FINEST KIND CLINIC AND FISHMARKET.... Discussing medicine, culture, and the joys of cooking Pansit.
the ITV/ A&E series based on the Hornblower novels, can be found it on internet archives. You can watch it on line, or download it (direct or via torrent).
LINK.
Or if you prefer to watch it streaming, you can find it on youtube.
first film start slowly but builds to a rah rah ending.
the nuances in this talk suggest that early in the epidemic, the original Covid killed people, but the vaccines were mainly given to high risk folks, so it probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
But now that covid has evolved into a disease that is similar to influenza, which mainly kills people who are old or frail, there is a big debate among health care personnel if the side effects of the vaccine are worse than the disease, especially for young people who are at low risk for severe complications or death.
This is why many question the policy that insists that young people receive repeated booster shots, especially now that data is now being released that shows that the complication rate, although low, is higher after second etc. boosters.
If there is an immune problem here, repeated booster shots would increase the risk of developing the problem.
Much of this has been denied or ignored in the past, which is why it is disturbing that a study done over a year ago in Taiwan on the Moderna (mRNA) vaccine showed a one percent problem of cardiac problems, but what was disturbing is that this study showed the rate of this complication was worse after the secojnd dose.
italics mine.
So why wait a year to allow this study to be published?
the BMJ did a study last year, which showed a very low incidence of myocarditis aftere a single shot, so there should have been a "heads up" to officials that booster shots might add to toxicity/autoimmune problems, and that this needed to be monitored closely.
The increased toxicity after repeated doses might be why the news is reporting so many sudden cardiac deaths this year, whereas they were rare last year: it might be becaause the rate seems to be higher after numerous doses, if the Taiwan study is correct.
Dr. C previously reported a study of autopsies from Germany that showed evidence of myocarditis in those who died of sudden death post covid vaccine..
I usually stay out of arguments about gun control, because they seem to be more about parroting cliches than actually stopping gun deaths.
The dirt little secrest is that most homicide deaths from guns are drug and gang related and affect black males the most, which is why it is taboo to discuss. These homicides are done by small guns, not the rifles they want to ban. However, the majority of gun deaths are actually suicide deaths by guns tend to be white males, related to depression and/or substance abuse, and this is rarely discussed either.
My grandfather was a cop, and he had a friend whose child accidentally killed himself playing with a service revolver, so my grandfather would no have guns in his house, and my father never learned to shoot a gun, and we had no guns in our house.
I had to learn to shoot when I joined the National Guard: But only rifles; when I was told I could as an officer carry a handgun, I took a waiver not to do this, knowing that there was no way I would ever shoot anyone, even in a war.
In other words, I am ambivalent about guns: I am pro gun control but until the discussion in the US is more nuanced and honest one doubts either side will be willing to make a compromise.
Fast forward to retiring to the Philippines.
My husband always had a handgun for protection, especially as drugs started infiltrating our placid rural area: doctors were a target because narcotics and money, and as a veteran he knew how to use a gun.
But here in the Philippines, they are stricter about guns.
The first president Marcos confiscated all the guns, which is why there are so many security guards at stores and malls.
but for protection in the home, a lot of folks just hid them, including my husband who kept his handgun in a safe, just in case.
But what astonished me was when he opened the safe and pulled out a World War II submachine gun to clean and check it. He was a WWII vet, at least during the end of the war, when he essentially was doing patrols in this rural area against Japanese stragglers who would kill for food or revenge.
However, when he had his second stroke, he gave away his guns, meaning that now we only have dogs and a machete for protection.
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| George, the killer labrador is waiting to bite you |
At least four neighbors were killed by home invasion robberies since I moved here, so the threat was real.
Thanks to Duterte's war on drugs, we now feel a bit safer, which is why he was so popular. And one does hope that the new president Marcos will continue the fight so we are not taken over by drug cartels or the Chinese mafia.
