Humor, Satire

The ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER 
This one is a little different ...... 
Two Different Versions ....... 
Two Different Morals

OLD VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE OLD STORY:

Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poorgrasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green..'

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, We shall overcome.

Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames  President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid  exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity

& Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and,having nothing left to  pay his retroactive  taxes,his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is  in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize and ramshackle the once prosperous  and peaceful neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest
of the free world with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY: 

Be careful how you vote in NOV. 2014 AND 2016 !!!!!!!!!!!
 

I've sent this to you because I believe that you are an ant!

You may wish to pass this on to other ants, but don't bother sending it on to any grasshoppers because they wouldn't understand it anyway.

Imagine this Philippines

Posted by Warlito Vicente on Sep 29, 2014 in Society | 0 comments

Every time I watch my news feeds on FB, I can’t help but notice the very large number of Filipinos who demand that all their needs for education, transportation, health, clothing, foods come from government. And then day in and day out they complain that government is not doing the job of providing for their needs.

Apparently, to the pinoy, life revolves around getting as much from government as they can. As above so below. Whether it is a president, vice-president, senator, congressman, councilor, governor, mayor – all of them make the same promise that government will make the lives of citizens better.

An in order to make the lives of citizens better, they will have to take your money away, they will have to restrict your freedoms to make choices for yourself.

The worst part is pinoys are just too glad to give up their freedoms in exchange for dole outs.

Ewan ko na lang, sukang suka na talaga ako sa KAMANGMANGAN at KULTURANG PALAMUNIN ng mga kabayan ko.

Kung kakausapin mo ng masinsinan, pangiti ngiti lang, pero panay pa rin ang dekwat.

Kung kakausapin mo ng deretsahan, magagalit sapagka’t napahiya daw siya.

Nakakasawa na talagang pakinggan yung mga angal tungkol sa kapalpakan ng gobyerno – pero sa gobyerno pa rin inaasa ang mga bagay bagay. Di ba napakalaking KATANGAHAN noon?

Alam mo nang palpak – e ba’t bumamabalik ka pa roon? Di mo ba naintindihan na di na mababago yun? Pumuti man ang uwak, at umitim man ang tagak – palpak pa rin ang gobyerno.

Ang nakapagtataka – meron namang paraan ng pamumuhay na pwedeng pumalit sa gobyerno, pero di naman natin pinagtutuunan ng pansin at malalim na pag-iisip.

Hoy kabayan….

When the government spends more…. YOU spend less, because you have less money. YOU have less money because government took it away from you.

Imagine what you can do – if all that money government took away from YOU – remained in your wallet and no longer accessible to governmnent’s palamunins:

1 – you will have more money for your education

2 – you will have more money for your health care

3 – you will have more money for your clothing

4 – you will have more money for your shelter

5 – you will have more money for your daily expenses

6 – you will have more money for your savings

7 – you will have more money for your investing

8 – you will have more money for your retirement

If you were in control of your money, and deciding how to use your money –

1 – will you still need a congressman to come up with bills on how the money forcibly taken from you will be spent?

2 – will you still need a government agency that will spend the money forcibly taken from you – to provide you a service that you don’t want or need

3 – will you still need a COA to audit the money forcibly taken from you by the government agency that “provides” the service that you don’t want or need

4 – will you still need a judiciary to rule on whether the money forcibly taken away from you by the BIR, spent by the government agency, based on the law passed by your congressman?

Wag lang puso gamitin.

Gamitin din ang utak upang maintindihan kung ano ang sinisigaw ng puso.

Rubbish at the Manila International Airport: Nakakahiya sa mga Kano!

October 27, 2014

by benign0

When I posted that photo tweeted by former Bureau of Customs chief Ruffy Biazon of the rubbish mess left by passengers in a lounge at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3, I didn’t realise what a big wave it was going to make. Indeed it was interesting to note how deeply-revolted many Filipinos feel about kalat. It raises the question of why that revulsion cannot seem to be channeled into focused action.

Suffice to say, Metro Manila remains a filthy metropolis. No less than bestselling author Dan Brown described Manila in his book Inferno as akin to the “gates of hell”. The city is pretty much an open sewer and used as a dumping ground by both locals and even by foreign entities.

Nonetheless, that NAIA Terminal 3 photo sparked widespread interest, practically eclipsing during its 2 days of fame those other trumped-up outrage fads currently gripping Filipinos’ collective attention-deficited intellectual faculties — ‘Binay-gate’ and ‘Pemberton-gate’. The irony here, many have observed, seems to be in how Filipinos would, on one hand, be raising a stink about a severely-littered airport terminal lounge while, on the other, elect crooks into their government and then idly watch while they criminalise the entire nation with impunity.

