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It was a shocking state of affairs  when Toyota announced that it was recalling millions of cars due to a very glaring “uncontrollable acceleration” problem.  And even though recalls normally happen for almost any car manufacturer for all sorts of reasons, this particular recall proved devastating for Toyota as a company, making them lose not just billions of dollars, but customer trust and satisfaction.

So the question is, can Toyota recover from this fiasco?

These kinds of recalls are nothing new.  The Ford Explorer had a recall ten years ago because of a “tire blowout” controversy that involved Firestone tires.  During that time, the Ford Explorer was THE most popular SUV in the market, and they took a massive hit on marketing and customer satisfaction based on their tire problems. But they have since recovered from it, and the Ford Motor Company still exists today.  But I guess this pales in comparison to the massive appeal of Toyota as a company, and being recognized as the most reliable car maker in the world.  Such a massive recall on their bestselling cars can surely spell doom on paper.

Many people have attributed Toyota’s current woes to their all-too-rapid globalization and complacent quality control.  A car company with the size and reputation of Toyota can be susceptible to such oversights, and many think it was just a ticking time bomb, waiting for the most inopportune time to explode.

And explode it did, to the tune of billions of dollars and the loss of critical reputation that it has built for decades.  Doom-and-gloomers have marked it the end of the Japanese car maker’s dynasty, and even the most devout optimist sees problems down the road for Toyota.  But is it really over for Toyota?  Is it over for the car company that has gained the reputation of being the best built cars in the world, with an old slogan even saying “I love what you do for me”?

And to pour more gasoline in the fire, some people have even entrusted upon themselves to take advantage of Toyota’s woes.  Even though Camrys and Corollas were the hardest hit by the recalls, we have people claiming that “insert-Toyota-model-here” is also experiencing problems.  But it’s just human nature.  Even some of the most common reasons for accidents, driver error, are being overlooked because people now have an alibi, a reliable scapegoat as to why they are getting into accidents while in their Toyota-made cars.  I’m not saying that Toyota bears no fault, I’m just saying that when the building is burning, expect the looters to congregate and converge in full force…

Now, I have always been a cynic, but I am thinking that it’s not all as bad as the doom-sayers tell it to be.  Granted, some of the best lessons are learned the hard way, and Toyota is learning it now in the hardest and costliest way possible.  Aside from the mandatory head-rolling that should’ve taken place, Toyota has to re-study its business philosophy.  Being an 800-pound gorilla means you have to be careful where you walk, because you have a lot more people to step on.  A little soul-searching can do a lot of good, and remembering how they got there can do wonders on where they need to go.

It is a known fact that, no matter how good you do, or how reliable you are, or how much you have brought happiness to everyone, one or two mistakes down the road can wipe out all the good will you have earned and strove for.  It is time to lick the corporate wounds, and limp along to the road of recovery.  It may take a long time, but hey, Toyota didn’t become the best car manufacturer in the world overnight.

Toyota is already trying to regain their customers’ good will by rolling out financial incentives.  They have been giving out faux apologies in their recent commercials and thanking their customers for sticking by them.  But this is just the start.  They need to do more.  And they can start by making sure that every car they make from now on is a masterpiece, from braces and bolts to plugs and pistons.  They should go back to the Toyota Way, specifically under the headings of “Respect for People” and “Continuous Improvement.”   It’s a long, hard climb back to the top, but Toyota cannot do it by dwelling on their mistakes.

And most of all, Toyota should follow its own, timeless slogan.  Moving forward.

Technorati: acceleration, forward, moving, recall, toyota

I hate the 500 word limit.

So what if it promotes brevity and conciseness of thought?  Not everything can be encapsulated into this stifling limitation.  How much can you really fit into 500 words if you have a lot of things between your ears that you want unleashed upon your captive reading public?  Does this mean that those with a penchant for verbal diarrhea will have to conform to this puritanical law of anal-retentive, number-crunching, grammar elitists?

I dread the 500 word limit.

