The Pelican Spectator

General Del Pilar and the 'hand-in-coat' dilemma

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 12:05:00 +0000

General Del Pilar

An interesting article at the Philippine Daily Inquirer by the renowned historian Ambeth Ocampo got readers thinking about the mysterious “hand-in-coat” gesture often seen in the portraits of men who influenced history in Wikipedic proportions. For a long time the “hand-in-coat”, “hidden hand” or “secret hand” controversy has prompted several conspiracy theories involving private organizations, most prominently Freemasonry with the iconography being associated with the Sign of the Master of the Second Veil, a gesture which they say does not only signify allegiance to the craft but also to the creation of a New World Order, the results of which are allegedly obvious today in the conduct of the world’s political and economic affairs.

Readers are particular with revolutionary Philippine General Gregorio del Pilar, who is depicted in his famous photograph with his hand under his coat, after which most of the boy general’s monuments around the country were modeled. A lot of reasons are presumed that are reminiscent of the reasons why Jacques-Louis David painted Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous full-length portrait "Napoleon in his Study" with the victor of Marengo’s right hand hidden inside his waistcoat, representative of his few other portraits of the same style that left posterity asking whether the emperor’s hand was crippled or deformed, scratching an itch, calming an ulcer, fondling a pendant or winding a watch. Meanwhile Ocampo adds whether Del Pilar knew that the pose signified the European standard for men with breeding and distinction or just simply copying Napoleon, with the former echoing a theory mentioned in the tribute website Napoleon-series.org:

Napoleon in His Study by Jacques-Louis David
A simpler and more elegant theory is contained in an article entitled, "Re-Dressing Classical Statuary: The Eighteenth-Century 'Hand-in-Waistcoat' Portrait." by Arline Meyer. Art Bulletin (College Art Association of America), Vol. 77, No.2, March 1995, p.45-64. Meyer points out that the 'hand-in' portrait type appeared with "relentless frequency" during the eighteenth century and became almost a cliched pose in portrait painting… "In real life," Meyer observes, "the 'hand-held-in' was a common stance for men of breeding." Meyer goes on to give many examples of this posture in painted portraits dating from the early and middle 1700s, well before Napoleon's birth. In 1738 Francois Nivelon published A Book Of Genteel Behavior describing the "hand-in-waistcoat" posture as signifying "manly boldness tempered with modesty." Meyer says that the hidden hand was a feature of some statues of the ancient Greeks and Romans and that later painters based their poses on classical models. The pose was recommended by certain classical writers as a useful posture for orators. Aeschines of Macedon (390-331 B.C.), an actor, orator and founder of a school of rhetoric, who wrote an important book on oratory, postulated that speaking with one's arm outside the toga was considered ill-mannered. A number of textbooks on oratory published in the eighteenth century, following Aeschines, recommended this gesture. Although Meyer doesn't mention it, it is possible that the great French actor Talma, who reportedly trained Napoleon in Imperial [sic] comportment, may have been familiar with these works.

Whether or not Del Pilar (or the painter) was aware of any historic, social or esoteric meaning surrounding the posture, or whether he was just following what Meyer calls “its personalized revival in the nineteenth century” without any cue on what it really meant after all, it is worth mentioning that a similar question on several historic personages has silently found its way among fanatics in present day pop culture and has ever since been associated with various conspiracy theories.

The world wide web does not run out of amusing examples of allegations that famous and infamous men in cryptic poses were out to take over the world as a collective whole through some sort of Illuminati-like activities and secret societies, though it wasn't clear why someone had to take over the world from what and for which. One extremely Christian website which I initially mistook for a spoof as it keeps on arguing that we were living our last days before the close of last year and that Hannah Montana is a victim of Satanic mind control even came up with this most eager collection of portraits of esoteric world domination.

Does this mean that Stalin was a Freemason who wanted Freemasonry to take over the world by expelling Freemasonry in Soviet Russia?

Or perhaps it was Hosni Mubarak who was suddenly taken over by the masses in 2011.

At least Berlusconi was well-dominated during his orgies.

Was it Obama because of this stolen shot

or Kanye West about to Pied Piper people with his rap?

Conspiracy theorists are also threatened by the following:

Johnny Depp

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino

Tom Hanks

Recently the author of this blog was caught sleeping with a hand under his shirt.

As it turns out, his ancestors also posed in a similar way.

Circa 1800s, an ancestor who happened to be a business partner of the Rothschilds.

Another ancestor from the 1750s.

Circa 350 BC, orator and debating buddy of the Socratic students, clearly showing his attempt to hide both hands yet the toga proves too short.

[UPDATE]
Bruce Fenton, global economic advisor and Freemason, posted the following video today in response to numerous rumors propagated by conspiracy theorists and religious fanatics all over the internet.

Flex up that top

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 15:30:00 +0000

For white collars (to whom it is more applicable) who fear that sedentary routine might just cause them mental stagnation, Entrepreneur.com has just the right list of "brain gyms" where the cephalic muscle can go pumping iron for at least 30 minutes a day before assaulting the paperwork.
(cartoon picked up from The Realist but probably originated from The Philadelphia Inquirer)

Papal announcements through the televised years

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 23:50:00 +0000

Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Francis), 2013

Joseph Alois Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), 2005

Karol Józef Wojtyła (John Paul II), 1978

Albino Luciani (John Paul I), 1978

Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini (Paul VI), 1963

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (John XXIII), 1958

Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (Pius XII), 1939

Achille Ambrogio Damiano Ratti (Pius XI)

Just a few notes on the immigration of technical workers

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 21:13:00 +0000

Citing a collection of data obtained from the US's National Science Foundation (NSF), Jordan Weissmann over at The Atlantic reputes the notion that there is a dearth of scientists in the country that sponsored The Manhattan Project. In a separate article he points out a comparison between American (which he categorizes as native-born citizens, green card holders and those whose citizenships were not identified) and immigrant Ph.D.'s, showing that while young American engineers have a much better share of job offers, more than a fourth of them were still not able to secure jobs, postdoc appointments or any other post-grad plans. Charts for physical and life sciences grads don't differ much, and at least Weissmann postulates that:

"While American-born Ph.D.'s seem to have it better than immigrants when it comes to their job prospects, they don't necessarily have it good. If companies were desperate to snap up competent scientists, these graphs would all look vastly different."

Here in Saudi Arabia, where contractors are having their heyday employing a great deal of expatriate workers especially in the technical fields, the government recently imposed some regulatory mechanisms in order to provide ample, if not equal opportunity for native Saudis. Aside from the 'Saudization' scheme implemented during the previous year, it was said that the Saudi government is also considering increasing the cost of work permits to be issued to migrant workers. This would mean substantial loss for contractors not only on the aspect of profit versus expenditures but also on the aspect of meeting clients' manpower demands, on which the survival of their contracts is hinged. While they may shift to the recruitment of natives, there are still job positions best filled by expatriate training and expertise, particularly in engineering. If their clients in turn would stick to their guns in letting in the same rate of expatriate influx, this would not save the latter from trouble as one of the purposes in hiring contractors is to maintain a company's statistics well above the minimum requirement of Saudization laws (as any additional migrant employee would be under the contractor's visa).

Nonetheless, the rate of young Saudis graduating from technical institutions and universities have nowadays exponentially increased, and in due course they will be able to perform work once left to the care of migrant employees. Though it might seem early, the Saudi government thinks it better to prepare the floor for an upcoming demand for jobs by graduating Saudi youths.

Benedict XVI and the church of reform

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:54:00 +0000

(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Foundation)

The Pontifex Maximus calls it quits. Just two years shy of the 600th anniversary of the last pope who stepped down from St. Peter's shoes, Benedict XVI, known for the unique monicker "God's Rottweiler," reached the limit of his strength trying to defend the walls overburdened by remorseless members of the clergy. Throughout his reign from the Holy See, Benedict has impressed us with admirable patience and calm, and though at some point of his priesthood he held a progressive's view, his attempts at modernizing the Church missed the essence with which it could survive as a large part of the lives of the faithful - that of turning its back on the old dogmas and welcoming the horizon of the modern enlightenment. If the Church is to survive, it would be through reformation, not the defense of its errors. It must not mistake ritual with legacy and tradition with truth.

Amy Davidson at The New Yorker writes that Benedict's decision (which is justifiably human) should not be construed side by side with his predecessor Pope John Paul II's, who spent the last days of his life struggling to announce the Urbi et Orbi from the papal balcony with the last inaudible gasps of a charismatic hero of the downtrodden.

Benedict, who had been John Paul II's spiritual protege, did not apparently intend to emulate the late pontiff's gestures - he preferred the honesty of reacting reasonably when faced with overwhelming responsibilities. He knew full well that while John Paul II's era demanded involvement in the political climate external to the Church in order to save the faithful, his own time required a domestic cleaning of the Church in order to save the relevance of the faith. Yet dictators seemed to be easier to discipline than the clergy, and such has taken a toll on his health. Benedict has recognized the necessity of the strength of his mind and body which according to him has deteriorated in the last few months to the point that he feared he would not be able to carry out the ministry entrusted to him.

By the beginning of March an enclave will be convened to choose Benedict's successor. Geeks will call this the selection of Peter the Roman, the last pope according to a prophetic list attributed to St. Malachy.Yet there is no implication that the faith must end. If the next to wear the Ring of the Fisherman will be an able crusader for the reformation of the Catholic organization, then the old Kingdom of Rome will end and the new Kingdom of God will begin.

