There goes the stupidity of CNN’s Rick Sanchez again! I really dislike the foolish, dumb-acting stunts of Rick Sanchez on his show. Are Sanchez’s viewers kindergartens, that he had to ask questions like, what a 9-meter drop is? Or was his intention to embarrass his guests on live TV?

There are few TV hosts who I find either annoying or unpleasant to the eye on TV. They may be knowledgeable and good at what they do, but their facial expressions and sometimes actions they perform while hosting their shows just do not fit my taste.

Tony Harris, CNN News Anchor – He frowns all the time. He makes unnecessary grins during interviews with his guests.

This is related to my previous post about Efren Peñaflorida, the CNN Hero of the Year. The event was televised last night and I was on my seat at home, so inspired and proud while watching Efren Peñaflorida receive the major award with teary eyes. He gave a short yet uplifting message, that is to find our heroes within us.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper revealed Peñaflorida’s selection at the conclusion of the third-annual “CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute” at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

A Filipino was declared the 2009 CNN Hero of the Year! His name is Efren Peñaflorida. I watched the short video clip with Peñaflorida tonight as CNN reported the winner during the ceremony at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood Saturday night. Congrats!

Efren Peñaflorida won the 2009 CNN Hero of the Year award through online voting (and I voted for this guy last week). According to CNN, Peñaflorida received 2.75 million online votes, the highest among the 10 finalists. He was honored for his “Kariton Klassroom”, which brings education to poor Filipino children.

This is my column for the Collegian this week.
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Some of my Filipino friends back home have asked me about how clean Americans are inside the house. I could not answer straight to the point, because the term “clean” is relative: cleanliness in the Filipino perspective could be a far cry from the American viewpoint. If cleanliness is the absence of dirt or offensive odor, then based on the number of American homes I have been into since 2006, Americans do maintain a clean surrounding.

It has been a while since the racial slur occurred. Yet the incident still continues to torment my days. There are times that I find myself staring blankly at the PC monitor and thinking about the racial discrimination I got because I ordered coffee mocha.

Forgetting is not easy since the incident happened in a place that I am starting to call home. The incident in New York, about two years ago, was easy to let go, since I only stayed there for a week and it is very unlikely that I’d be seeing the place again. But this one in Brookings may take months to heal.

I write about national issues and also about touching lives. This is about two of my Filipino friends, Sharon and Mimi.

The oil-rich Saudi Arabia became Sharon’s home right after her college graduation. As an entertainer in a foreign land, money fills her purse with no trouble at all when she belts out her songs like no other could. Today, she is as rich as the country she is working in.

Mimi’s talent has brought her to a far away place. I knew it the first time I saw her twist her waist gracefully in a local dance competition. Precisely so, she boogied herself to Japan. For money and family, she dances with pride.

While having my daily dose of coffee mocha at Cottonwood, I gazed upon a couple who also frequent the shop, just like me, but for their evening tea and slices of sandwiches. She is not the usual lady who bends her head on her partner’s shoulder. Neither is she the one who smiles constantly and flirts. He is not the man who winks at her when trying to make a point. He does not hold her hand. He sips his tea without pretensions or fear of not getting a good impression from her. She is his wife. He is her husband. By the look of her gray hair and his balding head, they are on their late 70s or maybe even early 80s. At their age and still enjoying the regular Cottonwood visits and the sips of tea, who says this is a young world?

There are people I know who find aging so astonishing. I smile to myself whenever I hear someone say, “You have visibly grown older.” It gives me the impression that we live in a world made for and of the young. With the way we view youthfulness and revere youth above one’s ability, knowledge and experience, who is to blame? Our mind is partly corrupted with the idea that aging is a no-no in our society.