the culture wars

 

Dante lecture

the online lectures about Dante are usually boring but this one explains stuff much better and hey it's narrator is so quiet you can just put it on to put you to sleep.

excuse the typing errors. I blog at night and touch type.

the Pope tells us to give up AI

 

,,,

...

posted to listen to later on my tablet.

one suspects this will be pushed by the SJW in the Catholic church to stop the wet from dveloping AI Guess who wins? China, who just happened to bribe millions of dollars to the Vatican so they could take ovef the Catholc church in China.

But a lot more in this discussion

Then we have this:

𝐎’𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐒𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐑 𝐎𝐍 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐀 𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 𝐍𝐄𝐓𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐒 — 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐆𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐄𝐃𝐒 𝟗𝟎 𝐏𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐒

Kevin O'Leary isn't taking the organized blitz against American energy and data-center projects lying down.… pic.twitter.com/6YcRXiPnVA

— M.A. Rothman (@MichaelARothman) May 26, 2026

two million people will be making the Hajj

A lot of trolls on youtube and other sites are ridiculing Trumpieboy for not attacking Iran and trying to make peace. 

and not one of them mentioned one reason local Muslim countries wanted no attacks right now:

from Turkiye today

this week is the Hajj pilgrimage.

According to the two senior Gulf officials cited by Middle East Eye, Trump was told that attacking Iran during Hajj would leave hundreds of thousands of pilgrims stranded. The sources also said Trump was warned that striking during the holy period leading up to Eid al-Adha would further damage Washington's standing in the Muslim world. The U.S. had previously attacked Iran during Ramadan, but an attack during Hajj was described as carrying far greater logistical consequences for Saudi Arabia, which hosts around a million foreign pilgrims each year, as well as Gulf air travel hubs in Qatar and the UAE, and countries in South and East Asia from which many pilgrims depart.

Yup. We had a British lady staying here for a week when the attacks started because her flight via Qatar was cancelled. Now imagine what that would do if the Mullahs pulled a similar stunt now

.   

May 23, 2026 Muslim pilgrims perform the tawaf ritual by circling seven times around the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. More than a million Muslims are gathering for the hajj pilgrimage, which is taking place in the shadow of the Middle East war, as animosity smoulders across the region despite a fragile ceasefire.

Saudi Arabia: 1.5 million join Hajj pilgrimage despite war https://t.co/2HnFAWqf4i

— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) May 24, 2026

alas the Iranian Mullahs are busy posting on X that Muslims should   recognize your urgent duty and direct all your motivation toward the real enemy of the Islamic Ummah — the Arrogant Powers.

'

Sigh. So why should people worry?

well, some people remember the 1987 attack on Mecca and the Mullahs have politicized the pilgrimage for years by having some of their "pilgrim" do demonstrations.

from the HouseOfSaud website:

=

Hajj 2026 faces unprecedented threats as Iranian missiles target Saudi Arabia. 1.8 million pilgrims, 130+ cancelled flights, and $9 billion in new air defenses..... 

hygiene and vaccinations are quite sophisticated as their site emphasizes who needs which vaccines etc. 

there is a headsup about MERS and contact with camels for foreigners to follow.

and they stress usual precautions to prevent heat stroke, dehydration etc.

So far, Ebola is not a concern.

so pray for the safety of the Pilgrims that they find peace in their pilgrimage.

Family news: Monsoon is here

 It is the end of hot season, so every day it goes up to the upper 90s F.

The good news? Monsoon season is starting: Late afternoon thunderstorms

the bad news? High humidity and heat mean my asthma is worse.

The town is busy fixing things, so still no city water and our pump is working but noisy. So I can shower at least and the maid can wash the clothes.

Since our previous live in helpers left, we have new people stsaying here but I don't know much about them: a man wife and I think their child. A
We also have two live in maids, one with a young boy, and our old secretary who is back fro working in Japan and is married and has a child. She lives at home but brings her child here while working, and there is always someone to watch the child.

I usually keep the dogs in my room but they still bark at the new help, which is frightening but not dangerous, since they don't usually bite, unlike our previous vicious dog who bit anyone who came near him and we had to keep chained up during the day.

