Babel. must. not. win!

Yahoo!! Babel = 0, Not Babel = 2!!!

From an anonymous commenter (I hate anonymous commenters):

"I also hated Babel. I hated it so much I nominated it as "not best picture of the year"... the film with all of the hype and none of the substance. Check it out at notbestpicture.com."

Who cares about the Oscars anyway? Only suckers for politics do. It's just like the highly political Manila Film Festival, which is 50% crap and 60% crass (it turned out the light parody Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo was the top grosser, so what happens to the award given to Enteng-whatshisface?). I've long shifted my sights to the Cannes. Come follow me.

And if you care about your health, join the I-hate-Babel support group now, where they give you a group hug.

(Update, in response to Alvin: Cannes may be right to adjudge Inarritu as best director, but Babel as best picture? They were right to give it to something else.)

“The error of capitalism”

(New encyclical for the end times? No, a rereading of John Paul II on human labor.)

“The error of communism” persists in our country and in many parts of the Third World in this day and age because the “error of capitalism” remains unaddressed or ignored. (Message to all fascist generals and presidents: killing leftists and communists in cold blood is not, will never be, the answer.) One of the areas worst hit by this fundamental error in thinking the human condition is human labor/employment. And since the clamor for wage increase is upon us anew, it’s high time we revisit the delicate, controversial issues swirling around this one.

“The error of capitalism” is a phrase attributed to the wordsmith pope John Paul II. He used it once again in his encyclical Laborem exercens (on human work) to elucidate his thinking on the definition of work, work and man, labor and capital, workers rights as human rights, and the spirituality of work.

[Sidebar: Laborem exercens is a wonderful reading material. (Omg, I think I am such a nerd! Why? Because even encyclicals I enjoy reading, much like I would an encyclopedia.)]

“The error of capitalism” is basically this predominant view that man is a mere “merchandise” in the whole economic scheme of things. John Paul II calls this view "economism," which he ultimately traces to "materialism," the reversal of position/precedence/preeminence of man over things. Economism ("the precedence of things over man"), says John Paul II, thrives in the “objectivization of workers instead of being the subject of work”; to paraphrase, man is being subjected to work as an object, instead of being the “subject of work.” There is a “preeminence of the objective over the subjective sense of workers.” This, he says, results in the “violation of the dignity of human work.”

We all know what man/woman is, but what is work, or at least according to the moralistic view of the pope? Ah, therein lies the problem. Or as Conrado de Quiros would put it, “there’s the rub.” With moralism eschewed by world leaders, perhaps thinking it to be gobbledygook, everything fell apart and went downhill from there, as we will trace in the ff. paragraphs.

Work, according to this encyclical, is a “duty” or “obligation” given to man (by God, duh) right from the start (see Gen. 1:26, 28). This means that, as J., a Bible scholar, would put it, "there is work even before sin came," before Adam and Eve fell from grace and got expelled from Eden. In fact, the pope goes on, work is part of the very nature of God. Imagine that! Unlike socialites, even God works! (Try to refer to the ff. passages, even if you’re atheist: Gen. 2:2-3, Jn. 5:17, Rev. 15:3.)

Work, for man, is meant to “transform nature” and help give man “fulfillment as a human being.” A deviation from this original purpose “exploits man” and “lowers his dignity.” (Note that, in papal vocabulary, work rendered by animals is not considered “labor.”)

Though work became a "toil" after Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit (thus the curse of Adam’s apple?), work remains something that is good, in the pope’s own understanding, its original purpose left un-revoked despite man’s rebellion (awkward paraphrasing mine).

The "error of capitalism" bloomed especially in the Industrial Age. The “subordination to capital” of the “primacy of man” has resulted in “exploitation,” which meant “maximum profit [at] the lowest possible wage.” This, historically speaking, gave rise to the solidarity movement among the workers of the world and in the evolution of such phenomenon as the “strike,” which was used either as a justified act/response to injustice or a form of abuse, and eventually in the rise of communism.

But even before the commission of the socioeconomic sin of exploitation (and the equally erroneous response to it) is an even more fundamental error: labor suddenly being viewed as an opposite of capital! This gentle subversion had unforeseen, yet far-reaching repercussions in the work world, the pope goes on, especially when one considers the fact that capital comes from toil/labor/work. In the pope’s dictionary, the world’s natural resources can’t be called capital. These are resources owned by all (the concept of commons?). A nation’s citizen is entitled to that nation’s roster of resources. The capitalist’s extraction of the world’s natural goods requires capital, and all capital is originally a product of human hands. Hence, separating capital from labor is unthinkable, the pope points out.

As we know, from the “error of capitalism” sprung the “error of communism” and the antithesis called "dialectical materialism." Instead of reconciling the “antinomy” (“separation and opposition”) of labor and capital, it even furthered it. The leftist conception of the “union,” for example, was an act of inciting a “class conflict/class war” aimed at “eliminating the opponent.”

This is equally a tragedy, to the pope's mind, because work has a “social power.” It was originally envisioned “to build community”! To advance “the common good”! Clearly, “capital should be at the service of labor,” and neither of the two need not be foes in a class war or class conflict.

When you think about it, work even has a sacred dimension (I’m putting words in the pope’s mouth now). Even God works, so everybody is not exempt; everyone simply must work because work “is participation in God’s activity.” Even when seen as a punishment or, in a different sphere of interpretation, as the “the cross of Christ” himself, work still is meant not just to transform the world and make it a better place than before, but also “to help redeem humanity.”

Various solutions were thought up in the interim to address all these errors, of course, and one doable solution appears to be "a form of socialization of certain means of production" (not the "collectivism" and the resulting "dictatorship of the proletariat" in the disastrous communist experiment). To paraphrase and quote again from Laborem exercens, liberalism’s concept of the right to ownership or property should not be seen as something absolute; “the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use” (p. 51).

Apparently, especially with the advent of global trade, any possible solutions being crafted or already being experimented upon in the world's societies must be subject to the crucible of testing and retesting and fine-tuning before it can ever be declared as humane. Correct diagnosis is crucial. We must constantly question, “Where has the conception and/or organization of capital and work gone awry/wrong?” The “error of capitalism” must be addressed now, especially in the long-oppressed, long-suffering Third World.

I am writing all this hoping our policy-makers, both in the micro and macro levels, will keep or at least consider all these things in mind when deciding on matters that affect human labor and all the men and women of the world who are united at work, their respective families, their respective countries, and each of their own respective humanity. That practically means all of us, laborers and capitalists alike, because, after all, "we are all workers."

**

Tangentially related posts (all uncompromising/totally indie/totally unflinching/will never be published in MSM):

Gospel of fear
It’s a deal
Adam’s apple

Veil of contention

Sorry, Daily Mail

Here are two sides of the coin in the Muslim veil issue, which is increasingly becoming a global one. Which side are you on? I've recently read an article about Orianna Fallaci's rather extremist view, calling the veil "stupid." I wouldn't go to that extent, but I've always thought the choice is up to the individual woman believer, not to anyone else, not to the non-Muslim/outsider and not to imams and mullahs too. Nonetheless, the mere thought of the origin of veil-wearing is already turn-offy, to my mind: enforced by men on women to avoid tempting men (what? women are intrinsically evil temptresses even just by being themselves? what the...). As to whether to ban the veil in public places, such as school, well, my position has always been to respect religious rights. Banning the Muslim veil in public would also mean banning priestly attires, nuns' habits, and public prayer.

Con: Kicking the headscarf habit

Pro: Multiculturalism drives young Muslims to shun British values

Malaysian Bloggers Under Siege!

(Guest post from B.Y. (Bayi).)

KUALA LUMPUR -- On Thursday, January 18, 2007, two prominent Malaysian bloggers informed their readers that they had been sued by Malaysia's oldest mainstream newspaper, the New Straits Times and several individuals related to the NST Group. The plaintiffs were applying for an injunction against Ahirudin bin Attan, the blogger of Rocky's Bru and Jeff Ooi, the blogger of Screenshots. The plaintiffs are suing for defamation. They have cited 48 postings in their List of Defamatory Articles in the Statement of Claim.


Ahirudin of Rocky's Bru and Jeff Ooi of Screenshots.

