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UN committee to RP: Pass reproductive health bill
By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQUIRER.net First Posted 11:40:00 10/30/2009MANILA, Philippines – Voicing “serious” concern over inadequate reproductive health services and information, low rate of contraceptive use and difficulties in access to artificial methods that contribute to teen pregnancies and high maternal death, a United Nations panel urged the government to pass the Reproductive Health (RH) bill.
A report released this October containing the concluding observations on the Philippines of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that the government should “adopt as a matter or urgency the Reproductive Health bill awaiting approval by Congress and ensure that the bill reflect the rights of children and adolescents as enshrined in the Convention [Convention on the Rights of the Child].”
The recommendations came from the combined 3rd and 4th reports of the Philippines to the UN submitted early this year on its compliance to the Convention of the Rights of the Child, where the country is a signatory. A parallel report was submitted by the NGO Coalition made up of 15 organizations dealing with children’s concerns.
“The Committee remains seriously concerned at the inadequate reproductive health services and information, the low rates of contraceptive use [36 percent of women relied on modern family planning methods in 2006] and the difficulties in obtaining access to artificial methods of contraception, which contribute to the high rates of teenage pregnancies and maternal deaths,” the report said.
While it welcomes the passage of the Magna Carta of Women, the international body said that it remained concerned “over the lack of effective measures to promote the reproductive rights of women and girls and that particular beliefs and religious values are preventing their fulfillment.”
The RH bill remained pending for years in the House of Representatives partly due to the resistance of several Church groups. Two panels composed of congressmen were created in the chamber to debate on the bill in plenary when session resumes on November 9.
The bill pushes for, among others, the use of both artificial and natural means of family planning as a way to curb the ballooning population and to safeguard the health of mothers and children.
According to the UN report, the government has a lot to do to ensure access to reproductive health counseling and provide all adolescents with accurate and objective information and culturally sensitive services in order to prevent teenage pregnancies, including providing access to variety of contraceptives and improving knowledge and conscience on family planning.
It urged the government to strengthen formal and informal sex education for girls and boys with focus on the prevention of early pregnancies. It also called for the strengthening of HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns.
The committee said it remained concerned at the high infant and maternal mortality rates in the country even as it took note that the incidence has declined since 1990 (from 43 in 1990 to 23 per 1,000 live births in 2007-infant mortality rate and from 172 in 1997 to 162 per 100,000 live births in 2005-maternal mortality rates).
The UN said the government should “continue to take all necessary measures to lower infant, under-five and maternal mortality rates.”
Doctor Yvonette Serrano Duque, health specialist of the Children in Ministry of World Vision, one of the 15 members of the NGO Coalition, said the UN committee report should prod the government to act on the recommendations.
Serrano Duque said her group supported the RH bill and has programs advocating support for mothers from the pregnancy stage until the baby would be delivered.
“They always say that the children are the hope of the fatherland. This should be reason enough to give them attention, focus on providing them good nutrition to develop their full potential,” she said in a phone interview.
the gentle giant is dead, so is chiz escudero’s run for president
ironic that on the day PDI puts chiz escudero bolting NPC, on top of the headline is a picture of a dead "gentle giant", a whale shark. it very well could have described the gentle presidentiable's presidential bid as being dead in the water.
we like chiz escudero. we particularly like to hear him speak. he is the most eloquent of all the presidentiables specially in pilipino. you just have to bear and grin the monotone delivery and statue like poker face. but once you get past that this man makes a lot of sense. he also has his principles and priorities in the right place.
we are saddened that the NPC has abandoned chiz or that chiz abandoned the NPC. we think, as we have previously asked in this blog, chiz escudero’s run for the president is dead in the water with the most recent developments.
dead as it may be, we like to give him two options for a hail mary pass. one is a miracle, the other redemption.
read in full here: the 2 hail mary pass options for chiz escudero
we had 2 questions in our october 25 post in this blog (click to read) – will chiz escudero be orphaned? is his presidential bid dead in the water?.
the first question has been answered – he is now orphaned. on the second question, yes we think escudero’s run for the presidency is dead in the water.
read in full here: questions on chiz escudero answered. he is orphaned, leaves his political party NPC. is his presidential run dead in the water?
