FAN Bulletin 920
 
January 4, 2008

Dear Supporter,

One of the things that George Orwell made clear in his brilliant writings is that those with a dictatorial bent cannot stand  ridicule. Dictators can often withstand underground newsletters, bullets, bombs and uprisings but they can’t withstand ridicule. It is absolutely essential for their missions to be taken with the utmost seriousness. Humor is an arrow for which they have no defense.

I am sure, if he had lived to see it, George Orwell would have described forcing people to drink a known poisonous substance in their drinking water supply as a highly ‘dictatorial’ practice. He would have welcomed some humor to combat this. So we need to use it more and more.

Humor is also an aspect of creativity and as I mentioned in a recent bulletin we “should never forget that there is this resource out there called ‘creativity’ which can buttress all our other advances.” Some of you might not have much money to give, but you have a lot of creativity to share.

To my delight yesterday evening, I got a response to this bulletin from Don Smith, a graphic designer, who offered to do cartoons for the campaign. When I saw samples of his work I realized he was just the person to do something I have been itching to do for several years.

In my public presentations I stress that the fluoridation debate has been controlled by dentists and dental associations for far to long. They may know a lot about teeth but very little about the rest of the body. They have no right to be making “authoritative” proclamations about the safety of fluoridation when they do not have time to read the scientific literature on health concerns, even if they were able to understand half of it. I needed three cartoons to illustrate this.

First, a picture of two people - a man and a woman - as most of us would see them. Second, a picture of them as a dentist would see them. For this I wanted their mouths and teeth hugely enlarged with just the top of their heads and a small part of their bodies left visible. Third, back to a picture of the one of the normal people with windows showing the tissues we are concerned about - including the brain, the thyroid gland, the bones, the kidney, the stomach and the gastro-intestinal system. Don has already done the first two and is working on the third. I have incorporated them into my power point presentation and we will soon be posting them on our web page.

This makes me very happy and prompts me to ask two things, a) can you think of a cartoon that you want to see but don’t have the skills to draw and b) do you have any other creative talents that could be used to further our 2008 campaign?

And again, reiterating a point in the last bulletin, in order to sustain ourselves through this frustrating battle we need to have fun. Certainly harnessing creativity, especially creative humor, can be an important part of waging a serious campaign to end this public health threat, while having fun doing it.

Over to you.

Paul Connett