The tarnished silver buses that lumber along the avenues of this city are outdated, some of them 20 years old, but the cracked and faded seats are precious to many people. In Montgomery, where Rosa Parks made history by refusing to give her seat to a white passenger on Dec. 1, 1955, these buses are seen not only as a service but also as a civil right.
Johnnie Carr, who took part in the bus boycott here in 1955 and 1956, recalled, "I remember that I would be too proud to sit, so I would just stand" rather than face the indignity of having to give up her seat to a white passenger. "I stood all the way home, some days," she added.
Now 85, Mrs. Carr does not ride the bus anymore, yet every time she sees one rumble by she is reminded of the sacrifices it took to force the city to allow people like her to ride them with some dignity. Now, 40 years later, she and other aged civil rights veterans are battling the city again, to keep the buses running.
Across the South and around the nation, cities are trimming bus service or closing down public transportation systems. Elected officials have responded to sharp cuts in Federal financing precisely as feared by the people who ride buses, and instead of financing bus systems with local tax dollars, many city officials have decided to let riders -- usually poor, elderly, handicapped and often minority -- do without.
In Greenville, S.C., the city has done away with bus service entirely. In Birmingham, Ala., the bus system teeters at the edge of financial collapse. Here in Montgomery, service has been cut by more than half.Continue reading the main story
That means Kody Chester-DesRosiers, a 31-year-old single mother with a 9-year-old daughter, spends one-fourth of her $200 weekly take-home pay to get to work by taxi because the bus schedule does not match her work hours. Some weeks, "we have nothing in our refrigerator," Ms. Chester-DesRosiers said.
It means that Mary Powell, 53, had to drop out of a literacy program in which she was learning to read for the first time in her life.
It means that 27-year-old Anna Walker, nine months pregnant, has to walk two miles from the public health clinic to her home, because the buses run only one way.
It means that Frank Jackson, a 42-year-old laborer, has to quit work three hours early to catch the last bus home, because the taxi ride would cost him even more; that Dorothy Woods, a 51-year-old housekeeper, has to beg for a ride to work, smothering her pride, and that Mary Moore, 85, has lost what independence she had left and relies now on her daughter to get groceries.
"I feel awful," Mrs. Moore said about city officials' cutting bus service. "I could curse them out."
All around the city, elderly black women wait for hours at bus stops after spending their days cooking and cleaning for wealthy white families. One woman, her knees swollen by arthritis, said she had to walk two miles in the morning and two more every evening to catch the bus.
Some people have resorted to buying old cars they cannot afford, others paying neighbors to drive, but some have no way to travel except on buses, spending $1.50 each way.
"We came to see public transportation as part of life, something we earned," Mrs. Carr said. "It's just what the city should give its people."
To advocates who are trying to persuade the city to restore service, the Montgomery city government, long dominated by Mayor Emory Folmar, is either uncaring of the poor people who depend on buses or just hopelessly out of touch.
"Out of one side of their mouth, they're saying people should work," said Mrs. Carr, who has attended City Council meetings and helped organize protests. "But they're denying people the way to get to work."
Mr. Folmar, whose bid for governor in 1982 was thwarted in part because blacks voted for an old nemesis, George C. Wallace, rather than see the rigidly conservative Mr. Folmar in power, declined to comment.
But Councilman Charles W. Jinright, chairman of the Council's Transportation Committee, said that in a time of shrinking tax dollars, the city could not afford to "throw them away" on buses that benefit just 2,200 of the city's 190,000 people. The city's bus system is "like the horse and buggy," Mr. Jinright said.
"We have found that a lot of the time the poor people even feel like it's an insult to ride on public transportation because of the negative connotation attached to it," said Mr. Jinright, who owns an insurance and brokerage business in Montgomery.
Such thinking, riders and advocates say, is wrong because poor people need the buses. As Mrs. Moore said, "We can't get nowhere."
Montgomery, 42 percent black and 56 percent white, has a bus system like that of many around the country. The ridership here, mostly black, is shrinking, making the system an economic liability. And the nine-member City Council, with five whites and four blacks, lacks enough votes to continue all-day bus service if the service is losing money.
Paul Queen, general manager of the transit system, said Mr. Folmar instituted a "shared-pain" plan when Congress sheared aid for transit last year. In Montgomery, the hardship means that the bus system has dropped from a weekday schedule of 17 routes with 12 to 13 hours each day to 6 hours. There is virtually no weekend service.
"You get to a point where you say, 'Do I want to fund one more bus route or do I want to buy three more police cruisers?' " Mr. Queen said. "With crime rampant and people prisoners in their own homes, that's not a hard decision to make."
It seemed so to Ms. Powell, who grew up poor, working in the cotton and peanut fields, never learning to read. Last year she enrolled in a literacy and skills program, but after the bus schedules were cut, she dropped out. She could walk for miles and wait three hours on another bus, but she raises her 9-year-old granddaughter, Ashley, and has to rush home to care for her.
"I wanted to learn, and get me a good job," Ms. Powell said. It don't make no sense. They want us off the welfare, but. . . ."
Sister Leanne Sitter, a Catholic nun who is the program's executive director, said the participants "want to so badly" to learn to read. "They want to acquire some skills so they can go out and earn a living," Sister Sitter said. "But how can they do that if they can't get here?"
For Ms. Chester-DesRosiers, a secretary with take-home pay of $800 each month, the buses were a tool for building a solid life along with 9-year-old Jaanicia.
"I make $80 too much for food stamps," she said. Unable to afford a car, Ms. Chester-DesRosiers relied on the buses to get to work, to the doctor's office, to church. The cash she saved had provided little luxuries like a pizza or a movie for mother and daughter. But cab fares have robbed them of that.
"I've missed church twice" because of the expense, Ms. Chester-DesRosiers said. She had to take a job in a convenience store on weekends to meet her bills.
For others, the cuts in service have made it much harder to take care of themselves and their children. Many of the riders are young women who rely on welfare and the buses as essentials of life, or older people who, for one reason or another, have no family available to take care of them.
For Ms. Walker, the long walk home from the public health clinic makes her back ache, and the strain is bad for her pregnancy.
County health departments in the Southeast provide childhood immunizations, screenings for tuberculosis and other diseases, nutrition counseling, prenatal care, family planning, treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, and other medical services, all to people who cannot afford a doctor elsewhere.
The cuts in bus service, some health officials fear, have curtailed some preventive care.
"They're people trying to bring kids in for shots, people trying to keep prenatal appointments," said Dr. Laurie Dill, the Montgomery County Health Officer. "If you can't get there, there's an increased tendency to let it slide."
Although Dr. Dill said she was grateful for the money the health department gets from the city and county, any reduction in transportation creates a serious barrier to treating the county's poor.
To Mrs. Carr, who has been agitating for people less fortunate than herself for 40 years, "it's the children you worry most about." Last year, she was named "Citizen of the Year" by the local newspaper, The Montgomery Advertiser.
She said she had always hoped that as she grew old she would see the society around her become kinder, more generous, but from her perspective it had grown less feeling in the last few years.
"I could close my eyes and not see these things," Mrs. Carr said. "But I do. The Bible says, 'The poor you will have always.' "
In Montgomery, many of them will be walking.Continue reading the main story


A subject that encompasses everyone’s life is school. School, or education, has been a hotly debated topic throughout the nation, and this is not without reason. School sets the framework for the nation. Many times, politicians will state that “children are our future” or something else related to education, but beyond this, school is in itself a government-provided commodity. What this means is that education is a supposedly equal platform that all citizens can stand upon, a guarantee, an insurance that regardless of wealth, gender, or race, everyone has the right to education.
One hotly debated question in regards to school and the education system is “Does class size matter?” The NEPC (National Educational Policy Center) Editorial Review Board seems to say yes.
In general, the NEPC claims that “class size is an important determinant of student outcomes.” And obviously, class size is something that can be directly affected by the educational policies of today.
Many opposers to a reduction of class sizes bring up the fact that this will cost more money. Keep in mind that public schools are funded by the government, and that the government is funded by tax money that the people pay. It is important that this tax money is focused on the important things. However, a response to this “waste of government funding” would be that this money would be justified by an overall increase in the effectiveness of school and the students’ learning. All these positive results are important to keep in mind.
The best evidence of reduced class sizes actually improving students’ learning capabilities is the Tennessee’s randomized STAR experiment. For those unaware, the STAR test is a test that measures Student Teacher Achievement Ratio. From 1985 to 1989, 79 Tennessee elementary schools were randomly assigned to either regular (22-25 students per class) or small-sized (13-17 students per class) classes. Randomness implies a disregard for any other qualities, such as social class, gender, or race. The results from the STAR were astounding.
Tennessee saw a 5 percentile increase for smaller sized class students across the board!
In review, though it is true that smaller class sizes call for more funding and more taxes, when deciding the future of our nation, and the outcome of our students, we must not cut any expenses.


