Sunday, September 27, 2009

"I don't love you anymore. In fact, I don't think I ever did."

Someone wrote on the Sonlight forums,
I just got a call from a friend. The fourth friend in two years to call me with the exact same situation. The sixth person I know in real life who this has happened to. The upshot: her husband turned to her this morning over breakfast and said, "You know, I'm just not in love with you anymore. I don't want to be married to you anymore. It's not you. It's me. I'm really sorry." . . .

In the midst of my prayers for my friend, her husband and their precious children, I am asking myself WHY? Why does this kind of thing keep happening? Why does one party in a marriage suddenly feel the need to throw their hands up in the air and walk away? Why? Why? Why?
This post immediately reminded me of an article I read in The Week just a few weeks ago (actually, at this point, about a month ago). Powerful.

It was a reprint of an article from the July 31st edition of the New York Times: Those Aren't Fighting Words, Dear, in which the author was told exactly the same thing by her husband.
“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”

His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, “I don’t buy it.” Because I didn’t.

He drew back in surprise. Apparently he’d expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind.

So he turned mean. “I don’t like what you’ve become.”

Gut-wrenching pause. How could he say such a thing? That’s when I really wanted to fight. To rage. To cry. But I didn’t.

Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and I repeated those words: “I don’t buy it.”

You see, I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to “the End of Suffering.” I’d finally managed to exile the voices in my head that told me my personal happiness was only as good as my outward success, rooted in things that were often outside my control. I’d seen the insanity of that equation and decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.

My husband hadn’t yet come to this understanding with himself. He had enjoyed many years of hard work, and its rewards had supported our family of four all along. But his new endeavor hadn’t been going so well, and his ability to be the breadwinner was in rapid decline. He’d been miserable about this, felt useless, was losing himself emotionally and letting himself go physically. And now he wanted out of our marriage; to be done with our family.

But I wasn’t buying it.

I said: “It’s not age-appropriate to expect children to be concerned with their parents’ happiness. Not unless you want to create co-dependents who’ll spend their lives in bad relationships and therapy. There are times in every relationship when the parties involved need a break. What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”

“Huh?” he said.
The rest of the story is very well worth reading. Laura Munson, the author, should be given a medal. I believe what she has written could possibly save thousands--maybe millions--of marriages.

If only people will listen . . . and apply the wisdom she shares.

*****

I spoke with a woman on Friday who told me something very similar had happened with some dear friends of her family. The rebound took longer than it did in Munson's case, and the pain, it seems, may have been greater. But the end results were every bit as wonderful.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Some photographers blow me away . . .

Emil Watson, of South Africa, is one.

Just one example of his artistry:


You can find his photos, together with Google Earth tags that show where they were taken on his pages at Panoramio.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

(LDN) Low-Dose Naltrexone and other health-related comments

Following Linda's comment, as I noted, I decided to pursue the low-dose naltrexone (LDN) option.

I wrote my rheumatologist. He turned me down.

Meanwhile, while my "vitality and longevity" doctor was the one who first suggested I may be dealing with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), he repeatedly stated he wants nothing to do with treating my RA. "It's not my area."

As I bore down on a year under his care--a year in which I made significant progress in my blood lipids and other markers of general health (HDL from 44 to 70; LDL from 134 to 64; number of LDL particles ("more important than total quantity of LDL") went from 1942 to below 1000; LDL particle size went from 20.0 ("too small; too compact") to a "bigger, fluffier" 21.6; insulin went from 6.0 and higher down to less than 2.0; total testosterone went from a low of 441 to a healthier 758; total body fat went from 24.9% to 15.8% . . . and so on and so forth)--Sarita and I were not particularly happy that he has been charging us $200 a month basically just to "be there," ready to answer any questions I may have about the issues he does deal with.

I decided to see if I could find a doctor who would deal with all my issues--not only my lipids and testosterone and cancer risks, but my autoimmune problems as well.

And as I looked for a doctor who might prescribe and have experience with LDN, I found such a doctor in our area.

When I visited Dr. C--an MD but/and with a strong naturopathic orientation--I discovered he had been a rheumatologist.

"You're not a rheumatologist anymore?" I asked. "You mean you don't keep up on the field?"

