Lisa's Site

Iowa judge rules nude dancing is an art
State law allows nudity in theaters, museums and venues devoted to the arts

DES MOINES, Iowa - Nude dancing remains an art in Iowa.

A judge Friday ruled in favor of a nude dancing club owner charged with violating Iowa's indecent exposure law.

Fremont County Judge Timothy O'Grady said prosecutors failed to prove the club wasn't a theater. Iowa law allows nudity at theaters, museums and other venues devoted to the arts or theatrical performances.

The county's attorney, Margaret Johnson, charged club owner Clarence Judy after a 17-year-old girl climbed on stage at Shotgun Geniez in the tiny town of Hamburg and stripped off her clothing.

"I think it's a little scary," said Johnson, who emphasized that the girl was still a minor.

The club was sold Monday to Terry Rutledge. He expressed confidence that nude dancing would remain legal, referring to a 1998 case in Davenport that found it an art.

"In all actuality, you don't have to be a theater hall, concert hall or anything. You can be a strip club that has nude dance," Rutledge said.

The state attorney general's office will decide whether to appeal the case.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25972909/?GT1=43001

Start:	Jul 30, '08 08:00a
End:	Jul 30, '08 6:30p
Location:	Escaler Hall and Ateneo Art Gallery, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines

2008 ATENEO ART AWARDS: ZONES OF INFLUENCE FORUM

To celebrate the fifth year of the Ateneo Art Awards, leading artists, curators, art educators, art writers, gallerists and collectors discuss the state of contemporary Philippine art, and new directions for its future.



30 July 2008, 8 am - 630 pm
Escaler Hall and Ateneo Art Gallery
The Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University
Loyola Heights, Quezon City

Free admission



PROGRAM

8:30 – 9:00 AM
Registration

9:00 – 9:15 AM
Opening Remarks: Yael Buencamino, Managing Curator, Ateneo Art Gallery



9:15 – 10:45 AM
Zone 1: Academe
Escaler Hall, The Loyola Schools

Chair
Fr. Rene Javellana, Director, Fine Art Program, Ateneo de Manila University

Speakers
Tina Colayco, Dean, College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines, Diliman
"UP College of Fine Arts: The Next 100 Years"

Assoc. Prof. Jaime de los Santos, Dean, College of Fine Arts and Design, University of Sto. Tomas
"Tradition and Change : New Directions for the UST College of Fine Arts Program"

Architect Juan Gerard Torres, Dean, School of Design and Arts, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde
"Tradition and Change in the CSB School of Design And Arts"

Architect Lorelei del Castillo - de Viana, Dean, Institute of Architecture and Fine Arts, Far Eastern University
"Post Education : Careers in the Arts"

Discussion and open forum



10:45 – 11:00 AM
Break



11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Zone 2: Curators + Art Writers
Escaler Hall, The Loyola Schools

Chair
Ringo Bunoan, Researcher-Philippines, Asia Art Archive

Speakers
Eileen Legaspi Ramirez, Editor, Pananaw: Journal of Philippine Visual Arts
"Pananaw : A view on the state of art writing in the Philippines"

Ma. Victoria Herrera, Curator, Vargas Museum, University of the Philippines, Diliman
"Site Specific Work : Questions of Space and Place"

Gina Fairley, Regional Editor, Asian Art News and Juror, 2008 Ateneo Art Awards
"Perspectives of Philippine Art Today"

Joselina Cruz, Curator, 2008 Singapore Biennale

Reactor
Alicia Herrera, Editor, Life Section, Businessworld

Discussion and open forum



12:30 – 1:30PM
Lunch



1:30 – 3:00PM
ZONE 3: Galleries and Collectors
EscalerHall, The Loyola Schools

Moderator
Gina Fairley, Regional Contributing Editor, Asian Art News

Round table discussion with:
Cesar Villalon Jr., Director, The Drawing Room
Vita Sarenas, Director, Finale Art Gallery
Isa Lorenzo, Director, silverlens Gallery

