Cause

One of the interesting aspects of such a classification is that it can easily found in any social challenge. In the education sector the main intention is to maximize the productivity of children so that they can contribute to the welfare of the society. One of the main causes for poor productivity can be stress from parents and teacher.

Issue

This poor productivity may lead to excessive punishment, as elders may perceive corporal punishment as good solution for this problem. This challenge of improving poor productivity can itself become the cause of some different issue in like discriminating students as dull or scholar by assessing their performance using some conventional academic techniques. The techniques can be misleading as many great people might have failed those techniques.

Effect

Such activities can have disastrous effect on the development of the children. Such changes may not be immediately evident but may start becoming visible over a period of time, as everyone change with time but kind of change do matter to the individual  as well as to the society. They can find relief in stress and feeling of dominance by getting involved in unstable affair, violence, crime, etc.

Solution

Among the various academicians, social scientists are most proactive in such scenarios. The effect of any decision on the abovementioned challenge will vary. A solution like creation of certain legal punishment for people doing any criminal activity, social awareness about unstable relationships or involving some scientific researchers to come with the technology to prevent crime or identify the technical source of instability in relationship. Such measures/solutions may not be very effective. They are not addressing the root cause of problem, the feeling of inferiority/uselessness in the person and background research on the emergence of such feeling may be effective in developing solutions for the crimes which are encountered. In that case, activities which help them to realize that they are also important, people do need them and it can be problem for people if they say no.

Such cause to solution relationship can be designed for several sectors in the social domain. In case of human psychology, it is has been quite fascinating how different people react to same scenario. Everyone wants to know about others in order to determine ones approach towards other. Since, certain reactions can get you the tag of good person. This domain has been studied to such an extent that some group specific attributes have been identified. Groups can be any community which can be identified by its geography, caste, culture, creed, religion, language, etc. Certain interesting tools have also been generated which help the person to understand others on the basis of some key attributes and based on that they create various perceptions like inclination towards unsocial (fight, unsupportive and discrimination) or social (philanthropy, non-violence and supportive) feelings. Poor perception accuracy is possible as people are good in hiding their true intentions, in such cases, more bad then good happens to people as they can feel cheated and discriminated, which can affect their development.  

P.S.: Can you create cause to solution relationship in the human psychology paragraph?

One man described it this way, “When I’m talking to a woman, either on-line, on the phone, or in person, who do you think is the first person to bring up sex? Almost always it’s the woman. I don’t. I can tell almost instantly if the woman is classy or cheap. I want a woman who is confident, not insecure and thinks she needs to attract me by offering up free sex. What healthy, heterosexual man doesn’t want or enjoy sex with a woman? But I don’t want someone that everyone else has enjoyed. A classy woman is intriguing, mysterious and alluring. Her appearance and the way she carries herself can be very appealing. There’s a huge difference between sexy and sleazy; and unfortunately many woman don’t know the difference.”

Ladies wise up! If you don’t understand why you keep attracting the wrong men, it’s because your standards are too low. Set the bar higher. Do not engage in innuendos or blatant conversation that is sexual in nature. Just don’t do it. You may think you are flirting; but what you are doing is sending a signal to the man that you’re easy. You may hook him for a time. You may both be filled with infatuation, but it won’t last. Men will look at you as the good time gal; not as a keeper.

What are you wearing? Low rise jeans and tummy shirts are in. They’re not in if you don’t have the body to wear that style of clothing and they’re not in if you’re trying to convince the men that you’re a classy lady. That is not to say you need to haul out the turtle neck sweaters and long skirts which cover up your ankles.

You will not be able to change your belief system overnight; your views on what men want. But what you can change almost instantly is how you dress and how you talk. Decide today that you will not openly discuss sex or make comments of a sexual nature with men. There are ways you can let someone know you’re interested without sounding like a hootchie mamma. And lastly, take inventory of your wardrobe. Leave a little to the imagination, don’t show it all.

Men want a classy woman.