So I won't need a gun... unless China decides that hey, Luzon used to be owned by China so why don't we take it over after we conquer Taiwan?
In that case, a small submachine gun would come in handy.
Sorry.. I am being paranoid again (or am I?)
I ran across this word in an article at Space.com about the Hubble Telescope spotting a star being pulled apart by a black hole.
As the black hole tears away the outer, loose gases from the star, they form into threads which wrap around the black hole in a way similar to rolling sphaghetti on a fork.
Often the dense part of the star escapes, however.
Wikipedia article has more technical details.
In astrophysics, spaghettification (sometimes referred to as the noodle effect)[1] is the vertical stretching and horizontal compression of objects into long thin shapes (rather like spaghetti) in a very strong, non-homogeneous gravitational field. It is caused by extreme tidal forces.
...
however, I should note that this is not how you eat the long strands of Ramen in Asia, where slurping is permitted.
The entire series of the Durant's Story of Civilization can be found on interenet archives LINK
Some are only for 14 day borrow, but thanks to the Library of India posting their books there, many can be downloaded to read at leisure, since they are too long to read in 14 days.
And for those of us who listen to audiobooks/ lectures (I play them in the background when I sleep, to lessen the noise of cars and dogs and crowing roosters during the night), they also have the audiobook versions of some of these available. LINK
The entire series can also be found on Youtube. But this means you have to play the video, or as I do, download them as audio and/or rip them to an mp3
True, they are old fashioned, western centric and not entirely PC, and usually have a bias against religion, but they are readable: and that in itself is a recommendation for those of us layfolk who want to learn history.
and what is ignored by the PC is that once you have a basic knowledge, you can then go and build upon that knowledge for more nuance or other points of view.
Durant's history not only includes the usual kings/ empire/ battles, but discusses the ideas of those civilizations.
For example, in Vol one, he not only discussed the ancient civilizations of the Middle East, but he had a description of the bible and he includes famous quotes from history and poetry.
There are three things too wonderful for me, four that I cannot understand:
The way of an eagle in the air;
the way of a serpent upon a rock;
the way of a ship in the midst of the sea;
and the way of a man with a maid.
The Bible and Christian religion is part of the heritage of Western civilization, but since Bible reading was removed from public schools, one wonders if the kids are allowed to learn the stories or the famous quotes that their elders were taught routinely.
without this basic knowledge, much of the classic literature references will have to be explained to them. And of course, it makes them vulnerable to the trendy "new atheists" who quote out of context to emphasize only the faults of religion, and use straw man arguments to ridicule today's believers.
I read that the Russian and other communist countries taught anti religion but that reading the great Russian writers like Tolstoy kept the faith alive.
This used to be true for the West, but now it is the time of the great forgetting.
It's a direct line that is missed; Martin Luther King was inspired by Ghandi, who was inspired by Tolstoy, who was inspired by Jesus.
but instead, the history is that of Marxism that not only falsifies history but inspires hatred.
But like the story of how the Irish Saved Civilization remind us, the seeds of renewal might be found in the most likely places
“What will be lost, and what saved, of our civilization probably lies beyond our powers to decide. No human group has ever figured out how to design its future. That future may be germinating today not in a boardroom in London or an office in Washington or a bank in Tokyo, but in some antic outpost or other -- a kindly British orphanage in the grim foothills of Peru, a house for the dying in a back street of Calcutta run by a fiercely single-minded Albanian nun, an easy-going French medical team at the starving edge of the Sahel, a mission to Somalia by Irish social workers who remember their own Great Hunger, a nursery program to assist convict-mothers at a New York Prison -- in some unheralded corner where a great-hearted human being is committed to loving outcasts in an extraordinary way.” ― Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization:.
Sigh.
Mr DeSantis, call your office. There are things that need to be taught.
The miniseries Saimdang, is now on youtube.
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| Geese among the Reeds: https://alchetron.com |
My relatives who are artists do make paper for some of their projects but I know little or nothing about it.
