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o voo das aves em liberdade

por beatriz j a, em 29.11.11

 

 

 

 

 

gerard kramer

 

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publicado às 22:49


O significado de Hitler

por beatriz j a, em 29.11.11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Estou a ler este livro que é excelente. Foi escrito por Sebastian Hefnner, pseudónimo de um alemão refugiado em Londres antes da Segunda Guerra. O livro explica como é que Hitler planeou a sua subida ao poder e a guerra e como é que foi possível os alemães todos seguirem-no. O que é diferente de outros livros que tentam perceber esta problemática é o facto do autor ter vivído e trabalhado na Alemanha nazi, primeiro  como advogado e depois como jornalista antes de, já completamente enojado, ter-se exilado em Inglaterra. Por causa disto o olhar dele é um olhar de dentro. Ele sabe como se pensava na época, como as pessoas viam o Hitler e a evolução dos os acontecimentos e sabe também muitas histórias e acontecimentos da vida particular e política de Hitler.

Para além disto tem um insight muito bom sobre a psicologia tanto do povo alemão como das motivações do Hitler. Cita documentos e memorandos do Hitler que eu nunca tinha lido em lado algum e que esclerecem a intenção precoce de Hitler de ligar a história da Alemanha à sua história biográfica. Um livro extraordinariamente interessante e lê-se duma penada.

Este livro só foi publicado depois da morte de Hefnner. O livro que foi publicado quando ele fugiu para Londres chamava-se Alemanha: Jekyll and Mr Hyde que já denunciava o que se passava na Alemanha nazi.

 

publicado às 21:44


Farta do mau serviço da Zon

por beatriz j a, em 29.11.11

 

 

 

Primeiro deixei de poder acessar o MY Zon porque lixaram-me o registo (há mais de um ano que não me conseguem resolver isso) e agora perdi o acesso ao email da netcabo porque não me aceita a password e não me deixa mudar para outra! E andam há 5 dias nisto! De vez em quando mandam uma sms a dizer que precisam de mais 48 horas ou 72 horas e depois...zero. Procuro o endereço de email da empresa para escrever-lhes e nada...não encontro. Ligo para lá e dizem-me que não têm endereço de email e o mais que podem fazer é passar a outro técnico!

Raios partam estes gajos que cobram dinheiro mas não fazem o serviço!

Tenho montes de mails naquele endereço, recebo ali muita coisa importante e nomeadamente do emprego!

Nunca vi tamanha incompetência e sobretudo completo desprezo pelo cliente. Não é tarde nem é cedo. Amanhã mudo-me para outra.

publicado às 18:58


Chicago blues at their best

por beatriz j a, em 29.11.11

 

 

 

 

Uma banda de blues que fez este disco extraordinário em 2006 ou lá o que foi e que, desde então, não produziu mais nada, que eu saiba. Volta e meia vou ao site deles ver se há novidades....nada...bem, entretanto vou ouvindo este CD.

O piano nesta música é fenomenal, cheio de elegância, embora o som não esteja nas melhores condições. A guitarra também, ao estilo do Albert King. A voz mesmo perfeita para este tipo de blues. Lindo.

 

 

publicado às 17:18

 

 

 

 

 

As prioridades dos sindicatos não são as prioridades dos professores. Não surpreende que o modelo de gestão das escolas onde os Diretores se eternizam desde que agradem à tutela e onde os detentores de cargos também se eternizam desde que agradem aos Diretores não excite muito os sindicatos...é que os sindicatos são mestres na prática deste pecado da eternização incontestada no poder. Se se insurgissem contra este modelo de gestão e mostrassem como a eternização no poder corrompe, desvitua as relações entre os professores, despromove o mérito e promove a preguiça, o demérito e a artimanha, tinham que começar a pôr-se a si próprios em causa. Organizações chefiadas por indivíduos que qualquer dia ainda batem o Salazar no tempo de permanência num cargo...

