corporate greed, yet must comply with their job for personal, familiar security, or do cops find these protesters – protesting their most basic right to water – a true problem and feel they need stopped?

That perspective obviously affects the impact on his or her role and actions taken in any situation. It may even allow them to disconnect slightly, to facilitate actions that others, the general population for example, may find harsh (or unlawful, cruel, even treasonous).

Silent wars hide in the headlines

We face new wars. Corporations actively waged nothing short of a war upon the Native Americans fighting for a basic need of survival: clean water. An entity resembling the shattered remains of a people controlled government has waged war upon the consciousness of said people, subconsciously instilling fear of enemies, neighbors, the different. That same entity waged war upon the consciousness of our police forces, a similar tactic, subconsciously instilling fear of losing control of a person pulled over, a small group of people, a large mass of protestors, the people. The simple objective of these two collective-couscous altering wars facilitates a loss of control - revolt - in the people while simultaneously crafting a deeper alliance by police forces to the higher governing forces that write their checks.

I sincerely hope that the police have not generally become so insensitive from policing (and I often do fall short of remembering how dangerous and stress generating a police officer’s life becomes) that he or she cannot recognize simple human indignation when it occurs. I feel bad for what I would consider a ‘good’ cop installed in situations like this. I think I can safely say most of us do not go to work with the pressure of the possibility of unknowingly becoming part of a situation that could pivot the history of an entire nation, a very powerful nation, filled with very power entities (corporations), with interests in a situation that you now manage via the authority invested in you by a people that you may or may not be letting down.

What do you do?

What do you do as an officer when you truly feel that your marching orders defy your oath? If you feel conflicted in any way as an officer and you would like to express any concerns you have in policing that you feel you cannot adequately discuss or address with your superiors – I would love to hear about it. I have no interest in names, identifying information, or subjecting anyone to a loss of their employment. I just want to hear from the real mean and women facing real and heavy problems that might need outside exposure and analysis. Shoot me an email with anything you would like to share to brandonjcarver@gmail.com.

What Message Did We Miss With Kaepernick Dismissed?

Since I did get on Facebook recently, I learned a football players name: Colin Kaepernick, the one who did not stand up for the national anthem in protest.

"I [will not] stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. [The issue seems] bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way, [past] bodies in the street and people getting paid leave [while] getting away with murder."

It did not surprise me to hear his stance on the state of America, if one watches any news or participates in social media, he can see that the declining state of America dominates current political conversations. We have a republican presidential candidate that seemingly wants us terrified of going to the grocery store – we might get shot.

With all of the conversations launched through the #BlackLivesMatter movement – the good, the bad, and the ugly – Kaepernick’s simple, silent protest I saw as just another muffled voice in the crowd, another everyday person becoming unpleased with the current state of affairs.

I saw the following statement from the NFL as a sort of validation of how little I felt about his protest, honestly not giving it too much consideration at the first glance of the headline:

"The national anthem, a special part of the pre-game ceremony, [offers] an opportunity to honor our country and reflect on the great liberties we afford as its citizens. In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem."

I did note to myself that many people would initially find his protest, an exercise of one of his basic rights as a free American, as off-putting or distasteful, but I did not think long enough to foresee that people would become so angry, so fast, and stay that way!

The American flag does mean many things to many people, and one certainly has a right to feel passionately about the flag, but I also think it unfair to say that the American flag does not mean many things to Kaepernick. His protesting the National Anthem and not saluting the American flag symbolizes an expression of discontent and a demand for action to resolve the root issues causing that discontent. I see that as an honorable act.

I see how one can view Kaepernick’s protest as offensive and want to write him off completely, yet I want people to understand that protests have a deeper meaning, and sometimes the conversation just needs hearing. One can say many things, like why the national anthem, why the football game, why not this, that, and the other? But possibly the goal was simply to get a conversation started – you nailed that part, Kaepernick – and instead of expending energy taking offense, we should expend energy fostering these tough conversations that are needed to address this very real issue that really exists.

