Zuckerberg's Metaverse Dream and His Redemption

Today is a good lesson on investing for long-term investors. Shares of META tumbled, despite the company once again had beaten Wall Street estimates on its EPS and revenue. Why? Because Wall Street was more focused instead on Zuckerberg's plan to spend big on AI with META's products.

There's actually nothing wrong with the company's financials to rattle the investors. The Facebook and Instagram parent company META announced its first-quarter profit has more than doubled, boosted by higher advertising revenue and a 6% increase on the average price of ads on its platforms. But its shares dropped sharply in after-hours trading following revenue guidance that spooked investors.

META earned $12.37 billion, or $4.71 per share, in the January-March period. That’s up from $5.71 billion, or $2.20 per share, in the same period a year earlier. Revenue rose 27% to $36.46 billion from $28.65 billion.

Wall Street analysts were expecting earnings of $4.32 per share on revenue of $36.14 billion

META lost $200 billion in value in a single day. 😨

But the bloodbath on its share price gives ample opportunity to its long-term investors. Why the aversion to Zuckerberg's aggressive plan to spend a lot to dominate the generative AI revolution started by ChatGPT?

It was his failure to convince the world with his new vision some three years ago. There was a time before ChatGPT when the tech world was talking about something entirely different. Yes, it was the metaverse.

For a while it dominated tech news. He dreamt and planned a virtual reality world that would be so immersive, so engaging, that we would want to spend part of our lives in it.

Mark Zuckerberg drove the metaverse narrative and, in turn, drove him to obsession. He was so committed that in 2021 he changed Facebook's name to Meta. But two years later his vision of the metaverse is in trouble. His Reality Labs lost a staggering $21 billion. He failed but no one could accuse him of a lack of ambition.

Then along came ChatGPT. The tech world is obsessed with it ever since and started a generative AI revolution. Everyone including META jumped in to join the bandwagon. This AI revolution may well be Zuckerberg's redemption. His metaverse ambition three years ago was a bit premature but with the magic of generative AI, it may finally become a reality. That explains his aggressive attention to AI.

How is AI going to help the metaverse? By creating truly immersive experiences.

AI's ability to understand and replicate real-world physics, emotions, and interactions is pivotal in making the metaverse genuinely immersive. Advanced AI models can simulate realistic weather, infrastructure, conversations, and emotional responses from virtual characters.

This time, Zuckerberg may achieve his almost quixotic ambition and finally deliver another product of his genius like what he did twenty years ago inside his Harvard dorm where he created Facebook. 👍

Hateful Christians of America and There Are Plenty of Them

 It turns out that Republican Congressman Tim Walberg of Michigan, who advocated for the annihilation of innocent Palestinians, including Christians in Gaza, by nuking them similar to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to finish them off and get it over quick, is a former evangelical pastor.

He doesn't even want to spend a nickel in humanitarian aid for the starving people of Gaza. How repulsive and completely devoid of Christian values considering his background.

He is in fact a graduate of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Taylor University in Indiana and Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. All three institutions are evangelical Christian colleges. Wow. 😱

This is the reason why you shouldn't just believe anyone who claims he is a Christian who follows the teachings of Jesus even if he is a certified pastor or whatever.

To be sure, he is not alone among American lawmakers in openly advocating for the extermination of Palestinians. You have Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee who said "I think we should kill them all" or Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who advocated to "level the place." How disgusting. 🥹

Even on the Democratic side, you have lawmakers supported and financed by the powerful Jewish lobby AIPAC and who unquestioningly support Israel even if it is breaking international law, engaging in genocide and very obviously engaging in ethnic cleansing.

I'm very disappointed with Biden and I'm not sure if I will vote this November. Very demoralizing for many progressives in America. I'm hoping things will get better by November.

The Dangers of Religious Fundamentalism In Today's World

 Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders lamented that Israel is "becoming a religious fundamentalist country" under Netanyahu.

"Too many people do not understand that the Israel of today is not the Israel of…20 to 30 years ago. It is a right-wing country, increasingly becoming a religious fundamentalist country where you have some of these guys in office believe that God told them they have a right to control the entire area." He is right. I couldn't agree more. 🥹

Sadly, the same thing is happening in the United States as well. MAGA Christian nationalists including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson as well as those right wing evangelical pastors using Trump as their useful fool are attempting to push the country in that direction. 🥲

It's not just Israel and the United States that's doing it. These populist authoritarian leaders these days found religion quite useful. This is also happening in India with Narendra Modi pushing the biggest democracy in the world into becoming a Hindu fundamentalist country at the expense of non-Hindu Indians, most of them Muslims. 🥶

A deja vu of the 1930s and 1940s with a religious twist. Are we also to expect a religious world war? Is this becoming a true Armageddon? I don't want those religious nuts to be ecstatic for the end of the world and jumping for joy expecting their dreamt rapture into the stratosphere becoming a reality. No way Jose. 😱😁 The Dangers of Religious Fundamentalism

Jewish Thinking On The Afterlife

 Another food for thought after a close call with rapture on yesterday's total solar eclipse. Or so some of us thought will happen as we are reminded of the afterlife. 😉

Most Christian denominations do not subscribe to rapture theology as it was not part of traditional Christianity historically. Only mostly evangelical Christians. The idea of rapture did not even exist until the 1830s in America.

Rapture is not even an end-of-the-world event. It is supposedly a prelude before the second coming of Jesus Christ, before the so-called "tribulation."

