So What's News?

I've been following this website for sometime now. It's part of my daily feed.

The site is an aggregation of satirical pieces presented as "news" in the line of its US counterpart, The Onion.

Though most pieces sport jokes that are crude and obvious (probably to dissuade the more stupid among us that what the authors are saying are merely fiction), there are also gems which leave me impressed; I mean, if I hadn't known it came from this site, I'd never know that article isn't true. Some works are that clever.

I've had a lot of fun reading the "news" articles. But the hobby had also got me thinking how inextricably infantile our political system is. Reading these fictionalized essays ironically hammers home the reality that our government is hopelessly inutile (and I don't even consider myself a pessimist).

Here's the link to the site, So What's News?

As usual, enjoy, laugh, and weep for our mother country.

This Is A Crazy Planets

You've got to love Lourd de Veyra. 

He's a social commentator who sports a beret to cover his balding head, a drolling voice reminiscent of a taong kalye, and the swag of a natural born satirist (if one ever existed)

He's also best known for his humorous pieces in the TV segment, Word of the Lourd. But his opus must have to be his blog, This Is A Crazy Planets, in Spot.ph where he talks about anything related to Philippine society.

Care to look? Here's the link.

Have fun, laugh, and do some critical thinking for a change.

Blackouts

The main difference between a brownout and a blackout is the amount of voltage being supplied to an area. Brownout means that the amount of voltage being supplied is lesser than normal while blackout means no voltage is being supplied or it's a complete power outage.

- Ask.com

Okay. Now that we know the difference, it's time to rant. Davao City is currently experiencing its worse blackout season ever. Because of a shortage in available electricity, Davao Light, the power distribution company, has put in place a schedule of power interruptions, causing rotating blackouts with durations of at least 2-4 hours. 

It's unprecedented and, soon, those durations are going to get longer. It's a classic case of government sitting on its ass and not investing time forecasting demand or planning for future higher power requirements.

Some columnists have already pointed out that the highly anticipated Mindanao Power Summit, attended by no less than the President last 2012, was a joke. Two years since then, blackouts are still common nuisances. The power plants being built now should have been built a decade ago but nobody, I guess, thought that was a sensible thing to do before.

So here we are, left wringing our hands at the incompetency of those who are presiding over this mess.

Here's a link to a previous related post.

Postscript: 

Papa had shared to us about a certain friend working in government before who was tasked to submit a proposal mapping out the energy plan for Mindanao. That task was way back during the Ramos presidency. Unfortunately, the submitted proposal was in limbo during the Erap presidency and went unnoticed during the Arroyo presidency (because the president then was busy fighting for her political life). 

In sum, there was action and it was unfair to me to generalize initially. However, the fact remains that though there was action, it wasn't followed through. 

Two decades could have been enough to craft an action plan centering on the promotion of renewable sources of energy for Mindanao. Now, because of lack of time, government is busy promoting coal plants as the best solution to the energy crisis while the rest of the world is weaning away from coal energy. Pretty pathetic, right? 

Rash Guard

The first time I wore a rash guard around 2010, I felt uneasy. Wearing one wasn't common those days. Most Dabawenyos who went to the beach preferred swimming half-naked (for men) or with a shirt (for women). That first time, I strolled the beach presuming (correctly) that the crowd was regarding my outfit as an oddity.

But I persisted. That's because I had to. The bottom line was wearing a rash guard benefited me greatly. First, it protected me from bites and the sun. Second, it helped relieve my back acne by allowing me to dry off quickly after a swim compared to wearing a wet shirt. Third, it did wonders to my self-image; wearing one meant I was a serious swimmer who knows what he's doing.

The cash center guys, who were part of my dance group before, coined the term "long sleeves" to describe my rash guard and regarded it humorously as my "formal swimming attire". My family eventually followed my lead with my parents buying "long sleeves" for themselves and for my siblings. I began seeing friends and colleagues also sporting the new look, this time, with vibrantly colored outfits.

I finally concluded that the rash guard was now in vogue when I started seeing more and more girls, the ultimate progenitors of fashion, wearing these. Barkadas would march around the beach wearing assorted rash guards and some couples preferred donning their own version of a couple shirt by wearing rash guards of similar designs. 

I marveled at this evolution of preference with a mixture of sadness and delight. I was sad because the bikini movement never really caught on among conservative Dabawenyos. But I was also delighted that women going to the beach were now donning more sensible outfits, like the rash guard.

Maybe next time, I'll write an ode to the rash guard if I'm crazy enough. Right now, I have to go back to finding my lost rash guard. It has to be in my cabinet somewhere... 

Vinyl Is The Future Of Music (According To One Guy)

I saw Lolo listening to one of these things. He had a player in the house and had a couple of vinyl records featuring Cebuano singers and bands. The sound was nothing I've heard of then. It was rich and full of nuances; the blips only served to highlight the experience (like Kintsugi).

What completed the scene was Lolo sitting on the sofa, legs crossed, one hand on one knee, chin up, listening regally to the music. While the rest of us scurried back and forth, he was simply there, absorbing the melodies.

That image contrasted sharply with how we consume music nowadays. With ubiquity and convenience came a downgrading of sorts. 

Now, we listen to music as an afterthought, something to fill in the gaps as we go about doing our everyday tasks and labors.

Mario Aguilar argued the same thing about vinyl and how the experience of switching mediums can make us more sensitive to this aural delight:

The people who actually care about the experience of ownership are increasingly turning back to vinyl because it gives you a physical experience that's more fulfilling than a simple CD purchase. There are a few reasons this might be the case, but it all boils down to experience: a warm and fuzzy happy feeling you get from buying and playing LPs that you just can't get from any other source.

Here's the rest of the article.