Quick Takes On A Slow Journey

Quick because of time constraints and slow because a journey that lasts for three months is never fast.

But make the trip I had to do so here I am on the second week of a globe-trotting trip that stretched over 7,000 miles from the temperate comfortable climate of Northern California to the hot and humid cauldron that is the tropics, the Philippine Islands in particular. Where the sun beats mercilessly as early as seven o’clock in the morning until its waning moments in the afternoon. Where anything enclosed, a car or a room, or your clothes on your body, unwittingly serves as your toaster oven when Mr. Sol is involved.

But please bear with the whining, since I am simply and unrepentantly your formerly born and raised in the tropics native who after a long absence will now have to re-acclimatize like the rest of the fair-skinned foreigners. Pretty soon I should be back to my normally squinting self and at home with my elements.

This trip started with me solo sitting by Gate No.7 at SFO listlessly waiting for a 10pm Philippine Airlines plane to depart. Listless, because I had already perused and re-read all the pertinent notes about the urgent tasks that needed doing when I get to my destination. Arriving very early at the airport to avoid commute traffic made for the very ample time from check-in to flight time. The fact that the plane to be used was squatting silently by within sight did not help in my listlessness, with the metallic bird’s imposing hulk immobile and waiting at the tarmac with no obvious further needs of preparation for the 16 hours to destination.

Oh, should I mention the hills of “balikbayan” boxes I had to negotiate at the check-in line as a highlight of the trip? Nah. Too common and trite. It happens during every trip of PAL to the old homeland. Proud Filipino returnees declaring to all and sundry that they are going back home, loaded and burdened to the limit (the airline’s baggage limitations) by those bloated boxes taped and tied like a badly-beaten boxer ready to go down.

To say that the 16 hours of flight was uneventful would be an understatement, especially sitting cramped and stiff in coach class, but uneventful it was, blessed only by a few hours of languid stupor called sleep during a flight.

Speaking of stupor, is that how one feels when one’s plane arrives at about 5:30am and the connecting flight is for 7:20am on the same day, and it takes about the same time to claim one’s sole piece of luggage from the baggage carousel? Because that was what actually happened. And I am happy to report that I reacted better than an Aussie who deplaned in a latter flight but shared the same carousel who was starting to feel beside himself impatiently eyeing for his luggage. Anyway, being on time for the connecting flight was enough petty consolation for me to forget all the earlier hazards. I was only too glad to be sitting on the plane that would be the last leg of that long trip. So I did not mind the woman who I found was sitting on the seat assigned to me, and who curtly retorted that she was sitting there only because another passenger wanted to put his hand-carried luggage on the overhead rack above the seat assigned to her.

After the short ride from the local airport to the house, I was ready to be greeted with familiar surroundings from a house owned for so many years and which appears frozen in time from the last visit, and a lot more time when looking at the very vintage books that date back to my school years. Shedding travel clothes down to what would be considered decent based on local custom, I was ready to hit the ground running, or more like walking slowly given the almost unbearable heat of the late morning sun.

First visit went to the local credit union to do some updating work. Déjà vu! Again, the scene was almost frozen in time much like the last visit – crowded with clients waiting and hugging dearly to small pieces of paper showing their number in the waiting line. I immediately bolted out promising to return at some later time, unable to gather enough patience to go through the ordeal. It was a little better after returning at an unholy hour, like a few minutes past lunch time.

The first day ended with early bedtime, though with the difference in time I had been without sleep for more like 40 hours.

To be continued.

Professional Boxing: Violent Sport, Inexact Science

Trying to make sense of the judges scoring in the Manny Paquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez II duel last night.


Los Angeles Times Photo


In the split decision given in favor of Pacquiao, here is how the judges scored:

Tom Miller – 114-113 in favor of Pacquiao
Duane Ford – 115-112 in favor of Pacquiao
Jerry Roth – 115-12 in favor of Marquez

Being no expert on how scoring is made and since we do not have the round-by-round scoring of each judge, we can only surmise using the total scores on how each judge saw and scored the fight.

The easiest one to speculate is the 114-113 score. Accounting for the one official knock down on the third round which translates to one extra point, this judge had the fight even, most probably having each fighter winning a half of the 12-round fight. And Pacquiao winning because of the extra point for the knockdown.

The Ford score (115-112) appears to work this way. The likely combination is that Pacquiao won in 7 rounds (50 pts), and lost in 5 rounds (45 pts) for a total of 115, and for his part, Marquez won 5 rounds and lost 7 for a total of 113 – 1 = 112. In effect, Pacquiao winning only an extra 2 rounds from Marquez.

