Honesty is hard to find

Our Pin@y Blog of the Day for the 6th of January 2004 is rapturous because of her honesty and her thoughts on life and people. Read about her entry for the saint maker and you might actually tear up yourself. But turn around to her reminiscences on peeing on the grass of Baguio and you might just as well follow her example. Sure, she has some weird notions about breast cancer. I'm pretty sure that breast cancer will not arise from being hit in the chest. The disease has genetic components and hormonal components. This blog is a nice start for the morning.

SCFer of the Year

Sylvia Knorr who is from Germany is the SCFer of the year in the social.culture.filipino newsgroup. On one hand, I would have probably also voted for her because she has contributed the most to the newsgroup. However, it is extremely ironic that a German is the scfer of the year. It bespeaks of how much Filipinos have to go. Given a forum in which they can discuss the culture and politics of the Philippines, what do a majority of them do? They do nothing. They let someone else do the hard work.

I left SCF around 1998 and I sporadically post in the forum. At the time that I left, certain Pinoy posters had to spread their particular brand of humor in the newsgroup. Years later, scf is a wasteland. There are some who post there who can think critically. But most everyone else has abandoned the newsgroup.

If there is one bright spot, Sylvia is a woman and is German. It would have been better though if the SCFer of the year was a Pin@y.

Terrorism

The last terrorism activity I heard about was mailbombs originating from Italy and sent to Germany. Why is this important? Because today, Jan 5, the United States began to fingerprint and take photos of visitors from South America, Africa, and Asia. Visitors to the US of A are not fingerprinted if they are from Mexico, Canada, Europe, or Australia.

Will someone please tell the Dept of Homeland Security that they are looking like morons and incompetents? The USA needs to apply these documentation to ALL visitors of the USA. Terrorists can come from Mexico, Europe and Australia.

See, if you don't apply this documentation to global visitors, it just looks like the USA is a racist country.

Deleting blogs

I saw a blog that was deleted completely. I will never understand how you do that. Isn't what you write part of who you are? Isn't there value to what you wrote? Are these not your feelings and life? Does it not have value?

Perhaps, what you wrote is no longer who you are. But why delete them? Why forsake that which you came from? Instead of denying its existence, close the book and do not touch it ever again. But let it stand in the eyes of the world as your statement: This is who I am at this time and this place.

BeeKeeper: Pin@y Blog of the Day

If you are lucky in your search, sometimes you are rewarded. The beekeeper is currently on vacation in the Philippines. But if you ever wondered what goes on in the mind of those who are oveseas foreign workers (OFW), here's your chance to find out.

Call for Submissions: maganda magazine: issue 17

RENAISSANCE?

EXTENDED DEADLINE!!!
MONDAY, JANUARY 19th, 2004

Maganda is a student-run academic publication inviting provocative poetry/fiction/artwork/audio/visuals that inflame critical thought and dynamism of Pilipino and Pilipino-American experiences.

We welcome diverse materials that explode off the page and move our readers to interpret and challenge the contemporary world of today. We seek submissions for issue seventeen that imaginatively explore the theme, Renaissance?

Please submit to:

submit@magandamagazine.org

or

Maganda Magazine
University of California, Berkeley
10 Eshleman Hall
Berkeley, Ca 94720

Please include:
* Contact Information (Name, address, phone email).
* Brief Biography (no more than 150 words).
* Cover Letter

If you are submitting a…
* Literary piece: please send 3 hard copies or an attachment (text only format)
* Visual: please send slides or prints
* Audio: please send work in mp3 format

If you are sending visuals by email: please be sure to have visuals in jpeg format, at screen resolution (72 dpi, at a size large enough to get the full concept across). PLEASE DO NOT zip or compress files beyond saving them as jpegs.

Prints and Slides should be duplicates (please do not send your original copy), regular 4x6 prints or color copies.

Large artwork should be documented and submitted as slides or emailed as jpegs.

Video should be sent in a VHS tape (US format please) with a synopsis.

