Chances are the last song you would have heard as you read this and which is still going around in your head is “Thriller”. There’s no escaping Michael Jackson’s music everywhere you went this past week, even in elevators and Starbucks.

Tuesday , July 7, will be Michael Jackson’s memorial service at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and more than 1.6 million fans worldwide registered for tickets to the event over the two-day registration period that ended yesterday, not a few from the country. Random names from the registrants will be drawn electronically and the lucky few will know by Sunday evening (Monday morning in Manila). Only 11,000 tickets will be given out for the Tuesday service while another 6,500 tickets will be given away for the Nokia Theater overflow section next door. Anyone from the Philippines lucky enough to be picked will have to fly off to L.A. within a few hours of being informed to make it to Tuesday’s affair. One will have to head for the venue immediately after landing at LAX. My bags are packed and ready.

This is possibly the biggest memorial service for a non-political or religious personage in history. It will be the first truly global event in this age of online streaming and social networking. Every fan who has access to the internet will be a participant.

Nothing is too big or flamboyant for the King of Pop, even in death. And it looks like it’s going to be a long goodbye, as he or at least his image and music, won’t being going away anytime soon. In fact, he’s proving to be a bigger draw in death than during the past decade or so of his life. Swept under the rug for the time being are the charges of pedophilia and other excesses which led to his downward slide. He was a phenomenal talent, and this is what people chose to remember now that he’s gone.

Of course, he can’t escape the lurid and just plain weird as his post-mortem drama unfolds . From Olivia Munn’s blog:

They say the memorial is more of a concert with guest speakers, music, video screens inside and out and Michael Jackson’s body hanging from the rafters like a pinata!…. okay, that last part isn’t happening. But, they never said it wouldn’t happen…. so technically, they could be hanging MJ’s body from the ceiling with an awesome light show. Yeah- that sounds like an awesome rumor- let’s go with that.

Of course it won’t happen. Will it ?

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People are saying about the sad and sudden passing of Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, the same thing they said about Elvis: good career move. It’s a bit uncharitable but not entirely inaccurate. He was (and is, in death) a global star but his career had been on a downward spiral for years. Now he’s back on top of the charts.

And given the cult-like veneration given him by some, expect “Michael sightings” to happen a lot in the coming years. He didn’t really die, he was abducted by aliens.

In any case, he has joined the pantheon of stars who tragically bid adieu before their time, a line which stretches back to Marilyn Monroe to Rudolph Valentino and beyond.

Some clear lessons we can pick up from his eventful but unhappy life:

1. Pay attention to your finances – You can be the biggest draw in the world, and earn hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars, but if your expenses outstrip your earnings, you’re in trouble. I was again reminded of this universally-known but much ignored truism in a talk by personal financial adviser Randell Tiongson yesterday. Mr. Jackson’s financial woes certainly contributed to his burdens in later years.

2. Confront Your Demons – or they might just kill you. You don’t have to wrestle with them on a daily basis but should honestly acknowledge them at some point. They have a nasty way of biting you in the butt when you’re not looking, like a pack of rabid dogs. Michael Jackson had big issues. About childhood abuse at the hands of his father, his obvious ambivalence about his race and sexuality and God knows what else. But he didn’t seem to want to undertake the hard legwork of bringing them to light and possibly forging an uneasy truce. Instead he went on Oprah. Which is not the same thing. If necessary, seek professional help.

3. Lighten Up – and I don’t mean dermatologically. Despite his much ballyhooed child-like character, I think he took himself and his public persona much too seriously. Which may have led to the cosmetic surgery. And the drugs. A little humor at the expense of his so-called showbiz image would have lifted the fog somewhat and given him a wider view of his horizons. As economist John Maynard Keynes famously said, in the long run we are all dead. No need to rush the process.

Of course, I can easily spew out such advice, not having known the pain of being Michael Jackson. But I sincerely pray that he finds in death the peace that eluded him in life.

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Inevitably billed as a “David vs. Goliath” fight by the media, the announcement of sociology professor Randy David that he would run against Gloria Arroyo should she decide to grab the congressional seat for the 2nd district of Pampanga did not come as a complete surprise to those who know him. This David is no pushover. Soft-spoken, intellectual and unassuming, but definitely not low profile, Prof. David had been a television personality for seventeen years, as a host of a number of well-received public affairs talk shows. He is also a long-time columnist of the Inquirer. Thus, he is comfortable being in the public eye. Neither is he a stranger to controversy, having been active in progressive political circles for decades. He was arrested in 2006 during the series of demonstrations against President Arroyo at the time of the 20th anniversary of the people power revolt when GMA declared a state of national emergency in the face of rising protests against her corrupt government.

