Category: personal AnGoL

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rePost::How Mona Lisa Died – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

I used to not care that much about the “Population Scare” this is because especially for our country we have tax rates that rival that of the more successful countries and countries that have substantially better social safety net. For me the Philippines problem was the money going into the coffers of the government is not used in a way that would help increase Investment and Capital, money/pork barrel/ira allotments were used for projects that were less helpful to the economic engine of the Philippines.I even defended in a blog post Sen. Manny Villar’s stance that population is not the problem, opportunity is. I believe this because we are doing so little to help people achieve what they can achieve.
What has changed since then to convince me of the importance of RH bill?
Two things:

  • The increasing likelihood that there would be an HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Philippines
  • Studying/Reading the lecture notes of Brad Delong on Industrial Revolution and Malthusian Economics etc.

I’m basically convinced that the Black Death/Wars/Spanish Influenza has helped in increasing the household wealth of Europe. This allowed consumption to rise and thus there was money for what industry produced.This started a virtuous cycle that has produced the stellar growth of world wealth that we enjoy today.
What this means is that I’ve basically given up on any help from the government to increase investment in useful industries and hope that the virtuous cycle of investment, and growth can be jump started by increasing the household wealth available to Filipino households and by creating pressure to increase wages because of a smaller population.
What this means is that people who oppose the RH bill are in essence ok with the status quo.
Anti RH Bill people are ok with double digit unemployment rates.
Anti RH Bill people are ok with us being an OFW nation. (The effects of which are still not truly apparent)
Anti RH Bill people are ok with people getting HIV/AIDS.
The problem is the asymmetry of the supporters. The Pro RH bill people must be heard. They must make themselves heard or the bullying few will get their way!!!

When the House reassembled on January 18, however, RH had disappeared from the Speaker of the House’s list of priority bills. Inquiries by proponents of the bill produced evasive replies from the House leadership. When the House adjourned for the elections on Feb 3, RH was dead. The reason, however, was painfully obvious.
In December, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) instructed the electorate not to vote for candidates who espoused RH. Alongside this decree had unfolded a massive campaign that involved systematic disinformation about the bill. Among the malicious allegations that were spread was that the bill imposes penalties on parents who do not allow their children to have premarital sex. Another was that the bill promotes the use of abortifacients or methods of contraception that induce abortion.
via How Mona Lisa Died – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

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Better Political System Please::How to Get Our Democracy Back

Written for USA but still a nice read.  My sanrky side wants to say that: We already have a citizen funded election in the Philippines,  politicians use citizen’s fund in the form of taxes. hehehehe

What would the reform the Congress needs be? At its core, a change that restores institutional integrity. A change that rekindles a reason for America to believe in the central institution of its democracy by removing the dependency that now defines the Fundraising Congress. Two changes would make that removal complete. Achieving just one would have made Obama the most important president in a hundred years.
That one–and first–would be to enact an idea proposed by a Republican (Teddy Roosevelt) a century ago: citizen-funded elections. America won't believe in Congress, and Congress won't deliver on reform, whether from the right or the left, until Congress is no longer dependent upon conservative-with-a-small-c interests–meaning those in the hire of the status quo, keen to protect the status quo against change. So long as the norms support a system in which members sell out for the purpose of raising funds to get re-elected, citizens will continue to believe that money buys results in Congress. So long as citizens believe that, it will.
Citizen-funded elections could come in a number of forms. The most likely is the current bill sponsored in the House by Democrat John Larson and Republican Walter Jones, in the Senate by Democrats Dick Durbin and Arlen Specter. That bill is a hybrid between traditional public funding and small-dollar donations. Under this Fair Elections Now Act (which, by the way, is just about the dumbest moniker for the statute possible, at least if the sponsors hope to avoid Supreme Court invalidation), candidates could opt in to a system that would give them, after clearing certain hurdles, substantial resources to run a campaign. Candidates would also be free to raise as much money as they want in contributions maxed at $100 per citizen.
via How to Get Our Democracy Back.

