jueves, 22 de diciembre de 2011
but clothes is not all
Here is the simple truth about Cary Grant: he was the best and most important actor of the last hundred years. He didn’t reinvent acting like Brando, he didn’t fatten himself up like Robert De Niro or starve himself like Christian Bale. He wasn’t burly like Gable, and he didn’t smolder like Mitchum. Instead, he played slight variations on the same character for the majority of his career, he wore a suit better than anyone in Hollywood, and he made acting seem like living. Over the course of his long career, Grant fixed standards of what it meant to be “debonair” and “a man about town” — everything he did, on screen and off, seemed inflected with panache and grace. Or, as my professor from undergrad used to sum him up: “The man knew how to wear clothes.” Indeed he fucking did.
martes, 13 de diciembre de 2011
to Alama you should return
The song “Naci en Alamo” (“I Was Born in Alamo”)[you tube rendition] is a soulful and stirring lament of Gypsies living in Europe today. It’s a song about displacement and homelessness and ultimately about nostalgia for a birthplace that was never home. There is no home, there is no homeland, there is no place of origin.
No tengo lugar
Y no tengo paisaje
Yo menos tengo patria
Naci en Alamo
I have no place
And I have no landscape
Still less do I have a homeland
I was born in Alamo
Like the history of the Gypsies, the song itself has become an archaeological enigma. It has crossed so many borders and been sung in so many languages that it is no longer easy to determine its roots or which precise Alamo, in either Spain or Portugal, the song is about. Even now, Naci en Alamo roams a pathless Odyssey around the Mediterranean, no less homeless than a Gypsy. The word “Gypsy” itself turns out to be a conundrum as well. Gypsies, who speak Romany, refer to themselves as Roma, not with the exonym Gypsy. (Roma is the plural for Rom, meaning “man”—no relation to Romania.) “Gypsy” in English, just like the word gyftos in Greek, may be derived from gipcya, with a possible derivation from egipcien, because Gypsies were mysteriously believed to come from Egypt—which also means from far away, from elsewhere, or just simply from goodness-knows-where. Etymological dictionaries also suggest that the word might derive from the Greek for untouchables, athinganoi, hence zingaro in Italian, tsigane and gitan in French, gitano in Spanish, ţigan in Romanian, cigano in Portuguese. The real origin of the word, like the real origin of the people, is lost in time. There is no origin.
No tengo lugar
Y no tengo paisaje
Yo menos tengo patria
Naci en Alamo
I have no place
And I have no landscape
Still less do I have a homeland
I was born in Alamo
Like the history of the Gypsies, the song itself has become an archaeological enigma. It has crossed so many borders and been sung in so many languages that it is no longer easy to determine its roots or which precise Alamo, in either Spain or Portugal, the song is about. Even now, Naci en Alamo roams a pathless Odyssey around the Mediterranean, no less homeless than a Gypsy. The word “Gypsy” itself turns out to be a conundrum as well. Gypsies, who speak Romany, refer to themselves as Roma, not with the exonym Gypsy. (Roma is the plural for Rom, meaning “man”—no relation to Romania.) “Gypsy” in English, just like the word gyftos in Greek, may be derived from gipcya, with a possible derivation from egipcien, because Gypsies were mysteriously believed to come from Egypt—which also means from far away, from elsewhere, or just simply from goodness-knows-where. Etymological dictionaries also suggest that the word might derive from the Greek for untouchables, athinganoi, hence zingaro in Italian, tsigane and gitan in French, gitano in Spanish, ţigan in Romanian, cigano in Portuguese. The real origin of the word, like the real origin of the people, is lost in time. There is no origin.
men who ate oranges
Translating my first novel ohhhhhhhhh yeahhhh.
Sad because baby lost WINGO cars only got YESTERDAY GROWLS
Sad because baby lost WINGO cars only got YESTERDAY GROWLS
god particle
Weizmann Institute of Science astrophysicists have been prominent in the experiments that have shown “promising signs” of the existence of the Higgs boson — the “God particle” — that provides a framework for all of the subatomic particles in nature and has been sought for decades.
Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the CERN research center in Switzerland said in an excited announcement on Tuesday that it found some evidence in its experiments of the existence of the elementary particle. It was suggested in 1964 by six physicists, including University of Edinburgh physicist Peter Higgs whom it was named after, as a way to explain mass.
The sub-atomic particle called Higgs is the one piece of the Standard Model of Particle Physics that has not been proven to exist, and some scientists believe that the model will have to be rethought if the Higgs is not found.
Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the CERN research center in Switzerland said in an excited announcement on Tuesday that it found some evidence in its experiments of the existence of the elementary particle. It was suggested in 1964 by six physicists, including University of Edinburgh physicist Peter Higgs whom it was named after, as a way to explain mass.
The sub-atomic particle called Higgs is the one piece of the Standard Model of Particle Physics that has not been proven to exist, and some scientists believe that the model will have to be rethought if the Higgs is not found.
sábado, 10 de diciembre de 2011
martes, 6 de diciembre de 2011
How monotonously
How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different the saints.
Lewis
Lewis
lunes, 5 de diciembre de 2011
not digging Buddism
I suspect some bad gurus have fallen prey to mystical nihilism. They may also have been corrupted by that most insidious of all Buddhist propositions, the myth of total enlightenment. This is the notion that some rare souls achieve mystical self-transcendence so complete that they become morally infallible—like the Pope! Belief in this myth can turn spiritual teachers into tyrants and their students into mindless slaves, who excuse even their teachers’ most abusive behavior as “crazy wisdom.”
I have one final misgiving about Buddhism—or rather, about Buddha himself. His path to enlightenment began with his abandonment of his wife and child. Even today, Tibetan Buddhism—again, like Catholicism—upholds male monasticism as the epitome of spirituality. To me, “spiritual” means life-embracing, and so a path that turns away from aspects of life as essential as sexual love and parenthood is not spiritual but anti-spiritual.
I have one final misgiving about Buddhism—or rather, about Buddha himself. His path to enlightenment began with his abandonment of his wife and child. Even today, Tibetan Buddhism—again, like Catholicism—upholds male monasticism as the epitome of spirituality. To me, “spiritual” means life-embracing, and so a path that turns away from aspects of life as essential as sexual love and parenthood is not spiritual but anti-spiritual.
the Forever City
For a time in my adolescence, I was nuts about the idea of Rome, but to me it was hardly more than an idea, and a poorly formed, misshapen idea at that. I had never even been to the place. I was still in Australia, where, thanks to an education by Jesuits, I spoke a few sentences of Latin but no Italian whatever. The only semi-Romano I knew was actually Irish, a sweet, white-haired, elderly Jesuit who ran the observatory attached to the boarding school I had attended in Sydney, and who, from time to time, would travel to Italy to take charge of its sister institution, belonging to the pope (Pius XII, aka Eugenio Pacelli) and situated at Castelgandolfo, outside the Eternal City. From there, he would bring back postcards, sedulously and with obvious pleasure gleaned from their racks in various museums and churches at 10 to 20 lire each: Caravaggios, Bellinis, Michelangelos.
Where could one see the real thing? Only in Rome. How would one know what feeling in religious art actually was authentic? By going to Rome. Come down to it, how would one know that art of any kind was any good? Mainly—if not only—by going to Rome, and seeing the real thing in the real place. Rome would be my entry door to Italy and then to the rest of Europe. And with that would come sophistication and taste and possibly even spirituality.
Where could one see the real thing? Only in Rome. How would one know what feeling in religious art actually was authentic? By going to Rome. Come down to it, how would one know that art of any kind was any good? Mainly—if not only—by going to Rome, and seeing the real thing in the real place. Rome would be my entry door to Italy and then to the rest of Europe. And with that would come sophistication and taste and possibly even spirituality.
sábado, 26 de noviembre de 2011
but of course
“La lactancia materna, casi imprescindible para la supervivencia infantil hace no muchos años, ha variado durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX debido, principalmente, a la aparición de la lactancia artificial”, explica Juan Ramón Ordoñana, investigador de la Universidad de Murcia y autor principal del estudio.
El trabajo, publicado recientemente en el Journal of Human Lactation, analiza cómo han evolucionado las tasas de lactancia materna en la Región de Murcia y, por extensión en España, en las últimas décadas, si se comportaban igual las mujeres que tenían hijos en los años 60’ que las que lo hacían en los 80’ o en los 90’.
Los autores estudiaron a 666 mujeres que habían sido madres por primera vez desde principios de los 60 hasta finales del siglo pasado. Además de recoger información sobre la alimentación de sus hijos, los expertos tomaron datos sociodemográficos, fundamentalmente el nivel de estudios que habían alcanzado.
“El efecto de un mayor nivel educativo sobre la duración de la lactancia no es siempre el mismo y depende del contexto social en que se produce”, subraya Ordoñana.
