Seven people I wish to meet here on Earth

The above title post is your group paper for your final exam. Seven people I wish to meet here on Earth. These are the stories of people, Filipino and neighbors who, despite the hardships, he/she made it to the good life or what we usually hear as "success in life". Of course the definition of success can be cognitively neutral. Success will be defined by the meaning-giver. Thus, in a 5-member comprising a group (shall not exceed and number can go down) you are to write the seven models that you would like to meet, eg. Mother Teresa can be one of them, or Siddhartha, to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. Here is the structure: First page: Names of your models. Below are the group's complete names and class schedule. Each model shall have a short biographic sketch, or information about the person (2-pages). Answer the following: 1. What are the difficulties that the model encountered? 2. How was he/she able to transform the problem into his advantage? 3. State in highlighted form the values he/she practiced or adhered to in life, eg. frugality, studying the problem intently, problem solving attitude, honesty etc. Around 6-10 values that you can identify. 4. What do you find striking in the person? 5. In your essay use sociological terms in the narrative that you are going to write about your model and highlight them in your paper. 6. One page reflection paper on how you worked and interacted with your group. 7. Should there exist a CD copy of your model you can include them for my viewing. It will be returned at an assigned date. 9. The report should be printed on papers of 8" x 11" or short size. I shall be inside a folder using a plastic fastener. Deadline of submission is sometime on October. Specific date will be announced. Good luck!

Inspiring Quotes

In a group of three members, submit your favorite 10 quotations that has the theme of human success, love of country, compassion, charity to others, basic human values and taking care of one self. Font 12 pts. To be submitted: 28, 29 August 2014.

Polygamy in the bible

Read by clicking the link: https://learni.st/users/580/boards/46162-biblical-polygamy-does-not-turn-out-well?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=paid_cpc&utm_campaign=society

Memorial to those who perished at Malaysian flight MH17

The project shall be comprised of 5-members per group. This shall be submitted to answer the following: 1. What happened to Malaysian flight MH 17? 2. Who are the one's blamed to have done this act? 3. Describe the conflict at Ukraine particularly at the Eastern part of Ukraine? Why is Russia involved? 4. Who are the victims? (pictures and their background). 5. What are the processes being done to get justice for the innocent passengers? 6. Other information. 7. As a group, what can you do on this issue? This is to be your preliminary project in lieu of a written exam. Maximum of 25 pages, minimum of 10 pages. The first page shall be a title on this issue, you can decide on the title. At the same page, the names of your group mates. This shall be submitted 21-22 August.

Gaza and Israel

Last July we saw the abduction of Israeli and the consequent reaction of the State of Israel against the Hamas at the Gaza strip. Here is a voice that wanted to be heard. The voice of Rabbi Michael Lerner. Please click on the link.

In Paradox

The House that Wisdom Builds Sunday, July 27, 2014 “Paradox” comes from two Greek words: para + doksos, meaning beyond the teaching or beyond the opinion. A paradox emerges when you’ve started to reconcile seeming contradictions, consciously or unconsciously. Paradox is the ability to live with contradictions without making them mutually exclusive, realizing they can often be both/and instead of either/or. G. K. Chesterton said that “a paradox is often a truth standing on its head to get our attention”! “Dialectic” is the process of overcoming seeming opposites by uncovering a reconciling third. The third way is not simply a third opinion. It’s a third space, a holding tank, where you hold the truth in both positions without dismissing either one of them. It often becomes the “house that wisdom builds” (Proverbs 9:1-6). It’s really the fruit of a contemplative mind. Contemplation gives us an inner capacity to live with paradoxes and contradictions. It is a quantum leap in our tolerance for ambiguity and mystery. More than anything else, this new way of processing the moment is what moves us from mere intelligence, or correct information, to what we normally mean by wisdom or non-dual thinking. The contemporary mind has almost no training in dialectical thought processes or how to think paradoxically. In fact, what it often means to be “smart” is the ability to make more and more clever distinctions! And we never experience things in their wholeness, thus the angry politics and the angry religion that is overwhelming so many of us today. Adapted from Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, p. 53; Holding the Tension: The Power of Paradox, discs 1 and 3 (CD, MP3 download); and Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, pp. 71-72 Gateway to Silence: Abide in the One who holds everything together.