I know I’m guilty in this blog of spewing words with reckless abandon, the same way a sewer drain unloads its deadly cargo everyday.  When I was a little Pinoy boy with limited grasp of language, I dreaded writing classes.  I always wished that one paragraph, or even one sentence, was enough. It was neither laziness nor ignorance, but rather, the inability to articulate what I wanted to say onto a written medium.  But as I progressed through grade school, and proceeded to the secondary academic circus, I learned how to write more than just a title and a cacophony of jumbled randomness.  Upon reaching that savage  jungle we know as “college,” I was a virtual writing machine.  I loved writing almost as much as I loved reading.  Whenever someone imposed limits on how much I can write, I flipped the literary middle finger by writing twice as much.  Sometimes my figurative protest was heeded, but mostly I received a reprimand, or a demand for a re-write.  All because I surpassed the word limit.

I am confused by the 500 word limit.

So why the 500 word limit, really?  Why not a 755 word limit that doesn’t count the swear words?  What strictly counts as a word, anyway?  Are antecedents, conjunctions and simple prepositions counted as words? Is an acronym, or an abbreviation, or even a “forced” contraction (i.e. ’twas, ’twasn’t, etc)  counted as a word?  Is the number “500″ even considered a word?  If not, can I get away with writing a lot of numbers to offset the 500 word limit?  If I write out the value of Pi, is that considered a work of literature to rival Tolstoy’s War and Peace? Come to think of it, if I spelled S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G out, is each letter counted as a word?  Worse yet, is punctuation counted as a “word,” too???!!!!…

And what…

about…

paragraph breaks

?

I laugh at the 500 word limit.

It may be a necessary evil in order to prevent meaningless ramblings, or to make sure your article fits canvas space, but I snicker at it.  I am amused beyond comprehension.  The sheer audacity of the powers that be to LIMIT what I can write, just so it’ll fit a predesignated column space, or maybe because the attention span of the proposed reader is as focused as a flying plastic cup in the middle of a busy freeway, staggers me.  But I guess, in the end, so be it…

This blog entry meets the 500 word limit…  asshole.

This blog entry meets the 500 word limit

Technorati: 500, limit, word

Upon revisiting my weblog archives, I just discovered that I did not have an entry pertaining to Thanksgiving.  I mean, I had ones about Christmas and New Year’s, I had ones about Fourth of July and ‘Speak like a Pirate’ day, but not Thanksgiving.  So this is gonna be the FIRST Thanksgiving weblog entry I’m gonna make…

Being born and raised in the Philippines, celebrating Thanksgiving was an alien notion to me when I first came here.  I mean, how does a Filipino celebrate Thanksgiving Day, anyway?  Is it like what we normally do with any of the other western holidays – imitate the Westerners?  Do we celebrate it our own way? (i.e. instead of slaughtering a turkey, we slaughter a fattened pig… although if you’re Filipino, you know that you don’t need a holiday as an excuse to serve a roasted pig…)

* * * * *

Thanksgiving is such an “exclusively historical” holiday that I don’t know how we are meant to celebrate it if you weren’t born or raised as an American.   For those who haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving in America, they treat it here as a bigger deal than Christmas or even New Year’s.  In the Philippines, families travel long distances and get together with their loved ones usually on the eve of Christmas or New Year (called the noche buena and media noche, respectively).  Here, they do all that on Thanksgiving.  Families travel out of state, or relatives visit from out of state.  It’s a very big deal here, maybe because it’s one of those few holidays that are uniquely American, like the Fourth of July (Thanksgiving in Canada doesn’t count… then again, when did “anything” in Canada count in the USA? Hehehe, just kidding!)

But as a Filipino, what have we got to be thankful for?  A country that hates to be called a third-world nation but exudes the impression of being worse?  A gang of politicians who squabble over the leftovers of the higher dogs, and instead of planning to save the economy, they are intent on saving themselves?  A country that has been the whipping boy of several super typhoons and, with the help of our slacking government, not only unable to endure the onslaught, but also presents a doubtful outlook on recovery?   An entertainment industry that has been riddled with exploitation and mediocrity, where the best “game shows” are the ones with the best dancers with the skimpiest clothes?  A nation so laughably clueless that actors/cagers/singers-turned-politicians are almost guaranteed to win elections versus the knowledgeable and the experienced?  A nation in so much political turmoil, that it is now said to be the most dangerous nation for journalists after the Maguindanao Massacre of November 23?

What do we have to be thankful for?  Fortunately, there are some.

