<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><font size="2">Number five.</font><br>
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From: Jaime R Vergara <pinoypanda2031@aol.com><br>
To: editor <editor@saipantribune.com><br>
Sent: Fri, Aug 22, 2014 3:02 pm<br>
Subject: August 29 ST<br>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b>Guo Mei Mei</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">This is my August fool's day valedictory. I wrote a daily column from June to the end
of August, a quixotic endeavor. But there
is nothing quixotic about <i>Guomeimei,</i>
a Beijing Film Academy grad. The 23-year
created a stir when she flaunted a lavish lifestyle in 2011 while claiming
relationship with the Red Cross; the NGO had a 90 percent decline in its
donations the year that followed. She was
a skilled but sly mistress, also a gambling addict, recently arrested for
illegal online betting during the World Cup.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">It is Ms. Guo's imagination that attracts us. She muscled willpower over the power of
fear. The politics of suspicion
abounds. On the MH17 crash, <span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Times;mso-bidi-font-family:Times">after
fears' frenzy of trampled evidence to cover-up accountability,</span> the
Netherland's PM <span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Times;mso-bidi-font-family: Times">Rutte said that it now appears "fortunately that more was done
after the disaster than we thought until now." Local authorities carried out "an
intensive search in the area with 800 volunteers, and there were many bodies
recovered in those (first) days." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">A 300-truck convoy of humanitarian relief bound for Donets'k
was not allowed passage by Kiev on fear that the convoy might be carrying arms
for the separatist, or worst, an advanced wedge ahead of a Russian invasion. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The US found allies in the Philippines and Japan in foisting
fear over China's designs in its waters.
It coincides with the US Pivot Turn strategy into the Far East away from
the oil flares of the Middle East, to save the Pentagon's lost face in its
massive mishandling of the War in Iraq.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Japan released a white paper identifying Russia, DPRK, and
China as threats to its national security.
Shinzo Abe is the US Pentagon's darling; he got the US State
Department's support in the contested four islands of Kiril Skyle Ostrova that
Moscow took over from Imperial Japan after Potsdam and WWII.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, the Philippines' maritime claim v. China showed regrettably
a double-speak when its Pentagon-guided proposal suggested a three-step process
for claimants: 1) a stop on any activities in the area, 2) a dialogue between
claimants, 3) a final recourse to international arbitration. The Philippines recently jumped into the
third step behind the apron of the US Fleet and the diplomatic shield of ASEAN
before the previous steps.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">South Korea's President Park Geun-hye whose political "allure"
faded after the ferry sinking of MV Sewol when she shed tears to apologize for
the local Coast Guards' failure to respond quickly to save lives, was asked to
respond to the news that DPRK tested a missile into the East Sea (aka, Sea of
Japan) that flew farther than previous ones, to protest the joint four-decade military
maneuvers (saber rattling to DPRK) of US-SoKor forces.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Park decided that it was time to scrape the joint exercises,
get Pyongyang's ear, so folks in the Korean Peninsula, from Jeju to in-land Yanji
and Mudanjiang in China's Manchuria, could cordially start talking to each
other. Kim Jung-un has reunification of
the Koreas high in his agenda, but the military heads of DPRK, SoKor, and the
US occupying forces would not hear of it.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">There is too much investment in armaments, and medaled chest
boards of selfhood, in maintaining the ideology of conflict and the politics of
fear to even consider a practical possibility.
The four-decade annual large joint exercises are purely for defensive
reasons. Right. Track where the money goes and
"defense" takes on a different meaning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">What I just described re Pres. Park's decision did not
happen. It was my <i>Guomeimei</i> at work. But it is
not too farfetched from it ever happening.
Celine Dion indefinitely
cancelled all scheduled performances and tours upon discovering that her
husband is dying of cancer. She halted a
process already in motion to reconsider her options. If you have ever driven with a lady navigator
on the passenger side, it is the female's option to re-decide on instinct.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Micronesians' inability to plan is often bewailed; they
would rather just lounge on the catch of the day without worry about the
prospects of tomorrow, some say. Political
entities do show fancy consultant-written long-term plans but are unable to
project themselves farther than the requirements of the day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Shortsightedness, it is, but beyond the bewailing, I say
that it is more human to inhabit a moment's effulgent space than in competing
in the race of time to be at some place to chalk up an achievement. Try rootedness in place. The value of planning is in its ability to
give one the courage to care for the here-and-now by attending to its
ebullience. It does not contractually
tie anyone to behave in a certain way just because a long-range
"plan" is set to "law".
Push islanders and watch what they do; Lino Olopai "acts" this
way naturally!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Indeed, Park Geun-hye could say, "OK, we've conducted
60 years of shooting wars. Let's try
another way to relate to one another," then travels to Pyongyang <i>sans</i> fanfare. I wonder what Obama and the Pentagon would
say if that happened? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i>Guomeimei!</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </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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