My Favorite Blogs: Influential

My Blog Carnival

I got five top most liked blogs and this year marks my second year of blogging. I first started to blog in the Pinoy Big Brother Fantasy Game sponsored by BBK from Palawan. These five blogs I liked will be my nominations to the Writing Project of Ms. Janette Toral “The Ten Most Influential Blogs of 2008”.

My five choices are:

I am voting for my friend mica to the The Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs in 2008. I admire the theme of her site http://missingcarlo.filblogs.com/ about his brother who is special. It says something about the importance of family.

I also admire benj's site about SAGADA because i had been there once but i never got the initiative to write about it and promote it. For this, I also vote for benj's http://www.visitsagada.com.

I would also nominate my friend’s chitra for her site on cooking recipes. This site is a must see because it is loaded with recipes from cakes to main courses. The site is also interactive because you can join and share your recipe This is India-based site: http://andhrabhojan.com/.

I would also nominate this very interesting blogsite of a 17-year old cebuano gentleman. He does not cease to educate about the initiatives of Mar Roxas. I am happy to find how industrious Senator Mar is, because honestly, I do not prepare a list of presidential bet for 2010 because of my resignation to our political system. But this blog pulls me back to it and make me critical again, being a Pol Sci Graduate myself. http://marroxas2010.blogspot.com.

I am also voting for two food sites:

http://www.davaodeli.com/
http://manilafoodistas.blogspot.com/

I can use them for reference to future eat-outs with my good friends.

Money is not everything

Money is not everything but we have to admit, it is money that makes things move. Maybe before when good and commodities are not dependent on currency, you can just pick the fruits and vegetables from your backyard, money seems to be not important, but nowadays, it isn't the case. Because money really moves us, every move we do require resources. When we send our children to school, we need money for their allowance, when the monthly bills come, we need money to pay for our energy consumption, internet, phone and water. We buy clothes with our money. We build our homes with money. Every human activity now, even as big as Obama's candidacy and campaigns, will require money. We earn money hard. People do earn by making their hands tired and bulged. On one hand, there are some people who does not need to work anymore. They are very lucky people who get the food they eat from other people's hard work. This fact is not that ugly of course, because in our world, the fittest only survives.

There are easy ways to earn money. Depending on what kind of people we are. I for example is not so physically strong hence I choose to work and earn by using my head. Some people need to use their physical strength to earn. Some just need money itself to make things propel and the mill of money will rotate. They are the Ayala's of the Philippines and the like of Bill Gates who earn now without doing much. People do the work for them. They are lucky, but we're not sure if blessed. For all we think, these people also have the same problems as ours. For example, I may have a huge debt in banks; matter of fact-ly, the rich also have them. The gravity of the situation depends on how we perceive things.

On a keynote, money is not everything. There are more important aspects than it like our faith in God, our family, our girlfriend or boyfriend, or our sons and daughters. It's good to know that you are earning money for people you love. Because without them, money must be worthless.

History Repeats Itself With Barack

On a purely academic tone, I would say history repeats itself when instead of Hillary, it was Barack who came out as the democratic presidential candidate. A hundred years ago in the 1830s, when American blacks were fighting for their suffrage, the women used to be a primary support to the suffrage movement. Male black Americans were not the only ones who tried to gain their political rights but so as the women, black or not. After the civil war, the American Blacks right away pushed for their suffrage rights. But with the passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870, only the male American Blacks were given the voting rights. Women were lagged behind. The presence of women suffragist since 1860s were apparent although. In 1869 the National Woman Suffrage Association was formed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, so as the American Woman Suffrage Association, headed by Lucy Stone, to later merge as National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890. It was only half a century later that US women were permanently granted the suffrage rights in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment.

I believe that what happened to the Democratic Party's primary elections is a case of history repeating itself. While Hillary as accomplished as a US Senator and a wife of a former US President accepted the democratic nomination, the turn out of the primaries in the US somewhat follows what happened in the past. It was predictable.

Now, the next big question is ... Will the US be ready to have a Black President? Will Barack invite Hillary as the Vice-Presidential Candidate of the Democrats? Will such move not affect Barack's election to the position?

Let us just wait and see.

