other stuff being ignored: Facebook, the moon, and of course Mama Mary

the UK is supposed to be "secular", but in the BBC, a recent poll showed  3 in 5 of the population believes in miracles.

but then they quote a PC Catholic priest to say, hey the miracles didn't really occur: people just shared their soggy 2 day old pita bread.

 Which says a lot about the PC politics over morals church there.

or should I say "anti church"?
---------------------------------------------------
 the pope says calm down and pray the rosary.

He's better watch it: a million Pinoys praying the rosary overthrew Marcos, and you don't want to get Mama Mary mad at you. (/s)

-------------------------------

an election is coming up in Mexico, and the Diplomad2.0 discusses.
He notes Mexico's traditional anti Americanism, and says learn about their revolution to find out why.

Mike Duncan is podcasting the Mexican Revolution on his Revolutions podcast, so go and download some history.

related item: from PhysOrg: BP reached a settlement with Mexico after the 2010 Deepwater  spill.

According to PODER, a corporate transparency group, BP secretly negotiated to pay Mexico $25.5 million—a fraction what it paid in the United States—even as it invested hundreds of millions in President Enrique Pena Nieto's prized project, the reopening of the Mexican energy sector to foreign firms. 

Gee, do you think all of that is a coincidence?(/s)

On the other hand, (UKTelegraph) a lot of BP compensation in the US went into corrupt pockets.

---------------------------------------

NASA's space plans: to the moon and beyond.

-
related item: Marketing the moon:





----------------------------

First my Federal OPM personnel file, and now this: Facebook hacked.

several scandals have popped up recently. 

=======================
from Drudge:

Tim Berners Lee (who actually invented the internet) has a new plan for a new internet.

This week, Berners-Lee will launch Inrupt, a startup that he has been building, in stealth mode, for the past nine months.

Backed by Glasswing Ventures, its mission is to turbocharge a broader movement afoot, among developers around the world, to decentralize the web and take back power from the forces that have profited from centralizing it. In other words, it’s game on for Facebook, Google, Amazon.

For years now, Berners-Lee and other internet activists have been dreaming of a digital utopia where individuals control their own data and the internet remains free and open. But for Berners-Lee, the time for dreaming is over. “We have to do it now,” he says, displaying an intensity and urgency that is uncharacteristic for this soft-spoken academic. “It’s a historical moment.”

Ever since revelations emerged that Facebook had allowed people’s data to be misused by political operatives, Berners-Lee has felt an imperative to get this digital idyll into the real world. In a post published this weekend, Berners-Lee explains that he is taking a sabbatical from MIT to work full time on Inrupt. The company will be the first major commercial venture built off of Solid, a decentralized web platform he and others at MIT have spent years building.

for later reading: Drudge also linked to WND (right wing) that has a three part series  that interviews the author of Life After Google.

The hysteria in quotes

Powerlineblog:

By smearing the ultimate Boy Scout, the Democrats signal that they are determined to go lower than anyone has ever gone in American history. They intend to deter normal people from serving in Republican administrations, or accepting appointments from Republican presidents, or, ultimately, from identifying themselves with the Republican party.

----------------------------

and don't forget to pray

Pelosi said: “I pray a lot. I believe in the power of prayer and I think it is urgent. This, of course, is a Senate matter in terms of confirmation. But all of those groups I talked about, they are out there on Kavanaugh, too, because it is a danger to affordable health care, women’s right to choose (italics mine) any stare decisis—Brown v. the Board of Education, civil rights, voting rights, environmental protection and the rest. So, this is as serious as it gets.

-----------------------

and the undercovered story of the week: Trump asserted American sovereignty

Trump declared independence from the UN Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court, and the Global Compact on Migration, declaring: “We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.”

headsup Instapundit.
----------------

In our prayers: Asian disasters

Indonesia had an earthquake and a ten foot tsunami that has left at least 300 dead.
they had an earthquake in August in a different area that killed over 500 people.

Sigh.

-------------------------------------
The typhoon that missed us is headed toward Okinawa and Honshu.

Japan has been hit by several typhoons this year that caused damage.

-----------------------
another miracle landing, except this one was an accident because apparently the pilot missed the runway. In Chuuk Island, in Micronesia.


All onboard survived, thanks to the locals rushing out in their small craft to help evacuate the passengers.

update: The US Navy construction workers were there and helped too.

--------------------
here in the Philippines, the big news is that Duterte is trying to rescind the pardon of a guy who a couple years ago mounted a military coup against Arroyo, but since then got a pardon from the next president (PNoy) and so was elected to Congress.

I am not following the details.

and again, one politician  who opposed Duterte is again going to be released. She's a big hero for opposing Duterte. Just ignore that embarassing video (she was having an affair with her driver, but the video was photoshopped)

TEOTWAWKI: 1177 BC edition

audiobook about the Bronze age collapse.


...........

quick: Before the copyright cops find it's there.

short form of the book:

Don't worry he won't get far on foot

Amazon has a film about John Callahan, whose over the top cartoons made him a legend among the disability activist community.

===
no, I haven't seen the film, so don't know if it is good technically (or accurate medically), but the reviews seem to pick at it for the obvious trivial issues (he was obnoxious alcoholic, he had issues, and one was furious because he got cured via AA).

the Memory hackers

More information about eye witnesses and memory.

From PBS:



PSB website has more here. including the transcript and links.

what is a memory? How is it formed? Why do some people remember things in great detail, and why? Memories can cause hard changes in the brain. Different parts of the memory are stored in different parts of the brain. But what about syndromes with memory problems?

this is the link about how to implant false memories 

It turns out to be eerily straightforward to set up the conditions to give someone a false memory. Simply introduce an authority expert, mix falsehood with reality, and apply social pressure. The result is unmistakable—a false memory gains very real traction in someone’s mind.

Something to remember when these cases come up.

false accusations are not always due to greed and money (although these things occur too).

Audiobook of the week

Charles C Mann's book 1491 tells the story of the Americas before Colombus arrived.



listen to it now, before the copyright cops find it's there.

