Dependence on inanimate sometimes edible objects
Was rereading Douglas Coupland’s ‘Microserfs’ last night and I twigged at how dated it was. That should be expected, I know - because he wrote it as a document of a certain period in history, covering a certain phase in the evolution of society and its technology. ‘
Reading it I felt freaking old. He was writing about how email had everyone hooked, and Pentium 1 software was way better than 486 droneware. Aaaagh. Then I remembered that I first read the book in 1995, and that was, sheeeeyit, a decade ago.
One sure fire I’ve discovered to keep track of how my mind and way of thinking/feeling have evolved is to reread old favorites. My reactions to the books I’ve read when I read them again after a certain period of time like, say, five years, serve as a gauge on whether or not I’ve matured or not. There are some books that personally affected me deeply when I was younger (The Catcher in the Rye, Little Women) but do not have the same impact on me now that I’m all grown up (harhar).
Then there are the books that I will always be blown away by, no matter how old I get and how much time has elapsed since I first read them and when I read them again — To Kill a Mockingbird; The French Lieutenant’s Woman; The English Patient.
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They’re selling coffee buns in Mega Mall. Roti Mum from Singapore. They’re pretty tasty, but they’re not cheap. Kim and I ate a couple last night and made each other swear that we wouldn’t buy them anymore, sigh.
This is how we wean ourselves from expensive junk food: we eat a lot of it; moan about how expensive it was; then, disgusted with ourselves, we resolve not to buy and eat anymore (unless may ibang manlibre…). This is how we’re stopping ourselves from becoming paupers because we blow all our money on Yellow Cab pizza, Kettle Corn, Arce Diary ice cream and cake from Fleur de Lys (the Joaquin and Fleur de Lys cake is, gad, how do I describe it? Heaven in five bites a slice).
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This is my MP3 player. Without it I go slightly nuts. It
keeps me company when am using public transport and traffic is hell. It’s two
and a half inches tall and an inch thick, and has 8G worth of music in it. More
than our sandwich maker, it’s my favorite gadget.
Right now its lying on my desk and a few moments ago I was
staring at it and remembering that a few weeks back I had wanted to write about
it and why it’s practically my best friend. But then other things came up, I
got upset by other things (I live in a perpetual state of being upset. I really
should freaking quit reading the news!), and I ended up not writing anything.
Anyways, that picture above is of my MP3 player. It’s a
Creative Zen. My friend Chi helped me to buy it off an American expat second
hand (two months old, the guy said) who was desperate to sell it to raise money
for his plane fare to the former USSR where his girlfriend was. He used the player to learn
Russian, and sure enough when I got the player there were language files in it.
Since my Russian is pretty rusty, I deleted the files).
I had this molecule of an idea that I would write short
stories about things I own that really help me deal with everyday life — the
ordinary objects that I rely on to help me maintain my facade of normalcy like,
say, my P20 black plastic comb, my Columbia water bottle; my watch; my fake
Swiss Knife; my fountain pen and the Parker Ink bottle, the MP3 player. But am so lazy I seldom get
around to writing anything and for the most part I just make draft outlines and
leave them at that.
Like right now, being such a lazy duck and just tapping away
nonsense.
—
US Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney has made statements that the
US government is concerned over the extrajudicial killings in
the Philippines.
Thanks, but no thanks, Ambassador. Your country has meddled so much and so long
into the Philippines’
internal, political affairs that we are not at all a sovereign nation. And
before your government even thinks to make a comment on the worsening human rights
situation in the Philippines, the would be better to pull out its own troops
from Iraq and submit itself to the International Criminal Court for countless
crimes against humanity. A lecture on human rights is not something the US government
can credibly give.
The US Embassy won’t
even surrender convicted rapist Daniel Smith to the Philippine authorities, and
Smith violated a Filipina. The Macapagal-Arroyo presidency and the Armed Forces
of the Philippines (AFP) are waging this campaign against political
activists and perpetrating extrajudicial killings also in the name of the US’ campaign against terrorism. Ambassador Kenney’s
expressions of concern on behalf of her government only add insult to injury.
They are steeped in hypocrisy.
If the Ambassador Kenney is personally concerned over the
human rights violations being perpetrated by the AFP, then she should make a
recommendation to the White House that the US withdraw all military aid to the
Philippines, and permanently call off the Balikatan exercises.
Can she do this? Can Ambassador Kenney and her government go
beyond issuing these statements of concern and do something concrete by way of
ending military abuses in the Philippines?
Sadly, the answer is most likely ‘no.’
