Items
Pia Faustino, the girl who wanted people to
buy her dream (and
Jam's crush) is featured
in the latest Newbreak. The article also mentions that she'll be working for the DepEd soon.
Michael L. Tan
talks about the Muslim prayer room issue in Greenhills and compares it to right-wing French legislation banning Muslim headscarves for women in Paris public schools.
Robert X. Cringely
predicts that next weeks US Presidential Elections will be much more lopsided than expected, with a Kerry victory not reflected in polls because of pollsters' use of landlines and the increasing dependence of young voters on cellphones. Of course, this is reminiscent of the infamous 1936 Literary Digest survey, which drew samples from telephone directories and was not representative of the population (and was thus dead-wrong in its prediction of a Republican victory).
Eminem
throws his hat into the political arena, with a new video Mosh that according to
Salon.com, makes "Fahrenheit 9/11" look like a GOP campaign spot.
Manolo Quezon has
a hilarious column about women's natural odors.
DV
LRT Line 2 now stretches all the way to Recto.
Kaya mas madali nang pumunta sa....
Divisoria! Divisoria! Divisoria! Divisoria! Divisoria! Divisoria! Divisoria! Divisoria! Divisoria! Divisoria!
Sinong marunong pumunta, pwede ba 'kong sumama sa... sinong marunong pumunta, pwede ba 'kong sumama sa...
No more curse
The Boston Red Sox just
won their first World Series since 1918, with a sweep against Ian's favorite St. Louis Cardinals (heh, sorry, can't resist).
The most touching piece I've read about the passion of the Red Sox Nation actually came out earlier, before the Sox won the series. Boston Sports Guy Bill Simmons (the best sportswriter on the Internet, bar none) wrote
a touching column about Red Sox fans and what this victory would mean for them. Among other things, he detailed the people the Sox ought to be winning the game for, which was inspired by
a thread in a Red Sox fan board.
- "Win it for my 10-year-old son Charlie who fell asleep listening to Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS assuming the Sox would win. When he awakened the next morning, he asked me, eagerly, "Did we win, Dad?" When I told him, gently, No, we did not win, his anguished moan startled me. I knew I had raised him as a Red Sox fan and I began to question whether that was a good thing."
- "Win it for my boss, a dear friend who lost his dad unexpectedly in March of this year. More than once this season, I've seen him glance at the phone after a game, half-expecting his father to call to commiserate, rejoice, or just shoot the breeze -- I've also seen the sadness in his eyes as he realizes that the call isn't coming. Win it for his dad, a lifelong fan who never had the opportunity to witness his beloved team taking it all."
- "Win it for my Grandfather (1917-2004) who never got to see the Red Sox win it all but always believed. And for my Dad who watches each and every game wishing his Dad was there to watch with him."
Kapuso, anumang kulay... ng buhay
I just got a new job. No points for figuring out where it'll be.
I won't be starting until sometime in November, so I've still got a couple of weeks to go here in this old company. It's hard to keep track of things here though, given how excited I am about the new job. It's not like any other job I could get out there in the market.
Funny thing, when I tell people where I'll be working, the exchange always goes something like this:
Them: "
Ano namang gagawin mo dun?"
Me: "
Eh 'di mag-a-artista."
Have a pleasant weekend everyone!
And to cap off the week on a great mood, please
read this article by Patricia Evangelista talking about people we really ought to be proud of as a country. You may remember Ms. Evangelista as the University of the Philippines student who won honor for the country at the International Speaking Competition held in London earlier this year, with her piece
'Borderless world does not preclude the idea of a home'.
And because Philstar.com sucks and the articles there will be expiring soon, here's
the text of the article.
Outsourcing
Inquirer columnist and University of the Philippines professor Michael L. Tan has an interesting
two-part essay on the outsourcing industry in the country. Very good read, especially for people like myself who make a living in this industry.
