Gov Rick Perry is Strong

Governor Rick Perry (or as RoseMary calls him, Governor Goodhair) is flailing in the polls. With the Iowa Republican caucus fast approaching, he passes this Hail Mary to his would-be Iowan supporters:

In his latest campaign video, weirdly entitled STRONG:



Looks like the video will not appear in a frame. Try HERE

Transcript

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.
As President, I'll end Obama's war on religion. And I'll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage.
Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again.
I'm Rick Perry and I approve this message.

Rick Perry, I don’t care if you are a Christian. I don’t care what your religious beliefs are. I know you want me to be at war with you, but I am not. How many times must we go through this? How many times must we point out to sneaky politicians that children can pray in school. Children can openly celebrate Christmas. Obama is not at war with religion. Since 1962, when the US Supreme Court banned school-sponsored prayer, children in United States public schools can privately pray during non-instructional time at school. They can pray during recess. They can pray during lunch. They can pray with groups of friends. They can hold hands around the flagpole during non-instructional time and pray openly and loudly. They can organize extra-curricular groups in which they can pray and read or study the Bible. Private prayer that is engaged in by Public School students, is not only allowed, not only legal, but is protected by our Constitution! These freedoms are not restricted to our nation’s most dominant religion – children may pray to any deity or deities of their choosing. Gov Perry, in contrast to the war you imagine is being waged against you, these laws protect your religious freedoms. They ensure that your children are not subjected to school-sponsored prayer that is not of your particular religious belief or tradition. Gov Perry, you know this.

Since when can children not openly celebrate Christmas? What in the world is Gov Perry talking about? And just how is Obama at war with religion? According to the Charlston City Paper, Obama’s war on religion comes in the form of supporting the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and cutting funds from Catholic charities because “of their stance against abortion”. Perry’s amazing ability to read minds and discern hidden intentions was not discussed.

I should not have to type this. Rick Perry knows he is deceitful. He knows children can pray in school. He knows they can celebrate Christimas. He has been govornor of the state of Texas for over 10 years, and he cannot possibly be that ignorant of the basic laws and freedoms of this country. But his campaign commercials are devoid of content. Instead, they are more of what I wrote about in my last article – emotional buzzwords and phrases. Phrases that enter the public conscience that are vague in their meaning, yet are powerful in their emotional pull: Christian Nation, War on Drugs, Judeo-Christian Values, and School Prayer. Slick politicians like Governor Goodhair know very well what these things mean, yet they decieve their electorate with misleading emotional catch phrases!

Do these politicians want their voting public to remain ignorant? I hate to be so cynical, but if they know they are deceitful in saying things like “Our children are not allowed to pray in school”, and instead do not take the time to explain themselves, it seems to me that they are relying on the public to be ignorant. They have to be ignorant in order believe what Gov Perry is saying. Gov Perry’s statement is so blatantly false to anybody that cares to do any fact-checking, that he has to rely on the base ignorance of his supporters. This makes Gov Perry, not only a liar, but demeaning to his faithful supporters – all in the name of votes.

Why am I discussing this? This is an obvious, plain, and simple observation. I don’t feel like typing articles like this, because they are just too easy. It requires next to no thought and it seems to me that everybody should already know this! Yet we hear constantly bogus pleas to emotion from these characters and people are suckered by them again and again and again and again and . . . . .

Simbang Gabi

Having never traveled to the Philippines, and knowing how shocked RoseMary’s mother was upon learning of my non-religious beliefs, I needed to confirm with RoseMary what topics for conversation were off limits. After all, in some parts of the world, if you bring up the wrong topic for discussion, or give the wrong opinion, you may get yourself shipped home in a crate. I knew Philippines, despite their recent history of Martial Law under Ferdinand Marcos, was not that repressive, yet, I did not want to inadvertently and needlessly offend anybody. When traveling overseas, one needs to be mindful of local customs, mores and taboos.

“Of course, you may talk about anything. Nobody minds. Just pay proper respect to those older than you,” RoseMary reassured me.

“Your family discusses politics openly?” I asked with embarrassing ignorance.

“Yes, my family talks local politics all the time,” said RoseMary. Then came the warning from my wife, who knows me all too well: “But NO RELIGION”.

So with that warning from my wife, I promised to be respectful to her family’s religious beliefs. Of course, I was planning on being respectful without the warning, but I figured it was just best not to question, discuss or challenge any religious belief with any person at any time. RoseMary’s mother knew I was not Catholic, and I remember telling her once a few years ago that I doubted there was a god, but that frightful memory may have been repressed in the dark and forgotten corners of her mind.

