The Citizen On Mars

Just about these times that I had been daydreaming about something concerning television—about how the way we should watch and enjoy it, in this age of supercomputers—Intel and Yahoo! Has just recently announced the latest innovation in Internet technology by initiating the Widget Channel project. To be sure, this technology would entirely change the way TV viewers enjoy the ever-present boob-tube. The combination of TV and Internet is just the way to go for home entertainment.

Accordingly, Yahoo-branded TV widgets “will enable consumers to engage in a variety of experiences such as watching videos, tracking their favorite stocks or sports teams, interacting with friends, or staying current on news and information.”

Sometime ago, while I was watching TV at home by my lonesome, I had suddenly imagined someone, or some voice that was trying to catch my attention. “Hey you!” the voice said, “It’s me, Mr. Ryan Seacrest of American Idol”.

I would of course be so startled and would have asked the voice (to which I am not yet sure to where it came from) “Me? Are you talking to me?”

And the voice (allegedly that of the famous and handsome Ryan Seacrest) would say, “Yeah you, the one sitting on a rocking chair wearing an orange shirt. You just won a million dollars!!!” and other voices would suddenly come bursting out saying “Congratulations, you who is presently sitting in a rocking chair, from the Philippines!”; voices that should come from Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and the miraculously nice-sounding Mr. Simon Cowell.

Of course that scenario was just an illusion and if it had actually happened to me just most recently, I would have been so amazed and so startled that I wouldn’t be able to move from my rocking chair for some moments.

But someday, that scenario, where TV and Internet are fused together, allowing easy interaction between and among the viewers and the viewed, especially becoming useful for TV contests that give lots of money away, would no longer be so startling and so surprising, for in fact that’ll be just the future of the way we enjoy home entertainment.

And with the advent of Widget Channel, the future is so near. Thanks to Intel and Yahoo!

The present conflict in Eastern Europe—between Georgia and one of it’s provinces, South Ossetia—does remind me of a song which of course many of you would immediately be familiar with as that classic Ray Charles song, “Georgia On My Mind”. At this juncture, one might asked the question as to whether or not the song “Georgia on My Mind” was written with the former USSR territory Georgia in mind or the U.S. state of Georgia instead. The answer should undoubtedly be Georgia, USA and in fact, it is now the official song of the state, as declared in 1979. Despite of that, “Georgia on My Mind” was originally made by its composer in honor of a sister named Georgia. It so happened that the lyrics of the 1960’s song are broad and general enough that it could now refer also to a state, as in to the state of Georgia, USA.

But there’s another Georgia that needs another song, one that could pacify and calm the rising troubles there. What started as merely erratic clashes between Georgian soldiers and separatists South Ossetians has now become a full-blown war and the European Union is so up on its feet in order to thwart any further escalation of conflicts there. EU does not need another Kosovo situation in its midst.

And what’s more alarming in the increasing conflicts is that it is now slowly becoming another proxy war between America and Russia where America is explicitly supporting Georgia, now being headed by its American-educated president Mikheil Saakashvili while Russia had become an ally of South Ossetia and had been shelling and bombarding Georgian positions in order to protect South Ossetia.

We had Vietnam and Afghanistan before, and now South Ossetia is becoming another dangerous proxy war between two military powers. This kind of conflict is always a grave concern for global peace most especially as the risk of widespread escalation is always a patent probability. Vietnam before could have spurred a world war in a time of nuclear arm proliferation in the 1960’s, towards the 1970’s, as USSR and America were trying to put up one against another over there, for pride and glory. One could say that it was a relief that conflict escalation had not occurred during the Vietnam War when we all know now, that it could have had happened for several causes or reasons, like the fear of the Communist Domino Effect in Southeast Asia.

Similarly, it was a relief that Afghanistan, where Russian and US forces have actively participated in, had not similarly led to a full blown war, like in a global scale.

But just about the time that we thought that proxy wars among and between superpowers have become a thing of the past, that global politics have grown over it and above it with the dissolution of the USSR and the capitalism in China, South Ossetia becomes now another specter of Cold War conflicts and era of proxy wars, like a specter that has come now back and refuses to disappear.

It’s one of those nights that my mind is just about somewhere and I need some focus. In order to do this, I spent the night doing something that I like to do best when I am feeling this way — Porting Wordpress themes into the Blogsome module.

Tonight, I have decided to port Quick Press Wordpress Theme. I have been eyeing it for sometime now and had almost decided to use it for my own site, if not only for the reason that I felt that it’s main style direction is similar to one of those that I have already use before. But I like it a lot. It has all the simplicity that I always crave for and the neatness on its façade, making reading all the more beneficial to the blog reader.

