So when innocents are killed, and we turn to prayer for their families, the clueless take the time to ridicule believers. The problem? They seem clueless about how belief in a higher power works.
So the very mild Bishop Barron took it to himself to correct them: NYPost:
Minnesota Bishop Robert Barron sharply criticized Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for dismissing calls for prayer following Wednesday’s deadly Catholic school shooting, calling the mayor’s remarks “completely asinine.”
“Catholics don’t think that prayer magically protects them from all suffering. After all, Jesus prayed fervently from the cross on which he was dying,” Barron told Fox News Digital.
Barron, an influential Catholic leader who leads the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, argued that critics misunderstand the role of prayer....
“Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God, which strikes me as altogether appropriate precisely at times of great pain,” he said. “And prayer by no means stands in contrast to decisive moral action. Martin Luther King was a man of deep prayer, who also effected a social revolution in our country. This is not an either/or proposition.”
“We know that God is all-good and all-powerful, and yet we also know that there are wicked people in the world who do terrible things. And so we must say that the just and merciful God permits some evils so as to bring about a good that we might not be able immediately to see. God is faithful in his love, but the ways of his providence are often inscrutable to us. We also know that, in Jesus, God journeyed all the way to the bottom of our suffering, accepting, as St. Paul said, ‘even death, death on a cross.’ We cannot always understand why God permits evil, but we know for sure that he accompanies us in our suffering,” he said.,,
not only are they trying to grab traditional Phiippine fishing areas, they are now trying to steal the islands that are off the north coast of Luzon, that have been part of the Philippines since the time of the Spaniards.
The clue to why: This is another maritime chokepoint. The Chinese have militarized their artificial islands in the West Philippine sea, so could easily block shipping here, but if they steal the islands, they could more easily block ship traffic
(and the internet cables that go through the area.)
Hmm... maybe this is why all those military age men (4000 according to this artice) are posing as students studying at colleges in northern Luzon.
The Yogurt was used as a medicine and introduced by Buddhist monks who used it in rituals (Buddhism was originally from India) but apparently it's use disappeared as Buddhism evolved.
As for smallpox: It killed huge numbers until it became endemic and afterward mainly killed children.
The latest school shooting against a Catholic school has generated the usual knee jerk analyses, most of which miss the point.
The problem is depression and self hatred.
In the one school shooting that happened where I had once worked, it was anger because of abuse by his parents: and the first ones he shot were his grandfather, before shooting up a school that he didn't attend (he was on home classes). And where did he get his guns? His grandfather was a policeman.
In this latest shooting of Catholic school students, it was a trans person.
Some people feel they should belong to the opposite sex, but often this feeling is transient, and the others often are gay. Most are harmless and their families and neighbors here in the Philppines just shrug and accept them, just like second wives are accepted.
However the trans lobby is making changing gender a social contagion: Often the motivation for such transitions is because a counseler pushed it as the cure all for the depression and anger. We see this also with people seeking plastic surgery: sometimes they just want to change their appearance etc. but some see it as a cure all for their inner depression/self hatred.
The problem: if you don't recognize this, there is a danger of increased depression and it's mirror image: Anger and acting out against a symbol you see as causing your problem.
The internet makes this worse: So the Red Lake shooter didn't want to be angry against his abusive parents, but the internet filled him with white supremicist (!) hate ideas so he could blame his school and those who tried to help him.
So in this Minnesota case, I also suspect that when his transition didn't soolve his psychiatric problems, well he only had to go to the internet to find suggestions that his anger was justified against an innocent third party: parents, or in this case, a church.
Psychiatrists are supposed to check for thoughts of anger/depression/suicidal plans and homicidal plans when they monitor people on SSRIs being treated for depression. Was this done?
SSRIs decrease suicide and depression but when the anger of depression no longer is aimed inward, the anger can become acting out. Angry outbursts are especially dangerous if the person is bipolar and gets manic symptoms.
And hormones also affect mood: Something no one wants to discuss.
Finally, the ability to get guns is a problem but in Minnesota they have gun control. Were his guns legal?
But didn't the parent monitor his guns? And why didn't she confiscate the guns?
When my teenage adopted son was acting out, I confiscated his hunting rifles, but he insisted I give them back since he had bought them with his own money. So I gave them back, minus the firing pin. No, I couldn't get him hospitalized, and his therapist merely affirmed that his anger against me was justified (ignoring the abuse he suffered before he was adopted). So excuse me if I am cynical about therapy.
So why no family intervention here? Intervention by friends? Someone monitoring his social media posts (don't say this is not being done).
Finally, there is a question of security: Apparently, the same governor of Minnesota who feels schools need tampons in the boy's room denied funding for basic security for Catholic schools.
