Life and musings

A rapturous 2010

2009-12-30T22:36:00.001+08:00

Test your IQ and give me the score

.

Copy this onto notepad, press cntrl + H, press 6 in find box and underscore( _ ) in replace box and click replace all button. U will get thrilled.

666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666
666996666699669966999999996699666669966666669966666699669999999966996666996666666666666696666666666666666666666
666996666699669966999999996699666669966666666996666996669999999966996666996666666666666999666666666666666666666
666996666699669966996666666699666669966666666699669966669966669966996666996666666666669969966666666666666666666
666996696699669966999999996699999999966666666669999666669966669966996666996666666666699666996666666666666666666
666996999699669966999999996699999999966666666666996666669966669966996666996666666666999999999666666666666666666
666999969999669966666666996699666669966666666666996666669966669966996666996666666669999999999966666666666666666
666999666999669966999999996699666669966666666666996666669999999966996666996666666699666666666996666666666666666
6669966666996699669999999966996666699666 66666666996666669999999966999999996666666996666666666699666666666666666
666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666
666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666
666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666
669966666996666666669666666666999999996699999999669966666699666666669966666996699999999669966666996666666666666
669966666996666666699966666666999999996699999999666996666996666666669996666996699999999669966666996666666666666
669966666996666666996996666666996666996699666699666699669966666666669999666996699666666669966666996666666666666
669999999996666669966699666666999999996699999999666669999666666666669969966996699999999669966966996666666666666
669999999996666699999999966666999999996699999999666666996666666666669966996996699999999 669969996996666666666666
669966666996666999999999996666999666666699666666666666996666666666669966699996699666666669999699996666666666666
669966666996669966666666699666996666666699666666666666996666666666669966669996699999999669996669996666666666666
669966666996699666666666669966996666666699666666666666996666666666669966666996699999999669966666996666666666666
666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666
666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666
666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666
666996666669966999999996666666669666666666999999996666666699999996699999999666999666699999999666666666666666666
666699666699666999999996666666699966666666999999996666666699999999699666699666699666699666699666666666666666666
6666699669966669966 66666666666996996666666996666996666666666666699699966699666699666699966699666666666666666666
666666999966666999999996666669966699666666999999996666666666666996699696699666699666699696699666666666666666666
666666699666666999999996666699999999966666999999996666666666669966699669699666699666699669699666666666666666666
666666699666666996666666666999999999996666996996666666666666996666699666999666699666699666999666666666666666666
666666699666666999999996669966666666699666996699666666666699999999699666699666699666699666699666666666666666666
666666699666666999999996699666666666669966996666996666666699999999699999999666999966699999999666666666666666666
666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666

50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

2009-04-17T14:23:00.001+08:00

The Chronicle Review
From the issue dated April 17, 2009
50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

By GEOFFREY K. PULLUM

http://chronicle. com/free/ v55/i32/32b01501 .htm

Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 55, Issue 32, Page B1

April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book that is loved and admired throughout American academe. Celebrations, readings, and toasts are being held, and a commemorative edition has been released.

I won't be celebrating.

The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.

The authors won't be hurt by these critical remarks. They are long dead. William Strunk was a professor of English at Cornell about a hundred years ago, and E.B. White, later the much-admired author of Charlotte's Web, took English with him in 1919, purchasing as a required text the first edition, which Strunk had published privately. After Strunk's death, White published a New Yorker article reminiscing about him and was asked by Macmillan to revise and expand Elements for commercial publication. It took off like a rocket (in 1959) and has sold millions.

This was most unfortunate for the field of English grammar, because both authors were grammatical incompetents. Strunk had very little analytical understanding of syntax, White even less. Certainly White was a fine writer, but he was not qualified as a grammarian. Despite the post-1957 explosion of theoretical linguistics, Elements settled in as the primary vehicle through which grammar was taught to college students and presented to the general public, and the subject was stuck in the doldrums for the rest of the 20th century.

Notice what I am objecting to is not the style advice in Elements, which might best be described the way The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxydescribes Earth: mostly harmless. Some of the recommendations are vapid, like "Be clear" (how could one disagree?). Some are tautologous, like "Do not explain too much." (Explaining too much means explaining more than you should, so of course you shouldn't.) Many are useless, like "Omit needless words." (The students who know which words are needless don't need the instruction. ) Even so, it doesn't hurt to lay such well-meant maxims before novice writers.

Even the truly silly advice, like "Do not inject opinion," doesn't really do harm. (No force on earth can prevent undergraduates from injecting opinion. And anyway, sometimes that is just what we want from them.) But despite the "Style" in the title, much in the book relates to grammar, and the advice on that topic does real damage. It is atrocious. Since today it provides just about all of the grammar instruction most Americans ever get, that is something of a tragedy. Following the platitudinous style recommendations of Elements would make your writing better if you knew how to follow them, but that is not true of the grammar stipulations.

"Use the active voice" is a typical section head. And the section in question opens with an attempt to discredit passive clauses that is either grammatically misguided or disingenuous.

We are told that the active clause "I will always remember my first trip to Boston" sounds much better than the corresponding passive "My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by me." It sure does. But that's because a passive is always a stylistic train wreck when the subject refers to something newer and less established in the discourse than the agent (the noun phrase that follows "by").

For me to report that I paid my bill by saying "The bill was paid by me," with no stress on "me," would sound inane. (I'm the utterer, and the utterer always counts as familiar and well established in the discourse.) But that is no argument against passives generally. "The bill was paid by an anonymous benefactor" sounds perfectly natural. Strunk and White are denigrating the passive by presenting an invented example of it deliberately designed to sound inept.

After this unpromising start, there is some fairly sensible style advice: The authors explicitly say they do not mean "that the writer should entirely discard the passive voice," which is "frequently convenient and sometimes necessary." They give good examples to show that the choice between active and passive may depend on the topic under discussion.

Sadly, writing tutors tend to ignore this moderation, and simply red-circle everything that looks like a passive, just as Microsoft Word's grammar checker underlines every passive in wavy green to signal that you should try to get rid of it. That overinterpretation is part of the damage that Strunk and White have unintentionally done. But it is not what I am most concerned about here.

What concerns me is that the bias against the passive is being retailed by a pair of authors so grammatically clueless that they don't know what is a passive construction and what isn't. Of the four pairs of examples offered to show readers what to avoid and how to correct it, a staggering three out of the four are mistaken diagnoses. "At dawn the crowing of a rooster could be heard" is correctly identified as a passive clause, but the other three are all errors:

"There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground" has no sign of the passive in it anywhere.
"It was not long before she was very sorry that she had said what she had" also contains nothing that is even reminiscent of the passive construction.
"The reason that he left college was that his health became impaired" is presumably fingered as passive because of "impaired," but that's a mistake. It's an adjective here. "Become" doesn't allow a following passive clause. (Notice, for example, that "A new edition became issued by the publishers" is not grammatical. )

These examples can be found all over the Web in study guides for freshman composition classes. (Try a Google search on "great number of dead leaves lying.") I have been told several times, by both students and linguistics- faculty members, about writing instructors who think every occurrence of "be" is to be condemned for being "passive." No wonder, if Elements is their grammar bible. It is typical for college graduates today to be unable to distinguish active from passive clauses. They often equate the grammatical notion of being passive with the semantic one of not specifying the agent of an action. (They think "a bus exploded" is passive because it doesn't say whether terrorists did it.)

The treatment of the passive is not an isolated slip. It is typical of Elements.The book's toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal eccentricity is not underpinned by a proper grounding in English grammar. It is often so misguided that the authors appear not to notice their own egregious flouting of its own rules. They can't help it, because they don't know how to identify what they condemn.

"Put statements in positive form," they stipulate, in a section that seeks to prevent "not" from being used as "a means of evasion."

"Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs," they insist. (The motivation of this mysterious decree remains unclear to me.)

And then, in the very next sentence, comes a negative passive clause containing three adjectives: "The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place."

That's actually not just three strikes, it's four, because in addition to contravening "positive form" and "active voice" and "nouns and verbs," it has a relative clause ("that can pull") removed from what it belongs with (the adjective), which violates another edict: "Keep related words together."

"Keep related words together" is further explained in these terms: "The subject of a sentence and the principal verb should not, as a rule, be separated by a phrase or clause that can be transferred to the beginning." That is a negative passive, containing an adjective, with the subject separated from the principal verb by a phrase ("as a rule") that could easily have been transferred to the beginning. Another quadruple violation.

The book's contempt for its own grammatical dictates seems almost willful, as if the authors were flaunting the fact that the rules don't apply to them. But I don't think they are. Given the evidence that they can't even tell actives from passives, my guess would be that it is sheer ignorance. They know a few terms, like "subject" and "verb" and "phrase," but they do not control them well enough to monitor and analyze the structure of what they write.

There is of course nothing wrong with writing passives and negatives and adjectives and adverbs. I'm not nitpicking the authors' writing style. White, in particular, often wrote beautifully, and his old professor would have been proud of him. What's wrong is that the grammatical advice proffered inElements is so misplaced and inaccurate that counterexamples often show up in the authors' own prose on the very same page.

Some of the claims about syntax are plainly false despite being respected by the authors. For example, Chapter IV, in an unnecessary piece of bossiness, says that the split infinitive "should be avoided unless the writer wishes to place unusual stress on the adverb." The bossiness is unnecessary because the split infinitive has always been grammatical and does not need to be avoided. (The authors actually knew that. Strunk's original version never even mentioned split infinitives. White added both the above remark and the further reference, in Chapter V, admitting that "some infinitives seem to improve on being split.") But what interests me here is the descriptive claim about stress on the adverb. It is completely wrong.

Tucking the adverb in before the verb actually de-emphasizes the adverb, so a sentence like "The dean's statements tend to completely polarize the faculty" places the stress on polarizing the faculty. The way to stress the completeness of the polarization would be to write, "The dean's statements tend to polarize the faculty completely."

This is actually implied by an earlier section of the book headed "Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end," yet White still gets it wrong. He feels there are circumstances where the split infinitive is not quite right, but he is simply not competent to spell out his intuition correctly in grammatical terms.

An entirely separate kind of grammatical inaccuracy in Elements is the mismatch with readily available evidence. Simple experiments (which students could perform for themselves using downloaded classic texts from sources like http://gutenberg. org) show that Strunk and White preferred to base their grammar claims on intuition and prejudice rather than established literary usage.

Consider the explicit instruction: "With none, use the singular verb when the word means 'no one' or 'not one.'" Is this a rule to be trusted? Let's investigate.

Try searching the script of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) for "none of us." There is one example of it as a subject: "None of us are perfect" (spoken by the learned Dr. Chasuble). It has plural agreement.
Download and search Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). It contains no cases of "none of us" with singular-inflected verbs, but one that takes the plural ("I think that none of us were surprised when we were asked to see Mrs. Harker a little before the time of sunset").
Examine the text of Lucy Maud Montgomery's popular novel Anne of Avonlea (1909). There are no singular examples, but one with the plural ("None of us ever do").

It seems to me that the stipulation in Elements is totally at variance not just with modern conversational English but also with literary usage back when Strunk was teaching and White was a boy.

Is the intelligent student supposed to believe that Stoker, Wilde, and Montgomery didn't know how to write? Did Strunk or White check even a single book to see what the evidence suggested? Did they have any evidence at all for the claim that the cases with plural agreement are errors? I don't think so.

There are many other cases of Strunk and White's being in conflict with readily verifiable facts about English. Consider the claim that a sentence should not begin with "however" in its connective adverb sense ("when the meaning is 'nevertheless'").

Searching for "however" at the beginnings of sentences and "however" elsewhere reveals that good authors alternate between placing the adverb first and placing it after the subject. The ratios vary. Mark Liberman, of the University of Pennsylvania, checked half a dozen of Mark Twain's books and found roughly seven instances of "however" at the beginning of a sentence for each three placed after the subject, whereas in five selected books by Henry James, the ratio was one to 15. In Dracula I found a ratio of about one to five. The evidence cannot possibly support a claim that "however" at the beginning of a sentence should be eschewed. Strunk and White are just wrong about the facts of English syntax.

The copy editor's old bugaboo about not using "which" to introduce a restrictive relative clause is also an instance of failure to look at the evidence. Elements as revised by White endorses that rule. But 19th-century authors whose prose was never forced through a 20th-century prescriptive copy-editing mill generally alternated between "which" and "that." (There seems to be a subtle distinction in meaning related to whether new information is being introduced.) There was never a period in the history of English when "which" at the beginning of a restrictive relative clause was an error.

In fact, as Jan Freeman, of The Boston Globe, noted (in her blog, The Word), Strunk himself used "which" in restrictive relative clauses. White not only added the anti-"which" rule to the book but also revised away the counterexamples that were present in his old professor's original text!

It's sad. Several generations of college students learned their grammar from the uninformed bossiness of Strunk and White, and the result is a nation of educated people who know they feel vaguely anxious and insecure whenever they write "however" or "than me" or "was" or "which," but can't tell you why. The land of the free in the grip of The Elements of Style.

So I won't be spending the month of April toasting 50 years of the overopinionated and underinformed little book that put so many people in this unhappy state of grammatical angst. I've spent too much of my scholarly life studying English grammar in a serious way. English syntax is a deep and interesting subject. It is much too important to be reduced to a bunch of trivial don't-do-this prescriptions by a pair of idiosyncratic bumblers who can't even tell when they've broken their own misbegotten rules.

Geoffrey K. Pullum is head of linguistics and English language at the University of Edinburgh and co-author (with Rodney Huddleston) of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language

[Sigh]......

2009-02-13T14:17:00.003+08:00

[click comic to enlarge]

Baldo

Growing warmer

2009-01-15T15:12:00.001+08:00

Growing warmer

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:30:00 01/15/2009

Some may still quibble with the assertion, as formulated the other day by a former environment secretary, that the marked rise in temperature in the last decade is “caused entirely by human actions.” But unless you are Sarah Palin, there should be no argument that global warming is a fact and human beings are responsible for much or most of it.

The inconvenient truth is the world is rushing toward an ecologically unstable — and therefore economically uncertain — future.

Elisea Gozun, formerly secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, drew a bleak scenario at the launch on Tuesday of “The Philippine Imperative.” There is trouble for Metro Manila. “PAGASA [Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration] estimates that a one-meter rise in Manila Bay will lead to 5,000 hectares being inundated and two million people will actually be displaced,” she said.

There is even more trouble ahead for other parts of the country. “The distribution of rainfall is changing and we will have more intense and longer droughts and intense typhoons.” Drought will likely be severe in Western Mindanao while Central Luzon will suffer the opposite. “Take note, you have Central Luzon, they’re our food source and they’ll have increased rainfall.”