Así, las mujeres con un nivel de estudios medio o superior disminuyeron la duración de la lactancia de forma drástica al inicio de los 70 y sus tasas se equipararon al de mujeres con menos estudios en las décadas de los 70 y 80. Sin embargo, posteriormente presentaron una tendencia firme al aumento (del 3,4% anual) que se mantuvo hasta el final de siglo.
Los autores explican estos resultados en la mayor facilidad de las mujeres con mayor nivel de estudios para asimilar los mensajes del personal sanitario acerca de los beneficios de la lactancia materna. “También es probable que las condiciones de sus trabajos, su nivel económico y su mayor acceso a servicios sanitarios facilitaran el mantenimiento de la lactancia materna si lo deseaban”, recalcan.
Igualmente, los expertos asocian esta evolución con la incorporación progresiva de las mujeres al mundo laboral, el movimiento hacia la recuperación de lo natural que apareció a finales de los 90, la ampliación del permiso de maternidad y un amplio número de factores socioculturales que han influido en el comportamiento de las mujeres ante la llegada de sus bebés.
Además, las recomendaciones del personal sanitario en torno a la alimentación de los recién nacidos han oscilado desde la lactancia artificial durante los años 70 y 80, al posterior fomento de la lactancia materna, debido a los beneficios para la salud que se descubrían y a las recomendaciones de la Organización Mundial de la Salud de prolongarla hasta los seis meses como mínimo.
Este estudio se enmarca dentro del proyecto Registro de Gemelos de Murcia, cuyo objetivo es analizar la contribución relativa de factores tanto genéticos como ambientales en el desarrollo de conductas relacionadas con la salud.
Fuente: SINC.
El trabajo, publicado recientemente en el Journal of Human Lactation, analiza cómo han evolucionado las tasas de lactancia materna en la Región de Murcia y, por extensión en España, en las últimas décadas, si se comportaban igual las mujeres que tenían hijos en los años 60’ que las que lo hacían en los 80’ o en los 90’.
Alargar la lactancia meterna vuelve a ser importante para las madres
“Encontramos una gráfica con forma de U”, afirma Ordoñana. “Las duraciones de lactancia materna más altas se encontraron a principios de los 60’ (61,3% más de seis meses) y a finales de los 90’ (29% para la misma duración) y las más bajas, en la década de los 70’ y 80’ (14,4% y 19,2%, respectivamente)”.Los autores estudiaron a 666 mujeres que habían sido madres por primera vez desde principios de los 60 hasta finales del siglo pasado. Además de recoger información sobre la alimentación de sus hijos, los expertos tomaron datos sociodemográficos, fundamentalmente el nivel de estudios que habían alcanzado.
“El efecto de un mayor nivel educativo sobre la duración de la lactancia no es siempre el mismo y depende del contexto social en que se produce”, subraya Ordoñana.
¿Por qué las mujeres con más formación prolongan más la lactancia?
La investigación relaciona estos resultados con los cambios sociales ocurridos y su impacto en las mujeres.Así, las mujeres con un nivel de estudios medio o superior disminuyeron la duración de la lactancia de forma drástica al inicio de los 70 y sus tasas se equipararon al de mujeres con menos estudios en las décadas de los 70 y 80. Sin embargo, posteriormente presentaron una tendencia firme al aumento (del 3,4% anual) que se mantuvo hasta el final de siglo.
Los autores explican estos resultados en la mayor facilidad de las mujeres con mayor nivel de estudios para asimilar los mensajes del personal sanitario acerca de los beneficios de la lactancia materna. “También es probable que las condiciones de sus trabajos, su nivel económico y su mayor acceso a servicios sanitarios facilitaran el mantenimiento de la lactancia materna si lo deseaban”, recalcan.
De la maternidad arropada por las mujeres de la tribu al apoyo de la pareja
La investigación relaciona estos resultados con los cambios sociales ocurridos y su impacto en las mujeres. Por ejemplo, se ha pasado de una estructura familiar amplia, donde convivían las mujeres de varias generaciones y se apoyaban unas a otras en el “arte de lactar”, a una familia nuclear, donde la mujer cuenta cada vez más con el apoyo emocional e instrumental de su pareja, pero no tanto con el de otras mujeres.Igualmente, los expertos asocian esta evolución con la incorporación progresiva de las mujeres al mundo laboral, el movimiento hacia la recuperación de lo natural que apareció a finales de los 90, la ampliación del permiso de maternidad y un amplio número de factores socioculturales que han influido en el comportamiento de las mujeres ante la llegada de sus bebés.
Además, las recomendaciones del personal sanitario en torno a la alimentación de los recién nacidos han oscilado desde la lactancia artificial durante los años 70 y 80, al posterior fomento de la lactancia materna, debido a los beneficios para la salud que se descubrían y a las recomendaciones de la Organización Mundial de la Salud de prolongarla hasta los seis meses como mínimo.
Este estudio se enmarca dentro del proyecto Registro de Gemelos de Murcia, cuyo objetivo es analizar la contribución relativa de factores tanto genéticos como ambientales en el desarrollo de conductas relacionadas con la salud.
Fuente: SINC.
martes, 22 de noviembre de 2011
jueves, 17 de noviembre de 2011
god
Like most people, questions about the existence of God and all things spiritual plague me frequently. I want to believe in such things, especially when it comes to continuity of my consciousness. I don’t like the idea of disappearing when I die. I suspect most other people don’t either, which is what makes belief in systems like Heaven, reincarnation, or even Hell an attractive prospect to our minds. Despite my desire to accept religious teachings, I am constantly prevented by a simple fact: no one has found any physical evidence of something like a soul, or any mechanism which might enable a persistent consciousness beyond our current brain. The lack of physical evidence coupled with the strong benefit of believing in life after death, leads to strong doubt in my mind.
My assumption has always been: If something like a soul exists, and it affects our consciousness in any manner, then it must be detectable by some scientific device. I find it difficult to imagine that something can interact with my physical body without leaving any physical trace. But though I find it hard to imagine, is it possible for something like a soul to interact with me without leaving any physical trace?
I chose to test this hypothesis using a thought experiment, and ended up formulating a computer model to simulate our souls, the afterlife, and a spiritual model which requires no visible physical component.
MORE.
My assumption has always been: If something like a soul exists, and it affects our consciousness in any manner, then it must be detectable by some scientific device. I find it difficult to imagine that something can interact with my physical body without leaving any physical trace. But though I find it hard to imagine, is it possible for something like a soul to interact with me without leaving any physical trace?
I chose to test this hypothesis using a thought experiment, and ended up formulating a computer model to simulate our souls, the afterlife, and a spiritual model which requires no visible physical component.
MORE.
miércoles, 16 de noviembre de 2011
Caveman was buried like a woman, leading scientists to question his sexual orientation.
Stone Age remains Photo: ZUMA Press
Archaeologists investigating a 5,000-year-old Copper Age grave in the Czech Republic believe they may have unearthed the first known remains of a gay or transvestite caveman, reports the Telegraph.
The man was apparently buried as if he were a woman, an aberrant practice for an ancient culture known for its strict burial procedures.
Since the grave dates to between 2900 and 2500 BC, the man would have been a member of the Corded Ware culture, a late Stone Age and Copper Age people named after the unique kind of pottery they produced. Men in this culture were traditionally buried lying on their right side with their heads pointing west, but this man was instead buried on his left side with his head pointing east, which is how women were typically buried.
“From history and ethnology, we know that people from this period took funeral rites very seriously so it is highly unlikely that this positioning was a mistake,” said lead archaeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinova. “Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation, homosexual or transsexual.”
Another clue is that Corded Ware men would typically be buried alongside weapons, hammers and flint knives, as well as food and drink to prepare them for their journey to the other side. But this man’s grave instead contained only a traditional egg-shaped pot, which was what women were typically buried with.
With all the evidence taken together, archaeologists are confident that the best explanation for the strange burial is that the man was effeminate, perhaps a homosexual, and possibly a transvestite.
“We believe this is one of the earliest cases of what could be described as a ‘transsexual’ or ‘third gender grave’ in the Czech Republic,” reiterated cooperating archaeologist Katerina Semradova.
Semradova also noted that archaeologists from a previous dig had uncovered a grave from the Mesolithic period where a female warrior was buried as a man, so mixed gender burials, though rare, were not unprecedented.
Share this article
Stone Age remains Photo: ZUMA Press
Archaeologists investigating a 5,000-year-old Copper Age grave in the Czech Republic believe they may have unearthed the first known remains of a gay or transvestite caveman, reports the Telegraph.
The man was apparently buried as if he were a woman, an aberrant practice for an ancient culture known for its strict burial procedures.
