Biology lesson for the day

 

another day another storm

a tropical storm not quite a typhoon. Will hit north of here, but we are signal one (heavy rains).

Dark Winds... a nice white version of a Navajo story

 

The story is a good detective/cop/crime story. 

But if you want to get any insight about the Navajo people, well, fugedababoutit.

You know, if you work with different cultures, the first thing you learn is that people think differently, and act differently, and even talk to one another at a different distant, and often precede the conversation with various phrases before you get to the subject at hand.

. 

Now, my work with the Navajo was limited to a couple months back in the 1970s while waiting for my African visa, so I am not an expert at the culture. But Navajo culture is very different from other Native American cultures (although there is some similarity with the Apache culture). Long explanation of why here.

When I worked there, the nurses told me that a lot of the stuff in anthropology books was lies, and the easiest way for me as a doc to learn about the cuture (including the atttitude toward sickness, the curing ceremonies, and death taboos) was the books of Tony Hillerman, who although white, had grown up with Potawanami culture (going to an Indian school in Oklahoma) so was more sensitive to the cultural nuances, and usually tried to explain it in his novels to the mainly white folk who would be reading them. 

So I thought that a modern remake of the stories would, like the previous versions, show the culture sympathetically, but better than those previous dramas.

Whoops. I was wrong.

The Chee/Leaphorn/Manuelito characters are there from his books, and Leaphorn resembles the character in the book, but the Chee and Manuelito characters are completely different. Chee is not a traditional person but a city Indian and FBI mole, and Manuelito is a cynical divorcee living alone, not the single daughter caring for her mother and her wayward sister and whose compassion is one reason she became a policewoman, to help the victims of crime.

In other words, in the new version, all the Indians act as if they could quickly morph into your favorite cop series.

There is some witch craft (white folks love films showing indian witch craft and magic... yes it exists but it is more subtle than is shown here: mostly psychological, but once in awhile real: think stealth poisoning and you get the idea).

But as a whole you don't get any idea about Navajo culture: except for a long side plot about a girl's puberty ceremony, which is not explained to you. I could only follow it because I worked with the Apache, and they have a similar ceremony.

But it has nothing to do with the plot.

The evil plot is the evil schools they were sent to.

Boarding schools were traumatic to children taken from their homes, but no one points out in many homes, there were problems of poverty and disease and child abuse from alcoholic parents and the alternative is what was done in South Africa: a policy of apartheid. And that didn't work out very well either, did it? 

Given the many many wrongs done to the Navajo people, believe me, the problem of the boarding schools was the least bad public policy.

But hey, it's Hollywood. Must be woke.

And they tried to be authentic: They even casted Native Americans to play the roles of the Navajos.

Well, okay. I mean, if we can have Mexican American Anthony Quinn play Zorba the Greek, or Tartar Russian Yul Brennar play the king of Siam, why not?

Well, the problem is that alas by doing what the producers thought was PC casting, they ignored the real nuances.

 I remember when Hollywood decided to make an authentic remake of the King and I, by taking out the music and casting an Asian actor as the King. Now, Lolo enjoyed the musical version (good story, and since it was a musical it was seen as a story, not as history). But after ten minutes of the PC remake Lolo said to turn it off, and when I asked why, he angrily said "Chinese".

And not just Chinese: From nothern China, where people are pale of skin and round faced and have little in common with the Hindu and Buddhist influenced culture of South East Asia, so Lolo saw it as fake and condenscending to the culture. 

The Navajo Times has a similar critique of the miniseries.

First problem: The actors got the language wrong:

One thing learned in the first episode is that if a non-Diné actor wants to depict a Navajo character, they need to have Navajo language lines down and support to do that.

 well, to defend the actors: the Navajo language is very difficult, both in grammar and in phonetics.  And you can compare and contrast the actors lame attempts to speak Navajo to the few times local actors actually speak the language to see the difference.

Navajo it is a tonal language, and even locals who speak English as a second language speak with a tonal accent.  But here, no one has such an accent. They all speak like midwesterners.

the NT goes on to note problems with the burial customs, the open talk of witchcraft, which is not something folks talk about (but hey, adding this to the plot will attract white new agers watching the show), and although families are shown as loving and helping one another, it misses the idea of the beauty of the culture, that stresses harmony and beauty in one's life.

