From a mediaman to his colleagues

Frank Malilong writes Media and Ted Failon as a reaction to some of his colleagues in media asking people to give Ted Failon space. A sentiment I expressed then (ok, it was only in FB and Twitter).

I am not saying that we should have done this to Ted Failon. I agree that he deserved the right to be left alone in his grief. But so did the many others in the past who found themselves in his or similar circumstances and whom media savaged so relentlessly, if not ruthlessly.

BTW, here is another tee-hee:

Golden Jubilee

PRESIDENT Arroyo, two cardinals, one papal nuncio, at least 38 bishops and 600 priests will attend the High Mass this afternoon, when the Archdiocese opens its golden jubilee celebration at the renovated Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral.

As the Archdiocese of Cebu celebrates its 75th founding anniversary today, it thanks the Sto. Niño and Our Lady of Guadalupe for the blessings it has received over the years.

Shouldn't it be a diamond jubilee?

Laetare

She won't go to Notre Dame in May. Good, really good. While she will forego the opportunity to have the last word, her decision is praiseworthy. We have rejoiced at what she has done in her life and continues to do; we rejoice even more at her latest decision. Rejoice that we have Mary Ann Glendon.

This is her letter released to media (H/T Jill and First Things):

Declining Notre Dame: A Letter from Mary Ann Glendon

By Mary Ann Glendon
Monday, April 27, 2009, 9:32 AM

April 27, 2009
The Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President
University of Notre Dame

Dear Father Jenkins,

When you informed me in December 2008 that I had been selected to receive Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, I was profoundly moved. I treasure the memory of receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1996, and I have always felt honored that the commencement speech I gave that year was included in the anthology of Notre Dame’s most memorable commencement speeches. So I immediately began working on an acceptance speech that I hoped would be worthy of the occasion, of the honor of the medal, and of your students and faculty.

Last month, when you called to tell me that the commencement speech was to be given by President Obama, I mentioned to you that I would have to rewrite my speech. Over the ensuing weeks, the task that once seemed so delightful has been complicated by a number of factors.

First, as a longtime consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I could not help but be dismayed by the news that Notre Dame also planned to award the president an honorary degree. This, as you must know, was in disregard of the U.S. bishops’ express request of 2004 that Catholic institutions “should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles” and that such persons “should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” That request, which in no way seeks to control or interfere with an institution’s freedom to invite and engage in serious debate with whomever it wishes, seems to me so reasonable that I am at a loss to understand why a Catholic university should disrespect it.

Then I learned that “talking points” issued by Notre Dame in response to widespread criticism of its decision included two statements implying that my acceptance speech would somehow balance the event:

• “President Obama won’t be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal.”

• “We think having the president come to Notre Dame, see our graduates, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the president and for the causes we care about.”

A commencement, however, is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame’s decision—in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops—to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church’s position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.

Finally, with recent news reports that other Catholic schools are similarly choosing to disregard the bishops’ guidelines, I am concerned that Notre Dame’s example could have an unfortunate ripple effect.

It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony.

In order to avoid the inevitable speculation about the reasons for my decision, I will release this letter to the press, but I do not plan to make any further comment on the matter at this time.

Yours Very Truly,

Mary Ann Glendon

10-year diff

CEBU CITY -- After she was reported missing a month ago, neighbors and relatives of XXXXX, 58, thought she had run away with her 28-year-old live-in partner.

But when police investigators accidentally discovered a body buried behind de Guzman’s house Saturday morning, her daughter feared for the worst.

YYYYY, 48, de Guzman’s daughter, watched as the body, covered in cardboard and sheets of plastic, then tightly wrapped in packaging tape, was exhumed by investigators in Sitio Litmon, Barangay Poblacion, Talisay City.

Just maybe they had the ages wrong? A 58-year old mother to a 48-year old daughter? Typo?

Family affair

Update: One of the Cayetano senators says:

“We won through God’s grace, while they used every advantage they can get to have the Arroyos elected to the House. That’s a big difference."

How presumptuous. If the Senator were in the US, he would have gotten a lot of flak for this statement. In RP, you say this, you get laughed at as well. I think the Senator might be a little ... oh, never mind.

