Is the US waiting for Godot?

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link or click for full article)
‘Waiting For Godot? Climate Changes People While The Yankees Dawdle’

Samuel Beckett won the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature and changed the universe of the literate with his book Waiting for Godot, that which is centered around two men, Estragon and Vladimir, who keep a vigil for Godot, who never gets there, the road to nowhere. By refusing to abide by the Kyoto Protocol, refusing to acknowledge climate change, is the US waiting for Godot?

Alternative questions: Is the US waiting for Al Gore? On February this year, I wrote about The Yankee Dawdle on global warming (americanchronicle.com): Is the US literate?

Jak Peake writes (hewett.norfolk.sch.uk) that Waiting for Godot is about existentialism. ‘Existentialism is a humanism,’ says the famous existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre (marxists.org), contrary to what the Communists state and against what the Christians believe. I see. Humans are free and there is no God. As an existentialist, I exist, therefore I exist.

In Godot, ‘Vladimir’ (Slavic for ‘renowned prince’) implies ‘intellectual’ and ‘Estragon’ (French for the herb tarragon) implies ‘earthbound’ (Eugene Webb, drama21c.net). In Waiting for Godot, both the intellectual and earthbound existentialists wait for no one. I realize now that the US is both intellectual and earthbound. I thought the US was capitalist, not existentialist? I see the US can’t see climate change as capital.

Is Godot someone or something? The Godot I see is something, an accident of nature waiting to happen: climate change. Time and tide wait for no one; Godot waits for no one. Unless of course Godot waits for all of US.

Jak Peake also writes that ‘the essence of existentialism concentrates on the concept of the individual’s freedom of choice.’ Therefore, Jak, rejecting the Kyoto Protocol makes the US an individualist, really an existentialist. And note that Estragon and Vladimir don’t make a choice at all; they just keep on waiting, until the end. So, I take it that the US is waiting until the end. The Yankees dawdle and, having dawdled, dawdle on.

I note Jak makes the point that boredom or the waiting itself causes people to think; he writes: ‘In The Plague, Albert Camus suggests that boredom or inactivity causes the individual to think.’ Jak, I’m bored, and I think not – that’s why I’m bored. And I don’t think the US is thinking while waiting, or getting bored. The US is both capitalist and existentialist.

There’s more to Waiting for Godot – and the Yankee Dawdle – than meets the critic’s eye. Published as a French play in 1952 as En Attendant Godot, Beckett himself translated it into English and was produced in London in 1955 and the United States in 1956 as Waiting For Godot. REA says (enotes.com):

Beckett’s play came to be considered an essential example of what Martin Esslin later called ‘Theatre of the Absurd,’ a term that Beckett disavowed but which remains a handy description for one of the most important theatre movements of the 20th century.

So, the play Waiting for Godot belongs to the Theatre of the Absurd, that which is ‘one of the most important theatre movements of the 20th century.’ Absurd!

Samuel Beckett won the Nobel Prize for Literature mainly for Waiting for Godot; that to me means the Nobel Prize Committee appreciated the absurd one day in 1969. Unlike the US, which has been in awe of the absurd since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, or 10 years ago. Some people just never learn.

Beckett himself called his play a ‘tragicomedy’ (Paul Davies, TLE, litencyc.com) in which ‘nothing happens, twice,’ since the two acts are ‘in several respects repetitions of each other.’ Not this one. Climate Change is a one-act play, and ‘all the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players’ – if and only if, As You Like It.

Stacy Tartar makes the point (brainstorm-services.com) that Beckett’s play is that of two educated men waiting for Godot on a lonely country road. If they’re educated, they wouldn’t be waiting on a lonely country road, for they would know that there is at least one other road to take. Why, they must have read Yankee poet Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken.’

I take it that the US refuses to acknowledge the Kyoto Protocol if only to protect her economy, that the US is thereby telling the world that a mere scrap of paper with some unreadable signatures is enough to burn down the house built upon the rock called the United States of America, the greatest civilization ever. O men of little faith!

Or, the US is merely taking the safest route, that which is described by CS Lewis in these words:

The safest road … is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

The safest road CS Lewis is referring to is? Hell.

I know. No, Waiting for Godot does not reflect the human condition – and neither does the US waiting for Godot. Or waiting for Al Gore.

If the millions of people in the rich nations like the US won’t cooperate, we are more millions in the poor countries who can make the difference in climate change. Then we will have shown the rich that the poor can see the options even when the rich can’t.

Last Thursday, November 22, ICRISAT sponsored a symposium on ‘Climate-Proofing Innovation for Poverty Reduction and Food Security’ at its campus in Patancheru; Team Captain William Dar gave the opening address, ‘Combating Climate Change through Innovative Science’ (I have an e-copy of the speech). From what I understand of the speech, the title refers to 4 things to do in what I shall refer to from now on as My A List:

(1) Enrich the poor – Add to the small farmers’ net incomes by growing high-yielding crops such as sweet sorghum varieties bred by ICRISAT.

(2) Add to the food supply – Growing high-yielding sweet sorghum in marginal areas, the grains can be processed as food for people or feed for poultry, as well as the stalks and leaves can be used as fodder for livestock.

(3) Cleanse the air – Growing high-yielding sweet sorghum in marginal areas adds to vegetation that cleanses the polluted air of carbon dioxide and converts the same into not only food and feed but also forage, fuel and fertilizer.

(4) Subtract gasoline – Growing high-yielding sweet sorghum in marginal areas adds to vegetation that not only cleanses the polluted air of carbon dioxide but also produces the raw materials for bioethanol, a substitute for petroleum-derived gasoline for cars.

Note the construction of My A List, the next statement building on the previous; by that, I wish to dramatize the undeniable truth that by planting ICRISAT-bred sweet sorghum in marginal areas, 4 concentric benefits can be derived. Now therefore, My A List shows that sweet sorghum is A Convenient Fruit; in fact, I first called this crop by such name February this year in my American Chronicle essay ‘An Inconvenient Truth: William Dar, The Filipino As Global Manager.’ Climate change has brought out the best in a crop, thanks to Team ICRISAT.

In his opening speech at the climate change symposium, Dar says that the key strategy adopted by ICRISAT towards climate-proofing its innovation is ‘sub-optimization for resilience.’ If I understand that correctly, ICRISAT is aiming at, for instance, concerning water:

(a) conserving water by breeding crops that use less water but yield more
(b) designing & advocating cropping systems that use less water but produce more
(c) showing how villagers can intelligently manage their own water supply.

Dar tells us that, in fact, with ICRISAT techniques derived from resource management studies with farmers, the drylands of India can produce 5 tons more (an increase of 4.6 times) grains a hectare a year supporting 15 persons more (an increase of 4.3 times) than under current farmer’s practices, that is, only 1.1 tons of grains supporting only 4.8 persons. I’m glad the experts are learning from the farmers!

That is not to mention ICRISAT breeding its 5 mandate crops – pearl millet, sorghum, chickpea, pigeonpea and groundnut – and producing varieties that tolerate a warmer world, that resist pest and disease attacks. Specifically, Dar tells us:

Part of the secret of success of Team ICRISAT is that it has itself created a larger team by partnering with many an institution in Africa and Asia as well as within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), ICRISAT being 1 of 15 centers of excellence in international agricultural research. Even bigger than that, we have almost all the countries in the world pitching in to mitigate climate change, and we will win – if only we can get the Yankees off their dawdle.

With its mantra ‘Science with a human face,’ ICRISAT is actively changing the way science serves the hundreds of millions of people in the drylands of Africa, Asia, Australia and Latin America. Aware of the climate changing, ICRISAT isn’t waiting for Godot.

Excellent! Now I expect more

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link or click for full article)
‘Having Done Well, ICRISAT Must Do Better!’

Poor Team ICRISAT! The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics is exulting, celebrating its 35th anniversary this week, November 21-24, with the knowledge that it has been rated O (Outstanding) by the World Bank. Excellent, I say. Now I shall expect more.

I? I am the poor; while my needs are few, my number is legion. Let science go figure that one.

The basic needs of the poor are the same as those of the rich.
That’s a giant leap of mine, a small step for my kind.

Now, therefore, lack of education, lack of information, lack of access to credit and other expert-stated needs such as lack of cost-effective technologies are not needs – they are what they are, lacks. Their satisfaction is means to ends, which are to satisfy the needs. That is to say, for instance, education does not satisfy a need; in comparison, having food satisfies a need, and food can be obtained by:

(a) buying food from income derived from one’s job based on one’s education;
(b) growing the food, as a farmer does;
(c) barter, such as labor for food, as a worker does;
(d) begging or being given;
(e) causing the food to be produced, as by an entrepreneur.

Now, considering my list, I note that the prevailing paradigm in the civilized world is that lack of education is such a terrible need that public policy or private initiative must do something about it ASAP. And yet, millions of people in the world prove that one does not need education to ‘succeed in life’ (in common parlance), to meet the basic needs and beyond (in Maslow’s terms).

Education is for obtaining a job; entrepreneurship is for creating many jobs. Perhaps the richest man on Earth is the best example of what I have just said: Microsoft’s Bill Gates, who has been called by Harvard’s Crimson as ‘Harvard’s most successful dropout’ (see my essay ‘Bill Gates Dotting His i’s, Crossing His Peas’ in the American Chronicle). He is not only Harvard’s but the world’s most successful entrepreneur.

Another school dropout and very highly successful entrepreneur is another nerd, Apple’s Steve Jobs, who is now Disney’s biggest stockholder with US$7B, which is what Disney paid for Jobs’ highly successful Pixar animation company.

Which leads me to thinking now: Some poor farmers can be taught to be entrepreneurs, so that they can produce their own income and meet their own needs; the other farmers can be taught to become part of an entrepreneurial arrangement such as that of a cooperative or a corporate farm.

But I’m still thinking like this: The African poor, the Asian poor, the Indian poor, the Australian poor, the Philippine poor, the Latin American poor – What must they have in common? My insight this time: Entrepreneurship.

The poor as entrepreneurs: Why not? Bill Gates started only with an idea, and he was a school dropout. (Different were Steve Jobs who sold his beloved Volkswagen and Steve Wozniak who sold his beloved scientific calculator to start Apple Company.) The one who started only with a good idea (software) and a bad school record (Harvard dropout) is the richest man alive today.

