|
| |
| |
| |
|
Statistics |
| Unique Visitors: 0 |
| Total Unique Visitors: 968398 |
| Visitors Out: 3298 |
| Total Visitors Out: 3730 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| The End of an Era |
| 2008-03-31 11:01:57 |
From one of Sun.Star Daily’s past issues:
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Editorial: Winding down of an era
THAT TV footage showing former president Fidel V. Ramos dedicating a song to former president Cory Aquino, who is fighting colon cancer, shows how far an era has receded.
While Edsa 1 of 1986 was primarily an undertaking of an entire people, [...]...
|
| |
|
| 160-Year Old Oslob Church Gutted by Fire |
| 2008-03-29 11:01:09 |
Horrors of horrors, that was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw a local paper’s front page last Thursday. It carried the news of the destruction of one of Cebu’s oldest churches. The 160-year old Immaculate Conception Parish and its convent in the southern town of Oslob was gutted by fire.
The [...]...
|
| |
|
| Innovative Ways of Telling Stories |
| 2008-03-26 11:01:05 |
Came across an interesting new Penguin project. Dots and loops blogs:
We Tell Stories is a new interactive fiction site from Penguin with 6 stories based on Penguin Classics. The first story online is The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming, based on Buchan’s classic thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps. It is told through narrative bubbles that pop [...]...
|
| |
|
| Hesperus |
| 2008-03-25 11:01:48 |
Seeing that National Bookstore is selling Hesperus Press editions of lesser known works of renowned classic authors with a 75% discount, and thus transforming a P339 price tag into P84.50, and fearing that I may never have another chance to get myself books of this quality and quantity, I spent a fourth of my share [...]...
|
| |
|
| The Joy of Reading |
| 2008-03-24 11:01:03 |
My youngest sister Azalea celebrates her fourth birthday today.
Reading books, be it a novel, a classic work of fiction, a biography, a political or philosophical treatise, a historical account, or what have you, has always been one of the most enduring joys in my life. Our family’s Holy Week excursion in Mantalongon, Dalaguete gave [...]...
|
| |
|
| Pasyon sa Mantalongon |
| 2008-03-22 11:01:22 |
“We went there just to watch someone being nailed on the cross?”
And so asked my younger brother Andre Sandino on our family’s way home from Mantalongon, Dalaguete in Southern Cebu where we spent the Holy Week to witness the Pasyon sa Mantalongon last March 21, 2008.
Apparently, local Mantalongon residents, along with people from neighboring towns [...]...
|
| |
|
| Future of Socialism |
| 2008-03-21 11:01:27 |
This is a repost from the Monthly Review Magazine of an address by Prof. Randhir Singh to the journal Itihasbodh at Allahabad on March 8, 2007. Prof. Singh, a distinguished teacher and a former Professor of Political Theory at the University of Delhi, is author of Crisis of Socialism: Notes in Defence of Commitment, Reason [...]...
|
| |
|
| Quote of the Day (7) |
| 2008-03-20 11:01:46 |
Kishore Mahbubani talks about how Mao’s Cultural Revolution paved the way for China’s prosperity today in a conversation with the New Perspectives Quarterly Global Viewpoint editor Nathan Gardels. Mahbubani is the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore and author of “The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Power [...]...
|
| |
|
| A Prelude to Summer |
| 2008-03-18 19:28:51 |
I will be gone from Metro Cebu for the Holy Week. Instead of the familiar suburban milieu of the coastal City of Talisay and the expanding urban sprawl that is Cebu City, I will find myself in a distant rural barangay starting today until the weekend.
Along with me are my whole family and not a [...]...
|
| |
|
| Manna from Heaven |
| 2008-03-17 11:01:23 |
I received manna from heaven late last week or to be more accurate, my book did. I was about to end my reading of the eminent Albanian author Ismail Kadare’s The File on H when bird droppings suddenly fell upon the last page of the book. I muttered expletives to myself and cursed the bird [...]...
|
| |
|
| Jun Lozada Goes to Cebu |
| 2008-03-16 11:01:53 |
Jun Lozada will be going to our college today here in Cebu to speak on the NBN-ZTE deal. I can’t attend the said forum. Still, for those who are interested, it will be held this 3PM at the University of the Philippines Cebu College Conference Hall.
In the meantime, let me share Sir Bong Wenceslao explanation [...]...
|
| |
|
| The Perfect Gift |
| 2008-03-15 11:09:49 |
I always found books to be the perfect gift for any occasion. Books, a National Book Development Board survey finding reveals, are considered to be good gifts by Filipinos.
Keeping up with this tradition, I gave my favorite younger sister a book for her birthday yesterday. Alya Simone is now fifteen. I handed her The [...]...
|
| |
|
| Jabidah Massacre Recalled |
| 2008-03-14 11:01:54 |
Recalling the “Jabidah massacre” that ignited four decades of conflict in Mindanao, a handful of Cebuanos showed support for some 100 young advocates who passed by Cebu in the third day of a peace caravan across the country from Mindanao to Corregidor island next week.
