JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Gawker has compiled a list of the rumored loves of the lovely Anderson Cooper. The list includes a young Latino dolphin trainer,  a mystery guy he was seen taking a walk with, a wine distributor named Cesar, an Asian dog walker, an assistant to designer Diane von Furstenberg, and Another Gay Movie actor Jonathan Chase. 

We don’t care who Anderson goes out with, as long as he’s happy and they’re nice to his pets. 

Found this on boingboing.net: furniture that is a political statement. Abu Ghraib table by Phillip Toledano.

This came in the mail. We can actually help. Let’s.

“Muslim child warriors are on the rise. Weeks ago, the military showed video footage of the MILF training young kids for war. Last Monday, several peace advocates were kidnapped in Tipo-Tipo, Basilan and the police claim it was the handiwork of 10 “minors” believed to be members of the Abu Sayyaf Group.

“What is alarming is that there were young boys, as young as around 12 years old. They (victims) estimated their ages as between 12 and 19, or teenagers,” Philippine Navy Spokesperson Lt. Edgardo Arevalo said of the incident.

“Unfortunately, me and my wife Annora, a Tausug Muslim, no longer find the matter “alarming.” You grow up with guns, what do you become? You grow up with the culture of hatred, violence, distrust and ignorance, what do you become?

“So, what do we do to children who grew up thinking that the future depends on how they handle their guns? What do we do to children of war who grew up with guns and not books and better education? Kill them all? For those of us who have teenage children, this is a very hard question to answer. For me and my wife, this piece of depressing development in Basilan only emboldened us even more to step up our efforts to flood Mindanao with books through our “A-Book-Saya-Group” book donation project. Help make our ABSG fight the righteous fight not only against the ASG but the MILF, the MNLF and Christian vigilantes groups as well. Please help us expose poor children in war-torn Mindanao to books in the hope that they grow up to be professionals and peace-makers.  

“Initially, we have designated our Satti Grill House outlets in SM Fairview Food Court and at the corner of MH del Pilar and Padre Faura as drop-off points for the books. Later, we hope to tie up with newspapers and private firms to help take in the books. Donors may contact us through Nos. 7992745/3393732 or 09175208013/09195897879 or at zamboyo66@yahoo.com.”

From Armand and Ann Nocum, Concerned parents of 2 Christian-Muslim children

Look, it can’t hurt. Suppose you’re paranoid about giving anything that may end up in the hands of secessionist groups, terrorists, kidnappers. Well they’re books, what are they going to do, fling them at you? Use them as projectiles for catapults? Inflict the Death of a Thousand Paper Cuts? The children of Mindanao need something to read. Help if you can. Children are entitled to a childhood.

Here is Robert Young Pelton’s chilling piece on the horror in Sierra Leone, a war fought by children, many of them 8-year-olds.

My profile of Socorro Cancio Ramos, founder and chair of National Book Store, in the Star today.

I ask her if she’d ever imagined that the five-square-meter stall she opened in Escolta in 1939 would become this retail giant. She shakes her head. “Mapaaral ko lang ang mga anak ko, at kumain kami ng tatlong beses isang araw, tama na. Noong Japanese time, mabuhay ka lang, okay na.” (It was enough that I could send my children to school and we could have three meals a day. During the war, it was enough to just survive.)

Two years after she opened her little bookshop, World War II broke out in the Pacific and the Japanese invaded the Philippines. All books had to be submitted to Japanese censors, who cut out any mention of America. All their stocks were mutilated. “What will we sell?” Socorro asked her husband, Jose.

The answer: Anything and everything the customers needed. They sold candy, school supplies, cigarettes. She found a maker of tsinelas (rubber slippers), bought six pairs, discovered that the Japanese wanted tsinelas, and was soon selling hundreds of pairs. National Book Store might very well have been National Tsinelas.

As a cat I am always bored, so I follow human politics. It strikes me as bizarre that the Democrats are not ahead in the polls by 30 points, given the quality of their opponents. On one hand you have highly intelligent and accomplished persons, and on the other hand you’ve got those who graduated at the bottom of their class, who bounced from school to school, who are suspicious of books…Apparently voters want someone they can “relate” to. Do they not already face, on a daily basis, the consequences of having elected one they could “relate” to?

I have heard that cuteness of the cheerleader variety is a factor in this exercise. It is true that as a kitten I benefited greatly from my cuteness. However, picking a kitten to adopt is not the same as picking the leader of the free world. I have power over rodents and cockroaches, but the PUSA (President of the United States) has the power of war and pestilence over other countries. Keep the world safe for humans and cats. Reject mediocrity. Particularly those who hate cats, books, and cats who love books. Vote wisely.

This message was approved by Koosalagoopagoop Galadriel Ivanisevic Visconti-Sforza O’Brien. Does your cat have a catty political statement? Send picture and statement to urban.matthias@gmail.com.

Photo: The Stalin Front by Gert Ledig, NYRB Classics, P200 at A Different Bookstore at the Manila Book Fair. Tsinelas bookmark by Scribe, P65 at Powerbooks.

I saw a copy of Soul, a collection of stories by Andrey Platonov, published by NYRB, at Fully Booked on Bonifacio High Street. I thought, “Hmm, maybe I should read some non-Russians,” and didn’t buy it. A week later I regretted not buying it, so I rang Fully Booked’s customer service. I didn’t have the number of the Bonifacio branch, so I called Rockwell. 

Me: Do you have Soul by Andrey Platonov?
Fully Booked: (Checking their database) Sorry ma’am, we don’t have that title.
Me: Could you check with your Bonifacio branch?
Fully Booked: Sorry ma’am, they don’t have that title.
Me:  But I just saw it last week. Did someone buy it?
FB: Sorry ma’am, ek ek ek ek ek.
Me: Ok, could you tell me what NYRB publications you have in stock? (I assumed that their database can show stocks arranged by publisher.) 
FB: Sorry ma’am we can only check by title and author.

The next day I happened to be in Rockwell so I went to Fully Booked to see with my own eyes. Of course they had the Platonov. It was filed in Fiction, under P. A few days later I was in Bonifacio so I looked for the Platonov again. They, too, had a copy, filed in Classics, under P. As my late mother used to say, “Look for it with your eyes, not with your mouth.”

I asked customer service if they had any children’s books by Maurice Sendak. According to their database, they had several titles. So two clerks were dispatched to the Children’s sections to find them. I watched them do their search. The problem, I think, is that the clerks could not tell by looking what the books’ titles were. Note to HR: Teach your staff how to find the title on a book cover. Finally I wandered off. To their credit, they kept looking. An hour later, as I was leaving the store, a clerk came up to me with Where The Wild Things Are. 

Grover noted that the recent Manila Book Fair looked like a big religious book swap. During my visit I avoided the booth called “Stories With Moral Values!” lest I be spotted as one of the possessed and exorcised.