That is to say: Entrepreneurship is a good idea whose time has come for the poor. And let it be family entrepreneurship, where all adult family members are involved and responsible.

Why not? Entrepreneurship is a direct response to concerns on:

(a) lack of access to resources – Consider this only in terms of entrepreneurship.
(b) lack of market – Consider this only in terms of entrepreneurship.
(c) empowerment – What’s more empowering than entrepreneurship?
(d) gender equality – Not a realistic or a realizable dream.
(e) gender equity – Equity for all, not simply the female of the species.
(f) land tenure – You don’t need to own land to make it productive.
(g) unemployment – You will employ at least one other person in the family.

We have too many formal schools to manufacture employees (they have become expensive too) – and too few to create entrepreneurs. And then again, we don’t need formal schools to study or learn entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, the USAID is advocating microenterprise development programming for the poor in the 21st century (microlinks.org). Which means the USAID is finally on the right track where before it was just one of the boys.

Now, then this is my challenge:
Cultivate the spirit of family enterprise.

That is my challenge to ICRISAT – and the rest of the 15 centers of excellence of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR):

Africa Rice Center (WARDA) (Cotonou, Benin)
Biodiversity International (Rome, Italy)
CIAT – Centro Internacional De Agricultura Tropical (Cali, Colombia)
CIFOR – Center for International Forestry Research (Bogor, Indonesia)
CIMMYT – Centro Internacional De Mejoramiento De Maiz y Trigo (Mexico City)
CIP – Centro Internacional De La Papa (Lima, Peru)
ICARDA – International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (Aleppo, Syria)
ICRISAT – International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Pantancheru, India)
IFPRI – International Food Policy Research Institute (Washington DC)
IITA – International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (Ibadan, Nigeria)
ILRI – International Livestock Research Institute (Nairobi, Kenya)
IRRI – International Rice Research Institute (Los Baños, Philippines)
IWMI – International Water Management Institute (Colombo, Sri Lanka)
World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)
WorldFish Center (Penang, Malaysia).

Cultivating the spirit of family enterprise everywhere would be cultivating citizen responsibility as a common response to the challenge of catastrophic climate change. That would be the nicest change of all.

You have to believe

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link or click for full article)
‘ You Have To Believe. On The Poor In Science, The Poor In Faith’

Regina Isabelle my granddaughter was 1 year old yesterday (Manila time) in New York, November 20; the 20th Philippine Advertising Congress is being held at Subic Bay in Zambales, Philippines November 21-24; my good friend Naz’kcelebrations in India November 21-24; The 1st Kerygma Conference is being held 23-25 at Ultra; I was 68 November 11 on record; my mother-in-law Remedios in Manila is 88 November 22: All’s right with the world?

Only if it’s all right with you.

November is a good month, I say. (I say also, any month is good – it’s not in the month; rather, it’s in the attitude.) In any case, I don’t know about me (or you), but I understand from Golden Princess (tripod.com) that November has 3 virtues: wisdom, courage and serenity. If you have those, you would be the richest even if you were the poorest. Those words remind me of this that I memorized probably in high school 50 years ago and will always associate with St Francis:

Lord, grant me
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and
the wisdom to know the difference.

St Francis lived in the 13th century. Now, this Saint had a great love for the poor so much so that he gave up his inheritance of great wealth to spend on the poor and became a Servant of the Lord, Roman Catholic, embracing a life of poverty (franciscanfriars.com). Faith does that to the best. And the worst? They will have to take care of themselves too.

At the 35th anniversary of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) at the Intercontinental Manila, I heard Dar refer to himself as ‘Servant Leader.’ Science does that to the best. And the worst? They will have to take charge of themselves too.

Dar had a special message to the loyals of Team ICRISAT:

The celebrations that begin today confirm ICRISAT’s status as the center of scientific excellence. We are here today to honor all those who made this possible – those who have been here as long as the Institute itself, those who rose with it and learned to believe in its goals, those who turned adversities into opportunities, and those who endured tough times yet believed that every cloud has a silver lining.

You have to believe.

Science becomes you if you do it in the name of the least of His brethren. If you do your science always mindful of the 3 virtues of November any month of the year: serenity, courage, wisdom. And the poor? They are rich with adversities but don’t know how to turn them into opportunities. As long as they don’t have the serenity, courage and wisdom – in science or in faith – the poor we will always have with us. And if we don’t have those virtues ourselves? We will always be the poorer.

ICRISAT, as I have written much much earlier in the American Chronicle (try these 3: ‘Atlas Blogged! Climate Change …’ and ‘The Green Elephant Of India’ and ‘Al Gore Of Science’), is an award-winning, wide-ranging, demand-driven (not supply-pushed) international science institution under the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). This CGIAR center of excellence owes its success, according to Dar, on ‘five major catalysts that have kindled our science triumphs and impacts’ (never mind the mixed metaphor):

(1) clear vision, mission, goal, strategy.
(2) team spirit
(3) strategic partnerships
(4) sound financial situation
(5) decentralized governance.

Personally, with what I know of what I have read and heard of ICRISAT, if I were to choose only one factor to explain the Institute’s astounding success, it’s team spirit. This is clearly the essence of the name they have for themselves: Team ICRISAT.

Who focus their eyes on the vision? The team.
Who tune their ears to the mission? The team.
Who safeguard their hearts’ passion on the goal? The team.
Who keep their head on the strategy? The team.
Who forge and carry out the partnerships? The team.
Who make sure the financials are sound? The team.
Who make decentralized governance work? The team.
Whom can you rely on to be trustworthy and loyal? The team.

Who makes the team? The leader.

Among the best, the challenges they always have in mind.

If I may put it in another way, climate-proofing is planting a climate crop, which I have defined for convenience as ‘a plant cultivated from which to extract biofuel ultimately to replace fossil fuels used in cars & trucks’ (November 18, ‘Atlas Blogged! Climate Change …,’ americanchronicle.com).

‘To look at past achievements and future challenges’ – that exactly is the idea sold by a successful Portuguese explorer to King Charles I of Spain, married to Regina Isabelle, or Queen Isabela. Convinced, King Charles was the one who financed the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan in 1519-1522 (vlib.iue.it). Magellan had a pioneering heart. While he was killed in Mactan, having been embroiled in a tribal war, his voyage achieved 3 things:

One, he discovered the Philippines for Europe.
Two, this voyage was the first successful circumnavigation of the world.
Three, ‘the voyage proved that the earth is round.’
Nothing attempted, nothing achieved.

Courage, serenity, wisdom. ‘We have an institution to grow, a mission to fulfill, and impacts to achieve.’ Nothing tried to, nothing triumphed over. The ICRISAT voyage should prove that the poor we should not always have with us.

A plant that adversity cannot break

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link or click for full article)
‘ Atlas Blogged! Climate Change In UK, Then In UP, Then In US?’

Almost simultaneously last week, the Parliament of the United Kingdom (UK) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations (UN) published their official statements on global warming. November 15 UK, a bill to be debated by Members of the Parliament. November 17 IPCC, a synthesis report to be acted upon by every Government in the world. Except the US?

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957, Random House) is ‘about the importance of reason and productivity, and how those characteristics have such a bad press, relative to hope and inadequacy’ (undated, Harold Leiendecker, eckerd.edu). Just like in the Philippines, if the press would have little to do with global warming, which has everything to do with reason and continuing productivity, it’s just like the US.

Scientists telling politicians what must be done – in the case of global warming, I’m glad there’s no separation between Science and State. Kyoto Protocol was the boy who cried ‘Wolf!’ on the blustery day of 1997 December 11; the United States (the US) was the villagers who told the shepherd boy in a delayed telecast 4 years later, ‘Save your frightened song for when there is really something wrong!’ (borrowing from storyarts.org). What does that mean: The US can tell a lie when it sees none?

Yes, the US is the leading polluting country in the whole world (Vexen Crabtree, 2002 June, vexen.co.uk). No, on 2001 March 29, the Bush Administration withdrew the United States from the Kyoto Protocol (vienna.usembassy.gov). The Greatest Government on Earth cannot be told, not even reminded, what it must do. Pride before the fall?

Learning more from Atlas Shrugged, as according to Leiendecker (cited):

The overarching story is that the men of the mind, who like Atlas, carry the world on their shoulders, gradually get fed up with being exploited, and abused, and given no respect. They retire from the world, shrugging the burden, in effect.

In the United States, the overarching story is that the man of the command, who thinks he is Atlas carrying the world on his shoulder, shrugs the burden. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, first they make mad?

About leadership in climate change, there was the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (ec.europa.eu). With the very first climate change bill in history, today the UK is the world’s #1 boy shepherd, tending to a pack of sheep grazing, knowing of a coming wolf that could devour not only the sheep but also the shepherd. Could it be that George W Bush doesn’t know the story of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf?’ With the 4th assessment report of the UN IPCC, this is the 4th time the boy has cried ‘Wolf!’ If you don’t care about the sheep, does that make you the wolf?

‘We recognize our responsibility and we will meet it, at home, in our hemisphere, and in the world.’ What George W Bush seems to be saying is that the US is at liberty to choose what course to take, as if rejecting the Kyoto Protocol as an imposition devoutly to be unwished, as if it is something abridging freedom of choice which, thereby, the US is claiming as the 1st freedom of a country. 66 years earlier, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke to the 77th US Congress (1941 January 6) about four freedoms: Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. The Yankees are very good when it comes to declaring freedoms.

Learning from the Yankees, I suggest the United Nations declare a 2nd freedom of a country, that is, freedom from pollution. In that way, the stubborn United States and other big polluting countries can exercise their freedom of choice and the stubborn countries of the rest of the world can combine forces and exert their freedom from pollution. Something’s got to give. I hope it will be the stubborn United States. If the US goes, can Australia be far behind?

