"Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing."
--Jean-Jacques Rousseau
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- It was Mayor Mariano Malones of Maasin, Iloilo in the Philippines, who was falsely accused of being involved in narco-politics.
Malones, his family and political supporters, have endured humiliation for several months now from the wrong accusation.
Contagion and rebels flourished in the clogged, crooked streets of 19th-century Paris, until one man — dubbed the Demolisher — cleared the path to a modern, industrialized France.
When the point-of-sale giant NCR decided to shutter its Viroqua, Wisconsin, factory in January 2009, 80 or so jobs disappeared, and the town of 4,300 joined the ranks of rural communities left reeling by the downturn.
A president known for stretching the limits of ethical conduct makes a bold move to pardon a close family member of federal crimes. This is not a bulletin from the future, but rather from 2001, when Bill Clinton pardoned his half brother for cocaine possession. The cleaning of Roger Clinton’s slate (he had served his time years earlier) was but a drop in the controversial flood of pardons Clinton issued at the close of his presidency, and evidence of a broad constitutional power with few checks.
"People will make mean comments. People are going to say that you're fat, that you're this, that you're that. You just have to be comfortable in your own skin."
-- Ashley Benson
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- Do we treat someone shabbily because he or she is overweight or fat?
There are jeepney--and even taxi--drivers in the Philippine who refuse to take passengers that "occupy two seats" per body because of their "over" weight or "big" size.
Of Japan’s four main islands, Shikoku is the smallest. Most people from the other three would also say it is the strangest, the one least like the rest of the modern country. With no volcanoes or even a bullet train, the city folk in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo say it’s a bit backward, not really Japan at all. The first time I didn’t see it, but after my second, third and fourth trips there, I could see there was some truth in it. And by the time I got to visit Kochi, the largest prefecture on Shikoku, I was not at all surprised to find it was the home of the boisterous, bonkers Hirome Market.
In a large building in a quiet neighborhood of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, young people stand in line to pass through metal detectors. Mostly in their twenties and early thirties, the Ukrainians entering the highly secured yet largely nondescript building are charged with a sensitive task: unmasking high-level government corruption.
