The end of this blog....

I no longer post on this blog. I got a new one... here is the web address: http://indiobotod.blog125.fc2.com/

see you there!

SMS Political joke

# "The Filipinos are worth dying for." - Ninoy Aquino
# "The Filipinos are worth living for." - Cory Aquino
# "The Filipinos are worth dining for." - Gloria Arroyo

Random Points:

* Gloria said, "God put me here." Amado Macasaet said, "No, Garci did."
* I couldn't agree more with Malaya EIC Amado Macasaet when he opined that the nation lost with GMA's "victory" in 2004.
* Due to lack of shelter security, many Filipinos have to struggle by renting a "kwartito." A kwartito is a mini-room that can only accommodate a bed and a small dining table. I've experienced it myself. It's P800 in 1998 if my memory serves me right.
* "Heavy multitaskers are lousy at multitasking," according to Stanford communications professor Clifford Nass.

Wellness Bandwagon?

* A coffee brand offers a new set of what it calls 'Pro-Health' variants namely Pro-fiber (with Inulin fiber), Pro-power (with ginkgo biloba), Pro-beauty (with collagen) and Pro-slim (with L-carnitine).

* Another more established coffee brand has its own 'Body Partner' selection namely Protect (more antioxidant), Fit (helps in weight management), Relax (with chamomile extract) and Lingzhi (with ganoderma extract).

* An international college in Taguig offers a certificate course in wellness (and yes, believe it or not, pageantry)

* A fastfood chain now serves breakfast oats.

Resilience

What do you think is the foremost source
of the Filipino's resilience to crises?

* His spirituality
- Prof. Mariam Tuvera, UP Economics professor

* Relationships, being able to express, humor and food
-Ms. Chat Jemena, University researcher, UP

* The strong family support system and belief in god
- Prof. Roland Simbulan, former UP faculty regent

* There is the archetypal image of the bamboo in the Filipino
unconscious that has become a part of our genetic pool.
This is evident in the presence of the image of the bamboo
in the myths and legends of the people.
-Prof. Grace Odal-Devora, UP arts and communications professor

* The Filipino's bahala na fatalism
-Atty. Ismael Khan, former Supreme Court spokesperson

* Resignation - their getting used to it
-Prof. Evelyn Jimenez, UP Philosophy professor

* It's the bahala na habit kicking in but instead of
a bad effect, it becomes positive
-Mr. Yar Min Thant, Burmese

* Faith in God
-Dr. Ana Maria Tabunda, Pulse Asia Executive Director

* Sense of humor
-Prof. Mary Dorothy Jose, UP History professor

* Prayers
-Prof. Melissa Alcazaren, CSB Psychology professor

* Their bahala na attitude
-Prof. Benjamin Mangubat, UP History professor

* Blind faith (Sorry if that is a bit harsh)
-Mr. Mike Wooton, Manila Times columnist

* A mixture of many things: our strong faith,
lack of too much conveniences in life
makes us easily adapt
-Dr. Angelita Galban, UP Community Dentistry professor

* Sense of humor
-Atty. Christian Monsod, former COMELEC Chairman


from diwang palaboy blog

Antisocial Network

# HATEBOOK= hatebook.com
# SNUBSTER= snubster.com
# ENEMYBOOK= enemybook.info

Random Thoughts:

# Great Book Blockade of 2009- Bureau of Custom and Dept. of Finance's joint effort to promote corruption expansionism.
# For Mother's Day: Philippines is 42nd in terms of rank, for countries that are healthy or good for (a) mother's welfare under the least developed countries category. (RP is unsafe for mothers, According to a US study.)
# Self-googling- ego- searching = according to time.com
# Swine-flu-Bird-flu mix- latest epidemic to watch out.

Random Thoughts:

* El Shaddai leader Mike Velarde sold a piece of land to the government at 1,000 times its market value.
* Tinikling= A Filipino folk dance of Leyte origin not of Tagalog origin. Inspired by the farm birds known as Tikling.
* Philippines is part of the CORAL TRIANGLE that holds the "richest concentration" of iridescent corals, fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and marine plants in the world.

* The Phil. Sports Commission together with the newly appointed Ambassador for Peace and Understanding Manny Pacquiao will host a boxing match between the Arm Force of the Philippines and MILF to promote peace!
* CREDIT MUNCH n.- Recession-induced comfort eating; from TIME Magazine

A Nation of Idiots: The Department Order No. 17-09

What exactly does Dept. Order No. 17-09 do?

1st, it makes an appalling distinction between imports classified as "educational, technical, scientific, historical or cultural books/ materials" for non-profit purposes (which can be brought into the country without duties), and the same class of imports that are "for sale, barter or hire" ( which will now be levied a 1-percent duty).

2nd, it makes an avaricious distinction between the class of imported books specified in the paragraph above and all other books imported into the country (which now be levied a 5-percent duty).