Despite all the bad things that have happened to the country, we still see some ray of hope in those small little corners that have been blocked by the sensationalized news and events.  We can be thankful that the Philippines is still alive and kicking after being manhandled by super typhoons.  We can be thankful that we have modern heroes rising from the rubble, battle-hardened warriors prevailing against all odds, ordinary people achieving extraordinary things.  We have the Ariel Pinedas, the Manny Pacquiaos, and now Efren Peñaflorida, a simple Filipino who educated children, not from the classroom, but from his “pushcart”.  He was named CNN Hero of the Year for 2009, no doubt a shining beacon for Filipinos around the world.  So what if he can’t box or can’t sing? (Arnel Pineda can’t do the former, and Manny Pacquiao for sure can’t do the latter, no matter how hard he tries…)  We can be thankful that Filipinos are still “on the map” per se, not relegated to the background as just denizens of another third world country…

There are rare times when I am just disgusted to be a Filipino, with all the stereotypes associated with us and all the shady deeds we have done.  But today, on Thanksgiving Day here in Los Angeles, California – almost four thousand miles away from the country of my birth – I can say that, as a Filipino, I am proud that I have a lot to be thankful for.

* * * * *

Today also happens to be my youngest brother’s birthday.  Rodell is currently in New York, so I’m not obligated to give him a gift (hehehe).  But he is one of those Filipinos we should be proud of, as well.  He has achieved what very few Filipinos have done – break into the music scene that is dominated by white people.  If you’re a Filipino, and you get a question asking how many Pinoy singers you know at the top of your head, you can probably name a hundred.  But if I ask you how many Pinoy OPERA SINGERS you know, how many can you name?

Exactly.

I give this toast to my brother, Rodell Aure Rosel, who celebrates his birthday today, and for being the first male Filipino singer to perform at the famed Metropolitan Opera House in New York.  He is yet another Filipino hero that we can proudly boast about.  Sure, Filipinos are known as great singers, but try breaking into the world dominated by Italians, French, Germans, Russians, Americans, etc.  That’s like the Jamaican bob-sled team… only better…

So, Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you find something to be thankful about, even if you’re as cynical as I am…

Technorati: 2009, thanksgiving

From The West Wing, Season 3, Episode 13 (The Two Bartlets), as said by Toby  Ziegler…

* * * * *

“Quando dio, ole castigarci ci manda, quello che desideriamo.”
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

* * * * *

Technorati: quotes, the, west, wing

From The West Wing, Season 2, Episode 22 (Two Cathedrals), as said by President Bartlett while he’s walking to the altar, alone, inside the empty cathedral during the funeral… he was speaking to God…

* * * * *

You’re a son of a bitch, you know that?

She bought her first new car and you hit her with a drunk driver. What, was that supposed to be funny?

“You can’t conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God,” says Graham Greene.  I don’t know whose ass he was kissing there ’cause I think you’re just vindictive. What was Josh Lyman? A warning shot? That was my son. What did I ever do to yours but praise his glory and praise his name?

There’s a tropical storm that’s gaining speed and power. They say we haven’t had a storm this bad since you took out that tender ship of mine in the north Atlantic last year… 68 crew.  You know what a tender ship does?  Fixes the other ships.  Doesn’t even carry guns.  Just goes around, fixes the other ships and delivers that mail.  That’s all it can do.

Gratias tibi ago, domine. Yes, I lied.  It was a sin.  I’ve committed many sins.  Have I displeased you, you feckless thug?   3.8 million new jobs, that wasn’t good?  Bailed out Mexico, increased foreign trade, 30 million new acres of land for conservation, put Mendoza on the bench, we’re not fighting a war, I’ve raised three children…

That’s not enough to buy me out of the doghouse?

Haec credam a deo pio? A deo iusto? A deo scito?
Cruciatus in crucem!
Tuus in terra servus nuntius fui officium perfeci.
Cruciatus in crucem.  Eas in crucem!

Click to translate »

* * * * *

(Bartlet turns away in anger. He descends to the lower sanctuary and lights a cigarette. He takes a single puff, drops the butt to the floor, and grinds it defiantly with his shoe…)

* * * * *

Technorati: 22, bartlett, book, cathedrals, dolores, episode, funeral, job, landingham, of, president, quotes, season, two, west, wing

Okay, so I went to Target with Terrie yesterday and after about an hour of browsing around, I picked up two things that I could’ve gotten elsewhere – a big bag of Sun Chips (French Onion), and the latest book in the Wheel of Time saga, The Gathering Storm.

