Beware of Mad Dog! Folk Wisdom for Growing Up (Lagro Laha Workshop No 4A , April 26 2013)

Dr. Abe V Rotor

Living with Natue School on Blog
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday 

(Note: This is scripted for this lesson.  Photograph of the author's pet, Niko, a Doberman, behind torn cage. Now past his 15th year (centenarian if he were a human) he is suffering of cataract and arthritis. An old dog may be mistaken by some people to be manifesting signs of a mad dog - which is, of course, not true.)

Mad dog!  Get out of its way.  Away from its reach. Take the children out of harm's way.

Here are signs to forewarn us. 

• The dog's tail is tucked underneath
• The animal is restless, biting at anything within its reach
• Froth is coming from its mouth
• It is unkempt
• Its breathing is heavy and rapid, showing signs of distress
• Its eyes are blank and threatening   
• It stealthily moves about without any apparent direction
• It dreads the presence of water (hydrophobia)

The season of mad dogs is during hot days - summer, though they occur any season. 

Be keen; keep distance; notify others of danger; get help. And if someone is bitten by a dog - even if its a healthy dog, maybe our own pet - don't take chances.  Take the victim to the nearest doctor or hospital without delay.~

Tapestry of Life

Dr Abe V Rotor

Tapestry of Life in acrylic (22”x 22”), April 21, 2013

A wise old man, who had lived buoyantly through four score years, was asked, “Which is the happiest season of life?” He replied thoughtfully.

“When spring comes, and in the soft air the buds break on the trees, and they are covered with blossoms. I think, how beautiful is Spring!

When summer comes, and covers the trees and bushes with heavy foliage, and singing birds mingle with branches, I think, how beautiful is Summer!

When autumn loads them with golden fruit, and their leaves bear the gorgeous tint of frost, I think, how beautiful is Autumn!

When it is sore winter, and there is neither foliage nor fruit, then when I look up through the leafless branches and see, as I can see in no other season, the shining stars of heaven, I think, how beautiful is the Winter of life!

And when the four seasons come in the music of Antonio Vivaldi, in the Song of Praise, painted on a single canvas, and all of them woven into a beautiful tapestry, how wonderful is Life!”

Reading Nature's Signs (Lagro-Laha Summer Workshop lesson No 3, April 22, 2013)

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 learn to read nature, such as the coming of flood or storm." 

1. Ants on the move signal the coming of a heavy rain, if not a typhoon.  
The biological clock of these creatures responds to invisible signals, which comprise decreased atmospheric pressure, high relative humidity and air temperature. Their sensitive antennae and tactile hairs covering their body pick these up these changes of the environment. Thus we find ants in exodus, they move as a colony carrying their eggs and young indoors. Cockroaches become unusually active, flying about in frenzy, in search for a new place. There is a common message, that is, to escape to safer ground, an archetype engrained in their genes passed on to them by their ancestors through evolution.

2. Red and gray sunset is sign it’s going to rain - or a storm is coming.

Here is a verse about this belief.

“If the sun in red should set,

The next day surely will be wet;

If the sun should set in gray,

The next will be a rainy day.”

High relative humidity builds clouds.  Suspended water vapors reflect the rays of the setting sun red, orange and crimson in many shades and hues, while the thick clouds form a gray overcast.

3. Ring (halo) around the moon means a storm is coming.

High humidity in the air causes an optical illusion of a halo around the moon.  It is also observed around bright stars. This means the air is heavily laden with water vapors, which is potential rain. Everything is still, not a breeze is felt. There’s an uneasy feeling.  Take heed if the barometer reading drops. 

4. Animals are uneasy before an impending earthquake.

It is because they are sensitive to the vibrations preceding an earthquake. They perceive the small numerous crackling of the earth before the final break (tectonic), which is the earthquake. As a means of self-preservation they try to escape from stables and pens, seek shelter, run to higher grounds, or simply escape to areas far from the impending earthquake. Rodents come out of their abode, reptiles move away from the water, horses neigh and kick around.   During the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka, elephants defied their masters, in effect saving them from the disaster. We humans can only detect such minute movements through our inventions such as the Richter Scale. 

Hito or catfish are uneasy before an earthquake strikes.

5. When earthworms crawl out of their holes, a flood is coming.

This subterranean annelid has built-in sensors, a biblical Noah’s sense of a coming flood, so to speak.  Its small brain is connected to nerve clusters, called ganglia, running down the whole body length.  These in turn are connected to numerous hair-like protrusions on the cuticle, which serve as receptor. When rain saturates the soil, ground water rises and before it reaches their burrows, they crawl out to higher grounds where they seek refuge until the flood or the rainy season is over. The more earthworms abandoning their burrows, the more we should take precaution.

6. The kingfisher (salaksak) is an emissary of death.

The kingfisher’s throaty voice is a call of death, so the old folks say.  Well, when ponds and rivers dry up because of drought, this fish eater will scour for alternative food outside its niche, poaching around farms and homes.    

One explanation of this belief is that the fire tree blooms to its fullest in the face of extreme drought, most likely due to El Niño, a condition that causes untold death and misery. It is the upland dwellers that are worse affected, forcing them to go to the lowlands in search for food or seek refuge, inevitably causing trouble.     

