Disney's desperate housewives

We need some humor sometimes...

Hallelujha to help Haiti

Clara's previous post remembered me that an old song from Leonard Cohen "Hallelujha", that have already many versions, from Jon Bon jovi to Jeff Buckley (my favorite), has been interpreted by Justin Timberlake and Matt Morris, in a more "peaceful" version...

LEONARD COHEN: THERE'S A CRACK IN EVERYTHING

Interviewer: In other song you also say"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in". It is not a very happy thought to believe that something will always have to break, to open a crack, in order to the light gets in...

Leonard Cohen: It is a happy thought if we enjoy the truth. There is always something that will have to break. Usually it is our personal proud.
A Buddhist thinker said that disappointment is a great way to illumination. Other masters said: "from the broken débris of my heart I will erect an altar to the Lord".
The idea that there is a staircase of gold and marble, which leads to knowledge is seductive, but seems to me that the idea of something needing to get broken before we can learn anything is a more true idea. It is my experience, maybe you can escape it, but I doubt it. Unless the heart breaks, we will never know anything about love. As long as our objective universe don't collapse, we'll never know anything about the world.
We think that we know the mechanism, but only when it falls we understand how intricate and mysterious is the operation. So, it is true, "there's a crack in everything", all human activity is imperfect and unfinished. Only that way we can have the notion that there's something inside us that can only be located through disillusion, bad luck and defeat. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case.
(excerpt of an interview with Leonard Cohen conducted by João Lisboa for Expresso 1994)

A crack

"There is a crack in everything - that's how the light goes in"

(Alex Rider)

What does this quote sugest to you...?

POETRY FOR A WINTER DAY: ROBERT FROST

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Lee Frost

(thanks to poemhunter.com)

CONGO: THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE

Some regions of the world seem to be mysteriously forgotten by the media. As if they were behind some dark and opressive curtain of silence while awful, unspeakable atrocities are committed.
Nicholas Kristoff, who writes for the New York Times, is an exception. He has been consistently writing about the war that's taking place in Congo which took around 7 million lives in the last ten years. What he writes is hard to believe: militias that cut pieces of  flesh from living victims and make them eat them. Young girls who are raped repeatedly for months and years to the point their internal are completely destroyed (if they survive, of course). People who are esventratewd in front of their families.
Enough of it.
The causes behind this war are multiple: etnical hatred, greed (minerium), violence coming from Rwanda, etc, etc. 
One reads all this and has to wonder: what else is man capable of? What can we do?

Night

The night, when the light goes and the darkness comes. I remember seing a documentary about all the diferent reactions that the darkness of night brings.. the "gosts" that come along, the sadness due to lack of sunlight, and even a sense of less space in the room. We often associate the feer of darkness to children, but it's far from a child problem, more adults than we think have some kind of difficulty when the sunlight goes to sleep...
Do monsters live under the bed, or right in our mind...? Is the light only brigtness or a doorway to everyting outside...? Should we turn the light on...?

BRIGHT STAR (KEATS)

Bright Star

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art –
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors –
No – yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever – or else swoon to death.

John Keats

TO HIS COY MISTRESS (MARVELL)

To his Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Andrew Marvell

CAN LOVE POETRY MAKE YOU BLUSH?

Apparently, yes. Scientists used thermal imaging cameras "to investigate whether love poems can really ignite 'instant fires' in every pore", as the Guardian explains.
What's is the emotional and physical impact of tender love, asked the researchers who conducted the experiment for Aberystwyth University .

"With around five terabytes of thermal data to evaluate, a complete scientific explanation is going to take some time, but the idea does have a grounding in literary theory. The Romantic poets believed their inspiration came to them as a burst of heat that gradually dissipated during the writing process. When someone reads a poem, they were thought to experience some of that original heat themselves. Keats described passionate verse as creating "a burning forehead" and "a parched tongue" in the lovestruck reader", says the Guardian.
The experimenters asked six volunteers from each department to silently read 12 love poems, while a less amorous text about thermal imaging served as a control. As the participants read the poems, thermal cameras monitored their faces for any change in temperature.