I figured I had to look at it in this way: I was an outsider visiting an alien culture. I got the impression that the Philippine culture and beliefs were considered exclusive to the Philippine people and not necessarily for anybody else. RoseMary’s mother described her religious beliefs in a peculiar way. I am used to hearing the Gospel as a Universal Truth, applicable to all, and to be ignored by nobody. Instead of that, mother prefaced her beliefs with, “It is our belief that…”, or “it is our custom to…”, and never imposed such beliefs or customs on me or anybody else. Or, as mother once told me when discussing good luck charms for the Chinese New Year, “Those beliefs only work for the Chinese”. Much like Jews who practice certain dietary customs and other religious laws, they practice their own traditions, yet don’t seem to care what anybody else does. I guess some beliefs work for some people, other beliefs work for other people. Some traditions are for us, others are for them. In a way, I found it very refreshing. It seemed a very tribal mentality, and I suppose was her way of saying, “We have our beliefs, our customs and our ways of doing things. You have yours. We invite you as a guest to experience our beliefs and customs while you are staying with us.” At least I think that is what she meant. I am not entirely sure, however, since I was warned not to discuss religion with her family. I listened to what they said, nodded my head, and kept my trouble-making trap shut.

So with that in mind, I promised RoseMary that I was not visiting Philippines to make a statement. I was there to get to know her family, her people and the culture. I decided to attend Catholic Mass every time her family went (little did I know what I was getting myself into). RoseMary told me if I felt uncomfortable I could sit outside, but I figured that would draw too much attention to myself, which I promised I would not do. I would sit in the pew with the rest of the family, and perform the various rituals of the Mass except for partaking of the elements. I told RoseMary that I could not do that without feeling hypocritical. Since everyone in the church supposedly hates hypocrites, I would not eat the bread and drink the wine, but would do most everything else. Oh, and I would not stick my finger into the Holy Water.

I quickly learned that one should never promise to attend Catholic Mass with a devoutly Catholic family during the Christmas season, without knowing how many masses are actually on the schedule of events. Philippines has a tradition called Simbang Gabi. In the Tagalog language, Simbahan is translated Church and Gabi is Evening, but Simbang Gabi has come to mean Dawn Mass. The devout attend Mass every morning for the nine days before Christmas. Mass began at 4AM, and if you know anything about traffic in Manila (another article needs to be devoted to this subject – shoving a camel through the eye of a needle is nothing compared to trying to drive down a choked Manila highway), that meant we were out of bed by 2:30 or 3:00.

The reward for faithfully completing the nine-day Simbang Gabi cycle? In the words of RoseMary’s brother, “If you make a wish, it will come true”.

RoseMary’s younger sister said something to me along similar lines. Wishes will be granted, if only you can complete all nine days of Simbang Gabi.

I love RoseMary’s family, and in a way, it is painful for me to type these things about the way that they think. I do love them. RoseMary’s brother is mature, educated, and intelligent. Yet, somehow, he is sincerely making a claim that sounds to me more like something that should come from an 8-year-old boy who is showing me a tooth that he is ready to hide under the pillow.

This left me a bit… unnerved.

This brings up another topic that I found most fascinating, and something I will be thinking about and devoting at least one blog article to: never before had I found the lines between religion, superstition and magic blurred like I found in Philippines. Metro-Manila is a developing city, young, urban, worldly, sophisticated and cosmopolitan. RoseMary told me the older people are far more superstitious and that the superstitions are far worse in the provinces. I found this to be good news, and perhaps she is right, but I made a few observations that countered that claim. I suppose she spoke general truth which contained a few exceptions.

I completed all nine days of Simbang Gabi. I also attended, if memory serves, an additional five masses besides the Simbang Gabi. My counting may be off a bit, because the Masses tended to blend together into one massive, half-coherent memory. I did as I promised. I sat with the family. I was respectful. I did not call attention to myself. I am almost certain that I paid far more attention to the readings and homilies than most of the Faithful in attendance (I know – because I kept notes). True, I left the building during one Mass so I could video-tape the crowds outside the building and the taho vendor selling his sweet breakfast treats to hungry children.

I am glad I did – it was certainly very interesting. So what were the homilies like? How was the distinction between religion, superstition and magic blurred? Stay tuned ….

My Tropical Christmas - The Big Picture

How did you spend the Christmas Holidays?

I spent mine on the other side of the planet.

Paranaque City. Metro Manila. Philippines.

I live in El Paso, Texas, USA. Everything about Manila is different. Everything. Literally EVERYTHING.

Completely different. My one month Christmas Holiday was total cultural emersion.

Did I say everything was different? Well, there is one exception. Both Manila and El Paso are predominantly of the Catholic Faith. I take that back. El Paso is Catholic. Manila is ... how do I say this diplomatically... Manila is over the top.