Discussion and open forum


3:15 – 3: 30 PM
Break/ transfer to Ateneo Art Gallery



3:30 – 6:00PM
Zone 4 : Artists
Ateneo Art Gallery

Chair
Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez, Editor, Pananaw: Journal of Phil. Visual Arts

Speakers
Karen Flores
"Tutok"

Ronaldo Ruiz
"Tupada"

Charlie Co
"Contemporary art in the Visayas"

Manuel Ocampo
"The Difficulty in showing, promoting, and marketing art made in the Philippines"

Yason Banal
"Re-thinking: Conceptual Art"

Kawayan De Guia
"The Baguio contemporary art scene"

Discussion and open forum


The 2008 Ateneo Art Awards: Zones of Influence Forum is made possible by Asia Art Archive, Pananaw: Philippine Journal of Visual Arts and Asian Art News, together with 2008 Ateneo Art Awards co-presentors Shangri-La Properties, UnionBank, Metro Society and Y Style of the Philippine Star and 2008 Ateneo Art Awards sponsor Smart Communications. For inquiries, contact Sidd Perez via phone +63 2 4266488 or email sperez@ateneo.edu

Banksy: An Artist Unmasked
by Alex Altman

Monday, 21 July 2008

For years the graffiti artist known as Banksy has been the art world's Deep Throat: a hugely influential figure whose identity remained shrouded in mystery. Now, like Deep Throat, he has been given a name.

Banksy is a 34-year-old native of Bristol, England, named Robin Gunningham, Britain's the Mail on Sunday reported on July 13. The thread that may have unraveled the mystery was a 2004 photograph taken in Jamaica, which many — including photographer Peter Dean Rickards — say is the only known picture of Banksy. (The artist's agent, Steve Lazarides, denied that the photo — which depicts a man in jeans and sneakers crouching above a can of spray paint — is of Banksy. A spokeswoman for the artist declined to confirm or deny the Mail's report.)

With the picture in tow, the Mail canvassed Bristol, unearthing former acquaintances who identified the man in the photo as Gunningham. A former schoolmate interviewed by the paper recalled that Gunningham was a talented artist, while Luke Egan, an artist who has jointly exhibited with Banksy, told the paper that he shared a Bristol flat with Gunningham in 1998. Asked by the Mail whether Gunningham was Banksy, Egan reportedly replied, "Well, he wasn't then." Gunningham, whose middle-class upbringing bears little resemblance to Banksy's renegade persona, has vanished.

Since striding onto the scene in the early 1990s, Banksy has vaulted from obscurity to international renown, all the while escaping detection. Among his catalog of greatest hits, Banksy has released an inflatable Guant�namo Bay prisoner doll at Disneyland, depicted England's Queen Elizabeth II as a chimpanzee, tagged the West Bank border fence and sneaked his own Mona Lisa — her inscrutable expression replaced by a yellow smiley face — into the Louvre. "He's kind of captured the zeitgeist," says Gareth Williams, a contemporary-art specialist at Bonhams auction house in London. "But he's done it in quite an accessible way, so it speaks to people." Even for a vandal, going mainstream has its perks: Banksy's handiwork has commanded millions of dollars at auction from acolytes like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

But anonymity has been as crucial a part of Banksy's mythology as irony and wit. "Anything that's ever been written about him centers around the anonymity — that he's this Batman, this cult figure," says Pedro Alonzo, who curated an exhibition in England to which Banksy contributed. But that doesn't necessarily mean being unmasked would hurt Banksy's popularity. The intrigue over his identity has been a "double-edged sword," Alonzo says, since it has occluded the messages bundled in his art. "His work is a call to action. It's about hierarchies of power, social injustice and paying attention to issues that aren't being addressed," he adds. "There could be a bright side to this — the attention being diverted from his identity [could allow] people to really look at his work and consider it." Says Williams: "I don't think the Banksy story ends here."

