Invitation to a lecture
On Wednesday, November 24, 2004, the Ateneo de Manila School of Humanities, Office of Research and Publications, and the University Press will present scholar and literary critic Father Miguel A. Bernad S.J., at a public lecture, "Dante's Cosmic Journey," 10 to 11.30 am, at the Audio-Visual Room of the Social Sciences Bldg., Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City.

Dante's DIVINE COMEDY is one of the world's great literary works. But it is more than that. It is a compendium of humanistic knowledge of the Middle Ages. Philosophy, Theology, Astronomy,History, Mythology, international politics and much else are all woven together into one great literary epic, and expressed in the beautiful but strictly controlled rhyme-scheme of the terza rima. This stupendous work requires several months of study, but Father Bernad will attempt to give a brief outline, indicating some of the paradoxes in the poem, and mentioning briefly some of the theological issues raised in it. This poem describes a fictional trip through hell, purgatory, and heaven, without losing constant touch with things on earth.

On this occasion as well, Father Bernad's latest books will be presented to the public: THE GOLDEN WORLD AND THE DARKNESS: Shakespeare Plays and Their Performance (DLSU Press); THE NATIVE SKY: Studies in the Life and Writings of Jose Rizal (ORP); and THE GREAT ISLAND: Studies in the Exploration and Evangelization of Mindanao (Ateneo Press).

Father Bernad has taught at the Ateneo de Manila University and at Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City for more than fifty years. He is a member of the Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language, and of the Manila Critics Circle. He is founding editor of Kinaadman, Journal of the Southern Philippines, and writes a weekly column for Philippine Star.

The books will be available during the lecture-launch at special prices. (DLSU Press: 4003752; ORP: 4266001 ext 5180; Ateneo Press: 02-4265984)

Tel 63-2-4265984; 4266001 ext 4613
Email: unipress@admu.edu.ph
http://www.ateneopress.com

On the so-called agents provocateurs at the Hacienda Luisita
The Manila Times, attempting editorial objectiveness, evenly distributed the blame for the Hacieda Luisita imbroglio, but at the same time couldn't help but quip that "A greater part of the blame...must be borne by those who 'politicized' the strike and turned the sugar estate workers into pawns in a game of dubious aims."

The above is exactly what the management of the hacienda had been stressing in every interview it granted, that the workers in strike had been infiltrated, supported and egged on by outsiders. Is this true? Most probably, but I don't see how this changes things. Just like in any other strike that happens here in the country, a significant percentage of the crowd that we see are supporters of the workers, showing their solidarity. This is precisely what alliances among labor unions are for: to lend mutual succor in times of feudal/industrial distress. When Karl Marx enjoined workers to unite and dump their chains, he didn't mean them to break into diverse discussion groups and talk among themselves intrahacienda. So it is but natural for outsiders to be present in the wildcat strike. What the Aquinos call infiltration, others would term class solidarity.

Alexander Martin Remollino writes:
MAY HANGGAN ANG LIPAD NG KAPALALUAN
(Kay Kris Aquino, matapos niyang ipagmalaking ang kanyang mga alahas ay "katas ng Hacienda Luisita")

Gaano maaaring kumapal ang mukha ng tao?
Higit pa sa kapal ng etera
ng buong kalawakan.

Kaya naman nasisikmurang magyabang ng tao
kung kanyang naipambibili ng pinakamahal na mga alahas
ang dugong piniga mula sa nag-uusliang ugat
ng mga manggagawa't sakada sa tubuhan.

Ngunit hanggang saan makalilipad ang kapalaluan?
Hindi sapat ang kislap ng mga alahas
upang pawiin ang pagdidilim ng karangalan.

Cristina,
ngayon pa lamang ay nalulusaw na ang inyong pangalan
sa naglalagablab na panduduro ng kasaysayan
na magsasalaysay ng inyong kaimpaktuhan.

Invitation to a lecture
On November 23, National Artist for Literature and Ramon Magsaysay Awardee, F. Sionil Jose will deliver a public lecture at the University of the Philippines on "The University and the Revolution" at the Faculty Conference (FC) Hall, U.P. Diliman at 1:30P.M.

The world renowned novelist was personally invited to speak at UP by outgoing U.P. President Nemenzo, a long-time friend and reader of JOSE. The lecture will be the latest in a series of recent visits to U.P. by cultural icons including ballerina Lisa Macuja-Elizalde, fimmaker Marilou Diaz-Abaya and National Artist for Dance Leonor Orosa Goquingco.

A distinguished panel of academics will repond to Jose's lecture composed of Professor Randy David, Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera and Dean Zosimo Lee.

The lecture is FREE and open to all.

Excellent free wares
Via Prem, I've learned that Gmail now has POP access, which means that through e-mail programs like Thunderbird or Outlook Express one can now download messages for offline viewing. I still have six Gmail invitations in my possession so if you want a Gmail account (it provides 1 GB of inbox) please post your e-mail in the comments section for me to send you an invitation. For those who are still using the Explorer browser, Firefox 1.0 (a much better browser) is now available.

Suckers for morsels of national pride
I never quite understood our national preoccupation with stacking up national pride points from relatively minor and personal achievements of our fellow citizens. Take the case of Faye, who allegedly won in a quiz in Australia despite receiving no support from the Philippines whatsoever. Extemporaneous speaker Patricia Evangelista, whose English was praised by the British stiff upper lips (and thereby confirming that we brown monkeys can also speak the Queen's language), brought Faye's case of lack of publicity to the fleeceable bourgeoisie of our sorry republic, who, it must be said, still yearn for the imprimatur of the superior WASPs more than half a century since national independence.

Yes, it's nice that some of our countrymen win in student competitions abroad from time to time, but they should not expect to end up front page everytime, that the whole country would go gaga over them--as in the case of Ms. Evangelista, who was asked everywhere she went to re-deliver her "extemporaneous" speech on cue like a pretty parrot. (The first time I heard Ms. Evangelista "extemporaneously" deliver her piece on tv about how she dreamed of blue eyes, the first thought I had in mind was how similar her opening lines were to the opening passages of Toni Morrison's Blue Eyes.)

I find these ephemeral celebrations of national pride obscene. Are we this devoid of sources of national pride that we must hitch our national wagon to every student star who has won an international prize, however minor or, in the case of Faye, illusory it may be?

Let's admit it: We are all like Faye's delusional mother. She wanted to get back at her husband so she invented the story of her daughter's achievement; we want to feel good about ourselves so we go ecstatic at the news of every international contest result. This episode should teach us all a lesson, to put things into proper perspective. All the student prizes in the world will not compel the world to treat us as equals when we have a president who kisses white ass.

Currently reading:

Raise the Red Lantern by Su Tong

From The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe:

O my friend! why is it that the torrent of genius so seldom bursts forth, so seldom rolls in full-flowing stream, overwhelming your astounded soul? Because, on either side of this stream, cold and respectable persons have taken up their abodes, and, forsooth, their summer-houses and tulip-beds would suffer from the torrent; wherefore they dig trenches, and raise embankments betimes, in order to avert the impending danger.

Napoleon Bonaparte must have loved this passage. The Sorrows of Young Werther is said to have been one of his favorite books (he carried the book in his pocket during his campaigns in Egypt and boasted of having read it seven times), and the passage surely has a Napoleonic ring to it.

Americans apologize to the world
Click here for heartwarming pics of Americans apologizing to the world for Bush's re-election.

Sorry about Bush

Prana Escalante, 21
Prana Escalante, a townmate of mine from Sorsogon, was found dead today. According to the Inquirer, she set off alone to climb Mt. Halcon in Mindoro Oriental at past midnight of Oct. 29. Her friends, who started climbing a day earlier, were waiting for her. The Inquirer reports that:

Members of a group belonging to the Pilipinas Sierra said they saw her resting at the second stream and subsequently tried to convince her to join them. But she refused and went on her way, saying that she knew the trail....

On Nov. 2, her friends came down from Halcon without her.

The GMA report showed one classmate, a certain Dennis Dy, telling the reporter that he was sure he and Prana would meet again in another lifetime. Her name, the report told us, means life-force in Hindi. And she probably was a life-force.

I didn't really know Prana, but somehow the image of her setting off to climb the mountain in the middle of the night to rendezvous with death (when she was expecting friends) has taken a grip on my mind. What is it that is so romantic about dying in a mountain trek? I am filled with such admiration for her indomitable spirit. What audacity! What youthfulness! To plunge into life and embrace all its dangers!

Currently reading:

My Invented Country by Isabel Allende

Call for student papers
The International Association of Political Science Students (IAPSS) is proud to announce that POLITIKON - The IAPSS Journal has reached its 9th issue. POLITIKON is an academic journal meant to offer a proper framework for students -under and postgraduate- who have a special interest in Political Science.

