Sad news for the family: Joy's nephew, who had cancer, has died. So another funeral for her family.
Sigh. Keep them in your prayers.
The hot season is continuing, but it is starting to rain a bit so the monsoon (where we have daily showers) is coming.
Sunday is the town fiesta for Mama Mary, (the town shrine is la Divina Pastora, the Holy Shepherdess of Souls) so there will be a lot of visitors here, church services, a parade from the church, and also a city parade.
We haven't had much of a fiesta or parade for the last two years, but now that the covid epidemic is pretty well finished (192 cases 52 deaths yesterday in the whole country) presumably we can again hold parties and have a huge parade.
that means people will be coming from all over the Philippines and all over the world for family reunions and to celebrate.
Lolo always took his vacation to come here for the fiesta and parade, and because he was considered a WWII veteran, he would be among the veterans who led the parade.
He would bring a couple thousand dollars in cash, plus good quality American clothing with him as gifts. The relatives all came to say hello and were given a small gift, and even the farmers who had worked on his family land before land reform would come and give him a small gift and receive a few pesos in return.
His friends would all stay here for the fiesta, and they'd drink, play cards and tell stories.
and then, every year there would be fewer, and then they led the parade inside of a car, and the last few years before he died, he didn't go at all.
This interests me, because the internet cable from here to the US goes by Taiwan, and so China could destroy the cable if they invade Taiwan or even if they merely are trying to pressure the Philippines (and India for that matter, since some of India's internet goes through there).
there are discussions in comments that Starlink or similar internet services could enable people to evade the Great Firewall of China (not to mention censors in smaller countries with rabid dicators). Supposedly, China could arrest you for having a receiver box that had been smuggled illegally to China.
which is why China is pushing propaganda about how his satellites will hamper the identification of near earth asteroids, and that his satellites could pose a threat to their space station.
And I'm sure that China has nothing to do with the Biden adminstration allowing ecology nuts to slow down his lauches over environmental issues.
And of course, with him buying Twitter, he should expect dozens of exposes and lawsuits to punish him for daring to stop their censorship.
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update: a spokesman for Marcos was banned from facebook for disinformation, but the latest news is that Facebook could not cite evidence and said sorry my bad...and he's back on.
Dr. C wonders WTF is going on... something I noted in a previous blogpost.
....
.and the vaccine protection wears off quickly, but the lower death rate suggests that vaccines do decrease hospitalizations and deaths, which is important for high risk folks like myself.
.........
his summary is that with the milder omicron strain and the high rate of immunity from omicron and previous infections and the vaccines, and the failure of any of the vaccines to stop the virus for more than a few weeks, that the aim to vaccinate everyone is a bit exaggerated given the data.
and he does comment on anecdotal reports of slow covid like symptoms after mild infections, but doesn't cite data.
The good news of course is that immunity from previous vaccine shots, or from previous infections, and the presence of a milder omicron strain means that covid is no longer a huge killer of folks, just an ordinary disease that kills mainly high risk folks and alas a few people who are low risk.
Medically, the boosters for the elderly and high risk should continue but I keep reading over the top suggestions even in western countries about vaccine passports and this suggests either ignorance of the new data on the evolution of the virus, or a power grab using the virus as an excuse.
The irony of the shutdown in China is that their response is draconian, yet the dirty little secret is that they are not being aggressive at vaccinating the elderly.
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update:
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this site reports a Philippine envoy has died in quarantine:
Don't ask me.
After the huge political rallies like the one in our town that I reported on two days ago, the Philippines is expecting a huge increase in cases of covid (this surge should hit after the election).
Joy was in Manila last week and said that there is a lot of illness around. When I asked if it was covid, she said no because negative tests, but did not give details.
what one has to realize is that other things can kill you beside covid:
we are seeing some Dengue (10 thousand cases diagnosed between Jan and March: but most mild cases of course never get tested. This is about half of what was reported last years at this time).
and there are reports of a couple cases of measles, and the usual virus infections that go around in the hot season.
Sigh.
in the meanwhile, the election is the big news here.
lots of editorials worrying about election fraud. This is an ongoing problem here. Usually the teachers count the votes and so they are trusted, but there have been questions about the ballots and the electronic voting machines.
But luckily we don't see evidence of any outside country trying to interfere with the election;
the rally was supposed to be 3 pm but later we heard Leni was late and was supposed to arrive at 8 pm...but there were a lot of celebrities here so lots of partying going on in the plaza.
I have to laugh at all the folks wearing pink tee shirts. Presumably they were given out to those who wanted to attend the rally, so I expect that our maid and cook will now be spouting pink Leni tee shirts because, hey, they were free and a new tee shirt usually costs 200 pesos.
the fireworks went off (and the five dogs fled to hide under my bed) about 8 30 so I presume the rally was a success.
