Walk, don’t run. Have you tried to walk slowly? Slower than your usual way of walking? Walk as if you don’t have anywhere to go to. Walk as if you don’t intend to reach your destination.

In a society where everything is being rushed, and where everyone is in a hurry, it would be abnormal to take things slow. Yet, in my observation, it seems to me, that when you try to slow your pace, you will become more aware of the things around you.

When we do slow down, we avoid deciding based on our impulse. And if we do, we end up making better judgement. Better judgement because we can give more time to intently inspect the things, and people, that surround us. Unlike when we speed up our pace, we tend to be left with “first impressions” or imprints of what we see. But this should not be the case if we intently gaze at things around us. “First impressions” to our surroundings, is similar to “initial reactions” to our situations. It is something natural, but something which could be controlled or corrected.

So slow down. Walk, don’t run.

"It has always been a dream of mine to play for my country in the Olympics and I plan on coming back with a gold medal.” Anthony Carmelo, member of the US National Basketball Team to the 2004 Olympics

In the Olympics, the US basketball team lost to unheralded Puerto Rico with a stunning 92-73 score. The underdogs definitely humiliated the highly favored "Dream" Team, which has a collective player's income of $100 million. How the mighty have fallen.

Channel 4 of course showed the game one day delayed. And not surprisingly, the not-so-live telecast had oodles of commercials. The ratio of commercial was almost ten ads for every two basketball possessions. Absurd! What a way to bamboozle the viewers.

"I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure." Eric Liddell, as played by Ian Charlson, from the movie "Chariots of Fire"

Read in paper that Filipino athletes will receive eight million pesos each if they win gold in the Athens 2004 Olympics. I am not against a policy granting incentives to people for excelling in their respective fields of interest. But what is sad is that there seems to be a lot of cash to give after the event, but there seems to be no support in preparing them to compete. It is just like leaving a child to study on his own, sans books and references, then promising him a present if he gets high grades in school. How pathetic!

It is even much sadder how it seems to appear that in order for us to achieve, we would resort to "dangling" money to our athletes. Whatever happened to the so called "Olympic spirit?" When competing in the Olympic games meant glory and honor for one's country? Or is there no such thing?

Well, it is also amusing to note that even in the early age of the ancient Olympic games, politics and commercialism was already present. There was this story from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Olympics/spirit.html of an athlete from Crete, who then represented Ephesus the next festival.

This is what the site says:
Sotades at the ninety-ninth Festival was victorious in the long race and proclaimed a Cretan, as in fact he was. But at the next Festival he made himself an Ephesian, being bribed to do so by the Ephesian people. For this act he was banished by the Cretans.

"Blue moon, you saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own" a line from the song Blue Moon

Read on paper this morning: A blue moon will occur on August 30.

A blue moon is the extra full moon, or the 13th instead of only 12 full moons in a year. The blue moon is considered to be the second full moon in a calendar month.

Astronomers say that two full moons in one month may occur in any month except February, which is shorter than the lunar cycle.

"To subdue the enemy without fighting, that is supreme excellence." from the Art of War by Sun Tzu

This may already be a bit stale. But I guess I just had to let it out of my system after reading a similar opinion about the decision of Philippine government to pull out its 51-man team from Iraq in exchange for the release of Filipino hostage Angelo de la Cruz from his terrorist captors.

By now, we all know that Angelo de la Cruz is already released by the terrorists. He has returned home to his town in Pampanga. It is all water under the bridge now. The result has been successful for the Arroyo administration and for Angelo de la Cruz, but I still tend to agree with the opinion that we should not have given in to the terrorists' demands (although it would be unfortunate to the family of Angelo de la Cruz) and pulled back the Filipino troops. I cannot imagine how difficult it might be for Gloria Arroyo to decide. Because whatever decision she may have would have a negative consequence on her administration, and her image.

When does one favor sympathy over a national interest? How does one choose between the life of a single man against the security of a country? By giving in to the demands of terrorism, didn't we just "negotiate" with them? No-negotiation was a policy which this administration has for a long time stood for.

I wonder, how would other countries trust us when we have betrayed an agreement we have entered into?