by Zé Barbosa, on October 2nd, 2009 «The “other lady” is an expression referring to the previous fascist regime born in 1933 and dead in 1974, which drove Portugal to the ruinous state of a nationalist and catholic “proudly alone empire”, totally owned and controlled by half a dozen of millionaire families. The “other lady” is an expression pointing to a time back when nobody, apparently, wants to go. For some of our politicians, however and unfortunately, that is only apparently because they think this lady, actual leader of PPD/PSD, represents a step back in all political, social and economical conquests achieved since the Carnation Revolution, 35 years ago.» (in “The Return Of The Other Lady”)
Although the many declared fears before elections, the other lady did not show up! Mr. José Socrates will continue as prime-minister but, like he promised before, with several leadership changes in his previous ministries. The Socialism, a modern style one with lots of Portuguese coloring spices, will go on but this time without an absolute majority. The final results were:
- Socialist Party (PS), 36.56%
- Social Democratic Party (PSD), 29.09%
- People’s Party (CDS/PP), 10.46%
- Left Block (BE), 9.85%
- Communist Party & Greens (CDU), 7.88%
The real winner, summing up 39.40%, was the movement “I Love My Couch” but they are not entitled to name parlamenteers, therefore they are not entitled to form government. All the rest has been the usual post-elections “bla bla bla”, including the fact that every other party with seats in the parliament always declare theirselves as winners. As a matter of fact, all elections in Portugal which have taken place since 1974, never, ever, have had losers. Superb, I should say, how a country, that after the Discoveries Era (see History of Portugal (1415–1542)) has added really nothing important to this world’s history, accomplishes this feat… It is then not difficult to be sure about how easy will be, for the minority government pulled out of last elections, to rule in peace for the next four years.
I do not let myself to end this post without pretending I am a famous politics analyst. First of all, I wonder why a country like Portugal, dominated by catholics, self-proclaimed virtuous women and chit chatters, is driven to a situation where a party like BE represents already near 10% of the population! Secondly, does the resurrection of CDS/PP mean the return of Christianity relevance in Portugal or does it show that is enough to be a good chit chatter (like Paulo Portas, leader of this one-man party, is) to collect sympathy from 10% of a nation’s population? I do believe chit-chatting works fine within political environments. Finally, the Soviet Block passed away some years ago but this Portuguese communist party, CDU, lead by a former metallurgy proletarian, is still alive and still collecting some sympathy. However, this sympathy is decreasing at the same proportion as old generations are passing away…
The show must go on… We are back to an electoral campaign, this time for regional elections (Autarchies) which will take place in October 11th, this year. I had, some time ago, the unforgettable surrealistic experience of living a couple of electoral campaigns in Brazil. I have thought then how original the Brazilian are, such was the superb staging I had the fortune to look on. For my total surprise, we are, here in this supposed to be a balanced in manners European country, following Brazilian steps: the art of perfectly perform well engineered electoral cartoons! Now, as Manuela Ferreira Leite were not enough, we have to deal with political caricatures like Pedro Santana Lopes, shy versions of Calimero like Luis Filipe Menezes, “Bonnie Parker” style females like Fátima Felgueiras (not speaking of many “Al Capone” style candidates) and many other people who see in these elections an excellent business opportunity to shake up their boring lives or, at least, to have free access to their traffic tickets to tear them up…
After all, considering we are having free elections and getting much fun out of it, where should we place the “other lady”? Maybe the gods know the answer… If they do, I am pretty sure they will only reveal it after elections.
I will vote this October 11th.
by Zé Barbosa, on September 24th, 2009 Joana Beatriz Nunes Vicente Amaral Dias, born in May 13, 1975, in Luanda, Angola, psychologist, university teacher in Coimbra’s University, single mother of Vicente, a 13yo boy, former leader of the far left political party BE (Bloco de Esquerda) and former parliamenteer for the same party. This is the lady politician in vogue who really pushes my buttons and would take me to the altar with no hesitation.
