Maybe you mean snaps election?

Enough with this cheap snuff! Have you people lost your marbles? Right off the bat, anyone can say that a snap election at this point is ridiculous precisely because the fundamental issue in our present political crisis is the questionable credibility of COMELEC and our possibly-rigged-by-each-respective-ruling-patron brand of elections.

The point, my dear countrymen is, a basic democratic institution has been woefully discredited. I strongly suspect that the people are not angry enough at the abuse and the mockery of this 'sacred' institution because they are so cynical that they condone the cheating, if they haven't been a part of it -- or that they are genuinely afraid of the indeed scary alternatives.

First, I'd say produce Samuel Ong and the other snoops to help us verify once and for all if a nasty bunch of schlubs have been controlling our local and national elections all along. Then, granting he's still alive, bodily produce or smoke out of his hiding Hello Garcillano, too, to help corroborate Ong's testimony. Then let these people undergo sex change and be star witnesses. Or if they resist, bring both of them to jail.

Only then can we have a choice of snacks -- ginger snaps, peach schnapps, creme brulee -- but definitely not a snap election at this point.

People, snap out of it already. Next brilliant idea, please!

"his or her...and their?"

There has been a grammatical construction gaining ground lately, which I call the gay and lesbian lobby, which comes on the heels (or is it stilletos) of the feminist lobby, which in turn resulted in the politically sound but unwieldy "his or her" rule.

Ex.:

(Supposedly) patriarchal, fascist machismo style: Everyone has his own preference.

Female-sensitive, gender-rights style: Everyone has his or her own preference.
Or: People have their own respective preferences.

Gay and lesbian lobby: Everyone has their own preferences.
Or (as a concession to equal rights): Everyone has his or her own preference, which they may or may not be aware of.

The gay rights lobby may be a logical and basic human rights concern, but for any English teacher, one cannot, in one's conscience, allow any disagreement between a pronoun and its antecedent, any inconsistency between nouns and their referring pronouns in terms of number.

But this concern becomes a minor quibble if we consider the problem behind all these curious grammatical neo-constructions: And that is, Americans remain as hung-up as ever when it comes to sexism, and it must be because they remain a sexist society to the core that there is a need at all to legislate on matters of equal 'pay' for equal sex.

Take a look, for instance, at the literary canon of supposedly the freest society in the world and you realize the considerable effort expended in rectifying centuries-old faults: Susan Glaspell's "Trifles," Katherine Mansfield's "Miss Brill," Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," and Charlotte Perkins Gillman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," among other titles (even a short story by someone like Faulkner).

These are readings I never imagined reading or at least analyzing even if my new outsourced career depended on it. But, yeah, at the risk of becoming a new honorary woman, I can't help but say I now understand better why women had to fight for their rights at all, no matter that there are schools of feminism I'll never agree with - those insisting that women are better than men; I mean, where is the equality there?; and those insisting that all men should be women and women be men (men and women can take different roles in life and still be equal).

Having said all that, there remains a fundamental grammatical problem with the "his/her.. and their" construction. The gay and lesbian lobby has yet to be enshrined in the American literary canon (it's unlikely that it ever will, knowing the WASPs), but most American students have unwittingly given in to the lobby if we look at the state of their real-life grammar. I tend to ignore such 'offense' and either dismiss it as a minor slip or, if repetitive enough, consider it as a case of the gay and lesbian lobby.

But that is only when my 'conscience' is not struck by guilt over a glaring disagreement between a pronoun and their referrents.

I'm slowly getting tired of this sexism thing, too.

"What makes the Filipino special"

Maybe I'm guilty of too much negativity, so to balance things off and give a more accurate SWOT analysis of the Filipino, let me present this fairly observant article, which I first read in the PW list. Of course, I got the link by Googling it.

The worst ever

The ff. quotes are the worst things I have ever heard about us Filipinos.

From a relative in the States: "Mababait itong mga Puti. Ang manloloko sa 'yo rito 'yung kapares mong Pilipino."

From not a few folks: "Ang Pilipino, kung makakaloko, manloloko."

I'm a Filipino, but quite frankly, I am not offended at all. Like I said before, stereotypes are stereotypes because they're at least partly true. I guess, when it comes to cross-examining my own people, I am not that squeamish about reality checks. (I guess I love my own people too much.)

What's your reaction?

Metonymy

On the other hand, I also have great admiration for metonymies. A metonymy is any attribute or part of something that is used to imply the whole of it. Good metonymies are a thing of beauty, for their sheer ability to distill something down to its very essence. It requires a poetic and surgically precise mind to be able to come up with an effective metonymy.

Here's an example of a metonymy: a nice ad asking for ad placements that I saw in EDSA, near Shaw:


2.5 Million Eyeballs on Your Ad NOW!!!

Btw, I hate all these gigantic billboards. Just take a look at the visual damage they inflict tyrannically in the different parts of the city. I believe these eyesores must be regulated. More than being a safety haazard, they are certainly neither metonymic nor a thing of beauty, if only because of their outsized sense of proportion or importance. Giant billboards are a great vexation to the spirit, a thing of unrelieved arrogance, the arrogance of commerce!!!

**

SM's ads are racist!

And, oh, btw, I've been 'swinging by' the newly refurbished SM (in Makati), which is a welcome development -- but guess what I've noticed for so long but is able to write about only now: Almost all, if not all, of the giant ads around the mall's outer shell are ads that feature Caucasians, not a single model of which is close to being as attractive as our homegrown models. Get inside the mall and the same pattern can be readily noted. This is racism right in our own backyard, perpetrated by our very own business leaders.

Hansel and Grrretel: modern Pinoy version

Current music: Craig David, Rob Thomas, Amerie, Kelly Clarkson, Fantasia Barrino, Carrie Underwood (influence yan ni K.); Beyonce, R. Kelly, Kanye West, Pharrell, Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z (I just watched Fade to Black, obvious ba?); Bamboo, Coldplay, Green Day.

Current mood: Pissed (Lagi naman, eh.)

Something is occupying me lately, and no, it's not internet porn, it's drinking chilled green tea and eating lots of lanzones. I deserve to be happy, aren't I? G. said green tea contains lots of anticarcinogens or something, so I thought I'd try some. All I got, though, from drinking this ice-cold C2 Cool & Clean green tea drink (Universal Robina) was hyperacidity. Oh well, I guess that's better than being sick of cancer or some other?

Commercial muna (an exchange overheard inside the MRT):

Girl 1 (pissed off): Ayoko sa kanya (referring to a suitor, most likely) kasi ang payat-payat n'ya, parang butiking pasay.
Girl 2 (her face crumples): Ba't may Pasay (City) pa? Ang sagwa naman nu'n!

Going back, I mentioned lanzones, and it so happened that this guy who unfortunately took the same jeepney I took happened to have one sack of lanzones that night, and he happened to be seated right beside me, and he wanted to eat right that moment, not later at home, yes, right that moment, and so, during the whole stretch of our jeepney ride, he was eating and eating while I smirked and smirked.

I wouldn't have minded -- you know me, I believe in freedom of expression; he could have sex with a parrot right there and he wouldn't hear from me -- were it not for the fact that he ate like Hansel and Gretel: He threw away his trash out of the jeepney and along the stretch of the highway, leaving about ten kilometers of discarded lanzones fruit skin and lanzones seeds along the highway, enough to produce a whole rainforest of pure lanzones trees the next day.

Anak ng lanzones! And I am not being pleonasmic or what.

I longed to have the guy held under citizen's house arrest or something, but I held my so-called horses. I suddenly remembered that the policemen were better equipped at it, and so I just watched in utter disbelief and metaphysical pain. So go ahead, kick me in the shin, I was a coward.

