GLOBALIZING CHRISTMAS

GLOBALIZING CHRISTMAS

 

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Christmas is now nearing as of this writing. Christmas bell tolls, kids’ carols, merry songs & dances are now up in the air, inviting everyone else to share the spirit of fun and camaraderie.

 

A Christian and sectarian holiday Christmas is, no one doubts this. Granted that Christmas is a sectarian affair, is it possible to transform it into a global/universal, multi-cultural event? There are apparently two (2) perspectives that clash concerning the matter.

 

From the point of view of fundamentalist, ultra-conservative church practitioners, whether Christian or non-Christian, Christmas is a sectarian affair and should not veer into cultural spaces not meant for its observation. A Muslim fundamentalist would throw monkey wrench at any attempt to globalize Christmas, and the same may be true for those fundamentalists of other denominations.

 

From the vantage point of a non-fundamentalist, cosmopolitan person, Christmas is one occasion that Christians can share to others. It is a multi-cultural affair, and it belongs to the whole of humanity for that matter. Ergo, everyone on Earth better attunes to the Christmas spirit and feel the ‘family of mankind’ fraternal bonds that the affair espouses.

 

As to where I stand in that polarity of perspectives, I am among those who wish to share the Christmas spirit as a multi-cultural blessing. Born a Catholic, but now a freethinker who espouses post-church spirituality, I remain attuned to the Christmas holidays just the same for the reasons stated above.

 

Christianity is a cult of Jesus, and I will have nothing to do with following or propagating such a cult. Esoteric Christianity, however, isn’t the same as the folk Christianity of the flocks who regard Jesus as a cult figure, and I squarely stand on the grounds of this mystical version of Christianity.

 

Esoteric Christianity teaches universal brotherhood among its core lessons. Universal brotherhood, a battle cry of cosmopolitan esotericists, is still a very valid principle to stand up for. It is the ethos that permits a soul to go beyond the bounds of sectarian precepts, embrace fellow humans as co-family members, and build a culture of dialogue across the planet.

 

I do hope that the more cosmopolitan Christians would consciously invite non-Christians to be part of the holidays, truly embrace their non-Christian brothers and sisters, and allow the latter to participate in such year-end party rituals as gift-giving. And, invite the non-Christians to 24^th of December midnight gathering, where they can sit by the Christmas tree and partake of the food blessings for the occasion.

 

Non-Christians who may not be invited by Christians in their homes on the 24^th & 25^th of December can also go ahead and celebrate the affair with their families and friends on the said dates. Nothing is wrong for them to put up a Christmas tree at home and party on the 24^th midnight and on the 25^th of December. And, at the end of the month, celebrate New Year’s Eve too.

 

In the Philippines, the transformation of Christmas into a multi-cultural event has already been going on in the 60s till 1972. Unfortunately, the Mindanao War came, a Christian-Muslim schism was propagated, and Muslims became reluctant to celebrate Christmas with their brethrens among Christians.

 

I just hope that the tide of cleavages is now ebbing and ceasing. We formally recognize Muslim and Chinese occasions in this country, and so it would be fitting for all Filipinos including Chinese and Muslims to celebrate Christmas as well. By Chinese I refer to those Chinese who are Buddhist, Daoist, atheist, or non-Christian.

 

The occasions for Christmas parties are now going on, from one organization to another, and so it is best for us all to participate in these events. And, comes the 24^th-25^th of the month, celebrate Christmas at home as a ritual occasion to solidify family bonds. Then, comes the New Year’s Eve, celebrate with a Big Bang accompanying a party or gathering.

 

Peace be with you! Advanced Happy Holidays!

 

[Philippines, 08 December 2010]

 

 

 

APPLAUSE TO UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS ON ITS QUADRICENTENNIAL

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

This writer hereby extends Big Kudos to the Dominican-run University of Santo Tomas on its 400^th Anniversary!

The University of Santo Tomas or UST, established 400 years ago in the Intramuros district of (old) Manila, has finally grown, matured, and reached international acclaim as an institution of higher learning. It had added milestones to its earlier feat as the oldest university in the Philippines, which renders it worthy of the accolades on its quadricentennial.

I still recall as a young school boy in the 1960s, that my teachers as well as history & geography textbook authors cited the UST as the nest of brilliant youth who later became great minds. Our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, obtained his first level of university education from the UST (he took up advanced studies in Europe after the UST stint).

More patriots followed after the footsteps of Dr. Rizal later. The late Manuel L. Quezon, president of the country during the USA’s colonial occupation, was among them. A visionary whose thoughts were to linger long after he was gone, Quezon is among the great patriots of the motherland. He underwent collegiate education in the noble UST.

The UST did not only churn out great men in past eras. In this current context, we have the likes of Bienvenido Lumbera, one of the literary giants of the ASEAN and a National Artist, among UST’s alumni. And so is Brilliante Mendoza, CANNES Film Festival awardee as Best Director, among the long list of upcoming luminaries of the Philippines and the ASEAN.

If there is any coterie of minds that I would give due credit for re-inventing UST that enabled it to be among Asia-Pacific’s top 200 universities, it is the Filipino Dominicans and the Filipino professors who resonated with the innovative designs of their priestly sponsors. The new breed of Dominicans dared to transform the university’s teaching force from one of purely teaching tasks to one of scholarly research faculty broke the long tradition and moved the UST out of stasis.

Without meaning to denigrate the White Dominicans from Europe who dominated UST’s echelon for too long a time, I would have to state candidly that it was during their stewardship that UST stagnated. Thus, it was known for its oldness bereft of the qualitative substance of being a progenitor of new philosophies, arts movements, and scientific R & D.

UST’s faculty was merely tasked to teach, and was assigned huge teaching loads (e.g. teaching 24 units), hence disabling them from engaging in productive research and/or artistic productions. It was during the stagnation phase that the much younger universities—University of the Philippines, Ateneo De Manila University, De La Salle University—became international universities, breaching the UST’s records by several notches.

I asked some pals of mine in the 80s and early 90s—who were teaching in UST—to share their own opinion regarding the relative stagnation of the UST. Without batting eyelashes, they blamed the over-bearing and subtly racist predominance of White Dominicans for the long stasis. Accordingly, the latter were of the mindset that they came to PH to civilize the Filipinos, a condescending if not arrogant attitude.

I was appraised of the situation within the campus and of the arduous efforts of Filipino Dominicans to make their dent in a context where Jurassic colonial tradition was still strong. By the 1990s the innovative Filipino Dominicans and UST professors were finally making headway. As a result, the UST made it to the top 200 universities in the Asia-Pacific in the late 1990s.

Research institutions have since been evolving within the present campus in the Sampaloc district. Some professorial pals of mine, who were products of the U.P. and DSLU and who took up doctorates in top universities abroad, have decided to base themselves in UST. They are now taking up the cudgels of re-engineering their respective departments, thanks to the new policy environment crafted by Filipino Dominicans.

Finally, as UST’s professorial pool has been up-scaling their research & development capabilities, building research institutions and generating research & publications products, the university is on the way to move UST to the next level, which is that of ‘world university’ status. I am highly supportive of the re-engineering, even as I’m confident the university will get there in the foreseeable future.

[Philippines, 15 February 2011]

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COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY THROUGH FESTIVALS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Magandang araw! Good day!

 

We just had couples of festivals in Filipinas. Manila held its annual Black Nazarene with around 6 Million devotees participating; Cebu, its Sinulog festival centered on the patron saint Sto. Niño (divine child, child Jesus) that drew 2 Million participants; Kalibo in Aklan, the Ati-atihan that also centered on the Sto Niño; and, other towns in the Visayas and Mindanao, festivals of the Sto. Niño.