I’ve known about the book’s impending release for a few months now, but when it was finally released last week, I had a somewhat lukewarm enthusiasm to run out to the nearest bookstore and buy it.  This was a far cry from several years ago, when I was even waiting for the bookstore to open so I can be one of the first to read it.  A lot of it stems from the way the series has progressed in the last three to four books.  The pace had slowed down to a crawl, there were more characters being introduced that it almost rivalled War and Peace, and the “beginning of the end” was nowhere in sight.  While I appreciate long, rich tales like The Lord of the Rings, The Sword of Truth and The Dark Tower series, I somehow felt that more than ten books and almost twenty years of telling that single story is really pushing it…  

* * * * *

The Eye of the World

I started reading The Wheel of Time in my second year of college in the Philippines (1992), and back then I had to take a long, hard commute to National Bookstore in Baclaran, which was the closest bookstore that carried fantasy books.  Back then I was deeply immersed in the works of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Dan Simmons and Brian Lumley (to name a few), and the only “hard” fantasy fiction I have encountered was Tolkien’s Lord the Rings and Joel Rosenberg’s Sleeping Dragon.  Being someone who liked tales that spanned more than one book, I quickly took notice of a group of paperbacks at the bottom of the fantasy/horror shelf that had very interesting cover art. 

The three books that I saw were The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, and The Dragon Reborn – the first three books of the Wheel of Time series, written by someone called Robert Jordan.  Thinking that it was a trilogy a’la LoTR, I read the synopsis at the back, found it interesting, and quickly grabbed those three books and headed for the cashier.  When I got back to my dormitory in Cavite more than two hours later, just in time for dinner, I wolfed down my “college dinner”, quickly nabbed the first book, lay down my bed, and started reading… and reading… and I continued to read until I saw that the clock on the wall was telling me it was already 3am in the morning.  So I guess it would be an understatement to say that I was hooked – like a bad habit.

Suffice to say, I finished all three books in less than a week, and I had mixed feelings of fear and anticipation when I discovered that it was not really a trilogy, but instead the beginning of what would be a long, arduous journey into a fantasy world where magic, love, history, politics and war are the norm.  I waited later that year for the fourth one to come out, The Shadow Rising, and the following year, I was at the bookstore twice a week checking if the fifth book, The Fires of Heaven, is out on paperback yet…

(You would have to understand that I almost never bought hardcover books in college, mostly because [a] the bookstore only had fantasy fiction available on paperback and [b] even if they were available, I would have to use up a couple day’s worth of my measly college allowance just to be able to afford it… and I also had no way of knowing when a book I wanted to read will be coming out, coz there were no newsletters, and there was no Internet.)

By the time I graduated college in 1996, I had added Lord of Chaos to my collection, racking up the total to six WoT books in my ever-increasing shelf of fantasy/horror fiction (which included all, yes, ALL of Stephen King’s novels and story collections, about six of Clive Barker’s, and a whole cacophony of other books written by fiction writers that are too many (and some, too obscure) to mention.  Lord of Chaos is still one of my favorite WoT books, because that was when all hell started breaking loose, and that’s when the shit started hitting the fan.

And that was also the time when Robert Jordan’s “one-book-a-year” rule started flying out the window…

* * * * *

A Crown of Swords

When I worked for the Philippine Daily Inquirer in mid-1996, I was lucky to find out that there was a specialty bookstore just a couple miles from work.  And lo and behold, in one of the shelves, there was a hardcover book with the familiar cover art style, and it said A Crown of Swords.  That seventh book was the first fantasy hardcover book I ever bought, and since I was already working, I can now afford it… barely.  And when the paperback came out later that year, I also bought it, coz that hardcover book didn’t fit very well with the whole army of paperbacks it was bookending.

I moved to the United States the following year, and in 1998, A Path of Daggers, the eighth book, came out.  And bookstores in California were like restaurants in the Philippines – they were everywhere.  So I easily found the hardcover and continued reading about the lives of Rand Al’Thor, Perrin Aybara, Mat Cauthon, and the rest of the characters.  And that’s when I noticed the drastic change in pace… the story was starting to really slow down, and by the time I bought the ninth book, A Winter’s Heart, I realized that either Robert Jordan is at the mercy of his greedy publishers, or he doesn’t know how he’s gonna end his story and get out of the hundreds of holes he dug for himself.  Even though there were a series of huge events near the end of the book, it was almost not enough to compensate for the “drudgery” that peppered 90% of it.

