The Bangus Ultimatum

Scientist James Lovelock believes we’ve gone past the point of no return in� global warming,� and that civilization is basically well and truly fucked. All efforts in reducing emissions are puny and too late. “Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic, where the� climate remains tolerable.” Hey, who wants to go to the North Pole with me?

Plus,� they finally realized that metal deposits will not last forever. What a concept, huh?� According to this genius study, “if all nations were to use the same services enjoyed in developed nations, even the full extraction of metals from the Earth’s crust and extensive recycling programs may not meet future demand…”

Time to get in touch with my hippie friends and tell them the bad news…

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I guess we bloggers are allowed to celebrate our little victories. Even when they do get reversed. Sort of.

So they google-bombed Arroyo. Someday, when a friggin’ psycho looks for “sinungaling”, the Office of the President’s website will appear. Maybe we’ll have a regime change. Maybe we’ll get rid of Presidentialism forevermore and none of this will really matter. But hey, we google-bombed Arroyo, man! Whoop-tee-doo!

Somehow, this doesn’t feel as right as changing the google zeitgeist for “pinay”. Overall, that’s a positive effort/karma ratio. (Perhaps because all we wanted to change was mere perception. Perhaps because none of it involved grave violations of the Constitution.) Sorry, Young Radicals, but that just doesn’t work for me.

It reminds me of what Dr. Joshua Ellis had to say about our increasingly bifurcated civilization:

Meanwhile, most of the people with any genuine opportunity or ability to effect global change are too busy patting each other on the back at conventions and blue-skying goofy social networking tools that are essentially useless to 95% of the world’s population, who live within fifteen feet of everyone they’ve ever known and have no need to track their fuck buddies with GPS systems. (This, by the way, includes most Americans, quite honestly.)

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The upshot of all of this is that the Future gets divided; the cute, insulated future that Joi Ito and Cory Doctorow and you and I inhabit, and the grim meathook future that most of the world is facing, in which they watch their squats and under-developed fields get turned into a giant game of Counterstrike between crazy faith-ridden jihadist motherfuckers and crazy faith-ridden American redneck motherfuckers, each doing their best to turn the entire world into one type of fascist nightmare or another.

I believe that blogging can play a role in real social change. To do that, however, we have to be brave enough to step outside our candy-colored, plasticine pods, and realize what is truly at stake out there.

Okay. So during the last semester my blockmates and I had sort of an inside joke. It started out with a question on a yahoogroup (relating to, um…self-help), which people answered in a legally-sounding fashion. Then that was followed with a couple of relationship-related call-for-helps in the logbook that we answered as if they were requests for legal advice. From all that emerged Ask Scaebolah!, a column in the Law Student Government Bulletin that promises to give Legal Solutions to Life’s Real Problems.

I’m proud of how it turned out. The response was way beyond my anticipation. Right now I’m way behind answering questions and requests for advice. I’m also conveniently cut off from the Law Library and its collection of legal curiosities (including a collection from Mucius Quintus Scaevola himself/themselves). So maybe all I could do during the sembreak is to respond with mini-replies to the easier questions. Watch out for them soon.

Other than watching movies I missed last semester, playing games until my eyes drop out (not really, as no game as of late’s managed to break through my been-there-done-that-ness), and sleeping in the afternoon (just because I can), the agenda for the semestral break:

* Do some planning/conspiring over Creative Commons Philippines
* Regular Blogging for iBlog II
* Open Source/Open Standards Thingie (best I don’t reveal anything too much about it yet)
* Write a couple of Ask Scaebolah columns
* Prepare for my classes in MassComm (I’m teaching next semester! I pity the fools who’ll be under my tutelage)

First thing to do after the blogging break is clear all the bookmarks I’ve clipped in my Bloglines account. Think of it as a clearance sale for links. Everything must go to the sideblog.

Back from the mission. Back from the finals. Back from a meeting for a future job (more details later). Got a lot of blogging to do, just in case the 4 or 5 people who read my blog are still around. I wonder what the proper protocol is, for reintroducing your blog after a significant absence. I’m an on and off blogger. Everytime a crunch (work, school, or life) arrives, blogging is usually the first thing to go.

Please let the world know I’m back.

I don’t know. I don’t think I’m going to watch the latest Star Wars premiere after all. (Image from PVP)