Galatea's favorite Sky

today

2008-02-21T01:59:00.000-08:00

I want to confess, but must not, about last night.

corny jokes

2007-06-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

Anak: Nay, totoo ba na "1st love nver dies?"

Nanay: Oo nman! Tingnan nyo yang ama nyo 1st love ko, hanggang ngayon

buhay pa ang hinayupak, d p mamatay n lng!

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Attorney: Nsan k ng mangyari ang rape?

Witness: Sa maisan po!

Attorney: Anong gingawa mo don?

Witness: Tumatae po!

Attorney: Ilang hakbang ka mula sa krimen?

Witness: Pucha nman attorney! meron bang tumatae na pahakbang-hakbang?

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Boy: Cno matapang?! Lumabas matapang jan!

Lalaking madaming tattoo: Ako matapang...! Bakit?!

Boy: Survey lng po.... O ung mga duwag nman ......

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

****

Son: Ma, bakit kayo tumatalbog sa ibabaw ni daddy??

Mom: Wala anak, pinapaliit ko lang tiyan ng Daddy mo.

Son: Nye! Mapapagod ka lang kasi hinihipan din uli yan ni yaya!

****

A black baby was given a pair of wings by a fairy....

Baby: does this mean im an angel??

Fairy laughs....

Fairy: Of course not! negrang 'to, ambisyosa! Paniki ka!

****

Nanay: anak, hindi ka ba nahihiya??! linis ako nang linis dito

tapos ikaw, naglalaro lang jan?!!

Anak: Nay, hindi ba mas nakakahiya kung ako ang naglilinis jan

at ikaw ang naglalaro dito?? toink...

****

Magkaibigan kumakain...

Pedro: Anong palaman ng tinapay mo?

Juan: Kiso!

Pedro: Kiso? Ano ka ba nakakahiya ka! Hindi yan kiso!

Chess yan.. CHESS!!

****

Prof : Who among you experienced having sex with a ghost??

Juan raised his hand...

Prof : Really?? How does it feel to have sex with a ghost?

Juan: Ay pucha! Akala ko goats!!

****

chin chin gutierrez according to kai huang

2007-06-13T21:49:00.000-07:00

Photo by Kai Huang

I want to be like Chin Chin someday! :)

Bob Dylan wins arts award in Spain

2007-06-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

Bob Dylan wins arts award in Spain

By CIARAN GILES, Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 13, 11:50 AM ET

AP Photo: Bob Dylan performs during the 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans,...

MADRID, Spain -

Bob Dylan was awarded Spain's Prince of Asturias arts award, one of the country's most prestigious honors, Wednesday.

"He's a living legend of popular music," said Jose Llado Fernandez-Urrutia, president of the prize's panel of judges.

Dylan, 66, has been one of the most influential popular music artists in recent decades, and is regarded by many as a poet. His hits include "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times They Are a-Changin'," "Like a Rolling Stone" and "All Along the Watchtower."

"He's considered one of the most important figures of song, a form in which he combines, in a majestic way, the beauty of his poetry and ethical commitment," said the prize foundation in a statement.

"For this reason, his music and message have had an outstanding influence on several generations of young people."

Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minn., was ranked No. 2 in Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004, second to the Beatles.

His most recent recording, "Modern Times," on the Columbia Records label, entered the U.S. album charts at No. 1 one week after it was released in 2006.

"He pioneered the introduction of literature in popular music, bringing together for the first time European and Afro-American rhythms that were a decisive and revolutionary influence on later generations of musicians," the foundation said.

Eight Prince of Asturias awards are given annually in categories including arts, science, sports and humanities to Spaniards and foreigners alike.

They are announced during the year and presented each autumn in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo, capital of the Asturias region.

Last year's arts award was won by Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar.

How Much of the Philippines Have You Visited?

2007-06-13T17:24:00.000-07:00

My Lakbayan grade is C+!
How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at http://forge.codedgraphic.com/lakbayan

Created by
http://vaes9.codedgraphic.com
Eugene Villar

Moving the whaling debate forward

2007-06-12T18:48:00.000-07:00

VIEWPOINT
By the Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer

The debate over commercial whaling is brought to the table once again at the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting. But, Geoffrey Palmer argues in this week's Green Room, there may be ways to avoid the usual stalemate.

It is devoutly to be hoped that light rather than heat emerges from that discussion

Send us your comments

Guide to the Great Whales

Since the commercial whaling moratorium went into effect in 1986, more than 29,000 whales have been killed under objection and special permit whaling.

More at the Green Room
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6689541.stm

4 in the Morning

2007-05-30T20:04:00.000-07:00

4 In The Morning Lyrics

Scorsese to Rescue Lost Film Gems

2007-05-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6682811.stm

Martin Scorsese won an Oscar this year for his film The Departed

Oscar-winning film director Martin Scorsese is spearheading a new body aimed at salvaging neglected films.

Scorsese - who has made Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and The Departed - launched the World Cinema Foundation (WCF) at the Cannes Film Festival.

He was joined by a dozen top directors, including Stephen Frears, who will highlight homegrown films from their own countries worth rescuing.

But Scorsese said the WCF would focus on films from developing countries.

Scorsese told reporters he feared seminal foreign films could deteriorate or disappear entirely.

Foreign films on television... introduced so many different cultures to me and I found I was fed by those cultures

Martin Scorsese

"Coming from a working-class background in New York, my parents were not educated and weren't in the habit of reading books," the 66-year-old director said.

"So I saw a great deal of film on television in particular.

"This opened up a whole world to me, foreign films on television, and introduced so many different cultures to me.

"I found I was fed by those cultures, and I think the same thing has happened all around the world."

The Queen director Frears, who is chairing the Cannes award jury this year, added his voice to the call for the restoration of older films.

He said the British Film Institute (BFI) need more money to help maintain its archive.

"[It] is under-funded. It needs money. It's as simple as that. It's our lives, our culture. The government does not prioritise this highly enough."

'Important relics'

Cult Chinese director Wong Kar-wai - behind My Blueberry Nights, which opened Cannes this year - will also sit on the WFC board.

He said he had made a pet project out of hundreds of Chinese films he unearthed in a San Francisco warehouse two years ago and planned to bring them back to Hong Kong to restore as many as possible.

"They're just like orphans because they don't know who owned these copies," he said.

He called them invaluable relics of the waves of Chinese workers who left home for the US.

"Just imagine: before the Second World War, all these Chinese men, the immigrants working in the United States - they are not able to bring their wives, their families, they are lonely men in Chinatown and this is their only entertainment.

"And I think all these films have performed something very important, to link all the Chinese around the world because they have something to share."

word for the day - McJob

2007-05-23T18:13:00.000-07:00

McJob - an unstimulating low-paid job with few prospects (Oxford English Dictionary)

quoting Titit

2007-05-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

Angel: Sa Macapagal nga P30 lang yung DVD's!

Me: Saan yung Macapagal?

Titit: Wag nyo sasabihin jan! Ipapa-raid nya yan! Wala na tayong mabibilhan!

who would be interesting grad speakers

2007-05-15T20:44:00.000-07:00

1. Father Bernas, but then he already does so in Baccalaureate masses

2. Atty. Jack Jimenez

3. Aty. Ruben F. Balane

4. Judge Learned Hand

5. Justice Hofilena

6. Miranda of Miranda v. Arizona, ay wait! Patay na pala sya.

7. Mang Nats (I bet he looks like Efren Bata Reyes pag naka-suit!)

8. Estelito Mendoza

from History of Copyright

2007-05-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

Before the publication, the author has an undeniable and unlimited right.
Think of a man like Dante, Molière, Shakespeare. Imagine him at the time when
he has just finished a great work. His manuscript is there, in front of him;
suppose that he gets the idea to throw it into the fire; nobody can stop him.
Shakespeare can destroy Hamlet, Molière Tartufe, Dante the Hell.

But as soon as the work is published, the author is not any more the master. It
is then that other persons seize it: call them what you will: human spirit,
public domain, society. It is such persons who say: I am here; I take this
work, I do with it what I believe I have to do, [...] I possess it, it is with
me from now on.

- Victor Hugo, 1870, Chair of L'Association Litteraire Internationale

The
author and the owner of the copy may both say about it with the same
right: it is my book! but in a different sense. The first regards the
book as writing or speech; the second only as the mute instrument that
delivers the speech to him or the public, i.e. as a copy. This right of
the author is however no right to the thing, namely the copy (since the
owner may burn it before the author's eyes), but an innate right in his
own person, that is to prevent another from delivering it to the public
without his consent, which consent can by no means be presumed, because
he has already given it exclusively to another.

-Immanuel Kant, Von der Unrechtmäßigkeit des Büchernachdrucks, 1785

Woman in Coffee Shop Judges A Record 147 People

2007-05-12T02:57:00.000-07:00

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http://www.theonion.com/content/node/51148?utm_source=Distributed&utm_medium=Embedded%2BHTML&utm_campaign=Widgets" >Woman In Coffee Shop Judges A Record 147 People

PORTLAND, OR—Clarissa Nantz, a clothing buyer for Nordstrom's and a coffee-shop regular, broke her own record for judgmental behavior when...

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wag sayangin ang boto

2007-05-11T23:49:00.000-07:00

Music Elections! Vote for Sundown Caffeine at Bandpromote.com

2007-05-10T20:47:00.000-07:00

Sundown Caffeine's song "Nine Rivers" is being included in CD Sampler #39 (May 2007), produced by Mike Galaxy and BandPromote.com in Los Angeles, California.

This CD Sampler will be sent to 1,000 top industry-related people (filmmakers, musicians, producers, recording studios, agents, directors, etc..) around the world for promotional purposes.

This time, we would like to ask you, our friends, to vote by visiting http://www.bandpromote.com/bands.asp?ID=525&msg=2

Your votes will give us a chance to be one of the site's featured bands, granting us better exposure and more visibility. Please support us and let us show the world that a small-time, low-budget, independent rock band from an obscure and underestimated country is capable of competing in the musical stage of the world.

Let us rock the world together from its long sleep.

Peace, Love and Respect from Cebu City, Philippines,
Sundown Caffeine

Why Pacquiao should not be running for Congressman

2007-05-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=62284

MANILA, Philippines -- The Black and White Movement has issued a blacklist of congressional candidates to discourage voters from electing them. It said it would actively campaign against the 12 candidates they identified.

The list is headed by boxer Manny Pacquiao who is running for congressman of South Cotabato province. The others are Matias Defensor (Quezon City), Erwin Genuino (Makati City), Jose de Venecia (Pangasinan), Mikey Arroyo (Pampanga), Renato Unico (Camarines Norte), Dato Arroyo (Camarines Sur), Luis Villafuerte (Camarines Sur), Raul Gonzalez Jr. (Iloilo City), Iggy Arroyo (Negros Occidental), Michelle Tagarda-Spiers (Cagayan de Oro city) and Virgilio Garcillano (Bukidnon).

The group urged the people to vote for their opponents instead: Darlene Antonino-Custodio (South Cotabato), Danton Remoto (Quezon City), Abigail Binay (Makati), Benjie Lim (Pangasinan), Joey Montemayor (Pampanga), Liwayway Vinzons-Chato (Camarines Norte), Sabas Mabulo (Camarines Sur), Benjie Gimgos (Iloilo City), Apolinario Lozada (Negros Occidental), Tony Soriano (Cagayan de Oro) and Malou Acosta (Bukidnon).

I agree with the list especially as it pertains to Pacquiao. I think Pacquiao has become so swellheaded that he now believes he is God’s gift to the Filipinos. He even went to Makati to endorse Sen. Lito Lapid for mayor. What business does he have butting into the affairs of Makati when he is from General Santos?

In a press conference, Pacquiao said he is running because President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo promised to give whatever he asks for South Cotabato if he is the representative. In other words, he would be a beggar groveling before Malacañang.

He’s got it all wrong. That is not the job of a congressman. The job of a congressman is to make laws, not to be a beggar. Does he know how to write one?

