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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2016
Adelle Chua, Editor / Joyce Pangco Pañares, Issue Editor
Opinion
mst.daydesk@gmail.com
EDITORIAL
‘Better man tomorrow’
“I
SAID it, I was wrong and I apologize....I have said and done things I regret. These words don’t reflect who I am.”
So said the Republican nominee for the United States presidential contest, billionaire Donald Trump, referring to a video released by the Washington Post that showed him making lewd and disparaging comments about women more than 10 years ago. In 2005, Trump was on his way to make a cameo appearance at a “Days of our Lives” episode when he happily talked to
a reporter about groping women. “When you’re a star, they let you do it...you can do anything.” The release of the video has prompted condemnations not just from Trump’s rival Hillary Clinton and Democrats but also from among the Republicans. House Speaker Paul Ryan said he was sickened by what he had heard. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, said “[Trump] alone bears the burden of his conduct and alone should suffer the consequences.” Trump has been disinvited to a party event, reports say. The release of the video and the billionaire’s apology comes before
the second presidential debate on Sunday night (Monday morning in the Philippines). It would be interesting to know how Trump would defend himself and attempt to answer substantive questions on what he intends to do if he does become president. Hereabouts, we are no longer strangers to officials making inappropriate, lewd and incendiary statements. With President Rodrigo Duterte, each day is a surprise. As a result, his alter egos hasten to explain what he means, or what they think he means, to an aghast public. If the reaction is particularly adverse, the President takes it upon himself to apologize, after which he is hailed for
being humble enough to admit his mistakes. But the people do not need their leader apologizing all the time. Once or twice may show humility, but a habitual taking back of one’s inflammatory language signals a lack of deliberation by someone who should consider every word that comes out of his mouth. Everything we utter in our unguarded moments approximate our true beliefs and the actual state of our minds. It is tempting to imagine a cozy, colorful conversation between our President and Trump, assuming he wins. Then again, we push the thought out of our minds, because it is just so unsettling. POP GOES THE WORLD JENNY ORTUOSTE
Troya cuts slices of life on the fringes
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Presscon season LONG STORY SHORT ADELLE CHUA IT’S that time of the year again. I refer to the annual Schools Press Conference organized by the Department of Education and participated in by thousands of young campus journalists. Whether or not the children actually pursue careers in journalism is another thing. For now, the students who are writers for their school newspapers and generally among the top performers in their class, gather in one school alongside their counterparts and compete in their respective categories: newswriting, editorial writing, feature writing, editorial cartoon drawing, sportswriting,
copyreading and headline writing, photojournalism. There are other collaborative, tech-based categories that have emerged, as well. The months of September and October are normally for the division-level competitions. This means that students from within the same cities are pitted against each other. Ten winners are chosen from a city, who will then advance to the regional finals. Again, ten will be chosen who will advance to the nationals. This now provides an opportunity for the students to travel; contest venue for the last stage moves from region to region; last year, the final rounds were held in Koronadal, South Cotabato. The “presscon” occasions good memories, personal ones. As a high school campus writer I used to compete in the same contest,
under different categories (feature writing sophomore year, editorial writing junior year, and newswriting senior year) and reaching different levels of success. In my time at the nationals, though, the venue was NCR. Not much travel there—but I got to spend a full week billetted at the spacious Rizal High School in Pasig.
It’s more than a contest.
These days, every year for the past six or seven years I have been fortunate to be a speaker/ judge in some of the contest categories. There are many from
the industry who do the same, perhaps out of a sense of civic duty to act as mentors to the young. I do it whenever I can because I see myself in every student who is eager to learn to write better. The apparent continued links with this event has given rise to some realizations. Foremost, that school paper advisers are silent heroes. These are the ones who spend long hours after school and on weekends to train the student writers. Sometimes, they fork out money from their own pockets during contest dates when funding from the school is slow in coming. They also get all the pressure to deliver. And on days when traffic or the weather is bad, they also end up bringing the students home to their worried parents.
