Asking for a Raise

Dr Abe V. Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Here is a story about Pedro and Jose which I read in the elementary.

One day Pedro approached his boss and complained why his partner Jose is receiving a higher pay when both of them have the same nature of work.

“Ah, Pedro,” sighed the boss with a sheepish smile. “You will come to know the reason.”

Just then the doorbell rang. “Pedro, please find out who is at the gate.”

After some time, Pedro returned, “Someone is looking for you, sir.”

“Ask who he is.” Pedro went to the gate again, and reported back.

“He is a certain Mr. Carlos, sir.”

“Ask him what he wants.” Pedro went to the gate for the third again, and then returned.

“I did not get it well, sir. But he said he sells home appliances … promotion, something like that. He would like to meet the manager.”

“Tell him we do not need appliances.”

The next day the doorbell rang again. This time, both Pedro and Jose were in the office of their boss. It was Jose who promptly rose from his seat to attend to the visitor at the gate. After a while he returned and reported.

“The visitor is an insurance agent, sir. He was offering insurance for our building, and knowing that it is already covered, I told him we do not need his offer at the moment. He gave me his business card.” Jose handed the card and excused himself for another call.

“Now you understand,” said the boss to Pedro with a sheepish smile.

Thanks for the drawing, from Simple People, Internet

As you aspiring to be a journalist?

Dr Abe V Rotor

This article is dedicated to the father and pillar of Philippine

journalism: Teodoro or "Ka Doroy" Valencia (center). His

column Over a Cup of Coffee shaped the thinking of his

readers, and influenced the decisions of leaders in his time.  

Like "Ka Doroy" an aspiring journalist must -

1.      Be inquisitive

2.      Be constant in his purpose

3.      Be fair and balanced

4.      Be genuinely interested in people

5.      Seek the truth

6.      Be resourceful

7.      Have guts

8.      Master his grammar

9.      Know his medium

10.    Read, read and read.

Above all, he must be God-fearing, compassionate, and true to his country and fellowmen. And uphold journalism as a profession and institution. 

Based on the lecture by Dr Abe V Rotor on journalism, UST Faculty of Arts and Letters

Spolarium and the Gods

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

Spolarium by Juan Luna, National Museum Manila

Spolarium - how well meant,
and remembered in Juan Luna's vision -
the Gladiators, whose death and surrender
brought ruin to a great nation
and rebirth of another.

In Iliad and Odyssey
the gods bestow on men honor
the lives of those in another Kingdom,
just once and nothing more,
leading mortals to doom.~

Be vigilant! Don't be a victim of unscrupulous trade practices.

Dr Abe V Rotor 
Living with Nature - School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com]
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM 8 to 9 Evening Class, Monday to Friday 

 Wa-is, coming from the word wise, is the local parlance to describe a person who puts one over his fellowmen. It is taking advantage of others of their situation,


Be sure you know what goes into your coffee. It may be adulterated with ipil-ipil seeds. Likewise, chocolate may contain road dust as filler. Papaya seeds mixed with black pepper is not uncommon. Peanut butter comes from broken and immature seeds; bagoong and patis from unsold fish at the end of the day.

1. Coffee may be adulterated with ipil-ipil (Leucaena glauca) seeds. The seeds contain mimosin that retards growth and causes baldness.

2. Broken and inferior peanut is ground into peanut butter. It is high in aflatoxin which causes cirrhosis and cancer. Healthy nuts are sold whole peanut.

3. It is the culled piglets (bansot) that are made into lechon. The robust ones are grown for meat.




4. Papaya seeds are mixed with black pepper. They look similar.

5. Inferior quality fruits such as strawberry, orange and mango are made into jam and puree.

6. Ordinary milkfish (bangos) is passed on as prized Bonoan bangus from Dagupan. The lower tail of Bonoan bangos is shorter than the other tail.


7. Unscrupulous traders add water and salt to bagoong and patis to increase their volume.

8. Premium grade fruits are arranged on top of kaing (basket); inside are of inferior grade.

Generic medicine is all right if guaranteed by DOH. Branded medicine is expensive, and capitalizes on its brand.

9. Ordinary rice is mixed with premium rice, and passed on as premium grade.

10. Cabbage grown on the lowlands of Ilocos is brought up to Baguio and passed on as Baguio cabbage which commands a higher price.

11. Before a large animal like cow is sold to the auction market it is first bathed with patis to make its body to swell and appear fat. This is a malpractice observed in Padre Garcia, Batangas, the biggest animal auction market in the Philippines.

12. Tomatoes are forced to ripe when price is high, This is done by uprooting the whole plant laden with fruits and hang it upside down until all the fruits, including the immature ones, are "ripe."

