LONDON, United Kingdom - Forget the diamond as big as the Ritz. This one's bigger than planet Earth.

Orbiting a star that is visible to the naked eye, astronomers have discovered a planet twice the size of our own made largely out of diamond.

The rocky planet, called '55 Cancri e', orbits a sun-like star in the constellation of Cancer and is moving so fast that a year there lasts a mere 18 hours.

Discovered by a US-Franco research team, its radius is twice that of Earth's but it is much more dense with a mass eight times greater. It is also incredibly hot, with temperatures on its surface reaching 3,900 degrees Fahrenheit (1,648 Celsius).

"The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite," said Nikku Madhusudhan, the Yale researcher whose findings are due to be published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The study - with Olivier Mousis at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie in Toulose, France - estimates that at least a third of the planet's mass, the equivalent of about three Earth masses, could be diamond.

Diamond planets have been spotted before but this is the first time one has been seen orbiting a sun-like star and studied in such detail.

"This is our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth," Madhusudhan said, adding that the discovery of the carbon-rich planet meant distant rocky planets could no longer be assumed to have chemical constituents, interiors, atmospheres, or biologies similar to Earth.

David Spergel, an astronomer at Princeton University, said it was relatively simple to work out the basic structure and history of a star once you know its mass and age.

"Planets are much more complex. This 'diamond-rich super-Earth' is likely just one example of the rich sets of discoveries that await us as we begin to explore planets around nearby stars."

"Nearby" is a relative concept in astronomy. Any fortune-hunter not dissuaded by "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz", F.Scott Fitzgerald's jazz age morality tale of thwarted greed, will find Cancri e about 40 light years, or 230 trillion miles, from Park Avenue.

MANILA, Philippines – The jackpot prize of the 6/55 Grand Lotto continues to rise and is expected to hit the P215-million mark at tonight’s draw, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) announced yesterday.

Although nobody hit the P198,338,822 jackpot, at least 64 bettors won P150,000 each when they got five of the six-digit winning combination 06-13-24-03-08-54, PCSO general manager Jose Ferdinand Rojas II said.

He said the sales of lotto tickets soared to P88,144,06,00 from the average of P28 million per draw.
Rojas said the rapid increase of ticket sales is an indication that a nationwide lotto frenzy is on, with hundreds of thousands of lotto fans lining up to try their luck for tonight’s draw.

The lotto frenzy usually builds up after the jackpot breaches the P100-million mark.
This is the fourth time since January that the Grand Lotto jackpot has breached the P100-millionmark.

As the water rose in Manila on Wednesday, Hernelie Ruazol and Ram Ocampo didn't realize that their vow 'for better or worse' would be tested so early. They were married inside a church but exited to a deluge. "I only wished to have a simple wedding but we had an extraordinary one!" said Hernelie, an elementary school teacher.

Maita Gomez—she of the landed gentry and genteel upbringing, convent school-bred (Assumption and St. Scholastica’s College, Manila), top Pitoy Moreno model, beauty queen (Miss Philippines 1967 who represented the country in   Miss World the same year in the UK). Beautiful, classy, so high-society.

But she was of an era when revolution consumed people of her generation, even women of her status. While she modeled and competed in beauty pageants, was so much admired for her beauty and grace, and was sought after by men of wealth and stature here and abroad, the First Quarter Storm exploded in the streets of Manila.

Think of the late ’60s and early ’70s as the years of chaos and strife. Students were engaged in violent street battles against armies of police and soldiers—from the wide avenues of Paris, to the grounds of Kent State University, and over here, the storming of the Diliman Commune.

In the US, as college students burned their draft cards and protested against the Vietnam war, the Weathermen fought a guerilla war, robbing and bombing banks, killing cops.

On the other side of the racial divide, the Black Panther rode forth and Eldrige Cleaver was its Messenger.

Female revolutionaries

That era, too,  on the heels of the hippie ’60s—where “Make Love, Not War” was the mantra of youth under 30—saw the rise of female revolutionaries: the German Ulrike Meinhof, the most infamous of female terrorists, co-founder of the anti-Capitalist Red Army Faction, who committed suicide in prison.

From the Middle East, there was Black September’s poster girl, the lovely Leila Khaled of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Now sitting as member of the Palestine National Council and living with her physician husband and sons in Jordan, she was involved in several spectacular Black September airline hijackings. Leila was captured in an iconic photo, as famous as that of Che Guevara, wearing a kaffiyeh and brandishing an AK-47 rifle.

Here at home, Connie Ledesma, a rich hacienda heiress, left the nunnery to fight alongside the priest, also of haciendero stock, who later became her husband, Fr. Luis Jalandoni. Both rose to the top ranks of the National Democratic Front.

Nelia Sancho, the beauty queen with the deep, limpid eyes, also went deep underground to fight with the NPA. And today’s environmentalist Gina Lopez was “lost” to her family for years, her father, Geny Lopez, ABS-CBN’s “Kapitan,” looking for her, seeking ways and means to return her to the warm embrace of family. Gina, barefooted, donned saffron robes and joined the Ananda Marga, working with the poorest of the poor in the remote reaches of darkest Africa.

The other Maita

Against this backdrop, the other Maita emerged: the activist, the revolutionary, the NPA amazon, the political prisoner.

But then, not very many people knew the core of the real Maita. The cool, remote beauty was a passionate human being, an intense individual who felt deep love for her country.