 

More such celebrations and/or festivities are going on around the world today. Despite the inclement weather in flood-stricken areas, peoples around the world deserve to celebrate life through community undertakings with spiritual symbolisms as core unifying signifiers. They are spectacles to the appreciative eyes, wonderments worth documentations for special television features.

 

Fragmentation of community bonds had already caused so much damage on the human psyche across the planet. Suicides and crimes have gone up at startling speeds and scales since the predominance of modernity and urbanization, and alienation is still moving up the scales of pathology today.

 

We are all puzzled about the effects and causes of social fragmentation, and challenged to reverse the trends towards a new order of harmony, balance, cooperation, and respect for the ‘integrity of creation’. The situation is leading to madness of a grand scale never before faced by mankind, madness that is the indicator of an even larger malaise of a Dark Age.

 

There is not a single country left in the world today unaffected by the rapid and sustained fragmentation of community bonds, and the crescendo of violence, crimes and suicides. Even suicide is used as a tool for sectarian violence, as suicide bombers use their bodies to destroy those whom they hold with deep resentment.

 

It is too late to go back to a primordial past, a past of relative calm and peace, as the wheels of history or ever moving forward. So we are challenged to re-invent the worlds we live in while time moves and the rugs under our feet are changing. The greatest challenge is to build a ‘culture of peace’ marked by a ‘dialogue of cultures’ or tolerance of differences.

 

As part of building that culture of peace, it is of fundamental import to see folks embarking on and sustaining spiritually or religiously-oriented festivals. The thought-forms of a very positive nature released by devotees during such an occasion is sufficient a regenerative force to reduce crimes, induce healing of wounded community bonds, and replenish energies for confidence-building among erstwhile estranged members of a larger community.

 

True, there are some thefts and petty crimes committed during the conduct of special events of community festivals. There also are deaths due to stampedes in some other festivals, such as the deaths in the latest India festival. But such incidences are more the exception, the sacrifices that are X sub-events attendant to a major event.

 

Take the case of the Sinulog in Cebu. How many crimes were committed in Cebu while the Sinulog was going on? Chances are that the crime rate on that day itself was negligible, inclusive of possible petty crimes of thefts done by pick-pockets on unsuspecting devotees. The same is true for the Black Nazarene in Manila, ergo for all the other community festivals done across the world.

 

To further demonstrate what I’m driving at, let me cite to you a study done couples of decades back yet. A significant group of Maharishi yoga fellows meditated at the same time, with focus on the theme of reducing crime rate in a certain city in the USA. Mind you, indeed the crime rate in that city on that particular day went down to half of its regular crime rate!

 

Now, some may say that is a miracle of sorts. I’d say it is the product of very positive high frequency thought-forms that are, in physics, of a very high level of energy. The energy elicited by the prayerful folks were sufficient enough to reduce crime rates. How much more to obtain fulfillment of the wishes of the devotees concerned, materialization of such wishes could have been fulfilled, reinforced as they are by attuning to the energy of that event of being together in prayers and celebrations.

 

So the message for everyone else is, whenever a large community festival is being held, which to a great extent is marked by prayerful moments by huge flocks of devotees, attune yourself to that event. No matter if you may not approve of cult engagement, never dis-engage from nor throw dagger-hostile thoughts on those events or towards the folks carrying them out. Devotion done together is a wonderful human phenomenon, itself worth watching and attuning to.

 

I am all too glad that many such festivals are held each year across the globe. Cities and towns that don’t have such festivities and are now deciding to launch their own version of them are increasing by the year. These are all indications of the personal and collective efforts to junk madness and fragmentation going on in our daily lives in all countries of the world.

 

[Philippiines, 08 February 2011]

 

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DRUG WAR IN MEXICO: HEIGHTENED PARANOIA TOWARDS MAFIA

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Good day to all fellow global citizens!

 

In a previous article, I wrote about the possibility of mafia states rising to power. As tackled, Belarus could very well be the start of such a mafia state should it get entrenched for long, so the events there are worth watching. Meantime, a drug war ensues in Mexico, and so let us do some reflections about that war.

 

Over 36,000 were already declared dead due to the drug war in the country of patriot Emiliano Zapata. The war that was declared by then president Calderon ensues ceaselessly, deaths thus rising in seemingly exponential fashion by the year. That war is proving too tragic for the NAFTA country, and bodes ill for the entire North America as both the USA and Canada are experiencing their own hotfires of economic malaise.

 

To recall, Colombia was the nest of drug cartels’ power just about a decade ago. With the effective clipping of the powers of drug lords there, drug lords’ lairs became more diffused thereafter, no longer to be ever concentrated in just one country in Latin America.

 

Mexico, Jamaica, Brazil, and other countries are now experiencing the growing powers of mafia lords in Latin America. Mexico seems to be the most vulnerable to entrenchment by the drug cartels since the country is just a step away from the United States that is the main drug market in the Americas.

 

Americans indeed are the most voracious drug users, so that one may wonder whether Americans are still holding own to their nature as humans—that they haven’t already tipped over to their demonic side. A research done in the early 1980s yet showed that as much as 40% of high school students admitted to having used a narcotic at least once, with 20% admitting to having used narcotics repeatedly.

 

That was the 1980s cited, and it is now 2011 or the 2^nd decade of the 21^st century. Drug use there has been growing steadily, and so it is safe to infer that over half of Americans are hooked into narcotics. Those heavy users of drugs may be less than 10%, but that still counts around 25 to 29 millions of Americans forever dependent on narcotics.

 

Next to America would be the European Union or EU. Nobody knows exactly the level and frequency of drug use there. But given the huge 450 million population, even just a 5% heavy usage would translate to 22.5 millions of Europeans heavily dependent on narcotics. At least over a hundred millions more are moderate or non-dependent users.

 

So it isn’t difficult to see why drug trade is so lucrative a business. In my country alone, drug production and trade is a whopping $10 Billion industry, and that estimate could well be under-estimated. Drug user count here is moving up the ladder too, while the Asian and American markets are also active destinations of drug exports.

 

Going back to Mexico, it may not be accurate to just cite the American market as the sole impetus for drug production and trade there. Mexico itself has a large population, enough to absorb a very large portion of locally produced narcotics. And there is South America that very well serves as a huge backyard in the Latino world for any salivating drug lord to flood with low prized narcotics, thus ensuring big bucks to the criminal honchos’ pockets.

 

With a string of conservative governments installed from the late 90s through the present, the paranoia towards drug cartels is understandable. The same conservatives unleashed the sword of a crusade versus the drug lords who are now being hunted down in the same way that heretics were tracked down and massacred by the Church during the infamous Inquisitions around the globe.

 

Insurgents used to be top national security threats in Mexico, but that fizzled out much later. The last insurgent group Zapatistas were a ragtag peasant group in an erstwhile urban-led Mexico, and that group’s potency fizzled out as soon as its uprisings were mounted.

 

Now the drug mafias comprise the major national security threat to Mexico, or that is what the Inquisitionist conservatives want Mexicans to believe. So huge is the anti-drug Crusade that the entire machineries of military and police are engaged in large-scale offensive operations that are akin to facing men-at-war in a conventional war between conflicting nations.

 

Keen observers are noticeably irked at the rather excessive force being used to stump out drug mafias in the country. The paranoia is simply too much, the force is excessive, and so expectedly the ‘collateral damage’ of the war is proving too much for ordinary citizens caught in between the violent fireworks.