The suit, the first ever of its kind in Malaysia is said to have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech in the country and is closely watched not only by all the Malaysian bloggers but also those in the region. It has also attracted international attention, with international media such as the BBC, BusinessWeek, Al-Jazeera English and the Kyodo News reporting on the suit. Reporters sans Frontieres have expressed alarm over the case as it could be the prelude to more restrictions on the freedom of expression.

Local bloggers were quick in galvanizing support for the two besieged bloggers. A new blog, Walk With Us, has been set up to muster support for the two bloggers, with prominent names and institutions lending their voices. A local NGO worker based in Bangkok also set up a Bloggers United Official Page to keep all the readers updated on the latest developments. This page also lists all the bloggers who wish to lend their blogs to support Ahirudin and Jeff.

Ahirudin's case came up for mention on January 25 and his lawyers applied for the suit to be struck out. The court set February 22 to hear the application to strike out the suit. The lawyers for the plaintiffs raised the issue of comments by readers made in Ahirudin's blog in respect of my postings of 18 and 24 January which might be seen as prejudicing the case. His lawyers asked for time to look at the said comments and the position would be made known on January 29.

In the meantime there are also efforts to set up a legal fund to help the bloggers fight their cases. One of the points of concern is whether it is right to use corporate resources to fight individuals with limited resources. Even if the individuals were to win their cases, their finances and lives could be ruined at the end of the case.


Several parties have also likened these two cases as a proxy battle between the traditional mainstream papers and the blogs, seen as an alternative source of information. It is no secret that blogging is fast gaining popularity and this phenomenon has befuddled the conservatives in the mainstream media.

There are also bloggers who feel that while there should be freedom of speech, every blogger should be responsible for what he has written. Abdullah Badawi, the Malaysian Prime Minister, remarked that the law is the law. He said the bloggers should not hide and hope to be protected under some kind of a cover. But both Ahirudin and Jeff maintained that they were responsible bloggers and had not hidden their identities.

However, many felt that the NST and the group of individuals originating the suit were mere bullies, comparing to the biblical David and Goliath fight. Is David about to win again? We will see in the days to come.

December, fast approaching

Is January-February the new December?

What's wrong with the weather lately? It gives the eerie feeling that Christmas is around the corner in Manila, but I don't think everybody is so excited. The globe is supposed to be warming up, so why does it feel like opening the freezer every time I open my front door this time of the year? Beats me.

Movies

Last Saturday, I watched Babel in Glorietta, hoping I'd be seeing a brilliant movie. Instead, I got too stressed out that I had to go to the bathroom twice just to breathe some fresh air. It turned out the danged movie is Crash 2, so it might win the crappy Oscars. The experience was akin to watching Crying Ladies, which turned out to be the unofficial Mano Po 3 (though I liked Crying Ladies). I swear I hate Babel. Inarritu is stressful, totally has no sense of pacing here. I should have watched Night at the Museum instead for brainless fun.

I went to the underground world of Makati Cinema Square to check out any rare pirated DVDs (the ones I listed in my syllabus for self), but I only felt so guilty and so sorry. One, I couldn't find anything from my list. It's not that I tried hard; it's just that I was so offended by all these thieves selling pirated versions of the LATEST MOVIES! Blood Diamond, High School Musical, The Departed, Night at the Museum, BABEL, name it! Suddenly, something unthinkable happened: I felt sorry for Leonardo Dicaprio, Brad Pitt, Martin Scorsese, and all those writers who wrote the screenplays. Movie/music piracy is so wrong. Overpricing is also unethical, but robbery in broad daylight is much too unacceptable. The only piracy that makes sense, if at all, is the piracy of impossibly inaccessible classics and gems, which should be accessible to all but are not, nor will they ever be. Film pirates are obvoiusly in it for nothing but pure profit. They’re certainly not in it for art appreciation or education, and not even for entertainment, but for pure profit, thus the phenomenon of Muslim dibidi sellers selling fake Passion of the Christ side by side the hardest of hard-core porn.

Music

Is John Mayer's new album Continuum good? As good as the first two albums? Someone please fill me in. By the way, this rare talent has a blog.

I discovered a new local favorite: Ampon (A.M.P.O.N.?, breakaway group of Kapatid?), which I've heard in this new Burn free CD. Listen to "Malimit," and tell me what you think. It's lyric is hair-raisingly left-wing in the UP Diliman sense (think Dong Abay's poetry), but I hear Jay-Z's jazzy beat. Great! Thanks to Burn magazine for bringing to us all these gloroius diversity and undeniable excellence of otherwise generally inaccesible sounds from the local music scene: Nyco Maca, Noli Aurillo, Morse, Drip, Chillitees, Johnny Alegre, Bagetsafonik (I like this!), Concrete Sam, Happy Meals, Giniling Festival, Inky de Dios (batucada!!), Pinup Girls, and many others.

Food

A friend had recommended this unheralded, unglamorous Chinese eatery in the basement of Makati Cinema Square. I tried their chopsuey, and I swear, it's the best I've ever tasted yet. I didn't bother to get the name of the place because it's almost an off-the-wall kind of thing. Just follow your nose.

Reads

Hey, you will want to buy this month's (Jan-Feb) issue of Fudge magazine. Why? Coz it's the best issue ever. ;)

I'm grateful to Redjeulle and Gorgeous for the ff.: David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Chris Martinez's Last Order sa Penguin and its prequel, and Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Fidel Castro resurrects from the dead

I lost the YahooNews link, but here's a summary of the flash report: After someone (Nina Krushchev) eulogized the Commandante of Cuba, short of giving a requiem Mass, Castro is back to jogging and eating arroz a la cubana, perhaps even sniffing or inhaling a cigarillo or two, straight from his hospital bedpan, according to a close aide. It's short of doing an Elvis, don't you think? Maybe Castro figured that, since he's an infidel and would never be saved anyway unless he embraced Islam, he might as well be immortal. Amazing! Che Guevarra would've turned red with envy.

To be accurate, the correct term is, of course, resuscitate, not resurrect. Jesus resurrected (active voice, intransitive verb). But Lazarus, though he, too, raised from the dead, was merely resuscitated (passive, intransitive). Maybe he was in a coma.

But Castro's case is different. It is nothing short of historic. What if your death was announced in advance or prognosticated prematurely, preordained as terminal by a third party? Unlike that of Art Buchwald's, which was prerecorded by the person himself shortly before he kicked the so-called bucket, Castro's "impending death" was met with delight everywhere like it's a foregone conclusion, a fait accompli. Now that he's back to life like he'd live another century, or at least five more years, enough for a new term, enough to keep the heritage architecture of Havana intact, what would that make of the premature heralders of other people's demise? Laughable, right? And what kind of death would you call Castro's? Puzzling.

Anti-meds manifesto

Here's a fun video to the tune of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire in E-flat minor. Go herbal! Go natural! Less side effects! (Don't self-medicate, though. Go see a doctor first, and ask if a food supplement wouldn't hurt. And, oh, beware of "energy boosters," which can be deadly, and I'm not kidding.)

Intrusive side comment: It's totally odd that orthodox med doctors would frown at all on herbal medicine. Recall that medicine developed partly from herbalism. Herbalism and alternative therapy are not a pseudoscience; what is medical science in the first place if it's not inexact? At this juncture, I remember a friend who used to be a surgeon whose mother was also a doctor (GP or pedia). My friend complained that his mother always gave these antibitics and stuff to her patients in the hospital, but at home, when someone in the family got sick, she returned to Chinese medicine's esoteric herbs and weird concoctions -- and resorted to boiling such 'gunk' in a carefully chosen clay pot, too!

**

The fine art of looking busy

Now here's something from the I-wish-I-wrote-this-one department:

Being busy with work and looking like it are two different things. Master the art of looking busy. Read on...

1. Never walk without a document. People with documents look hardworking. Those with nothing in their hands look like they're going to the cafeteria.

2. Carry loads of stuff home with you at night to show that you work longer hours than you really do.

3. Messy desk. Build huge piles of documents around your workspace. Only top management can get away with a clean desk.

4. Screen all your calls through voice mail. If somebody leaves a message for pending work, respond during lunch hour when you know they're not there.

5. Look impatient and annoyed to give the impression that you're always busy.

6. Always leave the office late, especially when the boss is still around. Make sure you walk past the boss' room on your way out.

