Wednesday, January 13, 2010

New Pepsi bottles

I happen to be a fan of minimalist contemporary art, so I really find interesting these new bottle designs from Pepsi and Coke. Although I don't drink softdrinks, I just might with these bottles. Thanks Iggs!

Cheap Books for Sale!

Hello friends,

As difficult as it is, my friend, Nikko, and I are selling books. Below is a list of our books collection. Part of the reason why we’re doing this is our kids in Hillcrest, Cubao.

For the last year or so, twice every month, we’ve been meeting with around 20 boys , ages 8 to 15, from an indigent community in Hillcrest Cubao. We talk about reflections on certain Gospel readings, how they can be better sons to their parents, friends to their barkadas and students in the classroom. We play soccer, basketball, volleyball, and parlor games with them. We also sing and dance with them. Sometimes we have film viewings with them and when there are special events like Christmas, we have simple gatherings. We try to be the best kuyas to them and try to give them guidance to the best of our abilities.

In the past months we’ve survived and managed to pay for the boys’ transportation and simple merienda by having them contribute whatever they can for everyone to share. Some are able to give 5php every time we meet, while some simply have nothing to share. This year we feel that if we are to sustain our formation meetings and activities with these kids, we need to have some sort of fund which we can use at least for their jeepney transportation. Also, we are hoping that they can attend the gathering of youth with Emmaus, the head of the Focolare Movement on January 24 at the PICC. We feel that it would be good for them to hear what Emmaus has to say and to experience being with thousands of kids from all over the country and Asia. However there’s a fee of 300php per kid. So we’re hoping to raise funds for that also.

And that’s why we’re selling our books. Part of the proceeds will go to our kids in Cubao. So not only do you get to own a great book, you also help in the formation of our kids! Yay!

I’ve listed my books below, they’re in good condition. I can meet up with anyone in Katipunan. And believe me the prices are more than 50% off of what you’ll find in bookstores. You can text me at 09209267759. I really love my books but I love those kids more so go buy please! Thank you!

Nikko V’s Books

Novels

Beloved by Toni Morrison (100)

The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck (140php)

Charming Billy by Alice McDermot(160php)

East of Eden by John Steinbeck (150php)

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (100php)

The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans (100php)

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (50php)

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (175php)

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (200php)

The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien by Oscar Huelos(120php)

Madame Bovary by Gustave Falubert (80php)

The five people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom (180php)

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (150php)

The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass (180php)

Dog Years (180php)

Z by Vassilis Vassilikos

The Pictorial History of the Third Reich (200php)

Great Philippine Energy Jungle Café by Alfredo Yuson (220php)

Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (280php)

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (300php)

Middlesex by Jefferey Eugenides (250php)

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (260php)

Orsinian Tales by Ursula K. Le Guin (120php)

Last Flight by Amelia Earhart (180php)

Essays

Young Blood 3 (50php)

Young Blood 2 (50php)

Twisted8 by Jessica Zafra (150php)Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me by RJ Ledesma (100php)

The Likhaan Book of Philippine Criticism 1992-1997 (275php)

Short Stories

Penmanship and Other Stories by jose Dalisay Jr. (175php)

Ward Six and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov (1175php)

A Tropical Winter’s Tale and Other Stories by Charlson Ong (90php)

Poetry

DE.CI.MAL PLAC.E.S Poems by Ricardo M. De Ungria (90php)

The Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction 2000 (250php)

Edad Medya: Mga Tula sa Katanghaliang Gulang ni Jose Lacaba (140php)

Eros, Thanatos, Cubao ni Tony Perez (90php)

Nikko Ys Books

Afraid: The best Philippine Ghost Stories	Danton Remoto (Editor)	50
Craving	David Hontiveros	50
The Gunslinger	Stephen King	75
Obasan	Joy Kogawa	50
The Book of Ruth	Jane Hamilton	50
The Silmarillon	J.R.R. Tolkien	150
Twelve Silver Cups	Enid Blyton	50
Dear Pup: Letters to a Young Dog	Diana Pullein-Thompson	50
Alamat ng Gubat	Bob Ong	50
The Wealth of Nations	Adam Smith	150
American Pastoral	Philip Roth	200
Twisted 8: The Night of the Living Twisted	Jessica Zafra	100
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism	Leitch, Cain, Finke, Johnson, McGowan, Williams	500
Royal Panoply	Carolly Erickson	200
The World Is Flat	Thomas L. Friedman	150
Skipping Christmas	John Grisham	100



