MikeLigalig.com

Quote from: bugsay on May 12, 2013, 08:25:46 PM
ujon ko ani...

Ujon ka nga di kalimtan ilang ngalan?

For Congressman, Cebu (2nd district)


Full Name: Wilfredo Sardido Caminero
Nickname: Willy
Birthdate: 1954-Oct-12
Profession: Farmer
Place of Birth: Argao, Cebu
Place of Voter Registration: Poblacion, Argao, Cebu
Marital Status: Married to Rosamie Panebio Caminero
Political Party: Liberal Party
Name to appear in ballot: CAMINERO, WILLY (LP)


Full Name: Pablo Paras Garcia
Nickname: Pabling
Birthdate: 1925-Sep-25
Profession: Lawyer
Place of Birth: Dumanjug, Cebu
Place of Voter Registration: Bitoon, Dumanjug, Cebu
Marital Status: Married to Esperanza Fiel Garcia
Political Party: National Unity Party
Name to appear in ballot: GARCIA, PABLING (NUP)


Full Name: Simeon Lucero Kintanar
Nickname: Sim K
Birthdate: 1936-Apr-15
Profession: Businessman
Place of Birth: Cebu, Cebu
Place of Voter Registration: Poblacion, Argao, Cebu
Marital Status: Married to Ma. Socorro V. Kintanar
Political Party: Independent
Name to appear in ballot: KINTANAR, SIM K

Mothers of the world, warms greetings kaninyong hurot!

Rogue soldier? Hmm...

BY RAPPLER.COM
POSTED ON 05/12/2013 3:51 PM  | UPDATED 05/12/2013 5:12 PM


MANILA, Philippines â€" A supporter of incumbent Bilar, Bohol mayor Norman Palacio was wounded in a shootout on Sunday, May 12, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

The initial police investigation places the shootout in Barangay Yanaya, 10 kilometers from the town proper of Bilar, at around 10:50 a.m.

The shootout was allegedly politically motivated and occurred between the supporters of the incumbent mayor and a group of a retired army officer supporting Ester Corazon Galbreath.

Galbreath is challenging Palacio's reelection bid for mayor in Bilar.

The victim, identified as Gener Idulsa according to an initial report submitted to the Bohol Provincial Police Office, is a staunch supporter of Palacio.

According to the same report, the police arrested former Army Captain Elmer Namocat. Namocat is believed to be a supporter of Galbreath.

Six municipalities are currently in the election watchlist areas (EWAS) in Bohol, namely, Trinidad, Carmen, Candijay, Buenavista, Danao and Tagbilaran. - Rappler.com

But there were some tensions, including when one man walked into the festival with his brown Beagle on a leash.

“NO DOGS ALLOWED,” an older woman standing nearby yelled, even though dogs actually were permitted by the festival's organizers.

The man just shrugged, smiled and continued walking with his pooch.

"Some people," the woman huffed.

At moments, the meows of the feline film stars seemed to reverberate off the buildingsâ€"though that was often drowned out by the laughter and coos of a clearly delighted crowd of cat lovers, who wildly cheered their favorite clips.

Barbara Henninger, who drove from nearby Berkeley for the festival, dressed up a black cat for the dayâ€"complete with drawn-on whiskers and a headband of felt black ears.

“I love cats, I love cat videos, and I really love being around cat people,” Henninger said. “There is something about cats that are really peaceful. They are gentle and loving, and I like to be around people like that.”

She added, “I knew there wouldn’t be any violence here.”

Steps from the stage were dozens of booths selling artisan cat merchandise, including everything from art prints of cats dressed up as superheroes like Iron Man to $12 packets of “Meowy Wowyy”â€"organic catnip held in a felt packet shaped like a marijuana leaf.

“One of our best sellers,” the vendor said.

But the real attraction came just after sundown, when a 70-minute reel of the most popular cat videos on the Internet was beamed onto the side of a 10-story building here in the city’s historic downtown district. The clips, compiled by Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center for its inaugural cat video film festival last summer, featured everything from cats behaving badly to a feline cast as a depressed French existentialist.

“What better excuse to bring this indoor cat out here, to let him socialize a little bit, than a cat video festival,” Singh said, as her husband, Ratti, stood nearby, wearing an amused smile. Inside his stroller, Teddy, whose tiny legs were no more than four inches tall, cautiously sniffed the air and yawned.

Teddy was among several cats who accompanied their owners to what could be easily described as a feline lovefest. On Saturday afternoon, thousands of people turned out for a block party featuring local bands dressed up as cats, comedians telling cat jokes and even a troupe of cat-themed dancers.

Inside, Teddy, a 2-year-old Persian-Munchkin mix with a fluffy caramel-colored coat, looked like a tiny little kingâ€"and as one of the feline attendees of the city’s first Internet Cat Video Festival held at the Great Wall of Oakland downtown, he was.

As he was maneuvered through the crowd of several thousand people here, Teddy in his chariot was surrounded at every turn by cooing kitty groupies. Many wore cat-themed T-shirts, while some, including Teddy’s owner, Yachi Singh, were actually dressed up as felines, complete with fake ears and drawn-on whiskers.