I have been a person quite well connected to Psychology students’ world and I know since years that the generation of former Psychology students, who are today between the 30s and 50s, have primarily taken political options very much towards the radical left. It was by then not unusual to see them as militants of political groups like:
- PCTP/MRPP (Partido Comunista dos Trabalhadores Portugueses/Movimento Reorganizativo do Partido do Proletariado), maoist orientation
- FEC-ML (Frente Eleitoral Comunista-Marxista Leninista), marxist-leninist orientation
- LCI (Liga Comunista Internacionalista), trotskyist orientation
- UDP (União Democrática Popular), marxist-leninist
Youth and school have been always a combination to generate in boys and girls a reactive behavior to authority or governing laws (see May 1968 in France) and, I guess, Joana Amaral Dias (JAD) was not an exception. However, her aggressive talking style together with the fact of using shotgun-like strategies in her social and political fights, have created some aversion from public in general and even also from some sectors of her own political group. JAD is nowadays not much more than a subject for national political gossips or to be used as ball for ping-pong games between José Socrates (PS leader and actual prime-minister) and Francisco Louçã (BE leader).
 JAD, as any other woman in general, has no sense of humor. Considering the fact she is always very much given to chop all ideas and persons not aligned with her beliefs, I guess she could be a popular social and political chopper if she would be able to add some intelligent sarcasm to her style. An intelligent sarcasm is always provided by good humor (I am mastered in sarcasm, I know what I am talking about) and when one is like that, truth and frontal manners are much more tolerated. Unfortunately for JAD, the gods have not provided her with such eloquent skill (sarcasm) and, being a woman, humor is not part of the list of her qualities as well.
JAD behaves like someone who went through a hard childhood and because of that she is now very much upset with the world. Daughter and gran-daughter of university teachers, JAD has not been able to escape to the analysis of “professional” slanderers who state that she got the position as a teacher in Coimbra’s University due to “parenthood” skills, meaning, because her father (Dr. Carlos Augusto Amaral Dias) was that university’s Principal. Anyhow, she is still working there and once in a while she writes social and political articles in a couple of national newspapers and magazines. Of course, I have not read any of those because my tolerance to the radicalism of far left communism is even worse than the one I dedicate to Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi’s name and his eccentricity (see Muammar al-Gaddafi).
JAD is a fluent speaker. She usually knows what she is talking about as she seems to be a well informed person. To own information is not enough to be bright, surely not. When you already hold information you need to know how to handle it and, in this particular point, JAD sounds like someone who knows how to process the information she grabs. However, for every bright side of a planet there is always the respective dark one. Listening to JAD when she is arguing about women rights, or free access to abortion, or same-sex marriage, or children adoption by homosexual couples, or the archaism of Catholic Church and the incompetence of every and all world nations leaders or governments (among others) is far worse than to be locked in a two square meters room with a Jehovah's Witness for a week.
Seen from my side, characters like JAD are very contributive to maturing of modern societies, even if we are just referring to her sex-appeal. Yep, JAD has got a “je ne sais pas quoi” of sex symbol but I am not quite sure she is appreciating that part of the story. No matter what, JAD is currently a celebrity, up to the level she wishes to be (I guess!), and she owes that to her impressive outward appearance caused by an apparent need, on a revenge basis, of hurting someone for something done somewhen by somebody, somewhere in the world!
May the gods help me to understand my fondness for psychologist females…
by Zé Barbosa, on September 23rd, 2009 … or “why the hell can’t we get rid of those ghosts from our recent past?”. Manuela Ferreira Leite is no more no less than one symptom more of the pathetic way of being a politician in this tiny country where people are still struggling in a messy way to be taken seriously by its partners from European Union. This old fashion lady (she is indeed… starting with her hair and dress fashion) was the best the Social Democratic Party, PPD/PSD, could get out of their members to drive this group of yuppies from the capital of Portugal (Lisboa).
 The “other lady” is an expression referring to the previous fascist regime born in 1933 and dead in 1974, which drove Portugal to the ruinous state of a nationalist and catholic “proudly alone empire”, totally owned and controlled by half a dozen of millionaire families. The “other lady” is an expression pointing to a time back when nobody, apparently, wants to go. For some of our politicians, however and unfortunately, that is only apparently because they think this lady, actual leader of PPD/PSD, represents a step back in all political, social and economical conquests achieved since the Carnation Revolution, 35 years ago.
