SO, YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?

"Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail." That statement comes from the pen of one of America's most celebrated authors, Ernest Hemingway.



Hemingway is one of my favorite authors. Although I never read his books when I was growing up, I came to "know" him only after I saw the film adaptation of his book, The Old Man and the Sea. Forget the fact that he committed suicide at the height of his career, but his timely tips about writing are still being quoted just like his novels are still being read all over the world.



A person who does not work every day is dead. You have to do something in order for you to live – even breathing and eating are sort of works. And thinking and writing, too. That's why I write every day.



Writing is just like a hobby to me. And to think of, it's part of my job. Imagine this: doing your hobby every day and still being paid for doing so. What a privilege, indeed. I am sure there are many people who are working but don't love what they are doing. Too bad!



Anyone who knows how to write can be called a writer. But the difference between those who just write for the sake of writing and those who write for living is writing well. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, "The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well and doing well whatever you do."



In writing well, you have to consider your grammar (you must know when to use "is" and "are," the difference between "me" and "mine," etc.), your vocabulary (appease, soothe, mollify, placate, and pacify all mean the same thing), and the ideas you expound. In the beginning was the word, the Bible states, and words are your primary tools in writing and you must have lots of them. "What's this business of being a writer?" film producer Irving Thalberg once asked. "It's just putting one word after another."

But you have to put those words in a perfect manner so that they could be understood by anyone who reads them. "A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare," Henry David Thoreau said. "For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure."

I started writing well when I was in high school. My English teacher observed that those I wrote for our formal themes were different from those written by my classmates. "You have a style of your own," she told me. She impelled me to write more -- on various subject matters.



When I watched Finding Forrester a couple of years back, I was reminded of what I went through when I was just starting my career. The words of Sean Connery's character came into my mind: "Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head." Sounds a good advice, indeed.



But it was not until I was in college that I started writing for magazines and newspapers – and was paid. My very first national article was published in a weekly magazine. It was a short piece on what children say about doctors.



From that, I started writing for other publications as a freelancer. At first, I wrote lifestyle features. When I joined a non-government organization as its staff writer, I started writing agricultural stories. But it was not after attending a workshop convened by Philippine Press Institute that I found my niche: science reporting.



It was also at that time that I started writing for Ang Peryodiko Dabaw (which later became Sun.Star Davao). Thanks to editor Antonio Ajero, I was able to contributes science articles for the Manila-based Press Foundation of Asia, with Paul Icamina and Erlinda Bolido as my science editors. (Later on, I met Juan Mercado, who also became my mentor.)



Before I knew it, I was winning one journalism award after another. In 1999, the Philippine Press Institute elevated me the hall of fame in science reporting, the first and only Filipino journalist to accomplish the feat. Also in that year, the Rotary Club of Manila had chosen me as its recipient of Journalist of the Year. Today, I write for the Asian edition of Reader's Digest and other national and internal publications.



Through these years, what have I learned so far as a writer? First and foremost, don't wait for inspiration to write. Just write whatever comes into your mind – as long as you know what you are writing. Raymond Chandler suggests, "The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slower, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them."



Don't forget to read. When I go to other countries, I usually buy books, magazines and other publications. "Read, read, read," urges William Faulkner. "Read everything - trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window."



There is nothing new under the heat of the sun, the Ecclesiastes writer said. Everything is already written. All you have to do is make the subject fresh and novel. "If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, its research," observed Wilson Mizner. Award-winning author James Michener echoed the same sentiment when he said, "I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter."



Now, here are some great rules of writing from William Safire. "Do not put statements in the negative form. And don't start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. De-accession euphemisms. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Last, but not least, avoid clichés like the plague."



Now, why I like to write? Allow me to use the words of Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, Richeliue, II: "The pen is mightier than the sword."

BIG THINGS COME FROM LITTLE PACKAGES

Today, we live in a world where big is always better. In a world dominated by commercials and advertisements extolling the virtues of big things, who wouldn't think bigger is always better. And who amongst us wouldn't like a big bank account, big house or a big salary? But the question is: Is big really better?



But then, on second thought, it was a small stone that killed Goliath. It was just one vote which saved American president Andrew Jackson from impeachment in 1868. Only three simple words – "I love you" – can start a lifetime commitment. And it only takes a spark to start a fire.



"What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of a gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution," commented Henri Frederic Amiel.



When you get down to the nitty-gritty, sometimes it's the little things that add much more to the big picture. Look, it's easy to focus your attention on having the big things, like driving the nice, new car or living in the super nice house. All of us can easily envision ourselves living the good life. But it usually takes more than just seeing the big picture in order to live it. As John Wooden puts it, "It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen."



