Yes, this post is dangerously on-topic for me. Rather, it would be if I still maintained the fiction that Sarapen is about my research on Filipino bloggers.
But back to the main plot. Manuel Viloria at Viloria.com gives Tagalog lessons on the requisite formulas one needs to know to get by in various social situations in the Philippines: “Happy Birthday,” “it’s raining hard,” “I’ll avoid pork rinds for now.” You know, the essential things. The lessons are also being podcast, so you can listen to how things are supposed to be pronounced.
I’m not sure who the audience of these podcasts are supposed to be, though. “Learn to speak Tagalog now (for free!) to give you the advantage when you travel to the Philippines.“ So it’s for people outside the Philippines, then. But which people? Business travellers wouldn’t need this much Tagalog since English can take them almost anywhere in the Philippines, so I must assume these lessons are for second generation Filipinos and non-Filipinos with personal reasons for learning Tagalog (i.e., married to a Filipino). Which makes sense given the range of social situations covered in the lessons.
Tangentially, I confess that I still haven’t got into podcasting. I’d rather have a text to quickly skim through than a meandering recording that I’d have to listen to in its entirety just to find out if there’s anything interesting in it. When considering blog post vs. podcast, I’d have to go with blog post just for that very reason. For me, their unskimmability kills most podcasts for me. Of course, in the case of this particular blog, podcasting is certainly helpful, but in general, I just can’t get into them.
And on another tangent, I used to to regularly write about anarchism on my old blog. Mostly my posts revolved around David Graeber, an anarchist anthropologist. Some month back, I discovered this video of him being interviewed on Youtube and I thought I might as well put it up now. It’s all interesting stuff, I just wish the whole interview was on.