2007-08-28

the Seeking


Like every normal human person, there was a wild manic phase in my life.
At least two, if I remember it right. The last one was 4 or 5 years ago.
And yes, that was when my son was conceived.

I felt so helpless, absurd, manipulated, abused. I could blame anybody for my wretched condition. I was that lost. I hated everyone. I hated myself most of all for being helpless. But never have I hated "God" I never blamed him. But I don't care about him, either. It's like he never existed. I know there is God, but he doesn't matter. Like fart. I didn't matter to him, I thought. So why should he matter to me? Logical.

Because life had been void of meaning to me, I did everything that lay outside of the accepted life. And yes, it included ALL fantasies I have abhorred in myself before. No thing, no man or woman escaped my eye for beauty. And everyone who consented got a taste of me, or I got a taste of, whichever way you liked it.

One nurse on her way to Canada got in my way. And I got in her way, too. We just found ourselves in each other's arms, in mindless sensual pleasure. I think it's more of boredom for her, and she found herself carried by that wild wind that swept past her, I was tempestuous. But as I said, I got in her way. As soon as she got a hold of herself and of a college diploma, she disappeared. More than a year later, I found out from mutual friends that her aunt adopted a child, and she flew to Canada to be with her family, and probably practice her profession there. One more year passed and I am sure the child adopted by her aunt had his inquisitive eyes from me and his curly locks from her mother, the nurse. The child was running around the garden with the one he called "mama" and neither of them knew me. My son, he even looked up to me, and I know those eyes are mine. And I am staring at nothingness.

And again, I remember the roots of my individuality and lost innocence. Memories flood back.

The physical and verbal phase of my rebellion has ended. It has gone on to a moral and intellectual plane. I graduated from denial to resolution. There is no one to blame. Not myself, and not my mother or father; not the first lad who abused me or the first woman who sought my help to get over her heat; not any human person. And of course, not God, he allowed this to happen but did not want me to suffer, I think what he wanted are the fruits of our suffering. He gave us free will to make sense of our own lives. I think it is our most precious gift that life has no pre-ordained meaning. We choose the meaning we want to live. This was when I first read the Bible again after my perdition. I used to read the Bible before, but those were better times. We can afford to believe in a mighty generous God when everything's alright. To know Him beyond the Santa Claus figure we send our wishes to, I learned, is tough. But it's one way of knowing Him. The Real Him.

Now, I am in that unique position where I perfectly understand the most sexually depraved person and the most reclusive religious authority. Hmm.. Which makes me think of an even more distant past that has shaped me, that part of life most people associate with innocence. I never had the luxury of having my innocence beyond the first four years of my life..


[to be continued..]

Eclipse and Today's Outlook, SUS!


         
       

      

Today's Outlook for
           Tuesday August 28, 2007
           Yesterday | TODAY | Tomorrow



            

A
dreamy Pisces Full Moon Eclipse at 6:34 am EDT adds tension to the
practical logic of the analytical Virgo Sun, which is amped up by a
brilliant Mercury-Uranus opposition. We're pulled beyond our thoughts
and become acutely aware that we cannot rely on what we see. As we
temporarily lose our grip on the objective three-dimensional world of
things, we can spiritualize our feelings, activate our imaginations and
use fantasy as a navigational tool.


         

      


      
       
          Lawrence Cyre,
          Virgo: Change may be in store for relationships ...





ghmm...  anu ba yun??



the most important astro fact is the Total eclipse TODAY, mamayang gabi baka makakahabol tayo





Skywatcher Alert
   






 
   
   








   
Research and Learn

Watch a Lunar Eclipse Early on Tuesday
Lunar EclipseSkywatchers should set their alarms early for the morning of August 28 to see the year's second total lunar eclipse before sunrise. It will be visible from the Americas, Oceania and parts of Asia.
       
- Observing and Photographing a Lunar Eclipse
- Space.aol.com: Stargazing Info



               

                   

What Causes An Eclipse?



