only the good....

Corazon Aquino
January 25, 1933 - August 1,2009

a bridge too far

from the rim of the lake, a gently winding stretch of highway 232 (this is closed in winter) merges with 138 and you turn right to proceed east. this stretch of 138 is rather peculiar in one way: at about 5000' it is only a few hundred feet lower than crater lake's rim and still in a deeply forested wilderness, but from this point until it abuts with highway 97, it cuts straight as an arrow. and that's where it ends.

short summer drives

Crater Lake National Park


It's 100 degrees in the valley; time to get out of the kitchen if you can't stand the heat.

I stop at the bank for some cash and to get a pin number for my card. It's Friday so she, the banker, starts with ' What are your plans for the weekend?'
Get out of this heat.
I know, I'm going to Florida myself. What about you?
I'm driving but haven't made up my mind where to go. I'm all packed with nowhere to go. I think I'll spin a bottle, see where it stops and start from there.

After a brief revolution, the bottle points to the east. I take east 62. On the map, it's not a designated scenic drive but it leads to Crater Lake which is a National Park

and on the flip side of the coin

Lt. Mike Stone walked the streets of San Francisco for 21 years. He is not going to be doing that anymore.

For the same amount of time, Karl Malden pitched the catchphrase "Don't leave home without them" to worldwide audiences for American Express. He won't be doing that anymore.

Mladen Sekulovich who changed his name to Karl Malden, to accommodate a career in theater, passed away at age 97. Malden, who appeared in critically-acclaimed movies such as 'On The Waterfront' and 'A Streetcar Named Desire', won an Oscar and an Emmy in a long career in the movies, on Broadway and on television.

He was married to his wife Mona, who survives him, for 70 years.

all is fair in (cliched) love

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was a once-promising presidential prospect. Then he went on a hike and his political future headed south. Actually, he did too. Went south that is.

He told his wife and his staff that he was going to hike the Appalachian Trail and would be gone for a few days. But unknown to the others, he climbed on a plane and went to Argentina. He had a clandestine rendezvous with an Argentine TV personality named Maria Belen Chapur, described by her neighbor as a beautiful brunette, who jogs, plays tennis and has big gorgeous eyes. She was Sanford's secret lover. They were confident, at that time that their affair was still a secret.

But the shit has hit the fan. And it hit him as soon as he touched down on his native soil.

Confronted by the media and suddenly faced with the unraveling of his political and family life, he confessed to the affair. He also confessed to indiscretions with other women.

But true to his mistress, he professed his undying love for her.

And the point of this post is this:

Politicians are very adept at slinging cliches, their speeches reek with them. Sanford is no different and in describing his circumstance his colors did not change. All is fair in love and politics.

The following is part of what he said in an interview with the AP: (See if you can spot all the cliches in his disquisition. You can stop when you reach the point where you feel like throwing up. I warn you, this one reeks)

There were a handful of instances wherein I crossed the lines I shouldn't have crossed as a married man, but never crossed the ultimate line. (meaning he did not fall in love)

And about his true love Maria:

This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.

I will die knowing that I have met my soul mate.

Soul mate.

palintics

Tina Fey, governor of the state of Alaska, abruptly and without much ado, announced that she was quitting her job at the end of this month and handing the rein to Lt. Gov. Parnell.

She was the Republican running- mate of senator John McCain in last years election. The duo lost to the tandem of Barack Obama and his own running-mate. (Does anybody know his name?)

Fey was considered to be a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Her resignation draws a shroud over her political intentions and sends the future of her party into a whirlpool of uncertainties.

She made the unexpected announcement on Friday outside her home in Wasilla, Alaska.

Wait a minute...

that was Sarah Palin !

view from my perch - Baguio house

Every morning I would take my coffee at the patio fronting the small hotel and facing the single-row parking lot, and this is a picture of what unfolded before me. This is a house in Baguio.

