The Art of the Insult

A quirky gentleman by the name of Paul Conrad died a couple of years ago (September 4, 2010). The brouhaha about libel in the Philippines brings him to mind. Conrad lived 86 years. His name was legend in the United States, reflecting the power and popularity of a pen. A pen that was busy writing, not words, but pictures. He drew political cartoons for major American newspapers.


He was a peace lover, so his views of war and political figures relentlessly ridiculed the aggressive America. He also didn't like crooks or stupidity.

I'm sure he got his instruction and motivation from the grand master of World War II cartoons, Bill Mauldin. Mauldin didn't much like war, either. His characters "Willie and Joe" dealt with the absurdities of fighting.


Comparing Bill Mauldin and Paul Conrad is like comparing Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordon. Who had greater impact on their respective games, politics and basketball?





Bill Mauldin WWII

Mauldin was good, for sure. And popular. But I'd guess that Paul Conrad is the most famous cartoonist of all time. He had no super hero to draw but lots of wrongs to right, lots of villains to slay. And his pen was mighty in the slaying.


In the Philippines, he would be arrested for libel.


In America he made people cringe . . . then applaud.


He made editors cringe, like the one at the Los Angeles Times who refused to publish the cartoon of the elephant and the donkey over there. The drawing ridiculed Republican notions of what bipartisanship means.





Conrad on Bipartisanship

Conrad was great at shocking his readers. Unifying humor and political perspective so sharply that the readers' reactions invariably passed through four stages:


• Shock


• Laughter


• Comprehension


• Appreciation


In the Philippines, if we imagined a political leader sitting down at the breakfast table and skimming the newspapers for the latest insights on what is happening in their nation, we can imagine his reaction to a Conrad ridicule:


• Shock


• Anger


• Comprehension


• Litigation, whining or sanctioned murder


Leaders in the Philippines take themselves way too seriously.





Conrad on Government Snooping

Interestingly, the un-powerful have a deep sense of humor and great appreciation for ridicule. Ridicule and cheating are two primary values of common living. Ridicule to bring others down from their higher station. Cheating to get ahead when you have no other way to do so.


When everyone else has more than you do, those are understandable values.


But those leaders. The powerful. They are missing a bulb or two in their self-deprecating humor chandelier.


Philippine leadership seems too often to lack perspective. Lack humor. Lack comprehension that a democracy is a MULTITUDE of peoples and ideas. Not a single idea, the one espoused by the leader.


I wish I could draw a picture of their definition of freedom of expression. But half of the picture would be censored. Filipino leaders seem to believe that speech should be free "if I approve of it".  The morality of the powerful.


Below are four  Conrad cartoons ridiculing from the top left, clockwise: President Lyndon Johnson and VP Humphrey riding a bomb into Viet Nam and political oblivion, Presidents Nixon and Bush as Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber, President Reagan as a clown, President Nixon as a dark and villainous soul.

Presidential jabs don't get much sharper than these.


I have no idea why Noynoy Aquino is whining so much about media criticism, why he somehow feels wronged. Why he advocates libel laws instead of free speech, as if oppression comes naturally to a man of his "station". He works at the hardest, most complex, most impactful job in the nation. He is engaged on many prickly issues. He thinks he can skip merrily through six years and not attract criticism?

Get real!

Criticism comes with the territory.

And as Captain John Paul Jones might put it:


• "We have not yet begun to ridicule."


If President Aquino fails to get off his duff to advocate for a better Philippines by pressing for RH legislation and Freedom of Information laws, he deserves to be ridiculed. Why, he might just end up looking a lot like all of these characters, combined . . .



LBJ Bombs Out of the Presidency	Nixon and GW Bush, Dumb and Dumber
President Nixon	President Reagan

"My Mind is a Blob"

When I was teaching high school for one frightful term, education was moving to a "New Math" which involved set theory; unions and intersections and ways of looking at mathematical truths. I never quite got the hang of it, beyond drawing circles, nor did anyone else, for the schools quickly tap-danced away from that teaching trend as too theoretical. And I tap danced away from the blackboard and into army green.

But the set concept has good application as we try to understand one another and the East/West cultures that sometimes collide. I don't think "collision" was a New Math term . . . but it seems to fit for East/West cultural overlap. The union of our cultures - the place where values are the same -sometimes seems small. The place where they collide seems huge.

