GLOBAL ISSUES

Pharmaceutical corporations are nowadays one of the most profitable and influential industries in the world. It so happens that most of the scientists work for non-independent institutions instead of independents as universities or non-profit-making foundations. By this I mean that their interests are the interest of any corporation: to find profitable products. So, what happen with the scientists who look for the truth and the knowledge?

Investigations are not followed by scientists who really research the health problems but by economic interests. These corporations have also become the supplying companies of information and formation for their own professionals. Consequences can be devastating for our population. They launch their own campaigns for the need of new medicines to solve health problems that they create themselves. That is the case of for example the vaccination campaigns. They have created this ¨fear¨ in our society by which people think that epidemics have disappeared due to vaccination. And this ¨fear¨ comes, as every fear, from the ignorance.

If we have a look at the evolution of every epidemic or contagious illness, before that the vaccination became widespread, the mortality rate had drastically reduced thanks to the improvement in the society living conditions. However, vaccination campaigns are implemented without reliable information of secondary effects and risks. And the reason is that the vaccines industry needs to produce new products and create new customers by creating new vaccines. And how do they find new customers? By selling to the governments their campaigns and their products. What governments? One of their main objectives are third world countries when what they really need is economic help to improve their living conditions...

U2 & Pavarotti - Miss Sarajevo (subtitulado español)

Moving song interpreted by two geniuses Pavarotti and Bono-U2. This performance is also wonderful, it combines 3 languages together: English, Italian and a Croatian poem at the end of the song recited by Bono in Croatian. Here you can read a continuation of the poem, in English, whose author is Ivan Gundulic. The song, apart from being a singing against war, it was dedicated to Miss Sarajevo who was assassinated during this war.

O lijepa, o draga, o slatka slobodo.
Oh beautiful, oh dear, oh sweet freedom
The gift in which are all treasures
High God has given us
True source of all our glory
The only decoration of this Dubrava
All silver, all gold,
All human lives
Cannot repay your pure beauty!

Do you know why ¨pizza marguerita¨ is called that way?

On the summer 1.889, the queen Marguerita di Savoia and the king Umberto I went on holidays to Napoli. The queen looked forward to tasting the famous napolitana pizza. The persons in charge of this task were a famous pizzaiolo, Don Raffaele, and his wife. They prepared a pizza with mozzarella cheese, tomato and basil (albahaca) in honour of the three colors of the Italian flag (white, red and green). Marguerita loved it so much that the pizzaiolo decided to name the pizza after Marguerita.

La leyenda de los sentimientos

I love this legend I used to tell my groups in the long trips in the bus... I didn´t find it in English, maybe someone dares to translate it?

Cuenta la leyenda que una vez se reunieron en algún lugar de la Tierra todos los sentimientos y cualidades de los seres humanos.

Cuando el ABURRIMIENTO había bostezado por tercera vez, la LOCURA, como siempre tan loca, les propuso: ¡vamos a jugar al escondite! La INTRIGA levantó la ceja intrigada y la CURIOSIDAD sin poder contenerse le preguntó: ¿Al escondite? Y, ¿Cómo es eso?
Es un juego, explicó la Locura, en el que yo me tapo la cara y comienzo a contar desde uno hasta un millón y cuando yo haya terminado de contar, el primero de ustedes que yo encuentre ocupará mi lugar para continuar el juego. El ENTUSIASMO bailó entusiasmado secundado por la EUFORIA. La ALEGRÍA dio tantos saltos que terminó convenciendo a la DUDA, e incluso a la APATÍA, a la que nunca le interesaba hacer nada. Pero no todos querían participar. La VERDAD prefirió no esconderse... ¿Para qué? si al final siempre la hallaban. Y la SOBERBIA opinó que era un juego muy tonto (en realidad lo que le molestaba era que la idea no hubiese sido de ella)...y la COBARDÍA prefirió no arriesgarse.

Un, dos, tres... comenzó a contar la LOCURA. La primera en esconderse fue la PEREZA, como siempre tan perezosa se dejó caer tras la primera piedra del camino. La FE subió al cielo y la ENVIDIA se escondió tras la sombra del TRIUNFO, que con su propio esfuerzo había logrado subir a la copa del árbol más alto. La GENEROSIDAD casi no alcanzó a esconderse, cada sitio que hallaba le parecía maravilloso para alguno de sus amigos... que si un lago cristalino para la BELLEZA... que si una hendida en un árbol perfecto para la TIMIDEZ...que si el vuelo de una mariposa lo mejor para la VOLUPTUOSIDAD... que si una ráfaga de viento magnífico para la LIBERTAD... así terminó por acurrucarse en un rayito de sol. El EGOISMO, en cambio, encontró un sitio muy bueno desde el principio: aireado, cómodo... pero sólo para él. La MENTIRA se escondió en el fondo de los océanos (mentira, se escondió detrás del arco iris). La PASIÓN y el DESEO en el centro de los volcanes. El OLVIDO... se me olvidó dónde se escondió el Olvido, pero eso no es lo más importante.