Contrary to USA, where voters can only have an option between a conservative party and another conservative party, in Portugal, the political options may go from far left to far right, which gives Portuguese the opportunity to experiment a climax of political options as they can have the orgasmic right to select one out of 16 political parties:
Obviously, smart guys, like we think we are, don’t give a damn about other than the main and relevant ones, I mean, the parties with some significant national representativeness (by decreasing order):
- PS, socialism
- PPD/PSD, social-democracy
- BE, far left communism
- CDU, “soviet style” communism & greens
- CDS, christian democracy
Furthermore, people under 35, the actual youth, know really nothing or very little about what life is under a fascist regime and even care less about what was (or is) stuff like Leninism, Marxism, Trotskyism and so on… Nowadays, political parties are no longer connected to ideologies. They are instead connected to primary needs of people, the politicians and the voters, and to the ways to reach (or not) the ultimate state of welfare in life by fast and effortless means. Our society is since a decade ago inclined to a social and political bipolarity which has not yet been achieved because parties like BE (currently representing 10% of total voters) and CDU (currently representing 8% of total voters) are still a pain in the other’s ass. Kids over 18, nowadays, are much more concerned with 3rd generation phone cells, Twitter, Facebook, tattoos and piercings. Being so, no time is left to dedicate to the actual 10% of unemployment, to the risk of bankruptcy of our social security, to the long waiting lists for surgeries in our hospitals, to the chaotic state of our Courts of Justice, to the financial insolvency of small and mid-size companies, to the huge external debt of Portugal and to the high level of illiteracy of our students.
Manuela is that type of woman who could have been selected by an American movie director to play the role of an old and evil witch or, else, a perverse teacher from an even older British school where little naive orphan girls would be constantly slaughtered by her. Instead of that, she was selected by her political group to play the role of a candidate to prime-minister in the next elections taking place in September 27th, this year. Many of us cannot control our own destiny and Manuela is no more no less than one of those: a puppet! In her case, a puppet pretending to be a self-controlled person.
Owner of a personal image which is a huge challenge for image consultants, Manuela is a total disaster on verbal and non-verbal aspects of communication, knows very little of social etiquette, has not yet realized that Portugal is part of European Union therefore she should think global, still makes in her speeches lots of references to values like truth, nationalism and patriotism, and often mix up technical concepts from different areas belonging to normal government’s scope. No wonder she is now called the “other lady” and many are those who fear she is only the tip of the iceberg…
May the gods save us from the other lady…
by Zé Barbosa, on August 1st, 2009 Fifty! What can be said about this? As far I know, whatever we may say will be nothing that can be taken as an absolute truth or even be taken as something interesting. It will depend, of course, on who you are, where are you coming from and where are you going to. Definitely, when a man is fifty is already someone over the mid age which means, for the majority of live human beings, someone already at the door of third age! When a man is in the third age then he is someone who will be seen as no more than a grandparent, therefore only useful to look after his grandchildren, and a candidate to a seat in the public central garden of his city for playing cards with his friends. Life is cruel, isn’t it?
Mankind takes too long to be self-sufficient. We take long months to get rid of our mother’s breast, we are pacifier dependent for a long time, we take long years to walk by ourselves, we take even more years to talk well enough to be understood, we need decades to be economically powerful enough to buy our own clothes and we strive for three quarters of our life to be owners of it, our own life, with a minimum acceptable level of happiness. When we get all this, which in many cases is not that much, and we start having that good feeling of partial achieved success, there is always that day when someone is pulling our arm, with a kind expression on the face, to give us a seat in the bus…
Exagerated? Yes, it is. However, there is a bit of truth in all this because at fifty, nobody (whether is a man or a woman) is any longer taken as a young somebody! For those over forty still thinking they are young people cause they don’t know the definition of “elderly”, check it out here:
There is often a general physical decline, and people become less active. Old age can cause, amongst other things:
- wrinkles and liver spots on the skin
- change of hair color to gray or white
- hair loss
- lessened hearing
- diminished eyesight
- slower reaction times and agility
- reduced ability to think clearly
- difficulty recalling memories
- lessening or cessation of sex, sometimes because of physical symptoms such as erectile dysfunction in men, but often simply a
- decline in libido
- greater susceptibility to bone diseases such as osteoarthritis
The probability of you answering yes to the majority of above items when you are over forty is considerably high, isn’t it? Even so, you still need math to get convinced? Ok, easy… Let us say that the actual life expectancy of human beings is eighty. Half of that is forty. A decade is a fair amount to be taken as a tolerance for the natural deviation in this type of calculations. Half of that is five. Therefore, mid-age is defined as the life’s phase between 35 and 45.