Maita did what most girls of her class did. She “married well” and had a beautiful daughter, actress-for-a-time Melissa Perez Rubio, who was once Richard Gomez’s flame.  Maita stepped away from the spotlight, the fashion ramp, the party nightlife and all the “frou frou” stuff of high society. She went back to school. She gunned for a master’s degree at UP, then the bedrock of student activism.

Recalls director Behn Cervantes: “I wrote an article that must have attracted her to the Movement to serve the people.” The Movement was the Kilusan, “which was part Joma (Sison) but more broad-based.”

Urban lore

When Maita fled to the hills, bringing along little Melissa, the whispers of her life underground became urban lore. The husband she left behind, Carlos (Cookie) Perez Rubio, was said to have posted missing ads in newspapers, in search of Melissa. Then Maita was eventually caught and thrown into a military jail.

But a young army officer, in a reverse Stockholm Syndrome, fell in love with her, sprung her out of military prison, and fled with her back to the mountains.

That army officer fought with the NPA and was subsequently killed by government soldiers.  Maita allegedly took up with an NPA commander and then met folk activist Heber Bartolome. “Tibak din yan,” says Behn of Heber.

“She was in the hills with Heber and they had sons,” says Behn. “We used to call her ‘The Other Gomez’ as opposed to actress Rita Gomez, who had many men in her life. So did Maita.”

“After she left Heber, Maita surfaced,  to resume a normal life,” adds Behn.

Maita used to visit Behn frequently in his house, bringing along one of her sons, a naughty boy “who would pick up things around the house and drop them.” Behn would tell the boy, “Papaluin kita.”  And he would have that hurt, sad look. But Behn would stand his ground. “He behaved after that.”

Behn, as he talks about Maita, feels bereft at her untimely death. “I feel miserable. I have lost a good, dear friend.”

No airs

Rodne Galicha is Site-of-Struggle officer at the Alyansa Tigil Mina, an alliance fighting for transparency in the mining industry. He talks about Maita on his cell phone while sailing an outrigger boat from Jomalig island to Infanta, Quezon, a long five-hour trip by sea.

“I call her the Queen of the Toiling Masses,” he says. “No airs, no show-biz flair.” He recalls that unforgettable time “when we both crossed the Sibuyan Sea to Tablas island in Romblon.” They were in an open speedboat with six-meter waves crashing around them and flying fishes hurtling themselves at the boat. It was dark. It was 4 a.m. and Rodney was scared.

But Maita was unfazed. “Oh, the boat ride is just an ordinary thing,” she said. “You know, if you have to do something for the people, you just have to do it.”

They went to Sibuyan and Tablas islands to learn more about mining, “the value chain of the industry. Like, for example, how mining licenses are awarded.”

Having been an economist and coordinator of Bantay Kita, a group of reform-minded economists, Maita pushed for openness in the industry—“for government and mining companies to reveal their practices, their policies, the negotiations, as well as finances of the extractive industry, in general.”

Maita, adds Rodney, taught Economics at UP. “This was her world. She also worked with Action for Economic Reform (AER).”

Last advocacy

The reform-minded economist that was Maita became, gradually, a fighter for the environment.

“This was the last advocacy in her life,” says Rodney. But with mining, Maita “clarified the whole economic life of the Philippine mining industry” and traveled the country extensively to see for herself the effects of the industry on local communities.

“She continued her militancy even when she had to use a cane,” says Rodney. There was a time in Davao when she was quite sick. “She borrowed my coat and walked with a cane.”  Her last text to Rodney was to greet him on his birthday last June 2.

Maita retired from Bantay Kita and from the AER. She had a red house constructed on a half-hectare island on a lake atop a mountain in Caliraya. It was her rest house and Rodney occasionally visited, helping her put up windows and glass panels.

And what luxury did she crave? “Maita loved good coffee. Everywhere she went, she brought her little espresso machine.”

And she loved a good, long smoke, cigaret in hand, talking about life, listening to Rodney’s problems.

“Maita, I thank you for making me a part of your life,” says Rodney.

Strong, focused

Suky Lim-Lammoglia, who is with Gina Lopez in Green Convergence, an association of different environmental groups (anti-mining, water treatment, anti-pollution, Clean Water Act, eco-waste management, Save Palawan Movement, among others, including Maita’s Bantay Kita) remembers Maita as very strong and focused.

“Absolutely no fear. You know, when you are into anti-mining, you can get killed. Look at journalist Gerry Ortega of Palawan…

“That Maita—she had depth and substance… But tell me—to love your country, you have to go underground?”

Maita did. She wanted to change the world—change things as it were, as they are—from the ground up. She left her privileged world and lived the life of a warrior for the little people who have no voice.  And so, salute, Maita! A life well-lived and work well done!

The United States government has assured its citizens that, much like zombies, mermaids probably do not exist, saying in an official post: "No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found."

"Mermaids -- those half-human, half-fish sirens of the sea -- are legendary sea creatures," read the online statement from the National Ocean Service (NOS).

The agency, charged with responding to natural hazards, received letters inquiring about the existence of the sea maidens after the Discovery Channel's Animal Planet network broadcast "Mermaids: The Body Found" in May.

The show "paints a wildly convincing picture of the existence of mermaids, what they may look like, and why they've stayed hidden... until now," a Discovery Channel press release says.

