I've just seen this headline news in a digital Spanish newspaper: "The NY Times makes Spaniards blush: want to go abroad and can't speak languages". In other times, in other ages, I would have clapped my hands and exclaimed "that's true, that's true"... Now -indeed, I was about to talk about something completely different tonight- it sounds to me a pretty simplistic judgement, a pretty cliche. I say that I won't make any comment... But... No, no... I mean... Ok, I'll tell you two jokes, out of two stories, and I'll drop the thing... I am getting tired of myself with such a sudden outburst of national enthusiasm in the last days.
I remember well from my first months in the States the joke C.P. told us. He was an American, from Tuscaloosa, if I remember correctly, or Pensacola, not sure, a Church guy, interested in Spanish culture; he was actually doing volunteering work during periods of time around the year in South America, Peru -everybody loves Peru-, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, etc., although his Spanish was only slightly better than my English at the time: "How do you call someone who can speak two languages? (Pause) Bilingual (Pause) How do you call someone who can speak three languages? (Pause) Trilingual (Pause) How do you call someone who can only speak one language? (Pause) American! (Laughs)".
Last Friday, I was having a drink with some people from the Department. I can talk the hind leg off a donkey in social situations when I feel shy or am around new people, and often say things I later regret if I let myself go. And so, eventually, I told M.G. this joke: "Do you know what the definition of a Spaniard is? Someone who is born, grows and dies, learning English". This time, I was the only one to laugh, and M.G. said to me: "In this country, if someone say something like that of us British, I would find it offensive".
... No, no, I won't say anything else... . Just make your own judgement.
I wanted to share with you a couple of ideas on Fluid Mechanics that caught fire and enlightened my understanding today as I pondered my brains on my derivations, but I will leave it for next time. Tomorrow, perhaps?
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Thursday, March 31, 2011
Midnight Spring's Rain
Just arrived home tonight. The raindrops are tap dancing on the side window. I have my headphones around my neck but have not switched any music on. I listen to the rain. The night is made to be explored, cultivated, enjoyed, but I am dead tired and need to go to bed now. It's way toooo late. Spent the evening in Bishops Stortford with M. First, the High School students in a classic: Midnight Summer's Dream, which happened to be a very decent and clean piece of work; later, dinner!, she prepared. Freedom has being surrounding me the whole evening and, by emancipating myself -at least, I tried-, I felt it. There is something magical about being walking the empty, dark streets of a county town or even of London, in a rainy midnight of spring... About the drowsy looking-through-the-window at the stillness and the dim, pale street torches outside as the train steel-plow the land. Most beautiful of all: something happened; saw a few lights within me turning on after so long a time... . Lights up, my friend!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
In the name of time
The stage of public life co-stars a large number of figures behind the main names. In the same way the flashing lights in electrical placards show off, these second-line figures come and go, shine and vanish, hit the news one day and are mainly forgotten the next one. Nevertheless, the real action twinkles within them and thanks to them, like the nervous pulses travel jumping from one nerve cell onto another, like the metal sphere in pin-ball machine.
I am coming to think now how wonderful it would be to remember every single name one hears or reads about now and for ever, and his whole story attached to it. Can you imagine? I mean, Would it be possible? The news you get in the paper seems to be a compendium of detail information about a single chronicle, an appealing story or an outrageous tragedy; the news is a collection of lively portraits of someone's tales, which will be entirely forgotten as soon as the clock ticks on to the next day. It would be so cool to lock every detail alive in your brains and kept it latent for ages... .
Laura Waddell, 26, British actress who lives in LA, is a role in the romcom about William & Kate to be released on DVD on April, 25 _She is hot; Other mature hotties: Sian Williams and Susanna Reid, for the BBC Breakfast show; Silkie Carlo, Charlie Veitch's girlfriend, seen in a reality TV, Shipwrecked, in 2009, in Channel 4, and last Saturday inside the vandalized Fortnum & Mason, along with Charlie, the founder of The Love Police Academy. Silkie is 18, Charlie is 30, lived in Cambridge, both are privately educated people and blinded with rotten money. Charlie likes doing damages on a regular basis, but never takes care of doing so to any of the oil companies his father happens to work with.
Speaking about oil, how nice, the Southeastern part of Libya released from Gaddafi's grip, is now entrusted by the Libyan opposition (sic) to Qatar... Remarkably, Qatar joined the coalition against Gaddafi and collaborates with 4 airplanes... .
The name of Simon Jenkins is worthwhile to remember. I disgusted so much his article in page 14 of tonight's edition of The Evening Standard: "London's broken windows -a price worth paying". Oh, yes, would you be willing to pay "that price" if the windows were yours? If I were 10 years younger I would have spent the whole evening writing a reply, being his nonsense so prejudicial, typical and juicy.
The beautiful Asma al-Assad, the first lady of Syria is married since 2000 to the anti-democratic, I heard, president of that country, 10 years her senior. Asma is only 35, looks gorgeous, and uses -in the picture I have in front of me now- the same color for her nails as my supervisor does for hers. She was born in London, Acton, in the West End, and met the man in here. There is an interview in Vogue in February, if you want to take a look. It's crap. If I could read the smoke of reality and truth, would look very dark to me.
Asma al-Assad, first lady of Syria.
This is funny: Italo Giovanni, the Panama Consul in the Canary Islands, is on the brim of resignation because of a photograph of himself dressed like a woman during the past Carnival. To the deadly hammer of Twiter, you must add the open windows of Facebook, as terminators of the public foolish.
All these names, having a terrible memory, will be out of my vault in the span of a wink, although they've occupied my time and thoughts today and made my connection to the so-called actual world. I guess this is the meaning of time: a cloudy path fading out quiet and swiftly, like the wake of a jet in the high sky.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
I am coming to think now how wonderful it would be to remember every single name one hears or reads about now and for ever, and his whole story attached to it. Can you imagine? I mean, Would it be possible? The news you get in the paper seems to be a compendium of detail information about a single chronicle, an appealing story or an outrageous tragedy; the news is a collection of lively portraits of someone's tales, which will be entirely forgotten as soon as the clock ticks on to the next day. It would be so cool to lock every detail alive in your brains and kept it latent for ages... .
Laura Waddell, 26, British actress who lives in LA, is a role in the romcom about William & Kate to be released on DVD on April, 25 _She is hot; Other mature hotties: Sian Williams and Susanna Reid, for the BBC Breakfast show; Silkie Carlo, Charlie Veitch's girlfriend, seen in a reality TV, Shipwrecked, in 2009, in Channel 4, and last Saturday inside the vandalized Fortnum & Mason, along with Charlie, the founder of The Love Police Academy. Silkie is 18, Charlie is 30, lived in Cambridge, both are privately educated people and blinded with rotten money. Charlie likes doing damages on a regular basis, but never takes care of doing so to any of the oil companies his father happens to work with.
Speaking about oil, how nice, the Southeastern part of Libya released from Gaddafi's grip, is now entrusted by the Libyan opposition (sic) to Qatar... Remarkably, Qatar joined the coalition against Gaddafi and collaborates with 4 airplanes... .
The name of Simon Jenkins is worthwhile to remember. I disgusted so much his article in page 14 of tonight's edition of The Evening Standard: "London's broken windows -a price worth paying". Oh, yes, would you be willing to pay "that price" if the windows were yours? If I were 10 years younger I would have spent the whole evening writing a reply, being his nonsense so prejudicial, typical and juicy.
The beautiful Asma al-Assad, the first lady of Syria is married since 2000 to the anti-democratic, I heard, president of that country, 10 years her senior. Asma is only 35, looks gorgeous, and uses -in the picture I have in front of me now- the same color for her nails as my supervisor does for hers. She was born in London, Acton, in the West End, and met the man in here. There is an interview in Vogue in February, if you want to take a look. It's crap. If I could read the smoke of reality and truth, would look very dark to me.
This is funny: Italo Giovanni, the Panama Consul in the Canary Islands, is on the brim of resignation because of a photograph of himself dressed like a woman during the past Carnival. To the deadly hammer of Twiter, you must add the open windows of Facebook, as terminators of the public foolish.
All these names, having a terrible memory, will be out of my vault in the span of a wink, although they've occupied my time and thoughts today and made my connection to the so-called actual world. I guess this is the meaning of time: a cloudy path fading out quiet and swiftly, like the wake of a jet in the high sky.
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Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Super-Tramp
The Internet is off again _this is becoming a bothersome routine. This time I have also forgotten my USB on my desk at UCL so I am handwriting this. I said before and I said now: like it better than typing with a laptop. This I wrote last night, once I finished picking up my clothes from the washing machine down in the kitchen to the upper room. For a moment, the house is dead quite, in kind of a mortal, sonorous silence all around. Don't like that a bit now; however, I stop for a second and take it.
I am reading through these days W. H. Davies' The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp. Do you remember when I told here the way I learn of the difference amongst hobos, tramps and bumps? Well, Davies was a tramp, a super-tramp, in the sense that he did not avoid working from time to time or when needed. He has already arrived into America and is roaming about with Brum and a third bump called Australian Red. All beggars had picturesque names: Detroit Fatty, Saginaw Kid, Chicago Slim. The winter time is come and the three tramps look purposely for the most renamed of jails in the State of Michigan to spend thirty days, warmed and cozy, at the tax payers' expense:
"The Marshall produced the three cakes of tobacco, seeming to be well prepared for these demands, and giving us a paper dollar, requested us to go to Donovan's saloon, which we would find in the main street, where he would see us later in the day; 'when, of course', he added, winking, 'you will supposed to be just a bit merry'. (...) About an hour and a half had elapsed when we discovered ourselves to be alone in the bar, and without means of procuring more liquor. 'We had better going', said Brum, and we passed into the street. Brum saw the Marshall coming up the road and began singing in a lusty voice, to the astonishment of some of the storekeepers. Australian Red, being the worst for drink, and forgetting that we had only to feign this part, began to roar like a bull, merry in earnest. On this the Marshall quickly crossed the street and in the hearing of several citizens, shouted in an authoritative voice -'I arrest you for being drunk and disorderly', and we followed him like lambs" (W.H. Davies, Amberley, edition 2010).
I once met and held certain acquaintance, if not friendship, with a mighty tramp for a handful of years. He was a wretched and fractured soul, with difficult redemption on Earth. The shelter where he used to return whenever he ran out of money was not cozy nor friendly at all; the welcome hallo was a plastic biker and an urinary and that repulsive stink of tobacco and bleach combined. Next to the church, where the homeless where taken every morning before making it for work, was a landscape of unshaven faces underneath lank, long hairs, tired looks and bony limbs attached to cigarettes, all-season jeans and T-shirts... . Wherever you might be, God Bless You, N.Mc. Long time no see; not since I took off, with no looking back, from my own run-away.
I am reading through these days W. H. Davies' The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp. Do you remember when I told here the way I learn of the difference amongst hobos, tramps and bumps? Well, Davies was a tramp, a super-tramp, in the sense that he did not avoid working from time to time or when needed. He has already arrived into America and is roaming about with Brum and a third bump called Australian Red. All beggars had picturesque names: Detroit Fatty, Saginaw Kid, Chicago Slim. The winter time is come and the three tramps look purposely for the most renamed of jails in the State of Michigan to spend thirty days, warmed and cozy, at the tax payers' expense:
"The Marshall produced the three cakes of tobacco, seeming to be well prepared for these demands, and giving us a paper dollar, requested us to go to Donovan's saloon, which we would find in the main street, where he would see us later in the day; 'when, of course', he added, winking, 'you will supposed to be just a bit merry'. (...) About an hour and a half had elapsed when we discovered ourselves to be alone in the bar, and without means of procuring more liquor. 'We had better going', said Brum, and we passed into the street. Brum saw the Marshall coming up the road and began singing in a lusty voice, to the astonishment of some of the storekeepers. Australian Red, being the worst for drink, and forgetting that we had only to feign this part, began to roar like a bull, merry in earnest. On this the Marshall quickly crossed the street and in the hearing of several citizens, shouted in an authoritative voice -'I arrest you for being drunk and disorderly', and we followed him like lambs" (W.H. Davies, Amberley, edition 2010).
I once met and held certain acquaintance, if not friendship, with a mighty tramp for a handful of years. He was a wretched and fractured soul, with difficult redemption on Earth. The shelter where he used to return whenever he ran out of money was not cozy nor friendly at all; the welcome hallo was a plastic biker and an urinary and that repulsive stink of tobacco and bleach combined. Next to the church, where the homeless where taken every morning before making it for work, was a landscape of unshaven faces underneath lank, long hairs, tired looks and bony limbs attached to cigarettes, all-season jeans and T-shirts... . Wherever you might be, God Bless You, N.Mc. Long time no see; not since I took off, with no looking back, from my own run-away.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Sunday nice
Internet was again lousy at home last night (well, was off, really). This I wrote last night though. Now, get to work _Got a few things to do this morning.
