The PR Blog

I grew up in a small rural community in the hills of New Zealand. My early life was shrouded in mist and the ever-present wind that pummeled our hilltop community and we loved every wet windy second. So much so that even today, all these decades later, my definition of a perfect day is a misty drizzly soggy one where I can snuggle down and take life off the hook and feel perfectly justified in being a sloth.

As kids, we roamed the paddocks, built campfires and fought incredible wars. 

Fear has defined the last two years. 

Humans are hardwired to fear infectious diseases, but with such uncharacteristic effectiveness did government turbocharge fear to ensure compliance with restrictions and silence opponents, that the nation turned not only in on itself, but also on its children. 

Fuelled by that fear, we locked our young in their rooms for days on end, padlocked their playgrounds and stopped them from seeing their grandparents and friends. 

The foundations for the current Ukraine conflict were laid almost two decades ago

In late June, after fierce fighting, the last remaining units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces pulled out of Severodonetsk, a large industrial center in the western part of the Lugansk People’s Republic.

Back in 2004, the city hosted the famous congress of the ‘federalists’, Ukrainian politicians – elected at different levels – who backed the presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych during the Western-backed Orange Revolution. Back then, they declared then that the Kiev protests were an attempted coup and warned that an illegitimate government coming to power could prompt the congress to establish south-eastern autonomy to protect local residents.

…if you’re reading this personal lamentation, consider bending toward simplicity….

This summer’s weather is perfect now in the Hudson Valley: warm, sunny days for primping the garden and cool nights that invite deep sleep. Zucchini and cukes are coming on, along with currants, gooseberries, blueberries. Unseen underground, the potatoes swell. The chickens range happily over their daily smorgasbord of bugs. At midnight, fireflies blink in the orchard. On the human side, though — commerce, culture, and politics — nothing works. At least not here in America. Sigh….

In Geneva in late May at the 75^th meeting of the WHO’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly (WHA), amendments to its International Health Regulations (IHRs) were debated and voted upon.

If passed, they would grant the WHO the right to exert unconscionable pressure on countries to accept the WHO’s authority and health policy actions if the WHO decides that there is a public health threat that might spread beyond a country’s borders. 

The West’s forced transition away from reliable fossil fuel energy into “green” energy alternatives has proven to be disastrous. And thanks to the war in Ukraine, Western economies are finally waking up to that fact.

As was reported, the European Union (EU) is slated to bring oil and gas production into the green energy fold – something that even just a year ago would have been unheard of.