In the Old Testament, a verse reads, "A day of little things, no doubt, but who would dare despise it?" Well, never despise those little things.



Laurie Beth Jones, author of The Power of Positive Prophecy, related her own story about a former boss who didn't want her to spend so much time with clients. "Go after the big clients," she was told. "Leave the peanuts to the others."



But still she did what she wanted to do. "When the numbers were totaled," she wrote, "my combination of small sales outtotaled his few 'big ones.'" She resigned from her job and started her own company. "Dinosaurs became extinct – yet rabbits still abound," she observed.



At age 21, Jacques Lafitte, a son of a very poor carpenter from a small city, set out to seek his fortune and future life's work in Paris. He had no references from influential people no brilliant academic career behind him, but he was young and full of hope.



With his usual thoroughness, he started looking for a job. Days became weeks, and still he had no job or income. But he kept at it. Nobody in Paris noticed this determined young man.



One morning, he applied at the office of a famous Swiss banker, Monsieur Perregaux. The banker asked him few questions about himself. Then, he slowly shook his head and said there would be no job offered at the moment.



Sadly, and more discouraged than ever, Jacques left the bank and walked slowly across the courtyard. As he did so, he paused, stopped, and picked something up. Then, he continued into the busy street, wondering if perhaps it wasn't time to return home.



At about that moment, he was overtaken by a man who tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me, sir," he said, "I'm an employee at the bank. Monsieur Perregaux wishes to see you again."



For the second time that morning, Jacques faced the famous banker. "Pardon me," the banker said, "but I happened to be watching you as you crossed the courtyard of the bank. You stopped and picked something up. Would you mind telling me what it was?"



"Only this," the young man replied, wonderingly, as he took a bright new straight pin from the underside of the lapel of his coat. "Aaah," the banker exclaimed. "That changes everything. We always have room here for anyone who is careful about little things. You may start at once."



That was how Jacques Lafitte started his long and amazingly successful association with the bank, ultimately assuming complete control of what became "Perregaux, Lafitte, and Company."



Sweat that small stuff! Carlo Danao wrote this short poem as a reminder: "Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land. Thus the little minutes, humble though they be, make the mighty ages of eternity."



Inspiration speaker Dale Carnegie once said, "Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones tend to take care of themselves." Well said.

If we can glean anything from Mr. Carnegie's comments, it should be that if we do a little everyday and keep doing it consistently, then a little can become a lot. No doubt about it, a little here and a little there sure beats the heck out of doing nothing. And doing the little things is easier than trying to scale the mountain all at once.

"Life is made up of small pleasures," said Norman Lear. "Happiness is made up of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. And if you don't collect all these tiny successes, the big ones don't really mean anything."



Perhaps the statement of Art Linkletter is a good reminder to us all that that doing a little can pay big dividends: "Do a little more than you're paid to. Give a little more than you have to. Try a little harder than you want to. Aim a little higher than you think possible. And give a lot of thanks to God for health, family, and friends."

THE TRIVIALITIES OF TRAVELS

Murphy's Law states: If something can go wrong, it will. This is especially true when you are traveling abroad. Some of those that bound to happen include flight cancellations, delayed flights, lost or delayed luggage, and being singled out before entering your flight.



Speaking of lost luggage, here's what Jerry Rankin has to say: "As much as I travel it's amazing it doesn't happen more often. But when it does, the emotional reaction is surprising. To arrive at your destination without your luggage and necessary belongings is more than disappointing."



At one time, Rankin – who is the president of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in the United States – lost his luggage on a short flight from Calcutta, India to Dhaka, Bangladesh. "It had apparently been routed on a flight leaving about the same time to Chittagong," he surmised.



Because his itinerary had him moving on to Bangkok (Thailand), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), and Jakarta (Indonesia), the prospects were unlikely the bag would ever catch up with him. He left contact addresses in each place, but he never heard anything. The airport in Calcutta is named "Dum-Dum International Airport." He wrote numerous letters trying to retrieve his bag; in one he wrote, "Dear Sirs, your airport is appropriately named."



Rankin continued to inquire in various airports on subsequent trips and each time the records showed that the bag had been forwarded. "Three months later, I was back in Jakarta, and the baggage office knew nothing about my suitcase," he recalled. "I asked if I could look in the baggage storage area. I was confronted with a mountain of dust-covered luggage. There on the edge of the pile was my bag! The luscious ripe plums I was bringing from India to friends in Bangladesh were still inside!"



