Eerie ad, this is, yes

(click to enlarge)

image taken from http://slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/actualads/PROPHETIC.htm

Ukol sa Kritisismo, K. Marx

Ito ang aking pangalawang tangka, patnubayan nawa ni caca.

The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But, for man, the root is man himself.

Totoong hindi kayang paltan ng sandata ng kritisismo ang kritisismo ng sandata, materyal na pwersa ang gagapi sa materyal na pwersa; ngunit ang teorya ay nagiging materyal na pwersa rin sa puntong pinanghawakan ito ng masa. Ang teorya ay may kakanyahang himukin ang masa kung ito'y may katangiang ad hominem, at ito'y magiging ad hominem lamang kung ito'y radikal. Ang pagiging radikal ay paggamay sa ugat ng tinutukoy. Ngunit, para sa tao, ang ugat sya mismo.

~ sipi mula Criticism Of the Hegelian Philosophy Of Right ni Karl Marx, 1844

imahe mula sa http://www.imagecows.com/uploads/cfac-swissminigun-a-super-tiny-gun-171007.jpg

Epitaphs

Something for the soldiers under the mole's regime.
(feeling ain't isolated to the lower ranks)

And something for Prometheus' child.
(among others)

Something that I wish would be carved on mine.

image taken from http://pagesperso-orange.fr/zippo.vietnam/textes.htm

Holy Dog, Saintly Horse

Yano: AFP ‘on track’ to crush communists in 2010 (inquirer.net headline)

Yano: Kamusta na? Ayus pa ba? Ang buhay natin, kaya pa ba?



One's a bad motherfucker, the other's simply a motherfucker.

image taken from http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20080523-138336/Yano-AFP-on-track-to-crush-communists-in-2010 and http://www.freewebtown.com/presmarcus/dong1.jpg

Fierce!

[or the "Martin Masadao* + Used Clothing (+ etc) + Semiotics = The Ukay Ukay Handbook!" post]

Again, I was scavenging through Cimatu's blog** (partly out of habit, partly because I have nothing better to do) when I found this relevant article on one of Baguio's novelties. Much like Fiske's "Jeaning," the essay acknowledges (albeit, subtly) the dualistic character of the phenomena.

Here's Cimatu's:

The Semiotics of Ukay Ukay

A French anthropologist while doing the ukay-ukay at Bayanihan in 1998, told me she remembered reading a book about the dumping of used-clothes in Nigeria. She said the clothes came from French and my mind swam over a sea of Christian Dior and Coco Chanel haute couture in some Nigerian version of Bayanihan. It is worth digging up on how ukay-ukay eventually became wagwag and why Baguio became the center of it all. Ukay-ukay, which means "dig up - dig up" in Visaya, was the term for these garments, accessories, toys and other thingamajigs packed in huge cartons and unloaded in piers. "Ukay-ukay" first cropped in the port areas like Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro, San Fernando and Manila. They had been around since the Second World War but hardly anyone noticed them.Even in Baguio, used clothings shipped from the US were already being sold in the Baguio Market in the 1950s***. European countries got the Marshall Plan and what we got were the jeep and the ukay-ukay. These were the Big Brother's hand-me-downs.And since Baguio was established as the Summer Capital exactly a hundred years ago by the Americans, it was inevitable that ukay-ukay also find its way up there. But PX was all the rage then and ukay-ukay were thrift shop fodder.The epiphany came when ukay-ukay (which suggest digging into the piles of unsorted clothes) became wagwag. There are many theories about wagwag. One suggested that the ukay-ukay originated behind the rice section of the Baguio Market, hence the borrowing of wagwag variety of rice. The most probable one is the act of shaking the clothes ("wagwag"in Filipino and Ilocano) from the pile. So the evolution is from digging them up (ukay-ukay), you eventually shake off the dust in the hope of sizing them and wearing them.The period that ukay-ukay became wagwag in Baguio was in the 1980s when the source of garments shifted from US to Hongkong and Japan. The Philippine Japanese Association, which is very strong in Baguio, started the weekly sale of used clothes from Tokyo until the floodwaters broke. Used garments from Hongkong also started pouring in.If in the past the ukay-ukay (shortened into U2 by the sellers after a popular brand of clothing not the rock band) were unloaded in piers, now the wagwag traders or viajeros fly every other week to HK and accompany the boxes with them. Many of these viajeros were former HK domestics who knew their way around the former Crown Colony. Opening the boxes (done mostly on Saturdays) is like Pandora opening that damned box. You wouldn't know what you get. A box of used bedsheets and blankets is a losing cause while a box of children's clothes is a jackpot. At first, the shops lay out whatever they got. But as the shops proliferate (almost a thousand now compared to only 200 in 1997), in-trading has become the norm. Some shops now sell only toys, others only baseball caps and jackets. When a wagwag shop exclusively for left-handed (Remember Simpsons?) would be created, you know that the end is near.When the 1990 earthquake hit Baguio, the thing that drove the tourists back were the U2 and the ww.com (gayspeak for wagwag). Now it is the main crowd drawer. This will find its significance when we realize that Bayanihan (the Ground Zero for wagwag) was one of the first hotels in Baguio. From rest-and-recreation, the thrust of Baguio shifted to shop-till-you-drop.Why Baguio? Because if you have a U2 shop, for example, in hot CdeO and the box you got were all fur coats, what would you do? Wear them and sweat like a hog or deconstruct them into seat covers? At least in Baguio you can wear them and if you find them tacky, ship them to Lepanto where Fashion TV has yet to be shown in cable. U2 is the new drug and the network is as extensive. I bought a used scarf in Banaue. Does this forebode the over-commercialization of our tourism industry? Don't be silly. It's still the fight against the rich vs. poor, the North vs. the South. If Hongkong kept all its clothes like my mother does, it would sink on its sheer weight. They would only be glad to dump these on us. That is why there are still so many of us who fear the wagwag, seeing these are harbingers of AIDS and other imagined diseases.The garment trade is a social and ecological nightmare, just ask Kathie Lee and her sweatshop scandal. At least when you wear recycled clothes, you are assuaging the guilt of those who owned it first. You also help Planet Earth. Globalization is not always a sell-out. American books and magazines destined for landfills are sold here cheaply and the best thing you can do is to read them and learn. The key is to wear not-so-innocent wagwag yet keep your virtues pure. I remember treading along the foggy Baguio-Bontoc Road when out from the mist in Atok loomed an old woman wearing a long white coat with fur collars. She was carrying a bouquet of cala lily. The gown can only be wagwag. My friend, a photographer who forgot his camera, cried at such a surreal sight. I can only mutter, The White Lady of Cordillera also wears wagwag.


*Martin Masadao (et al) won the best production design for the 2007 Cinemalaya entry, Pisay.
** Am apologizing for the shameless stealing, Mr. Cimatu. May the Force be with You (and me as well).
*** Hilltop, back of Baguio Market, is the best place for a true-blue-(h)ukay-(h)ukay experience. If itchiness persist, consult your doctor.

P.S. Corrected - from Masadao's to Cimatu's. Again, apologies to Mr. Cimatu.

image taken from http://witerary.com/2006/signoff/signof44.jpg

Fahrenheit 4999

[click to enlarge]

Now where am I supposed to get $49.99? The idea of online publishing (or new media for that matter) is the decentralization of content production.

Sigh

Got to develop mental telepathy. Quick.

For additional info on this potential threat, click.

image taken from http://www.thehumorarchives.com/joke/Net_Neutrality_is_Important

Etong sa'yo!!!

molotov cocktail!

molotov cocktail!

molotov cocktail!

On Beauty and The Status Quo

Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.
~ Karl Marx

image taken from http://www.vedrashko.com/uploaded_images/communist_mutants-740168.

Parte-eh-ing since 1848

It's much easier to wear a Chairman Mao button and shake your fists in the air and all that, than to actually read the Communist manifesto and things like that and actually become involved in politics.

~ Lester Bangs

[click to enlarge]

True to the song, the revolution isn't a picnic. Or in this case, a parte-eh.

[Though you got to admit, they make for nice shirts.]

image taken from http://www.porpoiserecords.com/blog/imagenes/communist_party_t-shirt.gif

True. True. False.

“To those of you who received honours, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States.”