Quem tem tiques de ditador não acha prioritário prevenir a ineficiência derivada da escorregadela no autoritarismo que é próprio deste modelo de gestão.

Quem é que estes indivíduos que só dão provas de incompetência e embustes pensam que são para decidirem pelos professores o que é importante?

Este é o sindicalismo que temos: cego, ignorante, paternalista e caquético. Têm sido os melhores alidados do poder contra os professores. Umas vergonha.

 

 

publicado às 15:09


Um ano na vida desta professora - 33

por beatriz j a, em 29.11.11

 

 

 

 

A turma do 10º Ano - Há crises que se transformam em saltos qualitativos. Depois das notas miseráveis que tiveram nos testes, depois de terem sentido na pele que quem não trabalha não vai a lado nenhum e que a professora que lhes calhou em sorte, moi même, não é sensível à falácia do apelo à piedade, parece que acordaram. Mudaram de tal modo a atitude que eu até sinto uma espécie de vibração no ar. Uma coisa quase física. Muito interessante. Entretanto, há aí um aluno tão, mas tão interessante...uma coisa que nunca nestes anos todos tinha visto ou ouvido contar sequer.

Acho que tinha que ser visto por um neurologista, mas teria que ser alguém de espírito aberto e não um daqules indivíduos sem imaginação e sem curiosidade intelectual que encharcam as pessoas de comprimidos. Como não conheço ninguém assim e a família do rapaz não tem dinheiro para especialistas especiais de corrida não sei como vai ser...

 

A turma do 11º ano misturada -alunos de Desporto com alunos de Humanidades- está a começar a revelar os problemas desta mistura tão insana. Aquilo faz lembrar a UE a duas velocidades. Estou sempre a interromper a aula porque os rapazes não apanham as coisas, muitos não não conhecem nenhuma palavra ou, pior, não têm certas competências que deviam ter desde o ano passsado mas, alguns desses, em vez de trabalharam para apanharem os outros, como são auto-indulgentes dizem que não são capazes e têm uma atitude de desistência... depois tenho que mandar calar dois ou três deles várias vezes durante uma aula. Enquanto isto a outra metade perde a ligação à aula. Aquilo é como misturar azeite e água.

Isto irrita porque era evidente que ambas as turmas iriam sair desta situação prejudicadas...afinal, se existem áreas de estudo e os alunos as escolhem é porque têm características muito diferentes, caso contrário não havia necessidade de haver agrupamentos e áreas científicas diferentes e juntava-se tudo à molhada num auditório...ah, já sei! É a escola pública, onde tanto faz porque ninguém quer saber dos que lá andam, porque a privada, que é a que interessa, é financiada para as turmas terem 15 alunos e nunca se fazerem estas caldeiradas...

Quer dizer, acabo por dar as coisas de um modo que vejo não fica bem consolidado porque não posso esperar por uns nem posso, sobretudo, abrandar o ritmo naquela turma.

O pior disto tudo? Os outros fazem a merda e eu é que fico com problemas de consciência...

 

publicado às 12:27

 

 

 

Fisco reclama 750 mil euros de IRC a Américo Amorim

O homem mais rico de Portugal está a contas com o Fisco. A Direcção de Finanças de Aveiro detectou despesas pessoais, logo ilegais, de centenas de milhares de euros na contabilidade da Amorim Holding 2. Américo Amorim recusa pagar 750 mil euros ao Estado de IRC.

Os Serviços de Inspecção da Direcção de Finanças de Aveiro (DFA) detectaram irregularidades na Amorim Holding 2, pertencente ao empresário Américo Amorim, relativas aos anos de 2005, 2006 e 2007. Os inspectores encontraram despesas pessoais, que ascendem a centenas de milhares de euros, incluídas na contabilidade da holding. O rol dessas despesas é extenso e vai desde viagens da família para destinos turísticos a despesas com massagens, passando por tampões higiénicos e mercearia.

