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US, self-appointed global cop

This is a reply to a thread currently being discussed in the Pinoy atheists mailing list.

Do the neo-cons really believe in the Christian solution or is it only a card they they use to rally the gullible American majority into any war it fancy? Is McCain a religious nut just like Bush is? The greatest puzzle for me is why did the Americans voted that idiot TWICE into the White House. The Americans must really be proud of their president.

Just a curiosity, do you guys think that the neo-cons have not lost some credibility or do the majority of Americans still buy the fear that they manufacture? Will it more likely that they will vote for McCain or with the Democrat? How about Clinton, has she expressed an unequivocal commitment to a US pull-out if voted? I think Republican or Democrat, it doesn't really matter since the US will continue to be in Iraq indefinitely as much as can be possible. History is replete with examples including the Philippines. According to Dean Jorge Bocobo, the Philippines is the first Iraq. He's got a point. If not for Marcos - one of the good things that he did as president - who re-negotiated the "lease" of the US bases from 99 years to 25 years which expired in '92, and for Erap, one of the good things that he did as a senator who voted against its extension, the American "global cop" will still be in Subic and Clark and the US service-men out of reach of our courts. It's a complete disgrace to us as a nation that only a full-blooded Am-boy can accept. That's what the Americans want, if possible, from all the nations that host their bases. Unfortunately, the Philippines was too weak economically to escape the unequal "partnership". This is what will eventually happen with Iraq. The government will be handed over to the Iraqis but the US bases will stay. The Americans will do all the best they can to prevent an anti-American Iraqi president from being voted whether the US president be a religious nut
or otherwise.

Post-meet-up

I came back from the meet-up about two hours ago. It was as expected a lot of fun. I met two new people both Japanese. It's unusual in the sense that most Japanese people I suspect are not into religion and consequently irreligion should not be a big deal with Japan being a country teeming with heathens. All in all, seven people attended. I almost couldn't make it though as when I was leaving work, something urgent came up - a production problem. I was just too happy after I got hold of the morning support guy in the US to take over n look after the problem even if it's a Tokyo- local issue. I arrived at Gonpachi restaurant about five minutes past eight but it seemed that they haven't started yet. (It's supposed to be have started at seven.) Of course we talked about the evil of religion and how religion skews the view of reality of what otherwise appear to be normal people. Beers were drank and yakitori (焼き鳥) were eaten and ideas exchanged for 2 1/2 hours before we decided to call it a day. We parted ways at Shibuya (渋谷) station around 11:15 - just about the right time to catch one of the last trains of Saikyou line (埼京線) towards Saitama (埼玉県). It's 12 midnight at the station. Another interesting day has ended.

Sorry, no pictures about the meet-up.

On Tuesday we are planning to visit together the exhibit on Charles Darwin currently being held at the National Science Museum in Ueno (上野). Hopefully, I can take pictures.

Tokyo Brights meet-up tomorrow

Click here to check out
The Tokyo Brights Meetup Group!

Tomorrow I will be attending the Tokyo Brights Meet-up group. The group meets every third Thursday of the month except tomorrow which will happen on a Wednesday. It will be my second time to join the party. I joined last January but I failed to join the two succeeding meet-ups because I was out of the country. Again, it will be in Gonpachi in Shibuya. I like the place. They say it's the inspiration for the last scene of one of the Kill Bill movies but I've never seen any of them.

Re-learning Some Things

I am re-learning some of the things that I dropped. One of them is playing the guitar. I first learned the basics of guitar playing when I was a sacristan. I was about fourteen then. I had this friend who seemed to had been carrying all the problems of the world on his shoulders and the way he chose to cope with it was to turn a little into himself and learn the guitar in the kumbento. The first and only song I learned and used to play then was the older version of Santo, Santo, Santo which required only a small set of very simple chords and where the transitions between those chords are much easier. Whenever we had the chance on the guitars (I think there were two guitars which were not always idle), we'd start strumming that song. The elder sacristans and church choir members would tease us and they'd be right that we would be singing the same song over and over and over again. Years passed and my friend went on to have his own electric guitar gifted to him while I moved on to different things. He has progressed enough to playing his favorite songs on his guitar and even got to play with his own band while I almost forgot all about it. But I learned the guitar basics such that I never had to re-learn it again. From time to time, opportunity to play the guitar arose but it required developing the habit which I didn't. My younger brother bought his own guitar which I used to borrow and practiced with but I never really quite progressed beyond simple strumming. Eventually I had accepted that maybe I never really had what it takes to play it. I think I am better at singing than at playing any musical instruments so I envy those people who can really play well, like my cousin who could play well the accordion before he was able to read and write. Whenever I pick up the guitar to strum a few chords of simple songs, I'd listen to my playing and I wouldn't be satisfied to the point of frustration. Or I'd start singing and my chords will quickly deteriorate into abhorrent noise. Maybe I was consciously trying to play it rather than using more ouido. Some years later, I'd still be playing the same set of chords as Santo, Santo, Santo but this time it's the simplified chords of The One I Love by REM but whenever I do, I still remember my sacristan days. It was short-lived but I had plenty of good memories about it.