Since the grave dates to between 2900 and 2500 BC, the man would have been a member of the Corded Ware culture, a late Stone Age and Copper Age people named after the unique kind of pottery they produced. Men in this culture were traditionally buried lying on their right side with their heads pointing west, but this man was instead buried on his left side with his head pointing east, which is how women were typically buried.
“From history and ethnology, we know that people from this period took funeral rites very seriously so it is highly unlikely that this positioning was a mistake,” said lead archaeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinova. “Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation, homosexual or transsexual.”
Another clue is that Corded Ware men would typically be buried alongside weapons, hammers and flint knives, as well as food and drink to prepare them for their journey to the other side. But this man’s grave instead contained only a traditional egg-shaped pot, which was what women were typically buried with.
With all the evidence taken together, archaeologists are confident that the best explanation for the strange burial is that the man was effeminate, perhaps a homosexual, and possibly a transvestite.
“We believe this is one of the earliest cases of what could be described as a ‘transsexual’ or ‘third gender grave’ in the Czech Republic,” reiterated cooperating archaeologist Katerina Semradova.
Semradova also noted that archaeologists from a previous dig had uncovered a grave from the Mesolithic period where a female warrior was buried as a man, so mixed gender burials, though rare, were not unprecedented.
Share this article
lunes, 14 de noviembre de 2011
mossad
Senior Iranian´s son murdered by same method as Hamas´ Mabhouh (DEBKAfile) Special Report 11/13/11
Shortly after two big explosions rocked Iranian Revolutionary Guards bases near Tehran Saturday, Nov. 12, Ahmed Rezaie, 31, was found dead in Dubai´s Gloria Hotel. He was the the son of a high-ranking Iranian official, Mohsen Rezaie, secretary of the powerful Expediency Council and former IRGC commander. The cause of his death strongly resembled the method by which Hamas´ contact man with Tehran Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was slain on Jan. 19, 2010 in another Dubai hotel. The local authorities laid that death at the door of Israel´s Mossad. For instance, Rezaie´s body showed no signs of violence. He appeared have been injected with the Suxamethonium muscle relaxant and then smothered with a pillow.
Shortly after two big explosions rocked Iranian Revolutionary Guards bases near Tehran Saturday, Nov. 12, Ahmed Rezaie, 31, was found dead in Dubai´s Gloria Hotel. He was the the son of a high-ranking Iranian official, Mohsen Rezaie, secretary of the powerful Expediency Council and former IRGC commander. The cause of his death strongly resembled the method by which Hamas´ contact man with Tehran Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was slain on Jan. 19, 2010 in another Dubai hotel. The local authorities laid that death at the door of Israel´s Mossad. For instance, Rezaie´s body showed no signs of violence. He appeared have been injected with the Suxamethonium muscle relaxant and then smothered with a pillow.
Mooks
A term coined by Douglas Rushkoff in an episode of PBS’s “Frontline” entitled “The Merchants of Cool.”; Mooks are archetypal young males(teens-early 20s) who act like moronic boneheads. They are self centered simpletons who live a drunken frat-boy lifestyle(or are frat-boys). Examples can be found anytime someone watches “Jackass.” Rushkoff claimed that the media glorifies this ideal and stifles natural self expression, however, some people might argue teenage boys have always acted like morons(its actually a long-standing stereotype). Nonetheless, standardized conformist dumbass-culture behind a veneer of exhuberance is a scary notion indeed.Opposite of Mooks are Midriffs; oxymoronic innocent skanks who are modeled after Britney Spears.Although everyone likes to blame Jackass, anyone on that show is a model Mook.
sábado, 12 de noviembre de 2011
miércoles, 9 de noviembre de 2011
comorrrrrrr
Six mysterious London deaths attributed to the "curse of Tutankhamun" were murders by a Satanist called Aleister Crowley, a historian claims in a new book.
...At the time, a frenzied press blamed the "curse" and speculated on the supernatural powers of ancient Egyptians. But author Mark Beynon has now drawn on previously unpublished evidence to conclude the deaths were all ritualistic killings masterminded by Crowley, an occultist called "the wickedest man in the world".
After unique analysis of Crowley's diaries, essays and books and inquest reports, the armchair detective argues that he was a killer obsessed with Jack the Ripper's reign of terror in 1888.
...At the time, a frenzied press blamed the "curse" and speculated on the supernatural powers of ancient Egyptians. But author Mark Beynon has now drawn on previously unpublished evidence to conclude the deaths were all ritualistic killings masterminded by Crowley, an occultist called "the wickedest man in the world".
After unique analysis of Crowley's diaries, essays and books and inquest reports, the armchair detective argues that he was a killer obsessed with Jack the Ripper's reign of terror in 1888.
rogues
One of the most disturbing pieces of evidence in the United Nations report about Iran’s program to develop a nuclear “device” isn’t even about an Iranian. It’s about a Russian physicist who has evidently assisted Iran with weapons design. And there may be tens of thousands more just like him, nonproliferation analysts say, ripe for hiring by rogue states or terrorist groups.
Congratulations, Vyacheslav Danilenko: You’re infamous. Danilenko, a former Soviet weapons scientist, was reportedly found by the International Atomic Energy Agency to have tutored the Iranians “on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.”
Danilenko isn’t named in the IAEA report. But the report refers obliquely to “a foreign expert” who worked “in the nuclear weapon programme of the country of his origin.” That expert, whom the IAEA interviewed, helped Iran from 1996 to 2002 research a kind of “high explosives initiation system” used in nuclear devices.
Congratulations, Vyacheslav Danilenko: You’re infamous. Danilenko, a former Soviet weapons scientist, was reportedly found by the International Atomic Energy Agency to have tutored the Iranians “on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.”
Danilenko isn’t named in the IAEA report. But the report refers obliquely to “a foreign expert” who worked “in the nuclear weapon programme of the country of his origin.” That expert, whom the IAEA interviewed, helped Iran from 1996 to 2002 research a kind of “high explosives initiation system” used in nuclear devices.
martes, 8 de noviembre de 2011
liar liar
There may be no true windows in to the souls of politicians, but perhaps the inadvertently open microphone is an aural equivalent – the briefest of glimpses of what lies beneath the polished veneer of stock phrases and party lines.
Thus we discovered yesterday what Nicolas Sarkozy really thought of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. At the G20 meeting in Cannes the French president was clearly unaware a nearby microphone was open when he turned to Barack Obama and said: "Netanyahu, I can't stand him. He's a liar."
The US president, according to the French translator, replied: "You're sick of him? I have to work with him every day."
Incidentally, the fact that we are only learning this four days after the event says something about French media culture. The journalists who heard the exchange on their headphones before a press conference apparently did not report it immediately because the comments were deemed private under "French press traditions". It was a media watchdog website, Arrêt sur images, whothat finally leaked the remarks.This is up there with the best of past open-mic gaffes. It is reminiscent of John Major referring to his Eurosceptic cabinet colleagues in 1993 as "bastards", in a post-interview chat with an ITN reporter. There is also George Bush junior's open-mic aside to Dick Cheney, referring to a prominent New York Times reporter in 2000 as a "major league asshole".
Those cases somehow said less about the intended targets than the speakers. Major and Bush had gone out of their way to cultivate an image of politeness and fair play, and for a moment the curtain was swept aside. Similarly, Bush's open-mic conversation with Tony Blair at the G8 summit in Russia ("Yo Blair. How are you doing?") said as much about his casual lack of respect for foreign leaders as it did about Blair's obsequiousness around the American leader.
On balance, Sarko's aside does more damage to Netanyahu. After all, he came to power as the most pro-Israel French president in decades and is clearly losing patience. To call someone a 'liar' is no profanity (although MPs are not permitted to apply it to each other in parliament), but is all the more cutting because of it, especially with another world leader nodding in agreement. It reinforces Netanyahu's image at home as an opportunist who is losing Israel friends abroad.
Oh to be a fly on the wall at their next encounter.
Thus we discovered yesterday what Nicolas Sarkozy really thought of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. At the G20 meeting in Cannes the French president was clearly unaware a nearby microphone was open when he turned to Barack Obama and said: "Netanyahu, I can't stand him. He's a liar."
The US president, according to the French translator, replied: "You're sick of him? I have to work with him every day."
Incidentally, the fact that we are only learning this four days after the event says something about French media culture. The journalists who heard the exchange on their headphones before a press conference apparently did not report it immediately because the comments were deemed private under "French press traditions". It was a media watchdog website, Arrêt sur images, whothat finally leaked the remarks.This is up there with the best of past open-mic gaffes. It is reminiscent of John Major referring to his Eurosceptic cabinet colleagues in 1993 as "bastards", in a post-interview chat with an ITN reporter. There is also George Bush junior's open-mic aside to Dick Cheney, referring to a prominent New York Times reporter in 2000 as a "major league asshole".
