Archive for June, 2009

The Rosary – Personal Discovery

June 27th, 2009

rosary1

“The Rosary and my family”

We started praying the rosary years ago. We did it Sunday evenings with my wife and two children taking turns in leading it, me not knowing how to do it yet. We did it to fill a need I was having deep inside me.

Once that was met, however, I began to feel another one, so we started doing it every night. Then, I realized that to give meaning to “the family that prays together stays together,” I had to learn the rosary. So I did, allowing the four of us to lead the prayers alternately.

Very soon my children were grown-ups and had schedules of their own leaving me and my wife to say the rosary. Then a cruel twist in fate came upon us – my wife died. Now I pray the rosary daily, alone, in front of her urn. It will be a real blessing if my children can pray the rosary with me.

Knowing the Rosary:

I recently received an email regarding Mother Theresa’s rosary beads. How it got to be passed around people in sad and life-threatening circumstances; how it gave them the strength, the courage and inner peace to face their ordeals head-on and came out in great spirits.

Since I started praying the Rosary, I’ve always wondered how the beads and its praying came about. That email prodded me into another route of personal discovery. This is not about how to pray the rosary but of how this string of beads came to symbolize a Christian’s faith.

History of the rosary:

The word “Rosary” comes from the Latin word rosarium, meaning a “rose garden” or “garland of roses.”

According to tradition, the Rosary was given to St. Dominic, during an apparition, by the Blessed Virgin May in the church of Prouille in 1214. That apparition was given the title Our Lady of the Rosary.

On the scholarly side, the origin of the rosary is more circuitous and, really scholarly to the point of being boring. But boredom belongs to those not desiring of wisdom and wisdom is the fountain from which the flowering of life begins.

Praying with beads, such as the rosary, may have begun as a practice by the laity to imitate the monastic Liturgy of the Hours (official set of daily prayers prescribed by the Roman Catholic Church to be recited at the canonical hours by the clergy), wherein monks prayed the 150 psalms daily.

Since most of the laity and even lay monastics could not read at that time, they substituted the 150 Psalms with the Pater Noster (Our Father), using cords with knots to keep an accurate count.

Evidence suggests that during the Middle Ages, both the Our Father and the Hail Mary were recited with prayer beads and in the 7th century, St. Eligius wrote of using a counting device to keep track of the 150 Hail Marys of the Psalter of Mary.

In the 13th century of Paris, France, there were four trade groups involved in making prayer beads. They were called paternosterers and their beads were called paternosters, suggesting a link between the Our Father and the prayer beads.

Then in the 12th century, during the rule of the anchorites (people who, for religious reasons,  withdraw from the secular society to become prayer-oriented), a book, the Ancrene Wisse, was written specifying how groups of 50 Hail Marys were to be divided into five groups of ten Hail Marys each.

Gradually, the Hail Mary came to replace the Our Father as the prayer associated with the beads. Eventually, each group of ten Hail Marys came to be preceded by an Our Father to further conform with the structure of the monastic Liturgy of the Hours.

Further developments of the Rosary:

Dominic of Prussia (1382 – 1460), a Carthusian monk, is attributed to have meditated while praying the Hail Marys calling it the “Life of Jesus Rosary.” He also added a sentence to each of the 50 Hail Marys using quotes from the Scriptures. His practice became popular among the Benedictines and Carthusisans from Trier to Belgium and France where it was greatly promoted by the Dominican priest, Alan de Rupe.

From the 16th to the 20th century the structure of the rosary largely remained unchanged until the Fatima Prayer was added into it in the 20th century and, lately, the Luminous Mysteries were added by Pope John Paul II in 2002.

