The Fragebogen

Sebastiano Mondadori and the Dragonfly

2011-06-13T09:32:00.005-04:00

drawing by marguerita

«La curva dei tuoi occhi intorno al cuore» di Paul Eluard

By Sebastiano Mondadori · Wednesday, June 8, 2011

La curva dei tuoi occhi intorno al cuore

ruota un moto di danza e di dolcezza,

aureola di tempo,arca notturna e sicura

e se non so più quello che ho vissuto

è perchè non sempre i tuoi occhi mi hanno visto.

Foglie di luce e spuma di rugiada

canne del vento,risa profumate,

ali che coprono il mondo di luce,

navi cariche di cielo e di mare,

caccia di suoni e f...

View Full Note · More from Sebastiano

The eyes of the dragonfly are one of the most amazing and awe inspiring sights. Given almost 80% of the insect’s brain power is dedicated to its sight and the fact that it can see in all 360 degrees around it, it symbolizes the uninhibited vision of the mind and the ability to see beyond the limitations of the human self. It also in a manner of speaking symbolizes a man/woman’s rising from materialism to be able to see beyond the mundane into the vastness that is really our Universe, and our own minds.

Of Orchids, Passion and my Bleeding Heart

2010-04-19T14:00:00.015-04:00

"

Three weeks ago, Mark my husband and I went for a romantic promenade to the Bronx Botanical Gardens.

The flowers magical and spiritual forces emanate their powers and illuminate our path.

I needed desperately to be in a garden.

Look at flowers and particularly at orchids, one of plants that I am fascinated about .

Years ago, on my only visit to Brazil,since I left in 1976, we went to the Jardim Botanico in Rio de Janeiro where I spotted my wonderful flowers and stories about Orchids.

I love to grow orchids,which I did years ago,with a fierce interest,but lost them all through my

non stop moving .So I read books and take photographs when I have the opportunity.

Here a few of my latest ones.

Marguerita

Hyssop:'Purge me with Hyssop, and I shall be clean.'

2009-08-24T08:17:00.003-04:00

photo by marguerita

Hyssop is a name of Greek origin. The Hyssopos of Dioscorides was named from azob (a holy herb), because it was used for cleaning sacred places. It is alluded to in the Scriptures: 'Purge me with Hyssop, and I shall be clean.'

---Cultivation---It is an evergreen, bushy herb, growing 1 to 2 feet high, with square stem, linear leaves and flowers in whorls, six- to fifteen-flowered. Is a native of Southern Europe not indigenous to Britain, though stated to be naturalized on the ruins of Beaulieu Abbey in the New Forest.

Hyssop is cultivated for the use of its flower-tops, which are steeped in water to make an infusion, which is sometimes employed as an expectorant. There are three varieties, known respectively by their blue, red and white flowers, which are in bloom from June to October, and are sometimes employed as edging plants. Grown with catmint, it makes a lovely border, backed with Lavender and Rosemary. As a kitchen herb, it is mostly used for broths and decoctions, occasionally for salad. For medicinal use the flower-tops should be cut in August.

It may be propagated by seeds, sown in April, or by dividing the plants in spring and autumn, or by cuttings, made in spring and inserted in a shady situation. Plants raised from seeds or cuttings, should, when large enough, be planted out about 1 foot apart each way, and kept watered till established. They succeed best in a warm aspect and in a light, rather dry soil. The plants require cutting in, occasionally, but do not need much further attention.

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Expectorant, diaphoretic, stimulant, pectoral, carminative. The healing virtues of the plant are due to a particular volatile oil, which is stimulative, carminative and sudorific. It admirably promotes expectoration, and in chronic catarrh its diaphoretic and stimulant properties combine to render it of especial value. It is usually given as a warm infusion, taken frequently and mixed with Horehound. Hyssop Tea is also a grateful drink, well adapted to improve the tone of a feeble stomach, being brewed with the green tops of the herb, which are sometimes boiled in soup to be given for asthma. In America, an infusion of the leaves is used externally for the relief of muscular rheumatism, and also for bruises and discoloured contusions, and the green herb, bruised and applied, will heal cuts promptly.

The infusion has an agreeable flavour and is used by herbalists in pulmonary diseases.

It was once much employed as a carminative in flatulence and hysterical complaints, but is now seldom employed.

A tea made with the fresh green tops, and drunk several times daily, is one of the oldfashioned country remedies for rheumatism that is still employed. Hyssop baths have also been recommended as part of the cure, but the quantity used would need to be considerable.

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---Preparation---Fluid extract, 30 to 60 drops. The Hyssop of commerce (Hyssopus officinalis) occurs in Palestine, but is not conspicuous among the numerous Labiatae of the Syrian hillsides, which include thyme and marjoram, mint, rosemary and lavender. Tradition identifies the Hyssop of Scripture with the familiar herb, Marjoram (origanum), of which six species are found in the Holy Land. The common kind, so well known in cottage gardens (O. vulgare), grows only in the north, but an allied species (O. maru) abounds through the central hills, and a variety is common in the southern desert.

Dr. J. F. Royle disagrees, and identifies the Hyssop of the Bible with the Caper-plant (Capparis spinosa) which grows in the Jordan Valley, in Egypt, and the Desert, in the gorges of Lebanon, and in the Kedron Valley. It 'springs out of the walls' of the old Temple area. This view is supported by Canon Tristram and others. The Arabs call it azaf.

The leaves, stems and flowers of H. officinalis possess a highly aromatic odour and yield by distillation an essential oil of exceedingly fine odour, much appreciated by perfumers, its value being even greater than Oil of Lavender. It is also much employed in the manufacture of liqueurs, forming an important constituent in Chartreuse. Bees feed freely on the plant and the odour of the honey obtained from this source is remarkably good. The leaves are used locally as a medicinal tea. As a kitchen herb it has gone out of use because of its strong flavour, but on account of its aroma it was formerly employed as a strewing herb.

RECIPE FOR HYSSOP TEA
'Infuse a quarter of an ounce of dried hyssop flowers in a pint of boiling water for ten minutes; sweeten with honey, and take a wineglassful three times a day, for debility of the chest. It is also considered a powerful vermifuge.' (Old Cookery Book.)

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A Dill Story- Shubit

2009-05-13T22:11:00.004-04:00

Dill Folklore: To the Greeks the presence of dill was an indication of prosperity. In the 8th century, Charlemagne used it at banquets to relieve hiccups and in the Middle Ages it was used as a love potion and to keep witches away^[4].

In Semitic languages it is known by the name of Shubit. The Talmud requires that tithes shall be paid on the seeds, leaves, and stem of dill. The Bible states that the Pharisees were in the habit of paying dill as tithe;^[2]Jesus rebuked them for tithing dill but omitting justice, mercy and faithfulness^[3]

Dill (Anethum graveolens) is a short-lived perennial herb. It is the sole species of the genus Anethum, though classified by some botanists in a related genus as Peucedanum graveolens (L.) C.B.Clarke.

This afternoon,I walked from Chinatown to Union Square.There I found a stand in the Greenmarket that sold herbs and flowers.I noticed

the dill foliage and could not resist. I still have a little s[ace on my window sill,which already has five small clay pots ,one with a jasmin,a mint,an eucaliptus and a lavender.My garden!!!

It grows to 40–60 cm (16–24 in), with slender stems and alternate, finely divided, softly delicate leaves 10–20 cm (3.9–7.9 in) long. The ultimate leaf divisions are 1–2 mm (0.039–0.079 in) broad, slightly broader than the similar leaves of fennel, which are threadlike, less than 1 mm (0.039 in) broad, but harder in texture. The flowers are white to yellow, in small umbels 2–9 cm (0.79–3.5 in) diameter. The seeds are 4–5 mm (0.16–0.20 in) long and 1 mm (0.039 in) thick, and straight to slightly curved with a longitudinally ridged surface.

Its seeds, dill seeds are used as a spice, and its fresh leaves, dill, and its dried leaves, dill weed, are used as herbs.

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[edit]Origins and history

The eucalyptus oil story

2009-05-10T00:44:00.002-04:00

The eucalyptus oil story began in 1788 with the arrival of the First Fleet and Surgeon-General John White. Within a few weeks of arriving, White recorded in his diary the presence of olfactory oil in the eucalyptus; the genus being named eucalyptus by the French botanist L’Heritier in the same year. Governor Philip sent a sample to Sir Joseph Banks. Surgeon-General White distilled a quart of oil from the "Sydney Peppermint", Eucalyptus piperita Sm., which was found growing on the shores of Port Jackson, where Sydney now stands.When the oil was tested in England, it was reported to be "much more efficacious in removing all cholicky complaints than that of the oil obtained from the well known English peppermint, being less pungent and more aromatic". Following this discovery other people extracted eucalyptus oil, including the pioneer, Dr Officer in Tasmania, and the pastoralist Charles Armitage, but none of them exploited it.Baron Ferdinand von Meuller, the Government Botanist in Victoria, encouraged Joseph Bosisto, a Victorian pharmacist, to investigate the essential oils of the eucalyptus on a commercial basis. Joseph Bosisto was a Yorkshireman who had qualified as a Pharmacist in Leeds and London. He arrived in Adelaide in 1848 at the age of 21. In 1851 he moved to Victoria in search of gold, but instead opened a pharmacy in Richmond, where he built a laboratory to investigate the chemical and medicinal properties of Australian plants.As a result of the collaboration with von Meuller the essential oil industry of Australia began in 1852, when Bosisto commenced operations in a small, rudely constructed still at Dandenong Creek, Victoria, using the leaves of a form of E. radiata (then known as E. amygdalina) which grew profusely in the district. Bosisto soon built other distilleries at Emerald, Menzies Creek and Macclesfield.

Property

Eucalyptus has a clear, sharp, fresh and very distinctive smell, is pale yellow in color and watery in viscosity.The Australian Blue-gum can sometimes reaches a height of 100 meters (300 feet), making it one of the highest trees in the world.

Sampaguita

2009-01-31T13:12:00.002-05:00

Sampaguita

Sampaguita (Jasminum sambac) is a sweetly scented tropical flower. Belonging to the wide genus of Jasmines (Jasminum), Sampaguita is the common name of the species Jasminum sambac. Sampaguita is also known as Philippine Jasmine, Arabian jasmine, Pikake in Hawaii, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Kampupot, and Melati .

Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Lamiales
Family: Oleaceae
Genus: Jasminum

The species Jasminum sambac is native to southern Asia, in India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Sampaguita is serving as the National Flower of for two countries - Philippines and Indonesia.. The beautiful ornamental Sampaguita blooms cover the glossy green leafed bushed type ever bloomer. The Sampaguita is also well known in Asia for its use in teas and religious offerings, symbolizing divine hope.

Sampaguita grow on a woody vine or semi-climbing shrub, which reaches a height of 1,2 meters. The leaves are ovate or rounded in shape and 6 to 12 cm long. The leaves and Sampaguita flowers grow on short stalks. The Sampaguita flowers bloom either singly or as bundles of blossoms at the top of the branches. Blooming all through the year, Sampaguita are pure white, small, dainty, star-shaped blossoms. The flowers open at night and wilt in less than a day. The Sampaguita flower has about 8-10 calyx teeth that are very slender, and 5 to 8 mm long. The Sampaguita's corolla tube is slender and 1 to 1.5 cm long, the limb is usually double and 1.5 to 2 cm in diameter. The 2 stamens on the Sampaguita are included with a 2-celled ovary.

Sampaguita's distinct sweet, heady fragrance is its unique feature. The essential oil from the flowers is similar to jasmin (Jasminum grandiflores). Sampaguita flowers do not bear seeds, therefore the plant is cultivated by cuttings. Sampaguita was imported into the Philippines in the 17th century from Himalayan areas. The Sampaguita is a native part of the Philippine landscape for centuries. The plant is originally from India and is grown throughout India today. About eight cultivars are generally listed for Sampaguita.Some varieties of Sampaguitas can grow as large as small roses in India.

Varieties of Sampaguita

There are three varieties of Sampaguita, commonly referred to as Single Petal, Double and Double-Double. The double layered Sampaguita are called 'kampupot,' which are less fragrant. The three major varieties: 'Maid of Orleans', 'Belle of India' and 'Grand Duke' - differ from each other by the shape of leaves and flowers structure. The fourth popular variety Mysore Mulli, a variation of the 'Belle of India'.

Maid of Orleans: Single with five rounded petals
Belle of India:Semi-double or single (single and double flowers on the same plant) with elongated petals
Grand Duke of Tuscany: clusters of flowers (sometimes single flower). Only the central flower is truly double-rossete. Side flowers are semi-double, and like miniature roses

Facts About Sampaguita

Sampaguita is considered a symbol of fidelity, purity, devotion, strength and dedication.
In the Philippines, the Sampaguita is called by various names: sambac, sampagung, campopot, lumabi, kulatai, pongso, malur and manul.
The name Sampaguita is a Spanish term that comes from the Philippino words "sumpa kita," which mean 'I promise you.'
The Chinese emperor of the Sung dynasty had Sampaguita growing in his palace grounds to enjoy its heavenly fragrance.
Even the kings of Afghanistan, Nepal and Persia had Jasmine planted, in the 1400s.
Since ancient times, Jasmine has been cultivated for its essential oils.
Varieties of Jasmine, like J. grandiflorum, are especially used in perfumes.
Though, Sampaguita (unlike other Jasmine varieties) is not a key ingredient in top-price perfumes, its scent and makeup have given it important uses.
Sampaguita has been used for hair ornamentation in India, China and Philippines as well.
Malaysians scent the hair oil from coconut with Sampaguita scents.
Sampaguita is also used medicinally. Its perfume is believed to relieve a many ailments including headaches and promotes a feeling of well being.
Sampaguita roots were used to treat wounds and snake bites. The leaves and the flowers have antipyretic and decongestant properties
Sampaguita flower extract acts as a deodorant.

Growing Sampaguita

Sampaguita plant cuttings are easy to root. More plants means more blooms at one given time and the more fragrance!
Plant them in 3 gal pots. The plants are both full sun or shade tolerant.
Use a good potting soil (with lots of organic matter like peat moss and humus).
If the plant is exposed to certain conditions for a long time it gets used to them, and may get stressed after the conditions change significantly. However, gradual change should be fine.
The smaller the plant, the easier it gets adjusted to new conditions.
The potting mix must be well-drained. Never use top soil or garden soil for potting to avoid rotting in roots.
All Sampaguita plants need lots of light for blooming. Bright light along with regular fertilization will encourage blooming.
Move the plant into a larger pot every spring or when the plant overgrows the pot.

Sampaguita Plant Care

Fertilize the plants monthly with a balanced fertilizer from spring through fall.
The stems should be tied to supports and keep the soil evenly moist through the growing season.
Pruning of sampaguita should be taken up after flowering to keep the plants thinned and shaped.
Protect from frost in temperate regions.
As a tropical plant, the Sampaguita loves heat, it grows best when the soil around it stays moist but not soggy.
Do not over-fertilize or over water.
Bigger flowers need plenty of sun.

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Interesting information on this topic

About Obama: Chega de Tristeza

2008-11-05T14:55:00.005-05:00

A Brazilian journalist comments on Obama's election,underlining that his victory happened mostly by sheer luck.
Well ,luck WE NEED, but mostly the world had so far an overdose of Anger and Hate,which resulted from greed and injustice,a domino effect after the Depression and Hitler's horrible reign and consequences.
Change,We Need,and all of us are needy for a respite and co-exist.
After all,if not were should not call ourselves Homo or Femina Sapiens,but rather Plain Beasts.
If we do some introspection and stop a little to understand our role on Earth vis a vis Nature,we immediately can find the so called answers to our mysteries.
We are all on the same boat,navigating in the same waters or as I remember the playwright
Braulio Pedrosos" Viemos todos na mesma caravela"........
Here the text from Brazil.which I do not aggree with in its entirety.
And Yes, CHANGE ,WE NEED,for the better, coomon sense and a conscience.
So Sarava, Eliane!

George W. Bush foi um dos presidentes mais populares dos EUA, com índices de aprovação que chegaram a bater em 90% depois do 11 de setembro, mas sai da Casa Branca pela porta dos fundos, com uma crise financeira internacional sem precedentes, com as contas dos EUA de pernas para o ar e com a biografia para sempre manchada por ter invadido o Iraque em cima de uma mentira --a das armas químicas, afinal inexistentes-- e passando por cima da ONU. Quantos soldados americanos pagaram e quanto a economia do país pagou por isso?

Barack Obama, o senador negro, nascido no Havaí, filho de queniano, é um salto histórico enorme. Um salto de qualidade, pela simbologia, pela concretização de uma mudança profunda que é política, social e cultural. Mas é também um salto no escuro. Aos 47 anos, é bastante jovem para o desafio, jamais ocupou cargos executivos de ponta e era um desconhecido não apenas no mundo, mas dentro do próprio EUA, até sair da cadeira de senador e bater a então imbatível Hillary Clinton nas primárias do Partido Democrata.

Para fazer um bom governo, um governo tão extraordinário quanto sua eleição, Obama conta com fatores objetivos e subjetivos. O mais objetivo de todos é a força política: ele venceu com uma margem expressiva e surpreendente de votos, contrariando as sempre apertadas eleições americanas (vide a do próprio Bush...), vai unir um democrata na Casa Branca com uma sólida maioria democrata no Congresso, contrariando a tradição, e chega ao poder da maior, ou única, potência, com uma simpatia internacional poucas vezes vista.

Além disso, Obama se beneficiou do "timing" da crise: ela se alastrou pelo mundo e foi aguda durante a campanha, mas está ficando sob controle e tende a amenizar por gravidade no início do seu governo. Ou seja: a crise de certa forma prejudicou as pretensões do republicano John McCain, correligionário de Bush, e favoreceu Obama, que é democrata e baseou o discurso na "mudança", na capacidade de tirar o país do atoleiro. E ele, ao assumir em 20 de janeiro de 2009, já deverá encontrar um ambiente econômico muito mais sereno, ou pelo menos muito menos assustador. E poderá capitalizar indiretamente o clima do "pior já passou".

Seu desafio será recolocar as contas públicas, o balanço de pagamentos e os indicadores macro-econômicos americanos no lugar. Mas sem o desespero da crise de setembro e outubro. Não será fácil, e o risco de frustração realmente existe, mas é possível e bem provável que a situação no início do seu governo esteja muito melhor do que no fim do mandato Bush. O primeiro passo é acertar na equipe, com os homens e mulheres certos nos lugares certos.

Tudo somado, temos que Barack Hussein Obama, além de todos os predicados concretos, tem também aquele que é fundamental: sorte. A expectativa é que assuma justamente quando o pior da crise já tiver passado, prontinho para fazer o que é preciso fazer e colher no final os louros.

Se a fase aguda da crise parece estar passando, isso vale também para o Brasil, onde Lula mantém seus 80% de popularidade, os indicadores da indústria ainda não acusaram o golpe e tudo indica que, entre mortos e feridos, a campanha de Dilma Rousseff em 2010 vai muito bem, obrigada.

Lá nos EUA, como aqui no Brasil, Obama e Lula têm muitas coisas em comum. Uma delas é essa: sorte, uma incomensurável sorte. Ótimo. Que isso reflita positivamente para os EUA, para o Brasil e principalmente para o mundo.

Eliane Cantanhêde é colunista da Folha, desde 1997, e comenta governos, política interna e externa, defesa, área social e comportamento. Foi colunista do Jornal do Brasil e do Estado de S. Paulo, além de diretora de redação das sucursais de O Globo, Gazeta Mercantil e da própria Folha em Brasília.

P. S.
I worked for the Folha in 1967- 69.
Marguerita
http://.thepoignantfrog.blogspot.com

Paula Toller & Rital Lee - Desculpe o auê

2008-07-03T23:51:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY5qbMNG0Ws

Jozef Szaina:“Today I have a name; then I was a number”

2008-06-30T09:37:00.009-04:00

By Dennis hevesi

Published: June 30, 2008

Jozef Szajna, a Polish playwright, set designer and theater director who through often nearly wordless productions evoked the beastliness of humanity, the suffocation of individuality and the oppressiveness of dictatorship — gaining acclaim even during the Communist era — died on Tuesday in Warsaw. He was 86. His death was announced by the Warsaw Academy of Arts, according to Agence France-Presse.