1. The world is all that is the taste.
1.1 The world is the totality of flavours, not things.
1.1.1 The world is determined by the totality of flavours, and these being all the flavours.
1.12 For the totality of flavours determines both what is the taste and also all that is not the taste.
1.13 The tastes in experiential space are the world.
1.2 The world divides into individual flavours: sweet, sour, salt and bitter.
1.21 Chocolate is more than the sum of these flavours.
2 What is the taste, the fact, is the existence of elemental flavours.
[The rest is left to the reader to fill out as a personal exercise… should take about a day]


A new type of computer memory, dubbed as universal computer memory, which could solve the digital technology energy crisis has been invented and patented by scientists from Lancaster University in the UK. The electronic memory device is said to transform daily life with its ultra-low energy consumption, as described in research published in Scientific Reports.
Energy savings from efficient lighting and appliances have been completely wiped out by increased use of computers and gadgets. By 2025, a 'tsunami of data' is expected to consume a fifth of global electricity, but this new memory device would immediately lower the peak power consumption in data centers by a fifth from current energy usage levels.
For example, it would allow computers which do not need to boot up and could instantaneously and imperceptibly go into an energy-saving sleep mode, even between keystrokes.
"Universal Memory, which has robustly stored data that is easily changed, is widely considered to be unfeasible, or even impossible, but this device demonstrates its contradictory properties." Physics Professor Manus Hayne of Lancaster University said.
A US patent has been granted for the electronic memory device with another patent pending, while multiple companies have expressed an interest or are actively involved in the research.
The inventors of the device used quantum mechanics to solve the dilemma of choosing between stable, long-term data storage and low-energy writing and erasing, according to Lancaster University.
The new memory device could replace the 100 billion dollar market for Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM). Which is currently the 'working memory' for computers, as well as the long-term memory in flash drives.
While writing data to DRAM is fast and low-energy, the data is volatile and must be continuously 'refreshed' to avoid it being lost. this is inconvenient and inefficient. Flash stores data robustly, but writing and erasing is slow, energy intensive and deteriorates it, making it unsuitable for working memory, the report said.
"The ideal is to combine the advantages of both without their drawbacks, and this is what we have demonstrated. Our device has an intrinsic data storage time that is predicted to exceed the age of the Universe, yet it can record or delete data using 100 times less energy than DRAM," Professor Hayne said.
Featured image: Scientific Reports / University of Lancaster
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Home & Garden Garden The Strange World of Insects That Mimic Other Insects By Catie Leary Catie Leary Writer and Photographer Georgia State University Catie Leary writes and curates visual stories about science, animals, the arts, travel, and the natural world. Learn about our editorial process Updated May 31, 2017 Ant-mimicking cricket nymph. (Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim/Wikimedia) Share Twitter Pinterest Email Garden Insects Planting Guides Indoor Gardening Urban Farms Life isn't always what it appears to be, and there's no better example of this in nature than the marvel of insect mimicry. While you might be aware of insects that have features resembling leaves, flowers, sticks or even eyes, some of the most fascinating examples of this natural phenomenon are the insects that mimic other insects.There are several reasons why an insect might adopt such clever copy-cat traits, but it usually boils down to either warding off predators (defensive mimicry) or tricking prey into thinking they're harmless when they're really not (aggressive mimicry). For ant-mimicking cricket nymphs of the Macroxiphus genus, their appearance is a cut-and-dried example of defensive mimicry. After all, when you're just a little baby katydid or bush-cricket trying to make your way in a dangerous world, it helps to look like you're a foot soldier in a massive, powerful army of ants. Let's take a moment to learn about some other insects (and spiders!) that have evolved mimicked traits. Hoverflies Inane hoverfly. (Photo: Gabi Wolf/Shutterstock) There are many different species of hoverfly, and nearly all of them resemble bees and wasps in one way or another. Their uncanny appearance largely functions to ward off predators, however sometimes it's used to actively harm other species. In the case of Volucella inanis (above), their wasp-like features allows them to lay their eggs in wasp nests, where their larvae can feed on the wasp larvae. Viceroy and Monarch butterflies Viceroy butterfly. (Photo: John E Heintz Jr/Shutterstock) When you think of insect mimicry, monarch and viceroy butterflies are usually the first to come to mind. These two species exhibit Müllerian mimicry, which occurs when a pair of species with a common predator benefit from looking alike because they are "equally unpalatable." Wasp beetles Wasp beetle. (Photo: Marek R. Swadzba/Shutterstock) The wasp beetle (Clytus arietis) is another virtually harmless plant-munching insect that uses its wasp-like colors and patterns to ward off any hungry predators. In addition to its appearance, this longhorn beetle also emits a buzzing noise when threatened. Ant-mimicking spiders Ant-mimicking spider. (Photo: Thithawat.S/Shutterstock) While not technically an insect, ant-mimicking spiders are an example of a creepy-crawly that employs both defensive and aggressive mimicry. While some species use their appearance and chemical smell to hunt down and eat actual ants, others use it to escape predation from insects like mantises, which generally avoid going after ants.


How to split an atom
Add this to the pile of mind-bending atom qualities: an atomic nucleus has less mass as a whole than its protons and neutrons would have separately. How is this possible? Well, when the nucleus is formed, some of the mass of its constituent parts changes into energy that binds the protons and neutrons together. In other words, there’s high potential energy locked up in the nucleus.
It’s possible to release this energy, and actually harness it, by splitting specific types of atoms apart into multiple fragments – a process known as nuclear fission. All you need to break apart a uranium-235 atom is a slow-moving free neutron. The uranium atom will absorb the free neutron, the extra energy makes the uranium nucleus highly unstable, and the atom splits into two smaller atoms and two or three free neutrons. The potential energy in the nucleus is released as kinetic energy, in the form of these particles moving at great speed. The resulting free neutrons, in turn, can break apart other uranium-235 atoms, leading to a chain reaction.
“All you need to break apart a uranium-235 atom is a slow-moving free neutron”
A powerplant controls the reaction and harnesses the heat of this kinetic energy in order to generate steam that turns turbines. In contrast, in an atomic bomb the reaction is allowed to go unchecked, in order to generate a massive explosion.
You can also tap into this energy through nuclear fusion – the combining of two nuclei into a new nucleus. Nuclear fusion generates the energy of stars and hydrogen bombs. However, nobody has been able to harness it effectively as a power source yet.


|Port of Nagoya |
|Opened||November 10, 1907|
|Operated by||Nagoya Port Authority|
|Size of harbor||82,279,000 square metres (885,640,000 sq ft) |
|Land area||42,133,000 square metres (453,520,000 sq ft) |
|Annual cargo tonnage||165,000,000|
|Annual container volume||2,110,000|
|Value of cargo||¥16.7 trillion JPY (2009)|
The Port of Nagoya (名古屋港, 'Nagoyakō'), located in Ise Bay, is the largest and busiest trading port in Japan, accounting for about 10% of the total trade value of Japan. Notably, this port is the largest exporter of cars in Japan and where the Toyota Motor Corporation exports most of its cars. It has piers in Nagoya, Tōkai, Aichi, Chita, Aichi, Yatomi, Aichi, and Tobishima, Aichi.
Its mascots are Potan and Mitan.
According to Japanese media sources, Kodo-kai, a Yakuza faction in the Yamaguchi-gumi group, earns large revenues by controlling the stevedoring and warehousing companies at the port.
The port draws tourists from the Chūkyō Metropolitan Area as one of its primary tourist attractions. The main attraction is the port's famous Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium. Nearby is also an amusement park and the now-retired Antarctic survey ship Fuji which moors at the Port of Nagoya as a museum of the South Pole and its journeys there.
The Isewangan Expressway includes three impressive bridges, collectively known as the Meikō Triton, which span the port.
In the waters of the port on a small artificial island, there is a wildflower garden called Bluebonnet.


Myths are often created to give an answer to something we couldn't explain. But even after the tales are disproven, they continue to be prevalent. We talked to physician and CEO Dr. Dan Duncanson about some of the more common health myths and why they are not real.
Health-Related Myth Number 1: Deodorants Cause Breast Cancer.
There are many different claims in this myth. For example, the aluminum in antiperspirants can seep into the skin through microtears created by shaving, get into the lymph nodes, and cause cancer. It is also said that parabens are another concerning ingredient in deodorants. And that breast cancer is most common in the area found close to the armpit because this breast region is closer in proximity to the armpit lymph nodes that are exposed to antiperspirants.
Dr. Duncanson tells us that parabens and aluminum are not anything that anyone needs to worry about. Parabens are a group of compounds found in lots of different products whose primary function is to preserve whatever the product is. Makeup, skincare, and some food products contain them.
A 2004 study done found parabens appeared in some samples of breast tissue, but the study did not show how they got there or they caused or contributed to cancer.
A similar result occurred when testing the aluminum in antiperspirants. Only a small fraction of the aluminum in this product is absorbed. Even then, the study did not find a higher amount of aluminum in breast cancer tissue compared to healthy tissue. "The available research does not show a correlation between deodorants and breast cancers," says Dr. Duncanson.
There is also not any hard evidence showing the location of breast cancers is related to using antiperspirants. Breast cancers typically occur in an area that has the most amount of breast tissue. For the majority of people, that would be the upper outer quadrant, the area closest to the armpit.
Health-Related Myth Number 2: Green Mucus Means You're Sick.
Dr. Duncanson says that our mucus is our protection. "It keeps our mouth, nose, sinuses, throat, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract hydrated and is part of our defense system. When we aren't sick, our phlegm tends to run clear. But if we get a cold or sinus infection, our mucus can turn an unpleasant yellow, white, or green color. The change in color in the snot comes from an increase in white blood cells present in the phlegm, which are breaking down whatever is causing the infection," says Dr. Duncanson.
The issue with this myth isn't that its completely untrue, its because it isn't always accurate and shouldn't be the measurement people judge their illnesses by. There may be instances where a patient's mucus is green or yellow for no reason at all. Unless a person is showing other signs or symptoms of being sick, they shouldn't assume they are ill just because of the color of their mucus.
Health-Related Myth Number 3: Sugar Makes People Hyper.
This myth probably stemmed from a diet created by a doctor in 1965 that he thought would help children with ADHD or other attention and behavior issues. He theorized that hyperactivity was caused by artificial preservatives in foods and high amounts of sugar. This idea caught on, but research overtime did not find evidence supported it.
In the 1990s, researchers did a study where they gave 35 boys aged 5-7 a drink with an artificial sweetener that contained no real sugar. They told half the parents that they gave the boys real sugar. Upon surveying the parents about their children's energy, those that were told their sons had real sugar reported they were more hyper than the parents who were told the sweetener contained no sugar.
Situations where kids and adults are taking in high amounts of sugar are commonly at social events like birthday parties, carnivals, or Halloween. Dr. Duncanson says this sugar high is actually just the parents' perception, and the hyperactivity may be more due to the situation than what was ingested.
Health Myth Number 4: Cracking Joints Causes Arthritis.
It seems reasonable that consistent and deliberate cracking of finger joints would down the line cause problems, for example, arthritis. Fortunately for people that crack their joints, this not valid.
Dr. Duncanson says the "cracking" noise happens for a couple of different reasons. One is due to the movement of gas and fluid bubbles in the joint. The other, which is common in the knees, is the tightening due to the movement of tendons-over tissue near the joint - a "snapping" effect occurs.
All of this to say, as long as there isn't any forceful attempt to manipulate the joints in directions they don't want to go, there is a minimal chance any purposeful cracking is going to cause any injuries or long term ailments.
Health Myth Number 5: You Should Drink Eight Glasses of Water a Day
In this instance, drinking eight glasses of water a day shouldn't be the standard but instead just staying hydrated should. Dr. Duncanson made it very clear that everyone is different, and everyone will need different amounts of water based on their weight, measure of physical activity, the heat outside, and more. Along with that, we get water from the foods we eat and other liquids we drink.
Dr. Duncanson says, "It is important to stay aware of your thirst," and that will be the best measure for how much fluid needed per day. "Remember, anything you drink is mostly water, so drink enough fluid so that you don't become thirsty."
Click here to learn more about SIMEDHealth primary care!


