Today’s Inquirer editorial references a photo found in such sites as that of the UK’s Daily Mail.

The image is profoundly disturbing. The picture, published in many newspapers, shows a dead Burmese monk, floating face down in a murky river. His saffron robe has turned pale; it has turned the color of human flesh, drained of blood. Hints of saffron can still be glimpsed, partly hidden by the body of the slain protester. The close-up photograph suggests that the rivers of Burma (Myanmar) have been turned into makeshift graveyards, full of other bodies.

The detailed story in the Mail is worth a close read. But here’s the most disturbing of the photos included in the story:

I still can’t shake off this sneaking suspicion that the BBC is biased against Segolene Royal, the Socialist candidate for President of France. I got that sense when I watched the BBC’s coverage of the first round’s immediate aftermath, and (especially) when I read the website’s take on the results. But I must say I found the BBC’s coverage of Wednesday night’s presidential debate, between Royal and frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy, even, balanced.

By all accounts, the debate was a slam-bang affair, featuring dust-up after dust-up, an unexpected role reversal, and memorable quotes galore. It also went overtime. The transcripts were almost immediately available online, on many websites, and except for a few lines here and there read as though they were from the same English translation.

At least two newspapers found the thinly veiled hostility between the two candidates a reminder of a rather familiar domestic scene.

The Australian: At times the verbal argument resembled everyday conflicts between men and women, as Mr Sarkozy accused his opponent of “losing her cool” and Ms Royal charged him with being “condescending” and “contemptuous”.

The New York Times: By midway, Ms. Royal’s perpetual smile disappeared from her face. Their tone was reminiscent of a couple bickering at the breakfast table, with the husband barely restraining his sense of superiority and the wife attacking him for not listening to her.

I read as much of the coverage as I could, and caught the reports on CNN and BBC; I was driven by an almost partisan sense of participation (I am pulling for Sego) as well as a sense of possibility: This is how our elections should be conducted.

A battle of ideas, at least as far as ideas can be phrased in public debate; strong party identities; a run-off followed by a face-off between the top two candidates, to create a true majority mandate; not least, an election system (involving over 40 million voters, roughly the same size as our electorate) that provides the results within hours of the last vote.

This possibility, this scenario, reminds me of something I realized some three years ago: GMA’s biggest lost opportunity. Years from now, she will be remembered for her failure to reform the country’s fraud-marred electoral system — a cancer of the body politic that she herself diagnosed in 2002, when she announced her decision not to run for President. Ah, those were the days.

I see that an old friend of the Philippines is up to his “old tricks” again —- and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Archbishop Antonio Franco, now the papal nuncio to Israel (and Cyprus), has figured in another religious/political controversy.

John Allen writes:

Archbishop Antonio Franco, the Vatican’s nuncio in Israel, has announced that he will attend the annual Holocaust Memorial day event at Yad Vashem, Israel’s main Holocaust museum, after the museum indicated it is willing to reconsider a caption of Pope Pius XII that Franco found offensive.

Avner Shalev, President of Yad Vashem, sent a letter to Franco late in the week stating that the museum will “reconsider the way in which Pius XII is presented.” In response, Franco indicated that he will be present for the events Sunday evening.

Apparently, Franco did not only find the caption offensive; he backed it up with one of the more potent weapons in diplomacy’s limited armory: he threatened to stage a boycott.

Filipinos may remember Franco, who served in the Philippines for over six years, as the man who allegedly gave the Philippine bishops a tongue-lashing in July 2005 —- a warning against politicized action that allegedly led to the bishops’ tempered statement on the Garcillano crisis.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

Joey Alarilla suggested that Manolo and I post “light” on Sundays, so I thought of linking to an op-ed in the Financial Times written by a policy expert based in Sydney. He outlines a witty but pointed critique of US foreign policy under George W. Bush. Light enough?

It is, if you’re a fan of the Seinfeld show, like me, and the current US foreign policy doctrine is named after George Constanza.

In recent times US grand strategy has been guided by a new kind of doctrine, named after not its author but its exemplar: the Costanza doctrine.

This doctrine, which had its heyday in 2002-2004 but remains influential, recalls the classic episode of the TV comedy Seinfeld, “The Opposite”, in which George Costanza temporarily improves his fortunes by rejecting all the principles according to which he has lived his life and doing the opposite of what his training indicates he should do. As Jerry tells him: “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.”

Emboldened, he tries a counter-intuitive pick-up line on an attractive woman: “My name is George. I’m unemployed and I live with my parents.” At the end of their date, when she invites him up to her apartment, he demurs, cautioning that they do not know each other well enough. “Who are you, George Costanza?” the lady asks. Replies George: “I’m the opposite of every guy you’ve ever met.”

The Iraq policy pursued by the Bush administration satisfies the Costanza criterion: it is the opposite of every foreign policy the world has ever met.

Fans of the unusually well-written show put up a most unusual shrine: a collection of fan-transcribed scripts of every episode ever shown. I’ve wasted many hours loitering in this site (”not that there’s anything wrong with that”). Now it has an even more fan-friendly interface. The episode referred to by Lowy Institute director Michael Fullilove (hey, that sounds like a name conjured by the show’s writers themselves) is “The Opposite,” apparently the last episode of the fifth season. It’s worth a lazy Sunday read.