This day marks the 3rd year, the 1,096th day of the gruesome Ampatuan Massacre, a horrible event in our history where 58 people were killed, 34 of whom were journalists or working for the broadcast industry. Justice is yet to be served, but do you still care?
It seems like the attention of the…
Now tell me who can’t relate to this?
How to Dance in The Club (by jemdahunk)
USURPER OF THE SUN
Usurper of the Sun is a science fiction novel by 野尻 抱介 (Housuke Nojiri). A blurb on the cover said it was a “blend of Arthur C Clarke and Haruki Murakami” which made me grab it off the shelf in the library. Let me warn you: the only similarity with a Murakami novel is that both authors come from the same island nation. Happily, it is very much like an Arthur C Clarke novel, which was enough for me to like it. Aki is a young girl in high school who is the first person to notice a giant structure on Mercury that will eventually block out the sun. She dedicates her life to science to understand it and find out who built it, why and what can be done to communicate with the Builders all while ensuring human survival in our solar system. There are a lot of interesting ideas in the book. It’s a good first contact story dealing with communicating with aliens that are entirely different from ourselves, and the assumptions humans bring to communication. The characterization is pretty terrible. Maybe it’s just the translation, but everything is very declarative about loneliness and how much things mean to the different characters, and it all feels very clumsy and amateurish. But the characters were clear and you could see how better word choices could make it feel less sterile. Maybe it was trying to emulate those old science fiction stories where characters were standins to carry science around. In that case it worked. It felt very classic in its approach. The ideas were interesting and if it seemed a little simplistic in places, well, there are worse things in the world.
Landslide- Glee (by chelmoekilljoy)
Here’s my column in today’s Philippine Star, about the trouble brewing at Cinemalaya.
Side note: Cinemalaya’s like home to me, so I’m sad about what’s happening; what some people have become. Hope things change before the festival in July!
Jet - Look what you’ve done (by mariaszm)
After listening to this song for the umpteenth times, I still love it
Juxtaposition Failure
Awkward. Something is wrong with this photo. Something is not right with the layout of the front page of this broadsheet. And it’s pretty obvious.
Above the headline Why you should go to the Philippines, is the issue’s top news - an Editor from General Santos City was killed. And to make things worse, a photo of a drug raid in a posh village is spread above.
I first saw the photo on my Facebook news feed being shared and discussed by my contacts/friends. It was originally posted by the satirical Mosquito Press.
Perhaps most of us are busy yesterday discussing and spreading the new slogan of the Department of Tourism that the news of another slain journalist has been overshadowed, if not, neglected into consciousness.
Christopher Guarin, an Editor of the daily tabloid Tatak was killed Thursday night by two unidentified man in a motorcycle.
Guarin was the 10th Journalist to be killed under the Aquino Administration and the 150th since the restoration of democracy in the 1986 People Power Revolution.
And we must never forget the horrible event that happened on the 23rd of November 2009 where 58 people were killed in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, 34 of whom were journalists.
I do not blame the Editors and lay-out artists for this awkward layout. The stories in the front page are the day’s top stories. They have to put it there.
But my point is, if we really are serious on marketing our country as a more fun country to visit, then we must live to it. How do we expect foreign tourists to visit our country, who promises more fun, if we cannot resolve, or if possible, prevent these kind of incidents? How do we expect our country to be more fun if our story tellers are killed and justice for them and their family are not served?
I don’t want to see the day where our country is seen not as a fun place to visit but a country with a funny reputation - in a negative way.
Let us make it’s more fun in the Philippines not just a mere Tourism campaign, but a reality. Stop shooting the story tellers. End impunity now. Serve justice to the victims and their family.
Viva Filipinas! Vaya con Dios! Padayon!
Read more here:
First Chapter review of PoBW
The first chapter of the book was a surprise to me.I actually have no words to describe the book (in a good way) but I have to make a report on its few chapters so I have no choice but to actually put into words how I feel about it. First, I found it was beautiful in an Anne Frank kind of way. The first few pages mirrored how teen agers nowadays deal with family, school, peers, drugs, alcohol and sexuality.
The first letter of Charlie said, ‘’I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn’t try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist. ‘’Just like anyone of us, Charlie was looking for someone to talk to, someone he think that is old and mature enough to understand him and would never judge him, regardless of who he is and what he’s going through. I sensed that Charlie is an introverted kid since he doesn’t want to be made known to the person he was writing for.
