Violence against woman by husbands: the grass is always greener at the other side

The right woman is Connie Culp who had her face destroyed in 2004 when her former husband shot her.
She did a transplant in 2008. Details can be found at this article by Amy Oliver. The transplant is the reason her story is still being reported.

"'It's the way I keep going,' she said. 'I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I want to be treated the same as I was my whole life, before the shooting."
Connie Culp

The woman in the left is Bibi Aisha photographed by Jodi Biebir who won the World Press Photo of the Year and had the picture shot as cover of Time magazine.

""It is not often one sees such a significant change in the person you have photographed—and a change in own's own life too. It also gives me great joy to see how this photograph has moved and impacted so many people throughout the world.""
Jodi Biebir

Who is who

by Ana
Adapted from the Brazilian writer Luis Fernando Verissimo.


Manet is that one of “Luncheon on the grass” and “Olympia”, Monet the one of "nympheas" and that painting that was used to name the group impressionists. Both wore beards.

Francis Bacon was the Irish painter, but there was another Francis Bacon, English, that was a philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist author and pioneer of the scientific method born in the sixteenth century but he did not paint.

Billy Wilder is that one of the "Some Like it Hot" and "The Apartment", William Wyler is that one of “Ben-Hur” and “Roman Holyday". Gene Wilder has nothing to do with any of them.

Robin Willians is that one of "Mrs Doubtfire" and "Good Morning, Vietnam" and Robbie Willians the English singer-songwriter the one of "Angels" and "Feel".

Jean Renoir, filmmaker of the “Grand Illusion”, was son of the painter Renoir.

Calvin Klein is the one of clothes, Kevin Kline is the actor.

Wait, wait a moment. Calvin Kline is the actor, Kevin Klein is the one of the clothes. Nope. Kevin Kline is the actor, Calvin Klein is the o...

Or would it be the contrary? I'm no longer sure about anything.

Do the following: forget everything that is written above.

Jerry Lewis, Sinclair Lewis and Lewis Carol sounds familiar but I no longer know who they are.

Charge: Amarildo.

Advice: Some posts of the blog lost format

I just discovered that numerous posts of the blog changed the format it took me some time and work to do.

The paragraphs are missing and it became a little strange.

I'll try to correct it. I do not understand since I write the posts on the Blogger editor to avoid that the HTML of another editor doesn't match Bloggers.
I'm having problems with both editors: the new one dos things that the old one doe not.

I use both but lately I'm having problem to access the old editor and even the Settings.

Not a great day in blogging.
I'll do other stuffs and later I'll take a look if the first page of the blog is still the same, or it has changed or disintegrated.

grrr

Update: January, 23, 2012
Due to these problems I had to change to the new version of the new Blogger interface and I'm using it's Editor.
I have problems arranging the images and I don't understand why by default the uploaded pictures go to the center.
I'll get used to it little by little but I still will have to search for the posts who were changed ant do it again.
Since it will take a lot of time I'm not sure if I'll do it.

How to get rid of the fleas and why sometimes they never leave

For the first time I had an infestation of fleas in my apartment that cost me two months of research and experiences.

The others, including two ticks infestation, were very easy to handle and I only did the procedures that all of those who have dogs know or should know.

What was different this time?
The street I live must have one flea in every centimeter. It is summer and this is a factor that creates the conditions for proliferation of fleas and ticks but what is not understandable is why the same measures that were always effective were not helping?
What I end up doing: stop walking the dog. I already avoided crossing the street because of the ticks. They are at one part of the garden and one dog died because of tick disease.

I talked to people from other districts and some are having the same problem: although they obsessionally  cleaned their houses using the vacuum cleaner, spread some of the sprays - be careful when doing it because the dog cannot  smell it -, used anti-flea talcum powder on the dog and on fabrics s/he sleeps and have washed and cleaned everything that could be a nest to fleas they didn't go away...

I asked if they were walking their dogs and yes was the answer. I decided to stop walking my dog.

It worked. Finally she is flea-free and her skin is coming back to normal. I could not stand see her scratching that way and I believe if things kept that way it would start to affect her emotionally as some vets claim it does and I felt that she was already feeling tired.