Evolution is the change of information capable of affecting
individuals’ behavior over time.Wikipedia
This change is usually understood to happen either in a Darwinian
process of Meme
selection and replication, or as a broader process that incorporates
non-Darwinian mechanisms, e.g. “Intelligent Design”.Dennett (2017). For a wider discussion of Darwinian and
non-Darwinian processes and a critique of the memetic view, see
Richerson and Boyd (2005).
The memetic view: Selection
On a memetic view, cultural evolution acts via Selection of
instances of cultural variants – behaviors, ideas, artifacts, words – [that] can make up Darwinian populations themselves, engaging in formal reproduction of some kind.Godfrey-Smith (2009), 162
For the evolution of cultural variants to count as Darwinian, there needs to be a
particular kind of causal responsibility on the part of past instances, a kind that leads to reproductive lineages and the possibility of heredity. This need not be found at the most coarse and obvious grain of analysis—small features of artifacts might form lineages even when the wholes do not—but the requirement is a strong one.ibid., 163
This requirement can be used as a criterion to select a level of abstraction for analysis (see Causal Emergence).
Because The world is a hierarchy of systems, that means cultural evolution can be understood as Darwinian all the way – as soon as we identify the correct levels of selection – which impliesacting on a hierarchy of memes. The specific reproduction processes can and will be quite diverse.
In this picture, processes that are usually interpreted as something above and beyond individual variation-and-selection mechanisms can be seen as part of specific reproduction processes.
We start with
our ability to improve what we do by tracking the consequences of behavioural options. This can occur in various ways: it can work at an individual-level, or in a way distributed across a population; it may happen through a simple variation-and-selection mechanism, or through a more complicated kind of information processing. Some combination of these success-tracking capacities figured in the evolutionary process that made humans into specialists in information-gathering and intelligent control.Godfrey-Smith (2012), 2168
Such a capacity could have been
an unusual kind of imitation – high-fidelity token-to-token copying …. If this form of imitation is psychologically distinct, then the question arises of its relations to more flexible and rational ways of tracking success, in which humans can clearly engage, and also to the special role of teaching and ‘scaffolded’ learning in human societies. The very high social cohesion [amounted] to a ‘band-level, central information processing system’ in hunter–gatherer groups ….ibid., 2169
This forms the infrastructure for higher-level reproduction and Darwinian processes “one level up”.
In these processes, humans can be seen as having
integrated several kinds of success-tracking—attending to reinforcement, attending to the success of others and more sophisticated mental modelling—into a unified way of dealing with their social and non-social environment.ibid.
This practically a textbook definition of Sensemaking using Explicit Models.
The systems view: Self-organisation
Equivalent to this is a systems view of cultural evolution that describes it as Self-organisation of a, i.e.a Bayesian search for its Attractor(s).
- Cultural Evolution Society: “What Is Cultural Evolution?”
- Dennett (2017): From Bacteria to Bach and Back
- Godfrey-Smith (2009): Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection
- Godfrey-Smith (2012): “Darwinism and cultural change”
- Lewens (2015): Cultural Evolution: Conceptual Challenges
- Richerson and Boyd (2005): Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution
- Wikipedia: “Cultural evolution”