More on that later. But for now let me just reiterate:

Everything is different.

THE OVERVIEW

RoseMary and I spent the last month with her family in Metro Manila. Although we have been married over five years, this was the first time I visited her homeland. I had met her mother and siblings before, but I was able to meet her father, various aunts, uncles, cousins and old friends.

They are all lovely people, and I love each and every one of them.

I was not raised by the most festive family in the world, and this particular part of Texas is very reserved on Holidays. One of the most violent cities in the world is right across the border from El Paso, and mere minutes from my house – and I have a hunch that fact tends to keep everybody indoors at night. I am sad to say that our downtown area, which should be alive with parties on festive holidays, is not much more than a glorified flea market, and the only lights on the empty city streets come from Crazy Eddie’s 24 Hour Bail Bonds. Manila, by contrast, keeps the celebrations, traditions and festivities of Christmas alive, in their own tropical way. I could never really get used to hearing Bing Crosby singing White Christmas from a blaring church loudspeaker in the middle of the Tropics. I once asked RoseMary’s mother if she thought it felt strange with European traditions like a giant bearded man from the Arctic wearing a red overcoat and sneaking down chimneys, which, by the way, do not exist in the Tropics.

“No. It is a tradition.”

Tradition. More on that later.

Then there was the New Year. Since there are no fireworks regulations in Manila, at least none that anybody seemed to pay attention to, the whole area sounds like a war zone on New Year Eve. Of course, there are the conventional fireworks that everyone sets off in the streets, but some people simply resort to stuffing 3-inch PVC pipes with explosive material just to see who can make the most noise. Of course the next day’s news reporters are waiting at the area hospitals to be the first to report children with burned and missing hands and arms, and local traffic must dodge the newly created impact craters.

I am not used to such festivities. By and large – I loved it. Except for…. Well… more on that later.

And the food. THE FOOD. The Tropics of the Philippines meant one major thing to me – overwhelming fecundity and abundance. I never imagined the varieties of fish and fruit which exists, overflowing on nearly every storefront, every market stall, literally every street corner.



While in Philippines, I ate like royalty. Nearly everything I ate, I am certain, would be considered peasant food consisting as it did of simple rice, fish and other staple dishes. Yet, I was amazed and the ingenuity of these people, who could turn even the most mundane tropical food into a meal of savory creativity.

I will miss the morning cry of vendors, strolling the streets with buckets of fresh fish for sale. “ISDA! ISDA! ISDA!” Food – fresh, delicious, inexpensive food was everywhere.

Regarding tropical foods, RoseMary’s mother is a masterful chef, and she made sure that I ate a variety of native foods. Here is a partial list:

FRUITS
Pinya
Papaya
Guayabano
Lanzones
Langka
Pomelo
Santol
Buko
Saging na saba
Duhat
Bayabas
Melon
Mango
Tsiko
Saging na saba
Senyorita na saging
Lakatan

OTHER FOOD
Langonisa
Chorizo Bilbao
Ox tripe
Grilled tuna belly
Pork sisig
Black gulaman
Razon’s halo-halo
Chow King’s halo-halo
Bopis
Liempo
Keso de bola
Pinakbet
Buchi
Ginataang kubol
Bulalo
Pansit bihon
Halabos na hipon
Alimasag
Grilled tilapia
Talakifok
Sinigang
Bangus
Maya-maya
Barbecyu na baboy
Torino
Ukoy
Siopao
Taho
Ensaymada
Bibingka
Lechon sisig
Bungus relyeno
Papaitan
Puto
Kutsinta
Sumian
Piyaya
Sitsaron
Philippine peanut brittle
Ubeng halayo
Banana fritters
Pandasal
Otap
Fried talapia
Lechon paksiw
Sinigang na hopon
Sinigang na baboy
Tawilis
Kare-kare
Tocino
Paella
Sinigang na lapu-lapu
And last but not least, food from the two most popular Philippine fastfood joints,
Yello Cab Pizza and Jollibee fried chicken and speghetti!!

Phew. I think I even remember how to cook some of this stuff. I paid particular attention to how RoseMary’s mother made the bangus relyeno, and I will try to make it on my own once I get up enough nerve.

I spent 3 ½ weeks in metro Manila, and did my best to keep my eyes and ears open, ask questions, and just observe and learn. Do you know how certain events in your life are so profound that they make you view life with a new perspective, and potentially change your life to some small extent? This trip did that to me. It may have changed my life. Time will tell.

I have many more stories to tell. Some are wonderful. Some are not. I loved many things about Philippines. Some things drove me crazy. I learned many things about the world, about people and about myself in the process. I will share some of my adventures and my lessons here in the days and weeks ahead.