The Individual Mind

As many parents all around the U.S. have spoken out in their local school board meetings about the negative effects and uselessness of force-masking their children in school (a very contentious topic with angry parents on both sides of the argument), the ubiquitous video of these events found online tends to demonstrate an absolute disregard and disdain that school boards have for parents, their opinions, and arguably, the children themselves. Why is that? Probably too many reasons to detail here, but we’ll look at one area of financial incentives for that behavior.

Regarding viral risks and mitigation strategies, the cost/benefit ratios, negative and adverse effects, case and death numbers by age group, etc. those can be discussed elsewhere. As I have been digging into the seemingly unlimited U.S. government’s financial incentives for COVID compliances across society and economy, I came across the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) Act and its subsequent supplements. As of January 2022, every state has submitted a plan (and all have been approved) to access the current allotment of $190 BILLION in additional taxpayer funding for their compliance. (Those plans, details and dollars allotted by state, can be found on the U.S. Department of Education’s corresponding website.)

Not surprisingly, this money comes with a series of strings attached. One of those requirements is that schools follow CDC guidelines for masking of all children, age 2 through 12th grade. (The highly flawed CDC “studies” that show any masking benefit for viral transmission or illness can be described in multiple places, but is very well done by Dr. Vinay Prasad MD, MPH who is “a practicing hematologist-oncologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco” per his bio. Check out his quick YouTube explanation on the topic – while it remains uncancelled – and his substack article.)

With roughly 49M kids enrolled in U.S. schools (per the National Center for Education Statistics), that $190B in additional ESSER funding works out to over $3,800 per masked child. Masking your kid and putting up with your complaints are very small prices for schools to pay in order to access that money. Your parental preferences do not carry that kind of weight. There is no option for you to withhold your local school or federal taxes in protest. That money is theirs regardless, and you’ll have to comply with their mandates, curriculum and treatments unless you can afford to take your kid to a like-minded private school, or to home school them. Your opinion is nothing but a nuisance to the people you fund, who impact your child for 8 hours a day, most days of the year.

Out of curiosity, I reviewed the ESSER plan for my current state of residence, Pennsylvania. Masking is mentioned throughout the document, and the state has received over $5B in distributions from this particular fund to date. So, it’s unlikely that parental complaints are going to counterbalance that weight.

This issue was introduced to me by an interview I came across while researching another blog post idea: the unintended consequences and economic distortions of the COVID financial incentives to the healthcare workforce – which has been severely disrupted with the wash of dollars flowing into health care organizations, allowing an escalating bidding war between them for their beaten down and exhausted staff, after years of crushing, COVID working conditions and resented mandates. This has resulted in staffing shortages all across the country. If I were a nurse and could make $4,000 per week as a traveler (the number I was quoted from a nurse at my current hospital yesterday), especially if I were even slightly disgruntled and exhausted, I would give that SERIOUS consideration.

Back to the school masking topic. The article embedded the aforementioned interview by The Highwire’s Del Bigtree with Tennessee Liberty Network’s AJ DePriest. (I’d love to reference a Legacy Media discussion of such topics, but we all know that these points would be labelled as misinformation, dissidence or conspiracy by the likes of all of the alphabet networks.) I wasn’t familiar with any of the interview’s entities or persons, but watching from the 11 minute mark, Ms. DePriest mentions sufficient points of reference and explanation to begin to piece evidences together, which I’ve done this morning. (“Thank you!” to her for researching and reporting on this topic.)

Her takeaway is that parents at school board meetings need to stop trying to reason with those board members. Rather, they should bring these evidences to the meetings and demand funding transparency, exposure of conflicts of interest, and explanations for policies in order to “unmask” these distorted incentive structures that negatively impact their children.

As the Peter G. Peterson Foundation tabulates, there is roughly $4.2 TRILLION in U.S. COVID funding sloshing its way through society and the economy right now. Imagine how each aspect of our lives might be impacted by the unintended(?) consequences and distortions of such largess. We might consider seeking similar transparency and conflict disclosures from every institution and organization that touches us.

Addendum, Feb 12th

A long-time social media friend asked me: “What about all the schools that don’t have mask mandates? Are they forfeiting the money?”

My response: “That’s a good question! Maybe they got it and moved on. It looks like the last supplement to the fund was in March of 2021. Or, I wonder if the CDC masking rules were different earlier on. I’ll be interested to see what kind of feedback comes in on that topic.