By Holly Bailey, Yahoo! News | The Lookout â€" 5 hrs ago



A cat video is projected on the Great Wall of Oakland (Holly Bailey/Yahoo News)


OAKLAND, Calif.â€"Teddy usually spends most weekends lounging around the house, drifting in and out of long luxurious naps.

But on Saturday, he made a rare exception to his routine--taking a ride in what his owners called his “Kitty SUV,” a fancy caged pet stroller with duel front wheels said to be tough enough to climb a mountain.

A little change in perspective is all that's needed to curb the inordinate desire to be drama queen and be the center of attention, thus finally achieving the long sought-after self-esteem:

Quote from: Lollapalooza on May 12, 2013, 12:45:19 PM
Haters gonna hate

He he...

Help, hapit na among finals and I need the info desperately...

Quote from: islander on May 12, 2013, 09:22:05 AM
one of our versions...

Pag-sure, oi...

Patugatuga og abli sa thread...

Quote from: hubag bohol on May 12, 2013, 01:38:42 PM
He was also described by friends and acquaintances as having hit his ex-wife after getting drunk and would refuse to work, instead spending up to RMB 100,000 a month playing video games and frequenting "gentlemen's clubs", where he would spend time and money on other women.

Lisod ning nagdako nga dato. Naa man gani mga aspo nga mas ngil-ad pa ani og lifestyle...

Kuyawa. Mang-hire og helper kunohay unya maglugos diay...

Quote from: islander on May 12, 2013, 10:59:47 AM

Liwat sa tag-iya. Di managad sa hungry for attention...

Please ensure that all correspondence is polite:

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., Director
National Institutes of Health
Shannon Bldg., Rm. 126
1 Center Dr. 
Bethesda, MD 20892
301-496-2433
francis.collins@nih.gov


http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/animal-experiments-overview.aspx

What You Can Do

Tell research-funding agencies to kick their animal experimentation habit.

Virtually all federally funded research is paid for with your tax dollars. The NIH needs to hear that you don’t want your tax dollars used to underwrite animal experiments, regardless of their purpose. When writing letters, be sure to make the following two points:

• Animal experimentation is an inherently violent and unethical practice, and I do not want my tax dollars used to support it.

• Funding for research into health and ecological effects should be redirected into the use of epidemiological, clinical, in vitro, and computer-modeling studies instead of laboratory experiments on animals.

Human health and well-being can also be promoted by adopting nonviolent methods of scientific investigation and concentrating on the prevention of disease before it occurs, through lifestyle modification and the prevention of further environmental pollution and degradation. The public needs to become more aware and more vocal about the cruelty and inadequacy of the current research system and must demand that its tax dollars and charitable donations not be used to fund experiments on animals.

The Way Forward

Human clinical, population, and in vitro studies are critical to the advancement of medicine; even animal experimenters need themâ€"if only to confirm or reject the validity of their experiments. However, research with human participants and other non-animal methods does require a different outlook, one that is creative and compassionate and embraces the underlying philosophy of ethical science. Animal experimenters artificially induce diseases; clinical investigators study people who are already ill or who have died. Animal experimenters want a disposable “research subject” who can be manipulated as desired and killed when convenient; clinicians must do no harm to their patients or study participants. Animal experimenters face the ultimate dilemmaâ€"knowing that their artificially created “animal model” can never fully reflect the human condition, while clinical investigators know that the results of their work are directly relevant to people.

Even animals who are covered by the law can be burned, shocked, poisoned, isolated, starved, forcibly restrained, addicted to drugs, and brain-damagedâ€"no procedures or experiments, regardless of how trivial or painful they may be, are prohibited by law. When valid non-animal research methods are available, no law requires experimenters to use such methods instead of animals.

As for the approximately 9,000 facilities that the USDA does regulate (of which about 1,000 are designated for “research”), only 99 USDA inspectors are employed to oversee their operations. Reports over a span of 10 years concluded that even the minimal standards set forth by the AWA are not being met by these facilities. In 2000, a USDA survey of the agency’s laboratory inspectors revealed serious problems in numerous areas, including “the search for alternatives [and] review of painful procedures.” A September 2005 audit report issued by the USDA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found ongoing “problems with the search for alternative research, veterinary care, review of painful procedures, and the researchers’ use of animals.” The OIG report estimated that experimenters failed to search for alternatives at almost one-third of facilities.

Oversight and Regulation

Despite the countless animals killed each year in laboratories worldwide, most countries have grossly inadequate regulatory measures in place to protect animals from suffering and distress or to prevent them from being used when a non-animal approach is readily available. In the U.S., the most commonly used species in laboratory experiments (mice, rats, birds, reptiles, and amphibians) are specifically exempted from even the minimal protections of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA). Laboratories that use only these species are not required by law to provide animals with pain relief or veterinary care, to search for and consider alternatives to animal use, to have an institutional committee review proposed experiments, or to be inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) or any other entity. Experimenters don’t even have to count the mice and rats they kill. Some estimates indicate that as many as 800 U.S. laboratories are not subject to federal laws and inspections because they experiment exclusively on mice, rats, and other animals whose use is unregulated.