I often presume that many Filipinos treat their own country as a gigantic garbage bag because they think that they are treated as second-class citizens in their own country, but looking at the modern-day Hansel-and-Gretel beside me that night, I had to do a double-take. The nonpatriotic half-wit had parts of his hair dyed bonde (highlights!) and he was wearing jeans and shoes that looked more expensive than the ones I was wearing -- and his shirt was most probably in faux tuck!

Reverse desaparecidos, or desperadoes?

Let's start off with the very obvious. It used to be that when a regime ruled by goons is accused by activists with unimpeachable evidence, the accusers are 'rubbed out' of the face of the earth, almost without leaving an evidence of the crime. These days, it's the reverse: it's the accused that disappears in mysterious circumstances, instead of the brave and heroic accuser. Samuel Ong's questionable whereabouts is understandable and while he is a government officer/agent, he is also an accuser of government. His is a different case from that of Haller Garcillano, Cito Lorenzo and Joc-Joc Bolante, who have either flown the coop or are given up for dead (here or in Brazil), vanishing without a trace in the wake of accusations of election fraud and possible malversation of public funds, respectively.

What gives?

And why 'get lost,' if you have nothing to hide?

Meanwhile, Norberto Gonzales has just been released from detention by the Senate for, let's just say, humanitarian reasons. Maybe he can count himself lucky in comparison? Or could it be that it's just a matter of time before he, too, is spirited out, gone in a so-called jiffy (gone in 60 seconds?)?

The thing is, the people vanishing out of thin air, or are being considered good as dead meat, are now government people, not the usual fair game (activists and alleged communists) -- very much unlike the ignominious time of Erap, when the PR man Bubby Dacer and a PAGCOR guy were murdered with nary a trace of remorse by Monsters Inc. (monsters in government uniform). There is some kind of a paradigmatic shift here. Good job?

I need not note the irony further; let's just state another thing that's very obvious: The "mother of the civil rights movement" Rosa Parks has just passed away, and all we've got to show in our corner of the world are these -- assassination of media persons, gunning down of union/labor leaders, and the big joke that's reverse desaparecidos.

The ignominy, the ignominy.

Pleonasm

Repetition, redundancy, excessiveness, and superfluity are not necessarily bad. In architecture and in music, elaboration and seemingly unwarranted ornamentation resulted into a full-blown art form called the baroque movement. In the design world, nobody ever scoffs at the innate beauty of arabesque curlicues.

In the field of writing, there is also what they call "rhetorical repetition," which is a literary necessity. There are bad pleonasms and there are good pleonasms. Bad pleonasms like "free gift" and "true facts" are simply tautological and must edited out. But good pleonasms, ah, they're what you call experimental writing, if not investigative journalism -- or modern lit, like J. said. The emphasis is necessary because the exact word being used, while adequate in terms of meaning, is not hyperbolic enough. Here is a wiki list to help you trawl through what's nice and what's gross.

Pleonasm, you could say, is the opposite of Zen architecture, the haiku, and a Piet Mondrian, which all glory in getting right down to the cores and essences of the world. Needless to say, I am a big fan of good pleonasms.

I am reminded of pleonasms when I encountered a new word/neologism lately: dequirose.

dequirose, adj.

a) having a quixotic bent

b) used to describe one who is constantly villified by critics for his insistence that all public officials must be held accountable, regardless of which sector of society they belong to or who they are connected to.

Used in a sentence: "Despite virulent ad hominem attacks, the writer remained dequirose, steadfast in his convictions."

O, di ba neoplasmic, I mean, pleonasmic?!

Farmed-off Pinoy, 2

More points to consider:

1. Only the middle class can afford to have an outsourced job or be bodily outsourced to Canada, so that leaves the really poor really helpless.

2. The middle class have no jobs left to expect in Canada/US because all the 'right jobs' have been outsourced, so this situation leaves them with no choice but to take up mostly jobs that WASPs won't touch with a ten-foot pole: McDonald's crew, caregiver, etc. (I learned from a primary source the other day that a restaurant waiter/waitress position can earn you about USD50 per shift = 4 hours. Do the math. Nursing is not so bad in comparison. I have yet no specific figures for caregivers, so I'd appreciate any inputs.) Of course, there are the lucky ones -- the IT people who don't have to settle for a job they never considered doing at home.

3. The only chance (at social mobility) left for the really poor is for society to subsidize them (affirmative action?) or at least for government to find or invent jobs for them (what is government for anyway?), or for the really, really poor to hit the jackpot or win the lotto. (I think a lotto ticket costs around Php10 (?))

4. There's, of course, the option of self-employment/entrepreneurship, but this is another vicious-circle argument: One can't possibly put up some business without enough capital or collateral, so let's not go into this issue because it's already a middle-class issue.

Additional points I missed, from Cathy of Now What, Cat?:

The "offshoring"/outsourcing practices of the MNCs dated more than two decades before call centers and backroom offices were set up in Asian countries including the Philippines.

The first industry that was offshored was the garment. I was still then a kid when I found women in the neighborhood doing some stitching/and finishing for baby dresses that were sub-sub-contracted to one of the community leaders/businesswomen.

These garments were manufactured in the Philippines but were marketed in the US and Europe. In the later years, the popular signature jeans, men's shirts, sweaters and shoes are produced in the Philippines, thanks to Filipino contractors.

Before the call centers were offshored, there were news about marketing firms tapping prison inmates do the phone telemarketing at wages below the minimum. The evil of prophet errmmm profit-ISM.

But with the proliferation of the credit card scams and identity theft crimes, people become security conscious that they do not want to do business with corporations identified to be using the prison inmates.

With the popularity of the internet and the introduction of help desk/customer assistance departments, the firms find it a need to recruit people with the technical skills that are required in this kind of job.

Asian countries have more tech savvies than the US. Don't ask me why.

Don't ask me why students' average scores in English and math in almost all states as per NEAP 2005 are below the national average of 217.

Kris Aquino for president?

Hooy, nag-chunkee check ka na ba?

[Insert Kris Aquino's multiple mugshots here, the one depicting her in various states of pain, pleasure, and displeasure (I forgot which ad; it could be an antacid).]

Jessica Zafra returns, and she has a prophecy for these, the end-times.

Backtracking on unity

I have been publishing posts batting for national unity, but those entries were more of a personal wish-upon-a-star or a wonder-out-loud sort of thing than a private citizen's practical call to order. Who am I fooling anyway? The truth is, I am very much comfortable with the lack of unity in our national political discourse. Disunity is an indispensable feature of democracy, and the personal guiding principle I have quoted here time and again is this elegant G. K. Chesterton quote:

"Division is better than agreement in evil."

If the search for truth and justice means a constant state of disagreement, then the resultant lack of so-called peace and stability is fine by me.

Let the word war resume! After all, it's really 'trapo' politics we've all been railing against here, which pGMA and all these old folks in government represent and try so hard to cling to.

Shooting the wrong bird?

"There is no proof that migratory wild birds are causing the epidemic," to quote an article, which quotes another article:

“Wild birds are not to blame. There is no record of transfer of H5N1 from wild birds to man. It is more likely that there will be a domestic bird-to-person transference than a wild bird-to-man transference. We have less contact with the wild birds. Or at least that is how it should be. With man’s encroachment into the habitat of wild birds, the mingling of domestic poultry with wild birds could become a cause for concern.”

But is that...art? or just fart?

I am so tired of the "Is-that-art/literature/poetry!?!" debate that I have created two templates for my replies whenever I am asked the question in irascible tones:

(F)art 1

(F)art 2

Comment:


What is art to some is not to others. So, what IS art?
bayi 10.21.05 - 7:47 am #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm still asking the question actually. I have my own hunch, of course, but I'd rather keep it to myself.
R. 10.21.05 - 9:33 pm #

"Self-righteous"

Whenever I encounter the word self-righteous, I somewhat feel alluded to. I am not sure what this word exactly means, and I strongly suspect that the ones using it aren't, either.