British history and culture at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 19:27:00 +0000

For those who, like me, missed out on the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony, catch a replay of the elegant exposition of British history and culture on the blog Allan is the Man.

Alfred Eisenstaedt and the twilight of the idol that was Ernest Hemingway

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 16:00:00 +0000

I am indeed one of those people who are more fascinated with Ernest Hemingway's erratic persona rather than with his straight to your face literary economics. When I read his works in college it was already evident to me that the man himself, who prowled the tropics in search of adventure, was as difficult as his writings were as easy, judging from the terse paragraphs and impatient dialogue running across his pages, symptomatic of the man who if possible prefers to get into the action quicker than his words ever could. Take for example the following sentences from one his best works For Whom the Bell Tolls:

Anselmo lay face down behind the white marking stone. His left arm was doubled under his head and his right arm was stretched straight out. The loop of wire was still around his right fist. Robert Jordan got to his feet, crossed the road, knelt by him and made sure that he was dead. He did not turn him over to see what the piece of steel had done. He was dead and that was all.

Hemingway wanted to get things over so quickly that he even took his own life rather than sit and wait for his evening.

It was indeed an unlikely spectator, the famous photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt who saw the innovative author of The Sun Also Rises at his worst. Eisenstaedt went to Cuba in 1952 to photograph the writer for LIFE's September issue of that year, but instead of seeing a mighty, dazzling and larger-than-life celebrity, what he found was a crazy, berserk, wild and insulting giant who often went blue in the face with sudden, uncontrollable anger and drank alcohol for days on end.

Though Eisenstaedt was only able to take a few photographs due to difficulties getting along with the man, his snapshots were still able to capture a side of the author different from what he experienced - that of Hemingway's younger disposition to cheerfulness in the face of pressure, a bear who wrestled with the beasts of the jungle and enjoyed his dangerous sports as the best rituals of life.

Click here to view Eisenstaedt's rare photos of the author as recently published by LIFE.

Weekend Poetry: Daddy by Sylvia Plath

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 16:03:00 +0000

Sylvia Plath's marriage to the poet Ted Hughes developed from fairy-tale to stormy and ended up as one of the most tragic in literary history when Plath committed suicide in 1963 at the age of 30. Her poems, the greatest ones of which were written months before she took her life, reflect intonations of darkness and death, as remembrances of her earlier attempts at suicide coupled with repetitive visits of depression and her marriage's subsequent failure contributed to the themes which permeated her writings during her short but nonetheless productive life. Poets and critics hailed her works as the best examples of confessional poetry, as is summed up by the below poem written shortly before her death and published in her posthuomuous collection Ariel.

In Daddy, Plath describes her complicated feelings towards her father Otto who died after her eighth birthday due to undiagnosed diabetes. In the poem Plath regards her father's memory as something which she has to bury in oblivion. She describes him in God-like terms, and she seems to have difficulties coming to grips with his death, that at one point she recalls a suicide attempt at age 20 to join him (At twenty I tried to die/And get back, back, back to you.) She then goes on to say that she married Hughes for his resemblance to her dead father, a manifestation of the Electra complex which Plath was aware herself. At the end Plath says she has killed both of them (that is, forgotten both of them) and that she is therefore through with her father's lingering memory.

Daddy
by Sylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

Light and how they reached for it

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 04:33:00 +0000

When Einstein formulated his famous special and general theories of relativity, it did not mean that he overturned every vestige of classical science. He was in fact by all means indebted to a few but very important discoveries of the past two hundred years, to which his famous (but oft-misunderstood) equation E = mc² provided a revolutionary continuity. But while some of the individuals behind these discoveries are well-remembered, there were some who seemed to have just faded to absolute obscurity.

Below is an outstanding two-part docudrama which reminds us of scientific heroes who paved the way to the understanding of the vast universe around us, and, whether they knew it or not, made little ripples in the pond of their time that later shook the oceans of ours. More than the power of their intellect what is noteworthy about these men and women is the power of their courage and determination with which they managed to overcome the obstacles and achieve the things they aspired for. With poverty, politics, war and inequality ever-present to shake their faiths they did not choose to falter and instead with an undaunted spirit broke the very rules which initially bound their genius to the circumstances of their birth and of their society.

It is in the aftermath of their suffering, and during the time of Lise Meitner's fortitude, that through a young and unknown patent clerk in Berne science would realize that there was more to it than its little world.

Weekend Poetry: Miracle Fair by Wislawa Szymborska

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 16:00:00 +0000

When she died on February 1, 2012, Wislawa Szymborska was already considered one of the greatest pillars of Polish literature. Her small body of work - an oeuvre of only less than 350 poems in 16 anthologies - are notorious for their linguistic simplicity and philosophical depth, as well as for their irony, anecdotes, paradox, playfulness, contradiction, bitter humor and understatements which bring to our attention several truths the world has taken for granted. She used to be a staunch socialist like many other members of the Polish intelligentsia during the post-war years, but soon repudiated the ideology and renounced her earlier political works reflecting Stalinist ideals, eventually establishing contacts with dissidents and writing for opposition journals. A shy poet, the playwright and former Czechoslovakian president Vaclav Havel once called her "such a pleasant, decent and modest lady." Her prominence spread around the world after winning the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality."

Below is a poem representative of Madame Szymborska's technique which explains why the Nobel committee dubbed her the “Mozart of poetry.”

Miracle Fair
by Wislawa Szymborska
translated by Joanna Trzeciak

Commonplace miracle:
that so many commonplace miracles happen.

An ordinary miracle:
in the dead of night
the barking of invisible dogs.

One miracle out of many:
a small, airy cloud
yet it can block a large and heavy moon.

Several miracles in one:
an alder tree reflected in the water,
and that it's backwards left to right
and that it grows there, crown down
and never reaches the bottom,
even though the water is shallow.

An everyday miracle:
winds weak to moderate
turning gusty in storms.

First among equal miracles:
cows are cows.

Second to none:
just this orchard
from just that seed.

A miracle without a cape and top hat:
scattering white doves.

A miracle, for what else could you call it:
today the sun rose at three-fourteen
and will set at eight-o-one.

A miracle, less surprising than it should be:
even though the hand has fewer than six fingers,
it still has more than four.

A miracle, just take a look around:
the world is everywhere.

An additional miracle, as everything is additional:
the unthinkable
is thinkable.

The empirical front

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:02:00 +0000

Last week was a delirious week for the entire scientific community following the discovery of a subatomic particle with mass of around 125 GeV similar to the theoretical Higgs boson. Though their properties are fairly alike, scientists are yet to confirm the particle as a hundred percent Higgs boson, and yet CERN has announced that it has almost struck oil and is a few inches away from what could become the most famous eureka of our age. We know that the Higgs boson is the last piece in the standard model that will explain the interactions between all known particles, something which will have a huge impact not only in the subatomic but also in the macrocosmic level. The "theory of everything" sprouting from this long-nurtured crop may finally explain the question of how do we happen to get here.

Growing up I have always been fascinated by science's relevance to the question of existence and its origin. Somehow we used to understand existence as something more religious and philosophical than scientific. Our generation itself has been reared in a culture which busies itself on spiritual questions which answers do not fit in to the logical patterns of our understanding. This, despite the fact that for over two hundred years the bridging of the empirical and the rational thought have done so well to dispel the old myths and misconceptions of people about nature.

That is why institutionalized religion is so often threatened by scientific advances because the foundations of much of their canons and dogmas are products of premature conceptions and the church is just too great a matter for a small fire to kindle. In the past, what philosophy could not explain was left to religion, and afterwards when chemistry and the other experimental sciences came into being philosophy changed its ally as thinkers suddenly realized that religion itself was an irrelevant response to the complex inquiries of the times. The rise of empiricists such as Hume, Locke, Berkeley and the others brought out a D-Day on the beaches of conformity and razed the prevailing ideas on miracles and inverted cause and effect logic down to the ground.

And today is a very good time to commemorate and celebrate empirical knowledge. It is again time for philosophy and experimental science to sit together and have a cup of coffee, and for institutionalized religion to rethink as it has so often done so in the past.

Michael Stern Hart: Printing Outside the Book

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:56:00 +0000

‘At the time when the World Wide Web was twenty years away from realization, Michael Stern Hart’s creation of the first eBook was not only pioneering, but also a visionary achievement in what would later be called the age of digital publishing. His eventual founding of Project Gutenberg initiated an enduring crusade for the free distribution of knowledge.’

When Michael S. Hart thought of typing out-of-copyright books as a way to give something back for his free computer hours in the mainframe of the University of Illinois, only less than ten people in the world back then had a shadowy vision of what the ARPANet would become in the next thirty years. No one even had an inkling on how fast the proliferation of what would become today’s Internet would be, nor did people have an expectation of the depth of the world wide web’s importance in all levels of intellect and all walks of life.

It was radical in 1971 to visualize a future where books on the public domain were freely disseminated for the reach of those aspiring to learn but were hindered by the commercialization of learning. It was a task which seemed to belong to an age other than Hart's, considering that the computer at that time was far from being a household tool, and yet by the time Hart died on September 6, 2011, his digital book project had become not only the oldest, widest-used and largest single-collection public library in the world, but also one of the greatest achievements of the latter half of the twentieth century along with the internet. The project inspired the creation of a broad range of data collection and digital libraries made available to communities and educational institutions. From a network database housing the first electronic copy of the United States' Declaration of Independence Project Gutenberg's catalogue is now distributed in easily-hyperlinked pages and CD and DVD collections.

