Final Day: A Unitary Autumn Fundraiser 2016

Final update: Wednesday’s locations have been added to the bottom of this post.

This was the “sticky” autumn fundraiser post. It was originally published on November 17 and was on top for a week.

Scroll down to see items that have been posted since this post went up. So far today it’s been Geert Wilders’ magnificent final statement in his trial. I hope that one goes viral.

Also, Bazzam came back this evening, but this time he spelled his name “Bassam”. Y’all may want to have discussions with him in the comments, but please be civil. He says he’s not a troll.

Tuesday’s update

(Last update before bedtime — the list of Tuesday’s locations is now at the bottom of this post.)

I’m posting tonight’s update a little early in order to share the words of a commenter named Bazzam, who said:

Sounds all bull to get more tips in the jar.

We all have health issues. You use it to milk your readers.

Ducks an hens

If you’re interested, Dymphna’s response is here.

Dymphna and I want to take a quick poll: Do you think we’re using her health issues to milk our readers? Please let us know. And don’t hesitate to give us your unvarnished opinion — we’re grownups; we can take it.

Also: does anyone know what “Ducks an hens” means? It looks like Cockney or Strine rhyming slang to me. Remember: if it’s slang for something obscene, don’t give us the exact meaning — be creative in your euphemism.

Also: Many thanks to WRSA for sending readers over here. Welcome, firearms enthusiasts!

There will be another update after midnight.

Tuesday’s update from Dymphna

The Baron neglected to tell you the story of that picture. It’s our driveway, about a third of a mile from there to the state road. It was originally a horse-and-cart or mule-and-cart road leading up from the creek, which is another half-mile in the other direction. That part of the road (behind our house. This photo shows where it resumes in front of us) is overgrown now. But they both have existed since at least the end of the Civil War, when freed blacks had a small gathering of houses around the creek. As people prospered and moved on, the cabins they left behind gradually returned to the soil. You can see shallow, hand-dug wells here and there in the woods which grew up to cover the remains.

During the winter the Baron gets his exercise by keeping the road in repair. He hauls wheelbarrow loads of gravel to the potholes left by the UPS truck and other heavy vehicles; or he digs out the drains he set up in the low places many years ago. Those channels allow water to escape down into the draw where the clearance for the electric line was made. The driveway looks like a dirt track but that path is Virginia clay underneath with decades of slate gravel laid over it. In various places on the road you can see large river rocks: someone from generations ago hauled the smoothed stones here to this plateau, coming up from the river a few miles away and steeply downhill from here.

That road is the place where I walk when I can. One year a red-tailed hawk used to fly ahead of me whenever I ventured out. Maybe he thought I could lead him to some voles or rabbits?

There is a stand of wood pears on the right, just past that bend. It didn’t fruit this year (an inopportune frost killed the peaches and the Bartletts, too), but when it does bear we are blessed with lots of spherical-shaped, medium-size “pears” – a bit gritty but with a wonderful flavor. I wonder if they’re Asian pears that escaped cultivation? Unlike real pears, you don’t pick them early and let them ripen in the house. Instead, they hang on the tree and fall when almost fully ripe, usually in late October. If you’re made of stern stuff and can hold off eating them, let them ripen in the refrigerator until they’re a deep golden color. Nectar on a stem!


Box turtle eating a wood pear

I love that road. Walking its length I contemplate those who came before, their immense (to me) labors in hauling river rock up here to fill some large declivities near where another path (now disused and barely discernable unless it snows) used to branch off. We are but two people in a long line of human beings who have walked here – and will continue to do so when we’re gone. I hope they tend it as carefully as the Baron has.

— D

NOTE:

We are nearing the end of the autumn fundraiser. This post has been “sticky” since last Thursday. Scroll down to see items that have been put up since then.

Tip jarLate this afternoon and this evening I neglected the work I really should have been doing while I read Trump-related news and watched Trump-related videos. I have to keep pinching myself — how could this stuff actually be happening?

Tonight Donald Trump told the elite effete nattering nabobs of the bicoastal MSM to f*** off and die!

This kind of news is not good for people of my advanced age. It’s too exciting — I might bust a gall bladder or something while reading it.

Mr. Trump has taken hold of the political establishment and is shaking it until its back teeth rattle.

I love it.

Concerning Dymphna’s condition since her fall a week ago: she woke up feeling much better this morning, and had a good day today (yesterday, really — Monday). The pain under her ribs is much reduced. She decided not to go to the doctor, but to have a phone consultation instead. She’ll let you know more about that later.

Yesterday’s donor locations have been appended to the bottom of this post. We got a gift from someone in Western Australia for the first time since I wrote my new software.

The response of our readers has been very encouraging. Many thanks to everyone who made the tip cup clink!

Monday’s update

Dymphna’s pains from her fall have been migrating in a disconcerting fashion. She says that the most painful area, which was originally associated with the place where her ribs impacted with the floor, has moved around several times, and has finally settled in its current spot, under her ribs in the upper right quadrant of her abdomen. The only way she can get comfortable is to lie down with a heating pad on that spot. Then she says she feels OK.

I’ll be taking her back to the doctor tomorrow, if she can get an appointment. She doesn’t want an X-ray, but she says she needs medical advice.

The fundraiser is still ticking along at a gratifying rate. Many thanks to all of you generous folks out there. I believe yesterday was the first time we’ve ever had a donor from Lithuania — scroll down to the bottom of this post for the full list of donor locations.

Sunday’s Update

A brief word about Melania Trump — I can’t remember whether there was an item in the news feed about it, but as you all know, one or more famous Paris couturiers have refused to design any clothes for First-Lady-in-waiting Melania Trump. They are calling for a boycott of Mrs. Trump by their fellow couturiers.

I think it’s safe to say that most American men would support this action. They’re willing to accept that Mrs. Trump may have to go unclothed for the sake of social justice.

Thank you all for your continuing support! The response to our drive for donations has been phenomenal, especially considering that we haven’t been able to do a full essay for each day of the fundraiser.

Dymphna is recovering from her recent misfortunes, but some of the painful areas seem to have become discontented with their surroundings and migrated to new locations. So she’s still hurting…

The breakdown of locations (for donors, not Dymphna’s pains) is at the bottom of this post. My newly-written software was able to recognize Newfoundland and add it to the list of donor locations coming from the Frozen North.

Also: I’m not sure, but I think this may be the first time we’ve ever had a gift from Singapore.

Saturday’s update

Dymphna is still on the mend. She says she appreciates all the prayers and good wishes that readers have been sending her ways.

As we move into Day Three, the fundraising is going well. A lot of our “old regulars” have showed up, and we really appreciate the repeated generosity.

The stats for the geography of yesterday’s donors are down at the bottom of this post. My new software was able to pull out the names of British Columbia and Australian Capital Territory (i.e. the Canberra area) for the first time. So far, so good!

A note on this morning’s photo: It was taken on the front portico of Schloss Bodissey about eleven years ago. The dogwood you saw in Thursday’s photo is just barely occluded by the pillar in this one.

Friday’s update

Dymphna is recovering well from her little escapade at the doctor’s office on Tuesday. Thanks to everyone who sent their regards or inquired about her. The purple color in her great toe has mow leaked into her lower foot — it seems that the byproducts of the breakdown of red blood cells must have diffused through the lymph under her skin and worked their way up her foot. It looks grim, but it doesn’t hurt.

Thank you also for the response during the first day of our fundraiser. The details about the places our donors came from are posted at the bottom of this post. The new software that keeps track of the Canadian provinces and Australian states is working as intended, although I had to tweak it a little today as soon as I started to deal with real data.

It never fails to amaze me how many people are willing to dig into their pockets and chip in a little bit to keep this site going. An additional thank you to those who wrote us; I’m trying to reply to everyone. And thank-you notes for the donations have already started to go out.

This fall’s fundraiser is a departure from our usual practice, for reasons I’ll explain below.

Instead of posting a different essay every day for a week, this will be the only post of the fundraiser. It will remain “sticky”, staying at the top for the week, with newer posts accumulating below it. Every day I’ll do a little update to it, and Dymphna may chime in here and there, if she’s up to it. And I’ll change the photo at the top when I can — I have a few more nice ones with the appropriate autumnal atmosphere.

