It’s both startling and astonishing how the weather behaves strangely nowadays. In the initial days of March, when summer was supposed to be ushered in gradually, the rains came pouring in, like an unexpected visitor whom one does not know exactly how to receive---had it came for a bountiful afternoon chatter over bristling cups of coffee or had just got to stop by due to a vital intent?

And now while May slowly loses its days to another month, the rains are hard to come by and the temperature rises even when night falls so deep into midnight, when it is supposed to be cool and breezy outside, and of course in the living room.

Strange weather, really.

So the ground are so dry nowadays that some afternoons ago I decided to weed out the backyard with unwanted growths, having no troubles whatsoever with muddy soil that get stuck in the slippers I wear. I had once popped the idea of landscaping the whole area with Bermuda grasses to my wife---about a week ago--- but even I had scoffed when she mentioned to me that it would cost nearly ten thousand bucks to have it done by gardeners from the plant store across the highway. What do you actually call these establishments that sells plants and flowers in pots. I actually have no idea as of this moment.

So for now, the bermudas or carabao grasses would have to wait and I’ve got to contend myself of laboring towards manually eliminating the weeds for now (which can actually grow towards knee level when left unattended for so long) and my oh my, it was so painstaking an activity that my muscles ache all night long after that, and when I woke up the next morning, I could barely walk.

When I was scything the weeds, I had discovered that frogs were ensconced tightly in some nooks and corners of the waterless ground. I noticed this sight immediately for it was certainly a bit of an aberration to see frogs while water is so absent in an area. Frogs means water or rain. And rain means tadpoles and croaking reverberations in the night.

I then wonder how these amphibians can keep up with the arid surroundings even when I know that usually they soak themselves in cool water almost all the time. To be sure, it must have meant that frogs have developed adaptation schemes to combat queer weather situation and atypical habitats. Now perhaps there comes the answer to the momentary query of where do frogs goes when the rains haven’t come for a long, long time. They hide themselves in darkened nooks and crevices in the ground, behind and under mossy stones and shady plants, over misty soil where sunrays could not dry up thoroughly.

This reminds me of an episode of one of my favorite television show when I was a kid, Life On Earth. One unforgettable discussion there was this very strange looking fresh-water fish who can survive for months and months to come even when the ground become so dry that the soil is caked all throughout, like in a span of desert that is so cruel to any shrubbery.

I remember how the host Mr. David Attenborough---he with the effervently musky voice--had dug about a couple of feet into the dry ground and grabbed a morsel of mud formation which he then dropped into a huge basin full of water. And then lo and behold, the pack of solidified mud started to move and slowly a funny looking fish swam away like it was just another day in the river.

It was so amazing how a water creature could survive for so long without water, breathing dry air and being stuck in cakes of mud like a frozen caveman; in order to wait for the rain to finally come and when the water rises again, the strange fish wiggles away into the world where it usually thrive on, and start another cycle in its life span.

Could you imagine a fish surviving out of the water for far too long, like half a year at a time? I couldn’t. But I remember that there was one fish that could actually do that. Therefore presenting an exception to that famous euphemism of being a “fish out of a water”, like I am so miserable now that I am like a fish out of the water.

Amazing survivability this fish has. And also those frogs in our backyard.

Frogs V.2

( A repost from May 28, 2007)

I have some thoughts that I haven’t had elaborated in my earlier post entitled “Frogs” and I can’t seem to get still without scratching this itch, these questions left in my mind. In that previous post, I have pondered on how frogs and other water-loving creatures survived when rains does not fall for a lengthy period of time; this upon observing that frogs actually deposit themselves in shady areas like spongy crevices underneath fairly size stones and behind leafy plants located in areas where the sun could not penetrate that much.

I see them frogs laying still and unmoving even if I make some hushing noise, apparently determined to hibernate as they read the climate so well---no rains, therefore we stand still. Amazing tenacity they have for to stand still is to perish where to us humans, we need to move to survive, we could not stand still or else we fail to survive. But frogs could stand still and still survive. In this manner, they could be a better specie---than we humans.

Now I kept thinking that the frogs I see on our backyard while the rains haven’t come are exactly of no use to me that despite the fact that they aren’t what we could consider as pest---like locusts ravaging the ricefields or mosquitoes rummaging on our blood---I had thought of getting rid of them completely, hauling them one by one from the shady places they hide themselves and throw them out of the fence.

Yet I felt that I could be completely unfair to them since they aren’t really a pest in the purest sense except that I do not like them leaping and creeping around the pathways when I am navigating the areas in the backyard. Their dark and slimy skin seems to be an odd sight to me.

I had pondered if in fact frogs are really of use to us human beings. They couldn’t be foodstuff except for some specie plying cleaner locations like ricefields and natural ponds. They can’t also be pets for only stranger individuals had kept frogs as pets; like the ones I saw on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!