Gambling in the United States

Horse racing was popular in colonial America. In the mid-1800’s, professional card players plied their trade in the gambling halls of the West and on steamships traveling the Mississippi River. And, just as today, states used lotteries to raise revenue. (In a lottery, players bet that a group of numbers they have chosen will match several or all the winning numbers chosen in a random drawing.)

In 1887 the invention of the slot machine revolutionized gambling. Players deposited coins in the machine and pulled a handle to set it in motion. They either won or lost money depending on the symbols that appeared on the machine. With slot machines, people could wager without having the skills needed to succeed at playing cards or betting on horses. But gambling was considered a vice by many, especially religious groups. So it was made illegal in every state by 1910.

In 1931, in response to revenue shortages during the Great Depression, Nevada became the first state to legalize casino gambling. Several states had approved horse racing by 1935. In 1941 the first “modern” casino opened in the town of Las Vegas, Nevada. Called El Rancho Las Vegas, it was located on a highway now famous as “The Strip.” El Rancho Las Vegas offered slot machines, gaming tables, rooms to rent, dining, and entertainment. This is basically the same mix offered by today’s casinos.

In 1963, New Hampshire established the first legal state lottery in 70 years. State lotteries eventually spread throughout most of the country. In the 1970’s a few states legalized off-track betting (OTB). OTB offers gamblers the convenience of betting on races without being at the track. In 1976, New Jersey emerged as the second state to permit casino gambling, which became centered in Atlantic City.

Image via Wikipedia

The next major stage in casino gambling occurred in 1988, when American Indian casinos became legal. This was the result of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988) and subsequent court decisions. In 1992, the tiny Mashantucket Pequot Indian nation opened one of the most successful casinos. It is called Foxwoods and is located in Ledyard, Connecticut. Others followed, on and off Indian reservations, throughout the United States.

In the 1990’s some states also began authorizing casino gambling on riverboats along the Mississippi River. The 1990 Mississippi Gaming Control Act allowed casino gambling in counties along the Mississippi River and Gulf Coasts. But local voters had to approve. By 2008, there were 29 such properties in those areas in Mississippi, drawing millions of visitors. Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, and Missouri also have authorized riverboat gambling.

Most legal gambling operations in the United States are run for profit by corporations or state governments. But there is also charitable gambling, such as that used by churches to raise money for good causes. Examples of games used by charities include bingo and raffles. Bingo is a numbers-based game of chance played for prizes. In a raffle, players buy tickets for a chance to win a prize.

Online Gambling

Yet another type of gambling took hold in the 1990’s and 2000’s. The first online casino began operating in August 1995. By 2007 more than 400 companies around the world were operating over 2,000 Web sites. The sites offer wagering on sports, casino games, lotteries, and bingo. In 2006 an estimated 14 to 20 million people gambled nearly $15 billion at these sites. This included 4 million Americans.

A host of Asian, European, and Latin American countries have legalized Internet gambling.

Growth of Gambling

Image via Wikipedia

Gambling in the United States has grown largely because many Americans have come to accept it as a legitimate way to have fun and be entertained. Some form of legalized gambling is now available in the District of Columbia and all U.S. states except Hawaii and Utah. In most states, the minimum legal age for gambling is 21. But in some states it is 18. Las Vegas, Nevada, is the world’s most important gaming center. It is also the most visited tourist destination in the United States. In 2008 Las Vegas drew more than 50 million domestic and foreign visitors. They spent more than $11 billion at the gaming tables and slot machines.

Spending on casino and charitable gambling and on lotteries and wagers on racing jumped from about $8 billion in 1982 to over $92 billion in 2007. Some 25 percent of U.S. households visited a casino at least once.

Political and Social Issues

The expansion of gambling is an important political issue in the United States. In 1999 a national commission found problem gambling to be one of the most important negative aspects of the spread of gambling. Problem gamblers tend to need to bet more money more frequently and find it difficult to stop. They also continue to gamble even when it results in negative consequences, such as bankruptcy. Some 6 to 9 million Americans are thought to be problem gamblers.

