Bite the hand that feeds you then pretend you did no harm.

 The transgender madness had infiltrated society in a way that resembled group hysteria behind the witch hunts or the group hysteria behind the Tulip Mania.

 What made it worse for those of us living in the Third world was how the US/EU/UK and big business were pushing it on us. Pope Francis called this cultural imperialism, and I agree.

Even the Cass Report that exposed the fraud was criticized not just by the usual leftist journals but by the BBC and  Scientific American.

This of course is not the only hysteria in recent years: Dr Campbell who vlogs on public health and Covid deceptions has this explanation of the phenomenum:

 

But the trans hatred silenced anyone who opposed it, and the pressure to stay quiet despite experience in the past resulted in the silencing of anyone pointing out that this grooming of depressed often gay kids into becoming trans was an artificial phenomenum with no scientific basis...

 and to make things worse, parents were often pressured to agree by threatening them to be the cause of  their child's suicide if they refused to allow the treatments.

these aggressive attacks on the heretics who refused to go along with the trans hysteria was not limited to mean tweets, but morphed into people losing jobs and death threats to those who dared to point out this was a fad that harmed people, especially girls.

with the shootings of Christian schools/churches by trans  (or in Kirk's case, a friend of a trans) who seemed to be encouraged to act on their anger by some on the internet,  the mania has morphed from mean tweets, being fired or losing friends, into murder.

And the huge number of normal people who gleefully celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk shows a more disturbing problem, one backed by polls, showing that a large minority would approve of similar murders of those refusing to bow to the fad.

In Kirk's case, what is worse is the lies by activists that misquoted him and pushed a fake narrative about what he said to justify his murder.

The quiet outpouring or prayer, not riots, following his death may or may not have  popped open the delusional bubble, but one hopes it might be a turning point.

Which brings up to JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series.

 

Mark Twain once wrote: “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”

JK Rowling dared to take a stand against transgender craze based on her personal experience of being poor and not part of the establishment....her protest against the trans agenda was not against individuals who just wanted to live and let live, but on those pushing the agenda on others in a way that harmed women: by forcing women to be unable to have privacy or forcing them to compete against a trans whose muscles and bone structure give them an unfair advantage against women. And this doesn't even include the perverts in who claim being transgender to be peeping Toms or who get arousal by exposing themselves to young girls.,.

The vitriol against Rowling was terrible, but what was worse was the threats of violence against her and her family. She made a lot of people rich with her writings, including the actors in her films. Yet when the social shaming of Rowling started, even when the death threats were very real, none of them bothered to even tweet support for her or protest against those who threatened her.

It came to the head when several of those who literally became rich and famous due to Rowlings gleefully joined those trying to destroy her reputation, income, and even her life.

But now that the tide is starting to turn against this group hysteria, one of them figured a short private note would wash away literally years of this betrayal.

Rowlings did not become a best selling author by being quiet, so the entire story is here on X;

I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points.

I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should… https://t.co/c0pz19P7jc

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 29, 2025

...

a short excerpt

Emma's 'all witches' speech, and in truth, that was a turning point for me, but it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself.

Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence 'I'm so sorry for what you're going through' (she has my phone number).

This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family's safety... 

Rowlings then goes on to point out something that is taboo to mention in the UK: class prejudice. The dirty little secret behind the silence against the rape gangs there is the abused girls were mainly working class whites. So the government officials, even the Labour party which was founded to support the working class, did not intervene.

 And Rowlings throws this fact into the hypocrite's face:

Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is. '

She'll never need a homeless shelter. She's never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I'd be astounded if she's been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her 'public bathroom' is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who's identified into the women's prison?

....I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges... 

 

the horrors of war and one man's response to what he saw

Lots of stories out there about the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

And here is one small story about one of those who observed this even from the air.

Leonard Chesire was a RAF pilot who was an observer of the dropping of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.  

but it was not just that one event, but the misery of the war that inspired his work with the sick.

from Wikipedia:

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"

 

Philippines gift to the world

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)..,

Family news

 heavy rain from thunderstorms every afternoon/evenning.

The problem? The heavy rain has washed away the recently planted rice, so Kuya and his contract farmers will have to replant it.

No floods in this area yet. It is not a typhoon as much as heavy monsoon rains, which are also behind reports of floods in China, Indian, Texas and New Mexico.