But I continued reading, because like everyone else who still followed the series, I wanted to know how it’s gonna end.  I actually bought A Winter’s Heart during a book signing in a fantasy bookstore in Santa Monica, along with the first book so I can have Mister Jordan sign it for me.  He and his wife were sitting behind a long table, signing books and talking with the many fans who attended the event (the line was so long that it was threatening to round the whole block where that bookstore was).

When it was my turn, I asked Mister Jordan to sign my two books, and then I asked him the question that he has probably heard a thousand times already:  ”Mister Jordan, when will we see the end?”

He smiled, and his wife laughed beside him.  After signing my books, he shook my hand and said, “I don’t know, but it will…”

* * * * *

The snail-like pace of The Wheel of Time series didn’t improve with the 2003 release of the tenth book, Crossroads of Twilight.  For the first time since I started reading The Wheel of Time, I was getting bored, annoyed and indifferent to the story.  I wanted it to end right then and there.  I was sick of reading about the PMS-like outbursts of the Aes Sedai, the dozens of subplots spanning dozens of chapters, and the lack of focus on the main protagonist himself, Rand Al’Thor.  I was compelled to skip chapters, skim through dialogues and sometimes peek at the end.  It was worse than pulling teeth or watching paint dry.  Robert Jordan seemed lost, and it showed in his story.

(Heck, he even wrote a prequel, A New Spring.  As if he isn’t busy enough already with the present, existing ones…)

I felt that there needed to be a fresh approach to the story, coz it appeared to me that Mister Jordan waded in too deep and was having a hard time swimming back, hence he was too busy tying off subplots instead of resolving the main plot itself.  And introducing NEW subplots didn’t help, either.  This was why, when I bought the eleventh book, Knife of Dreams, I didn’t get past the first three chapters.

Yeah, for the first time, I couldn’t finish a Wheel of Time book.  It was just too convoluted for me.  So I sat there, an unfinished hardcover on my lap, wondering when, or if, I should read it again.  I vowed that it was gonna be the last WoT book I’ll buy and read if the trend continues.

And then, last year, Robert Jordan died… and when I read the news, I can almost hear a million voices suddenly crying out in frustration and resignation, and suddenly silenced…

* * * * *

The Gathering Storm

So how do you finish a story that was nowhere near to being finished after its writer dies?  You either write off the series as one of the most colossal disappointments in fantasy literature, or you get a new writer to continue it.

Robert Jordan’s widow chose the latter, entrusting the continuation to a little-heard writer named Brandon Sanderson.  And the poor guy is now thrust into the shoulders of the 800-pound gorilla – how do you finish a story that even the original writer doesn’t want to finish?  Luckily, Jordan left behind some notes on his thoughts about how the story should end, a compilation named “A Memory of Light”, and from this resource, Mister Sanderson began the craft the beginning of the end… at long last.  The fresh approach has finally arrived, albeit under inopportune circumstances.

Because of the sheer size of the reference material, the last book was split into three, with the first one being named The Gathering Storm, the second one tentatively named Towers of Midnight, and the last one tentatively named A Memory of Light – all scheduled to be released one year after the other.  Like the old times.

(Kinda funny that most disgruntled fans have said that the world would end sooner than the Wheel of Time saga…  since the last book is slated for a 2011 release, it would beat the doomsayers’ predictions.  That is, if you believe the world would end on 2012…)

* * * * *

So ultimately, Tarmon Gaidon, the final battle, will commence and end in three books.  Three last books that I’ll be reading with the same excitement that I had when I read the first three books in the series, almost thirteen years ago.  My experience with The Wheel of Time will (appropriately) come full circle. ..

So, as I hold The Gathering Storm in my hand, I am filled with excitement and anxiety.  The longest story I have ever read will finally come to an end two years from now.  The satisfaction and contentment I had after I finished Stephen King’s last Dark Tower book, or the anti-climax I experienced when I finished the last book of the Sword of Truth series, will be brought to bear on the last three books of Robert Jordan’s magnum opus…

The storm is finally gathering, and I can’t wait till it’s finally done…

* * * * *

Technorati: book, brandon, eye, gathering, jordan, light, of, robert, sanderson, storm, terrie, the, time, twelve, wheel, world

Those parents are stupid…  

Last week, I can’t really relate to the thousands of people who watched that stupid little balloon chase in Colorado.  The only time I actually saw the thing was when I turned on the TV and saw a “breaking news” trailer about a giant runaway balloon that supposedly had a six-year-old boy aboard. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw it was “Boy, those kid’s parents are stupid for not watching their kid…”  But I didn’t feel the same burning need that thousands of Americans felt to continue watching it and closely follow the supposed “rescue mission” to save the little boy.

