Blue's birthday

Dec. 24: Happy birthday, Blue, father to multitude of beautiful sons and daughters, grandfather and great-grandfather to the Ragdoll population in this part of the city. Live long and do more multiplication. Your math is awesome.

Happy birthday, baby Blue!

Hunter's New Year message

I woke up late to join the photo session earlier, this last day of 2013, so I have been chosen to represent the human family here, the dogs and several families of cats, including the foundlings, the strays who stayed on; and the cichlids who have grown colorful in the big aquarium, and Mang Ambo's lonesome dove. Pogi says I am more qualified than he to greet you all a blessed and peaceful happy new year, what with his hotheaded propensity to insert some snide political remarks, his impractical suggestion to send many plundering government officials to shake hands with Jesus much sooner than they expect, or his inclination to post his picture here in spite of the fact that I look better, I'm younger, smarter, and I have hair. Hugs and nosekisses to all.

A Christmas greeting  

 

Mickey and Tabby, in behalf of Pogi, Leena, Neneng, Manilyn, and the other cats inside and outside the house, the chowchows in the garden with askal Chico, the fishes in the aquarium and in the fishbowl, Mang Ambo's dove in the cage, and Pope Francis whom we all love, greet you all a peaceful Christmas, with a little somber prayer for brethren in Tacloban and others sitting in darkness. We share what happiness we have, and send what little strength we can to lift you from your solitude.

Discombobulation

Nadi-discombobulate ako pag medyo pilay ang Ingles ng mga newscasters (pwera sina idol Karen Davila at Karmina Constantino, parehong cute & grammatical). 

UNTIL: "I was calm until I saw Napoles, then I turned green with rage." Nag-iba yung situation pagkatapos ng "until."

UP TO: "I have turned green, and up to now I still like being green because my ding-a-ling remains hulky." Hulk sa simula at hulk hanggang ngayon; alang shift sa situation. 

INUTIL: "Di ko kailangan ang tip mo, berdeng pogi, dahil magaling na ako sa grammar mula pagkabata until now."

Learning to write

A perplexed friend asked me, "I want to write, but I can't do it.  Is there something I must know first to be able to write?"

"0f course!" I said, surprised that he did not know the obvious answer. "The first ingredients in writing are the alphabets; you know, the 26 letters: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz." Then my memory, always eager for time travel, returned to the day when I was taught the peculiarity of the alphabets. (Later, my teacher, after she was released from the asylum, said she learned a lot, too.)

"Now, William," she said, holding a flash card with a big, black letter on it. "This is the small letter l; and this (another flash card shuffled up) is the capital L. Now what is this letter?" She plucked a card from the pack, flashing a b.

"An l with a big tummy?" I said, surprised at the way her faced turned from pink to light indigo.

"That," she hissed, "is a b! Now you know what a b is."
 
"Yes, ma'am, a lot of them pollinate flowers."

"Never mind. And what do you make of this?" It must be a peculiar day, because she picked the same letter, but facing the other way -- d.

"A leftward b?"

"No. Try again." The way she steamrollered the last word so heavily and so blunt, I imagined the word breaking into little pieces and falling to the floor.

Looking at the floor, I tried to appease her with the best answer that came to mind. "A small l with a big butt, like Nikki Minaj's?" Teacher was shaking her head like she wanted to detach it from her neck, so I tried again: "Like Kim Kardashian's?"

"IT'S A D!" She said so loudly I saw capital letters. "And what do you make of thissss?"
 
Strange day, indeed. She was showing me a p. So I pointed out the obvious: "You're holding a d upside-down, ma'am." She put the card in front of her face, frowned, slowly turned it 180 degrees, looked at the card again, then tossed it behind her shoulder.

Picking another card from the deck, holding it as if it was a rotten fish, she said, "And I suppose this is an upside-down b," tossing the q behind her to join the one on the floor, along with the shattered letters of the word she steamrollered earlier.

"And this, I'm sure, is not upside down, is it?" 

I gulped with embarrassment: she was showing me a pictogram of u. "What do you call that, ma'am?" I hedged.

"It's another letter. What do you think this is?"

Turning away from her, I mumbled, "a breast?"

"And this?" she smiled sweetly (but laced with strychnine) and held up a v. "It's a pointed breast? And thissss," throwing a w in the air, "is Madonna's pair of boobs?"

"Wow! You have an awesome imagination, ma'am. I thought that v is a bird flying. A female bird."

