I just found out I haven’t blogged in a month. I’m not sure if it’s because I was busy or I was just plainly lazy. One thing is certain though, the recession advancing to depression shows no sign of slowing down, notwithstanding Obama’s hurried stimulus package. And while change has indeed come to America, one has to realize that this does entail structural changes which is the one thing necesssary to make any changes in this society really meaningful and beneficial to the people.
A quick check of Obama’s team will reveal the financial and economic thrusts of this administration, most of his lieutenants being from finance capitalist sectors. And yes, how about the war in the Mideast and Central Asia? Well, out of Iraq by 2010 (but not completely) and into Afghanistan, just as when Kyrgyzstan has kicked out the US base in its soil, leaving only the costly and dreaded Khyber pass in Pakistan as its supplies route to the Taliban territory.
In another world, that is the fantasy world, the much-awaited (by this jaded observer) film this year, Watchmen is screening on the 6th. Rarely do books become better when told in film. I will suspend my judgment even as I never expect movies (especially those churned by hollywood) to be a better incarnation of its printed body.
I’ll try to get entertained as we welcome spring with uncertainty. These are troubled and uncertain times after all.
It was assumed extinct for 130 years (at least probably by biologists, considering that the local people must have surely known its existence), but Butaan, a shy relative of the Komodo that grows up to 7 feet long has been found in Polillo Island and whose habitat has been reduced to one square mile after 90% of it has been destroyed. It is the subject of study by scientists led by biologist Daniel Bennett.
Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (Animal Planet Channel) has a special show about this wild creature that lives on the canopy of the wild forest entitledButaan: The Lost Dragon.
There’s an interesting campaign going on in Britain and though it touches the most sensitive issue there is — religion — it is actually all about free expression.
I have stopped engaging in religious debates ages ago, my recollection of the last one being a realization that both sides of the divide may just as well agree on what unites them rather than argue on what separates them — assuming arguendo that the antagonism doesn’t necessitate confrontation in which case a resolution of the contradiction is in order — and from that basis, work together. It is not only productive but also less stressful.
United front tactic is surely a magic weapon — and Mao would not have been more correct — especially in a society where contradictions at various levels are sharply defined. But I digress.
So the British Humanist Association launched a “No God” ad on bendy-buses to counter the “repent” and “convert” blah-blah that assaults passengers and the public everyday at every public space they find themselves in. This is not unlike the bible-toting evangelists that bug us with their praise the lord speeches at every public gathering or transportation.
Yes, it is a breath of fresh air. After all, freedom of religion includes the right not to believe. Also, apart from the fact that I have no quarrel about the idea of enjoying life, I worry more about the vanishing returns and eventual non-existence of my retirement benefits before I turn 65 than the issue of existence or non-existence of God (perhaps because i have personally answered this question a long time ago.)
I wonder if a campaign of this kind would even be allowed in our country whose claim to democratic practice is matched only by its perversions of it. And shouldn’t religion make people more understanding?
The BHA executive spoke of having “difficulty understanding why people with particular religious beliefs find the expression of a different sort of beliefs to be offensive.
He added he “can’t understand why some people seem to have a different attitude when it comes to atheists.” (see full story)
A full month after my last post (if you would consider uploading a picture as blogging), and after successfully resisting the idea of having a new year’s resolution (i’m so good at breaking it I now find the exercise rather completely boring aside from being totally futile — but this is not to mean I am making friends with complacency either, it’s just that making a list and checking it twice is something I leave Santa (like I even believe him) to worry about — I finally found the time (more of effort really) to blog my night away.
Hello once again dear readers (as if I had any aside from myself)!
So what unstoppable force animated the (seemingly yet temporarily) immovable object (blame it on my holiday excesses and guilty pleasures induced by my petit bourgeois origins) into logging on to his dormant site?
MORE THAN A THOUSAND DEATHS IN GAZA as I pound my tired laptop keys!
This US-backed Israeli mass slaughter of Palestinians merited a condemnation of a “terrorist organization” (blaming Hamas for the invasion) from Bush because, as the world knows, he is an idiot fly.
I would not wait for a statement from Obama (his excuse for not doing so is that he is not yet officially the president). Why, it doesn’t take the highest office of the land to recognize genocide.
What demand can be more ridiculous than that? Israel, the biggest recipient of US military aid and the only nuclear power in Mid-East, wants the region castrated.
In this one-sided war condemned by the world (except the US of A), I do not find myself a stranger in the Palestinian side. And nobody should.
And while Israel uses phosphorus in Gaza, it refuses journalists entry without supervision and blockades the strip on all three borders.
Stages of Occupation
The Zionist Israel has not stopped since 1947. But the world is protesting and it is determined to put an end to this atrocity.
Posted by diego rojo banaag 
Posted by diego rojo banaag 
Posted by diego rojo banaag 
