Straight From Pastor Ey

Our lifestyle nowadays is called the “always-connected” lifestyle. According to the Hackenslash blog, “Work weeks have grown steadily longer with the proliferation of gadgets keeping people connected to bosses and offices nights and weekends.” (Source: Agence France-Presse) That’s why it appears that the tablet computing craze is the “defining trend” not only for last year but also for many years to come. According Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, “People are using tablets to read the Wall Street Journal or watch TV in bed. It is replacing, in some circumstances, laptop computers, television and print media.” (Ibid) It could even make computer prices nosedive because “consumers think it’s not worth paying a lot more to get a laptop instead of a tablet.” Experts predict that tablet-users in the US would reach a staggering 75 million consumers by 2015. Apple’s iPad has a very wide lead with more than 10 million sales last month while, Galaxy Tab, its not-too-close competit

Source: Wikipedia The bigleaf hydrangea is a unique flowering shrub. “If you take the seed of that shrub and plant it in the soil of Indiana, it will yield pink flowers when it blooms. But if you take that same seed and plant it in the soil of Brazil or Poland, it will produce blue flowers. Even more interesting, if you take the same seed and plant it in another type of soil, it will yield purple flowers.” (Source: Frank Viola, “Reimagining Church” ) Botanists attribute that strange behavior to the different PH levels of the soils where the hydrangea is planted. When I read that, I thought, “What a great picture of the New Year!” Every year is one of a kind. Life when it becomes too predictable becomes boring. We heard it so often that the saying became a well-worn cliché but still it is true: “The only thing constant in life is change.” (Someone quipped, “Also taxes and death.” ) This year’s blue flower may be next year’s pink flower. For example, what worked for us this 2010 may no

“People wait until late in their career to give back. But why wait when there is so much to be done?” With this in mind, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg pledged to give more than half of his billions to charity along with his co-founder, Dustin Moskovitz (Source: http://inquirer.net/ ). Zuckerberg added, “With a generation of younger folks who have thrived on the success of their companies, there is a big opportunity for many of us to give back earlier in our lifetime and see the impact of our philanthropic efforts. ” (Ibid) They were the latest to commit to the “Giving Pledge” project spearheaded by billionaires Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. The roster of the almost 60 philanthropists who pledged to the project is a virtual Billionaire’s Who’s Who: CNN’s Ted Turner, Lucasfilm’s George Lucas and Oracle’s Larry Ellison among others. “Zuckerberg’s status as the world’s youngest self-made billionaire [he’s only 26 years old] comes from his ownership stake in Facebook, which has yet to go pu

“Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” I think this 10:1 ratio (known as the “Blackstone ratio,” thanks to English jurist William Blackstone ) is one of the reasons why our justice system must find an accused “guilty beyond reasonable doubt” before it convicts that person. We hear it once again as the debate rages on regarding the upcoming Supreme Court final decision on the infamous Visconde Massacre case. (Backgrounder: “On the morning of June 30, 1991, a mother and her two daughters were found slaughtered in their own home. Estrellita Vizconde, 47, sustained 13 stab wounds; Carmela, 18, had 17 wounds and had been raped before she was killed; and Jennifer, 7, had 19 wounds.” Source: http://inquirer.net/ ) Other than the sheer gruesomeness of the crime, the massacre gripped the nation because those accused and later on convicted are from influential families. The debate focuses on whether Hubert Webb, son of former senator Freddie Webb and one of t