A fractal animation that will leave you breathless:
Mandelbrot Fractal Set Trip To e214 HD from teamfresh on Vimeo.
THE TONDO BOY AND HIS C5
February 3, 2010
Manny Villar is slick and sneaky personified.
You grow up poor in Tondo, you learn early in life to adapt to its crude ways. Living among the vile and devious, for many of them live here in these parts, you pick up the skills and methods fast, if at first only to fit and survive, skills and methods these are, just the same, readily helpful and potent as elsewhere anytime. As in real estate business and in politics, for instance…
A friend grew up there too. Several times, he brought me and other friends to their family house, twice for their fiesta, and drank and slept there. If you’re the goody-goody type here, he would say, you don’t stand a chance, you’d be eaten alive. He regaled us with stories of his own shenanigans as a boy growing up in the neighborhood, his recollections of famous criminals he met or knew. “Tondo boy ito, ha!” he would say of himself. He wore his origins like a badge— and sort of a warning: here I am, a first-rate rascal, better beware! Indeed, he was. Making exceptions to us erstwhile friends seemed like a struggle.
So, when I first heard of Villar as a poor man from Tondo who made billions, it was “Tondo” that rang out loud, louder than the “billions”. If you should interpret Villar’s actuations, consider the Tondo boy in him, a Tondo boy with billions. I could imagine, if he were in the company of his tormentors on the C5 scandal, Madrigal and Juan Ponce Enrile, in the privacy of a room, he could be hollering to their faces, “damn hypocrites you all are!” or offering to make everybody happy, bargaining for a way out in the old Tondo fashion, Moriones market version.
I caught him on TV late afternoon yesterday delivering a privilege speech defending his “honor” over the C5 scandal after months of refusing to face his Senate colleagues over the issue. I watched for a time, unbelieving. Will he answer questions finally? This is all politics, he thundered over and over instead, a conspiracy hatched by those who hate seeing one from the margins rising to become President. In the middle of the speech, someone rose to pose a question. Villar signaled to be allowed to finish his speech first. I wanted to catch the part but I had to leave quickly for an appointment. No, he answered no question. News reported the next morning not how he replied to questions but how he strutted out of the Senate hall hastily just as soon as he finished, leaving his loyal defenders to do the answering for him.
Slick and sneaky, indeed, this poor boy from Tondo.
Everything you ever wanted to know about C5, by Winnie Monsod.
SEX ROBOTS ARE COMING FOR THE ULTIMATE IN ORGASM
January 27, 2010The Sexbots are coming, and we will cum with them. Three times a week or whatever our physician / longevity coach recommends. Because orgasms — particularly the hormone-exploding O’s we’ll enjoy with carnal cyborgs — are excellent for our mental and physical health.
THIS IS HOW TO HELP HAITI
January 26, 2010Venezuela shows the way how to help Haiti: Chavez forgives Haiti’s debt.
President Hugo Chavez on Monday said that Petrocaribe, Venezuela’s cut-rate regional energy alliance, will forgive quake-stricken Haiti’s debt. Haiti’s debt with Venezuela is $295 million, about one-third of its global foreign debt of $1 billion, according to International Monetary Fund figures.
THE DANCING INMATES DO IT AGAIN
January 26, 2010Description:
… Dancing Inmates” from Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC), a maximum security prison, were treated to a visit by Michael Jacksons long-time choreographer Travis Payne and dancers Daniel Celebre and Dres Reid to learn performances from THIS IS IT.
THE STORY OF HACIENDA LUISITA
January 19, 2010The struggle between farmers and landowners of Hacienda Luisita is now being seen as the first real test of character of presidential candidate Noynoy Cojuangco Aquino, whose family has owned the land since 1958. Our research shows that the problem began when government lenders obliged the Cojuangcos to distribute the land to small farmers by1967, a deadline that came and went. Pressure for land reform on Luisita since then reached a bloody head in 2004 when seven protesters were killed outside of the plantation’s gates in what is now known as the Luisita massacre. This is the story of the hacienda and its farmers, an issue that is likely to haunt Aquino as he travels the campaign trail for the May 2010 elections.
