The Ingrown

A pain on my right big toe had been nagging at me for months. Like many bad things in life, pretending it doesn't exist won't make it go away. Eventually the side of my toe had deformed to such an extent that I developed a blister since my flesh was rubbing against my shoe. There was a shooting pain from the tip of my toe to the base.

I decided to see a doctor. Based on the pictures I sent him beforehand, he told me that it looked like a severe case of an ingrown toenail and that surgery would be best. I wished it was a wart instead or something minor. I suggested he examine in it person first before recommending action. He scheduled an examination inside the minor operating room of the hospital. I guess he was that sure of the diagnosis.

On the day of the appointment, he barely had to look at it for five seconds before concluding that it was an ingrown toenail. I had two choices: surgery or antibiotics. I asked the doctor what good antibiotics would do since it won't exactly solve the problem. He shrugged. I love non-options. The illusion of choice can be very comforting. Surgery it was.

I had to put a gown over my clothes and a shower-cap. Since the nurses manning the operating room had nothing better to do, they began to crowd around. I told the doctor to keep the helping hands to a minimum. I'm no lab rat.

I lay down on the hospital bed and had them put the tray in such a manner as to block my view of my foot. I don't think I can stand seeing my flesh opened even if there was anesthetic. Speaking of which, the application of anesthesia was the only painful part. They brought out a cartoonishly large syringe with a long needle to match. He stuck it in a place I won't mention. It stung like hell. After a while, I couldn't feel a thing, at least, until he began to work. I felt him poking and prodding so I said, "Doc, it's not enough!" So he decided to stick the needle in and inject a little more anesthetic. For God's sake.

It went by quickly, I was unusually chatty. I tend to get chatty when I'm under the knife. I remember being operated on years before. I was a blabbermouth in the operating room. I bet they were relieved when the knock-out gas kicked in.

You have to cut all the way to the nail bed in surgery for an ingrown toenail. After he tugged on some things, he showed me the bit that was digging into my flesh. It looked like a shard of glass. 

So he wrapped it up, I paid the fees and bought the medicines and that was it. The toe needed to be wrapped up when I take a bath so the doctor recommended that I buy condoms to wrap my toe in. I felt the need to inform the pharmacist that I needed the condom for my feet. I'm not sure what she made of that.

I'm just going to let my toenails grow out from now on.

The Power of Negative Thinking

Recently, our house and lot was sold and I and my mother had to move to a new place of our own. Naturally, the process has been difficult. It's so tedious to take stock of all the useless crap one has accumulated over the years and figuring out where to put them. 

Of course, there's the emotional difficulties to consider. When one lives at a place for all his life, he develops emotional attachments to said place, fond memories and all that. I took several pictures of our old house for posterity and my mother refused to see them because it was too "heartbreaking." I guess it's harder for someone who spent a longer time there. As for me, I'm well into getting over it and I attribute my easy adjustment to the power of negative thinking.

I'm told, constantly, by my mother, family and society to "think positive". I try, I really do. I try really hard but thinking negative just comes natural to me. I know it's very detrimental to be a negative Nancy but it does have its uses. For example, instead of focusing on happy thoughts about our old house such as the open space, the shade of the trees, the picnics I had as a child on our front lawn, etc., I focused on the negative aspects. I thought of how dirty and dusty it was. I thought of how unbearably hot it got during the summer months. I focus on the rusty roofs, the termite infestation and the general dilapidation of the structure. I thought of how far it was to everything. I thought of all the bad things so much that moving to a our new smaller place seemed more and more appealing. Eventually, I couldn't wait to leave the old dump! 

Being negative can be made into a positive. Hatred, disgust and loathing are perfectly normal human emotions. All can be useful if channeled to correct thought and action.

Hey, people cope in different ways.

Counting Crows - Big Yellow Taxi

Philippine Democrazy: The First Layer

Our history books typically divide Philippine history by periods of colonization. When it comes to the American period, there's always a bit about their contributions to Filipino society. Aside from the Thomasites and their legacy of education, the books typically proclaim, almost proudly, that the greatest gift Uncle Sam ever gave to his little brown brother was the gift of democracy.