Of course, some of this necessary scenario-building is extrapolation, based on such data points as the spike in the average rise in sea levels from 1.8 mm per year in the three decades since 1961 to 3.1 mm per year in the 10 years between 1993 and 2003. But many of the scenarios are based, not on future projections, but on actual, alarming experience. Speaking at the same forum, for instance, Lory Tan of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature said that the aquifer supplying the Misamis provinces has already been found to be contaminated with saline water.

That is what happens when sea levels rise; saline water seeps into freshwater sources. And sea levels are rising — and weather patterns are changing — in large part because human society is choking the atmosphere with enormous amounts of carbon emissions.

It is thus a source of encouragement that businessmen like Federico Lopez of First Gen Corp. recognize that power companies are a part of the problem and should form part of the solution. “As the major power generating company in the energy sector that accounts for over 50 percent of the country’s carbon emissions, we’re committed to reducing the carbon intensity of our electricity generation and developing more sustainable solutions for the country,” Lopez said at the forum.

But it is not only industry or institutions that are responsible; taken together, individuals (driving cars, using air-conditioners, etc.) leave a huge carbon footprint. That is why the “Imperative” should be supported by everyone with a stake in the future.

Let us be clear: “The Philippine Imperative” is only a short-term, consensus-building campaign. How short-term? Six months short, marked by several milestones including a “People’s Summit” in April and culminating in a “Business Summit.” Said lead convener Neric Acosta, formerly a congressman from Bukidnon province: “This is so peculiar in the sense that this is the first time that ... a private sector-led initiative [is] actually coming up with a national solution to the problem of environmental degradation.”

The idea is to put our heads together. The roadmap will come at the end of the consultations.

It is true that, if leading companies that are part of the “Imperative” like First Gen and Pilipinas Shell and SM do their part, the country’s carbon footprint would shrink over time. But the need is for Philippine carbon emissions to shrink significantly, and fast. For that to happen, ordinary citizens and consumers must make the initiative their own, too. How, to give only one possible example, can a carpool lane in the country’s major cities be expected to work, if motorists and commuters don’t “buy” the “Imperative”?

That brings us to the government, both national and local. The “Imperative” might just succeed and create a workable roadmap because the private sector is leading the way, but the destination, wherever it is, cannot be reached without the government’s help. Laws to sanction bad behavior, rules to enable compliance with certain initiatives, incentives to reward reductions in emissions — there’s a whole slew of interventions the government can do to help fight global warming.

Ruptured insanity

2009-01-13T12:00:00.001+08:00

[click comic to enlarge]
Frazz

Easier said than what the reality really presents...

2009-01-08T13:25:00.001+08:00

[click comic to enlarge]

Leasy I could do

How sensitive are we

2009-01-08T12:20:00.002+08:00

[Click comic to enlarge]

Least I Could Do

that type of emotion

2008-08-31T13:29:00.002+08:00

Garfield
[click comic to enlarge ]

summer state

2008-05-02T21:46:00.005+08:00

If not for the pc and an Internet connection, this would be the most boring summer of my existence.

[click comic to enlarge]

life wasted

2008-04-29T01:00:00.003+08:00

SONETO SA ISANG TAON NG PAGKAWALA

NI JONAS BURGOS , AKTIBISTA

ABRIL 28, 2008

ni Gregorio V. Bituin Jr.

http://matangapoy.blogspot.com

http://parokyanigorio.multiply.com

Parang kailan lang ay naririyan ka

Laging kaulayaw ng mga kasama

Ngunit halakhak mo'y di na narinig pa

Simula nang ikaw ay pilit kinuha.

Isang taon na ang nakalilipas

Nang inagaw nila pati iyong bukas.

Ano ang sala mo't ikaw ay dinahas

Ng mga pilatong sa bayan ay hudas?

Sa nangyaring yao'y tanong ko ay bakit

Ikaw ay dinukot nilang malulupit?

Dahil ba prinsipyo'y tangan nang mahigpit?

Kasama ba ito sa pagpakasakit?

Nawa ang totoo'y malaman ng bayan

At hustisya nawa'y iyo nang makamtan.

DESAPARECIDOS

tula ni Gregorio V. Bituin Jr.

(Decaparecidos – ang kahuluga’y “involuntary disappearances” . Sila ang mga sapilitang nawala na hanggang ngayo’y pinaghahanap pa rin ng kanilang mga pamilya at di pa nakikita, kahit katawan nila, hanggang ngayon.)

Desaparecidos, nasaan kang dako

Nawala ka’t sukat at biglang naglaho

Tila ka tinangay ng kung sinong dyablo

Ang pagkawala mo ay isang misteryo.

Mga kaibiga’y pinaghahanap ka

Mga magulang mo ay nag-aalala

Nagmamahal sa ‘yo’y pumatak ang luha

At mga anak mo’y biglang naulila.

Marami na kayo na nawalang pilit

Di kilalang tao kayo’y ipinuslit

Baka katawan nyo’y tadtad ng hagupit

Di na rin narinig kahit inyong impit.

Di ba’t pagtatanggol sa’ting karapatan

Ay banal na gawa ng bawat nilalang

At bakit ba kayo ay nilapastangan

Kayo ay dinukot nilang mapanlinlang.

Ah… maraming anak ngayo’y malaki na

At mga kapatid ngayo’y matanda na

Napakarami na ng mga ulila

Ngayon, ating mahal ay nawawala pa.

Hoy, mga berdugo, itong ginawa nyo’y

Masakit, dapat ngang parusahan kayo

Ah, hindi ko alam kung magharap tayo’y

Gibain kong bigla iyang dibdib ninyo!

O aking kasama, mahal kong kapatid

Pagkawala ninyo’y sumabog sa dibdib

Hanap na hustisya’y aming igigiit

Di kami titigil kahit may balakid.

Dapat nang matigil itong pagkawala

Dapat nang puksain kriminal na gala

Sa mga ginawa’y parusahan sila

Himasin na nila ang rehas na hawla.

Di pa tapos itong aming paghahanap

Dito sa hustisyang sadya ngang mailap

Ang hiling lang namin ito’y mahagilap

Nang kapayapaan sa puso’y malasap.

Wasted

2008-04-26T22:02:00.004+08:00

Into the cycle of a flu and back

Day 1. Sneezing -- a symptom consisting of the involuntary expulsion of air from the nose

Is my room already this dirty and I am sneezing again? Time for some cleaning up.

Sneezing, however did not stop after cleaning my room. I fear another flu coming up.

And began the runny and congested nose.

Day 2. Body aches -- dull persistent (usually moderately intense) body pains

How I badly need a massage! My body is aching, how I wish I could just sleep this off.

To top this situation off, my nose is now heavily congested

Day 3. Fever -- a rise in the temperature of the body in response to the spread of the flu virus in the body

My skin is killing me! Its too sensitive, that even the breeze coming from the aircon is painful.

What type of fever is this. Thank goodness, I did not slipped into convulsions

Day 4. Headache -- pain in the head caused by muscle spasms

Got a splitting headache that I slept again. I usually do not take any medications anymore since based on my experience, they do not have any effect at all.

Day 5. Nasal congestion -- excessive accumulation of mucus in the nose

At least my runny and congested nose had eased up, though blood is mixed with the mucus, probably due to bursted capillaries as a result of heavy sneezing earlier in the week.

---

Hopefully, I will be alright again.

Among the cyclical sicknesses afflicting me, I always want to avoid having the flu, since I always becomes bedridden. The gravest flu attack had me slipping into convulsions and tremors, which I do not want to experience again.

Throughout this, the only thing that I did was drank several glasses of water and juice and a combination of medicine and vitamin c. had I known a brand of zinc, I would most likely drank a tablet or two, since the mineral is also a known immune system booster and synergizes the effect of vitamin c.

Reflection when I was down? nah, but my addiction to the web was at least reduced; made some mental notes of things that I will do once I get better, which I have a tendency to procrastinate for sure, but at least, life where I live, again goes on, with or without me.

hardcore

2008-04-21T02:46:00.007+08:00

Things had been getting boring lately that whoever call/s or text/s me, I am more than willing to go somewhere else.

What a life doing nothing this summer.

Events last Saturday:
- ate with a friend and a newer friend at Gerry's Grill in TriNoma;

- watched Forbidden Kingdom;

- had a drinking session lasting the next morning;

- followed by coffee and cinnamon at Gloria Jeans.

Again, the drinking session turned out to be another emo and rant session, focused mostly on relationships.

Why are we in this type of situation? Are we not capable of holding on to somebody without running away? The irony of all these things is that at a personal level, I can always give the better advice to persons that need them; and they are always enlightened and thankful about the advice.

Talk about the ultimate I don't practice what I preach type of guy, when it comes to relations.

Inspirational Quotes for Teachers and Learners

2008-04-16T16:13:00.005+08:00

Inspirational Quotes for Teachers and Learners

For Teachers
"Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark." - Anatole France

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." - Henry Brooks Adams

"A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary." - Thomas Carruthers

" A teacher who is attempting to teach, without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn, is hammering on a cold iron." - Horace Mann (1796-1859)

"Education costs money, but then so does ignorance." - Sir Claus Moser

"Education...is a painful, continual and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning,... by praise, but above all -- by example." - John Ruskin

"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one." - Malcolm Forbes

"Education should turn out the pupil with something he knows well and something he can do well." - Alfred North Whitehead

"Getting things done is not always what is most important. There is value in allowing others to learn, even if the task is not accomplished as quickly, efficiently or effectively." - R.D. Clyde

"Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime." - Chinese Proverb

"Good teachers are those who know how little they know. Bad teachers are those who think they know more than they don't know." - R. Verdi

"Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers." - Josef Albers

"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think." - Socrates

"If the child is not learning the way you are teaching, then you must teach in the way the child learns" - Rita Dunn

"If what you're doing isn't working, try something else!" - NLP adage

"I may have said the same thing before... but my explanation, I am sure, will always be different." - Oscar Wilde

"I put the relation of a fine teacher to a student just below the relation of a mother to a son."
- Thomas Wolfe

"It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot, irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it."
- J. Bronowski, The Ascent of Man

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."
- Albert Einstein

"Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know it just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, teachers" - Richard Bach

"Men learn while they teach." - Lucius A. Seneca

"No matter how good teaching may be, each student must take the responsibility for his own education." - John Carolus S. J.

"People's behavior makes sense if you think about it in terms of their goals, needs, and motives." - Thomas Mann

"Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its values only to its scarcity." - Samuel Johnson

"Spoonfeeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon" - E. M. Forster

"Teachers should guide without dictating, and participate without dominating." - C.B. Neblette

"Teach your children by what you are, not just by what you say" - Jane Revell & Susan Norman

"The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn." - Cicero

"The basic idea behind teaching is to teach people what they need to know." - Carl Rogers

"The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

"The job of an educator is to teach students to see the vitality in themselves." - Joseph Campbell
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited." - Plutarch

"There are no difficult students - just students who don't want to do it your way" - Jane Revell & Susan Norman

" The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind." - Kahlil Gibran

"To define is to destroy, to suggest is to create." - Stephane Mallarme

"To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching." - George Bernard Shaw

"To teach is to learn twice." - Joseph Joubert

"Try to present at least three options. One is no choice at all. Two creates a dilemma. With three you begin to have real choice and flexibility" - Jane Revell & Susan Norman

"We think too much about effective methods of teaching and not enough about effective methods of learning." - John Carolus S. J.

"What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child." - George Bernard Shaw

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn." - John Cotton Dana

"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself." - Galielo Galilei

"You can't direct the wind but you can adjust the sails." - Anonymous

For Learners

" Always do what you are afraid to do." - Ralph Waldo

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young." - Henry Ford

"A turtle makes progress when it sticks its neck out" - Anon

" Believe in yourself, be strong, never give up no matter what the circumstances are. You are a champion and will overcome the dreaded obstacles. Champions take failure as a learning opportunity, so take in all you can, and run with it. Be your best and don't ever ever give up."
- Brad Gerrard

"Cherish your visions and your dreams, as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements" - Napoleon Hill

"Did you know that the Chinese symbol for 'crisis' includes a symbol which means 'opportunity'? - Jane Revell & Susan Norman

"Don’t learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world" - Samuel Butler (1835–1902)

"Every artist was at first an amateur." - Ralph W. Emerson

"I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand." - Chinese Proverb

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got"
- NLP adage

"If you find yourself saying 'But I can't speak English...', try adding the word '...yet'
- Jane Revell & Susan Norman

"If what you're doing isn't working, try something else!" - NLP adage

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." - Derek Bok

"If you know what you want, you are more likely to get it" - NLP adage

"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and made things happen." - Elinor Smith

"It's not just about looking and copying, it's about feeling too" - Paul Cezanne

"It's ok to try things out, to ask questions, to feel unsure, to let your mind wander, to daydream, to ask for help, to experiment, to take time out, not to know, to practise, to ask for help again - and again, to make mistakes, to check your understanding" - Jane Revell & Susan Norman

"Learning is never done without errors and defeat." - Vladimir Lenin

"Nothing we ever imagined is beyond our powers, only beyond our present self-knowledge"
- Theodore Roszak

"One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he could not do." - Henry Ford

"One must have strategies to execute dreams." - Azim Premji, CEO Wipro Ind

"One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty, until you try." - Sophocles

"People learn more quickly by doing something or seeing something done." - Gilbert Highet

"Success comes in cans, failure in can'ts." - Unknown

"The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle." - Pierre de Coubertin

"Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself." - Chinese Proverb

"Too much credit is given to the end result. The true lesson is in the struggle that takes place between the dream and reality. That struggle is a thing called life!" - Garth Brooks

"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work." - Aristotle

" The only dreams impossible to reach are the ones you never pursue." - Michael Deckman

" There two types of people; the can do and the can't. Which are you?" - George R. Cabrera

"Whenever you feel like saying 'Yes, but....`, try saying instead 'Yes, and...."
- Jane Revell & Susan Norman

"Whether you think you can, or think you can't...you're right!" - Henry Ford

"Worry is misuse of the imagination" - Mary Crowley

"You haven't failed, until you stop trying" - Unknown

"You've got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch onto the affirmative, don't mess with Mr In-between" - Popular song

In times of doubt....

2008-04-15T00:02:00.005+08:00

From the book, The Kite Runner:

The narrator in the book, Amir, tells about the time when he was a boy, the mullahs in Afghanistan said drinking alcohol is a terrible sin. He relayed the lesson to his father, Baba, who drinks.

The father made him sit on his lap for serious talk: "No matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. "

The father continued: "When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness."

all about coffee

2008-04-12T21:02:00.003+08:00

Though i once posted some rants about coffee in the past (here and here), the article below strengthens my belief that everyone should be coffee drinkers.