If we take the age for retirement as a reference, in Portugal it would be 65. It means you would be considered as a third age member only at that age. However, you might be taken as a burden for society much before that, depending only on the way your professional life flows. If you are over forty and if you have the bad luck of getting fired or permanently laid off then you will be able to understand what I mean. Furthermore, it is easy to see how you are seen in the labor world if you have a look at a popular newspaper and go through the classified ads offering jobs: you will not find many for what the required age goes above 40! However, you have to keep yourself active up to 65 because only from then on the Social Security will be the source of your income. See? We better don’t get fired after forty…
Today is the day from when on I will never use again the sentence “I’m getting old ”. I will replace it by “I’m old” and I will be expecting pity, mercy, compassion, commiseration and many other signs of sympathy for my grief. Today is the beginning of my stage to prepare myself to the inevitable rendez-vous with my andropause. I will face like a hero the decline of my libido or even the cessation of sex. I will see beauty in every wrinkle on my face. I will keep believing my gray hair, slowly turning to white (while I have it), is very sexy. I will convince myself that my slower and everyday less clear thoughts it is a sign of wisdom. In a word: I’m done.
May the gods be with me…
by Zé Barbosa, on June 19th, 2009 … or “I’m a poor lonesome cowboy, and a long way from home…”. The idea here is not to talk about Lucky Luke, the cowboy faster than his shadow, but rather talk only about the demystification of loneliness and the exaltation of the good part of it. Anyhow, this post has been somewhat inspired by Suzanne Vega’s song with the same title (in “Solitude Standing”, 1987 – listen this on nRP (netRadio Porto)).
First of all, let’s think positive and, in fact, see the thought “better alone than in bad company” as a stand point. Second, another situation to be definitely avoided is the loneliness you feel even when you are among a bunch of people. Third, complementing the previous one and giving space to redundancy, getting surrounded by a bunch of people does not resolve one’s loneliness problem. Have you already realized, for instance, that leadership, even if good, drives very often the leader to loneliness?
I never took persons, in general, as something I would instantaneously appreciate and freely trust. People always appear to me as something weird, kind an extraterrestrial stuff, and causing on me some sensation of discomfort. Intelligence is mankind’s main problem given the highly insane state many men and women always live in. This state of constant and non self-perceived insanity of human beings has always been something I barely have handled with. The very same intelligence, which in some elements of human species I never was able to find out, is responsible for a not very much adequate management of loneliness or, if you prefer, integration in social groups. In fact, the common man or woman runs very often away from loneliness like a deer runs from the lion. Any deer is prepared by nature to define a lion as dangerous. This is instinct. Any man or woman is prepared by pairs to react to loneliness as something very malignant. This is mind modeling. If on one hand, it suits well to turn the phrase “no man is an island” (John Donne, in Mediation VII) to a slogan aiming social goals, on the other, the sentence “every man is an island” might be turned to a deep truth if one is really able to feel and understand its broad scope. Whether by instinct, mind modeling or conscious mind, how far can everyone stand solitude?
Who is in the other side of your life? Who is missing you? Who are you missing? This is relevant, surely is. This is what moves many people in the world and what might be considered the seed of loneliness problematic. A human being has, as a general rule, a strong need of being connected to someone, sentimental or emotional wise. This is a sign of inner fragility as much as is a sign of our own substrate (or should I say “soul”?) which stands much beyond our “flesh & bones” structure. Altogether, we all feel this irresistible desire of being connected to someone, a live being, rational or not. No wonder if, smartly, some telecommunications companies use very often the slogan “Get Connected!” through what they intend to drive people to shopping cell phones, iPods and so on. By the way, I own a cellular N73 from Nokia, the “Connecting People” Finnish brand, by my wife command! More than keep connected to me, she wants me under control…
Apparently there is no difference between “loneliness” and “solitude”, as you can see in the following extracts from Wikipedia Dictionary, but solitude sounds better to me and has been elected to be the positive side of not being with someone. On the other hand, loneliness will be taken as the dark side of being alone.
