RESTY S. ODON

Report on Reisman talk

2012-01-31T15:36:00.001+08:00

See this edited report by someone: "Comprehensive sex ed based on debunked studies by ‘psychopath’ scientist – media expert"

http://cbcpforlife.com/?p=5785

Review: “Fine Dining” (short film)

2012-01-31T09:01:00.013+08:00

A jarring but thoughtful transposition

(N.B.: Please don't read the review if you haven't watched the film yet.)

At first glance, Lance Katigbak’s “Fine Dining” has the shock appeal of poverty porn. The first time I saw it, I squirmed in embarrassment. I was unduly disturbed. From the opening scenes alone, it was clear that it was a situation I didn’t want to witness, a story I’d rather deny – unattractive poor people and life in the squatter shanty, particularly what they eat and how they eat it. As I watched on, I developed some kind of resentment. “I know these things are real, they do happen, but that doesn’t mean I have to watch.”

But the dark middle-aged everyday Filipino man on the YouTube screen seems to promise to do something, with his methodical preparation of a pitiful meal of high-sodium instant noodles, and precooked turo-turo/carinderia (Filipino cafeteria) viands wrapped in transparent plastic. Still, I thought, “Do I have to be made to feel guilty too at the sight of a family so poor it can only afford fastfood plastic utensils on the dining table?” I know these things are real, but now what?

But Katigbak drew me in with what happens next. The man, a father and maybe a househusband or a widower, begins to prepare the food in a manner that is familiar only to those who can afford high-end eateries, the ones serviced by well-dressed waiters, with fine porcelain, real fresh flowers on the checkered table, and custom-designed interiors. This man must at least be a hand (a busboy? dishwasher?) in such a restaurant to be able to gain that knowledge (dribbled sauce, food architecture, etc.) from his humble station, enough to be able to replicate the fanciness of it all in his dreary poor-man’s fare at home.

I’m no Marxist, but I began, at this point, to interpret the ensuing scenes through a reflexive class-divide prism. These uneasy, disparate things indeed go together right outside my village gate, as though to illustrate the words irony, paradox, or anachronism. Then I suddenly wandered into reverie territory. My mind brought me anew to that episode in my life as a part-time magazine travel writer, fresh from covering (you know, food sampling, photoshoot, and interviews) Cafe Adriatico and other restaurants in Malate, Manila. As I walked my way home tossing up in my mind which technical food terms to use later in my article, I almost tripped over a man who was cooking something awful by the roadside. He looked old and wiry and, together with a little shabbily dressed boy, was busy setting fire on collected driftwood on the bare ground, using three large stones as stove. He then brought out a dirt-laden aluminium pan on which to fry some pork chops perhaps. The scene so depressed me I wonder how I made it home.

Before disinterest and further digressions set in, Katigbak snapped me back to the film. He apparently had something more up his sleeves. The man on the short now appears to be cooking on a special occasion for a special someone. It’s his daughter’s birthday. The young girl soon appears from the screen, as though from school and feasts on the food, making do with what’s on the table, the usual things presented in an unusual way.

It is at this point that the film redeems itself from the ghastliness of a documentary or a poverty porn film that says this is how things are, period, or this is how things are always going to be.

Katigbak refuses to paint what appears to me to be a victim of social injustice (for I can’t honestly believe he is a ‘victim’ of his own laziness) as a pathetic and pitiful entity, perhaps living out his and his forebears’ ‘karma.’ He is not a victim, but a man with a name, with innate dignity, trying to live the present moment to the fullest possible, perhaps even going against all odds, by going against the grain of one’s station, of what “being poor” should be.

Katigbak, an 18-year old University of the Philippines-Diliman film student with his upper-middle-class sensibilities and membership in a youth group with a Catholic charismatic background (Youth for Christ, to be exact), is trying to limn the otherwise squirmworthy subject with the eyes of his faith. “Fine Dining” is looking at economic affliction on a spiritual, mystical, and nonjudgmental level. The overall result is a non-naive freshness of idea, a pleasant surprise from the non-jadedness of youth on the verge of socially aware manhood.

Katigbak’s bravery in taking up his subject at all in “Fine Dining’s” is only matched by him success in inviting this viewer to sample what he doesn’t want to have for dinner (cheap homecooked food in nonbiodegradable plastics!, oozing ugliness and decrepitude as interior design!) and staying long enough for his just dessert: a jarring transposition of the lowest troughs and highest peaks of life in this surreal First World-Third World town.

Infographic: "Evolution of Google"

2012-01-30T21:09:00.002+08:00

Created by Online PhD

What I got from Charismatics

2012-01-27T16:38:00.041+08:00

Chronic debate and contention -- or more of animosity? -- characterize the relationship between the Charismatic and Traditionalist wings in the Roman Catholic Church (in the Philippines). The divide crops up now and then, triggered by little issues often brought up in apologetic or even catechetical (and Biblical and liturgical?) circles. One can't help but assess and reassess one's position in the ensuing exchange.

If Traditionalism means being Catholic in the way we've always known, then I can say I was a Traditionalist, albeit a minimalistic one (Sunday Mass-goer at least), or is that a contradiction? Obviously, if there must be a categorization, I shall be forced to categorize myself as a Charismatic.

The local Catholic Charismatic "renewal movement" has been a big influence in my religious and spiritual life ever since I finished that course called CLP or Christian Life Program in April of 1996, and I have largely not backed down since, except for a difficult period of questioning in my life (of which I will try to recount later). I'm a Charismatic, but I'd like to point out, an open-minded one, in that I've grown to welcome all sorts of criticism, an improvement from my easily-irked defensive stance years ago.

On the other hand, I have much respect for Traditionalists, particularly in their zeal to preserve and protect what to them is orthodoxy and solid loyalty in the Magisterium, the handed-down Tradition and the pope. But I've also, through the years, developed an amount of reservation on both sides, knowing how these can be abused to serve one's fallen, broken purposes. While Charismatism can lapse into overreliance on happy hormones, emotions, the addictive spiritual high, plus fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible, Traditionalism can also mean misdirected nostalgia, lack of dynamism, and a rigidity that runs in contrast with the freewheeling activity of the Holy Spirit, which we all know to blow in whatever direction It pleases.

A personal God

I have a lot of reasons why I stick with Charismatism after all these years, despite the Traditionalist objection of its being infected with Protestantism. The primary benefit I have received is none other than the "personal relationship," to borrow from Charismatic jargon, I discovered with God. God wants me and He wants me to want Him as well. God is very much alive and real and is "actively involved" in my life, as though I'm some kind of lover. Sounds odd, I know, but that's how it is -- you've got to go through it to believe it. He speaks subtly in every life situation. If I am sensitive, I can hear Him whisper in the most unlikely situations, but most specially in prayer. He also gently talks through His Word, the Bible, and through other creative means, whether in affirmation or rebuke. I never had been in such a level of closeness with the divine before, even though I grew up to be quite religious.

Simply put, I found God in the Charismatic renewal, an intimate, loving, fatherly, tender, sweet God like I've never found Him before.

Exuberant worship

Charismatism also has afforded me the chance to participate in exuberant worship, the kind I won't find anywhere else in the Catholic world.

Prayer time

It has taught me the importance of having a "prayer time" -- a regularly scheduled time at which I talk and listen to God in silence, in music, or any other form I wish. This is an act of faith or commitment, independent of how I busy I am or how I feel.

Bible-reading

Part of prayer time is Bible-reading, which I never dared to venture into before, out of ignorance and the fear that I might overdo it and reach a place past heaven and hear things I didn't want to hear from God, with "calling" and "priesthood" among the less subtle hints.

St. Ignatius' Lectio Divina is also encouraged in Community as a method of reflecting on the Bible. Those who are successful in this have such amazing spiritual insights. Maybe I have a lot of growing up to do because I seem to be not as 'good' or gifted at those realizations.

Marian devotion

The community I belong to happens to be Marian, so it also ensured a level of devotion to Mary that I didn't see coming. The rosary and Marian occasions are always a big deal to me because of this.

Spiritual readings

Charismatism also changed my media diet, with me preferring spiritual texts like Bo Sanchez's publications and those coming from a church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where this all started. I used to be radical in this, in that I became choosy with what I read in the papers and what movies I watched, if at all. I even gave up listening to secular music entirely, thus missing out all the pop hits in the whole of the latter half of 1990s, until I found no longer able to resist, realizing that God is also present outside the Community's own top 10 hits.

Worldview

The "renewed Catholic" life also changed my view of things, and I offended a lot of people because of this. I changed my mind about horror films, the occult, horoscopes, feng shui, seances, gossip, sex, even Santa Claus. I became quite insular in a way, wary about relationships outside community, for fear of being infected with the sins of the world, though I tried hard to balance this with the desire to reach out, because there's this constant mandate to evangelize and bring everyone I encountered to Christ. The latter is an aspect I'm not very good at, because I can be quite shy and cowardly.

Conversion from sinful life

Of course, a renewed Catholic life meant avoiding all forms of obvious sins. I gained a stronger awareness of my sins, present and past, especially the embarrassing blunders of my youth that I am hard put to recall. This doesn't mean I no longer commit mistakes. It just means there are so many things I used to do that I no longer do and would feel weird to. It also means being more guilt-ridden because I no longer have the excuse of ignorance.Thankfully, this tendency to be guilty is tempered by the confidence in God's kindness and mercy.

I have also been a witness to so many such conversions as mine, each convert a work in progress but no less than a walking miracle.

Expanded exposure to larger community

My newfound life opened a lot of other unexpected doors for me. Because of the "transparochial" nature (as opposed to parish-based) of my Community, I was exposed to people from all walks, calling the high and mighty (like CEOs) down to the lowliest (maintenance men) as brother or sister, with the realization that people will always be spiritually needy people no matter who they are. My eyes were opened to a community way beyond my family and neighborhood (the urban neighborhood is no community at all! even the parish is filled with strangers). If anything happens anywhere to brothers or sisters in which they need help, then I am one with them in prayer, if not in action. I found myself present at family dining tables and living rooms during birthdays and parties, in different churches during baptisms, in various funeral houses for wakes and burials, and in hospitals to visit the sick.