And which poems did the researchers used? Ha, that's the important question. A good choice they made. Those are two of the most beautiful poems ever written: Bright Star by John Keats and To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
I'll post them in the 2 next posts.

Whatever Works

Have you seen "Whatever Works" from Woody Allen? Please do! It has a good balance between humor and an often negative prespective of life. Not that I'm in favor of a negative vision, but sometimes we need to go there, to that dark perspective do get out, to give it a menning and go tru it. Sunshine in the next page, we hope! ;)

Hauted Home - David Fonseca

"You want to drink my soul
'Till your heart is full
What happens when it's full and it splashes?
You've built all these rooftops
And painted them all in blue
If all this set just burns up will you paint the ashes?

Do you really want to see?
Because I'll let you in
With me

You shiver when the wind blows
Through doors that lost their keys
There's too little to rescue, too little to hang on to
I thought that maybe we could try to
Clear and rebuild this haunted home
I'll be glad to help you just tell me what to do

Why don't you tell me what to do?
Maybe you're scared too
I've been here before
Next thing you'll see
You'll feel
So small

I willdisappoint you
And I don't care if I do
I belong to those who got shattered, battered
Bruises and scars that I've hidden and you could never heal
This grey house where I come from
Some great love will tear it down
If you no longer love me why should it matter?

Tell me why should it matter?
I can't ask you to stay
I can't find the words to say
Why don't you just leave?

Just leave"

I think this is a very stong music and lyric. And has I listened to how David talked about her it all made sense...

Life

"Action is eloquence"

W. Shakespeare

A movie: Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon)

Just before the I WW, a small village in the North of Germany. Disturbing  events start taking place. Terrible punishments, strange accidents. Is there something called Evil? maybe not and it's all in our mind.
The White Ribbon is the title in English and the director is Michael Haneke, the sdame who directed La Pianiste (with Isabelle Huppert).
A film to be seen absolutely. It's on several cinemas in Lisbon. I saw it at King, near Av. Roma. Brace yourselves for human moral misery.

BULLYING

This is such a serious issue that it certainly deserves we spend more time thinking it over. Psicronos, a Portuguese clinic I also work with organized last week end with Câmara Municipal de Portimão (Algarve) a seminar about bullyting, non-violence and education.
I had the pleasure of being one of the lecturers and spoke about group violence. My emphasis was on what we call group mentality and the dynamics behind it it. Adolescents are specially prone to adhere to a violent mode of group mentality and a great effort is needed to help them to think by themselves and not by the mind of some violent leader. I also focused on Hitler Youth to show the point.
From the University of Murcia, Spain, came Prof. Bartolomé Blor to speak about the attitudes about violence in the educational context.

Goals

If to give a big step forward one needs to give two small steps backward – so let’s give them!

(Popular knowledge)

Clair de Lune

Some time ago I saw a documentary about “Clair de Lune” Debussy’s well known music and found out that the music meant to sound as the waves of the sea: 7 waves, first little ones, followed by big ones!

EGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849)

ANNABEL LEE

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Edgar Allan Poe 

The poet was born on the 19th January 1809. According to The Guardian, last Wednesday was the first time in 60 years that his faithful admirer didn't show up to put three roses and a half bottle of Cognac on his grave. Maybe he's dead himself, who knows?
Poe's poetry, however, stays with us. Forever.

Happy Birthday Mr. Poe!

DEATH AND BURIAL RITES

Photo by Viacheslav Smilyk




http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/06/25/10-extraordinary-burial-ceremonies-from-around-the-world/

A most interesting article that overviews different burial rites around the world

WOMEN AND THE WORKFORCE

According to The Economist, women make up already 50% of the workforce in the USA. In Scandinavia, this % is even higher.
Quoting The Economist:
"The change is dramatic(...). A generation ago working women performed menial jobs and were routinely subjected to casual sexism—as “Mad Men”, a television drama about advertising executives in the early 1960s, demonstrates brilliantly".
 This mass movement began during WW II when women had to get to grips with the jobs men did before.
Rosie the Riveter (pictured above by Norman Rockwell in the Saturday Evening Post) was an icon for this new woman.
But things are not yet as they should be: women still earn tipically less than men and a very small % of them are running big companies. In sum, lots to do yet.
You can read the whole article at:
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15174418

Note that the Wikipedia insists that the picture of the woman The Economist has published was mistaken for Rosie. This one:

Well, the two of them are along the same lines. If you are interested, take a look at:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter

FROM LA 64º

http://www.davidlynch.com/dailyreport/index.html

From LA, David Lynch wishing us a good 2010. Enjoy.