"Right. I wouldn't want to pretend I was still qualified in the area."

Still, he obviously had experience with people just like me. That was a nice "bonus"!

Several things came out of my appointment with Dr. C:
  • "LDN is a great therapy, but it won't cure your arthritis."
     
  • "Your greatest threat from rheumatoid arthritis is not the pain and the potential damage to your joints--the things that you're worried about. The greatest threat is heart disease. It dramatically increases your risk of heart attack."
     
  • "RA is a forest fire. You need to throw everything at it you can."
As a result of that last piece of good news:
  • "Though I am no fan of statin drugs, and normally I would try to have one of my patients use another modality to attack the blood lipid issues, in your case, because of your RA, I would strongly advise you to continue on the statins." 
  • "I know you are afraid of the plaquenil [hydrochloroquine], and I am not going to demand that you get back on; but I would like to appeal to you, in the strongest terms, that you try it again."
So, with his encouragement . . . I am taking my LDN, back on my statin, and, yes, taking plaquenil/hydrochloroquine . . . with no significant side-effects besides much looser bowels than I have had in the past.

I pray the combination of medicines might actually stop the advance of the RA. It has been very painful recently.

*****

While I'm on the subject, I should encourage you to take a look at a report that just came out from leaders in the field of LDN therapy. It's called The Faces of Low-Dose Naltrexone (PDF; 1.5MB). It was produced for the First International Low Dose Naltrexone Awareness Week coming up October 19-25th, 2009.

Amazing results for people with MS (multiple sclerosis), various forms of cancer, and much else.

--If you're seeing this post on Facebook, it is a reprint from my personal blog.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Water for space flights

Don't ask me how I got here.

Oh. I remember.

Many amateur astronomers noticed a strange glowing plume ejected from the space shuttle Discovery a week and a half ago (8:40 PM CST, Wednesday, 9/9/09). "What could it be?" one asked. "Something venting? An OMS burn? RCS thrusters? A massive, record breaking urine dump?"

As it turns out, it was the last: a dump of urine . . . and other waste water.

But/and, from that page, I bumped into a video that describes, in detail, how NASA has designed a water recycling unit for use on extended space flights. --Not just interesting. Pretty attention-grabbing. Especially as the interviewer notes that there is a definite "ick factor" related to drinking recycled urine, sweat, bathwater, food vapors, and so forth.

Enjoy!

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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Scott Hessels' The Image Mill

My brother-in-law (Sarita's brother) is entering an art contest in Grand Rapids, MI. I think this is one of the coolest projects he has ever done. (I am quite sure he would disagree with me. I'm merely stating my opinion.)

See it being installed and see what it does.

Installing "The Image Mill" from Chuck Peterson on Vimeo.

Sarita is visiting Grand Rapids in order to be there when the contest winner is announced later this week!

For more about Scott's project . . . and about the contest . . . check out Scott Hessels' The Image Mill page on Facebook.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Visual effects

Ah! I love this site. Every now and then the author includes something I'd prefer not to look at. But most of the optical illusions he offers are well worth the pondering.

I have added his iGoogle gadget to my iGoogle page so when I (rarely) visit it, I am reminded to re-visit my old friend. (He has a bunch of gadgets/widgets for other services as well:



But here are a few optical illusions I came across today as I wandered my way through a few of his pages:
  • See the guys?


     
  • Let's see . . . you've got a tree . . . and some birds . . . and . . . what else?


    . . . See the fish? And . . . what is it? A gorilla? And a bear . . . a cheetah?

    --If you can't find all the animals, how about finding the dogs that the Mira Foundation provides to help blind people. Then I'm sure you will find the animals in the Pittsburgh Zoo logo:

     
  • And how about the bear in honor of Berne, Switzerland, the hometown of Toblerone Chocolate--whose logo bug you see here:
    Hidden Bear in Toblerone Chocolate
     


  • But this entire series was brought to my attention by the over-the-top post about the Bible-reading robot in the Chicago Bulls' logo.
Enjoy!