“Here’s the actual application packet/guidance. – https://oese.ed.gov/files/2021/04/ARP-ESSER-State-Plan-Template-04-20-2021_130PM.pdf – Pg 7, Table B1 requests the state to address the Universal and Correct Wearing of Masks. I looked at Florida’s application ( – https://oese.ed.gov/files/2021/12/FL-ARP-ESSER-State-Plan-Final_Redacted.pdf – ), which specifically includes Gov Ron DeSantis’s executive order allowing parents to unmask their children. That state’s plan was accepted, but the topic was clearly addressed. Maybe the federal government didn’t want to pursue some of these governor level exemptions. Unclear!

“The PA application (linked in my blog above), for example, clearly states that masking will follow CDC guidelines, so it may be assumed by the state and local education agencies that their funding is dependent on that compliance.”

I just started looking at this topic yesterday and cannot claim to grasp the eventual compliances or outcomes of all of the enticements, inducements and financial coercions. Clearly, they have effects – as do all economic, political and social interventions. My end message would be to have caution with such interventionism and to be alert to the subsequent (often unseen) consequences and impacts around us. It is always helpful to ask “qui bono?” – who benefits? – when assessing situations that are difficult to understand. (Check out the great essay by Frederic Bastiat, That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen, written in 1850… and timeless.)

There is definitely a financial inducement for universal masking of kids in schools, but there are many other reasons it has been pushed, as well. Much of it seems politically motivated and inordinately fear-driven, in my opinion, rather than out of an honest concern to keep children healthy… noting that healthy children without comorbidities are in the lowest possible risk stratification for the pandemic virus.

Just as a review, I’ll include a graphic from the CDC this morning that shows cumulative COVID-associated hospitalizations from the inception of the pandemic (does that mean persons hospitalized because of COVID pneumonia, or incidentally positive by test on admission for an unassociated reason?… can’t know, that data isn’t collected) by week, with age distribution percentages. Kids 17 and under tend to make up less than 4% of the hospitalized, and those will tend to be kids with other significant health issues – perhaps not even in the general population of schools.

Here’s another CDC table screenshot from today which shows that of all the U.S. pandemic deaths to date with an associated COVID label, 795 of those 898,699 deaths were in the age group of 0-17. Doing that calculation: 795/898699 x 100 = 0.088 percent of the COVID mortality numbers were school-age kids.

What national intervention measures should be justified to chase those 795 deaths, which while certainly tragic, pale in comparison to other causes of death in that age group, like the 4,000 or so motor vehicle deaths per year? Should we also prohibit travel to keep the kids safe? The public health apparatus, aided by media-generated fear, has suffered a complete divorce from the concept of risk/benefit analysis. Glenn Greenwald has a great article and video on this failure from August of 2021.

Lend our society’s accepted practices a skeptical eye. Ask some questions. Make sure what we participate in carries benefit over costs. Stay safe out there, friends.

Caveat: I haven’t endorsed any of the two-party system U.S. Presidential candidates in 20 years or more. They have been (and likely always will be) insufficient human beings to represent, solve, or think at a level to benefit society. So, my post here isn’t a partisan attack, although admittedly, I think the guy is a disingenuous moron at baseline, and in some stage of dementia for years.

This news video montage popped up in a social media feed today, from 1988. There’s a reason that Biden was not elected President when he ran 30+ years ago. It was heavily documented by video capture that he was a serial liar and plagiarizer, from his school years and into his time as a U.S. Senator (D-Delaware).

Somehow, this knowledge all went down Orwell’s memory hole. The historically illiterate, easily swayed, philosophically void, emotionally led public elected and now has the Leader it deserves. Our dysfunctional, distracted, fragmented, angry, self-victimized Society is the averaged sum of its individuals.

There’s no need to pick on a single man. Biden’s fatal flaws are not an exception found within the most embedded systems upon which we depend, but are emblematic of the universal rot, corruption, conflicts of interest, ineptitude and self-aggrandizement that characterize that which governs and most impacts us: politics at all levels and brands, large corporations, universities and their “educational” product, The Academy and the research/journal articles it filters out or selectively promotes, the funding sources (like the NIH) which determine just what will be researched, the Organized Medicine and Health Insurance cabal of non-transparency, Pharma, Big Tech, Finance,… and Legacy Media to protect it all.