The showman who saved 6500 lives

In the days when 2 pound babies were placed in the corner to die, a showman put them on display as a carnival attraction, used the money from those viewing the kids to pay for nurses etc. and overhead expenses, and may have save 6500 lives.

Longer post on my medical blog.

Via Atlas Obscura and NPR

---------------

Mr Milquetoast turns into Joseph Welch

From  PJMedia

"If you wanted an FBI investigation, you could have come to us," Graham declared, turning to the Democrats. "What you want to do is destroy this guy's life, hold this seat open, and hope you win in 2020. You've said that, not me."

"When you see [Supreme Court Justices] Sotomayor and Kagan, say hello because I voted for them. I'd never do to them what you've done to this guy," Graham added.

"This is the most unethical sham since I've been in politics and if you really wanted to know the truth, you sure as hell wouldn't have done what you've done to this guy."

and then there is this comment:

Yes, who would have thought that McCain loving Mr bipartisan Lindsey Graham would be the one to loose the dogs of war

No, I haven't watched the hearings: we have a 12 hour time difference and I have a life.

----------------
update: It just occured to me that yutes might not know who Mr Milquetoast was: Wikipedia article.

Space news

---------------------------------------

and congratulations to Astonomycast: they just released their 500th program.

A wonderful podcast by Dr Pamela Gay

The 2018 Hall of Fame inductees will be inducted on July 24 at the Academy of Podcasters’ Hall of Fame Ceremony, during the Podcast Movement Conference in Philadelphia. CosmoQuest’s own principal investigator Dr. Pamela Gay will be inducted for her work over the past decade plus with the Astronomy Cast podcast

Live Long and Prosper

via DavidReneke: scientists have found the Planet Vulcan:

In the Star Trek universe, the Eridani constellation is the star system in which the planet Vulcan (where Spock and his fellow Vulcanians reside) is located. Eridani is based off the real-life constellation, 40 Eridani, and Vulcan was said to orbit the real-life star in that constellation, 40 Eridani A.

Scientists naturally wondered if a planet actually does orbit 40 Eridani A. Turns out, one does.

more at Popular Mechanics 

Recipe of the week

it' not just eggs that you soak in Brine:

How to make Syracuse Salt potatoes:

...........

AltasObscura tells the story of how this began:

In the 19th century, Irish salt workers would often bring along sacks of potatoes for lunch. While boiling down brine from Syracuse’s salt springs, workers would add in the small, white potatoes that became the spud of choice for salt potatoes. Soon, the potatoes were a staple.

In 1899, one newspaper boasted, “The salt potatoes of Syracuse rank with the baked beans of Boston, the terrapin of Baltimore, the scrapple of Philadelphia and the frankfurters of Milwaukee.”

yes, we do have potatoes here, and they are small and with a brown skin... I haven't seen them growing here, but like lettuce, strawberries and other cool climate veggies, I presume they are grown in the mountains north of here.

 but they are used as part of a stew like other vegetables.

But now we do see lots of French fries at fast food places, and you can even get mashed potatoes at KFC (along with a serving of rice, of course).

Asian Potato growing information. 

Won't you be my neighbor

...
 and a podcast about Mr Rogers at FLP LINK

and coming soon: A movie about him, starring Tom Hanks.

Censorship and China

.

The agreement between Pope Francis and the Chinese Communist Party is a very bad idea. Giving this authority to a Communist atheist government is insane— @WJMcGurn, @WSJOpinion editorial board

Time Magazine headline:

Pope Francis Admits His Historic Deal With Beijing Will Cause Suffering in China's 'Underground' Churches

and just ignore the bishops and laypeople who will suffer because of this: he cites this letter from two (?!) bishops there that they support his coverup of the sexual scandal, so they obviously love him and will go along with his dictates, so everything is honkey dorey.

While acknowledging the suffering of some underground faithful in China, Francis pointed to what he considered a good sign that the church is beginning to unify.

He noted that in the weeks after a retired Vatican ambassador accused him of covering up the sexual misconduct of an American cardinal, bishops conferences around the world wrote to him voicing their support.

The Chinese faithful wrote to him as well, he said.

Both an underground bishop and a bishop of the Patriotic Church signed the same letter.

Italics mine.

“Together, both of them. And faithful, both of them. For me this is a signal,” Francis said.

uh, faithful to Jesus or faithful to the dictator Pope?
---------------
and it's not just the Catholic church bowing to Caesar/Emperor Xi:

from Instapundit: 

Google and Privatized Authoritarianism: The tech giant appears willing to do almost anything to win access to the vast Chinese market. If they’re willing to do this abroad, what are they willing to do here?Related: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China.

...
and of course, thanks to President Obama telling PNoy not to stop them except via the courts, China now owns the oil and can block the shipping lanes in the West Philippine Sea.

And they are openly writing stories in their newspapers that they "own" Luzon.

Sigh.

I am not paranoid about this at all, but I did check with my son and he has a spare bedroom for me in case war breaks out here and I have to flee to the USA. I had to leave two African countries in a hurry when trouble escalated quickly, so it's always good to have contingency plans.

Film of the week

  .............ha.

and she uses this to manipulate her family for fifty years, making everyone miserable.

Sound familiar?

it's from the satirical novel Cold Comfort Farm.... starts slow but gets better, with lots of absurd characters

caution: Some r rated scenes.

.

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

Cat item of the day: kedi

a very nice film about the street cats of Istanbul, and the humans who care for them.

in Turkish, but you can enjoy it anyway: or else pay to watch it.

Stories behind the headlines

Climate change policies are expensive. Physorg has the data:

The 2016 New Climate Economy report indicates that, each year, US$2,000 billion will be needed for the global North and US$4,000 billion for the global South to finance the green infrastructure that would help move us closer to a carbon-neutral world early enough to limit global warming to no more than +2°C above the pre-industrial levels. 

----------------------
Rumors are that the porn lawyer's claim that a certain upright judge once ran a rape gang in high school isn't true:  he was "punked". 