Getting over the notion that democracy is a supreme good is a difficult step on the road to understanding what makes this society tick. Filipinos are taught that democracy is sacrosanct, noble and all other flowery adjectives you can think of. Here's the thing: democracy isn't perfect. In fact, there's plenty of things wrong with it. Once you disabuse yourself of the delusions and examine the system carefully, you can begin to determine which pieces of the machine are causing problems and, hopefully, how it might be fixed.

This is going to sound brutal but democracy has its work cut out for it in the Philippines for two reasons. Firstly, the vast majority of Filipinos are stupid. Secondly, the population is not united in one identity and is instead subdivided into several special interests that compete with each other for scant resources. Since we're dealing with the whole body politic, let's call this the first layer.

On the first issue, the average Filipino is quite dumb. This is not his fault; circumstances are what they are. Perhaps, dumb and stupid are too harsh terms. "Politically unsophisticated" might be better. The average Filipino does not understand how his government works and what is demanded of him to make it work. He cannot be trusted to make intelligent choices neither for his own life nor for the good of broader society. Chances are he'll just sit back making more babies and wondering why the government won't give him more free money to support them. A good leader can never arise from this part of society. A mango tree cannot bear an apple. Perhaps the worst belief our society has is that if you this large group of dumb people together; they'll start acting smart. That's simply not true. Misplaced idealists often think that the Philippines is collectively what the Filipino is not individually. Hence, our politicians often promise European levels of welfare in a country that can barely print driver's licenses.

On the second issue, I've written about this before. Filipinos are not one collective. They are divided by religion, culture, geography, language and blood. On the city level, they are also divided by interests according to several other factors such as economic wealth, political allegiances and patronage. Democracy is at heart a numbers game. He who can bring up the numbers wins. Guess what's the largest group of voters in the country. Poor dumb people. Dependent. Easily manipulated. Again, they cannot be trusted to make the best choice so instead they will vote based on simple greed. Who can make the goodies flow at the expense of the other? The good of the whole is often ignored in order to cater to the most numerous or the most organized. You might think that this is not necessarily bad since the interests of a large part of society is catered to. Is that not the point of democracy? That's true but again, do the stupids really know what's best for them? They cannot be trusted to make the most intelligent decisions. They cannot be trusted, period.

Here's a question: Does the average Filipino really care if a politician is corrupt as long as said politician is feeding them their daily bread? Think about that. Let it stew. Weep.

Sometimes they aren't even motivated by selfish interests. Sometimes, the people seem to act at random. How can you explain the election of President Estrada, a know-nothing actor? The almost-victory of Fernando Poe? How about the persistence of the Marcoses and other martial law era crocodiles? How about you point to your local idiot kleptocrat and wonder how he even got there?

The sad fact is this: the Philippines is a tyranny of the stupid.

However, this was foreseen by our forebears and measures were taken. Our salvation does not lie with the people at large so let us leave the first layer. Obviously, pure democracy would be a disaster. Fortunately, our democracy has a fail-safe. The vast unwashed don't directly control government. Instead, the system works through representatives elected by the people. By necessity, these representatives would have some process of vetting to ensure some standard of quality. Perhaps through republicanism, the worst could be filtered out and the morons could only pick from the most qualified among them. 

Perhaps.

Next time, let's examine the representatives - the second layer.

Election Retrospective

If there's one thing I find amazing about the Duterte administration, it's that the problem of drugs in this country has been exposed like termites in a dying tree's trunk. It seems that everyone is either an addict, a dealer or a drug lord. If I threw a stone in a random direction, I'd probably hit a junkie at this point.

Before Duterte campaigned for the presidency, drugs were hardly an issue. People knew the problem existed but it was never really talked about. Come to think of it, the presidential candidates hardly talked about anything of substance. It was just the usual platitudes and bromides until this foul-mouthed grandpa from Davao walked into the scene.

That's why he won. He campaigned on an actual issue. Illegal drugs was something common folk could understand. Then all of a sudden Duterte was the "law and order" candidate. Can you remember what kind of candidates the others were? How about our old pal Mar Roxas? I remember him as the "everything is fine" candidate for the status quo. I'm sure all anyone else remembers him is as "that yellow guy". 

