A Rosinha dos limões

Ora toma!

My baby just cares for me

Um cd que o meu amor me emprestou. Porque ela sabe.

Sparkling

Ora muitos parabéns, Sra. Dona Charlotte Quevedo. Espero que hoje tenha acordado assim:



Beijocas!

Compreender Israel - 2

“It may be a mistake to look too deep into Palestinian poverty for the roots of Palestinian violence. Form most violent Palestinians we need not conjecture as to the motivation for their violence because they’ve explained it in their own words. Here is an excerpt from the Palestinian National Charter, July 1-17, 1968:

Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.
Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.[Note that this would include the present-day country Jordan, 70 percent of the land of the original British Palestine, split off and handed to Emir Abdullah in 1923.]
Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine.
Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war.
The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations; particularly the right to self-determination.

Hamas has a web site where they explain their goals:

Hamas is a Jihadi movement in the broad sense of the word Jihad. It is part of the Islamic awakening movement and upholds that this awakening is the road which will lead to the liberation of Palestine form the river to the sea.
[Settlement with the State of Israel] should not be allowed to happen because the land of the Palestine is a blessed Islamic land that has been usurped by the Zionists; and Jihad has become a duty for Muslims to restore it and expel their occupiers out of their land.

Hezbollah also has a web site where they explain their objectives:

Because Hezbollah’s ideological ideals sees no legitimacy for the existence of “Israel” a matter that elevates the contradictions to the level of existence. And the conflict becomes one of legitimacy that is based on religious ideals… And that is why we also find the slogan of the liberation of Jerusalem rooted deeply in the ideals of Hezbollah. Another of its ideals is the establishment of an Islamic Government…
Hezbollah also used one of its own special types of resistance against the Zionist enemy that is the suicide attacks. These attacks dealt great losses to the enemy on all thinkable levels such as militarily and mentally. The attacks also raised the moral across the whole Islamic nation…
Hezbollah also sees itself committed in introducing the true picture of Islam, the Islam that is logical. Committed to introduce the civilized Islam to humanity.

Note that if we take seriously the words of the Palestinian fighters, we can ignore 99 percent of the journalism and punditry to which we are exposed. The guys with the guns have explained very clearly why they are fighting and under what conditions they will lay down their arms. Their reasons for fighting and their conditions for peace have nothing to do with day-to-day events.”

Philip Greenspun in Those Who Forget The Past (Random House 2004)

Nils Wogram & Co.

Pronto, este disco é mesmo bom. E podem comprá-lo aqui.

Pedir desculpa?

As reacções da «rua» islâmica – onde incluo a boa da Irmandade Muçulmana e os líderes muçulmanos mais ou menos representativos – face às declarações de Bento XVI, acabam de legitimar e fundamentar as palavras deste. Este papa perderá o meu respeito se se atrever a pedir desculpa.

A propósito desta questão, cumpre-me transcrever a crónica de Vasco Pulido Valente de ontem, no Público. É serviço público.

O Papa e o Islão
“Não deve haver académico que, lá no fundo, não tenha um especial fraquinho pelo Papa Bento XVI. Afinal, ele faz parte da corporação e, mais, foi durante muito tempo um motivo de orgulho para a corporação. Fala o dialecto da seita, escreve no dialecto da seita e, se não pensa como a seita, pensa segundo as regras da seita. Só que é Papa e que, sendo Papa, de quando em quando, esquece o mundo cá de fora e reverte ao seu velho papel de universitário. O "escândalo" de Ratisbona não passa disto. Bento XVI, querendo explicar a irracionalidade da conversão pela violência, citou o imperador Manuel II Paleólogo. Num diálogo com um persa, Paleólogo dissera: "Mostra-me então o que Maomé trouxe de novo. Não encontrarás senão coisas demoníacas e desumanas, tal como o mandamento de defender pela espada a fé que ele pregava". O mais preliminar assistente de Literatura, História, Filosofia ou Teologia percebe logo três coisas. Primeira, que o Papa não dá o imperador Paleólogo como um intérprete autorizado da religião muçulmana, mas como um como um opositor inteligente à perseguição religiosa. Segunda, que o Papa não esqueceu as perseguições da sua própria Igreja e que usou o imperador por conveniência ilustrativa da desordem moderna. E, terceiro, como o título e o resto da conferência comprovam, que Ratzinger não estava interessado em "atacar" ninguém, estava interessado na dualidade da fé e da razão. Infelizmente, a "rua" islâmica não é o público letrado da Universidade de Ratisbona e começou rapidamente a usual campanha de ódio contra o Bento XVI, que de toda a evidência o deixou estupefacto. O papa já lamentou o equívoco, mas não pediu desculpa. Não podia pedir. Nem pelo incidente, fabricado pelo fanatismo e a ignorância, nem pelo teor geral da conferência de Ratisbona. Ratzinger insistiu que a fé não é separável da razão e que agir irracionalmente "contraria" a natureza de Deus. Não vale a pena entrar nas complexidades do assunto. Basta lembrar que desde o princípio (desde Orígenes, por exemplo) se construiu sobre a fé cristão um dos mais sublimes monumentos à razão humana e que o Ocidente, apesar da "Europa", não existiria sem ele. A fé muçulmana não produziu nada de remotamente comparável e, durante quinze séculos, sustentou uma civilização frustre e parada. A conferência de Ratisbona reafirmou a essência do cristianismo. Se o islão se ofendeu, pior para ele.”