13. Immediately after the Chernobyl nuclear accident fallout-tainted milk found its way to the Philippines. The huge shipment was impounded pending investigation. When the investigation was over, to the surprise of not everyone, milk was gone. To the amazement of housewives - powdered milk and polvoron became so suddenly cheap!




14. Double dead is not a new term. This is meat from already dead animals - poultry and livestock sold clandestinely. It is prevalent during foot-and-mouth epidemic for livestock, and corriza for poultry, usually in the summer months.

How do you if an egg is fresh? Immerse in water. Fresh egg settles on its side at the bottom.
15. Check expiration date, also date of manufacture. If there is none - erased or altered - don't buy the commodity. This is specially true to canned goods, bakery products, and other perishable products. Check date of harvesting or slaughter for fresh items. There may be frozen food long overdue for disposal.

16. The most rampant trade malpractice is short selling. Watch out those weighing scales on the sidewalk. You pay for three kilos lanzones when the actual weight is only two. Translate this to bigger volumes.

17. Frozen dressed chicken? After thawing, it shrank by a quarter. So with fish. Sometimes water is injected before freezing.

18. Formalin is added to ice water to preserve fish. Any trace of formalin is enough warning. But not so many people can detect it.

19. Kalamay sa ba-o. How do we know if it's really filled? This is where trust of a suki comes in.

20. Food coloring makes food and drink attractive and inviting. Many food dyes are carcinogenic.

21. Over packaging (e.g. tupig is wrapped with layers of banana leaves, so with carabao cheese, puto and the like. Too much and elaborate packaging is part of selling strategy. It makes the item real expensive.



The cost of mineral water is 70 percent for the container, and 30 percent for the content. Which makes it the most expensive water in the world! It’s even more expensive than premium gasoline.

22. Davao pomelo, Zambales mango, Laguna lanzones,

23. Nakatikim ka na ba ng kinse años? (Referring to a 15-year old wine). It's a lie; a viable business can't let money sleep that long. And how about the hidden indecency of the message? Would you patronize the product?

24. Made in USA, Made in Japan, But the components of the appliance are made in China. German Design, but locally made. "USA" Translation: Deer

25. Dilution = More Profit, in shampoo, washing detergents, softdrink, fruit juice, whiskey, brandy, rubbing alcohol, perfume, gurgle. We may be buying "water" and least of the product.

26. Fillers in toothpaste, detergents, cosmetics, etc. Breaded fried chicken, fish to make them look bigger - and cheaper.

27. Sale! Sale! Be aware of the original price, and find out if it's really sale.

28. Advance payments. Payment-in-kind. Wholesale price, factory price (really?),
No exchange no return. The customer is always right. I mean, the right of the customer.

29. Smuggled? contraband (guns)? Stolen? Regulated (drugs)? Fenced? The customer must know the law. Ignorance is no excuse. Don't fall victim of illegal activities.

30. Book Cover Syndrome. We are in an age of aesthetic design. Of beautiful facade. Of first impression. Of idol endorsers, of the "in" thing. "Contemporary" means now; tradition is passe. Futurism (Lady Gaga), gender insensitive (Charice).

Don't fall into the tender trap of consumerism. Impulse buying, psychological appetite. Restraint, restraint.

These and many more practices attest to the negative traits of some Filipinos - and other nationalities as well. It is by knowing these unscrupulous trade practices that we are forewarned. "To be forewarned is to be forearmed."     

Landscape Paintings and Poetry

Dr Abe V Rotor

 
All in a day's work and play, AVR

Going home at the end of day the sweetest hour;
all creatures heed to Nature's call;
Humblest indeed our prayer of thanksgiving
as the curtain begins to fall.    

A valley of peace and bounty,  AVR

Not a valley of lament, of sorrowful state,
and never to surrender to death;
it all depends who makes life to such fate,
believing to his last breath. 
  

Rivulets to streams comb the hills, AVR

 The beginning of the great Nile lies somewhere
on the glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro;
Hemingway wrote in the like of an idea untold, 
 emerging, converging, to be true.
 

Downstream, AVR 

I was lost in the middle of a forest 

hidden by fog to its crest;

trees blocked my path, my sight;

t'was a stream I owe my life.

Cliff, AVR

A watchtower of my ancestors I revisited; 

once green and sacred,

now bare and empty, I found it instead,

a history of the dead.  

Angling and loafing, AVR

The fish I caught may be small and few,  

 but I am happiest though;

more than the flowing stream that I knew

many great ideas grew. 

Sitting Boat AVR

Wonder the fisherman at sundown,
his boat  by the bay sits;
to sea the whole night he's bound,  
while the world sleeps

Rainforest sentinel AVR

Stately and colorful like a king,
the cockatoo is lord of the realm;
greet and he will echo your call,
and will follow to the screen.

