Oh how I love editing.

Insomniatic Musings Child Of The Month

Now - let me just point out that i've been so lax with running features that i cant even remember which friday of each month i said i would do Child of the Month. So, forgive if i'm a little out of wack here ......

NAME: Emily Bear

AGE: 8 years old and counting

CUTENESS FACTOR: Off the scale!

REASON FOR FEATURING: I’m featuring Emily Bear for two reasons: firstly because she’s talented, and secondly ? Because she’s just so cute! Seriously – have you seen her on the “ The Ellen Degeneres Show “ ? She’s just pure cuteness on a stick! Altogether now….awwww. For those who haven’t seen her on TV, Emily is a young piano prodigy who also happens to be adorable. I’ve seen her twice on “ The Ellen Degeneres Show “ and although I’m no music virtuoso myself, I have to admit she’s pretty impressive for her tender age. I mean, she composed a song for Ellen and Portia for their wedding, which made Ellen cry. How sweet is that?
Amongst her other achievements: she played at the White House when she was 6 years old; she's the youngest musician ever to have featured at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago ( ok, this one doesnt mean anything to me but apparently its noteworthy ) and she's released 4 albums so far. 4 albums at 8 years of age..... holy guacamole.
I suppose the cynics amongst you might argue that she’s probably being pushed by bossy stage parents, or that any pieces that have been written by Emily must have been, at least in part, written by an adult. Shame on you! Sure, maybe her parents did push her to start piano lessons at a very, very young age ( NOTE: I’m not saying they did. If your Emily Baer’s parents, please don’t sue me ) – but most children that age wont keep something up unless they really enjoy it. They also wont be good at something unless they have a natural ability and a passion for it. So, as far as I’m concerned Emily Bear is a cute, talented little moppet whether its her choosing or not.
So congratulations to Emily Bear on being Insomniatic Musings Child of the Month – see what kind of acclaim talent and a cute set of dimples will get you ?

Stop The Agenda - Vote Yes on Question 1

Item one on the homosexual agenda is: “There is no homosexual agenda and anyone who says so is homophobic.”

A coalition of two dozen homosexual activist groups met in Kansas City in 1960 calling themselves the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations. According to a favorable, left/liberal history of “Gay Liberation” at Religioustolerance.org:

A radical faction surfaced [and] called for a change in tactics. Item 4 of their manifesto stated: Our enemies, an implacable, repressive governmental system; much of organized religion, business and medicine, will not be moved by appeasement or appeals to reason and justice, but only by power and force. . . . The homosexual agenda emerged at this point.

Item two on the agenda was to decriminalize homosexual acts in liberal states, then set up bacchanalian “bath houses” in which homosexuals “celebrated” their sexuality with orgies of anonymous sex. Soon, the “bath houses” in New York City and San Francisco would incubate and spread a horrible new disease initially called GRID, or “Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disease.” More about that later.

Item 3 was to bully the American Psychiatric Association (APA) into declassifying homosexuality as a mental disorder in the “Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM). This they accomplished by breaking into the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC to disrupt the 1973 APA Convention. Homosexuals in drag shouted down speakers, stormed the dais, seized the microphone, and the APA folded. The decision was based on intimidation, not science. That’s how homosexual activists operate when they’re not playing the victim role.

Item 4 was to persuade America that people who still considered homosexuality disordered or perverted were themselves disordered. They invented the clinical-sounding term “homophobia” and propagated it everywhere, calling anyone who criticized homosexuality “homophobic.”

When GRID surfaced in the early eighties, it looked like their agenda would go off the rails. Hence Item 5: Revert to victim mode. Pressure the Centers for Disease Control to change the name of this terrible new disease from GRID to AIDS, scare the hell out of heterosexuals by telling them they’re going to die next, and blame President Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush for spreading AIDS. More than a quarter-century later, the bath houses are still open, homosexuals still comprise the majority of AIDS cases in America, and they control billions in government AIDS spending. The agenda stayed on track and picked up steam.

Item 6 was to establish homosexuals as a protected class by passing “Gay Rights” statutes. Activists stayed in victim mode and jumped on the civil rights bandwagon. With this came a subtle change in nomenclature: Substituting “sexual orientation” for “sexual preference,” they would persuade America that homosexuality is biological and not a choice. Homosexuality is just like race, they claimed. That there’s no science to support this is irrelevant. Most Americans believe it, and, in politics, perception is reality.