Conversely, the US government declaration offered no conclusive proof to deny the existence of mermaids.

The statement comes after another government agency, this time the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), declared there was no conclusive evidence for the existence of zombies.

The CDC had published instructional materials on how to survive a "zombie apocalypse," in what the agency now calls "a tongue in cheek campaign to engage new audiences with messages of preparedness messages."

The campaign was followed by a series of cannibalistic attacks in North America.

In one such attack on May 26, a 31-year-old Miami man stripped naked and chewed off most of a homeless man's face.

The Twittersphere was suddenly alive with people talking about the real and present danger of a zombie apocalypse.

The CDC was quick to respond to allegations of corpses rising from the dead to eat the living.

"CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead," a government spokesperson wrote in an email to The Huffington Post.

While zombies would be a big problem, popular folklore holds that mermaids are relatively benign creatures.

But the NOS statement associated the finned friends with more threatening mythological beasts.

"Half-human creatures, called chimeras, also abound in mythology -- in addition to mermaids, there were wise centaurs, wild satyrs, and frightful minotaurs, to name but a few," it said.

A Sicilian priest who was murdered by the Mafia in 1993 was declared a martyr Thursday by Pope Benedict XVI, a step toward sainthood, the Vatican said in a statement.

The pope authorized the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints to issue a decree naming Giuseppe “Pino” Puglisi a martyr for being “killed in hatred of the faith in Palermo.”

Puglisi, who was known as an outspoken opponent of organized crime, was gunned down in front of his home. Two local Mafia bosses, Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano, were convicted of ordering the killing and sentenced to life in prison in 2001 and 1999 respectively.

He had worked in Palermo’s Mafia-controlled Brancaccio neighborhood, trying to help youngsters stay away from the Mafia.

He publicly addressed the problem of organized crime and his murderer later declared that when he fired a bullet in the nape of his neck the priest said with a smile, “I expected this.”

There is strong support in Sicily for Puglisi to be made a saint. For that to happen, the Church would have to attribute miraculous works to him.

However, for a “martyr of the faith” to be made a saint no miracle is needed.

The pope also authorized a decree recognizing the “heroic virtues” of Spanish bishop Alvaro del Portillo y Diez de Sollano, who died in 1994 after succeeding Saint Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer as the head of conservative Catholic movement Opus Dei.

Escriva de Balaguer, who died in 1975, was canonized in 2002 by John Paul II.

Benedict XVI also authorized the Congregation to publish decrees allowing the beatification soon of 155 martyrs of Spain’s 1936-39 civil war.

John Paul II started the tradition of collective beatifications of “martyrs of the faith,” notably of clerics killed by republican forces during the civil war when the Roman Catholic Church sided with general Francisco Franco who was to rule Spain with an iron hand until his death in 1975.

At coronation night in Manila on Sunday, winners of Miss World Philippines 2012 pose (from left) April Joy Jordan, 3rd runner-up, Mary Jane Rose Misa, 1st runner-up, Queneerich Rehman, Miss World PHL 2012, Vanessa Claudine Ammann, 2nd runner-up and Brena Cassandra Gamboa, 4th runner-up.

Asia’s millionaires outnumbered North America’s for the first time last year as the world’s wealthy saw their fortunes declined amid turbulent financial markets, a new survey says.

The report by Capgemini and Royal Bank of Canada released Monday found that the Asia-Pacific region was home to 3.37 million people who have at least $1 million to invest. That’s up 1.6 percent from the year before. In second place was North America with 3.35 million.

The annual report found that the combined wealth of the world’s wealthy declined 1.7 percent in 2011 to $42 trillion. The contraction came as financial markets grew more volatile over widespread concerns about the European sovereign debt crisis.

Fueled by a growing middle class with a voracious appetite for aspirational products, Asia, including developing markets like Vietnam and the Philippines, is beginning to develop a taste for cognac.

Apart from China, Vietnam has been leading the way in cognac consumption, even surpassing Japan recently.

Although the Philippines doesn’t have a long tradition of cognac drinking like former French colony Vietnam probably does, Filipinos have always been a big market for the cheaper Spanish brandies, which, like cognac, belongs to the family of so-called “brown spirits.”

As the Philippine economy continues to grow, more Filipinos are likely to level up in their drinking preferences. The market is bound to be flooded with so many options, both imitations and the genuine article. It pays to know your cognac in order to get your money’s worth.

Centuries-old tradition

Anyone can claim to make cognac, but under a century-old French law, only distillers based in France’s Cognac region have the right to call their double-distilled spirits stored for a time in oak barrels (thus, the brown hue) “cognac.” Companies based elsewhere, whether within or outside France, which still publicly insist on marketing their products as cognac, are guilty of misrepresentation, and can be hailed to court.

There’s a similar law that’s in effect in Champagne, another region north of Paris. Only those based in Champagne can call their sparkling wine, well, champagne. Others can settle for “bubbly” or whatever their marketing arm could think of (we’ll focus on Champagne next time).

Foreigners may dismiss such a law as frivolous, but not the French who take their centuries-old wine-making tradition seriously, and rightly so. We soon understood why after separate trips to Cognac, located southwest of Paris and adjacent to Burgundy, and, a few days later, to Champagne, with Olga Azarcon, the Philippines’ country manager for Moët Hennessy.