Normally we start on a Monday and run the bleg every day until the following Sunday. However, this fundraiser has already been postponed twice — first because of the election, and then again this past Monday because of Dymphna’s latest travails. We can’t put it off any longer, so I’m starting it on a Thursday in order to finish before Thanksgiving (just barely).

For new readers who have never seen one of these before: Every quarter Dymphna and I run a weeklong blitz asking people who value this site to clink the tip cup on our sidebar (not the jar to the right; that’s just for decoration) and make a modest donation to help keep the blog going. This is what we’ve been doing for the last six or seven years, and we’ve been able to make it work so far.

It’s always surprising and gratifying to see gifts coming in from all over the world. So many Canadians, Australians and Brits every quarter! But also a lot from the USA, even though Gates of Vienna posts more on European topics than the events on this side of the Atlantic…

The dreadful presidential election* did get quite a bit of coverage here in the last few weeks, however. How could we not write about it? So many amazing and appalling stories in the news, virtually every day! And it’s not over yet — the culture wars will continue and probably intensify, especially if the Soros-funded street thugs of the “Purple Revolution” continue their safety-pin rampages in major cities across the country.

[* This is a reference to a joke I picked up over at Western Rifle Shooters and told at church the Sunday before the election: “When this dreadful election is finally over, I hope we can still be friends, even if we are in different internment camps.”]

And now to explain why we had to go to a single-post fundraiser this quarter…

As regular readers know, Dymphna suffers from fibromyalgia. The fundamental cause of the disease — dare I say the “root cause”? — is Developmental Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, brought on by events in her early childhood, during the preverbal stage. Her PTSD causes various other ailments, which have gotten worse as she has grown older, among them digestive problems, fatigue, allergies, migraine headaches, etc.

Last weekend she developed severe stomach pain, which was bad enough. But she also experienced chest pain — not severe, but enough to cause us both to be concerned. We knew she would have to go to the doctor, so we postponed the fundraiser again. On Monday she made an appointment to see the nurse practitioner at our family practice clinic the following afternoon.

By the time we got to the doctor’s office, the worst of the symptoms had abated. The nurse practitioner checked her out, taking her vital signs and listening to her auricles and ventricles and all that other cardio-related stuff. She said everything appeared to be OK, and the chest pain had most likely been a referred pain from the flare-up in her digestive system.

Dymphna had been sitting on the examining table throughout, and when the examination ended, she made a move to step down from the platform without remembering to first put on her shoes with the good rubber soles. She was wearing slippery socks, lost her footing, and took a most alarming plunge onto the floor. She landed hard, with her ribs and one elbow taking the brunt of the impact.

Well, if you’re going to fall down, you might as well do it at the doctor’s office, right?

The nurse practitioner checked her out carefully, determined that nothing was broken, and gave her some detailed recommendations for the use of a heating pad and Aspercreme (but not simultaneously at the same spot). She woke up the next morning with a lot of pain and stiffness, but she could get around all right.

It wasn’t like Dymphna and the Ladder of Doom this time. Nor the hose of doom (which was two years later). No torn meniscus this time, no dislocated shoulder. But she’s still hurting badly from the damage. One big toe is a most entertaining purple color from getting jammed during the fall.

All of the above is why we decided to go over to a single sticky post for the week of the fundraiser. Given her condition, there’s just no way for Dymphna to be sure that she could buckle down and write her share of the posts. Fundraising week is a grueling process. By doing it this way, we’ll make it easier on her.

Our theme for the week was supposed to be “Favorites”, but we’ll postpone that until the next fundraiser, when we hope to be able to write our usual alternating essays on the theme. Mind you, that red dogwood at the top of this post is one of my favorites. I painted that tree a few times when it was red, and this is the best photo of it.

Before I wrap this up, I’d like to mention the amazing work being done by our translation team. Vlad and I now regularly work with a dozen or so translators. They give us reliable coverage of news and videos in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Italian, French, Dutch, German, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian, and Hebrew. There are also ten to twenty translators who are available part-time.

CrossWare joined the team a few months ago and has been instrumental in allowing us to cover Hungarian news in depth. We are very fortunate to have her help subtitling the speeches of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is at the epicenter of the Central European resistance to EU immigration policy. We owe a great debt of gratitude to CrossWare.

Two workhorses who have been around for a while and need to be thanked are Ava Lon (Polish, German, and French), and Nash Montana (German and Switzerdeutsch). Tania G covers all three Scandinavian languages. And H. Numan has been a stalwart for Dutch for more than nine years.

Other recent additions to the team are Tanya T (Bulgarian), Xanthippa (Czech and Slovak), Dr. Van Helsing (Dutch), FouseSquawk (Italian), Silentium Voces (German), and Raduit (Czech). Oz-Rita has been doing German and French for years. Margita does Czech from time to time, Fausta helps us out with Spanish on occasion, and Nathalie does lengthy French translations. Green Infidel has been doing Polish for a number of years. When we need Finnish (Vlad calls it “Klingon”), KGS is on call. D@rLin|{ is almost always available to do Hebrew and Russian. Dzsihádfigyelo is able to help out with Hungarian on occasion. And Stefan cel Mare translates Romanian for us.

I know I must be leaving other translators out; there are so many of them. If I left your name out, please let me know, and I’ll add you to the list when I do updates.

Update: Can you believe it? I woke up this morning and realized I left out Rembrandt Clancy and JLH, our two high-volume German translators. Rembrandt Clancy not only does complex translations of academic German, he also times and subtitles the videos himself. Both of them add immense value to this blog.

As always, Vlad Tepes will receive a tenth of what comes in during the fundraiser, because his work is invaluable to this blog. Without his copious video work, our reach and impact would be greatly reduced. If you want to give to him directly, he’s got a donate button on his site.

I’ll update this post every day for the next week to put in the states, provinces, and countries where donors live. This will be the first production run for breaking out Canada into provinces and Australia into states — I hope the new software works as intended…

Locations for Day One of the Autumn Fundraiser:

Stateside: California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia

Far Abroad: Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, and the UK

Canada: Ontario and Saskatchewan

Australia: New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria

Locations for Day Two of the Autumn Fundraiser:

Stateside: Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee

Far Abroad: Sweden, Thailand, and the UK

Canada: British Columbia and Ontario

Australia: Australian Capital Territory and Queensland

Locations for Day Three of the Autumn Fundraiser:

Stateside: California, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Tennessee

Far Abroad: Croatia, Singapore, and the UK

Canada: Newfoundland

Australia: Queensland

Locations for Day Four of the Autumn Fundraiser:

Stateside: Colorado, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming

Near Abroad: Mexico

Far Abroad: India, Lithuania, New Zealand, and the UK

Australia: Victoria

Locations for Day Five of the Autumn Fundraiser:

Stateside: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, and Texas

Far Abroad: New Zealand, Norway, and Slovenia

Canada: Nova Scotia and Ontario

Australia: Western Australia

Locations for Day Six of the Autumn Fundraiser:

Stateside: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington

Far Abroad: Thailand and the UK

Canada: British Columbia and New Brunswick

Australia: Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales

Locations for Day Seven of the Autumn Fundraiser:

Stateside: Alabama, California, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia, and Washington

Far Abroad: The UK

Canada: Alberta and Ontario

The tip jar in the text above is just for decoration. To donate, click the tin cup (or the donate button) on the sidebar of our main page. If you prefer a monthly subscription, click the “subscribe” button.

143 thoughts on “Final Day: A Unitary Autumn Fundraiser 2016

  1. Sorry to hear of Dymphna’s troubles. My sister suffers from the same problem and it is most unpleasant.

    • Unpleasnt? Yep. But it keeps spoiling any plans I make. Besides bringing a fist down onto my plans for having a life.

      I’ll bet your sister gets the same thing I do – or used to – which is, “But you look fine. This is all in your head. All you need to do is__________” (insert the speaker’s firm solution to her situation, be it diet, exercise, mental attitude, etc. )

      75% of people with FM are women. But there are some men.

      I used to correspond with a fellow whose high-security job in a large city required him to be armed. He went on medical leave when he grew too weak to hold the weapon up with one hand, unaided. He remembered his mother being bed-ridden with it. He and his wife had totally rehabbed their house when he came down with the first symptoms.