"I'm afraid to ask, but how do you know it's female?"

"Because a boy bird looks like that (me, pointing at a Y), his ding-a-ling is dangling while flying. Ma'am, why are you throwing away that n?"

"That's just a breast upside-down. No use wasting time on double-n, er, I mean m, either. Let's move on to O." 

"The moon! That's the oldest alphabet. I read somewhere that the first thing the first caveman drew was the first object he saw on the night-sky."

Finally catching on, the teacher added, "And this -- Q -- is a cat gazing at the moon. See the tail?" Tossing away the whole deck, she made a straight line on a piece of paper and drew a single v on the line: ____v_____

"I know that," I said. "It's..."

"Yeah, you dope, it's the bird on the wire." [Singing];
♫ Still I run out of time or it's hard to get through,
Till the bird on the wire flies me back to you,
I'll just close my eyes, whisper: baby, blind love is true. 
I wanna lay me down... ♪

Anyway, Happy Letter Writing Day to all!   \(^o^)/

 

AFTER the storm

We do not and cannot criticize that
1. The government has issued sufficient warning that the coming typhoon is strong. It has.
2. The president and his officials had asked the people in the Yolanda's path to evacuate ahead of time. True.
3. The government had allotted massive resources like food, water, medicine, and personnel for relief-and-rescue after the storm. Yes, but it failed to deliver them.

The president and his officials were not expected to have stock knowledge of the destructive effect of a super typhoon of Yolanda's strength and magnitude. In fact that knowledge turned out to be useless: Maps gathered from past storms through the years -- to help predict the probable paths of landfalls -- did not even indicate Guiuan as a possible site, and that's where Yolanda made her first landfall before going on to Tacloban and four other sites.

That said, it is the tendency of people with facts to expose people who cause, through their actions and inactions, harm to the lives and welfare of the citizens. In this case, the president is the man responsible for entrusting the welfare of the victims to DND chief Voltaire Gazmin, DSWD chief Dinky Soliman, DILG chief Mar Roxas and DOH Secretary Ona. PNoy and those three are the cause of the chaos and hunger in Tacloban and other areas. Although they cannot be blamed for the deaths and damaged wrought by Yolanda,  they must answer for what they have done and have not done for the victims AFTER the storm.

Everyone is a genius in hindsight, true, but we, and the victims, and mediamen local and foreign who had been to Tacloban, have been howling since Sunday, AFTER the storm, when it is the government's turn to wield its massive strength and machinery to search and rescue those who can be saved, feed the survivors, heal the sick and wounded. All these acts involve people, and all these must be done immediately, even if we have not rightly assessed the storm's strength and path, even if electricity and communications were down, even if debris blocked the ways in or out of Tacloban, even if Mayor Alfred, Romualdez, Rep. Martin Romualdez, and some barangay personnel are heartless bastards.

For those lives and properties Yolanda has taken and destroyed, Yolanda and no others must be blamed. But for those who died because the government did not act immediately to extract them from the rubbles, feed those debilitated by extreme hunger and thirst, send life-saving medicines to the wounded and severely injured, Aquino, Gazmin, Soliman, Roxas and Ona are culpable.

Why Aquino? Could another president have come out with a different and better solution? Exactly. And there, from that man, unravels the source of the survivors' frustrations and unnecessary hardships AFTER the storm. Aquino is weak-willed, and right after he was elected he failed to keep to his pledge that he will appoint in office only those qualified to hold and execute huge responsibilities. It does not take the strength of a typhoon to sway this president's mind: just a nudge from old family and crony connections got Gazmin and Dinky their positions in the second coming of the Aquino administration. It had been that way in Cory's time; so it is now -- a De Quiros to SSS, Alex Padilla now in Philhealth, former Bulacan governor Dela Cruz to Philpost, Boy Abunda somewhere out there. Roxas, as the Liberal Party's losing candidate, naturally got a slot. Let's see how they administered in Tacloban.

Anderson Cooper and other correspondents' observation that armed forces personnel are usually at the forefront of disasters is not off the mark. In calamities where speed can save a life,  soldiers have the manpower, machinery, training and experience to cope and solve, bringing in lighting, transportation and communications, and dig out survivors and send them to feeding and medical centers, set up by them too if required. DND chief Gazmin was in Tacloban all along, and he did not take over when the Tacloban government officials and police failed to do their tasks. He did not ask for additional personnel to help set up distribution points for food and water, dry clothes and blankets. He let thousands of Filipino corpses rot in the streets and be shown to the world for almost a week AFTER the storm.

