Comments Database

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Douglas High School shooting

We need guidance, support and work to help those who are lost, broken or damaged. Not a flammable representation of politics and power.

I blame the family, the locals around the family, the students around people who are alienated by their principles due to politics and exclusivity, I blame politics, I blame the corrupted system of politics, social divisions and everything that alienates those who are lost, broken or damage, but mostly, I blame the one who pulled the trigger, WHY DIDN'T YOU ASKED FOR HELP!??

Yet, he was just encouraged, he went to a white supremacist training ground, the opposite of what he needed to go.

This EEUU has serious problems dealing with those who think a problem can be solved by killing innocents in a controlled society, that takes rights always, but has no support to fix what brakes, under their social system.

Again, people survive, rise up and protect the innocent, become heroes and are remembered, but if we do not change our ways of thinking, by inclusivity, justice, freedom, love, courage and anything that help us to become better human beings, united, open and organic, then things like this are prone to happen.

If not as a form of shooting, as a form of violence in the streets, drugs, pain, violence, classicism, xenophobia, radicalism, etc. signs we need more love than hate.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Trump-Maduro politics

Post A nigthcrawler review:

Well, first of all, the world is not a static one, where things can not change, but are somehow approaching some foundations of chaos predicted out of our constant and problematic way of dealing with them.

-We can change the world by becoming the world itself.

-Some divide to conquer, others unite to liberate, basic logic.

-Create a system that changes any object into gold, the same alchemy we forgot, that system would improve any kind of life to a better one. gold is just a metaphor, as each currency is decided by what any one can get from it. So if one decides not to pay by any currency but work, or trades, then things will get a little bit more personal.

In overall, the world is changing, like it or not, the youth will always have the last saying, yet, the old ones will fight for it to be 'tide' and controlled, as it has always been. or will?

Some examples influences us to become better, find them and become a leader, and guide us to freedom, justice, inclusion, forgiveness, diplomacy, intelligence, wisdom, morality, honor, valor, love, responsibility, strengths, equilibrium, honesty...find life and your best, and work for it.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Jinxy Jenkins, Lucky Lou

Monday, April 6, 2015

Nasa support post

but then again, this are NASA's responses:

Sunday, June 8, 2014

MovimientosLGBTI(CopyPaste) + Comment

sábado, 7 de junio de 2014

¿Qué es lo que sucede con la marcha del orgullo gay de Caracas?

Por Quiteria Franco

Fuente: http://quiteriafranco.blogspot.com/2014/06/que-es-lo-que-sucede-con-la-marcha-del.html?spref=tw

¿Qué es lo que sucede con la marcha del orgullo gay de Caracas?

Solo para que sepan que es lo que sucede puertas adentro del chavismo y de las ONGs LGBTI pro gobierno, es lo mismo que sucede en todo el país, hay divisiones estúpidas y estériles por cuotas de poder y por tratar de ser más importante que el otro. Y en algún momento se les olvidó la razón por la que originalmente se dedicaron al activismo, la lucha de los derechos de las personas LGBTI.

Dentro de los grupos LGBTI chavistas hay dos corrientes principales cuyas diferencias han crecido con el tiempo y han arrastrado al resto de las personas ajenas que no tenemos nada que ver con esas diferencias políticas y tampoco nos interesa.

Un grupo lo lidera Ingrid Barón, del colectivo Base Lésbica y habitante del Municipio Sucre quien recientemente se postuló al consejo legislativo de ese municipio y no resultó electa. A ella la acompañan Urbe Jiménez, Gabriel Silva y otras personas, también forma parte de ese grupo con una línea de pensamiento muy cercano Ricardo Hung de la agrupación Alianza Lambda. Este grupo desde hace muchos años se ha adueñado de la Organización de la Marcha del mes del orgullo LGBTI que se realiza en el mes de Junio. Han sido cuestionados debido a un presunto mal manejo de los recursos que les otorga el gobierno nacional para la organización de la marcha y el espectáculo de cierre. En el año 2008, comenzaron a cobrar entradas para el "show" alegando que estaban recabando dinero para la construcción de una casa o albergue para personas trans en situación de calle y drogadicción. Ese dinero nunca se vio, el lugar nunca se construyó y a pesar de que se les ha solicitado entreguen una rendición de cuenta del dinero que reciben, eso jamás ha sucedido. Tengo entendido que hay una denuncia presentada ante la fiscalía y el caso aún no se ha resuelto.

El otro grupo está liderado por Leandro Viloria y su pareja Koddy Campos. Lo acompañan en algunas de sus luchas los miembros de Asgdre: Katherine Castrillo, María Gabriela Chávez, Simón Delgado, Javier Fernández entre otros y Divas de Venezuela liderada por Rummy Quintero. Es este grupo, Leandro y Koddy, el que adelantó la denuncia contra Ingrid Barón y su grupo por presunta corrupción y también ha solicitado mayor participación en la organización de la marcha.

Existe otro extremo menos radical conformado por Giovanni Piermattei quien se identifica como un chavista light. Heisler Vahamonde quien fue excluido del primer grupo y ahora para estar con una mente algo más clara menos radical. Cesar Sequera, con su orientación religiosa y otros personajes con algo de menor influencia.

Estos grupos cuentan con apoyo de diferentes entes gubernamentales, alcaldías, ministerios y en ocasiones con grupos chavistas rivales dentro de un mismo ministerio.

El año pasado en la reunión del comité organizador para la marcha, en la cual participé y de la cual me retiré por no querer ser parte de esa lucha interna entre estos dos grupos, se llegó al acuerdo de que este año 2014 la marcha tendría como destino final la Asamblea Nacional y se le daría una orientación de reclamo político sin orientación partidista.

En vista de que se introdujo ante la AN una solicitud de modificación del Código Civil que permitiría la ampliación del matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo, es necesario hacer llegar esa marcha hasta la asamblea con el fin de exigir se nos dé una respuesta a nuestras demandas. De manera que lo que se busca es que la marcha esté orientada hacia la exigencia del reconocimiento del matrimonio para todos por igual.

El primer grupo en disputa, es decir, el de Ingrid Barón se adelantó a hacer un llamado público a la marcha con el mismo destino final, la zona rental de plaza Venezuela, esto sin consultar a nadie ni que se hubiese convocado al comité organizador. ¿Por qué Ingrid Barón hizo ese llamado inconsulto, violando el acuerdo del año pasado? Porque Ingrid Barón está en contra del matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo. Si, así mismo, aunque resulte difícil creerlo. Está bien, no hay problema, todo el mundo tiene derecho a tener su opinión y a disentir. El detalle no es que esté en contra, sino que se ha dedicado a bloquear cualquier intento de que la solicitud de matrimonio igualitario en la Asamblea Nacional progrese. Para ese fin se ha aliado con la Diputada Blanca Eckout, quien de manera pública ha manifestado su negativa a apoyar el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo, su argumento: ella es “conservadora”.

