The American Frank

You Choose! – The Blogal Village Voice

By Frank A Hilario (American Chronicle, 03 March 2007)

PRIMATE, I GO APE! IF YOU ARE HOMO SAPIENS, THE THINKING SPECIES THAT I THINK YOU ARE, BEFORE YOU FINISH READING THIS, YOU WILL TOO.

In my primate mind’s eye, right in the forefront of country-to-country efforts to mitigate Global Warming, I envision Blogal Warming, a rise by 2 degrees Celsius in the body temperature of primate bloggers all over the world to the level of passion in their advocacy for A Greaner World, greener & cleaner. Personally, only last month, I found that a damn good reason to write more ardently, not the least to blog more arduously, to fever-pitch. Normally, before this, I had been held prisoner by other primal interests.

Primates of the world, unite: You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Consider this Frank Hilario’s Blogal Warning, a 3-decades-delayed response to Al Gore’s Global Warning: We need to change perspective about Climate Change. Houston, we have a problem. The Global Village is fact in that the electric impulse connects us all through the Internet, as Marshall McLuhan predicted, yet the Global Village is fiction in that the connection is divisive and not distributive, elitist and not equitable, devoid of commitment to community, without a shared vision. Whose fault is it? THE PRIMATES, THE GREAT THINKING APES – THE US.

If the billions of us Primates will not change, the one single Climate will change us!

For love of the great apes, I have been thinking of inviting people to join in the grand adventure of The Late Great Planet Earth – it’s late but not too late to be great. Global Warming, The Beast is yet to come, even if Al Gore warned us 30 years ago. Just remember one thing: If we can’t be great this time, we can’t be. With finality, Hamlet’s soliloquy haunts us: ‘To be or not to be, that is the question.’

Now then, I present here what I have defined as 7 Primal Instructions for sapient primates to build the Second Noah’s Ark, to inspire sagacious primates to their late (hopefully not their last) great act of kindness to the planet and therefore to themselves:

(1) Visit the Global Village.
(2) Make out the Blogal Village.
(3) Take the road not taken.
(4) Choose the high road.
(5) Speak of reason.
(6) Declare your faith.
(7) Wage peace, not war.

Come see that you are part of it and can’t be an outsider even if you want to. Come realize the bloggers’ village. Come see about making a difference. Come see the need for ideals. Come see the need to be rational. Come see the need to be hopeful. Come see the promise of peace and the premise of war. Come one, come all!

(1) PRIMATE, COME VISIT THE GLOBAL VILLAGE.

If you’re not with me, you’re against me. Looking at the Internet as a global network of electronic structures and systems designed for unlimited interactions through messages sent back and forth, I see irresistible Promise, but I don’t see intense Practice in terms of translating the Global Village from virtual to verifiable. I see the Internet denizens still have to get their acts together to make the Net a major tool for thinking global, thinking local, acting global, acting local. As of today, it’s more scenes than sense, more bravado than brave, more sex than sexy, more invites than inviting, more tease than ease, more disarray than array. The Net is still as daunting to use as it was in the beginning – and ever shall be?

More, in the McLuhan sense, in the Internet, I can see that the Medium is not the Message yet. The ideal social relationships coming out of the electronic interactions are imperative but not empirical; they are more theoretical than practical. The experts are simply talking to fellow experts or addressing themselves. So, we know that the Internet is too serious a matter to be left to the experts alone! So, we know that the best of the Global Village is yet to come.

Another way of looking at the Internet is that the medium is not one single message but many conflicting messages. As old as of 24 BC, Babylon meant ‘the gateway of the gods’ (Wikipedia) – as young as of 24 years ago, the Internet is simply the modern Babble-On, the gateways of many gods with many tongues, some forked. In the Internet, there are too many people talking at the same time without trying to see each other’s point of view. And multitudes are trying to hurt each other by words, short of the sword.

Notwithstanding, because of the Internet, it is much easier for you and me to realize that we are members of a global tribe called Mankind. In the early 1960s, decades before the Internet came into being, Marshall McLuhan saw whom he called Tribal Man and called this virtual community Global Village. McLuhan saw that radio and TV interconnected man to man by sights and sounds, some of these interactively. In a TV broadcast on 18 May 1960 aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the interviewer mouthed McLuhan’s thoughts, saying by way of introduction:

Touch a button, the world is yours. You know, they talk about the world getting smaller? xx
Everyone is now our own neighborhood. xx The world is now a global village … a global village.

Reading again McLuhan’s little big book Understanding Media: The Extensions Of Man (1964, 13^th ed, New American Library, 318 pages), I agree with William Stewart (2006, livinginternet.com/) that McLuhan effectively predicted the Internet (the Net), saying: ‘Marshall McLuhan’s insights made the concept of a global village, interconnected by an electronic system, part of our popular culture well before it actually happened.’ I see the Net as the global network of networks of computers. With the invention of the World Wide Web (the Web), the Net exploded in the 1990s. I see the Web as the global network of publications online. And therein lies a great promise, a hidden power. Primate, let us discover it.

(2) PRIMATE, COME Make out THE BLOGAL VILLAGE.

I see the Internet as a publisher, The Universal Publisher, and I revel in that thought. With McLuhan’s eyes, I can see that from the Web has arisen the Phoenix of Unpublished Authors in the form of the blog. I see a blog as an uploaded, instantly & automatically approved, published musing, sometimes amusing. There are millions of blogs out there in cyberspace, and millions of bloggers. That computer-generated world I now want to call, in honor of the one and only Marshall McLuhan and the millions of bloggers: The Blogal Village. I love it! I have written a few hundred blogs myself since 04 October 2002 when I posted my first pair of blogs. Now then, paraphrasing Alfred Lord Tennyson, I have become a part of all that I have writ. (And passionately, if not magically. Even as a Muggle, in 30 days, I have written and published in the American Chronicle alone 3 long feature articles on greening the world: ‘The Yankee Dawdle’ 04 Feb, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ 26 Feb and now 03 March ‘Primate Change.’)

Not only blogging, I take to writing like a turtle takes to water. I take it seriously, even when I’m funny. I learned it all by myself, almost. In the mid-1950s, I began to teach myself to write, encouraged by the Reader’s Digest. I began to blog earnestly in 2005, encouraged by my son Jomar. I learned to upload images to my blogs late last year and, a few weeks later, to link the source to it. Interestingly, I called my first blogsite iNNOViSiON (set up 2002 at blogger.com), a pun on innovation, and now, 5 years later, I get an error message when I click ‘View Log.’ Some passions last, some innovations don’t.

From what I’ve seen and heard, the voice of the blogger is largely that of a lone wolf crying in the wilderness. But I am undaunted. I do not write just to count how many will read me afterwards; rather, I write either because I have a new or different message, or I have an old message that I know it would be of value to express in my own way.

I am Blogger, and my name is Legion. Ah, to think of the awesome power the bloggers can exercise as one Village Voice if only they will! I wrote this because I want them to realize that, because they haven’t already. Let the Blogal Village Voice rise in symphony with the stars!

I propose that the Blogal Village Voice be the Global Village Voice. To speak to Primates for Primates. To espouse Primate Change to moderate Climate Change.

Now, what can we expect of the Blogal Village Voice? To speak of the road not taken. To speak of the high road. To speak of faith, of reason, of peace. Never mind if the Village Voice will be one crying in the wilderness of the Internet.

(3) PRIMATE, COME TAKE THE ROAD NOT TAKEN.

So how will the Blogal Village Voice move the Global Village to act?

I now call on all bloggers: Remembering that we are primates ourselves (assuming Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is correct), let us blog to bring about primate change to bring about climate change. Be warned that it is a lonely road; it is the road taken by one in a million primal bloggers.

Precisely! A few of us can make more of a difference, more of us can make small worlds of a difference. For inspiration, I offer these verses from one of my favorite Yankees, John F Kennedy’s personal choice of poet laureate, the earthy one of San Francisco (born 26 March 1874) and New England:

The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost (1915)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler; long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Remember, primates: If we don’t make a difference today, we won’t make a difference tomorrow. Remember, Big Brother Global Warming is watching!

(4) PRIMATE, COME TAKE THE HIGH ROAD.

Primates all, we have refused to acknowledge the fact of global warming until it is this late. WE HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY, AND IT IS US. So, in trying to defeat the enemy within us, let us defeat evil not with evil but with good.

So, primate bloggers, allow me to offer you what I wrote 19 months ago, ‘The (Real) Ten Commandments Of Blogging,’ published 15 Feb 2006 in my blogsite Blogging Rights (braggingrights.blogspot.com/). They are reality-based and clearly patterned after The Ten Commandments of God. There are other Ten Commandments of Blogging out there but none of those sets are created equal, that is to say, the commandments in a blogger’s ten are not mutually exclusive of each other, even as they are convenient lists of ten things to do or not to do. In my case, I wanted a real group of ten memorable, practical, Bible-based commandments to help bloggers become constructive rather than destructive, creative rather than critical, based on my own writing experience of 50 years. So now, dedicated to a higher good, I give you those ten commandments that I have retitled and rewritten as my contribution to the Blogal Village Voice:

The Ten Commandments Of Blog

I.
I am the Lord, your Blog; thou shalt not have strange blogs before me. Don’t write blogs that are ambiguous, indeterminate, hazy, fuzzy, muddled. Follow the 4 Cs of communication and be clear, concise, comprehensive, coherent. And: Be convinced that your fight is right, in this instance, that the only way to combat climate change is primate change – man has to change his attitude, from one of indifference to concern, and from concern to concerted action, about greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere that deflate the ozone layer and cause global warming. If that primate change has to begin with you, just do it!

