All the Way... More than a decade but Eons

All the Way... a Decade of Song is a celebration of Celine's decade of journey in terms of her career, life, so on. I noticed her sincerity from her message in the cover leaf of the album and it led me to tears when she thanked one again, Rene for all the good times they shared together as partner, couple, friend. This album is not only about Celine but this is a nice package to be given as gift to friends, special someone, parents who are celebrating their anniversaries.

Let me have a rundown and give you an impression of each song in the album:

The Power of Love. is Celine's version that I think more powerful as she exercises her vocal prowess. I heard two versions from Elaine Page and the Air Supply but certainly this is the best one in terms of rhythm, beat and style.

Beauty and the Beast is a magical duet with Peabo Bryson which immortalizes the Walt Disney Movie in my thoughts. I love the blending as they sing the chorus and this pop version is certainly one of the most popular Disney Songs that I include in my play list.

Because you Loved Me is a song written by Diane Warren. Among many songs written by one of my favorite song writers, this has one of the best lyrics to be dedicated to anyone. It begins with a relaxing tone and ends brilliantly with that line, "Because you love".

It's All Coming Back to me Now. has a long and short version, the one included in the album is the shortened version that has more electric instruments and too digital to listen. I love the long version though it takes about 5 minutes listening. Sounds like forever.

Immortality. is a collaboration with the Bee Gees, it really captures your mind from the seventies era and let's you time-travel to this space. Like what I've said in my other review, the group seemed to be more as a back-up vocals.

To Love You more. I love the violin introduction and the orchestral arrangements with this one. I would certainly love this song to be sung by Andre Bocelli with Vanessa Mae doing the violin... Imaginative!

My Heart Will Go On. is still immortal in this album, it kept me wondering why but the touch of the heart of the ocean is still here and to follow it with another song "Be the Man", is a relief from that tiring ending which sounded like an ambulance siren.

I'm your Angel is a fantastic duet with the RnB sensation R. Kelly but thought to be this ironic since the man didn't end up like one yet I like the blending and the natural fade of the song from that competing bridge.

That's the Way it is. is more like the beat of A new Day has come but it never ceases to amaze me on what level can we sing through it?

If the Walls could Talk and The first Time I ever saw your face. are two exceptionally collaborated interpretations that are somewhat related. The latter however is a revival that is given a gloomy interpretation.

Lastly, the four songs: All the Way, Then You Look at Me, I want you to need Me, and Live are the important pieces that you need to pay attention to. It provides a cinematic experience and the instrumentation are so vivid that you wished you're in an opera house.

All the way... a decade of Song is rare but the songs put together are just as appropriate for Celine's choice because this is I believe to be personal and I guess she deserves a standing ovation for such interpretations.

AS YET ANOTHER B’DAY PASSED BY

Thanks for the wonderful b’day wish (though you were late by a fortnight :D). It was a real nice song. Your voice is a treat to ears. I too, wish you well. Happenings and events of our life begin with birth and end with death but "Life" has a continuity which can't be broken down or divided into years or decades. We measure time and as we grow old, we look back from every year to see what all happened in our lives in the past. We even compare the passing year with the other years of our life and try to calculate how important the passing year was, how different it was... We arrange and put events according to our historical perspective. I don’t know if people take resolutions on their b’days but many people make resolutions for new year and at the end of each year, they boast of how much they succeeded in standing by their resolutions and cycle goes on. Ahhh!! How can people have such a systematic and planned life through resolutions, diaries and notebooks? How can they? For me, I can't...

When I feel alone and need support and mental power I read books ( Though I am a bibliomaniac but I think I haven’t read any book in my selection till its last page…..:D). Anyways. Once I came across a line in a Hindi book it was like this- HE WHO DOESN'T KNOW WHERE HE IS GOING, WILL GO THE FARTHEST. Interesting? Naah, how true? And I went thinking- Those who have set goals for themselves will reach till there only but those who have not and are just drifting with time and tide- as if fishing in infinity, nothingness- they will surely reach to a place which neither they had thought nor the world has ever thought. When we get immersed in nothingness and live along with infinite possibilities anything is possible for us. I say those who are running will never reach the place they want to. You can say I am crazy but believe me- "To be able to reach somewhere, you don't have to run or walk briskly or even stroll". Many people don't run to reach anywhere. They run to have the feel of being in the run and maybe, this also keeps them healthy.

As I said, "you don't need to run or walk continuously to reach somewhere"- More or less it is a mental state. Much before the starting of this neo-Liberal age of hustle-bustle and running amuck, like a headless chicken.

