Email thoughts. 2005 Encounter with Google Adsense
Frank A. Hilario
July 23, 2009
The email grows on you if you´re not uptight. I saw my son Jomar using Gmail and I was jealous. So he invited me, and so I slowly shifted to Gmail. And I found Gmail pretty and fast.
So: My 1st email (Gmail) is a nice window to the future. It dates back to 02 July 2005, from the Gmail Team of course, thanking me for opening a Gmail account. In it, the Gmail Team introduces Google Adsense (although not identified as such):
As you´re using Gmail, you might also see some ads or related links. We believe that you shouldn´t have to share your inbox with large, blinking, irrelevant ads. Gmail´s small text ads are matched by computers, and designed to be relevant to the messages you´re viewing. Which means for once, you might even find ads to be interesting and useful.
Until now, in Yahoo, there are those unimaginative, unrelated ads. In Google at large, look where those ´small text ads´ are now! Why am I minding Google´s store? I worked as a copywriter (Manila, Pacifica Publicity Bureau) years ago, but I never really left copywriting, that is, packaging products & services & ideas via concepts, as you can see in my writing. To my mind, Google AdSense is the greatest marketing invention since the ad.
My 2nd email (also 02 July 2005) is a sorry window to the future. I´m writing my son Jomar about someone, a she, from a plush subdivision in Pasig who cancelled my consultancy with her. She wanted to learn more about public speaking, and she wanted me to write for her. I told her I was also going to teach her how to write, because you cannot be a good speaker if you don´t know how to write. I knew I was right, but I didn´t realize I came on too strong. I´m afraid I was always coming in too strong.
My 3rd email (04 July 2005)? Original 95 one-liners for an FM radio station, upon request by my son for a friend – no charge. (Will show you next time.)
My 4th email (06 July 2005) is another (intended to be) mind-changing situation. It´s from Kerygma preacher Bo Sanchez asking his email contacts to ´tell the world about this show´ – Tara Na, Pinoy! This is ´a unique TV show that aims to help televiewers change their personal lives – and in the process, inspire them to change the country.´ Bo´s email thoughts of 06 July 2005.
I have had tens of thousands of Gmail emails since then; I deleted about half of them last week, mostly so many newsletter emails. If you don´t catch my attention with the title of your article, today you´ve already lost me. At any rate, I can always do a Google search anytime.
Still, the 16,000 email entries I have retained, some of them comprising 2 or more email exchanges actually, feature minds intrigued, interested, informing or inspiring – buried treasures all, if you know how to mine them, if your mind is open to the creative process, if you are not out to change the world, if your mind is open to treasures not of this earth. Let me give you a few examples (with limited editing).
Somebody´s email:
I hope Philippine politics will mature, and fast!
My reaction:
Anton, our politics will not mature if we don´t! It´s not the politicians – it´s us. We outnumber them, 1 million to 1.
Somebody´s email:
In the US, an activist judge is one who ´reinvents´ the Constitution and the law by reading meanings not intended originally by the framers.
My reaction:
The problem with man-made laws is that they´re static and are only limited in scope. There´s the temptation to expand them or make them relevant to the times by reading between the lines.
Somebody´s email:
In our country, we have not only political leadership corruption, but also medical corruption.
My reaction:
Don´t forget that the corrupters outnumber the corrupt 1 million to 1.
Somebody´s email:
´The law is a solution; it is not an imposition.´
My reaction:
The lawyer is corruptible like so – so we go back to people as solutions, not some great ideas of some (selected or elected) people.
Somebody´s email:
Congratulations on the editorial you (not me) published on June 19, ´Rizal correct about today´s Philippines,´ the columns of Dan Mariano, ´The Ateneo in Rizal´ and Eirene Jhone E Aguila, ´Quo Vadis Philippines´ (which also paid tribute to our national hero).
My reaction:
I´m interested less on The Ateneo in Rizal and more on RIZAL IN THE ATENEO.
Somebody´s email:
It is not enough to train the workforce ... you also have to train the trainer.
