“Why can’t we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn’t work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves and then we have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos.” — Lucy Van Pelt - Peanuts
Mama has had me doing some things to prepare me for pre-school. She said the lessons are very important. During this period of a few days, she doesn’t want me on the Internet or playing games.
Mama said that I can post over this weekend to “catch up” with all my Internet friends.
So, please don’t forget me, OK? I promise to have some good posts over the weekend.
Today, we will pick up our story of a great modern day hero of the Philippines - Ninoy Aquino. Mama will continue with the story.
Our story continues with Cory Aquino running for president of the Philippines. During the voting, American observers witnessed many irregularities. Afterward, the two monitoring bodies, one sponsored by a U.S.-based group and the other an official government commission, reported contradictory election results. Both candidates claimed victory, but the national assembly recognized Marcos as the winner. The Catholic Church in Manila issued a statement claiming the election had been “a fraud unparalleled in history.” Marcos’s claim of victory rang hollow.
On February 22 two of Marcos’s key military supporters publicly turned against him. Secretary of Defense Juan Ponce Enrile and Deputy Chief of Staff Fidel Ramos (later to be President of the Philippines) staged a military mutiny, seizing two vital military installations in suburban Manila. This mutiny presented Marcos with an immediate challenge that his cousin General Fabian Ver, the armed forces chief of staff, wanted to meet with decisive force. Cardinal Sin, using the catholic radio station Radio Veritas, summoned the Philippine people into the streets to block General Ver’s tanks. Thousands of civilians flocked into the streets and formed a human barricade on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), the main boulevard between the two military bases. Marcos’s troops lacked either the brutality or the political will to attack unarmed civilians, and they were effectively immobilized by the strong show of what Filipinos called “people power.”
Despite these events, Marcos insisted on being inaugurated president in a private but purely symbolic ceremony on February 25. The next day the Marcoses and their family and close associates fled the Philippines for Hawaii on two aircraft supplied by the U.S. Air Force. Aquino became president.
Benigno S. Aquino never lived to lead the Philippine nation but has been honored in the renaming of Manila International Airport to Ninoy Aquino International and his image appears on a 500-peso note with his most famous quote “The Filipino is worth dying for”. A gold coin was issued to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his death.
Jovito “Jovy” Reyes Salonga, a Filipino senator, statesman, lawyer, and a leading oppositionist to the Marcos regime later to become President of the Senate of the Philippines said it best in a speech, when he said of Ninoy Aquino: “…The Greatest President , We never had…” Ninoy Aquino will live in the hearts of Filipinos for generations to come as the father of Philippine democracy.
In closing I would like to leave you with a poem that Ninoy Aquino wrote to his wife, Cory, while he was imprisioned by the dictator Ferdinand Marcos:
I have fallen in love
with the same woman three times;
In a day spanning 19 years
of tearful joys and joyful tears.
I loved her first when she was young,
enchanting and vibrant, eternally new.
She was brilliant, fragrant,
and cool as the morning dew.
I fell in love with her the second time;
when first she bore her child and mine
always by my side, the source of my strength,
helping to turn the tide.
But there were candles to burn
the world was my concern;
while our home was her domain.
and the people were mine
while the children were hers to maintain;
So it was in those eighteen years and a day.
’till I was detained; forced in prison to stay.
Suddenly she’s our sole support;
source of comfort,
our wellspring of Hope.
on her shoulders felt the burden of Life.
I fell in love again,
with the same woman the third time.
Looming from the battle,
her courage will never fade
Amidst the hardships she has remained,
undaunted and unafraid.
she is calm and composed,
she is God’s lovely maid.
Filipino composer and singer Jose Mari Chan later set the piece into music and included it in his album, Constant Change.
Thank you, Mama, for all your help telling the story of a wonderful true modern day hero of the Philippines and the Philippine people. It is so nice to have people, in history, to “look up” to as role models.
Thank you for your visit. Have a great and safe weekend!
Twenty-five years ago today, the Philippines started the long journey from a dictatorship to a democratic country. Today, we observe the 25th anniversary of the death of Benigno Simeon Aquino Jr. (affectingly known to Filipinos as Ninoy). Who was Ninoy Aquino and how did he impact the history and future of the Philippines? Mama will be helping me with the posting today and tomorrow.
Ninoy Aquino was born November 27, 1932 and entered politics at the age of 22, after a career as a journalist and war correspondant, and subsequently became the youngest mayor, governor, and senator to serve in the Philippines. In 1954 he married Corazon Cojuangco. Imprisoned in 1972 when President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, Aquino was allowed to move his family to the United States so he could undergo heart surgery. He later served as a research fellow at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1983 he returned to Manila to work in the legislative election.
