way off

there's this facebook post that warns about
"verbally forcing other people's children to stop playing outdoors, or they will either be locked up in the offender's bathroom or forced to scrub the street gutters"

hmmm...  what curious examples.
i categorically say the statements do not apply to me.
i would like, however, to expand on the post
because certain words rang a bell
and i think i know where such ideas came from.

you know that pass-it-on game
where a group tries to relay the same message
through a queue?

i know someone who would be a perfect poster girl for that  -> the guy's friend.
this friend has a track record
(and when i say track record i mean spanning yearS)
of changing words and mangling statements beyond recognition.

i've warned her countless times about it.
i've told her so many times to make it a habit to quote verbatim.

her standard reply?
the statements are just the same.
in her own words:  "pareho lang 'yun"

differences and nuances that are very clear to me,
she fails to see at all.
she insists the original and her rewording are just the same.

i've been warning her that if this were an investigation
she'd be guilty of putting words in other people's mouths
because her version does not quite capture the original.

again in her own words:
"hindi naman investigation 'to,
hindi kailangan eksakto."
this is not an investigation.
we do not have to be exact.

i've been telling her, investigation or not,
she should try to develop good habits.
i've even tried to give her a drill a couple of times.
(yes, for yearS when my patience has not yet run out, i acted as her protector, editor, even benefactor.
no, and i say this emphatically, i was never at any point in time a partner in her "business.")
i'd ask her to repeat something i just said
->  not many words; just a simple subject-predicate statement.
she could not.  she'd be adding and changing words and altering meanings CONSISTENTLY.
it was appalling.
it was tiring.

now let me go to the words that rang a bell:

-  verbally forcing other people's children to stop playing outdoors

i have several times tried to stop children from playing around our vehicle telling them to play in their own van instead

hmmm...  "vehicle" to "outdoors"...

- locked up in the offender's bathroom

so this boy threw trash in our garbage sack.
i asked him why he did not put his trash in their own trash can.
he replied they don't have one.
i said go to *your* toilet!
my assumption is that people have trash cans in their toilet.

- forced to scrub the street gutters

so these boys play basketball
and their ball hits my dad's pots
spilling soil on the gutter.

i tell them to clean the gutter themselves.

so now, given my original statements
and the version probably heard by the one who made the post,
what can i say?

far off, once again.
nothing new.

order

actions and decisions are shaped by certain factors.
something that happens prior
is a probable cause or motive.
just probable, not necessarily certain.
sometimes occurrences are just coincidental not causal.

when something, however, crops up
after you've already performed a certain action,
you cannot use that as a reason for your behavior.

your action could not have been brought about
by something you still had no idea would happen.

in this day of timestamps,
chronology is so much easier to determine.

don't make a fool of yourself
by weaving excuses
that are out of sequence.

true colors

i used to head security, I.T. security.
my inclination is to expose, stop, prevent and penalize wrongdoing.

people do do bad things.
there are those who admit to what they've done.
there are those who choose to keep silent.
and there are those who try to twist the story
to make themselves look good instead.

there is such a thing as incontrovertible evidence.
sometimes you have it; sometimes you don't.

don't ever attempt to paint yourself a sheep
when i have personal knowledge
and incontrovertible evidence
that you were actually a wolf
because i will set the record straight
and you will be exposed.

friendly fire

there's this someone
who's been talking about
sad and unhappy human beings
probably thinking he's doing his friend a favor.

he obviously is not aware
that it actually is his friend
who has a tragic story
->  irreversible because the friend's father
has unexpectedly passed away.

the septuagenarian father
spent the last year of his life
looking for a house to rent
because his daughter was forcing him
out of his own house.

the way the daughter tells it:
the father hates this establishment across.
the father wants the house to go to her.
both true, yes.
related, no.

there is something the daughter has been leaving out of the narrative:
that the father did not want to leave his house
and it was she who was insistent that he does.

that is material information.

the father had intended for the daughter
to take the house after he passes away.
the daughter, on the other hand,
wanted to take over right away.

unless the daughter is totally heartless,
those tears she's been shedding
are not just tears of grief for the loss
but also tears of guilt for the greed.

sad.

nice try

when you win regional and national journalism competitions in high school

and

have your on-the-job-training at a news agency

and

take up journalism as your second degree in college

then someone who probably just googled 'libel' for a comment tries to acquaint you on the subject

👏🤦‍♀️😜