3rd, it makes an absurd distinction between all other books and "books or raw materials to be used in book publishing" (which, under the DOF's squint-eyed reading of the Book Publishing Industry Development Act of 1995 or RA 8047, will be the only class of imported books entitled to zero duty).

One of the dynamic innovations of RA 8047 was to expand the coverage of the landmark Florence Agreement, to include all imported books. What Dept. Order 17-09 has done, however, is to greedily narrow the scope of duty-free importation ,not only beyond the innovations of RA 8047 but even beyond the conventions of the International Law, Florence Agreement itself.

Today is the perfect time to throw books on the Government in equal share of their greed and corruption! Crap!

Deng Xiaoping's Famous 28 Characters Towards Change

1. lengjing guancha- observe and analyze (developments) calmly;
2. chenzou yingfu- deal (with changes) patiently and confidently;
3. wenzhu zhenjiao- secure (our own) position;
4. taoguang yanghui- conceal (our) capabilities and avoid limelight;
5. shanyu shouzhou- be good at keeping a low profile;
6. juebu dangtou- never become a leader;
7. yousou zuowei- strive to make achievements.
   

This is the secret behind the rise of China today.

taken from the book, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East by Kishore Mahbubani

Feminism: Definition of Terms

• "Sa ngalan ng ama, ng INA, at ng espiritu santo..."- FEMINIST THEOLOGY
• FEMALE CHAUVINISM- very much willing to be objectified by male.
• Role of Women in Philippine Politics: (a) women as Term Breaker; (b) women as Political Barometer: (c) women as Political Heir
• POLITICS OF MATONA- as an adoptive open mechanism against sexual harrasment/ abuse/ masculine predatory society.
• LEARNED HELPLESSNESS- one of the entanglements of prostitution.
  

Pilipinas: Silip- Sipi

"Like beating a dead horse, the show (Wowowee) must persist to feed on the gullible--and that's a cruel joke."-Editorial, Manila Standard Today, 13 March 2006

"All over the world, corruption is associated with lower levels of spending on education, health care, and other public services." (Investigating Corruption-A Do-It-Yourself Guide, PCIJ (2002)

"There is a bias against entrepreneurship in the Philippines, and that is why we have not moved forward. We were told by our parents to study very hard so that one day we can get a job. And we tell our cildren to study very hard so that they can have a job..."-Senator Manny Villar

"Ang papel ng pera ay hindi na rin simpleng instrumento sa palitan ng mga kalakal. Ang pera ay mismong kalakal na rin. Ibig sabihin, ang pera ay hindi na lamang ginagamit sa pagbili ng mga kalakal para lumikha ng kalakal kundi ginagamit na rin ng labas sa aktwal na paglikha ng kalakal. Kaya nga, ang mga institusyong pampinansya ay nagsisilbi ring tagalikha ng pera mula sa pera."-Maikling Kurso sa Ekonomiya ng Pilipinas, Institute of Political Economy, 2000

"You should not say yes to too many things and overextend yourself."-Bob Garon

"Divisoria's 168 is globalization in action. For all intents, "168" might as well be the code for globalization.-Boo Chanco, Demand and Supply, Philippine Star

"The crisis of leadership at the highest level is like the tip of an iceberg. To cure this social cancer we need a new breed of leaders in our country."-Angel Lagdameo, CBCP

Economic Quotes

“For every author, their notions and their theories are examined as attempts to find answers to the main economic problems of the time.” (A Concise History of Economic Thought, Vaggi and Groenewegen)

“The wisdom of nature has fortunately made ample provisions for remedying many bad effects of the folly and injustices of man.” (Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith)

“The thrifty, industrious capitalist who spots an opportunity in the market for the employment of productive hands is the hero of Smith’s work. In his effort to increase his own wealth, he cannot do other than benefit society in general.” (Economics for Beginners, Caravan)

“Ang lider ay mapagbigay ng kapangyarihan habang namamahagi ng

responsibilidad.” (Ekonomiya,Tao, Mundo at ang Ekonomistang Guro, Tullao)

“With the 1989 thaw in Cold War tensions, capitalism was one of the first aspects of Western Democracy to penetrate the Iron Curtain as McDonald’s brought “burgers and fries” to Moscow.” (Cliff Notes on Heilbroner, Snodgrass)

Random Thoughts: Socialist America

• nationalized banking mortgage and auto-making industries
• absence of a robust private sector (or atleast private confidence in business)- economic patriotism
  
• applying the system of paternalism (is the interference of a state or an individual with another person, against their will, and justified by a claim that the person interfered with will be better off or protected from harm. The issue of paternalism arises with respect to restrictions by the law such as anti-drug legislation, the compulsory wearing of seatbelts, and in medical contexts by the withholding of relevant information concerning a patient's condition by physicians. At the theoretical level it raises questions of how person's should be treated when they are less than fully rational.)
• "more centralized, redistributed health care system.."
• adaptation of European style of statism (describe institutions and political practices in which executive authority gathers increasing levels and varieties of power into its hands.)
• the use of bail-outs, protectionism (the advocacy, system, or theory of protecting domestic producers by impeding or limiting, as by tariffs or quotas, the importation of foreign goods and services.), bank nationalization and nearly $1 trillion stimulus package in 'trying' to solve the crisis.
  