In many instances, we find these dysfunctional components acting in concert to their mutual benefit and to the detriment of the rest of us. One example that will become more apparent with time is the uniform defense of the Covid Narrative – vilifying any discourse that strays from the changing rhetoric of accepted therapeutics and mandates, censoring, canceling, threatening, intimidating, slandering, obstructing discourse and debate. All of this to protect certain interests, positions, power structures and agenda.

Glenn Greenwald has a nice article out on his Substack today that touches on this, particularly illustrating the ideologues’ battle against Spotify to censor the Joe Rogan Experience podcast for sharing “misinformation” in his hosting of a multitude of experts (almost universally silenced by mainstream interests) that express heterodox opinions against the Covid Narrative (from masking to jab issues to early treatment – all of which I find entirely appropriate areas of discussion… especially as a practicing physician). If someone is wrong, or an idea is flawed, the very best way to dispel it is to bring it out into the sunlight for exposure and thorough examination. Otherwise, what the f*** are you hiding?

One of the most important answers to every illness that afflicts us – be it societal or physical – is more discussion, debate, openness and transparency. We are at a global juncture in the highly pressurized tension between Centralized Control of Everything (speech, language, information sharing, centralized “digital currencies”, economic exchange, physical movement, medical therapeutics, social credit scores, vax passports for the most basic of human interactions, education curricula,…) versus Decentralization towards free discourse, open debate, criticism of Power Institutions, decentralized crypto and DeFi, personal choice, even the ability to leave one’s home in some instances (ask the Australians and so many others during this Lockdown Era).

It can be difficult to identify the source of these seemingly very united efforts to exert totalitarian control, but looking at bedmates, we often find the Big Tech billionaires, celebrities, media representatives, large universities (like Johns Hopkins), the seemingly philanthropic Bill Gates, world politicians, and global institutions like the World Economic Forum (headed by Klaus Schwab, proctering its select Young Global Leaders that become more world leaders, promoting the Great Reset) bedding up around the globe, emitting gobs of carbon trails in their private jets to arrive at their secret meetings, like the annual one in Davos, Switzerland.

For decades, they’ve held simulations of all kinds of disasters, like the October 2019 Event 201 (highlights here) that conveniently simulated how to mass control in a coronavirus pandemic… just months before a coronavirus pandemic in which essentially all world power structures followed the extreme lockdown and mandate prescriptions of the Event 201 playbook.

Just maybe it is people like these with large control ambitions that might have an interest in stifling your dissent and choice. Maybe it is people like these, technocrats with outsized influence and questionable ambitions, that are able to unduly affect, if not infiltrate and subvert, democratic and societal processes in a form of coup d’etat. Maybe this situation is among the most important that should be brought out into the sunlight for close examination (as if your basic run-of-the-mill government and bureaucrat corruptions and failures weren’t already enough to deal with).

As the brilliant George Carlin was wont to say, “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it!”

And how this little blog started with a Biden video, and expanded to this, I’m not sure. But now that we’re here,… you’re damn right.

Starting year THREE of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and its public and health policy responses, it would seem appropriate for physicians, scientists, politicians and the public to be able to discuss and debate any details of the ongoing crisis, mandates, varying lockdowns and vaccine passport diktats, treatments and outcomes.

As the US and global community have witnessed, legacy and social media routinely disallow the sharing of such discussion and information. Governments are hostile to being challenged. Discussion and information sharing has been blocked. Dissenters have been censored, cancelled, threatened, terminated, vilified, labeled all manner of kooks, disseminators of “misinformation,” conspiracy theorists, <insert politicized defamatory, derogatory term of choice>,…

In this 4+ hour discussion, Senator Ron Johnson (WI) hosts real physicians and scientists as they share data, experience and questions on the handling of the crisis. IMO, you would have fared far better (in terms of mortality, economics and basic human rights) to have had these conscientious professionals serving on task forces and managing the crisis, rather than the heavily financially conflicted, pharma influenced, self-interested power brokers controlling, mandating, censoring, intimidating, and fearmongering the public into mass compliance and intellectual complacency.

For my physician colleagues, this is the Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) Conference that our institutions arrogantly refuse to allow, are too intimidated to permit, and/or avoid in order to continue in favor with the distributors of research and “reimbursement” lucre.

I believe this is part of the vital conversations that every adult should be able to understand, if not continue with family and peers.

Legacy media outlets have been very narrow (to be kind) in their coverage of data, studies, therapies and questions that might vary from or challenge a specific SARS-CoV-2 information scheme and treatment path.