Facts to help preventing and fighting the fleas and ticks:

-  fleas don't like light;
-  when infected your dog will have dark specks like pepper on the skin surface. When you brush they fall. These are the fesses of the flea; yuk!
-  use white sheets and a white or light fabric when you brush your dog to detect the first signs and to see what falls from the body of your dog when you brush her/him;
-  the eggs will be on the dog and at the environment;
-  eggs do hide in dark and using the vacuum cleaner on the floor, whether carpet of not, during the infestation is the weapon against the eggs of the flea, or ticks;
-  flea-zone on your dog: lower back around the tail and genitals, always check if this zone is healthy and clean;
-  ticks climb walls and furniture and they make nests that depending on your house can be easily found, I was lucky to find one in the couch and another one.. in one of my shorts, can you believe that?

The lesson is: the primary source of flea of tick must be discovered and avoided in my case the street but to other people there must be others. I live in an apartment so I don' know what are the problems of a house with a backyard.
I truly believe that this is one of the reasons why some people claim that even thou they did everything they could their houses are still infected.

I just fount this site and there is very good information.

I hope it helps and if you have any good tip those who have pets will love. Thank you

Wordless Saturday: Deer's dance

Image: Brian Bauer

Kitty in panic

Extreme reaction caused by stress, a dysfunctional family, bad mood,...?
(Funny but this is how I behave sometimes.)

The Four Dogs

Fifteenth of The Four Dog series.

What is happening to these puppies? They look so disappointed as if they already have gone through a lot in this world, or, have they just lost a dear one?

They can also be saying:

"we are not easily impressed"; "not a good time for pictures"; "for how long do you want us to stay at this table?";

"we could bet it would be sunny today but look at the weather!";

This is the first time that The Four Dog series show this expression.

But soon they'll learn that it's part of living and will be running and playing with each other.

Maybe they just woke up.

Fail: good intentions, bad arguments

One has to be careful when angry. Avoid writing about passionate 

subjects when your reason is not in control because lack of logic is fatal.

Is happiness the meaning of life?

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence” Aristotle


I Object! What about you?




Image: by Henrik Plenge Jakobsen 

The Collector's Studio by Theodore Gerard

Theodore Gerard, 1829-1895, was a Belgian painter of genre scenes. In this extra sized image we can browse around the room and take a look at the collector's items in an, let's say, interactive way.
Have a great week!

Jorge Luis Borges on fame, writing, and doomsday

I cannot get enough of reading Jorge Luis Borges in interviews. He is funny and tells real stories of his life that are amazing and, of course it is all wrapped with great thoughts about all the topics you can imagine.

If you don't know Jorge Luis Borges you have too! Literature deals with all the fields of human knowledge and never stops asking questions. This is one of the reasons totalitarian regimes hate art: even in contact with the most simple form of good art our universe changes.

WB: Do you care about literary recognition? Do you want fame?

JLB: No. No! Those things are non-existent. At the same time, when it comes to me, and it may have come to me, I feel that I should be grateful. I mean if people take me seriously, I think, well, they are wrong. At the same time I should be thankful to them
.

WB: I wanted to ask you do you live for the next poem, story, or essay or conversation?

JLB: Yes. Yes, I do

WBI: It seems to me that you're a lucky man to have unending obsessions to create and to record. Do you know why you had that destiny of being a writer? That destiny or that obsession?

JLB: The only thing I know is that I need those obsessions. Because if not, why sould I go on living? Of course, I wouldn't commit suicide. But I should feel very unjustified. Because if I don't write something and keep on being obsessed by it, than I have to write it and be rid of it.

WB: Do you believe private justice exists? How do you consider morality and doomsday?

JLB. At the very moment of our lives we know whether we're acting the right way or the wrong way. We might say that doomsday is going on all the time, that every moment of our lives we're acting wrongly or rightly.

Doomsday is not something that comes at the end. It's going on all the time. And we know, through some instinct, when we have acted rightly or wrongly. p. 179

From: "Thirteen questions: a dialogue with Jorge Luis Borges." Willis Barnstone at the book: "Jorge Luis Borges: conversations" edited by Richard Burgin, 1998.

