Fickle in Pink

Showing posts with label Current News and Events. Show all posts

Friday thoughts and bloghops

My thoughts for this week:

"Always behave like a duck — keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath."
– Jacob Braude

Today is a legal holiday here in the Philippines as celebration for Eid ul-Fitr (the Festival of Fast-Breaking or end of Ramadan).

But before the weekend closes, you can out first the ongoing Blogfest 2010. Hurry, it will end on Sept 12,2010! There will lots of prizes at stake!

And maybe visit several bloghops. You'll never know, a great blog is waiting to be discovered, a friend waiting to be found!

Fun Follow Friday

New Friend Friday

Friendly Friday Follow

Friendly Friday

Are you coming to P-Noy's Inauguration tomorrow?

Tomorrow is a work holiday. Are you coming to the concert and street party at Quezon City Memorial Circle to celebrate president-elect Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III's presidential inauguration?

Tomorrow is a global event! According to ABS-CBN News, 110 dignitaries will be coming to show support to the incoming Aquino administration. President Noynoy, also known as P-noy (sounds like "pinoy", means "filipino" in english?) has to live up to his parent's legacy as democracy fighters. And I hope, as we all do, that his administration will elevate the standards of living of the masses and keep up the hope he raised when he presented his campaign platform.

He has a lot of work to do.

Anticlimax

You said we have one week, 2 weeks at the most.

I wanted this time to be for us.

But it's just you. All you.

I'm sorry about what I said yesterday morning. I did not mean to. I just thought that in all of the billion people in this world, at least I could tell someone what I feel and not be judged by it.

You said I disaapointed you.

But I can't think, for the life of me, of any one thing that I did to make the precedent for the accusation you are throwing at me. And I won't apologize for that.

Earth Hour 2010

On March 27, 2010, major cities of the world will turn off their lights for an hour from 08:30 to 09:30 in participation in the Earth Hour. This event originated in 2007 in Sydney, Australia and has swept the world as a global event.

I am inviting everyone to join this activity!

Here's how to be a part of this global phenomenon:

Pledging your support to Earth Hour by signing up here.
Make your own virtual lantern! And invite others, too!
Post a Earth Hour Banners in your own blog /websites/social networks.

Stephen Gately of 'Boyzone' Gone

Who wouldn't remember Boyzone, the very first boyband that captured our hearts?
I have copy of their best hit singles album, By Request.

1. "I Love the Way You Love Me"
2. "No Matter What"
3. "All That I Need"
4. "Baby Can I Hold You"
5. "Picture of You"
6. "Isn't It a Wonder"
7. "A Different Beat"
8. "Words" –
9. "Father and Son"
10. "So Good" –
11. "Coming Home Now"
12. "Key to My Life"
13. "Love Me for a Reason"
14. "When the Going Gets Tough"
15. "You Needed Me"
16. "All the Time in the World"
17. "When You Say Nothing at All"
18. "I'll Never Not Need You"
19. "So They Told Me"

But they have sad news today...

PORT D'ANDRATX, Mallorca — Stephen Gately, a singer with the Irish boy band Boyzone who made headlines when he came out as gay a decade ago, has died while on vacation in Spain, the group said on its Web site. He was 33.

Gately "tragically died" on Saturday while visiting the island of Mallorca, the band said in a brief statement. The cause of death was not immediately clear.

Gerald Kean, a Gately family friend in Ireland, said Sunday the singer died of natural causes, without identifying them.

"There's no foul play involved, and it's not suicide. It's just a tragic accident is what we've been told, and we're happy that that is correct information," Kean said. "There is nothing untoward. It's not drugs, we don't believe. It's not suicide. It's not murder. It's not a fight. That's what we've been told."

Kean said an autopsy was expected to be conducted Tuesday.

Gately and his partner Andrew Cowles, who were wed in a civil union in 2006, were in Mallorca together, the band's statement said.

"At present we don't have too many details," the statement said. Members of the group were expected to arrive at Palma de Mallorca international airport Sunday afternoon.

Spanish police said they were called to a house near Port d'Andratx on the western tip of the island on Saturday afternoon. The cause of death was unknown and there were no signs of violence, a police spokesman said, on condition of anonymity in keeping with police rules. He said there was likely to be an autopsy.
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The house, situated on an exclusive tree-lined seafront street, overlooks a rocky bay reputed to have some of the best sunset views on Spain's favorite holiday island.

By midday Sunday journalists had begun to gather outside the quiet, seaside building with several vacation apartments.

Boyzone members Ronan Keating, Keith Duffy, Mikey Graham and Shane Lynch said they were "completely devastated by the loss of our friend and brother, Stephen."

"We have shared such wonderful times together over the years and were all looking forward to sharing many more. Stephen was a beautiful person in both body and spirit. He lit up our lives and those of the many friends he had all over the world. Our love and sympathy go out to Andrew and Stephen's family. We love you and will miss you forever, 'Steo'," their statement said.