Moët et Chandon produces champagne, while Hennessy is into cognac. The two companies became partners in 1971 to form Moët Hennessy. In 1987, Moët Hennessy joined the Louis Vuitton group of Bernard Arnault to become part of LVMH, the world’s biggest grouping of luxury brands.

From the more affordable VS, XO and VSOP, to the top of the line Paradis and Paradis Imperial, Hennessy has something to offer the discriminating client depending on his preference, current mood and even budget.

More than 250 years since Richard Hennessy, the company’s Irish founder, set sail to France from Ireland to establish the business, the house of Hennessy has grown to become a global brand. (A bottle of limited-edition Hennessy cognac named after him costs around P150,000.) To this day, the company is still partly owned by his descendants.

Balanced demand

One of them is Frenchman Maurice Hennessy, a member of the eighth generation, who, with his disarming ways and quaint British accent (he spent some time in England), is an ideal brand ambassador.

“The great thing about demand for Hennessy is it’s evenly balanced between the US, Asia and Europe, particularly Russia,” said Hennessy. “Even parts of Africa like Nigeria are doing well. But I won’t lie to you. China is very important, and so is the US where we sell more cognac (than in France). If I’m going somewhere, it’s because that market is important. They don’t send me to markets where they don’t drink at all like Saudi Arabia or Libya. At least, not yet.”

Maurice Hennessy, a trained agronomist, is also one of 1,400 growers who supply Hennessy with grapes. Only white wine produced from white grapes will do, as red wine is too robust and considered coarse and inelegant for cognac production. The company’s 200 hectares of land planted to grapes, which function more as a showcase that sets the standards for suppliers to follow, barely cover one percent of its needs.

Together with the articulate and equally witty Jean-Michel Cochet, Hennessy’s official “ambassadeur de maison,” and Renaud de Gironde, a member of the company’s tasting committee, the three men gave us a series of interviews and a two-day tour of Hennessy’s facilities sometime in May, including its postcard-pretty distillery, antiseptic tasting room and centuries-old “founder’s” cellar, where certain oak barrels of cognac vintages date back to the mid-19th century.

One of the keys to a good cognac is consistency. And you can get that only by producing the right blend composed of various vintages. Tasting various cognacs to know what to store, what to use, and at what amounts has kept Gironde and his colleagues, led by Hennessy’s master blender, busy every day for at least one hour (see sidebar).

“All Hennessy cognac is the result of a long blending process,” said Cochet. “By properly blending different elements, you create the desired style and character, which customers have grown to know and are looking for. The same taste profile and enjoyment should be duplicated despite the fact that components are never the same.”

Quality ‘eau de vie’

And it all begins with distilling quality eau de vie (water of life) from white wine pressed from grapes grown and harvested within the region. When it finally emerges from the double-distillation process, eau de vie is as crystal-clear as water. The time spent in oak barrels will create its transformation, from the taste down to its color.

“Older oak barrels would give less woody element,” said Cochet. “Younger oak barrels would produce stronger, darker cognac. Since these barrels are new, they would release more oak component in terms of taste and color.”

Except for harvesting grapes with machines, the entire process has remained basically the same as the family’s ancestors did it hundreds of years ago. Cochet even suspects that the process of distillation originated from the Arabs long before huge parts of the Middle East became Muslim.

“When you’re drinking a good glass of wine, you’re not enjoying the water,” he said to illustrate the importance of distillation. “Otherwise, why would you spend so much money when mineral water is much cheaper? What you’re enjoying is the remaining 12 percent, which is basically alcohol. It gives the wine components, structure and elements that leave it with a nice aroma.”

As Cochet explained it, the distiller consists of a steel head and “swan’s neck”-like pipe, which coils all the way to the back and into a big cylinder that functions as the condenser, which comes with a funnel from which the first and second flows come out.

Three parts

The boiler or steel head is filled with 2,000 liters of white wine, which is boiled slowly by gas-fired open flame. The process can’t be rushed since evaporation involves only the most volatile part of the white wine, the alcoholic part, which also carries the aroma. Since the heat is regulated, water won’t evaporate with the alcohol.

As the steam slowly rises, it is channeled into a condenser with a coiling pipe drenched in cold running water. Due to the change in temperature, the steam eventually turns into liquid form composed of three parts: head, heart and tail.

“The head, as it name implies, is heady,” said Cochet. “Its aroma is too strong so we separate it. What we get is the second part, the heart, which is what we need. Then comes the watery part called the tail. It’s not pleasant, either, so we separate it.”

The head and tail are collected separately and “rechanneled” back to the next batch of wine to be distilled. The watery part of the wine that’s left in the boiler is sent to a nearby plant to be converted into biogas.

Only the heart or “brouilli” (pronounced as boyie), which consists of 30 percent of the condensed steam, undergoes a second distillation following the initial procedure. Again, only the second distillation’s heart part, now known as eau de vie, is kept for eventual aging.

Everything is monitored manually based on parameters set by the master distiller. Normally, after an hour and 15-20 minutes, the first flow arrives. Based on the flow’s temperature and alcohol content, the one manning the process would know when the heart part is coming and when it’s about to end.

“Here at Hennessy, we distill wines coming from the 200 hectares belonging to us,” said Cochet. “We do a craft distillation, which is a system we use for small batches of distillation.”

