Where On Earth Are We?

Saturday Stories

September 29, 2018

I

An exact spot on earth is marked by its coordinates. For example: I'm in Cebu City, the capital of Cebu province in the Philippines, around 860 kilometers south of Manila. The coordinates are 10°19'00" N latitude, and 123°53'26" E longitude, according to DateAndTime.info. They are read as "10 degrees, 19 minutes, 0 second North," and "123 degrees, 53 minutes and 26 seconds East." Let's have fun with this.

II

Think of a tic-tac-toe grid – the earth has criss-crossing imaginary lines called latitude (horizontal) and longitude (vertical). Both lines have their own 0 degrees – their own reference points. For latitude (east to west), it is the equator, the line circling the middle of the earth's circumference. For longitude (north to south), it is the Prime Meridian, which passes through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London among many places, including Spain and Burkina Faso. Most nations have been using it since 1884, though the IERS Reference Meridian, which is only 5.3 seconds east of the Greenwich line, is now being used by GPS (Global Positioning System) satellites.

III

Imagine a plane flying around the globe. If you go around the world from the prime meridian and back again, you would have gone 360 degrees – a complete circle. So a half-circle is 180 degrees. That longtitude line of 180 degrees is on the complete opposite of the prime meridian. (The 180th meridian, passing mostly through the Pacific Ocean, is also known as the International Date Line.) Now, imagine a watermelon cut in half from top to bottom – the prime meridian and the 180th meridian divides the earth into the western and eastern hemispheres.

IV 

So ... clear so far. To get specific latitude coordinates, we start from the equator. Each latitude line is 1 degree, up North or down South, until 90 degrees at the pole. For longitude, each line from the prime meridian, east or west, is also 1 degree. Now ... imagine a chess board – the space between the horizontal and vertical lines are divided into 60 minutes, and of course, a minute is divided into 60 seconds. In other words, the spaces between the latitude and longitude lines are also grids for minutes and seconds. But what if we don't have the longitude? That was the problem for many centuries – countless men have died at sea simply because they could not know their location. When I read "Longitude: The True Story of A Lone Genius Who Solved The Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time" by award-winning science writer Dava Sobel, it made me appreciate even more the knowledge we have today. I feel deep gratitude to all the men and women, with some of the most brilliant minds in history like Galileo and Newton, who have used their own unique gifts to make this world a better – and safer – place for us all.

Photo courtesy of Amazon

What Else Did Schliemann Found In Troy?

Saturday Stories

September 22, 2018

A symbol has power. A sign, or even a person, can unite people to the same cause. There is a relic in A.J. Hartley's "The Mask of Atreus" that could transform the world by unleashing the forces of chaos. But can a mere object actually do that? It sounds incredible, but it is possible given our human tendency to strive for what we believe in – even if it means mass genocide to reach our goal.

The archeologist Deborah Miller found a priceless collection of ancient Greek treasures that no one else knew about, so it could only have been kept hidden from the public all these years – but one piece is missing. How could it so valuable that the precious antiquities were left untouched? When the police saw what was left behind, they also found a dead body.

It began with Homer centuries ago. His epic poem "The Iliad" chronicles the siege of Ilium, or Troy. The walled city fell because the enemies went hiding in a large statue of a horse left outside the gates – the Trojan Horse. King Agamemnon of Greece led the attack to take back Helen, the wife of his brother, King Menelaus of Sparta. She had been taken by Paris, the Prince of Troy who killed the demigod Achilles by shooting an arrow in his only vulnerable part – his heel. Helen, as the Bread song goes, was "The face that launched a thousand ships."

Homer's story inspired the German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann to find the legendary city of Troy. He was said to have unearthed Troy in 1870 in what is now Turkey. Then Deborah discovers that Schliemann may have found things other than Priam's treasures – yet never told anyone. Who was Atreus? He was the King of Mycenae, the city founded by Perseus, the son of Zeus and the slayer of Medusa. But Atreus' Death Mask is something else. It was also in Mycenae, in the present day, that Deborah came face to face with a mysterious young man whose mission was to protect the secret.

Photo courtesy of JauntingJen.com

When Power Corrupts Absolutely

Saturday Stories

September 15, 2018

While Jesus was on the cross, a Roman centurion named Longinus pierced him with a lance. Many people, including non-Christians, have heard that story. What happened next was a lot more fun – the lance was imbued with magical powers because of Jesus' blood, and came to be known as "The Spear of Destiny" – and whoever wields it will have the power to conquer the world.

I love historical thrillers, like Daniel Easterman's The Spear of Destiny, because it's fun to hear stories behind the legends. There are things where we can never tell fact from fiction, the true from the false, like if the "Holy Lance" that Baldwin II of Constantinople had sold to Louis IX of France was the real thing.

