And a blog (still under construction) for my research on scholarships, conferences and calls for papers for philosophy postgraduate students and scholars:
U.S. political blogs are talking about Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. As fans of Jon Stewart's show, Mike and I got curious, and watched the entire 20-minute monologue.
As a former media practitioner, here's my guess: I don't think Stephen Colbert bombed. I'm guessing he knew exactly what he was doing. I'm guessing he was neither surprised nor disappointed to get the occasional non-reaction from the audience that he got (would you laugh at every joke if President Bush were sitting ten meters away ... and with C-Span cameras on you?) . I'm guessing that while preparing for his performance he told himself, "I can play it safe, be a comedian, do a run-of-the-mill stand-up routine ... or I can take this golden, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as a citizen of the United States of America to tell the President to his face what I think." I say this, because there were moments when Colbert slipped out of character and seemed to be speaking no longer as a comedian but as a frustrated and disgusted citizen. That, and because he seemed to look directly, unflinchingly, at the President with only the tiniest sign of nervousness.
Some pundits are implying that Stephen Colbert should be ashamed of himself for going overboard with his remarks. I think the rest of the media practitioners in the room that night and in the newsrooms the next day are the ones who should be ashamed of allowing themselves to be silenced by an inept administration.
I said "yes" to him about a year ago and will be exchanging vows with him in about 50 days. Yes, a lot has happened since he last blogged regularly, but Mikoid is now back!
I don't consider myself someone who wants a lot of things. I think I generally have simple desires. And I'm so blessed in so many ways that I'm often too overwhelmed with thanksgiving to feel the need for much more. But every now and then, there is something, and this is one of those nows.
See, I have a long-term dream, to take my PhD, either in NYC or, pwede rin, the UK. But to get there I have these short-term steps ... one of which is to go to the UK with M later this year. There's a summer program I want to attend and in some ways it makes my longer term goal seem so reachable ... but in other ways it makes it seems so distant.
So I've arranged most of it: the schedule and the adjustments I need to make at work, the requirements, the research ... and now the only thing left is ... sigh ... the money for the flight and for the program.
My friends who know me well know my strange wu-wei philosophy about money ("If you need it, it will come") .... But this time around ... am I hankering too much? ... or is the amount I need just so out of my league? .... This time I'm more worried than hopeful, and there's a bit of desperation in the steps I'm trying to take .... It's something I've already cried about, and in the meantime, I've been working my butt off .... The summer holiday that I was supposed to free up to focus on preparing for the wedding has instead turned into the summer non-holiday of non-stop, incessant, back-breaking extra work (overload, freelance, racket, you-name-it).
So why this post?
Because a wise friend of mine once said that if there's something you really, really want, sometimes, you just need to send the wish out into the Universe and perhaps, perhaps, by magic or serendipity, what you hanker for will come to you.
So this little post is my way of doing that. Universe, I have already been blessed with so much, and I do know that kung di ukol, di bubukol ... but on the other hand, if this is meant to be mine, then please help me find the keys that will open the doors for me. Thank you.
I don't know why, but today I suddenly remembered a former student of mine who died a few years ago due to complications from cancer.
I remembered her face first, then her ever-cheerful personality (always smiling, her voice filled with delight, when she'd approach me after class), then seeing her when she'd visit school after she had already graduated ... wearing a bandana around her head ... and then it was only then that I remembered ... only then ... oh yes, she had found out that she had cancer ... oh that's right, she had passed away ... hadn't she? ... oh yes, I went to the 40th day Mass for her organized by her friends in the college chapel ... I remember.
And then I really remembered. Even one of her reflection papers, and part of the comment I wrote.
When someone you love dearly dies, he or she never really dies. Somehow you know that that person is still with you, and he or she is still deeply, profoundly part of your life.
But when someone you knew a little, and cared about a little, and admired only from a distance, dies, it's different. Sometimes you forget. And then you remember. And then it's sad because you know you will forget again before you remember.
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A colleague of mine wrote a short story once, for our college literary magazine, about a teacher whose student had died. It was one of the saddest stories I had ever read. I read it over and over again.
I remember that in the story, he quoted the last two lines from Roethke's ...
Elegy for Jane (My student, thrown by a horse)
I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils; And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile; And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her, And she balanced in the delight of her thought,
A wren, happy, tail into the wind, Her song trembling the twigs and small branches. The shade sang with her; The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose. Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth, Even a father could not find her: Scraping her cheek against straw, Stirring the clearest water.
My sparrow, you are not here, Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow. The sides of wet stones cannot console me, Nor the moss, wound with the last light.
If only I could nudge you from this sleep, My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon. Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love: I, with no rights in this matter, Neither father nor lover.
Lent is probably not the best time to blog about this (hehehe!), but thanks to a tip from a friend, I found the Jesuit Gourmet blog. Not only will you find great recipes on the blog, but you'll also get an interesting, heart-warming glimpse into the life of a religious community.