[click to enlarge]

"There is no doubt in my mind when history was written, the final page will say: Victory was achieved by the United States of America for the good of the world."
~ George W. Bush, addressing U.S. troops at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, Jan. 12, 2008

image taken from http://lh6.google.ca/abramsv/R4bST0KUlDI/AAAAAAAAC-w/6WoQoYah-zw/s1600-h/ads012.jpg

What Have We Learned So Far?: Smoking

Kills.
Thou shall not murder (this includes thyself), says the third commandment.

Here's another interesting commandment. The sixth says, "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name." Right, Cardinal Rosales?

*Advanced Happy Mothers Day greetings to Nanay Shiela and Tita Pilar. For the constant reminder that smoking kills. We'll note that.
photo taken from http://photos1.blogger.com/photoInclude/blogger/5639/2020/1600/burial-ceiling.jpg

Where is Jonas Burgos?

It's been a year since Jonas Burgos was abducted.
We could only wonder how Ms. Edith is bearing with the loss of the men in her life to fascist hands.

The paleness of the mask is eery.

I could only flinch. Why?

(The text ain't small enough)

image taken from http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/086R9JP221avt/610x.jpg

The Empire Strikes (period)

Stumbling upon this image made me want to grab a green film.

It's witty.

I heart it.

Halina and I used do silkscreen prints. Sadly, time and financial constraints got the better of our then blooming hobby.

photo taken from http://lh6.ggpht.com/abramsv/R9nxXatLgYI/AAAAAAAALc4/Rsud-n_XnN4/s1600-h/startswars.jpg

Collateral Damage*

So? ... A Note from Michael Moore

Monday, March 24th, 2008

Friends,

It would have to happen on Easter Sunday, wouldn't it, that the 4,000th American soldier would die in Iraq. Play me that crazy preacher again, will you, about how maybe God, in all his infinite wisdom, may not exactly be blessing America these days. Is anyone surprised?

4,000 dead. Unofficial estimates are that there may be up to 100,000 wounded, injured, or mentally ruined by this war. And there could be up to a million Iraqi dead. We will pay the consequences of this for a long, long time. God will keep blessing America.

And where is Darth Vader in all this? A reporter from ABC News this week told Dick Cheney, in regards to Iraq, "two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting." Cheney cut her off with a one word answer: "So?"

"So?" As in, "So what?" As in, "F*** you. I could care less."

I would like every American to see Cheney flip the virtual bird at the them, the American people. Click here. and pass it around. Then ask yourself why we haven't risen up and thrown him and his puppet out of the White House.

The Democrats have had the power to literally pull the plug on this war for the past 15 months -- and they have refused to do so. What are we to do about that? Continue to sink into our despair? Or get creative? Real creative. I know there are many of you reading this who have the chutzpah and ingenuity to confront your local congressperson. Will you? For me?

Cheney spent Wednesday, the 5th anniversary of the war, not mourning the dead he killed, but fishing off the Sultan of Oman's royal yacht. So? Ask your favorite Republican what they think of that.

The Founding Fathers would never have uttered the presumptuous words, "God Bless America." That, to them, sounded like a command instead of a request, and one doesn't command God, even if they are America. In fact, they were worried God would punish America. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington feared that God would react unfavorably against his soldiers for the way they were behaving. John Adams wondered if God might punish America and cause it to lose the war, just to prove His point that America was not worthy. They and the others believed it would be arrogant on their part to assume that God would single out America for a blessing. What a long road we have traveled since then.

I see that Frontline on PBS this week has a documentary called "Bush's War." That's what I've been calling it for a long time. It's not the "Iraq War." Iraq did nothing. Iraq didn't plan 9/11. It didn't have weapons of mass destruction. It DID have movie theaters and bars and women wearing what they wanted and a significant Christian population and one of the few Arab capitals with an open synagogue.

But that's all gone now. Show a movie and you'll be shot in the head. Over a hundred women have been randomly executed for not wearing a scarf. I'm happy, as a blessed American, that I had a hand in all this. I just paid my taxes, so that means I helped to pay for this freedom we've brought to Baghdad. So? Will God bless me?

God bless all of you in this Easter Week as we begin the 6th year of Bush's War.

God help America. Please.

* I subscribed to Michael Moore's mailing list. Hope the CIA doesn't find out.