Key dates (some) of the Rosary:

4th century – Desert Fathers started using prayer ropes to count repetitions of the Jesus Prayer;

1214 – traditional date of the legend of St. Dominic’s reception of the rosary from the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of the Rosary;

Mid-13th century – the word “Rosary” was first used by Thomas of Champitre but not in reference to the prayer beads;

Early 15th century – Dominic of Prussia, a Carthusian, introduced 50 mysteries, one for each Ave Maria;

Circa 1514 – the Hail May prayer attained its current form;

1597 – the first recorded use of the term “rosary” to refer to the prayer beads;

1917- Our Lady of Fatima is said to have asked the inclusion of the Fatima Prayer to the Rosary and asked to have the Rosary be prayed to stop the war and as part of the Immaculate Heart’s reparation;

2002 – Pope John II added the Luminous Mysteries as an option for Roman Catholics in an Apostolic Letter on the Rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae..

My Rosary:

I have one of those cheap plastic rosary beads. I can’t remember who gave it to me but I’ve had it even before I know how to use it. Once white, it is now yellow with use with traces of dirt in its grooves and corners. I found it to be a faithful companion. It does not complain, nag, make promises or fail in its commitments. But the serenity and peace of mind it gives me is beyond measure. It goes with me wherever I go, overseas or local. At night I put it on top of my chest to put me to sleep. It helped maintain my sanity and strength to meet, head-on, the ordeals of my life – the most trying of which was the loss of my wife.



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Marijuana and I – Personal Discovery

June 25th, 2009

Cannabis plant

Cannabis plant

“My introduction to marijuana”

One afternoon, after work, my group of young engineers decided to spend the evening at the beach. After a few rounds of beer, somebody suggested to switch gear by smoking marijuana. Being the senior engineer, my permission was sought for and I acceded on two conditions: first, I don’t take it and, second, they have to contend with me if they do something foolish. That’s how I get to know of “shotgun.”

Fast forward several years later, I met a Canadian woman in a corner beer stand in Bangkok, Thailand. After a round of beer we went to a disco where the question of “my place or yours” immediately came up. Too giddy with lust and alcohol (a bad mixture), we went to her place. After a quick shower, she inserted a tape into her VCR, shoved me onto an air mattress, then she squatted on the floor and started smoking marijuana. The acrid smell made me sick, I didn’t know what was shown from the VCR and I slept like a babe. I woke up at the break of dawn to find out  I was in a place where Bangkok characters practically crawl out from the cracks of the walls around me.

Discovering marijuana:

Recently I received an article from a friend in Australia of a study about the relationship of marijuana use and the increased incidence of TGCT (testicular germ cell tumor) Finding it funny that what can make a person go “high” can cause much problem “below,” I surfed for the subject and found it to be of great interest and value.

Marijuana (marihuana or ganja in Sanskrit) refers to any number of preparations of the cannabis plant intended for human consumption as a drug, the most common form of which is the natural herbal form – taken from mature female flowers or sub-tending leaves of the pistillate (female) plants.

Derivates of marijuana include hashish, a concentrated resin taken from the heated glandular trichomes or hairy part of the plant; kief, a Moroccan version of hashish and hash or honey oil, extracted from the cannabis plant through various solvents.

Marijuana consumption:

The use of marijuana pre-dates history. In the 20th century, it has seen an increase in consumption for recreational, religious or spiritual and medicinal purposes. It is estimated that four percent (162 million) of the world’s adult population use cannabis annually and 0.6 percent (22.5 million) daily.

Today recreational use of marijuana in the western world drives a sizable demand for the drug that in the U.S. an estimated $36 billion a year is generated from it as a cash crop.

In the Philippines, marijuana appears in the news with amazing regularity with hectares of the plant being uprooted and burned by police authorities. More amazing, however is for them never to have apprehended any of the farmers responsible for planting them. Of course, what appears in the paper is just the tip of the ice-berg. What lies beneath is larger and goes to the illicit drug trade.

History of marijuana:

Pre-historic use of marijuana is evidenced by charred cannabis seeds, dated as far back as the 3rd millennium BC, in a ritual brazier in what is now Romania. And the most famous users of cannabis were the ancient Hindus of India and Nepal.

Ancient Assyrians discovered its psychoactive properties through the Aryans, and they used it in some religious ceremonies. The shamans of the Thracians/Dacians and the Scythians burned cannabis flowers to induce a state of trance.

