Midweek Mashup: A Little Help, A New Look, A Big Sneeze, Battle Casualties, and a Vision of Hell on Earth
By Dan Olmsted
Hey everybody – tell your psychiatrist to call me --I need help in a hurry. Well sort of – I’m renewing my request for a member in good standing of the American Psychiatric Association to request some material for me from the APA library. The library is perfectly happy for me to go that route – they just need a member request. Email: [email protected].
Another request – I’d like to speak to someone who knows enough chemistry to talk me through arsenic and its variations in a fairly detailed way. Again, please email me.
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How are you liking our redesign? I like the overall look and feel a lot, but there are tweaks to come, and we want everyone’s viewpoint as we go about it. For reference sake (and because I’m kind of proud of it!) here is my original sketch for the new look that we adopted last week.
As you can see, I have no one to blame but myself, as what we ended up with is a pretty faithful rendering. But there is something a little “loose,” at least to my eye, about the way it looks on the actual screen.” It’s not quite as elegant as I’d like it to be. Is the type too big? The logo too small? Should we move up the comments on the right and move down the search function? In all of this the goal is to create a clear and calm – and intelligent, and irreverent, and funny, and moving, and all that -- corner of the world for like-minded people to hang out (and for the rest of the world to slowly be convinced we are right…).
Just don’t suggest messing with the red i, as in iconoclast.
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Do you know that feeling when a cold is coming on but hasn't quite arrived? A certain scratchiness in the back of the throat, that first sneeze that kind of hurts your ears – not your normal idle sneeze sneeze – followed by the desire to watch Law and Order SVU reruns and rustle around for that last can of chicken soup in the pantry? I have perfected a version of this early warning system when it comes to articles that are heading in the direction of mentioning vaccines and autism as a crazy conspiracy theory. I can feel it coming on well before it arrives.
Usually they start with a mention of our susceptibility to Internet nonsense – Ahhhhhh --- and then talk about global warming deniers – Ahhhhhhhhhhh – and then come right out and tell me what an idiot I am for thinking there is a connection between vaccines and autism – CHOOOOOOO!
Here is the latest rhinovirus: I subscribed to The Week recently, a small newsmagazine that I hoped would serve up information without too much spin, spice and slant added. And generally, it delivers. But the editor’s letter this week began this way: “We’ve been a paranoid country from pretty much the beginning.” …. Ahhhhhhhhh …. “Long before the 9/11 truthers and the Obama birthers” …. Ahhhhhhhh …. “the black helicopter and the grassy knoll” --- AHHHHHHHH – “conspiracy theories were woven into our political fabric.”
By now I’m anticipating the sneeze, aren’t you? It comes at the end of the paragraph. “People who scoff at the notion that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim may believe that vaccines cause autism – or that the government is hiding evidence of alien visitations to Earth.”
CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
Why oh why must publications I pay good money for put me in between Obama-is-a-Muslim and space aliens have landed? Why must they make my throat tickle, my ears hurt – why must they make me sneeze uncontrollably? Why?
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Speaking of press coverage, I hate hearing how our veterans deserve so much better – which they do – when the handfuls of bad drugs the government has given them are never, ever mentioned as a reason they are so bad off.
This especially goes for Lariam, or mefloquine, which I’ve written about many times and will only mention here as a case in point. It is known to trigger suicide; that risk is known to last forever; tens of thousands of U.S. troops were ordered to take it in Iraq (briefly) and Afghanistan (for many years); now the military has backed off using it; and there is no question that there is a fearsomely high suicide rate among veterans.
Is the logic so hard to follow here? An urgent effort to stop suicides by veterans needs to look at mefloquine and other drugs soldiers were given. And it needs to do what are called forensic case histories to try to understand the role they’ve played in the thousands of deaths that have already occurred – deaths that deserve to be compensated as service-related injuries.
A decent government would have put that issue squarely on the table by now, if for no other reason than an aggressive press would have forced them to. There have been plenty of suicides directly due to Lariam, and there will be many more, in large measure because those with the responsibility – and in some cases, the culpability – would rather talk about warm hugs and faster wait times. Yes, by all means, hug more and work faster, but don’t forgot we gave these folks a drug that causes suicide and now they are killing themselves!