Yotsuya Church

They say the churches of Europe, where religion is declining, are sometimes filled to the brim not by Europeans but by Filipinos. This is true also in Tokyo. There is Yotsuya (四谷, Yotsuya) Catholic church in Shinjuku (新宿). Shown in the picture taken sometime in 2006 were our kababayans and their half-Filipino half-Japanese children starting to come out of the church after the Sunday English mass. I don't go to Yotsuya to hear mass. I go there to see people or accompany my family there. I usually just stay outside the church ogling the pretty girls that pass by, and which by the way has become so rare now that the Japanese government has come under fire from the US government on the trafficking of women. I saw one statistics some years ago that say nine out of ten Filipinos in Japan are women, most of them working or has worked as hostesses in Filipino bars. Filipino bars aside from Filipino stores is where you can find the Philippine flag displayed. My poor countrymen who are so devout believers will brave the uncertainties of life in a foreign land of heathens and yet their god seemed to have chosen to make the heathens to be more economically free than the devotees who work and pray for a life that's a little bit better than a life of poverty. Such irony for the believing Pinoy!

Bookmarks

I have just wrapped up reading Ann Gibbons' The First Human: The Race To Discover Our Earliest Ancestors. It's a short book of about 240 pages so I was able to finish it in a few days. I would have finished it even earlier if not because I haven't fully picked up the habit of using bookmarks for all the books that I read. In such cases I'd fold the page where I'm at but even that I consciously avoid because it makes the book look ugly later. I am now starting to re-read Sean Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science Of Evo Devo And The Making Of The Animal Kingdom. I had attempted to read it before but dropped it after probably finishing the Introduction. I went to a cafe so I can have my Saturday cup of cappuccino and started reading it. I could not remember where I stopped the last time so that I had to restart from the beginning. But this time I am definitely going to use a bookmark. Another book that I have been reading which I had started even before I started reading the Gibbons book and which is almost finished is Steve Gould's Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. I'll finish it shortly tonight. With it I used a bookmark, the kind they give away for free at some cafes here. When I do use a bookmark, I still find myself re-reading portions I have read previously because I don't stop at the end of each chapter or another suitable area like the end a well-defined section. This is often the case with me with books I read on my commute when I don't have complete control on the time I will arrive at my stop will be about enough time I'd need to finish the current section/chapter. To aid me in this case, I let the bookmark give me a hint on where I should resume my reading. If the front side of the bookmark is facing the left page, I stopped at the left page. Otherwise, I should resume on the right page. If I stopped in the upper portion of the page, I put the bookmark on the upper portion of the page; otherwise, I put it at the lower portion. It does help me save some time except when I really need to re-read the last few sentences or even paragraphs so that the train of thought will be picked up where I left off. With books I read at home and if I don't have a bookmark (sometime I am too lazy to get one even when there are many available!), I try as much as possible to stop at the end of each chapter.

By the way, the Gobbons book is a good historical sketch of how anthropologists/paleontologists
race against each other in finding hominid fossils that could shed light on our origins. Together with the book by Gould - also a historical sketch about paleontology dealing with the Burgess Shale fossils - the two books are very informative and give us an idea of how much discipline is required by serious paleontology. In the cover of the Gibbons book pictured above is the fossil nicknamed Toumai or Sahelanthropus Tchadensis.

Mere Belief and Mere Atheism

Mere belief and mere atheism are amoral philosophical positions. Some people spent a good deal of time and effort to seek his/her answers. I applaud them regardless of the outcome. Some people are just lazy to seek their own answers and take it for granted. It's not a fault and it doesn't matter. In any case, we cannot fault people who honestly believe or disbelieve for whatever reason they may hold or not hold and by the amount of effort he exerted to support his position. But we do take interest in people who will coerce others to subscribe to their own philosophical/moral position by using threats or abuse mentally (teaching children punishment of hell for "sins") or physical harm and even murder (Crusaders & jihadists). I subscribe to the idea that individuals are free to believe what they believe or not believe as long as it never harm another person and that he has no right whatsoever to force this belief or non-belief on others. So the communists did bad things to persecute the believers and the Catholics and Protestants did bad things to persecute the heretics.

