Rejecting the Christmas Child

We like to watch older movies at Christmas, because alas, too often today's Chrismas movies  rarely have a  nativity scene in them, let alone have their people actually go into a church to celebrate the birth of God who came to earth as a baby.

William Morris: adoration of the Magi

I'm not sure if ignoring the religious idea behind Christmas is done so as to not upset nonbelievers who might not watch their film, or if it is because the writers/directors etc really don't believe that there is a God and see the religious aspect as a naive myth, or, alas in a world where half the USA backs a political party that sees killing an unborn child up to and shortly after birth is a good thing, that too many media elites just don't want to celebrate the idea that when the God of the universe decided to live as a human being, he chose to do so in a working class family who was temporarily homeless due to the political mechanations of the Roman emperor.

Or maybe the religionless Christmas movie is because they prefer to push the religion of consumerism that stresses buying gifts, and they dislike being reminded that maybe a baby is God's gift to it's parents, even if the child is born in a poor family, or to remind one that even an imperfect child is a gift of God.

I suspect this is the reason that CNN chose Christmas to assure late term abortion is okay because a Christian couple changed their mind about abortion after they aborted a viable fetus (because it was imperfect).

And presumably the MSM also will publish oodles of articles assuring people that Christianity is false or that Christians will be a minority soon (ignoring that many of those illegally migrating to the USA are Christian), or insisting that Christians really don't believe in Christ anymore. Nyah Nyah Nyah to you deplorables.

True, many of these people behind this anti religion onslaught are good folk and give money to helpful causes, but they do have a blind spot: in their hearts they don't recognize how most of us see the story of Christmas through the eyes of ordinary life.

From NR via instapundit:

Its most famous line opens the song, and lodges in my cranium without asking permission: “And so this is Christmas/And what have you done?” Those ten words have enough hubris to inflate the Hindenburg.

It’s as if ordinary folk somehow should justify themselves to a 1960s–1970s rock star....the easy response from normal people...  can be imagined as follows, perhaps from a single mom: “Oh, I don’t know, John — I’ve been raising three kids, caring for my aged Mom, and working double-shifts at the coffee shop to pay the bills. You?”

Other responses to imagine: From a Second World War veteran: “I fought my way on to Omaha Beach and survived D-Day — and the rest of the war, but many of my friends did not. We beat the Nazis, which is what mattered even more despite the sacrifices.”

Or imagine the response from a steelworker, miner, or farmer: “Endured another grinding day at the foundry/shaft/farm, this to afford the mortgage and Christmas presents.”

Ordinary folk serve God in the duties of their daily life, and the good emphasis on going good deeds is fine, as long as, as Jordan Peterson reminds young men: First clean your room before you remake the world.

So caring for family and friends is more important than flashy altruism, especially at a time when many folks all over the world face financial problems in making ends meet. And this idea is why many ordinary folk accept that child who unexpectedly arrives or who is imperfect: because they trust in God's plan and accept that child as a blessing,

One can of course sympathize and in one's secret heart agree with a couple who chooses to end their child's life before birth rather than to watch their baby die slowly of heart disease.

But as anecdotal stories out of Canada show: Once death is seen as a quick (and cheap) answer to suffering, it is hard to draw the line at when to stop.

As a doc, I have no answer to the problem of pain and suffering, but as one of our wiser teachers in medical school noted: Few physicians are deeply into formal religion, but most believe in God, and believe there is a reason behind all that we see:  because we see people who logically should live a good long life who nevertheless suffer and die. But we also see people who logically should die recover and live. And unless we believe there is an ultimate plan behind each and every life, then our profession has no meaning.

It is our duty to help those in need, but it starts with caring for those in our own family: something that the 48 million caregivers in the US are doing all the time, with little fanfare.

The same thing goes for accepting with love every child who is born. 

A mother has the most important job in the world: To birth a human being who will live in this world and in eternity.

Joey Velasco

That is why a child born in a stable or (as above) in a  garage  at SmokeyMountain, or a thatched hut in rural areas of the world, is just as important to God as is the child of a billionaire with perfect genes and the money to develop their talent.

And maybe it is in caring for these imperfect chilren that we learn the lesson to turn our tears into wisdom:

Author Pearl S Buck said, in a book, of her child who was born mentally handicapped as a result of the metabolic condition called PKU:

“[by] this most sorrowful way I was compelled to tread, I learned respect and reverence for every human mind. It was my child who taught me to understand so clearly that all people are equal in their humanity and that all have the same human rights. None is to be considered less, as a human being, than any other, and each must be given his place and a safety in the world. I might never have learned this in any other way. I might’ve gone on in the arrogance of my own intolerance for those less able than myself. My child taught me humanity.”

 

MRNA vaccine: Vaccine of the future or over hyped?

 I am pro vaccine, because I am old enough to have seen people, mainly children, die of tetanus, whooping cough and measles, cared for people left brain damaged by congenital rubella, and had class mates crippled by polio.

I have also seen side effects of giving vaccinations, especially in the days when we were still giving out smallpox vaccine, and I had a patient who had brain damage from the older pertussis vaccine, but as a whole, the side effects were rare (meaning I read about them, but really didn't have any patients who had problems). And the cost benefit ratio was good: Very few hurt and many many saved.

And as a doc, I know that influenza vaccine sometimes doesn't work (actually what this means is that they guessed wrong when they decided in the spring which strain of influenza would hit in the next winter). And of course, there are actually two influenzas: this article is long but gives the background.

There are retroviral medicines that, if given early, can shorten the course of the disease and can prevent you from getting infected from some strains of influenza.

We get epidemics periodically in medicine: RSV in kids, which we see all the time but some years is worse than other years. Same problem with influenza in adults.  Hospital beds fill up when this happens: but my point is that these things happen all the time, and a lot of time lack of beds is caused by the bean counters deciding we had too many empty beds so closed them and didn't staff these areas.