**
On Saturday, I paid a short visit to the British Tate with T. We were just on time for the 3 pm free-guided tour. Among the 5 or 6 pieces of art we saw, I can underline here the three paintings in a triptych, Past and Present by Augustus Leopold (1858). Indeed, the Victorian Era was a terrible Age for women. I mean, prostitution, imposed fates, discrimination, all of which awaited the women who did not behave in accordance to some social standards, to which, of course, men was not bidden by. The symbolism of the paintings is as rich and neat as the brutal reality it pictures. (I came to remember the story of Sarah Woodruff in J. Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman. Read it years ago, after suggestion of my friend A. Would be nice to read it again, or perhaps, go for the movie).
**
I want and must thank M. for a wonderful time this weekend. I enjoy it a lot, miss her now. It made me feel good: the motion of worlds out there can be complex (particularly one’s individual spheres), but peace and grace can be found by two beings in straightforward company. Against the Heath of Hampstead and the gardens of Kenwood pushing life and growing colors, the undulated meadows stretched out ahead of us, delineated by the stillness of the open road, now jammed, then exclusive and confidential.
The sun and breeze burned slightly my face in an invisible and scented whirlpool of afternoon sunshine; my heart, you had to see it!, spongy, all dressed in the white clothing of a unique Sunday.
**And now, this is for you: what's the difference between a holly-tree bush of red berries and a mistletoe? (Hint: Both of them are evergreen largely displayed in Christmas time).
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Sunday, March 27, 2011
Hell breaks loose... In London
There must be something terribly wrong. Helicopters patrolling left and right the sky for the entire day; cops in yellow-greenish bibs, ready to get into action, hundreds of them all over central London; barricades of steel; streets and avenues covered with propaganda leaflets; fearsome screams, massive yellings everywhere. 214 arrested, today; London was a unsafe place to be. No offense to the third world, London was today the Third World. Animals and beasts of all kinds were losen today... I have seen a group of no more than 40 humiliating, unpunished, a couple of soldiers cleaning a stain of paint from the monument in front of Downing Street. Some pubs were screening the entrance of people today, in Mayfair, in Soho. Oxford Street was a pitched battle. More than a hundred of policemen were entrenched in The Parliament Houses area, entreating the fight. The human zoo gathered in Hyde Park, Achilles Gate, looked to me like the natives in King Kong oldie, awakening the Beast. I walked parts of central London this afternoon and evening and felt uneasy and insecure. I can't see any future in the UK; you can build shit with this youth, tattooed in intolerance and savagery. Cut the money! Cut it all for these uncivilized. They are the sons and daughters of the rich and look what money has done out of them. what was the use of money for them? In fact, I felt sympathies for that handful, not more than a dozen, of old men living across Westminster in tents: Stop The War, they say, and they remain faithful to such demand _What is the fucking United Nations going to do about Syria? How about France?, I wonder. "The humanity of an artist is no guarantee that he is a decent human being", I read in one of the placards, and I like it a lot of, totally agree.
**
The evening has fallen colder and colder over London, more and more desolate and inhospitable, and so has my heart. London, you are doomed. You are ripe for evil recollection.
Madrid, November 2010. I was there. The man is remembered picking his niece's teddy bear from a pile of debris after being savagely killed by ETA. He embraced a cause: the total extermination of ETA, no middle points, no conversations, by means of the power of the Law. Zapatero, on the contrary, tried negotiations with the assassins gang, looked for political exchanges, although he denied it; a bomb in Madrid Airport in December 2007 and two Equatorial killed, however, forced him to stop and bide some time; but, now, he and the government is surreptitiously doing it again.
I was there, moved and touched, wet eyes. It was planned as a quick and short demonstration, but the number of people was larger than expected to the point of collapsing the traffic in La Castellana (behind the speaker). The man, a very civilized and decent human being, repeatedly asked people to move on the sidewalks as much as possible and wanted to cancel his speech, but people did not let him do it, and just cheered him up. Not in vain, the man has created a movement called The Civil Rebellion.
Socialist of the world,
Animals to be civilized,
Snakes of violence and slavery,
Up-class sons-of-a-bitch
Learn from the Spaniards!
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
**
The evening has fallen colder and colder over London, more and more desolate and inhospitable, and so has my heart. London, you are doomed. You are ripe for evil recollection.
I was there, moved and touched, wet eyes. It was planned as a quick and short demonstration, but the number of people was larger than expected to the point of collapsing the traffic in La Castellana (behind the speaker). The man, a very civilized and decent human being, repeatedly asked people to move on the sidewalks as much as possible and wanted to cancel his speech, but people did not let him do it, and just cheered him up. Not in vain, the man has created a movement called The Civil Rebellion.
Socialist of the world,
Animals to be civilized,
Snakes of violence and slavery,
Up-class sons-of-a-bitch
Learn from the Spaniards!
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Friday, March 25, 2011
Every Friday
Exactly once a week, men and women deceive themselves, exactly one Friday a week, every Friday. In this social world of us, functional rather than vocational, women and men uniformely cheer up their spirits once a week, every Friday. It is remarkable how much we deceive ourselves, how much we get our visions and consciences wrong. We get as much close on Friday as distant on Monday; it is the touch that today attracts and tomorrow will repel.
Here you have this girl, M., bad-tempered, good-hearted, maybe, impulsive, short-talker, who speaks in streams of languages -up to six- on Friday. Here, you have E., entrenched behind a desk and a pile of messy stuff during the week, but opening like a the flower of lotto to welcome the night... On Friday. Every Friday we abandon ourselves in the choking arms of the very same illusions.
**
If I see one doing it, I like her. It looks so sexy a woman with that standing style; with her feet crossed in that attractive manner, a truly British mark. Do you know what I mean? I remember from my days in school my English book with drawings of a girl always standing, and always with her feet crossed in that appealing manner: Mary is puzzled, Mary is excited, Mary is in love... Always a crossing-foot style for any feeling. Such a view: a long pair of lengs, wrapped in a stylish sort of tight-fitting pants, resting on a quite personal pair of British shoes, wearing a couple of crossed feet.
Oh! Like it.
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Here you have this girl, M., bad-tempered, good-hearted, maybe, impulsive, short-talker, who speaks in streams of languages -up to six- on Friday. Here, you have E., entrenched behind a desk and a pile of messy stuff during the week, but opening like a the flower of lotto to welcome the night... On Friday. Every Friday we abandon ourselves in the choking arms of the very same illusions.
**
If I see one doing it, I like her. It looks so sexy a woman with that standing style; with her feet crossed in that attractive manner, a truly British mark. Do you know what I mean? I remember from my days in school my English book with drawings of a girl always standing, and always with her feet crossed in that appealing manner: Mary is puzzled, Mary is excited, Mary is in love... Always a crossing-foot style for any feeling. Such a view: a long pair of lengs, wrapped in a stylish sort of tight-fitting pants, resting on a quite personal pair of British shoes, wearing a couple of crossed feet.
Oh! Like it.
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Thursday, March 24, 2011
Hampsteadian dispossession
Over and over again one gets proof that indefectibly, there is only one requirement to become a brutal, radical Leftist, with more rage than heart: and that is to be an indecent millionaire. Back in the 70s, I was told, in places like Ibiza there was a growing Hippie style in fashion, you know, a living manifest of dispossession. But, alas! Many of them drove bikes, Harley-Davidson and all, and liked walking around jiggling the keys. I once heard my father saying "well, that's easy; that way, I can be one myself!". In fact, it is like all these youngsters today playing to survive, for example, backed up by the folks' credit card. That's easy! Dispossession... My ass!
I had heard before about the squatting movement in the UK, but I heard it was a sort of an agreement and, thus, legal to some extend. However, by reading the chronicle of Peter Dominiczak in the tonight's Evening Standard, I can see that it is not legal, although some legal gap must exist. Anyhow, listen to this: Jason Ruddick, a huge 22-year-old motherfucker, son of a prominent Latvian lawyer, came a year ago into Britain to live as a squatter. The last house he has occupied is a 4 million-pound mansion belonging to the Republic of Congo (!). And this is what he says about it: "This place isn't nice enough for me. I want somewhere posher, with a swimming pool if possible. I want a shower and hot water. But I want to stay in Hampstead. It's very nice area"..... (!).... How about that, my friends?! Very clever, the little creature. The house seems to be closed to a mansion belonging to one of Gaddafi's son, Saif (!).
I am struck in awe (!) I need a glass of water.
**
The gravitational center of the world seems to have rested today in Hampstead. Liz Taylor, 79, passed away. She was born in Hampstead. I don't know, I guess she turned herself into a grotesque sight; when you grow old, beauty, if you had it anytime, abandon you, that's all; all you can retain is your style, your insight, yourself, but the outside simply vanished. You will transform into a stuffed mummy if you refuse accepting this inexorably law of nature.
I watched last summer The Taming of the Shrew and had a very good time. She was, indeed, lovely and irresistible. The couple, perfect; the comedy, unbeatable.
Photo: WeddingCardWordings.com
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
I had heard before about the squatting movement in the UK, but I heard it was a sort of an agreement and, thus, legal to some extend. However, by reading the chronicle of Peter Dominiczak in the tonight's Evening Standard, I can see that it is not legal, although some legal gap must exist. Anyhow, listen to this: Jason Ruddick, a huge 22-year-old motherfucker, son of a prominent Latvian lawyer, came a year ago into Britain to live as a squatter. The last house he has occupied is a 4 million-pound mansion belonging to the Republic of Congo (!). And this is what he says about it: "This place isn't nice enough for me. I want somewhere posher, with a swimming pool if possible. I want a shower and hot water. But I want to stay in Hampstead. It's very nice area"..... (!).... How about that, my friends?! Very clever, the little creature. The house seems to be closed to a mansion belonging to one of Gaddafi's son, Saif (!).
I am struck in awe (!) I need a glass of water.
**
The gravitational center of the world seems to have rested today in Hampstead. Liz Taylor, 79, passed away. She was born in Hampstead. I don't know, I guess she turned herself into a grotesque sight; when you grow old, beauty, if you had it anytime, abandon you, that's all; all you can retain is your style, your insight, yourself, but the outside simply vanished. You will transform into a stuffed mummy if you refuse accepting this inexorably law of nature.
I watched last summer The Taming of the Shrew and had a very good time. She was, indeed, lovely and irresistible. The couple, perfect; the comedy, unbeatable.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The city of light
I realized that I have already passed the figure of 100 post. Should I celebrate it? Well, no, I just need to continue, that's enough. I get too stressed out if I have to celebrate, too stressed with another "have to".
The weather was marvellous today, warm and sunny. London town looks different, showing all splendour and possibilities.The gardens are blooming. Regents Park looks terrific; guys wearing a suit and a tie, sitting on a bench, next to rose bush or a group of jasmines, reading the paper. The British Library, a lively hub of goes-in and out... And this is me, with my grey jacket and my daffodil in the lap, and no evil entered.
The city of light.... Against the city of dark.
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The weather was marvellous today, warm and sunny. London town looks different, showing all splendour and possibilities.The gardens are blooming. Regents Park looks terrific; guys wearing a suit and a tie, sitting on a bench, next to rose bush or a group of jasmines, reading the paper. The British Library, a lively hub of goes-in and out... And this is me, with my grey jacket and my daffodil in the lap, and no evil entered.
The city of light.... Against the city of dark.
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Soldiers of Love
I have been so busy that I did not have time to reflect on what to write here tonight. Again, it is too late, am sleeping about five hours and a half during the week; sometimes, skip lunch. And there is always that feeling of not having things under control nor working. I am so eager to arrive home in the evening that I am taking the tube every day; from Highgate I walk along Highwood up to Fortis Green. I am not reading too much these days; in the mornings, I travel clung to my coffee, looking at people.
**
The world is at war and I don't care. It makes me sick. I have only listened to the news in Spain while working after dinner this evening. The principles and consistency of Spanish politician are as vast as a flea. Groucho Marx said, "those are my principles and if you don't like them, well... I have others". After supporting violent action against Gaddafi, the Government showed up in Parliament this morning. Only 3 members opposed!... Only the communist! Today, I am a communist... Oh, what a disgrace.
The Spanish contribution to the War is between the grotesque and the comic. If you can understand Spanish, don't miss the address of Carmen Chacon (Defense Minister) to the marines before departing in the frigate Perez Nunez. Groucho Marx would not do it better.
