Self-Administered Test on FOOD

Self-Administered Test on FOOD

True or False

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." — Virginia Woolf

Dr Abe V Rotor

1.The impending food shortage is global, affecting not only rice eating nations but other nations as well that are depending on other cereals like wheat. T

2. Global Warming is a culprit to food shortage because of the man-induced erratic behavior of our climate, worsened by increasing frequency and intensity of force majeure. T

3. Aquaculture is man’s ultimate frontier of production, because the conventional production areas have already reached their limit. T

4. Chemical pesticides and fertilizers have improved productivity of farmlands as well as enhanced sustainable production. F

5. Lowland ricefields during the monsoon season make a contiguous lake that is a an abode to many edible species of freshwater fish, crustaceans, mollusk and amphibians. T

6. Palay-isdahan means converting spent fishponds to rice production since rice is an aquatic plant. F

7. Rice can be grown commercially in the highlands, saline areas, hillsides, uplands, acidic and alkaline soils. F

8. Decrease in food production is also a result of increasing price of fuel, so that when price of food goes up, increase in fuel cost follows. T

9. Tragedy of the Commons means that common people recklessly compete among themselves for survival and pursuit of modern living, on limited resources, instead of pursing collective and mutual objective. T

10. The sea is limitless in resources considering that more than 70% of the earth’s surface is water. F

11. For this matter (referring to the previous statement), the world’s population can safely increase further without fear of shortage in food and other needs. It is only a matter of improved technology and effective policies and program to avert this consequence. F

12. To prevent crust (tutung), shut off the stove for a minute after it has reached boiling point – then turn on the heat until the rice is well cooked. T

13. Vitamins and minerals are concentrated in the vegetable, not in its rind or skin. Thus you have to peel kalabasa, pipino, talong, patola and the like. F

14. Food management at home was a subject required in the elementary a generation ago which was then called Home Economics. T

15. Converting mangrove swamps into fishponds is a solution to food crisis because fishponds produce more food that what the mangrove swamps contribute to the natural supply of food. F

16. The sea is nearly 4 km deep, and up to 12 km at its deepest – which means that fishing has barely scratched the surface of the sea, thus there is no felt danger of depletion of resources. F

17. Seaweed farming is popular in these places in the Philippines: Danahon Reef (between Cebu and Bohol), and Zamboanga and Tawi-tawi. T

"Food, in the end, in our own tradition, is something holy. It's not about nutrients and calories. It's about sharing. It's about honesty. It's about identity." - Louise Fresco

18. Our country exports millions of dollars worth of Caulerpa which is the source of carageenan used as food conditioning like in ice cream. F

19. The most popular seaweed sold in Metro Manila is Nori used in making Japanese Maki. This is commercially grown in the Philippines. F

20. You save on food if you have no pets. This is a policy of China to limit pets in order to save on food. T

21. GM rice* or golden rice contains yellow pigment of daffodils which is rich in Vitamin A. Vitamin A is needed by the body but an overdose of it may be deleterious to health such as allergy. T

22. World Bank (WB-IMF) warns of social unrest where food shortage cannot be contained on time by solutions acceptable by the masses. T

23. Revolutions start with hungry stomach as history can attest. French Revolution, Russian, Chinese, to mention some. These support Marxist philosophy of justifying socialism over aristocracy and capitalism. T

24. What economists insist as the road to good life is economic development, and any country that remains underdeveloped will never have a taste of it. F

25. There is limit to growth; it cannot be a perfect progression. This is shown in a graph with an S curve. T
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Author's Note: ASSIGNMENT Do some research and state the underlying reason/s behind each item, whether it is true or false.  Share your work in school and community. 

*GMRice is the first case of “biopharming” – implanting food supplement, drug or medicine in food plants to act as food and medicine at the same time. This is a controversial issue. Can you do some research on this, too?

Acknowledgement with gratitude: Internet images and quotes

Past lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid DZRB 738 KHz AM 8 to 9 evening, Mon to Friday

Live Healthier and Longer with Natural Food

 Live Healthier and Longer with Natural Food

Eat foods grown under natural conditions, rather than those grown and processed with the use of chemicals. And no Frankenfood (GMO), please. 