So right now, the world is facing an outbreak of a new covid strain, plus the usually cyclic influenza and RSV epidemics, and although this is bad, it is nothing unusual.

Covid is the wild card: The newest omicron strain is a mild disease but spreads easier and faster than all the previous strains of covid. And alas the olders shots you got don't protect you so we are being told get a booster.

there are a lot of questions about what is going on in China. The massive shut downs are no longer working . And people are rebelling against the shutdowns. So what is expected is a massive epidemic, and headlines are getting hysterical about all those people dying. Uh, this is China, who has a billion citizens, so there are reports of huge numbers infected (37 million in one day alone)But what about deaths? Again, China is not releasing those numbers 

Update: See end of article for estimates on the estimated deaths rate, which is very low.

The Inquirer quotes one source:

Earlier this week, British-based health data firm Airfinity estimated that infections in China were likely to be more than a million a day with deaths at more than 5,000 a day, a “stark contrast” from official data.

headlines saying 5000 a day.. out of over 30 million cases?

So it's not a high number percentage wise, but because of the huge numbers infected all at once of a very infectious disease it sounds terrible.

but as a comment on the Yahoo news site notes few at his factory are very sick.

and it is scaring China so much that they are buying the MRNA vaccine from Germany to innoculate the high risk people because the dirty little secret is that the Chinese vaccines don't give good protection against this strain, and the latest version of the mRNA vaccine does.

And if the newest, more infectious Omnicron strain is in China, can the Philippines be far behind? 

Two factors in estimating the statistics here: One, everyone is traveling home for the holidays, so will spread colds/flu/covid to their families. Two: Unless they are very sick they will be too busy partying to get tested, so the numbers of cases may underestimate what is going on.

Marcos is asking folks to get a booster that prevents the Omnicron XBB and XCC strain. But whether or not I get it depends if I hear that people are getting sick and dying of it. And I suspect this will be true for a lot of people.

We are having a lot of folks coming here asking for money for their sick kids. Is this RSV, Covid, influenza, or maybe a scam to get money to party?

latest Philippine statistics for covid:

• 850 new cases and 21 new deaths in the Philippines [source]

The hysteria and insistance of the powers that be (i.e. the WHO) to push covid shots to the low risk folks is the real question: This pushing of a vaccine that gives limited immunity to a disease that is not very fatal is causing a lot of people to question why.

For example, 100 thousand people died of fentanyl in the USA last year, but no one is trying to stop that epidemic by threatening the Chinese gangsters that manufacture and sell it to the Mexican cartels.

And here, we had half a million cases of Dengue fever this year (been there, done that) but there hasn't been any major campaigns to encourage people to keep the environment clean of puddles/standing water, and we haven't had the neighborhood sprayed for mosquitoes recently.

There are other diseases out there that can kill you if you live in Africa or Asia;

and one wonders if the emphasis on covid means neglecting other diseases that kill people:

Infectious diseases need a multifactorial approach, but vaccines are the ultimate way to stop an epidemic.

So what is the future of vaccines? 

I have noted that Ebola and other vaccines use newer combinations with benign viruses to enhance the immune response, but now the big thing is the mRNA vaccines, an experimental approach devised by DARPA to allow a very quick response to any new and virulent germ that gets lose.

from a 2017 article at the DARPA website

DARPA aims to develop an integrated end-to-end platform that uses nucleic acid sequences to halt the spread of viral infections in sixty days or less

A benefit of the nucleic-acid-based approach to limiting the spread of infection is that the genetic constructs introduced to the body would be processed quickly and would not integrate into an individual’s genome. Similarly, the antibodies produced in response to the treatment would only be present in the body for weeks to months. This is consistent with DARPA's intent with P3, which is to safely deliver transient immunity to a virus, halting the spread of disease by creating a firewall.

Wikipedia article:has more:

The vaccine delivers molecules of antigen-encoding mRNA into immune cells, which use the designed mRNA as a blueprint to build foreign protein that would normally be produced by a pathogen (such as a virus) or by a cancer cell. These protein molecules stimulate an adaptive immune response that teaches the body to identify and destroy the corresponding pathogen or cancer cells

The plan is that if a new disease pops up, or a new variant of covid, they will be able to develop an.mRNA vaccine quickly (aka "warp speed")

and the technology might also be available for all sorts of influenza, and maybe HIV?

And in the future, the mRNA technique might be used for cancer too? press release

Which brings us to Dr C doing a heads up about Moderna partnering up with the UK government to build an mRNA vaccine manufacturing center for the next epidemic. 

This means oodles of money to fund those wanting to study disease ... but only the PC disease of the year alas. (when I investigated into getting a PhD in public health in the 1980s, I found there was no money for my interest, which was infectious disease, but only grants for cholesterol/obesity research).

which brings up the cynical in me: Follow the money?

The potential for mRNA technology is great, and they are hyping it all over the financial webpages. 

The problem? Is the financial interest the reason behind the censorship of problems with the mRNA vaccines, the censorship of possible cheap cures?

And what about the hysteria pushing an authoritarian power grab by the same government officials who kept your kid out of school but put infected patients into nursing homes  during the covid epidemic has made a lot of people not trust the medical/ public health establishment.

Dr. C, who I expect will be canceled in the near future for being honest, has some questions about all of this: the main item being: will they use people in the UK as guinea pigs to test their vaccines?

,,,,

I guess after the Dengue vaccine kerfuffle here in the Philippines, they won't be able to pressure Marcos into letting our children be used for Big Pharma's experiments....

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update  of data about China: 

,,,,,, https://covid19.healthdata.org/china?.

..

