While browsing the net for news today, I’ve come across a reference of this ad for then, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan:

There is a bear in the woods. For some people the bear is easy to see. Others don’t see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it’s vicious. And dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who is right, isn’t it smart to be as strong as the bear? If there is a bear.

—- A political campaign ad for Ronald Reagan (1984)

At that time, during the 1980s, The USSR has just invaded Afghanistan (implying that there is little to stop them from imposing its might on their neighbors. There were estimates [needs citations for these]  that its growth rate (economics/population/development, etc.) was exceeding everyone else’s.

The USA have just come out of the painful Vietnam experience.

Reagan’s platform: Prepared for Peace.

It meant that it wasn’t just enough that they can reverse any attack on their sovereignty, they must ensure that anyone just thinking about it would call it off immediately.

It wasn’t enough to demonstrate that they can withstand any kind of opposition. They must demonstrate that they have several first strike options to discourage an aggressor.

In our present time, we do not face an ideological enemy (or so, I believe), but the prevailing conditions of this country aren’t better. So far, there is little to indicate that we can trust the candidates and in a rather disturbing way: the voters themselves. We ourselves cannot be trusted… are we? can we?

So it begins.

Only a few days remain before election starts

Perhaps cheating will be avoided.

Perhaps they really do care.

Perhaps our votes will really count this time.

Because many are serious about this right, maybe this time, it would make a difference.

Maybe money couldn’t and wouldn’t buy votes.

Perhaps this time, they’d make good on their promises.

… and likewise, we’d make good on ours.

Once we have exercised our voting rights, we will stand by it and/or suffer for it.

It will be done.

As Julius Caesar did on the banks of the Rubicon several millennia ago, iacta alea est, the die is cast.

May fortune smile on us all.

Thank God for modern medicine. Thank God it had to be administered by you. You who have injected the cure, thank God for you.

I feel better now.

One of the more disturbing directions the post-modernist movement has taken, have led many to beget an awful tendency to take wanton liberties on things that are especially well-established to be standing on sure moral foundations. In an analogy: it’s like portraying Mickey Mouse as a nutbag or a fruitcake — Interesting, no doubt for purely scholarly reasons, but … defies the original purpose and intent (including its subsequent and carefully-contrived iterations).

For instance, in the movie, John Constantine (played by the man many consider as the apogee of sub par acting: Keanu Reeves), the angel Gabriel (whom he has confronted over the issue of what it was going to take, for God to redeem him) told him that there was no other way. Gabriel’s assessment: He’s F*****. Yes. That’s the F-word. Taboo for some . A bit extreme for an angel to say, I admit. We may recall Gabriel to be the angel who has made the revelation to Mary (at least according to a bible). What chance does he have? A spiritual being  attuned to the intricacies of heaven and destiny (or God’s plan for man) — tells you straight that it’s end of the line for you. Of course it’s probably better than if God himself stick one up to you.

It’s a new age. All bets are off. The gloves are off. All gauntlets are thrown.

… and all of a sudden Ronald Macdonald seems to project an aura of murderous psychosis.

Excuse me.

my memories are full of weird events.

a friend gave me a gift last Christmas (December 2006). i thought it was a teddy-bear shaped chocolate. i kept it in reserve, in case i ran out of cash during the break.

.. then one night in December, before the new year started (2007), i got hungry while working at the lab (in the early hours of morning or about 2 am). it was a good thing i checked the label and was able to smell the so-called chocolate (hey, you’ve got to smell it to get an idea of what’s it gonna taste like!).

it wasn’t even remotely edible. it was a piece of soap. somewhere in heaven or in the infinite and formless cosmic soup at the bosom of the endless universe, an angel (or an enigmatic gel) was laughing his/her/its immortal heart out.

Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus

‘Tis the summer season.

It’s also when sporadic appearances of parents-accompanying-their-college-kid-kids invades your so-called Fortress of Solitude.

The scenes as I take my daily trek along the sidewalk connecting UP
Health service and Shopping Center, do more than raise the ambient
temperature by several degrees above room temp: It made me think about
my own inglorious introduction into this system (and other embarrassing
episodes) 11 years ago.

After getting the shock of my life because the instructions that came
with the announcement (that I… gasp! passed UPCAT) indicate that, at
some point in this god-forsaken rite of passage, I’d lose all of my
clothes (even my undies won’t be spared), while the doctor (or
whoever was demonstrating some kind of medical know-how) listened to my
beating heart… like everyone Else, I was treated to a form of
Amazing Race as I scoured the entire campus looking for that elusive
building named after …. something like an animal (or animals) from
Tibet.

Right from the start, I knew that my reluctance to be "mindful of my
surroundings" would cause me all sorts of problems. That also meant
that every step of the way, I blundered through: always asking for
directions/instructions, displaying unbelievable levels of ignorance
and/or stupidity when confronted by authority or old ones or
THEM-type-of-creatures, … you get the picture.

But like the angel or devil who watches his/her own (all-the-time),
some other lower cosmic being watches over the clueless blockheads
(he/she/it unfortunately has to take responsibility for). It was during
the final step of my conversion into a full-blooded freshman, that I
encountered one such minion of the cosmic being.

I arrived at UP looking to settle my tuition fee dues. Without even
bothering to read the
great-big-board-on-which-every-pertinent-thing-was-written, I went
straight to ISSI to complete the transaction. I haven’t even made it to
the second floor when my ignorance was finally revealed (by hapless
circumstances) for everyone to notice.

Luckily a beautiful lady wearing an orange office attire (complete with
smart-looking accoutrement’s)… a rose… approached me and volunteered
to help. Unbelievable.

Pure magic. outer limits. beyond scifi. and stuff.

It happened so fast… the payment… registration …. thing.

… And like other creatures of magic, they’re gone in a flash.

I never saw her again. Not even when I blundered (again) into that place, many days later and in the years that rolled by.

I managed to thank her for helping me out, though.

Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.

The title of this post.

Roughly translated, it means "Of the rose of the past, we have only its
name". It’s the last line of a well-known book by Umberto Eco.

A shame. I will never know the name of the rose.