II.
Thou shalt not take the name of your Blog in vain. Be serious, but do not swear when you blog. To be funny or ridiculous? You choose. Be productive, but don’t lie, don’t fabricate, don’t exaggerate, don’t obfuscate, don’t prevaricate. Above all, remember that as a blogger, you have a high moral duty to not make a joke of it at the expense of others.

III.
Remember the sabbatical, to keep it holy. Sabbath is a day of rest. To be creative, learn to relax even as you write your draft, as you revise what you have written. Refresh and give yourself long breaks and weekends from being critical. Enjoy the masters of thinking like Ray Bradbury and his theory of association, Edward de Bono and his theory of lateral thinking, Howard Gardner and his theory of multiple intelligences, even Robert Pirsig with his motorcycle & art of Zen maintenance. Don’t write as if you are always in a hurry. Write a draft; after finishing a draft, set it aside and do something else; then go back to that draft the following day. If you want to write well, learn to revise well, and that takes time. Take it from me. I find that I am very happy with the results when I have 1 draft and 4 revisions of that draft. Starting to write this 01 March, I will publish only after the 5^th draft.

IV.
Honor thy fodder and thy madder. Think well and do better. Think fodder, to remind yourself about the need to put food on the table: you have to eat, your family have to eat. Think madder too, and remind yourself along these lines: Do not get mad, do not get madder, do not get even – get religion!

V.
Thou shalt not kill. Be stout of heart as you wrestle with big or unwieldy theories, but entertain no murderous thoughts. Do not abort unborn infant ideas; instead, let them be delivered unto the world; be a good parent to them. Do not oppose the delivery of babyish concepts and constructs; instead, expose and offer them as sacrifice to the minds of the world and let The Great Wind Of The Survival Of The Greatest run its course. If you do that, you will be traveling the road to healthy, invigorating creativity. Let me be the judge of that!

VI.

Thou shalt not commit adulteration. Be pure of heart. Be honest. Do not contaminate your attack, or defense, with any ad hominem, argumentum misericordiam, non-sequitur or any of the other defects of debate. Argue logically, beautifully; convince imaginatively.

VII.
Thou shalt not steal. Learn more. Stop, look & listen. Read & revise, not plagiarize. If you have to copy ideas, cite your sources. To avoid embarrassing quotation marks, learn to extract the essence of what you read and put them down in your own words. With software, you can cheat on Grammar & Spelling (click the icon), but you can’t steal vocabulary; to be able to write well in your own fashion, you have to increase your stock of words. Use the Thesaurus – how do you think I wrote this one?

VIII.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor. Build, not destroy. Do not manufacture evidence; do not misinform, do not twist facts. Be truthful and tactful. Do what the Romans do in Rome following Saint Paul: As much as possible, be at peace with everyone.

IX.
Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s wile. Admire, not desire. Let him have his own gimmick, stratagem, ruse, device, ploy or contrivance. Learn from it if you can. Be original, think up your own artifice. Or get ideas from the Bible – Shakespeare did. Get ideas from the Internet – I always do. And yes, learn from marketing, such as to transform a negative into a positive.

X.
Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s gods. Remember: Love of money is the god of all evil. Use but not amuse yourself with wealth. Trust your heart on what is the true treasure, the higher value, the utmost ideal. Finally, primates, following Saint Paul, be seekers of whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there by any virtue, and if there by any praise, dwell on these things.

If you like, call them ‘The Ten Commandments For Primates To Love.’ But: What if primates can’t follow The Ten Commandments? Let the primates do their best anyway – only their best is good enough.

(5) PRIMATE, COME SPEAK OF REASON.

It may be that even at this point you’re not convinced global warming stands to reason. Where’s the proof? you ask. I say: We don’t need proof.

If you ask for proof, you’re asking for the testimony of science. ‘A solid understanding of the world is the first step for improving living conditions of all people throughout the world,’ Gene Shackman says (2006, gsociology.icaap.org/). You need science for that. The theory is that we need to be certain, if not know for sure, before we can wisely act. But that has been the paradigm of the world since the invention of the scientific method as early as 1600 BC; from that time on, the steps of the scientific method adapted had been: examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis (Wikipedia).

And where are we now after 3,607 years of the application of science to life? We are in after the beginning of global warming. That is The Inconvenient Truth.

You still doubt that there is global warming? Then the Hollywood stars are more discerning than you are – the members of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences have just bestowed the 2007 Oscar for ‘Best Documentary’ on Al Gore’s The Inconvenient Truth. Read the news, watch the film! This is a film that substantiates the claim of global warming with evidence from around the world and conclusions of scientists & experts after much deliberation & debate. Oh, it’s a film I myself haven’t seen but have believed. Didn’t Jesus Christ say? ‘Blessed are those that have not seen but have believed!’

Earlier, the United Nations came out with a report that global warming is a fact (‘unequivocal’) (for more details, see also my other American Chronicle article, ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ In response (to the UN Report, not to my article), European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas was reported to have said (William Echikson, 1 Mar 2007, nasdaq.com/):

I am deeply concerned at the accelerating pace and the increasing extent of climate change that (the UN Report) shows. It is now more urgent than ever that the international community get down to serious negotiations on a comprehensive new worldwide agreement to stop global warming.

The EU has been urging the US to agree to a unilateral cutting of greenhouse gas emissions at least 20% by 2020. But the United States is not about to be persuaded. That is because US officials are convinced that unilateral cuts of gas emissions will result in a damaged economy for the US (AP, 2 Feb 2007, foxnews.com/). What is bad for General Motors is bad for the US.

We need the Blogal Village Voice to say that the Yankee explanation for the US Government’s refusal to order public and private cuts in greenhouse gas emissions is damaged reasoning. We primal bloggers need to keep faith with the people if the politicians will not.

(6) PRIMATE, COME DECLARE YOUR FAITH.

Man is the creator of the Internet, the Web, the email, the chat, the blog – and primates see that it is good. Something tells this primate we have an intelligent species here, truly Homo sapiens, a sapient human, a thinking species. I have faith that the Blogal Village Voice can help the fight against global warming that threatens the global village if more primates open their mouth.

Fortunately, all bloggers are driven; unfortunately, millions of primate bloggers are driven by selfish motives: they blog only for self-expression or self-aggrandizement. That is why I write: To raise the consciousness of Blogal Villagers from being parochial to being pivotal, from being insular to peninsular, from being narrow-minded to broad-minded, from being present-thinking to future-thinking.

The voice of faith calls for the Blogal Village Voice, that is, US BLOGGERS, to use the medium of the Internet to get the message across. And we need teamwork so that we can conduct not sporadic, uncoordinated efforts but a Village Voice Campaign – and if it’s a campaign, it must follow the AIDA precepts for the diffusion of knowledge that graduates into a clarification of theory which must precede a determination of practice:

Awareness – First, we need to raise the consciousness of the people from the ground up as well as from top to bottom, about climate change. By awareness, I refer to an alertness or watchfulness on changes in environmental conditions prevailing over certain periods of time: temperature, wind, water of all forms everywhere: rain, clouds, snow, iceberg, irrigation water, evaporation, transpiration, groundwater.

Interest – Next, we must further raise the consciousness of those who are already aware into the level of curiosity, further to lead them into desiring to do something about it, whatever they can where they can with what they have.

Decision – Then we must be able to convince those who have expressed desire to select a path for them to take and then to make the decision and go ahead and do what they have to do.

Action – Above all, we must get our acts together. There must be a corporate plan in the first place. We will need to have a common vision, a common mission to achieve that vision, and a common goal to carry out that mission.

My primal goal in this article is not to provide the practice (what to do) but to promote the theory (what to think before one has to do what has to be done).

(7) PRIMATE, COME WAGE PEACE, NOT WAR.

In all that the Blogal Village Voice must do, it must be the voice of peace. The premise of war is that it is for peace – a contradiction. I know this is almost impossible for primate bloggers who equate primal freedom with primeval license, but primal blogging must follow AJ Muste’s dictum: ‘There is no way to peace; peace is the way.’ Now, in this planet where every movement seems to point to violence, how can we bloggers blog in the name of peace? At this point in time, I can think of no primal guide but this prayer of St Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. 

Primates, unless we make a paradigm shift to love, in time Planet Earth will make a parabola shift and launch us in a well-deserved orbit either toward the sun (fire) or away from the sun (ice) – then Robert Frost’s poem ‘Fire And Ice’ will finally show us poetic justice.

Copyright 03 March 2007 by Frank A Hilario. The image I used is from the Internet via Yahoo Image Search, with rendering by Photoshop. And you know what? I have made a primal primate change and moved from another bloghost to WordPress. I like the climate here, that’s why. Frank’s Technorati ProFiler 

William Dar, The Filipino

As Global Manager

THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH, ITS ORIGIN IS WESTERN.

Al Gore’s film, Our Film, directed by David Guggenheim, has just won the Oscar for ‘Best Documentary’ as I revise this 26 February 2007, at high noon Manila time. An inconvenient truth is that it is high time we revise everything we have on our hands that has anything to do with polluting the physical environment, not to mention polluting the psychological, spiritual, political, economic environments, not necessarily in that order.

The Inconvenient Truth as documentary also won the Oscar for ‘Best Original Song’ with the one written by Melissa Etheridge, ‘I Need To Wake Up.’