Kaepernick Simply Said What We Are All Saying

Police brutality and racial inequality unfortunately dominate news headlines. It hits a city far away on television, then it hits closer to home – sometimes it does hit home. An entire movement – #BlackLivesMatter – spawned as a result of trending police brutality and racial inequality.

These problems really require our attention, and if I personally could get more people talking about solutions, I would! Kaepernick simply became aware of his position and the opportunity that he had, and he simply felt convicted to use that position for the cause. I personally thank him for understanding that we need better and for risking his livelihood just to help get that message out there. I also feel obligated to continue that conversation on ending police brutality and racial inequality in my neighborhood and nationally – the least, right?

But Kaepernick Does Not Know Oppression, He Can Leave This Country If Unhappy

After starting this piece, I thought about not even addressing some of the negative reactions I have witnessed, which actually moved me to research this topic more and begin writing. But I am going to address a couple common responses because I have become disconcerted with the actions of so many people, not just in reacting to Kaepernick, but in general.

The lack of respect that I witness in online conversations concerns me, especially regarding sensitive topics that are imperative for the well-being of our country.

If you matriculated out of elementary school, “if you don’t like it, you can leave,” should no longer be considered a valid, adult response to someone. If you are still in elementary school, when you perceive someone as different from you, or they anger you, you should look for similarities and try to solve your problems amicably – like adults.

Also, at no point did I hear this guy say that he himself felt oppressed. I see people talking about his fat NFL contract and his wealth as if it carried any relevance. I do not believe he protested for his own benefit, but for the awareness of the police brutality and racial inequality. I think the memes and references to his millions side step from the real point, almost intentionally, as if admitting a disinterest in having the real conversation.

Fluoride - Your Teeth Need It, Not Your Drinking Water!

I recently, despite everything I believe in my heart, started drinking the tap water again after separating from my last job. I was more upset about having to drink tap water again, knowing I could no longer afford my beloved bottles of spring water, than loosing the majority of my income.

Why was I so bent about the tap water? Fluoride!

Now I am no anti-fluoride conspirator and I am not stating that we should never ingest fluoride, nor that it does not contribute to a healthy, beautiful smile, but it really is time to look at all the evidence supporting the damaging aspects of prolonged overexposure to fluoride and make the decision that we really need to take it out of the drinking water - leave it in the toothpaste where it belongs.

What is Fluoride?

Per the (EPA) Environmental Protection Agency, fluoride compounds are salts that form when the element fluorine combines with minerals in soil or rocks. That means that fluoride is a naturally occurring element, which naturally ends up in our water sources, usually minimally, yet it varies by geographic location.

Although fluoride is a naturally occurring element that happens to be great for dental health, over exposure and extended use can lead to adverse health effects, some of which are more commonly accepted (or even acknowledged) than others.

These lovely, natural fluoride crystals belong to Deborah Blum, who wrote a very good article on those who advocate the removal of fluoridation from drinking water based on misguided concepts like fluoride occurring only as an unnatural industrial byproduct.

Why Add Fluoride To Drinking Water?

Fluoride is added to drinking water in an effort to reduce tooth decay by (re)mineralizing the teeth. Demineralization occurs with eating and healthy teeth require a good balance of re- and demineralization to avoid tooth decay - or avoid allowing tooth demineralization to exceed tooth mineralization.

In this regard, fluoride is a very beneficial element of dental health and it was thought that administering the chemical to the population via water supplies would be a simple way to ensure good dental health for everybody, especially the main target audience of children growing their adult teeth. Adult teeth forming in children absorb a lot more of the fluoride into the tooth, actually making tooth decay more difficult to achieve, yet also the reason why children are more susceptible to dental fluoridation.

Not only did it become basically standard to add fluoride to drinking water to improve the nation's dental health, we started putting it into toothpastes to apply the minerals directly to the teeth - which was actually a good idea.

The Proven (And More Commonly Accepted) Adverse Health Effects of Prolonged Exposure To Fluoridation

There is no debating the toxicity of fluoride, it is listed as a poison and is used as insecticide (granted at levels you will never experience in drinking water or toothpaste). The effects of consistent overexposure to fluoride are a myriad of chronic health problems, and not only does the average American (I would assume) have no clue how much fluoride they are consuming, they have no idea how easy it is to over consume fluoride.

