Monday, June 29, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Part 1 - Practical And Safe Way of Controlling Pests
Stink Bug , nymph and adultDr Abe V Rotor
Entomology – the science of insects – is a subject I love to teach. But before I take up the subject of controlling insects, I would like to emphasize beforehand that insects in general are extremely useful to mankind and the environment. Contrary to what many people think our world could not be any better without insects.
We would be missing honey and silk, fruits and vegetables which insects pollinate, fish which feed on them, and the Monarch butterfly that meets us at the garden at sunrise.
On the other hand we detest the presence of their destructive kin: the cockroach that roams and spreads disease, ticks that spoil a dog’s lovely look, caterpillars that defoliate our favorite tree, or simply the buzzing of a mosquito that interrupts a good rest.
If these negative traits are not enough to take arms against these pests, think that the most ferocious animal on earth is not the lion but the mosquito. With the diseases mosquitoes carry they have brought unimagined deaths and sufferings to mankind. It is said that death due to mosquitoes alone surpasses that which all wars in history have caused. Their most prominent victim is Alexander the Great who died of malaria on the banks of the Tigris-Euphrates river.
So here are strategies of war against our insect enemies.
Natural Resistance
There is perhaps no substitute to natural resistance – that which is carried by the genes in a plant or animal - in combating a pest or disease, and in surviving under harsh environment. Where do these genes come from?
Even before scientists came to the conclusion that resistance (and also susceptibility) is hereditary, early farmers were already adopting the principle in plant breeding and animal husbandry, these being the foundation of the first green revolution that brought agriculture to its golden age in the last millennium.
It is evolution that brought desirable genes together in a species. “Survival of the fittest,” Darwin’s general formula is the gradual pooling of these genes through time, thousands if not millions of years. This also explains why varieties and breeds native to a place are more resistant than their introduced (non-indigenous) counterparts. Wittingly or not, man has caused the elimination of resistance genes, even as he chooses those that directly contribute to his economic welfare.
In order to gain from this knowledge, one may look into the adoption of these two measures.
1. Choose plants and animals that are genetically adapted to the place. They have the natural resistance to pests and diseases, as well as unfavorable conditions prevailing in the area.
2. Maintain physiologic resistance by enhancing soil nutrients and proper cultural practices. Healthy plants have less pest and disease problems. So with animals. This leads us to the next practical technology.
Proper Cultural Practices
If you see farmers planting and harvesting their fields at the same time, they are actually practicing a practical means of minimizing crop loss. Not only that the damage caused by a pest is spread out over the whole area, the insect’s life cycle is controlled, thus eliminating the possibility of pest and disease outbreak. There are of course other advantages of cooperative farming such as communal irrigation, mechanization, and collective marketing which are the answer to the problem on economics of scale.
A key to control pests is to eliminate their breeding places, such as uprooting infested plants, or pruning affected parts, then burn them. Plant trap crops ahead of planting time to attract the potential pest. The trap crop is then rouged and burn thus eliminating the threat. Eliminate weeds because they serve as alternate host. Now we understand why fields are left vacant after harvest and during summer. This allows the soil to rest, and to break the life cycle of pest and diseases.
Continued...
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Part 1: The Realms of Intelligence as Applied in a Fast Changing World
Dr Abe V Rotor
Our concept of a natural world akin to the biblical Lost Paradise (Mural painting by the author 2008
In our age of modern science and technology, of automation and computerization, of globalization and space travel, will we finally find the answer to this perplexing question?
I proceed by presenting to you two challenges posed by our increasingly complex scientific and technological world.
The first challenge is to keep up with the pace of scientific and technological change. At its present rate, we are virtually grappling with the pole vault to cope with the leaps and bounds of discoveries and inventions which are pushing us to change our ways, and our very lives. It is no longer us who dictate science and technology; it is science and technology that dictates us.
The second challenge calls for a conventional approach. It is to find the means with which to cushion the impact of rapid change of science and technology on our lives by clinging on some anchor of values. If we have a choice of priorities, of looking back at history and tradition, or by simply standing rationally firm to what is good not only to us but for all mankind, then we just can not become easy victims of “progress”.