GMANEWS.TV: Hacienda Luisita’s past haunts Noynoy’s future
Thanks for the borrowed image, gmanews.tv!
UPDATE
Part 2: Cory’s land reform legacy
UPDATE 2
Part 3: Workers’ strike turned into massacre
_______________
Meanwhile, here’s a video of presidential candidate Noynoy Aquino speaking before the Makati Business Club.
Full text could be found here at Filipino Voices. Full videos here and here.
EARTHQUAKE IN HAITI
January 14, 2010Earthquake in Haiti on The Big Picture
Above, the Presidential Palace.
More pictures here.
UPDATE: More heartbreaking scenes 48 hours after.
RAY KURZWEIL ABOUT MANY COMPLEX THINGS
January 5, 2010
Image modified. Original by Guru Khalsa. Thanks.
NEW POSTS ON MY ART BLOG
January 4, 2010
I have new posts on my art blog. (Heck, it’s been over a year since my last post!)
It’s called fractal arts. My first time on the medium. Found a free ware via Wired. It’s a free open-source program called Apophysis.
THIS MADE ME LAUGH TODAY
December 28, 2009A reporter hears about an amazing pig and goes out to the farm in Arkansas
to get the story. He finds the farmer near the barn and asks him if the
rumours about his pig are true.
“Yep,” says the farmer. “I got a pig that started squealing real loud
when the house was on fire. He woke us all up and so we all got to
safety. Otherwise we might have been killed. That’s some pig.”
“And didn’t the pig save your boy from drowning?” asked the reporter.
“Yep, he raced right into the pond and pulled my little boy out by his
shirt collar. Saved his life,” the farmer says, wiping a tear from his
eye.
“Wow, I’d like to see this pig,” the reporter says.
“Well, come on over here.”
The farmer leads the reporter over to a nearby pen. There in the mud the
reporter sees a pig with a wooden leg.
“Why does he have a wooden leg?”
The farmer replies, “Well, you don’t eat a pig like that all at once.”
From comments section of this article.
GIF image from jokelibrary.net. Thanks!
REVISITING THE RIZAL DAY BOMBINGS
December 28, 2009Herman Tiu Laurel has an interesting article about that one tragic day in December 30, 2000:
There’s a new year that beckons a few days from today, but is it going to be a new day for this nation? The truth is, our country hasn’t changed in nine years since that fateful Rizal Day in year 2000, when five closely coordinated bombs went off and killed 22 men, women and children in a crime that surpasses the gruesomeness of the Maguindanao Massacre in premeditation and conspiratorial intent.
While in Maguindanao, a political family and its apparently crazed scion were implicated, in the so-called F-I-D-E-L bombings, an alleged wide conspiracy includes not only the bomb planters but a network of covert local and international operatives of the hidden global powers.
Images of six-year-old Crizele Acusin, who was carried off the LRT Blumentritt station, whose face was blown away completely, symbolized the horror of the nation that day.
Crizele should now have been well into her teens and probably a year away from her high school graduation. Who would have thought that anyone had the cruelty to do such a deed amid the Filipino nation’s season of merriment?
I was at a late lunch of a group of journalists at the Spring Deer Restaurant on Timog Avenue at that time. It was an event so long ago that two of those with us are no longer around: Former Chronicle editor and later Arroyo Press Undersecretary Noel Cabrera and columnist Julius Fortuna. Nevertheless, others can still testify to my account that one member of the group, a non-journalist and anti-Erap activist of Yellow crowd, was hyperactive, and suddenly sprang up from our table and walked to a far corner to answer his beeping cellphone.