Antonym in the Middle 13Language brain teasers are those that involve the English language. You need to think about and manipulate words and letters.
MORE and PLUS are antonyms of LESS. Change MORE to LESS to PLUS by changing one letter at a time. Each step must produce a valid word in the English language. No word can be used more than once.
MORE ----> LESS ----> PLUS
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Manuel L. Quezon
||This article has an unclear citation style. Learn how and when to remove this template message) (July 2013) (|
|Manuel L. Quezon, Sr.|
|2nd President of the Philippines
1st President of the Commonwealth
November 15, 1935 – August 1, 1944
|Vice President||Sergio Osmeña, Sr.|
|Preceded by||Abolished (Last title held by Emilio Aguinaldo)|
|Succeeded by||José P. Laurel, Sr. (de facto)|
|1st President of the Senate of the Philippines|
August 29, 1916 – November 15, 1935
|Preceded by||Position established|
|Succeeded by||Manuel Roxas|
|Senator of the Philippines from the 5th Senatorial District|
October 16, 1916 – November 15, 1935
Vicente Ilustre (1916–1919)
Antero Soriano (1919–1925)
José P. Laurel (1925–1931)
Claro M. Recto (1931–1935)
|Preceded by||Position established|
|Succeeded by||Position abolished|
|Secretary of National Defense|
July 16, 1941 – December 10, 1941
|Preceded by||Teofilo Sison|
|Succeeded by||Jorge B. Vargas|
|Resident Commissioner to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Philippine Islands|
November 23, 1909 – October 15, 1916
Serving with Benito Legarda
and Manuel Earnshaw
|Preceded by||Pablo Ocampo|
|Succeeded by||Teodoro R. Yangco|
|Majority Leader of the Philippine House of Representatives|
October 16, 1907 – November 23, 1909
|Preceded by||Position Established|
|Succeeded by||Alberto Barreto
As Majority Leader of the Philippine Assembly
|Member of the Philippine Assembly from Tayabas' 1st District|
October 16, 1907 – October 16, 1916
|Preceded by||Position Established|
|Succeeded by||Filemon Perez|
|Governor of Tayabas|
|Born||Manuel Luis Molina Quezon, Sr.
August 19, 1878
Baler, El Principe, Captaincy General of the Philippines
(now Baler, Aurora, Philippines)
|Died||August 1, 1944
Saranac Lake, New York, United States
|Resting place||Quezon Memorial Circle, Quezon City, Philippines|
|Political party||Nacionalista Party|
|Relations||Manuel L. Quezon III (grandson)|
|Children||Ma. Aurora Quezon
Maria Zeneida Quezon-Avanceña
Manuel L. Quezon, Jr.
Luisa Corazon Paz Quezon
|Alma mater||Colegio de San Juan de Letran
University of Santo Tomas
|Profession||Lawyer, Soldier, Politician|
|Service/branch||Philippine Revolutionary Army
Philippine Commonwealth Army
|Years of service||1899–1900
World War II
* Philippines Campaign (1941–1942)
* Japanese Occupation of the Philippines (1942-1945)
Manuel Luis Molina Quezon, Sr. (August 19, 1878 – August 1, 1944) was a Filipino statesman, soldier, and politician who served as president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944. He was the first Filipino to head a government of the entire Philippines (as opposed to the government of previous Philippine states), and is considered to have been the second president of the Philippines, after Emilio Aguinaldo (1897–1901). Quezon was a Spanish Filipino, with both his parents being Filipino mestizos.
In the Philippines Quezon was the first Senate president elected to the presidency, the first president elected through a national election, and the first incumbent to secure re-election (for a partial second term, later extended, due to amendments to the 1935 Constitution). For pushing Commonwealth Act No. 184 that established the National Language Institute and a consequent Philippine national language, Quezon has been tagged as his country's "Father of the National Language".
During his presidency, Quezon tackled the problem of landless peasants in the countryside. His other major decisions include the reorganization of the islands' military defense, approval of a recommendation for government reorganization, the promotion of settlement and development in Mindanao, dealing with the foreign stranglehold on Philippine trade and commerce, proposals for land reform, and opposing graft and corruption within the government. He established an exiled government in the U.S. with the outbreak of the war and the threat of Japanese invasion.
It was during his exile in the U.S. that he died of tuberculosis at Saranac Lake, New York. He was buried in the Arlington National Cemetery until the end of World War II, when his remains were moved to Manila. His final resting place is the Quezon City Memorial Circle.
In 2015, the Board of The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation approved a posthumously bestowal of the Wallenberg Medal upon President Quezon and to the people of the Philippines for having reached-out, between 1937 and 1941, to the victims of the Holocaust. President Benigno Aquino III, and María Zeneida Quezon Avanceña, who is 94 years old and the daughter of the former President, were duly informed about this recognition.
- 1 Early life careers
- 2 Congressional career
- 3 Personal life
- 4 Presidency
- 4.1 First term (1935–1941)
- 4.2 Administration and cabinet
- 4.3 Supreme Court appointments
- 4.3.1 Government reorganization
- 4.3.2 Social justice program
- 4.3.3 Economy
- 4.3.4 Agrarian reform
- 4.3.5 Educational reforms
- 4.3.6 Women's suffrage
- 4.3.7 National language
- 4.3.8 Council of State
- 4.3.9 1938 midterm election
- 4.3.10 1939 plebiscite
- 4.3.11 Third official language
- 4.3.12 1940 plebiscite
- 4.3.13 1941 presidential election
- 4.4 Second term (1941–1944)
- 5 Electoral history
- 6 Honors
- 7 Legacy
- 8 Portrayal in Media
- 9 Recording of speech
- 10 References
- 11 Notes
- 12 External links
Early life careers
Quezon, was born in Baler in the district of El Príncipe (now Baler, Aurora). His parents were Lucio Quezon (died 1898) and María Dolores Molina (June 7, 1840 – 1893), both of whom were Spanish-Mestizos with distant ethnic Tagalog origins. His father was a primary grade school teacher from Paco, Manila and a retired Sergeant of the Spanish colonial army, while his mother was a primary grade school teacher in their hometown.
Although both his parents must have contributed to his education, he received most of his primary education from the public school established by the Spanish government in his village, as part of the establishment of the free public education system in the Philippines, as he himself testified during his speech delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States during the discussion of Jones Bill, in 1914. He later boarded at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran where he completed secondary school.
In 1898, his father Lucio and his brother Pedro were ambushed and killed by armed men while on their way home to Baler from Nueva Ecija. Some historians believe they were murdered by bandits who also robbed them, while others believe the killings could have been related to their loyalty to the Spanish government.
In 1899, Quezon cut short his law studies at the University of Santo Tomás in Manila to participate in the struggle for independence against the United States, led by Emilio Aguinaldo. During the Philippine–American War he was an Aide-de-camp to Emilio Aguinaldo. He rose to the rank of Major and fought in the Bataan sector. However, after surrendering in 1900 wherein he made his first break in the American press, Quezon returned to the university and passed the bar examinations in 1903, achieving fourth place.
He worked for a time as a clerk and surveyor, entering government service as an appointed fiscal (treasurer) for Mindoro and later Tayabas. He became a councilor and was elected governor of Tayabas in 1906 after a hard-fought election.
House of Representatives
In 1907, he was elected to the first Philippine Assembly – later became the House of Representatives – where he served as majority floor leader and chairman of the committee on rules as well as the chairman also of the committee on appropriations. From 1909 to 1916, he served as one of the Philippines' two resident commissioners to the U.S. House of Representatives, lobbying for the passage of the Philippine Autonomy Act or Jones Law.
Quezon returned to Manila in 1916 to be elected into the Philippine Senate as Senator and later elected by his peers as Senate President, serving continuously until 1935 (19 years), becoming the longest serving. He headed the first Independent Mission to the U.S. Congress in 1919 and secured the passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Independence Law in 1934. In 1922, Quezon became the leader of the Nacionalista Party alliance
Quezon was married to his first cousin, Aurora Aragón Quezon, on December 17, 1918. The couple had four children: María Aurora "Baby" Quezon (1919–1949), María Zeneida "Nini" Quezon-Avancena (born 1921), Luisa Corazón Paz "Nenita" Quezon (died 1923) and Manuel L. "Nonong" Quezon, Jr. (1926–1998). His adopted grandson, Manuel L. "Manolo" Quezon III (born 1970), a prominent writer and current undersecretary of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office, was named after him.
|Presidential styles of
Manuel L. Quezon
|Reference style||His Excellency|
|Spoken style||Your Excellency|
|Alternative style||Mr. President|
First term (1935–1941)
In 1935, Quezon won the Philippines' first national presidential election under the banner of the Nacionalista Party. He obtained nearly 68% of the vote against his two main rivals, Emilio Aguinaldo and Gregorio Aglipay. Quezon was inaugurated in November 1935. He is recognized as the second President of the Philippines. However, in January 2008, House Representative Rodolfo Valencia of Oriental Mindoro filed a bill seeking instead to declare General Miguel Malvar as the second Philippine President, having directly succeeded Aguinaldo in 1901.
Administration and cabinet
Supreme Court appointments
President Quezon was given the power under the reorganization act, to appoint the first all-Filipino Supreme Court of the Philippines in 1935. From 1901 to 1935, although a Filipino was always appointed chief justice, the majority of the members of the Supreme Court were Americans. Complete Filipinization was achieved only with the establishment of the Commonwealth of the Philippines in 1935. Claro M. Recto and José P. Laurel were among Quezon's first appointees to replace the American justices. The membership in the Supreme Court increased to 11: a chief justice and ten associate justices, who sat en banc or in two divisions of five members each.
- Ramón Avanceña – 1935 (Chief Justice) – 1935–1941
- José Abad Santos – 1935
- Claro M. Recto 1935–1936
- José P. Laurel – 1935
- José Abad Santos (Chief Justice) – 1941–1942
To meet the demands of the newly established government set-up and in compliance with the provisions of the Tydings-McDuffie law, as well as the requirements of the Constitution, President Quezon, true to his pledge of "More Government and less politics", initiated a reorganization of the government bodies. To this effect, he established the Government Survey Board to study the existing institutions and in the light of the changed circumstances, make the necessary recommendations.
Early results were seen with the revamping of the Executive Department. Offices and bureaus were either merged with one another or outrightly abolished. Some new ones, however, were created. President Quezon ordered the transfer of the Philippine Constabulary from the Department of Interior, to the Department of Finance. Among the changes in the Executive Departments by way of modification in functions or new responsibilities, were those of the National Defense, Agriculture and Commerce, Public Works and Communications, and Health and Public Welfare.
In keeping with other exigencies posed by the Constitution, new offices and boards were created either by Executive Order or by appropriate legislative action. Among these were the Council of National Defense, the Board of National Relief, the Mindanao and Sulu Commission, and the Civil Service Board of Appeals.
Social justice program
Pledged to improve the lot of the Philippine working class and seeking the inspiration from the social doctrines of Leo XIII and Pius XI, aside from the authoritative treatises of the world's leading sociologists, President Quezon started a vigorous program of social justice, which he traduced into reality through appropriate executive measures and legislation obtained from the National Assembly.
Thus, a court of Industrial Relations was established to mediate disputes, under certain conditions, minimizing the inconveniences of the strikes and lockouts. A minimum wage law was enacted, as well as a law providing for an eight-hour work day and a tenancy law for the Filipino farmers. Another measure was the creation of the position of Public Defender to help poor litigants in their court suits.
Commonwealth Act No. 20 authorized Quezon to institute expropriation proceedings and/or acquire large landed estates to re-sell them at nominal cost and under easy terms to tenants thereon, thus enabling them to possess a lot and a home of their own. It was by virtue of this law that the Buenavista estate was acquired by the Commonwealth Government. Quezon also launched a cooperative system of agriculture among the owners of the subdivided estates in order to alleviate their situation and to provide them greater earnings.
In all these, Quezon showed an earnest desire to follow the constitutional mandate on the promotion of social justice.
Upon the creation of the Commonwealth, the economic condition of the nation was stable and promising. With foreign trade reaching a peak of four hundred million pesos, the upward trend in business was accentuated and assumed the aspect of a boom. Exports crops were generally good and, with the exception of tobacco, they were all in high demand in foreign trade markets. Indeed, the value of the Philippine exports reached an all high of 320,896,000 pesos, the highest since 1929.
On the other hand, government revenues amounted to 76,675,000 pesos in 1936, as compared with the 1935 revenue of 65,000,000 pesos. Even the government companies, with the exception of the Manila Railroad, managed to earn profits. Gold production increased about 37% and iron nearly 100%, while cement production augmented by some 14%.
Not withstanding this prosperous situation, the government had to meet certain economic problems besetting the country. For this purpose, the National Economic Council was created. This body advised the government in economic and financial questions, including promotion of industries, diversification of crops and enterprises, tariffs, taxation, and formulation of an economic program in the preparation for the future independent Republic of the Philippines.
Upon the recommendation of the National Economic Council, agricultural colonies were established in the country, especially in Koronadal, Malig, and other appropriate sites in Mindanao. The government, moreover, offered facilities of every sort to encourage migration and settlement in those places. The Agricultural and Industrial Bank was established to aid small farmers with convenient loans on easy terms. Attention was also devoted to soil survey, as well as to the proper disposition of lands of the public domain. These steps and measures held much promise for improved economic welfare.
When the Commonwealth Government was established, President Quezon implemented the Rice Share Tenancy Act of 1933. The purpose of this act was to regulate the share-tenancy contracts by establishing minimum standards. Primarily, the Act provided for better tenant-landlord relationship, a 50–50 sharing of the crop, regulation of interest to 10% per agricultural year, and a safeguard against arbitrary dismissal by the landlord. However, because of one major flaw of this law, no petition for the Rice Share Tenancy Act was ever presented.
The major flaw of this law was that it could be used only when the majority of municipal councils in a province petitioned for it. Since landowners usually controlled such councils, no province ever asked that the law be applied. Therefore, Quezon ordered that the act be mandatory in all Central Luzon provinces. However, contracts were good for only one year. By simply refusing to renew their contract, landlords were able to eject tenants. As a result, peasant organizations clamored in vain for a law that would make the contract automatically renewable for as long as the tenants fulfilled their obligations.
In 1936, this Act was amended to get rid of its loophole, but the landlords made its application relative and not absolute. Consequently, it was never carried out in spite of its good intentions. In fact, by 1939, thousands of peasants in Central Luzon were being threatened with wholesale eviction.
The desire of Quezon to placate both landlords and tenants pleased neither. By the early 1940s, thousands of tenants in Central Luzon were ejected from their farmlands and the rural conflict was more acute than ever.
Indeed, during the Commonwealth period, agrarian problems persisted. This motivated the government to incorporate a cardinal principle on social justice in the 1935 Constitution. Dictated by the social justice program of the government, expropriation of landed estates and other landholdings commenced. Likewise, the National Land Settlement Administration (NLSA) began an orderly settlement of public agricultural lands. At the outbreak of the Second World War, major settlement areas containing more than 65,000 hectares were already established.
Turning his attention to the matter of education in the country, President Quezon by virtue of Executive Order No. 19, dated February 19, 1936, created the National Council of Education, with Rafael Palma, former President of the University of the Philippines, as its first chairman. Funds retained from the early approved Residence Certificate Law were devoted to the maintenance of the public schools all over the nation and the opening of many more to meet the needs of the young people. Indeed, by this time there were already 6,511 primary schools; 1,039 intermediate schools; 133 secondary and special schools; and five junior colleges. The total number of pupils enrolled was 1,262,353, who were placed under the charge of 28,485 schools teachers That year's appropriation for public education amounted to 14,566,850 pesos. The private institutions of learning, for their part, accommodated more than ninety seven thousand students, thus considerably aiding the government in solving the annual school crisis. To implement the pertinent constitutional provision, the Office of Adult Education was also created.
President Quezon initiated women's suffrage in the Philippines during the Commonwealth Era. As a result of the prolonged debate between the proponents of women's suffrage and their opponents, the Constitution finally provided that the issue be resolved by the women themselves in a plebiscite. If no less than 300,000 of them were to affirmatively vote in favor of the grant within two years, it would be deemed granted the country's women. Complying with this mandate, the government ordered a plebiscite to be held for the purpose on April 3, 1937.
Following a rather vigorous campaign, on the day of the plebiscite, the turnout of female voters was impressive. The affirmative votes numbered 447,725, as against 44,307 who opposed the grant.
Another constitutional provision to be implemented by President Quezon's administration dealt with the question of The Philippines' national language. Following a year's study, the Institute of the National Language – established on 1936 – recommended that Tagalog be adopted as the basis for the national language. The proposal was well received, considering that the Director – the first to be appointed – at the time, Jaime C. de Veyra, was an ethnic Visayan.
On December 1937, Quezon issued a proclamation approving the constitution made by the Institute and declaring that the adoption of the national language would take place two years hence. With the presidential approval, the Institute of National Language started to work on a grammar and dictionary of the language.
Council of State
In 1938, President Quezon enlarged the composition of the Council of State through Executive Order No. 44. This highest of advisory bodies to the President was henceforth to be composed of the President, Vice-President, Senate President, House Speaker, Senate President pro tempore, House Speaker pro tempore, Majority Floor leader of both chambers of Congress, former Presidents of the Philippines, and some three to five prominent citizens.
1938 midterm election
The Elections for the Second National Assembly were held on November 8, 1938, under a new law that allowed block voting which favored the governing Nacionalista Party. As expected, all the 98 seats of the National Assembly went to the Nacionalistas. Jose Yulo who was Quezon's Secretary of Justice from 1934 to 1938 was elected Speaker.
The Second National Assembly embarked on passing legislation strengthening the economy. Unfortunately the cloud of the Second World War loomed over the horizon. Certain laws passed by the First National Assembly were modified or repealed to meet existing realities. A controversial immigration law that set an annual limit of 50 immigrants per country which affected mostly Chinese and Japanese nationals escaping the Sino-Japanese War was passed in 1940. Since the law bordered on foreign relations it required the approval of the U.S. President which was nevertheless obtained. When the result of the 1939 census was published, the National Assembly updated the apportionment of legislative districts, which became the basis for the 1941 elections.
On August 7, 1939, the United States Congress enacted a law embodying the recommendations submitted by the Joint Preparatory Commission on Philippine Affairs. Because the new law required an amendment of the Ordinance appended to the Constitution, a plebiscite was held on August 24, 1939. The amendment was carried by 1,339,453 votes against 49,633.
Third official language
On April 1, 1940, President Quezon officially authorized the printing and publication of the grammar and dictionary prepared by the Institute of the National Language. Likewise, the Chief Executive decreed that the national language was to be compulsorily taught in all the schools during the forthcoming academic term. For its part, the National Assembly enacted Law No. 570 raising the national language elaborated by the institute to the status of official language of the Philippines, at par with English and Spanish, effective July 4, 1946, upon the establishment of the Philippine Republic.
Coincident with the local elections for the 1940, another plebiscite was held this time to ratify the proposed amendments to the Constitution regarding the restoration of the bicameral legislature, the presidential term, which was to be fixed at four years with one re-election; and the establishment of an independent Commission on Elections. With the Nacionalista Party, which had proposed said amendment in their convention, working hard under the leadership of its party president, Speaker Jose Yulo, the amendments were overwhelmingly ratified by the electorate. Speaker Yulo and Assemblyman Dominador Tan traveled to the United States to obtain President Franklin D. Roosevelt's approval, which was given on December 2, 1940. Two days later President Quezon proclaimed the amendments.
1941 presidential election
Quezon had originally been barred by the Philippine constitution from seeking re-election. However, in 1940, constitutional amendments were ratified allowing him to seek re-election for a fresh term ending in 1943. In the 1941 presidential elections, Quezon was re-elected over former Senator Juan Sumulong with nearly 82% of the vote.
Second term (1941–1944)
War Cabinet 1941–1944
The outbreak of World War II and the Japanese invasion resulted in periodic and drastic changes to the government structure. Executive Order 390, December 22, 1941 abolished the Department of the Interior and established a new line of succession. Executive Order 396, December 24, 1941 further reorganized and grouped the cabinet, with the functions of Secretary of Justice assigned to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines.
|President||Manuel L. Quezon||1941–1944 (extended, 1943)|
|Vice President||Sergio Osmeña||1941–1944 (extended, 1943)|
|Secretary of Finance||José Abad Santos||December 30, 1941 – March 26, 1942|
|Secretary of Justice||José Abad Santos||March 26, 1942– May 2, 1942|
|Secretary of Finance, Agriculture, and Commerce||Andrés Soriano||March 26, 1942 – July 31, 1944|
|Secretary of National Defense, Public Works, Communications and Labor||Basilio Valdes||December 23, 1941 – August 1, 1944|
|Secretary of Public Instruction, Health, and Public Welfare||Sergio Osmeña||December 24, 1941 – August 1, 1944|
|Secretary to the President||Manuel Roxas||December 24, 1941– March 26, 1942|
|Arturo Rotor||June 13, 1942– August 1, 1944|
|Secretary to the Cabinet||Manuel Nieto||May 19, 1944 - August 1, 1944|
|Secretary without Portfolio||Andrés Soriano||March 2–26, 1942|
|Treasurer of the Philippines||Andrés Soriano||February 19, 1942 – March 26, 1942|
|Manuel Roxas||March 26, 1942 – May 8, 1942|
|Auditor-General||Jaime Hernández||December 30, 1941 – August 1, 1944|
|Resident Commissioner of the Philippines to the United States Congress||Joaquín Miguel Elizalde||December 30, 1941 – August 1, 1944 (given cabinet rank, May, 1942)|
|Secretary of Information and Public Relations||Carlos P. Rómulo||1943–1944|
The Sixth Annual Report of the United States High Commission to the Philippine Island to the President and Congress of the United States, Covering the Fiscal Year July 1, 1941 to June 30, 1942 Washington D.C. October 20, 1942
Executive Orders of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, Manila, Bureau of Printing 1945
In a notable humanitarian act, Quezon, in cooperation with United States High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt, facilitated the entry into the Philippines of Jewish refugees fleeing fascist regimes in Europe. Quezon was also instrumental in promoting a project to resettle the refugees in Mindanao.
After the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War II, he evacuated to Corregidor, where he was formally inaugurated for his second term, then the Visayas and Mindanao, and upon the invitation of the US government, was further evacuated to Australia and then to the United States, where he established the Commonwealth government in exile with headquarters in Washington, D.C.. There, he served as a member of the Pacific War Council, signed the declaration of the United Nations against the Axis Powers, and wrote his autobiography (The Good Fight, 1946).
To carry on the government duties in exile, President Quezon hired the entire floor of one of the wing of the Shoreham Hotel to accommodate his family and his office. On the other hand, the offices of the government were established at the quarters of the Philippine Resident Commissioner, Joaquin Elizalde. The latter was made a member of President's wartime Cabinet. Others likewise appointed were Brigadier-General Carlos P. Romulo, as Secretary of the Department of Information and Public Relations, and Jaime Hernandez as Auditor General.
On June 2, 1942, President Quezon addressed the United States House of Representatives, impressing upon them the vital necessity of relieving the Philippine front. Before the Senate, later, the Philippine President reiterated the same message and urged the senators to adopt the slogan "Remember Bataan". Despite his precarious state of health, President Quezon roamed the States to deliver timely and rousing speeches calculated to keep the Philippine war uppermost in the minds of the American nation.
Talks of Post-war Philippines
On the occasion of his first birthday celebration in the United States, Manuel Quezon broadcast a radio message to the Philippine residents in Hawaii, who contributed to the celebration by purchasing four million pesos worth of World War II bonds. Further showing the Philippine government's cooperation with the war effort, Quezon officially offered the U.S Army a Philippine infantry regiment, which was authorized by the U.S. Department of War to train in California. He also had the Philippine government acquire Elizalde's yacht, which, renamed "Bataan" and totally manned by the Philippine officers and crew, was donated to the United States for use in the war.
Early in November 1942, Quezon held conferences with President Roosevelt to work out a plan for the creation of a joint commission to study the economic conditions of post-war Philippines. Eighteen months later, the United States Congress would pass an Act creating the Philippine Rehabilitation Commission as an outcome of such talks between the two Presidents.
By 1943, the Philippine Government-in-exile was faced with a serious crisis. According to the 1935 Constitution, the official term of President Quezon was to expire on December 30, 1943 and Vice-President Sergio Osmeña would automatically succeed him in the Presidency. This eventuality was brought to the attention of President Quezon by Osmeña himself, who wrote the former to this effect. Aside from replying to this letter informing Vice-President Osmeña that it would not be wise and prudent to effect any such change under the circumstances, President Quezon issued a press release along the same line. Osmeña then requested the opinion of U.S. Attorney General Homer Cummings, who upheld Osmeña's view as more in keeping with the law. Quezon, however, remained adamant. He accordingly sought President Roosevelt's decision. The latter choose to remain aloof from the controversy, suggesting instead that the Philippine officials themselves solve the impasse.
A cabinet meeting was then convened by President Quezon. Aside from Quezon and Osmeña, others present in this momentous meeting were the resident Commissioner Joaquin Elizalde, Brig. Gen. Carlos P. Romulo, and his cabinet secretaries, Andres Soriano and Jaime Hernandez. Following a spirited discussion, the Cabinet supported Elizalde's opinion favoring the decision, and announced his plan to retire in California.
After the meeting, however, Vice-President Osmeña approached the President and broached his plan to ask the American Congress to suspend the constitutional provisions for presidential succession until after the Philippines should have been liberated. This legal way out was agreeable to President Quezon and the members of his Cabinet. Proper steps were taken to carry out the proposal. Sponsored by Senator Tydings and Congressman Bell, the pertinent Resolution was unanimously approved by the Senate on a voice vote and passed the House of Representatives by the a vote of 181 to 107 on November 10, 1943.
Quezon suffered from tuberculosis and spent his last years in hospitals, such as at a Miami Beach Army hospital in April, 1944. That summer, he was at a "cure cottage" in Saranac Lake, New York, where he died on August 1, 1944. He was initially buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His body was later carried by the USS Princeton and re-interred in Manila at the Manila North Cemetery on July 17, 1946 before being moved to Quezon City within the monument at the Quezon Memorial Circle on August 19, 1979.
|Manuel L. Quezon||Nacionalista Party (Nationalist Party)||695,332||67.99%|
|Emilio Aguinaldo||National Socialist Party||179,349||17.54%|
|Gregorio Aglipay||Republican Party||148,010||14.47%|
|Manuel L. Quezon||Nacionalista Party (Nationalist Party)||1,340,320||81.78%|
|Juan Sumulong||Popular Front||298,608||18.22%|
|Hilario Moncado||Modernist Party|
- France: Officer of the Legion of Honour
- Mexico: Collar of the Order of the Aztec Eagle
- Belgium: Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown
- Spain: Grand Cross of the Orden de la República Española
- Taiwan: Grand Cordon of the Order of Brilliant Jade
- Quezon City, the Quezon Province, Quezon Bridge in Manila and the Manuel L. Quezon University, and many streets are named after him. The highest honor conferred by the Republic of the Philippines is the Quezon Service Cross. He is also memorialized on Philippine currency. He appears on the Philippine twenty peso bill. He also appears on two commemorative one peso coins, one alongside Frank Murphy and another with Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
- The "Open Doors" is a holocaust memorial in Rishon LeZion, Israel. Its is a 7 meter high sculpture designed by Filipino artist Luis Lee Jr. and erected in honor and thanks to President Manuel Quezon and the Filipinos who saved over 1,200 Jews from Nazi Germany.
- Also the municipalities of Quezon are: Quezon, Bukidnon, Quezon, Nueva Ecija, Quezon, Palawan, and Quezon, Isabela.
Portrayal in Media
Recording of speech
President Quezon delivered a speech entitled "Message to My People" in English and in Spanish. According to Gemmel L. Dizón III, the speech was "recorded in the 1920s, when he was first diagnosed with tuberculosis and assumed he didn't have much longer to live."
|Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Manuel L. Quezon
- McArthur, Douglas (1964). Reminiscences.
- Quezon, Manuel L. (1946). The Good Fight.
- Perret, Geoffrey (1996). Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur.
- National Historical Commission of the Philippines. "History of Baler". National Historical Commission of the Philippines. Retrieved 2012-03-09.
When military district of El Príncipe was created in 1856, Baler became its capital...On June 12, 1902 a civil government was established, moving the district of El Príncipe away from the administrative jurisdiction of Nueva Ecija...and placing it under the jurisdiction of Tayabas Province.
- Quezon, Manuel Luis (1915), "Escuelas públicas durante el régimen español" [Public schools during the Spanish regime], Philippine Assembly, Third Legislature, Third Session, Document No.4042-A 87 Speeches of Honorable Manuel L. Quezon, Philippine resident commissioner, delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States during the discussion of Jones Bill, 26 September-14 October 1914 [Asamblea Filipina, Tercera Legislatura, Tercer Período de Sesiones, Documento N.o 4042-A 87, Discursos del Hon. Manuel L. Quezon, comisionado residente de Filipinas, Pronunciados en la Cámara de representantes de los Estados Unidos con motivo de la discusión del Bill Jones, 26, septiembre-14, octubre, 1914] (in Spanish), Manila, Philippines: Bureau of Printing, p. 35, archived from the original on July 18, 2010, retrieved July 24, 2010,
...there were public schools in the Philippines long before the American occupation, and, in fact, I have been educated in one of these schools, even though my hometown is such a small town, isolated in the mountains of the Northeastern part of the island of Luzon. (Spanish). [...había escuelas públicas en Filipinas mucho antes de la ocupación americana, y que, de hecho, yo me había educado en una de esas escuelas, aunque mi pueblo natal es un pueblo tan pequeño, aislado en las montañas de la parte Noreste de la isla de Luzón.]
- Office of History and Preservation, United States Congress. (n.d.). Quezon, Manuel Luis, (1878–1944). Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved September 30, 2010.
- Reyes, Pedrito (1953). Pictorial History of the Philippines.
- "Official Program Aquino Inaugural (Excerpts)".
- Maricel Cruz (January 2, 2008). "Lawmaker: History wrong on Gen. Malvar". Archived from the original on 6 April 2008. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
- Molina, Antonio. The Philippines: Through the centuries. Manila: University of Sto. Tomas Cooperative, 1961. Print.
- Manapat, Carlos, et al. Economics, Taxation, and Agrarian Reform. Quezon City: C&E Pub., 2010.Print.
- Molina, Antonio. The Philippines: Through the centuries. Manila: University of Sto. Tomas Cooperative, 1961. Print.
- "Block voting – Philippine Daily Inquirer". Opinion.inquirer.net. Retrieved 2012-09-10.
- Commonweatlh Act (CA) No. 494 amended CA 444 "Eight Hour Law" authorizing the President to suspend the law.
- Immigration Act of 1940 (CA No. 613), Sec. 13. Accessed on April 13, 2007
- Evacuation flights may be identified at the AirForceHistoryIndex.org site by searching for Quezon
- 1st Lt William Haddock Campbell, USAAF, received the DSC for his role as co-pilot in the evacuation of the Philippine president from the Philippines, as reported in a local Chicago newspaper, The Garfieldian, 1 April 1943 edition.
- "The Miami News - Google News Archive Search". google.com.
- "Picture of commemorative coin". Retrieved 2012-09-10.
- "Talumpati: Gemmel L. Dizon". Retrieved June 26, 2010.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Manuel L. Quezon.|
- Bonnie Harris, Cantor Joseph Cysner: From Zbaszyn to Manila.
- Online E-book of Future of the Philippines : interviews with Manuel Quezon by Edward Price Bell, The Chicago Daily News Co., 1925
- Online E-book of Discursos del Hon. Manuel L. Quezon, comissionado residente de Filipinas, pronunciados en la cámara de representantes de la discusión del Bill Jones (26, Septiembre-14, Octubre, 1914), published in Manila, 1915
- Manuel L. Quezon on the Presidential Museum and Library
|United States House of Representatives|
|Resident Commissioner of the Philippines
Served alongside: Benito Legarda and Manuel Earnshaw
Teodoro R. Yangco
|New office||President of the Senate
as Speaker of the National Assembly
as president of the Republic of the Philippines
|President of the Philippines
November 15, 1935 – August 1, 1944
José P. Laurel
as president of the Republic of the Philippines