The fact that the balloon was shaped like a UFO even made me chuckle for a second… talk about an abduction, huh?  Good thing I didn’t say that out loud, otherwise I’d be accused of insensitivity to the plight of the hapless parents who were supposedly watching in terror as their kid is being flown for several miles, at an altitude of seven thousand feet…  all alone… and afraid…  Besides, the police “confirmed” the story, so it HAD to be true, right?

Anyway, later that day, I heard from some friends that the balloon had already landed, but they didn’t find the boy inside.  They said the boy might have fallen from the balloon during the journey.   The first thing that came to my mind was “Boy, that’s gonna be a helluva search through miles and miles of desert and farmland.”  Did I worry that the boy might have gone SPLAT somewhere, like Wile E. Coyote?  Of course I did, but the fact that I didn’t follow the news made me a bit desensitized to whatever might have happened.  And I still kept thinking, “Boy, those kid’s parents are stupid, and now they might get charged with negligence or worse, maybe criminally negligent manslaughter.  

But of course, as we already all know, the “balloon boy” was actually hiding inside a box in their garage.  And thanks to a slip-up, he pretty much incriminated his parents into what is being suspected as a hoax… to promote a reality TV show that his parents wanted to appear in!  I was like “WTF?!”

Yes folks, we’ve been had.  It was like a decent TV drama with a really, REALLY bad cop-out ending.  It was like the story of Job in the Bible, only with God appearing in the end and saying “just kidding!”  It was like the Blaire Witch Project, only worse and with less snot.  It was like what The Godfather would’ve been if Sonny Corleone suddenly got up from under the bloody white sheets and said “Hah, they thought they got me, but I’m just faking it!  And Michael, I am your father!”

* * * * *

Those parents are stupid…

It was really pretty embarrassing, for the media outlets that covered it, and most especially the police and the search teams that went through all that effort to run after a stupid-looking, UFO-wannabe, mylar balloon.  And it was also embarrassing for those who followed the story that entire day, praying that things would work out, hoping that the boy is safe, and even showing concern for the poor, stupid parents that allegedly let this happen.  We’ve all been had, folks.  I won’t do a “hindsight is 20/20″ thing here and claim that I knew everything was fishy from the get-go.  I’ve been had, too.  Everyone has been had.

Except for the parents, who got free publicity, and are probably one step closer to getting some dumb, bleeding-heart media company to give them the reality show they want.   Something called “Psyience Detectives” or some shit…  hell, I just heard today that the father of the boy even has a song to sweeten the deal with the networks…

The cynic in me can rejoice at how outrageous this whole spectacle can be, but deep down I feel sad for the state of the American psyche (or maybe the world’s psyche – we never know what other hoaxes are flying out in other parts of the world… we can still remember that big one about “weapons of mass destruction,” so who knows if there are more…).  You can probably say “hey, you’re not born in America, how can you possibly relate?”  You may have a point – I grew up surrounded by third world media where game shows are strip shows in disguise… where children are indirectly exploited for the cute laughs… where disabled people are exploited for the cheap laughs… where media has become so much a part of people that in order for you to be voted by Filipinos, you don’t need to be good at politics – you just need to be a basketball star, a singer or an actor in order to have a chance…

What I’m really saying here is that American mass media is still the best of its kind in the world, and what makes it so good is also what makes it so amusingly horrid.  I see a downward spiral in terms of quality, and every media outlet would rather cover a spectacle and a controversy, rather than keeping its focus on what really matters – reporting the facts.  This is why I watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart more than CNN – I actually get to know the relevant things that are happening in the country, in 30 minutes, rather than spending hours upon hours watching that silver UFO zipping past the skies, and news anchors all piping worst-case scenarios…

But in the end, it all boils down to the people.  The mass media won’t report it if they know people won’t watch it.  And we DO like watching these things.  Fuck the war in Afghanistan, gimme Balloon Baby…  No matter how much we abhor what the kid’s parents did to deceive the American public, I am sure many of us will tune in once that reality TV show called “Psyience Detectives” comes on network television… I’m sure that when Oprah, Maury or even Geraldo puts the Heenes on their show, we will be watching in droves – like the damn 405 freeway when there’s an accident.  We like to see something bad happen.  We relish in it. And we’ll believe anything, as long as it’s very bad and it’s not happening to us…