Mr. Szajna (pronounced SHY-nuh) was a Roman Catholic who survived five years in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.

“Today I have a name; then I was a number,” he once said.

In 1976, a production of Mr. Szajna’s play “Replika” was staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As the curtain rose, a smoldering mass appeared: garbage, tattered shoes, human limbs. It stirred. A begrimed hand reached out, touched a remnant of bread and dragged it below. Soon after, a crawling figure lunged at a mangled mannequin, crying out, “Mama, mama.”

Those were among the few words uttered by the four survivors, later joined by an aggressor, as they grunted and groaned through the heap of remnants of a once-flourishing civilization.

“It is a protest against war; it says, ‘Look at what we make of ourselves,’ ” Mr. Szajna told The New York Times, adding: “All the kings and queens, presidents and premiers should see ‘Replika.’ All of them at the United Nations. Maybe even your politicians before one becomes president.”

In Poland, Mr. Szajna circumvented Communist censors by presenting his work as abstract expressions of opposition to fascism and to passivity in the face of repression: his productions were eloquent in their near-silence by speaking wordlessly.

Among his other plays are “Rejoinder,” “Reminiscence” and “Dante,” the latter based on the journey through the realms of the dead in the 14th-century “Divine Comedy” but laced with Mr. Szajna’s depictions of 20th-century hellishness.

“The primary accent in this type of theater falls on visual expression,” Malgorzata Kitowska-Lysiak, a professor of art history at the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, wrote in a 2003 profile of Mr. Szajna.

Pointing out that Mr. Szajna never disregarded the actor “with his individual gestures, or the word,” Ms. Kitowska-Lysiak said, “Nevertheless, the most important role in his theater is allotted to visual signs and imagery: expansive scenery and often grotesquely oversized props.”

Mr. Szajna called his work, with its harrowing frozen moments, “visual narration.”

Off stage, Mr. Szajna spoke out through individual artworks: sculptures, paintings, prints and collages, many of which incorporated objects like worn strips of leather, chunks of rubber, fragments of fabric, body parts from dolls, lists of concentration camp survivors and barbed wire.

Mr. Szajna was born in the southeastern Polish city of Rzeszow on March 13, 1922. At 16, he won a national diving championship. At 18, while fighting with the Polish resistance, he was arrested by the Nazis. After a foiled attempt to escape from Auschwitz, he was sent to Buchenwald.

“Waiting for execution brought me closer to the problems of eternity,” he later wrote. “All that we believed in — races, classes, political views — were not important anymore.” His death sentence was commuted by a new commander at Buchenwald, and he spent the rest of the war as a slave laborer.

He then turned to art. Mr. Szajna graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, with a degree in graphics, in 1952. A year later, he earned a degree in stage design at the academy. For the next nine years, he taught there. At the same time, he designed scenery for many productions in Poland, particularly as one of the founders, managing director and artistic director of Teatr Ludowy (the People’s Theater) in Nowa Huta.

In 1971, Mr. Szajna was chosen to open a new venue in Warsaw, the Teatr Studio, housed within the Palace of Culture, a huge Stalinist-era building that was originally supposed to be headquarters for Soviet intelligence agencies.

“Our theater,” Mr. Szajna told The Times in 1981, “speaks against terror, against threats to man’s humanity, against the loss of individualism and independence.”

Though he was not Jewish, Mr. Szajna was cited by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota as “the most important theater director and artist in Poland whose work deals with the memory of the Nazi period and the Holocaust.”

The number on Mr. Szajna’s arm was 18729.

NYTimes

SZAJNA Józef (ur. 1922)

Józef Szajna, Zapomnienie, 1968

malarz, scenograf, reżyser, dyr. teatru; w czasie wojny więzień hitler. obozów w Oświęcimiu i Buchenwaldzie - przeżycia tego okresu odbijają się w twórczości Sz.; łącząc techniki malarskie z kolażem i asamblażem, tworzył dramatyczne obrazy oddające nastrój zniszczenia, zagłady, przemijania (Epitafium I, Dramat III); 1953-55 scenograf w Teatrze Ziemi Opolskiej, skąd z K. Skuszanką i J. Krasowskim przeniósł się do Teatru Ludowego w Nowej Hucie, gdzie jego opracowania plastyczne w wyraźny sposób wpływały na kształt przedstawień (m.in.: Księżniczka Turandot C. Gozziego, Myszy i ludzie wg J. Steinbecka, Jacobowsky i pułkownik F. Werfla, Burza Szekspira, Radość z odzyskanego śmietnika wg J. Kadena-Bandrowskiego, Dziady A. Mickiewicza); współpracował sporadycznie z innymi teatrami; 1962 był współtwórcą Akropolis S. Wyspiańskiego w reżyserii J. Grotowskiego; 1963-66 dyr. Teatru Ludowego w Krakowie, debiut reżyserski (Rewizor M. Gogola, 1963); 1972-82 dyr. Teatru Studio w Warszawie, gdzie rozwijał teatr zdominowany metaforyką plastyczną, w którym aktor sprowadzony został do roli nadmarionety; autonomiczna kreacja rzeczywistości ukazywała cywilizację upadku (jako wysypisko żelastwa i zbiorowisko kalekich postaci): Witkacy; Gulgutiera (współautor scenariusza - M. Czanerle), Replika (kolejne wersje), Dante, Cervantes; twórca environments (np. Ściana butów w galerii Zachęta w Warszawie, Reminiscencje - pamięci artystów straconych w Oświęcimiu oraz happeningów (np. Deballage w Nicei); od lat 70. maluje obrazy o charakterze metaforycznym; (2003) dr h.c. Uniw. Śląskiego
.http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.teatry.art.pl/portrety/szajna/wariacjet.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.teatry.art.pl/portrety/szajna/teatrj.htm&h=246&w=300&sz=24&hl=en&start=15&sig2=t6NGl_cSEIWRW9u48-LwJA&um=1&tbnid=7M9JvrJyOXAvcM:&tbnh=95&tbnw=116&ei=K-doSIiGGIHIef3Toc0P&prev=/images%3Fq%3DJozef%2BSzajna,%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN
http://www.ejpress.org/article/28263

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; document.write('&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://clk.atdmt.com/NOR/go/nwyrkuja0030000043nor/direct/01/2008.06.30.13.38.29" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;img src="http://view.atdmt.com/NOR/view/nwyrkuja0030000043nor/direct/01/2008.06.30.13.38.29"/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;'); &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/script&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;noscript&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://clk.atdmt.com/NOR/go/nwyrkuja0030000043nor/direct/01/2008.06.30.13.38.29" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;img border="0" src="http://view.atdmt.com/NOR/view/nwyrkuja0030000043nor/direct/01/2008.06.30.13.38.29" /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/noscript&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

George Bush & Co's Accomplished Mission

2008-06-18T17:39:00.002-04:00

Iraq-Father kissing his dead son- June 17 2008- photo by Karim Kadim AP

Luigi Pirandello: (1867-1936)

2008-06-16T08:57:00.003-04:00

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)

Italian author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934 for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and c. 40 plays, some of which are written in Sicilian dialect. Typical for Pirandello is to show how art or illusion mixes with reality and how people see things in very different way - words are unrealiable and reality is at the same time true and false. Pirandello's tragic farces are often seen as forerunners for theatre of the absurd.

Luigi Pirandello was born in Caos, near Girgenti, on the island of Sicily, which was to be the inspiration of his writings. "I am a child of Chaos and not only allegorically," he said in his biographical sketch; his family spent vacations at a house called Chaos. Pirandello's father, Stefano Ricci-Gramitto, who had fought with Garibaldi, owned a prosperous sulfur mine.

His childhood Pirandello spent in modest weath in Girgenti (today called Agrigento) and Palermo, surrounded by nurses and servants, and enjoying the adoration of his mother. From his teens Pirandello showed literary talents, but he first studied law. His father intended his son to become a businessman. In 1887 Pirandello entered the University of Rome, from where he was expelled for offending a Latin professor, and then transferred to the University of Bonn, Germany, receiving his doctoral degree in Roman philology in 1891. Pirandello's dissertation, written in Germany, dealt with the dialect of his native region.

After having a liaison with his cousin Linuccia, which his father did not approve, Pirandello started his career as a writer. "Blessed is he who can stop halfway and before old age comes on can marry illusion and preserve it lovingly," Pirandello wrote in 1887 in a letter of his future plans. In Rome, where he had settled with a montly allowance from his father, Pirandello translated Goethe's Roman Elegies, wrote ELEGIE RENANE (1895), and published two collections of poetry, and a collection of short stories, AMORI SENZ' AMORE (1894). In 1898 he became a professor of Italian literature at a teacher's college for women, and worked there for 24 years. L'ESCLUSA (1901) was Pirandello's first full-length novel. In the ironical story the protagonist suspects that his wife is unfaithful and takes her back after the adultery has actually occurred.

Pirandello had married in 1894 Antonietta Portulano, a fellow Sicilian and the daughter of his father's business associate. She suffered mental breakdown in 1904. When her condition steadily worsened - she became insane with a jealous paranoia - the illness deeply influenced Pirandello's writing. During World War I, both of Pirandello's sons were captured as prisoners of war. After his wife's illness got worse, Pirandello was forced to place her in 1919 in a mental institution.When the collapse of the sulfur mines destroyed the family business, Pirandello had to turn his writing into a financially profitable activity. In 1904 Pirandello gained his first literary success with the novel IL FU MATTIA PASCAL. Its antihero, Mattia Pascal, is mistakenly declared dead. Offered an opportunity to start life over again, he escapes from his family. In Monte Carlo Mattia wins a fortune, but his newly found freedom turns sour and he must return to his hometown, to his past he had hoped to leave behind. "I can't really say that I'm myself," he thinks. "I don't know who I am. . . . I am the late Mattia Pascal." In the following decades the questions "who am I?" and "what is real?" became central in Pirandello's fiction. UNO, NESSUNO E CENTOMILA (1925-26, One, None, and Hundred-Thousand), a story about husband's descend into madness, owed more to Freud than Gogol. His despair starts when his wife comments a slight defect on his nose - it tilts to the right.

Pirandello started to write plays as early as in the 1880s, but he first considered the stage insensitive medium compared to the novel. After 1915, Pirandello concentrated on the theater and wrote until 1921 sixteen dramas. LA RAGIONE DEGLI ALTRI (1915) was Pirandello's first three-act play. It did not gain much understanding, but through the performances of the actor Angelo Musco (1892-1937) his work started to attract attention. His ideal female lead Pirandello found in Marta Abba, for whom he wrote several plays, among them DIANA E LA TUDA (1926, Diana and Tuda), L'AMICA DELLE MOGLI (1927, The Wives's Friend), and COME TU MI VUOI (1930, As You Desire Me). Pirandello also engaged her for his own company, the Teatro d'Arte di Roma, and formed a relationship with her, documented in Pirandello's Love Letters to Martha Abba (1994).

COSI È (SE VI PARE) (Right You Are - If You Think You Are), published in 1918, marked Pirandello's interest in the examination of the relativity of truth. The story was about a woman whose identity remains hidden and who could be one of the two very different people. SEI PERSONAGGI IN CERCA D'AUTORE (1921, Six Chracters in Search of An Author) asked the question, can fictional characters be more authentic than real persons, and what is the relationship between imaginary characters and the writer, who has created them.

Six Characters in Search of an Author consists of roles-within-roles. In rehearsal preparations of a theatrical company are interrupted by the Father and his family who explain that they are characters from an unfinished dramatic works. They want to interpret again crucial moments of their lives, claiming that they are "truer" than the "real" characters. "How can we understand each other if the words I use have the sense and the value I expect them to have, but whoever is listening to me inevitably thinks that those same words have a different sense and value, because of the private world he has inside himself too. We think we understand each other: but we never do," says the Father. He tells that he has helped his wife to start a new life with her lover and the three illegitimate children born to them. The Wife claims that he forced her into the arms of another man. The Stepdaughter accuses the Father for her shame - they met before in Mme Pace's infamous house, and he did not recognize her. She was forced to turn to prostitution to support the family. The Son refuses to acknowledge his family and runs into the garden. He shots himself and the actors argue about whether the boy is dead or not. The Father insists that the events are real. The Producer says: "Make-believe?! Reality?! Oh, go to hell the lot of you! Lights! Lights! Lights!" and The Stepdaughter escapes into the audience laughing maniacally.

Six Chracters in Search of An Author created a scandal when it was first performed in Rome, but it was hailed as a masterpiece in Paris, innovatively produced by Georges Pitoëff. G.B. Shaw praised it as the most original play ever. ENRICO IV (1922, Henry IV, known in the United States as The Living Mask), premiered in Milan, received much better reception. The play told about a man who has fallen from his horse during a masquerade and starts to believe he is the German emperor Henry IV. To accommodate his illness his wealthy sister has placed him in a medieval castle surrounded by actors dressed as eleventh-century courtiers. The nameless hero regains his sanity after twelve years, but decides to pretend he is mad.

With the trilogy Six Characters in Search of An Author, in which the characters of the title are called into existence by a writer, CIASCUNO A SUO MODO (1924) and QUESTA SERA SI RECITA A SOGGETO (1930), Pirandello revolutionized the modern theatrical techniques. A second trilogy, LA NUOVA COLONIA (1928), LAZZARRO (1929), and I GIGANTI DELLA MONTAGNA (1934, The Mountain Giants) moved from the limits of truth-telling to the reality outside of art. The Mountain Giants was left unfinished. It portrayed a magician, who lives in an abandoned villa. A theatrical company decides to perform at a celebration given by the 'Giants of the Mountain'. The barbaric audience tears two of the actors to pieces and kills one of the directors of the company.

Pirandello once said: "I hate symbolic art in which the presentation loses all spontaneous movement in order to become a machine, an allegory - a vain and misconceived effort because the very fact of giving an allegorical sense to a presentation clearly shows that we have to do with a fable which by itself has no truth either fantastic or direct; it was made for the demonstration of some moral truth." (from Playwrights on Playwriting, ed. by Toby Cole, 1961) Pirandello's central themes, the problem of identity, the ambiguity of truth and reality, has been compared to explorations of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, but he also anticipated Beckett and Ionesco. One of the earliest formulations of his relativist position Pirandello presented in the essay 'Art and Consciousness Today' (1893), in which he argued that the old norms have crumbled and the idea of relativity deprives "almost altogether of the faculty for judgment." A central concepts in his work is "naked mask", referring our social roles and on the stage the dialectic relationship between the actor and the character portrayed. In Six Characters the father points out, that a fictional figure has a permanence that comes from an unchanging text, but a real-life person may well be "a nobody". Pirandello did not only restrict his ideas to theatre acting, but noted in his novel SI GIRA (1915), that the film actor "feels as if in exile - exiled not only from the stage, but also from himself."

In 1923 Pirandello requested membership in the Fascist party and obtained Mussolini's support in founding the National Art Theatre of Rome (Teatro d'Arte di Roma). However, the company was closed in 1928 on grounds of financial problems. In 1934 Pirandello's libretto for Gian Francesco Malipiero's opera The Fable of the Changeling was criticized by the Fascist authorities. Pirandello had first seen in Mussolini a man committed to the facts rather than theory, but later he described Mussolini as "as top hat, and empty top hat that by itself cannot stand upright". Remaining critical towards the regime, he did not support the Ethiopian invasion by Italy. Pirandello died in Rome on December 10, 1936.

Pirandello's influence can be seen on such European and American writers as Jean Anouilh, Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Eugene O'Neill, and Edward Albee. In Latin America, Jorge Luis Borges's questioning of the nature of identity have much in common with Pirandellian themes. Several of Pirandello's works have been adapted to screen, including As You Desire Me (1932), starring Greta Garbo, L'homme de nulle part (1937), based on the novel The Late Mathias Pascal and directed by and Pierre Chenal. Kaos, directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (1984), was based on the author's four Sicilian stories.

For further reading: Characters and Authors in Luigi Pirandello by Ann Caesar (1998); Luigi Pirandello, 1867-1936, His Plays in Sicilian by Joseph F. Privitera (1998); Luigi Pirandello: The Theatre of Paradox, ed. by Julie Dashwood (1997); Ars dramatica: Studi sulla poetica di Luigi Pirandello by Rena A. Lamparska (1997); Understanding Luigi Pirandello by Fiora A. Bassanese, James N. Hardin (1997); Pirandello & Film by Nina Davinci Nichols, et al (1995); A Companion to Pirandello Studies, ed. by John Louis Digaetani (June 1991); Moments of Selfhood by James V. Biundo (1990); Luigi Pirandello by S. Bassnett-McGuire (1983); Luigi Pirandello: an Approach to his Theatre by O. Ragusa (1980); Dreams of Passion: The Theater of Luigi Pirandello by R, Oliver (1979); Introduzione alla critica pirandelliana by A. Illano (1976); Pirandello: a Biography by G. Giudice (1975); Pirandello fascista by G.F. Vené (1971); Luigi Pirandello by G. Giudice (1963); L' arte di Luigi Pirandello by F. Puglisi (1958); Playwrights on Playwrighting, ed. by Toby Cole (1961); Luigi Pirandello by L. Ferrante (1958); Luigi Pirandello by L. Baccalo (1949); L' Uomo segreto by F.V. Nardelli (1944); L'opera di Luigi Pirandello by M. Lo Vecchio Musti (1939) - Suomeksi Pirandellolta on käännetty useita näytelmiä ja esseekokoelma Uusi teatteri ja vanha teatteri (1934).

