Facebooking a Book of Faces

A FRIEND asked me. What is ethical or better--to unfriend someone or simply wait for the person to unfriend him/herself (by quietly leaving your list). For me, unfriending someone is pretty much kicking that individual out of your house. Harsh. Seldom I do that since mere presence in my house means I allowed it. But there are times when the person starts to annoy you like a cockroach, so you offer reminders to behave as per your "rules" since it's your house, your unit. (Facebook owns the building.) So if both of you mutually start to irk each other, then I unfriend. But usually I just let the person take the initiative to unfriend themselves quietly. It's a simple case of, if I visit a house or bar and I don't like what's in there or what the host is mumbling about, I just scoot out pronto. No harm no foul. Done.

          I do believe that an essentially accessible platform/venue like Social Media or Facebook, newspapers and TV and radio--are meant to gather people together to engage and dialogue for mutual good in pursuit of a realizable harmony in this world and to promote good and beautiful things (not the opposite). NOT to project dominance over the other or to widen the cracks that divide us. So I freely invite people who seem to be different from me. Talk. Speak. The road to mutual cool is never easy. We will argue and fight but we may agree later. That's my philosophy. But there are also instances when tolerance takes so much energy and time out of you. Time and energy that should have been used or consumed with those who are willing to compromise and negotiate. So unfriend. That's pretty much how I deal with my life, outside of the internet.

FACEBOOK and the (our) Wall that we need to climb and later turn into a bridge. Or why we can't get along? I TREAT my Facebook Wall as my house--that dabbles as my stage, living room, playground, magazine, porch, and frontyard. And although I share pics of my tiny bedroom, I don't share intimate details of my personal life other than I am Single and Heterosexual. Of course, I openly write that I am born Catholic, believes in God but not religious, Ananda Marga initiate, embraced Cherokee Nation, trained by a Buddhist ascetic, activist on the Left field. And I dated a Wiccan High Priestess and Born-again Christian and a Communist hardcore etc. Those are already TMI to some, right? I don't mind you knowing it--but no I am not going to tell y'all that one or two of those aftermidnight poems were written for her or her and not her, LOL! "Own" the poem and share it with your sweetheart, for what it's worth--that's the purpose of my poems.

          I share family stuff and things that I feel inspire universal good but not the dirty laundry (which is a normal in all of us, right?) although our share of "dirty laundry" aren't really that dramatic comparatively although I am sure dirty laundry in some of my siblings' house are piling up, literally (especially in Alma's). Uh huh, but not in mine or in my bro Alberto's because we are both OCDs (I am talking about the literal, okay?)

          But this is fun, you know. Fun! My Facebook is me. Serious-acerbic-condescending-highly opinionated. I straddle the middle so much so that I confuse people which side of the fence I am with or in. You gotta spend time with me to know--because the truth is, I adjust my elastic girth as per the world/life's changes although you can never force me to eat lots of breaded food or tolerate nasty kitchen sinks piled up with unwashed plates and yes, no unmade beds! I am a freakin' bedroom boy with a bedroom voice (again, the literal kind, yup).

          Cooking, playing with Georgia (she's a Belgian Malinois babedawg) and Cyd The Koolcat, gardening, poetry, my children and family which are REALLY corny-funny and weird-funny, my insane affinity with the Bee Gees, ramen noodles, old stuff, hyper corny love songs (except Celine Dion's). I love these things. Engage me with talk about anything! Objectivist epistemology, Camus existentialism, how Verlaine trained and toyed with Rimbaud, history of cinema, Mexican-American War, Hemingway's life as an ambulance driver, Lorca's Nueva York poems, Chinese Disco and Compact Disc, South China Sea, Treaty of Paris of 1898, Brexit, the Koch Brothers, the business of basketball and soccer, China's open door policy pre-Tiananmen Revolt and post-WTO, globalization and low intensity conflict--I will not back down. But I can also share redneck jokes and blonde jokes and Erap jokes and Pinoy brown jokes--as long as you don't go shattering my joke gig with some politically-correct yarn. I am not politically-correct UC Berkeley dude, dig? I can also talk about the Kardashians pre-Jenner amid-Robert, how many songs Taylor Swift devoted to her ex'es which you bought, and why I'd love to lecture about Paul Simon's catalogue and why Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" is his best poetry and why Hillary's centrist/polarizing fire fits America's global order designs, given the times.