      Another fellow was a jet pilot. Another a basketball coach. Realization dawned slowly for both. The average person goes through 13+ docs looking for a solution until some medico finally maps them. Here’s a wiki with a map of pain:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia

      Not everyone has all of them and some people have ‘pressure points’ that differ from the map. I think guys probably differ more.

      It’s darn hard to give up your dreams…or, as someone else said, to lower your expectations.

      • Sorry to hear about your health troubles Dymphna. Fibromyalgia symptoms overlap very suspiciously with the symptoms of Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Syndrome and given that the rise of fibromyalgia diagnosis has coincided with the overuse of this class of antibiotics there are many who believe that one of the root causes of fibromyalgia is a reaction to one or more prescriptions of Cipro, Levaquin , Avelox etc. The problem is that unlike a classic anaphylaxis allergy , reactions to this class of antibiotics can be delayed by weeks , months or even years. The connection is never made back to the drug neither by the patient or the physician until sometimes on being repoisoned an immediate overwhelming reaction occurs. Only then people realise they have been “floxed”. This has happened to me and I have pain in all those spots marked on the link you have given. Because these drugs cause cartilage degeneration joint and tendon problems usually occur and degeneration of rib cartilage can be particularly painful and give rise to pain in the sternum area that can be similar to heart pain. Women are often floxed as Cipro has been the “go to ” abx for UTIs for years.
        The FDA has recently put out a warning to doctors that this class of antibiotics should not be given for minor infections anymore such as uncomplicated UTI , bronchitis or sinusitis as the risk is more than the benefit. It is believed by many that fluoroquinolones are behind Gulf War Syndrome and the real scandal is that this was well documented in the postal workers case. In 2001 the postal workers were given Cipro as a preventative against anthrax and many reported having developed these symptoms . Even though the root cause of your fibromyalgia may not have anything to do with fluoroquinolones exposure to them would certainly make it worse. Hope you are feeling better soon. Having to curtail what you want to do because of inability to do it is a frustration I am familiar with! I find supplementing with probiotics, magnesium, mitochondrial supports like Ubiquinol, and turmeric has helped my symptoms and at the moment I ‘m contemplating splashing out on a PEMF mat.

        • http://rxisk.org/flox-tox/

          Your fascinating history sent me on a search for other ‘floxed’ stories. That link is to an image of Saint Sebastian – the famous painting of a Christian martyr being used for target practice…in this case, each arrow is labeled with a side-effect of Cipro (and the other antibiotics in the same class).

          In developmental PTSD the major organ systems throughout the body are affected. Given the myriad symptoms following on a rupture in the mindbody connection, it is certain that someone with dPTSD is going to encounter Cipro repeatedly. In my case, it was prescribed along with metronidazole to treat diverticulitis whenever it occurred [I *think* I’ve learned to prevent it]. Docs would prefer to use penicillin but it causes anaphylactic shock. To add insult to injury, I was also given it to cure a (duodenal) helicobacter pylori ulcer. Worked very well!

          So, yeah, I’d agree I’ve been floxed and then some. Allopathic medicine has some structural flaws.

          Thanks for bringing this to my attention. It will be profoundly helpful ongoing. In gratitude, I give you a joke I found buried in a comment on an essay re the issue of neurophysiology:

          The medical establishment is a business with the best Public Relations game in history. Any idea or ethos that cuts into the business of medicine profit margins will not be practiced to beneficial fruition. A doctor, a pharmacist, a patient and a salesman walk into a bar….everyone leaves with drugs. Holistic medicine is relegated to “spooky action at a distance”.

          And a prediction: the connection between the body and physics will be fruitful in the coming decades.

          Now, off to line up my various magnesiums (malate, threonate, etc.) Vitamin Cs, and other potentials for pushing back on the sequelae of cipro-poisoning.

          • Snap! My latest floxing was for diverticulitis alongside Flagyl. After just over 48 hours of iv treatment I started to feel really ill with chest pain and pins and needles down both arms. The gastro consultant sent for the cardiologist and the ECG machine . They said all was ok but mysteriously the Cipro bag disappeared from the drip stand. At the time I did not really pay much attention. After discharge I had a bad attack of tachycardia which I thought was due to the oral Flagyl they gave after the drip was discontinued. The consultant did not inform me that I probably had a bad reaction to Cipro and I should not take it again nor did she inform my GP. Several months later he prescribed Cipro for a suspected UTI. Luckily I took only one pill and started feeling odd so I looked it up online. Horror! I thought I had got away with it apart from some twinges in my right Achilles tendon ( just like I’d had in the hospital but who associates that with an antibiotic?!) but one week later was rushed to hospital in an ambulance with a heartrate of 160. They said I’d gone into atrial fibrillation. I since found out that the ECG done when on the drip was not normal.
            I have recently started on magnesium threonate. I think it is helping – jolly well should it costs enough! I find the probiotics and aloe vera juice have helped keep the dreaded divvi at bay plus eating very little meat and avoiding seedy stuff. My attack came after a motor bike accident when I had to take large amounts of painkillers for a fortnight for bruised ribs. But
            it was also fig season.
            Great joke.
            Oh and what that person said about milking health issues was a disgrace. You must have to put in a huge amount of work to keep this site going and that is’nt easy when struggling with a chronic illness. People who don’t have fibromyalgia have no idea of the daily pain and fatigue especially as on the outside we often look ok .

      • Dymphna, I spoke to my sister a couple of days ago. She has returned to the hospital for a series of injections which they hope will arrest her deteriorating condition. She is planning to marry her partner of 30 years in December 2017 and is hoping to do so without the aid of a chair.

        She can still walk unaided but it is increasingly difficult for her to do so. I really appreciate what you are going through.

        Bazam’s comments are downright unkind and he/she should be ashamed.

  2. Tip jar tapped. God bless you both for your hard work, and special good wishes for a fast recovery to Dymphna.

  3. Hi Baron,
    Hope Dymphna feels better soon.
    I have made my donation – glad to have the opportunity to support your great site.Happy fundraising .
    kind regards
    Shelagh

  4. Baron and Dymphna,
    You guys are so great! I am aware of Crossware but didn’t know he was a she — terrific! My Hungarian is so poor at this point that I really appreciate her work. Well, my parents died and nobody else spoke Hungarian to me so it faded.

    I will send you a check soon (need to recover from two tuition checks for grandchildren but as soon as the next check drops into my account, I’ll send you something — it is not welfare, it is my pension which I earned) and I don’t understand what parents are like these days — we paid for our kids and now we are paying for our grandkids. Ow! Or should I say ouchie?

    I admire all your people. This is probably the most intelligent site I visit and I thank you for that — also thanks for the European news which is hard to get out here on the prairie. Please tell Dymphna that I hope she feels better soon.

  5. Nurse practitioners have their value, but they are supposed to work under the direction of a doctor. And, if you happen along to one like about three that “saw” me, you’re just wasting time. It’s a good idea to have alternatives in mind, especially if something doesn’t “feel right.” (To which I should add, in my case I think they were just hired and turned loose on an assumption of “Oh, it’s just all standard stuff.”)

    Depending on circumstances, etc., you can get home visits. I looked up the bunch that now comes to see me. They have three offices in Virginia, as near as I can tell the western-most being in Richmond, but I don’t know what might be just state-wide or localized.

    Hope Dymphna feels better soon.

    • Our nurse practitioner is closely supervised by a doctor. Her examination and evaluation of Dymphna’s condition (before and after the fall) were well within her range of competence.

      Dymphna is a “Difficult Patient” (DP). She’s extremely well-informed on medical issues, and keeps doctors and nurses on their toes. She doesn’t hesitate to diagnose incompetence when she encounters it. She gives our nurse practitioner a good rating.

      • I am a DP myself so can sympathise! I also have many symptoms of fibromyalgia but mine have been caused by being poisoned – by Cipro ,an antibiotic of the Fluoroquinolone class which doctors dish out like candy and which has ruined many lives. All the antibiotics of this class can provoke fibro type symptoms . Some people recover. Because the reaction does not always happen while the drug is being ingested but can start weeks or even months after finishing the course many people never make the connection between the antibiotic and their fibromyalgia . Some are “floxed” ( the slang word for Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Syndrome) over and over. As a fibro sufferer Dymphna needs to avoid this class of antibiotics like the plague as they would make her condition a lot worse.