I am constantly yanked out of my comfort zone. I've been asked to sing, dance, act in a play, lead the youth, teach, give testimony, and God knows what else next. I, essentially a nautilus, still shudder at the thought of the unexpected things God would have me do, but I learned to taste life's unpredictability side by side God's constancy.

Service in community led me out of myself to the various corners of the metropolis and beyond that I never imagined I'd ever setting foot on. Apart from my office life and reading life, Community life exposed me even more to subcultures, opinions, lifestyles and personal preferences, especially in intimate small-group settings where I had to interact with my new friends in a personal way. This has taught me tolerance as well as openness, to give and receive in humility what I can.

Return to Church traditions

It's funny but the big irony is that I was brought back to the fold after years of being nominal and sometimes 'prodigal.' It was the Charismatics who, in fact, brought me back to Tradition. We are encouraged in community to hear an extra Mass per week if we can, if not daily Mass, confess at least once a month, say the rosary everyday, observe the holy hour every week, and observe all the Church obligations and traditions. Compared to zero before, this was an ocean of improvement.

On top of all these, I credit my community for honing my curiosity for the lives of the saints, all of which left a remarkable impression on me. "These are the people that deserve my admiration," I thought.

The curiosity graduated to attempting to read more and more challenging materials, including encyclicals, which I was surprised to enjoy, and church media output outside the Charismatic circle, which got more and more vast through the years. Because our founder was an intellectual giant who was into apologetics, among other things, I got interested in that as well, plus a bit of catechism.

What I didn't get

Not all of my questions, however, were addressed in Community. Fortunately, my Community came across a Bible scholar, which got me interested in Biblical interpretation and early Church history and allowed me to understand the Word in a more proper context. But this wasn't enough. I wanted, needed, and longed for more. This longing was strong enough for me to venture entirely outside Community life and materials.

I found greater appreciation for the silent or contemplative tradition. I learned to study psychology, which, because it was frowned upon by our founder, I read with caution side by side Christianity. I further got interested in apologetics, though I haven't devoted myself fully into it yet. I also learned to appreciate the Buddhist concepts of emptiness and being in the present, which I thought are very compatible to Christianity. I also read a bit of philosophy, at least superficially. Further, for every Catholic great I had read, I also discovered a non-Catholic one. I discovered not just Chesterton but also C.S. Lewis, not just St. Alphonsus Liguori but also Dietrich Bonhoeffer, not just Peter Kreeft and Scott Hahn but also Philip Yancey, not just Thomas Green but a whole bunch of Protestant and Evangelical writers (some of whom would convert to Catholicism, by the way). I realize I've also been reading titles by names that Traditionalists would probably scorn or routinely condemn as heretical or at least suspect: Merton, Thomas Keating, Joyce Rupp, Carlo Caretto, and Nolan.

I needed my dose of art and literature and the craft of writing, which for me are also spiritual matters, so I had to rely on outsiders as well.

In my search for healing and wholeness, I also sought 'healing priests' and nuns, whose method of 'pray-over' was not exactly strange to me.

The most unexpected thing

The most unexpected thing I got, however, I will reserve for last: I got in friendly terms with Protestants, especially born-again Christians/Evangelicals because of the Pentecostal-charismatic spirituality we shared. I understood and appreciated our separated brethren and personally came to know their genuine love for God. I even communed with them in certain affairs without giving up my Catholic identity and themselves not trying too hard either to proselytize, or even trying at all. This, to be blunt, is totally unthinkable given my closed-off, biased, and proud mind. I was surprised how we were alike for the most part. As I enjoyed their songs, especially the pop ditties of Don Moen, I was surprised as well to see them reading materials by Catholic authors such as Henri Nouwen, Thomas Green, and John of the Cross, and even quoting St. Teresa of Avila, if I got lucky. This was too much, I thought.

Could it be that the Holy Spirit was moving us, touching us all, preparing us for something new and something big? Having zero agenda, I can't answer my own question expect for a maybe. I thought I was just 'lucky' (blessed is the word) to be at the 'right' place at the 'right' time with the 'right' people.

One high point of my wanderings is that I even dared try one Greek Orthodox service out of curiosity and not because I got bored with mine nor because I was resenting my own faith.

Conclusion

You can't blame me if I get quite defensive about being Charismatic. One, especially an uninitiated outsider, can't just sneeze at it just like that, yes?

What if the pope (John Paul II) was right in his recognition of us as being legitimate Catholics too? What if Pope John XXIII's prayer for "a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit," "a new Pentecost" for God's people was actually answered in our lifetime and we happened to be among the millions of beneficiaries of that prayer?

I have since been wary of possible abuses of the faith in Charismatic circles, but to be dismissive and contemptuous of it all is quite misguided, if not a big mistake.

Having said that, though, this won't stop me from trying TLM or Traditional Latin Mass, especially when the priest-presider is an official exorcist.

Life in these times

2012-01-27T08:03:00.003+08:00

We live in interesting evil times. We’ve long known something questionable was brewing when governments around the world started contractualizing labor presumably to allow more people to have jobs and keep existing jobs intact. But that’s not what happened. The result has been lesser jobs, even more poor people, and lesser and lesser pockets that could afford capitalism’s more and more expensive (because more and more costly to produce) products. We never realized it was but a start of a chain of events that was slowly setting the stage to the start, as it were, of the end: an equivalent of the Biblical apocalypse, or a looming world order governed by an entity that will dictate new rules to a new civilization of fear and death.

Contractualized labor, if i recall it right, came in the wake of globalization, or the unhampered movement of work and produce around the world. Contractual labor suddenly made work subhuman-cheap. It resulted in more profit for the capitalist, but also a more profound sense of insecurity among the temps and contractuals, for nonregular work means zero safety nets and the constant threat of hunger, penury, poverty.

We’ve been worried sick about this for a long time, but we also knew communism, or at least more socialism, was not the answer, for it’s long been tried and tested and repeatedly failed. We believed (and continue to believe) upholding human rights, freedom, human ambition in free enterprise, and private property was the way to go.

But we also believed that freedom came with responsibility. Unfortunately, sense of responsibility seemed not inherent in the human heart. Its opposites – irresponsibility, abuse, greed, ruthlessness – were the ones readily available in bucketloads.

Soon we saw governments protecting the status quo more and more, instead of seeking creative, unorthodox solutions. The result was a quick descent into madness, which has culminated so far in a spiral of corporate and personal bankruptcies, massive protests and violent conflagrations in some cities.

Human beings and work, long viewed purely as cold economic figures, suddenly became undesirable factors in the equation instead of the end of the means. The logic behind it was simple math. But the mathematical equation was deceptive. The simplistic economic view was shortsighted even as it was ironic – shortsighted because it failed to see that it’s workers, common human beings, from the top-rank down the smallest fry, that largely fuel the economy. No people meant no economy. Without workers, no products and services could be created, no matter how big the capital investment was. One more worker left jobless meant one more reason for economic uncertainty, one less pocket that could afford purchase, one more instance of death of demand, and by extension, supply, an intimate economic interaction that sustains the give and take nature of the beast. It is ironic because the ones being gotten rid of are the geese laying the golden egg.

Economics-as-if-people-didn’t-matter naturally only resulted in the massive layoffs of today, ensuring global instability that sees no way out of the economic cul de sac, except to get rid of more human beings, economically and literally.

This must be the reason behind the aggressive push worldwide for antihuman legislations and the culture of fear, the civilization of death. There are far too few work, yet too many people? Why, sacrifice people and their families in various creative ways instead of creating more jobs. Contracept. Abort. Create alarming scenarios in which the sky seems to fall, the earth seems to crumble and disintegrate under the hulk of humanity. Reverse gender roles – let the men stay at home to become househusbands and the women work the jungle, so they won’t breed as before. Promote the homosexual lifestyle, sweeten it by calling it happy and gay, to help ensure zero population growth. Promote the early and quick demise of those who could no longer contribute to the economy and are now burdensome monkeys on our backs – no need for nursing homes that drain life savings.

The unforeseen consequence of all these unstated alarmist views, however, is a looming economic death thanks to demographic winter, as we have all witnessed one by one in the countries of Europe. This can only result in cultural and ethnic extinction as well, which they say may be irreversible. And of course, to sustain the lifestyle of those who remain, the more aggressive they will push for and fund the extermination of all other cultures and economies operating under the old blueprint of production. It’s the only logical way indeed, if seen through the philosophical filter of absolute individual freedom and arbitrary morality.

The new, latest realizations coming out from the Vatican via a financial analyst corroborate these observations. The analyst has summarized the major points into these "Five No's". http://www.zenit.org/article-34151?l=english

No Growth of the Economy: "In the last 30 years children were not born, and the number of inhabitants that we had in Italy in 1980 has remained unchanged; hence how can the GDP grow when it grows only when there is more consumption?"

No Saving: "One of the phenomena of our days is that the banks have no liquidity, the reason is that there has been no saving for more than 25 years.

"In 1975-'80 the rate of savings accumulation of Italian families was 27%; today it is 4.5%! Of 100 lire earned, 27 were put in the bank, they entered the cycle of investments and brokerage. Today all that is earned is consumed, there are no resources for financial markets."

No Marriages: "How is it that today there is no possibility of getting married before 32 years of age? Because a young couple cannot afford to purchase a house, due to the fact that, even if they are professionals, they earn half of what was earned 30 years ago, due to an increase in tax rates from 25% to 50%."

No Elderly: "Children are not born and the population ages and is of pensionable age. Economically this means an increase in fixed costs. Society has no more money to look after the elderly and as a result is studying the so-called sudden death."

No Work: "To be able to consume, we have moved the most important work to Asia. Half of what was first produced in the Western world, today is imported because it costs less. By moving production, jobs have also moved. Hence, there is no longer work and 70%-80% are employed in the service sector."

**

Is the situation irreversible? Who knows? In the First World, the answer appears to be a sad and tragic yes. In the rest of the world, there seems to be a great inevitability of following in their footsteps. It’s because the socioeconomic blueprint used remains the same.

