Back to Basics

É com naturalidade que só me ocorre urdir um único comentário perante esta situação, que é "Sócrates, hás-de cair e bater com toda a força na terra que queimas".

Descobri que conspiro quando respiro e fássisto quando existo.

There's a gaping hole in the way we are
With nothing to fill it up anymore
No flesh, no blood, just broken bone
A frame to hang our lives from

We're living like skeletons
We're living like skeletons

Won't someone wake the dead in me
Won't someone shake the dust off me
Give me water give me bread
But don't give me up for dead

We're living like skeletons
We're living like skeletons

- Borland / The Sound

(havendo sílvias que granjeiam dívidas de honor)



Mesa dos sonhos

Ao lado do homem vou crescendo

Defendo-me da morte quando dou
Meu corpo ao seu desejo violento
E lhe devoro o corpo lentamente

Mesa dos sonhos no meu corpo vivem
Todas as formas e começam
Todas as vidas

Ao lado do homem vou crescendo

E defendo-me da morte povoando
de novos sonhos a vida.

- Alexandre O'Neill

Sócrates Acusado de Traidor pela Human Rights Watch

Via Leão Pelado:

Sócrates Acusado de Traidor pela Human Rights Watch

"Referindo-se à recente visita de Sócrates à Rússia, a HRW publicou no seu site, na página dedicada a Portugal, inserida na secção da Europa/Ásia Central, sob o título Atraiçoando os direitos humanos na Rússia, uma forte crítica a uma alocução de Sócrates pronunciada durante essa visita, em que o acusa de traição aos Direitos Humanos na Rússia. Nesta página encontram-se ainda outras acusações contra os governos portugueses – reconhecidas como justas e que nós também sabemos que por corrupção – como a condenação declarada pelo Parlamento Europeu por cumplicidade nas actividades ilegais da CIA, o relatório sobre os soldados crianças de 2001, o relatório sobre o incumprimento do tratado internacional que baniu as minas.

A HRW publicou ainda um artigo muito mais longo sob o mesmo título e sobre o mesmo assunto, em que apresenta uma lista mais extensa das desastrosas consequências provocadas pela impudência de Sócrates. A HRW critica fortemente várias alusões do discurso de Sócrates pondo em causa a defesa dos Direitos Humanos, considera esta atitude como um mau presságio para a presidência de Portugal na União Europeia e pondera que em lugar destas atitudes, Portugal deveria promover um "diálogo mais robusto sobre os assuntos dos Direitos Humanos entre a UE e a Rússia, pressionando o Kremlin para restaurar a liberdade de expressão", etc. Em suma, a HRW encara o comportamento de Sócrates como atípico, desleal para com a UE e uma traição aos Direitos Humanos.

Em 29-5-2007, o International Herald Tribune chamou delicadamente “linguagem colorida” ao discurso de Sócrates, enquanto a Angela Merkl questionava o tratamento do governo russo aos seus opositores.

Muitos outros jornais fizeram menções idênticas sobre o discurso do Sócrates, classificando-o das mais diversas formas sobre as suas críticas veementes contra os valores do Ocidente sobre os Direitos Humanos e a democracia.

Como se nós não conhecêssemos já a cambada de canalhas e parasitas corruptos dos neo-cons que actualmente domina o partido que se faz passar por socialista, e que, para nosso mal, não é melhor que a cambada precedente de neo-cons que queria terminar com a Segurança Social e que praticamente acabou com o direito à defesa. Decisões contra os Direitos Humanos são comuns em Portugal, como matar velhos à fome e sem medicamentos pôr as mulheres a parir nas ambulâncias, perpetuar a miséria, vender Portugal ao estrangeiro e destruir a riqueza e o futuro do país, dizendo que é investir (belo género de investimento, proibido noutros países, por ruinoso!). Agora, na Rússia, Sócrates apoia também outros actos contra os Direitos Humanos, como o massacre das populações que se querem libertar de jugos, a proibição da liberdade de expressão ou qualquer outro direito à liberdade. Que melhor prova daquilo que já sabíamos e que os governos corruptos teimam em desmentir?

Estas páginas no site da HRW foram publicadas em 11-6-2007 (a mencionada em segundo lugar está datada no URL). Alguém ouviu ou leu algo sobre o assunto nos noticiários de cobertura nacional? Que significa então este caso encoberto? Após tantas demonstrações no mesmo sentido, a conclusão parece simples. Para além da praga dos políticos, estamos rodeados por um bando de pseudo jornalistas, jornaleiros, que pasteurizam notícias e informações, escondem ou mostram, anunciam ou escondem de acordo com os interesses da corrupção mafiosa que encobrem e defendem num conluio declarado e aberto. São os profissionais da impostura.