The US is ignoring history. My first Atlas of global warming is the French mathematician Jean Baptist Joseph Fourier who discovered in 1824 that the Earth’s temperature was slowly increasing (globalwarmingarchive.com). My next Atlas is Nobel Laureate Svante Arrhenius who in the late 1900s coined the term ‘greenhouse effect’ to explain how CO2 traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. My third Atlas is amateur scientist GS Callendar who in the 1950s claimed that the greenhouse effect was impacting the atmosphere of the Earth. The ‘Callendar effect’ led to increased research on global warming, and studies began to predict that increased use of fossil fuels would trigger an outbreak of global warming. My biggest Atlas would of course be, who else? Al Gore.

First the UK. Now then, what can the rest of the world do? 3 things:

(1) Countries pass their own Climate Change Laws.
(2) Countries plant climate crops.
(3) Intellectuals raise a storm.

(1) Countries pass their own Climate Change Laws.

And twice better than the UK Bill on Climate Change. (a) To reduce carbon dioxide emissions by at least 80% (the UK sets it at only 60%) by 2050, against 1990 levels. Countries can further learn from the UK example. According to Green Party principal speaker Caroline Lucas (politics.co.uk), ‘We need a climate change bill which sets binding emissions-reduction targets of at least 6% a year’ to achieve cuts of 90% by 2030. (b) To put in place a year-on-year commitment, that is, measurable milestones on CO2 reductions. The UK bill does not do this. Without milestones, nobody can tell whether anything is moving forward. Unless of course you’re a politician and you’re really just making empty promises.

(2) Plant climate crops.

If you haven’t heard about climate crops, now you have. I first wrote about climate crops February this year, calling sweet sorghum ‘The Great Climate Crop’ in the American Chronicle (americanchronicle.com). If I may define climate crop, it is a plant cultivated from which to extract biofuel ultimately to replace fossil fuels used in cars & trucks. A short list of climate crops is this: corn, jatropha, sugarcane, sweet sorghum.

The idea of using marginal lands for growing crops is not a new idea; in 1972, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) was founded on that very idea. The millions of people in the drylands of the tropics are poor and so are their soils. It is optimum use that is important and, already in 1992, ICRISAT was talking that language, specifically on the ‘optimum use of supplemental water’ (icrisat.org).

Optimum use. I am reminded of a related term I first learned in 1981 – from my reading, not from some conversation with an expert – while I was an assistant editor at WordFish (then the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management or ICLARM): optimum sustainable yield (OSY). While OSY was designed for fisheries, I have always believed that it was applicable in agriculture, forestry, industry, wherever there are resources used for production or service. OSY is best, most favorable, ideal; neither minimum nor maximum. By definition, it is sustainable.

I never believed in the economic genius of maximum yield, maximum profit, maximum benefits, maximum this, maximum that. You’ll never find sustainable if you’re always looking for maximum. Anything that is maximum is too much.

Optimum use, optimum sustainable yield: Of course, I’m thinking of one of the sweetheart crops of ICRISAT, and that is sweet sorghum, my favorite climate crop. That is because this crop makes optimum use of soils that are barren, that lack water, that are denuded, that are waterlogged, that are otherwise inhospitable to other crops. A great survivor crop.

So when I think of marginal lands and biofuel crops, I think of only one sweet crop: sweet sorghum. During the 35th anniversary celebration of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) at the Intercontinental Manila on November 9, I heard Captain of Team ICRISAT Director General William Dar say that in Ilocos Norte, when the sweet sorghum field was flooded, the plants bowed to the ground, as flooded crops would; when the water subsided, lo and behold! The plants rose up again, as flooded crops would not. If man were only as intelligent as this crop, he would be an Atlas, that whose will adversity cannot break.

(3) Intellectuals raise a storm.

Today, when I think of intellectuals, I do not think of an individualistic Atlas; I think of a million Atlases, more practically, a million bloggers who have by nature transcended the power of the media to declare or deny their talents and who gleefully exercise their freedom of expression, who are very creative, who love their neighbors. Who are those neighbors? The geniuses know that. The geniuses must possess the mental acuity to penetrate the armors of indifference, or ignorance, or even intellectual dishonesty in the world. Each of those genius bloggers to me is an Atlas who cares about reason and productivity, who cares about global warming. So I say:

Atlas, blog!

I know that you carry the world on your shoulder, and you should. What are intellectuals for? Whether you like it or not, already you do carry a part of the world.

The intellectuals of the world should raise a storm of Intensity 5, where the waves of persuasion rise 17 feet high and move beyond the shore of indifference 13 miles inland. I learn that UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is calling upon developed countries to ‘show leadership’ (10 Downing Street, number-10.gov.uk), saying the IPCC findings released earlier are ‘a wake-up call for the world,’ the same which UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon refers to as the ‘defining challenge of our age.’ If the countries should not wake up to the challenge, Atlas should shrug his shoulders, but please not the burden.

The WWF photo shows the WWF’s giant boat model for a London campaign on the UK bill, as ‘the WWF doesn’t believe the Climate Change Bill is water-tight’ (Gemma Taylor, newconsumer.com). WWF, you’re an Atlas to me.

The newest Atlas to me is Andy Ross, who is the Director of New Caledonian Woodlands, a new not-for-profit Edinburgh initiative launched mid-November to reduce everyone’s individual carbon footprint by native-tree planting (to directly enrich habitats for plants and animals) by groups (to directly enrich lives by being parts of a team or community) (news.scotsman.com). You can beat them by joining them.

In UK, we’re OK; in US, we’re not okay. In here, if the intellectuals of the University of the Philippines (UP) don’t raise howls of protest against polluters as they are wont to do about anything they think polluting in current domestic affairs (except those of Erap), if they think that by their scholarly silence they have gotten away from their responsibility to the people in the matter of global warming, let this be a global warning that they need an intellectual climate change themselves.

I don’t see an Al Gore, an Atlas, among them. If UP is washing her hands off just like the US, I’ll exercise my academic freedom and mix my metaphors: (1) Both US and UP are doing their own conscious Pontius Pilate. (2) Birds of a feather shirk together.

I see we must not wait for the rest of mankind to warm up to global warming on their own. I say those who lay claim to being intellectuals have a duty to the world to shrug their shoulders in the manner of Ayn Rand’s Atlas. For the moment, I am content that Atlas blogged first in my country, the Philippines.

I pray for reason

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘Elementary, Pastor Watson. Georgia Prays For Rain, I Pray For Reason’

Atlanta, Georgia: ‘Gov Sonny Perdue stepped up to a podium outside the State Capitol on Tuesday and led a solemn crowd of several hundred people in a prayer for rain on his drought-stricken State’ (Greg Bluestein, November 13, news.aol.com). The Governor was joined by other State elected officials (James Salzer & Jim Galloway, November 13, ajc.com). Here is man in trouble, forgetting that he himself has declared the separation of his Church from his State.

I’m not surprised many a politician says one thing and does another. In May, Prime Minister John Howard asked churchgoers to pray for rain to end the drought that has devastated crops and farmers in Australia (Greg Bluestein, November 13, ap.google.com). In the US, we are reminded that George Washington declared ‘a day of prayer and thanksgiving’ and Harry Truman instituted a ‘National Day of Prayer.’ Does that mean that the more astute politicians acknowledge that there is a power higher than any or all politicians combined?

This is a reminder that Human Rights is good, but not as good as Divine Rain when faucets in kitchens are running dry because the reservoir in the lake is running low on water as the streams that feed it are coming in trickles. These are the times when we become aware of the value of water – because now this liquid is very precious to us, as we imagine the tap running dry in 90 days counting from October 10 (data from GBC, November 13, prayer.gabaptist.org). Lake Lanier can hit its lowest point ever, 21 feet below normal, later this month (TAU, ‘Georgia Praying For Rain,’ wjbf.com). Lanier can dry up altogether in less than 90 days (Ben Whitford, ‘Water Wars,’ November 2, plentymag.com), and that will kill the crops and finish the fish stocks in Alabama and Florida. The crops and the fish are precious; the water is priceless.

In response to the drought and the danger, the Georgia Baptist Convention (GBC) came up with a Prayer Guide for rain, which is in pdf format and can be downloaded. I wish rain can be downloaded as easily as the GBC pdf. And what does that mean, Prayer Guide: They aren’t taking chances with people praying guided only by their hearts?

On September 4, the Director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) declared a Level 4 drought across the northern third of Georgia (GBC, cited). Concerned, the GBC selected November 4 as the Day of Prayer. I can imagine plenty of prayers that went up to Heaven; I can also imagine hardly a drop of rain coming down from up there. What’s the matter, God doesn’t answer prayers anymore like He used to?

Why is Georgia praying for rain anyway? It isn’t only Georgia; it is also Alabama and Florida. These states share Lake Lanier as reservoir for their water needs. The GBC tells us 3 M Atlantans rely on the lake for drinking water – unfortunately, the Lake has only 3 months of water left at the rate those 3 states are using the precious liquid. So, in truth, Lake Lanier is the Lake of Life of 116M Georgians (9.36M), Alabamans (4.59M) and Floridans (18.08M) (data from Wikipedia, as of 2006). Well, that is an example of the adage: Truth hurts.

According to the GBC, CNN reported on October 17 that ‘the shortage of water in Georgia has created concerns among the citizens of Georgia, Alabama and Florida about how best to manage the regional water supply.’ Sorry, ladies & gentlemen, but that’s the wrong premise – ‘how best to manage’ – because, obviously, you have been remiss in managing the supply in the first place. Because the water is going, going … almost gone, now you’re worried, when you should have minded Lake Lanier decades ago.

The management of Lake Lanier is only 10% about rationing or even rationalizing the water supplied to Alabama, Florida, Georgia; it is 90% about managing the sources of headwaters of the streams that drain into the lake. In short, it’s all about good watershed management.

In the absence of that, what can the Alabamans, Floridans and Georgians do, Catholics and Protestants alike? And that goes for the rest of us humans. I say: Pray for rain – in a roundabout way. By doing any or all of these:

(1) Save on paper. Why? Reason tells us when enough of us save paper, we save a tree; when enough trees have been saved, we save a forest; when we save a forest, we have more rains.

(2) Plant degraded and denuded areas. From more vegetation, more water is transpired and becomes more clouds, and more clouds become rain. (I’m simplifying the water cycle, of course.) Those of you who are in the drylands of Africa, Asia, Australia and Latin America, I would recommend planting abandoned or rejected bare areas in small and big scale the crop called sweet sorghum, that which I call ‘The Great Climate Crop’ (americanchronicle.com), because it grows well where most crops grow badly if at all. You can learn more about sweet sorghum as an intelligent source of ethanol from Team ICRISAT captained by William Dar whom I call ‘Global Manager’ (americanchronicle.com), as well as the ‘Al Gore of Science’ (americanchronicle.com).

