Are you thinking of having a breast implant? Think again.

Are you thinking of having a breast implant?  Think again.  There is a new report published of a particular type of cancer - Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (ALCL)  It is particularly associated with 'textured' implants. Apparently, that type becomes part of the body more easily, and so they are used in around 90% of such operations in Australia. 

Bacteria contaminated breast implant.
Image from ABC story

They had estimated that ALCL occurred in maybe one in fifty thousand cases, then maybe one in three thousand, and now they are thinking maybe one in a thousand. It was an ABC report that I was watching, (reference below) and the chap interviewed was telling women not to panic. 'It takes around eight years to show up.' 

WHAAAT!?   So a woman should not panic because the potential cancer will not manifest for some years?

This problem is in addition to the other problems we already know about - implants rupturing and spreading their contents throughout the body. There was a scandal a few years ago when a French company was using industrial silicone instead of higher standard medical silicone in the breast implants they were manufacturing and selling. There were more ruptures than usual, and when they did rupture, there was a rather nasty substance free in the victims' bodies. Scandal. But what struck me was an 'expert' at the time who said that it was not a thing to panic about as in the normal course of events, around 10% of breast implants rupture each year. !!!  So that means 100% chance in 10 years?  Luckily, that is only the law of averages, and maybe individual women will never have a problem.  

The thing is that, except for a few women who do it to enhance their careers, for most it is only a question of vanity. Large breasts are not better than small breasts in any way that counts.

Feeding the baby? No difference.  Feeding a baby when you have 'enhanced' breasts. It depends on what other surgery you had such as changing the position of the nipple. Definitely not worth the risk, and almost every mother prefers to feed her own baby for the first weeks, when those vital antobodies are passed on, and many like to breast feed for much longer.

You want bigger breasts so that clothing fits better?  Well, that's a tiny reason, and you could always buy a padded bra. When a padded bra breaks, there are no health effects.

Note that this is not
an advertisement for cleavage

Because you think that men like women with larger breasts? Have some self respect.. Your health is more important than the shallow sort of man who would admire you merely for big breasts!   

And think of breast cancer. Do you have a routine mammogram? The big blob of a breast implant makes the X-Ray more difficult to perform, and more difficult to interpret. The radiologist is more likely to miss possible marks that should be investigated. 

Do not risk your health for foolish reasons. You do not need big breasts.

 **

References:  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-21/breast-implant-cancer-much-more-common-than-previously-thought/8136286

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-16391522

https://www.drugs.com/cg/breastfeeding-and-breast-implants.html

http://www.babycenter.com/0_breastfeeding-after-breast-augmentation-implants_8680.bc

Do you see sexism 'every day?' Or racism maybe?

Really?   Think about it.  Could it be you? 

The facebook post that prompted this article was from someone who’d rediscovered some old Brownie memorabilia, including the Brownie vow -  I don’t know which exact promise she referred to, but here is an example from the 1970s.  "I promise that I will do my best, to do my duty to God, to serve the Queen and help other people and keep the Brownie Guide Law."  

 Probably the poster referred to a slightly different promise as she said they were supposed to put others ahead of themselves.  At any rate, she interpreted it as deliberately designed to influence girls to become passive and obedient.  It was sexist, she felt. Terribly, terribly sexist. I disputed a little – it was for children, and children were encouraged to be obedient to adults in those days, though less so these days. 

I said that probably the boys had similar vows as members of  Cubs and Scouts.  They do - The Scout Promise -

On my honour I promise that I will do my best—
To do my duty to God and the King (or to God and my Country)
To help other people at all times and
To obey the Scout Law.

There was another similar vow I remember reciting at school, morning assembly. It included the words ‘to cheerfully obey our parents, teachers and the law.’ I didn’t actually like it much – I was prepared to be obedient – generally, but I reckoned ‘cheerfully’ was a bit much to ask, so always omitted that word.

Her reply was adamant. The vow was sexist. It was aimed at making compliant, obedient, passive women. And further that she saw sexism ‘every day.’ 

Now that is an odd thing to me. There is the occasional sexism visible, for instance, when a man talks over a woman simply because he can, or a woman’s opinion is treated as less worthy than a man’s,  but who knows when it is sexist or when it is simply that a particular man is particularly rude?  Maybe he talks over other men as well.