Pontine Marshes, Italian Agro Pontino, reclaimed area in Latina provincia, Lazio (Latium) regione, south-central Italy, extending between the Alban Hills, the Lepini Mountains, and the Tyrrhenian Sea, and traversed by the Appian Way. Two tribes, the Pomptini and the Ufentini, lived in this district in early Roman times, but the region was already marshy and malarial during the later years of the Roman Republic. Several emperors and popes made unsuccessful attempts at reclamation, but throughout modern history the marshes remained unhealthy, inhabited by a handful of shepherds, with small fields on the higher eastern edge where peasants from towns high on the Lepini Mountains cultivated wheat. Rough pasture and maquis (a tough scrub) covered most of the area.
In 1928 the Fascist government launched a drive to drain the marshes, clear the vegetation, and settle several hundred families. Towns were built in the former wilderness: Littoria (now Latina) in 1932, Sabaudia in 1934, Pontinis in 1935, Aprilia in 1937, and Pomezia in 1939. On the eve of World War II the only areas in which the original vegetation remained were in the Monte Circeo National Park. Damage done to the farms and drainage works and canals during World War II was later repaired, and the Agro Pontino (area about 300 square miles [777 square km]) is now one of the most productive in Italy, yielding cereals, sugar beets, fruit, vegetables, and livestock. Light industry was established in the area from 1960 onward with subsidies from a regional development program, the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno (“Fund for the South”).