It also misses the idea of clan as part of one's identity. It is not until the end of the last program that someone asks Officer Manuelito if Chee has asked about her clan. This would be in reference to the possibility of their dating in the future, due to taboos of incest of dating the same clan are strong. 

But maybe I missed it, but Chee wasn't asked about his clans early in the story, even though learning this would place him into where he fits into the community.

(sort of like how here in the rural Philippines I belong the exended family of my husband and am identified as such when I meet new folks).

In other words, the cops are not part of the fabric of clans and relationships, but just portrayed as individuals, just like white folk are in the USA. This is probably how it is in 2020, but back in 1971, which is about the same time I worked there, clan ties were still strong, so it doesn't quite ring true.

read the entire NT article for more complaints at the Hollywood cluelessness in detail.

However, as a purely crime drama,  I give it a four out of five stars.

Musical interlude of the week

 

Heh. Even Elvis is in on the evil plot.

Quotation of the day

 

it is now becoming understood that pornography is chemically addictive in the same way as drugs, tobacco, gaming, and gambling

. It changes the way people see, relate to, and interact with others by physically altering the brain’s chemistry. The cumulative effect is a degradation in the quality of intimate relationships, possible erosion of respect shown to other humans, and potential culmination in sexual harassment or assault (SH/A). 

source: USNI Blog

like all addictions/vices there is a difference between occassional use of the harmless type of porn (Debbie Does Dallas) and heavy use of porn that includes the perverted type (snuff films).

Given the number of non pornographic films with torture etc. as part of the plot, where the film essentially has the viewer identifying with the perpetrator, not the victim, I suspect there is an overlap of this type of problem.

Essentially it makes one think certain deeds are normal.

psychology today on how habits work

Family news

 I have been sick with a cold that exacerbated my asthma, but am now better.

Was it just a cold, or covid? Don't know, don't care: I self isolate anyway since I rarely leave the house, but it does mean I won't go to church this week. And I have gotten similar problem many times over the last twenty five years, long before covid existed.

Dr Angie reports that our cook's daughter who works in her office has covid, and is in isolation. So she texted us to tell us to have Dita our cook to be tested for Covid. (Dita sleeps in the medical office to guard the clinic at night) .

The cook laughed and refused, saying that Angie was not God. 

???

Translation: if she tests positive then she has to self isolate and she can't work (and that means she can't divert a lot of the money for our food into her pockets to support her large extended family).

Our maid was sick last week, with myalgia and fever but no cold symptoms, so we thought it was dengue, which is right now epidemic here, and our secretary had similar symptomes last week.

 There is also an epidemic of diarrhea among the young children, and reports are that the local city hospital is full, so it means either to go to a private hospital or to the next city. Several people came here asking for help in expenses.

Sigh.

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in other news, my son just met one of his cousins who was, like him, adopted by people in the USA. 

Apparantly she was born blind, and the family, who was poor and had many kids, put her up for adoption, figuring that it would give her a better chance at life, and a kind American family adopted her.

So how did he discover this?

He sent his DNA to be tested by one of those ancestry type sites, and they said there was a close match in another person who had been tested, so he got in touch with her. 

Unlike my son, who was older and kept in touch with his birth family in Colombia, she never met her birth family. Sigh.

Yes, I have a rosary and am willing to use it.

 Uh oh: I'm in trouble.

Via Instapundit: AS A FRIEND SAYS, THEIR RELIGION IS DETESTING YOURS:

This article in the Atlantic (by a Canadian writer according to VC) says if you say the rosary you are a dangerous person.

actually he is right: A million Filipinos saying the rosary and singing hymns while marching down the EDSA were the reason Marcos Sr. was peacefully overthrown in 1986

The revolt commenced when Marcos' Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and the Armed Forces Vice-Chief of Staff command of Fidel V. Ramos, both withdrew their support from the government and called upon the resignation of then President Marcos. They responsibly barricaded Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo and had their troops ready to combat against possible armed attack organized by Marcos and his troops.