If your submission is chosen, we will contact you for a higher resolution image. PLEASE include contact information with your submission.*

*If you would like to submit anything anonymously, please put an asterisk (*) after your name in your contact information.
||m||aganda magazine
www.magandamagazine.org

Bahay Kubo in Temple Blvd in Los Angeles

Hmm, it's been a while since I reviewed or discussed food. So, it's about time to point your fingers to Bahay Kubo in the city of Los Angeles. I believe that the restaurant used to be called Manila Gardens in the 1980's. My high school friends and I went there sometime in 1987 a year after high school. It was disappointing because of the high price and the small servings of adobo and other ulam. Frankly, we were still hungry after the meal. It didn't help that the singger serving as hostess for the evening asked 7 college guys, "Where's the girls?" Yeah, we're losers. Why don't you point it out to everyone? I swore that I would never step in that place ever again.

At any rate, Bahay Kubo is a typical karinderia with no frills and no thrills. The set-up is laid out for karaoke singing on the weekend with a large television dominating the eating space. The restaurant is spacious, but the parking space is not. As for the décor, this is a karinderia. For some reason, Pin@ys just don't pay attention to the décor. So long as the place is clean and there are no dogs or cats, it's okay.

As you enter, you see in the middle of the restaurant a table full of puto and desserts laid out to seduce your sweet tooth. I ended up getting some maja which is a sweet puto with corn. The first serving I saw was enough for fifty people. I ended up with a pie-like maja enough for eight people. I never tasted this maja before so I need a second serving to really get the gist of it. But it was sweet and dominated by the rice base of puto. Interspersed within the puto was the shredded corn.

We ordered turo-turo style. I had the pansit palabok and the adobong manok. From a distance, the adobo looked magnificent. The pansit palabok looked delectable. And the whole menu just plain looked great. The fried chicken was huge. The pusit was lovely in its sauce of ink. The gulay was fresh looking. The oxtail in the kare-kare looked inviting. (But with the crazy mad cow disease, beef and specifically oxtail is out of the game.) The warming lights gave everything this beautiful golden color.

However, if you remember, I am a member of the adobo guild of bloggers. I am a connoiseur when it comes to adobo. The adobo served at Bahay Kubo was average. The chicken is not falling off the bones. Because of the difficulty getting the meat out of the bone, I wondered just how cooked the chicken was. The taste was mediocre. The adobo probably could have used more salt and more vinegar. How can you screw up adobo such that it comes out average? I believe that every adobo should be delicious. Damn it! This dish defines Pin@y!

As for the pansit palabok, the sauce had a paste like texture. It was like biting into puto. There was no kalamansi or lemon for the pansit which pretty much means that your tongue drowns in the richness of the sauce. Not very good. Goldilock's in Richmond has a better palabok. And by the way, I was hungry when we ate there. I should have been instantly won over with some good food. Perhaps the one reason to go to this place is to eat the puto. Simply wonderful. Or maybe, I should have ordered the fried chicken. And how come Bahay Kubo did not have dinuguan? What the hell?

Oh, one bitch. When I paid, I gave 13 dollars. But since there were only 9 turons instead of 10, the total went from 12.45 to 11.95. Instead of returning the dollar, the woman who I can only assume is the owner from the way she acted took the dollar. I can tell from the way she quickly folded the money that she knew what she was doing. For my part, I gave the money before the change in the price. I thought she would return it.

I have this thing for trying to determine the future of people or a company. From this experience of food and thievery, I can predict that this restaurant will have something bad happen to it. For those in the LA area, can you please post if something bad does happen to Bahay Kubo? It would be interesting to see how my predictions comes out.

Verdict: Tatang says go to Nanay Gloria for your Pin@y food experience.

1+1 = 2

Anyone, and I mean anyone who places this proof in his blog is a Pin@y Blog of the Day! Be careful, he posts in Tagalog.

Check out the visionary's site.

Ethno-Musicology

While in Los Angeles, one of the people I met is Mary Talusan. Nope, she does not have a blog, but she should. Talk about talented and talk about brains. Mary is one example of the new Pin@ys who will be heralding the golden age of Filipino-Americans.

There is a generation of Pin@ys who grew up or were born in the United States and who are educated in the American colleges. These Pin@ys are now in their 20's and 30's and are making the move to become the new intellectuals for the opening of the 21st century. They are intelligent and capable of placing into context the migratory experience of Pilipinos. They are confident enough to withstand the hidden sexist and often submerged racist overtones of academia. The new Pin@ys are also courageous enough to understand that being in the forefront of anything, there is a tremendous price. Sometimes, being the avant in avant-garde means loneliness. This is a situation which happens to everyone pursuing doctorates, poetry, literature, and music.

