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Or Bong could consider being local mayor or governor but for the
Senate, I’d prefer candidates with articulated thoughts on
Bangsamoro, the budget and pork, taxation, Sabah, climate change,
nuke plant, China’s irredentism, etc. We cannot just rely on his being
a presidential go-fer. What will Bong do in the Senate anyway?
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This dilletantte-ish attitude seems to me to be violative of the
interdiction found in Sec. 25 of Art. XVIII of the Constitution (have
Sal, Bong and Manny read the provision?). China is treating us as its
24th province, while majority of our people may fantasize for us to be
the 51st state of the Union. Of course, the Kanos would be aghast at
the prospect of having another state with 105 million rabbits, a
nightmare, while many of us daydream of being Kanos.
Scattered all over the country and the world, they keep in touch,
emailing or meeting for joyous and sad occasions, like helping a
member in need. I am reminded of the Ateneo for a Better Philippines
group, another real frat, with no demeaning ritual required to get in.
Band of Brothers then, in our time (and now, also of Sisters). It kindly
invited me to join, through Alex Gaston, with whom I go to way back
when.
The only real friends
Robert Penn Warren wrote something like the only real friend one
may have is that of one’s youth, and I could see the logic and link in
these two groups.
No talk of politics but Paul Aquino, along with Dr. Louie Kodumal,
was one of the ringleaders of the rousing successful event (headed by
tireless creative impresario Mon Pasicolan); it was assumed that
Paul’s son, Senator Bam, has our wholehearted support, who deserves
it. And I have to fret about an apparent paradigm shift.
The main parties were the Liberals and the Nacionalistas. Wala pa po
yatang Lapiang Pinabili Lang ng Suka (LAPISUKA) nuon. Our
children and grandchildren deserve better than our current pork-
obsessed lawmakers in this Year of the Pig.
Even our 1987-1992 batch was inferior to our predecessors. Is our
nation really decaying in its values, processes and institutions?
How I wish the House would honor our intent behind the SALN law,
requiring only the cost of copying to get a SALN (I co-authored RA
6713 and sponsored it on the floor all the way to the bicameral
conference committee). What is the House hiding?
How I wish Manny Pacquiao would stop talking about his three bouts
this year. And he could resign; it’s the decent and honorable thing to
do. We all recognize and appreciate what he has achieved for the
country but senatoring is not a sideline or hobby. All his colleagues
seem to be looking the other way instead of advising him to do the
right thing — and to work, and pay his tax arrears. This kind of
fraternization is not in the country’s best interest as he does not even
rule out a possible Fighting Prez persona in 2022, when he may leave
the country’s affairs to Veep Mocha Uson and Senate Prez Lito Lapid.
I keep saying I do not underrate anyone’s capacity for change and
subjective growth, but they have to prepare now.
Summary
The novel is set in a village in Puritan New England. The main character is Hester
Prynne, a young woman who has borne a child out of wedlock. Hester believes herself
a widow, but her husband, Roger Chillingworth, arrives in New England very much
alive and conceals his identity. He finds his wife forced to wear the scarlet letter A on
her dress as punishment for her adultery. After Hester refuses to name her lover,
Chillingworth becomes obsessed with finding his identity. When he learns that the
man in question is Arthur Dimmesdale, a saintly young minister who is the leader of
those exhorting her to name the child’s father, Chillingworth proceeds to torment him.
Stricken by guilt, Dimmesdale becomes increasingly ill. Hester herself is revealed to
be a self-reliant heroine who is never truly repentant for committing adultery with the
minister; she feels that their act was consecrated by their deep love for each other.
Although she is initially scorned, over time her compassion and dignity silence many
of her critics.
In the end, Chillingworth is morally degraded by his monomaniacal pursuit of
revenge. Dimmesdale is broken by his own sense of guilt, and he publicly confesses
his adultery before dying in Hester’s arms. Only Hester can face the future bravely, as
she prepares to begin a new life with her daughter, Pearl, in Europe. Years later Hester
returns to New England, where she continues to wear the scarlet letter. After her death
she is buried next to Dimmesdale, and their joint tombstone is inscribed with “ON A
FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES.”
Analysis
The scarlet letter A that Hester is forced to wear is finely embroidered with gold-
coloured thread. As both a badge of shame and a beautifully wrought human artifact,
it reflects the many oppositions in the novel, such as those between order and
transgression, civilization and wilderness, and adulthood and childhood. The more
society strives to keep out wayward passion, the more it reinforces the split between
appearance and reality. The members of the community who are ostensibly the most
respectable are often the most depraved, while the apparent sinners are often the most
virtuous.
The novel also crafts intriguing symmetries between social oppression and
psychological repression. Dimmesdale’s sense of torment at his guilty secret and the
physical and mental manifestations of his malaisereflect the pathology of a society
that needs to scapegoat and alienate its so-called sinners. Eventually,
personal integrity is able to break free from social control. Perhaps more than any
other novel, The Scarlet Letter effectively encapsulates the emergence
of individualism and self-reliance from America’s Puritan and conformist roots.
Ronan McDonaldThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:
Herman Melville: The years of acclaim
…was supplied by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, a novel deeply exploring good and
evil in the human being, which Melville read in the spring of 1850. That summer, Melville
bought a farm, which he christened “Arrowhead,” near Hawthorne’s home at Pittsfield, and
the two men became neighbours physically as well…
Roger Chillingworth
>The Scarlet Letter (1850). Vindictive and sly, Chillingworth ministers to the Rev. Arthur
Dimmesdale, with whom his wife has had an affair, after Dimmesdale becomes ill.
Ostensibly concerned with Dimmesdale’s health, Chillingworth wants only to spy on him and
gloat over his misfortunes. Chillingworth is…
Pearl
>The Scarlet Letter (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne. A wild, fey child who is associated
throughout the work with nature and the natural, Pearl is the product of an unsanctified
relationship between Hester and the minister Arthur Dimmesdale.…