Unfinished Business

I felt sorry for myself that I had no shoes, ’til I saw a man with no feet.

But I still had no shoes, and no amount of sympathy from me could give the man back his feet.

So I walked on, gathering new blisters for every mile, even as the load on my back got heavier as I tired.

Eventually, bent double from my load and tracking bloody footsteps, I looked back and saw that the man still had no feet.

Then I realized I too still had no shoes. 

That’s my unfinished business.

Filed under: musings, society, Filipino Voices, unfinished business

Yo, Jester!

Yo, Jester! Whatever gave you the idea that I was a peacenik? LOL!

My weapon of choice, mister.

Or in case he’s unavailable …

LOL!

Filed under: federalism, humor, politics, pop-culture, vacuity, Dr. Manhattan, Filipino Voices, Kitty rifle

Whose voices?

Over at Filipino Voices, Jon Limjap puts forward these pithy observations:

I don’t like the way FilipinoVoices is being used to forward either racist (Obama = voodoo practicioner) or misogynist/chauvinist (Palin = just another vagina) views.

I don’t mind either posts because clearly, what happens to the United States has a lot to do with what happens to the Philippines, but can’t we have at least an objective discussion on these candidates, especially for the benefit of Filipinos who are not privy to the internal politics of the United States?

I mean, it’s already the 21st century, old people. Machismo and apartheid are not fashionable anymore.

I agree. But I also go beyond Jon’s misgivings to note my own apprehensions about FV which have been growing since the way the Ces Drilon incident affected the collective, and which was brought to a head by seeing Manuel Buencamino’s post.

When FV was started, it was a nice little tea-house where you could get the views of bloggers you might have never heard of before. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was the meat of their writing – and they wrote about everything.The way I understood it, the purpose of the collective was to strengthen the ‘alternative’ paradigm of blogging: giving mainstream readers the opportunity to soak up the thoughts and ideas of writers that they would never have found on their own. It had a punk sensibility that totally resonated with me.

Now, FV seems to be just another RSS feed where you can read established presences like Manuel Buencamino venting, and Ding Gagelonia practicing his brand of literary journalism, and Dean Jorge Bocobo pulpitizing. And of course, there was Ben Paypon spewing his racist drivel. WTF, right? And where have all the previously not-so-well-known originals gone?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but let me tell you, seeing all those big names has had an off-putting effect. As a reader, I keep wanting to read fresh perspectives; not clever variations on the same theme. As a writer, I don’t appreciate having to be under pressure to stay relevant to the current trend of essays being published. Of course there is no explicit pressure of that sort – nor even implicit – but it does get uncomfortable when you want to post about the Eraserheads and find that the pre-occupation du jour is the geopolitical ramifications of the American presidential derby and the consequences of federalism. In fact, the removal of the feature that shows new posts by the authors in their own blogs totally defeats one of the primary goals of FV: to introduce new readers to new authors. I have no problem with FV focusing primarily on politics and such, but that feature kinda balanced things out in that readers could actually choose to read about other things that the authors found worth writing about. But now, review the last few posts and you’ll see that FV has morphed into an online trade magazine – complete with letters to the Editor, no less, as if we had an Editor – with a one-tracked mind.

I was never really a heavy poster on FV, but going into that site used to serve up a brand new perspective, a brand new thing to get excited about, a brand new stimulus every single time. Now, I just find it monotonous – and yes, I am fully aware that I might be the only one who feels this way.

We talk about mainstream media and try to distinguish blogging from that; we call blogging new media – something of an alternative to the kind of pap you hear on teevee or read in the papers. But guess what? FV is NOT really alt anymore. Instead of being a true alternative, it feels like just an alternative version of mainstream.

Maybe FV has evolved beyond its original concept – and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I tend to hanker for how the FV was before it underwent this transformation. Although personally, I don’t think its as much a matter of evolution as it is a matter of succumbing to the allure of the mainstream. And perhaps, also a little bit of the established writers wanting to get exposure in the alt scene. And with FV being noticed by mainstream media, I have to admit, it does make sense to want to be part of the collective.

