Do you think Filipinos will survive in an increasingly high-tech and competitive world?

This question was posted on  "Ask a Filipino" - a great Blog idea as it opens up a great way of understanding by offering us (Western White Mayonnaise guys) a way to get first hand infos right away - just be a simple step: Asking! - and by the way, this guy's a funny one. Read his answer: 

(only part excerpt, read the full Blog here, where you'll get the email to post all your questions). I have chosen this post as it tells us something about the West, seen from the outside - concerning our fertility:

The Filipino answers: ...if there’s one thing I am absolutely sure, it’s that Filipinos WILL survive. In fact, not only will Filipinos survive, we are on track to conquer the world!  Hah!

Yup, you heard that right! But don’t take my word for it – take instead the word of the former Secretary of Finance, Roberto de Ocampo, who, thanks to a reader who alerted me about it, has recently written about how Filipinos are really “The Chosen People. "

Consider that, according to some researchers, “in order for a culture to maintain itself for more than 25 years, there must be a fertility rate of 2.11 children per family. With anything less, the culture will decline. Historically, no culture has ever reversed a 1.9 fertility rate.”

The 2011 fertility rate estimate for Spain is 1.47, Italy 1.39, UK 1.91, France 1.96 and Germany 1.41, to name a select few. The average fertility rate of all Western Europe is about 1.5. In short, these nations are either on are perilously close to what population experts call an irreversible demographic decline. To put it more starkly, for example, by 2020 (or just nine years from now) more than half of all births in a country like, say, the Netherlands (1.66 fertility rate) will be of non-European Dutch origin. Furthermore, with the birth rate dropping below replacement, the population of such countries ages and the problems facing an aging population are numerous and startling enough to deserve a separate treatise.

Western Europe is not the only one experiencing this phenomenon. The US fertility rate is, at 2.0, just below replacement and Japan is at a worrisome level of 1.2. For Japan, this means a population decline of about 60 million in the next 30 years and an aging population that will have one out of every five Japanese at least 70 years old by 2020.

However, with the exception of Japan, the overall populations of the above-mentioned countries are not declining. The overwhelming reason for that is immigration (to which Japan is by comparison with others, still somewhat resistant). Guess who comprise one of the larger immigrant populations. Yes, dear—Filipinos!

De Ocampo concludes: 

Now we have begun to creep into the world’s bloodlines. The 2010 World Series winning pitcher Tim Lincecum, 2011 best supporting actress Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld, head coach Erik Spoelstra of the Miami Heat, and R&B star Bruno Mars are all Fil-Ams. It may only be a matter of time before nearly every race on earth has some Filipino blood.

In other words, if you think all these advanced countries are going to go high-tech, Filipinos will at least be tagging along for the ride!

***************

"The Filipino" (aka "The Pinoy")

 was born and raised in the Philippines but, like millions before him, decided to migrate to the United States for personal reasons and after much soul-searching way too complicated and too melodramatic to detail here.  He studied economics and finance; fell in love with history, philosophy and literature; and then read law (which he enjoyed immensely).  

But why is The Filipino blogging anonymously?

Because he's also a lawyer like the more experienced "Ask blogger" known as The Korean, he too found it prudent for his firm and his clients' sake to keep his identity a secret (this way, it actually saves his family and close friends from any unwanted embarrassment as well).  Besides, he thinks writing a blog where the topics are the focus of the blogposts and not the person behind the articles makes a lot of sense.  ...(read more here)

"Bring back our girls": GiveFirstLadiesSomethingToDo

First Ladies caught in the act

When exactly did #BringBackOur Girls jump the shark and become less about 200+ kidnapped girls and the lack of regard their government has for their safety, but more about every B-lister, politician (and his wife) attempting to use the girls’ disappeared bodies in order to make themselves more visible?
It’s like the Third Wives and Undercover Lovers Club, looking for something important to #GiveThemBackTheirDignity. Before this, France’s First Ladies never paid mind to any African anything, never mind the plight of young women caught in the middle of a failing state’s power struggles. Such subjects were just too unchic. But now, with a hashtag promising to push them into the spotlight, how could Trierweiler, Gayet, and Bruni not take advantage? Trierweiler seems to be using the opportunity to put herself back in the First Lady seat, after months of embarrassing press about Hollande having an affair with Gayet.