We need to wake up to the reality that we have to have faith in whom we can’t see, such as God and gravity, and to believe in the things we can’t touch, such as the ozone layer above our heads and the bottom of the iceberg beneath our feet. A crewman said of the Titanic: ‘God himself could not sink this ship’ (National Geographic quoted in NextTag.com/) – well, an iceberg tipped the unsinkable ship. The ozone layer protects us from the relentless ultraviolet radiation of the sun; in return, the ozone layer is not protected from our own relentless greenhouse gas emissions, thereby depleting the ozone layer. So: Global warming is of our own making. Planet Earth is our Noah’s Ark; God would not sink Noah’s Ark, but we would.

After the disquieting UN Report on climate change early this month, I happily note in quiet that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (the one that awards the Oscars) has not gangrene but has gone green. The difference is gross: In case of injury or disease, gangrene results from an insufficient blood supply to body tissue; in the case of Hollywood, gone green results from a sufficient blood supply to the brain tissue. With that observation, I shall assume most managers will take a lesson from Mr Global Warner himself. Observe how Al Gore is behaving intelligently in his advocacy: Acting locally, acting globally. Thinking locally, thinking globally. Advocating business unusual.

So now I can tell myself: ‘There is intelligent life on earth.’ Long ago and far away, I asked myself some 40 years before this: ‘Is there intelligent life on earth?’ In those times I thought I was the only intelligent life on earth. You call that conceit. Today, some managers’ conceit is that there is no global warming. Insisting business as usual.

We need to go back to the basics of faith and reason. We are 30 years late in responding to Yankee Al Gore’s global warning but, I hope, not too late. In an interview after the Oscars, he told Kim Chipman (25 Feb, bloomberg.com/) about how to behave globally toward climate change and knowing many Yankees wanted him to run again for President of the mightiest nation in the world:

It’s not a political issue; it’s a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That’s a renewable resource; let’s renew it.

The will to act? The 79^th Oscars acted on its will – in fact, it went green like this (Mary Milliken, 26 Feb, in.today.reuters.com/): first, they made sure the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood underwent an energy audit; then on The Day of the Oscars, movie stars rode in plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars; all around, print materials being distributed had been printed on recycled paper; organic food was served at the Governor’s Ball, with advocacy by the National Resources Defense Council. How green was the Hollywood valley!

About the strange creatures called hybrid vehicles and Hollywood stars, FTM tells us (forthemen.com/) that Cameron Diaz (Shrek) has one, Leonardo di Caprio (The Departed) has two. The Toyota Prius, the first hybrid car released to the public, is very popular with Hollywood stars. The Honda Insight was the first hybrid car sold in the US. Thank God for Toyota and Honda and Hollywood.

How about those of us outside of Hollywood? We can do no less! CNN (06 Feb, cnn.com/) quotes Al Gore as saying:

Our responsibility to our children and those who come after us is sacred and we must discharge our responsibility. And the good news is the changes we need to make are ones that will improve the quality of life. They’re things that we should be doing anyway.

‘My fellow Americans,’ Mr Green Al Gore told the Oscar audience in the US and all over the world (Gary Gentile, Associated Press, 26 Feb, cbsnews.com/), ‘people all over the world: We need to solve the climate crisis.’ Global warming is ‘the overriding world challenge of our time,’ he said. ‘I really hope the decision by the Academy to honor the work by Director David Guggenheim and these producers will convince people who did not go see it to see the movie and learn about the climate crisis and become a part of the solution.’ The producers – Lawrence Bender, Scott Burns, Laurie David (Wikipedia) – have become part of the solution while we’re still part of the problem.

To those who can’t manage their global doubts, or global indifference, I suggest this: First, look at whatever you’re doing (thinking locally) and then think long and hard about what it’s doing outside of you (thinking globally). What about freedom? you Americans may ask. You’re free to decide what to do next. I only hope you appreciate the fact that this time you can’t manage to evade your responsibility in the exercise of your freedom. And why is that? Freedom is like this: You are free to swing your arm short of my nose (I borrowed that from Dean Ricardo Pascual of the College of Law of the University of the Philippines, something I memorized more than 40 years ago). You are free to ride your car and throw your CO_{2 (}acting locally) short of my nose (acting globally).

In case you didn’t know, carbon dioxide or CO₂ is the most infamous of the exhausts from humans. Of the 6 major greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming, carbon dioxide leads all the rest: methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs and PFCs (Larry West 2007, environment.about.com/). And the United States is still leading all the rest of the countries with her contribution of 5 trillion tonnes of CO₂ a year, and all 16 countries of the European Union with their total of 6 trillion tonnes (West 2007). This should not be the case.

Enter The Inconvenient Fruit, a different kind of hybrid.

THE INCONVENIENT FRUIT, ITS ORIGIN IS EASTERN.

Belonging to the inconvenient class, fossil fuels are non-renewable; so, making them the major energy source for cars should not have been the case in the first place. Those gas-guzzling-and-therefore-gas-emitting cars have become the antithesis of man’s civilized progress.

We need to completely junk fossil fuels in favor of biofuels – that’s an inconvenient truth. Meanwhile, hybrid cars in many states in the US now use 10% to 90% ethanol to gasoline blends; Brazil uses 24% (Madhu Chittora, 2 May 2005, projectsmonitor.com/). We do have a choice of source: The Yankee gets his bioenergy from Zea mays (corn); the Brazilian gets his from Saccharum officinarum (sugarcane); the Indian gets his from Sorghum bicolor (sweet sorghum). To each his own species.

Let’s go Indian, choosing the inconvenient fruit. Among those I call the climate crops, sweet sorghum is relatively unknown among those species that catch the CO₂ from the air and turn it into food, feed, fuel, fertilizer for the survival of the species. I know that to advocate sweet sorghum as the global source of ethanol for biofuel is to advocate a relatively unknown and largely unappreciated crop in Asia, Africa and America – to write two major feature articles on this poor man’s crop may be on my part an inconvenient froth over an inconvenient fruit. This should not be the case either.

Meanwhile, they have gone Indian at the campus of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (icrisat) in Andhra Pradesh. They have come up with what I shall refer to here as the sweet sorghum initiative. For having come up with the initiative, the concept if not the term, for having led Team icrisat in the rediscovery and nurturing of sweet sorghum as an energy crop, for having successfully marketed the idea of sweet sorghum ethanol first to the private and government sectors in India, for now boldly propagating sweet sorghum as the climate crop in Africa and Asia:

Dr William Dar, Director General of icrisat in faraway India, Filipino, is My Global Manager of the Year (2006).

Since there is no such award, it has been necessary to invent it. I have 7 reasons choosing Dr Dar as my global manager because he has chosen:

(1) A global crop – Sweet sorghum used to be the least famous of those species that catch the CO₂ from the air and turn it into food, feed, fuel, fertilizer for man and beast – and help mitigate global warming for all of us sinners & saints, black & white & brown. I happen to believe that sweet sorghum is the best climate crop of them all, for 7 reasons; here’s a summary of what I said about it in ‘The Yankee Dawdle. On Discovery Sorghum, The Great Climate Crop,’ earlier published in American Chronicle: (1) Sorghum is a much cheaper source of ethanol for blending with gasoline than sugarcane. (2) It is plantable in wastelands, drylands and wetlands, so it does not have to compete for space with major food crops like rice, wheat and corn. (3) Like rice, sweet sorghum is a cash crop; it grows fast and the farmer harvests in 4 months. (4) Since it thrives even on poor soils, sweet sorghum can save on millions of dollars of fossil fuel-based fertilizer imports where the optimum sustainable yield is the objective. (5) Sweet sorghum is the crop of millions of poor farmers, and therefore any increased need for the harvest increases their benefits from their crop. (6) Cultivating sweet sorghum as crop for ethanol production will save more millions of dollars in terms of fossil fuel non-imports than corn or sugarcane. (7) An ethanol distillery based on sweet sorghum is less polluting than that based on sugarcane or corn.

(2) A global vision – icrisat’s global vision is ‘Science with a Human Face.’ A ‘corporate vision is a short, succinct, inspiring statement of what the organization intends to become and to achieve at some point in the future’ (1000ventures.com/). ‘Corporate success depends on the vision articulated by the chief executive or the top management.’ As chief executive of icrisat, Dr Dar has been articulating this global vision for 7 years now. I have not seen or read a vision more global than that for science. So: Sweet sorghum for ethanol production is a global crop with a global vision.

(3) A global mission – A mission must be that which is designed to help bring about a vision. With that in mind, as I see it, icrisat’s advocacy of a ‘Grey-to-Green Revolution’ (William Dar 2007, Nurturing Life In The Drylands Of Hope, icrisat, Andhra Pradesh, India, in CD) is the Institute’s global mission. So: Growing sweet sorghum for ethanol production is implementing a grey-to-green revolution towards achieving a global vision.

(4) A global strategy – From Vadim Kotelnikov (2001, 1000ventures.com/), we learn that a strategy is ‘the way in which a company orients itself towards the market in which it operates and towards the other companies in the marketplace against which it competes. It is a plan an organization formulates to gain a sustainable advantage over the competition.’ As I see it, sweet sorghum was chosen by icrisat as its climate crop not for maximizing production but for optimizing it: what you sow is what you get (wysiwyg). To optimize is to make the most of what you have; ergo, to wysiwyg is to optimize. So: icrisat has come up with sweet sorghum hybrids that are ‘photoperiod insensitive’ – meaning, they can be planted at different months so that there can be harvests of the crop all months of the year, ensuring continuous supply of raw materials, which is necessary for successful manufacturing and marketing. As far as I know, we don’t have corn or sugarcane hybrids that grow well whatever the month or season. So: The planting of icrisat’s sorghum hybrids for ethanol production is a global strategy to implement a global mission / global revolution towards achieving a global vision.

