Golden State Warriors

The Golden State Warriors is about to eliminate Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the 2007 NBA Western Conference Playoffs. It’s an amazing accomplishment because the Warriors had been crappy even before I moved here in Northern California and the Mavericks are the defending Western Conference Champions.

I have watched the Warriors play the LA Lakers of Kobe and Shaq in Staples Center and the New York Knicks and Sacramento Kings in Oakland Arena and the Warriors then really sucked. The only player who, I thought, was worth watching was Jason Richardson, a 2-time dunk champion. Every time he’s ahead of everybody, you can expect for an acrobatic dunk. Other than him, better save your $60 and watch them on TV.

Since the January 17 trade for Steven Jackson and Al Harrington from the Indiana Pacers, the Warriors was a different team. They became fast and athletic. They play just like the Phoenix Suns and they are fun to watch.

This year is the first time that the Warriors appeared in the NBA playoff games after 13 years of absence and California had seen the biggest-attended NBA game ever in its history last Sunday (TNT). More than 20,000 people went to the home game in Oracle Arena in Oakland. Arata Wata watched the game in a big screen TV in his crib in downtown San Jose, about 1-hour drive south of Oakland.

It’s now 3 to 1 in favor of the Warriors. One more beating of the Mavericks and the Warriors, lead by Baron Davis, will make NBA history: the first time that a No. 8-seeded team, who barely made it to the playoff, would beat a favorite, No. 1-seeded team in the best-of-seven first round format. Considering the standings of the two teams, this will be the biggest postseason upset in NBA history (San Jose Mercury News).

Arata Wata believes that we too can make history. We can turn our society around for the better because we have most of the requirements to be a great nation.

We have this Blog i Arata Wata. A “no holds barred” blog, where we can freely discuss the solutions to our problems, no political intimidations.

Seriously though, here are the facts that I believe will make Pangampong a Ranao great once again.

• Among the Muslim tribes, we are the most educated. Thanks to the Mindanao State University and to late Senator Domocao Alonto for providing us with cheap and quality education. I need some volunteers to do a survey of the educational attainment of every family in Marawi City. Please post the result of your survey in this thread and identify yourself para ka’b’gan ka sa award. Here’s the stats for my family. All 9 siblings are at least college graduate. 1 Medical Doctor, 1 Civil Engineer, 1 CPA, 1 Chemical Engineer and 1 Ph.D in CPA Review.

• Lake Lanao is a “gold mine”. If we can get an equitable share of its revenue and the operations of National Power Corporation, it can replace MSU as the main employer and financial provider for Pilandok. We can re-grow its fish population so we don’t have to import fish from the coastal areas. It can be developed for tourism. As it is, we have the biggest toilet in the world.

• Beautiful place and nice weather. Minus the snow, the Rocky Mountains on the eastern side of Denver looks like the mountains surrounding Lake Lanao. Same with the views of Lake Tahoe and Ithaca in New York State.

• Besides infrequent earth quakes, there are no other natural calamities that hits our place. We’re safe.

• Land is fertile and maybe, we have undiscovered oil deposit simply because we are Muslims. That’s God’s unique way of compensating the Muslims for their stupidity in the modern time.

• We have Maratabat, a culture of shame. It just need a little refinement so it can be used for constructive purposes, like, ip’maratabat so di kapaka comment sa giya Blog I Arata Wata and join the discussions.

• We are for the country what the Chinese is to the world. We are born merchants. We have padagang in almost all mercado and malls in the country.

• Most peaceful among the Muslim groups.

• Good politicians, kurap lang. Our 15 Sultanate Federation (Sapulo ago lima a Panoroganan sa Ranao) is so much more complex than the single-Sultan, absolute-power model of Sulu and Maguindanao.

• Our ka-kalilang is the best in the country. We can make money out of it. We need to preserve it.

• Some speak fluent Arabic. Good source for Middle East Call Centers.

• We are 99% Muslims. We have the most number of ulama compared to the other Muslim tribes. This one, I am not really sure if it’s good or bad. But it’s good that we have the most number of mosques and madrasas.

I can go on and on and on.

We can really be great once again. But we need to change our ways, especially on politics, maratabat and how we treat other people, like the Christians living among us.

We also need this young, strong and very good-looking super-hero, who will cleanse our society of evil people, just like Superman in Gotham City. E, si Batman pala iyon.

Ay sorry, nagmukha siyang Nacho Libre.

Please invite other Pilandoks to visit this site and get involve in the discussions.

Print your favorite page of this blog and post it on the entrance to your internet shop, on student bulletin boards or hand it out. Talk about the contents of ArataWata.Com with your friends.

If you are a student, get cool. Have an Arata Wata Party and talk about how you can help to change our society for the better. I may pay for your pizzas and kakolas. And don't forget to take pictures of you and your friends, send them to me. Your pictures will be posted here.

Let us all do something to improve our society. We owe it to our children and their future to fix the ills of our society today. Our fathers failed us that's why we're in this big mess. Let's not allow our children to say the same thing about us.

Hopefully, this will be the beginning of a social revolution. A peaceful revolution for change.

If you have ideas on how to solve our problems, please send them to Arata Wata so we can discuss them. At least, post your comments on the issues. You don’t have to be a good writer. I am not. Basta sabot'n bo so pamikiran ka na kapakay d'n.