As Drudge says: Developing.

---------------------------

white "yutes" chase a Hispanic out of a restaurant.

------------------------------

Disobey the bishop, get sent to a psyc ward.

it seems that all those "rigid" personalities who believe sin is wrong have psychiatric problems.

----------------------------------
via Drudge: Ebola is back, and the WHO is worried.

Not in the news, because only black people are dying.(/s)

-------------------------------

phyorg: for election security go back to paper ballots? because hacking the vote is easy if you use electronic voting machines etc.

guess they've never heard the phrase "stuffing the ballot box".

PhilStar article: cheating in the elections? Let me count the ways.

IN ELECTIONS past when vote-counting was done manually, candidates who wanted to win at all costs cheated by buying votes, switching ballot boxes with new boxes containing fake ballots, and by having teachers in the polling precincts misread the names of candidates during the counting.

Automation of the elections sought to cure these problems. But since 2010, it has brought a host of other anxieties and possibilities for election cheating as well.

----------------------------------
feral cats are all over the place here in the Philippines, but one town is trying to ban feeding them.

There is a great need for cat contraception: it's expensive to neuter them, so why not feed them hormones instead?

on the other hand, without feral cats you would be overrun by rats and snakes and lizards.

And ironically it is dogs, especially feral dogs, who keep down the feral cat population.

We see them too: very sad because they are scrounging dropped food at the nearby food court and palenke. And you don't know if they belong to someone and were left out to exercize/mate/do their thing (which is often done in the evenings), or ran away from someone or got lost. Which is why rabies is still a problem here.

--------------------

supertyphoon near the Philippines is weakening and will probably miss us.
the bad news: It is aimed at Taiwan, and could go on to hit Japan.

------------------------
Phil Inq: Trumpieboy goes to the UN to try to get international consensus on the war against drug cartels. and talks nice about rocket man.

the talk was controversial because he puts America first, over the global "consensus".

-------------------
and the good news of the day:

Downton Abbey, the movie, has started to be filmed.

He said she said: Beyond the hysteria

The NYTimes is asking people to relate stories of their sexual escapades in high school and colleges.

They will then presumably presume this survey is significant: but it's not, since anecdotes don't give you an idea of what is going on, and of course, people will lie and make up stories.

If you want hard data, check the CDC data: Youth Risk Surveillance survey which I cited below to put the pedophilia crisis into perspective.

so what are today's teenagers actually doing?

Nationwide, 45.3% of students had had sexual contact with only the opposite sex, 1.6% had had sexual contact with only the same sex, 5.3% had had sexual contact with both sexes, and 47.8% had had no sexual contact (Supplementary Table 5).

So yes, there are virgins in high school.
................

and yes, date rape happens

Nationwide, 7.4% of students had ever been physically forced to have sexual intercourse when they did not want to (Supplementary Table 34). The prevalence of having been forced to have sexual intercourse was higher among female (11.3%) than male (3.5%) students; higher among white female (11.2%), black female (11.7%), and Hispanic female (11.2%) than white male (3.3%), black male (3.4%), and Hispanic male (3.6%) students

.................
and date rape rates varies according to your sexual orientation:

Analyses based on the question ascertaining sexual identity indicated that nationwide, 5.4% of heterosexual students; 21.9% of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students; and 13.1% of not sure students had ever been physically forced to have sexual intercourse when they did not want to (Supplementary Table 34). .

.........
date rape episodes vary widely in different areas:

Analyses of state and large urban school district data indicated that across 34 states, the overall prevalence of having been forced to have sexual intercourse ranged from 5.7% to 19.2% across state surveys (median: 8.3%) (Supplementary Table 35). Across 20 large urban school districts, the prevalence ranged from 6.8% to 11.9% (median: 9.2%)

............
and a lot of kids are assaulted or forced into sexual situations short of rape. Note that this analyzed only those who were dating, so cut the percentage in half to see the actual percentage of all kids.

Among the 68.3% of students nationwide who dated or went out with someone during the 12 months before the survey,¶ 6.9% had been forced to do “sexual things” (e.g., kissing, touching, or being physically forced to have sexual intercourse) they did not want to do one or more times during the 12 months before the survey by someone they were dating or going out with (i.e., sexual dating violence) (Supplementary Table 38).

and the rate varies according to who you are dating, i.e. heterosexual vs homosexual vs not sure;

Analyses based on the question ascertaining sexual identity indicated that nationwide, among the students who dated or went out with someone during the 12 months before the survey, 5.5% of heterosexual students; 15.8% of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students; and 14.1% of not sure students had experienced sexual dating violence

---------------
so kids are all promiscuous, right? uh, not really:

Nationwide, 9.7% of students had had sexual intercourse with four or more persons during their life (Supplementary Table 137). The prevalence of having had sexual intercourse with four or more persons was higher among male (11.6%) than female (7.9%) students; 

 -------------
but what about normal intercourse? a lot of statistics ask who has had intercourse at any time, but the actual number who are routinely sexually active is lower than you think

Nationwide, 28.7% of students had had sexual intercourse with at least one person during the 3 months before the survey (i.e., currently sexually active) ,,,,The prevalence of being currently sexually active was higher among 10th-grade (24.9%), 11th-grade (35.3%), and 12th-grade (44.3%) than 9th-grade (12.9%) students;

This pretty well agrees with what I saw in practice: younger teenagers are at great risk for problems, including pregnancy and STDs, and that group continues to have problems:

but a lot of more mature teenagers are having intercourse with regular partners. Since in my day, I have had friends who married at age 16 to 18, I figure this is just the same behavior as their grand parents, except they don't marry nowadays.

In summary:

 there is also a subgroup of teenagers at risk for sexual coercion.

You just can't arrest every time this is done, but school and public health authorities need to address this (as do churches).

This behavior to be addressed, but it is not universal.

By the way: The survey also has statistics on bullying, threats of violence, kids carrying guns, using alcohol and tobacco and drugs, were depressed, thought about suicide, and if they ate their veggies.

