Facebook security tips #5

Dear Social Media Friends,

We here at Jay's Blog of Good Intent value your online security and privacy. Owing to the recent increase in reports of social media "hacking", here are some tips to protect yourself from online mischief.

0. Use a strong password,

but one that you can easily recall. The general guideline is, the password should be:

• 8 characters long;
• a mix of UPPER and lowercase letters;
• a couple of numb3r5;
• and specia| char@cters.

Needless to say, names of family members and birth dates are NOT recommended, as the "hacker", if he knows you, can easily guess those and "hack" into your account.

1. Add Two-factor authentication.

This enables you to have a second line of defense against someone who knows your password. Say, a "hacker" figures out your password; normally, that's all he would need to gain access to your account, right? With two-factor authentication, facebook will still require a security code before the "hacker" can finally access your account.

Here's how to setup two-factor authentication:

• Settings & Privacy > Privacy Shortcuts > Account security > Use two-factor authentication

• Select from the available methods. Easiest one is Text message (SMS) verification code. Once setup, Facebook will send you a security code whenever you or someone successfully logs in with your correct password.

So in my hacking scenario earlier, the security code will be sent to your cellphone as an SMS message. Unless the hacker also has physical access to your mobile phone, he won't be able to find out this security code. Plus this has the added benefit of you being alerted that someone is attempting to login to your account.

2. Receive alerts about unrecognized logins. (Optional)

You can even go Full-Blown Paranoid and setup the setting to Receive alerts about unrecognized logins. This is an easy way of getting alerted if someone successfully logs in to your account from a device other than the one you are normally using. Take for example, when a cybercriminal gains  unauthorized access to your Messenger from his criminal cellphone or computer, you will get notified. At least you are aware, right?

Here's how to set it up:

• Settings & Privacy > Privacy Shortcuts > Account security > Receive alerts about unrecognized logins

• Check to get notifications for each of the corresponding events, then Save Changes.

In conclusion, these are just some of the simplest ways to protect yourself online. Have a safe quarantine, everyone!

Alfsluitdijk

It wouldn't be, for Alfsluitdijk V. Santos, until having lived twenty two years of life, would he fully understand why having been given such a seemingly unusual name made the most perfect sense. When it came, it was all Alfsluitdijk could do to keep himself from smiling in tranquil understanding, and nodding inwardly in enlightenment.

It was a warm peacefulness that gradually spread throughout his existence in a slow yet deliberate certainty. Where once was doubt, now was all comprehension; where before there was nothing but questions, now there was just an overpowering sense of Correctness of Everything.

The way he viewed the entirety of his life suddenly changed, specially the previous twenty-two years and the few hours of this day prior to the knowledge becoming known to him. For the good part of the hour, he would do nothing but contemplate his younger years—the childhood, the rebellious teenage years, the bitter early adult life—and realize how he'd got everything wrong.

He would look back on those pre-school years when he was just learning to write his name. Even for a toddler, one could get a sense of how different one was based solely on the letters one was just learning to scratch in pencil onto a sheet of paper. With the familiarity to individual letters, in how they are formed and how they sound, and how, combined with other letters, they form words and make even more distinct sounds, Alfsluitdijk had an inkling that what he was told to be his name was not common among those of his pre-schooler peers.

And hearing the people around him pronounce his name—nine times out of ten they would get it wrong, and he would have to correct them. He would have to teach them patiently how each syllable was pronounced, and in the case of silent letters, not pronounced.

In his teenage years, it was not infrequent that his name became the source of constant ridicule. Long aware now that his name indeed was uncommon among his race and generation, Alfsluitdijk got teased and bullied. And not for a few instances had this cost him what good chances an average teenage boy otherwise had of starting an adolescent relationship with quite a handful of girls he admired.

Any one of those girls, unable to imagine themselves being teenage sweethearts with a boy with such a name, and much more possess the ability to correctly pronounce it, resorted to rejecting him outright.

And it was all because of the given name printed on his Certificate of Live Birth. Surely, with everything else being equal, his popularity with his peers would significantly improve had he had a much more typical name.

His college years were not much different—if not only slightly worse. If one would think that being the recipient of teasing and bullying due to one's appellation was confined in the younger years of one's academic life, in college those persisted, and in a much brutal and merciless manner. Furthermore, at the age when he was closest than he had ever been thus far to becoming a parent himself, he was aware that one of the earliest decisions a parent could make that could shape the child's future rested exclusively in their hands as they came up with the best and most appropriate name for the child. And he began to question his parents' decision: was his name the best and most appropriate one to help him be successful in life?