La LOCURA contaba ya novecientos noventa y nueve mil novecientos noventa y nueve... y el AMOR no había aún encontrado sitio para esconderse entre sus flores.
Un millón!! contó la Locura y comenzó a buscar. La primera en encontrar fue la PEREZA... a sólo tres pasos detrás de unas piedras. Después se escuchó a la FE discutiendo con Dios sobre Teología y a la PASIÓN y el DESEO los sintió vibrar en los volcanes. En un descuido encontró a la ENVIDIA y claro, pudo deducir dónde estaba el TRIUNFO. Al EGOISMO no tuvo ni que buscarlo, él solo salió disparado de su escondite, que había resultado ser un nido de avispas. De tanto caminar sintió sed y al acercarse al lago descubrió a la BELLEZA, y con la DUDA resultó más fácil todavía, pues la encontró sentada en una cerca sin decidir aún dónde esconderse.

Así fue encontrando a todos. Al TALENTO entre la hierbafresca... a la ANGUSTIA en una oscura cueva... a la MENTIRA detrás del arco iris (mentira!... en el fondo del mar). Hasta el OLVIDO... ya se había olvidado que estaba jugando al escondite. Pero sólo el AMOR... no aparecía por ningún sitio. La LOCURA buscó detrás de cada árbol, bajo cada arroyo del planeta, en la cima de las montañas, y cuando estaba por darse por vencida, divisó un rosal y pensó: el AMOR siempre tan cursi, seguro se escondió entre las rosas... tomó una horquilla y comenzó a mover las ramas... cuando de pronto un doloroso grito se escuchó... las espinas habían herido los ojos del AMOR, la LOCURA no sabía que hacer para disculparse: lloró... rogó... pidió perdón y hasta prometió ser su lazarillo.
Desde entonces, desde que por primera vez se jugó en la Tierra al escondite, el AMOR es ciego... y la LOCURA siempre lo acompaña.

Mario Benedetti

KENYA

I have a friend who this summer went to Kenya to work with a NGO in a refugee camp. She wrote a kind of diary in her blog and it is really worth it to have a look. Some texts are written in Spanish and Catalan, but many of them in English and she is very good at languages in general buy specifically with the English so I recommend it to you. And also her experience there that it is very moving with all those kids around and people without food and nothing in fact... well,, this is the address:
www.laia-kenya.blogspot.com

...and enjoy the music!!

Opportunity cost

In economy there is an expression which I like a lot and it is ¨the cost of opportunity¨. Basically it is what we don´t get or what we renounce when we take a decision. Or put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action.
You can apply this theory to economy, for example, if an asset such as capital is used for one purpose, the opportunity cost is the value of the next best purpose the asset could have been used for. And also you can apply it to real life. For example if one evening you decide to go to the cinema, the cost of opportunity would be the alternatives not chosen and lost (in a way) at that moment. It would be easier if we knew the outcome in advance but this is known only looking backwards.

Tan tan, ¿quién es? El otoño otra vez..

My entrance of this week has to be with poetry. Today my oldest daughter who is only three years old surprised me with this poem from Federico García Lorca that learnt today at school:

Tan, Tan
¿Quién es?
El otoño otra vez.
¿Qué quiere el otoño?
El frescor de tu sien.
No te lo quiero dar.
Yo te lo quiero quitar.
Tan, tan
¿quién es?
El otoño otra vez.

Beautiful, isn´t it?

Do you know that Federico´s family had in total 4 houses?
The first one is the house where he was born in Fuentevaqueros in 1.898, very well-known for everybody. Federico´s father, named also Federico, inherited it on his wife death, Matilde de Palacios. They were married 14 years but without descendants so Federico got married again with Fuentevaqueros´ school teacher, Vicenta. They had 4 children: Federico, Francisco, Isabel and Concha.

The second house (1.904) is in Valderrubio, just 3 Km away from Fuentevaqueros. At the time Federico lived this village was called ¨Asquerosa¨, just like that. He usually omitted this name in his works because he didn’t like it so when it meant his village he never mentioned the name of ¨Asquerosa¨. To me this is the most genuine house, specially the servant´s small house, where he spent so much time talking to them and where there are still a lot of letters written by him.

The third one (1.909) is in Granada and it is the only one which was not kept. When Federico was assassinated, his father sold this house before leaving to New York. It was next to Isabel La Católica Theatre.

The fourth and last one is ¨La Huerta de San Vicente¨ (1.925), the last house Federico´s father bought. This one was a summer house for the family and it was named of ¨San Vicente¨ in honour of Federico´s mother, Vicenta. When Federico´s father bought it in 1.925, the house was 2 km from Granada´s center, in what it is known as ¨la Vega de Granada¨. Now it is in the center so the views that Federico saw from his balcony as he wrote have changed a lot…

Have a good weekend !
Rocío