(5) A global outlook – An outlook is a point of view, an attitude (American Heritage Dictionary 2000). By dictionary, the word global has many shades of meaning: international, worldwide, multinational, great, powerful (American Heritage); universal, comprehensive, total, inclusive, overall, large-scale (Microsoft Encarta Dictionary 2005). I will now summarize all those and thereby add my own definition in one word: shared. Within icrisat itself, the work ethic is shared – the work force call themselves Team icrisat. Dr Dar, Team Captain, leads and guides the icrisat staff to work together for the good of all, literally and figuratively. This is how icrisat has been able to produce hybrids of sweet sorghum as well as sell the species as a global crop for ethanol production to Rusni Distilleries Ltd so that now Rusni is producing commercial ethanol from sweet sorghum stalks (IPR, 11 Oct 2006, seedquest.com/). So: Teamwork is icrisat’s internal global outlook in nurturing sweet sorghum as a global crop using a global strategy to implement a global mission to achieve a global vision.

(6) A global reach and impact - Today Africa, tomorrow the world. Already, icrisat has regional centers and research stations in Africa: Kenya, Niger, Mali, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique. Icrisat is now reaching out to Asian and American countries with its sweet sorghum initiative. Sweet sorghum is actually already grown in many countries: the United States, Australia, Africa (where it is known as durra), India (jowar), Ethiopia (bachanta). On her part, directly inspired by the Rusni sweet sorghum distillery as proof of concept, led by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Philippines has embarked on her own program of producing ethanol from the crop despite the fact that sweet sorghum is exotic to the islands (INF, 10 Sept 2006, nordis.net/). So: icrisat is reaching out globally in nurturing sweet sorghum as a global crop using a global strategy to implement a global mission to achieve a global vision.

(7) A global mode of operation – My readings of the many reports of icrisat and on icrisat have given me another idea. The global mode of operation that this international research institute has adopted for its successful sweet sorghum initiative may be referred to as the sci-fi mode. That’s an acronym for science, citizen, financing, management, good offices, distribution of benefits, ecology. The assumptions here are that there is (a) a coalition of the willing: science, citizen, financing, management, good offices, and (b) a qualification of benefits to man and the ecology. It is science that brings the crop to the attention of the citizen farmer who cultivates the soil and the citizen entrepreneur who brings in the needed technology and financing for a distillery. The good offices that have been supportive of the sweet sorghum initiative of icrisat are (a) in terms of policy – the local and national governments of India, and (b) in terms of advocacy – the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (cgiar), of which icrisat is one of the 15 international centers under its wings. Since the growing of sweet sorghum is labor-intensive, starting with the sowing of the seeds, this crop benefits more people by way of job creation. This kind of sci-fi must be managed well, remembering that what sci-fi management needs is not a business model but rather a development model. And since ethanol lowers the cost of energy for cars as well as lowers the threat of global warming, the sci-fi mode for sweet sorghum distributes the benefits of science-citizen-finance collaboration truly on a global scale, to the largest ecology of them all: Planet Earth.

Al Gore’s film is Our Film, as Planet Earth is Our Town. Thornton Wilder is quoted as saying about his play ‘Our Town’ (PBS (pbs.org/) :

Our claim, our hope, our despair are in the mind – not in things, not in ‘scenery.’ Moliere said that for the theatre all he needed was a platform and a passion or two. The climax of this play needs only five square feet of boarding and the passion to know what life means to us.

We can say then that ‘global warming’ is merely scenery, so we don’t have to present it to the citizens of Our Town. If we believe that, we lack five square feet of understanding and the passion to feel what life means to us, all of us together.

Now then, an inconvenient truth is that what the world needs now is go into not only a paradigm shift but a mode shift. The sci-fi mode I have just described for the sweet sorghum initiative of icrisat is so far a successful attempt to scale up science as to become global, as in:
(a) pandemic, involving wide geographic areas within a country
(b) universal, involving applicability under varied conditions
(c) multi-sectoral, involving all sectors of society
(d) multi-national, involving international partners within a country
(e) total, involving production, processing, marketing of products and distribution of benefits
(f) regional, involving formal groupings of several countries in an identifiable geographical setting
(g) worldwide, involving multiplier effects or ramifications throughout the world.

Cannot the climate change initiative of Al Gore learn from all that?

Sugarcane ethanol is the Brazilians’ choice, corn ethanol is the Yankees’ choice. Sweet sorghum ethanol has lower sulphur and higher octane and is cheaper to produce than sugarcane ethanol (Belum VS Reddy et al 2006, ‘Sweet Sorghum,’ icrisat brochure), as well as is cheaper than corn ethanol (Michael H Lau et al 2006, afpc.tamu.edu/). With a global manager in the person of a Filipino from Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur in Northern Philippines, an inconvenient PhD (Horticulture) graduate from the University of the Philippines Los Baños working in inconvenient India, sweet sorghum as an inconvenient fruit is proving to be a convenient fruit of science in the service of the people, directly aimed at effectively delivering good fire to stronger car engines, contributing good wealth to fuller people’s pockets, distributing good health from cleaner everyday winds.

Al Gore’s Occidental initiative is global warning; William Dar’s Oriental initiative is global cropping. Oh, East is East, and West is West / And it’s up to us to make sure / The twain ever shall meet.

Al Gore is a layman talking science; William Dar is a scientist talking layman. They are talking the same language: it’s called Global Warming. The Oscar for The Inconvenient Truth is another global warning about the survival of Planet Earth as we know it, our own survival as a species as we cherish it.

Another ‘scholar of grand ideas,’ in Andrew Leigh’s words (2000, econrsss.anu.edu.au/) is Francis Fukuyama, who is into politics and economics and is Chairman of the Board of a new magazine, The American Interest. Fukuyama is best known as the brash author and proclaimer of The End Of History And The Last Man published by the Free Press in 1992. Fukuyama says in his book The Great Disruption (1999): ‘A great deal of social behavior is not learned but part of the genetic inheritance of man and his great ape forbears’ (quoted by Marc D Guerra 2001, acton.org/). Now, I don’t think Fukuyama’s theory of the great disruption of social order worldwide in the 3 decades between the 1960s and 1990s is correct, but if we continue to ignore the 3 decades of global warning by Al Gore, it is not to the American interest only that we are not descendants but that we are the great apes ourselves and Fukuyama’s prediction will come true:

The End Of History And The Last Man.

Copyright 27 February 2007 by Frank A Hilario. The image of Al Gore and the globe is from the Internet; what you see is my rendering by Photoshop.

 

Man invented Valentine’s Day to love anyway, dating it 14 February and celebrating love each year with the Signs of the Times: Valentine cards, greetings, gifts. I shall from now on celebrate it with the Signs of Love.

The world stones me with the gravel of hate and showers me with the sand of indifference, unceasingly. Love, I shall love anyway, endlessly. This much I know: Love is the affirmation of the true, the good, the beautiful; hate is the affirmation of the untrue, the ungood, the unbeautiful.

In the 3^rd century, Bishop Valentine celebrated love by giving all of his great wealth and all of himself – he was beheaded by Emperor Claudius on 14 February 270 AD for celebrating young love and rejecting the Emperor’s War. Today, the world celebrates his love sacrifice with tokens of affection. I shall be of this world and not of this world.

What the world needs now is to collect on the promises of Love, not on the promises of Man (embracing Woman). What Man needs now is not liberation from hunger, not liberation from war, not liberation from terrorism, not liberation from disease, not liberation from poverty, not liberation from global warming, not liberation from political incorrectness – what Man needs now is liberation from unlove, which is his own. What Man needs now is to make love, not war.

I know that love is beautiful.

To love is always to be unfair, never to be fair. That’s why it’s love. That’s why it’s beautiful, that’s why it’s heavenly. Otherwise, it’s just economics, just swap, just barter, just exchange of goods, just commerce, just intercourse. Otherwise, it’s just a rule of law, just a rule of Man.

What is love? Love is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that all who may believe in Him shall not perish but have everlasting love. Except that I am born again, I shall not enter the kingdom of love.

Love is something that doesn’t belong to me – it belongs to everyone. I shall not know the power of love until I share it. I know that it’s a treasure. If I keep a treasure to myself, I limit its power to multiply my pleasure.

Sometimes I shall love more, sometimes I shall love much; always I shall love. I shall love food but not excessively. I shall love leisure but not make it my master. I shall love TV shows but not allow them to rule my life. I shall love the newspapers but not believe everything they say. I shall love the Internet but not make it my fountain of wisdom. I shall love the computer and make it my slave.

I know that love is in and out. I was conceived in love. I was born out of love. Why can’t I go out of my way in love? Only, I, am, stopping, me.

A love has he who loves his friend. A great love has he who loves his enemy. No greater love has he who dies for his enemy.

Love is not writing a love letter; it’s writing a love life. Love makes me happy even if there is so much unlove in the world. I’m happy writing a love life.

I shall be full of love. And it is only I who can fill the emptiness. And there is only one thing I can fill the emptiness with: Love.

In love and in time, I shall know the answers to many questions. What’s the best form of love? That which I have right now. What’s the best expression of my love? That which I can think of. What’s the best gift in love? Myself. What’s the best time for love? All the time. What’s the best toast for love? ‘To love!’ When will I find love? When I will.

