Human Personhood And Abortion

Peter Kreeft is good.

In an issue so emotionally charged, he has managed to logically dissect the argument of the pro-choice movement and turn it on its head. With reason, Peter Kreeft has revealed the absurdity of the positions taken by those who support abortion. 

This article is a refreshing look at a discourse which, until now, has not concluded but has in fact intensified.

It speaks about resolving the question of abortion with the question on when human personhood exists and demonstrates that the defense of the unborn need not hinge on religious beliefs but on a deeper respect of the human person.

Here's the article: Human Personhood Begins At Conception

The Difference Between the Leader and the "Leader" Part 2

(a continuation)

Leader: Often takes the blame
Non-Leader: Looks for a scapegoat

Leader: Gives credit to others
Non-Leader: Takes credit; complains about lack of good people

Leader: Gives honest, frequent feedback
Non-Leader: Info flows one way - into his or her own office

Leader: Knows when and how to fire people
Non-Leader: Ducks unpleasant tasks

Leader: Weeds the garden
Non-Leader: Likes to get bigger and more complex

Leader: Goes where the trouble is to help
Non-Leader: Interrupts people in crisis and calls them to meeting in his or her office

Leader: Sees growth as a by-product of search of excellence
Non-Leader: Sees growth as primary goal

Leader: Has respect for all people
Non-Leader: Thinks blue collars and pink collars are lazy, incompetent ingrates

Leader: Knows the business and the kind of people who make it tick
Non-Leader: They've never met him or her

Leader: Honest under pressure
Non-Leader: Improvises, equivocates

Leader: Looks for controls to abolish
Non-Leader: Loves new controls

Leader: Prefers eyeball to eyeball instead of memos
Non-Leader: Prefer memos, long reports

Leader: Straightforward
Non-Leader: Tricky, manipulative

Leader: Consistent and credible to the troops
Non-Leader: Unpredictable; says what he thinks they want to hear

Leader: Admits own mistakes; comforts others when they admit them
Non-Leader: Never makes mistakes; blames others; starts witch hunts to identify culprits

Leader: No policy manuals
Non-Leader: Policy manuals

Leader: Openness
Non-Leader: Secrecy

Leader: Little paperwork in planning
Non-Leader: Vast paperwork in planning

Leader: Promotes from within
Non-Leader: Always searching outside the company

Leader: Keeps his promises
Non-Leader: Doesn't

Leader: Plain office
Non-Leader: Lavish office

Leader: Thinks there are at least two other people in the company who would be good CEOs
Non-Leader: Number one priority is to make bloody sure no one remotely resembling a CEO gets on the payroll

Leader: Focused to the point of monomania on the company's values and objectives
Non-Leader: Unfocused except on self

Leader: Company is No. 1
Non-Leader: Self is No. 1

Leader: Sees mistakes as learning opportunities
Non-Leader: Sees mistakes as punishable offenses

You now know more about leaders and leadership than all the combined graduate business schools in America.

The Difference Between the Leader and the "Leader" Part 1

From the book A Passion For Excellence by Tom Peters and Nancy Austin:

Leader: Carries water for people
Non-Leader: Presides over the mess

Leader: A coach appealing to the best in each person; open door; problem-solver and advice-giver; cheerleader
Non-Leader: Invisible - gives orders to staff - expects them to be carried out

Leader: Thinks of ways to make people more productive, more focused on company goals how to reward them
Non-Leader: Thinks of personal rewards, status, and how he or she looks to outsiders

Leader: Comfortable with people in the workplace
Non-Leader: Uncomfortable with people

Leader: No reserved parking place, private washroom, dining room or elevator
Non-Leader: Has them

Leader: MBWA (manages by wandering around)
Non-Leader: No MBWA

Leader: Arrives early - stays late
Non-Leader: In late - usually leaves on time

Leader: Common touch
Non-Leader: Strained with blue collars

Leader: Good listener
Non-Leader: Good talker

Leader: Simplistic on company values
Non-Leader: Good at demonstrating his command of all the complexities

Leader: Available
Non-Leader: Hard to reach from below

Leader: Fair
Non-Leader: Fair to the top; exploits the rest

Leader: Decisive
Non-Leader: Uses committees, consultants

Leader: Humble
Non-Leader: Arrogant

Leader: Tough - confront nasty problems
Non-Leader: Elusive - the artful dodger

Leader: Persistent
Non-Leader: Only when his own goodies are at stake

Leader: Simplifies (makes it look easy)
Non-Leader: Complicates (makes it look difficult)

Leader: Tolerant of open disagreement
Non-Leader: Intolerant of open disagreement

Leader: Knows people's names
Non-Leader: Doesn't know people's names

Leader: Has strong convictions
Non-Leader: Vacillates when a decision is needed

Leader: Does dog-work when necessary
Non-Leader: Above dog-work

Leader: Trusts people
Non-Leader: Trusts only words and numbers on paper

Leader: Delegates whole important jobs
Non-Leader: Keeps all final decisions

Leader: Spends as little time as possible with outside directors, outside activities
Non-Leader: Spends a lot of time massaging outside directors

Leader: Wants anonymity for himself, publicity for his company
Non-Leader: The reverse

Beauche

Sometimes, even my ignorance amuses me.

I was passing by Ponciano on the way to school  when I glanced at a shop. The word written was "Beauche International" and the owner was probably a retail distributor of Beauche products.

At first, I was taken aback. How dare someone name his or her business Beauche International? Then, a familiar refrain from a memory came back to me: it's a radio ad with a woman's voice.