Automated distillation

If the house has a bigger batch of wine sourced originally from various vineyards within the region, it resorts to automated distillation. Apart from its three distillers, Hennessy has 19 contracted distillers that own and operate similar equipment. A good number of the 1,400 growers distill their own production.

“Most of them have only one unit. They make the initial distillation, which we collect later for us to do the second distillation,” said Cochet.

It takes nine liters of wine to obtain only one liter of eau de vie after 24 hours of double distillation. What’s more, because of evaporation, only 2/3 of that liter of eau de vie is left after 25 years of maturation time. After 50 years, only one-half is left.

“The process is that long and complex,” said Cochet. And it’s also costly.

Proof of this could be seen and sniffed in the founder’s cellar by the river almost across from Hennessy’s corporate offices. Apart from the robust scent of alcohol reeking all over the cellar, its walls and beams are covered in a black layer of fungus, which, we were told, feed on the eau de vie’s evaporating fumes.

“We don’t need that fungus,” said Cochet. “It’s just here taking its share of our products. We call this evaporation the ‘angels’ share.’ Around 20 million bottles every year, more bottles than we sell to the Philippines, escape in the form of evaporation. These angels enjoy our products for free.”

Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent insisted his company was not responsible for the rise in US obesity despite New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent moves to limit the consumption of sugary drinks.

“This is an important, complicated societal issue that we all have to work together to provide a solution,” Kent told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published late Monday.

“That’s why we are working with government, business and civil society to have active lifestyle programs in every country we operate by 2015,” he said.

His remarks came just weeks after the health-conscious Bloomberg proposed a ban on super-sized soft drinks that would restrict the sale to 16-ounce servings, more than an average can but far less than the bucket-sized beverages offered at cinemas, service stations and sporting events.

Kent said Coca-Cola has diversified from its namesake, offering a wide range of healthy teas, juices, sports drinks and other products.

“We’ve gone from being a single-beverage, single-brand company to now 500-plus brands, 3,000 products. Eight hundred of these products we’ve introduced in the last four or five years are calorie-free or low-calorie.

“It is, I believe, incorrect and unjust to put the blame on any single ingredient, any single product, any single category of food,” he said.

Bloomberg said the proposed ban was needed to confront the “epidemic” of obesity in the United States, which contributes to rising health costs.

Critics have derided the proposed ban as a “nanny state” overreach of government power.

They have also faulted the mayor for seeking to restrict certain unhealthy habits – like smoking and sugary drinks – while the city hosts eat-athons like the annual Coney Island hotdog competition.

The proposed measure would target fast-food and other restaurants, delis, and places of public entertainment like stadiums. It would not cover drinks sold in supermarkets or any diet, fruit, dairy or alcoholic drinks.

By the time, FilAm comedian Jo Koy finished his set, the nearly sold out crowd at the Treasure Island had a hard time breathing.

From all the laughing throughout Friday night, most of the near capacity crowd of 1,400 inside the Mystere Theater had a hard time getting up to give Koy an immediate standing ovation, after his latest performance.

For more than an hour, Koy was at his very best. It’s safe to say the crowd was lively entertained and once they finally took a breath, they gave the Fil-Am comic a rousing five-minute standing ovation.

“I always love performing here,” said Koy after the show.

After all, Vegas is Koy’s hometown—the place where he started his career at an open mic inside a local coffeehouse. From such humble beginnings, he’s worked his way up the mainstream comedic ladder—from the Laugh Factory, BET Comic View, Carlos Mencia’s Punisher Tour and an appearance on the Tonight Show, to now two Comedy Central one-hour specials and enjoying a regular stint on E! Network’s Chelsea Lately while also performing in his own “Jo Koy: Lights Out!” comedy tour around clubs and theaters nationally and worldwide.

On Friday night, it was vintage Koy.

Warming up the crowd was Koy’s regulars in his tour James Ponce, Nick Guerra and Michael Yo. Once Koy came out, he brought down the hammer.

Koy interacts with the crowd, tells tales of growing up with a Filipino mother, and what it’s like being a father to a nine-year-old boy. He also sang some 1990s throwback R&B, mixing it into his set.

With his mother and sisters in the audience (part of his routine), he brought intense energy and laughter the only way he could— with exuberant physical energy and enthusiasm.

In one joke, he talked about how his Filipina mother lectures him to be careful in accepting drinks from strangers after shows.

“Mom say it. What do you mean? Why shouldn’t I accept these drinks?” Koy explains, goading his mother because of her inability to say the name of the drug rohypnol better known as rufies or the date rape drug.

He explains Filipinos have a hard time pronouncing words with “F’s” often using P instead.

“RuPees! There I said it,” he says, speaking like his mother with a Filipino accent. “Go ahead and get those drinks Josep. And get raped.”

“Mom, why do you always tell me to be careful?” says Koy, quickly switching back to his character. “Do you ever talk about this with Rowena and Gemma (his sisters)?”

“Because they are not stupid,” he says as he switches again as his mother. “You are stupid Jo!”

He switches characters so effortlessly, it’s scarily believable.

After the show, hundreds of fans line up for a picture with Koy.

Koy said this is his way of giving back to the crowd.

The night was over, but not for Koy.

Koy will continue the Lights Out Tour. In this month alone, he’ll be performing in Florida, and Kentucky before coming back to the Brea Improv.