What Causes An Eclipse?A
lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through the shadow cast by
the sunlit Earth. When the Moon enters the outer penumbra, where just
part of the Sun's light is blocked, it becomes only slightly dimmer.
Only when it passes into the shadow's core, the umbra, does it look
markedly darker. (Gregg Dinderman)





Eclipse Darkness

How
dull and dark, or how bright and colorful, will the Moon get this time
while in Earth’s shadow? The March eclipse was moderately bright. Many
people noted that the major craters remained easily visible with
binoculars throughout the event, and the lunar maria (its dark “seas”)
could be seen with the unaided eye. The colors were fairly subdued,
ranging from near-white at the Moon’s brightest edge to rose,
brick-red, or perhaps chocolate at the darkest edge.

               

                   

Total Lunar Eclipse Chart



Total Lunar Eclipse ChartDuring
August's total lunar eclipse, the Moon passes through the southern part
of Earth's umbra, or shadow core. The eclipse is partial while the Moon
is moving across the umbra's edge. Less noticeable will be the first
and last stages of the eclipse, when the Moon is only in the penumbra,
the shadow's pale outer fringe. To match the view in your sky, turn the
diagram so the "north" label is toward Polaris, the North Star.
(S&T: Gregg Dinderman)





In August, the Moon will pass a
little closer to the center of our planet’s shadow than it did in
March. So this time, we might expect it to be slightly duller and
darker around mid-eclipse.

               

                   

Talk About It



Will you be watching this eclipse?








The reason a totally eclipsed
Moon isn’t completely black is because Earth’s atmosphere scatters and
refracts some reddened sunlight into our planet’s shadow. This is why
the shadow’s umbra (its dark central portion) glows with a ruddy hue —
anywhere from bright sunset-orange to dark blood-black.

An
astronaut on the Moon would see that this illumination is coming from
all the sunrises and sunsets ringing the dark Earth with the Sun hidden
behind it. The brightness of Earth’s sunrise-sunset ring depends on
weather conditions around the world at the time and especially on the
amount of dust suspended in the upper atmosphere.

Even during a
given eclipse, colors and shades in the umbra can be surprisingly
varied. The Moon will pass south of the shadow’s center this time, so
around mid-eclipse the south part of the Moon (the lower-left part as
seen from North America) should look brightest. Around the beginning of
totality, you’ll probably see a bright yellowish or even bluish-white
arc just inside the umbra’s edge. Such effects give the eclipsed Moon a
very three-dimensional appearance.

Time-lapse photography may
show “flying shadows” crossing the Moon’s face during totality. These
result from different features along Earth’s sunrise-sunset ring fading
and brightening as the Sun changes position behind the Earth.

               

                   

North American Eclipse Visibility



North American Eclipse VisibilityFind
your location to see whether the Moon will rise or set during any stage
of the eclipse for you. Because an eclipsed Moon is always full, the
Sun sets or rises at almost the same time on the opposite horizon. This
means that moonset or moonrise happen in a bright sky. (Gregg Dinderman)




               

                   

World Eclipse Visibility



World Eclipse VisibilityFind your location to see whether the Moon will rise or set during any stage of the eclipse for you. (Gregg Dinderman)





The Next Lunar Eclipse



First
it was easterners’ turn, now westerners’ — but on February 21, 2008,
all of the Americas will get a fine view of a total lunar eclipse high
in the dark evening sky. That event will end a series of three in less
than a year.



After that, the next total eclipse of the Moon won’t happen until the night of December 20–21, 2010.

2007-08-23

German even the Germans don't like - Los Angeles Times

The impetus behind the reform is the German-speaking world's penchant for grammatical rules and the difficulty for students to learn them. Many of these rules for spelling and punctuation, developed over centuries, have been deemed ambiguous and unsystematic, let alone unnecessarily complicated.The latest reform, begun in the early 1990s and led by expert grammarians from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, set out to simplify the language: Grammatical rules were reduced from 212 to (only!) 112, and those governing commas dropped from 52 to a mere nine. The changes mainly addressed written grammar, and -- to my chagrin -- have little effect on the spoken word. Perhaps the most important change is that der Hot dog is now der Hotdog.

read more | digg story

2007-08-07

was Rizal wrong in saying that the Youth is the hope of his country???