Boyzone was a U.K. hitmaker in the 1990s and announced a comeback tour at the end of last year. Gately also had released several solo singles and appeared in stage musicals, including "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."

He revealed his sexual orientation to a British newspaper in 1999.

Elton John said Sunday that he and his partner, David Furnish, were "stunned by this tragedy."

"Stephen was the kindest, gentlest soul. We send our love and condolences to his partner Andy and to all his friends everywhere," John said in a statement.

Boyzone was one of the biggest acts to come out of Ireland in the 1990s. Former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said Gately's death was "a huge tragedy to Irish entertainment, Irish music and further afield as well."

"Boyzone and Stephen, they've all been part of Irish life and far wider than that, the last 15 years, and so successful, so it's a huge, huge tragedy. It's so sad," Ahern said.

Boyzone sold millions of records and topped the British charts with six No. 1 singles during the 1990s, including "All That I Need" and a cover of the Bee Gees' "Words."

The group was formed in 1993 by impresario Louis Walsh, who placed an ad in the press announcing auditions for Ireland's first boy band. Among the unsuccessful hopefuls was actor Colin Farrell.

______

Associated Press writers Harold Heckle in Madrid and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this story.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/11/stephen-gately-dead-boyzo_n_316795.html

Related sites:

http://www.boyzonetour.com/
Boyzone on Wiki

Tie a Yellow Ribbon for Cory ~ Corazon Aquino, Philippines president, dead at 76

It started when one man dared to come home and was shot as soon as he stepped out of the tarmac.

I was just in elementary grade when the Philippines has shown true democracy for a long time and it's dictator ousted. I remember long protest march and picket in front of our municipal halls. Posters littering the streets, and many actors/ actresses visiting our far-off Albay town speaking in public.

I here also far-off bullet shots in the mountains in the dead of the night, and heard people were killed in the streets.

But then, i heard also great rejoicing in the streets when victory was won.

I remember my mother crying, because she was a great Loyalista.

Maria Corazon "Cory" Cojuangco Aquino (January 25, 1933 – August 1, 2009) was a President of the Philippines and a world-renowned advocate of democracy, peace, women's empowerment, and religious piety. She served as the 11th president of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was the first female president of the Philippines and was Asia's first female president.

A self-proclaimed "plain housewife",^[3] Aquino was married to Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. (1932–1983), a leading figure in the political opposition against the autocratic rule of President Ferdinand Marcos. After her husband was assassinated upon his return from exile in the United States on August 21, 1983, Aquino, who had no prior political experience, became a focal point and unifying force of the opposition against Marcos. She was drafted to run against Marcos in the 1986 snap presidential elections. After Marcos was proclaimed the winner despite widespread reports of electoral fraud, Aquino was installed as President by the peaceful 1986 People Power Revolution. (courtesy of wiki)

Pahiyas festival

A festival of colors held every 15th of May at Lucban, Quezon, Philippines! Houses as festooned with colorful "kipings" made of very, very thin rice dough in various colors. This is the local counterpart of the Spanish tacos.

The San Isidro or Pahiyas Festival is incomplete without the kiping as decoration - a leaf-shaped wafers made of rice (similar to tacos of Spain) in brilliant colors.
The making of kiping is time-consuming and involves many steps. It begins with the selection of fresh leaves as molds. The kinds of leaves include kabal, kape, talisay (umbrella tree), kakaw (cocoa), antipolo and banana (saba).
These leaves should be:

mature so that they can be used three times or more times
same sizes
not render any unusual taste

To make the fresh leaves of uniform size, a pair of scissors is used to cut off the excess width of a leaf. Once the leaves of the same variety have been selected, these are wiped clean to avoid unnecessary discoloration or accumulation of dirt in the production of kiping.

The selection of rice and the preparation of rice paste are important steps. Rice should be laon (should have been stocked for a year) to prevent unnecessary cracking of the rice wafer. Experience dictates that C-64 variety can be used for as long as the palay has been stocked for a year.

The preparation of the rice paste includes

soaking of the rice for two hours before taking it to the grinding station
grinding of the rice with water just a little over the volume of rice
fixing the ground rice with three packets of food color and ½ teaspoon of rock salt (for every ganta of rice)
To prevent cracks from the batch of kiping being made, people believed that in mixing the paste, silence should be observed, nobody should talk or ask questions. Then the paste will be spread on individual leaves. Depending on the size of the improvised steamer (usually it is made of bamboo slats that sit on a big frying pan with boiling water, decaying banana suckers serving to contain the steam and a matching lid) which sometimes can hold as many as three to four leaves, steaming of the leaves covered with paste lasts 30 minutes.

After steaming, the following steps are executed:

Dry the steamed kiping under the shade until ready for peeling off.
Peel off the kiping individually.
Place kiping one on top of the other.
Place weight on top to compress for ½ day.
separate the kiping one by one.
Dry the kiping one on top of the other.
Place weight on top to compress for ½ day.
Store the kiping (hang them or place in a clean box

(courtesy of pahiyasfestival.com)

photos borrowed from my friend Tessa who went there this year!