        • In defense of doctors dishing out the antibiotic, I recently had bacterial pneumonia and was literally at death’s door. I have Alpha-1 and a very weak immune system because of this. It was the only antibiotic that worked after having tried three varieties. It’s easy to say when one is feeling well but when one is facing death it’s another perspective and worth the risk to some of us. Also, I wouldn’t be a doctor for anything these days when so many educate themselves online and feel better qualified than the physician. If one is that confident, I would recommend avoiding doctors all together. I have two Christian physicians, one a Catholic who pray for their patients and with the help of God they save many lives. If I have my own ‘supplements’ (which I do!) I tell them what I’m doing and they’re okay with that. I’ve had the fibromyalgia and know how painful it can be. My sympathy, Dymphna! I stopped eating bread and it seems to have disappeared, but it may have been a coincidence. Also, I used aspirin for pain. I take it with lots of water, which helps avoid stomach irritation. God bless you both. You remind me a bit of the Nearings. Do you remember them?

          • The problem is that Cipro and other fluoroquinolones were meant for conditions like yours and other serious infections. They are not suitable medications for first intention use for minor infections where a safer antibiotic should be tried first. They have even been prescribed as a prophylactic for traveller’s diarrhoea! How many people if informed of the possibility of permanent disability would say yes just to get rid of a sinus infection? They are being inappropriately prescribed due to aggressive marketing and laziness on the part of some doctors who cannot be bothered to do the necessary tests to see whether their patients do indeed have a bacterial infection. There are umpteen floxies like myself who were given Cipro for a suspected UTI which turned out not to be present. But the sensible advice to wait for the culture results before filling the script is usually lacking. As for being at death’s door I am not sure I would not prefer to die rather than have another floxing that would probably be more severe and where at my age would be much harder to recover from.

          • Well, the Nearings were a brother and sister who built their own cabin in the wilds of Maine or Vermont. Can’t remember which. They lived very simply and made everything themselves. I doubt they were Christians though. They were probably born early in the 20th cent. and wrote about their experience. I agree that some doctors do overmedicate and over prescribe medicines etc. Some people never question their doctors which is not wise either.

    • Although regulations vary somewhat from state to state, in general, Nurse Practitioners are INDEPENDENT practitioners! They do not need to practice under the supervision of a doctor. Their scope of practice is narrower than a physician’s; but, unless they go beyond it, (Example: prescribing certain pharmaceuticals), they are not mandated to practice under supervision, other than that of the state nursing board in which they practice.

      • Thank you for that enlightening message. Not only were the “three” I referred to all employed by a doctor’s corporation, I was so advised by a friend with some (unrelated) executive experience.

      • Ohio law requires that Nurse Practitioners work under physicians or podiatrists. They are not independent. Level of independence differs by state.

        I hope that after her fall, Dymphna was offered to have x-rays taken of the injured parts. Nurses do not have Superman’s vision. May she have a complete recovery quickly, both for the original symptoms and for the effects of the fall!

        I am in graduate school in Ohio for a master’s in nurse education. My classmates are learning to be NPs.

        • Gee…. I wasn’t all wrong.

          The physicians’ service with the three NP’s and apparently missing oversight is based in (shall we say) “a nearby state.”

          Meanwhile, the one I’m currently using (which I rate as “very good” or even “great”), as near as I can tell is based in Michigan with offices in Ohio and other places.

        • Over here we now have advanced nurse practitioners, who are like ‘super-nurses’ who are ‘the cream of the crop’ who are trained up way beyond what they used to do when they were ‘just’ nurses, and who work at health centres etc. They need a Masters degree to do this type of work, and they get more training, and obviously more experience as they go.

          There is something of a shortage of doctors at the moment, so there are quite a few ANPs working in the system – with backup available from doctors if necessary. So you could phone for an appointment or ask to be seen & you could get an ANP here nowadays. They appear to be pretty good at what they do, so far as I can make out. Personally, I would be happy to be seen by an ANP if I was unwell.

  6. Just made a donation – always glad to do so. This website provides a wealth of information that’s hard to come by from any other single source and I know that you and Dymphna work so hard at it – you deserve all our support.

    I do wish Dymphna a speedy recovery from her fall, and ongoing strength to deal with her health problems.

    Looking forward to seeing “Ontario” on your list of donor locations!

  7. I just sent a contribution. Why is it so valuable to know the details of what’s happening in Europe? Preview of coming attractions with a globalist, socialist, donarist, disconnected and totally-aloof leadership.

    • Maybe we’re more in need of support, Ronald, especially after the US election result?

      Donation sent, and get well soon Dymphna. Now Baron, how about breaking down UK donations by region? We’ve more people than Canada!

      • The UK is very difficult. It’s no longer, Cheshire, Yorks, Hants, etc. There are innumerable regions, and the formatting of addresses in PayPal is not uniform.

        I’ve been watching the addresses come in and examining the format, and it will be a tough nut to crack programatically. Australia and Canada are bad enough — they have some variations in format — but the UK is much worse.

        • At least the six states and two territories of Australia are fixed. The UK these days seems to be no longer traditional ‘shires’ and more administrative ‘regions’ to suit the government of the day which results in frequent tinkering with (much like Australian electoral divisions – we live near the border of two divisions and have moved back and forth several times over the years despite remaining in the same bricks and mortar house!)

          • Indeed, Baron. The Labor leftists in the state of Queensland used to complain bitterly that the last real conservative in that state’s history, the late great Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, perfected the gerrymander. They never mentioned it was first introduced by Labor themselves! Bjelke-Petersen was in power for something like 30 years. After he finally quit – stabbed in the back by his own party – the state declined rapidly to the socialist wreck it is today.

          • In California it is called Jerry-mandering after our self-esteemed governor who used that tactic to have himself elected not once but twice. The second time the state legislature was “Jerry-mandered” to see to his reelection. He should have been impeached over his handling of Prop 8, but now we’ve become accustomed to the Jerry-manderin.

  8. I just accidently made a comment about donating to Gates of Vienna and supporting the Baron and Dymphna under the News Feed which really should be directed here.

    I live in Saskatchewan, Canada and urge all other Canadians to donate now. Gates of Vienna is an intelligent site and deserves a few $$ at this time for all the hard work that the Baron and Dymphna put into it.

    All the best for a very happy new year to all readers of this site -no matter what part of the world you live in !

  9. Hope you feel a lot better soon, Dymphna!
    Thank you both again so much for your work. Your site is always one of the first I go t to every day. No other site covers Europe as well and insightful as yours.
    Our contribution is going into the mail today.

    • Thank you, Ursula. I have enjoyed your notes and your gifts over the years. You are fortunate to live in one of the most sublime places in the world. The northwestern U.S. (and contiguous parts of Canada as well) are a paradise…if one doesn’t mind a bit of rain.

      • And being surrounded by never-ending hordes of leftists, Lady D!
        Not for nothing is the west coast referred to as the ‘left’ coast, as I imagine you know.

        I sincerely hope you recover quickly from your fall, which incidentally seems to be the main danger for all of us oldies–falling. We are presently visiting two elderly neighbours in hospital due to falls, one is 95.

        Must away to get my credit card and contribute to this great site you and the Baron provide for us!

  10. Would cash CAD be of any use to you? That’s all I can spare at the moment.

    Alternatively, I could send them to Vlad, and you could sort it out between yourselves. Let me know, here or by email.

    • You can donate to Vlad, tell him how much you want to go to GoV, and he and I will work it out. It should be easy to do that.

      • I can only find his PayPal, but no other contact information.

        If you have a way to get in touch with him, I’ll do just that.

        Thanks

  11. Finally made an overdue contribution.

    I don’t know how you guys deal with this depressing subject day in and day out…..but you do. And for that, kudos.

  12. Baron, tell Dymphna to chalk it all up to experience (what else can one do?) Please give her my best wishes for a speedy recovery.

  13. Baron, please indulge a personal question. My wife, now in her mid-60s, also has fibromyalgia (as well as Sjogren’s Syndrome) and can definitely recall circumstances back in her mid-teens that could have been the catalyst. When she read your explanation of Developmental PTSD during the preverbal stage she burst into what few tears she can now muster due to the Sjogren’s and wondered if that could apply to her as well. Is the D-PTSD a diagnosis that specifically applies to Dymphna or has research concluded that this is now “the” fundamental cause of FM?

