My cousin who was stationed in Iraq made it back home to Chicago for the holidays. Let's all keep praying for everyone who cannot be with their loved ones during the most festive seasons that they celebrate.
Christmas Eve was a night of mishaps and misfortunes. Before rushing off to Christmas dinner I absent-mindedly bolted a door that effectively sealed off half of the house. M (my hero!) spent the next hour patiently unscrewing the hinges of the door to remove the entire door, as that was the only feasible way to make the rest of the house accessible.
Later that night, after Christmas Eve, my aunt's car broke down, and midnight passed with my brother, my aunt's driver, and a few friendly passers-by pushing the car to a gas station.
As if all that weren't enough, my sister-in-law and niece fell ill yesterday, and had to stay in bed for much of noche buena.
But the homily at Church was a powerful reminder that the spirit of Christmas was not the spirit of plenty, but the spirit of offering healing and peace to those who had little and who suffered much. Fr. Nemy read Howard Thurman's poem "The Work of Christmas":
When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and the princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flocks, Then the work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among brothers, To make music in the heart.
"I don't mean to spoil your festive mood," Fr. Nemy said, "but after all, this is what Christmas is really all about." I suddenly realized that, in the frenzy of preparations for parties and noche buena, amid the gift-buying and gift-giving, I had lost sight of that too.
And the second I realized that, for the first time this Christmas season, I genuinely began to feel the Christmas spirit.
In the taxi (bless all the cab drivers who work through Christmas Eve and Christmas morning!) to my aunt's house, I felt strangely light-hearted. We had had a less than perfect Christmas Eve celebration, but many things had gone "wrong" the First Christmas as well. Christ, after all, was born in a squalid manger, not in a palace; and maybe all our mishaps were reminders that the Mystery of the Incarnation is that God should choose the form of human brokenness and imperfection precisely to heal it.
Maligayang Pasko! Spread some of God's love this Christmas season.
With elections coming up in the Philippines and the U.S., it's a good time to re-visit the updated Political Compass website and find out whether your political and economic beliefs ally you more with Saddam Hussein, Nelson Mandela, Ayn Rand, or Tony Blair.
First, my own. I almost wrote a poem today. Something I haven't done in years (maybe since college, even). I was arrested by an image. But I failed to follow through with the words. Sigh. The dissipating craft ....
Second, a beautiful thought from Jim Paredes' blog. I read the post a few days ago, then had the inspiration to read it again today, and this paragraph jumped out of the page, from his "Modern Day Beatitudes" post:
Blessed are those who do not seem to have a life, and especially those who do not have a choice—those who are physically debilitated, paralyzed or in a coma and cannot move, for they bring us a message that is lost in this age of frenzy—that to be worthy of God's love, we need not strive to do or achieve anything, but simply be.
1. Do you enjoy the cold weather and snow for the holidays? Snow? What's that? In Manila, "cold" means anything below 26 degrees celsius (which is already "hot" in some other countries). But yes, I enjoy the cool weather. Very much.
2. What is your ideal holiday celebration? How, where, with whom would you celebrate to make things perfect? Ideal would be having my entire family together for Christmas dinner, Christmas Mass, and noche buena. Since that is no longer possible, a happy Christmas celebration is, very simply: attending a very solemn Christmas Eve Mass and being with people I love.
3. Do you do have any holiday traditions? Christmas parties, Christmas decorations, gift exchanges, and Simbang Gabi (novena Masses). In true Pinoy fashion, Christmas itself means: Christmas Eve dinner, then Christmas Eve Mass, then, when the clock strikes twelve, noche buena and gifts. Of course, the traditions have changed slightly as I've become an adult and started living independently. But as long as those elements are there, it's still Christmas for me.
4. Do you do anything to help the needy? I hope that what I do, helps.
5. What one gift would you like for yourself? Seriously, peace on earth and stability in the Philippines.
M and I just came from U.P. Film Center where we watched a screening of Ditsi Carolino's latest film, Riles.
I had heard about the film before--the ravereviews and the awards it had received abroad. So when I learned that Amnesty International's observance of Human Rights Week was going to include a screening of the film, I immediately blocked off the date on my calendar and convinced M to accompany me to watch it.
The international title of the film is Life on the Tracks. For five months, Ditsi and co-director Sadhana Buxani filmed a couple and their children as they went about their daily life in the slum area beside the railroad tracks in Sampaloc, Manila. Unlike their most famous collaboration Minsan Lang Sila Bata, this film has no narration; the filmmakers simply pieced their footage together in cinema verite fashion, creating a moving 70-minute documentary about the daily joys and hardships of a family living, like many Filipinos, on the tracks.
The film was exceptional. Simple. Walang arte. Walang melodrama. And because of that, all the more jolting. More than a statement about any abstract issue such as "poverty," this film is, first and foremost, a story about real people, real lives. It certainly shook me out of my own ivory tower complacency, and I have a feeling that the images I saw on the screen will stay with me for a long time.
For our post-immersion report in fourth year college, I said to the class, "After three years of spending every Saturday of the school year going to area for ACLC, I thought I knew what poverty was. But after this three-day trip to Kailugan, I realize that I had been mistaken." After watching Ditsi's film, I feel the same way I did then. I once thought I had an idea of what poverty was. Again, I realize I am mistaken. Little things, like the meaning of a hamburger ... or a can of sardines ... or knowing that if I get sick and skip just one day of work, it will not mean that my entire family will go hungry. And I have a feeling that the next time I see an MMDA demolition team doing its sidewalk street-clearing operations, I will feel a lot more conflicted ....
I'm not sure what else to say, except watch it, watch it, watch it! If you get the chance, any chance, don't pass it up. It's an incredible little piece.
As I type this, I'm listening to Mike's long-awaited CD, the very hard-to-find, no-longer-reproduced Lupa't Langit. We finally managed to buy it, from Joey himself no less, at his practice gig tonight at Conspiracy.
First, some background. At the last Cynthia Alexander gig that we watched, Cynthia told Mike about the new nightspot that she and some other musicians of that genre (including Joey, Gary Granada, and Noel Cabangon), along with several other partners, were putting up along Visayas Avenue.
Earlier tonight, Angie forwarded to me a text she had received from Gary that Joey would be playing tonight at Conspiracy. A few minutes later, Mike called, asking if I wanted to do anything tonight. I suggested the gig, he picked me up, and we went.
Conspiracy is still only on their soft open, but I can already imagine what a place it's going to be. It's a very pretty place, with a fairly large front garden, decorated with the atmosphere of an al fresco cafe at night. The gig room is indoors, a small, cozy set-up with two small platforms at the front of the room, each just big enough for a musician, his mic, and his guitar. Cynthia explained that the area adjacent to the gig room was going to be the smoker's room, and the glass door separating the two rooms would be able to keep the smoke out of the main room, but still allow the smokers to watch the gig.
Mike and I commented that the stages looked a wee bit small for, say, Cynthia's usual full-band set-up. Cynthia agreed and said that they weren't planning to put a full drum set in the room. From the way the place is arranged and from Cynthia's description, it looks like Conspiracy is going to have a slightly more restaurant-y feel to it than, say, 70s Bistro, with unplugged versions of everyone's favorite Pinoy protest music. It made me think, Tapika meets 70s Bistro: 70s Bistro music set to a Tapika atmosphere.
As for the name of the place, Cynthia explained that the partners involved in the establishment were from a broader ideological spectrum which I think meant, broader than the usual left-leaning following of their group of musicians. Later on, during his performance, Joey pointed out the irony of their location: they were near Quezon Circle, territory of government employees and hence, of the right-leaning crowd, yet as musicians, their natural audience was the left-leaning crowd. "An interesting collision and collusion," he said; hence, the name Conspiracy.
