Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Take a break with Domestic Jokes


Selected by Dr Abe V Rotor

1. The many faces of Peace
Peace is often mispronounced and a butt of jokes: fish, feast, piss, fish be with you, phase 1- phase 2, piece of paper, may you rest in peace (good sleep). – (Fr. Jerry Orbos, June 11, 2006)

2. Count
What comes after five? Six, po. 7? Eight, po. Who taught you how to count? My father, po. What comes next after ten? Jack, po. (Fr. Jerry Orbos, June 11, 2006)

3. Grabe!
Two magkumare talking. “I am worried about my husband. Gabi na, siguro pumunta na naman sa kanyang chicks.”
Ang pessimistic mo naman. Na accidente lang yan.” (Fr. Jerry Orbos, October 2006)

4. Just to show you
A wife was frying eggs for her husband’s breakfast. Suddenly her husband burst into the kitchen, “Careful…
CAREFUL! Put in some more butter! Oh my GOD! You’re cooking too many at once. TOO MANY! Turn them! TURN THEM NOW! We need more butter. Oh my GOD! WHERE are we going to get MORE BUTTER? They’re going to STICK! Careful… CAREFUL! I said be CAREFUL! You NEVER listen to me when you’re cooking! Never! Don’t forget to salt them. Use the salt. USE THE SALT! THE SALT!”

The wife stared at him. “What the hell is wrong with you? You think I don’t know how to fry eggs?”

The husband calmly replied, “I wanted to show you how it feels like to have you sitting next to me when I’m driving. ~

Monday, January 28, 2013

Are you a candidate of heart attack?

Dr Abe V Rotor

You can tell if a person is a candidate of heart attack by his features and life style. (May palatandaan ang isang tao na madaling maatake.)

Heart attacks have been linked to diet (eating too much fatty food), excessive smoking and obesity, and also to less obvious risk factors. Old folks associate the following observations to heart attack.

• Baldness – Medical research found out that a shiny spot on top of the head has been linked to a risk in heart attack three times higher than average.
• Body shape – Being overweight is bad enough, but a person whose fat lies more in the abdomen than the hips is especially prone to heart attack. Too much fat in the middle is sure sign of vulnerability to heart attack.

Smoking and high cholesterol contribute to heart attack.

• Bad gums – True. People with periodontal disease have higher risk of heart attack by nearly twice. Bacteria may enter the blood and cause deadly clots.

• Foul weather – Exposure to very cool temperatures can trigger heart attacks as well as angina and strokes. Extreme hot temperature has similar effects. Summer strokes are common.

• Day of the week and time of the day – Cardiac events tend to occur most often between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays. Cardiac attack takes its toll on very busy people who do know their limits.

A man in his middle age who has these features, who is careless to his health, and comes from a family with a history of heart attack is virtually a dead man walking. ~
-------------
Obesity not only increases health risks but also reduces life expectancy. it is associated with  diabetes, coronary heart disease, cancers, and gall bladder disease. (FNRI, Internet).


12 Reasons I love to paint landscapes

Dr Abe V Rotor
 Mural, Light through the Woods, 2010
 Mural, Convergence of Nature 2010
 A thing of beauty is a boy forever 2008
                                        Mural detail, Whispering Stream (2006)
Detail of hanging mural, Dumaguete Seaport in the early nineties, 2000
Living along a stream, 2008; Old lighthouse mural detail, circa 1995; 
Silence of the Pond; wall mural, Upland, author's residence 2002 
Old Stone House, 1969; mural detail Sunken Pier 2005
Arial View of Hills and Streams on the Cordillera 
Rampage (2008)
 Mural detail, Coral Reef, 2000
 Mural detail St Paul College WWII (2000); DLSU-DasmariƱas campus (2003)
A forest of fire trees (2009)
Mural Forest Stream, author's residence 2007


1. I love to paint landscapes; it opens before me the biggest stage, the biggest screen,  the widest view of the world, combining the land, the water and the sky in unity and harmony. 

2. I love to paint landscapes; it takes me to the world of imagery where reality and fantasy blend into a unique beauty that exists in neither realm. 

3. I love to paint landscapes; it presents the original creation in its pristine state developed through millions of years by Nature's hand.   

4. I love to paint landscapes; it records the marks of man's society on the environment, altering it in pursuit of his dreams, economics, arts, ideology and belief.  

5. I love to paint landscapes to catch the march of seasons in thousand-and-one  wonderful scenes in repeated cycles in a lifetime, and beyond.

6. I love to paint landscapes not only their expressions in colors, forms and figures, but the breadth and depth they lead the imagination into - scenarios breathtaking, grandiose and mysterious. 

7. I love to paint landscapes; it takes me away from the boredom of living; it gives me respite from work, cares and worries of life; at the end, find enlightenment, joy and freedom. 