While a majority of people think that the “natural” label actually carries specific benefits, an even greater percentage of consumers think it should.
More than eight out of 10 said they believe that packaged foods carrying the “natural” label should come from food that contains ingredients grown without pesticides (86%), do not include artificial ingredients (87%), and do not contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) (85%), according to the Opinion Research Corp. survey of 1,004 adult US residents conducted in April.
The FDA has not developed a formal definition for use of the term “natural” or its derivatives, though the agency has not objected to the use of the term if “nothing artificial or synthetic (including all color additives regardless of source) has been included in, or has been added to, a food that would not normally be expected to be in the food”. The USDA, which regulates meat and poultry, says that a product is “natural” if it contains “no artificial ingredient or added color and is only minimally processed,” meaning the product was processed in a manner that does not fundamentally alter it.
Consumers willing to pay more for some environmental, social and safety claims
Other keywords consumers look for on food labels? “No artificial growth hormones” (50%), “pesticide free” (49%), “organic” (49%), “no artificial ingredients” (48%), “non-GMO” (40%), “raised without antibiotics” (39%), “humane” (35%), and “fair trade”(31%).
Indeed, the poll showed that a range of environmental, safety, and social concerns are important to most US consumers when purchasing food, including supporting local farmers (92%), protecting the environment from chemicals (89%), reducing exposure to pesticides (87%), fair conditions for workers (86%), good living conditions for animals (80%), and reducing antibiotic use in food (78%).
The results further demonstrated that consumers are willing to pay a premium for certain label claims. For example, about 80% said they will pay more for fruits and vegetables produced by workers under fair wage and working conditions; and about one-third said they’d even pay 50 cents or more per pound.
Misconceptions surround animal welfare, organic meanings
Still, consumers have some misconceptions when it comes to what certain labels actually denote, according to the poll.
The majority think the humanely raised claim on eggs, dairy and meat should mean that the farm was inspected to verify this claim (92%), the animals had adequate living space (90%), the animals were slaughtered humanely (88%), and the animals went outdoors (79%). But currently the “humanely raised” label does not require that the farm was inspected, and there are no standards for ensuring animals had adequate living space, were able to go outdoors, or were slaughtered humanely.
And while 65% of consumers correctly think the “raised without antibiotics” means that no antibiotics were used, 31% mistakenly think this label means no other drugs were used in addition to antibiotics. In addition, if an animal was routinely given antibiotics, the vast majority of consumers (83%) demand that the government require that this meat be labeled as “raised with antibiotics”.
Nine out of 10 consumers demand that the “organic” label on packaged or processed foods should mean no toxic pesticides were used (91%), no artificial materials were used during processing (91%), no artificial ingredients were used (89%), and no GMOs were used (88%). As the “organic” label is verified and backed by comprehensive federal standards that prohibit GMOs and nearly all toxic pesticides, artificial processing aids and ingredients, the label already largely meets consumer expectations.
GMO labeling remains a topic of concern for many US consumers—with nine in 10 saying that before genetically engineered (GE) food is sold, it should be labeled accordingly (92%) and meet long-term safety standards set by the government (92%). And nearly three-quarters (72%) of consumers say that it is crucial for them to avoid GE ingredients altogether when purchasing food.
Over the next several months, Consumer Reports will partner with TakePart in an ongoing series on its site called “Know your food, know your labels”, which will examine a range of food labeling concerns, ranging from well-defined terms like “organic” to newer terms like “humane” or “fair trade”—and whether such terms should carry a premium price tag.


