Amnesty for Criminals ...

Question of the Week:
In striving for peace, is it worthwhile to grant full amnesty to a rebel leader, blamed for murdering innocent civilians, abducting children, and stripping a country of stability for decades?? Yep, this question pertains to Joseph Kony! Not all too original, by the way.

This is more like the question of last week, again I tarried in my response and risk it being old news. But luckily the peace talks between the LRA and the Uganda government is still going on. Sadly, there have been some interesting developments in the past several days and it seems like peace is not going to come easy. The glimmer of hope that there will be a ceasefire between the two sides is diminishing each day as mistrust and bitterness festers in the hearts of the negotiator. I wonder how things can turn out like this, 17 years of vicious war with no end in sight ... and most of the world don't even care.

Enough ranting, back to the original question. My personal opinion is that it is definitely worthwhile to grant on criminal amnesty in exchange for peace for the entire country. When millions of lives and the futures of hundreds of thousands of children are at stake, who are we to forgo a chance for peace in exchange for justice to be served in one man's life? It may seem "unfair" to let a known criminal go unpunished, but it's equally "unfair" that millions have to suffer under this reign of terror in Uganda. If there's a chance for peace, nearly anything is worthwhile. I say this because I truly believe that even if we don't see justice done to Joseph Kony in our lifetime, the Lord's vengeance will be unleashed on him in the the last day. What is our justice system but a faint reflection of God's justice? Even if Kony does not get punished by our human facility in this lifetime, God will make sure justice is done in the next.

If you're wondering what brought on this question, read this excerpt of an email I wrote to my discussion group. There are several good links about Uganda too ... the video is eye-opening.

I had mentioned at the end of last week's discussion that I wish that we could become a people whose faith go beyond our middle class suburban world. I wish our faith would stir in us a desire to yearn for the redemption of every part of creation in this fallen world, that we would not merely be passive spectators but be active participants in God's redemptive plan. (If you like to read, I recommend this book.) If nothing else, we should be a people of prayer. There are countless issues in this world that demand our attention and prayer, some in our own neighborhood, some oceans away from us. For example, Uganda is facing a vicious civil war. There is mass genocide, rape, killings ... you can read about it here and here's a story of one of the victims, for those who are stimulated visually, watch this. This week the Uganda government is trying to find a way to peace ... among all things, this should be something to pray about.

I like Pineapples!

woohoo! Let's take a moment to celebrate my return. Surely it has been too long ... Since it's my first question in a long time, I'm going to tackle something simple. Here's the very fruity question:

Pineapples...they sure don't taste like apples and don't grow on pine trees. So why do we call them pineapples?

Well my friend, even my pet gerbil kookie can answer this one (actually a sleepy girl answered it, but that's another story). The reason why pineapples are called pineapples is because pineapples resemble pine cones! Yes, they don't grow on pine trees, but one theoretically could confuse them for really big pine cone. Observe and learn ...


Do you see the resemblance? Plus, isn't it common knowledge that they used to call all fruits "apples" anyway? Alright, I rest my case. On a side note, why do you think they gave strawberries their name?

I'm Back!

My dear friend Matt asks, "How many questions are on the queue now?"

Well, I had to do a little research on this one. If I counted correctly, there are 15 questions on the queue at this point. And since I just answerd your question, now the count it down to 14 ... whee!

If you're bored, you can always go here to read about the random stuff that goes on in my mind. My suggestion is that you be patient, because I do plan to get through all the questions.

Where are you?

A lot of people have asked me why I haven't been answering any questions lately. The truth is that I've been busy, and since it takes time and some thought to answer these questions, I've simply chose to just take a break for a bit.

Don't worry though, soon enough I'll be answering questions again. Just hang in there for a bit longer. As soon as I recover from Memorial Day Weekend, I will try my best to answer all your interesting questions.

See you in a bit!

Allergies ...

Wow I'm on a roll! So many answers in one day, I am going to award myself with a chocolate chip cookie! Yum. It's fortunate that I'm not allergic to chocolate or eggs.

Spring fever has come and gone ... I'm assuming that's why my friend asked, " i heard that every 7 years, you develop new allergies or your allergies evolve. is this true? so like for example, i would have no allergies my first seven years of life, i would all of a sudden have allergies when i'm eight."

I'm going to walk out on a limb here and say that it sounds completely unfounded to me. I tried looking it up and found nothing about this topic ... granted, I didn't look too long. Your allergies may evolve or change, for example, your may grow allergic to milk and become lactose intolerant, or sometimes allergies can go away if you've built up enough tolerance for it. However, I don't think there's a 7 year interval where your allergies change.

Just be careful if you're have violent allergic reaction to certain things, you definitely don't want to end up like this girl.

I Love Eggs!

Before I answer the following question, I can't help myself but to share with you this very interesting song. Enjoy.

An irate egg-lover asks,"how often do hens lay eggs? i heard it was once a day. if it is, that must suck. i wouldn't wanna pop a baby out per day. and how does that work? does the rooster have to mate with the hen everyday?"

First off, on behalf of the male species, I want this irate egg-lover to know that we, the men, do try hard to understand the pain you go through. Not that we are capable of empathizing with you physiologically, unless you're Arnold, but we try to extend some compassion.

With that said, hens normally lay eggs once a day. This is quite different than you having to pop babies out once a day as a human baby has a gestation period of 9 months. Here's a very graphically rich site that might make you sick.

One thing to note is that egg laying and hatching chicks are totally different things. A hen doesn't need a rooster to lay eggs. They don't need to mate before a egg is laid. Hens just lay eggs when their reproductive organs are mature. So the eggs that you and I get from the supermarket are unfertilized, which means no chicks can ever hatch out of it, don't even try! If you want a little chick to come out, make sure the rooster mates with the hen before the egg comes out.