Like tea? Read this snippet from the Irish Examiner:

The United States National Academies stated in their comprehensive report, Fluoride in Drinking Water (2006), that in countries such as the UK, where tea consumption is common, that the daily fluoride intake for many consumers would be greater than 9mg per day, which is more than twice the recommended dietary intake of 4mg per day.

The consumption of tea is higher in Ireland than the UK and unfortunately we make our tea with artificially fluoridated water. This means that many individuals are exposed to a daily fluoride intake of greater than 10mg per day. This level of exposure will result in increased prevalence of chronic disease. Today in Ireland, according to HSE reports, one in 3 adults suffers from a chronic disease.

Granted over here, you could probably replace tea (Southerners, they mean hot tea) with coffee and/or sweet tea.

According to the (EPA) Environmental Protection Agency webpage:

Exposure to excessive consumption of fluoride over a lifetime may lead to increased likelihood of bone fractures in adults, and may result in effects on bone leading to pain and tenderness. Children aged 8 years and younger exposed to excessive amounts of fluoride have an increased chance of developing pits in the tooth enamel, along with a range of cosmetic effects to teeth.

Children are also more likely to develop dental fluorosis, or develop white markings or streaking on the teeth, which is a form of skeletal fluorosis that develops from overexposure to fluoride.

The general symptoms of overexposure to fluoride include:

• Abdominal pain
• Abnormal taste (salty or soapy taste)
• Convulsions
• Diarrhea
• Drooling
• Headache
• Heart attack
• Irregular heartbeat
• Nausea
• Shallow breathing
• Slow heartbeart
• Tremors
• Vomiting
• Weakness

The Neurological Effects Of Fluoridation Exposure - Feil Smuartor Yeait?

The neurological effects of fluoride exposure can cause a decrease in intelligence, as concluded in this study by Environmental Health Perspectives, the abstract follows:

Background: Although fluoride may cause neurotoxicity in animal models and acute fluoride poisoning causes neurotoxicity in adults, very little is known of its effects on children’s neurodevelopment.

Objective: We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of published studies to investigate the effects of increased fluoride exposure and delayed neurobehavioral development.

Methods: We searched the MEDLINE, EMBASE, Water Resources Abstracts, and TOXNET databases through 2011 for eligible studies. We also searched the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database, because many studies on fluoride neurotoxicity have been published in Chinese journals only. In total, we identified 27 eligible epidemiological studies with high and reference exposures, end points of IQ scores, or related cognitive function measures with means and variances for the two exposure groups. Using random-effects models, we estimated the standardized mean difference between exposed and reference groups across all studies. We conducted sensitivity analyses restricted to studies using the same outcome assessment and having drinking-water fluoride as the only exposure. We performed the Cochran test for heterogeneity between studies, Begg’s funnel plot, and Egger test to assess publication bias, and conducted meta-regressions to explore sources of variation in mean differences among the studies.

Results: The standardized weighted mean difference in IQ score between exposed and reference populations was –0.45 (95% confidence interval: –0.56, –0.35) using a random-effects model. Thus, children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses also indicated inverse associations, although the substantial heterogeneity did not appear to decrease.

Conclusions: The results support the possibility of an adverse effect of high fluoride exposure on children’s neurodevelopment. Future research should include detailed individual-level information on prenatal exposure, neurobehavioral performance, and covariates for adjustment.

FluorideAlert.org claims to have cited over 100 studies that prove that intelligence reduction is just one of many unpleasant side effects, and they have tons on reference leading to all sorts of health problems directly attributed to chronic over fluoridation.

Just reading the abstract of this study, you can see how easy is would be for conspiracy theories to spawn from this, as there are those who claim public fluoridation is more of a means of population control than the desire to promote good dentition.