Those cases somehow said less about the intended targets than the speakers. Major and Bush had gone out of their way to cultivate an image of politeness and fair play, and for a moment the curtain was swept aside. Similarly, Bush's open-mic conversation with Tony Blair at the G8 summit in Russia ("Yo Blair. How are you doing?") said as much about his casual lack of respect for foreign leaders as it did about Blair's obsequiousness around the American leader.
On balance, Sarko's aside does more damage to Netanyahu. After all, he came to power as the most pro-Israel French president in decades and is clearly losing patience. To call someone a 'liar' is no profanity (although MPs are not permitted to apply it to each other in parliament), but is all the more cutting because of it, especially with another world leader nodding in agreement. It reinforces Netanyahu's image at home as an opportunist who is losing Israel friends abroad.
Oh to be a fly on the wall at their next encounter.
sábado, 5 de noviembre de 2011
the truth
Un polémico libro recientemente publicado en Francia dice que sí. Su tesis es que hay quienes sacan provecho de mantener en secreto los factores de riesgo de las enfermedades neurodegenerativas
¿Por qué aumenta tanto el número de personas que sufren estas patologías? ¿Por qué afectan a individuos cada vez más jóvenes? Esas son las preguntas que la obra busca responder.
Amenaza a nuestras neuronas: Alzheimer, Parkinson, y los que sacan provecho, es el atrapante título de este libro publicado recientemente en Francia, al que la revista Marianne2 dedica un artículo. Se trata de la investigación de dos periodistas, Marie Grosman, especialista en salud pública, y Roger Lenglet, filósofo. El libro asegura que muchos posibles factores de riesgo de estas enfermedades son ocultados por razones políticas y por presión lobbista.
Los autores dicen haber recibido una advertencia del Ministerio de Ecología francés: "No alarmen a la población. Sobre todo, no creen pánico, ¡sería mucho más catastrófico! Somos perfectamente conscientes del problema".
Pero tanto Grosman como Lenglet se rebelaron contra esta consigna de no hacer ni decir nada. Actualmente, entre 800 mil y 1 millón de franceses padecen la enfermedad de Alzheimer, y cada año se suman 225 mil nuevos casos. En Europa, ya son 6 millones, y de aquí al 2050, se prevé que sean 16 millones. Un número escalofriante.
Pero quizá la principal alarma provenga del hecho de que el Alzheimer afecta cada vez con mayor frecuencia a personas más jóvenes, lo que contradice la creencia de que esta enfermedad viene con la edad. Algunos pacientes tienen menos de 60 años y hasta hay casos de personas de 30.
Según estos autores, "la edad es una condición de la enfermedad, pero no la causa". "La enfermedad se produce frecuentemente al final de la vida porque es el tiempo necesario para la acumulación de sustancias tóxicas en el cerebro", explican.
Con seguridad la tesis más polémica de Grosman y Lenglet es que "se sabe desde hace decenios cuáles son las verdaderas causas de la enfermedad de Alzheimer y de Parkinson".
¿Por qué no se les pone fin entonces? ¿Quién tiene interés en acallar esto y evitar la prevención? El libro responde a estos temas basándose en estudios publicados en revistas especializadas como Lancet, que sólo publica artículos luego de su aprobación por un comité científico.
Para los autores son los lobbies industriales los que apuntan al inmovilismo de las autoridades públicas del área sanitaria en materia de prohibición del uso de materiales de los que se conoce el daño neuronal que causan. Mercurio, aluminio, pesticidas y otros productos por el estilo que persisten y se acumulan en el ambiente y también en el cerebro serían los responsables de esta verdadera epidemia de enfermedades neurodegenerativas. También los campos electromagnéticos están en la mira.
Y esto es cierto no sólo para el Alzheimer y el Parkinson, también vale para el autismo o la hiperactividad en el niño, por ejemplo. Las madres transmiten a sus hijos los factores de riesgo a través de la placenta y del amamantamiento, porque también ellas han estado expuestas a los neurotóxicos.
Para Grosman y Lenglet, la información sería esencial. Pero, dicen, los investigadores científicos publican en medios especializados que no llegan al gran público.
En su libro, apuntan a los conflictos de intereses que rigen la toma de decisiones por parte de la Alta Autoridad de Salud de Francia (HAS, por sus siglas en francés) en lo que concierne a la prescripción de medicamentos contra el Alzheimer. Denuncian que "relaciones incestuosas" entre organismos de salud pública y empresas privadas han permitido que el Estado reembolse a los pacientes la compra de medicamentos cuya inutilidad -cuando no peligrosidad- ha sido reiteradamente denunciada por asociaciones médicas.
También señalan que, en vez de destinar los fondos públicos a un amplio programa de información y prevención, que permitiría a la población disminuir su exposición a los principales factores de riesgo, se financia la investigación privada de esos mismos laboratorios farmacéuticos que lucran prescribiendo remedios de eficacia no demostrada.
Los autores creen, sin embargo, que hay esperanza porque existen formas de reducir la exposición a los neurotóxicos y porque están convencidos de que en un futuro próximo habrá demandas colectivas (class actions) de las víctimas de esta contaminación que, finalmente, harán que se ponga el foco de la atención pública en este drama.
En concreto, Grosman y Lenglet denuncian la mercantilización de las enfermedades del cerebro y la parálisis de la prevención. Pese a los conocimientos que ya se tienen sobre esto, se permite, por afán de lucro, que la gente siga expuesta a los neurotóxicos desde la más temprana edad.
¿Por qué aumenta tanto el número de personas que sufren estas patologías? ¿Por qué afectan a individuos cada vez más jóvenes? Esas son las preguntas que la obra busca responder.
Amenaza a nuestras neuronas: Alzheimer, Parkinson, y los que sacan provecho, es el atrapante título de este libro publicado recientemente en Francia, al que la revista Marianne2 dedica un artículo. Se trata de la investigación de dos periodistas, Marie Grosman, especialista en salud pública, y Roger Lenglet, filósofo. El libro asegura que muchos posibles factores de riesgo de estas enfermedades son ocultados por razones políticas y por presión lobbista.
Los autores dicen haber recibido una advertencia del Ministerio de Ecología francés: "No alarmen a la población. Sobre todo, no creen pánico, ¡sería mucho más catastrófico! Somos perfectamente conscientes del problema".
Pero tanto Grosman como Lenglet se rebelaron contra esta consigna de no hacer ni decir nada. Actualmente, entre 800 mil y 1 millón de franceses padecen la enfermedad de Alzheimer, y cada año se suman 225 mil nuevos casos. En Europa, ya son 6 millones, y de aquí al 2050, se prevé que sean 16 millones. Un número escalofriante.
Pero quizá la principal alarma provenga del hecho de que el Alzheimer afecta cada vez con mayor frecuencia a personas más jóvenes, lo que contradice la creencia de que esta enfermedad viene con la edad. Algunos pacientes tienen menos de 60 años y hasta hay casos de personas de 30.
Según estos autores, "la edad es una condición de la enfermedad, pero no la causa". "La enfermedad se produce frecuentemente al final de la vida porque es el tiempo necesario para la acumulación de sustancias tóxicas en el cerebro", explican.
Con seguridad la tesis más polémica de Grosman y Lenglet es que "se sabe desde hace decenios cuáles son las verdaderas causas de la enfermedad de Alzheimer y de Parkinson".
¿Por qué no se les pone fin entonces? ¿Quién tiene interés en acallar esto y evitar la prevención? El libro responde a estos temas basándose en estudios publicados en revistas especializadas como Lancet, que sólo publica artículos luego de su aprobación por un comité científico.
Para los autores son los lobbies industriales los que apuntan al inmovilismo de las autoridades públicas del área sanitaria en materia de prohibición del uso de materiales de los que se conoce el daño neuronal que causan. Mercurio, aluminio, pesticidas y otros productos por el estilo que persisten y se acumulan en el ambiente y también en el cerebro serían los responsables de esta verdadera epidemia de enfermedades neurodegenerativas. También los campos electromagnéticos están en la mira.
Y esto es cierto no sólo para el Alzheimer y el Parkinson, también vale para el autismo o la hiperactividad en el niño, por ejemplo. Las madres transmiten a sus hijos los factores de riesgo a través de la placenta y del amamantamiento, porque también ellas han estado expuestas a los neurotóxicos.
Para Grosman y Lenglet, la información sería esencial. Pero, dicen, los investigadores científicos publican en medios especializados que no llegan al gran público.
En su libro, apuntan a los conflictos de intereses que rigen la toma de decisiones por parte de la Alta Autoridad de Salud de Francia (HAS, por sus siglas en francés) en lo que concierne a la prescripción de medicamentos contra el Alzheimer. Denuncian que "relaciones incestuosas" entre organismos de salud pública y empresas privadas han permitido que el Estado reembolse a los pacientes la compra de medicamentos cuya inutilidad -cuando no peligrosidad- ha sido reiteradamente denunciada por asociaciones médicas.