At around 10 p.m., Joey began his practice gig backed up on the bass by Magu (spelling?), his young classmate at U.P. (where Joey is taking a degree in Musicology). Joey was, well, his usual brilliant self. :) He played a few old favorites, and Bayang Barrios also joined him on stage to sing a few of their duets.
After his first set, Joey raised his guitar and called out to Mike, "You play the guitar, right?" I think Mike knew what was coming, because his eyes began to glaze over a bit. :P "Why don't you come up onstage and play around with my guitar first?" (Oh, let me paraphrase that for Mr. Ayala: "Why don't you come up onstage and play around with my Taylor guitar?") Just a little more prompting from me and next thing we knew, a nervous Mikoid was sitting on Joey's stool, sacred Taylor in his hands, trying desperately to remember what songs he knew how to play. I, of course, was tickled pink.
Joey came back for a second set, and played more old favorites, plus some less familiar songs (which, I learned by reading the playlist sheet beside the stage, were from his U.S.-only special release album, Organik).
During the intermission, we had also asked Joey where we could find the album that Mike desperately wanted a copy of, Lupa't Langit. And it had to be our lucky night, because Joey had brought copies of it, as well as of his other albums.
So, in a nutshell, what did Mike and I manage to do tonight? Visit Conspiracy before its grand opening, watch a Joey Ayala gig, buy his almost-impossible-to-find CD, and on top of all that, Mike was able to play Joey's Taylor.
1. Do you like to shop? Why or why not? Love to window shop!!! I love looking at pretty things--clothes, furniture--and daydreaming about owning them (hehehe!). Ironically, I don't like window shopping for books, though, because it makes me feel bad when I can't afford books that I like. I guess it's only fun to window shop for things you somewhat like but aren't extremely attached to.
2. What was the last thing you purchased? A drink in school last night. Apart from food, grocery shopping at Shopwise the other night.
3. Do you prefer shopping online or at an actual store? Why? An actual store. Nothing beats the complete experience of seeing and touching the actual product.
4. Did you get an allowance as a child? How much was it? Yes. My first allowance was 10 Singapore cents, just enough to buy the smallest packet of mini-biscuits, I think. With today's exchange rate, that's about P3.25, but at the time I think it was around P1.00.
5. What was the last thing you regret purchasing? Hmmm ... dessert?
Is the Philippines Ready for Democracy?: Some Initial Thoughts
I'm in the process of organizing my thoughts on this topic so bear with whatever lack of organization or clarity you may notice in the following snippet. I might also edit this post as I fine-tune some thoughts, so expect some changes in the coming days.
==============
"The Philippines is not ready for democracy" is a statement I have been hearing often from some of my friends, most of whom belong to the well-educated upper class of society.
The statement, however, is vague, and I will attempt below to explore what this statement might mean.
When somebody says, "The Philippines is not ready for democracy," what does he mean by the word "democracy"?
If he understands democracy in its most minimalist definition--as the implementation of the majority vote within an electoral system--then perhaps there is some aspect of the statement that I might agree with. Not only that we are not ready for democracy, but that we do not even HAVE a true democracy, because our electoral system is far from flawless.
But is ballot-counting all that democracy is? Or, more to the point, does the act of voting comprise the entire scope of public participation in government?
The political thinker Hannah Arendt describes public participation not only in terms of the electoral process, but in terms of political speech--dialogue among citizens--and political action that springs not merely from a society's leaders, but from its citizens as well. Key to her understanding of public participation is her notion of "power," which she describes as "the capacity to act in concert." Power, in her estimation, is never innate in a political institution, but always begins "from below." A political institution--be it a leader or a law-- is never innately "in power"; rather, it is "empowered" by citizens who lend their support and act upon it to implement it.
If we understand political participation in this way, then the notion of democracy is no longer merely a matter of counting votes. Rather, democracy becomes the task of empowering all sectors of society to allow their voices and will to be heard in the public realm. Democracy does not begin during a campaign period and end after the proclamation of a new leader; rather, it exists in the everyday political life of implementing action-plans, discussing and debating issues, questioning and shaping the direction of a society.
If one remains with the minimalist definition of democracy as elections, then the "will of the masses" becomes equated only to the name written on the masses' ballot. What the masses WANT becomes oversimplified to a personality: Fernando Poe, Jr.
If one begins however, with a broader understanding of democracy as empowerment, dialogue, and action, then it is easy to recognize that the "will of the masses" cannot be reduced to FPJ. What the masses want is a government that will respond to their needs, that will speak to them in their vernacular rather than in an alien tongue, that will visibly prioritize the quality of lives of the seventy percent of the population that live below the poverty line.
It has been argued, "But many of the masses do not understand that when a president speaks to big business, she is doing it not only for the rich but ALSO for the poor." Someone who makes that statement will follow it up with: "We can really only have a democracy after we have educated the poor majority about how government actually works and how the economy is actually structured."
The premise itself is arguable, but even if, for the sake of argument, we agree that educating people on civic duty, on government, and on economy, ought to take first priority before elections, the question arises: HOW do we conduct such an educational program? Again, it would appear that the only way that education can occur is precisely through the dialogue, discourse, and discussion characteristic of "democracy" in its broader sense.
To return to the original question: Are we ready for democracy? When we understand the word in its broader sense, the question can be read: Are we ready for the dialogue, discourse, and discussion that will ensure that all voices will be heard in the public realm? Are we ready to involve citizens in the implementation of our country's action-plans? Are we ready for empowerment?
When the question is phrased THAT way, then the answer would seem to be: It is not a question of being READY for democracy or not; rather, democracy is what we NEED to get our country out of the quagmire we are in now.
If we do accept the tentative premise that voters need to be educated better, then it would appear that the only way to do that is THROUGH the discourse and dialogue of a democracy. If we DO accept the premise that the great majority of the Philippine citizenry needs to come to a better understanding of how economies and governments work in order to make better decisions during elections, then it would appear that the only way to do that is by involving more of the citizenry in the goings-on of public life.
That task is not only a political one, but a cultural one as well. The poor, I feel, are not merely alienated from the halls of government, they are alienated by the oligarchic culture of the upper class that insists on its own malls, its own movies, its own television stations. That is, of course, another story, but it may be instructive as well . . . . Perhaps, what we need more than ever, is not a majority vote that goes the way that the elite want (for even a majority vote can turn into the tyranny of the majority), but growth towards solidarity for a government who is responsive to and who has the support of all sectors of society.
===========
I do wish to add a footnote to all this, however. "Dialogue" is not just a question of preaching or teaching whom the majority OUGHT to vote for. It is also a question of LISTENING. It is also a question of seeking to understand the culture and worldview of the poorer majority, which sadly, so many of us in the elite make no attempt to hear.
Am I the only one who has noticed that so many people's photos on Friendster are of themselves on the beach? (I'm talking to the Pinoys here.) Ah yes, we are truly a country of beach bums .... Well, dapat lang naman siguro; with a coastline twice the length of America's, perfect tropical weather, and some of the most beautiful shores in the world ....
We really live in such a beautiful country. Even the smog of Metro Manila cannot hide those breathtaking sunsets and moonrises that make all of us stop and stare in rapt stillness.
I just wish we had the resources and political will to implement serious environmental preservation programs. The older I get, the more I appreciate the majesty of this country's landscape; but the more, too, am I exasperated by our ecological neglect of it.
First, let me clarify: I do not want FPJ to win as president.