--If you are reading this on Facebook, the original is from my John's Corner Blog.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Patriarchalism revisited

Back in late March through May, I ran a series (still not finished!) on the CHEC "Men's Leadership Summit" held in mid-March, a "summit"--for men only--that was supposed to "cast the vision" for the entire Christian homeschool movement going forward.

I've been mostly preoccupied with other issues since then, so I haven't done too much thinking about the issues. Except . . . they creep in every now and then.

For example, Sarita became exercised enough about what she was hearing, that she contacted Mary Pride to get her take on the patriarchal movement. We're still waiting to "hear" a definitive word on what Mary thinks. But she, too, apparently, is (or was) disturbed enough by what had just come across her radar that she asked Sarita if she would write an article for Practical Homeschooling magazine.

Sarita complied . . . and The Future of Homeschooling in America (NOTE: it's a 2.3MB PDF file!) was the result.

And then, shortly after it got going in July, someone alerted me to The Patriarch's Bible blog--a satirical look at the way the (collaborative) authors believe too many leaders in the homeschool movement are reinterpreting Scripture. As they wrote in their inaugural post:
Think of this like The Message, a paraphrase built around a particular Bible interpretation - but like a PC ("patriarchally correct") one. It's not that we don't take passages like Revelation 22:18-19 seriously. We take them VERY seriously. That's why we think it's important to expose all of the crazy interpretations that modern day patriarchists read into God's Word. . . .

For our part, the creators of this blog resent it when fallible humans read too much of their own interpretations into the Text. They want to see what isn't there. They want to believe something that isn't obvious is obvious. The purpose of this blog is to bring this problem - and believe us, it IS a serious problem - out into the open for discussion. We aren't "teaching" anyone. We aren't trying to un-convert anyone. We're just exercising free speech in a humorous way.
I think the site started out humorous enough (though with a piquant flavor). In the last couple of posts, the taste has become more bitter.

And yet I think the authors have maintained most of their original stated purpose.

******

I was looking at The Patriarch's Bible a few days ago when I decided to follow some of the links I had never followed before.
And then I read some of the stories that she has posted--and others have also posted--on her site.

What I read alarmed me so much, I wrote to my daughters, one of whom is a strong proponent of the views of one of the women whose books are referenced in both of the stories I intend to quote below.

"Dear Amy and Jonelle," I wrote my daughters:
Primarily because Sonlight was pushed out of the CHEC convention last year, and I've been trying to figure out why (as I recorded in my personal blog back in January and February); partially because you, Amy, wrote to me about your concerns that I might be following the lead of certain men as I marveled at their 200-Year plans; but very much because I have followed up on all of these matters and have been doing my own research in these areas, I have come to think of the movement (strong and growing stronger, apparently, among Christian homeschoolers) known as "patriarchy" and "quiverfull" as being truly worthy of opposition. And the people needing to be opposed are not just Doug Phillips and Doug Wilson and others of their closest compatriots. But the Pearls, too, have taught ways of thinking that lead to the same kinds of abusive problems that we see--and, apparently, even Michael Pearl is willing to point out--among those who follow Phillips, Wilson, Harris, Lindvall, and so many others.

I urge you to please read the response by "adventuresinmercy" to Allison's comment about how happy she is as a quiverfull/patriarchy wife and mother. Having lived, as I did, in a dysfunctional family growing up, I find adventuresinmercy's comments realistic, alarming . . . and extremely insightful.

I hope her comments alarm you, too--Amy and Jonelle.

If either of you should ever find yourself in circumstances similar to adventuresinmercy's, may I say it: You have not only the right, but the responsibility to speak out against what adventuresinmercy describes as toddler behavior on the part of your husband. Mom has spoken out against such behavior on my part on numerous occasions. And may I say: It was a good and blessed thing that she did. --Talk about being my helpmeet? That was helpmeet/helpmate behavior. She helped (and every time she does that, she helps) me become the kind of thoughtful, considerate man I need to become if I am to fulfill the call of Christ in my life.

I don't know how to love my wife with the love of Christ . . . unless she talks to me about both my good and bad behavior.

*******

One more thing: I thought you should see the article Mom wrote and had published in Practical Homeschooling magazine (Mary Pride's magazine). If you haven't read it, you can read it here. (It's a huge PDF file. I tried to optimize it, but couldn't get it to become any smaller than it is: basically 2.3MB!)

