The Race

You know what rubs me the wrong way? The way people talk about the elections.

Its never about the issues. Its never about principles. Its always about who's winning, who switched sides, who's backing who or who did what. Its disgraceful. The presidential elections, where we choose a new leader for this republic, is discussed like a horse race. Its morbid. Its demoralizing to hear that what should be a very important event for any democracy, is just some spectacle, fodder for gossip. I never hear, "Oh candidate A believes in say, slowly liberating local economies from the centralized internal revenue allotment so I'll vote for him." Instead, I hear, "Did you hear about that guy who jumped 5 points in the polls? He's such a tool for the administration! Heehee!" We don't know anything about these people. All we know about them are their present loyalties, wealth and what they say they stand for. (politicians are known for keeping promises, right?) NO SOUL.

The candidates' platforms are no more complicated than the directions on a shampoo bottle. "He's on the anti-corruption platform." Really? No shit. Who's going for the pro-corruption platform then? He'll get my vote just for his balls. One candidate vows to end poverty. How? By ending corruption. How? It stops there.

And they're off!

Ghost Hunting

Have you ever seen the show, Ghost Hunters International? Its an amazing show. I mean, how amazing is it that a show about a bunch of people running around in the dark, could have so much mileage?

The show typically begins with the group of professional ghost hunters arriving in some haunted and super ominous location. Its often an old mansion, medieval castle or anywhere you'd expect to be in a Scooby-Doo cartoon. So the gang of so called "experts" (what university gives ghost hunting diplomas?) arrive in their mystery machine, stake out the place at night and probe it with thermal images, sonic detectors and scientific stuff that allows them to see glowing orbs of dust. Then, one of them hears something totally unexpected that scares them. Cut to commercial. In the end of every episode, we end up no closer to proving ghosts exist than proving fairy tales are real.

The show makes me wonder why, in our digital age where everyone has a camera or camera phone in his pocket, nobody has ever come up with incontrovertible proof of ghosts? Think about it, the Philippines is both cell phone obsessed and extremely superstitious yet I have not seen a picture of a kapre or tikbalang or whatever.

I ain't afraid of no ghosts.

Eddie Murphy's James Brown

Classic.

The Church Again

Oh boy.

The government, in a stunning display, actually decided to do its job and address the issue of birth control and safe sex. Unfortunately, like the way government usually goes about doing things, it involves the handing out of free crap. The crap in this case being condoms. But hey, its free.

The Church is raising a big stink about it. Religious groups are planning to go all out in full force to protest and march against the government condom giveaway bonanza. I can imagine a thousand better ways to spend all that time, energy and manpower to help the poor but I guess rogue condoms are the greatest threat to national security now.

The reason, as far as I can discern from their babbling in media interviews, why the Church has its panties in a bunch basically rests on these simple, flawed and sophomoric arguments. First, its immoral. It just is. Shut up. Second, it promotes promiscuity. Lastly, the Church, not government, should have the monopoly on giving free crap away. Oops, I mean, Its anti-life.

Well look, "morality" doesn't make for very good argumentation. For one, the Church cannot claim to be the sole source of morality. "Why is this wrong? Because God said so and he told me." Sounds stupid right? Cite all the scripture you want but it just wont stop people from screwing around. Which brings me to the second point.

How does the act of giving out condoms promote promiscuity? How does that work? I give a guy a condom and suddenly he automatically wants to bump uglies? Does government give sly winks and gentle nudges too? Look, the government, for once, is on to something. People are already promiscuous. In our oversexed, overcommercialized, overhyped and overblown culture, people sleep around all the time. The celebutards on TV do it and it doesn't shock anybody anymore. So why not give them condoms? They might as well have some protection while they do it. Besides, a person can easily buy a pack of condoms for cheap from any nearby gas station store or pharmacy so what's the freaking point to all of this, ultimately? Oh I see, the poor can't afford condoms. Yeah right. Bottles of gin and beer but can't buy a few plastic balloons?

Lastly, on the argument that its anti-life, they don't explain why since its stuff only they and the mentally challenged can understand. I can only assume what they mean but doesn't anti-life mean killing something? If condoms prevent conception then there's no life to kill? This is all technical stuff and it pains me to play in that level but its fun. Calling these points as "arguments" is like calling bowel movements as major life events.

This is all ridiculous. The government's plan, in the end, won't amount to much as usual while the Church goes on and on about things only it can understand. I wish that the church would just shut up and realize nobody is paying attention. They talk a good lot but can't really control human behavior. Stop taking it out on the government. At least the government is trying to mitigate the damage to our society from the people's stupid decisions.

What a colossal waste of time.

Dirty Words

A long time ago, when I was a fresh high school graduate, I tried using curse words. Once upon a time, "shit" was common in conversation as was a little "fuck" on the side. Certainly never in a conversation with my mother of course but lately...

Well, recently I actually felt shock hearing a string of "shits" and a "fuck" when I was out in public or something. Why did I feel bad about it? Thinking about it, it wasn't so much shock than annoyance. I used to think cursing meant cutting edge but now its just terribly annoying.

In comedy, most of the time, jokes get less and less funny the more you tell it. The same applies with cursing. It was fun for a while but now its just meaningless. "Fuck" barely has the impact it had before. Everyone says "shit" and "fuck". Its not cool anymore, probably never was.

I think about it differently. I've minimized cursing since last year's resolution and I'm going to stop completely now. The way I see it, I'm gonna reserve the "f" word for really heavy situations like a precision bomb. How would you feel if somebody you know, who's like an altar boy all nice and clean with a Jose Rizal haircut, suddenly blurt out "FUCK!"? Then you know its serious. The words finally regain the edge.

Exactly.

The Beginning of The End

Graduation day is almost here. I've met amazing people in the Political Science department and had a lot of cool experiences, It's sad that it's all coming to an end.

It's sad you know when you've grown so accustomed to a routine. Seeing the same faces all day and doing the same things brings the comfort of familiarity and stability. But now I don't know what I'll do.

I should be happy but that ain't my style.

Hello

I've been busy lately and I guess I just forgot to update. For your viewing pleasure, watch this.