Infections, Tuesday, 37 million

205 million so far (18% of the population)

Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, 50% infected so far

Thursday, cases, + 4,000

Saturday, cases + 4,103

Deaths, + 8

prediction of deaths by experts: Deaths by April 1st = 293,127

Population 1,412,600,000

Infection fatality rate = 0.000207

TV show of the week

Before the days of PC, Peter Falk won an Emmy for this TV show:

Peace on Earth

 

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Peace on earth, good will to those who are coming home

 I was going to paste cranky complaints about the lousy state of the world, including weapons and logistics of war, and the return of the blimp, but hey, it's Christmas.

this means that literally millions of people will be traveling home for Christmas, by air or by roads (buses, jeepneys or private cars)

We are expecting Ruby's roommate here for Christmas. Like Ruby she was doing student teaching (in Korea) and has to be back at college the first week of January, but it was too far and too expensive for her to return to her home in Brazil, so Ruby invited her here.

On Chirstmas eve, usually folks go to the late evening "midnight mass" and come home to a huge meal, called Noche Buena.

I finally got around to putting up Christmas lights. The ones we put up last year are dead so we had to buy new ones: Not many, and they are LED types. 

I shouldn't say I did it: The maid was in charge of buying and putting them up, since the discount store next to our home was out of lights so she had to search to buy them from the Palenke.

The new lights have electronic music, which is nice but after about ten minutes they drive you nuts so I turn them off, except for the lights on our street window, where the switch is inside the window to protect it from rain (only the extension cord is outside, since the plug is in the packing room six feet away).

The traffic here around the palenke (a block down) is terrible, and our cook complained about all the young people in the plaza (next to our place) very early in the monring. They are the kids who attended Simbang Gabi, and instead of going home (schools's out) or to work will stay there are socialize: something that is welcome after a two years of restrictions.

The hysterical warnings are now that the flu is here and lots of cases around.

But flu, like Dengue, is something that is normal, so life goes on normally. It is not like Covid, which did scare people and killed not just the old and infirm (which is normal) but young people. Many of us knew young folks who died, or were very very ill with it.

Back to the sixties

 The Twitterfiles revealed that the Feds were spying on the innocent and manipulating the news.

a lot of this is similar to what was discovered by Senator Church and other Democrats who investigated such abuses back in 1975, but now I guess it's okay because.... TRUMP... or maybe RACISM.../s

But unlike the sixties, now the censors are actually silencing opposition voices, not just in the press but with arrests and threats of losing their job a la the Black list of the McCarthy era. How bad is it in the US and the UK? It's hard to tell from 12000 miles away, but it does give one nostalgia for the days when leftists protested for freedom of speech...

Nor is this limited to universities and businesses: Heck, even Father Pavone was fired for his mean tweets aka blasphemy. 

why is this important? Because the Catholic press has kept liberty and opposition to tyranny alive in many countries, and now by canceling a pro life priest for actually pointing out that Trump protects life, and the Democratic candidates were pushing abortion up to and even after birth, were not.

But naming names and getting into politics is a no no for catholic priests.

And punishing Father Pavone is a shot across the bow warning the US bishops not to openly oppose pro death politicians except in the most obscure way that gently hints that dismembering a partly delivered baby might not be something that Jesus might do.

Harsh language and criticizing those above you is a no-no in the church: Even Mother Angelica got into trouble when she named a certain Cardinal for pushing heresy. He was powerful and a hero to the US press corps (so his coverup of pedophiles was ignored), but she apoligized and the pope stopped her removal. 

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

Much of the news reads like psyops/fake news.

Yes,and not just in the USA, although this hasn't gotten a lot of publicity in the US Msm,...that a the Omidyar network CIA front subsidized Rappler, in order to stop Duterte and his drug war. Killing drug pushers is a no no, but you know, several of our neighbors were killed in home invasion robberies by druggies looking for money. Now it is so safe that Ruby even feels safe coming home from Manila on a bus.

So what does this have to do with the Ukraine?

The Omidyar network was the money that helped destroy the pro Russian president of the Ukraine in the Orange revolution. and replaced him with a very very corrupt president whose bribes to US politicians via family members were only noticed if you listen to Alex Jones or leftie places like the UKGuardian.

The war in the Ukraine is a disaster, on many levels, not just for locals, but for the poor in the Middle East who rely on their grain and the world who need fertilizer to grow high yield crops.

So why not try to get peace? 

Place leftist right wing criticism of the military industrial complex that is making lots of money.

Sheesh. It's back to the sixties again.

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

and by the way: I was not anti war back then, and I recognize that Russian aggression must be stopped, or else it will send a green light to China to invade Taiwan as they did Hong Kong.

And such a takeover, along with their artificial islands (gifted to them by Obama when he pressured PNoy not to stop them when they started building them) means China can block a major maritime route to Korea/Japan/ Eastern Siberia etc.

Japan knows this, and there is a big debate about spending money to enhance their military.

In the meanwhile, China is more aggressively attacking Philippine fishermen and Coast guard off the coast, while destroying the ecosystem and overfishing/decimating the valuable fishing resources.

Phil Inquirer.

INQUIRER.net mga 2 (na) linggo na ang nakalipas LOOK: Dozens of Chinese vessels believed to be operated by militia have been monitored in Sabina Shoal and Iroquois Reef in the West Philippine Sea in recent months, according to a ranking military official. Both features are much closer to Palawan than Julian Felipe (Whitsun) Reef, where the Philippine government has repeatedly protested the presence of massive Chinese militia fleet since 2021.

CONCERNS ON SECURITY’ File photo from 2021 shows Chinese vessels anchored around 320 kilometers west of Palawan. Manila continues to protest Beijing’s presence in the country’s exclusive economic zone. —AFP

Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1707120/palace-mum-on-chinese-vessels-swarming-ph-waters#ixzz7o3pXrA8x

A couple days ago I posted a link to the StrategyPage about how China is sending huge fleets of fishing boats to suck up the fish to the point that could destroy the ability to fish in these area. They swarms "civilian" ships in an area and if locals try to stop them, then their military intervene to save Chinese lives from those terrible aggressors.

And this has happened, not just to the Philippines and Indonesia, but to places as far off as South America.