He took an issue and he owned it. It also helped that he proposed the radical solution of just shooting people dead to solve our problems. How can the other prim and proper "serious" candidates even match that? It's so dumb that it's genius. Even the stupidest Filipino can understand "shoot the baddies". Try explaining criminal justice system reform to the average Filipino and you'd be lucky if he stays awake.

The same thing happened in America, coincidentally. The whole thing was boring until some loudmouth came along and grabbed an issue a lot of people cared about but none of the other candidates dared to bring up. It was utterly bizarre to me watching American presidential hopefuls concede the issue of immigration to Trump without a fight. It turns out it mattered to a lot of people. He even had his own radical solution of building a big beautiful wall to keep illegal aliens out. Just like Duterte, Trump seemingly came out of nowhere, left his opponents befuddled and in the dust and actually won the damn race.

The takeaway here is that politics tends to become bland and stale. It's all talk about safe stuff nobody really cares about. Then someone comes along and manages to give voice to something everyone is thinking but can't seem to say anything about it; a charismatic who grasps the zeitgeist and rides it to victory.

It's something to think about.

FFVIII Piano Collections - Fisherman's Horizon

Words And Phrases That Annoy Me

Drug Personality

Ever since Duterte's campaign against drugs began, the media struggled to find words to describe those individuals who came under intense scrutiny for their alleged involvement in drug trafficking. This dumb thing is what they came up with. 

Maybe "alleged drug dealer" was too libelous? The term is stupid because it could mean anything. Does "drug personality" refer  only to peddlers? The word itself could apply to drug users too. They have personalities although nobody cares about them. 

Furthermore, I've read drug personality used for politicians who are protecting drug dealers but don't necessarily sell drugs themselves. That's confusing. "Narco-politician" has more pizzazz. You don't need to be directly involved in drug dealing to be a drug personality? What are the rules on degrees here? No, wait. I remember hearing the term "drug protector" once to describe narco-politicos. Could a pharmacist be considered a drug personality? How about a doctor who writes prescriptions?

Handmade/Hand-crafted

I went to a restaurant recently that boasted of their "handcrafted" food. Am I meant to be impressed? Handcrafted is the word restaurants use when the word "artisan" is considered too intolerably pretentious even for the modern food snob 's standards.

Yeah, yeah, I know they mean that they themselves made the bun they use in their burgers or whatever but does that make it tastier? That's what matters most in the end, right? The local five peso bakeshop on the street corner bakes their bread by hand and you don't see them launching fireworks over it. I see no inherent value in something being handcrafted. All handcrafted means to me is inefficient. 

What image are they trying to conjure? Imagine a dystopian future where Skynet has finally taken over the world. Mindless robots churning out food daily for the helpless population. People smuggling balls of kneaded dough in dark alleys. Heartless automatons serving passable dishes devoid of any love but at a very affordable price. The humanity!

I swear, I saw a restaurant once that proudly advertised serving "handcut" steak. Did the butcher slice the cow with his razor fingers? Maybe he was a robot.

Lodi

It's a new local slang. It's the reverse of the word "idol" or something. It has to do with a game show. Honestly, I don't know what it means. All I know is that the people who use this word should be shot.

Only the Best/ Choice Ingredients

Take any packaged food and read the back of the item. It claims to use only the best and choicest ingredients which is obviously a lie. Are you telling me this bag of chips was made of literally the objectively best potatoes and processed cheese dust on the planet Earth? 

Besides, what idiot company would admit otherwise? What product would say "we use only the most average and mediocre ingredients"? It's like a politician proclaiming he's for clean rivers. Who isn't? Have you heard a politician coming from the Dead Dry Riverbed Party? The claims are meaningless.

Everyday it's an assault.

Tales of Unquestionable Interest I

I, my mother, my aunt and my cousin went to the United States a few years ago to visit the rest of the family. It was my aunt and cousin's first time in America so the family decided to take them on a tour of the great state of California. Our first stop would be San Francisco.

It was a very long drive and we arrived well into the evening. All of us were hungry and exhausted. We were supposed to have dinner at some Chinese restaurant owned by a family friend. It was closing time when we finally got there but she generously accommodated us. Stepping out of the car was like walking into a freezer. At least it woke us up right quickly. We hurriedly rushed into the restaurant to escape the biting cold and to get some hot food into our empty bellies.