At least we’re a bit ahead of Canada and Britain. Thestar.com reported this week:
“A controversial drug that has been given to thousands of Canadian soldiers and is still in use in the military was deemed too risky for British troops in a landmark report released Tuesday
.
“The report by MPs on the U.K. parliamentary defence committee recommended that the British military use the anti-malaria drug mefloquine only as a drug of last resort, due to the risk of severe psychological side effects.”
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Laura Hayes offered her take on Memorial Day this year. I admire her moral clarity a great deal:
Those of us who are parents of vaccine-injured and vaccine-killed children often reflect not only on those who have fallen in the line of duty on Memorial Day, but also how our children have fallen at the hands of our very own government and medical community. Memorial Day often causes us to reflect on all that our children, and families, have lost, due to vaccinations, vaccine propaganda, vaccine mandates, and non-stop vaccine lies that taunt and offend us every single day, be it on TV, at the grocery store, on billboards, in magazines, in hospitals, or at doctors' offices.
The vaccine propaganda which has overtaken our country cannot be escaped, and causes daily hurtful reminders of what was done to our children, and what continues to be done to children, despite mountains of evidence that vaccination is a barbaric, dangerous, completely unnecessary, and potentially-fatal procedure. It is not health-inducing in any way, shape, or form.
This week John Stone passed around a story that he properly called “terrifying” – an adult in Australia who suffered a ghastly vaccine reaction and is trapped in a nonfunctional body and mind, surrounded by his devastated family in the middle of nowhere. The temperature often hits 115 degrees.
It is about as complete a vision of hell on earth as I can imagine, and – precisely because it has nothing to do with children, nothing to do with the United States – it is a stark reminder to me how very serious, how personal, how irrevocable vaccine decisions are, and how the only people with the right to make them are the ones who receive them. Nobody should have the power to ruin your life simply because they think it will make someone else’s better.
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Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.
About the new look...
White background is a too-bright white.
The font is too large, and the black is too black. A deep charcoal would be nice.
These subtle changes would be easier on the eyes than the sharp contrast you have now.
Content is always fab.
Posted by: Michelle B | June 08, 2016 at 10:38 PM
It's missing half my comment--
You could frame the content in poop and I would still love the content. Cheers to AOA
Posted by: Maurine Meleck | June 03, 2016 at 10:36 AM
Dan-I'm 2 days late and thousands of dollars short, but the AOA site for me is all about content and not glitter.
Posted by: Maurine Meleck | June 03, 2016 at 10:33 AM
Although the overall look is cleaner, the red bullet points come off as misshapen puzzle pieces or drops of blood or maybe medieval flourishes. The red "i" makes the word look like Aut ism. There's probably a graphic designer in the autism community who would help you for free. Then you could focus on actual autism news like the AutismOne conference. Why would you deny your readers news of a large conference that informs parents about vaccine risks and treatments for suffering children?
Posted by: Priorities | June 02, 2016 at 11:05 PM
The new site looks great.
Perhaps on the right side below “Books” there could be a header “In the News” which would provide links to various current articles and videos. Perhaps they could be sorted by topic or state.
Perhaps post a list of 8 to 10 "must see classics"
Thanks to all of you at AoA !
Posted by: go Trump | June 01, 2016 at 10:59 PM
Another thing about the website. For some reason Explorer does not load AoA properly. Firefox is fine.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | June 01, 2016 at 09:50 PM
As to ghastly vaccine reactions, there is an e-book titled "Malcolm is a Little Unwell" by Malcolm Brabant. It's a description of how Brabant a well-known BBC correspondent becomes schizophrenic after a yellow fever shot.
About the new website, it's just fine with me, although I would like the commenters' column to be in black and not gray. My eyes like contrast.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | June 01, 2016 at 06:52 PM
"Nobody should have the power to ruin your life simply because they think it will make someone else’s better. " I think you just found the recipe for world peace right there!
As far as format, I think it would look really nice if you moved the right hand column/info (and possibly reduced font size) a bit further to the right - possibly line it up with what you have on the right in the banner (Editor, etc), and maybe used a gray vertical line to separate right column from body of page. As it is now, with my autism-parent ADD and related head injuries (!), my eye wants to drift to the right column while I am reading the main articles. So a little more space and possibly a dividing line might help. Just a thought!