The article is very mild, considering the issues that the patriarchalists/quiverfull advocates push for and that lead to a lot of women finding themselves being abused . . . by their husbands, their ministers, fellow church members . . .

Hope you find these things helpful and thought-provoking.

Love,

Dad
In case you require a little "inspiration" to click through to read the whole article I referenced for my daughters, let me quote a portion. I think it speaks well for itself.

Allison wrote:
I am a Christian, homeschooling, full-quiver-er who [wants to say] that there are some women [following the "full quiver" lifestyle] that are actually living a life of joy and normalcy. I have a husband who adores me and our children. He allows me to be myself. He doesn’t lord over me the convictions that we both have. . . . Our home is full of laughter and learning. I take endless joy in the life I lead and the children I am raising up to serve the Lord.

Just because you both ended up in terrible marriages does not make every Christian, homeschooling, full-quivering woman an abused, unintelligent, following, mindless, uninformed hag. My best friends are women who are living this “movement” blatantly, joyfully, and without an ounce of abuse or rebellion. You would do well to recognize that, admit that, and own up to the fact that just because you experienced the worst, doesn’t mean that those of us living that lifestyle come even CLOSE to feeling the way you do. We don’t. . . .
Adventuresinmercy replied (in part):
Allison,

I know similar families like yours.

What a joy they are! :)

What I do wish you would acknowledge, though, is that the specific teachings often promoted in this movement/camp helped contribute to the abuse, if not outrightly approved of . . . the woman’s meek *acceptance* of the hyper-controlling and dominating behavior of her husband.

I know that for me, I put up with it for MUCH longer than I ever should have, ONLY because I thought it was God’s will that I be in submission.

In fact, the very first thing that happened floored me (as we drove away on our honeymoon). . . but I was a wife . . . and I knew that wives HAD to submit . . . wives had to do whatever their husbands wanted, because wives were not allowed any personal boundaries.

When we got back from our honeymoon and he commanded that I give up my car, my tv, my guitar, etc, I complied with only a whimper of protest. I didn’t have the rights to own things anymore. I was a wife now, and my husband was my spiritual authority. HIS vision for how our home would look, for what we would do with our lives, etc, was to be MY vision. This is what I’d learned in Bible School, this is what all the books said, and besides, he wasn’t asking me to sin. Right?

So later, when my husband gave me lists for what I had to clean to perfection before being allowed to go to bed at night, etc, I submitted because I thought that was what God wanted. In fact, if there was anybody who was in sin, I was positive it was ME for feeling so humiliated at being given these long lists. I thought *my* reaction was what was sinful, not my husband treating me like a child.

According to the teachings of this camp, the only time a wife has the right to say no to her husband is when he’s asking her to sin. And giving a detailed list of how the kitchen had to be completely sanitized and toothbrush-scrubbed before I could climb the stairs for bed (where he was waiting for me, ready for some action), was not sin. Right?

My heart would sink to my stomach as I climbed those stairs, finally done with my job, and, get this, again, I was sure (thanks to all the books I’d read) that the problem was ME. I would be so ashamed of myself for MY sin at not being a cheerful and amorous wife.

I learned to fake it (because a godly wife NEVER ever says no to her husband in bed—she has no rights to any boundaries when it comes to what he wants, and that includes the most intimate parts of her own body), and I fervently prayed for the real feelings to come (looking back, er, I can figure out REAL quick why I would walk up those stairs in dread…who wants to be amorous with someone who treats you like a child . . . ?)

Who backed up those beliefs of mine? Who taught them to me in the first place?

The patriarchy movement. . . .
The story continues, and I would say: with great insight. To quote just one minor further point:
If you never say no to a toddler and always give them what they demand, you’ll have a monster on your hands in no time flat. Same with unhealthy husbands. But the patriarchy movement taught me the exact opposite.
--And adventuresinmercy quotes chapter and verse from numerous patriarchal advocates' key books.

Please: If you have ever come close to dealing with couples where the wife seems a mere shadow of vibrancy, I urge you to read Dear Happy Full Quiver-er.