The Catholic Church represented by Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin along with the priests and nuns called for the support of all Filipinos who believed in democracy. Radyo Veritas aired the message of Cardinal Sin that summoned thousands of Filipinos to march the street of EDSA. It was an empowering demonstration that aimed to succeed peacefully with the intervention of faith. Nuns kneeled in front of tanks with rosaries in their hands and uttering their prayers.

the march was to stop Marcos backing troops from arresting General Ramos (later President Ramos, who was a Protestant by the way) .

the sceptical rewriters of history who love to debunk legends (especially legends that have a religious theme) say that Marcos' goons would never have their tanks shoot nuns..., but their retelling of the story ignores that the peaceful demonstration kept the tanks from starting a civil war with the soldiers under the command of General Ramos.

But there is a legend that it was Mary who appeared, and told the soldiers "Do not  shoot my people".

Later, when Cardinal Sin was asked if this lady was the Virgin or one of the nuns in the demonstration, he quipped: I don't know. But I do know none of the nuns in the demonstration were good looking"

(Filipino humor).

The point is that religion has long been a way for the common people to opposed tyranny: and alas often these uprising turn violent. 

But do prayers make a difference?

there have been many peaceful politcal changes that some Catholics attribute to prayer: From the fall of the Iron curtain 

and prayer to Mary was seen as helping to  defeat the Dutch in the battle of La Naval of Manila to the Battle of Lepanto.

As for General Ramos, who has recently died: he was a veteran and later became a beloved president

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update:

Questions that must not be asked

 The UKGuardian  dares to ask why security was so lax for Mr. Rushdie's lecture.

Why weren't those attending the lecture screened?

Actually, they were screened: according to one attended who was interviewed, they were kept from bringing coffee into the lecture. Priorities I guess. But  no frisking, wanding or metal detector scans to those attended the lecture.

So why the lack of screening of the audience?

Because of it's mission of ''Inclusivity"

Security consisted of one state cop and one local deputy: well, duh. 

Luckily the state cop was fast enough to run on stage and stop the assault.

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Neil Oliver is at it again. 

now, any Scotsman or Irishman who knows the history of the highland clearances or the Irish potato famine knows not to trust the government, especially when the government is implementing social reforms that benefit the powerful.

but the reason I posted this is because it questions why some governments, under the guise of the Paris climate accord, are shutting down farmers at a time when experts are warning of a famine in the near future?

Because Global warming.

...

 Those Dutch farmers are among the most productive and knowledgeable in the world, holding in their heads and hands the answers to all manner of questions about how best to produce food, and yet their government is so intent on scaring them out of the business that a teenage boy in a tractor, taking part in a protest to defend ancient rights and traditions, was fired on by police. Why do you think it matters so much, to the government of the second most productive population of farmers in the world, to gut and fillet that industry? Why? Why have similar protests, in countries all across Europe and the wider world, been largely ignored by the mainstream media

Shutting down productive farms that could send food to areas where food shortages occur is not a good idea because it means people will starve if there is no food.

 (yes, there are problems caused when you do this: like bankrupting local farmers when cheap imports underprice local crops. And of course fraud that makes the rich importers more affluent, and one even sees the food aid being diverted to the black market). 

farming practices in recent years have improved the yields of grain enough to stop the famines predicted by Ehrlich and other doom sayers back in the 1980s.

But high yield grain requires fertilizer and herbicide and expensive seeds to plant: which sometimes cannot be done by poor farmers with small plots.

Here in the third world,  it is a fight between the small farmers versus the larger farmers/agribusiness, whose farms are much more productive and who are best able to afford the high yield crops of the green revolution. 

That article is from India, but it could also apply to the Philippines, where the gov't is supporting small farmers and organic growing, but there is a trend toward small farmers selling their fields to richer folk and/or Balikbayan who can afford to invest in these crops.

Where you stand on that controversy depends if you are a small farmer, just wanting to live as your ancestors lived, or if you live in the slums on a limited income and just want to be able to afford to eat food.

But as I pointed out in past articles: In our area, land reform has enriched small farmers so they sent their kids to school: but their kids often migrate to cities or work as OFW, so the actual farmers are getting old...

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and finally: Why is the MSM so hysterical about the latest "This time we really will destroy Trump" hysteria?

The hysteria about Trumpie boy having "top secret" papers is getting absurd, because many of us who worked for the feds have some type of clearance and know a lot of stuff is over classified by bureaucrats. 

Since that story didn't impress anyone who knows how bureaucrats work, the story has now changed:

So now we read it is about NUCLEAR stuff: which really sounds scary.

