After mass yesterday afternoon, I walked the few blocks from St. Patrick’s Cathedral to Central Park. St. Patrick’s and Central Park are, of course, main tourist attractions in New York. Hence, sidewalks were difficult to navigate as they were filled with tourists with their cameras and backpacks and shopping bags.

On my way to the park, I saw this white truck—ubiquitous in Brooklyn—and suddenly had an urge to have some soft ice cream on a cone. A picture of the chocolate twist flavor painted on the truck’s side looked promising but the vendor had run out of it, so I had to settle for the chocolate flavored one. I finished my ice cream quickly, and just as quickly got thirsty. So I had to buy a bottle of water from one of the numerous sidewalk vendors near the park. Ang mahal naman: $3 for a half-liter bottle! But this is New York, what was I thinking?

Lugging my precious bottle of water, I entered the southwest entrance to Central Park. Near the entrance were pretty horse-drawn carriages and the usual assortment of vendors—including portraitists who make your sketch on the spot and sellers of framed pictures of New York’s famous sights and of other memorabilia—catering to tourists. The air was rich with the smell of horse manure, but after some time one gets used to it. A few steps into the park and I was assaulted by another offensive smell. Mabang-ug an Central Park! May nag-uro sa ligid. Chaka!

Central Park is the proverbial melting pot, probably a reflection of New York’s undeniably international character. Sitting beside a group of scantily-clad Caucasian teenagers lying on the grass was a Middle Eastern family having a picnic. The mother and daughter in the picnicking family had traditional Islamic headdresses on, but the father was dressed in the quintessential American summer outfit—a t-shirt and cargo shorts. And as I walked farther, I heard familiar words from another group. A family was arguing rather loudly in Tagalog. Some family members wanted to go to the Rockefeller Center, while the others wanted to stay in the park longer. I was embarrassed by my eavesdropping, even though unintentional, so I moved away and didn’t wait for a resolution of the argument.

I ended up sitting on one of the numerous benches scattered throughout the park and watched a ballgame. I could have watched one of the softball matches going on, but I chose a game similar to one I’ve seen while jogging at the National Mall in DC. I never learned its name, but the game is similar to softball or baseball, except that the ball used here is a basketball (softened by letting some of the air out?) and there’s no bat. Instead, the ball is hit by the “batter’s” foot in a manner not unlike a soccer player executing a penalty kick. The difference, of course, is that there’s no goal here and that the direction and force of a kick are calculated based on whether or not there are players in any of the bases. As I watched, the number of onlookers swelled and in no time some of my fellow watchers started cheering for their favorite team.

As usual, I rooted for the underdog—the team whose pitcher was a woman of, shall we say, Rubenesque proportions. She moved rather slowly because of her prodigious bust and waist, but I thought she pitched beautifully. In contrast, the pitcher of the opposing team was a swaggering, big-muscled, and loudmouthed guy. So I rejoiced very much when the team I was rooting for won. Sometimes, you see, underdogs do win.

Towards the end of the game, I almost jumped out of my skin because a raccoon suddenly materialized near my seat. It was a big one, around two-feet in length, and I didn’t care very much for the dark rings around its eyes. Raccoons are a curious sort. They don’t seem afraid of humans—or, at least, this one wasn’t. It returned the nearby onlookers’ stare with unnerving nonchalance, even insolence, as if saying that it had as much right to be there as any of us. After ogling us for an uncomfortably long period, it went up one of the trees and, perched on a branch, joined us in watching the game.

It was already dusk when the game ended. Buoyed by the underdogs’ victory, I decided it was time to look for the nearest metro station. As I got up from my bench near the baseball diamond, I thought I saw some tiny flickering lights. The lights were weak—it was not yet fully dark—but clearly discernible. I walked to the bushes where the tiny flickering lights were more pronounced and saw that they were fireflies. My heart started to sing. There are fireflies in Central Park! New York may be the world’s greatest city, but it shares something in common with the Gamay of my childhood: fireflies. I guess this is just my roundabout way of saying: I miss home.