Hart is a real visionary in a sense that during the years when, in his own words, "there was more computer time than people knew what to do with," he found a way where the technological marvel feared by science fictionists to have handled the key to the gates of hell became a key to "help break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy." He began this vision when the Internet was just fledgling under the fingertips of university research, first throwing the task entirely on his back before soliciting the help of a few friends and colleagues who partook the job of encoding millions of verbatim copies of different literature, hundreds of which were done by Hart himself, such as the typing in of the works of Homer, Shakespeare, Mark Twain and the Bible. When he died, the project had already posted 38,000 eBooks in 60 languages. From a hundred people it is now made accessible by billions.

Several obituaries praised Hart on this single and yet very momentous achievement. But despite them all, the progress of Project Gutenberg was never a sleek one. It would take seventeen long years of bearing the tedium alone before Hart was able to enlist the help of young volunteers who could expand the measly 313 volumes that he had put up at that time. It would take another decade before the number of downloadable e-books grew to 1,700, and soon PG succeeded to reach a wide renown as a sanctuary of the freedom to learn.

The Project started with the concept of Replicator Technology, a term created by Hart to refer to the creation of copies of items that could be stored in a computer, thus making a wide range of books available as soft copies of electronic texts in ASCII or what is known as the .txt, the simplest of all text formats recognized by 99% of all hardware and software including, apart from DOS, those that were marginalized at the time (Atari, Amiga, IBM, TRS-80, Z80 computers, Mac, UNIX, etc.). At first the team encoded only those books that were generally used, meaning that esoteric materials were for the time being set aside. They had to work on shorter ones since during those days computer memory was very limited, and it took some time before they could work on longer books such as Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan when 360 kb was the standard memory of computer drives, and some other while before they could incorporate low resolution graphics into the texts. The project categorized its postings into Light Literature (Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Aesop's Fables, etc.), Heavy Literature (Shakespeare, Moby Dick, Paradise Lost and others, including religious texts) and References (Roget's Thesaurus, almanacs, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.). Today these texts are available for downloading in HTML, EPUB, Kindle, Plucker, and QiQoo formats. In the advent of phone browsers Project Gutenberg has also made itself available through the mobile web.

In 1998 the Copyright Term Extension Act of the United States lengthened the copyright duration of printed books to 20 years. Here Michael Hart’s brainchild faced its greatest challenge. It now became impossible to upload the texts of over a million books, and for a while Hart became a representative of the movement for free distribution before being replaced with Eric Eldred, owner of the Eldritch Press who reprints works in the public domain. The case was lost, and yet the project keeps on, determining to post 10 million eBooks in 100 languages by the year 2020.

In 2000 Hart formed the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation or PGLAF to further seek support for the project and to advance Hart's foray into "a neo-industrial revolution." In 2004 he declared PG's intention to add multimedia eBooks such as paintings, sculptures, music, audio eBooks, movies, etc. along with a wider variety of text formats.

Hart’s frugality, his simplicity and self-described unreasonableness is understandable in the light of his unflinching commitment to his chosen cause. Although he enjoyed life he did not indulge in the rewards of prestige, and on the moment he died he was close to poverty, living only on donations and small earnings as an adjunct professor, and his possessions in his Illinois home included no greater luxury than a few tall stacks of books which the project had been scanning for many years. Hart was not amenable to making money out of the eventual celebrity brought by his digital brainchild.

His humility caused him to be shunned by the limelight more deserved by rockstars than by humanitarian workers, and adds to the cause by which we admire him. His inventiveness and knack for improvisation is a sample of his innovative genius that spawned a great many things now seen sprawling across the World Wide Web, from databases to online encyclopedias and file sharing systems, many of which never knew the person who defined digital publishing as a tool for the proliferation of learning.

In an article about the digital hero independent journalist Richard Poynder observes: “In effect, Hart had become the first information provider twenty years before Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web.” In addition, Computer World UK’s Glyn Moody notes that Hart began PG “fully 12 years before Richard Stallman began to formulate his equivalent ideas for free software.”

Just as his eBooks, may the likes of Michael Stern Hart (1947-2011) be replicated for the promotion of all the available knowledge of the world.

Power and priority

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:52:00 +0000

At first it strikes as fairly impressive that for the first time in many years (or even possibly decades) justice has finally made a remarkable progress in terms of the speedy disposition of matters, though at this time it would not hurt to say that this speedy disposition is done on a purpose of which the public is free to speculate.

For now the President is indulging himself on wiping to the very last all the ugly vestige of the Arroyo regime to the point of humiliating his opponent, a mission that he has taken up so nobly upon assumption of office, beginning with the Truth Commission and recently culminating in putting Arroyo on the travel watchlist, both of which were frustrated by the Court to the chagrin of Mr. President himself.

And now a soon-to-be-epic rivalry gathers strength. Mr. President unleashed the first blows which failed to have any impact on the chief magistrate, who on the contrary refrained from further retaliatory acts judging perhaps that welcoming the criticisms may prove to be an advantageous defense after all, since Mr. President has been observed by a few civilians and some members of the House already as a type of bully in one way or another, and the fact that he managed to gather a mixed box of bulldogs in the legislative chamber aggravates the fear of an incipient super-executive whose power might some day step loose out of its office and reach the walls of Congress and the pillars of the Court and eventually seize hold of the people.

Or maybe there are a few noticeable factors which might explain the President's delight in encompassing all government agencies under the dictates of his vague political intentions. Having been treading the walkways his mother had laid before the presidency he thinks it necessary to separate his own identity from that of the glorious saint of the mighty Edsa Revolution, and what more convenient way to do this than to drag the head of Arroyo's corruption from the guillotine of the previous elections and show it to the celebrating people of the Republic perpetually waiting for the spectacles of political upheaval, small or great, loud or silent, occasions that mutually benefit the common good and the good of parties and politicians whose "seize the day" spirits abused our democracy and reduced history into a cycle of trial and errors.

Perhaps such a move to destroy the face of the past administration is a better way to maintain a celebrated appeal than to labor the improvement of the languishing sectors which include the underpaid worker, the underfunded student, the overlooked native, the overpromised farmer and over-expecting fisherman, the underbudgeted men of the arts and sciences, and the discouraged entrepreneur. I wish I have perceived it incorrectly when I say that Mr. President is bringing more importance or priority to his romanticized version of justice than to the realistic predicaments of justice in the form of business and political oligarchy, the poor's limited access to essential government services (not to mention the gap between them and the wealthy), environmental abuse leading to sudden waves of fearful calamities, government transparency from the lowest level to the highest, foreign debt, unemployment, and the precarious state of our overseas workers, among others, fundamental things which a more sensible executive should not have been indifferent to.

Right now I see a president who is more concerned with issues where there seems easy opportunity to highlight his power than those that seem impossible to be gotten over in six years.

Weekend Poetry: The Sea is History by Derek Walcott

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 13:42:00 +0000

Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
in that grey vault. The sea. The sea
has locked them up. The sea is History.

First, there was the heaving oil,
heavy as chaos;
then, like a light at the end of a tunnel,

the lantern of a caravel,
and that was Genesis.
Then there were the packed cries,
the shit, the moaning:

Exodus.
Bone soldered by coral to bone,
mosaics
mantled by the benediction of the shark's shadow,

that was the Ark of the Covenant.
Then came from the plucked wires
of sunlight on the sea floor

the plangent harps of the Babylonian bondage,
as the white cowries clustered like manacles
on the drowned women,

and those were the ivory bracelets
of the Song of Solomon,
but the ocean kept turning blank pages

looking for History.
Then came the men with eyes heavy as anchors
who sank without tombs,

brigands who barbecued cattle,
leaving their charred ribs like palm leaves on the shore,
then the foaming, rabid maw

of the tidal wave swallowing Port Royal,
and that was Jonah,
but where is your Renaissance?

Sir, it is locked in them sea-sands
out there past the reef's moiling shelf,
where the men-o'-war floated down;

strop on these goggles, I'll guide you there myself.
It's all subtle and submarine,
through colonnades of coral,

past the gothic windows of sea-fans
to where the crusty grouper, onyx-eyed,
blinks, weighted by its jewels, like a bald queen;

and these groined caves with barnacles
pitted like stone
are our cathedrals,

and the furnace before the hurricanes:
Gomorrah. Bones ground by windmills
into marl and cornmeal,

and that was Lamentations—
that was just Lamentations,
it was not History;

then came, like scum on the river's drying lip,
the brown reeds of villages
mantling and congealing into towns,

and at evening, the midges' choirs,
and above them, the spires
lancing the side of God

as His son set, and that was the New Testament.

Then came the white sisters clapping
to the waves' progress,
and that was Emancipation—

jubilation, O jubilation—
vanishing swiftly
as the sea's lace dries in the sun,

but that was not History,
that was only faith,
and then each rock broke into its own nation;

then came the synod of flies,
then came the secretarial heron,
then came the bullfrog bellowing for a vote,

fireflies with bright ideas
and bats like jetting ambassadors
and the mantis, like khaki police,

and the furred caterpillars of judges
examining each case closely,
and then in the dark ears of ferns

and in the salt chuckle of rocks
with their sea pools, there was the sound
like a rumour without any echo

of History, really beginning.