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rePost:: Against awards::Stumbling and Mumbling

No sooner have I ignored the Orwell awards than I am invited to nominate myself for a Wincott award. Which invokes the same response – I’m not interested.
For one thing, the criteria for both awards is absurd. The Orwell asks for a sample of 10 pieces, the Wincott for five. For any active blogger, this is just 2-4% of one year’s content. Handing out awards on the basis of such a tiny sample would be like basing Oscars on one scene per movie, or Grammys on a single bar of music.
Which brings me to my bigger gripe. Why should I give a damn about the opinion of people who are prepared to make such absurd judgments? One of the main reasons I blog is precisely as a reaction against the empty suits who think their opinion matters. Anyone who’s read this blog for any time will have gotten bored of me pointing out that the “judgment” of people in authority – or who aspire to authority – is flawed. So why should I want an award from such folk?
via Stumbling and Mumbling: Against awards.

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rePost::Noynoy and Great Expectations | Filipino Voices

The challenges facing the Philippines are many, with solutions conflicting. This necessitates a lot of sacrifice from all sectors of society. This is Noynoy’s second weakness, his lack of great oratorical gifts. His first being his unproven mettle for leadership.  I pray he finds his voice because if if he doesn’t her lineage may not be enough to counter the power of GMA2 or the one who must not be named. If people do not understand why they are sacrificing, sacrifice becomes a bitter medicine, hard to swallow. If we cannot embolden people, help them find the courage to stare down corruption, report the erring officials, being vigilant against opportunist in and outside the administration, Noy may win the election but lose the war.
Please anyone but GMA2.

He answered, as with his previous answers, in that circuitous manner. The core message is lost in the minor crests and dips. His words traveled from his lips to my ears and my brain discerned that his answer, in brief, was that he could not miss the opportunity to create change. I sat back, unmoved. I did not get the answer I wanted. I was no closer to getting a better sense of his motivations for running as I had before sharing breathing space with the good senator.
But what did I expect? Noynoy does not have the gravitas of men and women who command loyalty by simply being. He has not the charm of his father nor a revolution brewing in his favor as his mother. All he has are his shoulders frail. Here is a man who had indeed chosen to pick up the biggest rock in sight and to willingly strike it on his head. And he does it not for naked quest for power. Megalomania is to Noynoy as sweet is to brick. These properties do not compute.
These days, his noticeably thinner body seems to bow under the weight of his assumed burden, this man who has had no great aspirations to power, this man who has had no messianic pretensions. In running for the highest office in the land at a time of great crisis, perhaps Noynoy only wishes to honor the memory of his mother and father, and in doing so resurrect in all of us what was was great and proud in the Filipino.
via Noynoy and Great Expectations | Filipino Voices.

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Elink Video:: Google's Superbowl Ad :Parisian Love

I was so amused by this, which tells more about me than about the commercial so watch for yourself!
Maybe a presidentiable could copy this. I’m hoping for Dick Gordon because they could have secondary results that could be very funny!!! Dick best presidentiable name ever!!!!!

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Quote::The Happiness Project: Seth Godin: "You Can Become the Indispensable Linchpin."

Read the whole interview at the linked site!!

Gretchen:If you had to sum up in one sentence what you want a reader to understand from reading Linchpin, what would it be?
The world wants you to be a faceless, replaceable cog in the vast machinery of production–but if you choose, and you work at it, you can become the sort of person we really need, an indispensable linchpin, a person who matters. The marketplace needs and embraces artists, creatives, initiators, challengers and movers. You have that skill, the challenge is unearthing it.
via The Happiness Project: Seth Godin: “You Can Become the Indispensable Linchpin.”.

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Advice::The Happiness Project: Seth Godin: "You Can Become the Indispensable Linchpin."

We really need to disabuse ourselves with the destructive notion that we just aren’t born creative. As Sir Ken Robinson likes to say “We grow out of creativity”. We fail often and go through stuff we don’t want to feel again, this makes us fear failure and when you are too afraid how our you going to be creative when in a lot of ways creativity is about being brave about something. I think a good rule of thumb for this is that if you are not afraid on failing about something then you are not trying hard enough. It’s cliche but we have to push the boundaries with everything we do. So Be Brave.