Temos um governo que se declara abertamente contra os Direitos Humanos e o tem provado consistentemente. Temos uma oposição que já provou não ser melhor, pois que o mal no país não se poderia ter desenvolvido em dois anos. Onde vamos dar? A única solução possível é a união nacional para dominar as oligarquias de gananciosos, corruptos e abusadores. Acabar com regalias a que não têm direito. Desfazer as leis corruptas que protegem a corrupção e os seus autores e participantes. Impedir que se apoderem dos lugares de chefia de toda a administração, do estado e municipal. Colocá-los no seu lugar: cumpridores dos seus deveres e servidores obedientes do povo soberano. Mantê-los domesticados e com rédea curta."

Alea jacta est, post tenebras lux.

edit:

Acta est fabula.

(última composição do Rui Veloso que me marcou; daí em diante, a oferenda ao PS esvaziou-o do brilho que, aqui, ainda se consegue ver sem qualquer dificuldade. mas isso agora não interessa para nada, é do sono, de autocarros e de gentalha - regardless do aparato sociointelectual - que falamos, e acima de tudo, que falamos)

((os bolds são))

(((naturais)))


Guardador de Margens

Enquanto a cidade inteira vai digerindo o seu jantar
E todas as ruas e praças se lavam com essęncia de luar
Enquanto as estátuas famosas bebem brandes e aveledas
E as tílias se entreolham meigamente nas alamedas
Vou guardando as margens
Velando os lírios do jardim
Enquanto a meia-noite encerra mais uma sessăo
O senso comum ressona tranquilo e pesado no colchăo
Enquanto a cidade inteira lava os dentes e faz toilete
E os taxistas recolhem as sombras que restam da noite
(refrăo 2x)
Enquanto a luz do promontório ensina a costa ao barqueiro
E arde o rum forte no zimbório e traz lucidez ao faroleiro
Vou pondo malha sobre malha com o labor de um tapeceiro
Palavra, acorde, o som, a talha e a devoçăo de um mestre oleiro
(refrăo 2x)
Enquanto a cidade inteira vai feliz na sua faina
E o sol boceja na ladeira o som do martelo e da plaína
Saúdo a bruma e o orvalho e a luz do dia madrugado
Guardo as cartas no baralho meu sono é enfim chegado
(refrăo )

ENFP, era o que mais faltava... bah.

Mudei de ENFJ para INFJ. São fases. Mas isto seria para o Jung... deixa lá ver o que diz o Keirsey...

We may rise and fall, but in the end we meet our fate together

O que eh que pode haver na cabeça de um homem ao ver um cão ser atropelado à porta de sua casa, a dona aos gritos, a apanhar o animal do ponto onde caiu esfacelado, o agente da morte já sumido na terceira curva? Quantos cães seremos, com que determinística probabilidade seremos cães?

Quero a meia-noite que é comum aos nossos dias, quero o instante em que eu termino e tu começas, a praia celta entre os mundos no ritual do ouro e da prata que já esqueci por julgar-me não-cão.

Vem o tempo puta que o pariu e diz abraça-me com as notas daquela viagem dois anos atrás. Vem alquimia libertadora fazer-nos bem até de manhã, e a caçada selvagem partiu.

Está bonito isto, e a culpa é de alguém.

so it was this unruly day, in steam and slow tones
you never left my side, not under the casual rain
or even when the gods began to call their own
drumming the dream, waking the song,
piecewise promoting the entropy game

but, you ask, what from your heart to mine
what legend, what scales
Lakota fairy tales
could gain that fortified line,
in memories within our minds

well, from nothing but maybe
and for all that may be
my part of you is we.

http://www.truckfighters.com/nrone.html

(Then), when something of dawn had appear’d, from out the horizon
Rose a cloud darkling; (lo), Adad (the storm-god) was rumbling within it,
Nabu and Sharru were leading the vanguard, and coming as heralds
Over the hills and the levels: (then) Irragal wrench’d out the bollards;
Havoc Ninurta let loose as he came, th’ Anunnaki their torches
Brandish’d, and shrivell’d the land with their flames; desolation from Adad
Stretch’d to (high) Heaven, (and) all that was bright was turn’d into darkness.