Un argumento adicional que al parecer ambas comparten es que el matrimonio es una institución burguesa y capitalista que reproduce los patrones de dominación patriarcal, etc, etc, etc… Ella, Ingrid, no está a favor del matrimonio pero si está a favor de la herencia y los derechos patrimoniales. Una socialista con aspiraciones capitalistas. La herencia es un concepto y una idea nacida y concebida en el capitalismo. Algo contradictorio. Esto me lo informó ella misma el 13 octubre del año pasado en el CELARG durante la celebración del día de la Rebeldía Lésbica. En ese momento se negó a firmar la planilla en apoyo a la solicitud por el matrimonio igualitario, jornadas de la que yo formé parte.

La actitud de Ingrid Barón y de su aliada la Diputada Eckout, no solamente es contra-revolucionaria, para utilizar su mismo lenguaje, sino que es también egoísta y mezquina. Está actuando como cualquier persona retrograda que discrimina y entorpece los logros que otros desean alcanzar. Se puede estar en desacuerdo pero otra cosa es oponerse y además hacer campaña para que la solicitud no progrese. El otro grupo, es decir, el de Leandro, Koddy y sus aliados, han tratado infructuosamente de hacerla entender, pero ella se ha opuesto a cualquier solución alternativa que se le ha planteado con respecto a la marcha.

Pues sí, una persona supuesta luchadora de las personas LGBTI que se opone al matrimonio (derechos de las personas LGBTI) sean reconocidos ha intentado llegar a ser concejal del Municipio Sucre y según soplan los vientos intentará ser electa en las próximas elecciones de diputados a la Asamblea Nacional. ¿Elegirás a una persona que se opone e impide el reconocimiento de tus derechos?, ¿Elegirás a una persona que discrimina a otras personas LGBTI? Piénsalo bien. No te dejes engañar por quienes dicen luchar por tus derechos pero que realmente buscan su beneficio personal.

En el año 2013, esta activista, junto a sus colaboradores, logró que el Municipio Sucre declarase el 17de mayo como día municipal contra la homofobia. Nadie, ningún militante de ONG, ni siquiera los chavistas LGBTI fueron a sabotearle su logro. Contrario a lo que ella sí hizo en el Municipio Libertador este año 2014. Ingrid Barón se presentó en la calle Villaflor de Sabana Grande donde se estaría haciendo la declaratoria del 17 de mayo como día municipal contra la homofobia con apoyo y dinero otorgado por un ministerio con unas carpas que dejaban mucho que desear y una pantalla led para realizar un show de eso que acostumbra a realizar, únicamente para sabotear el acto organizado por el Consejo Municipal de Libertador con la colaboración de Leandro, Koddy y su grupo.

De manera que eso es lo que sucede puertas adentro en el chavismo. Entre grupos que se adversan y dan esos espectáculos tan vergonzosos. Se acusan de corrupción, se sacan los trapitos, se insultan y discriminan al resto de las personas LGBTI por el simple hecho de no compartir su ideología política. Han olvidado que lo que se debe hacer es luchar por los derechos de todos y no de un grupito. Sería bueno que recordaran que la meta es lograr el reconocimiento de los derechos de las personas LGBTI y no a cual puesto político pueden llegar.

Todo esto explica por qué el año pasado hubo dos marchas en Caracas, y el por qué aún no se ha anunciado la marcha de este año 2014. Los activistas chavistas están tratando de llegar a un acuerdo sobre una ruta con la ayuda e intervención de algunos concejales del municipio Libertador.

Los activistas LGBTI que no son chavistas han sido totalmente excluidos de estas discusiones. Nosotros nos negamos a que una marcha, que debe tener una orientación política de exigencias y demandas por derechos humanos, civiles y sociales se haya convertido en un evento fiestero propagandístico del gobierno. Rechazamos que los activistas LGBTI afectos al gobierno se conformen con ser abrazados por personajes del gobierno, mientras otros insultan, ofenden y nos ven como fuente de burla.

La marcha de este año 2014, y de los años venideros deben llegar a la Asamblea Nacional. Los diputados deben dar respuesta a nuestras solicitudes. Este año es el matrimonio, pero luego será otra ley, y otra y otra hasta que el reconocimiento de nuestros derechos sea pleno. Entonces habrá muchas razones para bailar y celebrar. Ahora es el momento de exigir derechos.

Comentario:

Los problemas internos en grupos de donde sea, siempre existirán, y si se ven como familia, es inevitable, por muchas razones, pero que harías si un hijo o hija contradice todo lo que uno es, por el simple hecho de haber vivido en una sociedad donde esa es la norma, la moral, el medio de toda expectativa programada?

Claro, el conservativismo, oficialismo u opocision en general.

Venezuela como cualquier país desmoralizado por las riquezas que tiene y la opresión que existe pasa por una etapa o fase de juventud inmadura y llena de problemas de identificación, por lo mismo buscan a quienes tienen muy claro quienes son, estos que rechazan las normativas por cualquier tipo de expresión o el simple hecho de su preferencia sexual o estilo o modo de vida.

La homosexualidad en Latino América, o en cualquier país conservativo no busca las libertades de nadie mas que de los que son iguales a uno. La democracia, la libre expresión, la igualdad, esta en cualquier constitución, pero eso no quiere decir que se cumpla, pues existe intolerancia reflejada en leyes o mentalidades homofobicas o racistas o clasistas, casi lo mismo desde puntos distinto, pero similares al final.

Por lo mismo, este grupo de conservadores en si tienen sus derechos muy bien definidos, la norma y todo lo que no sea igual lo critican, ahora imagínate una familia donde toda sus vidas han sido esclavizados en creer que la vida conservadora es la única que genera frutos? como no van a rechazar algo que contradice a sus cerradas mentes distorsionadas por esa falsa idea de vida?

Con esto digo que la homosexualidad es y sera un problema dentro de las mentes como estas, mas nada, pues en una utopía o un lugar tolerante, a la única persona que le importaría la homosexualidad, como racismo, es a quien se cataloga como tal y esta ya subestimado por el peso de una propaganda, mas que política social, creada para seguir las expectativas de una civilización colonialista. mas nada.

Otra cosa es que dado que la homosexualidad esta marginada, alienada de las sociedades donde dentro se hace, fuera no, esta también relacionada con otro tipo de enfermedades, y esa es la condición principal que tienen los conservadores al atacar a cualquier cosa que no comparta con sus expectativas sociales, como económicas y políticas.