I had been spending part of the humid month at a Beach resort in Subic when the heat, combined with the noxious fumes from the exhausts of jeepneys and tricycles started an annoying irritation in my throat. Thinking that the cooler climate of the mountains might offer a relief, I climbed on a Victory liner bus and headed for Baguio.

It was at the tail end of the holy week observation in the Philippines and lodging was pretty scarce and to make matters worse, I got there just before midnight. But a retail vendor at the bus station in Olongapo, knowing beforehand what predicament I would be in in Baguio, gave me a number to call if and when the circumstance presented itself. So I ended up at this small hotel where some residents shared a community bathroom located down the hall. I had my own bathroom though and it was clean, as were the room and bed. But like everyone else's, my room lacked an air-conditioning unit.

What my room had, to offset that little inconvenience, was a set of French doors that opened out to a small deck. I had these doors wide open all day and night to mitigate the problem of the heat.

It could have been written somewhere in the hotel's brochure that it offered rooms with a view, and if it did, then this ( the house) was it. The only view it could have had as it was flanked on the other three sides by taller buildings.

It is a house that has seen better days. And probably better times.

It sits on a gently sloping part of the mountain and the gradient probably affected the design of the bi-level first floor and basement. The second story probably houses most if not all of the bedrooms. Wide windows let in abundant southern light to the living and dining room on the first floor and the family room at the basement. They also provided a sweeping view of the area. Twin dormers added personality to the facade and flood the mezzanine with soft natural light. A red-brick veneered flue towers over all structures, pierces the corrugated iron roof and drops down to fireplaces on the first and basement floors. It is a big house, but balance and symmetry are not lost in the over-all design. Yes, in its day, it was a nicely built house.

And this is how it looks today. It was a well-built house and the structural integrity of the building including the fireplace and the retaining wall below the metal fence has pretty much held-up through the years. But regular maintenance especially at the exterior has been neglected. The wood sidings, unpainted to show natural colors, are blackened by layers of watermarks and long exposure to the elements. The iron roofing exhibits rust in most areas and the eave gutter has sagged.

In the early days, one looked out the wide windows and saw a sweeping view of the rolling mountains, perennially kept green by the constant tropical rains. Beyond the first few ridges, winding roads hugged the mountain sides slipping in and out of view as they find their way slowly into the valleys. Majestic pine trees mingled with sturdy hardwoods as the winds playfully agitate their leaves. And on a clear day , some of the the famous rice terraces are visible. In the summer, when the hot air from the lowlands rose up to meet descending cold front, they formed a fog that blanketed the sides of the mountains hiding its lore and mysteries.

Today, the view is blocked by the hotel where I stayed in and the other commercial high-rise, mostly hotels, in the area. But even if the hotels weren't there the view has been forever changed.

The thick forests of pines have dwindled, their growth stunted by, among other things, the changing environmental temperature which is increasing unrestrained and intractable. The hills are alive with the unchecked proliferation of construction of squalid and nondescript dwellings of squatters. But even the ones that were built through proper channels, didn't adhere to any planning restrictions, it seems like. Setbacks were ignored and architectural aesthetics were thrown out the window.

You can see the whole width of most roads now because the trees have diminished. You can see the rivers too and the bridges that span across them. The roads are littered with trash and stained with grime. The bridges have become dumping grounds for garbage and the garbage remain uncollected for who-knows- how-long; the next one seems to be a bigger dump than the last. The rivers receive the overflow of trash and garbage. And do not look down into them, they don't look like rivers you can swim in; they are brown, red, murky and dirty.

When you're in town, especially downtown, don't try to listen to the rustle of the leaves of the trees, it won't be there. It is lost behind the cacophony of noise spewed out from the buses, taxis, jeepneys, tricycles and motorcycles that were angrily contending among themselves.


And that fog that you see is probably an illusion. The lofty fog has been reduced to its foul portmanteau - the smog.


note:
apologies to the owner of the house. I have nothing against the house, it is still a beautiful house- this is merely a metaphor.
I was disappointed with the city of Baguio.