The notion that people are born homosexual and cannot change had become the keystone of the homosexual agenda. Remove it, and everything collapses.

It may be that some have an inherent proclivity for homosexuality. Evidence exists, however, that many - male and female - become homosexual after being being molested in childhood. Due to enormous pressure by activists, virtually all research funds granted for decades look for a biological origin and ignore other possible causes. Evidence that homosexuality could be caused by environmental factors is scoffed at, and activists make sure nobody gets money to study it.

As long as Americans believe homosexuality is innate, they’re sympathetic to the homosexual agenda. They’ll allow activists and their propaganda into schools and other venues, figuring that if their children weren’t born homosexual, there’s no chance they’ll be influenced to become so. If, however, parents were to suspect otherwise - that their children might be changed by homosexual propaganda - those doors would surely slam shut.

That people can change their sexual preference is poisonous to the agenda and Dr. Robert Spitzer, Chief of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, has earned the wrath of activists by claiming it. Ironically, as a young psychiatrist Spitzer was instrumental in persuading the 1973 APA Convention to drop homosexuality from the DSM, and thus became the darling of radicals. At the 2001 APA Convention, however, he said: “Like most psychiatrists, I thought that homosexual behavior could be resisted, but sexual orientation could not be changed. I now believe that's untrue--some people can and do change,” and he published a study supporting his belief.

“It's snake oil, it's not science,” said David Elliot, homosexual activist with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force - as if activists like him ever paid attention to science.

Item 6 was to sue for homosexual “marriage” in Massachusetts, claiming marriage laws “discriminated” against homosexuals based on the above-mentioned “Gay Rights” statutes. The liberal Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered its legislature to pass homosexual “marriage,” and then blocked a people’s referendum to repeal it.

Voters in California, however, were able to reverse what their liberal court and legislature did and they repealed homosexual “marriage.” Next Tuesday, Maine voters will have the same opportunity.

Stop the homosexual agenda. Do it for the children.

Vote Yes on Question 1.

Realisations and Ponderisations 28.10.09

* I love my blog – and my bloggy friends. Why else would I have gone semi-postal only a few days ago ?

*People love a pregnant lady. I personally have always loved pregnant ladies, with their big round tummies and the way they have to waddle everywhere. ( Yes, that’s right, I’m admitting it. I WADDLE. ) Now that I’m well and truly showing I have people that come into our practice asking when I’m due, or do I know what I’m having…. As of yet I haven’t had random people wanting to touch the bump though. Thank god, because if it gets to that stage that may be a little too intimate to be sharing with strangers. I am, however, happy to share my bump with J – she’s yet to actually catch a kick or a movement, but she’s trying really hard.

*Lawns are great. I’d say grass in general, but I’m not overly fussed on wild grasses or the overgrown jungles you find in some peoples backyards. I’m talking about lawns – nice, fresh, manicured, green lawns. It’s a real treat to be able to kick my shoes off in spring and summer and walk around barefoot ( in my yard of course, not like, say, at the mall. Umm….eww. ) The feel of lush grass underfoot is just the essence of Australian summer for me. Plus, a well kept lawn just makes your whole house look better. I’m about the presentation to, you know….

*Whilst on the subject of lawns – DON’T PARK ON MY GRASS. Seriously people – Mr Gil and I do not spend precious time watering and feeding the lawn to have you park your big, ugly, dirty car on it. The lawn is for walking and admiring – the street is for parking. Also please note: parking on my lawn is extra rude when your aren’t even a guest of mine. If your hanging out with one of neighbours, park on their damn grass.

*“ Big Bang Theory “ is a great show. I didn’t quite get into at the start but now I’m loving it. I think its because, underneath, I’m actually a nerd ( Mr Gil claims my adeptness at Wii Boggle to be evidence of this claim ) – I’m not quite on the scale of Sheldon, but I can appreciate the whole nerd aspect of the show. Plus, I totally have a crush on Leonard. Leonard is a total cutie with his big glasses and his shyness and his sarcasm – and Penny can totally see it. Penny and Leonard are going to be my new Ross and Rachel….

*I actually enjoy cleaning my bathroom. This is both strangely odd and kind of scary. Who the hell enjoys cleaning anything, let alone their bathroom?

*I miss sushi. And soft serve icecream. And camembert cheese. All things I’m supposed to avoid whilst pregnant. Poo to that.

