...humaharurot na ang jeep ni juan!

dark clouds are coming in like an army
soon the sky will open up and disarm me
you will go just like you've gone before,
one sad soldier off to war
with enemies that only you can see
the dishes stacked, the table cleared
its always like the scene of the last supper here

you speaks so cryptically, but thats not news to me
the flood ie here and it will carry you, and ive got work to do

come one home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
its just the forces of your past you've fought before
come back here and shut the door
im stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles

there is fire and there is lust
some would trade it all for someone they could trust
there a bag of silver for a box of nails
its so simple, the betrayal
though it's known to change the world and what's to come

come on home
the team you're hiched to has a mind of his own
it's just the forces of your past
you've fought before
dont oyu recognize them anymore
im stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles

there's the given and the expected
i count my blessings while i eye what i've neglected
is this better, is this worse
you're all jammed up and the dam's about to burst

i hear the owl in the night
i realize that some things never are made right
by some will we string together here
days to months and months to years
but what if everything we have adds up to nothing

words and music by emily saliers (indigo girls)

recipe for martyrdom

ingredients:
a gallon of unleaded premium ($1.94/ gallon)
match or lighter
presence of mind
strength
will

procedure:
empty gallon of gasoline unto self, carefully marinating whole body (with or without clothes, doesnt matter) with the unleaded broth.
strike match, or light self with lighter with utmost will.
as self slowly turns golden brown, maintain self composure, presence of mind and strength.
self will cook in about 30 minutes. serve with dignity and peace to taste.

recipe makes a billion servings.
* * *

"when you say 'yes' to an instant, you say 'yes' to existence.." sabi nila.

pero kay hirap mag "yes" sa mga bagay na alam mong mabuti sayo at nakakabuti sa karamihan.... but madaling mag "yes" sa mga bagay na di kailangan at nakakasama sa buhay mo-- bisyo, panandaliang aliw, walang kuwentang kaburgisan at excuses.

kung totoo ang sabi nila.... di pa pala ako totoong nabubuhay, natutulog lang, nananaginip, pilit tinatakpan ang mga bangungot ng mga sariling fantasies, sariling altered realities.

akoy patay palang, naglalakad sa lansangan ng isang malaking libingan ng mga katulad ko...

pero i woke up once, and what a bliss that was... kahit kitang kita ko na ang bangungot, at di na akong nagslesleepwalking sa waking life ko, kahit kay bigat ng responsibilidad, kahit at times hopeless ang outlook ng mga situations... masaya ako dahil kahit papaano-- gising ako.

ngayon natutulog uli ako sa kabaong na kay lamig... nahihirapang gumising...

An Act of God, commentary by Robin Meyers, a senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church and a professor of rhetoric at OKlahoma City University.

As the Indian Ocean spews corpses back onto the beaches from whence it stole them and the death toll soars, there is one thing we can always count on: Someone will call this an act of God. Come again?

Because ignorant clergy are as dangerous as quake physicians, you can bet someone will try to wrench tgeological significance out of this horrific natural disaster. Did the earthquake not occur on christmas day? Are those not countless unsaved people living in those flimsy huts who worship nature? ANd were those posh hotels not crammed with secular Europeans?

If this is an act of God, then who can blame any rational person for deciding religious faith is, on balance, a bad bargain? What's more, when people speak of having been saved by God from those raging waters, what do they mean to imply about countless others, including children, not strong enough to hold on to tress? That it was open season on little brown ones? That God is taking home his little Asian ANgels?

FOrgive my obvious disgust, but we can't worship a God who is both loving and utterly capricious without making either hypocrites out of ourselves or a monster out of God. The horror of what happened in Asia is not an act of God. It was an act of nature. ANd nature is nothing if not capricious.

Whether it's an Oklahoma tornado, a mudslide or a hurricane that sheers off what's left of Haiti, it's the natural world that operates with an amoral autonomy. If you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, there are no special dispensations. The good and bad will die together.

If God can be brought back into the equation, it will not be a cosmic Puppeteer but as a wailing Mother. If faith is to mean anything in our time, it must mean that when nothing makes sense, only love makes sense. That when we stare into the abyss, we step back, rather than jump in. We do so because life is better than death.

Of all people, Bill Clinton had a wonderful idea about how the world should respond to this disaster. Each country, he said, should adopt a particular area and concentrate all its efforts there. The United States, for example, could take Sri Lanka, and Germany could take North Sumatra, and one by one, nations could rebuild one corner of the earth, as neighbor to neighbor. AS it is, the relief efforts, while heroic, are disjointed and underfunded. As the richest nation on earth, the United States pledged $350 million, still a drop in the bucket compared to the billions spent on the Iraq war.

There are natural disasters and there are manmade disasters, and if we're going to talk about God in relation to either one, then let's not ruin God's reputation in the process. PLates move under the earth of their own volition and deadly waves roll across the ocean without conscience. But our tanks roll across the Iraqi desert because we sent them there. ANd the tens of thousands who were washed out to sea in Asia is matched by the tens of thousands who have been killed by our own hand in this misbegotten and selfish war.

It's hard to say which is more pathetic: blaming God for tsunami or thanking him for the victory in Iraq. Meanwhile, if Chirstmas is goign to mean anything other than plastic buying plastic, then it will have to be because Jesus has become a savior, not a scapegoat.

God is alive and well and has a new name: Doctors WIthout Borders. Jesus is sitting with wailing mothers and cursing the foolishness of war. The ocean is still spitting up corpses and we are still doing harm where harm can be avoided.

God is neither cruel nor capricious. Only patient----- beyong belief.

bureacracy kills... apathy and evasion does too.

amen, a film by costa gavras and released by Kino international, is film about an unlikely couple- an SS officer and a Jesuit Priest who sought the world's (especially the pope's and america's) attention towards the genocide in europe. during the early part of the war, the massacre of thousands of jews was still a myth. it was not fully known until the later where still, nothing has been done to stop the madness. everyone was so busy protecting themselves and winning the war.

the appeal of the movie was not from its poor script or translation, it was from the small significant scenes. scenes where trains dart across the scenes, its cargo compartment doors open- with the innocent european countyside in its background. or scenes where, trains, still darting across the screen, its doors now close and the whole cart looks heavy as it transports bodies of the soon to be dead. each time, black smoke weezing through.

it is appalling to know that during the war, people in high places knew at some extent, what was going on with the european jewish people, YET they did nothing. There was even an incident (not in the movie) when a boatful of jewish refugees headed towards the new world, yet they were turned away... to meet an uncertain future.

ang e-epal talaga. that makes them no different with those brut nazis... mindless SS officers. to think ikaw pa yung pope o malaking tae sa mundo, sumumpang pagsilbihan mga anak ng diyos, pero wala kang ginawa nung umiyak at lumuhod sa harap mo ang Diyos... nagmamakaawang tulungan mo kapwa mo. kakatakot. kaka-asar, kakabobo naman.

http://www.kino.com/amen/images/kassovitz_3sm.jpg

sana hindi ako magiging ganyan...

only consolation ko sa movie ay ang fact na si Kurt Gunstein, isang SS officer nung giyera, ay totoo. siya yung in charge sa tamang paggamit at pagsusupply ng mga nazis ng Zyklon B pellets para i-eradicate ang mga "vermins" (jews, converts, homosexuals, and blacks, and mentally challenged). hindi pala dapat mawawala hope ko sa mga germans.... dahil karamihan ng mga germans nung giyera, ay walang alam tungkol sa mga ginagawang pagbababoy ni hitler sa sangkatauhan.

http://www.kino.com/amen/images/tukur_sm.jpg