High-quality English language analysis and editorial writing on the news.
Most people have never even heard of the Spratly’s, they are a group of small islands in the middle of the South China Sea. As with other seemingly worthless pieces of real estate in the middle of nowhere there is strategic value in ownership. The Spratly’s have been haggled over for many years. China, Vietnam, […]
The recent CNN coverage of The Malaysian Airline tragedy, has created a new Challenge for Avid Newswatchers, and those who view multiple media outlets. It was always a safe bet that regardless of Network bias or Newspaper political leanings, you could read between the lines with most stories, and figure out when something resembling “news” […]
While the press is full of news about Boyance and Justin Bieber, one of the completely ignored stories has been how China is busy taking over Africa. Not politically, of course, but by investing in minerals, exporting their cheap goods to Africa and establishing stores there to sell things cheaply, and by investing in farm […]
A friend once told me about living through the California North Ridge earthquakes: they had nothing, were camping out on the streets. But one thing impressed her: They had access to a small supply of drinking water that they had stored in their back yard, because the state had impressed on residents the need to […]
When the big supertyphoon hit south of where I live in the Philippines, and all my friends and relatives were emailing me if I was okay. Why, yes, I answered: The Signal 4 super-typhoon hit south of us. But we were badly hit by an ordinary Signal 3 typhoon a few weeks earlier, which destroyed […]
Some American news papers are taking quotes by Pope Francis out of context to criticize those few bishops who dare to say abortion is murder, or for supporting the idea of traditional marriage that have been around for a few millenia. Like most of what the pope says, this is cherry picking quotes out of […]
MariaElena at Fountain of Elias reminds us that Sept 24 is the (pre Vatican II) feast of Our Lady of Ransom. This feast was one of the church’s way of reminding folks of the many captured by various pirates and to raise money to ransom them. The origins of the Feast can be found in […]
Don’t pay attention to the quotes taken out of context and spun to make Pope Francis seem to the left of the trendier than thou Episcopal church. Go and read what he actually said, and what he has said in the past, and you will find nuances that don’t fit into sound bites. The Catholic […]
It’s Holy Week here in the Philippines, which means lots of church going and Manila is emptying out for folks to go home for the Easter Holidays. First Things magazine discusses how Americans should view the crucifixion: not as an event to be watched, but as the result of our sins. They even quote Luther […]
On January 25th, three days after his 85th birthday, legendary artist Shozo Shimamoto died of heart failure. A memorial event titled Shozo-ism was held at Hotel Novotel Koshien, Osaka West in Japan on March 13th. Another memorial is ongoing. Quoting Shozo’s first son, Takashi Shimamoto “please visit Shozo’s soul, he would be so excited to […]
The BBC series Sherlock has hit the Philippines, and although I think the plots are stupid, the dialogue and characters are quirky enough to keep my interest. But as a doc, I got very annoyed with the Dr. Watson limp in story number one. Quick: What’s wrong with this picture? The answer is that he […]
Well, today we Filipinos woke up and found we wouldn’t be losing Cardinal Tagle to Rome: Apparently an Argentinian bishop was picked for the next Pope. But choosing a name usually is a hint on what the Pope plans to do when in office, and it is interesting that Cardinal Bergloglino chose the name of […]
This week we Catholics celebrate Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. A lot of good Catholics were slightly hung over from too much Mardi Gras on Tuesday, but never mind: The idea is that “there is a time to party and a time to fast”, and now the time to fast has arrived. Traditionally, at […]
The Aliens are coming! The Aliens are coming! Or maybe not…. One of the amusement of studying ancient history is how all those sophisticated Yanks seem to think “primitive” people are stupid, so anything they don’t understand is attributed to “Aliens”. As Chesterton once quipped: Once people stop believing in religion, they start believing in […]
I love when elites at green sites put guilt trips on ordinary folks. Yes, these types of articles are needed to educate citified yuppies who love organic food and green living but are blithely unaware that these practices were routine in the days of their grandparents and remain routine in poorer areas of the country […]