The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (DVD)	Peter Jackson (Director)	500

Movie Review: Taken

I was still groggy from the bus ride. I looked outside, we were in Dau. I was 2 hours away from Manila. A new movie had started playing. I knew I was going to sleep through this one. There's Liam Neeson. I'm definitely sleeping through this one.

Or so I thought. A couple more of minutes later and I was hooked. Like what's shown in the poster above, this is definitely Liam Neeson's movie. He is almost in every frame. and he's brilliant. He plays a retired detective and a dad to a 17 year old girl out to tour Europe, following U2's trail.

His daughter is kidnapped and suddenly he's no longer retired.

Watching Taken is like playing a video game. You start at Stage 1 where enemies are easily beaten, problems are solved quickly until we move on to the next stage. And just when we think we've found his daugter, as in the princess in those Mario games, we find that we must first defeat another more difficult enemy.

I remember this play writing class I took in college. According to our professor, for our characters to be fully alive, they must have wants, desires, dreams. And our characters must go after those dreams and wants, no matter what it takes. Their every action must be dictated by those goals.

And man, does this guy run after what he wants. He jumps through buildings, shoots an innocent woman who serves him dinner, kills people, tortures and electrifies suspects, destroys buildings, and practically run over the whole of Paris - all to find his daughter.

It was all so exciting, I wanted to hold on to the arm of the person beside me. Except that he was a complete stranger who might just punch me in the face.I swore to myself that if the movie did not reach its end by the time I got to Cubao, I'd stay on until Pasay. Thank goodness we found his daughter right before Nepa Qmart.

Needless to say, I give Taken an A. Watch it.

Why I will never put the fate of my country in Villar's hands

A few entries back, I said that I won't vote for Villar on the sole basis of how much he has spent on advertising alone. Here's another reason:

Yellow Pad -- By Filomeno S. Sta Ana III

Villar’s leadership

Manny Villar is on a roll. The latest survey conducted by Social Weather Stations (SWS) shows that he has narrowed the gap between him and Noynoy Aquino, the frontrunner, to 11%. The survey came in the wake of a media blitzkrieg during the holiday season.

A friend of mine, an executive in a major television network, conservatively estimates that Villar has spent P2 billion since the third quarter of 2009 for his media campaign. (Other estimates are on the high side, ranging between P3 billion and P4 billion.)

His ads are very populist. In one ad, responding to Michael V’s complaint about the prohibitive cost of education, Villar says that college education must be free. Why Villar focuses on college education, not on basic education, which is a bigger problem, is easy to answer. Villar wants to get the vote of college students. Elementary and high school children don’t vote.

Populist rhetoric works during elections; that was part of Gloria Arroyo’s tactics in 2004. She ordered a price subsidy on electricity, mainly benefiting the rich and the non-poor; she wasted billions of pesos for dole-out; she stalled revenue-enhancement reforms so she would be popular. All this led to a fiscal crisis, and the people had to suffer from the consequences of Arroyo’s irresponsible populism. But Arroyo won the elections -- her populist rhetoric and action attracted votes, though the decisive factor was the cheating.

Villar is doing a Gloria. Villar, like Gloria, is a master of populist language bordering on demagoguery. He even adopts the program of the Left so he can get its command votes. In his obsession to win the presidency, this multibillionaire has wooed a force that regards him a class enemy. (Incidentally, Gloria also forged tactical ties with the Left in the 2004 elections.)

And Villar is doing to Noynoy what Gloria did to Fernando Poe, Jr. in 2004: question the leadership qualities of his main rival.

The Villar camp attributes the gain from the latest SWS survey to "the shift in voting preference over the last three weeks in December as respondents start to put a premium on proven competence, leadership and accomplishments." And in a televised debate that was staged immediately after the release of the SWS survey, Villar highlighted again the issue of competence and leadership.

