Healthy baby born to 11-year-old in Ukraine

Jill:
I didn't start AF until age 13. I didn't really need a bra
until the last couple of years of high school ,
like a lot of the people in my age group.

Now it seems like kids are developing in elementary school!
Breasts, periods, and everything.

Leanne:
I started AF when i was 11 or 12,
and needed to wear a bra when i was about 13.

Its different for everyone

Vicky Bilaniuk:
I wonder if I'm the only one here
who started just before her 9th birthday
and was in a bra not too long after that?

I'll admit that I now know that I was an anomaly back then,
though at the time I thought I was perfectly normal.

There were only two other girls in my class who were like me,
and they, too, thought that they were normal.

This kind of thing really doesn't trouble me.
One of my profs said that research suggests that what's causing it
is richer diets and a resulting increase in body fat at younger ages.

klaatu:
maybe so, but there are other possibilities;
Mark Twain started me wondering...

when he was taking notes for his book "Following The Equator"
he traveled with a doctor, by train.
passing a file of girls carrying clothes from washing in a river,
Twain commented that in the U.S. it would be unusual
to see girls of fourteen so casually naked in public view -

the doctor startled him by saying the girl was probably about nine,
and that physical development astonishing in a European
was the norm in rural India.

at various points in such narrative it's made clear
that the vast majority of these people lived close to starvation,
yet equally clearly, 'early' development was typical.

i tend to doubt diet is more than ancillary in this.

Victorian-era authors i've read mention specifically
the vast difference in the rates at which street-children developed,
in contrast to much slower rate in more "genteel" folk,

so it's not just Asians or Mid-easterners who are affected so -
and again, destitute English street-folk of that era
are unlikely to have had richer diets than social 'superiors'.

the book "Victorian Children" (Morrow, pub.)
shows upper-class children mostly - as pampered pets,
but there are vignettes of the lower classes,
such as a picture of a very small naked pregnant girl:
"Street-child, aged 10 or 11 year.
She has been known as "Mrs. Berry" for at least a year -
she is four months gone with child." (dated 1850s)

researching, found that average age-at-menarche
has been dropping steadily in Western populations
ever since the Industrial Revolution - in upper classes -
but lower classes typically developed earlier anyway,
and age-of-onset among these changed little, if at all.

that is, scientists first began gathering serious statistical data
during the Victorian era in England;
at that time chasmal differences in physical characteristics
between upper and lower classes
prompted some researchers to opine that these classes
were moving toward becoming separate species.

checked a British medical text of the 1870s,
and noted menarche was described as typically coming on
between the sixteenth and twenty-third year in "normal" females,
casually noting that among the squalid mob at social nadir
the average life-cycle was compressed to about half "normal",
with all stages of somatic development accelerated,
from early puberty to early senility to early death.

my theory is that "sheltering" kids retards their development.

extreme cases show this beyond question,
in birds, dogs, monkeys and humans.

when young birds begin to learn their mating-songs,
if they're denied a role-model, they're seriously impaired,
but if they are prevented from experimenting at all,
they almost never learn to do it properly - or ever mate.

the important part (for me anyway)
is that their brains show serious physical damage
in direct consequence to this isolation.

that is, the proper time for the bird to learn to sing
is when the mood strikes; it varies bird-to-bird,

but whenever it happens
if one does not use the gift Nature offers, Nature takes it back,
and that part of the brain almost never develops
as robustly as the brains of "un-censored" ones,
EVEN IF role-models and encouragement are provided later.

same seems to go for social interactions
in dogs, monkeys and humans, at least.

for animals there are copious lab-tests to go by;
for human subjects the record is spottier,
but still there are many very clear parallels,
one of the most recent being "Genie", discovered in 1970;

she was 13, and had been raised in near-total isolation;
at first completely silent, once freed from captivity
she went through the "normal" stages of speech-development,
but at a much slower rate than average children;
it took her three years to get past two-word sentences,
and start adding "-ing" to words.

significantly, she appeared physically about nine,
with no hint of sexual development - more significant yet
because tests showed here neurologically intact -
nothing wrong with her brain - and well-nourished;

that is, her generally immature aspect
can be more reasonably ascribed to isolation
than to lack of any physical necessity for growth.

my conjecture is that ever since the Victorian era
"polite society" has been crippling it's children - retarding them,
as much as it was able, by isolating them in many ways,
and that now, in the midst of the Information Age,
it's no longer possible to do it thoroughly enough to work.

that is, modern youth is becoming more generally aware
of it's physical birth-right as prescribed by Nature
and tends to go for it with gusto, which experience
tends to affect rate of physical development strongly.

that is, it seems to me
modern children are NOT "being sexualized"
by Madison Avenue ad-execs or cabals of perverts;

Victorian prudes loaded social balance with heavy morality,
and now that Average Jo can see that was all fake,
the scales are bobbing back to natural equilibrium,
with "accelerated" physical development in consequence.