I know that love is a mystery, beyond understanding.

I don’t know how to love, but I shall love anyway.

To one who has love, no explanation is necessary. To one without love, no explanation is possible.

I don’t understand love. Love is beyond me. Love is something I sense and not sense, feel and not feel, see and not see, hear and not hear, think and not think.

To me, love is like a red, red rose. And a pink. And a yellow. And a blue rose.

There are no ingredients of love. Love is the ingredient entire of itself.

I know that love is not a 50-50 proposition. It’s not a proposition at all. I can’t propose love – I can only do it, I can only give it. And when I do love, it’s not a ratio, not a proportion, not a share, not a turn, not a schedule. Love has no components, no elements, no facets, no dimensions. Love is always all or nothing at all.

Love doesn’t prove anything. It is not out to prove anything. What need do I have of proof?! It is itself the proof. I know that love is not a heroism of the intellect; it is a surrender. Love has reason that reason itself does not understand.

I know that love is a paradox: If I give more love, my love will give me more. A little love will bring my soul to heaven; a little more love will bring heaven to my soul.

I know that love is a mystery, so I shall not bother trying to define it for myself. If it were not a mystery, what would be the reason to seek it? Love is meant to be defined in the living of it. Love depends on the lover, me.

Love has no beginning and no end. I shall not look for the beginning – I shall just go ahead and do it. I shall not look for the end – there is no end if there is no beginning.

From whom shall I learn love? Except that I be born again, I shall not learn love. I shall learn from the infants, the children, the innocent ones. They trust. They keep faith. They keep on caring. They will get mad and cry and run away and come back. They hug with their little arms and their big hearts. Their smile is as fresh as the morning dew. They know how to love beyond their hurts.

The best kept secret of love is that it’s an active verb, not a passive noun. Love is something I give, more than what I receive. I know that in love, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Love is a passionate intuition. Unless I love, I will never understand.

I know that love is enriching.

I want to know. I know that love is for knowing. Why should I love someone who hates me? Because I want to know what love is. Why should I love someone I hate? Because I already know what hate is.

I shall think of love always. I know that love is the greatest good. Even when I think it’s stupid to love, I shall love anyway. Love is how I define it by what I do and how I do it. I define the blessings that love gives back to me by the love I give.

If I give love, love is what I get back. Love cannot give anything back except itself. Maybe not at once, but sooner or later. I look forward to the day when I can say, sincerely: ‘My cup runneth over.’

What’s the best medium to express my love? My action.
What’s the best way to say ‘I love you’ to someone? To mean it.
What’s the best place to make love? In my heart.
What’s the best music for love? That which is available.
What’s the best reason to love? None. If I reason it out, it’s not love; rather, it becomes a prize and there can be only one winner.

Love is addicting, love is fulfilling. Love is the most profound thought I can have – but only if I don’t think about it.

I know that love is everyday.

I can recognize love in any message sent to me, whatever the form is, whatever the subject is. It’s the love that counts, not the message.

I shall love the peace and seek meaning from it. If I don’t find meaning, I shall love anyway. Someday I’ll find that meaning.

I shall love the noise of life. It’s part of life. I shall live life. I shall love life. I shall live love.

I shall love myself. I shall remind myself always: Don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t abuse drugs, don’t abuse women, don’t abuse the maid, don’t abuse the clerk, don’t abuse the bus driver, don’t swear. And don’t gamble, except on love.

I shall cultivate love. I shall call my family and friends and send them messages once in a while, especially those who have forgotten me. I know that love is beautiful when remembered; even so, love is more beautiful in the doing than in the remembering.

How can I love Management when I’m Labor? I can. I can think of them as family, because they are. How can I love Labor when I’m Management? I can. I can think of them as family, because they have always been.

I can’t go out searching for love; I can only go out and make it. I can’t go out looking foreatest love of all.

I know thatr love, because outside is the wrong place to look: I can only look inside myself.

I know that the best month to love is February. Then March. Then April. Then May. Then June. Then July. Then August. Then September. Then October. Then November. Then December. Then January.And then it begins again.

I know that love is difficult.

On Valentine’s Day, my loved ones love me; my enemies hate me, and I’m afraid to love them. I shall love them anyway. Then I will come to know the g love is easier said than done. I shall love anyway. What gain is there if there is no pain?

I shall teach love. How can I love those who plot against me in all manners evil? I know that they don’t know what love is. So I shall love them anyway.

What if my love turns out also to be money, power, privilege? I shall love myself anyway. Then I will begin to understand that if I wish myself well, I will love myself, not money, not power, not privilege.

I shall love my neighbors. How can I love my neighbors when my neighbors are dangerous? I shall remind myself that hate is more dangerous than love.

How can I love when I can’t forget the hurt? Precisely! That’s a damn good reason for me to love. How can I love when I’m angry? All the more reason to love. I know that it’s easier to hate than to love. But I shall love anyway. If love is not one of my habits, then I shall cultivate it.

How can I measure love? If I can measure love, it’s not love; it’s already a commodity. Why can people love humanity but not people? They know only to love in the abstract. If somebody asks for a favor and I give it, is that love? No, but it’s a good beginning.

How can I love when I feel miserable? I can try harder. It’s good for me.
When is the time not to love? None. It’s always time to love because it’s always appropriate.
Suppose when I love I endanger myself? That’s nothing new. I’m always vulnerable when I love.

If I have not discovered that love is all that, I have not discovered love at all. Love is not a destination; it’s a journey. Love is not what I attain; love is what I assume right from the very beginning. Love is not someone or something to remember. Love is what I have. Love is either with me, or against me.

What about indiscretion? An indiscretion is a lapse of love. It is easier to be indiscreet than to love. It takes courage to love, it takes just a little cowardice to surrender to temptation. It takes a lot of love to forgive an indiscretion, but I shall love anyway.

I shall not call it sacrificing but giving love.
I shall not call it forgiving but giving love.
I shall not call it forgetting but giving love.
I shall not call it remembering but giving love.
I shall not call it repairing a damage but giving back love.

When I love, numbers don’t count. I don’t mind the times. I don’t make a list. I don’t enumerate. I don’t resort to bullets as in a PowerPoint presentation. I don’t compute.

If there is a Ms Right, it’s because of me. I can’t look for a Ms Right; I have to make her myself. If she isn’t Ms Right, I shall love anyway and that will make her Ms Right.

I can’t go out selling love – I have already debased it. I can’t go out asking for love – I can only go handing out love. I can’t go out demanding love from the world – there are millions of people out there doing exactly the same thing.

Even if I don’t know how to love perfectly, I shall love anyway. I know that in the loving, love will teach me. Then I shall know what is good, what is pleasing, what is perfect.

I know that to love is to assume love.

I know that the beginning of love is the beginning of wisdom. How can I give a gift of love if I have no love to begin with? I shall love anyway. I shall begin by assuming love. That is the only way I can begin, I can go on, I can stay in love. It is the only way I can love the unlovable.

The poor don’t bother me; the rich don’t bother me, so why should I bother about them? I shall love anyway. Then I will come to know what God and love is.

I shall love aside. I shall love some other person aside from my spouse, aside from my siblings, aside from my children, aside from my friends, aside from my officemates, aside from my group, aside from my classmates, aside from some people I know, aside from some people I like.

How can I love people? I can wish them well. I can do them well. I can think well of them. Amidst all that, I shall remember: Love makes all things possible, but not easy.

I shall love the time. I shall love the morning, the noon, the afternoon, the evening, the night’s sleep. I shall love the sleepless night anyway.

Love is what I make it. I shall make love in peace; I shall not make war. How can I make love in war? The same way I can make love in peace. It’s much harder, but it’s much more rewarding.

What if after all I don’t know how to love? I shall love anyway. Love is in finding the way. What if I don’t have a loving heart? I shall love anyway. Love is in the trying to love.

How can I love if I have been taught to hate? I shall begin by loving the person who taught me. And how do I begin? I shall begin anywhere but begin!

I know that love is more than making love.

On Valentine’s Day, there is love exchanged between loved ones. Why is there no love exchanged between enemies? Because in hate, it’s more difficult to love than to hate. I can’t build love as I can build rage in my body. Anger consumes my body; love consumes not only my body but my whole being. In hate, to assume love is more exhausting. Remember, the hater prefers the path of least resistance.

What if in particular I love a person, a thing, a place, or something else? Love has no object of love. If I love, I love all. To have an object to love is to select. If I select, my love is incomplete. Love does not select; instead, it encompasses. Love is bigger than all. Love covers all.

I shall love the challenge, the opportunity, the impossible. I shall love them all. If the challenge defeats me, if I miss the opportunity, if I fail in the impossible, I don’t miss on love anyway.

I shall love what I shall get. I shall love the flowers even when they are not the most expensive, not the loveliest, not the freshest, even when they are a thousand days late. I know that it’s the thought that counts. If there are no flowers sent, it’s my thought that counts.

I shall love everyone. How can I love the dishonest, the crook, the corrupt, the liar, the killer, the traitor? I shall love them as people, as human beings, as God’s own, as I am.

I can’t spend time with the one I love; I can only spend love. That’s quality. There is no such thing as quality time if there is no love in it, if I can’t give myself fully to it. I shall give myself fully to love!

What can I do when I have loved and lost? I can love again.

When I love, I don’t simply desire – I express it. When I love, I don’t turn the pages back – I keep writing on the book of life. When I love, I don’t reject – I accept hook, line and stinker.