Most adult Filipinos require explicit instructions on things they should’ve learned in kindergarten.

One word:

Nakakahiya.

That common Tagalog lament encapsulates a uniquely-Filipino cultural trait when used to respond to an affront to one’s sensibilities. In this case, perhaps it is because of the location and circumstance surrounding the rubbish on exhibit in Biazon’s photo — at an international airport terminal for all theforeign world to see.

Nakakahiya sa mga Kano!

Filipinos, it seems, are driven by hiya. They only take significant offense and, possibly, act when they are humiliated (or are at risk of humiliation) before a foreign audience or, for that matter, people they look up to. It is related to the “Pinoy Pride” thing when a compatriot makes it big in a foreign setting — like that recently-promoted “Filipino” naval officer, or any one of those “international” singing contest winners.

This may explain a long-observed quirk of the Filipino. Many observers have highlighted how Filipinos are exemplary employees or staunchly law-abiding citizens in other countries. But within the Philippines, Filipinos remain (or revert to being, in the case of returning overseas expats) selectively-compliant to even the most basic laws that govern the most basic decencies.

Why are Filipinos good citizens in other countries and bad ones withintheir own?

Look no further than Filipinos’ general notion of personal cleanliness and hygiene. Most Filipino homes are spotless. But take a walk along the country’s public streets and parks and you will find them anything but. Filipinos spit, throw their trash, and urinate as a matter of routine all over public spaces. Yet these are the same people who will demand that you remove your shoes or sandals before stepping into their abode.

Could it be that Filipinos reserve their highest acts of respect to “foreigners” and only have forced token gestures to offer their own compatriots? The evidence seems to support this rather sad hypothesis on the core nature of what makes Filipinos tick. Perhaps therein lies the solution to the Philippines’ seemingly untenable national psychosis. Until Filipinos learn to respect their own, they will continue to elect criminally-insane senators to “represent” them, vote for inept presidents to “lead” them, and regard their public spaces as their personal toilets.

Then we begin to question the whole point of being a “nation”. If Filipinos are at their best apart and at their worst together, why then should “the Philippines” persist as an independent “country”? We may be better off outsourcing our government to a foreign power.

benign0

benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.

I am Jejomar Binay

October 29, 2014

by benign0

I am Jejomar Binay. I’ve been that politician in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve been in dark alleys, rented rooms, and in the company of strange men. But I was lucky (like you’ve been lucky) that the person who could have harmed either of us just didn’t harm us at that time.

It could have very well been me who pissed someone off because I didn’t conform to his standards of politics. It could have been you whose appearance just didn’t fit into what your fellow oligarchs had in mind. Or maybe I could have been the kind of person my abuser believed the world could do without. After all, I am far from typical in dress and personality, and last week we learned that to many, that means I don’t deserve to be President of the Philippines.

True colours: Vice President Jejomar Binay

My demonisers could have believed that the joy of feeling affection for my country should cost me my career. So he took it so swiftly and left my reputation tattered as if he had just stepped on a fly.

An inconvenience

The worst part is that in the course of his trial-by-publicity, everyone else treated Jejomar the same way – like a nuisance, an inconvenience, and an eyesore – instead of the Vice President of the Philippines, duly-elected by the popular vote. Regardless of how you feel about him, Jejomar is also someone’s child. He is someone’s partner, brother, and friend. He has some kind of life – one that is being put under the microscope by an angry man’s ambition.

Take one look at the comment sections of news stories and you’ll see that this country’s warmth and kindness we brag about is a joke. It cannot exist when we lack the basic human trait of empathy.

When we say that someone deserves to be lynched (for whatever reason), we play God. We make judgments on something even the gods we worship would not.

Religion aside, when you say out loud that a person deserves vilification and public humiliation, you dare the fates for the same treatment to be delivered to you or to someone you love. When you lack empathy and speak of it, it only means you cannot place yourself in someone else’s shoes. You ask fate to do the favor of reminding you that what your fellow person has been through may also happen to you.

The thing is, it could very well have been you. Don’t say that you could have prevented it by not being in strange places or situations. Don’t say that you don’t do anything to piss people off. Don’t even believe that you conform to every rule or norm and no one could possibly hurt you.