 Nationwide, 26.6% of students had eaten vegetables (green salad, potatoes [not counting French fries, fried potatoes, or potato chips], carrots, or other vegetables) two or more times per day during the 7 days before the survey

Have you no sense of decency, sir?

the demonstrations against a well qualified man who was appointed to the Supreme Court suggested an over the top hysteria rather than a logical argument against his judicial philosophy.

It was organized, of course.

How bad was the hysteria?

Even Justice Ginsburg was aghast:

In addition to speaking about her life and career, Justice Ginsburg also spoke about what she called the “partisan” nature of the current confirmation process for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The way it was, was right. The way it is, is wrong,” she said referring to Supreme Court confirmations in the past, including her own. She said the atmosphere of her confirmation “was truly bipartisan,” noting she had gained the vote of nearly every Republican senator despite her decade-long work with the American Civil Liberties Union...

“That’s the way it should be instead of what its become, which is a highly partisan show,” she said. “The Republicans move in lockstep, and so do the Democrats. I wish I could wave a magic wand and bring it back to the way it was.”

No, because politics uber alles.

A court that follows the constitution and lets Congress make the laws instead of manipulating the courts into making laws by fiat is not acceptable to many of the elite.

So when it seemed that the absurd planned partisan protests wouldn't work, and the Senate was ready to vote, Voila: Feinstein dug up a teenaged incident to smear him as a potential rapist.... well, not quite a rapist (she kept her clothes on) and never mind that both he and the witnesses his accuser named could verify her story.

As I blogged awhile back, I have slugged a couple guys myself, and I am not exactly a beauty queen, so was puzzled about the hype over the case. I just presumed it was something minor but exaggerated with time, or maybe she got the details and people involved wrong or it was an induced false memory.

But then, as the woman claimed she was too traumatized to drive to Washington DC, and too traumatized to testify, and she kept changing the story, and finding more excuses to postpone the hearing: little things started to make one wonder what was going on.

And now, voila, the headlines scream another "victim", but this one was indeed manipulated to put a name to her story. This gave huge headlines, but anyone reading the entire story finds she was recruited by the Democrats, and it took her six days to "remember" who did what to her, and again, those who should have supported her story denied it ever happened.

Her story was so full of holes that the NYTimes wouldn't report it, but the New Yorker did so it got into the headlines as if the story was true.

How many people in today's world actually read beyond the headlines? or hear the facts of the case?  Already the smell test for ordinary folks who read beyond the MSM hysteria was starting to show, but now the Porn lawyer is in on it, and his claims are making headlines about gang rape.

presumably the next charge will be that he drowns small kittens and tortures puppies for fun.

Back when Joe McCarthy was distorting the story of communists in the US government by exaggerating the problem and causing hysteria, what stopped him was a USArmy lawyer named Joseph Welch who defended a lawyer who was having his life destroyed for his teenaged ties with an organization that happened to be a communist front.

Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness...

If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentleman, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me."

When McCarthy tried to renew his attack, Welch interrupted him:

Senator, may we not drop this? ... Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

well, today Kavanaugh sent his own "have you no sense of decency" letter.

Last night, another false and uncorroborated accusation from 35 years ago was published. Once again, those alleged to have been witnesses to the event deny it ever happened.

There is now a frenzy to come up with something—anything—that will block this process and a vote on my confirmation from occurring.

These are smears, pure and simple. And they debase our public discourse. But they are also a threat to any man or woman who wishes to serve our country. Such grotesque and obvious character assassination—if allowed to succeed—will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from service.

As I told the Committee during my hearing, a federal judge must be independent, not swayed by public or political pressure. That is the kind of judge I will always be. I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process.

The coordinated effort to destroy my good name will not drive me out. The vile threats of violence against my family will not drive me out. The last minute character assassination will not succeed.

---------------
I hate to say this: but the hysteria and demonstrations by people of leisure are not looked on with favor by those of us who work hard for a living and rarely have time to spare.

The demonstrations and hysteria are going to energize the Republicans in anger to go to the polls, but what is worse, it could make the working class Democrats hesitate to vote for "mainstream" Democrats, especially if it is shown that the mainstream Democrats quickly morph into robots who vote in line with the progressive agenda instead of representing those who sent them to Congress.

so Bill Clinton's sucessful attempt to keep the Democratic party mainstream is essentially dead. Sigh.

Instapundit agrees.

Culture of death

NotDeadYet posts facts about the myth of assisted suicide.

Especially vulnerable will be the 10 percent of Massachusetts seniors estimated to be abused every year, almost always by family members. A caregiver or heir to an estate can witness a person’s request, pick up the prescription and then administer the lethal dose without worry of investigation — the bill immunizes everyone involved.

The writers say the bill is necessary to prevent “great pain and unrelieved suffering” at the end of life, but official reports from Oregon and Washington show that the top five reasons to request assisted suicide do not include pain, but rather “existential distress” (New England Journal of Medicine) over such issues as dependence on others, loss of abilities and feeling like a burden.

We disabled people reject the prejudice that physical dependence makes our lives undignified

a lot of independent libertarian types always point to the Roman stoic's ideas that suicide should be preferred to sickness.

But in Rome, babies could be thrown away and slaves could be killed for any reason at all. Not to mention girls married off at age 14 by their father's fiat.

Stoic philosophy, like the vague "spiritual but not religious" ideas in modern America, is about personal improvement/perfection.

But religion: especially (but not only) Christianity is about caring for each other too: you need the relationship to the creator to keep your life in balance, but the way you serve the creator is in how you care for others, even if the only thing you can do is pray for them and bear your illness with courage.

I refer back to the essay by Archbishop Chaput that I cites a few days ago: that the destruction of the religious culture and replacing it with "rational" ideas is unable to see beyond the superficial.

without faith in an ultimate meaning, disabled life (or elderly life, or even babies who get in the way of one's career) can be rationally destroyed to benefit a higher goal: follow the money?