I'll update the report from the cook later today: She will have all the details after she gossips while buying food at the palenke in the early morning.
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update: The Inquirer has an article about her speech here, where Leni claims she is not elitist and she points to all the programs she supposedly pushed as VP... such as talking about stopping cheap agri imports that undermine our farmers. Uh, to do that you would have to get rid of the corruption that okays the imports or looks the other way when things are smuggled into the country.
you know: Screw the corrupt in government.
The article ends with this sarcastic remark: the reason for Leni's stress on caring for the people is that experts who analyze how to win elections discovered her snotty criticism, not of the policies of other candidates, but against the supporters of other candidates made her look bad.
Media analytics firm Isentia picked this up and made it part of its outline about what campaigners should do to win. According to Isentia, some voters refrained from talking with Robredo supporters because of their elitist vibe...Robredo did not mention who had been spreading the claim that she was elitist.
and who is one of those pointing out her elitism? The street smart mayor of Manila who is also running for president but has no chance of winning, but hey maybe next time:
But it Manila Mayor Isko Moreno, who is also running for president, who has been repeatedly tagging the vice president and her staff as elitists and condescending individuals.
Robredo and her Liberal Party (LP) have been fighting to remove the elitist tag for years now. Last November 2020, she shot down the claim that the unkept promises of liberals across the world had given rise to populist regimes...
In town news, it is election time, and everyone is crossing their fingers that no one will get shot.
the next political rally will be Leni, our present VP who is the (yankee/elite) favorite for president. Again the nearby streets will be shut down and there will be a lot of cops on the street checking you out. This time security is so tight that they have made the street vendors leave.
The maid didn't understand why, since the vendors would be making lots of money selling Buko drinks, bottled water, and snacks to those attending the rally, but I explained to her that it would be easy for someone to hide a gun inside their supplies, and that this is a security matter.
our town only has been a city for about ten years due to population growth, and our mayor has spiffied up the place and was promoting tourism here, (which the virus sort of put a damper on). But the fact that a major candidate is coming here shows the increased importance of our town and the hope that the mayor will support her is probably behind the rally (the maid, who is active in a feminist rural group is backing Bong Bong, who, like Duterte, is seen as anti corruption and willing to shoot the crooks, so you see the problem a nice lady like Leni faces at the grass roots level).
The reason Leni is popular is that her late husband who died in a plane crash was a populist, so people figure she will continue his people friendly policies.
Eccles is saved blog is a satire on British Catholicism, that frequently slyly satirizes the more blatent shennanigans of the liberals in the church....but this one is a ROFL post:
Elon Musk, said to be the richest man in the world after Cardinal Becciu, has made a bid of $666 billion for the Catholic Church (hereafter abbreviated to Cather).
In a letter to Pope Francis, Chairman of the Church since a 2013 boardroom coup, Musk said that the business was not thriving under its current management, and that changes were needed.,,,
What other changes are we likely to see?
I'm glad you asked me that. We are likely to see the return of several people who were effectively silenced by the antisocial medium - for example the notorious American Raymond Burke with his aggressive statements such as WE WONDER IF YOU WOULD BE SO KIND AS TO ANSWER A FEW DUBIA FOR US, HOLY FATHER? and many people who have infringed "Community Standards" by praising the Traditional Latin Mass.
LOL. It is a snide way to ridicule the bubble of progressives in the Vatican and Europe, which like Twitter are people who have their own agenda to push and pretend it is the opinion of the majority of people.
The Boardroom coup is a reference to the pressures on Benedict to resign, (they shut down all the accounts in the Vatican Bank, for example, making it impossible to pay their lay employees.) something well documented on conspiracy sites.
But in recent years, a lot of people who actually believe Jesus is the Lord see the chaos, lewdness, idol worship, and marxist shennanigans by those wishing to change the church, and are wondering WTF is going on... even main stream types are wondering if this is true.
This all reminds one of a 1973 (pre Vatican II ) play called Catholics.
the first part is about the German Bishops using the synod farce to change dogma but at 30 minute in, there is a discussion of how the Chinese communist government is using Pope Francis' agreement that they could supervise the church to silence the priests and bishops who oppose tyranny of the government both in changing church dogma and in destroying the civil rights of ordinary Chinese citizens.
at 55 minutes he explains the Shanghai shutdown has a lot to do with punishing the anti Xi opposition in the Shanghai area before an upcoming election.
By the way: Don't ask me. I haven't gone since Covid hit and the essentially closed the churches to elders, and now that they are open, I am not strong enough to go. Sigh.
a few posts back I mentioned slow covid, since after a mild cold I started to develop fatigue with mild exercize and mind fog/slowness in thinking.
Three months later I am slowly improving, but I wonder if it was not a cold but long covid after a mild case of omicron infection.