I came to remember that night of Christmas' Eve of 1990 when Marta Sanchez sang Soldados del Amor on board of the frigate Numancia. Watch it here (see the detail of the microphone at the beginning?).
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**
The world is at war and I don't care. It makes me sick. I have only listened to the news in Spain while working after dinner this evening. The principles and consistency of Spanish politician are as vast as a flea. Groucho Marx said, "those are my principles and if you don't like them, well... I have others". After supporting violent action against Gaddafi, the Government showed up in Parliament this morning. Only 3 members opposed!... Only the communist! Today, I am a communist... Oh, what a disgrace.
The Spanish contribution to the War is between the grotesque and the comic. If you can understand Spanish, don't miss the address of Carmen Chacon (Defense Minister) to the marines before departing in the frigate Perez Nunez. Groucho Marx would not do it better.
I came to remember that night of Christmas' Eve of 1990 when Marta Sanchez sang Soldados del Amor on board of the frigate Numancia. Watch it here (see the detail of the microphone at the beginning?).
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Hispania
When Spain won the World Cup last summer -against the innoble game of the Netherlands-, one known and respected voice in the Spanish network draw attention upon the fact that Iniesta, who scored four of five minutes before the end of the extra time, is short, bald and originally from Fuentealbilla, in Old La Mancha. The Spaniard used to be short, bald and castizo, with a strong sense of tradition and cultural ties. That goal meant a remarkable victory from the guts of deep Spain.
Few weeks back, Iniesta apologizes for his orthographic mistakes in twitter. I guess that only a Spaniard can manage to make mistakes in writing only 160 words.
**
But the Spanish is not the moor of rawness and deep ignorance that someone wants to believe and, even, made us to believe.Not at all, no sir. It is deep, however, the lagoon of ignorance about Spanish men of science, that we Spanish do cultivate. It might be true that there is no relevant figures of the first order (can't say why, it must be some explanations), but there are so many of significance completely forsaken and ignored.
Me too, am such an ignorant. I came today to know about Jose Comas i Sola (1867 - 1937), a catalan. Among several merits, he discovered 11 asteroids, the first of them he called Hispania.
**
I read today the following headline, an utterance from Xabi: "I never had problems in the Spanish team for being catalan". Of course, dear Xabi! Who told you you should have any problems? No, no, indeed, it is just all the way round: will you have problems in Barcelona if you state solidly that your are a Spanish? If soccer and ideology are different things, why are you afraid of saying that you are a Spanish? For you, the Spanish team might be a "plus", a lovely experience to play with a winner team, something ridiculously called La Roja, but for many other people, like me, it is something more. If you look around and ask your French, English, German, Italian friends, they will feel the same as the rest of us. You play in the Spanish Team, strictly speaking, because you are considered Spanish.You are Spanish and you represent Spain. If you refuse to accept that or to proclaim it publicly, I prefer you to leave. We will lose, so let be it. We will lose a hundred games, but we will win and celebrate our Nation... Make a decision.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Few weeks back, Iniesta apologizes for his orthographic mistakes in twitter. I guess that only a Spaniard can manage to make mistakes in writing only 160 words.
**
But the Spanish is not the moor of rawness and deep ignorance that someone wants to believe and, even, made us to believe.Not at all, no sir. It is deep, however, the lagoon of ignorance about Spanish men of science, that we Spanish do cultivate. It might be true that there is no relevant figures of the first order (can't say why, it must be some explanations), but there are so many of significance completely forsaken and ignored.
Me too, am such an ignorant. I came today to know about Jose Comas i Sola (1867 - 1937), a catalan. Among several merits, he discovered 11 asteroids, the first of them he called Hispania.
**
I read today the following headline, an utterance from Xabi: "I never had problems in the Spanish team for being catalan". Of course, dear Xabi! Who told you you should have any problems? No, no, indeed, it is just all the way round: will you have problems in Barcelona if you state solidly that your are a Spanish? If soccer and ideology are different things, why are you afraid of saying that you are a Spanish? For you, the Spanish team might be a "plus", a lovely experience to play with a winner team, something ridiculously called La Roja, but for many other people, like me, it is something more. If you look around and ask your French, English, German, Italian friends, they will feel the same as the rest of us. You play in the Spanish Team, strictly speaking, because you are considered Spanish.You are Spanish and you represent Spain. If you refuse to accept that or to proclaim it publicly, I prefer you to leave. We will lose, so let be it. We will lose a hundred games, but we will win and celebrate our Nation... Make a decision.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Monday, March 21, 2011
Secret window, secret garden
Accidentally, I discovered this secret window to this secret garden (*).
***
Dewdrop, let me cleanse
In your brief, sweet waters...
These dark hands of life
(Matsuo Basho, s. XVII).
Oh!... .
(*) Note: I have borrowed this expression from the title of one of Stephen King's stories.
***
Dewdrop, let me cleanse
In your brief, sweet waters...
These dark hands of life
(Matsuo Basho, s. XVII).
Oh!... .
(*) Note: I have borrowed this expression from the title of one of Stephen King's stories.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
There is nothing in it
The tube closed on me in Embankment tonight. A voice through the speakers screamed out for a short time and soon the platform was deserted. A couple of little mice moved like a couple of cars remote-controlled by a kid. I decide to walk all the way up to the bus station, in "known land". The streets, not long before overcrowded, were now abandoned, forgotten. I have periodically this group of people crossing me by, half drunk, half asleep, zigzagging. Some girls walk in bare feet; tired shadows around their eyes, a pair of shoes in one hand, some seems annoyed, some does not. Quietness is taking over the night and the city, wind is blowing colder; life is colored in decadence inside buses. There is a guy lying on the floor here; a fat girl is there bellowing fucks and thats; someone argues with the driver; everyone looks blurred faces. Outside, through the window glass, trash and junk are just witness of a raw abandon, the type of careless use and abuse you see in pillows and blankets dragged and disposed of in business class as you leave the plain. The heart of the town is captive and pumps life in tidal waves of uniformity: now we do this; then, we do that. It is when you realize that there is nothing in it, nothing of the brave, noble beast of a town, free, absolutely free and unafraid, never asleep. But, alas! The town sleeps, and betrays, and follows a motion entirely as an undifferentiated bulk.
Is that the big, big city of London? That's it? Tremendous disappointment.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Is that the big, big city of London? That's it? Tremendous disappointment.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Friday, March 18, 2011
War, what is it good for?
The big piece of news today is that the so much feared Nuclear Apocalypse (Gunther Oettinger dixit) is no longer existent; or, if it actually exists, we must not trouble with it anymore. In a few hours, overnight, Fukushima and its reactors, helicopters and overheating, have been left behind beneath pages and pages of black upon white on the imminent war. The drama of human fatalities and all episodes of survival in Japan, long ago were vanished. An utter shame.
Comparisons are despicable; however, why is this war acceptable, and that War on Iraq, 2003, was not? The London Evening brings tonight in large-font type (quote is not literal) Cameron's declaration: "We can't just stand back and let him kill his own people". But, what was Hussein doing?! Was he not killing his own people plus exterminating the Kurds in the north for many years? After the first War in 1991 (that was a war for oil), the condition-sine-qua-non for Sadam to remain in power was to show evidence of dismounting the WMD, per UN Resolution. He did not show it, but the burden of proof was inverted and the stupid Western was caught in the trap, letting him breath.
The case of Gaddafi has been different, further more disgusting and immoral. All the West, the whole world became best friends with him!! The fact that he has been very faithful to his criminal activities, wide and varied, since 1969 has been of no matter, apparently, for none. Why is not anyone in the UK recalling, for example, the bombing of that Pan Am 103 plain, the Londerbie bombing in 1988?
For God's sake! They knew! But all they showed was smiles in exchange for money. Take a look (all photographs are taken from libertaddigital.com, March 18th, 2011).
Why is not anyone remembering this?
I dare say here something too bold, perhaps, or too gruesome, or too stupid: I sort of understand Gaddafi's views on this, and his refusal to leave. Regarding the killings of civilians these last days, well, it is just what Muammar can do the best: 50 years of practice is a lot of practice. This is what Gaddafi -who is 70 years old- might very well say to all today (the quote is mine):
"You, ungrateful motherfuckers! You drank my wine, strolled in my palaces, enjoyed my luxurious hospitality, take my money at full hands, taste my whores, and that's how you pay me back? You, big motherfuckers, cruel hypocrites; the first turmoil I have indoors in many years, and you just get your back on me? Fuck you once and a thousand times! I ain't no victim of your stupid political game, your inmoral waste of life. I have made you. I was already here when you were nothing. I am not leaving. Go and fuck yourself!".
I said before and I say now: I am worry about a plausible post-Gaddafi era. The Arab world is a pathless place, a suffocating desert plenty of rough ways, poisonous for the simple and genuine mind, a labyrinth for the good-hearted. I know nothing; have no idea, but I distrust whatever is hidden in the North of Africa, as much as I distrust the Palestinian claims as seen in the media. People might not want democracy; Gaddafi might represent the role of corrupted old crap who took away all the purity of its nation and its tradition, of its religion, of the true Islam, and this seems to be a good opportunity to get it back. Has nothing to do with democracy, I am afraid.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Comparisons are despicable; however, why is this war acceptable, and that War on Iraq, 2003, was not? The London Evening brings tonight in large-font type (quote is not literal) Cameron's declaration: "We can't just stand back and let him kill his own people". But, what was Hussein doing?! Was he not killing his own people plus exterminating the Kurds in the north for many years? After the first War in 1991 (that was a war for oil), the condition-sine-qua-non for Sadam to remain in power was to show evidence of dismounting the WMD, per UN Resolution. He did not show it, but the burden of proof was inverted and the stupid Western was caught in the trap, letting him breath.
The case of Gaddafi has been different, further more disgusting and immoral. All the West, the whole world became best friends with him!! The fact that he has been very faithful to his criminal activities, wide and varied, since 1969 has been of no matter, apparently, for none. Why is not anyone in the UK recalling, for example, the bombing of that Pan Am 103 plain, the Londerbie bombing in 1988?
For God's sake! They knew! But all they showed was smiles in exchange for money. Take a look (all photographs are taken from libertaddigital.com, March 18th, 2011).
Why is not anyone remembering this?
I dare say here something too bold, perhaps, or too gruesome, or too stupid: I sort of understand Gaddafi's views on this, and his refusal to leave. Regarding the killings of civilians these last days, well, it is just what Muammar can do the best: 50 years of practice is a lot of practice. This is what Gaddafi -who is 70 years old- might very well say to all today (the quote is mine):
"You, ungrateful motherfuckers! You drank my wine, strolled in my palaces, enjoyed my luxurious hospitality, take my money at full hands, taste my whores, and that's how you pay me back? You, big motherfuckers, cruel hypocrites; the first turmoil I have indoors in many years, and you just get your back on me? Fuck you once and a thousand times! I ain't no victim of your stupid political game, your inmoral waste of life. I have made you. I was already here when you were nothing. I am not leaving. Go and fuck yourself!".
I said before and I say now: I am worry about a plausible post-Gaddafi era. The Arab world is a pathless place, a suffocating desert plenty of rough ways, poisonous for the simple and genuine mind, a labyrinth for the good-hearted. I know nothing; have no idea, but I distrust whatever is hidden in the North of Africa, as much as I distrust the Palestinian claims as seen in the media. People might not want democracy; Gaddafi might represent the role of corrupted old crap who took away all the purity of its nation and its tradition, of its religion, of the true Islam, and this seems to be a good opportunity to get it back. Has nothing to do with democracy, I am afraid.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Saint Padrink Day
In pretty much the same way St. Patrick once stood on top of a hill and with just the help of a stick made of wood had all the snakes of Ireland banished, I wish I could have seen today the brilliant image of the saint descending from Hampstead Heath with a shamrock in his hair, a sandwich of corned beef in one hand and a lustrous, heavy glass of dark Guiness in the other, to erradicate all the drunkard vulgarity in which this beloved holiday has turned into in London and, I suspect, in many other places.
Ok, I know, I know that I know nothing, but no much healthy party I have seen tonight, no much music either.
The true St. Patrick festivus (as Franz Constanza, the character of Jerry Stiller in Jerry Seinfeld show, used to say) might be something like this. I have seen something very similar in Huntsville, AL, years ago, in an Irish pub in Memorial Pkwy South, where every Thursday night (or it was Tuesday night), a group of Irish or friends of the Irish used to gather to play. Well, I guess they still do it today... .
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Ok, I know, I know that I know nothing, but no much healthy party I have seen tonight, no much music either.
The true St. Patrick festivus (as Franz Constanza, the character of Jerry Stiller in Jerry Seinfeld show, used to say) might be something like this. I have seen something very similar in Huntsville, AL, years ago, in an Irish pub in Memorial Pkwy South, where every Thursday night (or it was Tuesday night), a group of Irish or friends of the Irish used to gather to play. Well, I guess they still do it today... .