And then, for a follow-through, read A Most Twisted Love, another insightful article in which the author asks, "Is a patriarchal relationship of entitlement-meets-martyrdom a healthy and mutually beneficial expression of love?"

Answer: Absolutely not!

But read what she quotes from Debi Pearl's book Created to Be His Help Meet: Discover How God Can Make Your Marriage Glorious.

Eye-opening. And alarming.

--I pray you will be properly eye-opened and alarmed!

Friday, September 04, 2009

Getting the care you deserve in hospital

The entire range of issues related to health has so gripped my mind, I thought I would post this article I found recently in . . . source unknown.
A hospital stay should be a time of healing. But all too often the experience erodes a patient's personal dignity.

Here's how to ensure that your needs are met and your dignity stays intact during hospitalization...
  • Ask about everything. Let your doctors and nurses know that you plan to play a major role in your care. Ask about treatments and prognosis.

    Don't worry that your doctor will think you lack confidence in him/her. Or that asking questions will cause resentment among the hospital staff, producing worse care.

    Hospital patients who ask questions receive better and more respectful treatment, studies have shown. Questions encourage the medical staff to pay more attention to you. If medical personnel use jargon, ask them to explain it.

    Always inquire about the medication you are given. If you receive a new drug, ask: "Why is this different from what I was getting before? Who ordered it?"

    Asking questions also helps prevent medical mistakes.
     
  • Know who is treating you. Hospital staffing levels have been drastically reduced. A person in a white uniform is not necessarily a doctor or nurse. In fact, it may be someone with almost no training, such as an orderly.

    If you are concerned that the person is not fully trained in the procedure, refuse it. You'll be surprised at how quickly you receive treatment from someone more qualified.
     
  • Don't be shy about seeking help. If no one responds to your call button within a few minutes, pick up the phone. Call the hospital operator and ask to be connected to the nursing station on your floor. When the phone is answered, say you need help in your room—immediately.

    IMPORTANT: If you have a complaint, you have the right to a response in a reasonable period of time. If you're not getting one, ask to see the hospital's "patient representative" or "ombudsman," who mediates between staff and patients.

    If there is no patient representative or the representative isn't helpful, ask to see the medical director or the hospital administrator.
     
  • Have someone with you at all times. If you are seriously ill or undergoing surgery, you probably won't have the energy or mobility to protect your rights. So have someone with you 24 hours a day. As long as your "advocate" is not interfering with the delivery of care, he/she has a right to be there.
     
  • Make sure the food is appetizing. Notify the hospital dietitian if fresh fruits and vegetables aren't served...the food doesn't arrive hot...the meals are served at unusual times for the convenience of the staff...or you lack sufficient time to eat.

    BETTER: Have visitors bring food to supplement hospital meals. Make sure they are aware of any special dietary restrictions you have. Tell the doctor or nurse that this is what you intend to do.
     
  • Know your rights. You have a right to say "no" to any medical procedure. You have the right to see your medical records. You have the right to check yourself out at any time, even against the advice of hospital personnel. You have the right to fire your doctor. You have the right not to be treated by a medical student, if you so choose.

--Charles B. Inlander, founding president, People's Medical Society, and author of more than 20 books, including Take This Book to the Hospital with You.

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Taking Inventory of Your Life

A post I just posted over on Strategic Inheritance: Taking Inventory of Your Life.

I thought it worthy of noting here on my personal blog.

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

An opportunity to make a significant difference in an entire people group

Last Wednesday, we mailed (snail-mail) a print copy of this letter to all current and recent-past Sonlight customers. It was bulk-mailed, so only a few people may have received it by now. Most should get it in the next week or two.

Want to join us in the adventure? Read the letter and then click on through to the Sonlight/OneVerse site! We'd love to have you join us . . . even if it's "only" for the learning experience. (Though how much nicer to participate in the adventure of helping to provide a complete New Testament or two in a language (or languages) that currently have no Scripture!)

PS: By the way: you can go here to see a map that shows where many of the Sonlighters (and/or others!) who have signed up for the Sonlight/OneVerse project live. --Pretty cool!

Hymns and praise songs: what's the difference?