I don't like explaining myself, but this is apparently how I strike some people: Other than that I am a 50-year-old "old fart," I am also someone passing himself off as a perfect fart. (Well, I take the first one as a compliment (what's wrong with being old, anyway), although deep inside I take it as an affront -- the fart part, I mean, not the old part. (Just for the record, I'm still in denial of the fact that I am well past 27, and I'd like to think that I had stopped growing old after that.)

Frankly, my deer, I had to ROLF on that one about being a perfect fart because my critics (wow!) got me all wrong. I am so appalled that I just have to defend myself:

I never claim to be perfect, superior, saintly, or anything. Rest assured that I'm not very much different from you, you, and, yes, you. I am just as totally corrupt, vile, inept, hopeless, helpless, lecherous, lazy, mischievous, avaricious, envious, perverted, irascible, malicious, cowardly, heretical, vain, ambitious, spiteful, hypocritical, deluded, lascivious, licentious, and, yes, judgmental as anybody who got to this plane of existence through his/her/their(?) mother's oviduct is.

If there is by any chance a difference, it could be that I know where to channel my so-called power, and of course, you all know what I mean; it's not like I'm keeping a secret, so please don't be ridiculous.

Farming off the Filipino

The outsourcing of jobs by foreign firms seems to be the best thing that ever happened to us since, what, the Nutribun? But if you think outsourcing will be spared from my self-righteous and judgmental prattle, no, it won't.

I've been living the outsourced life my whole working life, and I know first-hand and from an Atlantic Monthly report that we, the outsourced, are only worth 10% of our actual value and yet we are supposed to say thank you, better to have a decent-paying job by Third World standards than languish in unemployment hell, or else be "farmed off" by choice or by force to parts unknown and get the real deal (get paid in dollars, not in 10%) but endure the extra challenge of being, well, a farmed-off Filipino.

Americans are said to be frowning on the ludricrous arrangement - and they should, but the, er, realekonomiks truth is:

1. only the most boring, labor-intensive, and therefore stressful jobs are being outsourced, jobs First World folks wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole anyway, and

2. American investors, whether patriotic Democrats or Republicans or otherwise, save so astounding an amount that they wouldn't mind seeing the low-skilled among their fellow countrymen go jobless.

The truth is, business knows neither morality nor patriotism, and to businessmen, that's how the cookie crumbles. (Can you see why there's a problem with amorality, as much as there is a problem with inconsistent morality and arrogating one's brand of morality?)

Anyway, in this just-as-merciless new world order, there are only two options left for us at home:

1. live the outsourced life (as a night owl in a call center, mostly), or

2. be 'offshored' or 'farmed off' as a workhorse.

Wait, there's a third: Find employment in a dollar revenue-earning private firm with non-outsourced business or in a quasi-government agency, or else be elected as a high-ranking government official.

Those who don't fit in can now go to hell and

1. say "Same Old Sh_t" in unison or

2. shout S.O.S., i.e., live on all sorts of loans available to anyone and his/her/their(?) grandma.

But we can always trust the wily Filipino to know by instinct the best solution: outsource Third World poverty -- by becoming an American citizen or, to be safer, a Canadian.

Parenthetically (or is that corollarily), who then can afford to pass judgment on those who have no choice but be offshored? Certainly not the government, which stays afloat, it is reported, only because of the dollar remittances of those who had outsourced their poverty - the global network of farmed-off Pinoys. It is in this sense that the latter are accidental 'heroes' (whether they like it or not, whether they have only self-preservation as intention or not).

Flash report or fastfood fiction?

This just in. Here are the facts, according to columnist Belinda Olivares-Cunanan. From what I've read, heard, watched, and overheard in the news about last Friday's preemptive dispersal of that preemptive religious procession cum anti-pGMA rally near Mendiola Bridge, it would look like I just came from a creative writing workshop. The lampooning I did the other day was basically a pastische of everything, which turned out to be a bad thing if I only took time to sift fast facts from fastfood fiction. Apparently there was a premeditated intent to provoke things to such an explosive end, and we (including media reporters) have all been led to believe this and that thing.

So am I being repentant today? Why should I? I was the one who was lied to, and I wasn't amused. I don't think most people were.

If there is a lesson to be gained here, it is this: No one can force people power, not even by studiously precipitating Malcolm Gladwell's prerequisites to get to the so-called tipping point. Propaganda of any kind will out itself like a dead rat, and the people are cats when it comes to propaganda; they smell a dead rat by instinct. Let people power come naturally, if and when there's a need for another ("another people power" is as moronic as it is oxymoronic). Thing is, there is no need to tell lies. After all, isn't the issue all about doctored CDs and other lies (election fraud, etc.)?

Dog flu

Water-resistant

It turns out the recently cannonized Saint slash Senator Jamby Madrigal, a "traitor to her class" if ever there was one (or is she, really?), has reportedly filed a case with a UN body, charging pGMA's government of gross human rights violation. In an ill-advised reaction, a police chief reportedly preempted the filing of St. Jamby's case by returning the same accusation back to the accuser: Madrigal et al. were allegedly guilty of violating the human rights of policemen!

His reaction reminds me of my endless legal-versus-moral musings and my general contempt for human law. But the police chief is a government official who's supposed to know better! He could have used an equivalent term like the various synonyms of 'terrorism' in the thesaurus, and he would've gone scot-free.

Who will prove to be water-resistant in the long run? I dunno. I am loath to bet my horse on both parties. I prefer to remain dry at the moment.

Making the Filipino an endangered species

How on earth on are we going to get on with our E-VAT-threatened lives? What were all of you people thinking? Do you really want all Filipinos to go to bed hungry?

Here's a proposed solution, so you won't accuse me of always complaining but doing nothing: How about taxing the rich without the burden ultimately redounding to the already-poor? If anybody can formulate a solution based on that, he'll win the Nobel Prize.


Dog flu

It used to be that I find the wide gulf between the rich and the poor in this city fascinating, an indispensable part of the city's unsung and many-splendored charms. One moment, you are plodding through a muddy street of a ghetto like a carabao doing the ricefield, and another moment, you're taking an all-steel elevator to the 30th floor of an office building in Paseo de Roxas and you're wearing a silk tie and filling out an application form. But I eventually grew up, as what happens soon to anyone 'born yesterday.'

Lately, I saw the beguiling contrast rear its ugliness in my face yet again when I caught Jolina Magdangal on TV clutching a cute, little dog (a miniature something) in her fabulous arms. That must be a new trend among the rich and famous now, I thought, because a few months ago, that's what I've been seeing pretty colegialas do, walk around with their pet dogs like newborn babies in their arms. Must be Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde, I thought.

But the innocent, charming fad takes a whole new interpretation in my eyes whenever I see the opposite side of the fence: the indescribably ugly dogs of folks living along da riles (along the railroad tracks), all mangy, gnarled, hairless, covered with sores, and squatting despondently on the cold pavement, having no lovely humans to give them warmth, if at all. Dogs with no apparent humans are, of course, called askals (asong kalye, streetdogs), which I suspect most of these dogs to be. These dogs must be living off the neighborhood's kitchen trash.

I love dogs, but I am smart enough not to hug them the way these colegialas fondle their pet dogs (of various exotic breeds and hybrids). Dogs have bad breath, no matter the breed, and they are fond of doing French kiss.

Anyway, what strikes me about the askals among informal dwellers is the sorry epidemic they are in, which nobody seems to notice. Could it be that these dogs have a version of the bird flu? Will somebody ask the PCIJ to please investigate?