7. Send important e-mails at unearthly hours (i.e., 9:35pm , 7:05am , etc.) and during public holidays.

8. Creative sighing for effect. Sigh loudly when there are many people around, giving the impression that you are under extreme pressure.

9. It is not enough to pile lots of documents on the table. Put lots of books on the floor, etc. (thick computer manuals are the best).

10. Read computer magazines and pick out all the jargon and new products. Use the phrases freely when in conversation with bosses.

11. MOST IMPORTANT -- DON'T forward this to your boss by mistake!

- Economic Times

Milan Kundera on world literature

(as plundered from P.P.)

Excerpt 1:

There are two basic contexts in which a work of art may be placed: either in the history of its nation (we can call this the small context) or else in the supranational history of its art (the large context). We are accustomed to seeing music quite naturally in the large context: knowing what language Orlando di Lasso or Bach spoke matters little to a musicologist. But because a novel is bound up with its language, in nearly every university in the world it is studied almost exclusively in the small — national — context. Europe has not managed to view its literature as a historical unit, and I continue to insist that this is an irreparable intellectual loss. Because, if we consider only the history of the novel, it was to Rabelais that Laurence Sterne was reacting, it was Sterne who set off Diderot, it was from Cervantes that Fielding drew constant inspiration, it was against Fielding that Stendhal measured himself, it was Flaubert's tradition living on in Joyce, it was through his reflection on Joyce that Hermann Broch developed his own poetics of the novel, and it was Kafka who showed GarcÌa M·rquez the possibility of departing from tradition to "write another way."

What I just said Goethe was the first to say: "National literature no longer means much these days, we are entering the era of Weltliteratur — world literature — and it is up to each of us to hasten this development."

This is, so to speak, Goethe's testament. Another testament betrayed. Open any textbook, any anthology: world literature is always presented as a juxtaposition of national literatures Ö as a history of literatures! Literatures in the plural!

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

Excerpt 2:

(And what about the professors of foreign literatures? Is it not their very natural mission to study works in the context of world literature? Not a chance. In order to demonstrate their competence as experts, they make a great point of identifying with the small — national — context of whichever literature they teach. They adopt its opinions, its tastes, its prejudices. It is in foreign universities that a work of art is most intractably mired in its home province.)

THE PROVINCIALISM OF SMALL NATIONS

How to define "provincialism"? As the inability (or the refusal) to see one's own culture in the large context. There are two kinds of provincialism: that of large nations and that of small ones. The large nations resist the Goethean idea of world literature because their own literature seems to them sufficiently rich that they need take no interest in what people write elsewhere. Kazimierz Brandys says, in his "Paris Notebooks: 1985-87," that the French student has greater gaps in his knowledge of world culture than the Polish student, but he can get away with it, for his own culture contains more or less all the aspects, all the possibilities and phases, of the world's evolution.

Small nations are reticent toward the large context for exactly the opposite reason: they hold world culture in high esteem but feel it to be something alien, a sky above their heads, distant, inaccessible, an ideal reality with little connection to their national literature. The small nation inculcates in its writer the conviction that he belongs to that place alone. To set his gaze beyond the boundary of the homeland, to join his colleagues in the supranational territory of art, is considered pretentious, disdainful of his own people. And, since the small nations are often in situations where their survival is at stake, they can easily present this attitude as morally justified.

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

Excerpt 3:

A nation's possessiveness toward its artists works as a small-context terrorism that reduces the entire meaning of a work to the role it plays in its homeland.

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

Excerpt 4:

And what about provincialism in the large nations? The definition is the same: the inability (or the refusal) to imagine one's own culture in the large context.

(Original source: The New Yorker)

**

In other news, David Sedaris goes - how do I put this - birdwatching, briefly mentioning the Philippine eagle, referring to it as a "heartless predator." (Wait, I am reminded of that book of his in my shelf that I have yet to read.)

And: A second look at Wal-Mart and the infamous "Wal-Mart effect" (on small-town businesses, among other evils). (Attention, SM and the Henry Sys, you'll love this.)

Wait, there's one more: Don’t miss this! Conrado de Quiros on Art Buchwald and famous last words. This is my favorite: "Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian, d. 1702: 'I am about to -- or I am going to -- die. Either expression is correct.'"

Major stressors

Here are the major stressors for the day:

-From the looks of it, Malaysian blogger, Jeffrey Ooi, seems to be persecuted by some people in mainstream media. But the case is sketchy. It’s hard to comment. Mr. Bayi, will you be our Kuala Lumpur correspondent and help us get the details, please? Thanks.

-Why does something that awful have to happen to someone like Chin-chin Gutierrez? It’s a disturbing thing if you have this simplistic thinking that bad things only happen to ‘bad’ people.

-When that laughable awards show called Metro Manila Film Festival Awards wanted to include popularity as among the criteria, I almost took the move seriously. For a minute there, it seemed to border on the art-or-fart question. …Until I realized it was not an art-or-fart question at all. They accommodated popular acclaim, but where’s the critical acclaim to balance the popularity? Did the so-called jurors have to reward popularity at the expense of quality? It turned out the hullabaloo was altogether another question: “You call that art?” Why do laughable films get included in that supposed festival of cinematic excellence in the first place? Rome Jorge weighs in on the ”farce”.

-Re. the closure of ABC5's public affairs programs and Newsbreak magazine, someone asks over at P.P, “A case of censorship or a strictly business decision?” You decide. I highly suspect it to be - you guessed it- a political matter. Ricky Carandang reports.

-This is a bit off-color (to me), but the laughs in translation are hilarious!

Today's mishmash mishaps mashup

(I want this: The Jose Rizal Nike; no relation to post)

I tend to agree with this more or less coherent and ideology-free opinion on English as medium of instruction.

Dean Jorge Bocobo continues to rail at Edsa Dos as being inimical to democracy. "The end does not justify the means," he says. It's a powerful argument, because it is simple enough and logically sound. On the other hand, Mlq3 outlines the basic requirements for direct democracy to be called people power, and calls Edsa Dos “half a people power” based on this list of prerequisites.

My reaction: I'm tongue-tied this time. I’ve been at Edsa Dos, and everything on the ground was spontaneous, no exercise of bussed-in, hakot power, unlike the so-called Edsa Three, as reported. A lot of those who went were young people (students!), and the huge crowd that gathered didn't go there to represent the interests of a certain class of society, contrary to observations by people who frame their arguments in terms of class conflict/war. Are you telling all those people who went there that they’ve been had by the Macapagal-Arroyo forces? We were all there to ask a man to step down who has insulted our sense of nationhood, our sense of justice; we went there with no thought of helping install yet another trapo who’d insult our sense of right and wrong. Maybe that's the real issue.

Boo Chanco reviews Ms. Carmen/Chitang Nakpil’s autobiography part 1. (Wait, I couldn't find the link.)

MV Doulos was here? A post at P.P. says so. I’ve always looked forward to catch this whenever it docks in Manila Bay, but never get around to do it.

The world¹s largest and oldest floating bookstore, the MV Doulos, which carries more than half a million books, came to town on January 5 and will be in Manila until January 22, after which it will move to Cebu (January 26 to February 19) and (February 22 to March 5). It is currently docked at Pier 13, South Harbor, Manila, and is open Tuesdays to Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sundays and Mondays, from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. There¹s an entrance fee of 10 pesos. An article on the MV Doulos can be found here. And here¹s the website of the organization that runs the Doulos program.

Finally, they sued: Billboard victim’s kin sue ad firm. I will be following the development of this case because it is what I call a sacrificial-lamb case. I have an additional comment: If billboards like that are/were illegal, why did they manage to sprout like poisonous mushrooms all over the city in the first place?

Amando Doronila rightly calls the PGMA administration “fascistic” on the Iloilo overkill.

Food trips

-Can anyone tell me what they put in that bun called the Kopi Roti bun? I ate a piping-hot bun one late afternoon the other day, and I had palpitations later at night, and it wasn’t until around 4 AM that I finally was able to sleep! Deadly bun. I almost finished the book I was reading, though.

-Somebody was kind enough to buy Krispy Kreme from The Fort (inaccessible to jologs like me), and lo, I couldn’t resist the temptation, trans fats and all. What can I say? It’s the best doughnut I’ve ever tasted. “Pillow-soft” is correct.