A young British soldier, Gerald Underwood, found the Spear in a desert crypt during the Second World War. Since then, he has been on the run from mysterious people who will stop at nothing to get it, and they got him. His nephew Ethan, a young detective with almost supernatural resources of his own, set out to avenge his uncle. Ethan's hunt took him to Hungary and Transylvania and Romania, where the Undead had been said to roam, knowing that whoever took the Spear has come to possess powers beyond imagination.

But what if it's real? In a nonfiction book also titled The Spear of Destiny, author Trevor Ravenscroft says the world saw its power – when it was used by Hitler. Power does curious things to people. Some begin to think they have a supreme destiny, some exploit technicalities to unseat the opposition while pretending to uphold the rule of law. Hitler needed the Spear because he wanted to rule the world, and he believed he was to meant to do it because he was superior. But the Spear was taken by Patton – who won the war. It would be funny, if it weren't so tragic, that those who are hungry for power are the very ones who shouldn't have it.

Photo courtesy of AminoApp.com

Why I Do Not Want To Be Immortal

Jonathan Aquino's Saturday Stories

September 8, 2018

A friend once asked me if I want to be immortal. But what if all men are? I'm sure CNN will have live coverage of the endless battles between Gengis versus Alexander versus Sargon versus Caesar versus Napoleon versus Hitler, but what kind of world is that? If Mozart is still composing, then Jack The Ripper would still be ripping. Mother Teresa would still be with us, but so would Pol Pot. Would John Paul II become Pope if Simon Peter never died? Then again, if Jesus is still alive, there would be no Vatican in the first place.

Yet such a man did exist. He once belonged to the Inquisition, the group the Church has spawned during the 12th century to destroy anyone who wasn't them, much like the Nazis, but in the name of God. This man found what the Knights Templar called the "Elixir of Life." That is one of the story threads in "The Sanctuary" by Raymond Khoury. But the secret was discovered by another man – one who'd kill to gain immortal life.

Yet what if the gift can be shared? What if a man can be granted eternal life here on earth? Is the world ready? A man who once called himself St. Germain, among many names, had asked the same questions. Almost three centuries later, in present-day Beirut, a man with an assumed identity was asking the same questions – and feeling the same doubts. It all began in the 16th century in a Templar castle in Portugal, all the way to Baghdad in the aftermath of Saddam's fall, with a half-burnt book that reveals the secret – with the tantalizing symbol of a coiled snake biting its tail.

I told my friend: No, I don't want to be immortal. This was when the movie "Twilight" first came out, when it seemed all the other kids thought it was cool to be a vampire, and today, I still don't. I know that death is part of life, but I also know how it feels when someone dies. Many of the people I've loved are now dead, but if I'm immortal, then each and everyone I ever cared for will die right before my eyes, and I'm not sure if I can stand that. If you are destined to live forever, you will be alone forever. You will be afraid to be close to someone because they will soon die, and you'll be alone again, but in more pain. That is the price for immortality.

Photo courtesy of Barnes & Noble

Heaven and Hell

Saturday Stories

September 1, 2018

Once upon a time in Japan, a samurai named Nobushige wanted to learn about Heaven and Hell, so he went to Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku. He found himself being baited into anger, and he drew his katana. "That," said the monk, "is Hell." Suddenly, the samurai understood, and he lowered his sword. "And that," said Hakuin, "is Heaven."

This Zen story, said to have happened in the mid-1700s during the Edo period, inspired me to write "The Measure of A Man," my first solo poem in 2018 and the last I wrote using pen and paper. The title is inspired by the song by Clay Aiken.

My poem first appeared in The Philippines Graphic magazine on April 20, 2018, with South Korean Ambassador Han Dong-Man on the cover.

Then it was published by Spillwords Press on June 28, 2018 on their site.

I just got an e-mail from the editor of Setu Bilingual, an English-Hindi magazine based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, confirming that my poem will be part of their August edition. It is set to go live on the first week of September so I'll just post the link below.

"Do what thy manhood bids thee do from none but self expect applause," as I quoted the British diplomat and author Richard Francis Burton on my cover letter. "He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws."

The Measure of A Man

By Jonathan Aquino

I.

Any fool can carry a weapon

and even a coward can kill,

I told the warrior as he rose,

drawing his sword as I sat still,

unmoved as death draws near.

II.

He told who he was, and how dare I,

I did, and there is no need, said I,

to say what I already knew, and he,

as he raised the blade, saw I wasn't afraid.

III.

My eyes, steady in gaze, are crystal-clear,

and he saw it, he whose weapon is fear.

Am I not afraid to die, he asked me.

And then I spoke, and he listened closely.

IV.

Death arrives as the dawn brings out the sun,

and courage is to face it when it comes.

And yet the measure of a man is more than valor,

for it is hallow without decency and honor.

See also 

Graphic

Spillwords

Setu

Photo courtesy of DeviantArt