Norway

Norway education

Longyearbyen, Norway

Longyearbyen is a place located at Norway. Do a research on its environment, social character and culture of the people. This is a group work, regular paper (100%) Four person composition. 2-3 pages, complete with reference. Do follow the format. Date of submission 14, 15 August. Last part will be a response to, "Living at Longyearbyen I will..." & "I will miss the following...(Why)".

Dear JPE, looking back at what they did.

Your generation will not have a collective memory of what Martial is all about. Here is a glimpse of it.

DAP issue

The previous assignment on DAP is taken over by this assignment with new instructions. New deadline 5 & 6 August, with respective schedule. This intention was kicked-off by President Noy's televised message last Monday, 14 July from Malacanang. There seems to be new developments on the DAP issue and the new emerging relationship between Malacanang and the Supreme Court. It now sharpens the picture of the two somewhat protagonists. Here is the new assignment: 1. Gather materials on the DAP issue and read them. Particularly read also the decision of the Supreme Court. 2. Listen to video clips of President's Noy (PNOy) message last 14 July. 3. Read from other commentator or opinion makers, columnist on this issue. 4. Write the following: Summary of the Supreme Court's decision on the DAP. Summary of Malacanang's position on the DAP. Summary of other opinion makers on their perspective on the DAP, particularly after 14 July's fall-out. Read Randy David's opinion on the DAP and Senator's TG Guingona on the issue, visit this site: http://tinyurl.com/jvzdg9x 5. Same format. Minimum of 6 pages, maximum of 12. You can copy paste relevant quotation. Do not forget to quote the source. PS: Google Raissa Robles on her articles on the said issue

Class reporting, suspension of classes

Our class schedule can be affected by class suspension due to typhoons visiting our space. Authorities will have a say to suspend our classes. In case there is a suspension, the day your are scheduled to report, you are going to report on the following day. The reporter assigned to that day should also report. Thus, there will be two reports on the said day due to the previous suspension of our class. May I reiterate that you should rehearse your reporting. Thank you.

Is it better to know?

Stephen Colbert interviews Dr. Neil De Grasse Tyson.

Divisoria challenge 2

Divisoria challenge is moved to 8 September, Monday, whole day. We expect to be home around 5:30 pm at MC.

Carl Sagan talks about religion

Our pale blue planet. Out only home. Carl Sagan talks about religion.

The earth our only home. Be kind.

The earth our only planet.

Read

Read how to acquire knowledge, it is in this blogspot.

DAP - Development Acceleration Program

Instructions: 1. In a group with 4 or 5 members, submit a research on the controversy that is the DAP, Development Acceleration Program. Get to know the DAP, What is the history of DAP? who are the major actors of the DAP, what are the issues that surround the DAP? Why what it brought to the Supreme Court? What was the decision of the SC? What is the fall-out? 2. Same format 3. Submission date:30-31 July

Carl Sagan and Evolution

Please view Carl Sagan's presentation of Evolution. Search in my blogspot as content. For discussion. Select a class representative to copy it at her USB and bring at school for discussion.

Video Festival

Instuctions: 1. You are to group yourselves with 3 or 4 members. 2. You are to present video clips from You tube the following: Cultural practices of a particular country of your groups choice. 3. You are going to present: Their culture practice, example: Wedding, songs, Padaung "neck stretching" (search at You Tube) their particular dance or dance steps (see Indian Dances). Presentation can be 3 to 4 video clips. Presentation can be up to 6 to 8 minutes. 4. Dates will be announced later.

Reporting the chapters, SY 2014-15 First semester

Instructions: 1. Reporting should be on a power point format. 2. Your team is to start with a relevant video connected to your chapter report. 3. Content of the report should be key concepts. You should be able to explain and give example. 4. We will observe the 60% text and 40% visuals. 5. Content: 40%, Delivery: 20%, visuals: 40% 6. It is mandatory that you should be rehearsing your report/performance, ask your classmate to critique you before reporting. Come to class prepared. 7. At the end of your report you are to present a video from You Tube an short (2-3 minutes) inspirational video clip. This will be followed by an How things are made (eg. ball bearing, soft drinks etc) and your favorite band or song. 8. Contact me if you have problems. Good luck

Stanley Kubrick, The meaningless of life

Stanley Kubrick, film maker: "The very meaningless of man forces man to create his own meaning."