This dialogue is available online here. For a good biography of the Argentine writer, essayist and poet you can go here.

Sleepy Sunday morning

Most people know Sleepy, left picture, from teh Snwo White Disyne mivoe but fwe

the letf done by Zzz... by rongs1234 at DeviantArt.

I'll put teh lnik lrtea after a snpa.

Update:

Link added...Zzzzzz... be bcak soon...

Obama: the Nobel Peace prize wanted to be impeached

Right: Obama singing the NDAA, December, 31, 2011

Left: Obama receiving the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Foundation has already destroyed part of it's credibility because of some of their laureates and has changed the Alfred Nobel's, the man who made his fortune by patenting dynamite and 355 inventions, ideal of a peace prize for those who did "greatest benefits on mankind":

"Alfred said that this prize should be awarded to the person who in the following year has done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." (emphasis added)

Obama took the prize, the money but not even in 2009 fraternity between nations, abolition or reduction of standing armies and promotion of peace was at his agenda.

What some US citizens and many people around the world wishes for 2012 is Obama impeachment. Obama signed the "National Defense Authorization Act" - NDAA, that imposes Martial law in US, in the still of the night of December, 31, 2011 when American citizens were celebrating the dawn of the new year.

A clear display of refinement and distinction of a Nobel Peace prize laureate.

Andy Warhol's Myths series

 
















In 1981 Andy Warhol printed ten myths using diamond dust in 38 x 38 size.
Among them was "Shadow", the top left that shows his own shadow at the wall, "Mammy", and "The Star" that is Greta Garbo as Marta Hari.

The other iconic mythical figures in the portfolio are Santa Claus, Mickey Mouse, Wicked Witch of the West, Howdy Doody, Dracula, Superman, The Shadow and Uncle Sam.

It is very interesting that he did choose icons that are known or must be known by those who look at the twenty century in all his work and at this series especially Americans from movies or TV and imagination that are in the mind of many for a long time.
The last picture, bottom right, was done in 1983 "Ingrid Bergman with a hat".

Jane Elliott: How does it feel to be treated like a "nigga" for a lifetime?

"When am I gonna quit? When racism quits. Do I have a job for a lifetime?
I'm afraid so."

Jane Elliott

Last month I published this post about Daryl Davis, the black musician man that persuaded twelve members of Ku Klux Klan to leave the organization. He wrote a book about it "Klan-destine relationships: a black man's odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan”.

I was amazed when I did read about Daryl achievement and the same happened when I watched at the TV Jane Elliott doing one of her workshops.
She exposes the weapons of racism by making people feel in their skin how discrimination, segregation, being stereotyped and mistreated have a terrible impact on the minds of the individuals who are part of a minority group and for this reason are mistreated in this case having a black skin.

I always asked myself why behavior experiments always aims evil. Stanford Prison and Stanley Milgram experiments were both done by psychologists trying to verify how people can be controlled or behave according to what they are told individually or in a group as a whole.
The ethical aspects of both experiments were questioned and the scientific methodology, especially in Stanford Prison, is questionable.

I never saw any of these psychologists doing experiments and, once again, I ask myself why they are done behind closed doors since they have to do with human beings emotions and behavior what is of interest of everybody.
It became an unquestionable fact that psychological experiments have to be done away from the public and one explanation is that it is necessary so that interferences from the outside don’t jeopardize the results. I’ll pretend it is true.

Jane Elliott’s workshops received some critics but what she does is not related to a scientific experiment and Jane payed a high price for her activism, fighting racism, and all her family was affected.
The workshops last two hours and I would love to be part of one of them especially to be at the blue side, the minority group.
Two groups are divided: blue eyes and brown eyes and this is the explanation that is at her site:

About
“Jane Elliott is an internationally renowned teacher, lecturer, and diversity trainer who presented this Seminar in the City Campus Union. She is famous for her classroom experiment, “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes.”