Aura and Mystique
Ha, the Boston Red Sox have
completed the greatest comeback since Lazarus, recovering from being three outs away from elimination and a 0-3 series deficit against the Evil Yankees Empire to reach the World Series for the first time since 1986.
So, is it fair to expect meteors to start falling down upon us?
Well, maybe not yet, since they've yet to win the World Series. They're still waiting for the winner between St. Louis and Houston, although if the series goes according to script, they'd be facing the Astros. Houston not only features
Red Sox enemy no. 1 Roger Clemens, but the Massachussetts versus Texas angle would be representative of
another important competition in America this fall.
Regardless, it was a truly historic feat by the Red Sox, and against the Yankees at that. Yesterday's game was truly a Rocky moment, and watching the re-run last night, I was just waiting for the announcers to start screaming, "He's cut! The Russian is cut!" With a few swings of the bat, the Red Sox demolished 85 years worth of the Yankees' aura and mystique.
Of course, Boston ace and Game 6 hero Curt Schilling said it best a few years ago, after leading the Arizona Diamondbacks to win the World Series against the Yankees.
"Aura and Mystique are dancers in a nightclub."
Patlang
'Di ka masaya, pagod na ako, tapusin na natin ito...
Greatest comeback
Unbelievable! The Boston Red Sox
just climbed back from an 0-3 deficit against the New York Yankees in the ALCS to tie the series. It's the first time in Major League Baseball history that a team down 0-3 has been able to force a game 7.
As I noted
earlier, I caught the first three games on TV last week, as I saw New York completely decimate the Sox. I haven't caught any of the games during the comeback, which included
two record-setting marathon games as well as
the return of Boston ace Curt Schilling, instead relying on updates from
Sporting News Radio and
Yahoo's Baseball Page.
Game 7 is scheduled for tomorrow. Go Red Sox!
U.P.
Former CMC Dean Luis Teodoro,
in his latest article, writes about the relevance of the University of the Philippines in today's society, in light of the upcoming elections for the UP Presidency.
He didn't paint a pretty picture, to say the least:
Unfortunately, like most UP students who couldn’t care less, the public is not overly interested in who’s going to run UP for the next six years, primarily because they can’t see what relevance UP has to them.
True, some parents still think a UP education’s the surest way to riches, mostly through a UP College of Law or College of Medicine degree. But even that’s giving way to the thought that sending Junior to STI or AMA instead for a care-giver’s course so he can learn how to scour bedpans in a US nursing home could be simpler and even better.
This is UP’s current tragedy. Its relevance to Filipinos during the last several decades has become limited to how much more a UP degree can guarantee a good job than other universities–and even that belief is fading. What’s worse is that the more discerning, including some UP alumni themselves, tend to see UP as an institution that at the very least owes the Filipino people an explanation.
...
Considering the state of the country, and the pre-eminence of UP alumni in keeping it firmly on the road to economic, political and judicial perdition, shouldn’t UP be actually apologizing to the country rather than crowing about how many senators, justices, congressmen, presidents and secretaries of economic development and planning it has contributed to the government–not to mention the hordes of crooked lawyers, operators and corrupt businessmen it’s graduated?
But of even greater interest is how UP can change all that in the future, in terms of how the training it provides can actually make people ethical as well as skilled–in the arts of governance, for example, or in the practice of law, or, for that matter, in the mass media–so that, if they do end up in government, they can help end corruption rather than contribute to it.
In addition, it was asked during the same consultation, can’t UP training do something about the “departure-lounge syndrome"–meaning the widespread desire to leave the country to make money abroad the minute one gets a diploma? It’s not only the graduates of Fatima College of Medicine who make for the airport upon passing the Medical Board exams, after all. Entire UP College of Medicine classes have also been known to leave for the US within months of graduation.
...
UP has no other recourse but to find the road that would lead to something other than collective perdition. Otherwise the Filipino people might as well save their money and shut down UP, or else just keep it hobbling along in slow decay. Its sole consolation would then be only the fact that, at least, Maj. Gen. Carlos F. Garcia and all those stalwarts of Philippine Military Academy class 1971 now under investigation for corruption and various other offenses are not its alumni, and that there’s actually a school other than UP Filipinos can blame for the country’s woes.
