Question...

Some say that eating meat is murder, so we shouldn't eat meat.

Lions and Tigers eat meat.  Should we prevent them from eating meat if it is part of their nature to do so?

I think eating meat for nutrition is not wrong. Our body needs the animal proteins that we get from meat that no other alternative like plant proteins can provide. 

Eating meat is natural.  It is a means for proper nourishment.  If you are doubting this, go near a lion and see for yourself.

I am not against the humane butchery of animals for nourishment, a big emphasis on HUMANE.

I am however against the killing of animals for fur or the use of animals for testing new beauty products. 

Killing for fashion is a BIG NO NO. 

Fur is murder.  This statement I totally believe in.

There are a lot of synthetic alternatives to fur nowadays because of technology, and the rationale that fur is needed for warmth is passe already. 

Fashion and Nutrition are worlds apart reasons for killing animals.

Nutrition is neccessary.

Fashion is not.



p.s.
 
My only consideration for not eating some meat products is if they are procured through inhumane methods like Foie Gras, which I think is torture to animals and is absolutely unnecessary to satisfy our palate.


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Good Morning World!

There are just those days when you wake-up on a super good mood, as if everything in the world and in your life is perfect.  This is one of those days.  Actually, I'm trying to make a conscious effort to start of my days on a positive note.  Why?  Because I only want to attract positivity in my life. 

WOW!

This group is out of this world.  Watch to appreciate.

Bus Ride Seatmate from Hell

Today was one of my worst bus rides ever. 

The middle aged man who sat beside me was intolerably smelly.  I don't want to seem to be too snooty about it, but I'm merely stating a fact.  He reeked of sweat and smoke mixed with "old man cologne."  I'm not too finicky about odors because I can tolerate the smell of a dead rat, but the guy had a really odd stench about him.

He then opened a big bag of chips and munched on it noisily like gravel being pureed in a blender, occasionally flicking the crumbs from his lap using the back of his hand unintentionally onto my left shoe.  Then, he wiped snot from his nose with the same hand he uses in getting the chips from the bag to his mouth, wiped it on his sleeve and continued eating without washing his hand or even using some sanitized wipes.  Yuck!  After he finished eating, he just threw the empty wrapper under our seat.  Oh my gulay, what an a-hole!  He just threw his trash inside the bus without even batting an eyelash.

I think because he was already full from the chips that he ate, he felt sleepy, so the guy dozed off with his mouth slightly open, saliva slowly trickling down the right side of his mouth.  His head was bobbing left to right hitting my shoulder occasionally.  He looked like the dog hood ornament with the bobbing head found on the dashboard of most pinoy taxi cabs.

When he woke up, he started singing with the video being shown on the bus' TV/DVD (a pirated video of Jovit Baldovino singing in the grand finals of Pilipinas Got Talent.)  He wasn't even conscious of the people around him. He just sang as if he was in some dingy videoke bar.  Unfortunately, my Ipod's sound was not strong enough the drown out this man's impromptu concert.

Never in my whole life have I encountered a fellow commuter that is like a troglodyte, consciously or unconsciously doing stuff that would irritate any person that has manners and knows how to properly behave in public.

I really had a horrendous commute this morning because of that guy's lack of common social sensibilities.  His odd stench was just the cherry on top of a very horrible tasting ice cream.

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Hyperdrive

My brain is on hyperdrive the past few days. There has been a steady stream of external stimuli and information as well as my very own personal thoughts, that has been flooding my mind.  This makes it harder for me to process my opinions and feelings about these matters on my usual pace.  Information overload plus my unintentional tendency to overanalyze makes it harder to sort out thoughts and opinions that I want to focus on and write here, hence the lack of blog entries the past few days.  Too much choices most of the time results in choice parlysis and I'm finding it hard to choose a topic to write about, so decided to write about me finding it hard to choose a topic to write about.  :P

I promised myself to try and write at least once a day to help me develop my writing skills, but unfortunately, am not able to tap on my computer's keys for this purpose.

Hopefully I would be able to write daily.  Fingers crossed. :)

Progression

I love taking photos of the same subject but with progressing depth. It's like zooming in or zooming out of a certain scene.

Click photo to enlarge - to appreciate the details

Okay so the last photo is out of proportion because of the posting limitations of blogger.  Just click the photo to see the right photo width. :)

The Streets

I love doing street photography. I'm existentially stimulated by capturing real people candidly doing what they do. Makes me think about my life and the lessons I've learned in my 29 years of living here on earth.

While riding our car on the way to A.Mabini for my finnish language classes, I decided to take my camera out and shoot. (Okay, so before you raise your eyebrows, let me just clarify that I'm not the one driving and I will never ever ever use my bulky dslr if I'm driving. Ayoko maaksidente, saka ayoko rin makaaksidente.)