Of course, there are also those unexpected moments which are harrowing and yet hilarious. Don Rutledge, one of America's most awarded photojournalists, and his journalist friend were seated aboard a plane bound for mainland China from Hong Kong. His friend was sitting next to an emergency exit door and Rutledge was sitting next to him in the aisle seat.



A flight attendant came to their seat row and asked Rutledge's friend, "Pardon me, sir, but can you open this door?" She, of course, meant if he could open the door in case of an emergency. "Yes, I think so," he answered and before she could say anything, he grabbed the door lever and swung it into the open position. (This happened when the passengers were still loading and the airplane was not moving on the runway.)



The door bounced out of its frame and Rutledge's friend held it by the lever. The attendant's mouth flew open wide as she screamed, "I meant could you open it in case of an emergency." She quickly tried to help get the door back into the frame but, even together, they were unable to do so. While he continued holding the door to keep it from falling to the pavement, she rushed to the cockpit and got the flight engineer to return the door into its proper place and reset it. When it was already in the locked position, the flight engineer told him, "Don't do that again."



Of course, there are also thrilling stories. This one happened to a friend, who now lives in New York. LT (let's just call him that way for obvious reasons) flew from San Francisco for a convention in St. Petersburg, Russia. "We were all going to meet first in Moscow, staying there for 3 days and then go by rail overnight to St. Petersburg where the 5-day convention was to be held," he recalled. "My business partner in Bangkok was going to join me at the Metropolitan Hotel in Moscow. He was going to hand me the money he owed me."



The currency rule in Russia is for a tourist to declare all currency coming in and then to compare currency leaving Russia with the original declaration. "The official form under the heading "Customs Declaration" was handed to each of us at Moscow airport upon arrival," LT said. "We had to show this plus all currency upon leaving for comparison."



When his partner entered Russia, he declared only the amount of his money and failed to include the amount he was going to give me, thinking, "Why should I declare something that is not mine." That was pure error on his part.



LT's problem was how to bring out his money which was larger than the amount he had declared coming in. The penalty was confiscation if "huge." (No one told them how much was huge but a businessman from London who received his commission of US$70,000 dollars was held in a cell, and his money confiscated. As a result, he collapsed from sheer terror and exhaustion and was sent to a hospital in Moscow. There, he could not use the underdeclared money to pay for his treatment and had to ask his London office to wire the money to him. Otherwise, if a small amount was involved, the Customs Office would convert the underdeclared currency into their own currency called rubles which at that time were not convertible anywhere in the world.)



LT's partner had some underdeclared amount -- about US$130 and was given rubles in exchange for his underdeclared money. LT had much, much more than that amount.



Returning by rail to Moscow, they discussed their predicament. "He told me he would declare his money and I would have to solve my problem," he said. "Leaving the hotel, I prayed to the Lord for help and the result was I made up my mind to tell the truth to the Customs Office no matter what."



It so happened that LT reached the Moscow airport 35 minutes earlier than check-in time. He was going to line up at the check-in counter when a guard asked him what flight he was going to board. When the guard found out that he was 35 minutes too early, he asked LT to come with him and the guard led him to a room and asked him to wait in there until he would call him. "I was alone in the room and there were several forms stacked around me," he said. "Next to me was a pile of declaration forms for incoming currency. I read it again and again, and saw – yes, this is the same form! "



LT filled out the form with the correct figures. Thereafter, he I went through the customs smoothly. "I had few rubles as souvenir money in my pocket, but I was singing softly in my heart on the plane while counting it," he remembers.



When traveling by air, never, never joke about bombs. A Thai lawyer was leaving Hong Kong and was at the airport. At the customs area, he was asked to place his carry-on bag on the inspection table and was asked, "What's inside?" (This was done because the customs agent didn't need to have it open and was relying on this passenger's honesty). Jokingly, and mouth smiling widely, he replied, "A bomb?"



Now, the Thai lawyer did not realize this was not a laughing matter. In two seconds flat, without uttering a word, the officer seized his hands and led him away. The next he knew, he was in a holding cell. His flight was cancelled, passengers and pilots deplaned and led back to the airport building, and all luggage aboard unloaded for reinspection.



At his court trial the following day, the lawyer tried to explain that it was all a joke. The judge berated him saying, "You are a lawyer and you should take airport regulations seriously at a time when every flight is threatened by hijackers and terrorists; one year imprisonment."

KILLERS THAT TRAVEL IN PACKS

A long, long time ago, two Martians were sent to planet Earth on a mission. When they returned home, they submitted this report to the committee: "The Earth people have an odd practice. They light a fire at the end of a poisonous substance and then suck the smoke into their body. This results in much sickness and even death. The habit is also very expensive. Strange, those Earth people!"



