Yes, that food poisoning

Called the ambulance, arriving at Wollongong Hospital around 10.30 am. Kept there to around 6.30 pm. Three rounds of rehydration by saline drip, blood tests on arrival, around 1pm, and 5.30 pm. They were perfectly satisfactory. Little loss of blood. Mystery of the black vomit not really solved.

First time I have posted from my phone. Why? Because my trusty Junior HP has died at last.

And that’s not all. I am sick as a dog, food poisoning for the first time in maybe ten years! But lately the colour of the “product” is very ominous. So very soon I will be calling an ambulance, and then we’ll see.

At least ambulances are free in Australia for pensioners and everyone on Medicare.

Children in war

A little girl holds her doll in the rubble of her bomb-damaged home. England. 1940.

See “The Forgotten Victims”: Heartbreaking Photos Of The Children Of World War II.

And that is quite a mild example. I could have posted many far more horrendous, but that will serve. Can you think of a war where children have not suffered and died, whether as “collateral damage” or as child soldiers? Please name one…

Syria 6 years ago

Yesterday

From War and Peace by Max Roser, Joe Hasell, Bastian Herre and Bobbie Macdonald

Children in war

During the last 10 years [to 2012], around 10 million children are estimated to have been killed as a result of war. The situations resulting from armed conflicts affect primarily children because of their vulnerability, and do so in many different ways. Often alone and helpless because of the reigning chaos, some become child soldiers, others are forced into exploitation. The fundamental rights of these children are shamelessly flouted for the benefit of barbarous and cruel acts. Many of them remain deeply traumatized, wounded, or even disabled.

Source

“Any war is ultimately a war on children. Exposure to conflict has catastrophic, life-changing effects for children. While we know what must be done to protect children from war, the world is not doing enough. Year after year, the UN documents the visceral, tragic and all too predictable ways that children’s lives are torn apart. It is incumbent on all of us to ensure that children do not pay the price for the wars of adults, and to take the bold, concrete action required to improve the protection of some of the world’s most vulnerable children.”

Catherine Russell — UNICEF Executive Director

Thoughts gathered this morning from Mastodon

Palestinian children do not deserve to die because Hamas exists.

Israeli children do not deserve to die because of right-wing politicians in the government.

Collective punishment is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Do not fall into the trap of dehumanising people. “But terrorists” has been the source of human rights violations for decades now. Don’t be a sucker.

Murdering someone else’s child will not bring the victims back.

Wrenn Reilly

My whole political position right now is, don’t kill innocents. Don’t kill children.

Don’t kill them!! not with assault rifles, not in retaliation, not with bombs, not with lousy public health policy.

Do not kill them, just do not do it! Can we all just get behind this one thing.

Maria Bustillos