MANILA, Philippines—Good timing and persistence have made it possible for a local concert promoter to sign up “American Idol” season 11 runner-up Jessica Sanchez to perform as a solo act in the Philippines — not just for one night, but in a series of shows in five cities.

A source on Tuesday told the Inquirer that new FM station Radio High 105.9 will bring in the petite 16-year-old Filipino-American singing sensation for a solo concert tour in October in Manila, Bataan (her mother’s hometown), Baguio, Cebu and Davao.

An additional show to be held at the Newport Performing Arts Theater of Resorts World Manila is being negotiated, the source said.

Sanchez’s Philippine tour comes after her scheduled appearance on a separate concert featuring 11 Idol finalists on Sept. 21 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Last week the Inquirer reported that there will be no solo Manila concert for Jessica anytime soon, after a protracted bidding jacked up the offered amount for the artist.

It turned out that new negotiations were initiated by Radio High, whose chair and CEO is Francis Lumen, a veteran concert promoter.

WASHINGTON – After a long day in the classroom, middle school teacher Melissa Repsch likes nothing more than to sit down to dinner with a beer – craft beer, that is.

Like a growing number of Americans, she has developed a passion for full-flavored beers from small-volume, fiercely independent local breweries that are redefining how the United States takes its favorite tipple.

“It’s something we enjoy,” said Repsch, 37, as she and husband Jake, 38, also a teacher, sampled some of the 149 different beers from 74 craft breweries at this year’s edition of Savor, the nation’s biggest beer-and-food event.

“The more (varieties of craft beer) we try, the more it seems we’re pushing for something unique and rare,” she added.

Beer is a $96 billion industry in the United States, dominated by three multinationals Belgium’s Anheuser-Busch InBev, best known for perennial best-seller Budweiser, Britain’s SABMiller and Canada’s Molson Coors.

But while overall beer sales dipped one percent in 2011, craft beer sales – which account for five percent of the entire market – surged 13 percent by volume and 15 percent by sales value.

What’s more, the total number of breweries in the United States now exceeds 2,000 – more than at any time since the 19th century, let alone the prohibition years of the 1930s.

“Americans have come of age now, wanting diversity and choice in the beers that they enjoy,” said Julia Herz, program director at the Brewers Association, the craft beer industry’s trade group.

“No longer does a light American lager satisfy every beer-lover’s occasion,” she told AFP in an interview.

With 4,000 attendees over two days, Savor – which takes place amid the soaring Corinthian columns and terra cotta friezes of the National Building Museum – is an event not to be missed for craft beer aficionados.

With tasting glasses in hand, chic professional women in smart cocktail dresses, and younger men who could have made more of a sartorial effort, put such brews as Curmudgeon Old Ale, Hardywood Mocha Belgique, Rosemary Swamp Fox, Skookumchuck Wild Ale, Idiot IPA and Hop’solutely to the taste test.

– Social networks help –

“I wouldn’t say people are giving up on Budweiser, but there is certainly a trend towards more full-flavored beers,” said Steve Kuftinec of Utah’s Uinta Brewing, makers of HOP Notch IPA, a “nicely balanced” India pale ale, and Labyrinth, a “ridiculously big barrel-aged Russian imperial stout.”

IPA, a hoppier version of conventional pale ale, first brewed in England in the 19th century for export to the Indian sub-continent, is far and away the most popular style of craft beer in the United States today.

From distant Hawaii, Garrett Marrero, founder with his wife Melanie of Maui Brewing, brought CoCoNut PorTer and Savrehumano Palena ‘ole as novel examples of their penchant for beer-making with quirky Hawaiian flavors.

“We look a lot to fruits and spices that we have locally,” such as coconut, guava, mango, papaya, passion fruit and pineapple, Marrero told AFP. “We’ve even used Maui onions.”

The Marreros used to work in finance before they put every penny they had into launching Maui Brewing seven years ago – at one point sleeping on the floor of their apartment because they couldn’t yet afford a mattress.

“It’s not something for the faint of heart,” Marrero told AFP. “It’s a lot of hard work… but we had passion and we knew what we wanted to do. We have a very clear vision.”

Social networks help spread the craft beer gospel. So do a raft of specialist publications and smartphone apps like Untappd, a kind of Twitter for hardcore-beer fiends.

“It’s fun stuff,” said consultant Rick Silver, who reckons he’s tried more than 6,000 individual types of beer – on top of the ones he brews at home – since he started keeping track in the mid-1980s.

From Durango, Colorado, co-owner David Thibodeau of Ska Brewing was still in a celebratory mood after its Steel Toe Stout took a gold medal at the World Beer Cup in San Diego last month.

Considering how sluggish the US economy has been, he said, “it’s pretty nutty” that the craft beer sector has thrived as it has.

“This term gets thrown around a lot,” he said, “but I would say it’s an affordable luxury. It’s something that people can treat themselves to without breaking the bank. I think that’s what got us through the downturn.”

Damian McConn, a Dublin native and master brewer at Summit Brewing Company of Saint Paul, Minnesota, found the American craft beer scene so promising that he immigrated 10 years ago to be part of it. He has no regrets.

“In terms of creativity, and innovation, I think the US is the place to be right now,” he said.

“In Germany or Belgium or Czech Republic, you’re seeing some of the most technically outstanding beers in the world – but we’re not seeing the range of beers that we are now seeing in the United States in the craft brewing sector.”

Are you a responsible “househusband?”