The solutions seem simple enough, though hard to implement under the inimical circumstances of the present: Empower the family. Bring the economic control back to the basic unit of society, not in central banks and megacorporations. Let fathers be men and family providers again, and let women be women and take care of the home and the kids and perhaps help manage the family business, even find home-based and child-friendly careers in it.

This Chestertonian-Bellocan solution is thought to be a good place to restart. Robust family livelihoods will spur economic growth as the playing field is levelled across cultures and geographies. It may give new life to the supply and demand chain, encourage savings, and hopefully create more and more diversified jobs.

The culture of fear and death, as we know, which prevents the above from ever happening, appears to be driven by the paranoiac fear of falling down from one’s station and the phobia for that scenario in which no one else will be left to do the dirty work once everyone is well to do. But i think it’s the reverse. With everyone having enough, and with each work remaining the work that needs to be done, each job no matter how menial will be dignified by superior pay, and workers of the world will flock to it to earn their keep.

Spared from the day to day struggle of the common folk, shortsighted governments of the world predictably will have none of these. They will most probably stick to what they know to be ‘right’ and dismiss any objection as blather. They will most likely see the travails of the common folk as natural and necessary, the cosmos’ own ordering of things. They will most probably go cynically Darwinian about it.

In the meantime, as we stop dreaming for now, we’ll need to find ways to survive the mess we found ourselves in. It will be hard. Here’s wishing we all live long enough to witness the day of a great reversal.

The Senate (and the House) as a reflection of Filipino society

2012-01-26T07:16:00.013+08:00

An irreverent post on Facebook caught a lot of people’s attention because it tries to categorize our current crop of senators in a way that’s never been done before: It makes use of a current event material –- a group picture of the 24 scarlet(?)-robed senators posing for the historic impeachment trial of the current Supreme Court Chief Justice –- and uses dots of colors to categorize each solon, the way siopaos are classified, whether asado (red), bola-bola (yellow), or mixed (blue). One is also reminded of bindis, the red dots Indian ladies ‘of note’ daub their foreheads with to indicate their social rank, perhaps partly to warn untouchables to genuflect beforehand or cursty around if not stay in their place. (This reminds me of an Indian friend who's a Sikh who told me matter-of-factly that his orange turban indicated royalty in Punjab, to which I said, "Oh, your highness!") The picture-post is totally disrespectful, even unfair, but it is funny in its candor. (Some say it is too tame.) It is also unintentionally helpful in that it is a quick reflection of Philippine society.

Press (Sub-?)Secretary Manuel Quezon III used to say, in his days as columnist, TV personality, and blogger, “Look for the logic,” referring to the logic, often bizarre and cryptic, behind the choices of the 'electorate' in any given election. Using Quezon’s wisdom in going by the logic of the crowd, we can devise our own similar categorization a la the siopao and bindi method.

What I personally found, though, is quite more bizarre than I assumed: All the Senators are classifiable under one rough category, under the banner of ‘Strong Name Recall.’ The rest of the classifications are merely subcategories of this. Let me explain further using the 1.1.1.1 system of classification, in a bid to acquit myself:

1. Strong name recall - This indicates people will only trust names they already know if faced with a batch of qualified unknowns. So if you aspire to be a politician and are highly qualified but haven't made any name yet in any field, good luck! Familiarity is the name of the game.

1.1 Inheritor of political surname - Indicates people will still vote politicians and their progeny despite themselves (politicians and their broken and often empty bread-and-circus promises) instead of worthy unknowns.

1.1.1. 'Clean' surnames - People will vote you into power because of your father's surname even if you're a total unknown yourself or haven't done a thing on your own steam. This implies a greater belief in "like father like son" than in "the sins of the father are NOT to be vested upon the son." A vote for the son is more like a proxy vote, a registration of confidence in the father. At it worst, this also indicates Filipinos' widespread condonation of nepotism, palakasan, string-pulling, and the use of backers, most likely because they or their respective families have been a beneficiary of such a system of 'honor debts' (utang na loob) and 'koneksiyon.'

1.1.1. 'Dirty' surnames - Some people like to indulge on dirty ice cream apparently because the old flavor tastes so good to them, or maybe they have an axe to grind with newfangled flavors.

1.2. Show biz and media celebrity - This is a reminder that Filipinos will resort to show biz, media, and other unqualified or barely qualified celebrities when faced with veteran politicos (called tradpols or trapos) they distrust. This is more of a statement of protest against the perceived betrayal of the people by the political class than an endorsement of the shallow song-and-dance 'meeting de avance.'

1.3 Age - Age seems to matter to Filipinos, for contrasting reasons

1.3.1. Elderly - Seems a sign of trust and respect for the wisdom and experience of age

1.3.2. Youth - Seems an indicator of loss of faith in the jaded elderly and the concomitant hope in the idealism and innocence of the young with respect to corrupt traditional 'worst practices'

1.4. Intelligence

1.4.1. High educational attainment - Indicates people still believe that high academic achievement should be trusted and rewarded with honor, glory, and power

1.4.2. Verbal/Linguistic skill - Indicates people are mesmerized by multisyllabic words that work (and entertain in TV soundbites) and oratorical eloquence

1.5. Wealth (or lack thereof)

1.5.1. Scion of 'landed gentry' - Indicates Filipinos generally don't frown upon wealth, particularly inherited wealth, even if its means scandalously large tracts of farmlands that produced wealth using slave labor (i.e., the farmers remain poor after sweating it out for generations). Filipinos honor material wealth out of long, hard toil but adore or worship Old Rich wealth, for some reason.

1.5.2. Highly publicized poor background (but now of fabulously rich socioeconomic status) - Filipinos are suckers for rags to riches stories and have nothing but contempt for those who remain in rags, probably even for ascetic purposes.

1.6. Looks - Indicates good looks, invariably perceived as mestizo or fair-skinned features, matter to Filipinos, unless you're exceptionally intelligent, or as the joke goes, exceptionally kind.

1.7. Gender - Indicates Filipinos' preference for males and strong women as leaders

1.8. Religion - A reflection of the Catholic majority religion, although this is deceptive in that a number who profess to be Catholic do not actually 'toe the Catholic line.' What's clearer is that being a non-Catholic is an obstacle, unless you have other aces up your sleeve, as in the cases of earlier senators such as Tamano and Rasul (Muslims but moderate and friendly to Christians), Flavier (Protestant who was fiery in his health advocacy), who else? Maybe Sen. Pangilinan's case, a born-again Christian, indicates an existing Evangelical voting bloc -- on top of the Sharon-Cuneta's-husband bloc, that is.

1.9. Political conviction

1.9.1. Rightist/Militaristic background - Indicates a frighteningly significant portion of the population that believes in strongman rule or a government with a strong arm a la Marcos or at least the more benevolent Lee Kwan Yew.

1.9.1.1. Moderate - Indicates some people who admire the discipline and efficiency of military leadership

1.9.1.2. Extremist - Indicates some people are willing to sacrifice human rights and contradict democracy in the name of 'good' and effective governance. This is scary because they are also the same people who will most likely turn a blind eye on statism, particularly rightist extremism and fascism. In the unique case of Sen. Trillanes, he seems to represent the protest vote of those who may not believe in coup d'etats but who sense genuine love of country when it strikes them in the face.

1.9.2. Centrist - Indicates Filipinos still prefer those who are non-ideological or centrist, even if it means favoring the preservation of the status quo

1.9.3. Leftist - Indicates a sector that is willing to sacrifice human rights and contradict democracy in the name of socialist utopia. This is scary because they are also the same people who will most likely turn a blind eye on statism, particularly leftist extremism and communism, if push comes to shove.

1.9.4. Wishy-washy/Political butterfly - Indicates some people do not care about the political color as much as about the personality

Note that the greater the number of categories that a solon falls under, the greater his 'electability,' meaning the higher the likelihood that a majority number of Filipinos will elect him or her.

Again, is it art, or just angst?

2012-01-23T21:30:00.030+08:00

(Revisiting the Mideo Cruz controversy)

I happen to catch a snippet of a report that quoted Mr. Mideo Cruz attempting to explain the second time around his work using a different language, and I've got to give it to him: he made me rethink. But the trouble is his explanation remained unsatisfying. In that report, he said that his controversial work "Politeismo" in the CCP exhibit “Kulo” is about “Everybody worshipping his dick!” See http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/lifestyle/01/09/12/artist-mideo-cruz-returns-new-group-show

My reflex reaction was the wish that he made that statement at the time he was rained down with criticism and condemnation. But then I was reminded that that is exactly the point of Catholic contemplative and Buddhist spiritual traditions. The knowledge of man’s fallen nature, man’s predilection for dickiness is what exactly prompts the cloistered contemplatives and nirvana-seekers to spend an entire lifetime acquiring the stern discipline to get rid of it or at least tame it, the hungry ego. This means Cruz wasn’t really telling something new, and he was trying to tell something ages-old in such an inaccurate and crude way –- inaccurate because, in Catholic eyes, veneration is not idolatry, and crude because, does he really have to offend Catholics is such a pornographic way? The assemblage of his 'artworks' thus only came off as offensive to both religion and good taste.

I am not prude in that I have witnessed my share of shocking art, in my own limited corner, and in those few times, I am now left wondering why I wasn’t offended one bit as Mideo Cruz's artworks have.

Let me begin with the Greek and Shakespearean tragedies, which are too numerous to name. An immature and closedminded person will easily dismiss such works as negative, nonredemptive, depressing, etc. But a closer look would reveal that the intent of these stories is to essay universal truths about the human condition with a clear condemnation (or at least declaration of undesirability) of man’s fallenness and an accompanying desire to rise above it. Hello? If you read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, you get basically the same vibe.

Randomly and elsewhere in literature, there's J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye for its perfect-pitch portrayal of teenage rebellion, or D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover for its exploration of the reasons why people have affairs in the changing sociopolitical landscape (it is but a modern version of Flaubert's Madame Bovary). Burroughs' Naked Lunch dares go down to the abyss of drug addiction hell to find something thoughtful. Nabokov's Lolita takes us into the repulsive (but repulsively hilarious) mind of a pedophile, though it never explains the whys of perversion. And so on.

