Jerky Talks: Let Them Eat Cake

Before I continue on writing, let me just express that I am not one given to writing much about personal matters or socio-political affairs. The world is diverse and filled with opinionated individuals; opinions written down on such matters often cause alienation, flaming, hatred, and unnecessary discussion / drama, which I do not want. I do not blog about these things because I dislike the internet culture of bullying. People have opinion, I choose to respect everyone's opinion and still be able to express mine. That does not seem possible, but I will proceed anyway with that in mind. In short, please be kind. I'm but a humble blogger with little to no fan base to back me up. :D Going back to the topic in hand:

Last December 18, a controversial twitter "peek-a-boo-boo" and I meant a boo-boo, really, between several PH goverment officials and Ms. Valerie Concepcion, caused a stir on the Internet community. The issue being discussed by Valerie Concepcion and the other government officials is the party happening in Malacanang, and in attendance is none other than PNoy. 489 miles from Malacanang, however, 20,000 families have lost their homes, and  a vast part CDO / Iligan, can you imagine this, has been converted by Typhoon Sendong (TS Washi) into a brown sea. Sendong, which made landfall on Mindanao last December 16, has brought in torrential rains that triggered flash floods, claiming 632 lives (as of this writing) with hundreds still missing.

Contrast the jovial scenario at the palace and the dreariness of people dying and suffering over at CDO. That's what everyone did who's been criticizing the party at Malacanang last night, and that's understandable. People get angry over these things. As a race we do tend to have overly high expectations of people in power, and as a race, we do tend to behave contrary to people's expectations once we're in power.

What fanned the fire was a continuous deletion of tweets by Valerie Concepcion and several misinformed ones by palace spokespersons Manuel L. Quezon III and Abigail Valte offering vague ideas and denials about the party currently taking place. There was simply no response on when PNoy is to visit the makeshift brown sea that was once CDO. And people were eager to have the president thrown to CDO and do things expected of a president in times of crisis.

In the short time Noynoy has been president, I can conclude these things about him: 1. He is always calm until he gets to the mic to lambast his enemies. 2. His action is always geared toward fighting corruption, previous or recent, and 3. he always makes Binay do the dirty work, such as foreign relations with China and calamity response, for which Binay obliges.

What prompted me to write is the call for PNoy to be at ground zero on day one, not the party or whatnot, but the reaction over his not being there on day one and only this Tuesday. 

I am no PNoy fanboy. Far from it, actually, and I hated that he ran last 2010. But here's what. This is something that I do not understand. Why do we always want our head of state in a dangerous place? That's the effin' balding head of state we want to place in danger. I mean not just for Noynoy, but for the other presidents before him. We are so angry when they aren't there the day the relief operations has started. I do not understand that. The President is a very important person, why do we want him in an unsafe place? Isn't it enough that he has (or his subordinates) the army and the Red Cross mobilized to bring support and relief to those struck by the disaster. And if we need a figure of authority there, Binay is already there as soon as he possibly could. And by golly, the president is no expert in calamity and disaster response. He has people for that, and those are the ones who need to be there. Why do we want someone who's not adept with that sort of thing taking charge over that? Why? Just because he's the president, I really don't understand it. Just because he's the most powerful being in the country? Can't he use that power from a safer place? I mean that's the point of having people to do those things for you. So they would do it for you, so they'd get their hands dirty so you can attend to other things (parties included). I mean if I were in the disaster area, I'd very much prefer to see the soldiers doing their thing over a president lording around and talking on his phone attending to matters he left behind in Manila.

Now with that said, I think the most we can do is help. Follow this link to see how we may help the victims of Tropical Storm Washi.

Jerky Talks #4: City of Bad Art

The photo above is the hotly debated work of Mideo Cruz, displayed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Much has been said about this piece of art--or crap. The photo above, if it is not apparent, is a life-size wooden crucifix. That red protruding object affixed below the number 36 on the cross is a... penis. An erected male genitilia made of wood and finished with a red paint. The cross itself seems to be made of worn out doors adorned with various items such as the word "UP" or University of the Philippines, I believe, House address numbers, some religious items like amulets and rosaries, and a piece of linen probably to give it a Shroud-of-Turin feel. On the left side of the cross (not pictured) is a replica of a severed hand inside a glass box that spews red blood-like water. This is the part of the centerpiece that I like most as I find it artistic and macabre. You can almost imagine that Christ is there but you can only see a part of him by peering into that box.

The walls surrounding the centerpiece are littered with religious images mishmashed with various pop culture images. Teletubbies meets Coca-Cola meets Jesus Christ meets Santa Claus meets Mickey Mouse. It was such a colorful mishmash that one would need to take a look closer how all these where mashed together, and I think he did a good job there. On the right side of his part of the exhibit is an old Sacred Heart Jesus statuette fitted with a bunny crown and pierrot nose (pictured below). Hilarious and juvenile. Something a child would do.