Prayer in the Church of Reconciliation at Taizé.Worship in the Church of Reconciliation at Taizé. (See last section of current post.) Image via Wikipedia

An old humor piece I found on the Sonlight forums back in 2003. My recent post about some of the songs we were asked to sing at our church reminded me of it:
An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big city church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was. "Well," said the farmer, "It was good. They did something different, however. They sang praise choruses instead of hymns."

"Praise choruses," said his wife. "What are those?"

"Oh, they're okay. They're sort of like hymns, only different," said the farmer.

"Well, what's the difference?" asked his wife.

The farmer said, "Well, it's like this. If I were to say to you:
Martha, the cows are in the corn . . .
--well, that would be a hymn.

"If, on the other hand, I were to say to you:
Martha Martha, Martha,
Oh, Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA,
The cows, the big cows, the brown cows,
The black cows, the white cows,
The black and white cows,
The COWS, COWS, COWS
Are in the corn, are in the corn,
Are in the corn, are in the corn,
the CORN, CORN, CORN . . .
and then, if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times--well, that would be a praise chorus."

As luck would have it, the exact same Sunday a young, new Christian from the city church attended the small town church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was.

"Well," said the young man, "it was good. They did something different, however. They sang hymns instead of regular songs."

"Hymns," said his wife. "What are those?"

"Oh, they're okay. They're sort of like regular songs, only different," said the young man.

"Well, what's the difference?" asked his wife.

The young man said, "Well, it's like this. If I were to say to you:
Martha, the cows are in the corn . . .
--well, that would be a regular song.

"If, on the other hand, I were to say to you:
Oh Martha, dear Martha, hear thou my cry
Inclinest thine ear to the words of my mouth.
Turn thou thy whole wondrous ear by and by
To the righteous, inimitable, glorious truth.

For the way of the animals who can explain
There in their heads is no shadow of sense,
Hearkenest they in God's sun or his rain
Unless from the mild, tempting corn they are fenced.

Yea those cows in glad bovine, rebellious delight,
Have broke from their shackles, their warm pens eschewed.
Then goaded by minions of darkness and night
They all my mild Chilliwack sweet corn have chewed.

So look to that bright shining day by and by,
Where all foul corruptions of earth are reborn.
Where no vicious animal makes my soul cry
And I no longer see those foul cows in the corn.
--Then, if I were to do only verses one, three and four and do a key change on the last verse: well, that would be a hymn."

-------------------

The Taize version would be something like:
There are cows in the corn. There are cows in the corn.
We shall have to remove them, those cows in our corn.
Repeat approximately 20x, with a shifting of harmony by those who like to experiment, as the only real difference.

After everyone becomes silent, the music will continue for two more rounds. Then there will be a meditative silence until the next song begins.


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Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Vaccinations: Good medicine?

Yipes!

When our children were young, we never questioned the medical establishment.

After so many equivocal to negative experiences, I'm becoming more and more skeptical.

And now I received this from Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com: Historical facts about the dangers (and failures) of vaccines:
Many website have cropped up over the last few years to counter the pro-vaccine propaganda put out by drug companies (who profit from vaccines) and health regulators (who serve the drug companies). One of those sites is www.VaccinationDebate.com , which lists the following historical facts about vaccines:

• In the USA in 1960, two virologists discovered that both polio vaccines were contaminated with the SV 40 virus which causes cancer in animals as well as changes in human cell tissue cultures. Millions of children had been injected with these vaccines. (Med Jnl of Australia 17/3/1973 p555)

• In 1871-2, England, with 98% of the population aged between 2 and 50 vaccinated against smallpox, it experienced its worst ever smallpox outbreak with 45,000 deaths. During the same period in Germany, with a vaccination rate of 96%, there were over 125,000 deaths from smallpox. (http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/020...)
The Hadwen Documents

• In Germany, compulsory mass vaccination against diphtheria commenced in 1940 and by 1945 diphtheria cases were up from 40,000 to 250,000. (Don't Get Stuck, Hannah Allen)

• In 1967, Ghana was declared measles free by the World Health Organisation after 96% of its population was vaccinated. In 1972, Ghana experienced one of its worst measles outbreaks with its highest ever mortality rate. (Dr H Albonico, MMR Vaccine Campaign in Switzerland, March 1990)

• In 1977, Dr Jonas Salk who developed the first polio vaccine, testified along with other scientists, that mass inoculation against polio was the cause of most polio cases throughout the USA since 1961. (Science 4/4/77 "Abstracts" )

• In the UK between 1970 and 1990, over 200,000 cases of whooping cough occurred in fully vaccinated children. (Community Disease Surveillance Centre, UK) . . .