I liked the way its fonts protrude from the ultra-white background; so serene and so clear to the eyes, like leafing thru a favorite magazine I must say. The boxed image on the right upper portion catches the eye like a fresh sunshine on a happy morning. And you bet it could be also useful for a beneficial Google Adsense spot, as the blogger wish or not wish to. Bottles in crisp colors — the particular picture is just wondrous, like an orange burst. Of course, you could opt to change that if you desire to.

The header is sprayed with a generous hue of blue, just the kind of depth and tint that I looked for in the color blue. Perhaps, it’s not a coincidence that I have a great interest in Quick Press for blue is my most favorite color. Perhaps, now you’d understand why most of the designs I used on my site has a heavy sprinkling of blue in it, blue headers, blue pictures or blue fonts.

Blue as a color they say, is the masculine color. To be male and chap, one must wear something blue and love the color. Guys shouldn’t say “pink” or “puschia” when asked what color does he prefer the most or else he’d be seen with a doubting eye. He should say “blue”.

That’s how it all began, why “blue” had become the color of choice for me. It started from a question, you know, those fancy autographs that were so in trend so many years ago. When I was a very young adolescent in elementary school, a very beautiful schoolmate one day approached me and requested me to have an entry in her autograph book. I was a relatively shy lad at that time that I never knew what to say as I blushed so clearly upon being approached by a very beautiful schoolmate. She was from the other section in the sixth grade but I had always pondered how beautiful she was every time I caught her passing. I often thought then that her looks was so neat and lively that she didn’t belong in a public school like where I was then.

There was a favorite fruit question in that fancy-looking autograph book and I answered thereat “Banana”. I was so conscious and uncomfortable at that moment for she might think of me as an ape. Then there was the favorite “actors/actresses” question and to be cool and swell about it, I answered “Robe Lowe and Phoboe Cates”, and that’s to be hollywoodish on that level. My favorite gemstone was “Ruby” even though I haven’t had any. That I remember too well. I think I remember those very particular moment so well now for the main reason that I was so feeling very conscious and extremely blushing to be near a very beautiful schoolmate and that kind of circumstance didn’t happen so often in the past. And what about love? Huhmmmn, I try to remember now…I think I answered that “Love is blind”, or what else can I say at that time.

And so there came the part where I had to answer the “favorite color” query and frankly speaking, I never had any at that time. So I thought for some seconds afterwhich I decided just to write “blue”; just to get on with it. And from that day on, I promised myself to love the color “blue”, to have blue shirts and blue sandals, and blue shoes, and blue shorts, blue hats, blue ribbons, blue notebooks and now that I am fully grown up, blue website designs. Or else, I’d be a liar.

Download the QUICK PRESS for BLOGSOME Zip.

See a quick DEMO here.

For the Wordpress whole pack, download here.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn went to his final sleep in accordance with his own desires, to die in summer and to die at home. Perhaps, as great as a writer that he is, it is but fitting that in his very final moments, he had gotten what he wanted — what he desired.

But Solzhenitsyn did not had such luck all his life, being a sufferer of labor camps during the Stalin years in Russia, where to such torment that he had experienced, he had seized the inspiration for most of his written works, mostly so poignant and so honest, detailing without any hint of hesitance most of the time, the boundaries of human agony that slave laborers had suffered in Russian labor camps, and for that, he had garnered his one moment of glory, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972 for his novel “The Cancer Ward”.

Yet, the great modern Russian writer owes much of his fame to the very comprehensive and absolutely masterful “The Gulag Archipelago”, a whole narrative written in three series from 1973 to 1978, and I know this for sure for I had my hands on the said book when I was a young college student more than a decade ago. I was so very awed and overwhelmed by the expanse and candor of Gulag; the efficiency of the Solzhenitsyn’s skill and method had been so profound that while I was reading it (although I haven’t got to finish it), I had felt as if I myself was thrown into those Russian labor camps that he had tried to specify, feeling the coldness of malice that lies in them, the rust of terror that had terrified the prisoners so malevolently, with fear and sorrow penetrating towards the bone, as slime and filth permeates all over like wafting demons in the air, and so pervasive the decaying smell that had surrounded the unfortunate souls caught in that quagmire. Solzhenitsyn was one such writer — a very rare one — to be able to let the reader enter the dimension or sphere of reality that the writer is presenting and propositioning, and eventually to be caught without any qualm into the truth that lies behind them, like being caught in an ever encroaching web of poignancy.

Definitely, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn is one of my most favorite writers of all time, along with other great Russian writers like Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Alexander Tolstoy.

Everyone in America right now is all agog over the stupendous success of the latest Batman movie, presently breaking every box-office record that there is to be broken, like a crazed tornado.

This had led Andrew Klavan, famed writer and essayist to deconstruct America’s most recent penchant for superhero movies, especially that Spiderman and Superman, as well as Iron Man, had similar extraordinary runs in the theaters.

In his WSJ piece “What Bush and Batman Have in Common” , Klavan points out to the US foreign policy of extensive military engagements abroad, for self-protection as well as in pursuit of indirect interests, like protection of democracy and liberties in threatened states abroad.