Despite the vast amount of public funds being used to underwrite animal experimentation, it is nearly impossible for the public to obtain current and complete information regarding the animal experiments that are being carried out in their communities or funded with their tax dollars. State open-records laws and the U.S. Freedom of Information Act can be used to obtain documents and information from state institutions, government agencies, and other federally funded facilities, but private companies, contract labs, and animal breeders are exempt. In many cases, institutions that are subject to open-records laws fight vigorously to withhold information about animal experimentation from the public.

Funding and Accountability

Through their taxes, charitable donations, and purchases of lottery tickets and consumer products, members of the public are ultimately the ones whoâ€"knowingly or unknowinglyâ€"fund animal experimentation. One of the largest sources of funding comes from publicly funded government granting agencies such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Approximately 47 percent of NIH-funded research involves experimentation on nonhuman animals, and in 2009, the NIH budgeted nearly $29 billion for research and development. In addition, many charitiesâ€"â€"including the March of Dimes, the American Cancer Society, and countless othersâ€"use donations to fund experiments on animals. One-third of the projects funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society involve animal experimentation.

Ninety-two percent of drugsâ€"those that have been tested on animals and in vitroâ€"do not make it through Phase 1 of human clinical trials (the initial studies that determine reaction, effectiveness, and side effects of doses of a potential drug).

In addition, the results of animal experiments can be variable and easily manipulated. Research published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine revealed that universities commonly exaggerate findings from animal experiments conducted in their laboratories and “often promote research that has uncertain relevance to human health and do not provide key facts or acknowledge important limitations.” One study of  media coverage of scientific meetings concluded that news stories often omit crucial information and that “the public may be misled about the validity and relevance of the science presented.” Because experimenters rarely publish results of failed animal studies, other scientists and the public do not have ready access to information on the ineffectiveness of animal experimentation.

For example, according to former National Cancer Institute Director Dr. Richard Klausner, “We have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn’t work in humans.”  And although at least 85 HIV/AIDS vaccines have been successful in nonhuman primate studies, as of 2010, every one of nearly 200 preventive and therapeutic vaccine trials has failed to demonstrate benefit to humans. In one case, an AIDS vaccine that was shown to be effective in monkeys failed in human clinical trials because it did not prevent people from developing AIDS, and some believe that it made them moresusceptible to the disease. According to a report in the British newspaper The Independent, one conclusion from the failed study was that “testing HIV vaccines on monkeys before they are used on humans, does not in fact work.”

Diseases that are artificially induced in animals in a laboratory are never identical to those that occur naturally in human beings. And because animal species differ from one another biologically in many significant ways, it becomes even more unlikely that animal experiments will yield results that will be correctly interpreted and applied to the human condition in a meaningful way.

In an article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers warned that “patients and physicians should remain cautious about extrapolating the finding of prominent animal research to the care of human disease … poor replication of even high-quality animal studies should be expected by those who conduct clinical research.”

Wasteful and Unreliable

While a Pew Research poll found 43 percent of adults surveyed oppose the use of animals in scientific research, other surveys suggest that those who do accept animal experimentation do so only because they believe it to be necessary for medical progress. The reality is that the majority of animal experiments do not contribute to improving human health, and the value of the role that animal experimentation plays in most medical advances is questionable.

Each year, more than 100 million animalsâ€"including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birdsâ€"are killed in U.S. laboratories for chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing; biology lessons; medical training; and curiosity-driven experimentation. Before their deaths, some are forced to inhale toxic fumes, others are immobilized in restraint devices for hours, some have holes drilled into their skulls, and others have their skin burned off or their spinal cords crushed. In addition to the torment of the actual experiments, animals in laboratories are deprived of everything that is natural and important to themâ€"they are confined to barren cages, socially isolated, and psychologically traumatized. The thinking, feeling animals who are used in experiments are treated like nothing more than disposable laboratory equipment.

In one post, she writes about her New Year's wishes for 2013, saying that she hopes that her husband would love her more in the months to follow and that their daughter would grow up well.

The two are reported to have met about three years ago and were high school classmates who tied the knot after Qi found that she was expecting a baby.

Friends said that the marriage was unhappy, with Qi allegedly being locked up at her husband's family's home while he went out to gamble or to drink. They also said that domestic violence was common at their home as they quarreled about Ji's alleged extra-marital affairs and that Qi had asked for a divorce on more than one occasion.

He was also described by friends and acquaintances as having hit his ex-wife after getting drunk and would refuse to work, instead spending up to RMB 100,000 a month playing video games and frequenting "gentlemen's clubs", where he would spend time and money on other women.

Netizens also unearthed Qi's microblog on popular China site "Weibo", where she uploaded photos of the couple in happier times at their lavish wedding and also snapshots of their four month daughter.

Qi's horrific death has since attracted huge media and online attention in China, especially because her husband is from “second generation money”, a negative term used to describe a class of young rich who have inherited their money from parents but lead wasteful lives of excessive spending and irresponsible behaviour.