* * * * *

Those parents are stupid, but I think we, the people, are stupider…

A friend of mine once reiterated a phrase that I’m gonna end this entry with… Initially, I thought it was a ludicrous statement, thinking it can’t be that bad.  But after the past years of Octomom news and that fiasco with the John and Kate thing, I’m almost in full agreement.  I think he got that phrase from one of my favorite book series, The Sword of Truth.  It was the Wizard’s First Rule, and it states:

“People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it’s true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.”
- Wizard’s First Rule, Chapter 36

Technorati: baby, balloon, detective, falcon, fraud, heene, hoax, psyience, richard, stupid

… again…

It’s kinda weird finding yourself in the same place you started… more than ten years ago, I planted a little tree in a tiny corner in cyberspace and called it “Pinoy Angst in America”, thanks to the then-fledgeling little service called Blogger.Com.  As you can probably tell by the name, I was not the happiest person on the planet during the time.  It was just over a year since I moved to America for good (1998), and I was a stranger in a strange land, like that Heinlein book… all the people I knew, all the people I loved, and all the things I liked were left in that tropical conglomeration of islands we all know as the Philippines, and I was depressed like you can’t believe.  But instead of experimenting on the sharpest object I can take near my wrist, or delving into a Howard Hughes style seclusion and peeing into that two-liter diet coke bottle I always had in my room, I sought an alternative type of release.  Being the Leo that I am, I registered a domain after my nickname and started putting my cynicism, boredom and depression into words… 

Thus “Pinoy Angst in America” was born, and in the first couple of months, I treated it as some sort of morbid diary – not full of suicidal thoughts or anything, but rather a cacophony of little demons that I had in my head that sought release.  And release them I did, and I am sure that in the first two months I was the only person reading my own weblog (yeah, I still call it “weblog” and not the shortened “blog” word we all use nowadays, the same way I still type http:// when I wanna visit a site).  Well, okay, a couple or more other people might have been reading it too – my girlfriend during that time, and a couple of my cousins.  But the point is, I didn’t promote it, didn’t mention it, and didn’t even take it too seriously.  It is, after all, an exercise in narcissism; a self-absorbed act of enjoying the sound of one’s own voice (or in this case, the sight of one’s own words).  I was writing it for myself, and for those who are interested in knowing me, and how much I hated being in America…

Suffice to say, that all changed when the years lost the “1″ and started with a “2″ … I have adjusted to (prolonged) life in the States.  I became “institutionalized” to the ways of America, so to speak. And my demeanor also changed as a result.  My long dormant dry humor found its voice again, my sarcasm gained more bite, and my cynicism lost its Filipino accent… my weblog changed from “Pinoy Angst in America” into something silly like “Astigmachism”, which was the ultimate exercise in shameless narcissism (for those who are wondering, it stands for “Astig na, Macho pa” which, for the Tagalog challenged readers, means “Wickedly cool with a great body to boot”… neither is true, of course, but then again, not everything you read on the Internet is necessarily an epitomy of veracity, either…

* * * * *

So anyway, “Astigmachism” took on a life of its own.  It started as a weblog on Friendster, then migrated to Multiply, before settling in its own patch of cyber-land independently.  And I wrote whatever was on my mind – music, movies, politics, TV shows, sports, cartoons, pornography, and other random musings.  My range of topics ranged from dissecting international reaction to 9/11, to ranting about stupid drivers using cellphones in the freeway, to recounting my experience when I sneezed and was feeling myself up in front of a pretty lady coz I was frantically making sure the booger I just expelled wasn’t plastered in front of my shirt…

But anyway (again), that went on for a few years, until a series of unfortunate events happened less than three years ago, one after the other.  I’m not gonna bore you with the details (that is, if you’re not already bored enough reading through this diatribe), but it involved radical changes to almost everything – employment, lifestyle, and lovelife.  Suffice to say, posting things in my weblog was the least of my concerns.

So I stopped writing… and stayed away from the blogosphere for almost three years, because I felt I had run out of things to write… no wait, that’s not it… I lost my “will” to write, and for someone who loves writing as much as I do, that was like a death knell, the last proverbial nail in the coffin… or so I thought.