 

Mexicans should better exert efforts to bring down that paranoia and bring back the Mexican central government to reality. Mafia groups ought to be stumped out all right, but the war need not be in the vogue of a full-scale war akin to engagement in a world war.

 

[Philippines, 03 February 2011]

 

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WILL BELARUS BE THE START OF MAFIA STATES?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

The month of February is the 2^nd month of the year. 2 in numerology signifies change, whether this be change for the better or for worst. So let me take up with you the matter of change in states from legitimate to mafia regime.

 

The question worth reflecting is: is it possible for a mafia state to gel in the foreseeable future? We are witnessing today the rise to the executive department of a mafia power in Belarus, so let us continue to observe the events in that country.

 

By mafia state is meant the rise to power of a mafia group—a group engaged in organized crime—to state power and sustaining that power in the long run. Such a rise would then demolish the accepted rules of the game of governance, though the mafia regime may show semblance of legitimacy through electoral victories.

 

During the incumbency of any mafia regime, it is possible that mafia operations across the country concerned will become the norm more than the exception. Mafia groups will then declare cities and/or regions within the country as their enclave, and bless those elected and appointed officials there being the strategic powerbrokers.

 

From the advent of the Great Depression through the recovery era of the late ‘30s and early ‘40s, around five (5) cities in the United States were reputedly under the control of mafia groups. Had such a trend gained momentum in the manner of a domino effect, city after city and then state after state in the USA could have fallen into mafia hands, and it would just be a matter of time before the federal government itself will become the enclave of the most powerful mafia godfather in America.

 

The scenario of a mafia USA didn’t take place as early enough the trend towards a domino effect was nipped in the bud. Humbled by the power of central government that jailed the topnotch mafia lords, the mafia then became subordinate operators that can be tapped by Establishment rouge elements for sabotage and assassination operations, e.g. the assassination of John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert.

 

Fast forward to the year 1998, when the Philippines’ presidency of Joseph Estrada gelled. A scary regime it was, as Estrada himself was a growing mafia lord and his Mafiosi pals expropriated the presidential palace by night as a ‘midnight cabinet’. So corrupt was that regime, that the damage it had done to crime solution, fiscal balance, and good governance seem irreparable. It was overthrown in January 2001, and so the mafia state was nipped in the bud before it would calcify in the long run.

 

As the Philippine mafia was basking in power in 1998-2000, Colombia was showing a peculiar situation. Though its central government was no mafia at all, drug lords were literally the power brokers there. Drug lords were the real government in Colombia, while the central government was only the virtual government. It took about a decade for the legitimate state to re-assert its power and efface the power of the mafia lords who eventually faced squid tactics of elimination.

 

The situation of a mafia state almost calcified in Russia during Yeltsin’s incumbency as president. So sudden was the shift to capitalism then, as state enterprises were ordered privatized (from their original state-owned status). The only people with huge funds to buy state firms were the mafia families in Russia, so that before Yeltsin bowed out of power 80% of Russia’s corporate world was already in the hands of mafia lords.

 

That conundrum in Russia was reversed only with the ascent to power of Putin and the FSB (former KGB). The FSB knew that the emerging oligarchs of a capitalist Russia were actually mafia lords. It is within the context of dominating mafia power that the state sampled some oligarchs for jailing as a signal to all mafia groups that their powers are delimited. At a certain juncture, the mafia there knew that it cannot mutate to a political power broker without suffering the consequences.

 

Yet no matter what measures are done to clip mafia power, sooner or later there will be one state in the world where a long-term mafia state will succeed. It seems that Belarussia is the first such state to endure if ever. As of today though, forces in Germany and Poland are already working out to stamp out the Belorussian mafia from an enduring power entrenchment, and so the events there are worth watching.

 

A mafia state is like a ‘pacman fever’ (to recall that old video game), that once it is entrenched and endures through time, it can gobble up experientially other states as well. Those most contiguous to it could be the first to be infected. That is why Poland and Germany are bothered so badly, they are mobilizing resources for an overthrow of the mafia presidency in Belarussia.

 

[Philippines, 02 February 2011]

 

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ZEST FITNESS GYM: PHILIPPINES’ POWERLIFTING TOPGUN

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Magandang araw sa kapamilyang global! Good day to global community fellows!

 

This year 2011 will mark the 21^st year that this analyst (sociologist, economist, political analyst) and self-development guru has been practicing powerlifting as a regular physical regimen. Being a former competitive athlete in national powerlifting Class A (equivalent to ‘professional’) in Ph, I will dedicate this note to the Zest Fitness Gym, the topgun powerlifing gym that made me into a national athlete and consistent gym weight burner.

 

This is the narrative of my physical history, fellows. I’ve been doing gym weight training for 21 years now, with no signs that I’d be dropping off powerlifting as my regular physical regimen. I owe it to the Zest gym this love for weight training and the scientific rigor that goes with that training.

 

I used to jog and swim for eight (8) years prior to my plunge into weight training in 1990. In 1982 I almost lost my life, neglectful as I was then for two (2) straight years of living an active professional and civil life but without a physical program. I contracted falciparum malaria along the way and almost died of it, and so the decision came to me never again to be remiss in my physical fitness programming.

 

Within a week I would jog for a day or two, and then in between jogging I would swim for at least a day or two in a week. I would jog for around 30-45 minutes, and swam 20 laps in the Olympic pool. My exercises were largely survival training types or non-competitive. I began to pump some weights in ‘86 through ‘89 to give some firmer shapes to my muscles while I continued with the jog & swim regimen.

 

Then in 1990 I decided to go straight gym or indoor workouts. I simply scorned the days when I couldn’t jog or swim due to heavy rains or inclement weather as the rains restrained me from getting exposed to the elements. So in 1990 I decided to go regular gym workouts, since I can do the workouts even if the stormy day is already whistling Signal No. 2 typhoon beacons.

 

I was then residing in Cubao, Quezon City, and from there I took a ride to University of the Philippines (Diliman) to do workouts at the PRO Gym. Barely just six (6) months in weight training then, I stumbled into the Zest gym just near my residential area. I was surprised that there was one gym there where topgun powerlifters trained, and it was just around 12 minutes walk from my home.

 

The gym got me curious about powerlifting, as I was then doing the typical body-building program. An orientation chat with Ramon ‘Mon’ Dabuque, owner and chief trainor of Zest, convinced me sufficiently to try out with the program. Powerlifting builds mass, power and agility, and that was enough to make me try it and linger on with it till now.

 

Sports science provided the core ‘best practices’ to the Zest weight training, a fact that fascinated me a lot. Being a former weightlifter at the University of the Philippines and a national athlete, Mon Dabuque was very meticulous in doing research and testing the applications of certain programmed practices. Even our diet regimen had to pass the rigors of R & D tested regimen for athletes.

 

It was through Zest, with its bounty of sports science magazines and literature, that informed me highly about the combinations of macrobiotics (65% carbo, 20% protein, 15% fats), sufficient microbiotic supplements (vitamins, minerals), and catalytic boosters. That knowledge was to be added to my arsenal of knowledge packages about health & wellness, at a time when I was already an advocate of alternative health paradigms.

 

The program for us athletes then was a combination of the Bulgarian program, Hawaiian program, regular (generic) powerlifting basics, and Mon Dabuque’s innovative experimental program. Scientific and very rigorous, couples of weakling types dropped out of the regimen, while couples of others, myself included, proceeded to take the challenge of winning head on via the rigorous and disciplined regimen.

