Love the Spider

                         Love the Spider

Dr Abe V Rotor

Photos by the author of a specimen kept in a Petri dish for study.  It was later released to its natural environment - in some cozy corner of the house.  Hence the spider is called Common House Spider.  It is harmless, but owing to its fearful look and intruding presence it is not at all welcomed as part of the household. We may not be aware that its a vanguard and friendly companion devouring cockroaches, flies, midges, and other household pests even bigger than itself.  

Common House Spider (Tagenaria domestica). Note the missing legs of this specimen. The spider and all members of Class Arachnida, have eight legs, distinct from insects which have six.  Lost legs due to accident or as a result of fighting and predation  grow back in the next molting. This power of regeneration is common to members of Phylum Arthropoda, and among reptiles.  Regeneration is a phenomenon in the biological world which we do not yet fully understand.   

The egg mass of house spider is covered with the spider's own silk. It carries the egg mass under its belly wherever it goes, finally depositing it where the newly hatched spiders are safe and assured of food. 

 

Another house spider, Tegenaria parietina which looks very close to our local species is known as Cardinal Spider or Cardinal Wolsey's Spider.  Legend tells us that during the reign of Henry VIII of England  between the 14th and 15th century, Cardinal Wolsey was almost frightened to death by a fierce looking spider in his bedroom. Cardinal Wolsey's fear of spiders is shared by many children and adults which may develop into a nervous condition called Arachnophobia. 

Spider 

Your home is the space

where your embroidery sways

and glitters with the rainbow

away from life's shadow.

Redeem your mother Arachne

vanished for her art by Athene;

put the morning star to rest

and the sun to its crest. ~

Re-creating God's Creation

 Re-creating God's Creation

Dr Abe V Rotor

 Living with Nature - School on Blog

When the molecular structure of Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid or DNA was discovered and made into a hypothetical model by Watson and Crick in the sixties, the world began to view life differently. Although the stuff of life has been for many years a subject of numerous biological investigations, this time scientists began to look into life as a thing made up of ready-to-assemble parts.  By mere arranging them in various patterns, someday man would be able not only to create life but create life forms as well!

Published by Social Research Center, UST (First published 2003 Dominican  Publication Dublin, Ireland, 141 pp 

     So inspired was the creator of Jurassic Park, a movie featuring the resurrection of dinosaurs from the DNA of their fossils, that the idea of the dead coming back to life is no longer confined in our belief in the afterlife. If this is the case, then the subject of biology will have to be vastly revised and re-written, touching such sensitive issues as the genesis which zealots view as the first case of human cloning.

     Man’s lofty dream is to live long, if not to live forever. But the search for the Pierian Spring has only brought unimagined frustration and ruin to many ambitious people. Nonetheless it inspired man to build wonders, such as the Great Pyramids, which was built to enshrine man’s immortality. Man has not ceased in his search, and all the more he has become determined especially with the advances of science and technology.

     Today in the United States, there are a hundred human bodies preserved in cryonic tanks waiting for the day when science shall have the power to conquer death and resurrect the dead. By then science would have found a way to cure today’s incurable diseases, to stop aging or even reverse aging itself.  This extreme optimism must have solid foundations. Indeed man must be inspired and fascinated by many organisms in the lower rung of the phylogenic tree, those organisms that are simpler and older than man himself.

Proceedings of the International Congress on Bioethics, Manila: December 5-7, 2005 372 pp.  Available UST Publishing House. España , Manila 

     But first, man’s awareness of his past, from the time he began writing history, greatly inspire him to look for the elusive Utopia. He dreams of Shangri-La described in a novel, The Lost Horizon.  Somewhere out there on some lofty heights of the Himalayas lays a place where man does not age and die. It is like a kingdom half-earth, half-heaven, and a place that man sought to go while he lives on earth. To many Heaven is remote and they cannot wait to experience the beautiful things said about this ultimate destiny of the human soul.   

     But to others, that place may mean differently. For example Antonio Vivaldi, the great baroque composer found immortality in his music, The Four Seasons. The sweet changing of seasons throughout ones life, transports him into a feeling of immortality, a fascination not counted by years but by joy and fulfillment of living. It is as if living in harmony with nature on one hand, and long life expectancy on the other, are complementary to each other.  Personally, I believe so. 

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 [www.pbs.gov.ph]

The Contented Life According to Goethe

 The Contented Life According to  Goethe

Championing the bright side of human nature.

Researched by Dr Abe V Rotor 

 Living with Nature School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com] 

Goethe, possessing one of the greatest minds in all time, set forth these nine essentials to a full and contented life 

• Health enough to make work a pleasure.

• Wealth enough to support your needs.

• Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them.

• Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them.

• Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished.

• Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor.

• Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others.

• Faith enough to make real the things of God'

• Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.

And if a tenth postulate could be added, it is -

• Time enough for your prayer and leisure.  A lifetime to pass on a heritage you earned to the next generation and posterity.  

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." - Goethe

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply." - Goethe

Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of meters and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography. . Among his works are Faust (Tragedy play) and poems: Prometheus, Der Erlkönig, The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Acknowledgement: Jokes, Quotes and One-liners for Public Speakers, HV Prochnow and HV Prochnow Jr; Wikipedia

Children’s Bill of Rights - "The right to clean water, clean air and a safe climate." - UNICEF

 Children’s Bill of Rights 

Researched by Dr Abe V Rotor

"The right to clean water, clean air and a safe climate." - UNICEF

1. The right to the affection and intelligent guidance of understanding parents.

2. The right to be raised in a decent home in which he or she is adequately fed, clothed, and sheltered.

3. The right to the benefits of religious guidance and training.

4. The right to a school program, which, in addition to sound academic training, offers maximum opportunity for individual development and preparation for living.