Why Paul talked about it and other things in his many epistles in the New Testament is one of the reasons many viewed Paul as the main architect of the theology of Christianity.

Whatever Paul's reasons, whether he was talking about these things to come ("futurism") literally or figuratively, evangelical Christianity took their imaginations to the next level. And it is relatively new. Only in the 1830s.

Personally, I don't really pay too much attention to Christianity's eschatology. Rather, as Christians, we should focus on the here and now, how we live our lives.

Even the Jews themselves don't really deal too much attention with the afterlife. Compared to Christianity and Islam, Judaism is not too focused on the details of heaven or hell. I think we are missing the point that Jesus tried to emphasize.

Many will be surprised to learn that eschatology in Judaism only developed gradually at about the same time that the new Christian religion developed its own during the 3rd and 4th century. Both were influenced by Greek philosophies prevalent in the region at the time including Plato's.

Even one Jewish rabbi and professor lamented: "Why are Jewish notions of the afterlife so indistinct when both Christian and Muslim views of the afterlife, which come originally from Judaism, have attained remarkable specificity?" 🤔

As one Jewish writer put it:

"Ask Jews what happens after death, and many will respond that the Jewish tradition doesn’t say or doesn’t care, that Jews believe life is for the living and that Judaism focuses on what people can and should do in this world.

But not so fast. If anything is less Jewish than belief in heaven and hell, it’s Jews agreeing on an official theological party line. And after 4,000 years of discussion, you’d expect considerable variation. Sure enough...disagreements. As they say: two Jews, three afterlives. "😊 Jewish Thinking On The Afterlife

The Great Maimonides

 

Maimonides also known as Rambam was a 12th century Sephardic Jewish rabbi and philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. Among the greatest Jewish rabbis in history.

At the same time, he was a preeminent astronomer and physician, serving as personal physician to the great Saladin, Sultan of both Egypt and Syria who defeated the Crusaders in 1187 and captured Jerusalem.

Revered by Jewish historians, Maimonides also figures very prominently in the history of Islamic and Arab sciences and he is mentioned extensively in studies. He became a prominent philosopher in both the Jewish and Islamic worlds.

Influenced by Aristotle, he himself was a great influence to other great thinkers including St Thomas Aquinas.

Unlike other Jews and even Christians who think only them can go to heaven, Maimonides believes any non-Jew who lives according to the Seven Laws of Noah is regarded as a righteous gentile, and is assured of a place in the world to come, the final reward of the righteous. I hope many radical and conservative Jews and Christians learn from his teachings. 😉

Born in Spain, he was exiled in Morocco and ended up in Egypt where he served Saladin. He died in Egypt but it was claimed that he was ultimately buried in Tiberias in Israel where a "Tomb of Maimonides" became a tourist attraction.

Plant A Tree To Fight Climate Change?

 

It's another record-breaking heat last year and even this year. Scientists confirmed that year 2023 was the warmest year since global records began in 1850. The ten warmest years in the 174-year record have all occurred during the last decade (2014–2023). Don't expect 2024 to be any different. 🥹

Many Asians including Filipinos complain of the unbearable heat this summer. Climate crisis is the new norm and so what do we expect? Everyone is reminded to plant a tree instead. 😊

Sadly, trees don't grow fully overnight. Not even a year or two. What we are experiencing at the moment is the cumulative effect of climate crisis, and the solutions are always long term just as the problem that started it all was also long term.

Of course, planting trees will help in the long term. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

But let's be realistic. We will suffer for the next five to ten years, that's for sure. There's nothing we can do about it. The damage has been done. Man now reaps what he sowed.

Planting trees is just one solution. Cutting down on carbon emissions is even more important. The key to solving our climate crisis is not even in the hands of the Filipinos. It is in the hands of the major polluting nations of the world.

The irony is countries like the Philippines and Bangladesh even the small island nation of Vanuatu in the Pacific will suffer the most for what the major polluters did. The Filipinos can only add their voices in demanding accountability from these polluters. Unfortunately, we all live in the same planet. No man is an island. 🥲

Southeast Asia's Sinking Cities And What's Being Done About Them

 All my friends and relatives back in the Philippines are complaining of the terrible heat waves for quite sometime now.

Even some schools consider going back to remote learning like what they did during the pandemic as the heat is so unbearable. That's how bad it is.

Heat indices as high as 46 C or around 115 F are recorded. 😰

The bad news is this is going to be the new normal in the years to come. Those climate crisis skeptics in the Philippines (and I'm sure the country has its share of them too) will finally have their rude awakening. 😱

Sadly, the Philippines is among the countries predicted by many climate scientists to suffer the most from the impact of climate crisis, thanks to the major greenhouse gas emitters of the world like China, United States, EU, India and Russia. 🥲

And it's not just heat waves. Sea levels are also fast rising. Another new normal are super-typhoons and longer and severe droughts. Water resource becomes a major problem.

Many cities especially in Asia are sinking with rising sea levels. At least, Widodo of Indonesia is doing something about it. He is actually building a new Indonesian capital named Nusantara and is being built inside the jungles of Kalimantan in Borneo with the initial phase set to be inaugurated by August of 2024. The whole new city is projected to be completed by 2045.

There are many expected challenges ahead for the Indonesian government, that's for sure. But what about Manila?