----

The Caffeine Advantage

Everything you need to know to think faster, exercise harder, and live longer

By Lauren Russell Griffin, Men's Health

By now you'd think scientists could close the book on caffeine and move on to other mysteries, like why anyone would ever order a chai latte. After all, coffee and related beverages have been revving people up since, oh, the 15th century. And in the past 60 years, researchers have conducted more than 21,000 studies on our favorite stimulant. That's an average of one new study a day through all of those decades. (Those nutrition scientists may have gotten into their own stash.)

If we don't know caffeine by now, you may well ask, when will we know it? And do I have time for a fix while I'm waiting? Make it a venti, and sit down.

We'll explain a few things. First off, caffeine is a complex compound. And it's made even more so by America's preferred delivery method, coffee. For instance, caffeine raises blood pressure, but habitual coffee drinkers are half as likely to die of heart failure as those who don't fill their mug daily. And while caffeine spikes blood sugar, a java habit may help you dodge diabetes.

Confused? Then use this primer to learn how to consume caffeine to your advantage—at work, in the gym, and for overall health.

The Biology

To understand how a double espresso can take you from dead tired to completely wired, you first need an introduction to the compound adenosine. Right now, adenosine is coursing through your veins, and its job is to put the brakes on your central nervous system. You might call it nature's chill pill. That's because as your day progresses, adenosine builds up naturally in your bloodstream, causing you to slow down and become sleepier—a convenient way to let you know it's time to turn off Conan and recharge your batteries.

Adenosine accomplishes this total-body shutdown by plugging into adenosine receptors—like electrical cords into outlets. "These connections inhibit the release of neurotransmitters, which are chemical messengers that control both brain and muscle function," says William Lovallo, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Oklahoma. "As a result, both your mind and your body slow down."

But as it turns out, caffeine is an excellent adenosine impersonator. In fact, when the two rivals jockey for the same parking space, caffeine wins. "If caffeine is plugged into the adenosine receptors, adenosine can't do its job," says Lovallo. "And this causes your central nervous system to run at a faster rate." Thus you experience the classic and often sought-after caffeine jolt. Here's how to make it work for just about every part of your body.

Your Brain

The Science: Soon after your first sip, caffeine begins to work its magic by causing the release of dopamine. Dopamine is a brain chemical that stimulates the area of your gray matter responsible for alertness, problem solving, and pleasure. "You have that feeling of being activated, sharper, and on the ball," says Lovallo. "And you can also experience a mild mood-elevating effect." All of which goes a long way in explaining why there are around 9,000 Starbucks outlets in the United States, and more opening every day around the globe.

Be smarter instantly: Down a cup of joe just before your next meeting—it'll boost your mind power for about 45 minutes, according to a recent Austrian study that directly measured the impact of 100 milligrams (mg) of caffeine on brain activity.

Be smarter for life: Refill your cup three times a day. Harvard researchers have determined that men who drink 4 cups of caffeinated coffee a day are half as likely to develop Parkinson's disease as those who skip the java—presumably because caffeine keeps dopamine molecules active. What's more, blocking adenosine may slow the buildup of amyloid-beta, a toxic brain plaque that's associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Your Heart

The Science: Adenosine helps blood vessels relax. But once caffeine infiltrates the receptors that line vessel walls, your arteries constrict, causing your blood pressure to rise. In fact, research has shown that blood pressure may increase by as much as 10 points in nonhabitual drinkers. Yet when Harvard researchers tracked the coffee intake of more than 128,000 people, they determined that drinking more than six cups of coffee a day didn't boost the chance of developing heart disease. And last year, scientists at Brooklyn College found that men who drank 4 cups of caffeinated coffee daily had a 53 percent lower risk of dying of heart disease than those who never took a sip.

"If you don't have hypertension to begin with, the temporary blood-pressure increase from a cup of coffee isn't a problem," says Matthew Sorrentino, M.D., a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. "Plus, the impact on blood pressure tends to be smaller in habitual caffeine drinkers because their bodies become somewhat tolerant to its effects."

Take your health history into account: If caffeine makes your heart race or skip beats, you're probably genetically sensitive to the stimulant. "Although this may sound serious, symptoms such as palpitations are actually considered innocuous, unless you've had a recent heart attack," says John Kassotis, M.D., a cardiac electrophysiologist at SUNY Downstate, in Brooklyn. Still, Dr. Kassotis suggests playing it safe. His rule of thumb: If you think you're caffeine-sensitive, consult your physician to determine if you should limit your intake.

Stick with antioxidant-rich java: Scientists aren't sure whether it's the caffeine or the antioxidants in coffee—or a combination of the two—that provide the aforementioned cardiovascular benefits. But unless you're caffeine-sensitive, go with the leaded variety. Research shows that antioxidant levels are decreased by about 15 percent in decaf.

Your Muscle

The Science: Because caffeine revs up your central nervous system, it slightly increases your heart rate and breathing rate, both of which help prepare your body for peak performance. Caffeine may also have a direct effect on your muscles. Here's how: Calcium must be released within a muscle fiber in order for that fiber to contract, and caffeine may block the adenosine receptors attached to muscle fibers, triggering electrical activity that prompts bigger bursts of calcium. "The result is a stronger muscle contraction," says Terry Graham, Ph.D., a professor of human health and nutritional sciences at the University of Guelph, in Ontario.

Jumpstart your workout: Studies show that consuming 140 to 400 mg of caffeine 30 to 60 minutes prior to exercise can improve both speed and endurance and make your workout seem easier. But to achieve those effects, researchers have used either caffeine pills or caffeinated soda. The reason: "Many other chemical compounds in coffee appear to counteract caffeine's ability to impact your exercise session," Graham says. Now you know why energy drinks were created. Looking for a boost? Try Celsius, which is sugar-free and contains about 200 mg of caffeine per 12-ounce can. To determine if it's enhancing your performance, be sure to monitor how it impacts your exercise session both mentally ("My workout seemed easier" or "I felt like I was dragging") and physically ("I completed more repetitions" or "I didn't improve").

Use caution: If you have heart problems or a family history of heart disease, avoid high-caffeine energy drinks for 4 hours before exercising. A 2006 study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology determined that 200 mg of caffeine decreases bloodflow to the heart by up to 39 percent during exercise because it constricts coronary arteries.

Your Liver

The Science: When your central nervous system is activated, so is your body's fight-or-flight response. This causes the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. These in turn signal your liver to pump sugar into your bloodstream. After all, had you been in a truly stressful situation—say, face-to-face with a cranky barista—your body would need that sugar for quick energy. But in everyday life (read: sitting at your desk), extra blood sugar is the last thing you need, because it signals your body to store fat and increases your risk of diabetes.

Keep your blood sugar in check: Forgo the sugar in your coffee and you'll actually reduce your risk of developing diabetes, according to multiple studies. For example, in 2005, Harvard University researchers determined that drinking 5 cups of coffee a day cuts in half the risk of developing diabetes. Scientists aren't sure why coffee may have a protective effect against diabetes, but credit its high level of disease-fighting antioxidants. While visiting Starbucks, we recommend a Caffè Americano, which is coffee at its finest: strong and flavorful, but sugar-free.

Too hot to handle

2008-04-09T22:10:00.005+08:00

[click comic to enlarge]

Sunday's 36.3 degrees Celsius metro's hottest so far this yr

April 07, 2008
Updated 23:00:52 (Mla time)
Jocelyn Uy

Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines--If your laundry dried real fast and your ice cream quickly melted on Sunday, that's because it was by far the hottest day of the year in Metro Manila.

The mercury rose to a sizzling 36.3 degrees Celsius at the Science Garden in Quezon City--one of four monitoring stations in the metropolis, according to the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa).

But it went down to a tolerable 34.4 degrees later in the afternoon, Pagasa said.

"The sweltering weather in the capital was due to the cloudless skies over Luzon and, thus, the longer time of exposure to sunlight," explained weather specialist Nonoy About in a phone interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

"We are approaching the summer solstice so we have longer days ahead, which means longer exposure to the heat of the sun," he said.

About added that the high-pressure area moving across Luzon, which is bringing with it fair weather, would continue to make summer months in the area fiery.

Sunday records showed that Metro Manila's heat was tolerable compared to the temperature in Tuguegarao City, which peaked at 37.8 degrees. This came down a little to 37.2 degrees Monday.

About warned the public to expect more of Sunday's torrid weather in the next days.

When temperatures rise to a blistering 34 to 38 degrees, expect to get sweaty and easily tired, he said. "One should exercise extreme caution because such weather could cause sun stroke, heat cramps and exhaustion."

The intense temperature two days ago did not break Metro Manila's record of May 17, 1915, when the temperature spiked to 38.6 degrees. Last year, the hottest temperature in the metropolis was a flat 37 degrees.

About, however, said Pagasa's satellite monitoring over the country's area of responsibility suggested the temperatures in the capital this year might be chart-busters.

"Satellite images show that the area is clear, meaning that cloud formations are minimal," he said.

The hottest day ever recorded at Science Garden was on May 14, 1987, when the mercury peaked at 38.5 degrees.

Tuguegarao literally became a hot spot on May 11, 1969, when the temperature rose to 42.2 degrees.

Behaving for its sake

2008-04-05T16:26:00.003+08:00

[click comic to enlarge]

Frazz

Vote of Confidence

2008-03-07T09:08:00.005+08:00

Powered By Personal Massagers

The good thing about S tumble is that it lets you provide and give websites according to the preferences that you have set based on your interests. there are times that I am too nauseated with work that i just go online and click this toolbar embedded in my browser. I would then be redirected to mostly interesting and of course sometimes funny webaddresses that a few are aware of.

One of the "discovery" is the gigolo-meter above. It basically rates a person how good he or she is in bed and from that, assess whether the person is escort material.

I am not an escort. But, for those having doubts about their marketability to the opposite sex, this is a good way of venting out whatever angsts one has regarding "attractiveness".

Superficial as it may seem, at least I am relieved that at this age, I am still worth 1,025 dollars PER hour in bed. woohooo!

hmmm, this pays much better than my current work.
I may have to rethink my career options and opportunities ;-)

Selfish

2008-02-24T22:14:00.005+08:00

Selfish:
Concerned chiefly or only with yourself and your advantage to the exclusion of others.

Kind of struck a chord lately. What I am being selfish about? Been thinking about it when I coincidentally saw some website and at the same time, the subject of a confrontational conversation. I don't want to explain myself to others but is this really one of the reasons that I can't move on?
_______
found an article by Michael J. Hurd "justifying" why such behavior is human nature.

What's So Bad About Being Selfish?
by Michael J. Hurd (September 23, 1999)

Most of us assume that selfishness is both wrong and unhealthy. But is this true?

Selfishness means acting in one's rational self-interest. Contrary to popular opinion, all healthy individuals are selfish. Choosing to pursue the career of your choice is selfish. Choosing to have children--or not to have children--is selfish. Insisting on freedom and individual rights, rather than living under a dictatorship, is selfish. Indeed, even ordinary behaviors such as breathing, eating and avoiding an oncoming car when crossing the street are selfish acts. Without selfishness, none o f us would survive the day--much less a lifetime.

Selfishness does not mean self-destructive behavior. In other words, a car thief is not selfish. He has to run from the law constantly, something most car owners never have to do. Even if he escapes the law, he will not experience as much pleasure from possessing the car as would an honest person.

Lying to your spouse, or any loved one, is not selfish. The psychological stress of trying to "live the lie" of an extramarital affair--or any major secret--is enormous. A selfish person understands that honesty is the best policy and the least painful, in the long run.

The opposite of selfishness is self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice means giving up a greater value for a lesser value. Consider the example of a battered wife, who is married to an alcoholic husband who refuses to seek help. She stays with him for reasons o f "security" and "family stability." Yet in the process she sacrifices her self-esteem and physical safety (greater values) to the irrational whims of her husband (lesser values).

Consider the example of the hard-working student who allows a friend to copy his answers on an examination. The student is sacrificing both his integrity and his efforts (greater values) to the laziness and low self-esteem of his "friend" (le sser values).

Or, consider the envious individual who tries to get you to feel guilty for your hard-earned success. "You are lucky to have done so well," the envious person says. "Now you have a duty to share some of your success with others." Ce rtainly, a selfish person wants to share his success with those he genuinely cares about--his family, friends, or children (greater values). But why should he make sacrifices to individuals he does not know or care about (lesser values)?

Selfish individuals give to charity--if and when they choose. A selfish person is not "stingy." He simply values the use of his own judgment in making decisions about how to spend his money, and when to give it away.

Most of us assume that some selfishness is healthy, but "too much" selfishness will lead to loneliness and despair. This idea rests on an incorrect definition of selfishness. Selfishness means acting in one's rational self-interest. By " rational" I mean that one can logically prove that an action is in one's self-interest--in the long run as well as the short run.

For instance, Mr. Jones might think that it is in his self-interest to cheat on his wife, in the short run. But if he considers the long-term, he will understand that he loses her either way by lying to her. If he really loves his wife, he will feel te rrible if he lies to her. If he no longer loves his wife, it is senseless to continue living with her and conducting an affair in secret. A selfish individual does not like to lie, because he sees that it does not bring him long-term happiness.

Most of us assume that we cannot be both selfish and kind to others. This is simply not true. If a mother loves her son, it makes her happy to give up some of her money to buy him a bicycle. It is not a sacrifice--it is a supremely selfish act. Both mother and son benefit.

Similarly, the owner of a popular restaurant is not dutifully "serving the public." He provides good food and a nice atmosphere so that he can make a profit and beat the competition. Both owner and diners benefit.

A physician does not provide quality treatment for altruistic reasons. He provides it because he is financially and emotionally rewarded for being competent and caring. Otherwise, he quite appropriately loses his patients. Both patient and doctor benef it from selfishness.

In a rational society, selfishness is encouraged. A rational society is one where individuals are left free to pursue their self-interest. In the process, everyone benefits. Rational selfishness means acting in your self-interest--and accepting responsibility for determining what truly serves your long-term interest. It is a nice alternative to a life filled with duty, drudgery and disillusionment.

We live in a world which does not even recognize the option of rational selfishness. We are taught, from childhood, that we must be either self-sacrificing or thoughtlessly "selfish."

I maintain that this is a false alternative. Rational selfishness, if practiced consistently, is the means of living both a moral and psychologically healthy life. If you choose to recognize this alternative, such a life can be yours.

---------
But I don't want to justify my actions.

It just disappoints me that individuals close and closer to me perceive/s me as such.
The reality is, its a seamless relationship of being altruistic and at the same time, pursuing stuff that are integral to the identity of one as an individual.

And not everybody can be pleased.
Not everyone have the same way of thinking.
Not all can agree.

This I realized the hard way.

Emo mode about what had become

2008-02-10T22:54:00.001+08:00

Reflecting stuff while resting from working,
came upon this sms which somehow rings true for most of us....

I somehow knew that
life on earth is short.

So never miss the fun
of cracking a joke at
the most inappropriate time.