5. The right to receive constructive discipline for the proper development of good character, conduct and habits.

6. The right to be secure in his or her community against all influences detrimental to wholesome development.

7. The right to individual selection of free and wholesome recreation.

8. The right to live in a community in which adults practice the belief that the welfare of their children is of primary importance.

9. The right to receive good adult example.

10.  The right to clean air and water, to be free from synthetic pesticides and toxic chemicals, and to be healthy.

- From the New York Youth Commission;  10th item from Environmental Rights of Children; photos from Internet. 

Today's Dilemma: ANXIETY, PHOBIA, DEPRESSION (A Self-Administered Test)

 Today's Dilemma: ANXIETY, PHOBIA, DEPRESSION (A Self-Administered Test, T or F)

The current COVID-19 pandemic, economic recession, global warming, environmental degradation, force majeure (e g earthquake) and man-induced calamities, are driving people into various forms and degrees of psychological problems. How are you getting along?  Take this test and find out.  

Dr Abe V Rotor

1. All of us are invariably victims of anxiety: our aging parents, retirement benefits, sex life, health – name it, real or imaginary – and you have it, irrespective of sex, age, domicile, profession, work, race, creed, etc.

Sigmund Freud, father of Psychology

2. There is something mysterious about anxiety, its dualism. It is a normal response to physical danger so that it can be a useful tool for focusing the mind where there’s a deadline looming. But anxiety can become a problem when it persists too long beyond the immediate threat, which leads to depression.

3. While we worry for certain things and situations, other people simply don’t - they simply don’t care.

4. People who are mediocre – more so, if they did not reach higher education – are more subject to anxiety than intelligent and highly learned people.

5. Uneasiness, lightheadedness, clumsiness are the first signs of anxiety. Sweaty and cold palms and feet may be due to nervousness which is a natural reaction.

6. According to Dr Elisabeth Kubler-Ross the sequential stages of grief, called grief cycle, follow the following stage in proper sequence: denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance.

7. This grief cycle, theoretically is based on observation of people who are dying, not on scientific research into the experiences of people who have survived the death of a loved one. This model is questioned by researchers on bereavement.

8. It is often that at the stage of acceptance, the victim rises to a “second life” – a resolution to make up for life, to do the best things in the remaining years of life – living for a cause one he believes in.

9. Inconsolable grief also called prolonged grief is differentiated from normal grief. Normal grief typically involves a range of transient behavioral and emotional responses which can be overcome.

Pet Therapy, author's daughter and pet at home

10. Deaths such as suicides, murders, accidents, and other sudden and unexpected deaths can result in complicated grief due to the sudden shock.

11. While death of a parent may be unbearably devastating, so with a child, the death of a spouse is still perhaps one of the most intense forms of grief.

12. A very young child under one or two has no reaction if someone dies in the family  – it is too early for the child to realize the event and consequences.

13. Siblings who have been part of each other’s lives since birth help form and sustain the other’s identities; with the death of one sibling comes the loss of that part of the survivor’s identity.

14. Nausea, panic, fears of losing control or dying, are advanced signs and symptoms of anxiety, including dizziness, blurred vision, chest pain, but many of these are psychosomatic symptoms.

15. Many of the things we worry about are baseless, if not nonsense.

16. Animals appear to feel anxiety – an instinctive response necessary for survival.

17. Rats and chicken freeze in place momentarily when subjected to sudden fear stimulus. The opossum feigns dead which is actually an involuntary fear response.

18. Anxiety helped in human evolution. Records of anxiety show how humans shared the planet with saber-toothed tigers. Without it few of us would have survive, if at all.

19. FFF (Fight, Flight, Fright) - the adrenaline shoots into the muscles preparing the body to do the appropriate action.

20. Mass anxiety humans suffered during the two world wars was revived by terrorism which attacked the Twin Towers of New York (9-11). Today's coronavirus pandemic has even a greater effect worldwide, so with the series of earthquakes in Luzon, and other parts of the world.

 

21. Overcoming the possibility of becoming victim to depression, start helping yourself. First, examine your feelings and determine what is troubling you. Then discuss problems with the people involved or with an understanding friend. Change your normal routine. Exercise to work off tension, and avoid known stressors.

Fear of fire. One of the most common phobias is pyrophobia, or the fear of fire, which stems from an ancient and primal fear. Painting by AVRotor

22. The best thing one can do to help a depressed friend is to seek for him professional help. You can be held responsible for anything that may put him into deeper problems – or trouble.

23. Taking examination is one major cause of anxiety. When taking an exam, prepare well in advance, know time and place, plan your approach, ask for clarification, relax and pay attention to the test.

24. In taking an exam, don’t survey the test questions immediately – you will freeze if your expectation didn't come true. Answer as you go on.

25. When taking multiple choice, read each option as true or false question. Consider answers which make the statements true without exception. Eliminate answers which are false in some instances. 

Answers: 1t, 2t, 3t, 4f, 5t, 6f (Anger comes ahead of bargaining), 7t, 8t (Second life is often the crowning glory of great men and women) , 9t, 10t, 11f, 12f, 13t (Siblings who play a major part in each other lives are essential to each other.) , 14t, 15t, 16t, 17,t, 18t, 19t, 20t, 21t, 22f (Do your part – be kind, show concern, understanding, assurance), 23t, 24f, and 25t.

Rating: 24-25 Outstanding; 21-23 Very Good; 17-20 Good; 13-16 Pass; 12 and Below - Read more about the subject, search the Internet. 

--------

Common Fear - The End of the World (Doomsday phobia), painting by AVRotor

Reference: The Science of Anxiety Time 39 to 47 pp July 8, 2002
Lost Lives Time November 10, 2003
What Scares you? Phobias Time April 2, 2001