    My wife has never been able to take prescription meds for FM because they all contain drying agents and that makes her Sjogren’s worse. It’s really been a blessing in disguise since she doesn’t have to deal with the inherent side effects and we have managed her symptoms largely through her diet. In reality, the Sjogren’s has proven to be the more problematic long term issue. She always has water with her and uses artificial tears hourly. By comparison the FM flares are infrequent now but still debilitating when they do occur.

    • Dymphna will read your comment in due course, and hopefully she will be able to answer it. I don’t really know much about FM, but she has been researching it massively for more than 15 years.

    • I just spent a half hour explaining the ins and outs of my research only to have it disappear. I can’t go thru that again. But I will write up an email tomorrow when I;m not so tired.

      Short answer:FM is *my* overarching problem, but the foundation on which it stands is developmental PTSD

      See this site for the time being, and I’ll write you and your wife tomorrow:

      https://acestoohigh.com/

      I have some books/sites to suggest. But right now my asthma is acting up and the US mail has my medicine “in transit” somewhere.

      • I hate when that happens. I sympathize, writing a long piece is never the same on a redo. I got into the habit of drafting in Word and saving often, not only so I wouldn’t lose the message to the digital gremlins, but also so I could edit out my snark before sending my emails.

        I hope you’re feeling better soon.

        • Suggestion: When writing something, hit Ctrl+s every time you finish a sentence or paragraph. This will save to disk what you have written so far. Pressing Ctrl+s often soon becomes a habit. (Or maybe you already knew this; but then, how did you lose your data?)

      • Thank you for the website referral. I have passed it on to my wife who will start with ACES 101 and move to compiling her ACE score from there. We look forward to your more detailed thoughts when you have the time and energy.

  14. Baron, there are few sites I am more willing to donate to than yours, but boy is it hard work. I clicked on the mug picture and nothing happened. I clicked on the main page link and it takes me back here. So I am stumped. I am in the Far East at the moment, and am admittedly a technophobic clod, but — can you not just add a one touch PayPal facility at the top of the site or something? Home .. topical, notable, DONATE, something like that?

    • The sidebar on the main page has not only the tip cup, but also a “Donate” button, just below the tip cup. One click should take you to PayPal. There’s also a “subscribe” button above the tip cup, if you want to set up a monthly.

      If those don’t work, I don’t know what’s wrong. Maybe your browser doesn’t allow scripts to run…?

  15. Dymphna, forgive me if you are already aware of this, but chest pain is common with acid reflux, and many folks with PTSD (I worked for over eight years as an RN at a VA, in the Mental Health dept., which included a PTSD program for our vets) develop GERD (Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disease). That includes me (last 35 years).

    If you have had long-term reflux and haven’t yet been scoped (upper GI endoscopy), get it done. Long-term GERD can cause Barrett’s esophagus, where the tissue attempts to morph into stomach-type tissue (mucous columnar cells, initially). Since it wasn’t created to do that it _can_ turn into esophageal cancer. My Barrett’s hasn’t turned so far (diagnosed about 17 years ago), but it gets checked every couple of years to be sure.

    If you haven’t started taking PPIs (proton-pump inhibitors) to control acid production, DON’T. Stay with the H2 receptors like Zantac. They don’t work as well, but PPIs have been determined by three or four studies I am aware of that indicate a _strong_ causal link to dementia. One of the most common, omeprazole, caused the growth of Beta-amyloid plaques in the brains of mice. Those plaques are one of the defining characteristics of Alzheimer’s.

    If you _have_ been taking one of the PPIs for a while and ever decide to quit, TAPER OFF. Stopping PPIs causes (in many people, like both my wife and myself) to develop rebound hypersecretion, where the stomach produces _more_ acid than before starting any medications for it. I’m now taking large does of Zantac (300 mg three times a day) to help control it, but I still eat a large quantity of generic Tums to deal with the heartburn. Supposedly it eventually reduces in severity, but it has been two months since I stopped and it still hasn’t reduced – but I took PPIs for almost fifteen years before I stopped (after noting increasing memory deficit and speech difficulties at the young age of 65 🙂

    Good luck to you, and I hope I haven’t bored you with information you already possess.

    • Many thanks, RegT. I’ve just come off Omeprazole after six years (my steroids having been stopped), and was about to see my doctor because of acid reflux- now I can tell him what’s wrong!

      • Zantac is used for many of the hypersecretion disorders, but most primary care docs/family medicine docs are unaware that very high doses are sometimes necessary – and are being prescribed:

        “Usual Adult Dose for Pathological Hypersecretory Conditions
        Oral: 150 mg 2 times a day initially. Adjust dose to control gastric acid secretion. Doses up to 6 g per day have been used.”

        DOSES UP TO 6 GRAMS. When you consider that a dose for normal heartburn/reflux conditions is 150 milligrams twice a day, 6 grams (6000 mg) is 40 times that dosage. So, if it takes almost a gram (I take 300 mg three times a day – 900 mg), you are still well within the maximum possible oral dosage.

        Don’t suffer any more than you have to. Ask your doctor to “titrate” (increase until it is effective) your dosage. Supposedly, at some point in time, the hypersecretion will stop, and the remaining acid production can be handled with a reasonable dose of Zantac. If he is unwilling, you can always buy it over the counter and work the dose up yourself, but it could get more expensive that a prescription would be if you have any kind of insurance at all.

    • Hello,
      I’d just like to say that if I ever suffer from heartburn or anything similar, I do the following:
      I take fine white clay (you can buy it in health food shop in France), put a spoonful in a glass of water, let the mixture settle overnight and drink the liquid (not the sediment) in the morning.
      (Ok, I’m lying I drink it all, but that is not what is recommended…)
      Do not take with any kind of medecine or oil.
      It always works for me.
      and remember that when animals need to heal themselves they go and eat clay.
      I have never ever touched PPI (My mother and aunts did), although I did suffer from Gastro-Esophageal Reflux in my very early twenties.
      If you feel that your stomach is churning, you can always take 3 drops of essential oil of peppermint (pharmacy-grade) on a lump of sugar or on a neutral tablet. No harm can come of it.
      Obviously I guess I have to insist that you should always talk to your practitioner before trying out anything new…
      Best of luck,
      Nathalie

    • Thanks for the info! I’ve suffered from GERD for years and early last year experienced ‘steakhouse syndrome’ in which a piece of food literally stuck partway down (I had a BP of 210 over 140 in the local clinic emergency room!). An endoscopy revealed a Schatzki ring at the junction of oesophagus and stomach, in other words, Barrett’s effect but fortunately it wasn’t cancerous and the ring was stretched back out of the way. At that point I was told I’d be on esomeprazole for the rest of my life. I certainly have been since then. Interesting that this year an ultrasound exam revealed a simple (non-polycystic) cyst on one of my kidneys. I have a follow-up progress exam for that next week.

      I’ll be talking to my doctor afterwards about esomeprazole connection with kidney disease and also with Alzheimer’s. My short term memory is garbage anyway – I forget anything I walk into a room to get, I always have to go back out to remember – and I need all the brain I can use after seeing my scans following a stroke caused by an internal corotid dissection a few years back – caused by a rheumatologist overdosing me for 2 years on prednisone!

      I love doctors…

      Changing subjects, Dymphna, your road through the woods photo could have been taken anywhere in rural Australia. Looking at it, I can almost hear bellbirds in the trees.

  16. My pay checks have been very irregular lately. Feeling a little guilty that I can’t donate right now because I really value this site. I’ll donate when I receive my next pay check.

  17. I have been a faithful follower of your site for many years, and very much appreciate your work in keeping up with events in Europe, so very important, thank you!

    Chest pain: can be an uncommon, but not unknown, symptom of menopause. I’ve had it.

  18. Re Melania going unclothed, she should go to Milano anyway, my wife says better!

    Well let’s face it, in Paris they’ll just be doing burqas, burkinis, niqabs and derivatives, anyway….

    • She’d look gorgeous in off-the-rack stuff from WalMart or Sears anyway, so I don’t really see the problem.

  19. Fibromyalgia and CFS are related.

    After 100 of temporarily successful remedies, were the result waned, I came to the conclusion that the Intestinal Flora is the problem.
    A few weeks ago this was confirmed by a study that tested CFS patients and found out that 85% of them had problems woth their Intestinal Flora, also called gut bacteria.