All of us, both East and West, are alike in one way. We are limited in our ability to understand that which we have never experienced. That is, we both pack our ignorance. Usually, we simply don't have enough good information. We only see what we see, which is sometimes shaded by seeing only what we WANT to see. Or what others TELL us to see.

"Uh, Joe. You're getting kinda thick here. Watchu drivin' at?"

Grossly generalized opinion: Americans are more adept at accepting their own ignorance. Filipinos deny theirs. Americans learn, adjust, grow. Filipinos resist change. (Exceptions abound.)

I think most of the writers at Get Real Post (GRP) believe in what they write, about the limitations of Philippine culture and the incompetence and vindictiveness of President Aquino. I believe the yellow hordes supporting President Aquno also believe what they say, that this is a good man doing a lot of good things for a good nation. The opposing parties are firm in their respective views. Rigid.

But JoeAm can believe what he writes, that there is a bit of "beggar soul" in the cultural habits of the Philippines. And he can believe simultaneously that the Philippines is a rich, wholesome, interesting place to live, a nation that may be on the way to its welcome place as a respected, productive economic force. He can argue either point on a different day, or even merge them as one.

Each viewpoint - one by GRP, one by the hordes, and two by JoeAm - is a true slice of the pie, but none is the whole pie.

The error is when someone insists he has the whole pie.

The question is, do we draw hard and fast lines about our ideas and opinions. Are they thick lines that can't be dented or re-drawn with new information? Are they brick walls? Or are we flexible, fluid, open minded.

Often, the need to save face or maintain reputation leads people to refuse to see or acknowledge new information. They look for information that reinforces their beliefs and skip over information that might oppose their beliefs. They defend a position long after the validity of that position has been called reasonably into question.

You look at all the good things happening in the Philippines now. The call center boom fueling high-rise construction in Manila. New casinos coming in. A strong tourism program. Debt ratings up two ticks in a year, and likely heading to investment grade next year. Corrupt people heading for jail, or like 31 DENR people, getting fired. Strong peso. Booming stock market. International reports largely positive. It is hard to sweep that under any kind of rug.

Yet GRP scribes CANNOT acknowledge the good trends at risk of losing their entire platform. So they keep flailing away, one arm whipping in the air the other whacking at a rock, throwing up arguments that get ever more bizarre or off the point. How do you spell desperation? "GRP".

I'm a believer of soft lines, myself. Indeed, mine are so soft and flexible that the label "hypocrite" or "inconsistent" thrown my way by the thugs at GRP holds up as true, in a certain light. I have no problem with changing my mind if shown new information or the errors of my ways. That is not commonly done in the Philippines. Many a Filipino would find my tappy feet and flip-flopping mind to be weak. About as un-macho as you can get.

Well, you see, I don't see what words have to do with manhood, and I see little need to ridicule someone who tells me my arguments are half baked or out to lunch or nutso. I'd only want to grasp why we look at the same object but see different colors and shapes.

A great many Filipinos pride themselves on superior knowledge. Unbending, self-certain knowledge. They are relentlessly argumentative, throwing up diversions or tangents or truths apart from the real discussion, to prove the certainly of their standing.

Losing an argument does not go down well in the Philippines.

Ridicule follows in short order. Humiliation is thrust down other people's throats with glee.

It is not exactly a forgiving society.

And yet. And yet, in a different reality, it is. It forgives Enrile, a coup master, it forgives Ms. Marcos, the wife of a failed dictator, it forgives a corrupt Estrada and lets him run for President again. But that is partially because these people are MASTERS of word wrestling, of shaping realities to their liking and benefit. And they are masters of the "Get Out Of Jail" trade of favors.

• Mr. Estrada: "Yes, Glo, I won't criticize you while you are in office, even if you try to become a dictator.

• Ms. Arroyo: "Okie dokie. Here's your get out of jail free card."

It is like listening to VP Binay defend getting P 200 million in pork for play money. There's no stated purpose for the money. Just "here, have some, because you are our Number 2 guy". These legislators and rulers act like this is just a Monopoly game and they can buy Boardwalk or all of Makati on a whim. They act like they EARNED the money, that's what bugs me about it.

It is figured that Binay will run for President. I hope he gets pulverized. He defines his realities too slickly. I don't trust him.

Well, this all seems artificial to me, the Filipino hard-headedness and slippery arguments. This need to hold onto views, even if incorrect, because one's ego is vested in the argument. The twisting of realities by tangential arguments and half-truths.  Surreal. Absurd.

