Have you ever "dropped your bundle"?

Comments this morning about what is the best way to lift the spirit and improve the mental health of a person with depression reminded me of a report I read in 2011 when I was writing a book to commemorate the Karridale Bushfires of 1961.

Assessing Risk

How do we assess risk in our everyday lives?

Dogs can die if left in a hot car!

I know that’s true, but we cannot extrapolate from that one true statement that all dogs left in cars are at risk and their owners irresponsible. Neither can we stretch that one true statement to support the claim that if ever an owner leaves their dog in a car they are irresponsible and placing the dog in harm’s way. But that is just what some well meaning people are doing by continually presenting the message that dogs are dying in cars throughout the UK everyday.

Those people who are making the dying dog claims are actually creating a hostile environment for any dog owner wishing to keep their dog close as a companion throughout the day. I’ve travelled with my dogs and never had a dog suffer from heat stress, but I have certainly had to leave them in my car occasionally.

The RSPCA is a professional organisation and it does do a lot of good, but as a professional organisation it also needs to promote the message that there are many problems involving animals within our community. No animal welfare problems would undermine the need for the organisation. It is in the interest of the RSPCA to promote the message that irresponsible owners abound.

Babies can die from the MMR vaccine!

This statement is also true.

Parents held their dead babies just a short time after the vaccination. The reaction to this news item was muted. It is not in the interests of governments and the pharmaceutical companies to promote the idea that the MMR vaccine is not safe.

This was probably just a bad batch of vaccine, but would a responsible parent present their baby for vaccination now? After the report of babies dying and before the results of any inquiry, knowing that the vaccine could kill would a responsible parent weigh up the chances of immediate death and still go ahead?

This MMR vaccination is much riskier than taking your dog on a car journey, because on the car journey you know your dog, your car, the environment etc. If there was an adverse reaction you could apply first aid and your dog recover. Not so with the vaccination. With the MMR vaccine you know very little and you can do nothing if there is a bad reaction. Your doctor might reassure you, but how much information about the particular batch will your doctor know?

If the “one dog dying is too many” comment is sufficient justification for promoting a hostile reaction towards anyone seen leaving their dog in a car, even when the dog is perfectly happy and content then should there be a similar “two children dying is too many” reaction to the MMR deaths? Should we be hostile to those who are so careless as to present their innocent children for vaccination?

Single people who are lonely and socially isolated are encouraged towards companion animals. Single people living alone are likely to die alone, and their pet isn’t going to notify anyone. But that pet might well suffer from dehydration and starvation, or in desperation it might eat the dead carer. 

Is there a risk to companion animals that has not been highlighted by the animal welfare agencies? Where is the campaign to ensure that only people living in multiple occupancy households or with strong social networks are allowed to own a pet?

It is not in the interests of animal welfare agencies to call for a ban on pet ownership by socially isolated individuals because those people are highly likely to be accepting re-homed animals, and bequests to the agencies come from just such isolated people.

It is not in the interests of society to ban single people from pet ownership because the evidence indicates the mental health benefits. But too strident a campaign about dogs dying in cars could have a terrible effect on many responsible owners. We must all recognise risks, but when we over dramatise and label everyone who does not conform to our standard of behaviour, our particular assessment of risk as irresponsible we are just wrong.

Children, dogs, elderly relatives I’ve left them all in my car at different times. None have come to any harm. And I know I’m not alone in facing situations where I have to assess risk and use my judgement. The dogs die every day campaigners are attempting to strip me the right to use my own judgement, in their drive to promote their single message.

When a community support officer saw Laurence Fox’s son in a car he called the actor a ‘disgusting and appalling human being’.

Read Fox's explanation and judge for yourself, as I hope you will do whenever daily risks need assessment.

Putting messages out is fine , but becoming vigilantes who post photographs of people in an attempt to brand them irresponsible dog owners is not. Each of us must risk assess our own lives and we must do it responsibly, using all the evidence available and a healthy dose of commonsense. 

To see and not to speak...

"To see and not to speak would be the great betrayal," these were Enoch Powell’s words, and surely we must agree that a genuine opinion sincerely held should be heard, however much we disagree with that opinion. Fifty years on from his Rivers of Blood speech the BBC have chosen to offer the public their particular analysis of Powell’s words and they feel he should be damned as a racist.

Maybe there is another view, a kinder take on Powell, could the BBC analysis be a little biased?

A Genius at Life?

How do you rate your compassion? 

Do you really understand what compassion is? Do we need compassion in our lives before we fully experience life itself?

Things That Matter

Triumph of the Airheads - Again?

Another strange post on FB-today asking whether there can be any reason for the existence of the flat earth society. What I find odd is the language, the writer claims that the FES "wind the sensible people up and make steam come out of their ears trying to explain to them." 

All I would ask is "Why?"

100 year life?

On Saturday the Financial Times carried a link to a new web page they are supporting urging everyone to plan for 100 year life. Do I want to do this?

Who am I?

The answer to that question must depend on who you ask.

Am I a brain or a body? Or a bit of both?

It all depends on how the individual perceives their life.

Is life something more than the sum of the physical parts we are made of, blood, flesh, bones, synapses, sinews... etc?

A backwards step might be the way forward?

We have all seen bricks to clicks, but will the next step be backwards - clicks to bricks?

Is a Backwards Step a Sign of Failure?

I'm prompted to write this by what was probably nothing more than a throw away comment posted on the Wisbech Discussion. 

B Corp - Could it work?

The B Corp model interests me.

How about a ute muster?

A Wisbech Discussion Group FB post about cars meeting up in a car park at night has prompted many responses, and polarised opinion. Is such a meet a good thing, or bad? Do the larrikins need to be stamped on hard because some people living nearby have small children who are bothered by the noise?

Fatally Flawed Reliance

Yesterday a few critics disliked my comment on the Wisbech Discussion Group suggesting that a relying on the green man signal might be imprudent. There was allegedly anger because I suggested that reliance on technology can be fatal. Fortunately there was also some support for my comment too, some people understood. 
Here I just want to explain why I wrote my comment in the hope that those finding my words unhelpful might understand. 

The Children of Coincidence

Can we control our own destiny?

Is the fact that some of us have success in life, and some of us fail entirely at everything we try due to the former group being wise and prudent planners, and the latter group's reckless feckless behaviour?

Or is the fickle finger of fate prodding us into the directions we take?

Can ambiguity be good for us?

I've been interested in the Irish problem for the past 50 years.

Do you think you're right most of the time?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p056jdz7?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_radio_4&ns_source=facebook&ns_linkname=radio_and_music

Sea Service

Some people have asked why I care so much about seamen.

The Global Farm

Listened to The Global Farm and it raised so many issues.

Anger or Outrage?

Bafta awards were last night and although I managed to avoid watching the ceremonies I have heard a couple of comments this morning.

Andrew Wakefield

The subject of my post yesterday was childrens’ behaviour and autistic diagnoses, and then last night the BBC broadcast a programme on Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who first criticised the triple MMM vaccine suggesting it could cause problems.   

Willful Blindness over Special Needs?

A number of people made comments on the post relating to the behaviour of children with “special needs” earlier this week. This morning’s IPM podcast from the BBC was relevant to this and interesting to me for what wasn’t said.