Kidlat Tahimik

I first visited the Philippines in 2004, in the month prior to their election. Campaign vehicles drove around with loudspeakers mounted on their roofs, selling their candidates like the Blues Brothers announcing a gig.

I've been back to visit every 2 years since then. A lot of things have changed; a new president, new road construction, new housing and business construction. But a lot of things haven't changed. If you cut all the trees on the mountainside and build concrete hollow block homes, the mud still slides.

The polished marble floors of Montalban are still down the street from sheet metal shacks, the machine guns for the bodyguards are still stacked in the mayor's dining room , the 12 year old kids are still in the streets selling cigarettes a single stick at a time, because who can afford to buy a whole pack? The stray dogs with swollen tits are as ubiquitous as the diesel smoke. Some enterprising young lad dreams of milking the dogs for his dirty ice cream business. Waiter, there's a dog hair in my soup! No Extra Charge, Sir! The old lady is still standing in the middle of the Manila expressway traffic hawking pot holders, a dollar a dozen, and how she doesn't fall down from diesel smoke asphyxiation is a fucking miracle. Maybe she did fall down and her daughter inherited the business. I've been gone for 2 weeks and I'm still coughing up green lung cookies speckled gray with diesel soot.



Ashes to ashes and mud to mud, some of the mudslides still claim the bodies of people. "One day you will come to know the quiet strength of bamboo."





I'm currently reading "Kapwa: The Self in The Other" by Katrin De Guia, a book about the" worldviews and lifestyles of Filipino Culture-Bearers". One of the artists in the book is the filmmaker, Kidlat Tahimik, creator of the film Mababangong bangungot, or Perfumed Nightmare, Winner of the Berlin Film Festival International Critics Award and a Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival.


The 1977 movie tells the tale of a young Filipino man's infatuation with the American Space Program, and his subsequent disillusionment with "progress" after traveling to Paris with an Americano to run the Americano's gumball machine business. The movie is a scathing critique of colonialism.

I cringed upon hearing the voice of Henry Kissinger talking about Africa.

Part 2


Part 3

Part4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Who will be Miss Supermarket of 1976?

Part 9

"When the typhoon blows off its cocoon, the butterfly embraces the sun. The sleeping typhoon must learn to blow again."

I thought this lady was dead.

Sometimes the words float through the reduction valve in my mind, sometimes the pictures.

Above are the pictures that passed through my mind while reading Tengrain's post.

And these are the words that quickly followed:

C. Phyllis.
C.Phyllis run!
Run, C. Phyllis, run!


Also, Too...... Blue Gal! taps into the Cryptkeeper vibe!

The Stone Faced Jeepney Drivers Know

Image copped from Fried Green al-Qaedas


On my way back from a month in the Philippines, I spent a 6 hour layover in a Chicago airport. While I remained offline for most of the past month, I had been largely unaware of American Media Junk. And then it all came back to me. Six unrelenting hours. There's nothing like being greeted back to the States by an ejaculating Wolf Blitzer. Who decides what channel the airport TVs broadcast, Homeland Security?

The Sherrod Thing, for lack of a better a name, is the Obama equivalent of a Missing Blonde College Girl story. You think the Obama People were "snookered" by Brietbart? Really?! hahaha!

Pay no attention to That Man Behind The Curtain!

Pope Ratso Rizzo

Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday called abortion and same-sex marriage some of the most “insidious and dangerous” threats facing the world today…



Tip O' The Hat to the Holy Taco and BlackDogRed

And now a word from our sponsors...

So, what's going on in the world of Zen Comix? I'm not posting regularly, but I'm writing some stuff for a longer, offline project. I'm going outside to smell the strawberries and apple blossoms. I still visit some of my favorite , funny sites, and if I'm motivated enough, I might even comment.

I find myself agreeing with Chris Floyd's take on the American War Machine.




The cognitive dissonance on the right (Don't read Miranda warnings to "terrorists" and strip them of citizenship, but allow them unfettered access to munitions. Also, too, show us your papers before purchasing over the counter cold medicine) is equaled by the refusal of the left to admit that it's a war crime when Obama does it, just as it was a war crime when Bush did it.

