Alex P. Vidal Quotes

 

Alex P. Vidal Quotes

 

My ‘missing’ packages: Did lightning strike twice?

“The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.”

—Gilbert K. Chesterton

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

IN January this year, I lost a package containing a Bose SoundLink Revolve+ Portable and Long-Lasting Bluetooth 360 Speaker-Triple Black worth $299 (around P14,651) I ordered online when the United States Postal Service (USPS) in New York City presumably “delivered” it on a wrong address. 

I made a total of six trips to the USPS offices in Corona and Elmhurst to locate the package (just in case it wasn’t yet “delivered”) to no avail.

Each visit, I tried to talk to the postal manager but everybody was so busy and the best “help” they could provide was to ask me to dial a certain hotline number—only to be given a run around by a computer-generated voice directing me to press different numbers and “wait while your call is being processed.” 

Nothing happened.

Since I couldn’t anymore cancel the transaction and because I so love the lost product, I tried my luck with the USPS one last time in February; and before I could a suffer a heart attack after being subjected to the same ordeal by that pesky computer-generated voice, I quit. 

Charge to experience. The post office fiasco should give me a lesson. I will never order any item online again. No more.

 

-o0o-

 

Lo and behold, after only 10 months on December 14, I kind of suffer from amnesia when I again ordered online a Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700, a top of the line headphones, which was on sale for $339 (P16,611) from its original price of $379 (P18,571). 

At around past five o’clock in the afternoon on December 16, I received this email about the status of my order number WH12798577 from Bose: “Hello Alex, Thank your for shopping with us. Your order has been delivered.” 

I pressed the “track your order” and was directed to a link where it stated that the item has been supposedly “delivered” by UPS on Wednesday, December 16, with time marked at 7:25 pm Masbeth, New York. 

It was only past five o’clock in the afternoon or two hours short (did they send the message at past five o’clock in the afternoon for a package scheduled to be delivered at 7:25 o’clock in the evening?) and the monster snow storm that battered the Northeast and East Coast was only starting.

Avoiding the storm outside, I hurriedly checked our gate but found nothing. 

I went back and checked three more times but failed to see any package inside and outside the gate.

I checked my email and clicked “Trying to find your package?”

The following advisory appeared: “Sorry! This happens sometimes. Please check your front porch, side door, back porch, garage area, bushes, and mailbox to make sure it’s not hiding or jammed. Also ask your neighbors if they may have received it for you. If your package still hasn’t turned up in 3 more days, please contact us.”

When I checked our “front porch, side door, back porch, garage area, bushes, and mailbox” as per instruction, the snow outside was already piling up as the major winter storm began dumping what could end up being a foot of snow on New York City Wednesday evening.

 

-o0o-

Did lightning strike twice for my packages this year?

Can I still recover the “missing” UPS package?

If it was really delivered as stated in the email and in the text message I received in my phone, was the package buried under the avalanche of a thick snow?

We will know when I check in the morning after—or after the storm is over.  

Elsewhere there were reportedly hundreds of crashes on slick roads.

The winter storm was starting to stretch from northern North Carolina to as far north as southern Maine.

More than two inches covered New York's Central Park as of 7:20 p.m. Wednesday, the National Weather Service said, and forecasts call for 8 to 12 inches for parts of the city.

NBC News, quoting state police, reported that the storm was thought to have played a role in a crash that killed two people on an interstate in Pennsylvania that involved dozens of vehicles.

“Vehicles were being towed away, traffic was rerouted and I-80 westbound in Clinton County is expected to be closed until Thursday morning, state police and transportation officials said. Police said it was ‘vitally important’ that people limit nonessential travel during the storm,” NBC News reported.

In Virginia, state police said they responded to around 200 crashes Wednesday, including one in which a North Carolina man died. Slick roads were a factor in the deadly crash, a police spokeswoman said.

The snowstorm could be the biggest New York City has seen in years, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. 

"This is going to be a serious storm," the mayor said Tuesday in urging residents to prepare.