To the credit of The Epoch Times, Jan Jekielek interviewed Dr. Peter McCullough for a few hours to obtain a broad and nuanced review of the associated literature, to discuss broader therapy options, to explore data regarding adverse events, and to evaluate U.S. and global response to the crisis.

This is a two-part series, each being a little over an hour. Play speed can be accelerated to 1.25 or even 1.5x.

Part 2 link.

Dr. McCullough writes at America Out Loud.

Among many of his interviews that can be found on non-censored search engines (I recommend DuckDuckGo), prominent exposure has been with:

• Tucker Carlson on May 8, 2021
• Joe Rogan on Spotify in December 2021, also on BitChute
• Brett Weinstein‘s Dark Horse podcast on December 6, 2021 (still up on YouTube!)
• His presentation at the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) meeting on October 2, 2021.

His bio from his America Out Loud site:

Dr. Peter McCullough is an internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist, managing the cardiovascular complications of both the viral infection and the injuries developing after the COVID-19 vaccine in Dallas, TX, USA. Since the outset of the pandemic, Dr. McCullough has been a leader in the medical response to the COVID-19 disaster and has published “Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection,” the first synthesis of sequenced multidrug treatment of ambulatory patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the American Journal of Medicine and subsequently updated in Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine.

He has 51 peer-reviewed publications on the infection and has commented extensively on the medical response to the COVID-19 crisis in The Hill, America Out Loud, and on FOX NEWS Channel. On November 19, 2020, Dr. McCullough testified in the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and throughout 2021 in the Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, Colorado General Assembly, New Hampshire Senate, and South Carolina Senate concerning many aspects of the pandemic response.

Dr. McCullough has two years of dedicated academic and clinical efforts in combating the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In doing so, he has reviewed thousands of reports, participated in scientific congresses, group discussions, press releases, and been considered among the world’s experts on COVID-19.

“… with a rubber hose!” used to be a childish insult from my kindergarten years. What I’m considering putting up my nose is a dilute Betadine (povidone iodine) spray the next time that I get viral upper respiratory tract infection symptoms (runny nose, sinus congestion, cough, sore throat).

I don’t know how I had missed this recommendation during the Covid Era as a potential tool to help reduce nasopharyngeal viral load. I think I’d seen it mentioned some months back and had dismissed it without the slightest consideration. Now, with the Omicron variant that has been shown to primarily replicate in nasal epithelial cells, it stands to reason that delivering an easily tolerated virucidal agent directly to that region might be a very focused help.

I recently saw the nasal spray recommendation again (by Dr. McCullough) and have been looking into it as an option this morning. As I do a Duck Duck Go search (for less biased results), I find a number of pro and con stories.

There are the typical knee-jerk reflexes against anything that isn’t either vaccine or remdesivir for CV19 treatment. For the life of me, as a physician, it is difficult to understand the extreme and emotional vehemence against any of the inexpensive, low risk, early treatment therapies that might aid in reducing viral load or replication, symptoms, inflammation or thrombus formation. (That is a detailed tangent for another time.)

There are plenty of iodine naysayers, including a Rolling Stone article that provides the typical mocking disbelief of something the writers describe as anti-vaxx lunacy. What I know as an anesthesiologist, from a baseline of long established practice, is that perioperatively it is routine to use an iodine (or other antimicrobial) nasal swab treatment in order to reduce nasal pathogen colonization in an effort to minimize surgical site infections. So, the concept of nasal antimicrobial prevention and treatment is neither fringe nor without medical/scientific basis.

What I want to know, as every thinking adult should approach similar topics (and life, in general), is what are the proposed mechanisms, rationales, costs, risks and evidences of any purported intervention or claim – be it medical, political, economic or social. So, I’m looking it up and giving it thoughtful consideration rather than trusting the process of reason and deduction to the politicized and hysterical actors we find in today’s chaotic environment.

A review of the literature in 2020 by Frank, et al. in the Ear, Nose and Throat Journal found –

RESULTS: Povidone-iodine has been safely administered for up to 5 months in the nasal cavity and 6 months in the oral cavity. Concentrations less than 2.5% in vitro do not reduce ciliary beat frequency or cause pathological changes in ciliated nasal epithelium, upper respiratory, or mucosal cells. Adverse events with oral use have not been reported in conscious adults or children. Allergy and contact sensitivity is rare. Chronic mucosal use up to 5% has not been shown to result in clinical thyroid disease. PVP-I is rapidly virucidal and inactivates coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

More recently, a Bangladeshi study (… I’m wondering if NIH and US Pharma are likely to fund such a non-lucrative investigation) by Choudhory, et al, and published in Bioresearch Communications in January 2021, randomized 600 patients to either saline or 1% iodine treatment and found the iodine group showed a negative PCR test much more quickly and was hospitalized at a much reduced rate. There was also no thyroid function disturbance from the iodine therapy, which has been listed as a concern by detractors.