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and the state Legislature both declined to act on repeated appeals from Catholic leaders seeking the same level of protection public schools receive.
of course, it might not be cost effective to send rent a cops to every church, church school, etc.
and the active gun rights community might say: Why didn't you provide your own protection? Train teachers and let them carry weapons.
Sigh. The problem? Most civilians freeze in time of danger
So how about prevetion?
The US military has people trained to use guns to kill people, and a lot of soldiers with PTSS and other risk factors for violence.
much of the prevention focuses on the problems in units, not individuals, and of course, the loss of privacy would not be allowed in the civilian sector.
But high risk criminals are often known to the local police for less serious incidents and it is almost a joke when the police admit: This person was on our radar, meaning the cops were watching him or her.
The first line of defense of course is the community and family, including the extended family, local clubs, churches and even gangs who know who of their members are out of control.
In this case, the person was high risk and should have been monitored, or at least his social media monitored and his guns confiscated.
But the cops are the last line of defense in such cases because of civil liberties and the inability to get dangerous people committed into psychiatric institutions.
The flight test began with Super Heavy successfully lifting off by igniting all 33 Raptor engines and ascending over the Gulf of America. Successful ascent was followed by a hot-staging maneuver, with Starship’s upper stage igniting its six Raptor engines to separate from Super Heavy and continue the flight to space.
Following stage separation, the Super Heavy booster completed its boostback burn to put it on a course to a pre-planned splashdown zone.
BREAKING - Police have arrested and charged a 14-year-old girl after she was forced to brandish a knife to defend herself and her friend against a migrant who attempted to assault her near St Ann’s Lane in Dundee, Scotland. pic.twitter.com/odBjzIZugA
— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) August 25, 2025
the police who arrested her for carrying a knife didn't seem to notice that the guy she is threatening hasn't just shrugged and left, but is standing there taunting her and filming her.... and one wonders who posted this to Twitter/X and also who reported her to the police.
one would hope that the backstory will get reported (was the guy a known sexual predator? a normal Paki just walking by would not have filmed it etc). And one wonders why a young girls feels she needs to carry weapons going to school. Has there been other attacks in the area?
but in the meanwhile, the incident has spawned a thousand memes at a time when migrants are invading the UK in large numbers, and the indepth report about the rape grooming gangs has been released:
the problem? The reports are not accurte because often the rape gangs were covered up, the sex was seen as consensual, and especially because the authorities did not want to increase tensions against certain (Muslim) ethnic groups. There are rumors that some authorities actually had sex with the girls, but this is not confirmed. And no one wants to notice that the grooming was associated with underage alcohol use and illicit drugs.
However, as Wretched (a PhilAm) notes: That was dangerous because the Japanses were revenging their defeat on civilians.
What scenes must be occurring in Gaza even now. In the days prior to the Battle of Manila the doomed Japanese garrison became like beasts in their last despair. Let me share some stories I heard from survivors.https://t.co/AhbmnsMQDF
and predicts that Hamas, when faced with defeat will similarly see their captive civilians (who are Sunnits, not outsider Shiites like Hamas) will probably do the same and blame Israel
If Hamas fights to the death, they are likely to go as crazy as the Germans and Japanese. Doomed young men, hopped up on drugs, maddened by guilt and terror, shocked by concussion and noise are almost in hell.
Pushing alcohol to the Irish, and into the slums of London helped destroy the opposition to the British elite. Ditto Alcohol (and now drugs) openly pushed to the Native Americans in the USA.
Publicly and officially, the PRC has made significant gestures of cooperation with the United States in meeting the opioid crisis challenge. Unofficially and illicitly, considerable evidence suggests the PRC actively supports and facilitates the flow of fentanyl into the United States. PRC officials continue to claim a narrative of fentanyl addiction as a US problem.
In an interview with China Global Television Network, an international English-language news channel based in Beijing, the deputy secretary-general of the China National Narcotics Control Commission (CNNCC) criticized the United States for its role in creating the fentanyl crisis, attributing it to “its own misuse of prescription drugs.”
Despite criticism, CNNCC’s spokesman declared readiness to provide full support in material control, intelligence sharing, law enforcement, and combating transnational crimes. In the words of Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, “It is very clear that there is no fentanyl problem in China, and the fentanyl crisis in the United States is not caused by the Chinese side, and blindly blaming China cannot solve the U.S.’ own problem.”
While there is some truth to Pengyu’s statement—the United States must do more to address the problem of addiction—currently, Chinese companies, possibly with the full support or willful blindness of the PRC government, are fanning the flames of this crisis.
well, here in Asia, the main drug is meth/shabu. And the chinese have a major drug crisis going on that gets little publicity: LINK...and the data is ten years old.