I’ve watched the utterly depressing film The Grapes of Wrath, and I don’t remember rising a clenched fist at the director right after. I endured the harrowing scenes up to the end being thankful to him instead, because the black-and-white film has its heart in the right place: a heart for the poor, a compassion for the tremendous suffering they go through in a major economic reversal.

I even confess to having seen such nonredemptive titles as Leaving Las Vegas, Half Nelson, and the ancient M. by Fritz Lang, all of which depict mysterious illnesses of the mind that their directors' warped vision intransigently refuses to diagnose, alleviate or subject to a neat solution. I have my own objections to these films: Leaving Las Vegas makes sex and ‘love’ addiction luscious instead of sick, Half Nelson makes drug addiction seem allowable in its irrationality and its descent to despair and self-destruction, and M. makes the compulsion of aberrant sex look less criminal, and so on. But they got away with it because they endeavored to look at these bizarre mysteries in such a compelling way, clearly with compassion for those who go through psychological hell against their ardent wishes.

Half Nelson, in particular, offers other unexpected insights (apart from the realization that Ryan Gosling is the male Meryl Streep, the best actor Hollywood has ever produced): It's hard and dangerous business to judge people, just because we don’t know their pain. Given the lengths that people would go to just to numb their psychic pain, and everyone has a different threshold of pain, there's no telling how any person would react to a given pain stimulus. We are not in the position to tell them how to feel, how to react, how to withstand or to counteract the pain; we can only invite them to try other options. This is different from condoning people for committing wrongdoing, of course; it's about admitting not understanding other people's journey and leaving that zone of non-understanding blank.

Half Nelson has that quality that makes you want to have more than a voyeuristic glimpse of the suffering of drug addicts, sex maniacs, alcoholics, manic depressives, compulsive gamblers and other cheap thrill-seekers, apostates, rebels, what else -- terrorists, serial killers, rapists, child molesters? I was offended by the absence of desire to change, but what an unusual story yet very believable because very realistic! It is a story that needs to be told for its own sake -- and I personally take it as some kind of a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy.

Furthermore, Borat and Bruno by the over-naughty Brit comic Sasha Baron Cohen got away with crudeness and crude sex, even icky brown humor, because of the way they poked fun at really ridiculous subjects that are otherwise untouchable in the mainstream, because of the new insights they gave us. Besides, the sex in Bruno was intended not to titillate but to offend in its misdirected technicality – which is the point. Trainspotting is an uncompromising look at the lives of the substance-dependent and their gritty and sh*tty world, and shows how different the choices that these people are capable of making. Fight Club is a complex look at man's emasculation and consequent extremist defense reaction, thanks to modern civilization's consumerist economy. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels poke deliciously malicious fun at petty criminals. Saving Private Ryan exposes war refreshingly as it should be: gory, subhuman, ugly, not exciting. I don't know how else the Holocaust, the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnam War should be portrayed if not in the way Schindler's List, The Killing Fields, and Full Metal Jacket do. Falling Down probes the anomie that leads to mass murder and terror, long before the word terrorism was first used. Arraki's Mysterious Skin gives a glimpse of pederasty and makes us think of the cyclical damage it has wrought. An obscure Austrian film on acrophobia uses the fear of heights as a metaphor that works. Agent Clock Orange. Taxi Driver. Summer of Sam. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. These ugly because bleak movies all say something new and important.

In local cinema, artfully 'ugly' movies are too many to mention. Bona explores extreme movie idolatry, Batch '81 the violent side of manhood in the misdirected quest for brotherhood in a campus fraternity, Himala religious-based mass hysteria due to poverty, Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos falling in love with the enemy, and so on.

The worst ugly movie I’ve probably seen is Gaspar Noe’s I Stand Alone. It has all the wrong ingredients, and the worst ones the French cinematic rebel could possibly throw in the mix: anomie, pornography, machismo, hatred for homosexuals, anticapitalism, despair, graphic violence, misandry, incest, suicidal ideation, despair, extreme poverty, racism. Despite this long list of offenses that deserve capital punishment, why do I end up more grateful than aggravated? (I had to cover my eyes from the splattering blood and brains, though.) Because he invited me to travel inside the mind of a murderer and rapist and he succeeded in such a way I never thought possible. Using black-and-white billboard signs, voiceover, unemotionality, stark ugliness, and a tinge of black humor, he manages to convince me he had purer interests. The latter half of the movie is devoted to the protagonist’s descent to vengeance hell, but crafted in such a way that this viewer kept on watching despite the march of unendurable negativities. He even ruined my appetite after offering me a single line of hope, a silver lining (“She’s my daughter... my responsibility”), complete with a misleading accompaniment by Grieg (“Morning”). To be fair, he even gave a warning to stop watching at some point, and I was indeed tempted to tune out. But he got away with everything by giving an ending I never would have predicted but only made perfect sense. The antihero was never upheld.

Maybe I should also mention Pasolini's antifascist Salo or Bunuel's anti-everything Viridiana, among a handful of others, but I haven't thought much of these titles evaluatively.

If I must cite examples from the music genre... Here Lies Love, that pop music album celebrating in disco dance the supposedly wanton life of Imelda Marcos in her salad days? I forgave it too because I realized it sheds a new light on megalomania due to the profound humiliation of, and as an over-the-top compensation for, extreme poverty, the Imelda Marcos story in a capsule.

I also remember I am also fond of John Mayer’s music, which deals with all sorts of neurotic thoughts, but comes up with great art (or so I thought) despite his subject matters. Why? Each song somewhat ends up with redeeming revelations after leisurely plumbing his darkest moments thinking sad thoughts alone.

In theater, I've enjoyed Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle and Threepenny Opera despite Brecht's unapologetic communism. Why? Because Brecht has honest, spot-on observations on society in the grip of class struggle that we could have easily missed if a leftist didn't point it out.

What I'm saying, I guess, is a defensive "We're not as stupid and closed-minded as Cruz and his sympathizers think we are. We roughly know what is art and what is not when we see it."

In contrast, Mideo Cruz’s “Politeismo” is more like the gay-themed movies by the likes of Lino Brocka and his latter-day followers that are, as the columnist Michael Tan correctly pointed out, contradictory, to put it mildly – pontificating about the evils of illicit sex after subjecting the viewer to two hours of gay pornography -- or confused, to be more accurate, all for the simplistic purpose of offending and insulting Catholicism because of its hierarchy's position on the Reproductive Health Bill, a motive that is far from what we can rationalize as artistic or hesitatingly call art.

Cruz should try harder next time. He's young, after all, and he’s got the talent. It could also be that he, being more of an artist than a public debater, can't articulate what he really intended, as he himself publicly admitted. Or that he can't articulate what he really intended because there's none apart from what's apparent.

Homophobia and Filipino terms for "bakla"

2012-01-21T13:40:00.066+08:00

Someone innocently asked in a forum whether the word "faggot" was offensive. Next thing you know, a maelstrom of reactions flew from all directions, giving everyone a migraine, with nosebleed. We all didn't realize calling someone 'faggot' or even 'homosexual' could be so hideously complicated, like walking on eggshells while balancing a house of cards on one's head. Political correctness, we found out, has a lot to do with it, but so does charity. But, oh, other factors are at play.

1. Reception by the target

It depends on whether the person being referred to is having, hating, struggling with, enjoying, or flaunting it (homosexuality) -- how the target receives the word. For example, not all effeminate men are really gay, so it is too risky to assume. If a gay guy wants to be called gay, then I know a lot of people will be more than happy to oblige. This part is a trial and error thing.

2. Direction of communication

Much of it also depends on whether the person is talking about the homosexual person directly or whispering behind his back.

3. Homophobia

It also depends on whether the person doing the act of naming has homophobia and doesn't even know it. This is the test that reveals whether someone is coming from a caring or hate-filled direction, either hate for the 'sin' or hate for the 'sinner,' or both. (One thing the LGBT community easily miss, however, is that the motive or intention of the anti-LGBT camp is merely that they wanted to defend what is right and good for all, whether or not according to their faith.)

First, what is homophobia? As the word implies, it means fear of homosexuals. Everyone who fears, and because of fear, hates homosexuals is called homophobic, but all gender 'categories' may be pronounced guilty.

Homosexuals may secretly hate fellow homosexuals, as they project their self-hatred on the person who exhibits the homosexual signs in more intensified ways. A homophobic homosexual is paranoid to the max -- he would rather die than be associated in the slightest especially with the loud and proud effeminate types. The paranoia comes from the frightening thought that "I might have the same characteristics as he has, and I don't want to face it."

Among 'straight' men, it is basically the same, though in more muted terms. The homophobia is also a matter of projection, out of the fear -- and anger -- at the sheer possibility of having a trace of attraction to the same sex. (Secretly, men's greatest fear, next only to being swallowed up by women, is seeing weakness or effeminacy in fellow men.) Unfortunately, heterosexuals can be attracted to attractive men too, but not in that (gay) way (i.e., not sexually, no sir) which the person can easily mistake as "gayness" or homosexuality.

Another possibility -- and this is where most people are unaware -- is that the homophobia is a form of transference, a case of being reminded in the present by something or someone that shocked them in the past. Homophobic men going through transference (instead of projection) must have a gay guy in their past life that harassed, molested, or traumatized them and they carry over their unexpressed shock and indignation to present persons and/or circumstances.

Once people are aware of these two types of unconscious reaction, they can deal with homosexuals or gays without hate and judgment.

4. View of homosexuality

Notice how I use "gay" and "homosexual" interchangeably. When to use which term? Confusing indeed! How one views homosexuality in the first place is clearly yet another factor. The LGBT community wants, or has been campaigning, to view it as a natural, genetic and thus preferable "sex orientation." The traditional point of view, which is continually being threatened by LGBT professors and priest-advocates in the top Catholic universities, is that it is an "intrinsically disordered condition" that is contradictory to the will of God. These opposing views alone make things even more troublesome than they already are.

5. Delivery

Lastly, the delivery of the word is essential. The person will know whether a word is uttered in hate or not, whether deliberately or unconsciously as in the abovementioned cases (homophobic projection and homophobic transference). Add this on top of the above complexities, and you'll develop an allergy for the word "nuance."