"A story was written in our Puranas (These are religious scriptures of Hindus, full of stories and anecdotes ). Once Lord Shiva and his wife, Parvati were sitting on mount Kailash (their abode). They called their sons Kartikeya (the elder of the two) and Ganesh. They asked them if they could go around Earth and come back. Whosoever comes first, will be blessed by them. Kartikeya was a young and energetic boy, peacock was his vehicle ( in Hindu mythology every important deity has been identified with a creature, latter being their vehicle...it has other practical meanings also.). On the other hand, Ganesh- though he was young, was short, stout and had a pot belly with mouse has his vehicle. Among Hindu's of north India, Ganesh is a very important god. He has a strange figure, skull and face of an elephant and has a trunk also...Amusing for you naaa…

Ganesh is the deity of knowledge, loves eating Laddu's- a especial kind of round shaped sweet. So for Ganesh to go round Earth was harder then Kartikeya. Kartikeya immediately set off for the journey. Ganesh was in a fix. He decided something else. He bowed in front of his parents and mount Kailash, offered prayers went round them and sat at his place eating Laddu's. His parents also didn't objected to this.

After sometime, Kartikeya returned with a winner's attitude, bowed in front of his parents and stood aside smiling because Ganesh was not even in the race. On seeing Kartikeya standing, Ganesh also came and stood there beside his brother with a proud face. Ganesh said that parents are bigger and important than any other thing in this entire universe, so going around them once means going around Earth 1000 times. Hence he is the winner. So, what you think or say, who is the winner?? You know about what Ganesh did, and yes Kartikeya did went around earth did put in all his effort and who knows that when his peacock might have puffed he would have ran on his foot. After so much labor and hard work, isn't he the winner? NO. The story say's that Lord Shiv and Parvati declared Ganesh as winner and blessed him.

One of my friend once remarked that Ganesh used the buttering tactics to flatter his parents so he was declared winner. The honest and laborious Kartikeya got nothing. So where parents don't treat their children equally but are biased towards one who flatterers... Can honesty, truth and labor be valued in such a society? What you say? One is free to draw his or her conclusions.

I said nothing to my friend. What could have I? I have been taught from childhood to use intelligence and knowledge. Ganesh is the god of intelligence and knowledge. He didn't waste time and energy in literally going around Earth. Instead he used his intelligence. Isn't it true that none is more important for us than our parents? So, intelligence is the biggest sword. Anyways one thing is clear from this story that it is merely a question of how you take something and give meaning to it. Reaching somewhere or achieving some big goal can't only be decided by objective standards of valuation. It is also decided by what you think about it. And your decisive power should be such that the whole world falls in line with you.

Don't think that I am ignoring the basic rules of this world or that I am escapist by nature. One should do whatever he feels is good for him or her but if you are not in the race, then you should not be jealous of anyone. If others' lives don't kindle in you the desire to live then you should not feel left out and then, why calculate gains and loses? People might have covered milestones and I am where I was- so be it. Well, to lag behind and get rotten is more psychological then physical. So it is up to you whether you feel happy with what you have or not. Those people who live by the values of and standards of others don't have their own values and standards. They are living their life at the mercy of this world. Can god, world or society ever help or do anything for anyone? No, I don't think so. We will always be what we want to be- will reach where we want to reach. None but we can decide this for ourselves.

It will be philosophical to say that don't run behind success but I take that chance because success is given by this world. So just try to be meaningful because we are meaningful or not can only be judged by us. No one can know you from outside whether you are what you wanted to be. Real pleasure of life is in being what you want to be and to live the way you want to live. They say not many people know what it means to be "to be" and those who know become too much practical. Some say it's a vicious circle. Thinking ourselves to be the centre of universe is the pastime of philosophers of individualism. What you say are we made by this world and its time?

Now they are saying that you will be whatever market wants you to be. From where does this market has got this god- like power? Till yesterday there was religion, there was state, there was Science, there was thought. Today there is "market" because those who have capital want market and those who have market they want to make it god because man easily surrenders before god. These supporters of market are themselves non-believers but they want to make market in the name of god. Capital is their real god and profits their salvation. In my country, there is an old saying that "Maya" i.e. wealth is deceptive. Market is the shine of this wealth. So if we know the real character of Maya then we will not be deceived and if we let ourselves to be deceived then it’s done knowingly. All is meant to say that no one can make us but only we can make ourselves. So why to be afraid of market? If I went past market and I am not its customer then why should I be afraid of it? It can't harm me. Majority of the people of my country are outside the reach of market about whom it says it can make their life. It will take decades for these people to become the part of market and I think by then, market would be a thing of past. As communism went past in many countries without touching the lives of majority of people, as socialism went past in my country.

