“I shall leave you as you left me, marooned for all eternity, in the center of a dead planet, buried alive, buried alive…”
A definitive Shatner moment forever immortalized. (Link via MeFi.)
Update:
Pardon Who?
(Update: Arnold just pointed out that Philippine elections are May 10, not 20. I don’t know how I missed that. Maybe it was from thinking of 2010. And I think Erap really does have Gloria dancing in the palm of his hand: she even sent him a penholder for his birthday. Update: And golf carts! What a sellout.)
Remember this? Estrada out to delay trial until 2004, in hopes that the elections would install a more lenient loyalist administration. Well, it seems to have worked. Here we are, three weeks to May 2010, and Estrada can’t wait to be set free, he’s milking Gloria’s populist-oriented opportunism for all it’s worth, and playing her like a kulintang.
If Gloria loses to FPJ, and she and/or her husband gets arrested for corruption, will they get the same treatment, I wonder? Will Lacson pursue his “Incredible Hulk” case for the opposition considering how they treated him in favor of Da King?
(Okay, just to recap: Roco’s Denouement, Wife vs Puppet, and Bro Eddie’s Chance, and this. Barring the likely event of some other massive development, this is probably my last post on the May 2010 Philippine elections until, well, May 2010. I’ve just had a lot to get off my chest since I started moderating politics on Pinoyexchange.)
Bro Eddie’s Chance
When one thinks of TV evangelists running for president, most Americans probably think of Pat “Nuke the State Dept” Robertson, but it’s Bro. Eddie C. Villanueva who’s on Filipino Christians’ minds these days. ECV is no ordinary born-again televangelist. Check out this fairly dramatic bio.
Hailing from an entrepreneurial background, ECV studied economics, commerce, and law; then lived life as a labor leader and communist activist, from which he later converted, to become a born-again Christian and founder of “Jesus Is Lord,” one of the Philippines’ largest evangelical movements. He has family in politics, he knows how to manage, organize, speak, and fight, and he has the considerable backing of the JIL denomination. He has a principled yet non-theocratic platform, and I’m pretty sure we know where he would stand on justice where the Marcoses are concerned. This is a guy I could stand behind for the presidency — if only he had more political experience under his belt.
I don’t think Bro. Eddie can win the 2004 election without a miracle; not with the FPJ and GMA monsters overshadowing him. But miracles can happen, eh? Regardless, these first steps are good ones. If he were to try for Senator or even Veep, or something to get his political feet wet, that would give him an excellent fighting chance in 2010.
2010. How the years fly.
Wife vs Puppet
Meanwhile, FPJ now has Marcos backing. Marcos! Yes, the family of the late kleptocratic dictator Ferdinand and his wife Imelda “3,000 pairs of shoes” Marcos! FPJ can now draw financial aid from the Philippines’ own Gold of Tolosa, along with moral support from his best friend, an ousted corrupt incompetent.
Small comfort that, at this moment, the only apparent hope of beating him is from the incumbent Gloria, who, with her husband, in a case of “meet the new leader, same as the old,” appears to be just as much a kleptocrat as those who went before her.
Perhaps another glimmer of hope (?) comes from the continuing “unity” talks between Lacson and FPJ. With his roots in the police, Lacson stands for tough, disciplined, harsh, uncompromising governance, which the Philippines needs, and FPJ’s popularity can only help. (Right?) But he is also a Marcos loyalist with a dubious human rights record. I sometimes rationalize that Ramos was one too, but Ramos, at least, stood on the right side EDSA in 1986. Where was Lacson?
Right now, the wife of a thief and a puppet of thieves are leading the electoral pack. Filipinos forgive their abusers far too easily.
Roco’s Denouement
Just three weeks to May 2010 elections, and it looks like Raul Roco is out of the race, having left for the U.S. to seek treatment for what might be cancer. Back before May, he says, but the damage is done: already trailing in surveys, now he is unable to make campaign appearances or attend debate, and his good health is in doubt.
