The Incomparable Michael Jordan, American Basketball GOAT – And Lebron James Who Never Re-Discovered Himself

Michael Jordan discovered himself in basketball, then baseball, then rediscovered himself back to basketball. First love never dies!

“Who Is Better LeBron Or Jordan: After Lakers Star Broke Scoring Record, Who Is Really The GOAT?” (16 Feb 2023, Jim Sergent, Ramon Padilla, Mitchell Thorson, USA Today, usatoday.com): (image from Dreamstime, dreamstime.com,  “Ask Google: ‘best NBA player of all time.’ … A link just below the photos says: ‘Here's why Michael Jordan is still the greatest player of all time.’ (image: “Michael is basketball,” gettyimages)

Get that right – MJ is The Greatest Basketball Player Of All Time”!

Here is Michael Jordan Fans Facebook sharing by Jess Arjona, Sunday, 12 Jan 2025:

Jordan's career in the NBA is defined by his extraordinary achievements and impact on the game. He played 15 seasons in the league, primarily with the Chicago Bulls, where he secured six NBA Championships and was named Finals MVP in each of those series. Known for his scoring ability, athleticism, and competitive spirit… Jordan became a global icon, transforming the NBA into an internationally recognized brand and inspiring countless aspiring athletes around the world.

Michael Jordan's legacy is a testament to his unparalleled skill, dedication to excellence, and commitment to making a positive impact on society…

And even though he's the NBA scoring leader, it's unlikely James will ever eclipse Jordan's scoring average – even (though) he's been a 30-point scorer this season and last.

Others will argue that the way the game was or is played in any era can't be fully reflected in any set of statistics. Ah, the piles of awards and honors that Jordan and James have accumulated tilt toward Jordan.

The Bulls made it to the Eastern Conference Finals in 1990 and won their first NBA championship the following year by defeating the Los Angeles Lakers. Jordan was well known by then for his superior athleticism on the court and for his leadership abilities.

In April 2009, Jordan received one of basketball’s greatest honors: He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

In 2016, Jordan was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

He tried baseball. “He had it all: ability, aptitude, work ethic. He was always so respectful of what we were doing and considerate of his teammates. Granted, he had a lot to learn,” former Barons manager Terry Francona said. “I do think with another 1,000 at-bats, he would’ve made it. But there’s something else that people miss about that season. Baseball wasn’t the only thing he picked up. I truly believe that he rediscovered himself, his joy for competition. We made him want to play basketball again.”

Let Jordan speak for himself! “Jordan Quotes” (selections from Anonymous, Socratic Method, socratic-method.com):

My competitive nature is I want to succeed. It’s always been said that when I can’t find a way to do anything, I will find a way to do it.

I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.

For inspiration, Jordan’s your GOAT!@517

Dahli Aspillera, Why Don’t You & I Connect, And Correct, PH History Of People, Places And Things, Including PH National Hero Jose Rizal – And Agriculture!?

How can you surprise an old foggie like me, 84, with a story about PH Heroes? Well, Dahli Aspillera, Malaya columnist, surprised me today, Saturday, 11 Jan 2025, sending an unexptected note about Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio and American author Glenn Anthony May. Old Golds!

I wrote Malaya aeons ago:

“About… Glenn May’s book Inventing A Hero (New Day Publishers), you and your very own Dahli Aspillera (“One Book On Books About Bonifacio” on Feb 6 and “Social Savvy” on Feb 8) – I say they’re all remarkable.

…Dahli, God bless her soul, is an extraordinary lady herself. Among other things, she is the only one among our newspaper journalists, columnists, or writers who (have) stood to be counted in the search for the historical Bonifacio.

…So she has sinned against her own kind, as well as against our historians, for believing that Glenn May is right and credible when he questions and presents evidence against the history written about Andres Bonifacio by a long list of Filipino historians, including some of the best and popular in the country. We have to re-study our history and historians.

Today, Saturday, Dahli has just sent me a note, an incomplete reproduction (Xerox), copy of a column?