Besides, to Ms Arroyo, a promise means nothing. She has broken so many promises. What makes Pacquiao think her promise to him would be any different?

excerpt from:

AS I SEE IT
Don’t vote for these candidates

By Neal Cruz
Inquirer
Last updated 01:53am (Mla time) 04/25/2007

Music Elections - Vote for Sundown Caffeine at Bandpromote

2007-05-10T20:38:00.000-07:00

Sundown Caffeine's song "Nine Rivers" is being included in CD Sampler #39 (May 2007), produced by Mike Galaxy and BandPromote.com in Los Angeles, California.

celebrity lookalikes (pero mga 80% lang!)

2007-05-07T03:20:00.000-07:00

celebrity lookalikes ko (pero mga 80% lang)

2007-05-07T03:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.myheritagefiles.com/acollage/H/8_1/efkh42_5874748933f364unodif42" width="203" height="232" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent">

http://www.myheritage.com/collage" target="_blank" title="MyHeritage - share black and white photos with facial recognition technology">

>http://www.myheritage.com

a 2-year old op-ed

2007-02-19T02:40:00.000-08:00

Last week, a colleague emailed me about this column, which appeared in the law school's newspaper some two years back. She and I became acquaintances in a school organization only last year, and apparently she read this quite intently the summer before her internship. "I never thought I'll get to meet the person who wrote this," she said.
I was flattered, and then alarmed. Do I even have a copy of that column? I decided to dig through an old and now rarely-used email account (Yahoo!) and found this in the Sent folder. I'm publishing this piece here so I don't lose it again.

Published in the Palladium, Vol. 2, No. 3, June 2005
Out to See
By: Sara Jane A. Suguitan

Precious Internship Moments

When I first walked into my hometown's courtroom, my conviction that Ally McBeal's pristine halls of justice are just pure, unadulterated fiction became all the more strengthened. It was nothing fancy; it looked like a small, dusty chapel. Two ceiling fans fanned in heat to the 60 or so folks packed up in the space. Instead of an altar, the pews faced the bar, where the Judge sits, the witness stands, and the lawyers and stenographers huddle. Tuesdays and Thursdays were crim days. The rest of the week is devoted to civil cases, and civil cases are exciting only when divorcing couples are being tried.

Usually, hearings finish around noon . Preliminary conferences come in after lunch, and that's when I make a small trip to the nearby coffee shop to breathe in some crisp summer air and accidentally overhear the local gossip. Lawyers and clients come in there to talk out the case and discuss strategy. Lawyers and lawyers come in there to settle. As for me, going solo on a corner table guarantees good beyond-the-classroom-walls education. Folks talk about the weather, politics, both local and national, their families, schools, and the economy. From this, you gather quirks and differences, common frustrations and opinion, and admiration for this people's sheer faith in faith itself.

Brewed coffee is at P20 a cup and I only need a quarter of that brew to get me writing the decisions assigned to me. All in all I wrote 7 during my 240-hour stay. That and the hearings keep me busy all day. The kind judge, who lives in Sta. Mesa and apparently makes a daily bus trip to and fro, takes time to discuss the cases he hands down to me. "Let's deny this petition," he'd advise. Sometimes, it's "This motion should be denied so the case can go to trial and the defense be heard." Then I scour the thick records for the factual bases and the pleadings or the scattered copies of SCRA (some are in the Judge's office, the others are in the public attorney's) for the legal bases. On a rare occasion (and with all my might), I politely expressed my position on a case which was opposed to that of the mild-mannered judge. The case was for illegal possession of shabu, which consisted the bulk of the criminal dockets. The accused was only 19. Two weeks before I had to deny his motion to dismiss, he was arrested by the police. He was brought into the office where I work along with the staff of the judge, and I had the sad view of a dirt-poor lad in handcuffs, clutching a plastic bag containing his clothes. He'd need it for that night, and for many more nights he'd be spending in the nearby provincial jail until, hopefully, he gets acquitted. Judge reasoned out to me that it would be better to dismiss the motion for reinvestigation since it will not guarantee the accused his liberty from his jail cell. Indeed, it was best that he go to trial. I saw the logic and reluctantly accepted the decision's wisdom. I wrote a denial of the motion with a heavy heart. At 5 p.m. that day, I went straight to the cathedral and prayed hard. It was the best I can do.

Most of the accused in the criminal cases being heard here are poor people, and most of them don't have lawyers. Heartbreaking. I haven't seen the jail, which is adjacent to the court, but I'm 100% sure that the living conditions are bad. One time, I drove by the jail complex on my way home and saw that the government has started constructing an annex. A sign at the front said, "This is your taxes working for you." Nice, I thought, but I'd rather have my taxes work effectively for me by uplifting economic conditions. I'm starting to re-think the Dangerous Drugs Act. Did our legislators really think that by imposing longer jail terms and drop-dead amounts of fines, we'll be curbing the drugs problem? Did they seriously think things through before passing that hell of a law? Most of the violators of the drugs act are poor people. The poor resort into drugs because they're 1) poor and depressed (lack of money bears a direct correlation with sanity and quality of life); 2) they need a way out; and 3) they don't know the consequence.

May 18 was my last day of internship. I came to the office at 7.30 a.m. to finish the seventh decision. It was a case of shabu again, and this one's going to be dismissed for illegal search and seizure. There were only three of us in the office, and I had the only computer all to myself. By 8 a.m. the decision was ready for the Judge to correct, or, hopefully, if no corrections will be made, to sign. I had spaghetti, chicken, and large cups of Coke delivered by 11 that morning, and by then my papers were in order – certificate, evaluation forms, etc. It was indeed a very sacred 240-hour experience

Defeating the Communists?

2007-02-13T02:53:00.000-08:00

The Philippines' Unending Guerrilla War
Thursday, Jan. 25, 2007 By ANDREW MARSHALL

Comrade Giegie is getting married. Her wedding will be held in a jungle clearing, which she will enter through an archway of raised assault rifles. The bride and groom will make their vows draped in a red flag bearing the spear and Kalashnikov of the 7,400-strong New People's Army (N.P.A.). Then they will pledge allegiance to the masses and promise to raise their children as revolutionaries. There will be no priest, no confetti, no wedding gown. So how will Giegie dress? "Like this," she smiles. Giegie, 22, is wearing a faded sweatshirt, jogging pants, Wellington boots and an Uzi submachine gun.
Hidden in mountainous Mindanao in the southern Philippines, Giegie's platoon is fighting a rebellion older than most of its members. Since 1969, the N.P.A., the armed wing of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines, has waged what it calls a "protracted people's war" in which a total of some 40,000 guerrillas, soldiers and civilians have so far died. Her platoon's armory is motley—it includes rifles, grenade launchers and an aging mortar, mostly captured from soldiers or police; and its members are young, idealistic and, in many cases, already scarred by battle—eight members of Giegie's platoon have been injured, two with bullets still buried in them. There are other sacrifices, too. Every aspect of N.P.A. life is regulated, including romance. It took almost a year before communist officials granted Giegie and her betrothed, a 25-year-old rebel called Dods, permission to date. Guided by a document called "On the Proletarian Relationship of the Sexes," they must court for another year before marriage. Premarital sex is forbidden.

Heavy monsoon rains won't alter their wedding plans, but the escalating conflict might. Peace talks with the government stalled in 2004. Recent clashes between the N.P.A. and government forces have claimed scores of lives across the archipelago, particularly in the rebel strongholds of Luzon and Mindanao. In a few bloody days last month, the military shot dead three N.P.A. commanders, while an ambush by 30 rebels killed four policemen.

The N.P.A., which both the U.S. and the E.U. have classified as a terrorist organization, is not the only headache in Mindanao for the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. This resource-rich but lawless region is home to two other formidable armed groups. While Manila has struck a fragile cease-fire with the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (M.I.L.F.), the country's largest Muslim rebel army, it has vowed to eradicate Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaeda-linked outfit accused of a string of terrorist acts, including the 2004 bombing of a ferry near Manila that killed more than 100 people. January brought confirmation that Abu Sayyaf chief Khaddafy Janjalani, as well as many of his top lieutenants, had been killed during an ongoing military campaign aided by U.S. intelligence and hardware. With Abu Sayyaf reeling, Arroyo on Jan. 22 vowed that a massive deployment of troops will now "blunt the tactical edge of the New People's Army." But the N.P.A.'s nationwide reach makes it a tougher foe. "The military has always seen the N.P.A. as a much larger threat because it operates in nearly every province across the archipelago," says Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asia security analyst who teaches at Simmons College in Boston. "The government will always have to divert resources to deal with it. The N.P.A. won't go away anytime soon."

The N.P.A. boasted 12,000 armed regulars in the mid-1980s, when many saw it as the only force capable of challenging dictator Ferdinand Marcos. But its Maoist leaders were snubbed even by Mao Zedong himself: in 1974, to undercut support for the N.P.A., Marcos dispatched his wife Imelda to Beijing, where she supposedly swept Mao off his feet. ("I like Mrs. Marcos because she is so natural, and that is perfection," he gushed.) After People Power ousted Marcos in 1986, the N.P.A.'s declining popularity was devastated by internal purges in which hundreds of people were tortured and executed. In 1988, 121 cadres were butchered in one N.P.A. camp in Luzon alone, while up to 900 were killed in Mindanao.

The Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union collapsed. Communism was history. But not the N.P.A. Like Asia's other communist rebel groups—India's Naxalites and Nepal's Maoists—the Philippine rebels have survived because they are primarily fueled not by foreign ideology but by domestic realities: poverty, corruption, unemployment. Some 40% of Filipinos live on less than $2 a day, while a tenth of the 87 million population seeks work abroad. Corruption watchdog Transparency International ranks the Philippines near the bottom of its corruption index, alongside Nepal and Rwanda. The N.P.A. promotes communism as the only cure for the Philippines' many ills, but even Filipinos who reject its cause still share its grievances.

Officials in Manila acknowledge that the N.P.A.'s resilience is largely rooted in the country's decades-long inability to improve the lives of the underprivileged. "Remove poverty, and we remove the N.P.A.," says Eduardo Ermita, a former Defense Secretary who is now Arroyo's executive secretary and one of her closest advisers. Ermita says the authorities are serious about providing education for all children, and about tackling other grievances such as corruption. "You cannot win the war through guns alone," he says. "You have to win hearts and minds."

But guns help. Last year, Arroyo declared what she called an "all-out war" to destroy the N.P.A., and she has promised her commanders $200 million for better weapons and pay for their troops. The rebels, for their part, have stepped up operations against what they call an "illegitimate, rotten and brutal" administration. With fighting intensifying nationwide, TIME was invited to join a rebel platoon in Mindanao to take an inside look at the conflict that history forgot.

The original invitation to visit one N.P.A. unit was canceled due to "bad weather"—rebel code for increased enemy activity. Instead, we travel north along a half-finished highway through Compostela Valley, another guerrilla stronghold, where troops assigned to Arroyo's security detail had been injured in an N.P.A. ambush in July.

At the town of San Francisco—a dreary, concrete facsimile of its famous namesake—we are picked up by two N.P.A. men in jeans and T shirts in a four-wheel drive with darkened windows, then speed out of town along potholed logging tracks. As we leave the highway far behind, the villages grow visibly poorer; a rare stretch of paved road is announced by a sign bearing the President's face and the slogan GLORIA CARES. In many villages, government troops are dug in behind sandbags and razor wire. Three hours later, we transfer to trail bikes and roar along deserted tracks to a semi-derelict logging shack. Waiting there are five N.P.A. soldiers with M-16s, who guide us through the darkening jungle to a camp lit by flickering oil lamps. "The comrades are very excited you're here," says a voice from the gloom.

The voice belongs to Comrade Victor, 39, the political officer assigned to look after us. (Victor, like all N.P.A. fighters, uses a nom de guerre. The platoon's machine gunner is called Comrade Bren.) A handsome man dressed in shin-length shorts and orange flip-flops, Victor first apologizes for his poor English (he speaks it perfectly), then for our circuitous journey: a rebel operation had caused more "bad weather" to the south. "Our people were carrying out a punitive action," says Victor, meaning an assassination by an N.P.A. "sparrow unit" or death squad. The man killed was a farmer, he explains, but his role as a police informer had earned him "a blood debt against the revolutionary movement."