-I’d like to share my friends’ discovery: Becky’s Kitchen, a dainty, homey, elegant, artsy li’l bakeshop, reportedly owned by one of the Escuderos (of Villa Escudero). It’s located at this corner in Vito Cruz near St. Scholastica’s College.

-Btw, there’s also a top-notch pancit-maker named Julio in that area.

**

Syllabi for self

(because my current avocation right now is English tutor, which is enjoyable but stressful)

Movies (in dibidi, most likely) I hope to hunt for and watch this year
Novels (in paperback) I hope to hunt

Will you lend me your stuff, barter with me, or send me a gift (with no strings attached)? I’m open to all three, thanks.

Quote

"No one can keep himself ensconced in high office subject only to death or his own boredom. One-party systems, one-man charismatic dictatorships, or a mixture of the two, as in Tito's Yugoslavia, are a guarantee of sclerotic minds and inert governments."

-Nina Krushchev (grandson (?) of Nikita), writing on Fidel Castro. (via mlq3, PP)

**

Other ho-hum news...

Local politics: Ex-Magdalo member Lt.Sgt. Antonio Trillanes is reported to be running for Senator. How do you like the ring to it? "Senator Trillanes." Hmm, not bad. Better than coup d'etat.

I agree with Gibbs Cadiz. I've been meaning to register for the coming May elections, but I couldn't because I was on vacation. Fishy maneuver, Chairman Abalos, thanks.

Google scholar

(As inspired by a post in wysgal's blog)

Did you know that you can be a scholar just be Googling and giggling? You might not be aware of this benefit of the Net to the autodidact, but it's been there for a quite a long time. Consider deferring that Master's or MBA enrollment you've been thinking about for a long time now. All you have to do is Google and ogle at the fantastic results. Look:

Type, for instance, "onion as asthma cure," and you'll have the ff. result:

Scholarly articles for onion as asthma cure

The challenge of culturally competent health care: ... - George - Cited by 5
Exercise-induced anaphylaxis to onion - Perez-Calderon - Cited by 4
Alternative medicine for allergy and asthma - Ziment - Cited by 45

(Hey, I forgot how to make a screenshot. What's the right command again?)

Notes to self #574685

The iPhone has arrived (via mlq3, via kottke).

Jessica Zafra risks being blacklisted by food advertisers as she helps expose the evils of trans fats. There indeed is a pressing need to end the suffering and death of young people who figure in diseases "we used to associate" with old folks. I think the food industry is in for a major tectonic shift. I see a horde of new ads proclaiming: “Trans fat-free!”

I didn't know drinking water can kill. How come my doctor told me to drink 2-3 liters of water a day?

Because nothing else interests me much today, I hope to regale you with this one: A New York Times article that made me revisit my own musings (in the pseudoacademic discourse style) on (public) nudity and nudism.

Twelve years after

It was Erwin who caught me off-guard at home. Borne on a flashy yellow motorbike which looked more like a toy than a bike, he immediately offered an invitation: lunch on Sunday for old time's sake at his parents' house in the next town. Whoa, Erwin was hosting! It took him no effort too when he asked me to help him invite all our former classmates one by one, meaning, house to house. Telephone/cell phone networking was not feasible. Seeing each other unprepared and eye to eye was more exciting and truthful as reality checks went.

But after informing my parents of the plan, I walked out of the door with Erwin with a little hesitation. I loved the idea of adventure, but I wasn’t very sure of what to feel.

First stop: Benjoe in Del Pilar St. We caught him in the street waiting for his mother. They were about to take the car to this place, he said. Benjoe is said to be a successful sales agent (with Coke?) now. Already towering in high school, he looked even taller today. He literally looked down on me as we talked.

Joel the ever-busy businessman was predictably busy so we didn't even bother to make a brief stop.

Next stop: Rodel, the seaman. Only his mother met us at the gate; she struck me as very kind. Rodel, she said, was somewhere in the world literally ‘on the dock.’ Name a continent and he’s been there, or so I'd like to think. Erwin and I also asked about Mr. T., Rodel's father, who had been our Music teacher. I also tried to pry on Rodel's brother, Ronaldo, whom I had seen on TV about a couple of times playing the flute or the sax and doing the vocals for a band. (The last time I saw him, he was with a new jazz band (Passage) and promoting an album too.) Mrs. T. seemed to be a bit unhappy about Ronaldo's chosen profession "but that's what makes him happy."

Third stop: Melanie's place, still in Del Pilar. Only the maid showed up to tell us that Lanie was in a nearby town with her husband's family. This disappointing stop would be repeated for our effort to trace the whereabouts of the following: Jona, who's in Manaoag; Waldy, who's in a certain far-away barangay; Ivy, who's somewhere in town, mysteriously untraceable, Arthur, who's in the local Mormon church, probably making a sermon; Badz, who's in Natividad, wherever that is. Talk about wrong timing. Christmas day, we were rudely but rightfully reminded, was strictly family affair.

We didn't venture going to Marissa's place in the town proper, fearing drunkards at the gate. We also avoided Melvin at all costs for a certain reason. We didn't pursue the following either, given their historic reluctance to things like this: Larry, Raquel, Salome, and Myraflor.

Jimmy is reportedly a priest now busily saving souls in Malasiqui. Ana, a teacher in Saint Louis boys' or girls' high, insisted the other day that she needed to return to Baguio quick, or so Erwin reports. Well, she "missed 90% of her life," as we used to say.

Fortunately, at the Pacias' place in Roxas St., we found Jenny, no sweat. She looked quite plump but still blonde and, um, blue-eyed for the day, the better to match her royal blue knitted blouse, I guess. Still the same old cowboy-ish girl, surrounded by all members of the immediate family. For the first time, I met her son Dex and husband Choi, the guy from Manila Jenny had been dating after high school. She herself gave away the pertinent info about her life: She's about to graduate from her computer course in May ("finally," and take note, "it's true this time," she underlined her own words). She had plans to join her sister in New York but was flatly rejected by the US embassy official. Etc.

Erwin and I were likewise not disappointed when we drove into the Jimenez's old place, to the consternation of two angry askals. Mira, now a doctor, was there, fresh from serving as volunteer-doctor in East Timor, recuperating from malaria, or so she claimed. She showed us pictures to prove what we only came to half-believe in the news/grapevine. I saw her crowd of doctors posing with the likes of Joe Concepcion, Gen. Cunanan's wife (the newspaper columnist) and children, other Pinoy dignitaries I couldn't name, and Australian (Interfet) soldiers. She said she and her fellow doctors treated refugees and militias alike. Gee, how did it feel like saving the lives of, um, mass murderers?

"You're a hero," I congratulated her.

"It's just an adventure," she brushed it off.

"You're a brave woman," I insisted.

"Nothing really happened," she shot back.

Nothing indeed. Like, after East Timor, Mira said she was parasailing in Bali. She claimed Bali's beach is not as stunning as ours. She also showed pictures of her in a Sagada cave, Tinago Falls (Iligan), Davao, Puerto Galera, Anda and Bolinao (Pangasinan) and other exotic locations. Don’t you just hate this girl?? She simply had it all!

Mina, now connected with the National Museum, was also home. Her mother was my Grade 6 teacher-adviser and she knew me well, but she was kind of sick and she couldn’t entertain visitors. Erwin and I contented ourselves with meeting Mina in the driveway.

We capped the Bayambang roundup at lunchtime by ferreting James out of the rooftop of his new home: a three-story or so structure in the heart of town, overlooking the newly spruced-up church, town plaza, and municipal hall, as well as the Calvo Bridge over the Agno River, and towering over the multitude of ambulant vendors downstairs.

Atop James' tower, one could see the town to be finally waking up, finally aware of its historicity, being a former capital of the Philippines (during Aguinaldo's time, in particular). The controversial Homeowners Savings Bank building was still there occupying part of the town plaza, still standing unseemly too near Jose Rizal's statue. But at least the statue of Jose Rizal was no longer being used as post for a clothesline as reported on TV one night, to our royal embarrassment. I heard there's a new playground featuring a T-rex or some other ugly dinosaur. The church's front courtyard has been fenced off, with the old statue of Jesus lifted from its old place, the statue now facing the road instead of the church, but it looks like He was placed behind bars.