Aquino -- who arrived in Tacloban one morning, posed for the news cameras while distributing mineral waters to some victims in a designated PR site -- apparently did not ask Gazmin why hundreds of Filipono deads are still lining the streets of Tacloban? He did not ask about the darkness at night because he was whisked out of there while the sun was bright and clear. He was also spared the sight of seeing hungry mothers in makeshift shelters tiredly fanning their hungry children from the oppressive heat. He did not see helpless fathers appeal for food, water, medicine for their family. Victims who lost members of the family did not have the luxury of grieving as they tried to fend off starvation, thirst, and afflictions. Many failed and died, days AFTER the storm.

What Aquino and his officials announced about food is true and remains true to this day: There is enough supply of food and water. Jessica Soho, who was in Tacloban, said she saw the warehouse where Dinky and volunteers were repacking food for the victims. Yet the victims went put to the streets day after day after day begging for relief. Because Dinky (and Gazmin and Roxas and this Aquino) maintained that the local government is the one in charge when calamity strikes. Yet Yolanda had swept away the Tacloban government structure (Aquino himself availed of this fact and used this as an excuse for his inaction), and Gazmin entrusted the repacked relief goods to the barangay head, who obviously kept the goods for a select few, letting the rest go hungry, especially those who did not vote for him in the last elections. Gazmin admitted this on TV Friday morning. Ineptitude marked the Cory government, and Gazmin is extending this to the present Aquino adminstration.

What about Roxas? He is supposed to handle the local government units. When the Tacloban unit was demolished, he could have installed an emergency unit so relief goods, there in Tacloban all the time, can reach the victims. Roxas and Aquino have consistently pointed out that there are not enough trucks, gasoline, personnel, etc., to do the job. So the dead lie in the street, the hungry starves to death, those injured die, until when? Until someone cries, This can't be right! Days AFTER the storm, part of the bridge leading to Tacloban was opened; if Roxas had something to do with that, he did not bring in more trucks, gasoline, personnel to save lives. The roads and bridges are jammed? If Roxas and Gazmin were concerned and frantic about more people dying AFTER the storm, they could have availed of the government's massive resources to clear traffic, to get trucks and gasolines outside Tacloban, even in Manila if necessary. Surely it cannot take six days to clear a path to Tacloban, get trucks and gasoline available outside Tacloban and bring them in? A DOH doctor, fishing for sympathy, told a news reporter that they had run out of medicine days ago, because their supply are still held up in a pier Cebu for four days now. DOH is government, it is supposed to set up a path for medical supplies to the victims, not complain of the supplies being delayed by minor factotums in the bureaucracy. Ona, who had been announcing directives as if he is in Tacloban, has been in Manila all along. People are dropping like flies, and Ona is attending meetings with members of the Philippine Medical Association about the date when thay will go to Tacloban. Thickheadedness can cause death. No amount of apologies will bring back to life those who died because of these officials' lack of sympathy concern for the victims.

Roxas revealed his lack of sympathy for the victims when he traveled to nearby Tanauan yesterday. He reached the barangay and talked to the people, who asked for food and water. Roxas said he came there to assure the people of the government's presence -- six days AFTER the storm -- and that assistance is forthcoming. He had planned to get there, but did he think that the people he would meet there will be suffering after six days without sufficient food, water and medicine? He did not bring any. And this creature Roxas wants to replace Aquino as President. Are not they doing enough harm?

We are howling about that, Not about PNoy's lack of foresight or preparedness. PNoy and his men insist on staying on until 2016. We are shouting and cursing that if they are shameless enough to stay in power, they must at least do no harm to those who still trust them, including those who for personal reasons defend such impeachable acts and inaction. They are fortunate: members of the Opposition are equally thickheaded, and some are also culpable of great offenses, so they cannot oust Aquino and his cohorts. They wait until Aquino delivers us from his trespasses into the hands of Binay.  Another storm is coming.

A kittycornered categorie

"This is Schoppi. He --"

"Schoppi?"

"Short for Schoppenhauer. He gets antsy around people. Must have received some kicks from some before we found him."

Welcome to Kittycorner, the accidental orphanage for cats. Well, they are kittens when we adopt them, but they all grow up to be cats. Lovely cats, too.