Dr Abe V Rotor

Vegetarian's barbecue - all naturally grown.

It is not enough that we produce food. We must produce food that ensure good health, reduce risks to diseases and ailments, and prolong life. We must produce food that also insures the health of our environment and the stability of the ecological system.
While science and technology continue to explore new ways to increase food supply with genetic engineering, people are yearning for organic food – or naturally grown food.

Here are issues raised by the proponents of organic farming.

1. Many ailments and abnormalities are traced to the food we take. Cancer for instance, is often related to carcinogenic substances. High uric acid leads to kidney trouble. High cholesterol and high sugar levels are associated with high blood pressure and diabetes. Aflatoxin causes cirrhosis of the liver. Ulcers are food-related, as are many allergies.

2. Proper nutrition and balanced diet can be attained by eating the right kind and amount of natural food without fortification with vitamins and minerals, and other forms of altering food value. Thus there is no need to process food unless it is really necessary. Fresh foods – vegetables, fish, and the like – are still the best. And why modify the genetic composition of crops and animals? Leave that to nature. Nature knows best.

3. Taking excess foods rich in animal fat and protein, and foods high in calories foods has predisposed many people to overweight conditions. Gaining unnecessary weight leads obesity now an epidemic sweeping many countries today particularly in cities where there is a proliferation of fast foods and junk foods. Or simply there is too much of the “good life” – excess in food and pleasure. In the US today one out of five Americans is an obese.

4. There are natural substances that keep our body always alert to fend off stress due to overwork and diseases. They are known as probiotics. We get probiotics from fruits and vegetables. We also get them from seaweeds, mushrooms, yoghurt, algae such as Chlorella, and cyanobacteria such as Spirulina. And there are many more sources that occur in nature. We are beginning to realize that eating foods rich in probiotics and antibiotics (substances that directly kill germs) makes us healthier and live longer.

These are the rules set by the advocates of natural farming.

1. It is always better to eat foods grown under natural conditions than those developed with the use of chemicals.

This statement can be captured with one term "natural food". All over the world this is a label found in food grown without chemicals. People are afraid of becoming ill because of chemicals introduced into the food. There are banned pesticides still in used such as methyl parathion, endosulfan, DDT, BHC, among others. These are also harmful to all living organisms and to the environment.

2. People are avoiding harmful residues of antibiotics and pesticides.
Poultry, hogs and cattle are given high levels of antibiotics to safeguard the animals from diseases. As a result the antibiotics are passed on to the consumers. Unless we are ill, the body does not need supplemental antibiotics. We have adequate natural sources. Every time we eat commercial eggs, chicken, pork chop, steak, and the like, we are taking in antibiotics which accumulate in our body, shutting off our immune systems, punishing our kidney and liver. To many people, antibiotics cause allergic reactions.

3. People are getting scared of food contaminated by radiation. Nuclear reactors are being built in many countries as a fallback to fossil fuel. After the Chernobyl nuclear plant meltdown in Russia, and that of the Three-Miles Island nuclear plant in the US, people have become wary about the consequences of fallout. A trace of radiation can be absorbed by grass in the pasture, finds its way to milk, then to infants. Radiation can remain active for hundreds of years. People are still dying today in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, more than fifty years since the bombing of the two cities with the first atomic bomb.

4. Be aware of the deleterious effects of toxic metals, such as lead, mercury and cadmium. These find their way through the food chain and ultimately reach humans. They escape to the air and enter our lungs, as in the case of dusts from old paints. Since they are in soluble compounds, they are easily absorbed by plants and animals. Kangkong for example absorbs lead. Tuna has high mercury in its tissues and liver. Cadmium from batteries is absorbed by crops.

The simpler your food is cooked, the better.