 

The beauty with scientific programming is that even if the trainee doesn’t possess ‘muscular genetics’ (low muscular intelligence), the trainee can still be transformed into a topgun powerlifting athlete. Sports science is the cutting edge, and I am witness to the power of scientific training under a brilliant trainor/instructor. Many of us athltetes, myself included, possessed sloppy frail body types with no muscular genetics and yet made it to the top as national-level athletes while just new into powerlifting.

 

In less than a year of powerlifting training, I decided to try it out in the National Powerlifting Novice Competitions in 1991, and wondrously landed as Bronze Medalist on the Lightweight division. Emboldened by the victories of our Zest Team and the medal I won, I worked hard for a year to qualify for the National Class A Powerlifting Competitions in 1992, and landed as Silver Medalist in the Middleweight division.

 

During both competitions, I was witness to how the Zest Team lionized the greatest number of medals and bested all other gyms in the total Team scores. PH’s topgun powerlifters—Mon Dabuque, Tony Taguibao, Eddie Torres, Allan Paje, Erlina Pecante—whom we can correctly classify as ‘world class’ athletes today, are from Zest.

 

To be able to qualify as a national-to-international class athlete, one has to carry a total of over 7 X his/her body weight, by adding altogether his/her performance in Squat, Deadlift, and Bench Press. On my last competition, with body weight at around 68 kilograms, my Deadlift was 210 kg, Squat at 167 kg, and Bench Press at 92 kg. I was near that mark just barely 18 months or so into powerlifting, thanks to scientific training.

 

I also became a member of 200 Club, comprising those who can carry a load of over 200 kilograms in any event—I did it in deadlift. Later, I would learn that Eddie Torres and Mon Dabuque became members of the 300 Club, enabled as they were to carry a load breaching 300 kilograms in their deadlift and/or squat. I was truly ecstatic at my own feat, just 18 months into powerlifting then, and felt edified to have been a Team Mate with the topguns who also became my friends.

 

I was about to train for the Asian Powerlifting in 1993 when PH was entitled to send a double team (meaning two athletes per weight division). Unfortunately, I was knocked out cold by lingering tonsillitis, decidedly had to undergo surgery, and eventually led to the huge drop in my performance. Late that year, after surgery, I decided to retire from competitive sports, and focus instead on using power training as my regular physical fitness regimen.

 

Twenty-one years later, I still am a consummate gym worker amid my advancing age. Let me express herewith my gratitude to Zest gym and its core trainor Mon Dabuque, and my continuing appreciation and admiration of topguns Mon Dabuque, Eddie Torres, Erlina Pecante, Tony Taguibao, Allan Paje, and my other Team Mates.

 

To Zest Gym, Mabuhay!

 

[Philippines, 01 February 2011]

 

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Social Blogs:

IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com

 

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

 

Poetry & Art Blogs:

ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

 

Mixed Blends Blogs:

@MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com

@FRIENDSTER: http://erleargonza.blog.friendster.com

@SOULCAST: http://www.soulcast.com/efdargon

 

 

 

FOR YOUR CONTINUING ESTEEM OF ME AS TOP BLOGGER, BLESSED 2011!

Prof. Erle Frayne D. Argonza / Guru Ra
January 2011

Manigong Bagong Taon! Prosperous New Year!

I hereby send my goodwill greetings to enthused readers and fellow analysts who continue to appreciate and spread my notes about social life, wisdom, arts & culture.

About three and a half years ago, there was scarce information about me on the internet. Today, as I’ve spread my messages of Light and hope to all of the corners of the globe via the blogs and social networks, many enthused souls responded through reading, exchanges of notes, and citations of my works. Finally, after your appreciation and support of my cyber-crusade, information about me on cyberspace increased by gigantic strides.

Special thanks to the following online news, magazines and portals for citing my notes as among the top blogs on cyberspace:

http://asiafinest.com
http://clpl-india.com
http://humanitariannews.org
http://newestnews.net
http://pul.se
http://sociology.alltop.com
http://thedailyreviewer.com
http://topcityblogs.com
http://www.nonprofit.org

For recognizing me as Finalist-Best Society, Politics & History Blog, special thanks to the Phiippine Blog Awards:

http://www.philippineblogawards.com.ph

Thanks too to the following hundreds of sites that have cited, discussed and debated on various notes of mine about a diversity of topics and themes:

http://abazurkiem.ciekaweforum.info
http://acutemigraine.info
http://adamsmithlegacy.com
http://aksesoriswanita.com
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http://bokepterbaraku.co.cc/search/yoga
http://bookmarkercenter.com/web/permohan
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http://buzzspree.com/blogs.html?q=cnn.com
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http://dimensionalbliss.com/…/philippines-fabled-gold-future-…
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http://dolores.pinoyexchange.com
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http://kotagidis.com/news
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http://lihtfarbe.88n.eu/8A9.html
http://livelife365.blogspot.com
http://lovingenergies.spruz.com
http://lowongandibank.com/topic-hydraulics…
http://lowongankerjakarir.com/terbaru/ecology…
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http://luciotanwatch.blogspot.com
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http://mediaindonesia.co.cc
http://mesotechhealth.com/article/unladtau.html
http://metaginii.com/location/Philippines/Pangilinan/110478/Blogs
http://metalsinvestor.info
http://metrobekasi.com/tag/asia-brightworld
http://metromanila.inetgiant.com.ph/Marikina/archive/Shoes
http://mexicoresorts.topmexicovocation.com/ascension
http://mixx.com
http://mmsnews.cz.cc
http://mountzion.ning.com
http://mountzion144.ning.com
http://mr.wikiwix.com
http://mscanner.stanford.edu
http://nataliaantanova.com
http://nisim-tw.com
http://nonprofits.info
http://nuip.net
http://obatamandel.com
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http://online-profitsnow.com
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com
http://origin-bx.businessweek.com
http://otomm.com
http://pa-in.facebook.com/topic?php.uid=…
http://paper.li
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http://peacocksandlilies.com
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http://pipl.com
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http://politekon.blogspot.com
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http://psychicdirectory.wallwack.com
http://pub.mybloglog.com/commz.php
http://pulitika2010.wordpress.com
http://ratnagalih.com/search/newestnews.net
http://ravingsfromtheblogdweller.wordpress.com
http://renziebaluyut.wordpress.com
http://responsible.ning.com
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http://revspeech.proboards.com
http://r-domain.net
http://rizalls.lib.admu.edu.ph
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http://sanjhaa.com
http://search.zorpia.com/search/journals/slug
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http://sup.biz/2010-12-22
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http://surchur.com/all/filipinos
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http://technology.kosmix.com/topic/Prex
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http://www.arpandivanjee.com/images/tuy.php?s=economy-…
http://www.asean-society.net
http://www.asiafinest.com.br
http://www.ask.com
http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/eternal-godliness
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http://www.bookmarkcenter.com/web/borang+sekolah+menengah…
http://www.buildhome.tizo.pl
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http://www.carboncapturereport.org
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http://www.cnn.com
http://www.davidicke.com
http://www.deepmarket.com
http://www.doodlesource.com
http://www.drunkduck.com
http://www.easypay.com/about/inyong
http://www.elib.gov.ph
http://www.familycommitment.org
http://www.feedbite.com/user/johnkeys
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http://www.kwitters.com/search/global20%gold
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http://www.musicramble.com/info/asia
http://www.mybloglog.com
http://www.mylot.com
http://www.mynewsdigest.com
http://www.neatanswers.com
http://www.neurotransmitter.net
http://www.norocks.net/node/155206
http://www.nowcosm.com
http://www.onlineobchody.com
http://www.oqqi.com
http://www.pageinsider.com/argonza.com
http://www.pakspectator.com
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http://www.pep.ph
http://www.pinoyexchange.com
http://www.pointsdevente.com
http://www.politicaltaxes.com
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http://www.psychantenna.com
http://www.pubsub.com
http://www.rehabfromdrug.com
http://www.samepoint.com
http://www.seo-torque.com/3/philippines_alltop
http://www.seotriz.com/newestnews.net
http://www.spiritbond.com
http://www.redperz.com
http://www.rgb-mediat.fi
http://www.tapatt.net
http://www.technorati.com
http://www.togelsingapura.co.cc/for+citation+as+top+blogger…
http://www.theakan.com
http://www.the-az.com
http://www.thetemplepub.com
http://www.toluu.com
http://www.topix.com
http://www.tumbir.com/tagged/omniverse
http://www.tweetcepts.com
http://www.untitledarchive.com
http://www.upm.edu.ph/manilakule
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http://www.zitetrendz.com/webpac.jp
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http://www.westpalmferrari.com
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http://www.youtube.com/user/alvin19048
http://www.zitrend.com
http://www.zoominfo.com
http://www.96147.com/no/cpns.jatenprof.go.id.html
http://www3.mbl.re1.yahoo.com/buzz/topics/psychology
http://www3.mbl.sp1.yahoo.com
http://vd.finline.2y.net
http://vetrey.cw.cm
http://xa.ying.com/kq/groups/2206632
http://yoga-experts.info
http://yunico.com
http://zabokko.index-master.com/planetary-ascensionbk.html
http://z6.invisionfree.com/flipzi
http://1farakav.wordpress.com/2010/10/05
http://3qareon.com/vb/maharlika-nation-topics
http://42blips.dailyradar.com/…/stargate_wandpress.com
http://66.220.11.194/view/ShortStory.asp?AuthorID=73942
http://202.165.105.226/babefish/translate_url_c…