"Look at Schoppi's side-whiskers, just like the muttonchops of his namesake. "

"Are they all named after philosophers?"

"Many are, but not all. That's Thoreau, he's a loner and doesn't mingle. Walks a lot."

"You must have felt like Blake adopting Thoreau."

"Yeah, I got the urge to write some essays and do woodcuts. [Laughs.] Ah, here's Pavarotti, look at his girth! His high-pitched meows will astound you."

"[Sings] ♪ Perhaps love is like-a boiled chicken, or a stuffed pair of mice... ♫"

"Haha, that was Placido who sang with John Denver, not Pavi. Anyway, aherm! -- Ladies and gentlemen, here's the Beatles!"

"Really? You've got four mopheads here?"

"No, it's Ed Sullivan. Here he comes. Move slowly, he startles easily. He hunches his back like he's always introducing someone."

"That's some hunch, shoulda named him Bruce Lee. WooO0ohhah!"

"That one in the corner is Bruce Lee. Looks like an upside-down 'U' walking, but can he leap!"

"Hey! Look at that one, he walks with a shuffle and swagger like..."

"Bruce Willis. I can almost see him smirk and make his pitch: 'That die-hard cat's a natural coz he's got nine lives!'"

"That one's nose is kinda huge. Now, let me guess... Durante!"

"Except that's the lady of the house, so it's La Streisand. She's a Ragdoll, soft as an easy chair."

"Wow! What a menagerie you've assembled here."

"Categorie."

"What?"

"Because of Streisand here, it cannot be called menagerie, you see? So I think Categorie fits nicely."

"A kittycornered categorie. Ok. And that cat in the hat is..."

"Theodor Geisel!"

"Huh? Whozzat?!"

"Hehe, just messin' with you, man. Yep, it's Dr. Seuss."

This PNoy

President Noynoy Aquino, his username cleverly compressed into PNoy, can be considered a rarity in the steeply alpha Filipino culture -- truly a man only a mother can love. Many Filipinas will take umbrage at this statement and come to his defense (time and time again this has been so), but none will marry him, or consider becoming his mistress. So far.

Men with strong opinions without sufficient social skill to back them up tend to fall into deep trouble. They are such stuff of which tragedy are brewed. The first Benigno, his grandfather, was a senator even before this country was deemed sufficiently literate to be declared as a commonwealth by its American colonizers. After Filipinos helped drive out the Japanese in WWII, Benigno Sr. and others who had helped run the Japanese Administration's  puppet Congress (he served as Speaker from 1943 to 1944), were charged with treason and collaboration, but MacArthur easily prised them out of ignominy.

Benigno Jr. -- Ninoy -- carried on the senatorial trade for the clan. It is assumed that the old man had political charisma, and Ninoy inherited, and wielded, that great political tool with equally great skill. The volubility, it is also assumed by those who inferred from Dona Aurora's silent demeanor, came from the father's side of the family.

Ninoy talked at a fast clip, charming his way to political prestige and into Cory's heart. Their son, Benigno Simeon, must have been a talkative boy, competing in volume with Kris and three other sisters. Noynoy, people say, also got his father's charm, but not (this is tactfully left unvoiced) the good looks.

Irony is also a hallmark of tragedy. Ninoy -- favored with good looks, wit, and the Cojuangco wealth -- easily became the country's youngest mayor, then governor, then senator. So it was also assumed that he would, inherently and rightfully, replace the young Ferdinand Marcos as president in 1972. (It was a young Marcos who beat the old Diosdado Macapagal, who is to be blamed for siring Gloria, in the 1965 election.)  Martial Law denied the country of the turmoil of a Ninoy administration, but fate finally played her hand, and the twist is undeniably ironic and tragic.

Sent to exile in Boston, Ninoy availed of a grant and talked and talked until 1983, when he decided to return home to replace the ailing Marcos. Ninoy died with his impossible dream, the presidency, which Marcos toyed with for an extended 20 years after his term. It took people stopping tanks with flowers and prayers in EDSA to banish the Marcoses to Hawaii in 1986.

Never in his wildest nightmare did Ninoy even remotely see his wife, the quiet and unassuming Cory, rise to the presidency that he had failed to achieve. To view it in another way: Without Ninoy's dream, struggles, and death, Cory would have remained an unknown quantity in the political equation. Things are not simple as they seem.