‘’So this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how can that be’’ I think everyone of us can relate to this line by Charlie. We went through teen age years and we felt a whole range of emotions from events in our lives we can’t control. As a teen ager, we always search for answers in everything that happened in our lives. We are yet to discover what life is all about and what our purpose is during this time. In Charlie’s case, he was s looking for answers. Case in point, the death of his friend Michael, where he didn’t understand how and why it happened.
When Charlie got into high school, his letters then revealed what it is like in high school. It is
start of ‘’growing up.’’ People you know while you’re still in grade school, all of a sudden act like a total stranger or when an ugly duckling turns into a beautiful swan when he or reached high school. High school is the time when a person develops his or her physicality and explores his or her sexuality.
Then Bullying became Charlie’s dilemma for a while. When a boy named Sean went up to him and hit him. Good thing Charlie was equipped with self-defense moves which were imparted by his brother. We couldn’t deny the fact that bullying; in any sorts is an existing problem in any culture and country. Sadly, there’s a weak punishment for those bullies and the ones intimidated is really not protected.
In Sep. 11, 1991, Charlie wrote to his friend about him writing a book report on How to Kill a Mocking Bird and I wish I’ve read the book so I can brood over why and how the book How to Kill a Mocking Bird will relate to Charlie’s life or if it has anything to do with his current experiences. Afterwards, the letter Charlie wrote was about his older sister who met a guy, introduced him to the family and the father thinks he is a ‘’fine young man’’ but the truth is he is screwing up with his daughter. This part of the story illustrates the exploration of sexuality by teen agers. It speaks in all sort of culture, that at such a young age, they’ve already lost their virginity to someone they are not certain to be there all their life. It also shows the aggressiveness of youngsters and how they are rushing things, which is bad.
Later on, when Charlie went to a football game, he met Sam and Patrick and made friends with
them although they were seniors. This particular part of the story doesn’t really happen in real life except when you are uber-cool that’s why you can make friends with seniors whenever you want. The moment when Charlie and Sam met, was very typical in a teens’ life. Although I don’t exactly know what’s going on in a boy’s mind, I can only speak for myself as a girl, who has encountered such momentous event when you first saw your crush and then gratifyingly fall for the person. The next thing happened was Charlie was beginning to learn masturbation, but he doesn’t think of Sam that way whenever he does it. Masturbation, in my opinion, is typical and a routine for boys that are coming of age since at this stage of life, they’re still curious about how this kind of ‘’stuff’’ feels like. In Charlie’s letter, it shows what media is capable of and how it can stir a young mind. Media, directly or indirectly teach the young ones what is sex and how it happens, which I think is misrepresented or being portrayed with exaggeration.
‘’We accept the love we think we deserve’’- this line slapped my heart. It hit me so hard when I first came across it and up until now I still ponder about it. It is disappointing that I am still confused about what Bill really meant when he said this to Charlie. Maybe what Bill meant was, even if we deserve something better or something worse, we settle for what ‘’we think’’ we deserve and our beliefs are fixed on things that we do not take notice of our surrounding. It is like we only receive what we want to receive, see what we want to see and feel what we want to feel.
Towards the end of the first chapter, Charlie, Sam and Patrick went to a house party. It was Charlie’s first time going into that kind of unsupervised party where there’s alcohol, drugs and teen age sex. In this part of the story, I felt that Charlie was overwhelmed by how Bob, who is a senior and the host of the party, hugged him as if they are on the same wavelength. Charlie was also astonished by the fact that he was in a party full famous seniors from his school. He felt like he belonged in that clique since they were very welcoming and even if they knew Charlie was only a freshman and was not famous dude, they treated him like they’re on the same age and status. Throughout the party, Charlie was very observant about the people around him and the things they do. The way Charlie presented the story, the people from the party kind of fall into different archetypes. There’s a quarterback and cheer leaders. In the party, Charlie tried drugs for the first time, although he didn’t really use it with his consent. Bob made Charlie do it by putting drugs in the brownie as part of the ingredients. He wasn’t aware what exactly it was and he was stoned. This part is something that happens whenever experimental teen agers go into such parties, get drunk and do drugs. Again, the author of this book presented a reality.
Lastly, ‘’And in that moment I swear we were infinite’’ While reading this particular letter of Charlie I suddenly remembered my friends and how I kind of relate to how Charlie is feeling at that moment. The feeling of being overwhelmed by the friendship you’re having, the contentment and joy you are sharing with them and all of you are invincible and in high spirits and you feel like nothing’s going to stop and ruin your time together as friends. While reading this part it is as if I am also inside truck with them.
