The Ilocos Times

By Noralyn Dudt "THE FIRST NOEL, the angels did say. Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay."   And so the song goes...    TWO THOUSAND and 23 years ago, in a little-known place called Bethlehem, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to a group of shepherds.   What a glorious sight it must have been ! ( from our perspective now that we know what   happened next) But for the startled shepherds, it was a   scary sight.   The Bible says they were terrified. "Fear not," the angel said to them. "I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you, He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Luke 2:9-12 Suddenly, a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth Peace to those on whom His favor rests

By Noralyn O. Dudt About 18 years ago, I went through a medical procedure known as endoscopy. It's a procedure that enables a gastroenterologist to look into the inside of the stomach without making an incision using   a medical device called endoscope. Endoscopy is derived   from the Greek words "endon", which   means 'in or within'   and scope which means to 'see'. An endoscope is a thin, tube-like instrument with a light and a lens for viewing and is inserted into the body through the mouth. The tiny video camera on its tip enables doctors to view the internal parts of the stomach and the esophagus. As I was burping more than the normal, the gastroenterologist wanted to check   if my sphincter had   become loose. A sphincter is a ring of muscle at the junction of the esophagus and the stomach whose function is to prevent reflux of food and acid from the stomach into the esophagus.   If the sphincter does not close properly, food and liquid can move b

  By Noralyn O. Dudt In 279 BC, King Pyrrhus of Epirus (an ancient state in Greece) defeated the Roman legions in the Battle of Asculum. Although he was the victor, he lost many of his Macedonian troops including his commanders and his friends, a toll so devastating that it was tantamount to defeat.   A "pyrrhic victory"   it was. Pyrrhic victory is a phrase that may not be familiar to many.   The term is used as an analogy in business, politics and sport to describe struggles that end up ruining the victor. It's a victory that comes at a great cost. The losses are so high and heavy   that they outweigh the gain   so as to render the struggle not worth the cost. It's a triumph that negates any true sense of achievement and ultimately   damages long-term progress. The journal, "The Military Engineer" explains that regardless of what happened with the landmark battle,   King Pyrrhus was a brilliant historical example   of hard-won, hard-fought,   but ul

( Second of three parts ) By Noralyn Dudt No, democracy has not died.   While it's flawed and failing in many parts of the world, it has been going strong in places like Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany,   New Zealand, Canada and several others.   While there are other nations that rank high on the scale like Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, I would like to focus on just   four at this time—ones that I am most familiar with as I have met and known people from these nationalities. As I have mentioned in my recent article, the EIU has given high ratings to Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Germany. Just what makes these countries unique? Geography? They are all in northern Europe—the Nordics they are called. Religious background?   Eighty-five to 95% of their population are of the Lutheran faith. Monarchy? Yes, except for Germany, they have kings and queens but no longer ruled by them. Again, It might be difficult to gauge just how these factors influence their relative suc

By Noralyn Dudt BASI, the Ilokano alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane juice that is fermented   and aged in a “burnay”,—a traditional earthenware—has been an integral part of the Ilokano culture even in pre-Spanish times. In his study on the “Basi Revolt”, researcher Jayson Antonio suggested that during those times basi “was one of the few—and free—pleasures in life available to the masses." They drank it after a day of hard work in the fields, they drank it when celebrating the birth of a child, they drank it to toast a couple getting married, and they drank basi in a ritualistic ablution after a funeral. From childbirth to marriage and   to death, it was part of their ritual,   tradition, and daily life. Commercial basi is produced by first crushing sugarcane and extracting the juice. The juice is then boiled in vats and then stored in earthen jars. Once the juice has cooled, flavorings made of ground glutinous rice and duhat (plum-like fruit in the tropics) or other