Our lives are being outrun by Science and Technology
In so short a time – virtually just within a life span of many of us in the elder generation - the world witnessed three important unprecedented discoveries which have changed human life and our society forever. There is no turning back now. Science and technology marked the milestone of no return, a point of irreversibility as we race for industrialization, and plunge into the “third wave” of progress
The three scientific breakthroughs are
1. Splitting of the atom (nuclear power, atomic bomb);
2. Invention of the microchip (electronics, computers); and
3. Cracking the DNA code (Human Genome Project, genetic engineering).
The applications of these breakthroughs cannot be overemphasized. as we witness today or in the near future the following:
1. Man’s landing on the moon;
2. Information highway via satellites and the Internet;
3. Cloning and genetically modified organisms (GMO);
4. Universities without walls (distance education);
5. Robotics and nanobotics (microscopic robots);
6. Frankenfoods, (modified foods);
7. Test tube babies, menopausal childbirth;
8. Gene therapy and immunotherapy;
9. Extended life span (now 78 years on the average to 140 by 2500); and
10. Cryonics or human hibernation, which prepares man for space travel.
We just can not be bystanders, an advice as old as the Renaissance, when Shakespeare said, “The world’s a stage, each has a role to play.” We are participants in this “modern” drama of life heretofore known only in fiction.
Virtually there is no place to escape from our high tech world. Imagine life if there were no cell phone, cable TV, video-games, malls, hospitals, e-mail, solar watch, MRT/LRT, ATM, and the like. And if we think about today’s process in making many products we use everyday - from ball pens to cars – imagine computers and robots at work in place of man.
Scenario: You are awakened by a quartz clock. You switch on the light, tune in the TV or radio, take a bath, pick up the phone, cook breakfast, read the morning paper, dress up, take the elevator, drive the car, etc, etc, etc. All this is not surprising to most of us.
But hear this. The milk you drink is genetically modified (human embryo hormone was injected into the cow to produce more milk), the corn flakes you eat comes from BT corn (corn with a gene of a bacterium – Bacillus thuringiensis), your potato and onion are irradiated for longer shelf life, your lettuce carries a trace of dioxin, the deadliest toxin ever synthesized, your tuna carries a residue of mercury, the microwave emits rays that are not good to health, the paint in your condominium contains lead, plastic deteriorates and you may not know you are absorbing the by-products, synthetic fabric is the cause of your allergy, there is nitrate (salitre) in corned beef and in tocino, MSG (sodium mono-glutamate) in noodle, aspartame in soft drinks, sulfite in sugar, potassium bromide in bread. And the list goes on, ad infinitum.
Again we ask, “Where will all this lead us to?”
Well, read again Dylan Thomas poem, “Do not go gentle into the night” purporting everyone to become vigilant and not settle into comfort and take a license for freedom. It is the road often trodden. Why can they take the less trodden?
This masterpiece reflects an experience the boy Dylan had one Christmas. He was given a beautiful book that told him everything about the wasp, a relative of the bee. Everything about the insect - except “Why?” And the boy wondered, “Is this all?” Rage builds up the more we ask “Why?” – and we find no satisfactory answer.
Does it strike you sometimes that knowledge – even the knowledge we obtained from the university - does not bring true satisfaction - much less enlightenment? It is because our education, especially in science and technology, emphasizes the “How?” rather than the “Why?” Instead of searching for meaning we are searching for causes, or cause-and-effect. As we study phenomena we seem to underestimate the question, “Why?” which is the foundation of values.
Maybe it would be good to our searching mind to reflect on life’s meaning or values on a historical perspective. Consider these
1. Socrates model, the right to seek, to awaken from ignorance. (birth of the university)
2. Communal enterprise which gave the vitality of the Renaissance, brought West to conquer the East (colonizing and civilizing)
3. Voltarism – “reach for knowledge and share the experience of civilization”. (Post-Alexandrian concept of one civilization, one world)
4. Enlightenment spawned by the French revolution (birth of democracy and nationalism)
5. Capitalism-consumerism, the world is a global village (economics today).
We have been disciples of Voltaire too long, believing that the greatest achievement of mankind is civilization. We do not dispute that civilization is a prerequisite of progress. But recently we began to raise disturbing questions.