He was young then, and the answer he himself supplied for this question was not a positive one. Much as he loved his parents, when it came to his given name, Alfsluitdijk was bitter and angry.

But that was not until this Moment of Enlightenment when everything became clear to him.

Earlier there was a mention to the effect of how this realization gradually took hold of Alfsluitdijk's very being and changed his complete outlook in life. But was there further mention that it brought physical manifestations to his very person as well? For indeed, as the sheer correctness of his name registered in every neural connections in his brain, each individual cell in his body concurred, and in doing so, rejected the false ideas he had held since very early in life. This rejection manifested in some very small, almost imperceptible, shudders that lasted for but a blink of an eye.

At his Moment of Enlightenment, and for any other of his future moments for the rest of his life, when he again asked if his parents had made the best decision in naming him such, his answer would be a clear and undeniable "Yes".

Alfsluitdijk was the best possible name his parents could have given him at birth, and there is no better proof of it than now, at this very Moment of Enlightenment—as he receives his NBI Clearance.

The Two Lives of Jay Santos

1. Jay

It was a Tuesday that was like all others, except that for one Jay Santos he simply had had too much. For one, the foreign market trade he'd conducted just a couple of hours ago had not gone quite well. What was to have been a quick profit of a couple of thousands for a swaps trade on a popular kitchen brand yielded barely a few cents (exclusive of fees). And he had a gnawing suspicion that it was those darned high frequency traders again, overtaking his executions by tenths of a millisecond.

For another, he was not feeling very excited about opening up shop today. Not that business had been particularly hot on any given day for the past fifteen years or so. In fact it had never been. But for some strange reason, this past year, it seemed to finally be starting to make sense to him why his parents had been so vehemently against him selling all his assets to open up a furniture repair shop.

And now this. Maybe it wouldn't have been particularly bad if this was the first time it happened. But the fiftieth? Yes, Jay Santos was counting. It was the fiftieth time in recent memory that his morning bowl of goto came to him without the extra garlic.

This happened in A&A Eatery, a mid-priced establishment catering to the middle- to lower-middle class. Prior to this particular morning, its claim to fame was a five minute feature on an afternoon lifestyle TV show five years ago when a co-host sampled its famed bistek Tagalog. (That was back when it still had its highly skilled head chef, who had since left to be a restaurant owner himself.)

This Tuesday, of course, would be remembered in the town's history as the day most people perished inside an eatery, and all through violent means. And it was to be because one patron had less garlic in his goto as he would have desired.

2. Jay

Jay Santos wasn't a bad employee. Sure, in an entire utilities sales firm's population of around fourteen thousand, he would barely be ranked among its top 10% of good performers, but he could say in all modesty—and his seven years' worth of good and documented supervisor feedback attested to this—that he was above average. If there was anything he expected the least to read first thing in the morning, upon turning on his company-provided iPed and launching his Thunderbird email application, it was a memo from HR informing him that he needed to undergo PIP.

PIP, to the uninitiated, means Personnel Improvement Plan. Taken by its name's context, it is a positive thing, something an employee can wish to undergo not once or twice, but continuously all throughout his or her professional life. Taken by its name's context, it holds promises of a fruitful career, increased productivity, satisfied bosses, instinctive good performance, and overall happiness among everyone concerned.

In the context of the country's Labor Laws, however, the PIP is the vehicle by which an employer can safely escort a presumably low performer out of their employ without the risk of violating its Unlawful Termination clauses. The PIP is the legal means by which an employer can tell the employee: "shape up or ship out", practically meaning they have the rights to terminate under Lawful Grounds—Gross Habitual Neglect—should the employee fail to "Improve" despite the "Plan".

In this context, the PIP can be taken as another way of pointing out that the employee has been under performing, that he has been a lazy slob, and is one Bad Move away from getting sacked.

Jay Santos, naturally, upon reading the full memo, was taken aback. How could he be getting a PIP, he never missed his sales quotas? Sure he didn't exceed a hundred percent of his targets like some of his colleagues did, but he was always well clear of the required numbers. Surely, there could be a mistake!

He was about to tap his supervisor's contact icon for a VoIP call to get a clarification, when he saw reflected in his terminal's glare, behind him, his supervisor, accompanied by a much higher senior manager, and two members of HR-Legal.

"Mr. Santos," his supervisor began. "I'm sure you have read our email to you by now."