News reports following the murder revealed that Ji was a member of the Nanjing Super Car Club, drove a Lamborghini sports car and owned numerous luxury residences.

No arrest has been reported but according to Xian Dai Kuai Bao, a Nanjing newspaper run by national news agency Xinhua, local authorities suspect she was slashed to death by her drunk husband after a heated argument.

She had been attacked with a knife and sustained between 30 and 40 knife wounds on her body.

Her husband, 24-year-old Ji Xing Peng, had allegedly slashed Qi to death after an argument in which he accused her of infidelity and said that their daughter was not his.

Case of young wife’s gruesome murder grips China
By Elizabeth Soh | What’s buzzing? â€" Fri, May 10, 2013



The tragic murder of a young beautiful Chinese wife has gripped China's netizens (Weibo screengrab)


The husband was young, rich, drove expensive cars and lived the high life. His wife was just 22, and the beautiful mother of his four-month old baby daughter.

The happily married couple seemed to live a perfect life â€" until young chinese wife Qi Kexin was found murdered in their home in Nanjing's Jianye District.

When the owl appeared among the animals it was high noon and the sun was shining brightly.  He walked very slowly, which gave him an appearance of great dignity, and he peered about him with large, staring eyes, which gave him an air of tremendous importance.  "He’s God!" screamed a Plymouth rock hen.  And the others took up the cry "He’s God!"  So they followed him wherever he went and when he bumped into things they began to bump into things, too.  Finally he came to a concrete highway and he started up the middle of it and all the other creatures followed him.  Presently a hawk, who was acting as outrider, observed a truck coming toward them at fifty miles an hour, and he reported to the secretary bird and the secretary bird reported to the owl.  "There’s danger ahead," said the secretary bird.  "To wit?" said the owl.  The secretary bird told him.  "Aren’t you afraid?" he asked.  "Who?" said the owl calmly, for he could not see the truck.  "He’s God!" cried all the creatures again, and they were still crying "He’s God" when the truck hit them and ran them down.  Some of the animals were merely injured, but most of them, including the owl, were killed.


Moral: You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

The secretary bird hastened back to the other creatures and reported that the owl indeed was the greatest and wisest animal in the world because he could see in the dark and because he could answer any question.  "Can he see in the daytime, too?" asked a red fox?  "Yes," answered a dormouse and a French poodle.  "Can he see in the daytime, too?"  All the other creatures laughed loudly at this silly question, and they set upon the red fox and his friends and drove them out of the region.  They sent a messenger to the owl and asked him to be their leader.

Once upon a starless midnight there was an owl who sat on the branch of an oak tree.  Two ground moles tried to slip quietly by, unnoticed.  "You!" said the owl.  "Who?" they quavered, in fear and astonishment, for they could not believe it was possible for anyone to see them in that thick darkness.  "You two!" said the owl.  The moles hurried away and told the other creatures of the field and forest that the owl was the greatest and wisest of all animals because he could see in the dark and because he could answer any question.  "I’ll see about that," said a secretary bird, and he called on the owl one night when it was again very dark.  "How many claws am I holding up?" said the secretary bird.  "Two," said the owl, and that was right.  "Can you give me another expression for ‘that is to say’ or ‘namely’?" asked the secretary bird.  "To wit," said the owl.  "Why does the lover call on his love?"  "To woo," said the owl.

The vain, self-important, self-proclaimed millionaire monkey brushing away doubts about his popularity...

The Chinese beauty Yang Guifei, by Hosoda Eishi

Wang Changling, was another Tang official and renowned poet who died in the rebellion, in about 756.

Later poets, such as Bai Juyi (who was not born until 772) also wrote famous verses about the events of the period of the Anshi affairs.

The tragic events were epitomized in the story of Xuanzong and Yang Guifei, and generations of Chinese and Japanese painters depicted various iconic scenes, such as Yang Guifei bathing or playing a musical instrument or the flight of the imperial court on the "hard road to Shu" (that is, the royal progress to Sichuan). These artistic themes were also a major source of inspiration in Japan, in regards to the Tale of Genji, which was largely inspired by the story of Yang Guifei.

Wang Wei was captured by the rebels in 756 and sent to Luoyang where he was forced to serve as an official in their governmental administration, for which he was briefly imprisoned after his capture by loyalist forces.[27] Dying before the end of the rebellion, somewhere between 759 and 761: he lived his last years in retirement at his country home in Lantian, secluded in the hills.

Li Bai's colleague Du Fu had finally attained a minor appointment in the imperial bureaucracy when the rebellion broke out. He spent the winter of 756 and the summer of 757 as a captive in rebel-occupied Chang'an,[25] but later managed to escape and join with Suzong's side, and thus avoid charges of treason. Living until 770, his subsequent poetry is a primary source of information about the massive upheavals of the period.

The great poet Li Bai avoided the rebels, but at the cost of getting involved in the wrong side of a power struggle between the princes of the royal family. He was convicted of involvement with rebellion, and sentenced to exile, although later reprieved. His surviving poems reflect the golden days before the An Lushan rebellion, his lengthy and deliberately protracted journey toward exile, together with his hardships, wandering, and disillusionment as the Tang re-consolidated control after the rebellion. He died in 762, before the final defeat of the rebel forces in 763.

