05.20.12
Posted in Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments, family stuff at 12:17 pm by Administrator
There have been reports that some “bug” is going around. Several people that I know have come down with it. A few weeks ago, it hit home. My youngest son came home sick, and the following week, I got it. Wow, was it a rough one. I’m still coughing today. While my girlfriend and her husband got it pretty bad, as did my aunt and another friend, my family (except me) was able to get a milder case of it. I, unfortunately, got hit really hard and have managed to lose 10 pounds in less than two weeks. Yikes! Not that I couldn’t lose that, but that’s a bit fast. I’m much better today, and had I rested enough the first week, I probably would be completely better today. But after the initial infection, as soon as the aches went away, I ran over to mom’s and helped her do all her errands. By the end of the week I had relapsed. Fortunately, not as bad as the first infection, but definitely a relapse with the aches and pains and extreme fatigue.
I’m usually not one to catch lots of colds and flues, so this one really caught me off guard. Especially how badly it affected my lungs. I don’t remember how long it’s been since I got this sick with the cold or flu. I’m guessing this was the flu due to the extreme aches and pains. I think this is the worst it has ever hit my lungs before. A bit scary actually, but I hope I’ve got the upper end now. Since I’m still coughing, I’m still cautious that I need to continue to take care of this. It also gives me a heads up that our lungs are so extremely important, and it would be a good idea to look up natural ways to keep the lungs healthy. During the second day of my infection I developed an asthma attack that was so scary I was considering going to ER. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that when I think I have to go to to ER, it’s pretty bad. Luckily I have my own private masseuse and witch doctor (Brian, ha!), so he took good care of me, and I managed to avoid a trip to ER.
Not really sure why I’m blogging about this, except to just warn everyone to be careful out there. I guess I’m also surprised at how different this infection has been from any other that I’ve had in the past–i.e. the progression was different, the duration, etc. If you do catch anything, hopefully it’ll be mild like for my boys. But if it hits you hard like it did me, keep treating yourself and continue to get a lot of rest so that you don’t relapse. I’ve always heard about resting enough to avoid a relapse, but honestly, this is the first time in my life that I recall ever getting a relapse from a cold or flu. Wow, it’s real. . .
Take care and be well!
Marlakins
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05.12.12
Posted in Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, Historical Trivia, family stuff at 8:15 am by Administrator
It’s very quiet here at the Brown residence. Everyone is still asleep. But once they awaken, I know it’s going to be busy because our family decided that we are going to celebrate Mother’s Day on day early to beat the crowds. We plan to start off with Breakfast at Mike and Ann’s around 9:30AM and then spend a leisurely day with the family, maybe checking out the Gamble House or some other museum. So Happy early Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there!
Since I’m up early and thinking about Mother’s Day and women in general, I’m gonna go ahead and continue on with my rant. . . this particular rant was provoked by a video I watched of a conservative pastor who is supposedly associated with Sean Hannity. This Pastor’s name is Jesse Petersen, and in this video his contention appears to be that allowing women to vote has caused a lot of problems for America. . . Hmmm. I had to listen to this video when I saw the title, and while I can understand the concept in the Bible that women should not rule over men, I have to say that I do not agree with the “reasons” or explanations of Pastor Peterson. Check out this video, and I’ll comment below.
So if you checked out Peterson’s video, you’ll know that he was basically claiming that America is in such poor shape today because too many women are in charge today. . . He claims that most women don’t know how to make sound decisions or that we get too emotional and flustered when problems arise thus causing us to have difficulty dealing with crisis. He also claims that women don’t know how to handle power. As such, he blames many of America’s problems today on women, such problems as the introduction of gay marriages, women asking for birth control assistance from the government, loss of freedom of speech, losing gun rights, etc.