Selected works:

LAUTE UND LAUTENTWICKLUNG DER MUNDART VON GIRGENTI, 1891 - The Sounds of the Girgenti Dialect, and Their Development (trans. by Giovanni R. Bussino)
MAL GIOCONDO, 1889 - Painful Joy
PASQUA DI GEA, 1891
MARTA AJALA, 1893 (republished as L'esclusa in 1901)
AMORI SENZ' AMORE, 1894 - Loves Without Love
ELEGIE RENANE, 1895
L'EPILOGO, (published in 1898, produced in 1910 under the title La Morsa)
L'ESCLUSA, 1901 - The Outcast (trans. by Leo Ongley)
IL TURNO, 1902 - The Merry-Go-Round of Love (trans. by Frances Keene)
LE BEFFE DELLA VITA E DELLA MORTE, 1902
QUAND' ERO MATTO, 1902
BIANCHA E NERE, 1904
IL FU MATTIA PASCAL, 1904 - The Late Mattia Pascal (trans. by William Weaver) - Mennyttä miestä (suom. Liisa Ryömä) - films: 1925, Feu Mathias Pascal, dir. by Marcel L'Herbier; 1936, L'homme de nulle part / The Man from Nowhere, dir. by Pierre Chenal, starring Pierre Blanchar; 1985, Le due vite di Mattia Pascal, dir. by Mario Monicelli, starring Marcello Mastroianni
ERMA BIFRONTE, 1906
LA VITA NUDA, 1908
L'UMORISMO, 1908 - On Humor (trans. by Antonio Illiano and Daniel P. Testa)
ARTE E SCIENZA, 1908
SCAMANDRO, 1909
SUO MARITO, 1911 - Her Husband (translated by Martha King and Mary Ann Frese Witt)
LUMÍE DI SICILIA, 1911
TERZETTI, 1912
CECÈ, 1913
LE DUE MASCHERE, 1914
LA TRAPPOLA, 1915
LA RAGIONE DEGLI ALTRI, 1915
SI GIRA..., 1915 - Elämän filmi
ERBA DEL NOSTRO ORTO, 1915
SE NON ROSI, 1916
ALL'USCITA, 1916 - At the Gate
LA MASCHERA E IL VOLTO, 1916 - The Mask and the Face
E DOMANI, LUNEDI?..., 1917
L'INNESTO, 1917
PENSACI, GIACOMINO!, 1917 - Better Think Twice About It
IL PIACERE DELL' ONESTÀ, 1917 - The Pleasure of Honesty
LIOLÀ, 1917 - trans.
COSI È (SE VI PARE), 1918 - Right You Are, If You Think You Are (trans. by Stanley Appelbaum) - Niin on (jos siltä näyttää)
UN CAVALLO NELLA LUNA, 1918
LA PATENTE, 1919
IL PIACERE DELL' ONESTÀ, IL GIOCO DELLE PARTI, 1918 - The Rules of the Game (translated and adapted by David Hare)
IL CARNEVALE DEI MORTI, 1919
TU RIDI, 1919
MA NON È UNA COSA SERIA, 1919
IL GIUOCO DELLE PARTI, 1919
L'UOMO, LA BESTIA, A LA VIRTÙ, 1919
BERECCHE E LA GUERRA, 1919
MASCHERE NUDE, 1919-1922 (4 vols.) - Naked Masks: Five Plays (ed. by Eric Bentley)
TUTTO PER BENE, 1920 - All for the Best
IL BERRETTO A SONAGLI, 1920 - Cap and Bells
COME PRIMA, MEGLIO DI PRIMA, 1921 - films: 1956, Never Say Goodbye, dir. by Jerry Hopper; 1945, This Love of Ours, dir. by William Dieterle starring Merle Oberon, Claude Rains
L'INNESTO, 1921
SEI PERSONAGGI IN CERCA D'AUTORE, 1921 - Six Chracters in Search of An Author (translators: John Linstrum, Mark Musa, Eric Bentley, Edward Storer) - Kuusi henkilöä etsii tekijää
ENRICO IV, 1922 - The Living Mask / Henry IV (trans. by Julian Mitchell) - films: 1943, dir. by Georgio Pastina. Cast: Enzo Biliotti, Clara Calamai, Rubi D'Alma, Lauro Gazzolo, Augusto Maracci, Umberto Melnati, Luigi Pavese, Giorgio Piamonti, Francesco Rissone, Oswaldo Valent; 1985, dir. by Marco Bellocchio
NOVELLE PER UN ANNO, 1922-37
LA SIGNORA MORLI UNA E DUE, 1922
Three Plays, 1922
VESTIRE GLI IGNUDI, 1923 - Naked (trans. by Nina daVinci Nichols) / To Clothe the Naked
LA VITA CHE TI DIEDI, 1924 - The Life I Gave You (translated by Frederick May)
CIASCUNO A SUO MODO, 1924 - Each in His Own Way (trans. by Arthur Livingston)
SAGRA DEL SIGNORE DELLA NAVE, 1924
LA GIARA, 1925
L'ALTRO FIGLIO, 1925
QUADERNI DE SERAFINO GUBBIO, OPERATORE, 1925 - The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio, Cinematograph Operator (trans. by C.K. Scott Moncrieff) - Elämän filmi (suom. Anna Silfverblad

)

UNO, NESSUNO E CENTOMILA, 1925-26 - One, None, and Hundred-Thousand (translated and introduced by William Weaver)
DIANA E LA TUDA, 1926 - Diana and Tuda
L'IMBECILLE, 1926
L'UOMO DEL FIORE IN BOCCA, 1926
L'AMICA DELLE MOGLI, 1927 - The Wives' Friend (trans. by Marta Abba)
The One-Act Plays, 1928
BELLAVITA, 1928
LA NUOVA COLONIA, 1928 - The New Colony
O DI UNO O DI NESSUNO, 1929
LAZZARO, 1929 - Lazarus
SOGNO (MA FORSE NO), 1929
COME TU MI VUOI, 1930 - As You Desire Me (trans. by Marta Abba) - film 1932, dir. by George Fitzmaurice, starring Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Erich von Stroheim
QUESTA SERA SI RECITA A SOGGETTO, 1930 - Tonight we Improvise (translated by J. Douglas Campbell and Leonard G. Sbrocchi) - Tämä iltana improvisoimme
TROVARSI, 1930 - To Find Onself (trans. by Marta Abba) - Löydänkö itseni
QUANDO SI È QUALCUNO, 1933 - When Somebody Is Somebody
Better Think Twice About It, and Twelve Other Stories, 1934
The Naked Truth, and Eleven Other Stories, 1934 (trans. by Arthur and Henrie Mayne)
I GIGANTI DELLA MONTAGNA, 1934 - The Mountain Giants
LA FAVOLA DEL FIGLIO CAMBIATO, 1934
NON SI SA COME, 1935 - No One Knows How (trans. by Marta Abba)
NOVELLE PER UNO ANNO, 1937-38
The Medals and Other Stories, 1938
Four Tales, 1939
NOVELLE PER UN ANNO, 1956-57 (2 vols.)
TUTTI I ROMANZI, 1957
MASCHERE NUDE, 1958 (2 vols.)
OPERE, 1958-59 (5 vols.)
Short Stories, 1959 (trans. by Lily Duplaix)
SAGGI, POESIE, SCRITTI VARII, 1960
The Rules of the Game; The Life I Gave You; Lazarus, 1960
To Clothe the Naked and Two Other Plays, 1962 (trans. by William Murray)
The Merry-Go-Around of Love and Selected Stories, 1964
Pirandello's One-Act Plays, 1964 (trans. by William Murray)
Short Stories, 1964
On Humor, 1974
Tales of Madness: A Selection from Luigi Pirandello's Short Stories for a Year, 1984 (trans. by Giovanni R. Bussino)
Eleven Short Stories / Undici Novelle, 1994 (translated and edited by Stanley Appelbaum)
Oil Jar and Other Stories, 1994 (translated by Stanley Appelbaum)
Lettere a Marta Abba, 1995 - Pirandello's Love Letters to Martha Abba (edited and translated by Benito Ortolani)
Luigi Pirandello, 1867-1936: His Plays in Sicilian, 1998 (2 vols., trans. by Joseph F. Privitera)
Three Major Plays, 2000 (trans. by Carl R. Mueller)

Memory of the Camps

2008-06-15T15:44:00.004-04:00

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/camp/view/.
http://pedrodoria.com.br/2008/06/15/alfred-hitchcock-e-seu-documentario-sobre-o-holocausto-na-europa/#comment-193399

For everyone that asks me where is my family?
This documentary answers the pain I feel on my skin.
And now I am being evicted on June 17th.Have no place to go.
Marguerita

Yves Saint Laurent: Je t'aime toujours

2008-06-03T11:29:00.005-04:00

“The clothes incorporated all my dreams,” he said after the show, “all my heroines in the novels, the operas, the paintings. It was my heart — everything I love that I gave to this collection.”http://www.parismatch.com/parismatch/video/culture/anne-marie-corre-raconte-yves-saint-laurent

photo from Film Yves Saint Laurent by David Teboul
I always loved Yves Saint Laurent.
When he created the Mondrian dress,my mother who was a very sophisticated woman, recreated with her dressmaker, a version of the same.Both were in tune with Mondrian.
So as a little girl I remember him and always loved his vision of life.
I can,as an artist,understand his sadness.
People like him are not understood by the common world.
His work will be admired and talked about,but his persona will never be understood by the average ones.
Artists and thinkers see life in another dimension.A greater one ,where words are insufficient to translate. One can only get there through passion and openness of the spirit to the Beauty of Life.It will never be measured or attained by Money or Power,which unfortunately are the only mediums to sustain in the society we live in.Nonetheless, that vision is a troubling one,as we are critical of ugliness, of moral turpitude and oppression.
Saint Laurent,exercised his political vision through fashion. -
He was as Jean Cocteau once called such creatures, "L"enfant du paradis" ...
Marguerita

“Yves Saint Laurent invented everything, revisited everything, transformed everything to the service of a passion, to let woman shine and to free her beauty and mystery.”
-François Pinault, founder and former CEO of the fashion group PPR
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/fashion/02laurent.html

Sensuality and sexuality are opposites

2008-05-25T20:12:00.003-04:00

detail from painting by marguerita
photo by marguerita

by Virginia Stewart-Avalon, M.Ed.

Sexuality in the modern world is blatant; a strutting display of goods, a means of gaining power over others and a method of turning others into objects. Sex is often self-centered self-gratification.

Sensuality means being completely at home in one's body, trusting and living through the senses. Tasting-savoring the flavors that life offers through touching, exploring, the body, the tongue, feelings... Seeing-recognizing the beauty in all that is beautiful-animals, flowers, trees, people, symmetry and asymmetry. Inhaling the fragrances of all and enjoying each. Listening to the voices of all living things and reveling in the uniqueness of each. Sensuality may be enthusiastic, even athletic, but it is always in unison with another.

Patriarchy has perverted sex. It shattered the consciousness of the Divine Sensual, separating it into controllable, cold, remote virginity, which led to possession; and crude sexuality, the perversion of sensuality. Sex as just a physical act can be uncaring even violent or brutal; twisted into the conquering and subjugation of another; the denial of the Divinity of another. When the sex act is finished, there remains only emptiness, an awareness of isolation and loneliness to be escaped through departure or sleep. The veneration of perpetual virginity and the disdain for the sexuality of woman is a denial of life and of life-enhancing values. They represent the enslavement and the murder of the God/dess. A virgin brings no new life into the world and a prostitute destroys the divine in herself. Sexuality focuses the attention on control and destruction. The foundation of the sexual experience is the self; the foundation of the sensual experience is the other.

Making love is not sexual; it is sensual. It is being swept away by the immersion of one's senses in another person… and more. Making love is experiencing the worship of the God/desshood of another. It is adoration, in the original meaning of the word, of the God/dess, of the perfect Divinity of another through the senses. It is tender, gentle, awed reverence; a passion approached through complete vulnerability and surrender to the Divine Other and her/his surrender to the Divine Self. Implicit in surrender is complete trust and respect. Trust that this vulnerability will not be abused and that the gentle, reverent worship will be returned; and the respect of independence. Surrender is not conquest or possession. There can be no enslavement or ownership of a God/dess; the divine can not be controlled by anyone. Love is the most precious sacrament of adoration; it restores the sacred to what has been profaned.http://www.sibyllineorder.org/editorials/ed_sensuality.htm

A Manual for Shit Happens

2008-05-19T18:50:00.003-04:00

"One of the basic human characteristics is to try to search for meaning," Johnson says. "We use whatever means are available to us to explain randomly occurring events." That's why we often interpret chance happenings as signs from God, or credit our "lucky socks" for a successful night of poker. Or we say a player is on a hot streak if he scores a dozen baskets in a row, when in fact a run of success (or a run of failure) may be due simply to chance.Why are we so bad at detecting randomness? Probably because the ability to recognize patterns of events--and to identify their cause--has survival value, says Lockhead. Thus our minds may be designed to detect meaning, whether or not there is any to be found.http://www.psychologytoday.com/

Taoism: Shit happens.

Confucianism: Confucius say, "Shit happens."

Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn't really shit.

Zen Buddhism: Shit is, and is not.

Zen Buddhism #2: What is the sound of shit happening?

Hinduism: This shit has happened before.

Islam: If shit happens, it is the will of Allah.

Islam #2: If shit happens, kill the person responsible.

Islam #3: If shit happens, blame Israel.

Catholicism: If shit happens, you deserve it.

Protestantism: Let shit happen to someone else.

Presbyterian: This shit was bound to happen.

Episcopalian: It's not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve the right wine with it.

Methodist: It's not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve grape juice with it.

Congregationalist: Shit that happens to one person is just as good as shit that happens to another.

Unitarian: Shit that happens to one person is just as bad as shit that happens to another.

Lutheran: If shit happens, don't talk about it.

Fundamentalism: If shit happens, you will go to hell, unless you are born again. (Amen!)

Fundamentalism #2: If shit happens to a televangelist, it's okay.

Fundamentalism #3: Shit must be born again.

Judaism: Why does this shit always happen to us?

Calvinism: Shit happens because you don't work.

Seventh Day Adventism: No shit shall happen on Saturday.

Creationism: God made all shit.

Secular Humanism: Shit evolves.

Christian Science: When shit happens, don't call a doctor - pray!

Christian Science #2: Shit happening is all in your mind.

Unitarianism: Come let us reason together about this shit.

Quakers: Let us not fight over this shit.

Utopianism: This shit does not stink.

Darwinism: This shit was once food.

Capitalism: That's MY shit.

Communism: It's everybody's shit.

Feminism: Men are shit.

Chauvinism: We may be shit, but you can't live without us...

Commercialism: Let's package this shit.

Impressionism: From a distance, shit looks like a garden.

Idolism: Let's bronze this shit.

Existentialism: Shit doesn't happen; shit IS.

Existentialism #2: What is shit, anyway?

Stoicism: This shit is good for me.

Hedonism: There is nothing like a good shit happening!

Mormonism: God sent us this shit.

Mormonism #2: This shit is going to happen again.

Wiccan: An it harm none, let shit happen.

Scientology: If shit happens, see "Dianetics", p.157.

Jehovah's Witnesses: >Knock< >Knock<>

Jehovah's Witnesses #2: May we have a moment of your time to show you some of our shit?

Jehovah's Witnesses #3: Shit has been prophesied and is imminent; only the righteous shall survive its happening.

Moonies: Only really happy shit happens.

Hare Krishna: Shit happens, rama rama.

Rastafarianism: Let's smoke this shit!

Zoroastrianism: Shit happens half on the time.

Church of SubGenius: BoB shits.

Practical: Deal with shit one day at a time.

Agnostic: Shit might have happened; then again, maybe not.

Agnostic #2: Did someone shit?

Agnostic #3: What is this shit?

Satanism: SNEPPAH TIHS.

Atheism: What shit?

Atheism #2: I can't believe this shit!

Nihilism: No shit.
http://www.thejaywalker.com/pages/shit_happens.html

Fabiolo and Fabiolo ( Jaime de Mora y Aragon, A Noble Spanish Bon Vivant)

2008-05-16T22:24:00.007-04:00

Marguerita and Fabiolo,the canary,1966

Jaime de Mora y Aragon, a flamboyant Spanish aristocrat whose amiable antics made him the toast of the Costa del Sol, died on Wednesday at a hospital near his home in Marbella, Spain. He was 70.His doctors said the cause was the latest of a series of a heart attacks he had suffered in recent years.
Whether he was playing the piano in a Marbella cabaret or wrestling in Argentina, Mr. de Mora cut a memorable figure. With his tall, slender build, slicked-back hair, waxed mustache, monocle and cane, he was once likened to a blue-blooded Salvador Dali.
As a fixture in Marbella since the early 1960's, Mr. de Mora, or Jimmy as he was widely known, became such a favorite among the wealthy and wellborn who make the resort their summer playground that he was named by the city's tourist office as its official greeter.
The role suited him. For although he was at various times a waiter, bullfighter, taxi driver, model and movie actor, Mr. de Mora was primarily a promoter, one who provided the public face for an assortment of business ventures from nightclubs to theatrical productions financed with other people's money.
Even his lavish annual parties were someone else's extravagance, that of the Saudi financier Adnan N. Khashoggi.
The son of a wealthy count and a member of a collateral line of the Spanish royal family, Mr. de Mora was born in Madrid with an array of advantages, most of which he promptly put behind him.
Dropping out of school at the age of 17, he entered the bohemian life of Paris, learned to play the piano and married a Mexican actress and later a Swedish model.
His role as an international gadabout was curtailed somewhat in 1965, when he was convicted in asbentia in Italy for passing bad checks.
For all his popularity in Spain, Mr. de Mora was apparently considered a bit much by the Belgian royal family. In 1960, when his sister, Fabiola, married King Baudouin, he was excluded from the weddingMr. de Mora secured some revenge of sorts. Cast as the Belgian Ambassador in an Italian film, he played the diplomat in drag.
Even in his official role with the tourist office, Mr. de Mora tended to go over the top. Last August, for example, to publicize an annual gathering of motorcyclists, he put out the word that Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley had chosen Marbella for a belated honeymoon.
The announcement drew a horde of gullible photographers as look-alikes enlisted by Mr. de Mora were escorted by 50 motorcycles.
He is survived by his wife, the former Margit Ohlson, and his adopted son Fernando, who as Fernando Diaz Santiago had been his longtime personal secretary before a legal adoption in 1992.By ROBERT MCG. THOMAS JR.Published: July 28,1995. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEEDE143AF93BA15754C0A963958260

Jose Saramago : Blindness

2008-05-13T23:41:00.004-04:00

http://ilustradanocinema.folha.blog.uol.com.br/arch2008-05-18_2008-05-24.html#2008_05-21_19_16_19-11204329-26

Translated from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero from the 1995 Ensaio sombre a Cegueira. 309 pages London: The Harvill Press, 1997 ISBN: 0-15-136700-9

Comments of Bob Corbett
October 2001

Also appended remarks from George Snedeker December 2001

How are we to imagine a world in which some central part of our meaning system suddenly disappears? I've played with the idea in thinking about having survived an atomic war which destroyed most humans, and all the basic infrastructures of everyday life. The problems one runs into even in such a game of imagination is to be consistent and being able to step far enough away to see what it is that really changes. In my day-dreaming imaginings I never went so far as to even dare to consider the inner changes in my person or the other survivors around me. It was much more than I could do to even anticipate and manage the physical problems of change and how to deal with them.

Jose Saramago presents us with exactly such a problematic, yet his masterful analysis deals not only with the physical aspects of change and how his characters deal with them, but he inters into the psychological realm and astounds us with his insights and brilliance.

A man is sitting at a traffic light one day waiting for the light to turn green and he suddenly goes blind. This is the "first blind man." Slowly this mysterious form of blindness, the like not known in the literature of modern medicine, spreads to the whole nation. As best we know, there is only one sighted person left in the realm. We follow a cast of fewer than 10 characters in detail. We have no names, only descriptors. After all one character tells us "blind people need no names." There is the first blind man, the first blind man's wife. The blind man had a seeming good semaritan who helps him home and but then steals his car and is thus called the man who had stole the car. There is the doctor whom he consults and the doctor's wife, the girl with dark glasses, the boy with the squint and the man with the black eye patch. There are a few others, but these become our key characters, later on adding the dog of tears.

In the early days of the white blindness in which each person seems only a white creamy mass, the government freaks out at the quick contagion of it and inters a large number of the blind in an old insane asylum. There, in scenes which are quite reminiscent of Golding's The Lord of the Flies, pure anarchy reigns and a gang sets itself up to control the government delivered food.

Soon however, the 7 central characters have escaped the asylum when it turns out that all the guards who are keeping them interred have themselves gone blind and they simply walk out into a world of all blind people.

All blind people that is, save one. The doctor's wife somehow remains sighted and she is able to give this small group the advantages that allows it to survive when others could not. She can locate places, keep them all in line and, most importantly, find food and water in a world gone blind.

What is this odd book of Jose Saramago? Is it an allegory? If so an allegory of what? Of the dependency of humans on basic systems of order in the manner of Thomas Hobbes? Is it a condemnation of humans as being only on the edge of civilization and being shown to be ready to plunge into barbarism at the least shaking of central systems of order? Or on a more positive note, is the tiny group of 7 the hopeful core that even in such catastrophic circumstances would maintain humanity and re-create a safer environment? Were this latter the case then the critic has a difficult time explaining the presence of the one sighted person who survives and leads. Or does this problematic suggest that leaders are essential to the continuation of the human species?

Or, abandoning the allegory theory, is this simply an astonishing tour-de-force of imagination, being just what it is literally and no more, the investigation of the logic of life when something such as sight disappears and the sighted woman is necessary as a sop since no other believable mode of survival would be easily available. This view would harmonize with the direction one finds in other Saramago novels especially The Stone Raft and The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, perhaps even of The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. Saramago seems to have a passion for playing with alternative realities and attending with care to the logic of the system he once sets up.

I believe I lean much more to this notion that we are to understand Blindness not as an allegory, but as an exploration of an alternative reality. On his view we are freer to remain inside the story as given and just marvel at how he unravels the story and develops not only the physical ramifications, but especially how he deals with the inner realities and changes in the character's minds. However, on this view we are left with the curious status of the doctor's wife's sight, and then the even more curious recurrence of the "special" dog which we had in The Stone Raft as well. Saramago seems to like dogs in nearly occult roles in his fantasies. This one, however, plays no central as the dog in The Stone Raft. Rather, it gets it name by licking away the tears of the doctor's wife when she breaks down in near despair on see what has happened to the blind city. The dog of tears remains with the group the rest of the tale, but seems to have no other role.