How did I feel when I saw this artwork? Mixed. For one, I disliked the erect red penis sticking out, it just felt out of place and is a centerpiece for controversy. I'm a Christian after all, devout no, a Christian, yes. I have my beliefs and that glaring phallic object does not belong there, though I believe it is to symbolize God's being human, that perhaps even Christ felt the human urge when He was alive. If not, then I would stop my belief that we are made in the likeness of God. Surely, Jesus also pooped. So he must have felt that urge one time or another. Part of being a man.
The rest of the exhibit is well-put and creatively done, I can say. Mostly humorous and thought-provoking in a sense that it made me think the process of thought Mideo Cruz went on to put all these pieces together. The effect to me is mostly comedic. if not intriguing. I still have to question the wooden penis, though. Where am I leading this post?
Fact: Senator Tito Sotto has threatened CCP that they will get budget cuts. Fact: Mideo Cruz has received several death threats. Opinion: The Catholic Church is pulling the strings in this. If they can do this to art, the hell they can do it to the RH bill, Divorce bill, and any hopes of same-sex marriage. So we say the art is distasteful and offending, then don't go see it. Good Lord. It's not like they are being required to see it. It's inside a museum in Manila. You have to go to that museum on your own consent. If you look at it and get offended, then it is in your own doing that you get offended.
Apparently, the law forbids exhibition of immoral stuff like this. It says that anything that offends a certain religion is considered unlawful and as the Church is apparently offended, the closing of the exhibit is lawful.
This means we are not liberal enough, a populace, to laugh at such things and find it humorous if not sarcastic. We are still, as a nation, conservative and would stick to our old ways. that's what this whole snafu means. Art is the last thing to develop in any race as everything else must be satiated before it can flourish. It means, since our art is not flourishing enough and our sense of art being in its infancy with our media littered with crap called teleserye and our movies being mostly romantic-dramas and slapstick, just as our sense of art is stuck to the 70s, our progress as a nation is also. It's 2011 but our art is mostly crap and when foreign concepts are introduced we do not accept it because it does not fit with where our artistic perception is currently at.
I am Christian. My family is devout. I may be the apple that fell far from the tree, but I do not see it as an attack to my religion. I do not see a church defaced or a terrorist attack launched on my fellow Christians. These are religious articles, yes, but they are not my God. I was taught in school that this is what my God looks like and I have grown to believe that that is not true. God does not have a face that man has seen and the images of Jesus we have are artistic renditions only made to make the religion appealing. All these are what marketing materials are if the Church is a business. Attacking the Bible is a different story (Hello, Da Vinci Code). This is nothing more than an artwork using religious articles as base materials--with some getting defaced in the process. It's the nation's reaction that is disconcerting, and the power the church is exhibiting over the government.
To close this post, I say, "if you want a summary of a nation's progress, look at the state of their arts. Arts can only flourish when the stomach is fed and the mind nourished." Sadly, our art and our perception is a vast work in progress that don't seem to have a bright future.

Jerky Talks #3: Mean Girls

Here's what: Internet makes people mean. Everywhere you go on the web, there would always be one or two people dishing out nasty comments on the discussion. But why go far when you can just go Twitter and look who's being ridiculed by the netizens by checking on the trending topics. The same may be said about Facebook where FAN PAGES can simply be created to insult people. What lead me to this post?

Yesterday, a UP (University of the Philippines) Law Graduate drove his car through a waist-deep flooded street much to his car's dismay. The angry Christopher Lao, interviewed by the local media, in all his frustration blamed the bystanders for not informing him about how deep the flood is. Good Lord, bless you, Mr. Lao. In a matter of minutes, the video of this interview went viral and Mr. Lao now has a Facebook fan page with (as of last checking) has more than 40,000 likes--this started from 2,000 early the night before. Reading on the posts on the fan page's wall is a chore. It is an endless tirade made by countless people, some of them using even fake accounts for good measure.

I am not writing to express my sympathy with Mr. Lao as his was a mistake anyone could have possibly made--but surely the phrasing of his comments made him an overnight celebrity, which if he can exploit properly and take with a pinch of salt, can send him to Philippine Show Business. Yes, dear, that's how it works here. Perhaps we can say that his comments in the interview was born of frustration and arrogance, but how hard was it to just say, "yeah, I was stupid enough to drive through the flood thinking it wasn't that deep." And granted he was that stupid and arrogant, I just feel that such fan pages warrant nothing but empty entertainment and an emotionally bruised Mr. Lao (again, a person with a more incontrovertible sense of humor would have made out of this unscathed and probably would even have guested in a morning talk show, but Mr. Lao doesn't strike me as one). It's his fault, but why should we go about rubbing it all over his face that not only was it his fault, he is also the biggest arrogant who made it to primetime TV last night?