Embracing the Dragon: The Philippines Deepens Economic Engagement With China

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:41:00 +0000

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 MANILA 001987 

 

SIPDIS 

 

SENSITIVE 

 

STATE FOR EAP/PMBS, EAP/EP, EB/IFD 

TREASURY FOR OASIA 

 

E.O. 12958: N/A 

TAGS: ECON KIPR PREL RP

SUBJECT: EMBRACING THE DRAGON:  THE PHILIPPINES DEEPENS 

ECONOMIC ENGAGEMENT WITH CHINA 

 

REF: MANILA 1954 

 

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - NOT FOR INTERNET DISTRIBUTION - 

PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 

------- 

Summary 

------- 

 

¶1. (SBU) With the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao, the 

Philippines has taken stock of its expanding economic 

relationship with China and deepened its relationship with 

its dominant neighbor with respect to investment, trade and 

economic assistance.  The glow of bilateral friendship 

encouraged a degree of hype, of course, and the impressive 

aid and investment levels totaling over $2 billion in 

official pronouncements included a good dose of recycled 

commitments, untapped loan facilities and investment 

commitments in the mining sector that face serious political 

hurdles if implemented.  At present, the PRC absorbs about 7% 

of Philippine exports, a fast growing but smaller share than 

that of the U.S. (18%) or Japan (19%).  The Greater China 

market, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, absorbs 21% of all 

Philippine exports and has collectively become the country's 

largest export market.  The "Greater China" concept, however, 

tends to exaggerate perceptions of the PRC's economic 

engagement here.  Many companies, especially those run by 

Filipinos with Chinese ancestry, have set up operations in 

China, and the Philippines anticipates increased Chinese 

commercial investments that will further strengthen ties. 

That said, small- and medium-sized manufacturers and labor 

unions remain especially concerned about the future impact of 

China's export competitiveness and labor resources. 

 

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

Shared History and Ethnic Connections 

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

 

¶2.  (SBU) Over the weekend prior to the Hu visit, street 

crews have lined Roxas Boulevard, one of Manila,s main 

streets, with posters bearing an image of intertwined Chinese 

and Philippine flags and the slogan &A New Golden Age of 

Partnership.8  The proximity of the two countries, their 

historical connections, and the increasing prominence of 

Filipinos of Chinese descent within Philippine society makes 

the development of a strong relationship between China and 

the Philippines a logical and pragmatic move.  Last week,s 

visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao April 26-28 coincided 

with the 30th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship 

between the Philippines and China.  Their economic 

relationship, however, has a much longer history, and recent 

scholarship substantiates a significant, though not 

continuous, trade and commercial relationship back as far as 

the seventh century. 

 

¶3.  (SBU) Xiao Qian, DCM at the PRC Embassy, emphasized to us 

that the most important substantive aspect of the visit was 

on the economic and trade side.  As China has emerged as a 

major economic power in Asia, the Philippines has recognized 

that it could stand to reap significant benefits from 

developing a closer trade relationship with China and 

attracting Chinese investments.  At the same time, the threat 

of increasing Chinese competitiveness, the relatively cheap 

and unorganized labor it offers, and the prospect of diverted 

foreign direct investment causes many Filipinos to take a 

more cautious stance towards the possibility of closer 

engagement. 

 

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

Expanding Trade Relations 

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

 

¶4.  (SBU) Trade relations between China and the Philippines 

have been growing at a more rapid pace since China,s 

accession to the WTO.  Data from the Philippine National 

Statistics Office (NSO) reveals that Philippine exports to 

China increased by 71% in 2002, 58% in 2003, and 24% in 2004. 

 This growth is markedly higher than the growth experience by 

Philippine exports to the world as a whole (which increased 

only by 10% in 2002, 3% in 2003, and 9% in 2004.) It is also 

much higher than the growth rate of Philippine exports to 

China prior to 2001.  A 2004 study conducted by the 

Philippine Institute for Development Studies reveals that 

total exports from the Philippines to China grew at an 

average of 13.5% over 1980-1996.  China,s accession to the 

WTO in 2001 and its subsequent actions to liberalize its 

markets has been one of the driving forces behind this 

dramatic growth in Philippine exports.  The PRC absorbs about 

7% of Philippine exports, a fast growing but smaller share 

than that of the U.S. (18%) or Japan (19%).  The Greater 

China market, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, however, now 

absorbs 21% of all Philippine exports, and these economies 

have collectively become the country's largest export market, 

so the "China market" for Filipinos is significantly much 

more than that of the PRC.  The Greater China concept, of 

course, tends to exaggerate the PRC's economic engagement 

here.  Major Philippine exports to China include 

semi-conductor devices, electronic data processing units, 

office equipment, consumer electronics, and fresh fruit. 

 

¶5.  (SBU) Imports from China have also increased 

dramatically.  Inbound shipments from China only reached $294 

million in 1994, or 1% of all Philippine imports.  In 2004, 

China accounted for $2.533 billion, or 6.3% of its imports, 

compared to the U.S. share of 16%.  Philippine imports from 

China include semiconductors, textiles, petroleum products, 

metal-based construction materials, iron and steel.  The high 

degree of intra-industry trade in this bilateral relationship 

threatens many Philippine manufacturers and exporters. 

Philippine businesses and labor unions remain concerned about 

China's growing export competitiveness and large labor 

market.  Big business, especially firms headed up by 

Chinese-Filipinos, can cope with competition through 

investments in China, but smaller firms, which make up the 

bulk of manufacturers here, will face difficult adjustments 

in the years ahead. 

 

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

Smuggling: Invisible Imports Distort Trade Data 

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

 

¶6.  (SBU) During Hu Jintao,s visit, both sides set targets 

of $20 billion in bilateral trade in the next two years and 

$30 billion by 2010.  The trade numbers put out by the 

National Statistics Office of the Philippine Government, 

however, do not tell the whole story of Philippine-Chinese 

trade.  Many of the goods from China entering the Philippines 

arrive in clandestine shipments and are not incorporated into 

the &official8 statistics.  The Website of the Philippine 

Embassy in Beijing draws on data from China,s General 

Administration of Customs to list the volume of 2004 

bilateral trade at $13.3 billion, more than double the $5.185 

billion cited by the RP,s National Statistics Office.  This 

discrepancy between the data collected by the Chinese and 

Philippine governments suggests that a great deal of the 

trade between these two countries is happening &under the 

radar.8  The Philippine press has recently carried stories 

about local producers of shoes, textiles, and appliances that 

have been negatively affected by the large-scale smuggling of 

Chinese goods. China is the source of a number of 

IPR-infringing items such as DVDs and designer knock-offs 

that line the stalls of some of Metro Manila,s largest 

shopping districts.  Not all pirated goods on the Philippine 

market need to be smuggled in from China to make their way 

onto store shelves.  On April 1, Philippine police raided a 

plant producing 300,000 pirated optical disks per day and 

arrested 11 undocumented aliens (it remains unclear whether 

they are Taiwanese or PRC nationals) who had staffed the 

operation. 

 

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

Agricultural Trade Remains a Sensitive Issue 

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

 

¶7.  (SBU) The Philippines enjoys a small trade surplus in its 

trade relationship with China, although it has a deficit of 

$100 million in agricultural trade.  But if anecdotal 

accounts of rampant smuggling of goods from China are 

accurate, the Philippines may actually be running a 

significant trade deficit.  Agricultural issues have figured 

prominently in the bilateral trade relationship, despite the 

fact that agriculture represents an increasingly small 

proportion of their bilateral trade relationship (electronics 

now make up more than half of all goods exchanged.) One of 

the &major concessions8 the PRC had made during Hu Jintao 

visit, Xiao Qian said, was on the &Early Harvest program,8 

a trading protocol between ASEAN Member States.  The PRC will 

now allow Philippine agricultural exports similarly 

concessional status as it already affords Cambodia, Laos, and 

Vietnam.  Qian indicated that these three countries would 

likely be unhappy with the inclusion of the more developed 

Philippines, but that the GRP had pushed hard on this issue. 

 

¶8.  (SBU)  The two governments also signed a Memorandum of 

Understanding that will allocate, on a country-specific 

basis, 25 KMT of rice to China in compliance with the 

Philippines minimum access obligations under its WTO 

accession agreement.  This MOU represents approval by China, 

as one of nine challenging WTO member countries, of the 

request by the Philippines for extension of its special 

treatment for rice under Annex 5 of the WTO Agreement on 

Agriculture. That is, for certain concessions, e.g., those 

contained in this bilateral MOU, China agrees to allow the 

GRP to continue to maintain quantitative restrictions on rice 

for an additional seven years. 

 

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

Taipans Invest in the Chinese Market 

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

 

¶9.  (SBU) Although Chinese merchants have long dominated the 

business community in the Philippines, they were historically 

isolated from mainstream Filipino society and barred from 

obtaining Filipino citizenship.  Most Chinese Filipinos 

migrated from the provinces of Fujian and Guangdong in 

Southern China, and have maintained strong trade connections 

with these two provinces.  The emergence of a class of 

wealthy and powerful Chinese-Filipinos known as Taipans (most 

notably Lucio Tan and John Gokongwei) who exercise 

considerable influence over business has changed the role of 

the Chinese community within the Philippines.  Although these 

families lack the bloodlines that would prime their children 

for entrance into politics, they are able to wield 

significant power over political decisions through their 

hefty political contributions.  These wealthy 

Chinese-Filipino families have recently begun to re-discover 

the potential gains associated with their connections to 

China, and have begun to make investments in China itself. 