Aaah!! what am I writing? You just wished me Happy B’day, I must stop my bla bla…. In a country where average age is 64 yrs I have almost completed half. In a way life has not yet started for me. So many stars to catch, so many skies to reach. Have to search for answers- WHO AM I and why I am here? And yes, have to meet ISHU with a beautiful Red Rose. So in a way passing of yet another b’day is just a matter like changing of calendar. Time is infinite. Life is continuous.

Thanks my friend. All the best!!!

GMANews.TV - Arroyo's State of the Nation Address 2009 - Video - Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs - Latest Philippine News

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SANA statement of Sen. Francis Escudero

Doctors Day India

Just want to share to you this email sent to me by a friend, Kushal Pratap Singh from India. (July 1, 2009).

_________

Buna friends! Here I go again. It's July 1 and Doctors Day India. Well in US and other western countries it's celebrated on March 30, the day when Dr. Crawford W. Long first used ether anaesthesia in surgery. We celebrate it on July 1, as a mark of respect for the great physician, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy.

So it’s time for us to show appreciation and say thanks to the doctors who care for us (???).

Lets talk about Dr. George Tiller. He was from US. Dr. Tiller, who was one of very few doctors in US who publicly provided late term abortions to women, was dedicated and passionate about saving women’s lives. He was known for wearing a button that said “Trust Women.” So naturally he was on the hit list of CHRISTIAN TALIBAN’S and OSAMA’S. Death threats, harassment, vandalism, rabid picketers, baseless lawsuits were a part of Tiller’s daily life. In 1986 his clinic was bombed. In 1991, his clinic was under total siege by the anti-abortionists for 47 days in what they called the “Summer of Mercy.” In 1993, he was shot in both arms by Shelly Shannon who identified with the extreme Christian Fascist group called the Army of God. Dr. Tiller neva backed down. But on a fateful Sunday (May 31), this year, he was murdered by an anti-abortion assassin.

Now lets talk about a great Indian Doctor of our times, Dr. Binayak Sen. A pediatric doctor by profession — a gold medalist, from the prestigious Christian Medical College (CMC) in Vellore. A mesmeric character — intense, articulate, idealistic, a man of privilege who seeks nothing for himself, his two years of detention by the state of Chhattisgarh on shameful frivolous charges of sedition, criminal conspiracy, making war against the nation, and knowingly using the proceeds of terrorism (sic), is a scandal that should shame any civilized society. Binayak Sen has worked for more than 30 years with the tribal poor in Chhattisgarh, battling malnutrition, tuberculosis, and the lethal falciparum malaria strain rampant in the area. He ran his famous Tuesday clinic in the forests’ around Bagrumala and Sahelberia in district Dhamtari, peopled by Kamars and other tribals, the most neglected of the Indian human chain, destituted further by the Gangrail dam on the Mahanadi river. No schools. No drinking water. No electricity. No access to public health. And increasingly, no access to traditional forest resources.

In 2004, CMC honoured Binayak with its prestigious Paul Harrison Award. In a moving citation, it said, “Dr Binayak Sen has carried his dedication to truth and service to the very frontline of the battle. He has broken the mould, redefined the possible role of the doctor in a broken and unjust society, holding the cause much more precious than personal safety. CMC is proud to be associated with Binayak Sen.” I think that speaks volumes for the man. For more about him plzz Google his name.

And now lets return to our real world. My city, Bareilly, I think it has more Doctors than the vendors and grocers. You will find them at every nook and corner of the city. But these are incidents of Government hospitals. June 24. A small town Ramnagar. A woman gave birth to a child. But where? -At the gates of the hospital, under the burning sun. Why?- She was denied entry cuz the PHC (Primary Health Centre) was closed n its opening time was uncertain.

Next, June 26, women hospital, Bareilly. A pregnant lady was turned back by hospital staff with the advice that the baby is dead and she should go to a private hospital for operation. On her way to a private hospital she gave birth to TWINS. (Yeaaa alive twins, one on the cycle rickshaw itself and the other in the house of gentleman.) Inquiries have been ordered and hopefully they will go on and on and on. As always, "Poor People, Hungry People, Indian People". Anyways, "our wishes to Tiller’s and Sen’s and to those who really care for us..."

KP

Case Unclosed: Sino ang Pumatay Kay Ninoy?