Manila is among the fastest sinking cities on the planet, sinking at around 10 centimeters per year. Anong plano ng gobyerno? 🥹

I feel sick in my stomach just thinking about what's waiting in the future for the next generation.🥲

Why Many Evangelicals Hate Muslims

 The hatred against Muslims felt by many evangelical Christians in America (not all, mind you) is so sad when you consider that the religion of Jesus Christ is based on love. Where's the love? 😢

And it's not made up by liberal left-wingers, as they often claim. The evangelical pastor from Texas in this video confirms it himself.

All these hateful talking points from hateful white supremacists and Christian nationalists among mostly evangelicals are so venomous and corrosive.

To these people, even good hearted Jews who condemn the evil done by Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza like US Senators Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer are branded antisemitic and not Jewish enough. As if they are more Jewish than the Jews themselves.

To these people, anything Muslim or Islamic is already evil. They readily see the evil done by Islamic fundamentalists but don't see the evil done by Christian fundamentalists aka themselves.

To these people, ALL Palestinians are guilty of the crimes committed by those Islamic fundamentalist Hamas. Hence, killing all of them, children and women included, is justified in their eyes. How so Christian or so they think. I would rather call myself an atheist.

Even if thousands upon thousands of those Palestinian kids and women are killed or starved to death, this people don't see them as humans anyways so they don't feel any guilt at all just like those Israelites in the Old Testament who claim they were told by their God to massacre all Amalekites and the other tribes in Canaan.

Those Israelites claim they were strictly told by God to kill ALL men, women, elderly, children even the animals of Amalek. And they can have their virgin women for themselves too.

So strict was the instruction for genocide that when the prophet Samuel learned that Saul spared the king's life, the prophet beheaded King Agag himself right before Saul and his court. Really? Wow. 😱

In fact, Netanyahu in present-day Israel often uses the example of the Amalekites as an inspiration of the IDF to kill their enemies in Gaza.

These Christian nationalists, most of them evangelical Christians, are truly living up to the expectations of Jesus or so they think...how truly loving people in the spirit of Christ...again, or so they think. 😭

It is for the same reason that Donald Trump pander to the hatred of these evangelicals to get their support by pretending to be one of them and went as far as selling Bibles or claims that he loves the Bible even if he knows nothing about it or claims that Christianity is under attack in America the way many evangelicals (and only them) see it.

This is the sad state of evangelical Christianity in America today.

Watch this video from a truly enlightened evangelical pastor and fully understand what it means to be a true Christian. 😍

On Christianity, Islam and Judaism With Their Overlaps and Contradictions

 

Another food for thought.

My response to a friend from down under who criticized me for admiring Maimonides, a famous 12th century Jewish rabbi, while at the same time accusing me of "mocking" the Old Testament. I have my reasons. Let me share them with the rest of you. ✌️

Yes, it's true that, as Christian, I don't believe the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible should be on equal footing with the New Testament just as Paul correctly stated that Christians are no longer bound to the Mosaic law of his own childhood faith.

In my opinion, putting the OT and NT together in the Christian Bible is the reason many believers are confused about their faith especially many evangelicals who still think the Jews are God's chosen people who need to go back to Zion in order for the so-called rapture and other end-times events they believe will happen will materialize.

From that perspective alone, we can now understand why many evangelicals want the Jews to run the whole of Palestine by hook or by crook in order for the end-times to happen. I know it's a bit weird.

Supposedly, based on our faith, that should not be the case anymore as Christians are considered the new chosen people of God, not the Jews. At least, that's what we are told to believe.

The OT serves only as historical reference for Christians being the faith of Jesus and his disciples. I saw Judaism as the faith of the Jewish people who historically were quite parochial in their view of their God and themselves and very tribal in the belief that their God is theirs alone. And quite violent too.

Violence has no place in the Christian faith. But many Christians are confused about it and still behave like their Judaism cousins. Very tribal and parochial.

Jesus himself corrected the Jews of his time on their wrong understanding of their faith when he expounded to them the issues of anger, adultery, divorce, oaths, retaliation, and love of enemy. These are the so-called six antheses which appear to be opposite of what Moses taught. Actually, they are not. He simply corrected their misconceptions.

But, like other religions including Christianity and Islam, Judaism as an institution is hardly static. It, too, grew over the centuries both in theology and philosophy. In fact, their specific eschatology only developed rapidly at around the same time as Christianity in the 3rd and 4th century CE considering that it was around for thousands of years before that.

I respect and admire Maimonides as a person in general just like I respect and admire Gautama Buddha. He was a 12th century Sephardic Jewish rabbi who singlehandedly reordered, reorganized, humanized and summarized the written laws of his faith for the benefit of the other faithful. That's on top of his being a philosopher, astronomer and physician admired by both Jews and Muslims alike in his time.

That's why many Jews look up to him. Of course, like most Jews, he did not believe Jesus, another Jew himself, met the criteria of what their faith is expecting for the long-awaited messiah.

I don't have to share the faith of the people I admire the most as a person. I'm open-minded enough to recognize that God revealed himself in many religious traditions. But their traditions may retain much human flaws, which is quite normal.

For one, I cannot reconcile myself with the faith of the Jews based on the very parochial view of a God willing to commit genocides against other nations and expect me to believe that it is the same God Christians believe as an all-loving deity who loves ALL of humanity. That's too contradictory.

