Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Coffee and Covid: Cancer under 50!


This is an excerpt from the daily Coffeeandcovid.com emailI highly recommend a subscription to coffeeandcovidAnyway, here goes...

"On Sunday, I dissected the UK Telegraph’s “epidemic of young cancer” story , explaining exactly how the media twists the cancer narrative and the facts to protect the jabs. Yesterday, the Daily Mail UK ran a similar story headlined, “Alarm over mystery cancer 'epidemic' striking under-50s like Kate Middleton as scientists scramble to find cause of startling increase.” 





To its credit, the Daily Mail almost seemed like a kidnapping victim, desperately trying to smuggle out a secret message: help me! Right from the top of the story, it included this remarkable bit of reporting:

Scientists are scrambling to find the cause of a mystery cancer 'epidemic' which is striking under-50s. Despite years of research, researchers are baffled as to what is behind the problem.

But, in the wake of the Princess of Wales' news, one surgeon claimed a yet-to-be discovered factor could be to blame. Professor Andrew Beggs, a consultant colorectal surgeon and a senior clinical fellow at the University of Birmingham, said: 'There might be an unknown environmental factor that we haven’t discovered, despite extensive research.'

An unknown environmental factor! What could it be?? Does it come in a needle? Obviously the Mail immediately dropped that line of inquiry and lost all interest in speculating what kind of environmental factor might be involved. But they put it out there as a limited hangout.

Maybe the Mail’s handy infographic map could give us a clue. It shows western countries plus Russia and China with the highest rates of under-50 cancer:






Poor Australia! That benighted continent is now the young-cancer epicenter. What could have happened there, out in the desert, so far away from everyone? What common “environmental” factor could possibly tie Australia to Europe and the U.S., which are both drafting right behind the Down Under? Hmm?

Like the Telegraph, the Mail’s article fogged the cancer story with the same batch of distracting nonsense. For example, it named a bunch of early-onset cancer victims, but they were red herrings. For example, the Mail rounded up a small batch of celebrity cancers to demonstrate the trend.

But the Mail’s four sample cancers occurred over a twenty-year period — all before the jabs, and some a quarter-century ago: Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman (died of colon cancer in 2020, aged 43); Modern Family’s Sophia Vergara (thyroid cancer in 2000, aged 28); A-lister Ewan McGregor (skin cancer —two moles!— removed in 2008), and Australia’s top singer Kylie Minogue (breast cancer back in 2005, aged 36).

A twenty-five year span? Come on. I could round up four celebrities with turbo cancer just over the last four months. And if you give me the last three years, I could easily beat four times that many.

And I won’t even include celebrities who just had a couple moles removed.

Anyway, the Daily Mail also rounded up some cancer doctors, so you can add them to the ones quoted for the Telegraph. For example:

Oncologist Dr Shivan Sivakumar, from the University of Birmingham, said: 'There is an epidemic currently of young people (under 50) getting cancer. Nobody knows the cause, but we are seeing more patients getting abdominal cancers.'

Professor Karol Sikora, a world-renowned oncologist with over 40 years' experience, said experts had 'no idea' what was causing a 'frightening' surge in cases of pancreatic cancer, especially among young women.

UK data shows women in their early 40s, like Kate, are twice as likely (2.1 times), to get cancer than a man of the same age. Cancers of the breast, prostate, lung and bowel make-up the overwhelming majority of all new cancer diagnoses, accounting for around half of the total.

Finally, the article cited the same irrelevant study that popped up in the Telegraph’s article. At least the Mail linked the study. As we noted before, that study shows an increase in young cancer rates over a thirty year period between 1990 and, conveniently, 2019. Misleadingly, the Mail printed not one single word about cancer rates during the last three years, allowing readers to falsely conclude they are looking at just one long, uninterrupted trend.

Baffling! A baffling environmental factor.

Kate Middleton’s tragic cancer story — we must never forget the Royal Family initially insisted it was definitely not cancer — her tragic cancer story has conveniently opened a box of permission for media to talk about the epidemic of turbo cancers in young people. The stories are rolling out now, all following the identical repulsive narrative formula.

It looks like a well-organized, coordinated limited hangout, reprehensibly using Kate Middleton’s cancer diagnosis as a pretext.