And if the adviser is truly something else, he or she can influence the student to pursue a career in the field— as my own late school paper adviser, Reynaldo Binuya, did. Second, judging is hard. At first glance it appears easy; you’re a professional, anyway, and you are used to deadlines. But think of the implications of your actions: your decisions can make or break a young person’s dreams. One must not take light the duty of judiciously choosing who deserves to move on to the next level—and who needs more practice. I have also observed how competitive some teachers, principals and divisions/regions can be. Certainly there must be some form of incentive for finishing among the best in Turn to next page
UNIVERSITY of Santo Tomas literature professor Joselito “Jowie” delos Reyes proves once more the fecundity of his imagination with the publication of Troya: 12 Kuwento. The book was released close on the heels of his Titser Pangkalawakan and in time for the recent Manila International Book Fair, where Troya sold out on the Saturday of the event. (Stocks were replenished the following day.) Delos Reyes has received many awards for his work—the National Book Award for essay in Filipino for Istatus Nation, 2013 Makata ng Taon of the Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino, and the 2013 National Commission for Culture and the Arts Writers Prize for short story in Filipino for three of the stories in this collection. A condition of the prize was that he had to write nine more stories, bringing the Troya trove to an even dozen. “I almost failed to finish my dissertation because I had to do this first,” he said. “This collection was six years in the making.” Delos Reyes built the stories on the chess theme. “Chess pieces are the motifs of each story,” he said. “Barangay Pinagpala Namin” is a rook, “Derby” is a bishop, and so on. The tales, set in the Camanava (Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela) area, feature common folk as protagonists engaged in daily activities. Another theme that surfaces is gambling. The rook story features “a mystified Lotto outlet,” Delos Reyes says; “Derby” cockfighting, and “Bethany” the card game pusoy. So detailed are the descriptions of the games that the passages referring to these can serve as instruction manuals. Interwoven with the action of the characters are narratives of corruption and abuse of power and authority by petty officials in marginalized communities. The burden these aggressions and oppressions place on the survival efforts of the meek and masa are recounted with verisimilitude: Delos Reyes speaks truth to power. There is a sense of him pounding the streets to get his material, inhaling the pavement dust stirred up by his footsteps as he tarries here to talk to a metallizing technician, there to converse with a conman running a text scam.
Turn to next page
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Opinion
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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2016 mst.daydesk@gmail.com
Clinton is leading, and it isn’t because of a debate By Jonathan Bernstein GENERAL-ELECTION debates rarely cause major changes in voters’ choices. That’s what political scientists believe for the most part. Yet after the first presidential debate on Sept. 26, Hillary Clinton moved back into a strong lead over Donald Trump. Indeed, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecasts, her chances of winning bottomed out on that very day (at 55 percent), and have increased steadily ever since. So was the first debate a true game changer? Probably not. Polls fluctuate all the time in response to events that dominate the news. Sometimes, this is a result of real changes in the race. For example, once candidates clinch the presidential nomination, they typically pick up same-party supporters who backed one of their rivals in the primaries and caucuses. Then around the time of the conventions, the nominees add another wave of supporters: those who don’t pay much attention to politics and who use the events as signals to start tuning in and choosing a candidate. But a lot of changes in the polls are predictably ephemeral. Something in the news that flatters one candidate makes marginal supporters more likely to say they have decided to vote for her or him and more likely to say they will vote, period. It even makes them more likely to answer a survey in the first place. Similarly, bad news about a candidate, if it dominates media reports, will make marginal supporters less likely to admit they have decided, less likely to claim they are certain to vote, and
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton shakes hands with Republican nominee Donald Trump after the first presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York on September 26. AFP
less likely to answer a survey. All of that can be true— producing noticeable changes in polling results—even if nothing has really changed. And then when the good or bad news fades, polling returns to whatever the “normal” might be. So most of what we’re seeing in long-term polling trendlines isn’t that a bunch of people are changing their minds back and forth. The underlying race can be fairly stable even while the polls fluctuate. That’s why analysts call these fluctuations “bounces”— they go up and back down fairly predictably. We don’t really know what “normal” is—the equilibrium we would observe if the current news environment was relatively neutral.
