Froodee

Living. Blogging.

It’s A Good Thing He Won’t Be President

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Look at the face of this man. This Republican representative from the state of Colorado recently said something so xenophobic that even the US State Department had to stand up and react. Representative Tom Tancredo stated in a forum that he will deter any aggression to the United States by assuring the rest of the world that an attack to the US should equate to an attack on Muslim holy sites. He further defended this claim by saying that someone who wouldn’t do the same is “unfit to be president”.

Just hold it right there.

Has anyone told this guy that the war against terror isn’t exactly a war against Islam? Though majority of the terrorist cells that the US are trying to annihilate all have links to the Islamic faith, they do not necessarily encapsulate and embody what it is to be Muslim. Despite the stubbornness of George Bush, the US has been very clear that the war doesn’t single out Muslims. The war against terror is a war against those who seek to promote chaos and disorder by carrying out massive and destructive plots against civilian lives and civilian property. Clearly, Islam doesn’t promote such form of genocide.

To bomb the Holy City of Mecca, let alone to suggest the possibility of doing so, just heightens the divide between the Muslims and people of other faiths. This promotes greater misunderstanding and with it comes an increased risk of confrontations and conflicts that are simply brought about by simple misconceptions and prejudice. Lawmakers need to be more responsible than that.

To parrot the title, it’s great he won’t be president.

The Seven Wonders Fiasco

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A lot of people knew that coming up with a new list of “wonders” was a bad idea to begin with. Great monuments and exemplary architecture need not be compared with each other to be ranked according to beauty, relevance and durability. Doesn’t it make more sense to actually appreciate these “wonders” from a personal perspective rather than using a populist and unscientific and purely subjective method to adjudicate the merit of structures?

It seemed quite clear that the movement to name the “new seven wonders” was going to hit major potholes when Egyptian authorities asked for the Pyramids at Giza to be taken out of the short list of 21 monuments. The Egyptian officials felt that the competition puts the only remaining “ancient wonder of the world” in equal playing field against newer monuments (most notably the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House and Corcovado de Christ – all under a century old). The Pyramids were later declared as an honorary candidate in addition to the seven winners who received the most number of votes. The organizers claim that over a hundred million votes were cast. When the smoke cleared, three monuments from Latin America, three from Asia (on different regions – the Far East, Indian Subcontinent and Asia Minor) and one from Europe made the cut.

As expected, controversies ensued. According to a Portugeuse newspaper, Bernard Weber himself has expressed his disappointment over the non-inclusion of the Easter Island Moais in the winners’ circle. According to a letter sent to Alberto Hotus, Chile’s representative, the tall stone statues of Easter Island missed the cut barely finishing eighth in a field of 20 monuments. Weber also added that he felt that the Moais morally deserved to be in the list of seven.

The monument that sticks out like a sore thumb in the entire field is of course, Rio de Janeiro’s (Brazil) Christ The Redeemer. The statue is a mere 105 feet high – not quite as awe-inspiring as the other statues of the world that are more than twice this height. It’s also relatively new at 77 years old. Compare this the Statue of Liberty. The French’s gift to the Americans is more that 150 feet high and 121 years old. It’s definitely as much of as icon.

So how did this Statue make the list? Brazilian telecommunication companies apparently made voting for the statue free to ensure that it will make the top seven. Several big companies also backed the bid and contributed immensely to the campaign.

Given how subjective the criteria were – blind nationalism and fanboyism — as opposed to palpable  architectural feats and historical significance; one shouldn’t be surprised if this list were to fall into infamy and obscurity in the near future.

XDR-TB: No, It’s Not An Android

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XDR-TB may sound like  an android from a science fiction novel but if you’ve been reading up on recent news developments, you would know that the acronym actually stands for Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. Despite the fact that tuberculosis still claims a lot of lives yearly, advances in pharmaceuticals and disease management has dramatically improved the prognosis for patients who have the unfortunate burden of bearing the disease. Tuberculosis is a caused by  a mycobacterium that inhabits various organs in the human body. Though the disease is commonly associated as a disease of the lung, the microbe can also colonize parts of the gastrointestinal tract, bone and even the skin.  Currently, a multi-drug approach is the strategy of choice in combating tuberculosis.

Unfortunately, there are types of the disease that are already resistant to the usual drugs that is used to cure the condition. The cases that fall under that category are called MDR cases – Multi-Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. In the developed world, cases of TB are rare. That is why American lawyer Andrew Speaker’s condition has been much publicized. Since TB can be transmitted from person-to-person via the oral secretions that may get suspended in the air once a patient sneezes, the fact that he was able to take a plane (a closed environment) raised red flags all over the US.

How do MDR and XDR cases arise? For the most part, this is due to the insufficient treatment that a patient receives. Tuberculosis needs to be treated with multiple drugs for six or more months to ensure that the infection will not return in the future. If a person stops taking the drugs midway into the treatment, the disease might come back and when it does, it will already be resistant to the available drugs to the disease. When that happens, doctors will be forced to use stronger medications with worse adverse effects and higher costs. Countries with markedly high cases of drug-resistant forms of TB include China, India, Russia and Argentina. This can be attributed to their poor or failing national health program in controlling TB.

Epidemiology and statistics is on our side though, it has been shown that drug-resistant forms of TB are less likely to be transmitted compared to the garden variety and more easy-to-treat type of the disease. Though the chances that you’ll get it is almost nil, it’s still best to give your body a fighting chance against infection by having a balanced diet and seeing your personal physician regularly for check-ups.

Thoughts on Community Blogging

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Blogging has been defined many times, many ways. It’s mostly about personal publishing, and most would agree. A person starts a blog, and he or she writes about his/her interests, daily musings, and would usually link to interesting things elsewhere. Some would move on to write about more non-personal items, treating their blogs like magazine or newspaper columns of some sort. Some even move on to blogging for income. I should know, I blog for a living, myself.

But in most of these cases, blogging is done as a one-man (or one-woman) thing. When the SplashPress team conceptualized Froodee, our first thought was to bring blogging to a higher level. Sure, team blogs are also quite abundant, and I’ve been part of team blogs since I started problogging (there’s the Blog Herald, for instance, but I also started out with other team blogs like Pinoy.tech.blog, Forever Geek, and Blogging Pro. But here on Froodee, we prefer to call ourselves a community blog.

We are a community of like-minded people with different interests. Froodee is not a niche blog, as you may have noticed. Our topics are varied–these include entertainment, business, family life, science, healtyh, leisure, and even science. Each one of the contributors has his or her own interests and passions, and we give them the opportunity to share their thoughts on these. We are like-minded in that we love writing about our passions, and sharing our thoughts with the rest of the world through blogs.

And then of course, a community will not be complete without the participation of you, our dear readers. So please feel free to leave a comment and be part of the discussion. You’re always welcome to share your thoughts. Hey, soon enough we’ll be welcoming guest bloggers, too.

Froodee has been online for just a couple of weeks now, and we can expect a formal launch/announcement soon!