#<- technically not really but its implied. colon three

[rainy-daze1]

Taneesha doesn’t understand why everyone treats grave robbing like it’s such a big deal.

Like, they all do it, whether they wanna admit it or not. No matter how much Sausage insists that “Oh, I’m sure the spirits don’t mind!” (what??), or Drift says “at this point, it’s archeology, not grave robbing!” (okay, sure, that’s actually fair), or Lizzie casually comments “It’s not stealing? These are literally mine.” (what????), all of them were taking things from a burial site, and well, why shouldn’t they? Not like the dead guys are using this stuff. She’ll take better care of it all, thank-you-very-much.

She doesn’t get why the catacombs are such a big deal in the first place, actually. She knows that they are, from the way that some of her fellow misadventureres react to them. Jimmy gets all huffy about the names on the caskets being wrong (didn’t clock him to be a history nerd, but it’s good for a guy to have hobbies, she supposes), and at one point, Martyn leaves a room in a solemn mood that she doesn’t think was just the result of bad loot. And like, maybe it’s just some kind of… aura of weirdness around the place? Some kind of magic that her lingering relation to the void negates, or something. She doesn’t really want to think of it as a haunting, despite that definitely being the most appropriate word considering the literal actual reanimated corpses wandering the halls. Still. Whatever it is, she doesn’t get it.

And she’s tried! Really, she has! She’s checked every room she could find, lingered in doorways, opened coffins only to find that most are empty. She pauses every time she leaves a room, just briefly, incase there are any ghosts or feelings or things in-between that want to make themselves known to her, but there never are, or at least, none that she can see.

There’s nothing haunting her here. Nothing buried in these walls means anything. It’s just a bunch of dead things. Maybe they’re significant for other people, but it’s finders keepers, and she’s not interested in getting sentimental with ghosts.

So yeah, Taneesha doesn’t get why everyone’s so fussy about graverobbing, but to each their own. They can have their little moments, their pieces of closure, but that bell doesn’t toll for her. Not anymore.

[bamf-jaskier]

A long ramble of thoughts about the history of chaos on the continent and why Fringilla’s use of forbidden magics is pretty neat

So one thing not too many people knowing about the Witcher is that magic is called Chaos for a very specific reason: it is the opposite of Order. In Sword of Destiny, Borch tells Geralt that Chaos is the aggressor and Order is endangered and needs protecting. Chaos is what mages/elves/witchers/sources/etc can channel in order to produce magic. 

It's important to note that magic DID NOT EXIST before the conjunction of the spheres so it's pretty strongly implied that before the conjunction Order and Chaos were one and the Conjunction split them apart, leaving Order vulnerable and Chaos in the hands of living beings to manipulate. When the conjunction happened, no race (humans, elves, werebubbs, etc) knew how to use magic but eventually most of them found a way to use chaos. 

What is interesting is that we are told that Witchers/Mages/Elves all see magic differently but we are never told how. It is mentioned briefly that mages "pervert" magic by the Elves but we don't know what perversion of magic looks like to the elves because it is subjective to their own worldview. However, looking at the earliest human tribes on the continent, the Dauk and the Wozgor we can get some idea of the difference between human magic and elf magic. Both groups were very influenced by ritualistic group magic as well as worship of the gods. Many of these gods such as Melitele are still worshipped. 

The Dauk were more into fertility and harvest, think early Beltane Midsummer stuff, while the Wozgor primarily worshipped Lilit with Blood Sacrifices. So we see humans are in a group-mentality when it comes to magic and summoning, they pull power from the earth and pool together their magic to create spells. At this time, elves and humans were not considered enemies so group-magic and more nature-esque magic is accepted by the elves. This is also supported by the dryads and elves seeming to prefer druids who still use magic group-magic today.

So now we start to get into when the philosophical schism on magic happened. Clearly, at some point, humans started working on less "group/nature magic" and on more individualistic magic. By the nature of chaos it is consuming so as more humans began working on individual magic, they became more power hungry. I had a theory that it was human's use of individualized magic that led them to leaving the nomadic tribe mentality and instead moving to more Nordling-Like culture where they live in one place and fight with other tribes, eventually building cities, colonizing, and in general taking the standard course of human history. So now humans have magic. And they have POWER. 

So you get mages who are fighting for their tribes, their groups and eventually kingdoms like Novigrad begin to form. Now the Brotherhood was formed in the 8th century by the Novigrad Union which was a group of druids, mages, and priests who signed a non-agression pact to stop the raids and warfare that were so common for centuries. However, the Union fell apart due to difference in views on magic while the Brotherhood stayed together. 

The Brotherhood is now sort of the ruling party on the continent, it's the only power really left after the Union. It's not its own Kingdom so it can technically be considered neutral. This puts a lot of responsibility on the Brotherhood and the Northern Rulers are overwhelmed by the number of monsters. Previously, humans were so focused on killing each other they couldn't really organize and do anything about the monsters but now that society is developing it's a real problem for trade and travel. so they create the first Witchers in Rissberg. However, once they find out that the Witcher don't have the same magic aptitude as mages, they are discarded as failed experiments.

This is where is gets interesting again for me. Because Witchers actually can cast magic as strong as mages, they elect to use signs but Witchers can pool their magic together in order to cast more powerful spells. So what was the difference between mages and witcher that had the mages deem Witchers as failures? I am theorizing that Witchers channel chaos whereas mages manipulate it. 

The way I describe it in my fic is that Witchers act as a conduit for chaos, think of it like sucking up magic into a straw, the Witcher is the straw, they bring chaos in it's purest form into the world. Then, once the magic is in our realm, they shape it into the spell or form they desire. It's similar to how elves and ancient humans used magic. This is why the elves don't call a Witcher's magic a perversion but a mage's magic is. 

I'm theorizing that Mages on the the other hand bring magic in through almost a mold. When a mage summons chaos, that chaos can only be used for the very specific purpose that they want in that moment. It ties into their philosophy on willpower. What you desire is the magic you have. So a Witcher could begin to cast an Aard and then halfway through change the sign into an Igni and it would work fine. However, a mage can't begin to cast a portal and then change it into a lightning bolt. But this is also the reason mages are so powerful, their magic is specific. It is decided and the willpower behind it makes it a stronger spell.

NOW FINALLY we can begin talking about forbidden magics. So I'm not going to get into the First and Second Ages of the Witchers but just know that Witchers are now off on the continent doing their own thing and monster hunting, creating their own culture, etc. The Brotherhood does NOT care for this. They can see control slipping from their fingers so they and they are worried other mages are going to experiment the same way they experimented to create Witchers but this time they will make something even more powerful. Something that could topple their power. 

The Brotherhood begins to ban magic that could be used to manipulate the natural order. The main three banned magics of the Brotherhood are Goetia (demonology), Necromancy and Ancient Magics. Now demonology was actually practiced by the Wozgor and many think that Lilit was actually a demon they summoned. Necromancy and Ancient Magics both have the potential for abuse but not more so than any other form of magic. However these are all powerful magics. But it's not just BANNING magic that creates censure with the brotherhood. It's the stringent guidelines of how to perform magic even though we KNOW there are multiple ways to channel chaos. The Brotherhood also creates a system with the court that also creates censure because courtly expectations now place an emphasis on respectability and governance and how you should hold yourself, etc. Being a mage becomes a lot more restrictive and a lot less experimental.

So we have to ask ourselves, what does Fringilla do that causes her to be considered abhorrent, In Tissaia's words: "I will defend our way of life, The Brotherhood, The Academies, the order that we have built up over centuries, you've rejected it all Fringilla" 

So here's what we KNOW Fringilla has done: Forced Mages in Servitude until they decide to serve the White Flame (of course Fringilla says it isn't servitude but Triss disagrees), Practice Necromancy, Demonology, and Fire Magics She specifically says the phrase "most of us came from Aretuza and Ban Ard" so here's what we have to consider, how did Fringilla get them there, she can't have kidnapped everyone and as well if u know some spoilers from the book then there are plenty of mages that voluntary work for Nilfgaard. 

Fringilla works with ANYONE who has chaos, not just people deemed worthy by the Brotherhood. In addition, she works will all magic, no limitations. In many ways, Nilfgaardian magic is returning to ancient magic. If you watch the battle at Sodden, the mages perform a lot of life-force spells. I have a theory that those types of spells are MEANT to be performed in groups and since they aren't, the mage withers and dies. 

Also, listen, in another world Nilfgaard could be the hero. If they didn't show Nilfgaard being generally evil like killing everyone and sacrificing mages and stuff they actually have good reasoning? Cintra is objectively terrible. They literally almost killed off an entire race? The Genocide of the Elves is very much brushed over and honestly Cintra should have been overthrown ages ago. Also Nilfgaard has policies of cooperativity and community and honestly if they didn't so morally bereft acts their society has a lot of potential. 

Fringilla is returning magic to how to was pre-brotherhood where it's groups of loosely defined mages doing what they want. She is also trying to break of the individualistic mindset of most mages which I think is interesting because it goes against the very soul of how mages perform magic. It's like Tissaia said, Fringilla is rejecting centuries of tradition. In any other world, Fringilla would be the Katniss to the Brotherhood's Capital. If Nilfgaard wasn't cast as so brutal they would literally be considered a revolutionary force trying to oust a genocidal dictatorial system (Cintra). Granted, many people have compared Nilfgaard to either being a Roman Empire or Soviet Russia analog, both brutal totalitarian or imperial regimes which probably is part of the reason Nilfgaard is so brutal. I am suggesting that in another universe, Nilfgaard could be instead of an imperial-religious-type regime a more revolutionary force. 

Perhaps an AU where Nilfgaard teams up with Cintran Rebels and arrives at the city to help Cintran Freedom Fighters tear it down and then allows Cintra to rebuild on their own terms. Basically, I’m talking about the overthrow of the monarchy system present in most of the continent. 

I would really like to see an AU where Fringilla is a revolutionary figurehead trying to work to establish a democratic system in a monarchal society while going against centuries of magical tradition. I think with the addition of magic and complexity of politics not the continent there’s just so much to think about here. 

