Actress, singer and Philippines Ambassador Against Hunger KC Concepcion travels to the island of Mindanao for a look at one of her country’s most intriguing regions. The only island in the Philippines to host a large Muslim population, Mindinao also suffers from high levels of child malnutrition. KC’s journey takes her from a school where local children are celebrating the Islamic New Year to a woman’s cooperative and health centre where food is provided to those in need.
EDIT: added description from website.
::Entrenpreneurship as a Silver Bullet ::10tonfunk LITE – Notes from Ha-Joon Chang’s Lecture at NYU on “23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism”
I just love it when I find something that expresses what I’ve long believed to be true but cannot express in a way that satisfies the frustrated essayist/writer in me.
The new spiel that politicians and social change advocates of the Philippines profess to advocate is entrepreneurship. Bullshit. There is a reason that Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley. There is a reason that no matter what a lot of countries do the game is still played by the valley’s rules. The valley is structured to allow the next yahoo, google, youtube and, facebook.
If you are professing to be more than a snake’s oil salesmen then what are you doing to create the structure that would allow entrepreneurship to result into amazing wealth. Think of the Henry Sy’s , the Lucio Tan’s, the Andrew Tan’s. How do we make things just a little bit easier for the next batch of tycoons? If all you can say is entrepreneurship and nothing else, please shut up and don’t waste our times.
Thing 15: “People in poor countries are more entrepreneurial than people in rich countries”
George W. Bush: “The problem with the French is they don’t have a word for entrepreneurship.” Lot of people like to say you need entrepreneurs to make a rich country, the problem with poor countries is the lack of entrepreneurs.
In fact, developing countries teem with micro-entrepreneurs selling things you didn’t know could be bought and sold. Like professional line queuers who get in line early and sell the place. If full of entrepreneurs, why are these countries poor? Rich countries have many people doing specialized jobs for large companies. In rich countries 1/8 people is self employed. The rate is 2-3x that in poor countries. Ratio of rich to poor is 4:2. Bangladesh to US is 10:1 . Norway to Benin is 13:1.
The reason this doesn’t result in wealth is entrepreneurship is rarely an individual event now, if it ever was. You need social infrastructure; corporate, legal and financial systems. This is why microfinance has had such little result. Poor country’s with high self employment numbers prove this — you need structure.
For example: a Croatian microfinance group, helped everyone buy cows. As a result the milk market (which is based on perishable goods) flooded and collapsed, and everyone ended up in more debt. In Denmark, during last century, they bought cows, but had cooperative creameries, made cheese for export, and fed whey to pigs which were then slaughtered in collective slaughterhouse. Individual farmers couldn’t set up creamieres or slaughterhouses themselves.
95% of economics is common sense made deliberately complicated . Priests used to do in Latin, economists do it with numbers. All professions build jargon to keep people away, but it’s more advanced in economics. Why treat economists with kid gloves when we have strong opinions on everything else? … “I’m like the magicians that show you how tricks are done on TV.” There are certainly some secondary things only trained economists can and should do. However we’re often lacking facts that would help us make decisions — the purpose of the book is to help educate people about economics and encourage them to be “active economic citizens.”
via 10tonfunk LITE – Notes from Ha-Joon Chang’s Lecture at NYU on “23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism”.
Programming, Motherfucker :: We are Programming MoFo!!!
Thanks to Zed Shaw for saying what some of us can’t!!
The Motherfucking ManifestoForProgramming, Motherfuckers
via Programming, Motherfucker.
rePost :: Japanese Awesomeness::Reporter's journey to Sendai reveals Japanese virtues – Special Reports – GMA News Online – Latest Philippine News
Even inside the devastated Sendai International Airport where cars, planes and buildings had been strewn about like toys, there was no sign of looting. People using the terminal as a shelter did not even touch the food and water inside the many food shops that had been abandoned.
Since the supply of fuel was severely limited and difficult to purchase, I innocently asked our driver Tosho-san if there was a possibility of siphoning fuel from the wrecked vehicles strewn all over the coast.
