how now brownpau
Pyra is not doing so well. Poor Ev; I hope he manages to keep things together. Blogger is a wonderful tool, and an even greater community, and these folks deserve all the best for having made it.
How about advertising banners? Won’t those generate some revenue?
Hey, cool! A mirror of Yahoo as it was back in 1994! Thanks to Kottke for the link. I should add him to my blog list. He’s reasonably cool. ;)
I’m so glad the government is now more actively supporting programs to help shelter Filipino streetchildren. If you haven’t been to Manila before, you can’t imagine how awful it is to see these kids going from car to car, begging for alms from drivers and passengers who pretend not to see them. You can’t give to them, because it just encourages them to beg more, but you can’t just leave them in the streets with nothing. The part that gets me really angry is that many of these kids’ parents make them do it, to sustain their income, often because they don’t try to find work themselves — or can’t find work. More annoyingly, other kids just do it for fun, to make an extra buck.
This is a terrible social ill that needs to be solved on a systemic level. You can’t just keep giving these kids handouts of coins; you need to make an economy that can sustain livelihoods for their families and provide for their basic needs. These shelters (if they ever push through; you know how government can be) are a step in the right direction: get the kids off the streets! Stop supporting a culture based on pity handouts, and provide for these kids’ needs while getting their parents some decent financial support!
How to do that? I don’t know. It’s late and I need my sleep.
Today I made a Flash interface for a production house website; my first real Flash project! It’s still all just dummy text, but the links work, and there’s even music! (8kbps, 22050Hz, Mono music, but still music!) Wanna see it?
Update, 2006: The site has been redesigned by a different designer. I wash my hands of it.
Erap made a public appearance today. He still insists that he’s the president (but on leave of absence) and that Gloria is just an acting president and an unconstitional usurper. I can’t wait till they throw him in the clink. Maybe he should attend AA meetings while he’s there.
I was just wondering about the morality of cremation from a Christian perspective, and I found an excellent position paper on it here, by a pastor from Grace Presbyterian.
As I wonder about this, my reflections constantly acknowledge the fact that the Christian faith is not entirely about rituals and customs and traditions; not so much as it is about the kingdom of God and the redemption that comes through Jesus. Our sights as Christians should be set on the eternal perspective; on what happens to our immortal souls, not just our mortal bodies. From that view, cremation is not a crucial moral decision that should affect our salvation.
At the same time, however, we have to consider the example of the bible, where nominal Jewish and early Christian custom shunned cremation as a defilement of the body and of tradition. The Testaments’ standard, then, leans toward burial, but without any outright statement directly prohibiting cremation.
I’ev been leaning towards the desire to be cremated when I die. Should I rethink that?
Ladies and gents, I now present, for your viewing pleasure, Index… Number… Seven!!! Clap, clap, clap. Like the trooper layout? :)
Today is another hot, muggy, brown-skied day in Manila. How I wish I could enjoy a morning like this.
I’m back. I’m darker brown now! This dumb web host is being slow again! I may move soon!
The sixth index page is up. Like the picture? That’s the view of Manila from my sixth-floor apartment window — doctored a bit.
A saddening note: “Well…I’ll be blogged” is gone. I hardly knew her, and I’ll miss her writing. I did want to email Dani, but I could never find her email address on her page before. Now that she’s given it, I’ll send her a message tomorrow about how much I appreciated her Christian insights and stories.
Bye for now, everyone. Church choir’s going to break to Laguna for a swimming outing, where I will sun myself to a darker shade of brown.
For some strange reason, this is one of the most depressing news items I’ve ever read in my life. I already feel bad for Tiff that she dreams about nothing but work. Rats, too?
The Dalai Lama condemns religious conversions to Christianity and Islam? “I always believe it’s safer and better and reasonable to keep one’s own tradition or belief,” he says. I wonder how he feels about Hindus who proselytize Christians?
Imagine, if you will, oh great Dalai Lama, a God who no longer requires a system of rituals and traditions to cleanse us of our sin. We no longer need to bathe in an icy river, or deliberately divest our lives of worldliness, or struggle to clear our minds to purify ourselves and attain the ultimate; because the ultimate Himself has already come to meet us personally. In His mercy and love he has given us Himself as His Son, who by His sacrifice purifies us from the stain of the world.
We Christians need not wash ourselves in an earthly river to cleanse ourselves of sin; already we have been washed in a stream of living water: God Himself, who freely gives us his grace and puts us in robes white as snow. Is this deceptive enticement, or God’s revealed truth? If it is the latter, then we cannot be faulted desiring to share it with the world! It is the ultimate truth, by which we are redeemed, and we are commanded, even compelled by the love in our hearts, to spread it.
“That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved!” (Romans 10.11)
This poor, poor guy. Sawing off your own hand is horrible enough, and nail-gunning yourself in the head doesn’t help any, even to end the agony.
Wasabi toothpaste, anyone? I get my wasabi from squeezable tubes; I’d better be careful which one I buy when this comes out. You never know what you’re putting on your sashimi … or your toothbrush.