I understand the man and woman hierarchy according to the Bible, so I can understand a little of where this pastor is coming from, however, I don’t think I agree with his reasons or his contention that it’s the woman that has cause America’s decline. Men have had an ample share and responsibility for many of America’s and other countries downfalls. So let’s look at it. How many women dictators do we know of in history or even just today? I can only think of men. Who conceived of and developed nuclear bombs? Mostly men. Who “used” these nuclear bombs on whole cities? Men. Who made decisions to colonize foreign countries? Mostly men.
So Pastor Peterson blames the outing of gays and loose sex on women. Who are these gay people he’s referring to? Many of them are men (at least half). And these loose women? Well, it takes two to tango. For every loose woman, there’s a loose man. So why are the women solely to blame? I’m not sure why Pastor Peterson decided that it was the “woman” causing all this evil in the world, but I think he needs to review his Bible. Here’s one of the passages from the Bible regarding women and men-1 Timothy 2:12-15:
But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have authority over the man, but to be in silence.
13For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
14And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
15Yet she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and love and holiness with propriety.
It’s clear from Timothy that men should be leaders, and that it is also clear that one of the reasons he didn’t want women to lead was because she (Eve) was deceived, but he (Adam) was not. However, what Pastor Peterson fails to see is that just because the man was not deceived, he “still” committed sin “knowingly.” And THAT attribute is more likely the cause of our problems today, than women being allowed to vote. We have many corrupt men in power today and historically. Men have been in charge since time immemorial, and trouble has abounded for as long as that as well. It’s easy to blame others when things aren’t going your way. In this case Peterson is blaming women. I do agree that the men should take charge and lead the way. The problem is that the men who are taking charge are not leading us in the proper way. We have too many warmongering leaders, who care more about controlling foreign peoples than they care about caring for their own people. I’m sick and tired of people whining about how much we spend on health care and illegal aliens. That’s just a distraction to funnel more money into the war machine. So long as the U.S. continues to destabilize other governments, and to occupy and bomb other countries and spend the trillions of U.S. tax dollars for military expenditures, then the “least” we can do is to pay for people’s health care, including illegal aliens. The U.S. sends billions in foreign aid, which oftentimes ends up killing people with the purchase of arms and weapons. What’s the difference if they pay healthcare for illegal aliens? Aid to foreign countries ends up in the military and forced control. At least aid to illegal aliens goes to helping their families, who most likely are not building bombs and polluting our environment.
I know I haven’t finished covering this topic of men vs women. For instance there is also the topic of how women influence men, and that becomes a source of power. . . but I’ve got to get ready now, so I’ll stop here. Hope everyone has a nice Mother’s Day! Don’t let Pastor Peterson bully you into thinking you’re the downfall of America, ha!
Marlakins
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05.11.12
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:25 pm by Administrator
For the past week the news media has been claiming that gas prices have been declining and that on average gas prices are around $3.69 per gallon. Well, I don’t know where these gas stations are that have declining prices. Around here, they’ve been going up. Just the other day I was visiting mom and the gas prices at the pump were $4.29 for regular.
This is what the gas station just across the street was charging.
Then the very next day I saw that the same gas station was charging $4.39 per gallon for regular. That’s a 10 cent jump over night! Today the prices at the pump by my house look like this. . .
The station just caddy corner to this one is charging this. . .
So where is this that the gasoline prices are going down? Feels very surreal to sit there and watch the news yak for a week that the prices of gas is going down when right in front of my face I see prices going up. If they can’t even get this information straight for local news, I’m sure they aren’t getting things straight with international news.
So that’s my rant for today. There were more that I wanted to rant about, but the topic of gas is much less controversial, so decided it was easier and less annoying to rant about that.
Hope your gasoline prices are “really” going down unlike ours. I really envy those who are actually paying less than $3.69 a gallon if that’s really the going average!
