[Oe List ...] Fwd: August 30 from Jaime

[Jaime R Vergara]

Last one, folks.  Have a good autumn and winter.


j'aime la vie


Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!



-----Original Message-----
From: Jaime Vergara <pinoypanda2031 at aol.com>
To: editor <editor at saipantribune.com>
Sent: Sat, Aug 24, 2013 5:45 pm
Subject: August 30



JayVee, here is the last one.  I will excise a lot of emails henceforth, and will concentrate on University responsibilities.  Keep this email though, in case you have to get to me, and I to you.


Been a pleasure!


Jaime


End of August
 
Our er lao po, mother twoautistic children who turned 18 and 21 this year, hits the big Six-Oh tomorrow,but since the 31st is a Saturday,this shall be the end of August writing for ST for me.  At least, it spares us from meditating again onthe heavy emotional toll that got er laopo with our two kids and I separated by halfway across the planet duringturbulent winds that shafted a marriage eons ago.
 
Karen Ann sings The End of May,one of the songs that students invariably mention in their profile as asong they are familiar with, or would not mind learning.  Karen Ann attempts to be down-to-earth to 
Closeyour eyes and roll a dice
Underthe board there's a compromise
Ifafter all we only live twice
Whichlife's the run road to Paradise.
It is still, however, a bit escapist in the “live twice” dream.
 
Unfortunately, the other version by Michael Bubble fares no better:
Golden haze,another morning feels like yesterday. 
End of May, ayear is gone and I still feel this way, 
When we meetagain, I'll ask you how you're doing 
And you'll sayfine and ask me how I'm doing
And then I'll lieand I'll say, it's just an ordinary day. 
 
While The End of May is(are) my students’ song(s), we might let our hair down and pen our own song;call it, The End of August.  Nah. That would be too corny.
 
We are on the final installment of our prolonged exit from this page,and bid adieu to the sparkling watersof Saipan (the ocean, not what trickles from aquifers) as well.  We dragged luggage to Ada International twoyears ago, and our shadow had not been seen since.  
 
I shifted to the exit mode the first of August, and during the wholemonth, our bidding a permanent farewell loomed big on our consciousness.  Add August as our personal Autism month andwe can say that we had our mental luggage rack full lately.
 
But our pieces have been focused content-wise, in addition to itscontextual education intent, to earthly issues and current events.  Our end of August should not be different.
 
We note the rape of a female photojournalist intern in Mumbai and howit is that the patriarchal arrogance in our society, global and local, stillprevails.  There might be a difference indegree but not in kind – in Mumbai and Shanghai, Chicago and Tokyo, Lima andManila, and alas, even Shenyang and Pyongyang. Defensive and condescending  malesreign.
 
The Pentagon, bastion of entrenched machismo, reeling from cases ofsexual harassment, will now have to deal with a new issue as erstwhile Bradleyhas become Chelsea Manning.  She nowrequires the hormone therapy in jail he was denied while active in the armedforces.  With the LGTB community finallygetting the official and legal attention it deserves, a nail on patriarchy’s superciliousconceit (redundancy intentional) is welcomed.
 
This brings us to the hypocrisy revealed on how we treat TexasSenator Ted Cruz’ Canadian citizenship.  
 
No surprise here.  Our eldestchild was born in Manila but having a U.S. citizen mother, there was no problemregistering her as a naturally born American. Technically, she had dual citizenship. Younger sister was born in Saskatoon, Canada, and when it was time toget a passport that she needed to travel at 1 year old, the Philippine and US onescost three times more than the Canadian. Technically of triple citizenship, she crossed the border with the mapleleaf.  Our family entered the US throughHonolulu later.  I was asked by INS toappear at the Federal Building in Chicago for bringing in an unidentified alieninto the country.  Her passport did notbear any record of parentage, Papa or Mama, and we were duly accused of havinga low regard for the Federal laws of the country.
 
Both my daughters are American citizens, plus.  Ted Cruz is, of course, an American, plusTexan, etc.  And Obama is Ethiopian! Getit?
 
Our last noticing is with ChannelNewsAsia of Singapore doingspeculative reporting on the Bo Xilai trial in China.  We do not mind editorializing but when itparades as news, portrays a kangaroo court, and furthers the image of Beijingas a bunch of scheming Fu Manchus, then something else is going on.  We do know that already, Pagan’s future is adone deal in the US strategic policy of containing China (she with a navy thathas one Russian discarded but refurbished bathtub for her lone cruise carrier!) What we can discern is that the politicsof oil that led the CIA (finally fessed up 60 yrs. later) to banish Timemagazine’s 1952 Man-of-the-Year Mohammed Mosaddegh out of Iran has just shiftedinto China’s continental shelf.  Mindyou, it is all Obama-the-Ethiopian’s fault!
 
Our picture of our exit sans ceremony is clear.  Ed Stephens of this page who we met once inan As Lito bar settles his canvas chair on the lagoon’s shore on his regularThursday relax time after sending off his Friday column.  I join him on my stool.  He greets me with a lifted English stout, andI respond in kind with my cerveza. Ina non-verbal toast, we nod as if to say: “It’s a good day, and I am happy to behere.”


Jaime Vergara
pinoypanda2031 at aol.com

yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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