JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Spanish duchess gives away fortune in order to marry civil servant.

She is one of the richest women in Spain, owns a dozen castles whose walls are hung with works by Goya, Velázquez and Titian and is a distant relative of King James II, Winston Churchill and Diana, Princess of Wales. Now, however, the 18th Duchess of Alba is giving away her immense personal fortune in order to be free to marry a minor civil servant.

But the children of the duchess, 85, have until now blocked her plans to marry Alfonso Díez, 24 years her junior. The duchess and Díez, a civil servant in the department of social security who also runs a PR business, have been close friends for a number of years…

Read it in the Guardian.

Editor’s note # 1: This letter was emailed to Auntie Janey by one of the many readers under the mistaken impression that Auntie Janey is the author of this website. Auntie Janey is not the author of this website, I am. The misimpression has been corrected and the letter rewritten.

Dear Aunt Janey,

Thanks so much in advance.
Auntie Ninang

(more…)

Ooh, Wanton Parlor. Binondo, July 2011.

For the second week in a row we can’t get our fix of other people’s problems. If this goes on much longer we might start paying attention to our own problems. That would be depressing.

Does anyone have a problem we can all discuss?

Here’s an actual text message from a friend.

Dear Auntie Janey,

Arrested Development

Kamote kayo riyan. Binondo, July 2011.

The one thing we were never taught in elementary school was how to be a skeptic. We were trained to believe, obey and never question authority. In effect school was an extension of church (they are run by religious orders after all); those who dared suggest that the teacher was missing something were condemned as walang modo (uncouth), suwail (willful) and worst of all, pilosopo. Yes, to be “philosophical” — to ask how the teachers arrived at their knowledge and why we should accept it as true — was bad, the equivalent of heresy.

It was not until I moved to a public high school — Philippine Science — that I realized it is not only right to question long-held “truths,” it is the responsibility of every intelligent person. What is your evidence? How do you know? If we didn’t ask questions we would still be deluding ourselves that the sun and planets revolve around the earth.

Now that no one is going to make us stand in a corner or write “I will believe what my teacher says” on the blackboard 500 times, let us review some “truths” we were trained to accept for the simple reason that teachers, priests, parents and other authority figures said so.

Read 25 “truths” we put through the wringer in Emotional Weather Report in the Philippine Star 25th anniversary issue.

Dear Auntie Janey,

Late last year I saw how biased and narrow-minded he really is. A new batch of staff had just come in. The new staff and some of the tenured staff had a miscommunication. Instead of making things better, my boss sided with the new staff and made it appear like we were bullying them. He continues to give the newbies preferential treatment even if some of them are clearly incompetent and in need of training. Because of this I’ve had several meetings with our department head (the boss of my boss). He’s already taking a drastic course of action that is bound to shake some feathers in our department.
(more…)

Warning: This post is illustrated with a video featuring men dancing with no shirts on.

Dear Auntie Janey,

He is such a momma’s boy, and his whole family is so rude. We can’t even go on a vacation without his whole family’s approval. He’s already working and we’ve lived together for almost a year—secretly. His family found out, however, and stormed over to our apartment and called me names. They yelled at me, mocked me, insulted me, cursed me. They also went to my mother’s house, without invitation, to say things about me. They even kicked stuff around the apartment and forced my boyfriend to go home with them. They would not leave without him. I told them that they have no right to act that way because that was my apartment too; but they said that they have every right to do whatever they want because he (my boyfriend) is their son and his apartment is also theirs. WTF, right?
(more…)