So I was interested to read today's Global Voices blog, where they publish a report on the Neapli paper plant being grown there.
They note that a plant, Edgeworthia gardneri, aka the Nepali paper bush, that grows in Nepal and nearby areas is now being cultivated by local farmers and exported to Japan to make high quality paper.
The durability of this paper is the reason that the paper note for the Japanese Yen is made from a Nepali plant.
This interested me on several levels: First, because encouraging local crafts and plants is important in these days of globalization that homogenizes everything into cheap but shoddy goods.
However economically, the small craft and small farmers will have to export the goods to make a decent profit, and that means a lot of middle men will become rich too (this has good and bad effects on society and the economy).
I'll give an example:
We used to supervise a home craft industry ten years ago here, where local ladies could make beautiful Christmas ornaments and get paid 100 pesos (2 dollars) for each one (minimum wage here is seven dollars a day). The ladies could make several a day at home while caring for their families to supplement the family income.
The problem was that the logistics of selling them mean a lot of money went to several middle men for checking quality control, packing and shipping before the ornament sold for16 dollars in the USA.
I suspect the same thing here.
But it does allow the locals to stay on the farm, instead of finding work overseas as literally millions of Nepali citizens have to do each year.
The second reason I found it interesting is that eventually it will mean monoculture farming of the plant in that area, which has ecological implications for other plants.
Ah, but as the demand increases, and as people get more affluent, they will devise machinery to plant and harvest it more efficiently and so make more of a profit for the farmers.
This is something we are seeing as our rice farmers were given their traditional plots with land reform: they made a profit, so their kids went to school and had more opportunities to work so left, and the farms are gradually being mechanized.
But the main reason I found it interesting was that it was part of the history of paper. Something I will have to explore when I have time.
This video is about the trade
Cardinal Pell has died during hip surgery.
A couple years ago, he was tasked to investigate the financial irregularities in the Vatican. He was finding dirt in the Vatican Bank, including mafia connections etc. and voila, suddenly a thirty year old case of sexual abuse popped up in Australia and he had to leave the investigation unfinished.
The court case, with the help of the press' feeding frenzy, (see a Cry in the Dark about how this works) got him put into jail, but he was later exonerated on actual evidence, or rather the lack of evidence.
Well, now that Benedict/Ratzinger has died, there is now a press feeding frenzy about a plot against Pope Francis from those terrible extremist right wing bigots in the church (AKA Catholics who are Christian believers).
Background:
For about a year, there has been a memo being handed around in Rome that actually lists the problem of what this Pope has done.
Sandro Magister, a Roman journalist, now is claiming this memo was written by Cardinal Pell.
Well, duh. Any believing Catholic (and a lot of non Catholic Christians) could tell you the problems noted in the memo:
Spreading Confusion. Saying A but doing B.
Ignoring bishops who spout heresy.
Allowing the communist regime in China to take over the church there,
the emphasis on global warming and other trendy issues instead of preaching about Jesus,
the demonization of the conservative wing of the church,
letting the PC bishops in Europe destroy the sexual ethics taught by Christianity for 2000 years,
the weakening of the Vatican think tank that was founded to oppose the culture of death,
The manipulation of the synodality stuff to astroturf the changes wanted by these so called reformers, etc.
I won't even get into the problem we see here in the Philippines and in South America: the hemorrhaging of Catholic believers. Some lapse into agnosticism, but many others flee to Protestant churches that actually preach Jesus, because they are turned off by a church busy preaching politics instead of about Jesus and how to live a holy life.
What is not being mentiones in many of the MSM articles is that African Cardinals, especially by Cardinal Sarah, are quietly opposing this agenda (something we see in the Anglican and Methodist churches), and there are even a few genuine Catholic bishops elsewhere, including in the USA.
This is not about religion per se you know:
A weakened Catholic church is unable to oppose the culture of death (see how the press manipulated legalizaton of abortion in Ireland and euthanasia in Canada).