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
On simplicity: the fire of Michael Faraday
When doing my Master's Degree, I used to weight cement samples and proper amounts of tap water and cast them in cylindrical cans of coke, manually cut -I think I have mentioned it before-. I did not like much doing so, because I did not expect seriously to get relevant results from there and, most importantly, because I suspected my advisor was not taking my research too seriously.
I was surely wrong.
As today, I have changed my mind respect to simple, bare experiments, as seen before-hand, or not-looking-cool nor too-new nor too-modern experiments. As oppose as before, I find simple experiments fascinating; I see them as moulds where the naked beauty of nature manifests itself and on which the illustrious mind can expand at its best.
Of course, all of the fields in Science and Technology has reached such level of complexity that sophisticated pieces of equipment, large clusters of processing computers, cumbersome data analysis and profuse and deep mathematics are needed. However, simple experiments are an inexpensive, magnificent way for a superb insighful refresh. They can make the essentials matter; have us escape our overcrowded minds and help us get rid of the excessive dependence of software, which is the best way of doing things without knowing how.
**
I finished this evening in my way home in the bus Conversacion en la Catedral. I think that the novel could have gone on and on forever, like one of those serial melodramas, culebrones, telenovelas that spur the South American culture. It's been a long time already since I read Cien Anos de Soledad but, as far as I can remember, the development of the narrative follows a similar pattern in their extension: it stretches a big deal in Conversacion, for over a decade or slightly more, without reaching the biblical time-frame of Cien Anos.
Nevertheless, Vargas Llosa put an end to the story. After spreading on the table the lives, miseries and desires of a large number of characters, as cards showed in a fan-shaped array on the baize, he collects the terrible, dark message of the whole story by returning to the beginning: the hopeless tragedy of human life. Santiago and Ambrosio, drink as madmen and talk to the end their conversation in La Catedral, the tavern, one mediocre fonda in Lima. They met accidentally; Santiago is looking for his dog, stolen by men asked to do so in a systematic attempt to stop a rabies epidemic outburst; Ambrosio, now without ID, nor certificates of any type, works provisionally to survive: today he does steal dogs; tomorrow, whatever. So, they met and get in the tavern, after some time without news of each other. And the whole story pops in your life!
The novel is a master piece and contents unforgettable episodes page after page. The last 50 are breathtaking. The way Vargas Llosa narrates the last hours of Amalia, so terrible!; the way he tells about Carlitos incapacity of overcoming alcohol; the way he describes the feelings of Ambrosio talking about Fermin; the way he conveys the frictions and quarrels in Santiago family; the way he depictures the brothel, the fall of Queta, Ivonne, the murder of Hortensia... And so much more. It is so vivid and powerful that I was on the verge of dropping tears, I swear! It was like an oppression, a choking pressure in my stomach and chest. I suppose the crowdy bus also accounted for that, anyhow... .
**
I have started now the Faraday's Lectures on the Chemical History of a Candle, which he delivered to kids in the summer of 1860, I think. Farady was already 70 years old. He was a unique experimentalist, a finder of the fundamentals. "Now the greatest mistakes and faults with regard to candles, as in many other things, often bring with them instruction which we should not receive if they had not occurred. We come here to be philosophers, and I hope you will always remember that whenever a result happens, especially if it be new, you should say, 'what is the cause? Why does it occur?', and you will, in the course of time, find out the reason", Faraday says to the boys and girls of the Royal Institution of London.
Prandtl tells the story of those water pumps in the 18th century which created a water column by means of vacuum. The axiom was that "Nature abhors vacuum", and everybody was happy with that. However, everybody failed to wonder: "why does Nature abhor vacuum?; How big is the Nature abhorrence of vacuum?" And so, here you have a prestigious Florentine manufacture trying to create a huge, expensive 33ft-column of water, without success. After that, there it came Evangelista Torricelli and Vincezo Viviani who solved the enigma by filling a 4 ft-long tube with mercury up to the top, closing the open end with one finger, and inverting the tube into a bath of mercury.
Oh, simplicity: how beautiful, how complex!
I was surely wrong.
As today, I have changed my mind respect to simple, bare experiments, as seen before-hand, or not-looking-cool nor too-new nor too-modern experiments. As oppose as before, I find simple experiments fascinating; I see them as moulds where the naked beauty of nature manifests itself and on which the illustrious mind can expand at its best.
Of course, all of the fields in Science and Technology has reached such level of complexity that sophisticated pieces of equipment, large clusters of processing computers, cumbersome data analysis and profuse and deep mathematics are needed. However, simple experiments are an inexpensive, magnificent way for a superb insighful refresh. They can make the essentials matter; have us escape our overcrowded minds and help us get rid of the excessive dependence of software, which is the best way of doing things without knowing how.
**
I finished this evening in my way home in the bus Conversacion en la Catedral. I think that the novel could have gone on and on forever, like one of those serial melodramas, culebrones, telenovelas that spur the South American culture. It's been a long time already since I read Cien Anos de Soledad but, as far as I can remember, the development of the narrative follows a similar pattern in their extension: it stretches a big deal in Conversacion, for over a decade or slightly more, without reaching the biblical time-frame of Cien Anos.
Nevertheless, Vargas Llosa put an end to the story. After spreading on the table the lives, miseries and desires of a large number of characters, as cards showed in a fan-shaped array on the baize, he collects the terrible, dark message of the whole story by returning to the beginning: the hopeless tragedy of human life. Santiago and Ambrosio, drink as madmen and talk to the end their conversation in La Catedral, the tavern, one mediocre fonda in Lima. They met accidentally; Santiago is looking for his dog, stolen by men asked to do so in a systematic attempt to stop a rabies epidemic outburst; Ambrosio, now without ID, nor certificates of any type, works provisionally to survive: today he does steal dogs; tomorrow, whatever. So, they met and get in the tavern, after some time without news of each other. And the whole story pops in your life!
The novel is a master piece and contents unforgettable episodes page after page. The last 50 are breathtaking. The way Vargas Llosa narrates the last hours of Amalia, so terrible!; the way he tells about Carlitos incapacity of overcoming alcohol; the way he describes the feelings of Ambrosio talking about Fermin; the way he conveys the frictions and quarrels in Santiago family; the way he depictures the brothel, the fall of Queta, Ivonne, the murder of Hortensia... And so much more. It is so vivid and powerful that I was on the verge of dropping tears, I swear! It was like an oppression, a choking pressure in my stomach and chest. I suppose the crowdy bus also accounted for that, anyhow... .
**
I have started now the Faraday's Lectures on the Chemical History of a Candle, which he delivered to kids in the summer of 1860, I think. Farady was already 70 years old. He was a unique experimentalist, a finder of the fundamentals. "Now the greatest mistakes and faults with regard to candles, as in many other things, often bring with them instruction which we should not receive if they had not occurred. We come here to be philosophers, and I hope you will always remember that whenever a result happens, especially if it be new, you should say, 'what is the cause? Why does it occur?', and you will, in the course of time, find out the reason", Faraday says to the boys and girls of the Royal Institution of London.
Prandtl tells the story of those water pumps in the 18th century which created a water column by means of vacuum. The axiom was that "Nature abhors vacuum", and everybody was happy with that. However, everybody failed to wonder: "why does Nature abhor vacuum?; How big is the Nature abhorrence of vacuum?" And so, here you have a prestigious Florentine manufacture trying to create a huge, expensive 33ft-column of water, without success. After that, there it came Evangelista Torricelli and Vincezo Viviani who solved the enigma by filling a 4 ft-long tube with mercury up to the top, closing the open end with one finger, and inverting the tube into a bath of mercury.
Oh, simplicity: how beautiful, how complex!
Fukushima
I was in the movies tonight, the huge screen 1. Ten or twelve people in a room for five hundred or a thousand. Premier area, something like business-class in a plain. I sat in the couch, took off my shoes, laid on it and enjoyed a minor, trivial, action movie while eating popcorn. I sometimes love doing that.
**
Back home, I came across this interview on a Spanish, small, independent TV to Maria Teresa Bolea, former President of the Nuclear Security Bureau in Spain. As a good, ignorant Spaniard, "well-educated in the National glories" -as some, quite stupidly, wants the rest of the world to believe-, I never heard of her. I am such an ignorant.
Listening to the interview (which I strongly recommend you to watch it here), I draw my own, following conclusions:
1. Shame upon us!The general media has completely forgotten the humanitarian tragedy, the refugees, the evacuations, the human and tremendous material losses, the episodes of sorrow, stoicism and heroism; and about the better means and instruments of control to help. Apparently, there is something more important to do in Japan and Sendai now: smearing the nuclear power. Shame upon us!
2. Maria Teresa Bolea. What a woman! A Spaniard... World, look at her! Learn!... And she is not the only one, not at all.
3. For the serious mind, everyday should be a battle fought against mediocrity. Sometimes, manipulation is just that, gross manipulation; but in many other occasions, manipulation comes naturally: it is careless, effortless, brilliantless, dull, cloudy and grey. It is mediocrity... .
If we could only do one thing tomorrow: take a sample of 25 or 30 journalists writing these days on the fire in the nuclear reactor number 4 in Fukushima; journalists from the main written media and TV networks and ask them: the fire is because of the combustion of hydrogen but, can you tell me how exactly the hydrogen is formed? If you find a couple who know it, apart from vague and more or less approximate answers, I would be surprised... That's mediocrity: "Pssss. I mean... Is that so, so important?".
Information is overrated. Bad information is a bad cancer. Power belong to those who can think, freely, on good, complete data. Mediocrity makes our judgements partial and deficient, unremarkable, perishable.
Mediocrity makes us less human.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
**
Back home, I came across this interview on a Spanish, small, independent TV to Maria Teresa Bolea, former President of the Nuclear Security Bureau in Spain. As a good, ignorant Spaniard, "well-educated in the National glories" -as some, quite stupidly, wants the rest of the world to believe-, I never heard of her. I am such an ignorant.
Listening to the interview (which I strongly recommend you to watch it here), I draw my own, following conclusions:
1. Shame upon us!The general media has completely forgotten the humanitarian tragedy, the refugees, the evacuations, the human and tremendous material losses, the episodes of sorrow, stoicism and heroism; and about the better means and instruments of control to help. Apparently, there is something more important to do in Japan and Sendai now: smearing the nuclear power. Shame upon us!
2. Maria Teresa Bolea. What a woman! A Spaniard... World, look at her! Learn!... And she is not the only one, not at all.
3. For the serious mind, everyday should be a battle fought against mediocrity. Sometimes, manipulation is just that, gross manipulation; but in many other occasions, manipulation comes naturally: it is careless, effortless, brilliantless, dull, cloudy and grey. It is mediocrity... .
If we could only do one thing tomorrow: take a sample of 25 or 30 journalists writing these days on the fire in the nuclear reactor number 4 in Fukushima; journalists from the main written media and TV networks and ask them: the fire is because of the combustion of hydrogen but, can you tell me how exactly the hydrogen is formed? If you find a couple who know it, apart from vague and more or less approximate answers, I would be surprised... That's mediocrity: "Pssss. I mean... Is that so, so important?".
Information is overrated. Bad information is a bad cancer. Power belong to those who can think, freely, on good, complete data. Mediocrity makes our judgements partial and deficient, unremarkable, perishable.
Mediocrity makes us less human.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Monday, March 14, 2011
An old example of tender male chauvinism
I come to think lately, sometimes, that a substantial difference between the Learning of Science and Engineering as compared to that of Literature, for example, is that a very reduced, marginal amount of scientists have read the classics, the original sources of their disciplines. Who has read Newton's Principia, Euler's Elements, Bernuilli's Hydraulica or, closer to our time, the original papers by Einstein, Fermi, Reynolds, or the lectures by Faraday or the works of all the French pioners of the Thermodynamics? I guess something similar happens in Hystory fields, because of obvious reasons: the pass of time widens and clarifies the sense of History.
Many of the classics in Science, albeit widely unknown, are rich in style and expressions, passionate; for the avid and curious minds, they are inspiring and tells a lot more than the pure contents. Many is to learn from them. I think that the exploration of these classics could be a source of entertainment as well as an opportunity for business, if I am able to find a way to convey it to the people and make them passionate about it, one way or another.