          I can talk about Hagood The Snake and the new garden interpolator Mickey The Bug, or why Russia's Vlad Putin is a misunderstood dude that the Western media love to hate, or why we have to look at immigration beyond Mexicans crossing the border and refugees from Syria, and why kids do love my presence more than their mom (oh yeah!) There's a lot of things to talk about other than pissing people off with black and white and red and yellow mixed martial arts.

          My basic thought about a human being's possible motive about me does not hinge on whether he'd poison my already poisoned mind or he/she'll spike my pho with moonshine or Mercury Gatorade--but maybe you will enjoy my new lawyer jokes and you may love my super-awesome Mung Beans Supersoup PremiumPlus+. I want to rock with your light and not emo with your dark, feelin' me now?

          Meantime, yes this is my Wall. If you're getting sick and tired of/with my ruminations and rants, go somewhere else where there is free-trade coffee served via gentrification's blood, or in a locally-grown dive that serves tea from China. 

Ruminations and Rants. Aftermidnight Rain and Last Words for the Night

[WRITTEN months ago]

I AWOKE about an hour or so ago, after about only two or three hours afternoon sleep (or nap). I didn't sleep at all last night. These "things" bother me. I never gotten off this instinctive shudder in me. As a child, as an adult. When I was an active journalist back home, sleep wouldn't visit me no matter how exhausted I was after coverage of a huge typhoon devastation and/or countryside strife. There were many. Deaths, destruction--that I was a witness myself. Far from home and in the "comfort" of The Batcave, these killings in the past years hurtled in and out of my laptop, seemingly distant. But it's not. It feels I was just there--hearing the wails of agony, smelling the fresh stench of blood, feeling the broken texture of the shattered ground right on my flesh. I could almost feel gaping wounds and touch broken skin.

          All morning, I walked to my little plants with my attentive superhomeys (Georgia The Babedawg and Cyd The Koolcat). Cleaned the house, did laundry, poked around, listened to soft music with no words. I couldn't even write a poem. Usually it takes me days after the fact before I can console myself with a poem or two or a song. The rain is pouring again in the mountain as I write. The sky mourns. And thunder growls.

          Few years ago, I strode into a tiny hut in Tahlequah (Oklahoma) to visit a Cherokee shaman, no words. He placed his wrinkled hands on my head and whispered, "My son, you are running between the rain. You are. Continue helping to calm the storm down. Go run between the rain as you always do. Only in allowing yourself to get soaked and drenched would you undertand the storm and know how to pacify it within and without." And he named me A-ga-na or Rain. Runs Between The Rain.

          Almost the same words as my Igorot friend (back home), Hindu dada and Buddhist monk teacher. The rain. I traveled far and pursued the same mission. Calm the storm down as I battled my own tempest within. Running between the rain. I wrote about people, organized communities for peace and connected-ness. But I am tired. I don't think the "spirit of the rain" in me is still running. Not anymore. Just seated and pondering. Yet I still feel my spirit is running, untiringly running--especially when carnage of this magnitude happens. Running to finally come home--as we all run to come home, within. Only within where the warmth of home resides. Peace is always within, if only we can feel it more than we see or hear it.

I WANNA say I want to laugh or shrug things off. All the grief and anger in the world. Need I be this dramatic? My family are all safe and peaceful. Yet many in this world are hurting so bad. I was a "protected" child and then I heard tempest on the radio in late 1960s and saw poorer kids frolicking in the mud then dining on one tiny can of sardines, a family of five--their tin can shanty of a house pummeled by typhoons months each year. Then their dad got shot because he complained a lot about his job. Made me not finish my dinner. Made me angry why mom and dad were fighting over stuff. Sleepless nights, cold nights even though the moon sweats. Poetry consoled me. I ran to the barrio for refuge. I became a journalist at 14. I never changed wherever I went. My poetry and words and art kept that anger at bay. And let joy gain into me like a dancing bonfire amidst a storm. Yet I still feel for the dead, wasted just like that. Still, it makes me angry.

