Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

A couple of years ago, there was a South Park episode that made fun of the late Steve Irwin,  Australia's famed "crocodile hunter."  The episode characterized the nature of Irwin's TV documentaries as mere attempts to gain viewership by intentionally pissing off wild animals while fully knowing that the animals will be pissed off by the human intrusions.  By skirting serious physical danger in his pretty much unnecessarily violent interactions with the pissed off animals, Irwin somehow gains a status of folk hero in the process.

Sri Lanka is scheduled for another presidential election on January 8th.  As a result, the streets are filled with campaign posters and pictures of the two main candidates, more notably that of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the incumbent.  His party's blue flag grace the man streets of the country's main cities, with campaign personnel busying themselves plastering posters with photos of him shaking hands with notable foreigners or cuddling a small child on the campaign trail.  His campaign team is on the road through main towns, drawing huge crowds with fiery speeches.

"It's only 3km away, that's only a short walk from here," many Sri Lankans met on the road often says something of this sort to the author.  No joking, no exaggeration of self-pride, but just stating what is to them a simple matter of fact.  And they certainly back up such talks with action: the author, on his bus trips, has seen too many locals, in their simple worn-out flip-flops, walking next to major highways, appearing in the middle-of-nowheres between towns that are not particularly close even by driving.

The Christmas markets of Metro Manila are not for the fainthearted.  The streets, usually crowded already with the high density of population, are extra packed with people doing their last-minute shopping for gifts.  Unlike elsewhere where Christmas is a matter of adopting a foreign culture into a consumerist form , Catholic Philippines are religiously tied to the celebrations.  And when it comes to Christmas, people simply let out.  A taxi driver said it the best, "the Filipinos will be impoverished after the Christmas holidays."

In the past, this blog has been unequivocal about criticizing the downsides of a particular company called Rocket Internet .  It that process, it has accumulated feedback based on derision and ridicule, most of which by different employees of the company who find themselves, in one way or the other, compatible with everything  that the company seem to represent.  This blog very much continues to stand by those comments made by the previous posts, but does concede that it has lacked the positive coverage that prompted its author to remain (and come back) for quite a long time so far.

On the hotel TV's broadcast of Chinese stations, there was a program on the follies of Chinese emperors of the past.  One particular episode discussed how absolute adoration of the emperor (at least in superficial terms) made the personality of the emperor so lofty and self-righteous to the point that his altered  decision-making patterns turned a peaceful and prosperous nation into one ravaged by war in matter of years.  The professor repeatedly warned the audience of detrimental effects that creating a cult of personality can have on the direction of a polity.