Before going farther let me interject a tale of B. Traven, The Treasure of Sierra Madre which is reminiscent of an earlier story, The Pardoner’s Tale by Chaucer. In both tales, the plot is about men who meet by accident and join together in search for gold. They take mortal risks for one another in their community of search. But when they find the gold, they are filled with suspicion and end up fighting each other - and losing their treasure in the process. This syndrome still haunts us today.
Now consider these issues.
1. Two world wars, nuclear armaments, unending armed conflicts
2. Domino effect spawned by super economies which toppled the lesser economies (Asian crisis)
3. “How the Other Half (of the population) Dies” (a book exposing inequitable distribution of wealth, as the reason of mass hunger and poverty, by Susan George)
4. “Silent Spring” (a book by Rachel Carson, an expose’ of deadly chemicals, specially pesticides, which are destroying wildlife and the environment)
5. Pollution, global warming, Ozone hole, which are consequences of man’s quest for a better life through industrialization
6. AIDS, drug abuse, broken homes, erosion of values
7. Mass poverty, widespread ignorance
8. Destruction of the ecosystems
9. “You do not find sacredness anymore,” Time
10. “Death of privacy,” Time and Newsweek.
The deleterious by-products of today’s science and technology exacerbate the problems of mankind. Paradoxically, science and technology have not successfully eradicated the ancient scourge of mankind – disease, poverty and ignorance.
While man may have a grasp of history and his society he has apparently lost control of his destiny.
Continued... (Quo vadis?)
In our age of modern science and technology, of automation and computerization, of globalization and space travel, will we finally find the answer to this perplexing question?
I proceed by presenting to you two challenges posed by our increasingly complex scientific and technological world.
The first challenge is to keep up with the pace of scientific and technological change. At its present rate, we are virtually grappling with the pole vault to cope with the leaps and bounds of discoveries and inventions which are pushing us to change our ways, and our very lives. It is no longer us who dictate science and technology; it is science and technology that dictates us.
The second challenge calls for a conventional approach. It is to find the means with which to cushion the impact of rapid change of science and technology on our lives by clinging on some anchor of values. If we have a choice of priorities, of looking back at history and tradition, or by simply standing rationally firm to what is good not only to us but for all mankind, then we just can not become easy victims of “progress”.
Our lives are being outrun by Science and Technology
In so short a time – virtually just within a life span of many of us in the elder generation - the world witnessed three important unprecedented discoveries which have changed human life and our society forever. There is no turning back now. Science and technology marked the milestone of no return, a point of irreversibility as we race for industrialization, and plunge into the “third wave” of progress
The three scientific breakthroughs are
1. Splitting of the atom (nuclear power, atomic bomb);
2. Invention of the microchip (electronics, computers); and
3. Cracking the DNA code (Human Genome Project, genetic engineering).
The applications of these breakthroughs cannot be overemphasized. as we witness today or in the near future the following:
1. Man’s landing on the moon;
2. Information highway via satellites and the Internet;
3. Cloning and genetically modified organisms (GMO);
4. Universities without walls (distance education);
5. Robotics and nanobotics (microscopic robots);
6. Frankenfoods, (modified foods);
7. Test tube babies, menopausal childbirth;
8. Gene therapy and immunotherapy;
9. Extended life span (now 78 years on the average to 140 by 2500); and
10. Cryonics or human hibernation, which prepares man for space travel.
We just can not be bystanders, an advice as old as the Renaissance, when Shakespeare said, “The world’s a stage, each has a role to play.” We are participants in this “modern” drama of life heretofore known only in fiction.
Virtually there is no place to escape from our high tech world. Imagine life if there were no cell phone, cable TV, video-games, malls, hospitals, e-mail, solar watch, MRT/LRT, ATM, and the like. And if we think about today’s process in making many products we use everyday - from ball pens to cars – imagine computers and robots at work in place of man.
