10 Inventions Inspired by Nature

 10 Inventions Inspired by Nature 

 Dr Abe V Rotor 

Living with Nature School on Blog

Pinawa (brown rice) hand mill, Farmers' Museum, NFA Cabanatuan

Who were the first inventors?

The otter playfully lies on its back in water, crushes its food shells with stones on its chest. The eagle takes up in the air a piece of bone, aims and drops it accurately hitting a rock in order to break, then comes down and eats the bone marrow. The macaque uses a stick which it probes into a termite nest to gather termites which it eventually eats. Birds do the same in extracting the larvae of tree borers.

Then there is man, the inventor; his teacher - Nature.

If we look at man's invention there is a semblance of Nature's ways, from the web of spider to become fishing net, the sounds of breeze on trees and waves lapping the shore into sweet sound of music, the flight of the bumblebee into helicopter. But all these were not planned, deliberate and well understood. They came from providential discovery called serendipity. Alexander Fleming did not actually discover antibiotics from his specimen - rather from a contaminant that destroyed it. Macaroni was started from a spilled durum wheat dough in the sun.

Can anyone become an inventor or a discoverer?

If you think you cannot do much, and that the little you can do is of no value, think of these things:

1. A lantern swinging in a tower as the beginning of a pendulum.

2. A shirt waving on the clothesline was the beginning of a balloon, the forerunner of the Graf Zeppelin.

3. A spider web strung across a garden path suggested the suspension bridg

4. Thomas Edison made thousands upon thousands of trials before he got his celebrated electric light to operate.

5. An apple falling from a tree led to the discovery of the law of gravity. (Newton)

6. Physicist Rene’ Laenvec observed children tapping signals to one another from opposite ends of a hollow log – gave him the idea to invent the stethoscope (wooden tube with an earpiece that transports the sounds from the heart and chest more clearly than any means formerly used)

7. Chester Greenwood 15, dropped out of grammar school invented earmuffs in 1877 at age 19, earned a fortune as he produced millions during WWI.

8. Graham Bell invented the telephone which carries through wire and be heard many miles away. It took years to convince people that this is possible.

9. Joseph Mainer, a French gardener, is credited with inventing steel-reinforced cement after observing a 3-foot straw of wheat was able to hold heavy grains upright in high wind.

10. A tea kettle singing on a stove was the beginning of the steam engine. 

And, the first tool of man which is flint stone must have been inspired by natural fragmentation of rocks by heat and cold, and avalanche.

Invention builds on another like the sled developing into something more efficient, into wheel. And yet the Aztecs and Incas, the Inuits and American Indians did not use wheels, but relied on sled instead?

We may not know who first discovered fire, invented the wheel or fish hook, or thought of the idea of a pyramid. We can only wonder on the ingenuity of the inventor of the scissor and the sewing needle.

And thank the mother of invention and serendipity - Nature. ~

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

Ways to Conserve Our Sloping Lands through SALT

 Ways to Conserve Our Sloping Lands through SALT

           SALT (Sloping Agricultural Land Technology)*

Dr Abe V Rotor

Upland in Silang, Cavite, typical of farms on sloping land. Erosion does not only reduce soil fertility; it strips off the fertile "skin and flesh" of the land permanently. Here the slope has been sliced by rills and gullies, footprints of runoff water. Through years of neglect and mismanagement the land is now marginalized, a step away from becoming a wasteland. (Photo by the author)  

These are ways to conserve sloping lands. 

1. Don't disturb the natural vegetation that has preserved the state of the land, say forest or grassland, for years if not generations. Nature knows what is best in keeping the land in a state of dynamic balance, which is the key to long term stability (homeostasis).   

2. A slope does not exist as an independent piece of land - it links two terrains, the upper part is usually a watershed that catches the rain, and the lower part which deposits the net runoff in rivers, ponds and lakes. 

Destruction of the slopes leads to desertification (wasteland formation) as the land is stripped of its cover, predisposing it to repeated brush fire and erosion. Below the rivers run dry, so with the ponds, that irrigate the fields. The lake shrinks and form a swamp around it.  

3. The slopes serve as buffer and storage of water and soil nutrients.  If it is destroyed, rainwater will be lost quickly as it rushes down with little amount absorbed and kept for future use specially in summer. 