Pinpointing Banksy's identity has long been a popular parlor game, and it's yielded false positives before. Last fall, a passerby in the East London neighborhood of Bethnal Green snapped a camera-phone picture of a man spray-painting a mural later confirmed to be Banksy's. In May, the New York City–based media blog Gawker suggested that Banksy might be Nick Walker, a British artist who, after being spotted stenciling a mural on the side of a Manhattan restaurant, reputedly told an onlooker that he was the elusive artist. The precision and scope of Banksy's creations have led others to theorize that he may work with a partner or that Banksy serves as the nom de guerre for a group of conspirators.

If Banksy has indeed been identified, Williams doesn't think it will puncture Banksy's ballooning sales figures. But Jeffrey Deitch, an art dealer with close ties to legendary graffiti artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, asks, "When you can buy a superb Picasso drawing for $500,000 and a work dashed off by Banksy for the same price, does that make sense to you?" Still, Deitch, who says he likes a lot of Banksy's work, adds, "I don't think it will have any effect on his output. He's established the brand."

What exactly that brand represents has never been entirely clear. Banksy is a paradox: he used his anonymity to court attention and became a commercial success by condemning consumer culture. "I originally set out to try and save the world, but now I'm not sure I like it enough," he wrote in an e-mail to the New Yorker magazine last year. If his veil has been lifted, the world will have a chance to make an assessment of its own.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1825271,00.html?xid=rss-arts

Monet? Gauguin? Using art to make better doctors
New courses improve powers of observation
By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff | July 20, 2008

Dr. Joel Katz's class of Harvard Medical School students meets on Friday afternoons at the Museum of Fine Arts, where they discuss the Seated Bodhisattva, a towering figure carved in ancient China, Joseph Mallord William Turner's Slave Ship, and other artworks Katz believes will make them better doctors.

On one Friday this spring, 24 of the country's most promising future physicians circled the limestone Bodhisattva as art instructor Alexa Miller posed a question: "What's happening here?" The students initially observed that the figure was made of stone and appeared peaceful. But she pushed them further. "What do you see that makes you say that?" she asked.

After an hour at the museum, the class walked back to Harvard Medical School to apply what they had learned about examining art to diagnosing breathing problems, skin rashes, and neurological disorders, and to reading lung X-rays.

Katz's class is one of a growing number of art courses offered to medical students nationwide and aimed at improving their observation and diagnostic skills at a time when doctors are increasingly relying on CT scans, Maris, biopsies, and other technology to do their work, even though it is far more expensive - and sometimes unnecessary to pinpoint illnesses.

Nana Aqua Judah, who graduated from Harvard in June and is now an obstetrics and gynecology resident in Toronto, said the art class taught her to look more carefully at patients for clues. For example, if a young mother looks run down, it might indicate she's too stressed to take a medication that requires five doses a day, leading Judah to prescribe a once- or twice-a-day drug. Besides, said Judah, who was taking six or seven classes at the time, "to me it seemed like a relief. We were going to an art gallery for a class."

At tradition-minded Harvard, many faculty were skeptical about the idea of using art to make better doctors when Katz proposed the class five years ago, especially since the first- and second-year students who enroll are already overwhelmed with work. But Katz's belief that physicians can improve their diagnostic skills by observing art was bolstered this month when he and his colleagues published a study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine showing that after completing the class, students' ability to make accurate observations increased 38 percent. When shown artwork and photos of patients, students were more likely to notice features such as a patient's eyes being asymmetrical or a tiny, healed sore on an index finger. Observations by a control group of students who did not take the class did not change.

"We're trying to train students to not make assumptions about what they're going to see, but to do deep looking. Our hope is that they will be able to do this when they look at patients," said Katz, an internist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a former graphic designer. He said several studies show that doctors' physical exam skills, which include observation and taking a medical history, as well as the hands-on examination, are declining.