Despite high security, he was assassinated as he deplaned on August 21. Although one of Ninoy’s soldier/bodyguards did the shooting, theories of a conspiracy remain involving the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. After a mass at St. Domingo Church, an eleven hour funeral march ensued through twenty five miles of Manila streets with an estimated two million people participating or lining the route of the cortege to the cemetery.Although an investigation commission declared that several military allies of Marcos were responsible for the assassination, all the defendants were acquitted in a 1985 trial.The Supreme Court subsequently declared his murder trial a mistrial. In a new trial that ended in 1990, 16 military officials were convicted of his murder.
Aquino’s death proved to be the tipping point in Marcos’s downfall. Aquino’s widow, Corazon Aquino, put the ailing Marcos on the defensive by depicting him as a brutal dictator. In a gamble to regain some political legitimacy, and secure continued U.S. support for his regime, Marcos announced that a “snap,” or unscheduled, presidential election would be held in February 1986, a year before his term was to expire. Marcos fully expected to win the election, considering his well-oiled political machine and the divided nature of the opposition. But Cardinal Sin, head of the Philippine Catholic Church, arranged an opposition alliance, convincing Corazon Aquino to run for president and Salvador Laurel to run for vice president.
I hope that everyone had a safe and enjoyable weekend.
Saturday, I was watching television and saw a public service announcement about what cigarette smoke does to children. It was not nice and it was really scary to think what smoke from some one’s cigarette, cigar, or pipe can do to the growth of a child.
I decided to talk to Mama and Dada about this problem. Dada said that when he was young, he smoked. He said that during that time there was not much known about the dangers of smoking. He said that it was a “dirty” “nasty” habit and he was so glad when he quit. We have a few relatives that smoke but Mama and Dada will not allow them to smoke in our house. We live in a smoke-free home. My parents will not allow us to go anywhere there is smoking like a store, restaurant, or another family’s home that has smoking. Dada said it is impossible to be a 100% smoke-free but he said that we must work towards that goal.
Here are some facts from the UICC (International Union Against Cancer): Around 700 million children - almost half of the world’s children - breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke, particularly at home. On 4 February 2008, World Cancer Day directed a simple message to parents: “Second-hand smoke is a health hazard for you and your family. There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke. Give your child a smoke-free childhood.”
Second-hand smoke (SHS), also known as environmental tobacco smoke, consists of both the smoke that is exhaled from the lungs of smokers and the smoke that is given off by a burning tobacco product between puffs. Second-hand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or cancer-causing. The 2006 United States Surgeon General’s Report concluded that there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke and that even brief exposures can be harmful.
A single cigarette smoked in a room with poor ventilation generates much higher concentrations of toxic substances in the air than normal, everyday activities in a city. Toxic compounds from second-hand smoke linger in the air for an extended period of time. Nicotine from second-hand smoke is deposited on household surfaces and in dust. The air quality found inside a car with someone smoking is similar to or worse than the air quality found in smoky bars.Non-smokers who are exposed even briefly to a smoky environment take up and process (metabolize) the components of tobacco smoke.
Exposure to second-hand smoke in children increases risk of:
Low birth weight
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
Ear infections
Poor lung development
Bronchitis and pneumonia
Asthma, cough, and wheeze
Being exposed to second-hand smoke as a child may lead to respiratory problems later in life.
If your Mama or Dada smokes, please tell them that it is not healthy for them and it will hurt your childhood health. Childhood health is very important because this is the time when your body grows. Do everything you can to avoid smoke from people who smoke.
Mama is including a download report from the UICC (International Union Against Cancer) that gives all the facts so your parents can make healthy decisions for your family. Please click this link to start the download process: Protecting Our Children From Second-Hand Smoke
Here is a copy of the public service announcement for your viewing:
Wednesday, Mama went to town to do some shopping and she brought back a surprise for me…a LEGO building block set.
Now, I think most people know what LEGOs are but for those few persons that don’t, it is a special engineered plastic block that connects with other blocks.
I ask Dada if he could look on the Internet and find out information on LEGOs and how they were invented. I, also, wanted to find some ideas for building different things with my new LEGOs. Dada said that this year is the 50th anniversary of the invention of the Lego building block.
It was at 1:58 p.m. on January 28, 1958, that LEGO president Godtfred Kirk Christiansen filed a patent for the plastic brick with its stud-and-hole design. Since then, the company has made a staggering 400 billion LEGO elements, or about 62 bricks for every person on the planet.
The LEGO’s legacy lies less in numbers than in its creative influence. These colorful bricks have littered playroom floors for generations of families. But they have also spurred ingenuity among children that few toys can claim before and since. The company has always emphasized the importance of free-form play, and LEGO’s popularity can be attributed to the amount of imagination children use to build with the bricks.