Search the place! Leave no stone unturned in the search because you don't know where this evil guy might have hidden that dangerous information:

 

But again what I find absurd is that the articles are written as if Trumpieboy packed up all those papers by himself.

nope, he didn't. 

Nor did his staff: 

It was the GSA who did this: they packed and sealed the boxes and sent them to the President's residence.

So presumably these papers were checked by some bureaucrat before they were packed.

question no one is asking: so did a mole put suspicious stuff in those boxes? 

Or did those searching those papers plant evidence?

 That would be absurd, except for the fact that there were no observers by Trump's people, and the FBI even ordered the security cameras to be turned off (which wasn't done by the way).

but from what I gather is that since the search warrant said they could search everywhere and confiscate everything, it makes one susepct that maybe it is about finding all that classified information proving the RussiaRussiaRussia hoax was made up by the Democrats and pushed by people in the CIA etc.

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best joke of the week:

It's not beetlejuice, it's Chorizo:

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the PhilInquirer posts the rumor that Cardinal Tagle is being groomed as the next Pope, and explains why.

His reputation for working with the poor is a good sign, and he supervises world wide charities, but he also is involved in the Vatican Bank... and rumors that he backed the Chinese takeover of the church. Rumors also say he backs the newfangled rules of Francis, and supports the Bologna school ideat that vatican II was not a reform of tradtion but was a reset  that was to remake the church into the image of the modern world.

two other problems: he is ethnically Chinese, which might not seem a big thing to outsiders but here it is seen as being part of the elite outsiders who run the place. And the bishops' PC policies have not stopped the huge influx of the educated middle class catholics into local Evangelical churches.

on the other hand, if he needs money, he can always sing for Philippine Idol:

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who will rid me of this troublesome priest?

 

quite a few Catholic bishops and priests are in trouble for defending civil rights.].

.....

..they are both communist governments.

But in Mexico, it is the drug cartels who kill priests and pastors for opposing their viollence. LINK... LINK2....

China still bullying it's neighbors

 StrategyPage report on the Philippines has the description of how China uses fishing vessels and it's artificial islands to threaten us.

The fishing resources alone are enormously valuable and, based on past Chinese performance, likely to be exploited to the point where there are not many fish left to catch. There is also offshore oil and gas and much else on the bottom of the shallow waters of the South China Sea. So far, the Chinese threat has proved immune to accommodation

the destruction of the ecosystem and decimation of fish is being done openly, but of course the green environmentalists are not complaining about it.

And the greens (and Catholic bishops here) who oppose fossil fuel investment (needed for modern agriculture and fertilizer) also are not bothering to notice that China intends to steal these resources too. 

More about their strategy HERE>

This reorganization reflects the favorite Chinese tactic for asserting its claims to control most of the South China Sea by avoiding the use of military vessels. Instead, it sends out these “police” ships to harass and threaten foreign ships operating in what international law considers the high seas but that China considers its territorial waters.

If any of these intruders call in warships, then China will defend itself by calling its own warships and aircraft and protest this act of foreign aggression....

A favorite tactic to take possession of a disputed reef by sending in a growing number (eventually more than 200) Chinese naval militia fishing boats inside the reef. Most of the Chinese trawlers were lashed together in groups of five to twenty boats that formed a pattern preventing real fishing boats from operating inside the reef. China claimed all these Chinese fishing boats inside the reef were taking shelter from bad weather. This is often the case with reefs in the South China Sea, but there was no correlation between the presence of Chinese boats inside the reef and the actual weather in the area. The Chinese claims don’t stand up to close scrutiny. With so many cellphone videos and high-res images from aircraft and warships available, all China can do is keep lying and do it aggressively and with assurance that no one will do much about it.

I bring this up because China has been doing Naval exercizes around Taiwan (which not only threaten Taiwan but the shipping lanes in the area).

Global Voices has a long report on that aggression HERE. 

and not only threatening Taiwan but some of the stuff they are lobbing around has landed in areas under Japan.

More HERE at asahi.com

this article notes that these drills are letting the US and other allies essentially see China's military tactics. including jamming/electronic warfare.