The problem with labeling

The thing about labeling is that it is a sensitive matter in itself. Words are powerful; they have an impact. And labeling is just like baptism, like according an identity to the person. What if the person balks at the identity being imposed on him? That sure spells big trouble.

Professionals in the medical and psychological fields have long realized this to be not a mere matter of being politically correct, i.e., so as not to offend a sector whether or not they deserve it. It has something to do with unwittingly boxing individuals inside their weakness instead of who they fully are. Thus, the term 'person with autism' instead of 'autistic,' 'person with asthma' instead of 'asthmatic,' 'mental illness patients' instead of 'the mentally ill,' and so on. Can you imagine if I called your uncle suffering from tuberculosis Mr. Tuberculous, Tuberculotic, or Tubercle? What if he suddenly got healed? People are not their disease or weakness; people are not a disease.

The thing is, we are not dealing here with criminals, as in "He's a convicted criminal." We are dealing with people with an unfortunately aberrant or atypical condition, which "constitutes a trial" to them, to borrow Catholic catechist parlance, and this alone deserves Christian charity.

Now if the person resorts to crime, that's a different matter altogether, as far as I am concerned. That is just like asking for the offensive term to be used on him. Now, please don't ask me to define crime just yet.

Glossary of terms

Maybe what we can do now is look at each word in current and past usage and learn how these are used whether in a homophobic or non-homophobic context. Note that all terms are not considered offensive when used by homosexuals themselves for their own purposes -- just like the way blacks love to use "nigger" to refer to themselves and their friends but take offense at non-black usage, a form of double-standard that is hard to explain but very much understandable.

Acheng or Ate - sister in English, to refer jokingly to the fellow bakla

Agi - Ilonggo for bakla; pronounced as /a-gi'/; also Paloy

Alanganin - pejorative term for bakla, often used by 'macho' men to refer to a 'weakling' boy or man with derision/contempt

Badaf - 70s or 80s (?) term for bakla; reportedly a portmanteau for 'babae dafat' (should be a girl)

Badash - 70s term for bakla, probably from bading + manash

Bading - synonym for bakla, but used with a 'cutifying' effect, thus of safe usage; not sure where it came from; sometimes Juding

Bakla - generic term for gayness or gay man; originally means duwag or coward in Tagalog, so it should be more offensive if people only knew the etymology; has probably hundreds of colloquial or slang variants, from bakling to baklita, baklush to badash, shokla to jokla; may be considered inoffensive or offensive, depending on the hearer and how it is told to him; most often the most acceptable Tagalog term as a substitute for 'gay' or 'homosexual'; pronounced as /bak-lâ'/ (with a glottal stop)

Bantot - Tausug and Samal for bakla

Bantut - Badjao for bakla

Bayot - Cebuano and Waray and generally Visayan (Davaoeno, Boholano, Surigaonon, etc.) for bakla; often delivered in a shaming way; pronounced as /ba'-yot/; also Shodi in Cebuano gay lingo

Beki - the most recent coinage to describe the bakla, from Bekimon, the recently invented term for Tagalog gay lingo, a play/pun on "bakla" + Jejemon, the invented term for the horrendous cell phone txt lingo that today's kids prefer

Binabae - Tagalog for 'womanoid'; pejorative term for bakla, often used by 'straights' to refer to a 'weakling' boy or man with derision/contempt; also used to describe certain varieties of crabs, roosters, etc.

Binabai or Bai for short - Ilocano for bakla

Binakayli - Kapampangan for bakla; sounds close to binabae

Bisexual or Bi - an entirely different category, as this type is neither homosexual nor heterosexual but both, slightly homosexual and confused heterosexual; also called Silahis

Di Tiyak - "not sure" in English; taken from the basic Tagalog grammar lesson on pronouns with antecedents of uncertain gender

Effem - short for effeminate, to refer to homosexuals with feminine body language; not all effeminate boys/men are homosexual, so some caution is recommended

Ex-Gay - used by those who have been in the homosexual lifestyle but converted to chaste or trying-to-be-chaste and typically renewed Christian lifestyle

Fag - short for faggot

Faggot - the most offensive term one could ever use against homosexuals; came from the word to refer to the kindling material used to burn gays at the stake during the Dark Ages

Gay - the political term invented to replace homosexuality and put a spin on the condition as a normal, natural and therefore perfectly acceptable way of life or being; the word preferred by the LGBT community, freely choosing it as their very identity, which of course encompasses the validation/normalization of gay sex and gay marriage; (I'd advise against its use, as it may mean unknowingly being suckered into the LGBT's gay political agenda.); female counterpart is, of course, Lesbian

Homosexual - both used as noun and/or adjective; also Homo, Homophile; still a label but considered the safest, most neutral (because nonjudgmental) term so far

Jokla - see Bakla; possibly a pun on joke + bakla

Lola - what gays call themselves; a term of endearment that gay girls oftentimes copy, with inferior result

Manash - 70s term for bakla, used to refer to fellow bakla in the 'gay federacion'; probably a play on badash + manay (Bicolano for sister)

Mareng - bakla for Chavacano, probably from the Spanish Maricon

Nena - a new coinage replacing Ate and Lola

Pa-girl - gay men whose attempt to effeminacy reaches ridiculous lengths, outfeminizing the real girls, whether in fashion, talk, or the littlest gestures, as in clipping the hair behind the ear or wailing like a banshee if a hunk of masculinity passes by

Pamin or Paminta (var. Pamintang Buo and Pamintang Durog) - means pepper in English, to refer to homosexuals with a masculine manner; jokingly called Hatsing (hachoo! in English, a play on pepper + acheng) when trying too hard to conceal the obvious

Payuki - Ibanag word for bakla; suspiciously sounds like payote or coward; also Binabay

Person with Same-sex Attraction or SSA - used by "non-gay homosexuals," those who struggle with same-sex attraction but refuse to give in, in the belief that the homosexual condition can be changed or addressed in a therapeutic, nonsexual way; usage is considered the most appropriate, if applicable to the person, even though the term is cumbersome

Queer - a synonym for bakla that has an aura of technicality or respectability of academic jargon, as in 'queer literature'; of fairly safe (because less judgmental) usage

Shokla - see Bakla; most likely a sibilant or susurrating pun on sioke + bakla for added flourish, inviting the fashionable comment, "That's so gay!"

Sirena - Tagalog for mermaid; used jokingly to refer to bakla

Siyoke - pejorative term for bakla, most likely a pun on siyokoy or merman, if not Chinese in origin

Sodomite - a loaded term with Biblical etymology, so potentially very offensive to the target subject

Sward - pejorative synonym for bakla; of unsure etymology

Timawa - Maguindanaoan word for bakla

Transexual or Trans - a gay guy who underwent sex change/surgery; different from Cross-dresser (homosexuals who wear women's clothes and lesbians who wear men's clothes) and Transvestite (heterosexual men who wear women's clothes)

Hey, a nice reference:

http://www.ncca.gov.ph/about-culture-and-arts/articles-on-c-n-a/article.php?i=289&subcat=13

N.B.: The above is a distillation of the many thoughts gathered from the 'faggot' forum thread.

Myanmar reverts to Burma

2012-01-21T10:18:00.002+08:00

Did I get that right? How come we didn't receive the memo? Suddenly, just like that, Myanmar reverts to Burma, and no headlines at all? Is it because there was no bloodshed and Aung San Suu Kyii lives through it all? The more it needs a headline!

Judith Reisman is in town

2012-01-21T07:31:00.012+08:00

Media forensics expert Judith Reisman is in town. She's known in America as some sort of a whistleblower. Here's a description from her website http://drjudithreisman.org/:

"Judith A. Reisman, PhD, is an author, researcher, educator and expert witness, exposing fraud in sex science and education since 1977."

"Dr. Reisman successfully spent much of her career laying the foundations for deconstructing both 'soft pornography' and 'Kinsey myths'. Her work, uncovering and documenting systemic perversion by well-funded efforts in academia, politics, business and media, sheds light on what spawned the 'sexual from birth' dogma and helped to launch the global pollution of classrooms and institutions, our print and broadcast media and, indeed, the internet."

"Dr. Reisman is a [recognized] international expert witness on human sexuality."

A sample feature on Reisman's work: http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/2011/12/study_reveals_p.html Here, the article talks about Reisman's revelation on how America's porn industry had been using and abusing children since the 1950s. (One wishes she had also mentioned that the mere exposure of children to pornographic material already constitutes sex abuse.)

Schedule of talks

Manila

January 28 - open to the public

January 29 - talk for a closed group (seminarians, entrepreneurs, rectors, media, etc)

January 30 - Congress/House of Representatives

Cebu

February 4

Waiting for further information.

Album cover art

2012-01-20T18:32:00.004+08:00

Infographic: Online World Blacked Out

2012-01-19T12:03:00.000+08:00

Created by: Online University

Underestimating Tarlac, a four-culture junction in Luzon

2012-01-19T09:39:00.003+08:00

A recent newspaper PR campaign, and a consequent Google search on my end, made me realize that I have underestimated the province of Tarlac and its people in my recent bus-travel post about the province. In that travelogue, I painted a picture of Tarlac in the form of quick road impressions and connected these images with my thoughts on the ruling president and my own New Year’s wishes as directed to him and to the ether in general. I totally missed noting that Tarlac is really, um, quadricultural, that is why, much like the Philippines as a whole, it doesn’t seem to have evolved a character it can call its own. That’s because it mixes four cultures simultaneously in the cauldron -- Pampango, Pangasinan, Ilocano, and Tagalog – the four distinct influences that surround the largely flat farmland province. I also missed a mention of Carlos P. Romulo of Camiling which should have been de rigeuer. I didn’t know Tarlac also have interesting religious structures and notable museums. Using an official (?) government website, here’s a more inclusive matrix (?) of Tarlac images I should’ve used, from the DTI (trade/industry), DOT (tourism), and OTOP perspectives. The sponsored 'press junket' trips that I sometimes do should cover everything here.