También señalan que, en vez de destinar los fondos públicos a un amplio programa de información y prevención, que permitiría a la población disminuir su exposición a los principales factores de riesgo, se financia la investigación privada de esos mismos laboratorios farmacéuticos que lucran prescribiendo remedios de eficacia no demostrada.
Los autores creen, sin embargo, que hay esperanza porque existen formas de reducir la exposición a los neurotóxicos y porque están convencidos de que en un futuro próximo habrá demandas colectivas (class actions) de las víctimas de esta contaminación que, finalmente, harán que se ponga el foco de la atención pública en este drama.
En concreto, Grosman y Lenglet denuncian la mercantilización de las enfermedades del cerebro y la parálisis de la prevención. Pese a los conocimientos que ya se tienen sobre esto, se permite, por afán de lucro, que la gente siga expuesta a los neurotóxicos desde la más temprana edad.
viernes, 4 de noviembre de 2011
miércoles, 2 de noviembre de 2011
A day in Earth planet
Findings
By Rafil Kroll-Zaidi–Harper’s
Wisconsin was expecting a full harvest of bears, giant king crabs had invaded the Antarctic Abyss, and snakes continued to bite large numbers of Africans. Hyenas can count to three, dolphins may understand death, and honeybees were found capable of pessimism; scientists who impersonated badgers by violently shaking the bees’ hives further proposed that today’s bees may be particularly pessimistic because of pesticides, and hoped in future to elicit happiness from bees. Thirty percent of U.S. honeybees were found to have died last winter. Honeybees had brought new viruses from Mississippi to California via South Dakota, and a new species of solitary bee was discovered in Florida. The Asian bee-eating hornet had invaded Western Europe.
In Scotland, researchers were attempting to decipher the language of bees. “Whether this is just bee noise,” admitted the neuroscientist leading the study, “we don’t know.” Ecologists were surprised to find Scottish bumblebees ascending to hilltops in search of females. “In between drinking,” said the principal researcher, “they go looking for mates.” South London was found to be rife with stag beetles.
An amateur botanist in Brazil co-described a new species of strychnine that buries its own seeds. “This is my first botanical publication in a peer-reviewed journal,” said Alex Popovkin. “Hopefully, there will be more to follow. I had since early adolescence felt attraction to plants.” Spring break was blamed for the spike in March conceptions among Ontarian teenagers, and alcohol consumption was found to make no difference for a quarter of American rapists. Koi herpes was widespread among Michigan’s common carp, as was vulvar pain among its women. Ten percent of women dislike performing oral sex on men. Treatment by magnetotherapy may help stroke victims overcome their inability to swallow. Transcranial magnetic stimulation inhibits the ability to lie. The brains of older humans are cluttered with irrelevant information.
Men tend to gain weight after divorce, whereas women tend to gain weight following marriage. Women who shoot themselves are less likely than men to aim for their heads. Fetuses learn to differentiate touch from pain when they are between thirty-five and thirty-seven weeks old. Scottish authorities declined to launch a formal investigation into the possibility of sea eagles’ carrying off small children. Britain’s January babies are more likely to grow up to be debt collectors, and those born in the spring are prone to anorexia. Irish twins whose birth weights differ by 18 percent or more are at greater risk of bowel disorders. Ireland was the only country with substantial demand for the donor sperm of redheads. Racism among white home-plate umpires causes minority pitchers to pitch conservatively and thereby to earn lower salaries. White umpires do not, however, display racist favoritism toward catchers. Gay African-American men were being made anxious by prejudice and harassment. Delusive overconfidence may be beneficial in the long run, and the sunk-cost effect was contributing to Americans’ renewed enthusiasm for the Iraq war. “People,” explained one of the study’s authors, “are notoriously bad at making assessments on when it’s time to stop.” At a health spa in China, an eel swam up a man’s penis.
via Findings—By Rafil Kroll-Zaidi (Harper’s Magazine).
Wisconsin was expecting a full harvest of bears, giant king crabs had invaded the Antarctic Abyss, and snakes continued to bite large numbers of Africans. Hyenas can count to three, dolphins may understand death, and honeybees were found capable of pessimism; scientists who impersonated badgers by violently shaking the bees’ hives further proposed that today’s bees may be particularly pessimistic because of pesticides, and hoped in future to elicit happiness from bees. Thirty percent of U.S. honeybees were found to have died last winter. Honeybees had brought new viruses from Mississippi to California via South Dakota, and a new species of solitary bee was discovered in Florida. The Asian bee-eating hornet had invaded Western Europe.
In Scotland, researchers were attempting to decipher the language of bees. “Whether this is just bee noise,” admitted the neuroscientist leading the study, “we don’t know.” Ecologists were surprised to find Scottish bumblebees ascending to hilltops in search of females. “In between drinking,” said the principal researcher, “they go looking for mates.” South London was found to be rife with stag beetles.
An amateur botanist in Brazil co-described a new species of strychnine that buries its own seeds. “This is my first botanical publication in a peer-reviewed journal,” said Alex Popovkin. “Hopefully, there will be more to follow. I had since early adolescence felt attraction to plants.” Spring break was blamed for the spike in March conceptions among Ontarian teenagers, and alcohol consumption was found to make no difference for a quarter of American rapists. Koi herpes was widespread among Michigan’s common carp, as was vulvar pain among its women. Ten percent of women dislike performing oral sex on men. Treatment by magnetotherapy may help stroke victims overcome their inability to swallow. Transcranial magnetic stimulation inhibits the ability to lie. The brains of older humans are cluttered with irrelevant information.
Men tend to gain weight after divorce, whereas women tend to gain weight following marriage. Women who shoot themselves are less likely than men to aim for their heads. Fetuses learn to differentiate touch from pain when they are between thirty-five and thirty-seven weeks old. Scottish authorities declined to launch a formal investigation into the possibility of sea eagles’ carrying off small children. Britain’s January babies are more likely to grow up to be debt collectors, and those born in the spring are prone to anorexia. Irish twins whose birth weights differ by 18 percent or more are at greater risk of bowel disorders. Ireland was the only country with substantial demand for the donor sperm of redheads. Racism among white home-plate umpires causes minority pitchers to pitch conservatively and thereby to earn lower salaries. White umpires do not, however, display racist favoritism toward catchers. Gay African-American men were being made anxious by prejudice and harassment. Delusive overconfidence may be beneficial in the long run, and the sunk-cost effect was contributing to Americans’ renewed enthusiasm for the Iraq war. “People,” explained one of the study’s authors, “are notoriously bad at making assessments on when it’s time to stop.” At a health spa in China, an eel swam up a man’s penis.
via Findings—By Rafil Kroll-Zaidi (Harper’s Magazine).
martes, 1 de noviembre de 2011
Low
Second time I had to refuse the job of my fucking life.
Being a mom ain´t that easy.
J lost within himself and his circumstances.
2011 go away
Being a mom ain´t that easy.
J lost within himself and his circumstances.
2011 go away
lunes, 31 de octubre de 2011
Sister´s love
A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs
By MONA SIMPSON
Published: October 30, 2011
Related
Opinion: The Genius of Jobs(October 30, 2011)
Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.
By then, I lived in New York, where I was trying to write my first novel. I had a job at a small magazine in an office the size of a closet, with three other aspiring writers. When one day a lawyer called me — me, the middle-class girl from California who hassled the boss to buy us health insurance — and said his client was rich and famous and was my long-lost brother, the young editors went wild. This was 1985 and we worked at a cutting-edge literary magazine, but I’d fallen into the plot of a Dickens novel and really, we all loved those best. The lawyer refused to tell me my brother’s name and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James — someone more talented than I, someone brilliant without even trying.
When I met Steve, he was a guy my age in jeans, Arab- or Jewish-looking and handsomer than Omar Sharif.
We took a long walk — something, it happened, that we both liked to do. I don’t remember much of what we said that first day, only that he felt like someone I’d pick to be a friend. He explained that he worked in computers.
I didn’t know much about computers. I still worked on a manual Olivetti typewriter.
I told Steve I’d recently considered my first purchase of a computer: something called the Cromemco.
Steve told me it was a good thing I’d waited. He said he was making something that was going to be insanely beautiful.
I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him. They’re not periods of years, but of states of being. His full life. His illness. His dying.
Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day.
That’s incredibly simple, but true.
He was the opposite of absent-minded.
He was never embarrassed about working hard, even if the results were failures. If someone as smart as Steve wasn’t ashamed to admit trying, maybe I didn’t have to be.
When he got kicked out of Apple, things were painful. He told me about a dinner at which 500 Silicon Valley leaders met the then-sitting president. Steve hadn’t been invited.
He was hurt but he still went to work at Next. Every single day.
Novelty was not Steve’s highest value. Beauty was.