Dita, the tallest tree in Manila, a living sentry that reminds us, "Only God can make a tree."

It is home of insects and reptiles, foothold of orchids, ferns and lianas, abode of birds that celebrate life with their young and beautiful songs.  

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Dita (Alstonia scholaris) the biggest member of the Apocynaceae family stands overlooking the sprawling UST campus and its environs,

Older than most structures except the main building, it rises with the tower cross, sharing the lofty height  from afar, on the front and back.  

Scarred by war and by fire it is a veteran of events in history, witness to the university's many activities and celebrations, . 

While graduates pass through the Arch of the Centuries, this tree stands firm and proud; it is a sentry, a guardian, and a symbol, too.  

Its crown is the biggest umbrella on the campus, filtering the sun, the dust and rain; it captures carbon and gives off oxygen in turn.   

It captures the fog into morning mist, and makes a rainbow with the showers, and cushions the sun set into gentle breeze and subdued gray.   

It does not respond to autumn even if other trees lose their leaves and gain a new crown; instead it retains its canopy green. 

It is home of insects and reptiles, foothold of orchids, ferns and lianas, abode of birds that celebrate life with their young and beautiful songs.   

And when it is winter in cold countries, it is time for its pods to mature, popping out myriads of tiny lints like parachutes that float in the air. 

And children run after them like snowflakes, and wish like wishing upon a star -  and strangely lints daintily fall into their palms.  

The dita wakes up earlier than anyone else on the campus, sings with the carillon, and joins the whispers and laughter on the campus.

The day ends just like any day, the campus sleeps - and there stands a silhouette that reminds us, "Only God can make a tree." ~   

   

Are mosses and lichens Nature's compass in the forest?

If so, then this is a survival tool when one gets lost in a tropical rainforest.

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

Lichen and moss on trees.  On-the-spot painting by the author in

acrylic, La Union Botanical Garden, AVR 2003

I know birds and insects,

by your weird look (reffering to the moss and lichen) would turn away,

but not the lost and weary;

living crust, callous and cankerous,

surreptitiously coy and shy,

creatures just pass you by;

made of fungus and alga symbionts

living as one in harmony,

classical model of unity;

so with the moss creeping on a host tree,

growing freely with pride,

though less on the sheltered side;

nature's compass for all seasons,

as the earth on its tilted axis

both prefer to grow on the northeast;

for many lost souls in the green prison

find freedom at long last;

bless you benevolent living crusts. ~

NOTE:  In the northern hemisphere moss prefers to grow on the north side, while lichen on the south side of tree trunks and rocks in a forest. This pattern is the opposite in the southern hemisphere. 

The underlying reason is traced to the tilting of the earth that results in differential sunlight exposure.  Certain scientists believe that moss is favored by less sunlight and more supply of water. Whereas lichen - a symbiosis of algae (photosynthetic) and fungi (saprophytic) - is favored with more sunlight and moderate moisture. Hence the pattern as claimed.

My view is that, this rule may not hold true in all cases.  In fact it is my observation that both moss and lichen have the tendency to grow as one community - together with their host tree, other organisms notwithstanding.  They are appreciably more abundant on the north side of trees in the northern hemisphere. Moss and lichen share a kind of mutualistic relationship that discourages direct competition.

This is a good research for biology and ecology, particularly in the graduate school. Or, why don't you work on it  and share your findings in your school and community.  

Are mosses and lichens Nature's compass in the forest?

Trophies of Nature

 Trophies of Nature

“Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. “ ~ Albert Einstein

Dr Abe V Rotor

Barbed wire trophy

Self explanatory is a barbed wire's analogy:

     suffering and death beyond its boundary. - avr 

 

  

Empire State, Burj Azizi in imaginary minuscule ruins

Tower of Babel - short cut to heaven;

in our own time, loftier, taller

than the sequoia trees of nature,

rise in ruins to warn of the Fall. - avr

Goodbye, Sandcastle, Goodbye

 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

 Morong Bataan April 27, 2014

Goodbye, sandcastle, goodbye, 

my childhood shall be no more     

as the tides and lapping waves

sweep memories on the shore. 