But I haven't been at all comfortable with many of the comments I've been hearing to the effect of: "The country is going to the dogs because the masses' voice in politics is growing stronger and stronger." Some of these comments have bordered on advocating measures to disqualify "the masses' vote" simply because they are the masses'.
To that, I've often wished to raise the question (not yet necessarily a retort): "Can we really have it both ways? Can we really say that we want the economically marginalized in society to become more empowered, yet at the same time, dictate or manipulate their political choices? Isn't that just another form of oppression of the upper class against the lower classes?"
In the Philippines, the last six years have come as a shock to many of the people in the upper classes, because they are suddenly realizing that theirs is not the only voice in the Philippine plurality. They are suddenly realizing, for the first time, that there are dissenting opinions and other heretofore marginalized worldviews, and that in some configurations of government, they, the rich and elite, are actually the minority and the opposition.
But as this realization grows, perhaps it is time for those who belong to the elite to take a step back and reflect on how they react to it?
As an aspiring scholar of political philosophy, I've been feeling my discomfort about all this since EDSA 2, in fact, but I've often been hesitant to voice it, because most people I know (most of whom are among the well-educated, upper-class sector of Philippine society) either disagree vehemently with me, or tend to misinterpret my stand. I haven't blogged much about it either (although I've expressed my opinions vocally in conversations among friends), because I haven't been able to find the right words to express and clarify my opinion....
... Until this morning, when Randy David handed his words on a platter, through his Sunday column. Here is how David begins his column:
"Considering that almost all the past presidents of this country have been chosen by, and have served, mainly the elites and the middle classes, a yearning by the poor to change the rules of the game would not be unreasonable or farfetched. Those of us who do not suffer from material deprivation should be thankful then that the many who live from meal to meal still opt for peaceful elections rather than revolution as the path to a just society.
"But sometimes this is not the way we see things. We prefer that the poor completely entrust the business of governing to us who are well-off and better educated. In our conceit, we think we have a larger stake in this country just because we pay more income tax, forgetting that everything that the poor consume is also taxed. So we sometimes hear exasperated talk proposing that we raise the minimum qualification for our national officials, and limit the right of suffrage to the educated. Such sentiments have an affinity with the demand to put an end to politics altogether. They are drawn from the same well that nurtures other more visible forms of tyranny."
David admits that Philippine politics has lately resembled a circus (though he doesn't say it in those words). But he ends with a statement which I think we ought to think about, whether or not we actually agree with it:
"It is sad. But this is still preferable to a tyranny run by the educated few who claim to know all the answers and reserve no role for the masses in public life."
Perhaps, this is the time when we need to ask ourselves: Are we finally willing to take the long, hard path to the empowerment of the marginalized? Or are we going to continue perpetuating our oligarchy?
Whether or not you agree with him, please read David's entire column here, if only to give yourself something to think about.
Also read Mark's heartfelt, sobering reaction to FPJ's declaration.
Update: Read Jobert's take on the same issue as well.
M and I were at Megamall yesterday. As we approached the food court in the basement, he asked, "Do you want to see the end of an era?" I looked at him, puzzled. He pointed to the ice skating rink. Or rather ... he pointed to what used to be the ice skating rink.
The ice skating rink of our childhood--the first such rink to open in the country (I think)--has closed down.
As promised, here are pictures that M and I took of last weekend's thanksgiving party. (Additional photos available on Mikoid's blog.):
Denor is my favorite cameraman of all time. I had the honor of working with him in Mt. Data where he took the most beautiful, beautiful, beautiful shots of a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place.
A.S. and I were producers-in-training at the same time. Abi and I worked on my only two out-of-town shoots together, kaya bonding kami. I had already left the show when Robert started, pero bilib ako sa kanya.
We're not worthy, we're not worthy, we're not worthy!!!
My boss. Nessa taught me almost everything I know about production. From her I also learned a crucial lesson in management: sometimes, decisions need to be implemented now.
Isa pang "we're not worthy!" I wish I had worked with her, but she had left soon before I began at TPT.
There was a running joke that no one would get married while in Probe. AB was our steady-eddie graphics guy, the only person still sane when we were an hour away from airtime and running late. He left soon after I did ... and got married; he and his wife are expecting a son. :)
Several generations of The Probe Team. Can you see me?
All from (roughly) the same generation of TPT.
Getting ready to shoot the final shot of the last episode of TPT. Sixteen years of TPT staff members shouted, altogether, "At kami ang The Probe Team!!!!" Hope you caught it last Tuesday!
If TPT epitomizes broadcast journalism, Sheila Coronel symbolizes what print journalism should be. No, I don't know her personally, I just asked if I could have a photo taken with her. :P And yes, that's Love, and everything!
Incredibly talented writer. Sometimes a little scary as a superior. But loads and loads of fun as a colleague. I learned a lot from Twink.
IDOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's da man! After any of his segments aired, hero-worshipping cries of "Ang galing galing mo Howie!" would resound in the office, hollers of awe and admiration would echo in the editing rooms, and when he passed, people would get on their knees and kowtow (okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but you get the picture).
A photo op we couldn't resist. :)
CLL: the heart and soul of The Probe Team. 'Nuff said.
Of physicians, financial aid, and Philippine presidentiables.
A doctor-friend of mine forwarded to me Rina Jimenez-David's last two Inquirer columns. The columns (click here and here) are about a medical student, then in her fifth year at UP-PGH, who was allegedly raped by a doctor senior to her, a resident assigned to the Orthopedic Surgery department, after a party of the "Friday Club," the department's weekly drinking spree. Jimenez-David implies that the resident's difficulty in getting charges filed against the resident is probably part of a larger cultural problem present in some departments of UP-PGH.
======
Speaking of school-related issues, this month's issue of The Guidon has a story about an issue I feel rather strongly about, students (and their parents) who lie to get scholarships they don't deserve.
Other interesting trends from the survey: Roco got the most support from classes A, B, C, and D. FPJ and GMA got equal support from voters belonging to class E. The regional breakdown, on the other hand, had Roco leading in Metro Manila and Luzon. In the Visayas, GMA got the most support. FPJ got the most support in Mindanao.
The poll was conducted before FPJ announced his plans to run, so it will be interesting to see the surveys updated after this week's events.
I don't know a lot about the Vietnam War, and everything I know about JFK's foreign policy I learned from the movie 13 Days and from the Discovery Channel documentary about those same events depicted in the film. Without much background knowledge of the issues, I only skimmed very quickly through this Salon article theorizing that Kennedy was planning to pull out of Vietnam before he was assassinated. The sobering closing paragraph of James Galbraith's discussion, however, caught my eye:
This is a story with never-ending ramifications, so long as we continue to live in the nuclear age. For today, it has two lessons worth stating plainly. First, that to prevent the use of nuclear weapons of any type, by anybody, must remain the central goal of American policy at all times. Neither Kennedy, nor Johnson, nor McNamara in serving both presidents ever lost sight of this. Ask yourself whether you feel confident that the same care, on this transcendent issue, is being exercised today. For the second lesson, difficult though it may be to face, is that the largest danger that nuclear weapons will be used has come, so far in history, from ourselves.
If you're my age or older, you probably remember The Day After, the movie about nuclear war that captured everybody's fears about where the Cold War was leading in the 1980s.
It turns out that the movie did not merely have regular viewers riveted, it led to changes in American policy as well. These excerpts from this article:
Right before the movie aired it was screened for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Meyer recalls, "I had somebody I knew in the room who said, ‘If you thought they were going to snicker or pick it apart, you are mistaken. They sat there like they were turned to stone.'" . . .
