Family news

 Kuya's mother died Sunday night. When he moved her here instead of putting her into a nursing home in the USA it was to care for her with family: stage 4 cancer and renal failure. 

But actually the terminal event was the virus going around:(Influenza?)

It put me into bed for four days, and everyone had it. so despite using gloves and masks, she started with the fever and flu symptoms and just got weaker and weaker. We kept her hydrated but she would only take fluids (ensure and clear liquids) so we didn't hospitalize her. But the last two days she just became weaker and she slipped away Sunday evening while I was watching her so her son, who was sitting with her could get a meal.

it is usually cool this time of the year, but with El Nino it has been as hot as the hot season that usually starts in January. And so  there have been a lot of deaths of the elderly in the area, maybe from the heat making their diabetes and high blood pressure worse, or maybe from this virus going around Asia (Our granddaughter had it in Thailand where many are also sick).

well, anyway, it means setting up the viewing in our meeting room where the Baptist church meets. 

The pastor moved his stuff out for the casket and seats and tables so visitors can eat. We also have to clean up the guest rooms upstairs for family that is visiting. 

Usually people visit and eat and talk until the formal service and burial.

Since she was Baptist, the usual outside tent where the men play cards and drink beer so they can stay awake all night keeping watch is not being done. So last night I was alone on the night shift from midnight to 4 pm to keep watch.

 some of the family arrived today and will arrive tomorrow. Burial is Saturday if the funeral association can arrange her internment.

So anyway, blogging will remain slow for the next few days.

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this video is from a Yank who blogged about the customs here:

Family news

 I had influenza last week and am new better. The others here have mild cases also, and although this means I have been avoiding checking Chano's mom (using a mask and hand washing), it now seems that she has a sore throat and cough and has trouble eating.

She was brought here for essentially hospice care, since she was getting too weak to stay in a self care home, and there were plans to transfer her to a full nursing home. 

(She is 90 years old and has cancer that has come back and kidney failure,)

So her son decided to go pick her up and bring her to the Philippines where family could hire full time caregivers and she would be with those who love her instead of with strangers and family visiting only on weekends.

 Alas, a week after she arrived, her cancer started bleeding again, and she essentially became bedridden, not even able to go around to eat at the table in her wheel chair.

She is now semi comatose and  only taking fluids. To make things more complicated, she is in chronic renal failure but she and the family turned down dialysis last year, so she also has this problem (i.e. has to take a dozen pills a day, low protein low salt diet). 

Essentially she is dying, and her son is very upset about this, since he thought she would improve with better care and staying with family. Her granddauhter warned him that elders have a high death rate if you transfer them to a nursing home or another care situation, and I have seen this happen a lot and also warned him..

so anyway, the plan is now to just keep her comfortable and keep her at home. 

This is what we did with my husband, who also was 90 years old and had cancer.

But anyway, blogging will be limited for awhile.

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update: Chano's mom died in the evening so they have to clean up the meeting room for the wake and arrange to pick up relatives at the airport later this week.

Blogging will be light for that reason.

what happens in the philippines

When you eat In a restaurant on your birthday they sing happy birthday to you.

Time goes on

alternative hisory for later watching

 posting to watch later on my tablet:

learning how Pope Gregory the Great faced hoards of Goths invading the former Roman empire comes to mine.

Here is another summary.

that site is Lyndon Larouche offspring of course. But the Anglo conspiracy theories go back to before WWI.

Professor Quigley call your office. They are at it again.

Paging Senator Church: The CIA is doing it again

 

The past few days, I got my hands on thousands of new transcripts and hundreds of recordings, thanks to leads from @SKDoubleDub33 and @iamlisalogan . You've heard that the DSA is proposing structural reforms to America, including abolishing the Senate and imposing term limits. What you not have heard is - there is an operational plan to put it all into action. If the Democratic Party sweeps 2026, then DSA will become "foot soldiers" in constant clashes with the administration to cross a "red line" or invoke a "doomsday scenario" - meaning, President Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, probably sometime in 2027. Then, a lot of coordinated responses kick off, including delegitimizing the federal government itself and handing that legitimacy to Democratic governors. 2028 then becomes a vote on whether to keep America governance as-is or to burn it all down to appease a "young and brown" demographic. The mysterious group who's been coordinating 50501, Indivisible, and coordinating the NoKings protests is called "United Democracy Alliance" and their intellectual leader is Erica Chenoweth who came up with the 3.5% rule of nonviolent regime change. Patience. I know I've hyped this more than anything else. It's genuinely the biggest discovery I've had. This is an enormous archive. This is only the beginning.