[sanguinarius-archive]

im not that familiar with treatsforbeats i watched like. a few videos but other than that i know nothing! but i would be glad to hear you info dump!

there is SO MUCH..... im gonna put a read more below because this turned out to be way longer than i expected. but you asked for me to infodump so here goes

okay so. treatsforbeasts, i dont know what the whole meaning behind the channel is. i cant specifically say what the goal of the channel’s content is because its all in my interpretation. but i do know that there are meanings behind each video as silly as it may seem and im just gonna list them off here (note that not all videos will be included since i may not be able to interpret every one, also this is going from earliest to most recent)

1. men with small hands carry very little treats to give to little girls with the sharpest little teethinterpretation of this video is csa/child sex trafficking. “little treats” refers to pills or some form of drug (small, makes u trip). however the “sharpest little teeth” could represent the little girl fighting back.

2. mom ordered ants for my birthdaychild abuse. mother forces son to watch and/or possibly engage in inappropriate activity with her husband.

3. i love jesusobviously a dark parody of christianity/catholicism. shows how blindly some fanatical christians/catholics will follow their beliefs, to the point where they no longer truly “follow” it as theyve warped the message to fit their own morbid desires (using christianity/the bible to excuse hatred and judgment upon others).

4. i me you love godanother dark parody of christianity/catholicism. i believe it mocks how fanatical christians/catholics focus only on the negative aspects of the bible instead of learning the true messages, as many of the words used are from the bible and are negative words.

5. behdsPROBABLY just a silly video but, i think it represents how people let negativity embed itself into their lives and complain about it even though it’s so easy to just let go of it.

6. jaffreymocking some sitcoms for how dumb and repetitive they can be.

7. kiss papa’s mustachepossibly child abuse, again.

8. storytimereferences/implies child abuse. storytime is also the name of one of treatsforbeasts’ songs on his Sanguinarius - Sin Nomine album.

9. hymns for him (1 + 2)just total parody albums of christian rock. vocals make you feel like youre dying but its actually kinda good to listen to in some parts

10. i screaming inside my headRoii (the character)’s first appearance. also probably symbolizes how depressing some kinds of music are

11. felines have nine livesnot sure but i feel like this is a warrior cats reference, in complete and total honesty (dont watch it if you dont like c/at d/eath though, its fictional but. yeah)

12. beastsreflection of society as a whole

then there’s. the two short films and sin nomine. so i’m gonna delve into that now and be warned, it’s fuckin long

treatsforbeasts is the self-titled short film and the first longest video on the treatsforbeasts channel. basically what i get from this is that treatsforbeasts, the channel itself, symbolizes an actual channel that chauncy (the child character in the short film, who is portrayed as a literal oral fleshlight with a body) watches. he consumes these concepts, such as internalizing misogyny (claw-paw skit), toxic masculinity (can i like balloons skit) and being exposed to a normalization of christianity (heaven and hell skit). there’s also a skit in which a spider binge eats and then proceeds to throw it up, which chauncy actually mimicks when his father brings him food.his father very much disapproves of these messages being shown on tv. he tells chauncy in regards to the claw-paw skit, when chauncy belittles the female character, “that’s not very nice, now is it”, and says “you can like ballons, you can love balloons if you want to”. his father goes on long tangents about how many institutions have normalized and inherited the concepts of christianity, and that it is one of the contributing factors of violence in the world. he references colonization, the holocaust, and in general mentions minorities.we learn that the father actually ended up being a father to chauncy in the first place due to (nsfw tw) masturbating in a sock to a picture of robert smith, and 9 months later chauncy was born. so technically there is no mother. the father talks about the meaning of life, and how everyone on the inside is a little bit of a freak, but there’s only two real ways you can accept that: 1) realize that your freakishness gives you a special lense through with you see the world and aid it in the ways the sane and happy ones probably cant, and 2) realize that real way number 1 is just lying to itself and that youre still a somewhat integral part of the lives of those you care for so deeply. he says that choosing which way to live really reverts back to the meaning of life, that you cannot live day by day believing there’s no reason to. “but whatever reason you give yourself to live, [...] you do it, because it is correct to live.”

sin nomine comes after the first short film, but i’ll delve into that after because really it touches on many many of the points and interpretations here.

the second short film, the beast is dead, was released just this year on valentines day! i think the main focus of the short film ranges from relationships to just once again a mockery of christianity/catholicism. once again it starts off with a father and his son. there is no mother figure present though she’s said to have left, due to the father watching too much “birdies”, a show, which i think is a metaphor for porn addiction. the father is implied to being prone to neglecting the son’s wants and not really caring for him, being disappointed in him, etc. etc..something important about the beast is dead is that it uses masks to portray those who are “followers” and those who are not. the father, interestingly enough, does not wear a mask. he seems to acknowledge what his son is saying when he goes on philosophical rants as well, but disregards them as nonsense and ends up leaving after bonking him with the stupid spike (metaphor for how parents will shut their children up by giving them a phone or toy to play with).the three other characters who don’t use masks in the beast is dead are Roii, Tom, and Doctor Zoughth (pronounced Zoth). Roii makes a comeback, finally! but this time he’s singing a song called “i love the sound of screaming babies”. it symbolizes how men will impregnate women and then run off, whether or not because they fantasize about pregnant women. it could also be a want of seeing a hurt child (hence the line “i know that all of you watching must think i’m insane, for loving when something so innocent is in so much pain”).however another interesting factor is that, the characters who don’t have masks, aside from Tom and the father, have red eyes at some point. this is a metaphor for how they’ve lost their humanity. Roii, at some point in the music video scene, only has one red eye whereas his other is normal. this hints at how part of him has lost his humanity while the other is still in tact.the other character that has red eyes is Dr Zoughth, but instead of him having only one red eye, both his eyes are red. this doesnt show until later though when he’s taken Tom away from the masked characters (followers). Dr Zoughth is very much self-aware. he is not blind, but simply has lost his humanity. Tom tries to reach out to him, to get him to think differently, that maybe resorting to coping with emotional struggles by worshipping something simple like flesh or something more higher than himself and forgetting his own mortality isn’t the healthiest way to live. but Dr Zoughth, having been long gone already, does not accept this and executes Tom.his own personal disciples grow tired of his tyranny and kill him and perform a ritual of some kind, disposing of his body (in the river i think, not sure). this entire ending of the film is basically the title, the beast is dead. but, i believe the beast is not dead, personally, because someone like Zoughth will always live on in other people, other beasts.there’s also a scene called grandma hespar and i think it implies how little people focus on sexual abuse towards men (when it’s from women).

anyways, with that being said, it’s time for sin nomine.

so now that i’ve explained pretty much all of treatsforbeasts to you, and whoever else is reading, it’s clear that the person behind this has issues with christianity (or catholicism), and child abuse. the person behind treatsforbeasts is Jordan Diniz, as he is also the person behind sanguinarius.

sin nomine is a very personal reflection of jordan’s life from what i gather. it depicts his struggles with how he views the world around him, whether that be due to personal experiences or not. at first i interpreted most of sin nomine to be the story of someone who is lgbt, but with jordan himself coming to me and telling me he is straight (POLITELY), it’s clear that is not the case.

so it most likely has to do with trauma. either religious or not, or both. it even says in the song storytime (remember i mentioned it earlier?), “fast hand, white hot trauma, reverberates inside the skull. innocence and intellect raped, reveals a view of a darker world. flesh on flesh, the bonds of affection - confused for the bonds of submission and fear. self-hatred and mistrust repel all beauty that comes near.” i don’t like to say that this solidifies a personal experience, but it’s highly possible.

a lot of sin nomine kind of goes over the same points in different ways, but it makes you think. i definitely feel like something happened to jordan at some point in his life but that is his story and it’s not my place to truly tell, since i don’t know him personally.

there’s also the other channel, adrianturcher. it has videos with seemingly no real purpose except for there being two videos with the same names of two songs on sin nomine, “nex memoria” and “a fetish for psychos”. nex memoria is just a compilation of clips that seem to symbolize the process of death (nex memoria is a latin phrase which very roughly translates to “memory’s death”). a fetish for psychos is a bunch of old clips from parties and shows that possibly jordan himself attended. they’re from 2002 judging by the date in the video. the lyrics in the song “a fetish for psychos” also seem to hint at these events, so it’s possibly that it’s like looking back on happy memories that make you feel sad instead or something. the song also might possibly reference a mother at the beginning.

sanguinarius also has its own channel simply called sanguinarius. there’s the music video for divine comedy (one of the songs on sin nomine) and a cover of because you’re young by david bowie, posted on his birthday a year after his death.

anyway, that’s. pretty much all i have to say. jordan diniz is a fuckin’ mastermind, he’s really good and cool and he’s very kind from my experience talking with him a couple times. he supports the gays as well!

sooooo, treatsforbeasts does have some very creepy/unsettling moments in its content but its EXTREMELY good and i recommend getting into it if you can. 100/10

[woofieheadintranslation]

Translating Meng Haoran’s Lodging At Jiande River

Hello, and thank you to *checks notes* the two of you who left likes on my previous post. I’m very aware that these appeal to an extremely niche audience, haha, so I didn’t start doing these with the intent to have them read, but I’m glad that they aren’t going totally unnoticed! 宿建德江 (sù jiàn dé jiāng), sometimes translated as Stay-Over at Jiande River, is one of 孟浩然 (mèng hào rán)’s most famous poems. The last two lines, especially, are ones that everyone will know. The only one of his poems that is more famous is probably 春晓 (chún xiǎo), Spring Morning. I was actually going to translate that one, but it’s too famous, and also I couldn’t get past the first line because the Chinese school memories were so strong. (For those of you not in the know, 春晓 is one of the first Chinese poems Chinese children learn, and they hammer it into you until you can recite it in your sleep, after running a 10k marathon, and on your deathbed.)   Some background information on Meng Haoran: Like Wang Wei, he’s part of the Landscape (山水) school of poets. He’s considered the first of the High Tang poets, and he was a good friend of Li Bai, who wrote actually wrote several poems for him. One of them (Sending Meng Haoran Off At Yellow Crane Tower) was actually the first of my translations.  This is a wujue, a five character four line poem.  Chinese Text:  宿建德江 孟浩然 移舟泊烟渚， 日暮客愁新。 野旷天低树， 江清月近人。  Word by Word Translation:  move/boat/moor/smoke/islet, bank sun/dusk/traveler/grief, sorrow/new wilds, wilderness/vast, far-reaching/sky/low(ers)/tree river/clear/moon/near(s)/man Due to its fame, there are many different translations. I’m going to be using three. 

