More photos...

I've been walking around as much as I can here on the ranch, trying to take a walk every day that it isn't pouring. I always take the camera, a walking stick (it gets steep in places) and a hat. The hat is for the sun or rain, of which we get both in copious amounts. The walking stick is an affectation, but it also keeps me from losing my balance and falling down on some of the steeper slopes. The camera is for my friends who can't be here, so I can share some of the beauty of this place with them.

Here are some photos from the end of March:

Write to FDA Commissioner - Dr. von Eschenbach

The FDA has too long been in the pocket of the drug companies.

You know it and I know it.

Drugs are approved for uses they never should be, based on completely bogus pseudo-scientific "double blind" studies that are rigged in every way possible. They have the trappings of science, but are not based on the truth, applied the way any rational human would see it.

Here's a recent white paper from CCHR (Citizens Commission on Human Rights) on the subject of "Psychiatry, the Pharmaceutical Industry and the FDA -- a destructive alliance endangering the lives of children." Read it and contact the FDA commissioner yourself. Here's his address:

Andrew C. von Eschenbach, M.D.,
Acting Commissioner
Food and Drug Administration
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20857-0001
or by email through the FDA website

Not that I think writing this guy is going to accomplish much. Wait until he resigns from the FDA and goes to work for one of the drug companies, as so many other FDA employees do.

Narconon in Canyon Oaks (LA County)

The Narconon of Canyon Oaks facility is sorely needed in LA County. They have 46,600 admissions for drug treatment last year, and of those, 42,000 had had prior emergency room admissions. So there's a high incidence of repeat traffic emergency drug treatment traffic. Of those, 52% reported they had failed to get off Meth, 60% reported they had failed to get off Cocaine, and 79% reported they had failed to get off heroin.

The great things about Narconon (which has now been around for 40 years!) is that it does not replace one drug with another (like methodone "treatments" that basically addict the person to methodone!). Instead, the people are put through a purification program and education in the basics of moral living using "The Way to Happiness", a common sense (and non-religious) guide to morals. Narcononalso teaches drug addicts how to communicate with other people, giving them practical life skills they can use to control themselves and live a moral life thereafter. Narconon's recidivism rate is extremely low. Once drug addicts have gone through the program, the majority of them will not ever go back on drugs again. The Narconon program handles the root causes of drug addiction, not just the symptoms.

I liked this recent Narconon graduate's success story:

"At Narconon, I found that standards of ethics do exist. Not moral platitudes enforced on me by someone else, but basic, commonsense guidelines for honesty and happy living. I apply these basic standards to how I live my life now. It has improved my conditions on a very broad scale. But, especially it has improved my relationship with my parents. I am completely straight and honest with them now, and I feel closer to them than ever before."

It resonates with me because when I was young and foolish (back before there was dirt) I did various street drugs before I wised up, got clean and did the purification program myself. That wild period was very hard on my parents--my mother was numb with shock at some of the things I did while on drugs. It took a while to gain back her trust and get back into communication with her again.

Here's a flyer on Narconon Canyon Oaks. If you know someone with a drug problem, get them to a Narconon before they die. My first wife's younger sister came to visit us in the early 80's for a few days -- we didn't know that she was a heroin addict, although she was an obvious "druggie". A week later she was dead in London of an overdose. So my advice based on personal experience is -- don't put it off.

Kiddie Heart Attacks linked to Ritalin

Here's an article in "The Australian", about the research they've been doing under their Freedom of Information laws, to document the links between heart attacks ( including deaths ) in children using Ritalin and other drugs.

CHILDREN as young as five have suffered strokes, heart attacks, hallucinations and convulsions after taking drugs to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Documents obtained by The Australian reveal that almost 400 serious adverse reactions have been reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, some involving children as young as three.

Cases include the sudden death of a seven-year-old, and a five-year-old who suffered a stroke after taking Ritalin. Children also experienced heart palpitations and shortness of breath after taking Dexamphetamine.