Khan, et al., in the American Journal of Otolaryngology in Sept/Oct 2020 describe using dilute 0.5% povidone iodine as nasal drops and gargle for their study of over 300 patients prior to inpatient and outpatient procedures, as well as for exposed staff. This concentration is commonly used and tolerated in eye care, and was used without incidence. They note that iodine concentrations as low as 0.23% have resulted in zero viral activity after two minutes for SARS-CoV.

Dr. Mostafa Arefin published in April 2021 in the Indian Journal of Otolaryngology and Head Neck Surgery the clinical experience he and his 50 colleagues have had with their iodine protocol. Arefin, personally, has seen over 7,000 patients through the Covid era, performing hundreds of ENT procedures and surgeries. He recommends the nasal therapy as a safe, cheap, easy and effective adjunct for Covid therapy, or prevention when exposed.

The physicians from Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance have put together recommendations as Prevention & Treatment Protocols for COVID-19. Their povidone iodine literature review and database show clear benefit from early treatment, with improved outcomes of viral clearance, hospitalization and mortality.

Interestingly, it is apparently a well-accepted Covid therapy in both U.S. and British dental practices to follow a nasal/oral iodine wash for both patients and staff. Challacombe, et al. describe this in a May 2020 letter to the editor of the British Dental Journal.

While I am not making a medical recommendation to anyone that they use nasal iodine spray, for myself, it certainly seems reasonable as an early treatment adjunct to potentially reduce viral load and replication, decrease transmission, shorten the course of the illness, and improve outcomes. The fact that the concept could be so energetically maligned and immediately rejected by mainstream actors is curious.

It took a little time this morning to investigate some of the arguments and evidences on this topic, but now I have made an informed opinion about a potential role for nasal iodine as an early treatment adjunct for Covid (and potentially for other respiratory infections), in combination with other appropriate therapies… which can all be similarly investigated on their merits, failures and medical/scientific grounds. With additional future information, I reserve the right to alter my opinion. While certainly not all-encompassing, I find this morning’s investigative approach far superior to unquestioningly following a tribal, politicized, emotionalized, divisive reactivity that creates sides and enemies over opinions of medical therapy (and so many other issues that are often misrepresented!).

Dr. Jesse Santiano has a site I just found in which he describes a number of different iodine concentrations, preparations and possible applicators. Generally speaking, if you want to make a dilute 0.5% nasal/oral rinse, then start with the typical bottle of 10% povidone iodine (Betadine) that can be found in any pharmacy aisle. Add 1 teaspoon of iodine to make a 1/4 cup of DISTILLED (not tap, which may carry more resistant pathogens) water – a 1 to 20 dilution.

Turn off the TV. Exercise great caution with the self-proclaimed experts and the typical information flows. Go look some stuff up for yourself. And if you find yourself getting angry at a person or topic, consider that you may be misled or misinformed. If you disagree with any of this, you can stick it up your nose! (Just kidding.)

While I have been actively trialing myriad social media sites (Gettr, Gab, Parler, MeWe, Minds) as I search for means to communicate with other humans in ways that minimize coercion, censorship, cancelation, de-platforming, weaponized politics, etc., I still have some contacts on FB with whom I interact. This showed up as a FB memory from a year ago (… and before the Omicron variant which is fortunately much less virulent and deadly than previous strains, it appears.)

Books are being written (3 are on my desk now) and will continue to be written for years on the Covid missteps, abuses, politicization, corruption, conflicts of interest, control fetishes, and “mass formation psychosis” (which is the phrase of the day to describe the social and cultural hysteria that outstrips scientific and realistic justification). Two (of many) points that I have come to believe over the past two years: (1) many hospitalizations and lives would have been saved by allowing all manner of early treatments to minimize viral replication, inflammatory processes and thrombus/clot formation, and (2) lockdowns and social isolation have been evil and deadly in their destruction of living, livelihoods, growth, society, education, child development, global supply chains (especially fragile for feeding and maintaining the poorest on the planet) to the point that life-years lost due to government interventionism and obstructionism exceed those lost to a virus.