And of course, allowing those promoting the culture of death ethic to run Catholic institutions such as schools, universities, and hospitals, will be a boon to those in the NWO propaganda campaign to remake the world.
Yes, there are also other Christian churches (especially independent ones, since the mainline churches in the West have been essentially taken over by this newfangled philosophy). But it is easier to ignore many small churches who are not united, and indeed, who will be encouraged to fight each other over trivia, than to fight a strong monolithic Catholic church.
Place conspiracy theory here.
The world vs the church. Paranoid conspiracy theory?
And this has geopolitical implications.
Bishop VonGalen, call your office. they are at it again.
On October 2, 2022, two cases of Vibrio cholerae O1 infection were confirmed in the greater Port-au-Prince area. As of January 3, 2023, >20,000 suspected cholera cases had been reported throughout the country.
What are the implications for public health practice? Multiple factors, including social unrest, have affected public health infrastructure and facilitated cholera resurgence. Although cases have declined, a multipronged approach, including sufficient and timely case management, strengthened surveillance, emergency water treatment, and targeted oral cholera vaccination campaigns are urgently needed.
the infrastructure has never quite recovered from the 2010 earthquake.
And more recently a 2021 earthquake that destroyed much of what was rebuilt. From UNICEF:
Early in the morning of 14 August 2021, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti, causing hospitals, schools and homes to collapse, claiming hundreds of lives, and leaving communities in crisis. By mid-September, around 650,000 people, including about 260,000 children, were estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance.
Two reports on the background of the epidemic:
From PBS Newshour:
from WION, an Indian news site.
The prevention of Cholera is fairly straightforward: when we were in Africa, we were instructed about what to do if it hit our area (luckily it did not):
doctors or healthworkers should place patients in local schools etc that had running water since local clinics had few beds, And with IVs and WHO Rehydration fluid, the death rate is much lower than in the past. Stress on washing hands and boiling water, and giving cholera vaccine was done.
One reason our area might not have had the problem: We had village health workers in many small villages to encourage little things like washing hands and boiling drinking water, and we had a well digging project funded by Oxfam to dig wells to provide cleaner water near the villages (that still had to be boiled, but was less contaminated than using river water, and with more water available nearby, washing hands etc. was easier to do).
But if you want health care workers to work in these areas, you need to guarantee them physical safety.
So what is going on in Haiti?
So who was rebuilding the infrastructure? Why aren't locals, especially those with an education, taking jobs helping to rebuild their country?
Answer: Lots of chaos political instablity earthquakes and hurricanes don't help.
To make things worse, many who could rebuild the country, i.e. those with energy and education will flee the country to make a life elsewhere:
from the MiamiHerald July 2022:
The university-educated Philippeson, who is fluent in five languages, is part of a generation of Haitians who have migrated to Brazil, Chile and other South American nations following their country’s devastating 2010 earthquake. After years of living in South America, they decided to make their way north in a treacherous 7,000-mile trek through the road-less jungles of Central America to Mexico in the hopes of living in the U.S...
These educated Haitians could easily find jobs in other countries, but are the tip of the iceburg for what is now a world wide migrant crisis. For exmple:
A recent national survey by the country’s Citizen Observatory for Institutionalization of Democracy found that 82% of Haiti’s nearly 12 million people would migrate if they had the chance.
The deep disenchantment with the country and democracy has been shaped by the volatile nation’s downward spiral over the past six years..
So what is the answer? Send in the marines? The US and UN has done this in the past, and it didn't work.
And often those trying to help become scapegoats for the problems.
For example: Some blamed the failure of rebuilding the infrastucture after the 2010 earthquake many years ago on the Clinton fund scandal, including many in the US Hatian community, but that aid has to be put into the context of the problem of foreign aid in general.
BBC report on the Clinton fund problems gives insight into the problems of foreign aid in general.