A suspicious pattern was discovered involving over 800 Chinese trawlers that were scouring the waters within 36 kilometers of the Argentinian EEZ and fishing grounds that contained one of the largest concentrations of shortfin squid in the world. ...This was a minor bonanza for Chinese trawlers but for Argentinian fishing boats these rare squid were worth over half a billion dollars a year. Offshore fishing is big business in Argentina and represents 3.5 percent of GDP.

the last time I looked, Argentina is not within any area that was claimed by China, and no, it was never an area fished by traditional Chinese fishermen.

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Update (DEC 24_) 

Strategy page has an essay relating the Chinese aggression against the Philippines which agrees with much of what I wrote above.

usually I would post this as a separate post, but I must have upset the powers that be, because my log shows only two views of the blog each day (down from 20 a month ago, and down from 30 plus earlier. Some of thie might be because I didn't post when I was sick, but isn't it strange the drop came two days after I posted non PC stuff about covid on the blog?

Christmas is coming: Simbang Gabi

Some Philippine Christmas songs from youtube to anticipate the Christmas season and celebrating the birth of Christ

Christmas is a week away, and here in the Philippines, the practice is to attend mass for nine days before Christmas. This is called "Simbang Gabi" 

.....so what is Simbang Gabi?

MANILA -- Attending "Simbang Gabi" or Misa de Gallo (dawn mass) for nine consecutive days is one of the most distinctive traditions of Christmas in the Philippines. From December 16 to 24, Filipinos from all walks of life make an effort to wake up every dawn to attend the novena masses which start as early as 4 a.m. to pray to God for a healthy life, successful career, stronger family ties, among others....

The mass is before dawn, so the farmers could attend mass before they go to work.

After the mass, here in our town, usualy people gather at the plaza and eat a small meal (and the boys flirt with the girls) before returning home.

no, we don't have a McD near our plaza (just Jolibee and the local food vendors). But in the Philippines, God is part of the family, and eating with family is part of the way we celebrate God as father, Jesus as kuya (older brother) and Mama Mary.

...

watch your head (China's space debris incoming).

 Hmm... 

China has had a few more space launches, and since they can't control reentry and presumably don't want to shoot over areas where no one lives, their junk has again endangered the Philippines.

Phil Star:

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Coast Guard said their officers and local fishermen retrieved on Saturday suspected debris from a Chinese rocket near Subic, Zambales. In a statement on Sunday, the Coast Guard said that its Zambales station believed that the debris consisting of metal and plastic that measured two meters long and four meters wide was from a Long March 5B Rocket launched last October 31 from Hainan, China.

and the story notes other debris found by locals floating in waters near the Philippines.

the good news? At least this time the Chinese military didn't fight the Philippine authorities to grab the debris away from them

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

the terrorism against Filipino fishermen by their unofficial fleets is nothing new, but in recent years China has been doing this all over the world.

the result could be the collapse of the ocean ecosystem and a lack of sea fish.

StrategyPage has a full report.

The Chinese poachers operate in up to a dozen poaching flotillas, each with as large as several hundred trawlers. China uses its global space-based ocean monitoring network to guide the poachers to vulnerable areas, and then warn them when the local coast guard has been alerted and is approaching the poachers.

This state-sponsored poaching operation does not exist officially, but it is real and worldwide. At the beginning of 2022 China had about 3,000 ocean-going fishing trawlers operational. China does not officially reveal much about its growing fishing fleet but more and more foreign countries, as far away as South America, report hundreds of Chinese trawlers showing up just outside, or are caught inside, their maritime EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone).

quick: Listen to the protests of the ecowarrior types...NOT.

I was going to make this a new post, but again I am being shadow banned by someone (search engines?) 

From 40 to 3.

I suspect it was an article on covid, since the last time this happened it was shortly after a critical article on the way the experts are pushing covid stuff...

 

 

Christmas film recommendations

 

The first film about the Walton's was called Spencer's mountain and can be watched on Internet Archives.LINK.

another TV film that you might want to watch is the Price of Tomatoes, for which Peter Falk won an emmy.

One modern Christmas film (not on line but probably streaming) is the film Love Actually, which covers love in several aspects.

Ah, homecomings for the holidays is big here, since so many work overseas to support their children and families at home:

The Family stories of Christmas

 No, I am not watching the Harry and Meghan soap opera on TV.

Poor them. 

I am reminded of my oldest son who started reading a book about a rich Hong Kong family written by the middle girl, the youngest of the first wife, who felt she was neglected by the family and who related a lot of small things that hurt her feelings, such as the family wouldn't pay for expensive meals at her fancy school so she was stuck with ordinary food.

My oldest son was adopted from Colombia as a young teenager, and his comment: why is she complaining so much? She had enough to eat...

One feels the same way about these two poster children of narcissitic parents. They abandoned their job, fled to a nice area of Canada, and when they decided to move back to Hollywood, complained they were essentially homeless and no one would pay for body guards so Tyler Perry had to come to their rescue. Hmmm... I thought Harry had a net worth of 60 million, so don't ask me to feel sorry for him.

Don't they realize that a lot of people are hurting, all over the world, and the covid epidemic made things worse?

Here in the Philippines, we worry because the price of diesel and ferilizer is making cost of growing rice go up, and of course later this means that people who eat rice will have to pay more. (meaning that poor people might not be able to afford rice next year).

The government does help the poor with subsidized rice, But if an emergency such as an accident or illness hits, it can cause severe financial problems.

True,  the city has a free hospital for major illnesses, and a free medical clinic for kids. That helps. But they still have to buy the medicine.

we have a couple people a day coming here for help with medical expenses. I mean, 7 dollars for a rabies shot for a kid bitten by a street dog, or five dollars for antibiotic for your kid with bronchitis, etc. This is not a lot of money, but it is in a country where the minimum wage is under ten dollars a day. And the farmers are usually short of funds because they are between grows (after selling the last harvest, which was poor due to a typhoon, money is tight because they need that money to replant, so cash is short for luxuries like medicines and school supplies).