5. People are becoming more conscious of the nutritional value of food rather than its packaging and presentation.
More and more people are shunning away from junk foods, in spite of their attractive packaging. Soft drinks have taken the backseat, courtesy of fruit juices and mineral water. People have even learned that different plant varieties have different levels of food value. Beans grown on naturally fertile soil have higher calorie and protein content than those grown on poor soil, or with chemical fertilizers. This is also true with animals. Animals raised with proper nutrition give meat, milk and eggs with higher protein, minerals notwithstanding.

6. Freshness is the primordial rule in choosing a perishable food.
There is no substitute to freshness. While freshness is a function of efficient handling and marketing, the farmer must enhance farm-to-market freshness. By keeping his standing plants healthy, his produce will stay longer on the shelf life. Products that are free from pest and diseases also stay fresher and longer. Too much water or fertilizer reduces shelf life of the commodity.

Eat fresh fruits - avoid processed ones.

7. Food processing must be efficient and safe.
Food processing, such as drying, milling and manufacturing is key to higher profits. Whenever feasible, food must reach the table fresh. But processing is designed to lengthen the shelf life of perishable commodities. There are products that require processing before they are used. These food items include vanilla, coffee, cacao, wine and vinegar, soya, fish sauce and the like. Profits generated through processing are value-added to production.

8. Food must be free from pest and diseases.
By all means, food must be free from insects and pathogens. There are cases of food poisoning as a result of food deterioration, or contamination. Take salmonella and E. coli. Khapra beetle in grains may even cause death to animals. Weevils hasten the deterioration of the food.

9. Food preservation must ensure quality, and above all, safety.
Be aware of the fish that is stiff, yet looks fresh. It is easy to detect the odor of formalin. Salitre is harmful, so with vetsin or MSG (Monosodium glutamate). Too much salt (sodium) is not good to the body. Some puto makers add lye or sodium hydroxide to aid coagulation of the starch. We wary of sampalok candies enticingly made red with shoe dye. The same diluted dye is used with ube manufacture to make it look like the real violet-colored tuber.

Watch out. the utensils you are using may contain lead, mercury, plastic compounds, aluminum oxide and other harmful substances.

10. Beware of Frankenfood - Food derived from GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). Many countries warn of the potential dangers of genetically modified food and food products. This move is not only to safeguard health, but also the environment. Genetically modified plants and animals – as well as bacteria, protists and even viruses – are now a threat to the natural gene pool, giving rise to a new kind of pollution - genetic pollution. Once a gene pool of a certain species is contaminated with a GMO genetic material Genetic pollution cannot be eliminated, even in subsequent generations. Thus, it also disturbs natural evolution.

Next time you go to market, remember these guidelines. Why not convert that idle lot to raise food that is safe to your health and the environment? That little corner could be the start of a new green revolution.~

Caulerpa or lato is now cultivated in fishponds where

conditions can be controlled, unlike in the open sea.

Green mussel or tahong absorbs toxic metals like lead

in polluted water. It is also dangerous to eat tahong

during red tide period. It may cause paralytic poisoning.

Stem Cell Burger, anyone?

                           Stem Cell Burger, anyone?

Dr Abe V Rotor

"Food can be grown in test tube, from stem cells of endless source: animal, plant, monera, protist – and human -  stem cell burger, anyone?"  -avr 

Burger made from stem cells in the laboratory,

it could be beef, pork, chicken, fish, 

and in many different combinations no single

recipe can define, menus in array.

Stem cells are universal to all living things,

plants the simplest, animals complex,

human ultimate, ethico-moral notwithstanding,

but who can stop science, progress? 

Simple as seed germinating into stem and root,

as zygote differentiating into tissues,

to organs, to systems, on to a complete being;

from organelles to uni-celled protists.     

Analogy from simple to complex shows Nature

at work, transferring life in patterns,

key to evolution's continuity and diversity -

needless of human intervention. 

Disobedience from the tree of knowledge persists,

discovery by invention or serendipity;

man saw how a seed grows, an embryo forms,

in vivo, in vitro, Eureka! 

If in test tube life grows, and tissue culture 

replicates the mother, henceforth grow

stem cells harvested from the bone marrow,

adipose, amniotic, umbilical - 

Would a mold make a bone, a heart, an eye,

kidney? Or simpler, in situ - pronto!

it's bio-automation, two centuries after Ford;

burgers in millions, nay in billions.  