amielsfootprints.wordpress photos used in abs-cbn’s TV Patrol World news braodcast – without permission
we were shocked to see photos we posted at our amiel’s footprints photoblog (click here to view: http://amielsfootprints.wordpress.com/) in tonight’s edition of TV Patrol World news program. we were shocked because we did know that abs-cbn and tv patrol will use them.
while they did not formally ask for permission to use them, they did declare on the photos used at the upper right hand corner the words “courtesy of amielsfootprints.wordpress.com”. the notation was prominent and could be read clearly so i guess that is okay.
we like to thank abs-cbn and tv patrol world for using them and for clearly identifying the source of the photos.
mar roxas dominates SWS VP poll – aquino-roxas tandem formidable, weakens gilbert teodoro
mar roxas getting a 40% in the 3rd qtr VP poll puts him at a dominant leadership position just like his partner noynoy aquino. this puts their tandem at a very steep leadership position.
it also shows roxas has recovered and rebuilt his image coming from the “putang-ina” incident. what redeemed him was his words and behavior when noynoy spent a few weeks figuring out if he will run for president or not. roxas withdrawing his own bid for the presidency and the way he did it was excellent statesmanship.
manny villar’s secret marketing strategy : willie revillame
when this first started, pundits floated the idea that it will be villar-revillame tandem in the 2010 elections. revillame was holding concerts sponsored by villar in a few cities. through all that, revillame and villar were saying no such thing, it is just they are “friends” and would just like to do things together.
in the last few days, talk has surfaced that it might me manny villar and drama queen loren legarda. and just in the last two days, villar has said he already has a VP running mate and will announce it soon.
nobody knows who this partner is, it could very well be willie revillame or drama queen loren legarda.
whatever it is that villar has decided on, we think partnering with revillame is a very good marketing strategy for villar. revillame is one of the more popular tv hosts in the country (the others being kris aquino and vic sotto). his wowowee tv show for real or imagined has strong appeal among the masses. the tv show has a live audience from the masses and they participate in easy to win contests with many from the live and tv audience mistakenly think the money revillame gives away during the show comes from him. of course the money he gives away in the show are not his, they come from the sponsors but for some reason people think it comes from him.
read in full here: http://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/the-marketing-strategy-called-manny-villar-and-willie-revillame/
is chiz escudero’s presidential bid dead in the water?
aside from being irritated no end to drama queen loren legarda being wishy-washy on her 2010 plans and her telenovela dramatics on
running for higher office, the other part that has caught us is this — will chiz escudero end up being orphaned and without a political party when he runs for president? or is he?
for the longest time, we knew escudero will run for president. he had not said it directly but for many months, decades even, escudero acted and spoke like a presidential candidate. escudero was into it very early just like mar roxas was.
one more reason to support the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill 5043 – environmental woes blamed on huge philippine population
how many times have we heard philippine government officials say “we do not have the budget” to explain its inability to provide for the population, both basic, medium term to critical services? we must have heard that thousands of times over many years across all types of services and problems.
the country is poor. it has scant resources. that is not being helped by the fact that the country’s population growth has been on a high clip, too fast versus the amount of funds the country can generate to provide for services.
that is related to the point of this article. lets face it – you just can’t keep placing more and more people on the same piece of land and expect nothing bad or nothing wrong will happen. the land can take only so much. couple that with scant resources and this is what we get.
read more on RH Bill 5043 here: http://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/reproductive-health-bill-5043/
Environmental woes blamed on RP’s huge population
By Michelle Remo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:33:00 10/24/2009MANILA, Philippines — An economist from the University of the Philippines has tagged the country’s robustly growing population as one of the factors that worsen environment-related problems.
Ernesto Pernia, former chief economist for the Philippines at the Asian Development Bank, said the environment problems that recently led to hundreds of casualties would not have been as worse had the country’s population been contained.
“Nobody has mentioned the population issue as one of the factors contributing to the country’s environmental problems. The capacity of the country’s ecology is already stretched to the limit,” Pernia told the Inquirer in an interview.
He said the country’s huge population, estimated at around 92 million, was one reason for overcrowding in the urban areas. In turn, overcrowding had lead to difficulty in managing wastes.
“The consequence of unabated migration to urban areas is haphazard human settlement. Too many people are staying in areas that should not be a place for settlement, like riverbanks, bridge waterways, and esteros (urban waterways)” Pernia said.