Again, the quirkiness of our many religious traditions reflects our human side. It is not all divinely perfect as it has its human imperfections as well. Even Christianity has its share of imperfections. But we can all transcend beyond those imperfections and appreciate the universal God that holds all of humanity together. It is for this reason that I remain respectful to other faiths and expect others to respect mine too.

Between Ashkenazi Jews and Palestinians

Those Ashkenazi Jews like Netanyahu who love to deny the rights of Palestinians over the land of Palestine and claim that only Israeli Jews are descendants of the Israelites and the Jews of Biblical Israel will be forced to eat their words when shown scientific DNA evidence that their hated Palestinian brothers are probably closer to their Israelite lineage than them. 😉

A 2020 study found that Ashkenazi Jews and modern Levantine
Arabic-speaking peoples like the Palestinians share common ancestry, but Ashkenazi Jews have a higher European-related component (41%). There's a substantial genetic overlap between them.

Most Palestinians descended from local inhabitants who converted after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century CE. The most genetically native groups to the land are the Samaritans and Palestinian Christians. They are far more native than Ashkenazi Jews.

The Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry postulated that they are largely descended from the Khazars, Turcic people from the Caucasus region of central Asia.

Regardless, I agree with Noam Chomsky, the great American intellectual famous for his work in linguistics, cognitive science, political activism and analytic philosophy when he said it really doesn't matter whether Ashkenazi Jews are closer to their Levantine roots than their eastern European and central Asian roots or vice-versa.

He added that we are a product of our cultural heritage more than our DNAs. We live in a world of cultural traditions. Whether the Moses of history truly exist or not, it doesn't matter. Chomsky himself is an Ashkenazi Jew like Netanyahu.

I agree with Chomsky. Even us Filipinos, we defined and redefined our being Filipinos, a product of our own cultural tradition.

Originally, the natives or "indios" were NOT considered Filipinos. Filipinos back then were Spaniards or at least mestizo Spaniards born in the Philippines. They were considered "insulares" as opposed to full-blooded Spaniards born in Spain called "peninsulares."

Later, half Chinese locals or chinoys who became the nouveau riche in Philippine society were accorded the right to be called Filipinos. I believe this is where Jose Rizal acquired his being Filipino long before the word applies to every native in the Philippines.

It doesn't really matter if your family's roots were Malays, highland Austronesians or lowland Austronesians, Chinese or Spaniards who lived in the Philippines for a very long time, you are Filipinos not because of your DNAs but because of your family's cultural heritage.

The Democrats' Biggest Mistake Over Biden

 As I've been saying all along, this is the biggest mistake of the Democratic leadership in many years for failing to listen to its base.

They cannot push Biden down their throats with threats of the alternative (Trump) being far too worse. The argument of "the lesser of two evil" will not cut anymore. The leadership has always have the option of finding another candidate. It doesn't have to be Biden, whom the students now see as a moral failure.

This younger generation is correct about the US today being like how it was during the Vietnam War. Just like in the 1960s and 1970s, a wide generational gap exists.

They cannot believe their own government is supporting an Israeli government engaged in genocidal war and is not being able to stop it. Ironclad and unconditional support even in the face of war crimes being committed by your ally? Seriously?

Even the expansion of the conflict into a regional war with Iran directly involved, everyone knows that Netanyahu wants it badly to stay in power. He knew that's going to happen when he allowed the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Syria. Netanyahu trapped Biden into this wider regional war.

Then you have AIPAC, the powerful Jewish lobby, and many influential conservative Jewish Americans attacking in schools, universities, workplace, politics, labor unions and just about everywhere else those ordinary Americans who supported the Palestinians in their struggle to survive from this genocide including the intentional starvation they are being subjected to. They want to silence them.

These Jews and their MAGA allies in Congress are the reason why there's a rise of antisemitism in America today at the expense of the rest of the Jewish American community who feel strongly against Netanyahu's far-right government. It's not fair to the latter.

Where are the Democrats who are supposed to defend the rights and freedoms of ordinary Americans?

If the Democrats will lose the White House in November, they only have themselves to blame. 🥹🥶

Of Mice and Men, Netanyahu and Trump

 These calculated and limited retaliatory strikes by both Iran and Israel are more like posturing than anything. It is custom-made for their intended audiences and for each other to send a clear message.

It's saber-rattling rather than a serious attack and counter-attack. In the Philippines, we call it "moro-moro." In the West, we call it "wag the dog." It's all theatrics and sound effects.😆

Now that the message has been sent, anything more than that will turn the conflict into a real regional war. It is apparent that both Iran and the United States don't want it but Netanyahu is keen on making it a wider conflict to keep himself in power.

He will do anything to prevent an early election in Israel because he knows he will soon be kicked out and face the criminal charges he is avoiding. 🥹

Trump is not alone. Netanyahu and Trump are on the same boat and use similar strategies.

Trump used the election campaign and his useful idiots, those MAGA fanatics, as his strategy to achieve his goal.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, used the Gaza war as his perfect excuse. Thanks to Hamas, believe it or not. Their brutality became his political lifeline.😁

Both are trying their best to avoid facing the music, that is, a ruined career and possible jail time for their alleged crimes.

Netanyahu with his corruption cases while Trump with his myriad of criminal and civil cases ranging from "hush-money" to election interference to business fraud to inciting insurrection. A total of 91 criminal counts in four separate prosecutions. Impressive. 😆

Nice try, guys, but you cannot run from justice forever. Justice will eventually prevail. 👍

Human Rights in America

When it comes to human rights, Jimmy Carter is likely to be disappointed that America upholds them in words only. As his fellow US president, George H W Bush, once infamously said: "read my lips."