(Gilgamesh)

Time casts illiterate shades
over shores of the newborn
absynthe snowflakes
we pass on
satellite stains beneath god
across maps of our dead
we do not dillute
ever sunward.

Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops (New York Times, via Slashdot)

The students at Liverpool High have used their school-issued laptops to exchange answers on tests, download pornography and hack into local businesses. When the school tightened its network security, a 10th grader not only found a way around it but also posted step-by-step instructions on the Web for others to follow (which they did).

Scores of the leased laptops break down each month, and every other morning, when the entire school has study hall, the network inevitably freezes because of the sheer number of students roaming the Internet instead of getting help from teachers.

So the Liverpool Central School District, just outside Syracuse, has decided to phase out laptops starting this fall, joining a handful of other schools around the country that adopted one-to-one computing programs and are now abandoning them as educationally empty and worse. Many of these districts had sought to prepare their students for a technology-driven world and close the so-called digital divide between students who had computers at home and those who did not.

“After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement - none,” said Mark Lawson, the school board president here in Liverpool, one of the first districts in New York State to experiment with putting technology directly into students’ hands. “The teachers were telling us when there’s a one-to-one relationship between the student and the laptop, the box gets in the way. It’s a distraction to the educational process.”

Liverpool’s turnabout comes as more and more school districts nationwide continue to bring laptops into the classroom. Federal education officials do not keep track of how many schools have such programs, but two educational consultants, Hayes Connection and the Greaves Group, conducted a study of the nation’s 2,500 largest school districts last year and found that a quarter of the 1,000 respondents already had one-to-one computing, and fully half expected to by 2011.

Yet school officials here and in several other places said laptops had been abused by students, did not fit into lesson plans, and showed little, if any, measurable effect on grades and test scores at a time of increased pressure to meet state standards. Districts have dropped laptop programs after resistance from teachers, logistical and technical problems, and escalating maintenance costs.

Such disappointments are the latest example of how technology is often embraced by philanthropists and political leaders as a quick fix, only to leave teachers flummoxed about how best to integrate the new gadgets into curriculums. Last month, the United States Department of Education released a study showing no difference in academic achievement between students who used educational software programs for math and reading and those who did not.

Those giving up on laptops include large and small school districts, urban and rural communities, affluent schools and those serving mostly low-income, minority students, who as a group have tended to underperform academically.

Matoaca High School just outside Richmond, Va., began eliminating its five-year-old laptop program last fall after concluding that students had failed to show any academic gains compared with those in schools without laptops. Continuing the program would have cost an additional $1.5 million for the first year alone, and a survey of district teachers and parents found that one-fifth of Matoaca students rarely or never used their laptops for learning. “You have to put your money where you think it’s going to give you the best achievement results,” said Tim Bullis, a district spokesman.

Everett A. Rea Elementary School in Costa Mesa, Calif., where more than 95 percent of students are Hispanic and come from low-income families, gave away 30 new laptops to another school in 2005 after a class that was trying them out switched to new teachers who simply did not do as much with the technology. Northfield Mount Hermon School, a private boarding school in western Massachusetts, eliminated its five-year-old laptop program in 2002 after it found that more effort was being expended on repairing the laptops than on training teachers to teach with them.

Two years ago, school officials in Broward County, Fla., the sixth-largest district in the country, shelved a $275 million proposal to issue laptops to each of their more than 260,000 students after re-evaluating the costs of a pilot project. The district, which paid $7.2 million to lease 6,000 laptops for the pilot at four schools, was spending more than $100,000 a year for repairs to screens and keyboards that are not covered by warranties. “It’s cost prohibitive, so we have actually moved away from it,” said Vijay Sonty, chief information officer for the district, whose enrollment is 37 percent black, 31 percent white and 25 percent Hispanic.

Here in Liverpool, parents have long criticized the cost of the laptop program: about $300,000 a year from the state, plus individual student leases of $25 a month, or $900 from 10th to 12th grades, for the take-home privilege.

“I feel like I was ripped off,” said Richard Ferrante, explaining that his son, Peter, used his laptop to become a master at the Super Mario Brothers video game. “And every time I write my check for school taxes, I get mad all over again.”

Students like Eddie McCarthy, 18, a Liverpool senior, said his laptop made him “a lot better at typing,” as he used it to take notes in class, but not a better student. “I think it’s better to wait and buy one for college,” he said.