But I digress. I was speaking about Mary when I got into the philosophy of being avant. Mary's finishing her Ph.D. and on her way to that, she managed to go through two(!) Master's. I ended up talking to her somewhat on my experiences about being Filipino-American. I'm sorry I manipulated the conversation, because she is an interesting person who sees the world through sound. One of the things that struck my mind was the concept of mimicry which was brought up in our conversation.

I have heard it often that mimicry is a Filipino talent. I define mimicry as imitation. For example, when Pin@y singers sing just like Mariah Carey or another foreign singer, that is mimicry. For some reason, I am reserved when I define mimicry or imitation as a foundation of Pin@y culture. I suppose it has to do with the lack of extension of said mimicry. That is, I always thought that yes, there can be some time when Pin@ys mimic Hollywood. But eventually, the Filipinos will make the music their own.

Carolina San Juan who is another graduate student in UCLA gave me the term subversion for the situation when Pin@ys make something their own. I don't know if I want to say subversion as much as say the creation of culture. However, in my conversation with Mary, I probably did not let her finish her thoughts on the concept of mimicry and subversion. She really should start a blog even though she is trying to finish her thesis. What do you think Mary?

If you are in the Southern California region, Mary performs the music of kulintang in Los Angeles. Check out her website to determine peformances. And if you are a college student lucky enough to take a class from her, take a chance to savor the moment.

Loneliness versus Being Alone

The SO was talking about loneliness and being alone on the way to the Long Beach Aquarium when my brother dropped a piece of gold in the discussion. He says, "There is a difference between loneliness and being alone." We kicked around some situations where you can be with someone and yet be lonely. We then compared loneliness with being alone in the sense of a physical time and place. My brother gave himself as an example. "I am alone, but I am not lonely, I have so many things to do like photography, my backyard, my garden, my lawn that I am not lonely."

One of the things that I had to chase and chase like a greased pig was relationships. During undergraduate and graduate school years, it seemed like every single woman I fancied did not like me. Or worse, they were just plain psychotic. Let me rephrase that. Perhaps, to me they were psychotic. To some other lucky guy, those women were the epitome of beauty and brains. Is this an example of political correctness? Maybe. I just see it now as different people can see different things in others.

I remember, however, my view of relationships. I thought that in marriages, you were supposed to fight each other every week. I thought that in marriages, the guy was supposed to suffer from the insufferable psycho that ruled the house. But you know what? It doesn't have to happen that way. If you settle, yes, you will get karma smacked to Kingdom come. But if you find and wait for the right person, you will be happy because that person is working towards the same goal as you are.

Some of my mother's friends ended up settling for some guy. I remember this one woman who married a Jewish man. She was forbidden to cook any Filipino food if the husband was awake. She cooked when everyone was asleep. She was forbidden to take her kid to Catholic church. She would pray the rosary late in the night. When the husband died, he left all money to the girl. I believe he is burning in hell right now. As for the woman, I don't know. Maybe she was chasing the illusion of what a happy marriage is supposed to be. Maybe she never learned that marriages have to be equal. That husbands are supposed to support the wife and not forbid them.

Settling for a person is never good. I never thought about settling. When I was at the desperate stage, I sent my mother searching for a suitable woman for me in one of her vacations in the Philippines. She came back with a candidate. To show me the picture, my mother pulled out a magazine. The candidate was on the front cover. I wouldn't call a supermodel settling. Would you?

But back to loneliness and being alone. I have seen people settle and be lonely. That I suppose is one of the more tragic consequences of life. To be with someone but to live totally separate lives. I would much rather be alone and be lonely.

New Year's Day

New Year's Day is in Los Angeles with the family. I haven't visited Los Angeles in about a year. I suppose it was because of the stress of the previous job. Amazing what one can lose when one is focused on work and one does not have the proper perspective. But I am better now. What with the grant from the California EDD.