*I haven’t been to the movies for a while. By a while, I mean for maybe 2 months, 10 weeks at the most. That’s quite a length of time for me. And whats even weirder is that their have been movies released that I would have liked to have seen, I just never got around to getting down to the cinema. This makes me kind of sad. It also makes me realize I had better check out a few more new release movies before I have a crying baby to disturb everyone else with. Thank god for the “ crying room “ at my local cinema complex….

Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

So – by looking at the amount of posts I’ve made this month, you would assume that October has been a relatively quite month for me. This isn’t quite true – I’ve been for a weekend away, I’ve had numerous doctors appointments, I’ve been busy at work and I’m brand-spanking-newly engaged, so I’m not quite sure why the lack of posts. I’d like to blame it on motivation, although that sounds really petty. What I mean is I put in a bit of effort while I was sick off work to spruce up my blog, I tried to come up with more interesting posts and even so it seems like my readers have just up and disappeared. Comments have almost well and truly dried up, and I cant seem to attract anybody new to come and visit this page.

Whats up with that people ? Have I become boring in my old age? Have I been posting too much “ baby “ stuff, and driven all you happily childless readers away? Am I not funny/interesting/mentally challenged enough anymore ? You gotta tell me! Its like being deserted by your friends….. you still wanna hang out on their blogs, but they just don’t come around like the used to.

Maybe its not me – maybe its you ( yes, you. ). Have you guys just become too busy to read blogs anymore? Have your lives just taken right off, to the point where you cant be bothered putting finger to key anymore? Have your daily adventures become so exciting that you manage to write your own blog but the next adventure rolls along before you can catch up on other peoples stuff?

God – I know this sounds like such a rant, but its not. I don’t want to come off as some kind of whinger; I don’t want to sound jealous of other peoples reader numbers or comments; and I most certainly don’t want to sound like I think my writing is that good that nobody should be missing out….. I just miss my readers! At this rate, I’m thinking I keep blogging until the baby arrives, just to document the last few weeks of my first pregnancy and then I up and quit.

I’ve always kind of maintained that I write a blog for me, just like I’d keep a journal, it didn’t matter if anyone read it or not. But after 3 or 4 years of blogging, I’ve become accustomed to a bit of reciprocal blog love – I’ve thrived on it – and now that its seems like the bloggy love is no more, its just not the same….

Temporarily parked on the hard shoulder of life

Last weekend I was unable to bring you my blog due to being ensconced in a cottage in Scotland that had no internet access. It is strange how unthinking we become in our assumption that we will always be able to communicate with whoever, whenever and wherever we happen to be. Knowing that I was going to struggle to communicate once at the cottage, I had meant to send out a blog on Friday morning, but events overtook me and before I knew it the opportunity was gone.

This was unfortunate as I wanted to congratulate all my colleagues working at Greater Manchester West Mental Health Trust on their achievement of an Excellence rating on both the quality and financial management criteria in the recently published Care Quality Commission Performance tables. I am not keen on performance tables as a way of driving up organizational performance, but given that only 15% of all Trusts nationally achieved an Excellence rating for quality and 26% for financial management, the achievement of GMW is simply awesome – and well deserved.

Staying in a cottage in Scotland, isolated and disconnected, in itself reduces the inspiration for writing a blog. I can tell you about the otters, tame pheasants, and spectacular sunsets and so on. These were all wonderful distractions. However, within 24 hours of getting there I succumbed to a cold, which has, ‘gone to my chest’ as my Mother would say, and ever since I have suffered with a racking cough, fever, sleepless nights and so on. The consequence has been a lack of energy to get on and do what I would normally be doing! My inability to get going I found difficult. I could not concentrate to read, I didn’t put pen to paper at all, and even gave up shouting at the radio like the grumpy old man I can be when I hear something outrageous.

Finding myself temporarily on the hard shoulder of life has been a difficult place to be.

A balancing factor in this uncharacteristic week for me, was hearing the very sad news of my colleague Professor Deborah Bakers untimely death. Her contribution to improving our understanding of what makes for good health and wellbeing is internationally recognized. On a personal level she provided me with great support and enthusiasm. I shall miss her wise words and capacity for thinking differently. My thoughts are with Deborah’s family at this very difficult time.

Nobel Numbskulls

Two of our best presidents, Lincoln and Jackson, never went to college. Another great one, Harry Truman, attended only very briefly. Some of the most knowledgeable people I’ve met have no formal education beyond high school. I’ve known several from whom I learned more than I did from most of my professors. Excavators, loggers and well-drillers taught me more than my Earth Science courses did, and what I liked most was their lack of pomposity. Knowledge wasn’t something they used to impress others. It was for understanding, and they were willing to share it freely hoping to get more in return. Knowledge was its own reward.

