Archive for the ‘blogs’ Category
katrina, sarah, facebook
katrina a.k.a. radikalchick is blogging again, hurray! check out her post on randy and sarah (mabuhay, vic agustin!) and another on the rich-in-black shopping for art (how rich talaga) and another on the latest harry potter flick (tears for dumbledore).
and to her dear friends and allies (you know who you are) who are upset dismayed aghast that she has deactivated her facebook account, what can i say, other than to assure you that she’s okay, she’s coping, she’s functioning, she’s fine, as fine as one can be, given what she’s been through and continues to go through.
it’s a different world, literally and figuratively, that she’s moving around these days, and facebook was all about u.p. and ateneo, reminder of a past life that’s over for now.
i confess, i was surprised, but i was glad (seemed to me way overdue pa nga) even if i sorta miss facebook, haha. she had given me her password so i could check it out once in a while. indeed, occasionally, i found something worth lifting and quoting, even found some old friends (also from a past life) who may have befriended her to let me know they’re still alive.
but in the last few months katrina had been barely status-ing, really, and whenever she did, it said very little about her true status anyway. her blog is more telling, i would think.
fair warning though: she’s seriously considering a change of SIM. now that would be radikal!
bookbug blues
i could be more upset about the book tax. i am a bookbug, after all. i buy imported and local fiction and non-fiction regularly, mostly imported mostly english, and i read them all as a matter of pleasure, of study, sometimes of survival. do i really not mind paying more?
i mind, of course. times are hard, money is tight. maybe it’s just mercury being retrograde, i’ve been through this before, the post office has been taxing our mail-order books for some years now, and talaga i know i should could be angrier but i just can’t get beyond a hay-naku sabay buntong-hininga.
kumbaga sa “straw that broke the camel’s back” this is not it, this is far from it. because a tax on imported books simply is too lightweight and too burgis an issue to get me as mad as i already am about the scandalizingly high cost of basic goods and services e.g. food, shelter, clothing, utilities, medicines, and schooling. “non-educational” books simply don’t belong in the same category.
nonetheless i wish robin hemley and manolo and jessica and teddyboy and the blogosphere success in the campaign to jolt the government back to its senses and back to full compliance with the florence agreement. until then, books getting more expensive just means i’ll be buying less. maybe i’ll even stop going to bookstores, as a matter of protest, as 1read2 suggests:
… the government as represented by the Department of Finance and Customs Bureau has made its stand on the Book Tax and Duty. “Sue us” seems to be the battle cry: A very arrogant one at that.
…Hopefully, someone does sue them but in the meantime what to do?
Given that it seems that the bookstores and booksellers are somewhat hesitant to challenge this ruling. Perhaps it would be time to do something against this taxation.
Do not buy books that have duties imposed. Do not buy it. Book readers and book collectors are the customers of this industry. And they make it prosper and if the industry cannot defend itself from unjust and illegal taxes it might be the time to not buy.
Books can be downloaded from the Net . Read and even share the ebook with a friend or fellow book reader.
…Refuse to pay the taxman his unjust taxes
Books can be gained in several ways and not all of them involves buying. No I am not referring to stealing. Borrow from the library or share a book with a friend.
Establish book clubs with libraries…
meanwhile as le flaneur reminds in his comment to mlq3 there’s the 2010 elections coming. how about if we not vote for candidates who support the book tax. or, to be positive. how about if we campaign and vote for candidates who would rescind the book tax (other things being equal ;)
also meanwhile, there’s always booksale. i don’t mind secondhand books. i’m also willing to trade, but first i have to put together a list of books that i can bear to part with, fiction and non-, all of them educational. promise.
rocking with da reyna
quite interesting how manolo’s mistake spun off debates on academic credentials & credibility in the comment threads of filipino voices.com and reynaelena.com, and quite quite yummy how fv blogger benignO’s entry that manolo’s apology empowers “dimwits” added fuel to da reyna’s war on yet another fv blogger with homophobic ethics, yes the ilusyonado one who claims more than 8 million readers a day, lol.
naturally the conflict finds me siding with da reyna, having myself (hindi ako nag-iisa) been viciously attacked not too long ago by yet yet another fv blogger across three blogs — in fv, in his personal blog, and in mine — one irrational accusatory insulting diatribe after another, castigating me for abetting the abu sayyaf, condoning terrorism, giving away territory, even torture, moral turpitude, stinking words, apalling, disgusting, lack of humanity and womanity (!) at kung ano-ano pang kalait-lait daw about my person and my morals and my intellect, when nothing in my entry warranted it. the same fv blogger now gleefully claiming that manolo’s apology is “full of sarcastic, if hidden wit” but the reyna just doesn’t get it, and in the next breath talking “standards of civility.” talaga naman, ano ba yan.
worse, not a peep from editor-not-chief nick, as though the utter lack of tolerance for any deviation from an arrogantly opinionated one’s opinion is all right. as though it’s perfectly acceptable for fv to be used as a platform for sensationalist writing and irresponsible labelling.
…sa isang blog na ang titulo ay Filipino Voices at ang mga ipinagmamalaking manunulat ay sinasabing siyang tinig ng bayan, hindi kaya nararapat na kilatisin ng mga magbabasa kung sino ang mga taong ito?
At kung ang mga taong ito na tumatawag sa mga nagbabasa at nagkukumento stupido, hindi kaya dapat malaman kung sino sila at bakit may karapatan silang mang-insulto ng kapwa nila?
and da reyna, too:
Some writers and bloggers at Filipino Voices are guilty of being pa-intellectual. Feeling ba. Some are so uber-napoleonic with their own opinions, think and believe in all their ass that they’re the only one that is all knowing, high and mighty and what they say and write sway the nation. They believe that whatever they say would help create national policies and every one in the tralala-land gets their piece of opinion!
unfortunately, ito ang attitude ni nick-not-chief:
I personally believe that the readers should be able to discern for themselves with regards to many issues..
…which is like washing his hands of any responsibility for anything. e ano kung walang karapatan ang ilang taga-fv to speak for filipinos. e ano kung walang karapatan kahit sino na mang-insulto o mambastos. wtf. is this the same nick who stood up and accused malu fernandez of stuff that some of his bloggers are now accused of? ah, but nick is not the chief, there is no chief.
filipino voices could use a leader who would value the collective as a whole and not be intimidated by the noisy know-it-alls, never mind if their pasaway ways bring in traffic. the kind of leader who at the very least would impose standards of honesty and civility. otherwise fv is suspect as a source of credible information and rational opinion, because how can anyone tell that the good ones have not been infected by the bad ones? all it takes is one rotten apple to spoil the barrel. three or four speeds up the process.
this is also to say that i don’t agree with the conventional blogging wisdom that values more the freedom to say anything than the rightness, correctness, of what is said in the context of nation-building, especially for a collective blog that claims to sway public opinion and shape government policy. leaving it to readers to “discern for themselves” who’s right and who’s wrong is such a cop-out and just so mainstream media.