"The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability:

' I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules
or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make
my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be. ' "

---Leto Atreides II, the God Emperor of Dune (from Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles saga)



Initiative for
innovation. This is the promise that every new generation brings to an ailing society.

Rizal, above all, is desirous of change for the better. The society of his time presents a dead-lock that education is the only key. A vicious cycle of ignorance, undesirable social habits, and systematic exploitation led to the deplorable situation that Rizal knew in his time. So, in desperation of his own generation, he pinned his highest hopes to the people not yet touched by the sins of a decadent civilization: the Youth. The Youth should be educated in a way so that we will not grow up as slaves in our own land and in other countries. The Youth should be educated in a way that social vices will be but a thing of the past, worthy of review, but not to be relived. But in his time only the privileged few can afford to send their children to school, while others continued to live in ignorance and hopeless exploitation. What Rizal deplored the most is that the very few who were presented with this opportunity to be part of the educated Ilustrado class and become a member of the
Intelligentsia are not motivated to fill in the role of becoming saviors of our motherland.

More than a hundred years later, we are still not that far from the social condition that Rizal deplored.
While I do believe that the Youth is the only hope of our motherland, I am grossly disappointed with my own generation. They are not at all that different from Rizal's contemporaries, like them, most of my beloved compatriots only seek to enjoy their lives and enrich themselves, while our nation suffers in dire poverty, being exploited by a new class of oppressors. They fall into the same old vices inherited from our past, while new vices are created to lure even the most talented men and women to fall into the promised life of self-indulgence and wanton pleasure.

But Rizal was never wrong in his analysis. We, the Youth, are still the hope of our times.
We are the potential for a new consciousness, that precious chance to break away from the old habits of our society. There are young minds out there that can still make that leap into the unknown and abandon the comforts of security in search of enlightenment of self and the upliftment of society.

I am one of those minds eager to explore the possibilities of a future not centered on myself but on the betterment of my people and on the resolution that we should end the suffering of millions, or die trying.



I have a long-term plan to accomplish this. First I must gain financial freedom for myself and help my family in our immediate needs. When this is done, then I will be free to live by my principles. I will associate with like-minded compatriots whose love of self is not greater than their love of country. We, the Youth, should get our acts together because alone, even the greatest mind cannot succeed. The Youth should be self-aware and alert to its own role in the transformation of our nation.

In the area of science and technology, effort is not enough to venture to ambitious projects like investing in research for alternative food and energy sources in the countryside. We have more than enough natural resources and human talent to make this possible. For example, meat is a good source of protein and we all know it tastes good, but it is expensive. And with differing reasons there are vegetarians/vegans who refuse to eat the meat of a slaughtered animal. Moreover, the cost of meat production and distribution is so high that alternative sources of protein should be availed. Legumes, beans and mushrooms are known to be better sources of protein than meat itself. Community education and cultivation of these products should be one of the priorities of our society along with the development of home-grown resources of energy, like solar power, wind, geothermal and natural gas energy sources. We should be exploiting these gifts of nature.

We, the Youth should have significant representation in mainstream politics so as to affect valuable decisions; politics is dirty because we leave it to those who are dirty and greedy for power, influence and money. The influence of personal relations in policy-making and administration of our People's needs should be kept at a bare minimum, and an efficient system of check and balance should be transparent to all. We should do everything we can to streamline our bureaucracy. And we should always raise the standard of efficiency high, despite the protests of bureaucrats. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. There should be no room for mediocrity and ineptitude in serving the People. We cannot expect the government to be efficient on its own. It needs our active participation and constant vigilance. And it is the same with the country at large, we, the Youth, should always be ready to jump at the opportunity to fulfill our great promise. Although we have to thank him for pointing us in the right direction, we do not have to be Dr. Jose Rizal to know that.

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