Scenario: You are awakened by a quartz clock. You switch on the light, tune in the TV or radio, take a bath, pick up the phone, cook breakfast, read the morning paper, dress up, take the elevator, drive the car, etc, etc, etc. All this is not surprising to most of us.
But hear this. The milk you drink is genetically modified (human embryo hormone was injected into the cow to produce more milk), the corn flakes you eat comes from BT corn (corn with a gene of a bacterium – Bacillus thuringiensis), your potato and onion are irradiated for longer shelf life, your lettuce carries a trace of dioxin, the deadliest toxin ever synthesized, your tuna carries a residue of mercury, the microwave emits rays that are not good to health, the paint in your condominium contains lead, plastic deteriorates and you may not know you are absorbing the by-products, synthetic fabric is the cause of your allergy, there is nitrate (salitre) in corned beef and in tocino, MSG (sodium mono-glutamate) in noodle, aspartame in soft drinks, sulfite in sugar, potassium bromide in bread. And the list goes on, ad infinitum.
Again we ask, “Where will all this lead us to?”
Well, read again Dylan Thomas poem, “Do not go gentle into the night” purporting everyone to become vigilant and not settle into comfort and take a license for freedom. It is the road often trodden. Why can they take the less trodden?
This masterpiece reflects an experience the boy Dylan had one Christmas. He was given a beautiful book that told him everything about the wasp, a relative of the bee. Everything about the insect - except “Why?” And the boy wondered, “Is this all?” Rage builds up the more we ask “Why?” – and we find no satisfactory answer.
Does it strike you sometimes that knowledge – even the knowledge we obtained from the university - does not bring true satisfaction - much less enlightenment? It is because our education, especially in science and technology, emphasizes the “How?” rather than the “Why?” Instead of searching for meaning we are searching for causes, or cause-and-effect. As we study phenomena we seem to underestimate the question, “Why?” which is the foundation of values.
Maybe it would be good to our searching mind to reflect on life’s meaning or values on a historical perspective. Consider these
1. Socrates model, the right to seek, to awaken from ignorance. (birth of the university)
2. Communal enterprise which gave the vitality of the Renaissance, brought West to conquer the East (colonizing and civilizing)
3. Voltarism – “reach for knowledge and share the experience of civilization”. (Post-Alexandrian concept of one civilization, one world)
4. Enlightenment spawned by the French revolution (birth of democracy and nationalism)
5. Capitalism-consumerism, the world is a global village (economics today).
We have been disciples of Voltaire too long, believing that the greatest achievement of mankind is civilization. We do not dispute that civilization is a prerequisite of progress. But recently we began to raise disturbing questions.
Before going farther let me interject a tale of B. Traven, The Treasure of Sierra Madre which is reminiscent of an earlier story, The Pardoner’s Tale by Chaucer. In both tales, the plot is about men who meet by accident and join together in search for gold. They take mortal risks for one another in their community of search. But when they find the gold, they are filled with suspicion and end up fighting each other - and losing their treasure in the process. This syndrome still haunts us today.
Now consider these issues.
1. Two world wars, nuclear armaments, unending armed conflicts
2. Domino effect spawned by super economies which toppled the lesser economies (Asian crisis)
3. “How the Other Half (of the population) Dies” (a book exposing inequitable distribution of wealth, as the reason of mass hunger and poverty, by Susan George)
4. “Silent Spring” (a book by Rachel Carson, an expose’ of deadly chemicals, specially pesticides, which are destroying wildlife and the environment)
5. Pollution, global warming, Ozone hole, which are consequences of man’s quest for a better life through industrialization
6. AIDS, drug abuse, broken homes, erosion of values
7. Mass poverty, widespread ignorance
8. Destruction of the ecosystems
9. “You do not find sacredness anymore,” Time
10. “Death of privacy,” Time and Newsweek.
The deleterious by-products of today’s science and technology exacerbate the problems of mankind. Paradoxically, science and technology have not successfully eradicated the ancient scourge of mankind – disease, poverty and ignorance.
While man may have a grasp of history and his society he has apparently lost control of his destiny.