Jejomar could have been your daughter, or she could have been your son. We’ve all placed ourselves at risk at one point or another. You know that your children go to places you don’t even know. I don’t wish it for you, but always think before you speak because each one of us is only another person’s rage away from violence.

I hope that if it happens to your son, no one will judge his skin colour, his height, or whether he behaved as expected of a national leader. I hope that if it happens to your son, the crowd won’t say it was because he wasn’t man enough, or that he deserved his enemies’ wrath for how he lived or loved.

The price of your reputation

I pray that if it ever happens to you, your family will seek justice even if going against an establishment held hostage by an entrenched oligarchy is pretty much a lost cause. I hope that your family will be able to grieve quietly and not be bombarded by media reports that you stole from your country, or that the lie you supposedly told was equal in price to your social standing.

I hope the media reports don’t make you a headline and already assign “valid” reasons why someone should point you out as a thief. I hope they never say it was because you might be a plunderer, because one can’t possibly just be a politician in the company of thieves.

I hope that when it happens to you, people won’t say that you asked for it. I hope people won’t flood comment sections to say your kind deserves to be tarred and feathered for trying to “change” what society has given you. I hope that in your grave you will not be able to see the true colors of your countrymen who are only too glad to rationalize why you should be hanged by your heels, than to question why fair-skinned men routinely harm dark brown men in our own land.

I hope your hometown will write an article mentioning that you fought as the statesman that you are with your chin up – and not say that you sidestepped opportunities to challenge at an intellectual level those who routinely appeal to public emotion.

You are Jejomar Binay.

I hope that if it ever comes to the point when a powerful man’s grip is on your neck as you are being drowned in a crock of hearsay “information”, your last thought won’t be that you fell because of who you are. Or how they will desecrate your memory when you are gone.

I am Jejomar Binay. You are Jejomar Binay. The difference between us is that I know that every life is precious and I empathise with my brother as I want others to see things from where I stand.

Your lack of concern, your assignment of blame, and your passing of judgment only ensures that everyone’s life will be at the hands of another. When you say with so much certainty that some kinds of people deserve to be hung by a kangaroo court, you make sure that someone out there believes your kind deserves to die, too.

[This is an unconventional commentary on Shakira Sison's article I am Jennifer Laude published on Rappler.com, the 23rd October 2014. Some parts of this article were lifted verbatim in blocks (and italicised for reference) from Sison's work and its structure, flow, and composition rendered almost identical to her work to emphasize the point of the message the author wishes to convey.]

benign0

benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.

Bad taste rules: Morbid photos of a dead Jeffrey Laude released by his family!

October 30, 2014

by benign0

So the reason Harry Roque, legal counsel for the family of slain Filipino transgender Jeffrey Laude, released photos of the victim’s body to the public is reportedly “to gain public sympathy for the case.”

“It’s high time the Filipino people understand the family’s and Suselbeck’s sense of anger,” Roque said.

Propagating violence porn: Laude family legal counsel Harry Roque

In short, Roque confirms that this is a trial by media. The merits of the case of Laude’s killing allegedly by US Marine Pfc Joseph Scott Pemberton are presently being evaluated via due process within the Philippines’ criminal justice system and within the framework of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) which governs the working relationship between the armed forces of the United States and the Philippines. But, true to the form of the practice of “law” in the Philippines, half the battle is being fought through appeals to the sentiments of the greater Filipino public.

And the media is cooperating by contributing to the circus. Photos of the uncovered body of Laude are indeed being exhibited in mainstream media outlets. One meme shows the photos next to the message, “The VFA did this!”

Most normal people would of course find it baffling that a mother would allow such images of her deceased child to be showcased in this way. Most self-respecting publishers as well wouldn’t go as far as exhibiting such bad taste in journalism. But like everything else in the Philippines, notions of what constitutes being “normal” are, well, not normal.

We can defer to what Get Real Post contributor Kate Natividad wrote on the matter of these sorts of violence porn way back before this circus came to town…

Nonetheless there is still the need to show some respect for the dead. Why do photos of dead people with faces uncovered keep circulating around the Net? Even more disappointing is that some of these photos are published by established mainstream media organizations!

I recall reading about how many journalists around the world exercised a lot more restraint when it came to the video of the beheading of American journalist James Foley. A lot of them desisted from any further posting of the videos and its still images on Twitter, and those who already did pulled them off. Maybe it is time journalists and publishers in the Philippines take their cue from that show of respect exhibited by their peers in other countries.