The peace advocates intend to unveil a marker and perform a [...]...
|
| |
|
| Two Films for Last Potter Book |
| 2008-03-13 17:54:21 |
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be made into two movies, announces Warner Brothers, with part one arriving in cinemas in November 2010 and part two following in May 2011. The Guardian newspaper writes, “Saying goodbye to Harry Potter has been hard - for fans… and even more so the publishers and booksellers for [...]...
|
| |
|
| A Book a Day… |
| 2008-03-12 11:03:12 |
Once again, I broke my moratorium on the buying of books and am officially revoking it because of my inability to implement it.
I just received my part of the profit for Binibining UP Pageant, our advertising class project, and bought myself The Fatal Eggs by Mikhail Bulgakov. The Hesperus Press edition with a foreword by [...]...
|
| |
|
| The Invisible Hand? |
| 2008-03-10 11:13:06 |
Does the present efforts to remove the President by agitating for another People Power uprising have the blessings of the United States? Is it part of a greater strategy against China, the only country that has been officially identified as the only country with “the greatest potential to compete with the United States”?
The string of [...]...
|
| |
|
| Quote of the Day (6) |
| 2008-03-09 18:20:21 |
Words of wisdom from a lengthy passage penned by the American Comedian George Carlin that I received via email:
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have… more [...]...
|
| |
|
| Miscellaneous |
| 2008-03-08 10:01:02 |
Balut, mani, fish ball, turon, maize, etc. - Market Manila has a yummy post on the street food available during last week’s interfaith rally in Makati. Yesterday was International Women’s Day. Protest actions were again held to condemn the present administration while commemorating the event.
Still, I now see the waning momentum for a renewed thrust [...]...
|
| |
|
| Happy World Book Day! |
| 2008-03-06 08:01:32 |
I never knew that such a commemoration ever existed at all in the first place. But yes, today, March 6, 2008, is World Book Day. It was started in the United Kingdom and Ireland two decades ago to promote the enjoyment of books and reading. I hope book lovers here in the Philippines would also [...]...
|
| |
|
| The Bane of the Anti-Arroyo Movement |
| 2008-03-04 16:14:09 |
Last week, Will of the blog Writer’s Block asked me if the people in Cebu are 100% pro-GMA. I answered no, adding that many believe the president is guilty of corruption. Likewise, many actually find Lozada’s claim of irregularities in the NBN deal credible. As to why not many are joining protests, I reasoned out [...]...
|
| |
|
| Bitter Medicines and Harsh Truths |
| 2008-03-02 04:36:19 |
This blog entry contains a jumble of remarks and notes written on my sickbed. It includes bits on blogging, last Friday’s interfaith rally, student power, as well as the success of our class project – Papeles, among other things.
“People (referring to the merchant and aristocratic classes) have been fed on sweets too long… Bitter medicines [...]...
|
| |
|
| No Time to Read? |
| 2008-02-27 10:01:21 |
I just subscribed to Dailylit.com, a website that promises to remedy the “I’ve no time to read” syndrome. Says Graeme Allister of the Guardian Book Blog of Dailylit.com: “the books come to you, as daily morsels in your inbox. Over 800 books have been divided into bite-size pieces to be emailed to you every day.â€
I’m [...]...
|
| |
|
| Fidel Castro’s Legacy |
| 2008-02-26 10:02:20 |
After Fidel Castro’s retirement, Raul Castro was named as Cuba’s new president on Sunday as President Bush immediately called for further isolating the Cuban regime to stimulate “a democratic transition.â€
Of course, we know this crap is all about the US ruling class’ desire to return Cuba to its previous semi-colonial status as a sugar plantation [...]...
|
| |
|
| Learning from EDSA |
| 2008-02-24 18:10:46 |
Pete Lacaba’s article “The Name Game†reprinted in his blog talks about names inspired by the first EDSA uprising, the First Quarter Storm and the Martial Law era.
I’m mentioning this since today is the 22nd anniversary of the first EDSA and for the reason that my own name, along with the names some persons from [...]...
|
| |
|
| Eating Kafka |
| 2008-02-23 15:22:29 |
While the old The Economist article’s title is actually a play on Marie Antoinette’s famous saying “let them eat cake,” why can’t our own government here think of something like the following government literacy program in Chile?
Let them eat Kafka
The president enlists the literary critics
ASK Chileans what they are reading and the answer will probably [...]...
|
| |
|
| Situations |
| 2008-02-21 10:01:26 |
If included in Bergan’s Guardian Film Blog’s entry, this post would belong to the obscure category along with the film titles One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Written on the Wind, Some Came Running, etc. And rightly so, my cerebral wanderings are now hovering in an assortment of events and discourses from the week – [...]...
|
| |
|
| Quote of the Day (5) |
| 2008-02-20 10:01:48 |
Taking a cue from Manuel Quezon III’s blog entry on GMA’s Mandate of Heaven:
Woe to the nation that does not raise its voice save in a funeral, that shows esteem only at the grave, that waits to rebel until its neck is under the edge of the sword.
