Facebook bans Gandhi quote as part of revisionist history purge

http://www.naturalnews.com/038484_Gandhi_quote_Facebook_censorship.html#ixzz2GUo73DH3

Thursday, December 27, 2012
by Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) The reports are absolutely true. Facebook suspended the Natural News account earlier today after we posted an historical quote from Mohandas Gandhi. The quote reads:

"Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest." - Mohandas Gandhi, an Autobiography, page 446.

This historical quote was apparently too much for Facebook's censors to bear. They suspended our account and gave us a "final warning" that one more violation of their so-called "community guidelines" would result in our account being permanently deactivated.

They then demanded we send them a color copy of a "government issued identification" in order to reactivate our account. Our account was removed from suspension just minutes before InfoWars posted its article on this Facebook censorship, and the Facebook page is now functioning at:
www.Facebook.com/NaturalNews

This is a separate account from our primary Facebook account, which has nearly 250,000 followers at:
www.Facebook.com/HealthRanger

Logic is an enemy and history is a menace

That Facebook would choose to disable our account after we posted a Gandhi quote is incredibly shocking. The historical rise of oppressed Indian people against tyrannical British rule is apparently no longer allowed to be discussed on Facebook. The very IDEA of a free people overcoming tyrannical government rule now "violates community guidelines." The removal of this content is akin to online book burning and the destruction of history.

This post was not in any way malicious, nor encouraging violence, nor even describing guns or the Second Amendment. It merely reflected the words of one of our world's most celebrated rebel leaders who helped an entire nation throw off the shackles of oppression and British occupation. That Facebook would find this to "violate community guidelines" is nothing short of absolutely bewildering.

Here is the full image as originally posted on Facebook. Keep in mind that THIS is now considered unacceptable speech across the "Facebook community," where any number of people can openly call for the murder of the NRA president and have absolutely no action taken against them:



InfoWars.com is also now reporting that Facebook is running an across-the-board PURGE of pro-gun accounts. A huge number of accounts are all being systematically disabled or suspended, with all content being wiped clean.

We have entered the era of the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell's 1984 novel. And while Facebook assaults the First Amendment in America, Senator Feinstein is busy assaulting the Second.

Facebook declares war on human history

What's especially alarming about all this is that Gandhi himself was of course a champion of resistance against tyranny. To banish quotes from Gandhi is much like banning quotes of freedom from Martin Luther King (who also openly supported concealed firearms, by the way, and who personally owned an entire "arsenal" of firearms).

What's next? Will Facebook ban quotes by Thomas Jefferson and George Washington? Any and all patriots, founding fathers and liberty lovers throughout history might soon be stricken from the Facebook servers, and any who dare to post historical quotes supporting liberty, the Bill of Rights, or the Second Amendment risk having their accounts terminated and all content deleted.

Collectivist propaganda has now reached a point where you can't even discuss liberty or anything out of history that supported the right to keep and bear arms. You are required to stay focused solely on celebrity gossip, sports stars, fashion distractions and tabloid garbage. Anyone who wishes to discuss actual American history must now go underground and speak softly in dimly-lit rooms, behind secret walls and drawn curtains.

The era of total oppression and collectivist mind control has fully arrived in America. This is not hyperbole... IT IS HERE NOW.

Memorize this quote, because it too shall soon be purged from the internet:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson.

Dare to post that on Facebook and you risk your account being disabled or deleted.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/038484_Gandhi_quote_Facebook_censorship.html#ixzz2GUoVHrL3

The 2nd Amendment

Some of the Twitter pictures, I have copied and pasted here, in defense of Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.


  

Diet's Role In Lowering Risk of Repeat Heart Attacks

Diet's Role In Lowering Risk of Repeat Heart Attacks

By JENNIFER CORBETT DOOREN

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323401904578157410574243702.html?mod=WSJUK_hpp_MIDDLETopNews

     Patients with heart disease frequently assume that medication is enough to forestall a repeat heart attack or stroke, but a large new study shows the preventive power of a healthy diet.
Getty Images
Diet Colors: The American Heart Association advises eating vegetables of various colors.

The findings from a report, released Monday, looked at the impact of diet in addition to the medicines routinely used to treat cardiovascular disease. Although it is widely accepted that healthy diets are powerful tools to prevent cardiovascular disease, less is known about the impact of diet on people who already have the disease

People with the healthiest diets—those with the highest intakes of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and a higher intake of fish relative to meat poultry and eggs—were 35% less likely to die from a repeat heart attack or stroke during the length of the study, compared with those with the least healthy diets, according to the five-year study of 32,000 people in 40 countries.

They also were 28% less likely to develop congestive heart failure, 14% less likely to have an additional heart attack and 19% less likely to have a stroke.
Getty Images
Vegetables: More than four cups of fruits and vegetables are suggested for daily intake.

Patients in the new study, published in the American Heart Association's medical journal Circulation, previously participated in two studies designed to look at certain medicines used to treat high blood pressure.

"At times, patients don't think they need to follow a healthy diet, since their medications have already lowered their blood pressure and cholesterol—that is wrong," said Mahshid Dehghan, a study author and a nutritionist at the Population Health Research Institute, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. "The more healthy you eat, the healthier you are."
Getty Images
Nuts: Four servings of nuts or seeds a week are considered part of a healthy diet.

The drug and diet studies were funded by the German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim.

Study participants were at least age 55 or older and had a prior history of heart disease, stroke or had Type 2 diabetes that was severe enough to have damaged organs.
Getty Images
Fish: At least two servings of fish each week are recommended in a study of healthy diets.

The goal of the diet research was to see whether healthier diets had any impact on the rate of cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes.

Participants in the diet-portion of the studies were followed for almost five years.

Dr. Dehghan explained that researchers used two diet indexes to measure diet quality and to rank people into five groups according to the healthiest to least-healthy diet.

People were asked how often they consumed dairy, meat, fish, fruits and vegetables. They were also asked about consumption of fried foods and whole grains. Portion sizes weren't recorded.

Researchers controlled for other factors that can influence the progression of cardiovascular disease such as weight, exercise and smoking.

However, Steven Nissen, chairman of the cardiovascular medicine department at the Cleveland Clinic, said that while eating healthy is a good idea, the study itself "doesn't prove anything." Dr. Nissen said people with the healthiest diets are more likely to practice other healthy habits such as exercise and said the study authors "cannot adjust for all of these other known and unknown behaviors."

Dr. Dehghan said researchers also looked at diet quality and the risk for other things, such as cancer, fractures and non-heart related hospitalizations and didn't find any associations related to diet.

Heart disease is the top killer of Americans, according to the American Heart Association.

The group considers a heart-healthy diet to include more than four cups of fruits and vegetables, and at least three servings of whole grains daily, in addition to limiting intake of sodium and sugar-sweetened beverages.

At least two servings of fish and four servings of nuts or seeds are recommended each week, along with limiting processed meat to no more than two servings a week.