    I tried several pro-biotics who were not helping and expensive.

    This one makes a difference and is dirt cheap. People started complementing me that I look better, and I feel more energetic.

    https://swansoneurope.com/en/swanson-probiotic-4-60-veg-caps.html

    I take more than 10 a day.

    Make sure you get enough vitamin B12, in the form of METHYL-cobalamin, B9 is Folic Acid. B12 5000 microgram a day, B9 8 mg a day in the beginning.

    Acetyl-Cystein helps a lot with all symptoms and is harmless and beneficial. Make sure your formulation does not contain harmful artificial sweeteners, like aspartame or sucralose.

    Occasionally, I use Sporanox and Lamisil to combat the fungus.

    HTH.

    Uwe Hayek.

  20. “Frozen North”
    On Sunday evening (Nov. 20), St. John’s Newfoundland was (according to the World Clock) 50 – 55 F. Actually 8 to 12 degrees warmer than Richmond Virginia. Pittsburgh was 30 F ,colder than where I live on the Canadian prairie . Of course I don’t expect the much warmer late Fall/early Winter to last too much longer. By December (for sure) most of Canada WILL be the Frozen North. Just don’t push it any sooner than it has to be. Eh ? 😉

    • Last week my morning glories were in full bloom and we hadn’t yet had our first frost. It came a month after its usual time…and now I hear there is snow in Nw England.

    • Raymondson is right … it’s been very mild here lately (the last couple of weeks, not just Sunday evening). But then, we are only _politically_ part of Canada — climatically we don’t have the sort of winters most Americans associate with “Canada.” The ocean serves to moderate the extremes.

      Then again, maybe we’re not really part of Canada _politically_, either. There are still many here who regard our 1949 Confederation with that country as a mistake … a double (rigged) referendum (-a ?) that resulted in a Brexit-like margin on the second go-’round.

      Lots of us have much in common with the states of the Confederacy, but here we were the anti-Confederates.

      • Forecast is minus 10 here tonight.

        My cousin’s over from Australia just now. He’s had to go and buy himself a great big parka, LOL …

  21. So sorry to hear about your wife Baron! I will pray for you both. Will be in touch with Paypal.

  22. Concerning the fashion designer who publicly refuses to design for Melania Trump.

    I’d say Melania dodged a serious bullet if she ever had the bad taste to engage this designer, who you can see has the ugliest clothes imaginable. Actually, Melania is a person of superb taste, and I don’t think she even looked at these hideous clothes for more than a second.

    I don’t use language not suitable for a family website, but Sophie’s clothes may be used with the same description that O.J. Simpson used to describe the MODIGLIANI shoes that he was later shown wearing.

    http://www.sophietheallet.com/

  23. Have her Vitamin D, Her Vitamin B12 and Methylmalonic Acid tested. Also have a sleep study done. If it indicates she is not getting enough sleep, that and a deficiency in B12 can have a large role in the symptoms.
    God Bless her health and her healing, in Jesus Name, Amen.
    d

    • I supplement with sublinguinal B-12 and my levels are fine. Vitamin D I get through my diet – wild-caught salmon, canned and fresh, organic lamb liver, egg yolks, yogurt, etc. One has to balance magnesium and potassium with Vit D, though, so I’m careful to do that. Mineral deficiency is often more common in bone problems. I take a version of micronutrients that looks and tastes like swamp water. Started that after I learned there are 14 minerals (they think) in human bones that are crucial in preventing osteoporosis. A lot of docs mistakenly prescribe just calcium, which will pull other minerals out of bones if it is taken alone. I wish more doctors took nutrition classes, but they don’t.

      I had a sleep study done and like most people with fibro, I don’t get enough REM sleep. However, the CPAP didn’t work for me so I use a protocol devised by the University Hospital in Arhus, Denmark. They’ve done deep research on fibromyalgia. Ever since I started following their protocol I have fewer fatigue episodes. Nothing will get rid of them entirely. However, I sleep soundly, thank heavens. For some people, Vitamin B6 is helpful for sleep.

      The MMA test isn’t necessary since I have no indications of deficiency. I’m sure they would have shown up in response to my fall off the table in the doctor’s examination room. Nothing broke, just some bruising, I’m happy to say. It takes a while for jostled ribs to heal…I’m a tough Irish bird.

          • Very heh, acura.

            Many years ago, before the internet, I read a feature inAtlantic magazine on a study done in the Irish hospital system. The article came out in the late 70s or so and the findings were so startling I can recall them to this day…or at least a jumbled version of what they reported:

            Nearly every neonate in the nurseries all over the country was found to be deficient in Vitamin B6. I don’t know how they tested mom&baby pairs for depression but I do recall it involved the vagus nerve. IOW, babies can be born depressed and anxious if momma is suffering from it.

            Eventually, I’ll do a search for that info and find out what, if anything, they did with it. For some reason, amazing information comes out and then gets lost in what one Canadian doctor has called “the Bermuda Triangle” of important but abandoned information.

            I just checked: it’s in Gabor Maté ‘s book “When the Body Says No”. He pioneered a lot of the work at the family practice level that university researchers were studying back then. Now even our CDC is getting involved, thirty or forty years later. Finally…

            http://amzn.to/2gjNJEj

            That’s our link. You can open the book with their “Look Inside” feature and scroll down to Chapter One, titled (natch), “The Bermuda Triangle”…

            …Gabor, a Hungarian refugee after WWII, later became involved with improving palliative care for the terminally ill in Canada. He’s also written on addiction and another book on ADD. He and Canadian child development expert, Gordon Neufield, wrote an important book for parents on how to remain the central moral authority in your child’s life:

            http://amzn.to/2gIAWz4

            [Disclosure: I edited one of Gabor Maté’s books; we subsequently became good friends. I lost contact when I became ill – definitely my loss]

            The fiery Hungarian Jew and the wicked witch Celtic Catholic – now THAT was an explosive combination.

  24. Holy Hannah, Baron, that’s your driveway? Looks like it could be a problem if you got a lot of rain. Wonder how long it is?

    • It’s about a third of a mile long. Over the years,the Baron has engineered this path out to the roads so that pounding rains quickly find their way down to the draw past our woods. It’s just the B, his wheelbarrow full of gravel and a shovel.He knows every inch of it by now and keeps watch to make sure it doesn’t erode.

      That’s what men do, isn’t it? Guard and maintain the periphery??

      • I had 15 years of that in Bragg Creek, Alberta, with a driveway which zig-zagged up a hill for quarter of a mile; a beast to clear of snow in winter. And I trucked our water for years, a terrible job when the temp. was -30C or lower. It was beautiful there, but oh, how we worked!

  25. “Box turtle eating a wood pear” – What a beautiful sight!

    Reminds me of my time in Front Royal, briefly, canoeing and camping on the Shenandoah River, etc. Wonder if its changed much.

  26. Sounds all bull to get more tips in the jar..
    We all have health issues..You use it to milk your readers.
    Ducks an hens

    • No, we don’t all have health issues, Bazzam. And of those who do have them, not all are disabled by them. Further, some people have been made more impaired by the meds their doctors prescribe from Big Pharma – as commenters have described.

      At any rate, this is a quarterly event, Bazzam, as in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. It is usually a week-long event, each one having a different theme, and with a separate, more-or-less thematic post each day. This time it’s one long “unitary” post because I am not doing well, but that’s not how it’s usually done. This time is an exception – which you’d know if you’d ever read any of the other quarterly fund-raisers from the last five years or so.

      When we’re not fund-raising, which is most of the time, we talk about the horrific destruction Islam has visited on every country it invades. We call our site “Gates of Vienna” because Islam’s failed invasion in Austria pushed it back for a good, long time.

      America’s first foreign enemy was/were the Islamic states on the Barbary coast. We learned right at the beginning what taqiyyah was, but it was a lesson forgotten once we vanquished the Barbary pirates. William Eaton, in his long overland trek to reach American hostages, had guides and carriers from Egypt- some Copts and some Muslims. He said in his account of the trip that for a group of people who claimed all was Allah’s will, he never saw such avarice and greed.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Eaton_(soldier)

      I suppose we could have called ourselves “Barbary Pirates Vanquished” since the new country of America, unlike Europe, refused to pay anymore jizyah. However we wanted to address the issues in Europe rather than the wasteland in Tunis; thus Vienna seemed apt.

