Saturday, January 26, 2013

Word Wars: Drone Blogging

I'd like to thank Angry Maude for taking up the cudgel the other day. [Cudgel:  (noun) a short, thick stick used as a weapon.] I told her to just relax, we've been writing too much about the elections and the campaigns haven't really started yet. But she explained, which is a euphemism for shouting in my ear, that it is wise to get ideas out early so other can run with them. [Euphemism: (noun) the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.]

So I'd like to continue this trend of parsing ideas regarding the election. [Parsing: (verb ) to analyze (something, as a speech or behavior) to discover its implications or uncover a deeper meaning.]

If you pull back and look broadly at the contested Cybercrime Law, you see two forces in action. One, an attempt by people with power to avail themselves of a tool to intimidate or even silence critics. Two, an attempt by people with words to avail themselves of the right to use them freely insofar as they do not threaten or instigate physical or monetary harm.

I belong to the latter group. Proudly. I believe we fairly represent the spirit of Thomas Jefferson and Sam Adams (ahahahaha, the guy who makes beer) when their writings make clear that the human condition is treated best when it is open to ideas and not shut off from them.

A commenter at Raissa's Top Blog described a lot of bloggers as "helicopter bloggers", hovering from afar and shooting off opinions. I wrote back that I considered myself to be a "drone blogger", hovering from afar and shooting off word missiles at deserving targets.

We are heading into the election cycle, which means our environment, defined by what we see on television or read in the papers and internet, is about to become filled with deceitful crap aimed at convincing us to vote for one person or another. It's all nonsense. These words will come at us from every which way, all with the purpose of invading our thoughts and convincing us to take up acts that favor somebody we don't really know.

Word Wars.

Well, frankly, I love it.

Is a foreigner here allowed to opine? Or is it an affront to the sovereignty of Filipinos? Does it smack of colonial intent?

Or is an idea an idea no matter who utters it?

The problem here is that JoeAm says it more directly and with more literary flair than most Filipino blogger offerings. So it seems louder, eh? Snippier. Ruder perhaps.

It takes a Filipino of considerable breadth of understanding, and security of emotions, to deal with some of the stuff you read here. Especially when it is off-base, or wrong. But style is what it is, eh? I don't know any other way. So tough luck ye stalwart Filipinos of rigid bearing and sensitive mien . . .

I prefer the term irreverent to obnoxious. But, hey, people are free not to read. I have asterisked the hell out of the site explaining that there is only one goal here, a healthier, wealthier, wiser Philippines. If the writing is not your style, at least let me have mine, because I can make up a story better than most, and zap snide insults quicker than a hungry cobra on a fat rat.

  • So when the Chinese push their arrogance east, I'll jam it back west.

  • When the political priests flap their robes and their mouths like any common in-the-dirt conniving politician, I'll will make sure they get plastered with a fine sheen of gooey red Filipino word-mud. There is no "reverence" in politics.

  • When the antis go on into their fourth year of denial about the health and condition of the Philippines and its President, I will sit back and laugh. And toss out poison word-darts at those aspects of their physique that is largest, and I'm not talking brain or heart.

  • When the chronically corrupt insist on dipping their clammy claws into the public purse, I shall make sure they grab a handful of word-wasps.

And I herein add a fifth party to the above list of institutions that work concertedly against the best interest of the Philippines.

  •  It is the old guys, the unbending masters of rigid perspective who have had their day in the sun but insist on promoting family member to carry on . . . wives, daughters, and sons . . . against the letter and spirit of the Constitution . . . because the greed in their hearts exceeds the compassion they have for a nation of substantially poor but honorable citizens.

And I welcome others to join the Society of Words.

What weapons do we have to engage in word wars?

We have keyboards and modems and brains with no agenda but the well-being of the Philippines. We have the Humpty Dumpty New World Dictionary and a  small group of extraordinarily bright and well-centered people, each a personality in his or her own right. We have independence and we have passion.

We have ears and the willingness to listen to opposing views, striving always for respect for dissent and respect for the dissenter.

We have strategy and tactics and the ability to wing it.

More than anything, we have our words, God's gift to us for the pursuit of health and happiness.

It's election season.

Lock and load.


25 comments:

  1. 1. You have identified the enemies, and it is us and the Chinese.

    2. I cannot imagine the country descending lower than where it is now, but election times tend to bring out the worst in Filipinos. I cannot recall what brings out the best in Filipinos. Oh, yes, the downfall of dictators and plunderers.

    3. It will be interesting to see how the current bombs bursting in air will reshape the political landscape. The UNA is taking a beating in the blogosphere but one never knows how that will affect the election results.