Sigh.

The way people support themselves here is extended family and friends. 

So when many lost their jobs in Saudi or other middle eastern countries due to covid, a lot of families hurt. 

Things are improving now: yes, I know. Lots of anti Qatar articles about the mistreatment of their foreign workes, but you have to realize that the alternative is starving and no way to improve your life in beautiful eco friendly traditional lifestyle beloved by elite wealthy green types, but seen by the rest of us as a life of poverty and back breaking work.

How do people survive?

The families here in the Philippines care for their own. 

---

This is not just in the Philippines you know: I worked in poorer rural areas in the US for 30 years, and we saw people caring for their families nearly every day.

from the CDC:

22.3% of adults reported providing care or assistance to a friend or family member in the past 30 days. 24.4% of adults aged 45 to 64 years are caregivers ...

If you are tired of superhero/heroine movies, or (worse) the cookie cutter plots of Hallmark films where good looking rich people find romance over age 30, try watching Sam and Kate about two over 30s caring for their aging parents.

No cliches here. And probably too realistic to be a hit.

And unlike Hallmark movies where romantic happy ending with Mr/Ms Right is the aim of the plot, the people here have ordinary problems, and the family members take responsibility for their elders.

And unlike the religionless Hallmark films, they actually quietly attend church as just part of their routine life...(which is where the two families meet, when Hoffman and son offer Spacek and daughter a ride home).

The children are played by the actual Children of the leads (Dustin Hoffman and Sissy Spacek).

So not a happy film per se, but does show the reality of American life, and unlike too many modern films, shows the goodness of ordinary people who are caregivers  

Been there, done that.

And now, after that bout with Dengue fever, I find that I was the one who neded to be cared for by family here in the Philippines.

Bye Bye Birdie, I mean Jin

 The big news here in Asia is that Jin is going to do his military service.

YEONCHEON, South Korea--Jin, the oldest member of K-pop supergroup BTS, was set to enter a frontline South Korean boot camp Tuesday to start his 18 months of mandatory military service, as fans gathered near the base to say goodbye to their star.

Six other younger BTS members are to join the military in coming years one after another, meaning that South Korea’s most successful music band must take a hiatus, likely for a few years.

.

..Here is one of their hits:

.

quite a few K drama/Kpop celebrities have served in the militay there LINK 

...Americans used to have to serve a mandatory military service, but the fraud in the rich getting deferments and controversy over Vietnam made the government change to a voluntary army. So outside of IceT and Gal Gadot, it's hard to find any modern pop star under the age of 70 who has done military service.

But in the past, that was not how it was; the most famous draftee way back when was... Elvis.

They even made a film about it (a loosely disguised retelling of Elvis' stint in the USArmy):

Lies, damn lies, and statistics: did twitter banning make it worse?

 According to Musk's tweets, maybe the coverups of covid, (banning tweets on subjects which were not allowed to be discussed) might be next.

so how is this reported in the news?

From Physorg:

Twitter lifted its ban on COVID misinformation—research shows this is a grave risk to public health

My take? 

That by not allowing discussion, the only place you can find this information is on distorted conspiracy sites, and when people actually see or read of sudden adult death syndrome in the young, they take the problem out of context and exaggerate the risk: and since the experts deny any problem, the end result is that they stop believing in experts.

For at least thirty years I have wished that there were medical discussion on the internet so docs could bring up these questions: But alas we were stuck with slow "letters to the editor" to bring up the questions and of course often these letters never got published.

I don't know if things improved: After Lolo died, I have stopped reading the journals etc. and of course our medical organizations have pretty well be taken over by the woke. I have written about racism in medicine in the past, but the woke i.e. Marxist ideas will probably only make things worse: because they are training you to see a straw man who fits into the marxist ideological box instead of a real person in front of you, a person with flaws and strong points who needs your help.

In the past, docs often were trouble makers because we were a reality based profession. But now we are supposed to fill in the boxes to get paid, and there is a lot less patient continunity, so the patient might not have the same doc for every visit. Indeed, those visits for minor things (which are now often pushed off to nurse practitioners) were the time we got to know our patients with small talk: and so when a major medical problem happened, they knew us and we knew them.

No more, of course.

An GPs who notice strange patterns are told that Medicine based on anecdotal observation is often false, where what actually happens is that we know the multifactorial reasons behind our observation.

Now it seems we have to fill in the blanks and follow the experts or else.

but when there is a filter to stop inconvenient questions in published papers, and the advice by experts is based on a flawed method of analyzing what has already been published, you see there might be a problem.

The experts gather all the studies (both good and poorly done) and then pretend they are all accurate studies, and then make guidelines based on the average of all of these studies, it makes one wonder if the experts know the phrase "GIGO" garbage in garbage out.

Statistics are complicated.

The statin studies of the 1990s were an example. 

So a study reporting, say, a 25 percent reduction in heart attacks if you use X medicine leads to people thinking everyone sould take an anti cholesterol pill... this ignores that these numbers come down to an actual tiny number of cases stopped in the general population... and those studies shows no difference in death rates from all causes (since the treated group had higher incidence of deaths from (one study) cancer or (another study) violence/suicide.)

Docs just scoffed at the news that we should put eveyone on these medicines, but hey we were under pressure to use the medicine for the good of our patients. And the advice kept lowering the cholesterol where we should start treatment. We see a similar exaggeration in lowering blood pressure so far, to the point that our elderly patients are falling down and breaking their hips.

When it comes to covid, there is even more confusion.

Dr. C again risks youtube banning by interviewing an expert in statistics.

I post this partly to listen to it a second time because it is a bit dense, but it does bring up some points one dare not raise.

Main point: what do we mean by absolute risk and relative risk?

To avoid covid hysteria, I am posting this video which predates covid

. 

