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Ang Ladlad, the gay-lesbian-transgender-bisexual political party, has finally been allowed to participate in the May 10 elections for party list representation. The Supreme Court had to bitch-slap the Commission on Elections for this to happen. My girlfriend Danton Remoto of Ang Ladlad has agreed to a Q&A with our readers. Post your questions in Comments, and I’ll send them to the bakla for his answers.

I’ll start.

1. Darling, why do we need a gay party list? Aren’t gay people already in power? One might argue that people aren’t oppressed for being gay, they’re oppressed for being poor.

2. Why should we vote for Ang Ladlad when you’re not their nominee? Explain again why you’re no longer eligible to sit as congressgay? (Why did you run as an independent? Gaga.)

3. Do you think closeted gays and eskaparate queens (gays living in glass closets) should be outed? They have no right to privacy?

* * * * *
Monday, 19 April, 1806. Danton’s answers to your questions will appear tomorrow morning. Thanks, Danton, for taking time out from your killer schedule to do this.

You won’t even feel a thing.

I ran into Ginggay Joven-Dela Merced, who is encouraging people to carry organ donor cards. It’s a gift that lets people live after your death.

Print out the card and keep it with your ID or in your wallet.

As I told Chus, you cannot will your body parts to Rodrigo Santoro.

From the first chapter of Ill Fares the Land, the new book by Tony Judt. If you’re in school or just out of school, and you’ve discovered that the principles drummed into you in school are negotiable after all, and you wonder if anything really matters, you have to read this.

Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: Is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them.

We cannot go on living like this. Continue reading Ill Fares The Land in NYRB.

Thanks to Jaime for the alert.

So the cover of your MacBook looks like. . .the inside of your MacBook!

Another warped idea from Noel Orosa, photography by Ricky Villabona.

Last Saturday I attended the launch of My City, My SM in SM City, Rosales, Pangasinan. I’ve seen more of the Philippines in the last four months of tagging along with the SM Marketing Communications Group than I have in the last ten years. One thing I like about the project, apart from the chance to see my own country, is that its endorsers are people of substance. Not celebrities who are famous for being famous, but individuals who have actually used their abilities for good not evil. Like Dr. Bito (eek, typo) Biyo, the head of Philippine Science High School in Iloilo, who won an international award for teachers and has a planet named after her.

The endorsers of My City, My SM in Rosales, Pangasinan are ten-year-old chess prodigy Samantha Glo Revita, Sudoku grandmaster Sarah Jane Cua, and National Artist for Literature Francisco Sionil Jose, author of the Rosales series of novels.

I got scolded for not having been to F. Sionil Jose’s Solidaridad Bookstore in Padre Faura since the dinner for James Hamilton-Paterson years and years ago. Sorry.

You imagine that your conversation with an esteemed author will be cultured and profound. Ours went like this.

“I hate wearing my dentures,” said F. Sionil Jose. Big smile. Mrs. Jose rolled her eyeballs.

“You don’t have to,” I said. “The hell with it. What was Rosales called when you were growing up?”

“Rosales.”

“Oh. I thought it was named after the actress Carmen Rosales. There are signs calling it Carmen Rosales.”

“You know why it’s called Rosales?” Mr. Jose said. “Because there were lots of rosal growing along the highway. They’re gone. There were also huts with grass roofs. Gone.”

After the launch we went on to Baguio. They’ve recorded the highest temperatures in Baguio this year—they may have hit 30 degrees—but on Saturday night it was wonderfully chilly. Still used a quilt. Sunday, though, was warm. We went to the BenCab Museum to see the exhibition of new works by the National Artist for the Visual Arts and My City, My SM’s Baguio endorser.

BenCab’s exhibit is called Draped Figures. They’re actually Draped Nudes, which sounds like a contradiction but that’s what they are. You imagine that your conversation with an esteemed artist will be cultured and profound. Ours went like this.

“See?” BenCab said. “I finally have a male nude. What do you think?”

“Um. . .”

“People complain that I only paint female nudes. Well?”

“It’s so. . .it’s so gay.” Happy Birthday, BenCab!

Draped Figures is on view at the Indigo Gallery of the BenCab Museum until May. You have to visit the next time you’re in Baguio.

Bienvenido Nebres, S.J. is the president of the Ateneo de Manila University. He was the founding president of the Mathematical Society of the Philippines.