History comes back to you if you are interested in it. I wrote the newspaper Malaya long, long ago:

“About one of our national heroes, Glenn May’s book Inventing A Hero (New Day Publishers), you and your very own Dahli Aspillera (“One Book On Books About Bonifacio” on Feb 6 and “Social Savvy” on Feb 8) – I say they’re all remarkable.”

“Andres Bonifacio was extraordinary, Dahli, God bless her soul, is an extraordinary lady herself. Among other things, she is the only one among our newspaper journalists, columnists, or writers who has stood to be counted in the search for the historical Bonifacio. And a woman at that! An insult to those who mind their machocism (my invention), This time, Dahli isn’t politically correct about it, but she doesn’t mind. So she has sinned against her own kind, as well as against our historians, for believing that Glenn May is right and credible when he questions and presents evidence aganst the history written about Andres Bonifacio by a long list of Filipino historians, including some of the best and popular in the country. We have to re-study our history and historians.”

History! ”I first came to know Dahli personally at the launching of Glenn May’s book at FEU end of last January. (For one thing, she likes chicharon). Before that, I happened to read her column on “Ligaya Ang Itawag Mo Sa Akin,” an embarrassment of a movie, and I liked what she said, and I told her so. (She said movie scriptwriters did not have to write below the belt.) She said thanks. For a change, she said; she gets mostly flak.”

We writers have to learn to be forceful and acceptable – readers too!@517
(image from tbrnewsmedia.com)

­­We Greet Each Other “Happy New Year!” But We Do Not Plan To Change Our Bad Habits, Including Poisoning Our Earth!

I am a UP Los Baños graduate (1965) and the Internet hound that you didn’t know since 1991; I confess that I have never met a more exciting development in the whole field of agriculture than Regenerative Agriculture (RA), in which

the solution to the poverty of our farmers and
the resolution of the excesses of our climate
lies in the exact same human act.

Yes: The upper image dramatizes the devastation caused by chemical farming, not easily recognized.

No: The lower image tempts the farmer to reach bounty and beauty by natural means.

Explaining the two images, I say:

Chemical Agriculture – “Man’s chemicals yield plenty of abused soil and poisoned foods.”

Regenerative Agriculture – “Mother Nature yields plenty of green & gold – & beauty.”

I wonder why our farmers do not realize the blighting of modern farming via chemicals? (top image). In the first place, our agriculturists are not telling them! Don’t they know themselves?

Here are “Most Unknown FACTS you and 98% Didn’t Know” – there are no names of people attached or called authors or originators of the post (I have since loved this post of 2025 Jan 03):

Regenerative Agriculture restores soil health, promotes biodiversity, and creates sustainable food systems. Unlike industrial farming, it works with nature to ensure long-term abundance and environmental resilience.

We worry about Climate Change but we do not worry about Industrial Farming, what I call “Chemical Agriculture” (CA), despite the fact that CA helps bring about Climate Change because it produces greenhouse gases (GHGs), and it is the GHGs that produce the “greenhouse effect “ that produces Climate Change!

It seems nobody talks or write about “Regenerative Agriculture” in my country, the Philippines, except me, an Agriculturist, UP Los Baños graduate 1965 (2.36 weighted average). (I had grades of “1,” equals “Excellent” but also “5,” equals “Failed”). That single semester, I was not minding my course anymore; I was minding my girlfriend!

In this analogy, my failed love is now equivalent to CA that has failed the farmers! In my love case, I was already 100% neglecting my studies while 100% attending to my girlfriend; in the chemical agriculture case, our farmers are neglecting the damage to the soil and the climate while enjoying higher harvests.

Have we ignored the potentials of RA? The answer: No! “Agro-Eco Philippines Helps Transition Filipino Farmers to Agroecological and Organic Regenerative Practices” (19 Aug 2020, Oliver Gardiner, Regeneration International, regenerationinternational.org). Regeneration International (RI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the Filipino League of Organic Municipalities Cities and Provinces (LOAMCP) and RI.