It is a unique opportunity for you to contribute to the political science community by having your paper reviewed and published in our journal!

Do you want your paper to be discovered by people from more than fifty countries?
Respond to our challenge: Is democracy working? You can follow these guidelines:

- Democracy - more than an electoral process
- The erosion of classic democracies
- Young democracies at work
- Democracy - a universal solution or not
- The democratic peace theory
- etc


The requirements for the papers are:

- English language
- A half page abstract
- A minimum of 15 pages and a maximum of 25 pages written in Times New Roman, size 12, 1.5 lines
- Bibliography (minimum 5 references, see the rules for references in the attached document)

The deadline for submitting the papers is the 20th of January 2005.

The articles should be sent at the following address:
politikonjournal@iapss.org

For questions and suggestions, please feel free to write us at the e-mail address mentioned above.

International Association for Political Science Students
Kongresni trg 12
1000 Ljubljana - Slovenia
e-mail: info@iapss.org
Tel +386 1 2443730
Fax +386 1 2443731

Joke joke joke
The first time I heard about House Bill 2895 filed by Cavite Rep. Crispin Remulla, I thought the neophyte congressman was straining the legislative right to drollery.

The bill would require all private citizens to file a statement of assets, liabilities and net worth to check if they are paying the correct taxes. Under Remulla’s bill, every individual who earns an income of more than P200,000 and owns real and personal properties worth at least P500,000 shall file a statement with the Bureau of Internal Revenue at the end of every year.

My gulay, we can't even pin the tax cheats among our SAL-filing public officials! Now we want more SALs! Who will sift through all those documents? The PCIJ can only do so much.

The bill simply doesn't make sense, as the Manila Times points in its main editorial today. Before becoming an unwitting sponsor to another ludicrous piece of legislation, Rep. Remulla would probably do better to consult his brother Gilbert first. That's what ties that bind are for.

Web prowl
I know we have had an overdose of analysis of the US presidential elections, but Simon Schama is too good to pass up. Were the 2008 elections to be held today, who would be the front-runners? During the European Social Forum in London 2004, the Seattle to Brussels Network (S2B) - a pan-European network challenging the corporate driven agenda of global trade and investment liberalisation of Europe - launched its latest publication: From Cancun to Hong Kong: challenging corporate-led trade liberalisation (pdf). UCLA Prof. George Garrett explains in a Foreign Affairs essay how globalization is shortchanging middle-income countries. Papers for the workshop Political Theory and Cultural Pluralism: New Directions are availbale online. Newsweek interview Carlos Fuentes.

Musicians Unite for Freedom in Burma!
Twenty seven music stars including U2, R.E.M., Eric Clapton, Avril Lavigne, Peter Gabriel, Coldplay, and Pearl Jam have released "For the Lady," a brand-new double CD set dedicated to freeing the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi and the 50 million people of Burma.

"For The Lady" features unreleased material by R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Tom Morello's The Nightwatchman, Damien Rice, Lili Hadyn and Better Than Ezra.

The album also features a song in Burmese written by a jailed student democracy activist. Like the leaders of former communist states, Burma's military regime is fearful of the power of rock and roll, and singing a freedom song can result in a seven-year prison sentence.

Proceeds from the CD go to the U.S. Campaign for Burma.

Lecture-discussion
Privatising the Welfarist State:
Neo-liberalism and the Health Care Sector

by

Dr. Chan Chee Khoon

12 November 2004, Wednesday, 4:00 p.m.
Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University
Social Development Complex, Loyola Heights, Quezon City

In its ceaseless search for opportunities for profitable deployment and redeployment, globally mobile capital has contributed to the undermining of the welfarist state through several modalities. In conjunction with neo-liberal trade policies, globally mobile capital has fostered a "race to the bottom" and has thereby reduced the fiscal capacity of states. At the same time, finance capital has exerted an overriding concern with inflation and balanced budgets in the countries where it circulates. Wary of activist Keynesianism, it imparts a deflationary bias to national economies, demanding fiscal discipline to reduce public spending and budget deficits through its threat of withdrawal and flight. One result has been the widening imbalance between accumulation and consumption, manifested as overcapacity and demand deficit.

Pressure has built up to extend the circuit of capital into new arenas for accumulation, encroaching into a hitherto non-commercial public sector domain, i.e. the privatization and dismembering the welfarist state, including health services. This presentation will describe and analyze the privatization (commodification) of Malaysian health care as an intersection of these broad global currents with local political and economic contingencies. It will attempt to draw generic lessons that may have relevance to the Philippines.

Dr. Chan is an Associate Professor of the School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. He is currently an Asian Public Intellectual Fellow and an affiliate of the Institute of Philippine Culture.

For confirmation of your attendance, please call tel. nos. 426-6067/68, or 426-6001 loc. 4651. Please look for Faith Arce or Cecille Bartolome.

Ukay-ukay culture
In a poignant commentary, The Philippine Graphic asks: Is the Philippines a tabula rasa or a palimpsest? What triggered the question was the writer’s observations that real estate bosses in the country, who are presumed to know the preferences of the Philippine rich and upper-middle-class, name and design properties in ritzy, foreign fashion: Westgrove Heights, White Plains, Bellagio, Eastwood, Canyon Woods, Greenbelt, Tuscany Apartments, etc.

I personally don't have a problem with this kind of borrowing from foreign sources, although I admit there's something seriously amiss when we name something Canyon Woods when there's neither canyon nor woods. This practice of borrowing mostly American references is troubling only when you begin to juxtapose it with the interminable queus in the US Embassy. And you reach this conclusion: The middle classes and the rich who for the meantime opt to stay in the Philippines are, however superficially, transforming the country into the foreign place they would have lived in had they left--like souls trapped in purgatory waiting for the beacon of the stars and stripes of heaven.

Setting aside the American neo-colonial aspect to it, the question remains: Are we so devoid of native culture that we must perforce borrow? I don't know.

I suspect we are being too hard on ourselves. In a globalized and Americanized world, it is inevitable that we adopt American characteristics. Culture, after all, follows the direction of power. Even the Americans, when they were not a major world power yet, were heavy cultural borrowers. Some would be inclined to think of the columns in the White House as Greek kitsch.

If we must perforce borrow, might as well be eclectic about it. Because if the Philippines is going to look, sound, and feel Stateside, then what is to stop Filipinos from getting a visa and leaving for the real McCoy?

Currently reading:

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Review (sort of): Tabloid Dreams by Robert Olen Butler
By the standard set by his previous short-stories collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Butler's Tabloid Dreams is so-so, but still arguably very good. Butler reconstructs the stories behind the tabloid headlines. The book is so readable (with a generous use of the comma splice) I finished it in no time.

There's the story about the nine-year-old boy assassin whose fingers barely reach the trigger of his gun, but was efficient in taking down targets for a hundred dollars. The boy got pissed off when his boss refused to give him ten thousand dollars to buy his mama new fancy clothes (he had enough of seeing her walking in her slip in their house.) In Woman Loses Cookie Bake-off, Sets Self on Fire, a wife whose husband has recently died joined a baking contest and, suddenly struck by the thought that all her life she was baking those fancy cookies her husband loved, decided in a moment of rebellion, to dump her Peanut Butter Bouquets and bake simple CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES (in bold letters) instead. She lost the contest, needless to say, and while her best friend was being announced the winner, she set herself on fire. In Doomsday Meteor is Coming, a guy, convinced that a meteor is fast approaching to kill all life on earth, decided to yield to the request of his girlfriend to have their nipples pierced.

The best story, I think, was the last: the story of a proud suffragette in the Titanic who chose to die reading Edith Wharton in her room rather than save herself from the sinking ship, but one man asked him to board a boat ("I told him I did not know why I should live and he said 'Because I ask you to.'")and she did, and she hated the thought that she was saved because of her sex.

Three of the stories in Tabloid Dreams are available online: WOMAN STRUCK BY CAR TURNS INTO NYMPHOMANIAC, WOMAN USES GLASS EYE TO SPY ON PHILANDERING HUSBAND, JEALOUS HUSBAND RETURNS IN FORM OF PARROT.

Currently reading:

Tabloid Dreams by Robert Olen Butler 

History reads
Via Pupu Platter, here are links to books available online:

True Version of the Philippine Revolution
by Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8)
edited by Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson

The Philippines: Past and Present, Volume 1
by Dean C. Worcester

Name the prize
The FILM ACADEMY OF THE PHILIPPINES is out with a new contest - NAME THE STATUETTE - with total prizes of 20,000 pesos plus free pass to the Academy Awards night in March, 2005. Full mechanics can be seen in www.fapweb.org. Submission of entries is via the website only so please visit www.fapweb.org and submit your entry.