Marlakins
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05.07.12
Posted in Anything goes, Uncategorized at 9:14 pm by Administrator
This weekend Japan officially shut down its last operating nuclear facility for maintenance, which makes Japan officially nuclear free. . . Thanks to the strong opposition there, it may be that Japan will not restart their nuclear plants because each prefecture requires approval by the local government before it can restart. Fingers crossed on that one as the nuclear lobby is quite strong and well, certain people/groups have been known to get away with murder. And unfortunately too bad these closures came too late after the Fukushima disaster that’s still threatening to plague the rest of the northern hemisphere if fuel pool #4 collapses (so we’re warned by the likes of people like Arnie Gunderson, a former nuclear industry executive).
There’s a lot of information out there on nuclear energy, but I thought this one by Jeremy Rifkin was interesting. Click here to view the video.
According to Radiation Truth the countries that are nuclear free are Australia (strangely since they export lots of uranium for nuclear power plants and recently opened a new uranium mine), Austria, Belize, Cambodia, Columbia, Costa Rice, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Nepal, New Zealand, Peru, and Spain. The countries pledging to phase nuclear out are Belgium, Denmark, Japan, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Marlakins
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05.02.12
Posted in Playing the Tourist, family stuff at 9:47 pm by Administrator
I had already shown my boys these pictures, so I didn’t feel the rush to put these up. However, I still think they’re fun pictures, so might as well share them. . .
These were taken at the Manila Ocean Park last month.
It wasn’t easy taking these pictures because the fishies didn’t like to stay still and my digital camera is a slow poke. So I’m just trying to put up the pics that I think came out decent. Ah, and my bad, I don’t remember the names of any of these. . .
Grrrrr!!!! Can’t you just hear it? LOL
Umpa, umpa. . . lol
I would NOT like to find these things in the same water I was swimming in!
Or these! I’m such a wimp. . . Can you make out the eyes and mouth in this pic? lol
These are some sort of tube worms that are sensitive to earthquakes. Supposedly when they feel an earthquake the raise up out of the sand. I forget how far, but supposedly it’s pretty high. I shiver to think of how long they are down below the sand! Ick!
Ack! Okay, I have seen these here before, I think. Years ago we went to the Aquarium in Maryland, which IIRC, had some of these.
I don’t have much more room on this post, so I’ll just say that there were lots more types of marine life at the Manila Ocean Park including alligators, as well as a sea lion show we watched. We ended with the jellyfish exhibit.
After trying to take pictures of the marine life, I now have much more appreciation of those great animal/marine pictures we see in magazines like National Geographic and such. It takes a lot of patients and many shots to get decent shots. The water, lighting, and the movement of the fishes make it difficult to get good pictures.
Here’s a pic of our gang.
This was taken in a tunnel that had all sort of different marine life swimming around. I particularly like watching the stingrays glide by.
While I do have a lot more pics, I’ll just finish this post off with a pic of my cousin and me in front of one of the jellyfish tanks.
As I mentioned, it’s hard to get good shots in there with the dark lighting and glass. The flash tended to bounce off and ruin many shots. I think I need to learn how to use my camera better like maybe slowing down the shutter speed or something in darker setting?
I’m still so behind with my blogging. But I have been busy since I got home. I might try to slowly catch up as time permits. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed some of those pictures! 
Marlakins
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04.27.12
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:18 am by Administrator
“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”
~Philippians 4:8-9
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04.22.12
Posted in Book Reviews, History at 9:28 pm by Administrator
Understanding world politics and events can be a very daunting challenge these days. African history is particularly difficult to follow because its history is so vast as well as the territories and the long string of foreign involvement and tribal conflicts. The little bits of news we receive from the media make it even more confusing at times because we only see a small portion of what’s going on in parts of Africa. Years ago I read a book called Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Romeo A. Dallaire in an effort to try to understand what the Rwandan genocide was all about. It was horrific to say the least, but even so it was still so confusing to me. There was mention that even after the Rwandan genocide many more lives were lost as the refugees flooded into Uganda. I also read Me Against My Brother: at War in Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda by Scott Peterson, which also shed more light on what has been going on in parts of Africa and helped to give a more insider perspective of the attitudes of the people. It touched upon the “blackhawk down” incident in Somalia and thus the reluctance of the U.S. to get involved in Rwanda during the genocide. Peterson touched upon how much of foreign aid ended up strengthening the rebel forces and many times never made it to the refugees. Then I read King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild. Wow, that was another eye-opener regarding the long cruel history that had been endured in the Belgium Congo because of the rubber trade (or really rubber boom as there was really no trading going on, but looting and stealing using the Congolese as forced laborers). So when I stumbled across Jason K. Stearns’ book Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: the Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa, I was glued to the pages.