I put that last part in because I once owned a house in Ruidoso, on a slope, and there was a creek ten feet lower than the house. But on inspecting the house, I found dried mud almost at the top of the foundation, so I actually bought flood insurance just in case.

My area of Ruidoso was in the pine woods area, but upstream a fire years before had denuded the mountains so that meant the rain might run off in stead of being absorbed.

Here, the river is not near, and our house is on high ground, but even we were under two feet of water after an irrigation dam ruptured after one typhoon. I should explain, the flood is not just when it rains here, but from rain water in the mountains not too far north of here which drains south through our area on the way to the coast.

I also lived in the Johnstown PA area, and although that was years after the 1977 flood,  and  the city garage near the creek had a line 9 foot up saying: Flood level 1977. 

People simply don't recognize how dangerous such floods are, or how vulnerable they are if they walk or drive in what would usually be seen as shallow water (i.e. 3 feet deep).

Rescue stories coming out of there show a lot of local heroes risking their lives to save others, but probably won't get much publicity.

 Sigh... instead the MSM will politicize it to criticize Trump for cutting funds from the government weather organizations, cuts which won't go into effect until the next fiscal year in October, but hey since when does truth matter?

Sigh.

Well, anyway, since all our cats died a few years ago we have mice (and rats), and the mice get into the bedroom to eat clothing: They seem to like cotton, either to eat or to make a nest inside our clothing drawers.

We put out traps, and filled the small holes they use but the last mouse I saw crept thorugh the small hole where the internet cable came through the ceiling. So it's an ongoing problem.

Today's mouse problem? Two days ago, when Joy came back from a meeting, she turned on her air conditioner and a horrible odor came out: a dead mouse was inside, but we couldn't find it. So today we got three men to fix it, but they had to take the airconditioner apart to find it, and so while they were at it, they suggested we pay a little more, and they are cleaning it.

In the meanwhile, the female dogs are getting out at night looking for other dogs. They aren't yet in heat, but merely checking out the neighbor's dogs. But one of the neighbors complained to me that they were too noisy so please keep the dogs inside. Since the dogs on the living area of our compound tend to sleep in my house, I guess I'll have to try to keep the door (and window) closed.... 

Actually this is good: Our mama dog mates with her brother here, but some of his puppies have suffered from hip dysplasia. So we are hoping she mate with the black dog across the street who seems to be courting her when we take her for a walk. She has mated with him before.

Finally, Joy has gotten an award for her work with organic rice business.

Congratulations.

Dogs and horses saved the day

with millions of unscreened migrants let in by Biden's policies, it may be only a matter of time that we start seeing diseases not seen in the US for a century start popping up.

 there has been cases of Diphtheria in migrants in Europe. because many of these were not vaccinated in their own country. 

But ironically many who caught diphtheria caught it  in Europe, meaning that there are clusters of mild cases, or carriers, i.e. patients who carry the germ and spread it to others in communities where migrants are living.

 

so far, unlike Europe, the USA seems to be safe from epidemics:

from Grok:

Diphtheria is extremely rare in the United States due to widespread vaccination. ...    

- In 2019, two cases were reported,   (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/diphtheria-cases-in-the-united-states) - 

A 2020 case report described a 33-year-old unvaccinated man in Georgia with respiratory diphtheria, likely linked to his recent incarceration and lack of childhood vaccinations. (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7753149/)

These cases are exceptions, often tied to unvaccinated or under-vaccinated individuals, international travel, or contact with travelers from areas where diphtheria is more common, like parts of Africa, Asia, or conflict zones. The disease remains under control in the U.S. thanks to high vaccination coverage with DTaP, Tdap, or Td vaccines. ...

more here.

 and the bad news is that unless your doctor worked or trained overseas, if you come down with diphtheria, they might not recognize it in time for the correct treatment. 

Of course, if you go to an old fashioned doctor who gives antibiotics for sore throats, you might have it cured before you develop proper symptoms.

what inspired this blog post was a book I ran across while checking Project Gutenberg: a 1919 describing the public health approach to diphtheria.

 And there was a cure: Anti toxin. 

Depending on the way it is treated, diphtheria is one of the least dangerous or one of the most dangerous diseases. It is one of the least dangerous when promptly treated with antitoxin; it is one of the most[8] dangerous when the antitoxin treatment is not given, or is delayed or insufficient.