After which, I finally realized that I got the pronunciation of the brand name wrong because all the while I was reading "Beauche" as bitch" ("Bitch" International) when it should have been "byoo-shey".

Funny how retarded I could be at times.

Hurray to Sir Ramy

Again, just something I made to welcome a colleague on his return trip to Davao.

By the way, on behalf of all your adopted sons in Lanang, happy father's day sir.

Acquaintance

It's Saturday.

Was eating at Taps Damosa and happened to meet Emmanuel Nartatez. Had a little chat. Thought he had taken over the family business but he was paving his own way, trying to become a lawyer. 

He's currently studying law in Tagum City. I'm also going to study law this semester. Good luck to both of us.

Also met Resand Gaid on my commute home. Learned that she finally said no to nursing and is now teaching those who want to be nurses abroad instead. Good for her. Broke her mother's heart when she told her but at least Res is happy. Same ambition like I have (which is to get rich, among other things). Anyways, good luck also to both of us on that.

Two separate encounters with two different people but with a common thread running through both. Is this a sign for me?

Grieve

Last Friday Night, I claimed that the word "grieve" did not exist.

My office mates and I were walking down Ponciano and spotted a sign on one of the salon shops. It read that the establishment was temporarily closed because the employees were attending a wake for a colleague's relative. 

The phrase used in the sign was "we grieve" and I immediately shot back that it should be mourn as in "we mourn". Pressed for an explanation by Henry and Grace, I said that there was no such thing as the word "grieve", just "grief" and "grieving". 

Even now, I still wonder what made me so confident to issue that proclamation. My best guess is that I thought the word "grieve" was so awkward in any sentence that I believed it didn't exist at all. 

It also caught me thinking how many words have I discarded over the years for the sole reason that they looked disjointed and weird whenever I use them. Hmmm...

Grinning

It just so happened that a few night ago, my faith in humanity was restored (as if it needed restoring).

I was riding a jeep on the home when a female passenger alighted from the vehicle. As the driver was about to speed away, the woman yelled the driver to stop. First thing that crossed my mind was that the woman forgot something. But she immediately ran to the front and apologized to the driver. She didn't pay the fare yet.

The driver was grinning afterwards.

So was I.

Lighten Up

My gratitude to Rose and the rest for sharing this to me. It would have been fun if I had witnessed this firsthand but the way they told the story made me laugh big time:

Scene: An irate client is in the building and is lashing out at Vanessa because of the attorney's letters she has been receiving. After her (or was it a he?) tirade, she feels faint and is suffering from high blood pressure.

Client: Mamamatay ako dahil sa (Insert my company name here)!

Vendor (out of nowhere): Huwag  muna Ma'am. Masarap ang mabuhay...lalo't lalo na pag may minamahal.

Like I said, I was giggling at the absurdity of it all. Sometimes, work is fun.

The Hulk and Taguro

The Hulk. He's a giant beast triggered by the raw emotions of Dr. Banner. Similar to the character of Mr. Hyde, the hulk is the alter-ego of Bruce, a hyper-literal manifestation of the doctor's anger.

Taguro. He's a demon who gets stronger the bigger his body gets. 

Obviously, the similarity between these two characters is that they both heap on body mass (ergo, their bodies get larger in just seconds), which greatly increases their strength and stamina.

The question I've always wanted to ask is: where does the additional body mass come from? 

For the Hulk, its body comes from the tiny, slender frame of Dr. Banner. For Taguro, he manages to add more weight in the form of grotesquely bloated muscles. Do all those muscles come from thin air? Or do the creators prefer that we disregard this phenomenon and simply accept it as plausible?

Fascinating question, really. Just asking.

Enrollment

I'm inside a campus once again. I'm sweating, slightly hungry, as I jostle for a place among the teeming masses. Jeesh. I've never liked enrollments and this one was no exception.

At least, when I was in college, I had all the patience in the world, waiting and lining up along with the students. I had to be because I knew I was studying in Ateneo for free and, for this sole fact alone, I was willing to go through the process and waste two days of my life for enrollment.

Now that I'm finally pursuing Law four years after my graduation, I've found out that I'm not really patient anymore. It's probably because I know I'm the one who's going to pay for my tuition and I do feel a sense of entitlement, however false, because of it. I mean, I'm not an undergraduate scrounging for some education; I'm a freakin' professional scrounging for some education. I deserve a special line for us professionals so we could file just one vacation leave for enrollment instead of two.

Anyway, enrollment hasn't been easier since the last time I checked. For all the hulabaloo about online enrollment, UM doesn't seem to be fond of this (Ateneo de Davao has gone this route, according to my brother, but it was too late for me to enjoy it).

There were instances when I was unnecessarily inconvenienced. The student assistant kept insisting that I submit a copy of my birth certificate, which was odd since I've already given one to the Admissions office (his reason: there are multiple filing systems for both Records and Admissions, although technically they share the same room). I was also sent back and forth between the two UM Bolton campuses because I needed to be interviewed by Guidance (which wasn't necessary according to one counselor)and I needed to write down my subject codes (because the Admissions didn't have a copy of these codes in the embassy area where the enrollment was going on). I was also asked for my Certificate of Good Moral Character despite my insistence that it didn't apply to me because I was no longer a high school graduate (in hindsight, the student assistant probably didn't know any better). And finally, the long line: four hours of just waiting so I could finally reach the encoder, who would then enter my subject codes.

Simply put, my enrollment experience in UM was distasteful. Definitely, it was not a good way to start a relationship with another school.