After just the first few pages I nearly lost my faith in Saramago. The blind man goes blind at the stop sign, gets taken home by the car thief and soon is taken to the doctor, who is an ophthalmologist, by his wife. I began to wonder -- how in the world can he sustain an entire moderately long novel as the story of this blind guy. Where could this go? What is there to build on? I suspected I may have had a weak Saramago novel in my hand. And then the thunderous second shoe drops, the doctor goes blind in the night. I simply gasped aloud on the subway I was riding when that happened. I knew I was now in for something odd, but I had no idea just how odd and soon people were falling into blindness with great rapidity and I was hooked on a new alternative world according to Saramago. The ending, which I won't mention was very unsatisfactory to me, but I'll leave that to the reader to discover and evaluate on his or her own.

Jose Saramago is one of the great masters of storytelling and fiction of our time. His language is impeccable and he plays with it often, calling attention to it, even interrupting the story to reflect on words and modes of expressing thoughts. The story itself is captivating and in the later sections when the group of 7 are wandering in this nightmare of a city where all are blind is one of the most frightful and even terrifying scenes I know in fiction. This is in no way a horror story, yet I can't imagine a novel in the genre of horror rising to the level of terror that Saramago strikes in us in these scenes of wandering bands of blind people struggling to find food and stay alive. It is a macabre and brilliant painting of pictures for the verbally sighted and yet another addition to the marvelous list of Saramago triumphs.

Special thanks to George Snedeker for this note:

George Snedeker

I have just read your review of Saramago's BLINDNESS. as a visually impaired person, I have been trying to make sense of his use of blindness as a trope. blindness operates in his text as both an intertextual sign and as a referent. blindness represents limitation. this is true in the very obvious sense of the analogy between knowing and seeing. blindness also leads the characters to return to the state of nature. I have always been troubled by the doctor's wife. her eyes allow her to lead the others to safety. she is also necessary as the narrator of the story. without her, who would describe the events and scenes of the novel.

A more systematic review from George Snedeker

BETWEEN METAPHOR AND REFERENT:Reading Saramago's "Blindness"
George Snedeker
Sociology Program
SUNY/College at Old Westbury

Jose Saramago received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. Although several of his books were available in English translation, not many people in the United States had read his novels prior to the award. Soon his latest novel, Blindness, was on the New York Times Best-Seller List. If I had not previously read two of his earlier books, I would not have been much interested in reading an allegorical novel that uses blindness as its master sign.

Saramago uses a quotation from the Book of Exhortations as the epigram to Blindness: "If you can see, look. If you can look, observe". Near the end of the novel, when the blind people are getting their vision back, he has one of his characters remark:" I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see" (292). These two quotations indicate the political and philosophical intention of the novel. They indicate, but do not disclose it. The greatest problem with an allegorical novel like Blindness is that it grants too much freedom to the reader. It allows too many interpretations.

Saramago uses blindness as a metaphor for both personal misfortune and social catastrophe. The story begins when the first blind man loses his vision in his car while waiting for a traffic light to change. The man who helps him get safely home goes back and steals his car. The next day the wife of the first blind man takes him to see the eye doctor. Within a few days, the wife of the first blind man, the car thief, the doctor and all of the patients in his waiting room also go blind. The only character in the novel that miraculously avoids the affliction of blindness is the doctor's wife.

With a large number of people going blind quickly and with no apparent cause, public health officials panic and the blind are interned in a former mental hospital to protect the population from infection.

They are provided with food but are left to fend for themselves within the walls of the abandoned mental hospital. Soldiers keep watch and threaten to kill anyone who tries to escape.

The numbers of infected persons increases rapidly. New groups of blind people are imprisoned in the hospital. Among the new inmates are a group of hoodlums, one of whom possesses a gun. The hoodlums soon demand that the other internees pay for their food and provide them with women to fulfill their sexual desires. This outrage soon leads to a revolt. A few days later, the blind internees realize that the entire population of the city has gone blind and they leave the hospital in search of food.

As the narrative of Blindness progresses, the conditions of the blind continue to get worse. They find themselves in a society that no longer functions. Blind people roam the streets looking for food and shelter. After scavenging for days, they realize that soon it will be impossible to obtain enough nourishment to keep alive. While they are at the edge of despair their vision miraculously begins to return. The novel abruptly ends without making clear in what ways people have been transformed by the horrific experience of collective blindness.

As I mentioned earlier, the doctor's wife is the only character who does not go blind. She remains free from infection. This allows her to assist the group of blind people. Her eyes allow her to exercise a degree of control over the situation. It is she who kills the blind man with the gun. It is she who leads the blind in their search for food and shelter.

Blindness is clearly a sign of limitation in this novel. It causes the entire society to no longer function. It also places blind people in the condition of physical jeopardy and psychological torment. The society no longer functions because the blind are not able to provide the ordinary services that we are routinely dependent upon for survival: the production and distribution of food, water and electricity and the maintenance of the infrastructure of transportation and communication.

The central problem with Saramago's novel is that his master sign "blindness" is a floating signifier. No matter what his intention, the metaphor of blindness has a real referent. Readers of this novel are faced with an ambiguity, the relationship between the "symbolic" and the "real". The authorial voice of the novel and the critical response which has appeared in the mainstream press has occluded the problem of the referent. Saramago writes as if his metaphorical depiction of misfortune and catastrophe could somehow be innocent of the cultural meanings that are routinely associated with visual impairment. It is interesting to note that reviews which have appeared in the mainstream press fail to even consider that the use of blindness as a metaphor might pose a problem.

Reviewers have often made the comparison between Blindness and Camus' Plague, Kafka's Trial and Golding's Lord of the Flies. None of the reviews I have read have made the more obvious comparison to H.G. Wells' short story "The Country of the Blind". In this story, Wells uses blindness to represent a restricting society and the struggle of the individual against social conformity. Both Saramago and Wells use blindness as a sign of limitation because this idea is readily available. It is part of our common stock of cultural images. They use "blindness" for the same reason that Golding uses "children" in Lord of the Flies.

Like Camus, Saramago uses disease as a way of representing social and political crisis. Both authors emphasize the human response to social catastrophe. However, there is a problem with the representation of historical events by means of a medical model. In this representation, nature displaces the social and replaces it with an image of fate. As a consequence, blindness is defined as a physical condition.

Saramago's writings have often been discussed as an example of "magic realism". However, Blindness has more in common with Kafka's allegorical novels than it does with works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Salman Rushdie.

The fundamental problem posed by allegorical novels is how to locate their political and social meaning. Saramago provides his readers with few clues to guide interpretation. The story is set in an unnamed country, somewhere in the second half of the twentieth century. There are few identifying characteristics that provide a context for the events that transpire.

The epidemic of blindness takes place without any apparent cause; the disease spreads quickly and as the novel ends the blind are getting their vision back. Their recovery has as little explanation as the onset of blindness. The problem the reader is faced with is what to make of the metaphorical illness, the social catastrophe, and the miraculous recovery. What does it all mean?

Near the end of the book, Saramago has one of his characters suggest that perhaps they had never really been blind, that perhaps the sighted do not really see. If this is meant to be the underlying message of the novel it is, in fact, not a very original idea, since the analogy between "seeing" and "understanding" is one of the oldest ideas in Western philosophy. It is perhaps most clearly illustrated in Book 7 of The Republic, where Plato uses a visual metaphor to illustrate the limits of human understanding. He describes a cave where several people are seated in such a way that they cannot see the direct light of the fire. Instead, they can only see its distorted shadows upon the wall of the cave.

I suspect that Saramago is more interested in probing the human capacity to understand social reality than the Platonic concept of Absolute Truth. I wish he had chosen a better way of representing this quest.

Bibliography

Plato. 1961.The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Saramago, Jose. 1997. Blindness. New York: Harcourt Brace

Wells, H. G. 1911. The Country of The Blind and Other Stories. London: T. Nelson

Bob Corbett corbetre@webster.edu

Jack Tworkov:express the creative force of the unconscious in art.

2008-05-13T13:13:00.005-04:00

The automatic method tried to tap the unconscious mind and put it on a canvas without the interference of the conscious mind. Doodling was one manifestation, as was most of abstract expressionism.

Wanted: The last Nazis

2008-05-01T00:23:00.002-04:00

By Claire Soares
Thursday, 1 May 2008

At first glance, the mugshots appear to be a gallery of roguish grandfathers, but the octo- and nonagenarians are the 10 most-wanted fugitives of one of the most heinous regimes the world has ever seen. They are the last remaining Nazis, and the codename of the hunt to find them – Operation Last Chance – says it all

More than 60 years after the Nuremberg trials put the first of Hitler's henchmen in the dock, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre yesterday released its most wanted list of the remaining Nazi war criminals. The battle to bring them to justice is complicated by a mix of political apathy, legal wrangling, legendary powers of evasion and what Nazi-hunters term "misplaced sympathy" for the craggy-faced men in their twilight years.

"They are old, and the natural tendency is to be sympathetic toward people when they reach a certain age, but the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrators," said Efraim Zuroff, the Jerusalem-based director of the Wiesenthal Centre. "If we were to put a chronological limit on prosecution, we would basically be saying you can get away with genocide."

The top target is Aribert Heim, now 93. Jewish prisoners at Mauthausen concentration camp probably knew better him as "Doctor Death". The Austrian medic would inject petrol and an array of different poisons straight into the hearts of his so-called patients to see which killed them fastest. He once removed the tattooed flesh of a prisoner and turned it into soft furnishings for his commandant's flat.

An 18-year-old Jewish footballer and swimmer who was sent to Heim with an inflammation of the foot was knocked out, castrated and then decapitated. His head was boiled to remove the flesh and his skull was put on display. "[Heim] needed the head because of its perfect teeth," testified one hospital worker at the camp, according to an arrest warrant uncovered by the Associated Press news agency.

Although the hunt for the fugitives continues, the race is on to bring them to justice before they die. Conscious of the ticking clock, Mr Zuroff will launch a media blitz in South America this summer, airing adverts there for the first time which publicise the $485,000 (£245,000) reward offered for Heim's arrest.

Heim has been on the run since 1962 when, happily married and working as a gynaecologist in the West German town of Baden-Baden, he was tipped off that his arrest was imminent. Proof that he is still alive after all these years may be the €1m (£785,000) sitting in a Berlin bank account, which would probably have been claimed by his family if he were dead. The best guess now is that the doctor is in either in Chile, where his daughter lives, or Argentina – a favoured destination for fleeing Nazis, including the architect of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann, and another lover of ghoulish medical experiments, Josef Mengele.

It is only Heim whose whereabouts are unknown. For the other nine suspects, Mr Zuroff rattles off a string of house numbers and street names in cities around the world – from Klagenfurt in Austria to Perth, Australia. In these cases, the biggest problem is a lack of political will. John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian emigré, was extradited from the US to Israel in 1986 and sentenced to death for allegedly being the Treblinka camp guard "Ivan the Terrible". But Israel's Supreme Court overturned the ruling and released him. He is now fighting deportation from America.

"Some countries don't have the guts or the courage to prosecute and punish," sighs Mr Zuroff. "Nazi war criminals are not serial killers. They are not likely to murder again and the governments basically know that in a few years they will pass away."

Take Sandor Kepiro, who is No 3 on the list. Now aged 93, he was among Hungarian officers alleged to have carried out a three-day massacre of more than 1,000 mostly Jewish people on the banks of the Danube in Serbia. He was convicted in 1944 but was pardoned and moved to Austria. In 1946, he was convicted again – in absentia – and decided to flee further afield, this time to Argentina.

Half a century later, he slipped secretly back into his homeland after being assured he would not face punishment. But when he was discovered living in Budapest in 2006, there was a public outcry. No decision has been made on whether he will stand trial.

Hungary is one of nine countries to be given a "failing" grade in the Wiesenthal Centre's annual scorecard. Sweden is another; lambasted for its blanket refusal to investigate Nazi-era crimes, because of a statute of limitations which kicks in at 25 years for all acts of murder, including genocide.

Another is Australia; accused of being too slow in processing the extradition of most-wanted Nazi No 7, Charles Zentai.

"For three years, they let this guy play games in court," says Mr Zuroff. "When you are talking about three years for someone who is in his 80s, that is a long time and could, effectively, help him elude justice."

Mr Zentai, now 86 and living in a Perth suburb, is accused of beating an 18-year-old called Peter Balazs to death when he caught him riding a Budapest tram without wearing a yellow star to identify himself as a Jew. Mr Zentai denies the charges and has been fighting extradition since 2005. Last week, he lost a constitutional challenge against state magistrates ruling on his case. His family claims the incriminating witness testimony came from confessions beaten out of soldiers. They say that he stands little chance of a fair trial in Hungary, should extradition go ahead.

Mr Zentai's son, Ernie Steiner, said yesterday: "I know my father was never a Nazi, so why is a Nazi-hunter hunting my father? He was never involved in the Holocaust or the mistreatment of Jews. So this is a complete fabrication."

He dismissed the Most Wanted List as the theatrics of a bounty hunter, saying: "Of course there's a principle of justice but, when you've got the wrong bloke, you are persecuting an innocent man."

One who didn't get away

The case of the "Executioner of Bolzano" has been a triumph for Nazi hunters. Michael Seifert tortured his victims in the north Italian concentration camp using fire, broken bottles, clubs and ice-cold water.
After the war he moved to Canada, working in a Vancouver mill and raising his family. In 2000, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering at least 18 people but it was two years before he was arrested by the Canadian police at Italy's request. He began a long fight against extradition, which ended in failure this February when, at the age of 83, he was finally deported to Rome to serve his sentence.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/wanted-the-last-nazis-818750.html

Exhibition Seeks Rightful Owners for Nazi Loot

2008-04-30T23:47:00.003-04:00

from a catalog Works on Paper -1999 solo exhibit Marguerita

Thousands of works of art stolen by the Nazis are still not back in the hands of their rightful owners. A new exhibition in Jersualem is trying to fix that -- visitors can file a claim for the works on display if they recognize their property.
An exhibition with a difference has opened in Israel. Visitors will have the option of taking the paintings home with them -- provided they can prove they are the works' rightful owners.

The exhibition "Looking for Owners: Custody, Research and Restitution of Art Stolen in France during World War II," which runs through June 3 at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, shows 53 paintings which were looted from their rightful owners by the Nazis. The works, which include paintings by major European artists such as Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne and Edgar Degas, come from France's collection of unrestituted works of art, known as the Musées Nationaux Récupération (MNR).

The Nazis took around 100,000 art works from France during World War II, either by looting or commercial transactions. The Allies then repatriated some 60,000 works to France after the war, with the intention that they be returned to their proper owners. Around 2,000 unrestituted works were given to France's national museums in the early 1950s and are now stored or exhibited in museums around France, including in Paris' Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay.
The MNR collection came to the attention of the general public in 1995 when author Hector Feliciano published his book "The Lost Museum," which looks at the Nazis' schemes to steal art. Since then, claims have been made for various MNR works and several have been returned to their true owners.
The new exhibition, which is co-organized by France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Culture and Communication, aims to help that process along. "What we expect from this exhibit is that a miracle will occur and someone will come here and say 'that belongs to me,'" French Culture Minister Christine Albanel said Monday night, in remarks quoted by the Jerusalem Post.

P.S. I wonder if the family of Richard Kallert,the IIIReich Transportation Chief,who invaded my mother's home and building in Krakow,then sending her mother in law from the 4th floor to her Death, and my mother to Auschwitz?
Would they return what belonged to her, like the Cellini sculpture,Polish art,jewelry and other assets?

Details of the works exhibited will be published on the Israeli Justice Ministry's Web site, to help the rightful owners identify their property. Restitution requests -- together with the appropriate documentation to identify ownership of the piece -- can then be addressed to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.A companion exhibition, "Orphaned Art: Looted Art from the Holocaust in the Israel Museum," looks at the history of works which were looted during World War II and subsequently brought to Israel. The exhibition, which also runs until June 3 at the Israel Museum, includes work by Marc Chagall, Egon Schiele and Alfred Sisley, among others.

Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler organized a systematic looting of Europe's art treasures with the help of art experts who compiled a secret "wish list" of works to be stolen. His aim was to transform his hometown of Linz in Austria into the art capital of the Third Reich. According to experts, between 250,000 and 600,000 looted artworks remain unclaimed and are still held by museums, governments, and private collectors around the world.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,536344,00.html

"On dit qu'il ne faut pas remuer le passé, qu'il ne faut pas avoir les yeux sur la nuque, qu'il faut regarder devant et ne pas s'acharner à ouvrir de

2008-04-30T15:50:00.004-04:00

vieilles blessures, a-t-il dit. Les blessures ne sont pas encore fermées. Elles vibrent dans le sous-sol de la société comme un cancer sans répit. Leur seul traitement est la vérité, et ensuite la justice. L'oubli est à ce prix."Le nom de Macarena Gelman résume le cheminement tortueux de son identité. Macarena, c'est le prénom choisi par ses parents adoptifs uruguayens. Gelman, le nom de sa famille biologique et notamment de son grand-père, le poète argentin Juan Gelman. Un nom qu'elle ne porte que depuis trois ans.
Macarena est la fille d'Argentins disparus durant les années de plomb des dictatures militaires sud-américaines. Née en captivité en Uruguay, elle ignorait tout de son origine jusqu'à l'âge de 23 ans. "Je suis passée par une phase de recueillement personnel, il m'a fallu du temps pour comprendre ce qui m'est arrivé", confie-t-elle, de passage à Paris.

http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article/2008/04/30/macarena-gelman-fille-de-disparus-argentins-cherche-la-verite-sur-sa-mere_1040102_3222.html#ens_id=1026081

Gefilte fish forever

2008-04-28T19:50:00.002-04:00

drawing by Marguerita

Quenelles are ground light meats or fish poached in liquids that have varying sauces for accompaniment. The Romans started it, the French Lyonnaise perfected it and the Jews call it Gefilte Fish.

5 pounds ground white fish, pike and carp
5 pounds of fish heads and bones
2 onions
1 tsp white pepper corns
2 leeks
3 eggs beaten
2 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper corns
1 bunch of carrots
1/2 cup matzoh meal or bread crumbs

Make court boullion with fish heads, 1 onion, 2 carrots, leeks, salt, peppercorns with enough water to cover for one hour or more.

Mix ground fish with eggs, meal/crumbs, 1 grated onion and form into balls. Poach in court bouillion with 4 slice carrots for at least an hour till firm to touch. Cool or can be served warm. It will be more firm the next day.

Accompany with Fresh Horseradish sauce. Grate 1 lb fresh horseradish with cooked grated beets (red or golden) mix with 1/2 cup vinegar (any type) and 1/4 cup sugar.

Serve with Matzoh or water biscuits

For a great hors d'oeuvres make balls large enough to slice and cut with a star cutter and place on water biscuits topped with the horseradish.

So What?

2008-04-28T19:29:00.001-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4FAKRpUCYY

The Pope: Vox Populi,Vox Dei

2008-04-18T22:32:00.000-04:00

“Man puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like you or me,” said a scruffy man pushing a shopping cart full of empty bottles and cans on Thursday in front of the building where the pope is staying.