But if there is a God, there is a larger picture, where every life has a meaning, and everything happens for a reason.

what is the alternative? modern logical suicide: yet, as Chaput notes: this utilitarian world has consequences:

Blaming these murders (the murder of the disabled in Nazi Germany) on National Socialist race theory would be easy.  And it would be accurate – but only part of the story.  

In reality, the German medical establishment began shifting to a utility-based morality as early as the 1890s.  Doctors, not the Third Reich, first pressed for euthanasia as national policy.  What occurred among medical experts, in the words of one German psychiatrist, was “a change in the concept of humanity,” with its perfectly logical consequences.  Sentimental words about human dignity, unmoored from some authority or purpose higher than ourselves, were just that – words.

I mention Burleigh’s book because several of my friends have children with disabilities.  Watching them parent is a lesson in what the author of the Song of Songs meant when he wrote, “love is strong as death.”  My educator friend, the wife and mother I spoke about earlier, has a son with Down syndrome.  She also has three grandchildren with disabilities ranging from the moderate to the severe.
Her son has an IQ of 43.  His syndrome makes it hard for him to speak.  Sometimes he needs to repeat a sentence three or four times to be understood, even by his family.  He’s more prone to illness.  Simple griefs like getting dumped by a girlfriend lead to inexpressible feelings because he doesn’t have the words to articulate his hurt.  He’s likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease at some point in his life.  Some persons with Down syndrome face it as early as their 30s.  So my friend and her husband live with the knowledge that the son they love may one day be unable to recognize them.

And yet, he has a job.  He has friends.  He’s a distance runner.  He’s a Special Olympian, an opinionated savant of restaurant fare, a master of the mysteries of the rosary, and a sports fanatic.  His life is filled with good things, not sadness.  He’s a daily education in the virtue of patience for his parents, and in what it means to be human for his siblings.  And among his greatest blessings is this:  He will never be alone.  He will always be loved.
None of his family’s behavior is rational in a worldly sense.  Not one of my friends who has a child with disabilities is “rational.”  All of them are unreasonable; all of them are irrational – unless, like Augustine, we believe in order to understand.  

I first got to know about Chaput because he gave talks to the Kateri conferences that my patients attended. He is a Pottawatomie, hence a "minority", something that is rarely mentioned in the news.

As one of our nurses told a consulting physician who advised the family to starve to death a relative with frontal lobe syndrome by pulling her feeding tube: That's the difference between Us Indians and you white folk. We take care of our elders.

This is still true here in the Philippines, which is why Lolo wanted to retire here.

Immigration is the answer to a lot of the moral detrioration caused by greed and the "me-ism" in America.

but that's another story for another time.

Writing tips

APilgrimInNarniaBlog posted these tips from Stephen King's site:

Cat item of the day

===============--------------------

Just for nice

Philippine headlines

Another day, another typhoon?

should hit the far north of the Philippines on Thursday.

Kuya is busy harvesting and drying our crop at the farm.
------------------

another day, another volcano.

Not in our area, but in the Visayas.

------------------------



If you just read the social media posted by students who live in gated communities, you might not know this:

from the Manila Bulletin: Filipino support anti drug campaign.

The nationwide survey, conducted on June 27 to 30 among 1,200 respondents, found 78 percent satisfied and 13 percent dissatisfied with the administration’s campaign against illegal drugs.

==============================

and remember when you see demonstrations in the Philippines:  in this one they estimate 1000 people are expected to protest, which is about remembering Marcos' imposition of martial law. (i.e. hinting that they will be very very angry if Duterte extends martial law).

Only 1000 people? it means either the organizers are too cheap to pay people to join the demonstration  or else no one cares.

And it's harvest season: What type of grass roots organization will ask people to go to demonstrations during harvest season?

this demonstration is remembering Marcos' martial law, which was oppressive, but given that too many presidents since then just looked the other way when corrupt politicians looted the country, for some, Marcos is looking good.

background information:

the going price for protesters is 500 pesos a day plus meals, and so when the organizers like the one in the article claim they will have "1000 people" in their dmonstrations, either they are too cheap to pay the usual fee, or the locals don't want to demonstrate.

It's similar to buying votes: since they are all crooks, folks will let their vote be bought. Going price is 500 pesos, but can be higher for closely contested elections.

But when things are serious, people either ignore the vote buyers, or else take the money and vote for who they want. Which is how we got Duterte...

-----------------------
we had two landslides after the last typhoons, caused by illegal mining or quarrying.

Cebu report here.

Duterte discusses here. trying to stop open pit mining.

I don't know enough about the subject, except to note that it's easier to bribe local officials than to follow the laws.

Rappler article on mining.

AlJ has an article on the landslide north of here:

Decades of unrestrained mining has made many areas of this mountain-range precarious and dangerous, leading environmental activists blaming the illegal mining for the landslides.

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Pope giving up separation of church and state in China

Magister's column in an italiannewspaper has a long article about the "agreement" by the (dare I say this?) white European leftist ideologues in the Vatican and the Chinese government.

he notes that the official reports don't give a lot of information (Cardinal Zen says it is a masterpiece of saying nothing with a lot of words, and notes the many vital questions left unanswered)

But Magister has lots of links, which also say nothing, and then he goes to note why this is indeed "historic":

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, then added in a statement that for the Holy See the accord “has a pastoral objective” and responds to the need for pastors “who are recognized by the successor of Peter and by the legitimate civil authorities of their country.”

What is not said is that the Chinese authorities will still be first in line in the selection of future pastors, with only a feeble right of veto granted to the pope on any candidates who may not be to his liking.

 In this sense, the accord can rightly be defined as “historic,” because it marks a sensational about-face in the journey that the Catholic Church has made over centuries of history to free itself from submission to political powers, particularly in the “investiture” of its pastors.

the church has been there before: See Wikipedia on the Investiture controversy of the medieval church.

The reforms of Pope Gregory VII led to the separation of church and state.

