people killing people

This was my latest post in LJ, but I thought it needed to be present in both platforms.

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I braced myself for yet another compelling documentary scheduled tonight - Discovery's The Beslan Seige. All TWO hours of it. I posted an entry on a BBC documentary on the same topic a while back, and just like after watching that docu, I turned off the TV quite emotional.

In contrast to BBC, though, Discovery's documentary focused more on what actually happened during the attack. Apparently, I got some details wrong from the previous docu, but most was basically maintained... but this one made me even sadder about people killing people. One survivor was narrating how he was led by the terrorists from somewhere else in the school to the gym. He said the terrorist was telling them, "We're trying to scare your government. Thank you for your participation." I swear... ASSHOLE!!!

People killing people.

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The other day I finally got to pop in my DVD of 28 Days Later. The story was basically about survivors of a viral outbreak that left the infected insane with rage, going around killing the non-infected and living like zombies. At a certain point the main characters found themselves in the safety of a small military fortress. The lead guy character asked the head of the group how he could handle the whole thing, and the military dude said something like, "You think I'm not used to this? People killing people? You think I haven't been to wars? We're trained for this, people killing people."

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Wars. People killing people. Really, isn't that the worst outbreak for humanity? Certain words come to mind... Iraq. Kuwait. North Korea. South Korea. Chechnya. Moscow. The list goes on, really. I don't think I can ever imagine the feeling of terror knowing that the enemy is just less than 10 miles away. The experience I have closest to that is that time we were in South Cotabato. Coming from Lake Sebu, we were going to a nature park up north (or was that down south? i forget...). But before we headed out, we made a quick pit stop at our base resort. I didn't know why we made a stopover, but it was mostly our guides who left to get stuff. When they all returned holding a gun each (shotguns, rifles... blech), I took one quick look at our cameraman who just nodded his head in assurance that it's gonna be okay. I mean, c'mon, we were working for a travel channel not a news network, for crying out loud! Apparently, we were headed for a nature park almost at the top of the mountain a few minutes away from the resort. Beyond that park, further up the mountain, would already be the Saranggani Province - a place crawling with NPAs. The park was beautiful with huge stones and clear, cold water flowing down the river... But I couldn't fully enjoy the experience thinking the trees behind me might have a sniper tripping on killing media people, or even just plain civilians. That was the first time I had asked my crew to keep their Media IDs in their bags. All of our nature trips during that shoot involved armed escorts. All that while trekking along pathless mountainsides, crossing rivers and barbed wires... They kept reassuring us that it was safe, that the escorts were just SOP for visitors from the media. GREAT. By then I realized that keeping our media IDs in our bags didn't really hide the fact that we were, indeed, media practitioners. South Cotabato is definitely a beautiful, BEAUTIFUL place, but I'm so glad that trip's over and done with. Hmm... I better find pics from that shoot and place them in here...

* * *

Part of the PDI Foto Expo was a talk by photojournalists. Albert Garcia, the photographer of the infamous Pinatubo eruption photograph from National Geographic, told a story of a young boy from his beats with the NPAs. The military was searching homes in Mindanao for members of the NPA, and the boy was the son of a hunted man. Albert said the military trashed their house, leaving it as is after finding nothing (or noone) they needed. He said the boy kept trying to hit and throw things at the military men while shouting, "Bakit nyo ginugulo bahay namin?!? Bakit nyo gustong patayin ang tatay ko?!?!" He said the boy grew up to be a very angry man, even joining the NPA later on, and had kept in touch with him as a contact with the media. Then he said, "huling balita ko nabaril na rin yata sha... Patay na rin."

* * *

Imagine all those kids from Beslan. Imagine a new generation of harbored anger letting lose in 10 years time. 'Tis what seems to be an endless cycle of terrorism, anger, rebellion, and revenge.

People killing people. How fucked up is that?

by the way

My active blog is in LJ - www.livejournal.com/users/wershwie

Is all. ;)

dooood...

A friend sent me her blogger url. This girl already has an active multiply account! Hahaha... I told her I also have a blogger account, but just for the heck of it. I never got to use it, though, coz my LJ account is active. Then I thought I'd check out my blogger page. But no, I couldnt' remember the url I assigned to it!!! HAHAHAHA!!!

I tried all my usual stuff (wershwie, blah-blah...), but nothing seemed to work. I knew I could just sign in at the dashboard, but I thought I'd try using google's blogsearch first. I remember using "Part Deux" since my LJ account was already "Tinker Thoughts," but this url still didn't come out. Instead, I discovered that there was someone else using "Tinker Thoughts" in LJ, only this time it was his username instead of the title for his blog. Coolness. :) I just had to drop a line to say hello. :)

And so I finally decided to just sign in at blogger, and there it was, my url. HAHAHAHAHA!!! It's so random that I totally forgot what it was!!! I was chatting with my friend when all of this was happening, and when I gave her the url I assigned to my blogger page she said, "that's catchy!" And all I could say was, "well, apparently, not to me!" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Dozed, I am, indeed. Haha!

Hoo! Cool enough story to actually post my 2nd entry in here... Hahahaha...

Wuhoo! :)