What, not recent data? Big Brother is hiding something....:
Joe Rogan discusses: caution. Rogan likes psychodelics
So excuse me: This pope is a little bit better than his woke predecessor, but what I read is mainly that he wants to welcome the promiscuous gay community (activist communities who defend promiscuity, not those who are trying to live a normal life despite their same sex attraction), and when he pushes the global warming religion (ignoring that the green initiatives mean poor people should continue living their poverty drive "traditional" lifestyle) maybe he stop a minute and remember he is supposed to be preaching the gospel: And preach an upright moral lifestyle that would condemn corruption and the religion of getting high on drugs, which used to be part of religion.
Hey Leo: look around and see the millions whose lives are being disrupted by drugs and the drug trade and stop pretending to ignore the evil choices behind this activity.
I watched the live remake of Lilo and Stitch, and it was okay: however I missed the music (where were the Elvis tunes?) and although there were lots of chase scenes and scenes of Stitch destroying things, there were few scenes showing how Lilo bonded with Stitch by playing with him.
But the backstory was the problems of her older sister trying to keep the family together and how child protection agency types kept recommending that she give up custody, send her sister to unknown foster parents: essentially breaking the only family tie that a traumatized Lilo has that is giving her some stability to her life.
So anyway, the movie was okay. Until the end.
All through the movie the theme was family means not letting anyone behind (and Stitch was adopted as part of that family).
And indeed in the original cartoon, the ending the family remains intact:
The original animated film grants Lilo’s family a happy-ever-after, ending with Nani, Lilo and Stitch finding peace together, bolstered by a new support system of aliens and humans.
In the new movie, at the end, after insisting that family means never leaving anyone behind, the older sister promptly says good bye to Lilo attend college in the mainland, leaving her sister to the mercy of the foster care system, with a new character, not related nor known to Lilo.
Nani is no longer taking care of her sister.
Given that the original film (and the remake) very much emphasizes the importance of keeping families together with the phrase “no one gets left behind,” this struck many viewers as a cold attempt at a happy ending.
fans pointed out that there was something dark about Nani’s future career being placed above her care of Lilo, a strangely cold ending with a glossy, “girlboss” spin.
,,,,
Remember in #LiloandStitch where Nani cared for Lilo very much and used every strength of her being to protect her and did anything keep her happy?
Yeah in the live action remake she just leaves for college and the neighbors take Lilo in pic.twitter.com/J8ibGbgnLB
— ChelseatheCartoonGal (@CartoonGal1) May 23, 2025
Now, I live in the Philippines, and it is common here for people to sacrifice their ambitions for the good of the family: many of our OFW do so to support the family they left behind.
and even in the USA, there are 40 million caregivers who sacrifice time and often have to change or limit their jobs to help their relaives (and sometimes friends)
Such sacrifices should be admired:
Ironically, as some in the Forbes article point out, the sister could have taken the same college training locally with scholarships for the indigenous, and probably arrange grants/welfare payments/loans so she could bring her sister with her, the ending is especially cold hearted.
In other words, the woke ending not only ignores the lessons of the original story, that one never leaves one's family behind, but ignores the cultural lessons that could be learned from Polynesian culture, about the importance of family ties.
I should add: Foster care is often needed to protect children: however, newer policies have been instituted so that these children can stay with family members where their family ties and cultural background is protected, even if the family is not as rich as the usually white social workers prefer.
Wonder why the war in the Ukraine has lasted so long? Experts estimated that the Ukraine would last one month, and the west dithered in giving help, but ironically Elon Musk sending in Starlink for ommunications was a game changer.
But another game changer was that the Ukraine got creative in drone warfare.
A 3-year-old toddler and seven adults, including a longtime missionary, who were kidnapped in the early morning Sunday in Haiti remain in the hands of armed gangs.
The kidnapping occurred after a security breach at the Saint Hélène Orphanage in Kenscoff in the hills above gang-ridden Port-au-Prince....
At least 1,520 people were killed between April and June, the U.N. said, and at least 609 others were injured in armed violence, primarily in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, followed by Artibonite and center regions.
In addition, there were at least 185 kidnappings and 628 victims of sexual violence. The U.N. report also noted that at least 410 residences and other buildings, including six schools, health centers and local nongovernmental organizations were ransacked, burned or destroyed by gangs during the period.
Trump is trying to stop the ability of Haitian refugees to stay in the USA, but no one wants to say outloud that there is a fear that some of these refugees will allow these gangs to us fake refugee status to commit crimes in the USA.
HRW reprints an editorial from the LATimes pointing out the problem.
Trump administration insists things are safer now so they can go home right away, but the courts have put this on hold for a couple months.
So in effect, the only reason the MSM/Left?Pope is noticing the problem is because of Trump saying he is going to send people back.