What we can observe, however, is which news stories are getting plenty of play. And we know there was a run of bad news for Hillary Clinton in mid-September, centered on her comment that many Trump supporters were “deplorables” (reported on Sept. 10) and her bout with pneumonia (Sept. 11). Not only did those stories linger, but they also produced a polling dip, which was a third piece of bad news. What happened in late September was the natural ebbing of that cycle, combined with a new round of negative stories about Trump. On the weekend before the first debate, several news articles detailed Trump’s problems with the truth. At the same time, a series of
reports by the Washington Post’s David A. Fahrenthold and others about questionable practices involving Trump’s businesses and “charity” foundation entered the news cycle, replacing talk of Clinton’s health and “deplorables.” Several days after the debate, the New York Times ran an article on Trump’s 1990s tax returns. The almost universal pans of Trump’s debate performance added to that avalanche of bad news. But the lasting story wasn’t the event itself; it was the story Clinton introduced at the debate about how Trump behaved toward a former Miss Universe. This issue remained in the news because Trump decided to fight a feud over it, and Clinton’s team had had an ad on the topic ready to roll out. Those developments were independent of the debate. As I said, we don’t know where the polls would be in a period of relatively neutral news coverage. My guess is that Clinton is leading by something like 4 to 6 percentage points, and has throughout, with most polling surges in both directions shortterm aberrations. But that’s a judgment call; one certainly could argue that the underlying contest is somewhat tighter than this, and that we’ve had more negative cycles about Trump than about Clinton. You could also say that given a candidate with all of Trump’s liabilities, a neutral information environment would feature quite a few negative stories about him, so we need to build that into our expectations. The bottom line: The first debate didn’t create Clinton’s current lead. So don’t expect the debates on Sunday or the one on Oct. 19 to be the reason if it changes. Bloomberg
Math, Matter, and the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics EVERYMAN By Pecier Decierdo THE ancient Pythagoreans, so hypnotized by the power of mathematics to describe the world, formed mystical beliefs about numbers. While other ancient philosophers believed everything was made of water, or fire, or air, the Pythagoreans believed that everything was made of numbers. The ideas of the Pythagoreans greatly influenced Plato. In his latter work, Plato argued that the concepts of mathematics were more real than the world we can detect with our senses. No matter how many times you draw a circle, Plato reasoned, those drawings would be nothing but shadows of Real Circles. Real Circles, Plato said, exist in the “World of Forms”— the Real World. Modern scientists and mathematicians are seldom as mystical in their views, at least in public (and when sober). Still, the success of abstract mathematical ideas in describing the observable world is something that keeps many of them awake in the wee hours of the morning. In the case of David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane, and J. Michael Kosterlitz, this success became theirs. Thouless, Haldane, and Kosterlitz were awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in physics for their use of mathematical concepts to probe how matter can be made to behave in strange ways. Using tools from a field of math called topology, this year’s Nobel Prize winners investigated the behavior of matter at very cold temperatures. What is topology? And what is the relevance of its study
Presscon...
From B1 the country. But teachers and education officials must check themselves every so often – is it truly just about winning and not the journey to become good journalists, per se? They have to be sure they are imparting the right message to the children they train.
to your life? Topology is very closely related to geometry. Both branches of mathematics are concerned with shapes. If you were a mathematician, you would describe topology and geometry as the study of spaces. To a mathematician, a space is a set of points with certain properties. Lines and shapes, which are sets of points, are examples of spaces. There are other kinds of spaces, but for our purposes lines and shapes are good enough. If both are concerned with shapes, what distinguishes geometry from topology? Geometry is more concerned with the local properties of the shape, such as how far apart different points in the shape are. Topology is more concerned with the global properties of the shape. That is, topology tries to answer questions like, “what properties of this shape is shared by others?” One interesting example of a shape would be a sphere. Think of a globe. The points on the surface of a globe can be described by their latitude and longitude. Since you need exactly two numbers to describe the points on a sphere, we say a sphere is a two-dimensional shape (or, if you were a mathematician, a two-dimensional space). If you were studying the geometry of a globe, you would be asking questions like, “What is the shortest path from this point on the globe to that other point?” If you were studying its topology, you would be asking questions like, “What makes a globe similar to a cylinder but different from a donut or a bagel?” The answer to that last question is the number of holes. A globe and a cylinder both have
no holes. A donut has one hole while a bagel has two. Since a coffee cup with a handle has one hole, it shares that property with a donut. In fact, if you had a piece of clay shaped like a donut (what mathematicians call a torus), you can deform it into something that looks more like a coffee cup without messing with the hole in the middle. The number of holes in a shape is an example of a topological property. A topological property is a property of a shape that does not change when you deform it. You can get a different topological property only when you tear apart or glue together different parts of the shape. Imagine you had a piece of clay shaped like a sphere. The piece of clay has zero holes. To turn it into something with one hole, you need to either punch a hole in the middle or join together parts that were originally far from each other. This year’s Nobel Prize winners did not need to deform clay or break a lot of coffee mugs to do their research. Instead, they dealt with shapes in the abstract. Using the tools of topology, they dealt with them as spaces. In other words, the globes, donuts, coffee cups, and bagels they studied were abstract sets of points existing only in the World of Forms. Which is what makes the next step in this story quite surprising. What Thouless, Haldane, and Kosterlitz did was apply the concept of topological properties, which are properties of abstract shapes, to describe how very cold atoms and electrons behave. And the very cold atoms and electrons don’t need to be related to any donuts or coffee cups. For example, if you get a very thin sheet that can
Finally, like any other adolescent experience, participation in the presscon is always a source of happy thoughts. You spend some time away from home and feel a measure of independence. You meet people. You gain friends. There is a bit of courtship. I personally know of a couple who met each other during the contest; they have now been married
for almost two decades and have two lovely children. As for exploring new places, it was during the presscon that I got to try the skating rink at the then-newly opened SM Megamall—but that’s betraying my age. As I wrote a few weeks ago, the youth are sometimes unfairly portrayed as indifferent, entitled and narcissistic. This
conduct electricity and cool it down to almost absolute zero, some of its electrical properties can be mathematically described as topological properties. In other words, they were able to connect questions about the number of holes in abstract shapes to the amount of electricity a collection of actual atoms can conduct. For example, they showed that since the number of holes in a shape come in whole numbers (0 for a sphere, 1 for a donut or coffee mug, 2 for a bagel), certain properties of a material should also come in multiples of whole numbers. They also showed how these properties could change in a way that reflects changes in the number of holes in abstract shapes. What’s it all for? First, the odd behavior of semiconductors was initially just a curiosity. Today, we use those properties to make computers. Who knows what engineers might cook up using the strange properties of matter Thouless, Haldane, and Kosterlitz have studied? Some of them are already thinking about applications like quantum computers. The quantum leap such applications can result in are likely beyond our imagination. Second, they remind us how important the study of abstract, seemingly esoteric mathematics is. They remind us that the imagination of mathematicians, who are, after all, humans, is just as important in studying the world as our senses and all the telescopes and microscopes we use to improve on these senses.