I really should, but I can't summon the energy right now to draw caricatures of the cast of characters in Obama's Ring of Fire, hence the recycled cartoons of Republicans.The names and faces may change, but we're still bogged down in wars.

I'm spending more time outside with the plants and birds. Every time I grab the shovel, the robins follow me around like puppy dogs. They're practically tame. If I tried hard enough, I could get them to eat the worms from my hand.


Meanwhile, my mind keeps returning to this. The sole comment on a post about Tibetans being beaten by cops in New York City looks like Chinese spam. Capitalism, baby, fuck yeah! Who OWNS you? Next time, the Tibetans ought to hire some locked and loaded Teabaggers as security escorts. Or maybe when The Dalai Lama is playing golf with Mick Jaggar, he can ask him if he still has the number for the Hell's Angels.




When it's a white guy flying a plane into the Government's IRS building, or blowing up Government buildings in Oklahoma, it's your lone gunman explanation. When it's a brown guy trying to blow shit up, it's a conspiracy!





The US military is killing civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. How would you feel if people from Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq retaliated by killing American civilians here? Where is your Moral Clarity? How does the cycle end? The people with a vested interest in perpetuating the cycle are the same people that order the cops to beat the shit out of a bunch of flag waving Tibetans. Nothing new under the sun.



Health Care Reform?



Health Insurance Reform?

Meanwhile, The Gulf of Mexico is totally fucked. Why didn't BP have the containment thingie ready to go from Day One? The same reason they didn't have a remote shut off valve? The clean up of the Gulf will be cosmetic, at best, and won't really begin in earnest until the winds whip the oil slick ashore and it lands on...





The gravy sucking pigs who want to shrink the Government until it's small enough to drown in a bathtub full of oil slicked sea water are the first ones in line begging for the spoonful of Gummint Sugar Tits to help the medicine go down.

Don't shit where you eat, my friend.



underground comix, comix, political, cartoons,political cartoons, parody, satire, Republicans, GOP, comics, comic strips, webcomic, Bush

Zencomix

President Pope Benny Dick

I tried posting this the past couple of days, and I kept getting bX-ypdv0 and bX-9x4b53 errors, obviously biblical code for "Repent Sinner". Yeah, apparently Jesus messed with Blogger code in an effort to block the heathens from blogging against theocracy. Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.

Meanwhile, The Blogswarm Against Theocracy carries on. Blue Gal has a Blog Against Theocracy movie , Tengrain is running a Pin The Tail On The Theocrat contest, and the inimitable Darkblack has the crime scene photo.

Meanwhile, check out The Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm site for plenty more links, and if you feel like swiping my cartoon for your blog, you are free to do so.

Zencomix

Directly From My Heart To You

Thanks to Mark at Fried Green al-Qaedas for the Photoshop

February Blues spill over into March

It's been a rough month or so...The 18th of February was the one year anniversary of my Dad's death. We miss you Pops!




About a month ago, my buddy Nate died. He killed himself. Nate was a great friend, poet, songwriter, drummer...he struggled with bi-polar as long as I've known him, almost 30 years. All the pills, prescribed or otherwise, all the smoke and drink couldn't ease the pain and insanity of chronic depression. Manic Depression is a frustrating mess. R.I.P. NateDog...



Last month was the 9th anniversary of the death of one of my Tai Chi teachers, Jane Faigao, from Rocky Mountain Tai Chi Chuan. We burned her body at Red Feather Lakes, an open air, public cremation. I have a burn hole on my coat from a piece of Jane's floating embers. I think about her life everyday when I'm practicing Tai Chi. Every February I think about her death.



And last night, there's more bad news, Jon Swift died.

Jon's real name is Al Weisel and I first encountered Al through the Blogroll Amnesty Day he helped start with Skippy.Like many readers of his blog, I never got the chance to meet Al in person, but he was incredibly generous with us internet folks.

How generous was he to me? He nominated me for a Weblog Award for best comic strip. Believe me, the nomination by Jon Swift was much more prestigious than the actual award.

Al was an incredibly funny writer, and his generosity in linkage to other blogs is the gold standard. He is deeply missed.


My heart goes out to Al's family.