27 November 2015: BLACK FRIDAY MATTERS.

Being a person obsessed with language in all its odd manifestations, I decided to look up the origin of “Black Friday,” and here’s the best and the worst that the internet has to offer. First the worst:  The day after Thanksgiving was “when slave traders would go into town to show off their best slaves,”…

Thanks Be to G(rant).

Growing up as I did in Manila, even with the all-pervasive colonial influence of the United States, the yearly gross consumption of food on the last Thursday in November simply was not part of our cultural appetite.  Hard to imagine Filipinos as Pilgrims, not even as Filgrims, except perhaps on the receiving end.  But, after…

26 November 2016: POTUS, TOTUS and PUTIN.

TOTUS (Turkey of the United States) was granted a presidential pardon amid much fanfare yesterday at the White House by POTUS.  And now all eyes turn to President Vladimir Putin.  Will he or won’t he pardon a troublesome Turkey shooting down a Russian plane for flying where it shouldn’t?  Or will the hungry Bear gobble,…