Celebrate Poetry Day

World Poetry Day is on 21 March, and was declared by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999. The purpose of the day is to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world and, as the UNESCO session declaring the day says, to "give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional and international poetry movements." It was generally celebrated in October, sometimes on the 5th, but in the latter part of...

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Cook Put Body Hair in Police Sandwich

Police said a cook put a body hair in the bagel sandwich of a police officer who had given him tickets in the past. The cook was arrested Feb. 21 in the kitchen of Good Foods to Go in Evesham. The police officer ticketed the cook in March 2009 when he failed to pull over for a traffic violation. The cook spent four hours in jail before his wife bailed him out, and was fired from his job. The Courier-Post of Cherry Hill reports police asked them not to report the incident for fear of...

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45 Years Overdue Book Returned in UK

 It's common to return a library book late — but not by half a century. Staff at a British library say they were surprised and puzzled when they received a book that was 45 years overdue through their mailbox. Alison Lawrie, the principal assistant at Dinnington Library, near northern England's Sheffield, says the Penguin first edition copy of "Quartermass and the Pit" by Nigel Kneale was due back on Oct. 15, 1965. She says the borrower remains a mystery because the library records...

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Brillante's Lola Grandslam Triumph

“Lola” won three awards in the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival held in Spain Saturday (Madrid time). It won the Lady Harmiguada de Oro or Grand Prize, Best Cinematography for Odyssey Flores and Best Actress for lead stars Anita Linda and Rustica Carpio. In 2006, Auraeus Solito’s “Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros” won the top prize in the Gran Canaria fest. In 2008, Mendoza won the Signis Award in the Gran Canaria fest for “Foster Child.” “Lola” earlier won the...

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Biazon Protest of Banning in Villar's Mall

The orange camp apparently sees red in the color yellow. Sen. Rodolfo Biazon found out Saturday that the color yellow of his presidential candidate, Liberal Party standard-bearer Sen. Benigno "Noynoy’’ Aquino was not welcome in a mall owned by Nacionalista Party standard-bearer Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. in his hometown of Muntinlupa City. An irked Biazon said that personnel of Metropolis, a mall owned by Villar, had not only taken down a yellow streamer of Aquino which his camp had put up...

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Boyscout Coverup on Sex Abuse

The Boy Scouts of America has long kept an extensive archive of secret documents that chronicle the sexual abuse of young boys by Scout leaders over the years. The "perversion files," a nickname the Boy Scouts are said to have used for the documents, have rarely been seen by the public, but that could all change in the coming weeks in an Oregon courtroom. The lawyer for a man who was molested in the 1980s by a Scout leader has obtained about 1,000 Boy Scouts sex files and is expected to...

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Killings Highlights Indonesian Child Abuse

 When a seemingly kind street vendor confessed to the sexual abuse and murders of 14 boys, it was a story that was both shocking--and familiar. Indonesians drew parallels to another Jakarta man, Robot Gedek, who died of a heart attack in 2007 while on death row for raping and killing 12 boys in the mid-1990s. In both cases, most of the victims were homeless. The serial killings highlight what activists say is a widespread and largely ignored problem: the rampant sex abuse of poor...

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Another Colombian Journalist Killed

 The killing of a veteran radio reporter by a motorcycle gunman in a northwestern state capital reignited concerns yesterday about the safety of journalists in Colombia. Clodomiro Castilla, a reporter and announcer at La Voz de Monteria radio, was gunned down on his front porch Friday night, said Jaime Cuervo, a judicial investigator in Cordoba state. Castilla, a 50-year-old father of four, had reported on far-right drug-funded militias known as paramilitaries and their friendly...

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ABC 5's New Beginning

 Having spent the best times of our life with the pre-martial law ABC-Channel 5 owned by the Roces media moguls in the ‘70s, we had always hoped that the padlocked studios in Pasong Tamo would one day re-open. EDSA 1 came and went, the Marcoses were driven into exile, all other television networks had reopened, but Channel 5 remained silent and inactive. When it finally reopened, it was no longer the Roceses running it; it was no longer in Pasong Tamo but in a Makati office and Novaliches...

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China Suffer Sandstorm

 Tons of sand turned Beijing's sky orange as the strongest sandstorm this year hit northern China, a gritty reminder that the country's expanding deserts have led to a sharp increase in the storms. The sky glowed yesterday and a thin dusting of sand covered Beijing, causing workers and tourists to muffle their faces in vast Tiananmen Square. The city's weather bureau gave air quality a rare hazardous ranking. Air quality is "very bad for the health," China's national weather...

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