Author: admin

Posted on

INQUIRER.net Breaking News » Lump sum only for living WWII vets

World War II Memorial and Washington Monument
Image by CaDeltaFoto via Flickr

This is great news for those still living and probably scornful for those who have already left but still has surviving spouses. Something is better than nothing. On a personal note, my grandfather never accepted anything pensions etc, he was a WW2 veteran, He used to tell me he did it because of his duty to the country and not for anything else, that may sentimentality is impractical but I confess being an impractical man (sometimes)

Lump sum only for living WWII vets
February 17, 2009 1:26 PM
Posted under global nation
Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines — Only living Filipino World War II veterans will receive the lump sum payments from the United States, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs section of the American embassy said Tuesday.
“The bill has not yet been signed into law. All we know is that only live Filipino veterans who served in World War II or who have military service are entitled to [the payments], not their surviving spouse. That is our instruction from the central office,” veterans’ representative Kristine Parayno said in a phone interview with INQUIRER.net.
Parayno said their office has not yet received the list of those who can avail of the payments of the procedures for filing claims.
The US Congress passed on Friday President Barack Obama’s $787-billion stimulus package, which included a $198-million allocation for the Filipino veterans.
The bill, which is scheduled to be signed Tuesday in Denver, would grant $9,000 to Filipino veterans living outside the US and $15,000 to those living there.
INQUIRER.net Breaking News » Lump sum only for living WWII vets.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Posted on

rePost::Loneliness Affects How The Brain Operates

I’m seeing how people enter to this cycle where traumatic experiences start someone to the path of loneliness and the debilitating effects of loneliness to the brain functions produces a feedback effect that may be the reason why people become more lonly/non-lonely later on in life. read the whole thing!

Researchers found that the ventral striatum—a region of the brain associated with rewards—is much more activated in non-lonely people than in the lonely when they view pictures of people in pleasant settings. In contrast, the temporoparietal junction—a region associated with taking the perspective of another person—is much less activated among lonely than in the non-lonely when viewing pictures of people in unpleasant settings.
“Given their feelings of social isolation, lonely individuals may be left to find relative comfort in nonsocial rewards,” said John Cacioppo, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Professor in Psychology at the University. He spoke at the briefing along with Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor in Psychology and Psychiatry at the University.
The ventral striatum, which is critical to learning, is a key portion of the brain and is activated through primary rewards such as food and secondary rewards such as money. Social rewards and feelings of love also may activate the region.
Cacioppo, one of the nation’s leading scholars on loneliness, has shown that loneliness undermines health and can be as detrimental as smoking. About one in five Americans experience loneliness, he said. Decety is one of the nation’s leading researchers to use fMRI scans to explore empathy.
Loneliness Affects How The Brain Operates.

Posted on

Nice Song: Growing Up by Bruce Springsteen

The Essential Bruce Springsteen album cover
Image via WikipediagsteenI stood stone-like at midnight suspended in my masqueradeI combed my hair till it was just right and commanded the night brigadeI was open to pain and crossed by the rain and I walked on a crooked crutchI strolled all alone through a fallout zone and come out with my soul untouchedI hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd but when they said “Sit down,” I stood up.

lyrics from here.
I stood stone-like at midnight suspended in my masquerade
I combed my hair till it was just right and commanded the night brigade
I was open to pain and crossed by the rain and I walked on a crooked crutch
I strolled all alone through a fallout zone and come out with my soul untouched
I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd but when they said “Sit down,” I stood up.
Ooh… growin’ up
The flag of piracy flew from my mast, my sails were set wing to wing
I had a jukebox graduate for first mate, she couldn’t sail but she sure could sing,
I pushed B-52 and bombed ’em with the blues with my gear set stubborn on standing
I broke all the rules, strafed my old high school, never once gave thought to landing,
I hid in the clouded warmth of the crowd but when they said, “Come down,” I threw up,
Ooh… growin’ up.
I took month-long vacations in the stratosphere and you know it’s really hard to hold your breath.
I swear I lost everything I ever loved or feared, I was the cosmic kid in full costume dress,
Well, my feet they finally took root in the earth but I got me a nice little place in the stars
And I swear I found the key to the universe in the engine of an old parked car
I hid in the mother breast of the crowd but when they said, “Pull down,” I pulled up
Ooh… growin’ up.
Ooh… growin’ up

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Posted on

rePost:Excellent News! :Saudi Arabia appoints female minister | FP Passport

Minarets at Dawn - Medina, Saudi Arabia
Image by Shabbir Siraj via Flickr

Saudi Arabia appoints female minister
Mon, 02/16/2009 – 9:44am
Encouraging news from the kingdom:
An expert on girls’ education became Saudi Arabia’s first woman minister on Saturday as part of a wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle by King Abdullah that swept aside several bastions of ultra-conservatism.
Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez, a US-educated former teacher, was made deputy education minister in charge of a new department for female students, a significant breakthrough in a country where women are not allowed to drive.
Saudi Arabia appoints female minister | FP Passport.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Posted on

Nice Quote

Venice Beach Pier Sunset HDR
Image by Hi I’m Chris… via Flickr

Got this from the packing of a Dove heart shaped milk chocolate . Thanks to olive from LA for the chocolates.

Hold hands firmly,
hearts gently.