It separated the way many rulers appointed bishops (i.e.made the church as an arm of the state) and put the church as outside and independent of the state, with the idea that God's laws were above the state.

This is usually interpreted as a power grab by the Pope, but actually it means that rulers can be opposed by bishops, and can never be absolute rulers, since God's law is above man's law.

How does that work in reality?

In China, it would mean that bishops could oppose the "forced abortion" government policies, in the Philippines, it means the bishops can oppose Duterte's drug war, and in the US it means bishops can oppose Trumpieboy's immigration reforms.

But it also means that a fiat by the local bishop can be ignored by the state, so there is no theocracy as one sees in Iran.

 The agreement has implications beyond the ten million Catholics in China:  because it essentially silences official Catholic opposition to the persecution of believers of many religions there, replacing religion with the religion of the state as god.

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update: Related article on AlJ on China's crackdown on investigative journalism.

Betraying Chinese believers

One reason Thomas More was killed is that he denied that Henry VIII had the power to tell the church what to believe, to monitor the sermons, and to appoint the bishops.

But now, the illegal Catholic church in China, (est 10 million members) that has always followed Catholic laws and has had their bishops appointed by the Vatican has been told to obey Emperor Xi's dictates and merge with the state run church.

background HERE (BBC)

It's not certain how such an agreement will affect the community, though some are sceptical.

Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong had on Wednesday criticised the Vatican for its attempts at diplomacy with China, accusing the Church of forcing bishops to retire in favour of replacements picked by Beijing. "Do I think that the Vatican is selling out the Catholic Church in China?" he wrote on Facebook. "Yes, definitely."

oh, but the Vatican prefers to listen to "experts":

Others however, are slightly more hopeful. Father Jeroom Heyndrickx, a Belgian priest who has spent 60 years trying to help Chinese Catholics, said that he believed China was "ready to have a dialogue."

a Belgian priest? Isn't that the equivalent of cultural imperialism? It's just as if Asians were "little brown (or in this case, yellow) brothers who needed big strong Europeans to tell them what to do.

"For 2,000 years in China, the emperor was emperor and pope at the same time," he told the BBC. "But China has changed and the Church has changed and this is what constitutes a new opportunity for this dialogue to succeed."

One wonders where this guy is getting his information.

Yeah. China has changed. They just put a bunch of Chinese Muslims into reeducation camps.


ALJ story:

The UN has said around one million Muslims in the Xinjiang region have been rounded up and held in so-called "re-education" centres - camps the Uighurs claim are intended to replace the next generation's Uighur identity with a Chinese one.
The Chinese government has denied the allegations.

 ALJ link2

and this WaPo article discusses the crackdown on churches in China: LINK.

They have been closing and tearing down churches there too:

“This is part of a comprehensive war against religion,” (Pastor) Jin said in an interview. “The Communist Party has begun to see religion as a competitor. It’s not just [Protestant] Christianity, but also Catholicism, Buddhism and Islam. They want all of us to pledge our loyalty to the party.”

All of the five religions officially tolerated by Chinese leaders — Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam and Protestantism — are now experiencing draconian treatment from the government of President Xi Jinping, who has stoked nationalism and promoted loyalty to the Communist Party in ways not seen in decades.

Human Rights Watch report here: 

The government restricts religious practice to five officially recognized religions in officially approved religious premises. Authorities retain control over religious bodies’ personnel appointments, publications, finances, and seminary applications. The government classifies many religious groups outside its control as “evil cults,” and subjects members to police harassment, torture, arbitrary detention, and imprisonment.

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why is this important?

Because religious organizations allow an independent voice against tyranny.

True, sometimes you end up with a religious dictatorship, like in Iran, but it was religious voices that could oppose the monolithic tyranny of the state.

Which is why Christians often led the peaceful demonstrations against communism that led to the downfall of the Soviet Union. (and not just Communist tyrannies:  Martin Luther King's civil rights marches were based on his Christian beliefs, and here in the Philippines, a million Pinoys singing hymns led to the peaceful downfall of the Marcos dictatorship).

Hence, China is afraid.

There is nothing new here:

Emperor Wuzong of Tang, reigned 840–846. The Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution initiated by Tang Emperor Wuzong reached its height in the year 845 AD. Among its purposes were to appropriate war funds and to cleanse China of foreign influences. As such, the persecution was directed not only towards Buddhism but also towards other religions, such as Zoroastrianism, Nestorian Christianity, and Manichaeism.

yeah: bet you didn't know that there were Christians in China back then. 

Abuse links

Most of this I posted before, but in the middle of hysteria, one should have a few facts around.

I am combining them in a single link so I can put it on my sidebar.

CDC survey of teens that shows how often kids under age 13 have had intercourse. (3% of hetero, but twice that number for gay teens).

Catholic bishop's 2002 guidelines. This pretty well resulted in ending the abuse crisis: the problem is lack of closure for victims, and the fact that the bishops who hid stuff are still around.

Vigano's letter.

Huffpost article about teenage abuse in the gay community.

Expose on the gay bar scene/ bathhouse sub culture.

Most gays avoid the culture, but are aware of it.

It is almost unbelievable for me to know stuff like this goes on. I posted it to my private blog: if it disappears from Huffpost, let me know and I'll let you read it.

Andrew Greeley did a scientific survey of this and it counters the high percentages of some claims, which of course assume clusters where abuse etc. is common can be extrapolated to estimate what is going on everywhere.

among his findings: Most priests love being priests, celibacy is not the problem, but few speak up because the clamor of experts makes them think they are a minority.

And he has this to say about the problem of bishops:

 More often, however, episcopal appointments are the result of a mix of cronyism and silent incompetence disguised as virtue.

In another survey link he writes:

 the number of gay priests is exaggerated by those with an agenda, (i.e. 70 percent were heterosexual, and only 16percent were homosexuals) and that most of them keep their vows of celibacy. (72% of priests are celibate heterosexuals and 10 percent are celibate homosexuals, and 18 percent admit they don't keep their vows, but only 3% are actively pushing to get rid of celibacy).

all of those links are in this essay.

