Elections 101: Lessons from Brazil 2010

Our Brazilian interests were non-political--the classical guitar music of Heitor Villa-lobos, introduced to us by Joan Baez via her soprano rendition of his Bachianas Brasileiras (she trills in our mind every now and then), the bossa nova treats from Antonio Carlos Jobim, and the world-watched mighty Amazon river. 

Until Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva came along, and soon we were watching him preside over the Federative Republic of Brazil as president from 2002 until the end of this year, and in the process got to see them win the plums to host Copa Mundial 2014 and the Summer Olympics 2016.  Those two world games alone speak of the high Brazilian profile in the international scene, and a robust economic growth that spawned a social development program, which is believed to have largely benefited the country's poor.

On October 03, Brazil went to the polls to elect from among three contenders their next president:


Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party (PT), Jose Serra of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), and Marina Silva of the Green Party (PV).

Rousseff was a career civil servant, an economist.  She was Lula's energy minister before she became his chief of staff.   Lula called her the "mother of PAC," his flagship economic development program.  She was a student activist, and got imprisoned for three years because she was involved with the underground resistance to the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil in 1964-1985.

Serra lost to Lula in the run-off for the presidency in 2002. He's a big name in Brazil politics: he'd been mayor of the biggest city, and governor of the biggest and wealthiest state, both named Sao Paulo, became a senator, and was planning minister before Lula's tenure. He was head of the National Students' Union during the military coup in 1964; he went to exile in Chile and the United States, where he studied economics, and returned in 1977 when civilian government was restored. He was among the founders of his political party.

Silva was Lula's environment minister from January 2003 until she left government in May 2008. She worked with rainforest activist Chito Mendes, who was murdered in 1988.

Lula and the three contenders had interesting social backgrounds. Rousseff was from a middle-class family, her father a Bulgarian immigrant; Serra came from a poor family of Italian immigrants, and Silva, daughter of rubber-tappers, was illiterate until she was 14 years old.

Lula, as everybody now knows, came from a poor, illiterate peasant family, who learned to read when he was ten.  He became a metal worker in Sao Paulo, a trade union activist, headed the Metalworkers' Union in 1975, and spearheaded the founding of the Workers' Party in 1980, the first major left-wing socialist political party of Brazil.  He ran for the presidency four times before he won by landslide in 2002.

Rousseff was the favorite to win the presidency, and with Lula's support, she got 46.91% of the popular vote against Serra's 32.61% and Silva's 19.33%.

Brazilians will go back to the polls on 31 October for the run-off to finally chose between Rousseff and Serra who will take over the Planalto--the presidential office--from Lula on 01 January, 2011.  Constitutionally, the winner must garner at least 50% of the votes to become president.

This early, the prediction is that Rousseff will be the first female president of Brazil. She would be the seventh Latin American woman to be elected head of state after Violeta Chamorro (Nicaragua, 1990), Rosalia Arteaga Serrano (Ecuador, 1997), Mireya Moscoso (Panama, 1999), Michelle Bachelet (Chile, 2006), Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (Argentina, 2007), and Laura Chinchilla (Costa Rica, 2010).

The October 2010 election events in Brazil impart some important lessons for democratic states like the Philippines in the conduct of elections ---

1.  The election results were promptly known, may be because the process is not loaded with the election of officials of local government units; 

2.  There's very high confidence on their system and counting procedures; there were no problems that hassled first-time users of computerized systems;
3.   There's a very clear-cut ideological definition among the vying parties; the incumbent and the favorite-to-win political party is leftist and socialist;
4.   It appears that religious groups/sects there know the operational definition of 'separation of church and state', and candidates do not woo religious bloc votes;
5.   The incumbent won his tenure as president without question as to its legality or constitutionality; he knows he can not return for a third term, but he did agitate for changes in their charter nor run for state governor or senator just to remain in the circle of power.