    3.1. Corona must be smiling in schadenfreude glee at Enrile’s discomfort.

    4. For research purposes, I waded through more than 700 comments in the Inquirer item on the Senate imbroglio. The range mirrors those in Raissa’s blog, from weak defence to hasty condemnation, but as expected there are more “revelations” and juicy bits and the language is - shall we say? – earthier.

    4.1 The propensity for gossip is overwhelming. It involves more than the principals. Is there a middle path between the polar opposites you describe for the Cybercrime Law?

    5. Helicopter blogging, drone blogging. I don’t have that technology. Mine would be sniper blogging. Standing on the roof of the building that houses my principles and beliefs and firing at specific targets.

    6. It’s election season. God help us.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Sniping. That's like droning but with smaller projectiles. I was an artilleryman in the Army. I could nail a beer can with a 105 howitzer a mile away. I like the rooftop analogy to principles. The drone principals and principles are back in a bunker in Virginia, which is safe enough, whilst the drones are over Pakistan.

      Yes, I am sure Corona is having a fine chuckle.

      It is true that the principle enemy of the Philippines is Filipinos, and election day is when they charge the walls.

      Delete
  2. Gosh. Helicopter bloggers? Troll-by bloggers? Hamilton bloggers? I cannot blame Raissas storm troopers. They are territorial bloggers. Terroir. They have Appellation d'origine controllee membership? Jeeeez. Soooo emotional blogging society more on discipline but lacking in logic. Preccion correctional shebamethembas !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We weep, therefore we exist. I think logic hereabouts is rather like that white lady of this forest or that, talked about with reverence and a great deal of fear, seen now and then as a whispy goast, never really met.

      Delete
  3. Someone mused that election spending is the best that ever happened to the Filipinos - somehow the ordinary folks get some juice during election though starved up during the period where there is no election.

    As regards drone blogging, i hope the simile is not about being able to hit the target while the target cannot hit back because the blogger is actually a dummy.. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hahahahaha, sometimes he is a dummy and I think I'll trash the comparison . . .

      Delete
  4. Oh I really like the sentence: An idea is an idea no matter who utters it. I think, we Filipinos should learn to live with this sentence. Majority of Filipinos are so emotional about everything. Do we use our hearts in most instances more than we use our heads?

    As you said in your previous blog-Filipinos as emotional- actually so emotional that we do not stop, think and react about stuff objectively. We react emotionally first, and if there is time and we use our ears and listen to others then we see things objectively

    I really hope that during this "electionering time" we the voters will listen and read about what these candidates are saying with objectivity. Open our minds and hearts to the different ideas that we read and hear about each candidate so that come election time, we can honestly I will vote for the person who I think is good for the country.

    Thanks Joe America for your blog. You give us another perspective on how to look at the events in our country.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Ella for having the patience to read other opinions (like mine)and reach for understanding rather than justification. I'm also doing the pre-write percolation on a blog that deals with how the emotionalism of Filipinos, although dysfunctional if out of control, is also the depth of heart that makes the nation genuine and rich, the matter of money aside.

      Delete
    2. I will look for that article with great anticipation.

      I have a question though, is the emotionalism of the majority of Filipinos connected to the fact that they always look at stuff very personally? Everything is so personal for majority of Filipinos.

      Delete
    3. I can only guess. I think the actual emotionalism is probably not much different than anywhere else, but what is missing is the introspection that could go along with it to cause it to ease off with it reaches an explosion point. The inward look is missing. The whole area of motivation and psychology seems to lack study and teaching in the Philippines, in favor of rote learning of "things". Also, there is no psychotherapy industry in the Philippines where people who have emotional issues can turn for counseling and treatment.

      Delete
    4. That said, it is interesting to note that the suicide rate in the Philippines is very low. It is high in the US.

      Also, my typing missed in the third line. It should read " . . . ease off when . . .

      Delete
  5. Blogging in the Philippines come in different shapes and colors, the most popular depends on the particular blog where every one has something to contribute usually about gossipy and salacious topic. Case in point on Raissa blog, the latest blogs were about sex and a scorned woman.

    Compare to Jcc blog which is almost always about analytical jurisprudence or legal analysis, barely participated by netizens probably also related to the limited target intellectuals. Buencamino's blog on Aksyon 5 are satirically profound and amusing yet handful of blogger care to comment. The only reason I could not comment in his blog is that its server keeps rejecting my posting.

    Marites Vitug blog on Rappler is about idealsm and principle. I wonder why her blog is not on top of bloggers. I for one had stopped commenting eversince Rappler used Discus their server because it rejected all my comments.

    Going to JoeAm blog, although the topic varies mainly about the conditions in the Philippines, political, economic, cultural, social it is never about entertainment which is the main reason of mediocre postings by readers.