:Daye:
:I knew a girl from my old neighborhood in Alabama
:who was pregnant at 10, and she had the baby at 11.

:klaatu:
:i know several who delivered before 12 too,
:but maybe this is the record:
:
:http://youngest_mother.tripod.com/
:
:Peruvian five-year-old Lina Medina
:was only 5 years 8 months old
:at the birth of her child on Mother's Day, May 14, 1939,
:and is still the youngest known mother in the world.

sheila:
Hmm I thought the youngest was 8

klaatu:
ja, i would've thought eight years young enough to set a record,
but there it is again;
just when i think i know something with perfect certainty,
Reality walks in and stomps it flat.

just watch - some girl's gonna get pregnant
while still in her mother's womb,
and they'll deliver both kids on Jerry Springer's show
billed as The Generation Telescope.

(rsitter) wrote in message . com...
Daye wrote in message . ..
On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 00:16:14 GMT, "Jody Pellerin"
wrote:

KIEV, Ukraine (January 23, 4:24 a.m. AST) - An 11-year-old
girl has given birth to a healthy baby boy, becoming
Ukraine's youngest mother on record, a newspaper reported
Thursday.

I knew a girl from my old neighborhood in Alabama who was pregnant at
10, and she had the baby at 11.


this is incomprehensible to me. my oldest just turned 10 and i don't
even want to think of such a thing.

i do remember when i had her that there was a 12 year old that
delivered at the same time.

When I was a senior in high school, there was a girl a couple of years
younger than I was - she was 16 - and her mother was only 29 years
old. So she was a young teen mother in 1971.

Cathy Weeks
Mommy to Kivi Alexis 12/01

wrote:
Healthy baby born to 11-year-old in Ukraine

That is so sad :-(. My state health department recently published some
vital statistics for the state for 2002. The youngest mother that year was
also just 11. There are no other details. The oldest mother was 50.

--
Nikki
Mama to Hunter (4) and Luke (2)

klaatu wrote:

that is, scientists first began gathering serious statistical data
during the Victorian era in England;
at that time chasmal differences in physical characteristics
between upper and lower classes
prompted some researchers to opine that these classes
were moving toward becoming separate species.

That was back in the days when they took things like eugenics seriously.
They didn't really understand evolution (in fact they probably didn't
even believe in it - it was, afterall, a fairly new idea to them. In
fact, they might have been more followers of Lamarck than anything
else). I would just ignore a lot of that stuff, if I were you. Read it
for fun, but don't take it seriously. Truth is, we don't really know
what is triggering earlier maturation for the *majority* of girls (not
sure if it's happening to boys). There have always been anomalies, but
it seems like the mean is getting younger as time goes by, and there are
no clear studies that point to reasons why - there are only educated
guesses based on various bits of evidence. (and *this* of course is why
there is so much pseudoscience out there about this, unfortunately)

klaatu wrote:
that is, scientists first began gathering serious statistical data
during the Victorian era in England;
at that time chasmal differences in physical characteristics
between upper and lower classes
prompted some researchers to opine that these classes
were moving toward becoming separate species.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
That was back in the days when they took things like eugenics seriously.
They didn't really understand evolution
(in fact they probably didn't even believe in it -
it was, afterall, a fairly new idea to them. In fact,
they might have been more followers of Lamarck than anything else).