**
I am having access these days to old books written by fathers of the Chemical Engineering or of any of its tributary streams of knowledge. For instance, there is a book on Fluid Mechanics, published in English in 1954, from a work in German, by Prandtl. I found rather fascinating taking a glance at the way this man saw this so-spread, so openly-manipulated topic, at a point in which he was at the end of his career. 50 years of work, since the 10-minute communication he was allowed to delivered at the 3rd International Congress of Mathematicians in Heidelberg in the summer of 1904 (Akeson). The published paper the next year, On the Motion of Fluids of Low Viscosity, was a milestone, a shaking awakening in the boundary layer theory.
It is frequent to find in the prefaces or prologues of these works a female figure, Miss or Mrs, who undertook the titanic task of typing the manuscript and, in addition, do it in such a good mood to the point of being belovedly remembered. Impressive task! The acknowledgements and gentle comments of the male authors to the gigantic abnegation of the woman is tender but, by no means, can be interpreted as a fine example of male chauvinism.
The last example I found of what I am saying here is the dedicatory set in Rutherford Aris' book Vectors, Tensors and the Basic Equations of Fluid Dynamics (1962). Aris was an Englishman, originally a mathematician (he earned the degree from the University of London when he was 16), then moved to the University of Minnesota, got into Chemical Engineering. He died in 2005 from Parkinson complications, was 76. The book is dedicated as "to Pat, whose good humor is as perfect as her typing".
Perhaps, looked at it with comtempt or distrust today, this form of male chauvinism might be alright for a time where roles were played and places were occupied in more socially-ordered societies. Even more, I am sure Pat was delightfully happy with that! I think it is sweet this way. Sometimes, we make things more complicated... And sometimes women are just as much discriminated as before. The real fight for women follows a very different path, I suspect.
Where are these wonderful men today? Where are these wonderful women?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Many of the classics in Science, albeit widely unknown, are rich in style and expressions, passionate; for the avid and curious minds, they are inspiring and tells a lot more than the pure contents. Many is to learn from them. I think that the exploration of these classics could be a source of entertainment as well as an opportunity for business, if I am able to find a way to convey it to the people and make them passionate about it, one way or another.
**
I am having access these days to old books written by fathers of the Chemical Engineering or of any of its tributary streams of knowledge. For instance, there is a book on Fluid Mechanics, published in English in 1954, from a work in German, by Prandtl. I found rather fascinating taking a glance at the way this man saw this so-spread, so openly-manipulated topic, at a point in which he was at the end of his career. 50 years of work, since the 10-minute communication he was allowed to delivered at the 3rd International Congress of Mathematicians in Heidelberg in the summer of 1904 (Akeson). The published paper the next year, On the Motion of Fluids of Low Viscosity, was a milestone, a shaking awakening in the boundary layer theory.
It is frequent to find in the prefaces or prologues of these works a female figure, Miss or Mrs, who undertook the titanic task of typing the manuscript and, in addition, do it in such a good mood to the point of being belovedly remembered. Impressive task! The acknowledgements and gentle comments of the male authors to the gigantic abnegation of the woman is tender but, by no means, can be interpreted as a fine example of male chauvinism.
The last example I found of what I am saying here is the dedicatory set in Rutherford Aris' book Vectors, Tensors and the Basic Equations of Fluid Dynamics (1962). Aris was an Englishman, originally a mathematician (he earned the degree from the University of London when he was 16), then moved to the University of Minnesota, got into Chemical Engineering. He died in 2005 from Parkinson complications, was 76. The book is dedicated as "to Pat, whose good humor is as perfect as her typing".
Perhaps, looked at it with comtempt or distrust today, this form of male chauvinism might be alright for a time where roles were played and places were occupied in more socially-ordered societies. Even more, I am sure Pat was delightfully happy with that! I think it is sweet this way. Sometimes, we make things more complicated... And sometimes women are just as much discriminated as before. The real fight for women follows a very different path, I suspect.
Where are these wonderful men today? Where are these wonderful women?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Sunday, March 13, 2011
An invigorating walk in the Highgate Cemetery
From home, I can walk to the Highgate cemetery; so I did on Saturday morning, a precious, sunny morning. The cemetery is now run by a Charity, parties of guides and gardeners are made of volunteers. It was opened in 1839, after the 1836 Parliament Act that tried to stop the unhealthy conditions of existing cemeteries, the robberies and vandalizing and control the dig-out of dogs. Highgate Cemetery was 1 of the 7 cemeteries built around London and run at the time by private companies. They were known as The Seven Magnificent.
It is so interesting the cult of death in the Victorian society, its symbolism, the appealing and Gothic architecture and all the cultural manifestations developed around: burials, clothing, social and envious relationships. Farady is buried in the West part, but it is not covered in the tour. The East side is more straightforward: Karl Marx is there, with a big head-bust above the grave and the sentence: workers of the world, unite. I heard that the sentence is not his and that this suntuose grave is not the original.
**
From there, I walked Hampstead Heath across. Niiiice! At the very top, a numerous group of people noisily looked upon the whole London and the vast surrounding and undulated land. Kids played with their kites, lovers sat in benches or on the grass. A mighty breeze and a reason to stop the wheel of time.
From there, I reached John Keats' house, the place he shared with Charles Brown and where he fell in love with Fanny. Keats wrote there Ode to a Nightingale or La Belle Dame Sans Merci. He was 25 when he died in Rome, from TB.
Nice are this area of Hampstead. I walked the streets, Spaniard's Road. Then I bought a Marie Curie daffodil from a little girl at the entrance of Hampstead Tube Station... The daffodil that survived the thorns of evil that later came upon me, in a rain of woe and devastation. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, / Alone and palely loitering? / The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. (John Keats).
**
If you visit Highgate cemetery at different times during the year, you will hear from the guide different stories each time, we were told. I got that of James William Selby, the great name and great couch driver of the time; the fascinating story of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal; the business of George Wombwell, his exotic animals: the peaceful lion, Nero, and its brother, the ferocious Wallace; the historical and tremendous fight between Tom Sayers and John Heenan.
I have some pictures. Hope you like them.
Highgate Cemetery (1): West Side
Highgate Cemetery (2): West Side
Highgate Cemetery (3): East Side. Where Michael Jackson could have been buried.
Highgate Cemetery (4): East Side
The Egyptian Avenue (West Side)
The Circus of Lebanon (West Side). At the very top right, you see the Lebanese cedar. In some old movie, you can see Christopher Lee, as Dracula, moving on this area.
The Broken Column of Life. A symbol of death dear to the Victorians.
The Sign of the Cross. There is a movie of the same title from the times of pre-code Hollywood (1932) directed by Cecil B. DeMille. The sign in the center is the contraction of IHS, the millenarian name of Jesus Christ. The Christian church started in secrecy and was illegal. The sign of the cross, the secret sign to communicate and recognize among Christians. In many places today, it is certainly needed.
The Sleeping Angel. So cooool!
The Tree of Elizabeth Siddal. Behind the tree it is her tomb. Here, with the aim of a slight torch, Dante exhumed the boy of his wife seven years after her death to recuperate his notebook of poems and publish them, in an attempt of escaping drug addition and alcoholism. Her face is said to be intact and her hair to have grown. She was even more beautiful than she was the day of her death. She died of laudanum overdose.
Elizabeth Siddal. This model looks to me very similar to a famous drawing that we loved when youngsters, the type of woman that inspired Sarah Brightman or Lorenna MacKennitt.
Marx. No comment.
Love for ever. An anonymous example of love. A lady gets widowed when she is 34 years old and waits for reuniting with her husband 50 years after that, to be together again. Oh!!! I want this kind of Love. That is LOVE. Or if not, I want to make it real!
John Keats' House.
(PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
It is so interesting the cult of death in the Victorian society, its symbolism, the appealing and Gothic architecture and all the cultural manifestations developed around: burials, clothing, social and envious relationships. Farady is buried in the West part, but it is not covered in the tour. The East side is more straightforward: Karl Marx is there, with a big head-bust above the grave and the sentence: workers of the world, unite. I heard that the sentence is not his and that this suntuose grave is not the original.
**
From there, I walked Hampstead Heath across. Niiiice! At the very top, a numerous group of people noisily looked upon the whole London and the vast surrounding and undulated land. Kids played with their kites, lovers sat in benches or on the grass. A mighty breeze and a reason to stop the wheel of time.
From there, I reached John Keats' house, the place he shared with Charles Brown and where he fell in love with Fanny. Keats wrote there Ode to a Nightingale or La Belle Dame Sans Merci. He was 25 when he died in Rome, from TB.
Nice are this area of Hampstead. I walked the streets, Spaniard's Road. Then I bought a Marie Curie daffodil from a little girl at the entrance of Hampstead Tube Station... The daffodil that survived the thorns of evil that later came upon me, in a rain of woe and devastation. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, / Alone and palely loitering? / The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. (John Keats).
**
If you visit Highgate cemetery at different times during the year, you will hear from the guide different stories each time, we were told. I got that of James William Selby, the great name and great couch driver of the time; the fascinating story of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal; the business of George Wombwell, his exotic animals: the peaceful lion, Nero, and its brother, the ferocious Wallace; the historical and tremendous fight between Tom Sayers and John Heenan.
I have some pictures. Hope you like them.
(PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
The hour of darkness
Beautiful, the last couple of hours of light in London this evening. Playful and joyful, the latter sun. How different the land looks, how different the spirits of people! The way from Euston to Muswell Hill was unrecognizable, not at all shy, streets and roads, people and houses, stores and pubs clearly showed, a welcome opening of live as the bus advanced. How different from the dark nights of cold winter, when only the immediate road is in sight, when the land seems to be undercovered, hidden in fortresses, as a frighten animal, as a oyster locked in its inexpugnable shell. Amalia and Ambrosio, Amalita Hortensia, Bolita de Oro, la Tete, Chispas and La Senora Zoila, the creepy creatures of the underworld, Quetita, Robertito, Yvonne, the lonely Clodomiro, disgusting Hipolito, Becerrita, Carlitos, Santiago and Ana, all the characters and their sad, terrible stories seem to come out of Vargas Llosa's novel, dress in flesh and sit alive around the people I see.
From Fortis Green, the fleshing glasses of the tall buildings in the background says a farewell to daylight, all little eyes in tears of fire. The big buildings of the big London, clang at the bottom of the picture, beyond irregular, brown-colored patches of naked trees, burn-like trees. Peace and reconciliation at this hour, mild weather; the songs and odas of birds: what are they? where are they? From the sea-gulls flying around the defiant monsters of Tottenham Court Road, to the black craven walking the grass in Highgate Wood. Blackbirds, blue tits, gold-crests, woodpeckers, mag-pipes, robins... Oh, the wonderful sounds of life for the urban dead.
The morning of Saturday was gorgeous as well: The City now doth, like a garment, wear / The beauty of the morning: silent, bare, / Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie / Open unto the fields, and to the sky. (William Wordsworth). However, as the morning expanded, the cold silenced the articulate sun and, at the end, brought the rain. As well, a thick layer of mist and dirt, dark as coal, entered my self and wreaked havoc with it. Between two endings of light and beauty, a tough rope of desolation and auto-annihilation, this weekend. It was the hour of darkness. The tidal waves come and go, periodically, but with each return they grow in intensity and devastation, an instable Fourier-series type of thing. Got me tight and ill, reduced me to a mash of skeletal bones, liquified, shook me in powerful hand. Blackness everywhere, pain, suffering. Pain is still here, will last a little more, still. Only the Marie Curie daffodil in my jacket's lapel remain yellow, which I wore with pride. A pin of yellow in a sea of dark.
Something must be done, something, to stop the beast tearing me apart. Each time gets worse... . This must end here!
From Fortis Green, the fleshing glasses of the tall buildings in the background says a farewell to daylight, all little eyes in tears of fire. The big buildings of the big London, clang at the bottom of the picture, beyond irregular, brown-colored patches of naked trees, burn-like trees. Peace and reconciliation at this hour, mild weather; the songs and odas of birds: what are they? where are they? From the sea-gulls flying around the defiant monsters of Tottenham Court Road, to the black craven walking the grass in Highgate Wood. Blackbirds, blue tits, gold-crests, woodpeckers, mag-pipes, robins... Oh, the wonderful sounds of life for the urban dead.
The morning of Saturday was gorgeous as well: The City now doth, like a garment, wear / The beauty of the morning: silent, bare, / Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie / Open unto the fields, and to the sky. (William Wordsworth). However, as the morning expanded, the cold silenced the articulate sun and, at the end, brought the rain. As well, a thick layer of mist and dirt, dark as coal, entered my self and wreaked havoc with it. Between two endings of light and beauty, a tough rope of desolation and auto-annihilation, this weekend. It was the hour of darkness. The tidal waves come and go, periodically, but with each return they grow in intensity and devastation, an instable Fourier-series type of thing. Got me tight and ill, reduced me to a mash of skeletal bones, liquified, shook me in powerful hand. Blackness everywhere, pain, suffering. Pain is still here, will last a little more, still. Only the Marie Curie daffodil in my jacket's lapel remain yellow, which I wore with pride. A pin of yellow in a sea of dark.