In 2003, a leather basket filled with cannabis leaf fragments and seeds was found next to a 2,500 to 2,800 year-old mummified shaman in the northeastern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.

One writer claims that cannabis was used as a religious sacrament by ancient Jews and Christians due to the similarity between the Hebrew word qunnabbos (cannabis) and the Hebrew phrase qene’ bo’sem (aromatic cane). It was used by Muslims in various Sufi orders as early as the Mamluk period (1215 to 1570).

Method of consumption and health issues:

Cannabis can be consumed in different ways. It can be inhaled through its smoke from an ignited plant or it can be administered orally. Because of ease, the former is more popular than the latter.

Smoking cannabis can also be done through screened bowls, bongs, paper-wrapped joints and cigar-leaf-wrapped blunts.

It can be taken through a vaporizer and can be leached in high-proof spirits (grain alcohol) to create a tincture called “Green Dragon.”

It can be consumed by first dissolving its active components in a fat such as milk, cream, or butter, and then mixed with hot water to make cannabis tea.

Of the above, smoking is the most harmful method of consumption since the inhalation of smoke from organic materials such as cannabis, tobacco, and rolling papers pause various health problems.

A 2007 study by the Canadian government found that cannabis smoke has more toxic substances than tobacco smoke. It has 20 times more ammonia and five times more hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen oxide.

Medical properties of cannabis:

The active chemical of cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is used as a treatment for a wide range of medical conditions. Though the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) has not approved “medical marijuana,” it acknowledges that there has been considerable interest in its use for treating glaucoma, AIDS wasting, neuropathic pain, treatment of spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis and chemotherapy-induced nausea.

Western Europe, including the Netherlands, however has not approved smoked cannabis for any condition or disease.

In a collection of writings by 45 researchers, marijuana was found to be good in easing nausea and vomiting, anorexia and weight loss, treatment of spasticity, neorogenic pain, movement disorders, asthma and glaucoma. Less-confirmed treatments include that of treating allergies, inflammation, infection, epilepsy, depression, bipolar disorders, anxiety disorders, dependency and withdrawal.

Effects of cannabis:

A minimum amount of 10 micrograms per kilogram of body weight can have psychoactive and physiological effects on a person. Aside from a subjective change in perception, the most common short-term psychical and neurological effects are increased heart rate, lowered blood pressure, impairment of psychomotor coordination, concentration and short-term episodic, working memory loss. The long-terms effects are less clear.

Cannabis and religion:

Wandering Hindu spiritual sadhus have been using cannabis for centuries and the modern-day Rastafari movement has embraced it as a sacrament. Elders of the Ethiopian Zion Church consider it to be the Eucharist (they don’t have any ties with Ethiopia or the Coptic Church though).

Some modern Gnostic Christian sects have asserted that cannabis is the Tree of Life and 20th century organized religions like the THC Ministry, the Way of Infinite Harmony, Cantheism, Cannabis Assembly and the Church of Cognizance treat cannabis as a sacrament.

Must be very interesting to observe them celebrate their masses.

Cannabis as a truth serum:

In the 1940s, the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of what is now the CIA, found cannabis an effective truth drug.

In the Philippines where truth always has three sides, i.e., my truth, his truth and the “I don’t care” truth of the majority, it would be nice to use cannabis abundantly to arrive at the real truth. That it is in psychedelic colors is a bonus. (sourced from Wikipedia)




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Okra – Personal Discovery

June 19th, 2009

okra

My early encounter with okra:

I remember when, as a child, we used to thrash okra shrubs with our toy bamboo swords, having thought them to be of no value. Today, there’s no a single okra shrub in my erstwhile stomping grounds, and okra has become a much sought-after vegetable, displayed prominently in market vegetable stalls

I thought of doing a personal discovery on okra after receiving an email from a friend about its curative properties.

Okra, where did it come from and where is it now?

Okra is called Lady’s Fingers outside the U.S., and gumbo in some parts of it and in English-speaking Caribbean, taken from the Portuguese word, “quingombo” which, in turn, is a corruption of the word “quillobo,” in some parts of eastern Africa.