When the going gets tough, the US commitment to human rights is there is really NO commitment to human rights.

The US response to the 9/11 attacks clearly settled this old question.

America is happy to preach to others about human rights. Especially the Chinese and the Russians and the Iranians. But, when the Americans themselves came under attack, they would do just about anything to wipe out the threat.

Before human rights became an advocacy for America under Jimmy Carter, we violated many of them during the tumultuous years of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights movement.

After Carter, we did it again post-9/11 when we intimidated our fellow Americans in the academia to silence them.

Then we did it again to them since October last year when the Gaza War started.

Presidents of multiple universities have been questioned by the Republican-majority House, inquisition-style, over reported rise in antisemitism on college campuses, never mind the simultaneous rise of Islamophobia as well. Both presidents of Harvard and University of Pennsylvania later resigned.

Recently, the president of Columbia University in New York capitulated to the demands of the same lawmakers in Washington, DC and started cracking down on protesting students, arresting a hundred of them.

At Yale University in Connecticut, police also arrested 50 protesting students.

The same thing happened to University of Southern California when it decided to cancel the valedictorian speech of Asna Tabassum, a Muslim student known to support the Palestinians in Gaza.

What freedom of speech? What human rights? What a shame. 😪

The Power of AIPAC Over Americans

 The Squad is about to fight for its political life. The war in Gaza has set the stage for a huge primary battle in 2024.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC, the powerful Jewish lobby, has set its sights on progressive candidates like the Squad who dare to criticize Israel or its leaders, funding negative attack ads during their primaries.

The group is expected to spend about $100 million on the efforts. Lobbyists like them hold American democracy at the palm of their hands. They make a mockery out of American democracy. They become America's kingmaker.

They can even make US lawmakers go after their perceived enemies like the Squad today and punish them or make their lives not easy. Ask those university presidents from Harvard and U Penn who were forced to resign.

Lobbying (which, honestly in today's political reality, is tantamount to legalized bribery) should banned. Trying to differentiate lobbying from bribery is simply splitting hairs. They are siblings from the same mother.

Along with lobbying, dismantling the electoral college will get America closer to an ideal democracy. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 65% of Americans support changing the way presidents are elected so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency. It only makes sense if you want the people's voice to prevail. 👍

It's about time to get rid of the ridiculous electoral college, which was a compromise by the founding fathers and become disastrous over the centuries. It's also about time to get rid of lobbying, which is nothing but legalized bribery. 🥶

Where Fundamentalism Went Wrong

The truth of the matter is all three of the Abrahamic faiths - Christianity, Islam and Judaism - in their most fundamental forms are the most intolerant religions in the world.

But over time theologians moved past that fundamental stage and, just as society evolved, religions also evolved. New insights are continually found. Perceptions and realities change. Whereas in Jesus' time, they did not condemn slavery, we now say it is evil. Whereas in his time, women were considered second-class citizens, we now say that women have the same rights as men. And so on and so forth.

That's where fundamentalism goes wrong. Fundamentalists - whether Christian, Muslim or Jewish - are wrong to assume that changes and additions to our faith traditions are automatically bad and they want people to go back to the "fundamentals", at times imposing their will to the rest of society whether they like it or not. Both Christian and Muslim fundamentalists want women to remain subservient to men just like in the Bible and Koran. But we now know that there is nothing wrong with giving women equal rights. There is nothing wrong with discovering new "truths" as humanity moves forward and we progress in many fields. There is nothing wrong with science discovering that what we hold as true and factual in our faith traditions are in fact wrong - that it took way more than six days from the beginning of time until Earth (with all its creatures) was formed, that the Earth is not really flat, that it is not the center of the universe, that having epilepsy is not necessarily being possessed with evil spirit, that Adam and Eve were not really our first ancestors, and on and on. There is nothing wrong with banning slavery even if it is not banned in the Bible and the Koran. We now know it is evil. There's even nothing wrong with the Catholic belief in purgatory even if it is not mentioned in the Bible. It is a more humane view of the Christian eschatology.

Fundamentalists want believers to follow the Bible and the Koran to the letter. Creationism is right. Science is wrong. The Earth is only 10,000 years old and was created in just six days. Strict dress code. Wives should submit to their husbands. The Talibans require beard among men. They even brought back death by stoning for adulterers. ISIS brought back slavery. They want us to go back to the times in the Bible and the Koran. Many Christians in the West ignorantly believe all Muslims are fundamentalists. Hardly. Blame the media and the hate preachers.

Perhaps the day will come when the newest generation will come to understand that there is nothing wrong with gay people even if Paul condemned them in the Bible. Fifty years from now, some of us who will still be around will be scratching their heads why we are so violent against gay people. Just as we do now looking back at the 1950s and 1960s in the Deep South, we find it disturbing that in that era ordinary white Americans even kids were not even bothered at the sights of black men and women being hanged on trees. We find it embarrassing that decent folks in that era were not even bothered by the obvious discrimination against black people in restaurants, on buses and elsewhere.

That's living. We move on.

"Who is my neighbor?"

"Who is my neighbor?"

That's the famous question by a self-righteous Jewish lawyer that begets the Parable of the Good Samaritan, perhaps the most known among the parables of Jesus.