I have known him for more than three decades, since my freshman year in college when we were fortunate enough to have him as our Sociology 11 prof. He has a knack for bringing home lessons about Philippine society using methods beyond the classroom. I remember his taking us to the National Mental Hospital, as a way of exposing his young and mostly sheltered wards to another aspect of Philippine reality which we could confront and change in a positive way, if we chose to. He was an intense teacher, but he never forced his views on us. It was the height of martial law, but his passion for ideas and political exchange was palpable and contagious. We’ve had a few opportunities to interact since then. And while I am not one of his many intimates, we are close enough to be on a first-name basis when we occasionally bump into each other. I was therefore elated when I heard on the radio that he would enter the realm of traditional politics for the first , and possibly last, time if GMA runs for Congress as a way of holding on to power. By a twist of fate, both she and Randy come from the same congressional district.

Randy David will have more than an even chance of trumping Arroyo on what she believes is her home turf. Consider the following:

1. Randy David is the Anti-Arroyo- Randy David is the perfect foil for the discredited GMA. An academic all his life, even while he had a busy second career as a talk-show host, he is perceived, rightfully, as an honest and right-minded man who only wants to do his duty as a citizen, which is to do everything he can to arrest the destruction of our democratic institutions. He has none of the political baggage of the traditional politician, although ironically Randy’s late father was a close friend and political party-mate of GMA’s father. Should he run, David will personify the principled new politics which has found fertile ground in Pampanga. He is everything Arroyo is not: moral, upright and untainted by the brand of patronage politics practiced by Arroyo.

2. Randy David has (or will soon have) the network and resources to win – The David clan is widely respected and known throughout Pampanga. Family counts for a lot in local politics. More importantly, should GMA adopt the tactic of being the congressional candidate prior to the predicted shift to a parliamentary system (and from there to the prime ministership) the focus of next year’s national election would be the 2nd district of Pampanga. Civil society and all other forces opposed to Arroyo’s politics as usual would find it easier to pool their resources and bring them to bear on a much smaller political arena. Already, the Liberal Party of presidential candidate Mar Roxas has offered to make Randy their official candidate in the district. The LP was the party of the fathers of both GMA and David. The United Opposition (UNO) has also expressed support for him. The David campaign will be flooded with funds and volunteers while the congressional tussle itself be closely monitored by local and international election watchdogs. This will make it all the harder, although not impossible, for GMA to cheat.

3. The voters of Pampanga are unpredictable – as shown by their election of cleric-on-leave Gov. Ed Panlilio, who defied the money and muscle of the Arroyo-anointed candidate to sweep the 2007 Pampanga gubernatorial polls.

David is a reluctant candidate and is the first to admit that this undertaking is quixotic. But he has all the qualities of a man who, in the words of sociologist Max Weber, can “put his hand on the wheel of history”. As enumerated by Weber, Randy David reveals the three pre-eminent qualities that are decisive for the politician: passion, responsibility and sense of proportion. The ideal politician approaches politics not as a playground for his ego, but as a field in which he seeks to achieve a cause much larger than himself. He takes responsibility for actions. And he always maintains a objective perspective, of his ultimately minor role in the larger scheme of things.

Prof. David wrote about this many years ago and said:

This notion of the political vocation restores to politics the dignity it has lost in many societies. At the same time, it is a reminder of the arduous tasks that await those who are “called” to it. Because of my exposure in media, people often ask me if I have any plans of entering (traditional) politics. My answer has always been, following Weber’s criteria, that I feel I do not have the passion for it.

But times have changed, and Randy apparently now realizes that passion, that overwrought and overrated word, is not absolutely necessary for the effective exercise of leadership. And for heroism. One merely needs to have a clear sense of duty and honor.

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Cartoon from The New Yorker.
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Two sides of the same coin. There are some people who can grieve calmly and with equanimity. Unfortunately, I am not such a person. I lash out. I turn my rage inward. I isolate.

I look for answers when I know there are none. It’s like banging one’s head against a concrete wall. Again and again and again.

I know it sounds melodramatic but there it is.

It’s somewhat comforting to know that I’m not alone and that this is a fairly common experience. Anger is one of the stages of grieving, per Kubler-Ross. But sometimes I can’t get beyond it. Like today. And the past few days.

Megan O’Rourke’s series of articles on the grieving process in Slate has been a great help. Like her, I sometimes feel like biting people’s heads off.

I came across an unusual and really wonderful short story in the New Yorker, “A Tiny Feast” by Chris Adrian which made me cry.

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Senators Enrile and Pimentel threw vicious personal barbs at each other yesterday at the Senate floor, getting one another’s goat by unseemly name-calling. I think Pimentel got the better of the mud-slinging as he touched a raw nerve by calling Enrile the principal administrator of Marcos’ martial law. Enrile admitted to faking his own ambush in order to provide an additional excuse for the imposition of dictatorial rule. He also had Pimentel arrested four times during his incumbency as Marcos’ right-hand man. Mere statements of fact, to be sure, but which cut deep as Mr. Enrile has tried hard to live down his past as a Marcos’ main enforcer.

