A Book a Day…
Once again, I broke my moratorium on the buying of books and am officially revoking it because of my inability to implement it.
I just received my part of the profit for Binibining UP Pageant, our advertising class project, and bought myself The Fatal Eggs by Mikhail Bulgakov. The Hesperus Press edition with a foreword by Doris Lessing is sold with a 75% discount in National Bookstore. I bought the book for P84 only instead of the original price of P339!
I consider it a reward for having presented what Prof. Teresita Rodriguez described as the best plan for our advertising class. For the said paper, my group was assigned to make a campaign plan for the Sangguniang Kabataan elections. My group mates conducted surveys in a certain barangay. We explored the community and interviewed officials and residents not a few times. The efforts paid off in the end.
The Invisible Hand?
Quote of the Day (6)
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have… more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
The Bane of the Anti-Arroyo Movement
Last week, Will of the blog Writer’s Block
asked me if the people in Cebu are 100% pro-GMA. I answered no, adding
that many believe the president is guilty of corruption. Likewise, many
actually find Lozada’s claim of irregularities in the NBN deal
credible. As to why not many are joining protests, I reasoned out that
people don’t see any viable alternative, not De Castro or anyone from
the trapo opposition. Likewise, talk of radical transitions don’t hold much traction.
I then concluded with a lame statement on the conservatism of my
province to account for this trend. I was supposed to write a rejoinder
correcting this last sweeping statement but my failing health and our
college’s final examinations period has caught up with me. I am thus
reposting Sir Bong Wenceslao’s Sun.Star column here. I echo many of his
views:
IT seems like the fashion of leaders in the recent wave
of protest actions against the Arroyo administration is to bash those
who refuse to join them in the streets. I say that there is both
arrogance and a failure to understand the sentiment of the many to this
act. This is the reason why despite the onslaught the Arroyo government
has survived.
Bitter Medicines and Harsh Truths
This blog entry contains a jumble of remarks and notes written on my sickbed. It includes bits on blogging, last Friday’s interfaith rally, student power, as well as the success of our class project – Papeles, among other things.
“People have been fed on sweets too long… Bitter medicines and harsh truths are needed now,†the Classic Russian novelist Mikhail Lermontov (another namesake) once wrote.
Fidel Castro’s Legacy
After Fidel Castro’s retirement, Raul Castro was named as Cuba’s new president on Sunday as President Bush immediately called for further isolating the Cuban regime to stimulate “a democratic transition.â€
Of course, we know this crap is all about the US ruling class’ desire to return Cuba to its previous semi-colonial status as a sugar plantation and Mafia lounge. Why are there no such calls on loyal US client states that are known to be undemocratic and human rights violating dictatorships like the Saudi monarchy or the Musharraf regime in Pakistan?
So the truth about Fidel Castro and Cuba from a debate in the current issue of the Foreign Policy Magazine:
Learning from EDSA
Pete Lacaba’s article “The Name Game†reprinted in his blog talks about names inspired by the first EDSA uprising, the First Quarter Storm and the Martial Law era.
I’m mentioning this since today is the 22nd anniversary of the first EDSA and for the reason that my own name, along with the names some persons from my own generation who I know, also have roots from that era.
So moving on to the main matter: What is to be done when our representatives fail? The answer to this question is the threat of another “People Power†uprising, Manuel Quezon III writes in his column. But there are those, as cited in Quezon’s blog, who are against this. Onomatopoeia, in particular, reproduced “A Call to Stop the Threat of People Power.â€
Eating Kafka
While the old The Economist article’s title is actually a play on Marie Antoinette’s famous saying “let them eat cake,†why can’t our own government here think of something like the following government literacy program in Chile?
Let them eat Kafka
The president enlists the literary criticsASK Chileans what they are reading and the answer will probably be Isabel Allende’s “La Suma de los DÃasâ€, a memoir by their country’s best-known living writer. If, that is, they read anything at all: in a recent survey, 45% said they never read books and 34% did so only occasionally.
Quote of the Day (5)
Taking a cue from Manuel Quezon III’s blog entry on GMA’s Mandate of Heaven:
Woe to the nation that does not raise its voice save in a funeral, that shows esteem only at the grave, that waits to rebel until its neck is under the edge of the sword.
–Khalil Gibran, The Nine Woes
Castro’s Retirement, Bhutto’s Memoirs, Kosovo and an Erroneous Map
Fidel Castro, the iconic leader of the Cuban revolution, has just announced his retirement as Cuba’s president. During the almost 50 years of his rule, Castro oversaw major economic and social changes which favored the poor, including the introduction of land reform and the improvement of education and health services.
Also, I just learned that former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto submitted her memoir to HarperCollins only five days before her murder in December last year. The book is titled Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West.
But it’s not all about endings. In another part of the world, Kosovo declared independence over the weekend and is set to be recognized by France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Check out Spiegel Online International’s photo gallery of Kosovo’s 18-year path to independence.
