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C2
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LEONINE:
NINE GREAT LEO MEN IN HISTORY THE ARMCHAIR PILOSOPA BY IZZY WARREN GONZALEZ
I’m a big birthday person. Huge. Most Leos I know are. Perhaps this is because we don’t usually have the license to spend an entire day doing how many of us would prefer to spend our entire lives: in complete celebration of our ability to experience the world with us in it, and what sort of (hopefully!) positive impact that has on the lives of people around us. I don’t think we celebrate our birthdays as much as we celebrate the people whose birthday it may be. Which is also why you might notice that Leos tend to make a big deal about your birthdays, too, if you’ve passed the cordon sanitaire of their lives. People who can call us Leos friends are people who can call us in the middle of the night, during a DefCon 1, cats-flying-around-in-twisters, flooding-like-the-dam-burst sort of storm, and ask if we were doing anything, and if we could please come over because he didn’t like the
sound of thunder. I have noticed, not necessarily in myself but in the Leos I admire, an ability to uplift spirits and provide encouragement when times are rough. We are enthusiastic. We are social. We are magnetic. From experience, we are very difficult not to liked from the get-go – but it takes a special sort of person to have the patience for us for a prolonged period of time. I don’t blame you, either. It’s exhausting being around a Leo, a big ball of fire and fury and passion, all the time. We do not hold grudges, we forgive (mostly because we like to forget), and most of all, we have a great amount of respect not for those who we feel deserve it but who we know have earned it from those who are better than the likes of us. Our pride is easily hurt, and while this can cause us to be selfcentered and thick, more often than not, the underlying warmth of our hearts and personalities can help offset that. But do you want to know a secret? It’s like that Cheap Trick song from 1978: “I want you to want me, I need you to need me, I love you to love me, I’m begging you to beg me.” Leos have an
Jesus. St Johns Ashfield, Stained Glass Good Shepherd
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini
Alfred Tennyson
Carl Jung
unimaginable need to be needed. They live for others, and it hurts, very keenly I might add, when their motives are mistaken for self-serving aggrandizement. Does this sound familiar? I am sure a great many Leos live in your general orbit, but a fair amount of Leos have made their mark on history in a very big way. It is actually believed by certain people that the signs of the Zodiac portray the panorama of the Plan of God throughout human history – from the Garden of Eden well into the Millennium. The Gospel of Jesus is
Napoléon Bonaparte
King Solomon
thought to start from Virgo, the virgin birth, and it continues on to Leo, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, who will return at the Second Advent and rule for a thousand years. Yes, despite Monty Python cementing it in our brains that Jesus was a Capricorn (or was that just Brian?), the semiotics of his is very much that of a Leo. Of the 12 sons of Jacob, Judah was given the firstborn right of rulership. He was called a Lion, as Jesus is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Furthermore, it is said that the Lord designed a tabernacle for the Sun (Leo’s star sign). The Sun symbolizes Jesus (“I am the Light of the world”), as well as also being reminiscent of a king. David might’ve been a Leo, as he lived through the Lion’s Den, but more often equated with Leo and all the characteristics we’ve mentioned above is King Solomon. According to the Talmud, Solomon is one of the 48 prophets, and he is credited as the builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem. The Tanakh portrays him as great in
Louis Armstrong
Andy Warhol
wisdom, wealth, and power – but ultimately as a king whose sins, including idolatry and threatening to cut babies in half with a scimitar among them, led to the kingdom being torn in two. That must’ve caused all sorts of issues requiring therapy, and who better to step in as a great Leo in history but the incomparable Carl C. Jung? This Leo was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. His work has been influential in psychiatry, philosophy, anthropology, archaeology, and religion. He coined the terms “introvert” and “extrovert,” was mentored by Sigmund Freud until sex got between them (Freud was too hung up on it; Jung believed we are more than our basal desires), and his theory of personality types greatly influenced the MyersBrigss Type Indicator (MBTI) which is still used in HR practices today. He was also featured in The Police’s final album, Synchronicity. It was named after Jung’s theory, and on the cover, Sting is seen reading a book of the same title by Jung. Continued on C3
Stop saying ‘netizen,’ you’re using it wrong
Online converations also happen offline
This little girl is a netizen
Tweeting makes you a netizen
Netizen (noun): an active participant in the online community of the Internet (Merriam-Webster) Strictly speaking, a netizen is simply a person who uses the Internet actively as a participant in the community of users. If you THE GIST tweet, you’re a netizen. If you post BY ED BIADO pictures, you’re a netizen. If you comment on a story, you’re a netizen. If you share other people’s post, you’re a netizen. Yet somehow, in the Philippines, there are different perceptions on netizenship. On more than a few occasions, politicians have accused netizens of being “paid hacks” and activists. Extremists, even. Broadcast news would report on how netizens are up in arms against a certain government measure or legal policy, or how they’re always signing online petitions. Netizens are bashers, some celebrities claim. Let’s repeat Merriam-Webster’s definition. A netizen is “an active participant in the online community of the Internet.” The keyword is active. Therefore, it makes sense that Filipino netizens are vocal, opinionated and unafraid to share their views. And because they’re that active, it’s expected that they are among the first ones to speak on (or against) an issue, scrutinize controversies, and nitpick everything: from the latest Nancy Binay dress to the state of the Freedom of Information bill; from Yaya Dub’s rising popularity to Lea Salonga’s Twitter rants. But it’s the same conversations that take place in schools, at barbershops, at sari-sari stores, at the carinderia, at the fish ball stand, at dinner tables. Netizens are not alien beings. They – we – are regular Filipinos who happen to be online. The term itself, a portmanteau of “citizen” and “Internet,” informs that it’s just
that: a citizen of the Internet. So when you read a headline saying that “netizens react” to this and that, the publication is not talking about a a new human species. Some of those so-called netizens could be your next-door neighbors, your coworkers, or even your own children. Yet these reports make it appear that the entire Filipino online community is in on it and collectively plotting to bring someone down whenever something of note happens. Consider these headlines pulled from Google News search results:
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Netizens back Miss Jamaica after MJ Lastimosa’s Miss Universe loss Animal cruelty video angers netizens Netizens enraged over Balesin’s ‘yaya meal’ ‘Ungrateful’ Veloso mom enrages netizens Data from September last year shows that 38 million Filipinos use the Internet. That’s a third of the country’s population. Two in three online Filipinos are under 30 years old. Almost 19 in 20 of us with Internet access are on Facebook. And all of us who are active on any online platform, including Facebook, are netizens. Therefore, I’m a netizen. You’re a netizen. That politician who thinks so lowly of netizens is a netizen. Why is that so damn difficult to digest for some people? There continues to be a distinction. A divide, if you will. One in three Filipinos is a netizen. Pretty soon, because of the government’s efforts to nationalize free Wi-Fi, everybody is going to be one. When that happens, the term “netizen,” at least locally, will lose all meaning and every one of us will revert to being citizens. But do we really have to wait for that day to come? Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @EdBiado