AFTER ARIZONA MASSACRE, WHAT’S NEXT IN ANGLO-SAXON AMERICA?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Americans were shocked again by another event of mass murders done by an expectedly sociopathic man—a certain Mr. Loughner, 22 year-old White man. Just about a month ago, a White man in the east coast shocked Americans when he shot at a school board’s officials before shooting himself to death.

Aren’t Americans supposedly inured to such sociopathic murders already? Not only Americans, but White men and women shouldn’t be shocked at all over such tragic deaths, as White society has been showing increasing signs of madness over the last 150 years or so.

I’m sure nobody has forgotten Jack the Ripper. At the time the crimes of serial murders were done by the diabolical killer over a century ago, sociologists were busying themselves with studying the fragmentation of the collective mind in modern society, which has been the cause of crimes and suicides.

Just go back to the works of Emile Durkheim, George Simmel, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and you would browse for yourselves the painstaking inquiries and theorizing done by sociologists then to capture the fragmentary state that institutions and the collective mind were undergoing.

Onwards through the latter half of the 20^th century, Western (read: Caucasian) thinkers haven’t ceased to capture in theory what was going on behind society’s structures that was cause behind fractured minds and sociopathic behavior. Felix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Jean Francois Lyotard, Jacques Baudrillard, to name a few luminaries, continued the tradition of studying the fragmenting society, psyche, and their expressions in symbolic constructs.

So, with the latest round of massacre expectedly by another White man, what else is new in Anglo-Saxon America? That gunner’s psyche is fragmenting, rendering him as a dangerous walking predator of sorts. Too many Anglo-Saxon men and women, followed by their colored people who were socialized into the Anglo-Saxon’s culture, are fragmenting in their psyche just as White society’s institutions have been disintegrating (read Baudrillard, Lyotard, Foucault).

Let’s get this straight: the phenomenon of sociopathic massacres is highest in the United States, though it is also prevalent in other Western countries. In contrast, such massacres are nearly absent in the ‘emerging markets’ that are today’s growth drivers of the global economy.

One need not even resort to using statistical correlates or chi square test to check whether being White man’s country is a predictor of such sociopathic murders. And among White man’s countries, the USA is topmost in the total incidence of such a ‘deviant’ or ‘abnormal’ behavior.

I did discuss the matter of mass massacres with my mother very recently. She acquired American citizenship and is already retired, though she chose to have a dual citizenship. She is very much aware of the social pathology that goes on in the USA, and was of the opinion that the next mass massacre is just around the bend.

So I raised the ‘research problem’ to my Mom about when would be the next massacre in case? Using intuitive forecasting, based on pass trends, I surmised that most likely over the next six (6) weeks at least, another massacre will take place somewhere in Anglo-Saxon America, and most likely it will be a White man committing the crime.

I won’t be surprised if my own estimate of one massacre in six weeks will turn out to be badly underestimated, that a couple or more will take place in the days ahead. A society that is in deep crisis—socially, culturally, economically, politically—is replete with possibilities of pathologically-induced massacres.

To comprehend their own states of being, I would counsel Americans (predominantly White Anglo-Saxon) to go back to the work of the late Pitirim Sorokin titled Crisis of our Age. Likewise read the works of Daniel Bell concerning the unfolding Post-Industrial society up North.

Well, there also was the late Jurgen Habermas who reflected on the ‘legitimation crisis’ and its attendant malaise in White societies. From Habermas you can branch out to the works of Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, and Ernst Bloch.

But this is what Americans ought to think about: time is running out on America. Too many luminaries up North have written about the fragmentary society and psyche, yet Americans failed to grapple with the realities unfolding, failed to address the fragmentation process with ‘best practices’ done at all levels.  

Americans better be quick in altering the course of their history, for the compass of the unfolding history points towards sinking in quicksands of uncertainties, chaos, and a Dark Age.

[Philippines, 15 January 2011]

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Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

Social Blogs:

IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

Poetry & Art Blogs:

ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Mixed Blends Blogs:

@FRIENDSTER: http://erleargonza.blog.friendster.com

@SOULCAST: http://www.soulcast.com/efdargon

Website & Mixed Blogs:

MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com

SET YOUR ANNUAL GOALS FOR 2011

Erle Frayne D. Argonza
2011 has already started, and it began with an ambience of all-time high optimism across Asian countries. In my beloved country Filipinas, the Hope index measured an incomparable 89%, or that Filipinos are of the predominant hopeful mood that all will be well for their respective lives.

To start the year right, it would be best for each and every one of us to set our goals for the year. On the informal level of the lifeworld, there is this fancy for setting ‘new year’s resolution’ as the old year is about to end and the new year is just minutes away. This ritualistic practice can be improved on if the person sit down and put into writing the goals for the year.

As a professional, I have made it my personal practice to set goals for the year since I began working way back in 1981 yet. Then, at the end of the year, I would assess the level of goal attainment, correct flaws by rectified goal-attainment for the coming year, and then setting all in all the goals for the year in a very organized manner.

It would be best if you scribble your goals in the very diary or appointment book that you are using for the current year. Identify just about a few workable or doable goals, e.g. in my practice I would have just three (3) maximum goals to work on. Scribble each goal thereafter on a distinct or dedicated page in your diary.

After I write down a goal, I would then write some descriptions of the goal, and even identify sub-goals. Then, it would pay that I would also identify the ways to achieve the goal and sub-goals.

You can go ahead and prioritize the goals. Present the goal first which is top priority, then which is moderate priority, and which is least priority. Go ahead and scribble descriptions, sub-goals, and articulations about quantitative and qualitative targets.

After writing down your goals, make sure to check them every week or so. It would be bad practice to log them in, and then forget to check on them later.