Translation 1- Witter Bynner (The Jade Mountain):  While my little boat moves on its mooring mist,  And daylight wanes, old memories begin... How wide the world was, how close the trees to heaven! And how clear in the water the nearness of the moon! There are some words in this translation that aren’t present in the original, and I think we can do better in terms of imagery. I especially dislike when words like “while” are added; it adds temporality and narrative that isn’t in the spirit of Tang poetry.  Translation 2- Wai-Lim Yip: (Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres) *I’m determined to get as much as I possibly can out of this book*:  A boat slows, moors by beach-run in smoke. Sun fades: a traveler’s sorrow freshens. Open wilderness. Wide sky. A stretch of low trees. Limpid river: clear moon close to man.  I really like this translation, I think it’s great. Honestly, I really can’t do better. I am going to do it differently though (which honestly is probably going to make it worse, but oh well.)

Translation 3- http://www.learnancientchinesepoetry.org/2017/07/31/meng-haoran-stay-overnight-on-the-jiande-river/ (the site is learnchinesepoetry.org, and it’s an amazingly comprehensive resource, I recommend you check it out):  Move the boat, cast anchor in misty islet Sunset, this traveler with new sadness, homesickness Landscape and sky vast and empty, bare trees Moonlight on the clear river my friend.  As you can see, these translations are all very different! This one separates the poem into two groups of two. I think it captures the feeling of the original quite well, though translation 2 is more polished and accurate, both grammatically and in terms of fidelity to the source. Line 1: 移舟泊烟渚 (yí zhōu bó yān zhǔ) 移 (yí) means “to shift” or “to move”. 舟 (zhōu) is “boat”. Due to the ambiguous nature of Chinese, this could be “The boat moves”, “the moving boat”, or “move the boat”. Yip translates it as “the boat slows”. This is not the most accurate translation of 移, but considering the boat is described as “mooring” later on, it’s a logical extrapolation. I considered translating it like this as well, but I’m a huge stickler for accuracy.  I’ve discarded the “move the boat” option, because that’s a direct command, which I think feels pretty out of place in a landscape poem that’s about the poet and not really addressed to anyone.  There are really no good options here. I ended up going with “a boat moves”.  泊 (bó) means “to moor”, or “to anchor”. I’m going to use “to moor”, because it just sounds more poetic. Also, it’s more accurate. The poet is travelling across a river, presumably on a small boat- I don’t think it would have an anchor.  烟 (yān) is “smoke”. In this case, it’s referring to the mist that collects near the surface of the water. This one gave me a headache. Yip simply used “smoke”, but I honestly think that might be confusing. Yip has greater trust in his readers than I do, I guess. If this were a metaphor in the original, I would probably have left it as is, but a secondary definition of 烟 is actually “mist”. (My Chinese dictionary says 像烟的东西：～雾. In English, this is “something like smoke: smoke-fog.) I ended up using “mist”, which also happens to give me some nice alliteration.  渚 (zhǔ) means “islet”, as in a small island in a river or a lake, but it can also mean “bank”. I’m not sure why Yip has translated it as “beach-run”, which is not actually a word. I’m going to go with “bank”, which could theoretically be either an islet in the river or the bank of the river itself.  Translation: A boat moves to moor by misty bank.  Line 2: 日暮客愁新 (rì mù kè chóu xīn) 日暮 (rì mù): 日 refers to “sun”, and 暮 refers to “dusk”, “twilight”, or “evening”. Honestly, the 日 is kind of unnecessary. But anyways, I’m going to translate this simply to “setting sun”. “Sun fades”, as Yip translated it, is honestly kind of confusing. I wanted to translate it simply as “dusk”, but I ultimately decided against it because it breaks up the pattern set up by the first line. Also, I wanted to incorporate the 日. 客 (kè) means “guest” or “traveler”, and likely refers to the poet himself. “Traveler” works fine.  愁 (chóu) is a bit of a complicated word. It usually means “to worry”, as in the case of 发愁 (fā chóu), but it’s a bit broader than that, and encompasses a bit of what we would call “grief”, or “sorrow”. I'm going to translate it as “griefs”, plural. “Grief” is too specific, but “griefs” is slightly broader. 

新 (xīn) means “new”. I’m going to translate it as “renew”, because it could theoretically mean “to be renewed”, as in to be freshened, but it’s slightly less specific than simply “freshens”.  Thus: Setting sun- a traveller’s griefs renew. I would actually prefer to simply write “traveller” instead of  “a traveller”, but unfortunately because I used “a boat moves” in the previous line, I need the “a” here too for continuity.  Line 3: 野旷天低树  (yě kuǎng tiān dī shù) These lines are so famous (for good reason), that it’s very important to me that I get them right.  野 (yě) means “wild”, “wilds”, “wilderness”. 旷 (kuǎng) means “open”, or “vast”. 天 (tiān) means “sky”, 低 (dī) means “low” or “to lower”, and 树 (shù) is “tree”.  Due to the structure of Chinese, the 旷 (kuǎng) can be referring to the 野 (yě), the 天 (tiān), or both. It could be “open wilderness”, it could be “open sky”, or it could be both. This is why Yip has essentially doubled the 旷 (kuǎng), translating it into “open” for “open wilderness” and “wide” for “wide sky”. Similarly, translation 3 has put “landscape and sky vast and empty”, and Bynner has put “the world” is wide. If I were to do this, I would probably go the same route as Yip. However, I think all of these translations feels too much like adding something that isn’t there. I think the interpretation of 旷 (kuǎng) applying to both 野 (yě) and 天 (tiān) is a secondary interpretation, because most Chinese wujue poems are meant to be read in a group of two followed by a group of three.  If 旷 (kuǎng) applies to 野 (yě), the three characters 天低树, “sky low(ers) tree(s)” is a distinct unit. Unlike the Yip, “a stretch of bare trees”, and translation 3, “bare trees”, the sky is connected to the trees. This can be interpreted as “sky lowers to trees”, as in “the sky is close to the trees”, as with “...how close the trees to heaven!” in the Bynner translation.  I’m going to translate this line like this:  Open wilderness: sky lowers to trees.  I think if I translate it like this, the imagery of the “open wilderness” carries over enough to “sky” to have the same implication. Also, the use of the colon implies that the “sky lower(ing) to trees” is the open wilderness, which should technically make the “open” also apply to the sky.  Line 4: 江清月近人 (jiāng qīng yuè jìn rén) Same problem with this line! (Makes sense, because it’s parallel to line 3).  江 (jiāng) means “river”, 清 (qīng) “clear”, 月 (yuè) “moon”, 近 (jìn) “close” or “near(s)”, and 人 “person”.  You can see that Yip has done the same thing as the previous line, where he translated 旷 (kuǎng) twice, into “open” and then “wide��. Here, he translates 清 (qīng) into “limpid”, as in “limpid river” (江清), and then “clear”, as in “clear moon” (清月). I, on the other hand, am going to do pretty much the same thing I did in the previous line.  近 (jìn): This is a word that feels very immediate, so I don’t want to use “close to”, which has a sense of distance.  This line is a bit more complicated than the previous. This is because the last three characters of line 3 and line 4 can be interpreted as logically following the first two characters in their respective lines. So, for example, instead of two distinct images of a clear river, and then a moon close to a man, you can follow logical causation. Let’s say you do this with line 3. It’s is pretty direct: because the wilderness is vast and open, the sky appears low as the trees. However, in this line, there’s an added layer of reasoning: because the river is clear, the moon is reflected upon the river. Because the moon is reflected upon the river, it’s closer to the poet in his boat. Thus, moon nears man.  Because of this, I don’t want to just use “moon nears man”, even though it’s the most poetic option and I’m really sad I can’t use it. It gives the moon agency, which pretty effectively kills the interpretation of the moon’s reflection on the river being what causes it to appear closer.  Thus, I’m actually going to translate it as:  Clear river: moon nearer to man.  Oh, and also, I’m translating 人 as “man” because “person” just. Doesn’t work. And “human” is even worse. Why, English, are you like this. I hope you can forgive me on the basis that the poet is likely talking about himself, who is in fact a man.  Final Translation:  A boat moves to moor by misty bank.  Setting sun- a traveller’s griefs renew.  Open wilderness: sky lowers to trees.  Clear river: moon nearer to man.  Ah, it’s really hard to get across the beauty of the final two lines in translation. Also, the first line still doesn’t feel right, but I really can’t think of anything better. Welcoming suggestions! Experimental Translation:  Moving boat, mooring  in smoke by the shore.  Dusk- a traveller’s griefs renew.  Wilderness vast-  Sky lowers to the trees.  River clear-      moon nears                     man.  I rate this poem 3/10 in Wangxian applicability. It is kind of a Wei Wuxian and Yunmeng mood though. I can see this working in a CQL post-canon fic, possibly involving a Yunmeng Shuangjie reconciliation. 

[mst3kproject]

820: Space Mutiny

Well, I did one of MST3k’s John Phillip Law movies, so I might as well do the other.  Ladies, Gentlemen, etc, I give you: Mother.  Fucking. Space.  Mutiny.

The Southern Sun is a generation starship on its way to colonize a new planet.  Most of the people on board are okay with this, but there’s a faction, led by Commander Kalgan, who want to abandon the mission and land somewhere. Kalgan and his cronies are willing to do anything to get their way, including sabotage the ship and make a deal with some space pirates.  Lucky the Southern Sun has Dave Ryder, a big dumb beefalo of a man who will roll, shoot, and scream the rebels into submission!  Oh, yeah, and there’s some Yoga Witches in the cargo hold, I dunno what’s up with that, but the movie assures me they contributed.

MUZ has been called the Manos of the Sci-Fi Channel era, in that it’s incoherent and badly-photographed.  This is a compelling argument, but for my own part I consider Space Mutiny the Manos of the Sci-Fi Channel era, in that it’s absolutely iconic.  It’s the episode that comes to mind when people think of that period in the show.  It gave rise to memes. It’s also very much the Starcrash of the Sci-Fi Channel era, in that it is absolute comedy gold in ways the film-makers never intended.