Who cares about laboratory grown burgers

to a hungry world, to teeming cities,

to slum dwellers,  to affluence and fancy?

to defect from the bandwagon?

Pavlov after all makes no exception, more so

in consumerism, and Darwin’s

survival in fitness, and on the expense of others -

true from ancient to postmodern.

For why should man eat the bacteria in BT corn?

the arctic flounder in tomato?

daffodil in rice, human hormone in cow’s milk?

bio-pharmed plants, Frankenfood?

Because he has accepted coffeeless coffee,

sugarless sugar, fatless fat; 

sulfite, chromate, monosodium glutamate,

irradiation, moieties and clones. 

And now stem cell burgers, and other products

from lab meat - today’s Green Revolution –

so why farm the land, raise cattle on the ranch,

hunt down the endangered species?

When  food can be grown in test tube,

from stem cells of endless source:

animal, plant, moneran, protist – and human -      

stem cell burger, anyone? 

Laboratory grown hamburger Internet

I am Nature Crucified. Rights of Nature vis-a-vis Human Rights

Rights of Nature vis-a-vis Human Rights 

I am Nature Crucified*

"Sooner or later, we will have to recognize that the Earth has rights, too, to live without pollution. What mankind must know is that human beings cannot live without Mother Earth, but the planet can live without humans." - Evo Morales

I am Nature crucified by the unending pursuit of progress, 

the goal and measure of the Good Life.

 Dr Abe V Rotor

      Silhouette of a tree skeleton, QC

I am Nature crucified, Paradise lost to my own guardian

whom my Creator assigned custodian of the living earth;

I am Nature crucified by loggers, my kin and neighbors 

annihilated, forever removed from their place of birth;

I am Nature crucified by slash-and-burn farming dreaded

- once lush forests now bare, desertification their fate;

I am Nature crucified, greedy men with giant machines

take hours to destroy what I built for thousands of years;

I am Nature crucified in the name of progress, countries 

vying for wealth and power, fighting among themselves; 

I am Nature crucified, rivers are dammed, lakes dried up,

swamps drained, estuaries blocked, waterways silted;

I am Nature crucified, the landscape littered with wastes,

gases into the air form acid rain, and thin the ozone layer;

I am Nature crucified, flora and fauna losing their natural

gene pools by selective breeding and genetic engineering;

I am Nature crucified, the earth is in fever steadily rising,

ice caps and glaciers melting, raising the level of the sea; 

I am Nature crucified, privacy and rest becoming a luxury

in a runaway population living on fast lanes, and rat race. 

I am Nature crucified, inequitable distribution of wealth

the source of conflict, greed and poverty, unhappiness;

I am Nature crucified by the promise of heaven in afterlife,

the faithful restrained to regain Paradise while on earth.

I am Nature crucified by scholars of never ending debates,

on the goodness of the human race in fraternal praises;

I am Nature crucified by the many denominations of faith,

pitting God against one another in endless proselytizing;

I am Nature crucified by licenses of freedom in extremism,

human rights and democracy - tools of inaction and abuse;

I am Nature crucified by mad scientists splitting the atom,

building cities, tearing the earth, probing ocean and space;

I am Nature crucified by capitalism, consumerism its tool

to stir economy worldwide, wastefulness its consequence;

I am Nature crucified by the unending pursuit of progress,

the goal and measure of superiority, nation against nation;

I am Nature crucified by man’s folly to become immortal:

cryonics, cloning, robotics - triumvirates for singularity.

I am Nature crucified, hungry, thirsty, imprisoned, naked,

abandoned – wishing some souls to stop, look and listen. ~

                 Published Lagro Gazette Jan-Mar 2017; reprint from Living with Nature in our Home and Community,                               2023pp 229-232, Sadiri Publishing

ANNEX

The Rights of Nature in Today's Environmental Revolution

Let us stop making Nature as property but a living entity.