We hardly ever see frank sexism these days. I remember many years ago,  I had a temporary job as ‘the girl’  in a small English hotel over Christmas – cleaner/assistant cook/washer-up, etc. The male cook said that women were inferior because once a month they became very bad-tempered. Now that was funny, I thought, since that cook was the worst tempered man I’d ever known. I didn’t say anything, I was only ‘the girl.’ Or maybe I did. I don’t remember so long ago. 

These kids, all colours.
They could represent my fictional Penwinnard kids.

Racism – the belief that some races are inferior to others only because of that race. That is so rare these days that I have never, ever seen it. And yet, people constantly bleat that we are such a ‘racist’ nation, that they see racism everywhere. Another long ago memory. I was in London, by myself, wandering around most days, just a sightseer. I was constantly being harassed by men wanting to strike up a conversation, (and presumably more.)  In response and in self defence, I became ruthless. A man would say ‘Hello,’ and I would respond with ‘Goodbye.’ It worked well. But one day, the man said, wounded, ‘Just because I’m black.’ 

I looked back at him. So he was. I hadn’t noticed and was about to say so when I remembered that I really didn’t want to have to deal with him, and went on. If he remembers, he probably still thinks it was just because I was being racist.

If you look hard enough for something, you will find it. If you interpret any minor rudeness or lack of respect as an ‘ism’ you will find it more and more. Even ten years ago, I scarcely noticed a person’s race when I had dealings with them. These days, there is so much talk about racism that I have started to notice. It used to be non-racist not to notice a person’s race. Now, oddly, that is no longer so. What did Martin Luther King say? ‘I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.’ 

It appears that, for some, that is no longer enough.  We have to work out a person's race (not always easy)  and be 'sensitive' in order to avoid 'micro-aggressions.'

What utter nonsense!  How about we simply treat people as people and stop looking for insults. Those who look hard enough will always find it.

It reminds me of something I wrote in one of my books. The manager of the Boys’ Home was accused of raping one of his boys. (The boy made it up.)  It refers to the woman who was to investigate the case.

‘She regarded her note-pad, greyish, recycled paper. Catherine Milne seldom had a thought that had not been first passed through a filter of political correctness, and 'green' was politically correct. In her world, men were suspect, white men especially so. Children and women were victims, and also those 'of ethnic origin' who had to be given every consideration, always remembering the shameful way they'd been treated in the past and probably still were.’

Milne was quite sure that the man in question was a rapist of boys, simply because he was accused. She wore blinkers, and so do many, many of us these days.  

In other words, stop looking so hard for an ‘ism’  and probably you will not find it. And if people are nasty to you, remember that it could always be simply that they don’t like you, and not because you are female or black or Muslim or gay or fat or anything else that has become an ‘ism.’

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Could it be that democracy is under threat?

Is democracy  under threat?  It is hard to think that it would be.  It is agreed (in civilised countries)  that while it may not be the perfect system, it is the best available. 

In past times, kings ruled, which usually meant the warlord with the biggest army and the most ruthless tactics. Peasants had no say.

But kings were always under threat by other warlords with big armies and ruthless tactics. 





One way of pacifying the powerful, and hopefully retaining the crown, was to offer them some power, enough to make them more wealthy, and less likely to challenge for overall leadership. So the ‘nobles’  were granted some power.  

With time, partly maybe from idealism, more likely to reduce the incentive for revolution, some say was granted to property owners by means of voting. Eventually, the right to vote was extended to all adults, usually aside from those in prisons or deemed incompetent for other reasons.

This is a brief and very much simplified background to the concept of democracy.

Abraham Lincoln said it best.  ‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people.’  








And that is democracy, and so it has been for many, many years. It has never been perfect, those elected to power are too often susceptible to bribes, and too often, they use their power for self enrichment rather than for the benefit of the people.

          And yet, it is fairly obvious to those of us who are not among the powerful, the ‘elite’ as they have taken to calling themselves, that we are better off with the power to vote than we would be under a frank tyranny. It is a strange thing that recently, some of those ‘elite’ have stopped pretending that they are in favour of  democracy. They are actually saying - out loud - that maybe the majority should not be allowed their say, that instead, those who know best should be permitted to have their way whether or not ‘the people’ agree with them.  