Judith Reisman's study of Kinsey et al are "controversial" but this article notes the psychiatry that persuaded the bishops to treat and rehabilitate the priests.


Pew survey of LGBT Americans.

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update: I have added links to Altoona: years before the big report, the lay folk of the diocese had articles about what was going on published in the local papers or local blogs. Many of the newspaper links are not there, but part of the articles are on the Free republic site.


for example, this 2002 article from the local Johnstown paper (via Free Republic, which still has summaries of the articles on their website) and more links link2 link2 link3 link4 link5
2006 article about ostracizing priests who took a stand.
A list of links on this blog by Gary Morella of Penn State
that discuss the problem in Altoona in detail from the early 2000

Judith Reisman article saying the bishops need to sue the expert psychiatrists

the Johns Hopkins link
Dr. Berlin's paper shows the attitude or experts in 1999.

Sandusky time line.  more here.
Penn State is under the Altoona diocese, and I suspect there is a link, either direct or more probably indirect because the church was acting as if pederasty was not a big thing.

NYTimes article on Dr Money's theories of "paraphilias". more here.

the bishop's notorious 2003 article that insisted all the charges were old, includes the line:

    I repeat once more that there have been no allegations of sexual abuse of a minor by a priest of this Diocese having occurred since I became Bishop on May 20, 1987. The communities which comprise the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown can be assured that any allegation of a sexual abuse of a minor prior to 1987, of which I have been made aware, has been handled in an appropriate manner. 

this was about a year after a patient of mine cried on my shoulder upset because the lawyers in the diocese were pressuring the family of a local boy who was molested by a "nice" visiting priest not to report the case to the authorities. Yup. The bishop isn't lying: he didn't say there were no cases, he only said "no allegations" of "which I have been made aware" happened.


If I am not "hysterical" about the "crisis" being exposed, it's because we lay folk knew about it for years, but couldn't get anyone to take it seriously.

Shishak did it

they are replaying the Raiders of the Lost Ark series on cable tv here.

 So where is the ark of the covenant?

-----------
Sheshak took it?

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Penn Museum's lecture on the Ark is here:
  ---------------

and for you who are not Indiana Jones geeks, here is the famous opening of that movie:..
..........

the amazing bouncing space probes of Japan

Pastry physics (Topology)

don't laugh... they won a Nobel prize with this idea:

Culture changes could cause a Reformation 2.0

Archbishop Chaput's talk links the decline of belief, technology, and the collapse of the family to the utilitarian ideas of today replacing faith and logic. But this is the part about the "scandal".

Briefly put, that project is this. Permanent truths about good and evil, man and his behavior and meaning, do exist. Faith and reason are the means to find and know those truths. Each needs the other in its search....

I said a moment ago that I’ve always found talk of schisms in the Church or a “new Reformation” to be alarmist. I still do. The world is too different from half a millennium ago for easy parallels to apply. But I do think we’ve reached a tipping point or pivotal moment in the modern West, where even at the popular level, Christianity can be shed like dead skin...

The issues of how we organize society, how we build a healthy culture, and how we understand the meaning and dignity of the human person, are all very much in play today.

 Our country and the world need a pure voice speaking the Gospel of Jesus Christ as a response. And this is what makes the current sex abuse crisis in the Church so damaging and dangerous, like a lit match in a roomful of kindling.

The leaders tasked with witnessing Christian truth to the world as bishops and religious superiors are exactly the men who have too often failed their people, failed in their ministry, and even actively betrayed their vocation. We bishops and the Vatican itself are now seen as the problem. We need to face that fact honestly, and work to change it by our actions.

A long and subtle essay: and that is one reason that Chaput isn't a Cardinal, even though he is in charge of Philadelphia, whose archbishop traditionally is a Cardinal (he was sent there to clean up the scandal caused by cheerful "Uncle Tony", who by the way also served in Pittsburgh before he was sent east).

Sigh.

Remember there are many good priests and even good bishops out there who need your prayers.
----------------

related items: Get ReligionBlog has discussions of MSM articles HERE and HERE.

update: I am not up on the upandcoming synod by bishops on "yutes", except that a few bishops who got into the headlines lately said they aren't going now. But here is the agenda and here is a subtle point by point essay showing the problem with the agenda (which of course has already been decided before the meeting)...

lots of it is over my head, but this part about religion as a warm fuzzy upsets me:

• The theological consequence of this is that the IL lacks any theology of the Cross. Christian joy is not antithetical to suffering, which is a necessary component of a cruciform life. The document gives the impression that the true Christian will be “happy” at all times, in the colloquial sense. It further implies the error that the spiritual life itself will always result in felt (affective) joy. The pastoral problem that results from this comes to the fore most clearly in §137: Is it the role of the Church to make youth “feel loved by him [God]” or to aid them in knowing they are loved regardless of how they might feel? 

religion as a warm fuzzy or vague "spirituality" is nonsense. One of my medical school teachers pointed out that we docs rarely are big church goers, but most of us believe there is an ultimate reason for the suffering we see, because if we didn't cling to that hope, we couldn't work.

We docs see so many innocent suffer, we see people who should live end up dying, but of course, we also see cases where every scientific fact suggests they should have died but they lived.

from Chaput's essay I quoted above:

 Not one of my friends who has a child with disabilities is “rational.”  All of them are unreasonable; all of them are irrational – unless, like Augustine, we believe in order to understand.
The genius of Fides et Ratio, the beauty and the glory of the text, is its defense of the capacity of human reason to know the truth; a truth rooted in the deep harmony of creation.  The world has a logic and meaning breathed into it by its Author, who is Love himself.  And reason lit by faith can see that, and find the path to him.
There’s a plaque on the wall of my educator friend’s kitchen, and it overlooks every meal the family shares.  Most of the time, nobody notices.  Life is a busy and complex enterprise.  But when they do notice, it reads, “The Love that moves the sun and the other stars.”  It’s the final line in the greatest of all poems, Dante’s Divine Comedy:

 . . . my wings were not meant for such a flight —Except that then my mind was struck by lightningThrough which my longing was at last fulfilled.Here powers failed my high imagination:But by now my desire and will were turned,Like a balanced wheel rotated evenly,By the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.

that's Dante of course. A good Catholic who put two political popes in his Inferno for their betrayal of the church.
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And VDHanson has an article worrying if a new American civil war is approaching. One of many articles about this worry, which has morphed from late night talk radio to a main stream intellectual worry.

this predated Trumpieboy (look up the definition of "Bork").

