Not All Quitters Are Losers

Sometimes A Cel Phone Camera Is Handy...

...especially when you don't have a camera with you when you see images worth preserving, like the one above.

Photo taken with my Sony Ericsson K610i at the Manila Yacht Club.

Still So Much To See...

My Lakbayan grade is B-!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

Searching for Solutions

The Surpreme Court, upon the prompting of Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, will be organizing a National Consultative Summit on Extrajudicial Killings and Enforced Disappearances in response to the spate of extrajudicial killings that seem to have taken a permanent place on the front pages of our national dailies.

More on that later. For now, here's the logo (designed by yours truly) for the event.

Senator Chiz Escudero Oath-taking

Guns Don't Kill People?

What's the difference between a crazy man and a killer?

The latter owns a gun.

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(Note: Printed in the Letters to the Editor section of the April 24, 2007 edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

There's a line members of gun clubs often use to defend gun ownership: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." Don't blame the gun, blame the guy pulling the trigger.

So when Virginia Tech senior Cho Seung-Hui kills 32 people with a legally-obtained 9mm Glock pistol, don't blame the weapon, or the laws that allow him to buy such weapons, or the lawmakers who drafted these laws in the first place––no, blame the obviously psychotic 23-year old.

The trouble with this logic is that a mentally unstable person wouldn't have been able to take these many lives with a swiss knife, or a machete, or even a chainsaw. The only way one man can kill so many, so quickly, is with a gun. In Cho's case, a Glock he legally purchased last March.

Was this guy given a psychological test before being sold the gun to determine his capacity to use such a dangerous weapon responsibly? The answer is no. In Virginia, if you are over the age of 18––as Cho was––all one has to do is pass a criminal background check before one can buy a pistol.

It shouldn't be that easy. Yes, citizens have a right to protect themselves. But who protects us when these gun owners lose it? When road rage, dementia, or depression pushes them over the edge of reason?

That's a question the students of Virginia Tech––and those in other universities in the US––are asking right now. And it's a question we in the Philippines should be asking ourselves as well.

Have iPod, Will Travel... and Get Run Over

Surgeon General's Warning: iPod use may be dangerous to your health.

Earlier this year, Ilya Kiselev, 20, was run over and killed while crossing Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Kiselev, who lived in Brooklyn, was wearing iPod headphones at the time.

The death of Kiselev and two other New Yorkers who were fatally injured after being run over in New York's streets while listening to their iPods has prompted the introduction of legislation that would "ban people from listening to music players or using electronic devices that would hamper their awareness of their surroundings while crossing the street." NY State Senator Carl Kruger wants pedestrians fined $100 for violating such a ban, and his chief of staff, Jason Joppel, explains why:

“The individuals were tuned into iPods and tuned out to the surroundings around them, and they stepped off the curb into the path of an oncoming bus or truck or car,” he said. “All three were fatally injured. In one case people, were screaming at the person to watch out, but the person couldn’t hear them because iPod [headphones] were in the person’s ears.”

If common sense won't get iPod users in New York to keep the volume of their iPods down while walking around its streets, then maybe the hundred-buck fine might.

Read the original article here.