Ah yes, it’s tick season again, and my husband Lolo is busy removing the nasty creatures from our watch dogs.
For the dogs, the ticks are mainly a nuisance: but in some areas of the world, the risk of Lyme disease makes mothers hysterical if they find a tick on their kid.
The big question is if […]

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I wasn’t too surprised to see headlines in our local Manila paper that Michael Jackson had died.
Heck, sometimes the headline announces that x number of people passed the nurses’ examination this year, and usually under the headline is a photo of our lovely President.
But his headline is larger than usual, with a long story of […]

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As the mother of two adopted boys, I am for adoption, but now we are seeing couples like Sarah JessicaParker andMatthew Broderick “renting” a womb to obtain their newest child.
What’s wrong with this picture? After all, they give money, and a woman is paid a lot of money to carry their (genetically related) baby to […]

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Here in the Philippines, there are always demonstrations, usually by the leftists, but if things get bad enough, the opposition always reminds the government about the “People Power” revolution that overthrew Marcos.
At that time, thugs associated with Marcos assassinated exiled politician Ninoy Acquino who had just returned to Manila to run against Marcos in the […]

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Here in the Philippines, the headlines are usually full of big stories: a bomb in the south, a mudslide from the monsoons, or another corruption/bribery allegation.
But right now, the big story that everyone is following are the “Nip/Tuck” sex tape scandal. It seems that a prominent Manila plastic surgeon was seducing some of his patients, including […]

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The New York Times has an article on the obstacles to safe childbirth in Tanzania.
I worked in two other African countries thirty years ago, and it doesn’t look like much has changed in these isolated and poor rural areas.
… Only 20 percent of women in the area give birth at the hospital, and many do […]

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My grandkids are into Facebook, and most people in the US know how the anti war opposition used Facebook and other internet social sites to help catapult Senator Obama to win the US elections last year.
But using Facebook groups for political purposes is not limited to the US.
Here in the Philippines, we have a big […]

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There is a big controversy against Notre Dame University honoring President Obama with an honorary degree.
Undoubtedly you have read the Notre Dame talking points, which are all over the news.
These talking point insist: Only rabid right wing evil conservative bigoted Republicans oppose this honor, and most good pro abortion Democratic Catholics support the university.
Of […]

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Here in the Philippines, there are the rich famiies, and the poor families, and a growing middle class (that’s us) who have to work for a living.
At the same time, globalization has started to perculate into the provinces.
Twenty years ago, they opened a McDonald in our provincial capital city.
Five years ago, Jolibee (the Pinoy equivalent […]

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Some Anthropology associations have been worried about the US Army recruiting trained anthropologists to help in the war on terror.
Part of this is because they remembered how anthropologist helped the US during the war in Southeast Asia, and they viewed the war around Viet Nam wrong (huh…fellahs, ever hear of the boat people? the Cambodian […]

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I suspect the present day witch-hunt against those who “tortured” has more to do with politics than reality. Why? Because I’m old enough to remember the laments of the Church committee hearings back in the 1970’s.
Those hearings resulted in the CIA pulling back from the “hands-on” dirty work of spying, relying more on electronic surveillance […]

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The Philippine military continue to pursue the AbuSayyaf who hold one remaining European hostage in Sulu province.
Usually hostages get quickly ransomed for fear of being killed, but in this case things are slightly different.
For one thing, those kidnapped were from the International Red Cross, and were there to help the local Muslims: a fact that […]

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According to Treehugger, a recent poll reveals that one in three kids think the earth won’t exist when they grow up.
Twenty eight percent are upset that the polar bears and other animals will become extinct, and 59% of urban kids think the world won’t be as good when they grow up.
I’m not surprised, given the […]

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CNN is reporting that there is to be a “new beginning” in the US relationship with Cuba.
Yet Cuba continues to jail dissidents, and has not changed it’s policies (so loved by the western social planners) that let the neighborhood busy bodies butt into your private life.
Shouldn’t a “new beginning” mean something?
At the same time, I’m […]

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The headlines here in the Philippines are full of the usual stuff: corruption, political charges, a celebrity’s wife who was shot, and of course our lovely president, Gloria Arroyo, traveling the world to get more jobs for our Overseas foreign workers.
But one small story on GMA NEWS caught my eye:
About 30 troops from the Hawaii […]