A US Government Accountability Office report discovered no hint of wrongdoing, but concluded the IHRC's decisions were "not necessarily aligned with Haitian priorities". Mr Clinton's own office at the UN found 9% of the foreign aid cash went to the Haitian government and 0.6% to local organisations.
The bulk of it went to UN agencies, international aid groups, private contractors and donor countries' own civilian and military agencies. ...
part of the problem:
Jake Johnston, an analyst with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a nonpartisan group that has studied the quake reconstruction, told the BBC "it's hard to say it's been anything other than a failure".
But he believes the State Department and IHRC simply replicated the mistakes of the whole foreign aid industry by chasing short-term gains instead of building longer-term capacity on the ground.
"They relied too much on outside actors," Mr Johnston says, "and supplanted the role of the Haitian government and domestic producers."
Sigh.
Summary: Do you let efficient, trained, and honest outsiders handle the aid, or encourage and help locals do it, knowing that they are often untrained and alas too often corrupt and so much of the money will be stolen by them or by local gangs?
and now the UKGuardian reports famine is coming.
Read it and weep.
With all the books and films about CS Lewis, there are two people who were prominent in his life that get little attention.
One is the oldest son of Joy Gresham.
After Lewis married her, he took in her sons, and after her death he beame the step father to the hoys.
Douglas Gresham has written about his life with Lewis, but until now was not willing to come out and discuss the psychiatric problems of his older brother. He does mention this in a recent interview that was discussed on the blog of First Things.
While Douglas has weighed in with two books—Lenten Lands and a short biography of Lewis—David has virtually vanished from the historical record..... David died several years ago in a secure Swiss mental hospital, and Douglas has finally broken his silence about a hitherto unknown aspect of life at The Kilns. His earliest memories, he told me, were of his brother, who was later diagnosed as schizophrenic.
So Lewis had to cope with David, a trouble teenager, until his American uncle, a psychiatrist, agreed to take him in.
According to this interview, that uncle told Douglas that David was a schizophrenic: But I actually wonder if severe anger issues with acting out, complicated by being bipolar, might be the diagnosis.
Being bipolar is hereditary, and his birth father was alcoholic and abusive and probably had PTSS. This abuse is why Joy left him . But young children often don''t see such problems and often react with rage and acting out.
Douglas recounted some surreal stories. “I learned how to fight very fast; I learned how to run very fast,” he recalled. ...“It was a difficult childhood for me,” he said. “Jack tried his very hardest for David all the time. He tried to help in every way he could—he was kind and gentle and wonderful with him.”The oldest son is often the one most harmed by the loss of a parent, or because of an alcoholic/ drug abusing parent, and those of us who have had to cope with children who we adopted at an older age know about such rage, which is often directed at the non alcoholic parent (who didn't protect him) or to the new parent who is trying to rescue the damaged child and heal him. And this rage also is sometimes direced toward a sibling they see as more favored by the parent.
Other ways of coping is to essentially become the parent of the parents and siblings. Or, as seems to be the case of Douglas, to find a protecter to help them cope.
Sigh. Been there, done that.
One does hope that Douglas will write this missing chapter: Not only for CS Lewis followers, but to help those who have had to cope with similar experiences.
Headsup from TeaAtTrianon.
The other person often left out of CS Lewis' biogtaphies is the mysterious Mrs. Moore. When she is portrayed, it is usually from when she was older and slipping into the behavior problems (paranoia, rigidity) of Alzheimer's disease, and too often quote a the same descriptions of her from Lewis' brother Warnie, who moved in with them in the late 1930s, or earlier observations from upper class snobs from the university who met her but didn't get to know her, in these earlier years, and of course in a class conscious England saw her as a lower class twit.
Caring for a person with Alzheimers' is not easy, but few of Lewis' friends seem to realize how he accepted this burden. But I did read one essay of how Lewis coped with her senility, with the aid of some young helpers, during the war years. (After the war, she needed to be placed in a nursing home for proper care).