It would have been so nice if real experts had been able to point these things out without the danger of being banned.

Elon Musk is hinting that he might open the twitter files to see how people got banned etc because they went against the so called experts. 

And I would welcome a twitter where people could actually discuss and put their two cents in.

True, anecdotal medicine often gets things wrong, but you know, a lot of medical breakthroughs come from docs who notice something and report it.

Dr. Malone call your office. You might be allowed to give your opinion soon.

Family news

 I am slowly getting my strength back: Even managed to go to church Sunday, 

Not much in the news, unless one is following the Twitter revelations.

I sort of agree with Ann Althouse here:

...(Musk) doesn't feel mysterious to me at all. It sounds almost exactly the way I feel. So my hypothesis is that he's liberal, he's spent a lot of time around liberals and lefties, and he's got endless problems with the way they've betrayed what, it seems, should be their true values.

Public health does work.

I get annoyed when the anti vax hysteria seems to condemn all public health officials and all vaccines. 

Sheesh. Maybe they need to live in the third world, where epidemics kill folk, but public health and vaccines saves lives.

StrategyPage has a long essay about the various tribal wars in Central Africa/DRC area, and how a Russian mercenary group is looting gold and diamonds to sell via the UAE. 

 But they do have this good news in their report:

November 30, 2022: In western Uganda, the Ebola outbreak that began in September has seen a decline in cases because of rapid medical response. Reported cases have declined but despite that decline, Uganda has closed schools nation-wide in an attempt to curb the spread of the Ebola virus. In November eight children died from Ebola in Uganda. The spread of Ebola to neighboring Congo seems to have been halted.....

Andrew Wefwafa had a series of videos about this

 

.....this was caused by the Sudan variation of the Ebola virus, and the problem is that the vaccines that helped stop the previous epidemics in central Africa were for a different strain. 

Just recently, a new experimental vaccine for this Ebola strain has been sent there. LINK

 

The doses are from the Sabin Vaccine Institute (SVI), according to Reuters. The SVI vaccine is a modified chimpanzee adenovirus (ChAd3) vector vaccine.

note: The adenovirus vector is the technique that was used to develop the british AZ vaccine for covid, and it was also used to develop previous Ebola vaccines .

Health officials had earlier cleared plans to study three candidate Ebola Sudan vaccines. The others are from Merck and Oxford University. 

In the middle of November, a WHO working group recommended that ring vaccine trials prioritize the Merck candidate first, owing to the safety and efficacy of the VSV-EBOV platform used for the Zaire Ebola vaccine, followed by the SVI vaccine, then the Oxford vaccine. A sharp decline in Uganda's Ebola cases presents an obstacle to ring vaccination trials. '

 essentially the disease was stopped by isolation etc. so they will not be able to prove the vaccine works.

 

/sarcasm.

Actually from a scientific point of view, this means that they can't prove it works, but in serioius diseases, when the choice means saving lives, usually the saving lives is more important than purity in scientific experimentation.

I wrote about this awhile back, when I noted that diphtheria anti toxin was so impressive in saving lives that doctors didn't have the heart not to treat children in the "control"group.

There are also ways to stop the spread of disease, such as masks (which keep you from spreading infected saliva when you talk or sneeze), isolation, hand washing etc.

And if you don't want to vaccinate everyone, or if there is not enough vaccine for everyone, you use the "ring vaccination"procedure.

WHO Report.

The ring procedure is to isolate the cases, and vaccinate the ones in contact, then vaccinate the ones who were in contact with the contacts, etc.

.......

cross posted from my Makaipa blog.

December 8, a day that will live in History

Yes, I know: the Pearl Harbor attack was December 7 but here in the Philippines it was December 8. 

 Lolo was a young teen, and when they heard that war had arrived, he helped his mom and cousin walk to the farm (which is four miles from town) and they stayed there for a few weeks. 

 Since the Japanese decided schools should teach Japanese, essentially all the schools were shut down, so Lolo didn't return to school until after the war. 

He was a kid, and the only stories he related to me about those times was that one of the local Japanese soldiers would give the street kids candy. ..but he also related how a "spy" was executed on the street in front of their house. 

Many elites in Manila hoped that the Japanese would give them independence, but that didn't happen... but I wonder if this is why there isn't a lot of rememberance of WWII heroes in the culture. Our town plaza has memorials to both those who fought for independence against the Americans and also one in honor of those who fought in WWII...

 ironically, our family, who had a history of supporting Philippine independence against the Americans, (both Lolo and Kuya were named after Rizal's btother) joined the anti Japanese resistance: Lolo was too young but his older brother and cousin were part of the resistance, hiding in the nearby mountains. 

His Cousin was killed, and his aunts still had a shrine in their house to his memory, with his photo and the letter from Harry Truman thanking him for his service. 

 Sigh. 

The surviving Philippine veterans didn't get a pension until recent years (mainly because of fraud: too many lied about it). Lolo's brother, who fought as a guerilla for several years, was long dead so his family didn't get any of the pension, and Lolo, who only joined at the end of the war and never actually fought, (he mainly did patrols of the local area with his brother) was given a Pension from the Philippine government and help with his tuition for school, but was not eligible for the US funding. 

 One trivia fact: Probably more civilians were killed by the Japanese who were fleeing Manila than were killed in Hiroshima. wikipedia estimates 100 thousand were killed, some were killed by errant shelling during the battle, but most killed in revenge when found by the fleeing Japanese. 

MacArthur promised the Filipino people he would return (and liberate them from the Japanese). So when the higher ups wanted to bypass the Philippines and just hurry to invade Japan, MacArthur refused, because of that promise.

 

Most of the history books stress the US military in all these stories, and ignore the Philippine soldiers and civilians were doing a lot of the fighting.

And of course, the western (and anti western culture Marxist) history taught in schools never teach such things. 

Heck, when Ruby and her American cousins visited Bataan during their stay last month, she had to fill them in on the details.