Compreender Israel - 1 (exceptua-se o Prof. Dr. Vital Moreira)

"The 870.000 Jews expelled from Arab countries in the 1940s and 1950s similarly settled quietly in the United States, Europe and Israel. They aren’t out there blowing up Iraqi, Moroccan and Algerian embassies or airplanes, which is why you probably never think about them.
The list of people who were displaced by the events of World War II and decolonization is endless. The only group that anyone pays attention to is the Palestinians. If the Palestinians were to stop blowing up airplanes and pizza shops people would stop paying attention.
Arab leaders don’t care about non-violent Palestinians. As noted earlier, if you were an Arab leader there is no reason to care about your own subjects, much less members of very distant tribes. The only Arab nation that has offered Palestinians citizenship is Jordan; a Palestinian family that has lived in Egypt or Saudi Arabia for several generations will still be aliens with no right to permanent residence. Thus there are more than 4 million people officially classified as Palestinians refugees despite the fact that the final British census before the 1948 war found only about one million people of all religions living in Palestine. The primary agency for theses stateless souls is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). If you visit their web site, you’ll see that the United States and European nations provide almost all of the funding. Historically in fact the western nations provided 100 percent of the funding for UNRWA, but in recent years Saudi Arabia has been shamed into chipping in. For 2002 the Saudis contributed $5.8 million, compared to a U.S. contribution of $120 million and Britain’s $30 million. Most Arab countries contribute less than the cost of a new Mercedes automobile.
Violent Palestinians, by contrast, have no trouble getting support from fellow Arabs. In April 2002 the Saudi state television network ran a telethon that raised more than $100 million to aid the families of the Palestinians suicide bombers. Iraqi, which contributes nothing to UNRWA, has been donating roughly $10 million per year to the families of suicide bombers. Iran, another state that contributes nothing to UNRWA, sends weapons and money to anti-Israel groups such as Hezbollah and Yasser Arafat’s army, most notably a 50-ton shipment of rockets and plastic explosives in January 2002 (notable because it was in violation of the agreements that Arafat had signed and because it was discovered and intercepted by the Israel Navy)."

Philip Greenspun in Those Who Forget The Past (Random House 2004)

Old but true

(Re)educação musical

Para o meu amor. Go-Betweens, claro.

Death Metal

(You Knocked Me) Off My Feet

I never thought of heaven as a relevant spot
I never questioned any of the tears or the raindrops
I was a bore, surrounded by doors that all lead to some other floor
And I who thought there wasn’t more

You knocked me off my feet
You knocked me off my feet
Heaven is from where you have come
Now I know

I never thought I could reach out from under the stream
I never hoped to ever be a part of a dream
So if it can’t be, the stories I’ll tell will shelter me from a future in hell
But right now I make no sudden claims
Except saying heaven is real
You shouldn’t think it couldn’t be

You knocked me off my feet
You knocked me off my feet
Heaven is from where you have come
Now I’m safe

Sondre Lerche, in Dupper Sessions

How does it feel like?

A melhor música dos Chemical Brothers (para mim) num dos melhores videos de sempre. Prendinha para a minha bebé.

Let Forever Be