          But anger consumes the remaining light of hope in us. Anger doesn't calm anger down, it fuels it. I just have to write through the night. Let anger go. And then smile in the morning as tall green trees outside the glass window facing my bed greet me with the blessings of life. Life is so precious and beautiful so why do we waste it?

A SUB-SEQUENCE in the finale episode of "Silicon Valley" made me laugh so hard. It was essentially about how Filipinos could easily get interested and laugh at stuff and things, no matter how weird the stimuli are. Yes, Filipinos are a fascinating people. In the 1990s coup d'etats, kids would run after shells spat out by bazookas and submachineguns while armed hostilities ensued, collecting them. During typhoons, people turned flooded areas into impromptu swimming pools, kids surf on them. They could laugh on an instant, cry the next--then they laugh at their own tears afterwards. Should I say, we. I am proud of that kind of fatalistic frolic, a light attitude that simply takes things as they are--and then subverts that dark vibe into a sweep of comedic submission. It's not like we don't mourn the dead or dying, we do. When a neighbor dies, expect a huge convoy of people sending the dead to its resting place, weeping--yet before that, during days of the wake, you'd hear people exchanging jokes, laughing. And eating, of course.

       

No wonder the Philippines is the one of the happiest countries in the world. Months of rains and typhoons, homes shattered, people dead--yet Christmas is celebrated the longest in the world (don't ask me how long) and practically all summer months are fiesta time. Laughter, food, family, friends, community, games. Don't we get angry, don't we fight? Of course, we do. Yet after the fight, just usher a box of cerveza and "pulutan" (finger foods) on the table, then we are all cool. Friends again. Next question, "Do you have a joke?" That ensuing series of jokes will only come into an abrupt halt when Kumander (wife) calls out, "Hey, husband, time to go home and wash the dishes!" Uh huh. So you may ask, how do I survive the loneliness of being oceans away from my family and people? I laugh. I even laugh alone.

PEACE and CALM. Anger and hatred will always be part/s of our being. These human emotions will always be part of mine. Many reasons anger us, many things drive us to hatred. It is a continuing struggle of existence. To be good amidst the universe's evil. But we can try to avoid being angry, or angry beyond control. Pet animals and plants offer us some respite, refuge, shelter--to ruminate life and explore love within. And calm the tempest down. They don't speak or even if they could, they'd be speaking a different language. Yet they can freely and loudly communicate words that many of us fail to hear or recognize. The ability to feel it.

          Let me share a quote from a book that I used to read to my kids when they were little, written in 1943 by a French poet and aviator, Antoine de Saint Exupéry, "Le Petit Prince" or "The Little Prince." French: "Il est tres simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." English: "Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." Animals and plants say these words, without speaking them. Loud and clear.

Anybody for the Environment?

I AM usually silent in regards what most of my enlightened friends and colleagues are fighting for. Maybe they've already unfriended me and boxed me in a crate they reserve for “rightwinged moomoos.” That's the way life is these days, I guess. You disagree with the enlightened you are a Conservative. You diss the Conservative you are stoned-cold homeless. Either way, you are unfriended. LOL! For the first time in my life though after four decades of being labelled a hardcore Leftist, I am called rightwing skynyrd! Ah! Freebird. Seriously though, I don't expect to be labelled left or right when I talk about the environment. I hope.

          Has anybody taken to heart and soul the danger of sea-level rise after Katrina and Sandy, more than we spend huge energy debating and discoursing stuff? Stuff like The D and The H over the B? When Hurricane Sandy hit New York in 2012, it flooded more than 88,000 buildings in the city and killed 44 people. That figure may not shake the skeptic, I'm sure? Yet that was a transformative event. By 2030 or so, the water in New York Harbor could be a foot higher than it is today, according to mostly Dutch experts that the city government hired following the disaster. That may not sound like much, yet even with a foot or two of sea-level rise, streets will become impassable at high tide, snarling traffic. The cost of flood insurance will skyrocket, causing home prices in risky neighborhoods to decline. So says a Rolling Stone article by Jeff Goodell.

          But that is not the real fear. There will always be a big storm coming. A year from now, 7 years, maybe 20 years. It might be smaller than Sandy, it might be a lot stronger that the strongest that hit the Philippines or China. Of course, governments are working things out. But if you add a foot or two of sea-level rise to a 14-foot storm tide, you have serious trouble. And if it hits before we actually constructed or implemented mechanisms to lessen damage of such a calamity, then we got serious problem.

