The title of this entry may not be that truthful..
But hey, it didnt say "All in a day's corporate work".
Lemme be with my own definition of "work".
But that's one of the nice things about blogging.
It enables my future self to read and make comments
about what I have written in the past. (DUH!)
I might have a different mind-set in the future...
a different perspective of "work". And it would
be very interesting what my future-self
would think of his old-self's blog entries.
'Nuff about the future-old-what-if stuff.
Time to snap out of it and get with the topic
on hand...
Task #1
(or at least what was supposed to be Task 1)
I was supposed to be doing a research about
Java's Hibernate. But something came up..
an email actually..
Task #1
All day I had been browsing the
wikipedia about Islam. Yeah,
I-S-L-A-M. One of the most misunderstood
terms commonly used today.
It all started when a friend of mine
posted an article entitled "A Religion of Peace?"
in our barkada's mailing list.
And naturally, the all-too-familiar talkative
me had something to say about it.
I know there are many out there who
would agree with the author that Islam is not
a religion of peace. But feeling
like myself (the all-too-familiar talkative
me), I bombarded our mailing list
with the usual big-waves of email.
Dont get me wrong. I'm no fan of Islam
but I'm not a fan of the other side of the
propaganda either. I refuse to be a tool...
to be an instrument and to be a part of
something that could easily become
a discrimination campaign.
And so there I was googling
and browsing wikipedia for
terms like "fatwa".
It seems like there are waaayy too
many fatwas out there about
murder and purging the world of
non-believers of Allah(especially
americans). It's a good thing Im
not an american :D
But the thing is, even muslim
have different conceptions
what a fatwa is.
What's the worst of it. It's that both
sides are banking on it.
On one side of the board, we have
the anti-Islam and the fearful ignorant
majority.
A: Islam is evil... see thay have this thing
called "fatwa" -
B: Fat what? (or f*ck what?)
A: Fatwa, it's a pronouncement of somesort
that could be used urge muslims to
perform things in behalf of Allah... things
like killing non-muslims like us!!!
B: No sh!t !!
A: Yeah! Remember 9/11? That was their sh!t.
On the other side of the ring, we have the
political terrorists preying upon
their ignorance of their brethren.
A: Dar-al-Islam! A fatwa has been issued. It
shall be obeyed!
B, C, D, E, F, G: for Dar-al-Islam!
A: For Islam!
It really is pathetic the way people are using
fear and religion for their political gain.
Task #2
After the islam business, I googled once again
for anything about Philippine history.
(Okay, I tripped on my own shoelaces.
It was really unaccurate of me to say
that "All day I was browsing about Islam")
I wanted to check whether it really
was Masau, Butuan or Limasawa, Leyte
where the first Christian mass was held.
According to wikipedia it's "Masau, Butuan".
Still not sure though. It's either Pigafetta's
handwriting was that bad or the translators
deserves to get some bashing.
And as a side tour, I tried visiting uncyclopedia.
The site has been mentioned by two of my friends
in their blogsites. One was for it and the other
against it. The one who favored it had something
like "Wikipedia take that.." and the other one
had a title like "Uncyclopedia my ass!"
I had to visit the site myself.. and what?!
Guess what? the site was blocked by our
proxy server/s. And the only thing
I could do that was "legal" (using of tunnelling
programs and 3rd party proxyservers are
"illegal") was to visit google's cache of
the link.
Here's the link:
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Philippines
I loved the article. Call me unpatriotic,
but the article is quite funny. Perhaps
too lengthy when compared to entries
on "US" and "USA" . Some stuff may have
been puffed up for effect, but in essence,
most of the stuff there were true.
I love the taste of sarcasm. Yum yum yum.
It's like the author and I are on the same
wavelength.
It hurts, but it's sweet.
Task #3
blog something.. anything...
I came
I logged in
I blogged
Friday, February 10, 2006
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2 comments:
If I didn't know any better, I'd have been upset with Uncyclopedia too. But unfortunately most of what is stated there is true, albeit sarcastic.
"First mass" was held at Limasawa?
Magellan didn't go to Limasawa. Or Butuan.
The place where Magellan’s fleet anchored and where an Easter mass was celebrated on March 31, 1521 was not Butuan. Or, Limasawa.
It was in the island-port named Mazaua. Being an island, it was surrounded by sea water.
There is an article at Wikipedia on Mazaua where all the properties of Mazaua–its location, size, kind of port, shape, the name of its king, its flora and fauna, distances from Homonhon to the port, latitude, etc. etc.–are explicitly defined. Click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazaua.