Joseph Ratzinger : The Pope and voice of Christ

2008-04-18T21:59:00.006-04:00

my mother's arm- A.26.427

What the Nazi experience seems to have bred in Joseph Ratzinger, or the preexisting trait it reinforced in him, was a kind of distancing, a pattern of removing himself from unpleasantness, isolating the pure ideal — of the faith, the church, the family, the nation — from the inevitable corruptions of the world. This approach fosters a sense of remoteness in his remembrances, a detachment that may strike many as cold. In fact, it is problematic when a churchman who places such a high priority on personal rectitude and individual holiness appears unreflective about his own history. And if it is even more problematic when that churchman becomes the Supreme Pastor of the Roman Catholic Church, the leader of the ongoing dialogue with Judaism.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/a-key-moment-in-benedicts-relationship-with-the-jews/index.html?hp

Xodó by Dominguinhos

2008-04-13T22:50:00.004-04:00

Born in the State of Pernambuco (Northeast Brazil), Dominguinhos started his music career in his childhood, playing with his brothers in a trio called Os Três Pingüins (The 3 Penguins). At that time he could already play the 8-bass accordion, which has been his lifetime companion. At the age of 7, Luiz Gonzaga, the King of Baião (a very popular Brazilian rhythm from that region), heard the boy playing and was so impressed that he gave Dominguinhos his address in Rio de Janeiro. Six years later, when Dominguinhos moved with his family to Rio de Janeiro, he paid a visit to Luiz Gonzaga and was given an accordion by the master. In the 1950’s and 60’s, Dominguinhos made a living by playing boleros and samba-tunes at casinos, gafieiras (ballrooms), popular restaurants, night-clubs and on Radio Nacional, whose cast he joined in 1967, the year he recorded his first LP. He became well-known in the Brazilian music scene and since then he has been invited to take part in recordings and tours with Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Maria Bethânia. He has also become known for his songwriting. In collaboration with Gilberto Gil, he wrote some songs, such as "Lamento Sertanejo" and "Abri a Porta". His greatest hits are "Tantas Palavras", with Chico Buarque, "De Volta para o Aconchego" (with Nando Cordel), recorded by Elba Ramalho and "Isso Aqui Tá Bom Demais". Dominguinhos has recorded over 30 albums, written movie soundtracks and consolidated his career as songwriter and accordionist. He has already won 4 Sharp awards.
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/dominguinhos-eu-so-quero-um-xodo/2665885437

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6hHX9iZ0ck

Igor Mitoraj

2008-04-12T23:11:00.004-04:00

Igor Mitoraj
[German-born Polish Sculptor, born in 1944]
Igor Mitoraj (born 1944) is a Polish artist born in Oederan, Germany.

He studied painting at the Kraków School of Art and at the Kraków Academy of Art under Tadeusz Kantor. After graduating, he had several joint exhibitions, and held is first solo exhibition in 1967 at the Krzysztofory Gallery in Poland. In 1968, he moved to Paris to continue his studies at the National School of Art.

Shortly afterwards, he became fascinated by Latin American art and culture, spending a year painting and travelling around Mexico. The experience led him to take up sculpture.

He returned to Paris in 1974 and two years later he held another major solo exhibition at the Gallery La Hune, including some sculptural work. The success of the show persuaded him that he was first and foremost a sculptor.
Having previously worked with terracotta and bronze, a trip to Carrara, Italy, in 1979 turned him to using marble as his primary medium and in 1983 he set up a studio in Pietrasanta. In 2006, he created the new bronze doors and a statue of John the Baptist for the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome.
Mitoraj's sculptural style is rooted in the classical tradition with its focus on the well modelled torso. However, Mitoraj introduces a post-modern twist with ostentatiously truncated limbs, emphasising the damage sustained by most genuine classical sculptures.

Sipapu

2008-04-08T20:42:00.006-04:00

A Hopi word, is a small hole or indentation in the floor of kivas used by the Ancient Pueblo Peoples and modern-day Puebloans. It symbolizes the portal through which their ancient ancestors first emerged to enter the present world. More generally, it functions as a reminder of the Puebloan's earthly origins.sipapu, or Spirit hole, symbolizing the passage through which the first people emerged from mother earth.
Like people today, the Anasazi (or Ancient Puebloans, as they are increasingly called) were presumably complex beings with the ability to make decisions, good and bad, about how to react to a changing environment. They were not pawns but players in the game.Looking beyond climate change, some archaeologists are studying the effects of warfare and the increasing complexity of Anasazi society. They are looking deeper into ancient artifacts and finding hints of an ideological struggle, clues to what was going through the Anasazi mind.“The late 1200s was a time of substantial social, political and religious ferment and experimentation,” said William D. Lipe, an archaeologist at Washington State University.

“You can’t have a situation where it just happens that hundreds of local communities for their own individual, particularistic reasons decide to either die or get up and move,” Dr. Lipe said. “There had to be something general going on.”
When scientists examine the varying width of tree rings, they indeed see a pernicious dry spell gripping the Southwest during the last quarter of the 13th century, around the height of the abandonment. But there had been severe droughts before.
“Over all conditions were pretty darn bad in the 1200s,” said Timothy A. Kohler of Washington State University. “But they were not maybe all that worse than they were in the 900s, and yet some people hung on then.”
Even in the worst of times, major waterways kept flowing. “The Provo River didn’t dry up,” said James Allison, an archaeologist at Brigham Young University. “The San Juan River didn’t dry up.”
“Climate probably explains a lot,” Dr. Allison said. “But there are places where people could have stayed and farmed and chose not to.”
Some inhabitants left the relatively lush climes of what is now southern Colorado for the bone dry Hopi mesas. “Climate makes the most sense for this big pattern change,” Dr. Lipe said. “But then you think, So they went to Hopi to escape this?”
Hopi was far from an anomaly. “The whole abandonment of the Four Corners, at least in Arizona, is people moving to where it’s even worse,” said Jeffrey Dean, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/science/08anasazi.html?em&ex=1207800000&en=860f80b9b2e42547&ei=5087%0A

What is happening to the koalas?

2008-04-06T01:14:00.003-04:00

The future of the koala, perhaps Australia's best-loved animal, is under threat because greenhouse gas emissions are making eucalyptus leaves – their sole food source – inedible.
Scientists warned yesterday that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were reducing nutrient levels in the leaves, and also boosting their toxic tannin content. That has serious implications for koalas and other marsupials that eat only, or mainly, the leaves of gum trees. These include a number of possum and wallaby species. "What we're seeing, essentially, is that the staple diet of these animals is being turned to leather," said Bill Foley, a science professor at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. "This is potentially a very significant development for the future of some marsupial populations. Life is set to become extremely difficult for these animals."
Climate change could help to explain decreases in the numbers of brushtail possums and greater gliders (a large possum) in certain parts of Queensland where none of the usual factors – disease, hunting, loss of habitat – appears to be to blame. Jane De Gabriel, a zoologist at ANU, told The Australian newspaper that brushtail possums had been found to breed more prolifically in woodland areas where the protein levels in eucalyptus leaves were high. "This suggests that in areas where nutrient levels are inadequate, animals will not be able to reproduce successfully," she said. "What follows are extinctions of wildlife populations. It's pretty scary stuff."
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/koalas-in-danger-805228.html

The Parrot Flower from Tailand

2008-04-05T19:57:00.005-04:00

Impatiens psitticana

Semiotics- a note

2008-03-31T01:02:00.003-04:00

Semiotics-Cognitive Science
The term, which was spelled semeiotics (Greek: σημειωτικός, semeiotikos, an interpreter of signs), was first used in English by Henry Stubbes (1670, p. 75) in a very precise sense to denote the branch of medical science relating to the interpretation of signs. John Locke used the terms semeiotike and semeiotics in Book 4, Chapter 21 of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Here he explains how science can be divided into three parts:

Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood.

The field was most notably formalized by the Vienna Circle and presented in their International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, in which the authors agreed on breaking out the field, which they called "semiotic", into three branches:

Semantics: Relation between signs and the things they refer to, their denotata.
Syntactics: Relation of signs to each other in formal structures.
Pragmatics: Relation of signs to their impacts on those who use them. (Also known as General Semantics)

This discipline is frequently seen as having important anthropological dimensions. However, some semioticians focus on the logical dimensions of the science. They examine areas belonging also to the natural sciences - such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their semiotic niche in the world (see semiosis). In general, semiotic theories take signs or sign systems as their object of study: the communication of information in living organisms is covered in biosemiotics or zoosemiosis.

Syntactics is the branch of semiotics that deals with the formal properties of signs and symbols.^[1] More precisely, syntactics deals with the "rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences."^[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

The Brain and Cell Phones: Back to Future and The AVM

2008-03-30T18:40:00.003-04:00

Mobile phones"more dangerous than smoking"
Mobile phones are convenient and frequently invaluable, yet exposure to their electromagnetic radiation is invisible. Therefore, any danger this exposure poses may be easily dismissed.
* Exposure is long-term and its effects on the body, particularly its electrical organ, the brain, are compounded by numerous other simultaneous long-term exposures including continuous waves from radio and TV transmitter towers, cordless phone base stations, power lines, and wireless/WiFi computing devices.
* A malignant brain tumour represents a life-ending diagnosis in the vast majority of those diagnosed. There is a significant and increasing body of evidence, to date at least 8 comprehensive clinical studies internationally and one long-term meta-analysis, for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours.
* Taken together, the data presented below compellingly suggest that the link between mobile phones and brain tumours should no longer be regarded as a myth. Individual and class action lawsuits have been filed in the USA, and at least one has already been successfully prosecuted, regarding the cell phone-brain tumour link.
* The "incubation time" or "latency" (i.e., the time from commencement of regular mobile phone usage to the diagnosis of a malignant solid brain tumour in a susceptible individual) may be in the order of 10-20 years. In the years 2008-2012, we will have reached the appropriate length of follow-up time to begin to definitively observe the impact of this global technology on brain tumour incidence rates.
* There is currently enough evidence and technology available to warrant Industry and Governments alike in taking immediate steps to reduce exposure of consumers to mobile phone-related electromagnetic radiation and to make consumers clearly aware of potential dangers and how to use this technology sensibly and safely.
* It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking, and directly concerns all of us, particularly the younger generation, including very young children.
* Scientists and physicians from some academic centres worldwide came together in mid-2007 to propose safer standards regarding public exposure to electromagnetic fields (Click the link for details).http://www.brain-surgery.us/mobilephone.html
http://www.brain-surgery.us/mobilephone.html
http://www.brain-aneurysm.com/ba2.html
http://www.brain-aneurysm.com/avm.html

1. What is an arteriovenous malformation (AVM)?

An arteriovenous malformation (AVM) is a site of abnormal connectivity between arteries and veins. It is basically like a tangle of worms, where the greatest concentration of worms in the central portion of the AVM (this part is the "nidus") is made up of abnormal blood vessels that are hybrids between true arteries and veins. AVMs are fed by one or several arteries, and are drained by one or more major draining veins; these feeding and draining vessels may be unusually tortuous (winding like rivers), and unusually large. They can occur in the brain (brain AVMs) or along the spinal cord (spinal AVMs).

The vessels of an AVM are abnormal and so may leak or rupture (hemorrhage; that's the main problem; see 5. below). The blood flow and pressure in especially the larger vessels of an AVM are unusually high and may lead to significant shunting of blood to and from the lesion. Higher flow-pressures in addition to abnormal AVM vessel wall structure can lead to the formation of aneurysms on arteries feeding the AVM (i.e., "parent artery" or "pedicle" aneurysms) or within the AVM itself (i.e., "intranidal" aneurysms). These can also rupture. Somewhere around 6-7% of brain AVMs have aneurysms associated with them, and when AVMs rupture, some think it may be these aneurysms which have ruptured (although the abnormal nonaneurysmal components of the AVM can rupture too). About 75% of the aneurysms associated with AVMs are found on arteries feeding the AVM (pedicle aneurysms), while 25% of aneurysms associated with AVMs are found within the core (nidus) of the AVM (intranidal aneurysms). Interestingly, with good treatment of the AVM, pedicle aneurysms can fade away or disappear entirely.

Brain Arteriovenous Malformation:

Figure 1 shows the the surface of the brain with an AVM originating there. Note the large and tortuous (bendy) feeding arteries (red) and draining veins (blue), which may also be deeper in the substance of the AVM. The nidus of the AVM is deeper, and the AVM usually forms a cone-shaped mass that extends from the (pial/cortical) surface of the brain down towards one of the fluid-filled cavities of the brain (ventricle).

Note that an AVM is not the same thing as a dural arteriovenous fistula (DAVF), even though people and literature sometimes fail to make the distinction between these two very different entities. DAVFs can occur in the brain (intracranial DAVF) or in the spinal canal (spinal DAVF), or at the junction between the skull and spinal column (craniocervical junction DAVF). A DAVF is an abnormal connection between an artery (usually one, but sometimes multiple) and a vein (frequently one big arterialized draining vein, but may be multiple), with the key differences between the two types of entities ("lesions" or "anomalies") being that the DAVF: (i) is intimately associated with the leathery covering (dura) of the brain or spinal cord/spinal nerve root; (ii) has no nidus and therefore pathologically is not made up of a tangle of hybrid vessels (despite possibly having abnormal structure/architecture to some of the vessels of the DAVF); (iii) has a small web of capillaries interposed between the arterial supply and venous drainage sides; and (iv) is (in the brain) frequently associated with a blockage to a major draining venous pathway (i.e., a venous sinus occlusion/stenosis) and therefore (in the brain) is typically an abnormality that is acquired rather than the person being born with it (congenital). Spinal DAVF are thought to be congenital, and not typically associated with neighboring blocked veins. A ruptured DAVF is worth treating early to prevent further neurological impairment from a rehemorrhage.

2. How common is an arteriovenous malformation?

AVMs are relatively rare lesions, much rarer than brain aneurysms. Depending on what you read, the population prevalence of AVMs [i.e., what percentage are present (in 100% of) the population at any one timepoint] is probably somewhere around 0.2% (i.e., 1 in 500 persons), i.e., 5-25 times less than the prevalence of brain aneurysms (which is somewhere between 1-5% by most reports). DAVFs are extremely rare lesions, much rarer than AVMs.

3. Why does an arteriovenous malformation develop?

Unlike brain aneurysms, there are no well established risk factors for AVM formation, growth and rupture. They are regarded as "developmental" or "congenital" vascular anomalies, i.e. you're born with them and they typically increase in size as the brain enlarges. There are rare instances of persons with multiple AVMs (Wyburn-Mason syndrome, which involves multiple central nervous system AVMs, including in the eye's retina) said to be nonhereditary, but probably due to some yet-unknown genetic event).

4. What are the symptoms of an arteriovenous malformation?

Most brain AVMs present with a brain hemorrhage (abrupt onset of severe headache, nausea, vomiting, collapse/loss of consciousness). Note that instant death rate (instant mortality) is believed to be about 10% for first-time hemorrhages from a brain AVM, and this is about the same as the instant mortality rate for first-time brain aneurysm ruptures. Many AVMs present with seizures, and some present with neurological symptoms (some sort of motor (paralysis) or sensory disturbance) due to the mass of the blood vessel tangle causing direct compression of neighboring brain or cranial nerve tissue (mass effect). In rare instances, severe face/head pain (trigeminal neuralgia or some atypical facial pain) can be due to arteriovenous malformations near the trigeminal nerve complex. Some brain AVMs present with a stroke-like event(s) due to "stealing" blood flow from neighboring brain territory. Rarely, an unruptured AVM can present with persistent headaches, with or without nausea and vomiting (i.e., raised intracranial pressure).

Very rarely, in some very young kids, a particular type of vascular malformation known as a "Vein of Galen" malformation (VOGM) (incorrectly termed "Vein of Galen Aneurysm") is due to an arteriovenous fistula (Type I VOGM) or arteriovenous malformation (Type II VOGM) near the deep brain structures (midbrain and/or thalamus), and can present with hemorrhage, seizures, and associated neurological impairment. The Type I VOGM (this a fistula, but it's not a dural arteriovenous fistula) frquently presents in a newborn, with congestive heart failure, hydrocephalus (raised pressure in the brain due to impaired drainage of the brain's cerebrospinal fluid or CSF; "water on the brain") and an enlarged head diameter (macrocephaly due to hydrocephalus).

As mentioned above, some AVMs (about 6%) have one or more aneurysm(s) associated with them, and these aneurysms may rupture, i.e., a brain surface (subarachnoid) hemorrhage or brain tissue (intraparenchymal) hemorrhage. This can lead to the same type of presentation as described elsewhere in this Site ( take me to the Brain Aneurysm section now).

5. More about brain arteriovenous malformation hemorrhage and rehemorrhage.

The peak age for hemorrhage from an AVM is somewhere in the late teens (age 15-20 yrs). There is a 10% instant mortality associated with the first hemorrhage, and up to 30% mortality associated with each rebleed (rehemorrhage). The first hemorrhage has a 30-50% chance of causing some neurological impairment (deficit). The hemorrhage itself is usually within the substance of the brain (intraparenychmal hemorrhage), but also may be subarachnoid (outer or under surfaces of the brain), or within the fluid filled spaces of the brain (intraventricular), or just under the leather covering of the brain (subdural).

Some tendencies regarding hemorrhage are the following (subject to debate): the hemorrhage rate may be higher in the following: (i) kids; (ii) AVMs located in the back portion of the brain (hindbrain, posterior fossa); (iii) smaller AVMs (?higher pressure in these); (iv) pregnancy.

Hemorrhage rates: The average (annual) rate of hemorrhage for a newly diagnosed AVM that has not bled before is somewhere between 2-4% per year. The mean time between diagnosis of an AVM and first hemorrhage is somewhere around 7-8 years, but this obviously varies from person to person. The chance of death with a newly diagnosed AVM is approximately 1% per year, much higher after hemorrhage as mentioned above.

The risk of hemorrhage from the AVM itself after treatment with radiation (e.g., stereotactic radiosurgery such as GammaKnife or LINAC) is not reduced, in fact may be slightly higher than normal AVM hemorrhage rates, till the AVM is completely obliterated by such treatment (which can take 2-3 years).

Rehemorrhage rates: Depending on what you read, the (annual) rehemorrhage rate from an AVM (i.e., the chance of second bleed) is somewhere between 6-18% in the first year following diagnosis. Over the next few years, this rate decreases to somewhere around 3-4% per year. As mentioned above, rehemorrhage carries a very high rate of death and permanent disability.

As described in the Brain Aneurysm section ( take me to the Brain Aneurysm section now), the American Heart Association (AHA) and its Stroke Council coined the term "brain attack" ( take me to the Brain Attack section) to describe the brain equivalent of the common "heart attack". This term is an important one, aimed at increasing community awareness of this important and potentially life-threatening brain condition. The term encompasses the symptoms of a stroke (many of which were mentioned above), although the stroke itself may arise from blood vessel blockage (which is the most common cause), or from the rupture of an arteriovenous malformation blood vessel (or an aneurysm associated with an AVM).

6. What are the complications of an arteriovenous malformation?

For any AVM, the biggest problem or most dangerous consequence (i.e., "complication") is that it may rupture. However, many unrupturd AVMs present with seizures too, and the development of a seizure disorder (epilepsy) can certainly occur after rupture of an AVM. So, seizure disorder is regarded a second major problem associated with AVMs, be they unruptured or ruptured. In fact, the younger the patient at the time of AVM diagnosis, the higher the risk of developing a seizure disorder. Overall, this the seizure risk lies somewhere between 1-2%/yr following diagnosis, but varies according to age and whether or not the AVM has ruptured.

If an AVM (or an aneurysm associated with it) ruptures, the main complications are death and serious disability from the initial rupture itself (see above) or due to events occurring after the initial rupture. Of these events, the most important one is "rebleeding" of the AVM (i.e., it, or an aneurysm associated with it, re-ruptures and bleeds again), resulting in further permanent brain tissue injury (i.e., "infarction"). Occasionally, "cerebral vasospasm" (i.e., where, following hemorrhage, brain arteries go into severe spasm; i.e., they shut down, depriving the nearby brain tissue of oxygen and other nutrients) can occur after AVM hemorrhage (especially if the hemorrhage involves the subarachnoid space; take me to the section on Cerebral Vasospasm now). In persons surviving these complications, other complications may arise. For example, there may be some degree of obstruction (or blockage) of normal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow in the brain (i.e., resulting in high-pressure build up in the brain referred to as "hydrocephalus"). This is caused by the blood clot or blood products clogging up the CSF drainage system following rupture, and it can lead to progressive, permanent brain injury. Also, following AVM rupture, parts of the brain can become electrically irritated, resulting in seizures.