 

 


publicado às 07:05

 

 

 

 

When people are paid by results their attitudes change. Just look at the England rugby team debacle

Twickenham shows what would happen if market forces were brought in to the NHS

 

What Debrett's do not advise you to say in the depths of a defeat is: "There's £35,000 just gone down the toilet." Yet last week it was revealed that a star rugby player said just that – and not about any old game, but in the changing room straight after England had flopped against France and gone crashing out of last month's world cup.

That comment was among the most striking published by the Times in its leaked official documents into England's shambolic performance in New Zealand. Even for those who couldn't care less about rugby, the reports are riveting.

 

Running through the whole debacle is an obsession with money. "It was more about getting cash and caps than about getting better," one of the squad moans. Just before flying off to New Zealand, players revolted over pay – and some kept leaving the camp to work for sponsors. Even the squad's bodyguards were rumoured to be speculating how much money the tabloids might pay for photos of Mike Tindall's night out.

 

Cue media outrage about a national team behaving like a bunch of greedy bankers. But it's here that a sporting screw-up turns into something else entirely: a parable about how people's attitudes both to work and to money change when they're paid by results. If you're wondering about the effects of bringing market forces into the health service, say, or any other public service, then take a good look at Twickenham

 

When in 1995 the officials of rugby union finally gave in to pressure at home and abroad to take the game professional, the smart people whose job it is to say smart things wondered why it had taken them so long. After all, it hadn't done football or rugby league any harm; and the likes of Will Carling were already receiving money in trust funds – so what was wrong with getting above board and up to date? "A veil of dishonesty has now been lifted," ran a Times leader the day after rugby union went commercial. The paper didn't mention the hundreds of millions of pounds its owner, Rupert Murdoch, had laid out in TV deals – but some veils are presumably best left on.

 

The game was now open to professional contracts and transfer fees; audiences grew and players became bigger, stronger, fitter. And far, far richer. But in the shift from a game played according to social norms (albeit with a bit of cash slipped under the table) to market norms, players' motivations had changed too.

 

Researchers now know a fair bit about how that shift works. Well over 100 tests have been carried out in which subjects are split in two and set some puzzles, next to a table with some glossy magazines. One group is paid $1 for each puzzle solved; the other does it for free. Time after time, the group working for nothing devote themselves to solving the puzzles. Those getting paid finish fast – then flick through the mags.

This isn't some tract about the horrors of commercialism: Clive Woodward could tell you about how well professional rugby players can do. But pay changes how you approach both your work and your colleagues, in ways for which the standard market arguments don't anticipate.

And the thing about adopting market relations is that they crowd out our social norms behaviour. The childcare centres of Haifa in Israel, for instance, had a big problem with parents arriving late to pick up their children. The teachers never charged latecomers – until two researchers convinced them to adopt a fee for every late child.

With tardiness now costing 10 shekels a pop, more parents should have turned up on time. But no. They came even later, because they saw the late pick-up now not as social embarrassment but as a service. And even when the centres stopped charging, the latenesses remained permanently higher. The introduction of a market norm had made its participants permanently more selfish.

 

What's happened to England's rugby team this autumn is obviously not just about money. But it's an excellent example of something free marketeers often ignore, but that research proves: that adopting a market system does encourage people to think about cash and their individual wellbeing.

Now imagine a healthcare system in which the sick are treated by staff increasingly encouraged by successive governments to see themselves as providers in a market. Care doesn't necessarily get worse, but it does change – and in ways that patients might not like.