Random Points: Shapes of Corruption

• Corruption in Government often comes in two forms. First involves the appropriation by a government official of public funds or assets for personal use. And second, A bureaucrat facilitating an economic transaction or granting a special favor to a private individual.

• "Rent- seeking" is the process by which a private individual attempts to bribe a government functionary to obtain concessions or economic advantages.

• "Cronyism" is the "intimate" relationship to gain concessions from a top official of the government, usually the president.

• Within government, the groups most likely to be motivated to monitor rent seeking and corruption are the public sector unions.
  

Pagkaing Kalye sa Pilipinas

Ito ang listahan ng mga pagkaing kalye/ snack/ junkfood ng mga Pilipino

MANGGANG HILAW

Hinati sa gitna, itinusok sa stick at ibinabad sa garapon na may tubig. Panalo kapag pinagulong sa maanghang na bagoong alamang.

MANI

Pinirito, sinangag, inadobo, nilaga, maalat-alat o may maanghang na sangkap. Perpektong papakin na may kasamang inuming may-kulay.

BALUT

pertilisadong itlog ng pato (17 day old), may kasamang pinakuluang embryo (sisiw).

TAHO

sariwa, malambot at mala-sulang tofu. hinaluan ng arnibal (pulang asukal) at sago. Walang kasing-sarap sa almusal.

ISAW

binarbekyung bituka ng baboy o manok, inihaw. Mapapanatili sa sarap kapag isinawsaw sa sukang may dinurog na sili.

KWEK KWEK

nilagang itlog na binalutan ng kulay-kahel na harina at ipinirito. Mas matindi kapag isusubo nang mainit-init pa.

Kultura: Lingua Franca

JAPORMS

Ang 'Japorms' ay nagmula sa binaliktad at dinagdagan ng salitang-ugat na 'porma' na tumutukoy sa estilo ng pananamit ng isang tao. Ang taong 'japorms' ay karaniwang nakasuot ng damit na pusturyoso. Ang katagang ito ay madalas marinig sa mga kabataan noong dekada '90. Kung susuriin, ang konsepto ng salitang 'japorms' ay maaring lumitaw mula sa katumbas na mga salitang naka-desente (1920s), naka-pustura (1930s), at spooting (1930s).

CHORVA/ CHURVA

Ang 'chorva' ay pinaniniwalaang hinango mula sa Griyegong salita na 'cheorvamus' na nagpapahiwatig ng kawalan ng akmang salita na maaring sabihin. Karaniwan din itong ginagamit bilang filler o panghalili sa mga bagay na hindi tahasang maipahayag ng nagsasalita sa kaniyang kausap. Sa katunayan, ang 'chorva' ay maaring magpakahulugan sa kahit na anong bagay.

BARKADA

Ang salitang 'barkada' ay kumakatawan sa gruypo ng magkakaibigan. Hinango ito sa salitang espanyol na 'barcada' na tumutukoy sa dami ng pasahero na maaaring ilulan ng isang bangka.Hinihinala ng tanyag na manunulat na si Nick Joaquin na mula sa konseptong Malay nag-ugat ang panghihiram sa salitang ito sa halip na 'pandilla' na siyang katumbas ng 'gang' sa wikang espanyol. Ayon pa kay Joaquin, maaring dala ito ng alaala ng nabubuong samahan ng mga pasarehong lulan ng isang bangka sa tuwing maglalakbay noong unang panahon. Kinalaunan, ang salitang 'barkada' ay naging kilala rin sa pinaiksing katawagan na 'berks'.

DIAHE/ DYAHE

Ang 'diahe' o 'hadya' ay salitang balbal na nagpapahiwatig ng kahihiyan ng isang tao hingil sa isang bagay, pangyayari o sa kaniyang kapwa. Sa Pilipinas, ang konsepto ng hiya ay isang pagpapahalagang panlipunan. Halimbawa, sa kultura ng mga Pilipino, 'diahe' ang pumunta sa isang salu-salo nang walang bitbit na regalo. Isa it sa mga pag-uugali na nakasanayan ng mga Pilipino sa tuwing magpapaunlak sa isang imbitasyon.

CONO/ KONYO

Karaniwang itinuturing ang mga taong kabilang sa mataas na antas ng lipunan na mga 'cono' o 'konyo'. Ayon sa kasaysayan, naunang ginagamit ang salitang 'cono' noong simula ng ika-19 na siglo bilang pantukoy sa mga dayong Espanyol na ninirahan sa mga bansang nasasakupan nila tulad ng ilipinas at Latin Amerika. Sa wikang Espanyol, ang salitang 'cono' ay nababalot sa konsepto ng kalapastanganan bilang tugon sa mga Peninsulares mula noong 1800s hanggang sa kasalukuyan. Maliban sa magagarang amit at kagamitan, ang mga 'cono' sa kasalukuyang panahon ay 'code switching.' Isa sa mga klasikong halimbawa ng pananalitang 'cono' ay ang pahayag na "let's make tusok-tusok the fishballs."