But this is not a new problem: Haiti has been a basket case for years. Wikipedia has an article on the 1991 refugee crisis from that country and another article on the US Marines trying to bring peace there in 1915.
Personally I think that this group, unlike Mexicans and South American illegal migrants, are really in need for asylum.
But this is ignored because these refugees are black, uneducated, and don't speak English... then there is the fear of disease: HIV and other infectious diseases are a danger when you don't screen immigrants legal or spontaneous.
to make things worse: Haitians speak a dialect of French, and few know that language.
This site has resources for medical personnel and other to help them communicate with patients.
At a time when the JFK files are inflaming every nutcase conspiracy theory, maybe looking into older conspiracy theories should be seen and put into contrast to today's news.
First, the background of the assasination is discussed here:
...
So where do the Jesuits come into the plot with an infamous conspiracy theory?
it starts with the dirty little secret that Catholics are disliked and outsiders in the USA back then, and immigrants (many of whom were Irish Catholics) were greatly disliked.
This should give one pause, since there are parallels in today's world, where immigrants and Muslims are outsiders and greatly disliked.
and then there is this: John Wilkes Booth was a Catholic convert, many of those involved had Catholic links, and Mary Suratt's son escaped with the help of Canadian Catholics.
all the conspirators met at the boarding house owned by Mary Surratt.
Mary Jenkins Surratt was a Catholic, having converted before her marriage to John Surratt in 1840. Everyone who had rooms in her house was a Catholic. Her son John, Jr.—who escaped capture and trial for a time by seeking sanctuary in a Montreal church rectory and then as a Papal Zouave—was a Catholic... Another accomplice, David Herold, had studied at Catholic colleges including Georgetown. Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set Booth’s broken leg, was a Catholic.
So far we only have a bunch of confederate sympathizers who happen to be Catholic.
so where do the Jesuits come into this?
fast forward to Charles Chiniquy's theory of Lincoln's Assassination. Why would the Jesuits do such a thing? Because Lincoln had once been hired by him as a lawyer to defend him against libel charges.
duh.
Does one sort of wonder at the grandiosity of a person making such a claim? Why would Jesuits do this to revenge a guy who was in trouble not just with the law but with his bishop, and who later made a living writing Anti Catholic propaganda?
Nope that doesn't make sense... But hey conspiracy theorists don't have to make sense: they just cherry pick some details and weave the story from one sided minor details to confirm their prejudices.
And back then, lot of folks back then automatically believed Catholics were bad in the same way that there are lots of people out there who hate Muslims or immigrants with brown skin, not for their deeds but because a small minority of them commit crimes.
But like in today's world, conspiracy theory theorists can get rich off by pushing their ideas.
Indeed, Chiniquy made a good living being a professional anti Catholic at a time when anti (Irish Catholic) immigration feelings were high, and his paranoid fantasies continue to be recycled by professional Anti Catholic Jack Chick.
Irish Central has an article about the anti Irish/anti Catholic hysteria at that time helped the public assume Mary Surrat was guilty:
backstory: Her silence enabled her son, who was involved in earlier plots but not in this one, escape.
so a Catholic conspiracy, or just a loving mother willing to do so that her son escape a lynch mob mentality of the courts?
Urban fighting is one of the most dangerous fight in a war. Buildings can hid snipers, boobytraps, etc. but as soldiers go house to house, the attacking soldiers need to watch out for innocent civilians hiding for safety in these buildlings.
Ah, but what do you do when the departing soldiers deliberately kill these civilians? That is what happened in Manila.
After the Japanese left, they headed north to the mountains to hide, and later battles in rural jungles was terrible but not given a lot of publicity.
The Japanese soldiers, often starving, would attack villages for food, killing everyone. If the soldiers tried peacefully to ask for food, villagers, knowing about the murders in other villages, often would given them poisoned food.
Sigh.
My husband's brother and cousin were guerillas who hid in the mountains and helped the American armies.
My husband was still a young teen, but at the end of the war, his brother recruited him and other teens to patrol the towns to keep people safe.
I post this to remind people two things: One: that a similar house to house battle would have happened if the Allies had to invade Japan, hence the willingness of President Truman, who after all was a battle veteran of World War I to drop the atomic bomb. And two: this was genocide. And the genocides of the Japanese against civilians is often left out of the history books.
Dvorak's New World Symphony remains popular, but this sad excerpt is now played (and sung) as the hymn Going Home:
the sad melody had lyrics put to it, and is often played or sung at funerals: LINK
you might remember it being played at Regan's Funeral but most famously in the funeral scene from A Clear and Present Danger.
here is the melody without the singing:
.
..
The Symphony has many musical influences: this NPR article points out how it is influenced by Black Spirituals and American folk songs.