LHASA DE SELA (1972-2010)

CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC DIFFERENCES

Reading today the The Economist I found lots of interesting information about the ways we use mobile phones around the world. For instance:

The words used for those small and convenient machines reflect the priorities of a society. The American call them cellulars (emphasis on the technological aspect), the English mobiles, as in Portugal, Spain, etc (usually societies that once had an empire and were used to move around). The Germans, pratical as always call them Handy and the Chinese sho ji (hand machine).

Some talk, some text. The Japanese consider it rude to have a conversation that everybody can hear text a lot (as Indonesians, maybe for different reasons).
The Spanish talk a lot and don't activate voice mail that much. Americans and Puerto Ricans talk more than they text.
Whwre ant the way people use their mobiles also tells a lot about thwe way they see the town a a collective space. parisians tend to talk or text on pavements even in the street, Londoners prefer to gather at the entrances of tube stations.
In Portugal, as everybody who live here well knows, we like to share our private lives with lots of people so we tend to shout during conversations in buses, restaurants, cafés, everywhere (Brasilians are great at that too).
Coverage is also important too. For instance the Finns choose operators that work in tunnels (for good reasons, specially in Winter).
You can read all this and much more at:
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15172850&source=features_box_main

UTE LEMPER

A great singer and a great music: Ute Lemper in Paris

LUCKY TO HABE BEEN WHERE I'VE BEEN

CHRISTMAS AND THE IN-LAWS

Problems with in-laws specially during X-Mas? You're not alone.
The following chronicle from the NYT is quite interesting.
Oddly enough, I couldn't find any photo or picture to go with it.

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/disliking-your-in-laws/

ABOUT RELIGION

 (photo: The Economist)

http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15124974&sa_camapaign=twitter

This article from The Economist reviews Nicholas Wade's: "The faith instinct. How religion evolved and why it endures".
Is religion an human instinct or a form of adaptability that has been useful for human societies for centuries?
Mr. Wade is a Darwinian  evolutionist and his book makes interesting reading.

WOMEN AND MEN SHOPPING

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6720150/Shopping-styles-of-men-and-women-all-down-to-evolution-claim-scientists.html

The article is about the different shopping styles. Apparently, it has to do with evolution. Men went hunting and with some luck they did. Women had to choose carefully among the food available (seeds, fruits,meat, etc).

Says Prof Kruger: "Women gained the skills of how to get the best quality food in cave man times because if they chose the wrong berry or nut it could kill". Women often did that with young children, while men were out hunting.

According to scientists, "the reason why women love to spend hours in shops while men prefer to be in and out of the high street in minutes is down to their hunter-gathering past".

Hmm... Food for thought.

(photo by rock_leonine)

 

 

THE KNOWN UNIVERSE

An awesome video by AMNH!

MUSIC AND BAD PUBLICITY

It's almost impossible to miss how the relationship between brands and consumers is changing. Traditional advertising in dying away while promotion on the net is increasing. Some brands have people monitorizing what is said about them in sites, blogs and social networks and trying to make ammends if anything is affecting their image.
Not so much in Portugal, I'm afraid. I've been propesting against the bad service Zon TvCabo is providing, specially in what concerns those new awful TV boxes but to no avail yet. Which is kind of amazing, since their CEO is someone who came from Microsoft. But then this country has ways of getting people soft.
With Dave Carroll things were different. During a trip with United Airlines, his most treasured guitar was broke. He complained, nobody paid any attention. So he decide to compose a song. It has already been seen by thousands of people in Youtube and it's a good song apart from being quite funny. Now the company is trying to make ammends, offering him reparations.
Enjoy.