Ahora, un gobierno como el de Venezuela, donde se les abrió las puertas a un supuesto socialismo tolerante y ahora hacen totalmente lo contrario, la realidad es la misma que la de antes, con algo de palabras modelos para llamar la atención internacionalmente, pero la realidad, no ha cambiado en nada, si los pueblos Originarios siguen muriendo por hambre, no hay derechos ni para protestar? otros movimientos tienen ahora que ser mas fuertes que nunca y seguir en sus querellas y presión social, pues habrá algún día donde digan; vaya, hoy puedo descansar este magullado cuerpo, toda mis fuerzas fueron escuchadas y poco a poco la gente me ha ido entendiendo. muriendo a un lado, casado y con hijos, con todas la de la ley, el hombre y hombre, o mujer y mujer, felizmente aceptados en una sociedad conservadora, pues lo conservador no significa dejar la intolerancia, sino entender otros puntos de vista y usar esa misma energía no para rechazar, sino para crear y abrir puertas.

en conclusión:

* La raza, la preferencia sexual, religiosa, o económica no debería de importar a las multitudes, sino a uno mismo, ya que uno es quien debería catalogarse y ser aceptado como tal.

* Quienes sean adeptos a las leyes, también tienen que escuchar a quienes los critican, para luego unirse en convenios y luego en la sociedad. Rehabilitación, trabajo, estudio y resultados.

SharingEconomy (CopyPaste + Comment)

Is the sharing economy killing the neighborhood?

Source: http://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/is-the-sharing-economy-killing-the-neighbourhood

By Neil Fogarty

Business writer & speaker

People who write on the subject of the sharing economy talk of it being a socio-economic system built around the sharing of ‘human and capital assets’.
You are reading an article in the Understanding the sharing economy series, to read more head over to the series homepage.

Doesn’t that just sum it up?

The fact that doing things for or with a neighbour should be referred to as a human or capital asset fills me with dread – applying business-speak to human relationships is pretty abhorrent at the best of times, but we are now seeing venture capitalists and start-ups pitching the emperor’s new clothes at us.

If we look at non-monetized sharing economies - such as third world countries, Amish communities in the US or rural economies pretty much everywhere, sharing is a social necessity. From the lending of a hammer to the offer of a bed for the night or the creation of a banking system based on mutual trust, such as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. So maybe the sharing economy is only something for first world cities, with fractured communities and people too lazy or busy to carry out simple tasks. Although it could of course be the pull of making a fast buck that is pulling in so many people.

Case in point: in a community, you leave a spare key to your house with your neighbour. If you lock yourself out, you go next door, have a coffee, have a chat, take the spare and let yourself back in. The sharing economy would suggest that we log onto an App and look for a locksmith instead.

I was born in the 1960s and, for the first 20 years of my life, I knew the names of all the neighbours – families rarely moved house, kids played together – we all did things for each other whether this was mowing a lawn, cleaning gutters, cleaning cars – all for free. Add to this, the community was aware of its elderly people. As Lilo & Stitch pointed out to us all in 2002, “’Ohana’ means ‘family’ – ‘family’ means ‘no one gets left behind’.”

Maybe the altruistic visions of Lilo & Stitch are old-fashioned and antiquated, that would be a very sad state of affairs as it seems that offering a bed for the night through Airbnb or giving someone a lift through BlaBlaCar can all be monetized, whilst other sharing economy ventures such as HomeAway or Lending Club are just same-old, same old.

If we have more money in our pocket, we should want to be more charitable, yet here we are talking about the monetization of favours and errands.

Added to the emperor’s wardrobe should be the word ‘crowdsourced’ – talking as if the concept of people acting together is a completely new thing. Fon refers to ‘crowdsourced Wi-Fi’ which feels pretty desperate, if we want to crowdsource WiFi, then we can do what we already do on a small scale but on a huge scale – everyone can do away with their passwords on their routers. When I lived in Cairo, everyone in our apartment block used the same single router. Oh hey, look at us ‘crowdsourcing’.

Do you see my point? There is nothing ‘new’ here apart from putting dollars and cents against the principles of common decency. Intuitively, if we have more money in our pocket, we should want to be more charitable yet here we are talking about the monetization of favours and errands.

In 1992, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar suggested that there is a limit to the number of people with whom we can maintain stable social relationships (where we know who each person is and how each person relates to every other person). He suggested that this was a community of up to 148 people. Just as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter all artificially boost our ‘network’, sharing economy Apps grow our contacts but erode relationships.

Remember me mentioning that I’m a 60s kid? Well something else that I remember from my childhood was ‘bob-a-job’ – doing small tasks for people in exchange for 5 pence (equivalent at the time to c. $0.03 or €0.05) – yet we did it.

We didn’t ask for credit card details as we made our human and capital assets available to our community! It’s probably also worth pointing out that, in order to do work in the community, we didn’t need an App.

The simple fact is this: the monetization of community is wholly distasteful. I don’t disagree with sharing – but I do disagree with sharing ‘economy’ – if we took all the VC finance for these businesses and invested it into community projects, then I am sure the world would be a much better place. No App required.

Subversive comment:

Sharing Economy

This is not concept. It's a stage in the programmed capitalistic societies, where relying on your neighbor or close friend to do some labor with only the labor part, no capital, is the stage, societies don't wanna be.

First: because it means we don't have the means to sustain ourself, something strange, but in programmed capitalistic societies or post-Colonized ones the appearances are first rather than the rest.

Ask any third-world country preppy boy or girl about appearance and you'll find the answer.

Second; because the mentality is tribal, egalitarian and anything tribal or egalitarian was taken down by the monarchy and by that, this programmed neo colonialist capitalistic societies,are doing the impossible to take it down, again, in order to 'improve' the kingdoms mentality of those who went to colonize and are ruling over the majority, without giving them the right to live without something they, 'magically' need(money).

The capital, that thing one could easily 'trade' instead of 'working', without any skills.

That said, to have a skill is to have 'something', and that 'something' is the thing societies can trade without having the material but the 'thing'.

In capitalist mentality or central mentality, that 'thing(Money)' or tool, was created to control vast assets of that 'something(material)' and organize it so it could last more than the normal, but that also created speculation and corruption, a word integrated with human consumption of that 'something (Money>Material)' that it has a name and value.

The damn coin: gold, uranium, oil, the material we all want and know its use and importance, so money is not gonna change, or at least the middle tool that enables us to work and get something in return.

In oppressed societies money is a curse, not in well-developed ones, so the problem would always be, if those third world countries could one day evolve into something better than what they are doing right now, or they could just target the problem that made us be and are making us unaware of our potential, because after the storm one picks up the garbage and rebuilds the whole infrastructure from its foundation. And that could mean the very hated 'revolution', but if the revolutions can't coup with the changes of this universal economy or the different ways of dealing with that 'money' or trade tool, then its just the obstacle that drains progress and sinks countries to their ground. Something done often in third world countries, were corruption and megalomaniatic behaviors have just ravished the international perception of their knowledge in it (money and uses) when thinking about trades and business.

So in the micro-example of this 'sharing' economy in third world countries, i think that's a waste of time, and anything done in first world countries is always a novelty, a trend, as they don't need to do more than just what they are doing, more progressive, more green, that's the only thing needed. So this 'sharing' economy is just a trend or taken out of tribal concepts of what was to live back when there was no international perception of how and who controls this central banks and why some places had more credit than the ones asking the questions, and so on.