Cultural influence

The events involved with the An Lushan rebellion had and have an immense cultural influence both in China and beyond. For instance, in China itself, events were reflected through the verses of those contemporary poets who were all caught up in events of the rebellion.

The political decline was paralleled by economic decline, including large Tang governmental debt to Uighur money lenders. In addition to being politically and economically detrimental to the empire, the rebellion also affected the intellectual culture of the Tang Dynasty. Many intellectuals had their careers interrupted, giving them time to ponder the causes of the unrest. Some lost faith in themselves, concluding that a lack of moral seriousness in intellectual culture had been the cause of the rebellion. However, eventually a political and cultural recovery did occur within Tang China several decades after the rebellion, until about the year 820, the year of the death of Emperor Xianzong of Tang. Much of the rebuilding and recovery occurred in the Jiangnan region in the south, which had escaped the events of the rebellion relatively unscathed and remained more firmly under Tang control. However, eventually, due in part to the warlord system, the Tang Empire by 907 devolved into what is known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period.

Weakening of Tang

The rebellion of An Lushan and its subsequent aftermath greatly weakened the centralized bureaucracy of the Tang Dynasty, especially in regards to its perimeters. Virtually autonomous provinces and ad hoc financial organizations arose, reducing the influence of the regular bureaucracy in Chang'an. The Tang Dynasty's desire for political stability in this turbulent period also resulted in the pardoning of many rebels. Indeed, some were even given their own garrisons to command. Political and economic control of the northeast region became intermittent or was lost, and the emperor became only a sort of puppet, set to do the bidding of the strongest garrison. Furthermore, the Tang government also lost most of its control over the Western Regions, due to troop withdrawal to central China to attempt to crush the rebellion and deal with subsequent disturbances. Continued military and economic weakness resulted in further subsequent erosions of Tang territorial control during the ensuing years, particularly in regard to the Uighur and Tibetan empires. By 790, Chinese control over the Tarim Basin area was completely lost.

Historians such as Charles Patrick Fitzgerald argue that a claim of 36 million deaths is incompatible with contemporary accounts of the war. They point out that the numbers recorded on the post-war registers reflect not only population loss, but also a breakdown of the census system, as well as the removal from the census figures of various classes of untaxed persons, such of those in religious orders, foreigners, and merchants. For these reasons, census numbers for the post-rebellion Tang are considered unreliable. Another consideration is the fact that the territory controlled by Tang central authority was diminished by the equivalent of several of the northern provinces, so that something like a quarter of the surviving population were no longer within the area subject to the imperial revenue system.

Censuses taken in the half-century before the rebellion show a gradual increase in population, with the last census undertaken before the rebellion, that of 755, recording a population of 52,919,309 in taxpaying 8,914,709 households. However a census taken in 764, the year following the end of the rebellion, recorded only 16,900,000 in 2,900,000 households. Later censuses count only households, but by 855 this figure had risen to only 4,955,151 households, little over half the number recorded in 755. Some scholars have interpreted the difference in the census figures as implying the deaths of 36 million people, about two-thirds of the population of the empire. This figure was used in Steven Pinker's book The Better Angels of Our Nature, where it is presented as proportionally the largest atrocity in history with the loss of a sixth of the world's population at that time, though Pinker noted that the figure was controversial.

Death toll

There is no doubt that the rebellion resulted in a major death toll, in general, and that the Tang empire's population was greatly reduced. The devastation of the population was not only a direct result of the combat casualties and civilian deaths as a direct result of warfare, but due to the widespread dislocations of the social and economic system, especially in the north and middle areas of China, mass starvation and disease also resulted in death by the millions. However the number of deaths is difficult to even estimate even in approximate terms.

The rebellion spanned the reigns of three Tang emperors before it was quashed, and involved a wide range of regional powers; besides the Tang dynasty loyalists, others involved were anti-Tang families, especially in An Lushan's base area in Hebei, Arab, Gokturk, and Sogdian forces or influences, among others. The rebellion and subsequent disorder resulted in a huge loss of life and large-scale destruction. It significantly weakened the Tang dynasty, and led to the loss of the Western Regions.

Tang Dynasty c. 700

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The An Lushan Rebellion was a devastating rebellion against the Tang Dynasty of China. The rebellion overtly began on December 16, 755, when general An Lushan declared himself emperor in Northern China, thus establishing a rival Yan Dynasty, and ended when Yan fell on February 17, 763 (although the effects lasted past this). This event is also known (especially in Chinese historiography) as the An-Shi Rebellion or An-Shi Disturbances, as it continued after An Lushan's death under his son An Qingxu and his deputy and successor Shi Siming, or as the Tianbao Rebellion, as it began in the 14th year of that era.

Hang imon gid ini nga do-it-yorselp pik-ap haw...

Everything continued still, as if the small man below held the other in the tree in some long invisible leash; and he went on:

"Your downward steps have begun. You used to boast of doing nothing mean, but you are doing something mean tonight. You are leaving suspicion on an honest boy with a good deal against him already; you are separating him from the woman he loves and who loves him. But you will do meaner things than that before you die."

