permeable at all, an Easter cross.
He crossed himself, and climbed
Then then
imagination springs; it tastes
mulberries, risen tigers, Himalayas,
summer lightning--
He leaped eternity
(whisper goes),
a tiger to its prey.
(Fr. Daniel J. Berrigan)
Monday, February 29, 2016
Death Casts No Light on the Mind
permeable at all, an Easter cross.
He crossed himself, and climbed
Then then
imagination springs; it tastes
mulberries, risen tigers, Himalayas,
summer lightning--
He leaped eternity
(whisper goes),
a tiger to its prey.
(Fr. Daniel J. Berrigan)
We Love
future too tall. Another spring will tell.
Tell another spring
I will be there, and fairer.
I become myself
that throat of swan
that striding giant I decree myself.
We love: in trees, in us, how many die
forward on the blade.
I see men like forests
striding, like swans riding, always
royally: though lowly afoot, striding into death
What we love: there are no blades enough (Fr. Daniel J. Berrigan)
'Kiss of life'
"A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation."
James Freeman Clarke
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- When Gibo Teodoro, one of the best presidents the Philippines never had, failed to win the presidency in the 2010 elections, pundits attributed his defeat to his association with then President Gloria Arroyo, who endorsed his candidacy as Lakas-CMD's official candidate.
They called the endorsement as the "kiss of death", an expression that means the end of something or "malas" (bad luck).
No matter how qualified and competent a candidate may be, "kiss of death" will send his chances of winning on death throes.
Thus when candidates for elective posts seek the endorsement of political behemoths, they see to it that the endorsers enjoy a colossal public acceptability rating or popularity and are not tainted by accusations of thievery.
Or suffer Gibo's fate.
SURVEYS
In the 1992 presidential elections, the name Fidel V. Ramos or FVR was nowhere to be found in the top three leading candidates in various independent surveys.
The top three in the surveys were Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Danding Cojuangco and Ramon Mitra.
Mitra, Cojuangco, and FVR were very dear to then President Cory Aquino. Three was a crowd.
"Who will the fountain bless?," asked the oddsmakers.
When Tita Cory endorsed FVR, the former EDSA Revolution hero did not only surpass his rivals that included Jovito Salonga and Imelda Marcos, he won the presidential race by the skin of the teeth (although Miriam cried "we wuz robbed") .
We call Tita Cory's endorsement of FVR as the "kiss of life."
BLESSING
If not for Tita Cory's blessings, FVR couldn't have made that big leap (from consistently No. 5 to 7 in the surveys to victory).
Despite being ridiculed as "weakling" and "indecisive", it is to Mar Roxas' credit that he has the full support of President Noynoy Aquino.
Like FVR in 1992, surveys have not been so kind to the son of Capiz, whose only fault is he is married to Korina Sanchez.
Of all the past four presidents, however, President Nonoy Aquino enjoys the highest public acceptability rating, according to the most recent surveys.
His name has not been tainted with graft and corruption, unlike FVR's Amari deal scam, Erap's jueteng imbroglio, and Gloria's ZTE bribery and "Hello Garci" tumult, among other humiliations.
Joe De Venecia, on the other hand, was his own "kiss of death".
When President FVR endorsed him for president in 1998 against Erap, the former House speaker had his own "Joe De Behest Loan" scandal.
POPULAR
Against a popular movie actor who had a mind-boggling mass appeal, non-showbiz and dreary traditional politician De Venecia was already politically dead even before FVR's endorsement.
Aside from President Noynoy Aquino's endorsement, Roxas, as a former interior and local government secretary, also enjoys logistical support from the government (this is prohibited by law, but as the saying goes, there are a thousand ways to skin a cat).
Shellacked and battered in the surveys, the Liberal Party's Roxas and Leni Robredo tandem is still considered to be the force to reckon with.
Under the combined mighty forces of Senate President Frank Drilon, House Speaker Sony Belmonte and the DILG to boot, most governors, mayors, councilors and board members down to the village chiefs have started mobilizing their forces and stretching their muscles in every nook and cranny nationwide.
Plus, President Noynoy Aquino's "kiss of life".
James Freeman Clarke
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- When Gibo Teodoro, one of the best presidents the Philippines never had, failed to win the presidency in the 2010 elections, pundits attributed his defeat to his association with then President Gloria Arroyo, who endorsed his candidacy as Lakas-CMD's official candidate.
They called the endorsement as the "kiss of death", an expression that means the end of something or "malas" (bad luck).
No matter how qualified and competent a candidate may be, "kiss of death" will send his chances of winning on death throes.
Thus when candidates for elective posts seek the endorsement of political behemoths, they see to it that the endorsers enjoy a colossal public acceptability rating or popularity and are not tainted by accusations of thievery.
Or suffer Gibo's fate.
SURVEYS
In the 1992 presidential elections, the name Fidel V. Ramos or FVR was nowhere to be found in the top three leading candidates in various independent surveys.
The top three in the surveys were Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Danding Cojuangco and Ramon Mitra.
Mitra, Cojuangco, and FVR were very dear to then President Cory Aquino. Three was a crowd.
