We use to know about them as something that is dreadful, something to be shunned and be ridded of . “Ang mikrobyo hindi binibaby, kundi pinapatay”. But this time, the very life of a once pristine ecosystem (as well as the livelihood of majority of residents there) may highly depend on microbes for its continued existence and rehabilitation. Officials from the DENR has proposed the used of these oil-eating microbes—namely Pseudomonas azelaica, Serratia marcescans and Xanthomonas maltophilia—to rid the sea off Guimaras Island of widespread oil slick in a process now known as Bioremediation. Bioremediation is an intervention in the degradation process through the introduction of microorganisms, fungi and enzymes into the biodegradation cycle. (more…)

CNN’s newest news commentary program “The Situation Room” often looks like those sleek and ultra-hitech control room that we often see on Hollywood movies, in fact even the way its commentators speak are so analogous to a very busy war room with every one seems to be up on their feet, as if global war had just started. Well, this kind of program packaging seem to excite the viewers to stay stuck and be captivated by the fast-paced reporting and lustrous graphics popping and hopping through the television screen. My main concern on this is that sometimes the speakers in this news program seem to exaggerate the situation or the issues most of the time that I often felt something is so grave is happening in America or the Middle East whilst they speak, right at that very moment that they were reporting—especially when Wolf Blitzer passes on the mike to a guy who explains the current subject like a weatherman replete with a giant visual effect on his back, like those we see on weather reports. (more…)

WHAT’S SO WRONG WITH HOPPING ON A COUCH? Since when did it become disagreeable to propose to a lady whom one adores? Apparently not very agreeable if you are Tom Cruise and if you did it on a television show that was being watched by millions in America and all over the world. In fact, it had caused the severance of Tom Cruise’s very healthy relationship with Paramount, the movie company that had produced most, if not all of his successful movies from the era-defining “Top Gun” to the worldwide smash and most recent hit “War of The Worlds”.

Viacom’s (Paramount being owned by Viacom) chief Summer Redstone cited Cruise’s “recent conduct” as the main reason why the film company had to abruptly end a very profitable partnership with the top actor and had described it as “not…acceptable to Paramount” . (more…)

A MASSIVE OIL SPILL in our country’s shores is the last thing in my mind since for one, nothing like this seemed to have happened before. At least not in the scale as what is now happening in the island of Guimaras where some 50,000 gallons of crude oil have been spewed into the nearby seas after the tanker Solar 1 was sunk some 3,000 feet into the water off the aforementioned island.

When I first got news of the massive oil spill some days ago, I had no inkling that it could turn out to be as problematic as what it is right now. (more…)

My father died last Tuesday after being rushed to the hospital on Sunday night. Though he had a lingering ailment, one that had required rigid medication in the past years, still it felt like his death was such a great loss to me. I had to take some time off now from all the things I’ve been doing regularly….I’ll be resuming my post maybe in a week’s time, or maybe sooner…

I often find myself watching music television on some mornings these days. Maybe music is so much in my veins that me and the music (or is it the music and me?) will always find each other even if the world is about to end (I hope it won’t). Years ago, I have decided one day to never ever surfed thru MTV channel ever again or thru Channel V for that matter, after deciding that finally I have just became so full of those crappy music that have became the main staple of these music channels along with music videos that are very high in explicitness like sex and violence. There was that very controversial Incubus music video that got many so dismayed over its near-pornographic content and I was too. I thought my children shouldn’t be allowed to go through such level of vulgarism. But mostly, I stopped patronizing MTV because I have realized that finally, commercialism had engulfed the what was once a revolutionary television station, the way it was in the 80’s and in the early 90’s. MTV was a generation-defining modality, a kind of rebellious yell to the usual form of media we had been used to then, a very brave move in a corporate and business sense.

Back then, MTV plays esoteric videos often like INXS’s “Never Tear Us Apart” and The Police’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger”. Who could ever forget such classic as the black-and-white video for “Every Breath You Take” where Sting held a big bass like he was cajoling a naked woman.

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