These investors have historical ties to China, speak Chinese, 

and have, for the most part, been successful in their 

business endeavors there.  Their increasing focus on mainland 

China for their investments reflects an economic move away 

from Taiwan and towards the PRC. 

 

¶10. (U)  Mr. Carlos Chan was one of the first Filipinos of 

Chinese origin to expand successfully into the Chinese 

market.  Mr. Chan began operations for his company, Liwayway 

Food Enterprises, in 1993 and now has approximately $250 

million in yearly sales.  Other Filipinos of Chinese origin 

have followed Mr. Chan,s lead, notably his brother Ben Chan, 

the founder and chairman of Bench, the popular clothing 

brand, which has established a 8 stores in China as well as 

Lucio Tan who has recently purchased a 25,000 square meter 

plot of land to construct a hotel and department store. This 

trend of Filipino-Chinese-owned businesses looking to China 

for investments is likely to continue and become even more 

significant.  Filipinos of non-Chinese origins have also 

begun to recognize China as a business opportunity.  Pacita 

Juan, founder of Figaro Coffee Company, a local brand that 

has set up its first franchises in China, found that hiring a 

good translator was key to her success in her business 

endeavor.  She responded to the allegation that Filipinos 

investing in China will abandon their home country, assuring 

&(we can be successful and repatriate the profits.8 

 

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

Investment and Economic Assistance:Hype Tempered with Goodwill 

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

 

¶11.  (SBU) China,s economic growth has positioned more of 

its companies to invest abroad, although its investments in 

the Philippines thus far remain limited (accounting for only 

0.1% of total approved FDIs in the Philippines in 2004, 

according to a study released by the Economist Corporate 

Network in 2005), many hope that Hu Jintao,s visit will 

spark further Chinese investor interest in the area. 

According to Xiao Qian, the visit produced 15 agreements on 

various trade and investment deals.  One agreement commits 

approximately $800 million to reopen an existing nickel mine, 

which would represent the largest foreign mining investment 

in the country since the Supreme Court,s recent decision to 

open the mining industry to foreign investment.  Another 

agreement offers a "new tranche" of long-term, low interest 

credit worth $500 million for the Northern Railway project 

(in addition to an existing $400 credit that has not yet been 

touched.)  This project will build only 82 kilometers of 

railway, Qian admitted, citing the need for numerous bridges 

and flyovers as a reason for the high cost.  He also noted 

problems that GRP had faced in removing residents and 

squatters; so far the GRP had cleared only 7 kilometers of 

the route, but the GRP had assured the PRC that this was the 

most complex stretch, and the rest would go quickly. Qian 

stated that the PRC planned to use mostly Chinese equipment 

in the new construction but indicated the &possibility8 of 

using local laborers.  Another high profile deal will involve 

replacing an existing French-style cell phone system (which 

may be relocated in North Luzon) with a Chinese-build 

US-style system. 

 

¶12.  (SBU) In the context of the Hu visit, the two 

governments, of course, tended to hype potential Chinese 

investments and economic assistance.  The two sides 

highlighted the Luzon railway project during GMS's fall, 2004 

visit to Beijing and the announcements appear to be recyled 

commitments for a project that has had a very slow start with 

almost no disbursements of funds from these Chinese loan 

facilities.  The mining sector investment in nickel appears 

significant on the surface but, again, the Chinese have not 

disbursed funds and mining investments here are still subject 

to many local government and other constraints. 

 

¶13. (SBU) Ambassador Jose Antonio, Philippine Special Envoy 

to the People,s Republic of China, has stated that medical 

tourism, infrastructure, mining, and pharmaceutical 

represented areas for potential Chinese investment in the 

Philippines.  Despite the positive tone of Antonio's remarks, 

and the energy surrounding the visit of President Hu Jintao, 

many Filipinos (especially those in the shoe, garment, and 

agricultural businesses) remain apprehensive that Chinese 

success in drawing foreign investment will displace money 

that might have otherwise been invested in the Philippines. 

Ambassador Antonio dismissed these fears, summing them up as 

&fear of the unknown and fear of the Chinese as traders,8 

that would be alleviated once Filipinos recognized the 

benefits of closer engagement with China. 

 

------- 

Comment 

------- 

 

¶14.  As China continues to act as a growth-driver for the 

Asia-Pacific region, and as its increasing domestic demand 

transforms it into a consumer society in its own right, the 

Philippines is unlikely to step away from the closer 

relationship it has developed with its powerful neighbor.  As 

China offers more foreign aid to the Philippines and becomes 

an increasingly large market for Philippine goods, the 

relationship between the two countries is likely to deepen 

economically and may extend to cooperation in other areas 

(reftel).  Chinese influence in the Philippines is set to 

grow, and, as China,s production capabilities increase, its 

exports to the Philippines, both legal and illegal, are also 

likely to grow.  Filipinos, while viewing China as a 

competitor for market access opportunities as well as for FDI 

inflows, will also increasingly recognize China as an 

important economic partner. 

Ricciardone

Defense Secretary Focused on PDR and Counterinsurgency

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sun, 15 May 2011 14:23:00 +0000

Reference ID: 05MANILA1059 l Created: 2005-03-07 08:13 l Released: 2011-04-28 00:00

Classification: CONFIDENTIAL l Origin: Embassy Manila

This record is a partial extract of the original cable.

The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MANILA 001059

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP/PMBS

NSC FOR GREEN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/07/2015

TAGS: PREL MARR PINS PTER AS NZ JA RP

SUBJECT: DEFENSE SECRETARY FOCUSED ON PDR AND

COUNTERINSURGENCY

Classified By: (U) Political Officer Paul O'Friel

for reasons 1.4(b) and (d).

¶1. (C) SUMMARY. Defense Secretary Cruz has made Philippine

Defense Reform (PDR) the centerpiece of his tenure, and is

also focused on ending the country's multiple insurgencies

within the first six years of the 18-year PDR program. His

new approaches include the "500 barangay" program, which will

enlist civilian agencies in the counterinsurgency effort.

According to Cruz's Chief of Staff, PDR will be high on the

Philippine Defense Secretary's agenda during his upcoming

trips to Australia and New Zealand. END SUMMARY.

PDR FRONT AND CENTER

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

¶2. (C) According to Brigadier General Lamberto "Bert" Sillona

(ret.), Secretary of National Defense Avelino Cruz's Chief

of Staff, Cruz plans a series of meetings with Department of

National Defense (DND) personnel beginning March 7 to ensure

the entire Department understands and is on board with PDR

objectives. Sillona told poloff that Cruz views PDR as the

centerpiece of his mandate as Defense Secretary, and its

success (or failure) will be the defining criterion of his

own tenure.

¶3. (C) Admitting that many of the personnel and

organizational reforms proposed by PDR, such as a fixed

tenure for the Chief of Staff and service chiefs and reducing

the number of Philippine Army divisions, would require new

legislation, Sillona said his boss was pushing the DND staff

hard to come up with a new National Defense law. A first

draft, however, failed to pass muster with the eagle-eyed

Cruz (one of the Philippines' most able attorneys and

previously legal counsel to the President). Sillona claimed

Cruz "threw it in the trash" and directed his staff to come

up with a better effort.

¶4. (C) Sillona commented that PDR will be high on the agenda

during Cruz's planned April 2005 visits to Canberra and

Wellington, where he intends to solicit Australian and New

Zealand support for PDR. He separately also plans to enlist

Japanese backing for the effort.

ENDING INSURGENCIES

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

¶5. (C) Sillona stated Cruz wants within the first six years

of the 18-year PDR effort "to finish" the insurgencies

plaguing the Philippines. According to Sillona, Cruz had

directed Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff

General Efren Abu to come up with a concrete list of the

equipment he needs to combat the insurgencies. Cruz told Abu

to work with an projected budget of 5 billion pesos

(approximately USD92.5 million) per year, but also instructed

the Chief of Staff to come up with possible funding sources,

e.g., new taxes or sale of excess military property.

¶6. (C) Sillona also described Cruz's intention to develop a

more holistic approach to counterinsurgency. He noted that

the "500 barangay (precinct)" program would identify

communities located primarily in areas controlled by the

Communist Party of the Philippines/New People's Army and

develop them as models of what the GRP can do for its

citizens. AFP engineering, civil affairs, and medical

outreach efforts would be coordinated and in sync with

concurrent efforts by the Department of Public Works and

Highways (DPWH) and the Department of Social Welfare and

Development (DSWD). Sillona related how Cruz had asked DPWH

to furnish a map of planned road construction over the next

five years. Cruz then sought the advice of General on which

are the key roads and subsequently intervened personally with

President Arroyo to get DPWH to readjust its priorities to

meet counterinsurgency needs. (Note: The DND will brief

donors on the "500 barangay" program at the World

Bank-chaired donors' coordination group March 7-8. End Note.)

¶7. (C) COMMENT. Cruz reportedly told the Canadian

Ambassador during a recent courtesy call that he was

interested in only "boots and bullets," disappointing

Canadian attempts to flog high-ticket weapons. Thus far in

his short tenure, Cruz seems to have focused on the right

priorities, and appears well served by his earlier role in

privatizing the moribund Philippine telecommunications

industry in the 1990's. Taking a leaf out of a MBA textbook,

he has established an agenda and is now in the process of

reorienting the leviathan and often hide-bound Philippine

military to his way of thinking. While canny and articulate

and with excellent access to his President, Cruz will also

need some luck and strong support from us to see PDR through.