About a fifth of N.P.A. fighters are under 18, according to Jane's Information Group, an authority on defense and terrorism. Most of this 30-strong platoon are too young to recall the purges and, despite embracing communal life, have often joined the rebels for personal, rather than political, reasons. Many are high-school dropouts with no job prospects, impressionable youths whom the N.P.A. recruits and molds into loyal killers for the communist cause. For Joven, 21, joining meant personal salvation. "I had a different lifestyle before," he says. "I was addicted to marijuana and alcohol. I hung out with a neighborhood gang." Joven was shot during an offensive four months ago and the bullet rests painfully under his spine. But he says, "I'm happy with the comrades. Even though we come from different neighborhoods, from different classes, we fight as one."

By the often lethargic standards of troops fighting long-running jungle wars, this N.P.A. platoon seems hyperactive. At 4 a.m., hours before daybreak, its soldiers are performing drills and martial arts in flip-flops and bare feet, then practicing grenade throwing with rocks from a nearby river. Their entire week is plotted out: from Monday to Friday, there's military and medical training, plus basic education and indoctrination sessions; weekends are devoted to food production and cultural activities. Even off duty, the platoon stays on message, gathering around a guitar to sing rebel songs or—possibly for the benefit of the platoon's foreign guests—the N.P.A.'s own anthem: "The New People's Army is not the army of the rich/ Which follows the orders of the greedy/ Awakened, we freely join the People's Army/ We offer our lives to the poor."

There are few other diversions. The newspapers I bring are read and reread, then torn into strips to

use as cigarette papers. Alcohol is banned and food is scarce. For two days there is gristly pork—a treat for the guests—and afterwards only tiny salted fish or lentil gruel. When the Philippine army blocks supply routes, the rebels hunt the depleted forests for wild pigs, monkeys, snakes and beetle grubs.

"There are no ranks in the N.P.A.," Victor tells me, "only responsibilities." But experience makes some comrades more equal than others. Platoon leader Jorex, 41, is a brooding giant with a bandolier of grenades strung across his chest. As a youth, he was recruited by a government militia to fight the N.P.A. but instead defected to the rebels.

A personal tragedy—the 1993 death of his brother, also an N.P.A. guerrilla, in a firefight with government troops—reaffirmed his commitment to the cause. "He died in my arms," says Jorex. "It was painful. But I feel the same pain when one of my comrades dies."

Jorex and his wife Wendy, 33, have five children aged 3 to 12, who live in Mindanao with relatives. They see the children twice a year, surreptitiously, to avoid detection by the authorities. An N.P.A. fighter for 15 years, Wendy is tormented by the idea that her children are vulnerable. "Sometimes it terrifies me to think what the soldiers might do to them," she says. Wendy claims that the military has taken photos of the house where they live, and that on one occasion a government soldier interrupted an N.P.A. radio communication to announce: "If you kill our colleagues, we'll kill your children." Executive Secretary Ermita says the accusation that the military would threaten or target children "is pure N.P.A. propaganda. If that really happened, the commanding officer would have known and we would have known. The soldier would have been punished."

In late 2005, the rebels launched hundreds of raids across the country in what Victor describes as "the first nationally coordinated N.P.A. attacks since 1992." He claims 200 firearms were seized in Mindanao alone. With the violence intensifying, Giegie's sister Lenlen, 19, has already survived three shoot-outs; she was almost killed during an N.P.A. attack on an army post in Agusan del Sur province in 2005. One bullet hit her neck and ripped an exit through her armpit, while a second drilled into her thigh. "All I could think was, 'If I die here, I die for the people,'" she recalls. But within weeks Lenlen had recovered—young flesh heals fast—and by December 2005 she had joined a weapons raid by 43 rebels on a police headquarters in nearby Loreto town that netted a dozen firearms and killed two policemen. Their deaths don't bother her. "They tried to fight back," she shrugs.

Lenlen says she is happy to have joined a group that is "guided by Marxist-Leninism and Maoist thought." But as a high-school dropout from remotest Mindanao, it's not clear how much she truly knows or even cares about such matters. By contrast, Victor—a well-educated cadre from a "petit-bourgeois family" (his words)—gives an eloquent if specious defense of the N.P.A.'s core ideology. No communist state has ever collapsed, he argues, because none has ever existed. East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia—none had "true" communist governments when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, while the Soviet Union and post-Mao China "were socialist in name but capitalist in practice." The same jungle that has shielded the N.P.A. from military defeat has also isolated its fighters from a modern world where their cherished ideology is deader than disco.

While outright victory is not a possibility for the N.P.A., neither is extinction. Victor asserts that Arroyo's "all-out war" is unwinnable. The Philippine army is thinly dispersed, he argues, capable of engaging only a quarter of the N.P.A.'s 120 "fronts" nationwide while remaining vulnerable to hit-and-run tactics. "We have learned a lot about guerrilla warfare in 37 years," he warns. Felipe Miranda, a political-science professor at the University of the Philippines, agrees: "The military does not have the capability, in terms of both logistics and manpower, to deal with an insurgency that has been around for close to half a century." Officials in Manila admit troops are stretched, but insist they are gaining the upper hand. Cabinet Secretary Ricardo Saludo says there has been a "major reduction" in N.P.A. troop strength, from 12,000 five years ago to 7,000 or so, and that the armed forces are seizing more N.P.A. weapons than ever. "The Filipino people and the government are working together to reduce all threats to the state, including the N.P.A., while spreading the bounty of economic development nationwide," says Saludo.

Military success against the rebels in Mindanao also depends on restarting peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. After all, the Philippine army would be hard-pressed to fight the M.I.L.F. and the N.P.A. simultaneously, especially at a time when more than 6,000 government troops are already involved in a third entanglement—attacking Abu Sayyaf's jungle strongholds on Jolo Island. Adding to all this bloodshed is the other war: in recent years, but especially in 2006, hundreds of antigovernment activists across the Philippines—labor leaders, lawyers, journalists, even priests—have been assassinated. Many were members of legal left-wing political parties that senior state officials have publicly accused of supporting, and even fighting for, the N.P.A. Local and international human-rights groups suspect the military is involved in the killings, though last month an Arroyo-appointed commission cleared it of blame for a slew of murders in Negros, an island north of Mindanao. The efforts of a previous government task force were stymied by what the New York-based Human Rights Watch called "a climate of fear and a lack of cooperation by military authorities." Human Rights Watch said that victims' families were "afraid to cooperate with police for fear of becoming targets of reprisal." Officials deny soldiers are behind the extrajudicial deaths, while Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez says the N.P.A. itself might be responsible in the hope that such killings might "destabilize" the government.

Yet even without the N.P.A., Arroyo's administration is under siege. So far she has survived two impeachment attempts over allegations of election fraud and human-rights abuses, as well as three coup attempts involving government troops. Some see her declaration of war against the N.P.A. as a concession to the military top brass, which she desperately needs to stay in line. "The military, rather than Arroyo, is pushing the political agenda," says Southeast Asia security expert Abuza. "Arroyo wants to keep the military on her good side. She's always concerned that it will at some point withdraw support for her."

She is right to worry: both Marcos and Arroyo's predecessor, Joseph Estrada, were toppled by popular protests after the army withdrew support for them. Yet Arroyo's reliance on the armed forces could backfire. "There's a lot of concern from Filipinos about their democracy being rolled back," says Abuza. "These military-driven policies certainly play into those perceptions." Ermita counters: "Don't forget that the commander-in-chief is a civilian, and that there is a chain of command which is strictly followed. You cannot militarize the country because this is a democracy, not a military government."

What is beyond dispute is that the government is in seemingly perpetual conflict with a significant portion of its population. The N.P.A. should be a cold war relic, a forgotten insurgency rotting away in the Southeast Asian jungle. Instead—and despite its bloody purges, its "sparrow unit" death squads and its defunct ideology—it remains an enduring symbol of the failure of successive governments to improve the lives of ordinary Filipinos. Deep in the mountains, Comrade Victor has no doubt that his "protracted people's war" will outlast Arroyo's presidency, although in one sense he'll be sad to see her go. Government opponents who now fear for their lives "are being encouraged to take the great leap to join the N.P.A.," he says. "Arroyo is our greatest recruiter."

With reporting by Nelly Sindayen/Manila
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1582112,00.html

today's something new

2007-02-02T23:26:00.001-08:00

music: Pulis Pangkalawakan

What's your something new for today? I did two: eat breakfast at Heaven and Eggs, G4, with Quanny, and go to Fix salon (still with Quanny) to get CURLS What's your something new today?

the new condition

2007-02-01T22:00:00.001-08:00

Date No. 1

Three days (or was it two?) after the New Year found me and R having the exquisite greens (something chicken salad with a lot of veggies, yummy!) at The Press in Powerplant Mall.

R, my friend of six years, arrived from Thailand for the holidays. He’s been working for the Philippine Educational Theater Association’s (PETA) Rockefeller-funded, six-year Mekong project. He’s got himself shuttling back and forth Vietnam, China, Thailand and Indonesia reviving post-communist theater at the grassroots level. I’ve got to admit to myself he hasn’t aged, his wit remains sharp and his passion for theater is awesome. He’s an exception to the thespian stereotype. I’m a real fan of this guy’s talent and management skills, not to mention his being 90% left-brained. The guy’s a pillar of strength; no wonder the likes of Myra Beltran seek him out on purpose for their productions.

R left for Thailand a couple of days ago, but not without a pat on my back (“Don’t let him drive you crazy. From what I hear you’re tired of this guy and you don’t need to be pulled down by people who obviously don’t love you. You’re smart, intelligent, pretty and lovable. How he treated you doesn’t matter. At all. How you treated him just goes to show how much you’re capable of. Kudos to you, it’s now over.”), a handful of jewelry and pasalubong, and a sincere Chandler-Monica proposal (When we’re 40, and we’re still single... Crazy! But he’s a very good friend and so was Chandler to…)

I’ll see him when he gets back.

Beer Spree No. 2

It is Saturday night. Temp’s 17 degrees C. It’s 9.30. I just came home from a very funny dinner with my good friend, Helene. I’m scheduled to meet Sarah and her half-French, NY-based cousin, Jean Paul in an hour. (No, Titit, I can’t date this guy! There are rules for this – no messing around with your friend’s relatives, exes, currents, and crushes. Hehehe!) We’re going to this bar sa Guijo Street in Pasong Tamo (thus, the name Saguijo) to watch a slew of Cebuano bands, Urban Dub, The Ambassadors, etc. (Both Sarah and her cousin have roots in Cebu.)

The three of us stationed ourselves in the bar near the stairs, where we had beer, Jagermeister (funny drink… Is there really deer blood in that? That’s what JP claims.), and more beer. The bar’s grilled mushrooms and fried calamari scored high 9’s on my card, and so did the music. Sarah and I felt a little old hanging around a college ground, but it’s all good. (I wonder if it’s my bad that I “dressed to impressed.” Thanks, JP. I don’t know what to make of that!)

And then we got tired hanging around in the bar and waiting for Urban Dub. One of the waitresses told us for the eighth time that they don’t know who are playing and they’re not in charge of what gets put up on the bar’s website. We sat on the stairs while one of the better bands were playing (Yes, I think at this point, Titit, it’s Fast Pitch). Sarah went up to the boutique to decry the litter of candy wrappers and plastic bottles among the shirts and merchandise. (Why? Why can’t we throw our garbage in the proper place? It’s extremely annoying and unsophisticated.) Then there’s this guy who was about to take a leak and so gentlemanly asked me if I was in line. (No. Then JP asks what’s up with “Oh my golly?”) Guy-in-the-CR uses the CR, gets out the CR and decides to flirt. I stare at him, or at least I tried. The Jagermeister in my veins kept getting in the way. I can’t quite remember what he said. It’s about the Stone Temple Pilots playing, and since I can’t see who’s playing what with all the people, I almost got up to check them out. He looked a little uncomfortable at this. He takes a few breaths before he says, “I’m kidding, but they’re quite good, aren’t they?” (“Hey, Sarj, you want more calamari?”) He started talking some more, but then the next band, Dicta License, arrived and this time, I really got up. “Hey you like Dicta License then?” asks cute-guy-from-the-CR-with-this-juvenile-cap (I’m wearing a white halter and silver jewelry. It means I’m probably a couple, if not four, years older than him).
“I support music with social relevance,” I said kindly.
“Why’s that?” (Obviously, I could have prolonged this, hadn’t I heard Pochoy saying on the mic, “Medyo masikip tayo dito ‘no? Usog. Usog. Salamat.”)
“Listen, I really want to sing to this for a bit before I head home.” He’s a bright guy.
“Alright.”
I watched him disappear into the faceless college crowd, still holding my bottle of Pale, the official drink for this phase of my life. I raised my bottle of Pale Pilsen. Cheers to all guys who are man enough to swallow their pride and soul just to find the guts to approach a girl. I bet it was hard. I could have encouraged him, but I’ve got a couple of buddies I’m hanging out with tonight.

