The War At Home

Chip Tsao’s Allegedly Racist Article

This article was originally posted on HK Magazine but was taken down due to controversy. Indolent Indio publishes it here in full for archiving purposes. All rights belong to their original copyright holders.

The War At Home

The Russians sank a Hong Kong freighter last month, killing the seven Chinese seamen on board. We can live with that—Lenin and Stalin were once the ideological mentors of all Chinese people. The Japanese planted a flag on Diàoyú Island. That’s no big problem—we Hong Kong Chinese love Japanese cartoons, Hello Kitty, and shopping in Shinjuku, let alone our round-the-clock obsession with karaoke.

But hold on—even the Filipinos? Manila has just claimed sovereignty over the scattered rocks in the South China Sea called the Spratly Islands, complete with a blatant threat from its congress to send gunboats to the South China Sea to defend the islands from China if necessary. This is beyond reproach. The reason: there are more than 130,000 Filipina maids working as $3,580-a-month cheap labor in Hong Kong. As a nation of servants, you don’t flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter.

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Keeping Track of Swine Flu

How many times have we all heard in the last few weeks of continual swine flu news: WASH YOUR HANDS? Even U.S. President Obama told Americans to wash their hands. This seems to be the number one preventative action. What’s really frightening is the fact that the chances are only 50-50 that the doctor treating Americans in the hospital has washed his hands. It’s hard to believe, but the odds are the same as flipping a coin. Actually, it’s worse. According to the U.S. National Quality Forum, hand-washing compliance rates at hospitals are generally LESS THAN 50 percent. The Quality Forum says it is a problem in other countries also — Great Britain, Canadan and Australian media have reported this problem in their countries.

Hospitals are desperate to get doctors to simply wash their hands and are taking extraordinary means to try and influence them — including termination of employment and hidden cameras. Ethic Soup blog has an excellent article on this at:

http://www.ethicsoup.com/2009/01/dont-kill-me-doctor-wash-your-hands.html

Doctors who won’t wash their hands were a problem BEFORE the current swine flu epidemic! I think it’s a good idea when seeing a doctor today to ask if they’ve washed their hands before touching you.

Comelec rejects hacking prize

By Mayen Jaymalin Updated April 21, 2009 12:00 AM (philstar.com)

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) junked yesterday a proposal to give P100 million in rewards to those who could successfully hack into the automated election system for the 2010 polls.
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Kabataan, tayo ang pagbabago

Message of Kabataan Party-list Rep. Raymond Palatino to the Filipino youth on the historical event of seating the first youth representative in Congress

Five years in the making for the country’s sole youth sectoral party-list, but better late than never and victory is still sweet for all Filipino youth.

Kabataan Party-list, the largest youth party in the country, represented the youth sector in the 2007 elections. It was the second time for our organization to run in the party-list elections. In 2004, we ran under our previous name, Anak ng Bayan, and were among the top choices for party-list based on pre-election surveys. Anak ng Bayan, however, fell prey to massive cheating. A significant number of our votes were anomalously counted in favor of another party-list group, thus our change of name in the 2007 party-list elections.
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The truths every Filipino should know

Pat Evangelista’ s day’s reflections remain only for one day but speaks for generations, for there is much more to think of every day in this country. Let her thoughts be just that: thoughts in our minds, horrors that will haunt us in our dreams every night until we realize that we won’t wake up until we resist. Resist is an active verb, you know. -Anjo Cerdena

The truths every Filipino should know

by Patricia Evangelista
Method to Madness
Philippine Daily Inquirer
04/25/2009

Today I will write a manifesto. I would like to correct the perception that my generation is apathetic to the state of the nation. I am told we neither know nor care about issues of policy, of poverty, of the national economy. It is not true, but such is our inexperience that we look towards the obvious superiority of our elders to determine how to go about our lives, to set our moral and ethical standards, to fix upon our minds the path of truth and virtue in a society in constant battle with sin.
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