Although I know for a fact that they eat or lick mosquitoes in through their all-too-lengthy tongues and one can say they could help control or regulate widespread mosquito infestations in our environment. But why do we need them when we can just hie off to the nearby grocery store and buy Baygon insect spray or we can just light up a mosquito repellent that we can buy in the sari-sari store across the street. Maybe in the ancient days when the Germans hadn’t yet invented Baygon, that could have been the time that we needed lots of frogs in our surroundings.

But now, I wonder why they are here, croaking at rainy nights and serenading songs that we ain’t really pond of.

In our elementary days, we are given basic scientific lessons on the web of life. I remember that so well including those charts that exhibits different food groups that we need to consume in order to live a healthy and well-rounded lives; you know those rhythmic annotations that says “ang itlog ay pampabilog ng mukha”, “and gulay ay pampakinis ng kutis”, such and such thing.

And in the web of life, we are taught that every creature is of importance to nature and to earth’s existence, that trees could help strengthen the soil and thus prevent erosion, snakes could help minimize rat infestations in the fields, plants spew much-needed oxygen into the air, birds and butterflies can spread seeds for them to grow in a more widespread manner, anteaters help plow the ground in order that seeds could easily grow, fishes give food and nutrients to mankind, and mankind….and mankind….oh by the way, I forgot how mankind could be beneficial to nature; I hope someone could remind me.

And so that’s how the web of life goes; and intermingling process of creatures that could be helpful to each other and to nature in general; that could be conceptualized also in that lesson we are taught as “food chains”---frogs eating mosquitoes, snakes eating frogs, eagles eating snakes, man eating eagles…such and such thing. I wonder how eagles really taste. Must have been just like chicken.

Now let’s go back to frogs—despite that they could help minimize mosquito infestations, we all know by now that Baygon could be better regulators. Have frogs lost their importance in this world? Are they the vestiges of an old and obsolete web of life, that now we have a new form or web?

Snglguy had once stated that frogs are good barometers of our environment. But what if man could one day invent highly-advanced equipment that could monitor our environment with razor-sharp accuracy, like missile guided Tomahawks that George Bush have? Then, frogs would simply lose every bit of reason to be croaking ugly night songs when the rain comes. Maybe modernity have started to creep into the web of life as we know it, that machines and equipments is starting to dictate another form of system in this world we call Earth that just like in the movies we see, machines could one day rule the world.

It is a scary thought sometimes. But it is just a thought.

The premise of my study was simple and plain, yet I believe that to this day, scientific scholars have yet to fully took advantage of this approach, of clearly defining the socio-economic and political routines of rural population, especially on Muslim communities, as my work is specifically focused at right now.

How do they make their living there and what potentials that awaits them in their everyday economic endeavors? Are they involved in activities that becomes futile in the long run, trapping them in the notorious cycle of poverty, leading to the general lackluster movement of our national economic life? Or do they just need a little push on the back or some encouragement?

It is of so much irony to me that major aspects of my research involves information which could be – I am afraid – common knowledge and accessible through effortless means --- this is my worry. Yet, despite of this, I should be emphasizing that verification and confirmation on these matters, no matter how routine and prevalent they are, are ultimately necessary in order to take-off towards another important query of my research.

First is knowing the livelihood activities of my targeted respondents and then determining the manner of improving on such, inculcating progress and development, mostly economic in character.

Ironic as it may seem, we realize that rural economic activities partakes through the fertile soil and the abundant sea. If not farmers, then fishermen. Farmer, fisher.

Upon this precept, developmental strategies should be focused on inherent and practiced abilities of the rural populace, such as in the methods of increasing production and of course, exponentiation of income as an end-result. And not ever to introduce them alien concepts, unless when the foundation of their economics have been resolved fully.

These are the basic premise of my present research work. I hope it would have enough wind to fly.

Maybe I just put some morsel of thoughts once in a while just to keep things on and running. I'd be so busy till the middle of December.

Last night, after driving my wife and kids to a friend’s despedida party, I kinda still felt the tiresomeness that resulted from a most recent travel to Cagayan de Oro and other Mindanao cities that I went to bed so much earlier than expected.

And the bed was so soothing to my bodice and the night wind was comforting similarly.
And to top it all, National Geographic channel was exhibiting a series I’ve been anticipating greatly these recent days, Apocalypse: The Second World War, a six-part television program about the events and happenstances of World War II, captured by camera while the war was unfolding, with so many clips that were previously unpublished.

Truly, war is so atrocious and so evil. Yet reminding me that anecdote about how war sometimes becomes inevitable and necessary.

I think I’ve finished watching only 3 of the 6 segments. I hope I’d be able to catch up with the other three. I felt that among many documentaries I’ve seen before, I most enjoyed this one. Not that I am a fan of war, if ever there is a term like that, but it was such a mind-opening experience, about the horrors of war, and what form of evil can men actually commit and implement.

