The Daily Bluster

One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose. Jean Anouilh I saw the old man again yesterday.  He was sitting on the curb right in front of the bakeshop. He was wearing ragged clothes that must have been new many summers ago. The old man’s skin was blackened by countless days out in the hot sun. A result, I suppose, of roaming and dragging himself around the concrete pavements of the metropolis, whose inhabitants barely notice him and others like him. His face was leathery, loose skin tiredly draped around the facial bones, barely hanging on. The lips were sunk in, betraying lack of teeth. And then I looked into his eyes. They were glazed, unfocused; and it was as if the old man was staring at something faraway, something that only he could see. I shuddered a bit at the thought. His hand was held out, in the classic pose many Filipinos are familiar with—the hand of begging. But the old man looked as if he wasn’t aware of what his own hand was...

Herodotus, a Greek historian who lived in the 5th century B.C., gave us one of the first accounts about culture. He wrote at length about his travels throughout the Persian Empire, which included parts of Asia and Africa and much of Middle East. He wrote about the cultural and racial diversity of these regions, noticing the different ways people lived in certain regions as compared to people who lived in others. Due to Herodotus’ account, many people attributed cultural diversity to racial differences. From the 5th century to the 15th century, European countries began sending out explorers throughout the world in search of new sources of goods and other materials. The resulting contacts with other cultures sparked the Europeans’ interest in cultural diversity. The English word “culture” came into use during the Middle Ages; it comes from the Latin word for cultivation, as in raising food crops. We can say, then, that the idea for the word originally referred to people’s role in cont...

I was going to write a paean about the 60's poet laureate, the modern-day bard, the court jester Robert Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan. This article in the NY Times makes me sad. I don't get it. He wrote all those songs that identified a whole generation; and yet he is now distancing himself from his music. A bard of convenience, that's what he was, if what he says now is true. No matter; the songs remain the same, even if the singer has not.

Oh, a storm is threat'ning, My very life today; If I don't get some shelter, Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away War, children, it's just a shot away, It's just a shot away...Love, sister, it's just a kiss away, It's just a kiss away One of those 60’s song that makes you blurt out, “What the fudge happened to today’s music?”   You know, I sometimes think that every decade we saw since then is just an insipid version of the 60’s, and without the music. What do we have right now, really, besides an androgynous teenager with embarrassing hair? Oh yes, we also have an androgynous female who wears colorful costumes. The world needs, among other things, a revolution in music; the last one was in the 90’s, and Kurt Cobain’s gone. Now that I think about it, the world needs a lot of things; but first, we need somebody to point it all out for us, somebody courageous enough who would shout out that the Emperor is naked. This generation needs a modern Bob Dylan; we need...

It is morning. The boy looks at the clock, decides to get out of bed and goes to the bathroom. The child brushes his teeth, takes a shower, and dresses for school. He has breakfast (probably eggs, bread, and milk), which his mother had prepared. His dad, dressed for work, reads the newspaper or maybe half-watches an early edition of the news on TV while sipping coffee. The child hears the school bus tooting its horn. He kisses his parents goodbye, and then he’s off to school. Everything that is cited above has something to do with culture. Culture is a body of learned behavior common to a given human society. It includes the patterns of behavior and thinking that people living in a society learn, create, and share. Culture differs from one human society to another. Man’s political and economic systems, religion, styles and manners of dressing, ways of preparing food, language, rituals, technology, art, rules of behavior, and beliefs are all part of culture. Every human society has d...

The first time I watched First Blood I was blown away. I thought it was the greatest action movie ever, and Stallone I looked up to, right up there with Jesus, or close. I was pretty young during this time, you see.  You remember the scene where Rambo stitched up his own wound? It was the coolest, most kickass scene I ever saw in a movie. And of course: "Don't push it or I'll give you a war you won't believe. Let it go." I was mightily impressed by Rambo’s quiet menace. In short, I immensely enjoyed the movie.   For several weeks after I saw the movie I even tried to talk like him. Talking in incomplete sentences, mumbling the words, and the look . You know, the way Rambo stares at people—respectful-like, but you know he could take the heads of those people and use them to wipe the floor. I tried practicing that look , but I ended up looking like a kid who badly needs a pair of glasses. The movie’s theme song— It’s A Long Road , by Dan Hill— I tried singing it ...