Climate change, caused by carbon emissions mostly from industrialized nations, was considered a major culprit for the heavy rains that led to hundreds of deaths in Metro Manila and northern provinces. However, Pernia said, factors that were within the Philippines’ control also worsened the impact of the heavy rains and the massive flooding they caused.
Pernia said population growth, together with weak urban planning, degradation of forests, poor disaster-preparedness and weather forecasting systems, made the environmental problem worse.
The country’s population growth rate is currently estimated at 2.1 percent, faster than the latest economic growth recorded at 1.5 percent in the first half of the year.
Pernia said that with the country’s population already nearing 100 million, a zero population growth rate would be ideal.
According to Pernia, the government has been trumpeting the country’s economic growth and its capacity to avoid recession but what should be of graver concern is the declining per capita income growth.
Per capita income is the total income of the economy, usually measured in terms of gross domestic product [GDP], divided by the country’s population. It basically measures the share of each individual to the country’s income.
The fact that population growth was already faster than the GDP growth meant that per capital growth had already been declining, Pernia said. This placed the Philippines worse off than countries who had fallen into recession, but whose population growth was slower than the decline in their GDPs.
hayden kho charged in court for secretly filming sex act with katrina halili
Dr. Hayden Kho
the wheels are rolling on this one. the key here is to prove that halili did not know their sex acts were being filmed. the moment that is proven halili knew about it or there was consent, then the whole thing becomes just one of the sex acts that two consenting adults do.
Cosmetic doctor charged for secretly filming sex videos
By Dona Pazzibugan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:14:00 10/22/2009MANILA, Philippines–Doctor-turned-show business personality Hayden Kho is now facing criminal charges in the Pasig Regional Trial Court in connection with a sex video scandal involving him, actress Katrina Halili and other women whom he secretly filmed during their trysts.
Government prosecutors charged Kho Thursday with violation of Republic Act 9262, or the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act of 2004, for secretly videotaping his tryst with Halili and later causing her “mental distress and anguish” when the video came out in public.
upgrading to windows 7 is upgrading the windows and microsoft brands
the tech world and tech users should be giddy today – microsoft’s windows 7 is finally out in the market. or at least that is what microsoft should be hoping for. giddy is a feeling the tech world and tech users did not feel with microsoft’s most recent launch with microsoft vista. it was more about
hatred, anger and disappointment. vista was a dismal product failure for microsoft. it was so bad that the venerable microsoft and windows brands were tarnished. with windows 7, microsoft aims to re-build both brands.
aside from the above, windows 7’s goals for itself is to convert the multitude of windows xp users, esteimated at around 70% of all windows users. xp users did not budge with most of them rejecting to move to vista wholesale due to the long list of problems and angry words said on vista. it will be a tough sell for microsoft.
the move to vista from xp is not easy. tech articles have said it will not be a walk in the park, it will need a complete install plus there might be the problem of the computer not being able to take windows 7. what they are saying is that there will be xp users will not be able to upgrade to windows 7 unless they buy new computers.
this article is also saying if you are a vista user, it might not be worth moving to windows 7 as the improvement is only incremental.
a new product, windows 7 trying to reseurrect a much maligned and failed product in vista, this whole process is one for matketing 101. we will be watching.
Five Reasons to Upgrade to Windows 7
Today is the day. The curtain has been raised and the confetti has fallen. Windows 7 is here. After the problems with the launch of Windows Vista– both real and perceived– many users are cautious about jumping on Windows 7 too quickly.
Windows 7 offers little more than incremental improvements and cosmetic enhancements over Windows Vista, and Windows Vista users may be wise to simply hold off until its time for a new PC. But the majority of users are still using Windows XP and even Vista users have reason to embrace Windows 7. Let’s look at 5 reasons why you should make the switch to Windows 7 today.
1. Vista haters. Whether you are one of the nearly 19 percent of consumers who are actually running Windows Vista and don’t like it, or part of the larger crowd of those who hate Windows Vista purely based on anecdotal stories and ‘I’m a Mac’ ads from Apple, Windows 7 is not Windows Vista.
The two most common complaints about Windows Vista are poor device driver support and annoyance over the UAC (user account control) pop-up alerts. Windows 7 has vastly superior device support, and Microsoft has modified the functionality of UAC to provide the user with more control over the alert prompts.