SOLITUDE
Solitude of a person means seclusion or isolation, i.e. lack of contact with other people. It may stem from deliberate choice, contagious disease, disfiguring features or repulsive personal habits, or circumstances of employment or situation.
Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one may work, think or rest without being disturbed. It may be desired for privacy.
Long-term solitude is often seen as undesirable, causing loneliness or reclusion, resulting from inability to establish relationships. However, for some people solitude is not depressing. Still others (e.g. monks) regard long-term solitude as a means of spiritual enlightenment.
LONELINESS
Loneliness is an emotional state in which a person experiences a powerful feeling of emptiness and isolation. Loneliness is more than just the feeling of wanting company or wanting to do something with another person. Loneliness is a feeling of being cut off, disconnected and alienated from other people. The lonely person may find it difficult or even impossible to have any form of meaningful human contact.
Lonely people often experience a subjective sense of inner emptiness or hollowness, with feelings of separation or isolation from the world.
Nevertheless, there are some subtle lines which should not be unvalued at all. You may, for instance, get connected and yet feel lonely. You may not be connected (ever!) and that might not make you unhappy. You may get integrated and not necessarily get “connected”. You may jump here and there from this to that according to your state of spirit. No matter which of these is one’s case, the fact is that no harm will come from there if you are on control. The dark side of it comes from the fact that, no matter which of those might be one’s case, pain happens if you are not able to keep solitude under control. Aside that, solitude is pleasant, invigorating, refreshing and, above all, saturation prophylactic. Solitude brings contemplation, relaxation and a great time to develop a relationship between one and oneself.
This said, solitude is a good girl. I let her standing by me since I know the “myself” living inside me and I feel our relationship is under control. I know that, like in any other relationship, not all times are good times and once in a while I feel like not standing her any longer. Yet, I always get back to her after some free perambulation among the (still) disturbing humanoids. Time management is fundamental in this case (as in any other) and I always try my best to not stand too long among human miseries. There is so many ways to escape, there is a huge need to do it.
I am nowadays celebrating my tremendous ability to be kept in step with solitude along almost five decades of my journey through life, twenty two years through marriage, nineteen years through parenthood and the as many years through employment in the corporation I am (still) working for. Every man should have, like I have, tailor-made mechanisms to bear with life’s complexities in a way that our mental balance will never be jeopardized. Only then, we achieve some emotional stability which will let us achieve some happiness during our journey through life. Clear definitions and vigorous beliefs are then mandatory. The price is paid in friendship as very few people can handle that much vigor. Nevertheless, I am still alive, I feel good and ready for sin. Thanks to solitude…
May the gods get connected to you, up your flavor…
by Zé Barbosa, on June 4th, 2009 Tiananmen Square Protests happened twenty years ago (1989).
Who cares?
by Zé Barbosa, on June 2nd, 2009 Despite the fact of not feeling any particular pleasure in reading, what makes me one of those Europeans enlarging the statistics referring to citizens with inadequate reading habits in the old continent, once in a while I give place to some actions of self-fustigation by reading a book. That was what happened with “The Antichrist”, by Friedrich Nietzsche, published for the first time in 1895.
I have had since years a tremendous curiosity about what the expression “the antichrist” could really mean and since then I am looking for answers to questions I have been asking to myself within an existentialist context, what I, sometimes, paint my life with. Since early times, I have delimited very clearly the basic areas of my positioning related to something:
- be for – “christian” in this case
- be against – “antichrist” in this case
- be indifferent – “christian or not, who cares?” in this case
This is comparable to the reduced range of states in Digital Electronics (0, 1 or tri-state) which is, in a social context, very much criticized by the consensus-maker style people who always believe, or seem to believe, that there are many more possible positions to stand for in any subject analysis than only two or three. Anyhow, I am very much for a “223 options” only and, regarding Christ, definitely I do publically declare my tri-state position. However, if we talk about Christianity, then the case changes its figure because I am sometimes a zero, sometimes a one and anything between that it is a pure waste of time and energy.