Strange, indeed. Listen to the words of Graham Lee Hemminger: "Tobacco is a dirty weed, but I like it. It satisfies no normal need, still I like it. It makes you thin, it makes you lean. It takes the hair right off your bean. It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen. I like it."



Here's another one from Russell Hoban. "What a weird thing smoking is and I can't stop it," he wrote. "I feel cozy, have a sense of well-being when I'm smoking, poisoning myself, killing myself slowly. Not so slowly maybe. I have all kinds of pains I don't want to know about and I know that's what they're from. But when I don't smoke I scarcely feel as if I'm living. I don't feel as if I'm living unless I'm killing myself."



Smoking is one of the most common forms of recreational drug use. Cigarette smoking is today by far the most popular form of smoking and is practiced by over one billion people in the majority of all human societies. The history of smoking can be dated to as early as 5000 BC, and has been recorded in many different cultures across the world.



"A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs" was how James I of England described smoking in the sixteenth century. Since then, nothing has changed.



The Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) reports that smoking related-diseases kill one in 10 adults globally, or cause four million deaths. "Every eight seconds, someone dies from tobacco use," it points out. By 2030, if current trends continue, smoking will kill one in six people.



Every year, there are about 20,000 smoking-related deaths in the Philippines, where about 60 percent of men smoke. Studies have shown that tobacco use will drain nearly 20 percent of the household income of smokers' families.



In a country where laws abound, there are no national laws prohibiting minors from buying cigarettes. In fact, many vendors of cigarettes are children. Small wonder, as many as 40 percent of adolescents boys smoke. Most of them started smoking in their early teens. The majority of these young smokers said peer pressure was one reason why they took up smoking. Most now wish they did not smoke.



A recent survey of Filipino adult smokers found 99.8 percent cited tobacco advertisements as one factor for initiating smoking. Movie stars, especially those from Hollywood, have helped, too. Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn were closely identified with their smoker persona and some of their most famous portraits and roles have involved a thick mist of cigarette smoke.



"I used to smoke two packs a day and I just hate being a nonsmoker," said Oscar-nominated Michelle Pfeiffer, "but I will never consider myself a nonsmoker because I always find smokers the most interesting people at the table."



Now, here's something that may have been taken from a movie script: A teenager was sitting beside an old woman in a non-airconditioned bus. Thirty minutes after the bus left the terminal, the young man took a stick of cigarette from his pocket and asked the old woman, "Would you mind if I smoke?"



Hearing those words, the old woman stopped praying her rosary and looked at the young man squarely. "Yes, I mind," she said. "I don't want to have cancer."



Physicians from all over the world agree: cigarette smoking is one of the top causes of cases. In the United States, smoking alone is directly responsible for approximately 30 percent of all cancer deaths annually.

According to the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), smoking also causes chronic lung disease (emphysema and chronic bronchitis), cardiovascular disease, stroke, and cataracts. Smoking during pregnancy can cause stillbirth, low birthweight, sudden infant death syndrome, and other serious pregnancy complications. One British survey found that nearly 99% of women did not know of the link between smoking and cervical cancer.



The health risks caused by smoking are not limited to smokers. Exposure to secondhand smoke significantly increases the risk of lung cancer and heart disease in nonsmokers, as well as several respiratory illnesses in young children. (Secondhand smoke is a combination of the smoke that is released from the end of a burning cigarette and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers.)



What makes cigarette smoking so deadly? Well, it contains about 4,000 chemical agents, including over 60 cancer-causing chemicals. In addition, many of these substances, such as carbon monoxide, tar, arsenic, and lead, are poisonous and toxic to the human body.



Nicotine is a drug that is naturally present in the tobacco plant and is primarily responsible for a person's addiction to tobacco products, including cigarettes. During smoking, nicotine is absorbed quickly into the bloodstream and travels to the brain in a matter of seconds. Nicotine causes addiction to cigarettes and other tobacco products that is similar to the addiction produced by using heroin and cocaine.



Ready to quit smoking? Here are the benefits, if you do, according to the NCI: "Quitting smoking decreases the risk of lung and other cancers, heart attack, stroke, and chronic lung disease. The earlier a person quits, the greater the health benefit."



For example, research has shown that people who quit before age 50 reduce their risk of dying in the next 15 years by half compared with those who continue to smoke. Smoking low-yield cigarettes, as compared to cigarettes with higher tar and nicotine, provides no clear benefit to health.