Inquirer.net features Rise and Rise of the House of Arroyo that states that if Lourdes Arroyo takes her oath as a member of Congress as representative of Ang Kasangga, there will now be 4 Arroyos in Congress. Four out of a (new) total of 271 is only 1.4% of the House.

The 23-member Senate has two Cayetanos, which is 8.7% of the Senate. Isn't that more "dangerous"?

Did we ever write anything about this? I didn't until now. But I don't really care.

I live in Cebu where three Garcias are in power. Does it bother me? Nah, and maybe I don't really care. I don't vote for them. I live in Cebu City.

Being Green

When being green is good. 2-1, homecourt advantage back.

What we knew along

It is my strongly held view that you are entitled to advocate, and everyone who agrees with you should be free to do so, anywhere in the world and so are we. We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women's health and reproductive health includes access to abortion that I believe should be safe, legal and rare.

These words from US State Sec. Clinton. But we knew this all along. Pro-"reproductive health" groups (like the UNFPA (silent on abortion), which many orgs in the Philippines support) have just been cautiously denying or lying about it. Now it is in the open.

Good thing AP in the quote above published it (of course, this portion comes out the middle of the story about diplomacy in Iran). Will check MSM soon. Then again, they will dismiss it as Clinton's ignorance or her staff's. Whatever. Remember Who painted this?

Read also Cathoholic.

Hep Hep Hurray

Three cheers for the Earth!
Although Earth Day where I am passed without much of a hoot.
We thank God for his wonderful creation, the Earth.

Not a true green?

Inquirer.net posts a feature on Christian Bautista entitled "Christian planning to have lots of kids."

FIVE YEARS after placing fourth in the ABS-CBN talent search “Star in a Million,” singer Christian Bautista still feels like a winner. He’s happy to be performing regularly on TV and doing shows here and abroad.

At the launch of Promil’s I-Shine summer workshop, a program aimed at discovering young talents, Bautista, 27, talked about being the project’s “ambassador.”

“Being an entertainer is a big responsibility,” he told Inquirer at the program launch. “I’d like to be a good example to children. That is how I was brought up, and I thank my parents for that.”

He sees himself starting his own family in three years. “I’d like to have lots of children—but just one wife,” he jested.

That's good. Really. However, Christian is one of those celebrities identified some time back as supportive of climate change programs (of course, those who think that we people are the most to blame for climate change). Below is a portion of the press release of the RP Department of Energy about Earth Hour 2009.

MEDIA RELEASE
March 6, 2009

Showbiz talents Piolo Pascual, Sam Milby, Echo Rosales, Bea Alonzo and other big names in the industry have thrown their full support for Earth Hour Philippines 2009, a one hour lights-out event where countries and cities around the world will simultaneously switch off lights to send a symbolic message to leaders for immediate and united action on climate change and energy conservation.

The celebrities have expressed that Earth Hour is an “event where turning off the lights is a major turn-on.” They also urged fans to support Earth Hour by signing up at www.earthhour.org

Other ABS-CBN talents who will support the lights-out event include Nikki Gil, Ann Curtis, Vhong Navarro, Jake Cuenca, Christian Bautista, Mark Bautista, Rachel Ann Go, Sheryn Regis, Jet Madela, Luis Manzano, Paolo Abrera and Margie Moran-Floreindo. Abrera and the former Ms. Universe are this year’s Earth Hour Ambassadors and they gave their all-out support during the media launch of ...

Does he not know that having more people means increase in carbon emissions, carbon footprints, thus more global warming? Makes me think that he is only for the publicity when he supports climate change programs like this, like many celebs, anyway. He is not a true greenie. Shame on him.

The warming as an effect of population growth theory has been subscribed to by many in the GWA side. Rather simplistic, but they always get around to say it somehow. Even as the industrialized countries with much lesser populations than developing countries at present contribute much more to global warming through the interplay of population levels, consumption factors, and others, the UN believes that developing countries by the mid-21st century will contribute more than half of the total emissions. Those "lots of children" will be contributors.

To arrest the contribution of people to emissions? Of course, family planning and "reproductive health programs" that say one thing -- less is better, Christian.