Welcome Students

Welcome Freshmen students of Summer 2014-15. This blogspot is an instrument to relay messages as fast as possible. This blogspot is one of the modern method of mass communication. You can see your assignment here and read articles relevant on this course. You can use the search bar and take advantage of the labels provided. One of the best strategy to take advantage of this course if to listen and take notes. Read, read and read. Do not lose appetite on reading. Reading makes us free. It liberates us from our own ego-prison.

French women wearing veil

Read the link below and work on your assignment. French law says nobody can wear in a public space clothing intended to conceal the face. The penalty for doing so can be a 150-euro fine (£120; $205). Instructions: 1. Group yourselves into 4 or 5 group members. Do a group reflection paper on the said article, French Women wearing veil. 2. What is secularization? What is modernization? 3. Why did the French government ban the wearing of the veil (You can do further and related research on this, you can also research on the origins of wearing the veil). 4. Follow the agreed format. 5. Submission dates: July 18 & 16, inside classroom.

China's Nine-claims demolished unrecognizably

http://opinion.inquirer.net/75794/justice-carpio-tears-down-chinas-historical-lies#.U6vxkRX5rHE.facebook Nine dash claim that is China's table menu, is demolished into smeethereens by Justice Carpio.

How to acquire knowledge

Look for a recent article by Maria Popova on knowledge acquisition. In a group with 4 members do a reflection on the said article. Why is the article important? Defend your argument. Maximum of 3 pages, same format. Deadline 28 April, Monday.

Savings through typeface

A teenager showed the way to cut cost by using certain typefaces.

Flash Mob

Click the link and watch Starwars flash mob.

Humanity shared

We share one humanity and it is never a mistake to share it.

How to acquire knowledge.

Follow the link on how to acquire knowledge. Click on this colored link and read.

Video clips

For those who presented their video clips, please send them at my email leonidas.jose@yahoo.com write your names and schedule for identity purpose. Subject: Cultural video clip

American consumption

Notice to SO101 class: TTh 12:00, American consumption paper is due on 04 February 2014. Same format.

Philippine social class, population.

Philippine population, and social class system.

How Doctors choose to die.

A sobering article on end of life discussion.

Divisoria Challenge

Congratulations! Your last experience at Divisoria will be presented by your group. In one page 8.5" x 11" paper, you are to write your group mates name. Title is: Divisoria Challenge. An introduction or background of the challenge. The names of items you have bought at divisoria. The number of those items and total. Create a power point presentation of 5 slides. Slide presentation will be on the first week of February.

Who is fat and thin?

Watch this video on loving ones body. http://www.upworthy.com/some-say-this-model-is-fat-she-gives-such-a-perfect-response-that-even-ellen-applauds?c=ufb2 Copy past the link on our browser.

Randy David

Required reading for all SO 101 students. Read Randy David's column Public Lives, appearing at Philippine Daily Inquirer 15 Dec 2013, Sunday. This is a regular paper. Thus, group yourselves only in group with 5 or 4 members. No individual work. Submit on 14,15 January. Same format, start at the middle part. No handwriting submission. Enjoy your holidays!

Video Festival

Video festival is about group presentation (3 or 2 members) of different cultural practices seen at You Tube. Each group shall present three cultural practices of different ethnocentric groups (country), ex. Surma of Ethiopia, Peruvian belief system. Each clipping should be at least 2-3 minutes in length. Presentation will be on the last week of January. The fourth video can be, the groups selected video of a song, a dance exhibition, a comedy act, or something of human interest. We will discuss this when we meet next year. Enjoy your holidays!

Why are we poor?

SO 101 students are required to read this article. Thank you. Why are we poor by Antonio C. Abaya. Read the link.

Typhoon 1890

Leyte was devastated in an 1890 typhoon. Read on link.

Emphaty

This is a regular paper (group with 5 members). Read on emphaty, see the labels by using the search box. Read on the NY doctor on how he has lived with emphaty. Write a 2-3 pages group reflection paper. Regular format. Deadline 5,6 December 2013. Inquiry write at: leonidas.jose@yahoo.com

Can death be averted?

Can death be averted?

FYI, How to clean dirty water.