Never miss the mess
of your hair when waking up.

Never miss laughing
when you read a hilarious text.

Never miss to enjoy
the rain when you had
your nail polished.

Never miss to blush
when you sang out loud
but having the highest score of all.

Never miss to look
wierd when your with
another wierd soul.

Never miss to ponder
when was your last view of the moon.

Not all are given
wonderful chances.

Feel every beat
of your heart.

Live life while there is.

Choose to be happy.

Think before you close your eyes,
'Coz every minute its closed,
you lose 60 seconds of light.

-----

And talking and conversing with a friend and her friends over beer and nuts, we've pondered, what had become of us.

Throughout the night and up until the wee hours of the morning, reminiscing past love/s and regrets seemed to be the theme of our session. Laughing and crying and becoming silent to ponder were very much the emotions felt by my friend and the rest of us.

How the innocence of childhood is sorely missed.

Being technologically savvy

2008-02-08T23:42:00.000+08:00

What has technology done to an individual?

Students, instead of taking notes and assignments written on the board will just pick up their camera phones and take a picture of the writings on the walls;

Students, instead of browsing over books, journals and newspapers for information, will just head over the Internet and look for the materials, the most brazen, plagiarizing someone else's work

Students, instead of being resourceful, have become lazy.

Spoon-feeding is not for babies anymore.

[click comic to enlarge]
Adam @ home

Momma

Badly in need

2008-02-04T22:31:00.000+08:00

click comic to enlarge

UP Centennial and missing 1/2 of one's life

2008-01-28T20:36:00.000+08:00

To think that I was the one inviting friends and alumni to attend the centennial kickoff of UP last January 08. But in the afternoon of that day, I suffered a severe form of vertigo. Talk about Murphy's Law kicking in.

I came across this video sent in the email. I really regret that I failed to attend this once every one-hundred years, hair-raising, spine-tingling (as said by a friend who was there) and lucidly memory-creating event. Hoping there would be another one this February or by year's end? I wish.

Discontended contentment

2008-01-21T21:30:00.000+08:00

[click comic to enlarge]
Frazz

a text from a friend sent me this:

Contentment is not always
the fulfillment of what you want...

Its the realization of how
blessed you are
for what you already have

The importance of data back-ups

2008-01-15T03:49:00.000+08:00

indeed, data are precious

[click comic to enlarge]

A play of words

2008-01-14T00:01:00.000+08:00

[click comic to enlarge]

Frazz

32 Decrees for 2008

2008-01-06T22:28:00.000+08:00

Given that resolutions goes in an out, always renewed but never fulfilled, i resolved to personally create decrees, which, may or may not be filfilled. This is not in order of priority

1. reduce procrastination

2. become more environment-friendly

3. become more proactive

4. minimize tactlessness

5. save, save, save

7. engage in a new hobby

8. write more

9. beat the deadline more often

10. engage in a new sport

11. organize things

12. listen more, talk less

13. reduce moodiness

14. become more friendly

15. research more

16. watch more movies

17. reduce angst

18. blog more often

19. become less impulsive

20. minimize stubbornness

21. teach more

22. be more open to new things

23. innovate more

24. be more humble

25. pursue other forms of learning

26. reestablish/pursue an old flame

27. move on

29. find a new apartment

30. pay off debts

31. attempt owning a car

32. stay with the family a little longer during vacation

Happy New Year ☼ ۞

2008-01-01T00:13:00.000+08:00

Christmas consumerism

2007-12-30T21:00:00.000+08:00

The 2007 holidays has ended and 2008 is less than 48 hours.
The comics below show the general feeling that I have every christmas.
[click comic to enlarge]
Calvin and Hobbes

Stone Soup

Jumpstart

Frazz

Foxtrot

Is my life at its Best? ۩

2007-12-30T13:01:00.000+08:00

I am never religious and never will be, but in times of slumps and depression and pressure, its a good thing that there are email senders that send in some enlightening and conscience-tingling stories like the excerpt below. Things at the personal level are not what it seems, I think.....

Excerpt from Joel Osteen’s Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

[from an email]

A few years back, I woke up one morning and I had a real strong concern and compassion for an old friend of mine. I hadn’t seen him in years, and hadn’t talked to him for at least fifteen years, but he was one of my best friends growing up. We played a lot of sports and spent a lot of time together.

All day long, I kept thinking about him, for no apparent reason. I was just hoping that he was doing okay. It finally dawned on me that maybe God was speaking to me, and I needed to take action. I decided to give my old buddy a call to say hello and see how he was doing. I had no idea how to get in touch with him. But I finally tracked him down and called him.

My friend answered the phone, and I said, “Hey, man, this is Joel Osteen. I’ve been thinking about you all day long. How have you been doing?”

The phone went completely silent. Not a word. I thought, This is very odd. I didn’t know what was going on, but I stayed on the line. After about fifteen or twenty seconds, I noticed that my buddy was all broken up on the other end of the line. I could tell that he was weeping. This fellow was one of the toughest athletes around as we were growing up. I had never seen him shed a tear. But he was now.

When he finally composed himself, he said, “Joel, my wife just recently left me. And I’ve been so depressed and discouraged.”

He said, “I’m not a religious person, but I prayed, ‘God, if You’re still out there, if You really love me, if You’re connected at all, just give me some kind of sign.’ And then the phone rang and it was you.”

God knows what He’s doing. He knows who’s hurting. He knows who’s at the end of their rope. If you will follow the flow of love and compassion wherever it leads, you may be the answer to a desperate, lonely person’s prayer. You may not fully realize the impact one brief phone call can have.

You may not realize the significance of what it means to a hurting, lonely person to hear the words “I’ve been thinking about you. I’ve been concerned about you. I love you. I believe in you. I want to be praying for you. I’m going to stand with you.” You may have forgotten how powerful and life-changing those simple words of hope can be. Let love lead you through life. Don’t ever ignore that feeling of compassion inside you. Learn to follow the flow of God’s divine love. He will direct your paths and show where and how to express it.

ang mga sagot sa mga katanungan sa buhay

2007-12-12T00:46:00.000+08:00

[somebody emailed these questions in my egroup; and someone was 'serious' enough to answer them]

1. Pwede bang uminom ng softdrink kapag coffee break?

Pwede ngunit kailangan itong lagyan ng asukal at kopimeyt. Kopimeyt dapat, huwag gatas. (milk in my cereal, kopimeyt in my pepsi.)

2. Pwede bang gamitin ang A.M. (not F.M.) radio pag gabi na?

Maari lamang gamitin ang A.M. radio kapag gabi kung ang iyong pakikinggan ay O.P.M.

3. Ang fire exit ba ay labasan ng apoy?

Ang fire exit ay ginagamit lamang bilang labasan ng apoy kapag may sunog. Ito ang kanilang daan upang sila'y makatakas o ang tinatawag na "fire escape".

4. Ang uod ba pag namatay ay inuuod din?

Ang tao kapag namatay ay hindi tinatao. Malamang ang uod ay hindi rin inuuod. Kung ang tao ay inuuod kapag nalagutan ng hininga, siguro ang uod kapag namatay ay tinatao.

5. Totoo bang ang mga manok na pinatay sa Jollibee ay masasaya kaya sila tinawag na chicken joy?

Oo, sila ay masaya kung kaya't sila'y tinawag na chicken joy. Ngunit hindi kinakailangang sa Jollibee patayin ang manok upang ito ay maging masaya. Ang mga manok ay nagiging masaya kapag sila ay may kasama sa buhay. Kapag ito ay nag-iisa lamang, ito ay hindi chicken joy kundi ....mcchicken singles.

Ang pinakamasayang manok sa lahat ay iyong 6 pc. chicken mcnuggets o tinatawag na "o-r-g-y" sa inggles.

6. Kung ang 7-11 store ay bukas 24 hrs a day , 7 days a week, at 365 days a year, bakit may lock pa ang pinto nila?

Dalawa ang dahilan. Una, may coffee break din naman ang mga nagtatrabaho sa 7-11. Pangalawa, mayroon tayong tinatawag na leap year.

7. Bakit di mataas ang highway?

Dahil kung mataas ang highway, walang paglalagyan ng skyway.

8. Ba't alang lumilipad na sasakyan sa flyover?

Hindi lang natin nakikita ang mga nagliliparang sasakyan sapagkat hindi tayo tumutingala kapag tayo ay nasa flyover.

Ang pagsalin ng dayuhang salita na flyover sa katutubong wika ay "fly"- lipad, "over"- sa ibabaw.

Ibig sabihin ang mga kotse ay hindi lumilipad sa flyover ngunit sa ibabaw ng flyover. Ngayon kung titingala ka naman kapag ikaw ay nasa flyover ang tangi mong makikita ay ang kisame ng iyong sasakyan.

Alam kong wala sa inyong mayroong sasakyan na Miata, Boxster, Kompressor, Z3, Z8 at kung ano-ano pang kotseng pang-mayaman kaya't huwag na kayong magpumilit mamilosopo.. . ako lang ang may karapatan.

Kung idadahilan niyo naman na mayroon kayong sunroof, hanapin ninyo ang inyong tinatawag na "sense of humor". Namamatay ng maaga ang palaging seryoso.

Sana ay nasagot ang ilan sa inyong mga katanungan sa buhay. Kung mayroon pang ibang bagay na bumabagabag sa iyong isipan huwag kayong mag-atubiling ilapit sa mga kina-uukulan o kaya sarilinin nyo na lamang para di kayo pagtawanan.

At lagi rin sana nating tandaan ang dayuhang salawikain na "ask a dumb question and you'll get a dumb answer."

Maraming salamat at walang anuman.

Anatomy ♥

2007-12-04T00:58:00.000+08:00

i showed interest.

she showed interest.

constant texting:

hi/hellos.

bantering.

inspiring.

nagging.

soliciting.

wooing.

asking.asking.asking.asking.asking.asking.asking.asking.asking.

working.busy.working.busy.working.busy.working.busy.working.busy.

pathetic.on my part.fear.commitment.anxiousness.

my fault.

attempting to communicate.reaching out.again.and again.

please.please.please.please.please.please.please.please.please.

empty space.enveloped.

sound of silence.

and all the ideals that i'm standing for.issues....

the cynicism of love.or whatever one calls it.

moved on.

subconsciously.not.

A Proactive Happy World AIDS Day!

2007-12-01T20:14:00.001+08:00

Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise - Leadership

The above theme is an appeal to all governments and policy makers of all natons to ensure that they meet the targets they have agreed to in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
According to UNAIDS estimates, there were 37.2 million adults and 2.2 million children living with HIV at the end of 2004, and during the year 4.9 million new people became infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35. 95% of the total number of people with HIV/AIDS live in the developing world. But HIV still remains a threat to people of all ages and nationalities.

For more information about the epidemiology of the disease click here.

For more information what AIDS as a disease is all about click here.

World AIDS Day Themes through the years (1988-2007)

2007-12-01T19:55:00.000+08:00

2007 Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise - Leadership
2006 Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise - Accountability
2005 Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise
2004 Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS
2003 Stigma and Discrimination
2002 Stigma and Discrimination
2001 I care. Do you?
2000 AIDS: Men Make a Difference
1999 Listen, Learn, Live: World AIDS Campaign with Children & Young People
1998 Force for Change: World AIDS Campaign With Young People
1997 Children Living in a World with AIDS
1996 One World. One Hope
1995 Shared Rights, Shared Responsibilities
1994 AIDS and the Family
1993 Act
1992 Community Commitment
1991 Sharing the Challenge
1990 Women and AIDS
1989 Youth
1988 Communication