Theism (belief in god(s)) or atheism are fundamentally amoral -isms. It's in the conclusions that supposedly follow from these two -isms that address morality that gets us into trouble.

The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare, Unread Edition

When I was a high school student, I used to hang around in the school library. It's a smallish library with books that were mostly textbooks. Uninteresting. But there was a cabinet that contained great books that still looked so new with crisp pages including a collection of books titled The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. I wanted to pick up those books and read them but the glass cabinet was padlocked, with a sign that read: For Teachers Use Only. I bet those books remained unread for a long, long time since I left that school. What a waste.

Dear God

Dear God, I hope you got the letter and I pray you can make it better down here...

This is a work in progress. I will still do some minor edits later after I have reviewed it. I just want to see it earlier so I am posting it now. If you have any suggestion or critique, please let me know.

Two Books

If you will be exiled to the moon for a year and are allowed only to bring 2 books, which books will you bring?

My choices will be:
1) The Wealth Of Nations by Adam Smith
2) The Descent Of Man by Charles Darwin

I know you will say they are boring books so why did I choose them? They are two books that I think so important that I find many books that I have read so far reference them. Each book is more than 600 pages long so it will take me some time to complete and probably do a 2nd reading to understand them. I keep putting them down each time I attempt to start reading them so it's like if I'm left with not much choice but to finally finish them.

The reason I ask is that I would like to know what 2 books each one of us put great value. I might consider adding them to my future reading list too.

Organizing Eyeballs (EB)

Organizing eyeballs require communication. Constant communication building up the the headcount and disseminating information in a timely manner. I have had experience only in organizing small eyeballs where there are only less than 15 participants. The advantage of small groups is that it doesn't require a lot in terms of reserving venues. You just meet-up and can decide right there which place you want to sit for a chat be it restaurant or cafe. Recently, I tried to organize one for the Pinoy atheists but I didn't have time myself so it was a resounding failure. I have been organizing meet-ups and I was busy with my high school reunion meetings to have time to look after the PA meet-up. I have been doing this with the various groups I help keeping in touch. I have a group each for my HS and college friends, and a newwave music group. So far I have been most successful with the three having organized meet-ups for as much as twenty-five people excluding children. This was mainly because venue is not much of a problem in Laguna where most of my high school friends are. But organizing a Pinoy atheists EB is always difficult. Some wise guy once said organizing atheists is like herding cats. It has been proven once more that he is right on the money.

Get The Scarlet Letter

If you are maintaining an atheism blog, you might consider being listed in the Out Campaign.

Merry Christmas!

I tried my hand at creating a small video from a slide-show. Enjoy and please feel free to comment and/or criticize! BTW, the song title is Ask Me Jon by the Ocean Blue.

Edit. I have made 3 small edits on the original video. Here is an updated version.

New Old Blogs

I have moved a few posts from the other blog that I have been rarely posting to and which is about technology and geek-speak. I am shutting it down. They are mostly under the tech tag.

Filling Empty Book Shelves

If you have books lying around the house that you want to sell for cheap, please drop me a message kapanalig_sa_wala-at-yahoo.es (replace -at- with @). Please send me the titles and with the price and the conditions. I prefer books on history, Filipiniana, literature specially Philippine literature, philosophy, and art. No romance books please. I will be in Manila from time to time, I can contact you for a meet. No rush.

Foie Gras

I was in the the office today from 8:30 in the morning until about 6:00 in the evening. Except for the short break around 10:00 am to pick up a ham and cheese sandwich and a big cappuccino from the cafe at the basement, I didn't take another break until about 4:30 in the afternoon. As a result, I was starved. I work in a really expensive portion of the city and I didn't intend to spend a small fortune for a quick meal so I went to the supermarket also located at the basement. I took a banana, a chicken and rice noodle salad, and what is labeled as something with (テリネ) terrine, salmon pie, and foie gras pate. I was so tired such that I merely mumbled when the lady behind the cash register asked me something and I think I said "はい、お願いします" without really understanding what she said. Back to my desk, and after a detour to the loo and the vending machine to get my limone tea, I thought to myself I should start with the foie gras as it looked - おいしいそう - so tasty. But wait a minute. Where's the chopsticks? So that's what the lady was asking me about! Anyway, the basement is too far to go back to and I most probably somebody else has been keeping some disposable chopsticks around and sure enough just a few desks away, I found them. Great foie gras using chopsticks! I took a bite and savored it. It really is so tasty! Why didn't I know about this before? Right then I decided that it's never to late to learn a few more things about it so I turned to the net to find out more about this very tasty something. But what I found out almost made me choke for two reasons. First is reading how foie gras is prepared force-feeding the goose or duck to make its liver grow abnormally bigger and second, because literally, foie gras is French for fatty liver! I know of a disease in humans of the same name and I thought it could not be any different given the way its preparation has been described. I was diagnosed with a fatty liver two or three years ago so I know it very well to make my imagination run weird things. I don't usually eat liver, except the occasional chicken liver and the canned liver spread. Moral of the story is the old cliche that if you want to enjoy what you're eating, don't bother finding out how it's prepared. I heard from my very knowledgeable ex-manager how some great tasting tender juicy Japanese beef are prepared but that's another story. Will I have foie gras again? I love steaks. Maybe I'll have foie gras with it occasionally.

