A quick chat about Reality Check

Reality Check cover design – Part II

Here’s another design on the same theme as the first …

Reality Check cover design

I’ve been spending quite some time scanning through stock images at iStockPhoto, looking for just the right one. Here’s a quick mockup of a useable design. Whether I’ll end up going with this or not, I don’t know. It’s not the sort of design I initially thought I would use, but it’s working for me in a big way.

Cervical cancer, swine flu, and experimental vaccines

Last year parents all across the UK handed their teenage daughters over to have an experimental vaccine pumped through their veins. That was the vaccine for the prevention of HPV (genital warts, the main cause of cervical cancer). When I did a little research about the vaccine, I quickly learned that HPV is overwhelmingly caused by being sexually transmitted through an already infected partner. So, the real truth (that isn’t often talked about) is that cervical cancer is almost entirely preventable by being sexually responsible. So, why would you sign your daughter up for the vaccine? Why would you, in fact, put her first in line for brand new experimental vaccine, the full effects of which are not completely known?

I was reminded of the disaster story that was Thalidomide in the late 1950s. This was a supposedly safe prescription drug which, when taken by pregnant women, caused babies to be born with deformities! Think! Stop sucking on your television screen and believing every piece of propaganda that’s shoved in your face. And stop putting your own children on the line, when it’s not even necessary.

And today we have swine flu, with the whole public encouraged to blindly take yet another experimental vaccine. Here’s a little nugget of information from the supposed outbreak of swine flu in 1976. This article was the number 1 hit on Google when I searched for “swine flu vaccine” …

That happened in 1976, when an outbreak of swine flu at the Fort Dix army base in New Jersey spawned a nationwide emergency vaccination program. Manufacturers wanted legal protection against vaccine-related injury claims, so Congress enacted legislation allowing people to sue the federal government. About 45 million Americans were vaccinated. Reports soon emerged of unusually high rates of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare, neurological disorder that can cause temporary paralysis. More than 5,000 people sued for vaccine-related injuries, resulting in payouts totalling $73 million. In the 1980s, the U.S. introduced no-fault compensation for all vaccines.

“Oh, you’re a doctor. You’re a scientist. You know best. Do what you like to me. Thank you for protecting me.” Is that as far as our thinking goes? Think twice. Do the research. If you’re going to take the new swine flu vaccine this autumn, do it with the awareness of the liberties that have been taken with the public’s health in the past; do it with the awareness that you are taking an experimental vaccine, and nobody comprehensively knows what’s going to happen as a result of that.

As for me, I’ll take my chances by relying on my immune system, which I keep in good shape by living a healthy life.

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Reality Check complete!

Fin! Started 20 June, completed 15 July. I can hardly believe I’ve written an entire book in 26 days. I did use existing blog posts as the basis for a few of the chapters, but I spent as much time reorganising them and adding to them that it would have taken the same amount of effort to write from scratch. Here’s the chapter list:

1. Shake Your Foundations
2. Religion Unmasked
3. Independent Thought
4. What Am I?
5. Where Am I?
6. Intuition Reconnected
7. The Big Picture
8. Psychic Surprise
9. Abnormal Life
10. Bad Programming
11. Sexual Snare
12. A Life Worth Living

I’m going to do a little editing right away, then I’ll probably let the book sit for a few weeks to distance my mind from it. Then I’ll do another edit. After that I should be confident enough to offer it to my pre-press readers, who will tear it to shreds. Then I will cry … as if!

Reality Check progress

Not far to go.

1. Shake Your Foundations
2. Religion Unmasked
3. Independent Thought
4. What Am I?
5. Where Am I?
6. Intuition Reconnected
7. The Big Picture
8. Psychic Surprise
9. Abnormal Life

Reality Check progress

Still typing like mad. I’ve increased the estimated word-count from 40,000 to 50,000. I thought I would share with you the titles (subject to change) of the chapters written thus far:

1. Shake Your Foundations
2. Religion Unmasked
3. Independent Thinking
4. The Nature of Consciousness
5. The Nature of the Universe
6. Intuition Reconnected
7. The Big Picture

And I’m currently in the middle of writing:

8. The Surprise of Psi