(And don't forget to donate to NPR: I may object to them getting tax dollars due to their obvious bias, but I do support their being able to articulate a liberal point of view without the vehemence of certain US Cable channels.)
the Chinese vessels (navy, coast guard, civilian vessels that do the dirty work for that government) have been harasssing Filipino ships (both coast guard and civilian fishermen) for years and it has been getting worse.
At one point, CCG 3104, which was pursuing the Suluan at high speed, executed a dangerous maneuver from the vessel’s starboard quarter, causing it to collide with PLAN Warship No. 164.
The collision left the CCG ship’s forecastle or its forward part heavily damaged and unseaworthy, according to Tarriela.
but of course this is the Philippines: The Philippine Coast Guard offered them aid for anyone who was injured in the incident.
.....
And this being the Philippines, the local wags were busy joking about the incident.
...
China went for the kill, but Philippines scored 2!
An important read from Prof. Netta Barak-Corren in the WSJ.
It isn't just Gaza.
"In every conflict I have studied—Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Ethiopia and Gaza—the same aid trucks double as cash machines for warlords, militias and authoritarian regimes." pic.twitter.com/vhvXDk7ZHR
see previous post about the dilemma of do gooders in a time of civil war.
When I worked in Africa, when the insurgents controlled the roads, we would send a message that we would be fetching supplies on a certain day, and we would get a list of supplies (mainly food and medicine) and where to drop it off during the trip.
But in Gaza, Somalia, and many other areas, the rich war lords rely on naive do gooders not just for supplies but for money. And thanks to Al J and Qatar and European and other leftists, they get away with propaganda to tug at your heart so you don't recognize they are diabolical narcissists manipulating you so you can forget that they started the war and they are prolonging the war and they are endangering the locals with hiding weapons in civilian areas and stealing food aid for their soldiers, not to mention the hostages they keep illegally.
Giving them help will prolong the war and more people will die in the long run of course, but if you need antibiotics and bandages for your clinic, what is your alternative? And if you want to help the starving, do you cooperate with evil to help them?
By the way: This is the dilemma of the Jesuit in the movie and book Silence, where a Jesuit denies Christ and tries to persuade others to deny Christ so they won't be killed in horrible ways.
And this is the dilemma of aid to many war torn areas of the world: Gaza is in the headlines because those in charge are cynically skilled at manipulating the press, but we see this in several African countries, Burma (northern tribes and Rohingye refugees), etc. Even here in the Philippines, we had many do gooders (both foreign and locals) kidnapped by Islamic terrorists for ransom: refusing to pay slowed down this lucrative business, but not all countries and families cooperate with the no ransom rule.
However, that said, when these do gooders deny one of the side effect of their actions is that they are aiding those who are making war on civlians, we have a problem.
And when these do gooders and NGOs even cooperate with the propaganda of thugs who openly admit that mass murder is part of their plan, then we have cooperation with evil.
So my granddaughter is coming home for a visit, and since we as a family watch TV/movies after dinner, there is a discussion on what we should watch.
Her father knows that she likes cooking gourmet food and has his sense of humor so suggests we watch The Bear (miniseries about a restaurant), but her mother is very religious and suggests we watch the Chosen.
Nope, I texted her back: that series was dumb.
Actually since I only watched the first film, I am probably wrong, but when actors think and act as if they were present day Americans, I can only shake my head in despair. For the past was another country, and the way people thought was different.
and most so called "religious" films are cliche ridden and boring.
Yet one does see main line movies that explore themes of religion, either openly or implicitly.
For example, the Lord of the Rings assumes a Christian world view: Fellowship, friendship, self sacrifice, despair, desire for power, and ironically more explicit in the film than the books, the power of prayer (Arwen's prayer heals Frodo and later saves Aragorn, and Galadriel appears to Frodo when he is in despair.
Riverdale is like the monasteries of the middle ages, holding the records of the past, but also centers of prayer that keep hope alive in a darkening world.
But there are some films with religious themes that do ask the questions that echo what we face in today's world.
The Mission is one. Maybe because I have worked in areas where one has to confront such things, the plot questions: What do you do when confronted with evil? Take up your sword and defend the weak, or oppose them with passive resistance and prayer?
And the film brings up other situations that make one think about choices:
Can the unforgivable sin be forgiven? Can you forgive your enemy who has enslaved your family?
Another character, this one from history not fiction, is Romero. His story is told in two films: One Salvador by Oliver Stone from a socialist viewpoint, and one told from the point of view of the Christians who confronted political evil: Romero.
Actually I can't watch the film, because of the segment where a priest is traveling with civilians and killed. Some of my friends were killed this way when I worked in Africa.
But there is a powerful scene about how does one confront evil?