Of particular concern to lawmakers is gambling by young people. This is because they are even more likely than adults to become problem gamblers. Some 600,000 young people aged 14 to 22 are reported to gamble online each week. In 2006, the U.S. government intensified its efforts to prohibit online gambling, including preventing online gamblers from using credit cards.

I searched out the names of the Board of Directors of PhilHealth and to know also if the said PhilHealth Circular No. 022 is approved by all the board of directors but unfortunately out of 14 members only one has affixed his signature to PhilHealth Circular No. 022 in the named of Dr. Eduardo P. Banzon and the other name who also signed her signature was not in the list or not in the list of Executive Officers. The PhilHealth Board of Directors are as follows:

1. Board Chair: Hon. Enrique T. Ona, M.D.
2. CSC Chairman: Hon. Francisco T. Duque III, M.D., MSc
3. DILG Secretary: Hon. Jesse M. Robredo
4. DSWD Secretary: Hon. Corazon J. Soliman
5. DOLE Secretary: Hon. Rosalinda D. Baldoz
6. Health Care Providers Sector: Hon. Juan M. Flavier, M.D.
7. Labor Sector: Hon. Alexander A. Ayco, M.D.
8. Employers Sector/President and Chief Executive Officer: Hon. Dr. Eduardo P. Banzon
9. Self Employed Sector: Hon. Francisco Vicente F. Lopez M.D.
10. SSS President & CEO: Hon. Emilio S. De Quiros, Jr.
11. GSIS President & General Manager: Hon. Robert G. Vergara
12. NAPC-BS Vice Chairman: Hon. Florencia P. Cabatingan
13. Filipino Overseas Workers: Hon. Jane M.N. Sta. Ana
14. Corporate Secretary: Atty. Genesis M. Adarlo

Instead of rewriting the paragraph below, I just decided to attach the scanned copy of the letter from PhilHealth as I believe that corrections from PhilHealth should be made available on public. I received the above letter (yesterday) January 30, 2012 dated January 27, 2012.

Obviously, the PhilHealth Circular No. 022 was created by two people in named of Dr. Eduardo P. Banzon and MA. TERESA A. QUIAGIT and approved by them without the approval of other Board Members and other Executive Officers of PhilHealth. It was created on December 15, 2011. The said circular is not only addressed to the 11 million+ OFWs around the world but also to all the Filipinos in Philippines. To read the said Circular No. 022 visit the link PhilHealth Circular No. 022.

The said PhilHealth Circular No. 022 is believed by Filipinos in Philippines including the 11 million+ OFWs as against the REPUBLIC ACT No. 10022 – AN ACT AMENDING REPUBLIC ACT NO. 8042, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE MIGRANT WORKERS AND OVERSEAS FILIPINOS ACT OF 1995, AS AMENDED, FURTHER IMPROVING THE STANDARD OF PROTECTION AND PROMOTION OF THE WELFARE OF MIGRANT WORKERS, THEIR FAMILIES AND OVERSEAS FILIPINOS IN DISTRESS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES. 

Under the RULE XVII: MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS – Section 4. Government Fees, Administrative Costs and Taxes. All fees for services being charged by any government agency on migrant workers prevailing at the time of the effectivity of this Rule shall not be increased. This RA No. 10022 was officially approved and signed by the former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on March 08, 2010.

The Migrante Middle East said “We are targeting 1-M signatures by July 2012, the supposed start of imposing PhilHealth premium of P2,400 from the current P900. With our position paper, we will send the signatures to President Noynoy Aquino and to the PhilHealth Board members, members of the Senate and House of Representatives.”

As of this writing there are already 502 Filipinos have joined the petition and yet still very far to 1-M target-ted signatures – so if you are Filipinos living in Philippines and Abroad you are hereby invited to join the said petition – go to this link No to PhilHealth Premium Increase Scrap Circular No. 022. And if possible share this call to your family, relatives, friends and friends of friends around the world!

To read my previous article visit Pruelpo Shares: The Largest Protest in History: No to SOPA and PIPA

Join Triond – it is one of the best publishing sites for your online writing and income.