Plato and the Pythagoreans will be pleased with the choice of this year’s winners. Pecier Decierdo is a science communicator for The Mind Museum.
contest is proof that the generalization is wrong. Young people can be socially aware and articulate. Their training and experience in campus journalism will ensure they will pursue integrity, excellence and diligence—whatever path they do decide to take later on in their lives. adellechua@gmail.com
EVERYMAN Duterte’s foreign policy shift seen as ‘taradiddle’ by analysts By Honor Blanco Cabie
yet to officially communicate Duterte’s decision. What has IMMEDIATELY after President been clear is what US Deparment Rodrigo Duterte ended his sen- of State spokesperson John Kirby tence that he would soon end said Washington remains hopejoint military exercises with the ful in moving its ties with Manila United States, Washington said, forward and that the latter will like some thunderclap chasing a remain “committed to meeting” lightning bolt, that Philippine-US significant security obligations. relations are “ironclad.” Then in a speech early this In San Diego, California, Pen- month in Bacolod City, Duterte tagon chief Ashton Carter said continued his attack on the UnitWashington’s alliance with Ma- ed States by threatening to junk nila, its closest ally in Southeast the country’s Enhanced Defense Asia, remained unwavering Cooperation Agreement (Edca) despite Duterte’s statement to with the US, a pact that allows make matters up with China. American forces to conduct acOn Sept. 28, the 71-year-old tivities on agreed locations inDuterte said he would soon end side Philippine military bases. joint military exercises with the But while the President’s key United States, in what political men try to explain the former’s observers call a symbolic blow statements, the Communist to a military alliance dating back Party of the Philippines, which more than 60 years. resumes peace talks with the He made the statement before Philippine government in Oslo, several Vietnam-based Filipinos Norway in the second week of in Hanoi, in his usual circuitous October, has hailed Duterte’s style, at the start of a two-day of- statements. ficial visit. It said as the Duterte adminisDuterte said: “I will serve no- tration tries to promote “an indetice to [the Americans] now, that pendent foreign policy, such war this [military war games in Octo- maneuver exercises by US troops ber] will be the last military ex- are completely anachronistic ercise, jointly Philippine-US, the and should be put to a permalast one.” nent end.” Senior presidential aides had But while the CPP was getting been blowing a fuse downplay- its statement printed by local ing the President’s appearingly and foreign media, the Chinese tough stance. ambassador to the Philippines But he repeated the statement said a stronger military cooperaon his return to Davao City, add- tion between Manila and Beijing ing the previous joint exercises was in the wind. Interestingly, did not result in technology some political observers have transfer from the US military. noted the soft-pedalled reaction Foreign Secretary Perfecto Ya- of the CPP to the Chinese ambassay and National Security Adviser sador’s statement. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. separateZhao had said the Chinese and ly dashed, resembling the speed Philippine militaries “need to talk of Lydia de Vega in her prime, to to each other to enhance trust clarify the President’s remarks. and mutual confidence to avoid Yasay, who returned recent- incidents of misunderstanding...” ly from the United Nations in That followed Duterte’s anNew York, told reporters cover- nounced plans to buy arms from ing Duterte’s working visit the China and Russia, which would President “did not say that at all,” allow Moscow and Beijing to have stressing “You have to under- a toehold in the Philippine arms stand the President’s statements market, in which 75 percent of in the context of what he was weapons come from Washington. saying.” The line of Duterte, scheduled What Yasay pushed forward was to visit China in the third week of that Duterte’s statements were de- October, is that Moscow and Beilivered in a specific context. jing have agreed to 25-year soft That context, according to loans that would allow Manila him, was the President’s earlier to purchase weapons. But some declaration there would no lon- diplomatic and political analysts ger be joint military patrols at say Duterte does not have to the West Philippine Sea to avoid veer away from its weathered provoking other claimants to the ally or use expletive-laden clapdisputed waters. trap lines. A context, according to political Since the Philippines took the and diplomatic observers, despite One-China Policy—establishing the decision of the United Na- formal links with Beijing and droptions Arbitral Tribunal, after several ping ties with Taipei in 1975— months of hearings and submis- there have been several bilateral sion of documents, that the Phil- exchanges in the different fields. ippines has exclusive sovereign Ditto with Russia, with which rights over the West Philippine the Philippines forged diplomatSea (in the South China Sea) and ic bonds in 1976, without, some that the “nine-dash line” of China, analysts are saying, Duterte havwhich was absent throughout the ing to antagonize its major ally