Ninoy Aquino — 19 years

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In the days of the dictatorial Marcos kleptocracy, inspired reformist Ninoy Aquino was a beacon of hope for a crushed and suffering nation. His brutal assassination at Manila International Airport sparked the flames of revolt, culminating in the 1986 People Power movement which drove out the Marcoses and restored democracy to the Philippines.

Today, nineteen years later, the Philippines remains mired in poverty and stagnation. Her hard-won democracy has produced only incompetent and/or corrupt presidents unable to keep from repeating the mistakes of the past. Family members have sided with an impeached showbiz politician accused of massive theft, fraud, gambling, and rampant marital unfaithfulness. His sister scandalized the nation with her “victory dance” at the aborted impeachment trial, and his daughter further embarasses the family with her lurid affairs with married high-profile movie actors.

Kris Aquino’s latest gaffe: “Oh, I know I’m having affairs with movie actors and an unfaithful city mayor, but my family still loves me, and my mom will always be my mom, no matter what.” Now, while I don’t doubt ex-President Cory Aquino’s propensity for motherly love, I think it seriously bad form for Kris to be so publicly blasé about it. Mama Cory will not blithely continue to tolerate her daughter’s constant and nonchalant shovelling of manure onto the already-stained Aquino family name, especially not while Kris acts so cocky with the press about her illicit affairs. The Bush daughters have nothing on this girl.

Poor Ninoy must be rolling in his grave.

PNB sa MRT?

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It looks like the Philippine National Bank is using public transit to transport its money. How’s that for cost-cutting?

(Unless of course, those were costumed bank robbers brazen enough to steal moneybags and make their getaway on the light rail. Hay naku, Philippines.)

Canadian’s rant

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I couldn’t catch the Havalina gig, because I had to go to Hechts’ and buy a pillow before catching the MARC train back to Bawlmer. :(

Anyway, now that Bene D has granted me the title of Honorary Canadian, I wonder if I’m entitled to wild Canadian rants like this one. “Ya bunch of stupid fat lazy American losers, eh?” Gee, he must have used every single ad hominem in the book.

Voluminous commentary on MeFi.

Slightly related: Glenn Reynolds on Mugabe and the Zimbabwean racial situation. Funny line: Noam Chomsky was quick to denounce the United States for the imaginary starvation of millions. He doesn’t seem nearly as loud where someone is actually starving people on purpose does he? Why could that be? Oh, yeah: Mugabe isn’t an American, or allied with America, and hence is incapable of evil. Sorry, I forgot there for a moment.

Relative Font Sizes

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For once, I think we can all agree with Jakob: web designers should abandon the tyranny of absolute pixel sizes and give their users the benefit of scaleable fonts for greater accesibility.

The main problem with this is the wild inconsistency with which different browsers render relative font sizes. What looks like “70%” in one browser will not be that in another. Worse, if you rely on table-based layouts (you shouldn’t, but it will often be unavoidable), add to that Mozilla’s unique property of passing relative font sizes into table cells. Where before we were accustomed to setting a font-size for both “body” and “td” tags to avoid getting giant 1em text in our tables, now relative font-sizes will reduce your text to chicken scratches within tables in Mozilla.

Right now the only way I can see around this problem is to either not use font sizes at all and stick to whatever the browser uses as its default, or use some fancy script-based sniffing to load the stylesheet appropriate to the user’s browser. The latter, however, is too much a hack, which developers in a more ideal world should not have to resort to. Hence the need to continue the fight for standards.

Anyway, I’m still working on a solution for the Mozilla font size table cell problem. Any recommendations?

Havalina

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Blake (who, by the way, is back to the “Heidelblog” name) tells me that Havalina is playing in DC tonight; in the Hispanic area around 14th and U St NW. I’ll be passing through there on my way to the Metro as I head back for Bawlmer; if the timing is right, maybe I can pop in for some photos.

(Update: Aw, I can’t make it. I still need to pass by Hecht’s and buy a pillow.)

Riding, riding…

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Like anarthrous Dane, I too inflict upon myself the rigors of public transit on a daily basis. Between now and the time school starts, I’ll still be working for the same company, so the trip to Washington goes thus:

1. Baltimore Metro to Light Rail on Howard Street,

2. Light Rail to Baltimore Penn Station,

3. MARC commuter train to DC Union Station, and…

4. DC Metro to Dupont Circle, where I walk to work.

Four different train systems in a day. All in all, it’s about a 90 minute commute one-way, not counting walking time, on a good day. Just about as long as it took to get to and from work back in Manila; except that I’m traversing far greater distances in that span of time — Forty miles instead of seven.

If I didn’t like travelling by train so much, I would, like, absolutely die. Like, gag me with a spoon, totally.

I’m a Bawlmerian now

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Little Italy sure is… um, Italian. Lots of Italian bakeries and cafes, and charming Fells Point is just a few blocks down the street, right on the other side of a giant ghetto-type black neighborhood which the neighbors told me to avoid at night. (Too late, though; I’d already walked right through it.)

I also wandered all over downtown looking for a decent place to get dinner, and had to settle for a cheesesteak from a pizza place on Baltimore Street, right in the middle of the local red-light district. Yeesh.

These overlay area codes are confusing. Is a 443 number in Baltimore still local even if my phone is a Baltimore 410? Because my ISP’s dial-up numbers are all 443’s. :P