MacArthur was hated by many Americans, even those who fought under him, because essentially he was a snob. But growing up in Asia he understood Asian culture, which included obeying superiors and "utan na loob", keeping one's promises. Manchester's biography called him an "American Ceaser" but one would like to see a biography putting his personality and actions (both here in the Philippines and in Japan) into the context of East Asia culture rather than western culture or the Marxist interpretation of history (read US BAD) that often contaminates recent history.

An old TV series on the US Navy in WWII:

....

Medical censorship causes conspiracy rumors

The trouble with conspiracy theories is that often they are exaggerated and paranoid. But sometimes there is a core fact behind the theories, and this fact was censored or ignored by the MSM. 

But now a lot of those conspiracy theories are turning out to be true, or partially true: never mind that the original story was not as bad as the conspiracy story: the coverup essentially made things a lot worse than if they had just allowed freedom of speech on the social media and MSM.

one rumor that was going around the conspiracy sites was about sudden deaths in young people after getting the covid shot: especially after getting booster.

Myocarditis and rare events of sudden cardiac death are now being linked to the mRNA vaccine by autopsy findings of localized myocarditis.

..... original paper.

The trouble? By censoring the story, it allows rumors and conspiracy theories to abound, and these conspiracy theories are often exaggerated the number of deaths, and spread by those who distrust science, and in the long run causes mistrust of the medical community.

Dr. C discusses youtube threats to censor his reports:

When it comes to the covid vaccine: Common sense would say: For elders and those of us with medical problems, we need to get boosters. 

But since the omincron and cross immunity from mild omicron or other covid viruses is widespread, (see second video I posted) it doesn't make sense to give repeated boosters to the young.

Now, will I be axed from blogger for saying this?

another conspiracy theory that has been found to be true in recent weeks: That the Covid2 virus was probably a lab leak, which China tried to cover up.

Well, duh. But by banning any talk of this, it allowed rumors that this was germ warfare, not an accident... and of course, there are rumors that the US went along with the cover up because the funding of the Wuhan lab came from the US Government via a third party.

Place anti CIA/anti American comment here (so is the US funding aspect true, or is a disinformation rumor spread by Russian Bots?)

The overblown shut down policy to covid is now not needed, so is now pretty well finished, except in China. 

But most cases in China are the omicron varient,

The US has a new shot that works against this, but China refuses to use it: no, not because of side effects but out of national pride: They don't want to admit that their vaccine doesn't work.

Covid2 is infectious, especially the omicron varient which seems to be behind the epidemic right now in China. But the Omicron varient is more infectious (via the air, at a distance), so isolation and masks are of limited value. Which means China is overreacting by their strict isolation policy, while they are refusing the newer vaccines and of course not using anti viral medicine to prevent the spread.

uh, follow the science? No, obey big brother...and now the protests are so big they are being noticed outside of China.

What should be done: Isolate the high risk folk, and let the rest of the country free. Some will get the milder omicron infection, but most will recover in a few days, but at least you will minimize starvation from a collapsed economy next year.

But to put things into perspective: 

Right now the Philippines is monitoring the population and finds a high rate of infections. The positivity rate, which measures the percentage of positive cases among all those tested, remains high.

Octa fellow Guido David said the positivity rate in the capital region climbed from 11.1 percent on Nov. 26 to 12.4 percent as of Dec. 3.

but the reality is that there are few cases:

1,141 new cases and 25 new deaths in the Philippines

and of course a lot of people with cold symptoms are not being tested, especially here in the rural areas, where they are busy in the fields haresting and preparing the fields for an extra grow since the last harvest was poor thanks to the typhoon flattening the almost ripe rice.

What has changed: more immunity, both natural and from shots.

Here in the Philippines, we mask indoors, but outdoor masks are optional. We no longer need a face shield, and it has been months since we needed a covid screen to travel. Essentially we are open for business (in case you want to visit the lovely beaches in Boracay, which are now open and have been cleaned up in recent years).

But the numbers of covid cases in recent months are probably not accurate since mild cases are not necessarity tested.

For example, I had three episodes of asthmatic Bronchitis since the start of the epidemic:and never was tested.

 one before the vaccine, and two after I got the shot. I get asthmatic bronchitis once or twice a year, so I just did my usual self tratment: steroids and zithromax along with asthma medicine. 

 I was quite ill with the third episode (and had Kuya sleep in my room just in case), and added Ivermectin because WTF it might work, and I had it on hand to treat the dogs.  In all cases I was better in two days.

The problem? There are other diseases out there that can make you sick.

In early November, my symptoms were fever, nausea and vomiting, so I figured it was a UTI, until I collapsed in the bathroom and literally couldn't move, so I had them call an ambulance (I thought the weakness was from electrolyte imbalance and dehydration). 

Before they let you into the ER to check you, however, they test for covid, so I had to wait in the isolation area for two hours before I was seen by a doctor, muttering: please check my potassium level and start an IV...

Three days in, when the urine tested clear, my platelet and wbc count started to drop, and I got an impressive rash on my face and legs, so they checked for Dengue, which is making a lot of kids sick in our area right now..., and that was what I had. Treatment for Dengue is to prevent dehydration, but it took five days before I could eat and had the strength to get out of bed, and a few more days I wasn't allowed home because my WBC and platelets, which were dangerously low, improved.

Dengue cases are up this year (probably because people are now going outside a lot) and there have been an estimated 200 thousand cases this year, with 600 deaths. But again a lot of mild cases or asymptomatic cases never get tested, so the real number is probably much higher.

Not as fatal as Covid, of course, but many of the cases are in kids. Sigh.

Musical interlude of the day

 

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

Christmas is coming

 the Plaza is decorated and the night market food kiosks (damaged by the typhoon) are repaired, and the tree erected.

Time to party:

......

which means lots of traffic and cars parked on the street around our property.

And when the fireworks started, all the dogs fled to hide under the bed of my room.