Back, again
Some more stuff I had meant to post about earlier, but didn't get the chance to:
- Phil Jackson has a new book about his last season with the Los Angeles Lakers, and it contains unflattering stuff about Kobe Bryant. Read all the dirty details in the CNN/SI excerpts.
- Speaking of which, there is a chance that ABC will hire Phil Jackson as their lead analyst. And the first game on ABC's schedule? Shaq's Miami Heat coming back to LA to face Kobe's Lakers. [ Log-in Info ]
- I caught the first three games of the ALCS on TV last week, with the Yankees basically murdering the Red Sox. New York was looking to sweep earlier tonight, but Boston made a dramatic comeback to win the game in extra innings. Maybe they'd complete their greatest comeback this week, with me not being able to watch any of their games anymore.
- Lately, I've been listening to, and enjoying, <S>andwich's Thanks to the Moon's Gravitational Pull. I was never really a big fan of the group, but I was blown away by Cambio's Derby Light album, where majority of the songs were written by Raimund Marasigan. So I decided to get the new <S>andwich album, looking for at least a little bit of Lemon's magic in it. It's a good album, but it's not nearly as good as Derby Light, which is, for my money, the best OPM album released since we finished high school. Derby Light is so good it's more than made up for my slight disappointment with Sugarfree's latest Dramachine.
- If we were in the US, someone would have already filed a class action suit against ABS-CBN for making Judy Ann Santos wear tights as a superheroine. On prime time, at that.
- Speaking of flying, I heard GMA-7 still looking for their Darna after the original choice Nadine Samonte was cast in another role. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing GMA killing off that godawful bird show and cast Angel Locsin as Darna. I bet she'd look much lovelier in a Darna costume than in a pair of crappy CG wings. Wouldn't you?
Back
Hi guys. I've been away for the last few days. How has everyone been?
Anyway, here are some items I would probably have yammered on endlessly about if I hadn't been away these last few days:
- All the stuff about Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia is driving everyone bonkers, and as always, De Quiros has the best take on the whole situation.
- Jon Stewart says that he's voting for John Kerry, which shouldn't be news to Daily Show fans, but still managed to poke fun at Kerry's pop culture references, saying he almost expected Kerry to ask during the debate, "Did anybody see 'The O.C.' last night?"
- 'The O.C.' rocks, and I can't wait for the new season, and if you can't handle that, well... Welcome to the U.B., bitch!
- Purefoods finally lost last Friday night (I didn't watch live, I was away). Now we're up against Talk N' Text this Tuesday. We'd probably get killed, unless Taulava gets deported by then.
- On a related note, it was announced last Friday that Alvin Patrimonio is now the playing team manager of Purefoods. I wish he signs himself to a P25-million contract extension.
- While channel-surfing late Friday night, I caught our very own Tseri on channel 13. Artistahin ka pala, hehehe
- Finally, it was Jona and Oliver's birthday yesterday. Happy birthday kids!
Prayers
In
his column today at INQ7.net,
Manuel L. Quezon III talks about the brewing controversy in Greenhills over the decision of the management of the shopping center to build a mosque inside the center's premises.
Among the most vocal opponents of this proposal is Max Soliven, publisher of the
Philippine Star and Greenhills resident. In a series of columns, Soliven described the influx of Muslim traders into the area as a threat to their security, going so far as to suggest that the plan to build a mosque was a front to build a terrorist headquarters right there in the Greenhills area.
Fortunately, Quezon offers a more sober argument to Soliven's position:
I have seen the Muslims in Greenhills gathered together in hallways and other makeshift locations, kneeling on the floor and praying, as non-Muslim shoppers, with curiosity and fear on their faces, stroll by and stare at them. Surely, considering the requirements of Islam, and the sizeable number of Muslims who show up for work in Greenhills, they are entitled to pray in a place that affords them some dignity, quiet and peace.