The problem is that Villar’s propaganda on leadership will backfire.

One of the enduring quotes from Winston Churchill is: "The price of greatness is responsibility." Villar, however, has exhibited recklessness and waste, not responsibility.

Let’s take another look at his ad where he promises free college education. If only the Philippine government were very rich in revenues, free college education would have been a viable option. But because of the severe lack of resources, the next administration must specify the priority spending. And undoubtedly, basic education must be the top priority because it has a bigger impact on poverty reduction and has higher social returns.

It is the mark of irresponsibility for Villar to promise many good things like free college education, without identifying where he will get the resources.

Villar would have a more responsive contribution to society, at the same time he would gain political capital, if he devoted the billions that he spends on ads to the housing and education projects initiated by civil society -- like Tony Meloto’s Gawad Kalinga on housing and Nene Geuvara’s Synergeia on basic education. Let an undergrad economics student calculate the opportunity costs of the billions that Villar spent for his media campaign at a very early stage of the campaign.

Villar is thus the opposite of a good leader who knows how to husband resources and use such resources efficiently.

Villar also boasts of his performance in the Senate to boost his claim of being a good leader. But let us not forget how Villar turned against the very institution that he once led as he resisted the Senate inquiry into the controversial C5 project. The C5 controversy, at the very least, exposed Villar’s conflict of interest with regard to the budget insertion.

In fact, Villar did a Gloria act by boycotting the Senate inquiry and by condemning his fellow senators for prejudging the case. This was the same way Gloria rejected the Senate in relation to the notorious ZTE-NBN deal.

At any rate, Villar is correct in making leadership a main issue in the elections. He may be a good manager, but he misses the point that what we need now is someone who will rebuild the institutions that Gloria has destroyed.

And there’s the rub. Villar’s leadership is no different from Gloria’s.

To repeat what Churchill said, "the price of greatness is responsibility." We can also quote Dwight Eisenhower, Churchill’s ally during World War II: "The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office."

Unfortunately, Villar has neither responsibility nor integrity. He does not adhere to the ethics of honesty, uprightness, and transparency. He makes money do the talking, but he veers away from obligations, accountabilities, and tradeoffs. He is another Gloria.

Sa Tahanan ng Aking Ama

I'm posting this one for my friend Miko. This sounds interesting:

"One of the best historical plays ever made" - The New York Times
"Two thumbs way up" - Lea Salonga
"Isang dulang nagniningning sa husay at galing ng mga gumanap" -Ricky Lee
"Astig" -Mikolo Ilas

Guys, "Sa Tahanan ng Aking Ama"
Ipapalabas na sa ika-labingtatlo ng Enero, taong kasalukuyan, sa ganap na ika-pito ng gabi, sa Munting Tanghalang Rizal ng Pamantasang Ateneo de Manila.
(Showing on January 13, 7 PM at the Rizal Mini Theater of Ateneo de Manila University)

On Experience

I haven't really decided on who to vote for president in the coming elections. I am leaning towards Noynoy, but I am not yet fully convinced. I feel I have to get to know him better. As with all the other candidates. But of this I am sure: I will not vote for Villar. On the sole basis of how much he has spent on advertising alone, I will not vote for him. I don't need a president who who will move heaven and hell, who will spend beyond his means, who will do anything for power. I will not vote for Villar.

Below is an interesting article from Villar.

Experience

By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:25:00 01/12/2010

Filed Under: Opinion surveys, Eleksyon 2010, Politics

FINALLY, Manny Villar has thrown a punch at Noynoy Aquino. That’s by way of asking Noynoy what he has done to deserve to lead the people.

It’s not exactly a haymaker. And Manny may soon find out that what he has thrown is really a boomerang.

It pays to read history, as Santayana bids. The history of that accusation is a curious one and demonstrates its potential to be something that comes right back at the accuser. Ferdinand Marcos did it to Noynoy’s mother, Cory, ridiculing her as someone with no experience, or indeed as walang alam.