Gretchen: You write about the importance of thinking creatively. Do you have any habits or exercises that you follow to try to boost your creativity or to give yourself the breathing room need to think big?
Seth: There are two secrets to creativity:
1. Understand that there's no gene for it. No cultural or family history required. Creativity isn't a gift from above, it's something that everyone is capable of.
2. The only thing that prevents your creativity from showing up is fear. Fear of being laughed at, fear of being wrong, fear of seeming uninformed. So many creative exercises and habits revolve around overcoming that fear.
For me, the single best thing you can do to become more creative is to be wrong more often. Creative people are wrong all the time (look at Apple's long string of failures). The goal is to create a safe place to be wrong, a way to be wrong without destroying yourself. [Along these lines, I remind myself to Enjoy the fun of failure.] The more wrong I am, the more often, the better I seem to get at being creative.
There are very few chances a day to be really creative, even for someone who is creative for a living, the way I am. So I seek these moments out, I treasure them and I try to be intentional. “Here's something I've waited for a day or a week for… a chance to say or do something that might change the status quo, that might improve a system… I wonder how I can mess it up?”
via The Happiness Project: Seth Godin: “You Can Become the Indispensable Linchpin.”.

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rePost::The Safety Net – Living on Nothing but Food Stamps – Series – NYTimes.com

With how much America spends on Wars and Aid it is appalling how the social safety net is looked down upon a large group of Americans. This recession needs to end now

“It’s the one thing I can count on every month — I know the children are going to have food,” Ms. Bermudez, 42, said with the forced good cheer she mastered selling rows of new stucco homes.
Members of this straitened group range from displaced strivers like Ms. Bermudez to weathered men who sleep in shelters and barter cigarettes. Some draw on savings or sporadic under-the-table jobs. Some move in with relatives. Some get noncash help, like subsidized apartments. While some go without cash incomes only briefly before securing jobs or aid, others rely on food stamps alone for many months.
The surge in this precarious way of life has been so swift that few policy makers have noticed. But it attests to the growing role of food stamps within the safety net. One in eight Americans now receives food stamps, including one in four children.
via The Safety Net – Living on Nothing but Food Stamps – Series – NYTimes.com.

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Better Class Of Politicians Please::Villar defends anew poverty roots – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

If you show no respect for the norms/procedures that ensure a workable government of checks and balances then why the heck do you want to govern one(government)? As we can see in the US Senate/Congress, an institution where people seem to no longer have delicadeza is an ungovernable group. If Villar cannot submit to a council of his peers in the senate he is showing a disrespect to half of the the institution which is charged with guarding against executive excess. We do not need another GMA. I think that if he just submits to his peers in the senate, not only will he appear as being ganged up on (we Filipinos love the underdog), he would also quite people like me who believes that personalities are trumped by the institutions in the long run. He needs to stand up and declare to the country and to his peers his innocence. If he is not confident in his skill to defend himself, How can we trust him to defend us, the Filipino People.

Gordon noted that there were candidates, who projected to be pro-poor in political ads only to get elected in office.
“You can see those who play cute with people, those who use advertising to say that they are poor and yet they are not when you see their record,” said Gordon in Filipino.
When booed by some people from the crowd, Gordon said, “Thank you very much, alam kong kasama kayo sa mga pumasok diyan [I know you were among those who went inside].”
He was apparently referring to supporters of Villar, who were in the crowd.
Gordon said the poor were being exploited but often forgotten once the candidates were elected in office.
“You have to face the fact, kung ang leader niyo hindi haharap sa accountability dapat hinds iboto [if your leader will not face his accountability, you should not vote for him],” Gordon added.
His last remark was also an apparent reference to Villar, who refused to face the Senate investigation into his alleged involvement in the road project controversy.
via Villar defends anew poverty roots – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

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Quote::Real Advice Hurts | 43 Folders

We can’t get good at something solely by reading about it. And we’ll never make giant leaps in any endeavor by treating it like a snack food that we munch on whenever we’re getting bored. You get good at something by doing it repeatedly. And by listening to specific criticism from people who are already good at what you do. And by a dedication to getting better, even when it’s inconvenient and may not involve a handy bulleted list.
via Real Advice Hurts | 43 Folders.