Immediately after the broadcast, Ted Koppel hosted a live panel discussion to help viewers cope with what they'd witnessed. Dr. Carl Sagan, Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara, William F. Buckley and George Shultz were among those who participated.
Representing the Ronald Reagan administration, Secretary of State Shultz was in full-damage control mode, making comments such as, "The only reason we have for keeping nuclear weapons is to see to it that they are not used."
It was also during this gathering where Sagan first introduced the phrase "nuclear winter" into the lexicon (an event actually depicted in the film). And he presented the vivid analogy that the arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union was akin to "two men standing waist deep in gasoline -- one with three matches, the other with five."
"The making of the film was to date the most worthwhile thing I ever got to do in my life," Meyer asserts. "Any movie that the President of the United States winds up saying changed his mind about the idea of a winnable nuclear war is not an insignificant achievement. The Reagan administration came in thinking about ‘acceptable numbers' of nuclear casualties. (Reagan's memoirs reveal) what he had to say about the effects of what ‘The Day After' had on his thinking.
"When he signed the Intermediate Range Weapons Agreement at Reykjavik (in 1986) with Gorbachev, I got a telegram from his administration that said, ‘Don't think your movie didn't have any part of this, because it did.'"
1. List five things you'd like to accomplish by the end of the year. My Ricoeur paper. Christmas shopping. Organizing my cubicle (doubtful I can finish this by the end of the year though). This expanded syllabus I'm supposed to do for work. This other administrative project I'm doing for school.
2. List five people you've lost contact with that you'd like to hear from again. Melissa, my best friend from grades 1 to 3. Can't think of anyone else right now; most of my friends are just a text, e-mail, or phone call away even if I might not have spoken with them in a long time.
3. List five things you'd like to learn how to do. Play the guitar well. Cook well. Drive. Walk on a balance beam. Swim well. Sing well. Oops, that's six.
4. List five things you'd do if you won the lottery (no limit). Have my parents' house fixed. Pay for the real estate tax of the house for the next forty years. Put two million pesos in savings so I can live off the interest without having to work for a living. Open a school in the poorest town in the Philippines. Buy M the notebook he is hankering for.
5. List five things you do that help you relax. Lie down. Watch TV. Smoke (only when things are especially stressful). Get a massage. Take a walk.
The past few decades have introduced a new relationship convention--cohabitation--and along with it, new and strange problems. What do you do, for example, if your girlfriend breaks up with you, but, because you've shared the rent, she refuses to leave the one-bedroom apartment you've shared until the lease expires ... which isn't for another six months?
Today, another of my high school kabarkada's got married--making that the fourth of eight to walk down the aisle. Jo was just glowing with joy and happiness, and Jeff brought all of us to tears when he sang for Jo right before their first dance. Sigh!
Beautiful wedding.
Oh, and it must be said--beautiful pictures! (By Lito Sy--the same photographer who did my other kabarkada Jan's wedding.)
M is at a stag party right now, for one of his good friends who is getting married in January.
I told M beforehand what I would and wouldn't feel bad about, and I trust him with all my heart, so I'm not too worried; for certain, significantly less worried than some other girlfriends might be.
But (as I'm sure any girlfriend feels) I don't like--and I don't understandI still barely understand (after asking M to explain it to me)--stag parties. Sigh!
Ma'am Cheche Lazaro threw a farewell party/thanksgiving celebration for The Probe Team last night. All of the former staff of the team and of Probe Productions Inc., plus friends of the team, were invited. M and I went, and it was an overwhelming experience. Alternately sad, inspiring, and celebratory.
First, some background. I worked for 14 months at The Probe Team, first as a production assistant, then as a producer. I was a fresh college graduate when I started with the company, and Probe was my first full-time job.
Fourteen months may not seem like much--a blink of an eye compared to the length of time so many others spent at Probe--but those fourteen months are indelible in my memory. I joined Probe because I had a few dreams that I wanted to fulfill: to travel to faraway places, see things most people haven't seen, and meet people usually hidden from view; to work with people I really, really admired; to tell stories that, hopefully, would change people's way of viewing things, and maybe change a few lives.
I did fulfill all those dreams at Probe. But I came away with more, much more, than I had bargained for. Probe gifted me with lessons to last a lifetime.
What did I learn from the Probe Team?
Excellence. When I was there, the Probe Team waged a constant battle against mediocrity. Any story worth doing was worth doing well, and our mentors never let us forget that.
The miracle of mentorship. People usually think of a mentor as a parent-figure of sorts, providing constant guidance and learning to a younger person. But from two people--Nessa and Twink--I learned of a different kind of mentorship, and how amazing it can be: the miracle of giving people the confidence and the opportunity to be the best they can be.
The power of vision, ideals, and passion. The Probe Team was my first encounter with the power that a tiny group of people could have if it was driven by a common vision, soaring ideals, and shared passion. More than anything, those were what characterized Probe.
Integrity. In an industry driven by ratings and advertising, Probe kept its integrity. Until the very end.
It was also because of Probe that I discovered my life's calling: to present to people new ways of thinking about things. I hope I managed to do that at Probe. I hope I still manage to do that now.
At the party, several people were asked to give speeches about their experiences with The Probe Team. Two lines from the different speeches resonated within me when I heard them, because they were so true.
Luchi said it for all of us, I think, when she said: "You always bring a part of Probe with you, wherever you go." I would've wanted to add: whether you worked there for fourteen months or fourteen years, Probe becomes a part of you forever.
Nessa capped off her speech by saying: "I am so, so honored to have been a part of The Probe Team." So am I. I think we all are.
=======
Go to The Probe Team Online for Cheche Lazaro's statement about the axing of the show. (The statement will open in another window.)
Watched Cynthia at 70s Bistro after way too long a time. It was a truly amazing performance, with Mike Villegas and Jun Lopito jamming with her on stage. Read about it on M's blog.
--> Catch the second of the two-part farewell episode of The Probe Team on Tuesday next week, GMA-7, after Saksi. Sad, sad, sad. The farewell party is this Friday already and I'm still in disbelief.
--> Do something larger than yourself this Christmas season. Donate your old books to a public school library, or volunteer your time as a tutor or story-teller for children, or sponsor a student's college education. In Manila, call the Ateneo de Manila-Pathways Office at 426-6001 local 4048 or the Synergeia Foundation at 898-2617 for inquiries. Read Harvey Keh's Manila Times column yesterday for details.
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
-- Gerard Manley Hopkins
The second lines are supposed to be indented, and the third indented even more ... but I don't know html! Sorry!
Mike and Brownpau are having a bit of a scuffle here, here, and here.
Kidding--it's not really a scuffle, just a friendly debate between two old grade school buddies on outsourcing, stereotypes of Americans, and global economics.
Now whom should I root for? (Or, before both Mike and Pau--English geniuses extraordinaire--correct me: for whom should I root?) My boyfriend or my friend of almost ten years?
Wow, it's so nice to have such articulate, intelligent friends who write such interesting blog posts!
I've been working so hard all sembreak that I'm a little surprised that I have to be back in the classroom in twelve hours' time.
But no, I'm not complaining. What other job allows you to even have a "break" in the middle of the year--no matter how nominal. Besides, work is good lately. I'm actually excited about my papers, because they're on topics I really feel strongly about. In fact this is the first time in the past four years that I've wanted to allot more of my time doing research than doing classroom-related work. And that's a good thing. Maybe I do have a future on this career path.