De Blasio reportedly canceled in-person classes for Thursday due to the storm, but after changes made by the Covid-19 pandemic, it would be different than in past years.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

   

Snow storm attack before the vaccines

“Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.”

—Andy Goldsworthy

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

WE will finally have the vaccines in the Big Apple.

But first, we have been warned of heavy snow and freezing rain in the Big Apple on December 16 and 17 (Wednesday and Thursday) even as the forecast was still on track as of this writing for a significant winter storm to hit the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and New England.

The warning came before the “death blow” (the description given by restaurant owners in New York City of the guidelines issued by Gov. Andrew Cuomo on the suspension of indoor dining ) that started on December 14.

It also came as New Yorkers were preparing to start next week the largest emergency immunization plan in its history, delivering the first doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to 170,000 high-risk frontline medical workers just as nationwide deaths and hospitalizations reach all-time highs. 

New York City, which is still the hardest-hit city in the world with over 24,000 deaths, will get the largest delivery of those doses, for nearly 72,000 people, but it may still be months before the general public can get immunized. 

Plans for rolling out the vaccine are still changing, and not everything has been made public.

The Pfizer vaccine was approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration on December 11, the first one to clear that hurdle. Moderna is set to deliver another vaccine for 346,000 people by December 21, pending FDA approval, with other candidates from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson still on track to get approved and distributed in the coming weeks.

 

-o0o-

 

More than 60 million people were reportedly under winter alerts, with forecasts of snow and wind that could snarl travel and knock out power to millions.

This will be the first major snow storm warning this year, the first since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic inflicted a terrible harm on the people worldwide with the United States leading in the chart with 16.8 million cases and 304,000 deaths as of December 16. 

The winter weather advisories or warnings have stretched from northeastern Georgia and western North Carolina to New York City and parts of Maine on Tuesday evening.

The National Weather Service warned us the storm brought snow and slick roads to the Plains, although it was set to taper off there Tuesday night.

Oklahoma City got 2.7 inches of snow, and the Nebraska State Patrol reported "plenty of slide-offs on I-80" Tuesday morning and urged drivers to be careful.

On Wednesday, the storm was feared to reach the East Coast.

During the morning, a wintry mix will break out from western North Carolina to northern Virginia, while snow fills in from Maryland through southern New York. 

NBC’s Kathryn Prociv reported that “as the day progresses, the storm will march north on the I-95 corridor bringing with it a mess of rain or snow and even the potential for some sleet and freezing rain.”

On the southern side of the storm system, heavy rain and strong thunderstorms could affect the Southeast to coastal Carolinas, the NBC said.

By Wednesday night, a wintry mix will be possible for cities like Washington and Philadelphia while New York City and Boston will likely stay predominantly all snow. 

 

-o0o-

 

Heavy snowfall rates of 1-3 inches per hour are possible, including for the New York City area, and gusty winds could cause whiteout conditions and the risk of power outages, it was reported here.

The snow was expected to continue through the morning hours for the Northeast and New England and will end for all locations except eastern Maine by sunset by Thursday.

A widespread 3 to 6 inches of snow will be possible from central Virginia up through Maine. 

A swath of six to 12 inches or more, and higher amounts locally, was forecast from Maryland up through southern Massachusetts with the highest snow totals possible along and just west of the I-95 corridor.

Some isolated locations at higher elevations could potentially see up to 2 feet of snow from eastern West Virginia, western Maryland into east-central Pennsylvania and northwest New Jersey.

For the areas across North Carolina and Virginia that could get the wintry mix of sleet and freezing rain, up to 0.25 inches of ice accumulation is possible, which could cause power outages.

Blizzard conditions may also be reportedly possible for coastal areas, especially eastern Long Island and Cape Cod, where wind gusts could exceed 40-50 mph.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)

 

 

‘Fake news’ and Graciano Lopez Jaena

“Fake news has emerged a new menace, whose purveyors proclaim themselves as journalists and taint this noble profession.”

—Ram Nath Kovind

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

IF he were alive today, Graciano Lopez Jaena, who would have turned 164 on December 18, 2020, might resent the attitude of some politicians who call legitimate journalists and their scathing reports as “fake news” after being discombobulated by constructive criticisms.