"Who will the fountain bless?," asked the oddsmakers.
When Tita Cory endorsed FVR, the former EDSA Revolution hero did not only surpass his rivals that included Jovito Salonga and Imelda Marcos, he won the presidential race by the skin of the teeth (although Miriam cried "we wuz robbed") .
We call Tita Cory's endorsement of FVR as the "kiss of life."
BLESSING
If not for Tita Cory's blessings, FVR couldn't have made that big leap (from consistently No. 5 to 7 in the surveys to victory).
Despite being ridiculed as "weakling" and "indecisive", it is to Mar Roxas' credit that he has the full support of President Noynoy Aquino.
Like FVR in 1992, surveys have not been so kind to the son of Capiz, whose only fault is he is married to Korina Sanchez.
Of all the past four presidents, however, President Nonoy Aquino enjoys the highest public acceptability rating, according to the most recent surveys.
His name has not been tainted with graft and corruption, unlike FVR's Amari deal scam, Erap's jueteng imbroglio, and Gloria's ZTE bribery and "Hello Garci" tumult, among other humiliations.
Joe De Venecia, on the other hand, was his own "kiss of death".
When President FVR endorsed him for president in 1998 against Erap, the former House speaker had his own "Joe De Behest Loan" scandal.
POPULAR
Against a popular movie actor who had a mind-boggling mass appeal, non-showbiz and dreary traditional politician De Venecia was already politically dead even before FVR's endorsement.
Aside from President Noynoy Aquino's endorsement, Roxas, as a former interior and local government secretary, also enjoys logistical support from the government (this is prohibited by law, but as the saying goes, there are a thousand ways to skin a cat).
Shellacked and battered in the surveys, the Liberal Party's Roxas and Leni Robredo tandem is still considered to be the force to reckon with.
Under the combined mighty forces of Senate President Frank Drilon, House Speaker Sony Belmonte and the DILG to boot, most governors, mayors, councilors and board members down to the village chiefs have started mobilizing their forces and stretching their muscles in every nook and cranny nationwide.
Plus, President Noynoy Aquino's "kiss of life".
Man, the sexiest primate alive
"At twenty a man is a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel, at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy an ape, at eighty a nothing at all." BALTASAR GRACIAN
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- The book that makes some of us feel embarrassed about our animal selves rolled off the press in the year when Bolivian guerrilla leader Che Guevara was captured; and when The Beatles released the album "Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band."
The year when one of the Iloilo Mountain Tigers' longest-serving members known in Iloilo today as "Mr. Bean" was born.
I'm referring to Desmond Morris' sensational worldwide bestseller, The Naked Ape, described by Saturday Review as "a startlingly novel idea, brilliantly executed."
No less than Morris himself, the author, who formerly was the Curator of mammals at London Zoo, admits that in dealing with the fundamental problems of the naked ape, "he realized that he ran the risk of offending a number of people."
"There are some who will prefer not to contemplate their animal selves. They may consider that I have degraded our species by discussing it in crude animal terms," writes Morris.
"I can only assure them that this is not my intention. There are others who will resent any zoological invasion of their specialist arena. But I believe that this approach can be of great value and that, whatever its shortcomings, it will throw now (and in some ways unexpected) light on the complex nature if our extraordinary species."
SCIENCE
Morris explains that his book was intended to popularize and demystify science.
"There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes," Morris alleges. "One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. The unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time studiously ignoring his fundamental ones. He is proud that he has the biggest brain of all the primates, but attempts to conceal the fact that he also has the biggest penis, preferring to accord this honor falsely to the mighty gorilla. He is an intensely vocal, acutely exploratory, over-crowded ape, and it is high time we examined his basic behavior."
"To read Desmond Morris on the sex habits of the naked ape is disconcerting, to say the least" observed the Saturday Review. "Here the detail is specific and clinical...and the naked ape comes out of it looking very animal indeed...you read on with the mixture of discovery and embarrassment...an enlightening, entertaining, disturbing, discomforting, ego-shrinking experience."
CREATURE
The book tells about man as "a creature who can write immortal poetry, raise giant cities, aim for the stars, build an atomic bomb--but he is also an animal, a relative of the apes--a naked ape, in fact."
The Naked Ape, serialized in the Daily Mirror newspaper and has been translated into 23 languages, depicts human behavior as largely evolved to meet the challenges of prehistoric life as a hunter-gatherer (see nature versus nurture). The book was so named because out of 193 species of monkeys and apes only man is not covered in hair.
Morris made a number of claims in the book naming man as "the sexiest primate alive".
He further claims that our fleshy ear-lobes, which are unique to humans, are erogenous zones, the stimulation of which can cause orgasm in both males and females.
Morris further states that the more rounded shape of human female breasts means they are mainly a sexual signalling device rather than simply for providing milk for infants.
EVOLUTION
He also attempts to frame human behavior in the context of evolution, but his explanations failed to convince academics because they were based on a teleological (goal-oriented) understanding of evolution.
For example, Morris writes that the intense human pair bond evolved so that men who were out hunting could trust that their mates back home were not having sex with other men, and that sparse body hair evolved because the "nakedness" helped intensify pair bonding by increasing tactile pleasure.