Some examples :

Tony Blair and Sir John Majors seem to think that the Brexit vote should be discounted, one of them even referring to 'the tyranny of the majority.'
For the full article, refer to:  https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2260696/sir-john-major-sparks-fury-by-declaring-brexit-cannot-be-decided-by-tyranny-of-the-majority/

According to Brietbart, the new UN chief,  António Guterres, said that the will of the people should be ignored. See the full statement here.  (http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/11/24/un-europe-migration-unstoppable/)  

            Andrew Bolt writes –  ‘We already have journalists who laugh at the idea of free speech. Now we have the chief economist of the Economist magazine's Intelligence Unit asking if democracy is much chop either.’  

(http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/cheering-for-their-chains/news-story/1fb8ecc80cd9284c60e1f3cd31754db6)    

Andrew Bolt is an influential conservative commentator. You find good sense at the blog of Andrew Bolt. 

            There was a recent article in the Australian,  (6/12/2016)  in relation to the Austrian presidential election (the ‘far-right’ contender lost.)  The German foreign minister was quoted as saying  the result was ‘a good omen against populism in Europe.’

They speak of ‘populism’ as if it is a creeping disease spreading, rather than simply a popular and perfectly valid point of view.

It was when a clear majority of British voters stated they wanted Britain out of the European Union, that anti-democratic calls started to be more widely heard. Most of the world was very much surprised to see that in Britain, that most civilised and democratic of nations, there were widespread demonstrations calling  for the government to ignore the vote. That somehow it was a mistake, and that those who voted for ‘Brexit’  just didn’t know what they were saying. They were ‘ignorant,’  maybe ‘angry’ or ‘frightened.’ 

So now there has been a challenge in their High Court, and again, it is in doubt. The court ruled that the parliament must vote in favour before anything is done, even though the vote of the people should theoretically mean more than the vote of the individuals in parliament.

America. Donald Trump has been elected to the uttermost fury of the noisy ones who seem to rule politics, plus the media and the educational system. More demonstrations, more protests, and some frank riots, destroying property and endangering people. 

What are they protesting? Democracy? 



Some are now complaining that America is not a democracy because the voting goes through the ‘electoral colleges,’ a system devised to ensure that the populous states do not overrule the wishes of the less populous states. Most democracies have their checks and balances like that. And they are saying that ‘the popular vote’ was not in favour of Trump.

But this is just an excuse.  If the results of a democratic election are overturned, there would be chaos and civil war. Who wants that?

Well, it is said that certain billionaires want that. It appears clear that George Soros, for one, wants open borders and globalisation, and is willing to spend some of his billions bribing world leaders to sway things his way. I cannot, for the life of me, guess why he would want that.

But more and more, it becomes clear that the majority of the people prefer a safe country with secure borders, a country that looks after the interests of its own people first. It is older people and country people who are saying it most clearly, those less exposed to the indoctrination that is so very, very common in schools these days. In America, incredibly, some colleges are offering counselling for college students upset by the win of Trump. Some institutions have been accused of encouraging their students to protest against the win. Who is controlling these institutions? It was a democratic election!  Civilised people accept the results of a democratic election! 

So people may not like the results of the election. It is democracy. It may not suit you, but it is still better than chaos, and a lot better than a dictatorship. I think it vital that democracy be protected – even when you might think that the ‘majority’ are ignorant, foolish, bigoted, whatever. It is still the majority.   

And any person in power who says that the rule of democracy should not be respected should never, ever be again in power. Such an opinion renders him unfit for power.

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Taharrush - men groping women

I came across an old diary and started reading.  This from 1975.

Thursday, 6/3/75

An incident has occurred that has really upset and infuriated me.  I was walking to the bus stop from the pictures at around 8.00pm, and I passed a couple of young blokes. I didn't even notice them until one of them passed a remark, I didn't hear exactly what, and the one nearest to me reached out and groped at my breast. I feel humiliated even to write it down, and there's not a single god-damned thing I can do about  it to retaliate. I yelled and swore at them, but of course, they couldn't care less, and would only laugh the more if they knew how upset I was. If only I could have retaliated, hurt them physically, as they have hurt me mentally. I imagine them writhing over a smashed face, or more suitably, crushed genitals,  and I only wish I could make them feel it.  Yet causing pain is totally alien to my character.  But it makes me so angry, this type of bloke, who accost me in the street, pass personal remarks and reach out as soon as you're in groping range. Flogging!  I would like to have them all flogged.  At times like this, I hate the whole male species. So many of them consider us as mere sexual objects and rob us of our dignity so easily, and how can we retaliate?  If I'd hit at him, it would have been me to have been hurt, and a policeman would laugh if I complained that someone had groped at my breast, or worse, think that because I'm not good-looking, that I flatter myself, and am looking for sex. If a plain person or an older person ever admits to a fear of rape even, they are likely to be accused of 'wishful thinking.'   Bloody men! I'm not a prude, nor am I a virgin, but there's something so demeaning in being sexually assaulted - for that is what it was - by strangers.  So god dammed casually, too, do they rob us of our dignity, and make us into objects.