We were fortunate to share the New Year's with my brother, my sister and her family, the SO, the SO's brother and CSJ who is a student in one of the schools in Southern California. We brougth along the RISK LOTR version, but did not have time to play it. It would have been a long game. We did play poker Texas hold-em style. I actually won, but I had to focus to make sure that I did not fall asleep or get bored. The SO's brother called it the GRIND, the time when your boredom makes you make crazy insane bets. We are planning to go to a monthly poker game. I'm hoping that my game of five card draw will do me well.

We also ended up blowing up some baloons. I found that I could blow up balloons really well. At midnight, we tried to pop the balloons by stepping on them. It did not work. The balloons just expanded. My brother had to get pins and did some rapid fire popping of balloons. How about the food? Well, it was awesome. WE had a ton of Chinese food and it was really good.

What should be the lesson for the new year? Love your fellow person.

Tagalog for the Philippines

I found a site where Bienvinido Lumbera has been honored. He makes the following statement:

Language, says LUMBERA, is the key to national identity. Until Filipino becomes the true lingua-franca of the Philippines, he believes, the gap between the well-educated classes and the vast majority of Filipinos cannot be bridged. "As long as we continue to use English," he says,"our scholars and academics will be dependent on other thinkers," and Filipino literature will be judged by Western standards and not, as it should be, by the standards of the indigenous tradition itself.

I have to disagree with his sentiments because of globalization. If the Philippines existed alone and independent of market forces of the world, then fine, you can try to make Filipino the lingua franca. HOwever, I know of many Ilokanos and Cebuanos and many others who will fight you tooth and nail over Filipino as a lingua-franca. It is paramount to English as the official language of the United states. The move is myopic.

First off, I used to believe that there was Filipino/Tagalog and the other spoken words in the PHilippines were dialects. I have come to realize that the "dialects" are actually languages. There is enough difference between words and structure such that Iluko is a different language than Tagalog.

I would have to propose that the key to national identity is to celebrate the multi-lingual and multi-cultural aspect of Filipinos. To try and create a lingua franca is to kill 40-60 languages. In other parts of the world, scholars are trying to resurrect and rediscover dead languages. Forcing the creation of a lingua-franca for the Philippines is to kill Iluko, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, etc. I would then point out that the Philippines needs to become a country of polyglots like the countries of Europe. If the Philippines can do this, they will understand the Filipino character in a deeper and more meaningful way.

Joke!

Saw this at a yahoogroup:pagbabalikloob.


>Once upon a time in the kingdom of Heaven, God was missing for
>six days.> Eventually, Michael the Archangel found him, resting on the
>seventh day. He> inquired of God, "Where have you been?"
>
> God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed
>downwards>through the> clouds, "Look, Michael. Look what I've made."
>
> Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, "What is it?"
>
> "It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put Life on it. I'm
>going to call >it> Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance."
>
> "Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.
>
> God explained, pointing to different parts of earth.
>
> "For example, northern Europe will be a place of great
>opportunity and>wealth,> but cold and harsh while southern Europe is going to be poor but
>sunny and > pleasant."> "I have made some lands abundant in water and other lands
>parched deserts."> "This one will be extremely hot, while this one will be very
>cold and>covered in> ice."
>
> The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a group
>of islands>and> said, "What are those?"
>
> "Ah," said God. "That's the Philippines, the most glorious place
>on earth.>There> are beautiful beaches, rivers, mountains and forests. The people
>from the> Philippines are going to be handsome, modest, intelligent and
>humorous and>they> are going to be found traveling the world. They will be
>extremely sociable,> hardworking and high achieving, and they will be known
>throughout the world>as> carriers of peace and love."
>
> Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed,
>"What about> balance, God? You said there would be balance."
>
> God replied wisely, "Wait until you see the idiots I put in the
>government

Birthdays

Several days ago, it was the SO's birthday. All I can say is NERDS. Why? Because her brother scoured the whole of the Bay Area to find a copy of the Risk game the Lord of the Rings Trilogy version. Then, as soon as we came in to the party, we ended up playing the game. I had to play as the third player so that it would be more fun. Now personally, when I play games, I get obnoxiously competitive. I try not to let this side of moi come out too often.

Anyways, since her brother had already played the game once, we were on the defensive. So, I formed an alliance with the other bad guy to beat the elves. DAmned elves, they don't laugh in the movie when the city of Gondor is under attack and heads are sent up via catapult. Heheheh. The strategy of not letting someone who knows more than others win. Hihihih.