Something must be done, something, to stop the beast tearing me apart. Each time gets worse... . This must end here!
Friday, March 11, 2011
11-M We want to know the truth
Seven years ago, on March 11th 2004, 10 bombs exploded in 4 urban trains in central or nearby Madrid in very different locations between 7.37 and 7.39 am. 192 fatalities; about 2000 wounded and mutilated. There is still someone in a coma. Up to 116 were arrested and charged responsible for the attacks. Only 29 were taken to trial, being the rest exonerated. Of them, 21 were condemned; today, 5 of them have already been released. Out of the 21, only 3 have been condemned for crimes related to the 11-M bombings: Emilio Suarez Trashorras (a Spaniard miner, schizophrenic), Jamal Zougham and Otman El Gnaoui. These two are Moroccans, but not islamists. The rest were condemned on the grounds of different offences, with nothing to do with the 11-M. Zougham was arrested on March 13th (on the Eve of General Elections), accused of selling the SIM card of the phone used to detonate a bomb, but condemned directly for being responsible of placing a bag-bomb. Up to 8 witnesses saw him in different trains, which is a contradiction, physically impossible. He is facing 34,000 years of imprisonment and he is probably innocent of the charges accused.
11-M was a set-up to force Aznar's government away from power. All polls were in favor to him. Has nothing to do with Al-Qaeda, nor with islamisms. Nothing to do with the Spanish support of the War on Iraq. We don't know who did it, don't know how. The trial is full of contradictions and, even more, lies and perjuries, faked proofs and unusual procedures. The fiscal of the case stated in trial, "the bombs were Goma-2. Period". 6 years after the killings, we had proof from one technician involved in the research, who finally spoke up, that this is not true: it was Titadyne, a military explosive, a usual type employed by ETA. The wrecked trains were disposed of completely 48 hours after the massacre, against the official procedure, in such a way that out of the tons of scrap metal and junk, only a nail was spared. Today, yes, today, 24 policeman from the scientific body are called to testify about this. Today, seven years ago. The boss of the Scientific Police, Sanchez Manzano, has been a protegee of the current Ministry of Domestic Affairs, now the most powerful man in Spain after Zapatero... Or even more: Now Zapatero is nothing, just a straw doll. It is an utterly shame.
And how do I know this? Oh, boy, thanks to Internet and a couple of media in Spain, one of them small. The main media, TV networks, newspapers, including the group of your beloved El Pais, are to me covered in ignominy. Just happy to have the political right out of the equation at the expense of the victims.
Nevertheless, the appalling feeling of all is precisely this: the complete disregard toward the victims, the scorn, the humiliation, the abandon. Too painful, too immoral, a vomitive manipulation.
I wish I could do something more than writing this shit before I go to bed and come back to my petty occupations.
RESUME THE TRIALS, NOW!
WE WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH.
(Please, leave your comment).
11-M was a set-up to force Aznar's government away from power. All polls were in favor to him. Has nothing to do with Al-Qaeda, nor with islamisms. Nothing to do with the Spanish support of the War on Iraq. We don't know who did it, don't know how. The trial is full of contradictions and, even more, lies and perjuries, faked proofs and unusual procedures. The fiscal of the case stated in trial, "the bombs were Goma-2. Period". 6 years after the killings, we had proof from one technician involved in the research, who finally spoke up, that this is not true: it was Titadyne, a military explosive, a usual type employed by ETA. The wrecked trains were disposed of completely 48 hours after the massacre, against the official procedure, in such a way that out of the tons of scrap metal and junk, only a nail was spared. Today, yes, today, 24 policeman from the scientific body are called to testify about this. Today, seven years ago. The boss of the Scientific Police, Sanchez Manzano, has been a protegee of the current Ministry of Domestic Affairs, now the most powerful man in Spain after Zapatero... Or even more: Now Zapatero is nothing, just a straw doll. It is an utterly shame.
And how do I know this? Oh, boy, thanks to Internet and a couple of media in Spain, one of them small. The main media, TV networks, newspapers, including the group of your beloved El Pais, are to me covered in ignominy. Just happy to have the political right out of the equation at the expense of the victims.
Nevertheless, the appalling feeling of all is precisely this: the complete disregard toward the victims, the scorn, the humiliation, the abandon. Too painful, too immoral, a vomitive manipulation.
I wish I could do something more than writing this shit before I go to bed and come back to my petty occupations.
RESUME THE TRIALS, NOW!
WE WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH.
(Please, leave your comment).
A prayer for the worker
A pair of boots rested outside the bath door, one next to each other, as quite as a cat awaiting. The man is showering inside. Greasy boots, but not grubby, not any more. Across the door the weaken sun, as a dying old man at the end of his days, has his warm fingers laid compassionately on mirrors, panes and objects. The night is coming from red and yellow, the light is praying before bed. Next to the door, a chair, with a pair of clean pants, a fresh blue shirt and a couple of black Italian shoes. The bed stretches all the way down across the chair, insolent, seductive. The sun is dressing her in orange.
The man is now moving across the adjoining room, a hand in his back, a slight grimace on her face. There is a blessed feeling in all aches and pains after work, the good-for-today sores: the job is done. He dresses slowly, blows damped whistles. Eventually, he stops, picks the shiny shoes, looks up to them and put them on. Feels good, looks good. From the other corner, the greasy boots contemplate the scene half-heartily and shrink the shoulders: my job is done. The man is wearing perfume.
From here, all the roses blossom. A line has to be drawn; on the other side, life awaits. The man pays for the fair; later, he gets in the train. Trees and houses, lands and pieces of dark sky and shy stars, are swallowed between the rails. The carriage is an invisible hole of noise, throbbing and cracking, moving as a comet with a tired tail through the valley. The man will travel all through the night. The man is coming to see the woman.
Oh, Lord, look upon all these working people... .
The man is now moving across the adjoining room, a hand in his back, a slight grimace on her face. There is a blessed feeling in all aches and pains after work, the good-for-today sores: the job is done. He dresses slowly, blows damped whistles. Eventually, he stops, picks the shiny shoes, looks up to them and put them on. Feels good, looks good. From the other corner, the greasy boots contemplate the scene half-heartily and shrink the shoulders: my job is done. The man is wearing perfume.
From here, all the roses blossom. A line has to be drawn; on the other side, life awaits. The man pays for the fair; later, he gets in the train. Trees and houses, lands and pieces of dark sky and shy stars, are swallowed between the rails. The carriage is an invisible hole of noise, throbbing and cracking, moving as a comet with a tired tail through the valley. The man will travel all through the night. The man is coming to see the woman.
Oh, Lord, look upon all these working people... .
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Go back in time, get Noam back
Am really tired today, and I am falling sleep.
Noam Chomsky delivered today at UCL, via Webcast, the Rickman Godlee lecture (Godlee was a British Sir, surgeon, a Baronet, one of the first to remove a brain tumor). The title is (was): "Contours of global order: domination, stability, security in a changing world". (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/live)
I feel curious about something: Does Chomsky require any honorarium? If so, how much money is UCL paying him for this? In 2005 Chomsky actually delivered an "in-situ" conference in the University of Florida in Gainsville. My friend V., at the time working on her PhD there, told me then that Chomsky got an obscene amount of money for it. Obscene, as the money Edward Lewis paid for Vivian Ward's clothing in Beverly Hills in Pretty Woman. That's why I am curious.
If there is this money involved, do the students have anything to say about it? Apart from running in their elections program the promise of free condoms delivered on campus, what do they have to say about obscene amounts of money?
Would you pay Chomsky that kind of money anyhow for a lecture or two on his Syntactic Structures (1957) or Reflections on Language?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Noam Chomsky delivered today at UCL, via Webcast, the Rickman Godlee lecture (Godlee was a British Sir, surgeon, a Baronet, one of the first to remove a brain tumor). The title is (was): "Contours of global order: domination, stability, security in a changing world". (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/live)
I feel curious about something: Does Chomsky require any honorarium? If so, how much money is UCL paying him for this? In 2005 Chomsky actually delivered an "in-situ" conference in the University of Florida in Gainsville. My friend V., at the time working on her PhD there, told me then that Chomsky got an obscene amount of money for it. Obscene, as the money Edward Lewis paid for Vivian Ward's clothing in Beverly Hills in Pretty Woman. That's why I am curious.
If there is this money involved, do the students have anything to say about it? Apart from running in their elections program the promise of free condoms delivered on campus, what do they have to say about obscene amounts of money?
Would you pay Chomsky that kind of money anyhow for a lecture or two on his Syntactic Structures (1957) or Reflections on Language?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The hysteria and the hyena
Last week, Sir Howard Davies resigned from his position as Director of the London School of Economics (LSE). The institution received a $2.5 million dollar-grant from Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation in 2009. The foundation was headed by Gaddafi's son, remarkably a former student of LSE. (see the Wall Street Journal news http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703362804576184773979915688.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)
Today, Anna Davis, Education correspondent for the Evening Standard, brought this headline to the hundreds traveling back home in the tube after work: "Two more London universities are linked to Gaddafi's regime". The referred schools are The School of Oriental and African Studies and King's College.
I must say that I am socked by all this witch-hunting thing because of Gaddafi. This is supreme stupidity, a master exercise of cynicism and hypocrisy. Suddenly, all gullible (nerds), well- (ill)-intentioned people found that Gaddafi is a hyena. For God's sake! Has crime not been the fingerprints of his regime? Has dark corruption from oil not been its motor? Has Gaddafi not been an utter enemy of pure Islam? Has Gaddafi not been a friendly friend of all the West? When I say "all the West", I mean all the West. What has been, what is the role of Libya in the UNO?
Hypocrites! How long has Gaddafi been in power? When I was 13 years old and I was discovering the appealing smell of the opposite sex, my best friend D. and I had an acquaintance whom we call Gaddafi: "Gaddafi opened a condom the other day... It is... Kind of nasty inside, you know, kind of sticky...". Even kids had nicknames after Gaddafi twenty years ago!
I tell you what schools and universities must do:
"We, the people of the UCL, as our founders did, do esteem the inalienable law of individual freedom and the principles on which it is based; no human being must be segregated in terms of race, sex or believes of any kind. Although we would like to transform the world in the image of such principles, we acknowledge the difficulties to achieve that and, foremost, its dangers: the wills of free men and women must prevail before any idea, ideology or utopia.
"However, our commitment is to work everyday to continuously improve in the light of the principles of freedom and individual and social prosperity. We might not be able to create the best of the worlds, but we can better off every day. Stunned by the links between some London universities and the despotic regime of Libya, which has ruled and dictated over people for decades with the guilty acquiescence of all, the community of this University will commit TODAY to the following: to review all the current relationships between our school and dictatorial regimes; to investigate thoroughly grants and money and the projects to which it is entitled, and the developments of any family of any dictatorial regime in UCL; to ensure that in the short future we won't become part of a global hysteria and cynicism, that we won't have anything to hide nor to blame for".
What about a declaration like this?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Today, Anna Davis, Education correspondent for the Evening Standard, brought this headline to the hundreds traveling back home in the tube after work: "Two more London universities are linked to Gaddafi's regime". The referred schools are The School of Oriental and African Studies and King's College.
I must say that I am socked by all this witch-hunting thing because of Gaddafi. This is supreme stupidity, a master exercise of cynicism and hypocrisy. Suddenly, all gullible (nerds), well- (ill)-intentioned people found that Gaddafi is a hyena. For God's sake! Has crime not been the fingerprints of his regime? Has dark corruption from oil not been its motor? Has Gaddafi not been an utter enemy of pure Islam? Has Gaddafi not been a friendly friend of all the West? When I say "all the West", I mean all the West. What has been, what is the role of Libya in the UNO?
Hypocrites! How long has Gaddafi been in power? When I was 13 years old and I was discovering the appealing smell of the opposite sex, my best friend D. and I had an acquaintance whom we call Gaddafi: "Gaddafi opened a condom the other day... It is... Kind of nasty inside, you know, kind of sticky...". Even kids had nicknames after Gaddafi twenty years ago!
I tell you what schools and universities must do:
"We, the people of the UCL, as our founders did, do esteem the inalienable law of individual freedom and the principles on which it is based; no human being must be segregated in terms of race, sex or believes of any kind. Although we would like to transform the world in the image of such principles, we acknowledge the difficulties to achieve that and, foremost, its dangers: the wills of free men and women must prevail before any idea, ideology or utopia.