For an innovator, Steve was remarkably loyal. If he loved a shirt, he’d order 10 or 100 of them. In the Palo Alto house, there are probably enough black cotton turtlenecks for everyone in this church.
He didn’t favor trends or gimmicks. He liked people his own age.
His philosophy of aesthetics reminds me of a quote that went something like this: “Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”
Steve always aspired to make beautiful later.
He was willing to be misunderstood.
Uninvited to the ball, he drove the third or fourth iteration of his same black sports car to Next, where he and his team were quietly inventing the platform on which Tim Berners-Lee would write the program for the World Wide Web.
By then, I lived in New York, where I was trying to write my first novel. I had a job at a small magazine in an office the size of a closet, with three other aspiring writers. When one day a lawyer called me — me, the middle-class girl from California who hassled the boss to buy us health insurance — and said his client was rich and famous and was my long-lost brother, the young editors went wild. This was 1985 and we worked at a cutting-edge literary magazine, but I’d fallen into the plot of a Dickens novel and really, we all loved those best. The lawyer refused to tell me my brother’s name and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James — someone more talented than I, someone brilliant without even trying.
When I met Steve, he was a guy my age in jeans, Arab- or Jewish-looking and handsomer than Omar Sharif.
We took a long walk — something, it happened, that we both liked to do. I don’t remember much of what we said that first day, only that he felt like someone I’d pick to be a friend. He explained that he worked in computers.
I didn’t know much about computers. I still worked on a manual Olivetti typewriter.
I told Steve I’d recently considered my first purchase of a computer: something called the Cromemco.
Steve told me it was a good thing I’d waited. He said he was making something that was going to be insanely beautiful.
I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him. They’re not periods of years, but of states of being. His full life. His illness. His dying.
Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day.
That’s incredibly simple, but true.
He was the opposite of absent-minded.
He was never embarrassed about working hard, even if the results were failures. If someone as smart as Steve wasn’t ashamed to admit trying, maybe I didn’t have to be.
When he got kicked out of Apple, things were painful. He told me about a dinner at which 500 Silicon Valley leaders met the then-sitting president. Steve hadn’t been invited.
He was hurt but he still went to work at Next. Every single day.
Novelty was not Steve’s highest value. Beauty was.
For an innovator, Steve was remarkably loyal. If he loved a shirt, he’d order 10 or 100 of them. In the Palo Alto house, there are probably enough black cotton turtlenecks for everyone in this church.
He didn’t favor trends or gimmicks. He liked people his own age.
His philosophy of aesthetics reminds me of a quote that went something like this: “Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”
Steve always aspired to make beautiful later.
He was willing to be misunderstood.
Uninvited to the ball, he drove the third or fourth iteration of his same black sports car to Next, where he and his team were quietly inventing the platform on which Tim Berners-Lee would write the program for the World Wide Web.
domingo, 30 de octubre de 2011
rajoyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Los españoles quieren justicia y venganza???? Por culpa de Franco, algunos vascos quisieron justicia y otros venganza, y los que optaron por la segunda acabaron llamandose ETA.
Por eso se necesita PAZ, para que no se vuelvan a repetir ninguna de las DOS cosas. Pero con políticos como Rajoy y partidos políticos como el PP nunca se conseguirá llegar a eso.
Acaso en Sudáfrica e Irlanda acabo todo sin negociar?? Pues claro que no, y para eso esta la historia, para aprender y no volver a cometer errores.
Que nos espera con políticos así??
viernes, 28 de octubre de 2011
jueves, 27 de octubre de 2011
lunes, 24 de octubre de 2011
hmmmm
Coming in June 2012...
And here's the blurb on the book from the publisher, New Page Books:
The Pyramids and the Pentagon is a detailed study of how and why government agencies have, for decades, taken a clandestine and profound interest in numerous archeological, historical, and religious puzzles.
Focusing primarily upon the classified work of the U.S. Government, The Pyramids and the Pentagon invites you to take a wild ride into the fog-shrouded past.
It’s a ride that incorporates highlights such as:
•The CIA’s top-secret files on Noah’s Ark;
•U.S. Army documents positing that the Egyptian Pyramids were constructed via levitation;
•Disturbing military encounters with Middle Eastern djinns;
•Claims of nuclear warfare in ancient India;
•Links between the Face on Mars and the pharaohs;
•And many more.
Nick Redfern’s The Pyramids and the Pentagon clearly and provocatively demonstrates that deep and dark conspiracies exist within the shadowy world of officialdom—conspiracies that have the ability to rock the foundations of civilization, religion, and history to their very core.
The strange and amazing secrets of the past are just a heavily guarded government vault away.
And here's the blurb on the book from the publisher, New Page Books:
The Pyramids and the Pentagon is a detailed study of how and why government agencies have, for decades, taken a clandestine and profound interest in numerous archeological, historical, and religious puzzles.
Focusing primarily upon the classified work of the U.S. Government, The Pyramids and the Pentagon invites you to take a wild ride into the fog-shrouded past.
It’s a ride that incorporates highlights such as:
•The CIA’s top-secret files on Noah’s Ark;
•U.S. Army documents positing that the Egyptian Pyramids were constructed via levitation;
•Disturbing military encounters with Middle Eastern djinns;
•Claims of nuclear warfare in ancient India;
•Links between the Face on Mars and the pharaohs;
•And many more.
Nick Redfern’s The Pyramids and the Pentagon clearly and provocatively demonstrates that deep and dark conspiracies exist within the shadowy world of officialdom—conspiracies that have the ability to rock the foundations of civilization, religion, and history to their very core.
The strange and amazing secrets of the past are just a heavily guarded government vault away.
HOw i AM LOVING this
Did he or didn’t he? That is the question. The debate over whether William Shakespeare could write his own name, let alone the body of works considered among the greatest in English literature, has consumed minds for more than 150 years.
Now a new film, Anonymous, by Independence Day director Roland Emmerich, is about to throw more fuel on the fire.
Anonymous, released on October 28, is set in the political snake-pit of Elizabethan England. It asserts that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the Bard’s plays. And Shakespeare, an actor, was a mere provincial frontman for the plays so Oxford’s authorship could remain secret.
The film includes a masterful performance from Rhys Ifans as the brooding genius Oxford, with the mother-and-daughter team of Joely Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave playing the young and old Queen Elizabeth. Ifans might seem a more obvious choice for the comic role of the buffoonish, scheming Shakespeare, but that part is taken by Rafe Spall, son of Timothy.
Anonymous is no wordy but drab costume drama. Emmerich brings his epic style to bear on the exterior shots, swooping over Tudor London in all its teeming glory and culminating in Elizabeth’s funeral procession along a frozen Thames, an icy finality to the story.
It is however, the Shakespeare question which will spark most talk. Perhaps the identity of the genius behind the work is not important. The plays speak for themselves. But the row between the Shakespeare-supporting “Stratfordians” and the earl-backing “Oxfordians” is as heated now as when it first raged in the 1850s.
We ask two experts to present their opposing cases:
Charles Beauclerk argues that William Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him
Professor Stanley Wells believes that Shakespeare did write the plays
We ask two experts to present their opposing cases:
Charles Beauclerk argues that William Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him
Professor Stanley Wells believes that Shakespeare did write the plays
domingo, 23 de octubre de 2011
sábado, 22 de octubre de 2011
Beautiful Boy
Beautiful Boy
BEAUTIFUL BOY TRAILER
“Beautiful Boy” is a film about a couple and their failing relationship. At the beginning the husband is about to move out, and the wife is pissed because he was supposed to go on vacation with her and their kid. But it all turns out okay. The vacation gets canceled. Their son shoots a large number of people, and that brings them back together.
It’s a film about how a couple’s son, plus two dozen other people, must die to save their marriage. The majority of the film shows these two being quiet and depressed; scenes of characters being quiet and depressed while washing dishes; quiet and depressed while drinking coffee. The couple gets in a real fight only once.
If ever a character which ought to be important is treated as an object, this is it: the ultimate narcissist film. In the entire movie, the closest thing to an explanation behind the son’s mass killing is this: “You all have blood on your hands. You have vandalized my heart and you break my soul.” A movie doesn’t need to go in depth, but this is supposed to be an important character who the lead characters love. He’s the title character and the driving force. Yet the couple’s awkwardness and quiet depression attaches to nothing – they don’t investigate; they run away from reporters. The dad gets pissed because the people at work are looking at him; he’s self-conscious, and at another point, while talking to a hotel employee, frankly doesn’t give a damn when someone says his son is a psychopath right to his face. He has to turn off the TV when a Glenn Beck look-a-like says the parents should come forward so the dead kids’ parents can “take a crack at them.”
Nearly the only time the son gets mentioned in conversation is when the parents wonder if they should blame themselves. The parents crash at a hotel and get off work, get drunk, eat junk food, and live the way their son should’ve been living at college. Then this happens:
Narcissist 1:“Did we do something?”