7. When the leaves of acacia fold it’s time to go home. 

It is time to fetch the carabao from the pasture and to start walking home before it gets dark. The fowls prepare to roast in their tree abode. The stew leaves a trail, as the western sky dims in the setting sun. By now the leaves of acacia (Samanea saman) have completely folded toward each other at the midrib, and the base of the midrib itself is bent on its attachment. This is also true with the leaves of sampaloc, ipil-ipil, kakawate - and more so with makahiya.  

These plants, among others, belong to the legume family and are equipped with a special organ – pulvinus – that controls the erection and folding of the leaves. The principle is like a balloon.  When turgid the leaves are erect; when flaccid, the leaves fold.  The pulvinus is controlled by osmosis, that is, the intake and release of water in the cells.

Reference of time among old folks is built through observation of the natural environment and a lifestyle where the amenities of modern living are absent. This triggers our biological clock, and while it may not be accurate, brings people to a natural sense of time and quaint living.  

   

8. When you hear the shrill of the cicada, you are certain the rainy season has started. Rain softens the ground and the cicada nymph turns into winged adult. Only the male sings to attract his mute bride. Another insect that heralds the coming of habagat is the salagubang or June (or May) beetle, Leucopholis irrorata. 

Photography-at-large: Point-and-shoot. That's how easy photography is today!

Photography-at-large

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Living with Nature School on Blog 

                                             

Hasselblad - state-of-the art camera

Point-and-shoot. That's how easy photography is today! 

And anyone can have access to this once exclusive instrument that captures scenes and actions. Because of easy manipulation and readiness to shoot, the digital camera is perhaps becoming abused. 

It is used indiscriminately. Sometimes it crosses the boundary of privacy. There is little analysis, if at all, before shooting a subject.  For what purpose or reason? Does it follow some basic rules like balance, contrast, lighting, distance?

The technology is in fact a total deviation from that of the conventional technology. Today it comes with the cell phone, tablet, digital notebook.  There are surveillance cameras, monitoring, miniaturized, space probe, UV, and thermal, cameras - name it and technology will find a way. Social media relies on digital camera and because it is linked with the computer, photographs can be freely edited, they can be made into e-book, they are materials for artists like painters and architects, they can be sent, millions and millions everyday, to all parts of the world. 

Even if I belong to the old school, I found myself joining the countless ardent photographers and enthusiasts. I'll try to link photography - the art and media tool, the  serious and leisurely, conventional and modern, ideal and down-to-earth.  Perhaps, professional and amateur, modern and abstract. To think of photography's 101 functions today, its seems there is no place on earth where the lens is not watching us. In fact, it is us who wish to picture the whole world.

Typical palm size digital camera, easy to 

operate and convenient to carry. 

Here are photographs I wish to share as lesson to our pageviewers, and participants to Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid. 
   

 

Light up your life, Matabungkay, Batagas: flowers girls, stag man, Fuerte, Vigan City 

Dimorphism, a rare find of 4- and 5-arm starfish, Matabungkay, Batangas

Who is afraid to enter a man-made cave? International Exhibit Center, MM

Leaning fire tree, 45 degrees. Regalado Ave., Fairview, QC (The tree was cut down to give way to drainage construction)

  

Agro-tourism. Try yur hands in picking cowpea pods. San Ildefonso, Ilocos Sur.

  

Goat bear the long summer, nibbling on dry bark, Fuerte, Vigan, Ilocos Sur

Golden Kuhol (Pomacea caniculata), No. 1 pest of rice on the field. San Vicente, I. Sur

       

 Lazy man's crop so-called "plant-forget-harvest" - okra (Abelmoschos esculentus), gabi (Colocasia esculenta)

Sargassum (S. crispifolium), brown seaweed - most 

plentiful of all seaweeds in tropical reefs.  Vigan I. Sur

  

Bark of siniguelas (Spongias purporea) for minor wounds.

 San Ildefonso, Ilocos.Sur.

Balimbing (Averrhoa balimbi), Family Oxylidaceae (contain oxalic acid, 

which when taken frequently in large amount may cause osteoporosis) ~

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* Lesson on former 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

The Scream of Nature

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   

                                             

The original German title given to the work by Munch is, Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature). The Norwegian word skrik usually is translated as scream, but is cognate with the English shriek. Occasionally, the painting also has been called, The Cry

In his diary in an entry headed, Nice 22 January 1892, Munch described his inspiration for the image:

One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream.

This memory was later rendered by Munch as a poem, which he hand-painted onto the frame of the 1895 pastel version of the work:

I was walking along the road with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature. (Wikipedia)

The Scream of Nature
Dr Abe V Rotor

I hear nature scream from a lost eagle,
owl hooting, starving on its roost,
playful swallows thinned out of their flock,
watchful crows abandon their post.

I hear nature scream in a dying river,
brooks that laugh with the rain
no more, so with children fishing then, 
rivulets in melodious strain. 