There was a time college degrees impressed me, but that dissipated steadily during years spent on campus with people holding advanced degrees in what are aptly named the “soft sciences.” Fifty or sixty years ago, a Liberal Arts degree from an American college or university was good evidence that the person holding it had at least a basic understanding of philosophy, history, mathematics, literature, science, the arts, and was capable of rational thought, but that hasn’t been true for a while now.

The best illustration I can offer is from a project called “A Private Universe,” first published in 1987. Twenty-three randomly-selected graduates and faculty at a Harvard commencement were asked to explain what caused earth’s changing seasons, and only two could answer correctly. The rest confidently explained that as the earth gets closer to the sun in its orbit we get warmer weather, and as the earth gets farther away from the sun, we get colder weather. I was shocked when I first watched the clip. They didn’t realize their understanding is negated by the obvious fact that, while our northern hemisphere is experiencing winter, it’s summer in the southern hemisphere, so distance from the sun would be irrelevant. Twenty-one of twenty-three? Faculty as well as students? At our most prestigious university?

Scariest was how confident they were in their dubious understanding of climate. Now consider how impressed American voters are when a candidate has a degree from Harvard. Consider also that former vice president, Harvard man, and almost-president, Al Gore has convinced hundreds of millions that “our planet has a fever.” He further insists on restructuring our whole economy to reverse global warming. President Obama, another Harvard man, promises us that he will cut human-generated carbon emissions or our coastal cities will be flooded by melting ice caps - even if it means raising fuel costs for an average family by more than $1700 annually. All this while our economy is in deep recession.

Again, two Harvard-educated intellectuals are ignorant what should be obvious to any truly-knowledgeable, thinking person with only a cursory understanding of history: The earth has experienced at least four ice ages over hundreds of millions of years during which the Harvard campus was covered by glaciers a mile thick or more. Many times, those glaciers melted - because of what? Global warming. And what is the earliest evidence of human-generated carbon emissions beyond scattered camp fires? A few centuries? A few millennia at most? Those periods of acute global warming could not possibly have been caused by human-induced carbon emissions. It’s the height of hubris to think humans can reverse global warming in the 21st century - if indeed it’s occurring at all, which seems unlikely. As I write, it’s mid-October in New England and I’m watching the Patriots play the Tennessee Titans in a snowstorm. Sunday River Ski Area just opened for business twenty miles north of where I sit.

For this, Gore gets a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar? And what did Obama get the Peace Prize for? I give up.

I can only watch as these two Nobel laureate, intellectual, Harvard graduates lead half the world in a mass, global-warming psychosis reminiscent of Chicken Little and Turkey Lurkey. A quote from the late William F. Buckley is worth repeating: “I would rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the 2000 members of the faculty of Harvard University.”

A highly-educated, intellectual, British leader is evidently caught in their hysteria. The BBC quotes UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown: “The costs of failing to tackle [global warming in the next 50 days] would be greater than the impact of both world wars and the Great Depression combined.”

That bad, huh Gordon? You remind me of what your late countryman, George Orwell, said about people like you and our two intellectual American leaders: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

Another Weekend By The Numbers

8:30 - time i went to bed on Friday night. Yep, a Friday night and i'm in bed before most 10 year olds. However, i am pregnant and Friday night i just could not get comfortable AT ALL. There was no remedy for it except to gu lie down and shut it all out.

1 - diamond ring that was presented to me with my breakfast in bed on Saturday morning.

1 - proposal by Mr Gil.

5 - approximate number of times i smiled " Yes!!! " in reply. Yep - consider me engaged...

6 - number of people my mum invited around to my house for an impropmtu afternoon tea on Saturday afternoon. Without checking with me first, but seeing as my mum supplied the banana cake we ate, i didnt mind. My mum just couldnt wait more than a few hours for me to announce my engagement to my immediate family.

$70ish - the approximate cost of the lovely romantic dinner Mr Gil took me out for on Saturday night. We tried a new Thai resturant in town - mussaman curry = mmmmm....

62 - my new top score on Wii Boggle. Mr Gil thinks that i'm a nerd because i'm good at Boggle ( ok, probably true ) but i think he may be secretly reading the dictionary so he can beat me one day.