When I was in college, the only thing remotely like a serious bookstore this side of Metro Manila was Pages bookstore. My blockmates and I would while away our long breaks there, lounging around and reading poetry aloud to each other (yes, we were a wee bit pretentious but ah, happy memories!). The only other alternative for finding good books would be to take the long commute to the university belt in Manila, where we could find Nietzsche tomes and Filipino literature classics (first printings, sometimes!) at under P100.00.
Sometime when we were still in college, National Bookstore opened Powerbooks, a serious bookstore which sold bestsellers ... and things began to look up a bit .... (I remember finding, to my joy, Douglas Coupland books there--books I'd never thought I'd see in the Philippines!). The only problem for my friends and me was that the philosophy section was (and still is!) very, very sparse (not to mention, poorly categorized!).
Then Amazon.com became a more and more plausible way to order books ... though you had to be lucky enough to have an international credit card to buy anything from Amazon.
In recent years, a few more independent stores have begun to appear: A Different Bookstore and then later, Page One (now Fully Booked).
And today ... joy, joy, joy ... M and I finally went to Aeon Books right across school. For under P300, I found a Grube commentary on Plato, an autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, and an old reprint of Paul Tillich's Dynamics of Faith. Joy joy joy!
Manila is finally, slowly, becoming a city of readers. Thank goodness. It's about time.
(Update: I forgot to talk about book-hunting in the Cubao branch of NBS, and in Goodwill Bookstore ... back when there weren't any other bookstores.)
Do I have anything to say about Philippine politics? Yes. But some of my thoughts still need fine-tuning; that, and I'm writing a paper about politics, so I'm hesitant to allow that "creative" tension to spill over to my blog. (In an essay about writing published in Heights when I was still in college, Butch Dalisay advised young fictionists not to "talk yourself out of a story"; doing so, he said, tended to dissipate the creative tension.)
(BTW, I wish I had written it earlier, but today was the last day for new voters to register ....)
Update: I agree with this reading of the significance of the Davide impeachment. _____
Meanwhile ... see Mike's blog for pictures of this weekend's regatta, held in honor of Tita Vangie.
It's the Todos Los Santos-Araw ng Patay weekend, and I did my duty and spent a few hours at the cemetery with my aunt today.
On a purely emotional level, the Araw ng Patay ritual frankly isn't my favorite thing; I always end up feeling bored after awhile, counting the minutes until it's time to go home. It doesn't help that every single Araw ng Patay I can remember has had bad weather--either bad rain, or, as with today, scorching sun.
Yet despite that, on a more profound level, I really, really appreciate that we have such a tradition in our country to remember family members who have passed away. Every year, going through the Araw ng Patay tradition--regardless of how boring it can get or how uncooperative the weather can be--reminds me that no matter how independently I may live my life the rest of the year, the fact of the matter is, I come from somewhere: for better or worse, I am part of a web of familial relations. I am here because of my kin who came before me.
=====
The thing about your family is that for the most part (except for your spouse or adopted children) you don't choose them. You're born into the family you have with all its quirks and deep, dark secrets--the strange cousin, the loser uncle, the aunt from hell (note: I'm not referring to any of my relatives in particular; just the stereotype quirky relatives that so many people have). Yet we're supposed to love all members of our family: regardless of who they are.
And maybe, that really, is the message of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. If you're Catholic, at least, these two days are the days wherein we remember that we are part of a larger communion: the communion of sinners and hopefully someday the communion of saints. We are part of this much larger family: the entire family of God's children. And the thing is, we don't get to choose this family either. The corrupt government official? He's my brother too. That thief? She's my sister. That perverted priest? Oh gosh, much as I wish he weren't, he is also my brother.
And just as in our own extended families, the call, perhaps is to love all members of our larger family, no matter how difficult it may be, no matter who they are. It might be the toughest task in the world, but it is what we were called by Christ to do.
Our journey towards Christ is not a lonely nor a solitary one; we share it with one another and bear our burdens with another and with all of God's children, the larger family to which we all belong.
Back in college (i.e, back when we drank a lot more), Goodah! was the Katipunan place to eat after a night and early morning of drinking. (sob, wala nang Goodah! ...)
Whistlestop was the place to go if you had already gotten kicked out of the bar or beerhouse you were at but you wanted to continue drinking at 4 AM and you had enough money. (Of course, it was much easier to just start drinking at somebody's house then this wouldn't even be a problem.) Whistlestop was also the perfect place from which to have late dinners (Hainanese chicken!!) delivered (their quality of food, sadly, has gone down a bit since then).
When I started working at a place in the Kamias area with very, very erratic hours (TV production), Inka was where we would drop by for a relaxing night cap if we wouldn't be sleeping over at the office, Tapa King was where we went at 12:30 am after our show finished airing, and Burger Machine was the place to grab a quick bite at 3 AM after you had finished laying your sound bed and before going back to the office to continue with inserts. Of those three, I think only the Tapa King in that area is still around.
Bringing back an old tradition. Yesterday's are Halloween-related (Western fiesta --> cannot relate!), so I'll just answer the last batch of questions instead.
1. Name five things in your refrigerator. eggs, iced tea, water, calamansi, chocolate
2. Name five things in your freezer. ice, ground beef, other cuts of beef, chicken, pork
3. Name five things under your kitchen sink. pots, pans, covers for pots, covers for pans, pipes
4. Name five things around your computer. desktop: left speaker, right speaker mouse pad, and right now, a comb, the TV remote control, and my cellphone
5. Name five things in your medicine cabinet. spare loofah, spare soap, ibuprofen, band-aid, spare razor cartridges
Just spent seven hours with Anj. We met up at Greenbelt for lunch, then I went with Anj to run an errand, then we spent about four hours shopping and window shopping (I did most of the shopping and Anj ever-so-patiently walked with me into every store and waited as I tried on probably four times more clothes than she did--thanks so much, Anj!!!!!! isa kang tunay na kaibigan!!!!) walking maybe the length of Makati as we did, finally ended up where we began, had a long dinner and slooooowly-sipped coffee over very good conversation about love, life, and dreams.
Ahhh ... good day. And if all that weren't enough, I actually managed to find a dress, a blazer-type thingy, and lingerie all on sale!!!
Thanks so much, Anj! Loveya girl!! Till next month!! :P
Before this birthday, the best gifts I had ever received were (1) my parents having me on my natal day, and (2) the bicycle I received for Christmas when I was 10.
This birthday, though, I received a gift that is right up there with those two .... One of the absolute best gifts that anyone could ever receive ....
Mike my love connived with my immediate family (in the U.S. and Hong Kong) to get me (for my birthday/anniversary/Christmas) ...
... an iBook!!!
Yes. I know. I couldn't believe it myself.
When I saw the box, I shrieked in shock. I couldn't believe it was the real thing so I even opened the box to be sure, half-expecting to see a smaller box within it containing the real gift.
But no.
It was really, really, really an iBook!!!
And I cried.
There's a longer story as to why the iBook means so much--no, it's not just a toy. I've been having a difficult time this past year working on my grad school papers. And the frustration that it has wrought has brought me to the point of tears on occasion.
And so Mike's spiel to me (before giving me the gift) went something like: "I wanted to give you a tangible sign of my and your other loved ones' support for you as you finish your master's degree, and something to make your work a little easier."
Sigh! :)
(And to think I asked for a Bun and Thigh Master. Hahahaha! :P )
It's sembreak, but not much of a "break" for me. This week alone will have me shuttling back and forth to a gazillion places.
Today, I have a lunch. I won't go into the details because it's supposed to be a secret (so I'll just update this entry later on).