Fluoride & Cancer

Dr. Dean Burk, the famous director of the Cytochemistry division of the National Cancer Institute for more than 30 years, contributed much to the field of cancer research. During his retirement, he was interviewed on Dutch television to discuss the proposal to fluoridate drinking water in the Netherlands, in which he reveals shocking, straight-forward evidence linking fluoride and increased development of cancer based on his research of cancer patients in various areas of the United States in areas that did and did not contain fluoride in the drinking water.

Dr. Burk to Dutch Parliament: [Water Fluoridation] Amounts to Public Murder on a Grand Scale

Dr. Burk is one of the most noted biochemists in the history of biochemistry - he was very much under the impression that we should not have fluoride in our drinking water.

Watch 6 Minute Interview With Dr. Dean Burk, Former Head of the National Cancer Institute's Cytochemistry Sector

Dr. Burk's interview above is a very brief (yet very insightful) observation of the link between cancer and fluoride exposure, but he is not the only doctor that his contributed to the global forum of drinking water fluoridation.

In this video, Dr. John Yiamouyiannis, biochemist and founder of the Safe Water Foundation, goes into a little more detail about what is actually happening when fluoride is in the body and why it leads to accelerated growth of cancerous tumors.

If Fluoride Is For Dental Health, Overexposure Creates A Myriad Of Health Problems, Why Not Leave It In The Toothpaste & Take It Out Of The Drinking Water?

Fluoride is not recommended for young children. Overexposure to fluoride is bad for anyone. Overexposure is not necessarily fluoride poisoning, but ingesting too much at one time will cause fluoride poisoning and requires prompt medical attention. Extended use of fluoride creates various health problems, even accelerates cancer growth, especially when overexposure is occurring consistently for a prolonged period.

So, really, why would we not take the fluoride of out the drinking water and leave it in the toothpaste if there is no ulterior motives for public fluoridation? We would get all the benefits of good dental health, administered as needed (age specific) and without the worry of overexposure.

It is such a common sense approach that could possibly save millions in health care in as little as a couple of years (the couple of years projection based on the amount of time it took Dr. Burk to see a verifiable acceleration of cancer in populations that started to fluoridate drinking water in the United States).

Sooo, Why Is Fluoride In The Drinking Water, Again?

Why are we not doing anything about the problem of overexposure to fluoride in our communities? (Did you notice how old those videos are? According to Dr. Yiamoyuiannis, there was a verifiable link to overexposure of fluoride and cancer as early as 1965 - that was like 50 years ago.)

This is certainly a problem and it needs to be corrected at local levels through conversations at work, church, school, and most certainly town halls. We have got to get the people who are sourcing our water to stop fluoridating it.

We have got to get the fluoride out of the drinking water - not because fluoride is bad, but because too much fluoride is bad. Tylenol is good for headaches - if you take enough of it, you will die.

McDonald's Thrives, Employees Collect Food Stamps, Other Government Assistance - And You're Loving It!

I have a problem with big businesses like McDonalds. It's too big and their greatness is not reflected in their value as an employer. I know there will always be "big dogs" and "small fries" within any group of anything - and I am not mad at success - but can we at least get a good grip of what success entails?

McDonalds to Uncle Sam: You Scratch My Back, I'll Scratch My Back

McDonalds is a ginormous corporation that generates BILLIONS of dollars in profit annually (even quarterly), yet the employees are barely paid. How can McDonald's be a great American success story when it takes money out of the hands of Americans to subsidize the payment of wages to its employees?

Actually, in what world do we live in where there is a minimum wage and a living wage and we allow the minimum wage to be set so substantially lower than the living wage? If the minimum wage does not equal the living wage, it is mathematically impossible for anyone to thrive off the minimum wage, without working multiple jobs. What is the point of having a minimum wage if it means that 40 hours a week are simply not enough?

The problem that is created when the minimum wage is lower than the living wage is that companies are not doing anything illegal by watching their employees enroll into government assistance. Companies like McDonald's are aware of the number of employees seeking that assistance and can easily see within their own company that the wages paid are simply not enough to support the most basic needs of a huge percentage of their employees - and it is so much more lucrative for them to not care and do nothing.

At What Point Does "Taking" Tax Money Become Simple Theft?