Incidentally, Dicta License played a new song that night (early morning? Not sure…). It’s working title is “Tangay,” and I think it’s quite good. It displayed Pochoy’s vocal prowess. Watch out for it.

Beer Spree No. 3

Abi and Helene are a few of the really strong women I’m lucky to be friends with, and Rockwell is still one of the most beautiful places I have lived in.

Date No. 3

I think I’ve got the love of all the people I need right now. I’m just flattered that after a year of feeling ugly and inferior, I’m shown how many out there think of me otherwise. I’m glad I’m in the company of friends.

Date No. 4

J is a fellow fan of Baz Luhrmann, and we both had fun quoting “Sunscreen” at each other.

Beer Spree No. 2

“Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, and don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.”
-text from J
-taken from Baz Luhrmann’s Sunscreen

the worst thing a proctor can do

2007-01-26T23:22:00.001-08:00

It's a lazy Friday afternoon. It's elective day. That means the class-turned-exam rooms are barely filled with examinees (the rest of them are at home cramming their papers, which can sometimes be the greater evil). Our IEL 2 exam was making the cogs in my brain work like horses (Question No. 1 said, "Choose 2 or 4 items to define. 10/5 pts. each." Do I choose 2 or does the prof want 4?) when all of a sudden, our proctor takes out her nailcutter and yes, cuts her nails.

Studio 60 (Chandler who?)

2007-01-26T23:15:00.000-08:00

Twenty minutes into the pilot episode and I've got half of a National Book Store receipt filled with quotes (I couldn't find any other scrap paper). This is an insightful new series where Matthew Perry (Chandler of Friends fame) reinvents himself as Matt. He gets all the punchlines right. Yeah, he's a good actor!

JERRY: Get him off or you don't have a job tomorrow.

CAL: I'm running a live national broadcast, can you threaten me later?

MATT: I had them move the follow-spot over. I said "He's never not been there for me", and then there was a klieg light on a basket of dinner rolls.

MATT: I'll bond you.

DANNY: What?

MATT: I'll pay for the bond.

DANNY: How much money do you have?

MATT: Well, with my alimony and my percent of the first dollar gross on this movie...65 dollars.

MATT: Why didn't you tell me? When I screw up you know about it.

DANNY: When you screw up I read about it.

MATT: No, I tell you, you're the first one I tell. Now we're back in the NFL and only one of us can screw up at a time and I think we both know that most of the time it's gonna be me. You're the big shoulders.

DANNY: I hear you.

MATT: Good, 'cause I'm pretty stoned right now and I can't really remember what I said.

http://www.studio60theseries.com

http://www.geocities.com/seekergurl/studio60.html

and of course, everything's on http://www.wikipedia.org

I've stopped

2007-01-25T02:23:00.000-08:00

I've finally decided to be selfish
- to stop letting you choke me to death
with your cursed lifelong commitment to be sad.

I've stopped dying in letting you go.

Caxton by Noli Adrian de Pedro

2007-01-25T02:14:00.000-08:00

Caxton
(from the collection, Poems for Leticia)

See this is what I tried to do:
I caught all the birds I have ever seen,
or never imagined or could not imagine,
and put them all in a cage devised
to fit the roof of your hands. Each of them
was put into a calm, folded-down secret,
bones and colored feathers, all posed carefully
for the image of beautiful flights, for
a live and silent world happy with its fiction.
This aviary that I wanted you to have
is in itself a bird with no flight.
Its wings stunned purposefully.
It is a Caxton tamed, patient for
the pleasure of your eyes and fingers.
I taught it to teach you of flight.

-This poem is from the latest Malate Literary Folio that Ryan gave to me last Tuesday. (Ryan is from La Salle :) It won 3rd place in the 21st DLSU Lit Awards which a co-Heightser, Mookie Katigbak, judged. I edited it a bit. Otherwise, I think it's lovely and reminiscent of Jeline De Dios' and Jeanie Nieva's poetry.Caxton, by the way, is an English publisher who printed the first book in English in 1474.

excerpt from Neil Gaiman

2007-01-25T02:00:00.000-08:00

Do I believe that something strange was happening? I suppose I must do. Perhaps it was simply that, for a brief while, his madness was in step with the madness of the world outside. I don't know.

-Neil Gaiman, The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories

Walking Down the Pirates' Cove

2007-01-25T01:59:00.000-08:00

I, for one, support piracy.

Call it file-sharing, dibidi sa SM (sa Muslim) or what-have-you, but the fact remains that these babies are cheap, sulit copycats. For a student like me, and even for those already earning their keep, going through the selections in Quiapo, Edsa Central, Makati Cinema Square and Ruins is as fulfilling as joining the foray into the wagwagan a.k.a. ukay-ukay and finding treasures for two bucks.

Now why? Why do we do this? Why do we shamelessly rip off music and pass it on to friends (and customers) for a tenth of the original price? It's simple economics. It's plain supply and demand. Waking up today at 2 past noon, I decided to head off to one of my favorite haunts (guess which among Quiapo, Edsa Central, Makati Cinema Square and Ruins, except if you're a cop, in which case I don't want you conducting raids). I had P500 to spare and ended up with three 9-in1's, three new TV series (with at least the first season complete), two singles (Amelie and Pulp Fiction. Damn, why I can't find Kiss Kiss Bang Bang?), and three albums (Jason Mraz, Eraserheads originals and Up Dharma Down, to compensate for their perpetual lack of Cynthia Alexander. Did anyone ever pirate her albums?). All for P500. Cheap thrill. Yet, these babies will serve to enhance the scarce and diluted aesthetics in my life (I'm in law school. Art around here is practically nil.)

I flagged down a bus after almost two hours of fruitful shopping. I love you, Amelie, but I don't have P950.

one December afternoon

2007-01-11T04:05:00.000-08:00

ThePalladium girls (L-R): Doranne, Janina, Thea and me

I have to learn how to put links. Meantime...

2007-01-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

Meet Louie and Jessie at http://www.sarjie.multiply.com

Eragon

2007-01-10T05:32:00.000-08:00

"I'm one part bravery, three parts fool."

Thanks, T, for this afternoon.

I'm Coming Home

2007-01-04T20:46:00.000-08:00

Just this morning, hope came in the form of a text message containing an email address. I was to send my resume, sample syllabus and references to a former professor in the Legal Management department of the Ateneo de Manila. I might be teaching basic Intellectual Property Laws in my Alma Mater soon. :)

Break new grounds!

Defeated Tree

2007-01-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

defeated tree
don't stare at me
i wasn't your enemy

reluctance

2007-01-03T19:52:00.000-08:00

So many things are ending for me this New Year. One of them is Palladium, the school publication I've headed last year. Ryan, my friend and successor, called a meeting yesterday of the new editorial board. He invited me, and since I had nothing better to do I decided to go. As the new editors came through the door one by one, I started feeling old and displaced. They probably felt awkward seeing the former editor-in-chief in this gathering of new faces. I felt alone and I sensibly was. I busied myself with the literary folio laid before me, trying to find company with words among the poems printed on its pages. This worked quite well. The new ones were spared the trouble of behaving too politely and spent no time in talking among themselves. I was spared the necessity of speaking. I didn't feel myself capable of any words as I tried to tune out their voices. Their laughter was not one where I'll be in the middle of. Their worries are no longer going to be mine.

The meeting started after about a half hour. I caught sight of my cubby hole stashed high with my readings, calling cards, forgotten water bottles and a seashell. Loneliness seeped in and rushed coolly in my veins. Palladium was my home for two years. Its office was a fortress when life in the classrooms outside it become too much to handle. More than anything, being with Palladium has made my resolve to be a journalist more firm. I'll be finishing my law degree and taking the bar yes, but it doesn't mean that I have to give up my Muse. In many ways I pray that my heart for journalism and my career in law will intersect. There are not many successful lawyers who are also journalists out there. They're quite rare. Father Bernas is one. I want to be another.

Halfway through the meeting I felt like leaving, and I would have had I not been so inconveniently seated in the corner of the long table. I watched Ryan talk and I felt proud. I have found a worthy successor, and Lord knows I will never leave something as precious to me as Palladium in the wrong, or worse incompetent, hands.

At 2 a.m. this morning I was still busy talking with a couple of my fellow outgoing editors. I burst in tears after I said to Ryan I'll miss him and Palladium (I'll have to clean out my office drawer and surrender my office keys soon).

Letting go is a violent process. I was overcome with reluctance, which I've realized was so different from what my predecessor felt when she turned Palladium over to me. She was quite happy and relieved. I, on the other hand, was crying like I did at dawn. Sadness bent me low. They say other people fight harder battles, and I should be thankful all I'm sad about is my term ending. But this is one of the hardest ones I have battled so far, although it's smaller compared to others'.

I guess I just have to be thankful to the Divine for paying me some attention. Or why else would He bother pruning me?

Falling Star (Rilke)

2006-12-08T04:31:00.000-08:00

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

Asian Edition: A Conference on Media Piracy

2006-11-22T01:24:00.000-08:00

_.--""--._

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ASIAN EDITION: A Conference on Media Piracy and Intellectual Property in South East Asia Sponsored by the Goethe Institut, Manila, and the UP Film InstituteDate: November 24, 2006, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm, UP Film Institute, University of the Philippines, Diliman, CMC Auditorium, Plaridel Hall

9:00 – 9:30
Welcome remarks
Anne De Guzman, Director, UP Film Institute
Volker Avenmarg, Director, Goethe Institute, Manila

9:30 – 10:15
Keynote and Introduction- The United States of Piracy –
Introduction and Keynote
Dr. Tilman Baumgärtel, UP Film Institute

In this introduction to the conference, I will discuss piracy as one of the most prominent issues of the “digital millennium”. In an age, where all information that has been stored in digital form, can be transmitted globally and reproduced indefinitely, the pirates are taking this genuine property of digital data to its extreme. Global entertainment piracy is a complex issue with important economic, political, cultural and theoretical consequences. In my talk I will look at piracy as a social, cultural and economic phenomenon. And I will discuss piracy in relation to new concepts of addressing ownership of Intellectual Property, such as Creative Commons and Open Source.

10:15 – 12:00
Piracy and IP matters in the Philippines- A Clash of IP Cultures
Roberto Verzola, programmer and political activist, Manila

The copying of copyrighted or patented material without permission is often described in moral terms as an act of "stealing", "theft", "piracy", etc., implying that such act violates the accepted norms of morality of a society. The author argues that in many societies, those who copy without permission are simply acting according to the accepted norms of their own culture. The pressure, mostly from U.S. and Europe, on these societies to adopted strict IPR rules therefore an imposition of one culture over another. The author further suggests that cultures which considering copying a moral act are still widespread in many countries, including the United States. The nature of information, the author concludes, is in closer harmony with these cultures than cultures that impose strict IPR protection.-

Piracy and Collective Creativity: Creative Commons Philippines
JJ Disini, UP Law School

Digital issues on the Internet abound. Copyright owners fear that massive piracy on the Internet will erode their business and spell the end for the entertainment industry. On the other hand, there is an explosion of creativity on the Net from blogs to folksonomy to software production. In the face of these developments copyright law has had to compensate but whether it will be successful remains to be seen. In the meantime, the focus on stemming the tide of piracy has kept policymakers from focusing on the Net's ability to solve some of copyrights more pressing problems.