A fairly comprehensive but not exhaustive historiography of the Mazaua issue is contained in an article published in the website of the Italian nuclear scientist and Italian translator of Dr. Jose Rizal, Dr. Vasco Caini, at http://www.xeniaeditrice.it. When the page opens scroll down to the article Mazaua.
The notion the March 31, 1521 mass was held at Butuan comes from the garbled account by Giovanni Battista Ramusio. It is such a corrupted translation of the original that the account is not Antonio Pigafetta’s at all. In this translation, which Henry Harrisse says is a plagiarism by Ramusio of an anonymously published book that saw print in 1534 (no one has seen this edition) and republished in 1536 (which is extant), Ramusio removed “Mazaua” and replaced it with Butuan.
The Butuan error stayed uncorrected for 266 years from 1534 or 1536 until 1800. The error was detected in a book containing the authentic Pigafetta narration of the Magellan voyage, edited by the ex-Augustinian polymath Carlo Amoretti.
But in correcting the error, Amoretti made a colossal blunder which was only detected in 1996 by the author. Amoretti in two footnotes surmised that Mazaua (his exact names for the island was Massana and Mazzana) MAY be the “Limassava” island in the 1734 map of the Philippines by French mapmaker Jacques N. Bellin. This map was an exact copy of the most famous map ever made in the Philippines by Fr. Pedro Murillo Velarde, the edition of 1734.
Amoretti, by way of offering proof to support his assertion, states Limasawa and Mazaua are in the latitude given by Pigafett, 9 degrees and 40 minutes North. This is wrong on three points: 1) Limasawa’s latitude is 9 deg. 56 min. N; 2) There is no island at Pigafetta’s latitude; 3) There are two other readings of latitude for Mazaua, 9 degrees North by The Genoese Pilot which is supported by the Portuguese squadron leader, Antonio de Brito, who embargoed all objects found at the flagship Trinidad including a number of logbooks and other papers, and 9 deg. 20 min. North by Francisco Albo, the Greek mariner who piloted the Victoria back to Spain on Sept. 6, 1522.
The notion Combes’ Limasawa was Magellan’s Mazaua where the “first mass” was held is a false notion. Combes nowhere says his Limasawa is the port where the fleet moored on March 28-April 3, 1521. Nowhere does Combes say there was any mass held in his Limasawa or anywhere in the Philippines for that matter on March 31, 1521. To verify this, go to the English translation of the 3-paragraph story by Combes of Magellan’s sojourn in Philippine waters. Click http://books.google.com/books?id=NbG7kHtBma8C&pg=PA1&dq=First+mass+in+Limasawa&ei=6w27SZi7IoLKlQS8neDVAg#PPA4,M1. The original Spanish text may be accessed at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=philamer;cc=philamer;q1=Limasaua;rgn=full%20text;idno=ahz9273.0001.001;didno=ahz9273.0001.001;view=image;seq=00000134
Where then is Magellan’s port today? The answer may be found at the ff. Wikipedia articles:
1. First mass in the Philippines –http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_mass_in_the_Philippines
2. Carlo Amoretti — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Amoretti
3. Gines de Mafra — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gines_de_Mafra
4. Mazaua — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazaua
5. Francisco Combes — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Comb%C3%A9s
6. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_de_Herrera_y_Tordesillas
7. Andres de San Martin — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_de_San_Mart%C3%ADn
8. Ruy Lopez de Villalobos — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez_de_Villalobos
No serious scholar of Magellan historiography today still thinks Limasawa is Mazaua. Only the National Historical Institute and fanatic advocates (not scholars) of Amoretti’s Limasawa hypothesis still think the southern isle is or can be Mazaua.
Ironically, some writers from Butuan think in the same way as NHI itself. For what unexplained reason, it’s not clear.
The only remaining problem is whether the suspect isle of Pinamanculan-Bancasi is really Mazaua. This issue is not historiographical. It is archaeological, i.e., there is need to come up with artefacts directly traceable to Magellan, Gines de Mafra, and a number of other recorded visits by Europeans in the 16th century.
These artefacts cannot be produced by further historiographical conversation. It is only by digging that concrete evidence may be found.
VICENTE CALIBO DE JESUS
ginesdemafra@gmail.com
BTW, there is no Wikipedia article that states the March 31, 1521 mass was held at Masao/Mazau/Masau in Butuan. Masao is not an island. The Masao spit is not an island.
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