Continued... (Quo vadis?)
Part 2: “Quo vadis?" Syndrome (Where are you going?)
Abe V Rotor
At this point I will give you an exercise, workshop style, to really find out where you are going. Imagine yourself as a sailboat in the sea. This will take five minutes. On a one-fourth piece of bond or pad paper draw yourself as a sailboat faced with the realities of life. Express yourself in relation to what you think and feel, your plans and dreams, with your surroundings and environment. Show your values such as self-confidence, courage, direction and purpose, etc. Use your vivid imagination.
The next five minutes will be devoted to the evaluation of your drawing. Exchange papers and score according to these criteria. Use Scale of 1 to 10 (1 is very poor, 5 fair, 10 excellent).
1. Size of the Sailboat
“I saw myself very small, I can get swallowed up by the sea. I don’t stand a chance in a storm.” (testimony of a teacher) Note: You can be a Gulliver
2. Size of sail over boat
“I’ve grown too heavy, too big. Material things… comfort zone… That’s it - my sail is small I can’t move fast. I’ve been left behind” (From a businessman)
3. Other boats
“I am afraid to be alone. I need someone to talk to, to play with. I am not a Robinson Crusoe. But I love competition. A weekend is boring if I miss my team.” (Jimmy, basketball player)
4. People
“Siyempre naman, boat yata ako. What are boats for? I carry people, as many as I can.”(Ka Tacio, barangay leader)
5. Destination
“I’ve been a drifter all along. I did not even know what course to take. I felt lost all the time until I shifted to law. I ended up a businessman.” (Alias Atorni)
6. Creatures all
“What a beautiful world – colorful coral reefs, seaweeds, crabs, starfish, coral fish. I can spend a whole day here, painting, diving or just to while away time like the birds in the sky, and dolphins riding the wave. Who says it’s lonely out here? Look there’s a sea gull perched on my sail.” (Manny de Guzman, painter)
7. Sky, sea alive
“Beware of doldrums, they are a prelude to disaster. The eye of a storm is calm. So with life. Catch the wind, ride on the wave, if you want to reach your destination.” (Quoted from a homily at UP Chapel, Diliman, QC)
8. Artistry
“Spontaneous art exudes natural beauty. It is art in the fundamental sense. And what is the impact of the drawing? (AVR)
9. No wasteland
The whole paper must be filled up - the sky, water, land. Potential opportunity is lost when we do not catch it. Opportunities in life come but once. Capre diem. Seize the moment.
Add the scores of all the eight criteria. Now add twenty (10) points, to make a perfect score of 100. The bonus represents providence.
Return the papers to the owners. Analyze your strength and inadequacies. Continue working on your paper with new input as I play the violin for you a Filipino composition, “Hating Gabi” by Antonio Molina. Make your work a masterpiece and treasure it as a daily reminder to ponder upon.
Awareness builds values, or awaken those values which have been lying idle or dormant in our sub-conscious mind.
But we can only become fully aware of ourselves and our potential for goodness if we know what our faculties are, and how we are going to use them. What are these faculties?
Continued... (Multiple Intelligence)
At this point I will give you an exercise, workshop style, to really find out where you are going. Imagine yourself as a sailboat in the sea. This will take five minutes. On a one-fourth piece of bond or pad paper draw yourself as a sailboat faced with the realities of life. Express yourself in relation to what you think and feel, your plans and dreams, with your surroundings and environment. Show your values such as self-confidence, courage, direction and purpose, etc. Use your vivid imagination.
The next five minutes will be devoted to the evaluation of your drawing. Exchange papers and score according to these criteria. Use Scale of 1 to 10 (1 is very poor, 5 fair, 10 excellent).