JEPROX

Binuo ng dating miyembro ng bandang Anak Bayan na si Edmond Fortuno ang sumikat na salitang 'jeprox'. Ito ay karaniwang bansag sa mgha lalaking mahahba ang buhok at bihis-rakista noong dekada '70. Hango ito sa pinaikling parirala ng 'Jeepney Rock na tumutukoy sa "rock" at klasikong musika na kalimitang pinakikinggan sa loob ng dyipni na kasagsagan ng "rock craze." Kalinsunod niyon ang pagsikat ng awiting "Laki sa Layaw," ni Mike Hanopol na ipinapalagay na siyang nagbunsod upang higit na makilala ang 'jeprox'. Kinikilala ito na siyang pantukoy sa mga taong laki sa layaw na mas popular sa katawagang 'hippie'. Samantala, may ilan ding nasulat sa internet na nagsasabing hinango ang 'jeprox' mula sa binaliktad na pagbaybay sa salitang Ingles na 'project' na tumutukoy sa proyektong pabahay ng pamahalaan noong 1960s. Ang terminong 'jeprox' sa bagong henerasyon ng mga kabataang ay patuloy pa ring ginagamit hanggang ngayon.

ERMAT at ERPAT

Ang 'ermat' at 'erpat' ay mga salitang balbal na nagmula sa mga binaliktad na katagang 'mader' at 'pater'. Ito ay ginagamit bilang pantukoy sa nanay at tatay. Ang kinagawiang pagbabaliktad ng mga salita ay tatak ng 1930s at 1940s. Tulad din ng mga salitang 'damatan' (matanda) at 'alaw na alaw' (walang-wala). Ang 'ermat' at 'erpat' ay ilan lamang sa mga nabuong salita na nag-ugat sa radikal na pag-iisip ng mga kabataan noong panahong iyon. Noon hanggang ngayon. popular pa ring ginagamit ang mga salitang ganito.

JOLOGS

Baduy, cheap, hip-hop, at makaluma. Ilan lamang ito sa mga kilalang termino na katumbas ng salitang 'jologs.' Gayunpaman, nagkakasundo ang mga lingguwista at mananalaysay na nag-ugat sa paggamit sa salitang ito sa mga titik ng kantang OPM noong 1990s ng nagsisimulang mauso ang paggamit ng internet. simula noon, unti-unting nagkaroon ng iba't-ibang kahulugan ang salitang 'jologs' na karaniwang inuugnay bilang panglilibak o panlalait. Ilan sa mga sosyolohista ay naniniwala na nag-ugat ang 'jologs' sa salitang 'diyolog' (dilis + tuyo + itlog), bilang pagkain ng mahihirap.

ang mga impormasyon ay mula sa wikipilipinas.org

Munting Amerika ni Juan

ni Tumaghoy

Hinangad umaklas sa hirap ng buhay
Kaya't iyong tiniis sa mga mahal ay mawalay
Upang dumako sa kanluran at doo'y buto ay binanat
Nagbabakasakali dasal sa poo'y masibat

Sa dakong iyon na ang tawag ay Amerika
Nasilayang buhay kasaganahan na sandamaka
Sa kalooban at isipa'y 'sing tumbas na nangarap
Nawa'y pamilya'y mabigyan ng buhay Amerika na masarap

Dolyares, bag ng tsokolate, psps at i-pod
Lahat ng naisin at uso'y sa mga kaanak ay napalipad
Ngunit ang mga ito'y di katimbang ng Amerikang kinatatapakan
Kaya't niluhod at kinayod ang pamilyang makapangibang-bayan

Malaking bahay na may apat na maluluwang na silid
Garahe na may kotseng Ford na nakaparada sa may gilid
Bawat anak tiyak mong may kinabukasan na mapipisil
Kaya't di masisi mga kalahi ni jua'y nilisan ang Pinas- lupa ng Ipil

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

by Ruben Cuevas

I shall never exchange my fetters for slavish servility.

'Tis better to be chained to the rock than be bound to the service of Zeus.

--Aeschylus, Prometheus Unbound

Mars shall glow tonight,

Artemis is out of sight.

Rust in the twilight sky

Colors a bloodshot eye,

Or shall I say that dust

Sunders the sleep of the just?

Hold fast to the gift of fire!

I am rage! I am wrath! I am ire!

The vulture sits on my rock,

Licks at the chains that mock

Emancipation's breath,

Reeks of death, death, death.

Death shall not unclench me.

I am earth, wind and sea!

Kisses bestow on the brave

That defy the damp of the grave

And strike the chill hand of

Death with the flaming sword of love.
Orion stirs. The vulture

Retreats from the hard, pure

Thrust of the spark that burns,

Unbounds, departs, returns

To pluck out of death's fist

A god who dared to resist.