Today, the non-profit government organization (NGO) works with 4,000 individual farmers in 300 farmers’ organizations in Mindanao, eastern Visayas and eastern Luzon.

Its mission is to advocate for Filipino’s right to healthy food, alleviate hunger in poverty-stricken farming communities and teach farmers organic regenerative and agroecological practices that produce healthy food, increase the socio-economic livelihood of farmers, and build resilience against the effects of climate change.

Ah, Regenerative Agriculture – here we come!@517

In Agriculture In The Philippines Today, We Have Too Many (Would-Be) Leaders, But Not A Single Man, Or Woman, With Vision! Let’s See!

New Year, New Vision. For my country the Philippines, I am dreaming of a Secretary of Agriculture who not only has believers of his leadership (or potentials) but has Vision for Filipinos include farmers all prosperous. His name is William Dar, whose leadership in the early 2000s had steered ICRISAT from dead last to #1 among the CGIAR member institutes that included IRRI. So? He was selected as ICRISAT DG 3 times!

I’m thinking of “Science with a Filipino farmer’s face,” borrowing from ICRISAT’s vision. Here, at the moment, we have about 3 million poor Filipino farmers – and Secretary of Agriculture Francis Tiu Laurel Jr is “Vision-Less”?

Well, I am not surprised. As the images above both suggest, to “arrive at” or “formulate” or “figure out” is quite a difficult task – and that is why Wo/Men of Vision appear on the horizon literally only once in a blue moon!
(images: top from r.search.yahoo.com, bottom from anouar olh, pexels.com)

Friends and non-friends talk about Experience and everything else including Leadership, but never about Vision – Why?!!! Even the Bible warns about lack of it: “Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint; But he that keepeth the law, happy is he” – Proverbs 29:18 (American Standard Version).

At the very least: The Vision keeps off Division!

Why Vision? New King James Version: “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but happy is he who keeps the law.” NKJV translates the KJV word “Vision” to “Revelation.” The Vision becomes the Revelation of what is to come – if there is no Vision, what remains is Subdivision!

My favorite topic: Agriculture. Without a Vision priorly agreed upon, every leader down below the Secretary of Agriculture will likely promote his/her agenda, hidden or not.

The Vision must be visible to everyone’s inner eye – and approved by all!

PH Agriculture: There are millions of Filipino farmers who are poor, and they have been poor for a long time, for too long. And they are not poor because they are lazy – Filipino farmers are poor because they do not practice good economics!

To simplify:

VHC = VLR.
That is, Very High Costs equals Very Low Returns.

The current method of agriculture in the Philippines is not only VHC = VLR; it is also essentially Contra Environment and Contra Economics – meaning:

(1) The weeds are disposed of – instead of being used as organic fertilizer.

(2) The disposal of the weeds destroys soil microorganisms that enrich the soil!

(3) The chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides used in chemical agriculture (CA) further destroy the soil environment for natural plant growth.

(4) Harvests from CA are somehow against human health and therefor  against community.

(5) CA generates greenhouse gases (GHGs) that generate Climate Change, With their modern farming methods (essentially chemical), farmers are their/our own worst enemies!

Thus: We need a Man of Vision to lead the Filipino farmers from age-old debilitating poverty to modern healthful prosperity – William Dar. Yes, My Hero!@517

Chinese Crop Researchers – They Have A Problem With The Climate, As We All Do, But They Are Solving It The Hard Way, By Changing The Biology Of Their Crops! That Is By Way Of This Logic – “If You Can’t Solve A Problem, Change The Problem!”

Climate Change vs Biological Change. Here are the Chinese scientists solving a problem by changing the problem! Instead of stopping what can be stopped in Climate Change – the use of chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides that generate greenhouse gases that generate climate change – Chinese scientists are changing crops biologically. Is that the way Chinese scientists are demonstrating to the world that they are “resilient”? Asking as a friend!