1. Size of the Sailboat
“I saw myself very small, I can get swallowed up by the sea. I don’t stand a chance in a storm.” (testimony of a teacher) Note: You can be a Gulliver
2. Size of sail over boat
“I’ve grown too heavy, too big. Material things… comfort zone… That’s it - my sail is small I can’t move fast. I’ve been left behind” (From a businessman)
3. Other boats
“I am afraid to be alone. I need someone to talk to, to play with. I am not a Robinson Crusoe. But I love competition. A weekend is boring if I miss my team.” (Jimmy, basketball player)
4. People
“Siyempre naman, boat yata ako. What are boats for? I carry people, as many as I can.”(Ka Tacio, barangay leader)
5. Destination
“I’ve been a drifter all along. I did not even know what course to take. I felt lost all the time until I shifted to law. I ended up a businessman.” (Alias Atorni)
6. Creatures all
“What a beautiful world – colorful coral reefs, seaweeds, crabs, starfish, coral fish. I can spend a whole day here, painting, diving or just to while away time like the birds in the sky, and dolphins riding the wave. Who says it’s lonely out here? Look there’s a sea gull perched on my sail.” (Manny de Guzman, painter)
7. Sky, sea alive
“Beware of doldrums, they are a prelude to disaster. The eye of a storm is calm. So with life. Catch the wind, ride on the wave, if you want to reach your destination.” (Quoted from a homily at UP Chapel, Diliman, QC)
8. Artistry
“Spontaneous art exudes natural beauty. It is art in the fundamental sense. And what is the impact of the drawing? (AVR)
9. No wasteland
The whole paper must be filled up - the sky, water, land. Potential opportunity is lost when we do not catch it. Opportunities in life come but once. Capre diem. Seize the moment.
Add the scores of all the eight criteria. Now add twenty (10) points, to make a perfect score of 100. The bonus represents providence.
Return the papers to the owners. Analyze your strength and inadequacies. Continue working on your paper with new input as I play the violin for you a Filipino composition, “Hating Gabi” by Antonio Molina. Make your work a masterpiece and treasure it as a daily reminder to ponder upon.
Awareness builds values, or awaken those values which have been lying idle or dormant in our sub-conscious mind.
But we can only become fully aware of ourselves and our potential for goodness if we know what our faculties are, and how we are going to use them. What are these faculties?
Continued... (Multiple Intelligence)
Friday, June 12, 2009
Through a Window
By Dr Abe V Rotor
Left, author visits the War Museum; right, rice shipment is prepared for export to the Philippines. Vietnam leads Thailand, China, India and Pakistan in supplying our country's imported rice which is on the average one million tons yearly. This is roughly equivalent to 10 percent of our annual requirement, meaning we are always short of rice production by 10 percent, when we used to export rice to Vietnam and the mentioned countries in the seventies and early eighties. Today, the Philippines is the number one rice importer in the world. Our average production is lower than the world's average. Food security is a principal measure of independence.
NOTE: On this day, 111th anniversary of Philippine Independence from Spain, I have chosen this poem about Vietnam to reflect on. The Vietnam war was considered the worst war since WW II. Millions died in that war, untold sufferings are beyond words to describe, human dignity, world order, national pride, human rights were trespassed or violated. The country was left in ruins. Years of isolation followed. Sanction was led by the US, depriving the newly independent country of help from the outside world. But like a Phoenix bird, Vietnam rose to become one of the fastest developing countries not only in Asia but in the whole world, with 7 to 12 percent yearly Gross Domestic Product, second only to China.
Through the window of an airplane,
I see a shroud of smoke turn into rain;
This is Vietnam now.
Its pains may linger, its wound a scar,
Blessed are its plains, golden in the sun.
Blessed are its people, victims yet victors
Of a David and Goliath war.
Through the window of the mind,
Through the window of a Western eye;
The world was blind for long, but not now.
As the one-eyed Nelson defied order
Cupping the wrong eye.
Through Milton’s window when lost
The sight, clearer is the view, deeper,
Deeper is the sense of seeing,
And the sense of being.
Through the window of a posh hotel
Over tree tops gracing the view,
Swaying and singing in the breeze,
While the city is buried in mist.
Time hangs in the air with ease.
For time knows all, cures all, forgets all,
Yet indelible is the lesson of mankind
That lust never lasts, it ends in fatal fall.
And pain endured is glory’s gain.
Through the window of ones soul,
Has spirituality lost its meaning?
Ask the Vietnamese toiling the fields
With a grave by his side.