In the Batman movie, whenever there’s some disorder in the streets of Gotham City, the bat sign is flashed in the night sky (I wonder how it could be done on daytime) but above America, it should be the letter “W” high up in the air, meaning George W. Bush. In Bush’s engagements, America engages the enemy forcefully with high maneuver and skill, and presumably with gallant as in the eyes of Americans. Batman does the same to his (and of the people) enemies with such mightiness and cogency, and of course, the audience applauds him for that.

To Mr. Klavan, Hollywood’s recent success with superheroes accounts for this social psyche happening in America today, and could be an affirmation of President George W. Bush’s military campaigns abroad, often at great cost for the American pocket.

Just like in the Batman movie, the Batman Diplomacy of Bush, extreme force is always justified as every enemy is just merely that, like in those superhero movies, faceless and absolutely anomalous.

Klavan’s had these assumptions for this so-called foreign policy strategy, which he also term as “comic book diplomacy”:

1. (The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of “The Dark Knight” itself ) .Doing what’s right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified.

2. Hate in order to defend values like love. The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them — when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.

3. Classic Machiavellian. Sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values; and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised — then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.

I know, Mr. Klavan seem to be merely repeating other foreign policy theories in describing this so-called “Batman Diplomacy” — such as Realism (where states uses force as a logical and most convenient manner of international relations) for example, and Democratic Peace Theory (where democracies do not fight each other but unite to thwart communism) — BUT, it has enough originality to be able to garner widespread attention, as it does right now, while Dark Knight is reaping millions in the box-office.

What do you know; I’ve got another vivid dream last night*. No angels though yet I feel it’s worth elucidating if only for reason that it is such a lucid chunk of visions in my head while I slept so deeply and it may evoke some meanings for me or for the lives we all live.

The dream started on a steep hill; in a place that I have never been before in my entire life — but it felt like it was in Antipolo, as the rolling hills reminded me of the place called Cherry Hill, the site of a famous landslide disaster some years back and which I was able to have a glimpse of on television and newspapers. I asked in my mind what was going on since there were a lot of people outdoors watching some neighborhood event, out in the open field while the sun was shining so brightly and the wind was warm, such as the summer breeze.

Some bystanders answered my query: “A boy from Japan was showing some flying ship.”

I stretched my neck out and see for myself what the whole fuzz was all about, as I heard a whirling sound that went “whrrrrrrrrrrrr….whrrrrrrrrrrr…….whrrrrrrrrrrr……….”, like that of a motorized toy. I saw then what was to my eye was a colorful contraption the size of a small-sized passenger car, say a Kia Pride, lunging directly towards the sky like a rocketship although it didn’t look like a rocketship at all, at least not the specific way that a rocketship look like. On the one hand, the flying contraption looked like a very small version of the Columbus—the Nasa space shuttle.

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One night in 2001, some months after my last job in the government was terminated, I was stuck in bed gazing at the ceiling and was in deep thought on what to do then with my life. I had a job offer from a friend but the pay was way too low compared with my last paycheck that I much rather tried some other options then, like taking the bar examinations the following year. It was hard turning down that job offer especially when the offer came from someone I knew too well. What if he had needed my services that badly? But then, I had a future to take care of and so I had to inform him quite honestly that I was preparing for the bar that summer and it wouldn’t be in my best interest to have my hands full on an accounting/marketing job. I had to take some risk I had decided then and go for the farsighted plan that could offer me probable long-term benefits than be stuck with a dead-end job.

Perhaps it was too much of youthful diffidence in me that at some nights I had shivered just thinking how the realities of existence is not what many of us had supposed to be when we were much younger, that the world is at times a dog-eat-dog existence where one must claw up the ladder just about every time, even to the point of elbowing others and stepping on their shoes just in order to find a semblance of meaningful existence.

That particular night, the weather was so warm that even when the electric fan hummed at its fullest, I had perspired so monstrously that I could almost hear my sweat dripping from my skin. Drip…drip…drip…I turned on my stereo and listened to an aria of Andrea Bocelli and the coolness of his voice made me feel a little better. Conte le partira, Paesi che non ho mai…Vel dutto ver sutto conti….Conte le partira…

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June 26, 2008 should be marked as a historic date for world peace and North Korea’s move to destroy the cooling tower of it’s main nuclear reactor in Yongbon should be truly momentous and eventful and the world should have a good cause for celebration, a very good one in fact.

It should be remembered that just about a couple of years ago, North Korea had exhibited enormous malice by testing a massive underground nuclear explosion, parading to the world how capable it is in igniting widespread nuclear strike. North Korea’s penchant to sow fear among it’s nearest neighbor was so rampant and notorious in the past years, its act of rocketing devious Tae Po Dong intercontinental missiles over Japan and towards the Pacific every now and then was simply atrocious and malevolent.

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