Love is a will: I will forget, I will forgive, I will love. I can’t wait for love – it waits for me. I can’t fall in love – I can only jump right into it.

This I am aware of: The end of love is the end of wisdom. This I know: Hate hates haters; love loves lovers.

I know that love is all that. How can I ever love like all that? I can. If I can’t find a way to love, I shall make it. I shall be patient. If I can’t grow in love in a hurry, I shall grow in love slowly, in always trying. If I don’t succeed, I shall love again anyway. For to love anyway is to be born again to life.

To Love Anyway
A modern meditation on the world
Copyright 14 February 2007 by Frank A Hilario. Clipart from Microsoft Publisher 2000. I thought and wrote most of this in one sleepless night, 10-11 February 2007, in a room in a friend’s house at #9 Camaro Street, Fairview Subdivision, Quezon City. Thank God for friends.

On Discovery Sorghum, The Great Climate Crop

Global warming is heating up the thinking of the world about an inconvenient truth: FIRE & ICE. Except that of the Yankees, the Rip Van Winkles of the Millennium.

Remember Washington Irving? You will also remember The Legend Of The Sleepy Yankees a hundred years from now. I certainly hope the world is still around around that time.

One hot little verse written by my favorite Yankee poet Robert Frost, ‘Fire And Ice,’ published in Harper’s Magazine in the winter of 1920, has been inflaming the hearts of many a reviewer of poetry. I like what Katherine Kearns says of it: ‘Like ice shrieking across a red-hot griddle, his poetry does, indeed, ride on its own melting.’ I like best how Jeffrey Meyers describes it (1996, english.uiuc.edu/): ‘concise, laconic, perfect and perfectly savage.’

Fire And Ice Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

One hot little piece of paper has been igniting the passion of many a world government in reducing greenhouse gas emissions following international agreements. It is called the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty in full force since 2005, and which assigns country targets. But the Yankees are unmoved, standing still; the Yankees continue to refuse to ratify the Protocol. It would be pardonable if not for the fact that the US is the single biggest polluter of them all.

One hot little crop has been thawing the icebergs of climate change in the thinking of African and Asian governments about global warming. It is called Sorghum bicolor. But the Yankees are unmoved, standing still; the Yankees continue to ignore sweet sorghum and continue to propagate Zea mays as their elite energy crop. It would be forgivable if not for the fact that corn is hugely more expensive to produce, several times more than gasoline.

What has the world wrought? How do you like the imperial behavior of the Yankees, who up to now don’t even have a Biofuels Act? (Giles Clark, 8 January 2007, biofuelreview.com/) Shame on them! But to be diplomatic about it, let me just call it The Yankee Dawdle, a sin of omission, of unenlightened interest in climate change.

It is the enlightened interest of every country that the Kyoto Protocol be ratified by the whole world but especially by the US, and the gas emission targets reached as agreed upon. Time and tide waits for no one, not even for the mighty United States of America; neither does climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in December 1997. Fiji had acted the first, the fastest and the most furious; she signed on 17 September 1998 and ratified the Protocol on the exact same date. The European Union (all 16 countries) ratified it in 2002, the Philippines in 2003, Russia in 2004; for the last 20 years, the US, along with ally Australia, has adamantly refused to ratify it. The Yankees say ‘No Deal.’ Big Deal!

If the US refuses to be a winner against climate change, can the rest of the world be left behind? If the Yankees doubt global warming, all they have to do is ask the old folks; there is much to learn from folk wisdom. If you’re listening.

Now apparently there is expert wisdom; there is much to learn from expert wisdom. If you’re reading. Today, 3 February 2007, the news from a United Nations study confirms global warming. I first read it in the American Chronicle by email; go to Google and there are  more than 2,000 pieces of news of it; the one I like most has it and says it best right in the headline (Oliver Burkeman, 2 February, guardian.co.uk/, cited by buzzle.com/): ‘The scientists spoke cautiously but the graphs said it all.’ Walk softly, but carry a big stick.

Still, the US will dismiss that UN report, unless perhaps Poet Laureate Robert Frost recites that poem to the President of the United States in front of a multitude. I have a dream.

To counter this one intercontinental snub of the Yankees, let us consider this one intercontinental crop of the Indians. I am tempted to call the whole thing The Indian Protocol, because it was in India where a science group had made the first moves, a private group took up the challenge, and farmers joined hands to develop the world’s first climate crop for rainfall-challenged farms in the semi-arid tropics of Africa and Asia, not to mention America. That crop was sweet sorghum. That science group was the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (icrisat), a non-profit, non-political international center of excellence in agriculture and 1 of 15 institute members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (cgiar). That private group was Rusni Distilleries Ltd. The result: The world’s first commercial sweet sorghum-based ethanol distillery, and it began operating last October in Andhra Pradesh, a state with 76 million people, among the most economically challenged Indians. Potential, beginning to be realized. The Indians alone grow sorghum in 9.3 million hectares, about 1/4 of the world’s total of 40 million ha. Potential, yet to be realized.

From the scientific side, The Sorghum Equation is:
Yeast à C₆H₁₂O₆ = 2CH₃CH₂OH + 2CO₂ ­ heat

That is sugar converted by yeast to ethanol and carbon dioxide, giving off heat. Given that Albert Einstein’s famous E = mc² is elegant where this is not, nonetheless, where one is earth-shaking, the other is earth-shattering; where one presages the end of the world, the other presages the beginning of a new one – climate on hold. Inspired, I hereby propose the Climate Equation and it is this:

YEAST OF US PEOPLE à SWEET SORGHUM = SWEET US$ + CLIMATE ON HOLD

That is a simple lesson waiting to be learned by the poor like the Filipinos in Asia and Nigerians in Africa, now running scared, and the rich like the Yankees and Australians, not running scared. The Yankees can learn from their own Indy Racing League, which will be running its race cars on 100% ethanol starting 2007 (AEF, 2006, 25×25.org/).

Still and all, sorghum seems to be a crazy choice of climate crop. Indeed. Over 6,000 years old, this one has had a very bad reputation among Yankee scientists. Cornell University lists it as a poisonous plant (2003, ansci.cornell.edu/); the Weed Science Society of America lists it as a weed (2005, weedscience.org/); and the American Phytopathological Society lists it as susceptible to disease, and gives a list of 45 diseases attacking this crop: 3 bacterial, 26 fungal, 12 nematodal, 4 viral (apsnet.org/). Adding to that, it is certain that from the sweet syrup, the US Department of Agriculture has found it difficult to extract dry sugar (2000, ca.uky.edu/nssppa/). Born loser.

But not in Andhra Pradesh, India, at icrisat, whose scientists and experts have developed hybrids that make sweet sorghum a great energy crop and air freshener. To plant with and make richly productive the poor soils in the rainfall-challenged parts of much of the world, the millions of hectares of wastelands. To grow and clean the air of carbon dioxide. To produce ethanol for cars to greatly reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. To raise in millions of hectares, to help forestall climate change. To help the people, poor and rich. Born winner.

The awkward truth is that black power (petroleum-based fuels) has contributed the most to climate change, and that now we must turn to green power (plant-based fuels) if we are to save Planet Earth from the deadly ozone of our own making. And we will do it by pushing fossil fuels over the edge and pushing on photosynthetic power, biofuels. And pushing bodies, minds & spirits. And pushing the Big Bad Wolf Yankee. There are 6 major greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs and PFCs (Larry West, 2007, environment.about.com/). In carbon dioxide emissions alone, the Yankees contributed 5 trillion (5,000,000,000,000) tonnes in 2002 – compare that which the 16 countries comprising the European Union contributed, a combined 6 trillion tonnes (BBC 2005, news.bbc.co.uk/); thus, the US is contributing 13 times more CO_­2 than the average EU country! While the Europeans have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the Yankees have their own protocol. Building their own Noah’s Ark, I presume? Truth is stranger than fiction. Ostrich-like, the Yankees have been burying their heads in the sands of time, if not in the deserts of science, refusing to face the awesome truth dramatized in the documentary by a Yankee himself, eco-pusher Al Gore as the modern Atlas, his film An Inconvenient Truth: A Global Warning, directed by David Guggenheim (2006). The Yankees are a United States of Denial. If the Yankees will not be a winner against climate change, we can only be a whiner against the Yankees. Atlas cannot carry the whole world on his shoulders alone. I’m now thinking of a book I will be very sorry to write alone: While Atlas Shrugged, The Yankees Demurred.

Time to listen once more to one of the world’s most respected global thinkers, Lester R Brown, another Yankee, who in his latest book writes that we must now and we can be eco-friendly and save ourselves from the clear and present danger of global warming. His book is entitled Plan B 2.0: Rescuing A Planet Under Stress And A Civilization In Trouble (2006, New York: WW Norton & Co; the whole book is free to download if you go to earth-policy.org/). Translated, that would be transforming Plan B into what I call Planet B, if we could get beyond our global ignorance or indifference to the global meltdown that has startlingly started, as shown dramatically in Mr Gore’s documentary. The Yankee attitude: The proof of the flooding is in the swimming.