Nowadays, the word 'Samaritan' is synonymous with being charitable. But in Jesus' time, Samaritans were among the most despised people in Israel for being too unorthodox and lax in following the Law and for intermarrying non-Jews, similar to today's nominal non-fundamentalist Christians and Muslims alike. Most Jews during the time of Jesus hate to associate with the Samaritans but Jesus quite often went through Samaria and interacted with the Samaritans. The tolerance that Jesus showed to Samaritans must have irritated the orthodox Jews of his time especially the priests and probably played a part in their decision to plot his death.

In the parable, both the priest and the Levite are known to know the Law by heart yet showed no compassion to the dying man on the road. They represented the religious-acting people who talk the talk but rarely walk the walk. Instead, it was the much maligned Samaritan who showed great compassion to the man. Jesus was citing as example a member of a group hated by those in his audience. In fact, when he asked "which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?", the self-righteous lawyer, more likely still with personal hardness in his heart, cannot bring himself to say "the Samaritan” and instead said " one who had mercy on him."

Jesus' moral lesson is very clear in this parable, which clearly answered the question "who is my neighbor [whom I should love as myself]?". Yet, many "orthodox" Christians and Muslims of today continue to act like those orthodox Jews in his time, despising and hating those who are considered "non-believers", "idolators" and "infidels", including those nominal Christians and Muslims who are not regular church-goers, those "progressives" who showed tolerance to other groups, even intermarry them, and are not as rigid in mastering their Bibles and their Korans. How sad. A lesson not entirely learned.

"If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."

~ 1 Corinthians 13:2

The Kingdom of God is Within You

As a Catholic, I believe in 'communio sanctorum', which is the communion of saints. It is the spiritual union of all human beings, both dead and alive, both in this world and those in 'heaven' including those in the state of purification (or what we call 'purgatory'). 

As both an individual being and a member of this spiritual community, I believe in personal prayers and communal prayers. As a corollary, I believe that asking the intercession of saints (those both declared by the Church and those I believe led exemplary lives, not necessarily Catholic or even Christian, like Mahatma Gandhi or Leo Tolstoy ) is a form of communal prayer request. Asking our own dead relatives to look after us and help pray for us is another example. Orientals, especially the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, are particularly known for this practice.

I believe when Jesus said that "the kingdom of God is within us." A part of heaven is already within each of us. I don't know why this is difficult for some to understand and yet have no problem understanding when some in the scientific community speak of multiverses or parallel universes or parallel dimensions.

For those among us who look down on non-Abrahamic religions, you will be surprised to know that thousand of years before our own faith understand these concepts, the Hindus already had these beliefs. For Hindus, the Brahman is the ultimate reality in the universe, the equivalent of our God. It is the pervasive, genderless, infinite, eternal truth and bliss that is the final cause of all existence in the universe. 

Some Hindus believe that the Brahman is separate from the Atman (soul, self) in each of us. This version is similar to the conceptual framework of the other major religions including Christianity. Other Hindus believe that the Brahman is identical with the Atman (soul, self) and therefore the Brahman is inside each living being, and there is connected spiritual oneness in all of existence. To some degree, this is similar to our belief in "the kingdom of God is within us" or "you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you." This is the reason why I don't believe in reducing 'heaven' into a mere physical reality (where you will find beautiful homes and abundant food, as some evangelical Christians believe or, as some Muslims believe, you will find yourself surrounded by virgins). If you can dig "parallel dimensions" in astrophysics and philosophy, surely you will understand what I mean. wink emoticon

In defense of Josephine Bracken

This is in defense of Josephine Bracken, Dr Jose Rizal's 'dulce extranjera.'

In a lecture given by Ambeth Ocampo two years ago in Canada, the historian casts doubt on Rizal's true intention with the Irish-American lady Josephine Bracken and even cast aspersions on her character as a woman of ill-refute. He even went as far as to suggest that Rizal was actually gay (more of that later). I think he already crossed the line - not that I'm a rabid Rizal fan.

It's true that Rizal and Josephine lived together as husband and wife in Dapitan without the blessing of a formal marriage. Rizal was aware of the social repercussions of their situation as reflected on his frequent communication with his mother and siblings. But the reason the exiled Rizal could not easily get married to Josephine was the condition imposed by the Church that he first retract his criticisms against the church and renounce his membership to the Freemasons. Doing so will be a betrayal to his cause, which at this point, after writing "El Filibusterismo", he believed can only be achieved through a revolution although he felt at the time that the Filipinos were not yet prepared to engage in it. Remember also that there was no civil marriage back then.

Whether Rizal ultimately capitulated to the enemy and signed a retraction hours before his execution so that he could give a last-minute honor to his true love by having a Catholic wedding or not is subject to a lot of conjectures by many historians. If he did not, it's because he was a man of principle and would not easily capitulate and betray his people for their cause. Either way, the couple were betrayed by the Church when it refused to issue Josephine a marriage certificate but at the same time proudly holding on a document that supposedly proves Rizal retracted his criticisms against the Church. Logic tells you it can't be both. The absence of a marriage certificate became a point of contention between her and the Rizal family, further damaging the already strained relationship.