In response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. over thirty years ago, Jane Elliott devised the controversial and startling, "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise. This, now famous, exercise labels participants as inferior or superior based solely upon the color of their eyes and exposes them to the experience of being a minority. Everyone who is exposed to Jane Elliott's work, be it through a lecture, workshop, or video, is dramatically affected by it.”

I watched twice one of her workshops at the TV and it is true that people are highly affected because Jane is really good in creating the “prejudice arena” that some people are confined because... exactly. Why?

There are some good learning materials at Jane’s site. In a very simple and easy way she puts in evidence what is hidden in some of the phrases and statements we use. I truly believe that in same cases we only learn when we face the problem ourselves and Jane’s work is perfect to make us see how dis-empowering being part of a minority is.

Visit Jane’s site to meet a great woman and learn more on how the dungeons of prejudice work and understand what the blue eyes/brown eyes workshop purpose is.

This is the work of a lifetime.

Hella Heaven: You are here series

Second of the "You are here series."

Abstraction symphony by Cea

It's hard to believe it is not a painting. I asked Cea if it is a puddle of clean water or a pond maybe with a bit of oil because I have already seem some reflections like this.

It seems to be raining.

I love the different textures created by the reflections of the blue sky, the tree and the water that blurred it all and is a unique pattern in some areas.

Had the photography be taken in a different time it would be another symphony.

I'll have to rewrite in case it is not a puddle but I bet that there is water involved.

Picture byCea.'s photostream.

Logic is a many-splendored thing

It sounds like a good idea!

US officially a Police State as Obama signed the “National Defense Authorization Act "

What was only conspiracy theory, idea of anti-Americans or domestic terrorist is now a reality: Americans are under Martial Law, under a police state.

It means that the constitution is no longer respected and citizenship has lost it`s meaning.

The reason? to protect the country from terrorists, Al Qaeda and... whatever.

Any American can arbitrarily be imprisoned under the suspicion that s/he is an enemy, a domestic terrorist. for any time, even indefinitely.

The NDAA inaugurates the totalitarian America something that many people think would be impossible. A once inconceivable idea is happening and it reminds the Acts that was imposed to South Americans countries in the seventies.

For Brazilians is just like seeing the Institutional Act Number 5 - AI5 happening again. The US was one of the responsible and now they are inflicting the same to their own citizen. There were arrests, torture, murders... and the scars are still on the mind of those who lived fearing, lost loved ones and are survivors.

Funny, AI-5 and NDAA were both instituted in December.

I'm appalled.

Image: Surveillance 2010 by Will Varner.

Sweet Charity: the adventures of a girl who wanted to be loved starring Shirley Maclaine

 


Sweet Charity: the adventures of a girl who wanted to be loved, 1969, starring Shiley MacLaine directed and  awarded choreographed by Bob Fosse, the Cabaret's filmmaker, is the great movie I did chose to start the year.

It was originally a 1966 Broadway production also directed by Bob Fosse that was inspired by a  
What amazes is that it is timeless whether you consider the story or the choreography, the costumes, music and sounds arrengements and it was the first movie Bob Fosse worked as a filmmaker as well as a choreographer starting a very successful career.

The movie has many fans and still astonishes the young generation that was born in the clip era and inevitably compares it to some of today's clips. There are some elements that are in fashion today in clothes, make-up, Charity having a tattoo and the environment they create.

The most important aspect I did choose is Charity optimism always ready for the next adventure that might break her heart again but "living hopefully ever after." is her fate that is already inscribed in her name Charity Hope Valentine.

Shirley MacLaine is perfect for the role with her kind off girlish movements and innocence.
The three videos are the most known ant the two that have been receiving new interpretations are "Big Spender" and "The Aloof". There are some at YouTube like The Pussycat Dolls, this version of some Canadian girls for "Big Spender".

I tried to publish the videos that only shows the dancing but they are not available. You can skip the first minute and go straight to the dancing part. The music "Big Spender" is a little catchy and you may find yourself singing "Hey, big spender!" or "Do you wanna have fun, fun fun?..." but it I assure it will go away.

Great movie, great performances, great choreography that inaugurated some trends and is still new. Some of the scenes of Prince's "Get Off" and "Kiss" clips reminded of it.