Monday, May 29, 2017


Resurrection and Regeneration


Dr Abe V Rotor

.
                  House lizard or butiki, emerges from hiding after shedding off its skin (molting). 

Old folks tell us of the magic of lizards growing new tails, crabs regaining lost claws, starfish arising from body pieces. How can we explain these mysteries?

The biological phenomenon behind these stories is called regeneration. The male deer grows a new set of anthers each year; sea squirts and hydras are produced from tiny buds; the same way plants grow from cuttings. New worms may regenerate from just pieces of the body; and some fish can sprout new fins to replace the ones that have been bitten off.

Experiments demonstrated that the forelimb of a salamander severed midway between the elbow and the wrist, can actually grow into a new one exactly the same as the lost parts. The stump re-forms the missing forelimb, wrist, and digits within a few months. In biology this is called redifferentiation, which means that the new tissues are capable of reproducing the actual structure and attendant function of the original tissues.

Curious the kid I was, I examined a twitching piece of tail, without any trace of its owner. I was puzzled at what I saw. My father explained how the lizard, a skink or bubuli, escaped its would-be predator by leaving its tail twitching to attract its enemy, while its tailless body stealthily went into hiding. “It will grow a new tail,” father assured me. I have also witnessed tailless house lizards (butiki) growing back their tails at various stages, feeding on insects around a ceiling lamp. During the regeneration period these house lizards were not as agile as those with normal tails, which led me to conclude how important the tail is.

Regeneration is a survival mechanism of many organisms. Even if you have successfully subdued a live crab you might end up holding only its pincers  and the canny creature has gone back in the water. This is true also to grasshoppers, they actually detach their legs in order to escape their enemies.

Another kind of regeneration is compensatory hypertrophy, a kind of temporary growth response that occurs in such organs as the liver and kidney when they are damaged. If a surgeon removes up to 70 percent of a diseased liver, the remaining liver tissues undergo rapid mitosis (multiplication of cells) until almost the original liver mass is restored. Similarly, if one kidney is removed, the other enlarges greatly to compensate for its lost partner. ~

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Humanities weaves a beautiful tapestry of humanity

 Humanities
- is a beautiful tapestry of humanity
- brings out the sense of awe and wonder
- builds on the framework of truth and values
- brings out the human spirit
- brings tranquility in crisis
- is guardian of movements and schools
- aims at goodness and peace
- is keeper and pioneer of the arts
- faces challenge of the cyber age
- is the keeper of the network of humanity
Dr Abe V Rotor
“Son, what do you remember as the happiest moment in your life?” asked a dying old man at his deathbed.
“When we went fishing, dad, and caught fireflies on our way back to camp.”

The old man smiled his last. It was a parting sealed by sweet memory of father-child relationship.

Humanities brings out the sense of awe and wonder

Humanities brings out the sense of awe and wonder, specially to the young, of the things around , of life processes and cycles, the passing of seasons and ages. It makes one aware of even the minute existence of things, the transformation of the ordinary into something beautiful.

Wonder the summer night, camping by a lake, home outside of home,
no roof but the sky, no walls, no gate, stars and fireflies mingle as one;
Wonder the breeze blow and weave through the trees, comb the grass,
carry into the sky kites of many colors and make greeting the rainbow;


“The sense of wonder is indestructible, that it would last throughout life, an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later years.” Says Rachel Carson, author of an all-time favorite novel, Silent Spring. It is true, the sense of wonder prepares the young to face and conquer the world.

Humanities builds on the framework of truth and values

Even with few words the mind is set to explore, giving way to imagination beyond mere reason. Brevity is the framework of the mind, the heart and spirit in the Lord’s Prayer and the Gettysburg Address of America’s most loved leader, Abraham Lincoln. It is also a path to humility in greatness, a union of the classical and the contemporary.


If the story of the Creation can be told in 400 words, if the Ten Commandments contain 297 words, if Lincoln’s immortal Gettysburg Address was only 266 words, if an entire concept of freedom was set in the Declaration of Independence in about 1,300 words – it is up to some of us to use fewer words, and thus save the time energy, vitality, and nerves of those who must read or listen. (Jerome P Fleishman)

Humanities brings out the human spirit

Guernica, a plaza mural made by the greatest modern painter Pablo Picasso, ignited popular revolt against the Nazi regime. On the huge mural were embedded hidden images that conveyed principles of truth and freedom.
Spolarium by Juan Luna  Similarly, in an earlier era, our own hero Juan Luna painted Spolarium, (centerpiece of the National Museum), a mural depicting the Filipinos under Spanish rule suffering like the gladiators during the Roman times, a visual message for the people to realize their plight. Later Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere, one of the greatest books ever written in the category of War and Peace by Tolstoy, and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, extolled the coming of a new world order – post-colonialism and the birth of new nations.