Now back to the rich-poor divide. I don't mind that rich people get rich, but I certainly am scandalized that poor people get that poor. It's like being sexually violated. Much as I refuse to blame the former for the ills of the latter (because things aren't always what they seem, and I believe in free enterprise as a means to change the world for the better (as a Jesuit writer puts it) and a means to give the individual a chance to improve himself), I couldn't help but connect the dots.

On an almost regular basis, I see the high life of the rich and famous in Ayala Alabang, "San Lo," Forbes, and Dasma as well as the lowest dives of the poorest of the poor living along the tracks. That's what living in this big smoggy city has made me see. And like I said, the discrepancy has ceased to be fascinating and amazing. I think it's time to call the devil for what it is: a crime and a crying shame.

Nevertheless, I also learned never to assume anything anyway. That big-shot dude driving the late-model car may have actually gotten rich as a high-class call boy, or that seemingly poor woman who counts herself among those being transferred by the MMDA to a relocation site in Cavite actually has a nice home in Pasay and owns a nice aquarium tank and a DVD player I can't afford to have. Or things like that.

Now that's fascinating: the complex deception in human affairs. I guess that's the second thing being a long-time city dweller has taught me.

Water treatment

(A late pseudo pun-dit entry. Ridiculous events only deserve to be lampooned with impunity.)

For 'testing the waters' of the anti-terror bill, an Inquirer report says, Catholic bishops, priests, nuns, a former vice-president, at least one senator, and other well-known personalities demanding the ouster of pGMA got "cannonized" in solemn rites near the historic Chino Roces St. (formerly the Mendiola St.). With all the pomp and pageantry of secular cannonization, they were "hosed down" presumably as preemptive terrorists, practically declaring all of them martyrs, er, enemies of the state.

In a separate account of the story, a wild radio reporter wildly reported: "Halos matuklap and bumbunan ni Fr. Robert Reyes!!!," (Translation: "Fr. Robert Reyes' fontanel nearly got skinned!!!")

The scene reminds us of a water treatment of a different kind, the one they called 'sona,' a method of torture used by the American forces to force the native 'rebels' to retract and disclose who their supremo was. Or something. The Americans did this by forcing the victim to gulp down lots of water until his tummy bulged and ached, big enough to be hazed. In the modern-day version, it seems, H2O from the fetid sewers of the Metro (I suppose) is used to hose down the high-profile 'pasaways' (translation: preemptive rallyists and potential terrorists) given to testing the waters, in so violent a fashion as to render the fontanel area bald, if not badly skinned or scalped.

"Who the heck ordered it?" media hounds cried, apparently distraught at the presence of big names thirsting for truth and justice.

"A "peaceful dialogue" was going on when all hell broke loose!," the recently cannonized conceded in a chorus.

The Bureau of Aquatic Resources chief was "hugas kamay," to quote another radio host, who is not known for being calm. (Translation: hugas kamay = did a Pontius Pilate.) So was the chair of the Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System. "I only ordered the sewers to be cleaned up because too much garbage clog the drains and cause massive flood in the city. I never ordered the sewers to be drained or dredged up, or the water to be flushed out by a firetruck," he said just as incredulously (or feigning disbelief).

Later in the day, his boss or some other chief did a retraction, saying, "They had it coming! They were infiltrated by communists! And they used religion to sow anti-government...blah blah blah!"

A photo of the modern-day 'sona' published in the paper captured the indubitably smiling face of the fireman who executed the torture. The cad was obviously enjoying the whole show, mistaking he was on Pinoy Big Brother.

["Hold your so-called horses," the secretary of Aquatic Resources cautioned. "It could be that the fireman was about to sneeze! It could be that the guy had bird flu!"]

Any moment from now, pGMA is expected to appear on TV to issue an emergency SONA (State of the Nation Address) on the infamous 'sona.' What will she be saying? That everything is now water under the Mendiola Bridge?

[Meanwhile, let's second-guess how Vatican will react. Will it declare the preemptive cannonization to be highly irregular and unauthorized? Or will it advise its priests and nuns to observe the separation of church and state to be something as inviolable as the separation of oil and water?]

Movements and migrations

Another mystery that science has yet to unlock is how animals move en masse.

I've long been mesmerized by how animals move so differently from the mechanics and rates of movement that we humans know. If you compare in human terms, for instance, how an ant carries its load, or how roaches run the vastness of your room, or how the multiple feet of millipedes move with a regular cadence, or how the delicate sheath of a wasp's wing vibrates to let the insect stay aloft, you begin to respect all of creation and be hesitant about squishing these creatures, which are otherwise just plain vermin in more normal circumstances.

The physics/mechanics and biochemistry involved in those movements science has partly unlocked. But a large area of interest remains largely a mystery.

A birder recently observed how these black birds called Asian glossy starlings settle on a tree as a flock of a thousand wings in seeming confusion, each bird flying whichever way it pleases, but with nary a bird bumping into another!

How do egrets from Siberia detect the presence of tasty diet miles away down south in Sagada or Olango? Detecting the seasons is easy guesswork: the birds can detect minute oscillations in pressure or some other variables, but the smell of fish? Don't these birds ever get lost in the South China Sea or the Pacific?

The flying-V formation of migratory birds has long been explained as an energy-conserving mechanism learned by instinct. The leading bird serves as spearhead, the 'wake' of its flapping taken advantage of by the birds next in line by floating on it. The moment the leader gets tired, the bird next in line takes its position, and so on. But how the geese and ducks figured it all out in the course of their evolution remains up for much speculation and theorizing, I suppose.

But how come fishes don't move in a similar fashion? Fishes move en masse in an even more mysterious way: No one seems to direct where to go and how to go about it, and yet, there they are, moving in unison and unprecedented harmony -- an amazing sight of communal discipline, as though directed by an unseen conductor. When a school of fish reaches a bend, the whole school bends in the same gentle way, maintaining the smoothness of the traffic even without so much as a yellow signal light.

How so very much unlike human affairs this movement of animals, G. gushes. Humans need traffic lights and traffic enforcers, speechwriters, planners, chief executive officers, conductors, bus drivers. Humans need to arrange month-long meetings to achieve a set of very elementary agenda. Humans employ complex language and sophisticated software to ensure that the message is conveyed with utmost clarity. Humans employ spies, insults, and dirty politics, not to mention such options as 'preemptive calibrated response' and they are all supposed to belong to just one flock or school or pod.

This terrific and terrible irony has been noted by a recent TV ad of Haribon Foundation (the local environmental conservation group), but on a different level: Migratory birds and sea mammals come to our shores even as we seek the refuge of other countries in economic desperation. Hundreds of kinds of birds visit our country year in and year out to escape the freezing cold of winter, yet we are so mesmerized by the very idea of snow. A lot of creatures find our mountains and rivers and forests and seas attractive enough to never ever leave for strange climes, and yet here we are, too intent to get the hell out, against all odds, even against common sense (remember those insisting on going to Iraq even at the height of war).

These animals seem to know something that we don't. They seem to have a sort of sense or logic that's just beyond our ken.

Those sneaky spies

Reli German was quoted as saying, "GMA will survive because the Opposition is weak."

I think German pinned it down. I guess, to most Filipinos, it's better to be run like hell by corrupt government officials than for out-and-out goons to run loose and wild, like those wily spies in the White House and whoever their mastermind/s (in RP) is/are. Pragmatism is the word, eh?

But I thought the two EDSA 'revolutions' were 'waged' because we couldn't accept our brand of political pragmatism, we couldn't settle for the next best thing, we wouldn't settle for all those long-time compromises?