"Why, yes..." Jay began apprehensively. "Yes, in fact I've just finished reading the full memo. I'm sure there's been some kind of mistake. I do appreciate it that you took the trouble of coming all the way here to tell me to disregard it. I assure you it's perfectly fine, I haven't told anyone yet about the misdirected ma—"

"We did indeed take the trouble of personally coming to you," one of the members of HR-Legal did not allow him to even finish his last sentence, "but it is not to correct any type of—what did you call it?—mistake. Or any misdirected mail."

Even before Jay could start his response, the second member of HR-Legal quickly continued after her colleague. "There were no missent email. The memo you've just read is meant for you. You are the intended recipient of the PIP mail."

"Yes, Jay." His supervisor's expression showed deep concern, but only minimally for Jay, and mostly for himself, as if he feared that it was only a matter of time before he was the recipient of this very thing, this professional death sentence today being served to his subordinate. "We came here to tell you how, now that you are under the PIP, you are to go about your future work."

"Now if you'd be so compliant," said the senior manager, "we have reserved Quiet Room #2 on the other end of the floor so we could all discuss your PIP."

* * *

So to Quiet Room #2 on the other end of the floor they went. Jay knew the reason for the existence of about four or more of these such quiet rooms on each of their operations floors, and why it was called that. It was a place where a stressed out employee could retreat to to slow down and relax a bit lest he or she burned out. The silence, the seclusion, helped someone get into his or her own inner being and all that, re-focus, and ask him- or herself why they were in this job to begin with. And after a few minutes (all of which should be within the 30-minute-a-day approved break), the employee would emerge ready to face the challenges of a highly-skilled utilities sales personnel.

Today, however, Jay learned another reason these rooms were called Quiet Rooms. They were padded and sound-proofed, not only so that those inside would not hear any noise from outside, but also so that whatever yells, screams, and cries of anguish made inside would not be heard by those outside.

Because as the details of his PIP were delivered to him, he made plenty of those noises that if they'd been heard by any of his colleagues outside, would have reduced his dignity so low he might as well have been, well...  something they'd have scraped out of their nostrils, rounded to a small circular ball, and wiped on the underside of their work desks.

"Admittedly, you are well over the minimum sales quota of 85% of your target for the past year," his supervisor began.

Which translates to me practically shovelling bundles of money amounting to 50 million straight to our Owner's pockets. Jay wanted to say, but stopped himself.

"Unfortunately, everyone from your division made more than that amount of sales," said the senior manager. "So if we were to rank you based on the sales every employee contributed, Jay, I'm afraid you are at the bottom."

"That's not the point, is it?" He used a defiant yet still respectful tone. "The PIP is designed to address low performance. I have, as you said, maintained meeting over 85% of my targets each time. How can I be a low performer?"

"Ours is a relative scoring system, Mr. Santos," HR reminded him. "You might be doing a good job by being just above the required quota, but all of your peers are doing better. That puts you at the bottom, and thus require of you improvement."

"Improvement, how?" he was incredulous, slightly mocking. "To beat their 105% sales rates?"

"If possible, yes. The PIP can help you achieve that. In fact"—the HR personnel checked the PIP guidelines printout she carried—"your PIP target is a meager 150% sales rate, or a 100 million in ROI. Whichever is higher."

"Whichever is higher!" A voice raised in indignation this time.

"Ordinary goals do not apply to those undergoing PIP. If someone were to undergo PIP, the measure of success must be extra ordinarily high. Improvement is the end goal."

What a pretty convenient scheme to squeeze free extra work out of somebody for some additional millions to line the Owner's pockets. Jay didn't say these, but they were in his eyes, reddening face, and trembling, fisted hands. Instead of having to say these (and get a Disciplinary Action to go with his PIP), he asked instead, this time in a falsely humble, exasperated tone, "Why ever do we have a relative scoring system? Technically, one could be bringing in a billion in sales, yet still be an under performer, just because everyone of his peers made a billion... and one."

"You very well know that's the rating system all throughout your career, yes? You were fine with it when you were among the relatively good performers."

Jay didn't have anything to say to that. His supervisor was right. After a few seconds of reflection, acknowledging he couldn't do much to reverse HR's decision anyway, he asked, "What then do I do to purge myself of my low performing ways?"

And so the HR explained.

There are targets one would aim for if one wants a good increase next year. There are targets if one is gunning for a promotion to the next level. Then there are targets if, say, a newly hired personnel, straight out of college, wants to skip a few rungs of the corporate ladder and be a CEO of the company the same year he received his diploma and was hired. The PIP targets are more similar to the last example—except that Jay would have to do it in two months.