Sources:

1.   "Profile: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva". (2010, January 28).  BBC News.  Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5346744.stm

2.   "Brazil election race". (2010, October 04).  BBC News Latin America & Carribean. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10461959

China launched second lunar probe; preps for unmanned landing in 2013

When we saw this 30 September front page of Dongguan Times, a Chinese newspaper published in Guangzhou, our hunch was that this is the picture of a spaceship that the People's Republic of China is just about to launch.  We were right; the 02 October issue of the same paper confirmed it with a picture taken at blast-off.  

This was a lunar probe called Chang'e-2 mounted on top a launch vehicle called Long March 3-C.  

The launching was on 01 October, which is numerically 011010 (ddmmyy) or 100110 (mmddyy) or 101001 (yymmdd). We're wondering why China did not set it later to 101010, or October 10, 2010.  Do we read something feng shui here?  

Since we can't read the bold headlines in Chinese characters, we had to go to the China Daily, which in English, for details.  

The story written by Xin Dingding was also amply illustrated, one of them included here. Xin tells us that this launch is part of the preparation for an unmanned moon landing in 2013, amplifying this with an account of China's space program in the coming years.
 

China's moon goal on schedule 

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)

Updated: 2010-10-02 07:18 

XICHANG, Sichuan - China moved closer to its goal of landing on the moon as its second lunar probe, Chang'e-2, blasted off seconds before 7:00 pm on Friday from the southwestern city of Xichang.

A Long March 3-C launch vehicle, with Chang'e-2 on top, lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province at 6:59:57 pm as planned.  

The circumlunar satellite separated from the rocket at 7:26 pm to enter the Earth-moon transfer orbit. In less than five days, it will enter a 100-kilometer lunar orbit. 

About an hour after the launch, Li Shangfu, director of the Xichang launch center, declared the launch a success to cheers and applause in the command and control hall. 

The Chang'e-2 mission is considered "a starting point" of the second stage of China's lunar exploration program that focuses on landing on the moon, a spokesperson for the lunar exploration program, said. 

The probe plans to test technology in preparation for an unmanned moon landing in 2013. 

Developed with indigenous technology, the 900-million-yuan ($134 million) Chang'e-2 mission will test key components for a soft-landing on the moon. 

Friday's mission marked the first time that a Chinese lunar probe directly entered the Earth-moon transfer orbit without orbiting the earth first. 

"It is a major breakthrough in rocket design, as it saves energy used by the satellite and speeds up the journey to lunar orbit," Pang Zhihao, a researcher with the China Academy of Space Technology, was quoted by the Xinhua News Agency as saying. 

The circumlunar satellite will be sent directly into the Earth-moon transfer orbit and travel some 112 hours before being captured by the moon's gravity and entering the 100-km lunar orbit. 

Source:  China Daily (02 Oct 201

Later - sometime near the end of October - it will be maneuvered to go into an elliptical orbit with the closest point only 15 km away from the lunar surface. 

At that distance, it will take high-resolution photos of the moon's Bay of Rainbows area, the expected landing site of Chang'e-3. 

"Once the Chang'e-2 probe relays back high-resolution photos of the Bay of Rainbows, taken from the 15-km orbit, it signals a successful mission," the spokesman said. 

In addition, it will also refine scientific research results acquired in the first mission through the improved payload on board. 

Whether the probe can enter and work in the 15-km orbit is regarded as the biggest challenge facing the country's ground tracking and control technology. 

Yu Dengyun, deputy chief designer of China's lunar exploration program, said if the ground-tracking system fails to calculate correctly, during the probe's maneuver, it could either end in a lower orbit and crash into the moon, or take photos in a higher orbit with the quality of images suffering. 

The second lunar probe has a designed lifespan of six months, but it is expected to last longer in space. The mission planners have three possible scenarios for how Chang'e-2 will end its mission. 

"It might end like its predecessor and crash into the moon, fly further into deeper space, or come back to Earth," said Yu. 

The decision will be up to the "condition" of the satellite, he said. 

Lunar exploration is a high-risk endeavor. Since 1958, the United States, Russia (and previously the Soviet Union), the European Union, Japan, China and India have sent lunar probes to the moon. Half of the 126 missions failed. 