proceedings and refused to recog- the United States. nize the case, is invalid. Former Senator Francisco TaAt a news conference in Ma- tad himself has asked what ananila, Yasay went to great lengths lysts consider a relevant questo explain that decisions on joint tion. Asks Tatad: “When DU30 exercises between Washington says he wants to move closer to and Manila were made by the China and Russia and away from Philippine-US Mutual Defense the US, what is he prepared to Board, which recommended to give to the two countries and Duterte’s predecessor adminis- take away from the third?” tration the continuation of war In Tatad’s view, shared by fergames up to 2017, stressing this vid political observers, Duterte could be reviewed by the Duterte “seems to have the impression administration after next year. that prior to June 30 this year we Esperon himself told report- had no working relations with ers in Hanoi the President merely China and Russia, and that his armeant to stress this month’s mili- rival alone will open a new path.” tary exercise would be the last That’s bull’s eye or dead center, for the year. according to observers of the It appears, based on state- political and diplomatic theater, ments from the US State Depart- who say the declared shift is ment, that the Philippines has “pure bunk or taradiddle.”
Troya...
From B1
Troya means “Trojan” and the author uses the word here in the context of “Trojan horse.” In the eponymous tale, a decaying horse teeming with virulent microbes is tossed into a stream by a disgruntled former politico to make trouble for the incumbent. The community’s health is threatened, but the dead horseflesh proves difficult to remove; and thereby hangs the tale. The Trojan horse, in myth, was a large, hollow wooden horse left outside the gates of the city of Troy by the Greeks, who made a big show of leaving it as a gift and departing in their ships. The Trojans, believing the Greeks had left, brought the horse into their city. That night, Greek soldiers hiding inside the horse emerged and opened the city gates to their comrades, whereupon they sacked and destroyed Troy, putting an end to the 10-year war between the two city-states. In other words, the Trojan horse was a con, one so massive that it
has come down through millennia as a cautionary tale— “Beware the Greeks bringing gifts.” Delos Reyes’ use of this device makes the reader peruse each tale with extra care—is there a swindle or subterfuge here? “Trojan horse” becomes a convenient metaphor for exploring the betrayals perpetrated by politicians, gamblers, and other denizens of the urban landscape upon each other, and, ultimately—themselves. Delos Reyes is well-known for his humor, and he peppers this collection with one-liners and epithets that provoke, at the least, an upturn of the mouth at a particularly clever zinger. Troya is a worthy addition to the author’s body of work, and an engaging read. (Disclaimer: I painted the book cover, which was digitally tweaked by a graphic artist for publication. It’s my first book cover design commission, and I thank Dr. Delos Reyes for giving me the opportunity to extend my capabilities in visual art.) Facebook: Jenny Ortuoste, Twitter: @jennyortuoste, Instagram: @jensdecember
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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2016 mst.daydesk@gmail.com
Sino tycoon invades Hollywood W
ANG Jianlin, China’s richest man, has been on a Hollywood shopping spree. As chief executive of the Wanda Group, he’s acquired Legendary Entertainment, producer of “Jurassic Park,” and is in talks to pay $1 billion for Dick Clark Productions, producer of the Golden Globes and other live television events. An earlier purchase, AMC Entertainment, recently announced plans to buy Carmike Cinema, which would create the world’s biggest theater chain. REVELERS. Festivities usually held in Cinatowns across the globe. Bloomberg When Wang arrives in Hollywood for a highly anticipated visit later this month, he’ll have even bigger game in sight: one of the Big Six Hollywood studios that control as much as 85 percent of U.S. and Canadian box office revenue. If successful, he’ll be the first Chinese national to own one. That’s aroused worries that Wang and other aspiring Chinese movie moguls may restrict creative freedoms and spread Chinese propaganda in the U.S. and beyond. Last month, 16 members of Congress wrote to the Government Accountability Office asking it to reconsider how foreign investments in the U.S. are reviewed. Since then, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has added his signature to the letter. Wanda’s entertainment
acquisitions were on the list of worries: “Should the definition of national security be broadened to address concerns about propaganda and control of the media and ‘soft power’ institutions?” the group asked. At home, it’s true, China operates one of the world’s most formidable propaganda and censorship programs, and tycoons like Wang have succeeded in part because of their willingness to play by its rules. China’s Communist Party has long embraced the idea that the role of art is to advance its interests. In October 2014, President Xi Jinping made that commitment explicit in a speech in which he called on Chinese painters, writers and filmmakers to “fully implement the Party’s art policy.”