Jay at this point was depleted of rage—or any other emotion, for that matter. He felt like he was in one of those dreams where he was trying to run, but his movements were in slow-mo, and the harder he tried, the more hopeless moving became.

"And if in those two months, I fail to meet those targets?" Jay finally managed to ask, in a feeble voice, himself close to tears.

"If you fail even one of your fifty PIP targets, the company will terminate your employment without even worrying about violating any Labor Laws."

Hearing this, all that escaped Jay's mouth was but a barely audible, helpless whimper. "I see."

3. Jay

Although what follows are reconstructed partly based on eye witness accounts from the only two survivors, and forensic investigation by the much celebrated Raheem City Police Department, still much liberty is exercised by the Author in telling the events of that fateful Tuesday morning in A&A Eatery... in but one of the series of killings known in popular media as the Who, What, When, Where, and How Massacre of '99. This particular one being known as the A&A Eatery Massacre.

Parents with very young kids, time to ask your children to look away!

* * *

The killer was well armed and had plenty of ammunition. He could fire his guns accurately with both hands. Most importantly, he had fingers that never tired of squeezing the trigger—if that was all he had to do to bring death and destruction to everyone in that eatery the entire morning.

The first casualties, of course, were those seated closest to him. A man who had just scooped his first spoonful of goto for the morning was never able to bring it to his mouth. Unfortunately for him, before the spoon, warmed by his hot soup, touched his lips, an even hotter and entirely different type of metal went through his mouth, shattering his two front teeth, before exiting the back of his neck.

This man had a seatmate, and his initial reaction to seeing blood gushing out of his friend's mouth was: Who puts ketchup in goto? His second thought was: So this is what a bullet speeding towards in between my eyes looks like. Truly, no matter how they say bullets travel fast, neurons on one's brain are even faster, and can process information such as an approaching bullet. If anything can be faulted as being slow, it is the rest of the human body, not quick enough to dodge, when he sees the bullet coming.

On the next table, the patrons had only time enough to cover their heads with their upraised arms. As if those could protect them! And in any case, the Shooter decided the torso was a bigger target than the head and face, while still containing plenty of vital body organs to damage. Three fell from that table, all with gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen.

At this time, most of the eatery were becoming aware that at least one of the patrons were opening fire on their co-patrons. They, however, did not know the full background of what the commotion was about, and so decided to stay on for a little while until they understood better. They never got to, as the next spray of bullets went in their direction.

Who knows the mind of a killer? Who can second guess his intentions? But to most everyone who perished that day, it seemed likely that they were all in agreement that to the Killer, nothing about it was personal. He had some issues, obviously, and if opening fire to an eatery-full of customers was his way of dealing with those issues, who's to judge?

The killings were now in earnest. At the first complete revolution of the eatery's clock's second hand around its face, eight already lay dead. The floor was starting to get slick with blood and other human by-products... but not as slick as it would be after all the Killer's ammunition were done hitting their intended targets.

In the meantime, the bullets did go about hitting their intended targets. Be it somebody's head or face, torso, or limb. In the end, all types of bodily damage were made equal by the ceasing of life that resulted as a consequence of them.

Sure, an entry wound on the belly looked small in contrast to the rest of the body, but who knew what internal organs were damaged in the bullet's progress? A wounded liver, a punctured gut, a disturbed pancreas—they brought pain and discomfort to the victim, and if they remained untreated long enough, would cause the victim to die.

Some didn't have to wait that long. Bullets, which naturally didn't have any business in or near a person's cranium, forced their way in via an entry wound, and exited via the same, although on a different side of the head. This brought near instant death to the victims. And where the intrusion of lead in what would have otherwise been strictly the human brain's territory wasn't bad enough, the entry and exit wounds induced deprivation of blood, that fluid so essential to the functioning of the very brain the bullets had violated.

Then there were bullets that attacked the very skelletal integrity of its victims. In one very curious case, two unique bullets happened to hit a common vertebra of a single victim. Backbone broken, the victim landed on the bloodied floor on an unnatural L-shape, bent where his backbone had been shattered.

The spray of bullets came in non-stop fusilade that reached a wide angle from the Shooter's vantage point. And thanks to his ambidextrosity, death was delivered in more or less equal proportions between those in his left and in his right.