The epithet turned out to be a badge of honor, helped in no small way by Cory readily admitting she had no experience. She had no experience jailing people, torturing people, murdering people. Or indeed, if implicitly, she had no experience ruling so horribly she succeeded in making people clamor to be ruled by someone who had no experience.

History repeated itself in 2004 and proved Marx’s famous aphorism that history has a way of doing things twice, first as tragedy and second as farce. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo also said Fernando Poe Jr. had no experience. The repetition did not lack for uncanny features, not least GMA being a loud echo of Marcos and FPJ being a simple man with a good heart, a thing that would become more patent after his death.

That one, however, was farcical in that FPJ’s handlers, for reasons known only to them, figured it was in his best interest not to be seen, heard, or felt. Thereby missing an opportunity to turn a bad thing into a good thing, sending the accusation right back at the accuser. FPJ could also have readily admitted he had no experience. He had no experience saying one thing and doing another, he had no experience stealing the socks off people (literally: the Oakwood mutineers cited as one of their reasons for mutiny the foot soldier in Mindanao having no boot on his foot, courtesy of pillage by their commander in thief), he had no experience cheating.

But I don’t know that it would have greatly mattered. The 2004 vote was not decided by verbal jousting but by electoral “Garcisting.” It was not decided by ample nuance but by the Ampatuans.

History repeats itself a third time. First as tragedy, second as farce, third as suicide.

The parallels remain uncanny in that the cast of characters are not pale echoes of their predecessors. And exactly the same answer is solicited by the charge. Of course, Noynoy has no experience. He has no experience figuring in a corruption scandal. Of course, Manny was cleared by his peers in the C-5 case, but given that no one has really been found guilty in Senate hearings – not even the people who kidnapped Jun Lozada – that will always hang on his head. The presumption of innocence merely means that we may not jail people who figure in corruption scandals until they are proven guilty, it does not mean we ought to make them president.

The other side of having no experience living under the shadow of a scandal is having every experience living life honestly. The question of what one has done to deserve to lead the country merely draws attention to meaning of “done.” A quiet, honest life is an epic accomplishment as opposed to a loud, attention-grabbing, hustling one. It’s time we got our values right in that respect. A public school teacher who has spent a lifetime putting light in the minds of impoverished kids is far more qualified to be president than one who has spent a lifetime cultivating friends in high places, the better to put him in the highest place.

One might of course object that Noynoy is not a teacher. But that only makes us ask what teaching really means. Example is the best teacher of all. A quiet, honest life is the best lesson of all. You cannot exhort a people to greatness while lying, cheating and stealing.

More importantly, Noynoy can always argue that he has no experience abiding tyranny. Of course, he and Cory were among those who supported GMA in 2004, but he and Cory too were the first to part ways with her after it was shown by the “Hello, Garci” tape that she never won the elections. They called on her to resign. A thing GMA never forgave and forgot, and made them pay for by treating Cory shabbily while she lay on her deathbed.

Put more actively, Noynoy has made his opposition to GMA clear. He is no loyal opposition in the way that Joker Arroyo and Manny are, Joker being a maverick only in his own mind and Manny being opposed only to his current lot in life. GMA, Noynoy says, was his teacher only in school, not in life. He is not sure about the quality of GMA’s lessons in economics, but he is sure about the quality of her lessons in governance. He is not sure about what will happen before she leaves, but he is sure about what will happen after she does. She will be made to answer for her sins.

Manny has not. That is the sound of the boomerang rushing back full speed. In the end, he will not be seen for what he has done, which is bad enough as it is, he will be seen for what he has not. He has not raised a voice against the oppression, preferring, like Joker, the other loyal oppositionist, to criticize only the people around the fake ruler, as though she were not the source, animator and instigator of what they do.

He has not said anything about what steps his government will take to bring to justice someone who has ushered in a culture of pillage, a culture of impunity, a culture of rottenness that has devastated the land more than “Ondoy” and “Pepeng.” He has not done anything to dispel widespread public belief that he is in fact GMA’s own, the secret candidate of Malacañang, the “sleeper” who will spring to life at the proper time like the Manchurian candidate to do as bid, or as negotiated.

Charge it to, well, experience.