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Pirates in Somalia are getting rich because the civilized world no longer has the laws and will to confront them.
The dirty little secret is that if the pirates grab a crew, the company owning the ship will pay ransom.
Now the stakes are heightened with two attacks: One, where an American ship’s crew fought and the […]

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On April 9, 1942, the American and Philippine soldiers who were holding out in the siege of Corregidor surrendered to the Japanese.
The Manila Bulletin reminds us of what happened then:
Some 72,000 men of the United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) laid down their arms. On the Death March, 20,000 died. Of the […]

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Yesterday was Palm Sunday, and I am happy to report that our “palms” are eco friendly: we had one of our workers climb up the wall to one of our smaller palm trees and cut a couple branches.
These workers then showed our granddaughter Ruby how to weave them into several designs, including one that is […]

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There is a nasty situation in the Southern Philippines.
The AbuSayyaf, a “militant” group associated with AlQaeda, has kidnapped some International Red Cross workers who were inspecting a local prison as a humanitarian gesture.Despite government troops pulling back to comply with demands, the group has now increased their demands, threatening to behead one of the workers […]

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Every once in awhile, the headlines will report another human death from bird flu.
This week, a small child in Egypt is being treated in hospital, making her the 58th case in that country since 2005.
Birdflu, of course, is a smouldering time bomb: so far, only isolated cases of animal to human infections, but so far […]

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Lasts month I wrote the dirty little secret on dieting: That for adults, what works is a lower calorie diet, but that for most people, dieting only results in moderate weight loss of 10-15pounds.
Luckily for adults, even a modest weight loss, combined with healthy eating habits and moderate exercize, helps lower the risk of disease. […]

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The Ebola-Reston virus outbreak in Philippine pigs is now costing farmers a lot of money, but so far no humans have died, thank the Lord.
Last month, when some pigs that probably died of other viruses were found to have been infected with a type of Ebola virus only found previously in monkeys, no one here […]

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One of these days, President Obama is going to notice the Philippines, but apparently not yet.
During the campaign, although Senator McCain took time out to visit President Arroyo, Senator Obama just was unable to give her five minutes, even though they were both in Washington DC at the same time, and the city of Washington […]

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After fifty years of controversy, the US Congress finally decided to grant the promised pensions to the “irregular” soldiers who fought the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II.
Rooting back to 1941, since the Philippines was considered a protectorate of the United States, then-U.S. President Roosevelt ordered that those Filipino soldiers who fight against […]

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Okay, folks. You want to be “green” and go without your refrigerator, that huge thing in the corner of your kitchen that eats electricity.
As I pointed out in my previous post, the folks in the NYTimes article who claimed they were doing that were really faking it by using freezers in the basement or ice […]

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The Bad News:
Those pigs near Manila infected with a mild variation of the Ebola virus (the Ebola Reston strain) have spread the virus to at least one human.
The good news: He didn’t get sick.
Authorities testing those in contact with the infected pigs found one man had antibodies on a blood test, proving he was infected […]

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I guess I got out of the Federal government’s health system just in time.
Obama has stopped the implementation of protections for medical workers who oppose abortion.
It won’t get headlines, however: the headlines say “White House stops pending Bush Regulations for Review”
… Bush administration include allowing the carrying of concealed weapons in some national parks and prohibiting medical facilities from receiving […]

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No, I’m not quoting the well worn joke: World ends, women and minorities affected most.
I’m just observing how the economic downturn is affecting those in our area of the Philippines.
One of my medical journals (registration required) says the World Health Organization is worried that the worldwide recession will result in people chosing to wait for […]

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After the reports that melamine contaminating baby formula in China had sickened thousands of children there, some parents felt that soy products for their beloved children was safer.
Well, think again.
As early as mid December, Health Canada was noting trace amounts of melamine in soy products, including some that were labled “organic”.
The level wasn’t high enough […]

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The major papers here in the Philippines tend to echo the headlines of the New York Times or CNN.
So this week, all the headlines are about Gaza.
Needless to say, few here are aware of small things like Hamas having the goal to eliminate Israel, or the thousand missiles that have kept Israelis in bomb […]

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