The aquifers (porous rock layers) will not be filled up to feed the streams and springs. Plants will dry up under the sun to fuel a spark into conflagration as what is has happened to many arid parts of the world - Indonesia, Australia, Green, China, and the Philippines.     

4. In the Cordillera (Mountain Province and Ifugao) terraces have been built on mountain slopes where there is a rock core, on contiguous and graded slopes that span from a cloud rich summit down to rice fields that sustain a community. Ultimately a natural waterway becomes the catchment.  The scenario starts with rain cloud from the summit slowly and continuously moving over the terraces in the shape of a giant funnel. 

Terrace building took centuries, terrace after terrace, linking the generations and cultures, unifying agriculture and ecology, and it is for these underlying reasons that the Banaue rice terraces has gained the prestige of one of the wonders of the ancient world, and today's honor as a UNESCO heritage.  

6. For privately owned sloping areas, if  one wishes to go into farming, say an orchard or woodland (agro-forestry), or as a pasture - or in combination - it is important to consult the present Land Use Policy. Consultation with the DA and DENR is important.

 

Typical sloping land farming (Internet)

SALT (Sloping Agricultural Land Technology) is a program of the government patterned after those of China, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan and many other parts of the world. Author's Note: SALT  has limited applications, typically feasible on gently sloping land, and seldom in areas above 45 degrees.  Where rainfall is limited and irregular SALT is not recommended. SALT is not the answer to wasteland conversion, rather it is a wasteland prevention measure. 

7. Where agriculture is not feasible, sloping lands should be preserved as ecological sanctuary, to compensate for the shrinking natural habitats of wildlife. Ecology tourism is a boost to such areas.  More and more tourists are coming out from cities at weekend, and tourists searching for the richness of tropical greenery, the famed setting of John Milton's sequel, I saw Paradise Lost and I Saw Paradise Regained. ~

* Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT) is a package of technology of soil conservation and food production, integrating differing soil conservation measures in just one setting. Basically, SALT is a method of growing field and permanent crops in 3-5 m wide bands between contoured rows of nitrogen fixing trees.

Are you a narcissist? Take this test.

Are you a narcissist? Take this test.

Narcissism is sometimes a cradle-to-grave affliction, with family members, co-workers, lovers and others paying a price. (Jeffrey Kluger, The Narcissist's Next Door)

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog

 

Here are two photos from the Internet to illustrate the two faces of narcissism syndrome - extreme love of oneself, typically "the Narcissus in Greek mythology looking at his image on the lake all day," (left photo), and conceitedness as to be too cold to feel the love of another, as in the case of Echo the nymph of the forest who was deeply in love for Narcissus only to be tragically unreciprocated.  (Acknowledgement: Internet)  

Never in recorded history of mankind had Narcissus the symbol of self-centeredness ever possessed so many people, particularly the young, as he has today - what with the invention of the selfie (other-directed camera), fashion unlimited (Lady Gaga, Madonna), flashy cars (move over Old Ford), explosion of knowledge (Computer Age), social media (Cell phone, Tablet et al), urbanization (Metropolises, megapolises), consumerism (lifeblood of capitalism). 

What and where is the origin of this egocentrism?

In The Little Narcissists, small children, by their very nature " ... are greedy, demanding, violent, selfish, impulsive and utterly remorseless." They fight with playmates and siblings but scream in pain and indignation if they are attacked in return. They expect to be adored but not disciplined, rewarded but never penalized, cared for and served by parents and family without caring or serving reciprocally.

But it is also a kind of narcissism that babies need for their very survival.  Sigmund Freud in his book His Majesty the Baby called this as primary narcissism, which is not true narcissism because babies are not moved by greed and guile but the primal need to live. Psychologists explain that the seeds of the behaviors that turn into genuine narcissism aren't scattered throughout the baby's temperament.  Just like seeds of other personality disorders - tantrums that, if not brought to heels, become histrionic personality disorder later in life, the deep need for love and attention, and the rage at their absence, that in an adult is called borderline personality disorder.  

The narcissism that babies exhibit is a phase that passes, so that as they grow up they become aware of the limits of their behavior - though it is a lesson that they must learn through their formative years. 

Is narcissism hereditary?  A study of identical twins showed that when one member of the pair was narcissistic, there was a 77% chance the other would be too - something that was not true of fraternal twins, whose genes are more similar than those of other siblings.  