(3) Save water at home or office or outdoors or at the farm. When you conserve water, the same supply lasts a little longer; since the water comes from the rain, you are essentially conserving rain. Reason tells me it is much more practical conserving rain than praying for rain.

‘I believe in miracles,’ declared Pastor Maurice Watson of Beulahland Bible Church. ‘How about you?’

Elementary, Pastor Watson, elementary. I believe in miracles. I am a miracle; I believe in me. I also believe in making miracles. Rain is the miracle of water evaporating from the surface of Earth, becoming cloud, then falling as teardrops of Heaven.

Now, what have you done with the rain?

If you have not been taking care of the watershed that feeds Lake Lanier, you have driven away the rain.

If you have denuded the watershed, you have denied yourself rain.

The water in Lake Lanier was rain before this time. If you have wasted the water, you have wasted the rain that came for you.

Rain comes from the surface of a lake, river, stream and from plants transpiring; in 16 days, the water in the air is replenished (data from ‘Hydrologic Cycle,’ nwrfc.noaa.gov). (I interpret the data to mean if you ask God for rain right now, it will naturally take Him 16 days to say Yes – or No; remember, God answers prayers, not necessarily to please you.) If you cut down the trees in the forest, you cut down the amount of water transpired; you cut down on the amount of water that becomes rain.

If you do not conserve water in your home, you are wasting rain because that water came from the rain.

So you find that you have to pray for rain. Well, a prayer like that is the last resort. Have we done all we could before praying for rain?

There is also the matter of the nature of the prayer for rain itself. We have to give God a chance to be faithful to His laws. We believe that those who seek, find; those who ask, receive – but is it reasonable to plead with God for rain when in the first place we have made it difficult for the rains to come?

Ray Charles Stedman, in the 1968 series ‘Abraham: The Man Of Faith’ differentiates two kinds of prayer (pbc.org):

The prayer of faith is acting on a previous knowledge of what God wants. It is always founded upon a promise. It begins with a proposal which God makes, or a conviction he gives, or a warning he utters. On the other hand, the prayer of presumption is discovering something we would like to do, and then asking God to bless it.

Stedman was Pastor of Peninsula Bible Church (PBC) in Palo Alto, California; PBC is an ‘independent, non-denominational evangelical congregation’ (crossearch.com). Stedman was ‘one of the great Bible teachers of the 20th century’ (pbc.org); even if I’m Roman Catholic and even if Stedman wasn’t a great Bible teacher, I happen to agree with him. If I may translate, the prayer of faith is to please God; the prayer of presumption is to please you.

That is to say, if I pray for rain, that is to please me. I’m asking for a miracle for God to make a difference for me.

About the Georgian State officials praying on the steps of the Capitol, Ed Buckner, Treasurer of the Atlanta Freethought Society said (Bo Emerson, November 13, ajc.com): ‘This is a ridiculous, illogical exercise even for people who are deeply religious.’

But Ed, believing in God is in the first place a ridiculous, illogical exercise – and I do it all the time. And that’s why it’s called Faith, not Reason.

Emerson also quotes Lucian Lamar Sneed, Chair of the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee and a Methodist, as saying that ‘it certainly doesn’t improve the odds of success if the prayer takes place on the Capitol steps. God’s not impressed by rain dances. He is impressed by the sincerity of the prayer.’

I know of no other prayer more sincere than to have worked for it to make my prayer come true.

In fact, Atlanta, Georgia is now on its 4th driest year ever (David Brody, ‘Drought Plagues the Southeast,’ November 3, cbn.com). Some people never learn.

Governor Sonny Perdue confessed after the praying at the Capitol that the Georgians had not done all they could in matters of conservation (James Salzer & Jim Galloway, November 13, ajc.com). As a matter of fact, local officials had ‘done little to promote or plan for water conservation’ (Whitford, cited):

A million homes in the Atlanta area still have outdated plumbing rather than the low-flow fixtures required of new constructions; worse still, more than half of new suburban developments are still being built with wasteful septic tanks instead of sewers that would allow reprocessing of waste water. Meanwhile, years of under-investment have taken their toll: every day, almost a fifth of Atlanta’s water leaks away without being used.

I’m looking forward to the day Georgian State officials and Protestant ministers will find that they have to do more than just pray at the steps of the Capitol. I pray that they will find reason.

Simon says, Victory is for champs

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘Simon Says The Best Get Beaten. Filipinos Beat Daryl Peach In World Championship Pool’

Simon says, ‘Coping with the inevitability of defeat makes victories all the more sweet’ (Simon Barnes, timesonline.co.uk). Pray tell me, Simon, how can you celebrate a victory when it’s not yours?

Yesterday, Sunday, November 11 (Manila), in the 2007 World Pool Championship, Daryl ‘Dazzler’ Peach of Blackpool, England outshone the Philippines’ brilliant billiards last hope, Roberto ‘Superman’ Gomez of Zamboanga City. Last time I looked, it was 12-15 Dazzler-Superman. Then Superman, eyeing the bright light of a promised victory, got dazzled. It happens to the best. Superman got beaten; he must be the best.

But before that, the Filipino audience crushed Daryl Peach, booing him even after he would pocket a ball. He was subdued. One of the commentators could not help but comment that Peach was an ‘unpopular winner.’ Peach didn’t win the hearts of us Filipinos. The best gets beaten; we beat him with our catcalls. He must be the best.

Simon says, ‘Defeat is the sporting experience that dare not speak its name.’
Simon, it does now. If you are the loser, at least have the grace to make fun of yourself – and the victor.

In the Philippines, we know how to celebrate a victory when it’s ours. If you didn’t know that, you don’t know our Manny ‘PacMan’ Pacquiao and how we Filipinos lionize him. I’ve written about him too; try this, ‘Will To Run. Barrera, Your Hall-Of-Famer, I Presume?’ (americanchronicle.com); he is our living national hero. He makes us proud to be Filipinos & winners.

Oh to be English & losers! Simon Barnes is writing about football and England (Team Arsenal) losing to Spain (Barcelona) in the Champions League. My favorite game is billiards. I’m a champion in my own eyes; I have given quite a few guys love sets myself, including friends. I don’t care about football, and Simon, I don’t care if your column is dated more than a year ago, 2006 May 19 – what you write is history, and history is always good for the present, for us, if we know how to handle it. This time, I’ll handle it with gusto, with the verve of a winner. It’s the best I can do.

You know the Bloody Brits, the proud Englishmen; they can’t afford to lose – because Arsenal has just lost, Simon is trying to cheer them up. Simon, you can’t cheer up a loser – he has to do it himself. Oh, that’s why you’re cheering yourself up! ‘Arsenal bitterly accepted their right to be called the first loser in the Champions League.’ The English lost to the Spanish in the land of the French; it happened in Paris – which all goes to show that defeat speaks only one language: Loser.

Simon says, ‘And not winning was very much on my mind as I looked back on Arsenal’s jaunt to Paris and the miracle that never quite was.’
That’s pretty much what’s on my mind as I look back at yesterday’s English-Filipino battle of the world pool champions and the miracle that was quite British. I can’t forgive the English for this. During my (official) birthday, my hero lost the Philippines’ World Championship Pool? Unforgivable! I couldn’t celebrate; losing has never been my cup of tea. I will never forgive Daryl Peach for this, for winning, on my birthday.

Simon says, ‘You can be beaten and take a lot of positives from this.’
Simon, we Filipinos want to win, we always do. As for the positives, take that! and that!

Simon says, ‘Winners get more space in the papers.’
And bigger prizes, Simon.

Simon says, ‘But it is the losers that have numbers on their side.’
Yeah, the bad numbers. The losing figures. US$100K vs US$40K. How does losing taste? Bitter. Better after a few days, but that’s no consolation.

Simon says, ‘Losing is a big thing in sport, perhaps the biggest.’
Perhaps, but you get the fine print. Big deal!

Simon, I assure you Daryl Peach didn’t win – Roberto Gomez defeated himself, for instance, failing to hole-in one, and that was a very easy last shot. He was tired; he was nervous; he wanted very much to win. Maybe that is the worst thing a player can do, anyone can do – wanting very much to win.

Simon says, ‘But we repress the idea of losing.’
No, Simon, you should have seen Roberto Gomez cry.

Simon says, ‘Some will tell you that sport is all about winning.’
Simon, sport is all about losing when you are the loser.

Simon says, ‘Winning is not the only thing in sport.’
Of course not. There’s the losing.

Simon says, ‘Losing is one of the most important things in sport, and people do it all the time.’
Losing is not important at all, Simon. People don’t like losing at all.

Simon says, ‘Defeat is an important – perhaps the most important – part of the sporting life.’
Simon, I agree with you; losing is the most important part of sport – to the winner.

Simon says, ‘You can lose gloriously, dramatically, heroically, unluckily, abjectly, humiliatingly, compliantly, haplessly.’
We Filipinos would rather win, Simon, gloriously, dramatically, heroically, luckily, cheerfully, gloriously, compliantly, hopefully. We have already learned everything from losing. We’ve been losers. What we have not learned is not to be poor losers.

Simon says, ‘So much of the sporting experience is about anticipation.’
You anticipate what people will say behind your back after you lose.

Simon says, ‘Defeat is the thing that keeps us coming back.’
Oh no, Simon! For us losers, it’s victory that keeps us coming back.

Simon says, ‘When victory is certain, where is the joy?’
Look to the direction of the winner, Simon.

Simon says, ‘A mismatch brings no pleasure to the winner, and we call such victories hollow.’
You’re the loser, Simon!

Simon says, ‘Victory is not much of a dish unless it is seasoned with the possibility of defeat.’’
Simon, victory is the spice of sport. Defeat is an aftertaste.

Simon says, ‘Without defeat there is no victory.’
Don’t we losers know that! Please don’t rub it in.

Simon says, ‘Without losers, there are no winners.’
We Filipinos would rather that there be no losers.

