Too Good To Be True

Arguably many in the US electorate made the historic vote to install Obama as the next president because of the many glowing promises eloquently demonstrated and bared during his long campaign for the presidency. The collective promise that almost sounded like a planned trip to the Promised Land.

But which Promised Land?

As it stands even before Obama can sit as president the idea of a Promised Land for the US is more like the Land of Perdition. Everything appears to be unraveling – from both the political and economic spheres. Needless to mention, we are beset with extremely bad news about most everything that affects us, and we appear to console ourselves with the less than consoling idea that things are not as bad as many think they are. Which may be true in some instances. So have we now geared down the road of unwanted mode of low expectations, rather than aim high in keeping with the traditional and expected adherence to the US as the land of exceptionalism? Locals would express it this way, about getting resigned with the consuelo de bobo prize.

Were the campaign promises too good to be true? And did the electorate those who voted for Obama at least realized a priori that those were out of reach?

Many pundits are now juxtaposing Obama’s case with that of the most current financial scandal involving Madoff and his very select country club clientele. – of promises too good to be true.

After all Obama in the grandest of eloquence promised to lead us out, among other things, away from the “eight years of failed economic policies of Bush” and to remold America back into its once adulatory global status. And almost with biblical references he made commitments to environmental changes that approximated to waving off the rising oceans and instantaneously creating jobs that would make avid green proponents proud. He even repeatedly promised to cut taxes to 95% of the population, and if one did not pay any taxes, just the same one would get a “rebate” check. And with regard to the war on international terrorism and nuclear arms proliferation, he came out as appearing to promise that unilaterally the US will dismantle its nuclear arsenal, as a grand earnest gesture to the rest of the world in the holy pilgrimage leading toward total global disarmament. Iran’s stubborn and pesky nuclear plans notwithstanding.

But now that campaign rhetoric has been consigned to archives of past elections, with the same haste as the physical reminders of the last elections such as campaign posters, banners, etc. had been promptly carted to landfills, (except maybe for car stickers for the winners which have eternal life spans all their own. Even saw one (Obama in ’08) plastered as accessory to a newly customized Toyota Land Cruiser here in the old hometown.), what are our reasonable and realistic expectations for the coming presidency? Or were we as the electorate ever reasonable and realistic in our expectations of both candidates, but Obama especially since he promised what amounts to the Promised Land, to many of us?

Can many of us be likened to the many educated, successful, and experienced clients who got had by the likes of Madoff and his cohorts?

Did they and we, a majority of us anyway, ever sensed that the glowing promises made were too good to be true? Not aptly backed with traceable and discernible records?

But anyway committed and made good with our foregone decisions?

Que sera.

CDO Nite Café – Still

The unavoidable lure of the sights and sounds of the nite café is likened to a siren’s wail, very riveting and quite difficult to shake off. So again, yesterday before the appointed hour of 5pm on another balmy Friday afternoon, I found myself sauntering about the plaza as it was slowly being converted into the weekend bazaar that the entire city has now been wont to expect. Credit this addictive thirst for experience to the fact that the building where I spend a good part of the day is barely a block away and is thus not mercifully spared from the mind-splitting ruckus that accompanies this weekend ritual.

Thus with my quick-draw point-and-shoot camera taut in hand and my well-cushioned walking shoes doing duty under my feet, I was off to the unorganized hustings, blithely positioning myself in vantage points to catch and memorialize the unfolding realities of the nite café – of many people in various moods and preoccupation, of cluttered disembodied parts of booths and tents and countertops, and of bursting at the seams huge bundles made of tarp, plastic, nylon, etc. randomly stacked all over the smoldering place holding what I presume are precious assorted merchandise to be unbundled, sorted, and displayed. Simply put and dismissed, of various items that most times defy description and can only evoke wonderment or incredulity.

Worth more than the clichéd a thousand words, the accompanying pictures again make up for what human language cannot aptly reduce to written verbiage.

Was first drawn to a little cluster of humans, gathered very tightly around a park bench and in rapt attention. About half of them wore the unmistakably clean and well-pressed uniforms of the local university (Xavier U) and the other half of unwashed giggling tykes. Clearly young family members of those merchants gathered for the nite café. Turned out the uniformed guys and gals were Civil Engineering students gathering polling data on how early kids start using logic in making their everyday decisions. One looking-distressed father in the sidelines was motioning for one kid being addressed to not answer the questions being asked. And I had wondered why. But before long the students were on their way to their school which is situated at the eastern end of the huge plaza, the venue for the bazaar. But not before I have had ample time to click on my camera. All the subjects unhesitatingly obliged.





And as I leisurely made my way amongst the crowds and the assorted accoutrements of their trade, the self-same wonderment in the past about what they were doing and how they were doing them revisited my mind and continued to amaze me. The following pictures pay tribute to their dogged tenacity and indomitable spirits. At times doing their thing in the middle of the street as vehicular traffic continued to zip by, unmindful of the clear hazards to both limbs and health. And remember all the fruits of their labor will have to be completely undone by the early morn of the following day, only to be repeated again for the second night. And then disassembled again for the second and last day.

Until the next Friday of the next week comes when the entire tedious process is repeated.

Coming To The US

Here are amazing visualizations showing immigration to the US from 1820 to 2007, taken from this site. Remember each dot represents a 100 people.

First a black and white rendition:

Immigration to the US, 1820-2007 from Ian S on Vimeo.

Now, in living color:

Immigration to the US, 1820-2007 v2 from Ian S on Vimeo.

Elvis Lives!

The King belts one out of the park - in sound and in looks.

Give a listen.


Welcome to fellow reunionists!

Rustic Scenes

Trips to far-flung provinces like in the southernmost big island of Mindanao accord visitors with the long-lost vistas of rural living and communities typical in ages past. Of simple uncluttered lives, of coarse and crude structures, of primeval living habits and pursuits, of pure and unadulterated simplicity unaffected by the harsh marches of civilization and the suffocating influences of big crowded cities.

Like scenes and lives dramatically portrayed in the following random snapshots. Of crudely built houses, some on fragile stilts, built close to navigable waterways for easier access and travel. Of lives centering on some fishing and washing and bathing in the same water source, and even of drinking from it if needs be. Of miniscule homesteads, some areas planted to vegetables for consumption, some just as crudely fenced to keep animals and possible trespassers away. Some structures so crude and elemental that modern privacies are almost non-existent – from prying and judgmental eyes of neighbors and passersby.











One big exception. All these shots were taken in the middle of the bustling city of Cagayan de Oro in Northern Mindanao, alongside the bridge that undoubtedly is the heaviest and most traveled among the city’s five bridges. This is the inappropriately named Marcos Bridge that connects the city’s eastside with the westside and serves as gateway to the western part of the province of Misamis Oriental.

And these unmindful residents are probably squatters on either private or public land. One harsh reality of daily living in a city like Cagayan de Oro, burdened by its own heavy loads of squatting and housing problems.