...
But then you have the opposition of Greenhills residents. It is an opposition based on experience, but also, on an unhealthy dose of bigotry. In large part, the solutions being offered are unsatisfactory because of ignorance of the requirements of Islam. Given the strict and periodic prayer times required, could there be any other solution than building a place for Muslims to pray in?
It is an unfortunate fact that bigotry against Muslim Filipinos is still fairly widespread in our country. What is unacceptable, however, is that the publisher of one of the most widely-circulated broadsheets in this country also harbors this same kind of bigotry, when in fact his position in society requires an open mind to such issues as to provide a journalistic beacon for his readership.
Then again, that may be too much to ask for considering who is involved. The last time Soliven was embroiled in a controversy,
he was accused (along with his partner Manuel 'Babe' Romualdez) of libel by Presidential Adviser Roberto Romulo. The duo allegedly engaged in a villification campaign in the Philippine Star after Romualdez' PR firm contract with Malacañang was not renewed after Romulo's recommendations.
Up, up, and away
Christopher Reeve, 1952-2004Actor, Sportsman, Super Hero
2-0
Ha,
Purefoods won again, this time against Coke! Kerby Raymundo and Noy Castillo topscored, but everyone who watched the game last night saw that Paul Artadi sparked the third-quarter comeback from a 15-point deficit.
Artadi was all over the floor, anchoring the Purefoods zone at the top of the key (they gave different looks, playing 1-3-1 and 1-2-2 instead of the usual 2-3), getting his hand on every lose ball, pushing the ball up the floor, and basically sticking a fork on Johnny A's back (he's done).
So Purefoods is now on top of the standings, alongside defending All-Filipino Champs Talk N Text, who are enjoying an inexplicable resurgence from Mark Telan (which prompted most PBA fans to remark, "Mark Telan's still alive?")
And this from a team whose starting shooting guard looks like Edu Manzano and starting small forward is an Elvis impersonator. Then again, our team captain looks a lot like Alvin Patrimonio (that is, until he takes the court, and then he starts playing like Allen Patrimonio).
Btw, Jona, I think we'll be watching the game live again this Friday... sino ulit iki-kiss ko para sa 'yo? Si Zaldy Realubit?
(And now, because this seems to be working...)
Frankly, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe it's injuries (James Yap went down again last night and didn't return in the second half), maybe it's Ryan Gregorio, maybe it's Jun Limpot, but I can feel something's about to go wrong and we'll finish in last place once again.
(Hey, at least we'll get Arwind Santos at the next draft.)
Hello?
O hello, 'di na kita naiintindihan... malabo na ba ang linya sa ating dalawa? Hello... gising ka pa kaya? O hello, nahihilo na ako sa 'yo...
Happily admitting I was wrong
So whaddya know,
Purefoods actually beat Ginebra last night, 104-87. The final score was actually closer than the game, as Purefoods led by 23 at the end of the third and never looked back.
It certainly looked like a different Purefoods team. A new face in the Purefoods bench, assistant coach (and FEU head coach) Koy Banal did a lot of coaching on the sidelines, and yeah, Purefoods did play a lot like his FEU teams. The team seemed poised and relaxed, and took care of the ball well enough on offense to prevent Ginebra's running game from getting off.
It wasn't just Purefoods playing well though, because Ginebra stunk it up too. They played listless defense, and only Caguioa and Helterbrand showed energy. Plus, while Caguioa top-scored for the Gins, he forced several fadeaway jumpers just as Purefoods was pulling away in the third, instead of dumping the ball down low to Eric Menk. Oh well, as the saying goes: Mark the Spark giveth, Mark the Spark taketh away.
But moving on, I think I may be on to something with this whole reverse jinx thing. It seemed to have worked with the
Fighting Maroons, and who could argue with last night's results?
So I'm predicting that Purefoods will lose all of their remaining games here in the All-Filipino conference.