7 - hrs spent at antenatal class on Sunday. The midwife that ran the class was quite casual and funny, so everything seems a bit less scary now. If literally billions of other women can have babies, so can i!

$600 - approximate amount of money we've spent on the bubba so far. Thats not including clothes and blankets and knick knacks, only big ticket items. We've got a car seat on layby and then we only have to get a cot, and it will be time to set up the nursery.....

Picturing Things

A photographer has pictures of everything and everyone but himself, and I’m no exception. My image in newspapers or online is usually a school picture, and people often comment that I look too serious. I don’t like posing and I guess it shows. For decades it’s been the same scenario: The photographer from Life Touch, or wherever, has to say something genuinely funny or a smile won’t rise. Most often, they send a young woman who asks me to take the pen out of my pocket and remove the glasses hanging around my neck. “I like to leave them there,” I say.

“Okay,” she’ll say, perplexed. “Now smile!”

“You have to say something funny,” I’ll respond, and she usually can’t come up with anything. Last month, the woman closed her eyes and seemed to be trying hard to think of something funny. That amused me and I grinned. As a student or teacher, I’ve had my picture taken this way about forty-five times. My first-grade school picture was on our refrigerator for a while last summer with those of my children and grandchildren after my wife dug it out for comparison.

Group shots are worst. Leaning in close and holding a fake smile makes my cheek muscles cramp. I feel foolish trying to keep a goofy smile on my face while somebody fumbles with a camera, so I just don’t do it anymore. I never ask others to pose either because I don’t want to put them through the ordeal. Besides, candid shots are much better. With an 18-270 mm zoom on my Nikon D-60, good portraits are possible when people don’t know I’m capturing their image. I get them as they are, not as they may wish to appear.
My camera is always with me, but I forgot it recently while rushing out to church. We visited my new granddaughter on the way home and it bothered me awfully that I couldn’t take pictures of her. Then at Fryeburg Fair last week, the auto-focus on my zoom lens stopped functioning while I was shooting faces in the crowd. I had to send it out for repair and I miss it every day it’s not available to me. I’ve enjoyed photography for almost forty years, but I’m liking it more lately than I ever have. That’s good because it’s an indication of my attitude toward my world these days: I’m noticing what is around me and savoring it.

If I see something while driving, I’ll pull over and even back up to get a picture. When she’s with me my wife tries to be patient, but she gets annoyed if we’re running late and that can diminish the creative mood. As a columnist, I like to write about whatever I want any given week. As a photographer, I’m the same way. Whatever catches my eye is what I shoot. When writing, I feel like I’m putting out. While shooting pictures, I feel like I’m taking in.

We have thousands of shots with children, grandchildren, other people and much else over the past thirty-eight years since my wife gave me a 35mm Minolta SRT-101 for Christmas. I still have that camera, but seldom use it since I bought myself a good digital SLR last year. Now I’m taking a thousand shots a month and they’re clogging my computer and I have to invest in a second portable hard drive to store them. Every day I see beauty in nature and in people, and try to capture it. What I get is never as good as what my eye sees, but sometimes I can carry a little sunshine home in my jar, so to speak. It might be a scene, a flower, a tree, a face, a shadow, a bog, a rock formation, an old building, an integration of color - it could be most anything. Others may not see what I see and that’s fine. I’ll show them if they ask, or give away images upon request, but my pictures are for me.

That’s what I came to this month after a friend suggested I enter some in a contest. I considered it, and even pondered which shots might be suitable, but couldn’t decide because I like them all. Then I asked myself why I should submit and I couldn’t come up with a good enough answer. It’s immaterial whether others think my pictures are good. That’s not why I take them.

My pictures are for me.

Look Into MY Crystal Ball

Another year, another Pyschic Expo - which meant another personal reading for your truely. I know we've discussed before how much i'm into the hippy-dippy mumbo-jumbo stuff, and i'm sure at some point i've mentioned other readings. Dont get me wrong - i dont put complete faith into everything that a pyschic/medium tells me, i just find it fascinating to have a potential insight into my future.



As i mentioned on SonnyVsDan's blog a few weeks back, i had a reading in 2007 that contained some very specific information that has turned out to be pretty close to having come true. I was told, at the age of 24 and being single at the time, that i would: be married, have bought a house and being having a baby - before i turned 26. Specific ? Yes. Unlikely that all that would happen in around a year and a half? Yes. But get this - i've bought a house and have a baby due 11 days before my 26th birthday. And, if you listen to the chatter from the people who know me best, it seems like they all feel i will be at least engaged by that time too. Two outta three aint bad, right ?