INVOLVEMENT OF ALL PARTIES IN TALKS, NOT ONLY U.S. HELP, KEY TO PEACE IN MINDANAO - CHIZ

Opposition Sen. Chiz Escudero yesterday said while he welcomed any help the United States might provide in the ongoing peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), he reiterated that all-out consultations with stakeholders is still the key to a long-lasting settlement in Mindanao.

“The US, or any other foreign country for that matter, can only achieve so much by taking part as honest brokers. In the end, it is really the involvement of all local stakeholders in the process that will ultimately lead to peace in the region,” he said.

Officials from the US embassy in Manila met recently with representatives of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Maguindanao to discuss ways how Washington could play a bigger role in resolving the conflict on the island.

Although the US currently provides humanitarian and development aid to conflict areas in Mindanao where poverty is rife, it is also conducting training exercises with Philippine troops battling rebels and extremists on the island.

Figures from the National Statistical Coordination Board indicate that the poverty incidence rate in the country was highest in Mindanao at 38.8 percent compared to 33 percent for the Visayas and 20 percent for Luzon

The 40-year-old lawmaker also reiterated the need to include in the peace talks all clans and representatives of indigenous peoples from conflict areas as well as local government units.

He noted the vast amount wasted by government as after nearly 30 years of confrontation as well as the continued internal displacement of people.

Based on data from the Office of the Presidential Adviser for the Peace Process, annual economic losses from the Mindanao conflict from 1975-2002 has ranged from P5-10B, which would equate to a staggering P135-170B for 27 years. “These costs could have been used to alleviate poverty through the construction of infrastructure,” Escudero stressed.

The Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center has estimated the number of refugees in Mindanao at 600,000, calling it the “biggest displacement in the world.”

“The stalemate in Mindanao has gone on for far too long and it is obvious deep feelings of suspicion and hostility remain between and among the various stakeholders,” he said.

U.S. involvement in the Mindanao peace process is not a secret anymore even for a long time already, ever since last year, when the MOA-AD cancellation by the Supreme Court hugged headlines in the news world.

If this is a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen. The United States has great leveraging power and this could be used to the hilt to finally solve the so-called 'Mindanao Problem' - of peace and lack of progress and economic development there, remaining until now to be the location of intances of massive poverty, despite the perniciousness of natural resources there.

Of course, there's always that query upon a superpower's aim and intentions of desiring to intervene in a mostly doemstic affair such as the peace process in Mindanao. Could America has hidden intentions, such as putting up a military base in Mindanao?

We could only surmise.

However - if for example - it is of great utility to the resolution of the peace issue there, then why not?

But hey it’s the 21st century, we can be as honest as much as we want to be.

Before anything else, here’s some rules for the tag:

Can you fill this out without lying (it's not hard)? You've been tagged, so now you need to answer all the questions HONESTLY. At the end, choose at least 8 people to be tagged. Don't forget to tag me!

To do this, copy this entire message, then go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, start a new note, paste these instructions in the body of the note, delete my answers, and type yours. Easy!

Next, tag people and list their names at the bottom. Have fun!

1. What was the last thing you put in your mouth?
Macaroni salad and mushroom.

2. Where was your profile picture taken?
Cebu – the one on my Facebook profile.

3. Can you play the guitar?
Pretty well. I was in a band when I was college.

4. Name someone who made you laugh today?
One of my student.

5. How late did you stay up last night and why?
About midnight. Watched television.

6. If you could move somewhere else, would you?
Yeah, I would like to. Somewhere where there lots of fresh rural wind.

7. Ever been kissed under fireworks?
Not yet. Is it possible?

8. Which of your friends lives closest to you on Facebook?
Uhmnnn….Veepee Elago.

9. Do you believe ex's can be friends?
I could not imagine. Haven’t tried it before.

10. How do you feel about Dr Pepper?
It taste like medicine.

11. When was the last time you cried?
About last week.

12. Who took your profile picture
My wife.

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of?
My kids.

14. Was yesterday better than today?
About the same.

15. Can you live a day without TV?
No.

16. Are you upset about anything?
Yes.

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it?
Yes. Otherwise, I won’t be in any relationship.

18. Are you a bad influence?
No. I don’t think I am.

19. Night out or night in?
It depends.

20. What item(s) could you not go without during the day?
Watch.Clock.

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say?
We are on the way…

23. How do you feel about your life right now?
Just okay.

24. Do you hate anyone?
Er…sometimes.

25. If we were to look in your Email inbox, what would we find most?
Facebook updates.

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass?
Yah. Right on.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?
I think once.

28. What song is stuck in your head?
Halfway To Crazy by Jesus & Mary Chain. I just listened to it after along, long time. It was one of my most fave song from college days, and perhaps of all time.