Visit Embassy Manila's Classified website:

http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eap/manila/index.cfm

Ricciardone

Arroyo's Down Under Policy

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sun, 15 May 2011 14:22:00 +0000

Reference ID: 07MANILA1814 l Created: 2007-06-01 07:39 l Released: 2011-04-28 00:00

Classification: CONFIDENTIAL l Origin: Embassy Manila

VZCZCXRO2240

OO RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM

DE RUEHML #1814/01 1520739

ZNY CCCCC ZZH

O 010739Z JUN 07

FM AMEMBASSY MANILA

TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6770

INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS IMMEDIATE

RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA IMMEDIATE 9619

RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON IMMEDIATE 3425

RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC IMMEDIATE

RHHMUNA/CDRUSPACOM HONOLULU HI IMMEDIATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MANILA 001814

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/01/2017

TAGS: PREL ECON MCAP PTER AS NZ RP

SUBJECT: ARROYO'S DOWN UNDER DIPLOMACY

Classified By: POL/C Scott Bellard, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

¶1. (SBU) Summary: President Arroyo presided over the

signing of a number of bilateral security and economic

agreements during her recent visits to Australia and New

Zealand, most significantly a landmark Status of Forces

Agreement (SOFA) with Australia, which nonetheless will

likely face a difficult passage through the Philippine

Senate. Australia also announced plans to donate

shallow-draft patrol boats to the Philippine military and to

provide human rights-related assistance. The President's

trip to New Zealand included attendance at the Regional

Interfaith Dialogue, the signing of a law enforcement

cooperation agreement (with plans to coordinate with our

police advisor), assistance on human rights, and various

economic commitments from the New Zealand business community.

Hecklers criticizing the Philippines on unlawful killings

hounded President Arroyo in both countries. End Summary.

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

Landmark Military Accord

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

¶2. (C) The cornerstone of President Arroyo's official visit

to Australia May 30-31 was the signing of the

Philippine-Australia Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which

would cover Australian military counterterrorism exercises

and training projects in the Philippines. The SOFA awaits

ratification by the Australian Parliament and the Philippine

Senate. Under negotiations for about two years, the SOFA

will enable Australia to engage in significantly more

military-to-military training and exercises and

counterterrorism assistance, along the lines of what the U.S.

is able to do under our Visiting Forces Agreement, although

Philippine officials were quick publicly to dismiss

comparisons between the two agreements. Australian diplomats

in Manila confirmed that the SOFA will enable Philippine

authorities to gain custody over Australian soldiers accused

of crimes outside their official duties (as long as the

alleged offense would also be a crime in Australia) and that

detention and any eventual imprisonment would be on

Philippine soil, unlike the terms of the VFA. There are

reciprocal provisions for Philippine troops who commit crimes

in Australia.

¶3. (SBU) During the visit, Australia announced that it will

provide the Philippine military with about 30 shallow-draft

patrol boats (the exact quantity and model to be determined)

capable of operating in the marshlands of Mindanao.

According to Australian diplomats, tenders are already under

consideration, with an expectation that the first boats will

arrive by the end of 2007. The two sides emphasized their

counterterrorism partnership, especially in Mindanao and

against transnational terrorism, but underscored that there

would be no Australia bases in the Philippines, nor would

Australian troops undertake combat operations.

¶4. (SBU) Australian officials in Canberra expressed concern

with unlawful killings in the Philippines, according to

contacts here, but also announced that the Australian

Government will provide AUS $250,000 for funding human rights

projects in the Philippines. The two governments agreed to

work collaboratively to identify further assistance to

Philippine institutions dealing with human rights.

¶5. (SBU) Australian business representatives in Manila

noted some disappointment over a lack of commercial interest

during Arroyo's visit, including at an ANZ Bank-sponsored

Asia Society speech by Arroyo in Melbourne.

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

New Zealand Highlights

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

¶6. (SBU) In New Zealand May 28-30, President Arroyo attended

the opening of the Asia-Pacific Regional Interfaith Dialogue,

the "prime reason" for the visit, according to New Zealand

diplomats in Manila. The interfaith dialogue was a follow-on

to an inter-faith dialogue that Prime Minister Helen Clark

had attended in Cebu, which traced its origins to the

aftermath of the Bali bombing.

¶7. (C) Arroyo also encountered some tough talk in Wellington

about the need to take action against unlawful killings, but

Prime Minister Clark agreed to provide as yet unspecified

assistance to the Philippine Commission on Human Rights. A

team will visit Manila in the coming months to shape out a

program, which likely will consist of training rather than

hardware, according to the New Zealand Embassy. New Zealand

MANILA 00001814 002 OF 002

also plans to enhance training for the Philippine National

Police (PNP) via a new law enforcement cooperation agreement.

Diplomats here said that the plan is to coordinate with the

U.S. Senior Law Enforcement Advisor and our ongoing

assistance to the PNP Transformation Plan. Top priorities

likely will include community policing and rights-based

training for the PNP.

¶8. (SBU) New Zealand diplomats expressed satisfaction with

new investment commitments related to mining and agriculture

(especially export of Philippine fruits), but did not yet

have many details.

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

Not Without Protest

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

¶9. (SBU) Well-organized but small groups of hecklers

(including some from Manila) hounded President Arroyo at

several stops over alleged human rights violations in the

Philippines. In Australia, a private airplane reportedly

towing a banner "Stop Gloria-fying Berdugo Palparon" (a

reference to a former Armed Forces of the Philippines

commander implicated in extra-judicial killings) flew

overhead during the welcome ceremony for President Arroyo.

There was also an unusual protest by the leftist Bayan Muna

"party-list" group outside the Australian Embassy in Manila

on May 31.

-------

Comment

-------

¶10. (C) The SOFA with Australia is only the second such

agreement undertaken by the Philippines, after our VFA.

Ratification of the SOFA by the Philippine Senate promises to

be a contentious affair, as the new Senate will likely be

dominated by foes of the Arroyo Administration, with eyes on

the Presidential elections in 2010. The absence on the scene

of former Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz, who had long

championed the Australian SOFA and similar agreements with

ASEAN members and who had laid the groundwork with the

departing 13th Congress, may weaken the Administration's

ability to persuade the new Senate to go along with this

SOFA, at least in the short run.

Visit Embassy Manila's Classified website:

http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eap/manila/index.cfm

KENNEY

The Deputy Secretary's Meeting With New Zealand FM Peters

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sun, 15 May 2011 14:21:00 +0000

Reference ID: 07MANILA2706 l Created: 2007-08-10 06:59 l Released: 2011-04-28 00:00

Classification: CONFIDENTIAL l Origin: Embassy Manila

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O 100659Z AUG 07

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INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS IMMEDIATE

RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING IMMEDIATE 6176

RUEHBS/AMEMBASSY BRUSSELS IMMEDIATE 0534

RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA IMMEDIATE 9673

RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI IMMEDIATE 2359

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RUEHIN/AIT TAIPEI IMMEDIATE 1545

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MANILA 002706

SIPDIS

STATE FOR D AND EAP

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/08/2027

TAGS: ASEAN ETRD PREL EXBS NZ

SUBJECT: THE DEPUTY SECRETARY'S MEETING WITH NEW ZEALAND FM

PETERS

Classified By: CDA Paul Jones, reasons 1.4 c, d

¶1. (C) SUMMARY: New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters raised iss

Asian/Pacific safety and security, particularly concerning Fiji and the

Islands with the Deputy Secretary August 1 at the ASEAN Regional Forum

Manila, Philippines. Peters suggested that the U.S. should limit its s

and UN financing for the use of Fijian forces on UN peacekeeping missio

protest the lack of democracy in Fiji. Peters also reaffirmed New Zeal

commitment to maintain troops in the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PR

Afghanistan through September 2008. He also affirmed support for the S

Talks agreement and willingness to provide technical assistance. Recen

to the U.S. by Prime Minister Clark and Minister of Trade Goff have bee

beneficial to bilateral relations. The Deputy Secretary welcomed the i

relations over the past 12 months. END SUMMARY.

REGIONAL POLITICAL CONCERNS

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

¶2. (C) FM Peters said New Zealand is particularly concerned about the l

progress towards democratic reform and the disregard for the rule of la

Fiji. "There is not a committed path towards free elections." the Mini

stated. Fijian military leaders feel they are free to do as they pleas

countries have ignored the current situation as nothing more than a "bl

coup." This could, however, have a ripple effect throughout Micronesia

Clear, unequivocal messages should be conveyed to the government that

democratic reform is needed. While failing to address domestic reforms

has made relatively large troop commitments to UN Peace and Security Fo

Peters suggested that the U.S. limit its support and UN financing for t

of Fijian forces on UN peacekeeping missions. The UK should implement

actions.

¶3. (C) Peters raised similar concerns about the military leadership in

Solomon Islands and plans to undermine the Regional Assistance Mission

Solomon Islands (RAMSI). New Attorney General Moti has a very unsavory

including criminal convictions in Australia and allegations of corrupti

actions are contrary to the desires of the local population. New Zeala

Deputy Secretary John McArthur added that "there is a real risk of inst

and civil war, coupled with a resurgence of tribalism."