In his last hours, Rizal gave Josephine his last gift, a copy of "The Imitation of Christ" by Thomas a Kempis, one of my all-time favorite books. On it, he lovingly wrote in English "To my dear and unhappy wife Josephine." Take note, he wrote "wife", not "sweetheart." But the ultimate endearing words of affection by our national hero to his beloved are found in his last and greatest poem, "Mi ultimo adios." In the last two lines, he wrote "Adiós, dulce extranjera, mi amiga, mi alegría, Adiós, queridos seres, morir es descansar." Andres Bonifacio, a great fan of Rizal, translated the words in Tagalog thus: "paalam estrañgerang kasuyo ko't aliw. paalam sa inyo m̃ga ginigiliw: ¡mamatay ay siyang pagkagupiling!" In English, "Farewell, sweet stranger, my friend, who brightened my way; Farewell to all I love; to die is to rest." She was thus immortalized by him in "Mi ultimo adios."

The many letters between them when Josephine was in Manila and Rizal in Dapitan showed a rather lovey-dovey couple. It's true that most of Rizal's siblings and his mother were against their relationship, some were suspecting that Josephine was a spy of the friars. But the romantic love between these two unequal lovers - one was an accomplished man of many talents from an elite family and the other an adopted daughter of Irish decent from a rather modest background - is beyond doubt. She even fought for sometime as a Katipunera a few months after Rizal died. Two years later, Josephine met and married another Filipino in Hong Kong - Vicente Abad of Cebu. They settled in Cebu where they put up the first bike store in the island. They had a daughter. She went back to Hong Kong after a few years when she got sick and died of miliary TB. She was only 25.

For Ambeth Ocampo to suggest that Rizal was not sincere in his intention with Josephine Bracken and add that Rizal was gay is absurd. I have nothing against gays but there was no evidence to support that he was. Ocampo himself said in his lecture that Rizal had a total of 13 women linked to him romantically -  1. SEGUNDA KATIGBAK, 2 .MARGARITA ALMEDA GOMEZ, 3. LEONOR RIVERA, 4. LEONOR VALENZUELA, 5. JACINTA YBARDALOZA, 6. CONSUELO ORTIGA Y REY, 7. ADELINA BAUSTEAD, 8. NELLIE BAUSTEAD, 9. O-SEI SAN KIYO, 10. GERTRUDE BECKETT, 11. SUZZANE JACOBY, 12.PASTORA NECESARIO, and, lastly, 13. JOSEPHINE LEOPOLDINE BRACKEN and none of them men . What Ambeth Ocampo said is pure speculation. Interestingly, in an informal survey among his students and former students at Ateneo de Manila, where he taught history, the vast majority believe Ambeth is gay. Is he projecting his own feelings? wink emoticon

Josephine Bracken deserves to be honored as an honorary Filipina  and be respected for it.

The Forgotten Street Children Of The World

During Pope Francis' visit at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila early this year, many in the audience (and many more watching on TV) were caught by surprise when a former street child, Glyzelle Palomar, tearfully asked the sharp question nobody expected from her "Why is God allowing such things to happen, even if it is not the fault of the children? And why are there only very few people helping us?" 

Nobody saw it coming. Her words pierced the hearts of the millions who heard it simply because what she said is so true and most of us are in some ways guilty of becoming numb to their plight and in our eyes they cease to exist. Instead of pity, we feel annoyance. Her words are an indictment of society. 

We are aware of the complexity of these kids' life situation. Many of them are victims of physical and even sexual abuse and, at an early age, are exposed to drugs and sexual exploitation. Like those scenes we saw in the Bollywood movie 'Slumdog Millionaire', not a few of these street kids are being manipulated by criminal syndicates to go around the city begging on the streets for them. Growing up distrustful of the adults in their young lives, it's not easy to set up social programs to reach out to them as evidenced by the lack of success by many government agencies and other advocacy groups working with street children. What's more embarrassing are reports that the same agencies handling the street kids even attempted to "hide" these children when foreign dignitaries come to visit their countries as was the case in the Philippines when Pope Francis came to visit in January this year.

I believe success will be a lot easier if public support is strong which is really not the case as pointed out by Glyzelle  with her 'why are there only very few people helping us?.'  We all let these kids down. So what can we do as citizens? I believe public awareness (and acceptance) of their difficult struggle to survive is the first step in helping the homeless children in the streets of Manila, Bangkok, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Durban in South Africa and anywhere else in the world where there are  street children roaming around their cities. With strong public support, more effective social programs by both government and non-governmental organizations will get easily adopted and implemented.




Let's hope that countries will stop ignoring these kids and instead serious and concrete actions will be implemented by governments, church and other civic organizations to uplift them out of their miserable lives. 

Inventing Diseases To Sell Drugs

Does the pharmaceutical industry manufacture diseases as well as drugs? In some cases, yes they do.

There's a word for that: "disease-mongering." Increasingly, more and more experts and researchers have raised the alarm and warn the medical establishment, government policy makers and the public of this disturbing and dangerous trend that I consider a public health hazard itself. According to BBC, "disease-mongering promotes non-existent diseases and exaggerates mild problems to boost profits."

Researchers at Newcastle University in Australia said drug companies are putting healthy people at risk by "medicalizing" conditions such as menopause (too often treated as a disorder when it's really a normal part of life) or in the case of irritable bowel syndrome, it is being promoted as a serious illness needing therapy when it is usually just a mild problem.