          Sea-level rise is no joke. And news from the Arctic is not good. Of course we know that the big guys have been melting ice there for more oil diggings so we can gas up more and watch “Game of Thrones” more. This summer, temperatures in Greenland spiked to the highest levels on record. If just one-tenth of the Greenland ice were to melt, it would raise global sea levels by two feet. The breakup of West Antarctica, which has showed signs of increasing fragility, could raise the seas 12 feet.

           Hugely contributing to environmental ruin of course is the greenhouse effect, a process by which radiation from a planet's atmosphere warms the planet's surface to a temperature above what it would be without its atmosphere. Earth’s natural greenhouse effect is critical to supporting life. Human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests, have intensified the natural greenhouse effect, causing global warming.

          Approximately two-thirds of all industrial methane and carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere since 1854 can be traced to burning fossil fuels and producing cement. Over the decades, scientists have succeeded in confidently tracing how much of climate change can be directly tied to human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels. Sadly, the carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are now higher than at any point in human history, further worsening the ‘greenhouse effect’ contributing to global warming and the consequences of climate change. In fact, recent data shows that global carbon dioxide emissions were 150 times higher in 2011 than they were in 1850.

          The main contributors to global warming via our lifestyle? Or carbon footprint, the total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). Top 4: China, the US, India and Russia. Cement? Top 3: China, India, the US. Steel: China, Japan, India, the US.

          Do we think that we are doing enough for the environment? No. Instead of fighting for bike lanes and bus transport, we fight for (I don't wanna say it). We listen to political humor more than we listen to, for example, the Dutch who know how to prevent floods (well their country is under water protected by dams, dikes and levees) and they are also number 1 in use of bikes not for recreation but for basic transport. How many of us will boycott Walmart but are you willing to boycott your gas station? No. You get my drift. We love that car. Anyway, it's past 2 AM now. I gotta digress. And sleep. Uh huh.

Words and Stuff and Love

IT seems so effortless. I say words or write poems to try to comfort worried hearts and ease clouded minds. As though I had it all figured out—that healing wounds or making someone feel better is something that I am “good at.” Like what that silly song, “Handy Man” is saying: “I fix broken hearts, I know I truly can.” But do I know what love really is? I don't know. It's an individual truth. I am confident I know somehow how to project love yet do I know how it really works? Depends on the person receiving and giving, right? Interplay of negotiations. Interface of compromises. What I share on the area of love, relationships and all these sweet shenanigans don't necessarily work for me. How I wish that I am the dude who receives advice than the one giving it. Yet it doesn't lessen my joy when someone—either here on Facebook or in my little shows—tell me, “You made me feel better.” That's cool. That's all the hero I need be.

WHEN I look at some relationships, I wonder what really works? Yet I have been a witness to many relationships that work and those that didn't. There seems to be a pattern (at least with people that I know). Most of those that end in divorce appear to stand by the dictum, “I do my thing, you do yours” and “I keep my own money, you spend yours.” In other words, they try to sustain their singlehood freedom while under one roof. They tend to idealize family and explore new dimensions yet they fight a lot or they don't talk a lot. The other one is what the first one calls as “uptight” and conservative. This kind of couple shares all as per conjugal belongings—bank account, decisions, church, problems, even friendships. They even share one email address. They “lose” their individual-ness (as opposed to individuality) in a synergetic whole and functions as per an agreed plan and direction. They have more laughter than arguments. They don't put so much ado on how to correctly raise children—they worry more about education and trust fund. Most of these unions carry on to 30 year anniversary or longer. Of course, a relationship isn't black and white or polar extremes. Just saying.

DATING HER, KNOWING HIM. I am probably the weird one here. Or has life changed? How easy it is to gather (or “friend”) people on Facebook yet it equals the difficulty of “friending” someone out there. When we ask another (opposite sex) to meet over coffee or beer or to hang out and play pool or walk dogs on Carrier Park, would that qualify as a “date”? Or are you sending signals that says, “I'd like to date you”? How'd you “date” someone whose personality/character are mostly typed in/posted online? It doesn't make sense to me. Yet you may find someone in here who could vibe with your aura or probably share common threads on things—the “Matrix” trilogy, seafood paella, glass sculpture, vinyl records, Murakami, democratic socialism, Goodwill shopping, familial wisdom etcetera. Wouldn't you wanna meet that person beyond the internet? Just meet. You don't need to get a new haircut or gear up your Beckham abs.