Since Saturday, I’ve been hard at work on my laptop, trying to find a cure to an infection that wreaked havoc on my computer. I must have unwittingly downloaded a virulent type of malware because every few minutes a couple of windows opened on my desktop, telling me that I’ve been invaded by some viruses and encouraging me to buy some software to purge the infection. The warnings were utterly believable because they gave a list of the viruses, worms, adwares, spywares, trojans, dialers, and other malwares that supposedly invaded my computer. They also carried an icon similar to the shield-shaped Windows “Security Center” icon and deceptively carried the name “Antivirus 2008 Pro.” However, a closer scrutiny of the popup windows showed a lot of misspellings. I then remembered a warning I read somewhere that a lot of malwares usually evince sloppy spelling and grammar.

In addition, instead of going to my homepage every time I opened my web browser (Internet Explorer; I have since switched to Firefox), something forcibly directed my browser to one displaying a warning that the page I was about to view was not secure and redirecting me to the website with the purported downloadable solution. Also, whenever I tried going to a new website, a different one popped out. These actions, I learned later, are called hijacking. To make matters worse, my computer started slowing down. Even ordinary applications were taking a very long time to load. Sending an email, for instance, was an exercise in extreme patience.

All these indications, of course, pointed to an infection or several infections. In fact, I would learn later that I was infected by a host of viruses and other malwares. The most irritating, however, was a spyware, a kind of program that, among others, invasively encourages one to buy some unnecessary software, tracks visited websites, and forcibly directs the user to certain sites by manipulating the internet tools in one’s browser.

I trolled the internet for (hopefully free) solutions to my problem. Naturally, since the internet offers hundreds of thousands of possible solutions, choosing the right one was tough. A lot of trial-and-error attempts ensued, and I ended up choosing a free anti-spyware software (Spybot Search & Destroy) as well as buying another (Ad-Aware 2008 by Lavasoft). I had to pay for Ad-Aware because the free version didn’t seem to work. Considering that I have an existing paid subscription to McAffee, the cheapskate in me was objecting to shelling out a few more bucks, but my programs and files are too important to be left to the mercies of some spyware-creating scumbug.

It took me several attempts to scan and clean up my hard drive before my laptop was able to regain some modicum of utility. My laptop still seems sluggish compared to its speed prior to the infection, but this may be due to some unpurged malware or the concurrent operations of my multiple anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. However, I’m happy to note that I could now use my browsers with a certain degree of confidence that they will not be hijacked. Also, unwanted windows have stopped popping up.

This experience tells me that one of the most effective ways of slowing down an information-dependent society is to have its people’s computers infected. A lot of productivity is lost whenever something like this happens because so many of us have become too dependent on the information superhighway. Indeed, waging information warfare that targets civilian installations is a form of asymmetric warfare taught in military schools. I wonder if this form of warfare would have the equivalent of suicide bombers. I just hope that the bright people out there will have a solution to electronic suicide bombing before it becomes a reality.

In the midst of irritation at being infected by a spyware, something caught my eye and made me stop. Like most everyone I know, I don’t usually read an end-user license agreement (more popularly known as “EULA”) before downloading a program. I normally just click on the “I agree” button, but something made me read the EULA for Spybot S&D. Who would have thought that a EULA could make one cry? Apparently, Spybot S&D is a work of love.  Its author says that Spybot S&D is free because it is “dedicated to the most wonderful girl on earth.” Probably because of its unanticipated presence, this declaration of affection in a EULA unexpectedly stung my eyes. Whoever said there was no romance in the geeky world of ones and zeros, of bits and bytes?  Now, go ahead and download a copy.

I’m writing this post a day after Thanksgiving, which is a big thing among Americans. I did have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner complete with the obligatory turkey, thank you very much. My kind landlord, who is vacationing with his daughter in the Middle East, and who knew that I would otherwise be alone, inveigled his friends to invite me to their Thanksgiving dinner. The hospitality and generosity of my hosts as well as the friendliness and kindness of the other guests should lay to rest any doubt about the existence of such qualities in the land of the free. I don’t fully appreciate the historical or cultural underpinnings of Thanksgiving, but it got me into thinking about things I should be thankful for.