 

 

publicado às 06:54


chorar em público

por beatriz j a, em 29.11.11

 

 

 

CHORAR EM PÚBLICO


Miguel Esteves Cardoso – 28-11-2011

 

Quando sair este jornal, a Maria João e eu estaremos a caminho do IPO de Lisboa, à porta do qual compraremos o PÚBLICO de hoje. Hoje ela será internada e hoje à noite, desde o mês de Setembro do ano passado, será a primeira vez que dormiremos sem ser jun...tos. ... O meu plano é que, quando me expulsarem do IPO, ela se lembre de ir ler o PÚBLICO... e leia esta crónica a dizer que já estou cheio de saudades dela. É a melhor maneira que tenho de estar perto dela, quando não me deixam estar. Mesmo ficando num hotel a 30 passos dela, dói-me de muito mais longe. ... O IPO consegue ser uma segunda casa. Nenhum outro hospital consegue ser isso. Podem ser hospitais muito bons. Mas não são como uma casa. O IPO é. Há uma alegria, um humor, uma dedicação e uma solidariedade, bem-educada e generosa, que não poderiam ser mais diferentes da nossa atitude e maneira de ser - resignada, fatalista e piegas - que são o default institucional da nacionalidade portuguesa. É graxa? Para que tratem bem a Maria João? Talvez seja. Mas é merecida. Até porque toda a gente que os três IPO de Portugal tratam é tratada como se tivesse direito a todas as regalias. Há muitos elogios que, não obstante serem feitos para nos beneficiarem, não deixam de ser absolutamente justos e justificados. Este é um deles. Eu estou aqui ao pé de ti. Como tu estás ao pé de mim. Chorar em público é como pedir que nada de mau nos aconteça. É uma sorte. É o contrário do luto. Volta para mim.

 

 

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publicado às 06:37


returning home at dawn

por beatriz j a, em 29.11.11

 

 

 

 

 

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publicado às 04:30


via duarte...o direito ao delírio

por beatriz j a, em 29.11.11

 

 

 

 

A Utopia serve para lembrar o quão longe estamos dela...

 

 

publicado às 04:22


vergonha é uma senhora que não conhece

por beatriz j a, em 28.11.11

 

 

 

Governo

Mota Soares substitui Vespa por carro de 86 mil

Ministro garante que a compra de viatura de luxo foi ‘herança’ do Governo anterior.

 

Porque não vende Vxa. o carro e compra alguma coisa pequena que se faça em Portugal? Para dar o exemplo... É que esse dinheiro dava para pagar o ordenado anual de muitos empregados. Ou é com esse carro que chega aos 'equipamentos' onde mandou que se ensardinhassem idosos?

 


publicado às 05:26


a natureza

por beatriz j a, em 28.11.11

 

 

 

 

 leonhard katzel

 

publicado às 04:52


Habermas, the last European?

por beatriz j a, em 27.11.11

 

 

 

11/25/2011 11:54 AM

Habermas, the Last European

A Philosopher's Mission to Save the EU

By Georg Diez

 

Jürgen Habermas has had enough. The philosopher is doing all he can these days to call attention to what he sees as the demise of the European ideal. He hopes he can help save it -- from inept politicians and the dark forces of the market.

Jürgen Habermas is angry. He's really angry. He is nothing short of furious -- because he takes it all personally.

He leans forward. He leans backward. He arranges his fidgety hands to illustrate his tirades before allowing them to fall back to his lap. He bangs on the table and yells: "Enough already!" He simply has no desire to see Europe consigned to the dustbin of world history.

"I'm speaking here as a citizen," he says. "I would rather be sitting back home at my desk, believe me. But this is too important. Everyone has to understand that we have critical decisions facing us. That's why I'm so involved in this debate. The European project can no longer continue in elite modus."

Enough already! Europe is his project. It is the project of his generation.

Jürgen Habermas, 82, wants to get the word out. He's sitting on stage at the Goethe Institute in Paris. Next to him sits a good-natured professor who asks six or seven questions in just under two hours -- answers that take fewer than 15 minutes are not Habermas' style.

Usually he says clever things like: "In this crisis, functional and systematic imperatives collide" -- referring to sovereign debts and the pressure of the markets.

Sometimes he shakes his head in consternation and says: "It's simply unacceptable, simply unacceptable" -- referring to the EU diktat and Greece's loss of national sovereignty.