Narcissist 2: “No! — Why does it have to be our fault?” (Note: He definitely doesn’t say, “Honey, it’s not your fault.”)
We know that the kid is quiet and doesn’t have a lot of friends – we can take for granted that the script writer has zero imagination, but are we supposed to think the son was quiet and didn’t have a lot of friends for no reason? It’s entirely possible they did do something or let something happen. It’s also entirely possible they had nothing to do with it.
There’s a fight later and narcissist 2 has a change of heart:
“It was our fault. We didn’t give him hope. We didn’t show him how to be happy.”
This is as meaningless as “you have vandalized my heart”. Nobody’s parents give them hope or show them how to be happy. So maybe the kid had a brain tumor. Maybe he had lupus. Maybe he got made fun of for writing bad poetry.
Or: he was a greater narcissist than his parents were. He learned their absurd, suburban self-consciousness. He moved to college and became nobody, and it was too much. At home he was at least the furniture-kid, and his parents said he was special just because it’s part of their role. At college he would have to actually do something so other people thought he was in some way valuable. He had no other narcissists around to reflect off of, so his identity had to be louder. Bad poetry didn’t impress anyone and being alone and miserable is so passé. He cobbled together an identity that would be sure to get someone’s attention.
The parents are to blame because the kid learned what mattered from them. And what matters is what you project, your image, your brand. Not what you do or who you are.
If a few dozen people need to die so you can be popular, son, so you can feel fulfilled, that’s fine with us. We’ll get a book deal and live the dream with you. We’ll look like we’re crying.
“Beautiful Boy” is a film about a couple and their failing relationship. At the beginning the husband is about to move out, and the wife is pissed because he was supposed to go on vacation with her and their kid. But it all turns out okay. The vacation gets canceled. Their son shoots a large number of people, and that brings them back together.
It’s a film about how a couple’s son, plus two dozen other people, must die to save their marriage. The majority of the film shows these two being quiet and depressed; scenes of characters being quiet and depressed while washing dishes; quiet and depressed while drinking coffee. The couple gets in a real fight only once.
If ever a character which ought to be important is treated as an object, this is it: the ultimate narcissist film. In the entire movie, the closest thing to an explanation behind the son’s mass killing is this: “You all have blood on your hands. You have vandalized my heart and you break my soul.” A movie doesn’t need to go in depth, but this is supposed to be an important character who the lead characters love. He’s the title character and the driving force. Yet the couple’s awkwardness and quiet depression attaches to nothing – they don’t investigate; they run away from reporters. The dad gets pissed because the people at work are looking at him; he’s self-conscious, and at another point, while talking to a hotel employee, frankly doesn’t give a damn when someone says his son is a psychopath right to his face. He has to turn off the TV when a Glenn Beck look-a-like says the parents should come forward so the dead kids’ parents can “take a crack at them.”
Nearly the only time the son gets mentioned in conversation is when the parents wonder if they should blame themselves. The parents crash at a hotel and get off work, get drunk, eat junk food, and live the way their son should’ve been living at college. Then this happens:
Narcissist 1:“Did we do something?”
Narcissist 2: “No! — Why does it have to be our fault?” (Note: He definitely doesn’t say, “Honey, it’s not your fault.”)
We know that the kid is quiet and doesn’t have a lot of friends – we can take for granted that the script writer has zero imagination, but are we supposed to think the son was quiet and didn’t have a lot of friends for no reason? It’s entirely possible they did do something or let something happen. It’s also entirely possible they had nothing to do with it.
There’s a fight later and narcissist 2 has a change of heart:
“It was our fault. We didn’t give him hope. We didn’t show him how to be happy.”
This is as meaningless as “you have vandalized my heart”. Nobody’s parents give them hope or show them how to be happy. So maybe the kid had a brain tumor. Maybe he had lupus. Maybe he got made fun of for writing bad poetry.
Or: he was a greater narcissist than his parents were. He learned their absurd, suburban self-consciousness. He moved to college and became nobody, and it was too much. At home he was at least the furniture-kid, and his parents said he was special just because it’s part of their role. At college he would have to actually do something so other people thought he was in some way valuable. He had no other narcissists around to reflect off of, so his identity had to be louder. Bad poetry didn’t impress anyone and being alone and miserable is so passé. He cobbled together an identity that would be sure to get someone’s attention.
The parents are to blame because the kid learned what mattered from them. And what matters is what you project, your image, your brand. Not what you do or who you are.
If a few dozen people need to die so you can be popular, son, so you can feel fulfilled, that’s fine with us. We’ll get a book deal and live the dream with you. We’ll look like we’re crying.
viernes, 21 de octubre de 2011
martes, 18 de octubre de 2011
sublime
Fernando Sánchez Dragó acaba de lanzar el primer volúmen de su biografía, Esos días azules. Memorias de un niño raro. En una entrevista concedida a 20 minutos, el polémico escritor habla de su obra, critica el ¡Indignaos!, de Stéphane Héssel, y afirma que el movimiento del 15-M se está "cargando la democracia".
En el libro dice que las mujeres de 30 se convierten en señoras ¿no le gustan? Siempre que tengan menos de 26 años. Nunca me he enredado con alguien mayor de esa de edad porque me gusta la disponibilidad y una señora no me acompaña en mi ritmo de vida. No es por carne fresca... tampoco me gustan las decentes porque yo no lo soy.
¿Y por qué dice que los jóvenes del 15-M son prefascistas? Eso lo dije en una columna de El Mundo. Son prefascistas y no lo saben. Cuatro años antes de la Revolución Francesa, un abad publicó un librito muy parecido al de Hessel que se llama Qué es el Estado llano y surgieron los enrages (cabreados). Cuatro meses después llegó Robespierre. Se están cargando la democracia. El libro de Héssel son flores y pajaritos. Ha caído en el momento justo.
¿A quién le daría el timón? El fin del mundo ha llegado y no hay salvación. Esta tormenta se lleva al mundo occidental y a EE UU. No hay nada que hacer. El timón pasa al sudeste asiático. Los chinos están ahí. Europa no tiene arreglo, no puedo proponer a nadie.
Pero a alguien preferirá... No me gustaría que los socialistas siguieran gobernando, pero yo ya he atacado a toda la clase política y en esto podría coincidir con los del 15-M. No basta con ser antisistema, que yo también lo soy.
¿Cómo es la sociedad con la que sueña? Con el estado de responsabilidad, que es lo contrario de el del bienestar. Una sociedad sin adolescentes eternos.
¿Lo que más le molesta es que le llamen provocador? No me enfado porque no me enfado ni cuando me llaman hijo de puta. Lo que provocan son mis ideas, no yo. ¿Qué hago? ¿me falsifico?
¿Muchos piensan cómo usted? Me atrevo a decir en voz alta lo que muchos piensan en voz baja.
lunes, 17 de octubre de 2011
domingo, 16 de octubre de 2011
Assange
“To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is barbarity”
Roberspierre
Roberspierre
viernes, 14 de octubre de 2011
what are you waiting for?
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Thursday that officials at the “highest levels” of the Iranian government must be held accountable for a brazen and bizarre plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States on American soil, insisting leaders of the world will believe the U.S. case without dispute once they absorb the details.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, confirmed the Obama administration has had direct contact with Iran over the allegations. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, met with Iranian officials at Iran’s mission to the U.N. on Wednesday — a highly unusual contact for two countries that do not have diplomatic relations.
Obama would not say whether Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, knew of the alleged plan. Yet he called it part of a pattern of “dangerous and reckless behavior” by the Iranian government and said people within that government were aware of a murder-for-hire plot.
The U.S. considers it an attempted act of terrorism.
U.S. says Quds tied to plot to kill ambassador (Oct. 11)“We believe that even if at the highest levels there was not detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the Iranian government engaging in this kind of activity,” Obama said in a news conference tied to the state visit of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
Iran has vehemently denied anything to do with the alleged plot to kill the Saudi envoy to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, at a Washington restaurant.
U.S. officials have described it as a remarkably clumsy but deadly serious operation by Iran’s elite foreign action unit, the Quds Force. Two men were charged in New York federal court Tuesday for allegedly trying to hire a purported Mexican drug cartel member to carry out the assassination with a bomb attack.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, confirmed the Obama administration has had direct contact with Iran over the allegations. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, met with Iranian officials at Iran’s mission to the U.N. on Wednesday — a highly unusual contact for two countries that do not have diplomatic relations.
Obama would not say whether Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, knew of the alleged plan. Yet he called it part of a pattern of “dangerous and reckless behavior” by the Iranian government and said people within that government were aware of a murder-for-hire plot.
The U.S. considers it an attempted act of terrorism.
Related reading
Ambassador plot shines light on Quds force (Oct. 13)U.S. says Quds tied to plot to kill ambassador (Oct. 11)
Iran has vehemently denied anything to do with the alleged plot to kill the Saudi envoy to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, at a Washington restaurant.