Rights of Nature is the recognition and honoring that Nature has rights. It is the recognition that our ecosystems – including trees, oceans, animals, mountains – have rights just as human beings have rights.  - Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature

Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN)

Members are a diverse network of scientists, attorneys, economists, indigenous leaders, authors, spiritual leaders, business leaders, politicians, actors, homemakers, students, activists: people from all walks of life who are looking to transform our human relationship with our planet. (Internet)
---------------------------------------

What are the Rights of Nature?

Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN)

Rights of Nature is the recognition and honoring that Nature has rights.

Rights of Nature is about balancing what is good for human beings against what is good for other species, what is good for the planet as a world. It is the holistic recognition that all life, all ecosystems on our planet are deeply intertwined.

Rather than treating nature as property under the law, rights of nature acknowledges that nature in all its life forms has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles.

And we – the people – have the legal authority and responsibility to enforce these rights on behalf of ecosystems. The ecosystem itself can be named as the injured party, with its own legal standing rights, in cases alleging rights violations.

For indigenous cultures around the world, recognizing rights of nature is consistent with their traditions of living in harmony with nature. All life, including human life, are deeply connected. Decisions and values are based on what is good for the whole.

Nonetheless, for millennia, legal systems around the world have treated land and nature as “property”. Laws and contracts are written to protect the property rights of individuals, corporations, and other legal entities. As such, environmental protection laws legalize environmental harm by regulating how much pollution or destruction of nature can occur within the law. Under such law, nature and all of its non-human elements have no standing.

By recognizing rights of nature in its constitution, Ecuador – and a growing number of communities in the United States – are basing their environmental protection systems on the premise that nature has inalienable rights, just as humans do. This premise is a radical but natural departure from the assumption that nature is property under the law.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

-----------------------------------------------

Acknowledgement with gratitude: Internet for Annex The Rights of Nature with photo; Lagro Gazette for reprint of I am Nature Crucified. by AV Rotor

International Youth Day August 12, 2026: "The youth is the hope of our fatherland." - Dr Jose Rizal

International Youth Day August 12, 2026

Theme: Different Contexts, Common Aspirations

"The youth is the hope of our fatherland." - Rizal

"Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan"

Part 1 - Ur-urayenka Anakko 

(I am waiting for you, my child.)

“This world, which appears to be a great workshop in which knowledge is developed by man – which appears as progress and civilization, as a modern system of communication, as a structure of democratic freedom without any limitations – this world is not capable of making man happy." - Pope John Paul II, On the Threshold of Hope

                  
                    The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt van Rijk

I am a modern day Prodigal Son. I spent sixty long years searching and searching for a place I may call my own in the whole wide world. Yes, sixty long years of my youth and in old age – thrice longer the fiction character Rip van Winkle did sleep – and now I am back to the portals of my hometown, to the waiting arms of my father.

The proverbial Lamp I still hold flickers, but it is but a beacon in embers now, for it had spent its luminance in the darkness of human weakness and failures, it beamed across the ocean of ignorance and lost hope, it trailed the path of many adventures and discoveries, and it kept vigil in the night while I slept.

And what would my father say? He meets me, embraces me, and calls everyone. “Kill the fattest calf! Let us rejoice.”

San Vicente is my home. It is the bastion of my hopes and ideals. At the far end on entering the old church is written on the altar, faded by the elements of time and pleading hands of devotees, Ur-urayenka Anakko – I am waiting for you my child.

When the world is being ripped by conflicts or pampered with material progress, when mankind shudders at the splitting of the atom and the breaking of the code of life, when the future is viewed on high rise edifices or clouded by greenhouse gases, the world is but a speck in the vast universe – my town becomes more than ever relevant to the cause for which it has stood through the centuries - the sanctuary of idealism in a troubled world, home of hundreds of professionals in many fields of human endeavor.

“Kill the fattest calf,” I hear my father shout with joy. It is celebration. It is a symbol of achievement more than I deserve. But my feelings is that I am standing on behalf of my colleagues for I am but an emissary. Out there in peace and trials, in villages and metropolises, in all endeavors and walks of life, many “Vincentians” made their marks, either recognized on the stage or remembered on stone on which their names are carved. I must say, it is an honor and privilege that I am here in humility to represent them that I may convey their unending faith and trust to our beloved hometown.