HOW TO BECOME MY OWN WORST ENEMY

"Anybody can be unhappy, but to make oneself unhappy needs to be learned, and to this end some experience with a few personal blows of fate simply won't do".
This paragraph was taken from Paul Watzlawick' s "The Situation is Hopeless But Not Serious" a great book written in the 80s but very actual.
Starting from a seemingly absurd point of view, Watzlawick gives special attention to issues like "why would anybody love me" and various self-fulfilling prophecies of the kind.  To sum it up, the book is about how we can make everyday life miserable and inflate small incidents beyond recognition.
A professor in Palo Alto, Watzlawick, who died in 2007, was a man of genius. You'll find this book both highly enjoyable and deep, two qualities that don't come together that often.

MISTERY SHOPPING IN MENTAL HOSPITALS

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/health/01dutch.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

I'm sure you familiarized with the technique of mystery shopping. it's world wide used, specially in services like banking, insurance, etc. The idea is that someone impersonates a regular customer, go to the bank and report their experience.
Malingering one’s way into a psychiatric ward to report on conditions within was first tried in 1887, when Nellie Bly, a journalist got herself admitted to the insane asylum on Roosevelt Island in New York City.
It was tried several other times. The article is about a recent experience in Amsterdam. Many questions are raised here, namely the secrecy and implicit trust between patients and carers.

THE BEGINNING OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP

Look at what I found in Yoytube. The exact dialogue I was referring to in my comment on Ana's last post about movies.

Movie quote

I know that it can be “corny” to quote a character from an everyday movie… But I always found interesting to look at everyday movies, everyday books, or news, and without judgment find that feeling that we all can relate to at some point in life… who never gave this same answer, even if to themselves…? Did you not?

“- Do you miss him…?
- Everyday.”

(Carrie in "Sex and the City")

SOME FRIENDS ARE FOREVER

Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.
Enjoy!

EMOTIONAL VAMPIRISM

Yes, they exist. People who suck your energy up and leave you angry, depressed, confused, guilty or exhausted (or even all). The emotional vampires.
Sometimes they can be just acquaintances but unfortunately some of the time they are quite close to us. Too close four own good. And the closer they are, the more they can thrive on your energy and zap it out if you're not careful.
Judith Orloff  once wrote (in "Emotional Freddom") that there were five kind of vampires lurking around: the narcissist, the victim, the controller, the criticizer and the splitter.
The narcissistic vampire is always looking for admiration and is often charming and intelligent. The victimistic kind keeps complaining the world is against him. The kind is the kind of person who always knows what's best for you. The criticizer is always judging and belittling.The splitter is the most impredictable: you never know if he'll be raging against you or feigning the victim.
We need to establish firm boundaries against these people. You don't need to be too deffensive - I guess the most important thing is to make him (or her) understand you won't be manipulated.
I'm not saying these people cannot be friends. They can, and some of them will, as long as you set up clear limits. Don't idealize them. Be realistic about both their good qualities and their flaws.
Things get more dramatic when an emotional vampire is someone really close like, say, your own mother. In extreme and unfortunate cases like that, I can only suggest: be affectionate but firm and try to manage the relationship in small doses.

Renewal

It’s so good when we can finally open the door and invite someone in. But then, suddenly we realize we let our guest on the doorway… kind of awkward, kind of lost. Sometimes as the door is allowing the entry of others, the house is not yet prepared to do so… Then what shall we do…? Maybe one should forget formality, lay down the glass on the floor for a moment and ask that someone who is at the door to help pulling a couch and to offer some decoration tips…and ask that someone to sit, and – even though the glass is for now a plastic one –still enjoy a delicious drink and a good chit-chat…

STRESS QB

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roberta-lee/10-tips-for-lowering-supe_b_378376.html

Sensible advises about avoiding too much stress. Worth reading. We tend to forget these things in our daily life.

