<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: large;">Memorial Day</b><br>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><i>“And death shall have no dominion” </i><span style="vertical-align:baseline">is from the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas known to
purveyors of English literature. To
readers of the New Testament of the Bible, the theme comes from St. Paul’s
letter to the Romans.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Memorial Day is now our
secular commemoration of the truth that death, indeed, has no dominion. It is not because Paul says so, or that he
says so in reference to Jesus. Nor hardly has its authenticity dependent on
its being in a religious scripture. It
is true because that’s the way life is, regardless on what tradition one stands
on. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Memorial Day observed
on the last Monday of May was formerly Decoration Day commemorating all men and
women who died in military service for the United States. It started with the recognition of Union
soldiers who lost their lives during the American Civil War inspired by the way
the Southern states honored their dead.
It was extended to WWI uniformed casualties, and later, on anyone who
died in any military action, war or no war.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Memorial Day comes at
the end of spring and the onset of summer in the northern hemisphere. It is a good day to visit cemeteries, to
prepare for incoming ice days, and gather the family if we could. In fact, the last half of May tends to be memorial
days in the United States, at least, in my calendar, starting with the Peace
Officers’ Day in the middle of the month and extending through D-Day in June
and patriotic Fourth of July. So, rather
than a day to close-out autumn and prepare to hibernate in winter, I consider
our choice of May more than just a memorial to military deaths as it is a celebration
of the gift of life in its fullness.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">China just completed its
hosting of CICA </span><span style="font-family:">(</span><span style="font-family:">Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building
Measures in Asia) in Shanghai, trying to move the sense of “security” out of
the military mindset into the concern of citizens, particularly the internal
capacities to stem separatism and extremism.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Born and bred in the Philippines
before taking US citizenship, and a part time resident of Saipan and Honolulu, I
am quite familiar with the intent of SEATO that was our NATO in Southeast Asia,
and now, the ASEAN, which is our EU. Europe
and Asia are not the same, nor are their organized efforts similar but they are
both initiated and stoked by the military, political and economic interests of
the United States. Among cynical colleagues
in Asia, ASEAN is a coffee break </span><span style="font-family:">tête-à-tête </span><span style="font-family:">at a US
coffee shop!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">One of the provisions of the joint
declaration that came out of Shanghai (attended by 46 countries with the US as
an observer) was the sense that a military alliance between an Asian country
with a third party should not be at the expense of heightened insecurity of the
Asian country’s neighbor. Historically,
this can only be in reference to US continued military meddling in the Koreas
and the maritime disputes in the South China Sea, and the sale of Black Hawk
“death from above” technologies to Brunei and Taiwan.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">When China articulated its need
for a National Security Commission early this month in light of the actions of rebels
in an earlier attack at Tiananman Square in Beijing, the machete/bolo attacks
in Yunnan and elsewhere, the Uyghur attacks in Xinjiang while China’s President
Xi Jinping was on a visit, our US State Department had the temerity to ask that
China prove allegations that they were under internal attack.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">This week, two bombs on two fancy SUV’s
were driven through a busy public market in Urmuqi, Xinjiang (Uyghur country) as
the CICA meeting in Shanghai was being held.
There are in China internal security issues beyond the machete/bolo
crowd that western media continually portrays.
</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Let us ignore government policies
for a moment. As a teacher in the
western tradition for the last 40 years, I am only aware of the type of
thinking we imbue on our students when we ask them to “compare and contrast”
things, and in our revered methodology of having participants identify the
“underlying contradiction” in strategic planning. Nothing methodological wrong with both, save
the compare-and-contrast method often leads to the one-up-man-ship hierarchical
structure of society where one is decreed to be better than another. Though identifying concrete contradictions
help planning to rise from mere wishful thinking that deteriorates into the
eternal Zoroastrian battle of good-and-evil, we are increasingly getting clear
that only in dealing with concrete “rocks-in-the-middle-of-the-road” realities
can planning actually move forward.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">Memorial Day is not when we draw
the line to leave some people out as it is to broaden a circle so that we can
get everyone in. In the movie <i>The Last Samurai, </i>the Tom Cruise </span><span style="font-family:">character
was asked by the Emperor of the warrior who died with his sword swinging
against the volleys of lead: </span><span style="font-family:">“Tell me how he
died.” Tom Cruise replied: “I'll tell
you how he lived.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:">A colleague in Saipan is fond of saying, “it is not
what I am willing to die for that is at issue; what I aim to live for,” is. </span><span style="font-family:">Enjoy your lagoon
BBQ!</span><span style="font-family:"></span></div>
<br>
<div style="clear:both"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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