How to clean dirty water. FYI

Our interesting world

I am posting a link entitled: Eurostar bans Frenchman obese Kevin Chenais. Follow this link and read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25019422 Your assignment: Collect similar articles like this one published by BBC. It can be a surprising news item for you, or one you find it weird. But, still you find this world wonderful. You are going to group yourselves with 3-members and submit the 5-titles written with the accompanying website link. This will be submitted on an 8 x 11 paper regular format. Second, you are going to send the links via direct-e-mail, not an attachment to leonidas.jose@yahoo.com. Deadline 3,4 December. Note: Indicate the subject as: OUR INTERESTING WORLD!

Issue on Plagiarism

Some of classes were given this assignment on Plagiarism. In a group with 5-members answer in a research in an essay A. What is plagiarism? B. How can I avoid plagiarism? The papers shall be submitted 26,27 November, same format. Inquire on the regular format if not given to you. Hand written names and report will not be entertained. This is to be submitted by a group with 5-members. This is 100-points regular paper. Update yourself and identify the countries that have been sending their help to the Philippines. Again, this is a group of paper. Added into this is a draft essay on how you are going to thank these countries. Written and think that this will be submitted to the local newspapers. To be submitted this 26,27 November. This is 100-regular points. Thus, for the mentioned date, your are going to submit 200-value points.

On stereotyping

This in an article on stereotyping. Click on link: http://www.interaksyon.com/article/27973/veronica-pedrosa-accent-and-all-answers-the-question-whats-a-filipino?fb_action_ids=10201656785157666&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%2210201656785157666%22%3A10150679511252860%7D&action_type_map=%7B%2210201656785157666%22%3A%22og.recommends%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

A tzunamied town

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-23541450 Rikuzentakata, a small town in north east Japan, was almost wiped off the map by a huge tsunami two years ago.

Bawal Contraception

A movement in the UK called Quiverfull thrash contraception. A world in irony.

China, new law on elderly

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/02/world/asia/china-elderly-law/index.html?c&page=0 A new law in China makes it compulsary to visit their parents.

Isabel Allende, writer, woman, failed journalist, novelist

Carl Sagan on Evolution

SO 101: See the above title at You Tube for our discussion on Evolution next week. For TTh and WF classes.

Welcome Freshmen, First Semester 2013-2014

Welcome Freshmen at Miriam College. This will be your place to catch announcement for SO 101. TTh classes, submission of research paper (comprising 5 members), What is Evolution and What is science. All references should be found at the end of your paper. Deadline of submission is 20 June, Thursday.