The recent ‘cancer epidemic’ stories are so similar it is tempting to think they all came from the same desk. But that would just be kooky conspiracy talk. It is merely a coincidence that all these different media platforms wrote their ‘cancer epidemic’ stories the same way, using the same language of baffling epidemics, citing the same irrelevant study, and exhibiting the same moribund lack of curiosity about the “environmental cause.”

Shut up! Science!"


Monday, March 18, 2024

How I'm Doing...Really




I deliberately haven't been posting stuff like this very often. There's a FB page for guys like me where we can post this kind of thing and not be self conscious about it. But my friends often ask me how I'm doing. I say: "I'm getting by, day by day." Here's the truth.

27 years together. In all that time, there were very few days that we didn't talk.

When I was on the road, for music shows or pool tournaments or whatever, Joann was here, working on the ranch and working at her job in town. When I stayed in West Yellowstone all summer, working at the guest ranch there or doing gigs around the area, Joann was here, taking care of my house, picking the raspberries and taking care of my cats.

At a roundup camp in Nevada, I had to hike over a half mile up a ridge to find phone service so we only talked three or four times a week that month. At the first hunting camp I cooked for, we were there in pickups so when I got into trouble with whatever I was trying to cook, I'd get in my truck and drive the 12 miles to where the phone would work and she'd talk me through my issue. Same kind of thing when I was cooking at Parade Rest Ranch in West Yellowstone. One time, she talked me, step by step, through making a french silk pie.

When I was cooking for a hunting camp a four hour horseback ride into the mountains, there just

wasn't phone contact. So, during the day, when I thought of something I'd like to tell her, I'd write it down. When the outfitter had to go to town for something, I'd give him my notes to Joann. He teased me about his having to deliver my "love letters".

Now, my phone rarely rings. She's not there to talk with. I've always been a loner type. I liked being by myself, camping, hiking, driving...I liked those long trips by myself. But Joann was here. Just a phone call away.

When my transmission quit in Boise, Idaho and I was trying to figure out how to even get home, let alone make all the shows I had lined up, she just said: "You can't cancel that tour" and paid for a new transmission for me.


The other day, I was driving into Helena for something and noticed that my right hand was hanging across the console. But there was no knee to put my hand on. No other hand to hold mine.

It's been 131 days now since she gasped out her last breath, in our bed in my house. The same bed I try to sleep in today. The couch is empty where she used to sit. The passenger side of my car is an echoing silent empty space. So is my life and I don't foresee it being any better any time soon.

For me, life is now a long cold empty frozen trail on which I just have to keep on walking.

I'm going to a cowboy poetry gathering in Rexburg, Idaho next month, about a three hour drive. I'm kind of anxious about being that far away from my "safe space". But, I'm going. I haven't seen my performer friends for over two years now, since she had her stroke, and I want to...but I don't want to. I'll sing songs and perform poetry. I'll be in jam sessions, probably laugh and talk with friends. But, with all those people around me, I'll be alone. I used to call her from these things and she could listen to the jam sessions or I'd pass the phone around and she'd talk with our friends. Now, I'm alone.

Just taking one step at a time, forward across the frozen wasteland. Maybe, if I just keep on going, it'll get a little better. The only thing that keeps my feet moving is the sure certainty that, on the other side, she waits for me in the sunshine and gentle breezes of the mountains where we belong. Maybe we can ride again, her on Poppy and me on Opie. We'll ride side by side, holding hands, like we used to.
"I imagine
There aren't any fences in heaven
It's all just open range
Where cowboys and cowgirls can long trot that young colt
Without having to open a gate
No broken wires to splice
And no overtightend gates to fight
It doesn't matter where the cattle graze
Water holes and creeks never dry up
And good hands can ride all day
Without having to get out of the saddle
I imagine
There aren't any fences in heaven
Nor blizzards, droughts, or hailstorms
No freezing temperatures or skyrocketing heat, no markets to dread or notes to pay
Just blue skies, wildflowers, and a few drizzly days
I imagine
You up there, tending to God's cattle
Riding your favorite horse, Poppy
Enjoying the peace and the beauty
Far beyond what I can dream of
You've reached the promised land, cowgirl
We'll keep the fences
Mended down here"