Simon says, ‘We celebrate the winners.’
Not if the winners are not us.

Simon says, ‘We celebrate the winners, and we do so while repressing the thought that every winner floats high on buoyancy on the tears of the losers.’
Excuse me while we Filipinos cry.

Simon says, ‘We should be forever grateful to every loser.’
Don’t thank Roberto Gomez. He didn’t want to lose. He didn’t give away the game!

Simon says, ‘We who follow sports are hooked on the twists and turns of the narrative, the ever-changing cast of heroes and villains, the thrilling alternations of victory and defeat.’
We Filipinos follow only the twists and turns of the narrative that refers to the victor. We know a good story when we see one!

Simon says, ‘It is the unexpected victory that is always the sweetest, because it comes so close to defeat.’
That makes the defeat ever so bitter. 17-15 Peach-Gomez in a race to 17. It comes so close to victory!

Simon says, ‘Without that history of defeat, victory would have been far less sweet.’
We Filipinos would rather write and read the history of victory. Like 15-17 Peach-Gomez.

Simon says, ‘Defeat is a constituent part of sporting joy.’
Joy to the 2007 World Pool Championship winner, Daryl Peach. He’s the winner. Is he Champion? No, a Champion cannot be made overnight, over one championship. Roberto Gomez should know that. Daryl Peach should know that.

Simon says, ‘(Just in case), we will watch as if we were seeking defeat and when defeat comes, we shall meet it with appropriate gloom.’
Next time, we Filipinos will watch as if we were seeking victory and when victory comes, we shall meet it with appropriate boom. Today, because we’re down, there’s no way but up!

Simon says, ‘We are as hooked on defeat as we are on victory.’
You mean like some people who are hooked on drugs? Simon, those who are hooked on defeat are the losers!

Simon says, ‘Sport would not be sport without misery, without despair, without hopelessness.’
We Filipinos would rather have sport without misery, without despair, without hopelessness. We have enough of those already.

Simon says, ‘Victory is for wimps.’
No, Simon, victory is for champs.

Simon says, ‘It is in defeat that the true spirit of sport is to be found.’
No, Simon, it is in victory that the true spirit of sport is to be found. Take away victory and what have you got? Only losers! Oh, victory, where is thy sting! Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of victory.

Simon says, ‘Why involve yourself in that, if losing is not to your taste?’
Simon, winning is much to the Filipinos’ taste.

Simon says, ‘It all adds up to the same common experience of sport: not winning.’
We Filipinos want the uncommon experience of sport: Victory.

Simon says, ‘Without losers, there is no sport.’
I hate sports. Sports were invented for winners, not losers.

Simon says, ‘How can winning possibly be the only thing when so many people in sport quite patently are not doing it?’
Simon, to the loser, winning is the only thing in sport. So, I beg your pardon, my favorite sport is the only thing in my mind right now. And winning. Excuse me while I bow my head and cry.

To believe is the first challenge

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘The 4 Es Club. The Young Dare Be Entrepreneurs, They Dare Be Filipinos’

The 4 Es Club, that is, Earth, Education, Environment, Entrepreneurship. Right now, I’m the President and only member. This is a crusade. A crusade begins with one man, one mind.

Actually, I just came out with the new name but this crusade is about 2 years old, and I did not start it. He did. He is Jose Maria ‘Joey’ Concepcion III, Presidential Consultant on Entrepreneurship. A few years earlier, he had founded the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship (PCE), ‘together with the country’s finest entrepreneurs’ (Joey’s Blog). It takes one to know one.

The crusade they call GoNegosyo (GoBusiness). Confucius says: ‘If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime’ (egreenway.com). So, GoNegosyo says: ‘Teach a nation how to fish, feed the nation many lifetimes.’

Is GoNegosyo condemning all Filipinos to be fishermen?

No! ‘We cannot all be doctors,’ wrote Dr Jose Rizal, the Filipino national hero, to one of his nephews in awe of his magnificent mind and miraculous hands. My own research tells me he made the blind see; he operated successfully on his sightless mother’s eyes and his townmates saw it as a miracle. ‘One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see’ (John 9: 25, New American Bible). Condemned to exile by the Spanish conquistadores, Rizal himself was an entrepreneur in Dapitan in Southern Philippines, and he was busy and happy. We are condemned only by ourselves.

Neither does GoNegosyo condemn us only to fishing. They have a long list of business categories prepared and an even longer list of mentors ready, willing and able to serve.

They are, as Enterprise puts it (enterprise.ph), ‘a new breed of role models: successful entrepreneurs who, despite the present challenges, continue to believe in the country and its future.’ To believe is the first challenge.

Last year, 2006 February 23, in her speech at the GoNegosyo Enterprise Summit, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo advised Filipinos to ‘be optimistic and be not afraid’ and ‘not let politicking and destabilization put down or destroy what we have here before us … the Filipino spirit of enterprise’ (ops.gov.ph). At the same time, she asked the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines to immediately set aside P50M to finance promising business startups selected through the PCE. (Latest news on this? Her word was their command. More on this next time.)

‘Before you can become an entrepreneur, you must believe first in your country,’ Joey Concepcion said yesterday, November 9, during the 35th Anniversary celebration of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) at the Intercontinental Manila. He was speaking to about 250 people, mostly scientists in agriculture, forestry, natural resources. Among the avid listeners who had patiently waited for the keynote speaker were Science Secretary Estrella Alabastro and Executive Director of PCARRD Patricio Faylon. Joey’s helicopter couldn’t land atop the Intercon or anywhere near because of turbulence; they landed at Alabang instead and arrived by car. When technology lets you down, technology picks you up.

As I see it, Joey’s / the PCE’s mission is, to quote Enterprise (cited): ‘to promote entrepreneurship by enhancing education (formal and non-formal), developing the entrepreneurial mindset, and unifying key stakeholders to create an environment conducive for business startups.’

So there you have 3: Entrepreneurship, Education, Environment.

And now I shall introduce you to the Earth.

The Earth, especially the drylands, millions of hectares of these in Africa, Asia, Australia, Latin America, with hundreds of millions of people dependent on them for livelihood. Ask about them from a Filipino, William Dar, Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), which is based in India, where millions of the dryland poor eke out their living from resources as meager as the moisture from the soil in their fields or farms.

The Earth, which now is besieged by devastations that are clear-cut warnings of climate change. We cannot stop it but we can mitigate the adverse effects of global warming by planting what I referred to February this year as ‘the great climate crop’ (americanchronicle.com): sweet sorghum, one of the darling crops of William Dar’s Team ICRISAT. I too am in love with it. Because, like me, sweet sorghum is a survivor: It grows well where others will not: dryland, wetland, infertile soil, waterlogged sites, barren soils – and these describe the poor farmers’ fields and farms. In the Philippines, you see basketball courts everywhere. Since corporate players are paid millions to play, I say basketball is a rich man’s choice of a poor boy’s game. And since corporations are now paying millions to play the game of climate crop putting up ethanol distilleries, I call sweet sorghum ‘a rich man’s choice of a poor man’s crop’ (americanchronicle.com). For richer, not for poorer.

Entrepreneurship. I am very surprised (and very pleased) PCARRD has metamorphosed over the years from a technology promoter to an enterprise advocate.

I’m also thinking of the Philippine educational system at the tertiary level offering not only degree-oriented courses but a choice of enterprise-oriented courses. That would be a revolution in education in the Philippines, in Asia, perhaps in the world. The schools too must be taught to become entrepreneurs and give rise to the new entrepreneurial class in the Philippines coming from the youth. So that they don’t have to spend all their waking hours playing their own games, oblivious of what’s happening around them. You can never tell if one of the boys playing basketball will become your favorite entrepreneur.

Joey’s speech at PCARRD’s 35th anniversary yesterday was ‘from the heart’ as the emcee said; it was worth the hour’s wait. These are bites & pieces from my notes, longhand (what I can read of it – he spoke fervently and fast):

What we need to do is change our mindset.
I would like to sell the spirit of hope. There is hope.
I am here to encourage you to believe in your country.

And I write here to encourage you to go and do likewise! So, I invite all the young boys to the 4 Es Club today, and all the young girls. They must care for the environment; they must be serious in their education. While they must become entrepreneurs, I must remind them what Joey Concepcion said yesterday: ‘Before you can become an entrepreneur, you must believe first in your country.’

And yes, our national hero Jose Rizal never stopped believing in his country, my country, right to the end – I have studied more than 30 English translations in my collection, and I know only my ABC translation reveals Rizal’s message of love of country, ‘Adios, Beloved Country’ (2006 September, adiosfarewellgoodbye.blogspot.com). Our hero offered his life in the very first stanza of his ultimate poem, the very Spanish ‘Adios, Patria Adorada’ – the intelligent title, I say, not ‘Mi Ultimo Adios,’ ‘My Last Farewell’ – with love, to whom it may concern:

Adios, beloved country, EarthLove of the Sun,
Pearl of the Sea Orient, Eden in ruins bad!
Glad am I to give my life shrunk and forsaken;
And were it more radiant, more fresh, more floral then
Would for you give I still, still I give for your good.

No English translator before but I have noticed this:
Tambien por ti la diera, la diera por tu bien.
‘Would for you give I still, still I give for your good.’

Great love distilled in a great line, artfully & powerfully iterated, the first part a mirror image of the other. Love expressed achingly sweet, twice. Noble love, noble line.

He was speaking to the youth, he was speaking to all of love of country. And then out of hate the Spaniards executed him. The barbarians.

We are not barbarians. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love the Earth, love the Environment, love Education, love Entrepreneurship – ultimately, we must all first of all put a premium to that ball of life we call Earth. You break it, you pay for it!

Model T farms

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘Science Model T Farms. PCARRD In Philippine Initiatives For Global Competitiveness’

The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) was the first such sectoral council in the Philippines; it was so successful in research management that it was emulated in other countries of Asia. This pioneer did the Filipinos proud. There are times when the Filipino is very, very good.