I hear nature scream from the raging sea,
rising and falling on the coral reef,
the shores exploding, melting in foam,
in muffled cries of pain and grief. 

I hear nature scream - oil spill!
too late the fish and birds to flee;
black death blankets the tidal zone; 
fire is kind to end their agony. 

I hear nature scream to the chainsaw,
trees shrieking as they are felled,
stripped to logs like bodies in Austerlitz 
their stumps in Flanders Field.

I hear nature in the church praying
to save trees on Palm Sunday;
to rebuild lost Eden for all creatures, 
for a Heaven here to stay. ~ 

Oh, time! You are a friend.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Brief rest before taking an exam

Dream, yesterday was a dream!

A unicorn I rode to rainbow's end

to where a pot of gold might lie.

Oh, time! I thought you're a friend.

And to the other end I walked the trail,

To find my rainbow gone at the bend;

And I, on a crossroad I stood alone.

Oh, time, I thought you are a friend.

What road shall I take - the less trodden?

I gazed at the horizon to its end,

Rough was the way and never ending.

Oh, time! I thought you are a friend.

And here I am, half gone, long is the way;

Lo! I see again my rainbow at the end;

Tread on I must, there's no unicorn now;

Oh, time! you are indeed a friend.

Home, Sweet Home with Nature, AVR

Self-Administered Test: History and Great Men and Women

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                                                

 

Supply the missing word or words/keyword, or statement. Answers are found at the end of the test.

1. Story telling as an art, and form of literature was born in this country. Here the “state-of-the-art of story telling” reached its peak at towards the end of the 19th century.______________

2. Rhett Butler played by Clark Gable said, “Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn.” What is the title of the novel or movie do you find this famous line? ____________

3. This is a popular phrase that captures how powerful Rome was at the peak of its dominance in the known world._____________________

4. England became the biggest empire in 18th century and had colonies all over the world – India, Australia, US, Canada, to name the most important colonies. There is a famous statement to describe this dominance, which says,________ .

5. This is one element of a good anecdote that stimulates the intellect, sagacity, understanding. It shows cleverness. ____________

6. This is another element of a good story that lifts the spirit, and brings man towards optimistic goals. ________________

7. Bato bato sa langit, ang matamaan ay huwag magalit. This doesn’t speak well of a good story. The refers to ____________

8. Avoid this aspect in story telling, promoting an idea, thing or person. __________

9. This is one aspect we should avoid in story telling: directly imposing a norm or moral obligation._____________

10. It took this man to convince four kings to support his plan to reach East if he goes strait West – thus he named the island he first landed on as East Indies._____________

11. If you are presented with a simple problem that has a simple solution, instead of wasting time and resources, they say, “Cut the Gordian Knot.” Who is the first person who showed it this way by cutting the complicated Gordian Knot with single stroke of his sword? _____________________

12. This flying insect circled a lamp which Rizal used as symbol of martyrdom. _____________

13. He is known even to the present as the “man of the masses,” who on one occasion, promoted an engineer on the spot. _______________________

14. The most loved anecdote teller of all time. His anecdotes, and anecdotes about him, are known all over the world._____________________

15. He took the crown from the hands of the Pope who was about to crown him, and crowned himself. _____________________

16. This is the Lady with a Lamp who made her rounds in the hospital into the wee hours of the morning with a lamp. ______________________

17. This city was named after an emperor whose mother was a Christian in disguise. He became liberal to Christians in practicing their faith, and was made a saint._____________

18. English admiral, ordered by his superior not to proceed in his mission because the enemy ships were waiting. He took the telescope and trained it on his right eye which is blind, and said, “I can’t see the enemy, sir.” ________________

19. He isolated himself in his room for days, eating but little, and when he emerged, his face lighted like that of a saint, and holding his masterpiece Halleluiah. Who is this composer.__________________

20. He attended a concert in which his musical masterpiece Pastoral was played. At the end, the audience stood to pay respect to the composer. Someone had to signal him to acknowledge the ovation.__________________________

Bonus: One of the most famous meetings in history. US newsman Stanley was sent to Africa to search for Dr. David Livingstone. What was Stanley’s greeting?

ANSWERS: 1 United States, Washington Irving (Rip van Winkle), Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven) are among the founders of short story as an art; 2 Gone with the Wind; 3 All roads lead to Rome; 4 The sun never sets on English soil; 5 Wit; 6 Inspirational; 7 fatalism; 8 Propagandism; 9 Moralism; 10 Christopher Columbus; 11 Alexander, the Great; 12 Moth; 13 President Ramon Magsaysay; 14 Abraham Lincoln; 15 Napoleon Bonaparte; 16 Florence Nightingale; 17 Constantine, the Great; 18 National British hero - Horatius Nelson; 19 Handel; 20 Ludwig Van Beethoven; Bonus, Dr. Livingstone, I suppose?

RATING: 19-20 - Excellent - You must be a college professor.
16-18 - Very Good - You are a wide reader, a good student of history.
13-15 - Good - You can initiate a good conversation.
10-12 - Fair - You don't get lost in a good conversation.
9 and below - Read more, listen to Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid.

Acknowledgement: Internet, Wikipedia for photos