McDonalds, and other megacorporations, could easily raise the wages of employees and still generate billions of dollars in profit, without ever collecting one cent from taxpayer dollars, and (I don't care what anybody says or calculates) without raising the price of that Big Mac made from Lord-knows-what (that people are obviously okay with eating, still, for whatever reason).

We cherish McDonald's in the country as a great American success story, but how many of the employees of McDonald's experience that same pride as an employee of one of the greatest business endeavors in this country? And as one of the greatest examples of business success in the world, how in the hell can McDonald's justify the use of tax payer money to basically pay what they are not paying to employees, when they are well aware of the economic situation of our country and their employees (unless of course the justification is to never reduce the profit margin for any reason, in which case it would make way more sense to do nothing and keep saving...)

I say saving because it obviously saves the corporation money. If McDonald's did increase the wages of employees (and this is not a sob story for corporate profits) it would cost them, obviously, the extra money they put into, and that would be compounded by employer contribution taxes, health care costs, and other liability costs like general liability and worker's compensation, and I'm sure in other ways, too.

I just don't care.

STOP FEELING BAD FOR CORPORATE PROFITS ALREADY - Are You Benefiting?

I am not saying McDonald's should go out of business (however, I personally do not understand why they are even in business as they current serve very little that I would actually ingest into my body - and pretty much nothing from their menu comes to mind...) but I am suggesting that, as is possible with any company, mistakes are being made. If they do not generate enough revenue to pay their employees a decent wage, they have a bad business model that requires some reworking.

Gasp, profits might need to drop a little (a little - we are talking BILLIONS GENERATED QUARTERLY - put away the tissues for corporate profits), maybe the price of a Big Mac does need to go up a little (I bet Burger King would enjoy a McDonald's price hike), because as with any company, the revenue from your products and services should support the overhead of the company.

By having employees who qualify and receive government assistance - at billions annually - there is obviously a problem with the wages and that part of the overhead is not being supported by the revenue from the products - although McDonalds generates more in profit quarterly than the amount of funds received by it's employees annually through government assistance.

McDonald's is robbing the poor (America - check our balance sheet) to finish paying the portion of the poor that they employ, and all while pocketing cash hand over fist.

If McDonald's could not thrive as a company by paying its employees enough that they did not qualify for government assistance, I still would not feel bad - but are you joking? These people pay millions of dollars for some air time on TV - adjusting the wages of the employees across the board will marginally effect profits, but could easily be compensated - causing no effect on profit margin - just by skipping some commercial advertisements at millions of dollars a piece here and there. Or whatever.

The bottom line, McDonald's wouldn't sweat if it doubled the wages of all its employees. I'm not an economist or analyst of finances, but I still don't give a damn what anybody says - these people are straight up crying wolf when they cry about profits or the imaginary need to increase items on the menu - and if they do, they do! Who's fault is anyway if the McDonald's business model (that includes fair compensation to its employees) is unprofitable?

If it really is, do the right thing and go out of business, McDonalds. But again - that is like, NEVER, going to happen. They could honestly double the wages AND provide whole, natural, organic food and STILL not even notice anything because they make so much money...

Sources for "McDonald's Thrives, Employees Collect Food Stamps, Other Government Assistance - And You're Loving It!":

"McDonald's Reports Solid Third Quarter 2013 Results" from McDonald's Press Release
http://news.mcdonalds.com/Corporate/Press-Releases/Financial-Release?xmlreleaseid=123038

"McDonald's Low Wages Cost Taxpayers $1.2 Billion Per Year: Study" by Jillian Berman, Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/mcdonalds-wages-taxpayers_n_4100866.html

Watch The Most Shocking Second A Day Video #WithSyria

Just Because It Isn't Happening Here, Doesn't Mean It Isn't Happening...

It seems like there is little anyone could do...

For many its as if nothing is even happening...

It's Syria, not America...

Why Should You Care About Syria?

Pretty soon, these videos could feature American children and families, loosing everything. The problems around the world are real and they are coming to your doorstep.

Change in this country and around the world is necessary - and it starts with each of us, first by caring, then...