NHS patients experience 'contempt and cruelty', says Jeremy Hunt

NHS patients experience 'contempt and cruelty', says Jeremy Hunt

Patients experience “coldness, resentment, indifference" and "even contempt” in some hospitals, the Health Secretary has claimed in a hard-hitting speech about NHS care.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9709295/NHS-patients-experience-contempt-and-cruelty-says-Jeremy-Hunt.html

Jeremy Hunt talks to NHS staff at St Thomas' Hospital. Credit: BBC Pool.

Jeremy Hunt Speech at Kings Fund

28 November 2012, Jeremy Hunt, Kings Fund – Quality of Care
November 28, 2012

    Our health and social care system faces many challenges and we rightly have lively political debates about all aspects of health policy. But sometimes problems are so deep-seated that when they surface no one really believes they can be solved. Or even worse, we stop noticing these problems because they have become so much part of the fabric.
And then you have to defeat the defeatism as well as dealing with the issue itself.

1. The normalisation of cruelty
Today I want to talk about one such problem, perhaps the biggest problem of all facing the NHS.
The crisis in standards of care that exist in parts of the health and social care system.

Just look at what has come to light in the last few years:

• Patients left to lie in their own excrement in Stafford Hospital, with members of the public taking soiled sheets home to wash because they didn’t believe the hospital would do it.
• The man with dementia who was supposed to be monitored every 15 minutes who managed to leave a Pontypool hospital and drown;
• The residents kicked, punched, humiliated, dragged by their hair, forced through cold showers at Winterbourne View.
• The elderly woman with dementia repeatedly punched and slapped at Ash Court care home.
• The cancer patient at St George’s, Tooting, who lost a third of his body fluid, desperately ringing the police for help, because staff didn’t listen or check his medical records.

Isolated incidents? Well, sadly not. But as well as the depressing regularity of these stories, the most worrying thing is the fact that in certain institutions this kind of care seems to have become “normal.”
In places that should be devoted to patients, where compassion should be uppermost, we find its very opposite: a coldness, resentment, indifference, even contempt.
Go deeper, and look at the worst cases – like Mid-Staffs and Winterbourne View – then there is something even darker. A kind of normalisation of cruelty, where the unacceptable is legitimised and the callous becomes mundane.

There’s a simple test every layer of the health and social care system should be applying. And that is to ask: is this the care I would wish for myself, or for a loved-one?
Care as you would wish to be cared for. In Winterbourne, in mid-Staffs, in Pontypool, Tooting, Ash Court, this principle was utterly and horribly abandoned.

2. Betrayal of the majority
It’s really important to stress that this is not the picture in most of the NHS or social care system. But the outstanding care that you see in so many institutions – even those under severe financial pressure – shows why we must face these cases with anger, and not with resignation. Because they betray the outstanding men and woman who have given their lives to the NHS and caring professions – and who make this job for me the biggest privilege of my life. People like the nurse I met at St Thomas’ who was looking after a terminally-ill patient who had lost touch with his family 20 years earlier. This nurse looked the family up on Google and arranged to fly the patient back to Ireland so he could spend his last two weeks reunited with them.

The Care Home Manager at Rathmore House in Swiss Cottage, caring for people with advanced dementia. The manager who lives every day just to try to get a smile out of patients with advanced dementia even though, she says, they won’t remember the next day. The GP who works 15 hour days trying to work out care plans to stop her frail elderly patients being unnecessarily admitted to A & E.

So many people represent NHS values at their finest. In every fibre of their body, they care as they’d wish to be cared for. And they are the ones most let down when we fail to tackle poor care head on.

3. Why good care matters
Nor should we make a false dichotomy between good treatment and good care. The King’s Fund, generously hosting us today, has always championed a rigorous evidence-based approach to healthcare issues. They know good care directly supports good outcomes.
Veena Raleigh’s work for the Kings Fund this month showed the link between good care and good outcomes across GP practices, what she described as a “strong association” between patient satisfaction and clinical performance on the Quality and Outcomes Framework.
Consistent with this, a Lancet study in 2001 concluded that doctors who adopt a warm, friendly, and reassuring manner are more effective than those who don’t.
And the Commission on Improving Dignity in Care has shown that when elderly people are not treated with compassion and respect this can affect their recovery, even if the clinical treatment itself is excellent.

The argument is clear: good care means healthier patients and stronger balance sheets – yet too often the message isn’t hitting home.

4. Stronger accountability from managers
So what are the solutions?

Let’s start at the top. We urgently need to strengthen corporate and managerial accountability for the care provided.
Yet too often managers have seen their priority as financial or clinical outputs. Incentives in the system have driven people to focus on quantitative input measures rather than the basic human right to be looked after with dignity and respect.
Most managers get this – indeed their passion for the highest standards of care is why they have chosen to become managers in the NHS or care sector. But too many do not. Buried in spreadsheets, they become blind to the realities of what’s happening day-on-day inside their organisations.
It’s this whole culture of ticking the box, but missing the point which is what we have to put right.
And we have to be much clearer about the consequences that will follow if leaders fail to lead, and fail to drive high quality care throughout the organisation.

Just as a manager wouldn’t expect to keep their job if they lost control of finances, why should they if they lose control of care?
The same is true for owners and Boards of companies. Accountability must stretch to the top. And when we publish our response to Winterbourne View we will set out in detail how we intend to achieve this.

5. Greater transparency
Secondly, we need to know much more quickly where the problems are.
Next year we will roll out the “friends and family” test across the NHS. For the first time hospital users will be asked if they would recommend the care they received to a friend or close member of their family. NHS staff will also continue to be asked anonymously whether they would recommend their organisation to their own families.
This is the closest measure we can get to “care as you would wish to be cared for”. And we will publish the results.
So that’s a very important first step. But we need to do much more.
As an MP I know how well each school in my constituency is doing thanks to independent and thorough Ofsted inspections. But I do not know the same about hospitals and care homes.
Given the scale of the problems we’re uncovering, it’s now clear we need to have a proper independent ratings system. It is not acceptable to deprive the public of the vital information they need, or remove the pressure for constant, relentless improvement in standards.
I am not advocating a return to the old ‘star ratings’ but the principle that there should be an easy to understand, independent and expert assessment of how well somewhere is doing relative to its peers must be right.
So this week I have asked for an independent study to be done as to how this might be achieved in a way that does not increase bureaucracy.
I want to see a system that will provide – like Ofsted does for schools – clear, simple results that patients and the public can understand;
That will be – like Ofsted – an engine for improvement, driving organisations to excel rather than just cover the basics;
A system that gives greater certainty that poor care gets spotted and addressed before standards collapse.
When I receive the results of that study, I will consider it carefully alongside the Mid Staffs report from Robert Francis. I will then announce to Parliament how we intend to resolve this issue.