I would just ignore a lot of that stuff, if I were you.
Read it for fun, but don't take it seriously.

klaatu:
i don't take it seriously as a fact or as science;
i take it seriously as indicator of the writer's mind-set.

glad you mentioned it;
if i gave the impression that i believed
social classes might be evolving to separate species
i've mis-spoken myself.

my own feeling is that Victorian-era poor folk
generally aged earlier and died off sooner
due to multiple factors, such as high infant-mortality,
poor nutrition, over-work, lack of health-care,
hideously unsafe work conditions, et cetera.

at that time the science of statistics was just beginning, too;
researchers oft put their own bias into formatting their data
and ended using pseudo- 'facts' the way a drunk uses a lamp-post:
more for support than illumination.

far as i can see, the chief value of these pseudo-sciences
is to warn the rest of us how easy it can be to delude oneself
by assuming IMplicitly what one hopes to discover EXplicitly.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
Truth is, we don't really know
what is triggering earlier maturation for the *majority* of girls

klaatu:
agreed.
it's a matter of some interest to me for reasons beyond physical.

if it be proven that repression *does* retard physical development,
then the Average Parent is in exactly the same case
as those who subjected their daughters to foot-binding in China.

at that point Mom & Dad would have to tell kids honestly
"Well yeah hon, we ARE gonna cripple you,
but ya hafta understand it's part of your cultural heritage...
it's our parental duty to do this to you."

the alternative is to quit doing it,
and give kids basic human rights.

for this reason if no other, it seems to me
that this point is worthy of full-scale investigation.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
(not sure if it's happening to boys).

There have always been anomalies,

klaatu:
good point.
there have always been so *many* anomalies
that it's unclear what's the "norm" and what's "anomalous".

seems solving a problem begins with defining it;
defining *maturation* is a problem in itself.

point:
i'm typical of my crowd;
my crowd tends to early sexual experience,
and also tends to develop early;
what's "anomalous?" - either? both? neither?

and what of logical corollaries?
i was four or five when i realized one could *cause* orgasm;
until then i thought it just happened, like sneezes or hiccups,
un-related to what one might be doing at the time.

years later i was astounded to learn of prude superstition
to the effect that orgasm only came with body-hair, et cetera,
laughably described as "physical maturity"
when in fact these poor kids were ten years behind our "norm"
in terms of life-experience -

the only things they had that we lacked were body-hair and odour.
so . . . will the real anomaly please stand up?

the sexual aspect of this is unimportant;
what IS important is that adults deliberately robbed these kids,
a betrayal made all the more hideous in guise of 'love'.

that continuous rip-off is made possible
by the deliberate indifference of adults generally.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
but it seems like the mean is getting younger as time goes by,

klaatu:
that much seems no matter for doubt;
biased Victorians may have spun fantasies off of facts,
but they tended to be punctiliously correct about physical data
which could be counted, weighed or otherwise measured -

that is, even blinkered prudes can count pubic hairs reliably.

when a lot of doctors examine a lot of girls over a lot of time
and overwhelmingly find the same trend,
seems reasonable it may be true.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
and there are no clear studies that point to reasons why -
there are only educated guesses based on various bits of evidence.
(and *this* of course
is why there is so much pseudoscience out there about this, unfortunately)

klaatu:
agreed again - but there COULD be clear studies.
there's enough raw data loose in the world at any given moment
to make a persuasive case one way or the other
IF the "adult conspiracy" would get off it's collective butt
and use it.

i suspect ulterior motive for this refusal to investigate.

i find it especially suspicious
that the Establishment have made it illegal to prove them wrong.

it's illegal to admit having relevant experience;
the most useful data available can't be used
because doing it, condoning it or allowing it is a felony.

to me this seems very close to the situation
when every reputable professor knew Earth flat,
and every deep-water sailor knew it round,
but had to keep quiet for fear of Law and the Status Quo.

that is, conventional wisdom accepted then was pseudo-science,
while first-hand, eye-witness testimony was ignored completely -
just as in this deceptively simple matter of changing menarche.

seems to me humanity hasn't progressed so far
from the time of the Spanish Inquisition,
just re-named things, and shifted justifications around.

no big surprise that people frustrated in pursuit of honest inquiry
end up with pseudo-science; it's all that's left.
still hoping for better tho.

klaatu wrote:

klaatu wrote:
that is, scientists first began gathering serious statistical data
during the Victorian era in England;
at that time chasmal differences in physical characteristics
between upper and lower classes
prompted some researchers to opine that these classes
were moving toward becoming separate species.


Vicky Bilaniuk:
That was back in the days when they took things like eugenics seriously.
They didn't really understand evolution
(in fact they probably didn't even believe in it -
it was, afterall, a fairly new idea to them. In fact,
they might have been more followers of Lamarck than anything else).