My other articles are also available at

1.  My Star Articles

2.  My Article Photo Blog

Image via CrunchBase

Wordpress.org, Wordpress.com, Mozilla Corporation, Facebook, Electronic Frontier Foundation,Yahoo!, eBay, American Express, Reddit, Google, Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, English Wikipedia including some Law professors Mark Lemley (Stanford University), David S. Levine (Elon University), and David G. Post (Temple University) opposed SOPA and PIPA.

Image via SOPASTRIKE

Today, the said protest has already spread worldwide. Google campaign is calling you to sign the petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late. You can also visit American Censorship Site for details on how you can show your support and to join the worldwide protest – if you wanted to protect your online security and enjoy your freedom of expression. Now twitter is flooded with tweets of “Vote NO to SOPA and PIPA”. The protest will last until Jan 24, 2012 – the US Senate vote date. This is the largest protest ever in history!

To read my previous article visit Pruelpo Shares: FCHAR Conducts Its Second Annual Summit in Orlando

Join Triond – it is one of the best publishing sites for your online writing and income.

My other articles are also available at

1.  My Star Articles

2.  My Article Photo Blog

The Path To The Stars

By Dougal Mac Gregor

This booklet is a compilation of thoughts, reflections, and advices. This booklet is meant to help you understand the world around you better, arrive at better decisions, enhance the quality of your life, and ultimately find and complete your dreams. Please read each thought carefully, and take the time to mentally digest and understand it. Read them as many times as necessary for you to comprehend the message behind them. But most importantly; question everything, including that which is written here, and that which you take for granted or fact. You must never accept any one idea as the ultimate truth or fact; you may arrive at being 99.99% sure about an idea, but never accept it as 100% fact.

11. Objective or Subjective?

Something is subjective when it is based on personal interpretation, in other words, an opinion. Opinions are often things that cannot yet be measured.

Something is objective if it is not dependent on people’s perception, in other words, a fact. Facts are usually measurable in one way or another, and they are always perceived by everyone.

An example of a subjective thing is “cuteness”, because something can be attractive to person A but not to person B. This may change if we develop a means of categorizing and measuring things by how attractive they are based on some kind of rule or condition.

An example of an objective thing is “weight”, because weight is the same regardless of how it is perceived by each person. Additionally, weight can be measured and categorized regardless of people’s perception.

Advice: It may be difficult, but always remember the difference between objectiveness and subjectivity, and consider whether something is subjective or objective.

Taken from Dougal Mac Gregor’s “The Path To The Stars”.

The Path To The Stars

By Dougal Mac Gregor

This booklet is a compilation of thoughts, reflections, and advices. This booklet is meant to help you understand the world around you better, arrive at better decisions, enhance the quality of your life, and ultimately find and complete your dreams. Please read each thought carefully, and take the time to mentally digest and understand it. Read them as many times as necessary for you to comprehend the message behind them. But most importantly; question everything, including that which is written here, and that which you take for granted or fact. You must never accept any one idea as the ultimate truth or fact; you may arrive at being 99.99% sure about an idea, but never accept it as 100% fact.

10. Illusion; Perception Makes Reality.

An illusion is something one or more people believe to be true, when in fact it is likely to be false or deceiving. To understand illusions better, we can make reference to the analogy of the realities in topic 9;

You are inside your house in your living room which has a window with a view of huge grasslands and mountains far away. Your neighbor is also inside his house in his living room which also has a window looking in the same direction. The view that you have of the outside may be very similar to the one your neighbor has, but it can never be identical. Say for example, that you are watching a large beautiful tree, which your neighbor can also see but from a slightly different angle. The tree happens to cover from your sight an ugly windmill that stand further behind. Your neighbor can see the windmill because the tree does not cover it from him as it does for you. This means that your neighbor is aware of the existence of the ugly windmill, while you are oblivious to it because you can’t see it, because the tree is on the way from your perspective.