2. XP diehards. Security is arguably the best reason for a Windows XP user to make the switch. A lot has changed since the Clinton-era. Windows 7 has UAC, ASLR (address space layout randomization), and DEP (data execution prevention) in addition to improved operating system kernel protection. Certain versions of Windows 7 also include BitLocker and BitLocker-to-Go encryption.
There are also a number of improvements in the user interface that make it simpler and more intuitive to work with the operating system. The Windows Action Center, improved data backup, Blu-ray disc support, and jump lists stand out as good reasons to make the switch.
vote pinoy efren penaflorida as CNN Hero
vote for efren penaflorida as CNN Hero
CAVITE CITY, Philippines (CNN) — At 16, Rhandolf Fajardo reflects on his former life as a gang member.
Efren Peñaflorida’s Dynamic Teen Company offers Filipino youth an alternative to gangs through education.
“My gang mates were the most influential thing in my life,” says Fajardo, who joined a gang when he was in sixth grade. “We were pressured to join.”He’s not alone. In the Philippines, teenage membership in urban gangs has surged to an estimated 130,000 in the past 10 years, according to the Preda Foundation, a local human rights charity.
“I thought I’d get stuck in that situation and that my life would never improve,” recalls Fajardo. “I would probably be in jail right now, most likely a drug addict — if I hadn’t met Efren.”
Efren Peñaflorida, 28, also was bullied by gangs in high school. Today, he offers Filipino youth an alternative to gang membership through education. Vote now for the CNN Hero of the Year
“Gang members are groomed in the slums as early as 9 years old,” says Peñaflorida. “They are all victims of poverty.”
For the past 12 years, Peñaflorida and his team of teen volunteers have taught basic reading and writing to children living on the streets. Their main tool: A pushcart classroom.
Stocked with books, pens, tables and chairs, his Dynamic Teen Company recreates a school setting in unconventional locations such as the cemetery and municipal trash dump.
Peñaflorida knows firsthand the adversity faced by these children. Born into a poor family, he lived in a shanty near the city dump site. But he says he refused to allow his circumstances to define his future.
“Instead of being discouraged, I promised myself that I would pursue education,” he recalls. “I will strive hard; I will do my best.”
In high school, Peñaflorida faced a new set of challenges. Gang activity was rampant; they terrorized the student body, vandalized the school and inducted members by forcing them to rape young girls, he says.
“I felt the social discrimination. I was afraid to walk down the street.”
Peñaflorida remembers standing up to a gang leader, refusing to join his gang. That confrontation proved fateful. At 16, he and his friends “got the idea to divert teenagers like us to be productive,” he says.
He created the Dynamic Teen Company to offer his classmates an outlet to lift up themselves and their community. For Peñaflorida, that meant returning to the slums of his childhood to give kids the education he felt they deserved.
“They need education to be successful in life. It’s just giving them what others gave to me,” he says.
Today, children ranging from ages 2 to 14 flock to the pushcart every Saturday to learn reading, writing, arithmetic and English from Peñaflorida and his trained teen volunteers.
read in full here: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/03/05/heroes.efren.penaflorida/index.html
to vote, click here: http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes/archive09/efran.penaflorida.html
2009 (21st) Philippine Advertising Congress moved to Subic, Baguio junked
moving the november ad congress out of baguio and moving it to subic instead is a very wise move.
we think it will benefit baguio and its residents as it will allow them to totally focus on rebuilding their city. having the thousands of ad people in baguio at this time will only divide their attention and efforts, plus the ad congress will add strain and pressure on an already weakened infrastructure.
it would also be much better for congress participants as they will no longer have to worry about what they do during the congress. just driving to baguio for the congress will be extremely difficult on its own, staying in the city in the way that baguio is will be no different.
we wish baguio well and we look forward to subic.
21st Ad Congress moved to Subic
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:44:00 10/17/2009MANILA, Philippines — The trail of destruction across northern Luzon left by Tropical Storms “Ondoy” (international codename: Ketsana) and “Pepeng” (Parma) has forced the Advertising Board of the Philippines (AdBoard) to hold the 21st Philippine Advertising Congress (PAC) closer to Metro Manila instead of Baguio as originally planned.
“It is with reluctance that we withdraw from Baguio, as the city has been most supportive and generous to the 21st PAC from the planning stages right until this moment when preparations are near completion,” the PAC said on its website.
Instead, the ad congress scheduled on Nov. 18-21 will take place in Subic.