Humanities brings tranquility in crisis

It may be strange to know that Winston Churchill, the great English hero of WWII, still found time to paint by the bank of the Thames. Arts bring tranquility in times of crisis, and elevate the senses on a higher vantage plane of vision. Putting down his brush and easel, he would then return to the battlefield with greater revolve to save Great Britain from the ravaging war. And to a greater surprise, what was it that Churchill painted? Peace.

It was the other way around five hundred years earlier when the great Michelangelo who single handedly painted the huge ceiling of the Sistine Chapel would descend from the scaffolding, exchanged his paint brush with sword and fought side-by-side his benefactor the Pope, and when victory was apparent would climb back to finish his masterpiece. The result: the biggest composite mural that brought God, the angels and saints, down to earth., making the Sistine a microcosm of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Humanities is guardian of movements and schools

From the paintings of early man in the Lascaux caves in France, to the surrealism of Salvador Dali, humanities has kept faithful to the evolution of human creativity expressed in various aspects of human life, pouring out from palaces and cathedrals to the villages and streets. For arts no longer belong to selected societies and cultures. Impressionism took over Romanticism and translated Realism for the grassroots, subsequently bypassing standards of perception, and permeating into the unconscious seeking expression and catharsis. 

                                        On-the-spot-painting contest, UST 

Expressionism founded by Vincent Van Gogh opened a wider door to abstractionism that subsequently spilled into post-modernism.


“What’s abstract? a young art enthusiast
once asked, dutifully I answered:
“When you look through the window of a car
running so fast that views are blurred.”

                 Native flower bouquet, Mt Makiling, Laguna   

“What’s expressionism?” an elder one asked;
“When the car stops, or just about,
yet still running inside, seeking, searching
for the spring of life to pour out.”

“And what is impressionism?” a third asked,
and I said: It’s sitting on a fence -
On one side Amorsolo, the other Ocampo,
It’s the spirit of art past and hence. ~

Humanities aims at goodness and peace

Propagandism and license are perhaps the greatest enemy of Humanities. The world plunged into two global wars, followed by half a century of cold war - the polarization into opposite ideologies that froze mankind at the brink of Armageddon, awakening Humanities to a new dimension - the search for peace.

"Peace starts with our children." AVR 

And as in the Renaissance, Humanities centered on rebirth and renewal of man’s faith in his destiny. Peace reigned the longest in contemporary times in spite of local conflicts. And for a century or so Humanities blossomed into wide popularity and acclaim, and rich diversity today, dominating media, commerce, industry and in practically all aspects of life, which often venture on the boundaries of humanities itself, among them pornography, religious extrememism, aculturation, among others.

Museum of Natural History, UPLB
Humanities is keeper and pioneer of the arts

Humanities gave the world the finest of human achievements and continues to do so - timeless classics from novel to cinema, painting to photography, colonial design to high rise structures, stage play to TV and Internet show. Man’s glory is akin to humanities - Venus de Milo, Taj Mahal, Borobodor, Eiffel Tower, Hallelujah, Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, The Little Prince. to name a few.

Jeepney, Filipino art 

Humanities discovered superstars like Elvis Priestley and Michael Jackson, and our own local sensations, Leah Salonga and Charisse Pempengco.

Humanities faces challenge of the cyber age

But arts has also plunged into a deep and unknown global pool bringing across the world cultures heretofore unknown and appreciated, and riding on postmodernism into the chartless world of cyberspoace. Which leads us to a puzzle, Quo vadis, Humanus?

Humanities is the keeper of the network of humanity

We are the World – the song that united the world by the compassion it created for the dying is perhaps the greatest humanitarian movement in recent times, originally USA to Africa in the eighties, and was repeated during the Haiti disaster twenty years later. Translated by different races, beliefs, ideologies into a common call, it brought consciousness to the whole world, that humanity is a network, a closely knit fabric beautifully expressed in the lyrics of the song -

There comes a time
When we heed a certain call,
When the world must come together as one.
There are people dying
And it’s time to lend a hand to life,
The greatest gift of all

[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me .