“Okra” is of West African origin, thought to have come from the word “okuru,” in Igbo, a language spoken in Nigeria. Regardless of its etymology, Okra, or “Abelmoschus esculentus” is a flowering plant belonging to the mallow family making it cousins with cotton, cocoa and hibiscus, which is why it is occasionally referred to as “Hibiscus esculentos.”

Okra apparently originated in the Ethiopian Highlands, and its having found its way around the world is not as mysterious as the spread of the A(H1N1) virus. Good or bad, things have a way of being spread around.

Global use of okra:

Today, okra is widely used in the thick meat and vegetable stew found in Egypt, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Yemen and other parts of the Mediterranean. Making me wonder if it makes people war-like, considering that these okra-eating countries seldom have peace within their midst. .

Indians sauté it, Japanese serve it with soy sauce, deep fried in the U.S., taken as fish soup in the Caribbean.

Okra is global and it is widely used as a vegetable. But I still don’t eat it. It’s thick sap, mucilage, still reminds me of my runny-nose childhood.

In some countries, the seeds are of more interest than the pod. When ripe, they yield edible oil comparable in properties even to olive oil. The yield is high, at 40% and a hectare of okra can produce 794 kilograms of oil per year.

Like soybean, the seed provides an excellent source of protein.

In some parts of Africa, the ripe seeds of okra are roasted and ground and served as a substitute for coffee. During the American Civil War, southerners used it as coffee substituted during the blockades of the 1860′s.

Okra and health:

Okra is rich in many nutrients, including fiber, vitamin B6 and folic acid. An American nutritionist, Dr. Sylvia W. Zook, said that okra fiber helps stabilize blood sugar by curbing its absorption from the intestinal tract.

Okra seeds are rich in vegetable protein, trytophan and adequate sulfur-containing amino acids. It contains high levels of:

Unsaturated fats,

Most people take “fats” as unhealthy. Unsaturated fat is healthier than the general classification of fats and is a good dietary supplement for the prevention of prostrate cancer. Nevertheless, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) recommends that the amount of unsaturated fat consumed is not to exceed 30% of a day’s caloric intake.

Oleic Acid:

This is thought to hinder the progress of ALD (Aderenoleukodystrophy), a fatal disease affecting the brain and adrenal glands and helps boost memory.

On the downside, it is also associated in the increased risk of breast cancer and may be responsible for hypotension (blood pressure reduction.

Linoleic Acid:

This may help in the prevention of cancer, cystic fibrosis (fatty acid deficiency), dermatitis and diabetes.

It has also some industrial uses which I would not lay down for extreme ennui with the industrial environment.

Gossypol:

This is a derivative from okra that has been tested as an oral contraceptive for males. It has also tested positive for its anti-malarial properties and probably anti-cancer as well.

On the downside, some test subjects showed a high level of hypokalemia (low blood potassium levels), 7% of them reported digestive system problems and 12% reported extreme fatigue.

Diuretic properties:

Helps in the removal of body fluid through unination.

How do I take to okra now?

I still don’t like to eat it.



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Zany Ways to a Happy Life – Personal Discovery

June 17th, 2009

“Defining happiness”

Webster defines “happiness” as “a state of well-being; contentment; pleasurable satisfaction.” Considering individual differences and preferences, gives us differing reasons for contentment, and pleasurable satisfaction. I read an article a long time ago that in North Korea, children are taught early on to dismember insects and small birds by pulling off their limbs and their heads to train them to be destructive. This may be sadistic to most, but within our midst are people who find happiness in inflicting untold sufferings on others.

Are these the ways to a happy life?

Between the ordinary and the bizarre are countless ways to be happy, of expressions of happiness. Not least among them is another personal discovery from the Internet titled “12 Suggestions for a Happy Life,” a text of a speech delivered to a group of graduating students. I don’t know if his audience came out happier from the experience. I certainly would not. Here are some of them:

Dream:

Having a dream is not necessarily going to lead to a happy life. Accomplishing one’s dreams do. And there’s a whale of a difference between having one and realizing it. Ninety-five percent of those who dream fail, and continue to fail. Statistics can attest to this. Either something is wrong with their dreams or something is wrong with them.