6. Better training

The final and equally important side to all of this is staff development. The King’s Fund and many others have shown that staff who feel engaged and valued in an open and supportive working environment deliver better care and support for patients.
And yet in these highly charged, busy, stressful environments, too many are left ‘not waving but drowning’, cut adrift from the help they need to do their jobs well.
And again the consequences can be profound. One well-respected study from 2006 found that hospitals with better supported staff provided better care and had lower mortality rates.
An incredibly powerful finding, which shows that a lack of staff support, ultimately impacts on patients’ survival chances.
Staff in healthy organisational cultures, given the space to process the difficult emotions that caring throws up, will provide better, safer care.
So what is in train to support them?
New standards for senior managers issued by the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence – echoing the need for respect, compassion and care for patients at the heart of leadership and governance.
A leadership qualities framework for adult social care published by my department which will do a similar job for care organisations
Next week, we have the launch of the new Vision for Nurses, midwives and care staff following the £40m in leadership development programmes for nurses, midwives and registered care home managers announced by the Prime Minister in October.
Next month – the establishment of the Professional Standards Authority to make sure the professional regulators do their jobs and protect the public effectively; and the beginning of a new era of medical revalidation, making our systems the best in the world for supporting doctors and ensuring standards;
And then early next year – the first ever national set of standards and a code of conduct of conduct for health and social care support workers are published.
All of this is underpinned by:
an NHS Mandate explicitly saying quality of care should get the same attention as quality of treatment, and emphasising the pledges to staff in the NHS Constitution
And a new organisation – Health Education England – entirely focused on the education, training and development of the health workforce.

7. Addressing the challenges
So a lot is happening. Of course there will be those looking at this and saying “Can we really do it?”; “Is it realistic to expect organisations to invest more in people and in the quality of care at a time when money is so tight?”
There are indeed financial pressures in a period of rising demand and flat budgets. But as the CQC said last week, most Trusts and care homes deliver excellent care despite a tough financial environment. So there is absolutely no excuse for those that do not.
But it is also wrong to equate better care with more money. More accurate would be to say what today’s Kings Fund report states plainly: it is bad care that costs more – including the £1.4 billion spent on unnecessary emergency admissions.
What about staffing levels and in particular the reduction in nursing numbers?
As people stay in hospital for shorter periods, and indeed 80% of hospital appointments now do not involve an overnight stay, patterns of care change.
But if quality of care is really to be as important as quality of treatment we should be clear that changes to workforce numbers must not compromise the care provided.

8. Conclusion: widening the circle of compassion
In surveying the broad sweep of the universe, Einstein once spoke of people shedding their individual perspectives and ‘widening the circle of compassion’ if humanity was to progress.
In the health and social care universe, which can be every bit as unpredictable and complex as the world around it, the same message rings true.
In its sixty-fifth year, pitted against its biggest ever challenges, we need an NHS that is always searching, always improving, always striving to do more for patients.
We take for granted improvements in medicine, in surgery, indeed in life expectancy. But none of this is real progress unless we are also treating our citizens with the dignity and respect they deserve.
Widening the circle of compassion. Denormalising the unacceptable in those rarer cases. And living the principle of care as you would wish to be cared for everywhere.

The founding ideals of the NHS expect no less.

An attitude problem - David Cameron

An attitude problem

The Prime Minister appears to believe that if he makes a speech saying he intends to take tough action, somehow things will change

David Cameron's three-year-plus commission to examine airport policy in the South East is not an example of 'cutting through the dither'

      David Cameron voiced his frustration yesterday at the way government can be slow at “getting stuff done”. Blaming an “attitude” problem for the dithering, the Prime Minister promised action to unclog Whitehall’s sclerotic arteries. He said he wanted fewer judicial reviews, shorter consultation periods and an end to the gold-plating of onerous EU directives.
      This is all well worth doing, but rather misses the point – for the root cause of so much foot-dragging lies closer to home. The last time Mr Cameron spoke out on this subject was in early September, when he vowed to “cut through the dither”. Three days later he announced he was setting up an independent commission to examine airport policy in the South East that will take at least three years to report. The absurdity of this appears to have been quite lost on Coalition ministers. The Prime Minister appears to have fallen into the habit of believing that if he makes a speech saying he intends to take tough action, somehow things will change. There is, however, a missing ingredient: political will. A sense of urgency is absent from Whitehall’s DNA and injecting it demands hard work from the man at the top. Michael Gove at the Department of Education has shown how this can be done. Few departments have, historically, been as obstructionist, yet the Education Secretary has proved, by dint of unrelenting pressure, that it can be made to deliver the Government’s policy agenda.
      That can-do approach must be extended to the big policy challenges facing the Government – reforming social care for the elderly, reducing welfare bills, deregulating business, streamlining the public services and, yes, sorting out an aviation policy. Mr Cameron can deliver on all of this, but only by acting not as an anxious bystander but as the man in charge.

Subsidies to the Arts: Cultivating Mediocrity

Subsidies to the Arts: 

Cultivating Mediocrity

by Bill Kauffman, August 8, 1990

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa137.html

   

      Bill Kauffman is author of the novel Every Man A King (Soho Press/Farrar, Straus & Giroux). He is at work on a second novel and a book about American writers and politics. His articles have appeared in the Nation, the Wall Street Journal, Chronicles, and other publications. He lives in his hometown of Batavia, New York.

Executive Summary

       There is always conflict between government and artists, and no one knows it better than the East and Central Europeans. Vaclav Havel's plays were banned in Prague, as were the novels of Milan Kundera. Hungarian novelist George Konrad fought the "state supervision" and "state prizes"(1) that were corrupting his native literature. Members of the Polish punk-rock band Dezerter were in and out of prison because they insisted on playing songs that the authorities had not sanctioned.

Fittingly, at the same time that Czechs and Hungarians and Poles are throwing off tyranny's shackles and liberating their artists, the National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. government's ministry of culture, is coming under sustained attack for the first time in its 25-year existence.

Three recent and highly publicized grants have blotched the NEA's reputation. The first was a grant of $30,000 to Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art, sponsor of a traveling exhibition of photographs, some of them homoerotic, by the late Robert Mapplethorpe. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., canceled the Mapplethorpe show in order not to offend the NEA and jeopardize future funding. "It was never an aesthetic decision," explained then-director of the Corcoran, Christina Orr-Cahall. "I have great respect for Mapplethorpe's work. . . . It was the federal funding."(2)

The second grant was to Andres Serrano for an exhibit that included a photograph of a plastic crucifix immersed in a jar of the artist's urine. Inelegantly titled "Piss Christ," Serrano's image enraged many Christians, who charged that the NEA was subsidizing blasphemy and mockery of their faith.