U.S. officials have described it as a remarkably clumsy but deadly serious operation by Iran’s elite foreign action unit, the Quds Force. Two men were charged in New York federal court Tuesday for allegedly trying to hire a purported Mexican drug cartel member to carry out the assassination with a bomb attack.
jueves, 13 de octubre de 2011
Tracy
Protesting Gets Results
It’s absolutely true that people, especially the youth, should be upset at both the government and the financial elite. Their entire future has been destroyed by these people. They have been sold into slavery by their elders, and they are not getting any of the benefit. It is going to take a revolution to change the situation so that they are no longer slaves and have a chance to make their own future.Unfortunately, that’s not what most of these people are protesting for. Most of them are Socialists and Communists. They want MORE slavery. They are begging the slave masters to increase their rations. Most of them are protesting capitalism. Most of them are protesting the concept of private property, and they want to change the existing system only slightly, so that they get to keep larger amounts of the capital gains from their own enslavement.
I have no doubt that there is and will continue to be a major backlash amongst leftists as the effects of Wall Street’s fraud and the banksters’ larceny, facilitated by government, continue to take shape in the form of austerity measures. These people believe that the free market is to blame for what has happened.
Of course this is the direct result of a completely rigged market. There was never anything free about it. The government has granted the Federal Reserve a monopoly on the issuance of currency and the regulation of its quantity, which determines its value. The government has opted the country into an international system of trade and finance where an elite circle of unelected bureaucrats decide what countries will export which products to whom, and at what price. The government decides the price of labor and the conditions under which it can be rendered. The Fed loans money to banks at 0% interest and the government encourages them to use it to pump up the stock market, where 70% of trades are done via computers trading shares back and forth multiple times per second, rigging the price of each stock with precision.
There is no proper measure of the amount of wealth that has been fraudulently extracted from the individuals who live in this country. It’s impossible to quantify where the other 95% of the value of the US dollar has gone in the last century. What does it mean that most taxpayers spend a third of the year working to pay income taxes, and that’s not including the sales taxes and licensing fees that everybody pays? What does it mean that now two or more incomes are required to achieve a subsistence standard of living that was formerly achievable with just one income? What does it mean that we once had billions of dollars of gold bullion circulating as money that was confiscated by the government and given to foreign banks? What does it mean that the property that people live on was mortgaged with money created from thin air, and that each property has probably been sold to several lenders, neither of whom has any real right to own the property, because they haven’t tendered any valuable consideration? What does it mean that most of the manufacturing in this country has been relocated elsewhere by an international body that was created to fairly regulate international trade?
These are the questions that any self-respecting revolutionary should be asking, but I’m not going to hold my breath and wait for the folks currently “occupying Wall Street” to figure it out. They’re too busy obsessing on how much money CEOs make, how much they spend on vacations and fine dining. They don’t care about how that wealth was stolen. What they care about is that someone else has something that they don’t have, and that bothers them. So instead of destroying the inherently broken and immoral system of slavery and larceny, they just want someone to rig it in their favor. They want more useless jobs created for the public sector and government-granted monopolies. They want free food and free health care from the government. They want higher taxes for the rich. They actually think that will solve everything.
The fact is that if you continue this relationship where you have to have a hippy dippy protest march demanding things from the government every time you need a raise all you are doing is perpetuating your own enslavement. The way to fight the system is not to demand another system, which will inevitably continue to enslave you, but to remove yourself from the system as much as possible. The answer is not to throw a tantrum and demand more attention, but to simply stop giving them your attention. Stop treating them like they are your masters, because that is the reason why they are your masters.
miércoles, 12 de octubre de 2011
domingo, 9 de octubre de 2011
sábado, 8 de octubre de 2011
lunes, 3 de octubre de 2011
domingo, 2 de octubre de 2011
Bastards
Game
by Maxine Kumin
Before he died
Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
gunned down in Sarajevo
to jump-start World War I,
bragged he had shot three
thousand stags and a miscellany
of foxes, geese, wolves, and boars
driven toward him by beaters,
stout men he ordered to flush
creatures from their cover
into his sights, a tradition
the British aristocracy
carried on, further aped
by rich Americans
from Teddy R. to Ernest H.,
something Supreme
Court Justice Antonin
Scalia, pudgy son of Sicilian
immigrants, indulged in
when, years later, he had
scores of farm-raised birds
beaten from their cages and scared
up for him to shoot down
which brought him an inner joy.
What happened
to him when he was a boy?
by Maxine Kumin
Before he died
Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
gunned down in Sarajevo
to jump-start World War I,
bragged he had shot three
thousand stags and a miscellany
of foxes, geese, wolves, and boars
driven toward him by beaters,
stout men he ordered to flush
creatures from their cover
into his sights, a tradition
the British aristocracy
carried on, further aped
by rich Americans
from Teddy R. to Ernest H.,
something Supreme
Court Justice Antonin
Scalia, pudgy son of Sicilian
immigrants, indulged in
when, years later, he had
scores of farm-raised birds
beaten from their cages and scared
up for him to shoot down
which brought him an inner joy.
What happened
to him when he was a boy?
viernes, 30 de septiembre de 2011
jueves, 29 de septiembre de 2011
miércoles, 28 de septiembre de 2011
dopamine
Some stimuli will invoke a huge, quick response, and others a smaller, yet longer, extended response. There is a varying degree of neurotransmitter release depending on the strength of the stimulus, as well as how long we are in the presence of it. Remember last time - I told you that the longer you interface with a stimulus, or the more time you spend interacting with it, the greater attachment you will form to it.
Some studies have looked at the different types of sex and the variable neurochemical responses based on the type of sex the person is engaging in. However, it is probably not the case that the penis causes more dopamine to be released than a vibrator, for example. More likely, it is the state of mind the person is in that really has an effect on the amount of pleasure he or she is experiencing.
The cognitive state of the brain at any given moment in time is what causes the release of dopamine, whether it is prompted by a physical or a mental stimulus. Can the brain be stimulated via tactile nerve pathways to release large amounts of dopamine? Sure. However, consider this: You can give one person two separate, yet identical patterns of physiological stimulation, and end up getting radically different subjective experiences as a result. This implies that it is not just the physical act of sex that gives us so much pleasure, but how we represent that act in our mind that really has impact...
Some studies have looked at the different types of sex and the variable neurochemical responses based on the type of sex the person is engaging in. However, it is probably not the case that the penis causes more dopamine to be released than a vibrator, for example. More likely, it is the state of mind the person is in that really has an effect on the amount of pleasure he or she is experiencing.
The cognitive state of the brain at any given moment in time is what causes the release of dopamine, whether it is prompted by a physical or a mental stimulus. Can the brain be stimulated via tactile nerve pathways to release large amounts of dopamine? Sure. However, consider this: You can give one person two separate, yet identical patterns of physiological stimulation, and end up getting radically different subjective experiences as a result. This implies that it is not just the physical act of sex that gives us so much pleasure, but how we represent that act in our mind that really has impact...
dopamine
Some stimuli will invoke a huge, quick response, and others a smaller, yet longer, extended response. There is a varying degree of neurotransmitter release depending on the strength of the stimulus, as well as how long we are in the presence of it. Remember last time - I told you that the longer you interface with a stimulus, or the more time you spend interacting with it, the greater attachment you will form to it.
Some studies have looked at the different types of sex and the variable neurochemical responses based on the type of sex the person is engaging in. However, it is probably not the case that the penis causes more dopamine to be released than a vibrator, for example. More likely, it is the state of mind the person is in that really has an effect on the amount of pleasure he or she is experiencing.
The cognitive state of the brain at any given moment in time is what causes the release of dopamine, whether it is prompted by a physical or a mental stimulus. Can the brain be stimulated via tactile nerve pathways to release large amounts of dopamine? Sure. However, consider this: You can give one person two separate, yet identical patterns of physiological stimulation, and end up getting radically different subjective experiences as a result. This implies that it is not just the physical act of sex that gives us so much pleasure, but how we represent that act in our mind that really has impact...
Some studies have looked at the different types of sex and the variable neurochemical responses based on the type of sex the person is engaging in. However, it is probably not the case that the penis causes more dopamine to be released than a vibrator, for example. More likely, it is the state of mind the person is in that really has an effect on the amount of pleasure he or she is experiencing.
The cognitive state of the brain at any given moment in time is what causes the release of dopamine, whether it is prompted by a physical or a mental stimulus. Can the brain be stimulated via tactile nerve pathways to release large amounts of dopamine? Sure. However, consider this: You can give one person two separate, yet identical patterns of physiological stimulation, and end up getting radically different subjective experiences as a result. This implies that it is not just the physical act of sex that gives us so much pleasure, but how we represent that act in our mind that really has impact...
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