Obey your parents:

Our streets are littered with beggars following their cues from their parents. I’ve met so many hookers pimped for by their parents. While obedience to the good counsel of parents forms a good basis for our later years in life, it is not a guarantee for happiness in the long haul. My father slowly killed himself through alcohol. If anything, it taught me to keep away from it. One’s happiness is a personal matter. It can be shared but it cannot be created for us.

Read:

My mother taught me early to love reading. A lot of our young people today do read – slut. Tabloids are snapped up like hotcake while educational reading, that kind of reading that contributes to one’s professional upliftment, make him/her a better person, is in the backburner. Another definition of happiness anchored on different perspective.

Study Chinese:

Simplistically this supposes that all Chinese lead happy lives? The author has a Chinese middle name but I’m not sure if he is the epitome of happiness. While knowledge of Chinese is a plus in the Philippines, business-wise, speaking and thinking are, again, very different. You’ve got to think like a Chinese to gain entry into the very parochial Chinese business world.

This has got to be the most kooky way to lead a happy life that I’ve ever come across.

Do not waste time:

In the Philippines it is not “cool” to be punctual. The author knows this, so instead of extolling the virtues of punctuality, he opted for the more politically insane “do not waste your time.” No matter how “good” one uses time, it is still not good enough if late. Timing is all.

I bet the commencement exercises did not start of time. It is so un-cool if it did.

Pray:

The author feels sadden that “people often pray when they’re in a crisis.” That’s totally untrue. In the Philippines people pray all the time – especially when the Lotto grand prize has reached hundreds of millions of pesos. Priests can attest to the increase of churchgoers in times like this. I’ve met so many people who thank God for their good fortunes even if they were gained illegally.

Happiness, an elusive thing:

Each day I  pray for peace of mind, of heart and soul. Just one simple thing for every aspect of my being. Unfortunately the guy next door prays for money he can drop into that pesky videoke box so he can sing till the wee hours of the morning tormenting every fiber of my mind, my heart and my soul with the noise.

Contentment is relative. If one is contented with the status quo, the relatives are very scarce. So one has to raise that level of contentment higher. And this is no more evident than in people who gamble. I never tire of their funny stories of “the real big one that got away.”

Our hospital wards are full of people who are in a state of “perfect happiness.” They are called mentally insane. Drug companies are making a killing from pills for people with depression. These are those who shun the opportunity or are incapable to be happy.

Others look forward to the day when they will be called back by their Maker and enjoy unbridled happiness. These are people who have given up hope of ever finding happiness within their hearts here and now.

Me? At my age, I feel thankful to wake to another day in my life – which is getting shorter. But happiness is not in the empty half of the glass. It is in the filled half.




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Creating A Life – Personal Discovery

June 13th, 2009

“Warren Buffet in a nutshell”

Somebody pasted on my Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/gettingstarted.php?) this message:  “Sometimes we have to get lost to find ourselves.” Last week I was three fourths of the way in my blog post about Warren Buffet. After going over it countless of times, I decided against it. Why? Because the man never had to go through the process of finding himself. Even his second wife was arranged for by his first, who left him for no reason a lot of divorced couples have.

Inarguably the richest man in the world, his life, however, seems duller than the wallpaper of the only house he has – a 3-room affair he bought when he married more than 50 years ago.

If the article in Google is to be the basis, Mr. Buffet never seemed to have dodged boulders or kept his nose above water, like most mortals do, as we weave through the unpredictability, fickleness and ordeals of life; he never got lost to find his way to his billions of dollars.

What life is and isn’t:

George Bernard Shaw said that “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

As nice as this saying may be, unfortunately, a lot of us find, albeit a little too late, that what we have created is not what we wanted in the very first place.