"Sino 'iyaaan?!#$" James (name changed for reasons of privacy) yelled from on high after he heard voices behind the padlocked iron gate. His primal bleating hasn't changed at all. After Erwin and I didn't deny our respective identities, we slowly began to realize the reason behind the cautiousness. James reportedly had been apprehended by the police allegedly for drug pushing, which made him pay up dearly and keep a low profile for some time. It took him some moment to realize who I was. After his consciousness was transported back to the olden times, he shrieked, acknowledging certain truths of the past, i.e., that he copied from me openly during exams in this and that subject. Suddenly, I realized I had had a lot to do with other people's private crimes. Guilty as charged, your honor! I was an unwitting partner to whatever crime he had committed and would probably commit.

Erwin briefed James about our plan of holding a reunion. Over rice, slices of Chinese sweet ham and Coke, James gaily spoke further about our terrible sins of the past as well as the present. Then he said, "Bring everybody here except those who would remind me I'm a failure." He didn't know he was looking straight at one such. (Or at least how I looked at myself at the moment.)

Someone among us (I can't remember who) suggested something out of the blue, in the true spirit of our wonderful high school batch. "Why not hold the party right now? Or at least later at night when it's cooler?"

James immediately warmed up to the idea and offered his magnificent perch as venue. We agreed to hold the party at 5:00 PM.

We proceeded to see Art's new place at this side of town. Art had been in Russia - at the height of Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika - on a scholarship grant presumably from his Mormon congregation where he is a devoted member or maybe even a teacher or pastor by now. He took up Accounting in college but he seemed to be happier spreading his faith now. At the gate, we were met by a man who said Art went to the local Mormon church indeed. "To preach perhaps?" we speculated.

We shrugged our shoulders.

Soon, the church, we found out, was locked up for what appeared to be an exclusive affair. Oh well… (Vroooom.)

Erwin wheeled our way to his parents' place in Bautista town to check out some contact numbers. Here, I saw his firstborn daughter who undeniably looked like his clone and met his Chinese-looking wife for the first time as well. Inside the house, which was quite neat and nicely furnished and upholstered, I saw framed pictures of Erwin's siblings, two of whom also studied at our alma mater. We chanced upon the youngest in their brood of seven who was too busy with Playstation to care. We tried to contact our San Carlos City classmates only to find out that Margot and Francis (who were just recently - get ready for this - going steady) were not home.

On our way back, Erwin pointed to me the new interior of Bautista's parish church while I inquired about the old house of Julian Felipe, composer of the Philippine national anthem. Through the cool Bautista wind swooshing in our face, I could see the house was still intact but, I swear, scandalously dilapidated.

When we crossed the bridge back to Bayambang, we were running out of no one else to disturb or a private place to ransack. We decided to hit the dirt road to San Carlos. I asked Erwin to make his driving a little slow. I didn't tell him I had a previous accident with motorbikes, a tragic one, where I had scrapes and cuts in my face and sprain in my fingers, not to mention a phobia today. (I was with Rodel then.) But all the while, Erwin was approaching 80 km/h, prompting me to pray to God harder than usual.

We passed by a quaint spot which had always struck me as surreal: Bani's quaint, little, sloping grassland which is almost bare but for the, well, brownish grass and the occasional cow dung into which children pierce sticks to make it look like a chocolate birthday cake, complete with candles. It was here where I once joined classmates in elementary school for silly group dynamics competitions which we were confident to win and we did.

We also took a long look at the old cemetery, where our classmate Edward was buried. Dove, as we called him (I dunno why is that), had died from an assassin's stray bullet when the latter's group was in the thick of robbing a bank in Sampaloc, Manila. Until now, I am still ashamed about my failure to come to his funeral when everybody else was there.

Of course we were reminded of Jo as we passed by her place and Mavic as we motored through the town of Basista (which is altogether different from Bautista). We heard through the grapevine that both of our nurses are now wealthy donas and very much married in the States.

San Carlos City beckoned about thirty minutes later. There was the St. Charles church still standing strong, antique-looking as ever. Erwin steered the wheel to the right to Quezon St. Disabled by the vagaries of memory (or lack thereof), I made the mistake of asking a woman if Margot was in her house. She gave this nosy stranger a quizzical look.

Erwin had a better talent at the guessing game, it turned out. Next door proved to be Frank's abode and the man and woman pacing in the yard were actually his parents. Our pulses immediately beat in excitement.

Not for long, though. Frank's mom said Frank and Margot went to our town to give a present to an inaanak (godchild). Oh, brother.

Hardly had we uttered an obligatory "Bye, thanks" when we decided to make the thousand-meter dash back to old hometown.

Only for Erwin to decide on a side trip, a sentimental tour of the campus where we grew up from boys to, er, men. We found everything intact except for those decrepit buildings we had long wished to be razed. Of course, how could I forget asking Erwin about Ms. C., our beloved classroom adviser, particularly her...love life? My inquisitiveness was met with uncharacteristic, clipped answers, so I dropped the issue.

We couldn't confirm as well the whereabouts of the following at the moment: Jonathan (where on earth is he? he must be a doctor by now), PMA grad CB; Bicutan policeman Dennis; Don, who we heard is with NTC; Dagupan City-based radio DJ Jun (now a DJ in Dubai); Myra; Angie, who works the SM Megamall Cinemas; Menchu, who's in Duty Free; PLDT marketing girl Frances; our man in PAGCOR, Allen. Toots, Paeng and former campus heartthrob Joy are said to be somewhere in the States. Eden (whom I had seen last month at the airport) couldn't come home because she's got no one to come home to; her mom was in the States visiting her other daughter and her father had long died.

Where could Francis and Margot be? At Jenny's? At Francis' older brother's? At Waldy's? Where? The unintentional hide-and-seek eventually brought us trundling to the most likely target, Francis' brother's place, which was near Bles' old place. However, there was no trace of the dating couple there.

But guess who were we going to see standing on the road blocking our path but Bles in her antiseptic white uniform (she's a nurse, too!) and very much pregnant with her, um, nth (fourth ?) child? Our eyes bulged in horror at the word/phrase. (“Fourth child!”) We nearly fainted. Bles suggested that we go to Waldy's in Magsaysay St. and then decided to accompany us for it.

Still no shadow of Frank and his fiancée, though. Thankfully, Waldy was now home from her out-of-town visit, her own spawns in tow. We also met her husband for the first time who, gossip informed us, owned a school for children somewhere in Novaliches. In the Ferrers' living room, we tried to ring Mira's place, which was the last among the list of possible places to consider searching.

"They're there!" Bles squeaked jubilantly into the phone handset.

The Jimenez's place was in a party mood. In the lanai, an organ was being played, a juvenile hammerhead shark was swimming agitatedly in a small aquarium, and glasses of iced tea were waiting. A Starex van was parked outside, reportedly an acquisition of Margot, who's now a doctor in Manila. The organ stopped momentarily. Rising to greet us first was Frank, still guapo in spite of receding hairline. A little later, Jenny, Bles and Waldy sauntered in.

Mira's mom, the social science professor, took a photo of the whole reuniting class of '86. Waldy's little son was proctored by mom to go around the crowd and collect his Christmas gifts in violet cash. The other parents who were present, whose respective kids were absent, protested violently. "What about my son?" Jenny was particularly aghast. "Didn't you meet him a while ago??" she continued in consternation. Erwin was also in a similar protest.

So, post-EDSA Revolution, most of us looked a bit older, very much married or are currently into some kind of phase in married life (cooling off? adulterous? reconciling? whatever?), and with a clone or two in tow. If you were none of the above, you couldn't help but feel utterly uncomfortable. As Jenny tactlessly put it, "I couldn't imagine myself being single by now."

Please tell me it's perfectly okay, everything is alright, ok? By night, food and wine flowed and cigarette smoke billowed, transforming James' sparkling castle (thanks to lots of Christmas lights) into a Malate videoke bar. At this rooftop, we espied and waved at Badz's family's building across the street for a faint clue of someone present, but nothing moved to signify it, except for a hazy figure of a man who acted like he couldn't care less, and therefore most probably was not Badz.

Before long, murderous tongues were hilariously killing at least two reputations per minute with obviously false and exaggerated reports from disreputable sources, in the otherwise benevolent spirit of keeping tabs of everyone. Crazy people. Pretty soon, Mina was teaching James to dance the swing with unabashed flair. Mira was grabbing the microphone from James and went on singing just as shamelessly. "She wasn't like this before," James was flabbergasted. "Must be the East Timor thing."