But they note that drills are not the same hting as actual war where you are being shot at, and includes this little backhanded criticism of the US military intelligence:

The United States believed that Russian forces would be able to take Kyiv within two to three days, but their estimates were wrong.

well, duh. That explains why for a month, the west twiddled their thumbs while offering to fly the president of the Ukraine out of the country (in contrast, Elon Musk within a week started to get his skylink replaccing the internet for communication )

That failure in miltary intelligence is discussed here.

fast forward to 27 minutes where they discusss how China is watching what is going on, because although China looks impressive, they also have trouble with a hollow military and also China has very real economic problems.

Discussion of logistics problems in Chinese military from the India Times.HERE

So will there be a Pacific war?

well, stories of how the woke reform of the military is weakening America's defense capability are all over the news: What I can't judge is how much of this is true (and remember: when you leave the miltary you are active or inactive reserve for years, so battle hardened troops could be called up in case of war.)

But China's military has not been fighting anyone with a trained military, with the exception of India, and that is a small war.

And this ignores more recent developments in war...

This is one reason I linked to the discussion of underwater drones etc. from the Naval institute blog a few days ago: it's not your grandfather's war in the Pacific.

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update:     StrategyPage just posted a new essay on China's economic problems LINK 

and includes this part about the Philippines:

The South China Sea situation is becoming more difficult for China because the Philippines came up with ways to reduce the Chinese threat by reducing corrupt Chinese influence in the Philippines. ,,,Until China expanded its “lost territory” claims to the South China Sea nearly two decades ago. China was seen as a potential ally of, and investor in, the Philippines. Despite numerous Filipino diplomatic efforts, China refused to compromise on its claims. At this point China is seen as the greatest threat to the Philippines, especially since the Chinese appear to have additional claims on Filipino territory and independence as a nation.

that refers to an episode a few years ago where on the Chinese media,  newsreader referred to Luzon as part of China. Duterte madea a couple of jokes about this, and one Filipino wag quickly put up a sign about China's new province. 

Dengue is now the problem, not covid

 Yes we still have cases of Covid here, and the gov't says that school kids will need boosters

But the real problem is Dengue Fever: spread by mosquitoes.

from the StraitsTimes(Bloomburg)

From January to late June, more than 65,000 had been infected by dengue, up 90% from a year ago, according to health department data. Covid-19 cases, meanwhile, rose 39 per cent in the week ending July 10 from the week before, with the average daily count at almost 1,500.

Last week our secretary had symptoms (now she is okay) and now our maid has the headache/ muscle pain and fever suggestive of Dengue.

Sigh.

the gov't has said don't release frogs and fish into stagnant water to eat the mosquito larvae because this will destroy the ecosystem and might not work.

they are especially worried because some places in the past released cane toads, an invasive species.

We have koi in our fountain, partly to eat the larvae. And yes, we have frogs visiting us when it rains. One even hopped into my room through a hole in the floor (which we have since fixed) but they are regular frogs, not the huge cane toads.

In the past, we had aggressive spraying to stop the mosquitoes, and now our open drainage ditches are covered, which helps.

And with heavy rains, the streets flood and we get cases of leptospirosis in those who wade thru the waters infected with the poop from rats and other infected animals.. More here.

this is an English language report from 2018

In all of these illnesses, you have to realize that poor people may not see the doctor right away due to the expense and also becase they fear catching covid if they visit the ER or a crowded public clinic.

Robo war

 for later reading: from USNI Blog: how robots will fight the next war:

a lot of this is about logistics, and the need to build a team who are capable of using these assets.

related item: Space.com:

US Space Force tests robot dogs to patrol Cape Canaveral

Two Ghost Robotics Vision 60 Quadruped Unmanned Ground Vehicles (Q-UGVs) pose for a picture at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., July 28, 2022. (Image credit: U.S. Space Force photo by Senior Airman Samuel Becker)

heads up via Instapundit:

Civil war, Chinese aggression, monkey pox and... WTF radiation?

 The Biden administration is trying to invoke a civil war/uprising by sending armed FBI agents in the middle of the night to invade Trumpie boy's home to get supposedly 16 boxes of documents that might contain secret stuff he isn't allowed to have.

I guess just asking for them politely by knocking on the door with a subpeona is too hard for them. 

And it was justified because apparently someone in his staff (a mole perhaps) noticed a torn photograph in his toilet, the suggestion being that if the FBI didn't quickly raid his home with armed agents in the middle of the night to examine these so called secret papers, that Trump might finally, after 16 months, get around to personally flushing 16 boxes of secret papers down his toilet. 