In conclusion: practical solutions are done by the pioneers of that thing they build, and the rest just follow, or obey their commands. But sadly, politics and corruption has always the first and last hand on our life's, so, sharing is not well perceived in the societies of the broken and greedy man.

Unless of course, just the few and alienated ones believe in themselves and work hard against their countries, their societies, the international perception, and provides examples of it, in the face of adversities, in order to change things around, but then again, we would be living the 94 or any other news about some remote land being taken by some subversive group of people, and then receiving names by the elite of those countries, because their world can be turned around and their greed and selfish acts of violence and corruption could be undercover*.

Something the Zapatistas have to live daily, when in the poorest part of Mexico, they rely on themselves, and no one else, and are attacked by the government and the whole Mexican society. And thats when this 'sharing' economy survives at its finest, not in some well-develop country, in a place were hippies live. no, that's just a style of living, no real change when the country one lives has the 'option' to do that.

in conclusion:

* If one shares, individually, one country can also do the same, in this sharing economy, socialist, anarquist and any other subject under the umbrella of socialism thinks that work is more important than the accumulation of time, worked. Which should be the case, no privileges nor inheritance.

* Yet power is accumulated by the central bank, same as the central state, leaving fanatics arguing about the perception of freedom through power, that one anyone has worked to achieve.

* A petty excuse capitalist, or anyone defending them, is lack of tittles, territories or prestige, if one wants to provide a more balanced example, one has to give everything equally to everyone and then criticize it by their doing, without the boarders of control and oppression created. Due to chance and a detailed plan to conquer the world, dividing it.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Trazos de nuestra genetica, historia y cultura social.

Referencias, entre otros vinculos.

1. Comienzos de la vida

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution

1.1. Los microorganismos y sus origenes e hipotesis

6. Historia de de Venezuela

7. Declaracion de la independencia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_Declaration_of_Independence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crist%C3%B3bal_Mendoza
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Germ%C3%A1n_Roscio

8. Figuras notables de Venezuela

8.1 Otras figuras notables

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Tom%C3%A1s_Boves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Michel_Aury
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Manuel_Cajigal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Domingo_de_Monteverde
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Morillo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Florence_O%27Leary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Prudencio_Padilla
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_la_Torre

9. Gran Colombia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Colombia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela_Crisis_of_1895

10. Historia de Venezuela (1899 - 1908)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Venezuela_(1830%E2%80%931908)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Antonio_P%C3%A1ez
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Guzm%C3%A1n_Blanco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipriano_Castro

11. Historia de Venezuela (1908-58)

12. Historia de Venezuela (1958-99)

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Le Gentil & the Transit of Venus - Rob Scallon

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_1636828217&feature=iv&src_vid=IjSbFC9SxBg&v=7RvYX1eWdbk

Que nos define como persona: el momento, o la acumulacion de estos?

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Darwin and Design, lecture 4 review

From the Open course of MIT: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-448j-darwin-and-design-fall-2010/readings

Voltaire, Candide. The Accidental World

Book: http://www.sondheimguide.com/Candide/novel.html

Voltaire

"Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778); French philosopher and writer, leader of the Enlightenment; characterized by his liberal ideas and his opposition to tyranny and bigotry; had an interest in cases of injustice especially those resulting from religious prejudice; use of wit, satire, critical capacities"

Source: http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/fajardo/teaching/ENG121/voltaire.htm

Comments:

Voltaire, the bastard who planted the seeds of our imagination beyond the borders of the inevitable, sure is caring for us, as we feed from the fruits of his stories, revolting towards the instinct of that cycle of greed and power.

Sure he is tired too, more than 300 years ago the tree still protects us with the shadows created from the solar inequalities of life.

Candide, a satirical and romantic story about how nativity becomes corruption, and the situations transforming it, and how it ended at the mercy of its primal idea, conformism: the way we tricked ourselves from the real possibilities of reaching the garden of freedom planted outside our minds.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Darwin and Design, lecture 3 review

From the Open course of MIT: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-448j-darwin-and-design-fall-2010/readings

Reading of Lecture 3: Genesis; Aristotle, selections from the Physics. Pattern recognition, narrative and analytical, in nature in the ancient world.

Video link: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-448j-darwin-and-design-fall-2010/video-lectures/lecture-3-genesis-aristotle-and-the-emergence-of-world-views

Comments:

I think that purpose have to be dealt by levels of purpose, cause everything has its purpose.

-levels depending on the object and its approximation.

But chance itself is the territory one must dig in order to find knowledge, asking why by chance?

In other words, chance is related to ignorance of an independent object or independent objects on behave of ones proximity, the personal projection of an object or objects.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom

This whole information is directly from the links shown.

Gentle Warrior: Asus Philip Randolph (1889 - 1979)

Link: http://www.apri.org//ht/d/sp/i/225/pid/225

He was called the most dangerous black in America.
He led 250,000 people in the historic 1963 March on Washington.
He spoke for all the dispossessed: Blacks, poor Whites, Puerto Ricans, Indians and Mexican Americans.
He attained for Black workers their rightful at in the house of Labor.
He won the fight to ban discrimination in the armed forces.
He organized the 1957-prayer pilgrimage for the civil rights bill.
He was President of the Institute, bearing his name, and President Emeritus of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the union he built.

Harry S. Truman. President Truman signed an order commanding that there would be an end to this kind of discrimination not only in the armed forces, but also in federal civil service jobs.
In 1963, Mr. Randolph's struggle for equality for oppressed people was reached when he headed the famous "March on Washington,'' in which more than 250.000 Americans joined together under the slogan of "Jobs and Freedom."
The story of Randolph the labor leader is the story of many beginnings, a tale of many defeats and many victories. Even in defeat he sowed the seed that afterwards blossomed and bore fruit-for Black workers and White workers alike.
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_brother.html

Mr. Randolph's Character: In 1936, A. Philip Randolph was drafted presidency of a new organization called the National Negro Congress. The NNC was made up of a number of groups, which planned to build a Black mass movement, by working with and through trade unions. Although the NNC was successful in a number of organization drives led by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), when Mr. Randolph realized he had come under Communist control, he quit.
Throughout the hard years of struggle to obtain dignity and decent treatment for porters, Mr. Randolph forgot that there were other workers that also needed help. As one observer wrote ''He became a familiar and lonely figure on the floor of AFL-ClO conventions" to his role as champion of the underdog. He was conscience of organized labor in seeking to get the trade union to set its own house in order and to remove the last remnants of racial discrimination from ranks of the AFL-CIO.

Mr. Randolph's political statement: He spoke for all other dispossessed , Mexicans Americans, Indians, Puerto Ricans, and poor Whites alike.
A. Philip Randolph, the labor leader, is also a dreamer of dreams He has tried to put flesh and bones on his dreams by working for a labor movement that would be free of all prejudice and which would play a key role in changing society for the better.