So, with the Pyschic Expo back in town, i thought i would go for another reading. Turns out the same woman i had my last reading with was back, so i thought this would be a great opportunity to see if she could strike it lucky twice. Here is a little of what the tarot cards said:

*The major theme for the next 6 to 9 months of my life is transformation - the pregnant belly might have been a give away you say ? yes, but i was asked to pull just one card from a deck of 52, and thats what I pulled.
* My partner is from a different background from me and the initial stages of our relationship involved travel - you mean, like the kilometres clocked up between the town i lived in, and his town about 45 minutes drive away ?
* That at some point in the next 6 to 9 months, i will have to make a choice between two ways to travel. Not physical travel, but more like two different paths my life can take. I'll be stressing, but i shouldnt worry: there is no wrong decision, and everything will work out no matter which road i take - could this be whether or not to return to work after maternity leave ?
And the big one:
* This baby is coming early.... in around 9 to 10 weeks ( or 3 or 4 weeks early ) in fact.She also says she feels it will be around Xmas ( great ). In wont be because of complications or an emergency, simply because its just my bubbas time - ok, so this one is very specific, so i guess time will tell. Consider the countdown on!

So there you have - a potential insight into my very near future. Please check back in the next 6 to 9 months to see how much of it actually comes to fruition....

Willie Nelson and Rod Stewart come together for the nurse genome project: Ob-la di, Ob-la-da – life goes on

Yesterday was the last day of the first Cochrane Nursing Care Network. The day started with a inspirational presentation from Alison Kitson, who now works at the University of Adelaide, although, of course she has a strong track record of innovative work in nurse education in the UK. What made her presentation interesting for me was that it was an update on where the International Learning Collaborative had got to; looking at what we understand the fundamentals of nursing to be. This is not new work, nor is it innovative. In the UK, the essential skills cluster initiative was aimed at ensuring the fundamentals of nursing were embedded into the curriculum, and similar initiatives can be found in the US, Australia and beyond. The collaborative were modeling themselves on the Human Genome project approach where scientists from all over the world worked collaboratively at trying to understand and unravel the big questions of human life. The collaborative are adopting a systematic review approach, the first stage of which was a meta-narrative analysis of what key texts (from Florence Nightingale onwards) to see what key terms were evident. This stage of the work had thrown up a number of terms that has then been tested out in data bases such a Medline and CINAHL to see what published studies would be highlighted. Intriguingly, there were many differences in the way these fundamental terms (elimination, activities of daily living, safety, communication and so on) were used in nursing theoretical and research based papers. Whilst this is very much work in progress, it was a fascinating update. The rest of the day was spent in workshops looking at how nurses could become more involved in the CNCN project. There were some easy wins to consider, particularly as some of these could fit into our preparation for the 2013 REF.

In the evening I went to eat at one of the many riverside restaurants and bars that have live music. I joined a table with a wonderful Singaporean family, who thought I was Willie Nelson, despite my protests to the contrary. We agreed a kind of truce, I think I admitted I may have once owned a Willie Nelson LP, and we got on and enjoyed a Beatles celebration night. The live band were very good, the music extremely familiar and in the end, we were all singing along – which was a sound to behold. The father of the family group was an expert on the Beatles and got all the pop quiz answers right, although he was equally impressed that I knew Alex Ferguson (he stated his allegiance to Manchester United rather than Liverpool!). It was a little difficult really to have a straightforward conversation as outside of the Beatles lyrics no ones English was easy to understand. The taxi driver on the way home was convinced I was Rod Stewart – something to do with the hair – couldn’t see it myself.

Anyway, tomorrow is a day off, and then it back to the mountain of emails, and a long return journey home to Manchester and the start of what promises to be a busy few days of work – as Paul, Ringo, John and George might have said Ob-la di, Ob-la-da – life goes on!

World Mental Health Day, Cochrane Nursing Care Network and the Lost Thursday

The news this week has been full of reports of Psychiatrists paying people diagnosed with a serious mental illness £15 each time they agree to have their medication via a injection, those suffering with Alzheimer’s Disease reported to being kept quiet and submissiveness through the use of a chemical straight jacket, and three suicides amongst young people, three of which are three too many. All of this has occurred during the lead up to World Mental Health Day (9th October). As a Professor in Mental Health Care I can’t emphasize enough the important of mental well being, and as Head of School that prepares people to become mental health nurses, I would iterate the importance of our students and staff looking after their own mental health and well being so they can then better enable those who ultimately seek their help back on to the road of recovery.