Cory ruled. Her speech at the US Congress was boisterously applauded by the American senators and congressmen, who gave her a standing ovation. Back home, she survived several attempts by Enrile, aided by Honasan and the Ramboys, to oust her from office. Powerful men can also be big ignoramuses: Enrile should have known that what fate has decreed will  be done. So Cory stayed as president for her full six-year term, even greeting (in a Valentine's Day radio message) the ousted Enrile a happy birthday to share with her daughter Kris.

Noynoy had repeatedly asked for his mother's permission to run for office, but Cory said no member of her immediate family should aspire to public trust during her term, and Noynoy was a good and dutiful son. In 1992 Cory stepped down, and Noynoy became a member of the House of Representatives in 1998. After three full terms, he leveled up to become senator in 2007.

In November that year we saw Noynoy at the side of his frail mother, heeding the call of Capt. Danilo Lim, Trillanes, Faeldon and other Magdalo officials to kick the corrupt Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo out of office. Fate, it seems, does not make a distinction between good and evil, and so Gloria stayed while cancer slowly rounded off Cory's life. It was Cory's funeral in 2009 that highlighted the possibility of another Aquino presidency, through the third Benigno. And so it came to pass: Death sends another Aquino to the presidency.

Today, millions in the Visayas suffer as a result of a ferocious typhoon's onslaught. They suffer more, people say, because Benigno Aquino III or President Aquino II or this PNoy is inept. Also garrulous. He sure can talk, but he can't perform as well as expected. And why does he paste that inappropriate smile on his face in times of crisis? He had explained that when he is stressed the smile appears, as it appeared when he announced the death of seven Hong Kong tourists and the ex-cop who had hostaged them in Luneta. That was years ago, but China remembers.

A few days ago, this PNoy, his approval rating down by 19 points, made an appearance in Tacloban. He distributed bottled water to the typhoon victims; his smile seemed to indicate that he was handing refreshments to party guests. Can we trust a man who can't control a facial tick to handle the great affairs of a benighted country? Twenty-two countries have pledged millions of dollars to help the Philippines; China, with oriental nuance, pointedly donated $100,000, much less than the NBA's $250,000 aid. This, because Aquino refused to apologize to China over an individual Filipino's offense? Former President Estrada, now Manila mayor, had recently volunteered to apologize, even profusely if necessary, in behalf of the people.

Estrada, of another people-powered presidency, might have been a rogue, he will throw sincerity to the winds if it helps his people, but he is not the president any more. PNoy is. Will this, can this Aquino set aside his strong opinions and beliefs, if in exchange the Filipinos are alleviated of their misery? Or will he be set in his ways, still stubborn and smiling inappropriately, not even aware that there is a crisis at hand, that anger and outrage must be expressed over his bureaucracy's lack of urgency to deliver food and medicine to the starving and wounded victims?

It is the sad history of the Philippines that not one leader since 1521 has loved the Filipinos beyond his self-interest, his own dignity, his opinions and personal beliefs. Not Felipe II, after whom this country and its people were named, certainly not Magellan nor Lapu-Lapu, not Legazpi, not the sultans and datus, not Bonifacio and the uneducated Katipunans. The spouses Diego and Gabriella had the ardor but not the means. Rizal tried but failed. PNoy is president but not a leader. This he has made clear by his actions, or inactions.

If PNoy fails to get more than a mother's love, if no woman will bear a son of his, then the Benigno line of the Aquino tale comes to a close. Perhaps it is fitting it ends this way, to save PNoy's life. After his father Ninoy died, his mother became president; after Cory died he became president. We pray that this Benigno, this PNoy, single or eventually married, lives to a ripe, old age. After Cory's Kamag-anak Inc, after this PNoy's KKK, the Philippines may not be able to survive Kris' Showtime.

Pasada

Nanonood kami ni Leena ng Pawn Stars.

Pogi: Bakit wala atang Chess set sa mga pawn shop?

Leena: Wala namang kikitain sa Chess. Ano naman ang gagawin ng Chess set sa sanglaan?

Pogi: Chess lang ang alam kong may pawn. Ba't tatawaging pawn shop kung walang pawn?

Leena: Malay mo, may ibang ibig sabihin ang pawn, at hindi lang yung sa Chess. For example, meron ding horse sa Chess.

Pogi: Knight ang tawag doon. Rook yung tore.

Leena: Eh yung Queen, ano'ng ibang tawag doon?

Pogi: Pag galit sa kanya yung King, ang tawag sa kanya ay "Bitch."