Liberation theology was popular among some American missionaries in the 1980s: like the DeNiro character in the Mission, they said pick up your sword and fight. Most of them safely got thrown out of the country and left behind chaos...Ah, but how many considered that maybe the ordinary folk just wanted to live in peace.
In contrast to the glitzy ego gratifying activism of the SJWs, another alternative: You do your work to help, and you oppose it with your witness.
There is a scene in the middle of the film where soldiers have taken over a church, and desecrated it. They even threw the Blessed Sacrament (the sacramental bread) on the floor to be trampled on.
Archbishop Romero goes in and quietly asks them to leave and they laugh and throw him out. He then returns and starts to collect the sacrament, and again he is thrown out. He then leaves, and the local people watching quietly look at him in despair.
But then he returns, and he is wearing the signs of being a bishop. And he quietly marches to the church, and the locals follow him... and the soldiers leave and the church is cleansed.
And that is what it means to be a Christian: to wrestle with what God wants you to do.
Those who objected to the VietNam war but didn't object to the atrocities when the communists won, or those who object to Israel's war in Gaza but don't want to face what would happen if you let these terrorists win (even though the 300 thousand dead in the Syrian civil war shows what happens when you let fanatics win).
Similarly, what do you do when, in the name of being a freedom fighter, thugs try to take over the country while the leaders get rich off of kidnapping, murder, and drugs? The story of Colombia trying to settle amnesties with FARC is instructive here. Or you can read the book on how Magsaysay overcame the Huk rebellion.
Letting the communists win results in massacres and concentration camps and ethnic cleansing at worst, or at best the murderous chaos as is now happening in Haiti? Do you support them in the name of human rights, as we saw too many missionaries in Central America do in the 1980s and tried to do here in the Philippines, ignoring what would happen if they won? Or do you support tough love, despite the violence and killing, so that you can make a society where ordinary people can be safe, as in El Salvador or as Duterte partly did here in the Philippines? Or do you cry human rights and let those who chose evil take over society, as the liberals naively are doing in Gaza, because they don't see the propaganda behind the war is about hating western civilization and destroying it?
Don't ask me: I am a physician not a revolutionary.
As a result of his experiences in the Second World War as a whole, Cheshire dedicated his life to peace and justice, defining it as ‘not just the absence of war or armed confrontation...peace is the effect, or consequence, of justice...we move towards peace proportionately as we succeed in removing injustice, particularly the injustice of mass starvation, and deprivation.’
,,,,
This charity is not well known in the USA: ironically I did not read about it in a book on hospice or medical pioeneers, but in Paul Brickhill's book The Dambusters.
and then there is this: again from Wikipedia:
Cheshire's adoption of the Roman Catholic faith (in 1948) had nothing to do with the bombing of Nagasaki:[23] "Many assumed that it was Nagasaki which emptied him; as Cheshire kept pointing out, however, it was the war as a whole. Like Britain herself, he had been fighting or training for fighting since 1939"
Cambodia and Thailand have agreed to an "immediate and unconditional ceasefire" following peace talks
Malaysia's leader Anwar Ibrahim said the ceasefire would take effect from midnight local time, adding: "This is a vital first step to a de-escalation and a restoration of peace and security".
... The talks were held after US President Donald Trump asked both nations to agree to a ceasefire as a pre-condition to their respective trade talks with Washington
Trump to host Armenia-Azerbaijan leaders at the White House tomorrow to sign a peace deal granting the US exclusive rights to a new transit corridor, the TRIPP, reshaping the South Caucasus region.
....
--------------------------
and there are rumors... true? False flag?
🇺🇸🇷🇺🇵🇱 Trump team’s secret offer to Moscow leaked?
According to Polish outlet Onet, Moscow received a favorable ceasefire proposal from Trump’s circle, allegedly coordinated with European powers.
Since I have had no contact with American medicine since I retired 20 years ago, I have posted this: would this attitude, that doctors should be healers, not SJW, and learn compassion on a person to person basis, help the problems I read about in medicine in the USA?
and could you see how such an attitude could help the clueless bioethicists who are not recognizing this aspect of being a human would go against the present bioethicists who proclaim we should use helpless handicapped humans as a resource to help the powerful, not as our brothers and sisters who should be cared for?
By the way; here, in the local private hospital where our relatives work and where we get our medical care (e.g. when I had dengue or Joy needed surgery), the family stays with the patient and they will send meals for the family. Even during Covid, when isoltion rules meant no visitors, when Joy's father was in ICU in a coma, they allowed a relative to stay with him.
First class medicine is available in Manila, and these resources are moving up to the rural areas. Our mayor is trying to upgrade our rural public hospital but right now is short of 24 hours ER coverage, so you might have to go to a private hospital or to the public (free) hospital in the next town.... And if you need admission for specialized care (either private or public) you have to to the big town 10 miles away.
the other thing not mentioned: A lot of the doctors and midwives are underpaid so expect a gift...