A neighbor down the street died: A middle age man, no news of what he died from, but the cook will visit and take a gift to the family to help with the expenses and come back with the news.

Usually people here are laid out in their homes, and there is often a tent like covering outside the home where the men can sit and play cards while watching most of the day and night, while inside the coffin is laid ou and there are seats for the visitors, who are given soft drinks and small snacks.

A lot of people have relatives overseas, so it could be a week until the burial.  

In the meanwhile, I will stay indoors most of the time.

But the electricity is off, probably because they are fixing the lines. Luckily the generator is working so we have internet and lights, although the airconditioner is weaker than normal so it's not very cool in the room.

Ah the wonderfulness of living in a tropical paradise.

 

the AI center fight is about the future and the Philippines is part of the plan

I am not up on what is going on in the USA except that the left hates anything Trump is doing, and now is busy pushing outrage against AI Centers in the USA.... which of course would let China become the lead for the AI Future.

From Instapundit:

I’ve been lurking in anti-AI, anti-data center activist facebook groups just to understand what their arguments are

Guys it’s really not a good sign that they are borrowing the same tactic of framing non-violent things as violence. During the woke cultural revolution, innocuous… pic.twitter.com/EDb3CwKUoy

— Melissa Chen (@MsMelChen) May 19, 2026

.....

I had no idea about this until I read @amuse https://t.co/feIVBBrMIx

— Melissa Chen (@MsMelChen) May 20, 2026

,,,,,,,,

so what does this have to do with the Philippines? 

Cue up to the Pax Silica plan to industrialize the Philippines.

.. ..Pax Silica is the US outreach to other countries including the Philippines.

This historic declaration hails a new economic security consensus ensuring aligned partners build the AI ecosystem of tomorrow—from energy and critical minerals to high-end manufacturing and models.,,,

We recognize that the technological revolution in AI is accelerating, increasingly reorganizing the world economy, and reshaping global supply chains. We believe that economic value and growth will flow through and across all levels of the global AI supply chain, driving historic opportunity and demand for energy, critical minerals, manufacturing, technological hardware, infrastructure, and new markets not yet invented.

...

so yes the Philippines is pushing this plan: 

We have the resources of our workers, who right now are forced to migrate to other countries to find work. This will allow this talent to stay here and find jobs.

Under this framework, the country is advancing the proposed AI-Native Industrial Acceleration Hub in New Clark City, a flagship project that brings together AI, infrastructure, and high-value industries.

Yup.  Clark city, where there was a US base until politics asked the US to close it and Mt Pinatubo covered it with ash.

Our lovely ex president Gloria comes from that area and has been investing in roads, and infrastructure for years.

Clark industrial zone, was created, roads and rail connected it to other areas, and an alternative airport was opened there in Pampanga, which was traditionally a very poor area of the Philippines.

so what about our area?

well, we grow rice, and thanks to land reform small farmers now own their fields. 

The problem? They remain poor but educated their kids, and the kids don't want to be small farmers. 

So to work our fields we imported workers from Joy's area in the Visayas.

But for several years even though we are organic, profit is small because of the high  price of fertilizer   (after 2022, the prices went up because of the Ukraine war, and potash comes from the Ukraine) and now things are worse, with oil prices up, meaning the price for fertilizer going up, and diesel for farm machinery also going up, and unlike 25 years ago when I first came here, we no longer have farmers willing to plow with water buffalo (they are used for milk now) or harvest by hand (we rent a harvester thresher to bring in the crop).

Allowing people to own large amounts of land and mechanize it using modern seeds and machines would be the answer, but the Govt policy is to encourage small farmers to grow organic rice, which can be sold at a higher profit than traditional rice, which is in competition with other countries that have lower wages for farms.

this preserves the culture and is better for the land of course, so Joy is involved in this outreach in nearby Bulacan.

The good news is that the Philippines is wise enough to promote policies that benefit the small farmer while pushing modernization.

But things are changing.