Mr. Randolph's ideals: At the heart of A. Philip Randolph's vision as a socialist is his belief that a decent and well-paying job is the first step towards social and political freedom.
For the socialist ideals on which his political wisdom is built, Mr. Randolph looked to the giants of American socialism—Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas.
As a socialist, Mr. Randolph believes that workers and their labor unions are the key forces in any political effort to redistribute society's wealth more justly.
Mr. Randolph has continuously advised Black people to develop political alliances with other groups labor, liberal and civil rights groups—to fight for common aims.
The agent for spreading Mr. Randolph's socialism was a magazine called the MESSENGER, founded in 1917, "the only magazine of scientific radicalism in the world published by Negroes." He co-edited the magazine with Chandler Owen, a fellow socialist who came to be Mr. Randolph's closest friend.

Mr. Randolph's believes: He is a firm believer in both integration and non-violence. As an integrationist he opposed the "Back-to-Africa" movement of Marcus Garvey in the 1920's, as he has opposed the separatist beliefs of the "Black Power" advocates of today.
At the same time, Mr. Randolph has rejected violence as a tactic of struggle, on both moral and practical grounds. A. Philip Randolph has not seen the problem of Black people in America as the problem of one isolated group. He views the condition of American Blacks as the symptom of a larger social illness, an illness which is caused by an unfair distribution of power, wealth, and resources.
Though Mr. Randolph was an integrationist, he believed that organizations which had come into existence to wage the Black and working class struggle, ought to be headed by the leaders from those groups.

Mr. Randolph was definitely opposed to the war. He believed that the American idea of ''making the world safe for democracy'' was outright falsity, and "a tremendous offense to the intelligence of the Blacks because at that time the Blacks were being lynched and denied the right to vote, in the South especially, and were the victims of segregation and discrimination all over the nation
They managed to get out under the custody of Seymour Stedman, a socialist lawyer, and they promptly continued their public protest against the war. World War I ended just one day before Mr. Randolph was scheduled to leave for war himself as a new draftee.

A. Philip Randolph Institute: What We Support Today?

Link: http://www.apri.org/ht/d/sp/i/237/pid/237

Civil rights, strong anti-discrimination measures and affirmative action
Policies to promote a decent wage, high growth, full employment economy
Labor law reform and worker health and safety protections
Decent minimum living standards for all, including anti-poverty programs, a fair minimum wage and a comprehensive "safety net"
Universal, affordable health care
Family leave and child care
Progressive and fair tax policies
International workers' rights and fair trade Education and training programs
Education and training programs

Biographical Notes on Bayard Rustin 1912 - 1987

Link: http://www.apri.org//ht/d/sp/i/227/pid/227

Mr. Bayard Rustin was active in the struggle for human rights and economic justice for over 50 years.
Mr. Bayard Rustin toured the country conducting Race Relations Institutes designed to facilitate communication and understanding between racial groups.
Mr. Bayard Rustin was active in A. Philip Randolph’s March on Washington Movement, and became the first field secretary of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
In 1942, the FOR dispatched him to California and the American Friends Service Committee to help protect the property of Japanese- Americans held in detention.
In 1947, Bayard Rustin took part in a demonstration to test enforcement of the 1946 Irene Morgan case decision outlawing discrimination in interstate travel. Known as the “Journey of Reconciliation” this protest was a model for Freedom Rides of the 1960’s.
Mr. Bayard Rustin was instrumental in securing President Truman’s order eliminating segregation in the Armed Forces.
Mr. Bayard Rustin extensive background in the theory, strategies, and tactics of nonviolent action proved invaluable and were the foundation of this close association with Dr. King.
Mr. Bayard Rustin organized the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in 1957, the National Youth Marches for Integrated Schools in 1958 and 1959, and was the Deputy Director and Chief Organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom which, at the time, was the largest demonstration in the Nation’s history
In 1964 Mr. Bayard Rustin helped found the A. Philip Randolph Institute, names for his mentor, the noted labor and civil rights activist.
A long-time supporter of worker’s rights, Mr. Bayard Rustin participated in many strikes
While working to promote democracy at home, Mr. Bayard Rustin also supported human rights struggles worldwide.
Mr. Bayard Rustin was frequently arrested for protesting Britain’s colonial rule in Africa.
Mr. Bayard Rustin had a long involvement with refugee affairs.
Mr. Bayard Rustin was a Vice Chairman o the International Rescue Committee he traveled the world working to secure food, medical care, education, and proper resettlement for refugees.
Mr. Bayard Rustin made numerous fact-finding visits to the Middle East and wrote many columns and articles on that troubled area.

March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom

Link to Civil Rights Movement Veterans(must read from there): http://www.crmvet.org/info/mowjl.htm

Origins of the March

For more than two decades, A. Philip Randolph dreams of a massive march on Washington for jobs and justice.
Back in 1941, with the support of Bayard Rustin and A.J. Muste, Randolph had threatened to mobilize 100,000 Blacks to march on Washington to protest segregation in the armed forces and employment discrimination in the expanding war industries.
Executive Order 8802: 1941 - Defense plants initially resisted hiring African-Americans. But in 1941, A. Philip Randolph (front, center), president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened to have 100,000 blacks march on Washington to protest job discrimination. President Franklin Roosevelt yielded to Randolph's demand. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, prohibiting discrimination in defense jobs or government.
Executive Order 8802 constituted the first major federal government response to the plight of blacks since Reconstruction. Executive Order 8802 has been called a second Emancipation Proclamation. Sociologist William Julius Wilson has pointed out the war accelerated the entry of blacks into goods-producing industries and helped reduce black poverty.
Document of the Executive Order 8802 : http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/historical-docs/doc-content/images/exec-order-8802-def-discrim-l.jpg&c=/historical-docs/doc-content/images/exec-order-8802-def-discrim.caption.html

Implications: On June 11, 1963 — the same day as President Kennedy's address to the nation on civil rights — SCLC leaders announce plans to demonstrate in Washington for new civil rights legislation. They call for: "Massive, militant, monumental sit-ins on Congress..." and "Massive acts of civil disobedience all over this nation. We will tie up public transportation by laying our bodies prostrate on runways of airports, across railroad tracks, and in bus depots." Later that night Medgar Evers is assassinated.
On June 22nd, President Kennedy meets with civil rights leaders at the White House to get them to cancel the march.