What, no shredders available? Duh.

The implications is that a busy president stole them deliberatly. So he had nothing better to do than pack up these papers (what, no staff)? 

And if the staff did this, given the huge percentage of moles among his staff, onc has to wonder: could it be a set up?. 

For that matter, why papers at all, when emails and top secret stuff could be scanned to hard drives, which of course could be destroyed after they are subpeonad, or ignored, as is being done to Hunter Biden's computer and the client list of Epstein.

Ironically, the right wing conspiracy sites say it isn't about the papers: it is the FBI trying to invoke the right wing nut cases to do something rash, like shoot up the Senate baseball game or try to shoot a Supreme court justice... oh, sorry. Those things were done by nut cases inspired by the rhetoric of the left.

This is the theatre of the absurd, and you know that it is absurd when even ex Gov Cuomo says WTF.

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StrategyPage has a nice summary of the problems facing the Philippines: Mainly corruption and China, who is behind a lot of the corruption and behind the drugs here of course. 

China has been trying to bribe the Philippines with "help" so we don't notice they are decimating the fish stocks in the West Philippine sea, not to mention trying to steal our petroleum resources there.

Efforts to reduce the Chinese threat includes reducing corrupt Chinese influence in the Philippines. That is the main reason why the new Filipino government is canceling three Chinese financed railroad construction projects worth nine billion dollars. This was part of a $24 billion Chinese proposal for projects that improved Filipino ports and transportation networks. Cancelation of these projects has been under consideration for over a year because of vague loan terms and Chinese failure to perform. The Chinese are believed to be using the loan program as a weapon to coerce the Philippines into making concessions in the South China Sea....

the greens here who are opposing investing in fossil fuels (i.e. don't let local businesses pressure the gov't to pressure China to let them drill in our traditional waters). This group of greens include the Catholic bishops, one does wonder if China is sort of encouraging this idea. 

I mean, it is an open secret that the Vatican's deal with China (arranged by the pedophile McCarrick) went through because China bribed them with money to betray the Catholic believers and let the communists take over the church.

Sigh. So much corruption in so many places.\

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The latest monkey pox news is that someone "discovered" you could use a smaller dosage of the vaccine by giving the vaccine subcutaneously. Well, duh.

Did the US get around to importing the millions of dosese they stored in Denmark? Who knows. 

Just like no one knows why it is taboo to say it is being spread by promiscuous MSM, or that the government that closed churches for 2 years won't close raves and other places where this is being spread. 

The reason no one will shut these high risk festivals down is politics, of course: They remember when Diane Feinstein faced a recall after trying to shut down the bath houses that were the source of a local hepatitis and Syphillis outbreak.

1986 Jan. 23: Mayor Dianne Feinstein told a U.S. Conference of Mayors session on AIDS that gay organizations in San Francisco "will regret" opposing her campaign to close the city's bathhouses. "It has been established that the bathhouses contribute to the spread of AIDS and they ought to be closed," Feinstein said. She said that her two-year campaign to close the bathhouses has been blocked by courts and gay groups "who have turned this into a civil rights issue rather than a public health issue.

As for the kids who caught it: well, if you have a lesion and don't wash your hands, you can spread it to kids. 

so maybe those diagnosed with lesions, or those with lesions who suspect they might be infected, should just self isolate? 

Or should the government legally impose isolation on those who are still infectious: i.e. people with active disease, as we used to do for scarlet fever, measles, etc. and indeed do with those exposed to Covid (here in the Philippines,

For example, here in the Philippines, Dr. Angie had to self isolate three times last year because she was exposed to someone, and the bank had to close down twice last year fot the same reason. Ruby, on entering the Philippines, had to go into ten days of strict isolation even though she had been vaccinated in the USA. 

And yes, the Philippines isolated the person who came to the Philippines with monkey pox, and also isolated his ten contacts.

in contrast, in the USA, the CDC recommends isolation but adds:

Ideally, people with monkeypox would remain in isolation for the duration of illness, which typically lasts two to four weeks. However, if a person with monkeypox is unable to remain fully isolated throughout the illness, they should do the following:

they then list obvious things like wearing a mask for a disease that is spread by skin to skin contact. 