Inday chronicles

2007-11-17T01:19:00.000+08:00

as sent in an email....really funny

for your indulgence

"I am solitary. I find it hard to succumb to slumber, though the downpour of rain should've made it easy. This exuberant emotional glue I have for you cannot be simply washed away. The multiplicity of what I feel for you is inevitable. This isn't platonic. It's real, true romance."
— Inday, nag-e-emote sa may bintana habang iniisip si Dodong, ang boyfriend niyang driver ng kapitbahay
* * *
"One grows distant from another not because of hatred, not because of indifference, but because of fear. There's the fear that the hurt gets greater as one gets closer, a recognition of the tendecy to fall deeply and consequently drown in a quicksand of stupid irrationalities. Sometimes, what drives one away is not the absence of emotion, but the overwhelming presence of it."
— Inday, sa nararamdaman niya kay Dodong
* * *
"There are tulips in the street. There are tulips in the park, but nothing compares to our two lips meeting in the dark...."
— Pamatay lines ni Dodong kay Inday
* * *
"The statute restricts me to love you but you have the provocation. The way you smile is the proximate cause why I love you. We have some rules to think of. We have no vested rights to love each other because the upper household dismissed my petition!"
— Ganito nakipag-break si Inday kay Dodong
* * *
"I appreciate your courage, but... placating will just give false hopes. Your flowers are nothing but fancy. I ain't worth an ordinary weed cutter. Find yourself another lover."
— Inday, nang binasted si Estong
* * *
"I stay awake in the coldness of the darkened sky contemplating why, for some reason, my emptiness has made itself manifest, extending to that niche where I was given life and growth, that because of austerity I was separated from…."
— Inday, hindi makatulog dahil na-ho-homesick
* * *
"La vida no es una broma actualmente. El dinero es tan duro de pasar. Puede usted bajar el precio parci mi? Soy ya su compradora avido diario por favor?
— Inday, tumatawad sa merkado nang isinama siya ng amo sa España
* * *
1) Drunken shrimp and blue lobster meat with caviar served with milagrosa rice (red variety) and apricot sauce
2 Vegetables in balsamic vinegar splashed with extra virgin olive oil
3) Lychee and peach salad with sour cream cheese topped with lemon zests
— Baon ni Junior sa daycare na inihanda ni Inday
* * *
"Bloody hell!!! What the f*ck did just land on my cutie top? I mean, I've spent all day just to make myself look fabulous. I think I'll have this eewy thing removed in a whip wham of time!"
— Reaction ni Inday nung natalsikan siya ng mantika habang nagluluto ng tilapia
* * *
"Ipomea aquatica has become the constant ingredient in this Filipino delicacy which is very helpful in the digestion during the peristaltic process of the food we intake. Due to the continuous rains and floods, the harvest of the said vegetable has lessened the production in the market."
— B anat ni Inday kung bakit walang kangkong sa nilutong sinigang
* * *
"Heavy fire exerted by the stimulus affect the best conductor of heat which is the steel, causing the 'oriza sativa,' the scientific name of rice, to change its state of color, smell, as well as the taste."
— Sagot ni Inday nang tanungin siya ng amo kung bakit nasunog ang sinaing
* * *
"Potatoes, when consumed in their raw state, are rapidly converted to glucose that raise insulin levels because of its simple sugar. When cooked in high temperatures like french fries, they produce large amounts of free radicals in the body, causing aging, clotting, inflamation, cancer, weight gain.... One french fry is worse than one cigarette."
— Inday, sagot sa amo nung tanungin siya kung bakit hindi siya nagluto ng french fries
* * *
"Off you go! Under no circumstances will this house relent to such unabashed display of vagrant destitution!"
— Si Inday, pinapaalis ang makulit na pulubi sa gate
* * *
Ederlyn: Hi, Inday!
Inday: I'm sorry, who the hell are you?! Back off, loser!
* * *
"A change in the weather patterns might have occurred, causing havoc to affected surroundings. The way debris are scattered indicates that the gust of wind is going northeast, causing damage to the path it is going."
— Sagot ni Inday sa amo nung tinanong siya kung bakit nagkalat ang basura sa likod ng bahay
* * *
"Allergens trigger the immune response. Eosinophilic migration occurs to the reaction site and release of chemotactic and anaphylotoxin, including histamine and prostaglandins. These substances result in increased circulation to the site promoting redness."
— Sagot ni Inday nang tanungin ni Sir kung bakit may rashes si Junior
* * *
"Much as I want to indulge in the proliferation of such indecent and malicious information, I want to lift the stigma and alleviate society's perception of blindness."
— Pinagalitan ni Inday si Junior sa sobrang lapit manood ng TV
* * *
Amo: Day! Bakit may bukol si Junior?!
Inday: Compromising safety with useless aesthetics, the not-so-well engineered architectural design of our kitchen lavatory affected the boy's cranium with a slight boil at the left temple near the auditory organ.
Amo: (Di naka-react)
* * *
Amo: Bakit tuwing pag-uwi ko, nadadatnan kitang nanonood ng TV?!
Inday: Because I don't want you to see me doing absolutely nothing!
* * *
Amo: Inday, di ba nanood ka ng The Buzz kahapon? Bakit daw umalis si Angel Locsin sa GMA 7?
Inday: Sometimes, people choose to leave not because of selfish reasons but because they just know that things will get worse if they stay. Leaving can be a tough act and it's harder when people can't understand you for doing so.
* * *
Dear Sir/Madam:
Attached herewith is a list of proposed acquisition in line with my proposal to upgrade your household facilities. I have already made an initial survey of current market prices. Note, however, that prices can vary depending on the prevailing exchange rate and aggregate supply and demand, which we also monitor on an hourly basis.
— Si Inday, nagpapaalam mamalengke
* * *
"Guess what? The not-so-stunning guys keep on staring at my newly-manicured nails, while the copycat freaks envy my stylishly-cut mane. Unfortunately, after a great day at the spa, I have to step on this muddy and stinking place just to purchase some veggies!"
— Inday, nakikipagchikahan sa tindera sa palengke
* * *
"Higher stock index and low flow of investments triggered inflation prices, thus, the peso is weak."
— Dahilan ni Inday kung bakit kulang ang sukli
* * *
Amo: Inday, bumili ka nga ng mga isda... O o nga pala, Inglisera ka…. Would you please purchase many fishes for this week's meals?
Inday: Judging from your statement, I believe you meant a variety of fish. The term "fishes," although rarely and even erroneously used, connotes a plethora or an array of different kinds of the aforementioned gilled creatures. But the more pressing questions before I traverse the road to the wet market would be: What certain type of fish? Fillet or not? Frozen or just right smack the day's catch? (Pauses) Aaah… by manner of careful extrapolation, given the meager budget in this household's quasi-peasant middle class taste, I assume then that will source the staple "galewng-gowng" . Am I correct?
Amo: Leche!
Inday: You meant the freshwater milkfish? Then the "ba-ngooz" is it!
* * *
"Physical stress and excessive work may result in serious damage to one's body. It is, therefore, essential that once in a while, we take a break from our usual routine to replenish the lost energy we once had."
— Sabi ni Inday sa amo nu'ng humingi siya ng day-off
* * *
"Don't limit my capacity in the four corners of this luxurious abode. Expose me to the real challenges of the outside world. I want to grow as an individual with dynamic experience."
— Inday, nagrereklamo dahil ayaw isama sa Enchanted Kingdom
* * *
Amo: Inday, bakit mo binenta yung sirang silya?
Inday: I have computed the chair's fair value less cost to sell and the value in use using projections for five years and a pre-tax discount rate. Accordingly, the value in use is lower, so I decided to sell the chair. This is in accordance with PAS18 on Revenue, PAS16 on Property, Plant, and Equipment, and PAS36 on Impairment of Assets!
Amo: Adik ka talaga, Inday!
* * *
Dear Mom,
Had it not been for the smelling salt, I must have collapsed moments ago. Junior has become a little monster to me! Remember the head accident he had? As if it wasn't enough, he was summoned by the principal of his shabbily-run academe. Oh, such an erudite bunch of baboons! I never thought being a governess can be such a strenuous employ.
Your daughter,
Inday
Dear Inday,
Walanghiya ka! Magpadala ka nga ng pera! Nasa ospital ang nanay mo; dumugo ang ilong kababasa ng pesteng sulat mo!
Tatay
* * *
"It's not that I'm trying to compete with professionals and I'm totally not avoiding speaking in the vernacular. It's just that circumstances necessitate me to speak English because I won't fully accomplish my job without doing so."
— Explanation ni Inday sa pag-e-English niya
* * *
Amo 1: Inday, ano gamit mo sa katawan mo? Ang kinis mo kasi, eh.
Amo 2: Siguro gumagamit ka ng papaya....
Amo 1: Baka naman kalamansi?
Inday: NO! Only Belo touches my skin! Who touches yours?

Before Sunset

2007-10-15T21:14:00.000+08:00

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever.
-- Horace Mann

The [d]evolution of man

2007-10-14T09:39:00.000+08:00

[click image to enlarge]

need I say more?

societies and its people are now figuratively and literally hungry for more of all the things around them that it has led to a complete change of man.

Boon or bane?

To be young and idiotic again?

2007-09-25T19:32:00.000+08:00

[click comic to enlarge]

Making sweet music with coffee

2007-09-24T04:22:00.000+08:00

Life is like a cup of coffee.
You sit by the window, lift the cup and take a sip only to realize that sombody forgot to put the sugar.
Too lazy to rise and get the sugar, you somehow struggle through an unsweetened cup;
Till you discover undissolved sugar crystals sitting at the bottom.

That's how life is;

We sometimes forget to make an effort to value what is around us.
Look around, maybe the sweetness you are looking for is closer than you think.
Start your day right.
Flash a smile.
Have your coffee.
Make it sweet.

They said so...

2007-08-28T10:18:00.000+08:00

[click image to enlarge]

Life is beautiful

2007-08-27T09:05:00.000+08:00

Always look over the little details of your life:

Like a child's laughter;

A friend's hug;

Or a stranger's smile.

Enjoy them.....

They may be small, but when you look back in your life, you realize that those are the things that made your life complete.

(as sent in an sms from a friend)

What goes around comes around

2007-08-23T23:18:00.000+08:00

Imagine, cigarette butts are already overtaken by plastic water bottles as the most abundant waste that pollutes the environment. The price of convenience indeed.

[click comic to enlarge]

Never Giving Up

2007-08-20T00:52:00.000+08:00

In life, the greatest handicap is fear;

The hardest thing to do is begin;

The most useless asset is pride;

The most scary thing to make is change;

And the greatest mistake is giving up.

(as sent in an sms from a friend)

visceral aimlessness

2007-08-17T00:45:00.000+08:00

one may not talk what the lyrics of this music from Cibo Matto wants to convey but the Sugar Water video is simply good and brilliant.

having work suspended because of the rains had me aimlessly wandering in the virtual world. productivity is at a halt and I want it to keep that way for the time being.

reality will come back right after the supertyphoon but for now, enjoying the video above plus all the things that is the 'net is the priority.

The Better Side of the Philippines

2007-08-16T08:46:00.000+08:00

Below is an email received, source unknown. Its a good read.

The following was written by INTEL General Manager Robin Martin about the Philippines:

Filipinos (including the press, business people and myself) tend to dwell too much on the negative side, and this affects the perception of foreigners, even the ones who have lived here for a while. The negative perception of the Philippines is way disproportionate to reality when compared to countries like Columbia, Egypt , Middle East, Africa , etc. Let us all help our country by balancing the negative with the positive especially when we talk toforeigners, whether based here or abroad. Looking back and comparing the Philippines today and 1995 (the year I came back), I was struck by how much our country has progressed physically.

Consider the following:

1. The great telecom infrastructure that we have now did not exist in 1995. 1995 was the year the telecom industry was deregulated. Since then billions of dollars have been invested in both fixed line and cellular networks producing a system with over 5,000 kms of fiber optic backbone at a world competitive cost. From a fixed line capacity of about 900,000 in 1995 we now have over 7 million. Cellular phones practically did not exist in 1995; now we have over 11 million line capacity.

2. The MRT, many of the EDSA flyovers (including the Ayala Avenue flyover), the SKYWAY, Rockwell and Glorietta 4, the Fort, NAIA terminal 2 and most of the new skyscrapers were not yet built in 1995.

3. If you drive to the provinces, you will notice that national roads are now of good quality (international quality asphalt roads). I just went to Iba, Zambales last week and I was impressed that even a not so frequently travelled road was of very good quality.

4. Philippine exports have increased by 600% over the past eight years. There are many, many more examples of progress over the last eight years. Philippine mangoes are now exported to the US and Europe.

Additional tidbits to make our people prouder:

1. INTEL has been in the Philippines for 28 years. The Philippines plant is where Intel's most advanced products are launched, including the Pentium IV. By the end of 2002, Philippine operations became Intel's biggest assembly and testing operations worldwide.

2. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS has been operating in Baguio for over 20 years. The Baguio plant is the largest producer of DSP chips in the world. DSP chips are the brains behind cellphones. TI's Baguio plant produces the chip that powers 100% of all NOKIA cellphones and 80% of Erickson cellphones in the world.

3. TOSHIBA laptops are produced in Santa Rosa, Laguna.

4. If you drive a BENZ, BMW, or a VOLVO, there is a good chance that the ABS system in your car was made in the Philippines.

5. TREND-MICRO, makers of one of the top anti virus software PC-Cillin (I may have mispelled this), develops its "cures" for viruses right here in Eastwood Libis, Quezon City . When a virus breaks in any computer system in the world, they try to find a solution within 45 minutes of finding the virus.

6. Today a majority of the top ten U.S. Call Center firms in the U.S. have set up operations in thePhilippines. This is one area in which I believe we are the best in the world in terms of value for money.

7. America Online (AOL) has 1,000 people in Clark answering 90% of AOL's global e-mail inquiries.

8. PROCTOR & GAMBLE has over 400 people right here in Makati (average age 23 years) doing back-up office work to their Asian operations including finance, accounting, Human Resources and payments processing.

9. Among many other things it does for its regional operations network in the Asia-Pacific region here in Manila , CITIBANK also does its global ATM programming locally.

10. This is the first year ever that the Philippines will be exporting cars in quantity courtesy of FORD Philippines. (I have an idea this article was written between 2001- 2002, so this operation should have been on-going for the last 3 years or so. CYN)

11. The government is shedding off graft and corruption slowly but surely. This is the first time in our history that a former president is in jail and facing charges of plunder. Despite all odds, we are still pursuing the ill-gotten wealth of Marcos now enjoyed by his unrepentant heirs.

Next time you travel abroad and meet business associates tell them the good news. A big part of our problem is perception and one of the biggest battles can be won simply by believing and by making others believe. This message is shared by good citizens of the Philippines who persevere to hope and work for our country.56,000,000 Filipinos speak, read and write in English even if we have our own national language. Speaking a second language takes a certain kind of unique intelligence.

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO OTHER FILIPINOS!!!

The Hell of Things

2007-06-28T19:23:00.000+08:00

[click above comic to enlarge]

The benefits of not smoking

2007-06-18T00:26:00.001+08:00

[click image to enlarge]
http://www.healthbolt.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/smoking_timeline_2070x1530.gif

To Rain or not to rain

2007-06-13T05:38:00.000+08:00

[click comic to enlarge]

Too much coffee man

The point exactly for most politicians.

Unless they see something physical that would significantly affect their interests.

A Filipino's Independence for What its Worth

2007-06-12T00:17:00.000+08:00

Pilipino

Sabi MO , ang gobyerno natin ay palpak.
Sabi MO , ang mga batas natin ay sinauna.
Sabi MO , ang lokal na pamahalaan natin ay hindi
maganda ang pagkolekta ng basura at ang paglilinis ng mga lugar.
Sabi MO , hindi gumagana ang mga telepono, katatawanan
ang kalagayan ng trapiko, at hindi nakakarating sa
paroroonan ang mga sulat.
Sabi MO , parang nasadlak sa basura ang ating buong bansa.
Sabi Mo , sabi MO, sabi MO.

E ano'ng ginagawa mo tungkol dito?

Kumuha ka ng isang taong papunta sa Singapore . Bigyan
mo sya ng pangalan, yung sa IYO. Bigyan MO sya ng
mukha, yung sa IYO. Lumabas KA sa airport nang
pinakamatino mong sarili na maipagmamalaki sa mundo..

Sa Singapore Hindi KA nagtatapon ng upos ng sigarilyo
sa kalye. Ipinagmamalaki MO ang magaganda nilang
underpass. Nagbabayad KA ng mga 60 pesos para
makapagmaneho sa Orchard Road (parang EDSA) mula alas
5 hanggang alas 8 ng gabi. Bumalik KA sa parking lot
para bayaran ang parking tiket mo kung napasobra ka ng
oras sa shopping o sa pagkain sa isang restaurant. Sa
Singapore , wala KAng sinasabi, meron ba?

Hindi MO susubukang kumain sa lantad kapag Ramadan sa
Dubai .
Hindi MO susubukang lumabas ng bahay na walang takip
ang mukha sa Jeddah.
Hindi MO susubukang lagyan ang isang empleyado ng
kumpanya ng telepono sa London para mapunta sa ibang
tao ang mga long distance na tawag mo.

Hindi MO susubukang lumampas ng 90 kilometers per hour
sa Washington, at saka sasabihin sa pulis "Alam mo
kung sino ako?"

Bakit di MO subukang dumura o magtapon ng upos ng
sigarilyo o balat ng kendi sa mga kalye sa Tokyo ?

Bakit hindi MO subukang bumili ng pekeng mga papeles
sa Boston tulad ng ginagawa sa Recto?

Pinag-uusapan pa rin natin IKAW.

IKAW na gumagalang at sumusunod sa patakarang banyaga
sa ibang bansa pero hindi makasunod sa sarili mong
lugar.

IKAW na tapon ng tapon sa kalye pagtuntong mo pa lang
sa lupa.

Kung IKAW ay nakikisalamuha at pumupuri ng systema sa
bansang banyaga, bakit hindi KA maging ganyan sa
Pilipinas?