The race in retrospect
From The Economist:

Flip-flop of the campaign
“I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”

John Kerry tries to explain the Senate voting system. March 16th


Bumper-sticker of the campaign (1)
John Kerry—bringing complete sentences back to the White House


Bumper-sticker of the campaign (2)
Bush-Cheney—Four More Wars


Endorsement of the campaign
“I wouldn't kick President Bush out of my bed, although I do think he needs some sassy highlights.”

Carson Kressley of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”. “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch”, CNBC, February 4th


Heart-throb of the campaign
“He walked right up to me and gave me a hug and I almost fainted. His skin was so soft. He smelled so good. His cologne lingers on my jacket. I am never washing it.”

Barbara Pratte of Nashua, New Hampshire, on John Edwards. Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 27th

Bushism of the campaign
“Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practise their love with women all across this country.”

George Bush suggests something inappropriate while campaigning in Missouri. September 6th


And looking forward
“Absolutely. I think, you know, because why not?”

Arnold Schwarzenegger favours amending the constitution to allow foreign-born Americans to run for president. “60 Minutes”, CBS, October 31st

Web prowl
With Yasser Arafat teetering on the brink of death in France, it's time to read on the Future of Palestine on the latest Foreign Affairs. Harvard professor Cary Coglianese argues in The Internet and Citizen Participation in Rulemaking (pdf) that existing efforts to apply information technology to rulemaking will not noticeably affect citizen participation. The New Yorker profiles Amos Oz, who, at 24, declared himself a writer, triggering an intense discussion among the leders of his kibbutz: “Who is he...to declare himself a writer? What if everyone calls himself an artist? Who will milk the cows and plow the land?” Also from the same magazine, a story on Nancy Drew, who turns 75 next year. The Washington Post reconsiders J.D. Salingers A Catcher in the Rye.

From The Analects of Confucius:

When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and honor are things to be ashamed of.

Through a glass darkly
She was ransacking the lipstick rack, looking for a color darker than the one she was holding on her hand. Showing me a color which I imagined what chololate would look like if it were mixed with laterite, she asked, "Do you think this would look good on me?"

Flustered, I tried to summon an opinion, but couldn't really tell. Ever since my grade school teacher thought I was stupid for coloring a tree's bole green, the color wheel has been one big blur in my head. So I stalled, muttering an idiotical, "Ahh...." Observing how she pursed her lips, signalling she was again irritated by my lack of opinion, I tried to salvage the situation with St. Exupery (knowing she loved The Little Prince): "Besides what is significant is invisible to the eyes."

She curtly said thanks to the saleslady, who seemed to have been expecting a sell. Turning toward me as we headed to buy a horse shampoo, she said: "Didn't you know that in a world of such ugliness the only remaining true protest is to be beautiful?"

Multilateralism by any other name...
Henry Kissinger, writing for Newsweek on the contours of the emerging post-Westphalia security environment, argues for multilateralism both in Iraq and North Korea, albeit in not so many words, which is understandable since multilateralism (or internationalization in Kissinger's more euphemistic terms) has been associated with both girlie men and cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Here's what he has to say:

Meaningful internationalization requires a focus other than security and the participation of countries other than—or in addition to—NATO. After the January elections, an international contact group, under U.N. auspices, to advise on Iraq's political evolution is therefore desirable. Logical members would be countries that have experience with militant Islam and much to lose by the radicalization of Iraq—countries such as India, Turkey, Russia, Algeria, in addition to the United States and Britain. This is not an abdication to consensus. The United States, by virtue of its military presence and financial role, would retain the leading position. The issue of military contribution by other nations, including NATO, can be raised again at a later stage in a more favorable political environment as a means to protect the governmental process.

Also in the same essay, Kissinger says that the rise of China as a potential superpower eclipsing the United States is an event of greater historical significance than the unification of Germany a century ago since it shifts the center of gravity of world affairs from the Atlantic to the Pacific:

To be sure, China is unlikely to rely on military power as its principal instrument to achieve international status. For one thing, China's leaders are (or at least have been) more careful, more deliberate, more prone to accumulate advantages by nuance than the impetuous German leaders after Bismarck's retirement. More importantly, with modern technology war between major powers is an absolutely last resort, not a political option. America should maintain its traditional opposition to hegemonial aspirations over Asia. But the long-term relationship with China should not be driven by expectations of a strategic showdown. China will not conduct as imprudent a policy as the Soviet Union, which threatened all its neighbors simultaneously and challenged the United States to a contest of survival. The special case of Taiwan aside, it will seek influence commensurate with its growth by diplomatic and political means.

How can we be sure that China will be, in diplomatese, a status quo power, as Kissinger believes it willl be? How will the Chinese play the diplomacy game in the future? Kissinger says the Chinese are neiji players, not chess players like the West:

Chess has only two outcomes: draw and checkmate. The objective of the game is absolute advantage—that is to say, its outcome is total victory or defeat—and the battle is conducted head-on, in the center of the board. The aim of go is relative advantage; the game is played all over the board, and the objective is to increase one's options and reduce those of the adversary. The goal is less victory than persistent strategic progress.

I myself wouldn't bet on this board analogy. The crouching tiger may want to play go today, but the leaping tiger may aspire to play chess tomorrow. You never know.

Disaster in America
What's there left to say about the great disappointment that's Bush's re-election (read Economist account)? That John Kerry wasn't macho enough ? That provincials always trump cosmopolitans ? That Americans in their resoluteness don't care about what the rest of the world think?

Bush won in the electoral college and took the popular vote as well by a margin of up to 3 million. As if this weren't enough, the leader of the Democrats in the US Senate, Sen. Tom Daschle, also had to lose to a Bush-backed and telegenic younger Republican. Aargh.

In a way, Bush's victory makes sense. In dangerous and insecure times, people don't like polite and intellectual leaders; they feel safer under the fold of a tough-talking simple-minded bully. Oh well, let's just console ourselves with the thought that even Richard Nixon enjoyed a landslide victory in a Vietnam War election. As some Democrats opine, this election was a good one to lose. With a declining US economy and continuing attrition in Iraq, Americans, it is claimed, would end up blaming the Republican Party big-time.

The Democrats must find 2008 presidentiables fast. As the American Prospect points out, it would also greatly help if the candidate can plausibly say Grace without feeling sanctimonious.

BTW, did you notice that while every other network with international pretensions was hyperventilating about the American elections, China's CCTV was imperturbably in regular programming, as if haughtily saying that whatever happens, the Middle Kingdom would remain the Middle Kingdom, undisturbed by the electoral happenings of a global power that has begun its terminal decline.

WUHA WUXIA
Saw Zhang Ziyi in The House of Flying Daggers today. The opening dance scene where she taps the drums using the long elegant sleeves of her brocade robe was consummate. And Takeshi Kaneshiro shooting arrows from across the wheatfield to save her was as awe-inspiring as that other gifted archer Legolas shinnying up a back leg of an oliphaunt. The laws of aerodynamics are freely dispensed with in The House of Fling Daggers: arrows and daggers (thanks to CGI) zip through the air like guided missiles. Also, the expression in Zhang Ziyi's weary face--the steely vulnerability of a blind warrior in constant mortal fear that in the midst of battle her hearing might fail her--is priceless.

(Nevertheless, I'm still partial to that scene in Hero where Jet Li and Maggie Cheung fend off volleys of arrows from the Emperor's army to save a calligraphy school. As the New Yorker review of the movie memorably put it: the pen may be mightier than the sword, but neither is mightier than billowing chiffon.)

Go watch The House of Flying Daggers. It is overly melodramatic at the end, yes; but in order to watch excellent ass-kicking wuxia action, who's not willing to put up with a little syrupy drivel? Not me for sure.

Hiatus
While I was busy buffing this blog with links to my must-reads, my pc conked out. I'll probably be unable to post regular entries for a few days.

November 1 musing
If I were to have my way, I'd be cremated, my ashes dispersed in the nondescript air, thereby freeing my descendants from the tedious, superficial displays of filial piety required on November 1.

Call for Submissions: RATTLE
RATTLE is currently looking for poetry submissions from Filipino writers for a tribute section in issue #24, due out December 2005. All writers of Philippine origin are welcome to submit, but we're especially interested in works by authors living outside the U.S., and translations from various Philippine languages.

Anyone interested, please send 3-5 poems – previously unpublished in any North America journal – along with your name, address, cover letter, and SASE to:

RATTLE

12411 Ventura Blvd

Studio City, CA 91604

Alternately, you may paste your submission into the body of an email (sorry, we're unable to accept attachments), and send it to timgreen@rattle.com

We also print 5 or 6 reviews of 250 words per issue, welcome at any time, but please make a note if you'd like it to appear in the Philippines tribute issue.