 

'No Convictions'

And then he's really angry again: "I condemn the political parties. Our politicians have long been incapable of aspiring to anything whatsoever other than being re-elected. They have no political substance whatsoever, no convictions."

It's in the nature of this crisis that philosophy and bar-room politics occasionally find themselves on an equal footing.

It's also in the nature of this crisis that too many people say too much, and we could definitely use someone who approaches the problems systematically, as Habermas has done in his just published book.

But above all, it is in the nature of this crisis that the longer it continues, the more confusing it gets. It becomes more difficult to follow its twists and turns and to see who is responsible for what. And the whole time, alternatives are disappearing before our very eyes.

That's why Habermas is so angry: with the politicians, the "functional elite" and the media. "Are you from the press?" he asks a man in the audience who has posed a question. "No? Too bad."

Habermas wants to get his message out. That's why he's sitting here. That's why he recently wrote an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, in which he accused EU politicians of cynicism and "turning their backs on the European ideals." That's why he has just written a book -- a "booklet," as he calls it -- which the respected German weekly Die Zeit promptly compared with Immanuel Kant's 1795 essay "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch."

But does he have an answer to the question of which road democracy and capitalism should take?

 

A Quiet Coup d'État

"Zur Verfassung Europas" ("On Europe's Constitution") is the name of his new book, which is basically a long essay in which he describes how the essence of our democracy has changed under the pressure of the crisis and the frenzy of the markets. Habermas says that power has slipped from the hands of the people and shifted to bodies of questionable democratic legitimacy, such as the European Council. Basically, he suggests, the technocrats have long since staged a quiet coup d'état.

"On July 22, 2011, (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel and (French President) Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to a vague compromise -- which is certainly open to interpretation -- between German economic liberalism and French etatism," he writes. "All signs indicate that they would both like to transform the executive federalism enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty into an intergovernmental supremacy of the European Council that runs contrary to the spirit of the agreement."

Habermas refers to the system that Merkel and Sarkozy have established during the crisis as a "post-democracy." The European Parliament barely has any influence. The European Commission has "an odd, suspended position," without really being responsible for what it does. Most importantly, however, he points to the European Council, which was given a central role in the Lisbon Treaty -- one that Habermas views as an "anomaly." He sees the Council as a "governmental body that engages in politics without being authorized to do so."

He sees a Europe in which states are driven by the markets, in which the EU exerts massive influence on the formation of new governments in Italy and Greece, and in which what he so passionately defends and loves about Europe has been simply turned on its head.

 

A Rare Phenomenon

At this point, it should be mentioned that Habermas is no malcontent, no pessimist, no prophet of doom -- he's a virtually unshakable optimist, and this is what makes him such a rare phenomenon in Germany.

His problem as a philosopher has always been that he appears a bit humdrum because, despite all the big words, he is basically rather intelligible. He took his cultivated rage from Marx, his keen view of modernity from Freud and his clarity from the American pragmatists. He has always been a friendly elucidator, a rationalist and an anti-romanticist.

Nevertheless, his previous books "Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere" and "Between Facts and Norms" were of course somewhat different than the merry post-modern shadowboxing of French philosophers like Jacques Derrida and Jean Baudrillard. What's more, another of Habermas' publications, "Theory of Communicative Action," certainly has its pitfalls when it comes to his theory of "coercion-free discourse" which, even before the invention of Facebook and Twitter, were fairly bold, if not perhaps naïve.

Habermas was never a knife thrower like the Slovenian thinker Slavoj Žižek, and he was no juggler like the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk. He never put on a circus act, and he was always a leftist (although there are those who would disagree). He was on the side of the student movement until things got too hot for him. He took delight in the constitution and procedural matters. This also basically remains his position today.

Habermas truly believes in the rationality of the people. He truly believes in the old, ordered democracy. He truly believes in a public sphere that serves to make things better.