Coming back to the book, I believe it is better if I place here a transcription from it in order to give an idea of what I am dissertating about:
“With this I come to a conclusion and pronounce my judgment. I condemn Christianity; I bring against the Christian church the most terrible of all the accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions; it seeks to work the ultimate corruption, the worst possible corruption. The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul. Let anyone dare to speak to me of its “humanitarian” blessings! Its deepest necessities range it against any effort to abolish distress; it lives by distress; it creates distress to make itself immortal. . . .
For example, the worm of sin: it was the church that first enriched mankind with this misery!–The “equality of souls before God”–this fraud, this pretext for the rancunes of all the base-minded–this explosive concept, ending in revolution, the modern idea, and the notion of overthrowing the whole social order–this is Christian dynamite. . . .
The “humanitarian” blessings of Christianity forsooth! To breed out of humanitas a self-contradiction, an art of self-pollution, a will to lie at any price, an aversion and contempt for all good and honest instincts! All this, to me, is the “humanitarianism” of Christianity!–Parasitism as the only practice of the church; with its anaemic and “holy” ideals, sucking all the blood, all the love, all the hope out of life; the beyond as the will to deny all reality; the cross as the distinguishing mark of the most subterranean conspiracy ever heard of,–against health, beauty, well-being, intellect, kindness of soul–against life itself. . . .
This eternal accusation against Christianity I shall write upon all walls, wherever walls are to be found–I have letters that even the blind will be able to see. . . .
I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough,–I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race. . . .”
Is not this a pain in the ass? Is not this harder to read than my posts in this blog? Yes, it is, indeed! Reading “The antichrist” was painful for three sort of reasons:
- reading is not a pleasure for me, it is work!
- for every page I was reading I was slowly increasing my frustration and slowly attempting to my own self-esteem cause, in fact, I reached the end without really understanding what was Nietzsche telling the world; I refused to accept that he was simply mad with Christ!
- Nietzsche’s style is heavy in all senses: his apparent hate to Christ/Christianity, the vocabulary, the literary style, the ideas, etc, etc
First of all, I see no need to be anti-Christ! Apparently, Jesus Christ was a pacifist with his own ideas about human relationships, in general, and about the relation between the political power in force (Romans) and the dominated people he was part of (Jewish), in particular. Christianity is an invention of mankind with its origin in a very good intrigue created and grown around the character of Jesus Christ whose good intentions, as a common Jewish citizen who was doing nothing more than claiming for better life conditions, were machiavellianistically engineered by smart guys with second, or maybe third, intentions. Yet, none of them were good…
Secondly, I see no need to be for-Christ! I believe that being for-Marx makes you being for Marxism but in this case the philosophy (political, in case of Marx) is a creation of its creator. With Christ, not many people know what the guy was, if it was, but all people know the philosophy (religious, in case of Christ) which still is. I might accept that people in USA is pro-Obama, even without “obamanism”, but the real Jesus Christ, as far I know, was leader of nothing and has invented nothing. Therefore, why should people be pro-Christ? It makes sense, however, to be for or against (anti-)Christianity as long you realize you are not being for or against a real man and his work, as no man is able to die on Friday and resuscitate on Sunday. At least not as of writing this post…
The idea of existing an antichrist would probably serve the interests of Christianity. We could then assist to another set of episodes running around a super-fight between super-heros, the Christ and the Antichrist, each one representing the good and the evil, respectively. In case of Christ victory, faith and beliefs of Christians would get even more reinforced and Christianity would gain some more zealous followers. The danger would yet reside on how much power would the Antichrist have and how much that could contribute to have a defeated Christ. This, a defeated Christ, would be a disaster and could contribute for the beginning of the Christianity’s end. A feasible possibility to avoid such disaster would be to handle this antagonism in the same manner they do it in the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment ), where all fights are previously conveniently planned.