I thought this is the reason why we are disgruntled with the government and our political leaders: we are being forced to be second-rate when we are demanding only the best. We want a government we can respect and be proud of, and there is none. We want a society that's caring, not one obsessed with power and social standing, lucre, recognition, fame, human respect, the accumulation of connections in the name of personal and familial security. We want a government that truly serves the people, especially the ones who are most in need of service, but what we have is a long-standing joke, a travesty.

But thanks to these spies for driving the final nail on the Opposition's Pandora's coffin of allegations, valid or cooked up. Now we're back to being the grateful dead, grateful in a twisted sort of way.

Atta girl, this GMA. So lucky.

One thing, though: Don't expect the youth to be idealistic and contribute with patriotic zeal under such an awful sociopolitical weather. You won't find them in government or even in mainstream society. They will be too busy compiling chapbooks of dark poetry, dreaming of one day seeing a communist victory.

Thanks to these scary Far Right spies and their equally pathetic counterparts in government, now I can say I truly understand this rebellious leftist bunch.

Too bad a time to bird

'Tis definitely not the season to watch the birds -- or so the paranoid potential birder will tend to think, knowing the bird flu scare generated by media reports is making the rounds.

(The Inquirer editorial on the subject stated a mistake: Migratory birds do not come here to breed; otherwise, these birds will automatically be considered as endemics residents, not migrants.:) You didn't know that, did you? Well, you're not supposed to know it until you are a bona fide birder.)

The way I have birded the metro (and passed up the chance to bird a lot of areas, including Candaba, with the ornithologist (?) Tim Fisher), you'd think I already look like a zitting cisticola by now.

Zitting what?, you ask.

That's a name of a bird species. In other stories...

I've 'birded' the Tambo mudflats and Manila Bay areas (near Cavite), and guess what greeted me: Squalor! Squatters! Garbage galore!

Sayang! You know that area formerly occupied by the Fisherman's Wharf going to Cavite near Coastal Mall? It's a favorite hangout of a lot of birds. From a distance, all you'd see are white-feathered creatures, but a closer inspection through a spotting scope would reveal more than ten kinds of birds: great egret, little egret, black-crowned night heron, greenshank, redshank, three species of plovers, two species of bitterns, kingfisher, spotted dove, whiskered tern, and some other tern species.

The observation area would have been a perfect tourist site, with some common sense from government and the general public. I think we birders will personally be at loggerheads with a lot of people because of our hobby slash advocacy. It's inevitable, you know. Let's see if it's worth fighting City Hall, or at least telling them to do their job for the environment, if not for future generations.

Addendum: Birding need not be dangerous. Birders seldom come into direct contact with those flu-carrying migratory ducks. It is indeed ironic that we might find the flu scare a blessing in disguise, as potential hunters/poachers think twice about killing the wild birds for lunch and a little pocket money. We need all the bad rep, after all.

(Metro) Manila as a time machine

(Carlos C., this is for you, even if you're pro-GMA. I've read in your blog that Manila has been featured in Wallpaper magazine (which is a big thing for design students and professionals like you), so I thought this alternative itinerary tour of the megalopolis would be interesting.)

In the eyes of Susan Calo-Medina, traveling in the Philippines is some kind of taking a ride in a time machine: the Cordilleras in Northern Luzon is 17th century, NCR is 21st century, and Mindanao is 18th century.

But in the eyes of Jaime C. Laya (former Central Bank manager), that's too much of a generalization, particularly for Manila. Here's his recommended itinerary for an "architour" of Manila. (It should be architectour!):

Spanish colonial period: Intramuros, Fort Santiago, San Agustin church and convent, Casa Manila, Plaza San Luis, R. Hidalgo and Arlegui Sts., San Sebastian church, even certain structures in Binondo, San Nicholas, and San Miguel.

Manila the Magnificent period: American Period Civic Center: Manila Post Office, Metropolitan Theater, Mehan Garden, Sunken Garden, City Hall, Philippine Normal University, National Museum Complex, Supreme Court and the original UP, Philippine General Hospital, Manila Hotel, Luneta Hotel, Army and Navy Club (now Museum of Manila?), Museo Pambata, American Embassy Chancery.

Certain office buildings on Escolta, Juan Luna, Rizal Avenue and nearby streets. A few buildings on Muelle de la Industria along the Pasig. pre-Depression mansions along Broadway and Gilmore, New Manila, Quezon City.

American aves de rapina period: Certain homes in Santa Mesa.

1930s Art Deco: Rizal Memorial Coliseum, mansions lining Vito Cruz, like the Orchid Garden Hotel. Certain homes along Taft Ave and in Sta. Cruz and Sampaloc.

1940s: Wedding cake homes with precast ornaments, with machined adobe stone walls and asymmetric facades in Sta. Mesa Heights, Quezon City.

(What happened in the '50s and '60s? Nothing? I don't remember a major world war or something.)

(What? No mention of the '70s and Marcos-commissioned sculptural works by Leandro Locsin?)

(The Wallpaper feature reportedly also takes note of the '70s and '80s-style of concrete architecture along Buendia in Makati. [Huh, you call even that architecture?!?])

1990s-2000s: Ayala Tower One, Philamlife Tower, Enterprise Center, all in Makati; the new highrises in Fort Bonifacio.

(One last reaction: What, no pre-Hispanic structures at all? I heard the foundation of a rampart or something in Intramuros may actually be pre-Hispanic. And here's one more: For the different stlyes of bahay kubo and bahay na bato, there's the Nayong Pilipino, if it's still there, that is.)

Source: [secret :)]

How to spot a silly 'celeb'

I frequent Makati, so I've grown blasé about seeing celebrities in their 'commoner' mode. I don't really scour the mall crowd trying to spot a celebrity, but from my experience, celebrities of all stripes frequent the Ayala Center and Greenbelt areas every single day. Name a well-known figure and, chances are, I've stumbled into him or her at the mall. You run into them as they look at the display windows like you do, schlep around the bend, steal an appearance or two here and there, or purchase something pretending not to see anyone looking. But yes, oftentimes, you never realize who you have bumped into until something in your brain alerts you to some hazy image you saw on TV or in a movie.

It is therefore totally ridiculous to see a celebrity (clue: famous in the music scene) walk around the mall without changing his usual hair and get-up and then sport an extra-tinted pair of shades to hide his eyes and thus his obvious identity.

I was laughing yesterday behind Celebrity X's back because he obviously looked like Celebrity X and yet he was desperately but vainly trying to hide his identity.

Message to celebrities: People in Makati know how to behave in the presence of a celebrity/-ies. They are pretty nonchalant about it.

1. Makati people often choose to 'pretend' not to see. And they don't stalk. They know that it is essential not to be a bother.

2. When they do indeed notice ("Magpakatotoo ka, sister"), they are generally polite. They smile and surreptitiously whisper to whoever their companion is, "'Di ba si ano yan...?"

3. And then they go about their own business, if not impressed.

4. But if impressed, they may look at you longer than usual. Those who go out of their way to do some obvious stalking are most likely the "jologs." (Sorry, but I just had to use the word.)

5. The rich kids, well, they couldn't care less. They are far wealthier and even more privileged than you are anyway. They may heckle at you behind your back in the off-chance that they'll recognize you're a celebrity, but the best thing they will do is note what you're wearing or driving on that day.

6. So, you see, you really can let your hair down in (the more upscale parts of) Makati without worrying too much, except the roving eyes of those pesky entertainment scribes. As for common folks like me, we have long accepted you as a part of our daily lives, a daily fixture of the urban infrastructure.

7. So to Celebrity X: By wearing that frigging pair of bulky shades in the muted mall-light, you call attention to yourself all the more. You want to remove those shades right now. Believe me, no one will even notice it was you.