Leena: Sonnamabitch naman yung hari pag galit si Queen.

Pogi: Sssh... Baka marinig ka ni Bishop. Kahit tagilid ang lakad nu'n malakas ang pandinig.

Leena: Naalala ko, ano na ang balita kay Pope. Bakit kaya nag-resign?

Pogi: Baka matse-checkmate na siya.

Leena: Hindi yun! Yung balita sa Vatican.

Pogi: Ah, yun... Palagay ko alam ko yung tunay na dahilan.

Leena: Talaga? Hindi yung edad niya?

Pogi: Malamang ang theory ko ang tama. Di ba hiwalay na si Kim Kardashian sa slightly used niyang asawa?

Leena: Ano'ng kinalaman ni Kardashian kay Pope?

Pogi: You know, binata si Pope -- Just call me Benedict na lang siya starting March 1 -- at single na naman si Kim Kardashian. Pagtugmain mo lang ang mga current events at may Therefore may I conclude ka na, di ba?

Leena: Aysus! Di ka pupunta sa langit sa mga pinagsasabi mo, baka hanggang Lhuiller ka lang. Di ka pa tutubusin hehehe...

Lakwatchamacallit

I saw a good movie on Channel 55 this morning, the Art of Getting By. As the laid-back title said -- and what the art professor in there said -- "It can be something big, it can be small, it can be painted in bat shit, as long it's real, something you love."

It's also a little bit about, well, Art, about painting and what moves you, not necessarily in a big way: you can coast along, you get by -- with a little help from your friend. It's fortuitous if your friend is a girl, easy on the eye, and she lifts your heart. The school principal of Morgan High said, "We are finally getting down to the wire." Eventually it's about love. I realized late in life -- just last week? -- that all good movies deal with love.  How you get by with your parents, teachers, schoolmates, your buddy, who also wants the girl you love. Basically, then, life revolves around love -- whether you get it or not; whether you lose sight of its importance and, setting it aside for the while, believing you'll still find it there when you get back, you surrender to the immediacy of business.  We have to be practical, right? We cannot spend all our time on just Art, on love, on doing what we really want. Right?

In my perfect world I will be reading and writing and watching movies all the time. Others will be painting their lives away, or integrating their existence with their music, sculpture, architecture, toys, gadgets, inventions -- whatever makes life meaningful and renders love worthwhile. I will never be a clerk, an accountant crunching numbers not my own, a salesman selling products not created by me, nor will I be involved in any money-earning activities that drain the color of life away.
I return to Raymond Chandler, who in one of his novels let detective Philip Marlowe expound on the nature of clerkship: “You go in through double swing doors. Inside the double doors there is combination PBX and information desk at which sits one of those ageless women you see around municipal offices in the world. They were never young and will never be old. They have no beauty, no charm, no style. They don’t have to please anybody. They are safe. They are civil without ever quite being polite and intelligent and knowledgeable, without interest in anything. They are what human beings turn into when they trade life for existence and ambition for security.”

Elsewhere in the novel, Marlowe listens to a cop's lament: “We spend our lives turning over dirty underwear and sniffing rotten teeth. We go up dark stairways to get a gun punk with a skinful of hop and sometimes we don’t get all the way up, and our wives wait dinner that night and all the other nights. We don’t come home anymore..."

Does it really matter, what we think, or do? "...[Our] existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness..." said Nabokov, who hated little men with little minds.  (He tagged Dostoievsky as "that idiot.") I cannot read beyond Nabokov's "Lolita" and Dostoeivsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" bored me to tears. And I don't understand why "Crime and Punishment" is regarded so highly. But it's ok, we can't get all of it right, but our candles can burn on both ends and with a dazzling flash leave a personal mark between two eternities.

"I read the news today, oh boy..."

Sssh

Tidbits

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons...

-- T.S. Eliot

Rizal's calling card in Hongkong

A colleague at People's Tonight once showed me a copy she had prepared for the backpage of the morning edition. She had done a good job, and I guess that's why she wanted me to appreciate it. The lead paragraph indicated that it was a crime story involving an eye doctor.

"It's spelled ophthalmologist," I said, "the t is sandwiched between two h's."

"Are you sure?" She was already turning the pages of her desk dictionary, unable to find opthalmologist.

"Yep. Its root word did not derive from the Middle English optic, but from the 14th century Greek word for eye, ophthalmos," I said. "That fact is one of the tidbits I have picked up earlier."

