Avengers: End Game

This 3-hour film is being shown for 24 hours in cinemas.

If only our courts would function likewise, perhaps their dockets would not be so clogged. Meantime, there's mediation to help out about those mean times.

Fr. Rocky Evangelista

With a childhood much like his name, Fr. Rocky was likewise saved by the Salesians of Don Dosco. In turn, he has transformed street children into productive individuals. Three things he asks them beforehand:
1. Do you accept you are poor?
2. Do you want to do something about it?
3. Are you willing to obey the rules?

Mediators could ask the same of disputants.

Ice Hockey

The Philippines surprisingly lorded over this game in a recent Asean tournament.

You never know the capacity of disputants for goodwill unless nurtured in mediation.

France's vermin

This was the reference to gypsies in a CinemaEurope film about the time of Hitler's Jews. They have survived and as far back as 1997, gypsies hovered over the Notre Dame area.

Such language and bias have no place in mediation.

Half and Half

A well-meaning Kiwanian colleague brought us some Ginseng Coffee which really tastes like soil! Started giving them away with the advice to add a lot of cream and (brown) sugar. Till i followed my own advice and mixed one-half part of it with one-half part of a 3-in-1 coffee sachet.

Successful coffee mediation!

Sweet Tooth, Green Thumb

Title of Gene Gonzalez' article got us to thinking. We now have bluetooth and eyes can also be green with envy.

As mediation deals with, at times.

Theory of Everything

It chronicles the remarkable battle of Stephen Hawkings against all odds, when "there's next to nothing but the brain that works."

Puts disputants to shame.

He's Not Just That Into You

Alibi 2 in this funny take on relationships in Africa: "Maybe he forgot the number of your hut or was eaten by a lion!"

Ex-cuses abound in mediation.

Full Moon

It may not cause luna-cy but "repression of the moon's gravitational influence brings about social tension, disharmony and bizarre results," says a recent study. Florida police records, for instance, show an increasing number of assaults and murder cases around the Full Moon.

Not a very credible alibi in mediation, though.

Color Blind

Still on our Sight Series, an Inquirer Young Blood contributor Niza Mae Canedo recalls the travails of a childhood steeped in being "morena." Hence, she vows to raise children blind to color.

And to status, finances, etc. mediators remain neutral as well.

Blind Leading the Blind

"Little House on the Prairie" literally showed this when eldest daughter Mary lost her eyesight from scarlet fever complications. Her blind teacher taught her to sharpen her hearing of where voices and other sounds were coming from.  She learned to write guided by a ruler. And touched the face of her teacher turned fiance with whom she ultimately established another school for the blind.

Most mediations end successfully too.

Music Therapy

CNNPH featured a new intervention started by St. Paul Manila. The blind can hear so they are taught by a song, "Paano ba isuot ang T-shirt na ito?"

Mediators are also tasked to mine more than only the material resources of disputants toward a Compromise Agreement.

Rewind Networks Production

They are the source of all the HITS reruns of sitcoms.

Also the cause of most conflicts in mediation, clogged like the court dockets. So during the sessions, focus is more on what can be done and not on what has transpired.

Kaliwa Dam

GMA News TV last night featured an advocate friend, Fr. Pete Montallana regarding this controversial dam. As head of the Save Sierra Madre Network Alliance, he says we need more trees not dams in order to have more water to be taken from Quezon Province to Quezon City, as this dam aims to do. GMA's Sandra Aguinaldo was also not able to secure the proposed plan of the dam which has an earmarked cost already and pending loan to China.

Kaliwaan, damn!

Pro-action

Our Daily Bread's reading today will make mediators jobless. John the Baptist admonishes people to share with others.

If that happens, they would not take advantage of each other, of course.

Telemedicare

With DOH hardly able to take care of all our citizens, telemedicare in far-flung areas with tourists to boot is truly a godsent development.

Such creative solutions is much like mediation.

Clouds

Someone compared them to people. When they disappear, it's a beautiful day.

Mediation takes care of "cloudy" persons.

Empowering PWDs

CNN PH featured a visually-challenged De La Salle University professor.

Like mediators empower disputants especially those on unequal level.

In salt

Aside from adding to the injury and pain, "insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong," according to Rousseau. As a fallacy, they fall under Ad Hominem.

Mediators cut these short when employed by disputants.

Venezuelan EJKs

PH does not export only labor. Crime as well.

Not exactly national pride, both.

Outrageous Intrusion

That is how our Senators describe their US counterparts' motion for the release of Senator de Lima and Rappler's Maria Ressa from trumped up charges. Not a peep from them though about China's maritime occupation of parts of the West Philippine Sea.

Mediation sees the good and bad in disputants.

The Right Way to Argue

This is a trend now that is getting popular, reports CNN.

Mediation shows the way to do it.

Make Create Innovate

CNN featured the development of communication from telegram to hologram.

In conflict resolution, it has gone from the court to mediation.

Music and Lyrics

Sunday treat from HBO about a has-been rock star who claims he is a happy has-been.

For unhappy ones, there is mediation to resolve conflicts.

A Summer Tale

CinemaEurope's Swedish offering had an illiterate old man who ran a funeral parlor. One of his wards observed that this was the best arrangement so no one could disagree with him.

Otherwise, there is mediation.

Little House on the Prairie

Another HITS rerun had Charles Ingalls siding with the "heathen" Indians over his Christian neighbors. When chased away by the whites, Charles exchanged his wagon carrying the ailing Indian chief for another man's wagon to escape the posse.

Creative mediation!

Who's the Boss

HITS feature had housekeeper Tony asking his young ward how he wants his eggs. Reply- in its shell! Asked for an alternative, Tony retorts, hunger!!!

Mediators have to be up on their toes with smart-alecky disputants.

Colossians

They were admonished by Paul: "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace."

Could start a mediation session.

Daniel

Our Daily Bread reminds us that even while Daniel fretted for 21 days about a war, he was already answered by God on the first day he prayed.

Mediation is like that, compared to the often long drawn court case.

Make, Create, Innovate

CNN features the latest in modern inventions. One particular solution to deer accidents on highways was particularly simple and doable- neon-spray painting their horns!

Mediation follows suit and avoids one.