Every Chinese artist knows what red lines shouldn’t be crossed; the idea of Tibetan or Taiwanese independence is off-limits, for instance, as are topics that call into question the canonical history of the Communist Party. More recently, the government has added a few specific bans, including one barring television programming that promotes “Western lifestyles.” The idea that Wang might be able to export Communist dogma to Hollywood, however, seems fanciful. The most successful Chinese movies tend to be harmless melodramas and martial arts films. So far, this year’s biggest box office success is a comedy about a mermaid assassin who falls in love with the greedy real estate developer she was sent to kill. On those
rare occasions when Chinese filmmakers dabble in propaganda, the films have invariably failed (unless propped up by box office fraud). Indeed, even on their home turf, Chinese films are no competition for Hollywood, which accounted for nearly 40 percent of China’s box office receipts in 2015 despite rampant piracy and strict limits on the number of foreign films. Wang has openly acknowledged that part of his goal is to obtain U.S. technology and knowhow in order to improve Chinese film making. He has little incentive to transform a U.S. studio into a facsimile of its Chinese peers. A bigger concern is self-censorship. In recent years, Hollywood studios have become adept at making -- or at least, editing -films that can get past China’s
censors. Some have gone further and rewritten storylines that might raise hackles in Beijing, as when MGM decided to change Chinese villains into North Korean ones in a clumsy 2011 remake of “Red Dawn.” A Chinese-owned studio would no doubt be at least as conscientious about the Party’s sensitivities, if not more so. Fortunately, the impact would probably be limited. Since the 1940s, Hollywood’s studio system has given way to a blossoming of independent production companies, distribution channels and exhibition formats that give an independent-minded filmmaker many options. A Wang-owned studio could still pass on controversial projects, of course. But shareholders and audiences would look askance if management repeated-
ly missed out on successful films, and at least some filmmakers and talents would look elsewhere if Wanda developed a reputation for asserting a political agenda. Meanwhile, the proliferation of production houses -- not just indies, but major companies such as Amazon and Netflix -- means that U.S. viewers aren’t likely to be starved for choice. In theory, Wanda could use its power as the owner of AMC to ensure that large numbers of US cinemas are stocked only with politically acceptable films. But the Justice Department’s antitrust lawyers have required AMC to sell off theaters for competition reasons in the past, and the proposed Carmike acquisition - currently under investigation - may inspire them to do so again. AFP
Starbucks upsizes in Cambodia Lullabies from
Stuffed toy from Starbucks. Phnom Pehn Facebook page
STARBUCKS Corp. is expanding in Cambodia, one of the world’s fastest economies, as the company taps Asia for growth amid a mixed outlook in the Americas. The Seattle-based coffee chain will open a twofloor, 650 square-meter (7,000 square-feet) store in the capital, Phnom Penh, on Friday to take advantage of a 10-percent annual increase in coffee consumption in the Southeast Asian nation, according to Asia-Pacific President Mark Ring. “In the long term, we’re positive about Asia,” Ring said in an interview on Thursday. “We’ll continue to look for opportunities over time.” The share of Asian revenue at the world’s largest coffee-shop chain has
more than doubled in the past two years to 15 percent, putting overseas potential in focus as the US market matures. The company entered Cambodia in December and with the new store will have three outlets in an economy the International Monetary Fund estimates will expand almost 7 percent this year. Ring said Starbucks is aiming to appeal to a broad base in Cambodia, from tourists to young professionals, and will customize aspects such as the food service to suit local tastes. The Cambodian footprint remains a fraction of Starbucks’ more than 6,200 stores in China and the Asia-Pacific region. Cambodia has a population of about 16 million
people and gross domestic product per capita of $1,235, compared with $8,240 in China, according to IMF data. The Southeast Asian nation’s estimated GDP growth is among the top 10 in the world, the figures also show. Starbucks’ stock has declined 11 percent so far in 2016, compared with an increase of almost 6 percent in the S&P 500 index. The shares are up 38 percent in the past three years, exceeding the 28 percent climb in the S&P 500. Revenue in the quarter ended June 26 missed analysts’ estimates after same-store sales climbed 4 percent in the Americas, decelerating from a 7 percent increase in the prior quarter. Bloomberg
Peace graffiti, beach trash art BOGOTA--Spray-paint cans in hand, a generation of street artists is covering Colombia’s run-down walls with rifles that shoot heart-shaped bullets and rainbow-colored pleas for peace. After half a century of conflict, the end of which remains just beyond reach, war and peace have become central themes in Colombia’s graffiti art. The Colombians’ shock rejection of a peace deal put its negotiators out of the running for the Nobel Peace Prize. On the streets of Bogota, corncobs that look like grenades and gun barrels sprouting carnations have provided the backdrop as the government and the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) worked for nearly four years to conclude a historic peace agreement. DjLu is a graffiti artist known for dotting central Bogota with black-and-white messages of peace. “I prefer a twisted peace to a perfect war,” said the secretive artist. DjLu, who prefers not to use his real name, doubles as an art professor at Catholic