"I'm glad I don't have to explain to a man from Mars why each day I set fire to dozens of little pieces of paper, and put them in my mouth," wrote Mignon McLaughlin in The Second Neurotic's Notebook (1966).

REPORTING FOR THE REEFS

By Gerry E. Tacio, Jr.

Come July, my uncle will be writing reports on the status of coral reefs not only in the Philippines but in other parts of the world as well. He will write live from the place where the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) will take place: Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

"This is the second time I will be covering such kind of symposium," Henrylito D. Tacio, my father's brother, told me in an exclusive interview. In 2000, he also attended the symposium held in Bali, Indonesia.

The Philippines hosted it in 1980. Other ICRS were held in Okinawa, Japan (2004), Panama (1996), Guam (1992), Australia (1988 and 1974)), United States (Tahiti in 1985 and Miami in 1977), and India (1969).

Tacio is the only Filipino journalist chosen by SeaWeb to attend the symposium. SeaWeb is a communications-based nonprofit organization that uses social marketing techniques to advance ocean conservation. "By raising public awareness, advancing science-based solutions and mobilizing decision-makers around ocean conservation, we are leading voices for a healthy ocean," said the organization which sponsored my uncle's forthcoming trip.

Aside from Tacio, two other journalists from Asia are given the same opportunity: Masanobu Fujiwara from Japan and Rina Mukherji from India. Other SeaWeb-sponsored journalists who will cover the event come from the United States (four of them), United Kingdom (Nick Atkinson of Entangled Science and Steve Connor of The Independent), and one each from the following countries: Australia, Canada, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico, and Kenya.

"It is a great honor for me to be part of the team of journalists from all over the world who bring news about the symposium not only in Davao but in Asia and other parts of the globe, too," he says.

Tacio is a science journalist who writes regular features for Sun Star Davao. He also writes a regular column (Regarding Henry) and occasional tips on health (Health 101) and agriculture (Agribiz Jottings). He has been elevated to the Hall of Fame in science reporting by the Philippine Press Institute, the first and the only journalist who received the distinction.

In 1999, he was given the prestigious Journalist of the Year by the Rotary Club of Manila "for his remarkable expertise in the field of science and technology, agriculture and environmental journalism which is characterized by an extensive research as well as a commitment to the popularization of complex issues."

Tacio is also a contributing editor for Southeast Asia for People and the Planet, a global educational resource, with outreach to 190 countries and territories and up to 2.5 million monthly hits. It is published by Planet 21, which was founded at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.

In addition, he is a correspondent (the only one from Davao) for the Asian edition of Reader's Digest. "I would like him to have the opportunity to attend the conference to be able to bring back to Asia story ideas and a broader network of experts so he can cover the important stories about sustaining our reefs and coastal resources," wrote Editor-in-Chief Jim Plouffe in his support the Tacio's application for the symposium.

During the ICRS in Florida, Tacio will write current programs and researches being initiated to address the problems that threaten the most important international treasures – the coral reefs. "Degradation due to factors including pollution, overfishing, and climate change, threaten destruction of these ecosystems on an unprecedented global scale," it said.

From all over the globe, scientists, policymakers, conservationists, and managers are exercising leadership in developing knowledge and implementing science-based strategies to address the crisis.

"Among the top ten coral reef hotspots in the world, the Philippines ranks number one, according to the degree of threat," revealed Tacio, who has been writing coral reefs features and reports for various national and international publications. One of his articles – Coral Reefs of the Verge of Extinction – was chosen as one of the best science articles in the mid-1990s.

His claim has been supported by The World Atlas of Coral Reefs , which reported that 97 percent of reefs in the Philippines are under threat from destructive fishing techniques, including cyanide poisoning, over-fishing, or from deforestation and urbanization that result in harmful sediment spilling into the sea.

In 2007, Reef Check – an international organization assessing the health of reefs in 82 countries -- stated that only five percent of the country's coral reefs are in "excellent condition." These are the Tubbataha Reef Marine Park in Palawan, Apo Island in Negros Oriental, Apo Reef in Puerto Galera, Mindoro, and Verde Island Passage off Bagatangas.

"We have to do something now to save our coral reefs from vanishing in this part of the world," Tacio urges.

Tacio is looking forward to be in Florida again. With the longest coastline of the 48 contiguous states, 41 aquatic preserves and three of the nation's National Estuarine Research Reserves, Florida is undeniably an ocean state.

"I have been to Florida once – in the state's capital, Tallahassee," he says. "But I have never been the sea. So, I am excited to talk with coral reefs experts and stakeholders during the symposium. I am also looking forward for the field trips that we will do. I am sure it will be a new experience for me."

