Olympics, Protests and Plastics

Nine days from today, the Winter Olympic Games will begin in PyeongChang, South Korea. To get us hyped on this once-every-four-years spectacle, Olympic historian and PF Correspondent Myles A. Garcia tells us about his visits to two Olympic Museums: the official museum of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), appropriately called The Olympic Museum (TOM) in Lausanne, Switzerland; and the Museu Olympic i de L’Esport - Joan Antoni Samaranch (MOLE-JAS) in Barcelona, Spain. Both museums offer Olympic enthusiasts collections to behold but Myles was invited to the bowels of TOM to see some prized mementoes. Read his story and be awed.

Going back in history, 48 years ago this month, Manila erupted with massive student demonstrations against the Marcos government and US imperialism, a tectonic period that is now immortalized as the First Quarter Storm. Author/poet/essayist Ed Maranan, who participated actively and later, along with thousand others, paid the price for his activism, recalls those heady, disruptive days in "Postcript: My Life Before and After the First Quarter Storm."

With 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic created since the early 1950's, plastic pollution has become an extremely serious environmental disaster that is threatening the planet. In this piece from the international nonprofit Break Free From Plastic, the severity of the problem is discussed and more importantly, the biggest corporate polluters are identified. Some of them are brands we grew up with.

Here's another crazy collection of In The Know links for your reading pleasure:

Social Media Devumi Under Fire for Selling Fake Followers to the Stars 
https://www.rappler.com/technology/news/194700-social-media-devumi-under-fire-selling-fake-followers-stars

Duterte to Build a $1 Billion New City for Thousands of Workers
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-29/duterte-to-build-a-1-billion-new-city-for-thousands-of-workers?cmpid=socialflow-facebook-asia&utm_content=asia&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

Women Journalists Standing Up to Bullies is a Filipino Tradition
http://usa.inquirer.net/9785/women-journalists-standing-bullies-filipino-tradition

Opinion: Rappler Should Stop Misleading Everyone
http://opinion.inquirer.net/110628/rappler-stop-misleading-everyone

For those who may have issues with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), California State Representative Rob Bonta presents a checklist of your rights. Even if you are not a US citizen, you have rights, he emphasizes. 

The Happy Home Cook recipe of the week: Red Snapper Delight from Chef Niel Salvatera of Kusina de Manila.

And because Bruno Mars is in the news for sweeping the 2018 Grammy awards, let's witness his Filipino side with a video of the first visit of his mother, uncles and grandmother to the land of their birth, in time for Bruno Mars first concert in Manila.