"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people."-Abraham Lincoln
















Netherlands, 1945, from collection of photographs by Dominic Bonanno

April 14 is the day of Rajah Humabon's conversion when he and eight hundred previously Muslim Filipinos converted to Christianity and were baptized after the arrival of Magellan to their island of Cebu . On this day, April 27, 1521 Rajah Lapu Lapu of Mactan Island who took his Islamic identity a little more seriously, killed the infidel Magellan when the Spaniards invaded Mactan. Christians and Muslims have not gotten along well in those pleasant islands ever since.

What a wonderful term it is: "swine flu". This is a perfect naming of a disease now culling the herd on the ball of mud where we live. This flu is a combination of diseases normally and previously found in birds and humans and pigs. But in some mysterious fashion these plagues have joined in a new and deadly way. And mysterious things are the special interest of this blog. Some already suspect it is a manufactured threat. I suppose the quirky still unexplained appearance of AIDS some thirty years ago might raise such suspicions.
Hippocrates said, "Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases."
I think we might expect some extreme remedies soon.