I feel dirty after a brief contact, a hand upon my breast through a bra, shirt and coat. I hate to think how I'd feel if I were ever raped!  I think I'll have a shower.

That incident was in the 1970s, during the height of the Women's Lib movement.  ('The Female Eunuch' was first published in 1971)  The movement was successful to a very large degree. Equal pay for equal work is now normal, women continue in paid work in spite of having children  (That one backfired a bit. No-one then thought they'd be obliged to work when they had small children)  and men, as a rule, have far more manners.  

The sort of incident described happened less as the decades wore on.  Times had changed, and the Women's Libbers of the time achieved most of their aims.


But times have changed again. Now our governments have embraced ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘diversity.’ It didn’t seem so bad when it was only too much garlic suddenly in our food, and a confusing variety of restaurants, but more and more, our governments are bringing in men from countries and cultures that regard women with contempt, and think of rape as a pleasurable game.

Have you heard of the Arabic game of Taharrush?  A group of men surround a woman, and sexually assault her,  mostly groping, often fingering, penetrating and sometimes full rape. Most of us first became aware of it after that New Year’s Eve night in Cologne, Germany.  It took a few days for the truth to begin to emerge as there was an attempt at cover-up.  There are allegations that film was destroyed, for instance.  Recently, I saw something – I forget which European country - that digital penetration has been redefined as ‘not rape.’ It made the rapidly rising rape statistics appear a little less terrible. The cover-up was in case it made people think the worse of the ‘refugees’ swarming into Europe and especially Germany.  The culprits were all recent immigrants, many from Morocco, which is not even at war,   There were thousands of men involved, hundreds of female victims, and it was, by no means, just Cologne.  Several other cities on that night, and other countries.  More recently, it has come to light that it has been going on for several years.  Sweden is now 'the rape capital of Europe.' But the rapes are overwhelmingly committed by recent immigrant men, not native-born Swedish men. 

Such incidents will only become more and more common as we mingle with more and more men of backward cultures.
                                            

Women have become accustomed to being respected. Those who call themselves the leaders of the feminist movement have become complacent.  They refuse to face this very real danger. We have come so far.  We must not throw it away because of idealistic ideas of compassion and mistaken ideas of the advantages of so-called ‘multi-culturalism.’  

Multi-culturalism does not work. It has never worked.  Either immigrants are few enough that they integrate without problems, or they are in large enough numbers that they take over, and customs change.  I would hate that customs change enough that Taharrush becomes something that women are just expected to put up with.  There are already suggestions that they cover up more.   

No. Men should behave better.  And government should have more concern for the women of their countries.  Large numbers of immigrants from certain cultures is very bad news for women.

Lockhart, a nice little town in rural NSW

I spent a day and a night in the tiny town of Lockhart just recently. Just a town of around 800 people, but obviously a great council and an ample supply of artists. A notable feature were the sculptures that were seen all around the town. 

It's in NSW,  around a half hour's drive from Wagga Wagga, an hour from Albury.

http://visitlockhartshire.com.au/

It is an artistic town, with some wonderful street art. 

The best of them all

On the basis of our temporary stay and talking with a couple of the residents, the two big problems experienced by this little town are both caused by government.  

 The first is that they absolutely do not want their Council to be amalgamated with another.  This is a push from State Government, with the purported reason that small councils cannot survive into the future. Since their success up to date is disregarded, I wonder if the real reason is some State Government bureaucrat wanting more power.  In our travels we've seen signs in so many rural towns - 'NO FORCED AMALGAMATION.' 

The other is that the so-called NBN rollout has reached Lockhart. (National Broadband Network)   NBN was supposed to deliver much faster internet speeds, and was to have given preference to places remote from cities, the places that need it most.  Well, that was years ago, the plan has been repeatedly downgraded, and according to the locals we spoke to,  their recently acquired  'NBN' amounts to a WIFI hotspot from a tower.  If you are in 'line of sight,' you can get it, if not, forget it.  But worse, it has messed up all other avenues, and even TV.  They spoke of a 'shield' that stops TV signals from Albury, as they used to have.  I don't know about that, but what I do know is that it's the first place in Australia, that we had no TV at all.  (Caravan, small antenna.)  Many no longer have internet. Farmers have no hope.  So much for the talk of ensuring good internet access for country people so that they would no longer be disadvantaged. 