(Ironically early last year before testing or vaccine were available, I had a major chest infection that lasted 48 hours until my prednisone kicked in. I have had this before with colds, but this one was a bit different. Covid? Probably not, since prednisone stopped the problem, but who knows.)
Since then I have had two shots, but didn't go for the third vaccine booster when it was offered two months ago, since it was less than six months after my shots, and right now there is very little covid in the area.
Harvard blog has an article here on slow covid, but I wonder at the statistics because most in the study were quite sick: people hospitalized or even diagnosed have comorbidities that also can cause subtle cognitive problems. And the article notes that this could be from micro blod clots, viral infection of the brain (mild encephalitis) or low oxygen levels affecting the brain.
But what about folks who have had a mild case, either because they had been vaxxed, or because they weren't vaxxed but their immune system was good or because they got the mild omicron varient (of which many cases have few or no symptoms). Some of them were not sick enough to get tested.
But tests are now easy to get in the USA, which is why my son and his wife, a caregiver, when they had cold symptomes, found that despite being triple vaxed, they tested positive for covid (mild) twice.
The skepticism on the shots is because, like masks, they were oversold as cure alls, and then, voila, the virus mutated and the damn shots didn't protect everyone.... we docs are a bit more cynical about such things and know a lot of stuff only helps a bit. But too many people think science and medicine is magic, wheras we docs know that medicine is both an art and a science, and that we still do a lot of magical smoke and mirrors (i.e. reassurance and placebo effect) that helps people get better.
So the question of the day is: is there a huge number of cases of senility, depression, fatigue, heart problems, etc. due to post mild covid or post mild omicron covid infections, and what does this mean for public health authorities?
and is this problem only with those who had a major infection, or with people (vaxed or unvaxed) who had very mild symptoms and often didn't get tested?
Here is a podcast about the problem:
.......
Dr. C discusses the problem of the mild omicron: lots of non testing, surveys show a huge percent of the population are testing positive, but hospitalizations are not up.
Week beginning 28 March 2022
Percentage of adults, antibodies above a 179 nanograms per millilitre (ng/ml)
98.9% in England
.....
It's not just covid that causes things like chronic fatigue/ mind fuzziness/ aches and pains.
Years ago, we had a major outbreak of Mycoplasm Pneumonia (often called walking pneumonia, because people weren't as sick as their x ray suggested they should be).
And we had a few cases of people who simply were too tired to work for months
This same symptoms of chronic fatigue is found with mononucleosis, which is common in college aged students, and with mild hepatitis or chronic hepatitis, and even if you are in the midst of an epidemic you have to watch out for rarer problems like Vitamin B12 deficiency or thyroid problems.
These things often overlap with psychiatric problems, but I wonder if a lot are just called psychiatric problems because the germ hasn't been found yet. Of course, we do see "conversion reactions" that get better after a "green poultice", i.e. financial incentives to stay sick, but that's another story for another time.
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this video suggests most Europeans have immunity to covid, either from shots or from having gotten the virus. So a lot of people getting covid now have partial immunity and these are mild second infections.
Ruby wrote a play and they presented it in her college. It was supposed to be about the Filipino family supporting each other, but what annoyed me was that there was no frame for the story, no explanations about who is who and what was going on and it wasn't until ten minutes into the 30 minute play that I figured it out, even though I know the local culture...
they only streamed it, but I will add it if I can find someone who ripped it from the internet.
My point: the play needed a good editor to make it more coherent: something that could have been done by adding a few dozen lines to the play, or a 60 second voice over in the beginning.
Sigh. It was a good play, but I know her stories are better than what I saw, so I blame the supervising teacher for the problem.
Yes, I know: I am overly critical. And as a doctor, I know nothing about theatre or cinema. But hey, like most doctors I think I know it all, and I do know what I like (which is usually not the same as what is popular out there).
Sigh.
The good part is that it emphasized how Filipinos help each other, and that family members always welcome each other no matter what.
But it ignored other parts of the culture that are behind the story. For example, it also lacked religious references, (one reason that everyone is still welcome in the family is that hey catholics have confession so you believe in God's mercy for crimes or sexual shennaingans). And there were no jokes (like my AmerIndian patients, humor is one way to cope with terrible problems).
But what she got right was showing how the culture is full of compassion, and showing the angst about poor people trying to make ends meet, and trying to get money for the mother so she can get her cancer treated.
That last one is based on Ruby's aunt, who ran a SariSari Store (variety store) and died of cancer a couple years ago. I did get her into an experimental chemotherapy protocol in Manila, which prolonged her life maybe six months, but alas she died anyway.
Money for medicine and hospitals for middle class folks usually comes from friends and family members, especially from family members working overseas, but it is one reason that the death rate here has probably climbed under covid: not only from Covid, but from untreated cancer, from high blood pressure and diabetes complications (made worse because they couldn't afford their medicine). Sigh.