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be?
A lotto representative…lol.

30. Wanna have grandkids before you're 50?
Well, if my kids are pretty stable by that time.

31. Name something you have to do tomorrow:
Wash my car.

32. Do you think too much or too little?
Too much.

33. Do you smile a lot?
Not so much or I’d be insane…

For this tag I am tagging Buffwings, Wileyes, Hazel, Bambit, Sam, Miss Luchie, Splice and Barrycade.

Except for a few who sees the award as too premature, for a president who is just into his first year of office. They say, he has done nothing yet, at least, not on a long term basis.

Yet, this award is given mostly on not what he has already achieved but on what he intends to gain.

The Nobel Prize award committee in Oslo Norway, states that he is being given the prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples."

While former Nobel Prize awardee, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, sums up Obama’s award as:

"In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself. He has shown an unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts. He has reached out across divides and made clear that he sees the world as one human family, regardless of religion, race or ethnicity."

I fully agree with this.

President Obama’s style of diplomacy has won it all for him, reaching out to the Arab world with open palms, signifying am approach of dialogue rather than of rhetoric.

This despite that the irony remains intact, where as a U.S. President at these crucial times in global political environment, he is still so much embroiled in conflicts that has been left on his table by a former administration, with pressure in Afghanistan for surge in U.S. military presence, lest instability would inure in the South Asia region.

And just last month, Pres. Obama had to propose a missile shield of Western Europe, presumably from Russia and its allies.

The peace prize could in fact provide unnecessary pressure for Pres. Obama, now that he is seen as a global peace progenitor, when in fact as the leader of the strongest military power in the world, he is also involved in several wars and conflicts still appertaining today across the globe.

There’s so much good feeling with Obama’s winning the Nobel Peace, yet giving it to a very active and newly-installed U.S. President could bring forth some undeniable irony, if not now, then in some coming years.

There lies now the singular question: Is Mother Earth Now at the Brink of Extinction?

Is humanity’s existence threatened by these evolving circumstances especially that of global warming and climate change?

For certain, the specter of global warming is now more real than ever, a truth to be told like the sun in the sky, first as a doubtful phenomenon, even just merely a few years ago, yet now as a universal truth.

With this realization, citizens of the world should all be made aware and be conscious about the nature and implications of climate change, and most importantly governments should start addressing this issue just as any other salient social issue --- current and perturbing --- and every entity should heed and follow the directions towards minimizing its harmful effects, just like perhaps crimes in the streets, drug addiction, graft and corruption, housing or health concerns.

In actuality, it is of note that climate change as a weather phenomenon had already been happening even for millions of years and of ages ago, where the earth have already had numerous steep climate shifts so many times before, having had very cold environment during the so called Ice Ages in the Paleolithic Age while having very hot and warm weather on Interglacial periods. These radical shifts in weather are said to be as a result of the Earths changing position and distance away from the sun at any given period, having lengthened modifications in the so-called Equinox of the Earth in relation to the sun.

In fact, it was because of these shifts in climate that pre-historic humans were compelled to roam away from their natural habitat, as weather changes in those ages affects supply of food (herds migrating, vegetation disappearing), thus, the providing the basis for the scientific phenomenon of the human diaspora in pre-historic times.

An innate occurrence such as volcanic eruptions are events that could actually change the Earth’s temperature in a very radical manner, and in a very different way, as sulfur dioxides released into the atmosphere by these eruptions lowers global temperature and acts as a cooling effect, albeit provisionally.

Thus, the phenomenon of climate change is not actually an absolutely new observable fact that the Earth is facing as it had been actually happening to the earth many centuries and eons ago, through cycles of Ice Ages and Interglacial Periods, at times covering almost the entire Earth surface with ice while at other times it were heated deserts and barren plains that had dominated.

However, it is a notable circumstance that the ensuing weather alterations today are mostly due to human activities, anthropogenic in character, as against the entirely natural causes of climate changes in the past. It is unprecedented in this manner.

Waste and fumes expelled into the atmosphere resulting from the highly industrial and modern routine of today’s humanity remains the foremost cause of climate change, exuding enormous amount of carbon dioxide into the environment, trapping hot gases that should have been let-off into space naturally.

Now, it should be pointed out that since the recent version of climate change is almost purely man-made, then it could actually be reversed, of course similarly through man-made methods.

In this line, every citizen should be made aware of these circumstances, that thru collective action, the threat of global warming could be combated and dispelled away completely, by taking every day measures, like disposing garbage properly, not using harmful elements as much as possible, saving on power, and preserving natural resources. Governments on one hand should implement laws and infrastructure towards this end and execute them rigorously, such as in urban planning, an effective drainage system for one, prevention of deforestation, ban on the use of harmful chemicals, etc. --- thereon treating climate change as among the most pressing social concern that the society is facing today.