A commonly accepted theory is a mask model of narcissism, the idea that the self-absorption and egotism of the narcissist are a pose to mask their opposite: a deep well of self loathing and low self-esteem. An opposing theory is that the grandiosity of the narcissist is just what it seems: a consuming self-regard, perhaps fostered by overindulgent parents. 

---------------------------------------------------------
Narcissism is psychopathology.  It is characterized by a virtually bottomless appetite for attention and rewards, and numbness on how others suffer. Narcissism however, is a built-in evolutionary tool for survival starting at birth and nurtured through the years of growing up. This is where proper guidance comes in from the family, school, community, and through education and proper environment. There's one little consolation though - narcissism, like any personality disorder may also simply mellow a bit with age. 
---------------------------------------------------------

Check the answer in each pair that comes closest to describing you.  Don't leave any pairs blank. 

1.
A  I have  natural talent in influencing people. 
B  I am not good at influencing people.

2. 
A When people complement me, I sometimes get embarrassed.  
B I know I am good because everybody keeps telling me so. 

3.
A I am no better or worse than most people. 
B I think I am a special person. 

4.
A  I will be a success.
B I am not too concerned about being a success.

5. 
A The thought of ruling the world frightens the hell out of me. 
B If I ruled the world, it will be a better place. 

6. 
A I try not to show off.
B I usually show off if I get the chance.

7.
A Sometimes I tell good stories.
B Everybody likes to to hear my stories.

8. 
A I expect a great deal from other people.
B I like to do things for other people 

9.
A I will never be satisfied until I get all that I deserve.
B I take my satisfactions as they come.

10.
A I wish someday somebody would write my biography.  
B I don't like people to pry into my life for any reason.

Scoring Key
Score one point for each time you checked A in Nos. 1,4,8,9, or 10.
Score one point for each time you checked B in Nos. 2,3,5,6, or 7.

What it Means
The average score is 4.  The higher your score above that, the more narcissistic you might be. 

     

Romantic paintings of Narcissus endlessly admiring his beauty day after day until he fell into the lake and drown. Echo, the nymph of the forest seduces the proud Narcissus only to be coldly unreciprocated. In deep sorrow she vanishes and becomes the echo of the mountains. (Acknowledgement: Internet photos)

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

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

Excerpted from the narcissistic personality inventory developed by Robert Raskin and Howard Terry as reported by Jeffrey Kluger, The Little Narcissists, Time September 1, 2014 ~

The Month of May - When AMIHAN and HABAGAT Meet

                   When Amihan and Habagat Meet 

Celebrating the Passing of Seasons in Paintings and Verses  

Dr Abe V Rotor

Sunlight Stream Through the Forest, 2015

                                 May, the parting of seasons:
                                      summer bids goodbye,
                                 welcomes the rainy habagat;
                                     wakes the trees in sigh.

A Wholesome Bouquet  2015

May, the month of flowers and blossoms,

bright and shy and stern,

offers to the Creator but His own gifts,

man's thanksgiving in return. 

Red Fish and Brood 2015

Wonder what the month of May is in the deep;

it's a mother fish with a brood in her keep.

Rainbow Trees 2015

Wonder what the rainbow is in May

when the sky is clear and blue;

how these trees mimic the rainbow,

like the heart longing and true.

A Camouflage of Moth 2015

Hidden safe in disguise and design

from jaws and sting and beak

by nature's law of deceit to defend

the defenseless and weak. ~

Spider on the Wall

 Spider on the Wall   

Dr Abe V Rotor 

In my room one peaceful evening came a spider.

Welcome, gladly I said, as it paused for a moment

on drawings on the wall my grand children made,

its legs tapping a message for whatever it meant.

Ah, you are an artist too, I guessed, as it moved 

along and across swiftly I thought it would fall,

Instead it embraced a make-believe companion;

I looked into this creature a mirror on the wall.

Giant house spider (Aratigena africa) is also known as Wolsey spider (Tegenaria parietina), sometimes referred to as Cardinal spider, named after Cardinal Wolsey during the time of  Henry VIII of England. Giant house spiders have been recently  classified under genus Aratigena. 

Signature of time passing.

Signature of time passing.

Dr Abe V Rotor

How time flies, we hear people say;

maybe, but it leaves something:

like first smile, first word, first step, ,

each a signature of time passing.