Goodbye, Michael!

The greatest pop singer of all time is finally gone. CNN ( read more here) has confirmed that he died at age 50 yesterday, Thursday. According to reports, he collapsed at his rented home in west LA.

Jackson has sold more than 750 million albums and won 13 Grammys, but has not staged a major tour since 1997 or released an album of new material since 2001. His last live performance in Britain was at the 2006 World Music Awards, when he managed just a few lines of "We Are the World" before leaving the stage.

His albums are among the world's best-selling records: Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991) and HIStory (1995).

He appeared in public infrequently since being acquitted of child molestation in California in 2005, and he has struggled to pay his debts. Last year, he was forced to give up the deed to Neverland, his 2,500-acre ranch and miniature amusement park in California.

I was always amazed how he does the moonwalk, and how his face changed over the years.

There are so many eccentric people on this earth, but Michael's one of the most public. Jackson's skin was a medium-brown color for the entire duration of his youth, but starting in the early 1980s, his skin gradually grew paler. This change gained widespread media coverage, including rumors that Jackson was bleaching his skin.In the mid-1980s, Jackson was diagnosed with vitiligo and lupus; the latter was in remission in Jackson's case, and both illnesses made him sensitive to sunlight. The treatments he uses for his condition further lighten his skin tone, and, with the application of pancake makeup to even out blotches, he could appear very pale. The structure of his face changed as well; several surgeons have speculated that Jackson had undergone multiple nasal surgeries, a forehead lift, thinned lips and a cheekbone surgery.Changes to his face were, in part, due to periods of significant weight loss.Jackson lost weight in the early 1980s because of a change in diet and a desire for "a dancer's body"..Witnesses reported that Jackson was often dizzy and speculated that he was suffering from anorexia nervosa; periods of weight loss would become a recurring problem for the singer later in life. Some medical professionals have publicly stated their belief that the singer had body dysmorphic disorder, a psychological condition whereby the sufferer has no concept of how they are perceived by others.

He wasn't just a part of the pop culture, he was the pop culture.

His famous quotes:

"Everyone who knows me will know the truth which is that my children come first in my life and that I would never harm any child."

~After British TV documentary by Martin Bashir Living With Michael Jackson was shown on February 3, 2003

"Why can't you share your bed? That's the most loving thing to do, to share your bed with someone. You say, 'You can have my bed if you want it. Sleep in it. I'll sleep on the floor. It's yours.' I always give the beds to the company."

~Admitting he shared his bed with children, in British TV documentary by Martin Bashir, February 2003

"I love E. T. 'cos it reminds me of me. Someone from another world coming down and you becoming friends with them and this person is, like, 800 years old and he's filling you with all kinds of wisdom and he can teach you to fly. That whole fantasy thing which I think is great. I mean, who don't wanna fly?"

~Interview in Smash Hits, January 20, 1983 - Jackson collaborated with E. T. director Steven Spielberg on the E. T. Storybook album and also narrated it

My father was a management genius. But what I really wanted was a dad.

~Speech at Oxford Union, on his children's Bill of Rights

"If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with."

Pacman vs Hiitman on May 2,2009

I think this will be the greatest fight yet in the world of boxing. I'm not much of a boxing fan, but I always make it a point to watch Manny Pacquiao fight on the ring. He is the very symbol of HOPE amidst the economic turbulence among Filipinos. He is a Cinderella, the kind of rags-to-riches life story that puts me in awe. He sold cigarettes in the streets when he was a boy and now after a 14-year career, he one of the richest men in this country. Politicians are fighting to share the limelight with this superhero and crime rates lower when Manny fights.

So my hats to you, Manny!

see related links:
http://www.mannypacquiao.ph/

Chip Racist Remark

Forgive the pun.
No matter how I try to make this blog as apolitical as possible, there are still certain issues that I can't help but take up here. Like Mr. Tsao Chip's article in HK Magazine, calling Philippines a "nation of servants" (read complete article here) and that was a very hard and arrogant statement.

Racism at it's best.

People could be so irresponsible sometimes despite their worldly experiences and that pettiness could still flourish even among the educated. Despite Mr. Tsao's public apology to the Philippine government earlier this week, hundreds of Filipinos still protested Sunday in HK's Central financial district and carried signs that said, "No Chip shots at Filipinos" and "We are workers, not slaves."

But where will this Filipino indignation go? We protested because Mr. Tsao has offended our sensibilities. We march on the streets to show our slight, but where do our actions take us? We can not walk out of Hong Kong, or any other country for that matter, even when Mr Tsao's remarks has hurt us. There will always be future domestic helpers, caregivers , OCW's all over the world.

See related articles:

Filipinos protest against article in ‘HK Magazine’

Earth Hour

Did you join the Earth Hour last March 28, 2009?