Midnight Musings

What to do on a sleepless midnight? Write down your thoughts...

2010 is going to end very soon, as each day passes very quickly. I have been preparing for the trip to Pagadian City this coming Monday and I am so preoccupied and excited about this new place to visit. I’m going to Mindanao, a beautiful place masked by a dark facade of religious controversy and civil strife, where the family of my Father came from – Sultan Kudarat – his stories revolves around images of poverty, conflict with Muslim people, land grabbing, and militarism. That is why in the later part of his youth, they transferred here to Luzon, despite meagre income opportunities, and they survived, that is why I’m here.

The training in Pagadian City is Community Based Disaster Management Training. I guess it should have been easier have I not watched 11th Hour nor The Inconvenient Truth. Watching these films gave me the burden of always linking DM with Climate Change – which should always be the case, actually. I remember JP during the last time we met (on his birthday), he mentioned that their organization is dealing with Climate Change politics, not really Disaster Management, and I was then asking ‘Why not?’ – his organization saw the links, have weighed, and lead them to deal with CC politics – which I think in ‘our’ organization, what can we actually do, or what have we been doing so far? In the local arena, how are our chapters capacitated to deal with Climate Change issue, or shall we deal with this issue knowing that no matter how we change our lifestyle into loving Mother Earth, we still cannot do so much unless the US signs and ratifies the agreements?

With all these questions, looking back at the last 10 months of experience with the organization, I’m thrilled that at last, at least, I will have the chance to share the lessons I have learned and practised – in Pangasinan, Benguet and most especially, in Zambales.

Danny Cabalyero will be my best friend in Pagadian. It’s going to be one week of stay, and I guess I’m ready for it.

Christmas is near, and still, we haven’t put up some decorations. Things are going smoothly in the house, and I’m looking forward to go home by Christmas in Aurora, hope there’s no disaster at that time, so we’ll all have a disaster-free Xmas. I really wanted to go home, and just relax, my Mom said the cat – Sascha is big already – that’s one of the things to motivate me to go home.

The 11th Hour

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Documentary

See below selected and compiled reviews about this film, a must-see!
...
Salon.com

A haunting, elegiac history of how human beings have brought the planet to the edge of a precipice, and call upon an impressive array of thinkers to discuss how, and whether, we can avoid the abyss that waits below.
...
New York Times
Manohla Dargis

An unnerving, surprisingly affecting documentary about our environmental calamity [that] is such essential viewing.
...
Richard Roeper
Ebert and Roeper

A sobering look at the astounding changes in our planet over the last generation -- and the bleak future that awaits us if we don’t get our act together.
...
San Francisco Chronicle
Joe Garofoli

Best put by Bay Area entrepreneur and environmentalist Paul Hawken: "The best thing about the dilemma we're in is that we get to reimagine every single thing we do. And so there are two ways of looking at that: Oh, my gosh, what a big burden. The other way to look at it, which is the way I prefer, is: "What a great time to be born! What a great time to be alive! Because this generation gets to essentially completely change the world."
...
Detroit Full Press
Terry Lawson

It benefits the most by providing good advice and an abundance of well-considered ideas from forward thinkers of all stripes and persuasions who refuse to give up hope.
...
TreeHugger

The 11th Hour examines the human relationship with earth from its earliest glimmers of innovation, to the challenges humanity faces in the present, to the possibilities of the future.”
...
Variety

“True to its doom-laden title, global-warming doc "The 11th Hour" presents the viewer with reams of depressing data, loads of hand-wringing about the woeful state of humanity and, finally, some altogether fascinating ideas about how to go about solving the climate crisis.”
...
Chicago Reader

The filmmakers take pains not to foster fatalistic gloom, concentrating on some of the progressive solutions still available to us.
...
Toronto Star

If Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth was a warning, The 11th Hour is the red alert.
...
Killer Movie Reviews

Nothing less than a complete rethinking of the relationship between humankind and the planet on which it lives. Complex, challenging, mind-expanding, and sometimes mind-blowing
...
About.com

Among recent documentaries questioning the status quo, The 11th Hour takes the most far-reaching point of view and connects issues into larger patterns, culminating in a truly global call for change.
...
Metromix.com

Manages to be serious without being extreme in its message that global warming is no longer something to be debated but addressed and fought NOW.
...
Montreal Gazette

“Leonardo DiCaprio's environmental film presents a concept of frugality that doesn't preach living cheaply.”
...