8. I love to paint landscapes, the macrocosm of our detailed world, the wholeness of creation, and the synergy that keeps the world in a state of dynamic balance. 

9. I love to paint landscapes; it is turning back the hands of time, tracing the stages through which our world has undergone in scenarios built by imagination and guided by age-old wisdom and modern-day discovery.  

10. I love to paint landscapes; it reveals a secret garden that man has long sought for, since the time his forebears were forever banished from a famed paradise.   

11. I love to paint landscapes to re-create that lost Eden on canvas, make-believe as it may seem, yet emanates from the human spirit that expresses love and reverence to the Creator.

12.  I love to paint landscapes; I am dwarfed by the mountains, the sea, the sky; minuscule I am to their immensity, humbly I submit myself to the Omnipotence and the reason He made them for me and mankind.~ 


Wall mural, Tropical Rainforest 2000

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Folk Wisdom for Kids: Tips when buying fruits, fish, and processed food (Tenth of a Series)

Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) 
with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 Evening Class, Monday to Friday

1. Tips when buying fruits, a short list.

What part of a fruit is the best?  The best part of papaya is the lower half; it is more fleshy, sweeter and deeper in color.  In the case of pineapple it is the opposite – the upper half is superior. Here is a cursory list to guide buyers and consumers.
·         Lansones – Extra large fruits have big seeds, and are not in any way sweeter than the rest in the bunch. Choose the medium size, quite elongated, and bright yellow in color.
·         Cucumber – Choose the size for pickling or about.  As the fruit matures it loses its firm cartilaginous consistency and the seeds have already matured.  Harvest okra, cowpea, patola, batao and string beans when still succulent, other wise they become fibrous. 
·         Squash – Tough to the fingernail, does not exude sap.  The fruit is mature and seasoned, and has glutinous (malagkit) consistency.
·        
Typical fruit stands on the roadside.

Ampalaya – Break the tip of the stem and look for the yellowish to orange coloration at the center. Red means the fruit is over mature.  
Watermelon  Stripes are distinct and widespread. The cut stem should be green. Tap the fruit with the forefinger.  If the sound is deep and dull, the fruit is ripe. Better still, ask the seller to make a triangular cut through the fruit.  
Banana – The upper fruits in the bunch are bigger, sweeter and the first to ripen.·            Caimito – Fruits becomes shiny when it is about to ripen. This is also true in avocado (Persea Americana)  and tiesa (Locuma nervosa).
·         Chico – Lightly scrape the skin of the fruit with your fingernail. If underneath is green it is not yet ready for harvesting. This is also a guide in buying unripe chico.
·         Sugar apple or atis (Anona squamosa) – Fruit well expanded, canals are distinct, color turns pale green.   
 ·         Sugarcane for chewing – Get the internodes closest to the base; they are sweeter than those near the top.
2. Tips when buying fish, a short list. 
·         Bangus – Choose one with fat belly, one-kilo size is best.  If the lower tail fin is shorter than the upper one, it is the famous Bonoan (Dagupan) bangus. 
·         Tilapia – Get those with thick and supple body. Three pieces to a kilo is best. 
·         Catfish (hito) – Always buy the fish live.  Yellowish belly means it is fat.
·         Mudfish or snakehead (dalag) – Always buy it live.  Yellow to bright orange belly means it is fat, and the female may be carrying eggs.
·         Carp – Sometimes called Imelda, the head is fat and fleshy. When buying the chopped fish, get the head and middle part.
·         Crab (Alimango) – Female crabs even if they are more expensive make the best buy. They have 
     more fat (aligi) especially during New Moon than the males. This is true with talangka or freshwater crabs, shrimps, lobsters and crayfish.
·         Prawn – Freshly caught prawns are translucent. Reject if the head or cephalothorax is discolored, all the more if it is severed, and unpleasant odor detected.
·         Green mussels (tahong– Pry open and see if it is fatty. It must have a clean, fresh smell.  Reject if it emits even the slightest foul or oil odor. 
Ambulant fish vendor (Lagro Subd, QC); a variety of marine fish (Farmer's Market QC)

·         Marine fish – Dynamited fish invariably have eyes, abdomen, scale and flesh battered by the blast.  Report to nearest authority the presence of such fish.
·         Anchovies – It has a very short shelf life, and must be preserved in ice. Many people eat it raw (kilawin) when newly caught, with ginger, onion, and tomato. The best recipes are tamales (wrapped in banana leaves with ginger and salt), and torta (fried with egg). Anchovies are made into dilis and fishmeal.   