Open Forum
Repondent: Raul Pertiera, Asian Center, UP Diliman/ Ateneo, Manila

12:00 – 1:00
Lunch Break

1:00 – 2:30
Piracy and globalization - Free Culture!
Dr. Volker Grassmuck, Humboldt Universität, Berlin

Economics teaches that information is a public good. This theoretical fact comes to full bearing when information is set free from its physical carriers. The digital revolution has put the means of distribution of information goods into the reach of virtually everyone. Published digital information is ubiquitous and abundant.Looking at it from a public goods perspective, it is clear that in the digital age control and restriction are not feasible, at least not at a reasonable price to privacy and media-autonomy. The challenge then becomes to encourage creativity and foster solutions to the million Peso question: how to make money with free bits. The talk will focus on different approaches to this challenge. From the primary model inspiring the free culture movement that of free software, to the classical solution in economics literature and statistic practice, taxes. It will look at the rise of Nigerian Nollywood, now the third largest film industry after Hollywood and Bollywood, without any IP law enforcement, and at the grey economics of Baile Funk in Rio de Janeiro. It will retell how in France file sharing nearly became legal in exchange for a copyright flatrate and how Swedish Pirates on the high seas of the Internet are reclaiming the right to share.

- Piracy and Its Regulation: Filipino’s Historical Response to Globalization
Dr. Rolando B. Tolentino,
National University Singapore/ University of the Philippines Film Institute

The Philippines’ entry to globalization historically has always prefigured the pirates and its activity, piracy, as inimical to legitimate claims of participation in the world capitalism. This paper traces the historical response of Filipinos, specifically Muslims, in piracy. By being designated as pirates, Moros were emplaced in orientalist racial profiling of the “bad” colonial subject. The state’s creation of the image of the Moro-as-pirate remains integral in the marginalization of this religious ethnic group or the exacerbation of the “Moro/Mindanao” problem as integral in official nation-building. In more recent times, however, by pioneering media piracy in key cities in the country, Filipino Muslims were also excelling in their stereotypical role as their niche participation in Philippine capitalism. The attempt to regulate piracy, therefore, is also the nation-state’s attempt to regulate Moro identity and to expound on Filipino Muslim citizenship. My contention is that media piracy is a creative and critical response of Filipino Muslims that allow them to maneuver into the homogenizing cultural politics of the Philippine nation-state and neoliberal globalization.

Respondent: Tilman Baumgärtel

Open Forum

2:30 - 5:00
Piracy and the Arts - Piracy and digital arts
Cornelia Sollfrank, artist, Hamburg

Collecting societies as well as commercial owners of intellectual property rights often argue with artists being the victims of piracy. But it is time to rethink this image. A growing number of artists themselves uses pre-existing digital material to create new works, and the invention of new techniques of reworking and artistic appropriation constantly produces new aesthetics. And this puts artists in a different kind of trouble: Instead of suffering from piracy, they suffer from the copyright regime. Cornelia Sollfrank investigates the very diverse systems art and law and produces work right at the often absurd - interface of both: copyright law.

- Intellectual Property/Media Piracy and It's Permutations in the Arts
Raymond Red, film-maker, Manila

As an artist and filmmaker, the passion in creating is as intense as the need to protect our creation. We value and respect intellectual property rights, and yet it has been a long tradition in the arts itself to engage in a kind of "piracy" or re-use of artistic elements that one either "borrows", "appropriates", "revives", or even pay "homage" to. From traditional visual arts to print advertising, from experimental filmmaking to music videos and television commercials, purists and commercial artists practice the use and re-use of previous creations, the act of which borders on plagiarism, and yet defies the thin line that separates it as “appropriation" or even creating an "homage" to the original artists of the said borrowed creations. By presenting some examples of motion pictures and graphic works, I would attempt to define the true ideals behind such practices and to try to clarify the true intent of artists which would set them apart from the true pirates and thieves.-

Respondent: Fátima Lasay, artist, Manila

Open Forum

www.asian-edition.org

Pirate Bay's Response to Warner Brothers' Demand Letter

2006-11-22T01:18:00.000-08:00

From: anakata
To: "Dorothy Sherman GrayZone, Inc."
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 13:57:17 +0200
On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 15:35 -0400, Dorothy Sherman GrayZone, Inc. wrote:
> First Notice of Infringement and Declaration

"First Notice of Infringement"? Is that kind of like when I don't pay my
bills on time? "First notice", "Second notice", "Third notice", "WE KILL
YOU!", then a package with the sawed-off head of a pig?

> TO: THEPIRATEBAY.ORG
> Fredrik Neij
> PRQ
> Box 1206
> Stockholm 11479
> SE
> Phone: 46.707323819
> Fax: 46.707323819
> tiamo@prq.se
> info@prq.se

We already know our own postal address - you don't have to inform us of it.

> TO: TFR.ORG
> Tenhults Forenade Rollspelare
> Davidbagares gata 12
> Stockholm 11138
> SE
> Phone: 1.467047954
> tiamo@TFR.ORG
>
>
> REGARDING: http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=billy+corgan
>
> IMMEDIATELY REMOVE ALL UNRELEASED AND UNAUTHORIZED MATERIAL IN CONNECTION WITH BILLY CORGAN.

IMMEDIATELY STOP SCREAMING. You may also consider not using red, underlined HTML.

> IMMEDIATELY REMOVE ALL TORRENT FILES OF BILLY CORGAN's UNRELEASED
> MATERIAL PLANNED FOR RELEASE ON WARNER BROS. RECORDS, INC. THE
> FOLLOWING LINK AND ALL BILLY CORGAN DOWNLOADS MUST BE COMPLETELY
> REMOVED:
>
> http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=billy+corgan
> (see below)

Sorry, but I can't remove search.php - our users would get upset if TPB suddenly lacked a search function. The problem here seems to be that the material is unreleased? If that is the case, you can easily fix the problem by releasing it. We'll be more than glad to help you distribute it - free of charge! - to our users.

> WARNER BROS. RECORDS, INC.
>
> I, the undersigned, do solemnly and sincerely declare and CERTIFY
> UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY that:
>
> 1. I am the owner or an agent authorized to act on behalf of the owner
> of certain intellectual property rights, said owner being named WARNER
> BROS. RECORDS, INC. ("IP Owner").
>
> 2. I have a good faith belief that the materials identified in the
> addendum attached hereto are not authorized by the above IP Owner, its
> agent, or the law and therefore infringe the IP Ownerÿs rights
> according to the laws of the (check all that apply):
>
> United States
> Australia
> Canada
> EUR
> France
> Germany
> Italy
> Japan
> Mexico
> Netherlands
> Russia
> Sweden
> United Kingdom
> All of the above X
>
> Please act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material
> or items claimed to be infringing.

The material hosted on The Pirate Bay is (check all that apply):
Your copyrighted work
German scheisse-porn
Torrent files X

> 3. I may be contacted at:
>
> Printed Name: Dorothy Sherman
> Title: Consultant
> Company: Warner Bros. Records, Inc.
> Address: 3300 Warner Blvd.
> Burbank, CA 91505
> Attn: Susan Genco, Esq.
>
> Email (correspondence): GrayZone@rcn.com
> Telephone: 212 946-1718
>
>
> You should understand that this letter constitutes notice to you that
> the sale and/or other distribution of this product is unauthorized.
> This letter does not constitute a waiver of any right to recover damages incurred
> by virtue of any such unauthorized activities, and such rights as well as
> claims for other relief are expressly retained.

You should understand that your email and all further communication with
us will be published at http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php , and that we
will charge you for the web publishing and hosting services. Should I
send the invoice to your address above?

> Finally, notwithstanding our use of the required notice form, we
> believe that http://thepiratebay.org 's activities and services fall
> outside the scope of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA").
> Our use of this form, as required by law, is meant to facilitate
> http://thepiratebay.org 's removal of the infringing product listed
> above and is not meant to suggest or imply that
> http://thepiratebay.org 's activities and services are within the
> scope of the DMCA.

We are well aware of the fact that The Pirate Bay falls outside the scope of the DMCA - after all, the DMCA is a US-specific legislation, and TPB is hosted in the land of vikings, reindeers, Aurora Borealis and cute blonde girls.

> I make this declaration conscientiously, believing it to be true and correct, and in accordance with the laws of each of the countries listed above. I am aware and agree that the contents of this statement may be relied upon against me in any court or arbitration proceeding.

So it's OK with you if we bring legal action against you for
a) claiming that we host any infringing files, which we don't,
b) claiming that DMCA has any relation what so ever to the activites of the site, and
c) making my eyes bleed by writing in UPPERCASE, underlined, and red text?

> Fictionally,
>
> Dorothy Sherman
> Digital Signature: Verisign

I fixed the typo for you.

Euro English :)

2006-11-15T22:39:00.000-08:00

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will
be the official languageof the European Union rather than German, which wasthe other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in planthat would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly,this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped infavour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the newspelling kan be expekted to reach the stagewhere more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e"in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vilfind it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of aunited urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Crucial Tips Against Muggers (via email)

2006-11-15T22:31:00.000-08:00

Because of recent abductions in daylight hours, refreshyourself of these things to do in an emergency situation. This is for you, and for you to share with your spouse, your children, everyone you know. It never hurts to becareful in this crazy world we live in.

1 . Tip from Tae Kwon Do : The elbow is the strongest point onyour body. If you are close enough to use it, do!

2. Learned this from a tourist guide in New Orleans . If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM. Toss it away from you.... chances are that he is moreinterested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole and startwaving like crazy. The driver won't see you, but everybody elsewill. This has saved lives.

4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping,eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, ormaking a list, etc. DON'T DO THIS!) The predator will bewatching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him toget in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tellyou where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR , LOCK THEDOORS AND LEAVE.

4a. If someone is in the car with a gun to your head DO NOT DRIVE OFF, repeat: DO NOT DRIVE OFF! Instead gun the engine and speed into anything, wrecking the car. Your Air Bag will save you. If the person is in the back seat they will get the worst of it . As soon as the car crashes bail out and run. It is better than having them find your body in a remote location.

5. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage:
a. Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat
b. If you are parked next to a big van, enter your car from the passenger door . Most serial killers attack their victimsby pulling them into their vans while the women are attemptingto get into their cars.
c. Look at the car parked on thedriver's side of your vehicle, and the passenger side. If amale is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you maywant to walk back into the mall, or work, and get aguard/policeman to walk you back out. IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.)

6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. (Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the perfect crime spot.This is especially true at NIGHT!)

7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN! The predator will only hit you (a running target) 4 in 100 times; And even then, it most likely WILL NOT be avital organ. RUN, Preferably ! in a zig -zag pattern!

8. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP. It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspecting women. He walked with a cane,or a limp, and often asked "for help" into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.

9. Another Safety Point: Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police becauseit was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her"Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door." The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get runover. The policeman said, "We already have a unit on the way, whatever you do, DO NOT open the door." He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby's cry recorded and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby. He said they have not verified it, but have had several calls by women saying that they hear baby's cries outside their doors when they're home alone at night. Please pass this on and DO NOT open the door for a crying baby.

Backstroke of the West

2006-10-20T22:05:00.000-07:00

Backstroke of West is the direct English to Chinese translation of Revenge of the Sith. More at
http://www.winterson.com.nyud.net:8090/2005/06/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html

Backstroke of West is the direct English to Chinese translation of Revenge of the Sith. More at http://www.winterson.com.nyud.net:8090/2005/06/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html

I miss the Ewoks

2006-10-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

Windows Puns

2006-10-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

The Monthly Palladium Office Quotable Conversation

2006-10-20T02:22:00.000-07:00

Quan: How come we have so much liquids in here? (Referring to the numerous half-filled bottles of mineral water and near-empty cups of vendo coffee)

Sarj blushes.

Cliff: Yeah, what are we? Terrorists?

free

2006-10-13T06:42:00.000-07:00

www.bbc.co.uk

Sony's Reader = the new ebook

2006-10-13T05:16:00.000-07:00

Mark thought of developing a product like this early this year. Simultaneous inspiration, I guess. And lots of capital backing.