    Raissa and Joe Am are popular because everyone isaccepted as commenters, not too much filtering

    Johnny Lin

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice overview, Johnny. The Rappler moderator also eats a lot of my comments, and once eaten, they never see the light of day. It seems like they have a timer on things and if I take too long writing, my comment is rejected. And also if I use words like "stupid"; not even swear words. And also if I am first post to a thread.

      I've noticed that commenters go through cycles here, as well. Maybe 4 to 6 months is all they can take, then they mosey on, enriched or twitching from the irritation, I don't know which. Maybe they visit once in a while.

      Readership here is up, over 1,000 reads per day now. It was 500 only a few weeks ago, and 200 several months ago. I suspect some of the readership is influential within the Philippines. I'm happy if there are a lot of comments and don't mind when there are none. It's rather the ebb and flow of seas and topics.

      The quality of comment is invariably high and thoughtful, and in the main, respectful.

      Delete
  6. Pertaining to Ella's question about emotionalism of Filipinos.

    Filipinos have 3 despicable characteristics morphing from one common source:
    1. They are sensitive
    2. Filipinos hate to be criticized
    3. When the accusation is true, their answers are unrelated to the charges dealing more about personal embarassment to theaccuser thereby deflecting the subject under contention.

    All these 3 factors have one common progeny, one of the top 10 bad traits of Filipinos enumerated previoslu in JoeAm blogs, "feeling important"

    Enrile displayed this bad behavior not only once but thrice, staring with Trillanes, followed by Miriam and lastly, Cayetano in that order.
    Corona during his trial, displayed the same bad character. It is not a coincidence that both Corona and Enrile, trying to raise the issue of their moral integrity and respect, ridiculed and accused deceased persons uable to defend themselves.

    Painting themselves as important people, both Corona and Enrile also raised the issue of "utang na loob", Corona against his colleagues and Enrile against the Cayetano clan.

    If Cayetano spoke the truth against Enrile, the latter's chief of staff, Gigi, spoke the truth also against the former that he was an "hypocrite". Of course, Cayetano, feeling important, felt humiliated by the exercise of freedom of speech of a senate employee demanding explanation on the characterization of his "important" senatorial status. Whatever happened to "Respect is earned" principle along with freedom of expression.

    Such is "emotional feeling" of Filipinos which is predicated always by "feeling important, unmindful of any circumstances"

    Johnny Lin




    ReplyDelete
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    1. Thank you Johnny Lin for the enlightening reply. The "emotional feeling" and "feeling important, unmindful of any circumstances" are these related to the fact the Filipinos Abroad survive and are disciplined and achieve what they want to achieve but they have to have a sounding board like their gatherings on specific days of the week. Most of their topics during these gatherings are their achievements or what they did and complaints about their bosses or supervisors. Oh also they use these gatherings to help a kababayan that needs help.

      Delete
    2. Weeeee !!!! Johnny L, 1 and 2 is common knowledge. But your number 3 is a whooper of a burger you nailed it like J.C. on the cross.

      The number #3 is what makes Philippine blogs sooooo addictive. Tit for Tat. An eye for an eye. A blog for a blog.

      Delete
    3. Oh, Johnny L, you forgot number numero quattro. #4. Helicopter bloggers are allowed limited of comments in a day.

      Numero Cinco. #5. Helicopter commentators including those fly-by and drones should not comment on all the comments there is available. They are subjected to #4 limit.

      #6. Numero seys. When one comments, one has adore and patronize the blog owner first before anything else like, "Good morning, Raissa, how are you dong?" HA! HA! HA!

      #7. Never ever laugh like "HAWR!" "HAWR!" "HAWR!" "HA!" "HA!" "HA!" no matter how funny the comments are.

      #8. Numero ocho ! NEVER BE EMOTIONAL !!!! Because the bloggers themselves are already EMOTIONAL !!!!!!

      Delete
    4. A fine rendition. I like number 6 especially, which is the Kiss Ass rule. Re. number 7, I refuse to use LOL as a matter of principle, and love HAWR HAWR HAWR as a satirical laugh, because it is associated with every bloggers biggest nightmare, you. HAWR HAWR HAWR

      Delete
  7. "Is a foreigner here allowed to opine? Or is it an affront to the sovereignty of Filipinos? Does it smack of colonial intent?"

    No. Yes. Yes.

    Kidding, Joe.

    The general attitude should be to encourage everyone to share their opinion. As long as it is constructive, I see no issue with it. I doubt if you'd write something as profound as "The Philippines sucks" with nothing else following it.

    As for elections, I think with more information coming out of media about candidates, people should be more than capable to pick a winner -- in their eyes.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I have a basic principle, brianitus, never to pay attention to anyone whose thoughts I don't agree with. ahahahaha It keeps me ignorant and happy. Check in Tuesday for a blog that is more accurate than "The Philippines sucks" . . .