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LESSONS FROM THE PAST

Experience, they say, is the best teacher. In most instances, we don't have to repeat those experiences since other people have experienced them before. As Andre Gide puts it: "Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again."



Rita Mae Brown is even more direct: "Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment." To which Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, adds, "We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our schoolmasters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us."



* * *



A good example of a man who turned a handicap into a blessing is Arturo Toscanini. He owed his success – or at least his chance at success – to the fact that he was very nearsighted. How could that possibly help a musician? Well, at 19, he was playing cello in an orchestra. Since he couldn't see the music on the stand, he had to memorize it. One day, the orchestra leader became ill and young Toscanini was the only member of the orchestra who knew the score. So, he conducted it without a score and the audience gave him a good hand for it – and audiences kept on doing it.



If he hadn't been nearsighted, he might have continued playing cello in small European orchestras instead of becoming one of the greatest orchestra conductors who ever lived.



* * *



When Leonardo da Vinci was working on his wonderful painting of "The Last Supper," he painted the face of a man he hated as Judas. But when he came to paint the face of Jesus, he tried again and again and failed. It was only when he painted out the face of the man he hated and put another in its place that he had a clear picture of the Lord's countenance. His hatred had created a "dead spot" between him and the work he was doing, and this had to be put right before even his marvelous ability could produce the finished work.



"One of the most expensive luxuries one can possess is to hate somebody," E.T. Wayland said. "A deep-seated grudge in one's life eats away at his peace of mind like a deadly cancer destroying a vital organ of his life."



* * *



Do you recall when Edmund Hillary and his native guide, Tenzing, made their historic climb of Mount Everest? Coming down from the peak, Hillary suddenly lost his footing. Tenzing held the line taut and kept them both from falling by digging his ax into the ice. Later, Tenzing refused any special credit for saving Hillary's life; he considered it a routine part of the job. "Mountain climbers always help each other," he said.



Should the rest of us be any different? "We are not primarily put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through," said Peter DeVries.



* * *



Thomas Alva Edison was talking one day with the governor of North Carolina, and the governor complimented him on his inventive genius. "I am not a great inventor," Edison said. "But you have over a thousand patents to your credit, haven't you?" queried the governor.



"Yes, but about the only invention I can really claim as absolutely original is the phonograph," Edison admitted. "I guess, I'm an awfully good sponge. I absorb ideas from every source I can, and put them to practical use. Then I improve them until they become of some value. The ideas which I use are mostly the ideas of other people who don't develop them themselves."



Here's another story about him. In attempting to find a filament for his incandescent bulb, he tried more than 200 different substances. "You have failed more than 200 times," he was told. "Why don't you give up?" Edison replied, "Not at all. I have discovered more than 200 things that will not work. I will soon find one that will."



* * *



Your key for personal success is persistence, for persistence produces power. In 1831, a young man failed in business. In 1832, he was defeated for the legislature. In 1833, he again failed in business. In 1834, he was elected to the Legislature. In 1838, he was defeated for Speaker; in 1840 defeated for Elector; in 1843 defeated for Congress; in 1846 elected to Congress; in 1855 defeated for Senate; in 1856 defeated for Vice-President; in 1858 defeated for Senate; in 1860 elected to the President of the United States. His name? Abraham Lincoln.



"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence," said Calvin Coolidge. "Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."



* * *



Chris Evert is one of the greatest female athletes of all time. She holds the 18 grand slam titles and an overall win-lose record of 1,309 and 146. In her seventeen-year career, she never ranked below number four. "The thing that separate good players from great ones is mental attitude," she said. "It might only make a difference of two or three points in an entire match but how you play those key points often makes the difference between winning and losing. If the mind is strong you can do almost anything you want."



* * *



In The Crow's Nest, Clarence Day wrote, "Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience."

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LESSONS FROM THE PAST

Experience, they say, is the best teacher. In most instances, we don't have to repeat those experiences since other people have experienced them before. As Andre Gide puts it: "Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again."



Rita Mae Brown is even more direct: "Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment." To which Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, adds, "We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our schoolmasters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us."



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A good example of a man who turned a handicap into a blessing is Arturo Toscanini. He owed his success – or at least his chance at success – to the fact that he was very nearsighted. How could that possibly help a musician? Well, at 19, he was playing cello in an orchestra. Since he couldn't see the music on the stand, he had to memorize it. One day, the orchestra leader became ill and young Toscanini was the only member of the orchestra who knew the score. So, he conducted it without a score and the audience gave him a good hand for it – and audiences kept on doing it.



