Pope update

6 million greeted the Pope yesterday, and he gave a speech condemning the culture of death (opposing contraception and gay marriage). Didn't see much of this on CNN.

The PC local talk shows here had a bozo insisting that the Pope was planning to eliminate these out of date doctrines...don't know if the speech will change their mind. The elite here repeat all the progressive cliches without actually touching poor people in daily life...either to feel superior to the ordinary folks, or because there is a lot of money to be made making friends with these progressive groups.

while the Pope merely talked about the real problems here: Manila Bulletin headline: Pope Condemns corruption.

Too bad the libel law here prevents him from naming names.

Aquino blasted the local bishops for opposing him. Read they opposed his version of the RHBill...and he is worried Binay will win the next election.

The bishops usually supported our lovely ex president GMA was against the RH bill, (although the old lefty bishop Cruz actually named names and got arrested for libel...ah but he also routinely blasts Pnoy for corruption too, so have things actually gotten better? When those who arranged the Manguindanao massacre actually get convicted, maybe I'll start paying attention)...

Most Pinoys assume they are all crooks, so many bishops looked the other way about GMA's corruption..as for the Manila Bulletin, it had a photo op of her on it's cover almost every day. The reason? She was business friendly, and if she (or often the first gentleman) got rich, well, hey,, don't they all skim a little off the top (Rodney Dangerfield call your office)?

Lots of US and European money went to pass the "RH BILL" which will mandate giving poor women contraception at gov't clinics and hospitals, never mind that one third of poor women deliver at home with untrained midwives, not at clinics, and that the bill will fine any doctor or nurse who won't push contraception or who dares to talks against it.
Yet in a feudal society where peasants are expected to obey their betters (I exaggerate, but not completely) this could be seen as coercion.

The way to allow contraception without the problem of coercion and to get it to those who need it the most is to fund pill ladies, like we had in Africa. Every little village had a pill lady, usually a local teacher or shopkeeper who was born locally and on the same social level as the local women...

Ironically, this program had lots of funds even though most did not have access to clean water or WHO rehydration fluid to stop childhood deaths from diarrhea (priorities I guess). Our hospital got private funds to supervise and provide pumps for wells and to place village health workers with first aid training in remote villages.

Same here: The need is more properly trained midwives in remote villages, and to pay them well enough that they don't expect a nice big "gift" to deliver the kid.

and BTW: Maybe someone should clean out the gutters that serve as a sewer system here? No rain means puddles for lots of mosquitoes to breed in, and dengue is a major problem...