So why did I mention those other books I’d read that didn’t mentioned the Congo in their titles? It was because I was surprised to find when reading Dancing in the Glory of Monsters that the first and second Congo wars had been intricately tied to Rwanda and the other countries surrounding it. It was like a continuation of where they left off. Literally millions of people have died in the Congo wars between 1996 and 2006, yet we have heard practically nothing about it. Even though I read those books, I had no understanding how they affected the lives of the Congolese. Stearns does an excellent job of explaining the intricate history between the various groups of peoples like the Hutu, Tutsi, Congolese, Ugandans, Rwandas, etc. He interviews various people, both military and civilian, who were involved in the Congo conflicts thus detailing the different perspectives of each side. Or in this case, the various sides since there were more than just two sides. There were about 30 insurgent and government groups involved. Not all those who fought in these wars fought for the same reasons–some fought for power, some for revenge, some for wealth, etc. Some of the civilians didn’t even know why they were attacked or by who.
It’s amazing to me how a country like the Congo, so rich in natural resources, can be suffering so much poverty. For more than two hundred years the Congo has been exploited for it’s natural resources, including it’s people as slaves. I urge anyone interested in helping others to read Stearn’s book. It helps to clarify some of the arguments I’ve read on various sites regarding aid to Africa that their problem is due to over population and/or they need to learn how to farm or sustain themselves. People that make those types of comments apparently have no clue. These Africans are not starving because they are lazy or don’t know how to grow food, but because they’ve been forced off of their lands, their villages burned, their people raped and killed by insurgent groups. At times we even help fund these militant groups by buying minerals they sell in order to fund their war machines. How can we help? One place to start according to Stearns is to at least understand the politics involved. The problems in the Congo are complex, so trying to learn more about it’s history and culture might in turn help us make more intelligent decisions regarding the Congo. Two thumbs up for Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: the Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa.
Marlakins
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04.20.12
Posted in quotes at 1:30 am by Administrator
“Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
~Voltaire
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04.13.12
Posted in Anything goes, family stuff at 7:33 pm by Administrator
Mom and I arrived back in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon. Our plane touched down in LAX at approximated 2:30 PM, Thursday. I got to bed at about 2AM and didn’t wake up until 4:30PM, Friday. Fourteen and a half hours of straight sleep, Yikes! I feel like a bear coming out of hibernation, and just in time to scrounge for dinner, heh. It’s nice to be back home and reunited with my family.
Now that I’ve had a moment to settle back in and check out a bit around the house, I have a moment to check back on the internet. I’ve mostly sorted through all my pasalubongs (gifts), now pretty much only have to finish washing clothes. All I can say at the moment is it was a fast month! Aside from having to get back into the time differences (which for some odd reason seems to be harder to adjust to returning to LA than arriving in the Philippines), I also need to get back into the weather differences. It’s so much colder here in Los Angeles! Brrrr. The boys have told me that the weather has been fluctuating from warm to cold. I happened to arrive back during a cold spell, boo hoo. And last night and this morning it rained like crazy! Thunder and lightening and all, wow. I did wake for a brief second when one of the thunder claps rattled the window above my head, ha! But I was back in dreamland two seconds later. My family tells me there was a lot of thunder, I only heard that one, ha ha ha!