The Clash: Marquis De Sade and Bram Stoker

The Marquis De Sade’s Philosophy in the Bedroom and Bram Stoker’s Dracula both chronicle battles in the war between Christianity and Neo-paganism, but each one takes an opposite side. While Sade’s dialogue proposes that the pleasure of the individual is of paramount importance, Stoker’s novel advocates love and faith as the greatest of life’s virtues. Both men use allegory and moral satire to assault one another’s ideologies and convert readers to their worldview. In Philosophy, Sade’s spokesman, Dolmance, is the romantic hero whose ultimate triumph comes at the end when he recruits Eugenie and destroys the hypocrite Christian, Madame De Mistival. In Dracula, the Sade-like character is the vampire count himself, who is exorcised from the earthly realm by Christian heroes after failing to seduce the virtuous Mina.

In the final years of the nineteenth century, Bram Stoker found himself faced with a society that was in the process of abandoning the traditional values of faith and chastity and replacing them with values akin to Sade’s – existentialism and the cult of individualism. Though many modern critics believe that the values of Victorian England were oppressive to a fault, Stoker feared that their disappearance would cause society to degenerate to the level of chaos and cruelty previewed in the literature of the Divine Marquis. While a mere Gothic romance on the surface, Stoker’s novel Dracula is actually a searing social critique of the relaxation of sexual mores.

Stoker attacks the values of Sadism by going right to the source. His title character, Dracula, is the ultimate Sadist. Often compared to Vlad the Impaler, Dracula is just as much a reflection of Dolmance, the hero of Sade’s Philosophy in the Bedroom. Just as Virgil uses Aeneas to condemn Odysseus, Stoker uses Dracula to condemn Sade. Of course, before one can understand the satire fully, one must understand what it was in Sade’s Philosophy that Stoker was mocking.

Sade begins his Philosophy by calling upon all libertines to place themselves first – above the demands of family, society, and God: “It is only by sacrificing everything to the senses’ pleasure that this individual, who never asked to be cast onto this universe of woe, that this poor creature who goes under the name of Man, may be able to sow a smattering of roses atop the thorny path of life” (Sade 185).

Sade continues in this vein throughout the entire work, advocating self-fulfillment even at the expense of others. Unlike many modern existentialists, he carries his views to their logical end, advocating a society where morality is the only crime and where only the strong survive. Still, the basics of the doctrine appeal to the existential pain of all humanity by espousing romantic notions of freedom and self-empowerment. Consequently, much of Sade’s reasoning regarding religion and sexuality gained a measure of popular acceptance over time. This bothered Stoker, because he felt that accepting the attractive elements of Sade’s philosophy was not possible without being forced to embrace the ugly as well.

Rejecting the fundamental egoism of Sade’s philosophy, Stoker takes the opposite moral position in Dracula. His heroes are the very models of Christian goodness; they feel love for one another, they do not give in to their animal passions, and they subordinate their desires to their responsibilities in the name of God and social order. Vampirism, on the other hand, “is only an extreme version of the evil of the body against which Christians have been told to fight for almost 2,000 years,” (Weissman 74).

Throughout Dracula, Stoker sets up a series of parallels between his novel and Sade’s dialogue. The corruption of Eugenie is retold from a Christian perspective in the seduction of Lucy. Though the seduction is seen as a positive thing in Sade, it is an abomination in Dracula. The philosophy of infanticide extolled by Dolmance in Sade is vilified in Stoker. Also, Stoker refuses to see sexual wantonness as a form of liberation. Instead, he sees it as a prison, and portrays it as such.

The most obvious parallel between the two works is the one between Dracula and Dolmance. The only noticeable difference between the two noblemen is that Dracula is literally what Dolmance humorously claimed to be – one of Satan’s foot soldiers. Otherwise, the similarities are uncanny. Dracula and Dolmance are both pale aristocrats with aquiline noses, pure white teeth, and cruel features (Sade 192), (Stoker 26-27).

They are as alike in philosophy as they are in demeanor. As selfish as Dolmance, Dracula fled from his command during combat and allowed his army to be slaughtered at the hands of the Turks. The act was cowardly, irresponsible, and criminal, but Dolmance would have approved of it for it kept Dracula alive. The suffering and deaths of hundreds of others is irrelevant.

Had he met Dracula, Dolmance would surely have been envious of Dracula’s animalistic nature. Time and again in Sade’s Philosophy, Dolmance criticizes humans for trying to strip themselves of the cruel, animal side of their existence. He uses nature to debunk the ideals of love and family that Christians claimed to hold. “Familial love is allusory,” says Dolmance. “Do animals know these things? No surely not” (Sade 353).