I liked Lockhart.  It's just a shame that the government is so inept in their interference.  Though maybe they've done good things in other aspects.  We were only there very briefly.

The Death Mother

This is the opening chapter of my new book - a story about the Gift of Death.  

Early morning, Tea Tree Lake, Mortlake, Victoria

Chapter 1

It was a dream that began it, not just the dream, but the feeling that went with it - the feeling of an enormous love and compassion. I held the poor, poor skinny old lady in my arms. I held her with love, and she felt no pain from all of the sore spots and all of the aches that go with an old, old body. She weighed nothing at all, and I held her so gently. She needed to die. She needed to leave the body that was only a burden for her. It had been so long since she'd been young and free. For years she had yearned for an end to the suffering. She wanted to endure no longer.

And I gave her that. That body in my arms, weightless, feeling no pain for the first time in years. And she died. I gave her that. She died, and I carefully put her back in her bed and covered her. She was finally gone, finally free, finally without pain. Love. Compassion. And I freed her.

I didn't lose that dream when I woke, though if there were details, they were lost. What led up to it, what happened afterwards - if those things had been part of that dream, they were not retained. Just the feeling of an overwhelming love and compassion. And then the poor old, old lady was finally free.

If there was a God, it was what He should be doing, not me, just a very ordinary, middle-aged lady. Grey-haired, a worn face, and my own beginning aches and pains, the sign of what was to come, the trials that old people endure every day. Most old people, in spite of those stories of old people lifting weights or running endurance events. Most of us are not like that. For most of use, old age is an endurance event.

I continued to think about it as I went about the morning routine, showering, dressing, making and eating breakfast, the same as on every other day. It was as I rinsed my coffee mug that the identity of that poor old woman came to me. It was old Mrs. Campion, Vera Campion. She'd been one of those I'd visited the day before, one of the sad residents of the Nursing Home that was only a short walk away. My husband had spent his last nine years there. He'd been only fifty when he'd had that stroke, two years older than myself. The children had come to see him, even Deb, who'd been in Italy. It had been the holiday she'd planned for years, but she hadn't hesitated to cut it short. But seeing their strong father so helpless, just lolling there in the reclining chair, often dribbling, unable to speak, not really knowing how much he could hear and understand - it was too much for them. They'd tried, but their visits quickly became fewer. And they lived so far away, Jenny busy with her little son, such a demanding tot...

But Kane was eighteen now, in his last year of school. Quicksilver, they called him. My only grandson - lithe, black-haired, filled with the arrogance of youth. I didn't see much of him. I bored him, and I knew it perfectly well. His father's parents were different. They had wealth, a big home in a big city, and money enough to spend on their family. They travelled a lot, and were happy to subsidise their son and his small family so that they could go with them. It was no wonder that Jenny and Renzo spent far more time with his parents than they did with me. Me, Shirley Bridgewater, who lived in a tiny country town, had no career and not even a husband. Not any more. Stan. He'd been gone seven years now, sixteen years since our lives together had come to an abrupt end. There had been no warning signs, he was not a smoker, not a heavy drinker...

But I switched off that line of thought. There were occasions when I'd have a quiet cry, privately, for myself. But I'd be a lot more lonely if I didn't socialise, and while I found playing Bingo an awful bore, I would not tell my friends that. Joy, Gwen, Maisie and Christine. None of them were close friends. I had no close friends. But life would be unbearable lived entirely alone, and I took care not to show that I sometimes found their chatter shallow and their pursuits less engrossing than they found them.

So I checked my watch and prepared to go out to play Bingo. We'd probably have lunch afterwards, maybe at the pub, maybe we'd try the new restaurant just opened, though their prices were a touch fierce for a country town. It would be interesting to see how long it lasted.

*

 

Tea Tree Lake, Mortlake, Victoria

 This story is not much like my previous books.  I know the general direction of the novel, but have not yet decided how it will end. And it really did begin with a dream - that dream, vividly remembered.  

The difference is that the fictional character finds that the ones she dreams of, really do die. 

It is far too soon to speak of a possible date of publication.

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