This guy THINKS. I've been reading Doc for a couple of years - his best work comes in waves. This is a wave...check out The Long When, The Clue Rush, and any of the other stuff.

I grew up in the South (southern U.S.). My wife is from southern Philippines (Mindanao). We've got a lot in common. It turns out that when things get really really bad in the provinces of Mindanao and people can't even afford rice to eat, they eat something that is exactly what I call GRITS!

I brought some grits back with me from Georgia recently. If you can read the following, I'll give you some:

'em r snakes... 'em r not... s m r... c m idde bidde i's? L, I B, m r snakes!

As I was reading Ed Angara's first installment on his diaries of the last two days in Malacanang with former President Estrada, two things became patently clear to me.

First, although the events described are fascinatingly new and important, Angara is clearly not revealing the whole story - there are gaps in information that his story makes clear he has but he failed (chose not) to fill in or divulge.

Second, Estrada had an astoundingly narrow view on what was happening. After I made this conclusion from the diary article, I read Rigberto Tigtao's op-ed piece that is dead-on with the same point as he describes much more fully the cordon sanitaire effect. But this lack of reality seems to have extended to his first circle of advisors too, including Angara, to some extent.

'Are you with the police?'
'No ma'am....we're musicians'
                - The Blues Brothers