Born in 1972, PCARRD was one of the early bright stars in President Ferdinand E Marcos’ firmament of Martial Law; Marcos, an Ilocano, was as scholarly as you could get the President of your country to be. He gave full support to PCARRD – he signed the Presidential Decree creating it. The Council had full support of the University of the Philippines Los Baños, National Science Development Board, Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources; with a Ford Foundation grant of about $108,000, PCARRD began her evaluation work of on-going research projects throughout the country. The next time around, the Council reported that she had saved the Philippine Government P18.7M in 1973, as reported by Fernando Bernardo in his newly published book, UPLB: A Century Of Challenges And Achievements (2007, Los Baños: UPLB Alumni Association, 249 pages). ‘The Budget Commission was so impressed that it allocated P5M for the construction of (the Council’s) headquarters at the Los Baños Economic Garden.’ We would have to give Joseph Madamba credit for that, being the founding Executive Director. It doesn’t surprise me – it takes one to know one; he is of Ilocano stock, you know, the miserly kind?

From that of simple savings to that of global competitiveness, PCARRD has made the paradigm shift, with results of publicly funded research first providing science information & technology services to Filipino farmers only, and today also to entrepreneurs, if they be the farmers themselves. Today, Friday, November 9, PCARRD celebrates her 35 years of service to the country at the Intercontinental Manila in the City of Makati with the theme ‘Strategic alliances and focused S&T for competitive AFNR products and services.’ Concentrated science & technology to churn out global market-driven products in agriculture, forestry and natural resources. A giant growing for 35 years is fully aware of what she can do, and must.

My attention has been caught by what is referred to as the MS farm and the S&T farm, a PCARRD innovation. MS means Magsasaka Siyentista, Farmer Scientist, that is, a farmer becomes an active partner (technology adopter) in a farm set up by scientists along the supply chain of production, processing and marketing: the growing, processing and marketing become a common endeavor of the enterprise. Since it is a model farm driven by technology, I shall to refer to it as the PCARRD Model T Farm. For example, there are 2 Model T farms planned for Ilocos Norte and La Union in Northern Luzon to grow organic vegetables. Remember the Model T Ford? This was the one that made the automobile popular; I am predicting that the Model T Farm will make the aggie-based enterprise fashionable.

Now then, my congratulations to Executive Director Patricio S Faylon and PCARRD on her 35th year! You have found your appropriate demand-driven role in science for pushing Philippine agriculture onward.

Be that as it may, I believe the Philippines can benefit even more with PCARRD as the lead agency in an Open Knowledge (OK) Initiative between the United States and the Philippines similar to the US-India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative (AKI) that comprises a package of collaboration in Agricultural Education, Teaching, Research, Service and Commercial Linkages. We are told that to jumpstart the Initiative with India, the United States secured a $8M funding for 2006, with $24M pledged to 2008 (fas.usda.gov). The Philippines too needs all the help she can get.

I repeat: I expect the initiative if not the leadership to power up Philippine agriculture to First World level to come from PCARRD. Expectation is one thing, ability is another.

Can the Council do it? I know it can. The question is PCARRD’s political will:
Will it will it?

Their streakers are fast, their website slow

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘IKNOW!dolt. Smart Databanking For Dummies Like You & Me’

This is a long story, and it really began 36 years ago, if you can read that long. It’s in my databank called memory waiting to be told all those years. Memory is a databank that fails every now and then, as any 67-year old will tell you. Ask me. Needs improvement. Quite undesirable, quite understandable.

You didn’t think I would know now, dolt. I’m a dummy with a camera passing by another dummy with a scooter passing by another dummy lying on the sidewalk. I am going that way; he is going the other way; he is going nowhere. Very interesting.

I didn’t realize it that day, but now I see these old hands have captured on my new Canon PowerShot A540 digital camera a modern-day metaphor for an olden-day databank on the information superhighway – that which usually serves its users who are just passing by, or where they are just staying, just staring. Enter an Internet café of your choice and you’ll see what I mean.

Databanking is funny, dolt. You know, if the Internet is the universal databank, each website is a self-directed databank itself, although infinitesimally smaller. In the information highway, websites are middle-of-the-road. From the Philippines & elsewhere, here are interesting items:

The UP Diliman streakers are fast; the UP website is slow.

The UP Los Baños website is in English; the slogan is in Tagalog (Filipino): ‘Iskolar ng Bayan: Tunay, Palaban, Makabayan!’ ‘People’s Scholar: Genuine, Militant, Nationalistic!’ The slogan goes that way, the content goes the other way.

Rice Doctor of IRRI online is not easy to use as it is not easy to decipher a medical doctor’s Rx.
The ICRISAT website is difficult to read because of the fine print.
And it takes forever for MSN to search for elephant images.
So, what else is new?

You dolt lying on the sidewalk. I know this place like my fingers know the keyboard of my desktop PC – I’m a touch-typist, you know; I can tell you’re drunk, probably on a forbidden drug. You’re down, oblivious to the theory & practice of living. Out of this world into your own. When dolts think they have no more choices, they choose Escape.

What?! Dolt, the building to your right is that of a school, and the sign is inviting you, telling you: Be proud you are a Filipino. To your left is a man on a scooter who holds a folder or something, and in a split-second, he’s going to pass you by. The message? If you don’t learn that you have choices – or if you quit before knowing you have other choices – life is going to pass you by, dummy.

Believe me, dolt, the scene I have captured in my photograph reminds me now of the theory & practice of databanking, or databasing, that is, creating & keeping what Encarta (2008) defines simply as a large store of information. I like simple, which gives you an idea of the problem: large store. How can you find anything fast in a large store if you’re not the storekeeper? That’s why in a library we need a librarian.

The problem with a databank is that it comes with the librarian; in fact, the databank is itself the library and at the same time the librarian, one and the same. You know of course, dummy, there are helpful and there are not-so-helpful librarians.

Dolt, you ask me what in heaven’s name is a databank? I’ll give you examples: the Internet, a website, a library, a book. A book, yes; many non-fiction authors don’t appreciate the value of an index – either a book has a miniature index or none at all. The index entries are your keywords or search words; if you don’t have an abundance of those, how can you locate something in the book as fast as you can turn the pages? Without a good index, you will have to turn and read all the pages again and again; without those innumerable, priceless keywords, your book is, dummy, a crummy databank. I once prepared a 100-page index for a 500-page textbook, and the author-editor laughed; she accepted 30 pages. They still make indexes like they used to. I’m glad the electronic index has been invented, in the electronic databank – now the sky is the limit, and the Internet is the sky.

How can you find anything in a library superfast? Don’t use your personal DVD encyclopedia; go to the Internet, the biggest and fastest library you’ll never own. It’s okay; it’s not perfect. With the advent of information technology, not time but speed is of the essence – I can’t wait a minute for the first webpage to upload itself. For me, even with my new Core 2 Duo PC with 1.8 GHz processor with 2 GB RAM with a fast 320 GB hard disk, my SmartBro running at 384 kbps, PC running alone, the Internet is not fast enough. What’s more, as a databank the Internet is not intelligent enough. I have another kind of databank some dummies never even heard of.

Abstracting is writing down, the reverse of the writing process, which is writing up. In a short while, I had the mind to improve the abstract and include the rationale, plus a succinct summary of the main conclusion, plus sometimes the major recommendation – all within the limit of 250 words to an abstract.

Funny, but the authors of technical papers today find it more difficult to write their abstract than their whole manuscript – no original abstract has so far measured up to my standards, and I’ve been editor of technical manuscripts for more than 32 years. They don’t think the abstract is that important. It is. In the library of olden times – 36 years ago – abstracts were the best way to trace an article back to its original publication. They still are, dolt.

26 years ago: Abstracting, one day, the idea struck me that, based on my expanded abstract, there must be a better (faster, with pin-point accuracy) way of retrieving information from the library, and I came up with what I shall now call, for convenience – I didn’t have a name for it then – iUD, for insinuating Universal Data. The idea for my iUD databank was to extract the essence of all articles, big and small, by indexing them in all manners of mixes of terms and words so that when dummies wanted to look for something, even if they didn’t know the exact term or word for it, they would find it. iUD was my library for dolts. I am told you would call that now the use of synonyms. (Google is a dummy if it doesn’t already do that for you in the Internet.)

Still, my iUD databank went beyond synonyms; you dummy would be able to find the article you were looking for, searching using your own words; in addition, another article would suggest itself that you should have looked for it, even if your search word was not found in the article itself. That would be intelligence insinuating itself, dummy. You wouldn’t believe it, dolt. In other words, with my iUD, even if you didn’t know it, you were also searching the database by context. (How? That’s my $64M secret. But if you’re smart, you can guess after this from what this dolt has said. I will have given you a $64B clue. Consider it my Christmas gift to the world.)

The traditional databank is ‘an electronic filing system’ (webopedia.com), electronic files classified for access through keywords or search words. Webopedia also says an alternative concept in databank design is hypertext, where an object (list, document, spreadsheet, image, drawing, audio, video) can be linked to any other object. That’s the Internet already. Beyond already, beyond hypertext, my iUD databank would be a thinking supertext, not a dummy, if this dummy may so himself.

In that age before computers, with Ms Torrijos’ endorsement, the NCRFW bought my crude databank iUD concept and paid a first downpayment of my professional fee, P7500, a princely sum in those days, 1981. I had an IPR even before I had heard the term Intellectual Property Rights. You don’t know how happy I was, an aggie graduate (Ag Ed) dabbling in information retrieval, as it was then referred to. I took to my databanking like a duck to water.

Unhappily, something dumb happened – I didn’t like the sharing, dummy – I resigned from the NSDB to work 65 km away from Manila, at UP Los Baños in 1982, Department of Animal Husbandry of the College of Agriculture as an extension person, and that was the end of my iUD databank. Ms Torrijos, as she was fondly called, went on to greater heights and became UNESCO Regional Adviser for Asia/Pacific; she retired in 1998; among other awards, she received recognition in 2000 from Vietnam in the form of the MOSTE Award (Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment) for ‘her untiring efforts in opening lines (of) communication and information exchange between Vietnam and several countries in the region and elsewhere, especially during the early years when Vietnam’s contacts with the outside world had been very limited’ (stii.dost.gov.ph). In other words, with Ms Torrijos, Asia became Vietnam’s databank. You can count on some old ladies to share-in the new.