The “fake news” expression was unheard-of during the Ilonggo writer’s salad days as a propagandist against the Spanish colonizers.

It was only when the media’s role to shape and influence the public opinion became supremely overwhelming in a pluralistic society more than a hundred years since Lopez-Jaena’s death that modern times politicians began to denigrate the mainstream media’s function in democratic states with gusto and spleen. 

“Fake news” incidentally became a byword invoked by non-believers of facts shared in the social media and who treat stories penned by legitimate but aggressive journalists with utmost cynicism and revulsion.

The truth is no principled and credible journalist will ever write, much less imagine drafting a bogus or “fake news” in the context designed by enemies of free press and expression.

It was also probably a coincidence that the greatest Filipino journalist was an Ilonggo from Jaro, Iloilo City.

Many of Lopez Jaena’s fellow journalists were hailed as martyrs after being murdered in the line of duty more than a hundred years after he died of tuberculosis in a foreign land wallowing in poverty before his 40th birthday.

Born on December 18, 1856 and died on January 20, 1896, Lopez Jaena was not only an outstanding journalist, but was also an orator at par with the country’s and even Asia’s best.

 

-o0o-

 

As the first Ilustrado to arrive in Spain where he started the Propaganda Movement against our Spanish colonizers, Lopez Jaena became revolutionary when he formed a triumvirate with Dr. Jose Rizal and Marcel H. del Pilar.

But he became well known for his newspaper, La Solidarid.

Contemporary journalists in Iloilo today flood the Western Visayas community with newspapers and magazines.

Almost every freedom-loving and lovers of letters and literature would want to become newspapermen or own and manage their own newspaper in the Ilonggo-speaking populace.

It runs in the Ilonggo blood after all.

Before he became an icon in the propaganda movement, Lopez Jaena was first sent by his parents to study at St. Vincent Ferrer Seminary in Jaro which had been opened under the administration of Governor-General Carlos María de la Torre y Nava Cerrada.

In the seminary, he served as a secretary to Claudio Lopez, his uncle who was the honorary vice-consul of Portugal in Iloilo.

But he had ambition to become a physician. 

Lopez Jaena convinced his parents that he needed to enroll in a university in Manila.

He was denied admission at the University of Santo Tomas because he did not have a Bachelor of Arts degree when he was at the seminary in Jaro.

 

-o0o-

 

Lopez Jaena was appointed to the San Juan de Dios Hospital as an apprentice. He eventually dropped out due to financial difficulties and returned to Iloilo.

His assimilation with the poor ignited his feelings about the injustices common in that era. Lopez Jaena’s potentials as a reformer and writer became apparent at the age of 18 when he wrote the satirical story “Fray Botod” which depicted a fat and lecherous priest. Lopez Jaena ribbed Fray Botod’s false piety which “always had the Virgin and God on his lips no matter how unjust and underhanded his acts were.”

The story was not published, but a copy circulated widely in Iloilo. The infuriated friars could not prove that Lopez Jaena was the author, thus he came off the hook, so to speak, temporarily.

The son of Jaro refused to testify that certain prisoners died of natural causes when it was obvious that they had died at the hands of the mayor of Pototan town, thus he was pilloried.

 

 -o0o-

 

He continued to agitate for justice. 

When he received threats on his life, he sailed to Spain in 1879, where he pursued the Propaganda Movement.

In the land of our colonizers, Lopez Jaena became a leading writer, propagandist, and speaker for reform of the homeland.

He finally pursued his medical studies at the University of Valencia but did not finish, thus incurring the ire of Rizal.

Lopez Jaena defended why he did not finish his medical studies by saying, “On the shoulders of slaves should not rest a doctor’s cape.”

“The shoulders do not honor the doctor’s cape, but the doctor’s cape honors the shoulders,” Rizal intoned.

The national hero died of tuberculosis in poverty on January 20, 1896, 11 months short of his 40th birthday.

He was buried in an unmarked grave at the Cementerio del Sub-Oeste of Barcelona the following day.

