consume the terror

How is it possible that I've eaten the #1 most terrifying food in the world, a food more terrifying than #5, which is illegal and causes bloody diarrhea, or #4 which is a drink with dead baby mice as a featured ingredient?

I call bullshit on this list and on paulp's tumblog that led me to it.

Retroactive blogging

I found the journal I brought with me to the Philippines. Here's an entry:

11/10/06 - Calamba

The pollution is overwhelmingly bad. The river is full of garbage, and Sonny tells me it is actually better than it was before the typhoon. The street where Lola lives, Bantayan, is full of exhaust from the jeepnies and tricycles that are constantly filling the roads. These are poor people but they pay for these rides? I wonder if a system where people use bicycles a lot (like in China?) would work here? Nobody has said anything directly about this pollution, although Sonny's comments hinted at it. I wasn't sure if he was proud of the river or shared my sadness about its condition. Kira says the pollution upsets her mom, and Kira remembers playing by the river when she was little, which couldn't happen now. Today we're touring a volcano, which should be fun and exhausting.

Here are pictures we took of a tricycle and a jeepny, in a less polluted area.





They're like cabs and buses, respectively.

Here's a picture we took from the bridge over the polluted river I mentioned. People live right there.

Philippines trip

I meant to post this link a long time ago, but here are a bunch of pictures from our trip to the Philippines.

Great Presidential Moments, #25

From Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (emphasis added):

In December of 1898, the peace treaty was signed with Spain, officially turning over to the United States Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, for a payment of $20 million.

There was heated argument in the United States about whether or not to take the Philippines. As one story has it, President McKinley told a group of ministers visiting the White House how he came to his decision:

Before you go I would like to say just a word about the Philippine business… The truth is I didn’t want the Philippines, and when they came to us as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them… I sought counsel from all sides – Democrats as well as Republicans – but got little help.

I thought first we would only take Manila; then Luzon, then other islands, perhaps, also.

I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentleman, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almight God for light and guidance more than one night. And on night late it came to me this way – I don’t know how it was, but it came:

1. That we could not give them back to Spain – that would be cowardly and dishonorable.
2. That we could not turn them over to France or Germany, our commercial rivals in the Orient – that would be bad business and discreditable.
3. That we could not leave them to themselves – the were unfit for self-government – and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and
4. That there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace to the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed and went to sleep and slept soundly.

The Filipinos did not get the same message from God.

Perhaps as many as 1,000,000 Filipinos died as a consequence of their resulting revolution for independence, and countless attrocities were committed.