Another complication that can occur after surgery for AVMs is hemorrhage not from the AVM itself (which should have been removed by surgery), but rather from abormal leakiness from the vessels surrounding the recently removed AVM, particlularly if the blood pressure of the patient is running relatively on the high side. This phenomenon is known as Normal Perfusion Pressure Breakthrough (NPPB). The chance of it occurring (approximately 10%) can generally be reduced by tight control of the blood pressure in the few days surrounding surgery (most of these hemorrhages occur within the first week after surgery).

7. How is an arteriovenous malformation detected?

Sadly, many AVMs are detected only after they have ruptured.

The gold-standard for detection of an AVM is cerebral angiography. Here, a contrast dye is first injected through a catheter device inserted usually in a thigh (femoral) artery. From here, the dye eventually enters one or more of the main brain arteries, where it is X-ray imaged. An AVM often appears early during the injection as an abnormal number of expanded and tortuous (windy) vessels. There maybe one or more aneurysms associated with the AVM as mentioned above, and these can appear as sacs or balloons (variable size and number) coming off the parent arteries or within the tight coil of the AVM nidus itself.

Other X-ray based advanced imaging methods for detecting AVMs are magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and its associated methods referred to as magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) and magnetic resonance venography (MRV). The advantages of these methods are that they are less invasive than cerebral angiography, in that they do not involve femoral (thigh) artery puncture and insertion and navigation of a long catheter through the arteries. They also provide excellent information regarding where exactly the AVM is located (i.e., which part of the brain, which importance brain functions may be involved, what critical structurs lie nearby, and how best to approach the AVM when considering a treatment option). However, MRI/A/V may not detect the smallest of aneurysms associated with AVMs as well as cerebral angiography can, and (due to problems with magnetic attraction and interference; ferromagnetism) MRI/A/V may not able to be used in certain patients in whom metallic hardware has been placed. Of course, some patients with certain metallic (nonferromagnetic, e.g., titanium) hardware can still be safely and effectively imaged by this method. Check with your physicians first.

Ordinary computer-assisted tomographic (CAT or CT) scanning is another way to detect AVMs. This method is not as sensitive (i.e., can't quite pick up the smallest AVMs or aneurysms associated with them) or as specific (i.e., can't really be sure it's an AVM that's been detected) compared with cerebral angiography. Ultrasound (e.g., Duplex-Doppler) plays no real role in the detection of AVMs in clinical practice. Common X-rays are not used for aneurysm detection, although highly calcified AVMs may show up as curvilinear lesions on a plain skull x-ray (and in neurosurgery resident examinations!).

A combination of CT scanning and angiography (referred to as CT-angiography, CTA; where an intravenous dye is introduced into the patient at the time of CT scanning) is currently gaining popularity as a good alternative for studying AVMs, and may one day replace conventional cerebral angiography (with the obvious advantages that CT-angiography is so much quicker, cheaper, and less invasive compared with conventional angiography). The ability to create high-resolution and color 3-dimensional images with CTA is very useful for surgeons planning to operate these lesions.

At present there is no single blood test that can reliably predict brain AVM formation or rupture by genetic means.

8. How is an arteriovenous malformation treated?

There are three basic ways of treating a brain AVM after it is diagnosed. The bottom line is that each case of AVM should be treated on an individualized basis, taking into consideration the age of the patient, copresence of significant medical conditions, the site (especially the "eloquence" of brain involved by the AVM; see below) and size of the AVM, whether there is a history of previous AVM hemorrhage in that patient, the skill and experience of the treating physician or surgeon, and the type and risk(s) of treatment option most suitable for that AVM and person.

To neurosurgeons, the Spetzler-Martin AVM Grading System is a very intuitive and useful tool for predicting the risks of surgical intervention associated with AVMs. This System gives an AVM score of 1 to 5, with the surgical risks increasing as the score increases. The grading system is based three things: the size of the core (nidus) of the AVM (scores 1, 2 or 3 as the nidus size increases); the "eloquence" (i.e., degree of functional importance) of the brain tissue/region the AVM is found in (scores 0 for noneloquent, or 1 for eloquent brain); and the pattern of venous drainage [i.e., whether the AVM draining veins drain deep in the brain (scores 1) or just superficially - on the brain surface only (scores 0)].

For AVMs, the options are either surgical or nonsurgical. Of the nonsurgical options, the main therapeutic option is a radiation-based intervention (basically, focussed radiotherapy also known as steretactic radiosurgery or SRS). The second nonsurgical option does not strictly cure the AVM, but helps to reduce it's arterial supply, and this option is neuroradiological or "endovascular".

1. Surgery: The goal of surgery is the complete removal (resection) of the AVM in one operation. It can be carried out before rupture of an AVM, and is recommended especially after rupture of an AVM, particlularly if the AVM is more amenable (suitable) to safe and effective surgery (Spetlzer Martin Grades 1-3). It is my (personal) opinion that, whenever possible, surgery should be carried out by an experienced neurosurgeon, especially one with advanced Cerebrovascular Fellowship training. The advantages of surgery are the immediate elimination of the hemorrhage and rehemorrhage risk of an AVM, and improvement in seizure control if the AVM itself is generating the seizures. The basic method is to carry out a bony opening in the skull (craniotomy), followed by meticulous identification, isolation and disconnection of the arterial branches feeding the AVM, followed by meticulous identification, isolation and disconnection of the main veins draining the AVM. This way, the AVM is carefully shelled out in one piece. Postoperative care involves many things of course, but particular attention to tight blood pressure regulation is paramount to avoide secondary hemorrhage from NPPB (see above). In the best hands, surgery for Spetzler-Martin Grades 1-3 AVMs carries a 1-10% chance (respectively) of significant neurological complications.

2. Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS): SRS, either in the form of GammaKnife or Linear Accelerator (Linac), involves delivery of a focused beam of radiation to the nidus of the AVM. It may involve one or a few treatments. It is painless and generally well tolerated by patients. In some patients, it can cause secondary tumors (rare), impairment of brain function (especially important in kids whose brains are more rapidly developing), and delayed swelling (brain edema) or cystic radiation necrosis (not common, but a problem when it occurs). SRS is certainly a good option for treating AVMs when those AVMs are located in very deep regions of the brain (e.g., brainstem, thalamus), or those which are Spetzler-Martin grades 3 or higher. Of course, SRS can be used to treat any AVM, but it is my bias that AVMs that can be safely and readily accessed surgically, should be removed by an appropriately trained neurosurgeon. This is because such lesions are readily curable via surgery, and the AVM-rebleeding risk is immediately eliminated by successful surgery. Note that SRS does not immediately eliminate the AVM-bleeding risk, because it takes on average 2-3 years (following the first radiation treatment) for the AVM to be cured (and not all AVMs are curable with SRS). The rebleeding risk in these first 2-3 years following SRS is possibly lower than the usual rebleeding risk for untreated ruptured AVMs (see above). However, there still remains a significantly higher rate of rebleeding among AVMs treated with SRS compared with AVMs treated surgically.

3. Endovascular Therapy: This generally involves placement of metallic (e.g., titanium) microcoil or "glue" (or a similar composite) in the lumen of arteries feeding the AVM in order to slow the flow of blood in the feeder artery lumen, encouraging AVM feeder arteries to clot off. These therapies can also be used to treat aneurysms associated with the AVM, especially those on parent (feeder) arteries (pedicle aneurysms). Endovascular therapy itself rarely cures an AVM, it is best thought of as a helpful adjunct (supportive measure) for subsequent open surgery or SRS. Endovascular therapy is very helpful in high-flow/high-shunt AVMs, and also in AVMs whose feeder arteries may be difficult to reach surgically (because they are on the deep/underside of the AVM compared with the surgical approach). Endovascular therapy ("pre-operative" or "pre-radiosurgical" embolization) carries its own set of risks, just like any other treatment option. Overall, the risk of death or significant neurological disablilty associated with this option is about 4-5% in total. Disability may be from parent vessel rupture or blockage (by the embolic material - microcoil or glue) or tearing (dissection).

In the ideal circumstance, the decision as to how to best treat an AVM is made in joint consultation between the patient, a neurosurgeon and a neuroradiologist, taking into careful consideration the specific circumstances of the patient and aneurysm.

9. Some radiological images of an arteriovenous malformation (AVM).

	The image to the left is a CAT scan image that shows hemorrhage into the brain (arrow heads). The cause of the hemorrhage was not known at the time that this image was obtained. Because of the patient's neurological deterioration, surgery was immediately carried out to remove the blood clot. At the time of surgery, an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) was found. The patient was then taken to the angiogram suite where formal cerebral angiography showed the roadmap representing the AVM (see below). This valuable information was then used by the surgeons to safely and effectively remove (resect) the AVM.

	The image to the left is from a cerebral angiogram showing the arteriovenous malformation (AVM) described earlier. The internal carotid artery (ICA) gives rise to the middle cerebral artery (MCA) deep at the base of the brain. This image shows MCA (arterial) branches feeding the AVM, whose nidus is marked by the arrow heads. Note the large draining vein (DV). The two arrows show direction of blood flow to and from the AVM. Owing to the risk of rehemorrhage, this AVM was successfully removed by surgeons.

http://www.brain-surgery.net.au/c_a.html

“El que se sienta totalmente feliz es un cretino”

2008-03-30T16:53:00.004-04:00

ENTREVISTA: ENTREVISTA UMBERTO ECO

Umberto Eco es un hombre casi feliz. Un profesor que disfruta de sus alumnos y que ahora, jubilado a los 76 años de sus múltiples ocupaciones académicas, sigue trabajando “aún más que antes”, impartiendo clases doctorales, escribiendo libros (“¡ni media palabra sobre el que hago ahora!”, exclama, poniéndose el dedo sobre los labios), asistiendo a congresos (cuando le vimos, estaba a punto, de ir a uno en el que tenía que hablar de las matemáticas locas, y ahora vendrá a Granada, a principios de abril, al Mapfre Hay Festival), leyendo tebeos (“ahora son demasiado intelectuales”) y riendo como un chiquillo. Serio cuando habla de Italia, cuyas elecciones se le vienen encima con la amenaza cierta de que las gane Berlusconi, y optimista cuando habla de España. “¡Ustedes tienen la suerte de Zapatero!”. Cuando Jordi Socías le pidió que posara con un borsalino, el tipo de sombrero que ha hecho mundialmente conocido a su pueblo, Alessandria, se divirtió como si volviera al patio de su familia, en ese lugar que cada vez está más cerca de su memoria, como si la edad le hiciera recuperar los sabores perdidos de la adolescencia.

A Conversation on Information

Patrick Coppock
February 1995

Umberto Eco is professor of semiotics, philosophy of literature at the University of Bologna in Italy. In addition to his prolific academic publication activity he is a frequent contributor to the popular press. Eco is also a highly successful novelist and essayist on the international arena. Some of his most important academic works are Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, The Role of the Reader, A Theory of Semiotics and Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages. Amongst his collections of essays are Travels in Hyperreality, Misreadings and the recently published The Limits of Interpretation. He has also written two childrens' books.

His two most well-known novels are The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum. The Name of the Rose alone has sold 26 million copies and has been translated to a huge number of foreign languages. Recently he has published a collection of six lectures in literature theory which he gave in 1993 at Harvard university: Six Walks in the Forest of Adventure. His most recent novel, published in 1994, L'Isola del giorno prima (The Island from the day before) is at present being translated into several languages. The English version is to be published this Spring and the Norwegian version will appear later this year.

Eco is also a renowned historian and media critic, and he is lively engaged in the debate on how modern media and computer technology are affecting literary science, culture and society. In 1994 he organized a large international seminar at The International Center for Semiotic and Cognitive Science in San Marino entitled The Future of the Book. A publication with the papers presented at this seminar is expected appear towards the end of this year. International experts on hypertekst and hypermedia such as Jay Bolter, George Landow and Michael Joyce will among the contributors to this publication. In collaboration with the Bologna-based multimedia group Horizons Unlimited, and the Milano publishing company Opera Multimedia he has recently launched a hypermedia history of philosophy on CD-ROM: Encyclomedia.
In this exclusive interview for Multimedia World made in Bologna, mdia iconi Umberto Eco reveals some of his more spontaneous, wash-and-wear thoughts, and some deeper reflections on the Internet, information overload and filtering, hypertext , hypermedia and virtual reality. In the course of the conversation it emerges that Eco is enthusiastic, but at the same time sober and critical to the functionality and value of new technology and media, both in relation to his own field of academic research and his other publishing activities.

Eco interview Semiotics page

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/portada/sienta/totalmente/feliz/cretino/elppgl/20080330elpepspor_8/Tes

Deus e Brasileiro: A economia vai bem.,apesar de tudo.

2008-03-25T02:54:00.003-04:00

Le Brésil espère échapper à la crise financière grâce à des réserves record et à la diversification de l'économie

Face à la crise financière internationale, le Brésil affiche une belle sérénité. Surtout, le pays se juge aujourd'hui capable de résister aux dangers venus d'ailleurs. La 10^e économie du monde - entre celle du Canada et celle de la Russie - vit une période faste qui inspire confiance à ses partenaires autant qu'à elle-même. Et sa croissance, robuste et équilibrée, est entrée dans un cercle vertueux.

Le produit intérieur brut (PIB) a progressé de 5,4 % en 2007, contre 3,7 % en 2006. C'est la seconde bonne nouvelle de l'année après l'annonce, fin février, que le Brésil était devenu créditeur. C'est le pays émergent qui a le plus augmenté ses avoirs de change en 2007. Le niveau de ses réserves - désormais supérieures à sa dette extérieure publique et privée - lui assure un confortable coussin de devises qui le protège des secousses du marché.

Le commerce extérieur tire cette croissance. Le marché mondial, avec en tête la Chine, est très demandeur en produits agricoles et matières premières dont le Brésil regorge et qui lui assurent les deux tiers de ses revenus : viande de boeuf, soja, minerai de fer, éthanol, entre autres.

A l'inverse du Venezuela, dont la richesse provient presque exclusivement du pétrole, le Brésil a pu diversifier ses exportations. Il a aussi élargi le cercle de ses clients. Les Etats-Unis n'absorbent que 15 % de ses ventes - seulement un peu plus de 2 % de son PIB. Par comparaison, le Mexique vend 80 % de ses produits à son voisin du Nord. La Chine achète 10 % des exportations du Brésil - soit cinq fois plus qu'il y a deux ans, et plus que l'Argentine voisine.

Sous l'égide de la Banque centrale, agissant de manière autonome et transparente, l'instauration en 1999 d'un taux de change flottant entre la monnaie locale, le real, et le dollar a facilité la maîtrise de l'inflation, réduite à 4,5 % en 2007. Le real a doublé de valeur en cinq ans par rapport au billet vert. Quant à la Bourse de Sao Paulo, elle a décuplé la sienne depuis 2002, avec une hausse de 60 % en 2007.

DYNAMISME INTERNE

Le Brésil possède désormais un dynamisme interne basé sur une forte hausse de la demande des ménages et des entreprises. En 1999, les taux d'intérêt avaient atteint un record de 45 %. Ils sont aujourd'hui de 11,25 %, soit 7 % en termes réels. Ce serait encore énorme pour beaucoup de pays, mais pas ici. Cette baisse drastique a fait fleurir le crédit et dopé la consommation (+ 6,5%), dans la construction, l'automobile ou l'informatique.

La confiance du gouvernement dans l'avenir de l'économie va de pair avec une prudence légitime. Car deux dangers se rapprochent. D'abord, la balance des comptes courants a enregistré en 2007 un léger déficit dû à l'écart - du simple au double - entre les exportations et les importations. Pour satisfaire la demande interne, les entreprises ont beaucoup importé à des prix compétitifs, grâce à l'appréciation du real, et moins vendu à l'étranger, où leurs marges sont pénalisées par cette monnaie forte. Brasilia vient de prendre des mesures financières pour relancer les exportations et rendre le pays moins attractif pour les capitaux spéculatifs qui poussent le real à la hausse.

L'inflation est le second danger. Le président Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva la tient pour la pire ennemie des Brésiliens les plus pauvres, dont il dit défendre la cause. Sa maîtrise a contribué à sa réélection en 2006 et lui a permis de redistribuer de la richesse à des millions de familles par l'entremise de programmes sociaux. Le chef de l'Etat préfère la poursuite d'une croissance plus modeste ne portant pas en germe le retour de l'inflation. Cette menace sera contenue tant que la hausse de l'investissement l'emportera sur celle de la demande, ce qui a été le cas en 2007. Mais avec 18 % du PIB, l'investissement reste nettement inférieur à celui de la Chine (40 %) ou de l'Inde (35 %).

Pour rendre sa croissance durable, le Brésil devra s'attaquer à des problèmes de fond dont la solution est autant politique qu'économique. Il lui faudra réduire la dette interne de l'Etat en resserrant les dépenses publiques. Il lui faudra développer ses infrastructures, alléger sa fiscalité et simplifier sa bureaucratie. Bref, diminuer ce que les investisseurs appellent ici "le coût Brésil".

Jean-Pierre Langellier- Le Monde
Article paru dans l'édition du 25.03.08.

Bush: Iraq is a success.......in death and loss.

2008-03-24T14:08:00.005-04:00

I grew up watching my two parents, the only family I had,who were both Holocaust survivors.They were beautiful souls,who after witnessing and suffering what Man is about,were able to continue with the belief in mankind.I was always reminded to see colors and beauty of living and focus my mind away from sadness and death.We endured great hardship.Their spirit never gave up.
My art, though was always in black and white.
Nevertheless, I must remember, that I was not to turn away from observing social injustice, destructive and negative attitude and try to avert, through my art and my standing.
I had a hard time in using colors,despite their stimulus to have a sense of humor and go light.
I was seventeen years old, at the time of my father's death.
Looking at him in the morgue,the silent face,mute and unresponsive,I made a commitment to myself.
From then on, in his memory I will only create images that inspire laughter and influence the mind to see beyond darkness.
So as much as I do not want to record the unjust ongoing massacre of lives,I do react daily to any news of death.I a stop and cringe.
I hurt, I feel paralyzed and a pain that crosses through me,
reacting to the information as the dead would be someone I knew.

Selected writings of Staff Sgt. Juan Campos, 27, who was riding in a Humvee on May 14, 2007, when it hit an IED. Severely burned over 80 percent of his body, he died June 1.

Hey beautiful well we were on blackout again, we lost yet some more soldiers. I cant wait to get out of this place and return to you where i belong. I dont know how much more of this place i can take. i try to be hard and brave for my guys but i dont know how long i can keep that up you know. its like everytime we go out, any little bump or sounds freaks me out. maybe im jus stressin is all. hopefully ill get over it....
you know, you never think that anything is or can happen to you, at first you feel invincible, but then little by little things start to wear on you...
well im sure well be able to save a couple of bucks if you stay with your mom....and at the same time you can help her with some of the bills for the time being. it doesnt bother me. as long as you guys are content is all that matters. I love and miss you guys like crazy. I know i miss both of you too. at times id like to even just spend 1 minute out of this nightmare just to hold and kiss you guys to make it seem a little bit easier. im sure he will like whatever you get him for xmas, and i know that as he gets older he’ll understand how things work. well things here always seem to be......uhm whats the word.....interesting i guess you can say. you never know whats gonna happen and thats the worst part. do me a favor though, when you go to my sisters or moms or wherever you see my family let them know that i love them very much..ok? well i better get going, i have a lot of stuff to do. but hopefully ill get to hear from you pretty soon.*muah* and hugs. tell mijo im proud of him too!
love always,
your other half
Juan Campos, e-mail message to his wife, Dec. 12, 2006.

Jacob,my son gave me a flower

2008-03-23T04:12:00.002-04:00

photo by marguerita

Spitzer's ego,meaning ......

2008-03-23T00:38:00.003-04:00

Well, Eliot,you could get some nicer ties and sexy underwear for Silda......

Carla Bruni on the attack :Halte à la calomnie !

2008-03-21T00:45:00.002-04:00

Désormais l'affaire du faux SMS est close; mon mari vient de retirer sa plainte contre Le Nouvel Observateur après réception de la lettre d'excuses qu'Airy Routier m'a adressée. Qu'on me permette néanmoins quelques observations.