Three flashing diamonds fell from the tree to the turf. The small man stooped to pick them up, and when he looked up again the green cage of the tree was emptied of its silver bird.

The restoration of the gems (accidentally picked up by Father Brown, of all people) ended the evening in uproarious triumph; and Sir Leopold, in his height of good humour, even told the priest that though he himself had broader views, he could respect those whose creed required them to be cloistered and ignorant of this world.

The green branch on which the glittering figure swung, rustled as if in astonishment; but the voice went on:

"I want you to give them back, Flambeau, and I want you to give up this life. There is still youth and honour and humour in you; don't fancy they will last in that trade. Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down. The kind man drinks and turns cruel; the frank man kills and lies about it. Many a man I've known started like you to be an honest outlaw, a merry robber of the rich, and ended stamped into slime. Maurice Blum started out as an anarchist of principle, a father of the poor; he ended a greasy spy and tale-bearer that both sides used and despised. Harry Burke started his free money movement sincerely enough; now he's sponging on a half-starved sister for endless brandies and sodas. Lord Amber went into wild society in a sort of chivalry; now he's paying blackmail to the lowest vultures in London. Captain Barillon was the great gentleman-apache before your time; he died in a madhouse, screaming with fear of the "narks" and receivers that had betrayed him and hunted him down. I know the woods look very free behind you, Flambeau; I know that in a flash you could melt into them like a monkey. But some day you will be an old grey monkey, Flambeau. You will sit up in your free forest cold at heart and close to death, and the tree-tops will be very bare."

"Oh, yes," says the man below, "I know all about it. I know you not only forced the pantomime, but put it to a double use. You were going to steal the stones quietly; news came by an accomplice that you were already suspected, and a capable police officer was coming to rout you up that very night. A common thief would have been thankful for the warning and fled; but you are a poet. You already had the clever notion of hiding the jewels in a blaze of false stage jewellery. Now, you saw that if the dress were a harlequin's the appearance of a policeman would be quite in keeping. The worthy officer started from Putney police station to find you, and walked into the queerest trap ever set in this world. When the front door opened he walked straight on to the stage of a Christmas pantomime, where he could be kicked, clubbed, stunned and drugged by the dancing harlequin, amid roars of laughter from all the most respectable people in Putney. Oh, you will never do anything better. And now, by the way, you might give me back those diamonds."

The silver, sparkling figure above seems to lean forward in the laurels and, confident of escape, listens to the little figure below.

"You never did anything better, Flambeau. It was clever to come from Canada (with a Paris ticket, I suppose) just a week after Mrs. Adams died, when no one was in a mood to ask questions. It was cleverer to have marked down the Flying Stars and the very day of Fischer's coming. But there's no cleverness, but mere genius, in what followed. Stealing the stones, I suppose, was nothing to you. You could have done it by sleight of hand in a hundred other ways besides that pretence of putting a paper donkey's tail to Fischer's coat. But in the rest you eclipsed yourself."

The silvery figure among the green leaves seems to linger as if hypnotised, though his escape is easy behind him; he is staring at the man below.

There were hollows and bowers at the extreme end of that leafy garden, in which the laurels and other immortal shrubs showed against sapphire sky and silver moon, even in that midwinter, warm colours as of the south. The green gaiety of the waving laurels, the rich purple indigo of the night, the moon like a monstrous crystal, make an almost irresponsible romantic picture; and among the top branches of the garden trees a strange figure is climbing, who looks not so much romantic as impossible. He sparkles from head to heel, as if clad in ten million moons; the real moon catches him at every movement and sets a new inch of him on fire. But he swings, flashing and successful, from the short tree in this garden to the tall, rambling tree in the other, and only stops there because a shade has slid under the smaller tree and has unmistakably called up to him.

"Well, Flambeau," says the voice, "you really look like a Flying Star; but that always means a Falling Star at last."

There was a startled stillness, and then the colonel said slowly, "Please say seriously what all this means."

Father Brown suddenly shouted with laughter, then stopped, and only struggled with it for instants during the rest of his speech. "Gentlemen," he gasped, "there's not much time to talk. I must run after the criminal. But this great French actor who played the policemanâ€"this clever corpse the harlequin waltzed with and dandled and threw aboutâ€"he wasâ€"" His voice again failed him, and he turned his back to run.
"He was?" called Fischer inquiringly.

"A real policeman," said Father Brown, and ran away into the dark.

Father Brown dropped his book and stood staring with a look of blank mental ruin. Very slowly a light began to creep in his grey eyes, and then he made the scarcely obvious answer.

"Please forgive me, colonel, but when did your wife die?"

"Wife!" replied the staring soldier, "she died this year two months. Her brother James arrived just a week too late to see her."

The little priest bounded like a rabbit shot. "Come on!" he cried in quite unusual excitement. "Come on! We've got to go and look at that policeman!"

They rushed on to the now curtained stage, breaking rudely past the columbine and clown (who seemed whispering quite contentedly), and Father Brown bent over the prostrate comic policeman.