China proved its capability to explore outer space by launching the Chang'e-1 orbiter in 2007, which ended its 16-month mission in 2009 by crashing into the lunar surface. It plans to send three spacecraft to the moon in the second stage of its lunar exploration program, including Chang'e-3, which is slated to soft-land on the moon in about 2013, and Chang'e-4, which is a backup for Chang'e-3. 

The Chang'e satellites are named after a mythical Chinese goddess who flew to the moon.

China is also the third nation, after the US and Russia, to launch people into space after Yang Liwei was put into orbit aboard the spaceship Shenzhou V on Oct 15, 2003. Another three astronauts were sent into space in Shenzhou VII and carried out the country's first space walk in September 2008. 

China is planning to send a module, Tiangong-1, into space to carry out China's first space docking, with the Shenzhou VIII spacecraft, both to be launched in 2011. Xinhua, AP and Reuters contributed to this story.

Goldilocks in Libra. Neo-Zodiac?

'Goldilocks' is the nickname that the non-astronomical world has given to Gliese 581, a planet outside our solar system and 20 light years away from planet earth in the constellation Libra.

Libra, of course, is the zodiac sign of people born in October, specifically between September 23 and October 23.  Librans are believed to be cool-headed people; it takes a long and extreme provocation before they blow their top, if at all.

Serendipitously, 'goldilocks' means not too cold, and not too hot, which is the case of this newly discovered planet, an indication that it may be habitable.  "Are We Alone?," shouted West Hawaii Today in its front page of 30 Sept. (The new planet wasn't played prominently as it was in this paper and in The Mercury of South Africa, picture at the page bottom.)

There's been a revival of UFO sighting stories lately.  With Goldilocks out there, we may soon see a slew of 'close encounters of the third kind' stories again.

The discovery was first announced by the University of California, Santa Cruz and Carnegie Institution of Washington.  Here's Tim Stephens of the UCSC on the Goldilocks story, which is featured in the university webpage.

"Newly discovered planet may be first truly habitable exoplanet 

"Discovery suggests our galaxy may be teeming with potentially habitable planets

"September 29, 2010

"By Tim Stephens

"A team of planet hunters led by astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington has announced the discovery of an Earth-sized planet (three times the mass of Earth) orbiting a nearby star at a distance that places it squarely in the middle of the star's "habitable zone," where liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. If confirmed, this would be the most Earth-like exoplanet yet discovered and the first strong case for a potentially habitable one.

 "To astronomers, a "potentially habitable" planet is one that could sustain life, not necessarily one that humans would consider a nice place to live. Habitability depends on many factors, but liquid water and an atmosphere are among the most important.
"Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet," said Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz. "The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common."

"The findings are based on 11 years of observations at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. "Advanced techniques combined with old-fashioned ground-based telescopes continue to lead the exoplanet revolution," said Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution. "Our ability to find potentially habitable worlds is now limited only by our telescope time."

"Vogt and Butler lead the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey. The team's new findings are reported in a paper to be published in the Astrophysical Journal and posted online at arXiv.org. Coauthors include associate research scientist Eugenio Rivera of UC Santa Cruz; associate astronomer Nader Haghighipour of the University of Hawaii-Manoa; and research scientists Gregory Henry and Michael Williamson of Tennessee State University.

"The paper reports the discovery of two new planets around the nearby red dwarf star Gliese 581. This brings the total number of known planets around this star to six, the most yet discovered in a planetary system other than our own solar system. Like our solar system, the planets around Gliese 581 have nearly circular orbits.

"The most interesting of the two new planets is Gliese 581g, with a mass three to four times that of the Earth and an orbital period of just under 37 days. Its mass indicates that it is probably a rocky planet with a definite surface and that it has enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere, according to Vogt.

"Gliese 581, located 20 light years away from Earth in the constellation Libra, has a somewhat checkered history of habitable-planet claims. Two previously detected planets in the system lie at the edges of the habitable zone, one on the hot side (planet c) and one on the cold side (planet d). While some astronomers still think planet d may be habitable if it has a thick atmosphere with a strong greenhouse effect to warm it up, others are skeptical. The newly discovered planet g, however, lies right in the middle of the habitable zone.
"We had planets on both sides of the habitable zone--one too hot and one too cold--and now we have one in the middle that's just right," Vogt said.

