Painting the Future Bright

Benigno Aquino III's state of the nation address last July 26 pictured a country mired by so much corruption. Many people listened and sat aghast at the unscrupulous practices of various government agencies and the luxurious lifestyles of government officials. It was despicable at the least! Many would have thought our country to be doomed towards a destiny of "the favored few" and I don't blame them. But in despite of this I still believe that we can still rise up to becoming a financially competitive nation.

One of the rule of whitewater rafting is, "when you fall overboard, you need to be an active participant in your own rescue". Pnoy cannot weed out corruption on his own. That's a fact. Don't blame him if after his term corruption is still in place.

In order for our country to come out of the shadows of corruption each and every Filipino should start practicing integrity in all our transactions: take that traffic ticket, fall in line, buy that concert ticket from a certfied ticket seller. The problem is that we are fond of the "areglo" and "lagay" system. The thing is, we let our children bear witness to this and impressionable that they are---they imbibe this practice as part of the normal day-to-day transaction. Now these children are our future lawyers, police officers, bankers, government officials, president of the republic---so what do we expect our future to be?

As the Bible would say, "as you sow, so you shall reap". Let us sow goodness in our daily life and reap a bright future.

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My Take on Climate Change

I planned on attending Al Gore’s presentation on climate change early this July but for reasons I can only attribute to aging---I was not able to.

Mental Note: Plot that in your planner, dummy!

Hmmm…come to think of it this incident only goes to show that time is indeed a RARE commodity. I’ve always been saying that time just zips on by. With all the things that we’ve been doing we don’t notice that the day is already at an end. Sometimes what we thought was Monday is actually Friday.

The issue on climate change and its impact on our future has been a continuing advocacy for the longest time. Movies were made to depict the worse case scenario of a climate gone haywire and scare us into espousing the call to protect the world from a man-induced destruction.

“An Inconvenient Truth” showed us the science behind global warming. “The Day After Tomorrow” made us feel the potential conclusion to our calloused stand with regard to this matter.

Blame that on The Industrial Revolution! This event paved man’s journey towards progress but it also triggered the global percolation that is climate change.

I believe in my heart that all is not yet lost and we can still make the future bright and cozy for our children but we need to start NOW. Alternative sources of energy have been abound: solar, wind, geothermal, ethanol. Right now, these alternative sources are part of the minority in terms of usage. Fossil fuel is utilized to generate 86% or our energy source.

The biggest stumbling block would be the oil producing countries. Of course, the change will need to be gradual but we need to decide NOW whether we want to prolong our existence or do we embrace our inevitable rendezvous with extinction. I’m sure these oil producing countries have children of their own to think about so I guess it would just be a matter of prioritizing LIFE over MONEY. Sigh! Easier said than done, right…

“Either find a way or make one.”---Hannibal

Socrates' Triple Filter

Gossip is a disease.

It is contagious and can spread destructively.

Good people that we are, the aim for truth is of prime consideration. So how do we know that what we are telling is actually the TRUTH?

Simply follow Socrates' Triple Filter.

#1 Certainty - Are you sure that what you are telling is the absolute TRUTH?
#2 Goodness - Is the information something GOOD?
#3 Usefulness - Will what you will tell be of any use to the one you are going to tell it to?

If the answer to all the questions is a NO, here's the conclusion: IF YOU ARE NOT SURE ABOUT THE INFORMATION AND NEITHER IS IT GOOD NOR USEFUL---WHY TELL IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Sam Pinto: FHM July 2010 Cover Girl

Simply---WOW!

Free-throw Shooting

Free-throw shooting should be the easiest way to score in a basketball game. First, you don't have anyone guarding you numbnuts! No one is between you and the hoop. A straight line of sight! And secondly, it's only 15 feet away! Duhh!

However, despite the seemingly easy task, free throw shooting is a bane to many basketball greats. Wilt Chamberlaine is the all-time leader in the missed free-throw category. Mr. Chamberlain, as you basketball fanatics should know, is the only player in the National Basketball League to ever score 100 points in a game! But in all his prolific scoring, “The Stilt” can only manage to convert 46% of the free-throws in his career!

A credible free-throw shooter should at least hit 70% of his attempts. Below that and you’ll likely be the goat during tight games. Hack-a-Shaq was coined due to Shaquille O’Neil’s dismal free-throw shooting. For the 2009-2010 season, Shaq shot 49%. Dwight “Superman” Howard’s kryptonite is free-throw shooting and can only convert 59.2% of his attempts..

Other NBA greats with free-throw problems are: Bill Walton (67.3%), Nate Thurmond (62.1%), Wes Unseld (60.8%), and Bill Russel (60.3%). See any commonality between them? They are all BIG men. So why is this so?

Big men usually post up to get the ball. With their proximity to the basket it’s either they go for the dunk, jump hook, or shoots an 8-foot jumper. Field goal percentage-wise these guys are up there! Now, how does this answer their free-throw woes? Well, it’s simply not on their range and it’s likely that they are not practicing this either. Shag has a free-throw coach but it did not seem to improve his statistics.

European and Asian big men are an exception. Sabonis, Divac, Kirilenko, Nowitski, and Yao Ming---are excellent free-throw shooters. I guess they see the game more clearly than their American counterparts.

Sorry God...Say That Again Please

I don’t claim to be an expert in God-talk but based on my experience He has always given me directions whenever crossroads come my way. Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous---and believe me, I’ve had a lot of such coincidences in my life. The most recent of which was the competency seminar for our department last June 25.

Actually, the first half of this one day seminar involved an inspirational talk by Francis Kong and the second half devoted to HR issues. Truth be known, I wasn’t really in the mood to attend much less listen to someone tell me what to do with my life. I have heard of Francis Kong. I have been summoned to attend 2 company sponsored events with him as speaker which I both missed due to reasons that I could no longer remember, so, I did not find it any loss for me to miss this one too.

Coincidence #1: I was hell bent on not attending when suddenly I receive a text message from my boss regarding a family emergency that would render her unable to attend. Now for both of us to miss the seminar would reflect negatively on our team, so I was forced to drag my sorry ass and endure the day-long boredom (or at least that’s what I thought it would be).

Coincidence #2: I have been bothered by a question for the past couple of days and it has been giving me a heavy feet. Thirty seconds after Francis Kong started talking he gave me the answer to that question. It was as if God was talking to me through him. I was caught---HOOK, LINE, and SINKER! Boring it was definitely NOT!

“Life is not what happens, its how you deal with it.”

God may have seen me as a doubting Thomas so he did not just speak to me through Mr. Kong’s animated take on life. If you’re a Facebook friend of mine you may have seen my wall post about this itching feeling for me to buy a book.

Coincidence #3: Mr. Kong is also a writer and has brought copies of his books for sale. Four books were on display that day. Unfortunately, I have no idea what they were all about and so I just browsed through the back cover and inside flaps and found two books with the phrase “make you laugh” and bought them both---“The Early Bird Catches the Worm/But the Second Mouse Gets the Cheese” and “Just When You Think You Can’t Do it…Do it!” My itch to buy myself a book was satisfied twice over and you know what? These two books reinforced the answer that God made me realize during the talk.

Coincidence #4: I took the children to watch “Toy Story 3” after the seminar. At first I was so riled up to write this blog that I thought I can just pay for the tickets, bunk at Starbucks and pen my thoughts as I wait for the movie to finish. “No sireeee!” said my wife. 20 years married and I know the tone that would get me in trouble---that was the tone! So off we went to watch. Lo and behold! Guess what the moral of the movie was---LETTING GO and MOVING ON!

God really works in mysterious ways!