Sans cross, sans tombstone,
Only a whisper of a name.
It is an old window I am seeing through,
My own, through a politics of disorder,
Greed and indifference, its spawn.
How can I raise a chin to greet you,
After you have mended your own?
I must have slept too long in comfort
And ease in plenty and play, in freedom,
Believing in a god I call bahala na,
Existential to my needs and caprice;
While you struggled for sanity
With a god by your side fighting,
And brought Olympus down.
I see you fighting again,
Opening your doors to conquer the world
With booming economy, a new valor,
To win another war.
x x x
NOTE: The author was a visiting professor at Ho Chi Mingh University of Science and Technology in Ho Chi Mingh City, formerly Saigon, Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 2006.
Living the Nature, Volume 3, All Rights Reserved
Left, author visits the War Museum; right, rice shipment is prepared for export to the Philippines. Vietnam leads Thailand, China, India and Pakistan in supplying our country's imported rice which is on the average one million tons yearly. This is roughly equivalent to 10 percent of our annual requirement, meaning we are always short of rice production by 10 percent, when we used to export rice to Vietnam and the mentioned countries in the seventies and early eighties. Today, the Philippines is the number one rice importer in the world. Our average production is lower than the world's average. Food security is a principal measure of independence. NOTE: On this day, 111th anniversary of Philippine Independence from Spain, I have chosen this poem about Vietnam to reflect on. The Vietnam war was considered the worst war since WW II. Millions died in that war, untold sufferings are beyond words to describe, human dignity, world order, national pride, human rights were trespassed or violated. The country was left in ruins. Years of isolation followed. Sanction was led by the US, depriving the newly independent country of help from the outside world. But like a Phoenix bird, Vietnam rose to become one of the fastest developing countries not only in Asia but in the whole world, with 7 to 12 percent yearly Gross Domestic Product, second only to China.
Through the window of an airplane,
I see a shroud of smoke turn into rain;
This is Vietnam now.
Its pains may linger, its wound a scar,
Blessed are its plains, golden in the sun.
Blessed are its people, victims yet victors
Of a David and Goliath war.
Through the window of the mind,
Through the window of a Western eye;
The world was blind for long, but not now.
As the one-eyed Nelson defied order
Cupping the wrong eye.
Through Milton’s window when lost
The sight, clearer is the view, deeper,
Deeper is the sense of seeing,
And the sense of being.
Through the window of a posh hotel
Over tree tops gracing the view,
Swaying and singing in the breeze,
While the city is buried in mist.
Time hangs in the air with ease.
For time knows all, cures all, forgets all,
Yet indelible is the lesson of mankind
That lust never lasts, it ends in fatal fall.
And pain endured is glory’s gain.
Through the window of ones soul,
Has spirituality lost its meaning?
Ask the Vietnamese toiling the fields
With a grave by his side.
Sans cross, sans tombstone,
Only a whisper of a name.
It is an old window I am seeing through,
My own, through a politics of disorder,
Greed and indifference, its spawn.
How can I raise a chin to greet you,
After you have mended your own?
I must have slept too long in comfort
And ease in plenty and play, in freedom,
Believing in a god I call bahala na,
Existential to my needs and caprice;
While you struggled for sanity
With a god by your side fighting,
And brought Olympus down.
I see you fighting again,
Opening your doors to conquer the world
With booming economy, a new valor,
To win another war.
x x x
NOTE: The author was a visiting professor at Ho Chi Mingh University of Science and Technology in Ho Chi Mingh City, formerly Saigon, Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 2006.
Living the Nature, Volume 3, All Rights Reserved
Time Precious
Abe V Rotor
Happy youth and all -
do not just let time
catch you with its toll,
or come in sweet chime.
A chance comes by once;
it comes back never
while in idle trance,
it's gone forever.
x x x
Living with Nature, Volume 3, All Rights Reserved
Happy youth and all -
do not just let time
catch you with its toll,
or come in sweet chime.
A chance comes by once;
it comes back never
while in idle trance,
it's gone forever.
x x x
Living with Nature, Volume 3, All Rights Reserved
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)