3. Tips when buying processed food products.
·         Bagoong – Genuine patis is clear, golden in color, and forms the top layer, while the bagoong occupies the rest of the bottle. If mixed or it forms a layer at the middle or at the bottom, the bagoong is unseasoned, or adulterated, or both.
·         Honeybee – It should not solidify into crusty sugar in the refrigerator.  If it does, it is diluted and adulterated with sugar.
·         Vegetable oil – A trace of rancidity is clear indication it is no longer fit for human consumption.   
·         Peanut butter – Caution: Usually broken and inferior peanut is ground into peanut butter; healthy seeds are sold a whole peanut. Thus, peanut butter contains higher levels of aflatoxin, a carcinogenic substance formed by Aspergillus flavus. ~   

Scenarios of our children living in a Postmodern World


Dr Abe V Rotor 
Living with Nature - School on Blog 
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) 
 with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 Evening Class, Monday to Friday
 
 
 
Children, children everywhere - "Quo vadis?"

1. Our children live in a Renaissance in the new age: post-capitalism order, environmental revolution, devolution of corporate dominance, green technologies, and space exploration. Our children comprise a new breed of more dedicated leaders. They hold the key to change. They play the role of the little prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's novel The Little Prince, who saved the pilot whose plane crashed on the Sahara desert.

2. Our children will continue looking for the missing links of science, history, religion, astronomy etc., among them the source of life itself and its link with the physical world. 
This includes linking of disciplines, narrowing down the gaps of specializations, making of a new concept of Man and culture. 

3. Our children are at the front line and center of people’s revolution spreading worldwide. Arab Spring is sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, so with the escalating unrest questioning the present world order. The young are angry at the inability of government and capitalism to narrow down economic inequity. Occupy Wall Stree! is the battle cry in the US. Greece, Italy, Spain, once world powers in their own time are undergoing a similar revolution.

4. Our children will live simpler lives, going back to basics, preferring natural over artificial goods and services.  In the long run they are less wasteful than us. They learn to face a hidden desire to escape when things get rough, an instinct for survival either by detour or turning back.  

5. Our children face the consequences of  loss of privacy and secrecy from personal to institutional transparency. “You can no longer hide. There is no place you can remain with comfortable anonymity.”

6. Our children’s involvement in social media makes them actors and not mere spectators. They are involved, concerned with issues, local and far reaching.  Development Communication rises above conventional entertainment and reactionary media.  They favor transparency to attain social justice. Wikileak unveiled classified information about the Iraq and Afghanistan war.  Bank secrecy laws and safeguards are changing.  Citizens claim their right to access to hidden financial transactions.

7. Our children inherit our aging infrastructure.  Aging Infrastructure pulls down the economy, increases risk to disaster, creates ghost cities and makes life miserable.
We have created artificial ecosystems in deserted towns, inside the 38th Parallel between the two Koreas, land mines areas, deserted high rise buildings, and now in radiation-affected areas of Chernobyl and Fukoshima. 

8. Our children are being deprived of natural beauty and bounty with the unabated  shrinking wildlife, conversion of farms and pastures into settlements, and destruction of natural habitats and ecosystems.  “Canned Nature” (delata) have become pseudo Nature Centers. Gubat sa Siyudad, Fantasyland, Ocean Park, Disneyland

9. Our children, and succeeding generations become more and more vulnerable to various infirmities – genetic,  physiological, psychological, pathological.  Computer Syndrome is now pandemic, and its toll is increasing worldwide, with South Korea, China, US, Japan, India leading the list. 

10. Our children’s learning process through codification defeats logical thinking and creativity, thus affecting their reasoning power, judgment and decision, originality of thought and ideas.  More and more children are computer-dependent. They find simple equations and definitions difficult without electronic gadget.

11. Our children face the age of singularity  whereby human and artificial intelligence are integrated.  Robotics robs human of his rights and freedom – new realm of curtailment and suppression. (2045 – The Year Man Becomes Immortal – Time Magazine).  This is falsehood!

12. Our children find a world of archives - memories, reproductions, replicas – of a real world lost before their own time. We are making fossils,  biographies, dirges and laments, as if devoid of sense of guilt.

13.    Our children are overburdened by education.  They need freedom to learn in their own sweet time and enjoy the bliss and adventure of childhood and adolescence.
E-learning is taking over much of the role of schools and universities.  Open Universities, Distance Learning will dwarf classroom instruction. This is a revival of the academy of Plato’s dream. 

14. Our children become more and more transient in domicile where work may  require, and for personal reasons, and when given the choice and opportunity in a global perspective, intermarriages notwithstanding. “Citizen of the world” is a person without a specific country.  He is therefore, rootless, baseless, transient. Humans since creation are rooted politically, culturally – and biologically most of ll.

15. Our children become new heroes – heroes for the environment, martyrs for Mother Earth. Heaven is in a regained Paradise on earth. A universal faith, irrespective of denomination, is shaping up fast.

16. Our children face acculturation and inter-racial marriages.  Melange of races is on the rise – Eurasian, Afro-American, Afro-Asian,  etc. – a homogenization process that reduces - if not pollutes - natural gene pools, as a consequence. Culturally and scientifically, this is dangerous.  Homogenization leads to extinction of races and ultimately the species. 