Attn.: MRT management

This is not funny. What explains the sudden unavailability of stored value cards during rush hour? Is it the sudden surge in the number of MRT commuters? Is this a new measure against terrorism?

Sir, kindly ensure that stored value cards never run out at all times. Commuting is hard enough; do commuters always have to queue up and form a kilometric line all the way down in this sweltering weather? It's too early for Good Friday. Have mercy.

Thank you.

[Please copy-and-paste this letter until it is forwarded to whoever is head of the MRT (an ex-general whose name I can't remember right now).]

12 things science can't explain

Attention: Synchronicity people. Here's a good summary what we've been wondering about in bits and pieces over the years... (Thanks, Mr. Bayi.) This list is a good, practical measurement scale in judging a person's level of close-mindedness. Here goes.

This includes phenomena in the "hard sciences" as well as in the paranormal. These effects are now being proven in the laboratory, even though they defy present scientific theory. These unfolding mysteries point the way to a new, deeper science, a science which no longer denies spirit and consciousness, but acknowledges and embraces them.

The Mystery Unfolds...A New Frontier Emerges

In the past three decades scientific evidence has accumulated showing that the present scientific paradigm is broken. In the hard sciences:

1. DARK MATTER of an unknown form makes up most of the matter of the universe. This matter is not predicted by the standard physics models. The so-called "Theory of Everything" does not predict and does not understand what this substance is.

2. THE LAW OF GRAVITY appears to be seriously broken. Experiments by Saxl and Allais found that Foucault pendulums veer off in strange directions during solar eclipses. Interplanetary NASA satellites are showing persistent errors in trajectory. Neither of these is explained or predicted by the standard theory of gravity known as Einstein's General Relativity.

3. COLD FUSION. The Cold Fusion phenomenon violates physics as we understand it, and yet it has been duplicated in various forms in over 500 laboratories around the world. Recent studies by the Electric Power Research Institute, a large non-profit research organization funded by the nation's power companies, found that Cold Fusion works. A recent Navy study also verified the reality of Cold Fusion, and the original MIT study which supposedly disproved Cold Fusion has been found to have doctored its data. Present day physics has no explanation for how it works, but it does work.

4. CHARGE CLUSTERS. Under certain conditions, billions of electrons can "stick together" in close proximity, despite the law of electromagnetism that like charges repel. Charge clusters are small, one millionth of a meter in diameter, and are composed of tens or hundreds of billions of electrons. They should fly apart at enormous speed, but they do not. This indicates that our laws of electromagnetism are missing something important.

5. COSMOLOGY. Quasars, which are supposed to be the most distant astronomical objects in the sky, are often found connected to nearby galaxies by jets of gas. This suggests that they may not be as far away as previously thought, and their red shifts are due to some other, more unusual physics which is not yet fully understood.

6. SPEED OF LIGHT, once thought unbreakable, has been exceeded in several recent experiments. Our notion of what is possible in terms of propagation speed has been changing as a result. Certain phenomena, such as solar disturbances on the sun which take more than eight minutes to be visible on the earth, are registered instantaneously on the acupuncture points of instrumented subjects. Acupuncture points apparently respond to solar events by some other force which travels through space at a much higher speed than light.

This covers just a few of the more glaring anomalies in the "hard sciences." Evidence has also accumulated in the laboratory that many paranormal effects are real, and can be verified and studied scientifically. Among these are the following:

7. ESP. Large-scale experiments by the Princeton PEAR Lab as well as other laboratories have proven that ESP is a real, statistically verifiable scientific phenomenon. Thousands of experiments have been conducted with dozens of subjects, which demonstrate that this form of communication is real, and that it does not weaken measurably with distance. This makes it unlike any known physical force.

8. PSYCHOKINESIS, OR MIND OVER MATTER. The ability to exert psychic force over objects at a distance has also been demonstrated in large-scale experiments. Even over distances of thousands of miles, the behavior of certain machines, called REGs for Random Event Generators, have been altered by the intention, or the psychic force of a distant person. The odds that these effects are real, and not due to chance, is now measured in billions to one. In other words, this phenomenon is real.

9. REMOTE VIEWING. The American military conducted a secret remote viewing program for almost two decades. It was supported because it worked, and evidence of its success has now become public. The remote viewers have demonstrated that it is possible to view "targets" which are remote in space and time. In many cases details which were unavailable any other way were acquired by the viewers. Rigorous statistical experiments have confirmed that remote viewing has accuracy far above chance, and represents a real phenomenon which defies present science.

10. TIME AND PROPHECY. One unusual aspect of ESP, Remote Viewing and Psychokinesis is that "time" doesn't seem to matter. One can exert an influence or acquire information in the past and in the future, almost as easily as in the present. In conventional physics, the order of events is very important, but in the realm of psychic phenomena there seems to be a flexibility to move in time that defies current physics.

11. OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCE. Experiments have been performed which show that, during some out-of-body experiences, the "astral body" or center of consciousness of the individual can be detected at remote locations. When individuals go "out of body" and focus their consciousness at another location, physical disturbances have been measured at that remote location. These include anomalous light, electrical, magnetic and other physical forces which indicate the "astral body" sometimes has physically measurable properties.

12. GHOSTS. Modern scientific ghost hunters use magnetic, electrical, optical and thermal sensors when they survey supposedly haunted sites. In hundreds of cases, technically trained researchers have found measurable physical anomalies when ghosts are said to be present. Although some people have claimed to see ghosts, and many have reported anomalous cold spots and described a strange chill on their skin, modern ghost hunters have shown that unusual magnetic fields and strong voltages also occur in these same haunted locations. Unusual orbs have been photographed at the same time that magnetic and electrical disturbances are measured. None of these can be explained by conventional science.

Are you *stoofid?

[This is a commentary on the prevailing fashion of the day among young males: the "faux tuck" (salamats, Spin!). I had my own field day in following stupid fashion trends, but trust me, this is the worst ever.]

Are you, by any chance, stoofid? If unsure, take this self-administered test (Brighton-Myers test, version 2.5, best administered intracranially).

Please encircle the correct answer.

1. Do you wear a tight-fitting shirt that has its hem falling just below the belt? YES NO

2. Do you wear a pair of low, low, low, low-slung jeans that threaten to perfectly show off your pubic hair hairline and your ultra-tight fitting red Bench Lycra underwear? YES NO

3. And then do you wear a nice canvass belt worth Php50,000? YES NO

4. And then, to make sure people will notice the belt, you pull up the hem of your shirt just a bit, taking care not to show your pubic hair inadvertently to a horrified public? YES NO

5. If your answer is YES to all questions, then you are entitled to your own stoofid opinion on what should be hot and what should be not. Best of luck!!

*stoofid - a coinage I may have stolen from K. or some other source, I'm not sure. Here, it only means "fashionista-stupid."

Other related posts: the hoop earring, the punk rocker-inspired faux mohawk, hip-hop's toughie/boys in da hood look, the clutch bag.

***

Saw in an MRT booth:

FOR SALE: Moron

(!)

(WT!?!?!)

In fairness, the product, a native delicacy looked like a smartly wrapped suman. Gahd, the name they give to things these days.

***

You won't believe the name of the church I encountered the other day:

Church of the Back to Christ Royal Family in the 7th Millennium, Inc.

If you think I am joking, then you are crazy. You might want to check with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

'I want my free gift!'

(This is an odds-and-ends type of post.)

There are basically two big news competing for attention yesterday and today: A Filipino spy in the White House and a snake bursting after ingesting an alligator.

I just have to say a mouthful about the latter. What happens when a greedy Burmese python devours a symbol of greed? Why, a spectacular explosion, of course! Right now, I refuse to see a political symbol in there somewhere. I just want to remind myself not to eat too much alligator, I mean, not to eat too much.