I would just ignore a lot of that stuff, if I were you.
Read it for fun, but don't take it seriously.


klaatu:
i don't take it seriously as a fact or as science;
i take it seriously as indicator of the writer's mind-set.

glad you mentioned it;
if i gave the impression that i believed
social classes might be evolving to separate species
i've mis-spoken myself.

I don't like to read too much into what people say, especially in a
newsgroup. IIRC, I wasn't clear about what you meant, so I wanted to be
careful. Also, I like to say things for the benefit of any lurkers out
there who aren't bored to tears after my first sentence. ;-)


far as i can see, the chief value of these pseudo-sciences
is to warn the rest of us how easy it can be to delude oneself
by assuming IMplicitly what one hopes to discover EXplicitly.

Once pseudoscience is recognized for what it is, by a large enough
number of people, it definitely serves this purpose. (sadly, though,
some people like to hang onto some things for very long periods of time)


There have always been anomalies,


klaatu:
good point.
there have always been so *many* anomalies
that it's unclear what's the "norm" and what's "anomalous".


I meant simply in a statistical sense. So, "norm" would be the mean,
and "anomalous" would be something more than a couple of standard errors
from the mean. (sorry - I like to study stats) I should have said that
there is always random fluctuation, implying that there will always be a
good chance of something falling outside where the majority lies. I
wasn't really thinking of social norms and stuff like that. So to put
it back in context, I was referring to some kids who become sexually
mature either really early or really late.


Vicky Bilaniuk:
and there are no clear studies that point to reasons why -
there are only educated guesses based on various bits of evidence.
(and *this* of course
is why there is so much pseudoscience out there about this, unfortunately)


klaatu:
agreed again - but there COULD be clear studies.

Yes, I suppose, but I don't think there ever will be unless an insane
person runs the experiments.

there's enough raw data loose in the world at any given moment
to make a persuasive case one way or the other

But that's not a clear study. That would be like a case study. You
can't show cause and effect that way. You can only make guesses. (good
guesses, in some cases, but guesses nonetheless)

IF the "adult conspiracy" would get off it's collective butt
and use it.

i suspect ulterior motive for this refusal to investigate.

i find it especially suspicious
that the Establishment have made it illegal to prove them wrong.

it's illegal to admit having relevant experience;
the most useful data available can't be used
because doing it, condoning it or allowing it is a felony.

Are you now talking about sex? Well, that's different from what I was
talking about. However, I will agree that the laws are rather strict
about that, but that's just my personal opinion. Canada's laws are a
bit more relaxed than the those of the US, but not by much. I'm not
sure where you live. Anyway, I don't really think that sexual activity
would correspond to sexual maturity. I'll bet that some individuals
become active before they are mature (perhaps you are an example). Who
knows. We are born to have sex, so we are aware of it starting at very
early ages (society tries to program us to ignore it, though, as you know).


no big surprise that people frustrated in pursuit of honest inquiry
end up with pseudo-science; it's all that's left.
still hoping for better tho.

Don't worry. Pseudoscience is not all that's left. It's just the easy
way out for people who don't really like to dig deeply.

Vicky

P.S.
I hope that I don't sound like I'm on drugs. M/S has decided to visit
me, I think, and for two days, now, I've been feeling quite ill. It's
making it hard for me to keep thoughts straight in my head.

klaatu wrote:
that is, scientists first began gathering serious statistical data
during the Victorian era in England;
at that time chasmal differences in physical characteristics
between upper and lower classes
prompted some researchers to opine that these classes
were moving toward becoming separate species.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
That was back in the days when they took things like eugenics seriously.
They didn't really understand evolution
(in fact they probably didn't even believe in it -
it was, afterall, a fairly new idea to them. In fact,
they might have been more followers of Lamarck than anything else).

I would just ignore a lot of that stuff, if I were you.
Read it for fun, but don't take it seriously.

klaatu:
i don't take it seriously as a fact or as science;
i take it seriously as indicator of the writer's mind-set.

glad you mentioned it;
if i gave the impression that i believed
social classes might be evolving to separate species
i've mis-spoken myself.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
I don't like to read too much into what people say, especially in a
newsgroup. IIRC, I wasn't clear about what you meant, so I wanted to be
careful. Also, I like to say things for the benefit of any lurkers out
there who aren't bored to tears after my first sentence. ;-)

klaatu:
far as i can see, the chief value of these pseudo-sciences
is to warn the rest of us how easy it can be to delude oneself
by assuming IMplicitly what one hopes to discover EXplicitly.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
Once pseudoscience is recognized for what it is,
by a large enough number of people,
it definitely serves this purpose.
(sadly, though, some people like to hang onto some things
for very long periods of time)

klaatu:
indeed.
problem is, much pseudo-science is invented and sustained
by the very Authorities charged to dispel such mythology:

Michaelangelo's statue of Moses has horns on his head.
it stands in the Piazza San Marco.
he's just my size, 5'6"; i can look him straight in the eyes.