"And I did not even think there is a problem here," she said, her smile deflating.

"Perhaps it's serendipity, but I have learned it just a few days ago from Ed there," I said, pointing to a nearsighted editor of a sister publication. 

She immediately brightened up, the twinkle in her eyes indicating that her UP masscom degree cannot be upstaged by an upstart with a grungy Engineering degree from that Dominican backwater joint, that... that UST. Her superiority restored, peace was allowed to reign. She even smiled when I lit up a forbidden cigarette. A Marlboro for me, supremacy for her. Life is good.

Technically I was her boss, and because my rank and pay scale were two ranks higher, I took care not to pull rank on her. It had taken quite a time before I earned her grudging acknowledgement that I was not as illiterate as she had expected. Finally, in her ophthalmos, I ranked above the amoebas, with high expectations to be elevated to bacteria soon.

I remember my first encounter of the editorial kind with her. She had just made a printout of the backpage, and I saw that her headlinewas about the Philippines to cut off diplomatic ties with blahblahblah...

"Should not that be Sever instead of Severe?" I pointed out. I did not pull rank, but I did not let errors get pass my watch either.

"Yeah, sure!" she said, the arch of her brows high enough to hang my neck on. To her credit she looked the word up in her dictionary, perhaps to show me not to meddle with a journalist with a valid degree. However, a few minutes later she showed me a new printout, with the third "e" severed from Sever.

"We usually use the past tense and sometimes get confused," I said, "we do not just add a 'd,' we add 'ed.' It's when we use the infinitive form that we realize how severe our mistake is, particularly when we use the word in the headline. That's why we prefer simple words like 'cut,' as in, The publisher will cut off my head if he sees a misspelled head."

"It's these tidbits that you remember best," the young Bobby Fischer had been attributed as commenting on his game against former world chess champion Max Euwe in 1960. Tidbit, according to Merriam-Webster's secondary definition, is "a choice or pleasing bit (as of information)." The word was first used about 1640. A variant spelling is titbit: I do not use it because I am haunted by the unpleasant impression of a breast having been past-participled by a hungry mouth.

More tidbits: Fischer's comment appeared in the book My 60 Memorable Games, ostensibly authored by Bobby Fischer himself, a high school dropout from Brooklyn. The book is now widely believed to have been ghostwritten by his erstwhile friend, Larry Evans, who wrote short introductions for all 60 games. Up to the end of his life, the mentally unhinged Fischer relied on the royalties from that book to sustain his troubled existence.

Fischer died on January 17, 2008, and was buried in Iceland, unmourned and hated by millions of Americans. Four hours after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, he gleefully announced on Bombo Radyo in Baguio City: "I applaud the act. The US and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians for years. Now it is coming back to the US..." Bitter and paranoid, he died at age 64, a year for every square of a chessboard.

Fischer's book and grave

Other tidbits: In this article I relied heavily on the Merriam-Webster app of my iPad. The app is free. However, I have a hardcopy of the Eleventh Collegiate edition, which had made me P1,200 poorer. I think hundreds, if not thousands, of Webster knockoffs proliferate in markets worldwide now. Editions without the "Merriam-" prefix are much cheaper because anyone can publish and sell it without paying royalties to Noah Webster, who died in 1843.

Webster stamps and dictionary

I don't understand why Merriam-Webster allows free apps to its dictionary. Will it not drive out sales of the hardcopies? Encyclopedia Britannica has ceased publication of its printed version since 2010, converting to online format. Britannica died, as the hardcopy edition of Newsweek died, because we googled up for any information on Wikipedia instead of buying the printed kind.

Anyway, I am not really concerned if Merriam-Webster loses or makes a bundle: I am trying to learn how to write, not to learn economics. I have tried business, and I'm not good at it. I have been a newspaper employee, and I learned I could invent and write lies and sell them as news -- and get rewarded with a fat salary. Now I don't even read newspapers. What I read are novels, written by the best and inventive liars who earn gazillions of dollars. Alas, I can read but cannot write beyond a brief, shining lie. So I live retail because I cannot handle wholesale. Now I understand T.S. Eliot's line about measuring life with coffee spoons.

Facebook pics

Jolly profile c",)

No Facebook status is as good as it appears, although sometimes, not often, it is better, but that will not last. Not one is as bad as it seems: all is worse. 

In a way, that's a nutshell way of describing life. We tend to put our best profiles up front. Those who do not have good photos of themselves, they substitute something else. I'm guessing, but the substitute pictures depict things which make the presenters feel good or comfortable. 