The most difficult part of the class for the high-achieving Harvard students, Miller said, seems to be letting go of their urge to find the one right answer. The Bodhisattva, for example, can spark a wide range of emotions, as the statue is towering and imposing when seen from the front but then "almost disappears into space" when looked at from the side, Miller said. As she pushes students to look harder at the sculpture, using a technique called visual thinking strategies, students' observations become more complex, and they notice that the Bodhisattva is powerful, but also small and poignant.

While diagnosing a medical condition involves reaching the right answer, often, to get there, doctors have to open their minds to myriad possibilities.

"When we get fixated on getting the right answer, we miss the diagnosis because it blocks the ability to think flexibly," Miller said. "We want them to puzzle through things."

Educators at other medical schools that offer art classes have similar goals. Weill Medical College of Cornell University has offered a noncredit art course in collaboration with the Frick Collection in New York City for eight years, while Yale Medical School runs an art observation course for medical students that is now a required class.

Students in the Harvard class study a wide range of original art, including oil paintings by Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, and John Singer Sargent, and sculptures from Iran and India. Students have the option of drawing a nude model as well. Instructors draw exact parallels between some artworks and diagnosing illness; students, for example, study texture and pattern in Jackson Pollack's abstract Number 10, and then return to the medical school to study how patterns in patients' rashes can indicate specific conditions. But the course primarily trains students to look at what they're seeing more carefully.

Dr. Robert Brown, a pulmonologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a course instructor, gets undressed above the waist to give his lecture on breathing muscles. Three patients enter the classroom, including a quadriplegic man who also is shirtless, a woman with muscular dystrophy, and a woman with a deformed spine. Afterward, students list what they saw. Brown wants them to notice that his upper rib cage moves outward while the paralyzed patient's upper rib cage moves inward. Paralysis of the diaphragm is a diagnosis doctors often miss, he said, but inward movement of the belly while breathing is one sign.

If they look carefully "during the physical exam they can begin to put the pieces together," he said.

While research into doctors' physical exam skills is sparse, there is a consensus in medicine that those skills are waning. Some doctors believe medical schools are giving short shrift to the physical exam, but others believe these skills atrophy once doctors graduate and start practicing their specialty.

"When I've been to Africa and the Amazon and there are no CT scans and X-rays and it's just you and a flashlight and a stethoscope and something to look into the patients' ears, you have nothing to fall back on other than your clinical skills," said Dr. Ronald Silvestri, a pulmonologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who runs Harvard's doctor-patient course, which teaches the physical exam.

In the United States, he said, doctors turn more quickly to these widely available tests and tend to be very rushed when seeing patients. "If you have a 10-minute visit, how good an observer can you be?" While Silvestri believes the quality of care doesn't suffer from the widespread use of diagnostic tests, he thinks the overall healthcare system does.

"It's one reason that American medical care is so expensive," he said.

But whether art classes will have a lasting impact remains an open question.

Students in the course run by Katz and Brigham neurologist Dr. Shahram Khoshbin were evaluated immediately after they took the course, not as practicing doctors, when they will face the threat of malpractice lawsuits for wrong diagnosis.

Liz Kowalczyk can be reached at kowalczyk@globe. com.

© Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Start:	Jul 23, '08 4:30p
End:	Jul 23, '08 6:00p
Location:	Ateneo Art Gallery, G/F Rizal Library, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Manila, Philippines

Talking Art with the Ateneo Art Gallery

Lyle Buencamino, Wawi Navarroza and MM Yu exhibit their responses to their respective 2007 Ateneo Art Award International Studio Residency Grants experiences. Buencamino's "All the Symptoms But Not the Disease," Navarroza's "New Works" and Yu's "Standstill" will run at the Ateneo
Art Gallery from 10 July to 9 August 2008.