But of course unless there is someone checking that the patients are actually staying isolated, and this includes arresting those who break quarantine, the precautions are nonsense.

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I have pretty well been ignoring the news from the Ukraine, but apparently the danger is now about attacking a nuclear power plant.

 Dr. C has a headsup about what is going on there: 

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Update:

Mrs Harris goes to Paris Film review

 

... 

the classsic story of a London charwoman (part time house cleaner) who falls in love with a Dior gown, and saves money to buy it.

Starring Leslie Manville, better known for playing Princess Margaret in the Crown.

Mrs Harris is a widow still mourning her late husband (who was listed as missing in action but now was relisted as dead, so she can move her live on and stop waiting for him). She cleans houses for the very rich, some of whom really don't see her ('we are the invisible women") and often talk down to her. 

But at one house, she sees a Dior dress and falls in love with it: It is the most beautiful dress she ever saw, and owning one becomes a dream for her. So she saves her money to buy the dress... 

when she has the money, she travels to Paris and manages not to get throw out of the Dior fashion house thanks to a kindly widower who takes her in on his ticket.

Her kindness impresses the lower staff, and they help her in their small ways, and in return she helps one young man to get the courage to court one of the models that he secretly has loved. And yes, she does get to buy her dress (and help the young man who helped her by pointing out that Dior could use their name on quality items for the growing middle class).

Unlike the previous film (see below) it is filmed as reality, not as a fairy tale, so the film does have a few small holes in the plot, (like why do the French people speak English). 

One does wish there was a short explanation of the early 1950s for the younger generation, who know little or nothing about the austerity of the World War II and post war era in England.

And after years of making do with dresses which were often just remakes of older clothes and often were durable rather than lovely, then women saw the very lovely and feminine Dior "new look" dresses exploded into the fashion world.

After the war period of utilitarian attires and vestiary austerity, perhaps nothing felt newer than Dior's vision. His first collection rejected the modern course of dressing established in the 1920s and 30s, which intended to liberate women from the restrictive sculptural volumes and corsets of early 20th-century fashion. Instead, he presented an image of radical femininity, achieved by tight-fitting jackets with padded hips, petite waists, and A-line skirts.

The desire of Mrs Harris for a lovely dress might seem trivial to the younger generation raised in a time of prosperity, who might not understand the need of a cleaning lady for something beautiful in her drab life.

But that said, the movie does hint to these realities, and the willingness of a lowly charlady/cleaning lady to follow her dream.

A most enjoyable film.

I give it five stars.

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Here is the background for the dresses seen in the film:

and here is the 1992 TV movie of the story, starring Angela Landsbury, Diane Rigg, and Omar Sharif as the count who befriends her.

 

Covid side effects in context

 the anti vaxxers are hysterical: they exaggerate the problem by cherry picking problems and not putting it into context. I mean, some of them are hysterical about vaccines that have been around since the 1920s...

Even the hysteria about "the vaccine" ignores that the Sinovax used an old technique that has been around for 100 years, the AstraZenca used adenovirus, which has been around for 30 years and is similar to the ebola vaccine that essentially stopped these epidemics in recent years (an under reported epidemic). Only the mRNA vaccines are experimental: and if the suspicion was about those vaccines, then fine. But even then, the risk benefit analysis for elders showed they worked.

the anti vaxers seem to hate all vaccines, and I suspect it is because they never saw any of these diseases. I saw measles when I was a medical student, and whooping cough cases popped up now and then when I was in practice... My husband saw small pox but I never saw it. And I have seen polio, typhoid, cholera and tetanus when I worked in Africa. But the real killers are simple pneumonia, malaria, and diarrhea, for which there are no good vaccines.

So why are the anti vaxers so influential? Because of all the lies.

it didn't come out of the Wuhan lab: it just happened to come out of a meat market.

Trump stopped people coming in from China because he was a bigot: The WHO said it did not spread person to person. So go out and party for Chinese new year to show you are not a Maga bigot.

Don't visit grandmom, but it's okay to place people still infectious with covid back into nursing homes because if PPE is used correctly by the well trained (/LOL) staff it won't spread (just ignore the increase in death).

Don't attend church for two years, but strip bars are okay to go to.

mostly peaceful riots by the left don't spread the disease.