As I write this I am attending the inaugural Cochrane Nursing Care Network in Singapore. Interestingly nurses are the biggest group of health care professionals (including all types of medical staff) to access the Cochrane Library for evident to underpin their practice and delivery of care. Whilst the concept of a Cochrane Review is predicated on RCT’s and largely big quantitative type studies, the importance of the Nursing Care Network is the realization that we need to use these approaches more effectively in order to better demonstrate the efficacy of our interventions and the power of our knowledge base in shaping future health care services. There are over a 100 delegates to this event and a further 600 attending the more general Cochrane Colloquium that follows. The theme for this latter event is increasing the involvement of service users in the development of the evidence based Cochrane Library.

The missing Thursday – well I got up at 05.00am on Wednesday and started work in my office at 6am. After a day spent at a special session of Senate I got on a plane to fly to Singapore. By the time I got to my hotel room some 33 hours had passed, 20 of which were Thursday. However, coming back next Tuesday, I leave after breakfast Tuesday morning and get into Manchester in time for a late evening meal, still on Tuesday. It’s a strange world at times.

Going Rogue?

As we watch his administration unravel, it’s becoming apparent to the whole world that Barack Obama wasn’t prepared to become President of the United States. Many of us knew that and said so months before the election. During the campaign, however, the mainstream media covered up his glaring lack of experience, but they focused like a laser on Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s. Why?

Palin had been a mayor and governor - of a small city and a small state, yes - but she was a successful executive in both capacities. Barack Obama had been a “community organizer,” whatever that is, and a senator. Unlike executives, senators don’t do things. They discuss things. What do community organizers do? We could look to the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) for clues. Obama worked with them for decades.

We heard much about Obama’s Ivy League education at Columbia and Harvard because our media elite were impressed by that. Ordinary Americans aren’t. They adhere more to what William F. Buckley said about Ivy Leaguers: “I would rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the 2000 members of the faculty of Harvard University.” The state of our union after the first nine months of the Obama Administration only lends credence to Buckley’s assessment. It’s been a disaster and getting worse. Obama’s poll numbers are plummeting faster than those of any other president in history as Americans realize how the mainstream media have sold them a pig in a poke in the totally unvetted chief executive. The media elite anointed Obama as their candidate, and when Palin’s emergence threatened their anointed one, they had to take her down.

According to a recent Sacred Heart University poll, nearly 90% of Americans believe the mainstream media got Obama elected and 70% believe they’re actively promoting his presidency. Nearly half “have permanently stopped watching a news media organization, print or electronic, because of perceived bias.” Liberal, big-city broadsheets all over the country are hemorrhaging readers. Some are being sold and others have filed for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Americans are turning to other sources for news and political analysis.

Despite the media airing of every aspect of Sarah Palin’s life, despite the ridicule elitists have continuously heaped upon her over the past year, Americans like Sarah Palin. A surprise pick for McCain’s vice presidential running mate, she electrified voters with her convention speech, so Democrats - but especially their mainstream media minions - went after her relentlessly. In the face of this onslaught, the inept McCain campaign did just about everything wrong. While you’d never see Obama go on Fox News Sunday, for example, the McCain campaign set up interviews with liberal alphabet networks anxious to slice her up. In spite of all that, and because of it as well, Americans like her and identify with her.

It’s not all good for Palin though. Several women whose opinions I listen to with respect have doubts about Palin’s political ambitions, given that she has young children - one with a severe handicap. They like her positions on the issues of the day, but question her judgement in her seeming quest for national office in 2012 given her family obligations.

Palin’s book won’t be out until November 17th, but it’s already number one on Amazon, having sold a million and a half copies. Called Going Rogue, it would seem to be an account of her frustration over how certain key McCain aids seemed to sabotage her. It was bad enough being hounded by the other side, but her own as well? That would have been too much for anyone new to the national political spotlight, but this woman from Alaska has taken all the best shots either side can deliver, but - not only is she still in the ring - she’s still throwing punches. When David Letterman chased some cheap sexual laughs at her daughter’s expense, Palin went after him. Letterman offered a semi-apology, but continued trying to squeeze out chuckles from his liberal-elite friends with whom it’s the height of fashion to ridicule her. Since then, Letterman’s own indescretions have people calling for his dismissal. He had President Obama on his show two weeks ago, but Obama's ratings are nose-diving while Palin’s are climbing.