I don't like Chinese food and this meal was the authentic stuff. There was fish smothered in whatever sauce, wrapped mystery meat and fried things. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it. As usual, I was unsatisfied and had nobody to talk to. I decided to step outside to "get some air"; some cold, frigid air. At least it would fight back the drowsiness and the howling wind was better company.

While I was standing outside the doorway, some strange American man was staggering along the sidewalk. He was white, of average height and wearing an offensively bright pink shirt. He came up to me and asked me if the restaurant was open. I told him no, which was true by the way. He decided to get all up in my business and said, "Are you gonna deny me liquor?" I don't know what this guy's problem was. He wasn't even standing straight and his face looked like he had just gotten out of bed. "I don't even work here.", I said. Suddenly, a car came up and stopped in the middle of the street. The man looked at me, held a finger up to say something, then changed his mind and handed me this box of chocolates he was carrying instead. He stumbled into the car and it drove of.

Weirdo.

It was a box of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. Nuts. Although I like chocolate-covered macadamia nuts (or chocolate-covered anything, really), the plastic cover of the box was already open so I thought better of it and just left the thing in the restaurant. For all I know, it might have been laced with whatever funny juice that guy was clearly on.

Overall, that was the only interesting thing to happen on my second trip to San Francisco. Frankly, I don't like the place. It's cold and full of homeless people and weirdos. We were even harassed by some middle-eastern looking punks on the street. One earthquake clearly wasn't enough.

I wonder if that guy is still alive and not drowned in a puddle of his own vomit.

Counterflow Culture

If you read the newspapers or listen to the radio, you'd learn that the most pressing and most indisputably important issue facing the city of Cebu today is the problem of "counterflowing" drivers. The mayor recently passed an ordinance imposing stricter penalties on drivers caught in the act, including impounding their vehicle for thirty days.

Despite living in a modern city, it is tiring sometimes how public discourse meanders from one minor-but-suddenly-important topic to the next. It's all so very provincial. I digress. 

I've written many times in the past about how government tends to act in an overly oppressive manner whenever it feels the need to look busy. Not so long ago, there was a ban on tall buildings due to the sudden realization that fire exists. Recently, misbehaving youth had the city mull over imposing a  curfew to prevent kids from being recruited by gangs or something, as if they couldn't just recruit at daytime. A few days ago, the intellectuals in government grew eyes and noticed that there was a lot of graffiti on the walls so they started barking about passing measures to regulate the sale of spray-paint. You get the drift.

I admit that I'm being too unfair to the government; the people share a lot of the blame as well. Using the current hubbub about counterflowing drivers as an example, I submit that the people's general lack of discipline and cavalier attitude to law and order is what invites the heavy-handed attitude the government has. It's a chicken or egg thing but they both feed each other.

The price that must be paid to live in an ordered society is the surrender of some of our freedoms. We surrender some of our personal autonomy and agree to live by certain rules in order that our own rights are protected. A lawless state is a horror to behold. I know because I need only open a window. 

The more people act selfishly and ignore the law to the prejudice of others, the more the people clamor for government to step in and knock some heads around. The current measure against counterflowing drivers is quite popular but I don't see this as a good sign. What it means to me is that the higher our desire for order, the more willing we are to accept the government adopting increasingly brutal measures to do so.

It begs the question, "why can't people just obey the law"? That's a question with a thousand unsatisfying answers but the only one worth asking. If people were angels we wouldn't need laws. It's tragic really, how man provides the means of his own undoing. Tyranny is our ultimate destiny. It will come once it's made palatable enough or is it here already?

Perhaps we should focus on making better people rather than "better" laws.

Squarepusher - Hello Meow

Big Problem, Small Solution

A fire gutted Metro Gaisano three days ago. While the fire is now under control, the incident revealed that the city's firefighting capabilities may not be up to the task when it comes to fires in large buildings. It's a sobering thought: what if there's a fire on the tenth floor of a building? How will our firefighters handle it? Why are we only thinking this now!?

I wrote before how when the government is faced with a problem, it always takes dumbest and most oppressive approach to deal with it. Like clockwork, the mayor is now mulling a temporary ban on the construction of tall buildings. Again, the answer is always to enact small-minded policies which hamper the Filipino and the development of the Philippines. Instead of upgrading our firefighting capabilities, developers will just have to limit themselves to however many floors the government decides is best. Metro Gaisano only went up to six floors. Coupled with his penchant for closing establishments, Mayor Osmena could be the most anti-business leader in the whole Philippines.