Posted on

rePost: Nice Primer on International Schools: The World of International Schools « Follow That Elephant!

I have a friend , probably an aquaintance is a closer description who has an undergraduate degree in Education. That person is working in a Contact/Call center right now. I don’t have any problem with people working in call centers, heck I work in a call center. My problem is that my usual topic wihen meeting someone in school why are they studying what they were studying ang I was convinced that being an educator what the person wanted to be. I feel I’m stepping in zones I shouldn’t be in. Just call me nosy.

When I tell people back home in the US that I’m teaching in Thailand, they usually assume I teach English to Thai children. When I try to explain by saying “no, I teach at an international school”, I’m often met with a blank stare.
Understandable enough – before moving overseas, I never realized that there was a network of English-speaking American (or Canadian, Australian/New Zealand or British) curriculum schools all around the world. I have now worked at three international schools in three countries – Germany, Malaysia, and Thailand – and I often receive questions about where I work and how to start working overseas.
So, I thought I’d share some very basic information about this type of school for those who aren’t familiar with them.
The World of International Schools « Follow That Elephant!.

Posted on

rePost: Growing Old:Who Knew?: Hendrik Hertzberg: Online Only: The New Yorker

I’m 25, turning 26 in about 6 months. Why am I having thoughts on dreading old age?

My first reaction was indignation: Et tu, Who? But that was an old reflex, grown feeble with the passing years. It’s been a while since I could yell “Sellout” with any real conviction. Anyway, The Who’s days of overt rebellion are long gone. Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey were Kennedy Center honorees last month, standing alongside Barbra Streisand, George Jones, and George W. Bush, among others.
My second reaction was a suspicion that maybe Townshend hasn’t completely lost his subversive touch after all. Maybe he’s just redirected it inward. “Hope I die before I get old” a line included in the sixty-second version has a certain ironic, shamefaced piquancy now that the spokesmusicians for the sixties are in their sixties. That hope for a quick, Hendrix-like demise has been dashed, along with The Who’s retirement portfolio, if theirs is like everybody else’s. But renting out an antique anthem of rebellion isn’t just a way to ensure that the money will be there to pay for an assisted living facility, it’s also a subtly devastating comment on where and how our g-g-generation ended up. Good one, Pete
Who Knew?: Hendrik Hertzberg: Online Only: The New Yorker.

Posted on

rePost:Sensible Amish Rules In Technology Adoption: The Technium: Amish Hackers

I’m a geek thus I try the newest shiny thing available, I muck around daily builds/ beta builds etc/ buy robot kits etc, How could I say the Amish rules are sensible?
Simply put I try my best to see where I stand. I constantly ask myself why/how/when/where I am changing. I constanly evaluate myself in how technology changes me and my interactions with people. In a way I follow these rules but with a faster turnover.
An example of this is how I resisted having a phone, when I realized that because of phones people tend to have less respect for meeting times/appointments etc. It took me a long time to grow accustomed to fluid meeting times etc. I used to never be late at anything I am usually 30 minutes to an hour early for anything, but not I see my habits have been changed.
more thoughts on this later!

The Amish are steadily adopting technology — at their pace. They are slow geeks. As one Amish man told Howard Rheingold, “We don’t want to stop progress, we just want to slow it down,” But their manner of slow adoption is instructive.
* 1) They are selective. They know how to say “no” and are not afraid to refuse new things. They ban more than they adopt.
* 2) They evaluate new things by experience instead of by theory. They let the early adopters get their jollies by pioneering new stuff under watchful eyes.
* 3) They have criteria by which to select choices: technologies must enhance family and community and distance themselves from the outside world.
* 4) The choices are not individual, but communal. The community shapes and enforces technological direction.
The Technium: Amish Hackers.

Posted on

rePost: Excelletn SuggestionHow the Ad Recession Could Improve the Web – Finance Blog – Felix Salmon – Market Movers – Portfolio.com

Agreed!

People read from one line to the next. If you can’t read the line above the line you’re reading, it feels odd, and you can lose track of the narrative. When you’re reading a book, it’s almost instantaneous to flip a page, but with a website, the time taken to click on the “next” link and wait for the page to reload is much longer. What’s more, all that finding the link and clicking takes you out of the narrative — and, of course, makes it much more likely that you’ll disappear off somewhere else entirely, just like newspaper readers generally fail to read beyond the jump.
The multiple-pages problem is so annoying, indeed, that many bloggers, including myself, make it a point to always link to a “single-page format” or “print version” of the article instead. That’s not always possible, however, and what’s more the print version often lacks important navigation, multimedia, and other hypertext components.
Most annoying, for a blogger, is when you’re quoting a bit of an article which is on, say, page three. Do you link to page three, or to page one? Neither is particularly pleasant.
Every time I go to a website like the NYT or The Big Money, the need to hunt around for the “single page” button and click on it and wait for the page to reload makes me hate the site just a tiny bit. For really gruesome offenders like Time, I simply don’t read a lot of their listicles, no matter how good they are, because the multiple-page format makes them all but unreadable. Now that the need to maximize inventory has disappeared, maybe this whole annoying thing will go away.
How the Ad Recession Could Improve the Web – Finance Blog – Felix Salmon – Market Movers – Portfolio.com.