All told, I was glad I was once again with crazy people I could trust, i.e., people who would not hesitate to make an embarrassment of themselves in front of old friends and to whom it wouldn't be a big deal if you yourself made an embarrassment of yourself. With people like these, you can forgive everything.

12.27.1999

Update 1.10.08: Benjoe is in US (California?). Rodel is in Ireland. Marissa is in Israel. Ana is in New Jersey. Jenny is in California or New York (?). Mira is in Kenya after fleeing the Sudan. She's been to Kashmir, India. Margot and Francis fled to the States. Rodelio/Toots is with the US Navy (?)

Love letters to Malaysia, Burma

To Malaysia and all sensibly minded Muslims of the world:


What is the point of faith if it is forced???


You might want to read this AFP report.

**

Billet-doux for Burma's fascist generals:

Free Aung San Suu Kyii and everyone you've incarcerated for their politics!!!

(My way of welcoming delegates to the ASEAN summit.)

Indeed

Thirty-six is indeed too early an age for anyone to have a heart attack, and yet rock musician Ely Buendia almost died of it. Get well soon, Ely Buendia. You still have a lot of songs to write for us.

Why indeed is Burma part of ASEAN despite the case of Aung San Suu Kyii??? Shame on you, ASEAN!!! We don't want to have anything to do with your ball-less, muddleheaded compromise. To all fascists (Islamic, communist, capitalist, Christian, atheist/secularist): I lovingly dedicate to you Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo. Why Salo in spite of me? Because fascism, esp. militarism and jihadism, is sodomy and scatology!!! For me, Salo is the deliberately ugliest, filthiest, angriest movie ever made. Read this analysis. (via IRC) Here's a required reading, too, to balance out Pasolini's anti-rightist rant: Milan Kundera's anti-leftistThe Unbearable Lightness of Being.

A new stem cell source, i.e., not in vitro fertilized embryos, indeed gives hope that the stem cell research debate would finally end.

(Update: The latest alternatives to embryonic stem cells are: bone marrow stem cells, hematopoietic stem cells, umbilical cord stem cells.)

Indeed, we're watching you, Malaysia, on how you will decide on the Lina Joy (Muslim-turned-Christian-convert) case.

Here's the skinny:

Crucial test on religious freedom in Lina Joy's case

An AFP report, Jan 12, by Elisia Yeo.

Malaysia's status as a moderate Muslim country is being put to the test in a milestone court decision that may allow Muslims to renounce their faith, a move considered one of Islam's greatest sins.

The nation's highest court is to rule on an appeal by Lina Joy, a convert from Islam to Christianity who for a decade has been locked in a battle with the government to have her decision legally recognised.

The appeal brings to a head passionate arguments about whether Muslims can renounce Islam at will and, ultimately, whether Malaysia is a secular country or is morphing into a conservative Islamic state under religious Sharia law.

"Our country is at a crossroads pending the outcome of this landmark case," Joy's counsel, Benjamin Dawson, told AFP.

Here's Noel Vera's notes on Salo.

Pier Paolo Pasolini's final film, based on the Marquise de Sade's "120 Days of Sodom," is "final" in many other ways. It's possibly the final word in shock cinema--highlights of a hundred and twenty days of sexual perversion, torture, and death, set against a luscious background designed by Dante Ferretti, photographed in voluptuous colors by Tonino Delli Colli, and scored to the music of Fredric Chopin, Carl Orff, and Ennio Morricone. It's an unflinching examination of final consequences, of what happens when you allow sexual ennui caused by bourgeoisie oppression to reach unnatural extremes. And it is perhaps a final, fatal work for Pasolini himself, who, despite official word on the subject, was possibly killed for making this film (authorities have only recently re-opened the case on his murder). But even if he wasn't killed for "Salo," it's difficult to imagine what else Pasolini can possibly say; in many ways the picture is Pasolini's final word on everything.

(The Criterion Collection DVD of this film is out of print, with authentic Criterion DVDs selling for as high as $600 to $800; no announcements as of yet of a new edition)

My personal film festival continues, thanks a lot to Minoru's Quiapo-sourced dibidis. These are films which I will never, ever hope to rent in the local Video City otherwise, so my view on the morality of pirated DVDs is grayish, just like the rest of the Third World. Here are the fantabulous titles I have viewed or hope to view within the next few days: Tokyo Story by Yasujiro Ozu (sad, sad, sad); My Sassy Girl (what a fun, funny, and a bit profound love story!); Salo o le 120 giornate di Sodoma by Pier Paolo Pasolini; Ran, Seven Samurai, and Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa (yes, finally!). Sadly, only a handful of my friends share my interest in art films and fiction/literature. Why a personal film festival now and then? Simple: Because I don't want to be shortchanged with inferior Hollywood output. There's so much of the film world to see outside of Hollywood, and I am just getting started. Hope you all follow suit in this, um, alternative lifestyle. Give up TV and mainstream cinema sometime and try to see what else is out there.

Pubic hair on the face

Editorial

A new trend among men is alternately hilarious and repulsive. Haven’t you noticed lately those straight-haired guys who go around wearing unsightly beard – with their chin up? The untrimmed and untrammelled beard reminds too much of some other kind of hair, which contrasts a bit too much with their shiny, perfectly straight mane (and ponytail). One can't help but notice the contrast. And the resonance of the wiry outgrowth -- it is just too offensive! This is an alarming development. The Department of Health must intervene.

Wearing one’s pubic hair on the face in public is too much for anyone to take. Facial hair is but natural, but if it looks like a contrast to the straightness of one's hair, then it's awful, especially when the moustache or beard is too sparse as to make it look like it is being forced to grow. What's worst, growing it wild like that -- no discernible shape or form at all -- reminds too much of a beast than a man. We must recall that the hunter-gatherer Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal man eventually learned to settle and do agriculture and, later on, trim down bonsai trees and discover horticulture.

Shitting, spitting, coughing out phlegm, moving loose bowel, scratching your itchy crotch... these are also very normal, all-natural things, right? But it doesn’t mean we do all these stuff in public. If one's ugly moustache or beard has the consistency of something that violates, by all means, one must be encouraged to shave without remorse.

These trendy (or anti-trendy) men could at least trim those damn facial growth, yes? They must learn a little bit of horticulture.

Deconstructing Derrida

This is wondrous reading!: Getting It All Wrong: Bioculture critiques Cultural Critique by Brian Boyd (via pine for pine) .

Also: Ian R. Casocot critiques criticism. Oliver Pulumbarit serializes on his current view of friendship. John Nery goes spasmodic on spams and 'you' (yes, that's us) as Time's person of the year.

**

Three things of last year that I failed to even take notice:

-Pluto de-planetized. Why? Not sure. So what is Pluto's status now? Just a nebula?

-Alex Lacson's "12 Little Things Every Filipino Can Do to Help Our Country." I thought those things are a given.

-"Liberal [socioeconomic] thinker" John Kenneth Galbraith passed on. How come I never heard anyone report on this? ...While everybody reported that George Clooney was People's sexiest man alive or something, like it's their duty, when he's not even good-looking. :( [I first read about Galbraith in that college required-reading book Economics as if People Matter by E.F. Schumacher.]

**

Viewed recently: Comment j'ai tué mon père ("How I Killed My Father"; five stars!), Maborosi (hauntingly beautiful, but I slept twice over it; you can understand the story by playing it in fast forward; topics like inexplicable sadness are better read than filmed, especially if written by someone like Haruki Murakami), Shopgirl (I'm not sure I liked it), Kagemusha (wow! the production value alone is all worth it), Cinema Paradiso (I'm ambivalent about this all-time favorite (by many), but I'll keep my opinion to myself). I also tried to watch La Jetee (the movie that inspired 12 Monkeys) on Google Video, but the connection remained way too slow.

New end-times manifesto

(No, just my opening salvo-editorial for 2007, one of those things I do on a semi-regular basis as a part-time televangelist)

In every contest, there is a winner and a loser. It is the nature of contests to have winners and losers. And it’s only right that we congratulate the winner; we must rejoice in his victory. But life is not a contest. It is not a race. And since it is not a race or a contest, all – including the loser – must congratulate not just the winner, but also the loser: the winner because he was victorious in his search; the loser because he found enlightenment: the prize does not belong to him. The 'loser' didn’t really lose; he gained: he discovered his limitation. In this sense, we must congratulate the loser even more because he just found out that he must move on and go on with his search, the better to find his place in the sun. Since life is not a game, everyone eventually finds his or her prize, his or her field where she or he emerges the sole winner.