Posted by: Donna L. | June 01, 2016 at 05:08 PM
Parents who question vaccination have been too influenced by crazy conspiracy theories like the one propagated by such doctors as retired pathologist, Dr. Lee, and the research team of Chris Shaw who say that aluminum in vaccines is picked up by macrophages and can travel into the brain via the lymphatic system. These researchers also have the audacity to question Merck's intentions when Merck claimed that no viral DNA was present in its HPV vaccine. Dr. Lee says that he actually found the DNA. Chris Shaw and his researchers have claimed that it's possible for viral proteins to mimic human proteins, and this can lead to the body rejecting its own proteins. If you believe these conspiracies you have to believe that very small amounts of aluminum, like nano-particles, can actually have an impact on the brain at a cellular level because aluminum has a plus 3 charge and the brain generally operates either with plus 2 charges or negative charges. So, basically tiny amounts of toxic aluminum can steal electrons from calcium and magnesium disrupting the Krebs cycle, tiny bits of aluminum can make the cellular membrane that consists of phospholipids stiff and consequently disrupt RNA transcription and that whole conspiracy theory of epic genetics. Seriously.... everyone knows that aluminum in vaccines exits the body immediately through the urine. Where else are you going to test for aluminum but in the blood....duh! It could never get into the organs, or into the brain, or disrupt the Krebs cycle, or stiffen the cellular membrane, or cause mitochondria disease, or brain inflammation, or inflammatory reactions so severe it could lead to deaths in young people, seriously.... It's time to drag out the form article that always works, you know the one where all the media has to do is put a new date on top and then blame the parents one more time, call them stupid one more time, threaten to jail them, yawn... How many more times will that same repeated article and set of accusations work before people start believing that stuff about aluminum in vaccines being neurotoxic. Is it almost time to try something new?
Posted by: kapoore | June 01, 2016 at 04:26 PM
Rachel,
Kelly Brogan is a real psychiatrist. The MD after her name makes her a real medical doctor.
Just because you don't like how she practices medicine or what her opinions are doesn't make her any less of a real psychiatrist.
Posted by: Andrea | June 01, 2016 at 01:24 PM
linda, i'll ask adriana! dan
Posted by: Dan Olmsted | June 01, 2016 at 01:04 PM
Dan,
I think the new format is a little plain. It is easy to read, but to me, it is not as visually compelling/interesting as the old format. The old format looked like a newspaper and I liked the "perch" page. I would ask the opinion of your resident brilliant artist Adriana what she thinks. The looseness that you describe may be a need for some graphic and linear interest to hold the design together and fill it out.
I'm glad that you didn't make the background red or yellow or something that I couldn't read :o).
Bear (or is it bare?) in mind that I don't like change, at least not this kind, so take what I say with a giant grain. It doesn't matter what it looks like (barring illegible font or jarring color), you won't get rid of me (sorry :o), but I don't know if newcomers will be compelled to stay with it as is. Would be good if others would weigh in.
It could be too that I am usually not attracted to black and white. You know those vintage looking black and white checked floors? Absolutely hate those. Maybe the black and white here is a little like that. But black and white checked floors are very popular, so maybe don't listen to me :o). Ask Adriana.
Posted by: Linda1 | June 01, 2016 at 12:31 PM
thank you jeannette, you're a visual observer after my own heart. we'll take these into account as we refine our site -- dan
Posted by: Dan Olmsted | June 01, 2016 at 12:27 PM
Hi Dan...I second the notion to contact Kelly Brogan, MD
Also..nice new look but the main body is unusually left of center for me...just a suggestion
Posted by: Stand Up! | June 01, 2016 at 12:20 PM
ha ha rachel. you are cracking me up, dear lady, so i guess i do need a real psychiatrist! -- dan
Posted by: Dan Olmsted | June 01, 2016 at 12:17 PM
OK, I'll pretend I have web designing/graphic arts skills--mostly I'm just hyper-sensitive to whatever stands out (for me), so if I change something I usually then want to change something else, pretty much ad infinitum... (this is my don't aim to please me disclaimer) ...
but I'll make a list of what stands out for me (subtly) in case it's helpful:
(the red "i" stands out, in a good way, so it's not on my list, except in a way)
- the ad banner -- maybe if the font were not a new color (like red or black instead--though maybe this is a setting on my computer?) or maybe it just needs to be spaced a little further down from the blog title
- Google -- Google doesn't happen to provide a black and white logo version possibly? and I don't know if you can change the selection dot highlight color (I see blue) for the "WWW" and "ageofautism.com" google search choices (apologies again if this is something set on my PC). I learned something to the effect that it's not possible (or very difficult) for the eyes to focus on blue and red simultaneously (demonstrated pretty effectively by setting red text with blue background or vice versa in a word processor), so it might be more visually effortless to keep blue away from the red dots?