To be honest, I was afraid I wouldn’t be writing a happy postscript to my previous post on the New York bar examinations. I found all the exams—the multi-state (i.e., federal) component, the New York State portion, and the multi-state professional responsibility—difficult. The multiple choice questions were particularly tricky because most of the time the choices all seemed to be correct. Given the degree of my uncertainty, I have no idea how I made it. As usual, I ascribe this fortunate result to God’s grace. I thank God for that grace. And I thank everyone—including gods and goddesses and, of course, fairies—who have prayed for me, wished me well, and supported me through the bar exams.

The score report I obtained confirmed my initial observation about the differences in attitudes towards bar exams in the Philippines and the United States. Whereas Filipinos are obsessed with ratings and rankings, I didn’t even get a full report from the New York Board of Law Examiners. I was informed only of my multi-state rating, probably because it helps one determine if the same result meets cut-off scores in other State bars. I have no clue about the rating I got in the New York portion. But I’m not complaining. Ignorance in this case is good for my ego because I can indulge in speculation that I did sufficiently well to pass this portion of the exams.

The good news is that all Filipino students in Georgetown who took the New York State bar exams passed. The bad news is that there was a huge mortality rate for foreign students in Georgetown. Apparently, this is true in other schools as well. A Filipino friend who graduated from Northwestern University told me that more than 70% of her foreign-educated classmates didn’t make it. I don’t know the exact mortality rate for Georgetown, but I would hazard a guess that it is probably in the vicinity of Northwestern’s rate.

It’s not that those who failed the exams are not bright. Many of those from Georgetown who didn’t make it were in some of my classes. And I could tell from class discussions and my interactions with them that they are bright, indeed. It’s probably our facility in the language. Filipinos are lucky in that regard. We learn the language even before we start school and use it as principal medium of instruction in all levels of education. Incidentally, if China is going to be the next economic superpower, which I think is very likely, then Filipinos must start incorporating Chinese (Mandarin probably?) into the educational system. Since Filipinos will soon be taking bar exams and other professional exams in China, we should start mastering the language.

At the moment, I’m in the midst of preparing documents to support my application for admission to the New York bar. Apparently, passing the examinations is not enough. I have to request both the UP College of Law and Georgetown for transcripts. I also have to provide proof of my good standing as a member of the Philippine bar. In addition, I have to submit affidavits of former supervisors in all my law-related employment. Moreover, I have to find attorneys who are willing to attest to my moral fitness to practice law in New York. Finally, I have to submit myself to an interview before they allow me to take the oath. As you can see, becoming a member of the New York bar entails a lot of work. But I passed the exams and that, you’ll agree, is enough reason to be thankful.

My friend, the philosopher and soon-to-be-married Heidi P. Cruz, once said that the ability to appreciate jazz music is a distinguishing characteristic of highly evolved persons.  While I demurred outwardly when she said this, I was secretly pleased with her comment.  You see, I love jazz.  Just don’t ask me why.  I can’t read music and am a complete ignoramus when it comes to musical techniques.  I can’t even identify the various sub-genres of jazz or name all prominent artists that a jazz lover is supposed to be familiar with.  I just know that I feel good when I listen to this kind of music.  I get lost in it.  And in those times when I feel troubled—as I do today—I take solace in it. 

I associate jazz with that simple, uncomplicated stage of everybody’s life:  childhood.  I was born in a small town in a remote part of the country.  There was neither electricity nor running water when I was growing up.  People went to bed early and rose early.  And in a mish-mash of Greek mythology, Christian belief, and popular culture, the town had, and continues to have, a tradition called “Diana,” where a band went around the town playing beautiful melodies before the break of dawn.  A Diana was considered de rigueur in feast day celebrations for an important saint, particularly the town’s patron saint, St. Michael the Archangel.  But the music was not always decidedly religious.  In fact, I discovered jazz through a Diana.   

