Category: Bob Small

Our Right To Refuse

By Bob Small

There were numerous groups that I discovered in my dealings with Children’s Health Defense (CHD). 

Right to refuse is one of the more active.

Its mission statement is “Right to Refuse is a national campaign to help state organizations and grassroots advocates connect for the purpose of passing state laws that would protect the rights of individuals to make their own health decisions.”

According to their website,  as of Dec 31, “74 Right to Refuse Bills have passed into laws in 29 States.” 

In Pennsylvania, we have Pennsylvania Coalition for Informed Consent  

To quote from the above website  “The Pennsylvania Coalition for Informed Consent works to preserve the vital personal freedom and human right to informed consent, privacy, and choice for medical procedures in Pennsylvania. “  There is a listing of House and Senate Bills listed to either support or reject.

Related websites are Health Freedom Pennsylvania: Home which lists allied groups. The active ones are https://www.pavotersguide.com/  which should be updated soon for 2024 and https://rightforliberty.com/ . See also the listed 8 organizations listed under Resource Center.

According to their charts, there were three vaccines in 1960.

As of 2019, there were 56. (

In my youth, we were shown photos of children in iron lungs to encourage us to receive our polio shots which was a shot we all willingly received –after seeing the photos.

Right about here we should say that vaccines are an individual choice.  Having had shingles, a shingles shot seemed appropriate.  A few weeks after two Covid shots, I got Covid.  That’s when this person started to rethink his choices.

Some other related websites on this topic are:

Home | National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)PPPC.me  “Pennsylvania Parents Protecting Children believes that parents and legal guardians have the right to safeguard their children’s health. “

FREE PA – Home

We should all remember that we , as citizens,  have both a right and a responsibility to contact our State and Local elected officials on these issues along with any others.

Our Right To Refuse

Saint Matrona And Stalin

By Bob Small

Joseph Stalin, known as Joseph Vissarrionovich Stalin born as Joseb Besarionis Dze Jughashvili, has a mixed evaluation from a historical perspective.  Many of his actions were monstrous but the Allies might have lost World War 2, if he hadn’t had Russia switch sides.  In 2024, he’s still a source of controversy in his native Georgia.

There is an icon showing Stalin being blessed by Saint Matrona of Moscow the Holy Trinity (Saemba) Cathedral.

A youthful Stalin attended the Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary in Tiflis, Georgia with the intent of becoming a priest. 

Activist, Nata Peradze threw blue paint on the icon on Jan. 9. 

This action generated a reaction in which members of the far-right “Alt Info” party to surround Ms. Peradze’s house but luckily local Police quickly arrived.

Ms. Peradze is not alone in her opinion regarding the icon. Gocha Barnov, a theologian, told TV channel Mtavari Arkhi that the icon’s presence in the cathedral was ‘blasphemous’ and that it should be removed immediately.    Davit Tarkan-Mouravi, the leader of the far-right, Alliance of Patriots of Georgia announced that he had donated the icon to the Church.

Stalin became an avowed atheist and that the meeting memorialized in the Icon — which is mean to honor Saint Matrona — is apocryphal at best.

However, let truth not stand in the way of a good story.

Saint Matrona was a contemporary of the dictator, though, being born a few years after and dying one year before in 1952. Like Stalin, she lived in Moscow but as a Christian and many miracles are attributed her.

One reason that Ms. Peradze threw the paint on the icon  is her family’s history which she blames on Stalin.

“It’s my pain,” Ms. Peradze told Al Jazeera. “We have no [discussions] about what happened and no memorials for the people who went through hell because of this guy. There were priests on my father’s side and on my mother’s there were dissidents. Some were deported to Siberia and some were lost and we never knew what happened to them.” 

There has been a resurgence in Stalin’s popularity in Georgia, with at least 11 new statues of him appearing since the governing Georgian Dream party came to power in 2012.

Perhaps we should remember Stalin as a complicated individual who…how should we finish this sentence?

Conference Concerns Autism

By Bob Small

Another flyer from the  Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Conference was about the Autism Health Summit scheduled for Feb. 2 and 3 in San Antonio.

It will be streamed live online.

Protection of the Educational Rights of Kids (PERK) is encouraging it be watched. PERK says that because there is no medical cure for autism, many parents turn to biomedical treatments and therapies. Most of these treatments are low-risk, and some have the potential to be life-changing. 

This is not to be confused with any of the “establishment” conferences about autism such as the International Conference on Autism which follows the accepted narratives.

The New York Times article  Autism Prevalence Rises Again, Study Finds implies that there are not more cases of autism but as Professor Catherine Lord of the UCLA Medical School says “I have a feeling there is just more discovery.”

There are a number of issues brought up on Adults with Autism  How to navigate adulthood on the autism spectrum  “As individuals continue to grow and develop . . . what autism looks like in a person, really changes”.  This was from Vanessa Bal, Rutgers University associate professor of psychology.

“For some people, not having an explanation of how to understand themselves is really difficult,” she says. 

Rebecca Faith Quinn, an LA actress with autism said . “A lot of autism experts get so focused on the autism that they forget they are looking at an autistic person, , , , That is a very dehumanizing experience.”  

In summation, adults with autism are very often an ignored population.

For many years when I woke up at seven in the morning for my driving job. I listened to Imus in the Morning once I delivered my charge, and then, after breakfast, driving home.  Imus was controversial and sometimes went way past controversy and ended up apologizing for things he should not have said.

The CHD wrote a  a tribute him for his support of those suffering from autism.