But these problems were in the l940s...
in those early years, we only see the same critical quote by the few upper class friends who criticized her because she asked Lewis to help with some of the household chores: something that was needed because he wasn't yet working.
There is a lot of speculation about if there was a sexual relationship here when he was younger and before he became a Christian. Ah, but if a lonely boy was comforted by a generous older woman, it would not prove they were evil sinners, but would point to the power of a loving woman to heal a boy damaged by a sad childhood and unfeeling father, and who was suffering from PTSS and the physical wounds of WWI.
but as one person pointed out: this was denied by Mrs. Moore's daughter, at that time a young girl, who lived with them various small rented houses (often with guests that Mrs Moore took in off the street) before Lewis' income improved and he was able to buy the Kilns.
Observations by Maureen is also essentially missing from the biographies I have read and one does wish someone would do an in depth interview with her to get insight into their relationship in the 1920s and 1930s.
But I did run across one observation of Mrs Moore in a book we remember CS Lewis: essays by his friends and students.
One of the essays was by his gardener, Fred Paxford, who is often though to be the inspiration for the character Puddleglum in the Narnia books.
Much of his essay is about the woods, fields, and lake that he cared for, and Lewis' love of nature, but he does include this about Mrs. Moore and he liked her.
She was very fond of animals and kept a few poultry which she loved to fuss with. But she always said the best place for a chicken was on the table. At best we always had a plenty of fresh eggs. She also had two dogs and two cats, always well fed. She was a great lady and very fond of Ireland and the Irish and of mothering people...She was a mother to Mr Jack (i.e. CSLewis), and he always called her Mintoes. She was always very good to me...
After describing that she bottled a lot of fruit and often gave away bottles of fruit and eggs, he mentions:
She had a kind nature. Anyone who came to the Kilns for help always went away with money, and if it was a man, with a handful of cigarettes.
presumaly this was during the depression, where some neighbors would welcome such gifts, and when wandering hobos would pass word to each other about which homes would feed them or give them a little change.
Lewis often includes his friends in his fiction: For example, Ransom in the first two books of the space trilogy is thought to be based on Tolkien (and I suspect the professor and his wife in the third book was inspired by stories of how his pupils often considered the Tolkien house as their home). And was angry Eustace of the Narnia series based on the angry stepson David? We don't know but one does wonder.
However, there are two portraits in Lewis' writings that could be inspired by Mrs. Moore.
The first was the picky lady in the Screwtape letter, who just wants toast, but is disappointed when she gets it and lets you know it.
Is this based on the Mrs Moore with early Alzheimer's disease?
But in an early book, there another fictional lady who might resemble the Mrs. Moore who invited strangers in need to stay in her home and who was always there to help the hobos and others who came to her door.
Making one wonder if her real portrait is that of the Great Lady in the Great Divorce:
True, Mrs. Moore was an atheist, not a Christian, but the warmth of her personaliy and her generosity in taking him in, and why he seemed happy to care for her for 30 years.
And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face. “Is it?...is it?” I whispered to my guide. “Not at all,” said he. “It's someone ye'll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.” “She seems to be...well, a person of particular importance?” “Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.”...
“And who are all these young men and women on each side?” “They are her sons and daughters.” “She must have had a very large family, Sir.”
“Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter...“Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves..”
One problem with reading covid data is the question of how many have died in the epidemic.
And the latest wave, which is running through Asia is more confusing, since the question is: Do you count those who died from covid or with covid?
And often the reporting is vague.
I use this article from a Japanese paper to show the problem.
Alarm bells are sounding in Japan over a sudden sharp increase in the pace of deaths linked to COVID-19. The number of COVID-19 fatalities exceeded 50,000 on Dec. 1 after new deaths climbed by 10,000 every three or four months. But in a little over a month, the figure is closing in on 60,000
This sounds horrible, until you realize they are talking about total deaths over a three year period and the total population of Japan is 125 million.