The third disputed grant went (via the conduit of the New York State Council on the Arts) to a Manhattan theater called The Kitchen, which sponsored "Post Porn Modernist," a performance by Annie Sprinkler, star of blue movies. While masturbating on stage, Ms. Sprinkle sardonically noted, "Usually I get paid a lot of money for this, but tonight it's government funded."(3)

The Mapplethorpe, Serrano, and Sprinkle grants prompted several members of Congress, notably Sen. Jesse Helms (R- N.C.), to seek restrictions on the kinds of art eligible for NEA subsidy. A modified version of the Helms amendment was finally enacted; it bars the endowment from funding work that is "obscene, including but not limited to depictions of sadomasochism, homoeroticism, the sexual exploitation of children, or individuals engaged in sex acts which, when taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."(4)

The debate over the restriction was spirited but maddeningly oblique, for it begged a very basic question: should the NEA even exist? Should we learn the lesson of the erstwhile Soviet bloc--that art and politics don't mix?

Committee needs to understand the UK tax system

Committee needs to understand the UK tax system

Read more: http://www.accountancyage.com/aa/opinion/2224740/committee-needs-to-understand-the-uk-tax-system

by Miles Dean, Milestone


       THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE hearing on Monday was remarkable in many respects, not least the appalling way in which the members of the committee treated the three executives from Amazon, Google and Starbucks. Margaret Hodge – as chairwoman – in particular appeared to want nothing more than to use the opportunity to soapbox about ‘morality and fairness', neither of which has anything to do with tax. Ms Hodge (pictured) often gave no or little opportunity for the executives to respond to the statements (rarely was a real question actually proffered) she and the other PAC members were making.
It was clear that an agenda of ‘corporate assassination' had been set and no response, however honest or tempered, would steer the PAC members from this task. It is outrageous for any taxpayer to play by the rules set by parliament and then be branded ‘immoral' and ‘unjust' for simply doing so.
      What was more worrying, however, was the panel's complete ignorance of how a tax system is designed to function (particularly the trade-offs that are made between raising sufficient revenue and encouraging domestic and foreign investment), how global businesses operate and how they are structured. This seems to stem from either wilful blindness or a total lack of understanding of basic economics. There appeared to be no appreciation of the differences between cost centres and profit centres or the component parts that make up a multinational. The inability of the PAC to appreciate the global nature of multinationals and the choices they are entitled to make as to their corporate structure undermines the UK's standing amongst business leaders around the world. Those running the country ought to have been better informed and knowledgeable – in our view, there is simply no excuse for this type of outrageous band standing. Their behaviour was an embarrassment.

      Large corporates are very likely to be better governed than medium-sized and small businesses, especially as regards transfer pricing and the methodologies adopted to justify the prices that are charged within a corporate group. There is no doubt that the prices charged will have been benchmarked against open-market comparables to allow justification of the arm's length price (against which HMRC can judge the reasonableness of the amounts paid). What the committee seem to be asking for is for multinationals to artificially adjust their pricing to reflect a greater profit in the UK. This is nonsense in two respects. First, this artificial inflation of profits to allow a ‘fair' amount of tax to be paid (whatever that means) will likely mean that the cost of goods and services sold in the UK will increase (leading to general inflationary rises) and, second, UK businesses will have carte blanche to artificially reduce what they charge overseas operations, limiting the profit brought back into the UK.
     Neither seems a palatable option, yet this is what the PAC members seem to support. It is apparent that the consequences of PAC's stated position have not been considered, even at a cursory level. Perhaps more puzzling was the committee's surprise at the tax rulings obtained by the multinationals from the Luxembourg and Netherlands tax authorities. The reality is that each of the multinationals under attack is also likely to have entered into binding Advance Pricing Agreements with HMRC in respect of their transfer pricing strategies (i.e. HMRC has agreed in advance what Starbucks, for instance, pays its Dutch sister company for the coffee beans or what Amazon UK pays Amazon Luxembourg for fulfillment and delivery).

     It is highly worrying that the committee were not aware of this or the ability of companies to gain advance clearance from HMRC. Before this panel was convened, it would have been extremely helpful if HMRC had been called before PAC to explain how the UK tax system works. Not only is this necessary, but should now be a priority.

Miles Dean is a founder of Milestone International Tax Partners.

Jimmy Savile & How 'Liberal' Left Encouraged Sexualisation of Children

Jimmy Savile & How 'Liberal' Left Encouraged Sexualisation of Children

By MELANIE PHILLIPS
PUBLISHED: 22:50, 21 October 2012 | UPDATED: 08:23, 22 October 2012
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2221078/Jimmy-Savile-liberal-left-encouraged-sexualisation-children.html#ixzz2APMRsFLQ

Harriet Harman has called the Savile revelations 'a stain' on the BBC. Yet while she was at the NCCL she seemed untroubled by its PIE affiliate

Explanation: While Savile's character, the cult of celebrity and his charity work is part of the reason he was able to get away with his crimes, our culture of permissiveness gave a green light to the depravity

            The Jimmy Savile scandal is fast escalating into one of the most shocking cases of a sexual predator that has ever been uncovered. As the BBC tears itself apart over its role in Savile’s unchecked, five-decade sexual rampage, the scale of his abuse of under-age girls and boys is turning out to be unimaginably vast. So the question that’s been voiced from the start — how on earth so many people could have turned a blind eye to so much horror for so long — grows ever louder. The answer must involve the threatening character of Savile, the cult of celebrity and the mind-twisting fact of his charity work. But the elephant in this most sordid of rooms is surely the way in which our culture of permissiveness gave a green light to depravity. For decriminalising paedophilia was once a liberal cause.

       Back in 1978, an organisation called the Paedophile Information Exchange affiliated itself to the National Council for Civil Liberties — known today as Liberty. PIE — whose members were reportedly attracted to boys and girls — set out to make paedophilia respectable.

Grotesque

   It campaigned to reduce the age of consent and resist controls on child pornography. Until it excluded PIE in 1983, the NCCL thus backed this disgusting agenda of child abuse. Indeed, even before PIE was affiliated to it, the NCCL was campaigning to liberalise paedophilia and reduce the age of sexual consent to 14. In 1976, the NCCL argued ‘childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in with an adult, result in no identifiable damage’. And in 1977 it said: ‘NCCL has no policy on [PIE’s] aims, other than the evidence that children are harmed if, after a mutual relationship with an adult, they are exposed to the attentions of the police, Press and court.’

PIE Sticker (1980s)

http://archiveshub.ac.uk/features/pressuregroups-civilliberties.shtml

       























        The assumption that paedophilia did not harm a child, and that the only harm was done instead by reporting it to the police, was, of course, grotesque. Yet during this time, when PIE members were being prosecuted on indecency and pornography charges, the General Secretary of the NCCL was Patricia Hewitt — later to become a Labour Cabinet minister. A second future Labour minister, Harriet Harman, served as the NCCL’s legal officer for four years from 1978. Harman has called the Savile revelations ‘a stain’ on the BBC. Yet while she was at the NCCL she seemed untroubled by its PIE affiliate. Moreover, she campaigned for a liberalisation of child porn laws.
       In the NCCL’s response to a Bill that aimed to ban indecent images of under-16s, she stated absurdly that pornographic photographs or films of children should not be considered indecent unless it could be shown the subject had suffered, claiming that the new law could lead to ‘damaging and absurd prosecutions’ and ‘increase censorship’. Embarrassed by this reminder, Harman now insists she never condoned pornography and had merely wanted to ensure the new law delivered child protection rather than censorship. How disingenuous. For in such liberal circles, freedom unconstrained by any rules at all had become the shibboleth. Not just freedom of expression but — fatefully — freedom to have sex without any constraints.         

