The innocent victims of Internet child abuse cannot speak for themselves. But you can. With your help, we can eradicate this evil trade. We do not need your money.

We need you to light a candle of support. We’re aiming to light at least One Million Candles by December 31, 2006.

This petition will be used to encourage governments, politicians, financial institutions, payment organisations, Internet service providers, technology companies and law enforcement agencies to eradicate the commercial viability of online child abuse. They have the power to work together. You have the power to get them to take action.

Do your part here. Light A Million Candles.

Even if this has no concrete consequence, at least spread the word about child pornography and how it’s still very much an issue in our world today. To date there are over 250,000 candles lit and the year’s about to end. Let’s forward the link and meet their goal of 1 million candles.

Light your candle today! http://www.lightamillioncandles.com

Firstly, a big thank you to all those who remembered my birthday, especially those who got reminded via Friendster and sent me SMSes. A big thank you also to my family in CSA, especially Vanessa, who organised a birthday celebration after Mass last Wednesday, despite only finding out about my birthday late Tuesday night.

A huge thank you must also go out to those whom I shared Monday night with - to Jack, who organised it because it was as much his birthday celebration as it was mine; to Alvin, Wai, Alanna and Viv, who got me a fake Absolute Comics $20 voucher as well as the numerical equivalent in real cash (of course), which I’m bound to spend on comics anyway; to Greg and Mel who got me the next best thing to cash - a Kino voucher which I’m probably going to spend on a Marvel Comics Trade Paperback someday; and of course to Colin, who was a welcome face after not having met for so long.

Being 24 has been an odd sensation. On the one hand, you’re expected to display a certain level of maturity and a certain ‘grown-up’ attitude towards life. On the other hand, I definitely feel no different, and if nothing else, will probably end up pressuring myself to live up to what I believe people my age should act like.

Who’s to really say what being 24 is all about, anyway?

For the heck of it, I decided to get one of the blog tracker thinggys that I used to have on this blog while it was still hosted by Blogger. I especially like the function that shows you what people have searched on Google or Yahoo! in order to find your blog.

This past month, it’s been ‘carrie chong jean danker FHM’ or a permutation of such. While I was initially tempted to purchase the latest issue of the magazine featuring the MediaCorp DJs and putting it up to appease those who came here looking for pics… I do realise that the blog is, after all, Catholic by name and by association.

And there has been a spate of Catholic controversy in the news, both local and overseas. The Pope’s comments about Islam and the ‘demonic possession’ suit against Novena Church, two Redemptorists priests and several volunteers being fresh on our minds.

Firstly, and most recently, there’s the uproar about a quote regarding the religion of Islam that Pope Benedict XVI used during his address at the University of Regensburg, Germany. The Pope has since apologised profusely for the remark and insists that he has quoted from a medieval text and does not consider it a personal opinion. I personally have read the official English translation of the talk (link above) and truly, the supposedly offensive quote has been severely taken out of context and the claims go totally against the whole focus of the Pope’s speech. It is simply regretful that several parties have been offended by that particular line, but if nothing else, I hope that this will show a more urgent need for interreligious dialogue and lead to something wonderful down the road.

As for the case regarding ‘demonic possession’ at the Church of St. Alphonsus (better known as Novena Church), it appears that there is a clear distinction between the story told by the plaintiff and that of the defendants. A ‘James Gomez’ case, to put it succintly, where both parties have different agendas and different ways of looking at the same event, which happened two years ago. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there are no close-circuit televisions in that part of the church, or we could have solved this case easily. It is sad that the civil suit is expected to cost at least a million dollars, as the priests involved and the volunteers are surely not appreciating this extra stress that they’re going through now.

I personally have no further thoughts regarding this event, and I’m hoping it will be resolved amicably.

As someone with the moniker ‘Catholic War Machine’, this blog needs to focus a little less on my personal life and more on preserving my Catholic perspective for posterity. It is clear, therefore, that what the Church needs right now is a dose of good publicity.

…that clubbing with guys is more fun than clubbing with girls.

No, I’m not gonna do a Brokeback anytime soon, but when I was at O Bar at Robertson Walk last night, I didn’t enjoy myself as much as I normally do when I hang out with Greg and whoever else might be out.

But let’s start from the very beginning. The snap decision to go out clubbing was brought upon by the fact that we had finally stepped down as the 15th Ex-Co of NTU CSA. After over a year, the term of servant leadership was complete and we wanted to celebrate it. So with chaplain in tow, some twelve of us, including the freshmen from this year’s FOC went out to have a bit of clean enjoyment.