Read the News Deskreport (23 Dec 2024, “Chinese Scientists Innovate Climate-Resilient Crops,” Daily CPEC, thedailycpec.com):

Chinese scientists innovate climate-resilient crops to combat climate change and modify crops according to high temperatures.

As the need for climate-resilient crops becomes increasingly critical, Chinese scientists have made a breakthrough in improving crop productivity under high-temperature conditions. Their novel approach addresses the urgent challenge posed by rising global temperatures.

Breakthrough? Maybe, but that is in the way of changing the problem, not solving the problem!

These researchers are not creative, only technical? The argument of the Chinese scientists is this: “The weather is getting hotter, so for higher yields, we need crops that can withstand higher and higher temperature!”

They are not looking at the why of Climate Change; instead, they are looking at what they can do in terms of research, not what they can do to stop farmers from applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides that help generate those high temperatures!

That is solving a problem by creating another!

Are Chinese researchers merely critical, not creative? “Don’t the Chinese researchers know that it is the application of chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides that generate greenhouse gases (GHGs), and it is those GHGs that help produce Climate Change?”

Genius Albert Einstein said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Where is Chinese genius here?! Instead, to increase yields of any crop and/or stop the reduction of yields, why don’t those Chinese researchers conduct studies on any of the 13 methods (in my list) of Regenerative Agriculture (RA), as follows:

(1) Cover Cropping, (2) Crop Rotation, (3) Farm Crops + Tree Crops (Agroforestry), (4) Green Manuring, (5) Intercropping, (6) Multiple Cropping, (7) No-Till Farming, (8) Organic Fertilization, (9) Ratooning, (10) Rotational Grazing, (11) “Three Sisters” Planting, (12) Trap Cropping, (13) Trash Mulching.

13 intelligent cropping choices – not a single one mentions changing the biology of a crop!

The above RA list points to 2 choices: (1) why not simply change your crop, or (2) the way you farm with your favorite crop? If you insist on applying fertilizer, the RA list has 3 ways – “(4) Green Manuring,” “(8) Organic Fertilization, and “(13) Trash Mulching.” Each is one way of applying organic fertilizer on your field.

And let me not forget that none of the practices in my RA list calls for the application of chemical fertilizers and/or chemical pesticides!@517

“Happy New Year!” To Mexican Corn Farmers After The Twin Ban To Import American Corn Which Is Genetically Modified (GM)

Eating corn and enjoying it? Stop right now and consider this: What you are eating may look the same as the one you are used to munching – but it may be an entirely different corn now, one tampered with by profit-minded scientists.

It may be genetically modified (GM) corn – engineered by plant scientists to defeat Mother Nature. I UP Los Baños agriculturist say they should know better!

The corn eaten around the world today originated in Mexico nearly 10,000 years ago; today, the Mexicans are treating the corn as a threat to their own health! (Miranda Lipton, “Mexico Is Treating Corn From The US As A Threat. Here's Why,” 28 Feb 2024, National Geographic, nationalgeographic.com). And the GM-corn Americans are treating the would-be GM corn ban as a threat to their companies’ health – of course.

Also from Ms Miranda:

“The corn eaten around the world today originated in Mexico nearly 10,000 years ago. From the ancient rituals of the Mayans and Aztecs, to the tortillas, tamales, esquites… corn is the centerpiece of culture, cuisine, and identity.”

So why did the Americans have to re-engineer the corn created by Mother Nature? For greater yields. The producers of GM corn will say that Americans cannot eat Mexican culture and identity!

“Supporters of GM crops, including corn, argue that (GM crops) have allowed farmers to boost production significantly and that studies have proven that they are not harmful to human health.” (22 Feb 2021, “Mexico Proceeds With Plan To Replace 16mn Tonnes Of GM Corn With Homegrown Variety,” MND Staff,  Mexico News Daily, mexiconewsdaily.com). I agriculturist ask:

“To the MND Staff: ‘Where are the studies that show long-term consumption of GM is not harmful to humans?’” You should know your journalism!