If you have anymore questions about this, go and read all about it here.

Buffalo in Wings?!?!

Here's a very strange question: "If I'm eating a buffalo wing why are there drumsticks in it?"

If I take this question at face value (grammar and all), I would be forced to interpret it as follows: Someone is trying to eat a buffalo wing, and while devouring the chicken appendage, she finds out that there are mini-drumsticks inside that wing.

Hmm ... that's really really strange. I don't know why that would happen. You should immediately stop eating your buffalo wing and take some pictures then call the academy of science, because this is truly a phenomenon. It's a MIRACLE!!!

Killer Mosquitoes!

After a rather long hiatus, I am BACK with a vengeance! However, it's pretty sad to notice that I'm catching up with questions from a month ago. So for the foreseeable future, I'll be answering the questions on a first come first serve basis. Do not despair, patience is a virtue.

Today's question comes from someone who claims she has amazing good looks, and she asks, "do mosquitoes have ears?? if not, how do they hear? or can they even hear?"

Since I'm going to try tackling multiple questions today, here's a quick answer:

• mosquitoes don't have ears
• they hear from these appendages called antennal flagellum, basically, hairy antenna things that vibrate
• if you are interested, read more here.

What's interesting is that the male's antennal anatomy is tuned specifically to capture the fundamental frequency of the female's flight sound, which of course is to help them find their mates ... how romantic.

And the most important fact to note today is that only FEMALE mosquitoes suck blood from animals. I wonder why that is ... I'm forced to conclude that females are bloodsuckers.

Blogging for the Blind

Some of my faithful readers are going to get mad at me because I'm answering questions out of order again. Don't worry, I'll resume to the submitted order after this one. It just so happened I was wondering the same thing, so I had to answer this one first. The question is:

"I was wondering if you knew what the little handicap symbol in the word verification section of blogspot comments is used for? I can't seem to figure out why it's there or who would be needing it..."

As I was thinking this, my train of logic went like this:
1) Audio verification? So the person must not be able to see
2) Wait a second! If the person can't see, how can they blog?

This is where my logic totally broke down, simply because I was ignorant of the fact that blind people can and do blog. Apparently there are screen reading softwares out there to enable the blind or the visually impaired to "read" what we see on our screens. (It's always good to be reminded how ignorant I am) Now that we got pass the first hurdle, the answer to this question should become more apparent.

Basically, some blind folks were frustrated that blogger had some features that can't be picked up by their software. And since blogspot uses this word verification method to filter out spam (by making you decipher funky images of letters the computers can't read), the blind community was prevented from making comments. The resolve this issues blogger released this new feature and are making a lot of blind people very happy =)

Social Justice ...

My small group (we named ourselves Antediluvians because we're all old like ancient history) have been discussing the issue of social justice in the past week. Particularly, we have been focusing on the atrocities that is happening in Northen Uganda and Darfur. I strongly recommend you take the time to read this article and watch this video if you have some spare time.

Through our discussion, this very tough question arose: How should Christians respond to what's happening in Northern Uganda and Darfur?

This is a deceptively complicated question. Everything tells me that there should be a simple answer, but frankly there is not. This problem of social injustice seems to be something too large for us to wrap our mind around, a conflict too big for us to tackle on our own. Sadly, it's all too easy to come to the point of admitting defeat ... asking ourselves whether it is even possible for one person, or a small group of people, to help solve a problem so much bigger than ourselves.

There are the obvious answers, like praying for those who are suffering, raise awareness in our community, pressure our government leaders to actually do something, or donating to aid workers serving out there. These are great first steps, and I am by no means trying to take anything away from prayer or the generous giving, but there seems to be a bigger core problem. In short ... WE ARE THE PROBLEM!

(this is where it switches from answering the question to personal commentary)

It seems to me that one of the main reasons there are so many social problems out there is because we simply don't care enough for others. The truth is that most of us only think about our own welfare 90% of the time, thinking about all the ways that we can make OUR lives better, how we can earn more money, get a bigger house, live more comfortably, have more fun ... etc. This is probably why most people (myself included) are so ignorant of all the problems facing humanity today, we simply don't care enough, we simply don't love enough.

Alright ... I'm going to stop here before my mind starts turning into mush.

Graduation Gifts ...

Since the end of the school year is coming up, I've been pressed with this question, "what do you buy a guy for graduation? normally you buy flowers for a girl right? but you don't get guys flowers as well."

I'm trying to think back to remember if I had received any graduation presents from friends. Sadly, the answer is no. For some reason I never thought gift giving during graduation was that big a deal, plus since all my friends and I were graduating together, what's really the point?

However, if you really want to lavish your guy friend with a present, this might be a good place to get some ideas. I briefly looked at it and I didn't think it was that great a resource ... come on people, would you really want this poster as your graduation gift?

As with all gift-giving, it's the thought that counts, at least for me since I'm not too big a gifts person. What I really do appreciate is just a thoughtful gesture, a handwritten letter or card. I still remember when my friend and I exchanged letters right before graduation, to write down our thoughts and encouragement, to ease into the inevitable farewell. Those letters/words/thoughts really mean something to me, much more than any box of chocolate or flowers. But not everyone is like me.

To give you some concrete advice, I recommend figuring out what the guy is into and find something suitable:

• if he likes to eat, get him some edible food items, like exquisite japanese green tea chocolate balls, or some camel meat from Egypt
• if he likes to read books, get him a good book
• if he smells, buy him some cologne
• if he likes you, give him a kiss and confess your undying love to him
• if he likes movies, get him a good foreign film
• write him a poem - that always give you big points (wait a sec, I think that only works for girl ...)
• buy him a cake and smash it in his face
  

Be creative and have fun!