 

A Vision of Europe at the Crossroads

This also explains why he gazed happily at the audience on this mid-November evening in Paris. Habermas is a fairly tall, lanky man. As he stepped onto the stage, his relaxed gait gave him a slightly casual air. With his legs stretched out under the table, he seemed at home. Whether he's at a desk or not, this is his profession: communicating and exchanging ideas in public.

He was always there when it was a question of putting Germany back on course, in other words, on his course -- toward the West, on the path of reason: during the vitriolic debate among German historians in 1986 that focused on the country's approach to its World War II past; following German reunification in 1990; and during the Iraq War. It's the same story today as he sits here, at a table, in a closed room in the basement of the Goethe Institute, and speaks to an audience of 200 to 250 concerned, well-educated citizens. He says that he, the theorist of the public sphere, doesn't have a clue about Facebook and Twitter -- a statement which, of course, seems somewhat antiquated, almost even absurd. Habermas believes in the power of words and the rationality of discourse. This is philosophy unplugged.

While the activists of the Occupy movement refuse to formulate even a single clear demand, Habermas spells out precisely why he sees Europe as a project for civilization that must not be allowed to fail, and why the "global community" is not only feasible, but also necessary to reconcile democracy with capitalism. Otherwise, as he puts it, we run the risk of a kind of permanent state of emergency -- otherwise the countries will simply be driven by the markets. "Italy Races to Install Monti" was a headline in last week's Financial Times Europe.

On the other hand, they are not so far apart after all, the live-stream revolutionaries from Occupy and the book-writing philosopher. It's basically a division of labor -- between analog and digital, between debate and action. It's a playing field where everyone has his or her place, and it's not always clear who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. We are currently watching the rules being rewritten and the roles being redefined.

 

A Dismantling of Democracy

"Sometime after 2008," says Habermas over a glass of white wine after the debate, "I understood that the process of expansion, integration and democratization doesn't automatically move forward of its own accord, that it's reversible, that for the first time in the history of the EU, we are actually experiencing a dismantling of democracy. I didn't think this was possible. We've reached a crossroads."

It also has to be said: For being Germany's most important philosopher, he is a mind-bogglingly patient man. He is initially delighted that he has managed at last to find a journalist whom he can tell just how much he abhors the way certain media ingratiate themselves with Merkel -- how he detests this opportunist pact with power. But then he graciously praises the media for finally waking up last year and treating Europe in a manner that clearly demonstrates the extent of the problem.

"The political elite have actually no interest in explaining to the people that important decisions are made in Strasbourg; they are only afraid of losing their own power," he says, before being accosted by a woman who is not entirely in possession of her faculties. But that's how it is at such events -- that's how things go with coercion-free discourse. "I don't fully understand the normative consequences of the question," says Habermas. The response keeps the woman halfway at a distance.

He is, after all, a gentleman from an age when having an eloquent command of the language still meant something and men carried cloth handkerchiefs. He is a child of the war and perseveres, even when it seems like he's about to keel over. This is important to understanding why he takes the topic of Europe so personally. It has to do with the evil Germany of yesteryear and the good Europe of tomorrow, with the transformation of past to future, with a continent that was once torn apart by guilt -- and is now torn apart by debt.

 

Without Complaint

In the past, there were enemies; today, there are markets -- that's how the historical situation could be described that Habermas sees before him. He is standing in an overcrowded, overheated auditorium of the Université Paris Descartes, two days before the evening at the Goethe Institute, and he is speaking to students who look like they would rather establish capitalism in Brussels or Beijing than spend the night in an Occupy movement tent.

After Habermas enters the hall, he immediately rearranges the seating on the stage and the nametags on the tables. Then the microphone won't work, which seems to be an element of communicative action in practice. Next, a professor gives a windy introduction, apparently part of the academic ritual in France.