      The elections will be an interesting test of the power of social media. Will Senator Enrile's son get a negative backlash from the soap opera in the senate, and will Binay's daughter get dinged for Papa's backing an errant Cebu governor? I'm guessing "no" and "no".

      Delete
    2. Yes, more "information coming out" of media is limited to those very few that can afford newspapers. According to Wikipedia Philippine Daily Inquirer is the widely bought newspaper but according to my observation they are not necessarily read. Filipinos prefer newspaper over toilet paper because it is cheap. Its circulation, according to Wiki, of course their sources must be coming from PDI is around 260,000 copies among 94,000,000 Filipinos.

      Radio which is affordable and listened to by majority of the Filipinos are preferred for their soap than news. If there is news at all it is not realiable.

      Television are more for sob-tear-jerking entertainment than news.

      Internet are accessible to the affluent, office workers, internet savvy and students but mostly used for social networking. Those that read blogs and drop in comments do it during office hours because these office workers cannot afford internet fees. How do I know this? Because comments on blogs slows down to a trickle on weekends and spike on workdays.

      Just recently, after I banned and ex-communicated Raissa blog from faves, The Society of Honor by Joe saw a spike of blog peepers. My fans and haters over there, mostly haters, just wanted to know how am I behaving here and what I have to say.

      Delete
    3. SO, THEREFORE, who the Filiipnos vote is limited to their access of INFORMATION and UNBIASED DELIVERING OF THE NEWS.

      benign0 Aquino was elected because benign0 was crying next to a "Game ka na ba" superstar crying Kris Aquino. Actually she may have been CRYIING-MADE-FOR-TV. Then suddenly, the Filipinos were asking, who was that next to Kris? "Ssssh, that is his older brother, BSAIII"

      "Who?"
      "Her brother!"
      "Is he married?"
      "NO!"
      "He looks cute! Why we never heard of him?"
      "Becaue he is low key. Why not make him president of the Philippines? "
      "President? What experience does he have?"
      "Sssssh, not so loud. He got goons around. He came from oligarchs. Well connected. Powerful. They own slaves"
      "Aaaaah, so, therefore, benign0 has all the components of Philippine President. Oligarchy. Wealthy. Guns. Goons and Slaves"
      "Yeah! You got it right !!!! I will run to the Philippine Media and torotot his accomplishment"
      "What accomplishment that you are going to torotot?"
      "benign0 has experience in running Hacienda Luisita slaves. If he can run slaves and whip them in line, HE CAN RUN FILIPINOS AND WHIP THEM IN LINE !!!"

      And gootness, with benign0's experience with his slaves, FILIPINOS ARE NOW WHIPPED IN LINE. The economy and currency has strengthened. Government employees are now honest. Only thing, Filipinos are still importing as simple as catsup and pansit.

      Delete
    4. Interesting, that's a pretty small Inquirer circulation number if you are not making it up.

      Indeed, I did have a blip upward in readership after you went quiet at Raissa's web site. I thought it was the spammers who visit with great regularity preparing their next onslaught. So I'm relieved to know it was CPMers looking for their lost Renato.

      Well, Aquino is a happy function of fate, I think, and Kris is actually rather nice, I discovered through direct e-mail.

      I find interesting that BSP is working on strategies to reduce the "asset bubble" formed by the flood of hot money coming into the Philippines looking for a ride on the growth, that will get yanked at first burp (like when China invades), causing the thin thin thin economy to go bust.

      Delete
    5. According to Nielsen rating According "... the readership percentages translate to 866,000 daily readers for the Inquirer, 621,000 readers for Bulletin, and 577,000 readers for Star."

      http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/148811/philippine-daily-inquirer-widens-lead-in-readership

      Investors know that Philippine Presidency has only one term. Investors also know that benign0 is just a fluke. They also know the strength of the peso is not because of GDP but by inflows of OFW dollars chasing few pesos. That makes Philippine inferior exports more expensive foreigners wouldn't even want to buy. Foreigners definitely wouldn't buy Sarao motor vehicles. Filipnos in AMerica are not buying imported Magnolia ice cream because half-gallon of ube costs $7.99 compared to American-made ice cream $3.99. A pint of Starbucks coffee ice cream at $2.99. I'd buy Starbucks ice cream hands-down over Magnolia. A pocket-sized tanduay sized imported Suka Pinakurat (vinegar) at $3.25 !!!

      Months before benign0's term would be over, investors would start dumping their peso holdings, Peso sinks, OFWs will be happy again.

      Delete
    6. OMG, Mariano has gone factual! What a jolt. Clearly someone else has snuck onto the MPR computer. Thanks for the statistics and link. That is decent readership. So the printed press is in good order if it would just focus on the facts instead of the gore and glory.

      Well, it is good to know that I will get rich again in a couple of years. Aquino is driving my retirement savings into the ground.

      Delete

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