Covid sort of destroyed what was being done in the past: the city had started giving out free rabies shots and medicine for the elderly, but now often I am asked for the ten dollars to pay for the rabies shots if there has been a dog bite.
There will be free shots for dogs in the poorer neighborhood, my maid tells me, but there are a lot of street dogs so the risk remains.'
one more thing: No, medicaid does not pay for my care here. I do have PhilHealth but the rest if out of pocket payment. But the expenses are cheaper than in the USA, even in our Manila hospitals.
hu6 mainstream medicine is embracing hallucinogens and new age techniques yet the comfort of a believer praying has been ignored. What is described is basic Catholic comfort care.
On the Radar
'Housewife superspy' Stella Rimington, 1st female head of MI5 dies at 90
Rimington, who led MI5 from 1992 to 1996, was widely believed to be the inspiration behind the female role of M in the James Bond movies, played by UK star Judi Dench...
"As the first avowed female head of any intelligence agency in the world, Dame Stella. broke through long-standing barriers and was a visible example of the importance of diversity in leadership," the current MI5 director general Ken McCallum said in a statement.
“On becoming the first female Director General of MI5, did you experience imposter syndrome?”
Dame Stella: “HELL NO! I earned my seat at the table, and if there was something I didn’t know, I bloody well learned it”
but the real news is about Drones. StrategyPage article about this for later reading: LINK
Most American military personnel have experience with video games and the common types of game controllers. As the Ukrainians already did, the Americans are also telling the troops to use their video game skills as they train to use the drones they are now being issued.
so your kid playing video games in the basement may now be the solution to the next war.
Reminds me of how the US military during World War II had an advantage because most of them knew how to drive a truck.
the sacrifices of our overseas workers is often overlooked in a world that strsses money success, ambition, and getting aheard by bullying others.
Our family includes many overseas workers, including my husband who migrated to the usA to support his extended family after his brother died, and the Filipino caregivers and nurses work all over the world. Much of our family have migrated: and live in the USA, Australia, Canada, or the UK where they are now citizens of their new country. Other relatives and neighbors have worked mainly short term contracts in HongKong, Macao, Thailand, the UK, or in Saudi, Kuwait etc. or as sailors on ships. Others work as drivers, electricians, construction workers or factory workers.
Their family supports the extended family here: paying the school fees so the children can go to college or trade school, and to lift their family out of poverty, often including building a decent home.
nor is this limited to FIlipinos: My Mexican American, Colombian are doing the same thing.
So when Trumpieboy says he wants to tax money overseas workers send home, please remind him that they sacrificed to earn this money. Send hom those who illegally entered the USA especially who have criminal or drug conntections, but remember many come to work so they can help their families, not to live off of welfare. Most prefer legal ways to immigrate but when Biden essentially opened the border, many decided to do it more easily (lots of screening and paperwork are needed and also a job offer to migrate legally)..,
I play this all the time. And it has an interesting history... and has similarities to the theme of Jaws? Huh? yup. the da duh da duh da duh at the beginning of the piece.
Dirkdeklein explains why it is so popular among middle level piano students:
Technically, “Für Elise” is approachable for intermediate pianists, which has contributed to its popularity as a learning piece...
and he explains it's popularity in popular culture;
Beyond the concert hall and practice room, “Für Elise” has permeated global culture. It is heard in countless films, television shows, advertisements, and even cell phone ringtones. Its familiar melody can evoke a range of emotions, from nostalgia to tranquility, depending on the context in which it appears.
In educational contexts, “Für Elise” often marks a milestone in a young pianist’s development, representing a transition from beginner to more advanced repertoire.
More in this video: and he discusses how the revised version is more melodic and fancy, yet it is the straightforward original version that remains more popular.
When I got my first driver's license, a friend warned me not to elect to be an organ donor. "Dude, they're going to try to declare you dead before you are to harvest your organs." I thought that was the stupidest, most paranoid conspiracy theory I'd ever heard.
I have worked in war zones, and this angers me because it is distorting what is going on to stay in power,
and the more they get their useful idiots (to use Stalin's term) to parrot the propaganda to get allies to their side (they support Hamas out of compassion because they believe the propaganda), the less they will be willing to negotiate an end to this war, and the more people will die.
This reminds me of the propaganda about Viet Nam, where the lies ignored both the corruption of the south's government and the open atrocities of the North Vietnamese soldiers who were fighting to impose communism. The naive were manipulated and pressured the US withdrawal thinking the result would be peace, but where as soon as the war ended, the MSM and the public looked the other way while millions were killed, died fleeing, or put into concentration camps by the communists.