TARLAC:

Anao

Bamban - tour of Our Lady of Lourdes grotto; Japanese-era tunnels and caves

Camiling - tour of Carlos P. Romulo ancestral home and Carlos P. Romulo Memorial Library, tour of Leonor Rivera ancestral home

Capas - tour of Capas National Shrine, Capas Death March Monument at Camp O'Donnell, Azaya Garden Resort dining (pancit buko, bagnet salad, etc.); Mt. Pinatubo at Sta. Juliana

Concepcion - Ninoy Aquino Museum tour, Aquino ancestral house tour; Voice of America radio transmiter facility

Gerona - Isdaan Restaurant

La Paz - tour of Our Lady of Peace church

Mayantoc - kayaking and rafting at Nambalan Rapids

Paniqui - St. Rose de Lima Cathedral

Pura

Ramos

San Clemente - Tumangguyob Falls; Ubod Falls

San Jose - cycling and Olympic-size swimming at Tarlac Recreational Park, tour of Holy Cross Chapel and Monasterio de Tarlac at Mount of Resurrection, Lubigan Eco-Tourism Park; Bulsa River watersports

San Manuel

Santa Ignacia

Tarlac City - Plaza Luisita Center; Museo de Fuerzas Armadas; San Sebastian Cathedral tour, Wood Inspirations bamboo decors/souvenirs/home accents, Guby's chicaron; Lutong Bahay Buffet; Jelexie Bakeshop goodies; Ikabod Pagkaing Pinoy casual-dining restaurant; Kart City kart park; Maria Christina Park; Museo de Tarlac; Diwa ng Tarlak (is this site still in existence?); Coconut Grill?; a lunch of traditional Tarlac cuisine, featuring the signature Pampango dish, fried or grilled catfish/hito with balo-balo/fermented shrimp paste/buro and mustasa;

Victoria

*Belenismo Festival applies to all towns

References:
http://tarlacprovince.com
Inquirer's PR feature on SM City Tarlac

We used to be environmentalists, unknowingly

2012-01-17T09:42:00.000+08:00

We've long been environmentalist, and we didn't even know it. http://gaasedal.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/anyone-over-the-age-of-35-should-read-this-as-i-copied-this-from-a-friends-status/

Copy-pasted text:

Checking out at the supermarket recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring my own bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. I apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days“.

The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations“.

She was right about one thing–our generation didn’t have the green thing in “Our” day. So what did we have back then? After some reflection and soul-searching on “Our” day, here’s what I remembered we did have….

Back then, we returned milk bottles, pop bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 240 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of Wales. In the kitchen, we blended & stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right. We didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a water fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

Please post this on your Facebook profile so another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smarty-pants young person can add to this

Addenda to Religious neurosis

2012-01-16T20:02:00.010+08:00

Projection

Feuerbach's old accusation against Christians comes to mind, which is not invalid in cases of religious neuroses like the ones discussed above. worshipful paroxysms of "power! honor! praise! glory!" may, in fact, signify an un-Christian desire for all these, again, an unconscious gesture revelatory of self-centeredness. The more profane prefer to call this 'dickiness.'

Hyperspirituality

I remember how Filipino theologian Jake Yap reportedly balked at worship songs dominated by "I" and "I want," as in "I want to worship you..." The dominant or domineering "I," he allegedly lectured, was very telling, drawing the focus away from the bigger "I" (God).

I still cringe whenever I recall this woman guest at the local TV talk show Mel & Jay. She stunned me, an unsuspecting audience, with a statement like this: "I told God, 'Take him (her erring husband) away, Lord!'," as though the Deity was her paid maidservant.

Isolationism

Using the priesthood, monastery, convent, etc. as a place to hide or isolate oneself from a 'hurtful' world may be worth probing deeper. The negative family dynamics the person witnessed growing up may have given rise to the need for an imagined sanctuary, an imagined ivory tower. Unfortunately, religious houses are also places where one's character is constantly probed and purified, as though in a crucible.

Perfectionism

The good boy complex result in perfectionism and spiritual haughtiness. (See Good boy complex)

Fanaticism

In its extreme form, religious fanaticism leads to the wanton, if ridiculous, violation of the basic precepts of the faith in the name of the same faith. To the religious fanatic, fighting for his faith to death is a matter of fighting for the missing self, not God.

Messianic Complex and Atlas Complex

Bearing the weight of the sins or burdens of the world on one's shoulders is an unhealthy assumption of one's identity. Presumption of superhuman strength and power is implied in this kind of neurosis. Playing God or Jesus is not among God's commandments. (I personally wonder whether the Lenten flagellants and crucifixion volunteers belong to this category as well.)

Laptops are a scam

2012-01-14T11:14:00.006+08:00

When I bought this laptop I’m using, the guy I hired to help me set it up (OS and all) gave me this first golden piece of advice: “Buy a longer Ethernet cable so you stay connected to the Internet away from the electric socket.” “Ok,” I said, and I bought one. (He didn't even tell me I could connect to the Internet without cables, with my wifi connection.)

Then came another expert advice: “You need a laptop fan so your laptop won’t overheat.” But then, he made a comment about how, though my laptop was a new model, the latest laptops come with air-conditioning – no need for laptop fans and air-conditioned rooms. I was incredulous as I felt I just bought a lemon, stung by the knowledge that computers and laptops already had around three little exhaust fans inside them. But stupidly, I contacted my friend Marie and we went to the Divisoria bargain malls to buy one, only to find out I was scalped. CDR King sold one at half the price! (I wonder if I looked like a dimwit as to be ripped off like that.)

The tech guy next lectured on the dangers of spilling Coke on the keyboard and accumulating dust through time. He said that, right below the keyboard was the hard drive, so I had to be careful. I kept mum about my total lack of drinking habits while working on my laptop, but I ticked off a box in my mind that said “Keyboard Guard.” I didn’t want the laptop to breed mites that could cause allergies. In this case, however, I feel that I deserve a little credit for refusing to buy one up to now.

He next added that, because laptop keyboards and mouses got easily worn out, I should also buy a keyboard extension and a mouse with a cable. I dutifully bought me a new mouse, but the keyboard had to wait for extra budget. Good thing the laptop had a built-in camera, or else he would have recommended buying a PC-ready camera too.

At this point, I asked whether the guy had a computer parts shop as well that I could patronize, to which he flatly said no, he only part-managed an Internet cafe.

This made me think: The laptop has practically shrunk the home into a little rectangle by replacing appliances save for the washing machine and rice cooker -– although at a high price. In buying a laptop, I never realized that, not only did I have to forgo my DVD player and useless TV and CD player, I also had to buy a dozen more accoutrements for it to function best in a remarkable multifunctional, multitasking way. I had to buy a speaker with amplifier, plus a headset, to enjoy MP3 files better. I needed to buy USBs to back up my data. Better yet, a bigger storage device or an external hard drive, which had an estimated cost of the equivalent of my liver, kidney, or two arms.

I haven’t even mentioned the many programs that constantly reminded with annoying pop-ups, announcing the urgency of updating something in the laptop, for a price, or I’d be left behind or the laptop infected with nasty trojans, if not altogether crash. Of course, a laptop presupposes an existing internet and telephone subscription, for work, news, entertainment, etc. purposes.

A laptop, it turns out, is just like a car. There’s a multitude of industries built around it, like a group of conniving automotive spare parts businesses in a country with no antitrust law.

The worst expert opinion yet I’ve heard from Mr. Techie? “Laptops were made to self-destruct soon after you bought them.” That’s not a very comforting news to hear after just shelling out almost Php40,000 from my life savings.

I am reminded of what my computer sales agent-friend told me earlier, through which I’ve gotten a nice paying arrangement for this...this thing. When I told him I would be using the laptop for home-based work, he laughed to my face, “What were you thinking? Laptops are meant to be toys to show off at Starbucks!” he said.

Now here’s the cherry bit on top. Soon after handing him the money as he finished his work on my laptop, Mr. Techie said, “Alright, thanks. Just call me again the next time this thing acts up, like...catch a virus, crash, or something.”

That certainly made me do a double-take to check whether he was joking. He was not. On his face was etched a kind of smug certainty.

I have this feeling I’ve been had.

Infographic: Facebook IPO

2012-01-14T08:12:00.000+08:00

Created by: Accounting Degree Online

Interesting

2012-01-12T17:51:00.001+08:00

Maria Ressa on the "power distance index" http://www.rappler.com/index.php/thought-leaders/797-pnoy-and-the-power-distance-index

Pico Iyer on the point of a long and winding sentence: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/books/la-ca-pico-iyer-20120108,0,2137466.story

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo berates Noynoy Aquino in "It's the economy, student!" http://www.scribd.com/doc/77989441/Its-the-Economy-Student-by-Gloria-Macapagal-Arroyo

Now why am I repeating here my Facebook status updates/posts?

Black Nazarene devotion: Is it a religious neurosis?

2012-01-12T09:19:00.037+08:00

The Filipinos’ devotion to the Black Nazarene in Quiapo Church, Manila, is quite a phenomenon even for a practicing Catholic in the Philippines (which is to say invariably zealous and devout). In fact, not a few Catholic Filipinos view it as extreme, to the point of idolatrous, superstitious, and even scandalous (due to the ensuing violence sometimes). It especially embarrasses those with a charismatic bent, whose newfound spirituality emphasizes the resurrected Christ and has quite absorbed a little of that Protestant (Pentecostal strain) abhorrence for religious iconography, i.e., mistaking veneration (latria, dulia, and hyperdulia) for the devilish worship of Baal. Is the devotion to the Black Nazarene indeed a zealous devotion to Jesus Christ in his hour of passion, or just a religious neurosis in another guise?

Religion, to frame the tired Marxist accusation in more psychological terms, can easily be used by people afflicted with a form of neurosis to prop up a needy ego, one wrongly perceived by the egotistical as damaged or entirely missing or nonexistent. Psychologists call this mild sickness of the mind “religious neurosis.”

It’s quite easy to spot religious neurosis for the trained eye, but not the layman. The secret clues (psychologists would kill me for this) are almost always a degree of irrationality, strange excessiveness, or sometimes an inappropriate lack or deficiency, coupled with angry defensiveness when confronted as well as a noticeable amount of impulsiveness or compulsion. To the observant, these are quite a common combination of traits manifesting in various ways and degrees in people from all walks of life, as neuroses do not discriminate, unlike humans.