University of Colombia when he isn’t out spray-painting public spaces as a self-described “servant of peace.” “I wanted to send a message that would open people’s minds,” he told AFP of his turn to politically charged graffiti a decade ago. “I’m simply human, and as a human I think the conflict is absurd.” The prospect of turning the page on more than half a century stained by violence is increasingly fueling street artists’ creativity in Bogota, where graffiti is surging as an artistic medium. The city’s mayor from 2012 to 2015, former guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro, actively promoted graffiti as a public art form. That stance helped counter the stigma of graffiti as vandalism, and giant murals sprouted up in iconic spots throughout the city. Today, visitors and fans can even take a graffiti tour, created by Australian expatriate Christian Petersen. In the Netherlands, every parent has watched bemused as excited kids toss aside gifts to play with the boxes instead. But what
about when they ignore the shells on a tropical beach in favor of plastic bottle tops? That was the puzzle for Ralph Groenheijde when he and his family visited Costa Rica a few years ago -- a trip that was to spark a passionate crusade to clean up the beaches back home in the Netherlands. His then two-year-old son paid little heed to the shells, collecting instead dozens of brightly colored bottle tops. Eventually they used them to create a giant sun mosaic on the sand, before depositing them in a bin. It was to trigger Groenheijde’s scheme not to just clean up the wide, sandy beaches skirting the coast of The Hague, but also to turn an unwanted “treasure trove” of trash into wacky works of art. In a play on words, this summer’s creations have been gathered in the new TrashUre Museum, where lost balls and multi-colored plastic spades dangle like decorations from the ceiling. Candy wrappers artfully adorn a rakish top hat tied DESCENT. A Cathay Pacific Boeing 747-400 aircraft, operating as flight with blue string, and a cas- CX8747, flies over Hong Kong’s former Kai Tak airport (bottom right) on its cade of flipflops makes a final flight over Victoria Harbor on Saturday. The airline retires its fleet of rainbow floor sculpture. AFP 747s. AFP
25 cultures
NEW YORK—The songs’ lyrics are as basic as they get, but also the most universal. Singer Sophia Brous is weaving together lullabies from some 25 cultures, exploring the deeper meaning in how to communicate with infants through music. “In a funny way, lullabies are the most successful pop songs ever to have existed,” the Melbourne-born musician said. “They perpetuate themselves through generations because they’re infinitely repeatable, memorable and you absorb them.” To create “Lullaby Movement,” Brous learned cradle songs in local languages directly from mothers or others in more than 25 communities, including asylum-seekers in the wave of migration from the war-torn Middle East. The song cycle, set to a flowing backdrop that goes from soothing ambient sounds to bouncy synthesized bass, is dramatized through a loose story line as Brous plays a sleep-deprived girl seeking security as she stands on a pebble beach. Brous showcased “Lullaby Movement” on Saturday at National Sawdust, a year-old New York music venue with a focus on the avant-garde where the Australian has been named an artist-in-residence. Brous, who has collaborated with artists including David Byrne of Talking Heads fame and indie pop singer Kimbra, was drawn to lullabies after speaking to an 80-year-old former ballerina from Latvia who poured emotion when relating a children’s song. “The more that I began to consider them like a repertoire, the more fascinated I became,” said Brous, who remembers lullabies from her own parents. Brous spent time with refugees including in the Calais “Jungle” camp in France. While stressing that she has done little to address the crisis, Brous found she could quickly relate to migrant children through lullabies in Arabic, Farsi and other languages. AFP
B4
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2016 mstdaydesk @gmail.com.ph
World
Legends rock in Desert Trip I
PIETY
NDIO, United States--Some fans rarely go to shows these days; others sport recent tour T-shirts. But one idea unites the graying crowd at this weekend’s concert of rock all-stars -- this may be the last chance to see their musical heroes. Desert Trip, which could be the most profitable music festival of all time, is bringing out six acts from the rock canon never seen before together led by the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney. The three-day festival’s other performers are Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Who and Roger Waters. Of the artists, all are septuagenarians with the sole exception of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood -- who is 69. The fruit of the booking prowess of the company behind Coachella, the annual festival in the California desert that has helped shape youth pop culture, Desert Trip offered nostalgia and a fleeting sense of community for baby boomers. Instead of crushing standing-room crowds, the festival provided seats and let others bring in lawn chairs; instead of Coachella’s