The world has changed tremendously, vastly, since I passed under the town's arch to meet the world some sixty years ago. I have met wise men who asked the famous question “Quo vadis?” - where are you going? I can only give a glimpse from the eye of a teacher, far for the probing mind of Alvin Toffler in Future Shock, or those of Naisbitt and Aburdane, renowned modern prophets. Teachers as I know, and having been trained as one, see the world as it is lived; they make careful inferences, and take a bird’s eye view cautiously. They are conveyors of knowledge, and even with modern teaching tools and communication technology, cannot even qualify as chroniclers, nay less of forecasters. I have always strived to master the art of foretelling the future, but frankly I can only see it from atop a misty mountain. How I wish too, that I can fully witness the fruits of the seed of knowledge a teacher has sown in the mind of the young.

Limited my experience may be, allow me to speak my mind about progress and developments in the sixty years I was away from home, but on the other side of midnight, so to speak.

1. The monster that Frankenstein made lurks in nuclear stockpiles, chides with scientists tinkering with life, begging to give him a name and a home.

2. Our blue planet has an ugly shade of murk and crimson – fire consuming the forests, erosion eating out the land, polar ice shrinking, rising sea flooding the shorelines, and gas emission boring a hole in its jacket.

3. One race one nation equals globalization. How we have taken over evolution in our hands. We are playing God, is Paradise Lost Part 2 in the offing?

4. The world is wired, it travels fast on two feet – communication and transportation. The world has shrunk into a village. Homogenization is the death sentence amid a bed of roses for mankind.

5. Man-induced phenomena are too difficult to separate from those of nature. We take the latter as an excuse of our follies, a rationalization that runs counter to be rational. Only the human species has both the capability to build or destroy – and yet we love to destroy what we build.

6. The dangerous game of numbers is a favorite game, and our Mother Earth spaceship is getting overloaded. Man’s needs, more so man’s want, become burgeoning load of Mother Earth, now sick and aging. Will Pied Piper ever come back and take our beloved young ones away from us, as he did in Hamlyn many years ago?

7. Conscience, conscience, where is spirituality that nourishes it. Where have all the religious teachings gone? Governance – where is the family, the home? Peace and order – Iraq, Afghanistan – another Korea, another Vietnam, only in another place, in another time. And now social unrest is sweeping over North Africa and the Middle East, spreading to many parts of the world.

8. Janus is progress, and progress is Janus. It is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It is The Prince and the Pauper. Capitalism has happy and sad faces – the latter painted in pain and sadness on millions all over the world. It is inequity that makes the world poor; potentially we have more than enough food, clothing, shelter, and energy for everybody. What ideology can save the world other than capitalism?

As I grew older I did not only learn to adjust with the realities of life as I encountered it but to grasp its meaning from the points of view of famous philosophers and writers. I studied it with the famous lines from William Blake’s famous poem, Auguries of Innocence.

To wit.

“To see the world in a grain of sand;

And a Heaven a wild flower;

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.”

               - William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

If ever I have ventured into becoming a redeemer of sort, armed with a pen in hand, I too, have learned from Blake’s verse of the way man should view the world in all its magnanimity yet in simplicity. If ever I have set foot to reach the corners of the Earth, and failed, I am consoled by the humble representation of “a grain of sand” that speaks of universal truth and values.

And beauty? If I have not found it in a garden of roses, I dare not step on a flowering weed. And posterity and eternity? They are all ensconced in periodicity, a divine accident of existence – to say that each and every one of us is here in this world by chance – an unimaginable chance – at “a certain time and place” which - and I believe - has a purpose in whatever and however one lives his life. But I would say that a lifetime is all it takes “to see the world” and be part of it. It is a lifetime that we realize the true meaning of beauty, experience “infinity and eternity”. Lifetime is a daily calendar of victories and defeats.

While the world goes around and around . . .