**

I used to find Miriam Defensor-Santiago's accent cute slash endearing. Guess how someone calls her weird fusion-cuisine accent.

"Ilongchigan"!

Hahahahaha. What does that supposed to mean? Ilonggo + American English in Michigan?

**

I saw this old, old ad in a bus, but it's only now that I really made an effort to read through it:

"Be sexy and healthy. Even without exercise. 8386222."

Hmm, looks like the perfect regimen for lazy me.

**

I forgot to report that my friends and I joined the bazaar/tiangge organized last Saturday by Barangay Dasmarinas (Dasmarinas Village, Makati City, hehe). This is what I found: Selling stuff to people is a back-breaking (handwork, footwork, etc.), nerve-wrenching (taking care of clients!), mind-boggling (doing the math), and bone-chilling (robbers! thieves!) job.

The experience made me regain my respect for entrepreneurship, although I believe that capitalism must have some sort of a cap. (Forget De Soto or Alan Greenspan or whoever; these days, I'm beginning to subscribe to Focolare's (Chiara Lubich's) economy of (wait, I forgot what it's called).

We sold common Filipino merienda fare at ridiculously high price, and yet the well-scrubbed people of Dasma gobbled up everyhing like they haven't had them for years. There's only one customer who grumbled in my face that the banana cue or lumpia I was pushing in her face was "Ang mahal!" I was tempted to tell her that we were doing it as a fund-raiser and I was personally doing it out of charity, even assisting in the cooking when I didn't even know how to cook, and that she actually owed me about Php 1.50 because we were selling almost at cost, but I decided to hold my so-called horses. Well, she didn't look like she's really from there anyway; you know what I mean.

Times are hard, I know, and there are so many of us who are poor, but I still don't believe in free lunch. Not if someone is sick of bird flu anyway. The thing is, we ought not to begrudge people of their hard-earned wealth. (And neither should generosity of heart be legislated, either.)

Guess how much we earned at the end of the day: a stagerring debt-defying Php 704.25 after all the overhead/rental expenses have been accounted for!! Bizarre, that Barangay Dasma bazaar. I had a good workout in a long time, though. :)

Jib Fowles' 15 Basic Appeals in advertising

Advertising's 15 Basic Appeals, by Jib Fowles
(from "Mass Advertising As Social Forecast")

1. Need for sex- surprisingly, Fowles found that only 2 percent of the television ads, he surveyed used this appeal. It may be too blatant, he concluded, and often detracts from the product.

2. Need for affiliation- the largest number of ads use this approach: you are looking for friendship? Advertisers can also use this negatively, to make you worry that you'll lose friends if you don't use a certain product.

3. Need to nurture- every time you see a puppy or a kitten or a child, the appeal is to your paternal or maternal instincts.

4. Need for guidance- a father or mother figure can appeal to your desire for someone to care for you, s you won't have to worry. Betty Crocker is a good example.

5. Need to aggress- we all have had a desire to get even, and some ads give you this satisfaction.

6. Need to achieve- the ability to accomplish something difficult and succeed identifies the product with winning. Sports figures as spokespersons project this image.

7. Need to dominate- the power we lack is what we can look for in a commercial "master the possibilities."

8. Need for prominence- we want to be admired and respected; to have high social status. Tasteful china and classic diamonds offer this potential.

9. Need for attention- we want people to notice us; we want to be looked at. Cosmetics are a natural for this approach.

10. Need for autonomy- within a crowded environment, we want to be singled out, to be a "breed apart." This can also be used negatively: you may be left out if you don't use a particular product

11. Need to escape- flight is very appealing; you can imagine adventures you cannot have; the idea of escape is pleasurable

12. Need to feel safe- to be free from threats, to be secure is the appeal of many insurance and bank ads

13. Need for aesthetic sensations-beauty attracts us, and classic art or dance makes us feel creative, enhanced

14. Need to satisfy curiosity-facts support our belief that information is quantifiable and numbers and diagrams make our choices seem scientific

15. Psychological needs- Fowles defines sex (item no.1) as a biological need, and so he classifies our need to sleep, eat, and drink in this category. Advertisers for juicy pizza are especially appealing late at night.

Source: Media Impact Introduction to Mass Media (4th Ed) Author: Shirley Biagi, Wadsworth

Mgmt 101 terms

Pareto principle -The misnamed Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that for many phenomena 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes. The idea has rule-of-thumb application in many places, but it's also commonly and unthinkingly misused. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
PERT analysis
SWOT analysis

Anac na lalasi cayo!

Current mood: ethnic
Current music: M.Y.M.P., Vhong Navarro, Viktoria, Mark Bautista, Jennifer Bautista, Jasmine Trias2, Jasmie Trias1, 6th Day, Siyato, Tunog Kapuso, and some old stuff (okay, you can really laugh now):Endless Love (Remixes), Ya Chang, Luke Mejares.

Agagabangatan! Of course, antak so manlabir ed Pangalatok. Agko labat gagamiten kasi anggapoy makatalos ed siac. Insan ni, diyad Manila ak inyanak tan binmaleg anggad man-aral ak, and then mayamay aralem tan masanting iran words tan idioms ya agko la anta. In fact, aramay poems nen Sonny Villafania, agko masyadon natalusan. Sige la, aya labat. Labay ko labat so unalig. Alig-alig ak labat ed sayan post, piano na-entertain ko iray certain pipol. Btw, Sonny, how many Pangasinenses are there left in the wild? We really should save and protect this endangered species. Mayamay/dakdakel so nayarin writers tan journalists promdi province, balet angapod sikara so mansusulat ed Pangalatok. I think it's about time ya i-revive tayo yan lengguahe tayo, kasi it's fast becoming a museum piece. Ten years from now, globalization and all, even its colloquial form will be watered down into another ugly pidgin. Should language really be a function of economics? I dunno, that line I find hard to translate. If a language is not that profitable, does it follow that it deserves to die? You know, this is all ironic coz Pangasinenses are known to have come from a merchant breed, owing in large part to the ancient Arab trade connection. Sige la, akabawi ak la, hehe.

Now let's sum up all the maybes

[Still on the question of why Philippine letters (most especially the novel and those written in English) isn't as prominent here or anywhere as it should be, knowing that (1) there is a market, (2) Filipinos are the third largest English speakers (and by extension writers and readers) of the world, and (3) there are so many excellent Philippine writers, (4) not to mention the fact that we have a diverse, ancient tradition of epics and stories (most of which were most likely burned).]

1. Maybe it's because we (writers) are all part-time writers. (Casocot)

2. Maybe most Filipino writers (here and abroad) listen too much to the didactic dictatorship of the Philippine literary canon (read Rizal's Noli and Fili, etc.) (my rewording of Casocot, who implicated Ordonez, Brion, et al.)

3. Maybe most Filipino writers are lazy and unimaginative. (Casocot/Alfar?)

4. Maybe it's because most Filipino readers look down on anything Filipino, to begin with. (Casocot) [We're really all guilty of this to some extent.]

5. Maybe these Filipino novelists are a bunch of eggheads; they only write for each other's exclusive delectation (or critiquing). (a liberal paraphrasing of Quezon III)

6. Maybe writers are only after the recognition and the awards. (various commentators, bitchy, envious, or less than)

7. Maybe we're only imagining that there's a viable market. It's all about economics, son. (Dalisay, Hidalgo, C. Bautista?)

8. Maybe it's because our writers aren't drawing from the deep sociocultural/political well that's only natural for a writer to do in a given milieu, without any thought of whether he or she should be (or is being) didactic or not. (Angas ng Kurimaw)

9. Maybe it's just a matter of tithing, you know; only 10% of any given population care about literature, much less their own people's literature; and it happens that this "critical 10%" prefers American and foreign literature. (guess who)

(to be continued)

Shooting one's foot in the mouth disease (ROFL!)