"Chloroform," he said as he rose; "I only guessed it just now."

Both the others shifted sharply and the priest went on:

"You see, we know these people, more or less. That Socialist would no more steal a diamond than a Pyramid. We ought to look at once to the one man we don't know. The fellow acting the policemanâ€"Florian. Where is he exactly at this minute, I wonder."

The pantaloon sprang erect and strode out of the room. An interlude ensued, during which the millionaire stared at the priest, and the priest at his breviary; then the pantaloon returned and said, with staccato gravity, "The policeman is still lying on the stage. The curtain has gone up and down six times; he is still lying there."

The colonel looked at him long, and then said, "Do you know, I should like to see the inside of your head more than the inside of your pockets. My daughter is one of your people, I know; well, she has latelyâ€"" and he stopped.

"She has lately," cried out old Fischer, "opened her father's house to a cut-throat Socialist, who says openly he would steal anything from a richer man. This is the end of it. Here is the richer manâ€"and none the richer."

"If you want the inside of my head you can have it," said Brown rather wearily.

"What it's worth you can say afterwards. But the first thing I find in that disused pocket is this: that men who mean to steal diamonds don't talk Socialism. They are more likely," he added demurely, "to denounce it."

"This is a very painful matter, Father Brown," said Adams. "The truth is, those diamonds we all saw this afternoon seem to have vanished from my friend's tail-coat pocket. And as youâ€""

"As I," supplemented Father Brown, with a broad grin, "was sitting just behind himâ€""

"Nothing of the sort shall be suggested," said Colonel Adams, with a firm look at Fischer, which rather implied that some such thing had been suggested. "I only ask you to give me the assistance that any gentleman might give."

"Which is turning out his pockets," said Father Brown, and proceeded to do so, displaying seven and sixpence, a return ticket, a small silver crucifix, a small breviary, and a stick of chocolate.

The priest had only watched for a few more minutes the absurd but not inelegant dance of the amateur harlequin over his splendidly unconscious foe. With real though rude art, the harlequin danced slowly backwards out of the door into the garden, which was full of moonlight and stillness. The vamped dress of silver paper and paste, which had been too glaring in the footlights, looked more and more magical and silvery as it danced away under a brilliant moon. The audience was closing in with a cataract of applause, when Brown felt his arm abruptly touched, and he was asked in a whisper to come into the colonel's study.

He followed his summoner with increasing doubt, which was not dispelled by a solemn comicality in the scene of the study. There sat Colonel Adams, still unaffectedly dressed as a pantaloon, with the knobbed whalebone nodding above his brow, but with his poor old eyes sad enough to have sobered a Saturnalia. Sir Leopold Fischer was leaning against the mantelpiece and heaving with all the importance of panic.

The athletic harlequin swung him about like a sack or twisted or tossed him like an Indian club; all the time to the most maddeningly ludicrous tunes from the piano. When the harlequin heaved the comic constable heavily off the floor the clown played "I arise from dreams of thee." When he shuffled him across his back, "With my bundle on my shoulder," and when the harlequin finally let fall the policeman with a most convincing thud, the lunatic at the instrument struck into a jingling measure with some words which are still believed to have been, "I sent a letter to my love and on the way I dropped it."

At about this limit of mental anarchy Father Brown's view was obscured altogether; for the City magnate in front of him rose to his full height and thrust his hands savagely into all his pockets. Then he sat down nervously, still fumbling, and then stood up again. For an instant it seemed seriously likely that he would stride across the footlights; then he turned a glare at the clown playing the piano; and then he burst in silence out of the room.

"He is harlequin to your columbine," said Crook. "I am only the clown who makes the old jokes."

"I wish you were the harlequin," she said, and left the string of sausages swinging.

Father Brown, though he knew every detail done behind the scenes, and had even evoked applause by his transformation of a pillow into a pantomime baby, went round to the front and sat among the audience with all the solemn expectation of a child at his first matinee. The spectators were few, relations, one or two local friends, and the servants; Sir Leopold sat in the front seat, his full and still fur-collared figure largely obscuring the view of the little cleric behind him; but it has never been settled by artistic authorities whether the cleric lost much. The pantomime was utterly chaotic, yet not contemptible; there ran through it a rage of improvisation which came chiefly from Crook the clown. Commonly he was a clever man, and he was inspired tonight with a wild omniscience, a folly wiser than the world, that which comes to a young man who has seen for an instant a particular expression on a particular face. He was supposed to be the clown, but he was really almost everything else, the author (so far as there was an author), the prompter, the scene-painter, the scene-shifter, and, above all, the orchestra. At abrupt intervals in the outrageous performance he would hurl himself in full costume at the piano and bang out some popular music equally absurd and appropriate.