"The planet is tidally locked to the star, meaning that one side is always facing the star and basking in perpetual daylight, while the side facing away from the star is in perpetual darkness. One effect of this is to stabilize the planet's surface climates, according to Vogt. The most habitable zone on the planet's surface would be the line between shadow and light (known as the "terminator"), with surface temperatures decreasing toward the dark side and increasing toward the light side.

""Any emerging life forms would have a wide range of stable climates to choose from and to evolve around, depending on their longitude," Vogt said.

"The researchers estimate that the average surface temperature of the planet is between -24 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-31 to -12 degrees Celsius). Actual temperatures would range from blazing hot on the side facing the star to freezing cold on the dark side.

"If Gliese 581g has a rocky composition similar to the Earth's, its diameter would be about 1.2 to 1.4 times that of the Earth. The surface gravity would be about the same or slightly higher than Earth's, so that a person could easily walk upright on the planet, Vogt said.

"The new findings are based on 11 years of observations of Gliese 581 using the HIRES spectrometer (designed by Vogt) on the Keck I Telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The spectrometer allows precise measurements of a star's radial velocity (its motion along the line of sight from Earth), which can reveal the presence of planets. The gravitational tug of an orbiting planet causes periodic changes in the radial velocity of the host star. Multiple planets induce complex wobbles in the star's motion, and astronomers use sophisticated analyses to detect planets and determine their orbits and masses.

""It's really hard to detect a planet like this," Vogt said. "Every time we measure the radial velocity, that's an evening on the telescope, and it took more than 200 observations with a precision of about 1.6 meters per second to detect this planet."

"To get that many radial velocity measurements (238 in total), Vogt's team combined their HIRES observations with published data from another group led by the Geneva Observatory (HARPS, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planetary Search project).

"In addition to the radial velocity observations, coauthors Henry and Williamson made precise night-to-night brightness measurements of the star with one of Tennessee State University's robotic telescopes. "Our brightness measurements verify that the radial velocity variations are caused by the new orbiting planet and not by any process within the star itself," Henry said.

"The researchers also explored the implications of this discovery with respect to the number of stars that are likely to have at least one potentially habitable planet. Given the relatively small number of stars that have been carefully monitored by planet hunters, this discovery has come surprisingly soon.

""If these are rare, we shouldn't have found one so quickly and so nearby," Vogt said. "The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20 percent, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number. There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy."

"This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA."

The ASEAN in New York

Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III, nicknamed PNoy to mean President Noynoy, has come back home to the Philippines with a portfolio containing a $434-m grant to "alleviate poverty and fight corruption", American investors' commitments to do business here, memories that include his $54 worth of hotdog treats to his delegation at a street food stall in middle Manhattan, and a lot of cheerios from Pinoys pursuing their American dreams from New York to California.

We have no idea who else among ASEAN heads of state went street foodie in New Yowk midtown but we're quite certain they didn't have to compare themselves to predecessors who had lavish meals at expensive restaurants in the Big Apple.

We're delighted--and we're grinning ear to ear--that he gave a pasalubong of ticking firecrackers to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and their alliance of manangs and manongs from Aparri to Jolo.  Mabuhay to Reproductive Health, PNoy! 

There's this no-need-for-an apology-from-the-USA regarding the Philippine flag being displayed as if we're at war (see the pictures here, the red on top).  PNoy frets that the issue is being rubbed in by people who have nothing else to do (walang magawa!). Well, he'll be at war with the bishops soon.

We thought it was serendipity that had PNoy standing right beside His Excellency Barack Obama in this 'must' group picture during the US-ASEAN Leaders Summit because the host American President should be between the 5th and 6th Asean member; that is, Laos and Malaysia. 

Did the ASEAN Leaders endorse PNoy's call for 'global people power to fight poverty'?