The years following birth are essentially learning from parents and playmates. Our world is about games, toys and having fun. Then we start going to school and the fun is diluted with studies. As we progressed through our formal education, games become a little lesser, studies become more intense and demanding of our time.

We become euphoric when graduation day comes, only to find out that career-building looms ominously in the horizon. Career-building will soon be mixed with family-building transforming us all into acrobats – balancing everything we do. We have to balance our time between work, family, friends, socials, sports, etc. Balancing the budget is even more complicated that it saps the strength from most of us.

Then the education expenses stop, the children are through and gone. But before our sighs of relief find completion, the invasion of grandchildren begins.

So what have I created for myself?

I and probably 90% of humanity go through the cycle of life described above. On the average, I may have fared well. My children are through but not married, sparing me from the invasion of grandchildren just yet.

I went through very trying times that suicide was a tempting option.  Probably out of cowardice or Divine Intervention, I squeaked through only to be clobbered by the death of my wife.

Now I am where I started – alone, weak and unknowing. My parents took care of me when I was young, now my children are helping me through. Though I have had much in life, some good, mostly bad, I never thought the day will come when I would envy to see old couples, hand in hand, go by.

Never too late to create ourselves:

The other day was especially trying. I was alone at home, like most times, and slowly felt the onset of emptiness, of loneliness, of melancholia; of having no purpose in life.  Fighting them off lest depression will be on me again, I closed my eyes and typed a phrase in Google’s word search. Then I surfed for the subject to find out how populated the Internet is with it.

There are no less than 13 million pages about “Personal Discovery.” The upside is that we all can make it “personal,” making it new, novel and special. We all can “create” ourselves through our own personal discoveries. Discoveries to satisfy our bodies, our minds, and our souls, making each day of the remainder of our lives a series of “Sunrises.”

And we should not tarry. Time  is not on our side when we really begin to create ourselves for ourselves




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Father’s Day Special

June 6th, 2009

“Are you a battered husband?”

Stupid question but has more than just a grain of truth in it. Everybody knows that our newspapers are rife with stories of “battered housewives” to the point of being boring. But never have we heard of “battered husbands.” Yet, all the husbands of my three sisters-in-law are battered and so are many of the guys I work with. So why are they not complaining when women are so quick to use the worn-out yarn of “it’s a man’s world” when things don’t go their ways?

This Sunday is Father’s Day in the Philippines and after having researched for it in the Internet, I think I know why.

Beginnings of Father’s Day:

Father’s day came about to complement Mother’s Day. As a “complement,” fathers can be honored whenever convenient; hence, its celebration is movable as opposed to the more specific day for Mother’s Day.

The first Father’s Day is thought to have been celebrated by Dr. Robert Webb on July 5, 1908 in the church of Central United Methodist Church, Fairmont, W. Va.

But hold on to your hats, guys! Father’s Day became formal after so much lobbying by women – probably after having seen the sufferings their fathers got from the hands of their mothers. Consider this. A certain Mrs. Sonora Smart, after having heard of a sermon about Mother’s Day at the Central Methodist Church in Spokane, Washington, solicited the idea of having a celebration to honor all fathers. This was set on a beautiful Sunday on June 19, 1910.

Father’s Day becoming official:

But it did not take root there. In fact it almost disappeared from the calendar despite the heavy lobbying by the YWCA and the church. Where Mother’s Day was getting much attention and enthusiasm, Father’s Day was met with laughter. Whatever attention it had, it was not for its own merits but the satire and laughter it was getting.

Probably realizing that this butt of jokes wouldn’t disappear, a bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress in 1913 to legalize it. After 11 long years, it got the support of then US President Calvin Coolidge in 1924. A national committee was formed in the 1930s to legitimize it.

Father’s Day now:

Father’s Day, a shoo-in, has become as commercialized as Mother’s Day with a difference. The former is celebrated by the giving of zany gifts, probably because of its satirical history, while the latter is more somber, more formal.

It is celebrated in different days in different parts of the world. In 2008, it was on June 15 and June 19 this year. In the Philippines it is on June 6.