      Bless your heart, Bazzam, even if it is obviously in the wrong place.

      • A blog is not democratic, and it is a reflection of the hearts of its owners, we cannot apply the same principles to a blog as to a newspaper, the blog is much much more personal, and rightly so. If the people sre attractive, then the blog is attractive. And what makes it attractive are those off-the-cuff shared bits of humanity.

        That one of those co-incides with the Autumn bleg. causing the format to have to change is just happenstance, not exploitation.

        The change in format was a risk that had to be taken, but it also introduced the health memeas an unintended consequence, so we all flew with it – no problem here!

      • GOV does not coerce, threaten, jail or injure to compel donation compliance. Each reader is free to contribute or not. Perhaps Bazzam, considering his/her sense of probity, would prefer a fee based subscription for the reporting and information GOV provides.

      • Dymphna, we emailed a few times, years ago. I’m proud to tell you that Bassam/Bazzam inspired me to donate via paypal. A few glitches later and I’m a monthly subscriber. What a lovely friend you have camped out under that bridge! Happy Thanksgiving.

    • What a churlish suggestion! I doubt any regular reader of GoV thinks as you apparently do. I certainly do not.

      The Baron and Dymphna provide an invaluable service, for free, to those interested in the subjects reported on and discussed. They could have made GoV a subscription site, but chose to leave it as ‘voluntary donors.’

      Since they don’t hide behind the anonymity afforded by the internet, over time regular readers feel they’ve come to know the Baron and his good wife as friends, and the GoV ‘community’ (God, I hate that word!) is in a sense an extended family. And only regular readers are likely to become voluntary donors.

      So if you’re not a regular reader, are not inclined to donate, and feel you’re being exploited, please, have the good grace about it to simply not donate, shut up, and go away. Don’t be a churl.

    • Bassam, Because of pressing debts, I was going to pass by the tip jar this campaign. Your post inspired me to donate more to Gates of Vienna than in past years. Dymphna and the Baron owe you a thanks!

  27. Aye, Dymphna, but for the lack of occasional pines, it could be a track in a Colorado aspen grove. Albeit with a bit more history, and the trunks are not all white.

    I confess to a vague Virginia tie, my wife was born in Lynchburg.

    You folks have a beautiful location to weather the time. You probably don’t see the snow of the aspen forests out here. And, they’re mostly bare by now. Early to mid October is the prime time for the gold here.
    Interesting enough is my wife’s comment on Colorado’s ‘famed’ colorful falls: ‘…but there’s only two colors….’; after her late teen years in Vermont and other eastern locales, with the myriad of colors there. sigh….. Oh well, cheers !
    West out

  28. I visit here because I believe it is one of the best if not the BEST blogs on the Web. I am back to tipping the jar in order to help the good folk who run this blogsite keep it going so that even boofheads like Bazzam can visit and LEARN something about the current state of the West.

  29. A (redacted) troll.
    Probably voted for [redacted] Hillary, too. (I know, that’s waaaaay to harsh on the poor {redacted} soul–but that’s me. I’m just a (redact), anyway.

    Life will sneak up on him, too. It always does–in the end.

  30. “Also: does anyone know what “Ducks an hens” means?”

    “This famous poem….”
    The Fable of the Ducks and the Hens by Lincoln Rockwell

    http://www.heretical.com/pubs/fabledh.html

    A search engine search on “ducks and hens” can bring up quite a bit more. Keeping them together can be a problem as, for example, chickens have sharp beaks that can peck you bloody (voice of experience) while ducks do not.

  31. “Dymphna and I want to take a quick poll: Do you think we’re using her health issues to milk our readers?”

    Can’t find the poll. In answer to the question, not likely as it’s been mentioned a lot under other circumstances as explanation in passing for this or that.

    • It’s simply a matter of letting everyone who reads the blog, and who may wish to voluntarily contribute to the blog, know more about the people who work on the blog.

      That’s all.

      Obviously.

      Any boofhead who suggests otherwise is just being churlish.

  32. I love you both so much. Yes, milk that pain. Considering all the other pains you go through to get this blog out here, it is only right and just to give, whatever the reasons.
    A few days ago, a dear blogger friend of mine died. His blog was so eloquent, so encouraging in these dark days. His mind was a steel trap, and we both shared a love of beauty and language and the Divine. I will miss him terribly. Don’t go away any time soon. PLEASE!

  33. I was going to withhold any comments on Dymphna’s health as I felt it to be inappropriate when the main subject of the blog/bleg is the funding of continuing operations. The sympathies that are elicited are not for her medical condition but that she continues in the work that is set before her DESPITE them.
    My wife suffers from similar symptoms and we have been to hell and back during the past three years. We have a new doctor (Kaiser was incompetent) who has determined that the cause of her neural inflammation is a chemical imbalance brought about by diet, lack of proper vitamins, and high levels of workplace stress from teaching elementary grades (most of which was from the administrators’ unreasonable expectations). However, she carries on with what is set before her and I am there by her side as needed and am able.
    That, in my opinion, is the point of this unitary bleg. We should support each other in the tasks that have been set before us and voice and show special appreciation for those who carry on dutifully even in the face of physical and emotional challenges that would have them give up and quit. Therefore, a special round of applause (standing) is in order for all of the Dymphnas that carry on while looking forward to that greater day that is coming.
    A blessed giving of thanks to you and yours for the tireless work that you do.

  34. Fighting horse-apples with a few bucks has nothing to do with prayerful empathy with one better armed.

  35. Bazzam–“Ducks and Hens”
    Online “hens” nowadays are known as “trolls.” I suspect you live under a bridge in Norway, waiting for unsuspecting goats to pass by, right?

    • The Ducks an Hens refers to the fable…it was written years before the current immigration issue…
      I AM NOT A TROLL LIVING IN NORWAY.

  36. I don’t feel describing health issues to be milking. I see it more as providing an explanation when the expected frequency of posts falls off. Further, it gives rise to some useful discourse because while not everybody suffers health issues, many do. And it is interesting to learn what has worked for others to improve their health.

    ‘Sides, I’ve got no milk to give. Just a few dollars.

    • I’ve learned a great deal from those who have shared their own health concerns. For instance, the sequelae of the chronic use of those powerful acid blockers. I had no idea…even going through a helicobacter pylori ulcer (wrongly diagnosed for years) I was concerned about taking something so powerful for any length of time.

      Re: the information about being “floxed” by Cipro…stunning news about which the medical world didn’t see fit to inform us. This report from May–

      http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/05/16/fda-cipro-side-effects-outweigh-benefit-for-some-infections.html

      is not framed in the waiting room in my doctor’s office. It darn well ought to be.

      Notice the warning to doctors came from the FDA but was only issued to the professionals, not the patients. Another reform we need is to change the cozy relationship between the FDA and Big Pharma. It’s cronyism at its worst.

      Here’s a Canadian report:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDQjdADq37w

      You can look in the comments and on the sidebar for other horror stories.

      I plan to have a chat with my doctor.

      • Along the same lines is the connection between acetaminophen (Tylenol) and liver damage. This can occur with regular doses of acetaminophen combined with alcohol consumption. The medical and pharma wonks knew about this for a long time but did nothing to inform the public. I believe it was the death of a college student who combined Tylenol with college-level alcohol consumption and died that elevated awareness and compelled manufacturers to put a warning on products containing acetaminophen.

        I keep and regularly visit a well stocked bar and I don’t have a single product in my home that contains acetaminophen. I have a good friend who regularly keeps the Bourbon industry flush who did not know about this whatsoever. On my urging he scrubbed his house of all acetaminophen. I would also urge people to discard their Fram oil filters (pure junk, Fram engineers won’t even use them), but that’s another story.

      • If you look at the Floxiehope website ( in my opinion one of the best as alongside lots of peer reviewed scientific studies about the devastating effects of FQs there are many stories from people who were badly floxed but who have recovered) you will find lots of testimonies from people whose doctors laughed at them when they said they were sure the drug was responsible for their symptoms. Some denied the drug could be responsible even when presented with the patient info sheet which lists many of the symptoms as possible side effects and a few doctors even refused to treat the complaining patients anymore.
        I hope your doctor is a lot more open minded. I don’t know if you have come across this info yet but many floxies found that steroids or NSAIDs given for the pain by doctors who did believe them actually made their symptoms worse especially the tendon pain and peripheral neuropathy.