How depressing. Whereas high-rises and skyscrapers were once symbols of progress, they're too scary and daunting for us simple folk.  I don't get it. Is this timidity, no, cowardice a common Filipino trait? Do we even dream big anymore? I digress.

Our ladders are too short. Therefore, we just need to build smaller and shorter buildings. Got it. It's totally not subconsciously emasculating at all. Gosh, we're so smart. How silly those people in Tokyo and New York must feel when they see how much smarter we are. We've figured it all out.

I love and hate being correct.

Willie Nelson - Crazy

Torment for Our Own Good

The Sinulog festivity this year is supposedly going "hi-tech", with the passes for the main event being chip-encrypted bracelets instead of ID cards. At the same time, the geniuses in government are talking about shutting down cell sites during the festival for security reasons. "Hi-tech" my ass. A cellphone isn't the only way to trigger a bomb and a bomb isn't the only way to do violence as the truck attacks in Europe show. But sure, let's shut down a vital service which would, in all likelihood, hamstring the police force just as well as it would inconvenience the local populace. The terrorists win without even having to do anything.

Thinking about this proposed measure had me thinking about how the government always seems to take the most insensitive, uncreative and clumsy measure to solve problems. Many years ago, there was a spike in the amount of murders committed by assassins riding in tandem on motorcycles. Enough people complained about the rising pile of dead bodies that the government finally felt compelled to do something. The brilliant solution proposed? Ban motorcycle helmets. The way our masters explained it is that since the murderers could no longer hide their faces, they would be more easily identified and caught. Where does one even begin to explain how stupid the idea was? Not all people who ride motorcycles are assassins. They have to know that, right? They have to know that people need to wear helmets to not die in accidents, right? Oh, they went further. They seriously considered banning people from riding in tandem altogether. You better not have a wife or any friends. It's for security purposes you see.

Fortunately, good sense prevailed. Instead of banning helmets, they only banned those which cover your face! So if you ever get in an accident, make sure you fall in the correct angle like a good citizen. Compromising the safety of everyone is necessary to lessen the risk of a statistically tinier percentage off people getting shot. The murders still happen anyway because the assassins, shockingly, don't obey the restriction. The terrorists win without even having to do anything. As for the ban on riding in tandem, only a few places have ordinances against that and even then it's not enforced because it's impossible and stupid.

The takeaway from these examples is that whenever the government is faced with a problem, their first instinct is to either impose restrictions or take away freedoms that the Filipino people enjoy. The demand is always for the long-suffering peasant to suffer even more for his own good. The attitude of our leaders is power-centric, not people-centric. Ours is a heavy-handed state. Instead of exploring options that would be least intrusive to the daily life of the citizen, the option that is most intrusive, and often the easiest, is taken. Police power is brute force and brute force requires little thought. Thinking is hard and nobody has the patience for that, least of all politicians.

Just think of any problem in society, how the government plans to tackle it and you'll realize I'm correct. Look at Manila, my favorite example of piss-poor urban planning and mismanagement. The traffic situation is apocalyptic. What's the government's solution? Does it invest in road-widening or new infrastructure? Does in invest in mass transit or expanding the rail system it has? No. The solution they went with years back is some cockamamie scheme wherein if your car has a certain number on its license plate, you can't drive it on some arbitrarily designated weekday. What a joke. What are they cooking up now? More arbitrary number schemes? Color? A ban on cars?

Drug menace? Just shoot 'em. The safety and security of the country demands it! Again, insensitive, uncreative and clumsy measures first. Power-centric, not people-centric. A million is a statistic. Etc, etc. Do you see it now?

I wouldn't be surprised if the government's solution to poor healthcare is to pass a law making it illegal to be sick. 

Happy New Year?

"Happy new year!", huh? Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Happy? I guess we'll just see about that.

Who knows what'll happen, really. Some freak earthquake could kill us all in any moment. Maybe we could contract a terminal illness. A stray bullet could do you in. Who knows? Might as well go on pretending like it's going to be peaches and cream.

Maybe it isn't what we know but what we'll do about it.