No, I didn't go: I am not up to partying yet.

So we stayed home and watched this film, where the evil Scrooge character was morphed into an internet influencer.

 which will make a good Broadway show.

Texting for Seniors

 

Government interference with free speech or freedom of the press?

 LINK

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

I am trying to find more information but so far nothing about this on the BBC website, and the Fox news on youtube is so toxic snide and impolite that I refuse to post it.

the WH response to this was to have Hunter attend the state dinner with the French president.

BBC article on the Hunter/Ukraine and Hunter/China connection. 

update: Powerline has more of the story

and of course, the US State Dept/deep state/CIA interferes with foreign countries elections by doing this all the time.  

Rappler/Omidyar scandal is an example. Omidyar's interference with a Ukrainian pro Russian president was another example.

Omidyar's bio from NYMag 2014 

Projectcensored story 2019

Good or bad? Both and neither: But what is disturbing is that this is all about power to manipulate the news and shape the future of society. I mean, if the friends of the CIA types don't do this, believe me, China and Russia will (and are doing this all the time).

But it does make one wonder about all those conspiracy theories about the Ukraine and Hunter Biden.

I mean, we are not just talking about geopolitics: We are talking about millions of dollars.

Senator Church call your office. They are at it again.

Conspiracy theories of the week

 There is a link between drug gangs and people smuggling that uses NGO's to pressure governments into letting these people in.

Summary: Follow the money.

It's from StrategyPage, so not political.

n Mexico, the illegals were, until the last few years, almost all Mexicans and others from Latin American nations. But now over a third of the illegals coming across the Mexican border are from much farther away and pay large fees to international criminal syndicates to travel long distances to reach Mexico and then across the border into the United States. Even before this Mexico had found itself unable to control the drug cartels that now are the real power on the Mexican side of the U.S. border. Anyone who wants to move illegal migrants across that border must pay the cartels for safe passage. The cartels can also arrange for easy entry into Mexico via airports or ship by bribing border and customs officials. The Mexican cartels made over $100 million a year from the fees the illegal migrants (via the groups moving them) pay to get across the border, and that does not include the lucrative fees for helping get international illegals into Mexico. The cartels make far more moving drugs but the people smuggling fees are another income source and confirm which cartel controls which segment of the border.  

I have sympathy for those seeking a better life, but the dirty little secret is that there is a larger agenda behind this: Cheap labor for rich companies and cheap nannies/maids for Karens...     

-------------------
The conspiracy pages point out that the climate change agenda is directed from above (and the anti climate change propaganda is also directed from above).

CoreyDiggs has a long essay connecting the dots.

As a driving force placing pressure on public and private sectors to comply, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) plays a key role in funneling trillions from the global economy while influencing government policies and propping up the climate hoax narrative. While IRENA is pivotal in the “no-regrets” initiative to transform the global economy, the international organization enjoys immunities and privileges which allow them to operate without transparency or accountability.

True or not true? 

here is IRENA film on their policies.

Sounds lovely... but what does it mean at the grassroots level?

these NGOs pushing "Global warming" are funded by someone, and when I read that they are pushing Biden to give money to poor countries that suffer from global warming, all I wonder is: how much of this money will end up being stolen by rich politicians/businessmen and put into their Swiss/Malaysian etc. bank accounts?

This 2014 article from tranparancy org discusses the problem, but I am wondering why I can't find a newer updated article.

Transpanrancy on the 25 corruption scandals (2019 article). Now worse, with Covid destructing the world economy.

and if you really want to delve into the cloudcuckooland behind conspiracy theories, just do a google about how Covid was supposedly used by the powers that run the world to push the Great Reset.

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

The UN was told to bugger off when one of their organizations pressured the Philippines to push gay rights.

Gays are accepted here, and the Philippines is touted on gay sites as a place that is gay friendly to visit. Sex tourism is big here, for both lovely ladies and good looking guys.

Two problems with sex tourism: it's connections with drugs, and the exploitation of street kids.

but priorities you know: gay rights is the priority, not putting in place policies that would help people find jobs.

what would really help the ordinary folk here in the Philippines would be cheap energy: we need cheap diesel and fertilizer (we use organic, but non organic fertilizer is from fossil fuel) to grow rice, and if the price of rice goes up, poor people will not be able to afford food.

Usually the Philippines has to import rice (one of Marcos' promisese was to help the agriculture sector, which is changing as small farms are mechanizing and the kids of small farmers don't want to stay on the farm to live in poverty).

Today's headline is that the price of LPG is up. Why is this important? Because the poor use LPG for cooking. There is an alternative: Wood. But this is more polluting: I have been providing the maid with money to use LPG for years because her son had recurrant asthma/bronchitis from using wood to cook.

And of course, using wood for cooking in rural areas is a major cause of deforestation.

Marcos says he plans to explore our waters in the West Philippine sea to try to get petroleum resources for the locals. China has been stopping this for years. 

This is one reason that Marcos might allow the US to use Philippine bases to train, and to pre position supplies just in case.

The Philippines has a love/hate relationship with the USA: they don't want to get in the middle of a war with China, but they also know that if Taiwan falls, Luzon is next. And the Chinese are hated here (which complicates things since Chinoy families run the economy and China is a major investor here).

Of course, one of the complications of the war in the Ukraine is that they are using up the supplies of sophisticated weapons, meaning that these are not being sent to Taiwan to defend themselves.

But the terraine and logistical problems of invading Taiwan gets even more complicated if the country decides to defend themselves like the Ukraine.

 I remember when the western powers estimated Russia would win in two weeks, and only Elon Musk stepped in quickly to help with Starlink communications during those days.

and one lesson being learned from the Ukraine: That drones (including cheap civilian drones) are part of the picture.

China has plans to use drone swarms, but Taiwan has their own drones they plan to use too. BBC article on drone warfare.

for later reading: Wikipedia on Drone warfare.