Pinoy WatchDog | Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs Dies at 56

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CUPERTINO, California – Apple founder and former CEO Steve Jobs who invented and masterfully marketed ever-sleeker gadgets that transformed everyday technology – from personal computers to the iPod and iPhone – has died. He was 56. Apple announced his death on Wednesday afternoon, October 5, without giving a specific cause.

“We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today,” the company said in a brief statement. “Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”

Jobs had battled cancer in 2004 and underwent a liver transplant in 2009 after taking a leave of absence for unspecified health problems. He took another leave of absence in January – his third since his health problems began – before resigning as CEO six weeks ago. Jobs became Apple’s chairman and handed the CEO job over to his hand-picked successor, Tim Cook.

Pinoy WatchDog | Iconic Image of Volcano’s Eruption by Bulletin Photographer Alberto Garcia is Centerpiece in “Mt. Pinatubo @ 20” Exhibit

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Albert Garcia, Manila Bulletin photographer (7th from right) presents a framed copy of his award-winning Mt. Pinatubo eruption photo to Carson Mayor Jim Dear ((6th from left) during a courtesy call at the Carson City Hall on Sunday, October 2. Other in photo are Manila-based photographers participating in the exhibit and members of the city council of Carson.

CARSON – The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, a long-dominant volcano in the Luzon province of Zambales 20 years ago, was captured in the camera of Albert Garcia, a photographer of Bulletin Today, a Manila daily broadsheet newspaper. That photograph shows the fury of Mt. Pinatubo a few short minutes after it erupted. The photograph acknowledged as one of the greatest images of the 20th century by Time Magazine, and one of the 100 best pictures of the 20th century by the National Geographic Magazine.

This year, the 20th anniversary of the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption, organizers of the Tambayayong (Bayanihan in Visayan) Festival put together a photo exhibit, which consists of photographs of the eruption and its aftermath taken by other Manila-based newspaper and magazine photographers. Garcia, who is now based in Canada, did not make in time to grace the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Carson Mall on Avalon Blvd. On Sunday, October 2, however, Garcia personally presented a framed photo of the award winning volcano eruption to Carson Mayor JIm Dear and members of the Carson City Council.

Consul General Mary Jo Bernardo Aragon, Mayor Dear, and Carson City Coucilmember Elito Santarina were among the government dignitaries that graced the opening of the Tambayayong Festival and the “Mt.Pinatubo @ 20” Photo Exhibit at the Carson Mall last Saturday, October 1. The photo exhibit next will travel to Bay Area for a two-day show on October 11-12 at the Philippine Consulate, located at 447 Sutter St., San Francisco, CA 94108.

Pinoy WatchDog | PAE Live Presents “The Romance of Magno Rubio”at Ford Theatre

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LOS ANGELES – October 4, 2011 –  The Winter Play Season at [Inside] the Fordkicks off with Lonnie Carter’s OBIE award-winning The Romance of Magno Rubio in English – plus the world premiere of Ang Romansa ni Magno Rubio, a new translation into Tagalog. PAE Live! in association withGood Shepherd Ambulance Company presents five performances each week, three in English and two in Tagalog, with both versions directed by the translator, acclaimed Filipino actor, director, performer, writer and producer Bernardo Bernardo. The Romance of Magno Rubio opens onNovember 4, and Ang Romansa ni Magno Rubio follows on November 5.

A high-energy stage adaptation of Carlos Bulosan’s seminal short story about a love struck Filipino migrant worker in 1930s California, The Romance of Magno Rubio uses clever word play, rhymes, rhythms and Philippine love songs (“kundimans”) to reveal the lives of migrant workers, their struggles and dreams, and their longings for home and a better life.

Pinoy WatchDog | THE SNAKE (A)MUSING

By Sarah Lei Spagnolo

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One of the things I loved most about having a room of my own as a teenager was the privacy it gave me. I considered it a luxury in our little two-story house in a crummy part of the the city.  It’s where I would write. It’s where I would think. It’s where I would dream.  Tonight I was doing neither of the three. I was simply starring off into space.

It was getting late but I didn’t feel the least bit sleepy. The silence of the night engulfed me, drenching my spirit with a bucket of inner peace and causing goose bumps to travel up my arm towards the base of my neck. It was so quiet I began to hear the silence – a high, but not high-pitched frequency in my ears ringing louder and louder until it became almost deafening. In that moment I was reminded that absolute silence didn’t exist, particularly not where I lived. In my neighborhood, silence was but a momentary pause between random jumbled noises constantly traveling through the paper-thin walls of houses. I could hear when a neighbor was washing dishes, arguing with a family member or  flushing the toilet.

Pinoy WatchDog | Veteran Writer-Newsman Al Aquino Joins PinoyWatchdog as Executive Editor & Columnist

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Alfonso Gaerlan Aquino, a product of Far Eastern University’s Institute of Arts and who cut his teeth in campus writing as a regular contributor to the university’s weekly student newspaper, Advocate, has joined Pinoy Watchdog as executive editor. He will work with managing editor Rene Villaroman — who also had apprenticed with Advocate as an editor — in charting the editorial outlook and direction of the fortnightly Pinoy Watchdog.

“My forte at the time was literary writing, so I contributed short stories and poems to the Advocate, the official campus paper of the university, later in 1958 to 1959,” Aquino said. “ I wrote a column called “Of Arts and Literature,” collaborating with a fellow student named Marcelo Mercado, who went on to become a national artist,” Aquino recalled.

Pinoy WatchDog | Strange Bedfellows Emerging for 2016 elections

By Art Cariaga Correspondent

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Politics is the chief Philippine pastime – from the corridors of power in Makati and Binondo to the beer and karaoke sessions in barangay or village sari-sari stores — so it would be unthinkable to have a newspaper without a political piece.

Strange bedfellows will be the rule in the presidential campaign of 2016 where early horsetrading is already being waged but vehemently denied. Old elites and family dynasties have learned to team up with nouveau riche showbiz celebrities, to clamp together their captive votes from the poor but prolific classes to win another pivotal election in the country’s modern history. In a country up to now drifting in the sea of an identity crisis, having not yet fully learned to love and care for its own, every election is a pivotal exercise that either moves the national psyche forward or, as more often, backward.

Pinoy WatchDog | OMG LOL IS IN OED

By Winston A. Marbella

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It’s official: the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), the venerable gatekeeper of the English language, has accepted OMG (oh my gosh) and LOL (laughing out loud).   Now it is perfectly all right to say, OMG, my BFF and I are LOL over this latest decision of OED, IMHO (in my humble opinion).  BTW, BRB (be right back).

Language reflects the subtle changes that happen in our lives—eventually.  When it finally does we can be fairly sure the subtle changes have in fact become sea changes.

When word of mouth was the main way we transmitted news, we asked ourselves, “Have you heard the news today?”  And this was reflected in the idiomatic expression that news passed from mouth to mouth, much like gossip.