We grow and evolve into better individuals via interaction with humanity and the world, out there. What we get in the internet are second/third hand data. It's like knowing David Bowie and Prince through their music only. Do you know that they could be as odd as the next-door dude who winks at you every other Thursday as you gas up on Merrimon Av? Or maybe they're not that odd. It would be awesome to align wavelengths with someone that you actually interacted with beyond “likes” and emojis. Maybe someone that you shared a sweet concert at The Orange Peel or walked with along Beaver Lake talking about your respective kids or went with to Caleb Beissert's open mic? Something deeper might ensue or develop, why not?

          But how do we know people before we begin imagining under starry, starry nights or scaring ourselves in the dark confines our room fearing that this dude could be Jason Voorhees-incarnate? Post the negative stuff that converge in your dark cloud of paranoid imaginings, expect 55 likes in one minute! You see, we may post and share all the wonderful confections of our life and rant how brilliant we see society and governance on social media—but until we see eye to eye, spend real time together (other than nervous candlelit Bonefish Grill dinners or Thirsty Monk beers) beyond the constraints of “Ten Dating Rules,” we will never know. Sadly, all those red flag fears and preconceptions will gather while we ruminate in front of our laptop what should be and what shouldn't be. Meet and hang. If you spend moments on weekly basis, or even several times a week, better. Plan it out, talk. That's how we know people—future friends or possible sweethearts.

LOVE in TIME. As you get older and look back at all those broken valentines, shattered relationships, mistakes and mishaps—you tend to ponder deeper and learn to accept in humility that you also did commit faults and let your flaws dictate your decisions. Wrongdoings aren't confined to one person. So you tell yourself, when you meet someone who let love blossom in you again, this is going to be better because you have learned from the past. You know what you should change in you, modify and learn more to help a relationship finally find a degree of realizable success. You know the current-you is the best from all that you were. Now you are committed, you have time, you have a love that is present and alive. You are not perfect but you know you are more than alright.

          Yet the relationship still fails. As you reel from the splinters of your bleeding heart, you take in all the words that all point at how awful and evil you are. But are you really that bad? Maybe it is not her/him and it is not you, per se. It is the “wrongness” of a relationship attempt that wasn't working. You feel the love but it found a room or space that finds it hard to evolve into positive light. A relationship that couldn't pursue beauty and wisdom. It's all anger. You are dragged out to thorny brush in the woods or the cold darkess of your shell. The demons in you that you believed have left are threatening to come alive again. You start beating yourself up.

           So leave and let go. You don't need to punish yourself just because you are told you are the worst human being there is. You are not. You just haven't found the apt relationship that you deserve. And that holds true with your ex. Mere fact that you first fell in love together meant you both saw the goodness in each other's hearts—until some harsh realities and uncompromising truths got in the way. Just move on and always open your heart no matter how broken it could be. There will always be a warm hand and a loving heart that will meld and mend and sail with yours. Your chance at joy is not yet over. You haven't failed.

          Meantime, don't forget to live good, love good, eat only good food. And dance. It's summer, you know. 

As mountain rain falls, memories of monsoon waft by

I ALWAYS say I am a very courageous guy. I am not scared to interface my truths or my little me in any given situation, circumstances, diversity. But that doesn't mean I am a very confident dude or a person beaming with grandiose self-esteem. I write because I am not very trustful of my spoken word. I mumble. I ruminate as I talk. I ramble. So I project myself in so many ways in relative quiet—art, literature, cooking, organizing events. I am not as proud as others in terms of my physical attributes. I am short and skinny etc. I also believe in so many ways that I am just weird and oblique that I get scary and dark. You know, the fear of not knowing an individual who seems to be so different.