Nor was his shooting two-dimensional. He also swayed his gun hands up-and-down, as he did left-to-right. So not even those who ducked for cover under the tables were ever really as protected as they wished to believe.

There were those who attempted to run, but who said the Killer couldn't swivel his body from the waist, and thereby chase with gunfire those escaping, stopping would-be survivors?

At some point, it was known that somebody heard someone yell: "Stop!" It could only be the eatery's manager, since mostly everyone was dead or dying at this point—although there truly was no consensus about this.

The next statements, though, were certifiably verified to have been made by the eatery's manager. "You are killing my customers. You have got to stop." This was bad, because it only managed to call the Killer's attention to him. And a lot agree that he was the one who got the worst of the acts of violence that were perpetrated in the eatery that morning.

To kill the manager, the Killer brought both his shooting hands together to focus his gunfire on him. There was a momentary ceasing of shooting, a few seconds of lull when the only sounds heard were the squirming and gurgling breaths of those dying. But as if sorry that he should have let go of squeezing the triggers even for a while, the Killer immediately resumed the massacre as soon as he had the manager in sight.

When the gunfire resumed, every bullet that left the Killer's high-powered weapons went straight to the manager. Whereas the earlier killings had been made with relatively economical use of ammunition—where it was two bullets per person at least, as long as they found a vital enough body part—this time the Killer liberally consumed bullets on a single person.

Smoking holes instantly appeared on different parts of the manager's body where but a blink of an eye earlier, it was plain, smooth, in-tact human skin. Likewise, the force of the entering bullets caused the manager's body to sway this way and that, as if on a dance. That motion, plus factoring the open bullet wounds in his body, splattered blood in every direction.

Long after the manager's decimated body was no longer able to sustain life, the Killer continued firing at his body.

Finally, the shootings stopped—but not because of the Killer's loss of interest or motivation. It stopped because his bullets had finally run out.

Noting this limitation, he appeared to have snapped out of his violent temperament, shrugged his shoulders, packed his things (including both high-powered guns), and left the A&A Eatery. He would not be seen by anyone for the next six years.

He didn't take with him all his things as he left the eatery  though. Consistent with all the Who, What, When, Where, and How Massacre cases, he left a card. Handwritten on it were the words:

WHO:

WHAT:

WHEN:

WHERE:

HOW:

And on the back of the card was a name and job title:

Jay Santos

Furniture Repair Specialist

4. Jay

"Shape up or ship out." At least he was given a choice. And if he really thought about it, it wasn't a particularly difficult one to make.

How realistically can anyone really pull off all the long list of those "extra ordinarily high" objectives in the PIP checklist? And if anyone did meet those, who benefits? Who ends up with a couple of free extra millions in his bank account and a huge smile on his face? Not the overworked employee, for sure.

On the other hand, the alternative meant saying goodbye to the company he had worked in for nearly the past nine years of his life. He would have to update his CV, upload it, look for work, and go through all the bureaucratic hassles of getting a new employer.

But still, when he came to think of it, the stress of having to meet all the unrealistic demands set by his superiors far outweigh any inconveniences that came with seeking new work. Plus, there was no way he would allow himself to take part in rewarding his employer for a very glaring labor injustice with stacks and stacks of free millions!

And besides, it was not as if there was a shortage of options in the job market for someone with the kind of skills he had. On the contrary, his skills were quite sought after by competing utilities sales companies. Proof of this was the considerable number of junk emails per month he received on his personal email making suggestions to consider applying for a position in their companies.

This might in fact be an opportunity for him to get a better job!

Having realized this, Jay was glad he had not immediately signed the acceptance of the terms of the PIP when HR served them to him. Because if he had, he would be exiting branded as a poor performer. Instead, a resignation now while his employment record was not tarnished by any acknowledged under performance would be just like any other ordinary resignation.

No sooner had he made this realization than he was typing his brief resignation letter. Quite surprisingly, there was no bitterness in it, no indication at all that its writer was feeling that he was a recipient of injustice.

He printed out the letter at home, not intending to use company resources for it. He printed out four copies. When he came for work the next day, he sent a copy to each of the people he had shared Quiet Room #2 with the previous day.

* * *

After this, things seemed to go smoothly and as planned. People say you know you are making the right decision when nothing seems to hinder the flow of all the good things your way.

He checked his most recent junk mails from the headhunters, and got the top ten most decent enough sounding positions. Of the ten, he did some light research on the company's background, browsing the web forums for any general comments about them.

Of the ten, he decided to send an application to five, and within a week he got calls from three, requesting personal appearance and face-to-face interviews.