That Roque, presumably a lawyer by profession, would stoop to such levels makes him quite the sleazebag. Criminal cases are fought on the basis of arguments framed by the law. You’d expect this sort of stunt to be effective in systems that use juries to render verdicts. But, in the Philippines, there are no juries in murder trials. So what did Roque hope to achieve?

It seems Roque is substituting good lawyering with cheap sensationalism in this case. To give him a bit of credit, it just might work. This is the Philippines, see.

But it is not likely that the United States military nor, for that matter, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will be amused. This sort of stunt can be construed as a deliberate tainting of a nationally-important on-going criminal investigation. A US Marine stands accused of murdering Laude and, with all that, rests the future of military relations between America and the Philippines which is currently facing an external military threat from a belligerent major world power — the People’s Republic of China — that it is ill-equipped to deal with without US assistance.

Indeed, the trial of Pemberton is a national security issue to say the least. Suffice to say, the AFP are in control of vast resources. And they will likely not apply any reservations in using these to crush the laughable stunts Roque put the Laude family up to. Already, the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Immigration have detained Laude’s fiancé, German national Marc Sueselbeck for his involvement in forcibly breaching the AFP Headquarters perimeter and assaulting a Filipino soldier over the weekend on the basis of complaints filed by the Philippine military.

Interestingly, Roque in a tweet he fielded tonight gave a clear hint of what is in store for him on account of his antics…

I look forward to answering complaint of AFP before the IBP. They will hopefully stop their tirades wc I consider as threat to my security

It seems that the AFP are in the process of lodging a complaint with the Integrated Bar of the Philippines against Roque, presumably for the unlawyerly behaviour he has so far exhibited in the handling of this case.

Abangan ang susunod na kabanata.

benign0

benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.

Rubbish-littered Manila NAIA Terminal 3 airport lounge tells the real story

October 25, 2014

by benign0

A photo of a waiting lounge littered with rubbish in Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) has caught the attention of many people and is making the rounds on social media.

The photo was originally posted by former Philippine Bureau of Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon on Twitter with the caption:

NAIA 3…trash left behind by passengers..if only they had done their patriotic duty to throw their trash in the bin.

The NAIA has for many years been consistently featured in lists of top worst airports in the world owing to the decrepit state of its physical structures and shoddy service within these that have made it world-renowned.

But this photo is evidence that airport officials alone cannot be blamed for its squalor — or for that matter the squalor of any public facility in the Philippines. What can be noted here is that the actual facility itself seems to be new and well-maintained. The floor is polished and the seats seem to be in good order. The problem here seems to be in the people who use the facility.

Indeed, ultimately what the Philippines is today reflects the character of the people who constitute the country.

benign0

benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.

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I am Joseph Scott Pemberton

October 25, 2014

by benign0

I am Joseph Scott Pemberton. I’ve been that boy in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve been in dark alleys, rented rooms, and in the company of strange women. But I was lucky (like you’ve been lucky) that the person who could have harmed either of us just didn’t harm us at that time.

It could have very well been me who attracted the attention of an opportunistic predator in a foreign land whose culture I barely understand. It could have been you whose appearance just perfectly fit the profile of what you had been raised to believe is that of a walking ATM. Or maybe I could have been the kind of person before whom dangling a sexual hook had become as normal as breathing. After all, I am far from typical in dress and personality, and last week we learned that to many, that means I deserve to be had.

My deceiver could have believed that thinking with the wrong head amid the free flowing booze in a darkened hazy bar should cost me my youthful innocence. So he took the opportunity so casually reeling in what was but a fry.

A great catch nonetheless.

The worst part is that after my identification as a suspect, everyone else treated Joseph Scott the same way – like a bad seed, a pawn of the Evil Imperialist, and a murderous trained killer – instead of someone who was someone’s son, and innocent until proven guilty. Regardless of how you feel about him, Joseph Scott is also someone’s child. He is someone’s partner, brother, and friend. He had some kind of life – one that was changed in an instant by a deceiving person of the world, seven years his senior.

Take one look at the comment sections of news stories and you’ll see that this country’s warmth and kindness we brag about is a joke. It cannot exist when we lack the basic human trait of empathy.

When we say that someone deserves to be condemned (for whatever reason), we play God. We make judgments on something even the gods we worship would not.

Religion aside, when you say out loud that a person deserves vilification and summary judgment, you dare the fates for the same treatment to be delivered to you or to someone you love. When you lack empathy and speak of it, it only means you cannot place yourself in someone else’s shoes. You ask fate to do the favor of reminding you that what your fellow person has been through may also happen to you.

