On Gender and Musical Instruments
I saw this article from The Guardian yesterday on female percussionists, or the lack thereof. I guess it’s a good one to look at for Women’s Month (International Women’s Day was March 8). Out of curiosity – as I do with a lot of questions that suddenly pop into my head – I decided to […]
Reflections on Reading the Literature: A Challenge in Straddling the “Soft” and “Hard” Sciences
Last Monday (February 22, 2021) was the first day of school, for the first semester of the academic year – marking the beginning of the second half of this “two year expensive sabbatical from clinical medicine”. Yes, this one. Structurally, a lot of the subjects I am enrolled in are centered on reading journal articles […]
Inclusivity and disability in the news this week
I saw several pieces in the electronic media this week that highlight the growing efforts to include persons with disability in everyday life. The European Space Agency put out a call for astronauts with physical disabilities – a push for parastronauts to be included in the entering class of 2021. In its own words, the […]
COVID-19 Vaccines for ALL
If poor countries go unvaccinated, a study says, rich ones will pay. That’s a piece originally from the New York Times, and picked up by multiple news outfits internationally. My thoughts: Control the virus first, and the economy will follow. The economy concerned is not confined to one location. Each location or community is dependent […]
Penguin Bloom, the Movie
Confession: I first did not want to watch this movie because I felt it would be too much like work, because its protagonist has a traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). But curiosity got the better of me. I also knew there was some healing (psychosocial, not physical) involved, so that would make it some form […]
Face-to-Face Dance Classes during COVID-19 Pandemic
I co-authored a “how-to” guide for #COVID19 safe practices in the dance studio. Happy to see our journal article published but #vaccine and normalcy can’t come soon enough. Dr. Filomar Tariao and I were classmates in medical school (from the INTARMED program). We both ended up in arts-related careers… him being more in the arts […]
Reports of COVID-19 Vaccine Safety in Norway: Some Titles Could Have Been Written Better
News reports about 29 frail elderly people dying after receiving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination in Norway were an exercise in critical reading. Some of them were especially scary if one saw the news item titles alone, without clicking through to the article and reading the actual accompanying text. Yes. The headlines can look scary and […]
The Short Telomere Double Whammy of COVID-19
Study Finds Shortened Telomeres in Patients With Severe COVID-19 – a recent article discussing a study in the medical journal Aging. Scientists found that people with COVID-19 have shortened telomeres – think of these as the “edges” of your genes that can unravel. Long telomeres mean your body has the capacity to recover and generate. […]
From Polio Survivor to Adaptive Sports Athlete
Check out Tony’s Wheels, a new bilingual (English and Filipino/Tagalog) children’s book. I love this! Because: #1 it’s a book about a polio survivor getting around in the world and into adaptive sports, and #2 my Tita (Aunt) Mila Bongco-Phillipzig wrote it and I’m proud of her. From the book webpage: Mila Bongco-Philipzig | AuthorMila […]
Under-appreciated and Underwater, Plus Muppets
The 1981 movie The Great Muppet Caper has a clipped dubbed “Miss Piggy’s Fantasy” in which she takes part in some synchronized swimming (also known as artistic swimming – because solo events don’t really need you to be “synchronized” with anyone else, but then you synchronize with the music… I digress). A somewhat random thing […]
