The Daily Bluster

Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings are valued today at hundreds of millions of dollars. One of the world’s greatest painters, he is also one of the most influential figures in Post-Impressionism art. Ironic, because nobody wanted his paintings when he was alive.  He was a “weirdo” and nobody really understood him. Except for the few friends he had with other struggling, unsuccessful painters, one of whom he quarreled with, a quarrel that resulted in Van Gogh cutting off his ear with  a razor.  He also suffered from delusions and had psychotic breaks. He seldom ate and drank heavily. He was one of those tortured souls who had so much to give but was largely ignored. His genius and artistry nobody really got while he was alive. He was an idealist, a sensitive soul who had too much empathy. Imagine somebody like that living today.  At age 37, Vincent Van Gogh - struggling with depression, mental illness, and thinking that he was a failure - killed himself.  You...

Empathy means the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. It’s the capacity to go inside the head of another being – be it human or animal – and experience what that other being experiences. If you lack this ability, it would be difficult for you to be compassionate to others. For example, if you see a person slaughtered like an animal in the streets and your first thought is, “ Pusher kasi e ” (even if you literally know nothing about that person) and feel something like unholy glee bubbling up your stomach, then you feel a sort of pride that you made the right choice in the last election, meanwhile not feeling anything about the person whose blood is staining the ground, and the sound of that person’s parents’/loved ones’ heartbreaking cries makes you think, “ Kung walang kasalanan yan di yan papatayin !” (If he’s innocent he wouldn’t have been killed!) And an image of your idol’s smug, smirking, and gloating face flash before your eyes and you feel a sort of thrill...

“The sky above the port was the color of television, turned to a dead channel.” So begins William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer (1984). Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction that features advanced technology vis-à-vis a dystopian society – a kind of high tech world juxtaposed with a broken-down social order. Or in other words, high tech/low life. Think Star Trek suffused with the despair and helplessness of “The Grapes of Wrath,” then throw in the gang wars and mob bosses of the “The Godfather,” and instead of governments, mega corporations rule the world, each fighting for supremacy. William Gibson is considered to be the founder of cyberpunk. However, many writers before him had written all sorts of proto-cyberpunk novels, most notably Philip K. Dick, he of the “ Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?” fame, the novel that served as inspiration for the classic cyberpunk film (and one of my personal favorites), “Blade Runner.” (Read up on Philip ...

Yes it’s a very real possibility that he might win.  But you know, it would have been nice to have a leader that would make us proud. To have a statesman – a statesman who knows how to deal with world leaders and win us friends in other countries –  lead us. Someone who could make us want to shout out to the world, “Yes this person leads us. This person embodies our aspirations, our ideals as a people.” It would have been nice to have someone who could bring out the best in us, and teach us compassion and empathy. Someone who could be an inspiration to our youth. Someone who could balance the budget, who could straighten out our fucked up, labyrinthine tax and banking laws, and improve our abysmal educational system. Someone who could get to the root causes of criminality, to actually do something about them and not just slaughter petty criminals and call it justice. That would have been nice, you know? Instead we are saddled with a group of candidates that includes ...

Is “bayot” an insult? I’m wondering because last night I heard Rodrigo "Digong"  Duterte on TV saying this in reaction to Mar Roxas’ expression of disbelief to his (Duterte’s) incredible claim that he could eradicate criminality in the first six months of his presidency, if and when he gets elected. The way he said it, his body language, the tone, his facial expression – all convey his meaning, that bayot (gay) is something so hateful and disgusting that he reserves that judgment to those who dare question the pronouncements of Emperor Digong. Well, to be fair, that is probably his most benevolent method of answering his critics. I suspect he has far more “creative” methods of silencing them. I can just hear his followers saying, “ Buti nga bayot lang e. Dapat sa iyo pinapatay .” (You should be thankful you're just being called bayot . You should have been killed.) And they’re right. They will inform you this, with unholy glee and righteous anger, with blazing, fana...

Adjective Order is one of those obscure English grammar rules that nobody told us about in college. A summary on how it works: Look at these two squares. How would you describe the objects? The image on the left you’d probably describe as a big, red square, because that’s what it is, right? Now, what if you describe it as red, big square? Does that sound right to you? It sounds quite a bit off, doesn’t it? It’s because there is a specific order of describing things that for some reason English speakers have established as the proper way. When you are describing a noun using two or more adjectives, the adjectives are usually in a particular order. Opinions come first, e.g. gorgeous, ugly, etc., before factual ones.   There are several levels of order. The Cambridge Dictionaries Online lists ten: Order                relating to                 ...