One might think that the development of alternative energy sources and the like will also help arrest the emissions. It should, no doubt about it. But developing alternative energy programs, etc. is expensive and complicated (food supply shortage, etc.) and will not happen in the near future. Meanwhile the earth is warming and we are in grave danger (right?). Not having children or having less is much easier, in whatever means available.

So, if I may address you, Christian, read. If you want to read something that puts this population and GW link, that I am not making this up, start with this. Just don't blame me if you need to rethink your "goals".

But for what it's worth, find a woman you can have many children with who will contribute to make this world a better place, children who will not believe in junk science after junk science nor cower in fear from the dire warnings of doom that will not come .

Strange Justification

This has been around since about a week ago, at least to those who cared at all (except MSM), since I read about it in Dawn's blog. She was there. EWTN had something about it days later.

I postponed commenting about this until now considering my past education. I have had posts about how the SJ in these institutions seem to be very PC, to say the least, in compromising these institutions as Catholic universities or institutions of higher learning following the Catholic university mold. Maybe like ND, they probably do not consider themselves a true Catholic U, or even if they think they still are, they don't act the way they should.

Maybe it is the PC thing, do as you please even as I do not agree because you have the "freedom" to do it and that I would not want to take away your "freedom" to do it by my actions even if I know you ought not. Maybe there really is something more to it than what GU and the WH are saying.

This could be a poor analogy, but I believe that the fact that the One's spouse does not want to see uniformed personnel where she goes (you know like in the movie The Power of One, set in the apartheid-era South Africa, when the wife of Minister Marais at dinner says of the servants "I wish they could be here without being here.") could be a shared trait for the One not wanting to see religious symbols where he speaks.

I dread to ask once again, What's happening, SJ?

Faith and Reason (Science)

A contrast.

One who says she has faith, but does not use it in the service of science. She said recently that "(W)e’ve had a situation where it’s faith or science — take your pick. She adds that "science is an answer to our prayers ... We need science, science, science, science, science." You wonder if she has faith at all. (H/T: Jill @ FB)

Another, who used his reason, in an environment that was "overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious", to be dismissive of Christianity, but who in recent years, "both by the personal witness of everyday Christians in his daily life and by the realization that religious believers, not atheists, are the ones who have reason on their side" and because he saw that “materialist atheism is not merely an arid creed, but totally irrational", has been drawn back to the faith. And should be doing him good now and which he will use to do a lot more good.

Take your pick.

Say it as it is

She is one brave lady. Foxnews describes her as: Carrie Prejean is the most famous runner-up in Miss USA history. And for someone from California to say that marriage is really between a man and a woman, thereby only proving that California's Proposition 8 approval was not a fluke, it was really huge.

In an exclusive interview with FOXNews.com's Courtney Friel, Miss California says her phone has been ringing off the hook with people offering her support after she took on a question about gay marriage on Sunday night's Miss USA telecast.

"I have no regrets about answering [judge Perez Hilton] honestly," she said in one of her first interviews following the show, where she answered that she was against gay marriage becoming legal in California. "He asked me for my opinion and I gave it to him. I have nothing against gay people and I didn't mean to offend anyone in my answer."

In her interview, Prejean talks about being "tested" by God, the outpouring of support, and the first thing she and her family did after the show. (Hint, it involves ketchup and mustard.)

Knowing what the right hand is doing

There have been recent pronouncements about the losses of sea ice in Antarctica. And you guessed it right -- all because of anthropogenic global warming. Early this month, the European Space Agency reported that a massive ice shelf in the area (the Wilkins Shelf) could break away from the continent very soon because of the warming of the sea temperature in the area. While the melting and possible break-away could be true and inevitable, the area in question is West Antarctica.

You know what is happening in the east? Cooling and expansion. To the extent that cooling in the East (which is four times the size of the West) will very much make up for whatever ice is lost in the West, and even much more. And there are ice core evidence that the melting in the West is natural.

West vs East. Left vs. Right.

What these have in common

Agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), ancient forests dramatically changed, Cardiac arrest, caterpillar biomass shift, challenges and opportunities, Cholera, civil unrest, cloud increase, cloud stripping, cod go south, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), computer models, conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink, diarrhoea, disappearance of coastal cities, diseases move north, Dolomites collapse, drought, drowning people, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out of control, Earth to explode, earth upside down, Earth wobbling, earthquakes, El Niño intensification, frosts, fungi invasion, Garden of Eden wilts, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, glacial retreat, glacial growth, glacier wrapped, global cooling, global dimming, glowing clouds, Gore omnipresence, grandstanding, grasslands wetter, Great Barrier Reef 95% dead, Great Lakes drop, greening of the North, Gulf Stream failure.