'Inspired' by a commenter's (Dante, in Australia?) recent comment, I'm supposed to present here today my own personal choice of this year's 'awardees' (much as I don't believe in awards) for music industry talents after I had a posttraumatic syndrome attack with the announcement of that infamous song of the year winner (I know, Yasmien Kurdi, it's not your fault) over at GMA's lunch-time show SOP. Wag na nga lang. (In the off chance that I had to sit through an entire lunch-time show, did I have to be shocked like that? Not even shock jock Howard Stern could spur me into going into murderous lengths, shouting "Travesty! Travesty!")

Meanwhile, I want to say a mouthful re. our hot topic du jour: Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago's latest fulmination, i.e., calling Cory and Noynoy "makakapal ang mukha" and "kapit-tuko sa Hacienda Luisita." But I'm not sure if the lady hasn't gone too low twice over (Miriam, not Cory). Anyway, to make patol further...

Let me review an old post on her, which I think is over-stale it reeks: How do you solve a problem like Miriam?

Update: OMG, editorialist John Nery calls Miriam's most recent senatorial-grade, thunderous verbal attack of the Aquinos (et alii) a "pathetic non-sequitur" (!!!) in a post titled "Shooting one's foot and mouth" or something like that. (Huh, hindi ba libelous iyan!?!)

I am reminded of my use of "idiotic" to describe someone named LBM, and I was in total control of my emotions pa 'nun. I texted my favorite pro bono lawyer and here's her reply:

"If you call a private person "idiot" in print, malice is presumed under law. Therefore, it's easier for a libel case to prosper. If it's a public person that was so maligned, malice has to be proven. (Me: Like, how?) It's never presumed. Therefore, it's harder for a public person to prove libel because the law doesn't give them (sic, hihihi!) the same presumption of malice as they do a private person." (Don't you hate these lawyers?)

At this juncture, I am also reminded of the etymology of the name Miriam. I am, of course, familiar with the biblical character, Miriam, the (younger?) sister of Moses. The scene involving her that strikes me the most is when she was punished by God (with a malfunctioning mouthful?!?) when she and some other pseudoleftist malcontents grumbled and griped against brother Moses (Boiling Point: 2.5 seconds). I'm not implying anything, okay? Takot ako sa libel, hehe. Duwag me, eh.

(Apologies to Paolo M. for stealing appropriating his style of punning. :p)

Choices

The trouble with lots of choices is the paralysis that goes with it.

Right now, there's a Spanish film festival in Greenbelt; would I like to see it? "Hey, let's watch CineEuropa at Shangrila. Now na," someone sends a text message. "If you are going to watch anything these days, you have to watch (I forgot)," G. sends his own message. "It moved me a lot."

Unlike him, I was immoveable. I was paralyzed, remember? I didn't know which one to choose. It's not just that I was being overwhelmed; it's more about being utterly confused.

At my age, I hardly ever get overwhelmed by lots of choices anymore. After all, I've been through all sorts of 50%-off buffets, from Pinausukan Restaurant (now extinct), to Hard Rock Cafe lunches to Dads/Saisaki/ and Cabalen meriendas.

It's the thought of having to make a hard choice itself that's aggravating. Choices used to be only a luxury. Now it can trigger migraine. You're not just paralyzed into making a hard choice, but paralyzed by the thought of having no choice but to make a hard decision over something that's normally inconsequential.

What's worst, you often end up choosing nothing.

First phone call

Finally I have a new landline after languishing for years of having none. But I still don't want to be bothered at home because being at home means being asleep. Besides, I am bothered by my cell phone all the time, not to mention responsible for the 'load' of four other cell phones. I'd just would like to document how the first phone call I received went.

[Time: 12 midnight.]

[The phone rings, just when I get up for the bathroom.]

Voice (most likely female): Hello! Pwede'ng makipagkaibigan?

Me: Ha?! Sorry, busy ako eh.

I despise cheap umbrellas (A manifesto)

[Today's weather in Manila: Rainy at the exact time you rush to work and the exact time you call it a (bad) day.]

[Music video: Cue in Gene Kelly dancing and singing in the rain with a yellow parasol.]


Rainy days never fail to bring me face to face with a perennial peeve: umbrellas that never last for a week. As it is, I strongly dislike lugging around an umbrella, rain or shine; now do I have to harbor hatred in my heart as well?

I have never grown fond of umbrellas because most of those I owned were given to me as a "free gift" during the company's Christmas party, and they all came in primary colors. Our purchase officer most probably had the same thing going on in his mind as 'BF' Fernando: Nobody buys yellow umbrellas (or hot-pink paints), so it figures...

If I am caught carrying one such umbrella because Ernie Baron misquoted the PAG-ASA last night, it's automatically my fervent prayer that it rains hard right that moment; who cares who gets wet.

These otherwise trusty contraptions are like cockroaches: they survived Darwinian evolution without changing much. Umbrellas are apparently fabricated with ready windfall profit foremost in mind, so it makes sense that they stayed pretty much the way they always were.

But while the umbrella in general failed to evolve, must modern-day umbrellas devolve? Each umbrella these days, it seems, is crafted with a malicious purpose, what with this expiry date: tomorrow -- or first thing in the morning after the rains. Even the less-cheap varieties nowadays are equally shitty. Their shelf life is invariably co-terminus with the bad weather. Today's umbrellas are worse than overstaying politicians [equally malicious grin].

Umbrella manufacturers (most likely Taiwanese, if not Philippine) seem to have turned their pathetic variety of making inferior products even more substandard into a new branch of applied science. The pot-ugly, self-destructing umbrellas, at first glance, seem deliberately crafted to ensure a steady job for the umbrella industry -- the Easily Demolished Umbrella industry -- in and out of (the rainy) season. But I doubt if umbrella repairmen are all the happier for it, as they find an increasing heap of umbrellas for emergency repair just as increasingly hopeless. Apparently these umbrellas are meant not to be reused; these are meant to be disposable.

And to think that they are not even biodegradable! And to think we're not dealing here with Hurricane Katrina, but mere tropical storms!

If Congress were any useful to us in a concrete way, they should legislate against the mass production of self-destructible umbrellas. Forget about federalism. This is perhaps the way to go for a country like ours (which never seems to unite under one umbrella): to fight over an (cheap) umbrella.

More inchoateness

Haha, this is beginning to look like a Ferris wheel, an endless turning and turning at the circus.

Just when I was beginning to think that I.R.C. was right in pointing an accusing finger at both writers (lazy!) and readers (snobs! guilty of colonial mentality, looking down on their own!), here comes our favorite rebel serving up a new disquisition for us to dissect with malicious mirth great merriment.

Because I am an amateur hobbyist when it comes to Philippine literature, I just have to parrot this line: "Filipinos have a very low self-esteem, a neurotically low self-regard!" Not the least because of unpatriotic (and misguidedly overnationalistic?) leaders in every conceivable field (politicians, educators, etc.). (The accusation is true for literature as it is for any aspect of Filipino culture. And we are all guilty of it, in various degrees.)

Meanwhile, let's see if Spin is able to acquit himself this time around.

Four quotes

There are four special quotes that are keeping me sane these days in spite of everything. It's because they assert the things I firmly believe in even in the face of seeming defeat.

I am a prisoner of hope. - I owe this quote from one of my closest friends, as he quotes Zech. 9:12.


Self-pity is the most useless of human emotions. - from a spam sent in by another
friend

Man is made for happiness. - This one can be interpreted the wrong way, but I think I am somewhat in agreement with one of Dostoyevsky's characters.

Every crisis is an opportunity. - from a long-lost college friend