This evening, M and I might have dinner with his best friend and his best friend's girlfriend.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, is my grandmother's second death anniversary and my aunt is hosting a dinner at her house. Novena at 6 p.m., then dinner and lots of kissing-uncles-and-aunts afterwards.
Thursday is my birthday. The only thing set in stone is dinner with my aunt and Mike. My best friend wants to meet up with me too, so she'll either be joining us for dinner, or we'll meet her for drinks or coffee (drinks more likely--heheh!) after dinner.
Somewhere amid all of that, I also am determined to meet up at least with Angie, who's in Manila for a week, and hopefully the rest of the gang as well. I'm guessing Friday?
I also have another pending invitation, dinner or coffee with an old friend of mine from college (who I rediscovered on, yes, you guessed it, Friendster). He was suggesting we meet up this week, but I already dropped hints that this week is a little full, so perhaps I'll just move that to next week.
This weekend is a long weekend, because it's one of the country's most important set of feasts: All Saints' Day on Saturday and All Souls' Day on Sunday, two feasts that this country takes very, very seriously. My own family has, in the past years, managed to avoid the crowd by altering the ritual a little bit, going to the cemetery on the 2nd rather than the 1st. So on November 2, I'll be spending most of the morning at the cemetery.
Now, note. All of the above are just social calls. While all of this is going on, I'm also supposed to working on my papers for my M.A., preparing to write a script that is due on Wednesday next week for a video project I'm helping out with, and making various preparations for second semester.
Argh. "Sembreak." It never is.
So the $56,000,000 question is: If I have so many tasks to accomplish, why am I spending my time blogging? Heheheh!
Three of my very good friends from college came over tonight for a potluck dinner and girl talk. We haven't seen each other in awhile, so there was a lot of catching up to do.
These are friends of mine from my prayer unit, and we've seen each other through more than six years of ups and downs, heartaches and heartbreaks, laughter and tears.
The Columbine massacre is, of course, a tragedy beyond words, and I imagine that the temptation for any writer of such a documentary would be to draw power from overt melodrama, usually the easy thing to do in any feature that deals with such tragedies. There is, in this movie, a tiny bit of that towards the end of the film, but for the most part, Michael Moore resists that lazy route, and instead pieces together an edgy and sarcastically funny commentary on the aspects of American history and culture that have created, in his view, a trigger-happy nation.
The best parts of the film are the ones where Moore manages to juggle subtlety and power. He is wryly humorous about the topic, without at all being tasteless. He is intelligent and forceful without being preachy. And underlying all of that is Moore's passionate anger about the subject that, the viewer must surmise, comes from a genuine--and therefore self-critical--love for his country.
As M said, don't look for journalistic objectivity, or even journalistic balance in this film. That isn't Moore's point. Take the statistics he gives, for example, with a grain of salt, but at the same time, don't let his detract from his thought-provoking insight into the American psyche.
This excerpt, on Xavier+, just made me go, "Oh, wow."
Christ is the first 'exegesis' of the Father; he is his 'Word,' the one who manifests him. All other words on God and Christ are based on that prime revelation of the Father. The Word - Verbum - was manifested historically in the flesh, and consequently in the assumption of human language. His words, those of the first witnesses and servants of the word, whom the Spirit moved to give authentic expression to the mystery of his appearance among men, will therefore always remain the fundamental norm for everything that will be said about Christ down to the end of time. The incarnation of the Word, his lowering of himself by assuming a temporal form in a certain historical period and within a certain culture, is a fact which has repercussions for all subsequent cultures, and obliges them to turn continually and loyally to that privileged moment and let it work in them as the indispensable formative principle....
-- Pope Paul VI, Address 25 September 1970, in L'Osservatore Romano, 8 October 1970, quoted here.
_____
Just a brief note. Before Vatican II, so I am told, every Catholic Mass ended with "the Last Gospel," a reading of the Prologue to John's Gospel ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ....").
I never heard that Gospel passage read publicly growing up, because I was born after Vatican II, when they removed that part of the Mass. But that passage always, always fascinated me with its poetry and power (that and the first story in Genesis 1, a passage I still remember my mother reading to my brother and me before going to bed). I finally heard it read publicly was one year when, after many years of attending Christmas Eve Mass, my brother, his wife and I decided to attend Christmas morning Mass instead. The Gospel passage on Christmas morning? You guessed it. The Prologue to John. Fascination.
And then, when I took philosophy, I learned that the Greek "logos"--the metaphysical idea of order in Ancient Greek philosophy--was the word that the writer of the Prologue had used in this passage. In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos with God, and the Logos was God. The author of the Prologue was transforming an ancient Greek idea right there and then: The order that the ancient Greeks had been looking for? It has been revealed! In Christ! God is that order! Again, I was fascinated.
And now, this ....
Wow.
(See Xavier+ for a longer quote, and from an equally amazing quote from St. John of the Cross' Ascent of Mount Carmel, also referring to John 1.)
Brownpau linked to thesetwo articles--written for evangelical Christians, I'm guessing--which I found very interesting. A great many evangelical Christians would not consider me one of their kind, because I am unabashedly Roman Catholic. Nevertheless, I found those two particular articles resonating very much with my own thoughts and feelings that sometimes arise when confronted with (sometimes harsh) criticisms about the traditions and "medieval-ness" of the Church to which I belong.
The multiplicity (I haven't thought, yet, of a better word) of the Christian Church has been on my mind these past several weeks, since hearing at Mass the Gospel passage of the last Sunday of September, Mk 9:38-48. In it, Mark, lover of that literary sandwich method, juxtaposes two seemingly paradoxical messages. On the one hand, Christ instructs openness to anyone who speaks in His name, "for anyone is not against is for us." But then, in almost the same breath, he issues the sternest of warnings against misleading the flock: ""Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea." In strong, vivid language, Christ continues by instructing us to chop off the hand or pluck out the eye that causes us to sin: "Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched." If, while reading that, we recall Paul's description of the Church as Christ's Body, Christ's message in Mark's gospel is a very sobering one.
I wonder what Christ thinks about the "multiplicity" of His Body, a body whose parts often fight among themselves. All I do know for certain is that we are all but ministers, not messiahs. The work of the Church is ultimately His work, and when the brokenness of His Body becomes too confusing for us to understand, what we can do is hope and trust in His ineffable grace.
=======
Meanwhile, regardless of where on the Christian spectrum you belong, you might wish to allow yourself to be inspired, for a moment, by the life of one of Christ's most humble, most giving servants in our lifetime, Mother Teresa.
In a world where many people upgrade their PCs every two years, and their cellphones sometimes as frequently as every six months, we need to seriously think about what happens to the high-tech gadgets we throw out, and how these are harming the environment. PCIJ has an article about that in their latest issue of i magazine .
I always get a little pensive in the weeks before my birthday. These become my weeks of reckoning, of taking account of where I am going and who I am becoming.
October is my interior retreat of sorts. Even though, externally, I may be scurrying from task to task, INside, every October, I feel myself becoming more and more still, still enough to hear my inward longings, my inward noise and joys and sadness.
I think October re-centers me. And reminds me of the loving Hands in which I am cradled.
Sick of Friendster? How about something closer to home ... Traposter! See how all the trapo's in this country are connected by less than six degrees!!!
Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that Thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.
So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.
So, like, wanna hear what CNN's front page (or ANY webpage) sounds like in, like, a Valley Girl accent, you know? Type in the URL here. It's so WAY cool. Like, totally!
A colleague sent the humanities faculty a link to this article entitled "Colleges' war against cheats goes high-tech."