Heart
I know this is old news, but I'm posting this for the sake of
Jam, who may not have seen it yet.
Purefoods-Ginebra
I scored tickets for tomorrow night's Purefoods-Ginebra game at the Araneta, and I've got an extra ticket. Anyone want to come?
By the way, as a lifelong Purefoods fan, I'm totally expecting them to get pasted by Ginebra. They've finished last for what now, five conferences running? I don't expect them to do much better this conference either, not as long as Ryan Gregorio (the bane of every Purefoods fan's existence) is at the helm.
Then again, I'm the same idiot who predicted an 0-12 slate for the
Fighting Maroons, so if Purefoods does really well this conference, I will happily admit that I was wrong.
(Of course, if they do stink it up, I will happily admit that I was right.)
But it should still be fun to watch, with
King James and
Mark the Spark trading bombs. I just don't understand why they put the game on a Wednesday night instead of a weekend, when it features the league's best box-office matchup. Ginebra is, of course, the most popular team in the league, while Purefoods, even with the terrible record, still has the most popular old guy (
Cap) and the most popular new ones (Yap and
Artadi).
(Yeah, San Miguel is right up there in terms of fan support, but
Danny I is a wuss.)
So there. See you tomorrow night!
Zen
I was channel-surfing late last night when I caught the whole
US Presidential Debate on
C-Span (I had only seen clips and read transcripts until then).
It was the first time I saw either candidate speak (relatively) extemporaneously, and I was quite surprised. I was surprised by how well
John Kerry spoke and how well he articulated his ideas, especially since I had followed the Democratic primaries and I always found Kerry to be rather unexciting (his running mate,
John Edwards, was the best speaker in the bunch, not to mention the most handsome; if Filipinos were voting, I bet he would have won).
I was also surprised with Bush's performance, and I realized just how dead-on
Will Ferrell's impression of him was. Seriously, while he was speaking, I was half-expecting him to throw, "Don't mess with Texas" out there, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he closed the debate with, "Live, from New York, it's Saturday Night!"
Watching the video of the debate, I realized that the Bush people's strategy for the night involved calling Kerry a flip-flopper as much as he could. The
label has unfortunately stuck, which is a testament to the power of the right-wing American media, and ironic as well, since
Bush has done much more flip-flopping on issues.
In fact, I distinctly remember a
Daily Show special segment where Jon Stewart moderated a debate between President George W. Bush, and the only man tough enough to stand up to him: Texas Gov. George W. Bush. They showed clips of Dubya as president and as a presidential candidate making opposite statements, highlighting the differences between what Bush was saying as a candidate, and what he actually did as President.
And on that note, in honor of Jon Stewart, I leave you with this week's Filipino Moment of Zen courtesy of the Hon. Senator Lito Lapid:
[Sen. Lapid was explaining] the reason why testimonies of escort girls identifying their alleged legislator-clients behind closed doors or in "executive" session should not be disclosed.
Sen. Lito Lapid reasoned out: "Kung meron man, huwag na sana banggitin pangalan dahil siyempre kung nagbayad naman, wala naman silang kasalanan. Nagbayad naman."
[ from William Esposo,
INQ7.net Online Columnist ]
Bushwhacked
The first US Presidential Debate was
held earlier today, and it seems like John Kerry did pretty well for himself. The debate focused on American foreign policy and security, most importantly in Iraq, which had long been played up as the Democrats' weak points. Several
network polls suggest that majority of the people who watched the debate though Kerry won it, while Bush
didn't win too many fans with his performance.
My favorite debate analysis comes from Aaron McGruder, the creator of the biting comic series
The Boondocks:
"Bush got his ass whupped," McGruder told CNN’s Aaron Brown.
"The elephant in the room" that no TV pontificators will dare acknowledge, he observed, is that Bush "is incredibly dumb...he can’t articulate, he can’t complete a full sentence, and he’s our president."
[via
Salon.com ]
The Daily Kos adds:
Holy shit, [Bush is] winging it, and it's painful.