The SO ended up cooking aruskaldo although it had too much rice and not enough water for my taste. And of course, the SO asked me if it needed more patis. Well, yes, but since we are all older now, leave it to each person to add the patis. Besides, there was so much chicken drumstick that once you ate the chicken, the taste was pretty good. There was also some moulting spices present so we ended up moulting some cheap burgundy wine. Wow, add some sugar and cinnamon to shitty wine and you get pretty good tasting wine.

Another activity to do was Texas hold-them, a poker game. It turns out that I do well with five card draw, but with texas hold them, I am too impatient. For those not in the know, Tex plays the following way: you get two cards. Bet. Three community cards are dealt (called the flop). Bet. The bend is the fourth community card. Bet. The River is the fifth community card. The game allows mediocre players a chance to win because the increase in number of cards increases the chances for flushes, three of a kind and other combinations. I was used to calculating odds according to the five card stud and five card draw.

The great deal for the whole thing was that I finally got to use poker chips which I purchased about 14 years ago. I had this image of building friendships based on poker night. Unfortunately, I hanged out with people who were not interested in poker. Talk about hanging out with uncool folks. Actually, I take that back. The grad school folks were pretty cool. We usually played a card game called Queens.

Oh, the evening ended with us watching the LOTR, extended version.

Getting banned

What did I tell you? Do I know how to pick them? News of the blog day is that the cat has been banned from a forum. The only questions that I have is will the cat mention the name of the forum? This is one interested Tatang. Can I get banned in the same forum and can I do it in a shorter time. What will get you banned in said forum?

Pin@ys! They think they want and know what democracy. But every chance they get, they practice Marcos democracy. Look at me and my poetry writing group. I think I might be scaring potential candidates. But hey, you should be dedicated to poetry, you know?

Conservative life in the Philippines

This was a response to an e-mail discussion about conservativism.