• In the USA, the cost of a single DPT shot had risen from 11 cents in 1982 to $11.40 in 1987. The manufacturers of the vaccine were putting aside $8 per shot to cover legal costs and damages they were paying out to parents of brain damaged children and children who died after vaccination. (The Vine, Issue 7, January 1994, Nambour, Qld)

• In Oman between 1988 and 1989, a polio outbreak occurred amongst thousands of fully vaccinated children. The region with the highest attack rate had the highest vaccine coverage. The region with the lowest attack rate had the lowest vaccine coverage. (The Lancet, 21/9/91)
. . . And on and on the list continues.

You can find more information at VaccinationDebate.com.

Basic summary of the site's message (quoted from Dr. Andrew Weil):
Scientific medicine has taken credit it does not deserve for some advances in health. Most people believe that victory over the infectious diseases of the last century came with the invention of immunisations. In fact, cholera, typhoid, tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough, etc, were in decline before vaccines for them became available - the result of better methods of sanitation, sewage disposal, and distribution of food and water.
And, since I just can't seem to stop when I get started, let me quote from an article I bumped into from VaccinationDebate.com called 20 Reasons Not to Take the Smallpox Vaccination (found about a third of the way down the referenced page). Reasons #12, 15, 17, and 18:
12. By the 1920s, several British medical researchers documented that smallpox was not only more common among the VACCINATED, but that the DEATH RATE from smallpox was actually higher among those who had been vaccinated. This indicates that the vaccine was ineffective and predisposed vaccinated persons to more lethal disease. ~Vaccination, Dr. Viera Scheibner, Australia, 1993, pp. 205-220. 13. Getting a vaccination does not guarantee immunity. ~CDC, January 28, 1994. . . .

15. Vaccines made from animal substrate contain animal viruses that are impossible to filter out. By 1961, scientists discovered that animal viruses in vaccines, including smallpox, could act as a carcinogen when given to mice in combination with cancer-causing chemicals, even in amounts too small to induce tumors alone. They concluded that vaccine viruses function as a catalyst for tumor production. ~Science, December 15, 1961. . . .

17. The new smallpox vaccine will be genetically engineered. Many scientists believe that genetically engineered vaccines may be responsible for the global epidemic of auto-immune disease and neurological dysfunction. ~American College of Rheumatology, annual meeting, Nov. 8-12, 1998. Merck's genetically engineered hepatitis B vaccine, Recombivax HB, is a classic example. According to Dr. Bonnie Dunbar of Baylor College of Medicine, many thousands of reported adverse reactions to the hepatitis B vaccine include: chronic fatigue, neurological disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and MS-like disease. ~Testimony of Dr. Dunbar to Texas Dept. of Health, March 12, 1999. Over 15,000 French citizens sued the French government to stop mandatory hepatitis B injections for school children because of resulting auto-immune diseases. ~Science, July 31, 1998. Dr. John Classen has published voluminous data showing that the hepatitis B and other vaccines are closely linked to the development of insulin dependent diabetes. ~Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice, October 22, 1997.

18. The British vaccine manufacturer Medeva has a horrendous record of contamination and blunders. In 2000, the FDA found that Medeva was making vaccines in conditions of filth, resulting in contaminated products. Medeva had been illegally using bovine medium to culture its polio vaccines, then lied about it. Medeva also used the blood of a Creutzfeldt-Jakob victim (mad cow) to manufacture 83,000 doses of polio vaccine used for (against?) Irish children. Nevertheless, the FDA allowed the USA to accept Medeva's flu vaccine Fluvirin for the year 2000. ~London Observer series: October 20-26, 2000.
I'm tempted to follow the advice at the end of the referenced article:
Tip of the Week: Keep all vaccine needles away from your body!