This Medico-Chemical or Petrochemical post is one in a sequence of Politics of Care posts that explores the interface between our ability or inability to Care for our environment and ability or inability to Care for our health and the health of the most vulnerable amongst us. One of the problems getting in the way of a recognition of the disaster now unfolding within Health … [Read more...] about The MedicoChemical and PetroChemical Twins
From Gaia Hypothesis to Pandora
Pandora's Eyes, ©2021 Billiam James From Gaia to Pandora is an instalment in the Politics of Care, which is now the main focus of this site. Pandora: Dos Centavos is a sister piece previously called the Pandora hypothesis. After writing this, I mentioned to my agent that a Pandora Hypothesis would be a closing point in Shipwreck. This caused her to say that she could … [Read more...] about From Gaia Hypothesis to Pandora
The Controlled Healthcare Opposition
An instalment in the Politics of Care In the Beginning For nearly 200 years, concerns about individual and public Health have been a badge for progressive politics. The revolutionaries in Paris in 1790 saw healthcare as close to the most important element of the ancien regime that needed dismantling and replacing with something that would work for the people. Fifty years … [Read more...] about The Controlled Healthcare Opposition
From Stephen O’Neill to the Crack of Doom
This is the first link to the Politics of Care forum. Comments on this post ideally need to centre on reports of actions - outlines of actions that will make a difference or details of what has resulted from efforts to follow up on the leads here. We need to keep track of what has been done and what, if anything, has made a difference, rather than fool ourselves with nice … [Read more...] about From Stephen O’Neill to the Crack of Doom
Venus Rising: Women and Antidepressants
Serotonin may be our most primitive neurotransmitter and so on theoretical grounds alone there was reason to think that the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibiting drugs (SSRIs) - sold as absolutely and completely safe, the only danger lying in not having them when you needed them - might have significant effects, not all of which would be good. In 1993, I chaired a … [Read more...] about Venus Rising: Women and Antidepressants
The Transit of Venus: Autonomy or Nurture?
Venus is the black dot in the upper right quadrant of the sun. The plan was to finish the I Can't Breathe series with Magic is from Venus but then the word Nurture popped onto my radar. There is a Venus Rising to come. The word autonomy starts appearing in medicine and in bioethics sometime in the 1950s, give or take a few years, linked to the emergence of Informed … [Read more...] about The Transit of Venus: Autonomy or Nurture?
Magic is from Venus
This the final instalment of a series that began with Being Black, and went through I Can't Breathe, I Can't Breathe II, I Can't Breathe III, To the Last Breath, and Algorithms are from Mars. There was a delay as the series has spun off a lot of other ideas that will hopefully bear fruit in time. In mid-series, George Floyd got justice but this is clearly just a beginning. … [Read more...] about Magic is from Venus
Algorithms are from Mars
When God was in Heaven, our images of the Divine split between Justice and Mercy – the Shock and Awe figure of the Last Judgement or someone more like Portia letting us know the quality of mercy is not strained, that it droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath. A person with the love of a Mother for her child. Through to the 1750 or so, the Monarch … [Read more...] about Algorithms are from Mars
To The Last Breath
This photo is of Terence MacSwiney, in 1920 Lord Mayor of Cork in Ireland. The featured photograph on the blog front page is also of MacSwiney in October 1920. The plan was to end this series of posts starting with Being Black and Janet's email to me I can't Breathe with a final post Drawing Breath. The series with its promised completely unrealistic but only possible … [Read more...] about To The Last Breath
I can’t breathe III
This post follows on Being Black, I can’t breathe and I can’t breathe II and will be followed by Drawing Breath (I and maybe II). Patsy Stephenson has managed to wriggle her way in again, see comments on I can't breathe II. Whether she managed to stage this photo or not, as a red-head Patsy has had to live with a terrible stigma - although perhaps not as bad for a … [Read more...] about I can’t breathe III