The protocol is evident in the arrangement of the ASEAN members' flags, which are flanked by host Stars-and-Stripes and the ASEAN flag:  Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 

Serendipity? Could be, but we're told that PNoy should be next to the host because the Philippines chairs the US-ASEAN Leaders Summit.  Anyway, that pose could have enabled PNoy to ask for a cigarette break with the O.  And they did have a short tete-a-tete, seven minutes! It's unlikely they enjoyed a good puff, mentholated or not.

Nanyang Siang Pau, Malaysia

Flags of ASEAN member states.

ASEAN Emblem.

 Sources:

1.   Flags of ASEAN member states.  Retrieved from http://www.retire-asia.com/asia-destinations.shtml 

2.   ASEAN Emblem. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Association_of_Southeast_Asian_Nations

"Mono Jojoy"

"Finally, he fell!" - Q'hubo, Columbia (24 Sept)

We were wondering if "Mono Jojoy" and the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the Marxist-Leninist guerrilla arm of the Colombian Communist Party, would be ideological relatives of the NPA (Bagong Hukbong Bayan or New People's Army) and its kumanders in the Philippines.

We looked for some patriotic or revolutionary meaning of this alias but found none although we learned that "mono" refers to a monkey in Spanish.  May be it was a term of endearment of FARC supporters for "Jorge Briceño Suárez", another alias of the real Victor Julio Suarez Rojas. He's thought to be the FARC's most revered and yet feared general who headed the Eastern Bloc, said to be the most powerful fighting division.

He was dead at 57 on Thursday, September 23, two days after the Colombian military, the police and the Ministry of Defense launched Operation Sodom (does this mean, "take them from behind?") 200 miles south of Bogota.  This is how BBC (Sept 25) described the assault:

"In the early hours of Wednesday 22 September, 78 aircraft headed for the area known as La Escalera in the Macarena mountain range in Meta province. They dropped dozens of bombs on Mono Jojoy's camp, which Defence Minister Rodrigo Rivera has described as "the mother of all lairs" for its size and the number of hidden tunnels it had. About 400 members of the Colombian special forces then abseiled from helicopters and surrounded the camp. After hours of fighting, another 400 soldiers and police moved in on the camp, taking it in the early hours of Thursday morning. General Javier Florez, the commander of the joint task force leading the attack, said his men were able to identify Mono Jojoy by his scars, eye colour and the fact he carried insulin for his diabetes."

And this is how Hoy (25 Sept) of Ecuador illustrated the Sodoma:

"GPS in Mono's boots gave him away"

 There were two causes of Mono Jojoy's fall:  treachery--a deep penetration agent (a police sergeant) in his unit for the past two years--and modern technology--a GPS chip embedded in his boots.  Thus, his physical whereabouts was known far and wide by the military.

"Traitor and hidden GPS ended Mono Jojoy" - inside page, Las Ultimas Noticias, Chile (25 Sept)

"Jojoy's boots guided the bombs"- Q'hubo, Colombia (25 Sept)

"A chip betrays Mono Jojoy" - La Hora, Ecuador (25 Sept)

  

"Secret hero pursued Jojoy" - El Tiempo, Colombia (26 Sept)

"Two years of infiltration .." - El Mercurio, Chile (26 Sept)

 "The FARC has faced serious setbacks in recent years," Colombia Reports said, "with high-level commander "Raul Reyes" killed by a Colombian air strike on Ecuadorean territory in March 2008. The group's founder and supreme leader "Manuel Marulanda" died of natural causes in 2008. An airstrike by the Colombian armed forces on Sunday killed FARC commander "Domingo Biojo," political leader of the organization's 48th Front, along with at least 26 other rebels. Current supreme commander "Alfonso Cano" remains at large."

Below is the roster of top-level FARC officials who have fallen since "Sonia" was captured in February in 2004:

El Salvador, Colombia (24 Sept)

Sources:

1.   "FARC commander "Mono Jojoy" killed. (2010, September 23). Colombia Reports.  Retrieved from http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/12002-mono-jojoy-killed-colombian-media.html

2.   "Colombian police examine Farc rebels' laptops." (2010, September 25).  News Latin America and Caribbean.  BBC Mobile. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11412720.

2.   Jerry McDermott. (2010, September 23). "My Meeting with Mono Jojoy".  News Latin America and Caribbean.  BBC Mobile. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11402694.