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| The Asahi Shimbun |
There has been a huge increase in the nunber of cases over the last 60 days and not just in Japan.
Here is the worldmeter site for various countries in the world:
Number of active cases to see how many are sick.
Japan: active cases 8.9 million
USA: Active cases 2 million
France active cases 500 thousand
South Korea 1 million active cases
Philippines 12 000 active cases
A lot of this data is biased due to statistical diffeences. Countries that test all the time have huge numbers, because the mild cases are counted, whereas in other countries a lot of people who aren't that sick don't bother to get tested.
For example, there is a cold/flu that made everyone in our compound sick (about a dozen family and employees), but it only lasted 3 days so no problem and no one got tested. But we did test Ruby's visiting roommate who stayed sick for four days, and she tested negative. So we presume none of us had covid.
Even the death numbers might not be accurate because a lot of the deaths are with covid, not from covid.
The original article from asahi.com clarifies who is dying:
The vast majority of deaths involved senior citizens. In cases where the ages of the deceased are known, about 68 percent of patients were 80 or older during the period between September 2020 and December 2022, according to health ministry statistics. Another 20 percent were in their 70s. For many patients advanced in years and already frail or with underlying health issues, catching the coronavirus was the last straw
italics mine.
Yes. This is what we doc see in years when we have influenza/pneumonia going around.
And alas it is also influenza season, so add those sick folks to the health crisis that is putting a strain on hospitals...
And remember: some people who die of old age at home really died of covid so the real numbers of covid related deaths might be higher in many countries.
The problem is that the huge upsurge means lack of hospital beds, and a shortage of antibiotics and fever lowering medicines, due to the supply chain problems.
Sigh.
And it is worse in China, who seems more upset that some countries are testing travelers from there or noting that they are underreporting actual cases and actual deaths (which they see as a type of criticism) thatn with the actual public health problem.
so the next time you read articles that China is under reporting Covid deaths, just shrug and say of course they are. And the US/Japan/Europe are probably over counting deaths by including the elderly and in frail health where any infection would cause them to die.
so what is going on in China?
This video from Dr. C is a few days old but discusses the Chinese approach to the new covid epidemic.
AnnAlthouse links to an article at the Canadian National Post on how Jordan Peterson was told to attend reeducation lessons or he'd lose his license as a professional psychologist.
For my crimes, I have been sentenced to a course of mandatory social-media communication training with the college’s so-called experts (although social media communication training is not a scientific and certainly not a clinical specialty of any standing). I am to do this at my own expense (some hundreds of dollars per hour) and for a length of time that is to be determined only by those retraining me and profiting from doing so. How will this be determined? When those very re-educators — those experts — have convinced themselves that I have learned my lesson, and will behave properly in the future.
related content was previously revealed as part of the ongoing release of the “Twitter files,” primarily information that Stanford University professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, an outspoken critic of COVID-19 vaccines and lockdowns, was placed on a blacklist by Twitter.
and more to come as it is being released day by day on twitter.
in the meantime, Dr. C got yesterday's video removed from Youtube. So quick and watch this report on myocarditis before they censor this video too:
Tomorrow is the feast of the Three kings: when the Magi (yes I know: rich guys but not kings) came to visit the Christ child.
The main church in our town is Three Kings parish, so there will be a big parade today, with the roads blocked off for safety.
this video is from last year.
hey this is the Philippines, so fiestas and parties are a priority. And after limited parties and parades because of the virus for two years, we are ready to celebrate.
The bad news: The new covid variant is running rampant in China link2, but if you insist on testing travelers from there, you'll make them angry, and hey you don't want to make China angry...
The dept of tranportation wants to test those arriving from China, but an ex DOH official is kissing China's ass by saying hey no need to test travelers coming from that country and that the Philippines should wait until the WHO and China say it is needed...Right...(this is similar to what the friends of China did in 2020, where they arranged for Trump to be called racist when he stopped flights from China)...