You could write a book on the many sparkling facets of this movie's sucktitude.  As Mike and the bots repeatedly observed, Cisse Cameron is ten years older than the character she’s playing, and the ‘engine room’ shots are all in a factory somewhere with sunlight shining through the windows.  As they famously never observed even once, all the spacecraft shots are stolen from Battlestar Galactica.  The bridge is made of cardboard.  Nobody’s costume fits – Ryder’s in particular sags at the ass, which is a shame because I bet his ass is terrific.  The women wear outfits so tiny that one with extra-long hair looks like Lady Godiva from behind.  The end credits song takes the best bits of every 80’s power ballad ever written and assembles them into something far less than the sum of its parts. You can hear the singer’s mullet.

The writing is nothing short of stunning in its badness.  Battle sequences are a mess, with no idea what’s at stake in each area the mutineers are trying to capture.  There are whole scenes in which nothing much is actually said – the most glaring example is probably the bit where Commander Santa tells Captain Sting ‘it would have to be somebody on this ship with something to gain from this’.  The exchange tells us nothing we didn’t already know. MacPherson only shows up in the room where Miss Santa is being interrogated so that he can expose himself as a traitor.  Kalgan uses ‘space-bitch’ as an insult, unironically, twice, and calls Ryder a ‘meddling fool’.

There are at least three places where something is set up and then disposed of without ever being paid off.  Commander Santa’s daughter tells Ryder that they can call for help against the pirates and mutineers, but he says he figures Kalgan has already installed scramblers – so they don’t even try.  That seems to me like a situation where can’t hurt, might help would be a good philosophy.  There’s also the ‘countermeasures’ subplot, where we learn that MacPherson will have revealed all their defense plans to the mutineers… and then the whole subject is just dropped.  The biggest dangling plot thread, however, is the Bellerians.

These are the Yoga Witches I mentioned.  They show up wearing bathing suits and veils, rub themselves all over the walls and some of those plasma globes that were popular in the 80s and 90s, and I think they seduce some of the security personnel.  One of them visits Commander Santa and tells him it’s time for action, and they murmur things about time being up for one or other of the mutiny leaders, but they never actually do anything.  The first time I watched this, as the MST3K episode, years and years ago, I remember waiting and waiting for the Bellerians to do something cool and they never did. They are entirely decorative.

(They also made it impossible for me to take Avatar seriously. The exchange a superintelligent dandelion seed! – Man, they'll worship anything! will not leave my head the entire damn movie.)

I also have to ask: if Kalgan and his followers are not satisfied living on the Southern Sun, why don’t they just… leave?  The ship is clearly still in an inhabited part of the galaxy.  There are the pirates, there’s the idea of calling for help, and people do come and go.  Professor Spooner was on board the ship at some point to be Miss Santa’s mentor, then he left, and now he’s coming back.  The Bellerians arrive and are given a place to stay, and it’s implied that they will be on board for some time but not permanently.  Ryder is new to the Southern Sun, and I think the nonsensical does that mean you won’t marry me? at the end is supposed to tell us that he’s leaving again and hoping to take Miss Santa with him.  If Kalgan wants to go, he can… but the writers completely ignore this.

Yet for all that, Space Mutiny is actually quite engaging.  It’s structured like a proper movie, alternating between action, mystery, and romance.  Reb Brown as Ryder and Cisse Cameron as Miss Santa have decent chemistry – they actually met on this movie, fell in love, got married, and are still married to this day.  Sometimes you can’t follow what’s going on in an individual scene, but you always know where you are in the story as a whole.

Miss Santa appears to be an attempt at a Strong Female Character(tm). She’s supposed to be a PhD, and she gets involved with the shooting and punching right alongside Ryder.  I think the did you see my butt? scene is supposed to tell us that she’s in charge of her own sexuality (this might work better if the camera didn’t leer like a miserly tipper at a strip club), and when she’s taken hostage she’s able to almost rescue herself by the time Ryder comes for her.  She also has a few hints of actual personality, in that she’s shown using her work in the greenhouse as a way to blow off steam, and she sulks a bit when she doesn’t get her way (well, that’s gratitude for you!).

Ryder is a much larger presence in the movie, both physically and in terms of screen time, but he has far less to him as a person.  He’s brave and heroic and likes to yell and shoot at things, and that’s about it.  I suppose, like Duke Barnum in Last of the Wild Horses, he’s supposed to be a man-shaped hole that the audience members can place themselves in.  It works a bit better here, because Ryder is a handsome, muscular space pilot, which seems, at least to me, like a better fantasy life than ‘broke cowboy who interferes in other people’s problems’.  There’s also the fact that Ryder has a reason to be involved in these events, since he, too, is trapped on the Southern Sun with the mutineers.

I guess Space Mutiny is probably trying to be about long-term versus short-term goals. The Southern Sun was built with a long-term goal in mind – find and colonize a new planet.  The people on board mostly accept that they are just a stage in this process, and that the end result will benefit descendants they will never meet.  The mutineers are focused on a short-term goal, settling on a planet somewhere and becoming rich and powerful.  The movie doesn’t really delve into the consequences for everybody else on the ship if Kalgan wins, but we’re clearly meant to assume that the long-term goal entails more benefit to more people. That’s a good enough theme, I guess.

One thing the movie does go into, although probably by accident, is the nature of male versus female power.  The men in this movie – Captain Santa, Ryder, and Kalgan – are proactive, giving orders, firing guns, and throwing punches.  The women largely sit at desks and serve drinks, and those who attempt to take action are punished for it.  Lieutenant Lamont tries to investigate the theft of explosives, and gets shot (we’re supposed to ignore the fact that she’s back at her console ten minutes later).  Leah goes to help Ryder in the battle and is lectured for it.  These are unacceptable forms of power for women to wield.

Acceptable female power is embodied in the Bellerians, who manipulate events subtly from behind the scenes. Unfortunately, they do it so subtly that I have no idea what, if anything, they actually contribute – which just makes it look like women can tell themselves they’re in charge but they’re not. They’re just hanging out while the men do all the real work.

I guess I should mention that there’s only one guy in this movie who isn’t white, and he’s hanging up in a freezer in his underpants.  I could complain, but I’m tired.

What makes some bad movies entertaining and others insufferable? What is the difference between, say, Teenagers from Outer Space and Invasion of the Neptune Men, or The Giant Spider Invasion versus The Starfighters?  Looking back across the gulf of around two hundred bad movies I’ve written about in the past three and a half years, I’m going to say it involves weaving your failures into a structure that might otherwise work.  Fun bad movies have characters we can follow and a plot that makes some kind of sense – we know who Ryder and Miss Santa are, and we have some idea what they’re doing, so we’re not sitting and trying to puzzle that out instead of enjoying the floor polisher chase scenes.  Once the movie has us in a place where we want to pay attention, it doesn’t really matter if the technicalities are up to snuff.  This is where movies like Radar Secret Service fail, and where Space Mutiny almost succeeds.

[newartz]

