JANUARY 2023. The first month of an odd year feels forebodingly hopeful. A bit contradictory, isn’t it? But that’s the feeling I have after a rough couple of years but now facing a more promising and encouraging prospect in the year ahead. What caused this optimism could be a natural response from the relaxation of COVID rules for… Read More »
Dateline: Muntinlupa City, Metro Manila, Philippines When I used to be driven around by my wife’s family driver, before leaving the driveway, I would see him make a sign of the cross and then rub the head of some saint on the car dash while mumbling a prayer. I nearly surrendered my atheism while going through my first… Read More »
The perils of being old(er) I watched Don Lemon’s interview with Clive Davis, Whitney Houston’s agent/record producer. He was 90 years old. I asked myself, would I be so lucky to be as smart and coherent as this man? There was no hint of him being a pre-boomer generation of older people. The man insists that retirement is… Read More »
PART II Ten thousand years ago, there was no such thing as corn, just a wild grassy plant called Teosinte. Farmers started domesticating it by selecting seeds for planting. Maize, as it was later called, then had an ear ( cob) 2 cm long with eight rows of kernels. From that lowly start, the corn has steadily transformed… Read More »
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.“ – Albert Einstein My my, if I take Einstein’s words seriously, I would have been a ” World’s Most” of a lot! That’s because I could be passionate about many things but have absolutely no special talents to pursue them. But of course, Einstein is being humble; besides… Read More »
I was intrigued by an article by Eleanor Pinugu’s UNDERCURRENT, “Panata,” and the challenges of modern faith,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 10, 2023. She relates her grandfather’s “Panata” ( Religious Pledge ) of providing free meals to his fellow farmers on Holy Thursday. The grandmother and seven children were all involved in preparing morning dishes and distributing… Read More »
A Retrospective of Mother’s 100th How many of us will get to say “Happy Birthday” to a 100-year-old? I am proud to say I did for the first time in 76 years! That’s why I persevered and stayed beyond the cooler month of March into the heat of May to greet my mother on her hundredth year, May 18,… Read More »
WITH the advent of the Internet Revolution and the growth of social media, every voice, lifestyle and action, once insignificant, trivial and inconsequentially irrelevant, is making headlines. A quiet voice in the shadows could be the stuff of a rally, a protest of major significance. A dominant culture of the community is no longer a guaranteed universally accepted… Read More »
DURING my tenure with a First Nations School in Northern Ontario, the Governor General of the day would send a regular infusion of books for use by the elementary students of that school. The books were quite apart from the regular ones prescribed and supplied by the Ministry. However, they provide further reading and library materials to school… Read More »
AH! What a glorious sunny-cool day again today! You can’t beat the weather in the Philippines at this time of the year. Despite climate change, there is still an excellent window of the old “dry and cool” Jan-Feb. Month. Occasional rain cannot dampen the generative power of a warm climate to an aging “infrastructure,” anatomy now stiff, crumbly,… Read More »