I was introduced to Father’s Day when I was temporarily assigned in the U.S. in 1986. Jan Helfand, our documents girl, invited me for an afternoon cocktails in her picture-perfect place in a small town in Connecticut. Her father was, of course, there and close relatives and friends. Her husband, a part-time magician, provided the entertainment while I got the attention. Not because I was the only Asian in the party but because of something else. I found out later when I got back to my apartment, took off my sweatshirt and saw, in big, bold letters in front, the sentence, “I ONLY SLEEP WITH THE BEST, THAT’S WHY I SLEEP ALONE.”

Father’s Day and Me:

My father was a bitter-sweet memory. He was brilliant but he became so cranky in his old days that I and my siblings drifted away from him. His drinking got worse eventually doing him in. The fact that I was closer to my mother compounded the problem.

As a widower, I am both mother and father to two grown-up children. We had a wonderful dinner on Mother’s Day which I, of course, paid for. They are not talking of any dinner for Father’s Day.

Need I elaborate why “battered husbands” are keeping their silence?


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Tea – One Man’s Cure, Another’s Poison

June 4th, 2009

teacup2

Boston (Iced) Tea Party:

No, this is not about a group of Bostonians enjoying a serving of iced tea but of that incident on  December 16, 1773 when a group of Boston colonialists boarded three British ships full of tea and threw these into the Boston Harbor. This incident remains an iconic event of American history in relation to the American Revolution.

But Boston Iced Tea is among the leading 13 iced tea preparations found in the About.com (coffee/tea) website.

Tea and me:

When I was young, tea was essentially a China-man’s drink but grandma took it for stomach problems. Then I was in a tea ceremony in Taiwan, was introduced to the tea time in U.K., complete with sugar and milk and grimaced with bitterness from the glass of hot green tea served first thing every morning in China. Now I am old as grandma was, brewed coffee no longer acceptable to my system forcing me to switch to tea – flavored with either lime or raspberry and served ice-cold. Generation gap has its own classiness.

A little about tea:

Tea is the colloquial name for the world’s most widely-consumed beverage, made by concocting the leaves, leaf buds and internodes of the Camellia sinensis plant in water, hot or cold. .

There are four common types of tea in the market, i.e., black, oolong, green and white tea. They all came from the same bush but processed differently except for the fine white tea, which is grown differently. The Pu-erh tea, a double-fermented black tea is considered among the most popular in the world.

Non-tea, tea:

The advent of global commercialization has produced a plethora of tea types such as herbal or red tea. The former is an infusion of leaves, flowers, fruits, herbs or other plants not remotely related to Camellia sinensis while the later is an infusion from the South African plant, roooibos, also without any of the properties of the real tea plant.

Origins of tea:

According to Mondal (2007, p 519), tea originated in Southeast Asia, in the confluence of northeast India, north Burma, southwest China and Tibet. From there, the plant was introduced to 52 countries.

Yunnan Province of China is identified as the “birthplace of tea” where people found out that chewing tea leaves or brewing a cup was pleasant. And the world’s oldest cultivated tea tree, 3,200 years old, is said to be found in Fengqing County in the Lincang City Prefecture of the Yunnan Province.

Among the many Chinese legends, one had it that Shennong, the legendary Emperor of China,  accidentally discovered the beneficial effects of tea around 2737 BC.

Tea and the world:

The earliest record of the spread and distribution of tea was of an Arabian traveler who wrote that after the year 879, the main revenues of Canton were from the duties on salt and tea. Marco Polo recorded the deposition of a Chinese minister of finance, in 1285, for his arbitrary augmentation of the tea taxes.

European travelers to the Far East all mentioned tea as early as 1559, and tea publicly appeared in England for the first time in the 1650s.

Regardless of what history tells, the biggest factor for the spread of tea was not on Europe’s adventurism but on the Chinese’s entrepreneurism. With a Chinese restaurant in every corner of the world, could tea be far behind? No. No tea, no Chinese food. It’s as simple as that.