SONY READER SPECS
Display: 15cm diagonally
Battery life: 7,500 pages before recharge
Formats: BBeB/PDF/JPEG/MP3
Size: 175mm x 124mm x 14mm
Weight: 250g

Sony Reader targets book lovers
By Alfred Hermida Technology editor, BBC News website in Las Vegas

Sony boss Howard Stringer unveiled the Reader at CESSony is trying to do for e-books what Apple has done for downloadable digital music. It has launched a handheld device designed for electronic books- dubbed the Sony Reader - at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

It has a screen made from electronic paper that makes text look almost as sharp as it is on a printed page.

Sony hopes the gadget will tempt more people to download and read books in digital, rather than paper, format.

Electronic ink

E-books have not made much of an impact as the experience of reading on-screen has failed to live up to expectations. As a result although sales of e-books are growing they still account for only a tiny fraction of the overall book market.

The electronics giant aims to address this with the electronic paper used for the display in the Sony Reader. It says the six-inch black and white screen will be as easy to read as the printed page.

The technology used means the screen is not backlit, avoiding screen flicker, which can put a strain on the eyes.

The device's display uses technology developed by US-based firm E-Ink which works by electronically arranging thousands of tiny black and white capsules to form characters.

"In recent years millions of people have become comfortable downloading and enjoying digital media, including e-books," said Ron Hawkins of Sony Electronics.
"But until now, there has not been a good device on which to read."
Publishers onboard

The Reader is about the size of a paperback, is 14mm thick at its widest and weighs little more than 250g.

The slim device is the size of a paperback bookIt will go on sale in the spring and is expected to sell for between $300 and $400 in the US.

Sony has realised the importance of making sure there is good content for a gadget like this.

It has done deals with major publishers, including Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins, to sell digital e-books via its Connect online store.

This is similar to what Apple has done with its iTunes music store, which effectively created the market for digital music downloads. But Sony faces a number of challenges.

This is the second time the Japanese electronics giant has tested the waters with an e-book reader.

In 2004 it launched a similar device called the Librie in Japan, which failed to take off due to its high price and the restrictions it imposed on readers.

Additionally other companies are also working on devices using the same E Ink technology. And some are working on flexible electronic paper displays that can be rolled up.

Are we robots?

2006-10-13T05:04:00.000-07:00

We've all got a list of things that would make us happy:

Call it our Happiness Wish List:
- more money
- a good relationship
- world peace
- better hair...

Of course, making a list is never the problem......

the problem is making the list happen: the world, after all, is a difficult place to control. But the reason we keep going, the reason we keep trying every day, is the firm belief that if we really could get all the things in our list, we'd end up being substantially happier than we are now.

More from http://www.consciousrobots.co.uk/

waiting two hours for the departed

2006-10-12T01:10:00.000-07:00

Last night was the lousiest night I've ever had. I'm estopped from complaining but here's what should have happened: I should have said no to waiting for 2 hours to watch a 10:10 film and insisted to get out of here to catch a 9 p.m. showing and dinner in Greenhills. Cliff is right. I don't know what I'm doing with where I am. I should get out of it. Relationships are overrated. The only fun part is the beginning.

High Court in Britain Loosens Strict Libel Law

2006-10-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

By SARAH LYALL
Published: October 12, 2006

LONDON, Oct. 11 — Britain’s highest court ruled Wednesday for the first time that journalists have the right to publish allegations about public figures, as long as their reporting is responsible and in the public interest.

The ruling, a unanimous judgment by the Law Lords, is a huge shift in British law and significantly improves journalists’ chances of winning libel cases in a court system that until now has been stacked against them.

English judges have traditionally been so sympathetic to libel plaintiffs that many people from abroad have sued in English courts — even if the publications in question have tiny circulations here — because they have had a much better chance of winning here than at home.

Newspaper editors said the decision, in the case of Jameel v. Wall Street Journal Europe, would free them to pursue stories vigorously without constant fear of lawsuits.

“This will lead to a greater robustness and willingness to tackle serious stories, which is what the judges said they wanted,” said Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian. Until now, he said in an interview, newspapers have had to police themselves to the point where “stories weren’t getting in the paper or were being neutered by clever lawyers who knew how to play the game.”

The case concerned an article published on Feb. 6, 2002, in The Wall Street Journal and in its European edition, The Wall Street Journal Europe, which has a daily circulation of 18,000 in Britain.

The article said that at the request of the United States, Saudi Arabia was monitoring bank accounts of prominent Saudi businesses and individuals to trace whether they were being used, possibly unwittingly, to siphon money to terrorist groups.

One of the businesses mentioned, Abdul Latif Jameel Company Ltd., sued the newspaper, as did Muhammed Abdul Latif Jameel, its general manager and president. Under British libel law, newspapers being sued are required to prove the truth of the allegations they print — the opposite of the situation in the United States, where the burden of proof falls heavily on plaintiffs.

But that was a practical impossibility in this case, a member of the panel that ruled on Wednesday, Lord Hoffmann, wrote in his decision.

“In the nature of things, the existence of surveillance by the highly secretive Saudi authorities would have been impossible to prove by evidence in open court,” he said. The paper argued that the article was in the public interest — that is, important to the debate about terrorism and the authorities’ efforts to combat it.

A court ruling in a case several years ago involving The Times of London first seemed to open the door to such an argument. But that decision set out what some lawyers say was a prohibitively high set of standards for newspapers and other news media to meet, forcing them to defend their reporting practices to satisfy the subjective opinions of individual English judges.

In the Jameel case, a lower court jury rejected The Journal’s public-interest argument, finding that the article was defamatory. The Journal was ordered to pay £40,000 — or about $74,000 — in damages. An appeals court affirmed the ruling.

The Law Lords overturned the decision. In a ringing rebuke to the lower court judge’s conclusion that the article was not in the public interest, in part because it flouted an agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia to keep the monitoring program secret, Lord Hoffmann declared it to be “a serious contribution in measured tone to a subject of very considerable importance.”

Another member of the panel, Lord Scott of Foscote, defended the right of news organizations to publish material deemed private by the government.

“It is no part of the duty of the press to cooperate with any government, let alone foreign governments, whether friendly or not, in order to keep from the public information of public interest the disclosure of which cannot be said to be damaging to national interests,” he wrote.

A third member, Baroness Hale of Richmond, wrote, “We need more such serious journalism in this country, and our defamation law should encourage rather than discourage it.”
Keith Mathieson, a partner specializing in media law at the firm of Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, said the ruling would make it easier for newspapers to rely on confidential sources, as long as the articles were responsibly reported and in the public interest.

“It should make it easier for newspapers in the U.K. to publish serious stories where they cannot prove that allegations are true,” he said in an interview.

Stuart Karle, The Wall Street Journal’s general counsel, said that the newspaper had spent millions of dollars on the case and that the decision represented an important turning point. “The history of English libel law was that essentially no decision was final in a newsroom until a judge, several years later, agreed with you,” he said in an interview.

“Going forward,” he said, “this decision means that if you’re a quality news organization you can fully and fairly cover the important issues of the day without this nagging problem of having a libel judge in London basically engage in an autopsy of every single thing you did and decide whether he agrees with your editorial judgment.”

available at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/world/europe/12britain.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

a place i miss the most

2006-10-11T02:36:00.000-07:00

Puddle

2006-10-11T02:32:00.000-07:00

Corinne Bailey Rae in the MOBO* Awards

2006-09-26T06:21:00.000-07:00

Corinne Bailey Rae took three awards, including best UK female. Her performance at the Royal Albert Hall harked back to the 1940s.

*MOBO - Music of Black Origin

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/5365978.stm

awww!

2006-09-22T19:18:00.000-07:00

Baby and Dog (Cuteness!)

2006-09-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

http://mfrost.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/babyanddog.jpg

Sleepy kitty!

2006-09-22T19:14:00.000-07:00

http://mfrost.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/yawn.jpg

Cute Cat!

2006-09-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

http://mfrost.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/kuva20112.jpg From http://mfrost.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/kuva20112.jpg

What I learned from my thesis defense

2006-09-19T03:37:00.000-07:00

0) It pays to have the blessing of a terror adviser.

1) It's like having one answer for the panelists' million and 1 questions:

Panelist A: Two times two?
Me: 4
Panelist 2: Hundred five minus hundred one?
Me: 4.
Panelist 3: Four plus zero?
Me: 4.
Ma'am Helen: Are you sure?
Me: 4.
Panelist A: What's your name?
Me: 4.
Panelist B: Okay, you're done.
Me: 4.

2) Waiting in line is hell. I was originally scheduled for the first slot at 3, but I found out on D day that they moved me to the third slot. I was scheduled to eat a chocolate bar by 5!

3) Luigi says: It's worse in your head. Tama. Coz in my head, I was forever on the verge of farting, barfing or burping while defending. I felt no such compulsion while I was reciting. I did remember JQ, though, in the face of Ma'am Helen's twins.

4) The peanuts are both distracting and comforting.

5) I am not alone in saying that the ruling in that Emerald Garment case (Stylistic Mr. Lee, folks. Does that ring a bell?!) is wrong. It really is wrong! It's wrong! It's wrong!

6) Advocacy doesn't stop here. Atty. Elicaño asked me, "Then what will you do? Give me something concrete, short of impeaching all these SC justices who have no intellectual property expertise whatsoever." Hah. We'll see :)

How to eat cake like you are 8

2006-09-18T23:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I only had three flavors of cake to choose from. (The slice of cake goes free with a Red Ribbon meal.)There was mango, ube, and coffee crunch. Not in the mood for either ube or anything crunchy, I picked mango. Since I became aware (read: went to college) that other people in the world go hungry, I have consistently finished my plate clean as a way of expressing my gratitude (to I don't know who) for being in a position to have a plate filled with food. But yesterday, the slice of cake was a disaster. Its saving grace came in the form of mango bits fit for a hamster. I decided to forego all the bread and the icing, forked out the bits from the frost, and left my plate full of cake minus the mango bits.

It was exhilirating.

kids and the bible

2006-09-15T03:10:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine yourself to be the nun that is sitting at her desk grading these papers all the while trying to keep a straight face and maintain her composure!

PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE WORDING AND SPELLING. IF YOU KNOW THE BIBLE EVEN A LITTLE, YOU'LL FIND THIS HILARIOUS! IT COMES FROM A CATHOLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEST. KIDS WERE ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS ABOUT THE BIBLE WERE WRITTEN BY CHILDREN. THEY HAVE NOT BEEN RETOUCHED OR CORRECTED. INCORRECT SPELLING HAS BEEN LEFT IN.

1. IN THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE, GUINESSIS. GOD GOT TIRED OF CREATING THE WORLD SO HE TOOK THE SATURDAY OFF.

2. ADAM AND EVE WERE CREATED FROM AN APPLE TREE . NOAH 'S WIFE WAS JOAN OF ARK. NOAH BUILT AND ARKAND THE ANIMALS CAME ON IN PEARS.
3. LOTS WIFE WAS A PILLAR OF SALT DURING THE DAY, BUT A BALL OF FIRE DURING THE NIGHT.

4. THE JEWS WERE A PROUD PEOPLE AND THROUGHOUT HISTORY THEY HAD TROUBLE WITH UNSYMPATHETIC GENITALS.

5. SAMPSON WAS A STRONGMAN WHO LET HIMSELF BE LED ASTRAY BY A JEZEBEL LIKE DELILAH .

6. SAMSON SLAYED THE PHILISTINES WITH THE AXE OF THE APOSTLES.

7. MOSES LED THE JEWS TO THE REDSEAWHERE THEY MADE UNLEAVENED BREAD WHICH IS BREAD WITHOUT ANY INGREDIENTS .

8, THE EGYPTIANS WERE ALL DROWNED IN THE DESSERT. AFTERWARDS, MOSES WENT UP TO MOUNTCYANIDETO GET THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

9. THE FIRST COMMANDMENTS WAS WHEN EVE TOLD ADAM TO EAT THE APPLE.

10. THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT IS THOU SHALT NOT ADMIT ADULTERY.

11. MOSES DIED BEFORE HE EVER REACHED CANADA . THEN JOSHUA LED THE HEBREWS IN THE BATTLEOF GERITOL .

12. THE GREATEST MIRICLE IN THE BIBLE IS WHEN JOSHUA TOLD HIS SON TO STAND STILL AND HE OBEYED HIM.

13. DAVID WAS A HEBREW KING WHO WAS SKILLED AT PLAYING THE LIAR. HE FOUGHT THE FINKELSTEINS, A RACE OF PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN BIBLICAL TIMES.