* * * * *

Wait a minute, you’re probably wondering why I’m writing all this stuff, when I’m supposed to be writing about something funny.  Something interesting.  Something that will make it worth your while.  I’m gonna be honest with ya – the first post in any blog is considered a “throw-away” entry, something that probably won’t be read by anyone except myself and a few search spiders.  So this is where I am supposed to write about what this weblog is all about.  What you can expect to read, and possibly make you come back and read it again.  And of course, the irony is, since very few people will probably read this entry, it doesn’t really matter what I write.  

Well, let’s just say that if/when I get famous (and I’m crossing my fingers so hard here, it’s almost cramping), and people start asking me how I got into blogging, I can always give them a link to this entry, instead of telling them “Well, sit down sonny, grab a beer and some chips, and let me tell you a story that took place a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

Sure, I can spend my time recounting all the notable entries I had, all the wonderful feedback I got, and all the good things I learned and all the bad things I did… hell, I can even link an article written about me (oh wait, I just did, hehe), but that’ll take too much virtual real estate, and I am sure you would agree that this first entry is turning into the first chapter of War and Peace…

Besides, I didn’t import my old webblog database.  It was a hard decision to make, but I decided to start from scratch.  What is present is the future, and what is past is prologue… and like any other writer, I’m one of those who groan at the sight of my early written attempts.  Have you ever picked up an old picture of yourself – young, hairless, naked, crying, with snot gushing down your flat nose and probably eating your own feces, too – and smiled in nostalgic glee?  No, I didn’t think so either…

* * * * *

So WHY did I revive this weblog?  I can think up a very convoluted answer, and use really big words to drown you and either (a) make you think I am an awesome writer, or (b) make you think that I’m so full of shit that you can’t tell if I’m breathing or farting.  But the answered can be summed up in one word – serendipitious enlightenment.  Okay, so maybe that’s two words, but the point I want to make is that things change, and people change.  After two months of self-discovery in a little state called New Mexico, I came back with enough insight to know that I, as a person, suck.  And I hate being sucky.  And in order not to be sucky, I have to stop being sucky.  And that meant I had to change… not overnight, but gradually.  And to do that, I have to examine my thoughts, and what better way to do that than to read about them, in my own words.

That doesn’t mean I won’t be an asshole from time to time… there are just some things that take a lot more time (and effort) to change

James Michener once said, “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.”  In order to rewrite something, it has to be written down first.  And that’s what I will be doing.  This is not the depressing “Pinoy Angst in America”, nor is it the narcissistic “Astigmachism” project.  This is just me, just TOLITZ.COM … I have rediscovered my love for writing, and I hope that in the process, I will rediscover my love for everything…

Thank you for sticking around and reading, and I hope you join me once again when I give you something more to read…

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.”
~Richard Wright,American Hunger, 1977

Technorati: america, angst, astigmachism, blog, pinoy, rosel, tolitz

From The West Wing, Season 1, Episode 14 (Take this Sabbath Day), as told by Father Thomas Cavanaugh…

* * * * *

There was a man that lived by the river.

He heard a radio report that the river was going to rush up and flood the town, and that all the residents should evacuate their homes.  But the man said, “I’m religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.”

The waters rose up. A guy in a row boat came along and he shouted, “Hey, hey you! You in there. The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety.” 
But the man shouted back, “I’m religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.”

A helicopter was hovering overhead. And a guy with a megaphone shouted, “Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and I’ll take you to safety.”
But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that God loved him and that God will take him to safety.

Well… the man drowned.
And standing at the gates of St. Peter, he demanded an audience with God…

“Lord,” he said, “I’m a religious man, I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?”

God said, “I sent you a radio report, a helicopter, and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?!”

From The West Wing, Season 2, Episode 10 (Noël), as told by Leo McGarry…

* * * * *

This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole.

The walls are so steep he can’t get out.

A Doctor passes by and the guy shouts up “Hey, can you help me out?”
The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down the hole and moves on…

Then a Priest comes along and the guy shouts up, “Father! I’m down in this hole. Can you help me out?”
The Priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on…

Then a friend walks by.
Our guy shouts, “Hey Joe! It’s me. Can you help me out?”
And the friend jumps in the hole.
Our guy says “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here!”
The friend says “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out…”