SECRETARY RICE INVITED TO ASIA/PACIFIC FORUM

SIPDIS

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

¶4. (C) FM Peters requested Secretary Rice's participation in the Asia/P

Forum, indicating her participation would convey a strong message to th

region. Though the population may be relatively small, the area encomp

more than a quarter of the world's oceans. These relationships should

overlooked, he continued. Secretary Rice's presence would also counter

rising impact of the Chinese, who have been investing heavily throughou

region.

REGIONAL PEACEKEEPING TROOP COMMITMENT TO AFGHANISTAN

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

¶5. (C) Peters reconfirmed New Zealand's peacekeeping role in Afghanista

through September 2008. Peters said, "the mission has been effective a

efficient, and is going as well as can be expected." The initial deplo

consisted of special forces troops, but more recently has been transiti

the Territorial Army (similar to the U.S. National Guard). With milita

commitments in 19 theaters, NZ forces are stretched thinly, he added.

SIX-PARTY TALKS

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

¶6. (C) Peters said New Zealand takes the Six-Party agreement very serio

would like to see it brought through to conclusion. New Zealand has be

informally approached by the DPRK to provide assistance, but does not y

a clear package of ideas to propose. New Zealand would calibrate its as

to progress in the Talks and would like to participate in any way appro

should the Talks be broadened to include other nations, Peters added. (

The MFAT website today added an announcement that Peters had accepted a

invitation to visit North Korea. End note.)

¶7. (C) The Deputy Secretary closed the discussions by observing their b

relations have improved significantly and may be at their most importan

He thanked the Foreign Minister for his kind invitation to visit New Ze

¶8. (C) Participants:

U.S.

The Deputy Secretary

MANILA 00002706 002 OF 002

Ms. Kaye Lee, Special Assistant to Deputy Secretary

Mr. Ted Wittenstein, Special Assistant to Deputy Secretary

Ms. Colleen Kelly, Staff, EAP/Regional & Security Policy

Mr. Thomas Brennan, Embassy Notetaker - FCS

New Zealand

Foreign Minister Winston Peters

Deputy Secretary MFAT John McArthur

Mr. Nigel Moore, DG and Director Asia Division MFAT

Mr. Rob Moore-Jones, Foreign Policy Advisor

Mr. James Funnell, Press Secretary

JONES

Philippines Asks for Help on Extrajudicial Killings

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sun, 15 May 2011 14:16:00 +0000

Reference ID: 07MANILA645 l Created: 2007-02-27 08:41 l Released: 2011-04-24 00:00

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY l Origin: Embassy Manila

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RUEHRL/AMEMBASSY BERLIN IMMEDIATE 0391

RUEHHE/AMEMBASSY HELSINKI IMMEDIATE 0409

RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON IMMEDIATE 3438

RUEHMD/AMEMBASSY MADRID IMMEDIATE 0484

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RHHMUNA/CDRUSPACOM HONOLULU HI IMMEDIATE

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UNCLAS MANILA 000645

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A

TAGS: PREL PHUM EAID RP GM FI UK SP IT NO SW NL

SUBJECT: PHILIPPINES ASKS FOR HELP ON EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS

REF: A. MANILA 609 (NOTAL)

¶B. MANILA 573 (NOTAL)

¶C. MANILA 468 (NOTAL)

¶1. (SBU) The Department of Foreign Affairs has shared with

Embassy copies of letters dated January 31 to the resident

Ambassadors of Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain,

Sweden, and the Netherlands, requesting technical assistance

as the Philippine government investigates and tries to

resolve extrajudicial and other "unexplained" killings,

following recommendations from the Presidentially-appointed

Melo Commission (refs). (Full text of identical letters in

para 2.) Separately, Norway, which has been unsuccessfully

trying to facilitate peace talks between the Philippine

government and the Communist Party of the Philippines and the

National Democratic Front, privately expressed interest to

Pol/C in exploring additional assistance, perhaps financial

support to the Philippine Department of Justice's expanded

witness protection program. Embassy will continue to consult

with counterparts in Manila about possible new assistance

from these and other countries, as well as to explain ongoing

USG efforts, including expanded aid to the Philippine

Commission on Human Rights and strategic reform programs for

the military, police, and judiciary.

¶2. (U) Text of request letters

quote

31 January 2007

Excellency,

In an effort to address the concerns of the international

community on the so-called unexplained killings in the

Philippines, I have the honor to inform you that the

Government of the Republic of the Philippines would welcome

any technical assistance that could be extended by the (name

of country), to facilitate and expedite the work of the Melo

Commission.

I wish also to inform Your Excellency that we have conveyed

to other EU member-states that we welcome similar assistance,

as previously offered during the 28 November 2006 briefing on

the matter. It is hoped that, with the various experiences

and expertise each government has on such issues, all cases

will be resolved soon with due diligence.

Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest

consideration.

/s/ Albert G. Romulo

The Secretary of Foreign Affairs

end quote

Visit Embassy Manila's Classified SIPRNET website:

http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eap/manila/index. cfm

You can also access this site through the State Department's

Classified SIPRNET website:

http:// www.state.sgov.gov/

KENNEY

Marie Doro

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 07:47:00 +0000

Described by drama critic William Winter as "a young actress of piquant beauty, marked with personality and rare expressiveness of countenance," Marie Katherine Steward a.k.a Marie Doro would have been one of the most beautiful faces in Hollywood by today's standards. In the silent-film industry which spanned her career in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Marie Doro showed amazing skill as an actress, yet it was downplayed by the fact that she was not given the most challenging roles.

She was married to another silent screen actor, Elliott Dexter, and after their divorce became linked to the famed actor William Gilette. The young Charlie Chaplin had also been madly in love with her, and this unrequited love lasted for more than eleven years when finally Marie and Charlie met again and "dined quietly in Marie's apartment alone."

But according to Kenneth Lynn in Charlie Chaplin and His Times, "Chaplin would not have been Chaplin if he had simply dined quietly with Marie."

The photos of the actress were taken circa 1902 and are kept and copyrighted by the Burr McIntosh Studio.

'Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never'

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:42:00 +0000

Almost a year has passed since I came down here at your Head Master's kind invitation in order to cheer myself and cheer the hearts of a few of my friends by singing some of our own songs.

The ten months that have passed have seen very terrible catastrophic events in the world--ups and downs, misfortunes-- but can anyone sitting here this afternoon, this October afternoon, not feel deeply thankful for what has happened in the time that has passed and for the very great improvement in the position of our country and of our home?

Why, when I was here last time we were quite alone, desperately alone, and we had been so for five or six months. We were poorly armed. We are not so poorly armed today; but then we were very poorly armed. We had the unmeasured menace of the enemy and their air attack still beating upon us, and you yourselves had had experience of this attack; and I expect you are beginning to feel impatient that there has been this long lull with nothing particular turning up!

But we must learn to be equally good at what is short and sharp and what is long and tough. It is generally said that the British are often better at the last. They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that each day will bring up some noble chance of war; but when they very slowly make up their minds that the thing has to be done and the job put through and finished, then, even if it takes months - if it takes years - they do it.

Another lesson I think we may take, just throwing our minds back to our meeting here ten months ago and now, is that appearances are often very deceptive, and as Kipling well says, we must "...meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same."

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.

But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period--I am addressing myself to the School--surely from this period of ten months, this is the lesson:

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.

You sang here a verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse written in my honor, which I was very greatly complimented by and which you have repeated today. But there is one word in it I want to alter - I wanted to do so last year, but I did not venture to. It is the line: "Not less we praise in darker days."

I have obtained the Head Master's permission to alter darker to sterner. "Not less we praise in sterner days."

Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.

-Winston S. Churchill, October 29, 1941

Farewell to the Old Guard

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 14:51:00 +0000

"Soldiers of my Old Guard, I bid you farewell. For 20 years I have constantly accompanied you on the road to honor and glory.

In these latter times, as in the days of our prosperity, you have invariably been models of courage and fidelity.

With men such as you our cause could not be lost; but the war would have been interminable; it would have been civil war, and that would have entailed deeper misfortunes on France.

I have sacrificed all of my interests to those of the country.

I go, but you, my friends, will continue to serve France.

Her happiness was my only thought. It will still be the object of my wishes.

Do not regret my fate; if I have consented to survive, it is to serve your glory.

I intend to write the history of the great achievements we have performed together.

Adieu, my friends. Would I could press you all to my heart. I embrace you all in the person of your general. Come, General Petit, that I may press you to my heart!

Bring me, the eagle that I may embrace it also!

Adieu, my children! Be always gallant and good.

Do not forget me."

-Napoleon Bonaparte, 20 April 1814

Insurrection

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 15:01:00 +0000

Above. A Bahraini protester makes a challenging gesture in front of riot police which cordon an overpass near Pearl roundabout in Manama. Photo taken by Hasan Jamali of the Associated Press on March 13, 2011.

Weekend Morning Poetry: Preludes by Thomas Stearns Eliot

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was an American-born English poet, playwright, and literary critic, arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century.The poem that made his name, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is regarded as a masterpiece of the modernist movement. He followed this with what have become some of the best-known poems in the English language, including Gerontion (1920), The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four Quartets (1945). He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. (Biography at Wikipedia)

Preludes
By T. S. Eliot

I
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.

II
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.