The Flaming Flag of the Russian Mob The Mueller Wave of crony convictions and confessions has barely begun. But one thing is clear: the term “collusion” vastly understates Trump’s oneness with Vladimir Putin and the Russian Mob. Collusion implies two independent parties working together. Trump is not separate from Putin. Trump is Putin’s employee. His debtor. His servant. His baby mama. Or, in CIA terms, Putin’s asset. Since the 1980s. The tsunami of proof ranges from Craig Unger’s remarkable new House of Trump, House of Putin to David Cay Johnston’s It’s Even Worse Than You Think and much more. (For a full hour of Unger’s narrative, hear this week’s “Green Power & Wellness Show.”) Here is some of it: Trump inherited a huge fortune from his mob-connected father (Trump’s mob-connected grandfather ran a brothel in the California gold country). Donald was apparently born void of business ability. According to Unger, Trump’s massive over-expansion into Atlantic City in the 1990s left him $4 billion in debt, replete with six bankruptcies. As no legitimate sources would fund him, Trump turned to the Russian mob, then looting the natural resources of a massive landmass. That epic cash flow enhanced its regular lines of extortion, prostitution, gambling, etc. Hundreds of billions of dollars in flight capital sought access to the Western banking system. But to get it, the Russian mobsters and oligarchs needed to launder their money. They turned to Trump and his real estate-based cash washing machine. They also began cultivating him as a political asset. Unger says more than 1300 real estate transactions ensued that, according to BuzzFeed, averaged $1.2 million per unit and “had the characteristics of money-laundering deals.” Buyers with hard money used shell corporations that were barely scrutinized, if at all. In a single legendary deal, one oligarch allegedly plunked down $6 million in cash for five condos. Trump Tower, at 721 Fifth Avenue, became a dormitory/nerve center for the Russian underworld. Trump’s “comeback” was fueled with rubles they wanted hidden. Having stiffed a legion of creditors, Trump himself went from being dead broke to doing big business with scads of cash. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Vladimir Putin, the Russian mob became a de facto agency of the Russian government, and vice versa. With Putin at the top, Russia was (and is now) “a mafia state.” Says Unger: “In Moscow there’s no Wall Street, no Goldman Sachs. If you have any financial inclination, you go to work for the mob. That’s where the money is.” With his roots in the old KGB, Putin transferred the new FSB secret police into a wing of the mafia. Its minions soon filled as many as a third of the roughly 300 units at Trump Tower (calculations are difficult because Trump regularly lies about how big his buildings really are). In the 1990s, when the FBI went looking for a renegade Russian mobster, that’s where they found him. “If anybody should not have a security clearance,” says Unger, “it’s Donald Trump.” “We’ve been attacked three times,” Unger adds. “Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and now this. After Pearl Harbor and 9/11 they didn’t take over the White House.” Much of the mob’s cash flow comes from Ukraine, which depends on Russia’s gas, which is sold at below-market prices to insider oligarchs. There, Paul Manafort installed a pro-Putin regime (since overthrown). Unger estimates the annual skim at about $750 million. During one of the earlier, very deadly coups, a Manafort daughter famously tweeted that “Dad has blood on his hands.” Other Trump associates share similar roots. According to the NY Daily News, the grandfather of White House flunky Kellyanne Conway allegedly was Jimmy “The Brute” DiNatale, described by law enforcement authorities as a “significant criminal associate” of Philadelphia mobster Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo. To keep Donald in line, Vlady may or may not have incriminating sex tapes to hold over Donald’s private parts. But they would pale before a real accounting of the Trumputin money trail. Trump’s entire economic being depends on Putin’s rubles. He could bankrupt Trump with just one nyet. The Russian people are not our enemy. Nor, technically, is the Russian government. We are grateful for not being in a shooting or nuclear war with them. But with Trump in the White House kissing Putin’s ring in the Kremlin, we’re being colonized by Russia’s mobster oligarchs working in sync with our own corporate oligarchs. It’s mostly about oil and gas, with coal and nukes as critical diversions away from what the Russo-American oligarchy fears most: renewable energy. But the Russians did not steal America’s elections in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004. That was the Bush Family, with deep CIA roots, guided by Karl Rove, linked to the House of Saud. The Russians did not flip the US Congress and 1000 public offices from the Democrats to the GOP from 2008-2016. That was the Koch Brothers’ hugely funded GOP attack team. They stripped the voter rolls, flipped electronic voting machines, bought judges, stole the government … and are poised to do it again in 2018. The Corporate Democrats continue to say and do nothing about a totally corrupted electoral system. Even this week, in a highly dubious Congressional race “won” by the GOP in central Ohio, the Dems have failed to even speak with election protection expert Bob Fitrakis and the seasoned team of local activists all too familiar with how these critical seats are stolen. In 2016, Hillary Clinton bought the Democratic Party by paying its $20 million debt. She put it on an allowance and took the nomination. She trashed Bernie Sanders and the young social democrats who could have put her in the White House. She’s still said nothing about the utter theft of a presidential race she won by three million votes. Unless the party is radically changed, it will be deja vu in 2018 and 2020. The Corporate Democrats’ contempt for Trump’s “deplorables” is exceeded only by its fear of the grassroots left. Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and their ilk have opposed social and regulatory policies that date to the New Deal. They’re clearly more comfortable with Trump in the White House than Bernie Sanders. But the Russians came at 2016 from another angle. Backing their Manchurian Mobster, they toyed with social media, faked the news. With the GOP regulars, they hacked voter registration rolls, databases, electronic tabulators and more in at least 21 states. They laundered money through the National Rifle Association and Mitch McConnell. They rebooted Dick Nixon’s “Dirty Trickster” playbook (previously perfected by Rove and Dick Cheney) and put their own made man in the White House. His mission: Boost oil and gas prices to hand-funnel cash to the Russo-American fossil fuel kleptocracy; Shred environmental regulations to monetize the destruction of human and planetary health; Destroy Western trade and state relationships for Russian benefit; Gut military alliances to exalt Putin’s global standing; Flood the internet with trolls, bots, phishers, hackers, liars, manipulators, Foxists, etc. to trash grassroots democracy worldwide; Enthrone a deranged criminal psycho/sociopath to distract the media and public from all of the above. None of this rises to the level of a “philosophy.” It’s all about the venal theft of public resources for the private profit of a power/greed-crazed few. For American corporatists like the Kochs and so many others, Trump’s insane tweet-storms hide the further looting of our air, water, food supply, tax code, educational system, public housing, natural resources, pipeline proliferation, etc. Our Social Security and Medicare funds are next in line to feed ever-more military madness. Likewise obscene handouts to coal and nuke burners (while assaulting renewables with taxes, tariffs and more). In short: Trump has escalated Robber Baron rape from Reagan to the ridiculous. For Trump’s mobster masters, the bonanza extends to pipelines through Ukraine (like the ones through the Dakotas), mass slaughter in Syria and Yemen, Europe flooded with refugees, an enhanced drug trade, global destabilization, Putinic enshrinement, and more. The common denominator is always private profit at public expense. And the ultimate enablers are always the Corporate Democrats. These Weimar Wimps are astute at just one thing: caving to the far right. Next up is that fifth Supreme Court seat for the corporate thugs. Are you ready for the Dems to crumble yet again? Team Schumer/Pelosi is always ready to assault social democracy and those who bring it. Their endless fundraising emails howl at Trump’s antics but never push a humanist vision that might impinge on corporate profits. They’re still unwilling to speak the truth of Trump’s mafia roots to the power of the corporatocracy. But we are not them. And the supremely arrogant Donald may have crossed too many lines. As long as Trump serves his don Putin while the Corporate Democrats wallow in fake opposition, there’ll be plenty of cover for the Russo-American kleptocracy to rape and pillage our dying planet. But Nature does bat last. Let’s make sure She swings real soon.

- Harvey Wasserman

[saltybaewatch-blog]

Marvels of the world

Ø  What is it to Me

The Eiffel tower of France is the Crown Regency of Cebu City. It is tall, amazing, and wonderful infrastructure that is wrapped with so many astonishing lights. It is a tourist attraction just like the Eiffel tower of France. I would like to go there, because of its ambiance and wonderful light decors, plus the exiting things you can do inside.

Ø  What it is to the people

The Eiffel tower is a wrought iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. The Eiffel Tower will glitter for 5 minutes on every hour after sunset. It is a beautiful sight to behold. Many would believe that Paris is the most romantic city in the world and some would even propose for its romantic aura.

Ø  Intersections

In both, the Eiffel tower is described as a tourist attraction, a must visit place for tourists and the locals. It is very beautiful and the first experience is remarkable.

Ø  What is it to Me

There is a Taj Mahal in the Philippines and it is located in Negros Occidental. As the name of the place implied, this attraction is the remains of the mansion during World War II wherein the family intentionally burned so that the Japanese people won’t use it as their headquarters. It took them weeks to fully burn the house because it was made of hardwood.

Ø  What it is to the people

is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the south bank of the Yamuna river in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The tomb is the centrepiece of a 17-hectare (42-acre)[5] complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall. The Taj Mahal was commissioned by Shah Jahan in 1631, to be built in the memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, a Persian princess who died giving birth to their 14th child, Gauhara Begum

Ø  Intersections

In both, the Taj Mahal is the remains of a very special thing or person to a person. In Inda, the Taj Mahal is the remains of Mumtaz Mahal and Shan Jahan, and in the Negros, it is the remains of their house filled with memories.

Ø  What is it to Me

The Great Wall of China is the Basilica Del Santo Niño of Cebu. Not basing on its structure but based on their history and their relevance to the people. The Basilica Del Santo Niño is a reminder of the Cebuano’s culture, traditions, and history. We are reminded of the Spaniards colonization, the start of our new culture, and the introduction to our very own religion, Christianity.

Ø  What it is to the people

The Great Wall is a China icon. It shows us not only China's culture of national pride, grand projects, and determined resistance, but also China's extravagant architecture and creativity.

Ø  Intersections

In both, the Great Wall of China is a reminder of their culture, traditions, pride, and many more. The Great wall is also an astonishing view just like the Basilica.

Ø  What is it to Me

The Pyramid of Egypt is the Manila North Cemetery of Philippines. The Manila North Cemetery is the oldest and the largest burial monument in the Philippines. The cemetery is owned by the City of Manila, the national capital, and is one of the largest in the metropolis at 54 hectares.

Ø  What it is to the people

The Egyptian pyramids are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures located in Egypt.As of November 2008, sources cite either 118 or 138 as the number of identified Egyptian pyramids. Most were built as tombs for the country's pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods.This pyramid and its surrounding complex were designed by the architect Imhotep, and are generally considered to be the world's oldest monumental structures constructed of dressed masonry.

Ø  Intersections

In both, the pyramid is a burial monument for people who matters to someone. The pyramid is the largest burial monument filled with tombs of Pharaohs, so as the Manila North Cemetery, It is the largest burial monument in the Philippines.

Ø  What is it to Me

The Roman Coliseum in Italy is the Araneta coliseum in the Philippines. It is the Araneta coliseum of Rome Italy, where people most especially stars, perform, entertain, act, and provide concerts for their fans. It can be used as a multi-purpose hall, sports arena, and it is also one of the largest clear span domes in the world. I would like to visit and tour in the future as I would like to see what is really inside and how will I explore it.

Ø  What it is to the people

For the people in Italy, it is located just east of the Roman Forum, the massive stone amphitheater known as the Coliseum was commissioned around A.D. 70-72 by Emperor Vespasian of the Flavian dynasty as a gift to the Roman people. Though two-thirds of the original Colosseum has been destroyed over time, the amphitheater remains a popular tourist destination, as well as an iconic symbol of Rome and its long, tumultuous history.

Ø  Intersections

In both, the roman coliseum is described as a place of entertainment. It is where people gather just to watch their favorite play as a place of fantasy and full of enjoyment.

  Ø  What is it to Me

Mt. Everest in Nepal is the Mt. Apo in the Philippines. It is the Mt. Apo of Nepal, Considered as the most technical and interesting trail because of its narrow and different type of  trail  with very lush vegetation and pristine jungle which you can see the canopy ecosystem and different species of Flora & Fauna. Its trail starts at a small village call Baruring, Sibulan, Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur which a back packer would pass a farm trail, jungle trail and boulders trail before reaching the summit covering a distance of 13.7 Km with elevaion gain of approximately 2,000 meters from the trail head.

Ø  What it is to the people

For the people of Nepal,where Mount Everest attracts experienced mountaineers as well as less-seasoned climbers who typically enlist guides known as sherpas. Climbing more than 8,000 feet is no easy feat. Altitude sickness, weather and wind are the major roadblocks to making the summit for most climbers. More than 5,000 people have climbed Everest and 219 have died trying. About 77 percent of those ascents have been accomplished since 2000. In 2007, a record number of 633 ascents were recorded.

Ø  Intersections

In both, the Mt. Everest is describe a long been revered by peoples. Like the Mt. Pinatubo it is high enough that you can see the clouds above it, and it is beautiful to watch the view below it.

Ø  What is it to Me

The Northern Lights in Northern region is also located in some part of the Philippines. Northern lights or we called it as “Aurora borealis” can be seen in any part of the Philippines. the most common is located in Albay, Boracay, and Siargao Island.

Ø  What it is to the people

The northern lights are the right dancing lights of the aurora are actually collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth's atmosphere. The lights are seen above the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres. They are known as 'Aurora borealis' in the north and 'Aurora australis' in the south.

Ø  Intersections

In both, The northern lights is very beautiful to watch every summer, during the middle night you can see different colors of light it is very satisfying to watch and you can spend time together with your family and friends

[ellipticallychallenged]

Twistors 101

                     (Robinson congruence, from New Scientist, 1979)

As a quick heads-up, never having had any contact with twistors before, I’ll be starting from the absolute basics... I should also say that I have only had undergraduate courses on general relativity and high-energy physics, so I am by no means an expert in either. As such, while I will likely make many mistakes along the way, I am hoping that my knowledge and understanding of both will be improved by writing this blog. If others come across this blog and can elucidate my understanding further, I’d be delighted to hear from you...