Nessa the Child and Oscar the Fish

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
 
 

 

 At home in Lagro, QC 

That's the way innocence works -
        ephemeral to behold;
time is of the essence but once
        and reigns only in childhood,
       
when barriers are bridged and crossed,
        in the diversity of the world,
and to spread love to all creatures,
        the very young and the old;

praise what it means years ahead
        this child and the living word
unspoken, a kiss of innocence
       that promises accord. ~

In Search of Sacredness

In Search of Sacredness 

Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature School on Blog
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

“Why can’t many people find sacredness anymore?” asked Time in a special issue. Moses asked the same question, puzzled on why his people had turned their worship to a golden calf. Christ released His anger, the first and only instance, when the synagogue was turned into a marketplace.
  The author as St Peter in a play directed by the late Fr. James Reuter, SJ

I remember Alvin Toffler’s books Future Shock and Eco-Spasm. We are unprepared visitors of a changed planet who broke away too soon with the past. We are willing victims of an accelerated thrust of time and change. We are a people of the future too soon, carried away by the concept of transience and adhocracy, and not one of permanence. We created a throw-away society that we discard many things including values in favor of novelty.

We find little sacredness when we talk in the future tense, of foreign ideologies not founded by enduring philosophies, but of futurism, its promises of choice and kaleidoscopic images. How can we find sacredness in subterranean cities, in modular fun houses, in sprawling mega malls, in mail-a-bride and rent-a-person, in hurry-up welcome, in Batman, in temporary marriages? Welcome to the rental revolution, to simulated environments, the portable playground.

Gone is the homing instinct. Broken is the old family. If we are a product of periodicity, then we are but a drifting leaf swept onto the ocean of change. 

No, we are not. 

Here we remember the classical period, the anchor against the fallacy of human dreams and ambitions. What caused the downfall of Alexander and Napoleon? Here we remember the historical period. History is the greatest lesson of mankind. He who knows his history does not run and get a stabbing thorn. He who walks sees reality and the beauty of the countryside. 

We remember liberation theology – it is the catalyst of social justice in the clergy; the feminist paradigm – it gives wholeness to man-woman relationship; the Filipino paradigm, the quaintness of Filipino life, shy from the world, but full of life’s simplicity as well as flavors, while ecological paradigm is making us move closer to God through  nature.

Finding God on the Web

The Computer Revolution is touching our faith more openly and deeply now than during the age of Bible Study and Sunday Worship.

The marriage of technology and religion, though an ancient one (starting with the codification of religious belief in cuneiform writing), has gone farther than following Mass on television. It now makes available in the home through the Internet the subject of God in the countless denominations of faith. This leads to the creation of a cathedral in the mind, but what does it look like? Will a worldwide web bind all of us, Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, together?

Time poses this question with a sense of optimism that opens the door to religious understanding rather than religious isolation and conflict. These electronic exchanges will ultimately help people from many religions understand the common ideas that bind them together.

“One of the causes of religious disagreement has been the sense of strangeness, of pure unfamiliarity,” says Notre Dame philosophy professor, Alvin Plantinga.
The world is about to plunge into a giant pool called globalization where the dividing lines of distinction begin to dissolve: sex, geography, public and private life, status, race, religion, trade, education, culture, many others. Will these end up into a “classless and raceless” society? what paradigm do all these offer for one in order to lead a true moral life?

As I walk on the road of change, I see a faint light from the window of an old house. It gives me comfort, more that all the stars I see above. ~

NOTE: Part 4 of Paradigms of Salvation,  Light from the Old Arch, AVRotor UST Publishing House 2000

Creative Photography: Life must go on

Creative Photography: Life must go on  

"Life is real, life is earnest,

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul."

- Longfellow

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 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

 Exhibited photographs by students in Communication Art 

at the University of Santo Tomas 

"Life is but a day at most." 
- Burns 

“For all the happiness mankind can gain

Is not pleasure, but rest from pain.”

- Cortez

"Handful of good life is better than a bushel of learning." 

- Herbert 

"Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, 
and the heart of man go together."  

- The Two paths 

"The vanity of human life is like a river, constantly passing away, 

and yet constantly coming on." 
- Alexander Pope

"Life is as tedious as a twice told tale

Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man." 
- Shakespeare

"O life! thou art a galling load

Along a rough, a weary road." 
- Burns 

"Like some fair hum'rists, life is most enjoy'd

When courted least; most worth, when disesteemed." 
- Young

"There is no wealth but life." 
- John Ruskin 

"Our care should not be so much to live long, as to live well." 
- Seneca

"At twenty years of age the will reigns,; at thirty, 

the wit; and at forty, the judgment." 

- Grattan  

"A useless life is an early death."

- Iphigenie

"The youngest in the morning are not sure

That till the night their life they can secure." 
- Sir J Denham 

"To live long, it is necessary to live slowly." 
- Cicero

"My life is but wind

Which passeth by, and leaves no print behind."
- Sandys 

Life’s is but a walking shadow – a poor player,

Thus struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more.  It is a tale

Told by idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

- Shakespeare.