While renowned Dracula critic Leonard Wolf did not believe Stoker was writing a formal treatise against Darwinism, he did point out that the character Dracula is “really a kind of Darwinian superman; he’s an animal. Stoker probably was disturbed on some level by the Darwinian scientific currents of the time…. I think Stoker’s Dracula is very hung up on science” (Wolf 28)

The two sadists agree that animals are higher forms of life, only Dracula can participate in it more fully than Dolmance. To the vampire, the howling of the wolves is akin to the music of the spheres. “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make.” Dracula can not only understand the languages of animals, but also communicate with them and order them as a commander would an army. In addition, the Count has the ability to transform himself into the “baser animals” including rats, owls, bats, moths, foxes, and wolves. In fact, his connection to the animal world is so close that it is unclear if he is man or animal. When Mina catches a glimpse of him at a distance in the moonlight, she can not tell if he is man or beast (Stoker 78). At another point, Jonathan Harker, observes Dracula crawling headfirst down the castle wall, moving “just as a lizard moves along a wall” (Stoker 38).

To the sadist, the dark side of nature – death, fornication, and pitiless aggression – is beautiful and the bright side of nature – childbirth, kinship, the forming of communities – is disgusting. Neither Sade nor Dracula approves of motherhood. Both saw the essence of motherhood as loathsome and unnatural.

Critic Phyllis A. Roth recognized this antagonism towards the mother figure and was repelled by it as one of the many examples of the book’s alleged misogyny. She said, “In accepting the notion of identification with the aggressor in Dracula, as I believe we must, what we accept is the reader’s identification with the aggressor’s victimization of women. Dracula’s desire is for the destruction of Lucy and Mina and what this means is obvious when we recall that his attacks on the two closest of friends seem incredibly coincidental on the narrative level. Only on the deeper level is there no coincidence at all: the level on which one recognizes that Lucy and Mina are essentially the same figure: the mother” (Roth 62).

The anti-mother attitude makes sense as both Dracula and Sade walk in darkness and despair. The very act of a woman giving birth is an unselfish act of hope that adds another human to civilization. The sadist’s only consolation in the face of such tragedy is to target the newborn as either fodder or as a potential initiate, and the only way to get to the children is through their protective mothers.

This is the real motivation behind Sade’s attack on motherhood in Philosophy in the Bedroom. His reasoning that women are biologically superfluous to the process of reproduction is absurd, but one that must be made to justify his dismissal of them (Sade 206). As scatterbrained as some of his leaps of logic often are, there is a thematic unity to his ranting that holds up better once his prejudices against the forces of the establishment at least appear to be grounded in sound reasoning.

Naturally, the Virgin Mary is the most hated figure of all in Sade’s bedroom. She is a mother and a Virgin and a symbol of the morally oppressive Catholic Church. Sade rightly identifies her as a threat to all he holds dear and refers to her as “the repellent and shameless Mary” (Sade 299).

Dracula, too, hates Mary, and every other woman who ever looked to her example either as a virgin or a mother. As protection against Dracula, the Protestant Jonathan Harker is asked to carry a rosary – the Catholic symbol of the Virgin Mary. The Romanian who gives him the rosary says “Wear this for your mother’s sake” and it later proves to be effective protection against Dracula. It is yet another example in Stoker’s masterpiece of the symbol of the mother figure – or of her ideal, the Virgin Mary – pitting herself against vampirism and winning.

Vampire and philosopher alike take pride in the slaughter of children. According to Madame De Saint-Ange, “a pretty girl should concern herself with fucking, never engendering” (Sade 201). She adds, “dread not infanticide. The crime is imaginary” (Sade 249). Dolmance agrees, claiming that it is “charming” to cheat propagation of its rights and “to contradict what fools call the laws of Nature” (Sade 229). To the sadist, there is no moral difference between killing a child before or after birth since humans can destroy whatever they create.

Though readers of Philosophy never get to see infanticide practiced by its proponents, readers of Dracula are shown sadists in action kidnapping and killing small children. It is Stoker’s way of making one think twice before converting to Dolmance’s worldview. Early in the novel, Dracula feeds a baby to his three brides at his castle (Stoker 43). Later on, Lucy Westenra, his new convert from the world of Christianity, begins her career as a vampire by drinking the blood of little boys. In a scene reminiscent to the climax of Sade’s dialogue, the baby’s mother comes to the castle to try to rescue her baby from the count’s clutches, only to be torn apart by a pack of wolves under his command (Stoker 48). Before she dies, she yells to Dracula, “Monster! Give me my child!” just as De Mistival warned Eugenie, “You are amid monsters here!” (Sade 355)

Dolmance claims that all men have the right to rape (Sade 318), and Dracula does just that whenever he feeds on a woman’s blood because vampire attacks are violent and sexual violations of the victim. But the vampire attack is more than that. It is the ultimate blasphemy – an inversion of Communion. While Christians in a state of grace move closer to God while drinking Christ’s body and blood, the vampire rapes and corrupts his victims, infusing them with sadistic desires and turning Communion into cannibalism. When it comes to blasphemy, vampires are artists, making Dolmance’s misuse of the Lord’s name look like child’s play.

