Thursday, March 27, 2008 Covington: Surges 2 (and other stuff) By Gary Covington Looking In
I FOUND another one. Another surge. A 'civilian surge'. What, apparently, we lefties in the 1960s used to call a demo, a demonstration of people unity for a cause.
Back then we held protest marches, picketed military bases, waved placards and generally went about things in exactly the way demonstrators do today, but with one exception: we didn't live in the age of instant personal communication and the Internet.
Lefties today (or righties, must be PC) can call up their supporters from far and wide using the mighty cellphone or the Internet. A plain old limited impact demo becomes a civilian surge and that maybe is where those truth and transparency folks up in manic Manila are getting it wrong (although one suspects quite a few wouldn't recognize a truth if it hit them on the head).
Maybe they should start calling their rallies civilian surges. Sounds so much more for the people, by the people, doesn't it?
On Tuesday there was another full-page color "soon" ad. No grinning monkey skull though -- that's been given the push, replaced by some dazzling finger bling.
The finger belongs to a lady -- and I think we're still with the Egyptian theme -- showing off what I take to be the Nefertiti neck and so I'm once again going for the new spa and, considering the amount of free promo I'm giving the place, I'm looking forward to a free going-over -- mustache tinting, beard re-bonding, wrinkle filling; he works.
On Thursday, Orlando Carvajal was lamenting -- and quite right too -- how the word hero has become so debased that the appellation is affixed to just about anybody whether the real thing or rogue.
I'd go a step further and ask why is it that the nation's OFWs are regarded and hailed as heroes? They're individuals who, as Roger Antalan wrote on Wednesday, are seizing an opportunity to better themselves, and folks have been doing that ever since work was invented.
Let's reserve the word hero to those who deserve it - those who lay down their life for a cause for a nation, those who do or die -- not a bunch of contract workers in the Middle East.
Lastly and the Davao Marco Polo Hotel is I know regarded as sacrosanct by many of my fellow scribblers -- all those free lunches and so on -- but I've never set foot in the place and nor am I likely to because their sales department is driving me up the wall.
For a couple of years now they -- the Marco Polo's sales department -- have been ringing me up with the absurd proposal that I pay an arm and leg for the privilege of renting a hotel bed ten minutes away from where I live.
I've been called out of the shower, in from the garden, even off the seat of ease and I've had enough. I'm wondering: is it possible to sue the place for being such a monumental nuisance?