Good boy/good girl complex/Spiritual pride

Sometimes, a person may exhibit an attachment to religion as a coping mechanism, as a projection of a false identity of perfection and holiness (the good boy syndrome), which inevitably is accompanied by the reverse (acts of debauchery) outside the rituals of devotion. This results in a deep and disturbing conflict inside the person, who is naturally bothered by shame, guilt and anger at the ensuing 'hypocrisy.' This 'complex' is often accompanied by a facade of perfectionism in adulthood as well as spiritual pride, looking down on the less devout as spiritually inferior.

Self-flagellation and masochism

Another person may abuse the Catholic rituals of penance to atone for one’s horrific sins, as though one were himself the Christ walking with brown feet, as in the case of Holy Week penitents: flagellants and crucifixion volunteers during Lent in Pampanga, Bataan and elsewhere. These people are often suspected (wrongly or rightly) as being murderers or thieves the rest of the year. Self-flagellation, of course, is roundly and routinely condemned by the institutional Church because of bad theology: it reduces Christianity as police bribery, contradicting the unconditionality of divine love. The penitents allegedly misunderstand the purpose of penance: to show one’s resolve to change, one’s readiness for metanoia, not to be the new messiah or the new sacrifice lamb, returning what is owed to God measure for measure. The latter is thought to insult Jesus’ one-time act (and continuing?) of sacrifice to save mankind, an action deemed more than enough for the whole world, the whole point of the popular “3 O’Clock Habit” that originated from the diary of the Polish nun and mystic Sr. Faustina Kowalska. (I personally have a reservation here, however, because true conversion and pure intentions are possible in this case.)

Projection and sublimation

Because anything can be abused to hysterical lengths, someone pointed out how certain ‘cofradias’ of fashion designers can use Catholic icons as dolls as a projection (or sublimation?) of the wish to dress up as such but can't, a possibly unconscious gesture mixed up with the purer intents of the devotion. Imagine the image of the Sto. Niño in peacock feathers and rhinestone tiaras!

Speaking of projection, Feuerbach's old accusation against Christians comes to mind, which is not invalid in cases of religious neuroses like the ones discussed above. worshipful paroxysms of "power! honor! praise! glory!" may, in fact, signify an un-Christian desire for all these, again, an unconscious gesture revelatory of self-centeredness. The more profane prefer to call this 'dickiness.'

Hyperspirituality/Spiritual addiction

Charismatics who pursue spiritual high due to depression, or who get addicted to the spiritual high only to be frustrated or get angry with God when ‘let down’ in prayer or when the going gets tough, are also potential candidates for possible irrational compensatory behavior.

I remember how Filipino theologian Jake Yap, a product of Catholic charismatic spirituality, reportedly balked at worship songs dominated by "I" and "I want," as in "I want to worship you..." The dominant or domineering "I," he allegedly lectured, was very telling, drawing the focus away from the bigger "I" (God). The zeal is enviable, but misplaced.

I still cringe whenever I recall this woman guest (incidentally a born-again Christian) at the local TV talk show Mel & Jay who stunned me, an unsuspecting audience, with a statement like this: "I told God, 'Take him (her erring husband) away, Lord!'," as though the Deity was her paid maidservant.

Religious fanaticism

Marian devotions that result in deifing Mary, for example, by devotees religiously attending Baclaran Church Wednesday masses but neglecting Sunday obligations, are a similarly questionable matter and require some psychological probing.

Excessive zeal or devotion to repair a past hurt, as in the case of having a rebellious, atheist, or apostate father figure and resolving to being his total opposite, is also worth examining in this sense.

In its extreme form, religious fanaticism leads to the wanton, if ridiculous, violation of the basic precepts of the faith in the name of the same faith. To the religious fanatic, fighting for his faith to death is a matter of fighting for the missing self, not God.

Hypertraditionalism/Spiritual rigidity/Overscrupulousness/Pharisaicism

Other people inhabit the other extreme, characterized by a wall of non-spontaneity or adamantine reservation and extreme rigidity, as though to say, “Stay where you are, as I stay inside the dividing line I have drawn between us on the ground – not just because I am holier than thou but because I don’t want to get hurt again.” Excessive attachment to tradition, for example, one that says "The slightest deviation from the norms and rubrics is from Belzeebul," may be a candidate for religious neurotic behavior. This complex also results in spiritual haughtiness.

Isolationism

Using the priesthood, monastery, convent, etc. as a place to hide or isolate oneself from a 'hurtful' world may be worth probing deeper. The negative family dynamics the person witnessed growing up may have given rise to the need for an imagined sanctuary, an imagined ivory tower. Unfortunately, religious houses are also places where one's character is constantly probed and purified, as though in crucible.

Messianic Complex and Atlas Complex

Bearing the weight of the sins or burdens of the world on one's shoulders is an unhealthy assumption of one's identity. Presumption of superhuman strength and power is implied in this kind of neurosis. Playing God or Jesus is not among God's commandments. (I personally wonder whether the Lenten flagellants and crucifixion volunteers belong to this category as well.)

***

The variety of religious neuroses is endless, as various as man is capable of the most bizarre coping behavior or defense mechanism. Learning their lesson, seminaries and other religious houses have become stricter nowadays, so as to screen out potential neuroticism among candidates, and this inevitably has hurt those who perceive themselves to have been rejected, people who are ironically most prone to such a predisposition. Instead of seeing the good motive behind (protection of an institution and the faithful), a focus is made on the bad (the mistaken belief of rejection of one’s person). (I have a little bit of objection here, however, knowing how certain saints struggled with their various neuroses while wearing the cassock or the habit; I believe God's call, not man’s (sometimes faulty) psychological assessment, is paramount in this case. God oftentimes call those who are unqualified in the eyes of the world; and people who appear perfect can sometimes be the ones in greater trouble.)

Folk historian's take

Going back: Is the devotion to Señor Nazareno a religious neurosis? Off the batt, I’d say it depends on the devotee. Jose Alain Austria, a La Salle Filipino folk history professor and artist (a trained iconographer), says the devotion evolved from a woman's undertaking to a mainly male devotion down to being a male initiation rite, much like the reverse of the Legionnaires of Mary, which devolved into purely a manangs' (old wives') club from its militaristic background (care of Ignatius and Xavier, if I'm not mistaken). The devotion to the mysterious ebony-black Señor, it turns out, is not just a spiritual one but also a matter of gender affirmation, the affirmation of the warrior side of men or the need for male aggression, an apparent requirement in this frightful barefooted, maroon-clad procession snaking down the streets of Manila. See this account, for example: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/black-nazarene-procession by Austria.

If the devotion is a panata or vow, it is a good sign -- it means a promise of life-long devotion out of gratitude to God for an answered prayer or a miracle; and how can anyone argue with gratitude and miracle? The devotion could also mean a preventative, to avert future disasters. I won't find a cause for quarrel there, as I won't object to a devotion that requests for divine favor, even if it is seen by some religious as childish (I believe in God as a Father who loves to bestow unmerited favors to His children).

I’d wager that the devotee knows the answer (to the question) in his heart, even if he might not be aware of the complexity of the mechanics of neurosis, particularly the need to compensate for something (rightly or wrongly interpreted as) missing in one’s ego or something traumatically hurtful in the past, resulting in the seemingly mysterious and pressing ‘need’ to make up for the lack.

Since only God has an X-ray or 20/20 vision when it comes to reading the hearts of men, it is best to withhold judgment when confronted with gray areas. In the case of this devotion, it is not appropriate for me to judge when I’ve never been in the devotee’s shoes. Regrettably, I’ve twice rebuffed invites to write on this subject by joining it, for cowardly fear of fainting in the heat and the possibility of being squished in a stampede. Surely, I’ve visited the Quiapo Church to have a glimpse of the Mexico-sourced statuary and its devotees a dozen of times, but only in the safety and normalcy of the day-to-day, never in the heat of the moment: the frightful Fridays of devotion which I studiously avoid due to the ensuing human-vehicular traffic.

It is much easier to view the devotion as a function of poverty, for poor people need God more, obviously. But the most integrated view, in my opinion, is the perspective from a much broader form of poverty, spiritual poverty and human suffering in general, in union with Christ's own passion or paschal mystery, as reflected upon in Austria's article. From this perspective, the devotion takes on a more mystical turn, as the devotee sees his earthly suffering as being one with the suffering divinity, an aspect of the Christian belief that is very difficult to explain to the nonbeliever.

Tell-tale signs

But one can have a clue to the answer to the title question because one can, with effort, distinguish between the autosuggestive and the Spirit-led. The first is selfish, egotistical; the second is other-directed. The other dichotomous clues are:

- rash, rushed, compulsive, impulsive vs patient, high-EQ (emotional quotient)
- excessive, irrational, emotional vs calm and collected
- driven from within vs driven by outside forces
- manipulative, controlling, guarded vs non-manipulative, free, transparent
- defensive, angry, hypersensitive to criticism/onion-skinned vs laughingly dismissive of (often insufferably stupid) criticism
- abrasive in character, if not overly nice vs balanced

The first set of attributes, needless to say, is a vice, a folly; the second, a virtue, a calling. In the first, the religious high may be manufactured; in the second, the religious high is spontaneous, sudden/unplanned, as though conferred from on high.

Furthermore, there’s this other thing to consider: Sometimes, there’s a thin line between zealotry and zeal, between fanaticism and Christian fervor/passion, as in the case of the recovering/struggling/reforming neurotic, who understandably needs to fortify the 'broken self' in his quest for wholeness. This is a long-winding process that is replete with confusion and incompletion in terms of self-awareness.

Ascertaining whether a Nazareno devotee is a fanatic or not is, therefore, not an easy task, if the observer is not equipped with the right knowledge of human behavior. Making fun of what one does not understand is a lot easier.

Try Chesterton's distributism as the third way

2012-01-06T18:27:00.001+08:00

http://distributistreview.com/mag/2011/08/g-k-chestertons-distributism/

As I am given to understand, distributism is not an automatic redistribution of wealth. It's far more complicated, requiring systemic change. And unlike socialism and communism, it is totally voluntary, respectful of rights and private property.

