Sunday, September 30, 2007 Malilong: Good anti-flooding techniques By Frank Malilong The Other Side
IT has been raining lately and, as expected, our streets have been flooding too. This cause-effect relationship is as established as that between wound and bleeding. Thanks to criminal neglect and the shortsightedness of our officials, you can, as surely as the sun rises in the east, expect that when it rains in this sorry part of the world, it floods.
The problem has stared us in the face for decades but, as expected, nothing has been offered to address it. We have been getting excuses not solutions from City Hall: any flood control program costs money that unfortunately, and as usual, they do not have.
Since it is obvious that we have been left to fend for ourselves against raging floodwaters, I have constituted the commission on good anti-flooding technique (COGAT), appointed myself chairman and in that capacity, hereby declare the table open for intelligent suggestions. In the meantime, I propose the following:
Solution No. 1: Build our cities higher than the mountains so that when it rains we will be flooding the mountains instead of the mountains sending cascading waters onto the cities.
Solution No. 2: Convert our streets into rivers. I like this one because it addresses not only the flooding but so many other problems such as: traffic (because there will be no more roads), waste disposal (let’s just throw our garbage into the rivers and let nature take care of the rest) and health (everybody will be paddling his boat to get to his destination).
Send your suggestions. Everything will be treated with confidentiality but only if I don’t find it interesting enough to print in this space. *** You better believe it: someone offered me immense wealth but I rejected it.
Mary of Kuwait, married to the late Dr. Henry of the kingdom’s foreign service, suffers from terminal cancer (her doctor told she would not last longer than three months from the time she wrote me.) They have no children.
When Doc Henry was alive, he had a US $2.5 million deposit in a bank in the Ivory Coast. Poor Mary, not only is she dying from cancer but she also recently had a stroke. So she wants to give the money to me.
Why me of all people? Let’s hear it from Poor Mary: “Having known my condition, I decided to donate this fund to a Christian individual who will utilize the money the way I am going to instruct herein.”
I know I am a Christian but for somebody from as far as Kuwait to take note of that? Boy, am I having a blast!
As if what she said was not enough to melt a certified pusong mamon, she added, “I don’t want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly manner especially by my husband’s relatives who are always around me. Hence the reason for this bold decision.” She even quoted what she said was a verse in Chapter 14 of Exodus.
So why did I choose to reject her generosity despite her glowing endorsement of my humble person? I have three reasons: one, the modest pay (ahem) that I get for my columns is enough to sustain (ahem, again) my modest lifestyle; two, I don’t want to lose my friends.
And the third? Because even the devil will quote the Scriptures if it suits his purpose.