By the end of the week, he was within 90% of the pre-employment process of what would be his new employer; he only had to comply with some final official requirements.

That's why Jay found himself one fine August morning in a popular mall, standing in line to apply for an _BI Clearance. The line was long, but as a true testament to how the universe was in favor of his good decision, when the clearance processors decided to divide the lines per each letter of the alphabet, Jay found himself but the fifth on queue under letter "S".

The four people ahead of him were processed all in a matter of seconds! Before he knew it, Jay was in the processing window, face to face with who could only be the happiest government employee he had ever seen in his entire life.

She was a heavyset woman of about mid-forties or early fifties. She was brown-skinned, but with the way her happiness radiated, could very well be one of those glowing models of artificial skin whitening products being peddled all over TV and highway billboards. She had a pink ribbon tied to her short hair, and a smile that wrinkled her eyes and increased the puffiness of her already chubby cheeks. On her desk were potted flowering plants, and on the bronze name tag pinned to her chest was the loveliest name anybody could be named in their local language.

Her smile could only brighten even more as Jay handed her his complete and carefully stapled requirements.

As she shifted her attention to her computer terminal to enter Jay's details, there was an almost apologetic look, as she knew she would momentarily deprive her applicant of the almost intoxicating joviality of her entire being.

Jay felt it too, and he knew that unless "Rumina"—as the name tag identified the government employee—smiled at him that way again, he would never in his entire life truly know happiness again.

SELECT SURNAME, GIVENNAME, CRIME FROM CRIMINALS WHERE SURNAME="SANTOS" AND GIVENNAME="JAY";

Jay didn't know it—didn't even see it. But he would hold on to as fact until the final hours of his life that this was the exact database query that Rumina entered to the _BI system that fine August morning when he was applying for a pre-employment _BI Clearance.

As soon as Rumina hit enter to execute the query, an alarm blared in the entire mall sattelite station. At the same time, red flashing lights not unlike those seen in cop shows began to flash. The entire wall inside the _BI sattelite office changed from being a plain wooden wall with framed pictures of the Director and the President, to a wide LED screen. And on that wide LED screen a single word in all caps and red font color began blinking.

HIT!
HIT!
HIT!
HIT!

Startling as all this was, what devastated Jay the most was the sudden change in Rumina's demeanor. Almost in the blink of an eye, the happy disposition was gone. The smile transformed to a suspicious frown, where the eyes earlier wrinkled in a smile, the brows were now furrowed, the eyes no longer sparkling in mirth but were sharp and alert, as though in a hunt.

Then Jay reminded himself that she was no ordinary government employee: she was an _BI agent!

From behind one of her potted flower plants, she immediately produced a 2-way radio. "We got 'im," she spoke into the unit, not for one moment taking her suspicious eyes off Jay.

"What's wrong?" Jay said. "What's happening here?"

"Sir, I suggest you stay right where you are. And make no sudden movements. You are being arrested for the murder of an entire eatery full of patrons, including their manager."

At that exact moment, law enforcement operatives appeared all around him.

Jay Santos never got his _BI Clearance that day.

City Builder: From A Game

The plan was to build a properly-zoned city within one lifetime, and get a return of the founding costs in a hundred years. It was expected that there would be a transition of about 10 to 16 mayors throughout the hundred-year period. There is an assumption that the city government, as well as their families to the third degree, would not be corrupt, and every ruler would ensure a smooth transition to the successor.

Transportation, aside from proper zoning, should be one of the primary considerations.

* * *

What was to be Raheem City was by now an empty expanse of land, 25% mountainous, and with the semi-polluted Guang-Quez river flowing in a diagonal across the southwest quadrant of the land area. The plains were overgrown with grass, and the area surrounding the hills were covered in thousand year-old forest growth. The instructions were clear that the vegetation around the hills were not to be touched, and clearer was the condition that the semi-polluted river flowing from the bigger cities up north were not to be made more polluted than they already were. In fact, it should be in the pipeline that once a suitable technology appeared and the government could afford it, they would build a water treatment facility that could make water from the Guang-Quez drinkable.

Planning for the city started two years ago. There would be a large central park near the approximate city center, with future space for monuments, playgrounds, and everything. But as the city didn't have funds appropriated for these just yet, they just built for now the roads that encircled the park, marking its borders. The original vegetation within the park's area were preserved, pending future landscaping as needed. But the old trees were to stay, and those that needed cutting down had to undergo a strict and lengthy review before being allowed—if at all.

