The Blanket Fort

I'm sure that most of you have seen what's happened on CNN and other news places all over the world by now:

8 Dead in Philippine Hostage Crisis

I'm angry, pissed off, cringing with shame at the entire mess that this was.  I could point fingers, lay blame, maybe pick a few fights with the ignorant assholes who want to make this about race and laugh at my poor benighted country, smugly forgetting that they've got skeletons in their national closets worse than ours. 

Then again, I'll just be adding to the hate.  That's not going to help anybody.

Instead, this is a National Day of Mourning and I will mourn:

I will mourn our Philippine National Police - because I'm sure there are still a few good men and women there in uniform, who are trying to serve my countrymen in the best possible way they can.  But they have to deal with the fact that for the past month, our police were accused of outright murdering a carnapping ring suspect, torturing some poor snatcher and this latest poor crazed psychopath who decided to involve innocent people in his quest for self-destruction. 

I will mourn my countrymen who will be looked at with disdain by the rest of the world, who are, like me, cringing with shame that this happened right before our eyes and be faced with accusations of terrorism, ignorance, monumental stupidity. 

I will mourn for the families of those who were killed by that crazed fool.  They weren't doing anything but be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  They're not different from any of us.  I could have been on that bus.  My mother could have been on that bus.  Any of us could have been that unlucky. 

I will mourn for Mendoza, even as I deplore and condemn what he did.  I'm sure he must have realized that doing this wasn't going to get him his job back or his benefits.  I strongly suspect that he might have even done this as an ultimate act of vengeance.   I hate what he did, that he had to involve innocent people in this crazed, desperate scheme but I will mourn not for himself personally, but for the family he's left behind, the people who are going to have to shoulder the price for his monstrous and dishonorable actions. 

Compassion's going to be far from a lot of people's thoughts right now.  I'm not going to do the same.  I'm tired of the hate.  I'm tired of the stupidity.  I'm tired of the greed and crassness that allows the soldiers and policemen of my country to go barely armed, barely equipped and be poorly trained. 

Enough is enough.

... are easily the most entertaining thing I've seen in ages.  I'm not American, therefore, I can't vote, (although I kinda liked Hillary in the beginning of the whole campaign thing) - however, let's face it, folks - the Man who sits in the Oval Office will affect my world, like it or not.   Hopefully, he'll be a catalyst for change and change for the better.  

All right, if I could vote, I'd vote for Obama.  I'd been leaning towards McCain at first and then I was totally turned off by the same old b.s. and the classic tactics of mudslinging and fear the unknown that has been Done To Death. I know a trapo when I spot one.   Hell, they've been ruining....uh, running my country for years!  Obama and his consistent line for genuine positive change won me over. 

You guys have absolutely no idea how hard I laughed over at the Sarah Palin $150,000 Wardrobe Gate story. We've got politicians over here who've been doing the same thing for AGES - Imelda Marcos and her gazillion shoes easily the most recognizable figure in the world for this. And then, there was the whole traditional mudslinging bit, highlight easily being the "Let's Be Afraid of the Freakin' Black Arab Muslim Guy who Associates (GASP!) With Terrorists."

Oh, the humanity!

Oh the horror.

We Pinoys have always thought of America as sort of The Promised Land - why do you suppose there's so many of us emigrating over there? We know America is not perfect and yet the dream of a better life, if not in this land, then in others, still beckons us.

Right now, I live in a country where my President granted clemency to a known killer, Claudio Teehankee Jr. This is a man who simply went and cold-bloodedly shot a young beautiful girl Maureen Hultman and her companion Roland John Chapman. They were not armed, they were not doing anything to him. Popular gossip has it that Teehankee had a serious jones for Maureen and he was pissed when she didn't return his dubious affections. He's supposed to be serving two life sentences for his crime. In style and comfort even in jail, people. 

But the President of the country I lived in, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, released him. The commentary that followed said that "well, she released Erap." Whatever we want to think about former President Joseph "Erap" Estrada and the charges laid at his door, none of them included the cold-blooded killing of two innocent people just out of the blue. This whole Teehankee debacle is just a massive WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Maybe that's the real reason I'm so entertained by the American Presidential Elections. I need a little more hope, even if that source of hope is in another country.