Belmont club is even more cynical, maybe because of his Pinoy background:
Maybe the the problem with all the treehuggers and ethnic preservationists is that they haven’t spent enough time in the woods and in the villages. Where you sleep on a mat with the dusk because there’s no lighting, watch your child die because there’s no medicine; where you’re trapped for days in your hut while the monsoon rain turns the trails into rivers of water so strong they can carry you off or kill you from hypothermia in the tropics. Because if they had to and could never leave, then they too might think of asking the next visitor to fantasy island: “Why don’t you treat me like a white fella?”
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related item:
LostWorlds discusses the lost civilization of the Amazon:
so where did the people go? I suspect they caught the European infectious diseases spread via trade routes....Instead of being pristine forests, barely inhabited by people, parts of the Amazon may have been home for centuries to large populations numbering well into the thousands and living in dozens of towns connected by road networks, explains the American writer Charles C. Mann....
“If one wants to recreate pre-Columbian Amazonia, most of the forest needs to be removed, with many people and a managed, highly productive landscape replacing it,” said William Woods, a geographer at the University of Kansas who is part of a team studying the Acre geoglyphs.
“I know that this will not sit well with ardent environmentalists,” Mr. Woods said, “but what else can one say?”
Read the full story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/world/americas/land-carvings-attest-to-amazons-lost-world.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=world
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another Belmont club article on how undertreatment of TB and gov't regulations that stop new drugs from being marketed are the real cause of the multidrug resistant TB that is a new threat to health.
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Father Z links to an article on Asia news about "the disappeared".
AsiaNews has decided to ask for the release of three bishops and of six priests who have disappeared in police custody or are detained in prison without trial. Their release could be a gesture of friendship and hope for Catholics and human rights activists, as well as a sign of true hope for the upcoming Chinese New Year.
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and this human rights problem is not being noticed by feminists in the west: That 1800 Hindu and Christian girls in Pakistan were forcibly "converted to Islam" by being kidnapped and raped and forced to marry the perpetrator, and that thousands of "honor killings" have occurred..,.
Update: The BBC noticed it: BBC report on the kidnapping and forced conversions on non Muslim girls in Pakistan.
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mark your calenders:
7 Ways to Celebrate Squirrel Appreciation Day
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