The world like in Aristotle’s time continue to struggle with the preservation of values; the species will continue to evolve as postulated by Darwin; culture will express itself more fully since the first painting of early man dwelling in the caves of Lascaux in France.

Trade and commerce will continue to progress, reaches a plateau, and declines - a normal curve that goes with the rise and fall of civilizations. Yet leaders do not see it that way. Not even the Utopia of conquerors like Alexander the Great whose global economic vision two thousand five hundred years ago is basically the same as that of the great powers of today - United States, European Union, ASEAN.

The great religions will continue to bring man to his knees and look into heavens amidst knowledge revolution and growing complexity of living, Man’s infinitesimal mind continues to probe the universe. Never has man been so busy, so bothered, so confused, yet so determined than ever before, trying to fill up God’s Seventh Day.

As I go on reflecting I came across the book of Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, 1994. He warns us succinctly.

“This world, which appears to be a great workshop in which knowledge is developed by man – which appears as progress and civilization, as a modern system of communication, as a structure of democratic freedom without any limitations – this world is not capable of making man happy." - Pope John Paul II, On the Threshold of Hope

Now I am home, my father, in my hometown.  Thank you for you have taught me and instilled in me the spirit of virtue and fortitude. Thank you for making me a Vincentian. ~

Part 2 - Begging for a Seat in School: 

A friendly reminder for the new schoolyear

The school year will soon open.  We will be accompanying our children to their schools.  Relatives and friends too, will go back to school, maybe we ourselves are among them.  But not all can go to school, like this beggar boy, the infirmed, the very poor, or for whatever reason.  Thanks to Google for this blog.  Thanks to the outreach program of the University of Santo Tomas, Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (School-on-air) of DZRB 738 AM, thanks to our blog followers and viewers, and radio audience, for carrying out the Multiplier Effect.  Special thanks to Google and staff.
 

 A reproduction of an untitled painting by an unknown artist

A disturbing scene to Maslow -

could he have been wrong?

What is self-actualization

to the striving throng?

What's good is the Bastille trilogy -

pillars of modern society:

equality, fraternity,

liberty - sans dignity?

Motherhood words may come easy;

they cannot be mistaken,

for the lips that speak of promise

are easily forgotten.

And the world goes on as it seems;

a beggar boy, its conscience:

lost youth, lost hope, lost future

in the midst of affluence.

The door is jarred to full view

and knocking wouldn't lend an ear;

indifference makes man blind

or takes him to the rear.

He who feels for the needy

with but some coins is a fool,

in a world deaf to a poor boy

begging for a seat in school. ~

NOTE: A student of mine from Iran at the UST Graduate School gave me this reproduction of a painting as a souvenir. The painting was made by an unknown artist, apparently belonging to the post classicism at the dawn of realism. avr

Part 3 - Movies on Parade at UST, A Recollection* 

Movies Fill Our Lives

Dr Abe V Rotor

Of pirates and witches...

Fantasy comes down to earth alive

in flesh walking: ghosts, fairies,

creatures of sea and land they thrive

in human laughter and tears

that fill empty lives e’en just a while

and give the world a break

in the idleness of time passing by

cares and worries at stake

where friends and foes hold hands,

monsters tame and meek;

stories sad and happy cater to fans,

all for freedom they seek

from doctrinaire and conventions;

for it’s imagination that rules

and dictates all human institutions

with technology its tools;

movies – books, visual, by audition,

in make believe and reality,

man’s gift to himself, his own invention,

his passport to liberty. ~

Wizard of Oz and fairytales

Of forest deities and kingdoms

Finding Nemo, the friendly fish

                                        Of old cultures and postmodern living

And adventure with the imagination …

Acknowledgement: University of Santo Tomas, Manila, 2014; 

photos by the author, former UST professor

Part 4 - Pleasance of Youth

"Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty."

- Franz Kafka

Kids' Adventure in acrylic by the author

Pleasance to you youth, bright as the sun;

The world be at war or be at peace.

Ask not where have all the flowers gone;

Seasons come, and seasons go at ease.

            "Believe you can, and you're halfway there.” — Theodore Roosevelt