Mr Gore’s inconvenient film in fact comes after Mr Brown’s inconvenient book, the first edition having come out in 2001. The Yankees are not listening; Mr Gore and Mr Brown are prophets not without honor except in their own country. In the Preface to the 2006 version (page ix), Mr Brown says, ‘The purpose of this book is to make a convincing case for building the new economy, to offer a more detailed vision of what it would look like, and to provide a roadmap of how to get from here to there.’ And how do we do that? We focus on cars. Mr Brown says:

If economic progress is to be sustained, we need to replace the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy with a new economic model. Instead of being based on fossil fuels, the new economy will be powered by abundant sources of renewable energy: wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, and biofuels. ¶ Instead of being centered around automobiles, future transportation systems will be far more diverse, widely employing light rail, buses, and bicycles as well as cars. The goal will be to maximize mobility, not automobile ownership. ¶ The throwaway economy will be replaced by a comprehensive reuse/recycle economy. Consumer products from cars to computers will be designed so that they can be disassembled into their component parts and completely recycled.

Great! The only problem with Mr Brown’s grand proposal is that it is all economics. The great economists like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, some of them Yankees, have always been that: Great Economists, no more, no less. Great economics has been the cause of all this global warming in the first place!

Mr Brown does not even mention the very first of the 3 Rs of conservation. The mantra of conservationists has always been Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I memorized that 30 years ago and it’s not rocket science. Mr Brown’s scenario is populated by procedure, not people. In fact, he says on page 7 that we are confronted with ‘two urgent major challenges: restructuring the global economy and stabilizing world population.’ He considers the number of people as part of the problem; I beg to differ – I consider the number of people as part of the solution. He refuses to accept the fact that the Malthusian theory that population tends to outstrip food supply has been debunked many a time – it is ‘a fairy tale,’ says Larry Azar (quoted by Eric Bermingham, 11 November 2006, kolbecenter.org/). The Malthusian theory is unexplained by science, unsupported by experience. And even if Thomas Robert Malthus were right, right now, overpopulation is one of the least of our problems.

I submit that what we have to do is FOR A CRITICAL MASS OF US TO WORK OUT FIRST A USER-FRIENDLY WORLD, and then and only then can we dream of a sustainable universe, where everyone reduces, reuses, recycles. By user-friendly world, I mean the other way around: We people become friendly to Earth. The Earth is Hallowed Ground – Show some respect! We are not Owners of it; we are Users only.

For an exemplary model, a big one in its totality, we turn not to Government but to Science as our Virtual Savior. Now then, if science is to save us from self-destruction, what we need is, in my view, a paradigm and a shift:

Paradigm: Science with a human face.
Shift: From grey to green.

Perspective. ‘Science with a human face’ signifies theory and practice being dedicated to serve the people’s real needs, not simply those imagined by scientists or imaged by thinkers.

View. ‘From grey to green’ signifies fields impoverished turning into soils productive of crops, or super crops turning poor soils into productive ground.

And from there? From green to white, which signifies harvest turning into white as source of heat – ethyl alcohol. This is ethanol ignited to run engines that run transport vehicles, with the result that the air is cleaner than when we started, with the end result that cars and trucks do not contribute to global warming. For it is true that the green crops harvest the bad breath of Earth (carbon dioxide in the air) and turn it into organic matter; and the best of such crops yield the 4 Fs of the organic world: food, feed, fuel, fertilizer.

One of the best 4 Fs crops is sweet sorghum, known in scientific circles as Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench. This complete name originates from Germany; the original taxonomic nomenclature was assigned by the ‘(L.)’ – the Father of Taxonomy himself, Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus (also abbreviated Linn.); the nomenclature has been revised by and so is attributed to ‘Moench’ – the German botanist Conrad Moench. While the US is adamant to change, science stands corrected.

For all its rotten reputation, sweet sorghum, to distinguish it from grain sorghum, is sweet and juicy. It is a wonderful crop in fact. Let me compare it to corn, the energy crop of choice of the poor Yankees.

From Yankee LC Anderson of Iowa State University (August 2000, energy.iastate.edu/), I learn that:
(1) The stalks of sweet sorghum can yield 1,235 gallons of ethanol to a hectare, 2x that of corn. Great provider.

From what I gather from Yankee Syngenta (2003, syngentafoundation.org/), I think this is a thinking plant if ever I heard of one:
(2) When in drought, sweet sorghum remains dormant; with the coming of rain, it resumes growth and recovers, unlike corn. The FAO refers to it as ‘a camel among crops’ because it can survive where the soil is too dry as well as when the soil is too wet (Agronomy21, 2002, fao.org/). Intelligent being.
(3) Again, unlike corn, sorghum’s aboveground parts wait for the root system to be well established before they grow any further. Intelligent system.

To compare further, from AERC Inc (2003, aerc.ca/), and DJ Undersander et al (November 1990, hort.purdue.edu/), all Yankees, I gather that:
(4) Sorghum produces 2x more roots than corn. More roots underground produce more aboveground: stalk, leaves and grains. Designer cereal.
(5) Sorghum has half the transpiring leaf area of corn and, therefore, needs 30-50% less water than corn to produce a unit of matter. Designer plant.
(6) The leaves have a waxy coating (called bloom) and have the ability to fold rather than roll in during drought, reducing transpiration under hot, dry conditions. Designer vegetation.
(7) The plant competes favorably with most weeds. Designer crop.

Sorghum wins! Corn is an also-ran.

Sorghum was cultivated in the dry lands of Sudan over 6,000 years ago (G Grassi, 2001, wip-munich.de/). Since then, it has become a life-saving crop, the staple food of more than 500 million people in more than 30 countries (ET Rampho, January 2005, plantzafrica.com/). Introduced to the United States in the early 17^th century, sweet sorghum has been grown mainly for its syrup, which is used as a substitute for sugar (Undersander et al, cited).

In the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) signed the Biofuels Act of 2006 (Republic Act 9367) one year late, on 17 January 2007. Better late than never. With her signature, GMA has set forth the process by which the country will reach a target blend for vehicles of 5% ethanol (E5) with 95% gasoline within 2 years and 10% (E10) with 90% within 4 years. Thailand as well as China wants E10 right away, in 2007 (Moustapha Kamal Gueye, 2006, regserver.unfccc.int/). Brazil is in center stage and now aiming for E100 in 2007 for all new cars (David Morris, 17 April 2005, commondreams.org/). Brazil is dancing the Salsa of the Universe.

Again, in the Philippines, sugarcane is currently the official choice of biofuel crop (Elaine Ruzul Ramos, 2006, manilastandardtoday.com/). Sweetheart, sugarcane may be a good choice, but sorghum is better, much better. I learn that from icrisat, whose paradigm / shift I quoted earlier, the institutional focus / strategy being ‘Science with a human face’ / ‘From grey to green’ (William Dar, January 2007, Nurturing Life In The Drylands Of Hope, Andhra Pradesh, India: icrisat, 160 pages). icrisat is led by a visionary. The Yankees are led by a blurred visionary.

Comparing crops as sources of ethanol, the biofuel of choice of Brazil, India, the Philippines, the US, France and many other countries, icrisat’s brochure ‘Sweet Sorghum’ (Belum VS Reddy et al, 2006, 24 pages) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (Agriculture21, 2002, fao.org/) tell us that:

(1)   Sweet sorghum can grow like no crop has grown before: in drylands, acidic or basic soils, waterlogged fields.

(2)   Sweet sorghum grows faster than sugarcane, 200 days (2 crops) vs 365 days.

(3)   Sweet sorghum needs 4.5 times less water than sugarcane, 8,000 (2 crops) vs 36,000 cubic meters. No irrigation necessary.

(4)   Cost of cultivation of sweet sorghum is 3 times less than that of sugarcane.

(5)   Sweet sorghum is easily planted, 5 kg of seeds to a hectare; sugarcane requires the handling of 5,000 cuttings. Many hands don’t make light work.

(6)   Ethanol production process from sweet sorghum is eco-friendly while that from sugarcane is not.

(7)   Ethanol from sweet sorghum is better than from sugarcane for two reasons: it has lower sulphur content (is less polluting) and higher octane (yields more power).

In India, at Andhra Pradesh, with icrisat as incubator of technology (their term), Dr William Dar, Director General of icrisat, inaugurated on 2 October 2006 the production of commercial ethanol by Rusni Distilleries Ltd. In an interview, Dr Dar tells me that Rusni is owned by Mr Palami Swamy, an Indian national. Rusni is a multi-feedstock system, meaning it can squeeze the juice from sweet sorghum as well from sugarcane & other materials. Rusni has already made history: It is the first of its kind in the world (Reddy et al, cited), that is, a commercial sweet sorghum ethanol plant born out of the coalition of the willing: science, citizen and government. Doesn’t the world owe that lesson from the Yankees?

The sweet sorghum story has happened in India, which before that has been advertising itself as (tourisminindia.com/) The Destination Of The New Millennium. It is now.

In the Philippines, intrigued and interested, GMA sent last year Mr Benedicto Yujuico, Special Envoy for Trade Relations to study the icrisat-supported Rusni distillery; upon his return, he recommended replication of the Rusni model in the country. In an email, Dr Dar tells me that GMA has given her full support to the Philippine sweet sorghum project and has accepted the invitation for a project visit to Batac, Ilocos Norte this February. Batac is where Mariano Marcos State University (mmsu) is located; the mmsu campus is the base whereby the discovery sorghums (hybrids actually) of icrisat have been successfully test-planted for the last 2 years by the Department of Agriculture (DA) through the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR). In the interview, Dr Dar tells me there are 8 hybrids that have passed through multi-site field trials and are ready for commercial planting, the recommended variety depending on the farm’s location in the country.

