0-1-0

Fundamentally, every digital device as we know it is created from binary code, 0/1, which really means On/Off or closed-/open-circuit. This is in tangent to the article on NSA encryption reevaluation that I just read, but as I was fascinated by it, I remembered all the times that I realize that I have no idea how the world works. We've built such a comfortable sconce of things, mechanical marvels and angels pirouetting on microchips, machines that service machines, and pulsating energy, mere information! that actually forms virtual things—quite literally unclaspable facsimiles, concepts held over from our recent history and obsolete memory; of pen and ink, fire and stone, oral history, music, and life with yet uninspired, insinuated lungs.

That we have technologies literally built one on top of the other like some haphazard, damn-the-future-archaeolog

ists-who-will-root-through-this-for-their-PhD-on-some-digital-genealogy-course way is simply stunning.

(I read another article on a new search engine that is trying to one-up—or down—google etc by accepting loooooooong strings of text to find specific articles. Apparently, the google search system has loopholes in that it has a 32-keyword limit, it finds data based on popularity, and others, all of which—according to the creators of this new technology—only fetches 1% of all internet content. Therefore, there is a hundred times more internet than we lay people imagine or have come in contact with. The concept of this search is called deepdyve. )

While I abhor the use of "literally" when people oft mean "virtually," or "metaphorically speaking," or "exaggeratingly yours, Helen," we are at the cooling point of the melding universe of our creation. "Virtual" and "real" are solidifying, the duality is such that floating bits of information can be shooed away and stirred to life like phosphorescent plankton displaying its utmost fragility.

I made a prediction in front of a Facebook worker in Cafe Bean on Sutter St: the next major terrorist attack won't be an A-bomb in a football stadium parking lot during halftime. It will be digital, maybe an EMP, it will decimate our digital lives, and for a second, everyone will stop, tap their mouses, try to scroll, reboot, and give up. Some will give up. Some will inevitably make new stuff up from a DOS floppy disk that he saved and framed for nostalgic purposes. I guess that's why we should all keep a hammer handy.

Hoy! Gising!

Another journalist slain brings up the number of deaths since GMA's 2001 ascendance to the presidency to 54. (Click to read the The Age article.)

As grievous a loss of precious life as this is, this is more alarming when we see that the Philippines is the most dangerous place to work as a journalist, second only to Iraq.

These are not victims of bad spelling, punctuation, or mixed metaphors. These, almost to a victim, are reported to be critical of the rampant, RAMPANT corruption in the Philippines.

Let it be known that Vice President Noli de Castro was one of the most popular news anchorpersons in the Philippines since press freedom was reinstituted after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship.

What does the Veep have to say about this? He had a TV show, "Hoy Gising!" which means, "Hey! Wake Up!" which exposed ineffective governance. I used to watch this a LOT growing up and I know that most Filipinos did, too.

And now, no one can sound the call to government leaders and concerned citizenry alike, not only because they are dead, but because they are being terrorized to death. Contact VP Noli "Kabayan" de Castro ("countryman") to urge him to publicly comment on this and take steps to find the murderers of his fallen colleagues.

Copy, edit, and paste the letter below and visit http://www.ovp.gov.ph/ to send "the working vice president" a Hoy! Gising! email.

=======letter begins=======

Dear Kabayan, Vice President Noli de Castro,

Throughout the years, we have looked up to you as a patriot and a voice for us all who suffered the slow movement of justice and progress. As a young man, you joined DWWW in an era when it was heroic to simply wear the press badge, and it was unthinkable to speak out and stand up against the strangling administration of Marcos and his cronies.

Years later, after a fruitful period of liberty and nationalism, you became the golden voice of Filipino news.

Your run for the Senate (as an independent, a lone voice amidst the machinery of vote-buying and election swindling) you were supported by 16 million Filipinos when you ran for Senator.

When you won, you authored Senate Bill No. 2029 or the "Local Government Transparency Act" which aimed to end corruption through transparency measures in the local government units.

Today, your responsibilities include looking out for OFWs and the working class' housing opportunities and more as Head of the National Price Coordinating Council.

But what we need now, Kabayan Vice President, is help in securing press freedom and vigilance against corruption and poor governance, as you once did in your days with DZMM and ABSCBN. The Philippines ranks the highest in journalist deaths, second only to a war zone, Iraq. Surely, you remember the fear of retribution when you uncovered and reported on irregularities and inaction in your time as the most popular and influential newsman in the Philippines.

We need your voice and your action again today to stop the violence against journalists who are alerting our countrymen to the misdeeds of our elected officials. Please make a statement denouncing these killings and intimidation of the greatest symbol of our liberty, the right to free speech.

Your historic Senate Bill 2029 will be useless if the transparency you advocated will be overshadowed by fear and stained with the blood of your fallen colleagues. Please act on their behalf, as they have acted on the behalf of the Filipino people.

Sincerely,
Your name here

====letter ends=====

Copy, edit, and paste this onto the comment field on http://www.ovp.gov.ph/

"Evil prevails when good men do nothing."

An OpenLetter2.0 to ABS-CBN (A Philippine News Organization)

An OpenLetter2.0 is a letter that you can copy, edit, and send to the prescribed recipients to add your voice to the content of the letter. By swarming the recipient with the same letter or sentiment, we can show that we are watching, thinking, and acting.

Carlos

=======letter begins==========

Please stop comparing Jojo Binay (or any aspirant-du-jour) to Barack Obama. Obama is an outsider who is promising change in business-as-usual Washington. Binay has used his wife and, sure enough, his son to get around term limits and perpetuate his hold on Makati. Makati, despite being the highest revenue earning city in the Philippines, is still Manila-as-usual with undisciplined policemen, traffic enforcers, and PUV drivers. If not for Ayala's high property values and the trickling down from Binay's "pro-poor" projects, he would have been voted out a long time ago.

send to: feedback@abs-cbnnews.com

Abstinence As An Option

Prop 8, California's vote on whether 'marriage' can be applied to couples of the same sex, should never have been put on the ballot. Again: since when has life and love been something to debate? It is indeed a cruel world thrust upon our generation—and generations before—where we align ourselves on the death penalty, abortion, and now, same-sex marriage upon such a simplistic Either/Or tableau.

What is on the ballot IS NOT, "Do mothers have the right to kill their unborn child?"

It IS NOT, "Is homosexuality deviant and therefore an affront to what 'marriage' or 'family' is?"

It IS NOT, "Does a heinous crime warrant the ultimate punishment?"

What IS on the ballot is fear, mistrust, intolerance, an insecurity that society will not support ME when my life is in others' hands.

If you voted, whether 'yea' or 'nay', the fact that our capacity as humans to show compassion and solidarity is defined by a show of hands is an indictment of us all. We will point fingers long after any decision is made, because a decision was foolishly required.

California should have abstained on this. Unfortunately, the excitement that "my vote" really mattered in a historic election bubbled over into a giddiness that overlooked voters' ability to—in case of defeat—accept the democratic outcome. After all, you could practically hear the marching band on Election Day playing "If God Be With Us, Who Can Be Against Us?"

This is one case where snubbing the ballot would have drummed just as loudly, if not louder.