Right now, one of Joy's nephews has recurrent cancer (it was in remisison for ten years, but started growing back last year... he didn't see the doctor because of covid, so now it is probably inoperable and he is too run down for the alternative chemo).
Sigh.
I should note that they do have public hospitals, but a shortage of specialty doctors at the one in our town, so a lot of cases have to go to the next city, ten miles away. The alternative are the small private hospitals.
the good news is that most of the covid shutdown is over: I only wear a mask when going into the bank etc. and the chairs are three feet apart.
they are, however, expecting a huge surge in cases next month, given the upsurge in cases in China and other countries from a second omicron varient that is mild but much more infectious.
the low numbers might be because no one who isn't too sick is getting tested. I take that back: Joy is going to a business conference in Manila today and needed a test to proves she doesn't have it. So testing is being done.
as for travelers: The tourists are back. Come and enjoy the beaches of Boracay! Whoops: so many came that the beaches are crowded.
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we watch films and K dramas in the evening and what annoys me in the last few I watched was the cinematography of some recent films.
For indoor scenes during the day and all scenes at night, they use ambient light: this was done very well by Spielberg in ET, but in these more modern dramas, they use it wrong, because unlike the iris of the eye, the camera doesn't adjust for dimness, so the result is a shadowy mess .
And often the clothing/ scenery is also not framed well and the outdoor scenes are also with muddy colours. Kuya says they are just trying to set the mood as gloomy, because the subject matter is ugly, but I say it's a failure to recognize the importance of the visual.
No, you don't have to make the scenes visually beautiful, (although it would help) but at least don't deliberately make it ugly.
when not overdone, this type of cinematography can work to set the mood... for example, in this film it is used for good effect.
the Outfit is about a tailor shop/outfitter shop, and the outfit (i.e. the mob). But the characters are interesting, and it has plot twists you don't see coming.
again, the indoor scenes are dull, but not overly dark as in some other recent film: and the choice of brown as the main colour palate emphasizes the plot.
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in contrast, the Korean historical dramas (the Joy loves) tend to be colorful and bright, even when there are murders galore.
The one we just finished watching was the Red Sleeve: about a prince in love with one of the ladies of the court, and about his conflicts with his grandfather.
Again this scene is inside but not dim. The background is dim, but the faces are lighted so they don't blend into the backgroud, and the colours are there to be agreeable.
Lots of Korean historical dramas are about the good men (including the king) trying to make things better: but you don't have to know complicated Korean history to enjoy the story.
The Red Sleeve is about the grandson of Lady Hyegyeong, who I have written about before.
Lots of murders and feuding between greedy clans is the background.
One less noticed part of Lady H's memoirs is that after her son who became king died, the dowanger queen, (her mother in law) ran the country for her underage grandson, and she let her clan take over, resulting in a lot of corruption at the local level. This resulted in political instability and peasant revolts in the 1800s.
One way the kings prevented these conflicts that often led to civil wars was to kill off the opposition and get rid of intellectuals whose ideas might lead to such instablity.
One result here (1801) was that there was a persection of Catholics and "western learning". This resulted in the death of one of Lady H's brothers, a scholar who was interested in western ideas and Catholicism but was not a Catholic.
As Wikipedia points out, this was not a purely religious persection. It has to be seen as a recurrant problem, where reformers tried to get rid of corruption, and then the corrupt factions fought back by killing the honest intellectuals. '
Earlier massacres were against the neoConfucian scholars who tried to reform society against corrupt factions, (wikipedia article Literati purges)..but Christianity posted a more complicated problem: worries of foreign infiltration is one, but the main reason is that it posited all men were equal, so went against the Confucian rule of hierarchy, where nobles were superior and to be obeyed.
The background of the film is about three famous brothers who were scholars were persecuted: one who was a Catholic was executed, but his two brothers were exiled to isolated islands.
The main character in the story is depressed by this isolation on a poor island, with no family or friends and without other intellectuals to discuss ideas with.
But gradualy adjusts and becomes friendly with the locals, especially one fisherman (fictional) who is the son of a nobleman by a concubine and wants help in learning the scholarly books.
In the meanwhile, the scholar uses him as a source of knowledge about marine biology, and writes a book about fish and fishing.
What is interesting about the film is that the tone reminds one of Kurosawa's calmness. And although it was filmed in black and white, the cinematography was impressive.
and if you don't think that Christianity can be subversive to tyrannies of the right (Philippines) and the left (Solidarity) you are ignorant or have your knowledge limited to the PC anti religious ideas of western Europe.
I have been a big fuzzy minded recently (Was that mild cold that I had last month a form of covid that gave me slow Covid cognition problems? Who knows. But it is improving).