Weaning leaves the infant behind.

First birthday is full of love and affection.

From the confines of home to the open arms of Nature.

Bridging three generations in a row.

Youngest visitor suspends work momentarily.

Family reunion strengthens bonding up to the third generation (and beyond), keeps distance (even overseas) within reach, and gives a sense of comfort and security. ~

Lost Civilizations

Lost Civilizations

Dr Abe V Rotor

Man, being the superior organism, has not only won over his rivals - all organisms that constitute the biosphere. He has also assaulted Nature.

Ruins of the sunken town of Pantabangan (Photo by the author on a helicopter)

Fifteen civilizations, once flourished in Western Sahara, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, the Sinai desert, Mesopotamia, and the deserts of Persia. All of these cultures perished when the people of the area through exploitation, forced nature to react. As a consequence, man was robbed of his only means of sustenance.

History tells us of man’s early abuse of nature in the Fertile Crescent where agriculture began some 3000 years ago. Man-made parallel canals joined the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to irrigate the thirsty fertile valley. In the process, the balance of Nature was overturned when the natural drainage flow was disturbed. Because the treaty was violated, nature revenged. The canal civilization perished in the swamps that later formed. The sluggish water brought malaria and other diseases causing untold number of deaths and migration to the hinterlands. Among its victims was Alexander the Great.

Carthage had another story. Three wars hit Carthage, known as the Punic Wars. On the third one, the Romans ploughed through the city, ending reign of this erstwhile mercantile power, and removing the threat to the Roman economy. After the conquest, the Romans pumped salt-water inland and flooded the fertile farms. Today, Carthage exists only in history and in imagination of   whoever stands atop a hill overlooking what is now a vast desert.

 Ruins of the City of Troy

Omar Khayyam, if alive today, cannot possibly compose verses as beautiful as the Rubaiyat as written in his own time. His birthplace, Nishapur, which up to the time of Genghis Khan, supported a population of 1.5 million people, can only sustain 15,000 people today. Archeologists have just unearthed the Forest of Guir where Hannibal marched with war elephants. The great unconquerable jungle of India grew from waterlogged lowland formed by unwise irrigation management.

It is hard to believe, but true that in the middle of the Sahara desert, 50 million acres of fossil soil are sleeping under layers of sand awaiting water. Surveyors found an underground stream called the Albienne Nappe that runs close to this deposit. Just as plans were laid to “revive” the dead soil by irrigation, the French tested their first atomic bomb. Due to contamination, it is no longer safe to continue on with the project.

The great Pyramids of Egypt could not have been constructed in the middle of an endless desert. The tributaries of the Nile once surrounded these centers of civilization. Jerusalem appears today as a small city on a barren land. It may have been a city with thick vegetation. This was true of Negev and Baghdad.

The Pyramid at Giza, Egypt, and the Sphinx 

Need of a Conservation Program

For the Philippines, it is high time we lay out a long-range conservation program to insure the future of the country. This plan should protect the fertility of the fields, wealth of the forests and marine resources, in order to bring prosperity to the people. As of now, the country is being ripped apart by erosion and floods due to unscrupulous exploitation by loggers and kaingeros.

It is only through proper management and effective conservation, such as reforestation, pollution control, erosion control, limited logging, and proper land use, that we can insure the continuity of our race. All we have to do is to keep ourselves faithful to the treaty between nature and man. ~

Lost Civilizations - Myth or Real?

1. Atlantis is the most elusive of all the lost civilizations. What we know about this lost world comes from a few passages in the works of Plato. Archeological sightings at the bottom of the ocean continue to build credible evidences. Atlantis projects a Utopian image in the ideals of Plato's Republic - which makes it a myth.

2. Rome is the classical model of the rise and fall of an empire, prominently illustrated by historian Gibbon. Actually Rome had its ups and downs in its long record as the world's greatest empire, particularly after conquering the Greek states and integrating them into the empire. The ultimate fall of Rome was both internal (rise of Christianity, moral decay and weak governance) and external (overrun by barbarians, and cessation of the provinces), until the empire became fragments of fiefs and kingdoms that dominated the Dark Ages.