17. Our children will clean the land, water and air we the generation before littered.  They will heal the earth we defaced, damage. With generation gap closed, the task will be shared by all. They learn to become good housekeepers of  Mother Earth. Our children know the meaning of biodiversity and its four attributes -  richness in kind,   population, interrelationship, and balance. Biodiversity  per se does not guarantee sustainability unless integrated with functioning systems of nature. 

18.   Our children will realize that optimism will remain the mainstay of human evolution, rising above difficulties and trials. Hope is ingrained in the human brain that makes vision rosier than reality. Anxiety, depression will continue to haunt, in fact accompany progress, but these all the more push optimism up and ahead.

19. Our children live in an era with race discrimination a thing of the past. Many favor living alone as a new norm. More and more join the nones - spirituality outside organized religions, 

20. Our children face the coming of the Horsemen of Apocalypse  – consequence of human folly and frailty (nuclear, pollution, poverty).  Finally, postmodernism may do more harm than good for our children in a runaway technology and culture. They cannot and will not be able to keep with the pace and direction of change.   More than we grownups, they are more resilient to adapt to the test. This is true. “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”  And this is the philosophy that we wish our children to uphold. 

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Creeping Shadow over UST

Dr Abe V Rotor

Assignment: Faculty of Arts and Letters - Communication Art
Write an essay on this topic on regular bond, handwritten 

  • 4CA5, 3CA1 and 3CA3 


Leaning Tower before the Arch of the Centuries
Creeping shadow swallows up the last bastion of  sports in the heart of Manila 
Vision behind a football goal dimmed by skyscrapers    
 
Fountain of Knowledge orphaned by progress

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Guardian

Guardian 
Dr Abe V Rotor
Kulit at home 


                             Two roles had she, to her own brood, 
     and kids a generation past;
And now in her sunset, homely
     sharing still a mother's task.  

Her life spans across - children
     to grownups - to children again;
A pet is always a pet, is more;
    a guardian and trusted friend.~

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Indigenous Tools and Equipment


Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Air
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB aM 8 to 9 AM Monday to Friday

How familiar are these tools and equipment to you?  
 Bamboo baskets
1.      Trowel (Barrusot Ilk)
2.      Hand palay harvester (rakem)
3.      Laying hen’s crib (baki)
4.      Farmer’s backpack (kuribot)
5.      Boat sled (takuli)
6.      Bullock Sled (pasagad)
7.      Bare bull cart (partigo)
8.      Bull cart with sides (kariton)
9.      Sledge hammer (maso)
10.  Dike (pilapil) bolo (pangtabas)
11.  Heavy duty bolo (badang) 
12.  Everyday bolo (buneng)
13.  Dagger (balisong Tag; daga Ilk)
14.  Iron nail remover (kabra)
15.  Crowbar (bareta)
16.  Log saw (sarrotso)
17.  Ax (wasay Ilk)
18.  Wide brimmed hat (payabyab)
19.  Woven hat (kallugong)
20.  Planting pole (tik-tak mechanism)
21.  Fish basket (alat)
22.  Chewing nut bag (tampipi)
23.  Scythe (kumpay)
24.  Fishing pole (banni-it)
25.  Slingshot (palsi-it)
26.  Toy hand cannon (palsu-ot)
27.  Blowgun (salbatana)
28.  Threshing rope with handle (hawak)
29.  Threshing board
30.  Woven mat (banig)
31.  Coconut midrib broom (walis tingting)
32.  Soft grass broom (walis tambo)
33.  Coco shell cup (ungot)
34.  Earthen water pot (calamba, caramba)
35.  Earthen pot (for cooking) (palayok, banga)
36.  Fish fence (tarit)
37.  Fish trap (salakab)
38.  Bottom fish trap (kudagdag)
39.  Fish net with x-frame (salloy)
40.  Throw net (tabukol)
41.  Fixed fish trap (bubo)
42.  Bird pole trap (taay)
43.  Bird loop net (singgapong)
44.  Spear (pika)
45.  Dugout trap (palab-og)
46.  Bow and arrow (pana)
47.  Coconut grater (gadgaran)
48.  Awl (used also as ice pick)
49. Mallet (to break soil clods)
50. Plow and harrow (drawn by carabao or bullock)

UST-AB Assignment: Vendors are a happy lot

Dr Abe V Rotor
.

 
 



Vendors, Vendors Everywhere
Can you identify the wares and goods they are selling?


This is a good project.  Survey the different kinds of vendors in public markets, malls, talipapa (flea market), bagsakan (wholesale market), around churches, on the sidewalk, along highways, in offices, and many others.  Write an essay about vendors.  How do they contribute to economy? Livelihood? What is informal economy? How does it buffer the effects of recession and financial crisis?