Seriously...

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There's currently a lot of traffic about Trump, the Epstein papers and the DOJ. Trump's MAGA support is faltering because of this one issue: the DOJ's not releasing of the 'papers' related to Jeffrey Epstein's operation and criminal activities regarding sex-trafficking and abuse of minors. From Trump's standpoint, he says there's nothing here to see, and his '...it's quite boring actually, sordid but boring...' attitude, would suggest one thing, alluded to by his erstwhile buddy, Elon Musk. As far as MAGA are concerned, it would seem they are up in arms about it, but not for the reasons one might think. It's not because they feel affronted at the President's apparent passive defence of Epstein, or that the accusations of his complicity in Epstein's criminality might actually be real; but rather that they still wholeheartedly believe in the entire Democrat/Pizza Parlour/Sex Trafficking/Alien Lizard King conspiracy. They now seem to believe that Trump himself is part and parcel of that conspiracy: enabling it, even. This is the monster in whose creation Trump has been in large part responsible, and it would seem that the monster ain't happy with Doctor Frankenstein himself.

Meanwhile, in the real world of ordinary people, unprotected by vast wealth and privilege, a more prosaic but no less sinister consequence of batshit-mad conspiracy theorising is taking hold amongst the upcoming generation of First World children: measles. I've written before of my family's first-hand experience of this disease in the 1950s, and how my sister very nearly perished as a result of this foul affliction. When the MMR vaccine was offered, at about the time my son was born, we jumped at the chance to inoculate him simultaneously against three of the infections that I suffered in my childhood. I was lucky with mild doses of measles and rubella [German Measles], but mumps was a different matter and wholly unpleasant. Even at the time, just eight years after we had had our son inoculated, false reports of drastic side-effects to the vaccine were being promulgated. Although discredited, the views have stayed within the general canon of conspiracy theorist belief, leading, particularly since the pandemic, to more and more vaccine scepticism. We are now seeing the fruits of this idiocy, with a rise in cases of polio being reported, and now measles taking off as potentially a major killer of young children in the developed world. It's time the world stopped listening to the ill-informed, started listening to those that know, and pay heed to actual historical and scientific fact. Take it from one with personal experience. And I was one of the lucky ones...

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