Maro Co-Creations

Sun-damaged hair left me with a rather itchy scalp the past few weeks, which made me rethink the whole idea of shampoo.

I was rather surprised to see the phrase “co-creation” used by Sunsilk in their new lines of shampoo.  I always understood “co-creation” in terms of marketing strategy and buzzword bingo: that customers and manufacturers/service providers create value and innovation through interfacing.  Sunsilk’s shampoos are co-created by Unilever and a host of hair care specialists.  That’s great and all, but what about us?

I watched the new Pantene ad featuring Hannah and Jane, but dealing with my hair is a different thing.  See, I use four different brands of shampoo, two different brands of conditioner, one brand of leave-on conditioner, and save for that, gel and mousse do not touch my hair.  I do not use those combs with metal rollers as much as possible (although for the meantime, I use one LOL), because they damage hair like nobody’s business.

Then again I’ve always been at a crossroads when it comes to shampoo and conditioner (I don’t use all-in-one shampoo and conditioner).  Somehow, I feel the need to co-create. Here’s to hoping that shampoo makers listen up, and listen good. Continue reading Maro Co-Creations →

5 comments • Marocharim • August 30, 2010

A Trying Time for Heroes

I believe the blood that runs in our veins is the blood of heroes.  We’re a nation of heroes.  There are many ways to heroism in the present times, and there’s no need for guns or spears, no need to shed blood.

- President Benigno Aquino III, from The Philippine Star

Today is National Heroes’ Day, and it’s a trying time for heroes.

Just a couple of days ago, they laid a flag on Inspector Rolando Mendoza’s coffin, and quite a few hailed him as a “hero.”  In his deathbed, some preferred to remember Mendoza’s contributions to society before he became a hostage-taker.  The outrage of an entire country be damned, to some, he’s a hero for what he has done, never mind what he did at Quirino Grandstand with a rifle and a busload of hostages.

Just a few weeks ago, they glorified Ivan Padilla.  The notorious young carnapper became a victim of police brutality, lionized and glorified in video posts from N.W.A.  The man became, for some members of a generation, the symbol of a state that does not care: that his death is a black eye for the criminal justice system.  All the while forgetting Ivan’s debts to society, that every video post of “Fuck Da Police” was to stress on “Thou shalt not kill” at the expense of “Thou shalt not steal.”

Continue reading A Trying Time for Heroes →

1 comment • Marocharim • August 30, 2010

Nu

I read somewhere that the strokes of the Chinese word for anger, “nu,” represent the mind and body becoming slaves to the heart.

Rage – the very thing that fuels grief – hangs like a dark cloud in Hong Kong today.  At least, that’s what the news says.  We can’t blame our brothers and sisters from Hong Kong for putting up those Facebook fan pages, Internet groups, or expressing their anger in spaces all over the Web for the grave (excuse the pun) injustice and indignity their people suffered at the hands of Inspector Mendoza.  Perhaps it is their grief and indignation that they take out on us; after all, the hostage-taker was one of our own.

In the Anguttara Nikaya, the Buddha teaches:

Nothing tends toward loss as does an untamed heart.
The untamed heart tends towards loss.

Nothing tends toward growth as does a tamed heart.
The tamed heart tends towards growth.

Continue reading Nu →

Marocharim • August 27, 2010

When Hindsight is Eight Bodies and a Murderer

The French criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne has this to say about crime: “Justice shrivels up, prison corrupts and society has the criminals it deserves.”  Hindsight is 20/20; in this case, eight bodies and a murderer.

The police could have secured and cordoned off the region, and equipped the team with the proper tools.  The media could have coordinated with the police to get the best possible coverage without undue interference.  The President could have appeared earlier to address the issue, not to catalog facts in the dead of night.  All of these exist in the conditional tense; the “could have been’s” and the “what if’s” of a situation gone horribly tragic.

Whatever drove Rolando Mendoza to hold tourists hostage, and to start shooting them afterward in an act of madness, is something he took with him to his grave.  We’ll never know the method to madness, unless we grow mad ourselves.  Yet what we can evaluate and speculate about, at this point, is the madness from otherwise sane people: police using sledgehammers on the bus doors and windows, the media who covered the incident shoving cameras and microphones everywhere, and the authorities who failed to exercise control.

Continue reading When Hindsight is Eight Bodies and a Murderer →

Marocharim • August 25, 2010

Death of a(n Encyclopedia) Salesman

The last encyclopedia set my family bought was back in 1997, when the local distributors of World Book were still aggressively selling big tomes of knowledge as investments for children.  After leafing through every volume for a few years – and getting the “walking encyclopedia” jokes every now and then – the big maroon-and-grey tomes are somewhere in a bookshelf back home, consulted only when Wikipedia fails, or when there’s nothing to read (in a house full of books and magazines, that sets the alarm bells off to buy new ones on sale).

I wonder how much Wikipedia has affected encyclopedia sales.  Teachers are getting less stringent with the rules of scholarship, allowing Wikipedia URLs to be appended in bibliographies in APA-style or MLA-style notations adapted for cut-and-paste.  The micropedia and the macropedia of Encyclopedia Brittanica, as comprehensive (and impressive-looking) as they are, don’t really count for much when it’s easier to just search for the topic on the Web; the font of all knowledge being sans serif.

Not that encyclopedia salespeople have crashed their cars somewhere to get out of the rut.

Continue reading Death of a(n Encyclopedia) Salesman →

Marocharim • August 23, 2010