Coalition Politics

On July 2nd, Randolph and King convene a summit meeting in New York of the "Big Six" to plan a united action in Washington for "Jobs and Freedom."
Roy Wilkins makes it clear that the NAACP — the largest and best funded of all the civil rights organizations — will not participate in any event that includes any form of civil disobedience.
The call to mobilize 100,000 protesters has inevitably created a numbers game in which success or failure will be judged by turnout. To get that many people to Washington requires chartering and filling more than 2,000 busses.
Though JFK publicly supports the march, behind the scenes his administration moves to limit and control it.
To reduce the numbers who can participate they demand that it be held on a weekday — a working day — rather than on a weekend.
Politically, they want to prevent any placards or banners critical of the administration — only officially approved signs can be carried. Wilkins insists on acceptance of all these restrictions as the price of NAACP support, and the march is scheduled for Wednesday, August 28 — just 8 weeks away.
Deeply suspicious of Kennedy and the traditional, conservative Black leadership, many SNCC activists fear the march is an effort to co-opt and contain rising Black militancy. Others fear it will be an empty gesture — a demonstration without organizing — that distracts and undermines their grassroots efforts in the Deep South; to them, change does not come from the top by appealing to a government that cares nothing for those at the bottom of society, but rather by building up political power from below.
On the day before the march, twenty or so SNCC activists led by Bob Moses picket the Department of Justice. He carries a sign reading: "When there is no justice what is the state but a robber band enlarged?" All Tuesday night they hold vigil and on Wednesday morning some of them participate in the march, others do not.
Yet many in SNCC support the march, believing that any form of direct action, especially large-scale action, helps break down the fear and isolation that play such a large role in the South's culture of oppression.
The march is also a chance to educate the nation about the issues, the Freedom Movement, the courage of people in struggle, and the suffering that Blacks are forced to endure.

The March Demands

Eventually, a set of 10 demands for the march is agreed upon:

The 10 Demands of the March on Washington

* Comprehensive and effective civil rights legislation from the present Congress — without compromise or filibuster — to guarantee all Americans:
Access to all public accommodations
Decent housing
Adequate and integrated education
The right to vote
Withholding of Federal funds from all programs in which discrimination exists.

* Desegregation of all school districts in 1963.

* Enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment — reducing Congressional representation of states where citizens are disfranchised.

* A new Executive Order banning discrimination in all housing supported by federal funds.

* Authority for the Attorney General to institute injunctive suits when any Constitutional right is violated.

* A massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers — Negro and white — on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages.

* A national minimum wage act that will give all Americans a decent standard of living. (Government surveys show that anything less than $2.00 an hour fails to do this.)

[The minimum wage at the time of the march was $1.15/hour. After adjusting for inflation, $1.15 in 1963 is equal to $8.78 in 2013. Today in 2013, the federal minimum wage is only $7.25, significantly lower than what it was 50 years ago. After adjusting for inflation, the $2.00/hour minimum wage called for in the March demands would be equal to a minimum wage of $15.27 today, more than twice what it actually is.]
A broadened Fair Labor Standards Act to include all areas of employment which are presently excluded.

* A federal Fair Employment Practices Act barring discrimination by federal, state, and municipal governments, and by employers, contractors, employment agencies, and trade unions.

Building the March

Mr. Rustin sets up headquarters in a Harlem walk-up tenement at 170 W. 130th Street near 7th Avenue
Mrs. Rachelle Horowitz of the Workers Defense League takes on the enormous and critical task of coordinating the busses, trains, planes, and auto caravans that will carry marchers across the country.
Tens of thousands of marchers are brought to Washington on busses chartered and paid for by unions. Walter Reuther of the UAW is added to the march committee as a labor representative.
Women form the backbone of the Freedom Movement. Though men get most of the publicity and official positions, it is women who play the key leadership roles on the ground. But not a single woman is asked to speak from the platform at either the Washington Monument or Lincoln Memorial. Singers Marian Anderson, Eva Jessye, Mahalia Jackson, Odetta, and Joan Baez are included as performers, but women such as Ella Baker and Dorothy Height (whose National Council of Negro Women is far more active in the struggle than Whitney Young's Urban League) are not invited to speak on substantive issues. When Randolph agrees to address the all-male National Press Club (no female reporters allowed), Anna Hedgeman and other women on the march staff protest to the committee. The leaders refuse to add any women to the speakers list, but in a minor concession they agree that Myrlie Evers can briefly acknowledge Daisy Bates, Diane Nash, Mrs. Herbert Lee, Rosa Parks, and Gloria Richardson from the platform (Myrlie is unable to attend, so Daisy Bates substitutes for her).

Fear and Hysteria

The Movement-related violence of recent years has been perpetrated by white racists and white cops against peaceful, nonviolent, demonstrators. Nevertheless, the Kennedy administration, the mainstream press, and the white establishment are obsessed by fears of Black protesters erupting into looting and violence on the streets of Washington.
A "State of Emergency" is declared.
The entire DC police force is mobilized along with 500 reserves and 2,500 members of the National Guard. Some 4,000 Army soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets are stationed across the Potomac at Fort Myer, and 15,000 paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division are placed on alert

The Rolling of the Busses

On Tuesday morning a large crowd gathers in Birmingham's Kelly Ingram Park where they had faced the snarling dogs and endured Bull Connor's high pressure hoses.
In the morning hours of August 28, more than 2,000 busses, 21 special trains, 10 chartered aircraft, and uncounted autos converge on Washington. The regularly scheduled planes, trains, and busses are filled to capacity. And in DC itself — "Chocolate City," at that time the only major metropolis in America with a Black majority population — tens of thousands, young and old, step out of their front doors and head for the gathering point — the towering spire of the Washington Monument.

Marching for Jobs & Freedom

Official Program for the March on Washington (1963)

link: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc_large_image.php?doc=96

Original Draft of SNCC Chairman John Lewis' Speech to the March link: http://www.crmvet.org/info/mowjl.htm

Martin Luther King Jr. speech link: http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

The Kennedys, the media, the Movement leaders, all try to define and control the march. But in the end, it is the marchers themselves who take over and forever stamp the event as a mass peoples' protest, a peaceful expression of their deepest aspirations of human freedom, and a joyous celebration of unity.

Effect on those who marched. The people most strongly affected by any direct action protest are those who participate in it.

Effect on the Country. Millions of Americans, Black and white, watch the march and rally on TV. For most of them, this is their first direct exposure to the Freedom Movement beyond brief sound-bites and newspaper interpretations. While the march does little to change the minds of committed segregationists, for the rest of the population the dignity, strength, purpose, and discipline of the freedom marchers has a positive affect.

A national poll reports that more than 75% of white Americans support ending segregation in public facilities, equal job opportunities, "good" housing for Blacks, and integrated schools. Two-thirds of them support passage of Kennedy's civil rights bill. But, 97% of whites oppose preferential hiring of Blacks to make up for past discrimination, the great majority oppose any Federal legislation against housing discrimination, and 56% oppose any further protests by Blacks.