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) October 18, 2026

......

the Church committee summary at Wikipedia

I am so old that it was the liberals in the Democratic party who looked into the CIA shennanigans.

Family news

My grand daughter is visiting family so lots of food for us to eat.

Kuya's mom is now here and quite weak and having some complications from her cancer, but now the pain and bleeding have stopped so hopefully she is okay. I suggested taking her to the hospital, and got our cousin Dr Angi to examine her and she agreed, but at 89 with end stage renal disease and cancer, the family prefers hospice mode, so she is here and now the crisis has passed and she is better.

I had sterp throat and now have bronchitis, so have been staying in my room most of the day instead of going out to restaurants which is what we had planned to do.

the plague

docs in the IHS in the SW USA, especially in the four corners area of the Navajo reservation, see a few cases every year. Easily treatable if found early.

The US Army used to give a vaccine to the military serving in VietNam and SEAsia, but I don't know if this is still done.

more here.

Family news

 Kuya has moved his mother to the Philippines and she is still quite weak, staying in the spare bedroom. She needs a full time caregiver or two, so after three days trying to cope, he found two of our staff willing to do the basic caregiving and they have been instructed by Joy, a trained caregiver, on how to do basic stuff.

She needs a hospital bad which should arrive tomorrow.

I can't help much since I have muscle weakness as a complication of dengue three years ago. 

In the meanwhile, for the last month he has hired staff to fix up the business compound (offices, meeting room, spare bedrooms for guests, and our house). things that havent't been fixed for five years due to covid when expenses lowered our profit on rice, and two years ago when the rice buyer's check bounced and we lost the money for our entire harvest. No we can't sue her: She left the country with lost of other people being owed by her too.

But finally we are breaking even and can fix up the place, and his mom's social security should cover her medical expenses here (no Medicare doesn't pay hospitals in the Philippines).

Sigh.

Why October 7 Get out your rosaries ladies.

 three years ago, an unprovoked attack by Hamas from Gaza killed and kidnanpped over 1000 Israelis, and not just Israelis: over 40 innocent Thai farmworkers were murdered too. 

The western press ignores the Thai farmworkers and the Filipina caregiver murdered of course. 

And the west is easily swallowing the Hamas reports against Israel, ignoring that this war would never have happened if those in charge had just arrested those who committed the murders and sent back the hostages.

Why does the propaganda work? Because the MSM stories go back only a week or two and often naively think the reports from Gaza are true reports from neutral observers.

But the real problem is that the west tends to ignore history, ,whereas some cultures, including Arab culture, keeps hatred and grudges alive for centuries.

Quick: Any of you guys who went to Catholic school would remember there used to be a name for Mary as Our Lady of Victory, but after Vatican II when militant names became a no no, the feast day was changed to Our Lady of the Rosary.

And the reason this feast day was on October 7 was to remember the Battle of Leponto. 

The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary was actually instituted under another name: In 1571 Pope Pius V instituted “Our Lady of Victory” as an annual feast in thanksgiving for Mary’s patronage in the victory of the Holy League over the Muslim Turks in the Battle of Lepanto...

Coming at what was seen as a crisis point for Christianity, the victory at Lepanto stemmed Ottoman incursion into the Mediterranean and prevented their influence from spreading through Europe.

Through the intervention of Our Lady, the Hand of God prevented the Muslim victory..

The epic victory has been commemorated in literature:

Miguel de Cervantes, a Spanish soldier wounded in the battle, recovered to become a novelist, poet and playwright; and he was so inspired by this battle that he incorporated elements of it in his own acclaimed novel, Don Quixote....

a secular report on the battle can be watched here:

the reason for the rosary is because Catholics often were illiterate peasants for 1000 years, and it was via fiestas, stories, plays, and simple prayers like the rosary (which was easly for ordinary people to pray) were how the faith was kept alive.

............................

and of course, the idea that praying the rosary to Mama Mary asking for peace is also seen as a way to stop aggression, as is something seen in stories behind the fall of communism in Europe...

 and here in the Philippines it was prayed by those in those behind the People Power revolution here in the Philippines where one million Filipinos praying and singing hymns and carrying a statue of Mary at the head of their procession stopped Marcos soldiers from taking over the military under General Ramos who had backed Cory Aquino after she won the election against Marcos Senior.

So when you read of riots in Europe, and think things are lost, just remember that a few days ago one million Frenchmen were out singing and praying with the Pope in Paris and later in Lourdes