Our dignity as persons

Our dignity as persons is measured on how we do and execute things. What we speak is not the measure of our integrity, but our actions and executions. The dignity is reflected on how we decide on little things such as giving gifts or presents to someone we love.
I had an outrageous thought yesterday. It is payday and I had been used to giving or buying small things for the persons and things that are important to me. I was in SM Mall and I though of buying the expensive candy chocolates to my niece and nephew. It turned out that a 100 grams of chocolates is worth 70 Philippine pesos. Then I went to the supermarket, I thought again of buying something for my pet dog. My first choice was a dog food and I found out it's worth a 100 plus Philippine pesos. Of course, it is a little high over the chocolates I bought for the kids. So instead of buying the big can, I bought the smaller can. I also opted to buy a milk supplement for my nephew who had been left by his father since birth. I know I made a nice decision on that since my expenditures for persons are higher than that of my pet. In the end, I expended 270 philippine pesos for emman and rea, and only 69 philippine pesos for the dog food.
This is an outrageous thought but in this small things can we measure the value of living things to us. We must give men the dignity; because animals are not sensitive to it. My pet dog does not know about dignity, but my nephew when he grows up and sister will have to know it.

an out of the box thought from me! =)

Obama proclaims himself the Democratic nominee

(Digression from Philippines Politics at the moment)

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Barack Obama claimed the Democratic presidential nomination in a long-time-coming victory speech Tuesday that taunted Republicans on their own turf and reached out to heal Democratic wounds with lofty praise for his rival.

"Let us begin the work together," Obama exhorted thousands of cheering supporters in a packed sports arena. "Let us unite in common effort to chart a new course for America."

Speaking in the same arena that will host the Republican nominating convention in early September, Obama said the long, hard primary campaign, now finally ended, should help steel a deeply divided party to do more effective battle against Republicans and their candidate, John McCain.

"Senator Hillary Clinton has made history in this campaign not just because she's a woman who has done what no woman has done before, but because she's a leader who inspires millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight," Obama said.

"Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete" with her, he said.

Speculation spread over whether he would invite her to share the ticket as his running mate, and Clinton only encouraged it. But Obama aides tied to tamp down such talk.

"We don't have a long list or a short list," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist. "Obviously she's an incredibly formidable person. We knew that going in. It's way too early to talk about that."

Obama won a mathematical lock on the nomination as previously undeclared superdelegates — elected and party officials — flocked to his side on the day of the last presidential primaries. Still, Clinton did not concede her own defeat.

The Illinois senator's victory rally had all the trappings of a party convention — and intentionally so.

At the Xcel Energy Center, where the GOP convention will begin Sept. 1, nearly all of the 18,000 seats taken and thousands of additional supporters gathered outside. The arena was festooned with large American flags. Loud music blared. The hall erupted into tumultuous screams and cheers when Obama and his wife, Michelle, entered. Supporters pumped Obama signs.

His long-time-coming victory speech minced no words about McCain.

"In just a few short months, the Republican Party will arrive in St. Paul with a very different agenda. They will come here to nominate John McCain, a man who has served this country heroically. ... My differences with him are not personal; they are with the policies he has proposed in this campaign."

Obama challenged McCain's claims of independence, noting he voted with President Bush 95 percent of the time last year.

"There are many words to describe John McCain's attempt to pass off his embrace of George Bush's policies as bipartisan and new," Obama said. "But change is not one of them."

Reuniting a party divided by the marathon, 17-month battle between the two historic candidates — a woman and a black man — will be a top challenge for the Illinois senator as he moves into a general election race with McCain.

"After 54 hard-fought contests, our primary season has finally come to an end," Obama said, recalling the day in February 2007 when he announced his candidacy at the Illinois Capitol and the millions who have voted since then.

"Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States," he said. That line brought down the house.

Unity and change were the main themes of his speech, as they have been on the campaign trail.

"There are independents and Republicans who understand that this election isn't just about the party in charge of Washington, it's about the need to change Washington. There are young people, and African-Americans, and Latinos, and women of all ages who have voted in numbers that have broken records and inspired a nation," he said.

Obama nailed down the nomination on a day in which the two rivals split the last two primaries, with Clinton winning South Dakota and Obama taking Montana.

___

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/obama