According to the article, some U.S. universities are now using anti-plagiarism software programs. One of them, Turnitin.com, scans student papers to see if material has been copied from the Internet or from the tens of millions of other papers in its database. Roughly 1,500 U.S. universities now use Turnitin.com.
I hope that our university buys this software soon. Because of my strong feelings against plagiarism, I actually go out of my way to scour the Internet for possible plagiarism sources everytime I assign a paper, and I actually go to the library to look for books that may have been copied from everytime I receive a paper that appears too sophisticated to be an undergraduate level paper. Other colleagues just cannot afford (or cannot be bothered) to go through that kind of trouble, and resort to merely crossing their fingers that most of their students are honest enough to pass a paper they actually wrote themselves.
The article says: "Cheating is an age-old issue on college campuses, of course. But while educators have long lamented the decline of student ethics, they have historically done little to root out wrongdoing, thinking it's not worth the trouble or how they want to spend their time. Clearly, that's now changing. " In our own university, cheating in recent years has been elevated to the status of a major offense regardless of the requirement in which the cheating was done. (Under the old discipline code, cheating in a major requirement was considered a major offense, but cheating in a quiz or another minor requirement was considered a minor offense.) Nevertheless, I think that greater efforts need to be made to find ways of catching cheaters, rather than merely scaring potential offenders off with harsher punishments.
Turnitin.com comes with a hefty price tag, though. An individual faculty member may subscribe to the service for $100 for 100 papers. An institution-wide subscription is 60 cents per student (around $4800 or about P260,000 for an undergraduate population the size of our school's).
Meanwhile, some universities are accompanying their high-tech anti-cheating methods with some old-fashioned solutions. According to the article, some professors in Texas A&M University are adding an honor-code-type affirmation which the student has to sign at the top of their exam sheets: "I pledge my sacred honor that I neither received nor gave any assistance."
The other day, I was trying to remember the corporal works of mercy we learned in grade school catechism classes. I could only remember six of the seven, so I looked them up. Here they are, rephrased according to the way I learned them in school:
Feed the hungry.
Give drink to the thirsty.
Clothe the naked.
Shelter the homeless (traditionally, "harbour the harbourless").
Visit the sick.
Visit those in prison (the traditional wording is "ransom the captive" but I guess our catechism teachers didn't want us helping in any jailbreaks).
Bury the dead.
Anyway, I was just thinking ... wouldn't this world be a better place if everybody made it a point to do each of those at least once in their lives? Or even better, commit themselves to doing one of those for the rest of their lives?
Anj is a friend of mine who personifies the life of the corporal works of mercy. Her passionate commitment to social development has always inspired me, and it continues to refresh my faith in people and my hope for this country. This weekend, she will be leaving for Davao to work with an NGO there.
Anj, I will miss you terribly but I know that that is where your heart is and I know that you will be happy there. Much love, and Godspeed!
_____
A related thought. You've probably heard about that Jewish idea that for a person to live a full life, he must do three things: plant a tree, raise a child, and write a book. I've always liked that thought too.
I came upon an old (2001) article on the Atlantic Online about the "millenial generation," a topic that I've been very interested in of late (partly because my job demands at least a minimal understanding of it).
The author of the article, David Brooks, visited Princeton to try to understand the psyche of the cream of America's youth crop. And what he found was a generation of happy, upbeat, prim, proper, very bright super-kids:
The world they live in seems fundamentally just. If you work hard, behave pleasantly, explore your interests, volunteer your time, obey the codes of political correctness, and take the right pills to balance your brain chemistry, you will be rewarded with a wonderful ascent in the social hierarchy. You will get into Princeton and have all sorts of genuinely interesting experiences open to you. You will make a lot of money—but more important, you will be able to improve yourself. You will be a good friend and parent. You will be caring and conscientious. You will learn to value the really important things in life. There is a fundamental order to the universe, and it works. If you play by its rules and defer to its requirements, you will lead a pretty fantastic life.
And of course, these are exactly the kind of kids that their parents raised them to be. So much so that Brooks labels them, "The Organization Kids":
Most of today's college students were born from 1979 to 1982. That means they were under ten years old when the Berlin Wall fell, and so have no real firsthand knowledge of global conflict or Cold War anxieties about nuclear war.... Moreover, they have never known anything but incredible prosperity: low unemployment and low inflation are the normal condition; crime rates are always falling; the stock market rises. If your experience consisted entirely of being privileged, pampered, and recurringly rewarded in the greatest period of wealth creation in human history, you'd be upbeat too. You'd defer to authority. You'd think that the universe is benign and human nature is fundamentally wonderful.
But the outlook of these young people can't be explained by economics and global events alone. It must also have something to do with the way they were raised. As the University of Michigan time-analysis data show, this is a group whose members have spent the bulk of their lives in structured, adult-organized activities. They are the most honed and supervised generation in human history. If they are group-oriented, deferential to authority, and achievement-obsessed, it is because we achievement-besotted adults have trained them to be. We have devoted our prodigious energies to imposing a sort of order and responsibility on our kids' lives that we never experienced ourselves. The kids have looked upon this order and have decided that it's good.
_____
Brooks goes on to paint a picture of the typical life of an Organization Kid--from playing with brain-enhancement toys in his infancy, to a pumped up curriculum in school, to a slew of extra-curricular activities--all of which have created the cookie-cutter picture-perfect kids in America's elite universities today. But for all their intelligence and liveliness, there is one topic that, he senses, makes the best and the brightest of this generation a tad uneasy:
In talking to Princeton students about character, I noticed ... they're a little nervous about the subject. When I asked if Princeton builds character, they would inevitably mention the honor code against cheating, or policies to reduce drinking. When I asked about moral questions, they would often flee such talk and start discussing legislative questions. For example, at dinner one evening a young man proposed that if we could just purge the wrongs that people do to one another over the next few generations, the human race could live in perfect harmony ever after, without much need for government or laws or prisons. I asked the other eight or nine students at the table to reflect on this, but they quickly veered off toward how long it would take to bring about this perfect world....
Today's students are indeed interested in religion and good works. "In the past ten or twelve years students are no longer embarrassed about being interested in religion—or spirituality, as they call it," says Robert Wuthnow, the Princeton sociologist. "That's a huge change. People used to feel as if they had acne being raised in a religious home." I hadn't been on campus more than five minutes before I started hearing about all the students who do community service—tutoring at a charter school in Trenton, working at Habitat for Humanity-style building projects, serving food at soup kitchens. But religion tends to be more private than public with them, and the character of their faith tends to be unrelievedly upbeat. "It's an optimistic view," Wuthnow says. "You just never hear about sin and evil and judgment. It's about love and success and being happy."
_____
And this lack of understanding of ideas like "character" and "virtue" appears to be the characteristic of the Organization Kid that disturbs Brooks the most.
One sometimes has the sense that all the frantic efforts to regulate safety, to encourage academic achievement, and to keep busy are ways to compensate for missing conceptions of character and virtue. Not having a vocabulary to discuss what is good and true, people can at least behave well. It's hard to know what eternal life means, but if you don't smoke you can have long life. It's hard to imagine what it would be like to be a saint, but it's easy to see what it is to be a success.
The compensation works, to an extent. These young people are wonderful to be around. If they are indeed running the country in a few decades, we'll be in fine shape. It will be a good country, though maybe not a great one. The Princeton of today is infinitely more pleasant than the old Princeton, infinitely more just, and certainly more intellectual and curious. But still there is a sense that something is missing. Somehow, in the world of moral combat that John Hibben described, the stakes were higher, the consequences of one's decisions were more serious, the goals were nobler. In this world hardworking students achieve self-control; in that one virtuous students achieved self-mastery.