 

Since farmers can't make much of a profit due to the high price of diesel and fertilizer, some are not planting, especially for the winter dry season harvest where you have to pay for irrigation fees.

so what is going on here is that a lot of local farmers were digging and panning for gold in the unused fields rather than lose money planting winter rice... whether or not they will plant for the main harvest is a big question: We will plant our low lying fields that don't use irrigation, but probably let the higher fields lie fallow. Sigh.

 which brings up another economic change in our area.

The large solar farm is being built on fields here. And yes, what this commercial says is true: many of our farmers and local folk are busy working for this project.

          

so lots of optimistic propaganda out there looking for investments:

 The main problem is corruption of course, but one can only hope workers used to honest work (e.g. working overseas or belonging to Evangelical churches that stress honesty and hard work) will be able to support their families.

S

everyone has a different point of view, but the truth is real

 Dilbert/Scott adams said that in today's world, everyone views the news in their own  bubble: Interpreting what is going on in the world not as it is actually happening but as reinterpreted by our brain based on our own culture, biases, and preconceived opinions

 Traditionally, great books (and nowadays Great films) are the way that teaches us these lessons.

One of my favorite films is Rashomon: And this film analysis explains why

the four stories:

The robber sexually assaults the woman and in his mind he is so sexually wonderful that  she begs him to take her along with him. And that is why he had to kill her husband.

The husband sees the woman as immoral and has a need to justify her being evil so he can so rejects her...so he claims she kills him.

The wife? She also says she killed her husband when he rejected her.

But the one relating the court to the priest notes that the police say his wounds are that of a sword fight, not being killed with a woman's small dagger.

But the woodcutter saw it from the distance and has another story of what really happened

 Essentially both men reject her: The bandit because he just wanted to get his pleasure and had no need of her, and her husband, it was because he saw her are tarnished and so he neither wanted her nor would fight for her.

and then comes what makes this a feminist drama: The woman accuses both of them of hypocracy.

 the woman gets angry and tells them: You want a beautiful doll, not a woman, a full woman, a woman of passion: a woman that is worth fighting for. And goads them into the fight that kills her husband.

That is why her story and that of her husband is that she killed her husband (which the court rejects because the wounds are that of combat, not the wounds of a woman's small daggar).

and this is what I as a feminist take from the movie: not the question of what is truth, but the importance of those who are helpless. The woman was being thrown away by the men but fights back, and then because in Confucian society she is not allowed full personhood, she essentially accuses herself of murder out of guilt.

and the modern world uses the term the Rashomon effect to insist there is no truth. 

Ah, but the film shows there is truth, as revealed by the woodcutter's story. Each person interprets it differently through the eyes of their own needs, but the story is real and is true.

And the ending? 

The frame of the story is three people at the temple listening to the story of the crime. plus an abandoned baby.

The first man leaves afterward, stealing the money left with the abandoned baby, saying we need to put ourselves first....

and the priest is so demoralized at the story that he doesn't stop him.

but it is the third, a passing woodcutter who revealed the true story to them,  who takes pity on  the abandoned child and takes him home to raise.

and that small act of compassion not only saves the baby's life but gives hope to the priest and the demoralized audience.

Can you speak Whale?

 

Some good news.

“Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield. Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS…” -… pic.twitter.com/KF8MYet9CB

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 16, 2026

The western press tends to ignore such deaths because the victims are CHristians and moderate Muslims, and it is not just the radical Islamic types trying to impose a radical Islamic govt but some of the atrocities are tribal feuds between Islamic herders and local farmers, and these tribes are now embracing Islamic extremism to recruit and justify their aggression.

from EWTN:

 56,000 killed in Nigeria’s ethnic and religious violence; Christians disproportionately affected 56,000 killed in Nigeria’s ethnic and religious violence; Christians disproportionately affected

  and that article is in 2024

the Independent Sentinal has a more recent article:

As of August, 2025, 185,000 have been slaughtered by radical Islamists. It includes 125,000 Christians and 60,000 ‘liberal’ Muslims. Those are the tolerant, peace-loving Muslims.

 and more die because they fled and are refugees, and those who stay often can't plant food because they fear being kidnapped.