time out

I'm detoxifying from the last few days. Just took a day for myself to wander around Cubao, checked out the books and other knick knacks. Scouted around for a bicycle.

Chelsea's ear got better, then it got worse. The doc says it's nothing to really worry about though.

Trying to think of a thesis proposal for the Lithis requirement. Got pissed off trying to log in to register online for next term.

Haven't really checked the forums and other blogs where I'm engaged in a lonely battle, but feel a little more vindicated after reading Conrado De Quiros's article on the topic. Some snippets.

"I don’t know that I can bring myself to judge Nicole too harshly. Of course I hear the cries of anger and dismay from a public that feels raw and shortchanged. Of course I hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth of the people who took up the cudgels for her, defending her as much in the court of public opinion as in the court of law, when the other side took care to depict her as a woman who did not need coercing to part with her virtue, or whatever else she had left to part with. Of course I hear the lamentations and vituperations of the women’s groups that refused to stop until they roused this country, its mind too numb to reel from yet another iniquity and wanting only to fall into the embrace of sleep, into wakefulness—like the prince in Ibong Adarna by rubbing calamansi on wound.

By why should Nicole choose the heroic path, or just the honorable one, when there is nothing in this country to support that choice? Everywhere there is corruption, rottenness, cheating, lying, stealing, murder, rape, looking out for oneself, dog versus dog, every man, or woman, for himself/herself, the devil take the hindmost. Of course there is the example set by people like Jun Lozada who have taken the honorable and heroic path amid the greatest adversity. But that example also says that there is a steep price to pay for it. That example shows that in this country the wicked are rewarded plentifully and the good are punished harshly. Why should Nicole, who has endured the burdens of the world, want to endure more?

Of course she had responsibilities, having become the symbol of purloined honor, or national debasement, but she has an example there too. No one has more responsibilities than the person currently occupying Malacañang, and shirking them—no, scuttling them—has not harmed her, it has benefited her. A society has a right to expect decent choices from its citizens only when it can enforce decency. A society has the right to expect moral choices from its citizens only when it can enforce morality. A society has the right to expect its citizens to routinely do the right thing only when it can routinely reward the right thing and punish the wrong one. That is not true here. The opposite is true here."