Morris criticizes some psychiatrists and psycho-analysts that "have stayed nearer home and have concentrated on clinical studies of mainstream specimens. Much of their earlier material, although not suffering from the weakness of the anthropological information, also has an unfortunate bias."
Sexually the naked ape finds himself today in a somewhat confusing situation, Morris explains.
"As a primate he is pulled one way, as a carnivore by adoption he is pulled another, and as a member of an elaborate civilized community he is pulled yet another."
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- The book that makes some of us feel embarrassed about our animal selves rolled off the press in the year when Bolivian guerrilla leader Che Guevara was captured; and when The Beatles released the album "Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band."
The year when one of the Iloilo Mountain Tigers' longest-serving members known in Iloilo today as "Mr. Bean" was born.
I'm referring to Desmond Morris' sensational worldwide bestseller, The Naked Ape, described by Saturday Review as "a startlingly novel idea, brilliantly executed."
No less than Morris himself, the author, who formerly was the Curator of mammals at London Zoo, admits that in dealing with the fundamental problems of the naked ape, "he realized that he ran the risk of offending a number of people."
"There are some who will prefer not to contemplate their animal selves. They may consider that I have degraded our species by discussing it in crude animal terms," writes Morris.
"I can only assure them that this is not my intention. There are others who will resent any zoological invasion of their specialist arena. But I believe that this approach can be of great value and that, whatever its shortcomings, it will throw now (and in some ways unexpected) light on the complex nature if our extraordinary species."
SCIENCE
Morris explains that his book was intended to popularize and demystify science.
"There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes," Morris alleges. "One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. The unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time studiously ignoring his fundamental ones. He is proud that he has the biggest brain of all the primates, but attempts to conceal the fact that he also has the biggest penis, preferring to accord this honor falsely to the mighty gorilla. He is an intensely vocal, acutely exploratory, over-crowded ape, and it is high time we examined his basic behavior."
"To read Desmond Morris on the sex habits of the naked ape is disconcerting, to say the least" observed the Saturday Review. "Here the detail is specific and clinical...and the naked ape comes out of it looking very animal indeed...you read on with the mixture of discovery and embarrassment...an enlightening, entertaining, disturbing, discomforting, ego-shrinking experience."
CREATURE
The book tells about man as "a creature who can write immortal poetry, raise giant cities, aim for the stars, build an atomic bomb--but he is also an animal, a relative of the apes--a naked ape, in fact."
The Naked Ape, serialized in the Daily Mirror newspaper and has been translated into 23 languages, depicts human behavior as largely evolved to meet the challenges of prehistoric life as a hunter-gatherer (see nature versus nurture). The book was so named because out of 193 species of monkeys and apes only man is not covered in hair.
Morris made a number of claims in the book naming man as "the sexiest primate alive".
He further claims that our fleshy ear-lobes, which are unique to humans, are erogenous zones, the stimulation of which can cause orgasm in both males and females.
Morris further states that the more rounded shape of human female breasts means they are mainly a sexual signalling device rather than simply for providing milk for infants.
EVOLUTION
He also attempts to frame human behavior in the context of evolution, but his explanations failed to convince academics because they were based on a teleological (goal-oriented) understanding of evolution.
For example, Morris writes that the intense human pair bond evolved so that men who were out hunting could trust that their mates back home were not having sex with other men, and that sparse body hair evolved because the "nakedness" helped intensify pair bonding by increasing tactile pleasure.
Morris criticizes some psychiatrists and psycho-analysts that "have stayed nearer home and have concentrated on clinical studies of mainstream specimens. Much of their earlier material, although not suffering from the weakness of the anthropological information, also has an unfortunate bias."
Sexually the naked ape finds himself today in a somewhat confusing situation, Morris explains.
"As a primate he is pulled one way, as a carnivore by adoption he is pulled another, and as a member of an elaborate civilized community he is pulled yet another."
Strength
crucial delicate finger at flute stop.
Hill easing itself like tiger's body, around one
blind tufts of violets.
A spring after, felled oak, one
heartbeat unspent one
handful of leaves
in a dead hand. (Fr. Daniel J. Berrigan)
Alex P. Vidal Quotes (Friend, Trust)
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
-- HELEN KELLER :
Even the light can’t guarantee our safety and happiness from a friend with a dark heart and dark intention.
-- ALEX P. VIDAL
-- HELEN KELLER :
Even the light can’t guarantee our safety and happiness from a friend with a dark heart and dark intention.
-- ALEX P. VIDAL
Alex P. Vidal Quotes (Responsibility)
No matter how good of a woman you are, you will never be good enough to a man who isn't ready.
--ANONYMOUS :
He may be ready for the pleasure, thrill and ecstasy, but not for any spousal or familial responsibility. Ready to rumble in bed, not to gamble in life.
--ALEX P. VIDAL
--ANONYMOUS :
He may be ready for the pleasure, thrill and ecstasy, but not for any spousal or familial responsibility. Ready to rumble in bed, not to gamble in life.
--ALEX P. VIDAL
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