Tuesday, March 04, 2008 Obenieta: Disturbances, distances By Myke U. Obenieta So to speak
EASIER to see red where the grass is greener. Keep off, the sign might as well shriek and spit curses at interlopers.
There’s no stopping those eyeing for red-hot opportunities, however. That explains the escalating number of intractable cows gone grazing in the United States. Reports estimate that as many as 12 million have trespassed America’s borders despite government efforts to impede the pace of at least 850,000 illegal immigrants, mostly Mexicans, sneaking into America annually since 2000.
Never mind the crimson tide now tinting the landscape supposedly awash with milk and honey: an economy endangered in the midst of a military encroachment in Iraq, homeowners caught in a flurry of foreclosures, and the government raising the roof of its worries against intrusive terrorists.
Watch out, whip the stupor away. Thus signals blare in the blitz of televised ads as the election season heats up. Locking horns for the Democrats’ presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are leaving voters with a choice to chew over: Who could exercise superior judgment in responding to national emergency in the middle of the night?
In the dark, meanwhile, are nearly 47 million Americans still dreaming to avail themselves of health care.
For Pinoys in America, especially us sending money back home, this is enough for a herd of bleating goats to get in the way of sleep: When will the dollar, gone to the dogs now in the forex rate, rise again?
As if that’s not enough, homeward reveries often stray smack into the rampage of horses. When will all the recurrent unrest over corruption, in the hooves of the controversial broadband deal, ever cease? Such sense of disquiet can be harder to weather away than worries about being caught—knock on wood!—in America’s occasional streaks of snowstorms, tornadoes and wildfires.
Talk about an untamed menagerie, and the wilderness of mismanagement does hit home.
Keep the distance. Thus the chairman of the committee on environment at the Cebu City Council hopes to fend off horses, carabao, goat, sheep, pig, fowl and other animals of the bovine species away from some of the city’s public properties, including parks, playgrounds, public streets, squares, center islands, sidewalks and vacant lots under a flyover or a skywalk.
“Right now you can see animals being tied to fences of parks or even in the sidewalk. Motorcycles are parked there and even construction materials are dumped (there). We have to regulate this,” explains councilor Nestor Archival after instigating the “anti-grazing ordinance” meant to “encourage the public to help keep the city clean and appealing to residents and tourists.”
Meanwhile, there’s always someone else blithe about the world and whatever blight or intimations of doom. Some nights, a pig or cow in the hand of a butcher can’t hold a candle to the one cranking up the videoke next door, throwing caution to the wind about “the green, green grass of home.”