On human suffering by Chris Hedges

In Review: Required Reading A Hollow Agnosticism by Chris Hedges EVIL IS NOT A PROBLEM. EVIL IS A MYSTERY. BART EHRMAN IN HIS BOOK God's Problemcannot reconcile a belief in God with this mystery and the cold reality of the morally neutral universe we inhabit. He wonders how God could allow the Holocaust to happen and children to starve to death. He wants a God that will make it better. And when God won't or can't or isn't interested, he walks away in a huff. This petulant stance would please Sigmund Freud, who insisted religion was a form of infantile regression, but it is another example of our cultural narcissism and childishness. Ehrman has become, after leaving the faith, a self-avowed agnostic. But he remains trapped within the simpleminded belief that religious faith, to have legitimacy, means there has to be something logical and ultimately just about human existence. "I realized that I could no longer reconcile the claims of faith with the facts of life," he writes. "In particular, I could no longer explain how there can be a good and all-powerful God actively involved with this world, given the state of things." There is strong desire on the part of many in the human species to believe that human suffering and deprivation is ultimately meaningful, that it has a purpose, that our lives make sense. Human cultures have long sought to placate the demands of an all-powerful God, or gods, in return for protection from the vicissitudes of fortune. This is the engine that drives the Christian right. This powerful human desire, however, should not be confused with the reality of the transcendent. God answered Moses' request for revelation with the words: "I AM WHO I AM." This phrase is probably more accurately translated "I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE." God is not a being. God is an experience. God is a verb, not a noun. God comes to us in the profound flashes of insight that cut through the darkness, in the hope that permits human beings to cope with inevitable pain, despair, and suffering. God comes in the healing solidarity of love and self-sacrifice. But God and the vagaries of human existence, including suffering, are beyond our capacity to explain or understand. "What makes mankind tragic is not that they are victims of nature," Joseph Conrad wrote in a letter in 1897, "it is that they are conscious of it. To be part of the animal kingdom under the conditions of this earth is very well—but as soon as you know of your slavery, the pain, the anger, the strife, the tragedy begins." The question is not whether God exists. It is whether we contemplate or are utterly indifferent to the transcendent forces that cannot be measured or quantified, those forces that lie beyond the reach of rational deduction. We all encounter these forces. They are love, beauty, alienation, loneliness, suffering, good, evil, and the reality of death. These unquantifiable forces in human life are the domain of art and religion. All cultures have struggled to give words, through religion and artistic expression, to these mysteries and moments of transcendence. God—and different cultures have given God many names and many attributes—is that which works upon us and through us to find meaning and relevance in a morally neutral universe. Religion is our finite, flawed, and imperfect expression of the infinite. The experience of transcendence, the struggle to acknowledge the infinite, need not even be attributed to an external being called God. The belief in a personal God can, in fact, be antireligious. Religion is about the human need for the sacred. God is, as Thomas Aquinas writes, the power that allows us to be ourselves. God is a search, a way to frame the questions. God is a call to reverence. Human beings come engrained with this religious impulse. Buddhists speak of nirvana in words that are nearly identical to those employed by many monotheists to describe God. This impulse asks: What are we? Why are we here? What, if anything, are we supposed to do? What does it all mean? God is a human concept that arises from this impulse and the reality of the transcendent. Our idea of God includes human prejudice, tribal and national self-exaltation, morally indefensible edicts, naked bigotry, and absurd formulas to get God to work on our behalf. Religious figures have long found it popular and profitable to pander to the forlorn hope that we can placate or control the transcendent. Religious belief systems endow God, depending on which name you give God, with a variety of attributes, some of which are repugnant, especially if you happen to be on the wrong side of Yahweh's wrath. Ehrman correctly challenges these very imperfect and flawed human descriptions of God and the vain attempts to make sense of suffering. But he mistakes the characteristics human beings have invented for God with the reality of God. Yes, there are writers in the Bible who saw war as a judgment from God for the sins of the people, who insisted that suffering was God's punishment for misbehavior, who argued that suffering was redemptive, or who, like Paul, believed life was about suffering, much as women must suffer to give birth to new life. Yes, the concept of free will argues that human beings cause suffering, though God sometimes intervenes, and yes, the apocalypticists, like Jesus and Daniel, said suffering came from a cosmic evil that would one day be abolished by the Kingdom of God. These are inadequate attempts by human beings to explain why we suffer. But the inherent flaws in these numerous explanations do not finally invalidate God. They only expose those who write and think about God as human. In Ecclesiastes, which Ehrman cites with admiration, it is not what we do in life, but what we do with what life gives us. We have few real choices. We will carry our human flaws to the grave. Our attempts to become godlike, to deny the emptiness, rhythms, and cycles of life, is vanity. The best we can do is endure with compassion, wisdom, and humility and accept the mystery and ambiguity of existence. Ehrman supports this idea of suffering as "something that happens on earth, caused by circumstances we can't control and for reasons we can't understand." He goes on to ask what we do about suffering. His answer is revealing. He tells us to "avoid it as much as we can." He suggests we "try to relieve it in others whenever possible, and we go on with life, enjoying our time here on earth as much as we can, until the time comes for us to expire." This vision is one that comes close to hedonism. If we are to avoid suffering, since it makes no ultimate sense, then there is no point in running parishes in inner city ghettos, working in the developing world, running a hospice for the dying, or perhaps even loving deeply, since these are activities that court loss, pain, and suffering. Detachment without withdrawal, Ecclesiastes wrote, is one of the secrets of wisdom. Death awaits us all. We must give up on the notion that one is rewarded for virtue, that we can save ourselves from our human predicament or that we can morally advance as a species. We remain trapped by human nature. The evil and the good endure the same hardships and blessings. But Ecclesiastes also reminds us that God has put 'olam into man's mind. 