The style of goal-setting can be as creative as it can get. For the prepped up young working persons, adding graphic images and jotting down the goals on one’s Blackberry or cellphone would be add fun and excitement to the goal-setting and execution.

For all ye global citizens, please don’t forget to set your goals for the year. If you have no fondness for this kind of exercise, better rethink about your position and begin the practice for your own sake. Moving ahead blindly, without a personal plan for the year, is like straitjacketing yourself.

[Philippines, 14 January 2011]

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Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

Social Blogs:
IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com
UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

Poetry & Art Blogs:
ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Mixed Blends Blogs:
@FRIENDSTER: http://erleargonza.blog.friendster.com
@SOULCAST: http://www.soulcast.com/efdargon

Website & Mixed Blogs:
MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com

ARGONZA BACK FROM THE HOLIDAYS, EXTENDS GOODWILL!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Good day to all ye global citizens, readers, friends & fellows of this enthused analyst from Manila!

I’m back from the holidays, recharged and refreshed. I haven’t returned though to my gym works, so I promise myself renewed gym burning late this week.

Ye fellows of mine who did intake so much food inputs this past holiday season, don’t forget to burn down those extra fats, cleanse away excess bad cholesterols, and regain back your regular weight. Go back to your physical regimen, or develop one if you have been neglecting your physical wellness in a long time or so.

There are so many exciting things to talk about this year, more so from where I’m located: Asia. Just sit and relax, sip coffee or beverage while you browse over my coming notes, share comments every now and then. We will be together in the excitement, like riding our roller coaster of blog thoughts.

Goodwill, good health, prosperity to all of you for the year 2011!

[04 January 2011, Philippines]

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

Social Blogs:

IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

Poetry & Art Blogs:

ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Mixed Blends Blogs:

@MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com

@FRIENDSTER: http://erleargonza.blog.friendster.com

@SOULCAST: http://www.soulcast.com/efdargon

 

PROF. ARGONZA SURGES YET ON WORLD ALLTOP BLOGS!

PROF. ARGONZA SURGES YET ON WORLD ALLTOP BLOGS!

A pleasant day and Happy Holidays to fellow global citizens!

Yuletide season is now at our doors, and the spirit of fellowship has been harboring glad tidings of good news as Prof. Erle Frayne Argonza, a social analyst and self-development guru from Manila, has been continuing to gain mileage in his magnanimous efforts to enlighten humanity about the current social and cosmic issues. To date, dozens of online newspapers and magazines across the globe have featured Prof. Argonza’s writings on their very own websites.

Another very warming development most recently was the conferment by the Philippine Blog Awards of FINALIST-BEST SOCIETY, POLITICS & HISTORY BLOG on Prof. Argonza’s Ikonoklast. Thus, Prof. Argonza is indubitably among the Philippines’ top bloggers today, buttressing the earlier recognitions of him as one of the world’s top sociology bloggers.

For your reads and exchange of notes about Prof. Argonza’s blogs, please visit:

SOCIAL WRITINGS:
Unladtau: https://unladtau.wordpress.com
Ikonoklast: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com

WISDOM WRITINGS:
BrightWorld: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com Cosmicbuhay: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com

ART & POETRY:
Artblog: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com
Argonzapoem: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Join now the growing numbers of global citizens who find Light in Prof. Argonza’s englightening blogs!

Argonza & Associates Consulting
December 2010

TOP BLOG SITES:

http://asiafinest.com
http://clpl-india.com
http://humanitariannews.org
http://newestnews.net
http://pul.se
http://sociology.alltop.com
http://thedailyreviewer.com
http://topcityblogs.com
http://www.nonprofit.org

CONFERRED ‘FINALIST-BEST SOCIETY, POLITICS & HISTORY BLOG’ ON PROF. ARGONZA’S IKONOKLAST:

http://www.philippineblogawards.com

CITED ARGONZA BLOGS FOR DIVERSE THEME DISCUSSIONS & ANNOTATIONS:

http://abazurkiem.ciekaweforum.info
http://acutemigraine.info
http://adamsmithlegacy.com
http://aksesoriswanita.com
http://aksibintang.com
http://alltop.com
http://artsandsciencesfilipiniana.blogspot.com
http://asean-society.org
http://au.kcegy.com/tag/asean
http://awakento1.org
http://azionianziani.wordpress.com
http://bedico.multiply.com
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http://blog-yemek-tarifi.com
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http://bookmarkercenter.com/web/permohan
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http://browser9.com/index.ph
http://cantbustme.com
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http://cc.bingj.com
http://cerita-17-dewasa.co.cc
http://cewek-cantik.com
http://conceptsinproduction.com
http://connect.in.com
http://csmotes.com
http://cuba.mx.am
http://culturalrelativism.blogspot.com
http://deepmarket.com
http://digg.com/users/renziebaluyut.history
http://dolores.pinoyexchange.com
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http://dprogram.net
http://duniabimbimdanbella.info
http://eastasiaforum.org
http://economicobjectivism.wordpress.com
http://eeeph.netbooks.ph
http://en.anoword.com
http://en.wasalive.com
http://er5uyt5.2y.net/robots_doing_a_job.html
http://esthernababan.blogspot.com
http://eternalgodliness.punt.com
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http://extrafastnews.co.cc
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http://findaway.hk/university
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http://garneringrightideas.com
http://gestaro-xe.cx
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http://govguru.com/incapacitation
http://groups.google.com/group/k4FyALA4…
http://groups.google.it
http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/Patriots_of_the_Philippines
http://g4g.jp/m/22281
http://hubpages.com
http://humanityhealing.ning.com
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http://iamretromanila.multiply.com
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http://kotagidis.com/news
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http://online-profitsnow.com
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com
http://origin-bx.businessweek.com
http://otomm.com
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http://penditasuvarmabhuni.blogspot.com
http://petites-phrases.com
http://pipl.com
http://pirs08.webs.com
http://politekon.blogspot.com
http://pottersweal.wordpress.com
http://psychicdirectory.wallwack.com
http://pulitika2010.wordpress.com
http://responsible.ning.com
http://reut-blog.org
http://revspeech.proboards.com
http://r-domain.net
http://rizalls.lib.admu.edu.ph
http://sacet.ddns.pl
http://sanjhaa.com
http://sharethis.com
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http://shop.swissskydive.org
http://sixevent.com
http://skripsi-tesis.com
http://society.leapfish.com
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http://tagadavao.wordpress.com
http://technology.kosmix.com/topic/Prex
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http://webmarketools.com/info/mu-lemuria
http://wordsdomination.com
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http://www.angel.am/Etheric_plane
http://www.answerbag.co.uk
http://www.asean-society.net
http://www.asiafinest.com.br
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http://www.blogged.com
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http://www.elib.gov.ph
http://www.familycommitment.org
http://www.finir.org
http://www.fiskedepan.se
http://www.friendly-shopper.com
http://www.galacticroundtable.com
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http://www.hcrefund.com
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http://www.icerocket.com
http://www.inetgiant.com.ph
http://www.iyou.me
http://www.jamesoo.com
http://www.kankermesothelioma.net
http://www.kiwihomepage.co.az
http://www.kosmix.com/topic/Arjuna
http://www.linkedin.com
http://www.longislandrealestatecentral.com
http://www.lovanre.net
http://www.lowongankerjajulis.com
http://www.mail-archive.com
http://www.mb.com.ph
http://www.mixx.com
http://www.mode.org
http://www.mylot.com
http://www.mynewsdigest.com
http://www.neatanswers.com
http://www.norocks.net/node/155206
http://www.nowcosm.com
http://www.onlineobchody.com
http://www.oqqi.com
http://www.pakspectator.com
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http://www.pointsdevente.com
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http://www.samepoint.com
http://www.seo-torque.com/3/philippines_alltop
http://www.seotriz.com/newestnews.net
http://www.spiritbond.com
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http://www.topix.com
http://www.tumbir.com/tagged/omniverse
http://www.tweetcepts.com
http://www.untitledarchive.com
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http://www.wallcloud.net
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http://www.wordloo.com/abscbn_news.html
http://www.wordsdeals.com
http://www.yasni.co.uk
http://www.yansi.co.uk/radha+soami
http://www.youtube.com/user/alvin19048
http://www.zitrend.com
http://www.zoominfo.com
http://www3.mbl.re1.yahoo.com
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http://vd.finline.2y.net
http://vetrey.cw.cm
http://xa.ying.com/kq/groups/2206632
http://yasamkadin.com
http://yoga-experts.info
http://yunico.com
http://z6.invisionfree.com/flipzi
http://1farakav.wordpress.com/2010/10/05
http://3qareon.com/vb/maharlika-nation-topics