Enrile could not respond in kind, and resorted to lame personal insults, calling Pimentel a “hypocrite” and a “spoiled brat” and said that he “will not waste a bullet on him”, thus reinforcing Enrile’s deserved reputation as a trigger-happy hothead. Na-pikon si JPE. In response to Enrile’s calling him a coward, Pimentel replied:

As Mr. Enrile knows –he ordered my arrest four times — did I run away?

The fracas stemmed from Pimentel’s having filed a petition before the Supreme Court last week to stop the investigation of the ethics complaint against Senator Manny Villar.

Enrile resigned the chairmanship of the Senate Committee of the Whole in a snit but his resignation was refused by his colleagues.

Why are parliamentary insults more challenging and intense than mere accusations and criticism ? Because they allow for the emotional force of the message to exceed its rational force and seriously undermine the addressee’s image, position and authority, according to the book Language and Ideology.

And distasteful as it may seem to observers, such conduct among parliamentarians has a long and revered history. Winston Churchill was a master of the genre. He once said of three-time British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin: “I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would have been much better if he had never lived”. Again of Baldwin: “He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.”

Enrile and Pimentel are in good company, even if they are light years away from matching Churchill’s wit.

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To extricate oneself from a sticky situation, suicide is literally the last resort. A person in full possession of all his faculties would naturally hesitate to resort to what has been called a permanent solution to a temporary problem. But there are people and cultures who look upon self-annihilation as a viable option in order to save some vestige of one’s honor. The Japanese are of course well-known for this. Seppuku or ritual suicide is a means not only of recovering some terminal self-respect and atoning for one’s misdeeds. It can also be aimed at shaming a morally bankrupt system to change. This is what spurred Buddhist monks to immolate themselves publicly and dramatically during the Vietnam war. Japanese novelist and ultra-nationalist Yukio Mishima thought he could do this too but only succeeded in killing himself.

Not that the Japanese are exceptional in this. The custom of falling on one’s sword dates back to ancient times. Plutarch records such a death in The Life of Brutus:

Then giving each of them his right hand, with a countenance full of pleasure, he said, that he found an infinite satisfaction in this, that none of his friends had been false to him; that as for fortune, he was angry with that only for his country’s sake; xxx and, taking hold of the hilt of his sword and directing it with both his hands, he fell upon it, and killed himself.

Thus, the suicide of former South Korean President and blogger Roh Moo Hyun, who leapt to his death from a hill behind his house was, although shocking, not totally unexpected. And perfectly understandable. He was a man of principle and was shamed that he should be under investigation for a bribery allegation involving U.S.$ 6 million. Roh’s suicide note said his health was poor and that “nothing is left in my life but to be a burden to others.” He faced death with equanimity and class, writing:

Don’t be too sad. Aren’t life and death both a piece of nature? Don’t be sorry. Don’t blame anyone. It is fate.

Nothing had yet been proven and it was likely he could have cleared himself, the money having been received by relatives and subalterns. Yet the fact that he was under suspicion caused him intolerable humiliation.

And he killed himself for a sum which is paltry by the standards of the Arroyo administration. In one deal alone for example, like the fertilizer fund scam, the Arroyo government squandered three times that amount. Yet no one shows any mortification within the Philippine government, least of all President Arroyo. It’s simply business as usual at the Palace. It’s a shame we don’t have a tradition of honorable self-destruction, one more remnant of the religious beliefs foisted on us by our colonial past . By a simple act like that of Roh, our country could be saved from further suffering and grief.

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Although it won’t be coming from me.

It’s hard to generate any sympathy for a jerk who has been gifted with so much, in the looks (obviously, as those he bedded are as comely as they come) and brains (he’s an M.D. after all) department, yet has thrown it all away for a few destructive and less-than-cheap thrills. Dr. Kho is proof that moral depravity and plain dumb-ass (those who have seen the videos know that I mean this literally) imbecility cuts across professional boundaries. Somehow this makes us lawyers feel better.

Depraved. Criminal. Swinish (“sobrang binaboy” or “excessive piggery”, as Ms. Katrina Halili so aptly puts it). There won’t be any shortage of adjectives to describe Kho’s actions. Yet it’s undeniable that Kho is sick and needs professional help from his peers. He has displayed the classic symptoms of sex addiction, and his life has become unmanageable. This shouldn’t keep him from answering for his misdeeds in the courts, before those who regulate his profession and a rightfully irate public. But before he’s strung up high on the nearest tree, he should at least be made well enough to understand the gravity of his acts. For that, there ought to be some form of intervention from those who may still care for him.