But the Roth score is more belabored and harder to fathom (115-112 in favor of Marquez). Possible scenario: Pacquiao won only 4 rounds (40 pts) and lost 8 rounds (72 pts) to arrive at 112. And for his part Marquez won 8 rounds (80 pts) and lost 4 rounds with a knockdown in one (35 pts) for a total of 115. Ergo, Marquez won twice the number of rounds (8) against Pacquiao's 4. Whichever way the actual the round-by-round scoring went for this judge, he definitely saw the fight as lopsided and decidedly in favor of Marquez.

Not surprisingly, the loser when asked after the fight said without hesitation that he did not lose anything, since anybody looking at the fight knows that he won.

And the victor of course answered that he knew fairly well that he had won, even granting that the opponent gave him quite a challenging fight.

Of Prostitution and Hateful Homilies

This past week, two attention-rocking temporal “revelations” grabbed the collective attention of a wearied nation already aurally and visually battered from insidious and incessant political sniping coming from all sides. And definitely not buoyed one bit by the dismal reports coming from the economic sector.













First came the shocking exposure that the heretofore unsullied and morality- crusading governor of New York was no more or less like the rest of us – with moral flaws and with muddied feet of clay. He was caught literally with pants down consorting and trysting with prostitutes and worse, trying to cover payment trails for his habit. Payments that may well be judged illegal not only with regard to methods but also as to sources.

The second one though still decidedly of grave political consequences actually partook more of a religious or spiritual nature on the basis of the fact that the very visible source of the challenged statements is an experienced passionate pastor of a church in Chicago and declared mentor and spiritual adviser of leading Democrat presidential candidate, Barack Obama. His fire-and-brimstone rhetoric emanating from the hallowed pulpit of his Trinity Church in Chicago of about 6,000 parishioners came crashing down on the rest of the nation, a showering which was a bit reminiscent of biblical Sodom and Gomorrah. Except that the showered rhetoric was essentially directed against a complicit government and a dastardly nation personally judged to be run and controlled by racist Whites, bent on destruction directed toward minorities, especially Black America. With very fiery deliveries from prepared text and at times revealing visible traces of an almost gleeful smile(IMO), the pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., came barreling down into our consciousness with collated snippets of incendiary sermons archived in his church’s website, bought and collated by some media sources.

Since all the sordid details and images have been splattered across the media firmament, including the continually burgeoning blogosphere, let it suffice that some links have been provided for those eternally curious about them.

Given that the cat is now out of the bag, the toothpaste extruded from the tube, the horses out of the barn, what can we derive from all this setting aside the satisfaction of our innate morbid curiosities for others’ misfortunes? Something positive and constructive to serve as sturdy guideposts for future decisions and actions.

There definitely are a lot of handy lessons, maybe mostly old archaic lessons that may need no recounting or maybe needing recounting to make a more permanent and emphatic impression on all of us in attendance.

Without any rhyme or cadence these are the possible lessons racing through my mind, lessons which personally are quite germane and useful in our current pursuits and whimsical fancies in the largely unsupervised blogosphere and media.

1. In the case of our ever vigilant crusades for pointing out and/or bringing out good in this world, we should never let our heated passions and ardent eagerness blind us to our own flaws and shortcomings. We should always temper our moralizing with a humble (though tacit) acknowledgement of our own failings; and start criticizing others within that framework, ever cognizant that our statements and actions better be congruent with our own moral situation whether known or not, and not hypocritical to them. Truth soon lets out and may also find us wanting of them in our own lives. Thus, truths that we pursued so eagerly and publicly may in fact be the same ones to indict us before our God and the public.

I believe this one lesson covers much ground in the two incidents highlighted. A singularly-focused crusading moralist soon realizes that he too is the victim or target of his own actions. A preacher, who represents a religion of peace, love, forgiveness, and Jesus Christ, soon realizes that his cavalier homilies of inflammatory divisiveness, angry and vile condemnations of certain actions that may be not proved, cannot find proper places in the venue he has chosen to expose them as judged by many among the discerning public.

2. A person blessed and gifted with considerable fortune (Ivy League education) and grace (gift of tongue) has a great responsibility to point out and denounce human failings and humbly propose the alternative things that are good, all in the name of noblesse oblique. It is not sufficient for such blessed individual to sit idly by and turn a detached cheek, all in the name of sacrifice to identity politics or to garner a political constituency. Not after sitting by idly for two decades.

The world is a world of imperfections and can never expect to be perfectible, but it is still incumbent for each one, especially those who wield great honor, respect, and command to steer mankind toward those noble ends. We will be judged based on our efforts, rather than the results of our actions.