“We have never doubted Baguio’s resilience nor its readiness to accommodate the 21st PAC in spite of the disaster. But the further strain thousands of delegates and participants would subject the already weakened northern Luzon infrastructure would put their safety and that of the local people’s at risk,” the PAC said.
Despite the short notice and various requirements, Subic authorities have readily agreed to host the 21st PAC.
Dedicated to victims
The sufferings of the victims of Ondoy and Pepeng are not lost on the advertising industry.
“The 21st PAC is the best time for the industry to come together and reflect on ways to be of service to the typhoons’ victims and to respond to the call of nation rebuilding. Our economy must not come to a standstill. We must help drive the local economy back on its feet,” the PAC said.
“We dedicate the 21st PAC to the victims of the northern Luzon calamity. Part of our proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross for rehabilitation efforts in northern Luzon. This ad congress has heart and a cause. We enjoin all members of the industry to be an active part of this endeavor,” it added.
PUFF! the crazy japanese upskirt iphone/touch app
we like japanese humor – they are well, humorous! we can’t have enough of all of those inventive, crazy and entertaining japanese tv shows that make the contestants do some ridiculous but awesome stuff on tv.
then there is their obsession with pretty young women doing all sorts of things in their videos and mangga. mangga is full of near naked and naked voluptuous women with impossible curves, kilometer long legs and cup xxx breasts that seem to want to spill out that are only possible in drawings.
we think this iphone/touch app is a combination of both. in this app, you blow into your iphone and the skirt of the girl in the picture goes into an upskirt. remember marlyn monroe’s classic upskirt? just have an ipod touch? using your fingers will do.
its a very imaginative app, just don’t show it to the ladies. i think this can be the beginning of similar apps for the iphone. can’t wait to see more.
noynoy aquino is front-runner at 60% in SWS September 2009 presidentiables poll
ateneo blue eagles win, UAAP back-to-back champions, see you at the bonfire on saturday!
we had no doubt the ateneo blue eagles will win back-to-back championships in the UAAP. it is a very disciplined team with fully set plays behind solid coaching and the league’s deepest bench. in many ways this year’s team is a dream team of any coach. it seem to have a limitless number of players that the coach can call to do a job or fill in a missing one.
that showed in every game they played. it showed clearly during the championship games, specially in the last one. ateneo is know to come in strong at the start, has the ability to maintain it and has the confidence and poise to handle problems.
we congratulate the ateneo blue eagles. the bonfire is on saturday, see you there.
two in a row for the blue eagles
the blue eaglets also twice in a row champions
Eagles complete back-to-back title romp
MANILA, Philippines – Defense and deadly focus sparked a second straight title for the Blue Eagles that completed a second consecutive championship double for Ateneo in the UAAP basketball tournament at the Araneta Coliseum.
Aggressive on both ends of the court, the Blue Eagles pulled away in the second quarter and roared to a 71-58 rout of the University of the East Warriors in the finale of the best-of-three title series before a 19,000-strong crowd.
Rabeh Al-Hussaini, who scattered 28 points in Ateneo’s 78-71 Game 1 win, came out dominating Game 3 with 21 points and 14 rebounds to lead this batch of Blue Eagles in replicating Ateneo’s first back-to-back title romp in 1987 and 1988.
“We came out hungry right from the very start, we were on attack mode right from the very start,” said coach Norman Black.
The Eagles, blasted by the Warriors to smithereens in Game 2, 88-68, returned the compliment this time with Jai Reyes and Ryan Buenafe joining forces with Al-Hussaini in Ateneo’s second-half binge.
“The focus was much better,” said Black after the Eagles bagged their fifth overall crown since joining the league in 1978. “We played defense, something we didn’t do in Game 2.”
ondoy & pepeng disaster should be top 2010 election issue
we think what happened to the country with ondoy and pepeng should be made an election issue in 2010. it should cover the following points:
- what caused the floods, damage and death – infrastructure; housing and urban planning; flood management; lakes & dams, esteros, drainage, rivers and floodwater flow
- government response to disasters – role of national government vis-a-vis local governments
- pag-asa’s capabilities and response
- early warning system
- equipment and personnel – requirements and response
this is more than just political will. the fact is what happened during ondoy and pepeng WILL HAPPEN again. this is not an isolated event. before the next one, let us get ourselves ready and fix the incompetencies.