Furthermore, those leading the mob may not themselves have clean hands, as Senator Bong Revilla would be the first to admit. I suspect that the outrage exhibited by most of the men who have so righteously condemned Kho stems from the shock of self-recognition. There, but for the grace of God go (or more accurately, come) I.

And if we were to take Secretary Eduardo Ermita up on his statement that “anything that is offensive to public morals must be sanctioned” , then I suspect an overwhelming majority of our good and esteemed public officials would be in the same shoes as Kho. This is clearly, as my friend Alvin would say, a case of the anaconda calling the cobra a snake.

Neither are those groups who supposedly champion the victims’ cause themselves blameless. Gabriela, for instance, with its penchant for hitching its broad (pun intended) political agenda to any passing mare, has diluted its credibility by its shrill and simple-minded presentation of most issues. With the unfortunate result that it has been less than effective in advancing the interests of its constituents, as shown by the Subic rape case.

It’s easy to feel contempt for a pig like Kho. But in our haste to cast the first stone, we may be revealing more about ourselves than we care to admit.

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This item in the New York Times will turn a lot of us green with envy. My jaw dropped with when I read it.

The global economic downturn doesn’t seem like such a bad thing after all, if you’re an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher and Flom, the largest U.S. law firm in terms of revenue. Due to the recession, which would predictably cut into its projected revenues, Skadden has offered its 1,300 associates worldwide 80,000 U.S. dollars each to take the year off. They’re encouraged to find pro-bono work and render meaningful service to any cause of their choice although “the lawyers could also spend the year catching up on every episode of “Top Chef” that they missed during the boom years, or traveling around the world“.

To sweeten the deal further, any associate on sabbatical will be spared from downsizing and will have their jobs waiting when they return. If every associate would take the partners up on their offer, it would cost the firm U.S.$ 104,000,000, not exactly chump change but still a mere 2% of its annual earnings. It seems lawyering, at least at the level of Skadden, is recession-proof. The Skadden Insider, a blog purporting to be run by two of the firm’s associates, crowed a few months back that “the firm’s business is strong and that billable hours are essentially the same compared to the same period last year”.

But since, according to its Wiki page, Skadden “has played a significant role in U.S. and international business”, one wonders how much it has contributed to the present financial debacle. Given the scope of the firm’s practice, it’s inconceivable that it was not involved in a major way in the U.S. mortgage bonds meltdown that resulted in the global financial crisis. But being good lawyers, the members of the firm would surely have insulated themselves from the fallout.
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The American sea captain held hostage by Somali pirates for five days was rescued by members of the U.S. special ops unit Navy SEALS in a daring made-for-Hollywod firefight which left three kidnappers dead and another captured. Captain Richard Phillips of the U.S.-flagged Maesk Alabama was saved from captivity and possible execution by a surgical strike which resulted in zero casualties on the rescuers’ side. Per CNN, one of the pirates “had an AK-47 leveled at the captain’s back”, prompting SEAL snipers to immediately open fire on the Somalis. Phillips was unharmed.

This was certainly a stirring victory for the Americans, who were trying to negotiate for Phillips’ release but who sensed that he was in “imminent danger”. The on-scene commander then gave the shooters approval to open fire.

Five days previously, Somali pirates tried to hijack the 17,000-ton cargo ship, but Phillips thwarted the takeover by telling his crew to lock themselves in a room.The crew later overpowered some of the pirates, but Phillips surrendered himself to the bandits to safeguard his men, and four of the Somalis fled with him on a lifeboat in an attempt to bring him to the pirates’ haven along the coast of Somalia.

At the White House, President Obama issued a statement saying he is “very pleased that Capt. Phillips has been rescued and is safely on board the USS Boxer” and that his administration remains “resolved to halt the rise of piracy in this region.”

Per reports, pirates operating off Somalia earned $30 million in ransom through the seizure of 42 vessels in 2008. Other estimates put the figure at $80 million. Since January, pirates have staged at least 66 assaults and currently hold more than a dozen ships and more than 200 foreign crew members.

This ups the ante in the ongoing fight against the Somali pirates. The pirates will be less willing to negotiate and more ready to pull the trigger on their captives. The Americans have committed themselves to a more agressive stance in dealing with the pirates. But while the U.S. has the resources and military clout to counter such attacks, other countries like the Philippines have no such capability. We have the largest number of actively deployed seafarers in the world and more than 100 of the 200 remaining victims of Somali kidnappings are Filipinos. Heightened tensions have now placed them in grave danger. The Somalis have been humiliated and are in the mood for revenge. And the pirates’ misplaced anger will literally place our countrymen in the line of fire.

The sad reality is Filipinos are more expendable than sailors of other nationalities, one reason why they usually remain in custody for months at a time before being ransomed. They have become pawns in the struggle to control the shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden. With the present situation, the prospect of their early release just became dimmer.

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