It is a most fitting tribute to mankind through this song, that no man is an island, that when somebody dies, a part inside each of us also dies, and for every man’s victory, we too, feel triumphant. Humanity is a beautiful tapestry, and Humanities is Arachne on the loom.~.

“Humanities holds the greatest treasure of mankind.“
- AVR

In summary, Humanities

- is a beautiful tapestry of humanity
- brings out the sense of awe and wonder
- builds on the framework of truth and values
- brings out the human spirit
- brings tranquility in crisis
- is guardian of movements and schools
- aims at goodness and peace
- is keeper and pioneer of the arts
- faces challenge of the cyber age
- is the keeper of the network of humanity

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Wheels of Rainbow


Dr Abe V Rotor 


 Wheels of Rainbow mural showing details (5ft x 8 ft) by AVRotor, June 6, 2012

They come through prism splitting the light of heaven,
     In joyful, glorious colors of seven,
Each color the color of life in joy and sorrow,
     Today and the promise of tomorrow,

Wheels of fate to wheels of destiny in man’s hand,
     They all come down to the faithful in band,
Through time and space on the road of man’s lifetime,
     Whether this or another or over the clime.

Old as they may or new, while others are yet to be born,
     Their origin is the same – goodness sworn;
Passport to the way beyond this life each one must earn
     Above the material, blind faith and yearn.

They come down in gears spinning, large and small
     Moving constantly bouncing like a ball,
The essence of competition, the essence of oneness,
     How one plays in compassion and goodness.


Claim for heaven alone by the book and tongue is falsehood,
     Veering from the chain peace and unity should;
Poor orphan of humanity, the very core of faith,
     Forlorn, and man returns to his own fate.

But where is heaven, what is the afterlife, ask the people,
     As they look at the sky and the totem pole,
And losing faith they break away from the holy bond,
     Alas! walk down the road of a vagabond.

They pray for heaven to come down, out from the blue,
     The long Promise to billions waiting to be true,
Where the discs as one on some fertile ground must grow
     Into one Eden arched by the rainbow. ~



Saturday, May 20, 2017

Big Bang – the Origin of Life

Dr Abe V Rotor
Big Bang (19" x 23") painting by the author 2012

Once upon a distant past, a proto mass 
     of converging gases, too huge 
to hold on in space exploded -
     the Big Bang like a centrifuge.  

Born the universe and galaxies
     in countless numbers expanding,
countless more, orphans in space,
     our known world but a sibling.

Were this true - life so little do we know
     today from its very spawn; 
move over Oparin, move over Darwin, 
     theories past and our own. ~
  


The Lonely Island

Dr Abe V Rotor 
                                                                        Danajon Reef, Bohol 

Let life's burden to ease,
    in ripples and rivulets, 
save the passing breeze, 
    whispers like clarinets.

and the sun in lazy haze
    blankets the cold and old,
veils the face pained by grief, 
    and conquers the bold.~




"Go forth and multiply." An identification test.

"Now as for you, be productive and multiply; spread out over the land and multiply throughout it." International Standard Version

Dr Abe V Rotor

Identify the following organisms and tell how they reproduce. 
1. Clue: egg mass of a kind of insect.

2. Clue: Pods of the biggest legume in the world

3. Clue: Shellfish in the wild

4. Clue: Mosaic virus of a plant family that can remain 
dormant for as long as 20 years.
5. Clue: Nitrogen-fixing nodules.
6. Clue: immature stage of housefly 

7. Clue: popularly referred to as plant lice living at the axils and
underside of leaves

8. Clue: saprophyte, lives on dead wood

9. Clue: pods of wild orchid

10. Clue: flower emerges separately from vegetative phase, emits foul odor to
attract flies to pollinate, scientifically 
Amorphophallus campanulatus.


Answers:
1. Egg mass of preying mantis, 2. seeds of acacia (dicot), 3. eggs of oyster, 4. mosaic virus of tobacco, Family Solanaceae, 5. Rhizobium bacteria of legumes  6. maggots hatched from eggs of housefly, 7. young of aphids (Aphis maydis or A. gossypii),  8. Ganoderma shelf mushroom by spores 9. seeds of a wild orchid, 10. seeds of pongapong (Amorphophallus campanulatus)

Congratulations! Children's Integrated Art Workshop Graduates

Dr Abe V Rotor 
Organizer and Instructor

Children need a break.  But not to indulge on TV and computer, and complacency.  In fact they don’t find relief and fulfilment from these gadgets.  Instead, they need to express themselves, and not to adjust to what the machine dictates. 