ECHOING FAMILY PEACE ON XMAS 2010

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Kapayapaan! Peace be with you!

 

This social analyst and guru of self-realization already discoursed on the ‘peace project’ in so many previous articles (academic, spiritual, blogs). I will re-echo the ‘peace project’ as a fitting message for the Christmas holiday, an event that had already begun in the Philippines with the dawn mass or simbang gabi.

 

I will focus my peregrination though on the family aspect of life, on family peace, which admittedly was left behind in my past discourses. My previous writings were reflections about meta-narratives, about macro realities of war, peace accords, hostilities, discord among classes, ethnicities, and nations.

 

Wellness and the absence of it take place at many levels, so does it take place at the family level. Since this morph of wellness involves social relations and their affective manifestations, we will refer to it as psychosocial wellness. The term sounds like health-related, and it is: total wellness is the characteristic jewel of health, and health characterizes the quality of family relations.

 

Christmas celebrates peace in its universal sense, so does it celebrate family peace. The absence of hostilities at the family level—both nuclear and extended families—isn’t the only focal goal to attain as a wellness challenge. The greater challenge is to sustain healthy relations that will redound to growth-inducing bonds.

 

In philosophical terms, family living should strive to veer away from ‘death principle’/nihilistic state and traverse towards ‘life principle’/creative state. The family should be a ground to take stock of and repair the imbalances and disordered state (relative to dysfunctional) that all members invariably suffer from, rather than a ground for mere passive acceptance of each one’s weaknesses and defects. Coming to terms with such a state is the challenge of family living.

 

To substantiate my point, let me share to you a narrative about an old friend of mine who is couples of years my junior. Let me call him by a code name Phoenix. I met him in my campus dorm—at the University of the Philippines (Diliman)—while I was in graduate school in ‘84-‘86, he a young man who was intellectually inclined and ambitious. We instantly clicked with one another, became discussion partners and developed a lingering friendship. We both dreamt of authoring our own books in the future, a goal that both of us have already achieved.

 

While intellectually capable, I noticed that he couldn’t demonstrate his love for a woman and build a granite-strong Eros. A female student shed tears before me, as her love for Phoenix seemed burnt right away in the cold heart of the man. I have to appease the young woman no end, as she kept coming to me for comfort and let me read the poems she wrote for Phoenix (I was already into listening-counseling vocation then).

 

To my real shock, I found out from Phoenix’s own tongue that he grew up with a father who showed no compunction in beating him up. From childhood through his college years, Phoenix was cruelly abused by his father, who was without mistake a dangerous sociopath. Were it not for Phoenix’s own high-achievement predisposition, his learning could have been badly impaired by the demonic hostility of his own father.

 

Phoenix eventually finished his masteral degree, took up law which he also finished (U.P. College of Law), became a successful professional, and authored his book (it was published later). Good looking and conversationally engaging, he was the epitome of success that a woman would find in a man. But the shock of it all is that his capacity for Eros, for loving a woman, had been impaired forever by the arid child-rearing he received from a sociopathic father.

 

There are too many persons out there whose life trajectories are similar or parallel to Phoenix’s. Many of them may have built families of their own, but chances are that, with the dysfunctionalities in them remaining un-addressed (via psychosocial therapy), their families could have disheveled. Some who parented kids have committed crimes of killing their own children/babies, others have committed fratricide, and still others killed their respective spouse. Truly catastrophic endings for families begun with good intentions!

 

If the personal imbalances in each family member remain un-addressed, they will become the cause of absence of peace internally and among family members. The dense energies within each one will simply keep on recycling and manifesting in hostilities and even suicidal ideation (intrapersonal hostility).

 

Christmas is a very fitting occasion for renewing bonds. Though bonds may be renewed without preconditions, the reunion during a Christmas occasion can serve as fitting moment for therapy. If each party to the reunion would attune to thoughts of delight founded on devotion, then the occasion would be subtly therapeutic.

 

That’s why Christmas is so important an occasion, not only for Christians but for men and women of all faiths and persuasions. As I declared in another article, Christmas should be globalized as a multi-cultural holiday. No matter what happens, let there be Christmas holiday every year, as it contributes to building psychosocial wellness at the family and friendship levels (friendship is marked by fraternal bonds).

 

So for this year’s Christmas holiday, let there be family peace unto all families on Earth. Let this family peace be a timeless testimony to our personal efforts to build peace at all levels of life.

 

Peace, love, Light unto all of you!

 

[Philippines, 16 December 2010]

 

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

 

 

 

LOVE & LIGHT FOR AFRICA THIS YULETIDE!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

The Yuletide Season is now here with us, Christmas is a globalizing special event, so let me say my yuletide greetings to my fellow global citizens.

For this piece, the greatest love and care I wish to share is for the peoples of Africa. The post-colonial efforts of Africans to establish strong nations, sustain economic growth, and graduate to middle income countries have been marred by colossal barriers. Such barriers are strongly external, a matter I’ve treated in past articles, so I pray and wish that Africans will be able to dis-entangle from those encumbrances.

As a matter of revelation, I’ve long wanted to serve Africa as a development expert. There were already two (2) occasions for me to offer my services to do enterprise development for the continent, one for the southern African region (I could have based in Madagascar) and another for the northern region (Ethiopia could have been my base).

Having drafted some project prospectus for each of those endeavors, I then prepared to fly to the continent. Just as when I was ready to move on, driven by my eagerness to serve the peoples there, something happened to my clientele sponsor.  Communications stopped on the African side, which left my consulting team and myself wondering what was going on there.

I guess that’s how tough it is to push through with agenda of change anywhere in the continent. From North to South, East to West, enormous obstacles are getting in the way of change programs. In the end, the marginal peoples of Africa suffer all the more from misery, hunger, alienation, and psyche fragmentation.

I invite my fellow global citizens to please pray with me for the welfare and growth of Africans and the African nations. Let us wish together that Africa would be able to salve its ailing problems of poverty, hunger, dreaded diseases/poor health, discrimination against women & children, ecological degradation, and low human capacities. Let us pray that 2011 would be a much better year, as new opportunities for human development will flourish.

Peace is a pre-requisite for prosperity, for nation-building. So may those guns of warring enemies across the continent be silenced somehow and give way to dialogues for cooperation and mutual help. May there be more procurement of peace and the building of peace zones across the continent in the years ahead.