In 1963, fear of Communism dominates the political thinking of a great many white Americans. Most Blacks have long since dismissed "red menace" and "Communist plot" smears against civil rights activists by racists such as Hoover of the FBI, and segregationist Senators such as Eastland and Thurmond. But red-baiting attacks on the Freedom Movement still influence a large number of whites. Now, at least for some of the millions of whites who watch the march and King's entire 19-minute speech live on national TV — and hear for the first time, not just a few sound-bites but the full content of a freedom sermon — those slanders of foreign-subversion and secret plots begin losing credibility.

Effect on Congress. Before, during, and after the march, members of Congress vow in strident chorus that it will not influence or affect their votes in any way, shape, or form. But as the elders teach us, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." In the 86 years since the end of Reconstruction, not a single piece of effective, race-related civil rights legislation had been signed into law. In the two years following the March on Washington, the two most effective civil rights bills ever enacted, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, are passed. It is the Freedom Movement as a whole that forces passage of these acts — not the march alone — but the march does make clear to legislators from rural states and suburban districts outside the South that at least some of their constituents, Black and white, do care about civil rights, and that those constituents are watching how they vote in Congress. Since the crucial votes to overcome the Southern filibusters against the two bills are extremely close, a shift of even one or two votes makes a critical difference.

But while the march does affect Congress in regards to basic civil rights, it has little affect on the economic issues that form a key portion of the 10 demands. There are no Black Senators, and only five Black Representatives in the House. They and their progressive allies are unable to move federal legislation on open housing. Segregated, "separate but equal," school systems are slowly being integrated, but adequate education for all remains an unfulfilled dream. Unemployment remains high — doubly so for non-whites — and the call for dignified jobs at decent wages falls on deaf ears, as do demands to increase the minimum wage to a living wage.

Effect on the Freedom Movement. The March dramatically confirms the national scope of the Civil Rights Movement and provides a powerful counterpoint to the sense of political isolation experienced by many southern Black communities facing white oppression. Its size and power provide new impetus and energy to protests across the South. As reported by the Southern Regional Council, in the three months immediately after the March, protests erupt in 41 southern cities and towns, resulting in more than 5,000 arrests.

Effect on Black Americans. Looking back on the march later, Evelyn Cunningham, New York Editor for the Pittsburgh Courier, recalls:

I must've cried for an hour and a half at one point during the march. Part of it was sheer happiness, part of it was pride, and part of it was my family. I'm steeped in my respect for my people. After the march, I thought, 'Oh my God, we're almost there — God, was I wrong. — Evelyn Cunningham.

Links to pages:

Civil Rights Movement Veterans: http://www.crmvet.org/info/mowjl.htm

Official Program for the March on Washington: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=96

Asus Philip Randolph Institute: http://www.apri.org//ht/d/sp/i/225/pid/225
http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm#1963mow

Martin luther king Jr speech: http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

Civil rights act 1964: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=97&page=transcript

Voting right act 1965: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=100&page=transcript

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Introduction to Psychology, Lecture 2

Source from youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=syXplPKQb_o

Confirmation bias: http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/c/confirmation_bias.htm

MIT source: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/9-00sc-introduction-to-psychology-fall-2011/science-research/

Incredible amount of information given for an introductory class. Highly recommended for a freshman and any other person who wants to know about psychology, its history and uses.

Wild Child The Story Of Feral Children

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h-GhHCBo7I

Genie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)

This is a sad story of abuse, negligence, and delusions.
This case puts the behavioral psychology at test.
Something curios about this sad and terrible event in Genie's life, is that she was almost isolated from the outside world, but as one can understand from the documentary, and read something about it, one can know that she could not speak for many reasons but the one I think was also important was due to fear. Her father was incredible delusional and terrible enough to create a false state of peace by the lack of sounds or conversations, if he heard something, he would hit the cause, therefore, intimidating the person, something important to know about the behavioral psychology and Genie, that states that we are kind of empty boxes that are filled. But how can feral children understand something? by instinct? and what does the brain hides from us?
The real experiments were made to know more about the brain and the use of language, something very important to our evolution and progress as a society and as an individual.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Introduction to Psychology, Lecture 1

Gabrieli, John. 9.00SC Introduction to Psychology, Fall 2011. (MIT OpenCourseWare: Massachusetts Institute of Technology), http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/9-00sc-introduction-to-psychology-fall-2011 (Accessed 15 Aug, 2013). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

Source: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/9-00sc-introduction-to-psychology-fall-2011/index.htm#

Introduction: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/9-00sc-introduction-to-psychology-fall-2011/introduction/

Video: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/9-00sc-introduction-to-psychology-fall-2011/introduction

One topic Prof. Gabrieli conveys is how the brain interprets its information and how we perceive it. If the viewer knows about the test it wont be as effective. why? because it is already known.
There are plenty of perception games.
Prof. Gabrieli later shows an example where there are two groups; the forcasteres(those who observe the situation) and the experiencers(those in the situation), that expresses differently behavior in a negative situation.

Reading [Stangor] = Stangor, Charles. Introduction to Psychology 2010. (Courtesy of Charles Stangor and the Saylor Foundation.) is advised. Is in the course syllabus.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Darwin and Design, Lecture 1 review

MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW)

THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE LECTURE 1 OF THE COURSE "DARWIN AND DESIGN MADE ONLY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE. ALL THE MATERIAL IS FROM MIT AND OTHER WELL DOCUMENTED SOURCES.

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

Darwin and Design

Environmental Health Sciences.

Instructor(s) Prof. James Paradis

MIT Course Number 21L.448J / 21W.739J
As Taught In Fall 2010
Level Undergraduate

source(MIT class syllabus): http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-448j-darwin-and-design-fall-2010/readings

Wordsworth's "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798", with an excellent commentary and additional images
Some background on travel, tourism and Wordsworth's poem
Design, the adaptation of means to ends, is a hard concept to pin down, given its many contexts. Here are some dictionary definitions and other discussions
A useful Wikipedia segment on design
Poet Robert Frost's poem titled "Design." How do his ideas of design in nature compare with Wordsworth's?

1. Wordsworth's "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798", with an excellent commentary and additional images

source(Wordsworth' poem): http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww138.html

COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR. JULY 13, 1798

-The artistic interpretation of nature, told as an mature, lonely poet in love with nature and with the feelings of calmness provided by the surroundings. A quiet, green place. possible in a garden, or a recollection of the wild, the absence of the human made metallic sounds and the toxic contaminants. Peace found in the boundaries of the unpredictable harmony of the wild. The animals, the life, the organism living as one. (the organic life after the human made structures)

source(poem's analysis): http://www.gradesaver.com/wordsworths-poetical-works/study-guide/section5/

2. Some background on travel, tourism and Wordsworth's poem

source: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/topic_1/welcome.htm

"The eighteenth-century vogue for these artists caused a revolution in landscape gardening, whereby formal arrays of trees, shrubs, paths, and ornaments in geometrical patterns were replaced by "landscape" gardens designed to look, from a specified vantage point, like a scene by Claude or Poussin. Walls and fences were hidden in ditches so as not to obstruct the long view; old ruins were created, Disneylike, on the spot, and servants were engaged to pose as farmers, shepherds, and hermits. The predictable next step was for people to venture out in search of landscapes in nature itself — first with an optical device called a "Claude glass," a tinted convex mirror in which one could compose, over one's shoulder, scenes in nature that resembled paintings by Claude, and then, leaving the mirror behind, confront nature face to face."

"Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes praises and minutely describes the region of his birthplace and also laments widespread changes in it resulting from the very "tourists and residents" to whom his guide is addressed. Keats's letter from his 1818 walking tour records excitement at first seeing Lake District mountains mixed with disappointment over Wordsworth's political conservativism. And Burke's Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful provides rudimentary theory to help us understand the writers' consciousness of their mental activities."

"These works are not without their political, social, and economic biases, quite apart from the fact that tourism required a degree of liberty and affluence frequently at odds with the workers and peasants of the places being visited. Gray makes fun of the "flaring gentleman's house" while praising "happy poverty"" .

3. Design, the adaptation of means to ends, is a hard concept to pin down, given its many contexts. Here are some dictionary definitions and other discussions

4. A useful Wikipedia segment on design

What is Design?

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design

A recollection of ideas, things, situations formed as one(fundamental). Implementing it via a chosen method(practical).**

5. Poet Robert Frost's poem titled "Design." How do his ideas of design in nature compare with Wordsworth's?

source(Frost's poem): http://www.starve.org/teaching/intro-poetry/design.html

In the poem Robert Frost questions the perceptions of designs. For me at a first sight the flower is beautiful, but once i look close enough, i could see life and death, and even mortality and spirituality, the connection of life through the eyes of intelligence, and the feelings of immortality, connected as the metaphorical image of a spider, and the moth, white as the combination of colors, or the lack of them, depending of the perception and the means. But most important, life as the instrument of the design. the moth has to be alive in order to be eaten by the spider and the flower had to bloom thanks to the rays of lights that she receives.

Natives view of nature

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism

Pantheism is the belief that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God,[1] or that the universe (or nature) is identical with divinity.[2] Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal or anthropomorphic god.

Video of the MIT's Darwin and Design, lecture 1

source(MIT video): http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-448j-darwin-and-design-fall-2010/video-lectures/lecture-1-darwin-and-design/

Prof. James Paradis begins with an introduction of what is design by asking questions, presenting various examples in which one can compare its ambiguity.
The ambiguity of a design is presented in an example of purpose and being. Are shells designed by the mollusk or a cause for survival? see: Ediacaran–Early Cambrian skeletonization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion
Prof. James Paradis the continues to talk about design and then introduces the question of nature as a design or specific purpose.
To understand nature as a design and purpose Prof. James Paradis talks about Wordsworth's Poetical, "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey; On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798" as an example of the kinds of feelings and memories modern people perceived at that specific time
Prof. James Paradis talks about Darwin's point of view of nature, his passion, and how his voyages in the Beagel were important to his life and the theory of evolution, how he found prehistoric fossils and the evolution of species, how we evolve.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

The discipline of finishing

Conor Neill from IESE Business School

Source: TEDxTalks via Youtube

Conor Neil talks about his definition of success and how some athletes have their mind set to compete and sometimes enjoy the moment by a recursive series of tasks, until getting where they wanted without feeling burned or pressured for it.
He explains a generic and metaphorical way we can achieve our goals by controlling our impulses and desires, to a certain degree.
In the talk, he explains an example comparing two kinds of children, those who control their impulses and those who don't, implying that at the very beginnings of life, competition and division is just a way to find ourselves close to those megalomaniac richest people in the world. He does not say anything about power, corruption and greed, he just say that those who have the privileged to understand his talks are in his side, in the side of those children who did not eat the marshmallow.
Of course, he gives some genuine examples of those athletes whose their entire life had been surrounded by competition and some instinctively desire to win, and the catch, he says, is to enjoy it, enjoy competition as a way of life.
Conor Neil gets his inspiration from Warren Buffet, the richest person in the world.
He also gives some tools we ought to understand in order to be as successful as his inspiration and those athletes he described in his examples.
Integrity, energy and intelligence.
Conor also expressed a generic and simple kind of way to explain how some people do not succeed and succeed. His idea was that a bad idea after another is how we fail, the opposite his a good idea after another is how we succeed. Hoping everyone has that kind of a clear mind in the moments needed to think as clear as those with the right education, the right support, and the right family structure.

Personally, I enjoyed his talk, but found that it was not very honest about all kinds of personalities and all kinds of situations people have in a day a day basis.

He said something very interesting; write you life, day-by-day, something I have heard not from him but a lot of other people, and its true, but why not write positive aspirations, ones one can reach? instead of a narcissistic diary? but narcissism is just a reflection of who we are and how we see ourselves, a mirror, but in reality that does not mean anything if the world is a combination of all those mirrors, so, better to write, like what he said, positive ideas about how to improve the way we change things.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Celebrating Nelson Mandela's 95th birthday

Nelson Mandela's Birthday

"Rolihlahla Mandela was born into the Madiba clan in Mvezo, Transkei, on July 18, 1918, to Nonqaphi Nosekeni and Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Mandela, principal counsellor to the Acting King of the Thembu people, Jongintaba Dalindyebo."

Thembu people

"The Thembu are one of the handful of nations and population groups which speak Xhosa in South Africa. In Xhosa the name is abaThembu, aba- being a common prefix for peoples. In the 19th century they were frequently known as the "Tamboekie" or "Tambookie" people. The most internationally famous Thembu person is Nelson Mandela, whose father was a reigning nobleman from a junior branch of the Madiba clan of kings. Walter Sisulu was also of Thembu descent, on his mother's side.[1] The land in which they lived was historically known as Thembuland."

Xhosa language

"Xhosa /ˈkoʊsə/[3] (Xhosa: isiXhosa [isikǁʰóːsa]) is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said with a rising or falling or high or low intonation. One of the most distinctive features of the language is the prominence of click consonants; the word "Xhosa" begins with a click."

Sources: wikipedia and the Nelson Mandela webpage:

http://www.nelsonmandela.org

Nelson Mandela and South Africa

The youtube video, made by the e news channel of Africa, briefly explains the visions of Mandela's work and some of his governmental issues.

AIDS: How the disease is becoming a national epidemic and what needs to be done in order to stop it and help those affected by it.
CHILDREN: Mandela's empathy and love for children and the foundations his government made for the needed children.
EDUCATION: The way South Africa education system is failing their citizen and the work he has done to restructure it for a better one.
LEGACY: What Mandela means for South Africa and the world.
POVERTY: His views of poverty and what he achieved and what needs to be done.
MAGIC: The power of sport as a common ground and what it means for our political health.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuqJpnSO1jc

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Nelson Mandela's Birthday

Thembu people

Xhosa language

Nelson Mandela and South Africa