Starting from the central park, the grid of roads were mapped out and the corresponding zones were designated. The first of the roads to be paved were were those from out of the city going in to the residential areas. Before  they built any commercial establishments, they wanted to bring people in as residents.

Lots were cheaper with the initial "pre-selling" price. The earliest buyers were just from the overcrowded neighboring metropolis north of the city. Connected to it via the I-9 speedway, Raheem City was a 30-minute-drive away.

Building the link to I-9 was one of the top priorities during the first year since the city's founding. The mayor sought the national government's assistance, as well as that of the private land developers, to help fund this speedway connection. There was agreement that half of the toll income would go to the private corporations during the first ten years of operation, decrementing by ten percent every five years hence, until finally all income would go to the city.

While that was going on, land development commenced. Not two years after the first residential development went on sale, the first factory in the industrial complex broke ground. It was to be a car manufacturing plant, and promised to employ 5,000 of Raheem City residents. This guaranteed a slight increase in Raheem City land value, and so prospected land buyers were told to get their real estate now before the cost got even higher within the following years.

Years one through five saw the highest surge in the city's population. Though there would, of course, be a continuous stream of new residents, statisticians noted that this would be the highest surge in population growth in the entire history of the city.

The end of the sixth year would be the end of the term of the appointed mayor. Everyone—including the national government—were curious to find out if this OIC would seek an elected position on the city's first ever election, and if so, if he would relinquish his post to the winner if the winner was other than him or an immediate relative.

For what it's worth, it should be noted here that this OIC's name was Mayor Raheem.
* * *
Next to (initially) cheap land costs, what made Raheem City attractive to new residents was the establishment of schools. Shenkar Academy and Polonoling Community College were the first two to offer a full suite of primary to tertiary education. At the same time, deals were already in the works for the movement of the Raheem City branches of three other major universities.

Then there was the growth of the manufacturing sector. More factories opened during the next five years. Raheem City's own version of the Silicon Valley occupied the major central road on the industrial zone—which made it more a silicon strip than an actual valley.

Several blocks away were the chemical plants, which, in a few years, would lead to citizens' protests for the enhancement of the environmental ordinances. But in the meantime, the important thing was that these plants generated more jobs and income for the city.
* * *
No city would truly be free of crime. There were petty crimes reported as early as the first year that people settled in Raheem City: pick pockets, semi-violent pranks, occasional bike theft. But it wasn't until the Who-What-When-and-Where Massacres of 1999 that the authorities realized the need for a really good police force.

Truth be told, the Who-What-When-and-Where Massacres of 1999 didn't happen exclusively in Raheem City, nor were the crimes confined within that single year. It was a series of killings spread throughout the greater geographical region, spanning the years 1997 until the killer was arrested in 2005.

This series of massacres reached Raheem City via a mass execution of an entire eatery one early February morning in 1999. The sheer violence of the proceedings was previously unseen in Raheem City since its founding, while the Who-What-When-and-Where notice left at the scene of the crime quickly tagged it as indeed the handiwork of Who-What-When-and-Where Massacres perpetrator.

As a result, the _ational Board of Investigators (_BI) opened up a sattelite branch in a number of malls in Raheem City. Their aim was to catch the WWWWM killer if by some chance he or she happened to apply for an _BI clearance. A protocol was put in place whereby the _BI authorities would be alerted for "hits" among the _BI clearance applicants. It was an ingenius dragnet of sorts, given that everybody was required to furnish an _BI clearance for just about any aspect of their bureaucratic lives.

Now, a "hit" was a similarity between the combined given- and surname of any two or more _BI clearance applicants, or those who were already in the _BI database. Upon identifying a "hit", the _BI personnel would ask the applicant to wait 14 days for them for verification, after which time the applicant's request for a clearance would presumably be resolved. Why the process took 14 days to complete, and what investigative actions were done exactly that it required this much time, people could only speculate.

In any case, 14 days was an awfully long time to be waiting for what would otherwise have been a simple addition of filters on a database search query. A lot of applicants grew frustrated over this. What an ordinary _BI clearance applicant didn't know was that while they were waiting for their "hit" to be verified, the _BI was slowly closing in on the WWWWM killer.