Buonarroti put horns on him, against all common-sense,
"because it's right there in the Bible -
Moses came down from the mountain, his face horned ...."

he didn't want to, but Pope Sixtus and patron Medicis
insisted on it - backed by (bogus) Biblical authority.

Saint Jerome mis-translated "shone" for "horned"
and put it "Qeren" into the Latin Vulgate as "cornu".

this was ridiculous,
and it STAYED ridiculous some centuries
because Jerome's an Authority,
and once a mistake is Holy Writ nothing else matters.

same with Flat Earth theory;
same with Lord Kelvin's accusation of Pierre & Marie Curie
that X-rays were a hoax.

mean-spirited old ******* didn't understand the subject
and instead of admitting it, he called it nonsense;
because he was an Authority
(he devised the Kelvin Scale for measuring temperature),
he gave real Science a lot of trouble it needn't have had,
after he departed from that discipline into petty jealousy.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
There have always been anomalies,

klaatu:
good point.
there have always been so *many* anomalies
that it's unclear what's the "norm" and what's "anomalous".

Vicky Bilaniuk:
I meant simply in a statistical sense. So, "norm" would be the mean,
and "anomalous" would be something
more than a couple of standard errors from the mean.
(sorry - I like to study stats)

klaatu:
stats are all to the good, but are only useful
IF the presumptions on which data's drawn are accurate.

for instance,
poor folk used to take infants to churches to christen them
to get inside out of cold weather, a tot of sacramental wine,
and with a bit of luck, maybe even a dinner.

some kids got christened dozens of times;
baptismal records are thus very close to worthless,
but i've seen them used as "hard data" for statistics.

similarly, statistics on missing kids oft approach fantasy;
i and every runaway i know gave cops phony names;
finding no parents, we'd go to foster-homes and run off again;
i, personally, am about fifty "missing children", probably more.

stats are just fine if basic data are straight,
but if not, results are meaningless.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
I should have said that there is always random fluctuation,
implying that there will always be a good chance
of something falling outside where the majority lies.
I wasn't really thinking of social norms and stuff like that.
So to put it back in context, I was referring to some kids
who become sexually mature either really early or really late.

klaatu:
yes, agreed -
my point is that concerning physical maturation
inferences have been derived without being defined
nearly well enough to avoid ambiguity.

the "norm" seems still in limbo,
and thus "standard errors" come off data
which are perhaps as vacuous as baptismal records
or other "official" mythology.

i've no doubt whatsoever
that whatever the norm may be for maturation,
there will be anomalous variation from it -
but so far i don't think that norm credibly established,
nor even well enough defined
to support many inferences i've heard drawn from it,
even if all steps after were rigorously correct.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
and there are no clear studies that point to reasons why -
there are only educated guesses based on various bits of evidence.
(and *this* of course
is why there is so much pseudoscience out there about this, unfortunately)

klaatu:
agreed again - but there COULD be clear studies.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
Yes, I suppose, but I don't think there ever will be
unless an insane person runs the experiments.

klaatu:
?

klaatu:
there's enough raw data loose in the world at any given moment
to make a persuasive case one way or the other

Vicky Bilaniuk:
But that's not a clear study. That would be like a case study.
You can't show cause and effect that way. You can only make guesses.
good guesses, in some cases, but guesses nonetheless)

klaatu:
agreed yet again - but i don't understand the objection;
i stipulate that it's ALL guess-work.

even if every other step is governed by strict logical deduction,
so long as there's one single assumption in the sequence,
that entire sequence is still a guess, no matter how intricate.

for instance, an extreme case:
there's no point even planning to get up in the morning
unless one assumes gravity will work the same way today
as it did before;

everything we do in the real-world is based on guess-work,
varying only in it's place on a scale of probability.

seem to me that to be useful in the real world,
any study must at last resolve to real-world phenomena - case-study -
or it's mere theory, which is fine for entertainment,
but nothing upon which one might justify meddling in others lives.