I have long noted that “The Everything Bubble” has been used to describe our era’s financially unjustifiable malinvestment into the stock and bond markets, resulting in nosebleed over-valuations, that must correct again at some point. While certainly true and potentially catastrophic for the finances of persons, businesses and governments, that is too narrow a scope for EVERYTHING.

This morning’s line of thought started when I read the above linked article about “greenwashing” businesses and investment instruments to make them socially acceptable per today’s norms. To fail the litmus test of the day is to face investor withdrawal and societal boycott for “unacceptable” views or practices. When the loud cultural demand is for “green, ” carbon neutral, ESG (Environment, Social, corporate Governance), etc. then apparently you can just label yourself as such and go about your business under the false pretense in order to extract a benefit, or to satisfy a group with which you don’t agree but find too costly to oppose. Perhaps the demands and expectations are unreasonable and unjustified. Maybe they are coercive and silly. Maybe it is just a very loud minority that must be appeased. Maybe you just play along, hoping that the trend winds will shift soon. Maybe deceit is so baked into society that the default setting is to mislead others rather than operate under transparency. Maybe all are true. Maybe these forever extant, and often disguised, societal wars are just more technologically visible today – the wars for profits, prestige, power, the advance of personal preferences and agenda upon everyone else regardless of harms and costs. Caveman instincts with the new millennial toolkit.

The “washing,” the misrepresentation, the deceit is much more widespread than just within the financial sector. The “organic” foods example comes to mind. Food is all carbon-based, and so, literally, definitionally organic. But, we all know that those demanding organic foods (socially, or as a consumer) expect this to mean non-GMO, non-pesticided, environmentally friendly, or what not. But when the label is slapped on, some people will buy it who might not have. And others who might have actively boycotted or created a public relations issue now won’t… despite the false pretense of the label.

The spread of deceit can be seen as academically under-achieving kids are pushed through school and handed a diploma… despite their eighth grade reading comprehension. It’s the participation ribbon, the increasingly meaningless and devalued titles and degrees into their adulthood. This is a crux of failure that defines and corrupts our era – that of devaluing, or mis-valuing, EVERYTHING.

Today’s reality is that humans tolerate and fear calling out that which is a lie. We do it in our cultures, governments, finances, educational systems, professions, media streams, relationships. Why? To cheat and manipulate each other to our own benefit? Or because it is demanded by social, political and financial forces that would target us for speaking truth to power? Or because it is psychologically soothing and easier to lie to ourselves and others than to perform root analyses, develop improvement plans and act? Is it just the easy shortcut? Are we even aware that we are often frauds? What harm do we do to ourselves and others by playing along with those misrepresentations? And how large can the harms become when they are perpetrated and permitted on national and global scales? How much human misery can be traced back to “just going along” with the prevailing fads, distractions, manipulations and lies of the day? Are we a planet of the self-deluded or delusional?

How can humans progress when real value, reliable information and solid foundations cannot be discovered, promoted, shared and built upon? How far from true North, or precise reality (as it can best be discovered), have we drifted in every aspect of our existences – individually and societally? How much of a value bubble currently exists? The better question is, “what is not a value bubble (aka a lie, misrepresentation, exaggeration,…)?” Maybe nothing is spared. Degrees, credentials, currencies, “authorities,” “experts,” “journalism,” “friends,” investments, debt and derivatives into the quadrillions of dollars. What percentage of each category of Life is over-valued, misrepresented, in a bubble that is due to pop, is a lie, is a malinvestment of resources, and potentially causes harm?

I do not take the nihilist view that there is no good, no truth, no value. Maybe it’s a realist (or Stoicist?) view that Good, Truth and Value exist but not to the degree and in the places you would be led (or lead yourself) to believe. These must be mined, filtered, culled, discerned, discriminated, discovered. Then appreciated, valued, promoted, nurtured. That takes work, thought, action, analysis, energy, determination, self-education, investigation. (Lots of lists, there. Sorry. But, get to work!)

The obstacles to such a tedious process may be simply working to feed oneself and family, meeting the basic needs of life, and left with little time or energy for anything else. Additionally, we are often lulled into complacency by the instant gratifications of tech, low-yield distractions, feel-good substances which offer the easier path to pass the days. And certainly, there is a purposeful effort in many Lies and Liars to obfuscate details, designs, costs and consequences. Those are the nefarious parasites among us: individual, corporate and government.