But anyway, the news tends to be "sound and fury, signifying nothing" with lots of smoke and furor over minor stuff and ignoring the big picture (which is more important: Musk's takeover try to twitter or his satellites, which already have made a difference in the Ukraine, and which in the near future will supply internet to those of us in the boonies in case our internet near Taiwan is cut, not to mention supplying internet to airplanes for passengers to surf while flying?).
and don't ask me about the Ukraine, the elections of socialists in Latin America, or the Let's go Brandon types in the USA.
Here, we are in the midst of a presidential election, where candidates are visiting for rallies, and what is more dangerous is the local mayor election between two clans. The present mayor and his family have been the victims of several attacks from the previous mayor (and the feud has been quiet since someone shot the perpetrator after the last election, and the mayor announced, well he didn't know who did it, but he considered the feud ended).
One of the hits years ago killed our nephew, and another, that killed five bystanders, happened when the man who later became our present mayor was going home from the funeral of another of our cousins. Sigh
(I should note: After you go to the funeral, on the way home you stop at a restaurant to eat, just to confuse the ghost just in case he is following you, so that he doesn't haunt your house. In this case, they knew he would be stopping at a restaurant and when he got out of the car, they opened fire, missing him but killing his body guard and a couple people in the small restaurant).
But anyway, elections here are a blood sport, and for all the press angst against Duterte, the elite of the world never seemed to worry about murders that happened before Duterte tried to clean up the drug pushers, the crooked cops, and the crooked politicians.
StrategyPage (12 2021) has a long article about the corruption of the large families here, and why Duterte, although not pristine clean himself, actually tried to stop the stealing.
C orrupt Filipinos, especially those from the wealthy old families, believe that once Duterte is gone the good old ways will return.
the real question is if BBMarcos will follow Duterte and continue to root out corruption, or if he will revert to his father's corrupt ways. And his VP is Duterte's daughter, although here the VP and President are not a dual ticket (you can end up with the VP from another party, which is how Leni got to be VP in the last election.)
But closer to home, the problem is the local clans that run local cities and provinces.
Provinces in which political dynasties held sway—where relatives simultaneously held multiple local elective positions—were more likely to exhibit a higher number of incidents of election-related violence, the study said.
... Long-overdue reforms aimed at limiting political dynasties, which have spread across all local elected positions, were urgently needed, the study said.
The study also called for stronger legislation to control ownership of firearms and the establishment of private armies.
actually they do have strict gun control laws, but of course for every legal weapon there are a couple dozen illegal ones hidden inside the closet, left over from previous rebellions, and kept just in case, for personal safety and just in case another uprising happens.
Heck, when we moved here I found my husband not only had a handgun, but his World War II submachine gun hidden in the closet. (we gave them away when he had a stroke, so no guns now in our home, so please don't dox me).
I had to laugh when this visitor from Korea, whose vlog is mainly about all the good food we have here, said that on of the most glaring things he found here was all those security guards with rifles on the street.
Yes, our bank has two security guards, one inside and one outside, and going into the mall requires you to get your bags checked for bombs. Blame ISIS for that last one. And although private security guards tend to be trained, abuses do happen: one lady shoplifting at a pharmacy down the street was shot by the security guard about 8 years ago for example.
Sigh.
In the meanwhile, the last of our havest might be lost because someone decided to fix the irrigation ditches, so no water, and not enough rain to ripen the rice.
and the next time you read praise for Rappler (or read about their noble peace prize) just remember: it was essentially funded by foreign dollars, by the NED, or by other NGOs founded by a millionaire tech guy who also funded the media that overthrew the pro Russian president of the Ukraine a few years back.
the Manila Times has an article that notes the links between this manipulation in the past against Duterte's election (to make a pro US president as a bulwark against China) and a similar manipulation of public opinion in the Ukraine.
and this anti American leftist paper worried that this will the result in a push to involve the Philippines in a war, not to mention manipulation for the next election? LINK
Do I believe any of this? Not really, but it reminds me of Chomsky and the anti war Left of the 1970s: noting the geopolitical manipulation is going on, and that a lot of psyops is being fed to the public under the guise of news.
and I am old enough to remember reading an interview with President Kennedy where he said that he welcomed the anti nuke peaceniks of the 1960s (who at that time were essentially Russian stooges) because their voice helped to mitigate the pressure from the pro war factions of what Eisenhower called the military industrial complex.
One sided news and censorship of alternative opinions didn't start with Twitter you know.
of course, this is only one side of the story: lots of money comes from those who will benefit from one candidate or the other, and although there are few reports of illegal Chinese funding of election candidates, one suspects that this is going on also. Duterte was accused of getting money from China, something he denied, and although he was pro Chinese, he had to back off because China is unpopular here. But what about this election?
But that community is not the same as the government of China who fears pro US candidates will ask for American help against their open stealing of Filipino assets in the West Philippine Sea.