Back to my photograph: I was on a scene-stealing walk early that morning, camera ready. I shot that photo because of that dummy, not the school. But now that I think of it, the school is a repository of knowledge, a living databank, so to speak, in the sense that it is really the teachers that make up the school, not the building. Our man down has walled himself out of the knowledge of good manners and right conduct (GMRC) we did learn in grade school yet.

Still, you can’t blame the fellow. As far as I’m concerned, the essence of a databank is choices. In the 1980s, the DG of NSDB Emil Javier said it in words to this effect: Science should be demand-driven, not supply-pushed. I say, same with the databank. If the databank he knows to access is only up to GMRC, or grade school level, the dolt doesn’t have much choice, does he? He’s a dummy through no fault of his. Grade school doesn’t teach you how to live in an adult world. Even if you are a high school graduate and therefore your store of information is at least up to the high school level, still you don’t have access to many options on how to lead an adult life you would be happy with, or at least comfortable with in an uncertain world. You’re still a dummy. After high school, that’s when you have quite a number of options as to which University to attend or what course to take. You don’t have to be a dummy anymore.

Shouldn’t a databank be like University or, better, even better? That’s what I have been thinking of: a large store of information that works like my iUD databank.

2 years ago, as Editor in Chief of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science (PJCS), 2005 November, I proposed and prepared for the Crop Science Society of the Philippines (CSSP), publisher of the PJCS, a databank on CD that I called Hands-On Crop Science 1976-2005, which I described as ‘a user-friendly, science-friendly knowledge base of expanded abstracts of papers published in the Philippine Journal of Crop Science’ – it had taken me and 3 Student Assistants (Perla A Pagatpat, Joyce Ann B Abella, Sandra F Magcayang) more than a year to type, revise, edit, format, at CSSP’s expense – we had 2 PCs with 2 printers at the office at the PhilRice Los Baños liaison office. And since the file was published in Word 2003 (you better believe it, dolt), anyone can search anywhere anytime for anything crop science. That would be the ideal databank – you can get inside that thing and search all of its insides up close, staring them in the face. My PJCS databank on CD used my iUD databank idea, of course. Did the CSSP appreciate my creation, dolt? Just a little; they paid me for my brainchild, for a price mutually agreed upon – not much, but mutually agreed upon. They told me they decided against selling the CD during an international conference at IRRI where they were invited, as it was a delicate matter. If you have to handle delicately a databank on a CD beautifully labeled, I say you’re not convinced it’s a good idea in the first place. I forgive you, dolt.

Yesterday, I was rummaging through our new hard disk (it comes with the new PC, dummy) for my old electronic files, and I found an old Word XP document that dates to 2003 December 25 with the long filename Christmas Notes For Open Academy – I was then thinking of an open university for farmers with a databank different from everybody else’s idea – it was going to be built along the lines of my iUD databank and it was going to be:
*problems-driven and
*solutions-driven and
*knowledge-driven and
*research-driven.
Unique.

Even my 2005 PJCS databank on a CD isn’t structured anything like that. I didn’t copy that from some other dummy’s database; I brainstormed that list by myself. I shall refer to that idea of a databank now as PSKR, from the acronym. PSKR was 4 years ago, in Internet time already old. As if that PSKR is not complicated enough, today (November 4, Sunday, Manila time) I have a more radical idea, naming it from such book titles as Windows For Dummies; I believe this dummy knows more now, dolt, hence this new databank:

iKNOW!dolt
i refers to information technology.
K refers to Knowledge.
N refers to Nature.
O refers to Options & Opportunities.
W refers to Wisdom. And
dolt means declare & offer like that, learning & teaching. And the
! signifies exciting possibilities.

It would be an impossible task to program, create, maintain and serve the people with such a databank. But I like challenges. If it isn’t impossible, where is the thrill in that?

i for information technology also refers to the Internet as it is, insights, inspiration, intellect. My databank will not only be instructional; it will also be motivational; it will help the user imagine something else, recognize something new, understand something better etc. In other words, my databank will be intelligent, not a dolt, dummy. I think Microsoft Student is someone acting like that already, dolt.

K for Knowledge refers to science and what is known, surmised, theorized, generalized, particularized, deduced, induced, concluded, recommended, debunked, including being investigated. Includes technologies & techniques: software; hardware; if in agriculture, crop varieties, animal breeds; processing, marketing, distribution of benefits of production; prognosis for the future. More.

N for Nature refers to givens such as carrying capacity of a piece of land, something measurable such as optimum sustainable yield of the milkfish of Pangasinan, something unsustainable such as fossil fuel, something exhaustible such as groundwater. More.

O for Opportunities refers to information such as a crop with comparative advantage (abaca for the Philippines), waste materials that can be transformed into products, new demands for old products, old demands for new products, beta products, beta technologies. Options refers to choices such as which crop for which soil for which site for which season. More.

W for Wisdom refers to recorded experiences of non-scientists (including dummies – you have to give them the benefit of the doubt, as experts are not always right), hand-me-down traditions of generations of the people (folk wisdom), bites of history. More is better.

iKNOW! is structured to show that experts don’t have a monopoly of the truth, dummy.

And I’m making history redefining dolt as someone who has a lot to declare & offer in the language of teaching and at the same time a lot to decipher & occupy oneself in terms of learning & testing.

What do I mean by that, dolt? In other words, iKNOW!dolt as the databank I’m thinking of has a dual purpose: It is a means for learning as well as for teaching. I’m thinking that the sources of information for the databank are humble enough to admit that they know enough that they can teach and yet don’t know enough that they too have to learn. Ignorance, knowledge, mystery. iKNOW!dolt reflects the humility of those who know that they don’t know everything, that they don’t have all the answers because they don’t know enough to ask all the questions.

Ultimately, as a modern databank, iKNOW!dolt is automatically multi-lateral, truly user-friendly, automatically enriching, certainly smart. I’m a dummy for talking this big talk, I know. To see is to believe? Of course, dolt. Wait till I can get a sponsor, even if I have to program it myself. Until then, it’s small talk by this dolt.

According to SQLServer.com, a databank or database is ‘a collection of information that is organized so that it can easily be accessed, managed and updated.’ Dummy to that. I have yet to find a database that is easily accessed, easily managed, and easily updated!

I believe the OOP experts even if sometimes I don’t understand them. Because of non-OOP programming software, tens of millions of codes have to be written by dummies – that’s why software is irrationally expensive, dolt. When we buy non-OOP software, we are throwing good money after bad. What are we doing?! We are rewarding dummies for doing their best, their dumbest best.

Which brings me back to my photograph of a dummy of a man who for all intents and purposes has quit on this world. And why is that? For lack of a more intelligent databank system, his database is limited to that for dummies.

For my databank iKNOW!dolt, what language will I be using then? In plain English, you’re a dummy if you don’t know by now.

Why teach science in metaphors?

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘The Green Elephant Of India. Understanding The Parables Of Buddha, Jesus, Science’

Today, we study figures of speech, but especially metaphors. Why? George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, linguist & philosopher, in their book Metaphors We Live By published in 1980 (theliterarylink.com) tell us: ‘We live by metaphors.’ Even if we don’t understand them.

Examples from the book (my examples in parentheses): ‘He attacked every weak point in my argument.’ (I ducked every time.) ‘You need to budget your time.’ (I don’t have the time.) ‘His income fell last year.’ (He dropped out of sight.) ‘He is high-minded.’ (You are low-brow.) ‘Lazarus rose from the dead.’ (Jesus had listened to the heart of Mary Magdalene.) ‘When you have a good idea, try to capture it immediately in words.’ (Seize the moment!)

A parable, I realized just now, is a metaphor. In the Bible, in the New Testament, the parables of Jesus are like that, metaphors:
The kingdom of heaven is a sower who went out to sow his seed …
If a grain of wheat dies, it bears much fruit …
He who loves his life will lose it …
The kingdom of heaven is a net thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind …
The kingdom of heaven is a grain of mustard seed a man took and sowed in his field …

‘And why do you speak to them in metaphors?’ the disciples asked. ‘Because that’s what they understand,’ Jesus said. The disciples didn’t know the power of the metaphor. But, you protest, the parables of Jesus were really not all metaphors. No, of course not; I know a simile when I see one; but if you remove the word ‘like’ or ‘as’ from each simile story, you have your metaphor story. I did just that in 3 of my examples above.

The metaphors I’m thinking of right now are those concerning the elephant of India. I’m not talking Greek here, am I? I know I’m not talking out of my hat. You must know the elephant. You know, it’s a wall, if all you can see is the body. It’s a spear, if all you can see is the tusk. It’s a snake, if all you can see is the trunk. It’s a tree, if all you can see is the knee. It’s a fan, if all you can see is the ear. It’s a rope, if all you can see is the tail.

Usually, the elephant is what you see at first sight, your metaphor. So, it seems to me that a metaphor is a limited tool for communicating what we mean. But it’s handy. As long as we know its limitations, it’s a good device to use to suggest what we mean when we can’t say what we mean. Which is most of the time. We must come, say George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, ‘to a new recognition of how profoundly metaphors not only shape our view of life in the present but set up the expectations that determine what life will be for us in the future.’

I’ll keep that in mind, George. I hope it doesn’t get erased from my memory, Mark. Metaphors. May their tribe increase!

Now, let’s see how the metaphor of the elephant can shape our view of science. I say: We can’t understand science if we can’t understand the elephant. This animal is a symbol of wisdom, luck, loyalty (crystal-cure.com). So, let’s study the elephant. You think you know the white elephant? This was chosen by the Buddha as one of his many incarnations.

Sometimes I have to return to where I just came from because I forget what I have come for. I’m 67 years old. I envy the elephant’s long memory and covet its long life. I’m a Filipino; I’m not a member of the Republican Party of the US who adopted the elephant as its mascot in 1874 when Harper’s Weekly came out with a cartoon of ‘an elephant trampling on inflation and chaos’ (fleurdelis.com). I never did entertain violence even in cartoons.

There is more to this elephant business than I had imagined yesterday when I thought of using the elephant as a metaphor for science. Today buddhism.kalachakranet.org told me that:

The Precious Elephant is a symbol of the strength of the mind in Buddhism. Exhibiting noble gentleness, the precious elephant serves as a symbol of the calm majesty possessed by one who is on the (Buddhist) Path. Specifically, it embodies the boundless powers of the Buddha which are miraculous aspiration, effort, intention, and analysis.