The call was from a well known conspirator with Copa, the anti-Erap Council of Philippine Affairs, who reported that a series of bombs had gone off all over Metro Manila. While among most of the journalists, there was a somber mood that greeted the news, the anti-Erap elements seemed excited and gleeful. It was as if a signal for the final push against Erap in a campaign of destabilization that had stretched for over a year, with the impeachment proceedings torpedoed by Congress already floundering in the halls of the Senate, had suddenly been realized.
A week after the bombings, Cory Aquino came out in all the mainstream newspapers, blaming the blasts on the Estrada government. Lauro Vizconde of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption even presented a female witness tagging “military elements.” Meanwhile, the National Democratic Front also blamed Erap, as did the MILF.
Fidel Ramos was quick to deny involvement in the bombings — a fact I obtained from my three hours of micro film research at the UP Library. The bombs went off at Plaza Ferguson; the International Airport at NAIA; near Dusit Hotel; inside a bus named Edsan; and at the LRT train cab at the Blumentritt stop. That’s how they were also tagged the F-I-D-E-L bombings. Moreover, FVR’s premature denial of any involvement in those incidents reminded me of his earlier premature public alarm over Dacer’s disappearance.
But surprise, surprise: The PNP’s investigations led instead to the Abu Sayyaf and the MILF. Eventually, three suspects who later confessed to acquiring and transporting the bombs turned out to be MILF-linked Indonesians and alleged jihadists Al Ghozi, Hambali, Bafana, and alleged Muslim rebels Yunos, Zainal Paks, Salman Moro, Mahamad Amir, Ustad Said, Abdul Fatak Paure and Mamasao Naga.
Last January 2009, in the usual slow-grinding fashion of the Philippine justice system, these “bombers” were convicted but without chief planner Al Ghozi, who got arrested and detained in 2002, “escaped under mysterious circumstances,” and killed allegedly in an encounter with pursuing police forces. But then, there is a video of the escape where Al Ghozi is led out of his Camp Crame detention with escorts and with helicopters flying overhead.
General Ebdane was then PNP chief and Sen. Miriam Santiago demanded his resignation while Sen. Nene Pimentel in 2003 suggested that Al Ghozi and his escapee companion Edris were killed to silence them. What is not being pursued is the report that PNP bomb-sniffing dogs were pulled out of the LRT just days prior to the bombings, which is something that only the PNP top brass could have ordered.
When one tries to put together stories of the F-I-D-E-L bombings of nine years, other questions cannot help but be raised: Why were the anti-Erap forces seemingly anticipating some big thing during that period? Why were there not only fingerprints of the MILF, but also the AFP and PNP’s all over the operations of Al Ghozi and company, while FVR’s goodwill over these groups run the gamut of favors, including the Narciso Ramos Highway, which became the MILF’s turf? And why were juicy promotions given to major Edsa II police players, such as Ebdane and Mendoza, when all of them allegedly figured prominently in the mysteries that attended that day’s sinister conspiracy?
In the final analysis, the question that matters is “Cui bono?” or “Who benefits?” It is clear that all the Edsa II players benefited and to this day do not want the real questions answered. No wonder mainstream media are also silent about this.
While there has been a conviction of the accused nine years after those bombings, Raisak, a wife of one of the convicted bombers said after the court-sentencing: “That is how the government treats Muslims.” One Muslim NGO leader, who refuses to be named, said in so many words that they are fall guys being sent to face capital punishment.
Will we ever get to the truth while an Edsa II government remains in power?
THE SHAPE OF THE UNIVERSE
December 26, 2009The New Scientist: the Universe could be in the shape of a ring donut, a Pringle, a peanut, a bugle, an apple…
ABOUT THE SULTAN OF SULU, SABAH, AND U.S. INTEREST
December 15, 2009Asia Times, 2002: Sulu Sultan seeks deal with the U. S.
It’s all about oil and gas.