Let us also pray with the Africans that European imperialism, which seeks to fragment Africa in order that Euro-oligarchs will be able to get back the continent and exploit its natural resources, will erode all the more. May Euro-imperialism be consigned to history in the short-run, thus enabling Africa more breathing space for nation-building, cross-national cooperation, and prosperity.

Finally, let us pray and wish that Africans will be able to forge greater cooperation and unity among the nation-states, and strengthen the continental union that took them painstaking efforts to construct. Let there be a united Africa in the long-run, thus ending millennia of conflicts and hatreds.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you Africans!

Love & Light!

[Philippines, 10 December 2012]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com%5D

PHILIPPINES & ASIA CHEER UP GLOBAL ECONOMY FOR 2011

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

The yearend Holidays are now nearing, and so we all better cheer up for the forthcoming holiday season. As early as November, Christmas trees and gigantic lanterns were already set up in malls and public places in the Philippines, a very thoughtful way of demonstrating love and generosity.

 

There is much reason for the global economy to cheer up for 2011 as indicated by our own very optimistic business environment and national economy here in the Philippines. Our region ASEAN is mightily growing at robust rates, India and Korea are doing good, and China is very heatedly growing.

 

As already discussed by various analysts and writers, ASEAN + China + India + South Korea—dubbed as ‘Asian economy’—have been the growth drivers of the global economy as a whole. High growth rates, well managed liquidities, healthy macro-economic fundamentals, and high foreign exchange reserves all converge as multi-factor drivers of growth in Asia. As a result, consumption is still moving up here, thus compounding the growth toward sustained heights all the more.

 

The Philippines has its own good news to share to the globe. A ‘Santa Claus’ list of glad tidings shows the following:

 

• Philippine currency is the 2^nd best in Asia. Strong and trustable, even treasuries and bonds denominated in Peso are selling like hot potatoes.

 

• Foreign Exchange Reserves are at an all-time high of $56+ Billion (end of October), enough to buy almost a year of merchandise imports.

 

• Growth rate as of the 1^st two (2) quarters was at a whopping 7.9%, showing mightily good production levels. Yearend growth rate would be no less than 6.5% at the minimum, a figure that will be sustained well through 2011 and beyond.

 

• Local bourse has hit a high-time figure of 4,200+ points recently. This is way above the psychological breakpoint of 2,000 points (that now looks very Jurassic), and will optimistically breach 5,000 points by 2011.

 

• Overall GDP per capita (nominal) will breach $2,000 and will move up rapidly to the next levels over the next few years. Purchasing power parity or PPP per capita will exceed $10,000 around 2013-‘14.

 

• State wages have been moving up by 15% per annum consistently for couples of years now. This move drives up private sector wages as well. Wages will again move up in strides from 2011 to 2016.

 

• Inflation has been reduced down further, and will stay comfortably at the 2.5%-3.5% range by 2011. This is welcome news for a nation that is so fed up with hyper-inflations in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

 

• Unemployment has been going down steadily, and will be at a manageable level of 8% or lower by 2011. Rising growth rate can then be sufficient to address the other problem of underemployment.

 

• Exports and imports, or foreign trade, have returned to pre-global recession levels, thus contributing to more employment and higher wages.

 

• Filipino businessmen’s investments overseas have moved up, and will continue to expand in 2011 and beyond. These contribute to overseas remittances and employment of Filipino labor and experts abroad.

 

The list is longer than the above-stated, though suffice us to take note of that short list. Those items are fundamental to sustaining the economic machine year by year, reduce poverty till the middle class dominates the population, and shoot up human development to notches higher than today’s indices.

 

Japan, USA and EU are on economic fires but the dampening situations there won’t totally hurt the global economy. Emerging markets have done their best to insulate themselves against the fiascos and fires of the northern economies, thus enabling them to serve as the hope of the world.

 

The cheery environment of Asia should better be the one focused upon by our global citizens, a cheer that serves as the ‘Santa Claus grin’ of the global economy as a whole for this year and the ones forthcoming.

 

[Philippines, 06 December 2010]

 

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

 

GLOBALIZING CHRISTMAS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Christmas is now nearing as of this writing. Christmas bell tolls, kids’ carols, merry songs & dances are now up in the air, inviting everyone else to share the spirit of fun and camaraderie.

 

A Christian and sectarian holiday Christmas is, no one doubts this. Granted that Christmas is a sectarian affair, is it possible to transform it into a global/universal, multi-cultural event? There are apparently two (2) perspectives that clash concerning the matter.

 

From the point of view of fundamentalist, ultra-conservative church practitioners, whether Christian or non-Christian, Christmas is a sectarian affair and should not veer into cultural spaces not meant for its observation. A Muslim fundamentalist would throw monkey wrench at any attempt to globalize Christmas, and the same may be true for those fundamentalists of other denominations.

 

From the vantage point of a non-fundamentalist, cosmopolitan person, Christmas is one occasion that Christians can share to others. It is a multi-cultural affair, and it belongs to the whole of humanity for that matter. Ergo, everyone on Earth better attunes to the Christmas spirit and feel the ‘family of mankind’ fraternal bonds that the affair espouses.

 

As to where I stand in that polarity of perspectives, I am among those who wish to share the Christmas spirit as a multi-cultural blessing. Born a Catholic, but now a freethinker who espouses post-church spirituality, I remain attuned to the Christmas holidays just the same for the reasons stated above.

 

Christianity is a cult of Jesus, and I will have nothing to do with following or propagating such a cult. Esoteric Christianity, however, isn’t the same as the folk Christianity of the flocks who regard Jesus as a cult figure, and I squarely stand on the grounds of this mystical version of Christianity.

 

Esoteric Christianity teaches universal brotherhood among its core lessons. Universal brotherhood, a battle cry of cosmopolitan esotericists, is still a very valid principle to stand up for. It is the ethos that permits a soul to go beyond the bounds of sectarian precepts, embrace fellow humans as co-family members, and build a culture of dialogue across the planet.

 

I do hope that the more cosmopolitan Christians would consciously invite non-Christians to be part of the holidays, truly embrace their non-Christian brothers and sisters, and allow the latter to participate in such year-end party rituals as gift-giving. And, invite the non-Christians to 24^th of December midnight gathering, where they can sit by the Christmas tree and partake of the food blessings for the occasion.

 

Non-Christians who may not be invited by Christians in their homes on the 24^th & 25^th of December can also go ahead and celebrate the affair with their families and friends on the said dates. Nothing is wrong for them to put up a Christmas tree at home and party on the 24^th midnight and on the 25^th of December. And, at the end of the month, celebrate New Year’s Eve too.

 

In the Philippines, the transformation of Christmas into a multi-cultural event has already been going on in the 60s till 1972. Unfortunately, the Mindanao War came, a Christian-Muslim schism was propagated, and Muslims became reluctant to celebrate Christmas with their brethrens among Christians.

 

I just hope that the tide of cleavages is now ebbing and ceasing. We formally recognize Muslim and Chinese occasions in this country, and so it would be fitting for all Filipinos including Chinese and Muslims to celebrate Christmas as well. By Chinese I refer to those Chinese who are Buddhist, Daoist, atheist, or non-Christian.

 

The occasions for Christmas parties are now going on, from one organization to another, and so it is best for us all to participate in these events. And, comes the 24^th-25^th of the month, celebrate Christmas at home as a ritual occasion to solidify family bonds. Then, comes the New Year’s Eve, celebrate with a Big Bang accompanying a party or gathering.

 

Peace be with you! Advanced Happy Holidays!

 

[Philippines, 08 December 2010]

 

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]