Here the illusion is the tree blocking your view of the windmill. Although usually an illusion represents something that is real in your head but is not real in the external world, in this case the illusion is based on the tree which is a real object. For you, there is no ugly windmill because you cannot see it; therefore you have the illusion that there is only a beautiful panorama. However, your neighbor can see the windmill, so he is aware that the panorama is not as beautiful as you perceive it. The tree represents an illusion to you, but not to your neighbor, and because you cannot see the windmill, even if your neighbor tells you about it, you are unlikely to believe him it is there.

People often think that if something is not perceived by anyone it means it does not exist. Much like the question of “If a tree in a forest falls but no one is close by to hear it, does this mean that the sound of the collapsing tree does not exist? ” This is flawed thinking; and it goes hand in hand with the topic of Illusions. We perceive the external world with our senses, but people mistakenly think it works the other way around and assume that the only things that exist are the ones he can perceive through his senses. It is much more accurate to say that things exist whether we perceive them or not, the external world is independent to our perception, while our perception is totally dependent on the external world.

However, today’s human society is so unaware of this structure that people live in mirror worlds rather than the real one, and you can be easily judged insane by people who do not perceive something that you may be perceiving. For this reason, even if your senses are more developed, or if you can somehow perceive things that others cannot, it is safer for you to pretend that something that you perceive but others don’t does not exist. Especially since it is now widely known that our brains can malfunction and our minds can trick us by creating things in our minds that are not really there in the external world (like schizophrenia), and for this reason people automatically think your brain is malfunctioning if you perceive something they don’t and they call you insane, even if that is not the case.

This is how society works:

If everyone can see, or hear, or smell, or taste, or touch, or feel it, then it is real. If it cannot be perceived by multiple people, then it is not real.

This is how it should really work:

If everyone can sense (see, hear, smell etc.) it, then it is probably real.

If only one person can sense it, then it might not be real, but it could still be.

If no one can perceive it, it might not exist, but it could still exist.

Advice: Be wary, people do not see the world as you see it, and vice versa. If you detect things others do not, you should seek methods of verifying that what you perceive is real in the external world, such as finding other people who can also detect it. Because if you remain the only person able to perceive something; you risk not only being tagged as insane, but being in fact tricked by your mind. By the same reason, always take into consideration what others perceive and not only what you perceive, because they might be able to perceive something you yet can’t (illusion).

Taken from Dougal Mac Gregor’s “The Path To The Stars”.

The Path To The Stars

By Dougal Mac Gregor

This booklet is a compilation of thoughts, reflections, and advices. This booklet is meant to help you understand the world around you better, arrive at better decisions, enhance the quality of your life, and ultimately find and complete your dreams. Please read each thought carefully, and take the time to mentally digest and understand it. Read them as many times as necessary for you to comprehend the message behind them. But most importantly; question everything, including that which is written here, and that which you take for granted or fact. You must never accept any one idea as the ultimate truth or fact; you may arrive at being 99.99% sure about an idea, but never accept it as 100% fact.

9. Realities

For each person, there are at least three kinds of realities; the one in their head, the external one in which we all live, and the one in everyone else’s head. However, most people live their daily lives convinced that there is only one reality, they claim it to be the one we all live in, usually unaware that the reality that they are referring to is in fact the one in their head rather than the external one we all live in. Because people do not put enough thought to the matter, they just go about taking for granted what happens in their head thinking that it is the external world.

To help you understand this very confusing topic, visualize the following:

You are inside your house in your living room which has a window with a view of huge grasslands and mountains far away. Your neighbor is also inside his house in his living room which also has a window looking in the same direction. The view that you have of the outside may be very similar to the one your neighbor has, but it can never be identical. Say for example, that you are watching a large beautiful tree, which your neighbor can also see but from a slightly different angle. The tree happens to cover from your sight an ugly windmill that stand further behind. Your neighbor can see the windmill because the tree does not cover it from him as it does for you. This means that your neighbor is aware of the existence of the ugly windmill, while you are oblivious to it because you can’t see it, because the tree is on the way from your perspective.

