Now/here no/where woman

Or, What We Have Forgotten... There is a way of thinking about the world around us that has become so persistent that we take it for granted. We think of nature or the environment as something out there, as being about trees, wild animals, mountains, pristine lakes and oceans. We think of ourselves, humans, as being above nature because we are rational, calculating, and conniving. We think of our cities as being separate from nature. We think of our technologies as management tools that we can use to control nature. We speak of Ondoy as a natural disaster. It's time to change our habits of thinking. Ondoy, the natural disaster, is gone from our country. That particular typhoon is over but we are still in the throes of a social disaster created by nature and humans both. The possible human causes for this social disaster include, among other things, excessive waste generation and improper waste disposal, lack of foresight in the zonation of our cities, our contributions to greenho...

A PRAYER THAT WILL BE ANSWERED by Anna Kamienska Lord let me suffer much and then die Let me walk through silence and leave nothing behind not even fear Make the world continue let the ocean kiss the sand just as before Let the grass stay green so that the frogs can hide in it so that someone can bury his face in it and sob out his love Make the day rise brightly as if there were no more pain And let my poem stand clear as a windowpane bumped by a bumblebee's head (Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. From A Book of Luminous Things by Ceslaw Milosz.)

I've been thinking about... why Manila wasn't prepared... When a 1977 government study saw the possibility of this happening. I've been wondering about... how we might get our acts together in the face of all this... ... when the administration's allies are busy undermining the government (that's us, the people, that they're undermining). I've been awed by the outpouring of love and the amazing resilience among Filipinos and our creativity in times of crisis . I respect and am grateful for those that have turned to prayer, and yet I ask myself, is prayer enough?

OF RAIN AND AIR All day I have been closed up inside rooms, speaking of trivial matters. Now at last I have come out into the night, myself a center of darkness. Beneath the clouds the low sky glows with scattered light. I can hardly think this is happening. Here in this bright absence of day, I feel myself opening out with contentment. All around me the soft rain is whispering of thousands of feet of air invisible above us. BY WAYNE DODD, from A Book of Luminous Things edited by Ceslaw Milosz

I have two questions. 1) If you by these Dole Cavendish bananas in 7-11... are you buying into the use of poison rain in corporate banana plantations in Mindanao? "In May 2009, the Department of Health released its study (“Health and Environmental Assessment of Sitio Camocaan, Hagonoy, Davao del Sur”) which showed that residents exposed to the spray were found to have pesticide traces in their blood. Air and soil outside plantation boundaries were also found to be contaminated. The study recommended banning aerial spraying and a shift to organic methods... "'We are not bananas. We are not pests.' This is the cry of communities near banana plantations in Mindanao who have to suffer the adverse effects of regular toxic aerial spraying. Imagine yourself sipping coffee under the open sky when suddenly something lands in your cup. Imagine yourself a child on your way to school and getting sprayed with pesticides. Farmers working on their small farms and people doing their ...

How does the lechon rice of Cathy's Fastfood fare on the two seesters' and Fritson's scale of pig snouts? Click here to find out!

It's September but it feels like August.

... I could have a french bulldog. Because they are so cute in such an endearingly ugly way, just looking at them fills my heart with joy and laughter.

The top halves of a few local papers on the newstands on September 1, 2009.

City officials promised that the reconstruction of the burned areas of the Baguio Public Market would be completed and inaugurated in time for the city's centennial celebration. Enough said. My sukis and friends and I greeted each other, "Happy Baguio Day!" and we just had to laugh at the irony of it all.