Despite the costs inherent in the process of discerning true values, the costs of operating under mis-valuation and misrepresentation are incalculable across every aspect of life. In addition to the potential financial wastes and losses, how much of our lives may be misspent pursuing that which we misunderstand? Investments, relationships, career, dogma, politics, emotion, anger, fear, inappropriate reactivity, poor decisions, lost opportunity for self-development. The future cannot be seen. Our best efforts to prepare for it are to use good information now to make decisions (investments) towards it. Misvalued information, investments and paths now can only lead to future loss, regret and pain. What is the correlation between today’s lie and the theft of tomorrow’s peace?

As we look about us, we might ask ourselves what part of that which touches me is real and of value? Who and what around me adds value rather than depletes and attempts to deceive me? What (and who) is in a bubble and needs to be reset to true valuations? Where am I inappropriately invested in time, money, energy? (Maybe I sit at my computer, clicking around, trying to figure out the world too much?!) Which information sources can be trusted, and to what degree? Which labels and narratives are just that… without substance or justification? How are they being used to mislead, exploit, control or derive an unjust profit?

To whom do I owe transparency, openness, honesty, value? Certainly to those with whom I have made or desire that reciprocal, mutually beneficial relationship – personally and professionally. Most uncomfortably of all, I owe it to myself. Certainly, it is not owed to those that would harm, rob, coerce and defraud me. Those I must separate myself from, and perhaps work to expose.

Ultimately, the valuation problem distills to a demand for Honesty and Truth – basic existential human values – just to begin an assessment, which will still be subject to human error, a best guess. The disregard for those values across our species has led to the mis-valuation of EVERYTHING. These tenets, which are under-valued as simplistic and optional aspects of a disposable Morality, serve as supports for the fundamental fabric of our existence, our relationships, economics, and human progress.

Spend the time and energy to find and offer true valuations such that your investments of time, energy, money and relationships provide a return rather than a loss, a fulfillment rather than regret.

As an anesthesiologist, and a proponent of free markets, I’ve been interested in ways to promote and join transparent and low-cost health services movements for a number of years. Direct Primary Care (DPC), and transparently priced surgery centers, like Surgery Center of Oklahoma (SCO), are making great strides to increase competition, drive down costs for patients, and offer improved quality and service.

Organizations like the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), and the Free Market Medicine Association (FMMA), are on the forefront of promoting the physician-patient relationship while stripping out the low- and non-value bureaucracies inherent in government and most corporate institutions (e.g. the administrative burdens of insurance companies, Medicare, large health care entities that buy up and impede smaller practices while the patients’ bills keep rising at rates far exceeding general inflation).

One particular barrier to competition in health care markets is Certificate of Need Laws. AAPS held its annual conference this past month, this year in Pittsburgh, PA. I was asked to offer a 30-minute presentation on the topic, which I’ll link to here. (I’m a little slow on my presentation style, and if you choose to listen, I’d recommend adjusting the playback speed to at least 1.2X.)

ADDENDUM: In the presentation, I mention the Foundation for Economic Education’s (FEE) chart that tracked the growth of physicians versus administrators. Its original source was from the Kaiser Family Foundation. I’ve seen sites that have argued the administrator growth rate is probably closer to 800%, and justified in our era of technology. I wouldn’t expend my energy opposing the former claim, but definitely disagree on any valid justification. Certainly, the rise in health care costs and insurance premiums make their own argument.

“Lower Your Expectations!”

“You’ll own nothing and be happy.”

I came across a thought-inspiring blog this morning, “Marketing the Decline,” which prompts some exploration.

You are being lulled (or demoralized) into complacency as your systems are failing (and/or are purposefully being failed) through ideologies, hate, anger, resentment, incompetence. This is witnessed in current issues of supply chain logistics, product/service availability and quality, employment, finance, economy, currency inflation/devaluation, education system costs and failures, foreign policy ineptitude, the breakdown of national and local discourse, societal intolerance of everything and everyone, and the deterioration across the entire spectrum of political structures. Certainly, these are not new problems, but appear to not only be accelerating, but sold as The New Normal. The Great Reset.