          So before I could even “fully introduce” myself, I already frightened people away, uh huh. I wrestle with my acute inferiority complex yet no one who knows me wouldn't believe that at all. “Pasckie, you rock out there! You are all over the place!” I always crack silly jokes that elicit unfeigned laughter. Yet the only moments that I feel really belonged and attached is when I read poetry in front of an intimate crowd. I relish the moment up front on the mic. Yet still, after each show—I gravitate back to The Batcave and wish that warmth stays. But you wouldn't know that, ain't you? Until I share this drama. In fact, right now I am painting with radiant colors as the Bee Gees (again!) provides the dancing vibe. 

ALONENESS is an understatement. My immediate family are oceans away. Yet I never really felt loneliness the way I hear it from some friends, including those who are with loved ones. But I do feel sadness sometimes. Of course, I do. But living in this mountain idyll for almost eight years now blessed me with sublime quiet and warm intimacy—and familial love from my friend Cindyrella—that negate whatever that may be defined as "loneliness." Life evolves. I enjoy my blessings. I write stuff that I know make people feel better somehow. My sappy poems could still win a smile or two, albeit online. Well, that's all the little hero that I could ever be. I am happy being that kind of pasckie. Meantime, Georgia The Babedawg and Cyd The Koolcat are such transcendent gifts of presence.

ALL THOSE YEARS AGO. I feel that at age 55, a relentless five decades of life that not many of my current friends have witnessed in me, I already experienced most of what life has to offer. I am a totally different person when I was in my 20s to early 40s. But although I experienced at lot more than an average 80 year old has, I didn't do the "wild" stuff. I mean, I've never experimented on drugs or engaged in any form of casual sex or never violated the law--apart from my rabid activism when I was in my 20s to late 30s which I call, civil disobedience. I've never been (legally/lawfully) charged of anything or ticketed for whatever--despite a very active life out there in communities in so many big cities and small towns in two continents. 

          Among many other adventures and misadventures--I have been to places that a few will dare tread, covered events that journalists refer to as "hot spots," raised kids at a very harsh time, been into life and death situation twice, "ran between the rain and bullets" as a traveler, backpacked like the road was my home, traveled my worst road trip ever beyond physical danger (which happened recently), and been to a most difficult relationship. 
          My emotional wear and tear supercedes my physical exhaustion--yet the spiritual growth that I derive from all these negates all the mental tiredness. But although you and me might say, we also experienced a most ideal relationship sometime years ago, till we wasted it so foolishly--that doesn't meant we can't experience another one. A lot better. There are a few thousand more miles left to negotiate. After all these crazy years, I haven't been healthier since my surgery in New York City in 2000. No vitamins, no food paranoia, no viagra--yet I can still sweat it playing basketball or doing yardwork. No regular trips to the doctor for checkups, no pills, no let up with steamed white rice. I drink yet I know when to quit (gone down to two beers or two shots of tequila or vodka), no debts, no court dates--but sigh (!) still no wife and no girlfriend.

         Meantime, in life, we should accept in humility and surrender where we faltered and failed in those attempts and so we should know how to succeed the next time. They say save the best for last. Absolutely! As for me, for sure, next year will be closer to what I was. Just older and wiser. But a different life. I still got time to engage some entrepreneurs to a business hook-up in an Asia/US route, write more books and read them in cafes and universities, brainstorm a movie or two with my son, write more songs with my former band, fundtraise for typhoon victims, deliberate political upheavals and economic trends locally and globally with a think tank, play pickup basketball with my four brothers and nephews, visit France and Italy and Greece and the rest of the 7,641 islands in the Philippines that I haven't set foot on, and make love from dusk till dawn (if there's another chance, that is).
         Therefore, the journey isn't over yet though. It just took a different route leading to the ultimate destination. On layovers, there will be chilled raw oysters and mango mojitos on a seaside and lots of laughter by a roadside cantina. 

The (Quiet) Business of China

I SEE myself as a deeply-perusing observer. Meantime, my reflex usually veers away from taking sides—and opts for reason and wisdom even beyond my own convenience. I'd like to say that as backdrop to my (continuing) observation of China—a consuming thesis that dates back to my childhood. The Chinese has always perplexed and mystified, intrigued me. From the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and Deng Xiao Ping's ushering of Beijing's economic open-door policy to the hubbub that it sent to World Trade Organization at Bill Clinton's administration (remember the Battle of Seattle?) to Foxconn's clout to the South China Sea tempest etc etcetera.