Accompanying the three exhibitions is ArtSpeak, the lively lecture series of the Ateneo Art Gallery which aims to increase awareness, knowledge and understanding of modern and contemporary art. Wawi Navarroza delivers her ArtSpeak lecture on Wednesday, 16 July, while Lyle Buencamino and MM Yu will elaborate on their shows on 23 July. Artspeak will take place at the Ateneo Art
Gallery from 4:30 to 6:00pm.

In addition to Artspeak, the 2008 Ateneo Art Awards: Zones of Influence Forum is also going to be hosted by the Ateneo Art Gallery to celebrate the fifth year of the Ateneo Art Awards. The forum is scheduled on Wednesday, 30 July 2008. This will be held at the Escaler Hall from 8:00am to 3:00pm, and at the SEC A Lecture Hall from 3:00 to 5:00pm.

This one-day event will bring together leading contemporary visual artists, curators, art educators, art writers, gallerists and collectors, where various issues regarding the state of contemporary Philippine art will be presented, and directions for its future discussed.

The 2008 Ateneo Art Awards: Zones of Influence Forum is made possible by Asia Art Archive, Pananaw: Philippine Journal of Visual Arts and Asian Art News, together with 2008 Ateneo Art Awards co-presentors Shangri-La Properties, UnionBank, Metro Society and Y Style of the Philippine Star.

The Ateneo Art Gallery, Escaler Hall and SEC A Lecture Hall are located at the Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City.

For inquiries, please contact Siddharta Perez at +63 2 426 6488 or via email sperez@ateneo.edu

Start:	Jul 16, '08 4:30p
End:	Jul 16, '08 6:00p
Location:	Ateneo Art Gallery, G/F Rizal Library, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Manila, Philippines

Talking Art with the Ateneo Art Gallery

Lyle Buencamino, Wawi Navarroza and MM Yu exhibit their responses to their respective 2007 Ateneo Art Award International Studio Residency Grants experiences. Buencamino's "All the Symptoms But Not the Disease," Navarroza's "New Works" and Yu's "Standstill" will run at the Ateneo
Art Gallery from 10 July to 9 August 2008.

Accompanying the three exhibitions is ArtSpeak, the lively lecture series of the Ateneo Art Gallery which aims to increase awareness, knowledge and understanding of modern and contemporary art. Wawi Navarroza delivers her ArtSpeak lecture on Wednesday, 16 July, while Lyle Buencamino and MM Yu will elaborate on their shows on 23 July. Artspeak will take place at the Ateneo Art
Gallery from 4:30 to 6:00pm.

In addition to Artspeak, the 2008 Ateneo Art Awards: Zones of Influence Forum is also going to be hosted by the Ateneo Art Gallery to celebrate the fifth year of the Ateneo Art Awards. The forum is scheduled on Wednesday, 30 July 2008. This will be held at the Escaler Hall from 8:00am to 3:00pm, and at the SEC A Lecture Hall from 3:00 to 5:00pm.

This one-day event will bring together leading contemporary visual artists, curators, art educators, art writers, gallerists and collectors, where various issues regarding the state of contemporary Philippine art will be presented, and directions for its future discussed.

The 2008 Ateneo Art Awards: Zones of Influence Forum is made possible by Asia Art Archive, Pananaw: Philippine Journal of Visual Arts and Asian Art News, together with 2008 Ateneo Art Awards co-presentors Shangri-La Properties, UnionBank, Metro Society and Y Style of the Philippine Star.

The Ateneo Art Gallery, Escaler Hall and SEC A Lecture Hall are located at the Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City.

For inquiries, please contact Siddharta Perez at +63 2 426 6488 or via email sperez@ateneo.edu

Text for Noel Skrzypczak's Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces Studio 12 exhibition, Love and Babies or Landscape from the Planet Tralfamadore. I don't have images from the exhibit but thought I'd post the text anyway :)

http://www.gertrude.org.au/exhibition.php?id=620

Into the Fourth Dimension By Clarissa Chikiamco

For her GCAS Studio 12 project, Noel Skrzypczak adds a new dimension in her visual art practice. Extending her painting prose into the sculptural, Skrzypczak’s latest work continues her recent explorations into the multidimensional.