The thing is, it could very well have been you. Don’t say that you could have prevented it by not being in strange places or situations. Don’t say that you don’t do anything to arouse the attention of the opportunistic. Don’t even believe that just because you are an American, no one could possibly hurt you.

Joseph Scott could have been your son, or he could have been your best friend. We’ve all placed ourselves at risk at one point or another. You know that your children go to places you don’t even know. I don’t wish it for you, but always think before you speak because each one of us is only another person’s eye’s twinkle away from being taken advantage of.

I hope that if it happens to your son, no one will judge his skin colour, his job, or whether he behaved as expected of a 19 year old boy. I hope that if it happens to your son, the crowd won’t say it was because he was a trained killer, or that he deserved the deception he suffered for being the red-blooded male that he was.

The price of your life

I pray that if it ever happens to you, your family will seek justice even if going against a judgmental vindictive society and culture is pretty much a lost cause. I hope that your family will be able to grieve quietly and not be bombarded by media reports that your son has been summarily deemed a cold-blooded murderer, or that simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time and chatting up the wrong “woman” was equal in price to your future career in the US Marine Corps.

I hope the media reports don’t make you a headline and already assign “valid” reasons why you deserve to rot in a Philippine jail. I hope they never say it was because you were ten times stronger, because one can’t possibly just be a heterosexual teenage boy in the company of a 26-year-old man presenting himself as a woman.

I hope that when it happens to you, people won’t say that you asked for it. I hope people won’t flood comment sections to say your kind deserves to rot in a squalid prison for being “intolerant” of a person’s fraudulent representation of their “preferred” gender. I hope that in your moments alone spent in your holding cell while you wait for the Philippines’ “justice” system to move along at its characteristically glacial pace, you will be able to see the true colors of your “hosts” who are only too glad to rationalise why you should be held up in effigy, than to question why young Filipino women — and men — routinely swarm around white men in their own land.

I hope your hometown won’t write an article mentioning that you had been the kid that you are — “young, dumb and fulla cum” — after months at sea lusting after what you thought was a young woman – and then say that this youthful folly had made you deserving of the demonisation of an entire nation.

You are Joseph Scott Pemberton.

I hope that if it ever comes to the point when a dude-who-looks-like-a-lady’s grip is on your groin as you are being led to his bed, you count one to ten and overcome the revulsion millions of years of evolution had ingrained in your mind when you suddenly realise who you are with.

I am Joseph Scott Pemberton. You are Joseph Scott Pemberton. The difference between us is that I know that every life is precious and I lament the plight of my brother half a planet away in the midst of a baffling foreign culture as I want others to lament the bind I had gotten myself into while serving my country.

Your lack of concern, your summary and premature assignment of blame, and your passing of judgment only ensures that everyone’s life will be at the hands of a system that has been routinely unjust not only to me but to its own citizens. When you say with so much certainty that some kinds of people deserve to rot in jail for life, you make sure that someone out there believes your kind deserves to rot in jail, too.

[This is an unconventional commentary on Shakira Sison's article I am Jennifer Laude published on Rappler.com, the 23rd October 2014. Some parts of this article were lifted verbatim in blocks (and italicised for reference) from Sison's work and its structure, flow, and composition rendered almost identical to her work to emphasize the point of the message the author wishes to convey.]

benign0

benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.

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Putting God First

Matthew 22:34-40

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "´You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.´ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ´You shall love your neighbor as yourself.´ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe in you with a faith that never seeks to test you. I trust in you, hoping to learn to accept and follow your will, even when it does not make sense to the way that I see things. May my love for you and those around me be similar to the love you have shown me.

Petition: Lord, give me the strength to put you first in my life and others second.

1. Putting God First: Jesus gives a twofold response to the question about which of the commandments is the greatest. He first turns to Deuteronomy 6:15: “You shall love the Lord your God …” This was familiar to the Jews, for they recited this passage in prayer (called the “Shema”) several times a day and wrote it on all their doorposts. For us, as well as for the Jews, it is a constant reminder that God must be first in our life. As our creator and redeemer, God has an absolute claim on us. We owe him everything. Everything we have is a gift from him. Too often we shelve God, ignoring him until a convenient moment arises or it suits our mood. Putting God first means setting aside the best part of our day for prayer to him and seeking to live his will at every moment out of love for him.