Despite their desperation, Japanese residents of tsunami-devastated Sendai calmly line up for food and relief supplies.
His answer made me feel ashamed. Tosho-san told me if we did that he wanted no part of it since he did not want to join us in hell.
This same man would bid us an emotional farewell a day later after his vehicle ran out of fuel in the middle of the highway and we transferred to another.
via Reporter’s journey to Sendai reveals Japanese virtues – Special Reports – GMA News Online – Latest Philippine News.
I have to say that I take issue with how the writer wrote:
Despite their desperation, Japanese residents of tsunami-devastated Sendai calmly line up for food and relief supplies.
But I believe what he should have written was
Despite their desperate situation , Japanese residents of tsunami-devastated Sendai calmly line up for food and relief supplies.
People are desperate because they show this, or act that way. A situation may be termed desperate. But when you say someone is desperate and he is acting and show himself acting calmly then you are stating this because of something else.
But this is besides the point.
Japan you are Awesome. Your social cohesiveness is second to none. Bravo! We will be rooting for your success.
Duplicitous Media Bankers VS Teachers Pay :: The aily Show with Jon Stewart
Hillary Clinton on Family Planning.
I’m pro Family Planning and a rational reality based Reproductive Health program. I think the RH Bill is not being marketed well. It has become somewhat a war between people of great passion and even far greater pride.
Hillary Clinton’s words: “Good Family Planning and Good Medical Care Brings DOWN the rate of Abortion” and
“Keeping women and men in IGNORANCE, and denied the services actually increases the rate of abortion”.
The unrealiable and increasingly stupid fourth estate must be circumvented to prevent the horse race reportage that it has fallen on.
Twice and Thrice Cooked Adobo
After a couplpe of days stored in my fridge I thought of dividing the remaing adobo into two batches for twice coked and thrice coked adobo, angol style.
I’d have to say that I wasn’t too happy with the taste of both batches, luckily still had about 4 medium sized potatoes in the fridge. The reason I wasn’t too happy with the adobo was that I kept thinking of rice when I was tasting them. The flavor was just too strong. The potatoes helped in tempering the flavor. I finished those two batches in one seating.
Wasted Day 20110221
Was sick with fever since last night, felt this was a wasted day. I can usually shrug off things like this but I’ve been a little depressed lately .My day started with some experiments with twice cooked adobo and relearning how to cook great liempo. Initial experiments with salt and ginger message to 1-1/2 inch thick liempo. Heating was what i was trying to relearn. Started slow fire to high fire setting , the second batch was done in reverse. The high to low was less consistent but the meat center was juicier and a crisp outer parts. The low to high was more consistent across the whole liempo.
Astig, Estrada on the Offensive
Revenge is a dish best served cold. hehehe. I have a feeling that the recent offensive against the afp generals (notice the non capitalization FTS). I have a suspicion that these are the same generals that withdrew their support from the former president.
Corrupt VS Corrupt the people win??
I’ve always been conflicted about this, but if we have to wait for a white knight (CUE in Hans Zimmer) we would probably never be able to clean up the system. Cleaning up large messes such as our society has proven to be a game of inches (superbowl inspired sentence). We try to improve little by little, introduce systems of oversight , systems of transparency, till we finally have a place most people can be proud of.
We should view the Philippines as a young country, we do not have the foundations of a 1000, 2000 even 3000 year old culture for a cohesive and ready for success country. Philippine culture is probably less than 50 years and yet what we have already achieved when viewed in the proper context cannot be scoffed at.
BTW this is a rabbit hole we are entering. Who watches the watchmen?? (We are looking at you COA and Ombudsman)
PS: Both parents of a friend work for the COA, I have nothing against the Commission and my dealing with them have shown that the bad apples are concentrated on certain institutions(I’m looking at you DPWH, Customs, and BIR) and most people try their best and are honest people.
Community AWESOME!!!!
Fuck, Community just gets better by the episode It gets better by the season. Loved the Christmas episode. Loved the DND episode. You really should be watching Community!!!!!!!