The deadline for this feature is July 15th, 2005, but we encourage you to submit sooner. You will receive two copies as payment. All rights revert back to the author upon publication, and we post the poems online in our back issues section, unless you request removal.

RATTLE is a semi-annual print journal based in Los Angeles, California, in its tenth year. The page count for each issue is in the range of 200, with a print run of 4000 copies per issue, and is distributed by Ingram, DeBore, and Armadillo. Ingram supplies Borders and Barnes & Noble, but all three supply independent
bookstores throughout the USA. Each issue contains essays, reviews, and two conversations with people who are leaving their mark in today's literature, along with the work of poets from all walks of life, and this diversity is what we feel makes us special. For more information, please visit us at www.rattle.com

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at 818-505-6777 or email timgreen@rattle.com.

We plan on making this a very special issue. I hope that you will want to be part of it.

Best wishes,
Timothy Green

Goodbye to FEER
First it was Asiaweek. Now the Far Eastern Economic Review has also announced it is discontinuing publication, but will be relaunched as a monthly commentary magazine on issues and ideas. What is to happen to Asia news junkies who don't subscribe to (and would not be bothered with) the Asian Wall Street Journal? There's the Asia Times to satiate the craving from time to time, but I will sorely miss seeing the magazine--and surreptitiously reading it--in the bookstore.

Currently reading:

The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass 

Web prowl
The Economist endorses John Kerry here and reports here on the Homo floresiensis, the new hominid species discovered in Indonesia. Read The Transparency International
Corruption Perceptions Index 2004, where the Philippines ranked alongside Eritrea and Uganda. Here's a blog for classical music aficionados by the classical music critic of The Hudson Review. Download the eDonkey, the p2p program that has recently overtaken Kazaa in popularity.

Why we read blogs
In the novel Checkpoint, Jay, the exasperated former teacher who plots to assassinate President Bush, says that he spends hours reading blogs. A would-be assassin reading blogs—stretching our credulity? Nah. Blogs are so ubiquitous and popular now that a would-be assassin reading blogs is just as natural and plausible as a pimply fourteen-year-old writing one.

Why do we bother reading blogs? There are far too many books to read and too little time to read them before we die, why spend precious time reading, much less commenting on, blogs?

I myself mostly read informational blogs with links to articles/essays I would otherwise have missed, but from time to time I chance to find interesting blogs that are online journals of anonymous bloggers. Most of these blogs are uninteresting and juvenile, but some are as engrossing as any other good pulp fiction. Sometimes, the anonymous blogger’s personality would so pique my interest that I would begin clicking the archives beginning from day one. On this day in September, this particular blogger tells us, she and her boyfriend broke up on account of a singularly slutty girl from the neighboring College of Arts and Letters, who inexplicably dazzled her boyfriend with Shakespeare and Dostoevsky. Another blogger writes that on such and such night, while clubbing at Eastwood, he was suddenly confronted by the cosmic insufficiency of his physical looks upon sharing a table with Cogie Domingo. Yet another blogger writes about the dilemma he faced when he met Imelda Marcos in the living room of a friend’s house: should he harangue Mrs. Marcos on the human rights abuses of the conjugal dictatorship? Or would a stiff upper lip suffice to protest?

For readers with more voyeuristic inclinations, there are also bloggers who chronicle their sexual activities a la Xerex or Anais Nin. But as far as I know, no Filipino blog yet corresponds with the now defunct British Belle de jour, the, er, vivid blog of a high-class call girl.

I have friends who write blogs, but, no matter how I prod them, they never deign to give me their web addresses. And I understand. They pour out their deepest sentiments onto their blogs and to let someone they actually know get access to those sentiments can be, well, frightening. They are, in their writing, exposing vulnerabilities, telling their blog readers things about themselves they would normally be ashamed or diffident to tell people they actually know.

In the secular and godless world of our country’s youth, the blogosphere has taken the place of the confessional, each comment triggered by each post an absolution. Through these confessional blogs, we meet people without the civilizational affectations they put on in the outside world, offering us a view of pure undistilled humanity.

Reading all those blogs, what have I learned? That bloggers are just like normal people we meet during the course of our lives. They are either:
1) happily in love ; 2) has fallen out of love and; 3) desperately wanting to fall in love. All of us, of course, think we’re just in a transition, that the youthful exuberance of our days can somehow deny the inevitable possibility that we could be stuck for good.

Second Call for Proposals for the year 2005/2006 -- European Commission's (EC) Erasmus Mundus Programme
The programme supports European top quality Masters Courses and provides EU-funded scholarships for third country nationals participating in these Masters Courses as well as scholarships for EU nationals studying in third countries. The programme comprises four concrete actions, namely : (Action 1) Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses; (Action 2) Erasmus Mundus Scholarships; (Action 3) Partnerships; and (Action 4) Enhancing Attractiveness. Participation of third country nationals is foreseen in Actions 2, 3 and 4. The deadlines are as follows: Action 1 - 31 October 2004, Action 2 - 31 March 2005, and Action 3 - 31 May 2005. Click here for the website.

Che Guevara, On revolutionary medicine:

We must review again each of our lives, what we did and thought... We must do this with profound critical zeal and arrive finally at the conclusion that almost everything we thought and felt in that past period ought to be deposited in an archive, and a new type of human being created.

Song of the moment
Currently listening to Jiang Jun by Zhou Jie Lun (the music video’s cool too):

The tip of time all pointing towards you, losing the place to which you will return,
You will advance but in the end you still have to get used to surrendering
The results have been determined, the 6th step will be your greatest mistake,
I restrain from making any movement, used to plotting in silence
First hand with a cannon is just a polite gesture
Horse acting as a screen, remaining calm so that I can overcome strength with gentleness

This bloodless battle will only have the pride wounded
The rules of winner and loser is no different from the reality,

Watch me, my fingers relaxed, my eyes sharp as a dragon, treat the enemy as invisible
Having endless strategies, my attack swift as the wind, with a single chariot running over your dispirited face

Facing the tides, I am deducing what is overcoming movement with inactivity, wondering if the mist in the woods can be a smokescreen

In the end, my plot will succeed and you will give up defending,
I looked up into the sunset, your head lowered leaving the scene in silence
Listening to me as I talk about success and failure is common, you don’t have to take it to heart, because I am only fitted to be the one and only.

The General joins The Lady
While we are immersed in the spectacular fall of our own Gen. Garcia (courtesy of his reckless son and multiloquent wife), here comes news from Burma of a far more spectacular fall: Gen. Khin Nyunt, the prime minister, has been arrested on charges of corruption and is now, as BBC reports, under house arrest.

Khin Nyunt belongs to the troika of powerful generals--the other two are Than Shwe and Maung Aye--who control the military junta in Burma. It was only a year ago when Khin Nyunt was demoted to the prime ministership. His arrest now can thus be seen as the culmination of the long-rumored power struggle among the three generals.

This is sad news for Burmese democracy activists all around the world. Khin Nyunt was widely seen as the more progressive and reasonable of the generals, favouring talks with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. After his appointment as prime minister, he announced a seven-point roadmap to democracy.

It has been a favorite political pipe dream in many a Burmese activist's mind that Khin Nyunt would bolt out of the SPDC, ally himself with Aung San Suu Kyi and seize power in a People Power revolution. Who could have known he'd just end up under house arrest himself? Tsk, truly sad news.

Hong Kong, Southeast Asia
Yesterday night I happened to catch my sister watching a Hong Kong travelogue with Korina Sanchez on ABS-CBN.. Hoping that my sister would gradually lose interest and surrender the remote to me, I stayed for some time in front of the TV, intent on switching to Channel V the soonest I get the chance.

So there I was half-heartedly watching when suddenly I heard Korina saying that Hong Kong can be found in Southeast Asia. I almost fell off my chair: Hong Kong is certainly NOT in Southeast Asia--unless there had been some major tectonic movement in the past week.

And then after a few minutes, to further plunge the nation into hitherto unexplored depths of ignorance, Korina introduced an aquarium in Hong Kong as being “the biggest in the world.” How could that possibly be when I saw in one documentary a far bigger aquarium in Okinawa, Japan. That one had a whale inside; all I saw on Korina’s purported biggest aquarium in the world was a fairly large stingray.

The travelogue also featured Taheebo, a medicinal concoction, Korina informed us, that is imported from Brazil. Now, why would she think we would be interested to hear about Taheebo from Brazil on a Hong Kong travelogue? That portion, it turned out, was brought to her TV audience courtesy of Taheebo the company itself.