–Khalil Gibran, The Nine Woes
Related Entries:
The First Quote [...]...
|
| |
|
| Castro’s Retirement, Bhutto’s Memoirs, Kosovo and an Erroneous Map |
| 2008-02-19 10:02:47 |
Fidel Castro, the iconic leader of the Cuban revolution, has just announced his retirement as Cuba’s president. During the almost 50 years of his rule, Castro oversaw major economic and social changes which favored the poor, including the introduction of land reform and the improvement of education and health services.
Also, I just learned that former [...]...
|
| |
|
| On Campus Politics and Other Notes (Updated) |
| 2008-02-17 10:39:00 |
It’s the last full week of my favorite month of the year and it’s Student Council election time in our college again. I see a major shakeup with the present party in the majority’s failure to voice out and serve the interests of the studentry. I am predicting that what has become this school year’s [...]...
|
| |
|
| Praying for Truth and Justice |
| 2008-02-15 20:43:12 |
I was passing by the college’s oblation square on my way out of school yesterday afternoon when I came across Dr. Rhodora Bucoy, the adviser of the UP Cebu College Student Council when I was its chairman, and Dr. Cherry Ballescas, my social sciences teacher during my first year in college.
They were about to begin [...]...
|
| |
|
| Before the Storm: A Bevy of Fair (Wo)men |
| 2008-02-13 18:00:12 |
Plots within plots are being hatched in the Philippine capital. Both the Arroyo administration and the broad opposition are putting in place wheels within wheels in the perilous game that is Philippine politics.
The Arroyo clique is pushing for Charter Change again to (1) deflect the public’s attention from the Lozada fiasco and (2) further its [...]...
|
| |
|
| The Rise of Free Online Books |
| 2008-02-12 15:48:07 |
Paulo Coelho gives us an innovative example on how to get rich as an author. He’s been “pirating his own work for years, spreading electronic versions of his novels over the BitTorrent filesharing network for potential readers to download.” He even established the blog The Pirate Coelho for this purpose, the Guardian Newspaper Book [...]...
|
| |
|
| Free Radiohead In Rainbows Download |
| 2008-02-10 15:01:10 |
Last December, I pointed out where we can download the bonus disc for Radiohead’s new In Rainbows album. Now I found one of those places in the Internet where Radiohead’s latest album can be freely downloaded. One only needs to sign up an account with Multiply to start downloading it here. Cheers!
In history, Simon Montefiore’s [...]...
|
| |
|
| Blogging in the Time of Living Dangerously |
| 2008-02-08 11:05:21 |
Things are heating up in the country’s Capital again in the wake of Lozada’s damning testimony in the Senate regarding the ZTE-NBN deal and his alleged abduction earlier in the week. One unmistakeable sign of the tension is the circulation of text rumors warning of a bombing today. Once more, the people in Malacañang are [...]...
|
| |
|
| How Famous Writers Killed Themselves |
| 2008-02-07 10:01:38 |
In the newly published book, The Dedalus Book of Literary Suicides: Dead Letters (February 7, 2008), Gary Lachman writes about ten famous literary figures who have taken their own lives.
Anne Sexton gassed herself in her car, Ernest Hemmingway shot his own head with a pistol, Thomas Chatterton took arsenic, Heinrich von Kleist shot his cancer-ridden [...]...
|
| |
|
| Politics – Traditional, Revolutionary and New |
| 2008-02-05 15:01:27 |
“City air makes people free,†a popular medieval saying goes. This, of course, refers to the release from serfdom afforded by the towns of the feudal era.
But this same migratory phenomena now happening in our own country, as described by University of the Philippines professor Randy David in “The tragedy of the rural poor,†gives [...]...
|
| |
|
| On De Venecia’s Ouster |
| 2008-02-04 20:00:13 |
As a veteran, ousted House Speaker Jose De Venecia shielded Arroyo in every crisis that hounded her administration. Alas, the erstwhile speaker should have known that his and the President’s was a doomed affair from the start. For as Conrado De Quiros writes, there is no honor among thieves.
I didn’t follow yesterday’s long affair, [...]...
|
| |
|
| The 100 Best Works of Fiction (Updated) |
| 2008-02-03 19:00:06 |
Halfway through Cervantes’ Don Quixote - at last done with its voluminous first part - I’m now putting the book down to read the equally voluminous second part for a later time.
I’ve began reading Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment again, starting where I left it unfinished two years ago. And I also plan to try [...]...
|
| |
|
| First big battle of the 2010 elections |
| 2008-02-02 23:25:48 |
The novelty of the New Year has faded. The first month of 2008 has paved the way for the second. And the wistful state associated with the holidays has now been replaced with frenzied political bickering. This can only grow more turbulent from month to month until 2010.
The plot to oust Speaker Jose de Venecia [...]...
|
| |
|
| The Lure of Power |
| 2008-01-28 16:54:25 |
We are plagued by a corrupt polity which promotes unlawful and/or immoral behavior. Public interest has no practical significance in everyday behavior among the ruling factions. The real problems of our world are no being confronted by those in power. In the guise of public service, they use whatever comes to hand for personal gain. [...]...
|
| |
|
| |
 |