But another official said: Hey maybe we should test those coming in from the USA since they have a new omicron varient there too. Why yes.
actually one doubts testing travelers will stop the latest strain, which is mild but very infectious, and if money is better spent elsewhere. Maybe they should just check everyone's temperature and keep those with a fever off of the flights, something they did in the past during flu epidemics, and are doing here in the bank and malls.
It's bad when one can't trust the reports thanks to fake news and recognizing how the powerful manipulate the media.
Elon Musk is essentially picking up where Wikileaks stopped: in finding government lies and manipulation. Hope he has good body guards. His son was inside a car that was attacked by a stalker but despite a video showing the attack, we are told nothing to see here, folks just move along
in other news: China will talk to the Philippines about "sharing"the oil in the Philippine's legally owned area of the West Philippine sea that they took over years ago when Obama persuaded PNoy not to stop them.
while everyone in the US MSM is watching and cheering on the war in the Ukraine, they are ignoring the real danger: China is planning a Taiwan takeover in the near future, partly to distract their folks from the covid and economic debacle, but partly because they can.
What is stopping them? I guess they are waiting until all the US's weapons are used in the Ukraine, and until General Milley completely destroys the US military through incompetence and political correctness.
other stories where damage control is needed:
Another athlete down, and the anti vaxers are going crazy. Yes, there are a few deaths from mRNA related shots causing myocarditis, so maybe young folks should stop getting the repeated boosters that increase their risk. But until people who are trusted are allowed to report on these deaths (including autopsies) the anti vaxers will be able to pretend all the excess deaths of the young and middle age in the US last year were the vaccine, not from covid, obesity, or drugs.
But where are all the voices pointing out problems of Fentanyl, which killed over 100 thousand Yanks last year (sent to you from China via the drug cartels in Mexico)?
And why the push to legalize marijuana? to sedate people from getting upset?
although a lot of films and Netflix series still glamourize drug pushers, most do not. And now the literary establishment (/s) is taking note of human trafficking links to drug smuggling, and using bitcoin to hide the profits. Heck, this is even the back story behind the latest Janet Evanovich novel
I fault the clergy: who are absent in pointing to the reason for these problems: sin.But the real problem for ordinary people is the high price of onions. Heavy monsoon rains, government cracking down on smuggling, etc.
In other news: The pope is dead. Long live the Pope.
Place conspiracy theory about why he resigned here. link2 Summary: the bad guys shut down the bank, and then there as that 300 page dossier on corruption that named names and the rule is that when there is a new pope, they all have to submit their resignations without a long process of trying to remove them one by one. Voila. Resign and let your hand picked successor clean up the Augean stables.
It didn't work however, because his chosen successor lost to the one pushed by the St Gallen's mafia.
Voila, a church of nicewhere there is no sin (instead of repent, go and sin no more, we have I'm okay you're okay and god loves you so do what you want)
and everyone is welcome except those who want the old Latin mass...
Sigh.
in family news: Ruby and her roommate made it back to Minnesota without problems.
MamaDog had five puppies in a nest in the corner of my bathroom. So far all seem healthy.
Joy is busy as usual with various meetings and inspecting the repair of our property in Manila that we rent out (it was bought 35 years ago when Kuya went to school there).and I am now well enough to walk the dogs around the town square (about ten minutes). Life is good.
the netflix films etc. are still either boring or depressing, so I again dug out one of my old DVD's to watch this gem
Ruby and her roommate left early this morning for their flight back to the USA.
The problem? the main airport in manila was shut down due to a power glitch yesterday.
My first thought was that Chinese hackers did it because China is getting aggressive, but the papers insist the main power supply went off (which happens a lot) and the power surge when it came back on blew the system. so the back up power wasn't able to restore the systtem.
Awaiting news if Ruby's flight is affected.
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update: No problems with the flights.