So my own personal challenge is to wade through the artificial realities that are thrown up everywhere in the Philippines, from biased newspaper reports to emotional tantrums from a certain senator to GRP propaganda. I choose to find my own reality and refuse to line up to follow an ideology, or political party's view, or a given religious faith. Mine is a blob of a reality, a truth that shifts and drifts according the information available.

I don't like being cemented in place. It doesn't feel right.

I prefer to fly, and welcome it when others straighten out my occasionally crooked trajectory.

It is not a humiliation to be wrong. It is merely an unfortunate information warp in the space time continuum.

In other words, a mistake.

My bad.

Grow. Move on.

Getting from A to B and B to C on Education

Last year, I got inspired about education, specifically, a way to stop the current pattern of doing things, forever building hollow-block classrooms and stuffing them with 45 kids each led by an overworked, underpaid, undertrained teacher who is happier than the kids are when the day ends. I wrote six articles about it.

The idea is to start rolling out internet classes to selected schools. Buying the kids laptops, enrolling honors students first, and letting them study at home or the coffee shop or the school cafeteria. Take some of the pressure off the brick and mortar, and the teachers. Leverage the brainpower of a few centralized teachers to do lessons for thousands of kids. Receive tests and papers on line. Grade them centrally with interns or lower-paid staff. Innovate, both on how lessons are delivered, and on the curriculum.  Teach things like leadership (small group exercises), problem solving, planning and organizing, judging risks prior to making decisions, that sort of thing. They would not be asked to memorize the table of elements, but they would have to know how to find it on line as a reference source. Local teachers would organize the program and counsel students.

These articles got a lot of circulation and a few months ago I read that a member of Congress involved on an education committee was talking up the idea about on-line education.  That's great, and I hope something happens. The current model is unsustainable.

I am perplexed about how to get from A to B and B to C, to get anything done.

Here's the Filipino condition. Problems here are generally recognized as insurmountable. People just can't get around them. They give up. Get stopped in their tracks by any objection. Don't do anything. Filipinos are very good at finding the flaws in things, the warts, the bugs, the barriers. The tolerance for risk is low. After all, who wants to be associated with problems?

They do not evidence much skill or desire to work around the barriers.

Therein lies the solution to the mystery as to why not much changes in the Philippines. Problems are seen as BEING the project. They are not seen as a challenging WRINKLE to the project, the hurdle to be overcome, the barrier to be passed, the bug to be squashed. Problems are not seen as the rewarding part of the project, once overcome.

No, problems stop it dead.

The problem BECOMES the project and no one wants to be associated with it.

The reasons? Face and ridicule. Face is the impossible demand for self-perfection. It is the defensive motivation that generates all the excuses and blames you witness. And ridicule is the vehicle by which one Filipino whips another into a lower state, thus elevating himself.

So the tolerance for risk-taking is low in the Philippines, indeed. The ability to give up is high. The desire to achieve is hammered into submission by fear of ridicule.

So I have an idea of how the Department of Education can make this very easy on themselves. There are  a number of on-line schools in the United States offering high school  classes. Like anything, I suppose, some are better than others, but here are two examples:

• Allied National High School courses: http://www.alliedhighschool.com/curric_description.shtml#physa

• Park City Independent courses: http://www.parkcityindependent.com/courses/

Knowledge of physics in the U.S. is the same as knowledge of physics in the Philippines, and English proficiency is expected among Filipino honors students. So there is no need to re-invent a bunch of new courses.

Just find the three best schools and have them bid on the Philippine core curriculum. Include with the bid requirements the need to develop a few new courses specific to the Philippines (Philippine history; tagalog), or to social programs focused on developing a competitive mindset among kids (team work, decision making). Have them bid on packages of 1,000 students, 5,000 and 10,000.

Ascertain that the rigors of the class work are appropriate to assign credentials to the program comparable to a physical high school.

You could have your program put together in a year.

I tell you what, if I were a younger man, I would not offer up this ideal in a public forum. I'd keep it quiet and develop the school privately myself in the Philippines, get it credentialed, and start selling enrollments.

I don't think this is rocket science.

I'd get rich by helping Philippine kids get smart.

Frankly, it is an idea only one entrepreneur short of a million dollar business: a private, on-line school teaching modern subjects in modern ways.

If the Department of Education REALLY wants to make it easy on themselves, they only need to assign a small portion of their bloated brick and mortar budget to funding a few start-up private/public educational programs providing internet-based education.