 Here in the Philippines, guns were confiscated under Marcos, and although one can get a permit, the average person doesn’t have permission to carry a gun. That is not to say that the average person doesn’t have a gun: most middle class folks have one or two guns or rifles illegally stashed in their homes, […]
What does the UK Guardian asking for us to reconsider the crime of pedophilia, and the Life of Pi have in common? Making up pretty lies to confuse the reality of the crime. The Guardian insists that the crime of having sex with children isn’t bad and such impulses should just be accepted as part […]
Part one discussed the way the Philippines went along with American pressure to pass a US style family planning program whose aim (denied by the president) is to limit population control. Reality check: every “discussion” of the bill by the Manila elites includes lamentations about the high population growth, and even a few politicians have […]
Neocolonialism anyone? The Philippines passed an RH bill, a “Reproductive Health Bill” that requires medical personnel to push birth control on their patients, and all the US newspapers are rejoicing. The bill had the opposition of the powerful Catholic church, but in a country where the average number of kids per woman has fell from […]
I for one am a huge fan of humor. My favorite is humor of the dry and acerbic style. Humor is fun, and should be taken for what it is. Alas it would seem that the concept of humor is beyond the grasp of China. The gloriously irreverent web site the Onion released a fabulous […]
The political hit job movie, 2016: Obama’s America is now out in DVD which means I got to see it. Film Summary: President Obama is trying to please his Marxist/anti-colonial father by remaking America to punish her sins, and that is why the US is going to hell. No, it’s not quite that bad, but […]
Ninety-five years ago, a bunch of ignorant hoi polloi went out into the fields of a small rural town to see a predicted miracle, and the big city MSM was there to laugh at them and to record how the fools would respond when they found nothing happened. Whoops: (photo Via Tea at Trianon) Yes, […]
There was a big story by National Geographic last week about illegal ivory being used by Philippino Catholics to make statues. They even named one of our more dubious priests as being involved in the practice. Corruption is not new in the Philippines, where winking at the law is a way of life and bribes […]
The headline in today’s Manila Bulletn is that hackers have taken down some government websites to protest the new “cyberlaw”. The cyberlaw is supposed to protect folks against having their email and facebook sites hacked, and to stop hackers from stealing your identity, but it also includes laws against libel: Basically, the group claimed, the […]
In today’s news we read about multicity protests that burned flags and had to be broken up by police using water cannons. So where were these demonstration? Cairo? Beruit? Karachi? No, they were in China. The UK Telegraph has a story about these “spontaneous” demonstrations: China seized by second day of violent anti-Japan protests More […]
This morning I rose and read the “sermon of the day” before I went to church, and sure enough, another highfalutin sermon on the Good Samaritan. For those who are not Christian, this is one of Jesus’ stories about a man beaten by robbers who was helped by a passerby who belonged to a rival […]
This report from an Iranian blog on Global Voices, says they have such a chicken shortage the price of .chickens have soared. So someone decided to censor films and TV programs that show…chickens (!) Against a backdrop of lengthening food queues, Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, the head of Iran’s law enforcement forces, has warned that films depicting […]
The greens in the Philippines are fighting all GM food, which is good in some ways and bad in other ways. I mean, we are in the “organic rice” business, and use locally developed hybrids, so cheap, abundant “Genetically modified” rice imports from China are not in our best interest. But the search for new […]
Yes, Children, he says it would have been okay for Sarah to kill Trig and sex with animals is okay too (as long as it is not cruel). But never mind: Being green means never to say you are sorry. So Peter Singer has been rewarded by being given a major government award by Australia, […]
Okay, parents. Your 13 year old makes a decision that he wants to do something that has a 2 percent chance to be fatal. Do you 1) Forbid him to do it. 2) Try to talk him out of this but if he refuses to listen to your concerns, allow him to do it anyway […]
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