Habermas accepts all this without complaint. He steps up to the lectern and explains the mistakes that were made in constructing the EU. He speaks of a lack of political union and of "embedded capitalism," a term he uses to describe a market economy controlled by politics. He makes the amorphous entity Brussels tangible in its contradictions, and points to the fact that the decisions of the European Council, which permeate our everyday life, basically have no legal, legitimate basis. He also speaks, though, of the opportunity that lies in the Lisbon Treaty of creating a union that is more democratic and politically effective. This can also emerge from the crisis, says Habermas. He is, after all, an optimist.

Then he's overwhelmed by the first wave of fatigue. He has to sit down. The air is stuffy, and it briefly seems as if he won't be able to continue with his presentation. After a glass of water, he stands up again.

He rails against "political defeatism" and begins the process of building a positive vision for Europe from the rubble of his analysis. He sketches the nation-state as a place in which the rights of the citizens are best protected, and how this notion could be implemented on a European level.

 

Reduced to Spectators

He says that states have no rights, "only people have rights," and then he takes the final step and brings the peoples of Europe and the citizens of Europe into position -- they are the actual historical actors in his eyes, not the states, not the governments. It is the citizens who, in the current manner that politics are done, have been reduced to spectators.

His vision is as follows: "The citizens of each individual country, who until now have had to accept how responsibilities have been reassigned across sovereign borders, could as European citizens bring their democratic influence to bear on the governments that are currently acting within a constitutional gray area."

This is Habermas's main point and what has been missing from the vision of Europe: a formula for what is wrong with the current construction. He doesn't see the EU as a commonwealth of states or as a federation but, rather, as something new. It is a legal construct that the peoples of Europe have agreed upon in concert with the citizens of Europe -- we with ourselves, in other words -- in a dual form and omitting each respective government. This naturally removes Merkel and Sarkozy's power base, but that's what he's aiming for anyway.

Then he's overwhelmed by a second wave of fatigue. He has to sit down again, and a professor brings him some orange juice. Habermas pulls out his handkerchief. Then he stands up and continues to speak about saving the "biotope of old Europe."

There is an alternative, he says, there is another way aside from the creeping shift in power that we are currently witnessing. The media "must" help citizens understand the enormous extent to which the EU influences their lives. The politicians "would" certainly understand the enormous pressure that would fall upon them if Europe failed. The EU "should" be democratized.

His presentation is like his book. It is not an indictment, although it certainly does at times have an aggressive tone; it is an analysis of the failure of European politics. Habermas offers no way out, no concrete answer to the question of which road democracy and capitalism should take.

 

A Vague Future and a Warning from the Past

All he offers is the kind of vision that a constitutional theorist is capable of formulating: The "global community" will have to sort it out. In the midst of the crisis, he still sees "the example of the European Union's elaborated concept of a constitutional cooperation between citizens and states" as the best way to build the "global community of citizens."

Habermas is, after all, a pragmatic optimist. He does not say what steps will take us from worse off to better off.

What he ultimately lacks is a convincing narrative. This also ties Habermas once again to the Occupy movement. But without a narrative there is no concept of change.

He receives a standing ovation at the end of his presentation.

"If the European project fails," he says, "then there is the question of how long it will take to reach the status quo again. Remember the German Revolution of 1848: When it failed, it took us 100 years to regain the same level of democracy as before."

A vague future and a warning from the past -- that's what Habermas offers us. The present is, at least for the time being, unattainable.

 

Translated from the German by Paul Cohen

 


publicado às 21:13


porque non te callas?

por beatriz j a, em 27.11.11

 

 

 

 

Sampaio: "Afinal de contas tinha razão quando disse que há mais vida além do Orçamento"

 

Jorge Sampaio, ex-Presidente da República, sublinhou que o País está “num momento muito difícil” e defendeu que “é preciso reforçar os instrumentos de diálogo, é preciso reforçar a concertação social” assim como “é preciso encontrar alternativas" dado que "é fácil dizer que são precisas alternativas. É muito mais difícil dizer quais são”.
“Afinal de contas, aquela minha célebre frase (…): há mais vida além do orçamento. Eu tinha razão nessa frase”, disse Jorge Sampaio, lembrando que os jornalistas citam erradamente (há mais vida além do défice) o que afirmou quando era Presidente da República.