In the days before we had antitoxin one out of every three children who had diphtheria died. Now, if antitoxin is used on the first or second day of the disease ninety-eight out of every hundred children recover. The sooner diphtheria is attended to the more certain is a cure.

The toxin is the reason for those tough membranes that cause choking. 

 Diphtheria-causing bacteria may produce a toxin. This toxin damages tissue in the immediate area of infection — usually, the nose and throat. At that site, the infection produces a tough, gray membrane made up of dead cells, bacteria and other substances. This membrane can obstruct breathing.

there is also a real danger of myocarditis and neurological complications from the toxin produced by the germ.

Nowadays, there is treatment: antibiotics and anti toxin.

 

Alas, diphtheria is still present here in the Philippines, and seen in various Asian and African countries,    

when I first started medical school in the 1960s, we still had an infectious disease hospital in our city and outside there was a bell. We were told if a child came in choking from the membrane, they could be saved by immediate tracheostomy, so they would ring the bell and any doctor in the area would come to the ER and do it.

And I add: Even though I have lived and worked in third world countries (and in areas of the USA that were essentially third world levels of poverty) I never saw Diphtheria. Maybe because our hospitals also had active outreach to immunize children.

The history of treatment of diphtheria goes back to the 1890s: here:

In 1890, an effective treatment for diphtheria – antitoxin – was discovered by Shibasaburo Kitasato and Emil von Behring in Germany...

more HERE. 

it was made by giving the toxin to horses, starting with a small dose then increasing the dosage until the horse provided lots of antibodies, which then were removed and purified to give to people

Horse serums have a danger of severe allergic reactions that can be fatal, but is available at the CDC: but now newer technology is being used to produce antibodies with a lower danger of allergic side effects. 

the life saving anti toxin became famous after there was an outbreak of diphtheria in Nome Alaska in 1925:

 

Balto, one of the dogs who carried the serum, became the poster child for publicizing that there was a treatment for diphtheria, (but some purists correctly point out that Togo was actually the first dog to arrive with the serum)

Wikipedia article has a lot of details: not a one time delivery, but several deliveries of the needed vaccine.

the Iditarod race commemorates this dangerous sled journey to save lives.

And Balto became the poster dog for those who risked their lives to save the children of Nome.

This blog has the photo of Balto's statue in Central ParkA low-relief plaque bears the words 

“Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxins 660 miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the winter of 1925.”

 ...........................

a longer version of this post is on my medical blog.

The trouble with bureaucracy in disasters::Regulations over reality

I have been through six typhoons since I moved to the Philippines, but only once did we get cut off from electricity, water, internet, and local help for more than a day or two.
  

We lived off of local food and generators for a week; our pump, which we had stopped using because the water level had fallen, was restarted and voila, it worked so we had water.  

So the disaster in the mountains of the Southern USA is worse than what we went through: Because in the USA, the need for backup generators is rare: but here, brownouts are common, so most middle class folk have one.

When disasters strike in the USA, usually local first responders have a plan intact. The local National Guard often has water supplies and the ability to purify water, and often the fire departments are volunteer based and have equipment to help rescue folk; the church groups have food banks and often help distribute supplies and even house those whose homes are destroyed. 

Relatives and friends arrive with pickup trucks full of supplies, the local boaters come in to rescue those in flooded areas, etc. because the outside help often can't get in because of blocked roads.

This is chaotic, and the bad part of this is often supplies are not distributed to where they are needed: Too much aid goes to one area, and no aid to another.

This is the background of FEMA stopping private aid going to the hurricane/flood victims: Their plan is to collect those supplies to make sure that it goes where it is needed, and then distribute it, including making sure all the paperwork is done correctly.

Because to a bureaucrat, the rules and paperwork are the priority: Things have to be done properly.

But as the saying goes: When you are up to your tush in alligators, there is no time to have a meeting on how to drain the swamp.

The bad part about this is that doing paper work to arrange who needs help, and who should get it first, takes time: Sometimes days. 

And in a disaster, time is lives. 

And that is what is going on in all those hysterical stories about FEMA blocking private folks trying to rescue their friends and relatives. Because paperwork and following regulations is more important than reality.