A MASSACRE AND A MOST QUOTABLE QUOTE
December 3, 2009“I don’t think the President’s friendship with the Ampatuans will be severed. Just because they’re in this situation doesn’t mean we will already turn our backs on them. It doesn’t mean that they are no longer our friends, if ever they indeed committed the crime.” — Lorelei Fajardo, deputy spokesperson of President Gloria Arroyo, reflecting on the President’s relationship with the Ampatuans following a most gruesome massacre which is being blamed on the Ampatuan family.
Original images lifted from bluepanjeet.org. Thanks!
INTEL INSIDE… YOUR BRAIN
December 1, 2009Intel is developing brain implants that enables one to control any gadget via brain waves.
OF BOXING, FISTICUFFS, AND BEATING PEOPLE UP INTO A PULP
November 17, 2009My first experience with “boxing” came at a very young age, with my elder brother. Two other older siblings would set us up for a fisticuff for their own amusement and we would oblige for it seemed a boy should learn how to fight as his first lesson in life, or he would grow up a sissy. Two years older and bigger, my brother would always beat the pulp out of me and I would spend hours afterward grieving about the blatant injustice of a mismatch. Once, I lost a tooth from a mean straight, I cried the whole day for the prospect of growing up bungi. I was such a loser. Perhaps, it explains my ambivalence as a grownup for boxing as a sport. How could anyone bear the roaring applause that comes at the expense of one beaten black and blue, I often think to myself.
Yet, how could you not cheer for someone like Manny Pacquiao as with most of humanity? The sheer artistry. The gladiator dance. The pure wizardry of a warrior inside the ring. The brute force… of a fist that come barreling down on the foe’s face and body that digs in through like a crow bar, or a cannonball in slomo smashing on a jaw, followed by a twisting and a shattering, you almost wish to hear a crackling sound of a skull exploding, brain tissues splattering all over and eyes popping out of their sockets, blood and saliva in delirious mix on a swirl. Ummm, such primal ecstacy! it’s almost fucking orgasmic! Give it more, give some more, you yell on top of your lungs, until at last a body lay there convulsing on the canvass.
The savage beast and the gentle man in us: such a wonder how two diametrically opposed natures reside in one body.
Of course, in our own delirium, we forget, one day soon the hero will have his turn too on the low on the spinning wheel of fortune, when comes his turn as well to be smashed into smithereens by his better, when the wild, rapturous cheering switches on the other side and we take our turn at mourning.
One advice please: slow down on using Pacquiao as model or inspiration for the children. Young minds tend to pick up the wrong lesson from the rubble. If one day your teenage kid, whom you want to become a doctor or engineer, tells you, “I’m quitting school, Dad. I wanna be a boxer!”, do not be horrified.
YOUNG BEATLES
November 12, 2009
Before they changed the world: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney. Where’s Ringo?
Original image from beatlesource.com
via Wired
SELLING NOYNOY
November 5, 2009Conrado de Quiros, a favorite columnist, is telling his readers, what you do not see in Noynoy Aquino, his choice for President, is what you get. If this is how one should endorse Noynoy to the voters, I wonder. I do not see a lot of things and I shudder at the prospect. You make your dead parents’ attributes your main selling point, to compensate for what you do not have and what we do not see, what kind of presidency will you lead?
Any which way you cut or turn it around, de Quiros’ argument could be shortened to this: that we can trust Noynoy to become our President as he is the son of Ninoy and Cory and he would not dare tarnish the image of his revered parents, and would endeavor to equal or surpass them. How he came to that conclusion, I am amazed. He need not go far for clues, only take a cursory glance at Kris, Noynoy’s celebrity sister, because if we go by what passes for our amateur understanding of genetics, and the cultivated image of Cory the saint and Ninoy the martyr, Kris is somebody else’s daughter! Indeed, they say that the fruit does not fall far from the tree. I do not know, but of good children from bad parents or mediocre kids from brilliant parents and vice versa, I know quite a few within my own shifting social circles over the years to put doubt to whatever wisdom there is in the saying. Still, if we go by that route of reasoning, that the parents reflect on the offspring, why, it should be equally true that the children reflect on the parents. Yet how; if you did not know Kris to be the daughter of Cory and Ninoy, met her elsewhere in another dimension, and made to divine what sort of personalities her parents are by the traits you observe of her, you think you would make a close guess?
