The Magdalene Sisters

The 2003 film The Magdalene Sisters documents the incarceration of some young Irish women in the Magdalene Asylums of the 1960s and 1970s. The Magdalene women were sent to these Roman Catholic institutions for various moral transgressions -- from pregnancy to loose behavior -- and served as, essentially, slave labor in laundries and other services. From womenshistory

Eraserhead

STYLE / T: STYLE MAGAZINE | February 25, 2007
A Moving Canvas
By HOLLY BRUBACH

It's dark in David Lynch's world. You wish that Laura Dern had brought a flashlight for her role in "Inland Empire," his latest film, as she repeatedly ventures into blackness, her presence reduced to the rhythmic clicking of high heels on concrete. The experience is a familiar one to Lynch's fans of long standing, beginning in 1977 with "Eraserhead," his bizarre and haunting breakthrough featuring a mutant baby and shot in black and white (mostly black, a little white), continuing through "The Elephant Man," "Blue Velvet" and "Mulholland Drive": time and again, characters disappear into darkness; characters emerge from darkness into light. The shadows, with their implicit sense of menace, define the contours of a body or a face, carving out the hollows. Lynch paints with darkness the way other filmmakers slather on the sunbeams and fluorescent glare. The images unfold — breathtaking, perplexing — and we watch, in the grip of beauty and fear. Read more...

Runway Playlist

Beck- "Think I'm in Love"
CSS- "Alala"
Ciara- "1,2 Step"
Depeche Mode- "Just Can't Get Enough"
Beyonce- "Get Me Bodied"
Jim Jones- "We Fly High"
Justin Timberlake feat. T.I.- "My Love"
Diddy feat. Nicole Wray- "Lat Night"
The Crystals- "Then He Kissed Me"
The Turtles- "Happy Together"
Marian Dacal- "Crazy in Love" (cover of Beyonce)
Akon- "I Wanna Love You"
Siouxsie & the Banshees- "Hong Kong Garden"
Christina Aguilera- "Candyman"
The Raveonettes- "My Boyfriend's Back"
Tom Tom Club- "Wordy Rappinghood"
New Young Pony Club- "Ice Cream"
Beyonce- "Irreplaceable"
Blondie- "Sunday Girl"
Shirley Ellis- "The Clapping Song"
Swan Dive- "Heart of Glass (remix)
Lily Allen- "Smile"
Lily Allen- "Friday Night"
Lady Sovereign- "Love Me or Hate Me"
The Supremes- "You Keep Me Hangin' On"
Aqua- "Barbie Girl (remix)
Brasil '66 feat. Sergio Mendes- "Mas Ove Nada"
Sweet- "Love is Like Oxygen"
The Go! Team- "The Ice Storm"
Scissor Sisters- "I Don't Feel like Dancin'"
Milk & Sugar- "Love is in the Air" (remix)
The Hives- "Hate To Say I Told You So"
The Gossip- "Listen up!"
The Gossip- "Standing in the Way of Control"
Donna Summers- "I Feel Love"

From ellegirl

Vote Kabataan Partylist

Radio Mundo

Real World Radio: Broadcasting Activism
By Real World Radio
Real World Radio is adding something different to the internet radio dial. The online radio site is on a mission to inform global citizens about grassroots scenes across the world. The multilingual endeavor (broadcasts are in Spanish, English, French, Italian, and Portuguese) reports international news and serves as a network for various community radio efforts. With the main beat of tracking "the impacts of trade liberalization on the Third World countries," coverage of gatherings such as the World Social Forum and World Water Forum are a staple. Real World Radio can be freely downloaded and is available via podcast, or you can read transcripts online. -- Natalie Hudson
http://www.radiomundoreal.fm/rmr/?q=en

OFW Bayani

Mula uli kay Joy D.:

Given the realities in the Philippine economy, is it possible to reach a "turning point" in the economy with the OFW savings, skills/know-how leading the transformation?

The government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been hailing overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) as the nation's new heroes (bagong bayani). She said OFW remittances have been keeping the economy afloat.

Migration has reached an unprecedented scale. Through decades, there is an increasing and continuous influx of Filipinos- domestic helpers, nurses, professionals, entertainers, families- around the world. Migration has become an all-time Filipino dream: to search for a better life that their own country cannot provide.

The government, instead of encouraging the Filipinos to stay, launched an aggressive campaign to further lure them abroad. The number of recruitment and training agencies shot up. Vocational and nursing schools were customized to meet the growing demand for global labor in the manufacturing and services sectors.

Overseas work is here to stay. However, it is originally meant to serve as a stop-gap approach in developing our domestic economy. While OFW remittances offer a steady guarantee of much-needed foreign currency, we cannot depend on these forever. In recent years, we have witnessed how developed countries like the Unites States enforced strict immigration and labor laws to protect its citizens from job displacement against the influx of lower paid workers usually from the developing world.

Furthermore, the collapse of trade talks, the growing international social dissent, only indicated that instead of upping the ante for the promises of globalization, it becomes more imperative to tend our own backyard first.

The Philippines needs a core labor force who will sustain the local economy. To achieve it, basic industries and sectors especially agriculture should be further developed. With the neoliberal thrusts of the successive governments, this strategy seems far-fetched. We still have a long way to go.

In the meantime, we cannot curtail Filipinos' mobility or their freedom to go wherever they want to. Nor can we pass judgment on their decision to migrate as being a disservice to the nation. However, if we can give them enough reasons to stay, then they can better weigh their options and make informed choices.

Shelf Reading

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens (Alice Walker)
The Robber Bride (Margaret Atwood)
Necessary Targets (Eve Ensler)
Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind (Belenky et al)
Young Wives' Tales: New Adventures in Love and PArtnership (Jill Corral and Lisa Miya-Jervis, eds. with Foreword by bell hooks
The American Women's Almanac: An Inspiring and Irreverent Women's History (Louise Bernikow)
A Widow for One Year (John Irving)
The Pilgrimage (Paulo Coelho)
How Wal Mart is Destroying America and What You Can Do About It (Bill Quinn)

short takes

ilang taon ko nang hinihingi sa mama yung pearl earrings nya. ayaw nyang ibigay, hindi raw ako makakapag-asawa. two weeks ago, binigay na nya.

from master m: "marami akong experience sa _ pero wala sa relationships. ganun yung feeling. gets mo, J?"

from maricel's friend, "26 ka na choosy ka pa! takatak!"

mac mac's panty creamer of the day: kambyo sa parking lot ng sm north

mayel's puffy eyes: corectional!

majal's new BFF

utol is in the citeeh.

tinatawag na ako ng quiapoooooo

malamig pero summer mode na ako

so burges