Must I die in a 2022 ‘exposure?’

“Love thy chemicals.” 

― Ashutosh Joshi

By Alex P. Vidal

MY employers in two different work places thought I had Covid.

They panicked; I didn’t.

They wanted to make sure I had PCR test in a soonest possible time so as not to disrupt my work schedule. 

The basis of their worries?—I was “exposed.”

Being “exposed” to the dreaded coronavirus in 2020 and the later part of 2021 meant death sentence.

But we are now in the third quarter of 2022. Must I panic if I’m exposed? Must I die if I’m positive?

Some people are getting jitters for the Monkeypox, which I branded as “Monkey business” in an article two months ago, and only slightly for the Omicron, a Covid variant.

What I’m saying is, to hell with “exposure” to someone “positive” of Covid. Not in 2022 where death rate for Omicron is almost a joke (with due respect to our health authorities).

-o0o-

Anyway, my employers wanted the PCR, not the rapid Antigen testing.

PCR means polymerase chain reaction, or a test to detect genetic material from a specific organism, such as a virus. 

The test detects the presence of a virus if we have the virus at the time of the test, which could also detect the virus’ fragments even after we are no longer infected.

Antigen testing, on the other hand, is a rapid diagnostic test suitable for point-of-care testing that directly detects the presence or absence of an antigen.

To make the long story short, I obliged for the pesky tests most recently.

First, a sariliking sikap style Antigen test or “self test at home.” Result: NEGATIVE.

Two days later, I got both the Antigen and PCR Testing which yielded NEGATIVE results (the Antigen result came after 10 minutes, while the PCR after two days, as usual).

As stated earlier, I didn’t panic when informed I had been “exposed.”

From November to December 2021, I made my 14th testing (both Antigen and PCR), believe it or not, which could qualify me to be a Covid testing poster boy.

All my tests yielded NEGATIVE since last year. Either my immunity is strong, or I was never infected at all, God forbid.

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

  

The best translation of Plato’s The Republic

“Courage is knowing what not to fear.”

—Plato

By Alex P. Vidal

BOOK I FOUND AT THRIFT STORE. I highly recommend G.M.A. Grube's version of the ideas of Plato (c429-347BC) contained in a book that influenced Western philosophers for over 2,000 years. 

I found a copy of Grube's book in a New York City Thrift store. 

His translation was easy to understand and very informative especially on the main argument of The Republic.

Such is Plato's importance that the 20th-century philosopher A.N. Whitehead described all subsequent developments within the subject as foot-notes to Plato's work. 

Beyond philosophy, he has exerted a major influence on the development of Western literature, politics and theology.

The Republic deals with the great range of Plato's thought, but is particularly concerned with what makes a well-balanced society and individual. 

It combines argument and myth to advocate a life organized by reason rather than dominated by desires and appetites. 

Regarded by some as the foundation document of totalitarianism, by others as a call to develop the full potential of humanity, the Republic remains a challenging and intensely exciting work.

I used to dislike Canada Starbucks

“Smell the roses. Smell the coffee. Whatever it is that makes you happy.”

—Rita Moreno

By Alex P. Vidal 

THANK God no Starbucks branch in New York City was included among the 16 branches to be permanently shut down in the United States because of repeated safety issues, including drug use and other disruptive behaviors that threaten staff, it was reported.

But the branch at the Union Station in Washington D.C., our favorite tambayan while waiting for transfer to the Washington Metro or Metrorail, a rapid transit system that brings us from Washington D.C. to Virginia and Maryland vice versa, will be among the casualties.

The others, which will become history effective July 31, are: six stores in Seattle, six in Los Angeles, two in Portland, Oregon and one each in Philadelphia. 

This latest news about Starbucks became head-turner and hogged headlines all over the world because it’s not only about repair or rehabilitation of certain branches, it’s a permanent closure of 16 branches in major locoations at the height of inflation in the US.

I regularly spend three to five hours in a Starbucks branch at the Rego Park in Queens Boulevard in New York City during my off time. 

For a cup of medium-sized Matcha Tea Latte, I can use the coffee giant’s unlimited free wi-fi, restroom, and enjoy the cozy and sometimes spacious atmosphere. 

No time limit. No pressure whatsoever to “stay only for 15 minutes to give way to other customers.”

-o0o-

But I used to dislike the Starbucks in Canada. I avoided all the branches there on purpose and went for Tim Morton and McDonalds. Reason: while the wi-fi connections at Tim Morton and McDonalds were unlimited, the wi-fi at Starbucks anywhere in Canada stopped after one hour without any notice. 