Landscapes are good substitutes. Mountains are for those who want to ascend to higher things in life; churches are for the religious who favor spiritual over material considerations; the sea for travelers to far, foreign lands across the waters, maybe to escape unpleasant settings.

Comic and anime characters are popular profile pics. For the young, an anime hero represents the power which compensates for their inadequacy -- the handsome/pretty faces and body they aspire to have, and the easy confidence they wish for. For the young-once, a cartoon figure takes them back to earlier and happier times, when life seemed as simple and innocent as comic book stories. 

Decades ago, comics and movies and TVs were not allowed to show graphic scenes of sex, decapitation and other evidence that real life is brutal and senseless. Sure, we had Conan, but when he sliced an enemy's tummy open, we did not see the intestines falling out, presumably with body fluids dripping out. When he chopped off a head, we did not see the red hot blood gushing out from the stump of the enemy's neck. Happily, all that changed with the arrival of the Kill Bill series.

Now, when Hancock shoved a prison inmate's head into another's butt, we laughed. I also laughed when Bruce Almighty made a monkey pop out of a gang leader's ass. The arms and legs blown off in Saving Private Ryan took a lot of skill and effort to bring home the hard violence of war. A Nazi pushing the full length of a bayonet into a GI's chest made me see, as scenes in the Godfather made me see, that reality favors neither the good nor the bad. 

Was it just a year ago that I heard someone in TV say "Shit"? I thought then that the scene slipped through the government regulator's eyes and ears. Now I realize that it was I who had been out of sync with the trend. A movie or TV episode with SPG (Super Pogi or Strict Parental Guidance) rating is allowed to let fly an earful of bitch, fuck, shithead, asshole; and brains being blown off (or bits of brain matters splattered on walls and gunslingers), bodies sliced in half (lengthwise, crosswise, diagonally), arms and legs torn off brutally (How else? Try tearing one off gently. It's not KFC chicken, folks), and necks snapped sideways left and right, backward and forward. Imagine anything gory that can be done with the human body and I expect to see it soon on The Walking Dead. The comic book episodes also attract a lot of fans and dollars. 

I digress. Going back to our Facebook topic,  I also wonder about those who time after time change their profile pics, like me. So I ask myself: Is it discontent that makes me try to improve my image? What for? Other causes may be anxiety or angst, very different from angas, which exudes extreme ability and confidence. Happy are those whose profile pics, or cartoonized versions, smile -- until things eventually deteriorate and the smile turns into the angry frown of a Naruto or of a Zatoichi.

There are still a few who have no profile pics. Most are new to social network sites and are just preparing or choosing which side of themselves to show to the cyberworld. I feel a certain sadness when I see a profile pic deliberately left blank. Do you feel so low that you cannot step forward and face people? Why show half of your face only? The other half hides the sad aspects of your life, or there is a line wherein nobody, except close friends maybe, are allowed access. 

Some deface their photos, with a smear of makeup, a frown. Some hide their face behind a part of hair colored canary yellow, bright orange, or veggie green. I think of Nikki Minaj, who has survived hard knocks in life. This Thursday she looked pretty on American Idol, with the normal flow of long, flat and blonded hair, without the weird hats she uses as chips on her shoulder (Excuse the messy metaphor). But her face is creased with a frown, which goes away when a contestant performs rather well, and deepens when she snarls at one who delivered a "pageantic" song. Minaj, like many who have found their way out of a bad fix, looks pleasant now, like those who have replaced their shadowed profiles with pictures of themselves with kids, spouses, classmates, pets.

Artists, billionaires, megastars are people too, subject to whims and heavy mood swings. When a Facebooker uses Batman or Spidey as profile pic, he obviously wants some action, not just sit around the house but to swing above rooftops and clobber some evil mayors and congressmen. Others who can conceal their anger or sadness opt for sedate tokens to represent or efface themselves: a Chess pawn (Does he know he considers himself at the bottom of the food chain?), a King (Ha! I'm on top of the world), or a simple stethoscope (I will listen to your heart and, if need be, I can heal you.) Boys looking for mates should beware of girls who uses money as profile pics, especially if the girl is ugly: No compensation there, all headaches.

There are more variations, I'm sure, as there are species in Facebook. I may be wrong in some of my statements, but I'm just having fun. Because that, my friend, is what life is all about.