Aspiration, effort, intention, analysis – why, those words remind me of science. Aspiration reminds me of the objective of my research, effort of the work that has to be done, intention of the meaning or rationale of what I’m doing, analysis of the interpretation I still have to make out of the results.

My study is of course the elephant. So now let me tell you my version of the story as told in the parable by the Buddha (‘The Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant,’ kheper.net); I call my story The Parable Of the Blind Indians Nine. They wanted to know what an elephant was, so the servant of the Raja brought them to the elephant, each to a separate part of the animal. Their excited reports?

‘It’s a mound of clay!’ He had been holding the head; he was the potter.
‘It’s a winnowing basket!’ She had been holding the ear; she was the farmer’s wife.
‘It’s a plowshare!’ He had been holding the tusk; he was the farmer.
‘It’s a plow!’ He had been holding the trunk; he was the farmer’s neighbor.
‘It’s a granary!’ He had been holding the body; he was the merchant.
‘It’s a pillar!’ He had been holding the foot; he was the architect.
‘It’s a mortar!’ He had been holding the back; he was the builder.
‘It’s a pestle!’ He had been holding the tail; he was the worker.
‘It’s a brush!’ He had been holding the tuft of the tail; he was the painter.

You are entitled to your own metaphor. But do not be blind to the fact that you must know that a metaphor represents only a part of the reality of the whole elephant.

And why today did I come to study the elephants when I’m in the Philippines and the nearest elephant to where I sit in front of this PC is thousands of miles away in India and Thailand? I wasn’t thinking of elephants at all when I began to read ‘ICRISAT’s New Vision and Strategy To 2010’ (icrisat.org) – I have been trying to understand the theory and practice of science of ICRISAT so that I can find out for myself if it’s creating any impact on the world at all as it claims, as it should be. I thought of the many different things I had to understand of ICRISAT, and then I remembered the parable of the elephant. I needed to see the Big Picture.

Another problem of the popularizer of science like me is the science itself, the language that comes out of the mouth of dudes, the torrent of words that spew out of the mouth of experimenters, the slew of terms that scientists use to describe their work, or to explain their behavior.

Because of the language barrier, you must pity us poor science writers who must visualize their vision, who must master their mission, who must make no mistake about their mandate, who must integrate everything in our mind before we can write intelligently, not to mention interestingly, about it.

So, what do you make of these? (icrisat.org):

Vision & Determination – The continued improvement of the well-being of the poor of the semi-arid tropics (SAT) through agricultural research for impact. With this impact we have the determination to substantially contribute to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, specifically, those tackling poverty, hunger, gender and health issues.

Mission – To help the poor of the semi-arid tropics through Science with a Human Face and partnership-based research for development to increase agricultural productivity and food security, reduce poverty, and protect the environment in semi-arid production systems.

Mandate – To improve people’s livelihoods in crop-livestock-tree production systems in the semi-arid tropics through integrated genetic and natural resource management.

I have to make a whole elephant out of the body parts! Original photo by Jessie Cohen, from Smithsonian, nationalzoo.si.edu. So, here’s my first try:

Vision + Determination + Mission + Mandate + Program + Project + Activity = Elephant.

That is the elephant of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), which is 1 of 15 centers of excellence of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The CGIAR describes itself as ‘a strategic alliance of members, partners and international agricultural centers that mobilizes science to benefit the poor’ (cgiar.org). ICRISAT’s target is hundreds of millions of people in the drylands of Africa, Asia, Latin America, not to mention part of Australia. Since ICRISAT is pursuing a ‘Grey to Green Revolution’ as Team ICRISAT puts it; and since this elephant is working for hundreds of millions of people, it must be a mammoth mammoth. I shall call it then The Green Giant Elephant of ICRISAT; since ICRISAT is based in India, this is The Green Giant Elephant of India. Elephant. That means you cannot separate one part from the other parts. Yes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, according to the precepts of holism. No, you can’t appreciate that if you’re using reason, if you’re being logical, if you insist on critical thinking. Think about that.

For the people, the elephant is a workhorse, if you will pardon the expression. For ICRISAT, the biblical injunction to be one elephant means the Activity must relate to the Project, that which must relate to the Program, that which must relate to the Mandate, that which must relate to the Mission, that which must relate to the Determination, that which must relate to the Vision, that which must relate to the People. The people are the ultimate judge of your elephant, if it be green.

Now then, I believe that when scientists finally learn to speak in parables, that is, in metaphors – since they’re more educational than similes – then, we can appreciate science theory more, if not understand science practice better. And if the scientists don’t learn to speak? Then we’ll have to speak for them! Remember, science is for the people, not scientists.

‘Why do you teach them science in parables?’
‘Because that’s what they like.’

‘I like it when everything comes together,’ says Col John ‘Hannibal’ Smith (George Peppard), Captain of the A-Team. As in The Parable of the Green Giant Elephant.

Hidden agenda of the rosary

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘Love’s Martyr Of Fatima. Fr Akong & The Hidden Agenda Of The Rosary’

He called it ‘An Offering To Our Lady Of Fatima.’ I call it ‘An Offering To The World.’ In time the world will know about it. He said it was built on time, money, objects, efforts donated by men and women of golden hearts devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. I say it was built on faith. More so, it was built on love.

This essay is part of the story of the Rosary as today I came to know; it is part of the story of the Church of Apad in Calauag, Quezon, Southern Tagalog Region, Philippines; it is necessarily the story of the Father of the Church, Msgr Ciriaco A Sevilla Jr, or Fr Akong as he was fondly called. The Church of Apad was blessed October 13 last; the choice of date is pregnant with meaning, as it was on 1917 October 13 when the Blessed Virgin asked that a chapel be built in Fatima in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary (wafusa.org). As to the Church of Apad, the residents refer to it as ‘The Beautiful Church’ (‘Ang Magandang Simbahan’). It has a beautiful-sad story to tell – as all stories of the Catholic faith seem to have. ‘I will devote all my talents and efforts to build a church worthy of the Blessed Mother,’ Fr Akong said about 7 years ago. And he did. And for so long he sacrificed for it, suffered for it. It was a sacrifice of love.

As the Church of Apad was being blessed, Fr Akong lay dying of cirrhosis of the liver (we don’t know, but no, not from drinking). He was 70. He wanted to live longer as we all do; he needed a miracle to do that and everyone prayed for one. It was not to be. Then, he accepted the corruption of his flesh, his death. ‘The other day,’ writes Leonor Sevilla in an email of October 3, ‘we were alarmed to hear that he wanted to have the life-support tubes removed: oxygen and nutrition (glucose). Marla and I were able to convince him to offer his pain and sacrifice this way: Jesus, it is for your love, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ He died 15 days later.

The Church lives on. The title of his homily (see below) is also how he described the Church that is at the same time a Shrine, ‘An Offering to Our Lady of Fatima’ – but what was the Apad’s Fatima idea all about? Since the 2000-word long homily only vaguely refers to it, I have to look elsewhere. Now then, the clear answer, I believe, lies in the message of Fatima …

Now I understand why Fr Akong was a willing Love’s Martyr to the cause of the Church at Apad; he dedicated the last 7 years of his life to the building of this church and shrine to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church of Apad is a call to conversion and penance, a call to the heart of the Gospel. And what is the heart of the Gospel, ‘the content of faith’ as it is? ‘The Father’s love which leads men and women to conversion and bestows the grace required to abandon oneself to him with filial devotion.’ Convert and believe yourself to be a blessed member of the family of God.

While we are under ‘the watchful care of the Mother of Jesus and of the Church,’ Our Lady of Fatima ‘reminds us that man’s future is in God, and that we are active and responsible partners in creating that future,’ according to the Archbishop. That is a lesson in creativity I learned just now; a student of creativity (Serendipity), I didn’t think that way before this. Merely complainers, preferring to be simply accusers and not doers, we are not helping create that future; instead, we are denying ourselves that future.

And, inspired by Fr Akong’s homily, I have come to realize that in fact the Rosary is a creative approach to faith, that:

The hidden agenda of the Rosary is to bring people closer to Jesus through Mary.

Hidden agenda? It was hidden to many, including me, but especially the Protestants. Of course! What the Rosary is is a form of meditation on the life and death of the Son of God (medjugorje.org):

The Rosary is divided into five decades. Each decade represents a mystery or event in the life of Jesus. … During private recitation of the Rosary, each decade requires devout meditation on a specific mystery.

Meditation is an act of praying. Beads have long been linked with prayer; Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus use prayer beads (Hillary Katch & Mary French, 2004, anthromuseum.missouri.edu). In case you didn’t know (I didn’t), Hindus meditate on rosary beads, 108 of them, and so do the Buddhists; the Muslims have 99 beads (Wikipedia). That is to say, the Roman Catholics with their rosary beads don’t have a monopoly of the truth of the matter, and the Protestants protest too much, methinks.

(Insert, Nov 2; this one I didn’t mind before: The quotation on the label of the CD disk recording the mass celebrated to celebrate the life of Fr Akong says, ‘Sinikap kong mapalapit ang mga tao kay Hesus sa pamamagitan ng Santo Rosaryo ng Mahal na Birhen.’ I persevered to bring the people closer to Jesus through the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin. If you’re paying attention – I wasn’t – the Rosary is Jesus through Mary.)

Then we find Fr Akong meditating on the mystery of death, his own.

Fr Akong was the 7th of a brood of 10 children: Wenceslao, Remedios, Pete, Leonor, Juliet, Guadie, Ciriaco, Nora, Milwida, Ernesto. Pete was the first priest of the family, SJ; he died a willing martyr to his work too. Martyr? A witness, one who makes great sacrifices or suffers much for a belief, cause or principle (American Heritage Dictionary). Fr Akong was born 1937 August 7. While the Apad Church was being blessed on October 13, her parish priest was offering his mortal body to Jesus through Mary at the Mt Carmel Diocesan General Hospital in Lucena City. An offering is an offering; a special offering like that doesn’t need a special place. But it will receive a special place in the hearts of believers.

Fr Akong had lived as he had taught: For God’s glory. Through Mary.