I personally experienced this “disruption” and “terrible inconvenience” while writing my newspaper articles inside the Starbucks branches in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal in 2009 and 2012.

Back in the United States, I learned there’s no such animal as “limited” wi-fi connection in all the Starbucks branches from the East Coast to the West Coast. 

So it’s only in Canada. I don’t know if they have corrected this “bad policy” and “unfriendly business strategy” after all these years. 

Thus my love affair with Starbucks had been rekindled when I settled in the United States.

The recent announcement of the closure of 16 branches in the US was met with suspicions even as some people have connected it with the union that reportedly alarmed the management.  

-o0o-

The closures took on heightened significance because of an ongoing unionization effort at Starbucks' US stores. 

More than 189 US Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since late last year, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Starbucks opposes the unionization effort.

In a letter to employees, Starbucks’ senior vice presidents of operations Debbie Stroud and Denise Nelson said the company’s stores aren’t immune from problems like rising drug use and a growing mental health crisis.

“We know these challenges can, at times, play out within our stores too. We read every incident report you file—it’s a lot," Stroud and Nelson wrote.

Starbucks its plan to keep employees safe includes modifying operations, closing restrooms, or even closing a store permanently, when safety is no longer possible.

Starbucks said employees at those stores will be given the opportunity to transfer to other stores.

Starbucks said July 12 the closures are part of a larger effort to respond to staff concerns and make sure stores are safe and welcoming.

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

Being fat isn’t a crime

"People will make mean comments. People are going to say that you're fat, that you're this, that you're that. You just have to be comfortable in your own skin."

-- Ashley Benson

By Alex P. Vidal

THOSE who are “lucky” to be given local and national positions in the present administration shouldn’t be too excited and proud. 

Sometimes they have this ludicrous thinking that people will think they are special for getting something dangled only to a very few privileged people.

But, wait a minute. Not all people salivate for appointed jobs in government, in the first place.

Others, in fact, are ashamed when offered because people will think any appointed position is kind of a political payback or a favor (for the help the appointee had given the appointing official during the election), and not because the appointee has meritorious qualifications over the others.

Sometimes it’s not really about us; it’s not because of our credentials, but “because of your contributions in my election victory.”

-o0o-

IT is understandable why some Filipinos have little tolerance when those involved in controversies like abuse of power and authority, graft and corruption, exploitation, persecution, and other criminal activities today are chubby or fat—and white mestizo to boot.

The disdain and aggression are different—ferocious and meaner—when the perpetrator is a fat person with white complexion compared to a thin man with a brown skin.

Mr. Healthy Man was always guilty even before being given his day in court; and if found guilty, the level of derision and condemnation is more vicious and cruel.

It’s because during the Spanish colonization that lasted for some 400 years, the main characters who assumed kontrabida roles in the persecution of the Filipinos, the Malay race, were the Spanish friars.

The friars were known, even in the novels of Jose Rizal and in the propaganda articles of Graciano Lopez-Jaena and other national heroes, to be cruel, molesters, land grabbers, exploiters and gluttons.

Even after hundreds of years have passed, the infamy of the abusive friars is still embedded on the psyche of ordinary Filipinos.  

No wonder we have a few “chubby” elected officials and prominent leaders in society. 

And when they are involved in scandals, almost no one sympathizes with them.

-o0o-

But do we treat someone shabbily because he or she is overweight or fat?

There are jeepney--and even taxi--drivers in the Philippine who refuse to take passengers that "occupy two seats" per body because of their "over" weight or "big" size.

We have laws against discrimination, of course, and our friends in this subject matter should be equally covered and protected by these laws.

The old expression "Laugh and grow fat" actually leads many to believe that fat people are always happy.

One reason for this saying may be that the extra fatty tissue under their skin makes their frowns and worry lines less noticeable. 

But psychologists claim that overweight people are usually far from happy. 

So let us not add to their "burden" by being truculent toward their "extra baggage."

Experts are saying that sometimes the glands or chemical make-up of the body need medical attention. 

Or, excess weight may be due to upset emotions caused by a lack of love, a feeling of not being wanted, or some frustration.

-o0o-

Another popular (or unpopular?) saying is, "Fat people are lazy."

But we know now that laziness affects fat and thin alike. 

A fleshy person appears lazy because his movements are slowed up by the weight he carries. 

Hundreds of seemingly lazy people, both thin and fat, have been cured when fitted with the proper eye-glasses, it was learned.

