Sucks to be the guy. That is going to leave a mark.
I hate bullfighting, and I feel bad for the guy, but I am happy for the bull. The bull later got killed by the way.
WARNING: not for the faint of heart.
Hi-res image after the jump. Be sure you have an empty stomach.
Continue reading ‘Bull-1 Matador-0’
We all know the answer. We are just simply pushing it at the back of our heads, ignoring it, because, really, what can we do about it?
As an aside, it is disconcerting the way the reporter (Anna Coren) phrased some of her sentences:
“It concedes, if the the big one does hit, nothing can stop the carnage.”
… carnage? And then she concludes with …
“It’s little comfort for a city that’s only too aware its time will eventually come.“
Sweet dreams everyone! Thanks CNN!
Somehow I got the feeling that they are rooting for it to happen.
We have done it again. Although this is not entirely our own fault, we are still responsible for most part of it. Our beloved country, the Philippines, has ranked 10th in the world that is most at risk of a terrorist attack.
This is according to a group called Maplecroft, who, according to their site “analyse, index and map over 100 global risks to help organisations identify risks and responsibilities across operations, supply chains and distribution networks.”
“The Terrorism Risk Index (TRI) has been developed by Maplecroft for companies to assess terrorism risks to their international assets. The index measures not only the risks of an attack, but also the chances of mass casualties occurring.”
Eto mga ka-line up natin: #1 Irag, #2 Afghanistan, #3 Pakistan, #5 Lebanon, #8 Colombia, #9 Thailand, #15 Russia.
What they did not consider was that our country has a separate branch in our government that brings terror to its citizens more than the Abu Sayyaf, MILF, and the Ampatuans combined. We call it the House of Representatives. If they factored that in, we would have been numero uno!
In the House!
————————————————————————————————-
What is the worst thing you have eaten? Frogs? Fat worms? Fried flying insects? Consider yourself lucky.
Dirt cookies
“It fills your stomach. When we haven’t eaten anything, it fills our stomach. It is a necessary evil … but I have no choice: we are forced to eat it. It makes us sick, but not the way it would anybody who is not used to eating it. Our system is kind of used to it.”
the cookies, being prepared for sun-baking
not sweet, hard to swallow, and almost no nutritional value
sold on the streets, sometimes on credit pa
In Haiti, they eat this. No, not after the devastating earthquake. This report was filed way before that. This is part of their daily lives.
Oh, that’s nice. Stepping on their baking sheet. It is made of dirt anyway, right?
———————————————————————————————-
Where exactly is Haiti? It is in the Caribbeans, in an island with neighboring Dominican Republic. The island is right above Venezuela. If you still don’t know where it is: Imagine the world map, I am sure you can find the USA right? Ok, that part on the bottom of the North American continent, the part that tapers down to South America, is Mexico. There is some sort of a series of islands to the right of Mexico … Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico. Haiti is in the island of Hispaniola.
A 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti last Tuesday, and after a couple of days, the figures of the damage are staggering … those who died from the disaster could possibly reach half a million.
I think Haiti is poorer than us. They are the poorest country in that continent. As a nation though, they have lots of similarities to us: popular elections give them their President, although they also have a Prime Minister. They also suffer from years and years of bad government, dictatorship, and natural disasters particularly hurricanes that further impoverish them. Occupying a small part of an island, they suffer from over population. More than half of their population is in the agricultural field. They also are a pre-dominantly Roman Catholic nation. Lamang lang sila sa atin kasi marunong silang mag-French.
Their “tap tap” bus even looks like it was made here.
The similarities does not end there, and this is where it gets scary for us. Haiti is a classic example of a nation who abused their environment, and is now paying the price. In the first quarter of the 20th century, more than half of their lands and mountains were covered with forests. Currently, it is estimated that only 2% of that still exist. The deforestation erodes their soils continuously. In 2004 twin tragedies struck them. During a May flooding on the eastern part that borders with Dominican Republic, more than 3,000 Haitians died. On September the same year, a tropical storm hit the northern part and again, more than 3,000 died from floods and landslides. Think Ondoy and Pepeng.
And now, the pictures coming out of the disaster areas look all too familiar. Rubbles, body parts sticking out of collapsed structures, panic, hopelessness, ineptness of rescue efforts not only due to inefficiency of their government, but also because of the sheer magnitude of the tragedy. They were not prepared for anything like this, despite frequency of disasters in their country.
We can relate to that. A couple of months ago, in a radio interview with Richard Gordon, head of Red Cross and now presidential candidate, he was asked how prepared are we for a huge earthquake. He said he does not even want to talk about it, we are not even going there. Veeeerrry comforting.
After Ondoy and Pepeng, and what we have done to help our people, and more significantly how practically the whole world extended us a helping hand one way or another, I feel we must do something for Haiti. If you can help, please do. If you know a way how we can help, drop me a note so we can spread it around.
Kilala kita, kilala mo ako. 
Sabi niyo …