What's wrong in Nacirema: great commercial skills.

In Nacirema, one tribe makes sure that the neighboring tribe has enough tools and arms so they can always be in danger and busy fighting them. The same tribe is also very interested in buying from the second tribe some herbs and other substances that can alter the person's mood for entertainment, so they "can enjoy life" -they say. So, the second tribe is happy to produce and sell them those substances and herbs or exchange them readily for arms that can help protect their secret substance production.
In modern days we all admire the great commercial skills of these peoples! They are really prosperous peoples!

Sweet Love Preserve from Nostradamus.

Saveurs du monde.net published the Sweet Love Preserve recipe for Saint Valentine Day. I took the liberty of translating it because I think it's interesting and also it should taste very good. Enjoy!

"Physician and alchemist, famous in the Renaissance times, Nostradamus published a Treaty of preserves where the following recipe is included 'for those females whose frigid womb makes them inadequate for conception and the satisfaction of legitimate appetites'.

Ingredients

- 1 kg of honey from the mountains

- 300 g of fresh ginger root

Preparation

1. Peel and clean the ginger; cut it in fine sticks, wash them several times;
2. Place in a pot and cover with water; boil 10 min.;
3. drain; and restart the process 2 more times boiling 10 min. and one last time boiling 20 min.;
4. drain all night;
5. in a pot with a heavy-base, boil the ginger in the honey during 15 min.;
6. boil it again next day and the following day always only for 15 min.;
7. Save it in a glass jar and have one soup spoonful when you need to recover your ardor."

Austinians freeway solidarity

I amaze at the solidarity of Austinians in the freeway. I spent 75 minutes to go from Round Rock to downtown Austin today. Why? Simple solidarity, I call it. A car had had an accident on the entrance ramp from 183 into I35 and the police was present. So, everybody else drove at -5 miles an hour just to take a look at the scene. Nice, the public was regretting not having the TV handy, and very happy to be able to watch live!
I remember a couple of months ago when there was a building fire by the I35 freeway and the traffic had slowed down from Round Rock on going south at rush hour. Everybody felt so much solidarity with the owner and inhabitants that they have to slow down to take a little look at the fire and/or what was left from the house!

Yes, I agree, everything in Austin is so... weird!

groupo de rua, or where is the music?

 

groupo de rua

My son (21) and I went to the Hogg Memorial Auditorium, in UT Austin, last night to see Groupo de Rua. After half an hour of watching open mouthed 9 people writhing on stage like madmen accompanied by dead silence, we looked at each other with a question mark face: and the music? 

I guess their work reflects the depressing street life, where all young people can do is entertain themselves using their own bodies to express their lack of everything else. These 9 men's gloomy -even grim- faces, and awkward body movements send all the negativity, sadness and desempowerness' vibes from a life without hope, full of obstacles and standbyness that make it almost empty, stagnant, which was well transmitted by the vacuum of music. It made me think of the same impression I got every time I saw En attendant Godot (Waiting for Godot) by Samuel Beckett. With the only difference that Vladimir and Estragon actually made me laugh even in spite of their tragic frustrating quest. Well, I may not be the only one having a hard time understanding some phenomena of our modern society, am I? Follow the link under the pic to read a different review and this other comment on their multiple presentations around the world.

The House of Sand

Some people are never happy with the place where they live, or they're always looking for something else, or always wanting to go back "home". The movie The House of Sand takes the audience in the journey of two women trying to escape their "house of sand", the challenge of their lives, only to find out that happiness is not somewhere in a longed for place, but in themselves. What's important is not the place where we live, or the circumstances around, but what we do with what we have.
"Man went to the Moon -María says- only to find more sand!" A film to be watched and thought about.

What's wrong in Nacirema? Make war to make peace.

Medieval times were gruesomely violent. So, the European monarchs had the idea to send the most bellicose and fiercest knights to a war outside their territory to calm down and take it no more against their own countrymen but against the infidel and try to establish peace somewhere else… for a good cause: religion! The pursuit of spirituality can always be used as a good cause for war…rarely for peace.


So they decided to go on the Crusades… for more than two hundred years! Approximately from 1080 to 1300.


Does it sound familiar?

Right, duty or privilege?

Do I live in a country where we need to reward kids for attending school so they would want to attend? What is my future when I’m “elder”, “senior” or any other euphemism I can think of it?
NPR broadcasted a news about paying students for good grades.
Acting that way, what are we teaching the future generation of adults, those adults that are going to be our community leaders tomorrow?
• All you do, even if it is for your own direct benefit should be rewarded.
• Education is not worth unless there is a reward for doing it.
• “Please, come to school because without you we won’t have enough money to continue this business”
• Yes, education is a big o’business!! You are the client: no client, no money, no job!
• Make sure you do business with us, so we can keep our jobs.
• We are willing to do whatever in order to keep you. Give you a video game box, TV, computer, feed you junk, so you feel really “comfortable” coming to school. In other words, we are willing to spoil you, feed your addictions, make you obese, and let you be on the couch watching TV like a potato, so we can run our business.
• Do nothing (even if it is for you) unless there is a value to it. Make sure you expect a reward, otherwise, don’t move a finger.
From this context, is education a right, a duty or a privilege?