'Olam means eternity. It denotes mystery or obscurity. We do not know what this mystery, this eternity, means. And once we recognize it and face it, simplistic answers no longer work. Our vain belief in our own powers, in our reason and perfectibility, in a God who makes sense to us, is exposed as a fraud. Ecclesiastes sees the emptiness around us, the emptiness of those who trust in their own power and live in self-delusion.1And in his work, which often troubles biblical literalists and those who believe we are moving toward a glorious finale, we find the best of ancient wisdom literature. Ecclesiastes expresses a deeply authentic religious sentiment and a profound understanding of God. I do not know why this is not good enough for Ehrman. He circles back from this wisdom to his petulant complaint that since suffering is incomprehensible to him, God cannot exist. "If God is all powerful, then he is able to do whatever he wants (and can therefore remove suffering). If he is all loving, then he obviously wants the best for people (and therefore does not want them to suffer). And yet people suffer. How can that be explained?" Ehrman believes we deserve answers. This belief places us at the center of creation. Ehrman fails to examine, as Primo Levi did in Survival in Auschwitz, the cold reality of our moral degeneration, the fact that not only is suffering meaningless, but those who seek to live a moral life are often defenseless. Levi saw that those who carried out selfless acts of compassion in Auschwitz were the first to perish. He described the psychological death of emaciated and dehumanized victims that preceded death itself. He wrote that inmates who cared for others wasted away faster and died. The few able to carry out isolated acts of kindness were inmates who, through luck, cunning, or bribery, held privileged positions within the camps. They worked in a kitchen or a laboratory. They had the good fortune, on occasion, to be human. To the mass of concentration camp victims, however, human solidarity was a luxury they could not afford. To make morality one's deepest commitment usually meant death. It is possible not only to crush millions of human beings, but also our capacity to be human. We can all be reduced to barbarity. We can all forsake what is moral, what makes us human, for what is expedient. We can place our physical survival above moral considerations. Those groups that fared best in the camps, the criminal gangs with their effete male paramours and penchant for theft and murder, or the tight solidarity of clannish communities, such as the Greeks in Auschwitz, endured at the expense of others. They were predators. Those around them were prey. The camps were always dominated by the most brutal inmates. Their savagery reflected the savagery of their guards. Levi found the true image of humanity clawing for survival in Chaim Rumkowski, the Jewish Nazi collaborator and autocratic leader of the Jewish ghetto in Lodz. He was a Jew who sold out his fellow Jews for privilege and power, although he too was finally consumed by the Holocaust. "We are all mirrored in Rumkowski," Levi wrote. "His ambiguity is ours, it is our second nature, we hybrids molded from clay and spirit. His fever is ours, the fever of Western civilization, that 'descends into hell with trumpets and drums,' and its miserable adornments are the distorting image of our symbols of social prestige." We, like Rumkowski, ". . . are so dazzled by power and prestige as to forget our essential fragility. Willingly or not we come to terms with power, forgetting that we are all in the ghetto, that the ghetto is walled in, that outside the ghetto reign the lords of death, and that close by the train is waiting."2 Ehrman refuses to plummet to the real horrors of the human condition. He offers, at the end of his book empty, bourgeois platitudes. He urges us to "love and be loved," to "cultivate friendships, enjoy our intimate relationships," and "make money and spend money." "We should," he tells us, "drive nice cars and have nice homes." Of course, he adds, we should "work hard to make our world the most pleasing place it can be for others" and "alleviate suffering wherever possible." But without specifics, especially in an age of globalism, the rise of our corporate state, and preemptive war, these are little more than window dressing to mask a justification for self-absorption. He reinforces the bankrupt ethic of global capitalism. His are hollow, liberal bromides that never grapple with the dark and seductive human lusts of violence—lusts the biblical writers understood and feared. He fails to grasp that human beings, as Freud wrote in Civilization and Its Discontents, "are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result, their neighbor is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and kill him."3 It is not about us. It is about our neighbor. And since it is about our neighbor, we must expect to court and accept suffering. We live in a permanent state of war.Homo homini lupus. This state of war can be tamed and governed by social and political institutions, it can be transferred to the ballot box, the law court, or the sporting arena, but the dark urges remain. These urges, when permitted to express themselves without restraint, create a Hobbesian dystopia. This is the most important question facing believers: how to tame the evil within, not why God, who we can never fathom, allows us to suffer. To ask Ehrman's question is to turn away from the call to the moral life. Ehrman's celebration of middle-class comfort and the wasteful consumption in the industrialized zones of safety mock the hundreds of thousands of dead in Iraq. His call mocks the hundreds of millions of people on the planet who live on less than two dollars a day. His call mocks the Palestinians and Lebanese terrorized and killed with United States–manufactured fighter jets and attack helicopters. His call mocks those locked in our bloated prison system and the children who are trapped in our dysfunctional schools and ghettos. His call mocks those who suffer because of us. The question is not why we suffer. The question is why we permit others to suffer. And if we must accept suffering to relieve the suffering of others we move not away, but toward God. Ehrman's refusal to believe in God because God allows human suffering is a thinly veiled defense of our imperial sense of entitlement and unchecked narcissism. It is a way of avoiding real moral introspection. Ehrman encourages us to see ourselves as betrayed by God. But it is we who have betrayed God. We have become a militarized nation of apostates and hedonists. We ignore the evil we commit, from the war in Iraq to the torture we carry out in our offshore penal colonies. We sanctify our own power and wealth as a final good. We turn inward, ignoring our apostasy, and wonder why bad things happen to us. We are not called to avoid suffering. We are not promised a rational world. We are not offered explanations. We are called to act. There is no promise that this will be easy or painless or free us from suffering. In extreme cases, as Levi understood, it does not even mean we as distinct individuals will survive. But the life of faith has a worth and merit that dwarfs a hollow existence devoted to driving big cars, living in nice homes, eating good meals, and being angry at God because God does not adequately take care of us. Notes 1. Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (Harcourt, Inc., 1982), 123-124. 2. Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (Summit Books, 1987), 69. 3. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (W.W. Norton, 1989), 68-69. ________________________________________ God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer, by Bart D. Ehrman. HarperOne, 304 pages, $25.95 ________________________________________ CHRIS HEDGES, who received a master of divinity degree from HDS in 1983, was a foreign correspondent for almost two decades for The New York Times, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News, and The Christian Science Monitor. He is the author of several books, including I Don't Believe in Atheists, published this spring by Free Press.