"However, our commitment is to work everyday to continuously improve in the light of the principles of freedom and individual and social prosperity. We might not be able to create the best of the worlds, but we can better off every day. Stunned by the links between some London universities and the despotic regime of Libya, which has ruled and dictated over people for decades with the guilty acquiescence of all, the community of this University will commit TODAY to the following: to review all the current relationships between our school and dictatorial regimes; to investigate thoroughly grants and money and the projects to which it is entitled, and the developments of any family of any dictatorial regime in UCL; to ensure that in the short future we won't become part of a global hysteria and cynicism, that we won't have anything to hide nor to blame for".
What about a declaration like this?
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Monday, March 7, 2011
L'amour a tout les droits
It's been three days in a row writing about things of my past; I am afraid that you get tired of it, but so sorry, I have another story more of the type for tonight. Ok, I promise, tomorrow it will be something different.
Exactly 8 years ago, on March 7, 2003 I defended my final project "Expansion and optimization of the ClO2 mill in the ENCE cellulose factory of Navia, Asturias". The exam lasted a little above an hour and after that, I was officially entitled to the title of Chemical Engineer, BS. Eight years: time goes by fast and unmerciful.
It took me a while to finish the project, you know. I seemed not to find the momentum, no energy whatsoever. I believe that a year back nobody except me was believing myself capable of finishing. I completed the calculations, the writing, the administrative process with my stomach; or rather, with my intestines, such was the big piece of shit I gave birth to.
A friend, L., whom I met in the University choir, someone about 15 years my senior, gave me as a present a CD by Ismael Lo. Pedro Almodovar used one of his songs for one of his movies. I really liked at the time the beautiful L'amour a tout les droits. Still like it; it is a beautiful song. Just look for it and listen to it on the internet. I am doing so over an over while I write this. Bertie is falling asleep on my lap. "I finish my PhD (in Geology) 15 years ago, the same day... Well, tomorrow, the 8th of March, International Day of the Working Woman".
After that day and during the following months, I became ready to go to the States. The gripped years of the project were suffocating, the atmosphere choking, the environment, quite rarefied. And still, had my little, guilty pleasures, my rebel causes and battles, my "outlaw" memories. But when I finished, I felt alive and fresh. Those were the days of the War on Iraq; I guess I was one of the two or three in the Universe actually in favor to it, on the side of the US. (You are to be account responsible for that, dear AMF). I looked in shock to the demonstrations of hypocrisy and stupidity of half of the world, the UNO, EU, the newspapers, the TV, the people, everyone. The University of Salamanca did something and I was asked to read a poem by Alberti, La Paloma or something, a (disgusting) bird, anyhow, with a mind too confused. Surprisingly, I said no... Alberti! Come on! Stalinist, communist and he had a thing for little kids... Is that right? Too much of a irremediable sinner... Well, ok, let's take Cayo Bermudez, one of the characters of Vargas Llosa, rule: never attack people on their vices.
Those were the times of Garufa Teatro, A., F., S. JAHS, of course. Oh, my friend V., and that trip to La Alberca, 10 people in two vehicles. How many times did we add water to J's car and push it back to start? Those were the times of L'amour having tout les droits; the times of C. taking advantage of it and cooling my heart below the brittle temperature; left me dry and frozen up like submerged in a bucket of liquid nitrogen.
8 years, boy... Hard to believe.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Exactly 8 years ago, on March 7, 2003 I defended my final project "Expansion and optimization of the ClO2 mill in the ENCE cellulose factory of Navia, Asturias". The exam lasted a little above an hour and after that, I was officially entitled to the title of Chemical Engineer, BS. Eight years: time goes by fast and unmerciful.
It took me a while to finish the project, you know. I seemed not to find the momentum, no energy whatsoever. I believe that a year back nobody except me was believing myself capable of finishing. I completed the calculations, the writing, the administrative process with my stomach; or rather, with my intestines, such was the big piece of shit I gave birth to.
A friend, L., whom I met in the University choir, someone about 15 years my senior, gave me as a present a CD by Ismael Lo. Pedro Almodovar used one of his songs for one of his movies. I really liked at the time the beautiful L'amour a tout les droits. Still like it; it is a beautiful song. Just look for it and listen to it on the internet. I am doing so over an over while I write this. Bertie is falling asleep on my lap. "I finish my PhD (in Geology) 15 years ago, the same day... Well, tomorrow, the 8th of March, International Day of the Working Woman".
After that day and during the following months, I became ready to go to the States. The gripped years of the project were suffocating, the atmosphere choking, the environment, quite rarefied. And still, had my little, guilty pleasures, my rebel causes and battles, my "outlaw" memories. But when I finished, I felt alive and fresh. Those were the days of the War on Iraq; I guess I was one of the two or three in the Universe actually in favor to it, on the side of the US. (You are to be account responsible for that, dear AMF). I looked in shock to the demonstrations of hypocrisy and stupidity of half of the world, the UNO, EU, the newspapers, the TV, the people, everyone. The University of Salamanca did something and I was asked to read a poem by Alberti, La Paloma or something, a (disgusting) bird, anyhow, with a mind too confused. Surprisingly, I said no... Alberti! Come on! Stalinist, communist and he had a thing for little kids... Is that right? Too much of a irremediable sinner... Well, ok, let's take Cayo Bermudez, one of the characters of Vargas Llosa, rule: never attack people on their vices.
Those were the times of Garufa Teatro, A., F., S. JAHS, of course. Oh, my friend V., and that trip to La Alberca, 10 people in two vehicles. How many times did we add water to J's car and push it back to start? Those were the times of L'amour having tout les droits; the times of C. taking advantage of it and cooling my heart below the brittle temperature; left me dry and frozen up like submerged in a bucket of liquid nitrogen.
8 years, boy... Hard to believe.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Sunday, March 6, 2011
A chain of nothing
One Sunday night of the end of October, 2000, I was driving my father's Renault 19 from Oviedo to Navia. I lived there for three months, while in Practical Training in a chemical plant, a cellulose paste factory. That day, I remember, this girl and I, what was her name, ah, yes, C. spent the evening in Oviedo. Went to the theatre, La Dama Duende, Calderon de la Barca, National Company of Classical Drama. I think I felt in love with Oviedo at that time. Alfonso Lara was there, in the role of comical, anti-hero. At the time, made an impression on me; he was on TV with La Casa de los Lios; he and Arturo Fernandez, and Lola Herrera, and Miriam Diaz Aroca, and the sexy Patricia Vico and, of course, Florinda Chico. She passed away last week: she was 84 and from Don Benito. A piece of heart and Spanish drama died again. No much more heart is left, you know?
I had this tape played all day long in the car, a compilation of classical rock pieces, Europe, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Scorpions, Satriani. And Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin. The driving through the dark, rainy, winding road and the voice of Robert Plant was all one. A horizon full of possibilities.
**
I had a couple of pints tonight after dinner in a pub fifty yards from the door of home. The pub where the fox hunters get together, yes. It gets quiet and quite familiar. Some folks go out to walk their dogs and end up in the bar, reading the papers and having a drink. Friendly-environment to the dogs. The bartender is kind of... funny. A young fellow, looks too nerd, but behaves just opposite to that. He grab the cord of the dog of this man, get it walking around the pub, and the animal was moping the carpet, licking and swallow little things... How about that!
Inside, you can buy two songs for 50 p's. I bought Stairway to heaven. Two hot girls got soft and slowly drunk while the boys with them got the same but noisily and while playing pool. I read Vargas Llosa. It is definitely an amazing novel, Conversacion en la Catedral. Amazing. The beer, Led Zeppelin and the meeting between father and son, the drama, the pain, the circumstances, the unforgivable secrets, the lies, the smiles and the wrinkles, all the human shit; above all, parches of human love, and I was about to cry. The novel is a human mystery, a moving narration, a hymn of humanity. Vargas Llosa should have received the Nobel Prize then (1969).
**
I worked today from 11 until 5.30 in my office, stopping for an hour to have a burger. The oil gets too hot, you know, and there is no money to buy a more suitable pump. The pressure drop estimations do not match the experimental data; the data is mad and unreliable.
After that, I intended to go to the British Museum and see the exhibition on something about Afghanistan; unfortunately, a tidal of humans was coming on the opposite direction as the museum was closing at 5.30. Pushing my way in, I asked a security guy at the entrance "what time are you closed today?". He, bluntly, retorted: "Now". I mean, what kind of an answer is that? Fuck you, men, fuck you very much. I can show you my membership card, perhaps you owe me a tiny part of your salary, I don't know, maybe. What kind of fucking answer is that?
That's the problem with free museums, you know. People think that knowledge will be spread, but all you get is vulgarity growing like mold on the damp tile of a forgotten bathtub.
**
The evening was unfriendly cold and the dim, lazy e-lights hardly pinned the dark of the settling dusk. I got myself in a library next to the museum, The London Review, I think. I bought two books, a collection of commented and notated Shakespeare's Sonnets, and The Rime of the Ancient Marine, by Coleridge. The latter is very thin, very cute Vintage edition. I like this small books. It is illustrated, not by Dore, though.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
for the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
Is it not an exciting Sunday?... Oh, my God...
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
I had this tape played all day long in the car, a compilation of classical rock pieces, Europe, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Scorpions, Satriani. And Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin. The driving through the dark, rainy, winding road and the voice of Robert Plant was all one. A horizon full of possibilities.
**
I had a couple of pints tonight after dinner in a pub fifty yards from the door of home. The pub where the fox hunters get together, yes. It gets quiet and quite familiar. Some folks go out to walk their dogs and end up in the bar, reading the papers and having a drink. Friendly-environment to the dogs. The bartender is kind of... funny. A young fellow, looks too nerd, but behaves just opposite to that. He grab the cord of the dog of this man, get it walking around the pub, and the animal was moping the carpet, licking and swallow little things... How about that!
Inside, you can buy two songs for 50 p's. I bought Stairway to heaven. Two hot girls got soft and slowly drunk while the boys with them got the same but noisily and while playing pool. I read Vargas Llosa. It is definitely an amazing novel, Conversacion en la Catedral. Amazing. The beer, Led Zeppelin and the meeting between father and son, the drama, the pain, the circumstances, the unforgivable secrets, the lies, the smiles and the wrinkles, all the human shit; above all, parches of human love, and I was about to cry. The novel is a human mystery, a moving narration, a hymn of humanity. Vargas Llosa should have received the Nobel Prize then (1969).
**
I worked today from 11 until 5.30 in my office, stopping for an hour to have a burger. The oil gets too hot, you know, and there is no money to buy a more suitable pump. The pressure drop estimations do not match the experimental data; the data is mad and unreliable.
After that, I intended to go to the British Museum and see the exhibition on something about Afghanistan; unfortunately, a tidal of humans was coming on the opposite direction as the museum was closing at 5.30. Pushing my way in, I asked a security guy at the entrance "what time are you closed today?". He, bluntly, retorted: "Now". I mean, what kind of an answer is that? Fuck you, men, fuck you very much. I can show you my membership card, perhaps you owe me a tiny part of your salary, I don't know, maybe. What kind of fucking answer is that?
That's the problem with free museums, you know. People think that knowledge will be spread, but all you get is vulgarity growing like mold on the damp tile of a forgotten bathtub.
**
The evening was unfriendly cold and the dim, lazy e-lights hardly pinned the dark of the settling dusk. I got myself in a library next to the museum, The London Review, I think. I bought two books, a collection of commented and notated Shakespeare's Sonnets, and The Rime of the Ancient Marine, by Coleridge. The latter is very thin, very cute Vintage edition. I like this small books. It is illustrated, not by Dore, though.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
for the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
Is it not an exciting Sunday?... Oh, my God...
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
At this hour of the night
I came home tonight and prepared myself a cup of coffee and have a clementine with two cookies. Around me, the quietness of the night_the damped sound of the pipes, of the gas, of the thermostat.
To my mind came dozens of worries, waves of feelings growing and ebbing, in turn, one sweet, one bitter. I sip my coffee and strip my clementine, one small step up, one tiny down. The stillness of the night is magical. The cat jumps and plays, the kitchen is getting plenty of his toys.
In nights like this, precisely after hanging out a bit, M. and I came back to our dorms in campus; first, we used to urinate next to the advertising of the fraternities (a risky action, anyhow, the campus had its own police). Then, in one room, we prepared ourselves coffee and cookies and talked about life. We were at the crest of the wave and, against our momentum, everything else seemed too small, harmless. Now, I miss those moments, being at the trough of the wave; everything looks tremendously proportioned and fearsome.
Innocence is gone; the land of the dreams, driven by a while back. Although I feel content at this hour of the night, I now the smile is faded away from the face of time.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
To my mind came dozens of worries, waves of feelings growing and ebbing, in turn, one sweet, one bitter. I sip my coffee and strip my clementine, one small step up, one tiny down. The stillness of the night is magical. The cat jumps and plays, the kitchen is getting plenty of his toys.