14. SOLOMON , ONE OF DAVIDS SONS , HAD 300 WIVES AND 700 PORCUPINES.

15. WHEN MARY HEARD SHE WAS THE MOTHER OF JESUS , SHE SANG THE MAGNA CARTA.

16. WHEN THE THREE WISE GUYS FROM THE EAST SIDE ARRIVED THEY FOUND JESUS IN THE MANAGER.

17. JESUS WAS BORN BECAUSE MARY HAD AN IMMACULATE CONTRAPTION.

18. ST. JOHNTHE BLACKSMITH DUMPED WATER ON HIS HEAD.

19. JESUS ENUNCIATED THE GOLDEN RULE, WHICH SAYS TO DO UNTO OTHERS BEFORE THEY DO ONE TO YOU. HE ALSO EXPLAINED A MAN DOTH NOT LIVE BY SWEAT ALONE.

20. IT WAS A MIRICLE WHEN JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD AND MANAGED TO GET THE TOMBSTONEOFF THE ENTRANCE.

21. THE PEOPLE WHO FOLLOWED THE LORD WERE CALLED THE 12 DECIBELS.

22. THE EPISTELS WERE THE WIVES OF THE APOSTLES.

23. ONE OF THE OPPOSSUMS WAS ST. MATTHEW WHO WAS ALSO A TAXIMAN.

24. ST. PAULCAVORTED TO CHRISTIANITY, HE PREACHED HOLY ACRIMONY WHICH IS ANOTHER NAME FOR MARRAIGE.

25. CHRISTIANS HAVE ONLY ONE SPOUSE. THIS IS CALLED MONOTONY

Levie-ism No. 2

2006-09-12T05:01:00.000-07:00

"Ano'ng gagamitin mo? 'Yung makapangyarihang picture?"

what's a major turnoff?

2006-09-11T04:30:00.000-07:00

When a guy throws more tantrums within 8 months than you did.

Partners and Marriage

2006-09-08T00:52:00.000-07:00

PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE
By Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz

I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.

When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.

And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other's presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other's foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other's habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other? The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see c learly in the early stages.

Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side. This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.

The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.
This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility. One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each other's company over the long term.

If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new. Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being critical together.

After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you will not respect each other.
Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance doesn't become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.

There are many other keys, but you must find them by ourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.

So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word.

There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around us every day. To us they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe.

Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come.

If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger. It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter.

But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two separate consciousnesses come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one. There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulle d to the richn ess that it alone contains.

But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepes that experience into something richer and more complex.
So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation.

If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom...endlessly.

-----------------------------------------------------------
A beautiful piece. Pls pass it on specially to the young people who restarting to get into relationships or are in a relationship. It would save them a lot of heartaches and bitterness down the road.

What is laughter?

2006-09-08T00:47:00.000-07:00

Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new.
-Calsanz, Partners and Marriage

A fairy is born through a child's laughter. If it's a half-hearted laugh, the fairy is born with defects - smaller ears, one instead of two wings, or difficulty in making magic. This is why we must all laugh fully.
- a Disney publication on Tinker Bell

More on Guimaras

2006-09-04T04:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.projectsunrise.org/

RENATO REDENTOR CONSTANTINO

2006-09-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

RENATO REDENTOR CONSTANTINO

Irreversible: Incompetent Government Seeks Help for Oil Spill

2006-09-01T06:13:00.000-07:00

National Disaster: Guimaras Oil Spill

Last August 11, an oil-tanker, M/T Solar I, carrying 2M litres of tanker fuel, sank at the Guimaras Strait located off the coast of Guimaras and Negros Occidental. 200,000 litres of oil were spilled.

The oil spill has now contaminated 239 kilometers of coastline and mangroves, affected 16 coastal barangays and displaced 2,000 fisherfolk. The 1,100-hectare Taclong National Marine Reserve was also heavily damaged.

The cleanup has been estimated to take 3 years.

What the national Philippine government has done so far is to probe into the cause of the spill to determine who will be liable for damages. Pres. GMA has created a Special Board of Marine Inquiry, spending tax money in the purpose. It must be noted that the owner of the oil is Petron, a 40% Phil. government-owned corporation.

An aerial photo shows a Philippine Coast Guard ship spraying dispersant to clean up the oil spill northeast of Guimaras island, central Philippines, August 18, 2006. Disaster workers and residents in Guimaras are attempting to contain last week's oil slick from a sunken tanker due to its impact on fish, plants, people and tourism in the area. Picture taken August 18, 2006. REUTERS/Leo Solinap (PHILIPPINES)

The effects are estimated to last for at least 2 generations.

Although some organisms may be seriously injured or killed very soon after contact with the oil in a spill, other effects are more subtle and often longer lasting. For example, freshwater organisms are at risk of being smothered by oil that is carried by the current, or of being slowly poisoned by long-term exposure to oil trapped in shallow water or stream beds.

Watch out for the weather, whatever you're eating in the next two generations, the displacement of many fisherfolk, and economic setbacks.

I heard they're shaving off the heads of convicts so that they could use the hair as a boom to absorb the sludge. Why not require all the salons to do that? Nobody's got much functional use for hair anyway.

Please Help the Philippines.

Below: Local residents, use rags and water to clean off some of the spilled oil that has collected at the rocks on the breakwater in Nueva Valencia town in Guimaras island after a tanker contracted by Petron, the Solar I, sank in rough seas on August 11 while carrying 500,000 gallons of oil. Coast guard officials struggling to contain a dangerous oil spill in the Philippines expressed frustration that a sunken tanker described by environmentalists as a "ticking time bomb" had yet to be raised.(AFP/Joel Nito)

from Ever After

2006-08-29T01:05:00.000-07:00

Prince Henry: You told me it was a matter of life or death.
Leonardo da Vinci: A woman always is.

ICFJ

2006-08-29T01:01:00.000-07:00

Photo by Sara Fajardo
taken from http://www.icfj.org/

On Suffering

2006-08-29T00:54:00.000-07:00

Suffering is not increased by numbers: one body can contain all the suffering the world can feel.
-Graham Greene, The Quiet American

scarcity and choice

2006-08-26T02:58:00.000-07:00

I had to teach a friend today about opportunity cost. Teaching him about economics cost me time and effort I could have used to do other things like sink in a bean bag and read The Devil Wears Prada or go shopping for my thesis defense outfit (still encompassed in the Devil-Wears-Prada world. Well, I'm a living testament to retail therapy. If it weren't for shopping, all women would be dead.).

What is opportunity cost? It's the price (in terms of both money and satisfaction) that you pay in order to get something. It includes the price of what you forego (yes, no matter what income bracket we belong to, we always have choices). Why does foregone opportunity cost you something? Resources are limited; this scarcity constrains us to make decisions.

The opportunity cost of what I've foregone in favor of my present has got me asking, "What if?"

What if...?

the 12 Biggest Mistakes of First-Time Authors

2006-08-26T02:30:00.000-07:00

from Roger C. Clarke's Published & Profitable
the italicized text are mine :)

1. Unrealistic expectations
Thinking book equals money might find you in that relationship stage where you think the one you're with is a god who later turns out to be human. Well, that's life!

2. Writing without a contract
Apparently, you must prepare instead a proposal and a few sample chapters. Personally, just keep on writing. Don't give away the goose but let them have a glimpse of the golden eggs.

3. No agent
Get one and let him or her do the talking. You're a writer. Question though, what if you can't afford an agent? Seeing that nothing stops you from not hiring an agent (as of now), learn the tricks of the trade. It won't hurt. Experience is a pretty good teacher.

4. Weak Titles
What with people's attention span?

5. Title versus series
Just leave room for future projects.

7. "Event" Writing
Block time off to write daily instead of shutting the world out in order to write. Writing is a discipline. Even if you've got talent and a writing Muse, if you abuse it or don't use it, well, as the Sixpence None the Richer song goes, "There she goes..."

8. Self-editing
Write in white heat. Let the editors edit in cold blood.

9. Failure to promote
Get out there. Publishers apparently are not publicists.

10. Failure to backup and save
Murphy's Law states that everything that could go wrong will go wrong. This law operates during the most crucial projects of our lives - cramming your thesis, preparing a slideshow for your defense, etc.

11. Failure to plan future profits
Don't stop at your first book. There are lots of opportunities out there. You just have to look for it.

12. Failure to consider options
As what Phoebe would say, it makes good sense to back up your backup.

Another Palladium Quotable Quote

2006-08-25T22:04:00.000-07:00

Buddhist Meditation Point # 24: Do not be worried of accepting too much work...

Iya: I'm worried about accepting too much work. I'm also worried when Kiko accepts too much work.

... Worry about meddling too much into people's lives.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

2006-08-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep): The details of your incompetence do not interest me.

We be like her.

Levie-ism No. 1

2006-08-25T06:04:00.000-07:00

1. For all weird things, non-living or otherwise: "May sakit sa utak."

Defining Heaven and Hell

2006-08-25T06:02:00.000-07:00

Quotable Quote

2006-08-25T00:38:00.000-07:00

22 August 2006
Midterm Week

Quannie: Cliff! Parang pumuputi ka?
Sarj: What did you do?
Cliff: Stay indoors.

rant

2006-08-22T02:21:00.000-07:00

Some blogs are such a waste of time. All the whining about the whining should be penalized with life imprisonment. Hah! So much for "human rights advocacy" when one can't even respect freedom of expression and non-expression.

untitled

2006-08-15T01:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.law.nyu.edu/ili/conferences/freeinfo2000/abstracts/index.html

Favorite ko 'to!

2006-08-15T00:29:00.000-07:00

One Tough Monday Night in Katipunan

2006-08-15T00:25:00.000-07:00

“But for the flashing light
or the wild
rage of my blood,
I cannot tame
my heart.”

-D.M. Reyes, Riddles

Did you know...?

2006-08-15T00:22:00.000-07:00

Did you know that there’s a student organization in NYU Law called OUTlaw? It is an organization of gay and lesbian law students, alumni, and academe. Their blog can be found at http://nyuoutlaw.blogspot.com/


		NYU School of Law Home \| University Home \| Searches & Directories \| Sitemap



		OUTLaw • 40 Washington Square South, Room 110 • New York, NY 10012 • (212) 998-6575

Official Web site

Contact Us

Student Bar Association

Other Student Organizations

Welcome

OUTLaw is an organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender law students, as well as their supporters and friends. OUTLaw is one of the largest, most respected, and most active organizations of its kind in the nation. Our mission is political, social, educational, and familial. Our membership is diverse. OUTLaw actively promotes queer visibility on campus and acts as a watchdog for issues arising within New York University School of Law and within the nation. Throughout the year, OUTLaw brings speakers to campus to discuss and bring attention to issues of importance to our community.

We co-sponsor panels with the placement office that focus on the experiences of queer lawyers in the workplace and of queer students in the job search. OUTLaw's social events bring members of the community together to create a strong network of support for queer students at NYU School of Law.

Spying on Gay Groups Bared
More at http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_451/spyingongaygroups.html

Hang-Gliding

2006-08-15T00:17:00.000-07:00

“It’s easy,” was my first instruction.

Put both hands here
and hang on tight.
Let go.

I guess all I managed
was to know where to put my hands
and learn how to grab on tight.

It was a shaky makeshift flight.
The wind was an adversary.
The sun burnt me. My breath
shorn short by fear.

Carefully, I shifted my gaze from my sweaty palms
to you, flying beside me.
I was awed. You were perfect against the sky.