Don’t get me wrong. Filipino Voices remains a smashing good site. If that’s the kind of thing you want. Myself, I find that the allure of being part of the collective has waned. FV used to represent the spirit of the underground paper – the subversive publication that gave a nod to the burning issues of the day and offered up biting commentary, but also gave space to the things that the broadsheets ignored as being not serious enough. I suppose it can still be like that; it all depends on the authors after all.

But like I said, you can’t expect the Sex Pistols to play Albert Hall all the time.

Filed under: blogging, Albert Hall, Filipino Voices, Sex Pistols

The turning of the tide

Unless I totally misread him, I think John Mangun is saying that, with the current increase in prices of goods and services, we are merely experiencing the darkest hours before dawn.

In stark contrast to the gloom and doom being peddled over at Filipino Voices, Mangun opines that:

Now, the difference between the “future” price and the “spot” price is narrowing, indicating that the momentum is changing, and soon, the “spot” price will move the “future” price and that direction will be down.

In other words, while things will keep on getting worse for a while yet, the turning of the tide is no longer too far off. When things get too pricey, after all, people will stop buying; when people stop buying, demand falls; and when demand falls, so too will the price of things.

But as wonderful as that news is, I can’t help but be struck by the differences in approach taken by these two writers, especially since they’re talking about the same basic thing: the increasing cost of living.

Where Gagelonia rhapsodizes about “perfect storms” – I swear, if I ever meet the guy who made that movie, I am going to hurt him so bad for adding yet another term to the lexicon of filipino melodrama – and dire predictions and exhorts us to “hang on” as though we were about to go off the edge of the world. Mangun , on the other hand, chooses to tell us that this isn’t world’s end.

The difference in points-of-view is important to acknowledge because the first – Gagelonia’s take – does nothing but increase the sense of despair already pervading our nation. And he does so gratuitously, gleefully predicting darker times. But of course, since he’s a juh-nah-list, he’s allowed to do that, isn’t he? HAH! And juh-nah-lists have no responsibility other than to tell the story they want to sell; never mind if it destroys a nation’s faith in itself, and by necessary implication, it’s ability to look beyond its despair and so get on the road to recovery.

Imagine what the outcome of WWII would have been if Churchill had not talked incessantly of victory even in the darkest days. Imagine what it would have been like if journalists constantly dwelt on how numerically superior the Japanese invaders were compared to our guerillas. The determination to win would have been pummeled and quite possibly snuffed out.

And it’s even worse today. At least, during the war, if you felt frustrated, it was perfectly alright to go out and whack a few enemies. When you’re frustrated with economics, on the other hand, who do you whack? LOL! You could maybe drive a truck into a crowd of late afternoon pedestrians and start stabbing people with a salad fork. Or you could shoot some kids in the playground now and say “I don’t like mondays.”

Mangun’s approach, by contrast, was a sober assessment of a singularly thorny situation; one which laid out the problem (high prices) but which also demonstrated that the problem is not insurmountable. Where Gagelonia insinuates that we’ve nothing to look forward to but crap, Mangun attempts to show that there is hope. And, as Pandora found out, hope matters.

And for us especially, hope is what we need if we are to actually turn the tide at some point. Just like the basic law of economics Mangun was citing – about how there is a point when prices rise so high that deman simply drops off – there is a basic law of human psychology that if you batter the psyche long and hard enough, it will reach a point where it just accepts defeat as an inevitability. In the face of a sustained barrage of gloom and doom, higher goals are abandoned, defeatism becomes the default, and mediocrity becomes the acceptable human condition.

And that, is simply not acceptable.

Filed under: musings, Quick Posts, commodities, defeatism, Filipino Voices, John Mangun

Jobs

We’ve got a blog carnival going on over at Filipino Voices and the topic for this very first carnival is JOBS. Check it out starting tomorrow.

Filipino Voices will hold a blog carnival every second and fourth Sunday of the month. Each topic will be announced that week and all submissions must be made no later than 12 noon of that Sunday.

~

I love my job, I admit it. I’m a happy worker. It’s part-time so I don’t make much, but it’s enough to keep my grad school fund slowly growing. I don’t have a car of my own and I’m not above bumming a ride from friends now and again. My boss isn’t a pain in the neck nor is she my best friend so, we’re colleagues and that’s exactly how I want it to be. I have a good friend in the office, but we’re not bff’s so there’s no pressure to “hang out” – again, exactly how I want it.

