Across Difficult Country

I receive a missive from my old friend Judge Florentino Floro Jr . Just the other day I was wondering whatever happened to him, he must have read my mind (the judge is known for that sort of thing). It turns out he’s been working on a book about his amazing life, the three Mystic Dwarves, crab mentality Pinoys, the nature of the universe, and more. He writes: eElven Supremacy 2010: 27 years Dalliance; LUIS, Armand & Angel; the Violet Lights The Greatest Story of Friendship Ever Told, eBook Part One 2 years and a quarter of a century ago, LUIS, Armand and Angel changed my life and wrote my destiny (at exactly 7 p.m., June 2, 1983, at the wake of my father, Florentino, Sr.). Even if today’s scientists began to investigate aliens and the matter of how something can be made to travel faster than the speed of light, hoping that man can time travel, still, the Violet lights of LUIS remains a mystery and I predict that this pure light would be solely his and mine. The entire un...

Varanus bitatawa Giant lizards were discovered living in the "heavily populated and highly deforested" Philippines island of Luzon. The shy reptiles, a new species, are vegetarians and didongular. Scientists say the six and a half foot long lizards escaped detection by spending “all their time high up in trees”. Obviously scientists are so lazy hiding from them is easy, something to remember the next time a scientist denies the existence of the Sandsend Blob . I recently discovered one of my entries quoted in a book .

High atop a lonely mountain, deep within the Philippines jungle, a carnivorous plant that eats rats has been discovered, by a crack team of British carnivorous plant experts who just happened to be in the area. Giant carnivorous plant Nepenthes Attenboroughii Remember the cow eating tree in India known as the pili mara ? Hopefully this amazing find will force establishment botanists to reconsider the evidence for its existence.

In Batangas, a man armed with a knife “ ran amuck ”, killing two and wounding two others before killing himself. In Lucena City, a man on a tricycle “ reportedly ran amuck ”, chasing friends and family with a bolo until police arrived and filled him full of holes. In possibly related news, soldiers shot an “ amok ” Mussuleman at the Zamboanga checkpoint, while in Barangay Coronon a pervert “ went amok after he was forbidden by his relative to continue his illicit affair with his own niece ”.

Readers who’ve been following the persecution of Across Difficult Country’s legal counsel Judge Florentine Floro will be delighted to learn Judge Floro has shown up in comments and provided links to the text of all the Philippines Supreme Court decisions regarding his case, to local and international media coverage of the controversy, to his various blogs, to his Myspace and Facebook accounts, to videos of himself on YouTube, and to some other stuff. He’s also listed his email addresses and his telephone numbers (cell and land line). (If you call him, tell him I say “hi”.) I’ve taken the liberty of forwarding this material to my Congressmen, my Senators, the White House, The White Stripes, The Tide News Online (“ A commitment to truth ”), Art Bell (broadcast journalist and former resident of the Phillipines), Wynne Jones (Manager of Arts, Leisure & Cultural Events for the town of Whitby, the United Kingdom), Doudou Diène (United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms ...

From Missouri comes the sad tale of a man facing a 30-year prison sentence for stealing a doughnut : Scott A. Masters, 41, of Park Hills, Missouri, has been charged with felony second-degree robbery in the theft of a 52-cent doughut [ sic ] from a Country Mart in Farmington, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) south of St. Louis. Store employees said he slipped the doughnut into his sweat shirt without paying last December, then pushed away a clerk who tried to stop him as he fled the store. But what kind of doughnut was it? Chocolate? Jelly? Those ones with the sprinkles? The story doesn’t say. How could the AP reporter omit what is the most telling detail? It must be something taught in journalism school, where being boring is considered a virtue. For crime news done right we must turn to the Philippines. In the sordid story “ Jailed cop tags mistress the killer ”, notice how hard-hitting reporter Jay Dooma Balnig saves the telling detail for last, to devastating effect.

Jurist, healer, horse racing aficionado, psychic, raconteur - the extraordinary Judge Florentino Floro Jr is all these things, and more. Now he has responded in the comments to my recent item about his dismissal to provide further details about his case and the injustice being perpetrated upon him by Philippine government. I encourage all my readers to email Judge Floro [judgefloro@yahoo.com] and let him know of your support. Those possessing psychic powers should feel free to contact the Judge and his mystic dwarf associates directly via telepathy. Readers can also contact the President of the Philippines , the Supreme Court of the Philippines , and the United States Embassy in Manilla and complain.

In the Philippines Judge Florentino Floro Jr has been dismissed from the bench for using the advice of his three dwarf friends Armand, Luis and Angel, to decide cases. According to Judge Floro, the mystic dwarves, or “dwendes”, communicate with him using psychic powers. This sad tale illustrates how, even in these supposedly enlightened and tolerant times, the ugly prejudice of heightism continues to ruin lives.

Today is Independence Day, and all across our great big world people are celebrating the 4th of July in their own way. An Albanian peasant exercises his right to ride a donkey sideways. Later, in the spirit of freedom, the peasant will allow the donkey to ride him. Happy Independence Day Albanian donkey and friend! In China, overweight women demonstrate independence by painting their disgutingly large bellies . Benjamin Franklin used to celebrate the Fourth of July the same way, much to the embarassment of the other Founding Fathers (John Adams in particular). In the Philippines , a crowd celebrates July 4th by cavorting around a crude mask of the patron saint of freedom, Ronald Reagan. Happy Independence Day America.