Marcelo H. del Pilar’s death followed on July 4. Rizal was killed on December 30 by firing squad in Bagumbayan.

Their deaths ended the great triumvirate of Filipino propagandists, but their works contributed in the liberation of their compatriots from the Spanish colony.

Lopez Jaena’s remains have not been brought back to the Philippines.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)

 

Pinoy resto workers speak out as ‘death blow’ starts

“It's good to have certain restrictions sometimes, but it's definitely more fun to play really loud, with distortion.”

—J Mascis

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

AS mentioned in my previous article, we had our last dinner at the Q Town Asian Cuisine Inc., a seafood restaurant in Elmhurst, Queens, on December 13 (Sunday) as suspension of indoor dining in New York City restaurants takes effect on December14 (Monday).

I was with two Filipino restaurant workers: a 63-year-old server in a Manhattan restaurant, and a 40-year-old chef in a Queens restaurant. 

We entered the restaurant at past seven o’clock in the evening and went home at past 10 o’clock in the evening, the curfew imposed by the city government in relation to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.   

“I pity the restaurant owners,” quipped the Filipino chef. “They will have to shell out money for the rental and wages of their workers. They need to earn especially now that the winter season is starting.”

The Filipino chef admitted he and his fellow workers might be affected if the restaurant where they work can not earn enough income if customers won’t be coming for dine in. 

He worried about the money he will send to his family in the Philippines for Christmas.

The move announced late last week by Governor Andrew Cuomo is in response to a rise in new COVID-19 cases across the city and state.

The city's COVID-19 positivity rate now stands at 6.26 percent.

 

-o0o-

 

“The good thing is this is just temporary,” hissed the Filipino server. “This (suspension of indoor dining) will only last for two weeks, but it will interrupt the Christmas Day celebration.”    

The Filipino server considers himself to be “luckier” because he is receiving a pandemic unemployment assistance from the Department of Labor.

“But this (pandemic unemployment assistance) is not forever. I heard it will last until this month (December) only kaya marami na ang kinakabahan ngayon (that’s why so many people are now getting nervous),” the Filipino server said.

Some Filipino restaurant workers who are mostly “undocumented” will be affected even as most restaurant owners and operators, who called the guidelines as a “death blow” to the restaurant business, bewailed they were already struggling to rebuild their businesses after losses sustained from the springtime shutdown of dining. 

If anything, they were hoping the state would soon increase the citywide indoor capacity from 25 percent to 50 percent.

What happened was the opposite.

Now, they are back to zero. 

 

-o0o-

 

And while the city has given restaurants an easier pathway to offering outdoor dining through its Open Restaurants program, which was started during the pandemic, establishments said they were seeing patrons balk at sitting outside as the weather turns colder, even when heating elements are provided.

Delivery and takeout remain another revenue source, though many restaurants said it is only a small piece of their business. 

A Manhattan-based restaurant owner doesn’t even have a to-go option because of the nature of his complex, multicourse menu.

As a result of all these factors, many who work in the industry or track it predict a brutal outcome for the city’s thousands of dining and drinking establishments, with numerous ones having to shut for good.

Meanwhile, the 21 Club, a Midtown Manhattan restaurant with a 90-year history and a long list of famous clientele past and present, said last week it didn’t plan to reopen “in its current form for the foreseeable future.” 

The restaurant, which closed in March when all New York City restaurants were initially mandated to cease service, said it is “exploring potential opportunities that will allow '21' Club to remain a viable operation in the long term.”

 

-o0o-

 

 

The Wall Street Journal reported that Cuomo has proposed some assistance to restaurants to counter the curtailment of indoor dining. 

The reported quoted Cuomo saying on December 11 that the state would extend its moratorium on evicting commercial tenants, which was set to expire on Jan. 1. Such a move protects restaurant owners who can’t pay any or all of their rent.

In addition, Cuomo said the state is partnering with Ritual ONE, a digital ordering platform similar to Grubhub and DoorDash, so that restaurants can offer its service to customers without the establishments having to pay commission. 