But if China thinks bribery will let them steal stuff, they forget nationalism triumphs over money: so they have made a mistake in their aggression in recent weeks, pushing around the Philippines in the nearby West Philippine sea: that has angered everyone here, so much that even BBM is against them.-
Global warming will be blamed, but it's actually from illegal logging which is being done due to corruption.
from Asahi.com notes the problem in a 2020 article: illegal logging denudes the slopes, and illegal mining leads to destruction of the environment and allows heavy rainfall to cause mudslides in these denuded areas.
And this is illegal: but a small gift will get the local authorities to look the other way, and environmental activists and reporters who name names often face violence.... something that long predates Duterte, although from news reports you wouldn't know this.
the world bank is funding coal burning plants here, while the Catholic bishops and environmental groups are promoting not investing in fossil fuel development.
my main sarcasm: Right. And what is the alternative?
Until the greenies find a cheap alternative that won't be too expensive for poor folks, then we have a problem.
The alternative is of course development with legal limits to stop destroying the environment, but hey, with big business too often just wanting to make money and with environmentalists coming from wealthy elites who are ignorant of the need for development, I don't see much hope here.
So why does the church push green stuff but not alternatives? You know if they stop the western companies doing these things, they leave it open for China to do it, and China is not above bribes, exploiting people, and stealing resources from poor countries.
SP on China being thrown out of the DRC for their shennanigans
March 31, 2022: In Africa, Congo has threatened to review Chinese contracts that it calls unfair and possibly corrupt, particularly in the mining sector. In the last year Congo has acted. A month ago, a Congolese court took control of Congo’s Tenke Fungurume mine away from China Molybdenum corporation...
Joy's mother's funeral is over, and most of the visitors are going home. Joy had to supervise the wake and funeral, as the eldest in the family, so she has been staying at their farm for the last week.
But no rest for her: she had to lead a tour of local organic farms for two days, so she is in bed recovering.
the family plot is in the Visayas, but travel is still difficult due to covid, so they held the service at their farm and cremated them so that the family could have a memorial there near the house.
They both died within a few months of each other after being married over 60 years.
It is Holy week. and for the first time since the epidemic, the streets are alive with the sound of chanting.
this is the reciting/chanting of the Pabasa, a poem about the passion of Jesus. Sometimes this is done on one's property/home, but here, people often build small chapels in the street and the people take turns singing. They also have a larger group that sings at our local barangay chapel, and for them I usually give a small gift for them to buy food for the singers and those who come to pray.
This has not been done for two years, so even having one built in our area shows that they can't destroy the neighborhoods. Our niece usually constructed one up the street, but she's been in the USA with her daughter, a nurse, and hasn't been back since the epidemic started...
No, we don't have the crucifixions that make it into the headlines to be mocked. That is Pampanga, a different area.
but in traditional Catholicism, the reading of the passion is a way to identify our sufferings with that of Christ.
joey velasco
the local people have been suffering greatly from the unemployment/poverty from the shutdown more than the covid infection itself: and it's tag-init, hot season, and so we have had a couple of deaths of elders, plus sick kids with diarrhea or bronchitis infections.
But we have had several low pressure areas with heavy rain going through, mainly south of here with reports of severe flooding in some areas of the Visayas, but here in central Luzon the rain has been light: enough rain to make it hard to dry the recently harvested rice, but not enough rain to allow the almost ripe rice to finish ripening (and the irrigation has shut down due to low water levels). Sigh. So much for trying three crops a year or planting later in the season to spread out the planting/harvest because of lack of workers to hire.
no, not the naive activists lamenting in the headlines that they can't push their agenda without the bluenosed bigots objecting: but the real predators who are ready, willing, and able to exploit the children whose natural defenses against being sexually touched or used have been weakened by such teaching.
but by exposing immature children to distorted sexual ideas instead of teaching traditional ideas like self control, it makes them quite vulnerable to being exploited, not necessarily by the teachers, who often are innocent about such things, but by other predators who can spot vulnerable kids and abuse them.
Back when I was in medical school (late 1960s) the Freudian theory was that kids needed to be exposed to sexual knowledge at an early age so they wouldn't have hangups: And some of our psychiatric treachers even said it would be a good idea if they were introduced to sex by an older, sympathetic adult.
Later, when a TV film about incest was shown and talked about, I read in Newsweek that if docs and social workers found such incest, we should not report it because it would "break up" the family...
These ideas are getting pushed again now, but luckily for the public, there are a few honest reporters who note that there are indeed bad people out there...
I am talking about Netflix/BBC drama on Jimmy Saville:
Ultimately though, Jimmy Saville: A British Horror Story is not an easy watch. This is a documentary that’s going to leave a sour taste in the mouth and some of the victim stories are absolutely heart-breaking to listen to. There’s no fixing them and the disgusting red-ribboned medallions, claiming that Jim has done just that, feels now like a stomach churning joke at our expense. I’m not a religious man but if there is an afterlife, let’s hope Saville is rotting in the deepest recesses of Hell for his actions.
