oh no he didn't

but he did. 'he' refers to the great american president george w. bush.

the event: meeting with yet another great president, gloria arroyo.

bush probably had nothing else in mind to say, so he started with small talk.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, it is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Oval Office. We have just had a very constructive dialogue. First, I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT ARROYO: Yes.

PRESIDENT BUSH: And the chef is a great person and a really good cook, by the way, Madam President.

PRESIDENT ARROYO: Thank you.

no, you can't make this up. condescending and insulting much, mr. president? and PHILIPPINE-AMERICANS? are you f@cking kidding me?

hop on to the huffington post.

i feel sorry for every single soul who voted for him. five more months. five more months!

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super tuesday

today, we will find if hillary is going to kick obama's butt or if obama will show hil who's the man. i don't care about who wins among the republicans. it could very well be huckabee.

then we also have the new york giants parade in manhattan. hehehe. it's time to celebrate. we'll be there for sure, so if you plan to be there, well, see you there. hahaha.

i'm quite swamped with work and i hope to finish some of the projects we have started. i also haven't found time to cover events and write about them. i kinda miss that.

aside from that, everything's been going quite well.

mamang's on her way to a great recovery. i've been calling her regularly since i got back and it's good to hear that she has been exerting extra effort to feel better and regain her lost energies. thank god for this, and thank you my friends for the prayers.

got news yesterday that one of my good friends is getting married this june. june bride talaga. i will be there! that's a promise.

one of my friends is pregnant and she's quite excited. she's giving birth in july.

hope to receive more great news in the future.

gotta run. don't forget to vote!

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democrats rock!

hahaha. yay! i am showing my political colors.

the california democratic debate is over. i'm giddy and a bit disappointed because had i been in LA, i would have been there watching. yes, inside the kodak theater! we got invited by the los angeles times. it's our new reporter who covered it. boo! i'm happy for you. not.

"it took a clinton to clean up after the first bush. it looks like it will take another one to clean up after the second." hahaha. go hillary!

both barack and hill were pandering, almost pleading, for john edwards' supporters. wow. that was almost blatant. edwards withdrew yesterday, so this debate was technically the first one-on-one between obama and clinton so everyone was expecting fireworks. like mccain-romney? no. the democrats decided to be a little bit congenial and friendly with each other. sparks didn't fly, but the snipes were there alright.

obama has an undeniable charisma. watching it on tv live, it felt as if he had more supporters inside kodak than clinton. or maybe his supporters were just a tad noisier.

clinton was just calm, collected and confident. she won this one, i think.

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mayor v 'fesses up

less than a month after he admitted to the public his separation from his wife of 20 years, our mayor from los angeles, antonio villaraigosa admitted yesterday that he has a relationship with Telemundo (an NBC-owned network) anchor Mirthala Salinas.

Mayor V told reporters, "I have a relationship with Ms. (Mirthala) Salinas, and I take full responsibility for my actions."

Villaraigosa and Salinas wait out a pause in filming on the north steps of the state Capitol. Salinas is now a news anchor on Telemundo 52. (Robert Durell / LAT)

what's up with these big city mayors? first was new york's rudy giuliani, who had a very public feud with his wife when she found out that he was having uh, extra-curricular activities. then san francisco's gavin newsom was forced to admit a couple of months ago that he was carrying an affair with his best friend's wife.

and now this?

i covered much of mayor villaraigosa's political career, specially his oath-taking at the city hall back in 2005. his win was deemed historic because for the first time in decades, a hispanic man won the mayoralty post of the city of los angeles.

reading about him back then made me admire him. he triumphed over adversity because he was raised by a single mom who worked double- triple- jobs just to make ends meet. and when he married his wife, he took her last name too. back then, he was just antonio villar. his wife was corina raigosa. when they got married, it became villaraigosa. isn't that just sweet?

and now this?

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spring cleaning

For no apparent reason, I decided to redesign.

I let go of my previous template, and chose this new one.

Spring arrived earlier this week, yet the weather tells me it's still winter. There lies the irony. According to some published reports, this has been the warmest winter on record! I don't know about that.

The year's first quarter is about to end. Next thing we know, it'd already be 2008! But before that, the May elections. I'm a bit dismayed at the quality of people running for senator. As they would say on Grey's Anatomy, "Seriously? Seriously!" A lengthier post on this one in a couple of days...

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sacramento in one day

j and i drove from san francisco to sacramento to cover the second inaugural ceremony of governor arnold schwarzenegger. ah. work.

we left daly city shortly around 8, and arrived in the capitol less than two hours later. some streets were closed because of this big event so we had to park a few blocks away. we walked towards the sacramento memorial auditorium where the ceremony was going to be held.



there were a few musical numbers that didn't actually matter. some of them even overstayed their welcome mat (hello, mariachi divas!). the program started around 11:30, probably in time for the 12 noon swearing in of the governor. why 12 noon? i have no idea. hehehe.

maria shriver looked splendid in her valentino gown. we were told that the governor was wearing a prada suit and that the bible which was going to be used in the actual swearing in has been with the schwarzenegger family since 1878.

the former mayor of san francisco, willie brown, started the ball rolling by calling all the special guests who would be joing the first family onstage, including the mayors of los angeles, san francisco, sacramento, san jose and other key cities. he also called on eunice kennedy-shriver, maria shriver's mother; then the schwarzenegger kids, then maria shriver.



then ahnuld appeared onstage. on crutches! poor guy. he broke his thighbone (they say it's upper femur) in a freak skiing accident somewhere in idaho. he took his oath, read his speech (interrupted by applause 13 times!) and that's it.

oh, jennifer holiday also performed "and i am telling you..." and she was fuckin' awesome. oops, sorry. got carried away. j-ho has this tendency to contort her face in order to hit the really high notes but i don't think she minds. she's good. and as willie brown said in his introduction, 'there's no other singer in this world who could give justice to this song aside froim her.' sorry j-hud.

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foaming in the mouth

"Gusto ko ng mangangagat ng tao." Hahaha! F-U-N-N-Y. That's Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, for those who do not know who this feisty lady is.

I love her. Back in college, I was a part of her MOVERS (Movement for Responsible Public Service), an organization which she founded. I really, really liked her back then. As fate would have it, I was able to interview her for an article that I wrote for Filipino Magazin. She gave me a book (with her autograph! and a personal message to me!!). When I went home to the Philippines last month, I had a chance to look at my old stuff, and in our mini-library at home, I saw this book. I opened it and brought back a lot of memories.

Then, this happened.

Imagine if she, and not Fidel V. Ramos, became the 12th President of the Philippine Republic.

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