Health benefits of tea:

I used to have a ton of materials of the health benefits of tea. The problem with Internet materials is that they are as full of proponents as well as detractors. I am taking tea simply because it has a better, more soothing effect on me than brewed coffee. Am I physically benefiting from it? I don’t know.

According to Mondal (2007, pp 519-520) tea leaves contain more than 700 chemicals, some of which are related to human health, i.e., flavanoides, amino acids, vitamins (C,E and K), caffeine and polysaccharides. Drinking tea has been “proven” to be associated with cell-mediated immune function, improves intestinal microflora, protects the intestines against disorders and protects cell membranes from oxidative damage.

On the other hand, in a large study of over 11,000 men and women in 1993, the results of which were published in the 1999 Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (1999, pp 484-487), showed that there was actually an increase in the risk of coronary disease if one regularly drinks tea.

I once took amoxiclav for an inflamed gum. I landed in the hospital for severe allergy. As always, one man’s cure is another man’s poison.


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Cabal of Thieves

June 2nd, 2009

“Gentlemen among thieves“

I am not a cockfight aficionado but I’ve been inside a cockpit more than a couple of times and was intrigued and awed in both occasions. It is awesome to see a flurry of flapping wings and a blur of colors, locked in a dance of death, in mid-air or on hard dirt, while the spectators, in unison, yell in joy or groan in dismay each time a dull “thud” echoes around the arena, signifying the entry of a razor-shard steel into unyielding flesh – ultimately leading to victory or defeat, life or death.

Equally intriguing are the spectators. Defying a cross-sectional profile, they could be politicians and their suitcases of money or someone on dole-outs playing his luck on the only game with a true 50/50 chance of winning or losing. Whatever they are on the outside, in the cockpit they are bound by an unwritten, albeit, inviolable “code of honesty.” Anyone trying to test its integrity is meted quick and instant justice. This code is so honored in this un-honorable milieu that I once told a friend that this is “a gentlemen’s agreement among thieves.”

Thieves among gentlemen:

Not so in a different arena of Philippine life. The recent coalition of the country’s top political parties equally defies a cross-sectional profile. Some came from the country’s very rich and powerful, while others came from the slums waiting to partake of the crumbs falling from their masters’ tables.

Beyond that, the comparison becomes weird. In the cockpit, the chances are pure 50/50. This coalition intends to “load” the dice in their favor. In the cockpit, an aficionado tries his luck; this coalition guarantees the members’ luck. In the cockpit, one either wins or loses; this coalition makes a winner of every member. The cockpit draws people who love to gamble, play the game of chance; this coalition draws people with same greed for power, insatiable appetite to raid public funds,  to squeeze the life of the citizens with their unyielding mania to stay in office in their lifetimes and beyond. In the cockpit, people are ashamed of dishonesty. This is a coalition of people knowing no shame, much more honesty.

In the cockpit,  depending on one’s stake, an aficionado can win to support a mistress, wine and dine his buddies or go for an expensive vacation. On the other side of the scale, he goes there to feed a family or pay an overdue bill. Losing is harder on the later than the former. This coalition intends to better the winnings of a rich aficionado, none of the poor’s misfortunes.

No chance for the country:

In less than a year, election hungry Filipinos will again troop to the polls to elect their leaders. Even now, never been known to be coherent, more than half a dozen groups are already formed for the same reason – to help the people choose the best leaders for the country. They are not new. Several groups have been formed in the past and all failed. Not for lack of trying but because they, too, have filtered glasses over their eyes. The Filipino, as hard as this may sound, has not reached the level of putting the interests of the country over and above his own petty selfish interests. We are a people difficult of learning. And the advent of a faster means of communication has made our mistakes more wide-spread, more virulent than ever. I am betting my last centavo that by June 2010, we will see the same cabal of thieves among us again.

Lessons from the cockpit:

The time is past for us to do self-analysis leading to nowhere. Getting a lesson from the cockpit is faster and straightforward. There we will find more honor among un-honorable men than in our halls of power where “honor” is non-existent among men who love to be addressed “honorable.”

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