If he hadn't been nearsighted, he might have continued playing cello in small European orchestras instead of becoming one of the greatest orchestra conductors who ever lived.



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When Leonardo da Vinci was working on his wonderful painting of "The Last Supper," he painted the face of a man he hated as Judas. But when he came to paint the face of Jesus, he tried again and again and failed. It was only when he painted out the face of the man he hated and put another in its place that he had a clear picture of the Lord's countenance. His hatred had created a "dead spot" between him and the work he was doing, and this had to be put right before even his marvelous ability could produce the finished work.



"One of the most expensive luxuries one can possess is to hate somebody," E.T. Wayland said. "A deep-seated grudge in one's life eats away at his peace of mind like a deadly cancer destroying a vital organ of his life."



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Do you recall when Edmund Hillary and his native guide, Tenzing, made their historic climb of Mount Everest? Coming down from the peak, Hillary suddenly lost his footing. Tenzing held the line taut and kept them both from falling by digging his ax into the ice. Later, Tenzing refused any special credit for saving Hillary's life; he considered it a routine part of the job. "Mountain climbers always help each other," he said.



Should the rest of us be any different? "We are not primarily put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through," said Peter DeVries.



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Thomas Alva Edison was talking one day with the governor of North Carolina, and the governor complimented him on his inventive genius. "I am not a great inventor," Edison said. "But you have over a thousand patents to your credit, haven't you?" queried the governor.



"Yes, but about the only invention I can really claim as absolutely original is the phonograph," Edison admitted. "I guess, I'm an awfully good sponge. I absorb ideas from every source I can, and put them to practical use. Then I improve them until they become of some value. The ideas which I use are mostly the ideas of other people who don't develop them themselves."



Here's another story about him. In attempting to find a filament for his incandescent bulb, he tried more than 200 different substances. "You have failed more than 200 times," he was told. "Why don't you give up?" Edison replied, "Not at all. I have discovered more than 200 things that will not work. I will soon find one that will."



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Your key for personal success is persistence, for persistence produces power. In 1831, a young man failed in business. In 1832, he was defeated for the legislature. In 1833, he again failed in business. In 1834, he was elected to the Legislature. In 1838, he was defeated for Speaker; in 1840 defeated for Elector; in 1843 defeated for Congress; in 1846 elected to Congress; in 1855 defeated for Senate; in 1856 defeated for Vice-President; in 1858 defeated for Senate; in 1860 elected to the President of the United States. His name? Abraham Lincoln.



"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence," said Calvin Coolidge. "Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."



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Chris Evert is one of the greatest female athletes of all time. She holds the 18 grand slam titles and an overall win-lose record of 1,309 and 146. In her seventeen-year career, she never ranked below number four. "The thing that separate good players from great ones is mental attitude," she said. "It might only make a difference of two or three points in an entire match but how you play those key points often makes the difference between winning and losing. If the mind is strong you can do almost anything you want."



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In The Crow's Nest, Clarence Day wrote, "Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience."

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RP'S CORAL REEFS ON THE VERGE OF EXTINCTION

Over the past 30 years, coral reefs in the Philippines have been slowly dying. "The most productive reef areas in the world are now known as some of the most endangered," said a new report.



In 2002, some of the top leading marine scientists ranked the Philippines as the number one (according to the degree of threat) among the world's top ten coral reef hotspots. The identified hotspots contain just 24 per cent of the world's coral reefs, or 0.017 percent of the oceans.



The World Atlas of Coral Reefs, compiled by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), reported that 97 percent of reefs in the Philippines are under threat from destructive fishing techniques, including cyanide poisoning, over-fishing, or from deforestation and urbanization that result in harmful sediment spilling into the sea.



The report has just been confirmed a survey released by Reef Check, an international organization assessing the health of reefs in 82 countries. "Despite its high biodiversity, the Philippines' reefs are very badly damaged. It's one of the worst damaged in the world, on the average," says George Hodgson, founder of the California-based organization.



In 2007, Reef Check stated that only five percent of the country's coral reefs are in "excellent condition." These are the Tubbataha Reef Marine Park in Palawan, Apo Island in Negros Oriental, Apo Reef in Puerto Galera, Mindoro, and Verde Island Passage off Bagatangas.



Unfortunately, these natural treasure throves are in danger. "Nowhere else in the world are coral reefs abused as much as the reefs in the Philippines," deplored marine scientist Don McAllister, who has also done some studies on the cost of coral reef destruction in the country.