3. Maya, of ancient Mexico was already in decline when the Spanish conquistador Cortes conquered the city and all its vast territories. The people went back to live in the villages. Today, the Maya is a ghost city. From the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, signs of life around is nil - even as a tourists destination. The Mayans did not live long enough to witness the end of the world as predicted in their calendar - December 21, 2012.

4. Angkor Wat is another great civilization that disappeared mysteriously, leaving a magnificent temple complex comparable only with the world's greatest ancient infrastructures like Borobodor of Indonesia, Parthenon of Greece, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. There are scientific evidences of ecological decline, natural (erratic climate change) and man-induced (deforestation which led to erosion and siltation.) The city was virtually sitting on water with series of canals, moats and aqueducts.) History tells us that subsequent conquests by neighboring cultures from Siam and other lands wrote finish to Angkor Wat.

5. Easter Island - The Fall of the Moai culture is the result of resource exploitation and destruction on this isolated island. The first westerners who discovered the island wondered how any one could have survived on such a desolate, treeless place. This mystery was solved recently when core samples taken from the crater lakes showed that the island was heavily forested with a giant now-extinct palm and trees during the time the Easter Island culture was active. Which means that the island was a Paradise. The islanders cut down the trees for housing, boats and eventually for the rollers and lever-like devices used to move and erect the moai (stone statues).

As the deforestation continued the moai building competition turned into an obsession. The quarry was producing moai at sizes that probably could never have been moved very far (one unfinished moai in the quarry is 70 feet tall!). With the loss of the forests, the land began to erode. The small amount of topsoil quickly washed into the sea. The crops began to fail and the clans turned on one another in a battle for the scarce resources. The symbols of the islanders' power and success, the moai, were toppled. Violence grew to the point of self annihilation - and even cannibalism.

With no wood left to build boats, all the Rapa Nui people could do was look enviously at the birds that sail effortless through the sky. The Rapa Nui culture and community, which had developed over the past 300 years, collapsed. Only the moai - cold, numb stone statue remain.  If only they could speak!

6. Minoans. They formed a pre classical Greek culture that built fabulous modern cities on the island of Crete, and unlike most ancient cities in the region, they had no city walls. Probably protected by their navy, their civilization thrived for over 1,000 years, from 2700 BC to 1450 BC. Minoan culture is rich in mythology such as the Minotaur (half man, half beast), Daedalus the architect of the Labyrinth, and son Icarus who fell from the sky when he defied his father's warning not to get too close to the sun. Whatever happened the the Minoan culture could be parallel with the decline and fall of other Greek city states.

7. Stonehenge. Megalith built out of giant stones which survive today as proof of a fabulous culture. For thousands of years (4800-1200 BC) people built a variety of structures out of giant stones in western Europe. The purpose of some of these structures was astronomical - tracking  the movement and position of heavenly bodies, and to keep track with the seasons, and time - as an early kind of calendar. Stonehenge is the most well known of these sites.

Reference: Doug’s Darkworld
War, Science, and Philosophy in a Fractured World. Acknowledgement: Wikipedia, Internet

A Critique on the Lost Eden

A Critique on the Lost Eden
Dr Abe V Rotor

Light in the Woods, acrylic, AVR 1994

Forest Fire, Acrylic, AVR 1995

A long list of vanished and vanishing species - even those that have not been discovered and named – haunts the human species, Homo sapiens, the most intelligent of all creatures. If this is not an evidence of the original sin which he continues to commit since his early ancestors were driven from Paradise, then we are merely being led to believe in something bound by deep faith, and in something supernatural.

Every time we destroy a forest, a coral reef, or grassland, we are repeating the fault of our ancestors. The biblical story is fiction if we fail to grasp its essence. True, exile comes in many ways. But definitely, if an ecosystem is destroyed, if it loses its capacity to provide the basic needs of its inhabitants, starvation, death, and other forms of deprivation follow. Does this not trigger exile – or exodus, which is the ultimate recourse for survival?

Here is a poem I wrote upon reaching Tagum. It is about the destruction of a forest I related in the first part of this article.

Lost Forest

Staccato of chirping meets the breeze and sunrise,
Waking the butterflies, unveiled by the rising mist;
Rush the stream where fish play with the sunbeam
And the rainforest opens, a stage no one could miss,
With every creature in a role to play without cease.

