|
From: Dick Gallien
My condition surfaced 58 years ago, when I wasn’t allowed beyond the receptionist when our first was born. I was allowed to visit 24 hours later. The authorities had bound my wife’s chest and given her a shot to dry her up, saying our baby wouldn’t nurse. Nearly 90% bottle fed then. There’s money in formula, none in breast feeding. I took the bandages off, our baby nursed, I made some deserved comments to the doctor and we went home the next day.
We read “Childbirth Without Fear” and one year later, our second was born at home intentionally. Just my wife, her friend (both RNs) myself and 9.5 lb. Douglas. He nursed.
Today, labor and delivery rooms are open, home birthing and midwives available, and everyone should know breast feeding is best. Mothers, not authorities, turned it around.
Fifty years ago, in a Michigan State University soils class, I mentioned organic farming and recall Dr. Foth’s angry words. Dr. Earl Butz, former Secretary of Agriculture, derided organic farmers as quacks. Consumer pressure, not Monsanto and university professors started turning it around.
Experience is the best teacher; we learn by doing, so the experience of sitting in school never made sense to me. I equate school buses with cattle trucks, both headed for unhealthy feed lots. One does not receive smiles when questioning a monopoly, whether religious or educational.
The $27 billion a year funeral industry that pumps bodies full of formaldehyde made no sense to us, so we had three acres on the farm registered as a cemetery, for natural burial. For a donation, you/we can dig your 3’ deep hole and you can help complete the cycle of life.
This area is a hot bed for Lyme Disease. Too many cases are misdiagnosed, often with permanent life-altering results.
Our German/Prussian compulsory school system conditions us to accept authority, just ask the well-schooled German survivors who followed an Austrian school dropout’s orders or us/U.S., impacted by Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Hopefully receiving opinions from authorities without accepting them blindly, becomes contagious.
|