III
You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters,
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed's edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

IV
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

Shackleton: A Tale of Courage and Endurance

noreply@blogger.com (Alvin Lopez) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:03:00 +0000

Ernest Shackleton is best remembered for his outstanding leadership during a time of crisis than for the various explorations he led in the early 1900s. In August 1914 he set up an expedition aiming to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea, cutting through the South Pole. But before reaching his destination, his ship the Endurance became trapped in a pack ice in the Wedell Sea. After being stuck in the floating ice for ten months the Endurance was crushed between the drifting ice sheets and afterwards sunk. To many, being trapped in hundreds of miles of ice with limited food and water is a scenario so hopeless that thousands of seamen and explorers had in the past surrendered their courage and lost their lives in it, but to Shackleton hopelessness was not an option, and through a heroic display of courage and hope he turned their failure to cross the Antarctic into a legendary story of endurance and survival. Of the 27 crewmen he took with him, none lost their lives during the two harrowing years of living on the ice more than a thousand miles away from civilization.

When the Endurance sank, Shackleton and his team had no choice but to make a settlement on a floating ice floe where they lived for six months. Soon, when the floating ice began to break apart, they knew they had to get on their remaining boats, paddling for seven days from ice floe to ice floe until they arrived on the uninhabited Elephant Island.

With his crew already suffering from frostbite, scurvy, fever, cold, hunger and mental depression, Shackleton knew he had to act fast. Thus, he decided to go to the nearest known whaling station in the island of South Georgia (Antartica), setting out with five of his men on a dangerous open-boat journey aboard the James Caird (one of the last functional boats they had). He left the rest of his men in Elephant Island and vowed to return to rescue them. For 16 straight days he and his five crewmen rowed south across the Atlantic, reaching the nearest part of South Georgia after surviving episodes of ferocious storms, squalls and stress in the open ocean. Polar historian Caroline Alexander described this as one of the most extraordinary feats of seamanship and navigation in recorded history.

The crew of the Endurance. Photo taken by the expedition's photographer Frank Hurley

However, the boat landed on the wrong side of the island, and Shackleton and his men decided to take a very difficult 36-hour hiking through the snowy valley to get to the nearest whaling station at Stromness Bay on the other side, wading through miles and miles of snow and glacier across the island’s mountainous interior without any map, tent, sleeping bag and proper mountaineering equipment aside from a carpenter’s axe. Eventually they arrived at Stromness, and there Shackleton was able to borrow a ship and mount a rescue mission to save his men in Elephant Island, a mission which, after four attempts, proved futile. But soon Shackleton was able to contact London and four months later secured the survival of all his sailors, bringing them home to England in May 1917 aboard a rescue ship.

The Endurance crushed between the ice

Shackleton was credited with saving his crew during their long ordeal which might have cost the lives of all of them. For this, despite his failure to cross the Antarctic and reach his goal, Shackleton and his crew were awarded the Polar Medal.

His ability to lead his men out of a seemingly hopeless adversity by continuously providing them the will to carry on and therefore endure became a classic example of excellent and inspiring leadership, and has ever since become a model used not only by soldiers and seamen but also adopted by managers in the corporate world.

What did Shackleton do to avert more disaster and therefore, reverse his failure into a story of exemplary leadership?

Charles Chappell of Wharton University’s Executive MBA Program cited five leadership qualities which largely contributed to the survival of the Endurance crew. These were: a.) Putting your people first; b.) Flexibility in tactics; c.) Choosing people for character and not just competence; d.) Optimism in times of adversity; e.) Leadership by example and; f.) Equal treatment of men. Chappell explains each one of them:

a.) Put your people first. In 1907, Shackleton led an attempt to be the first to the South Pole. He and his men trekked across hundreds of miles of the Antarctic continent to within 97 miles of the Pole. He knew that being the first to reach the Pole would have brought him everlasting fame and glory. But Shackleton and his men were weakening, and he knew that a final push to the Pole would put their lives in grave danger. He turned back. As strong as his desire to lead expeditions was, his sense of responsibility for his men was stronger.

In addition to being a principled choice, this decision gave those who served under him on the Endurance confidence that their lives would not be cavalierly sacrificed to meet the expedition’s goal… crossing Antarctica was [the expedition’s] nominal goal, but its fundamental goal was to ensure that the men survived. This clarification, along with the knowledge of Shackleton’s general experience in polar exploration, helped ensure confidence in, and the credibility of, Shackleton’s leadership. It helped give Shackleton what John Gardner calls “the capacity to win and hold trust.”

b.) Be flexible in tactics. Although the fundamental goal of survival remained paramount, Shackleton wisely remained flexible in the tactics he chose to achieve that goal.

Once Shackleton realized that the Endurance was trapped in the ice, he resolved – and, despite his bitter disappointment, communicated matter-of-factly to his men – that their goal had changed from crossing Antarctica to wintering over on the ice.

c.) Choose your people carefully — for character, not just competence. Shackleton knew how well the rigors of Antarctic exploration would test the spirit of his men. In selecting the expedition’s members, he looked for technical qualifications, but he placed even greater emphasis on a positive attitude and a lighthearted, even whimsical nature. When he interviewed Reginald James, who became the expedition’s physicist, he asked whether James could sing. Alexander Macklin, a surgeon, won a place on the expedition when, in response to Shackleton’s inquiry about why Macklin wore glasses, Macklin replied, “many a wise face would look foolish without spectacles.”

d.) Sustain optimism in the face of adversity. Although everyone understands the importance of optimism, Shackleton recognized that being optimistic was most important when it was most difficult. When setbacks occurred, he had to remain outwardly optimistic, despite his own feelings, to prevent a growing despair among his men. He knew that such despair could, in the face of adversity, lead to dissension, mutiny, or simply giving up. Day after day, to counter the morale-sapping effect of the miserable cold, wetness, fatigue, hunger, and boredom of their life on the ice, he summoned the strength to remain optimistic – despite suffering the same conditions himself. Warren Bennis has noted that “all exemplary leaders are purveyors of hope and optimism.” Shackleton himself stated that “optimism is true moral courage.”

Shackleton knew that this same optimism was important in his men; as a result, he constantly sought to neutralize threats to morale. He noted that the moodiness of Frank Hurley, the expedition’s photographer, was improved by flattery and by being included in consultations about the expedition’s course, so he was sure to include Hurley in high-level meetings and often asked Hurley’s opinion (he used well two techniques of interpersonal influence described by Pfeffer: ingratiation, and engaging others to enhance their commitment). Similarly, he feared that the worrying of George Marston, the expedition’s artist, would spread like an infection to the other men. Shackleton’s insight was that the disposition of these men was distinct from, and sometimes more important than, their technical abilities.

In their tents on the ice, Shackleton ensured that the ability of such “bad actors” to erode morale was checked by having them reside in Shackleton’s own tent or his second-in-command Frank Wild’s tent. Later, when Shackleton made plans to leave Elephant Island to seek help at South Georgia Island, he was careful to leave Wild in command of the group that remained ashore, and to bring along Harry McNeish, the expedition’s carpenter, who had proven to be a particularly serious troublemaker. Shackleton recognized that much of the task of remaining optimistic could be accomplished by keeping the men so busy that they would have little opportunity to brood over their predicament. To that end, he encouraged and took part in a variety of pastimes, such as card games and sing-alongs. Seeking to keep his men fit as well, he encouraged soccer matches and dogsled races on the ice. When he sensed that the mood of the men was darkening, he would use a holiday observance or some other excuse to justify extra rations of food to boost morale. Shackleton appreciated the importance of what John Gardner calls understanding the needs of followers – not just their physical needs, but their psychological needs as well.

e.) Lead by example. Shackleton knew that actions persuaded more strongly than words. When he and his men were forced onto the ice by the destruction of their ship and faced the prospect of making their way over hundreds of miles of rough ice to land, he gathered his crew and, explaining the situation, he pulled his gold coins out of his pockets and threw them into the snow. He then took a Bible given him by the Queen of England, tore out two pages to keep with him, laid the Bible in the snow, and walked away.

f.) Strive for equal treatment. Shackleton realized that, while it was essential that his authority and leadership not be questioned, he should not receive favorable treatment. He dutifully took his turn performing the most menial of chores. When the men took to the ice and drew for sleeping bags, Shackleton somehow ensured that he and the other senior officers drew wool bags, while the more junior men got the warmer fur bags.

In addition, Frank Worsley, one of Shackleton’s crewmen wrote in his memoirs:

“I recalled the way in which he led his party across the ice floes after the Endurance had been lost; how, by his genius for leadership he had kept us all in health; how by the sheer force of his own personality he had kept our spirits up; and how, by his magnificent example, he had enabled us to win through when the dice of the elements were loaded most heavily against us…”

The crew towing one of their remaining boats

In an earlier journey to the South Pole (1907), Shackleton gave his only biscuit allotted for that day to the sick Frank Wild, who later wrote in his diary:

"All the money that was ever minted would not have bought that biscuit and the remembrance of that sacrifice will never leave me."

In their book Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer (2001), Morrell and Capparell wrote: "Shackleton resonates with executives in today's business world. His people-centred approach to leadership can be a guide to anyone in a position of authority."

In his book The Worst Journey in the World (1922), Cherry-Garrard wrote: "For a joint scientific and geographical piece of organisation, give me [Robert Falcon] Scott; for a Winter Journey, [Edward Adrian] Wilson; for a dash to the Pole and nothing else, [Roald] Amundsen: and if I am in the devil of a hole and want to get out of it, give me Shackleton every time.”

For this it is very appropriate to call Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition “the last great Polar journey that [was] made,” and was worthy of its place in the so-called Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.