Others have gained energy after they have had medical care like someone I know who frequently plays chess in the Elmhurst park here.

A third fallacy in regard to fat people is that there are more fat boys than girls. 

Statistics, however, show the number is about equal. 

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

The age issue

“You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old.”

—George Burns

By Alex P. Vidal 

OLD age was never an issue in the recent Philippine presidential race, unlike in the United States.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is 64 and will only be 70 when his term expires in 2028, while Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio is 44 and will only be 50 in 2028.

In the United States, aside from the economy, immigration, climate change, Roe v. Wade debate, gun control, the other “major” issue now being raised in the 2024 presidential election is age—old age, that is.

Business Insider and Yahoo News both have reported that in the United States, a concern about age has been raised by some as the 2024 presidential election could feature two candidates—reelectionist President Joe Biden and the “comebacking” Donald Trump.

The two septuagenarians would serve into their 80s if either individual wins that year.

Per an earlier New York Times report, as President Biden looks to run for reelection, some Democrats — already alarmed by his middling approval ratings heading into the 2022 midterm elections — have questioned whether he should seek reelection in 2024.

-o0o-

“If Biden—who will turn 80 later this year—were to be reelected in 2024, he would be 82 years old at the time of his inauguration in January 2025. And he'd be 86 at the end of his second term,” the Insider’s John L. Dorman reported.

“Former President Trump, who turned 76 years old last month, would be 78 in November 2024. If he captured the GOP nomination and won the White House in 2024, he would celebrate his 80th birthday in office.”

It would be “inappropriate” for candidates to run for the White House in their 80’s,” former presidential adviser David Gergen was quoted in the report as saying.

"I do feel it's inappropriate to seek that office after you're 80 or in your 80s," he told The New York Times. "I have just turned 80 and I have found over the last two or three years I think it would have been unwise for me to try to run any organization."

-o0o-

WHO IS JOHN GALT IN OUR SOCIETY? This is the astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world--and did. 

Atlas Shrugged is a massive paean to capitalism and depicts a world where corporate CEOs and one-percenters are the selfless heroes upon which our society depends, and basically everyone else—journalists, legislators, government employees, the poor—are the villains trying to drag the rich down out of spite, when we should be kissing their rings in gratitude that they allow us to exist.

Rand’s protagonists are Dagny Taggart, heir to a transcontinental railroad empire, and Hank Rearden, the head of a steel company who’s invented a revolutionary new alloy which he’s modestly named Rearden Metal. 

Together, they battle against evil government bureaucrats and parasitic socialists to hold civilization together, while all the while powerful industrialists are mysteriously disappearing, leaving behind only the cryptic phrase “Who is John Galt?”

-o0o-

Atlas Shrugged is a work of fiction, but as far as many prominent conservatives are concerned, it’s sacred scripture. 

Alan Greenspan was a member of Rand’s inner circle, and opposed regulation of financial markets because he believed her dictum that the greed of businessmen was always the public’s best protection. 

Some politicians have required their staffers to read the book, while others have announced grandiose plans to build their own real-life “Galt’s Gulch,” the hidden refuge where the book’s capitalist heroes go to watch civilization collapse without them.

Reading Atlas Shrugged is like entering into a strange mirror universe where everything we thought we knew about economics and morality is turned upside down. 

We’ve already learned some valuable lessons from it.

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

Rasputin: die hard; Abe: die easy

“Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.”

—Adolf Hitler

By Alex P. Vidal

THE improvised or handmade gun 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami used to kill former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, 67, was equivalent to a “paltik” pistol made mostly in Danao, Cebu in the Philippines.

But the well-loved Abe succumbed in the hospital after his heart was reportedly damaged when he incurred wounds on his neck and chest.

An “easy” job for the assassin, to say the least, despite the presence of the Nara perfectural police.

It’s hard to imagine how lax was Abe’s security and how accurate and sharp was the lone assassin who boldly approached the Japanese leader from behind and pulled the trigger from a long distance.  

But there was a man in history whose assassins had to employ different  methods and multiple attempts before they finally succeeded in killing him. 

His name was Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin or simply Rasputin, a Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man who befriended the family of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, thus gaining considerable influence in late Imperial Russia.