As part of Functional Rehabilitation, Pilates addresses the underlying structural imbalances in the body that lead to chronic back pain.
Principles of Pilates
Pilates is an exercise method developed by Joseph Pilates who originally called his work ‘contrology’. Other instructors have distilled six principles that build the foundation of every movement in Pilates and every standard must be present in each exercise throughout the entire workout.
Centering – Physically bringing the focus to the center of the body, the powerhouse area between the lower ribs and pubic bone.
Concentration – Bringing full attention to the exercise and doing it with full commitment.
Control – Doing every Pilates exercise with complete muscular control.
Precision – Sustaining awareness throughout each movement with the appropriate placement, alignment relative to other body parts, and trajectory for each part of the body.
Breath – Thinking of the lungs as a bellow, using them to strongly pump the air fully in and out of the body.
Flow – Doing the exercise with fluidity, grace, and ease are goals, connecting the energy in all body parts.
Pilates equipment such as the reformer, are very good mirrors of one’s flow and concentration as they tend to bang around and suddenly become quite “machine-like” if one loses ones control and flow.
Pilates Mat vs Reformer
Working against resistance is essential to the classic Pilates exercises, which are designed to train the body’s “powerhouse” – the abdomen, lower back, hips and buttocks.
You can accomplish that using either a mat where your own body weight creates resistance or a reformer where pulleys and springs create resistance. This resistance can provide a more challenging strength and endurance workout than mat classes, and may also produce visible results sooner.
Pilates after an Injury
The reformer is a great way to start exercising after an injury. The equipment offers varying levels of difficulty and combined with the fundamental principles of Pilates – precise movements performed in a safe way – will help you regain your strength and posture.
Workouts on a Pilates Reformer require your muscle groups to move through a full range of motion. Improved flexibility decreases strain and stress on your joints and muscles, and reduces stiffness, soreness and the chance of injury. The aim is to help you perform everyday movements with less strain and fatigue.
Pilates for Back Pain
If you have back injuries or muscular imbalance, Pilates is a great way to regain your strength. The focus on postural work during our classes will help your spinal alignment and continued practice will also help decrease the risk of future injuries.
In our Pilates classes, our instructors will also guide and teach you the awareness of movement habits that may stress the spine, and help you change these habits that preserve neutral alignment.
Pilates during Pregnancy
Incorporating Pilates during your pregnancy will help strengthen a woman’s core muscles, which can in turn help them prevent back pain and improve mobility.
A Pilates Reformer workout places emphasis on restoring the spine’s natural curves and on improving stability and mobility in the lumbo-pelvic region. Our Pilates instructors will help you focus on strengthening the thoracic extensors and lengthening the chest muscles to counteract the increased curves in the upper part of the back.
We work exclusively with Breathe – the movement specialists, a leading Pilates centre to provide you with a holistic and wholesome approach to injury rehabilitation, muscle strengthening and fitness training.
Working hand in hand with our team of physiotherapists, Breathe specialises in Clinical Pilates which helps to rehabilitate old and new injuries as well as prevention of future injuries by correcting adverse bio-mechanical patterns.
Breathe offers a wide range of classes available for your selection according to your needs. Whether it is a private 1-on-1 class for injury recovery or a high intensity group class for more seasoned students seeking a challenge, there is definitely something for everyone.


The pharmaceutical industry has warned of drug/supplement interactions for many years. This concern has even been the basis of potential legislation to limit your access to dietary supplements. However, recently it has been found that these "interactions" occur less frequently than had been thought. In fact, it is only a handful of products that seem to have this issue.
Courtney Cavaliere of the American Botanical Council recently reported on a study published in the March edition of the American Journal of Medicine which found very little actual risk of harm from dietary supplement and prescription drug interactions.
According to Ms. Cavaliere, the authors of the study based their results on responses to an 85-question survey administered to 1818 patients from 6 specialty clinics of the Mayo Clinic from September 2002 through July 2003. Of the 1795 patients who responded to the survey, 710 (or 39.6%) reported that they used dietary supplements. Survey respondents provided medical records with information on their prescription medications, and respondents indicated in the survey whether they concurrently used dietary supplements by choosing from a list of 52 dietary supplements or entering the names of unlisted supplements. Prescription medications included physician-prescribed pharmaceuticals, as well as aspirin.
The authors of the study compiled a master list of potential medication interactions based upon potential herb-drug interactions noted in the various databases and textbooks. Based on the survey data, the authors identified 369 potential interactions among 236 patients, and 107 of these interactions were considered to have potential clinical significance.
Here are the 5 most commonly used dietary supplements with a potential for interaction: Garlic [Allium sativum], Valerian [Valeriana officinalis], Kava [Piper methysticum], Ginkgo [Ginkgo biloba], and St. John’s wort [Hypericum perforatum]. These five accounted for nearly 70% of all possible interactions.
The 4 most common prescription medication classes with a potential for interaction with supplements include: Antithrombotic medications, Sedatives, Antidepressants, and Antidiabetic agents. These classes of drugs accounted for 94% of all possible interactions. However, not one patient who participated in the survey experienced serious harm from a possible interaction during the study period, as determined by the patients’ medical records. “Serious harm” was defined as hospitalization for an aggravated underlying medical condition or for a new medical problem caused by an interaction.
According to the researchers, the study showed that only a small number of prescription medications and dietary supplements accounted for most potential herb-drug interactions. Moreover, the fact that no actual interactions were noted during the survey period demonstrated that the real potential for harm is quite low. The authors added that some interactions included in the study may have even been considered speculative.