          The Chinese are a kind of humanity that don't talk much. They just work and deliver what you want. Reject it, they'd complain less—and quietly leave. After sometime, they'd show up with a new prototype or alternative until you are convinced. When they fall into silence or sleep, don't settle—they are actually (re)planning things out.

          For years since the huge nation's WTO entry in 2001, the Chinese economy's expansion has been relentlessly breakneck. As provincial entrepreneurs enjoyed Beijing's subsidy, rapid development has turned fishing villages into factory towns and factory towns into financial hubs. But that's not all heaven. “Heavy investment has crowded out consumption, and heavy industry has muscled out services, as if making stuff mattered more than serving people,” The Economist writes. China's socialism/communism's interface with Western-styled capitalism has somehow shook the gains of the Cultural Revolution's populist wisdom. But then, wait. Is that all bad? Not really.

         

China opts to slow down a bit to restudy variables, just like the traditional Chinese trader. New figures showed the economy expanding by 7.7 percent in the year to the first quarter, marginally slower than the previous quarter’s pace and notably slower than expected. The loss of momentum confounds, given the spectacular surge in credit in January and March. However, that is not entirely weird. China's growth, buffered by its manufacturing/services industry, also obscured two encouraging trends that may matter hugely for China’s future. Consumption, although still low, made a bigger contribution than investment to China’s growth in the first quarter. Even more notable, services have trumped industry’s contribution to GDP in the past three quarters.

          In other words, China is sliding to a new phase of its march to modern times, Western-style. From manufacturing, Beijing sets its gears at consumers and services, two promising trends that work around each other. Because services are more labor intensive than industry, their growth boosts wages and household income. Money on the hand of the consumers. Heftier take-home pay jacks up consumption, and consumer spending, in turn, favors services.

          But then you think China will slow down its giant manufacturing machine? No. They are just setting sight on other options. In other words, China is pretty much aware not to follow the mistake/s of America. As The Economist puts it, “As China’s economy matures, its pace will slow. Fighting this economic law will only invite inflation, excess and harder reckonings. Growing fast is a poor alternative to growing up.”

LET's look beyond the mainland and check what the Chinese are up to. I am leaving the South China Sea maneuverings on this discussion and instead focus across continents.

          Since 2008 China has agreed some $500 billion in currency swaps with nearly 30 countries, from Canada to Pakistan, which gives the counterparties access to yuan when trouble is suspect. A currency swap is a foreign exchange derivative between two institutions to exchange the principal and/or interest payments of a loan in one currency for equivalent amounts, in net present value terms, in another currency. Currency swaps are motivated by comparative advantage, an economic theory about the work gains from trade for individuals, firms, or nations that arise from differences in their factor endowments or technological progress.

          Meanwhile, Chinese banks have lent $50 billion to Venezuela since 2007. Argentina is the second-biggest recipient of Chinese loans in South America. Then there is Russia, who may have the largest deposit of crude oil in the world, but its economy isn't enough to develop the natural. Again, Chinese banks have lent more than $30 billion to Russian oil companies.

          What does that infer? That is a loud testament to China’s remarkable growth. And more significantly, China it seems or it appears is setting up development banks intended to challenge the dominance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Analysts have always sounded that China is on track to surpass America as the world’s biggest economy within a decade. These are nagging hints. Chinese banks have been making its move continent to continent.

          Let me touch Brexit for a bit and look sideways. This is all about the world's major banks, of course! No surprise why UK's HSBC Holdings, top European bank, wanted out of European Union. It's not really the country that's bolting out per se. It's the bank. Hence, if BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole Group rebel, then expect France to withdraw from EU as well. And join the Chinese? Not far-fetched.

          I repeat, the Chinese are a kind of humanity that don't talk much. They just work and deliver what we want. They'll give `em to us. But we gotta admit it. The Chinese have indeed gone a long way from lo meins and dumpling soups. They have evolved into slick dudes on Brooks Brothers suits sipping Dom Perignons in stretch limos, Ivy League-educated assistants clutching iPads and iPhones on their beck and call. As The Economist puts it, “The anachronistic state of global economic governance is growing ever more glaring.” It has gone eastward. 

