Shooting Dogs

This is an extraordinary movie. It's a pity that I had to go to a suburban theater to watch it. Propaganda machine has, in a way, taken over the movie world, and if you can’t afford good marketing, you won’t reach people. People, in turn, won’t therefore notice your movie and won’t wanna watch it, making it unprofitable to theaters.

And so, a masterpiece about the greatest massacre of the last 50 years has 3 spectators in Carcavelos, while mass audiences are enchanted by Da Vinci Code’s megalomania. ( “Hotel Rwanda”, treating the same thematic, had a much greater reach: maybe a bigger marketing budget?)

“Shooting Dogs”, a BBC production, widens our perception about how low can Mankind get. Watching millions of innocents murdered on the streets by devilish countrymen, you ask yourself how much is life worth. How much was a human life worth in Rwanda in 1994? Just 12 years ago. And so you ask yourself: “Am I more human than they were? No. And if not, how much is my own life worth?”

Are lifes more valuable if they are pleasure-seeking lives? That is, is the opportunity cost of losing a life bigger, if the lost life was a life of pleasure, lust, hobbies and fun?

Why, exactly, are we shocked when a drunk teenager dies in a car crash and, in the meantime, turn the TV off when thousands of Sudanese people die of under-nutrition?

As a character confessed in a moment of the movie: “When I was in Bosnia and saw so many women – white women – being murdered in front of me, I couldn’t stop crying. It could be my mother there. But here in Rwanda.. I haven’t cried once.. it’s because they’re black. You know? It’s terrible but it’s true.”

How long are we still going to deny Africans an Humanity status?

Gateway to Eternity

Burma, 1994.
I wonder if they're still there.


Photo by Steve McCurry

As time goes by

This is the Amazon River as seen by George F. Mobley in 1982:

And this is the Amazon River as I have seen it in 2005:

Some things remain unchanged.

Perfection

Keira Knightley @ Pride and Prejudice

The devil's playground

Nicaragua. 1994. The revolution is over. Where lie the remains of innocence?


Photo by Jim Nachtwey.

"Raíces", by Frida Kahlo

This painting has been auctioned today for 5.6 million USD. It's a lot of money. One could ask: "What would I do with that amount? Certainly not buy a painting." But then again, no one buys anything like this for such a price if all of her other needs weren't satisfied. I mean, before paying 5.6 million USD for a painting, you have probably eaten well, traveled a lot, built a couple of houses around the World and donated some millions for charity. Only then, I would say, would you consider buying a painting with the money that's left.

And that’s the most charming in art: however rich you might be, never will you have a complete collection of masterpieces – Bill Gates’ 50 billion USD, for example, would buy only 10.000 “Raíces”, whilst one of Louvre’s exhibition rooms has more than 3.000 paintings – he could maybe buy the whole Louvre, but there were still lots of masterpieces left in other people’s hands.

Of course they’re not all Frida Kahlos or all Picassos, but the point is, no known fortune can buy all masterpieces by, say, the 100 major artists in history (and still less, when you consider that wealthy people can’t spend all their fortune in art, because they still have to, at least, eat and dress themselves – what good is a Botticelli for a naked millionaire?)

And so, the art collector – the wealthy art collector – has the great luck of never having too much money, for as much as he may have, it’s still not enough to complete his collection.

The wealthy art collector will always have a ultimate goal for his fortune, making him eager to earn more to be able to buy more oils on canvases!

And that’s why Economy thanks Art for its contribution for the raise in productivity.

Rather far-fetched? So are the 5.6 million USD, and no one complains.

Or, perhaps, poor Frida Kahlo does, struggling in her tomb for a breed of air or a share of the pie!

Surfing hippos

Where else is eternity represented as deeply, as in the cold morning swim of a hippo under the grey sky of the dark continent?


Photographer Michael "Nick" Nichols writes: We had heard that an occasional hippo came to the ocean here but I could tell after speaking to my guide that I would have to have time and luck to capture this. In my second month on the beach I had seen tracks, but no hippos. Then, on a routine trip to check our camera traps, we saw five of them just off the point where the megatransect would eventually meet the sea. I was not a pretty sight, stammering and jabbering, shooting film without thinking, afraid that the mirage would disappear before I made a National Geographic moment. It’s a strange, and often sad, existence we lead."

Europe's newest state

Yet another country. Tito’s far-fetched dream has now almost definitely come to an end. It’s the end of the last of the megalomaniac imperial dreams of the 20th century. Congratulations to the new nation-state. Let’s hope they don’t forget that Mankind stands above nationalism.

Uma análise rigorosa

Escreve Constança Cunha e Sá no "Público" de hoje, 19/5/2006:

"[...] A "verosimilhança" que grande parte dos leitores encontrou no livro [O Código da Vinci] (segundo uma sondagem, realizada em França, esta semana, um terço dos franceses acreditou nas "teses" de Dan Brown), para além de mostrar o grau de estupidificação e de superficialidade a que se chegou, entre nós, confirma uma confrangedora ignorância sobre o cristianismo e as suas origens. O problema não está no desconhecimento dos evangelhos gnósticos e dos textos heréticos [...]: está no desconhecimento absoluto de tudo; dos evangelhos gnósticos e dos evangelhos canónicos; dos textos heréticos e dos textos ortodoxos; da história da Igreja e da doutrina católica. Qualquer ser razoável, com uns rudimentos de história ou de teologia, desconfiaria imediatamente de um enredo onde o Priorado do Sião é dado como um facto, o corpo de Maria Madalena surge como o Santo Graal, as catedrais góticas têm a forma de útero feminino (para além de terem sido mandadas construir pelos Templários), o Opus Dei tem ao seu serviço "monges" albinos capazes dos piores assassínios e o imperador Constantino transforma-se no fundador do cristianismo divinizando Jesus que, até aí, seria apenas um homem, animado dos melhores propósitos. Sucede que é exactamente esta mistela esotérica, que oscila entre o sincretismo new age, o "sagrado feminino" e o fantástico mundo de um Harry Potter apimentado pela heresia e por uns pós de gnosticismo primário que tem animado o mundo e as primeiras páginas de todos os jornais. [...]"

[Nota: O texto original não está a bold]

I share this view on politicians

"A política está cheia de amadores ultrapromovidos, aprendizes de feiticeiro que estudaram a teoria dos feitiços, mas nunca experimentaram nenhum. E um dia, por qualquer razão, arriscam-se a uma guerra - por exemplo, uma eleição pessoal." Rui Ramos, in Público, 17-5-2006

Ou seja, digo eu, quem exerce o poder sobre as nossas vidas é um lote de partidários com experiência profissional e capacidade técnica baixa ou nula, cujo dia-a-dia durante dezenas de anos das suas vidas é de ascensão partidária e dentro de organismos púbicos onde, em ambos os casos, estão rodeados por gente igual.

Devemos confiar nesta gente?

Quanto mais independentes formos, cada um de nós, do Estado, quanto mais a nossa subsistência não depender de políticos de profissão, mais temos a ganhar.

A independência do cidadão, ao contrário do seu vício socialista por um modelo social esgotado, são o garante da sobrevivência de uma economia funcional, base única para a sobrevivência de Estado e cidadãos.

Finance

Simple definition for a complicated matter (by Wikipedia):

"Finance studies and addresses the ways in which individuals, businesses and organizations raise, allocate and use monetary resources over time, taking into account the risks entailed in their projects"