Skrzypczak’s paintings have always been, in a sense, sculptural. In an attempt to break the illusion of paintings being like windows into another world, Skrzypczak’s work continually attempts to free itself from the uniformly rectangular canvas. Using abstraction, either alone, or combined with the recognisable; odd-shaped canvases or no canvases at all, she paints with a constellation of different colours that simultaneously combine, meld, gravitate and levitate, so that her paintings act like the visible residues of an otherworldly realm existing beyond the human level of perception.

Like traces of auric bodies, Skrzypczak’s work seems to tune into other frequencies, picking up radiations of the emotive, the relative and the surreal. Her paintings are inducements to the experiential—inviting contact with palpable drops of the metaphysical. Perhaps the paintings could appropriately be called ‘space invaders’ for their shambolic and unreserved occupations of space, their ostensibly extraterrestrial presence. Yet, despite these benign confrontations with the foreign and the mystical, the works remain essentially human, having a persuasive ability to stimulate contemplation into the very real world of the intangible.

Love and Babies or Landscape of the Planet Tralfamadore runs in the same vein. Oscillating between the corporeal and the ethereal, Skrzypczak’s sculptural installation is another experimental foray into rendering the multiplicities of the invisible into the physical.

Love and Babies or Landscape of the Planet Tralfamadore is inspired by the book Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. A tale of the bombing of Dresden, the book contains a subplot in which protagonist Billy Pilgrim is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. He is exhibited naked in a Tralfamadorian zoo and is later joined by kidnapped porn star Montana Wildhack, who is equally naked, save for a locket containing a picture of her mother around her neck. He later mates with her and impregnates her and, several years later back on earth, remembers her on the planet Tralfamadore, taking care of their baby.

Skrzypczak’s work, originally envisaged as a temporary installation in a strip club, was meant to echo the book’s observation that the sex industry is really all about love and babies. Through capturing this desire for intimacy and the innocent yearning for tenderness through procreation, the piece moves beyond its initial beginnings in the realm of the erotic, to a very basic and universal longing for an other.

Skrzypczak intuitively sculpts a partial landscape of Tralfamadore in which this mating took place, using various gradients of magenta that sensuously unfold and mushroom on Studio 12’s floor. Through installing a light within the landscape’s voluptuous swells and contusions in the darkened room, Love and Babies or Landscape of the Planet Tralfamadore can be seen to evoke a sense that life forms are incubating within its interior, transforming the sculpture into a protoplasmic sheath protecting its simmering progenies. In this way the delicate biomorphic quality resonates with the very organic and enigmatic processes in which babies are created, while its lush colouring and wide span seem to embody a mother’s, or a lover’s, embrace. Love and Babies or Landscape of Tralfamadore does not simply suggest an alien terrain, but describes the very mystifying and phenomenal astral ambit of love and babies.

Slaughterhouse 5 describes the Tralfamadorians as being able to see in the fourth dimension, and find humans’ limited 3D vision limiting in the extreme. It is precisely a fourth dimension that Skrzypczak essentially brings to her works. Through employing materials that appear to escape from their confines, Skrzypczak incites the viewer to realise the presence of the extrasensory spectrum in which experience and emotions lie, and ultimately inviting the viewer to see into another dimension and beyond the 3D.

This essay by Clarissa Chikiamco was produced as part of the Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces and Art and Australia 2008 Emerging Writers Programme.

A Petition to Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim: Please Stop High Rise Construction on R. Hidalgo
Street in Quiapo, Manila

Hello everyone,

Please help the residents and friends of Quiapo, Manila. Simply click the weblink below
and sign the online petition letter. Your signature will be of great help to preserve and
protect Quiapo: the heart of Manila:

http://www.petitiononline.com/rhidalgo/petition.html

Thank you very much!

Sincerely,

Friends and Residents of Manila

* Please forward this e-mail to your friends and colleagues.

