The Construct

I had an interesting discussion with my English majors last Thursday in a discussion on the language of politics. Hot off the USC elections, the group in charge made references to the parties and their campaign tactics. It was interesting how they dissected the language and the context and probed the factors that may have affected the vote.

Thoughts came out. The language/variety used in the campaign (English/Taglish/Filipino). The (faulty?) analogy of STAND-UP as the GOP of UP. Parties claiming to bring about change. The focus on student services over idealism. Issues of racism against Filipino-Chinese students prior to the election (during the SR referendum). The number of Filipino-Chinese students in KAISA (probably related to the race issues). The population and demographics of each college. The great number of “burgis” freshmen voting. The electronic voting possibly being rigged…

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Oh come on, Mr. MMDA Chairman. You know what happens on these streets. I’d have to applaud Mayor Binay for pointing this out for everyone. I have seen those anti-Cory posters along Commonwealth and I wondered how they came to be. I rarely get the opportunity to take snapshots of these since I usually drive down Commonwealth alone and distracted driving kills.

According to the report Binay claimed that “MMDA’s inaction bolstered observations that the administration was behind the printing and installation of the posters.” Well, frankly, our brand of politics revolves around propaganda and smear campaigns anyway so this isn’t really something. I do think people have the right to feel “betrayed” by Aquino’s apology.

Now the question remains, how come Fernando doesn’t know about these posters? 1) MMDA quite a number of officer stationed along these thoroughfares and 2) they claim to have installed CCTV cameras that monitor the roads 24/7. Maybe all MMDA officers are just busy looking at car plates for number-coding violations that they forget everything else. Is basic vigilance always left out of MMDA officers’ daily mission orders?

Here’s a possible deal, Mr. Fernando. Leave those anti-Cory posters up but take down your fifteen-foot tall mugshots and repaint all traffic signs back to the internal standard colors. I hate your shade of pink.

When I started out this blog, I searched the cheapest web hosting package available. Like most newbies on a budget, I was led to Philhosting who claims to be the number 1 hosting company in the country or something. I didn’t bother with that since everyone claims that they’re number 1 anyway. What caught my eye was the price they charge for what other hosts provide (domain, storage, and bandwidth) at twice the cost.

For nearly two years I endured constant downtimes and horrible technical support. For you guys hosted by Philhosting, I’m sure you know the horror stories of finding your site down without any prior notice when you most wanted to blog. Try contacting their technical support and they’d reply with technobabble that wouldn’t fix your problem. Try calling their number and they basically don’t answer. This list can just go on and on. I have another story about them but I’ll reserve that for another time.

Getting tired of their horrible service, I finally decided early this year to move this blog to a new host (MSWeb). They might charge around Php 500 more in a year for what I was getting with Philhosting but having great people to talk to and get warned days before server maintenance and downtime is enough for that added price, I believe. Amazingly, my uptime meter almost always at 100%. And by God, MSWeb did apologize once for not being able to fix thing on time even if it’s just a spillover of an hour or so! I remember Philhosting always acting high and mighty for failing to deliver just about every time. Good thing I now have the luxury of spending that additional Php 500 a year.

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Customizing your WordPress theme can be a real bitch. One reason why I haven’t really made changes with my blog layout is because it takes quite a while to do. The quickest way is to just download and apply an existing theme. That usually means your blog just looks like all the other blogs using the same theme out there. If you want a real customized look either you build one ground up (or pay someone to do it for you) or get an existing theme and modify it.

Not anymore. Now here’s a WordPress theme that will end all the other WordPress themes in terms of flexibility and ease of customization – WPUnlimited! It’s a full-featured WordPress theme that has SEO, AdSense and design customization.

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Last week, the blogosphere had a blast discussing the jologs incident at the UP Fair. I wonder though, what will happen to this issue about an Ateneo high sophomore allegedly being mauled in an open party. This issue, I think, isn’t getting enough mileage from the blogosphere.

I first read about the issue on a college buddy’s blog. A bit of trackback tracking led me to Chuvaness who first blogged about it.

I wouldn’t want to recount the details since I think it’s best for you to read it from the source. So here’s the story about the open parties and the open letter of the mother of the kid who was beat up. Next, there’s the another open letter reply from the parties organizers. Follow the comment thread for some very interesting reads.

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