What makes me sad is not that people are making fun of him: it's how people harshly respond to some things over social media. Reporter Karen Davila has before said that Social Media has made us anti-social (of course she might have just picked it up somewhere, but then again it is something wise to tweet). One does not even need to look at the trending topics. Surely we all have that one friend / follower who does nothing on his/her time but to tweet mean stuff (Guy Kawasaki's definitive 5 types of twitter users lists this type as the b!tch). I have some of these who I cannot unfollow as they are good acquaintances and such would seem curt. Sometimes--on a bad day--I just wanna step up to them and yell on their ear, "Hey, before you go calling people ugly, go check the mirror, buddy," or "Hey, tard, use a real pic of yourself before calling my friend ugly in his profile pic." But I can't as that would just be mean and And besides, this:

 

Arguing with these people just won't change anything. But letting them be saves you time. And also makes you more social-media-friendly, I realize. Your tweets are not tainted with heated arguments.

I've gone off-track. Sadly, this is what the Internet has made of us--mean people ready to rub a witty, if not harsh, salt to the humiliating wound like we are close friends to strangers who just made a bad call on national TV and such banter would not matter. I have had my fill of this, and I'm glad I have my friends to banter with. I do not have to waste my dry wit on people who have made it to today's entertainment column. And while the Internet continues to be mean, I guess the only thing I can do is to filter what I read and click those unfollow buttons.

Have a great day ahead.

Social Insight #2: Is Technology Making Us Lazy

Time Magazine says that the class of 2014 will barely touch emails. Come to think of it, when was the last time you have sent an email to say Hi to a friend? I myself have not used email outside of corporate use. And if my cow orkers can tweet me their concerns or issues, or send me a DM via FB, I'd be happy to communicate with my cow orkers by those means and completely forget about email.

Checking my gmail, I see that it is littered with email notifications from facebook, e-statements, Twitter notices, spam that gmail failed to filter out, some digested e-group mail, stuff I don't read in short. And that's what makes email annoying. The manual need to dispose of these things, whereas in, say, twitter, these things just fade to make way for newer content. Even with the implementation of Priority Inbox, which is a failure, in my opinion, things still end up in clutter and disarray. Even if you have folders, without rules, you will need to manage your mails on your own which is very inconvenient.

Why am I talking about all these? Well, awhile ago, I was informed by our IT that I need to fill up a form to transfer account ownerships. While this is OK, I was further informed these forms need to be hand-delivered to the satellite office. To be honest, with the level our techonology has reached, filling up forms has become a very cumbersome task. Much more hand-delivering them. And here comes an admission: I am too lazy to do both.

We are in an era where we don't always need to go to the mall to buy stuff: we go to ebay, check there and have it delivered to our residence. We forgo the music bar for iTunes. We are closing down bookstores in favor of Amazon and Kindle. We are saving trees and laying off people thanks to Internet newspaper. And day by day more stars are born on Youtube than on the TV. The thought of having to hand-deliver and hand-fill a bunch of documents is kind of anti-climactic. The act does not belong to 2011. And while a lot of organizations, banks most especially, still require hand-filled up forms, it is inconvenient and inviting errors.

I'd be honest that technology has made me lazy, but wait, I am driving a point here. These manual tasks take time which can be used for other more pleasurable or productive things, like attending to your tasks, babysitting your kids, or baking pies. And these days, the more time you have, the better. Because time is the only thing that cannot be replaced or re-earned. You can buy a new pacemaker, but not extend your time on this planet. And that is technology's role. Not to make us lazy, but to give us more time to do more things.

Social Insight #1: The Hollywood Walk of Fame

The Hollywood Walk of fame is a very long sidewalk studded with stars along the stretch of the Hollywood Boulevard. The star studs of the walkway is given to various artists that contributed greatly to Hollywood and has considerable acclaim.

If you think the stars are just given away like sample donuts in Krispy Kreme, you couldn't be more wrong.

There is a long list of activity before anyone, legendary, famous, or trite, gets a star. I wouldn't like to get into detail on the whole process, but vaguely: there is a committee who meets and decide which artist should get a star. Then the artist gets shortlisted. The artist's representatives are then informed, and if they shall accept, their nomination is publicized. It will then take up to years before the artists can actually get their star on the walk, for one reason or another. Also, if the artists accept the nomination, someone, either the artist or a close friend or his/her fans, should pay up a sum of, wait for it, 25,000 US Dollars! Then, after that, the artist must agree to appear in public for the unveiling of the star. If all is well, a date is set on when the artist will get that star.

Celebrities such as Julia Roberts, Russell Crowe, and legendary Clint Eastwood don't have stars, and probably they smell something wrong with all this shenanigan. Apparently they just "refused to participate." Which just doesn't make sense. Someone as legendary and great as Eastwood should have a star of his own. Hollywood could not have not possibly forget his Spaghetti Westerns!

Oh, well. That's Hollywood for you. Now doesn't it sound like pure gimmickry? Well, for me it does. I can understand though, that anyone who gets a star should pay up for the lifetime maintenance of The Walk. But then again, the star is an honor. And it feels funny to pay for that honor. It's like paying the Integrated Bar to become a lawyer. The Walk is a tourist attraction, and I bet there is a better way to get that maintenance fee some way. Mind, 25K is bit too stiff even for these raking artists.