The Construct

On to more personal concerns here. I’m really, really suffering from a bad case of GAS. Or maybe not. Perhaps “investing” on work-related technology would be a worthwhile move. Then again, I already have the functional tools to do my work so investing on new tech is quite unnecessary.

My ASUS A8Jr’s finally fixed but not after waiting six months for the parts. To top it off, it’s only a couple of weeks before the warranty lapses. I always hate it when any piece of electronics I own ages past its coverage. I hate knowing I legally won’t have anyone on whom to place the blame if it breaks down.

So I went out (with Rish) yesterday to scout out some possible prospects. Narrowed them down to two – the Lenovo Y430 and the ASUS F81Se.

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Not many “intellectuals” appreciate Internet memes. No one can deny though, the power of the viral to spread both information and culture among a great many. Many of us played bash the politician in the Pangandaman – De la Paz issue. While the case seems to have contracted rot in the courts, we can all take comfort in the fact that out soapboxing brought the issue to a national light.

In that we felt our importance in working in tandem with traditional media in being citizen journalists. We exercise our rights to free speech in search for truth and justice and our rapid-fire soapboxing was heard all over the world.

So what’s with this Right to Reply bill that already passed the Senate and about the pass the House? Kabataan party-list rep Mong Palatino warns that this sucky bill will cover not only blogs but other forms of electronic media as well.

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It’s so easy to make judgments when your in the outside looking in. Going by Bentham’s Panopticon, positioning oneself in a location where you can view people inside a confined space without them seeing you gives you a sense of omniscience. There is sense in stepping back and trying to look not only at the bigger picture but also from different perspectives and through different lenses.

However, it’s really quite hard to be objective and shift points of view when things are rather personal. Emotion and attachment does affect objectivity. But then again, who’s capable of objectivity anyway? Heck. Not even the half-Vulcan Spock was able to maintain his stoicism.

Just wondering how cautious are we when we express our opinions? Do we bask in the same omniscience (and perhaps, omnipotence) when we get to see issues and phenomena in which we really don’t have any personal stakes? And if we don’t, do we even consider the possible impact of what we express to those who do have stakes?

At least in my case, I find myself struggling to tread by both intellectual and moral high grounds.

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How difficult it is to write about the Hayden Kho sex videos without sounding like an MCP. Even as I’m writing this, I am unsure at how I’ll be organizing the thoughts and phrasing them for me not to take a step back in humankind’s evolution.

Over the course of yesterday, I’ve had several chats with both male and female friends and acquaintances regarding the Haydeng Kho sex video scandals. There’s the typical mind-in-crotch guy talk three bottles into a drinking session. Typical. But more interesting are the female reactions to the issue. Simplified, their reactions to Katrina Halili’s plight fall into the choices in FML – “Your life is f*cked” and “You deserved that one”.

I wonder if these reactions have anything to do with gender lines. I somehow think that judgments based on gender lines are moot and that reactions can fall either way or even in the gray areas of these choices regardless of being male, female, gay, lesbian or transgender.

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I think I’ve done my part (and a great deal of self-service) on the Globelines P2P issue, now let me zoom out and take a look at one thing that actually concerns me as an academic and an educator -The Great Book Blockade of 2009.

MLQ3 has already written about (and aggregated) what I think are the most important points regarding this, so let me do the lazy thing and just point you to a couple of his posts -The Great Book Blockade of 2009: Timeline and Readings and We, the People: As Readers.

Now here’s my beef regarding the issue.

On a personal (financial) note, one reason why I only get to buy books a few times a year is because of their cost. Now here’s an additional five percent out of my wallet just to enjoy a good read all because these books aren’t cultural and educational by the standards of someone in the government. So fork over the 5%, Gaiman fanboy.

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