Etc etc etc.

And of course a complete denial that there are side effects, when in medicine we know everything (even placebos) have side effects: We go by the cost benefit ratio. So give shots to grandmom but kids? Why the push to give them shots?

Now we see people denying that covid exists. Sheesh. In our town, we lost several businessmen and a pregnant lady (another pregnant lady survived but her child died) from covid. Joy's brother almost died of it. That is just among our business circle, not counting the elders who died (especially if they died at home). I wonder if those middle aged folks we heard aboout who had died of heart attacks and had pneumonia had covid but the test was faulty. Who know. And of course, older people were afraid to go to the hospital and died at home and never were tested.

Dr. C puts it into context:

Reporting rate for serious adverse events 0.2 reports per 1,000 doses of vaccine (0.02%) (one per 5,000 doses of vaccine)

Full report here.

Dr. C wonders if the epidemic will get another surge. 

I guess things are getting better in England, because his plush puppy in the window in the back ground of his videos no longer wears a mask.

Chinese diaspora

 Atlas Obscura has an article on the Chinese diaspora and it's cuisine.

The diaspora started in the 1400s, when Chinese traders established Chinatowns throughout Indonesia, kicking off centuries of migration throughout East and Southeast Asia. 

In the 1800s, millions of Chinese laborers settled in Europe, Africa, the Americas, and other parts of Asia after the Opium Wars forced the Qing dynasty to allow mass emigration. 

And in the past century, millions more people from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China have settled all over the world in search of economic opportunity and political refuge. 

 The descendants of these waves of immigration have shaped and been shaped by each of their adopted homes. In Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, home to some of the world’s largest Chinese populations, centuries of intermarriage between Chinese and Southeast Asian people produced the hybrid Peranakan culture, and in Peru, the Latin American country with the largest Chinese ethnic group, Peruvian Chinese people are responsible for arroz chaufa, a Peruvian national dish reminiscent of chaofan, or fried rice.

 

the Spanish introduced rice into Latin America. But this is Chinese inspired South American fried rice:

Culture of death? What culture of death?

 what is the latest atrocity from the cultural chic?

'From GetReligionBlog: cannibalism is chic

NYTimes tweets: Cannibalism has a time and a place. Some recent books, films and shows suggest that the time is now. Can you stomach it?

then GR comments: 

.this is one of those oh-so New York Times trend pieces about the sophisticated cultural tastes of sophisticated people living in sophisticated zip codes.

The article then quotes recent books insisting that this happens all the time so hey let's pretend it is okie dokie.

You’ll find some headlines that might have been relevant to this topic. Think: “ ‘The Bread of Life’: Exploring Ritualistic Cannibalism.” Or this one, perhaps: “Eating People Is Wrong — But It’s Also Widespread and Sacred.”

Widespread? Where?

Sacred? Where?

GR then comments: 

In conclusion, let me suggest that the headline for this Times story needed to include the word “taboo.” That would be a framework that raise ethical and moral questions, as well as — uh — questions about hip entertainment trends. Maybe it is getting harder to shock pixel-saturated Americans.

yes, but not new: silence of the Lambs anyone?

And let's not be judgemental and call evil evil. 

all of this brings to mind how the theme was handled by Japanese writer, Shshuku Endo, in several of his works, mainly in his novel Deep River. where one of the characters is haunted by the fact that, when some Japanese soldiers were stranded at the end of World War II,they resorted to eating human flesh, and how that guilt destroyed them because they could not see how they could be forgiven for such a sin.

like much of Endo, the theme is God's mercy:

 

Kiguchi, who came to propitiate the gods by chanting the Amida Surra by the river for other souls as well as the soul of a fellow-soldier, who, in the Japanese army's retreat from India to Burma in World War 11, had saved his life by feeding him with human flesh. Having drunk heavily upon his return home to forget his sense of guilt, he died of stomach cancer, seeming to have grasped the genuine meaning of tensei or 'rebirth'. 

the river is the Ganges, but with hints that it is also the River Jordon that gives forgiveness of one's sins in baptism.

Sigh. 

 

“But the scrawny, powerless man with his arms outstretched on the cross had at some point reclaimed Otsu. Still, that doesn't change the fact that I won. With startling rapacity God had merely picked up a man I discarded.” ― Shusaku Endo, Deep River