What do these have in common? These are only some of those things that MSM all around say "man-made global warming has caused or will cause."

And these are only some of those from A to G. H/T: Tim Graham and Spiked-Online.

Another one

Just another example how tampering with nature can go awry. Tangentially, of course, as this could happen even in normal circumstances, but there should be less surprise if correct information is available from the beginning.

A Place You Can Die Any Time

That's Mindanao, particularly Davao City, according to Human Rights Watch in a news story from the Inquirer. Full report can be downloaded here.

Of course, the USA is also a place you can die any time. Inquirer story from AFP mentions many of these killings that happened in the last month. Any time you can die in the US too.

Then you can also read from many sources about the vigilante-type killings in US soil related to the drug trade in Mexico and illegal aliens' repeated disregard of the law (including murder and honor killings), while the US DHS and local governments (and other law enforcement agencies) look the other way. Any time you can die too..

Then again, while it is true that there are "mistaken-identity" killings gone unresolved, many of those killed in "Mindanao" have also been enjoying themselves in criminal activities and also refuse to change despite warnings or be rehabilitated under the justice system. Thin line.

Of course, we are awaiting a report on the killings perpetuated by the NPA, MILF, MNLF, and the Abu Sayyaf. These are groups that do not have high regard for human rights. Can we get some report out of HRW? Oh, they can't. They are too afraid to go to Mindanao, because they can die there any time.

Update: Read Ann's article.

Not the first time

Colleen Carroll Cambell writes that Notre Dame's invitation to the One is not the first time the university invited an anti-life politician that created a storm of controversy.

That reputation first took hold 25 years ago, when former New York governor Mario Cuomo, a Catholic, took the podium at Notre Dame to make the case for Catholic politicians who support legalized — and, in Cuomo’s case, taxpayer-funded — abortion. Cuomo’s speech was riddled with logical fallacies; but for Catholic politicians who wanted to please the powerful pro-abortion lobby without forfeiting the Catholic vote, it was a home run. Cuomo’s abortion alibi soon was parroted by pro-choice politicians across America, its appeal bolstered by the fact that his words bore the apparent imprimatur of the nation’s leading Catholic university.

Dawn Eden posts a speech given by a ND professor at a prayer rally on Palm Sunday. Excerpts:

I stand here today as a representative of that small group of faculty that supports NDResponse and stands behind the exemplary students who have organized it in reaction to the university administration's announcement that it will honor President Obama at the graduation ceremony in May. Their faithful witness is an inspiration and a shining example even if it is not clear what good, if any, will come of it. For as the Holy Week liturgies reminds us, Christian witness is not about power or tangible results. It's about the life-giving truth of the Gospel and about the Father who passionately loves each individual human being.

I also stand here as the parent of four Notre Dame graduates, including a 2009 graduate, a parent who cannot in good conscience--or, in my particular case, without giving scandal--attend my own son's graduation ceremony.

Make no mistake. This protest has to do with President Obama's actions and with his intentions regarding future actions, and not merely with his beliefs.

Now, of course, the administrators of the university do not “condone or endorse his positions”--or, presumably, his actions--“on specific issues regarding the protection of human life.” And, to be sure, it is permissible to honor someone despite the bad things he's done, as long as those bad things are “not all THAT bad.” So let's look at a few of the actions that the administrators of the university consider to be “not all THAT bad.”

Note: You need to scroll down when you link to the full posts cited.

tee-hee

The best of two worlds? GMA and ABS-CBN airing the Pacquiao and Hatton fight.

But this one takes the cake:

In light of the recent controversy regarding Pacquiao’s aborted transfer to ABS-CBN, Solar Eclipse has assigned a full time spokesperson for the matter and hired the country’s best criminal and lawyer, Atty. Eric Shawn Bayag, to handle possible suits.

I am sure it is just a typo. Right, Atty? Or it could simply be part of the April Fool's prank of Mike.