My friend (from the apartment building where I live when I’m not being my mother’s daughter) Chick works the graveyard at a call center. I call her Chick because her boyfriend’s name is Ken. I could have called her Barbie but that’s not how my mind works. She loves her job too, because it pays enough for her to have an interesting Friday night out twice a month; because it pays enough to keep her in Greenhills-designer bags and tight-fitting camisoles; because it pays enough that she can afford a mocha frap at Starbucks three days a week; because it pays enough that she can convince herself she can delay taking the CPA board one more year.

I went to a job fair recently, and I was struck by how pretty everyone was. Even the guys. I filled out a couple of forms – nothing serious, really, just wanting to get a feel of how it will be like when I finally get out of school. While I was laying my chicken scratches on the forms, I couldn’t help but overhear the conversations of the hiring people. It was so valley-girl. So hollywood-cliche. Everyone just “loooooooved” the new song, and “ohhhh myyyyy gawd!” wasn’t Paolo so cute? And they were “like, shit PAAAAAAHre! the ride was so sweeeeeeeet!” and  everyone had a “pad” or a “flat.” If this was what new graduates were exposed to at these job fairs, then it’s not surprising that so many kids are flocking to call centers. The bait – although I doubt that the ‘bait’ actually realized that was in the fine print of their HR contracts – was pretty goddamned irresistible. Good thing I read alot when I was a kid; I was no stranger to the house made of candy and cakes that so entranced Hansel and Gretel.

Filed under: blogging, education, Filipino Voices, musings, pop-culture, science, society, blog carnival, Filipino Voices, jobs, Labor Day

I forget

New studies suggest that heavy smoking leads to earlier onset of Alzheimer’s.

Huh? What was i saying?

~

There are four early signs of aging. The first is memory loss. The second, third, and fourth signs I can’t remember.

~

Danica Patrick won the Indy 300 in Japan. It was the first win by a woman, and the first in Patrick’s career. Yay!

~

There’s an interesting conversation going on at Filipino Voices about protests and such. Some bloggers believe that it’s important to continually stage micro-protests like defacing GMA’s face on a 200-peso bill, or getting into arguments with ‘pro-GMA’ people, or honking horns … things like that. I disagreed. I think it’s a far better thing to focus on positive ways to better our lives and the lives of those around us, instead of fueling and stoking the anger that already consumes many of our countrymen, and blinds them to the good they can do, DESPITE the evil-ness of the GMA government. It makes me sad that there are people so obsessed with the “grand fight for truth, justice, and the way-things-ought-to-be” that they end up unwilling to do much of anything other than protest.

Everyday, I hear people bemoan the obvious: the rape of the rule of law, the lack of honesty in government, corruption. In the next breath, they talk about grand plans to change the world. Two minutes later, they’re driving around not wearing seat belts (against the law), texting their buds while driving (against the law), running a red light (traffic lights seem to be optional here, so … LOL, alright still against the law), and slipping the cop a fifty to get out of a citation (against the law).

Every time I walk down my street, I pass people loitering about the street corner slamming government to pieces. Whenever I stick around to hear what they say next, I hear what I expect: what they would do if they were in charge. They would subsidize gas, they would subsidize rice, they would send the Chinese ambassador to jail for refusing to appear before the Senate, they would elect Jun Lozada to the Senate and make Ed Panlilio President of the Philippines.

(The last one may not seem so absurd, until you realize that these people don’t even know Ed Panlilio. Nothing against the priest, but shouldn’t a president be chosen on something more substantial than someone’s media-crafted image?)

And after spending hours talking and talking at the street corner they go home jobless and blaming the government for it when in truth, 4 out 5 stay bums because they didn’t go out to look for a job, or because they found an employment opportunity but passed it up because it was “beneath them” or because “it wasn’t what they studied in school.” Or maybe because they were just too effing lazy.

~

Entirely unrelated news: La Salle Greenhills is going co-ed! Yup. Starting next trim, they will be accepting MALE students.

Filed under: 2010 watch, humor, international, musings, politics, pop-culture, society, alzheimer's, Danica Patrick, Filipino Voices, Indy 300, La Salle Greenhills, politics, society, weekend roundup