There we were, late at night, watching Jimmy Kimmel interview Paul Anka because if science has taught us anything it’s that a good night’s sleep is terrible for your health so you should make sure to waste time watching videos on YouTube until the wee hours of the night. Kimmel asked Anka how at the age of 25 he was able to write My Way, a song that captures someone looking back at the end of his career when he was at the beginning of his. Anka explained he wrote the song specifically for Frank Sinatra and since he’d been hanging with him, he knew his language. We turned from the video to read more about My Way and in doing so eventually found ourselves on Wikipedia which had a “Versions” section that described some of the famous covers of the song, including Elvis’s, Sid Vicious’s punk version and an elderly woman with dementia who sang it in her assisted living home.
The Wikipedia article also noted it is a popular karaoke song and its use led to numerous incidents of violence and homicide among karaoke singers in the Philippines, referred to in the media as the “My Way” killings“…wait? What?!!!! Well, now we were in trouble. There was no going to bed anytime soon after reading that. Because, yes, we read a bunch of articles about these My Way Killings and wondered: a) how had we never heard about this before—this is a real failure in our education for which there should be severe consequences; b) shouldn’t people killing each other in the Philippines in karaoke bars while singing My Way be noted in International Need to Know; and c) how has no one made a move about this? Because, it deserves the big screen treatment, or a mini-series on Netflix/Warner Brothers/HBO/Paramount/Peacock/Tubi or whatever the new mega media merger ends up as. So as wait for our download of Final Draft* to finish, we bring bad news on infant mortality, splendid news on a washing machine for humans and worrisome news in Hong Kong. It’s this week’s International Need to Know—yes there were times, we’re sure you knew, when we bit off more international information than you could chew, but what is a man, what has he got, if not global data?
*Actually, when we write screenplays, such as Please Hold (co-written with Mike Williams), we use a template we created in Word that does the job just fine.
Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
Infant Mortality Increasing
From the beginning, nearly ten years ago now, we’ve stressed in this space that the world has for the most part improved. It is radically better since the onset of the industrial revolution. To illustrate this, during presentations, we often show a chart of the tremendous decrease in infant mortality. Even in 2025, things are getting better across a number of domains, but the 2020s have also been a troubling period. And this year, for the first time in decades, according to a study by the Gates Foundation, infant mortality is projected to increase. One of the main reasons for the reversal is cuts in global health funding, including by the United States. Other studies have shown just how many people are dying because of cuts to USAID programs. The Gates Foundation report states, “If funding for health decreases by 20 percent—the scale of cuts some major donor countries are currently considering—12 million more children could die by 2045.” Fortunately, the report lists a whole host of ways to continue reducing infant mortality, including vaccinations…uh, oh—nobody tell RFK, Jr. about this. Other countries around the world are really going to need to pick up the slack. The world continued to get better for 150 years, but people in recent decades claiming the world has been getting worse led to changing of policies that helped create so much progress, and is why in certain ways the world is now getting worse.
Washing Humans
Even though so many things are going wrong, we still live in a wonderfully crazy world. For example, the Japanese company Science* has invented a human washing machine. Yes, instead of popping your clothes or dishes in the machine, you plop yourself. Science recently demonstrated the machine at a World Expo in Osaka. The pod is 7.5 feet long so Shaq but not Victor Wembanyama, can use it. Microbubbles and a fine mist clean the body while “calming visuals and soothing music” are played in the capsule. According to NDTV, “The concept is a modern revival of a similar invention featured at the 1970 Osaka Expo, which left a lasting impression on Science’s current president, who saw it as a young boy.” A hotel in Osaka has already purchased one of the machines and a resort in the United States is considering purchasing one. NDTV also reports, “According to company spokeswoman Sachiko Maekura, the new machine not only cleans the body but also “washes the soul…” So, maybe churches, mosques and synagogues are a potential market too. However, what we want to know before getting into one of these human washing machines is how well the machine cleans itself between users. Ahh, there’s the rub…a dub dub.
*Great name for a company. Nobody wants to be anti-Science…oh, crap, wait, never mind.
China Corner: Burning Down the House
Hong Kong over the last five years has become just another part of China since the squashing of protesters and the passing of the National Security Law. The latter applies not just to Hong Kongers but to people outside of the city as well. To you and me. To that point, last week, Hong Kong threatened international media during the fall-out out after the fire at Wang Fuk Court that killed more than 150 people. China’s national security office in Hong Kong summoned international media, including The New York Times, to a meeting last Saturday. There they were told not to spread “false information” or “smear government efforts to deal with the city’s worst fire in nearly 80 years.” Hong Kong people are understandably upset about possible negligence that led to the fire. Of course, complaining about negligence in China, including Hong Kong, is not allowed. So, China’s national security police arrested a man for posting information about the causes of the fire and blaming authorities for it. Among the dead are a 1-year-old and a 97-year-old. Freedom died half a decade ago in Hong Kong. Seems like posting information isn’t the crime here.