The first time I heard Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good,” it was being played not on a flugelhorn as the original artist did but on a trumpet.  It took decades before I would learn the title of this song, and it was, of course, courtesy of philosopher Heidi when we were in law school.  But that morning when I first heard it, I was entranced.  Imagine yourself as a young child waking up on a woven mat spread over a hard wooden floor, safely cocooned in layers of blankets between your sleeping parents, glimpsing through sleepy eyes the pinkish sky at the break of dawn, and listening to a moving rendition of “Feels So Good.”  You could hear the music faintly as the band starts playing at the other end of the town—it was a small town after all and the only noises you could hear at night were sounds made by nocturnal creatures.  And then the sound gets louder, the music fuller as the band comes nearer your house.  It was a magical moment; I was captivated for life.  I suppose I decided then and there, albeit unconsciously, that this will be the song of my life. 

Today, my musical tastes may have become more diversified.  A sampling of the genres in my iPod would show the range:  jazz, pop, reggae, rock, and R&B.  There even are smatterings of hip-hop and classical music.  But judging from the play count in my iTunes, there is no denying my preference for jazz.  I’m increasingly finding solace in the music of Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Al Jarreau, Spyro Gyra, Dave Koz, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and of newer artists like Rick Braun, Diana Krall, Chris Botti, and even Michael Bublé.  I doubt very much if this growing preference for jazz is a manifestation of what Heidi calls “higher evolution.”  More probably, it just means that my troubles are increasing exponentially as I grow older.  Whatever the case may be, I’m just so thankful for jazz, and praise heavens for all those wonderful artists who make me feel so good with their music. 

For the second time in my life, I’m reviewing for the bar examinations.  This time, the review is for the New York State bar exams.  For someone who vowed never to take the bar exams again after those grueling four Sundays in September nine years ago, the current exercise is akin to masochism.  But if you believe in the Creator, a Supreme Being, a Deity, or the Force, please say a little prayer for me.  Or if you don’t believe, then just wish me luck. 

As I write this, I’m already midway through my review classes.  Imagine trying to learn in less than two months material that normally takes three years to study and you can envisage the kind of a bind that I’m in.  I’ve enrolled in a review program that is so intense I’m starting to have multiple choice dreams.  Believe me, they’re not very sexy.  Incidentally, Chris wonders if I’m having any review done given the blogging that I’ve been doing lately.  Well, blogging is my way of getting away from the review, even if only for a few moments.

For once, I’m thankful for the Philippines’ being a copycat of the U.S.  (Now, indulge me and take a pause here and imagine Cherry Gil’s La Viña saying to Sharon Cuneta’s Dorina:  “You are nothing but a second rate, trying hard copycat!” sabay tapon ng tubig sa mukha in “Bituing Walang Ningning.” Or was it “Bukas Luluhod ang mga Tala”?  I know, I know.  It’s not very apropos.  But I just can’t resist it.)  Indeed, many Philippine legal concepts, especially in constitutional law, corporation law and the law on evidence, are U.S. transplants.  But major differences remain.  The Philippines took its civil law system from its Spanish colonizers, while the U.S. took its common law system from its English colonizers.  I would thus need to unlearn a lot of Philippine law to pass these exams.

There is one very striking difference between the Philippine bar exams and those in the U.S.  I don’t mean the fact that more than 50% of the points in the latter exams are from multiple choice questions.  I understand that the Philippine Supreme Court has commissioned a study on the possibility of including multiple choice questions in the purely essay Philippine bar exams.  So that point of difference will soon disappear.  The striking difference I’m referring to concerns the attitude towards the bar exams in both jurisdictions.  While the goal in the Philippines is to top the exams, in the U.S. it is merely to pass them. 

Apparently, performance in the bar exams here is not deemed a good indicator of how a person would perform in the legal profession.  Instead, law firms and other employers put a high premium on grade point average, class rank, and membership in law reviews.  But then again, as anyone who went to school could attest to, even grades could be deceptive.  For instance, I know people who “shopped” for teachers known for their generosity in giving grades.  On the other hand, I had classmates who purposely sought out good teachers even if they also happened to be miserly with grades. 

Justice Harry Blackmun’s grades at Harvard Law School were merely passing.  But he went on to write the decision in Roe v. Wade, arguably one of the most momentous decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.  So, high grades are not very good predictors of performance in the real world.  As for the bar exams, we are repeatedly told that a high rating is good but not required.  That apparently is something that the Philippines has yet to copy from the U.S.