John Milton wrote his masterpiece of Paradise,
While Beethoven composed sonata with ecstasy,
Jean Fabre and Edwin Teale with lens in hand
Discovered a world Jules Verne didn’t see,
But found Aldo Leopold’s ecosystem unity.

For how long to satiate man’s greed can nature sustain?
It was not long time ago since progress became a game,
Taking the streets, marching uphill to the mountain,
Where giant machines roar, ugly men at the helm -
Folly, ignorance and greed are one and same.  AVR, 2001

In 1960 Philippine Dipterocarp Forests occupied almost 14 million hectares. What is left today is only three and one-half million hectares. The average rate of decline is over 2 percent annually. What is more alarming is the decline in the volume of trees in the forest which around 6 percent in the last 30 years. All over the world, annual deforestation represents an area as large as Luxemburg. This means every tick of the clock is a hectare of rainforest permanently erased from the globe.~

Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat: Selected Passages

 Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat

Selected Passages 

Dr Abe V Rotor

"Rubaiyat warns us of the danger of Greatness, the instability of Fortune, and while advocating Charity to all, recommending us to be too intimate with none." (Omar Khayyam: The Astronomer-Poet of Persia)

Omar Khayyam exudes the familiar serenity and

peaceful expression even in his monument built

in a garden in his place of birth in Nishapur, Iran

From The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,

A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and thou

Beside me singing in the wilderness -

And wilderness is Paradise enow.

The rustic imagery lures the busy mind and body to a retreat, a kind of escape temporary from the cares and troubles of the world. This passage must have influenced authors centuries later in alluring Paradise to basic Nature - Nature unspoiled and unscathed by human hand.

"How sweet is mortal Sovanty!" - think some:

Others - "How blest the Paradise to come!"

Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest;

Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum.

Paradise is just a passage long enough for man's mortality to reach and experience. Others think otherwise - the true one does not come while man lives. It lies in the afterlife, Omar Khayyam might have called Heaven, a collective Paradise of the good souls and spirits. In John Milton's sequel of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, there is a part Eve after the Fall said to Adam, "Go, for as long as I am with you, I'm in Paradise." Where lies that distant drum?

Myself when young did eagerly frequent

Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument

About it and about: but evermore

Came out by the same Door as in I went.

This passage speaks of the genius of the poet - mathematician and astronomer. Learned men in his time were few. As true learned, Omar Khayyam painfully deciphered knowledge into arts and sciences, for the dichotomy of knowledge is that, either one lends itself to proof, or does not. And yet at the end, man is always in futile grasp of the real mystery of knowledge - which is wisdom.

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon

Turns Ashes - or it prospers; and anon,

Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face

Lighting a little Hour or two - is gone.

With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,

And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:

And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd -

"I came like Water, and like Wind I go.

Such futility is often reflected in the Rubaiyat like a given factor in mathematics or in empirical inferences. Which points to human frailty and imperfection. The beauty of poetry lies in this theme. At the end, futility is the gateway to freedom. "Rubaiyat warns us of the danger of Greatness, the instability of Fortune , and while advocating Charity to all, recommending us to be too intimate with none." (Omar Khayyam: The Astronomer-Poet of Persia)

The Rubaiyat is perhaps the most popular poetry in its time - in the eleventh century in then Persia. It lives among the great poems today. Omar Khayyam is a master of this quatrain style, also used by Nostradamus: ten syllables per line, in coordinated rhyming, leaving the third hanging as if to enable the reader to pause, take a breath, before regaining momentum for the finality of the whole passage. The Rubaiyat touches quite often the theme of ephemeral pleasure and fleeting moments of life, the instability of Fortune - and inevitability of death in any hour. Generally quatrain is difficult to interpret for its ambiguous nature that open wider view and perspective, and for the economy of expression as if the poem is merely a structural framework of a greater whole. It takes an analytical mind to read in between lines, so to speak.

And yet as one becomes familiar to the style he begins to unlock the meaning of each line, then the whole stanza, and proceeds to the numbered series. It is not unusual to go through the whole Rubaiyat book (159 pages) skimming every page, or skipping some in the process. Strangely enough acquiring separate images as if one gets "lost" only to find his way back later. Why not? Omar Khayyam talks of wine, of ephemeral beauty, imagined paradise, women and song, of science and séance, reality and dream, before man reaches the inevitability of his existence. And even in death and after, Khayyam expertly portrayed scenarios turning back the wheels of time - as if man lives a second life, man taken away from his real self by a jug of wine and pleasure of the flesh, and sweet idleness. These of course set the genius to explore and discover. Such is the man of the hour in Omar Khayyam's time as reflected in his masterpiece.