I don’t recall why we scrapped our plans to visit the Ministry of Sound (I’m not stoned… I just wasn’t there when the decision was made), but we soon found ourselves straddling Dbl O and O Bar. That is, until we realised that the freshmen among us were underaged. So the 15th left Dbl O and spent the rest of the night dancing away at O Bar.

It was fun until the wrong crowd started coming in. Seeing a bunch of seven young girls dancing together (only Bowo, Greg, Iggy, Jivan and myself were on the dance floor - James and Wesley were more or less stuck at the bar counter) a couple of guys we didn’t know thought they’d move in for some action. I was slow in recognising this, but after one of them started to grind his hips against our girls, the fun ended in my head and I went into ‘bodyguard’ mode. It was satisfying, to say the least, how my presence was a deterrent to others. I was a turn off and proud of it. Heh.

There was a Caucasian guy that pretended to be drunk (he was probably just high, but I could see that he still had his limited mental faculties) who tried to create a scene among our group, but to no avail, even though he did literally crash into one of the girls (intentionally or otherwise, I’ll never know). He later went on to remove his shirt with another group, resulting in security action, so I suppose he must have just been plain nuts.

In spite of all that, I’m personally thankful that the day ended without any major incident and that everyone, even me, had our share of fun. As James, Greg and I shared outside O Bar, it was funny how, on the last day of our term of service that we finally got our wish to organise a ‘CSA Mambo Nite’ out.

To those from the 15th who went and who will probably never read this *LOL* and to the freshmen who came with us on the spur of the moment… thank you for a great night.

For the first time in a long time, I was free on Monday night, so I sat myself down and caught up with several television programmes that I had otherwise missed in the past month or so.

First, I cosied up with Debbie Wong and Eunice Olsen, the “Main Hosts” of the Arts Central magazine programme Front. I thought the production level of the whole show was pretty well done, even though the dress sense of the two hosts seemed more “fashion-unable” than fashionable. Nonetheless, I appreciated the short tribute that they did for theatre pioneer Kuo Pao Kun and enjoyed the scathing comments said about the “mascots” for the Singapore Biennale - the rather foolish MocMoc and MerMer. I think I will be keeping Front on my “must watch” list from now on.

At 10pm on Channel 5 was the sixth season of America’s Next Top Model. While I was growing tired of the show, especially after the last two seasons, the introduction of Gina Choe and Jade Cole in this cycle perked my interest. Gina is an especially gorgeous Korean girl who has a personality that only I could love. Haha. Her antithesis Jade is an exotic mix of Caucasian, African-American and Native American with a fiery character and an explosive nature. To my delight, of course, Jade survived this week’s elimination to entertain me for another episode.

And then, discovery of discoveries… the HBO Original Series Entourage is a hidden wonder. The show (now into its third season in the US) follows the adventures of Vincent Chase, an upcoming Hollywood superstar who brings his friends from the streets of Queens into the bright lights of the Big City. I’ve always loved these dramedys that are based on a certain reality. Entourage, for example, is supposedly based on Executive Producer Mark Wahlberg’s own rise to stardom.

With three great shows, I doubt my Mondays will ever be the same again.

I guess I must be homophobic.

I had heard about IndigNation, the Gay and Lesbian Pride season in Singapore only recently, thanks to Izzy’s blogpost dated July 20th, way before it began in August. As I scanned through the events, I even spotted a name I recognised, namely Ng Yi-Sheng, whom I had met back in my secondary school days and whose genius I was deeply awed by. But though Yi-Sheng’s book SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century was being launched at IndigNation, I just chose to give the whole event a miss.

(This despite my rather uncharacteristic popping down at the book launch of The Best of Singapore Erotica, meeting up with prolific local author Gerrie Lim, and subsequently buying his latest non-fiction book In Lust We Trust this past Tuesday.)

But back to IndigNation. The event ended on the 24th and was, by most peoples’ standards, a resounding success. Of course, in terms of mainstream success, no event came quite as close to TalkingCock in Parliament. With free admission and a horde of celebrity guests including Hossan Leong, Kirpal Singh, mrbrown and Mr Miyagi, it was no wonder that over 800 people showed up for the event, leading many to be turned away when the Old Parliament House could not handle the number.

Though I now regret not being there in person, I thank Salt*Wet*Fish for the following links. In order of my personal preference, from “worth watching” to “die die also must watch”:

Kirpal Singh gets into the mood as he addresses Parliament about the serious issue of ‘making babies’

mrbrown and Mr Miyagi close the TCP event with a reminder on what makes us Singaporean

Hossan Leong gives a history lesson of Singapore sung to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (now with Karaoke lyrics!)

and my personal favourite

Ruby Pan drives home the point that no one is truly speaking English in Singapore

Enjoy!