joe “the extortionist” halderman to appear in America’s Dumbest Criminals TV Show, david letterman to produce show
that would probably be the biggest hit in american tv if that happens. it’s so out of this world that, but then again. it is america it might actually happen. letterman has the chutzpah to do it – he has made fun of everything , including the worst things that have happened to him before, why not this one?
joe the extortionist drove me crazy! what the hell was he thinking? doesn’t he watch the Late Show? he does not seem to have any idea on the character of david letterman. you simply can’t pull something like that on letterman. letterman in his shows has gone out of a limb, make that two limbs, add two hands to get a laugh. he even gave his heart for crying out loud! he is fearless. someone fearless is someone you cannot blackmail even for $1.
strike one for Dumbest Criminal.
joe the extortionist
last night when i saw letterman in his show relating his “little story”, i was not sure if i was to believe him when he said the threat was if he did not pay up the million $s, joe the extortionist will write a script and turn it to a movie or something. letterman said a book was involved too and he went into this spin about what comes first – the book then the movie, or vice versa or at the same time.
letterman sounded funny on that bit. i didn’t know if he was joking or if joe the extortionist actually said that. yes it was very creative of joe the extortionist but i found it too elaborate for a blackmailer to do. these days you have the media, the tabloids and yes the internet as media. they are all easy to access and the impact could be immediate and wide beyond any one’s imagination. but write a book then a screenplay? that takes too long and takes too much effort. what about writer’s block???? why make a simple extortion scheme so complicated?
based on the details of the transaction, apparently it was not a joke. joe the extortionist actually said those things to letterman.
strike two for dumbest criminal.
they also had 3 meetings. letterman in his show said joe the extortionist met with his lawyer on the last two occasions, to ask what he wanted and to deliver the $2 Million check.
i have seen a lot of crime movies like anyone else – most blackmailers ask the victim not to involve the police or anyone else in the transactions. a lawyer is not exactly the police but it is the closest person to one. it seemed obvious to me that once a lawyer starts meeting up with a criminal, the law cannot be far behind and is the next step.
letterman’s lawyer apparently taped the last two meetings. aren’t blackmailers supposed to make sure the person he is blackmailing or the negotiator in behalf of the victim is not wearing a wire? that is what they do in movies all the time.
joe the extortionist who works for a tv show, a veteran no less does not seem to watch a lot of movies and that might explain why he did those dumb things. and maybe he does not watch tv at all. there are many crime and detective dramas in american tv, he could have not missed those nust-do tricks for blackmailers.
that is strike 3 for dumbest criminal! and he is out.
woman david letterman had affair with identified, also a live in partner of the blackmailer
we have seen her in the “Late Show”, she has done skits and interviews. i remember her to be the intern that letterman would call from time to 
time to do skits with. she then progressed to doing interviews. she wasn’t a special gag in the show, but she was special to david letterman.
joe the extortionist
she is stephanie birkitt, supoosedly an ex-assistant of letterman in his show. the interesting part is that she was or is the live-in partner of the man who tried to blackmail david letterman, a joe halderman who is a producer at the tv show 48 hours.
i couldn’t wait to watch the show when the news broke out in the internet about the blackmail attempt on letterman. letterman was a master in what he did. it was a bit bizarre to me – the audience at the time that letterman was telling his “little story” was finding funny things in what letterman was saying. the audience of course saw the whole thing in real time while i was seeing it after it happened. i knew it was real and i knew how it will end.
this will not be the only bizarre thing that will happen on this incident. i am sure there will be a lot more. letterman’s life cannot be that simple. us mortals have affairs, but letterman a tv star, an icon and a master funny man cannot have simple affairs. they need to be grand and yes hopefully funny.
actually, i am sure it will be funny. i have enjoyed letterman for years. no reason i won’t feel the same way in the coming weeks or months. just hope that letterman will come out of this alive and well, same thing with all the other people involved – his wife, his son, the women had sex with and his staff.
its a great show, this is nothing at all.
Who is Robert Joe Halderman?
You are about to hear a great deal about this man in the next few hours — the man police and now, CBS — have identified as the Letterman extortionist. But here’s what I have learned so far.
Until Thursday, he was a well-regarded veteran producer at “48 Hours” whose credits include work on the Winter Olympics, and producer or segment producer for a number of CBS and Showtime documentaries, including 2006’s very well-reviewed “Three Days in September.”