Has Sunday night primetime programming on ABS-CBN fallen this low? Or was Korina’s staff so smitten with Hong Kong it had no time to check the facts?

The snoring general
Obstructive sleep apnea, the ailment that has prevented Gen. Garcia from attending the investigations in aid of legislation (i.e. congressional circus), is, according to this Manila Times editorial, nothing worse than snoring. Well, doctors can be just as misleading as lawyers once they put their mind into it.

ASEAN Research Scholars
The Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore invites applications from ASEAN citizens (except Singaporeans) enrolled for an advanced degree at a university in an ASEAN country for consideration as ASEAN Research Scholars. These fellowships are offered to students working in the Humanities and Social Sciences on Asian topics, and will allow the recipients to be based at NUS for a period of three months. The aim of the fellowships is to enable scholars to make full use of the wide range of resources held in the libraries of NUS and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Scholars will be expected to commence on 1 April 2005.

Successful candidates can expect the following benefits:

a. A monthly allowance of SGD$1,750 which will be subject to tax
b. A one time travel subsidy of up to SGD$1,000 on a reimbursement basis upon being accepted for the fellowship.
c. Access to library and computer resources on campus.

Applicants are invited to email/facsimile/mail their curriculum vitae, a 2-page outline of their research proposal in English (this may be accompanied by a longer statement in a Southeast Asian language) to the address below by 15 November 2004. Arrangements should also be made by which at least two letters of reference, one of which is from your principal supervisor, are sent confidentially to the same address by the same deadline. The research proposal must include the following details:
1) how the fellowship will contribute to the research; 2) the types of
sources to be consulted in Singapore; 3) proposed work plan during the
fellowship.

You can look forward to excellent library and internet computer facilities at NUS' main library
(<library at the Institute of South East Asian Studies (ISEAS) [<
Manager
Asia Research Institute
5 Arts Link
Level 4 Shaw Foundation Building, AS7
Singapore 117570
Email: joinari@nus.edu.sg
Fax : 65 67791428
Website: <

Utada Hikaru
The Washington Post has a feature story on Japanese pop princess Utada Hikaru, who has recently dropped out from Columbia because "it wasn't as difficult as I was hoping it would be." She also has recently released her first English album. Here is what she has to say about her early marriage (she married at 19):

"When I first got married, everyone said, 'You're too young' and 'Why don't you wait?' I figured a lot of marriages fail, right? . . . If I waited until I was 35, I wouldn't be better equipped or more prepared to be married than I am now."

Invite
Inaanyayahan po namin kayo sa taunang Lilt & the Verve isang poetry reading na gaganapin sa BOBS CAFE, torre lorenzo towers,taft cor vito cruz, manila(below Starbucks) sa October 22,2004 ng 7:30 ng gabi.

Isang maliit po itong selebrasyon para ipagdiwang ang pang 20 taon namin bilang literary and arts folio ng De La Salle University.

Ibebenta po ang mga tickets ng P 75 na may kasamang libreng 'drink' at finger foods. Sana suportahan po natin dahil parte ng malilikom na halaga ay mapupunta sa fund ng isang premyadong manunulat na syang unang bumuo ng aming organisasyon noon 1980's.

Salamat at mabuhay po ang mga alagad ng sining! Kung interesado po kayong magperform ng spoken word or poetry performance-hybrid itext nyo lang po ako ASAP sa numerong
09166108151 para maayos po natin sa programa.

The rich are different from you and me
What was Gen, Garcia's wife thinking when she made all those incriminating declarations of affluence? Was she on medication or what? The haughtiness was reminiscent of Queen Antoinette of France who, when told the people of Paris had no bread to eat, memorably quipped, "Let them eat cake." The queen's head was hacked off; it is doubtful whether Gen. Garcia would ever spend a day in jail.

I myself have grown jaded with systemic government corruption that my thinking now is that: If you must corrupt the government's coffers, please be at least discreet about it because I don't want to read about all the venal details on the papers. It is unnerving for proles to hear tales of grandeur.

Few weeks ago, I had the same feeling when I heard of GSIS executive Garcia's taking a loan to buy a Volvo. How would you feel about the Volvo if you were on those GSIS queus waiting for your benefits to be released for the fourth week? The gall.

Now, I don't know whether the allegations hurled against him are true, but this I know: Garcia must be incompetent. Why? Because it is a basic principle of sound personal financial management never to buy a car using a loan. A car is a non-performing asset; it doesn't earn you anything. (Even Megastar Sharon Cuneta knows this. I saw her dispensing financial advise on young stars once, telling them not to buy a car unless they are in solid enough financial situation to buy three or four of them.) Garcia is also probably married so he wouldn't be wanting to impress the girls with a brand new car now, would he?

How can we we expect Garcia to soundly manage GSIS finances when he himself doesn't know how to manage his. With his Volvo-buying-on-a-loan spendthrift ways, he would probably end up bankrupt soon.

How will American novelists vote?
Amy Tan is for Kerry "because I have a brain and so does he." Jonathan Franzen is also for Kerry because inter alia Kerry's wife is "hot hot hot." See your favorite American novelists' political preference here.

From The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath:

I said maybe if you loved a woman it wouldn't seem so boring, but Eric said it would be spoiled by thinking this woman too was just an animal like the rest, so if he loved anybody he would never go to bed with her. He'd go to a whore if he had to and keep the woman he loved free of all that dirty business.

Interview
Time magazine interviews Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai.

Che Guevara in Peronist Argentina
He helped liberate Cuba, tried to foment a revolution in Zaire, unsuccessfully led an insurrection in Bolivia; but why did the internationalist Che Guevara overlook his home country Argentina?

When asked why he wouldn't join the protests against the authoritarian regime of Juan Peron (Che's parents were rabidly anti-Peronist and, of course, upper middle class), the young Che was reported to have testily retorted, "only if you would give me a gun."

Incidentally, did you know that, contrary to what was portrayed in a famous musical, Che Guevara's only interaction with Evita Peron was when he in his youth wrote her a letter asking for a Jeep? I often wonder whatever happened to that letter: the most famous Latin American in twentieth century addressing the most powerful woman in perhaps all of the continent's history.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
I would never have picked up The Bell Jar had it not been the selection of the online book club I joined recently. Sylvia Plath was the poet who killed herself by shoving her head into the oven. I had consciously avoided authors like Sylvia Plath for a long time ever since reading about a character in Larry Mcmurtry' Evening Star who was obsessed with Camus and ended up in prison with a shitty view of life and human nature. I had then lumped Camus, Woolf, Dostoevsky, Sartre (exactly how many philo majors had this philosopher corrupted? was my thought then) under the heading "suspect literature," never to be touched.

The nice thing about being forced to read a book (like in school) is that sometimes you end up really liking it. As I did The Bell Jar. The book is an autobiographical story of a girl's descent into madness and subsequent rehabilitation. It is more or less a retelling of Plath's actual experiences when she was about to graduate from her college: her winning of writing prizes, her straight A's, her being rejected in a creative-writing class, her early suicide attempts.

How to describe the book? The narrator Esther is Holden Caulfield-- only female, smarter and neurotic. If you are interested to know how it is to more or less suffer a nervous breakdown and spend time in a mental asylum, reading The Bell Jar would be time well spent. I found the ending particularly touching. Esther was waiting to be called for her final interview before she gets approved to leave the mental asylum for good, and she was not quite sure whether she was sane enough:

But I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure at all. How did I know that someday - at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere - the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?
xxx
I had hoped, at my departure, I would feel sure and knowledgeable about everything that lay ahead - after all, I had been "analyzed." Instead, all I could see were question marks. I kept shooting impatient glances at the closed boardroom door. My stocking seams were straight, my black shoes cracked, but polished, and my red wool suit flamboyant as my plans. Something old, something new. . .

But I wasn't getting married. There ought, I thought, to be a ritual for being born twice - patched, retreaded and approved for the road, I was trying to think of an appropriate one when Doctor Nolan appeared from nowhere and touched me on the shoulder.

"All right, Esther."I rose and followed her to the open door.

Pausing, for a brief breath, on the threshold, I saw the silver-haired doctor who had told me about the rivers and the Pilgrims on my first day, and the pocked, cadaverous face of Miss Huey, and eyes I thought I had recognized over white masks.
The eyes and the faces all turned themselves toward me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room.

We know that years after that incident, the bell jar again descended on Sylvia Plath. In the imagination of every student of literature, Sylvia Plath in her kitchen dying of gas asphyxiation looms as large as the image of Virginia Woolf wading into the river to drown, or closer to home, Maningning Miclat jumping off the FEU building with a bunch of flowers.