I have a number of Jesuit friends and when I visit them at their house, I find myself (at the risk of romanticizing it) somewhat in awe of the community life of a religious order. Today was one of those days. One of the Jesuit batches invited our department to Mass, preprandials, supper, and a play that they were staging for one of their classes. Just visiting their house (uh, it's really a huge building with dozens of classrooms in one wing, and dozens of bedrooms in the other) reminded of the moments of prayerfulness and calm that I would feel just entering that building when I used to visit there regularly as a college student. Back then, I thought that I felt that way because the building is in such a tranquil part of the campus. Today I realized that I feel that way because of the people who live in that house: all of them, human and flawed as they are, bound by a common passion for Christ, and a common experience of striving and struggling to live their vocation for Christ as best as they can. As I walked through one of the corridors, I noticed several pairs of slippers and sandals outside one of the tiny prayer rooms of the house, and as a mental image formed in my mind of a dozen young men inside in fervent prayer, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of nostalgia and longing.
I had to leave early, but not before whispering a quick prayer for more vocations, and for my friends in the religious life to be blessed with the grace to live their vocations as God wants them to.
Well, if history began on Thursday and everything that had happened before then were a tabula rasa, it would be easy to see the justification for Proclamation 1017. This article from Time Asia shows that there was a coup plot. If the coup plot were the only issue, then the government insistence that Proclamation 1017 saved the country from violence might have been justified.
Of course, because every legitimately elected government ought to protect itself and its mandate from people who might want to bring it down.
And there is where the issue lies. You see, history did not begin on Thursday. The central issue here is not just the coup plot; it is the legitimacy of Arroyo's presidency. Every legitimately elected government ought to protect itself, but is the Arroyo presidency legitimately elected?
The problem, then, is what is perceived by many sectors as this government's attempts last year to suppress legal and constitutional means to investigate the veracity of allegations of widespread cheating by her government during the presidential elections. As long as these issues remain unresolved, any attempts, however lawful, of this government to protect itself will be perceived by many as further attempts to evade the Truth. As long as there is no investigation into allegations of cheating, support for Arroyo will continue to wane and her government will find itself increasingly impotent.
I personally will not throw my support just yet behind any extra-legal means of changing government. Beyond the changing personalities of Philippine government, we need to strengthen our legal institutions, because those are what last beyond the changing names and faces. However, by Jove, I do hope that the President chooses the legal, most sensible, easiest way to get our country out of this stalemate: RESIGN. And let her constitutionally elected successor take the reigns.
Despite all the political chaos, it's also been a lucky week for Filipinos. Pacquiao won over Morales, and someone from Sorsogon will be taking home the P150 million Lotto grand prize (second biggest win in the history of the Philippine Lotto, I hear).
I myself am an absolute contest junkie (of the free contests, at least), and so in the spirit of this week's victory celebrations, I'm announcing my newest website: PinoyPanalo, where I'll be keeping a list of raffle draws and online contests that Pinoys can join. Mike bought me the PinoyPanalo.com domain name already; I'm just waiting for server space and an extended period of free time (free time? ano yun?) to redo everything on Wordpress.
On to more mundane things. I was doing research on how to order a keg of San Miguel, and I came across several reviews from people all over the world who consider San Miguel to be one of their favorite brands of beer of all.
One American serviceman described how, when he was stationed in Thailand in the 1970s, a delivery of San Miguel would arrive once a month, and the beer would be gone in a week. American beer abounded, but when the San Mig arrived, the soldiers would only drink San Miguel.
... Which reminds me of an old joke ....
Why is drinking Budweiser like making love in a boat? Because it's f**king next to water!
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Meanwhile, I miss the old San Miguel epic commercials.
Creation displays the boundlessness of that love – that's what Christians see, that's the "design" we perceive, when we look at the natural world. The Incarnation both confirms and takes us far beyond that perception: here, in the child born to Mary of Nazareth, we see the measureless love of God in the flesh, as one of us. Like the Magi, we come to understand that God's love is not just (just!) infinite; its infinity is exaggerated, spilling beyond the Infinite to embrace the finite, so that what is flesh and finitude is drawn up into the infinite life of Love itself. It's because of the manger that we can say, with the apostle John, "God is Love."
Like John Paul II's, Benedict XVI's pontificate will be Christ-centered. Pope Benedict may stress the "scandal" of the Incarnation – the "stumbling block" and "folly" that some find in the claim that the Creator God entered the world in the person of his Son, so that the Son, through his obedient death, might reconcile the world to Love itself. Yet Pope Benedict will also insist that this scandal, which has challenged humankind since St. Paul posed it to the Corinthians, is not a scandal against reason; the mystery of the Incarnation, and the scandal of the Cross to which the Incarnation inexorably points (as old Simeon will remind Mary on Candlemas), is beyond reason. It is not irrational; but the "reason" within the mystery and the scandal can only be grasped in an act of love.
Which is, after all, the Christian meaning of "mystery."
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