“His commitment to airing all sides of controversial issues became apparent to the autism community in 2005 and 2006 as the   Combating Autism Act  (CAA) was being discussed in Congress. The Act, which was ultimately signed into law by George W. Bush in December of 2006, “

The treatments for autism continue to be controversial.

Conference Concerns Autism

Drop The Charges Against Assange

By Bob Small

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN-5), who could not  be described as ideological bedfellows but they found a cause that unites them. It’s the freeing of Julian Assange and both are co-sponsors of H.Res.934 which would do so.

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that regular journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment and that the United States ought to drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange, the bill reads.

The chances of this even being debated on the House floor, though, are slim to none and “slim’s left town.”

That Paul A Gosar (R-AZ-9), and the eight others introduced the bill shows courage in a when too many act like the townspeople in “High Noon”

Among others, his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, says “His life is at risk (if extradited) and I am not exaggerating this.”

In a January 2021 trial, Judge  Vanessa Baraitser said  “Assange should not be sent to the US, citing a real and “oppressive” risk of suicide, “

The Independent, in a tribute to John Pilger, quoted his last published piece “We are all Spartacus if we want to be.

This article also quotes Assange’s wife, Stella, who called Pilger a “consistent ally of the dispossessed”.

Assange’s father John Shipton, was recently in Brazil, promoting a movie about his son,

In May 2023 “Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in London that the journalist’s continued imprisonment was “shameful.” “

Even GOP Presidential Candidates have opinions on Assange,  with Vivek Ramaswamy saying that Assange, like too many to name, is another one of our imprisoned heroes.

Seller of Raw Milk Gets a Raw Deal

By Bob Small

“Nothing heals the body and restores strength like raw milk” 

—Dr. J. F. Lyman, Professor of Agricultural Chemistry, Ohio State University, 1929

“There is no question that pasteurization compromises the nutritional value of breast milk”.

Real Milk Campaign

Amos Miller, from Lancaster, Pa. has a private buying club, selling items to the public from various local farmers. This includes the aforementioned raw milk, which led to having his farm searched and property seized.

“Three Pennsylvania State Troopers and seven other individuals spent several hours inside a building on Amos Miller’s Lancaster County farm while conducting a search on Jan. 4, 2024, eventually leaving with multiple coolers containing Miller’s property. “

A search warrant had been issued the day before which included an affidavit of probable cause from the Pa. Dept. of Agriculture, Food Safety division.

US Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) said “With all of the problems in society today, this is what the government wants to focus on? A man growing food for informed customers, without participating in the industrial meat/milk complex.”

Another non-Pennsylvanian who commented  was Donald Trump, Jr. 

“Imagine what law enforcement could accomplish if they went after oh I don’t  know, say, members of elite pedophile rings rather than farmers selling to their neighbors???” he posted on X. 

Additionally, there a lot of “alleged and implications” in this story. This is a quote from Miller’s  attorney, Robert Barnes “Today, the Department of Agriculture of the State of Pennsylvania suddenly came, without notice, raided Amos’ farm, and detained everything Amos had in the farm’s freezer. They did so in a lawless manner, without appropriate authority, in violation of their own rules and regulations, despite never objecting to the prior resolutions reached with the federal government, and despite a complete failure by the state to even reach out to Amos’ known counsel.”

For their part, the State alleges that Amos Miller has steadfastly refused to cooperate with their regulations.  GOP State Rep David Zimmerman, who represents the 99^th District in Lancaster said that there’s a fine line between individual freedom and government responsibility and said the Miller case is happening at a time of “so little trust in government”.

Disclaimer. My wife and I have been raw milk consumers for decades.

Seller of Raw Milk Gets a Raw Deal

Will Tiny Homes Solve Homelessness?

By Bob Small

I first reported on the “tiny house” phenomenon in September.

Tiny home communities are being developed for homeless persons, locally and nationally. The New York Times carried a lengthy article on Community First! Village outside of Austin, TX.

The typical home is a one-room unit with a bed, kitchenette, and recliner, all in 200 square feet. Residents get around to the bathrooms, chicken coops, convenience store and vegetable gardens by foot or the village golf cart (seats 8).

Community First soon hopes to grow to 3,000 homes in three locations, enough to house 50 percent of Austin’s Homeless population.

Community First is a project of Mobile Loaves and Fishes.

Some donations, both land, monetary and other came from Alamo Drafthouse, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and other area businesses.

There are around 50 “Missionals”who also live adjacent to the village, as volunteer helpers.

Besides Mobile Loaves and Fishes own income it got $35 million from Travis County  in American Rescue Plan Act funds to build 640 units as part of its expansion. “

Then, in May, HUD “ approved the use of federal housing vouchers, which subsidize part or all of a low-income resident’s rent, for the village’s tiny homes. “

This has inspired spinoffs.

Springfield, Mo has  villages limited to 50 homes or less, but each home has its own bathroom and kitchen.  

Dennis Culhane, a social science researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who studies modern homelessness, said he ”understood the desperate need for housing, but was wary of relying on tiny homes as a permanent answer.”

Mary Beth Shinn, a Vanderbilt Professor specializing in Homelessness, said “The tiny homes are often just not at a scale to be helpful.” 

Below are  articles on “tiny homes” in Delaware, Lancaster, and Philadelphia Counties;

Tiny homes for homeless veterans on track for Spring 2024 …

In Harrisburg, a nonprofit builds a tiny-house village for …

Philly’s first tiny house village for homeless slated for 2023

Sanctuary Village: Home

Tiny Homes

One Man’s Dream Means Housing for Homeless Vets .

Will Tiny Homes Solve Homelessness?