The recent anomaly in melamine-tainted milk products prompted the authorities to ban all products proven to contain traces of the harmful chemical. They even threatened to shut down stores which continue to sell those tainted products. Every single day you read and hear about melamine this and melamine that. I asked myself, “Is this really such a big deal or is the government overreating?” Then, I answered my own question, “Of course it’s a big deal! The government is NOT overreacting. It’s doing what it’s supposed to do… protecting the people.”
Let’s ignore the fact that I talk to myself a lot (but you got to admit, you talk to yourself, too), so we could focus on the issue at hand: Some greedy, no-good businessmen are cutting corners to make a quick buck at the expense of the consumers. It’s one thing to cheat and give less than what the customer is paying for, but it’s completely unacceptable to jeopardize a customer’s health without him knowing it.* And in this current scenario, innocent babies are being killed. Absolutely unforgivable!
It’s unfortunate that a number of helpless babies had to sacrifice their ultra-short lives just to educate the general public about the harmful effects of: melamine in particular, business cheating in general.
* The same case could not be said about the tobacco industry, wherein the consumers are willing victims. But that’s another topic.
10/11/08
10/9/08
Pay Attention!
According to Seth Godin: “We’ve been trained since youth to replace paying attention with taking notes. That’s a shame.” It’s amazing how he encapsulated in one short sentence (ok, two, if you count the extra comment) what many of us have observed all these years.
In the Word Camp event I attended last September (wow, the days just flew by), a whole bunch of bloggers brought their laptops and decided to post the minute-by-minute events as they were unfolding. I think they call it liveblogging. That’s cool and all, but in one particular session, I was rather annoyed by a seatmate who was so busy liveblogging that he kept asking “Ano daw?” to his friend (a very patient friend, if I may add) whenever the audience would burst out in laughter in response to the speaker’s punchline.
Don’t you just hate having to repeat a joke to someone who wasn’t paying attention? It disrupts your enjoyment of humor because midway through your ha-ha-ha, while your mouth and nostrils are wide open, you have to cut it short because an “important” person wants in on the joke… which was there for the taking if only he was listening in the first place!
Some people think they have the capacity to listen to a speaker and compose an article simultaneously. Experts argue that multitasking is a counterproductive habit that causes more harm than good. I guess Mr. Liveblogger was just trying to prove that theory.
In the Word Camp event I attended last September (wow, the days just flew by), a whole bunch of bloggers brought their laptops and decided to post the minute-by-minute events as they were unfolding. I think they call it liveblogging. That’s cool and all, but in one particular session, I was rather annoyed by a seatmate who was so busy liveblogging that he kept asking “Ano daw?” to his friend (a very patient friend, if I may add) whenever the audience would burst out in laughter in response to the speaker’s punchline.
Don’t you just hate having to repeat a joke to someone who wasn’t paying attention? It disrupts your enjoyment of humor because midway through your ha-ha-ha, while your mouth and nostrils are wide open, you have to cut it short because an “important” person wants in on the joke… which was there for the taking if only he was listening in the first place!
Some people think they have the capacity to listen to a speaker and compose an article simultaneously. Experts argue that multitasking is a counterproductive habit that causes more harm than good. I guess Mr. Liveblogger was just trying to prove that theory.
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