Better than deciding for the risky idea of creating, in fact, an antichrist is the decision of keeping in the air, eternally, the idea that the power of Christ is so immense that many have been and will be the ones who will try to destroy him. Being so, a pertinent question may be then rised: what would be the profile of a good antichrist? Someone like Josef Stalin? Mao Tse Tung? Adolf Hitler? Saddam Hussein? Valentim Loureiro? Has this being kept in secret like the three Fatima´s secrets (… or were they four)? Let us wait and see cause mankind’s imagination is quite fertile and never stops surprising us. Nevertheless, who ever will be, it has to be someone necessarily anti-Christianity and necessarily very muck skilled to challenge such a huge religious community lead by a powerful structure like Vatican.
Until then, before the existence of a real one, the antichrist can be anyone of us still daring to be here and there, now and then, an anti-system or a consciousness arouser, thinking globally, acting locally. I, from my side, refuse to be dominated by faith and refuse to be apart from a reasonable understanding of what is surrounding me. I see no skills on me to be an antichrist but above all, I see no wish at all to be it. I have practiced today, with this post, a sin against the pragmatic side of my existence: I spent quite a lot time writing about something which I pratically know not much about and, even worse, brings no value added to my already boring enough life! Just like the time I spent reading “The Antichrist” from Nietzcshe, this anti-everything prussian who still is a honorable representative of Nihilism.
May the gods be with the conscious ignorance…
by Zé Barbosa, on May 25th, 2009 Most of the people I know refuse to recognize how mistaken is their life or how boring their life is or how puzzled is their day to day existence. Why? Because if they do it, I mean if they realize it, they also have to realize they are not happy. The best way to resolve a problem is to not have it. The best way to not have a problem is to, despite we have it because we can’t avoid it, not acknowledge it. Basically this means that if we don’t realize we are unhappy then we don’t need to take any action to become happy.
Most of the people I don’t know refuse to recognize how mistaken is their life or how boring their life is or how puzzled is their day to day existence. Why? Because if they do it, I mean if they realize it, they also have to realize they are not happy. The best way to resolve a problem is to not have it. The best way to not have a problem is to, despite we have it because we can’t avoid it, not acknowledge it. Basically this means that if we don’t realize we are unhappy then we don’t need to take any action to become happy.
How do I know what people I do not know usually behave like? Just using what I daily have around me: television, radio, internet, newspapers, magazines, telephone and other stuff giving us the opportunity to live in a world of open doors and open spaces. Yeah, open spaces!
Open spaces in a work environment is one more of those North-American inventions in the context of the so called revolutionary ideas for improvement of workers performance and efficiency. I never had the capability, maybe due to my limited IQ, to understand how can an open space bring motivation, efficiency and productivity by itself. The fact is, that open spaces have been a practice of many big corporations and it seems that stuff works…
 The most successful strategy which may be taken by any corporation towards success must stand on the capacity of its managers to convince that every normal worker, and the abnormal too, is a fundamental part of the structure which is holding that corporation. This has to be accomplished even if they know that we know, at least some of us, that every of us in our corporation is nothing more than just another sprocket among those many which are necessary to build the engine and keep it running. The beautiful part of this is that many of us just play the game… nicely! The delight of this is the fact that we coexist very peacefully with a putrefied peace built in the name of the peace for our souls. Why?
Most of the people I know and the ones I don’t refuse to recognize how mistaken is their lives or how boring their life is or how puzzled is their day to day existence. Why? Because if they do it, I mean if they realize it, they also have to realize they are not happy. The best way to resolve a problem is to not have it. The best way to not have a problem is to, despite we have it because we can’t avoid it, not acknowledge it. Basically this means that if we don’t realize we are unhappy then we don’t need to take any action to become happy.
It is not my intention to wake up those who are asleep while passing through life, those totally convinced that everything goes well with them if they don’t create many waves, those trully believing that if there is somebody proceeding wrong it is for sure somebody else but surely not them, those who feel to be enlightened because they fully meet, day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, year-to-year and decade-to-decade an uninterrupted “9 to 5″ professional life style. “Boring…!!!”, would Homer Simpson say, but real. How could it be different? After all formulations, calculations and reformulations we are not more than just another brick in the wall, aren’t we? Or else, no more than just another nobody in the cubicle hell…
Besides, who would really gain if all of those crossing life under an asleep state (lethargic, if you wish) would waken up? Nobody, I guess. Got it? Me too…
May the gods be with you.
by Zé Barbosa, on April 18th, 2009 That much simple as cleaning a baby’s ass: click the arrow to play the video from the very beginning or select an item from the menu beneath the player control bar. You may then think whatever you wish about it. No matter what that will be… c’est la vie!