The game as metaphor of life is not just a tired cliché, but a catastrophe. It has damaged many a family, a friendship, a group. Unfriendly competition is its philosophy, with envy as it prime driving force. It is a destroyer of good relationships, of harmony in society, or world order and unity.

A life that is not a race is a life that need not be equitable in communist terms. It is a life of justified division, a just division of labor. Everyone has a role to play, or the social order collapses. Each role is unique, cannot be duplicated, or the mosaic falls apart -- from being a beautiful whole to a lump of useless building blocks.

A life that is not a race knows no ambition, only mission and vision. In lieu of the war of species and survival of the fittest, there is the individual quest for growth as a person and pursuer of craft, art, or truth unique to that person. In this new vision of the world, each life becomes an individual search.

It is a world where each one searches for his ultimate place, slowly moving up from his position as he realizes his fullest potential – without stepping on anyone’s shoes. The opportunity to move on is protected, left unhampered, and therein lies the equality much sought-for.

A world that’s not a race is a world of shoes waiting to be filled, old shoes left behind by those who have passed on, and new shoes waiting for feet designed to step on new grounds, grounds where others haven’t tread.

In this world, there no need to fight over spoils, as there’s nothing to spoil or that gets spoiled, but only a need to cooperate, to work together to realize and appreciate, nay, marvel at, each other’s gifts. Societies’ constitutions are crafted so that each and every person may complete his search and realize his gifts as he reaches the prime of life. Each and every person completes the person. There is no one, no matter how lowly, who can’t contribute something marvelous to the community.

In this world, there is no need for vicious contests of any kind, nor is there a need for such a puerile and self-destructive enterprise as war.

This is not the kind of world we are living in right now. It is the total opposite.

Restore the world! Now!

Kris Aquino is from Djibouti

(Kris Aquino, parting her shiny djoo (hairdo, in English). Sorry, Manila Times)

Apparently, Kris Aquino is from the People’s Republic of Djibouti. Listen how she pronounces “Deal or no deal?” in her new game show on TV (ABS-CBN). I'm pretty sure you too have noticed, as people around me have:

Kristeta A.: Djeeeeeeal or no djeeeeeal?

Contestant No. 1: Deal po, ma'am!

Kristeta A.: O, sige, djeeeeal daw!!! Djuskuday!!!

AFAIK, there’s no other country in the world with that kind of bizaare letter (dj). ...Unless Indonesians pronounce Jakarta as Djakarta. (Does Tadjikistan count?)

The world according to Gap™

American chemical weapons of mass distraction

OMG, that's wilde!!!

Vatican on Oscar Wilde: a “writer who lived perilously and somewhat scandalously but who has left us some razor-sharp maxims with a moral.”

Note to friends in Catholic circles, to the Vatican, and to the world (urbi et urbi): Keep your composure, folks! No need to panic. I already canonized Oscar Wilde sometime back in '03.

(via pine for pine)

Philippines, the new Korea

ROK, outsourced to RP

The Republic of Korea is slowly being outsourced to the Republic of the Philippines, while we are all watching their telenovelas. Growing in number by leaps and bounds, that is to say at the alarming rate for infectious diseases, these people who love to eat kimchi are successfully crossing over from being boob-tube characters to beach tourists to ESL learners. Before you know it, they're lining up for Philippine citizenship -- as dual citizens! Let's keep an eye on these Koreans, for they may be doing an old Japanese trick.

Note to English tutors: Teach them Tagalog too while you're at it (teaching wrong grammar). They can't be our competitors for that call center job, right?

Note to Koreans: Re-invade North Korea first, and convert Kim Jong-Il to Christianity, or Moonie-sm.

**

Grilled alive

Each time you see a iron window grill, what comes to your mind? Do you see protection from thieves? Or do you see a prison and a firetrap? Which has more risk: being robbed or being killed?

Ah, but people who'd rob you are capable of killing you, while fire is capable of not just robbing you of valuables, but everything, including your savings, your life, everyone you hold dear. Even rich people figure in this doubly sad double tragedy of being roasted alive because of an iron grill that's been padlocked because of the fear of thieves. But this type of accident is something that should never ever happen, out of common sense.

It's also a tragedy that make you wish there were no thieves to fear in the first place.

**

Happy Three Kings!

I spent the eve of the Feast of the Three Kings on top of a hill in Angono, Rizal overlooking Metro Manila and Laguna de Bay. It was a nicely surreal experience to witness two major fireworks displays from afar (one in SM Mall of Asia and the one in Eastwood, Libis). The fireworks were about 20-30 min apart. Too bad the only camera around wasn't able to capture the rarity.

Globalization and localization

(A reaction of sorts to Walden Bello)

Back to basics

Last Christmas, I went back to my old place looking for the genuine tastes of home, the things I grew up with. Around the wet market with my mother, I looked around for that certain variety of garlic (smaller, tastier), that certain genus of patola or luffa (more fragrant, more delicious), that certain species of bagoong (fragrant), that subspecies of banana (bland, sourish), that native strain of onion (lasona), that indigenous sitaw/string bean (shorter, has a subtle, distinct flavor: tandereg), the original/un-pirated version of a tomato (cuatro cantos?), the 2.5 version of a certain mango varietal (tastes like soap), that specific brand of glutinous puto/rice cake (yummy, chewy). Then there were the other vegetables that don’t come in varieties but nonetheless are rare or virutally unknown in my part of the Metro.

I felt kinda anxious. How long will all these original flavors last? Who is protecting all these local varieties from possible extinction?


Balikbayan box

On the last day of Christmas, my uncle sent me a balikbayan (literally, "I'm back"?) box, and it contains this wonderful mishmash: Afghan hound, Manila paper, Belgian chocolate, Swiss cheese, Swiss watches, Russian roulette, Japanese paper, Thai massage, Swedish massage, American junk, Chinese water torture, Brazilian nut, Persian rug, Persian carpet, Persian cat, Siamese twins, Indian summer, French kiss, French toast, French fries, French bread, French braid, German franks, German cut, Argentina corned beef, Spanish sardines, Portuguese man-of-war, Kobe beef, Korean bug, Turkish bath, Turkish coffee, young turks, danish cookie, Great Dane, Chilean sea bass, Cuban cigar, Italian sausage, Hungarian sausage, Venetian blinds, Irish cream, Greek tragedy, Mongolian barbecue, Dutch treat, Panama hat, Arabian nights, Roman numerals, Jamaican beef patty, Bangkok pills, Miami vice, California maki, Virginia tobacco, Kentucky fried chicken, and a partridge in a pear tree.

So a balikbayan box is essentially globalization in a box. Is it brought home to make it… think local? Is globalization an ethnic enrichment of the world? A welcome cultural exchange through goods/services/concepts/technologies/ideas? Or it is a form of economic/sociocultural erasure, if not subtle sabotage?

Random reads

I need to have at least one fiction per week or I get sick. Luckily, I found not just one but two copies of New Yorker that each contain differently-themed fiction compilations, so congratulate me on it!

I also love nonfiction material. Yesterday in my favorite mall, I was able to stumble into two texts that I need to read because my tutees/tutorees who are Psych major (major psychos?) constantly parse and criticize them: sociolinguist Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation and, um, inner feminist Robert Bly's Iron John. I hope to read these two in as few sittings as possible.

Random interesting reads:

Historical distortions and slights on Catholic scientists by Al V. Estalilla.

Walden Bello's take on Milton Friedman and globalization (he says it's receding).

**

Over the holidays, I also was able to read through the latest (3rd) Youngblood compilation (which I didn’t like; I still like the first one best), the second edition of Story Philippines (I liked only one story, the one by Miguel Escano), and Luis Katigbak’s compilation of past essays, The King of Nothing to Do. Luis Katigbak has mastery of the craft, proving that he’s one of the better writers of his generation working in media today; too bad he scoffs at insights and profundity too much.

It's...its...wrong

It's okay to spot the error in blogs, but for a major newspaper (thankfully not Inquirer) to let it slip just like that is quite unforgivable. After all, editors and proofreaders are hired precisely to spot this mechanical slip.