Let me just point out that it's quite hard to take crisp pictures on a moving vehicle. My camera's eye is not fast enough to capture high definition images especially on a fast moving vehicle, so I took it as a challenge to really make an effort to shoot especially while riding because I'm hard headed that way, and I don't want to give in to physical limitions when I do art projects.

Here are some of the decent shots that I took:

"Bakas saking mukha,
hirap na dala.
Ako'y matanda na,
kailan makakapag-pahinga?"
(street scene -quirino ave. manila)

"Kailanga'y listo
sa kalye nakikipagpatintero
upang mailako
aking mga produkto"
(street scene -quirino ave. manila)

"Ako ang modelo

ng sarili kong produkto.

Bili na kayo!

Tulad ko'y gagwapo!"
(street scene - quirino ave. manila)

From "what is" to "who is" or "why is", art as a reflection of man's higher faculties

Art is the surest proof of man's higher faculties because it's purpose is to express abstractions which reflects reality or  reflect reality through abstractions.  Concepts and ideas are windows to the inner dimension of a subject underneath an object , thus it's sole purpose is to reflect something abstract in a physical or tangible form of beauty making it intelligible to a subject from the point of view of another subject sharing it's interiority through an object.  It is a reflection of man's inner dimensionality because it goes beyond "what is" to "who is" or "why is". 

Imagination, creativity, and the anlysis of what is imagined and created solely belongs to beings with the capacity for reason.  Art being the progeny of the imaginative and creative process is a mirror to this capacity.  This mirror reflects our interiority and in my belief, this interior dimension, that which elevates from being objects merely on the vegetive or sensitive levels to subjects on the intellective level is proof of man's capacity for something way beyond what is merely mundane.

The reason why I don't eat Foie gras

Will you still think that Foie Gras is delicious when you know how it's made?

Please click the photo to enlarge

Foie Gras = Force feeding a duck by inserting a tube in it's mouth and pumping food directly to it's stomach so that it's liver would become abnormally big and fatty. 

It's OK to want to eat delicious foods, It's NOT OK to torture animals to get what we want.

Yummy?

It's sad...

Man has found ways to rationalize acts which goes against or abuse what is within the boundaries of what is natural. He uses God’s gift of reason to give justification to what is and will always be unreasonable in relation to the immutable laws of nature.

This is what we must realize…..and not only stop there….

Realization must be the catalyst for action.

Why is Madonna in the Sandman series?

As I was leafing through the pages of  The Wake, the 10th book in Neil Gaiman's the Sandman graphic novel series, engrossed in Gaiman's fantastic creation, a question kept popping up in my mind: Why the f*%k do most of the characters look like Madonna?

Delirium (My 2nd Favorite character in the series.  She may seem crazy, but her words have hidden wisdom)

Queen Titania (extra lang yan hehe)

Desire (This character scares me the most.  He/She is the reflection of how influential desire can be)

Death (My favorite character in the series.  I think that amongst all the Endless, she is the wisest)

Besides this observation, the only thing that i could say about The Sandman series is that it made me think again.  It not only tickled my imagination but it made me ponder about existential matters and how my current philosophical and relgious beliefs affect my life and how I deal with the world.  I haven't had the pleasure of expanding my point of view for the longest time.  I am rarely intellectually stimulated nowadays with what is being offered by mainstream media and I find the current storylines of new movies and books to be just copies, if not blatant, but surely percievable recycled ideas.  It can be argued that there are really no new ideas because we are inspired by the ideas that were ingrained in us by our society's belief system, but what I'm saying is that although Sandman is obviously an amalgam of different stories and characters from traditions all over the world, it was presented by Gaiman in a way that it will make you ponder and question, and will shake your core. 

I am a late bloomer in this whole Sandman brouhaha, being a geek and all.  But it's still better late that never.  I would not have been who I am at this exact point in my life if  I haven't encountered this series.  I don't know if it is just me putting so much thought about a simple graphic novel, but heck, it's me and what I think may not mean squat to someone else, but to me it does.

Sino ang unang taong kumain ng Ampalaya?

Naisip ko lang kanina, sino kaya ang pinaka-unang tao na kumain ng ampalaya?  Yun talagang first ever person na naka-isip na kainin ang isang bagay na kulubot at mapait.  Sinabi kaya nya sa sarili nya: "Uy ayun o may nakalawit na kulubot na bunga masubukan ngang kainin.  Yuck mapait pala!  Pero sige na nga subukan ko na ring lutuin tutal hindi naman ako nalason at saka pwede na ring laman tyan yan."  Di ko lang talaga ma-gets kung sino ang malikot ang utak na nag-decide na ang mapait na ampalaya ay masarap at pwede palang kainin.  To the person who discovered that ampalaya is edible, hanep ka, isa kang alamat!