I had lunch one day with Robert George, a professor in Princeton's politics department. Like a lot of elite colleges, Princeton has one or two faculty members who are known as the campus conservatives. They may be liked personally, and admired for their teaching and research skills, but they are regarded as a bit odd, and dismissible. I don't, however, see anything specifically conservative in the message George offered that day.... "We would do our best if we could make sure our students had a dose of the Augustinian sense that there is a tragic dimension to life," he said. "That there is a sense in which we live in a vale of tears. We could make them aware of the reality of sin, by which I mean chosen evil, which cannot be cured by therapy or by science. We don't do enough to call into question the therapeutic model of evil: 'He has a problem ... He's sick.'
"We could raise this awareness—through readings and discussions in history and philosophy and literature, by reading Plato's Gorgias, Othello, or a study of the Lincoln-Douglas debates—that the conquest of the self is part of what it means to lead a successful life. It's not enough to make a corporation succeed. It's not an external problem. It doesn't lend itself to a technical solution. Four hours spent studying in the library is not self-mastery."
_____
Brooks' ideas are, of course, much more complex than I've presented here, so just read the rest of the article here. I'm not sure if I agree with all of his ideas, but the article does make interesting, thought-provoking reading.
I was looking at my slowly ballooning Friendster list, and I am suddenly wishing that I could sub-categorize them into "friends," "acquaintances" and "people I barely know." I've even thought of of a litmus test for each. First category: people I'd share a table with at a crowded restaurant. Second category: people I'd stop to say hi, how are you? to in the mall. Last category: people who don't know the name of at least--[a] one of my kabarkada's, [b] one of my brothers, [c] one of my drinking buddies or yosi-mates, or [d] my boyfriend.
It's apparent that there are some people out there who are just trying to hit the 300-friendster mark, and if that works for some people then good for them. But personally I think that at my age and stage in life, anonymity is more fun. (Okay, I admit, I was semi-guilty of friendster-collecting when I first logged on, adding everyone I shared a five-minute conversation with. Heheh!)
After Charles Schulz died in 2000, around a hundred comic artists in the U.S. chose one day to do a Peanuts tribute. Every single one of those comic strips paid homage in some way to either Charles Schulz, Snoopy, or the Peanuts characters.
As of two years ago, comics.com still had a complete collection of those comic strips. I know this for a fact because I remember browsing through them. But I was looking for the page, and it seems they've pulled it off the web. Now it seems that all they have now are a collection of about five or six of them here.
M and I attended two beautiful weddings this weekend.
M's friend Lora spent her first day as wife to Greg at two of the most gorgeous spots in Batangas: the Mass was in Calaruega, and the reception was at Punta Fuego. It was simple yet very elegant, and evidently prepared with a lot of love. (M has a few pictures here.)
My friend Jon married Tina right in the neighborhood he calls home: the Mass was in Sacred Heart, just minutes away from his parents' house, and the reception was in U.P.'s pretty, quaint international house, Bahay Kalinaw. Fr. Louie David gave a kick-ass homily, one of the best wedding homilies I've ever heard.
Well, the Ateneo team must've been really tired--this was their third game this week.
And, I honestly think FEU wanted it more. We wanted it, but I don't think we wanted it as much as they did. After all, this was going to be Koy Banal's first UAAP win (I think), and this was going to be the victory that would restore FEU to their glory days ....
Meanwhile ... the post-game interview that Koy Banal gave to the FEU courtside reporter was really touching. His voice cracked as he paid tribute to his kuya, Joel Banal, and said that although the win was sweet, it was painful to have to win it by beating his brother who had taught him so much about coaching (or something to that effect).
Update: It's Monday morning and Jude Turcuato is giving his post-championship analysis on PinoyExchange's basketball radio show In the Zone. Watch out for his annual post-UAAP season who's who list which will probably be in the Inquirer and will definitely be on PEx!
A friend of mine on Friendster (there's that word again--heheh!) posted an announcement about a forthcoming DWTL Grand Mass. Wow ... that brought back memories. I was really active with DWTL in high school and college--first at my old high school (where I had gone through my Days experience), then later, helping out at various DWTLs around the metropolis.
I left the, um, "Days Circuit" when I felt that I could no longer serve as well as I once did, and I went on to try other ministries instead.
But I'm glad to know that DWTL is still thriving and spreading to more communities around the country. :)
BIL!
=======
Today, by the way, was the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus. I think she interceded for me.
Had dinner with three of my best friends. Girl-talk, laughter, and updating one another on our lives ... for five whole hours (yung dalawa nga diyan, six and a half hours!). If we didn't have to sleep we'd probably still be babbling to one another right now.
All the way home, I was smiling to myself in the cab. :)
I'm not as much of a cinephile as some people I know, and I don't keep track of who's who in Hollywood, but for some reason, I thoroughly enjoyed this Salon article's comparison of today's Hollywood goddesses, with the female stars of the 80s.
An excerpt:
The problem isn't only that today's silver screen starlets and grand dames are cookie-cutter, or that the endless parade of cuties who come and go is so boring. The problem is how average they are. They're pretty, in a Midwestern prom-queen kinda way, and they look fantastic on Maxim covers, but watching their mind-numbing performances is no better than flipping through a dog-eared copy of In Style magazine. Movie stars used to leave their corn-picking towns and go to the Big Apple, complete with a suitcase full of titillating emotional baggage, where they put names like Lee Strasberg on the back of their 8-by-10 glossies. Nowadays, girls go from student council meetings and most-popular yearbook photograph sittings straight to Hollywood casting couches....
Kids of the 1980s were the last to see the time when film actresses had as much character as the roles they played. Sure, there were as many helpless damsels, suppliant wives and dizzy sex symbols as there have always been. But the decade's most famous screen goddesses were natural-looking women with supernova personalities, or at the very least, a spark. Of course, some were glaringly beautiful -- Jessica Lange, Kathleen Turner -- but their good looks were shored up by their complexity.
Some of them weren't great beauties -- Sissy Spacek, Sally Field -- but their intense natures, and their talent, were necessary to an industry that told stories of genuine human struggle without the contrivances so rampant today. These women had skills and intelligence, and were backed by clever scripts and directors whose artistic vision wasn't blocked by a paycheck. Most important, they had sex appeal, an allure that didn't need an airbrush, dexterous camera angles, stripteases or cheesy, innuendo-ridden one-liners. Their sexuality was cerebral and physical, as mysterious as it was blatant. And even if their stories weren't about sexual love, they still had full erotic and intellectual lives, and so were like real women whose stories were fascinating to witness.
According to a BBC report, one-fifth of all Americans do NOT have health insurance. Half of all personal bankrupcies involve health care costs.
The United States, of course, still has one of the most developed health care systems in the world. (Just compare it to, say, the Philippines, where majority of the citizens don't even have access to BASIC health care.) But I was taken aback to find out that, given the exorbitant cost of hospitalization there, THAT many Americans didn't have health care plans.
After Iraq, he is no longer my favorite world leader, but despite everything, I still have enormous respect for Blair. His strength--that American politics and heck, Philippine politics as well, could learn from--is his earnestness and sincerity. He wins opinions not with rah-rah rhetoric or spun sentimentalisms, but with reason and the force of the argument. Not once have I seen him dodge an objection; he faces every single issue, and faces it squarely.
Tony Blair's speeches are one of the few things that maintain my hope in the vision of an international political life built upon reason and rationality (or, as a colleague of mine would say, multiple rationalities).
Now imagine how much better this world would be if the U.S. had a president like that ....