Le texte de la charte signée en avril 2004 entre Claude Perdriel, PDG du Nouvel Observateur, et les représentants de la Société des rédacteurs prévoit que "l'objectif des articles est de présenter les faits aux lecteurs avec la plus grande rigueur et la plus grande honnêteté. Toute information doit être recoupée et vérifiée. La rumeur doit être bannie, la citation anonyme évitée et la source indiquée aussi précisément que possible", et il ajoute : "L'usage du conditionnel de précaution est proscrit sauf exception visée par la direction de la rédaction. Ne sont publiées que des informations dont l'origine est connue. La vie privée des personnes est respectée."

Or tous ces principes ont été bafoués par Airy Routier, pourtant signataire de cette charte, dans l'article qu'il a commis sur le site du Nouvel Obs à propos du SMS présumé que le président aurait adressé à son ex-épouse juste avant notre propre mariage. Voici ce qu'écrivait Airy Routier : "Huit jours avant son mariage, le président de la République a adressé un SMS à son ex-épouse, en forme d'ultimatum : Si tu reviens, lui a-t-il écrit, j'annule tout. Il n'a pas eu de réponse." Qu'on ne s'y trompe pas : l'enjeu, dans cette affaire, n'est pas le respect de la vie privée. Je peux concevoir, puisque l'époque le réclame, que, comme dit Airy Routier, "la vie privée d'un président, élu par les Français, qui a tous les pouvoirs, notamment celui du feu nucléaire, ne relève pas du même ordre que celle d'un quidam". Pourquoi pas ? Le débat est ouvert et le problème n'est pas là.

Le problème n'est pas non plus l'existence elle-même du SMS en question, car si le SMS avait existé, si la rumeur avait été avérée, c'eût été par hasard, au terme d'une vague indiscrétion, d'un "quelqu'un m'a dit", et non d'une investigation rigoureuse… Voilà bien le problème : quand on est indiscret, il faut être sûr de ce qu'on raconte. Ce qui est malhonnête et inquiétant dans cet épisode, c'est qu'à aucun moment l'"information" n'a été vérifiée, recoupée, validée. De son propre aveu, Airy Routier n'avait pas vu (et pour cause !) le SMS, qu'il a pourtant présenté comme un fait.

http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2008/03/19/halte-a-la-calomnie-par-carla-bruni-sarkozy_1024852_823448.html

Snail : The Quintessencial Self

2008-03-14T18:06:00.006-04:00

The world is full of human beings who have no confidence, who feel no joy in being who they are. People can spend their entire lives trying to “fix” themselves, to remake themselves in the image of what popular culture dictates as “perfect”. There are billion dollar industries that prey on this mistaken sense of what is “right”, what is “acceptable”. For some people it does not matter how much they own or how much they accomplish. It is never enough; they can never enjoy it because they need to erase that snail.

What more can the snail tell us?

So what do we have? Someone who feels comfortable in her body, someone who has worked hard and can now enjoy the fruits of her labour. Someone who is self sufficient and proud of the person she has become. At the same time, she knows that all things must pass. Life is a never ending cycle of birth, growth, deterioration and death. Knowing this, she can enjoy what she has made, both in the outside world and in her soul. She can enjoy but not be bound by it. She is not afraid of the loss of her power or position because she knows that what she so meticulously built up can be taken away at any moment. And this is okay. She can build again. She is not her possessions.
No true garden is free of insects, dirt and debris. Each and every garden has a snail just as every human has some habit or characteristic that makes them seem less than perfect. The woman in this card is at ease in her body and in her surroundings. She sees the snail in her garden but loves and enjoys what she has made anyway. She knows that perhaps in the eyes of others she is too short or too fat or too poor, but deep inside that star in the middle of the pentacle she is perfect unto herself. She not only accepts the snail in her garden, she welcomes it.

Why do we waste our precious time and resources denying the snail in our garden? Take a close look at the face of the woman in the card. Do you see her serenity? Does she look apologetic for being successful, well dressed, and self sufficient? No. She is happy and confident and at home with herself and with her life.
The world has slowed down to a crawl and we can now take the time to enjoy what we have created, what we have become. Ultimately time moves forward and nothing lasts forever. But in the world of the Nine of Pentacles, the snail reminds us to find peace within our being and to be proud of who we are; warts, snails and all. http://tarotcanada.tripod.com/9PentaclesTheSnail.html

quintessence

Main Entry:
quin·tes·sence Listen to the pronunciation of quintessence
Pronunciation:
\kwin-ˈte-sən(t)s\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English, from Middle French quinte essence, from Medieval Latin quinta essentia, literally, fifth essence
Date:
15th century

1 : the fifth and highest element in ancient and medieval philosophy that permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies
2 : the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form 3 : the most typical example or representative
— quin·tes·sen·tial Listen to the pronunciation of quintessential \ˌkwin-tə-ˈsen(t)-shəl\ adjective
— quin·tes·sen·tial·ly adverb

Food for Thought : Of Butterflies ,Magnolias and Tears

2008-03-13T16:12:00.006-04:00

The common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is under threat in Germany.http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,541323,00.html

LE MONDE | 13.03.08 | 16h12 • Mis à jour le 13.03.08 | 16h12

A Paris et dans les villes à l'entour, les magnolias sont en fleur, comme ils le sont sans aucun doute sur les côtes normandes, atlantiques et méditerranéennes depuis plusieurs jours. Ce petit arbre, issu du croisement de plusieurs plantes botaniques originaires de l'hémisphère Nord, des Amériques autant que d'Asie, est devenu presque aussi banal que le lilas. Il s'agit bien sûr du magnolia à feuilles caduques, le Magnolia soulangeana qui est différent du Magnolia grandiflora aux grandes feuilles persistantes, qui est originaire de Louisiane et fleurit l'été.

Notre magnolia printanier n'est pas seul du genre : il en est un autre, beaucoup plus petit, dont les fleurs blanches ou roses sont largement ouvertes, en forme d'étoile quand elles s'ouvrent et un peu échevelées juste avant de faner. On l'appelle Magnolia stellata, ou beaucoup plus grand encore, le Magnolia kobus qui, dit-on, est un arbre qui couvre des forêts en Corée et au Japon.

C'est dire que ces magnolias caducs n'ont pas peur du froid... sauf quand ils fleurissent et c'est bien là le seul défaut qu'on leur trouvera. Pour le reste, ils poussent dans les terres humides, argileuses, comme dans la bonne terre à blé des plaines. Quand ils sont adultes, ils supportent la sécheresse pour peu qu'elle ne soit pas trop persistante, car leur enracinement aussi solide que profond sait trouver l'eau là où elle se trouve. Ils craignent juste l'excès de calcaire conjugué à la sécheresse, mais aucune maladie ne semble les affecter et aucun insecte ne vient abîmer leur feuillage magnifique.
Souvent, leur couleur varie, aussi il est grand temps d'aller en acheter un pour le planter au jardin. Au moins sera-t-on certain de sa couleur, qui va du blanc au violet. Il lui faut un peu de place pour qu'il se développe car il a tendance à adopter une forme arrondie. Cinq mètres sur cinq mètres suffiront au soulangeana tandis que deux sur deux iront au stellata.

The plight of the butterfly

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/13/conservation.wildlife1

Natural history broadcaster Sir David Attenborough yesterday launched a new £25m conservation project aimed at reversing has been described as the "silent natural disaster" that is threatening butterfly species in the UK.

En Passant : Looking for The Soul Mate

2008-03-13T02:22:00.004-04:00

photo by marguerita

Que sera, sera.....

Doris Day
Que Sera Sera

When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty, will I be rich
Here's what she said to me.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

When I was young, I fell in love
I asked my sweetheart what lies ahead
Will we have rainbows, day after day
Here's what my sweetheart said.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

Now I have children of my own
They ask their mother, what will I be
Will I be handsome, will I be rich
I tell them tenderly.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

Summum Jus,Summa Injuria

2008-03-10T17:03:00.001-04:00

By Mike Nizza

Lust, gluttony, greed and the rest of the seven deadly sins gathered in the 6th century will have to get used to a modern companion. A Vatican official has articulated seven new categories of sin “due to the phenomenon of globalization.”

“While sin used to concern mostly the individual, today it has mainly a social resonance,” Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti told L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican City’s local paper. Bloomberg News parsed his remarks into a clip-n-savable list:

1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control

2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research

3. Drug abuse

4. Polluting the environment

5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

6. Excessive wealth

7. Creating poverty
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/seven-more-sins-thanks-to-vatican/index.html?hp

German Humor : Man kann Essen,Man Kann Fressen

2008-03-08T19:55:00.005-05:00

Germany has a string of cities that take one through the entire digestive tract: Essen (eat), Darmstadt (intestine city), and Pforzheim (which is close enough to the German word for "fart" to make it a punch line). But are you familiar with the weirdest town names in Germany and Europe? more...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/

Michael Musto as Lindsay Lohan as Marilyn Monroe

2008-03-06T11:11:00.005-05:00

http://www.villagevoice.com/gallery/0810,0810marilynmusto,350230,3.html

The Search: Perpetuating the Pilfering vis a vis the Holocaust

2008-03-04T19:42:00.003-05:00

The visual style of "The Search" is clear, simple, pastel-colored, in a classic Belgian-Franco comic tradition. "Less is more," Heuvel, the artist, said in a recent telephone conversation, acknowledging that he pilfered liberally from Tintin's inventor, Hergé. "We spent endless hours making sure that the Nazi costumes were kept to a minimum because boys can glorify these things."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/27/arts/27holocaust.php?page=1

On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 4:44 AM, Hendrik Berends <hendrik.berends@web.de> wrote:

Dear Marguerita

Thank you for the presentation of your work. The article from the New York Times was a bit misleading though as REPRODUKT is not the publisher of the comic "The Search", but the Anne Frank-Center here in Berlin. This center is based in the same house where our spokeswoman Jutta Harms is additionally working for an independet gallery. However, similar topics are covered by Elke Steiner at our own publishing program.

"We are always looking for personal stories and artists that have mastered their craft and are able to tell them in a thought-out way. But unfortunately, I have to tell you that your style doesn't match with our current line of publishings and is not what we expect to see about such a serious theme. Especially the very bright coloration deters us from publishing your work."

Maybe this episode is of interest ???????

Marguerita

http://jewisheritagefr.blogspot.com/2007/07/marguerita-bornstein.html

http://lambiek.net/artists/m/marguerita.htm

The Poignant Frog

http://thepoignantfrog.blogspot.com/

The Fragebogen

http://www.atireugram.blogspot.com/

P.S

And Yes,the trees in Auschwitz are still green :http://atireugram.blogspot.com/2007/02/krakow.html Apropos:

Thomas Heppener, director of the Anne Frank Center in Berlin, said, "There was also a lot of discussion about color." Black-and-white, he noted, is now a cliché of art and movies about the Holocaust. Color is less melodramatic. "And you know the trees were still green at Auschwitz," he added.

Marguerita

My mother :Mea Fleischer Lauer in Paris- 1946

2008-03-01T12:16:00.004-05:00

2008 shoes
1946 -Note her shoes-

Sing little bird,Sing to me

2008-02-29T19:43:00.002-05:00

No kidding: Drongo ,mate!

2008-02-28T23:34:00.005-05:00

Drongo:

This soundscape features the dawn chorus from an Australian tropical highland rainforest, recorded in the World Heritage listed highland rainforests of the Atherton Tableland.

The recording begins with overnight dew falling from leaves, a Spangles Drongo, distant Boobook Owl, and the last nocturnal crickets and frogs. Gradually this gives way to a dawn chorus of Riflebirds, Catbirds, Rufous Fantails, Wompoo Fruit-doves and other rainforest birdsong.

http://www.listeningearth.com.au/AlbumGalleriesNS/01AthertonDawn/01AthertonDawnAlbum.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spangled_DrongoTrack time: 20min

http://rainforest-australia.com/Bird_Index.html

P.S.

A person seemed to be, in some form or another, stupid. Drongo is a typically australian word and is part of common australian dialect.

Food for Thought : About what Art does to You

2008-02-27T10:43:00.002-05:00

"Art is important because it stimulates young people's creativity. If you see great art it makes you ask questions and if you ask questions it makes you seek answers. It's always been in my mind that this is something I wanted to do."- Anthony d'Offay,London art dealer
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2260249,00.html

The Search:No Laughs, No Thrills, and Villains All Too Real

2008-02-26T19:36:00.008-05:00

I am following with great interest the latest developments regarding the remembrance of the Holocaust.As,I myself the only daughter,the only remnant of two large Jewish families turned into ashes.

BERLIN — The other morning Jens Augner, slight and owlish, a schoolteacher in his 40s, quizzed his eighth-grade class of 13- and 14-year-olds at the Humboldt Gymnasium, a local school. As part of a trial program, he has just introduced a new history textbook into the curriculum: to be exact, a comic book about the Holocaust, called “The Search.”
“The result, I find, is that interest in the subject is actually increasing,” Mr. Augner later commented. “These students don’t have the same discomfort we did talking about it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/books/27holocaust.html?hp

Beauty in the Mind:The Dragon’s Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan

2008-02-24T17:06:00.006-05:00

flowers from Bhutan

(dance)photo by heloisa oliveira

A furious dialogue ensued in Dzongkha, the Bhutanese language, among the priests, the owner, the government official overseeing the country’s cultural properties and the curators’ Bhutanese driver over how to interpret this ambiguous sign. (Even numbers are bad, ascending numbers are good, and nine is great, the most auspicious number of all.)http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/arts/design/24emer.html

The kingdom’s remoteness allowed it to remain isolated for centuries. Snow-clogged passes kept out foreign marauders; the only invader was Buddhism, imported by Guru Rinpoche, the founder of the earliest school of Tibetan Buddhism, in 746. Before Rinpoche’s arrival, the Bhutanese practiced a nature- worshipping form of animism called Bon. The absorption of Bon’s earthly gods and goblins into the new religion created a uniquely environmental form of Buddhism that has defined the culture to this day.http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200710/bhutan

http://www.theatlantic.com/slideshows/bhutan/

Las memorias de Marcos Ana. "Decidme como es un árbol"

2008-02-18T20:19:00.001-05:00

Sus esperanzas frustradas y las que tienen que venir. Porque este tipo de memorias lo que rebosan es optimismo. Optimismo frente a la adversidad, que es el mas necesario.

Ellos ya hicieron su trabajo, ahora nos toca a nosotros.
Hace tiempo que conozco la figura de Marcos Ana.
Las razones son varias pero una era poderosa.

http://fraternidaduniversal.blogspot.com/2007/10/las-memorias-de-marcos-ana-decidme-como.html

Fiat Lux: Northern Light in Sweden

2008-02-17T16:58:00.008-05:00

This area is an untapped secret known only to Swedes,' said Putte Eby, the brains behind the hotel.
'But with enlightened management that will change.one of nature's greatest spectacles. Naked.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2008/feb/17/sweden.northernlights?picture=332528544

Pandas: A documentary

2008-02-17T01:52:00.003-05:00

I love pandas and here photos of pandas in China
by James Fallows
http://www.theatlantic.com/slideshows/pandas

The Rape of Europa and the Fragebogen begins

2008-02-16T21:01:00.008-05:00

drawing by marguerita
"It takes a great many shovelfuls to bury the truth."
German proverb recorded for posterity by H.L. Mencken

TAKING office in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt confronted a country in crisis. Four in 10 working-age Americans were jobless. Banks were collapsing. There were long lines outside tellers’ windows as people rushed to withdraw their savings.
On March 4, Roosevelt gave his now famous inaugural address, promising that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Within days he had secured legislation guaranteeing the banks, and on March 12, he took to the radio for the first of his fireside chats. “When the people find out that they can get their money — that they can get it when they want it — the phantom of fear will soon be laid,” he soothed an anxious nation. “I can assure you, it is safer to keep your money in a re-opened bank than under your mattress.”

And across the Atlantic

After the elections of March 5, 1933, the Nazis began a systematic takeover of the state governments throughout Germany, ending a centuries old tradition of local political independence. Armed SA and SS thugs barged into local government offices using the state of emergency decree as a pretext to throw out legitimate office holders and replace them with Nazi Reich commissioners.
Political enemies were arrested by the thousands and put in hastily constructed holding pens. Old army barracks and abandoned factories were used as prisons. Once inside, prisoners were subjected to military style drills and harsh discipline. They were often beaten and sometimes even tortured to death. This was the very beginning of the Nazi concentration camp system.
At this time, these early concentration camps were loosely organized under the control of the SA and the rival SS. Many were little more than barbed wire stockades know as 'wild' concentration camps, set up by local Gauleiters and SA leaders.
For Adolf Hitler, the goal of a legally established dictatorship was now within reach. On March 15, 1933, a cabinet meeting was held during which Hitler and Göring discussed how to obstruct what was left of the democratic process to get an Enabling Act passed by the Reichstag. This law would hand over the constitutional functions of the Reichstag to Hitler, including the power to make laws, control the budget and approve treaties with foreign governments.
The emergency decree signed by Hindenburg on February 28, after the Reichstag fire, made it easy for them to interfere with non-Nazi elected representatives of the people by simply arresting them.
As Hitler plotted to bring democracy to an end in Germany, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels put together a brilliant public relations display at the official opening of the newly elected Reichstag.
On March 21, in the Garrison Church at Potsdam, the burial place of Frederick the Great, an elaborate ceremony took place designed to ease public concern over Hitler and his gangster-like new regime.

Thus the Terrible Secret,as Walter Laqueur details in his book, and other historians,Europe become the scapegoat,meaning the Jews of Europe,along with who was in harm's way.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/weekinreview/17zernike.html?hp

“It is ignorance — not knowledge — that leads to the repetition of abominable situations,”

2008-02-16T00:49:00.006-05:00

Hitler in the box by Marguerita

I must congratulate Mr.Sarkozy for this initiative.

Being the only child of two Holocaust survivors,who are not alive anymore,both sides descendants of large and prominent Jewish families totally murdered by the Nazi,I am aware every moment of my life about the tragedy.
At this very moment I am facing an eviction,after years of struggling to have a roof over my head.

Who can I turn to?

In the home that would be mine,of my ancestors,strangers took possession.

My dignity challenged,no family to turn to.
My two sons,now realizing and feeling the exact agony that I have endured so far.
I am sorry that Simone Weil disagrees.
We must all come to realize that the rampant indifference to human suffering and disrespect to human life reached the lowest point through the horror of Hitler.
He opened the Pandora's box and since the world catapulted to the ongoing and increasing violence in the world all over.
The human race is in fact blase,and hypocrite mostly for being afraid to teach children about violence,thus condoning the repetition as Mr.Sarkozy mentioned.
Children need innocence as well as adults. And it is in childhood that one is able to learn which direction to chose later in life.The character of a child is there in observation.
As one should know,Hitler was indoctrinating the youth,thus the Hitler-Jugent,which many known German
personalities were too,like Gunther Grass and many politicians after the II War.

Fear to deal with historical truth is maybe the cause of so much unhappiness.

Thanks to technology we are now able to see faster,the immediate transparency of any manipulation of truth.It also enables us to learn the facts and bring all of humanity together to evaluate our threats.We should benefit from the speed of information to transmit messages of peace and harmony,and try with all our hearts to learn from the innumerous mistakes that occurred and still about.Invasions ,intimidation,Murder.

Why don't we all realize and learn about our limitations?

Not reading and learning History and Geography is exactly where the world is at fault.

One reads and hears constantly why is that all bad things happening,expecting to get answers.

Well it comes from individual efforts,one by one ,a consciousness of good and evil.

Ask yourself before hurting someone else,why should I?