I remember seeing Roco in late ’97, photographing him up close when he came to Ateneo for a presidential election debate with then-administration candidate Joe de Venecia. Roco had no chance at the time, then: an upstart senator known mainly for championing women’s rights (he had been dubbed “honorary woman” by certain groups), who wore wild Hawaiian shirts and had a winking tick in his eye when he spoke; his giant stature was overshadowed by other “giants” in the election: Miriam, Erap, JoeDeV. But we students were starry-eyed about him, the “choice of the youth,” who stood for so much we could stand for: education, women’s rights, honest governance, dropping mandatory ROTC. Remember those days? In 2002, after the triple farce of Erap’s impeachment and ousting, GMA’s waffling flip-flop presidency (John Kerry has nothing on this lady), and the threat of FPJ’s candidacy, I’m sure many Filipinos were ecstatic that Roco came out on top of early opinion polls.
I don’t know what happened, whether he was resting on his laurels and failed to consolidate his political gains, or if he was simply eclipsed by FPJ’s overwhelming celebrity power, but for 2004, at least, this appears to be Roco’s untimely political denouement. How the mighty have fallen.
False Alarm
Early Saturday morning, I was awakened by the noise of sirens, as firetrucks pulled up in front of the building. They had gotten the ladder up to the top of the building before being told it was a false alarm.
Photo taken with a Palm Zire 71.
Executive Graven Image
Do you want a lithograph of President George W. Bush at a podium, head bowed in prayer, while the spirits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln flank him, hats off and heads also bowed, their hands on Bush’s shoulders, with a shining white cross over the Presidential seal, adorning the chief executive’s head like a halo, all backdropped by the Statue of Liberty, Iwo Jima, and the American flag? For a suggested $35 donation, you got it:
Thanks, Presidential Prayer Team Store! GOD BLESS AMERICA! WOO!
Tax Haiku
Hello, tax refund.
Goodbye, credit card balance.
Goodbye, tax refund.
An Udvar-Hazy Day
In the post about Seagulls On Ice, I mentioned that Amy and I were off to the NASM Udvar-Hazy Center in Dulles, but I never got down to writing about how that went, did I? Well, It was great, well worth the 45-minute bus ride from DC out to VA.
The annex is a huge hangar containing artifacts from almost every era of aviation history — those that would not fit in the main Air and Space Building. Smaller planes were hung from the cavernous ceiling, arranged as though in an airshow, while larger aircraft — which I was far more interested in — sat on the hangar floor. Right at the entrance was the SR-71 Blackbird, sitting before the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Near that was the restored and reassembled B-29 Enola Gay, its label ominously playing down Hiroshima and Nagasaki in favor of more technical aviation info. (Protestors had splashed the bomber with red paint, but it appears to have been cleaned off.) Further down, the world’s only remaining Stratoliner (recent crash survivor) glinted silver beside the Dash 80 prototype. At the food court side of the hangar, a newly retired Concorde dominated the view.
A few drawbacks: disappointingly, none of the aircraft interiors were open to tourists. Also, while the Space Hangar is still being constructed, most of the Space Shuttle is cordoned off so you can only view it from the front or from afar and above. And one tip for visitors going to the annex, there are practically no food options at the Udvar-Hazy Center, so eat first. There’s only one tiny Subway sandwich stand in the “food court.” Their supply of personnel and box lunches is severely limited, the line stretches halfway across the hangar at the peak of lunch rush, and seating may not always be available. It doesn’t look like they’ll have a proper food court till summer of this year. Also, if you want to get up to the viewing tower to see planes landing at Dulles Airport, you’ll need to come earlier in the day to get tickets, which are in high demand and low supply.
Otherwise, the place is great: a flight-nerd’s dream. I highly recommend it, just as long as you start with a full stomach. Photos here.
Ustinov as Friedrich
Hearing of Peter Ustinov’s death last month made me think of the last film I saw him in, Luther. Amy and I watched that last August with Valerie. The film itself was pretty ordinary, not too daring, more like an exceptionally well-made docu-drama. Joseph Fiennes as Martin Luther was simply not a reconcilable image. I prefer Valerie’s idea of casting Sean Astin in the Great Reformer’s role: he has the face and the build for it.
As for Sir Peter, he was Friedrich the Wise, and he played it perfectly, as an endearing old monarch whose hapless childlikeness belied shrewd political wiles. But other than that, it was a mostly unengaging film. And that singing scene. Cringe.