My arms longed to break.
I felt my strength give way.
Looking up at you made me tired.

I left your horizon and felt
my feet touch earth.
Yes, sir, I’m the Queen of Descent.

Chocolate Chip Cookies and Borderless Economies

2006-08-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

8/13/06

As I walked down the aisles of Rustan’s Supermarket to shop for comfort food to last my whole midterm week, I saw to my dismay that the only Chips Ahoy! cookies available on the shelves are peanut-buttered and not chocolate-chipped. I am inclined to interpret this in either of two ways: one, that the chocolate chip cookies have been sold out to the Sunday madding crowd, or two, that Chips Ahoy! has lost its touch, and is thus losing out on supplies. Like you, I’d rather prove the first. However, my regular forays into the grocery have had me concluding otherwise. Not only has Chips Ahoy! been losing shelf space. It has also been replaced by Keeblers.

My childhood is punctuated with happy memories of Chips Ahoy! brought home as pasalubong by my parents or uncles and aunts returning from abroad. Obviously, it was not yet the age of WTO, GATT, and borderless economies. Back then, Hershey’s Kisses and Barbie Dolls meant they were imported – they had to travel from faraway just to be mine. That made them extra special to me. As a child, I cannot take them for granted, which I can now do as an adult. Today, I don’t need to wait for someone returning from abroad to bring me home a bar of Dove soap. All I had to do is make a trip to a nearby store.

With the influx of imported goods due to lowered tariff rates and global economies of scale, supply in the local market has increased. Supply has gone out of its way to reach the consumer. All I had to do is go to Rustan’s where, not only will Chips Ahoy! be waiting, but also a dozen other brands.

I met Keebler cookies as an adult. It has replaced Chips Ahoy! by simply being there on the shelves more often than Chips Ahoy! does.

I hope I’m wrong when I suspect that Keebler has weakened Chips Ahoy’s sales, and I hope I’m more wrong when I conclude that this is what borderless economies can do.

Before J left

2006-08-15T00:03:00.000-07:00

Communion
Ria Rivera

Like the faithful
lined up along the aisle,
each button
of your black cassock
solemnly leaves the line.
One by one
they step aside
revealing a carpet of dawn.

Like the people
heading south
of the sanctuary,
feet shuffling over wool,
I tread through its
salty-sweet length
where I find
an altar.

Hands together
I bless the offering.
Living body and blood
Pulsating
between cupped fingers.

I come down on my knees
and receive the sacrifice.

___

For A. You didn’t have to ask.

Free Press: Welcome to my World

2006-08-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

10.49 p.m.

“Hi, baby. I just got home from a meeting with Q and L. I’m so tired. I’ve to delay sending the paper to the press. Hugs. Love you.”

11 – 12 a.m.

Boy calls girl. Listens. “Don’t think about it muna. Study first.”

12.09 a.m.

K calls. Hangs up.

12.21 a.m.

“Nyahaha. Napagalitan ko na si K. O well, honestly, hindi pa maganda ‘yung layout. I’ll make some changes pa in the society page after the exams. Haay.. M ok na ”

12.21 a.m.

Reply omitted.

12.28 a.m.

“Yeah, I’ve just realized I’m hungry. Actually pinaiyak ako ni Daddy, “It’s ok! Let go! Pag panget, say no! If anything you’ve changed the face of campus journalism. Keep it up. Our goal is to make each issue better than the last. The good thing about our job is we don’t have a boss. You are your own boss. Nobody’s imposing on you. Let go. If you stress yourself out, papangit ka nyan. Sige ka.” Haha! Tears. I miss P and H and A. Why do we all have to grow up? Y is hysterical daw about the font change.. I call K ‘daddy’.”

[Insert Levie-ism: May sakit sa utak.]

Clever Advertising

2006-08-10T22:04:00.000-07:00

9th Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism

2006-08-10T21:56:00.000-07:00

Dear friend of narrative journalism,

Registration is now open for our ninth annual Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism at Harvard, to be held on the weekend of Nov. 17-19 this year. The three-day weekend for practicing midcareer editors and journalists commencesFriday the 17th with a keynote by Calvin Trillin of the New Yorker andconcludes Sunday afternoon, some 70 other talks, panels and keynotes later.The conference Web site is the only place to register for the conference and thebest place to find information -- about our policies and fees, our speakers, theschedule, and scholarship and volunteer opportunities, among many other things.

Visit this link:http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/events/conferences/narrative2006/index.html

AHRC Book Launching

2006-08-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

(L-R) Leah Mateo, Ryan Quan, and Mark Dy. I took this photo! :)
This is Quanny, one of my favorite La Sallites. :)

Mark and I at the Ateneo Human Rights Center (AHRC) Book Launching. The event was held last Tuesday, August 8 (Happy Birthday, Papa!) at the fourth floor lobby of the Ateneo Law School.

more cute overload

2006-08-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/

Today's Advice

2006-08-08T04:47:00.000-07:00

Don't give too much. Some people, even though you love them, have nothing for it in return. How, Christ?! How ever did you give?

finding nemo

2006-08-08T04:38:00.000-07:00

Nemo is a small fish set free on the big blue involuntarily. He probably only wanted some fun when he dared himself to touch the 'but' (boat). He ended up growing up.

It's good while it lasted.

Chico

2006-08-05T05:40:00.000-07:00

Mark's family dog in Cebu :)

round bunny!

2006-08-05T05:35:00.000-07:00

from cuteoverload.com

Holy Shit

2006-08-04T00:05:00.000-07:00

the Idiot Savant
(33% dark, 61% spontaneous, 42% vulgar)

your humor style:
VULGAR SPONTANEOUS LIGHT

You like things silly, immediate, and, above all, outrageous. Ixne on the subtle word play, more testicles on fire, please. People like you are the most likely to RECEIVE internet forwards--and also the most likely to save them in a special folder entitled 'HOLY SHIT'.

Because it's so easily appreciated, and often wacky and physical, your sense of humor never ceases to amuse your friends. Most realize that there's a sly intelligence and a knowing wink to your tastes. Your sense of humor could be called 'anti-pretentious'--but paradoxically enough, that indicates you're smarter than most.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Johnny Knoxville - Jimmy Kimmel

The'>http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=17565214125862764376">The 3-Variable Funny Test!
- it rules -

If you're interested, try my best friend's best test: The'>http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=6936188936100731841">The Genghis Khan Genetic Fitness Masterpiece

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

%20alt="free%20online%20dating"%20src="32-Type Dating Test

This is a blog!

2006-08-03T23:50:00.000-07:00

http://denning.livejournal.com/

Manila International Book Fair 2006

2006-07-31T00:37:00.000-07:00

The biggest names in the publishing industry are set to gather anew for the 27th Manila International Book Fair (MIBF), the country’s paramount event for the book business. The MIBF celebrates the written word at the World Trade Center Metro Manila, Sen. Gil Puyat Ave. corner Roxas Blvd., on Aug. 30 – Sept. 3.

With the theme “Make it a Habit” the MIBF once again unites local and foreign publishers, wholesalers, retailers, book lovers and collectors, librarians, authors, publishers’ representatives, and every major player in the publishing industry in its continuing efforts to promote books and reading.

Attended by more than 50,000 people last year, the MIBF showcases the largest and most varied collection of literature, textbooks, educational supplements, general references, religious and inspirational titles, self-help books, management books, Filipiniana, coffee table books, popular novels, children’s books, art books, graphic novels, rare and hard-to-find titles, magazines, audio and e-books, multimedia, teaching supplies and services, publishers’ technology, and travel materials.

Now on its 27th year, the MIBF renews its commitment to stage the biggest book event in the country, bringing out the best in the book trade while holding creative special events designed to complement the industry and to delight book-lovers as well.

Showcasing a huge number of books and learning materials are A-Z Direct Marketing, Abiva Publishing House, Academic Book Sales, Adarna House, Alexan Commercial, Anvil Publishing, Asia/Pacific Circulation Exponents, Asian Books / A Different Bookstore, Adbox Book Distributor, Asiatype, Inc., Ateneo de Manila University Press / Jesuit Communications, Belview Co., Inc., Britannica/High Access Line Philippines, C & E Publishing, CD Books International, Central Book Supply, Central Comic Headquarters, Christian Literature Crusade, Church Strengthening Ministry, Claretian Communications, Cogent Consulting, Cultural Center of the Philippines, De La Salle University Press, Diwa Learning Systems, Edcrisch International, Emerald Headway Distributors, Eternal Publications Trading, F & J de Jesus, Felta Multi-Media, Filway Marketing, Forefront Book Co., and Fujian Publishing.

Also present at the fair are Gentle Star Trading, Global Learning Media / Verve Multimedia, Golden Books Services, Goodwill Bookstore / Edca Publishing & Distributing Corp. / Katha, Gunnar Lie & Associates Ltd., IBC Infotech, Ibon Foundation, Info-Ed Marketing, Instituto Cervantes-Manila, International Buddhist Progress Society, John Wiley & Sons (Asia), Lighthouse Bookstore, Linar Education Materials, Logos Publications, McGraw-Hill Education (Phils.), Megatexts Phil., Mind Mover Publishing House, National Bookstore, National Historical Institute, New Day Publishers, New Era Publication International, OMF Literature, Pahina, Inc. / Book Wagon, Paulines Publishing, Pearson Education South Asia, Philippine Bible Society, Phoenix Educational Systems, Powerbooks, Precious Pages, and Psicom Publishing.
Rounding out the list of exhibitors are Rarebook Enterprises, Rex Book Store, Roman Instructional Media Resources, Salesiana Bookstore, Sinag-Tala Publishers, Sketch Books / Fully Booked, St. Augustine, St. Pauls, Stiftung Gralsbotschaft, Summit Publishing, Tahanan Pacific, The Bookmark, The Catholic Book Center, Thomson Learning Phils., Tzu Chi Foundation, University of the Philippines Press, UST Publishing House, Vibal Publishing House, WS Pacific Publications, Word & Life Publications, and the World Health Organization.

The 27th Manila International Book Fair is organized by Primetrade Asia, Inc. in partnership with Asian Catholic Publishers, Inc., Book Development Association of the Philippines, Philippine Booksellers Association, Inc., and Publishers Representatives Organization of the Philippines. It is supported by the Philippine Educational Publishers Association, Book Exporters Association of the Philippines, and the Christian Booksellers Association – Philippine Chapter.

For details, call 890-0661 or 896-0682, or e-mail bookfair@primetradeasia.com

Making Sense of GMA's SONA

2006-07-27T02:31:00.000-07:00

Pinoy Kasi
Michael Tan
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=11741

- Her Sona was her way of saying: "I've survived beyond five years, the normal term the Constitution gives to a President, and I did that against all odds. Moreover, I intend to survive till 2010."

-After the Sona, after "State of War," I thought, sadly, of how Ms Arroyo's promises and praise have further reinforced traditional politics with its horse-trading and bartering. Worse, hounded by her own insecurities, she has chosen to ride the military tiger which she will never be able to dismount, placing herself and the nation in deep peril. Before the end of her term, a mere 1,431 days from now, she may yet have another dubious achievement: reviving Southeast Asia's last communist insurgency.

Learning from the Liberal Times

2006-07-24T03:43:00.000-07:00

When I got accepted into the Liberal Times Manila blog and podcasting workshop, part of my acceptance letter read:

"Current Situation of Philippine Blogging - M.L. Quezon III
We should improve on the content of our blogs... It is a medium that should be handled responsibly and not filled with personal stuff that your readers have no use for.."

I agree. You can write about personal things but if, and only if, your readers will find any use for it. What good is it to wear your heart up on your sleeve if not for your selfish display of your internal instability? Need we know about it when we ourselves have all been leading harder lives?

Don't be a brat. Save us from your useless rants.

new rainy day resolution

2006-07-24T03:40:00.000-07:00

Don't read blogs that are a sore in the eyes... For example, don't read his blog.. He's too caught up in puddles.. He doesn't need to drag you down..

There... Very good... On to better things..

Jesuit Legal Education 2006

2006-07-24T03:11:00.000-07:00

All photos courtesy of Patricia Bautista