My reaction:
Yes. And who will train the trainer to train the trainers? And how? These are not rhetorical questions. I am a teacher by training; I passed the 1st Teacher´s Exam more than 40 years ago, stopped teaching a few years later, but never really left teaching – I have always been interested in the how and why. The usual approach is that the teacher knows everything and the student nothing. The teacher knows how to think, the student does not. So the teacher teaches critical thinking, which is correct; he doesn´t teach creative thinking, which is wrong.
Somebody´s email:
Indeed, justice in this country is held by one person, Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.
My reaction:
I thought only the female species was illogical. (The one who wrote that is a male.) If justice in the Philippines is in the hands of only the female species, what are the males doing? In any case, I hope she is not as narrow-minded as the ones judging the justice system in this country.
Somebody´s email:
It will take time to get over your grief. You will be desolate some days and other days you will be a little happier.
My reaction:
Barbie, only if you can´t accept the cause of your grief. Grief is a necessity; forgiveness is a virtue; surrender is grace.
Somebody´s email:
Documents of Rizal and Blumentritt, including five paintings of Juan Luna, had been found hidden in Cesky Budejovice Museum, 98 km north of Prague, Czech Republic. They could fetch an estimated US$8 million, according to Stephan Klococka.
My reaction:
The most important document of all, priceless beyond compare, with copies all around but which most of us ignore completely: ´Adios, Patria Adorada.´ The translators have even emasculated it. Do you know what that is?
Somebody´s email:
President Arroyo has activated a 24-hour command center of the Anti-Terrorism Council even as officials maintain that Metro Manila is in no immediate danger of being attacked by extremists.
My reaction:
Of course. The extremists also know when people think there is no immediate danger, right?
Somebody´s email:
You know, some people are asking me to run as vice mayor or a councilor but my wife is putting on the brakes. I don´t know if I will but my options are open.
My reaction:
Walk, don´t run!
Somebody´s email:
Dear Mr Hilario, All you have to do is Google Julius Fortuna. All the columns and news items about him will be presented in an index for you to click open.
My reaction:
(I wanted his personal experience about Julius Fortuna´s way of moderating. And he´s assuming I don´t know how to Google at all.)
Somebody´s email:
The Library Project of the Library Foundation is now complete. Additional 48 units of high-grade computers are now installed at the 2nd floor of the Library. So, our Library is now high-tech.
My reaction:
I'm glad to hear about those additional 48 units of desktop computers in the library. If you ask me, the computer is the one single tool that the Filipino can be among the best in the world, and we should 'capitalize' on that! (I have 2 ComSci graduates from the University of the Philippines Los Baños, male and female, Jomar and Teresa.)
Somebody´s email:
i marvel at norma's physical and mental stamina. imagine the drive to and from the hospital, at least 20 minutes each way; the time with bien which she tries to make productive through exercise and speech production. when i commended her for her strength, she said that she had to. how else? let's continue to pray that she copes with what's demanded of her.
My reaction:
I pray that Norma continues in faith to do what she discerns needs to be done.
Somebody´s email:
From Neal Cruz, ´A farewell to a journalist and patriot,´ (opinion.inquirer.net):
Years later, after he was released, he bore no grudge, no ill-will, no hatred, no anger and no desire for revenge against his torturers. On the contrary, when he became a journalist, he helped many military officers, colonels and generals, who could have been among his jailers and torturers. Often, Julius would arrange interviews for journalists over lunch or dinner with news sources who were military officers. Such was the forgiving nature of Julius.
My reaction:
Neal's column on Jules is the most beautiful of them all, and I'm saying that even if you have probably read it. In it he says that Jules was always forgiving. He forgave his enemies. It's something (almost) impossible to do, even by those who are high in the church, and I mean any church.
Somebody´s email:
Indeed, we need a dream world of peace, prosperity, unity and love.
My reaction:
And we all have to work for it, not simply dream it, not simply wish it, not simply pray for it.
Somebody´s email:
In my lifetime, I have seen quite a number of eagles. In my youth, I saw them in flight. In my adulthood, I have seen them at the Manila Zoo and in other zoos abroad. They live in cages with a little space for them to exercise their wings. They have no freedom and they depend on the caretakers for their food.
My reaction:
We send forth emails, but we don´t set free the ones we love.
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