The LEGO company was founded in 1932 by Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund who had a sideline in wooden toys. He named the company after an amalgamation of the Danish phrase “leg godt,” which means “play well.”
The basic eight-stud red LEGO brick was first sold in Denmark in 1949. But it took a further nine years for Ole Kirk’s son, Godtfred Kirk, to file the patent for the versatile “Automatic Binding Brick” with its interlocking 2×4 studs. The plastic bricks are part of a unique system: tiny tubes inside give the knobs on top of other blocks more places to grip. They hold together well but can be taken apart easily by a child. And consistency has been key: the bricks produced today have the same bumps and holes, and can still interlock withthose produced back in 1958. Fifty years on and the LEGO Group is the world’s fifth largest toymaker in terms of sales, after Mattel, Hasbro, Bandai and MGA Entertainment.
Since it began producing plastic bricks, the LEGO Group has released thousands of play sets themed around a variety of topics. Examples include, but are not limited to, space, robots, pirates, vikings, medieval castles, dinosaurs, holiday locations, scuba diving, the wild west, the Arctic, airports, miners, Star Wars, Batman, SpongeBob SquarePants, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones and LEGO Speed Racer. New elements are often released along with new sets. There are also LEGO sets designed to appeal to young girls such as the Clikits line which consists of small interlocking parts that are meant to encourage creativity and arts and crafts, much like regular LEGO bricks. Clikit pieces can interlock with regular LEGO bricks as decorative elements.
The LEGO range has expanded to encompass accessory motors, gears, lights, sensors, and cameras designed to be used with LEGO components. There are even special bricks, like the LEGO NXT that can be programmed with a PC or a Mac to perform very complicated and useful tasks. These programmable bricks are sold under the name Lego Mindstorms.
Bionicle is a line of toys by the LEGO Group that is marketed towards those in the 7-16-year-old age range. The line was launched in January 2001 in Europe and June/July 2001 in the United States. The Bionicle idea originated from the earlier toy lines Slizers (also known as Throwbots) and Roboriders. Both of these lines had similar throwing disks and characters based on classical elements. The sets in the Bionicle line have increased in size and flexibility through the years.
Dada found out some fun facts about Lego blocks on the LEGO company website. Here are some of the facts:
• More than 400 million children and adults will play with LEGO bricks this year.
• LEGO products are on sale in more than 130 countries.
• If you built a column of about 40,000,000,000 LEGO bricks, it would reach the moon.
• Approx. seven LEGO sets are sold each second.
• Approx. 19 billion LEGO elements are made every year in Billund - equivalent to approx. 2m elements an hour or 36,000 a minute.
• If all LEGO sets sold in a year were stacked on top of each other, they would fill a football field to a height of 77.8 m.
• Laid end to end, the number of LEGO bricks sold in a year would reach more than five times round the world.
• Since BIONICLE figures first appeared in 2001, more than 150 million BIONICLE “beings” have been born. That’s more than the population of France and Britain put together.
• The eight robots and 15 automatic cranes that work in the LEGO warehouse in Billund, Denmark can shift 660 crates of bricks in and out every hour.
• The world’s children spend 5 billion hours a year playing with LEGO bricks.
• In the manufacture of LEGO bricks the machine tolerance is as small as 0.002 mm.
• The LEGO Club has 2.4m members worldwide.
• Approx. 400 billion LEGO elements have been manufactured since 1949.
I really enjoyed searching on the Internet, with Dada, for all the interesting information about LEGO blocks. There are a lot of good pictures on the Internet of different things that have been built with LEGO blocks. I am going to have a lot of fun building differnt types of buildings. Mama said that it is great toy to play with on rainy days. Dada said it is a great toy to help children build their motor skills. Later, I ‘ll have to ask him what that means?
I hope that you will have a great weekend. Thanks for your visit!
Hi There! DJ's World is an Internet safe website where children from 4 to 14 years old can visit with their parents and have a fun time getting to know DJ and other children from around the world. DJ's World provides educational resources and fun - to - do projects. We will explore the world around us and try to better understand each other. Come on a fun journey at DJ's World! Thank you for stopping by and please visit often.
Hi Everyone! If you have questions or suggestions about DJ's World, please leave them as a comment on the daily posting. If you have a URL Link, include it in the line provided in the Comments area.Otherwise, you can contact me at the following e-mail address: talkwithdj@theworldofdj.com I will be featuring the best questions in my DJ's World postings and cartoons. I look forward to your mail. Thanks!
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I know that I have not posted the last two days.
Here are some facts from the UICC (International Union Against Cancer): Around 700 million children - almost half of the world’s children - breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke, particularly at home. On 4 February 2008, World Cancer Day directed a simple message to parents: “Second-hand smoke is a health hazard for you and your family. There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke. Give your child a smoke-free childhood.”