 

Um indivíduo que enquanto Presidente não fez nada de útil, em minha opinião, e ainda contribuiu para a desautorização dos professores com aquela teoria de que tudo o que ia mal na educação era culpa dos professores que deviam trabalhar 10 horas por dia. Mas, não lhe tendo chegado, isso e ter posto o Sócrates à frente do país -coisa que o devia envergonhar para a eternidade- ainda vem repetir a célebre frase de exortação ao gasto público...

 

publicado às 18:07


Estou chocada

por beatriz j a, em 27.11.11

 

 

 

Para quem quiser fugir daqui - 2

 

Volto a avisar: esta lista não é para maraquinhas nem para indignados que nasceram com o rei na barriga, acham que toda a gente lhes deve alguma coisa, atiram pedras e garrafas à polícia e depois vão fazer queixinhas para as televisões por terem apanhado umas bastonadas no lombo. É para professores desempregados que queiram conhecer Mundo e que não desistem com facilidade:

 

 

Palavra que estou! Um pessoa habitua-se a ter respeito por alguém pela sua civilidade e objetividade e de repente vê-a a defender o mérito das bastonadas, vê-a a ofender os desempregados, como se fossem culpados dos desvios de dinheiro e incompetências que levaram a esta crise com este desemprego e, pior ainda, vê-a a defender as mesmas políticas que atacava quando eram da Rodrigues só porque agora são do seu partido político.

Até o título do 'post' me choca um bocado: porque é que haveríamos de querer fugir do nosso país nesta hora tão grave? Aproveitar a oportunidade de emprego lá fora, estando desempregado, parece-me normal, mas não como uma fuga ou um voltar costas à pátria na hora que mais precisa.

 

 

publicado às 17:51


contrastes

por beatriz j a, em 27.11.11

 

 

 

cherry blossoms

 

Blake Shaw (San Diego, CA)
Photographed March 1994, Hangzhou, China

publicado às 09:31


Just for fans - Jimi Hendrix aniversário

por beatriz j a, em 27.11.11

 

 

 

 

Jimi Hendrix faria hoje 69 anos.

Há guitarristas extraordinários e depois há o Jimi Hendrix, uma força da natureza com a guitarra nas mãos.

'Red House' deve ser das músicas dele que mais gosto e ele tocava-a sempre de maneira diferente. Aqui vemo-lo a trabalhar a música à medida que a toca. Ele tocava qualquer guitarra, mesmo sem as cordas adaptadas para a mão esquerda (ele era canhoto) e, nem sempre usava uma Fender Stratocaster, como se vê neste vídeo.

O indivíduo era um músico de excepção. O som que ele tira das guitarras vai desde o poético e sensual que aqui se ouve aquele som que é uma espécie de gume afiado. 'Red House', blues on the rock, tem aqui o efeito do LSD em quem a ouve, sobretudo a partir do minuto 5.00.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Já esta música, tocada naquele que foi, talvez, o seu melhor concerto com a melhor banda com que tocou -Band of Gypsys- no Filmore East, em 1970, é o exemplo perfeito da genialidade dele com a guitarra. 'Machine Gun' é uma música de protesto contra a guerra do Vietnam. Neste vídeo apenas o fim da música. Podemos ouvir o som da metralhadora, dos helicópteros e do caos da guerra misturados com o patriotismo do hino americano. Tudo isto no último minuto e meio da música.

 

 

publicado às 09:28


Blues in the night

por beatriz j a, em 27.11.11

 

 

 

 

sharon allicotti

 

publicado às 00:05


MUSIC PAINTING

por beatriz j a, em 26.11.11

 

 

 

publicado às 22:58

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