My journalism I call THiNK! Journalism:

True? If True, is it
Helpful? If Helpful, is it
Inspiring? If Inspiring, is it
Necessary? If Necessary, is it
Kind?
THiNK!

Let’s investigate some more.

(Deputy Agriculture Minister Victor) Suárez, an agronomist, long-term ally of President López Obrador and a key architect of the executive order, told Reuters that GM corn and glyphosate, the active ingredient in the Monsanto herbicide Roundup, are too dangerous to be permitted long term in Mexico. He said that Mexican … sustainable “agro-ecological” practices must take priority.

Whatever those agro-ecological practices are, why is an herbicide included in the “new corn agriculture” based on GM corn?

The American producers of GM crops insist that GM crops “are not harmful to human health.” My personal question: “Have the GM companies conducted long-term studies to be sure? Long-term, like 20 years.”

Genetically modifying a crop, any crop, is definitely tampering with Mother Nature – in time, how can anyone claim that there are no side effects observable in humans who consume them?

My final statement here is this: “Let the companies who produce GM corns show with the bodies of their employees that there are no side-effects even if these employees have consumed them for as long as 30 years!@517

Jose Rizal, The Unknown Hero Of Integrated Development Program In Agriculture, Ecology & Public Health

Today is 30 December, the date of the Spanish execution by firing squad of PH’s now national Hero Jose Rizal – I celebrate Rizal’s life, not his death. If Filipino farmers had trained under “Agriculturist Rizal” in the 19^th century, the Philippines would now be #1 in Asia in Conservation or Regenerative Agriculture! (image from Flicker, flickr.com)

I am reading my friend Rudy A Fernandez’s 16-year old writeup, “Little Known Facts On Rizal As An Agriculturist” (19 June 2008, PhilStar, philstar.com), and I am seeing the very first Filipino conservation agriculturist – and facets of our national Hero Jose Rizal unknown to millions of Filipinos.

Rizal was exiled to Dapitan, Zamboanga in 1896. From then on, he led his life – such as he turned himself into a farmer with conservation as paramount in his mind – unlike our farmers today who have only profits in mind. Rizal’s profits were mostly knowledge – earning the most from crops by cultivating them the healthiest & most profitable ways combined.

He had obtained a Bachelor of Agriculture degree from the Ateneo Municipal (now Ateneo University), so I wonder how much Ateneo’s “Agriculture” at that time differ from UP Los Baños’ ”Agriculture”, with which I graduated. UP Los Baños’ agriculture does not teach conservation that much – only in passing! I’m not surprised. What universities of agriculture all over the world teach is Chemical Agriculture.

In many of the countries today, farmers apply chemical fertilizers to supply the food their crops do not get from the field, and chemical pesticides to protect their crops from pests.

Rizal was a multi-faceted man. He practiced development communication, gathering vital information and sharing them with farmers so they could improve their productivity. At one time, he sold abaca fiber in Manila to study its prices.

Rizal also held a degree in Land Surveying, which helped him understand agricultural land use.

These are among the lesser-known facets of Rizal’s brief but accomplished life that makes his example relevant even today.

Jose Protasio Mercado Rizal y Alonso Realonda was born in Calamba (now a city) in Laguna on 19 June 1861. (Nota Bene: I rearranged from the well-known “Jose Protasio Rizal Mercado” because the family was known as “Mercado” before it changed its last name to “Rizal” legally.)

During the early part of his Dapitan exile, Rizal acquired land from the Spanish government for his farm activities. Not satisfied with that small farm, he bought 16 hectares more from various owners; that’s 17 ha more or less.

In just half a year, he had planted 5,000 pineapples and 1,400 coffee and 200 cacao trees. Later, he purchased more land, which he planted with corn and abaca.

I go back – “Under modern judgment, what (Rizal) did in Dapitan turned out to be practical expressions of integrated development programs in agriculture, ecology, and public health,” Mr Fernandez notes in his PhilStar article.

Now then, what happened to Rizal’s experiences in Dapitan?! Asking as a friend! As knowledge eye-opening as they were/are, we must know much more of them!@517