what would your criteria be for a "clear study" of physical maturation
showing cause-and-effect (of *any* variables on any other variables)
without reference to real people in the real world?

klaatu:
IF the "adult conspiracy" would get off it's collective butt
and use it.

i suspect ulterior motive for this refusal to investigate.

i find it especially suspicious
that the Establishment have made it illegal to prove them wrong.

it's illegal to admit having relevant experience;
the most useful data available can't be used
because doing it, condoning it or allowing it is a felony.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
Are you now talking about sex?
Well, that's different from what I was talking about.
However, I will agree that the laws are rather strict about that,
but that's just my personal opinion.
Canada's laws are a bit more relaxed than the those of the US,
but not by much. I'm not sure where you live.
Anyway, I don't really think that sexual activity
would correspond to sexual maturity.
I'll bet that some individuals become active before they are mature
perhaps you are an example). Who knows. We are born to have sex,
so we are aware of it starting at very early ages
(society tries to program us to ignore it, though, as you know).

klaatu:
sorry; guess i've been unclear.

i don't *equate* sexual activity to sexual maturity,
and laws concerning who can do what are irrelevant
to the point i'm trying to get at.

i've a theory, based on experience and what i've read,
that people who have plenty of physical experience
may tend to physical changes at generally earlier ages
than people who do not;
sex-characteristics are only one example of many.

birds prevented from vocalizing when the urge strikes
generally don't ever learn to do it right; brains are impaired.

monkeys raised in cages by machines, without "socialization"
generally don't learn it later,
and show a wide range of physical differences
from "socialized" peers.

cause-and-effect
can't be rigorously established by these case-studies,
but in practice, machine-raised (never-"cuddled") monkeys
tend to be very solitary, timid, non-exploratory; passive.
they also tend to be weaker and less skilful.
same with dogs.

some conjecture that thes physical differences
stem from timidity urging less exploration/exercise,
with consequent lack of strength, balance et cetera
merely due to lack of practice; others opine otherwise;

what's beyond doubt is that there are differences
between the two groups.

based on numerous case-studies of isolated children,
and world-wide regression of pubescence over time
ever since sexual information has become widely available,
and my own experience,

i think it possible that animals (to include humans)
who are rigorously prevented from sexual experience
may likewise show impaired or retarded development
not only socially, but also physically.

my mother's side of the family are sexually very strict;
they also tend to develop years behind my father's folk,
who allow kids to experiment as they will;
few of my mates there can remember so far back as virginity.

parents split; mother got custody; i ran away.
during some years beyond rule of adults or law,
gained varied experience, sexual included.

that experience, and more heard from other runaways
suggests strongly to me
that kids who have plenty of (willing) sexual experience
tend to earlier physical development than house-bound peers.

(it's axiomatic among my crowd
that kids who've been used sexually against their will
tend to remain "childish" physically until very late,
where we who sought it out on our own developed early.)

point:
(1)
it would be useful to know if repressive parenting
actually impairs or retards physical development of children.

(2)
law forbids kids to gain that experience,
and forbids parents to allow it either.

(3)
those people best qualified to give data on this point
(we who have participatory experience)
can't record anything on the subject without immense risk,
both to our own selves and our partners,
until we reach legal age.

(4)
in any study,
the most useful data are gathered either during
or as soon as possible after events happen,
as utility of both physical and subjective information
deteriorates rapidly with time.

forming conjectures in this manner
is like getting your evening news
from somebody who saw something happen five years previous
describing events from memory - accuracy suffers dramatically.

in effect, it's illegal to prove Establisment dogma incorrect,
or even to make an honest try,
which may perpetuate this foolishness indefinitely.

klaatu:
no big surprise that people frustrated in pursuit of honest inquiry
end up with pseudo-science; it's all that's left.
still hoping for better tho.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
Don't worry. Pseudoscience is not all that's left. It's just the easy
way out for people who don't really like to dig deeply.

klaatu:
ja - hope our team gets a chance soon.

Vicky Bilaniuk:
P.S.
I hope that I don't sound like I'm on drugs.
M/S has decided to visit me, I think,
and for two days, now, I've been feeling quite ill.
It's making it hard for me to keep thoughts straight in my head.

klaatu:
you seem quite lucid - thanks for your input;
you make me organize my thoughts more coherently.

sorry to hear you're feeling bad;
if it's any comfort, you're not alone;
seems like everybody's got something just now.
best wishes.