By the way, where you gonna sleep tonight?
by Zé Barbosa, on April 6th, 2009 My first introspection about consistency of Catholic religion and how I was positioned related to it, came up right after Carnation Revolution in 1974. Both Revolution and self-inquisition were interlinked in a way that I would not ever start questioning relevant values in my own life without the openness given by a military coup which opened the doors for freedom of speech. Before that point, my religious education, Catholic of course, was very intensive and very much close to the source. It was like so in such a way that I would become a priest with a simple finger snap if a simple finger snap would have happen.
Easter is an egg for some, a rabbit for other, nothing special for even other. The dichotomy “one god vs. pagan” or “monotheism vs. polytheism” seems not to be any longer a challenging issue or even an interesting one. As a matter of fact a real issue surrounding Easter is the amount of eggs or rabbits or, in some pluralist societies, eggs and rabbits that can be sold. As tradition is no longer what it used to be, space has been given to new life values and hence (there we are again!) priority has been given to preservation of capitalist values. What Easter seems not to be anymore for many Catholic people is the reference to death, resurrection and ascension to heaven of Jesus, the son of God.
Well, back to symbols, if we stick to the idea of resurrection (or rebirth), an egg suites fine. On the other hand, the rabbit, that means nothing more to me than a good dish – for instance Coelho À Caçador served with a good red wine which may well be a Cabeça De Burro – is a good Easter symbol as any other. In any case, Easter is not Catholics’ exclusive but I know nothing about other religions’ symbology. The power of symbology today has such a dimension that we normally live much more for the symbols than for what they are used to represent.
It is hard to deny the power of crowds or brake its force after they start moving. Does it make sense to say, even if only think, that 1.5 thousand millions of people in the world are wrong or fooled? Religion is a matter of faith, faith works pretty good for things we are not able to understand and, between the doubt of certainty and the certainty of doubt, it seems to be quite easy to put millions of Catholics (Christians in general) eating colored chocolate eggs and other millions buying or adopting cute rabbits. Not less true, the number of Catholics has not decreased and Vatican has not got less economically powerful. If Reason is supported and reinforced by the number of its practitioners, should not Reason be unquestionable? If it works with Reason, it works with religion. If it works with religion, it works with eggs. Then, for Catholics, an egg as a symbol can be placed at the very same level of the crucifix.
What I like most in Easter, more than chocolate eggs, are the sweet almonds which are sold in all groceries and pastry shops, no matter if covered by colored sugar or shining chocolate. This is my upmost fervid act of Catholicism during Easter but I will not say no to a provoking and sexy chocolate egg here and there. Sacrileges aside, although my registration through baptism in the Catholic community, when I was just a baby, I am still not able to clear up this tremendous doubt in my brain since years about the validity of declaring myself atheistic. This is consuming my soul and brings me a huge weight on top of my existence for every egg I taste or every rabbit turned to gastronomic art. Going back to my positioning from a religion stand point, I have for myself that the more politically correct attitude I should take, for my own sake, would be the one driving me to social concordance and, likewise “to Caeser what is Caeser’s, to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:21), I should say “to egg what is egg’s, to bunny what is bunny’s” (The Wanderer p.664)!
May eggs and bunnies be with you…
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Revamping This Due to integration of a photo-blog and a net-radio, this website is being revamped, mainly its audio/video content. For this reason, some of the links to video-clips and audio songs might result on message errors pointing to missing media. We apologize for this. We're trying to be as fast as devil steals good people's souls...
2011-Dec
The Webmaster Book Of The Day
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Portuguese Homestyle Cooking
— by Ana Patuleia Ortins, in 2008-09-30
Everyone loves Mediterranean food. But how many of us are familiar with genuine Portuguese cooking, a melange of Mediterranean, mountain, and Atlantic coast influences? The...
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