SOME random Facebook comments/responses (by me) on the subject of the Orlando shooting. Religion, atheism, conspiracy theory, and the anger in humanity.

[ ] DO we have to list killers as per believers in a god vis a vis atheists? Is there a basis of comparison between the Virginia Tech shooter with Idi Amin? Or a Tim McVeigh with Ted Bundy. Charles Manson and maybe Pol Pot? The evil in their head are individual darkness. The glaring parallel is—they kill people for reasons that's personally theirs. The human mind is unpredictable. Alfred Nobel invented the dynamite for a reason not to kill and maybe Adam Lanza got weird when mom and dad divorced and then mom spent more time in the shooting range. Did these guys read the Bible? Or maybe Mother Teresa would have poisoned her Calcutta village the same way as Jim Jones did in Guyana. Both read the Bible profusely. Or a Muslim imam who mass feeds people in towns battered by typhoons would have put cyanide in the food after reading a chapter in Quran? People kill. They could be a loner kid who listens to Pink Floyd over and over or one who idolizes Che Guevara. They got sick reasons and sick minds. Many times they don't even have a reason. They simply feel the insistence and compulsion to kill.

          I don't favor pointing at a certain collective belief system, religious or ideological as the guilty triggers, because that would also indict and wrongly judge those other peaceful believers. There is so much evil in this world. Yes. But let us not lump them as one collective humanity. It is offensive. It is not solving or minimizing hatred at all. In fact it is fueling it. What happened, all these mass killings, aren't the kind of wrongdoing that a peace-loving Muslim or Christian would like to be compared with or aligned with.

[ ] CONSPIRACY theory? As in governments plot mass killings to push laws? This is way off left field, I must say. Why don't we look at the culture itself. Facts. The gravitation to polar extremes in present day America as shown by behaviors in regards coming presidential election shows that Americans are upset about practically all levels of institutions and structures. You don't have to be a devout Muslim or a redneck or an Occupy radical to get angry these days. Historically, the incidence of mass murders in America in the last ten or 20 years is unprecedented. THAT had to be looked at. It is not religion because the two largest traditional religions, Islam and Christianity, have always been a part of America. But the huge discrepancy between rich and poor has never been this wide. The increase of queues to CVS is alarming than those who seek peace in church. And if I believe that some government machineries are behind these, then I am up for doomsday. I don't want to look at the world and society like that.

[ ] RELIGION and ATHEISM. I am continually weirded out by people who categorically judge Christians by what some from their flock say. It is not fair. It's like do all Muslims mow down people like what terrorists do? That, religion is the sole cause of gruesome killings in this world? That atheism (and/or paganism) is the answer to global peace? How ignorant some people could be! Do they know that serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is an atheist? And Jim Jones who poisoned to death 909 people in Guyana in 1978 was actually an atheist? And those leaders that we love to hate: Kim Jong-Il, Benito Mussolini, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin never believed in God or religion? And the most evil of them all, Adolf Hitler did not believe in organized religion?

          One other dude (who was on my FB) who hides behind a Hindu name maintains that pagans never had war? Read up History 101, please! Why can't people grow up--and start widening their minds than continually closing them? Putting blame on religion or people's culture for the evils in this world is one of the most profound form of ignorance and hatred. We will never have a real semblance of real peace in this world if some people live this kind of narrow-mindedness all their lives. I will say that over and over and over again.

[ ] I SAY, no matter how angry a person is, let him get it out of his system--then compromise and negotiate. Maybe he/she has a point. Maybe the channeling was the problem. Maybe it's a question of an apt device to show/share truths. But if we immediately stereotype or judge a person "abusive" or "rude" or worst, mentally deranged and the only cure is a shrink and prescription--I believe that, we are undermining our human ability to heal and understand. The filmmaker Sam Peckinpah said, "The whole underside of our society has always been violence and still is. Everybody seems to think that man is a noble savage. But he's only an animal. A meat-eating, talking animal. Recognize it. He also has grace and love and beauty." But unlike most animals, humans possess rational minds and compassionate hearts. If we are able to channel that aggression in art or music or literature, or even farm work or sports, that anger could be stopped from evolving to physical violence.