Read the Rubaiyat. Then try writing poetry in quatrain. It's a great experience. ~

NOTES: Khayyám's full name was Ghiyath al-Din Abu'l-Fath Umar ibn Ibrahim Al-Nishapuri al-Khayyami and was born in Nishapur, Iran.

Omar Khayyám was famous during his times as a mathematician. He wrote the influential Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra (1070), which laid down the principles of algebra, part of the body of Persian Mathematics that was eventually transmitted to Europe. In particular, he derived general methods for solving cubic equations and even some higher orders.

Like most Persian mathematicians of the period, Omar Khayyám was also famous as an astronomer. Khayyám and his colleagues measured the length of the solar year as 365.2425 days. Omar's calendar was more accurate than 500 years later the Gregorian calendar. The modern Iranian calendar is based on his calculations.

Reference: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. English translation by EJ Fitzgerald

TIME APOLOGIZES, REPLACES MAGAZINE COVER TO REFLECT THE TRUE SITUATION IN THE PHILIPPINES.

TIME APOLOGIZES, REPLACES MAGAZINE COVER TO REFLECT THE TRUE SITUATION IN THE PHILIPPINES. 

TIME MAGAZINE RECALLS ITS LATEST ISSUE, PUBLISHES A replacement

 Philippine President Rod Duterte is Time's Person of the Year, 2016

                      SEPTEMBER 18, 2016 POL PINOY 1 COMMENT

NEW YORK, New York (The Adobo Chronicles, Washington Bureau) – After receiving a lot of flak for its latest issue whose cover depicts the Philippines and the government’s war on drugs, Time magazine recalled all copies and immediately replaced its cover to better reflect the truth.

“We are committed to reporting only the truth, so when we err, it is our responsibility to correct our error,” the magazine editors said.

The new copy includes an apology from the writer of the cover story, Rishi Iyengar, and the local Philippine journalists who fed him the misinformation.~

Janus-Faced* Media 

Dr Abe V Rotor



Media! how you make and unmake a situation,
     clinging to truth divine just an illusion;
what could glitter more than a merchant's gold
     cowers in robe and emblem the bold.

Thus the wall less empire thrives at the boundary,
     fence sitting to where the winds carry
the news and bounty like horse and carriage.
     seemingly blind, and often in rage.

Quo vadis? journalism of Ka Doroy Valencia et al,
     fathers of this profession whose fall
rose a Mandela, King, Gandhi, a thousand more
     on the battlefield, and across the shore.

Who is the master, who is the slave? In between
     the throng, and bandwagon its twin;
bereft of their right for truth, reduced into a fool;
     Oh, media! the all-knowing, deceitful. ~

* Janus-faced simply means having two sharply contrasting aspects or characteristics, insincere or deceitful. Examples: Janus-faced nature of a society, Janus-faced politician,  Janus faced media.

Author's Note:  This article is reprinted on popular request.

Toys in Our Postmodern World: We are in the midst of Toy Revolution

Toys in Our Postmodern World: 

We are in the midst of Toy Revolution

Dr Abe V Rotor

Making a colorful kite

Are toys important?

Yes. Toys and play are important in growing up and in learning about the world around us. They help us discover our identity, they help our bodies grow strong, and make us learn the cause and effect of what we do and in understanding the environment.

Even adults need toys; they form and strengthen social bonds. They teach and reinforce lessons, exercise the mind and body, and hone skills into use.

Toys decorate our homes, schools and playgrounds. They add aesthetics to our living space. Toys are more than simple amusement; they profoundly influence many aspects  of life.

 

Drone toys: remote controlled flying bird; quadcopter mounted with Wi-Fi Camera

But is this the way we regard toys today?

Toys evolve

• It’s a toy for the big boy - a hybrid of a jeep, rover, buggy and racer.  Now we have the drones.  With all its elaboration and sheer size it is not a toy in the strict sense of the word. It is one for Jules Verne and Flash Gordon.