Sorry, I forgot to take a picture. :)

Books On Origins

The books currently in my small shelf. This section is where books on science and religion are lumped together. Due to lack of space (space is a premium in Tokyo!) and from time to time I ship my books to the Philippines such that they don't accumulate here. Shipping them over has its downside and upside. The downside is that I cannot just pick up a book if I like to. The upside is that I get to keep them even if they are so inconvenient for me. I'd rather ship it than give them to others here as what is customary once there is a space crunch at home.

I just got news that the first shelves in my home mini-library in Laguna are almost done. I hope they look good. My shelf here is one of the cheap assemble-yourself type so there's not much joy looking at the books since the shelf is so ugly. I may get the chance to come home yet this New Year's and I am excited with the book shelves. If it looks good, I'll take a picture and post it here.

The small purple book above is the Jefferson bible. A curious book the verses of which were based on the Christian bible and compiled by Thomas Jefferson, handpicking the non-supernatural portions of the four gospels and arranging them chronologically as he thought the events "happened". The huge book is Stephen Jay Gould's Structure of Evolutionary Theory. I still have to read it.

Clutter

I just realized how cluttered my desktop has become in just a week!



Here is another shot taken a bit later. No wonder I couldn't find small items when I need them.



On the pictures is six-year old Yuki's monitor, an Eizo FlexScan L557. On the foreground is AnnieHall, the 3 year old PowerBook G4 I am using. I think the flat screen can be used in the Philippines. I read somewhere it's dual rated with 100/240 VAC but I couldn't confirm it yet. If so, I'll bring it home one day to make space to my desk and give me some legroom since Yuki's half tower is bulky, noisy, and dissipates a lot of heat, specially in summer. And besides, I have been using AnnieHall all of the time now proving that I don't need a Windows desktop any longer.

(This post has been moved from another blog I am thinking of shutting down.)

Obligatory Post

Low Red Moon by Belly is playing on iTunes. I don't know what to write about. All I know is that I have to write something. This blog has been desolate for quite some time now. Neglected. I had been busy with a lot of things lately, mostly work or work-related. Nothing fantastic about if you may add. Something that wont go away and wont let up anyway. I am giving myself a small break tomorrow so tonight I can stay awake longer than what have been my recent usual bedtime. I may not be home by year-end. Everything is still not so sure given that I am responsible for a delivery of something important that cannot be delayed. I have to stay in the office even a few days of missed work-days can be fatal. I am writing this as a filler. So that the archive will not look ugly. LOL. Maybe I should talk more about work and less about other things since it's work that keeps me busy for most part of each passing day. As a matter of fact I came in late this morning at 10:15 right to the minute that I promised my team I would be in. There was the regular fire drill but I didn't participate. I told them my role this time is to be the unknown casualty to be discovered under the rubbles or the ruins after the fire shall have been been contained. I just came in, dude. Didn't want to waste my time, or what's remaining of it on something I think I am already certified given that I had participated in it twice or three times before... After getting coffee it's even 15 minutes shortened and yet the amount of work to be tackled for the day was unchanged and unapologetically keeping my mind busy... I'd better start digging in soon. Tomorrow morning I shall not be in the office though I may find myself logged in from home just to check on the guys and fire off some emails to make sure things don't stop and wait for my input when it's needed. I am but a small part of a huge machine we call The Corporation. This particular corporation happened to have some 100,000s moving parts. Each part has its designated role much like in a socialist state. Each role is deemed necessary though the degree of importance vary by degrees or orders of magnitude. There is a rationale behind each moving part however small. Just like there is a rationale for each moving part of a real mechanical apparatus like typewriter or a computer keyboard even. I fool myself that I am a part that is essential though I'm not. I can be replaced anytime. A commodity. I know this and I understand its implications. One day I may find myself replaced but the machine will continue to move on.