I see we’ve reached the stage of civilizational decline where the sclerotic federal bureaucracy is hamstringing the tech billionaire’s effort to run private disaster relief in the face of government inaction while trapped civilians run out of food and water… https://t.co/9QSXZBIavy

— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) October 4, 2024

Overseas adoptees: Seeking their birth parents

 This article is an AP story from a Japanese Newspaper about children adopted from Korea who now are adults and seeking their birth parents. 

These adoptees are among the 200,000 sent from South Korea to Western nations as children. Many have grown up, searched for their origin story and discovered that their adoption paperwork was inaccurate or fabricated. They have only breadcrumbs to go on: grainy baby photos, names of orphanages and adoption agencies, the towns where they were said to have been abandoned. They don’t speak the language. They’re unfamiliar with the culture. Some never learn their truth.“I want my mother to know I’m OK and that her sacrifice was not in vain,” says Kenneth Barthel, adopted in 1979 at 6 years old to Hawaii....

This is a common theme in K dramas, by the way, but very few US movies or films discuss it properly: often the story is happy happy shiny fantasy, and some are horror movies (the myth of the Bad Seed, i.e. the evil parents legacy to the child)..

In the US, adoptions are common: In my family it includes several cousins, mostly in country adoption but also, like my sons, older children from South America.

My sons were two of a family of six siblings whose parents died, and they remember their parents. I got two of the older boys. Their uncle abused them, so his wife arranged for her friend to take them to the orphanage and say she knew their parents had died and that they had no family. Luckily the uncle didn't bother to answer the ads looking for their family, nor did their siblings, at least one of whom was adopted in the same city and old enough to read the paper. The younger ones were taken in by friends or family: the youngest, a baby, was lost, but last year his cousin discovered the family living in Cali, about 100 miles from their town, so my son flew down to meet her. He also searched genetic databses and found a cousin, born blind, who had been adopted by a family in Minnesota, and met her also.

In the USA, it is almost impossible to adopt a baby: Most are kept by mom ,or aborted. Most of these children, if mom can't care for them ,are cared for by the grandparents until Mom is old enough to care for him or her, or if she descends into drug addiction, often the family will rescue the child who ends up being raised by grandparents or other family members.

Alas this means that often mom is an addict, and it takes years to legally free the child to be adopted, and by then, often the child has scars and attachment problems.

The rule that says to try to place children with parents of the same race. This is good, since after the TV show Different Strokes, there was a lot of upper class white people who wanted a black child, often to show they were liberal. American Indians have the same problem: And then the child, just like adopting older children from overseas, has to adjust to a different culture.

how to teach rebellious kids, Somali style

 My granddaughter Ruby was teaching a summer enrichment type camp near NYC, and before coming home, she visited her college classmates in Minneapolis.

One of them, a young man, is teaching a middle school history class there.

So you have to teach a bunch of Somali kids in middle school, at the age when kids are just starting their rebellious teen years, and of course might not respect a non Somali teacher.

What do you do? 

When his Somali kids started acting out and dissing him, instead of sending them to the principal or trying to ignore their behavior, he did several things.

First, he met with their parents. 

Second, He arranged his cellphone to become a cam to stream the classroom to any parent who wants to watch what is going on.

and third, when a kid started acting up, he phoned the parent and had them talk to their son.

American parents probably would be more busy at work and their kids might just ignore them if they told them to settle down, but Somali culture is family oriented and strict, and the kids will obey the parents or else.

(Italics mine).

And it worked.

Building on the strength of the community is part of the job of a good teacher.

 

blame the only guy who tried to stop him

Hmm.... everyone knew that this guy was running around with a gun, but only the parking lot cops took it on themselves to check if he was on the roof. Alas, no ladder so was unable to get out his gun while holding on to the roof, so he fell. But hey, it let the big shots who should have been doing the actual protection and chasing the guy/getting up on the roof to stop him pretend it wasn't their job.

So they point fingers and blame the local cop, who apparently was the only one who actually was willing to go beyond his area of responsibility to stop the kid.

He didn't manage (the shooter got off shots before the parking lot traffic cops could get back up there), but unlike all those experts, he tried: And he did alert others, who took their time to shoot him and of course no one bothered to tell the guys on stage that Trumpieboy should not go onto the stage for some reason.

Place conspiracy theory here.

 

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