I posit that You are not only the enemy of, but also the food and wealth source for, the Well-Established, the Power Elite, Big Media, Big Tech, the Global Control-Lusters. Your sovereignty, your choice, your personal preferences, your values, your goals, your family, your individually determined life, your MIND, … these are highly resented impediments to Agenda, Central Planning and Control which must be eradicated. There will be no end of Crises rolled out by design or exploitation to keep you afraid, compliant, coerced, manipulated, and managed for the benefit of those that live very far above you – economically, politically, socially, pseudo-intellectually.

This will continue to be marketed under the guise of benefit to you, to Society, to Earth. Any opposition to The Narrative will continue to be attacked, mocked, marginalized, vilified. As in every historical example, societal controls only ever drive benefits and wealth in one direction – up the Pyramid of Power, where the goods and pleasures accumulate, where the exceptions for The Select are unlimited, and where the ultimate and absolute failures of every promise are shielded from any accountability.

Reject the group think. Reject the controls. Question every declaration, Narrative and Catastrophe-of-the-Moment with a critical and discriminating mind. Step out of the path of their Hurricanes of Hysteria, letting them pass you by without taking the bait of emotional reactivity, anger, fear, divisive Othering. Refuse to participate. Decline to give those manipulators the power, authority, obedience and belief that they seek.

Progress does not lie in conforming to mandates and calculated media distortions, but in a billion de-centralized daily human challenges, conversations and interactions of spontaneous and voluntary order that find ways that are better, peaceful, mutually beneficial, problem-solving and more efficient and economical of time, costs and energies.

Many apparently believe that the fullness of human development lies underneath the eternally accumulating dictates and controls of bureaucrats, technocrats, intelligentsia, and the Too Big To Fail systems that are continually being fed, maintained, enlarged, bailed out and protected – all at your expense.

I urge you to consider that human progress is best found by creating better, adaptive, technologically conscious, and more efficient processes, systems and relationships which compete with, and potentially make obsolete, those suffocating, wasteful, dishonest, immoral and destructive systems of forced order and compliance that benefit the few at the expense of the rest.

Rather than the defeatism of lowering your expectations, the voluntary and mutually beneficial interaction of humankind is the Optimism for Tomorrow that should be marketed. Of course, that true progress threatens to level the Power Pyramid. They will never endorse or support You or Us in that endeavor. So, don’t wait for the invitation. Decide to make them and their ideas obsolete. Create a better path forward despite them.

Last weekend, I attended the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) annual conference, this year in Pittsburgh, PA. Of course, the events, illnesses, political exploitation, ongoing hysteria, mandates, coercions, etc. of the past 18+ months were recurring points of discussion.

Given the non-stop inundation of only the Approved Narrative of the Political-Media-Medical cabal, in combination with the censoring, blocking, canceling, doxxing and de-platforming of those with disallowed thought, questions and speech, it was refreshing to hear Dr. McCullough’s synthesis of data, personal research, observation and opinion. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and in Cardiology, as well as expert in a number of subspecialties. His professional publications in peer-reviewed journals approach 700. He has headed national medical organizations and worked in pharma. He loves a good immunization… but describes why the ones out there right now for this multi-variant virus are problematic.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, as he has sought early treatment options for his patients in order to keep them from progressing to extreme illness with the virus, and ending up in the hospital (where they are likely to die – mostly from mistreatment), his health network and medical organizations have disapproved of his refusal to merely parrot the provided talking points and just push the unproved novel therapies. His employment contract was non-renewed and his employer is suing him. His medical license is under investigation for “misinformation” to the public. He has been defamed by the mainstream press and social media platforms.

I have been aware of Dr. McCullough for several months and have watched some of his testimony to state and federal agencies, as well as some of his media appearances. His arguments already resonated with me. However, after listening to him and viewing his presentation and documentation in person, for over an hour, I now find the man to be an impressive human that is contributing greatly to Society at great personal expense. If 10% of our medical, media and political communities were so honest and brave, we could likely have saved at least tens of thousands of lives, removed the lever of divisiveness and manipulation used against the Public to the advantage of the Powerful, and avoided trillions of dollars of misspent and lost economic prosperity in lockdowns, stimulus, bailouts, debt, failed supply chains, unemployment, etc… which all remains to be understood and calculated through the coming years.

Do yourself a favor and give Dr. McCullough’s thoughts an opportunity to challenge what you think you absolutely know to be true. It is that Arrogance of Certainty that dooms us to a fixed path that cannot possibly get us to the promised destination… like all of the political and narrative promises that habitually persuade and intimidate into unquestioned obedience.