The root word distribute, I think, merely refers to the more equitable distribution of the number of wealthy people per capita. The aim is to make every family wealthy -- but without the usual government impositions/onerousness.

An equally provocative read, to which I am vehemently in agreement. In fact, I wish I wrote it:

http://distributistreview.com/mag/2011/04/the-trouble-with-catholic-social-teaching/

Quote:

"There are people who think Catholic Social Teaching has something to do with homosexual rights or abortion rights or contraception rights. It doesn’t. Those things are not rights. They are wrongs. And the Church holds the line against them without compromise." ... "Other people avoid Catholic Social Teaching because of what it really does mean. It means justice for the poor."

"Discoveries and Inventions of Man vs Woman"

2012-01-06T12:23:00.004+08:00

Discoveries and Inventions of Man and Woman

The man discovered COLORS and invented PAINT;
The woman discovered PAINT and invented MAKEUP.

The man discovered the WORD and invented CONVERSATION;
The woman discovered CONVERSATION and invented GOSSIP.

The man discovered AGRICULTURE and invented FOOD;
The woman discovered FOOD and invented DIET.

The man discovered FRIENDSHIP and invented LOVE;
The woman discovered LOVE and invented LOVE TRIANGLES.

The man discovered TRADING and invented MONEY;
The woman discovered MONEY and invented SHOPPING.

Thereafter man has discovered and invented a lot of things...
But the woman is still BUSY shopping.

Protestants switching back to Mary

2012-01-06T08:14:00.001+08:00

Protestants are reportedly switching back to belief in Mary as Mother of God. Who knew this would happen in our lifetime? Oh, but I didn't even know they used to believe in Mary in the first place.

http://bromarwilnllasos.blogspot.com/2011/12/theotokos-in-protestant-theology.html

Is global warming/climate change a scam?

2012-01-06T08:11:00.000+08:00

So says this guy in "I’m bored proving global warming’s a scam":
http://www.theclimategatebook.com/im-bored-proving-global-warmings-a-scam/

Note: My title is in the interrogative, not declarative. In other words, I am just asking.

Connecting the dots: Abusive capitalism --> Contraceptive mindset/'RH' --> Normalization of gay sex

2012-01-06T07:54:00.001+08:00

http://distributistreview.com/mag/2012/01/christmas-and-contraception/

The great G.K. Chesterton had it all figured out way back in 1926. If you still can't, you are way, way behind the times.

Quote:

"We have ignored the fact that an immoral economic system paved the way to the widespread of acceptance of contraception. We have tolerated the acceptance of contraception and now it has led to the normalization of abnormal sex."

An insular recap of 2011

2012-01-05T19:31:00.036+08:00

It's hard to imagine that Ghadafi/Khadaffy/Qaddafi, Bin Laden, and Kim Jong Il (throw in Christopher Hitchens in the Star Wars Cafe scene mix) would pass on or pass away within months of each other, all after the downfall of Egyptian strongman Mubarak as well as a slew of other Mideast despots, resulting in the socalled Arab Spring and the creeping downfall of capitalism or its evil abuse, resulting in contractual labor and culminating in the Occupy Movement. But they did! They all did, save for the Czechs' dear Vaclav Havel's demise and perhaps Steve Jobs'. The (much-awaited?) deaths marked the death of an era of untold oppression all over the globe.

But that's not the reason I'm recounting what happened. This yearend review is far more humble (humbler?). In my hicky, bigoted, medieval, closed-minded, uncosmopolitan, non-well-travelled outpost, a lot of small things went big. Not earth-shattering big, but boot-shaking, wallet-shaking.

Household brands

The brands that hit it big in this insignificant corner of the world (my household) are: Magic Sarap instant seasoning/spice granules to add taste to our otherwise tasteless viands because we forsook meat most of the time for health reasons. Speed Babad powdered soap/laundry detergent because we were too pressed for time to wait. Downy too, to make our clothes smell better. Joy liquid detergent became indispensable and no longer just another option in the kitchen. CDR King was the brand of choice for our computer paraphernalia needs; was there any other? We continued to use various bathsoaps with kojic acid or gluta something. Biofresh antibacterial socks were a hit.

I tried playing Angry Birds and watched a sibling enjoy playing Plants and Zombies. Other people bought Phillips flatscreen TV, iPad and other tablet computers, SLR cameras, notebook computers, iPhone, and Kindle/KindleFire/Nook.

Food

We also made several trips to Mang Inasal, as in 2010, because we thought grilled = healthier and tastier at the low, low price of Php99. We had lots of fruits and vegetables as dominant items in our diet, for the antioxidants to counteract oxidative stress and shortened telomeres. The cheap drink formerly known as buko suddenly suddenly became fashionable and high-end, renamed in America as 'coco water.'

Fashion

Punk-inspired tight fitting shirts and pants, square-toed pointy black shoes, and 'floded' (new way of folding) long-sleeves were everywhere, so we felt so hip-hop with our size L body. Apparently, I had been long passe, but never mind. I gave it to the kids; after all, I was like them before. Fashion is fascistic anyway. I will create my own this year.

Jolog Entertainment and Media Diet

Lots of young people introduced new terms to our lexicon. For example, they countered you with a blithe "Weeeh" to dismiss something awful or boastful you've said.

Chinoys dominated the scene. The clean-and-cool-voiced Richard Poon and the reality winner-turned actress Kim Chiu and other one-syllable surnames made it big and thus were ubiquitous, despite native Pinoys' bias against (unassimilated, un-acculturated) migrant Chinese. The tisoy never retreated, however, in Gerald Anderson, Kim Chiu's botched romantic pair. The tisay reigned in Anne Curtis. More so the loud and proud gay guy and sometimes crossdresser in the wildly popular and unbelievably hilarious Vice Ganda of Showtime. On a minor note, a previously unknown moreno turned up in JM de Guzman, thanks to evening telenovelas.

Noontime variety show host Willie Revillame still was king, even as his rivals in Eat Bulaga and that other noontime show in ABC5 refused to surrender to the widely hated (because boastful?) celebrity.

ABC5 and Interaksyon.com sprouted like mushrooms, but carrying old media names. The more, the merrier.

Private videos going viral, which we thought only happened in Hollywood, scandalized our world, with Mo Twister's teary-eyed confessions, for example.

I read a number of books and watched a number movies, but I can't decide which titles made the most impact.
http://restyo.blogspot.com/search/label/Movie%20reviews http://restyo.blogspot.com/search/label/Book%20reviews

I am choosing There Be Dragons, with Ang Babae sa Septik Tank as a runner up, because these two tackled delicate topics very close to my heart. These two titles were both attuned, though unknowingly and incompletely, to the huge change sweeping through the world.

I read the news online because TV's AM radio-style delivery was killing me with so much stress. I listened to no new music, except the inescapable Canadian, Justin Bieber, the lovable and charming Taylor Swift of American folk, and the talented Brit Adele.

Online, it's Facebooking all throughout the year, with "major, major" (Miss Universe-Philippines contestant Venus Raj, 2011) failed attempts at fighting off my addiction. Everyone else was on Twitter, but I didn't bite. I knew I'd get easily addicted as well. But because of this, I was unable to participate in the memes of hilarity, of which there were several.

Almost all the bloggers I've known since 2000 were 'gone,' but that's okay. I met a whole bunch of other wonderful people online.

Lastly, the tsunami in Sendai, Japan, and the tsunami-like destruction by Typhoon Sendong of parts of Cagayan de Oro, Iligan and elsewhere in Mindanao and Visayas made me further look away from the news. The marathon of witnessing traumas, deaths, and massive destruction was just too much.

Business

The merger of Smart and Sun was worrisome. Manny Pangilinan was buying out almost everything until he'd own all of us! Whatever happened to competition inherent to free enterprise?

Culture

Planking became a hit, for reasons I couldn't divine.

My own dwelling place needed to be fixed, but I was puzzled by the Pinoys' big shift to Japanese-style house design, i.e., minimalistic and blindingly white.

Advocacy/Activism

It's No to RH Bill all the way. It was stressful and tiring, but it's worth the sacrifice. We may take the hit when slighted, but won't take lies and deception sitting down.

Politics

I was disappointed with PNoy's support for the RH Bill, despite the many valid arguments against it, and his focus on getting the Arroyos and alleged conspirators jailed over taking concrete actions in improving the people's quality of life through social equity. Then again, the predecessor was arrested after an airport drama and a publicity photo of her being taken ill which I found emotionally manipulative even if the appeal might have had some validity.

Workplace

My home-based BPO job went 100% paperless with teleconferencing and cloud computing. Who knew this would ever happen? The trees would be happy, I'm sure.

Health/Wellness/Sport

I wished to get hold of stevia to replace sugar, but failed. I discovered king of bitters leaves (Andrographis paniculata, as tea) as an antihypertensive (relaxes vein/capillary wall), among other things, thanks to mother and father, from whom I inherited the disease.

I also chucked extra work (and extra pay), so I could rest more and improve my health.

Football was big, thanks to the Azkals and the Fil-Brit Younghusband brothers. i still hated doing exercise; I'd rather do the laundry.

Religion/Personal Growth

Silence as prayer was big deal to me. I discovered that's how God speaks to His people. I refused to give up exuberance in spirituality, though. I found the writing of Saint Therese of Liseaux (Story of a Soul) most disturbing. Also the "preacher to the papal household" Raneiro Cantalamessa's wonderfully erudite explanation of the Letter to the Romans. Give me saints, monks, nuns, and mystics anytime.

Landmark Forum changed the way I thought and wrote, in case you noticed. As in tectonic shift. Thanks to the anti-RH bill efforts, I had grown even more skeptical and resentful of everything, including the government, mainstream media, the academe, the scientific community, the helping professions (including psychologists), and even the religious because I discovered they were all capable of willful lying through/by/and/or withholding vital truths and facts. But I also learned to be more forgiving and understanding, choosing to believe that people were basically good and did what they did because they really thought it was the right thing to do (and therefore good, albeit mistakenly).