With more and more Filipino women leaving for work abroad, the country is seeing the rise of Filipino househusbands—spouses left behind to take care of the household and the children, a Catholic Church official said on Saturday.

Father Edwin Corros, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ Episcopal Commission on the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (CBCP-ECMI), said there was nothing to be ashamed about being a househusband although it reverses the traditional roles of married men and women raising their families.

“Don’t be ashamed if you are a househusband,” Corros said in an interview.
“It’s only proper for those husbands who do not have work, to do their share by doing the work that is normally being done by women at home so as to also contribute in improving their family life,” he added.

Corros said more than half of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who leave the country annually are women, many of them domestic helpers.

They are many

“More than 50 percent of them (migrants) happen to be Filipino women,” he said.
However, Corros said that since the government does not ask OFWs leaving about their civil status, it would be “hard to tell who among them are actually married or single.”

“Even if they say that they are married, but they did not disclose that they are separated that can also be a problem. That’s why it’s hard to make a generalization, but it’s possible that they (househusbands) are many,” he said.

Corros said even within the country, a lot of those employed especially in the service sector were women.

“Since the demand for jobs are changing, women are now more proactive in work than men,” the priest said.

“We just don’t know if the husbands of these women, such as the salesladies that we see working in malls, are working or not,” he added.

No shame

Nevertheless, Corros said husbands should not feel ashamed if they are the ones left at home tending to their kids and doing the household chores. He urged children of “responsible househusbands” to honor their fathers.

“In the newspapers, we see ads urging people to treat their father to this and that or buy him a new watch and so on. It’s really more of commercialism rather than authentic honor for the father because he does this for you. He did exactly what is expected of him as a father,” Corros said.

Timothy Bradley Jr's win over Manny Pacquiao on June 10 stunned Filipinos and boxing fans around the world. But for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia, Bradley's victory only proved what they already knew — "plant-powered athletes, such as Bradley, pack quite a punch," the group said in a press release.

Months before the bout, Bradley adopted a vegan diet, eschewing animal products entirely. The decision was based on an adviser's request for Bradley to switch to greens prior to a fight in London in 2008.

"My thoughts are clearer, crisp. I am sharp. Everything is working perfectly—I feel clean," Bradley was quoted in a previous report on this site.

An article on the Wall Street Journal said Bradley follows a strict vegan diet for three months before a fight, but not year round.

Other boxers also have unusual diets, some quite bizarre. According to boxing writer Gary Andrew Poole in an article on Grantland.com: "Juan Manuel Marquez used to drink his own urine; Archie Moore swore by an 'Aboriginal diet' in which he chewed on meat, sucked out the blood, and then spat out the meat; Ray Robinson supposedly drank human blood (an old-timer who was in the Robinson camp swore to me he witnessed it); Evander Holyfield turned to prayer to help a heart condition; Oscar De La Hoya ate deer and kangaroo meat because his trainer told him, 'Deer run fast,' and because kangaroos' 'legs are strong and when you get in the fight you'll be strong like a kangaroo."

On the other hand, Pacquiao's diet includes beef and chicken. According to an article on www.livestrong.com, his secret is a simple diet featuring two post-workout meals.

“My favorite meal for my fighters and myself is the post-workout meal: Raw oatmeal, nonfat milk, fresh berries and honey,” Pacquiao's strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza told Monique Savin on LiveStrong.com.

Pacquiao's first post-workout meal is meat-free, but it's still not allowed in Bradley's vegan diet because honey is an animal product.

Pacquiao's second meal consists of beef tapa, steamed white rice, tinolang manok, and a plate of melon and mango, the article said.

    Protein sans animal fats and cholesterol

According to PETA, "vegetarian diets provide all the protein athletes need without all the artery-clogging saturated animal fats and cholesterol found in meat, giving meat-free fighters, including Bradley, UFC's Mac Danzig and Jake Shields, WWE's Daniel Bryan, and women's boxing champ Maureen Shea, the energy to go the distance."

Other athletes who have tried a vegetarian diet include Ironman triathlete Brendan Brazier, Home Run Derby winner Prince Fielder, marathon runner Scott Jurek, hockey's Georges Laraque, "Olympian of the Century" Carl Lewis, NFL Hall of Famer quarterback Joe Namath, tennis champion Martina Navratilova, bodybuilder and four-time Mr. Universe winner Bill Pearl, Ultraman Rich Roll, basketball's John Salley, snowboarding champion Hannah Teter, and football star Ricky Williams.

"You don't need any kind of animal products to be an athlete in this day and age," Danzig told PETA US.

PETA explained that unlike animal protein, plant-based protein sources are easily absorbed by the body and contain healthy fiber and complex carbohydrates.

"Vegan athletes stay lean and build muscle without slowing themselves down with cholesterol and saturated fat," said PETA. They add that vegans are less prone to heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity, and a meat-free diet has even been shown to reverse the effects of heart disease.

Animal sources of protein are superior

On the other hand, the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) said protein derived from animal sources such as dairy, eggs, meats, fish and poultry is all high-quality. "A well chosen vegetarian diet can provide adequate total protein intake over the day, with the full complement of essential amino acids being provided by mixing and matching plant protein sources. However, some studies have shown that although recovery eating based on vegetable protein foods such as soy milk can promote protein synthesis after exercise, it is not as effective as an animal source like dairy milk," the IAAF said in its "Nutrition for Athletics" booklet.