This strategy—wherein a somber-looking first lady holds up a sign with an appeal in the form of an imperious demand—doesn’t always work. Although Michelle Obama received enormous accolades for posting a pic of herself wearing a flowery dress and a stern expression while holding a placard with a hashtag, it’s been hacked by many who called her on her bullshit and hypocrisy: some people replaced the text with #BringBackOurDrones, “Nothing will bring back the children murdered by my husband’s drones” and “Your husband has killed more Muslim girls than Boko Haram ever could” (as has Bush, Jr., to be fair). There’s even an image of Mala Yousefazi holding a placard saying “If I’d been injured by Obama’s #dronestrikes, you would not know my name.”

But so far, the tried-and-true strategy is working for the French first ladies, whose husbands haven’t sent any drones to kill brown people yet.

But pay closer attention to the video above–watch it again if you can–for exposing some of the contradictions at the heart of #BringBackOurGirls.

In the brief footage, we see Trierweiler being interviewed at the Paris protests, intended to draw attention to the issue. The entourage of white French women monopolise the photo-op. We hear Trierweiller saying the obvious to a reporter: blah blah rehearsed statement. Then, we hear an interruption: it is a black woman in a headscarf (with a small Congolese flag), shouting over Trierweiler’s inane comments, wanting to be included, to be heard.

The journos interviewing Trierweiler briefly focus on this interloper: maybe she, too, is saying the obvious, but she is passionate, powerful, and is obviously able to speak to the issue with authority. The camera focuses on that woman briefly. But Trierweiler won’t have it. She turns her head, looks. Another woman (not a white woman, BTW, but someone of either South Asian or Arab background) in the group who is facing the cameras smiles—not in friendly recognition of the shouting woman, but in condescension. Watch and you’ll recognize that “GOD! Look at them. Again with their loud ways” look. Then French film/TV director and producer Lisa Azuelos dismisses the black speaker with a simple “Eh, voila” (So, there you have it…). Eventually, Trierweiler is forced to give the woman a brief audience.

Finally, a bunch of white French women are lined up with the cliché posters (clearly made for them, not of their own making) to be photographed. A group of black women gather together separately; the video camera just pans across them while a tall photographer stands in front of them, blocking our view of them. Clearly, this women in this group were not intended for the photo-op; they are not the intended voice of France, no matter how hard they shout over First Ladies.

What happened? Rafia Zakaria, in “#BringBackOurGirls and the Pitfalls of Schoolgirl Feminism” explains that local stories are most often “transferred to a global context only when they fit the stereotypes of a majority”. I guess this is a lesson to us, Africa. If your movement is about something that is deeply compelling, has a good strategy for reaching folks, and has a well-defined, reachable goal, it will become appropriated and rendered meaningless by part-time feminists and fame-heaux who will use it to…well, heaux themselves. All before you can hashtag a new slogan.

Neelika Jayawardane

Sharp-tongued literature professor from Sri Lanka and Zambia, currently assistant professor at SUNY-Oswego University, State NewYork, U.S., where she teaches immigrant and Diasporic literature, contemporary African literature, and theory and criticism related to postcolonial and transnational subjectivity. Twitter: @sugarintheplum

is currently a senior editor at this fantastic blog AFRICA is a country, even the title shows the satirical approach.

Find her whole Blogpost here: 

Using #BringBackOurGirls to #GiveFirstLadiesSomethingToDo 

Jokes about white people - reverse racism?

Only mirrors and comediens will tell you the truth. And it is true that there is clearly only one thing with one name: racism. Any classification like white or black racism or reverse racism is just nothing else than again one thing: racism, no?

No comment

No comment!

The difference between Western World and China

Dear friends don’t surprised when Chinese killed some Chinese. don’t get shocked when Chinese killed animals.
Personally i’m not surprised! because they have largest populations in the whole world and communist China used to be a poor country and poor country public has no option to educate themselves because corrupted communist government never give them opportunity to become peaceful.
Look at the western world also, they  have freedom but they are also killing animals, they  eat animals, they are creating war, they sell weapons,  they are also buying and demand product from China for the business purpose.
So, only difference is,  western world knows how to do everything in a professional way and  do everything “show not tell” and Chinese people they don’t care what people said, they just love to  do to sell their product to the world, thats it.

Bottom line: innocent ordinary people are suffering!