Minsan sa isang panayam, ang dating Subic
Administrator na si Gordon ay may katwiran ng sinabi
nyang "Ang mga aso ng mayayaman ay pinalalakad at
pinadudumi ng may-ari sa kalye, tapos sila mismo ang
pumupuna sa may katungkulan sa kapalpakan sa
paglilinis ng mga kalye. Ano ang gusto nilang gawin ng
mga may katungkulan? Magwalis tuwing makakaramdam ng
hindi maganda sa tiyan ang kanilang alaga?"

Sa America , bawat may-ari ng alaga ay dapat maglinis
matapos ang pagdumi ng aso. Ganuon din sa Japan ...

Gagawin ba ng mga Pilipino yun dito? Tama sya.

Pumupunta tayo sa botohan para pumili ng gobyerno at
pagkatapos nuon ay tinatanggal na natin sa sarili ang
responsibilidad. Uupo tayo sa isang tabi at
paghihintay ng pagkalinga at umaasa na gagawin ng
gobyerno ang lahat habang wala tayong iniaalay.

Umaasa tayo sa pamahalaan na maglinis, ngunit hindi
naman tayo titigil sa pagtatapon ng basura sa kung
saan-saan, at ni hindi tayo pupulot ng anumang piraso
ng papel para itapon sa basurahan.

Pagdating sa mga panlipunang talakayin tulad nang
hindi pagiging tapat sa kasal, sa mga dalagang ina, sa
pagtatalik ng walang basbas ng kasal, at iba pa,
maingay tayong nagpoprotesta ngunit patuloy naman
nating ginagawa ang mga ito.

Sa sandaling tayo ay mangulila kapag nasa labas tayo
ng bansa, naghahanap tayo ng aliw sa iba, kadalasan sa
kapwa rin natin Pilipino, na hindi natin iniisip ang
ating katungkulan na ating sinumpaan sa ating pamilya
nuong narito pa tayo.

Tapos sinisisi natin ang pamahalaan kapag nakikita
natin ang karahasan sa kabataan, pagkagumon sa bawal
na gamot, at iba pa, samantalang sinimulan natin
ito sa hindi pagpansin sa pangangailangan ng ating mga
anak ng tunay na pag-gabay at responsibilidad ng isang
magulang.

Ang sabi natin, "Ang buong sistema ang kailangang
magbago. Ano ang magagawa kung ako lang ang
magpapabago sa aking pamilya?"

E sino ang magbabago ng sistema?

Ano ba ang mga sankap ng sistema? Napakaginhawa sa
atin na ang sistema ay binubuo ng ating mga
kapitbahay, mga ibang tahanan, ibang syudad, ibang
komunidad, at ang pamahalaan. Pero hindi kasama IKAW
at AKO. Pagdating sa ating pagkakaroon ng positibong
handog sa sistema, ikinakandado natin ang sarili, pati
na ang ating pamilya sa loob ng isang ligtas na pugad
at tumatanaw na lang tayo sa malayong mga lugar at
bansa at naghihintay ng isang Mr. Clean na dumating at
maghatid na mga himala.

O lumilikas tayo. Parang mga tamad na duwag na hindi
pinatatahimik ng ating mga takot, tumatakbo tayo sa
Amerika upang makisalo sa kanilang luwalhati at
purihin sa kanilang sistema. Pero pag naging
masalimuot sa New York tatakbo tayo sa Japan o
Hongkong. Pag nagkahirapan ang paghanap ng trabaho sa
Hongkong, sakay agad tayo sa susunod na eroplano
patungong Gitnang Silangan. Pag may digmaan sa Gulf,
inaasahan nating masagip at mapauwi ng Gobyernong
Pilipino.

Lahat ay handang umabuso at gumahasa sa bansa. Walang
nag-iisip na handugan ang sistema. Ang konsyensya
natin ay nakasanla sa pera. Mga mahal kong kababayan,
ang sulating ito ay matinding nakakakislot ng isipan,
nangangailangan ng maraming pagmumuni-muni, at
tumutusok din sa konsyensya. Medyo inuulit ko lang
ayon sa ating salita ang mga salita ni John
..F.Kennedy sa kanyang kabansa upang maitugma sa ating
mga Pilipino:

"Itanong natin kung ano ang magagawa natin sa ating
bansang Pilipinas at gawin ang nararapat upang ang
Pilipinas ay maging tulad ng Amerika at ibang
kanlurang bansa ngayon."

(the above was an email sent by a friend, link/source not indicated)

And our country's independence and democratic freedom resulted in politically-related killings of advocates.

The poster below best represents this stigma we have in the international community.

[click poster to enlarge].

And how the Arroyo admininstration, like most politicians around the world, made use of vague plans and platforms to sectors that need the most attention, resulting in empty promises similar to the comic below.

[click comic to enlarge].

Too Much Coffee Man

The reality of things

2007-06-11T03:43:00.000+08:00

In a day, vacation will come to a close and it will become "normal" again...

...the daily grind of work -- interacting with people you thought were real but unfortunately are dissemblers; confiding to them things that were supposed to be off the record but will be used against you; trusting your judgement that your officemates are your friends but you realize they are not...

The hazards of coming to work...

And the end goal? It all boils down to the currency being accepted in order to survive -- money.

Too much coffee man

The vicious cycle of endlessness

2007-06-04T02:07:00.000+08:00

Complaints, complaints....

...thats what most of us are usually doing;
to the point that we become so warmed up talking and talking.

But what will we do about it?

And silence becomes deafening.

Go, ask a politician, s/he's so good at this.

[click comic to enlarge]

Too Much Coffee Man

Movie Rant: Shrek

2007-05-30T20:04:00.000+08:00

Shrek is at least being environmental.

The movie is good at recycling things....

...from the first two movies.

Funny moments are relatively far in between.

The trailer is much better at delivering those funny moments. But the movie, it is (approx.) 90 minutes too long.

Hopefully, this really would be the end of the series.

For the plot summary, click here.

For casts and credits, click here.

Movie Rant: 28 Weeks Later

2007-05-29T00:09:00.000+08:00

Frailty of the human mind and how man views himself in the company of others and of danger is very lucid in this movie...

The movie hypnotically draws out the 'what ifs' situations, the moral choices that should be made in conditions where preservation of the human species is the issue;

Is life really worth saving at all costs in the planet...

Hence there are no qualms in giving enough mayhem and body count, both infected and uninfected individuals, that in the end, one feels exhausted and drained and shortchanged....

For leaving the viewer to question his own existence and moral decisions if such thing would happen (and at the extreme, probably relate it to what is currently happening in Iraq)...

For those who want to be entertained and at the same time talks of existentialism, this movie is worth watching. Go catch this film either in cinemas or DVD. It is also better to catch its predecessor, 28 Days Later.

For the plot summary, click here.

For casts and credits, click here.

Movie Rant: Wild Hogs

2007-05-28T21:33:00.000+08:00

What have I done in my life so far?

This seems to be the question being posed by the main protagonists (Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy) in the movie, Wild Hogs...

A buddy movie about four middle-aged individuals who ride their motocycles around their area but eventually starting a road trip. And that soon starts their (mis)adventure.

The movie may be formulaic in terms of slapstick and some gay humor, but it also offers a charismatic and effortless cast, with occasional bit of wit, that deliver the laughs; just make sure that brain cells are best left for studying.

For those who wanna have a hell of a ride without demanding too much from the brain, Wild Hogs is a good lounge movie. Go catch this film in DVD.

For the plot summary, click here.

For casts and credits, click here.

The Origin of Man

2007-05-18T04:14:00.000+08:00

[click image to enlarge]

So where did we come from?

Were we really created in the likeness of a supreme being as claimed by the bible written by humans said to be inspired by this supreme being?

What about Charles Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection which served as basis for evolution? This more or less is misrepresented in the wall painting above....

George Carlin bluntly put it this way: Catholic — which I was until I reached the age of reason

And so we all need to take life seriously...

...will just have a movie marathon over the weekend at my end.

Safer weekend for everybody.

And the point of going through this is?

2007-05-17T00:09:00.000+08:00

Coming across a game called flyguy inadvertently led to thinking of the point of going over the things you do in your day to day activities.

Why are we doing this? What is the purpose for the mundane things that we do?

Why do we have to wake up each day and go through the rundown of commuting, reporting for work, aimlessly wondering what's for lunch, looking obsessively at the time over and over, up until its time to go out of the office and then go home. Unless you take a detour and do something else to unwind.

My current state of mind provides no answer. If only it is as easy as saying 42.....

For those who want to just play the game, just click the image.
Controls are the arrow keys.

You may find yourself just drifting around and [might] encounter random items. You may not even get the point of the game....

and I think that is the point.

Melancholic ups and bottomless downs

2007-05-16T01:11:00.000+08:00

Hurting and despairing seem to be the new trend today...

One can personally feel how much it hurts, knowing that [maybe] you want this [someone/something]....

...but [unfortunately] you can not have that.

This is similar to what the Me and Mrs. Jones lyrics/music below conveys...

It talks of longing and wanting and yearning for that unbridled moment that one can connect to that someone/something...

...but soon realizes that its not really going to happen.

That person just heaves a sigh and futilely...

...mope.

Me and Mrs. Jones

Billy Paul (a #1 hit in 1972)
written by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Cary Gilbert

Me and Mrs. Jones, we got a thing going on,
We both know that it's wrong
But it's much too strong to let it cool down now.

We meet ev'ry day at the same cafe,
Six-thirty I know she'll be there,
Holding hands, making all kinds of plans
While the jukebox plays our favorite song.

Me and Mrs., Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones,
Mrs. Jones got a thing going on,
We both know that it's wrong,
But it's much too strong to let it cool down now.

We gotta be extra careful
that we don't build our hopes too high
Cause she's got her own obligations and so do I.

Me, me and Mrs., Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones,
Mrs. Jones got a thing going on,
We both know that it's wrong,
But it's much too strong to let it cool down now.

Well, it's time for us to be leaving,
It hurts so much, it hurts so much inside,
Now she'll go her way and I'll go mine,
But tomorrow we'll meet the same place, the same time.

Me and Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones.

Ultimate Forbidden

2007-05-15T12:37:00.000+08:00

We all have ultimate fantasies about things around us...

Things that would make us look good...

Things that would make us comfortable...

Things that would make us live happily ever after...

Things that would make our lives better.

Unfortunately, it does not happen. That is why it is called a fantasy.

Reality really [sometimes] sucks.

[click comic to enlarge]

guest artist Meghan Murphy for multiplexcomic

Pointless existence?

2007-05-14T01:28:00.000+08:00

What have I done in my life thus far?

This might be the question that might come to mind if someone is reflecting on the things that he had (or had not) done up until such moment of reflection.

Would this be applicable to animals perhaps?

Take for example the mouse below.

Does the mouse know that it has been bred in captivity?

Does the mouse know what to become of him as days pass by?

Fed to the upper members of the food chain perhaps?

Or may be killed for the sake of experimentation?

And so, the mouse will ultimately end like the one below in the interest of science.

Is the mouse's existence pointless?

Scientists using it in the laboratories may not think so.

But we can not ask the mouse about that.

Is life worth living only to end up this way?

So depressing.

Reality Bites: Coming Full Circle

2007-05-11T23:16:00.000+08:00

And so, discordant as it may seems, reality has a way of tying loose ends of what might a person wants.

And at the end of the day, we still try our best to antagonize and deviate from the path that we tend to follow...

Reflections of things that can not be undone but rectified (probably) in the future...

Or things that one is so trying hard to control according to his bidding that probably will do good for his future...

Or things that are beyond his control but can still have a significant role in his future.

Safer weekend for all people.

[Click comic to enlarge]

[disclaimer: comic not my own. will acknowledge the website once i recall where i got it]

The birds and the bees

2007-05-10T22:32:00.000+08:00

This would be the situation if children/teenagers (without being exposed to sex education) become parents with children. See related post below or click here for the origin of this rant.

People/sectors are sometimes too shallow and narrow-minded that its such a waste of time and space for arguments and reasons they would never understand.....

[Click comic to enlarge]

Cyanide and Happiness

Morally upright (?)

2007-05-08T00:14:00.000+08:00

From ABA-AKO partylist poster, claiming that they would be the savior of the Filipino nuclear family....

What the.....

Think 75 per cent of the 90 million Filipinos living below poverty because of ignorance and lack of access to basic reproductive health services....

This partylist should not talk about moral issues as their platform...

Its hypocrisy...

They should talk of other alternative programs if they want to be altruistic and all....

How pointless...

[Click poster to enlarge]

Movie Rant: Pan's Labyrinth

2007-05-07T00:53:00.000+08:00

How unfortunate that this film, heralded as among the best of 2006 is belatedly shown here in the Philippines. I was really curious as to what the film is really about.

After watching the film, my only reaction is -- WOW.

That is how I was really blown away by this magnificent film. To think that it draws some parallelism about what our country has gotten into in terms of what we really want and how we want things to unfold.

A superb review is found in Rebel Without A Clue, a weekly column by Patricia Evangelista appearing in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Click here to view her full article.

For those who want to watch an intellectually and visually stimulating movie, go, watch this film either in cinemas or DVD.

Overview courtesy of imdb.com:

In 1944 fascist Spain, a girl, fascinated with fairy-tales, is sent along with her pregnant mother to live with her new stepfather, a ruthless captain of the Spanish army. During the night, she meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun in the center of the labyrinth. He tells her she's a princess, but must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks. If she fails, she will never prove herself to be the the true princess and will never see her real father, the king, again. Written by Tim

This is the story about a young girl... and the fantasy world she created, to survive the harsh reality... This movie teaches us how children survive the real world, which they are not prepared for, and how adults forgotten this ability, disregard it as nothing, missing its "power"... Written by John

"Pan's Labyrinth" is the story of a young girl who travels with her pregnant mother to live with her mother's new husband in a rural area up North in Spain, 1944, after Franco's victory. The girl lives in an imaginary world of her own creation and faces the real world with much chagrin. Fascist repression during the first years of Franco's dictatorship is at its height in rural Spain and the girl must come to terms with that through a fable of her own. Written by Ben McIntosh

For casts and credits, click here.

State of my mind

2007-05-04T11:28:00.000+08:00

Barely having some sound sleep, this would be the state of my mind.
Have a memorable and safe weekend!

Click here for a previous related post.

Political Abduction -- Jayjay Burgos

2007-05-03T22:16:00.000+08:00

From the column of Ellen Tordesillas:

Pray for Jayjay

What struck me in that Pieta-like picture of Edith Burgos holding the picture of her missing son was the close resemblance of Jonas Joseph (Jayjay) to his father Joe Burgos, press freedom crusader and founder of We Forum and Malaya.