The Philippines has about 27,000 square kilometers of coral reefs, says Angel C. Alcala, former environment secretary. Two-thirds of these are in Palawan and the Sulu Archipelago. There are about 400 species of reef-forming corals in the country, comparable with those found in Great Barrier Reef of Australia.



"When divers talked about the world's finest coral reefs 20 years ago, the consensus for the top spot was always the Philippines, but nobody feels that way now," commented John McCosker, the chairman of aquatic biology at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.



Coral reefs, or "biological wonders" as environmental author Don Hinrichsen calls them, are among the largest and oldest living communities of plants and animals on earth, having evolved between 200 and 450 million years ago.



"Today, most established coral reefs are between 5,000 and 10,000 years old; many of them forming thin veneers over older, much thicker reef structures," said Hinrichsen, who has explored coral reefs around the world for his book on coastal ecosystem.



Coral reefs constitute one of the earth's most productive ecosystems. "They benefit people directly by providing food, medicine, construction materials and other valuable items," writes Alan T. White in his book, Coral Reefs: Valuable Resources of Southeast Asia. "More importantly, coral reefs provide support and sustenance to the other coastal ecosystems upon which people depend."



A single reef can support as many as 3,000 species of marine life. As fishing grounds, they are thought to be 10 to 100 times as productive per unit area as the open sea. In the Philippines, an estimated 10-15 per cent of the total fisheries come from coral reefs. About 80-90 per cent of the incomes of small island communities come from fisheries. "Coral reef fish yields range from 20 to 25 metric tons per square kilometer per year for healthy reefs," says Alcala.



Not only coral reefs serve as home to marine fish species, they also supply compounds for medicines. The Aids drug AZT is based on chemicals extracted from a reef sponge while more than half of all new cancer drug research focuses on marine organisms.



Besides providing food for millions of people, the reefs also generate millions of dollars in tourism and employment. According to the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI), the total economic value of reefs in the Philippines is estimated at US$1.1 billion annually. In Indonesia, the reefs generate an annual income of US$1.6 billion.



But despite all their uses and economic importance, coral reefs are in the region are in deep trouble. "Coral reefs are the cornerstone of the economic and social fabric of Southeast Asia, yet they are the most threatened reefs in the world," deplores Lauretta Burke, a WRI senior associate.



In the Philippines, rapid population growth and the increasing human pressure on coastal resources have resulted in the massive degradation of the coral reefs. Robert Ginsburg, a specialist on coral reefs working with the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, said human beings have a lot to do with the rapid destruction of reefs. "In areas where people are using the reefs or where there is a large population, there are significant declines in coral reefs," he pointed out.



"Life in the Philippines is never far from the sea," wrote Joan Castro and Leona D'Agnes in a new report. "Every Filipino lives within 45 miles of the coast, and every day, more than 4,500 new residents are born."



Estimates show that if the present rapid population growth and declining trend in fish production continue, only 10 kilograms of fish will be available per Filipino per year by 2010, as opposed to 28.5 kilograms per year in 2003.



The government recognizes the looming crisis posed by declining fish stocks and burgeoning population. "If current trends in population growth and coastal resource exploitation continue," the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said, "the availability and affordability of fish to provide a crucial protein source will be lost."



Dynamite and over-fishing on the reefs are largely to blame for the destruction of the very ecosystem that so many poor fishing communities benefit from. Despite laws passed by the government, fishermen are still blasting reefs with dynamite to stun the fish, doing immense damage, and greatly reducing their productivity.



In other parts of the country, fishermen resort to squirting cyanide directly into crevices of the coral reefs to catch fish. "These practices are criminal," commented the late Jacques-Yves Cousteau after visiting a coastal island in the northern Philippines to examine reefs destroyed by cyanide fishing. "They attack the natural productive environment which allows the renewal of marine resources."



Coral mining has also depleted the country's reefs. An estimated 1.5 million kilograms of coral are harvested annually as part of the international trade in reef products. The Philippines is estimated to supply more than a third of the total.



In recent years, a phenomenon called bleaching has also threatened large areas of the country's reefs. This adds to the problems caused by sedimentation (following deforestation), quarrying of the reefs for construction purposes and pollution from industry, mining, and urban sprawl.



The Philippine government made and introduced many laws in an attempt to protect the natural environment on the islands and in the national territorial waters. But the government cannot do it alone; help from individuals are also needed to save the reefs from total annihilation.



"We are the stewards of our nation's resources," said Rafael D. Guerrero III, the executive director of the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development, "we should take care of our national heritage so that future generations can enjoy them. Let's do our best to save our coral reefs. Our children's children will thank us for the effort."

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