Author: Dorjee Tsering is one of only a handful of true Tibetan artists in exile. He is better known by the name, LHAKSAM. He is a filmmaker, cinematographer, editor, sports teacher, actor, activist, social worker, composer and Tibetan singer. 

Lhkasam's blog,
Lhkasam's Film "Flames of Bodhichitta - Trailer"

Sanctions won't work for Crimean Crisis

Special for my friends in the West.

As you know, US, Canada, and EU are sanctioning a list of Russian oligarchs and politicians (who are as rich as oligarchs, actually) and their companies for making Crimean case possible and for being suspected of destabilizing the situation in East Ukraine.

Guys, your governments should find another way to deal with Russian politicians. These sanctions won’t work for good at all, and I am going to try to explain you why.

Say, you sanction a democratic country. Its citizens feel worse due to economic problems, mass-media (which are free to express any opinions) blame their politicians for having incurred the sanctions, and the citizens simply do not re-elect the current politicians for the next term, or even force them to give in their resignation. Thus, you force the country to change its policy. In Russia it doesn’t work that way. Russia is rather authocratic than democratic. Here most powerful mass-media are controlled by the state, which is why there is no one here to explain frankly why things have gone worse. The government will lie to the people that «Evil West» wants Russia to be weak and to fall apart to get our oil and gas (they’ve been doing this for the whole winter and spring and even before), so the people won’t blame neither the president nor the government - they will blame you. On the contrary, they will consider the authorities as the last line of defence of «Mother Russia» against «Evil West». In a situation in which a leader’s popularity would decrease in a democratic country, here Putin’s support is growing. The worse for the country - the better for him. Compare this to other authocratic and totalitarian countries, like Iran and North Korea: the West has been strangling them for decades - no result. Of course, Russia has had a lot more freedom than the countries I just mentioned through the last 25 years. But, you know, during the last two years we’ve had so many dystopian changes in our legislation that I am not even sure if I’ll still have access to Facebook this summer. You ask why we didn’t protest? Well, we are not really allowed to. Those who tried have been sentenced to years in jail. And even when we are allowed, there is no powerful mass media to tell the people the truth about what was the point of the protest. I mean, there is no chance we’ll have any other authorities than Putin’s soon, so you guys will have to treat our assholes like equals, they won’t accept any other treatment.

Last day a number of IT companies, such as Microsoft and HP, stated that they will have to to break off their deals with those Russian banks which are being sanctioned by the US. What will the result be? These companies have spent over two decades to teach Russian companies that licensed software should be used instead of pirated. Now they are just not going to license their products. Will that make any sense? Of course not. Russians have a huge experience of pirating software - they’ll simply return back to 10-20 years ago, on one hand, and, on the other hand, our parliament will never set this aside. After Visa and MasterCard had postponed their services for these banks for just a few days, our parliament issued a law which makes Visa’s business in Russia a dead loss, like it was Visa’s fault and Visa should be punished. It is obvious that American IT companies are to face something similar very soon. It means damages, it means haemorrhage of jobs (our parliament won’t give a shit about any local jobs in western companies representative offices that are sanctioning Russian companies, regardless of the fact that the employees are well-educated and eminently qualified Russians - they don’t actually care about educated and qualified since their electoral base consists of lumpen-proletarians, retirees and all kinds of workers on a government, otherwise these creatures would never be elected).

Sanctioning Putin’s circle and even himself is throwing Brer Rabbit into the briar patch. Recently, a group of Republican senators, led by Bob Corker, demanded an expansion of sanctions to a stronger effect on Russian economy. Again - wrong way. The worse for the population - the better for Putin. That’s a strange paradox, but the wealthier the citizens are, the more political freedom they demand, the lower Putin’s rating of popularity is. The poor do not protest against Putin, since they depend upon him. The rich do not protest against Putin, since he is powerful enough to rob them of their property. The middle class is the power which may once demand changes in Russia - and that’s why Russian parliament is issuing variuos laws which bring back censorship, limitations of internet, restrictions of public protests, etc., cutting middle class off information.

I don’t have any suggestions yet. But I am sure that sanctions are not the solution. Sanctions might work against Western governments, but they’ll never work the same here. Your countries will just loose money and time.

by Vladislav Pasternak, Russian filmproducer & blogger Vladislav on Facebook)