DIvine boat and other religious rescues

this story is about elderly people stranded in Japan's July floods:

Divine boat’ saves stranded residents in Mabicho flood

Residents here recalled an act of “divine” intervention in the form of a drifting, dilapidated boat when flood waters were rising in western Japan.

 ... Around 5 a.m., the muddy water had reached the balcony on the second floor. Hisako then shouted, “A boat is coming this way.” Igawa, who acts as an agent for a cosmetics company, looked out from a bay window and saw what appeared to be a fishing boat drifting toward the house. The couple got into the empty boat and tried to reach higher ground by paddling with sticks found in the vessel.

They noticed neighbors in the settlement of about 60 households stranded on roofs or holding window frames while calling for help. The Igawas managed to maneuver the boat and brought about 10 people onboard...

They headed toward a small nearby hill, but the overloaded boat rolled over just before it could reach land, sending everyone into the water. However, other residents taking shelter on the hill pulled them out. And all of them survived.

A Shinto shrine that enshrines a guardian god of the settlement stands on the hill.... “It truly was a life boat that the gods sent to us,” Igawa said.

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an addition to an earlier story about small local groups doing rescue work in the Carolinas: GetReligion notes many of these groups are religious in origin

Flanders and Swann

documentary on the duo:
 

Global warming anthem

good news

The USNavalInstitute blog reports on the untold story of people helping people in the Hurricane Florence aftemath. from the Cajun Navy to Wafflehouse.

Writing of Jacksonian America, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville saluted Americans’ proclivity for forming “civil associations” for purposes large and small. Tocqueville observed that they formed associations to “give fêtes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools.” Not only did these associations help bring about their immediate aims; they brought together highly individualistic citizens and sowed fellow-feeling. “I often admired the infinite art,” he concluded, “with which the inhabitants of the United States managed to fix a common goal . . . get them to advance to it freely.”
If Tocqueville is right—and I believe he is—then how rank-and-file people respond to traumas such as natural disasters represents a barometer of American cultural well-being. Florence relief provides a hopeful reading on that gauge. Let’s preserve that self-starting ethos—and perform an act of cultural upkeep.

   

Family news

Chano was harvesting and drying rice at the farm yesterday, and today he has a rice delivery to Manila.

Joy is almost finished her "caregiver" course, and is at class.

I had the cook's son remove another collapsed banana tree in the garden, and remove more leaves that were littering the street.

It was Emie's birthday but only a small family supper.

Ruby is busy in school.

me, I'm okay.

what's happening in Korea?

a long discussion on StrategyPage of the background of what's going on in Korea: they have broken so many promises in the past that no one trusts them.

but here is a factoid I bet you never read about in the news:

a million people starved there in the early 1990s.

Despite that North Korea diverted enormous resources to developing nukes and now North Korea is a nuclear power that is starving.

and they are into the drug trade too.

but Dilbert is optimistic about what's going on.

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SP has a long article about Burma and the Rohingye refugees, with some notes about Chinese neocolonialism in the area, and NGO's manipulating the press to get their way (and in this case, the Burmese gov't not letting them do their SJW stuff to manipulate what's going on.).

lots of subtle stuff there, unlike the "ain't it awful" one sided stories one reads in the MSM.

I have written in support of the Rohingye before their plight hit the MSM.

a lot of it is cultural, and is spreading to Christian tribes in the north: link2

It's the Nazi lizards from the Moon

David Reneke has a report on the sunspot solar observatory near Alamagordo that was shut down for unknown "security" reasons,


They use a mercury mirror, which might be part of the problem behind the closure... and the latest news is that the observatory is going to reopen soon, so the problem must be fixed.



But that hasn't stopped the conspiracy theories spawning all over the internet.

why? Because reports claim

The facility’s location, near military installations two hours’ drive from the town of Roswell, has sparked speculation on social media. Roswell was the site of a famous 1947 sighting of UFOs which the Air Force later said were top-secret high altitude weather balloons.

Uh, not it's not that close.

To get to Roswell, you have to go over a mountain pass/mountain range, part of which is the Mescalero Apache reservation, and part of which includes a lot of summer resorts and winter ski resort areas including Ski Apache near Ruidoso and Cloudcroft... and the areas is full of rich Texans.. And the only ones meaner than the Apaches are the Texans,

Lots of Hispanics in the area, many who have lived there for a couple hundred years. When you go up the mountain on the interstate between Alamagordo and Ruidoso, you see a large Cross in Bent,  to commemorate the last battle between the locals and the Apaches. 

Every year, they hold two ceremonies to commemorate the battle: one by the Apaches and the next day by the locals from Tularosa.

Holloman AFB is southwest of Mescalaero, in the basin between mountain ranges, and it is where they test stuff, including lots of experimental airplanes: Our people just shrugged and said if you saw a UFO it was probably just the Air Force doing their thing.

And also in the area: White Sands Missle Range, and Trinity site, which is about an hour northwest of Mescalero.

Ironically, I never got to Roswell: My husband wasn't interested in UFO or Sci fi stuff, but my son and other visitors used to visit the place all the time.

So where do the Nazis come into this?

Well, the Luftwaffe trains their pilots in Holloman AFB: They even have a German TV station on their cable there.

So my conspiracy theory is that the Lizard Nazis did it...(/s)

(the joke comes from Iron Sky and Iron Sky 2)

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update: Now some sources claim the reason the entire place was shut down was because they found the janitor had been storing child porn on the computers.