A witness to the abduction of Jayjay surfaced the other night at ABS-CBN after he saw Edith appealing for help to find her son.

The witness who hid under the name “Randy” said he saw Jayjay eating alone at the Hapag-Kainan restaurant at the Ever Gotesco Mall on Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City about 1 p.m. when four “bodyguard-looking” men approached him. At first, Randy said, one of guys put his hand on Jayjay shoulders. “Hinihimas-himas,” was Randy’s description. I can imagine that it was a hard massage that the bodyguard-looking guy was applying on Jayjay.

Randy related that all of a sudden the burly men pulled Jayjay from his seat and forcefully brought him out of the mall. Jayjay was shouting, “Tulungan nyo ako! Dinudukot ako! Aktibista ako!” (Help me! I’m being abducted! I’m an activist!)

Randy said nobody dared help Jayjay. “Then everything went back to normal in the mall,” he said.

What Jayjay did, shouting and asking for help, is one of the tips in “staying alive” for journalists and activists in these dangerous times.

A former colleague in Malaya last night texted me they have information that it was elements of ISAFP (Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines) that abducted Jayjay. “Please pray,” she said.

I’m praying that Jayjay, married and a father to a one-year old baby, be given the strength to survive what he is going through. I’m also praying that God touch the conscience of his abductors and stop their malevolent operation.

An agriculture graduate of Benguet State University, Jayjay is a member of Alyansa ng Magbubukid, a chapter of militant peasant organization Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), which is in the watchlist of the military.

The morning before he was abducted Jayjay conducted a seminar on organic farming.

It’s easy to imagine where Jayjay got his interest in agriculture and concern for the plight of the disadvantaged. After retiring from journalism, Joe Burgos took up farming in Bulacan.

I can’t remember particularly Jayjay when he was much younger. He is 36 years old now so he must have been 13 years old when he and his brothers and sister would do summer work in Malaya as copy boys or proofreaders while we were pushing the limits of press freedom under a dictatorship.

He must have been 11 years old when his father, grandfather, uncle, and friends of his father who were columnists of We Forum, Malaya’s sister-publication, were arrested and jailed in December 1982 for publishing stories critical of Ferdinand Marcos, especially about his fake war medals which US publications picked up three years later.

Jayjay was just six years old when his father decided that he would not allow martial law to curtail his right to inform the public about the truth. We Forum’s first issue came out on May 1, 1977. That marked the birth of the alternative press.

Tapping 18 campus editors as correspondents, Joe gave the Filipino public stories that would not see print in the mainstream newspapers. On the day the first copies of We Forum hit the streets, the Metrocom (Metropolitan Command of the Philippine Constabulary) arrested three of the student editors covering the Labor Day rally.

That was exactly 30 years ago. Today, the life of the son of a man who helped regain our freedom is in peril under the custody of unidentified elements of repression. It’s as if nothing has changed.

From where he is now, Joe Burgos must be in grief.

Saying I Love You

2007-05-02T21:52:00.000+08:00

[click comic to enlarge]

Too Much Coffee Man

What does saying I love you really cost us?
What does this term of endearment really mean?
Are we talking about an act of benignity? Or an act of love's love?

Movie Rant: Spider-man -- where's the balance?

2007-05-01T23:37:00.000+08:00

Other countries must be seething in jealousy.

The Philippines' celebration of Labor Day coincided with the showing of Spider-man 3. In cinemas nationwide, there were long lines literally snaking throughout the floor were the cinemas are located.

The movie both delivered and disappointed.

It delivered the nitty-gritty action and suspense, drama and comedy that we love in the first two Spider-man movies. It further reaffirms the action hero's iconic status over other superheroes.

It disappointed in a sense that the movie focused too much attention to one stage of Peter Parker's personality and his tendency to be too self-absorbed in his importance as a hero. In this aspect, the movie fails to give equal emphasis on the villains. There was little screen time to Venom. The movie could have provided a different level of excitement had Venom been given more screen time like Sandman (because in the cartoons/comics that I had watched/read, Venom is probably the most difficult villain that Spider-man faced, but in the movie, it was rather abridged). This is probably the dilemma with movies faced with two antagonists. Had there been only one, it could have provided more 'soul' to the movie like Spider-man 2 (which I believed is so much better because it focused only on a single antagonist).

But this minor flaw was circumvented towards the climax of the movie. Spider-man again returned to his element. And heck, it was one hell of a movie ride.....

And definitely, this is not the end of the franchise, based on how it ends.

Overview courtesy of the Spider-man Official site:
Peter Parker has finally managed to strike a balance between his devotion to M.J. and his duties as a superhero. But there is a storm brewing on the horizon. When his suit suddenly changes, turning jet-black and enhancing his powers, it transforms Peter as well, bringing out the dark, vengeful side of his personality that he is struggling to control. Under the influence of the suit, Peter becomes overconfident and starts to neglect the people who care about him most. Forced to choose between the seductive power of the new suit and the compassionate hero he used to be, Peter must overcome his personal demons as two of the most-feared villains yet, Sandman and Venom, gather unparalleled power and a thirst for retribution to threaten Peter and everyone he loves.

For casts and credits, click here.

The Environment Vote

2007-04-30T02:50:00.000+08:00

Electoral Platform for the Environment

Flora and fauna should not be appropriated by private and foreign corporations through intellectual property conventions such as patents and licenses. Repeal the Philippine Plant Variety Protection Act.

Promote native agricultural varieties and indigenous agricultural practices.

Ban the land-use conversion of agricultural lands and natural ecosystems like mangrove areas.

Promote the conservation of our biodiversity. Enforce the ban on illegal wildlife trade. Stop biopiracy.

Enforce the ban on incinerator plants.

Declare a moratorium on the construction of coal-fired power plants.

Amend the Clean Air Act by instituting mechanisms that will safeguard the livelihood of low-income workers and ban oil companies from passing on the burden of paying for cleaner oil products to consumers.

Repeal the Philippine Water Crisis Act of 1995 that instituted the policy of water privatization.

Stop the construction of large dams.

Rehabilitate and protect watershed areas. Promote community manage forestry.

Immediately rehabilitate biologically dead rivers.

Immediately upgrade, expand and develop a national sewage system.

Promote community manage waste segregation, composting and recycling.

Towards peace based on justice

To stop the collateral damages to the environment, the government must reverse its policy of militarization and support to wars of aggression. The next and succeeding governments should junk unilateral agreements as the Visiting Forces Agreement that continues to pose risks on the people and the environment and the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement that allows the entry of weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear arms into the country. The government should instead pursue the quest for justice of victims of toxic waste contamination at the former US military bases, including the victims of unexploded ordnance left by joint military exercises.

Towards clean governance.

It has often been observed that our country has enough environmental laws; we only need to implement and enforce them. In spite the destruction and pollution that is happening around, there is hardly any environmental case that has been brought to justice. There is a need to finally clean the Department which has been noted to be one of the graft-ridden agencies in the country.

The problem about government corruption can be linked to how easily our natural resources and the national patrimony are bartered away by a leadership that emphasizes foreign exchange earnings over the people s constitutionally guaranteed right for the sole utilization and enjoyment of our natural resources.

As a safeguard measure, all our natural resources should be decreed as inalienable. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources should be reoriented away from brokering business transactions with local and transnational corporations towards genuinely protecting and wisely managing our environment.

These are among our minimum set of goals and demands. For our people and the environment, we vow to pursue them on the coming May elections and beyond.

Members:
Samahan ng Nagtataguyod ng Agham at Teknolohiya para sa Sambayanan (Agham); Center for Environmental Concerns; Haribon Foundation; Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang; Mamamalakaya sa Pilipinas (Pamalakaya); Religious Missionaries of the Philippines; Kalikasan-People s Network for the Environment; Bangon Kalikasan Movement; Tanggol Kalikasan; Philippine Task Force for Bases Clean-Up; Earth Island Institute (EII); Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan sa Pilipinas (KAMP); Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay); Philippine Federation for Environmental Concerns (PFEC); Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE); Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS); Philippine Society for the Protection of Animals

10-POINT Eco-GUIDELINES FOR POLITICAL PARTIES AND CANDIDATES

2007-04-30T02:13:00.000+08:00

Kudos to Ecowaste Coalition for coming up with the guidelines presented below:

10-POINT GUIDELINES FOR POLITICAL PARTIES AND CANDIDATES

TO PREVENT AND REDUCE CAMPAIGN WASTE

1. Designate a lead team in the campaign structure that will be tasked to prevent or reduce campaign waste to zero or darn near in all campaign activities.

2. Target zero tolerance on garbage in all campaign meetings, sorties and related activities.

Keep the campaign litter-free.
Shun throwing confetti, exploding firecrackers or releasing balloons in campaign events.
Refrain from using Styrofoam, plastic bags and other single-use containers for volunteers’ meals and drinks.
Set up segregated waste bins for biodegradable and non-biodegradable discards in campaign assemblies.
Designate “eco-volunteers” to look after the bins and guide the public in the proper separation of their discards.
Clean up right after the campaign event.
Hire a local waste picker to pick up segregated wastes from campaign venue for recycling/ composting.

3. Refrain from using excessive campaign materials such as leaflets, pamphlets, posters, stickers, decals, streamers and other campaign paraphernalia.

4. For election propaganda materials: to include a friendly reminder that says “Para sa ating kalusugan at kalikasan, huwag pong ikalat, itambak o sunugin” or its equivalent in local languages.

5.  Avoid the use of specific campaign materials such as tarpaulin and other plastics as their
disposal has been environmentally problematic.

6. Use post-consumer recycled paper for campaign materials to conserve trees and protect our forests, watersheds, and ecosystems. To make recycling easy, avoid using plastic-coated paper.

7. Stay away from campaign materials that are hardly reused or recycled such as confetti, buntings and balloons. These are often burned or discarded in storm drains, esteros, rivers, seas and dumps.

8. Reject grafitti or vandalism, or the willful or malicious defacing or destruction of property.

9. Harm not the trees: spare the trees of election campaign materials. Use designated common poster areas.

10. Win or lose - remove election campaign materials from all sites immediately after the election day on 14 May 2007.

A Cent's [Sense of] Worth

2007-04-28T05:20:00.000+08:00

What good are the politicians if they are buying our votes?

What good is advocacy if the government does not value life?

What good is progressing society if the core values are disintegrating?

What good is teaching if you are unappreciated?

What good is education if too many are illiterate?

What good is qualifications if you are underemployed?

What good is faith if there is so much rife inequality?

What good is medicine if it is unattainable by many?

What good is comfort if 3/4 of the population is not?

What good is creed if you work for hourly wages in a dead-end job?

What value is love if it is unrequited?

Caught red-handed

2007-04-27T02:12:00.000+08:00

[click comic to enlarge]

Adam@home

Baldo

funny that these situations are kinda anecdotal....

Smoking aces

2007-04-26T20:53:00.000+08:00

A friend once asked if I smoke.
[I was caught off-guard with the question.]
Coincidentally, I also chanced upon a promotional poster (seen above) against second hand smoking in Europe.
In the past, I also was able to see the movie, Thank you for Smoking.
The poster and the movie present a lucid take on smoking.
If ever I am ask (again) such a question, I will probably refer them to the poster above or ask people to see the movie.

Going back to the question, if I based my answer on the poster above, then, almost all of us are smokers.
As to whether I puff....well.

Business Slogans

2007-04-24T23:31:00.000+08:00

credit goes to Bert Christensen's Truth & Humour Collection for the very humorous and funny tag lines below. I will try to post here similar slogans found in the Philippines.
Enjoy!

On a Septic Tank Truck in Oregon:
Yesterday's Meals on Wheels

On a Septic Tank Truck sign:
"We're #1 in the #2 business."

Sign over a Gynecologist’s Office:
"Dr. Jones, at your cervix."

At a Proctologist's door
"To expedite your visit please back in."

On a Plumber's truck:
"We repair what your husband fixed."

On a Plumber's truck:
"Don't sleep with a drip. Call your plumber."

Pizza Shop Slogan:
"7 days without pizza makes one weak."

At a Tire Shop in Milwaukee:
"Invite us to your next blowout."

On a Plastic Surgeon's Office door:
"Hello. Can we pick your nose?"

At a Towing company:
"We don't charge an arm and a leg. We want tows."

On an Electrician's truck:
"Let us remove your shorts."

In a Nonsmoking Area:
"If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate
action."

On a Maternity Room door:
"Push. Push. Push."

At an Optometrist's Office
"If you don't see what you're looking for, you've come to the right place."

On a Taxidermist's window:
"We really know our stuff."

In a Podiatrist's office:
"Time wounds all heels."

On a Fence:
"Salesmen welcome! Dog food is expensive."

At a Car Dealership:
"The best way to get back on your feet - miss a car payment."

Outside a Muffler Shop:
"No appointment necessary. We hear you coming."

In a Veterinarian's waiting room:
"Back in 5 minutes. Sit! Stay!"

At the Electric Company:
"We would be delighted if you send in your payment. However, if you
don't, you will be."

In a Restaurant window:
"Don't stand there and be hungry, Come on in and get fed up."

In the front yard of a Funeral Home:
"Drive carefully. We'll wait."

At a Propane Filling Station,
"Thank heaven for little grills."

And don't forget the sign at a Chicago Radiator Shop:
"Best place in town to take a leak."

funny comic

2007-04-19T03:03:00.000+08:00

funny comic scene from Shortpacked by David Willis
http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20061208.html
click to enlarge.

Movie Rant 3: Breaking and Entering

2007-04-16T22:05:00.000+08:00

I was able to catch two films during the last day of the special screenings of arthouse films in Greenbelt Cinema 1. The second movie that I watched was Breaking and Entering.

In the movie, Will Francis (Jude Law) is asked by Amira (Juliette Binoche), Are you happy?
To which Will Francis answered, Happy enough.
Like Will Francis' answer, I am 'happy enough' with the film but was never totally engrossed or even thrilled by it. The problem starts during the second half of the film wherein the plot gets too muddled with a lot of things -- pace, character development/relevance, a lot of metaphors, etc. -- that makes the ending rather unconvincing and unrealistic.

However, whatever the shortcomings were, the movie still provides good insights on complex human emotions and relationships ---
how we try to be (unconsciously) looking out for love even if we adamantly reject/deny it;
how we try to protect members of our families;
how we try not to face realities by succumbing to metaphoric bullshit just to mask realities ---
these things can make us contemplate about our own angsts regarding our relations and how we try to deal with it.

So, for those who want to become contemplative and ruminative about your own relationships, go, watch this film either in cinemas or DVD.

For the plot summary, click here.

For casts and credits, click here.

Movie Rant 2: The Last King of Scotland

2007-04-16T20:44:00.000+08:00

I was able to catch two films during the last day of the special screenings of arthouse films in Greenbelt Cinema 1. The first movie that I watched was The Last King of Scotland.