More than a decade ago, schools began investing heavily in laptops at the urging of school boards and parent groups who saw them as the key to the 21st century classroom. Following Maine?s lead in 2002, states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and South Dakota helped buy laptops for thousands of students through statewide initiatives like ?Classrooms for the Future? and ?Freedom to Learn.? In New York City, about 6,000 students in 22 middle schools received laptops in 2005 as part of a $45-million, three-year program financed with city, state and federal money.

Many school administrators and teachers say laptops in the classroom have motivated even reluctant students to learn, resulting in higher attendance and lower detention and dropout rates.

But it is less clear whether one-to-one computing has improved academic performance - as measured through standardized test scores and grades - because the programs are still new, and most schools have lacked the money and resources to evaluate them rigorously.

In one of the largest ongoing studies, the Texas Center for Educational Research, a nonprofit group, has so far found no overall difference on state test scores between 21 middle schools where students received laptops in 2004, and 21 schools where they did not, though some data suggest that high-achieving students with laptops may perform better in math than their counterparts without. When six of the schools in the study that do not have laptops were given the option of getting them this year, they opted against.

Mark Warschauer, an education professor at the University of California at Irvine and author of “Laptops and Literacy: Learning in the Wireless Classroom” (Teachers College Press, 2006), also found no evidence that laptops increased state test scores in a study of 10 schools in California and Maine from 2003 to 2005. Two of the schools, including Rea Elementary, have since eliminated the laptops.

But Mr. Warschauer, who supports laptop programs, said schools like Liverpool might be giving up too soon because it takes time to train teachers to use the new technology and integrate it into their classes. For instance, he pointed to students at a middle school in Yarmouth, Me., who used their laptops to create a Spanish book for poor children in Guatemala and debate Supreme Court cases found online.

“Where laptops and Internet use make a difference are in innovation, creativity, autonomy and independent research,” he said. “If the goal is to get kids up to basic standard levels, then maybe laptops are not the tool. But if the goal is to create the George Lucas and Steve Jobs of the future, then laptops are extremely useful.”

In Liverpool, a predominantly white school district of nearly 8,000 students, one in four of whom qualify for free or reduced lunches, administrators initially proposed that every 10th through 12th-grade student be required to lease a laptop, but decided to make the program voluntary after parents protested. About half the students immediately signed up; now, three-quarters have them.

At first, the school set up two tracks of classes - laptop and non-laptop - that resulted in scheduling conflicts and complaints that those without laptops had been shut out of advanced classes, though school officials denied that. In 2005, the school went back to one set of classes, and bought a pool of 280 laptops for students who were not participating in the lease program.

Soon, a room that used to be for the yearbook club became an on-site repair shop for the 80 to 100 machines that broke each month, with a “Laptop Help Desk” sign taped to the door. The school also repeatedly upgraded its online security to block access to sites for pornography, games and instant messaging which some students said they had used to cheat on tests.

Maureen A. Patterson, the assistant superintendent for instruction, said that since the laptop program was canceled, she has spoken to more than 30 parents who support the decision and received five phone calls from parents saying they were concerned that their children would not have technological advantages. She said the high school would enlarge its pool of shared laptops for in-class use, invest in other kinds of technology and also planned to extend building hours in the evening to provide computer access.

In a 10th grade English class the other day, every student except one was tapping away on a laptop to look up food facts about Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and Burger King for a journal entry on where to eat. The one student without a computer, Taylor Baxter, 16, stared at a classmate’s screen because she had forgotten to bring her own laptop that day.

But in many other classrooms, there was nary a laptop in sight as teachers read from textbooks and scribbled on chalkboards. Some teachers said they had felt compelled to teach with laptops in the beginning, but stopped because they found they were spending so much time coping with technical glitches that they were unable to finish their lessons.

Alice McCormick, who heads the math department, said most math teachers preferred graphing calculators, which students can use on the Regents exams, to laptops, which often do not have mathematical symbols or allow students to show their work for credit. “Let’s face it, math is for the most part still a paper-and-pencil activity when you’re learning it,” she said.

In the school library, an 11th-grade history class was working on research papers. Many carried laptops in their hands or in backpacks even as their teacher, Tom McCarthy, encouraged them not to overlook books, newspapers and academic journals.

“The art of thinking is being lost,” he said. “Because people can type in a word and find a source and think that’s the be all end all.”