In the 70s, an Afro-German-Caribbean vocal group, Boney M, celebrated Rasputin in a song: 

There lived a certain man in Russia long ago

He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow

Most people looked at him with terror and with fear

But to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear

He could preach the Bible like a preacher

Full of ecstasy and fire

But he also was the kind of teacher

Women would desire

Ra ra Rasputin

Lover of the Russian queen

There was a cat that really was gone

Ra ra Rasputin

Russia's greatest love machine

It was a shame how he carried on…

-o0o-

A Siberian-born muzhik, or peasant, who underwent a religious conversion as a teenager and proclaimed himself a healer with the ability to predict the future, Rasputin won the favor of Czar Nicholas II and Czarina Alexandra through his ability to stop the bleeding of their hemophiliac son, Alexei, in 1908. 

From then on, though he was widely criticized for his lechery and drunkenness, Rasputin exerted a powerful influence on the ruling family of Russia, infuriating nobles, church orthodoxy, and peasants alike, according to History. 

He particularly influenced the czarina, and was rumored to be her lover. When Nicholas departed to lead Russian forces in World War I, Rasputin effectively ruled the country through Alexandra, contributing to the already-existing corruption and disorder of Romanov Russia.

A group of nobles, led by Prince Felix Youssupov, the husband of the czar’s niece, and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Nicholas’s first cousin, lured Rasputin to Youssupov Palace on the night of December 29, 1916.

According to History, first, Rasputin’s would-be killers gave the monk food and wine laced with cyanide. When he failed to react to the poison, they shot him at close range, leaving him for dead. 

A short time later, however, Rasputin revived and attempted to escape from the palace grounds, whereupon his assailants shot him again and beat him viciously. 

Finally, they bound Rasputin, still miraculously alive, and tossed him into a freezing river. His body was discovered several days later and the two main conspirators, Youssupov and Pavlovich were exiled.

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

‘UnLucky Me’

“Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy.”

—Paracelsus

By Alex P. Vidal

THE word “investigation” is always fatal.

If your business is food and is “being investigated” for possible contimantion of chemical or pesticide, your goose is cooked.

A bakeshop, a cakeshop, a smoothie stand, milk, chocolates, meat shop, and even a noodle brand.

Like “Lucky Me!,” a household brand in the Philippines and of Filipinos living in other countries.

Even if it would be proven that the food product was safe and not part of the reported subject of a “recall” in international supermarkets, the damage to the business of the product could be horrific.

It would become “Unlucky Me!” once news of an “investigation” supposedly launched by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spread like a prairie fire. 

If there is an “investigation,” that means something’s wrong somewhere. 

Akin to aphorism that when there is smoke there’s fire.

Either the report of possible contamination was a red flag for safety of public health, or it’s a false alarm or even a misinformation drive from jealous business rivals, or all of the above. 

There has been no concrete evidence that “Lucky Me!,” a popular noodle brand among Filipinos, reportedly recalled from store shelves in several European countries, had been contaminated by ethylene oxide, a carcinogenic antimicrobial pesticide.

It is still under investigation.

-o0o-

This developed even as The Lucky Me! manufacturer, food conglomerate Monde Nissin Corp., has released a statement admitting  they heard about “information being shared” that ethylene oxide was detected in “certain export versions” of its instant noodles, ice cream and other products in a number of European Union (EU) states and Taiwan, triggering the recalls and health safety warnings.

But the FDA investigation is already damaging to some extent.

If it involves food, it’s difficult to erase the stigma and the veener of doubt and fear it would create in the minds of noodle lovers, especially the poor.

The United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration says Ethylene oxide (EtO) is produced in large volumes and is primarily used as an intermediate in the production of several industrial chemicals, the most notable of which is ethylene glycol. 

It is also reportedly used as a fumigant in certain agricultural products and as a sterilant for medical equipment and supplies. 

Unfortunately, added the Occupational Safety and Heath Administration, EtO possesses several physical and health hazards that merit special attention. 

-o0o-

EtO is believed to be both flammable and highly reactive. 

Acute exposures to EtO gas may result in respiratory irritation and lung injury, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, shortness of breath, and cyanosis. 

Chronic exposure has been associated with the occurrence of cancer, reproductive effects, mutagenic changes, neurotoxicity, and sensitization.

The European Commission, meanwhile, has reportedly updated the list of imported products subject to checks for aflatoxins, pesticides and microbial contamination.

Changes are reportedly based on incidents reported through the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) portal and information from official controls by member states on food and feed of non-animal origin in the second half of 2021.

The regulation, which came into force earlier this month, temporarily changes the rate of official controls and puts emergency measures on entry into the EU of certain goods from some non-EU countries, according to Food Safety News. 

Rules are reportedly modified every six months to account for new information on risks to health and non-compliance with EU legislation.

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