What America read last Sunday: things Alpha to Omega!

We were just curious today to see what Americans read this Sunday while enjoying an early cup of hot brewed coffee, or having a late breakfast of what hotels the world over tag as American continental - pancake or bread and butter/jam/jelly, token crispy slices of bacon, egg(s), apple, milk, or munching something at a McDo/KFC/Burger King stand.

Thanks to the Newseum, we get to browse through 351 front pages of American newspapers everyday.  This Sunday, the prominent fare comprised the present preoccupations of the American public: the state elections, budget cuts and new taxes, health care issues, among other political hot items, and of course, the latest football game results.  

There were interesting stories as well--usually boxed with catching illustrations--played up prominently on Page One of newspapers from the west to the east coast, and from these we chose ten (1), which we think are worth a second reading as soon as we've downloaded them all from the papers' websites.

 

The list begins with an Alpha story from the Modesto Bee of California--the hot issue of evolution--and ends with an Omega story from The Record of Stockton, CA--the end of the world, which a religious group believes to have began.  The others have no religious undertone at all; they're more, shall we say, about affections and afflictions of mortals that walk on this earth between the crib and the grave.

For this selection, we excluded one on the silent invasion of American households by bedbug armies. We put in another about the stink bugs that are making citizens of West Chester, Pennsylvania pinch their noses because of their awful smell. They're all crawling on page one of the Daily Local News, which qualifies that these are edible in Laos though.

The Tribune of Greeley, Colorado gave us a visual treat of cats, which immediately reminded us of Cats the musical, but these are incidental to the story.  This is about people who have this certain affliction: hoarding these felines.

The Orange County Register of Santa Ana, California was on its 3rd installment about foreign-born immigrants in the USA, specifically those who have settled in this state.  "Who wins? Who loses?," it asks about the presence of 6 million immigrants  on California soil.

Race in the theater circuit was an issue played up by The Gazette of Colorado Springs.  This "drama of race" does not in anyway recall MLK's "I have a dream".  Our first glance told us it's just that there are not so many minorities available for theatrical work.

It took quite a long time before texting or SMS became addictive to Americans (the Pinoy were way ahead in this communications system, and in fact have developed quite a vocabulary for this medium).  We are not too sure if "sexting" is in the Pinoy lingo, but we are certain this word may eventually be in the Oxford dictionary.

It's the "sexting all the time" among adolescents in Anniston, Alabama that the Anniston Star is worried about.   These kids circulate among their friends pictures of themselves in dishabille, partly or fully.  

Which leads us to the next item featured in The Lewiston Tribune of Idaho:  men past their golden jubilee year building their muscles and showing them off in competition.  We don't think they do 'sexting' to display their bodies.

Men & women soldiers who go to fight a war would come home troubled even if they did not get wounded at all.  The trauma or "hidden wounds" are the subject of a 5-part story in The Fayetteville Observer of North Carolina.  The paper says suffering soldiers are demanding mental health services.

The last item we have is historical from The Las Vegas Review-Journal.  From this we gather that Las Vegas would not have been born and grew to be this glittering city on the desert if it were not for Hoover Dam, which was constructed 75 years ago.

 

'Portraits' of the American Bedbug ...

American bedbugs took big bytes/bites of the Express of the Washington Post and the Denver Post end of August, and we thought we'd never see them crawl on front pages again.

It seems though that a buggy invasion is going on, and this September, they've already 'occupied' Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Tennessee.  This sounds quite cinematic; who knows there may be someone out there around Hollywood crafting a giant bedbug (ala Kingkong) story for a 3-D movie with an itchy-bitchy theme song.

Wondering how Pinoy immigrants (they're not strangers to surot) in America are coping with the social stigma that reportedly ensues from the sight of suspicious bite marks (they may be of mosquitoes) on body parts: they become pariah, they're cut off from guest lists, they can't even be hugged!. 

Ohio bedbug.

Another one from Ohio.

Tennessee bedbug (southerner!)

Indiana bedbugs.

Missouri bedbugs.
  

 Update:    05 November