“STUPIDITY is knowing the truth, seeing the truth, but still believing the lies”, and speaking of which…
I really find stupid people posting “Fight UP” in their profile picture. Who is the University of the Philippines going to fight or fighting? The Philippine government? But
UP is funded and owned by the government. Those pseudo communist professors’ salaries and benefits all come from the government treasury, and they call that “critical thinking”. More like stupidity.
This prevailing attitude in UP is akin to an immature adult still living in his parents’ house. He eats their food, uses all the facilities and utilities i.e. electricity, water and internet and worst, still asking for an allowance, yet at the first chance he gets, maligns his parents and complains about how things are in the house.
The adult thing to do is, of course, to get out of the house, live on your own, and live it the way you want to. But then again, why leave when you can freeload and complain at the same time at the expense of your parents?
UP is no different nor more special than say the West Visayas State University or the Iloilo National High School; they’re all state-owned and -funded learning institutions, meaning they’re all public schools. But do you see or hear anybody from these two schools shout “Defend West Visayas State University” or “Defend Iloilo National High School”, or barricade their campuses and demand to be treated as a belligerent state on the same footing as the Republic of the Philippines?
Maybe it’s because the students of these two schools where taught real education and not “critical thinking”, or they were also taught what “academic freedom” is in its proper context yet without fanfare and much ado, certainly no melodramatics. These two schools have quietly graduated some of the best minds and leaders of this country I need not mention who as we all know who they are.
I would respect schools like Ateneo, University of Santo Tomas or the University of San Agustin if they set up their own admission policies, practice their own “academic freedom” and who to allow inside their campuses or not, all within the bounds of existing laws of course because these are privately-owned schools not funded or owned by the state and their right to do so is protected by the separation of the church and state doctrine in our Constitution.
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Nowadays “politically correct” is mainstream. It seems everyone is afraid to offend and be offended to the point of it being completely ridiculous. Back in the day it’s usage was ironic and satirical. Not anymore. I’d prefer to remain unconventional and “politically incorrect”.
And we segue to a prelude to the next pandemic. Excerpts from a Jan. 30, 2021 article on https://www.independent.co.uk :
Meat-eating creates risk of future pandemics
Demand for regular supplies of affordable meat will create future pandemics that will make Covid-19 pandemic look like a “dress rehearsal”, scientists are warning.
Producing meat is creating the perfect breeding ground for diseases of the same kind to emerge, according to the South African academics.
The risk is created by humans’ interactions with animals and a lack of learning from the past, they say.
The coronavirus pandemic, many of the early cases of which were linked to a live-animal-slaughter market in China, has killed around 2.2 million people worldwide in a year.
Experts from both the UN and the European Food Safety Authority have previously identified industrial animal farming as the cause of most new infectious diseases in humans in the past decade, and have likewise warned it risks starting new pandemics.
Zoonotic diseases – those that jump from animals to humans – have become four times as frequent in the past 50 years.
Animals kept in close confinement, either in street markets or intensive farming, are susceptible to disease because the stress of the conditions and even the sight of others being slaughtered weaken their immune systems, experts say.
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A report last May, called Is the next Pandemic on our Plate? Outlined how factory farming allowed pathogens to emerge and spread, and was supported by routine use of antibiotics, leading to the drugs becoming less effective.
The World Health Organization says that globally, about a billion cases of illness and millions of deaths occur every year from zoonoses – diseases that spread from animals to humans – and that 75 percent of emerging zoonotic infectious diseases originate in wild animals.
“Remember mad cow disease? Have you seen chicken batteries? We should not blame ‘exotic’ eating practices, but look at our own.
Prof Robert Bragg, of the department of microbial, biochemical and food biotechnology, said: “There will be more pandemics, and there is a feeling among some scientists that this could just be a dress rehearsal for the real big pandemic.
“Many virologists, including me, have been predicting an influenza pandemic for many years. Mankind has been warned about coming pandemics for many years, but people seem to want to listen only when they are in the midst of one.”
The bird flu virus, H5N1, has a mortality rate of 60-65 per cent, he said. If it develops human-to-human transmission, “we could be in for a really serious pandemic,” he warned.
Ebola was traced to people eating bats, and HIV was believed to have emerged from people eating chimpanzee meat, he said.
And the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed 50 million people, started in pigs. “All of these have to do with the mistreatment of animals by man,” said Prof Bragg.
As I said before nobody has died from eating talong and alugbate nor will it be a prelude to the next pandemic./PN