Already, they had a name of the suspect, forwarded to them by the Regional Headquarters: a certain J. J. Santos. As their immense good fortune would have it, one fine August morning, a person with just the name J. J. Santos applied for a clearance needed for local employment, falling right into their clutches. The poor murderer's namesake couldn't do anything except watch helplessly as the computer screen blinked "HIT" in red bold letters next to his name. Never mind that this J. J. Santos fellow that they'd identified could be no farther from committing a massacre than, say, accidentally poking a guy's eye out in a martial art's event. The only fault of this killer's namesake was that he happened to want to move to a better paying job, and thus needed an _BI clearance so he could job hunt.

For this unfortunate fellow, he never got to go home to his family that day. _BI agents were waiting to arrest him at the very mall exit, to be hauled to detention. Simply because he shared the same given name and surname as a suspected criminal.

With this, one could say that Raheem City also was in need of justice—but this was not yet to be for another few more years to come.[1]

* * *

In the greater scale of things though Raheem City was looking to be in good shape.

With all the tax money collected, Raheem City was ready for an inter-city railway system. This they wanted to implement as much as possible before the traffic problem started to really get serious. A railway system would help a lot in not only in easing traffic, but reducing individual citizen's carbon footprint as well. All in all, it was a good thing for a developing city to have.

* * *

The transition of mayoral duties was mentioned here awhile ago. At the same time, it is probably a good time to mention why the city has the same name as its mayor. See, this young city went by a number of different temporary names shortly after its founding. When Mayor Raheem was approaching the end of his term, while everyone expected him to cling to power, or at the very least, have a member of his family run as his successor, he did a very surprising thing by doing none of these. Now, one has to understand that during this time, and in this country in particular, this behavior by one in power was unheard of.

So in appreciation for this un-traditional politician-like behavior by their former leader, the whole city granted him a kind of virtual immortality that not even a dynastic political rule could ever provide. Every single citizen unanimously agreed that there was no better name to give their city but the very name of their noble and one-of-a-kind mayor, Mayor Raheem. And this would be so for the next hundred years.

* * *

Moving now to a decade since Raheem City was founded, there were various needs from the citizenry. More infrastructure projects were started: more hospitals, police and fire stations, a library, two cemeteries, a radio station, a prison house, two separate bridges that cross the Guang-Quez, and the city hall. This latter was constructed right across the western face of the central park.

Understandably, all these spending required an ever increasing budget. In the last five years, the various taxes underwent an increase. Increase in residential and commercial taxes covered the administrative costs. Industrial taxes increased significantly, mostly to compensate for the environmental damage their operations were gradually introducing. The factories for a time complained that their contribution to the air pollution was not as much as that of the "dirty" coal power plant near the city's edge. The authorities confirmed this after a careful study, and yet as the coal plant was the only source from which the entire city got its power, they could not immediately address this issue on pollution. Instead, the city council decreed to channel a portion of the industry's tax increase to build a much cleaner power source, until they could completely shut down the coal plant. The industrial sector found sense in this, and came to an agreement with the city council not long after.

With Raheem City becoming slightly more expensive, demands for further expansion settled down somewhat. There were a few businesses that closed for various reasons not all primarily due to the increased cost of living. Those that stayed though were just about to benefit from the Plague of Materialism that was yet to sweep Raheem City in the next few years.

Raheem City did not start out as highly commercialized. What commercial establishments there were were only small-to-medium scale enterprises, mainly re-selling products brought in from the neighboring cities. This was about to change during the completion of the inter-city railway system. With the ingenious schemes of the corporations to attach the rail stations to the malls, commuters using the trains were forced to pass by the malls every time.

Mall owners quickly saw the potential in being able to easily lure commuters to buying things. The mall owners invested in bringing in and carrying international brands of Things that were most fashionable for anyone to Have. This ranged from clothes, shoes, watches, bags, intelligent phones, electronics, and other similar accessories. When television and print suddenly dictated that it was most desirable to have a certain body figure and specific skin type to look best in the above-mentioned fashion accessories, establishments opened in those very malls to help people achieve just the required physical appearance.

And placing these train stations on the entrance of malls was essentially very much like installing money-sucking devices that parted the people from their hard earned money simply by walking by.

Thankfully, Raheem City's work force was paid more or less fairly, and so they had some bit of money left to spend on an expensive lifestyle.

Now a couple of decades into cityhood, and with Raheem City and its denizens looking very much like what an urban metropolis more or less should, what lay in this city's future, and would they achieve the hundred-year goals that they had planned upon founding?

____________
[1]
When the real WWWWM perpetrator was arrested in 2005, the other  J. J. Santos was finally set free with a clean _BI clearance, to job hunt to his heart's desire.