I have treated quite a few young girls who were groomed and abused by such sociopaths (back in the 1980s I was the only woman doc in town). And to my horror, when there was a TV movie about incest on TV, I found to my horror quite a few of my patients (especially those who had been in foster homes) had suffered such abuse.
Sigh
But Ann Althouse quotes a WAPO reporter who seems to think that when a judge is lenient on a distributer of child porn, that such things shouldn't really be brought up... because politics.
well, maybe. But the lady was put up as a Supreme Court justice because of the colour of her skin, and my main objection is that she is the child of lawyers and probably has always lived inside the elite bubble, whereas I am a blueDog Democrat who objects to Karen types looking down on me for my blue collar background (something that was going on 50 years ago, by the way.)
so one suspects she might not be sensitive on how poor children, or children left unsupervised because of an economy that requires the parent to work long hours, can easily be exploited by the predators in our midst.
Sigh.
As for the kerfuffle in Florida: Well, the modern woke religion has an anthopology of individual choice that is diametrically opposed to traditional religions, who posit that the Lord made us male and female and invented something called a family in order to beget and nurture the childen who are given to us.
So my main objection is that a teacher has no more right to proclaim his sexuality to students any more than he has the right to proclaim his belief in Jesus Christ as his personal savior.
And having the US embassies push the woke ideology is not making friends in conservative Christian/Islamic/Confucian cultures.
We have baclas/tomboys and cross dressers, but you know, they are considered just part of the family; but in most areas, they don't dare prey on kids for fear of getting shot.
on the other hand, the exploitation of street kids of both sexes by sexual predators is an ongoing problem here: we tend to be the world leader in cyberporn of children.
a more recent case in an Australian documentary...,,,,
and with the lockdowns and increase in poverty/unemployment from Covid, I suspect that these cases have skyrocketed.
Sigh.
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update: Newsweek actually permitted an editorial opinion that points out how the very real worries of parents over their children's indoctrination is being ignored or distorted by the MSM.
Instead of speaking with upset parents, journalists chose to dismiss them again and again—and even worse, they chose to tell them that what they are seeing it isn't really there. The mainstream media apparatus prefers gaslighting instead of investigating, especially when it involves the concerns of working-class people, speaking as if we are too dumb to understand concepts, speaking for us instead of with us and then gaslighting us when step out of line.
Imagine a film about a close family struggling to work in their small business, and a coming of age film for their daughter, who wants to be a singer instead of joining the family business where she is much needed.
The film reminded me of the film Ladybird: a realistic film, including some vulgar language etc. that make the bluenose types faint, but also showing working class folks and a strong family.
it was one of several family films (albeit not G rated family films) up for the Oscar.
Along with Belfast and King Richard, it contradicts the complaints that everything Hollywood puts out is bad.
Except this was not Hollywood but an independent film picked up by Apple+ streaming service (which we don't get here).
...The findings suggest that cats do not mind taking food from those who were unkind to their owners.
The team’s experiments on dogs in 2015 found that canines were more likely to shun people who chose not to help their owners, indicating that they can interpret and assess people’s behavior.
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By the way: I had noted that about two months ago, all our cats (3 house cats and five feral cats that live in our storage areas but we feed) and the feral cats in the neighborhood seem to have disappeared, and our only clue was that our Mamacat was found convulsing in the garage where she had hidden herself.
Well, we are now seeing a few feral cats when we walk our dogs (the plaza is nearby, and people tend to drop a lot of food, so they can eat this or the mice/birds that eat the dropped food).
one young cat is up on our wall looking in, trying to decide if she wants to risk adopting us because we have so many dogs around. So I suspect it is only a matter of time before the feral cats decide to move in and make themselves at home.
Kuya is still harvesting/ drying the rice. The irrigation fees are skyrocketing from high diesel prices, and since the water level is low (dry season) they have just stopped allowing irrigation. This is not a good sign for preparing the fields for the next harvest: it means the planting will have to wait for rain to flood the fields.
Sigh.
Joy's mom has died and they are having the wake at her house. (The authorities tested everyone for covid, and since it was negative they will allow this). Joy is the oldest daughter so will stay at their farm until the funeral later this week. The help went down to visit and express condolences yesterday, but I stayed indoors... due to the heat I probably won't go to the funeral.
Her death was not unexpected: she had Parkinson's disease, and they cared for her at home with the help of a part time caregiver and family members... her husband, who had helped care for her, died of a stroke a few months ago.
It is tag-init, the hot season, and there have been a several elderly in our neighborhood with heart attacks or strokes, and a child died of meningitis at the farm village. But no covid deaths: the numbers are low at present, but given the latest increase of cases of a new but mild omicron variant in the USA, Europe, and China, one wonders if we soon will see a new outbreak.