And spend more time learning.It certainly gives one peace of mind and instruct oneself how to conduct himself or herself to to be able to change the world 's status quo.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/hitler_youth.htm

PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy dropped an intellectual bombshell this week, surprising the nation and touching off waves of protest with his revision of the school curriculum: beginning next fall, he said, every fifth grader will have to learn the life story of one of the 11,000 French children killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust
“Nothing is more moving, for a child, than the story of a child his own age, who has the same games, the same joys and the same hopes as he, but who, in the dawn of the 1940s, had the bad fortune to be defined as a Jew,” Mr. Sarkozy said at the end of a dinner speech to France’s Jewish community on Wednesday night. He added that every French child should be “entrusted with the memory of a French child-victim of the Holocaust.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/world/europe/16france.html?hp

2008-02-13T23:04:00.007-05:00

photos by jill pakenham

Point of View: The Real Thing Michelle Obama

2008-02-13T19:10:00.003-05:00

Photo: AP/Charles Rex Arbogast
“My statements are coming from my experiences and my observations and my frustrations.”
I can go along with these lines.
Michelle Obama :Outspoken, strong-willed, funny, gutsy and sometimes sarcastic.Mrs. Obama has also had to learn to tamp down her sometimes biting humor because it too often leaves Mr. Obama as the punch line. (It has been a long time since she has talked publicly about her husband of 15 years being smelly in the morning, as she told Glamour magazine, or forgetting to put away the butter.)
“What I’ve learned is that my humor doesn’t translate to print all the time,” she said in the interview. “But usually when I’m speaking to a group, people understand what I’m trying to say, they get the humor, they understand the sarcasm, they get the joke.”Her audiences do laugh. Talking about how long it took her and Mr. Obama, 47, to pay off their student loans (they did so only in the last couple of years), she told a church audience in Cheraw, S.C., “I’m still waiting for Barack’s trust fund.” They cackled. She continued: “Then I heard Dick Cheney was supposed to be a relative! Thought we might be in for something here.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/us/politics/14michelle.html?hp

Of Dinosaurs and Penis to a Kiss

2008-02-13T16:10:00.002-05:00

A fascinating speculation on the evolution of emotion in humans and other animals.
“The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex,” includes a huge compilation of the sexual decorations and displays of animals, from the jaws of stag-beetles to the tail of the Argus pheasant, which far exceeds that of the peacock in absurd magnificence. From his study of all this, Darwin began to elucidate systematic patterns and principles of the evolution of courtship and sexual behavior. In particular, he developed the concept of sexual selection, which is the idea that cumbersome ornaments like big tails can evolve, even if they make the bearer less likely to survive, if the opposite sex (usually the female) finds them attractive.
In doing so, he founded one of the most important and successful branches of evolutionary research. We now have a robust understanding of how sexual pressures — the pressures to find, impress, and seduce a mate — influence the evolution of males and females.
http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/a-tyrannical-romance/index.html

Galaxy A1689-zD1

2008-02-13T09:56:00.005-05:00

Astronomers at Nasa found the galaxy A1689-zD1,considered the most distant one so far.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Astronomos/descubren/galaxias/lejanas/Universo/elpepusoc/20080213elpepusoc_7/Tes

Amazing moment the world's biggest Christ was struck by lightning

2008-02-13T02:08:00.002-05:00

Fernando Coelho dos Santos: Talk to Her(Sequel)

2008-02-12T22:05:00.014-05:00

So,if one says that miracles do not happen,I must contradict that one.

This is a story about feelings.

On today's cold, grey and snowy day in New York,my mind crisscrossing with ideas,worries,pain,thoughts,laughter,hope and dreams,I could not believe hat was happening.
First I get a call from someone who likes me a lot,wondering about me.
A few hours later,to my surprise I receive an e-mail from Brazil.
And in the evening a friend of mine in Argentina sending me an e-mail asking about me.
Three Latin hombres.Ha! Que caliente.

A class friend of mine,from kindergarten days finally writes to me,after I had sent him a number of messages through the years.
Only that it was not a response to my messages.
He must have heard or seen the posting from last year....
http://atireugram.blogspot.com/2007/07/fernando-coelho-dos-santos-et-tubrutus.html
It kind of goes on a parallel with Australia Apologizing to Aborigines,only that in my case,
without a comprehensive and moving apology for past wrongs and a call for bipartisan action to improve my life.And with a play on words“The Parliament is today here assembled to deal with this unfinished business of the nation, to remove a great stain from the nation’s soul, and in a true spirit of reconciliation to open a new chapter in the history of this great land, Australia,” Mr. Rudd told Parliament.

My kindergarten friend,after years of us not seeing each other,in fact about 10,as I left the school in 1966,when I last run into him,in 1975 appeared on my front, like a vision,when I was on a vacation in Guaruja,the beach resort in Sao Paulo.He was screaming at me about the publication of an article in GRAPHIS 179 about my artwork.He also warned me that there was trouble ahead for me,as a result of that??? !!! and he fizzled into the mist of the waves and sand,leaving me puzzled forever.
Many years later,about 20 or more I saw a piece of news on the internet and I figured out the connection of Fernando and his absurd and surreal 1975 outburst.
It is simply a freaky story which could serve for a comics plot,the only downside being that my professional life suffered a surreal setback crossing continents and causing me great hardship.
So today's e-mails by Fernando are quite amusing and fodder or inspiration for a Pedro Almodovar movie....
Hello Pedro,can you hear me???????????
By the way, I must confess,that Latin men,with many of their shortcomings are more emotional and earthy then the anglo-saxons.For at least,Latin men,with the exception of the bad apples that can be found in every place ,shape and form in this life,at least have a sentimental streak, and certainly preserve in a charming way their memories of desires and seduction.
Fernando tells me that he remembers how the two of us,both kids in school,were running up and down the stairs and would stop on a landing in between..... and that he had a crush on me.
It certainly brings to my mind something that Balthus would have painted.
How nice to hear over 40+ years later that I was a femme fatale.Sarava!
He also tells me how he was involved in the the coordination of the Comics expos in Sao Paulo and Piracicaba,although he has no recollection of the episode on the beach.....
So here our dialogue dated 2/12/2008.(today)

Marguerita,

faz tempo...

Somente hoje vi seus comentários na internet.

Com nossa foto de 66 e tudo o mais, o que foi muito legal.

Confesso que não me lembro do nosso encontro no Guarujá em 1975, muito menos de qq comentário que possa ter feito a voce.

Minha índole não "casa" com o comentário que voce se lembra de eu ter feito na época. Me perdoe.

Em relação a convida-la para participar do Salão Mackenzie, em 1973, o convite foi para todos os artistas brasileiros, inclusive para voce. A mídia da época foi muito positiva levando nossa mensagem e convite para todos.

Em 1974 e 1975, de forma paralela, ajudei o Salão de Piracicaba. Em 1976, o primeiro salão realmente internacional, fui contratado para coordenar o Salão(embora meu nome não apareça no site do salão)

Em 1974, fui para o Salão de Lucca, Italia, (salão de quadinhos e cinema de animação) representando a Fundação Bienal, ocasião em que conheci todos os principais artistas e profissionais da área, inclusive o Moliterni.

Naquela ocasião conversei com todos sobre o projeto de levar para a Bienal uma grande exposição de quadrinhos e apresentação de filmes de animação. Também conversamos sobre o Salão de Piracicaba.

Não trabalho na área. Minha área é seguros, há tempos...

Mas consegui convencer o Mackenzie a registrar a história do Salão, e ajudei a elaborar um documentário em DVD de 15 mins, que foi muito bem recebido. Espero que voce o tenha visto.

Minha colega de primário, um grande abraço, Fernando

Marguerita,

fiz 58 em 13 janeiro.

Boa essa, 1956 !!! Voce realmente é guardadora de lembranças !

Casei duas vezes, não tenho filho, e estou solteiro, mas não deve ser por muito tempo.

NY ? Nâo, embora o Zelio quisesse que eu fosse com ele, pois vai casar uma filha semana que vem, e vai comemorar os setentão por aí.

Minha vida por aqui é boa, mas a parte profissional está ficando difícil com a globalização. Operadores mundiais chegam com muita grana, muito nome, muita estrutura, e nóis brasileirinhos sifu. Mas continuo na luta bravamente, e vou superar essa avalanche.

Voce continua a desenhar ? Artes ?

Vou tomar a maior liberdade !

Vendo o desenho do beijo, me lembro que no primário subíamos, e descíamos as escadas. No meio sempre tinha uma parada. Nesse momento, quando estavamos na parte que dava para ver a parte de baixo, voce se debruçava e eu que estava atrás me debruçava também.

A LIBERDADE: essa sempre era uma hora indescritível na ocasião, porque eu sempre dava uma encoxada em voce !

Êta nóis !

F

Desculpe, escrevi errado. Vi seus desenhos, e continuam bacanas.

O que queria perguntar era o que estava fazendo. Site e blog é um canal

Acabo de ler, e me lembrar, que voce desenhou para apresentação de novela da Rede Globo. (Rebu)

(Marguerita is an artist who is best known as an illustrator, but also works in painting, sculpture, jewelry and comics.)

Agora sei que continuas a mesma, exceto quanto a escultura e jóias, que não sabia.

Seria legal nos encontrarmos novamente, mas agora não vai dar. Tenho que ficar por aqui, cuidar da "lojinha"

Velhinho, o escambau !

Sábio !

The First Australians alive Again

2008-02-11T20:15:00.000-05:00

Samantha Maiden, Online Political Editor | February 12, 2008

A TRADITIONAL Aboriginal welcoming ceremony that marked the opening of the new Parliament today could become permanent.

For the first time in the Parliament's 107-year history, the ceremony marked the opening of the first parliamentary sitting of the year.

"With this welcome comes a great symbolism: the hope of a united nation, through reconciliation," Ngannawal elder Matilda House told MPs and Senators.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was handed a message stick during the ceremony which told "the story of our coming together" and Liberal leader Brendan Nelson backed the ceremony becoming a permanent feature.
The moving ceremony also touched on the issue of the Stolen Generation, the subject of the historic formal apology
Earlier today, Mr Rudd defended the controversy over his failure to release the text of the planned apology to the stolen generations arguing getting it "right" for indigenous people is his main concern .
"We are dealing with a matter here which goes to how we, as a nation, heal and that is best done if we, as parliament, can act in unanimity on this question," he told ABC Radio today.
"But the core part of making sure this apology is effective is to make sure it is done right and proper with Aboriginal people.
"They are the most important people in this equation today not politicians be it the Government or theOpposition."http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23200332-601,00.html http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23196221-28737,00.html

The Woman d'un Certain Age...Ha!

2008-02-11T00:17:00.000-05:00

drawing by marguerita

French Women Don't Get Fat and Do Get Lucky

By Pamela Druckerman
Sunday, February 10, 2008; B02

PARIS

If I have to get old, I want to do it in Paris.

It's not because of the dank weather, the constant personal snubs or a fetish for unpasteurized cheese. It's because, quite frankly, I'd like to keep having sex.

In the United States, my odds would be grim. Through our 40s, we American women manage to arrange romps on a fairly regular basis. But the latest national statistics show that by our 50s, a third of us haven't had sex in the last year. By our 60s, nearly half have gone sexless in the previous year. Once we hit our 70s, most of us might as well hang up an "out of business" sign. (Needless to say, men fare much better.)

So much for the gym-bodied baby boomers who promised to make 60 the new 40, using Botox as an aphrodisiac. Among today's 50-plus women, the problem of sexlessness is as bad or worse than it was for older women two decades ago.

But not in France. Frenchwomen simply don't suffer from the same dramatic, post-40s slide into sexual obsolescence. Just 15 percent of Frenchwomen in their 50s and 27 percent in their 60s haven't had any sex in the past year, according to a 2004 national survey by France's Regional Health Observatory. Another national survey being released next month will report that cohabiting Frenchwomen over 50 are having more sex now than they did in the early 1990s.

Try not to hate them: Frenchwomen don't get fat, and they do get lucky.

The idea that older women are desirable goes right to the top. Before Nicolas Sarkozy hooked up with his new bride, 40-year-old Carla Bruni, a French magazine suggested some matches for the newly divorced president, including 50-ish TV presenters, writers and an extremely buff sailing champion. After all, Sarkozy, 53, had just been dumped by his then 49-year-old wife Cecilia, who had famously obsessed him and who had had no trouble finding other suitors.
This post-menopausal sexiness is palpable here. In the lingerie section of an upscale department store, I recently watched a gray-haired man earnestly inspecting the black lace bra and panties that his similarly aged companion had just picked out. "That's just what's needed," he clucked, handing his credit card to the clerk.
So why are older American women sitting around feeling bad about their necks, while their sisters across the ocean -- craggy necks or not -- are off being seduced?

For starters, Frenchwomen d'un certain âge have much better role models.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/08/AR2008020801607_pf.html

There are people who don’t understand the culture,” Jay-Z said.

2008-02-08T11:54:00.000-05:00

artwork by marguerita- original for Ariel Dorfman's book cover: The Last Song of Manuel Sendero"
Young said he called his fellow band members before the tour and told them: ''This is all I'm going to do, I won't be doing anything else and I don't want to sing any ... pretty songs; we can only sing about war and politics and the human condition.''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Film-Berlin-Festival-Young.html?scp=2&sq=neil+young&st=nyt\

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/business/media/08adco.html?em&ex=1202619600&en=32d777f69445bbc2&ei=5087%0A

Rats Sweet and Sour : Chinese New Year

2008-02-07T22:46:00.001-05:00

photos by Reuters
In China the rat is beloved.La légende raconte que Bouddha avait invité tous les animaux à venir fêter le Nouvel an avec lui, mais que seuls douze ont répondu à son invitation.
As the legend goes,Boudha invited all the animals to his birthday party.Only twelve showed up.
I love to draw rats and mice.Maybe because they remind me so much of Man and his ways.

Of Mice and Men

John Steinbeck

In CliffsNotes on Of Mice and Men, you discover John Steinbeck's parable about what it means to be human. Steinbeck's story of George and Lennie's ambition of owning their own ranch, and the obstacles that stand in the way of that ambition, reveal the nature of dreams, dignity, loneliness, and sacrifice. Ultimately, Lennie, the mentally handicapped giant who makes George's dream of owning his own ranch worthwhile, ironically becomes the greatest obstacle to achieving that dream.`

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/Of-Mice-and-Men-About-the-Novel-A-Brief-Synopsis.id-101,pageNum-6.html

Based on Steinbeck's own experience as a bindle stiff in the 1920s (before the arrival of the Okies he would vividly describe in The Grapes of Wrath), the title is taken from Robert Burns's poem, To a Mouse, which is often quoted as: "The best-laid plans of mice and men go oft awry." Required reading in many American, Australian, British, New Zealand and Canadian high schools, Of Mice and Men has been a frequent target of censors for what some consider "offensive" and "vulgar" language, and appears on the American Library Association's list of the Most Challenged Books of 21st Century.from Wikipedia

Of Gong,Mallet and Pain: Freedom

2008-02-07T19:16:00.000-05:00

Because some lost souls did not lead good lives, the nuns explained, they are agonizingly stuck between this life and the next. So each night, at precisely 8:30, the nuns take turns striking a large gong with a wooden mallet and reciting a “hell-breaking mantra” to release them from their pain.

“When they hear the bell, they get peaceful,” Ms. Sun said.

A tenet of Buddhism is not to kill animals, and sometimes local devotees request that their donations be used to free caged birds or animals. “Everybody likes freedom,” she said. “Nobody wants to be killed.”

Helmut Schmidt and Smoking

2008-02-06T00:48:00.000-05:00

Anyone who doesn't read is an idiot," said former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in Hooked on cigarettes, former Chancellor Schmidt nabbed by justice

Berlin (AFP) — Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, rarely seen without a cigarette between his lips, is the subject of court proceedings for having smoked in a public place, despite anti-tobacco laws, a judicial source has told us on Friday.
Mister Schmidt, eighty-nine years old, and his wife Hannelore are the subjects of a preliminary inquiry for "violation of tobacco law" and "assault and battery", following an official complaint filed by the heads of an anti-tobacco association in Wiesbaden (center-west), as explained to Agence France Presse by Hamburg (north) public prosecutor Rüdiger Bagger, confirming information reported in the popular journal Bild.
The legal trouble dates from January first of this year, when Mister Schmidt (Social Democratic Chancellor from 1974 to 1982) was photographed in the act of smoking at a Hamburg theatre, in spite of a new prohibition on smoking in public which had come into force in the city.
Mister Bagger suggested that prosecutions for "assault and battery", provided in the criminal code for a case of "endangering the health of others", could be abandoned in the short term, but recidivism by Schmidt or his wife would subject them to financial penalty.
Of course the Schmidts, man and wife, are famously addicted to cigarettes. A few years back, Mrs. Schmidt propounded that smoking was "good for the brain."

an interview for Die Zeit's weekly magazine LEBEN on Thursday, Jan. 24.

http://www.forces.org/News_Portal/news_viewer.php?id=736

The Fragebogen

Sebastiano Mondadori and the Dragonfly

Of Orchids, Passion and my Bleeding Heart

Hyssop:'Purge me with Hyssop, and I shall be clean.'

A Dill Story- Shubit

Contents

[edit]Origins and history

The eucalyptus oil story

Sampaguita

Sampaguita

Varieties of Sampaguita

Facts About Sampaguita

Growing Sampaguita

Sampaguita Plant Care

About Obama: Chega de Tristeza

Paula Toller & Rital Lee - Desculpe o auê

Jozef Szaina:“Today I have a name; then I was a number”

George Bush & Co's Accomplished Mission

Luigi Pirandello: (1867-1936)

Memory of the Camps

Yves Saint Laurent: Je t'aime toujours

Sensuality and sexuality are opposites

by Virginia Stewart-Avalon, M.Ed.

A Manual for Shit Happens

Fabiolo and Fabiolo ( Jaime de Mora y Aragon, A Noble Spanish Bon Vivant)

Jose Saramago : Blindness

Jack Tworkov:express the creative force of the unconscious in art.

Wanted: The last Nazis

Exhibition Seeks Rightful Owners for Nazi Loot

"On dit qu'il ne faut pas remuer le passé, qu'il ne faut pas avoir les yeux sur la nuque, qu'il faut regarder devant et ne pas s'acharner à ouvrir de

Gefilte fish forever

So What?

The Pope: Vox Populi,Vox Dei

Joseph Ratzinger : The Pope and voice of Christ

Xodó by Dominguinhos

Igor Mitoraj

Sipapu

What is happening to the koalas?

The Parrot Flower from Tailand

Semiotics- a note

The Brain and Cell Phones: Back to Future and The AVM

“El que se sienta totalmente feliz es un cretino”

A Conversation on Information

Deus e Brasileiro: A economia vai bem.,apesar de tudo.

Le Brésil espère échapper à la crise financière grâce à des réserves record et à la diversification de l'économie

Bush: Iraq is a success.......in death and loss.

Jacob,my son gave me a flower

Spitzer's ego,meaning ......

Carla Bruni on the attack :Halte à la calomnie !

Snail : The Quintessencial Self

Food for Thought : Of Butterflies ,Magnolias and Tears

En Passant : Looking for The Soul Mate

Summum Jus,Summa Injuria

German Humor : Man kann Essen,Man Kann Fressen

Michael Musto as Lindsay Lohan as Marilyn Monroe

The Search: Perpetuating the Pilfering vis a vis the Holocaust

My mother :Mea Fleischer Lauer in Paris- 1946

Sing little bird,Sing to me

No kidding: Drongo ,mate!

Food for Thought : About what Art does to You

The Search:No Laughs, No Thrills, and Villains All Too Real

Beauty in the Mind:The Dragon’s Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan

Las memorias de Marcos Ana. "Decidme como es un árbol"

Fiat Lux: Northern Light in Sweden

Pandas: A documentary

The Rape of Europa and the Fragebogen begins

“It is ignorance — not knowledge — that leads to the repetition of abominable situations,”

Point of View: The Real Thing Michelle Obama

Of Dinosaurs and Penis to a Kiss

Galaxy A1689-zD1

Amazing moment the world's biggest Christ was struck by lightning

Fernando Coelho dos Santos: Talk to Her(Sequel)

The First Australians alive Again

The Woman d'un Certain Age...Ha!

There are people who don’t understand the culture,” Jay-Z said.

Rats Sweet and Sour : Chinese New Year

Of Mice and Men

John Steinbeck

Of Gong,Mallet and Pain: Freedom

Helmut Schmidt and Smoking