A good example is ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Many pediatricians bend over backwards to make the diagnosis and start children on dangerous chemical drugs at that tender age. Now comes the bombshell. Before his death, Dr. Leon Eisenberg admitted to Der Spiegel, the German magazine, that ADHD is a fictitious disease which they put together in 1968 for the benefit of drug companies in the new disease classification at that time of the DSM or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Diseases, the bible in Psychiatry for decades. Dr. Eisenberg's contribution to mental disease by invention and committee consensus has resulted in drugging millions of children from preschool age through high school who were often prescribed Ritalin. Ritalin was tested by the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) which found that it is pharmacologically similar to cocaine with perhaps even worse brain damaging potential.

Even risks factors such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure are being reclassified as diseases in their own right - hypercholesterolemia and hypertension, respectively - with falling thresholds resulting in more people considered to be sick.

Lynn Payer, author of "Disease-Mongers: How Doctors, Drug Companies, and Insurers Are Making You Feel Sick" wrote "Disease-mongering—trying to convince essentially well people that they are sick, or slightly sick people that they are very ill—is big business." Some critics characterize it as a vicious cycle in which businesses invent new diseases to match their existing drugs.

Take for example shyness. Excessive shyness is now a disorder called "social anxiety disorder" or social phobia. In October 2003 the FDA approved Paxil as treatment for social phobia.' "Shyness is a new disease invented by Glaxo" said Sidney Wolfe, executive director of the Public Citizen's Health Research Group in Washington, DC. Worse, in the US which is one of the few countries that allow direct-to-consumer advertising for medications, the consumers are being bombarded daily with ads which has a major impact on their view of a disease or "disease." The ads for Paxil in the late 1990s suggested that one in eight Americans had social anxiety disorder. "One in eight Americans! This is clearly an absurd fiction. The point of that is to try and make ordinary people feel sick", fumed one concerned expert.

Of course, some of these newly discovered diseases are real. There are two extremes in this issue: those who over-promote the "pill for every ill" philosophy and those overly suspicious critics who view diseases as being invented. The truth is somewhere in between. But if the medical establishment is not careful and vigilant, our doctors will become like our lawmakers in congress who are being controlled by the lobbyists and their corporate sponsors.

Some of these new "diseases" are really quite interesting. Take, for example, "Shift work sleep disorder" or SWSD. According to ICD 10, the medical coding standard often used by healthcare providers, insurers and Medicare, it is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder characterized by insomnia and excessive sleepiness affecting people whose work hours overlap with the typical sleep period. SWSD is yet another "disease" being promoted by Big Pharma for the sole purpose of selling drugs like Nuvigil, sold by Teva Pharmaceuticals. The fictional narrative is that those poor night shift nurses, for example, who suffer from excessive sleepiness are not simply tired because they are out of sync with the sun, the tiredness they feel when they stay up all night is actually a disease requiring medication. Yet one of the most common side effects of Nuvigil, the treatment for SWSD, is, ironically, also insomnia! Nuvigil is also a highly addictive controlled substance. Oh, those poor nurses (including my sister in Maryland) who are doing the graveyard shift! Avoid Nuvigil at all costs if you don't have to.

The latest "disease" to grab the limelight is "Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder" or HSDD. Women who are supposed to suffer from this new condition are being treated with flinbanserin from Sprout Pharmaceuticals. It is popularly known as the pink Viagra. Researchers believe sex equality advocates, along with the drug industry, are creating a medical need where one doesn’t really exist.

As earlier mentioned, one of the "dark" business models of Big Pharma is to invent a fake disease, promote the disease to push a new pill, then get as many people to take those pills as possible while Medicaid and Medicare programs write the checks. That's crazy.

But the blame is not purely in the hands of the drug industry. Top experts in their medical specialties who willingly become the spokespersons for these drug companies and even the unwitting doctors who help push the drugs for these new "diseases" are equally guilty. The pharmaceutical companies are very ingenious in the different ways they pump drugs into the medical system. According to James Ridgeway, techniques include "buying medical experts to put their names on articles written by the drug companies which can then be placed in medical journals; or hosting small casual dinners of docs to tell them about supposedly new and proven but still off-label uses for drugs. Docs get asked to come along for wonderful vacations with the dealers."

Dr Adriane Fugh-Berman, a Georgetown University physician, further exposed their methods on her article that appeared in the Boston Review. According to her, not only they "buy" the expert doctors, they also pump knowledge about the creepy new condition into the medical world through Continuing Medical Education, or CME, the process which helps doctors and other healthcare professionals keep abreast of new developments in their field.

Here’s how it works. Drug companies identify opinion leaders - influential healthcare professionals at academic medical centers. Selected opinion leaders are wooed. Opinion leaders whose perspectives "align" with the company’s marketing goals are then courted. A company may nurture relationships with targeted healthcare professionals over many years and will pay them to educate their peers at CME events and other settings. As expected, industry-paid speakers frequently deny espousing marketing messages. But these drug companies don't hire doctors to sell drugs. They hire them to sell diseases.

Very disturbing. On a lighter note, a former classmate in medical school, an ophthalmologist by trade, whom I recently had a quick reunion, amusingly quipped to me that had he known his family wants to travel extensively he would have taken residency training in internal medicine, implying that internists get much more corporate-sponsored travels for free than ophthalmologists. Of course, it's a joke (with some truth in it. LOL). I don't see serious harm on doctors attending pharma-sponsored conferences AS LONG AS they can keep their professional independence and critical thinking. I'm more concerned about the more impressionable younger doctors especially fresh residents who often take these new  "knowledge and discoveries" that appeared in medical journals almost like unassailable truths.