Face to face school has started: for high school students they require vaccine and mask.
Sigh.
In other news: it's election season, and since the main roads through our section of town are nearby, we hear sound trucks blasting election songs all day.
Yesterday another candidate came to the plaza for a rally, and there were cops all over the place, so we couldn't walk the dogs. I'll have to ask the maid for more information: She is quietly active with a local feminist political group, but didn't attend the rally because she and her mom went to the wake...they are are related to half the tricycle drivers in the city, so usually we find out the gossip after the cook gets back from the palenke.
Our area is infamous for election violence, so we are praying that no one gets shot this election year... we lost our nephew as a bystander during a hit years ago...
the elites and usual suspects (CIA surrogates) tried to stop Duterte in the last presidential election, but the vote was overwhelming; however BongBong Marcos lost the VP vote to Leni.
now BBM is running for President, and all the elites are backing Leni.
If you think there is a lot of fake news and made up/exaggerated stories about election cheating in the USA, you should come here.
Wikipedia discusses how the shennanigans were (supposedly) done in the past, and how some of the suspects managed to leave the country before it went to court.:
Remember this election will be the second BBM vs Leni bout, where the former perceives, and rightly so, that he was cheated. By all indicators, the BBM camp will never allow a Leni win, again due to cheating by Smartmatic and COMOLLECT.
A lot of red flags keep on popping up, to point out that cheating will again be perpetrated by the same culprits. In reverse we can start at the non-transparent rush printing of ballots, which is against the law.
of course, given the strong libel law here, it might only be a matter of time until Smartmatic sues all these folks as they did to Mayor Guilliani and other bigshots at Fox news.
the usual human rights types are already demonstrating against BongBong, who they (rightly) fear will follow the lead of his father and Duterte in being overly aggressive against criminals (read "hit squads", which dispense instant "justice" against hard to convict drug pushers, but of course sometimes kill innocent folks and leftist types who are too aggressive at defending human rights).
as for my snide remarks about Cia surrogates funding Leni: if they aren't doing this, they are incompetent, since you know China is also funding a lot of stuff in this election.
However, You have to realize BBM, like Duterte, knows that the Philippines can't fight China, and with the seabeds dug up to produce artificial islands in the West Philippine sea, there is no way in hell that anything short of war or a major natural disaster will get them out of there.
It was President Obama who told the Philippines to go to court and not be aggressive when China started digging up the seabed to make these islands, so one doubts that President Biden will go to war to stop them now.
No matter who wins, they will have to walk on a tightrope against the Chinese carrot and stick approach to stealing our resources.
As the saying goes: when the elephants fight, the grass suffers.
But one of the Drexels philanthropic acts resulted in the tax code being amended, so that she didn't have to pay taxes on income that she gave to charity.
This tax season, Americans have an unexpected figure to thank for one of their most-used deductions. She wasn't an accountant, a lawyer or even a politician, but an actual saint.
St. Katharine Drexel is well known for being a trailblazing figure in the early 20th century, championing the needs of Native Americans and Black Americans, but few know she may have the most lasting impact on philanthropy of any American in U.S. history.
Her unexpected role in the U.S. tax code began at the outbreak of World War I in 1913, which spurred the creation of the federal income tax...by 1917, the tax became a graduated one, sending Mother Katharine's tax bills skyrocketing and potentially endangering the charitable work of her religious order...
By 1924, Mother Katharine and her influential family successfully lobbied Congress for what later became known as the "Philadelphia nun provision." Under the provision, anyone who had given 90% of their income to the charity for the previous 10 years was exempt from income taxes...
The "Philadelphia nun provision" was eventually written out of the tax code in 1969, but Mother Katharine's influence on U.S. philanthropy can't be understated, Branch said.
"The official language may be out of the code, but in general, it is the genesis of the charitable deduction that still exists," he said..
So who was Mother Katherine? A pioneer in education for black and Native American minorities.
As an heiress, she had a large income, which she used to fund educational efforts for minorities.
She saw the need for sisters to work to help, but when she asked the Pope for advice, he told her to do it herself. Voila, she started a new order of sisters, dedicated to educating blacks and Native Americans.
Indeed, I was a bit startled, when attending a meeting in the Tribal council of the Osage tribe, to find her (and another local nun) portrayed in a mural of the history of the tribe, because of their work in education of tribal members.
But it might be the sister's education of black children that has a more lasting legacy: at a time when black schools were inferior they gave local children an alternative to get a better education.
My mother would send small donations to a friend of a friend who belonged to Mother Katherine's order, and taught in a black school in Lousiana.
Nowadays, the order is essentially gone: maybe because their work is no longer needed thanks to the civil rights movement that integrated public schools.