So despite twistor theory being first proposed 50 years ago, I think twistors are a complete unknown for most students of physics. Naturally, over the course of my studies I had come across Penrose and seen some of his influence on mathematics and physics, but twistors had only been mentioned in throwaway remarks as an obscure formalism used in general relativity that ignored quantum mechanics, or described in a chapter of ‘The Road to Reality’ that was beyond my understanding at the time.  However, they do appear to have had something of a renaissance, and indeed my current interest in them was aroused through popular articles describing their suitability for calculating amplitudes in \(N=4\) Yang–Mills theory and the wider context of the ‘Amplituhedron.’ 

With that out of the way, I’ll begin this Twistors 101 course by reviewing a basic account of twistors presented by Roger Penrose in the New Scientist magazine, dated 31 May 1979: ‘Twisting round space-time’ (the issue is publicly available through Google Books, so hopefully I am not violating any copyright issues with the quotes and images!). 

Twisting round space-time, New Scientist, 31 May 1979

The article begins with Penrose citing Sir Arthur Eddington, who in his 1927 lectures, `The Nature of the Physical World,’ commented on the revolution in our understanding of “solid” matter, i.e., that objects almost entirely consist of empty space. 

Penrose highlights the fact that in the 50 years since Heisenberg, Schrōdinger, Dirac et al. clarified the fundamentals of quantum theory [technically, Penrose considers the 50 years since Eddington’s lectures], most of the attention has been on the minute particles of matter, and that the empty space which almost entirely comprises the volume of everyday objects has received only scant attention. He attributes this neglect to two almost paradoxical causes: 

the feeling that we completely understand the nature of empty space; it is given to great accuracy by the Minkowski geometry underlying Einstein’s special relativity, and

the almost total lack of any really deep understanding of the nature of empty space.

He then comments briefly on one of the conflicts between standard quantum field theory (QFT) and general relativity (GR). That is that QFT suggests that empty space is seething with activity and that the energy density of empty space is infinite. However, if such is the case, then this infinite energy density would lead in GR to an absurd picture of an infinitely small radius of curvature for the Universe. [Note 1: How is this shown? Through the Friedmann equations and the density parameter \(\Omega\)?]

The QFT remedy to this problem is “renormalisation,” which essentially subtracts an infinite quantity from the infinite energy density such that the remainder is finite and corresponds to observable quantities. However, this procedure is considered to reflect our ignorance of the ‘true’ physics, and as such is only a stop-gap.

Penrose then notes that historically, Landau, Pauli, Klein and others all suggested that a quantum theory of gravity might remove the infinities and yield a finite theory that does not require renormalisation. However, standard techniques of QFT applied to GR yield a non-finite and non-renormalisable theory. [Note 2: If possible, I should source and read the Landau, Pauli, and Klein articles.] 

Penrose thus states -  “It seems that we are as far away as ever from understanding empty space. So what prospect is there of understanding the detailed nature of the particles which inhabit that space if we do not understand the space itself?” 

Moreover, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle appears to imply that on the scale of atoms (and below), our geometrical picture becomes especially inadequate and must be relinquished.

It is at this point that Penrose begins to motivate an alternate geometric formulation to our conventional space-time picture, noting however, that on account of the successes of the existing theory, this new picture must be essentially equivalent to the standard theory.

Penrose highlights the fact that although quantum electrodynamics (QED) appears to show that our conventional space-time picture is valid to \(10^{-17}\) m (at least), this need not be the only acceptable picture. In order to elucidate this point, he uses the analogy of the Newtonian and GR pictures of celestial motion. While Newtonian gravity is remarkably accurate for celestial objects, it suggests that gravitational forces are real, and that space at the dimensions relevant to planetary motions is Euclidian. On the other hand, GR denies both of these viewpoints, clarifies some anomalous results, and leads to a ‘deeper’ view of the nature of space.

Penrose thus states his view as - “So I am suggesting that some geometric reformulation may represent a key to understanding the geometry that governs behaviour at the submicroscopic level. And in order to be able to reproduce the successful physics of our day, this reformulation must incorporate both quantum mechanics and the flat Minkowski geometry of special relativity.”

Note that, here, Penrose is not quite proposing a theory of quantum gravity. Rather, he is proposing an equivalent formulation of existing physics, and indeed, he comments that the curved geometry of GR is something that must be accommodated at a later stage. Thus, this proposed reformulation is akin to the Lagrangian or Hamiltonian formulations of Newtonian mechanics; the results must be equivalent but the insight gained may be deeper, e.g., symmetries and conserved quantities.

Penrose now turns his attention to certain aspects of quantum mechanics (QM) and wave–particle duality. 

The first point he highlights is that complex numbers play an essential role in QM, and that physical states can be represented by rays in a complex vector space. Any two elements, \(\mathbf{A}, \mathbf{B}\), of such a vector space satisfy the law of linear superposition \[\mathbf{C}=\lambda\mathbf{A}+\mu\mathbf{B},\]where \(\lambda\) and \(\mu\) are complex numbers. [Note 3: How does the complex vector space differ to Hilbert space?]

Here, Penrose states that each “vector” \(\mathbf{A}, \mathbf{B}, \mathbf{C}\) (assuming they are not the zero vector) describes the quantum state. However, the same state is obtained whenever the vector is multiplied by any non-zero complex number. (This is what is meant by the state being represented by a “ray” in the vector space). From this it follows that only distinct ratios of the complex numbers, \(\lambda\colon\mu\), provide distinct quantum states. [Note 4: There appears to be some ambiguity here. The phrasing appears to suggest that each vector describes the same state?]

In other words: “for any two distinct quantum states, a whole array of other allowed quantum states exists, formed from the original two by linear superposition; precisely one state of this array corresponds to each distinct ratio \(\lambda\colon\mu\),” and this is a fundamental axiom of quantum mechanics.

Penrose now introduces a way of visualising this array. He folds the Argand plane (representing all possible choices of the two complex numbers) into the Riemann sphere, including a point at \(\infty\). The relation between the Riemann sphere and the Argand plane is then given by stereographic projection from the north pole of the sphere to its equatorial plane.

Every point on the Riemann sphere then represents a particular complex ratio, \(\kappa=\lambda/\mu\), where the north pole represents an infinite value of \(\kappa\) corresponding to \(\mu=0\), and every other point of the sphere projects down to a unique point \(\kappa=a+ib\) of the Argand plane. Thus, if the north pole represents the quantum state \(\mathbf{A}\), the south pole would represent the quantum state \(\mathbf{B}\), while the point \(\kappa\) represents the state \(\mathbf{C}=\lambda\mathbf{A}+\mu\mathbf{B}\).

As a result, the linear superposition of any two quantum states gives rise to an array of states which has the topological structure of a sphere.

Penrose now states that there is a physical relation between this abstract mathematical sphere and spatial geometry that can be understood in terms of the physical states of a spinning particle.

“If in a state \(\mathbf{A}\) the particle spins right-handedly about the upward vertical, and in state \(\mathbf{B}\) about the downward vertical, then in state \(\mathbf{C}\) the particle will spin right-handedly about the direction represented by \(\kappa=\lambda/\mu\). In other words, the spin-directions in space correspond exactly to the points of the Riemann sphere through the linear superposition of the states of the simplest type of spinning system.”

Penrose states it thus: “the three-dimensionality of space is related intimately to the fact that complex numbers are used in the linear superposition law.” [Note 5: I don’t follow this connection between the Riemann sphere and spatial geometry particularly well, or what the right-handed spinning has to do with the Riemann sphere. Adding two right-handed states and getting a right-handed state seems like a trivial statement. Try find a more detailed discussion.]

In order to further clarify how space-time geometry is related to complex structure, Penrose then outlines another visualisation, this time of the Riemann sphere. Now, we imagine an observer at the centre of the sphere looking out at the ‘celestial sphere’ or ‘sky,’ and this observer labels every star that he can see with a complex ratio \(\kappa\) corresponding to the direction that the light from that star comes from.

Penrose notes some subtleties here, in that there is a question of how the Riemann sphere is oriented against the sky, and the potential of relativistic abberration (where the apparent position of the stars depends on the observer’s instantaneous velocity). However, remarkably, one can transform from one choice of orientation and velocity \((\kappa)\) to another \((\kappa’)\) with the transformation: $$\kappa ’=\frac{\alpha\kappa+\beta}{\gamma\kappa+\delta},$$where \(\alpha, \beta, \gamma\) and \(\delta\) are fixed complex numbers defined by the relative orientations and velocities between the two choices. [Note 6: Similar (i.e., Möbius or linear fractional) transformations came up regularly in my work with quartic equations and elliptic functions. Review the context there and see if there are any potential new insights or connections to be made. If the context here is similar, I am assuming that \(\alpha\delta-\beta\gamma\neq 0\) needs to be satisfied.]

This transformation is holomorphic, i.e., the complex conjugate does not appear, where holomorphicity is essentially ‘complex smoothness’ is a key concept of twistor theory, as indeed it is in much of QFT and particle physics.  [Note 7: Is this aspect somehow related to conformal symmetry?]

Here, Penrose states one of the aims of twistor theory - “In fact, one aim of twistor theory is actually to reduce all the equations of physics simply to ‘pure holomorphicity.’”

The holomorphic transformation above is such an example, and is the most general purely holomorphic transformation that sends the Riemann sphere to itself. This group of transformations is known as the “restricted Lorentz group” and is the most fundamental symmetry group in physics, describing the special relativistic symmetry of space-time about a point.

Penrose now continues to extend the proposed visualisation to further relate the Riemann sphere with space-time geometry as follows:

At a particular instant, the observer at the centre of the Riemann sphere can be represented by a point \(O\) in four-dimensional Minkowski space-time, and the light that he detects from the stars in his celestial sphere are represented by the “past light cone.” Thus, at any point in space-time (such as \(O\)), the system of light rays reaching an observer generates a cone stretching back into the past. Moreover, each one of these light rays corresponds to one point of the celestial sphere (i.e., a particular \(\kappa\)).

