What can we believe of what we are told?  How do we judge the truth?  It is not easy.

In Victoria, the law says that a producer of orange juice may add cane sugar to the packaged juice and proudly write on the container: “100% pure orange juice.  No added sugar”.  This is to make up for any amount by which a batch of oranges may fall short of containing a specific amount of natural sugars. (more…)

Last week I started with a number of questions and I realise I only addressed the first of these.  The one that is worth exploring further is: How many people do work that is demoralising? (more…)

How many people occupy themselves with activity that does nothing to further the overall wellbeing of the human race or the planet as a whole?  How many get paid for such activity and call it work?  How many people do work that is demoralising? (more…)

Stories are powerful vehicles.  They can entertain, they can inform, they can educate and they can instruct.  They can also confuse, obfuscate, hide the truth, mislead and derail.  It is the stories we tell ourselves that are the most important stories of all. (more…)

When travelling, borders can magically dissolve as can the boundaries we put around ourselves.  I am in Queenstown [map], in the southern depths of the New Zealand south island.  It sits on the edge of a large lake surrounded by majestic, snow-capped mountains. (more…)

The experiences had by any one individual enhance the experience of the entire human race. It is, therefore, pointless to decry the inability of one person to have the same experience as another. Women can experience pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. That men cannot does not diminish them as people. (more…)

Have we ever had democracy in this country?  We don’t seem to have it now.  The word ‘democracy’ denotes government by ‘the people’.  The system in place in Australia and many other countries is that the people delegate their right to govern to a group of elected representatives.  Often that is where the power of the ‘demos’ stops. (more…)

In a time long ago, there were two giants who both wanted to be in charge of all the people in the villages and on the farms and of all the creatures in the forests and on the plains.  Only one of the giants could be the boss.  They used to decide the issue by fighting over it, but things had changed. (more…)

SAD, CFS, IBS, ADD, ADHD, ASD, CVD, BCC^*, DVT^*… some of the acronyms of modern health and its challenges.  Are they increasing in prevalence because of changing diets and changes in agricultural practices or are they a passing fad, a fashion? (more…)

Living in a community is a complex undertaking.  It involves a balancing of private and public concerns.  There are some issues that are of concern to the community as a whole and some that are purely private. (more…)