miniZibaldone

Inquirer  on  Imelda Marcos and wealth It was 1975, the fourth year of martial law, and Ferdinand Marcos was at the zenith of his power. All his opponents were in jail, Congress had been padlocked, and media offices were either shuttered or under new management by his cronies. [...]  While belonging to a distinguished clan, her family was not known to be particularly wealthy. Where did all that fabulous new wealth come from? There could only be one logical explanation: The Marcoses were using the Philippine treasury as their private account, and on such a scale that they would. [full text] Sun.Star Cebu   about Duterte, presidential elections, and criminal law DAVAO City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has declared his candidacy for president in the 2016 elections, although the Commission on Elections (Comelec) still has the final say on that.  [...]  “If I become president, I advise you people to put up several funeral parlor businesses because I am aga...

An idle man resembles an idle bird like that [in a cage]. And it’s often impossible for men to do anything, prisoners in I don’t know what kind of horrible, horrible, very horrible cage. There is also, I know, release, belated release. A reputation ruined rightly or wrongly, poverty, inevitability of circumstances, misfortune; that creates prisoners. You may not always be able to say what it is that confines, that immures, that seems to bury, and yet you feel I know not what bars, I know not what gates — walls. Is all that imaginary, a fantasy? I don’t think so; and then you ask yourself, Dear God, is this for long, is this for ever, is this for eternity? You know, what makes the prison disappear is every deep, serious attachment. To be friends, to be brothers, to love; that opens the prison through sovereign power, through a most powerful spell. But he who doesn’t have that remains in death. But where sympathy springs up again, life springs up again.

Idealism and the Endgame Theory by F. W. J.  Schelling   The Dignity of Difference by Jonathan Sacks   Hegel's Science of Logic by Richard Winfield   The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader by Galen Johnson   A Student's Guide to Philosophy by Ralph McInerny   Harvard Classics (Pascal's Pensee)

From the h omily During Mass at University of Nairobi Today God tells us that we belong to him. He made us, we are his family, and he will always be there for us. “Fear not”, he says to us, “I have chosen you and I promise to give you my blessing” (cf. Is44:2). [...] In obedience to God’s word, we are also called to resist practices which foster arrogance in men, hurt or demean women, do not look after the elderly and threaten the life of the innocent unborn. We are called to respect and encourage one another, and to reach out to all those in need. Christian families have this special mission: to radiate God’s love, and to spread the life-giving waters of his Spirit. This is especially important today, for we are seeing the growth of new deserts created by a culture of materialism selfishness and indifference to others. [full text] From the address at an interreligious, ecumenical meeting in Kenya To be honest, this relationship is challenging; it makes demands of us. ...

Inquirer  on  Mar Roxas and presidential elections Ex-Secretary Mar Roxas is the first candidate for president in the post-Edsa era to run on the promise of specific program continuity, and he is not shy about it. [...]  Other candidates have campaigned on the basis of promised reforms, of course; but no one, not even Fidel Ramos in 1992, could present himself or herself as the avatar of continuity. Whether this is a winning strategy for Roxas—Mr. Aquino’s losing vice presidential running mate in 2010 and his survey-challenged preferred successor in 2016—remains to be seen.  [full page] Sun.Star Cebu   about the International Eucharistic Congress in Cebu The IEC is among the major global activities in the calendar of the Catholic Church and the number of Catholic Church faithful it gathers is huge. Besides, it is not often that a local hierarchy or a country gets to host it. Consider, for example, that the last time the Philippines hosted the IEC wa...

Our sense of what is contained in our faith is deepened less by abstractions than by an encounter with mystery in what is human and often perverse .

The Closing of the American Mind by Anthony Bloom   What Darwin Got Wrong by Jerry Fodor   The Silent Language by Edward Hall   Imagining Boundaries by John Henderson   By Reason Alone by Bacz Jakez   Degrees of Knowledge by Jacques Maritain   Thinking through Technology by Carl Mitcham