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So Suu Kyi gets an extra 18 months in home detention, all for the most implausible, strangest reason ever. There's almost like a Dante-esque element to this tragic saga that transcends the surreal. Up in the heavens, different gods have conflicting priorities - and thus our Buddhist lady remains chained to her castle by the lake, and our Mormon prophet... well, I'm not so sure what he is thinking right now; perhaps thinking what part of God's message he got wrong.
After bringing in Avenue Q last year, Atlantis Philippines is bringing in the Philippine production of "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" to Singapore.I caught this show in New York couple of years back by accident, having arrived in the midst of a stagehand's strike when most of the shows I wanted to catch were closed.
But small show (it was staged in a venue the size of the Esplanade Theatre Studio) turned out to be a serendipitous find. The songs were not meant to impress but to propel the plot. The set design was nothing fancy. The show was designed not to razzle dazzle but to highlight the characters and the performers themselves. I should have thought that it was a perfect vehicle for a Philippine production, known to thrive in the aesthetics of frugality and hedge its bet on performance skill instead of huge mechanical sets. And believe me when I say that Philippine productions are not any worse, if not better than some of the productions I saw in Broadway or in the West End.
But too bad the show is only in Singapore for a limited run at the Victoria Theatre, and with minimal publicity even (I didn't find out about it until this week). We are catching the show this Friday.
I read that Atlantis is mounting another Tony-award winning musical Spring Awakening next in Manila. Hopefully they bring it to Singapore as well.
BTW. Carla Guevarra-LaForteza who played Kathy/Lucy the Slut in Avenue Q is a member of the cast.
I was enroute to Chicago when I read that Cory Aquino had passed away. She was 76.
My family was staunchly pro-Marcos, which was typical during those days when the Filipino-Chinese community preferred the predictable (and corrupt) Marcos regime (better for business, my father used to say) over Cory Aquino. I, on the other hand, was the lone voice in our family that argued for regime change (that was 7 against 1). You can imagine intense dinner time discussions when everybody would gang up on Cory and that I was told off for being naive to think that a housewife can run the country better than Marcos.
For me, it was not a question of whether she could effectively run the country or not, but that a change was necessary. If change was ever going to happen, Cory was our best chance to do it.
In retrospect, she was not one of the best presidents the Philippines ever had. But nobody can accuse her of not trying. She tried what she could. She represented what could have been for the Philippines, and with her passing, we are left with one less icon of decency in Philippine public life.
Unlike some people, I've never been scared of flying. Maybe I should.
Speculations on the final few minutes of Air France 477 (as confirmed to have likely have happened) is nothing less than chilling.
At 11 p.m. (10 p.m. EDT), pilot Marc Dubois sent a manual signal saying he was flying through an area of "CBs" -- black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that carry violent winds and lightning.
At 11:10 p.m., a cascade of horrific problems began.
Automatic messages relayed by the jetliner indicate the autopilot had disengaged, suggesting Dubois and his two co-pilots were trying to thread their way through the dangerous clouds manually.
A key computer system had switched to alternative power and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged.
An alarm sounded, indicating the deterioration of flight systems.
At 11:13 p.m., more automatic messages reported the failure of systems to monitor air speed, altitude and direction. Control of the main flight computer and wing spoilers also failed.
The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., indicated complete electrical failure and a massive loss of cabin pressure -- catastrophic events, indicating that the plane was breaking apart and plunging toward the ocean.
Plane mishaps have been to know to happen most frequently during take-off and landing. Air disasters occuring while mid-air are almost unheard of. Imagine you were watching some nutty movie, laughing your head off when suddenly all hell breaks loose.
Scary, man.
Unlike Singapore news that is almost always fixated on all boom, doom, and stale gloom, news from Manila has always been irreverently irrelevant you'd think nothing extraordinary happens at all. For the past few weeks, Manila has been fixated on the surfacing of several sex videos involving a doctor/celebrity/model and several starlets. If you think those photos of Edison Chen were scandalous (or yummy, depending on your persuasion), these videos are on a different-queerclick league (NSFW) of its own.
In keeping with the irrelevant theme, even lawmakers have been happily dissecting the sex videos using precious senate time - all in the "aid of legislation."; though for whatever form of legislation lawmakers intend to use the information escapes me. So the culprit was hauled into the August halls of the Senate, and made to answer questions like - what software did you use? where did you place the camera? Not surprisingly, those who were doing the grilling were actors themselves. (Finally, they are tackling something that they are comfortable with. Leave the heavy stuff like poverty to the serious legislators).
So while the world is worried about the economy, North Korea and H1N1, Filipinos think that a sex video takes precedence. And that, my friends, explains why the Philippines is where it is in the global economy.
So finally the elusive Mas Salamt has been caught in Malaysia.
"He was reportedly captured in southern Malaysia, just across the Johor Strait from Singapore, in an area that once effectively served as the headquarters for Jemaah Islamiyah."
If I recall, somebody declared in the past that Mas Salamat should still be still in Singapore because he has not been sighted elsewhere.
Border checks so tight, even the H1N1 virus couldn't enter Singapore.