Anyway, I’m back. Will try to finish sharing some of my pictures later when I have a little more time. For now, there appears to be a lot to do. The boys have done a decent job of keeping the place in order, but I see I have some dusting to do. . . I feel pretty decent right now, so I’m hoping I’m pretty much caught up with the jet lag. Hopefully, I’ll be able to meet up with my knit group tomorrow and don’t end up sleeping through the day, again.
Marlakins
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04.08.12
Posted in Anything goes, Playing the Tourist, family stuff, food and restaurants at 11:26 pm by Administrator
My family likes to refer to this day as Resurrection Sunday, rather than Easter Sunday. But, since this day is more popularly known as Easter Sunday, I’ll just refer it to that for now.
It’s actually Monday today, so Easter Sunday was yesterday for us. Mom and I spent the day hanging out with her two brothers. For some reason mom really wanted to ride a calesa (horse drawn carriage). Not sure what prompted that, but anyone knowing mom knows that once she gets an idea in her head, there’s no stopping her. Plus she’ll rush headlong. I would have preferred to pick a more rugged looking horse, but she was practically jumping on the cart, so away we went.
Now I know it’s hard to see it in this picture, but one of the reasons I took it was because as we were stopped, a tricycle “loaded” with people drove right next to us. I think there were about 10 passengers on that tricycle! And funny that I must have looked touristy cause when they saw me, they all started waving, ha! So I tried to take a picture of them, but darn these digital cameras! They are too slow for spontaneous shots. . . By the time my camera charged up and the shot was finally taken, the tricycle load of people were too far to take a nice closeup shot (probably didn’t help that my battery was dying a bit, so likely one reason it took so long to charge up). Such a shame, too, as they all looked so happy with big smiles and many of them waving right at me, ha ha! I think the fact that I lifted up my camera to take a shot of them made them wave more, ha ha!
Anyway, so here’s a shot just before entering Intramuros.
In front of the cathedral the calesa driver got out and took a picture of us.
I like this shot because the church is in the background, but it doesn’t show my two uncles. So here’s another shot from the other side of the calesa which shows my uncles, too.
Along the way there were signs welcomingSheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani from Qatar. This banner was right outside of the Manila Hotel and along the street. Apparently the Emir of Qatar is supposed to visit here on the 10th and 11th of April regarding trade agreements.
I also got a picture of our calesa driver. They usually step out of the pictures, but I asked him to join us. This picture kinda gives an idea of what a character he was, ha ha!
Then we took a Sunday brunch at the Manila Hotel’s Ilang-Ilang. It’s the same buffet restaurant we ate at for Aaron’s 17th birthday last year.
As usual the offerings were so nicely arranged that I had to take some pictures.
Everything was so nicely laid out that I couldn’t take pics of everything, but I couldn’t resist taking these.
Because it was Easter Sunday there was the Easter theme, notice the white and chocolate crosses. Plus they also had a whole chocolate easter scene as well.
The picture came out a bit dark, but in person there was a lot of detail.
Rather than take pictures of all the usual fare, I thought this one of the chicken liver pate and duck was interesting looking as I haven’t had duck prepared this way before.
I think those are pistachios in there. I found the taste of the duck to be rather plain, which is surprising since most of the time everything tastes great. But I can definitely say that between Vikings and the Hotel buffets like here at Manila Hotel and Sofitel and Shangri-La’s they do win hands down against Vikings. It’s understandable why Vikings is so much less costly. Which reminds me, I haven’t shared my comments on Korean Village, yet. Almost forgot. That was actually a decent place to eat with very reasonable prices. Will have to post on that one later.
And I think that’s all to report for what we did yesterday for Easter Sunday here. Today is “Hero’s Day” or “Bataan Day.” Will write more about that later, too, as well as try to share some of the Ocean Park pics. I think the boys will get a kick out of some of the marine animals there, hehehehe.
TTFN!
Marlakins
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