What better activity to offer kids on a Sunday afternoon,
but an on-the-spot painting session under the trees,
their shadow intermingling with them and their work,
urging them to just-do-it, you-can-do-it, and let-it-go ,
the creativity through the inner eye, from the inner self,
befriend “The Little Prince” when in doubt, when bored,
and discover you are not alone in this world.




  Hasnia P Datucunog 11, Sanisah A Pitiilan 12
  Haira P Datucunog 13, Sharina Rose Reyno 11
  Lucie Denise Reyno 9, Pauleen Nicole Reyno 6
  Francesca R Forges 9, Minjhin Viernes 8
  Mark Jefferson Ragca 11, Mark Lester Formoso 10
  Charla Cassandra R Borjal,  Sabriya Lorin Ruelos 10
Adrianne Grace Ruelos 11, Frankyn R Pastor 8

Other Graduates

Kristel Lagasca
Dave Ong
Goldane Ruelos
Tyrone Nino Juanizo 
Gerizia Mae Estigoy 
Rizaldine Jade Estigoy
Yarcia, Kriz Laurenz 

 
You may take pride in having a state-of-the-art cell-phone, but not more than a painting you yourself made. A gadget can’t be part of you, but a piece of art you made – painting, melody, story, verse - is your own. It is part of you. It is a prize you give yourself and no one else can take it away. It is a lifetime achievement. In fact, it is your legacy.

Kids in the neighborhood and from afar come to experience the adventure of integrated art under a common denominator called talent.  Many ask - and doubt - if they have the talent at all.  I assure them they have. Each person has, in fact under a wide profile of eight realms. Many don’t realize this potential. Kids see the world “complete” and “instant” from food, toy, music, show - to instant relationship. Why bother when it’s there at fingertip? Perhaps we, grownups must tell them the truth.  Life is never designed this way. Good life is earned and it must be earned well.
   
Art evolved – and still is – through movements or schools, in this simplified order: primitive or ancient art (drawing in caves), realistic that is true to the subject, classical (perfection and timelessness is the essence), romantic (mainly for the elites), realism for the grassroots, impressionism and expressionism (gateway to modern art), and modern art is usually referred to as abstract, which blossomed into various and virtually free expressions.

 
    
Kids learn early in life the struggle for excellence, not in the classroom or street, but in themselves. The greatest struggle is with oneself – it is the biggest triumph, but it can be the biggest failure, too. Yet there is always the opportunity to conquer that opponent. This is the road to excellence. Each day you become a better person, ad infinitum.

Take time out with Nature from TV and computer,
from loafing around. Nature is your best teacher.

Kids learn early in life the struggle for excellence, not just in the classroom or street, but in themselves. The greatest struggle is with  oneself – it is the biggest triumph, but it can be the biggest failure, too. Yet there is always the opportunity to conquer that opponent. This is the road to excellence. Each day you become a better person, ad infinitum

Saturday, May 13, 2017

Forest Fire - a Natural Process

Call it a natural process, a cycle of life and death of eliminating the unfit and saving the fittest; call it regeneration, but the forest will never be the same again.

Dr Abe V Rotor
Forest on Fire in acrylic by AV Rotor 2015 

Summer is the time of forest fire when the trees lose their leaves piling up into thick and dry litter that spontaneously burns at kindling temperature.  

Everything  goes to flame - branches, twigs, annuals, epiphytes, lianas, shrubs and bushes, even compost and organic matter in the soil are not spared.

Heat builds into inferno, the forest becomes a ball of fire, burning both the living and the dead, smoke bellowing far and wide, releasing gases into the air.   

Birds swoop in joy and abandon on fleeing insects, daring to go at the source of fire or tracking those that escaped, even far out in the sky or horizon.

Whole trees fall, branches crack, screeches and cries of the dying are heard, residents of the forest scamper, so with the transients, as the fire moves in. 

Call it a natural process, a cycle of life and death of eliminating the unfit and saving the fittest; call it regeneration, but the forest will never be the same again. ~