The climax of this, as of all else, was the moment when the two front doors at the back of the scene flew open, showing the lovely moonlit garden, but showing more prominently the famous professional guest; the great Florian, dressed up as a policeman. The clown at the piano played the constabulary chorus in the "Pirates of Penzance," but it was drowned in the deafening applause, for every gesture of the great comic actor was an admirable though restrained version of the carriage and manner of the police. The harlequin leapt upon him and hit him over the helmet; the pianist playing "Where did you get that hat?" he faced about in admirably simulated astonishment, and then the leaping harlequin hit him again (the pianist suggesting a few bars of "Then we had another one"). Then the harlequin rushed right into the arms of the policeman and fell on top of him, amid a roar of applause. Then it was that the strange actor gave that celebrated imitation of a dead man, of which the fame still lingers round Putney. It was almost impossible to believe that a living person could appear so limp.

How even such a banquet of bosh was got ready in the time remained a riddle. But they went at it with that mixture of recklessness and industry that lives when youth is in a house; and youth was in that house that night, though not all may have isolated the two faces and hearts from which it flamed. As always happens, the invention grew wilder and wilder through the very tameness of the bourgeois conventions from which it had to create. The columbine looked charming in an outstanding skirt that strangely resembled the large lamp-shade in the drawing-room. The clown and pantaloon made themselves white with flour from the cook, and red with rouge from some other domestic, who remained (like all true Christian benefactors) anonymous. The harlequin, already clad in silver paper out of cigar boxes, was, with difficulty, prevented from smashing the old Victorian lustre chandeliers, that he might cover himself with resplendent crystals. In fact he would certainly have done so, had not Ruby unearthed some old pantomime paste jewels she had worn at a fancy dress party as the Queen of Diamonds. Indeed, her uncle, James Blount, was getting almost out of hand in his excitement; he was like a schoolboy. He put a paper donkey's head unexpectedly on Father Brown, who bore it patiently, and even found some private manner of moving his ears. He even essayed to put the paper donkey's tail to the coat-tails of Sir Leopold Fischer. This, however, was frowned down. "Uncle is too absurd," cried Ruby to Crook, round whose shoulders she had seriously placed a string of sausages. "Why is he so wild?"

The millionaire held himself stiff with a sort of heathen solemnity. "I think, my dear," he said, "you must get someone else for pantaloon."

"I will be pantaloon, if you like," said Colonel Adams, taking his cigar out of his mouth, and speaking for the first and last time.

"You ought to have a statue," cried the Canadian, as he came back, radiant, from the telephone. "There, we are all fitted. Mr. Crook shall be clown; he's a journalist and knows all the oldest jokes. I can be harlequin, that only wants long legs and jumping about. My friend Florian 'phones he's bringing the police costume; he's changing on the way. We can act it in this very hall, the audience sitting on those broad stairs opposite, one row above another. These front doors can be the back scene, either open or shut. Shut, you see an English interior. Open, a moonlit garden. It all goes by magic." And snatching a chance piece of billiard chalk from his pocket, he ran it across the hall floor, half-way between the front door and the staircase, to mark the line of the footlights.

"Not a scrap," cried Blount, quite carried away. "A harlequinade's the quickest thing we can do, for two reasons. First, one can gag to any degree; and, second, all the objects are household thingsâ€"tables and towel-horses and washing baskets, and things like that."

"That's true," admitted Crook, nodding eagerly and walking about. "But I'm afraid I can't have my policeman's uniform? Haven't killed a policeman lately."

Blount frowned thoughtfully a space, and then smote his thigh. "Yes, we can!" he cried. "I've got Florian's address here, and he knows every costumier in London. I'll phone him to bring a police dress when he comes." And he went bounding away to the telephone.

"Oh, it's glorious, godfather," cried Ruby, almost dancing. "I'll be columbine and you shall be pantaloon."

"Now, now, now," cried the Canadian farmer with his barbarian benevolence, "don't let's spoil a jolly evening. What I say is, let's do something for the company tonight. Not blacking faces or sitting on hats, if you don't like thoseâ€"but something of the sort. Why couldn't we have a proper old English pantomimeâ€"clown, columbine, and so on. I saw one when I left England at twelve years old, and it's blazed in my brain like a bonfire ever since. I came back to the old country only last year, and I find the thing's extinct. Nothing but a lot of snivelling fairy plays. I want a hot poker and a policeman made into sausages, and they give me princesses moralising by moonlight, Blue Birds, or something. Blue Beard's more in my line, and him I like best when he turned into the pantaloon."

"I'm all for making a policeman into sausages," said John Crook. "It's a better definition of Socialism than some recently given. But surely the get-up would be too big a business."

"Of course, of course," replied the colonel carelesslyâ€""My dear chap, any friend of yours. No doubt he will prove an acquisition."

"He'll black his face, if that's what you mean," cried Blount, laughing. "I don't doubt he'd black everyone else's eyes. I don't care; I'm not refined. I like the jolly old pantomime where a man sits on his top hat."

"Not on mine, please," said Sir Leopold Fischer, with dignity.

"Well, well," observed Crook, airily, "don't let's quarrel. There are lower jokes than sitting on a top hat."

Dislike of the red-tied youth, born of his predatory opinions and evident intimacy with the pretty godchild, led Fischer to say, in his most sarcastic, magisterial manner: "No doubt you have found something much lower than sitting on a top hat. What is it, pray?"

"Letting a top hat sit on you, for instance," said the Socialist.