Same with Noynoy.
The first thing you think of when Cory and Ninoy are mentioned is that Noynoy cannot afford to tarnish their names by going wayward. The second thing you think of is that he cannot afford not to try to be as good as, if not better than, them. Either way, it cannot hurt his capacity to govern, or the public’s perception of it, that he falls under that shadow. It is not a burden, it is a gift.
Right now, one wonders aloud what the hell was his problem. Blessed as he should be with all the opportunities in the world that was his for the taking, silver spoon on his mouth, for all of 49 years, and still not a hint he is his father’s and mother’s son, save for the faint physical resemblances and the inherited surname! As a reflection, he puts them down. See what’s wrong there? An inferior standing for a superior exalts the former– always. But by so much contrast, it disparages the latter, if unwittingly, and, horrors! it reflects badly on the myth.
Speaking of inherited traits, one person comes to mind: Claudio Teehankee Jr, the convicted murderer. Is he not the favorite son and namesake of the revered Supreme Court Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee? Want more? The list is long.
In any case, I go by what old and grizzled political combatants say, that the presidency is destiny. If Noynoy should win, perhaps, it is for one divine purpose: to unravel once and for all the so-called Aquino Legacy. To the eternal glory– or eternal shame– of the forces behind him.
NINOY AQUINO AT YOUTUBE
October 23, 2009My first time to have Ninoy Aquino viewed in one full speech. A speech delivered in Los Angeles in 1983. He was assassinated months later.
part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9.
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Writer F. Sionil Jose has some interesting revelations on Ninoy Aquino in Rizal, Ninoy and Revolution:
1. Ninoy believed only a revolution could cure the chronic ills of Philippine society, but wrestled with how it could be achieved with just a few hundreds dead.
2. It was Ninoy who introduced Dante Buscayno, the leader of the NPA, to Joma Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
3. Ninoy Aquino was indeed supporting the NPA, this according to Victor Corpuz.
All along I thought Ferdinand Marcos and his minions were weaving outrageous tales out of nowhere just to keep an innocent man in prison. Interestingly, Joma Sison himself recently confirmed that he was a frequent visitor in the Aquino home and he and Ninoy had a working relationship in the campaign to oust Marcos. Now, how far did Ninoy go in that working relationship and how much did the communist movement gain in the alliance?
————–
Ninoy Aquino was emphatic he was not a communist. Maybe so. You need not subscribe to Mao and Stalin to get in agreement to the communists’ diagnosis as to what is wrong to Philippine society in general. Even the idea of violence to bring about change is no monopoly of communists. But was he not indeed actively pursuing his idea of a revolution then by pulling together essential elements into his orbit— for a start, an armed component in the NPA and a theoretical mooring in the CPP through Kumander Dante and Joma Sison?
Clearly, as the end of Marcos’ second term neared, it was becoming certain Ninoy Aquino would succeed him, winning the then-upcoming elections hands down. But, alas, Marcos would not let him, first, through a Constitutional Convention but unsuccessfully, then through Martial Law, his last option, this time successfully. Bad, bad Marcos, Ninoy’s ambitions and intentions, he frustrated them altogether.
Curiously, had Ninoy become President, what would have been the role of Dante Buscayno and Joma Sison in his government? Hard to tell but in those times when events like the First Quarter Storm were viewed as something historic and communism as a concept was at its apex that to be a communist was hip, the unimaginable was possible. Is this why the connection of Ninoy with these two men is hardly ever mentioned?
We can never know but speculate on one man’s motivations. So easy to say that Marcos was nothing but a power-hungry rascal. Or for that matter Ninoy was the God-sent emancipator of the people. Not that simple, people!