Book launch
Liktao at Epiko: Ang Takip ng Tapayang Libingan ng Libmanan, Camarines Sur by Dr. Zeus Salazar will be launched at the Museo Conciliar del Seminario de Nueva Caceres in Naga City on October 15 at 2:00 P.M.

The archaelogical find (liktao) is a burial jar cover found in Libmanan, Camarines Sur which has since been donated to the Museo by collector and archaelogy enthusiast Ermelo M. Almeda. The find has been a subject of an earlier study by retired UP professor Dr. Ma. Lilia F. Realubit and Ermelo M. Almeda. UP professor Dr. Ma. Lilia F. Realubit says, “Liktao at Epiko provides archaelogical evidence for the Bicol epic of Ibalong and the kingdom of Handiong.”

Salazar provides a detailed analysis of the jar cover and links it to other Philippine and Asian cultural traditions. Writing in Filipino, Salazar provides evidence that Libmanan could well be the first socio-political center in the Bicol peninsula. “Ang Libmanan ay isa sa mga imporanteng sentro ng pagbubuo ng estado sa Pilipinas mula pa noong unang mga dantaon B.K.”

Dr. Zeus A. Salazar received his doctorate in ethnology from Sorbonne University and degree in AB History (summa cum laude) at UP. Salazar was among those anthropologists who revealed the “Tasaday Hoax” and conceptualized the “Pantayaong Pananaw and “Bagong Historiograpiyang Filipino”. Now retired from teaching, Salazar devotes his time to writing. He also just finished a two-volume book on Pres. Estrada. Salazar hails from Tiwi, Albay.

Dr. Realubit, chair of the book launch, says that a lecture by the author will follow the book launch.

Songs heard lately
Obsesion by Aventura
Infinitely danceable sound from a bachata band from the Dominican Republic. Currently number one in at least one world music chart I saw.

All Nite by Janet Jackson
Janet Jackson may no longer be Beyonce hot as she was in the eighties, but she still has her groove. Definitely bigger than Michael Jackson now. Wardrobe malfunction was a good career move.

Let's get it started by Black Eyed Peas
Weeks ago, I was talking about Black Eyed Peas with a fifty-year-old man. I was surprised Black Eyed Peas has such a huge fan base. Apparently, the man was fascinated by the life story of Apol, which he saw on Maalaala Mo Kaya ( or magpakailanman? ). He said he couldn't help but listen to the band because his son, a huge fan, is practicing some dance steps for school. I suspect even Digs Dilangalen is a fan.

Burn by Usher
Usher has given the phrase kiss and tell a whole new dimension. And only a genuine megawatt superstar can get away with such a girlie dance sequence (as Usher can be seen executing at the end of his Burn music video).

If I Ain't Got You by Alicia Keys
Keys seems to me a Mary J. Blige wannabee, but in this song at least she pulls it off.

Web prowl
How do French politicians prove they've got what it takes to hold public office? They write lots of books, according to Newsweek. The PCIJ reports on the dwindling circulation of Philippine newspapers. Britain's St Andrews University has launched The Poetry House, which aims to be "the most authoritative guide to information about poetry across the English-speaking world." The political scientist Stanley Hoffman calls for the withdrawal of American troops in Iraq .

Love pakshet
The blog Love finds its reason asks:

Ang kalapati, sabi nila, kailangang ikulong sa bahay nya ng tatlong buwan, para kapag lumipad na sya kasama ng iba pang kalapati ng kapitbahay, pagdating ng hapon sa iyo sya babalik.
Pero bakit ang puso ko, ikinulong ko ng anim na buwan, nang pakawalan ko hindi na bumalik sa akin?

Elfriede Jelinek, Nobel Prize winner
The Nobel guessing game for literature is over. This year's Nobel laureate is the Austrian novelist and playwright Elfriede Jelinek (read the Nobel bibliographical notes here). The Nobel committee cites her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power." If you read German, she has her homepage here.

I gather that Jelinek was in nobody's shortlist to win this year's prize. Names bandied about were those of Vargas LLosa, Atwood, Adonis, Roth, Kundera, Ismail Kadare of Albania. As usual, the announcement of Jelinek's name has elicited dissent from the literati. Why, those in the know say, Peter Handke is the more deserving Austrian. An anonymous reviewer for Amazon has this to say:

The only point to the exercise, whether with the knife, or any of Jelinek's books, is to immerse yourself in the low, degraded, human experience of being a piece of meat and nothing more. This writing is on par with the notes left behind by the psychotics at Columbine, the rambling of the Unabomber, etc. There is no art here, and nothing to be learned.

I haven't read any Jelinek so I wouldn't really know. Amazon has four of her books for sale: The Piano Teacher, Lust, Women as Lovers, and Wonderful, Wonderful Times. To sample her kind of writing without placing an order online, you can read her take on Brecht and a piece called I want to be shallow.

Filipino-American idol
Jasmine Trias was mobbed at the airport. I wish Camille Velasco would also come to the P.I. I don't know if it's just me, but I always thought Velasco was the more talented one.

Mys sister also told me that Velasco, unlike Trias, didn't come to the audition with a coterie of supporters and well-wishers. Velasco went alone.

I don't know how to judge singing, but Trias's voice sounds generic to me. Velasco's singing voice, with that timbre of hurt buried deep inside and betrayed by her vocal trills, is more distinguishable (I immensely liked her rendition of One Last Cry). Velasco was also the prettiest among the American idol finalists.

When you come to really think about it, what one needs to be a pop star is not so much a perfect voice but a distinguishable one. Just look at where Barbra Streisand's croaking voice brought her. And who said Ely Buendia can sing?

Hungry people who need people
The government took a fine time to introduce welfare state policies. In the midst of a fiscal crisis, the Arroyo administration is now seriously considering a six-billion-per-month food voucher program to alleviate the hunger felt by 15.1% of Filipino households.

What makes this news interesting is that the food program has drawn criticism from the CBCP and certain leftist groups, people you would normally associate with such programs. CBCP public affairs head Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez even called the program a mere "palliative measure" that would be ineffective in the long run. This got me thinking. Father, if I were hungry, with nothing to buy me food, with no one to loan me money, I wouldn't really care whether the food-voucher program is a mere palliative measure ineffective in the long term as long as it palliates my hunger. If I eat nothing, in the long term I would be dead.

The hunger statistic is not as bad as it looks though. The SWS survey says that of the 15.1 percent of households experiencing hunger only 3.3 % experience it ALWAYS.

I think Sec. Bunye said it well: "Relief, however temporary, is called for as we lead on in the more fundamental and larger reforms that would deal with poverty permanently." One quick caveat though: The government should better deliver those "fundamental and larger reforms" because dole-out measures like the food-voucher program are habit-forming. Once we get used to it, we'd begin feeling we couldn't live without it.

Pinoypoets workshop
Anyone interested to join the 1st Pinoypoets Poetry Writing Workshop scheduled on Nov 13-14 to be held in Antipolo? Panelists include established/ published poets/ Palanca awardees.

Please check out groups.yahoo.com/group/pinoypoets for details.

A farewell to Hillary's dreams of world domination?
Vince Morris, a reporter for the New York Post, was incredulous when political strategist/Bush factotom Karl Rove claimed that last week's presidential debate was President George W. Bush's best. The reporter asked Rove: "Really? You can say that with a straight face?"

Of course not. Bush lost that debate. He was surly and seemed to be not in control of facts. Kerry made full use of his patrician air (that grayish hair, the almost Jewish nose, the demeanor that seems to suggest Shakespeare) and looked more presidential than the US president himself. The conventional analysis suggests that the debate gave Kerry a new momentum to catch up with the front-runner Bush. Kerry has once again a fighting chance, they say.

Does this mean goodbye to Hillary's dreams of world domination? If Kerry wins, John Edwards will be vice-president and heir to the throne, effectively sidelining Hillary. And anybody who has seen John Edwards smile can imagine how formidable a presidential campaigner he could be. Besides, pace feminists, Hillary isn't getting any younger.

Some people argue, including Clintonites no doubt, that the coming November election is a good one for the Democratic party to lose. A second term for Bush would probably preside over a second Vietnam in Iraq and an economic downturn to boot. The GOP would therefore get the blame, thereby brightening the prospects of the Democrats in the long term -- including Hillary's in the 2008 elections.

The heart bypass of Bill Clinton therefore came in a most opportune time. He got an excuse not to campaign for Kerry, without alienating those Democrats who support the latter's candidacy. If Kerry botches next month's elections, Bill Clinton may be back at the Oval office in four years' time. With more free time to entertain the interns.

Star Cinema screenwriting scholarship
A month-long program to be handled by Philippine Cinema's premiere writers designed to discover and develop aspiring screenwriters.

Official application forms may be obtained at the Star Cinema Creative Department, 3rd Floor, ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp., Sgt. Esguerra Ave., Diliman, Quezon City.