* Attached are photos that you may include in your blogs or forwarded e-mail for
reference.

* This petition letter is spearheaded by Dr. Fernando Nakpil Zialcita, friends, and residents
of Manila.

-----

To: Hon. Alfredo Lim, Mayor of Manila
A Petition to Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim: Please Stop High Rise Construction on R. Hidalgo
Street in Quiapo, Manila

July 2008

Hon. Alfredo Lim
Mayor of Manila
City Hall of Manila

Your Honor:

We are a group composed of residents and friends of Manila. We congratulate you for
having emphasized Law and Order as a basic pillar of your governance. Indeed without
these two, Manila cannot move forward. We also thank you for paying attention to the
preservation of the city's cultural heritage. This is a resource that is used by major cities
abroad in attracting tourism and investment. In this connection, we would like to call your
attention to a problem confronting the public on R. Hidalgo Street in Quiapo.

R. Hidalgo Street connects San Sebastian Basilica to Quezon Boulevard, and ultimately to
the Basilica of Quiapo. On it are two important schools, Manuel L. Quezon University and
Nazarene Parochial School, and two religious establishments, the Convent of the Holy Face
and the Clinic of San Juan de Dios. Alongside it are remaining mansions from the 1880s
-1920s, which bear witness to the time when R. Hidalgo Street was called "the most
beautiful street in Manila."

However, R. Hidalgo Street has many problems. Legitimate businesses are fleeing,
enrollment in MLQU is down, and the street is grimy and very unsanitary. Faculty, students
and legitimate businessmen blame the constant heavy traffic as well. There are five
jeepney terminals that hog the streets and they make it difficult for customers to visit
particular businesses in the area. They also make the streets dark and unsanitary,
according to faculty and students.

Some of the concerns regarding the construction of a high-rise building include the
impact it has on the urban plan of the area. The past constructions show how the lack of a
master plan led to the lack of harmony among buildings in an area. This is significant for
the street and the area because a structure, which has potentials of being classified as a
World Heritage Site, dominates the area.

The tentative list for the Philippines notes that "San Sebastian Church is located in Quiapo,
one of Manila's older districts. Surrounding it are rows of old houses." If the city will take
lead in cultivating national pride through its heritage, proper protection should be
accorded to the structure and to its surroundings. In order to make the city livable,
sustainability should also be ensured in the community so it will continue to be habitable.
Hence, the basic needs and services should be available to the people of the community.
Balance can only be attained if the density of people is proportional to the basic needs and
services in the community.

A new high-rise is now being built on R. Hidalgo Street at the corner of Carcer. It is
projected to have nine to ten stories. It is owned by New San Jose Builders (see weblink
photos below):

http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/6240/hidalgo1zx8.jpg

http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/4811/hidalgosection1mv2.jpg

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/1042/hidalgosection2fp2.jpg

In this regard, we raise the following points:

1. What traffic plan has been devised for R. Hidalgo Street? The present heavy traffic will
get worse with this high-rise. In fact this high-rise will create problems for itself.

2. Without a viable traffic plan, how will its residents get in and out of the high-rise
without causing a traffic jam for themselves and for the rest of the street?

3. The water situation in Quiapo is bad enough. What will the impact of this high-rise be
on the waterlines?

4. Will not the façade of the high-rise destroy forever the look and atmosphere of the
street? It is in between two heritage mansions, the Paterno and the Ocampo. Both of these
are two story dwellings from the 1880-1910. The tower is totally out of line.

We propose suspending the construction until the following are done:

1. Come out with a workable traffic plan for the street to be funded by the owners of the
high-rise.

2. A study as to the impact of the tower on the water lines.

3. Push the nine to ten story tower a few meters away from the street and at the same time
have a two story façade in front with an arcade that will continue the arcade of the
adjacent to Paterno house. Visual harmony reinforces a sense of order on a street.