Indeed, with the Europeans now not only condemn Israel for non existant genocide, they are saying they want a Palestinian state by those very same murderers who started the war and stole aid money to buy weapons to go to war.
The Europeans, unlike the other Arab countries are not stating who should run it. But what is worse, by playing into their cynical manipulation/psychological warfare, they essentially are encouraging, Hamas to leave the negotiations for peace last week, and hence prolong the war and suffering of their people. Because hey, they are essentially outsiders who are puppets of Iran's plans to take over the Islamic world, and don't care for their people.
98% of global outlets use the death toll figures provided by Hamas.
And Hamas would never lie, would they?
Even then, Hamas’s numbers — under 60,000 fatalities, three quarters of them are men between 13 and 55 — do not satisfy the anti-Zionist true believers.
In other words, most of the dead are militry age men, or soldiers, not civilians. But of course this is ignored by the True believers.
In a manner reminiscent of the unstoppable global warming hype, a group of activists took it upon themselves to extrapolate from projections.
italics mine.
Last summer, the British magazine Lancet published a statement speculating that the total number of fatalities could be as high as 186,000.
Lancet is not merely a British magazine, but used to be an esteemed medical journal, and traditionally medical journals are supposed to be scientifically accurate. But in the last 30 years, these journals (Lancet, BMJ, NEJM, JAMA9 have allowed activists to publish politically biased articles to manipulate the public not just here but in the Gulf war and Covid.
The author Martin McKee soon admitted that the figure is “purely illustrative.”
translation: Made up.
His piece was not an article, but a non-peer reviewed letter.
In other words, no one checked his data. And no one bothered to point this out as his opinion was pushed as fact by the MSM.
Nonetheless, it made headlines and gave Anti-Zionists an opening to say that, according to the most prestigious medical journal in the world, the number of casualties in Gaza is much higher than reported....
this is not the only time that the "most prestigious medical journal in the world", i.e. Lancet was behind a hoax to push a psyop for the powers that be.
Lancet publishing a letter that Covid was not a lab leak? How dare you suggest maybe Chinese lab was careless (even though there had been other known lab leads in China in recent years).
Place Fauci and Big Pharma conspiracy theory here. In the past it was the Democrats who would have noticed and investigated this, and lucky for the USA, RFK Jr., a Democrat, is willing to do this for Trump, an ex Democrat...
Nor is this scandal an isolated case:: even science Magazine noted the biased ar icles against drugs that could treat covid.
The same here, and the same thing happened in reviewing using medicines to treat covid: Bad data, but hey Trump pointed out that maybe these medicines should be used, so the journals decided to itnore science becuse orange man bad.
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and another hoax that is being trumpeted is against the US/Israel food distribution.
The other NGOs are mad because this was started because they cooperated with Hamas, i.e. let them smuggle in weapons with the food, and also let them steal the food and sell it for a profit.
A good reporter would notice this, but hey most of AlJ's reporters and the NGO reporters are Hamas patsies.
again from LI:
In late May, Hamas began alleging that the Israeli Defense Forces were firing on Gazans congregating near GHF distribution points, killing hundreds.
I believe the source of this hoax was some deaths shooting rioters who were attacking the food distribution center. So there is a splinter of truth.
But of course like the civilian deaths, it is being distorted out of context and with exaggerated numbers.
Despite the fact that every Gazan has a cell phone, no such event has been documented. Pallywood didn’t bother to fake videos of the diseased or stage funeral processions.
Israel’s own footage confirmed that no bullets were fired at the crowd at the time of alleged massacres.
Yet plenty of recordings of Hamas stealing aid and abusing Gazans are flooding social media. Hundreds of trucks worth of aid are left undistributed.
In the meanwhile, the aid supposed to be given out by the UN and the NGOs is just sitting there. Why?
Although the IDF found no signs of it, some observers believe that the terror group is trying to engineer a famine in the areas it controls in order to create diplomatic pressure on their neighbor.,,
and here it the way the heirs of Walter Duranty are imitating their hero:
Western media today is increasingly allied with Qatar’s Al Jazeera on the question of Jews.
Media malpractice is nothing new, but when people are being lied to like that, it’s usually because they are being prepped for a genocide.
not just of Israel but of Jews world wide. One only has to look at what happened in universities against students because of their Jewish ancestry.
And alas even the Catholics are in on spreading the hatred: The Pope accepted the lies of Israel destroying a church (which didn't happen: a photo shop showed smoke from a nearby fire and focused the photo as if the church was burning). Well, I know from experience that the Catholic church is full of leftist idieologues who want to take over the church. But here, unlike the Latin mass and pedophile controversies, the Trads are also full of anti Semites who seem to believe long debunked conspiracy theories about the Jewish community.