It was Palin Obama referred to in his desperate speech before a joint session of Congress last month, trying to salvage his doomed health-care “reform” bill. He claimed her “death-panel” comments were lies. The president had sent Rahm Emanuel’s brother Ezekiel after her on that point, but he couldn’t take her down. Liberal Democrats vehemently denied anything like “death panels” were in the bill, while they quietly removed them. All Palin did was send a message on Twitter to send Obama and his party minions scrambling.

Quite possibly, Sarah Palin is reading the political landscape more accurately than Democrats, mainstream media pundits, and Republicans as well. The title choice of her new book may portend more than any of them are considering at present. Could she be considering a third-party run?

Whatever else Sarah Palin may be, she’s certainly interesting. I’m keeping an eye on her.

Conflict, Commercial Reasoning and the Appearance of Cello

Perhaps like me you found the Little Ted case disturbing. As a parent I can empathise with the parents involved. As a nurse with a research interest in the impact on adults of child abuse I can imagine the fears and anxieties of those parents whose children attended Little Ted's. I think it will take some time for the parents to accept that their children are safe. The case perhaps highlights the fragile sense of safety we construct when we see our children left to be cared for by others. Another disturbing aspect of the case, and there were too many to discuss here, was the knowledge that once Vanessa George has served her sentence, she is entitled to a life free from vigilante attacks or intrusion by the media – The Telegraph, this weekend estimated that this was likely to cost the tax payer £1 million a year. Like some of the parents, I found this information a little unpalatable.

This week I also heard from a colleague who had recently been involved in taking a decision about the future of an employee in his organisation which was to be based upon something called sound commercial reasoning. In a nutshell, this apparently refers to when an organisation has to consider the cost of say fighting a claim for constructive dismal versus the cost of fighting the case or where simply to ‘get rid’ of an individual it is worth agreeing a price for them to go. This seemed an equally unpalatable set of consequences.

The issues in both these situations reminded me of the somewhat old fashioned notion of the psychological contract – (see David Guest’s work – what is the value of the psychological contract?) - whilst this notion generally refers to the unspoken but powerful dynamics that bind individuals to an organisation, its vision and culture and the consequences for the individual and the organisations when this trust is abused. Arguably we all have a psychological contract with the State. We expect the State to look after us, to protect us whilst not intervening too much in our lives. When such unconscious perceptions are challenged as in the Little Ted Case the damage is likely to be long lasting and not helpful.

Many thanks to my film going friend who weekly updates me on what I should be going out to see. This week it was ‘The Soloist’, an interesting coincidence as the film is about friendship and trust. I am led to believe that it is a film about befriending, starting out with a simplistic view of friendship and going on to demonstrate the many subtle complexities involved when two very different lives come together. Like the psychological contract does the value of real friendship lie in its ability to provide a sense of containment that promotes mental well-being?

My mental health and well being has been severely challenged this week. So it was a surprise to find some light relief, and from such an unexpected quarter. Cello, a 10 week old Australian Labradoodle arrived this weekend – don’t ask - and has been a source of great joy.

Puppies, of course start from a position of unconditional positive regard, it’s humans that have the ability to change all that.

Its Babymoon Time!

Thats right, its babymoon time! I dont think any of you read the original babymoon post, so here's the link. Basically its me and Mr Gil going away for the weekend before the baby arrives and this weekend is the weekend. As of 8am tomorrow morning we are headed for Shelly Beach.... and three days of rain. Yes, we're going to the coast, to the beach and the sand and the waves, only to have it rain.

I'm kind of disappointed but i'm going to make the most of it. The beach in light spring rain could still be fun, and sexy, right ? Plus we can do a bit of shopping and some other little touristy things - and every knows that going away for a long weekend is always better than staying home and doing the same old thing again.

Ooh - and this Sunday night sees the grand final for the National Rugby League season. This is the Super Bowl of my favourite sport, and Mr Gil's team happens to be playing so it could potentially be a big exciting evening. We're going to go for an early seafood dinner and then watch the game in a sports lounge, so there's another experience we wouldnt be having if we weren't going away ( if we'd stay'd home, we'd be watching the game from our loungeroom ).

So bon voyage readers - an update and some pictures upon my return!