    Any form of sexual activity was seen as a ‘right’ — regardless of with whom you did it. That’s why the NCCL also campaigned to decriminalise incest. Objectors were damned as prigs, prudes and bigots. Their silence was enforced by the vicious, politically correct demonisation of anyone who tried to blow the whistle on licentious behaviour, which was blessed by liberals and thus deemed to be untouchable. The result was that in case after case over the years, the authorities turned a blind eye to the systematic sexual abuse of children in care homes, principally through the terror of being labelled ‘homophobic’.

Failure

     Now we are being told by commentators that the culture which covered up Savile’s abuses belonged to a quite different age, that times have radically changed and paedophilia would no longer be tolerated. But this is just not true. We know that, over the past 20 years or so, paedophile rings were allowed to perpetrate the organised sexual abuse of girls in the North of England, unchecked by police or council officials. This failure was due to two things: fear of being thought racist, as the perpetrators were overwhelmingly of Pakistani origin; and indifference to the plight of under-age girls who were in care or otherwise troubled and thus written off as sexualised and promiscuous trouble-makers. Their sexual experiences elicited but a shrug.      It is that last element which surely links all these cases. For while paedophilia has become a word that engenders not just social opprobrium but a degree of hysteria, at the same time Britain has, in effect, turned into a paedophile culture. It accepts — even expects — that the very young will be sexually active. This is because sex has been redefined as a kind of recreational sport whose sole purpose is physical pleasure. The belief that if it is detached from the context of marriage and children it degrades the human spirit is dismissed as laughable or sinister. Accordingly, sex education in schools promotes all kinds of sexual activity, even to primary school children. So no one listens to protests that such programmes rob young children of their childhood.       The law to protect under-age children has been all but eroded by such toleration of child sexual activity. Even some senior police officers are reluctant to enforce the age of consent, because they no longer see 14 or 15-year-olds as children needing protection. Meanwhile, even much younger children are targeted by sexually explicit pop lyrics, magazine articles, cosmetics and tarty clothes. Treated as sexualised mini-adults, they behave accordingly.

Sexualisation: The media constantly exposes children to displays of a sexual nature, whether implicit or explicit, such as pop star Rihanna

Complicit

       Ten years ago, a BBC documentary showed how 11-year-old children were preoccupied by fancying each other, snogging their boy and girlfriends and taunting other children who were holding back. And their parents were complicit in this, telling their children such behaviour was ‘cool’. Teachers were also going along with it, discussing who was ‘in love’ with whom in their class.
The belief that sex was inappropriate for young children had vanished. As one mother said to her young daughter, sex should start ‘when you think it’s right for you’. As our society recoils in disgust from the accounts of how Jimmy Savile groomed children for sex, the horrible fact is that this society itself grooms children for that very same purpose.

     So how can we explain the hysteria over paedophilia? My view is that inflating paedophiles into larger-than-life monsters deflects attention from child abuse dressed up as sexual liberation. It is notable that hysteria over paedophilia is most pronounced in areas where the traditional family has been smashed, married fathers are rarer than hen’s teeth and women and children are abused physically and sexually by the procession through their houses of stepfathers, boyfriends and one-night stands. People don’t want to accept that sexual permissiveness has eroded the basics of a civilised society. So the fixation with paedophile bogeymen arises from a grossly displaced sense of personal responsibility.

     But the belief that we can all make up the sexual rules as we go along has created a society which quite simply has stopped protecting children. And that is surely the real lesson of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Teachers 'to blame' for lack of ambition among pupils

Teachers 'to blame' for lack of ambition among pupils

Teachers are encouraging many children to believe that top exam grades, places at elite universities and professional careers are all beyond them, an education minister has said.

By James Kirkup, Deputy Political Editor
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9634695/Teachers-to-blame-for-lack-of-ambition-among-pupils.html


     David Laws attacked the “depressingly low expectations” that he said are holding back children in many parts of the country and preventing them from getting ahead in life. Even in relatively affluent parts of the country, schools and careers advisers are failing to encourage children to “reach for the stars,” instead pushing them to settle for middling exam results and careers with “medium-ranked” local employers, he said.
Mr Laws’s remarks to The Daily Telegraph are his first comments on education policy since his return to the Government in last month’s reshuffle. “Teachers, colleges, careers advisers have a role and a responsibility to aim for the stars and to encourage people to believe they can reach the top in education and employment,” Mr Laws said.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3546627.ece

    “That’s not happening as much as it should do at the moment.” Mr Laws, a Liberal Democrat and close ally of Nick Clegg, has ministerial posts at the Department for Education and the Cabinet Office and holds the right to attend Cabinet meetings. The Lib Dems are pushing measures to increase social mobility, making it easier for people to get ahead regardless of their background. Alan Milburn, the Coalition’s social mobility adviser, last week criticised policies such as the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance that was paid to pupils from low-income homes. Mr Laws, a Cambridge University graduate, said that social mobility was not simply a question of wealth, arguing that even children from comfortable backgrounds are being held back by low expectations and a lack of ambition. The minister, a former City banker who represents Yeovil in Somerset, said many children are effectively being taught that high-flying careers are not possible for them.
     “Even in my own constituency, Yeovil, which would not be regarded as one of the deprivation blackspots of the country, most young people would regard going into investment banking as almost leaving the country, because it’s a different world,” he said. “They will often be encouraged to think it is beyond them.” In many parts of the country outside London, the minister suggested, children without family connections believe that careers such as banking, law and journalism are closed. Instead of aiming high, “there are too many young people who think that the two or three big employers in their local town are the limit of their aspiration”. Low career expectations can lead children to get lower exam grades than they could achieve, he suggested. “If your expectation in a school is that you only need a modest set of qualifications because that’s all you need to work for the local employer, which you think is the best job you could do, that’s a huge cap not just on social mobility, it is a cap on achievement in examinations,” he said.
     “If you think it is really important to get three A*s to get into Cambridge and the City, you will be much more motivated than if you think you just need three Cs to go into the local medium-ranked employer.” As well as telling teachers and schools to raise children’s expectations, Mr Laws said that employers from “more privileged” industries should also do more to encourage applications from people of all backgrounds.
Mr Milburn last week produced figures showing that the 20 per cent of teenagers from privileged backgrounds are seven times more likely to get into top universities than the poorest 40 per cent. Some campaigners want universities to change their entry policies to admit poor children with lower grades than their better-off counterparts. That is rejected by many Conservative MPs, who say that ministers should focus more on improving the performance of the state schools attended by poorer children.