For more details, call 415-2272 local 3931 or email Carmi_Raymundo@abs.pinoycentral.com.Deadline of applications is on October 6, 2004.

New blog
George Soros has a blog here.

Coeds for dummies
The incisive, and often funny, Limpbwizit has devised a utile taxonomy of Manila coeds. Here's how he compares the maroon girl from UP versus the blue girl from Ateneo:

but the most distinguishing quality of a blue girl is her taste. a "regular" blue girl wants a goody-goody boy, well-bred, well-groomed, and all. a "regular" maroon girl goes for the maginoo pero bastos type and the usual UP campus heartthrob would probably be an ateneo loser or weirdo. an average blue girlfriend is therefore the regular leading lady in an action movie - supportive of her man and prettier than her boyfriend. an average maroon girlfriend is not usually like that. she could be more handsome than her boyfriend and she performs so many roles - she could be a drinking buddy, a competitive rival in so many things, a sugar mommy, or a prison warden.

The blue girl may have better taste, but, according to Limpbwizit, the archerette from La Salle is the best girlfriend:

...being taken does not cause her to become losyang and she's the kind who wants to look beautiful for her boyfriend coz that, probably, is her only source of pride and joy so that if a guy and an archerette break up, she'll blame the pimple on her cheek, a five-pound weight gain, or the eyebag that she failed to conceal. so the guy who breaks up with her is acquitted of any crime coz the sole culprit is either the pimple, the eyebag, or the unwanted weight increase.

Who is your Asian Hero?
Time magazine is having a survey. I've just voted for Aung San Suu Kyi.

Roundtable discussion
THE FISCAL AND UNEMPLOYMENT CRISES
01 October 2004, 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Soriano Hall, SEAMEO Innotech
Commonwealth Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City


MARIA THERESA DIOKNO-PASCUAL
Bantay Tubig

DR. MILWIDA GUEVARRA
Synergeia Foundation, Inc & Former Undersecretary of DOF
(To be Confirmed)

PROFESSOR JOSEPH Y. LIM
School of Economics, University of the Philippines

PROFESSOR FELIPE MEDALLA
School of Economics, University of the Philippines

CLARENCE PASCUAL
Labor Education and Research Network

DR. JOSEF YAP
Philippine Institute for Development Studies

With the Special Participation of
ERINC YELDAN, Department of Economics, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey
ALEX IZURIETA, Cambridge Endowment for Research in Finance, University of
Cambridge
KORKUT BORATAV, Department of Economics, Ankara University

Moderator
FILOMENO STA. ANA III
Action for Economic Reforms

The vice of procrastination
We probably would all do well to tack on somewhere prominent this footnote from the novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell the soonest we find time:

Horace Tott spent an uneventful life in Cheshire always intending to write a large book on English magic, but never quite beginning. And so he died at seventy-four, still imagining he might begin next week, or perhaps the week after that.

Fortress America
It turns out that the singer Yusuf Islam aka Cat Stevens was denied entry to the United States because of a simple spelling mistake on the part of federal officials, who thought Stevens was Youssouf Islam. The funny thing about this is that the neocon Weekly Standard has already published articles justifying the banning of Cat Stevens, like this one from Stephen Schwartz. The burning question is: Who is the next famous personality who will be banned due to a spelling error and whose banning subsequently justified in the pages of The Weekly Standard ?. Some suspicious candidates come to mind: Amartya Sen, Arundhati Roy, Sting, Gabriel Garcia Marquez....

Last month, the Swiss Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan's visa was also revoked, preventing him from assuming a temporary position as a guest lecturer at the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies at Notre Dame. What was ironic about this was that, as Scoot Marten pointed out in his blog, Ramadan is the closest person America could get to "a Islamic intellectual figure who is likely to be more acceptable as the other side in an American dialogue with Islam."

Earlier this year, the novelist Ian McEwan, flying from Canada, was detained for hours by American airport personnel. What McEwan found infinitely frustrating was that he was sitting next to a money launderer with a suitcase full of cash. Never mind that McEwan happens to be one of Laura Bush's favorite writers. In Fortress America, NO ONE is beyond suspicion.

In defense of brothels
From The Observer, a man who claims to have slept with 1,000 prostitutes gives a candid and scandalous account of his experience of paying for sex:

Of course, the general feeling in this country is that the man is somehow exploiting the woman, but I don't believe this. In fact, the prostitute and the client, like the addict and the dealer, is the most successfully exploitative relationship of all. And the most pure. It is free of ulterior motives. There is no squalid power game. The man is not taking and the woman is not giving. The whore fuck is the purest fuck of all.

Why does a sleazy bastard like me like whores so much? Why pay for it? The problem is that the modern woman is a prostitute who doesn't deliver the goods. Teasers are never pleasers; they greedily accept presents to seal a contract and then break it. At least the whore pays the flesh that's haggled for. The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less.

Job opening
UBE MEDIA is now auditioning for HOSTS for its educational show that will be launched this October.

We're looking for:

Male and Female
18-22 years old
fluent in English and Filipino
on cam experience is not necessary but is a plus
is up-to-date with current events in and outside of
school and active in curricular and extracurricular
activities

Auditions will be held at the UBE MEDIA office, 7th Flr. Salcedo Tower 169, HV dela Costa Street, Salcedo Village, Makati City.

Please call 889 1900 for scheduling, look for Therese.

Sex with a congressman
After taking so long, Keana Reeves--only 23, she insists--finally made her appearance at the Senate, but only to be upstaged by Janine Roque, who made the headline-grabbing assertion that she had sex with a congressman from Luzon. As if this disclosure wasn't weighty enough for a TV patrol segment, Roque further added that the congressman wanted her to take drugs.

Many are incredulous, including Sen. Jinggoy Estrada. I, however, think, it would have been quite easy to ferret out the truth. The senators could have interrogated Roque with more, er, enthusiasm. Like, why exactly did the congressman wanted her totake drugs ? Was she reticient in the performance of her job ?

The Filipino viewers' appetite for salacious details hitherto remain unquenched. In the interests of democracy and all the good People Power stood for in this country, we must learn the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. Our good senators can't be relied upon to satiate our interest. And so we must turn to the most reliable of them all--Boy Abunda.

Dream university
The author Alain de Botton proposes a University of Life:

The University of Life will... divide up the curriculum in a new way. Rather than going to study "history" or "English literature", one will study areas such as love, work, relationships, family, the community and beauty. Light will be shone on these topics by most of the same material as is currently being studied at universities. The point is not to find new sources of knowledge, but rather to re-orient the existing ones in a more useful direction.

The University of Life would also encourage social activity and facilitate encounters and dialogues between people. It would recognise that loneliness is one of the great social ills of our time. Inside The Symposium, the university's large restaurant (open to everyone), it would be understood that anyone could approach anyone in order to initiate a philosophically-minded conversation. There would be no need for shyness. Sex and love would sometimes ensue. The university's mission to end loneliness among intellectuals, and to some extent, thereby to reintegrate them into "life" would be taken seriously.

Sigh, sigh...

Coconut industry, we have a problem
Our coconut farmers have been enjoying high market price for their copra lately. Current is currently being bought at 15-16 pesos a kilo, which is a far cry from the price a couple of years ago when a kilo sold for less than five pesos. For the country's 3.5 million coconut farmers and farm workers, the price jump means a huge difference in their standard of living.

The bad news, however, is that there is a disaster coming, which our farmers may not be able to address sufficiently: the European Union reduced last year the maximum limit on aflatoxin, a known carcinogenic, in copra meal from 200 to 20 ppb. Aflatoxin is produced by molds that grow on copra that are insufficiently dried. To address this new stringent European standard, the Philippine Coconut Authority has adopted a new price adjustment scale for moisture content in copra. The new rules mandated by the PCA, which are intended to promote the quality of copra, require copra buyers to reject copra with moisture content 14% or more.

Now here's the big problem: Copra buyers are not rejecting substandard copra. Because of competition among themselves--and also because the Chinese middleman minority cannot be bothered about these aflatoxin levels-- they continue to buy what is supposedly non-merchantable copra. Moldy copra is being processsed by oil mills. The helplessly understaffed PCA can only look in despair as the industry's health standards are massacred at the farm gate.

So if you are not a coconut farmer, why should all this concern you? Because somewhere in your kitchen, a gallon of Minola is probably on the shelf. I'm not sure about the aflatoxin level in our cooking oil (does it get filtered out along the way?), but if you can afford to buy, say, corn oil, then why not?

Quotable

Martha Stewart, announcing that she's ready to begin serving her prison sentence:

I am very sad knowing I will miss the holiday season. And I will miss all of my pets—my two beloved, fun-loving dogs, my seven lively cats, my canaries, my horses and even my chickens.