By Noralyn Dudt Now that a big chunk of the world population has had at least two doses of the coronavirus vaccine, scientists are focused   on designing a vaccine that is broadly protective and would last a long time. A tetanus-like shot is now the goal. The tetanus vaccine that my physician jabs into my arm every 10 years was designed to last 10 years. And now it's a scientist's dream to develop a vaccine for the Coronavirus that would last 10 years. The National Institutes of Health having taken that into account, awarded US$36 million to scientific teams last fall who were trying to answer basic questions that would lead to a breakthrough.   At a minimum, the world needs a truly variant-proof vaccines. Even better would be a vaccine that would stop a future pandemic—protection against a yet-unknown coronavirus. The first versions of coronavirus vaccines were powerful. From the virus that emerged in 2019, spiky proteins were taken from their surface and were tweaked to

By Noralyn O. Dudt GLOBALIZATION is not what one would associate with the 16 th and 17 th centuries   when ships with sails were the only means of transportation in crossing the great oceans and only horses and carriages in traversing the continents.   Jetting the globe on an airplane was still three centuries away. Globalization is what one may ascribe only to our modern era but the history of the   Galleon Trade between Manila and Acapulco tells otherwise. The Manila Galleons were the FEDEX of their time.   The Galleon Trade was the birth of what we now know as globalization. It was in 1565 when the Galleon Trade was first launched. Manila galleons as they were called were the Spanish Trading ships that linked the Spanish General of the Philippines with New Spain   (now Mexico) for 250 years. It made one or two round-trip voyages per year: one from Acapulco to Manila that took 120 days with some 500,000 pesos worth of goods—mostly silver from Spain's South American colonies

  By Noralyn O. Dudt THE OMICRON, we would like to think with a modicum of hope,   is the   pandemic's last act . As Omicron has behaved so brazenly chasing as many victims as it could, but not as potent as the Delta had been, the pandemic   ending is no longer a question of how but when.   So many cases of infections—serious and not too serious—have brought people to the hospitals that the light we thought we saw at the end of the tunnel suddenly looked dimmer.   However, these large numbers of infections had provided a "layer of immunity" to huge swathes of the world and may be moving us closer to an endemic stage as the virus is maxing out in its ability to make such big evolutionary jumps. For the first time since the spread of COVID-19 stunned the world in early 2020, many   epidemiologists are now willing to entertain the prospect that the virus might be making steps toward endemic status—the stage when COVID-19 is comparable to seasonal illnesses like the c

By Noralyn O. Dudt IT WAS 1898 at the Parque de   Luneta—a huge 140 acre (58 hectares)—park   overlooking the Manila Bay. Kommandant Krueger monitored the placement of the large statue of Kaiser Wilhelm II, offset from Jose Rizal's. His aides were putting up new signs. It was going to be the "Kaiser Wilhelm und Jose Rizal Stadtgarten." It had taken several days to remove the "Paseo de Luneta and Paseo Maria Cristina" signs along the way and replaced them with "Kaiser Wilhelm PrachtStrasse." From what he could see, it would be difficult to properly teach these natives proper respect for the Kaiser and to ferret out their resistance. It pained him that there was so little enthusiasm for cooperation especially after completion of a German non-aggression treaty with Japan. He has been quite certain that the Philippines would have a brighter future as a German protectorate. Vice Admiral Otto von Diederichs That's a scenario that has been going on in

By Noralyn Onto Dudt OMICRON, the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet has been drafted   by the World Health Organization as the name for the new COVID-19 variant, technically known as the B.1.1.529 variant. The Omicron variant is a reminder of what scientists and medical experts have been saying for months: COVID-19 will thrive as long as vast numbers of the global population are not vaccinated. Scientists say that Omicron is the weirdest creature they have ever encountered with 30 unruly swarm of mutations scattered on three major prongs of the spike protein that is essential to the virus ability to infect cells,   a first of its kind with so many mutations gathered in "one package." Even though some of these mutations are recognizable,   many of them are new and utterly enigmatic. That said, scientists do not want to get ahead of the facts: no one knows exactly yet how this variant behaves in real-world situations. However, should they find a high degree of immune-evas