     Mr Laws suggested that some teachers in state schools are still discouraging pupils from targeting places at Oxbridge and other top-ranked universities. “I still find, talking to youngsters across the country, the same depressing low expectations I found when I went to university in the 1980s,” he added. “The students you met, who were often the first students from their school who had been to Oxbridge, said they were often encouraged by teachers and others to think that Oxford or Cambridge were not the places for them and they should think of somewhere more modest.” Mr Laws last week returned to his former employer, JP Morgan, which is donating £1.1 million to Achieve Together, a charity that helps state schools attract and retain highly qualified teachers.

Why I block Twitter's environmental Taliban

Why I block Twitter's environmental Taliban

By James Delingpole

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100186212/why-i-block-twitters-environmental-taliban/




(Photo: Repeal the Act)

      Ever since he christened the green lobby the "environmental Taliban" my respect for George Osborne has risen enormously. What was even more amusing was when four green activist organisations hurried forward to self-identify: In a joint letter to Mr Osborne, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the RSPB and WWF-UK said they would be "most grateful" if he could clarify his comments. Andrew Pendelton, the head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said: "If he has made this comment, it is potentially deeply offensive. It is offensive to us as professionals working in these organisations, but also to the millions of people who support these organisations. Offensive? Hopefully. Accurate? Most definitely. One of the reasons our economy is in so parlous a state, our energy policy so shambolic and our countryside and its wildlife being murdered by gangs of wind-farmers is because the environmental lobby is so shrill and powerful. Like their black-flag-waving cousins on the subcontinent's North West Frontier, the environmental Taliban exert an influence out of all proportion to their numbers.

      As the recession deepens and anthropogenic global warming theory starts to look increasingly threadbare, so the anti-growth agenda and artificially inflated energy prices being pushed by the hardcore greenies is becoming less and less attractive to the silent majority. Unfortunately for the silent majority, its the empty vessels and savage ideologues of the environmental Taliban who continue to make the most noise. I've had a few brushes with these people myself recently on Twitter. They've taken great umbrage, apparently, over the fact that rather than engage with their fatuous arguments (in 140 characters? Yeah. That would work.) I tend usually to press the block button. Normally, I wouldn't give them the oxygen of publicity. But on this occasion I will, for they've given me the perfect excuse to write about a problem I've been wanting to blog about for some time, viz. "Who the hell are these people? Where do they come from?"
      So, here are the Twitter self-descriptions of some of my recent irritants.

1.       Science Writer – expert on renewable energy. Modest too. Tweeting news & views in a personal capacity.
2.       Tweeting in a personal capacity about: feminism, sustainability, the media, popular culture of all types.
3.        International environmental and climate change consultant.
4. ex Astrophysicist. Science teacher. Skeptic. My views are mostly those of other people, but not my school's.
5. A budding scientist from the gutter…
6. Novelist, university lecturer, eco-worrier
7. Ethical investment, climate, politics, amateur radio, organic food, marmalade and more.
8. Norfolk County Council Green Party Councillor. Environmental activist.
9. Earth-worshipping liberal shakedown artist. Sweary economics campaigner
10. Full-time cycling environmentalist extraordinairre. Husband. Daddy.
11. With degrees in Geology, Hydrogeology & Environmental Politics; focussed on the politics and psychology underlying the denial of all our environmental problems.

      Can you see what they have in common? Obviously none of these environmental Taliban types is exactly alike but I do notice one or two similar characteristics cropping up again and again.

1. They are often scientists manque (or science teachers: which is pretty much the same thing) for whom it clearly matters very much that the world sees they have a scientific background, even though, mysteriously, things didn't sufficiently come together for them to find gainful employment in the field for which they were trained. (Bitter? Eux?

2. They pride themselves on being "skeptics" with the US spelling. Just like the Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh, Graham Linehan gang which regularly boasts about how scientifically sciencey it is by dissing homeopathy and sneering at climate change "deniers."

3. Few if any of them works in the private sector. (Or if they do, they work in sectors like consultancy which depend almost wholly for their work on an ever-enlarging state). In other words the very notion of government spending being reduced is total anathema to them.

4. They are keen to tell you how nice they are – as evinced by their concerns about "sustainability" or by cloying references to their parental/marital status. Having a public image as a good person really matters to them: and they very likely to believe this too, which is why they've never stopped to consider their own real, underlying motivation or that the causes they support might be more flawed than they realise.

5. Not one of them contributes anything useful to the economy. They are the parasite class Mark Steyn warns us about in After America: oozing the sense of entitlement which comes from having a university degree, but handicapped by a qualification (usually something in the field of ecology or climate science) which fits them only for a career (government advisor, sustainability consultant etc) leeching off the backs of the productive sector of the economy.

       This is why I don't argue with them. There is simply no point. Their careers and their sense of self-worth are entirely dependent on green clap trap.

Chick-fil-A Appreciation day August 01, 2012 #Chickfila

   #Chickfila -Chick-fil-A Appreciation day August 01, 2012 

East Wichita Chick-fil-A
Source: @WichiWaldo

@EWErickson



@prolifepolitics


@Bretbaier

@Christian_gent

@stephenkoch


@caitlindineen

@DaveWeinberg76

@jwbrown311

@HawkinsUSA

How Hattie’s friends defended paedophilia

How Hattie’s friends defended paedophilia

Politically-correct ex Labour Cabinet minister
Harriet Harman dubbed Hattie Har-person by critics

By Damian Thompson Politics Last updated: October 19th, 2012

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100185799/how-hatties-friends-defended-paedophilia/