Echoes of Light
The Hubble Space Telescope's latest image of the star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) reveals dramatic changes in the illumination of surrounding dusty cloud structures. The effect, called a light echo, has been unveiling never-before-seen dust patterns ever since the star suddenly brightened for several weeks in early 2002.
The illumination of interstellar dust comes from the red supergiant star at the middle of the image, which gave off a pulse of light three years ago, somewhat similar to setting off a flashbulb in a darkened room. The dust may have been ejected during a previous explosion, similar to the 2002 event.
The echoing of light through space is similar to the echoing of sound through air. As light from the explosion continues to move outwards, different parts of the dust are illuminated, just as a sound echo bounces off of objects near the source, and later, objects further from the source.
Image Credit: NASA


Fans cheering in the bleachers won’t think twice about the quality of a basketball court or any other sports surface for that matter. However, coaches, athletic directors, and the people who build sports facilities understand just how critical the floor beneath an athlete’s feet can be – both for performance as well as safety.
Whether you’re designing an indoor gymnasium with a hardwood floor for multi-sport use, or building an outdoor court with a synthetic surface, quality matters.
Medical experts in the sports world agree. A paper published by the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine (AAPSM) explains the impact of surfaces on injury prevention.
“Different playing surfaces can also have an effect on injuries. Indoor wood courts offer the most shock absorption and are considered the safest courts, while outdoor courts of asphalt are more dangerous. Concrete courts are the hardest and most dangerous courts in relation to lower extremity injuries.”
There are guidelines for sports flooring safety, which are detailed in specifications from the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) F2772. These standards were developed in 2009 and establish the minimum criteria for indoor sports floors in North America.
A quality surface won’t prevent athletes from ever getting hurt, but it can certainly reduce the likelihood of injury. Let’s take a look at the different factors used to make a safer sports floor.
A Quality Court is Easier on Joints
Sufficient shock absorption is crucial in a good sports floor. That’s what helps reduce long-term injuries among athletes of all ages.
The AAPSM explains that athletes can suffer acute injuries from things like landing wrong, running into another player, or falling. These types of injuries are accidental and hard to prevent. They’re also less common than chronic injuries, which are typically the result of overuse.
A floor with good shock absorption will be easier on an athlete’s joints and help preserve the body.
Basketball is the perfect example of a sport that can be hard on the legs. Players are constantly running, jumping, cutting, and pivoting. Installing a quality sports surface helps preserve joints and ligaments in feet, ankles, and knees. That’s especially important for younger athletes who are still growing and developing.
ASTM F2772 criteria states shock absorptions should be a minimum of 10 percent, although shock absorption greater than 22 percent should be used for competitive sports. The higher the percentage, the higher classification is awarded to the surface. Anything under 10 percent is considered non-compliant.
Keep in mind, the hardness of material is not a measure of shock absorption. This depends more on the type of subflooring used.
A Quality Sports Floor Has the Right Amount of Give
The ASTM standards use the term “vertical deformation” to describe the give a sports surface provides. It measures the ability of a floor to adjust as an athlete jumps or falls on the court.
It’s important to make sure your floor has the right amount of give for the type of activities that will take place on it as well as the age of athletes using it. Not enough vertical deformation could lead to an increase in acute injuries, but too much may impede performance and decrease stability.
ASTM F2772 dictates that synthetic sports floors can have a maximum vertical deformation of 3.5mm, while a wood sports floor may have a maximum vertical deformation of 5.0mm.
According to LiveStrong.com, quality maple floors, which Action Floor Systems® is known for manufacturing, tend to have the amount of give that many athletes prefer.
A Quality Sports Surface Provides Better Traction
Another way injuries can occur in sports is from slips and falls on surfaces that fail to provide proper traction or, in some cases, too much friction.
ASTM F2772 defines a flooring system’s sliding effect, or coefficient of friction, as the level of grip and slide in all directions. A quality sports surface allows for safe and easy movement in all directions.
Again, you’ll want to consider how the area will be used when choosing the right flooring option. Recycled rubber flooring may be ideal for a weight room, but for sports like basketball, indoor soccer, and volleyball, this option would provide too much coefficient of friction.
Standards indicate compliant surfaces will have a sliding coefficient value between 80 to 110.
Maintaining a hardwood sports floor after it’s installed is also an important step in avoiding slips and falls. An article from Athletic Business magazine suggests daily dust-mopping and regular cleaning with a solution recommended by the flooring manufacturer.
“Beyond that, the floor should be screened and recoated once a year, and sanded down to bare wood, resealed, repainted and refinished every 10 to 15 years.”
A Quality Sports Floor Improves Playability and Reduces Noise
The final criteria detailed in ASTM F2772 tests ball bounce, or ball rebound, which measures the accuracy and uniformity of a ball’s behavior on the surface. You want a responsive floor that provides a good bounce for ideal playability.
Ball rebound is measured in comparison to the height of the bounce on a concrete surface. Your floor should also provide consistent bounce throughout the court. This way, athletes won’t be caught off-guard by uneven responsiveness on different areas of the floor.
ASTM standards require a minimum of 90 percent rebound height in all categories.
Distractions during gameplay can also lead to accidental injuries. One way to avoid that is by reducing noise in a gymnasium as much as possible.
This can be achieved through installation of the right kind of underlayment in the subflooring. Of course, architects and designers will also want to consider the overall acoustics of the building in which the flooring will be installed.
Trust Action Floor Systems® for Expertise
If all these standards, requirements, and considerations have your head spinning, don’t worry, that’s why we’re here. Action’s experts can help you determine the right sports surface for your upcoming project. Learn more about key performance attributes for hardwood courts in another Action Floors’ blog post.
Whether you’re replacing a flooring system or building an entirely new athletic facility, Action has the flooring solutions you need. Our wide range of products offer options that are ideal for everything from elementary schools to professional competitive play, indoor gyms, and outdoor sports courts.
Contact Action today with questions about how to choose the right floors for your facility. We can help you find the specifications you need for planning purposes and point you in the direction of a trusted flooring dealer in your area. Call 1-800-746-3512!


"Famine is in thy cheeks." - William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English poet and playwright Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc.1 (1596)
I SUPPOSE that since there is a thriving multi-billion dollar weight loss industry, none of us are succeeding, except perhaps, anorexics. But victims of this eating disorder suffer a Cadmean victory over fat and left to themselves, die skin and bones.
Definition. According to the US National Institutes of Health, anorexia nervosa is an "eating disorder that involves limiting the amount of food a person eats... resulting in starvation and an inability to stay at the minimum body weight considered healthy" (for age and height). At some point, it becomes a psychiatric issue because the victim has an intense fear of weight gain even when in fact she/he is underweight.
Causes. A person with an anorexic mother or sister is highly susceptible, as well as individuals with low self-esteem or with perfectionism by nature - quite similar to bulimia (see last week). Now add to these OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and applying it to food, see how strict dieting is possible even if hunger pangs seem overwhelming. The neurotransmitter serotonin, the same brain chemical associated with depression, may play a role in anorexia nervosa.
Diagnostic Criteria. In the mental health professional's DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), anorexia nervosa has four features: refusal to maintain a body weight at or above the minimum weight by age and height; pathologic fear of gaining weight even if underweight; having a distorted body image; in women with periods, absence of at least three menstrual cycles. …


Whenever you are training you should have some sort of goal that you are trying to achieve. Whether it be to lose weight, gain muscle or whatever, you must have a goal. Once your goals are figured out you can design the proper program and hopefully get the results that you are looking for.
One of the biggest mistakes that I see with trainees is that they never increase the stimulus of their workouts. If you do not stress your body enough then it will not change. This goes by the popular SAID principle which stands for “specific adaptation to imposed demands”. Which basically means that the body will adapt accordingly to whatever stress you put upon it. The SAID principle can be seen in exercise as well as other things. The goal of the training program is to see increases from workout to workout, which is a good reason why you keep a training journal.
Now there are various ways to increase the stimulus of the workout to make sure that your body has no choice but to change. If you find that your workouts are not giving you the results that you want then try any of these methods and watch the results come rolling in!
- Increase Intensity– Increasing Intensity of the workout means to increase the weight you are using. So say you have been squating 135 for 3 sets of 8. Next time you come in do 145 for 3 sets of 8. The added weight will cause your body to increase the muscle mass and strength of your legs.
- Increase Volume– Increasing volume means either to add more reps, more sets or both. So to use our previous example of doing squats with 135 for 3 sets of 8. Next time you come in to train you can either do 135 for 3 sets of 10 or do 135 for 4 sets of 8. Either way will further tax the body and cause adaptation.
- Increase Density– Increasing density means to do the same amount of weight, sets, and reps but do it in less time. Workout density is often confused with intensity. So for example using the squats once again. If we did 135 for 3 sets of 8 with 90 second breaks in one workout then come in next time and do 135 for 3 sets of 8 with a 60 second break we have now increased the stimulus and cause further adaptation.
- Increase Time Under Tension(TUT)– If you do your squats quickly and it takes 2 seconds to do each one you can simply do them slower (accentuate the negative). So if one workout it takes you 2 seconds to do each squat and you do 3 sets of 8 and the next workout it takes you 4 seconds to do each squat for 3 sets of 8 you have once again caused an increase in stimulus. The difference in total time under tension is 48 seconds vs 96 seconds. The second option is definitely way harder and will cause your body to change.
All of these methods ways will cause your body to change. They should be worked sensibly into a program and will be dependent on what your training goals are as well as various other factors. The secret is knowing when and how to use them to see constant progress.