2. Becoming “Other-Centered”: Jesus next turns to the commandment found in Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor …” He combines the two commandments in such a way that one cannot be fulfilled without the other. There can be no love of God without loving other human persons, made in his image. Nor can love of neighbor exist without a pure and purifying love for God. Love for neighbor requires putting others ahead of ourselves. Self-love and self-absorption lead only to loneliness and isolation. Being “other-centered” is the key to our happiness and fulfillment. To love others means to seek their true good, to serve them out of love for the Lord. We need to come out of ourselves and look beyond the narrow interests of our egoism and self-love. The more we love authentically, the more fulfilled our life will become.

3. Praying for Those Who Harm Us: It is not easy to break out of selfish habits. Because of sin, we have the tendency to inflate self-interest in a disordered way. This is not good. We need to ask for the power of grace to purify our hearts and give us the interior strength to put others ahead of ourselves. God is ready to give us this grace, but he wants us to ask for it. Difficult circumstances and relationships need to be faced by prayer and sacrifice. We need to pray even for those who harm us and to ask God to give us the grace and strength to love them as God loves them. “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Romans 12:14).

Conversation with Christ: Lord, help me to put you first in my life. So many times I find myself putting other things ahead of you. I make time for the things I want to do, but I find little time to pray. I find time to talk to my friends, but little time to speak with you. I need strength from you to love you. Help me also to see and love others as you do.

Resolution: I will pray during the day for someone who bothers me and seek to put their good before my own.

By Father Paul Campbell, LC

6 ways to reduce tooth sensitivity

Sensitive teeth are not only painful, but they can also begin to interfere with your daily life. Here are six ways to find relief and reduce your tooth sensitivity

1. Try toothpaste made for sensitive teeth

Several brands of toothpaste on the market are designed to help people with sensitive teeth. Some pastes contain an active ingredient called potassium nitrate, which helps to block the tiny tubules in the dentin. They don’t work for everybody, but experts agree it’s usually the best place to start. “How you’re using it is important,” says Maureen Bowerman, a dental hygienist in Saskatoon. “Lots of times people are using it just for a little bit, and then they stop. But you need to continue to use it.”

2. Change the way you brush

If you’re not using a soft toothbrush, if you’re scrubbing your teeth vigorously, or if you’re not brushing for a full two minutes, then you’re not doing any favours for your sensitive teeth. Hard brushing can actually wear away enamel, increasing the sensitivity in your teeth. If you have any recession of your gums or bone loss—and your tooth root is exposed as a result—then you’re also scrubbing at cementum. Cementum is meant to protect the root of the tooth, but wears away even faster than enamel. “Changing your brushing habits is really a huge feat,” says Bowerman. However, it’s change that will definitely pay off.

3. Avoid acidic food and drinks

Exposure to red wine, pop, fruit juices and acidic foods—such as oranges and pickles—can put your enamel under constant attack. Limit these foods and drinks, and try to brush about 20 minutes after eating them (not earlier, or the brushing may hurt your enamel further). Even if your teeth aren’t yet feeling sensitive, it’s a good idea to be cautious about consuming certain foods and drinks, as enamel loss is irreversible.

4. Ask your dentist about a paint job

If you’re not having much luck with a desensitizing toothpaste, talk to your dentist about painted-on barriers. Desensitizing agents like fluoride varnish or even plastic resins can be applied to the sensitive areas of your teeth. They wear off over time—a few months to a couple of years, depending on what material is used—so they’ll need to be reapplied.

5. Put a stop to tooth grinding

If you’re grinding your teeth when you’re tense, you could be wearing away enamel and giving yourself a sensitivity problem. You may not even realize you’re grinding: Often people only do it while they’re sleeping, but unexplained jaw pain or headaches could be a clue. If you do grind your teeth, try a mouth guard at night, or change your sleeping position. If you notice yourself clenching during the day, remind yourself to relax your jaw with your teeth slightly apart.

6. Treat your receding gums

Normally the root of your tooth is covered up by your gum tissue. But if you have some gum recession, caused by gum disease or even hard brushing, then the root will be exposed and the cementum can be worn away. Your dental care provider may be able to rebuild or restore your receding gums, for example with a treatment involving tissue grafts.But Bowerman notes that before treatment, it’s always important first to pinpoint the exact cause of sensitive teeth. That way you’ll hit on the right solution. “If you’re brushing incorrectly and causing the receding gums, you have to change the way you brush before you start anything aggressive like a restorative treatment,” she says. “Otherwise, you’ll just end up going through the restorative material and coming back. And we haven’t helped you out a great deal.”

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