• Life-size dolls, the like of McDonald or Jollibee figurines, come in various shapes one can easily inflate or assemble. Sometimes they are actually mascots. They guard the garden and porch, keep us company, and tell the story of Gulliver, and keep Mardi Gras alive year round.

• Booming sounds and tweeters, percussion, wind and string altogether, make a potpourri of music – or is it noise? Auditory toys, they are called, they abound in passenger jeeps, shops and homes. Just walk through Raon and Evangelista streets, the music center of Manila, now in big malls.

• It is entertainment for you and the kids to visit a toy center in a mall. Take time out, you were in fantasyland. Toys, toys, toys – for grown ups and kids, you need to come back to see more, from electronic gadgets to make-it-yourself kits.

• Athletics stores today carry toy items as many as real sporting goods, that often you can’t decipher a real gun and a toy gun, a bicycle for racing or for exhibition, a kid’s boxing gloves from the real one. Name a toy and you can find it in a sports center.

• Automotive accessories make your car your traveling home – from cup holder to inflatable bed. From the inside and outside of a loaded car, there are all sorts of decors that take you to US, Germany, Japan, China - in fact around the world.

. Computer games are all over. Children and adults engage for hours everyday in these games robbing them of precious time for work and study, spawning many problems that are destroying the future of young people. Have you heard of computer addiction? Electronics syndrome?

. Sports have evolved into more dangerous games such as bungee jumping, sky skiing, cage-wrestling. Daredevil sports continue to evolve with new technologies, among them free fall gliding.

No Christmas and No Toys

There was a time when toys were outlawed, so to speak. This was during the Second World War when America needed more weapons and not toys. There is a time for every, the president told the world.

When I saw a film about suspending Christmas in America during the First World War, I thought that the idea was good. For how can a nation at war afford to manufacture toys, celebrating Christmas at home when thousands of its citizens are out there in the battlefield? So the campaign was – No Christmas, No Toys. At least temporarily until the war is over. So toy companies went into manufacturing arms and war materiels, people were told to buy bonds, not toys. Logical, isn’t?

Until the president of one of Americas biggest toymakers AC rallied against the campaign, and before the US Congress closed for the Christmas, he convinced the body to re-consider the campaign. So convincing was his approach by showing toy models that the President himself lifted the No Christmas and No Toys Campaign that very Christmas.

What was AC’s selling point? First, he rode on the foundation of American culture that gives importance to important events and celebrations. But the key was his revolutionary concept of toys.  Toy models that stir the mind of the young to associate themselves with issues, to stir imagination and invention. Learning toys.

Today with the changing times that is becoming more and more difficult, what are toys for? We may ask. In the first place, toys are becoming expensive. Even then if the value  of the toy commensurate the cost, it would be all right. But it is not always the case.

Toys from scrap materials

Ideal Toys

Consider the following:

1. Toys that help children to learn – learn positively and functionally, meaning, toys that have applied value, toys that can increase functional literacy.

2. Toys that arouse inventive skills. Not toys that merely stimulate curiosity that by so doing, toys are dismantled and eventually destroyed without satisfying curiosity itself – much less added to basic and functional knowledge.

3. What should be the toys of the poor, children in marginal communities? Are there toys that can help them in their plight – at least ultimately, in one way or the other. If there are toys of this kind, what are their special features?

4. How do we differentiate toys from gadget, say a cellphone or computer? Computer games need re-classification. What is entertainment and what is function?

5. Electric devices have taken out the quaintness and challenges of toys. They also rob our children of their time to play, to attend to their hobbies, and to be at the playground or in the countryside with nature.

Toy store in malls

6. Devise games that teach children values. Games that do not only make us aware of our responsibilities as citizens by at members of the living world – as ecologists or environmentalists.

7. What happen to toys afterward? Are toys for recycling? Are they transformable in the sense that they can be useful again with the lesson they carry? Should toys be permanent or at least lasting.

8. Do toys create a healthy archetype which children will use as tool when they grow up? Can toys be shared in strengthening values, in building skills, etc.?

Art of toy making

. Kite making and kite flying. Why don't you encourage your children to enter into kite competition?

. Spinning top. Making one is a challenge to physics of motion and balance.

. For the inventive young mind, make solar-powered toys, instead of using battery and electricity.

. There are many useful gadgets in school and home. Here toys do not only entertain; they are useful. We can these functional toys. ~

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM  8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday