Did you hear about the bombings in the Philippines today? I'm a little flipped out. I'm only a little worried that my family might have been injured. I'm more worried about my friends. But what really gets to me is the thought that the Philippines just can't shake this violence. It's a country that has so much to offer -- and had even more in the past. Its literacy rate at one point was somewhere around 90%. The islands are gorgeous and rich in natural resources. The location for shipping is ideal (part of the reason they kept getting colonized). The people are friendly and diverse. The southern islands are even protected from typhoons! But corruption, a history of being treated as ane exploitable resource by foreign imperialists, and an entrenched class system do not help. And these extremists besmirch the name of Islam and help to keep the country in a reactive and desperate state.

Add to this the news of a highly virulent multiply drug resistant strain of HIV, and I'm having a hard time of it right now. Robert Gallo says we shouldn't worry too much, that the new strain doesn't appear to be transmissable, but knowing how this virus mutates, it's kinda only a matter of time.

In both cases I'm having fears of returning to the 80s. Lots of people died and it was all no fun. I'm not really able to imagine going through that again.