The global war on terror should be waged not only in Afghanistan and other lands providing haven to terrorists but also in the hearts and minds of people everywhere.  Counter-terrorism strategies must consciously include efforts that distinguish the ways of peace-loving peoples from the methods of those who pursue their objectives through violence.  I believe part of those efforts should be intensified aid-giving to the world’s poorest countries, and not only when they are members of the UN Security Council, as indicated by a recent Washington Post report.

I was born and raised in a small town in the Philippines.  The town, Gamay (which literally means “small” in the local language), was poor and most of its inhabitants were subsistence farmers or fisherfolk.  In the 1970s and early 80s, the town was caught in the middle of a violent conflict between communist guerillas and government soldiers.  Today, the violence has abated but the town is still poor and people are still farming and fishing. 

One of the earliest memories of my childhood was being brought to the town’s feeding center where malnourished children were fed.  I remember with fondness the milk and pancakes that we were fed at the center twice a week.  I always looked forward to those trips to the center because milk and pancakes were a luxury in those early years of my life.  To this day I can still vividly recall the sacks containing the powdered milk and pancake mix.  They were brown bags of sturdy make printed with the words “From the American people” at the top, the US flag in the middle, and a picture of two hands joined in a handshake near the bottom. 

In grade school, I would learn that the feeding program was funded by US aid to the Philippines.  I would learn later that foreign aid is routinely used as a foreign policy tool to advance the donor’s interests.  In recent years, I learned that the current administration had been using aid to pressure poor countries to enter into bilateral non-surrender agreements with the US to avoid the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction over Americans.   

Recipient countries, of course, know that aid usually comes with strings attached.  “No such thing as a free lunch” obviously applies even in foreign relations.  But when a country’s people are dying of hunger or rendered unproductive by sickness or malnutrition, foreign aid oftentimes takes on the attributes of manna from heaven.  That this particular manna comes with strings attached is often ignored due to the exigencies of the moment.  

It is commonplace that extreme poverty is oftentimes a precursor to violent social upheavals that threaten international peace.  It thus serves US interests, as defender of world peace, to address problems spawned by poverty, such as hunger and chronic malnutrition.  As the Brazilian president once put it, hunger is actually the worst weapon of mass destruction, claiming as it does millions of victims every year. 

One way of addressing poverty issues, and thereby helping maintain international peace, is by ensuring that poor people have access to food.  The US government is allocating $3 billion for the Millennium Challenge Corporation for 2007.  Even a small portion of that amount, if used to help feed the world’s hungry and malnourished people, will go a long way in maintaining peace and in winning the hearts of the world’s poor. 

My childhood experience is without doubt replicated in many other poverty-stricken areas of the world.  Even as I write this, malnourished children in poor countries are lining up for their milk and pancakes, courtesy of the US and other aid-giving countries.  Milk and pancakes are, of course, illustrative examples.  In reality, foreign aid is used for a lot of other social welfare services in the developing world:  access to clean and potable water, vaccination and primary health care, sexual and reproductive health, and access to primary education, among many other programs.  

Whatever the motivations of its giver, no one seriously doubts that foreign aid helps improve the lives of many people in the developing world.  For so long as conditions for granting aid do not lead to further impoverishment (such as when aid is tied to allowing the entry of business interests that destroy the local environment), more aid should be given to the poorest countries of the world.  Also, since foreign aid sometimes ends up in the pockets of unscrupulous rulers of poor countries, creative mechanisms (such as giving a portion of the aid directly to non-government and international institutions with demonstrated capacity for delivering needed services) should be adopted to ensure accountability and transparency in its use. 

In the end, America wins.  The US may not always get the undying gratitude of recipient governments, especially when they are coerced into doing something in exchange for aid.  However, the US can be assured of the enduring appreciation of the world’s poor who benefit from its aid.  I, for one, would always be grateful for the milk and pancakes from the American people.  Gratitude from the world’s poor may not be much in terms of US geopolitical interests, but surely it should help make Americans feel good about themselves and their government.