3. Like any headline-grabbing incident not only are there hapless victims caught in the cross-fire, but the unintended negative repercussions on them are doubly intensified and felt. In the case of the governor, we have the innocent wife and the frightened daughters and of course, their entire distraught families. And the same holds equally true for the family of the prostitute. She is still the loved daughter of some mother and some worried father, aside from being the sister of an embarrassed brother.

What about the exposed hateful preacher? Same things, though many members probably believe in their hearts that his statements are okay and not worthy of censure, regardless of how others view them.

While most have written off the ascendant political life of the NY governor who comes from a very privileged background, what about the up and coming ambitious rookie senator who wants to be president?

Will this reduce his flaming star to a flicker and finally to extinction? Only the near future can tell. Already some partisan quarters have declared his current candidacy a toast. If the emerging media-initiated groundswell continues to build up, it may very well be the likely final scenario.

One bets surely that all sides will take advantage of this revelation for their own political ends, both the opposing party and that part of his own party that wants the lady senator to be the standard bearer.

To Mr. Anonymous

Well, this did not take long in coming. And maybe not soon enough for some. The intent obviously is laudable. If people continue to straddle between criminality and what is deemed acceptable behavior, why not a law to make sure? If people cannot exercise restraint and civility on the Net, why not a law to identify when necessary who these people are?

So even if it is not a crime, at least let the people initiating them be properly identified and let them weigh the risks of being known if what they have initiated may indeed be embarrassing, foolhardy, or even stupid and mean like maybe using bad language in the many ways that we now find them in the Net – whether in grammar, syntax, or plainly inappropriate terms or false charges.

Of course, there is the First Amendment factor involved in this, too. And many would argue that this is headed toward a slippery slope. Thus to curtail on-line bullying and harassment this time, but who knows what would be next?

Is the effort good enough for the purposes intended?

Kentucky Lawmaker Wants to Make Anonymous Internet Posting Illegal
By Kellie Wilson

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.

The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.

Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.

Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district.

(Disclaimer: Elvis absolutely had nothing to do with this. But I have to admit he makes for a very attractive intro to this entry. HeHeHe. Sorry, but since I cannot remember how and where I got this pic I cannot make the proper attribution. But am very willing to make some if and when notified.)

Michelle Malkin Profile

Michelle gets another good profile from the Baltimore Sun.


Michelle Malkin has worked for Fox News for eight years and has two popular blogs that get 15.1 million page views per month. (Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor / March 3, 2008)

Michelle Malkin may seem like any mild-mannered blogger in her Baltimore-area home, but she's reviled by liberals like almost no one else online

By Jonathan Pitts | Sun reporter March 9, 2008

The shingle-style house straddles a hillside, its windows offering sunny views in three directions. Games, books and DVDs topple from living-room shelves. In the kitchen, a young mom helps her 7-year-old daughter feed fabric through a sewing machine.

The place seems more all-American home than hideout, but fewer than 20 people know that Michelle Malkin, mother of two young children, loyal wife of 15 years -- oh, and scourge and sometime nightmare of liberals in her newspaper columns, TV spots, books and writings on the Web -- moved to this place in the Baltimore area a year and a half ago.

If you're seeking a living symbol of America's rancorous political divide, look no further than Malkin, one of the most popular and provocative voices on the modern right. The only daughter of first-generation immigrants from the Philippines, Malkin, 37, began blogging on politics nine years ago after a successful run as a newspaper columnist and has become a menace out of proportion to her Size 0 frame.

Two years ago, in the midst of an Internet contretemps over military recruiting on college campuses, left-leaning activists posted her home address and phone number -- and photos of her house and neighborhood -- online. They apparently were trying to exact revenge because she had published information they felt she shouldn't have.

The Malkins found a new home. For now, only a few friends know exactly where to find them.

"Sadly enough, it comes with the territory," says Malkin, whose most recent book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, argues that the political left, far more than the right, suffers the presence of "moonbats" -- Malkin-speak for those fated to play out life's hand with a less-than-full deck. "I'm used to it. But when you have kids, you have to be cautious."

As she makes snacks for her daughter and 4-year-old son, helps her husband, Jesse, get ready for a run and steals glances at an open laptop on the dining-room table, it's hard to conjure the right-wing menace who inspires hundreds of venomous e-mails a week. "[You] ought to be shot between those Viet Cong eyes," reads one. "How does it feel to be a paid prostitute for the Republicans?" says another. "Go get some collagen injected in your lips, it makes you look more the part."

"Stirring arguments, aren't they?" says Malkin with a roll of her eyes. "That's what you resort to when you're losing the debate -- name-calling and ad hominem attacks."

A snippet of news flashes across her Mac. "Excuse me a minute, I need to check this," she says, her brow furrowing. She sits down for a few minutes' work.

Read the entire write-up.