Others taking Ritalin or Dexamphetamine - the two most commonly used ADHD drugs - experienced hair loss, muscle spasms, severe abdominal pain, tremors, insomnia, severe weight loss, depression and paranoia.

In other news, the guy who is alleged to have killed his two children earlier this year was (as is usually the case in such horrific murders) on the drug Prozac. According to WCNC.com of Charlotte, North Carlina, their reporters were allowed to view the psych's notes on the case of David Crespi. They reported:

The man accused of stabbing his two daughters to death in January switched medication to treat depression several days before the alleged killings, court documents unsealed Friday revealed.

David Crespi is accused of killing his two daughters in their south Charlotte home Jan. 20.

According to a doctor who evaluated Crespi three days after the crime, Crespi switched from Paxil to Prozac.

And yet the psychs want to screen every child for depression or other mental illnesses such as "math disorder" (can't remember "7x8=56"), "ADD" (can't focus because the kid is hypnotized from watching 8 hours of TV every day, or is vibrating from sugar and caffeine overload) so they can put them on Ritalin.

When you observe for yourself that something doesn't work, and you continue doing it because "that's what is done in such cases" -- that's criminal negligence, not to mention evil.

If there's any justice, there's a special place in Hell reserved for psychiatrists, where they are restrained, shocked, drugged, told what's wrong with them, where they are never listened to, where they are intensely depressed and their "care" is to be drugged and shocked into apathy about it.

Lies in the LA Times about ECT

Yesterday's article in the LA Times called "The Future Holds More than Pills" touted the benefits of Electro Convulsive Therapy, or ECT. While I wasn't exactly "shocked" to see the LA Times following the party line of psychiatry, it still hit me that some people might actually believe that ECT could benefit anyone. So I wrote the following letter to the editor:

Citizens Commission on Human Rights has made a long-standing,
well-publicized offer to any psychiatrist, offering $10,000 to any psych who
would willingly undergo ECT. We've never had any takers on that offer,
despite psychiatry having one of the highest suicide rates of any
profession; suggesting that even severely depressed psychiatrists would
rather kill themselves than undergo ECT.

Fair and balanced reporting would have required more strenuous research into
the claims of the psychiatrists touting ECT. That would reveal what CCHR
has documented for the last 35 years. ECT doesn't work, it is harmful, and
it ought to be outlawed as treatment for the barbaric torture that it is.
Like slavery and rape, it has no place in a civilized society that respects
the rights of innocents.

Jeré Matlock
Broadbent, Oregon

We'll see if it gets published. I tried not to pull any punches.

Canadians Unite!

Here's a site where a petition is being circulated to allow 12-year old Canadian Gabriel Lavigueur back in secondary school. He's been kicked out for refusing to take psychiatric drugs: just more psychiatry at work. There are so many other things that can be wrong in the life of a child -- psychiatrists seem to always reach for the drugs first, and of course hammer their solution home by force instead of checking for the obvious: Is the kid hungry? Tired? Is he being bullied by his classmates? Does he have allergies? Does he have another medical situation?

Late winter on the ranch

Spring is almost here on the ranch and we've just had what will probably be our last snowfall of the year. I've been walking a lot lately, exploring off the main roads. I found a small pond we didn't know existed on one trek. Found some quartz on the top of one of the hills around here, which was odd. Most of the beautiful white quartz seems to wind up in the creek eventually. In this section of Oregon we live on what remains of an ancient sandstone plateau, badly eroded. The creeks cut down deep through the frangible, porous sandstone and find the basalt underneath it all. Quartz is hard and durable -- it lasts while all the sandstone is eroded away under it.

Here are a few photos of the views. The air has been very clean and clear after the storms go through. I tend to walk outside near dusk, so the light is spooky and fun to play with. None of these photos has had anything done to tweak the colors or light. I have only shrunk them down to fit - otherwise they are exactly as they came out of the camera.