The way to produce a person

If you choose a profession that doesn’t arouse your everyday passion for the sake of serving instead some abstract faraway good, you might end up as a person who values the far over the near. You might become one of those people who loves humanity in general but not the particular humans immediately around. You might end up enlarging the faculties we use to perceive the far — rationality — and eclipsing the faculties we use to interact with those closest around — affection, the capacity for vulnerability and dependence. Instead of seeing yourself as one person deeply embedded in a particular community, you may end up coolly looking across humanity as a detached god.

Think about it.

Reminder of a worthy article sent by a Filipino, Dr. Arsenio Martin of Fort Arthur , Texas ... It is hoped our countrymen will heed his advice. THE DIFFERENCE The difference between the poor countries and the rich ones is not the age of the country: This can be shown by countries like India & Egypt , that are more than 2000 years old, but are poor. On the other hand, Canada ,Australia & New Zealand , that 150 years ago were inexpressive, today are developed countries, and are rich. The difference between poor & rich countries does not reside in the available natural resources. Japan has a limited territory, 80% mountainous, inadequate for agriculture & cattle raising, but it takes third place in the world economy. The country is like an immense floating factory, importing raw materials from the whole world and exporting manufactured products. Another example is Switzerland, which does not plant cocoa but has the best chocolate in the world. In its little territory they raise animals and plant the soil during 4 months per year. Not enough, they produce dairy products of the best quality! It is a small country that transmits an image of security, order & labor, which made it the world's strongest, safest place. Executives from rich countries who communicate with their counterparts in poor countries show that there is no significant intellectual difference. Race or skin color are also not important: immigrants labeled lazy in their countries of origin are the productive power in rich European countries. What is the difference then? The difference is the attitude of the people, framed along the years by the education & the culture & flawed tradition. On analyzing the behavior of the people in rich & developed countries, we find that the great majority follow the following principles in their lives: 1. Ethics, as a basic principle. 2. Integrity. 3. Responsibility. 4. Respect to the laws & rules. 5. Respect to the rights of other citizens. 6. Work loving. 7. Strive for savings & investment. 8. Will of super action. 9. Punctuality. 10. and of course...Discipline In poor countries, only a minority follow these basic principles in their daily life.. The Philippines is not poor because we lack natural resources or because nature was cruel to us. We are poor because we lack the correct attitude. We lack the will to comply with and teach these functional principles of rich & developed societies. It is wished that many Filipinos could reflect about this, & CHANGE, ACT!

Space, Time & Energy, Universe explained

The universe explained.