Hattie Harperson: some strange colleagues on the radical Left

      Harriet Harman is calling for an independent inquiry into the Jimmy Savile scandal. A key question, she says, is why so many alleged victims felt “they couldn’t complain”. Well, one answer is that attitudes towards paedophilia in the 1970s were bizarrely relaxed – and not just in Catholic presbyteries or BBC dressing rooms. This was the era when activists on the radical Left lobbied long and hard for changes in the law to reflect a more “enlightened” attitude towards sex between adults and minors. But that won’t be news to Hattie. In 1978, she became legal officer for the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), which – in its evidence to the Criminal Law Revision Committee in 1976 – had said the following:
“Childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in, with an adult result in no identifiable damage… The real need is a change in the attitude which assumes that all cases of paedophilia result in lasting damage.”
      To be fair, the NCCL’s quite revolting parliamentary submission was written two years before Harriet joined its staff. But one wonders why she wanted to work for an outfit whose views on sex with minors were known to be extreme, even by the standards of the day. In 1977, months before the future deputy leader of the Labour Party took up her post, the NCCL was quoted in the Evening Standard on the subject of the infamous Paedophile Information Exchange, the “information” in question being disgusting pictures of children involved in sex acts which members would pass to each other in plain envelopes. “NCCL has no policy on [the Paedophile Information Exchange’s] aims – other than the evidence that children are harmed if, after a mutual relationship with an adult, they are exposed to the attentions of the police, press and court,” said a spokesman.
      In April 1978, the NCCL published a briefing paper on the Protection of Children Bill that was before Parliament. The author – one Harriet Harman – was worried that the draft Bill placed the onus on adults caught with film or photographs of nude children to show that they were possessed with a view to “scientific or learned study”. “Our amendment places the onus of proof on the prosecution to show that the child was actually harmed,” she wrote. Ms Harman maintains that she always opposed child pornography, and is not on record defending belief in “harmless” paedophilia, though it was held by her employers while she worked there. But no such excuse can be made for Patricia Hewitt, who was general secretary of the NCCL from 1974 to 1983 – i.e., during the period when it issued the notorious 1976 submission.
     In 1982, the future Labour health secretary published The Police and Civil Liberties, in which she discussed the imprisonment of Tom O’Carroll, secretary of the Paedophile Information Exchange, for conspiracy to corrupt public morals. “Conspiring to corrupt public morals is an offence incapable of definition or precise proof,” wrote Hewitt. The fact that O’Carroll was involved in distributing child porn “overshadowed the deplorable nature of the conspiracy charge used by the prosecution”. As it happens, I agree that the BBC can’t be trusted to conduct an investigation into the Savile allegations, or anything else, for that matter; a public inquiry is probably the way forward. But, for God’s sake, let’s make sure no one who sits on it was connected to the National Council for Civil Liberties, which in its own way did as much to make life dangerous for children as the nudge-and-wink culture of 1970s disc jockeys and pop stars.

Pan Fried Chicken Goujons

Pan Fried Chicken Goujons

Recipe by: Roddy Pattison

Ingredients

Serves: 6

200g (7 oz) plain flour for coating
1 dessertspoon cocoa powder/paprika
pinch of freshly ground black pepper
900g (2 lb) chicken mini fillets
1 egg, beaten
200g (7 oz) fresh breadcrumbs/corn flakes

2 tablespoons olive oil for frying


Make your own sauce with Vinegar



Preparation method

Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 10 mins

1. Mix flour, cocoa powder and pepper in a shallow dish.
2. One by one, coat mini chicken fillets in flour mixture,
then dip in beaten egg, then in breadcrumbs.
3. In a large frying pan heat oil over medium high heat.
4. Shallow fry coated chicken pieces in oil until cooked
through, approximately 5 minutes.
5. Drain on kitchen roll and serve.

Provided by:Allrecipes

Andrew Mitchell and the truth about 'nasty' Tories

Andrew Mitchell and the truth about 'nasty' Tories

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100182540/andrew-mitchell-and-the-truth-about-nasty-tories/  

           

By Janet Daley Last updated: September 25th, 2012 

Tories are ruder than their opponents, for some reason
      Time to tell the truth about the "nasty" party: as someone who has defended the Conservatives (or at least defended their arguments) for so many years, it is time to come clean. Tories can be bloody difficult to like. The Andrew Mitchell Debacle is not an uncharacteristic, deranged and inexplicable lapse. It is just an extreme example of the kind of attitude with which many people who circulate in this world are familiar. While most of us who associate with Conservatives do not get sworn at or described at "plebs", we (by which I mean those not included in a small circle of either known-since-childhood social intimates or devoted sycophants whose uncritical loyalty is beyond question) have been variously snubbed, dismissed, or found ourselves becoming pointedly invisible in the presence of people to whom we are no longer of use.

      Over the years, I have had Tory politicians with whom I have had dinner (sometimes in their own homes) look through me without recognition. Others who have been my guests for lunch, or with whom I have shared broadcasting panels, have apparently forgotten our many previous meetings when we encountered one another not long after. And oddly enough, this never, ever happens with Labour politicians – even though we are clearly in genial disagreement over major issues. They inevitably greet me with warm recollection years after a joint radio or television gig – even if the occasion involved heated conflict. (Indeed, most senior Labour figures, at least during the Blair era, seemed to have startlingly accurate recollections of every interaction with a journalist they had ever had. Do they keep a database?)
     And again oddly, it is the Tory modernisers – perhaps because they are more likely to be "toffs" than striving achievers from ordinary backgrounds – who are the worst. It is not the Thatcherite, aspirational, state school-educated Tories who look over your shoulder when they are talking to you: it is the snotty, condescending "one nation" paternalists for whom you are only of interest so long as you are being "supportive" (ie as faithful as a Labrador). No names, no pack drill, but you know who you are. I wonder if the Tory leadership, so anxious to expunge its "nasty" image, has any idea that the real answer lies not in embracing unpopular environmentalism or unaffordable foreign aid policies but in addressing their own deeply unpleasant social manners? 

      Believe it or not, the great mass of voters whom they will never meet do pick up the vibrations – the hint of contempt for the views and anxieties of ordinary people (about say, immigration) or the disrespect to Tory political figures of an earlier generation who are not acceptably cool and modern. The real lesson of Blairite politics which the Cameron project has apparently not absorbed is the open friendliness and receptiveness to sincere argument which they managed to convey – even with people who were not their usual sort.

PEACE OF SH!T Today's NY Post! Wow!

PEACE OF SH!T

Today's NY Post! Wow!
source: @toddstarnes
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A3o7Lf-CAAA2f5L.jpg

Ahmadinejad flashes 'love' at UN but spews anti- Israel hate.

What does it mean to be British.

What does it mean to be British.

The British on The British

http://skyatlantic.sky.com/the-british/the-british-on-the-british

Some of the UK TV actors/actresses give their answers.

Mother-of-four 'two weeks from death' has emergency surgery after her brain becomes riddled with tapeworm larvae

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2206117/Mother-emergency-surgery-brain-riddled-tapeworm-larvae.html#ixzz275laYUjq
By CLAIRE BATES PUBLISHED: 15:42, 20 September 2012 | UPDATED: 17:56, 20 September 2012

     A mother-of-four had emergency surgery after her brain became riddled with tapeworm larvae. Suki-Jane Taylor, 42, contracted neurosysticerosis in 2009, a parasitic disease of the nervous system, after she was infected by pork tapeworm eggs. The eggs are spread through food, water, or surfaces that have been contaminated with faeces. The tapeworm larvae travelled to her brain where they formed cysts. When they started to die they caused an aneurysm the size of a tangerine in Miss Taylor's brain.


Miss Suki Taylor (right) had major brain surgery to treat a brain aneurysm that was most probably caused by tapeworm larvae 

She was rushed to St George's Hospital, in south London, where an MRI revealed the dangerously swollen blood vessel. Surgeons were quick to operate, inserting a shunt in her skull to drain away a build up of fluid. She suffered a loss of taste and smell as a result of the rare condition and now suffers from epilepsy and depression. Miss Taylor said: 'If it hadn’t been for my partner’s insistence that they keep me in at St George’s and I see a specialist and had an MRI scan they wouldn’t have found the aneurysm. 'They removed it straight away and when I was coming around he was talking to my partner and he said I was two weeks away from death. It was right at the top of my spine at the back of my brain.' Neurocysticercosis is very rare in developed countries causing just 24 cases a year in the UK and 1,500 cases in the U.S.

