The tribe has spoken. Rodrigo Duterte is President-elect of the Philippines. To the world, this choice looks like a decision made by a lunatic – we picked a man who made light of rape, insulted the Pope and ran on a platform ripped from the violent rulebook of the Queen of Hearts: Off With Their Heads! (In Six Months or Bust).
Every week, the internet loses its collective mind. It’s like our news cycle is constantly on steroids; it’s always something. Last week it was an allegedly misquoted rape quote segueing into who’s actually responsible for turning our country into a BPO powerhouse, segueing into allegedly egregious helicopter usage followed by a breakdown of how much said egregious helicopter user actually pays in taxes. The mud-slinging is made even more intense because the reaction is in real time. It’s a not so civil war out there. I don’t mind people who take a measured, informed, calm stand because I’m a firm advocate for looking at all sides of an equation. I dislike the ones who foam at the mouth with fervour and overused exclamation points. These are the people who make my news feed an amalgamation of passive/aggressive rhetoric, perceived awesome burns, obvious hashtags and all sorts of propaganda. It’s exhausting. And tiresome. It’s hard enough deciding which guy to vote for without the blasted peanut gallery going on for days. I’m going to be a lot happier when this election is done.
Speaking of the internet losing its mind, the new season of Game of Thrones premieres on Sunday, exclamation point! I can now ignore the very real bickering over who gets to be president of the Philippines in favour of the very imaginary bickering over who gets to rule Westeros. Deep breaths. Watch thirty second teaser trailer. Squeal like a crazy person. Repeat breathing exercise as needed. (Clearly, my priorities need further examination.)
The Cost of Caring, a long, illuminating piece that ran in The New Yorker, introduces us to Emma, a poor Filipina from Bukidnon who moved overseas to become a nanny. This is, of course, a familiar, heart-rending story. Emma is an illegal immigrant who lives on a pittance, and remits a major chunk of the money she makes to her family. To put all six of her children through school, she cares for other people’s children instead, and subsists on $2 noodle soup.
What really bothers me is that this woman wasn’t in a very good economic position to start with, and she still made the highly- irresponsible decision to have six children anyway. Six is an insane number of mouths to feed, and it’s even more of a strain if you’re poor.
Beyond moving abroad and living on a shoestring budget, there will be other, more widespread repercussions to her decision. When they grow up, each of her six children is likely to have children of their own, whose children will also have children and on and on, world without end.
Has there ever been a better time to enjoy streaming content? The quality of TV shows these days is stellar. Still, living through the new golden age of television is expensive and beyond the Tennis Channel, paid cable doesn’t appeal to me at all. First, there are way too many channels I’ll never watch. Also, there are too many commercials. Really, who doesn’t love being inundated with ads for libido enhancers, adult diapers and Zoloft? (Over here, the target audience takes white armpits and chunky corned beef for granted. Our struggle is not necessarily their struggle.) Finally, and most egregious of all, paid cable is pricey. It doesn’t even include HBO unless you fork over an extra $20 a month.
Of course all this awesome entertainment is available online for free, if you know where to look, wink wink, nudge nudge. Continue reading “Adventures in Cord-Cutting”
I’ve always thought it ironic that Dumaguete has brownouts every so often, seeing as we have quite enough geothermal power in the region to keep us humming merrily along. Reading about the Energy Development Corporation needing to cut down trees to get access to more of our geothermal resources in Valencia was particularly troubling. I’m going to have to disregard the editorial’s call for less emotion, more information; beyond the importance of facts and figures, we really should care about something that can’t fight for itself.
Having grown up on a campus filled with trees, I’ve always had an affinity for them. One of my most treasured memories was convincing my father to build me a swing, which he did, attaching it to one of the giant trunks of a star apple tree in our backyard. I was on that swing all day everyday, errant falling caterpillars bedamned. It’s why I have very little affinity for giant swathes of houses in subdivisions that sit baking under the sun with absolutely no shade over them. It’s just too barren, too soulless.
The mentality seems to be that trees will grow back. So what if we’ll cut one down? We can always plant more. This is a little too genocidal for my taste. We don’t say it’s okay to off a few hundred humans, we’re always procreating after all, do we?
The Syfy Channel, home of the modern-day classic we call Sharknado, is coming out with Dead 7, a movie where a world infested by zombies can only be saved by members of the Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, 98 Degrees and O-Town. The trailer is up on Buzzfeed, and is warming the cockles of my very hard, very poppy heart. It’s like the Nineties suddenly exploded all over my weekend and everything is coming up roses. I am lighting candles and clutching my beads praying that this is legit, and not some crazy April Fool’s Day prank. The only way this could get better is if the Backstreet Boys announced a tour with a reunited N’Sync and I scored front row tickets to the show.
Kim Kardashian, reality “star,” and thirsty mother of two decided to commemorate International Women’s Day by tweeting an old (possibly Photoshopped) selfie of herself in nothing but her birthday suit last week. The Kardashians have made a killing off of leaving nothing to the imagination, so really this was just another day in the life of needing attention, having children and being actual role models be damned.
Because Twitter is a big fat pot of ever roiling opinion, it caused quite a tempest in a teapot. My favourite smackdown came from the glorious Bette Midler, who basically said the only way Kim can show us a part of her we’ve yet to see is if she now swallows a camera. Miss Bette don’t play. She did have a point: the only thing the Kardashians haven’t yet done is bend over and cough for all and sundry.
Saving for Botox 
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