--- In pinoywriters@yahoogroups.com, Resty Odon wrote:
> Hi. thanks for the link, though my opinions might not feel comfortable
>in your blog. The reason I got so interested about alleged left-wing bias on
>the dispensation of 'truth' - according to former WOW (LA?) president Tammy
>Bruce - is that Bruce is coming from an insider's perspective. She was
>associated formerly with the Left - lesbians, feminists, etc. etc.

~~~
I must admit I don't know who Tammy Bruce is. So I checked the internet.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh121603.shtml

An amazing amount of liars (that's what I call them when they misrepresent the truth) come from the conservative movement. Among these liars are pople like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and others mentioned in Al Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Lie" (or something like that). Hell, there is even a Filipina who is joining the conservative ranks. I believe her name is Michelle Malkin.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin1.asp

I prefer to check up on reports like the dailyhowler because they actually do research on Nexis-Lexis which is a transcript service. They check their facts. Something that is so simple, but conservatives don't seem to master it.

>She saw how someone like Laura somebody (forgot her surname)
>could be pressured to quit her job just because she claims to be
>conservative, while a badmouth like Eminem received nothing of the brickbats Laura had.

I believe there is a fallacy in argumentation in this one. One is comparing how a conservative person is forced to quit a job to Eminem who is a rap singer/artist? (am not really a fan?). One is comparing apples to oranges. As for Eminem, freedom of speech applies for everyone. Sometimes, people say ugly things. And damn, I'm forced to defend their right to say it.


>Then there's the Rodney King case and the LA riots, a
>simple case that devolved into racism and ethnic violence,
>no thanks to the spin given by the local media.

Heh. Race in America is never simple. The history of slavery and the amnesia which many people who happen to be white have about slavery and the forced integration of the South is something that requires books. Let's look at a simple case of conservative thought process. When the South was forced to integrate it's schools in the 1960's due to the Civil Rights Law passed by congress and Pres Johnson, the state of South Carolina added the confederate flag symbol as a sign of protest. (By the way, before integration, white children went to different schools than black children. Actually, the practice was called segregation: separate but equal. Unfortunately, the black schools were not very equal to the white schools.)

The confederate flag was the one used by the Southern states during the Civil War. Over time, it has become a symbol of white supremacy and oppression of black people to many minds. The people of South Carolina put a symbol of oppression in the sate flag. Freedom of expression? Sure. But what would be something similar? I would put forth the idea that this would be akin to putting the swastika on a state flag in Germany. (I'm reaching a little bit when doing that because I am equating the Holocaust with slavery, but I would think that the overall cost in human lives is something that is so similar that I am willing to risk my name on it.)

Normal people would think that having a symbol that is very divisive is a bad idea. Nope, not the people in the South, specifically South Carolina. They call it their culture. Fine. What has happened is that some African-Americans have asked for a boycott of South Carolina because of the state's insistence on continuing the use of the confederate symbol. If this does not sound familiar, one of the reasons that the South was forced to integrate was that the blacks started boycotts of restaurants, buses, and other white owned businesses during the 1960's which caused said businesses to feel economic pain. A boycott of South Carolina by Hollywood would result in a lot of economic pain for that state.

The manipulation of information does not only happen with liberals. Al Franken's book "Lying Liars…" shows that there is no liberal bias. I have read the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Those newspapers are conservative.

What I have noticed is that conservatives tend to tell more lies. Then they cover it up with pathetic excuses.

By the way, the other blob to the equation of the Rodney King case was the fact that the white police officers were "Not guilty" in their trial. The trial was held in a city Simi Valley in Los Angeles that did not have too many black people. I believe that their jury did not have one black person in it. Now, is that a coincidence or is that racial prejudice? I always laugh when people complain about blacks crying racism and then I see whites practice it in front of everyone else. Come on, the world is not stupid. The riots began after the trial.

And since I'm on the roll. When the state deployed the soldiers from California's National Guard, the line was held at Beverly Hills. The message could be interepreted by someone like me to be "It's okay to riot in areas like Korea town and Watts because poor people live there. But if you go to white areas like Beverly Hills, you will be stopped."

Again, these are my opinions on life in the United States. It's not that simple.

>The novel and movie Bonfire of the Vanities tackled this theme.
>The latest example among these vicious disortions of truth is taht
>of Michael Jackson, whose child molestation case could receive the
>same racial discrimination spin. Don't you hate the very
> fact when news becomes PR! Bruce, in her book, exposes that
>such double standard in telling the truth can be traced to who's
>funding which org. So there.
>message have been removed]

I tend to believe that when Michael Jackson sleeps with children, he does not sexually molest them. I tend to believe from watching some biographies that he is trying to recapture his youth that was taken away by his fame.

Heheh. Some people believe that the district attorney for santa barbara has got something against Michael Jackson and that is why he is pursuing the case. I personally believe that the DA is so incompetent that he will not be able to prove the case. As for the racism charge, as a lawyer, it is in your client's interest to use all the cards that one has. Is it nasty and wrong? Sure! But America was builty by many, many billionares who did really nasty stuff. Are we going to change the system now that a black billionare can take advantage of the system? Wouldn't that be racism?

Expectorants: Pin@y Blog of the Day

Greetings to the aswangs, dwendes, tikbalangs and tiyanaks spattered around the globe. Some of you are working, some are unemployed, and some are on vacation. If you want to be entertained, go to Expectorants and cough up that phlegm that's been disturbing your breathing. I swear to you, it's almost as good as Vick's Vaporub. However, one note of caution. I don't completely agree with his viewpoints, but he does give opinions and in this world, opinions by a Pin@y is worth its weight in gold. And yes, I admit, if I grew up in the Philippines, I probably will think like him.

Political Correctness

This is something I wrote in response to my assertion that political correctness was from conservative think-tanks. I certainly would love to hear the blog entries of Barbara and the WilyPin@y and Leny on this topic.

~~~~

The first time I met the term political correctness was in the early 1990's. At that time, a prestigious private university (I believe Stanford or Harvard) decided to drop the prerequisite for a "Western Civilization" course/s. This led to a reaction from the media that the tenets of democracy were under attack. Many college students of color (blacks, asians and latinos) wanted to fulfill writing requirements studying literature written by non-white authors. After all, if you are a Filipino who grew up in the United States without knowing what your culture was all about, you would want to study said culture. Since studying Greek mythology and the great works of Europe did not once show a Filipino playing a major role, I can see where as a Filipino student one could feel left out or irrelevant. (For example, we can get into how shows like Friends are set in New York, yet you will not see more than 1 Filipino in the whole of New York.)