Here is a link to the trailer.
He lives in Norwalk — an old seaport and factory town on Connecticut’s 95 — off the busy Boston Post Road. He has also worked for CBS for a number of years in a job that demands an unusual degree of trust from the employer — as a reporter on sensitive and difficult subjects, both for the news mag and for independent documentaries.
And here’s more: Halderman has been a CBS News producer for decades, and worked on the old morning show, later “Evening News with Dan Rather,” and was shipped to London where he reported on various hotspots from around the world. He later came back stateside; was married; now divorced.
advice from an experienced flood victim
from an experienced flood victim
By Gwendolyn SoUnbeknownst to many, my family and I are experts when it comes to flooding. By this I mean that for almost 10 years when we lived in a low part of Sto. Domingo Street in Quezon City , we experienced flooding INSIDE the house at least once a year and if I remember correctly, sometimes it was twice or even thrice a year.
The first time it happened we were in shock, but as it happened more and more it became routine. Here are some nuggets of wisdom that may help:
1. I learned that once the water reaches knee level, the gates can’t be opened anymore because of the water pressure. We thought we still had time to take the cars out but realized we were trapped. That time our cars submerged. Make sure you know which area near your residence is considered higher ground and take your cars there EARLY.
2. Do not despair so much if your cars submerge. They can be fixed. It’s expensive and takes a long time for the smell to go away, but it’s not the end of the world. After the flood, just let the car dry. We were still able to use our Hi-Ace and Mitsubishi Lancer despite their having been half submerged in floodwaters.
3. I learned that heavy stuff, like the ref and shelves, FLOAT. So every year from then on, we would TIE DOWN heavy appliances like the ref (too heavy to carry upstairs but in latter years we did lug it all the way up to the 2nd floor), the big shelves with wedding souvenirs and knick knacks and my dad’s collection of wine. How did we do that? Tie them to the windows.
4. Adrenalin will give you superpowers once you decide you’re not afraid of a little water and start saving what you can. In my case, it was my collection of books. They’re not rare first editions but regular books. However, I love my books and I’m not letting them drown! I was able to move and carry our heavy sofa powered by my body’s own adrenalin hormone.
5. You can have fun in the midst of disaster so I took out our cameras and starting taking pictures. It was to make everyone have a good laugh as we surveyed the chaos around us, the cockroaches and rats swimming by, the black inky spots of oily stuff occasionally floating around.
6. Apparently, no matter how much you’re enjoying yourself frolicking in the water and saving what you can, once the cold water reaches your chest (especially your nipples), you start to shiver and it gets hard to breathe. This is the time to give up and go upstairs.
7. If your electricity stays on, go to the switch box and turn off all the electric outlets downstairs but not upstairs.
8. Cleaning after the flood is a pain. Once the waters recede, you are left with mud everywhere. They stick so you have to get the hose and start using the walis tingting (how do you say this in English? It’s a broom made of just think twigs/sticks tied together in a thick bundle). You just keep the water running and sweep, sweep, sweep like there’s no tomorrow.
9. You must scrub the walls with disinfectant. If you only rinse with water, it will still smell. We used Lysol. Scrub, scrub, scrub like there’s no tomorrow.
10. First time water got inside our house, we didn’t know we had to use Lysol and that the drying process is super vital. So, after a few days, there was this nauseating smell and later we found molds growing everywhere! We had returned the furniture and appliances to their normal places and the walls behind grew molds. Yuck!!!
11. We were still able to use our ref that floated in flood waters. Just clean and clean and dry and dry.
12. Once electricity is available, get out all your fans and dry everything thoroughly.
13. Yes, paint will peel off and wooden drawers and shelves deform. Salvage what can be used. Once they dry, it’s still ok but sometimes the drawers get stuck because the wood expanded so you have no choice but to destroy it because icky water is still trapped inside.
14. Wait at least 2 to 3 days to dry everything. Use fans and hairdryers. Do not, I repeat, do not be in a hurry to return stuff you saved to their original places.
15. Have this mindset: Ah, it’s good Im now forced to do a general cleaning of my house. Now I have no choice but to do it.
It is easy to go insane after this kind of calamity, to despair of the material things we lost (especially the cars), but please be thankful you got away with your life and that of your family and loved ones
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