As Madame De Saint-Ange speaks aloud her plans to initiate Eugenie into a life of sadism, her words sound no different than those a vampire would use before creating another of its kind. She speaks of “immoralities’ poison, circulating in this young spirit together with the venom I shall inject, will in the shortest possible time wither and still all the seeds of virtue that, but for us, might germinate there” (Sade 191).

According to Leonard Wolf, readers often do not pity the victims of vampire attacks because those victims no longer exist as individual humans but as “the living pieces of the Host”. He describes the attacks as a form of “`spiritual pornography,’ where we get these horrible things happening that thrill us in the foreground, where it’s merely a blood exchange, but they thrill us profoundly in our spiritual center when what we see is that it’s a corruption of the soul, an exchange of disasters that are deeply rooted in our relationships not just to family but in our relationship to God” (Wolf 26).

While Wolf made these statements in connection to Anne Rice’s vampire novels, readers may react in just as primal a manner when reading Dracula, though Stoker would not have wanted his audience to side with the vampires, only to understand what makes the creatures so attractive to their victims.

Interested not only in the symbolic meaning of the vampire attack but the literary tradition from which it sprang, critic Carrol L. Fry rightfully claims that Lucy’s fall from grace mirrors the fall of virtuous women of popular fiction from Richardson to Hardy:

“In dozens of novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this pure woman is pursued by a ‘rake,’ a seducer who has designs on her virtue. The melodrama is based on the reader’s suspense regarding whether or not he will succeed. Those women who have lost their virtue become ‘fallen women,’ outcasts doomed to death or secluded repentence. In Dracula, there are two ‘pure women,’ Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker, the former of whom actually does ‘fall.’ The role of ‘rake’ is played by Count Dracula, and vampirism becomes surrogate sexual intercourse. The women who receive the vampire’s bite become ‘fallen women’” (Fry 35).

Although such spiritual poisoning is figurative in Eugenie’s case, it takes place literally in Lucy Westenra’s as she is corrupted by venom injected into her by Dracula.

Before she met Dracula, Lucy was a kindly innocent. She was so beautiful that she received three proposals of marriage in one day. She had a kind heart, so she felt sorry for the men she had to turn down – you see, they were all three gentlemanly and handsome. Mourning for the spurned, Lucy wrote to Mina: “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it” (Stoker 57).

Lucy’s problem was that she could see only the moral code and not the reason for it. Had she examined what marriage was in its ideal form she would have realized that no more than two people could be joined as Lawrentian soul mates. Any more than two and it is no longer marriage but prostitution.

The same suggestion of one woman pleasing many men is also made in Philosophy, but with the romantic veneer stripped away to reveal the true ugliness underneath: “Are not the services a young girl renders in consenting to produce the happiness of all who apply to her infinitely more important than those which, isolating herself, she performs for her husband? Woman’s destiny is to be wanton, like the bitch, the she-wolf; she must belong to all who claim her” (Sade 219).

Lucy’s love of the three men is part of the lure that drags her into the world of sadism. She is gradually corrupted by Dracula and becomes the very she-wolf that Sade was talking about. The following passage is told from the perspective of Dr. Seward, one of Lucy’s former suitors, who confronts her as she is about to feed on the blood of a small child:

“When Lucy – I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape – saw us, she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares; then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy’s eyes in form and color; but Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew … [They] blazed with unholy light, and [her] face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone” (Stoker 157-158).

It is plain to see how Sade’s supposedly elevating philosophy has literally dragged the virtuous Lucy down to an ugly, animalistic level. She is compared twice to enraged animals – a snarling cat and a growling dog. Fallen far from God, she is an “unholy” “thing,” much like “a devil.” More sexually free than before, she is repeatedly called “wanton” throughout the book and the word “voluptuous” is attached as firmly to her as it is to the other female vampires. She is also called “cold-blooded” and “callous” and she, like the other vampires, has virtually no love in her.

As sexy as the women vampires are, Stoker drives home time and again the point that they are whores who feel lost without true love. For Sade, love is a curse, but Stoker makes a valiant effort to prove how horrible a fate it is for a woman to have her purity and compassion stripped from her. In Dracula, it is a true tragedy that vampires confuse hate with love (Stoker 41, 43, 49 and 125).

As stated before, Saint-Ange believed firmly in the potency of the vampire venom, guaranteeing victims to be “straightaway damned” (Sade 191). This is not entirely true in Dracula, as Mina is injected with the venom, tastes the pleasures of the dark side and rejects them. In fact, at the very end of the book, Mina chooses motherhood and a faithful marriage to Jonathan over the licentious, hateful life Dracula had offered her. In this manner, Mina is the exact opposite of Eugenie. While Mina would rather die than convert to Dracula’s unholy religion, Eugenie would “sooner suffer death than perform a good act!” (Sade 217).