As I recall, the newspapers called the movement to drop western civilization as "political correctness" or bowing down to the influences of the feminist movement, gay movement, and minority movement. The papers made it appear that said movements were being forced upon all students in colleges. The way I see it, if you are a gay college student, you might want to read more about gay literature more than let's say the history of Rome.

I just did a search on google on political correctness and origins and a majority of the cited websites come from conservative writers. One interesting thing in the US is that the conservative movement has allied itself with universities such as the Hoover Institute in Stanford University. These institutes are funding scholars to write journal articles that support and advance the conservative movement.

Now, why the necessity for conservative think-tanks? It is estimated that around 2050, whites will become a minority in the United States. This of course has led to a backlash with respect to trying to define what an American culture is. Since the first Americans were Europeans, obviously, there is an impetus to define "American" as being white. And before the different movements that I have mentioned, that is precisely what was studied in the colleges. The gay movement and feminist movement have made many whites very uncomfortable and so there is now a push and a desire to redefine what is "American."
~~~~~

A google revealed this link and this link.

Choices

Six years has passed since my graduation from Berkeley's MCB Department. One year was spent learning what it would feel like to earn money. Two years was spent in post-doctoral training. Three years was spent learning about Quality practices in biotechnology.

While on the road, I was talking to the SO's sister who is also a research scientist at UCSF. She's doing cutting edge research, which is something that I thought was going to be my life when I graduated from Berkeley. One of the choices then was to do a post-doctoral fellowship in Alabama or in Chicago. In one of those twist of fates, I decided not to pursue a continuation of my research in cancer biology. Instead, I decided that I needed to get a job and stay in California.

That was also the time when I met the SO. After chasing some women who had massive personality problems, I finally found someone who was actually tall, intelligent and good-looking. Was I going to throw it all away and leave her just when I found her? Was I going to pursue my career? The answer was NO.

Sometimes though, I wonder what I could have done with the competition when it comes to science RO-1 grants. I believe that I could have competed with the best of them. I had written some proposals in my post-doctoral years in which the main criticism was not about the grant but as to the abilities of the laboratory to be able to support the grant. That was a pretty good assessment of my skills. Even now, experiments still come easily. If being a research scientist allowed you to make tons and tons of money, I probably would still try to go at it. But why do that when you can become a millionare by making your own business?

I realize that part of the attraction is the involvement of the ego. I wrote this grant which got me a half a million dollar grant. Part of the attraction is due to the competition against other labs. I proposed these scheme of experiments which show that my idea is correct. God, I am GREAT!

But then, part of the things that I have forgotten are the fears when it is grant time and you are on pins and needles because you are not sure that you got the grant. I remember interviewing for a post-doc in a lab where everyone was so arrogant because they had grants. The questions were pretty mean and nasty during my interview talk. I got "killed" because I was very open about my assessments of my project.

But what I remember also was that a graduate student was proposing a project and she was going to use PCR to detect mutations. Specifically, she was going to use primers to determine the presence or absence of mutations. I was aghast as to the lack of knowledge with respect to the possibility of a successful project. I knew immediately that that project was dead and with it the lab.

Later on, as a post-doc in another lab, I met one of the students who was in that lab. He told me that the lab failed to obtain a RO-1 grant the next year. I knew already that a non-renewal is inevitable if a post-doc and a grad student could get to a point where they could propose an inappropriate technology to detect mutations in genes. As a result of that loss of grant, that lab laid-off two technicians and lost all of the post-docs they had. This is what you face as a principal investigator.

Sometimes, I wish I were a professor at a major university. I like the prestige. But then again, for the shit you have to suffer through, it is really worth it? Is it really worth it to kowtow and amuse people who couldn't get grants themselves? Wouldn't it just be better to just make money, take care of the family and write books of poetry, and sell photographs?

The Chatelaine is a King

So, if you were to enter the Chatelaine's December 26, 2003 entry into the gender genie, the results are:

Female Score: 1133
Male Score: 2445
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

Does this mean that Achilles enjoys the Chatelaine's company because of the Chatelaine's gender-bending proclivities?

The SO suggested that I enter some entries from other people.

Apparently, Leny, Barbara, and the SO are all male. I also write in a male way, supposedly.