(Free Press editorial cartoon from the 1920s.) Gentility is supposed to permeate places like country clubs and golf courses. They are the places where the hoi polloi are kept out and where everyone else can see and be seen. When someone like Bambee dela Paz and her family collide with official thugs, the collision isn’t [...]

Season’s Greetings to all regular and occasional readers! Thank you for keeping me company during 2008 and here’s to 2009! There’s are some changes and such in store for this blog in ’09. But until then, this blog is going on holiday hiatus until the first or second week of January. I hope everyone gets [...]

The Speaker has declared a ceasefire but that’s far from raising a white flag of surrender as Doronila thinks is the case. I had my misgivings about the rally, and the way it turned out, despite the bravura of all present, can only give the proponents of amendments before 2010 increased optimism. Before the rally [...]

My column yesterday was Christmas tragedies. Read Tony Abaya’s column Consuelo’s Stimulus where he says the real economic hammer blow’s going to be on the electronics exports sector, and he calls for scrutiny of public spending. See also Lito Banayo’s column, Gloom. For the global situation, see 8 really, really scary predictions in Fortune. And [...]

Of the accounts and commentaries on the Pacquiao-de la Hoya fight, I enjoyed those of The Warrior Lawyer -first on the boxing of the thing (see the links in The Age of Brillig, too), then the economics of the sport and the match- and the broadside against the actual broadcasting of the match, by Bong [...]

I will present my conference notes in my next entry, but first, here are the remarks I delivered during my portion of the Asian Thoughts Leaders Forum held under the auspices of the Arts House of Singapore. The forum, the first of its kind held by the Arts House as part of its Asia-on-the-edge Festival, [...]