When do you use it's and when do you use its?

I think the root cause of the problem arises from the confusion with the use of 'apostrophe s,' which is admittedly quite confusing.

The apostrophe s is used to indicate the possessive case of nouns. Example: “a person’s face,” "three persons' faces."

Here's the part that makes things tricky: The punctuation is also used to 'pluralize' numbers/figures and letters: 1's and 0's, p's and q's. (Personally, I prefer 1s and 0s, ps and qs, or ABCs, to avoid confusion.)

Here's the second tricky part: The possessive case of personal names ending in s can either be written this way (James' tailor) or this way (James's tailor).

The third thing that seems to make things even more confusing is this: It’s not necessary to use apostrophe s when a pronoun is already in the possessive case. Example: “Its nose turned red.” Reminder: Other examples of possessive pronouns are: yours, hers, his, theirs, ours, my, mine.

Finally, one should not mistake the use of apostrophe s for possessive cases of words for the contraction “it’s,” which, when expanded, means “it is...”

With some practice, though, one realizes that each of these little rules makes a lot of sense.

Let's all join our hands in prayer and together help stamp out this global blight to make the printed world a better place.

Irate fan defends Willie and the Wowowees

Irate fan: "[S]obra namang kitid ng utak ni[y]o at pinag[-]iisipan ni[y]o ng ganyan si Willie Revillame at idamay ba [naman] ang buong ABS-CBN... I think Wowowee ha[s] helped many Filipino people who are in or below the poverty line... The show also brings the Filipinos abroad and Filipinos here in the Philippines together... Sabi nga ng mga kakilala ko abroad, "Pag nanunuod kami ng Wowowee, parang nasa Pinas na kami! Napapawi ng show na 'to ang pagod ko sa buong araw na pagtratrabaho.."

# posted by no comment : 8:48 PM

Me: Whoa, okey ka lang? Kami pa ngayon ang mapag-isip ng masama sa kapwa??? Guess what, because of Boom Tart-Tarat, I was forced to do my assignment. I watched an entire episode of Wowowee for the first time over the holidays in Pangasinan. My verdict? It’s an over-sentimentalization, over-melodramatization of pity-piety. That’s where all that animus is coming from. (Just take note how the music and Willie's fake facial expression and vocal styling manipulate viewers.) I wouldn't have minded had Willie claimed he just wanted to have fun, but he claims to be doing it for charity. ABS-CBN makes gazillions of money for it, so it’s not hate-exempt, either.

# posted by R. O. : 12:51 PM

To think I even refrained from mentioning the fact that this type of show "encourages mendicancy," a culture of easy money, instead of batting for hard work and stuff. Oh, but I leave these points to the academics.

# posted by R. O. : 1:51 PM

To be fair, you have correctly pointed out the show's strength. And yes, it can really be entertaining. It's a brilliant idea, actually, to connect the ex-pats to Flips at home that way. But for Willie to make like Santa and Mother Teresa, that's just propesterous, as Jaworski would put it!!!! I'm not buying it, and neither are so many other thinking people, like this band named Itchyworms. Defend some other show, not Wowowee and the outrageous tragedy its brilliant underlying philosophy espoused. And, if you are so open-minded as you said, then try telling all the things you said to the ghosts of those who had died.

Post-holiday hi 2

Christmas is pure hell, but there's nothing quite like it. Over my blogging years, I've rejected it, denied it, denigrated it, dismissed it, slept over it, got distressed for it, but it has always won me over. There's something simply mysterious in it. The commercialization is sad, but there's magic in all the fun stuff just the same - from the glittering tinsel to the unexpected cash, from window shop displays to Pampanga lanterns (rainbows caught, distilled and fashioned into a kaleidoscope), from the sack-load of gifts you don't need to the sheer atmosphere of generosity and the air of non-judgment. The most priceless thing I've had, though, is the miracle of being able to forgive and be forgiven in return, all so easily. (In the office setting, this is nothing short of paradisiacal.) The grace of plenary indulgence always happens to me during Christmas time, and I've always wondered why.



To wean myself away from compassion fatigue, as induced by the season like an obligation, I tried to treat myself last December. I did some of the things I longed to do but couldn't. One was to check out Cubao X with Titobi and Ferdz, and, boy, what a fun time it was to be at Chunky Far-Flung's alternative toy kingdom (Nintendo dotgraphics, vintage Walt Disney stuff, name it; even vintage rubber duckies and exinct Sanrio stuff from Japan's culture of kitsch and cute), Datelines' commie chic, Bellini's old world ambience, Vintage Pop's Warholish vibe, and the ancient aura of, or the patina of dignity on, the antique shops stringed together in an area that's otherwise seemingly forgotted by time. Paradise, if you ask me. No wonder artists like Carlos Celdran take to it like fish to water. (In my interview of him, he said Cubao (esp. Cubao X) is his favorite place in the whole of Metro Manila.)

Explosives and expletives

I never advocate swear words, but how do you say p*tang-ina in Chinese? I've always seen those New Year's Eve firecrackers as some sort of a Chinese curse, as every year without fail, watching the news right after the New Year is always sure to give us the gory details. Since we're Filipino, we copied the technology, improved on it, and made all that cursing in the air self-destruct us to hell. BAM!!! (Expletive deleted.) There goes one boy's forefinger. BAM! There goes another's eyesight, for life. BAM! There goes an innocent girl playing hopscotch in the yard -- her life snuffed out just like that by a bullet that ripped into her brain from out of the blue. (Double expletive expunged.)

If I were the (expletive erased) Chief Executive, I would impose a total firecracker ban, and send all indiscriminate gun firers to line up their own respective families for a one-man firing squad as punishment.

**

In other news, while we were sleeping, Hello Garci said he'd run for Congress (okay ka lang?), media people slap First Gentleman Mike Arroyo with a well-deserved class suit, convicted rapist US Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith was transfered to the US Embassy's custody, Panfilo Lacson withdrew his candidacy for Manila mayoralty race, Saddam Hussein was hanged in Baghdad, and former US president Gerald Ford died.

Comment: By the way, Chilean dictator Pinochet also passed away last December. When a merciless person dies, I feel nothing, not even the slightest pity, not even a desire to say either goodbye or good riddance, even though I never believed in capital punishment.

**

On the road

I saw two interesting things while shuttling back and forth from home:

In NLEX, I saw this sign:

“R.A. 8794. Anti-overloading law
No overloading
Over 13.5 MT (metric tons) per axle load”

Comment: Do tricycles with 7 passengers violate the law?

And this:

“Duratrans
Panaflex
Tarpaulin”

Comment: Generic drugs? Condoms?

Nah. Different billboard solutions, let’s just say.

Waah!

A basic unit of dysfunctional society is one overindulgent uncle and his nephew and his niece. It’s quite a pretty sight. But this year, I was sad because the kids stayed in the Metro. There was nobody to scramble and fight tooth-and-nail for the kyat-kyat (miniature ponkan oranges), the assorted Japanese candies, the Trolli neon squiggles and gummy bears that I bought, together with the one-peso coins my mother threw generously on the floor to welcome 2007 and ensure year-long economic prosperity, or so her fung shui master says.

And with all of my friends either living abroad now or too busy with their home life, I drowned my sorrow in some red wine and lots of movies (plus checking out the effect of globalization on my town's public wet market). Joey Reyes's Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo has a winning script and excellent acting; I have newfound respect for RP's "national pornographer"; then again, I knew this guy is an excellent writer/director, with May Minamahal. The critics are right. "There's hardly a false note." "Pitch-perfect." These two love stories - rom-com in today's English - don't strive to tell something new; they don't even tell anything, but they accurately depict a rom-com vision in the context of our life and times. Great!

I also enjoyed the ff.: High School Musical, which explores high school/educational stereotypes; North Country, which, like Erin Brockovich, dramatizes the atrocious level of sexism in the Minnesotta mine pits; Cronicas (starring John Leguizamo, an actor I admire), which tackles the gray areas of TV/media, professional ambition, personal relationships, and lies/truth; Green Street Hooligans (I had trouble with the thick English accent, so pass); and at long last, the unexpectedly short, unbelievably simple, and sad/profound/touching The Bicycle Thief by Vittorio de Sica (thanks, A., I owe you one).