If the above-mentioned proposals cannot be granted, we propose full suspension of the
high-rise construction.

We trust in your good judgment.

Sincerely,

Friends and Residents of Manila

OMG, I was laughing so hard reading this article. Bush talaga!!! I often watch David Letterman and my favorite part of Letterman's show is 'Presidential Speeches', which makes fun of Bush and all these really scratch-your-head things he says.

Bush's Baffling Salute to Filipino Americans

By Benjamin Pimentel
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 09:49:00 06/26/2008

Filipino food has not gained as much attention and praise in the United States as cuisine from Korea, China or Thailand, but Pinoy cooks and chefs have long occupied proud and important niches in US society, whether in the restaurant industry, the military or even the White House.

Still, there was something oddly disconcerting about President George W. Bush paying tribute to the contributions of Filipino Americans – particularly those who serve his meals at the White House.

"I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans," Bush told President Gloria Arroyo during her recent visit to the White House, where the head chef, Cristeta Comerford, is Filipino.

"They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House."

In the video of the exchange, you can then hear Arroyo, who is off camera, laughing.

"Yes," she said.

Bush continued, "And the chef is a great person and a really good cook, by the way, Madam President."

“Thank you," she said.

Bush's remarks were immediately picked up by the liberal Web site, Huffington Post, where readers were naturally amused, embarrassed, outraged.

"What an utter embarrassment," one reader wrote. "The buffoonery ends 01/20/09."

"It takes great skill to so utterly mangle what should have been a great compliment," another said. "And yes, beneath it all, it is quite notable that the current White House chef is both the first woman in the position and a naturalized citizen originally from the Philippines."

"Kitchen help and servants in the White House! THAT'S what he thinks of these hard-working people!" another said.

One reader wondered what the fuss was about: "Hmmm, my wife is Filipino and she wasn't offended. But then, she doesn't think there's anything wrong with telling a Filipino that he makes a good dish."

The comment underscored how touchy this issue could be. After all, millions of Filipinos have moved overseas to work as cooks, kitchen help, domestic helpers, construction workers and nurses – and they've done so proudly and with honor and are actually keeping the Philippine economy afloat. As has been stated repeatedly, overseas Filipino workers are heroes.

But another reader who responded to the last remark also hit the nail in the head on why many Americans would feel embarrassed by what their president said – and why Filipinos everywhere should be dismayed.

"Dude, President Bush basically told the president of the Philipines that he loved the Filipino people because his only context was the one that worked for him. She should not only be offended, she should be disqusted," the reader said.

Bush has, of course, uttered many more jaw-dropping and sometimes offensive statements in his foreign dealings that many Americans have simply learned to ignore or endure. He once demoted Pope Benedict XVI by addressing him as "your eminence" instead of "your holiness," mixed up Austria and Australia, referred to Greeks as Grecians and asked the president of Brazil, "Do you have blacks too?"

But one must give Bush credit when he wore a barong during a visit to the Philippines five years ago. He was also following a family tradition. More than 20 years before, in June 1981, his father, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush arrived in Manila, put on a barong and met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.

Then again, that wasn't exactly a visit many Filipinos remember fondly.

"We stand with the Philippines," the elder Bush told the dictator. "We love your adherence to democratic principles and democratic processes. We will not leave you in isolation."

Two decades after Bush the elder's controversial remarks, it was the younger Bush’s turn to make a statement that left many scratching their heads.

"America is proud of its part in the great story of the Filipino people,” he said.

But it quickly became pretty clear that he didn't really completely get that story.

For Bush also declared before his Filipino hosts that the United States "liberated the Philippines from colonial rule" -- conveniently forgetting that our homeland was once an American colony.

Copyright 2008 by Benjamin Pimentel

Bay Area journalist Benjamin Pimentel is the author of UG, An Underground Tale and Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street. He can be reached at http://bpimentel.blogspot.com

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080626-144849/Bushs-baffling-salute-to-Filipino-Americans