bare-as-much-skin-as-legal fashion rules, Desert Trip’s standard attire was T-shirts and shorts. And, rather than Coachella’s omnipresent smell of marijuana, the attractions at so-nicknamed “Oldchella” included sommelier-selected wines. “Woodstock for geezers -- that’s what this is,” joked Mike Bench, 64, who flew in from Florida, leaving behind his two dogs with friends as Hurricane Matthew approached. Beach, who spent 32 years as a radio DJ playing rock classics, was excited not just for the scheduled acts but the prospect of surprise appearances. “Anybody who’s anybody in the rock world will want to be here,” he said. Gerri Redpath, 71, has seen Mick Jagger before -- when she was a flight attendant for now-defunct airline Pan Am and served him in first-class on a flight to London. Redpath, who recalls Jagger as well-mannered, described Desert Trip as her first concert in her 70s. “I’m impressed that this music has lasted so long,” she said. AFP
A woman helps her son light a candle during festivities in honor of patron saint “San Jeronimo” in Masaya, Nicaragua Friday. AFP
Obama urged to condemn Russia hacking THE US said publicly for the first time that intelligence agencies are “confident that the Russian government directed” the hacking of American political groups and leaked stolen material in order to interfere with the Nov. 8 election. “These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process,” the Office of Director of National In-
telligence and the Department of Homeland Security said in a joint statement on Friday. “We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.” While intelligence officials had previously said privately that they blamed Russia for the attacks, Friday’s announcement
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puts pressure on President Barack Obama’s administration to respond even as relations with Moscow rapidly deteriorate over everything from Syria and Ukraine to nuclear cooperation. “We should now work with our European allies who have been the victim of similar and even more malicious cyber interference by Russia to develop a concerted response that protects our institutions and deters further meddling,” said Representative Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. The official statement went
on to say that the intelligence community isn’t in a position to confirm that the Russian government scanned and probed state election systems, even though the intrusions in “most cases originated in servers operated by a Russian company.” While hacking has become a prominent issue in the US presidential race, the agencies said “it would be extremely difficult for someone, including a nation-state actor, to alter actual ballot counts or election results by cyber attack or intrusion.” Russian officials, includ-
ing President Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly rejected accusations that the government hacks the US The US statement didn’t detail evidence to back up the charges against Russia. “This is some crap again,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday when asked about the U.S. announcement. “There are tens of thousands of hackers attacking Putin’s website every day. Many are tracked to US territory, but we don’t accuse either Washington or Langley every time,” he said, referring to the CIA’s headquarters near Washington. AFP
May: Hire natives before migrants
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IF Prime Minister Theresa May gets her way on immigration, Victor Villar says he might just leave London. The 31-year-old Mexican portfolio analytics consultant is among the many foreigners in the City who are reeling from the government’s proposal to force companies to reveal how many non-British workers they hire as a way to push them to put natives first. “If things get worse because they approve some anti-immigrant policies in parliament, I would definitely consider a job in the US or somewhere else,” Villar, who has lived in the capital for 2 1/2 years, said in an interview. May’s plan is “like shooting yourself in your own foot because many people who come to work here are skilled workers with
graduate degrees.” Home Secretary Amber Rudd this week proposed to punish banks and landlords who fail to make checks on foreigners doing business with them. It’s part of the government’s strategy to address public concerns about immigration that were laid bare by the UK’s vote to quit the European Union. A YouGov poll on Wednesday of 5,875 adults found that 59 percent of people support those policies, showing that Rudd and May are in tune with voters. That is of little comfort to the swathes of foreign-born Londoners, many of whom have become naturalized British citizens. For some, there are parallels with pre-World War II Germany. “I’m horrified by this,” said Paula Levitan, an American
lawyer at Bryan Cave who’s lived in London for 16 years and has acquired a British passport. “I can’t help but flash on the 1930s and early 40s. Are we going to have to wear badges on our arms?” Youssef Laouiti, a 26-yearold banker born and raised in Britain to French parents, echoes that sentiment. “It’s all a bit ridiculous: It starts with name lists and ends up with people being sent to camps,” he said. “It’s extreme, but a lot of people will confront it, so I’m not frightened” that it’ll become law. The Nazi parallels went viral on social media after LBC radio host James O’Brien read passages of Adolf Hitler’s autobiography that had echoes in the Home Office proposals. It touched a nerve, highlighting how emotions have been whipped up. AFP