Publish Post

PROCRASTINATION

http://www.swiss-miss.com/2009/11/procrastination-by-john-kelly.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Swissmiss+%28swissmiss%29

Procrastination by John Kelly (Animated comic about the meaning of procrastination)

Enjoy!

THE HEART OF DARKNESS

How do we understand an act as brutal as rape on a 15 year old girl?

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/1490394?CID=rss&verify=0

IS PSYCHOTHERAPY THE LESS EXPENSIVE WAY TO WELL-BEING?

Psychotherapy may be an effective way to boost happiness. That's what Drs. Chris Boyce and Alex Wood found. Chris Boyce and Alex Wood of the Universities of Warwick and Manchester, respectively, compared large data sets where thousands of people had reported on their well-being.

"We have shown that psychological therapy could be much more cost effective than financial compensation (...) at alleviating psychological distress", said Boyce.


You may read the whole article at:
http://trak.in/news/psychotherapy-may-be-an-effective-way-to-boost-happiness/26162/

MORE BOOKS

http://publicliterature.org/

Still about books.  Not from this year of course, but some of them are great classics. You can download them for free. Some people can read on a PC I prefer an e-reader because it's lighter and you can enlarge the font, but the option is yours. Project Gutenberg also has lots of classics for free download.

NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/gift-guide/holiday-2009/100-notable-books-of-2009-gift-guide/list.html

100 notable books of 2009 according to the New York Books Review.

FIRST WORLD WAR

(photo: © Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz)

I have been recently to France, more  specifically to the Vallée de la Somme (north of Paris) where raging  battles took place. In Péronne there is an interesting museum, although not very complete.

Here is a  beautiful poem by Patrick MacGill, who had been in that war: 

BEFORE THE CHARGE


The night is still and the air is keen,
Tense with menace the time crawls by,
In front is the town and its homes are seen,
Blurred in outline against the sky.


The dead leaves float in the sighing air,
The darkness moves like a curtain drawn,
A veil which the morning sun will tear
From the face of death. - We charge at dawn.

WHAT AN AMAZING HUMAN BEING!

"...the extraordinary story of Tererai Trent, who grew up impoverished in northern Zimbabwe and was able — with the help of Heifer International and a number of other aid groups — to get an education. Next month she will receive her PhD from Western Michigan University"
by Nicholas Kristof (NYT)

This is the amazing story of a Zimbabwean woman, born in poverty. She had all "those" qualities: resilience, motivation, intelligence, interpersonal skills, etc etc. And generous on top of it all! (see the story of her first marriage). What an amazing human being.
To be read at:

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/dr-tererai-trent/

BANKERS TRY ACTING

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23771006-my-kingdom-for-a-bonus-city-jobless-take-up-acting.do

This news from the Standard may seem a bit bizarre but is quite interesting in the sense that makes you think what having a job means nowadays.
I don't think that in ten years there will be such a thing as a job. Young people maybe committed to "projects" and for their duration only - no strings attached as they say.
Rights that seemed acquired during the 20th century, like retirement when you're sixty something, salaries correspondent 14 months a year, subsidies, pensions, etc are in great danger.
We have to brace ourselves for a very tough future, specially the younger generations. Resilience is becoming  more important as a personal skill. These bankers seem, at least, to be capable of finding new ways in their lives.

IN REMEMBERANCE OF RUSSELL ACKOFF

A man of genius, the best professor I ever had. This video is about systemic thinking vs analytical thinking. Thinking as a whole for short.

MIDWAY ISLAND

This is a photo of Midway island seen from the space (photo credit: NASA)

The NASA site has usually amazing images. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/hico_raids.html

ABOUT DREAMS

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/health/10mind.html?_r=1&ref=science

 (photo NYT)

With the help of new techniques like brain imagery neuroscience is making new discoveries about dreaming.

BIOLOGICAL CLOCK

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427333.000-genes-show-when-a-womans-biological-clock-will-stop.html?page=1

A new tool to know your biological clock beforehand. These are great news for women who want to program their personal and professional lives. I didn't know about it when I wrote my last post, but I'm glad to know more tools are becoming available for women who want to be in control of their lives. The article also refers to the technique for freezing your own eggs.