Excess and sobriety as reflected in correction tape

One thing having a phone camera (and a good one at that) has taught me is that the culture of excess can creep up on you from everywhere. Going overboard is most obvious in shopping, in those reality shows that involve really wealthy celebrities (but Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous is still the original when it comes to this), and when spying the six or more shiny luxury cars and SUVs parked in somebody's garage when there's probably no legitimate reason to own six or more vehicles. These circumstances are observable and therefore easier to make adjustments in when called for.

But for me it all started when digital cameras became the norm. Camera film becoming unnecessary meant indiscriminate and nearly endless shooting away because your shots weren't limited to 12 or 24 or 36. Now who would be reminded of the value of sobriety, of thrift, when taking hundreds of shots -- at no extra cost -- were an option?

Also, since a dude holding up a mobile phone and taking pictures of her friends (or herself) is such a common sight nowadays, very few people probably hesitate to photograph anything, even the most mundane scene or object (a window display, a celebrity sighting, a bowl of soup...). Is it surprising, then, that "tama na" or even "huwag na" hardly occurs to anyone who feels the sudden urge to whip out the phone just because something is potential material for an instant Facebook upload?

The temptation is strong but it can be resisted. The choice, after all, is yours to be made and no one forces you to take snapshots at gunpoint. So when I was at a bookstore recently and saw the assortment of colorful correction tapes hanging from a rack, my sudden urge to take pictures was tempered by reminders of the "excess" tendency I described above. You may ask, why in the world would anyone want to take pictures of correction tape? I'm not exactly sure but in my case, it has something to do with amazement over the evolution of little things easily taken for granted. If you grew up in a time in which carbon paper, correction fluid and the Touch and Go type of correction tape (which requires typing on a small strip over the error) were still in heavy use, you know what I mean.

Seeing these implements felt strange. I had seen students use them during my brief teaching stint at a high school in 2005 and I found them fascinating. If it's so easy to delete something you wrote on a piece of paper and the error can hardly be spotted, wouldn't this make you spend less time thinking before writing, less careful in the whole writing exercise? The ordinary rubber eraser has a way of damaging paper and dirtying up an otherwise immaculately white sheet; besides, working those things can be such a hassle. I wonder...

Contemplating on this reminded me of the time my family and I moved to a new home. Packing was a challenge; deciding on which things to keep and which to discard was even more trying. I ended up taking photos of some stuff that had to be thrown or given away, and some of them would be considered vintage items by now.

Back to the modern-day correction tape. So as I decided to photograph the lot, I told myself I'd take only a few shots -- not a dozen or so that would include all angles from which the implements could be documented. And there would be no uploading on any social network!! (Blogging about the experience --with substantial insights -- would be good)

Hence, excess in the realm of documentation and information sharing for that day was kept at bay!

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Feel like reading a piece that dwells on another "vintage experience"? You might enjoy this one. Nothing about carbon paper and correction tape in there! But it does mention "rotary-dial"...

Detours and U-turns in history

There used to be a weekly television show called Seventh Heaven, and one episode had the inquisitive son, Simon, learning about Adolf Hitler and the Nazi holocaust. Simon, then about age 9 or 10 probably, was visibly baffled by the prospect of such atrocities happening in the past. Why didn't anyone do anything to stop it? he asked his dad in that episode. The dad's reply escapes me now, but I do remember him explaining the different facets of the issue with great difficulty.

Come to think of it, a lot of horrible things have happened over the centuries that would make anyone wonder either of two things: what could have gone wrong with people to commit such atrocities, and how could people have allowed such atrocities to happen.

Though repulsive incidents still happen nowadays (just monitor the news online for a week or two and you'll see), society has progressed considerably in many ways. But do you think we have been moving forward in terms of evaluating the worth of creatures -- whether they're persons or objects? That's something to think about.

Here's a video produced by Pro-Life Wisconsin that gives one a bit of history on events that deserve to be remembered, if only to learn from the past so as not to commit the same mistakes again. Glad to come across such materials!





H/T: LifeSiteNews

A lamp post for others

When the sometimes-unthinking media throw the punches

There's been a lot of talk lately about the need for more tolerance and compassion. But could it be that such calls for tolerance and compassion are mere attempts to get people accustomed to the idea and the sight of indecency and unnatural behavior and pave the way for their acceptance into society? I'm referring to indecency in various forms but more specifically to homosexual activity and, as a possible consequence, same-sex unions as legitimized by civil law.

So now that I've expressed an idea that may ruffle the feathers of some of the noisier and more vocal members of society, what I actually said may be misconstrued to mean something different. For instance, I wrote "the idea and the sight of indecency and unnatural behavior" up there, and even though what I have in mind are actions and situations, it's possible that someone may cry "foul!" and claim that I'm a bigot for saying or even implying that people who experience same-sex attraction are indecent. I'll leave it at that, partly to make anyone reading this think more about the point. There's too little level-headed analysis and too much hysterics and knee-jerk reactions going on these days; offering a challenge for rumination, therefore, could be the way out of such unprocessed conclusions that fill the blogosphere and mainstream media.





Zeroing in on a particular person and issue here, let me provide some links that can get you going on your way to rumination amid the multi-sensory assault you may be contending with as far as Philippine boxing champ and legislator Manny Pacquiao's supposed anti-gay remarks are concerned.

Instead of sharing stories that tell the details of the original incident, allow me to share excerpts and links to a few articles that shed light on the mistaken ideas that such stories started and fueled. (Besides, details of the incidents can be found in some of the links)

All of this was ignoring one big thing: Pacquiao hadn’t said all of what was being attributed to him, and that his biblical evocation had been inserted by the interviewing writer. (The writer was not completely magnanimous in clarifying these points, either.) On Wednesday, Pacquiao spoke up to clear things up. “I’m not against the gay people,” he said. “What I said is I’m not in favor of same-sex marriage.” Contacted by the Journal, Pacquiao spokesman Fred Sternberg shed a little more light on the situation: “Manny’s sponsors know him well enough that the quotes in question couldn’t have come from him, which the author of the Examiner.com article confirmed yesterday,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Read What Pacquiao Did and Didn't Say

L.A. bigwig developer Rick Caruso, who has mayoral aspirations, squeezed himself into the Catholic-bashing clown car. He announced on Twitter that Pacquiao would be banned from his trendy shopping complex, The Grove. The mall, Caruso wrote, "is a gathering place for all Angelenos, not a place for intolerance."

Except for intolerance of completely mainstream views on gay marriage held by millions of practicing people of faith.

Read How the Gay-Marriage mob slimed a Boxing Champ






Photos from Global Post (top) and The Guardian (above)

French roast