The IAAF does not discourage athletes from adopting a vegetarian lifestyle, but it does note that athletes must be more aware of their food choices. "If there are no animal foods in the diet, then a Vitamin B12 supplement may be necessary. Avoiding red meat means that special attention must be paid to ensuring that the diet contains enough iron from plant sources, combined with other foods that aid iron absorption: for example, iron-fortified breakfast cereals, consumed at a meal containing Vitamin C (a glass of orange juice)," the IAAF said.

Beatles art gallery in the Hamburg red-light section where the Fab Four first erupted on to the pop landscape five years ago is concluding its gates this 30 days, it said Friday.

Beatlemania, which features a massive Yellow-colored Boat mock-up jutting out from its five-storey fakeness, has never sketch enough shelling out clients since it started out three years ago, the art gallery said in a declaration.

"We set forth in May 2009 complete of passion and with a lot of system, perspire and rips to create Beatlemania the next, long-overdue phase toward a long lasting honor to the Beatles in the town that formed their design and achievements," md Folker Koopmans said, stating a ending period of time of May 30.

"Now we have to identify that despite the extremely good reviews of our guests and the press, the attention in the Beatles in the town where Bob Lennon said he 'grew up' is not as excellent as we had expected."

The art gallery shows 1,000 artefacts from the Beatles' profession and had presented activities on subjects such as fan lifestyle in the former Communist Nation as well as live shows and unique occasions.

Koopmans said that the art gallery had attracted about 150,000 guests since its starting, too few to protect its expenses without economical assistance from the town, which was not approaching.

The south In german slot town of Hamburg developed the Beatles as youthful entertainers in its seedy St. Pauli section off the Reeperbahn primary move, lengthy before they would become celebrities.

The then mysterious group from the British town of Luton performed their first gig in Malaysia at a moth-eaten remove combined known as the Indra Team on Aug 17, 1960.

When Bob McCartney location a sold-out display in Hamburg a few several weeks after the Beatlemania starting, he informed a In german paper that Hamburg was the town where the group gained its grinds, enjoying evening after evening for more than two years.

"The town started out our sight," he informed the Frankfurter Rundschau.

"We went there as kids and came returning as... old kids. On the Reeperbahn we quite easily had our baptism of flame when it came to sex–it was like we were let off our leads. It was a outrageous time."

Anna Aquino Dee’s reaction to our study was unintentionally overlooked from “How excessive is extreme—Filipino mothers talk up” (Inquirer Way of life Being a parent, May 30).

The study preferred the views and side effects of Philippine mothers to Time Magazine’s revealing protect displaying a mom nursing her 3-year-old son. Here it is:

Do you think it’s excessive or normal?

I think the image itself was excessive. The way they location, designed and put a condescending title to it was to me, unpleasant and surrounding on scandalous. And let me inform you that what I am responding to was the way in which they provided Connection Being a parent and not the point that we have an prolonged breastfeeder in the picture.

Breastfeeding a 3-year-old is regarded regular but perhaps because they provided it in an almost mature style, it really frustrated me.

Pardon my terminology but I mean mature in the feeling that it misrepresents something wonderful and real. That is exactly how I experience about the image.

Scandalous too, because it is creatively fighting and can cause others to get stunned beyond purpose and probably create severe conclusions on an perfect factor such as prolonged nursing.

There may be kids who are still bottle-feeding at age 6 but nobody ever images them that way nor do we ever see such actions on a protect of a journal.

What took place here is a obvious harm to nursing mothers and genuine sensationalism and promotion methods to be able to ignite debate and offer newspapers.

Do you believe in nursing beyond 1?

Definitely. And it is so sad that not enough females do this. The conventional which is suggested by the Community Wellness Company, Unicef, United states Academia of Pediatric medicine and just about any power on health, is that we specifically breastfeed our kids for 6 several weeks and proceed on, up until 2 decades, or (and this may be a impact to some) until “mutually preferred.”

The international age conventional for nursing is actually four decades of age. A kid's defense mechanisms is not performing at mature stage until age 6. This creates nursing the maximum exercise.

Every kid weans at his/her own pace… some previously than others. It is not irregular to go beyond 2 decades of age.

Weaning can be a lengthy and constant procedure. We should be in no hurry to shift on to the next stage because no issue how you look at it, nursing is complete self-giving and the advantages are too remarkable to forget.

So why the need to graduate student from it too early only to yield to what a formula-feeding community creates as acceptable?

It is as individual as a person's trust and you cannot determine how and what a individual considers. Why cannot the same regard be prolonged to someone who chooses to breastfeed extendedly or exercise attachment parenting?

At the end of the day, we are all just doing our aspect to increase our family members the best way we can. We need to be able to select what we presume and know performs for our own family members.

Other comments

This debate has triggered me to consider a few factors and allow me to create a few points:

Breastfeeding advantages are cumulative—the a longer period you breastfeed, the more powerful and lengthy lasting the advantages you enjoy. For example, the decrease in most cancers threats and even resistance to certain diseases.

Breastfeeding is not just nourishment. It is caring. It is a parenting device. Breastfeeding conveys to our kids in a way in which they are able to procedure (pardon the pun) really like and protection.

We should really be concentrating on strengthening mothers and family members instead of beginning mom conflicts and creating individuals experience accountable about their options.