In nights like this, precisely after hanging out a bit, M. and I came back to our dorms in campus; first, we used to urinate next to the advertising of the fraternities (a risky action, anyhow, the campus had its own police). Then, in one room, we prepared ourselves coffee and cookies and talked about life. We were at the crest of the wave and, against our momentum, everything else seemed too small, harmless. Now, I miss those moments, being at the trough of the wave; everything looks tremendously proportioned and fearsome.
Innocence is gone; the land of the dreams, driven by a while back. Although I feel content at this hour of the night, I now the smile is faded away from the face of time.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Friday, March 4, 2011
Your hands in the dough
Am tired today, completely worn-out. I had to attend some business, I do not want to discuss it here. I can't say it is good, but it is not bad necessarily. Sounds stupid, I now, but the taste is bitter-sweet, and I don't want to talk about.
The problem of our time is that people prefer being important rather than useful, Winston Churchill said; I want to believe that if you tend to be useful, you will get in trouble. Well, indeed, trouble will come to you. At least, this is what always happened to me.
Years ago, while working as a monitor with teens in spare-time activities, I used to organize meetings, happenings, evenings-together for all monitors (all in the early or mid twenties). I don't know very well why I stopped doing this kind of things, because I really liked it and I felt satisfied doing it. I had good creativity and could make up dynamics and activities for groups relatively easy. And for this type of business I happened always to be more than a likable person. One night, I remember, the meeting was formative and focused around the concept of "implication" of the volunteers, different levels, different degrees, very personal matters. At the beginning I had circulating among all a flat bucket full of flavor, white flavor for bakery and, I asked everyone to get their hands into the bucket, into the flavor and pass it around as long as some music was being played. I read it somewhere.
Some smashed their hands in the flavor and did not care to get dirty; some did it very shyly; some were quick; some were slow. The different behaviors served as a warming-up point to talk about implication... Well, it was just a game.
The lesson is, however, that to be helpful, you have to put your hands in the dough, and that's trouble. It is the only way, though. Despite my mistakes and naivete, I like thinking that at least the intention was good. Made me feel a little better.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
The problem of our time is that people prefer being important rather than useful, Winston Churchill said; I want to believe that if you tend to be useful, you will get in trouble. Well, indeed, trouble will come to you. At least, this is what always happened to me.
Years ago, while working as a monitor with teens in spare-time activities, I used to organize meetings, happenings, evenings-together for all monitors (all in the early or mid twenties). I don't know very well why I stopped doing this kind of things, because I really liked it and I felt satisfied doing it. I had good creativity and could make up dynamics and activities for groups relatively easy. And for this type of business I happened always to be more than a likable person. One night, I remember, the meeting was formative and focused around the concept of "implication" of the volunteers, different levels, different degrees, very personal matters. At the beginning I had circulating among all a flat bucket full of flavor, white flavor for bakery and, I asked everyone to get their hands into the bucket, into the flavor and pass it around as long as some music was being played. I read it somewhere.
Some smashed their hands in the flavor and did not care to get dirty; some did it very shyly; some were quick; some were slow. The different behaviors served as a warming-up point to talk about implication... Well, it was just a game.
The lesson is, however, that to be helpful, you have to put your hands in the dough, and that's trouble. It is the only way, though. Despite my mistakes and naivete, I like thinking that at least the intention was good. Made me feel a little better.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Quizzy Thursday
Ok, I am sorry, got problems with my computer last night, couldn't post anything, but this is what I wrote. I did it last night, by hand, and I'm gonna tell you, I liked it better than typing.
**
Sometimes I remember that, not a long time ago, we only have two TV networks (if you can call them that): the first channel and the second channel. The latter got the signal from UHF waves and we call it, precisely, the UHF (u-hache-efe).
The 2-channel TV did something for Spanish society that no network can do today anymore: kept people connected to a common ground of social life and style, a positive get-all-together force. Somehow, at 10 pm the whole country was watching the same. On the contrary, the TV of today has a segregating effect, and ties between people are to be found in different realms (soccer, realities, facebook). Today TV is a format that enhance the size of the unknown and wild outer world, makes it look bigger that it really is. Lots of channels, lots of distractions, lots of offers, and you can get your personal spot: what you watch one night might have not been watched by none in your surroundings.
I remember one Friday night, I was about 11 or 12. The movie Monster, with Cher in it and that face-disfigured boy, was being released on TV, first channel. My parents were not home, went out with some friends for a drink, but they were about to come back. It was 9 or 9.30 pm. My father was at the time the Head of an Institute for Professional Education, working with youngsters from 14 to 20 years old, most of them drop-outs from High-Schools, casualties in the road to College and Universities. Somebody phoned, somebody from the Institute, probably the Ethics teacher or the Philosophy teacher: "is your father home?"; "No"; "Are you watching now this movie, Monster? You should. What do you think? I just would like to share the opinion with you"... I was terrified. Such an awkward question... Pretty much like when this 13-year-old girl asked me through the phone if I wanted to sleep with her... We had 4 phones in the house.
These memories spurred today after dinner. It is Thursday and it is the quizz night in London. Lots of pubs throw their quizzes. People get together in groups and drink beer and answer questions. "In what year was introduced the 1-pound coin in Britain?"; "In what US city was killed Martin Luther King?". It kind of surprise me: the ferocious people of the ferocious London, sitting in a pub, quite and silent, as to hear a pin drop, writing answers like those in a piece of paper. I mean, looks like the type of things nuns do for fun.
But the quizz thing operates like the two-channel TV. Everybody around the same thing. After all, the unassailable, wild, sleepless towns of the modern man is an urban myth. It is all the same, now and 100 years ago in the country side, in East Anglia or Essex, or Sussex or wherevex, the same people needing their little pleasures and securities, their cozy and warm fire in the shed; perhaps, today we are just too more exposed to evil.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
**
Sometimes I remember that, not a long time ago, we only have two TV networks (if you can call them that): the first channel and the second channel. The latter got the signal from UHF waves and we call it, precisely, the UHF (u-hache-efe).
The 2-channel TV did something for Spanish society that no network can do today anymore: kept people connected to a common ground of social life and style, a positive get-all-together force. Somehow, at 10 pm the whole country was watching the same. On the contrary, the TV of today has a segregating effect, and ties between people are to be found in different realms (soccer, realities, facebook). Today TV is a format that enhance the size of the unknown and wild outer world, makes it look bigger that it really is. Lots of channels, lots of distractions, lots of offers, and you can get your personal spot: what you watch one night might have not been watched by none in your surroundings.
I remember one Friday night, I was about 11 or 12. The movie Monster, with Cher in it and that face-disfigured boy, was being released on TV, first channel. My parents were not home, went out with some friends for a drink, but they were about to come back. It was 9 or 9.30 pm. My father was at the time the Head of an Institute for Professional Education, working with youngsters from 14 to 20 years old, most of them drop-outs from High-Schools, casualties in the road to College and Universities. Somebody phoned, somebody from the Institute, probably the Ethics teacher or the Philosophy teacher: "is your father home?"; "No"; "Are you watching now this movie, Monster? You should. What do you think? I just would like to share the opinion with you"... I was terrified. Such an awkward question... Pretty much like when this 13-year-old girl asked me through the phone if I wanted to sleep with her... We had 4 phones in the house.
These memories spurred today after dinner. It is Thursday and it is the quizz night in London. Lots of pubs throw their quizzes. People get together in groups and drink beer and answer questions. "In what year was introduced the 1-pound coin in Britain?"; "In what US city was killed Martin Luther King?". It kind of surprise me: the ferocious people of the ferocious London, sitting in a pub, quite and silent, as to hear a pin drop, writing answers like those in a piece of paper. I mean, looks like the type of things nuns do for fun.
But the quizz thing operates like the two-channel TV. Everybody around the same thing. After all, the unassailable, wild, sleepless towns of the modern man is an urban myth. It is all the same, now and 100 years ago in the country side, in East Anglia or Essex, or Sussex or wherevex, the same people needing their little pleasures and securities, their cozy and warm fire in the shed; perhaps, today we are just too more exposed to evil.
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
"Eyes"Dropping
I did some nasty job today with my experimental set-up and a type of oil related to kerosene, or so I believe, I have not made an actual comparison, and from time to time, I said to myself: "smells like in the tube".
Lots of people read in the tube. City Am, London Evening, some The Times, some The Guardian. Some the pink gossip section of the free-of-charge papers or the magazines delivered at the entrance of the station. Sometimes the tube gets so crowdy that, instead of minding my own reading, I over-read people's readings.
The London Evening Standard did not bring anything that caught my eye about something to talk a little here today. I was between the back door with all my back bent to avoid my head banging the top and this woman. And she was that close when she turned the page of her book I started reading the new one with her. Interesting reading, interesting beginning, something about a number of ejaculate or ejaculatory fades. So I kept reading. "Most of all copulatory actions that we have been discussing takes place between partners who are of the pair-bounded type".
That's funny: partners who are of the pair-bounded type. Why did they not say: people in stable relationships or married? It is crazy to notice sometimes how far the prejudices, normally against the religious (Christian and catholic) or political establishment, are carried. If you talk about people, I guess social ties, such as marriage, family and culture are of vital importance to analyze sexual behaviours, etc. So, what do you mean by pair-bounded type? And I don't care if this is homo or hetero or a mixture or a groupie thing. You need to separate that because the concept, the essence is different.
Oh, oh, yes, I remember I read on homebody's paper this morning that some big Justice Tribunal in the UK is to make insurance company obligated to charge higher to women. And made me think. One is tempted to say: women are today, nowadays, in England more prone and likely to have car accidents is just a fact. So it is justified to charge more, because there is more to insure.
However, I like thinking in terms of individuals, and it is just inadmissible to take the qualities and abilities of an individual as those of a group, no matter how well and solid-founded. This is what I have always criticized: there is not such a thing like working women, but women who works; not single mothers, but mothers that are single; not pro-abortion women, but women who aborts. Each woman is individual and unique; she might belong to a group of women who share a specific quality or circumstance, but they belong unique always and are different in anything else.
So I must say that the paper comment is a new formulation of a well-accepted statement: do not discriminate any individual, any human being for the sake of his sex.
**
The other piece of news is that Jane Russell died a couple of days ago: Marylin Monroe in brunette hair. Don't know her, but she was hoooot!
Photograph: Jane Russell, 1921 - 2011 (nresimleri.com)
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
Lots of people read in the tube. City Am, London Evening, some The Times, some The Guardian. Some the pink gossip section of the free-of-charge papers or the magazines delivered at the entrance of the station. Sometimes the tube gets so crowdy that, instead of minding my own reading, I over-read people's readings.
The London Evening Standard did not bring anything that caught my eye about something to talk a little here today. I was between the back door with all my back bent to avoid my head banging the top and this woman. And she was that close when she turned the page of her book I started reading the new one with her. Interesting reading, interesting beginning, something about a number of ejaculate or ejaculatory fades. So I kept reading. "Most of all copulatory actions that we have been discussing takes place between partners who are of the pair-bounded type".
That's funny: partners who are of the pair-bounded type. Why did they not say: people in stable relationships or married? It is crazy to notice sometimes how far the prejudices, normally against the religious (Christian and catholic) or political establishment, are carried. If you talk about people, I guess social ties, such as marriage, family and culture are of vital importance to analyze sexual behaviours, etc. So, what do you mean by pair-bounded type? And I don't care if this is homo or hetero or a mixture or a groupie thing. You need to separate that because the concept, the essence is different.
Oh, oh, yes, I remember I read on homebody's paper this morning that some big Justice Tribunal in the UK is to make insurance company obligated to charge higher to women. And made me think. One is tempted to say: women are today, nowadays, in England more prone and likely to have car accidents is just a fact. So it is justified to charge more, because there is more to insure.
However, I like thinking in terms of individuals, and it is just inadmissible to take the qualities and abilities of an individual as those of a group, no matter how well and solid-founded. This is what I have always criticized: there is not such a thing like working women, but women who works; not single mothers, but mothers that are single; not pro-abortion women, but women who aborts. Each woman is individual and unique; she might belong to a group of women who share a specific quality or circumstance, but they belong unique always and are different in anything else.
So I must say that the paper comment is a new formulation of a well-accepted statement: do not discriminate any individual, any human being for the sake of his sex.
**
The other piece of news is that Jane Russell died a couple of days ago: Marylin Monroe in brunette hair. Don't know her, but she was hoooot!
Photograph: Jane Russell, 1921 - 2011 (nresimleri.com)
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT)
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