New Industrial Policy

Given its popularity and high trust rating, the Aquino administration is expected to continue implementing solid reforms to overcome the difficult challenges in realizing the country’s potential. Now seen as a new growth area, the Philippines is well positioned to attract investments that would catalyze growth and development. The government needs to capitalize on our recent investment upgrade to attract more foreign direct investment. Large market opportunities for our industries are offered by the Asean Economic Community market of 600 million people. At the same time, the rising costs in China, and the calamities in Japan and Thailand that hit industry supply chains have driven investors to look for alternative investment sites. Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/52881/new-industrial-policy#ixzz2U9cWqccA Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

The Limits of the Earth

Water is being withdrawn from rivers as well. Seasonal water levels are dropping on China’s Yellow River, on the Nile in Egypt, on the Indus as far north as Pakistan, and on the Rio Grande in the US. Parts of the Colorado River are a stunning 130 feet below their historic levels. The river no longer reaches the sea. Nor does the Yellow River or dozens of others around the world that have been tapped for irrigation. The rivers that flow through Central Asia have been so massively drained for agriculture that the vast Aral Sea they once fed, once the fourth largest freshwater lake in the world, is now little more than a dry, salty lakebed, its former shore dotted with abandoned fishing villages and the bones of beached boats.

AL Pacino, Scent of a Woman

Al Pacino speaks, Scent of a Woman

AL Pacino delivers a speech.

A new design for education

Carita in Veritate - Charity in Truth

Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth. Each person finds his good by adherence to God's plan for him, in order to realize it fully: in this plan, he finds his truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes free (cf. Jn 8:32). To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity. Charity, in fact, “rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person. The search for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it, and he reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us. In Christ, charity in truth becomes the Face of his Person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and sisters in the truth of his plan. Indeed, he himself is the Truth (cf. Jn 14:6). (Third encyclical written by Pope Benedict XVI, 29 June 2009)

Noam Chomsky, critic, linguistic scientist

Chomsky first came to prominence in 1959, with the argument, detailed in a book review (but already present in his first book, published two years earlier), that contrary to the prevailing idea that children learned language by copying and by reinforcement (ie behaviourism), basic grammatical arrangements were already present at birth. The argument revolutionised the study of linguistics; it had fundamental ramifications for anyone studying the mind. It also has interesting, even troubling ramifications for his politics. If we are born with innate structures of linguistic and by extension moral thought, isn't this a kind of determinism that denies political agency? What is the point of arguing for any change at all?

Walk in her shoes

Walk in her shoes.

Public Invitation

Asian Development Bank, No-Impact week

Awareness on the relationship between human activity and the environment has been pointed out environmentalist Rachel Carson on her book the silent spring. ADB is doing its job on protecting our shared environment. Watch this video.

Chimpanzee greetings, teach us.

Jane Goodall teaches who the chimpanzee greets welcome. http://www.ted.com/playlists/84/ancient_clues.html

Julie Ann Rodelas updated case

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/357611/arrest-of-brains-in-models-slay-legal Click on link for update

Why the dispute at the islets at West Philippine Sea?

Why is it that China and other countries in Southeast Asia have claims to Spratlys, Paracels and Scarborough islands? Clink on the link.

Mali, French forces pushing the rebels.

French forces responded to Mali's request to remove the rebel forces north of Mali. Click on the link.

Can we sustain the economic growth? Ted Talk

Is God close to the male specie?

Is God close to the male specie? What is the place of women in this socially constructed hierarchy?

Final Exam, Second Semester, 2012-2013

Final Exam 2013-2014 First Semester Final Exam, SO 101, Film Analysis 1. This is your final semester exam. The weight of this work is 50 points. 2. You are to group yourselves into 3 person per group. You can do an individual work or in tandem. 3. You are to submit at least 5 film titles for selection and approval of your teacher. Once it is selected you have to view the film. Format: a. Title and group members, schedule. b. Summary of the film. One page. c. Film analysis using 30 sociological terms. Highlight the terms in different color. d. State the conflict and the resolution. e. Individual reflection of group members on what is it working with the group. f. Film trivia. g. Expenses incurred by members in coming out with the final project. Ask your teacher for the model work. Purchase a CD that is friendly to you pocket. No downloading from the computer. See local CD or DVD outlet. State if you are going to donate the CD copy. Deadlines will be announced.

Video on culture

Make a group with 4 members. You are to present 2 video from You Tube on cultural practices of Other's culture. The third one will be cultural practices of Filipino. Schedule will be announced.

Lesson on dying

A lesson on dying. She has pancreatic cancer and she wanted to teach to students what is dying. She died 29 December 2012.