Road Trip
The Nation reviews The Motorcycle Diaries, Che Guevara's Hollywood beatification:

"But the film is so beautiful," say Salles's fans. No--it's pretty. Eric Gautier photographed it, with frequent and unnecessary use of the wan light and monochromatic effects that are now high-fashion clichés of their own. With this much sense of visual discovery, The Motorcycle Diaries could spawn a glossy magazine: Condé-Nast Revolution.

Voltaire via Julian Barnes:
Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.

Music
For amatuers with serious pretensions, A Handful of Sand makes some classical music recommendations.

Youth Summit on Population
The UP Economics Society, in cooperation with UNFPA and PLCPD, invites you to its youth summit entitled "POP-UP: Various Perspectives on the Philippine Population Issue" to be held on October 2, 2004 (Saturday: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm) at Diosdado Macapagal Hall, UP School of Economics Library Building.

Guest Speakers:

Dr. Zahidul Huque
Country Representative
UN Population Fund

Dr. Ernesto Pernia
School of Economics
UP Diliman

Dr. Auralyn Anorico
Programme Director for Adolescent and Reproductive Health
UN Population Fund

Dr. Michael Tan
Department of Anthropology Chair
College of Social Science and Philosophy
UP Diliman

Rep. Gilbert Remulla
2nd District of Cavite
Vice-Chair for Luzon
Philippine Legislators' Committee on Population and Development

Love's morbidity
I have just had the guilty pleasure of reading Nick Hornby's About a Boy. I've heard some friends talk about it before, but it was only on Thursday that I took it up and, surprisingly, I found it quite funny. The story is about how Will, a man with disturbingly antisocial tendencies who was determined to stay unattached for life, was weaned out of his solitude and found someone he could marry and fall in love with. It is all a little bit corny, I know, but some people may identify with Will, in which case the book is recommended.

Will had never wanted to fall in love. When it had happened to friends it had always struck him as a peculiarly unpleasant-seeming experience, what with all the loss of sleep and weight, and the unhappiness when it was unreciprocated, and the suspect, dippy happiness when it was working out. These were people who could not control themselves, or protect themselves, people who, if only temporarily, were no longer content to occupy their own space, people who could no longer rely on a new jacket, a bag of grass and an afternoon rerun of The Rockford Files to make them complete.Will had never wanted to fall in love. When it had happened to friends it had always struck him as a peculiarly unpleasant-seeming experience, what with all the loss of sleep and weight, and the unhappiness when it was unreciprocated, and the suspect, dippy happiness when it was working.

I must admit I sometimes think along the same lines. And why not? Friends who used to have impeccable taste in music suddenly start humming Brian McKnight and noticing David Pomeranz on the record stores. And you, being the hapless friend of someone in love, had, of course, to endure it. And just when you think you had enough of the mawkish amorousness, then came the oh-so-inevitable break-up: shitty things being said about the other party, recriminations left and right. And you begin to wonder,How could two people fall out of love so fast if their love was in any way genuine? Is it really better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all ? A valid question methinks.

Heartbroken
Bill Clinton had it last week. Secretary T iglao also had one done on him at the Philippine Heart Center. Now is as good as any other time to learn more about heart bypass surgery, which locally costs about 350,000-615,000 pesos (according to a Newsbreak article).

French
The more I watch Trace TV, a French music channel on cable, the more I become convinced that there is no music more atrociously jarring than French rap. On a related French note, the London Review of Books has a piece on the intellectual decline of France.

Job opening
CCCI, an NGO that harnesses the arts and media for advocacy (women and children, health, environment culture and education), is in need of a full-time Communications Specialist, female, and a graduate of Social Sciences or Communications course, preferably with 2 years experience .

· Research write, and edit briefs, reports, and proposals
· Coordinate production and post-production of IECs.
· Liase with funding institutions from both government and NGOs
· documents project learnings
· update the CCCI website
· travel outside of Metro Manila when necessary

Send your work samples and CV with photo to Ms. Kelly Rayel of 6C Matipuno St., Brgy. Pinyahan, Diliman, Quezon City or thru email: ccci@indanet.com or call 925-8066 for interview

Opinion makers
Via Manolo Quezon, I learned that Prof. Felipe Miranda has left the opinion pages of the Philippine Star. Yesterday's column was the last. What makes me feel pretty sore is that I missed reading it and that the Philstar website has already pulled it down. I wonder what could be the reason behind the leave-taking.

Manuy people, I know, will miss Prof. Miranda's judicious column. What was so endearing about it was its unique unhurried quality (not to mention its avuncular wisdom), in sharp contrast with the sometimes corybantic discussion in the other Philstar columns steep in the vicissitudes of the present.

News of Prof. Miranda's leaving the Philippine Star has got me thinking about some of my other must-read columnists:

1) Conrado de Quiros
Sometimes in random discussion with friends, one of us would end up referring to a column written by De Quiros a week or even months ago. He has become almost a shared experience for us; no matter how far apart we may be, we all get the same rub.

2) Joaquin Bernas
I had a classmate before who was so enamored by Today's editorial page and Bernas's column in particular that he actually files them. Leave it to the Dean to show the way when all legal lights fail.

3) Alex Magno
He gets in the nerves of some people, I know: the smug smile, the rabid capitalism, the name-calling of some Lefties.... He is a Filipino neoconservative, if ever there was one. From the Left he moved to the Right and there now he is ensconced: a perfect case of a liberal who got mugged by reality. I remember one guy from a labor union speaking about Magno as if the columnist were some evil spawn. In certain circles, it is extremely fashionable to dis Magno. But minus all the distractions, Magno is a compelling read especially on public policy and political economy. His column is a model of clarity and presentation, very well-cropped, a veritable antidote to the confusion of a Saguisag column, where so many names are dropped you begin to think it is Tim Yap you are reading.

4) Manolo Quezon
Through Quezon's column, we find it comforting to see how the past can serve as a guide, however tenuous, to the confusion of the present. Also I liked the way he began his earlier columns with epigrams from books. And he has a blog to boot.

5)Michael Tan
What can I say but that Michael Tan's column is beloved. His observations of the quirks of our daily lives are sometimes exquisitely endearing. During one occasion, some friends gifted me with a cutout column of Tan. I still have it today. One high school classmate was a student of his at UP (for the sex anthropology class, I think) and judging from the stories I heard from my classmate the class was, er, satisfying--to say the very least.

6) Luis Teodoro
Dean Teodoro is at his best discussing things pertaining to journalism. Sometimes his column takes on the quality of an editorial arbiter, like a professional showing the amatuers the straight and narrow path. He is also one of the only two Filipino columnists ( the other is De Quiros ) who have fan sites on the web.

More next time I feel like it. ..

Call for papers
The ATENEO CENTER FOR ASIAN STUDIES (ACAS) invites established scholars and practitioners, as well as graduate students from a variety of disciplines in the humanities, management, science and engineering, and the social sciences, currently writing their masteral thesis or doctoral dissertations to submit papers for the ACAS Conference to be held in August 2005.

Theme: NATIONALISM AND GLOBALIZATION in the ASIAN CONTEXT
Deadline for paper title and abstract (around 250 words): 17 SEPTEMBER 2004
Deadline for completed paper: 8 JULY 2005
Date of conference: 12 AUGUST 2005
Place of conference: Ateneo de Manila campus
Publication of selected papers: AUGUST 2006

ACAS, aiming to encourage Filipino scholars and practitioners to do research about other Asian countries will hold a conference in August 2005. The theme is NATIONALISM AND GLOBALIZATION in the ASIAN CONTEXT. Interested scholars, researchers and practitioners are asked to submit the title and abstract of their paper proposals on or before 17 September 2004 because we in the ACAS Executive Board will draw up the conceptual framework from the papers submitted. In this way, prospective participants will have more freedom to decide on the topic of their papers and will have significant inputs in the drawing up of the conceptual framework.

Papers should be about Asian countries other than the Philippines, or the Philippines in comparison with other Asian countries. Or, they may be about the Asian region or its sub-regions.

There is no funding for research, but there will be honoraria for paper presentors and a chance to publish.

For inquiries please e-mail lyjose@ateneo.edu or call Dr. Lydia Yu Jose at 426-6001 (local 5248).

Casting couch
An independent director is in need of actors/actresses to play the following roles for a short film production:

Husband, 30's
Wife, 30's (mestiza preferred)
Teenage girl, 15 or 16 years old
Yaya

Interested parties, please send your resume and picture to jcsuarez1995@yahoo.com. Shooting date will be on October 23-24, in Antipolo.

In memoriam
Seamus Heaney on Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) here.