You Take the Good with the Bad

Am still adjusting to the particulars of my new job at the office as web-special editor and one of that is trying to find interesting and/or new topics to write about.

For example, the recent Glorietta explosion that left 9 dead and hundreds wounded. When the news first broke out, it wasn't my job to write up the news flash reports for that (that's the job for the new news flash editor). However, in my head, I was trying to come up with a possible web special for the explosion-- of course, given that it was a terror bombing and not an industrial accident. And at that time, it really looked like a terror attack.

However, now it's really starting to look like it was just a very, very bad accident (you know, those things that will eventually earn an episode on a Discovery Channel show). But if it were a terror attack, here's an interesting factoid for you:

Presently, there have been four bombings in malls since the year 2000. However, there have been 39 bombing episodes for the same time period. In a report by the Human Rights Watch, they said more than 1,700 people have been killed in these attacks. Most of these have been in the southern part of the Philippines; however, five of the bombings occurred in Metro Manila.

(Data from the Human Rights Watch.)

And in the "ain't it cool" news, noted literary writer standing-at-the-crossroads-of-antiquities-and-technology Butch Dalisay has been shortlisted for the ManAsian Literary Prize. Others in the short list include:

• Jose Dalisay Jr. (Philippines), Soledad’s Sister
• Reeti Gadekar (India), Families at Home
• Nu Nu Yi Inwa (Burma), Smile As They Bow
• Jiang Rong (China), Wolf Totem
• Xu Xi (China/Indonesia), Habit of a Foreign Sky

Definitely a 'wow' event for everyone of us. (So if ever you could drop this into a conversation with your family and friends, do so. As charles mentioned, we as a people aren't getting enough good PR among ourselves. Crazy-strange, it is.)