The offer runs through April 2021.

Ultimately, the Wall Street Journal reported, Cuomo and restaurant-industry officials are looking to the federal government to support these businesses, whether they are in New York or elsewhere in the country, through a multibillion-dollar stimulus program that has yet to be approved by Congress.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, is a former editor of two dailies in Iloilo, Philippines)

 

 

Our last dining at Q

“The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.”—John D. Rockefeller

 

By Alex P. Vidal 

 

DECEMBER 13 (Sunday) would be our last dining date at the Q Town Asian Cuisine Inc., a popular Chinese seafood restaurant on corner Whitney and Broadway Streets in Elmhurst, Queens as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has ordered the suspension of indoor dining in New York City beginning December 14 (Monday) as hospitalizations related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continued to climb in the Empire State.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has supported Cuomo’s order.

He tweeted: "This is painful. So many restaurants are struggling. But we can't allow this virus to reassert itself in our city."

Since October, we’ve been dining at the restaurant every Monday starting at 6 o’clock in the evening.

As regular customers, we strictly followed the social distancing and other protocol while inside the restaurant. 

From the restaurant, we hopped to the “inasalan”, a makeshift kiosk selling charcoal-baked animal intestines, lamb, pork, and other meats   located across the street.

The curfew inside the restaurant, which had been set at 10 o’clock in the evening since indoor dining was temporarily permitted, will no longer take effect once the suspension of indoor dining commences.

 "The hospitalizations continue to increase in New York City," Cuomo announced December 11. 

"We said that we would watch it. If the hospitalizations didn't stabilize, we would close indoor dining. It has not. We're going to close indoor dining on Monday."

 

-o0o-

 

The daily number of hospital admissions for COVID-19 hit 205, climbing above the threshold of 200, according to a fresh data released by city hall.  

The number of new cases on a seven-day rolling average is reportedly 2,559. 

The seven-day average is at 5.35 percent, which is also reportedly above the city’s threshold of 5 percent.  

Only outdoor dining, takeout and delivery will be continued, it was learned.

The announcement was a big blow for the restaurant industry, which has been struggling since the beginning of the pandemic in March. 

It was only in September that restaurants were allowed to reopen their dining rooms at 25 percent capacity. 

There were fears that the latest shutdown would lead to layoffs. 

"It will be the last straw for countless more restaurants and jobs," Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, said in a statement. "And the restrictions begin on Monday with zero economic support for small businesses that are already struggling to survive."

A new survey from the New York Restaurant Association found 54 percent of New York restaurants do not expect to survive the next six months without some form of federal relief, compared to 37 percent of restaurants nationwide.

The announcement came as new contact tracing data released by the governor found that bars and restaurants were responsible for just 1.43 percent of the spread. 

 

-o0o-

 

Household gatherings were reportedly the biggest culprit, with 74 percent of the spread linked to people meeting in their homes. 

Indoor dining, meanwhile, will be allowed to continue in other parts of the state where the infection rates are climbing.

"New York City is different," Cuomo said. "A high transmission rate in a dense environment is different. You can't eat and drink and keep your mask up.”

Cuomo called on the federal government to provide relief for restaurants in a stimulus plan that still remains stalled in Congress. 

He said the state would extend its moratorium on commercial evictions. 

But beyond that restaurants have been left with little help as they've been forced to bear the brunt of coronavirus restrictions.

The city has allowed for expanded outdoor dining, but it remains to be seen how successful it will be as the temperatures continue to drop. 

Cuomo also announced gyms and hair salons in orange zones will now be allowed to operate at 25 percent capacity with weekly testing of staff. 

He said those businesses are responsible for only about 0.06 percent of the spread.

"Gyms are one of the lowest known spreaders now, by the facts," Cuomo said.

As for the race to vaccinate people, the governor said a state panel has signed off on the FDA's decision to approve a COVID-19 vaccine. 

Cuomo said in addition to the Pfizer vaccine, which is expected to arrive this weekend, 346,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine will be delivered the week of December 21.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, is a former editor of two dailies in Iloilo, Philippines)