The hero of Dracula, Professor Van Helsing, is both a scientist and a Christian, demonstrating Stoker’s belief that science and religion should work together. Van Helsing, unlike his contemporary scientists, equates faith with open-mindedness (Stoker 173) and criticizes science for wanting “to explain all; and if explain it not, then [say] there is nothing to explain” (Stoker 143).

At the point in the novel when the forces of good reach their time of greatest trial, Van Helsing advises his comrades to emulate Mina’s courage and fortitude: “She is one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist – and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so skeptical and selfish” (Stoker 142).

Stoker saw the foundations of the Catholic Church cracking under the strain of attacks from Darwinists and political revolutionaries, and launched an appropriate counter-attack, for one of the worst tragedies in the book happens before the ruins of a church (Stoker 78). One of the most poignant symbols in the book, the ruined church suggests that Lucy could have been saved from destruction had the church and all it stood for remained intact.

Even though vampirism fills Stoker’s heroes with revulsion, they constantly fight against the temptation to give in to hatred. Mina and Van Helsing both know that self-righteousness is the quickest path to becoming exactly as cruel as the creatures they hunted, so they constantly urged their hot-blooded male companions to “strike in God’s name” against the vampires (Stoker 160). In the end, their virtuous generosity is paid off, as they are able to liberate the vampires’ tortured souls. All the vampire women, and even Dracula himself, are liberated from their sadistic lives and sent to the forgiving arms of God in Heaven (Stoker 260).

Dolmance and Eugenie are not as kind to Madame De Mistival as Mina and Van Helsing are to Dracula. No one would argue that Madame De Mistival finds any form of salvation in being stitched together and given syphilis so that she could have no more children (Sade 363). While Dracula is released from his cursed existence, Madame De Mistival is made a prisoner of her own body.

Sade, who believes that no human being is capable of being divinely good, ferociously mocks this kind of piety. This is why he portrays Madame De Mistival as a hypocrite and a fool – she stands by her Christian beliefs while she herself is incapable of living up to the standards of behavior she has set for the world to follow. Her very presence is a disruption to the sanctuary that the bedroom provides. To restore Dolmance’s proper sadistic control to the bedchamber, she had to be destroyed.

While all vampires – both human, like Dolmance, and supernatural, like Dracula – use pleasure to corrupt the innocent, what they fear most is to be corrupted themselves. Love is the one thing that can truly destroy a vampire. Dolmance says as much himself, referring to love as a disease that can destroy. “Ties of love, may you never know them. Fuck. Divert yourselves, that’s the essential thing – be quick to fly from love” (Sade 285).

The same principle holds true in Dracula. When love takes hold of Renfield, he gives up on his own dreams of immortality and selflessly tries to protect Mina from Dracula. Once Renfield makes this conversion, Dracula has no choice but to kill him. The love that unites the ranks of Christians divides and conquers sadists.

While Dracula’s women serve as little more than whores, they too find themselves starved for true affection. “You yourself never loved; you never love!” the blonde vampire cried defiantly to Dracula, to which he replied, in a soft whisper: -- `Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past’’’ (Stoker 43). As Dracula admits this, he casts his eyes on Jonathan Harker, suggesting an attraction for the young lawyer. As if to defeat his own feelings of affection, he promises Harker to the women, eager to kill what he loves to wipe the scourge of affection from his mind. If Madame De Mistival is ultimately a sham in Sade’s eyes, than surely the sadists/vampires are just as phony to Stoker, for they sometimes feel the effects of the very love they deny exists.

Sade was so convinced of the persuasiveness of his attack on morality that he advocated its use as a handbook for the young. Dracula could be just as effective as such a handbook, because its defense of conventional morality is just as poignant as its attack on sadism. It is ironic that, throughout the 20^th century at least, conservative parents have objected to horror stories on moral grounds, not realizing that virtually all such tales bear positive Christian messages. Only since the 1970s with the sexual revolution and Anne Rice have the nature of vampire stories changed, depicting sadists as romantic heroes.

And yet, even today, many vampires are still portrayed in movies and on television as Bram Stoker intended – as dangerous and animalistic satires of the Marquis De Sade himself.

Sources:

de Sade, Marquis Donatien-Alphonse-Francois. Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other
Writings. New York: Grove Press, 1990. 177-371.

Fry, Carrol L. “Fictional Conventions and Sexuality in Dracula.” Dracula: The Vampire and the Critics, Ed. Margaret L. Carter. Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1988. 35-38.

Roth, Phyllis A. “Suddenly Sexual Women in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Dracula: The Vampire and the
Critics, Ed. Margaret L. Carter. Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1988. 57-69.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula: Illustrated by Greg Hildebrandt. New Jersey: The Unicorn Publishing house,
1985.
Weissman, Judith. “Women and Vampires: Dracula as a Victorian Novel.” Dracula: The Vampire
and the Critics, Ed. Margaret L. Carter. Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1988. 69-78.

Wolf, Leonard, and David J. Skal. “Beyond Dracula: New Age Evil.’’ Imagi-Movies Winter 1994:

24-30, 35-36, 40-41, 61.