Today is Monday, April 13th, 2009 and it is now 10:00 AM here in the Philippines.
I have been listening to Vocal Trance as I often do, it being my favourite genre of music.
My latest obsessions?
French DJ David Guetta, is a decent enough bloke but when he hooked up with JD Davis on the vocal portion he was mad! Davis sounds like Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan BEFORE the heroin knocked out his voice, though Gahan is still certainly fine enough to listen to any day of the week.
The song? "The World Is Mine," the Extended Mix, just came out this past October, and with a full on video that is easy enough on the eyes.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nShfIgOZRf0
The following, like the Marly piece in my recent entry, is also a slamming song from 1994 (Hey! It happened to be a decent year for me, aside from the American prison bullshit but I will just save that sordid tale for an upcoming "My Life" entry...
The DJs, Benassi Bros sound like they are Israeli by the name, but despite their mastery of Trance, alas they are mere Frenchmen, Dhany, on vocals is a girl I do not know much of anything about, other that she is still on the scene since I do remember seeing her on a 2007 Ultra compliation.
"Hit My Heart" actually has a real video, easy on the eyes as well as the ears.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQNcf6d_TIA
Reading wise, I actually was finally bold enough (and trusting enough of our security scheme on the compound) to take a trip with one of our convoys moving south, once again moving rice into ARMM, the Autonomous Muslim Region of Mindanao which is the semi-autonomous part of our island...As I said a while ago, the Recession has forced us further afield in our rice trade as we try to even out the expected drop in our traditional market.
Anyway, I rode in a 10 wheeler to move us through all the Check Points much faster. Had I been in my usual place, riding with the security SUVs we could have had major problems once we got halfway through ComVal Province, down on the Targum Plain as we rolled out of the Diwata Mountains.
At that point we would be well past the 1001 IB Base, and ergo past the point of facial recognition. Seeing a white face with an Ilaga rice convoy armed to the teeth could get hairy or at the very least take all day to accomplish.
As we crossed thr Davao City line I disembarked as the convoy stopped for the halfway point urine break, which in Philippine terms also means gads of sticky rice and soft drinks since I have rarely met a Bisaya or Illongo who has a yen for less than 4 full meals a day when they can ibtain them.
It was the perfect place for me to get out since it was about a klick north of the TFD (army Task Force Davao Security Check Point). It is possible to get permits for our gunmen to move woth their weapons through Davao as long as they stay in transit but like all else here to requires alot of wheel greasing, i.e. BRIBES.
So, instead, thw security detail skirts the city lines while the convoy stays on route, meeting up again just shouth of the city line, as do most convoys moving that far south abd these days many do...
I took a jeepney to the Victoria Mall, for a visa renewal (Immigration is just across the street) as well as a much needed mall break.
I was able to buy one of those Tom Clancy tactical biographies, this one about former USMC General Anthony Zinni.
Unbeknownst to me, Zinni had spent quite abit of time in the region, especially when he headed anelement on Okinawa, back in the mid 80s which also happens to coincide with my first times here.
However, he was on Luzon, the largest and best known of the islands and home to Manila. It was also at the time, home to US Installations like Subic, Clarke and a third, much smaller base near Subic whose name slips my mind at the moment.
He talks about having to head upa protective detail in an NPA infested district near Sagada (rebel country at the time, inLuzon), after a transport copter running an AID detail right after a typhoon flipped into a marsh.
They finally managed to tow it out witha 2nf Huey, but the heavier model, and then lost it over the China Sea before reaching the Carrier they were delivering it to!
He says that his element took some jungle craft training from Negrito guides that used to contract with Clark as Guides against the NPA during the Counter-Insurgency Deployments.
"Negrito," as one suspects means "'Little Black" and is the general term used to describe the pygmy like aboriginals who are the eaiest residents of SE Asia.
In Thailand, Mynammar/Burma and Malaysia they are nearly extinct but here they manage against great odds to survive in ever dwindling populations.
Here they are very rare, and are so deep in the bush that not even the guerilla bands come across that many...though I guess witha group living naked in the jungles, and having more than 20,000 years experience in their environments, you would not see too many unless they wanted you to.
I also picked up a few 2008 issues of the "New Yorker," the weekly literary magazine from America.
Lately though, I have been haunted by something that I have been obsessing about since finally finishing the book I rewcently mentioned, "Freedom at Midnight." The book by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre is a non-fiction account of the Independance Era of India and Pakistan, with a heavy dealing with Ghandi.
I could again talk about how fucked up old Mahatma really was but instead I am once again thinking about an actual event that took place in the Punjab right at Partition.
As some here undoubtedly know, Muslims moved from India to Pakistan while both Sikhs and Hindus left Pakistan for India , though India of course retained a very sizable Muslim population even after that point and into the present.
All groups engaged in incredible violence against one another and as is often the case world over, neighbour fought neighbour and here to fore friend making the violence all the more depressing and incredible.
As Indian Muslims moved through Punjab on their way to Pakistan, Sikhs engaged in the worst violence against them. Among this violence were the expected rapes and mutilations.
A poor Sikh farmer in Punjab named Boota Singh was working his small plot, on aday much like the rest of his 50 plus years: Hard at work and all alone since he had never been able to find a wife and family of his own.
Hearing screaming and smelling smoke he looked up from his plow to see a female Muslim teen being pursued by a torch wielding Sikh who was thrusting his traditional dagger at her in pursuit.
Singh stared in shock as the screaming girl begged the old man to help save her life...
The girl cowered behind Singh as her pursuer apprached cagily...
The old man stared at the much younger man and calmly asked him how much would it cost to nuy the girl. The young Sikh was suprised but named an astronomically high sum of 1500 rupees, a fortune even to an urban civil servant, let alone an illiterate Punjabi farmer!
Singh calmly took the girl into his shack,and returned with the cash and with it he bought the girl's life.
All over the region many such purchases were made but unlike almost all, Singh did not ask anything of the girl sexually or otherwise.
She was so grateful to be safe that she began keeping his house, and slowly he warmed to this unexpected intrusion into his life. He began spending his bit of money on little trinkets, a luxury the girl had never dreamed of experiencing...
Soon they actually fell in love, and with this thrilling realisation they had a Sikh wedding. Afterwards they settled into married life with a previously unknown bliss, a few years later having a daughter!
I will tell the rest in my next entry due to the limited character count allowed per entry...
these were a few years back now, i was very thin)
). This space will be modeled after the Leary/Alpert mansion in NY... Another opportunity for impermanent spiritual and intellectual growth!
