about all those shrine of Mama Mary

 

The church is visited by both Ecuadorian and Colombian pilgrims.

I had visited with my sons 40 years ago. From Pasto we went via bus to Ipialis then hiked over the fields to the northern gorge site. This left us across the gorge from the church, but there is a bridge across the gorge, and on the northern end of the bridge is a small chapel where you can place candles.  

this video is very north American bias and emphasizes the Spanish missionaries.

However my son gave a different story about it: the miracle is about an Indian lady carrying her handicapped daughter along the road along the gorge ridge, and suddenly the daughter cried look at the beautiful lady. And the locals made a shrine there. Only later did the missionaries encourage the formal church. And my sons didn't say anything about the image discussed in the video, only about a spring in the bottom of the gorge where people collect water and consider it holy. They hiked down to the bottom (not me: I am not athletic) to visit the area.

This is the story the locals tell, and the locals see it as Our Lady visiting the local  people, who were looked down on by the establishment Spanish who ran the place. So it is beloved as a sign Mary loved them and visited them, not as a shrine pushed on them by outside Spanish priests.

such visions are common and usually ignored or debunked by the Catholic church, but locals often place shrines at these areas.

I should note that when traveling down the Pan American highway, we saw a shrine on a hill near the road, and my sons said that the Virgin had appeared there.

Here in the Philippines there are a lot of small Lourdes shines in churches and many have one on their garden and families pray the rosary after dinner. Here she is Mama Mary and folk religion is family oriented, not theological: Mama Mary, Kuya Jesus, and God as father.

I am sure there are a lot of visions of Mama Mary here which are known to family and friends but the church tends to shut them down if they get too enthusiastic.

but the big shrine is along the EDSA where the People Power revolution occurred. Left out of most secular articles, the locals believe that Mama Mary appeared and stopped Marcos Sr's soldiers from shooting the demonstrators, who were praying the rosary and singing hymns. 

  in the US, one does hear about visions, often in times of stress or sickness, where our Lady or an angel comes with a word of comfort.

In the USA  it is common for people to place statues of the virgin in the fields or in the front yards . Our next door neighbor in Pennsylvania, a coalminer, had one in his front garden . 

heavy rains and family news

For last 2 days heavy rain and mildly flooded streets.

Not quite a typhoon so no bad winds and we have electricity and city water.

The schools were closed Friday.

The barangay neighborhood patron saint is St Lawrence so fiesta parade later today. and a Miss Gay Gapan contest was scheduled in the plaza for either yesterday evening or today

My arthritis has been bad from the weather so I spent yesterday in bed and didn't attend church in the evening since Catholics have revived the ancient idea that Sunday starts at Sundown.

Howevery arthritis is better today but since l don't have anyone to attend mass with me I will just sit iny room and enjoy the hymns sung by the Baptists who meet in our meeting room each Sunday.

In other news Stella our black dog's 5 puppies are chubby and healthy but their eyes are not open yet so I haven't checked how. many are boys or girls. Their nest is in our closet where I put a flat box for them.

We have another box in my bathroom for Baby our Mama dog but apparently she did not get pregnant last time she was in heat. She is 7 years old so maybe she is too old.

China is pushing war but the US press doesn't seem to notice

China has been attacking Filipino fishermen for years, even though these fishermen have been fishing in the area for several generations.

But now after Obama refused to help the Philippines to stop China from destroying the ecosystem (green groups silent of course) and building miltarized artificial islands, they are getting more aggressive in recent weeks.

 

 and also is prolonging the war in Iran:

and infiltrating the US military:

China has been trying to buy retired American flag officers. https://t.co/JaLRF6TI0L

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) August 4, 2026

and notice they are discussing how China  suckered the Pope into signing away the pious Catholics there.

How the original drone made a star

the original drone from WWII 

 from Wikipedia: 

 The Radioplane OQ-2 was the first mass-produced unmanned aerial vehicle or drone in the United States, manufactured by the Radioplane Company. A follow-on version, the OQ-3, became the most widely used target drone in US service, with over 9,400 being built during World War II.

tropical cyclone: Rain rain rain rain

 

translation: Heavy rain all day, but only gusty winds.

medical notes: uh, Dr Fauci was lying

 much of this was cross posted from my medical blog.

the background of the covid epidemic is not just because it came from a lab leak, but that it was a bioengineered virus that was made to be more infectious and more lethal by doing gain of function research.

Gain-of-function research (GoF research or GoFR) is medical research that genetically alters an organism in a way that may enhance the biological functions of gene products. This may include an altered pathogenesis, transmissibility, or host range, i.e., the types of hosts that a microorganism can infect. This research is intended to reveal targets to better predict emerging infectious diseases and to develop vaccines and therapeutics.

and of course it can also be used to bioengineer bioweapons.

the gain of function scandal goes back years.

Here's why they were so desperate to cover up the lab leak:

The 2003 SARS outbreak exposed how outdated WHO's disease rules were, since the old International Health Regulations only covered a few named diseases. In response, the World Health Assembly launched a revision…

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) July 29, 2026

...

,,,

Gain of function research was behind Covid... 

GOF research had been outlawed by Obama but then he allowed it again a few weeks before Trump took office... and it has been outlawed on and off since then... an article last week said Trump outlawed it again, which I wondered about since he had outlawed it already. 

But there are always holes and using money via NGOs... for example, the HHS stopped funding Ecohealth which was behind the covid funding leak, but an Ecohealth biolab proposed for the Philippines was not funded by HHS but the Dept of Defense (the Phil Govt refused so the grant has since expired).