 

Infected: The pork tapeworm larvae forms inside cysts (sacs) and can cause tissue inflammation when they die

It is contracted by ingesting eggs excreted by a person who has an intestinal tapeworm. People living in the same household with a tapeworm carrier have a much higher risk of getting cysticercosis than others. It is only spread along a faecal to oral route. Once ingested, the larvae embed in tissues including the brain, forming cysticerci (cyst sacs). These can cause seizures and headaches. However, confusion, lack of attention to people and surroundings, difficulty with balance and excess fluid around the brain (called hydrocephalus) can also occur. If left untreated the disease can result in death. Symptoms can occur months to years after infection, usually when the cysts are in the process of dying, so it's almost impossible for a patient to know when they picked it up. When the parasites die the brain tissue around the cyst can swell. The pressure caused by swelling is what causes most of the symptoms.
     Infections are generally treated with anti-parasitic drugs in combination with anti-inflammatory drugs. Surgery is sometimes necessary to treat cysts in certain locations. Miss Taylor is now fighting another battle - this time to be moved from her third-floor council flat for fear of having an epileptic fit while alone with her children. Miss Taylor, who has been on the housing list to move since 2001, is currently living in Colliers Wood, south London, with her partner, two-year-old son, 12 year-old-son who has Asperger’s syndrome, and 10-year-old daughter.



Miss Taylor, pictured with her children Fred (left), Bertie and Mille, now suffers from epilepsy. Her neurologist said climbing stairs to her council flat is endangering her health

     She regularly climbs the three flights of stairs carrying her two-year-old, despite neurologists warning her doing so could cause an epileptic seizure putting herself and her child in danger. She said: 'My balance has gone, my sense of smell and taste has gone and my eyesight has got worse. 'If I carry too much up and down the stairs I can have an epileptic fit. I can sometimes feel that I have taken the stairs when I haven’t. 'My consultant has said if I am moved to a property where I haven’t got any steps she could take me off of the epileptic tablets. I’m alive and I’m going to see my children grow up, but I have been left by Wandle Housing Association. In a letter to Wandle Housing Association, Miss Taylor’s consultant neurologist described her accommodation as “unacceptable”, calling for her to be moved as a “priority”.

    A Housing Association spokesman said it recognised the family had been 'dealing with what is clearly a very stressful situation' and they were working hard to find a suitable property for Miss Taylor.



Recovering: Miss Taylor, pictured after surgery, struggles with her balance and has lost her sense of smell

Miss Taylor contracted a parasitic disease of the nervous system in 2009
The mother-of-four is fighting to get a new home after her neurologist said climbing stairs to her council flat is endangering her health

Baby girl dies from whooping cough due to NHS failure

Baby girl died from whooping cough after doctors failed to test for disease until it was too late

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2182044/Baby-girl-dies-whooping-cough-just-days-parents-rush-doctors-cases-illness-soar.html#ixzz22NshwUCJ

-'Communication was terrible', say parents, who are demanding an inquiry
-'I was a first-time mum and I just felt I wasn't being taken seriously,' says mother
-Reported cases of whooping cough in England and Wales this year are already double what they were in 2011, according to HPA

        A baby died of whooping cough after doctors failed to diagnose it despite a nationwide campaign among GPs to raise awareness of the symptoms. Sarae Thompson-Haynes – who was just five weeks old – had been seen at two clinics and a hospital without being tested for the illness. She is one of five babies to have died as a result of whooping cough this year. The tragedy came two months after GPs were issued with a Health Protection Agency alert warning that cases had doubled in a year. Yesterday Sarae’s parents, Chelsea Thompson and Todd Haynes, said she might still be alive had tests happened more quickly. Their daughter was born on February 11. At a month old she developed a cough, so they took her to the Hawthorn Drive Surgery in Ipswich where, they say, doctors assured them she was fine.
      When her condition worsened that evening, her family took Sarae to a nearby out-of-hours GP service, Riverside Clinic. There, they say, a doctor again reassured them all was OK, giving them an inhaler for the baby. The parents claim neither clinic tested for whooping cough. The following day, after Sarae’s condition deteriorated further, Miss Thompson phoned NHS Direct and was advised to go to A&E. She took her daughter to Ipswich Hospital where doctors said she might have bronchitis. She was kept in but the parents say she again was not tested for whooping cough. Two days later, on March 18, Sarae experienced breathing difficulties and was transferred to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, where tests were finally carried out. She was then referred to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, where she died on March 21. Test results – which came back after her death – revealed she had been suffering from whooping cough and had succumbed to related health issues.
      Miss Thompson, 21, said she felt let down by the NHS. ‘We are angry and devastated,’ she said. ‘When I found out she died of whooping cough, I did my own research and realised that there was a massive outbreak this year. ‘I also found out that GPs can test for it. Had they done tests earlier, there is a chance that my little girl would still be here today. They all treated me like a young mother who didn’t know what she was talking about.’  Miss Thompson, who lives in Ipswich with Mr Haynes, 23, is calling for pregnant women to be immunised against the infection. The couple plan to make formal complaints to the clinics and hospitals involved. The HPA says there have been 2,466 cases of whooping cough in the first six months of this year, already twice as many as the whole of last year.

THE COUGH THAT CAN BE FATAL TO INFANTS

The condition is an infection of the lining of the airways.

The main symptom is a hacking cough followed by a sharp intake of air which sounds like a 'whoop.'

Other symptoms include a runny nose, raised temperature, severe coughing fits and vomiting after coughing

The condition usually affects babies and young children. In rare cases it can be fatal

Children are vaccinated against the infection at two, three and four months of age.

It can be treated successfully with antibiotics and most people make a full recovery.

Reported cases of whooping cough in England and Wales this year are already double what they were in 2011, according to the Health Protection Agency.

     Sarae's cause of death, as recorded on the death certificate, was noted as cardiac failure and severe sepsis, as well as pertussis pneumonia. The Practice Manager of Hawthorn Drive GP surgery said: 'The whole team at the surgery offer their sympathies to the parents and family.  'Our duty to protect patient confidentiality means we cannot comment on individual cases but rest assured we at The Hawthorn Drive GP surgery are committed to offering the best level of care to all our patients.
    'We would urge the family to contact us if they need our support or help at this tragic time.' An Ipswich Hospital spokeswoman said: 'We are very saddened by baby Sarae's death. 'The family have not been in touch with us to date and we urge them to do so as soon as possible so that we can talk about and look into all the areas of concern.' Dr David Lee, Regional Medical Director for Harmoni, also added his condolences and said patient confidentiality prevented them commenting further.