However, one can also imagine a new space \(\mathbf{PT}\), called projective twistor space, where each point corresponds to an entire light ray in Minkowski space-time. The light rays through \(O\) will then be represented by a subset of points in this new space.

However, while the Riemann sphere defines a complex space of one complex dimension (this is essentially trivial since it was constructed from the Argand plane), the new entire light ray space does not define a complex space since light rays only form a 5-dimensional system (space, time, and direction), and complex spaces need to have an even number of dimensions.

Thus, in order to form a complex space, Penrose replaced these light rays by spinning photons, which also possess energy. As the photons can only spin by a fixed amount in a right-, or left-handed manner, the extra variable quantity is their energy, and this then yields an abstract 6-dimensional space whose points represent spinning photons. Moreover, this space can be regarded as a complex 3-dimensional space in terms of which the symmetry transformations of space-time are purely holomorphic. [Note 8: Why is the spin direction not used as the sixth variable? Why is it the energy, a much harder quantity to define uniquely?]

This \(\mathbf{PT}\) space is a higher-dimensional version of the Riemann sphere, only now the points are defined by four complex numbers, \(Z^0\colon Z^1\colon Z^2\colon Z^3\), which are the components of a twistor, \(Z^\alpha\). The projective twistor space can then be divided into three regions, \(\mathbf{PT}^+, \mathbf{PT}^-\) and \(\mathbf{PN}\), where the points of \(\mathbf{PT}^+\) represent photons spinning in a right-handed sense about their directions of motion, while the points of \(\mathbf{PT}^-\) represent photons spinning in a left-handed manner. The 5-dimensional surface \(\mathbf{PN}\) represents the boundary between the two halves (the two types of photon), and can thus be considered to represent light rays.

Next, the Robinson congruence is presented as a simple consequence of the fact that when spin is present, the localised description of a photon in a light-ray is just an approximation. In fact, the spinning photon acquires a ‘spread-out’ non-local structure determined by its motion that can be described geometrically in space-time terms as a system of twisting lines (i.e., the Robinson congruence).

Penrose then acknowledges that this twistor presentation is actually somewhat misleading, since a photon is just one of many different particles, and twistors do not have any special relation to any particular kind of particle. In fact, they are something more basic than the concept of a particle and Penrose describes them as simply providing an alternative, more ‘particle-like,’ way of viewing the geometry of space-time.

Thus, studying the geometry of twistor space gives us a new position from which to consider space-time, and in twistor theory, Penrose essentially advocates abandoning the space-time picture. If desired, Minkowski geometry should instead be constructed from the twistor space base (space-time events being interpreted as ‘lines’ in \(\mathbf{PN}\)), but Penrose notes that the essential aim of twistor theory was to describe as much as possible in purely twistor terms, without reference to space-time.

Penrose elaborates on the motivations for twistor theory - “A more detailed aim of twistor theory is to transcribe conventional QFT into twistor terms with the hope of obtaining a finite theory, free of the infinities that plague the conventional approach. There are many mathematical difficulties that still stand in the way of this programme, though it is possible to see ways of maintaining finiteness, if certain rules can be followed...” [Note 9: What are the rules needed to maintain finiteness? Would guess locality and unitarity in the space-time picture?]

He also comments that twistor theory is being used to describe elementary particles, and that massive particles such as electrons or protons, as well as massless particles (e.g., photons) can be handled. However, while massless particles may be described with a single-twistor, massive particles require two or more twistors. [Note 10: I believe this is the twistor diagram program for calculating amplitudes?]

Now nearing the end of the article, Penrose highlights a few of the promising aspects of twistor theory and some successes while acknowledging that a great deal more work remains to be done to fully flesh out these aspects. The examples he lists include:

Twistor theory leads to a striking description of the “internal symmetry groups” of particles that is quite natural, and which can be used to classify the different kinds of particles. [Note 11: Which internal groups, and where does this classification break down?]

The twistor description of GR leads to some intriguing results, though again, this description is far from complete. He notes that curved space-time corresponds to a deformation of twistor space and that the curvature of empty space-time can be split into two pieces: the self-dual and anti-self-dual parts.

As the anti-self-dual part can be completely understood in terms of deformations and Einstein’s equations are reduced to pure holomorphicity in accordance with the general programme, there are promising signs that the self-dual part and for other Yang–Mills fields can also be understood in terms of twistor space deformation.

Penrose concludes by acknowledging that twistor theory is incomplete, but expresses his hope that it provides a new approach to the fundamental problems of physics. He reiterates the important relation between holomorphicity and its subtle geometrical consequences, and highlights that twistor theory seeks to explain both matter and space. Moreover, he points out that the ‘correct’ (\(1+3\))-dimensionality of space-time is a necessary consequence of the twistor approach.

For my next post, I will try pick over this review a bit more and see if I can answer some of the notes and questions marked throughout. This will hopefully highlight what aspects I need to work on...

Much love.  

[emulatingrizal-blog]

#WalangForever: Divorce in the Philippines

An argumentative essay on Divorce

by John Eric S. Moscoso

Divorce is one of the most intriguing issues in the present time not only in the Philippines but also in the whole world. Many are not aware of the concept of divorce. Since the country has been influenced by western culture, infidelity and adultery has been rampant and led the legislators and other authoritative people to the possible legalization of divorce in the Philippines. Considering the supporting facts I will be stating, I believe that there must be a well-defined divorce law in the Philippines. We should not settle for what is there, progress would not be evident when we stick with the traditional. There is always a time to innovate and as they say, nothing is constant. Divorce varies state by state, it has different rules and types. The judicial department of different states imposes specific rules, regulations, and factors in order to legally nullify a marital covenant, depending on the type of divorce chosen by the married couple (Resource4FamilyLaw.com, 2012).

   This paper discusses the concept of divorce, the different elements of divorce, the difference from other forms of marital separation, and the actions made by the Philippine government in addressing the clamor for divorce.

Divorce is not divorce without the elements that comprise its concept. This is one aspect that both parties or couples fail to manage as they go through a divorce, knowing that this is a difficult process. It is evident to us people that whenever we see or encounter people who go through a divorce, they are preoccupied and overwhelmed by their emotions. There are episodes of resentment, anxiety, sadness, etc. because of this, they are unable to depict the larger picture of the reality of divorce, they do not really understand the essence of it.

Firstly, the first and the most important element of divorce—Legal Divorce. This element is concerned with the legal and constitutional framework of the process. In this element, issues like division of the parents’ assets, child custody, child support, and the like are discussed. A divorce may be contested or its contrary, uncontested. Contested gets the support and guidance of the court or law while uncontested divorce gives you the power on whether or not discuss and resolve it and hand over to the judiciary (Ingram, 2016). Financial Divorce talks about all money-related matters. This implies that the divorcing parties are obliged to examine and share their marital assets and liabilities. Assets include properties like home, financial-related ownerships like bank and investment accounts, and retirement and life insurance plans. Liabilities refer to their debts, including mortgage, and loans on their home, auto, and credit card (Ingram, 2016). Children’s Divorce is an element prevalent when the couple who will undergo divorce has children. This element includes financial issues such as child support payments (e.g. food, shelter, education) and other relevant expenses (e.g. medical, tutoring, extracurricular expenditures). Most importantly, issues on child custody need to be talked about and resolved (Ingram, 2016). Lastly, the most challenging and sensitive element of all four—Emotional Divorce. This element has a great impact upon every three other elements. This is when the separating couple deals with their emotions, often in different levels and at different scenarios along the way. Since this element may be sensitive for both, there are ways to address and resolve these emotional factors. By this, it hastens the process and makes a room for more objective rather than subjective, and unbiased legal basis (Ingram, 2016).

     If people know for a fact that divorce is a very controversial and broad topic, how can this paper best explain the concept of divorce? Divorce can be classified into many types namely: absolute, limited, uncontested, and no-fault. Certain rules and types of divorce vary from state to state. The judicial department of a state imposes certain factors and rules which they can consider before proceeding to the total termination of the marriage.

Absolute divorce is when married couples are separated legally and all their marital obligations are legally null and void. Absolute divorce has different legal conditions depending on which state you are in, couples who want divorce should be aware and knowledgeable on the different laws of different states. On the other hand, limited divorce is different from absolute divorce due to technicalities. Couples under limited divorce cannot settle their issues this resulting into divorce. Limited divorce has some conditions which are the same with a legal separation, married couples who wish to divorce should not have sexual interactions with each other anymore or with other people, and they must already live separately in accordance with the law. This type of divorce gives the married couple a chance of settling legal questions, issues and problems like child custody, the division of property, and financial support before they are legally divorced. Certain grounds and conditions of limited divorce are different depending on the state which they belong. Uncontested divorce is when married couples mutually agree on the idea of their separation under certain conditions. This may be simple, but critical legal consultation is advised. No-fault divorce is when there is no one to be blamed of on either husband or wife, and that irreconcilable differences hinder them from continuing the marriage. Couples who prefer this type are those who aim to separate to simply avoid a lot of personal and legal battles and issues. Married couples have a lot of options to choose from, but if there is no serious and informative legal consultation, separating parties will be left undecided and confused (Resource4FamilyLaw.com, 2012).  What makes divorce different from other separation forms, and now we will know the long legal process of divorce.

Divorce is not the only way for married couples to be legally separated, there are other forms of separations and fortunately, these two other forms are constitutionally accepted in the Philippines. Annulment is concerned with the status of the married couple, the decision of the court is based on the nationality or domicile of the people involved, it is not based on the place of the marital celebration. A legal separation allows the couple to live as unmarried individuals having no legal bond as married couples yet cannot look for another marriage. It is not the same as de facto separation, a separation where couples decide to separate without any order from the court or any legal basis (Gonzales & Hung, 2011). Annulment and legal separation, though they are both modes of marital separation, are not the same as divorce.

Divorce is a widely accepted law around the world, all of the United Nations member states allow divorce except for the Philippines. The Philippines, where the role of the father in a family is dominant, misconducts and other offenses occur in the midst of the marital bond. The international law greatly reprehends the occurrence of household or family-based abuses as an offense to many lawful rights of a person. Divorce, being an efficient way to avoid violence against women and children is considered to be a generally accepted duty of nations including the Philippines (Daytec-Yañgot, 2015). Divorce is legally allowed in any United Nation member state around the world. As an international union which helps in maintaining peace and order, it is one of their agenda to prevent violence and divorce is one of their remedies.