- for the right hand column, I'm wondering if it will look cleaner if everything under each heading lines up under the heading texts rather than under the red "i" dots and for some reason I want a tiny bit more space after the "i" dots (maybe I just want a rounder looking dot?)
- under "Donate" for some reason I want a tiny bit more spacing between the black text and the gray donation choices
- The sponsors logos, under "Support Our Sponsors," could be wider
- The red dots...look enough like a geographical entity that I can't help spending some time wondering if they remind me of China or maybe Australia (if south is up) or some other place, so I'm wondering if a different type-faded version could be less distracting (though I appreciate that it's probably a feat that you've avoided the-man-in-the-moon effect, and I'm not seeing a distorted face instead).
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | June 01, 2016 at 11:53 AM
I suspect he wants a real psychiatrist.
Posted by: Rachel | June 01, 2016 at 11:44 AM
Dan have you thought of reaching out to Kelly Brogan? She is a holistic psychiatric.
Posted by: Andrea | June 01, 2016 at 09:05 AM
Hi Dan - I LOVE the new look (to be honest I often lamented over the old one) - the font is the right type, size and color - all is well. And thank you for linking to the story of the family in Kalgoorlie - Ben's body and mind are not completely non-functional, but he has ADEM and is certainly not well and is declining, and the family do desperately need to get out of there, mainly so he can get better treatment.
Posted by: CC | June 01, 2016 at 07:28 AM
Dan .. I prefer you keep the size of print (font) as presently set .. any smaller and my old, tired eyes will have a hard time reading it. Perhaps .. after five days .. columns can be reduced to just the title .. so we don't have to scroll pages and pages of often lengthy columns seeking the column that we wish to comment on?
Dan .. you wrote: "Speaking of press coverage, I hate hearing how our veterans deserve so much better – which they do – when the handfuls of bad drugs the government has given them are never, ever mentioned as a reason they are so bad off."
As I understand it .. 22 active and retired military veterans commit suicide EVERDAY in the United States. Think about that for a moment .. 22 SUICIDES A DAY!
The ONLY thing our veterans are being treated with today .. that treatment and care of ALL previous generations of veterans were not subjected to .. ARE THE NUMEROUS DRUGS BEING PRESCRIBED FOR "MENTAL" ISSUES .. THE VERY SAME MENTAL ISSUES ALL PREVIOUS GENERATIONS OF VETERANS SUFFERED FROM .. BUT .. DID NOT COMMIT SUICIDE ANYWHERE THE NUMBERS OF THOSE VETERANS OF TODAY. Yeah .. I know .. correlation does not mean causation .. so .. let the carnage continue?
There is no doubt many of these drugs allow people to lead normal lives .. and .. without these drugs millions of people would suffer greatly. Ergo .. there will ALWAYS be a need for these types of mind altering drugs.
Unfortunately .. just like there will ALWAYS be a need for "air bags" in auto's .. we cannot allow the ongoing recalls of millions of autos due to air bags exploding into the faces of victims to stop us from seeking to ELIMINATE the dangers of defective air bags when evidence shows how dangerous they have become.
There HAS to be a way for doctors to prescribe these types of drugs .. which will ELIMINATE or at the very least REDUCE .. the numbers of patients who commit suicide after being prescribed them.
Just putting a "warning label" to call your doctor if the drug induces thoughts of suicide or homicide would not suffice if the same standard was applied to warn car owners to call their mechanic if their air bags exploded causing loss of life or limb.
Let me make it perfectly clear .. there should be NO DOUBT that repeated "concussions" during a player's career play a major role in their deteriorating mental health AFTER their playing days are over .. but .. I think they should also include the use of mental prescription drugs given to players and former players in the NFL .. as a possible contributing factor .. when considering why so many football players are committing suicide after their playing days are over.
Posted by: bob moffit | June 01, 2016 at 07:19 AM