The Daily Bluster

Josh West is a 39-year-old bus driver from London. He drives a shiny double decker bus. Rogelio Castro, 49, is a Filipino jeepney driver in Manila. Rogelio and his family (wife, three children and their families—eight in all) live in a cramped two-storey home in San Andres Bukid, Manila. We meet them in Toughest Place to be a Bus Driver, a BBC television series that puts professionals from the United Kingdom in a Third World setting. (There is another episode, “Toughest Place to be a Midwife” that places a British you-know-what in Liberia). I must admit, the episode’s premise is fascinating—a London bus driver driving in Manila? I simply had to watch it. Mr. West however did not really drive a bus in the Philippines—he gets to drive a jeepney. “Madness,” observes Mr. West, referring to Manila’s traffic, the first time he experiences it. He is also fascinated by the fact that there seems to be no “bus stops"—people just “wave” at the jeepney to get on. And as to collecting ...

Severus Snape fooled us all. Those who actually finished reading the entire Harry Potter series would know what I am talking about (or writing about, if you want to be literal). Snape is one of the series’ bravest and noblest characters. Yes indeed—in fact, I would name my next dog Severus in his honor (If it’s a female, I think… Hermione ?— Here, Hermione! Come, Hermione! Nah, I don’t see it. But I digress). Of course, until the last part of the last book, most readers think Snape is a hateful toad, and would gladly cast a Killing Curse ( Avada Kedavra! ) in his direction, given the chance. J. K. Rowling (the author) neatly ties up all the loose ends (well, almost all the loose ends), and, in my opinion (which admittedly is as sought-after as a Blast-Ended Skrewt ), provides a very satisfactory ending. The Deathly Hallows unravels Dumbledore’s strategy in defeating Voldemort, which explains his previous actions, and also answers Harry’s doubts. Snape, as I have intimated, is t...

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...