Power is really seductive. Just ask Nicholas Gerrigan (James McAvoy), the Scottish doctor who became the personal physician of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker). The film is an actual/fictional biography of the rise to despotism of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin told through the eyes of a young Scottish doctor (Nicholas Gerrigan).

Power is really seductive. One would wonder why Nicholas Gerrigan, amid the horror stories about the dictator, would willingly embrace the charms of Idi Amin without a second thought that it borders naivety (or stupidity?). Or is it just because Idi Amin is very smart, too charming and very persuasive? Whatever the possibility is, the idea of power is too mesmerizing that everyone try to grab it at whatever cost. Just look at the many candidates that the Philippines has for its incoming senatorial and local elections (May 14th). Or read the local dailies and one would read about a politician's assassination (again).

Through the eyes of Nicholas Gerrigan, the film's director, Kevin Macdonald was able to convey the many facets of Idi Amin: charismatic and magnetic but at the same time unpredictable, paranoid and brutal. Through Nicholas Gerrigan, viewers are able to see what Idi Amin is really capable of, and that spelled out fear and terror throughout Uganda between 1971-1979.

The film is engaging enough because you never know how it ends, and the powerful performances of the main protagonists would keep you glued to the screen. Go catch this film either in cinemas or DVD.

For the plot summary, click here.

For casts and credits, click here.

Procrastination

2007-04-16T19:15:00.000+08:00

credit goes to http://www.how-to-study.com/procrastination.htm

The article verbatimly posted below is very relevant not only with one's studies but also to other activities an individual is/are currently into. There are instances that we all are seasonally caught with this bug. The article below should lessen if not completely get rid of this (addictive?) habit.

What is Procrastination?

Procrastination is putting off or avoiding doing something that must be done. It is natural to procrastinate occasionally. However, excessive procrastination can result in guilt feelings about not doing a task when it should be done. It can also cause anxiety since the task still needs to be done. Further, excessive procrastination can cause poor performance if the task is completed without sufficient time to do it well. In short, excessive procrastination can interfere with school and personal success.

Why Do Students Procrastinate?

There are many reasons why students procrastinate. Here are the most common reasons:

Perfectionism. A student’s standard of performance may be so high for a task that it does not seem possible to meet that standard.
Fear of Failure. A student may lack confidence and fear that he/she will be unable to accomplish a task successfully.
Confusion. A student may be unsure about how to start a task or how it should be completed.
Task Difficulty. A student may lack the skills and abilities needed to accomplish a task.
Poor Motivation. A student may have little or no interest in completing a task because he/she finds the task boring or lacking in relevance.
Difficulty Concentrating. A student may have too many things around that distract him/her from doing a task.
Task Unpleasantness. A student may dislike doing what a task requires.
Lack of Priorities. A student may have little or no sense about which tasks are most important to do.

How Do I Know if I Procrastinate Excessively?

You procrastinate excessively if you agree with five or more of the following statements:

I often put off starting a task I find difficult
I often give up on a task as soon as I start to find it difficult.
I often wonder why I should be doing a task.
I often have difficulty getting started on a task.
I often try to do so many tasks at once that I cannot do any of them.
I often put off a task in which I have little or no interest.
I often try to come up with reasons to do something other than a task I have to do.
I often ignore a task when I am not certain about how to start it or complete it.
I often start a task but stop before completing it.
I often find myself thinking that if I ignore a task, it will go away.
I often cannot decide which of a number of tasks I should complete first.
I often find my mind wandering to things other that the task on which I am trying to work.

What Can I Do About Excessive Procrastination?

Here are some things you can do to control excessive procrastination.

Motivate yourself to work on a task with thoughts such as “There is no time like the present,” or “Nobody’s perfect.”
Prioritize the tasks you have to do.
Commit yourself to completing a task once started.
Reward yourself whenever you complete a task.
Work on tasks at the times you work best.
Break large tasks into small manageable parts.
Work on tasks as part of a study group.
Get help from teachers and other students when you find a task difficult.
Make a schedule of the tasks you have to do and stick to it.
Eliminate distractions that interfere with working on tasks.
Set reasonable standards that you can meet for a task.
Take breaks when working on a task so that you do not wear down.
Work on difficult and/or unpleasant tasks first.
Work on a task you find easier after you complete a difficult task.
Find a good place to work on tasks.

Above all, think positively and get going. Once you are into a task, you will probably find that it is more interesting than you thought it would be and not as difficult as you feared. You will feel increasingly relieved as you work toward its accomplishment and will come to look forward to the feeling of satisfaction you will experience when you have completed the task.

Movie Rant 1: Letters from Iwo Jima

2007-04-13T18:27:00.000+08:00

Greenbelt Cinema 1 is currently showing some arthouse films this week (April 9-15). So for those who missed out some good films during the latter part of 2006 and the first two months of 2007, now is the good time to catch those movies.

I was able to catch the screening of Letters from Iwo Jima (with English subtitles) directed by Clint Eastwood. This is the Japanese perspective of the Iwo Jima battle, one of the bloodiest battles during WW II. The other film made was from an American perspective, Flags of Our Fathers, also made by Eastwood (I was not able to watch the American perspective).

Though the film talks about the horrors of the war, it is more or less tamed down. The primary focus of the film revolves around the psyche of the main protagonists. Clearly, the film is about strength, honor and courage, and trying to break away from rigid traditional Japanese culture as expressed by the main protagonists. The nature of the film may be depressing, but towards its end, it more or less offers hope. There are a lot of snippets worth remembering in the film, since most of them are true, and thus can serve as reflections with our realities. For these alone, the film is worth one's time and money. Go catch this film either in cinemas or DVD.

Plot Summary: Letters From Iwo Jima is a recreation of the events that transpired during the American invasion of Iwo Jima during World War II, as told from the Japanese perspective. The island of Iwo Jima stands between the American military force and the home islands of Japan. Therefore, the Imperial Japanese Army is desperate to prevent it from falling into American hands and providing a launching point for an invasion of Japan. In February of 1945, some 22,000 Japanese troops defended the island against the overwhelming American forces that overwhelmingly outnumbered them. Like a memoir, the film follows the personal story of a young soldier, Saigo, a poor baker in civilian life, strives with his friends to survive the harsh regime of the Japanese army itself, as they fight for survival throughout the battles and are forced to watch helplessly as their closest comrades succumb to unavoidable deaths. The story also revolves around real-life Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who was given command of the forces on the island and sets out to prepare for the imminent attack. General Kuribayashi continued to defend the island with his forces even as the fighting drew close to its inevitable conclusion.

For casts and credits, click here.

What an Eat-Fest

2007-04-13T01:07:00.000+08:00

Summer is already here in the Philippines. One indicator of how hot this part of the the country is, would be the increased demand of halo halo. Halo Halo is actually a traditional summer cooler in the country made of sweet beans and mongo beans, a blend of fruits (for homemade ones, the combination can be limitless), evaporated milk, shaved ice and a scoop of ice cream. I actually had one at Chowking one really hot Monday (sans the ice cream). It was a refreshing treat!

A few hours later, I and a friend went to Chocolate Kiss Cafe in UP Diliman. I ordered a chocolate chip cheesecake (described in the cafe's menu as a New York-style cheesecake with semi-sweet real chocolate chip morsels) and of course cappuccino (combo of espresso, hot milk and milk foam). The combination of cheesecake and cappuccino is surely a match to beat foodwise. With the ambiance of the place and a good conversation to boot, it surely was a good way to end the day.

And I think I will be doing this often this summer.

Britons waste online time 'wilfing': study

2007-04-11T00:26:00.000+08:00

Britons waste online time 'wilfing': study

AFP - Tuesday, April 10

LONDON (AFP) - British Internet users spend an average of two days a month surfing the web aimlessly, or "wilfing" as the activity has been dubbed, according to a study released on Tuesday.

More than two thirds of Britons admit to wilfing -- short for what was I looking for? -- while a quarter say they spend 30 percent or more of their time on the Internet surfing without any purpose.

Men are bigger wilfers than women, with shopping website the biggest distractions, according to the study by price comparison website moneysupermarket.com.

"The Internet was designed to make it easier for people to access the information they need quickly and conveniently," said Jason Lloyd, head of broadband at the website.

"However, our study shows that although people log on with a purpose, they are now being offered so much choice and online distraction that many forget what they are there for, and spend hours aimlessly wilfing instead."

A third of all men admitted that wilfing has harmed their relationship -- perhaps because almost one in five confess they are "distracted" from work or study by adult entertainment websites.

"These days there are all manner of websites gunning for our attention," said British television "lifestyle coach" Pete Cohen.

"Not allowing ourselves to wilf takes a mixture of planning and willpower."

The research was compiled by the YouGov polling body based on questioning of 2,412 adults.

Here’s to the crazy ones

2007-04-10T20:18:00.000+08:00

From an Apple ad entitled Think Different, is a good accompanying poem presented below. There is also an article exploring the success of the ad in promoting Apple. To read the full-length article, click here. The ad is also featured after the poem below.

I know, most of us can, one way or another, directly or indirectly, can relate to the poem.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,

disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.

They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.

A love story in 4 pictures

2007-04-09T20:30:00.000+08:00

funny pictory from an email from AGHAM (an NGO based in the Philippines):

Blogvertise

2007-04-08T22:54:00.000+08:00

In the exponential rise of of pay for review sites, Blogvertise is very much active in the market.

From their Blogger FAQ, I verbatimly lift and post here two important questions among those interested:

How Much Will I Make?

You will make money for each task assigned to you that you have completed and submitted back for approval. The current payout rate for new accounts is $4 - $25 per entry. Most will fall into the $5-15 range. So if you are assigned 10 writing tasks and complete them and are approved you will earn $50-150 dollars. Note: Payout Rates will vary and are frequently based on popularity/traffic of blog as measured by independent third parties.

Can you Pay me More?

Yes. We will consider increasing the payout rate to accounts based on the quality of the blog, the performance of assigned tasks and how long you have had an account with us. All payout increases are done on a case by case basis.

This sounds enticingly enough.

Johnnie Walker Red Label whiskey and Miller Lite beer gay/lesbian ads

2007-04-08T22:05:00.000+08:00

A gay/lesbian ad for Johnnie Walker Red Label whiskey and Miller Lite beer?

These ads only show that societies now recognize the buying power and capacity of certain sectors in as much as focusing and spending company advertising money to lure said sectors to embrace their products.

But are such changes ubiquitous to ALL societies? Think again.
Think Africa. Think Asia or other poor and underdeveloped continents.

Iphone lust

2007-04-08T00:13:00.000+08:00

iphone lust
i so want one

fun-tisement

2007-04-07T23:41:00.000+08:00

this is a really good fun-tisement

Nature Photographs

2007-04-07T22:50:00.000+08:00

kudos to this site, http://www.portfolionatural.com and its photographer, Rafael Ferrando. its so far the best photography website of nature that i have encountered. below are some of his photographs

Happy Easter!

2007-04-07T22:40:00.000+08:00

somebody sent this photograph to me and it best summarizes my state of mind this week after the christian holy week -- new beginning.
we may all have a fruitful and positively eventful things to come in any of our endeavors: be it at work, love, life in general.
Happy easter!

2006-08-27T19:17:00.000+08:00

George and Conde Conversation

credit goes to http://www.freewebs.com/lfriedma/funny.html
for the funny conversation below:
how dismal would such superpower be if this in any way reflects reality.....
but does it really?
later days!

Who's On First for the Next Generation

George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?

Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.

George: Great. Lay it on me.

Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.

George: That's what I want to know.

Condi: That's what I'm telling you.

George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes.

George: I mean the fellow's name.

Condi: Hu.

George: The guy in China.

Condi: Hu.

George: The new leader of China.

Condi: Hu.

George: The Chinaman!

Condi: Hu is leading China.

George: Now whaddya' asking me for?

Condi: I'm telling you Hu is leading China.

George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?

Condi: That's the man's name.

George: That's who's name?

Condi: Yes.

George: Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the Middle East.

Condi: That's correct.

George: Then who is in China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir is in China?

Condi: No, sir.

George: Then who is?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir?

Condi: No, sir.

George: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.

Condi: Kofi?

George: No, thanks.

Condi: You want Kofi?

George: No.

Condi: You don't want Kofi.

George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi?

George: Milk! Will you please make the call?

Condi: And call who?

George: Who is the guy at the U.N?

Condi: Hu is the guy in China.

George: Will you stay out of China?!

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi.

George: All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.

2006-08-27T19:16:00.000+08:00

environmental rant

We are currently undergoing an ecological crisis, with the 20th century in particular, has seen unprecedented changes in the environment, which are unsurpassed by other period in man's history. These progressive and destructive changes are due to man's false notion that the natural resources are to be exploited for the advantage of humans, either individually or as a society. The situation further worsened as a result of exponential increases in population growth that correspondingly increased the demand for goods and services.

What can be done to save the Earth?

Two issues should be given importance in trying to identify the causes of the deterioration of the environment: (1) overpopulation (2) carrying capacity. Solutions in trying to mitigate, minimize and abort the progressive destruction should focus in the above two issues.

Population Control

The simplest and one of the most effective means of slowing population growth is to delay the age of first childbearing women. As more women enter the workforce and as education levels and standards of living increase, this delay tends to occur naturally. Social pressures that lead to deferred marriage and childbearing can be very effective. Usually, countries with high growth rates have early marriages, e.g. some South Asia and Africa nations have around 50 per cent of women marrying between the ages of 15 and 19.

Another would be the implementation of a birth control program in each country, from the traditional, i.e. breast-feeding, abstinence; to more modern methods, i.e. pills, condom. It is imperative that the government of specific countries effectively convey its program to the society to have a high rate of success in this regard. Moreover, the position of the government regarding birth control policies can affect the overall state of population in country.

Programs for Sustainable development

Effective and full implementation of Global Agenda 21 drawn in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 should serve as the blueprint for all countries' effort toward achieving sustainable development and improvement in the quality of life.

Sustainable development, which is the capacity to meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the needs of the future generation, should be the mantra for all nations. In this way, all societies should always think of preserving the base resources that will serve as the sources for replenishment of the various raw materials that are extracted from the environment. In this way, societies can maintain a harmonious relationship in resource extraction and at the same time preserving and conserving the more ore less pristine condition of the environment.

Proactive individual actions

Given all this, it does not necessarily mean that we should leave the myriad problems plaguing the planet to the respective governments. There should be a proactive action that should be observed in every individual of all societies. The small things that we do, e.g. application of proper waste management practices that would include reuse, source reduction, recycling and composting would already count a lot. If every individual will be conscious and aware of his surroundings, then, these actions will be magnified several times to positively affect the condition of the environment.

Hence, being educated and aware is not enough. These should be correspondingly translated into proper practices so as to lessen the progressive deterioration of the environment.