my new quote

I composed a new quote today:

"Those who insist on seeking outside never found it inside."

- Ric Vil Hori

The insight came from my obervation of bigots.

Maharlikan

I created another blogsite called 'Maharlikan' with a nice caption about 'freeing oneself from national mediocrity.'

Posted will be my musings, research and frustration at the state of cultural and historical drought of otherwise valuable sources of inspiration that any self-respecting country should have done.

It continually amuses that with a population of more than 70 million, that majority seemed naive and unaffected that the country was obviously named to continually condition the Filipino psyche that they remain in colonial bondage with a foreign authority. And they wonder why this country is so messed up.

Maharlika means a free person.

new Dagmay website

Davao Writers Guild co-member Dominique recently created a website for our Dagmay literary project:

http://dagmay.kom.ph/

My works may be viewed at the 'Index of Authors' link.

Here is Dom's blogsite "Sketches of a village idiot savant."

Thanks Dom!

Dagmay

Last April, I co-edited the Dagmay issues, a literary project sponsored by our local group, the Davao Writers Guild in coordination with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and Sunstar Davao, a local daily newspaper in the city. The project encourages local writers to submit their works and have it published in the weekly one-page Sunday supplement.



I also did some of the illustrations.

perceived threat to China's materialistic communist regime

It is intriguing that unlike the other communist states in the West, Communist China had managed to survive the tides of change. I surmised the crucial factor that caused the crumbling down of Western Communism was generally due to its materialistic based ideology. Materialism may be a practical tool, but I believe that elevating it into an institution would be an error.

However, witnessing the atrocities committed by a materialistic government against the peaceful, noble people of Tibet only managed to expose its flaws. Tibetan history and culture, and its profoundly philosophical belief system spanning for centuries was firmed indomitable enough against threats implemented by an outside force and attempts at 'reimmersing' the Tibetan people. Like the Chinese culture, The Tibetan legacy withstood impressively for many centuries. The materialistc Chinese regime, which seemed to treat these noble souls of a noble country as if mere commodities and statistics for the communist machinery, only began in the early part of the 20th century.

Materialistic communism in China may have managed to hold on despite the collapse of its counterparts in the West, but I analyze that there is, after all, a challenge strong enough to crumble one of the last bastions of materialistic ideology, for even this regime perceived it as the threat to its pedestal.

The challenge shall be with Tibet. Tibet is a worthy catalyst for China to free itself from the bondage of a materialistic ideology and for China to once again achieve its greatness.

Tibet and Buddhism

With the events that recently occured in Tibet, these movies had somehow opened me up to the profound importance of that enchanting yet real place and the atrocities committed against them. The movies provide a glimpse of the profoundly high degree of philosophy that these noble people possess, transcending even beyond this secular world:

Kundun
Little Buddha
The Life of Buddha

One of those that impressed me in the films were the animal 'actors' (of course the large snake in "The Life of Buddha" was a prop, I meant those real animals) and how 'well' the creatures played their part.

(I discovered later that an Earthquake occured in China 12 May 2008)

Lost Horizon

The recent events occuring in Tibet made me recall the classic film "Lost Horizon."

Actually, this film by Burt Bacharach (he is a gift to humanity) was my childhood frustration in which I could still remember up to now. We also had a vinyl record of it and my insistent demands had kept it playing most of the time. I even drew sketches of the palace copied from the record case. It was the early 70's and I was very, very young then. I watched with great enthusiasm as the movie was shown on TV. Then...a brownout occured!! Aaarggh!!

Thanks to the youtube era I recently got a glimpse of this wonderful film, but only managed to get just that...glimpses (sigh).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlE0Lb46rVE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFGayvuO2Rw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp8vydLWGJk&feature=related

The recent outcry in Tibet manifests that the Human Spirit shall not be stifled in a box, not even by secular government.

Hey, they made a replay on Star Wars, why not Lost Horizon?

I want replay! I want replay!

what is your opinion?

Perhaps you may want to answer this question on Philippine education that I posted at answers.yahoo.com.

It seems that the state of education in this country, even among top schools was geared to teaching into making graduates as mere efficient commodities for the economic machinery, rather than teaching or encouraging students how to build this nation.The educational system seemed to disregard the value of Culture, Art, Literature in nation building so as to give it valuable 'soul '. That is why most Filipinos are not supportive of artworks or have no passion for reading, and are easily manipulated by crass commercialism or succumb to foreign interest. It seemed the educational system had failed on these.Do you agree or otherwise? What is your opinion?

You can post your answers by clicking here, or even at the comment section of this blog.

questions, answers, and stuffs they don't let you answer

Recently, one of yahoo's services got my interest at answers.yahoo.com. Cool, so I began sharing answers ranging from dream interpretation to seemingly non-sensical "do you think monkeys are funny?" (to which I replied, 'if you find humans funny, then they are').

Another dreamer had this 'nightmare' about witnessing a school shootout, hiding inside a closet with his girlfriend and them getting amorous, until he got shot eventually. I found the dream sequence shallow though and lacking in indepth symbols as the subconscious use as language, so I answered maybe he got too engrossed with violent films that profited much on his fears. He replied, excitedly, that he had always wanted to be a movie director! Strange though, the thread got deleted from my list.

Then there's this question, "Are there any intelligent Americans left?", which was a poster's ranting about Bush signing the waterboarding (no, it's not a surfer's lingo) torture against Guantanamo prisoners.

I posted this reply, and I believe my equally pis_ed-off American e-friends at a politics chatroom I frequented will agree with me regarding their decadent fellows:

I consider an American to be pathetically lacking in humane intellect if he/she:

- relies too much on puppet corporate media for information

- thinks Bush is the best president

- worships a money god as hypocrties do for their greed

- votes for politicians with the agenda for continuing the WAR economy

-thinks he/she is better than the rest of humanity just because he/she sucks better

-abhors organic food over chemical lazed junk foods.

-points to Asia in the map when asked where his/her country is located

- concludes that waterboarding is a surfer's lingo because he/she didn't bother to look at a search engine.

Weird, but that controversial thread also got erased from the list.

water for car fuel

This is the link of the Filipino who invented a device that uses water for car fuel. He was the one I referred to from my other blog 'dream car'. My inventor friend sent this link.

The good thing about this video is that the inventor, Mr. Dingel was able to express his sentiment regarding the IMF-World Bank and the investors he encountered. Those phrases are something one can't hear from corporate media that featured him.

Water Car...Daniel Dingel

tall hotel

This giant 'hiding' behind the bushes is the city's tallest building. Although this hotel may seem midrise (18-storeys) compared to taller structures of major cities, it nevertheless stood up over most of them when it won the highest guest satifaction survey rating in all of its company's hotel chains in Asia.

Oops, I'm supposed to post it at my anywhere davao blogsite, but anyway will just link it up.

Davao & EAGA

My reaction (as username nvision) to discussions on Davao (including having to put up with a 'talangka' minded, or crab mentality forumer), and my perception about Davao and EAGA (East Asean Growth Area):

http://www.istorya.net/forums/index.php/topic,94254.msg3392951.html#msg3392951