In this analogy we have several things happening:

There are three realities going on; the one you see from inside your living room, the one your neighbor sees from his perspective, and the external one outside. In other words; the one in your head, the one in your neighbor’s head, and the external reality which is in no one’s head. It is difficult to judge which reality is more real, because they may all be equally as real. However, it may be safe to assume that since the realities in our head cannot exist without the external one, perhaps we can say that the external reality is “the real one”, because the reality in our head is merely a projection of the external one that we get through our senses.

Another thing to point out in this analogy is that the tree that blocks your view from the windmill can resemble an illusion. See Illusion; Perception Makes Reality.

Subjective matters are usually making reference to the reality in our head, while Objective matters often make reference to the external reality. See Objective or Subjective?.

Advice: It is difficult, but try to always keep in mind that each head, including yours, is a different reality from each other and from the external one. It could be safe to assume that the external world is “the real one”, even though we may never be able to completely know what it is like exactly.

Taken from Dougal Mac Gregor’s “The Path To The Stars”.

The Path To The Stars

By Dougal Mac Gregor

This booklet is a compilation of thoughts, reflections, and advices. This booklet is meant to help you understand the world around you better, arrive at better decisions, enhance the quality of your life, and ultimately find and complete your dreams. Please read each thought carefully, and take the time to mentally digest and understand it. Read them as many times as necessary for you to comprehend the message behind them. But most importantly; question everything, including that which is written here, and that which you take for granted or fact. You must never accept any one idea as the ultimate truth or fact; you may arrive at being 99.99% sure about an idea, but never accept it as 100% fact.

8. Destiny

We may be able to make decisions and choose our fate (at least based on what we know at the time), but it is also true that we are bound to other external constraints besides our memory. Everything in the environment is interconnected and is constantly reacting to each other (see Cause and Effect), much like a Domino Effect.

People like to think that the universe works like the human mind; based on reason. For the same reason, people like to believe that the universe is “fair”, meaning that if you do harm to others, the universe will harm you, and vice versa. Some people call this theory KARMA (yet others call it God’s will). Whether this is true or not, the ultimate fact that we know for sure is that we have a lot less control over our fate than we like to think we do or wish we did.

Here is an analogy to destiny:
Take control of the wheel, but choose wisely the road you will take.

This analogy makes allusion to the fact that we do not create our fate, but rather choose it. (And even our choice is not entirely under our control, see Free Will).

Advice: You do what you can do best, and KARMA (or the universe, or God, or whatever) will take care of the rest. Play it safe by helping instead of harming, just in case KARMA is true.

Taken from Dougal Mac Gregor’s “The Path To The Stars”.

The Path To The Stars

By Dougal Mac Gregor

This booklet is a compilation of thoughts, reflections, and advices. This booklet is meant to help you understand the world around you better, arrive at better decisions, enhance the quality of your life, and ultimately find and complete your dreams. Please read each thought carefully, and take the time to mentally digest and understand it. Read them as many times as necessary for you to comprehend the message behind them. But most importantly; question everything, including that which is written here, and that which you take for granted or fact. You must never accept any one idea as the ultimate truth or fact; you may arrive at being 99.99% sure about an idea, but never accept it as 100% fact.

6. Programming & Choice

Programming (or configuring an agenda) is essentially the act of making decisions, in other words, choosing. You are who you want to be, and at the same time, who you can be. You do what you choose to do, and at the same time, what you can do. You will achieve what you desire, and at the same time, what you are meant to achieve.

Choosing is deciding for yourself what to do. If you let someone else choose for you, what you are really doing is choosing to have someone else decide for you. Choice and decision are based on our frame of reference, in other words, our knowledge. The more knowledge and experience you have, the better the choices you can make, or at least in theory, because you might know a lot but have a tendency to make poor choices.

For more information on Choice see Free Will and Destiny.

Advice: Choose wisely, using the best of your knowledge and experience, seek advice and opinions from multiple others, but do not let someone decide for you. Expand your knowledge and experience, only then will you be able to make better decisions.

Taken from Dougal Mac Gregor’s “The Path To The Stars”.