In fact, after India, in the Philippines, the wheel of prosperity run by sorghum energy has started rolling. On the 19^th of January this year, a technology investment forum was initiated by Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap. As a result, Dr Dar tells me that 5 Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) have been signed between icrisat and Rusni Distilleries on one side and 5 interested local and foreign companies on the other side to use the Rusni multi-feedstock distillery system and icrisat sorghum hybrids. Target distillery-farm sites are the Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog Region, and Central Philippines. To each its own sweet sorghum variety, I presume.

Over lunch with Dr Dar, Dr Luis Rey Velasco (Chancellor of UP Los Baños), and Dr Santiago R Obien (consultant) among others, I am talking to Dr Belum Reddy, Principal Breeder (Sorghum) of icrisat, about the Institute’s 8 sweet sorghums tested in Northern Luzon for the last 2 years through mmsu. Having been Editor in Chief of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science for the past 6 years, I have been thinking about national (multi-location) testing of many varieties, where the protocol is to select for outstanding performances in a production trial, composite; that is, in the case of sweet sorghum: sugar yield + stillage (bagasse) + grains, average of several locations. So they select in 2 out of the 8 varieties as top of the line. What happens to the others? They select out 6. I suggest another approach: Don’t get the average; get the best performance of each variety. If you’re after sugar, go after sugar. In other words, why not select and recommend all 8? Surely, a different variety is an outstanding performer in a different location, but maybe not in all locations. Dr Reddy is kind enough to agree.

Ethanol is the fuel of choice in the Yankee Ford Company’s alternative fuel strategy program (TMT, 18 April 2006, manilatimes.net/). Ford leads with more than 1 million ethanol-powered vehicles on the road worldwide. Has Ford considered source? As source of ethanol, sorghum is most certainly promising, corn is most certainly not. Yankees Jerry Taylor & Peter Van Doren of Chicago Sun-Times vehemently declare that corn ethanol is ‘enormously expensive and wasteful’ (27 January 2007, suntimes.com/). They quote the production cost of $2.53 per gallon of ethanol, and affirm that such amount is ‘several times what it costs to produce a gallon of gasoline.’ These Yankees are saying: Wrong crop!

Compared to that of corn ethanol, the economics of sweet sorghum ethanol is sweeter. For instance, in India with Rusni Distillery, the production cost per gallon of ethanol is $1.47 (my computation, data from Reddy et al, 2006).

In the Philippines, Dr Dar tells me the initial investment per enterprise is US$8.5 million for the distillery, which can produce 40,000 liters of ethanol a day. For full operation, it needs 150 people to run the plant, 4,000 hectares to raise sorghum and 20,000 hands to grow and harvest the crop. Considering 5 distilleries, here are the figures: initial investments in dollars US$42.5 million, total area planted 20,000 hectares, farm hands employed 100,000 people, and total ethanol produced in a year 73 million liters. In developed countries, they welcome mechanized farming; in developing countries, they welcome manualized farming, creating jobs. Considering all that, with the 5 different distillery sites, sorghum as one crop alone will have immeasurable multiplier effects on the local and national economies of the islands.

Compare that with sugarcane as feedstock for ethanol. The initial investment is $45.6 million (P2.28 billion) for 1 distillery (Ramos, cited), which is 5 times more than that with sweet sorghum. Too much for an initial investment.

According to AK Rajvanshi & N Nimbkar (2001, nariphaltan.virtualave.net/), sweet sorghum is ‘the only crop’ that provides grain and stem that can be used for sugar, alcohol, syrup, jaggery, fodder, fuel, bedding, roofing, fencing, paper and chewing (animals). Actually no; sugarcane provides all those too, but rather more expensively.

What about the buying price? Dr Dar says that ethanol is now competitive with petrol (gasoline) in India due to high prices of fossil fuels, even adjusting for energy equivalency (1 liter of petrol = 1.5 liters of ethanol) (September 2006, ‘What icrisat Thinks,’ icrisat.org/). ‘The constraint is not the cost of ethanol production,’ Dr Dar says; ‘it is the supply of raw materials.’ Sorghum will supply more stalks for more ethanol for less.

According to Dr Heraldo Layaoen, who is a pioneer scientist grower of sweet sorghum in the Philippines, who is also Vice President of mmsu, within a year, 2 crops of sweet sorghum will yield a combined average of 200 tonnes of sugar to a hectare in 200 days, while 1 crop of sugarcane will yield a maximum of 90 tonnes in 365 days (INF, 10 September 2006, nordis.net/). No comparison. Sugarcane was introduced by the Arab traders to the Philippines before the Spanish era (Jose Maria T Zabaleta, 1997, fao.org/); to me that means the Filipinos have been cultivating the wrong crop for sugar for more than 500 years! Thanks but no thanks. Dr Layaoen says that sugarcane has as high as 14% sugar content while sweet sorghum has 23%. Thank you very much! Translation:

Sweetheart, sugarcane is sweet, but sweet sorghum is sweeter.

Copyright 04 February 2007 by Frank A Hilario. The image shown is the cover of the book by William Dar, Nurturing Life In The Drylands Of Hope – January 2007, Andhra Pradesh, India: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (icrisat), 160 pages – based on the prize-winning painting of Brenda Bae, Grade 11, International School of Hyderabad, part of a competition sponsored by icrisat. In the youth, there is hope.

Microsoft’s Mr Bill Gates

And The Boy Who Cried Worp

Shockingly innovative is Microsoft’s Office 2007, and I’m convinced that its appearance is evidence that its rival, OpenOffice 2, is winning the game with its suite of application programs equivalent to those of Office 2003, which means that what is 4 years older is as good as new. Office 2007 with a unique user interface is in response to the redoubtable challenge of OpenOffice; Microsoft’s Gambit is: If the enemy is game, change the rules of the game. I’d say Microsoft has high IQ.

Having experimented with OpenOffice 2, I almost converted. OpenOffice 2 shipped last year, free; Office 2007 ships this month, but I’m not buying. I’m content with a test drive that Microsoft Office Online (MOO) (2007, office.microsoft.com/) offers me. This is because to me paying $500 for one DVD is out of sight. MOO, did you say test drive? Now, I know that that metaphor is out of place. Funny, but I don’t drive; I’m not driven. Much as I, user, would like to, I don’t drive software; it drives me, as Word 2007 does: It drives me crazy!

Is it insanity or is it genius? After studying Word 2007, let me count the ways:

One, MOO says the 2007 Microsoft Office System is ‘simplicity at your fingertips.’ I say it is definitely not; it is complexity at my fingertips, and I’m no novice at this. I’ve been using much Microsoft software for most of 20 years, especially Word for much of 2 decades.

Two, Microsoft cooks up a new menu and calls it The Ribbon – that’s bizarre. As the name of a bakeshop, The Ribbon may be appealing. The main menu of Word 2007 is unappealing, and it is this – so, what else is new?

[Home] [Insert] [Page Layout] [References] [Mailings] [Review] [View]

I don’t see any ribbon at all. The emperor has no clothes!

Three, I find that tab-menu eccentric if not zany; it is comical because of its incongruity. The Insert, Page Layout, References, Mailings, Review, View sub-menus relate to each other neither as identifiable members of one class, nor equivalent parts of a whole, which they should be. And they are an odd mixture of verbs (Insert, Review, View) and nouns (Home, Page Layout, References, Mailings). They provide a strange guide both to the beginner and the expert on what to do. In fact, that’s not surprising at all; the previous menu – [File] [Edit] [View] [Insert] [Format] [Tools] [Table] [Window] [Help] – was in the same quaint genre that nobody noticed!

Four, with Word 2007, you are beyond help: There is no Help. They must have realized it wasn’t any help at all. What they have now is a mini-toolbar when you select text (even when you simply right-click and not select text) – the mini-toolbar is icons and words, no explanations. If you hover the cursor over any icon on The Ribbon, there appears a brief note. Actually, Help is still there, hiding: press F1 and Help appears. But no more Clipit, the Office Assistant, no more running dog of Microsoft.

Five, there are more goofy things: Under Review is Research. And Translate. Also, Spelling & Grammar – you mean I have to wait till the manuscript is under review before I do the research, or translate, or check the spelling and the grammar? What happens if I don’t ask people to review my work? What happens to those who do not review even their work? You will be surprised at how many of them there are.

Six, there are other maddening things Microsoft did with Word 2007. No logic too. They couldn’t decide on how to combine commands under the old File and then they came up with the Microsoft Office Button, what I call the Belly Button. Decent, but not very smart.

Seven, an outlandish thing Microsoft has done is put Macros under View. You know macros of course; briefly, macros are shortcuts. If all I have to do is view macros, I’d rather be going.

Eight, they couldn’t decide how to re-present or re-name the Style sheet and they came up with Home. That’s a horrendous oversight, to say the least. This is the Home that doesn’t relate at all to the members! In computing, Home is where the hearth is, your starting point, where you can see where you want to go. With Word 2007, they are saying that Home is all style (formats), and that doesn’t make sense. Format Font (name, size, effects etc), Format Paragraph (indent, justify, align, space etc), Format Styles (automatic, programmable formats of fonts and paragraphs etc) – not home, by any stretch of a sorcerer’s imagination. Home, of all places. Why, does Microsoft think Home is where the Art is?

As if that is not enough, under Home there’s Editing (Find, Replace, Select, Select All). If that’s editing, then Editors are over-paid! Actually, all that is only clerical work; only correcting, and not even the whole of correcting. Perhaps Microsoft has forgotten that editing is finding fault with grammar, figures of speech, organization, finding fault even with the title; not forgetting the 4 Cs of communication: clarity, comprehensiveness, coherence, conciseness. Or perhaps, and this is worse, Microsoft doesn’