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The youth “love themselves more today than ever before,” according to Dr. Nathan DeWall, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky (Source: The New York Times ). DeWall and his team analyzed hit songs spanning three decades (from “Ebony and Ivory” by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder to “I’m Bringing Sexy Back” by Justin Timberlake) and found that there’s “ a statistically significant trend toward narcissism and hostility in popular music… narcissism has been linked to heightened anger and problems maintaining relationships.” (Ibid) Simply put, the lyrics of these songs exposed a growing mindset shift among late adolescents and college students from an “It’s all about us ” towards an “It’s all about me.” According to the study, “the words ‘I’ and ‘me’ appear more frequently along with anger-related words, while there’s been a corresponding decline in ‘we’ and ‘us’ and the expression of positive emotions… Their song-lyrics analysis shows a decline in words related to social connec

“We’re not saying these are the nails… We’re saying these could be the nails.” (That is, the nails allegedly used to crucify our Lord Jesus.) Such is the bold claim of award-winning Israeli film director, Simcha Jacobovici, as he presented two rusted iron spikes in his “The Nails of the Cross” documentary made for the History Channel (Source: www.time.com ). A few years ago, Jacobovici produced “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” for the Discovery Channel where he claimed that the graves of Jesus and Mary Magdalene were found. Dr. Paul Maier, ancient history professor at Western Michigan University, criticized Jacobovici’s works: “The guy is a showman, an Indiana Jones wannabe.” ( Christian Science Monitor ) In 1990, archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) found in a cave the ossuary or the bone box that purportedly contains the remains of Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest who had Jesus arrested. They also found, among other things, Roman nails. Yet it appears that no one’s e

It surprised (translation: shocked) us so much it took some time before we could come to grips with its impact. I’m talking about “ the P74.1-billion share-swap deal between telecommunication giants PLDT and Digitel [which] was conducted in almost complete secrecy”. (“Gung-ho,” editorial of the Phil. Daily Inquirer, April 7, 2011) PLDT CEO Manny V. Pangilinan lauded the deal, “Though this initiative alters the country’s telecom landscape, we expect competition within the industry to remain very robust.” (Ibid) It appears the alteration caused by the deal is more of a landslide than a landscape (to paraphrase former president Erap). It appears that PLDT, the first major industry player, outsmarted us all by eclipsing Sun Cellular, the third major industry player. According to an internal memo, “We might find ourselves competing in a more rational marketplace with better margins as the new opposition could decide to scale back on the unlimited propositions that undermine industry.”