Here is a long discussion of gain of function research and bird flu I wrote in 2024....if you thought Covid was bad, well, birdflu could be a lot worse... I apologize because I am not a good writer.

on my blog I was criticizing an LATImes article on bird flu that defended the need to do gain of function research. I will put the LAT in italics to separate it from my comments

 

Why scientists say we are fighting H5N1 bird flu with one hand tied behind our backs

By Susanne Rust and Karen Kaplan Dec. 24, 2024 3 AM PT

 

 Gain-of-function research became controversial during the COVID-19 pandemic. But without it, “we’re just flying in the dark” when it comes to H5N1, said Felicia Goodrum, a molecular virologist at the University of Arizona....But when, where and how that could come to pass is hard to predict — in part, some researchers say, because of guardrails the federal government has placed around gain-of-function research.

 I commented that bird flu is scary because of the high mortality in the few times it has spread to humans from birds (but no human to human transmission yet)... but as I point out, what is not known is how many people got it and never saw a doctor because they weren't sick enough to do so. CDC report on 71 human cases showed 2 deaths.

Many of the known bird flu deaths were in rural third world countries where people are in close contact with the free range chickens, or what I suspect was actually from what we in the Philippines call double dead meat, i.e. instead of killing sick animals, the owner sells them to local markets...   (the protocol insists you kill and destroy infected chickens for this reason).

To some, the timing couldn’t be worse. At least 65 people in the U.S. have been infected with H5N1 since it arrived in North America in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 65 cases in four years. Got it. Most of the cases have involved workers on dairy and poultry farms, and their symptoms — including conjunctivitis and upper respiratory irritation — have tended to be mild. But in two cases, people have become severely ill, including a person in Louisiana and a teenager in Canada.

 so two very sick people in four years but no deaths. Out of 65 cases in four years. But how many people got the disease and never sought medical care or were diagnosed?

well, anyway if you don't do such research you might not be able to develop a vaccine (China released Sinovax quite quickly because they knew the genome. How did the know the genome so fast? Duh).

Well as a doc, I worry about this because the paranoia over this scandal will result  in people refusing known vaccines that have been around for decades and known to save lives, and people will die of these diseases.

Yes, I have seen children in Africa die of measles, whooping cough, tetanus. And my husband was old enough to remember smallpox when he worked in the southern Philippines.

all of these vaccines have a very low but real problem with side effects, mainly sore arm but also more serious problems like brain damage.

when the risk is low, lives are saved. And yes everything has a risk: I often pointed out to my patients that even driving their car to the clinic was risky.

Covid killed several of our neighbors who were young (elders die all the time so may not have had covid). But none of the various vaccines worked very good: Not the Sinovax, not the Sputnik, not tne AZ and not the mRNA vaccine.

Ironically, it was God who stopped the high death rate by having covid morph into the omicron varient that had a low death rate.

so follow the money and shut it down might work?

All I read in the MSM is how Trumpieboy is losing in Iran and how this is making him unpopular. 

then I read that Hamas has promised to disarm and let the board of peace take over Gaza, and another deal with Iranian leaders (who alas don't control the crazies).

Of course, all the negative press coverage repeating talking points has nothing to do with this. And the background is missing or again talking points that have to do with party politics. Well, duh.

However, Sundance at Conservative Treehouse links to a video discussing how the Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas network is being starved of funds.

“From Camp David, President Trump framed a reported Hamas disarmament agreement as a breakthrough enabled by pressure on Iran, arguing the regional strategic terrain has shifted. The episode highlights two developments presented as unprecedented: Hamas agreeing to disarm and Israel and Lebanon resuming talks after three decades, both attributed to cutting off Iranian funding for proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. Kokinda claims the decisive “weapon” was Treasury action under Secretary Scott Bessent—sanctions, OFAC tools, anti–money laundering measures—described as “economic fury,” including designating over 1,000 Iranian-linked individuals, ships, and companies and disrupting routes through shipping, insurance, and offshore finance.

 

The script also points to the February 19, 2026 launch of the multinational “Board of Peace,” tasked with rebuilding Gaza, as a preplanned institutional blueprint that helped secure the Hamas agreement.”

one comment puts this attack into perspective:

 Will August 1, 2026 7:36 pm Makes even more sense why Bessent was an assassination target at the very onset of his tenure.

 and also: unlike the crazies on the left and right, Trump recognizes that most Muslims and Muslim countries have a long history of commerce and trade, so would willingly chose peace since the crazy terrorist movements kill more pious Muslims than gentiles.

Organic vs reality

 

we are involved in the organic food industry here in the Philippines and this is correct.

But when other countries can produce rice cheaper using chemicals and three crops a year, we have filled the niche with gourmet organic food for the middle class

The problem? The government subsidizes this type of farming while ordinary farmers can't make a living so are selling their fields to the nearby solar farm organization, or (worse) digging up under the topsoil to pan for gold.

The farmers got their land where they worked for others including our family with land reform, but their kids are now educated and don't want to work hard and stay poor.

Since it is limited by law on how much land a single person can own, it means no big agri company is buying up the farm to plant using modern technology and displacing the small farmers to grow high yield crops for a profit.

and there is actually a shortage of farm workers: Many of our fields are farmed by people from Joy's village in the Visayas, for example. 

And many farm fields are being sold to people from Manila for second homes, or to Balikbayan, overseas workers who have returned home and want to live outside the cities and hire peple to work the farm land they have invested in for retirement income.

So although we support organic farming, the dirty little secret is that Clarkson is right: It is more expensive and lower yield. And indeed, a country that imposed organic farming on their farmers resulted in an economic crisis and famine.