Looking over my prognostications for the last half of 2008, I’m happy to note that I got no better than a 71% accuracy rate. Which is fine, as the things I missed out on were the dire ones, like oil hitting US $ 200 a barrel and OFW remittances dropping (it has held firm year on year and has even risen slightly).

However… Read the rest of this entry »

Rubens’ Massacre of the Holy Innocents from NationMaster.com

Death takes no holidays. We all know this but it would be too painful to acknowledge it during this season of supposed joy. Sometimes we are reminded of this undeniable truth on a grand scope, as happened during the Asian tsunami of 2004, which claimed an estimated 230,000 lives, and displaced millions. Its 4th anniversary was recollected on December 26 in homes and beaches from Indonesia to India. It is believed to be the deadliest tsunami in recorded history.

More often death arrives on a more modest scale, although the tragedy is not in any way diminished by the numbers involved. Whether it be 1 or 100,000, the pain and anguish can be overwhelming for those forced to confront it. This is even more heart-rending in the case of children dying. Read the rest of this entry »

Me hebetudinous in my Larson La-Z-Boy.

I have Butch Dalisay to thank (or blame) for my present blissful, semi-catatonic state, being partially responsible for bringing something into our awareness and thence, into our lives. Some weeks back, he wrote a column which he posted on his blog, “I Came, I Sat, It Conquered“, on his having been unexpectedly seduced by a La-Z-Boy while wandering around in a mall.

I’ve always known about La-Z-Boys, but never really thought about getting one, finding them too expensive and a symbol of a certain image I have of American, bourgeois, male slovenliness. Something Homer Simpson would surely have. I was above that, I sniffed. Until I read the esteemed Mr. Dalisay’s account of how he succumbed, with nary a struggle, to the La-Z-Boy’s siren song. Shameless hedonist that he is, he made it out like a voluptuous, almost wanton, experience. Something clicked in my middle-aged brain, and I sat sighing before the monitor, wanting to share in the sensuality of the moment. I began to connect with my inner Homer Simpson, who I suspect was always there, waiting for the right time to appear. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a Scrooge, I know, but screw this season. I wish I could fast-forward to January 2, and skip all this enforced gaiety.

It’s what really bugs me, on top of the frantic crowds and insane traffic. The obligation to be pleasant and engaging, when the last thing I want to hear is another perfunctory “Merry Christmas” across halls decked with boughs of (faux) holly.

The modern idea of the “holidays” has been clearly invented for the sole purpose of promoting mindless consumerism and shameless excess and the whole herd has bought into it. We run, willy-nilly, desperately trying to have a good time even though, in our hearts, we feel sick and empty. Read the rest of this entry »

It was a interesting piece of cultural protest, throwing a shoe (actually a pair) at President Bush. It turns out that a hurled shoe is a symbol of grave insult in Iraq, akin to an American middle finger, as Bush himself perceptively pointed out after the incident.

Journalist Muntader al-Zaidi is now considered a hero in the Arab world. In Saudi Arabia, it was reported that a man had offered $10 million to buy just one of what has overnight become the world’s most famous pair of footwear.

The classic YouTube moment took place Sunday night at a news conference by President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in Baghdad’s Green Zone, in what was supposed to be a farewell appearance on the part of the outgoing U.S. president. Read the rest of this entry »