Fernandez and Mosqueda state that certain principles, acts, and orders pave the way to the perennial essence of marriage in the country which is strengthened by communal laws. Divorce is not a foreign view to the Filipinos because it was legal during the ancient times (as cited in Women’s Legal Bureau for SIBOL, 1998). The divorce law during the Spanish era was based on relative divorce. Relative divorce is just basically legal separation wherein the marital bond between the couple is not legally dismissed (Galang, 2015). The Spanish colonization in the Philippines ended and was succeeded by the Americans. The Treaty of Paris paved the way for the declaration of the Freedom of Religion. The Freedom of Religion achieved new different philosophies and generated the implementation of divorce law in the Philippines. Act No. 2710, also known as “Divorce Law” was legalized on March 11, 1917 (Galang, 2015). The divorce law introduced by the Americans was still valid even when the Japanese conquered the country. The Japanese formulated a new divorce law known as the Executive Order No. 141 which was legally implemented on March 25, 1943, prompting the dissolution of Act No. 2710 by the Americans (Galang, 2015). These scenarios in the history of the Philippines is enough to pave the way to the rebirth of the divorce law in the Philippine legal system.

The Philippine government has been always open for the legalization of divorce in the country, many of the government officials continue to study and research on it to legally impose a well-defined law in the legal system. Spouses who experience extreme abuses from their partners are looking forward to the legalization of divorce through the filing of a divorce bill in the Philippine Congress. Catholic Church officials conducted a special assembly in Rome to discuss the stand of their institution towards family, marriage, and divorce controversies with Pope Francis (de Leon, 2014). Divorce is a part of the Filipino culture, as far as history is concerned. It was legalized during the Spanish, American, and Japanese colonial era. This fact still cannot persuade and convince the present lawmakers, although became a part of the history, in reconsidering the legality of divorce in the country. Despite the uproar of citizens who are pro-divorce, with numerous negative factors affecting its implementation, the battle remains pointless and useless. House representatives just recently disproved the proposed divorce law (Galang, 2015).

It is stated in the incorporation doctrine found in Sec. 3, Article II of the 1987 Philippine Constitution that, widely recognized regulations of international law are considered to be part of the Philippine legal system (Daytec-Yañgot, 2015). The Philippines, as a UN member state, is obliged to follow certain commitments as stated in the treaty and divorce is one of UN’s human rights facet. Despite being a Roman Catholic state, the Philippines is interested in the concept of divorce. The Philippines observes the separation of the church and the state, and the legislators’ view of divorce in accordance with the religious beliefs of the country is mislaid knowing that even the Church is in favor of annulment. There is no reason to be proud of since the Philippines is the only UN state which does not allow divorce, the country seems to be an outcast and they should already implement a divorce law (Daytec-Yañgot, 2015).

The findings suggest more studies must be conducted and be presented to the Philippine government on the implementation of divorce law. Specific studies may include marital infidelity and adultery, depression and addiction rates, work stress and obligations, and financial struggles of spouses in the country. This essay elaborates that by determining and analyzing the different elements of divorce, it may lead to a successful outcome. The legal sectors are very much affected by this ongoing issue. This essay points out that there is an urgent need for a precise and proper implementation of divorce law because there are many marital and social factors that contribute and support divorce. Therefore, cooperation and collaboration of the state and the people must be achieved to accomplish a divorce law that can benefit not only the spouses but everybody in general.

This argumentative essay has explained the basic concept, the elements that constitute a divorce, and my stand on being a pro-divorce. Now that infidelity and other marriage-related issues are widespread in the Philippines, the government and the church should be realistic and pragmatic nowadays, they must realize that divorce can save many lives of battered wives, abused children and the like. Optimistic perspective and social acceptance help in convincing concerned officials to exert such efforts in making the Philippines a divorce-ready country. Despite the fact of being costly, lengthy, and hassle, the acceptance of this law in the country will give hope to spouses who are not happy and satisfied with their marital relationships.

References

Daytec-Yañgot, C.L. (2015). Till the judge do them part: the prospect of absolute divorce in the Philippines (Report No. 2647585). Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

de Leon, S.L. (2014, October 06). The fight to make divorce legal in the Philippines. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/06/world/asia/philippines-legal-divorce-battle/

Galang, M.L.S. (2015). A proposal to expedite the judicial recognition process of foreign divorce decrees in the Philippines (master’s thesis). Retrieved from De La Salle University Library Millenium Web Catalog. (Accession No. b1381165)

Gonzales, L.A.M., Hung, K.Y. (2011). Marriage over: a study on the legality of divorce

(master’s thesis). Retrieved from De La Salle University Library Millenium Web

Catalog. (Accession No. b1342264)

Ingram, S. (2016, October 12). What are the 4 elements of divorce? Retrieved from https://www.susan-ingram.com/2016/10/4-elements-divorce/

Types of divorce. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.resource4familylaw.com/html/topics/typesofdivorce.html

The relevance of divorce in the Philippines. (1998). Quezon City, Philippines: The Bureau.

[karlamazov-blog]

What We (meaning I) Have Learned from Costa Rica

    I flew to Costa Rica more than a month ago with the intention of learning Spanish (as well as indulging in a bit of wanderlust). For the majority of my time in the country, I lived in a hostel in Orosi and took Spanish classes for three hours a day, five days a week (after that I spent more than a week in a beach town). There were a number of things that I learned while in Costa Rica. The most valuable being my (still amateur, though much improved) Spanish speaking skills. But I also learned bits and pieces about the country and its people. One of the first things that I learned was that one should not travel to Costa Rica during the rainy season if one is not a fan of rain (I did, and I am not). Another is that while plantains taste wonderful when you cook them, there really is no good reason not to eat them raw, other than the perturbed stares and comments of observers.

The people in the places that I have been to before (much of the US, some of Canada, a smattering of countries in Europe) have been a mixed bag. I have yet to visit a place which offers a bag wholly free of dicks. With minor exceptions, I did not meet any dicks in Costa Rica. (More specifically, I didn’t meet any Costa Rican dicks in Costa Rica; there was, for example, an Australian guy that was a total dick.) In general, everyone I met was pretty chill. No one seemed to mind that I spoke with choppy, indelicate Spanish. Everyone I asked for help or directions gave it readily and was pretty friendly about it, sometimes offering assistance without my asking. (Two people, TWO, stopped to point me in the right direction at a bus terminal, intuiting that I, the furrow-browed gringo with the enormous backpack, wasn’t too sure where the fuck he was going.) And (nearly) everyone will smile and say, “Hola” or “Buenas” if you say it to them. (You might think that this is case everywhere, but trust me, not so much; in my experience, Swedes, Italians, and most Americans can be pretty standoffish.)

    Not all of my experiences in Costa Rica, and with Costa Rican people, were positive ones. There were a handful of unpleasant (non-weather related) incidents of shittiness.

I had close to thirty-thousand colones (roughly fifty bucks) stolen from my wallet at one point. This incident did happen, I should note, somewhere between a hostel in the small mountain town of Orosi and a hotel in San Jose. It is possible that the money could have been taken before I’d even left the hostel, in which case it would likely have been one of the hostel-dwellers that stole it, the majority of whom were European. Based on prior experiences with both Europeans and Central Americans, I believe it more plausible that it was some Euro-kid that robbed me rather than a Tico. I do believe it more likely that the cash was pilfered while at the hostel because my wallet, which has two metal snaps and a metal chain clipping it to my belt loop (yes, I wear a chain wallet, unironically), was snapped shut and securely clipped, chain and keys a-jangling, at the time I opened it to find it thirty-thousand colones light. There was also a day, after first arriving at the hostel in Orisi, that I believed my passport to be lost or stolen. After many hours of panicked searching and making aggressive (silent) accusations (in my mind) against the guests and staff of the hostel, I found the passport in the shaving kit pocket of my toiletry bag, where I had cleverly hidden it so that it would not be lost or stolen. So there’s a chance the cash will turn up later in some super clever hiding spot that I’ve cleverly forgotten about.  

A taxi driver in San Jose scammed me. I don’t ride taxis, ever. In the hierarchy of transportation methods, taxis fall well after bikes, non-taxi cars, trains, skateboards, buses, horses,camels, just about everything. So normally when a taxi driver tries webbing me in, I either ignore them or politely (usually; blood sugar level can be a factor) decline. But this guy roped me into a conversation, and told me that he’d take me to the best, cheap and authentic restaurant in the city, saying the trip would take only five minutes and cost two-thousand colones (like three-fifty), so I agreed. Twenty minutes later, the guy was insisting that I owed him something like seventeen-thousand (close to thirty bucks). So, yeah, fuck taxis.   

What I take away from my experience of vagabonding around Costa Rica, the prevailing impression and sentiment more than any particular incident, is one of good people. People were generally friendly and helpful, I believe genuinely kind. Being what I am, or more accurately (perhaps simply kinder to myself) appearing as I do, the people that I met would have been justified in harboring prejudices against me, being resentful towards me. I’m a white American male. Had I been born as any other classification of person, it’s possible I’d despise the shit out of people like me on principle. Not only are we (cocked crackers) the most privileged people on Earth (as a category, and not factoring in wealth, though that is significant and likely assumed), but the current political climate could make matters all the more acrimonious. Considering that the current representative of our kind is a senile and bigoted Doritos-dusted Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man who manufactured political clout, in part, by villainizing Central Americans (technically, yes, he said that Mexicans were rapists and murderers and did not, as I recall, broaden his brush to include Mexico’s southerly neighbors; and yes, Costa Rica, being a stabler and safer country than say, Guatemala or Nicaragua, has a lower number of people immigrating to the United States), one might think that they would hold a grudge. One might think that I, as a physical representation of some of the worst kind of people, with the most abhorrent beliefs and prejudices, might be considered fair game for violence and derision by the locals. But, no. Not one person told me to get out of their country. Not a single police officer or vigilante demanded that I present them with legal documentation proving my right to be there. No one committed or threatened any overt or implied violence against me, or said so much as a cruel word. Well… There were these two guys  who I am pretty sure referred to me as “muchacha,” but I take that possible jibe to have simply been a playful comment on the fact that I’m just so goddamn pretty.