  37. I’ll continue to donate. PERIOD.
    Great website. PERIOD.
    Enuf said:)

    Happy Thanksgiving to all.

    from the land of O

      • Frank Baum, who retired to Claremont, never mentioned the Holiday in any of the books of the series insofar as I can recall.
        Talking about Free Silver in his books, which were known to be allegories, was rather profitable. His house in Claremont is one of the largest and recently set the record of being the highest priced listing, $13.5 million.

      • If you are referring to the Land of Oz Downunder, Dymphna, no we don’t have a Thanksgiving Day. Our big turkey eating fest is at Christmas time. As you’re aware our seasons are the opposite to yours, so Christmas is usually warm to hot which makes the big roast turkey and pudding dinner a bit of a chore. Seafood is popular Christmas fare here, you should see the queues at the fish markets on Christmas Eve. Open air carol nights are also big here on the warm Summer nights. Some people like to do Christmas in July so they can have the fire burning, dress in winter garb & really enjoy the hot dinner. Easter is also at an odd time for us as it is associated with rebirth and therefore Spring but here it is in Autumn and usually the last good weather before the cold sets in. Halloween is also odd as October 31st is never a dark and stormy night when spirits abound, but well into Daylight Saving time and the beginning of warm Spring weather, so our trick or treaters come calling while the sun is still up or just set. The posts and comments for this fundraiser have been great to read. I hope you will be well soon.

  38. Have often wondered if the tip jar pàys for house repairs and medical bills.

    Is it declared to the IRS..

    • Yes, and yes. It helped us paint the outside (wooden siding and trim) not long ago. That’s one of the reasons we feel so much gratitude.

      All of it is taxable income, and all of it is recorded and reported in our tax returns.

      It’s not our entire income, but it is a substantial portion of it. Fortunately, Dymphna and I are modest in our habits, and tend to be frugal. So we get by.

  39. I donate because this is one of the few sites that gives me sufficiently unbiased news of the world outside Australia.The Australian press generally concentrates on reporting on sports and bashing conservatives.It is both biased and parochial.This website is therefore a breath of fresh air and a veritable tonic.
    Breitbart news is also good and the U.K page of the Daily Mail is also well worth reading.

    And I intended to donate and asked the Baron when I would get the opportunity a few days before this fundraiser.

    So no Dymphna’s health problems while eliciting my sympathy did not prompt me to donate.

    • Gates of Vienna is one of the best English language sites for reports from Europe. Breitbart London waxes and wanes in its coverage. The UK Daily Mail is a strangely schizophrenic operation – willing to report baldly on Islamic terrorism but wildly liberal in a social sense, tying headlines in confusing knots to be politically correct when referring to men who have decided they are women. The Daily Mail’s Australian page is a left-wing joke populated by Labor voting journos. I recall how poor Andrew Bolt (himself a bit of a social ‘wet’) thought it was going to be the relief of Mafeking when the DM opened its Oz doors. In fact, it’s News .com.au lite.

      • Well, that’s a shame about the Mail in Oz. The American branch is quite interesting, and has some of the best photos you can find in breaking news stories.

  40. I wish I had the means of making some measure of financial support. At the moment, I am in a odd place of semi-forced retirement and live on the good graces of a loving partner. Most of what I do to ‘earn my keep’ tends to not have measurement in money. Nevertheless, I enjoy your site. You do well with balance, and also fairness.

    As to the issue of ‘milking’ you readership with illness. Think nothing of it. I don’t consider it worth being given a moment’s thought. Unlike many – you allow strangers access to you as people. In other words – it too easy to blame (especially these days) on the internet. You are doing the right thing.

  41. If I may comment briefly on the use of prescibed medication: the singer Kris Kristofferson was misdiagnosed and put on a set of powerful meds, which almost did him in. (Google it.) After a new diagnosis & being taken off said meds, his spouse said she ‘got her husband back’. One example of medication having powerful ‘side effects’.

    I could go on. One of my best friends was on anti-rejection meds, which did indeed work & were necessary (he had an MI behind the wheel & had a heart transplant) but he only got about five years – then the almost inevitable happened, & he developed a semi-rare form of cancer. The body’s systems are so suppressed by the anti-rejection meds that this is not unusual – and quite often it is a rare or unusual form of cancer that arises, that a GP may not immediately spot (not being used to looking for it). So my friend got about five years out of the transplant & anti-rejection meds, then the ‘side effects’ of all that medication came to the fore, & he was diagnosed with oesophegeal cancer, with all that entails.

    So meds can do one thing which you want/need them to do at the time. But they can also do other things, which can lead to (often unforseen and potentially very dangerous) health problems down the line.

  42. Dymphna writes very good posts, articulate, researched and concise with an insight that cuttingly slices through.
    Often I can be reading a post and in evaluating and absorbing the points made, then go back to just see just who wrote it, or now reconfirm that it must be Dymphna as it some refreshing angles and insights that resonate with me.

    It may be the one +ive side effect from Dymphna’s health issues, and nor would I wish it upon any one. It is the sharp freshness of debate that she brings.

    The other important part is the support that she must be to the Baron, not only in keeping a home, but the debates and discussions they must have on such a wide variety of issues.

    Another link is the upbringing of the ‘young Baron’ who will, in his own time and style may eventually support all the concerns and points that this blog raises, effecting another generation.

    So above all it is not just the quantity but the quality that Baron and Dymphna bring to these issues, raising awareness for the American system, and how it meshes into the Western Civilization, with the conflicting politics in the EU and world wide.

    How to properly value things, with history, background, so with that guidance from them, for many of us to look to how to safeguard and understand the most important values of our civilization, like ‘free speech’

    I hope it encourages all of us, whether it is just small steps, even if just occasional, to hold firm, educate ourselves and others, to espouse points of views, support others, to figure the rights and wrongs, particularly of our politicians.

    Thank you Baron and Dymphna and to the many other contributors

  43. Pink flamingos to the left of me, flocking loons to the right. In spite of the swill in many of the links, I usually open some for the Baron’s and Dymphna’s responses to comments. Happy Thanksgiving!

    ps: Nothing is ever ‘over’ in this life.

    Kind thoughts and prayers.

  44. No, I don’t think that you’re using Dymphna’s health issues to milk readers!

    Not that we’re not quite concerned about her health – we’re concerned about the health of anyone that we care about!

    Anyway, it didn’t get you a bigger contribution from me than you would have gotten otherwise :-).

  45. It never crossed my mind you were “using Dymphna’s illness to get tips”.

    However, why do you think you missed the call on Trump’s landslide?

    Hopefully I’ll tip you next time. I look after me and my household alone and while I am now genuinely grateful to God that I was fired from my cushy job in the MSM, my new business is not cutting the mustard as yet. Self-publishing books for individuals is a lot of work for not much money, so I’m still sorting out my business model and mulling other ideas. And I need to get my little pickup, which is rusting in front of my eyes, resprayed. Which means I have to rent a car for 3 weeks too. That said, I’m soooo grateful I don’t live in a welfare state because I know myself and I’m a lazy git. Welfare would be a killer for me and I’d hate that.

    • I didn’t miss the call on Trump’s landslide (and it wasn’t a landslide; he got significantly less that 50% of the vote).

      I said — you can read it a day or two before the election in our archives — that if it weren’t for the various methods of vote-rigging, Trump would win by a substantial margin. I believed (and still believe) that a massive number of votes were cast for Hillary by dead people, illegal aliens, people voting twice or more, and the insubstantial electronic pulses created by rigged voting machines.

      If a true count of the vote were possible, one in which only the votes of those legally entitled to vote were counted, I think Trump would turn out to have won by a significant margin, over 50% of the votes cast. But we have no way of discovering the true number.

      As it is, I’m grateful that enough people voted for him to keep the vote-rigging from working. I’d been saying to Dymphna for weeks in advance, “I know the Democrats are going to steal a lot of votes, but I’m not sure they can steal enough to win.”

      That was the big question — could they pilfer enough votes to overcome Trump’s obvious popularity? The answer turned out to be no, they couldn’t.

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