Maybe H1N1 should have used a floatation device. Nobody in Singapore will ever think of that.
Officially, we are in pandemic alert phase 5 - a full blown global flu pandemic is imminent.
So what does this actually mean? It means that a flu virus that was previously only contagious between animals have found it's way to humans and that these humans have been documented to be spreading this virus across 2 continents (or 2 geographical WHO areas).
But what is important to note here is that nowhere in this classification does it say that the virus is lethal.
All it tells us is that it is contagious, the same way any flu bug jumps from one colleague to another in the office. In order to find out the lethality of the virus, one has to find out the case fatality rate which is the number of fatalities occuring as a result of infection (SARS had a case fatality rate between 12 and 71%. Unlike SARS, a person is infectious even before the onset of fever). From collected reports, the current case fatality rate for H1N1 is 2.3%. But according to reports on the ground, poor access to health care may be the real culprit.
Even now, the Mexican government is finding out that a number of the fatalities were not caused by H1N1. As I said in a earlier post, most people who got H1N1 got better by themselves, without hospitalisation. Some who had the flu didn't even know it was H1N1 until they were tested. The virus can mutate to a more virulent strain but that won't be happening so soon, particularly as the northern hemisphere moves into the summer season. Like vampires, this virus cannot withstand prolonged daylight exposure. So yes, this current bogeyman is from Monsters, Inc and voiced by the lovable John Goodman.
That said, I am a bit baffled that the pandemic alert 5 has been used to justify radical measures to contain the virus. In fact, the WHO has already said that there is no point in containing the virus and measures should be focused instead on mitigating the effects of infection.
Truth be told, unless a vaccine is out soon, all of us will be infected whether you like it or not. It may not be within the next 3 months, but maybe 1 to 5 years down the road, after which you develop immunity - just like when you develop immunity to a flu strain until a new mutated strain comes along.
So how does that leave all these virus containment exercises? Like putting all the 200 hotel guests under quarantine? Temperature checks at every corner? (I wanted to go to the gym today but was deterred by the long queue waiting to have their temperature checked) Visa restrictions for Mexicans? Quarantine all Mexicans? What happens when the US numbers overtake Mexico? (The US is, after all, so much bigger than Mexico) Do we quarantine everybody coming from the US? We will need more than the Aloha Chalet to hold them all. One thing is for sure, all these exercises has done nothing to contain anxiety.
I sooo need to be convinced that this is not just a show for those who bungled SARS.
Over dinner last night, some friends mentioned that Dubai is not faring any better than Singapore, if not worse. After all, Dubai is the other self-styled adult Disneyland, fabled paradise in the desert and man-made islands with multi-million price tags; only less well managed.
Googling Dubai led me to this article in the UK Independent. It's rather long but if you are interested in the parallels between Dubai and Singapore, this article is an eye opener.
Here, off the coast of Dubai, developers have been rebuilding the world. They have constructed artificial islands in the shape of all planet Earth's land masses, and they plan to sell each continent off to be built on. There were rumours that the Beckhams would bid for Britain. But the people who work at the nearby coast say they haven't seen anybody there for months now. "The World is over," a South African suggests.
All over Dubai, crazy projects that were Under Construction are now Under Collapse. They were building an air-conditioned beach here, with cooling pipes running below the sand, so the super-rich didn't singe their toes on their way from towel to sea.
The projects completed just before the global economy crashed look empty and tattered. The Atlantis Hotel was launched last winter in a $20m fin-de-siecle party attended by Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan and Lily Allen. Sitting on its own fake island – shaped, of course, like a palm tree – it looks like an immense upturned tooth in a faintly decaying mouth. It is pink and turreted – the architecture of the pharaohs, as reimagined by Zsa-Zsa Gabor. Its Grand Lobby is a monumental dome covered in glitterballs, held up by eight monumental concrete palm trees. Standing in the middle, there is a giant shining glass structure that looks like the intestines of every guest who has ever stayed at the Atlantis. It is unexpectedly raining; water is leaking from the roof, and tiles are falling off.
The similarities can be unnerving. While I think it will not be that bad in Singapore, it gives credence to fears of what may go wrong in Singapore if this recession doesn't let up soon.
Adam Lambert is off his comfort zone. Perhaps the purple hair effect is kicking in already?The world is on the verge of a pandemic flu. Why do I get a feeling that this is being blown out of proportions? Except for Mexico, most cases recovered spontaneously. My suspicion is that the original pig-human transmission was the more virulent, re-assorted strain, getting weaker as it passes from human to human but retaining its contagiousness. We shall see.
2 exams down, one paper to write. As far as I am concerned, this journey is almost over. Hiatus almost over. Work is beckoning. I just hope this swine flu dies down before I return.
Just my luck that the deadline for turning in my final paper falls on the day when I am supposed to be overseas. Earlier than that, my supervisor is overseas and cannot endorse it. Aggravations are such a pain when you already think you have this in bag. Just another way of making me work harder for that trip. Ditto with a coming trip to the US. This swine flu swirling the northern hemisphere has certainly put a spanner in my plans. Another photo finish or no finish in the works.
