Thursday, July 26, 2007

Journal: Women where there used to be Men

Politics is though escencially as an area for men. And the fact that there has been little participation of women in its history, tends to reinforce this idea. Argentinian society has a negative view about politics i general, and this view is even more negative when tlking about women in connection to politics.
This is the case for example, of Fabiana Rios. This woman from Rosario is the first governess elected in our country. She is 43 years old and is married since 22. She has two teenager daughters. Although she's a biochemist, she got involved in poitics many years ago. Her political career started by the year 1988 in Tierra del Fuego where she moved because the crountry was going through a crisis that made job oportunities scarce in big cities. Appart from governess, she was also legislator and national representative.
One of the things related to this women that caught my attention the most, is the fact that she firmely says that she doesnt want to remain in the history of our country only becasue of being one of the few politicians who are woman, but for making justice more efficiency. At the same time she knows that she is openning a space for every women in our society. And for this reason she's admired by women and consider a hint of hope for many of them. Fourtunatelly, she thinks of the duty of making women visible in our country a sort of debt which was half paid by other women politicians and public figures, and that she wants to continue paying.
But when thinking about the cause of women underestimation within politics and society in general, she strongly believes that most of the time women push themselves to less protagonic positions in life. This means a sort of autolimitation from women to themselves. For her, women assume ourselves to be in a second plane of importance in comparisin to men. She is right in what she bellieves, but the fact is that all this submissive attitudes are doubtless the result of years of living under this type of culture. To support this with examples, have in mind that women have the right to vote since only 50 years ago, more or less. There are still women in our society who spent their youth without this right.. And for cases which involves women, our CIvil Code still has a special treatment.
So, to move away from this type of culture, is a conquest that takes place, but very slowly within the passing of time. The name of Fabiana Rios is another women name to sum to the ones of those who started the shift. She is part of something bigger. She's part of the change.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Journal: Speed Dating

We live in hard times for love and in an era of discard sort of relationships. All this implies a new way of loving, for which new methodologies seem to be necessary. There's no more room for romanticism but there's enough space for ephemeral meetings. And a real proof of this is the new love game called "Speed Dating". The aim of it is to make easier the way in which people meet and and to cope with the difficulties that actually, this task is showing.
The speed dating has it origins in the relationships that grow up from chatting in the Internet and seems to be a way of looking for a lover without being involved in too much troubles or histerical attitudes. The way of playing the game is quite easy. People who is interested on participating register on a web page. Days after they receive an e-mail which details a locattion, generalyl a bar, and a day and time for a date. Following these directions, ten men and ten women are called to participate. In the bar they have only 8 minutes to talk directly and privately with each other participant of the opposite sex. They are supposed to follow the natural rutine of meeting somebody for the first time, which includes to intoduce themselves and to open a conversation with some questions. Among them, asking for age, profession and the reasons for participating in Speed Dating are the typical ones. All the chatiing must be done before a bell rings announcing the switching to the next table where the next particiant wates.
Behind all this procedure, there's is said to be a scientific basis, which assures that every person needs only a few minutes to come up with a decision about who is in front of them. This means that people can realize if the person they are talking to is a potential lover, a possible friend or just somebody else in the world, more quickly than it is belived.
After finishing the Speed Dating with every other particiant, they are all asked to fill in a file with the first impression they get of their dates. They choose between the prhases "without afinity", "friendship", and "love at first sight", to refer to every one to whom they speak.
If there's any coincidence between what the participants choose, the game organizers let them know, and it is then when love really appears. The ones who benefit from the game have to decide, after the coincidence, if they will continue dating or not. And the decision comes up after what the first impression of the other person leaves on them. To feel connected to somebody else from the very beginnig is basic to the succes of any relationship. This is part of the escence of love. And in the end of the game this escence appears. Just when the situation has to be solved by two, face to face, alone. They have to decide wether they answer to love calling, or they just leave and wait for tthe next time.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Journal: Hard Times for Romanticism

There's no doubt that through the history of human beings, filosophers, artists and cientists have tried to discover what love is, where it is, how does it work and why it is so hard to find it once and for ever. Although love is the most outstanding human creation, its presence in reality is limited. An, as a result of this, men and women cross in their ways over and over again meeting and separating in a sort of broken hearts' waltz.
Love was supposed to be the strongest force. The one that coulnd not be defeated by anything. But nowadays there's an exception for this rule. Love can cope with everything except with the actual reality. In order to be just like everything else in the actual times, there's a new version of love, also marked by the necessity of easy succes and without too much tolerance to frustrations. And this is the consequence of people's intend to hide and bottle up the fears that prevent them from relating one to each other.
The fear of rejection, of the loss of liberties, of unfaithfulness and betrayal among others, ended up to prepare people to separate because of any little inconvenient situation. The high rate of divorces shown by our present societies clearly demostrate the generalization of the lack of confidence with which we relate to ourselves and to the others.
We seem to have forgot what love really is: a commitment between two peolple who are together because of pasion, partnership and patience, without any guarantee of succes but with the hope left by having common projects and the possibiliy of an entire life together. This concept of love, known by the most ancient romantic traditions appears to be at the point of extinction nowadays.
The promises of eternal love, the pacts, the impulsive reactions as well as the simplest things such as a bunch of roses or a poem have moved down the stairs until ending up at the bottom of any lover priorities. Actual love is full of fears and useless reasoning. But we are not paying attention to what our new kind of loving is asking for. It needs an urgent returning back to
the romantic roots of it. And this is he task of the new generations. To re invent and re design love and the human relationships, and the codes that flow from attraction. In this way a new meening of love will arise, which is new but old in fact, and the basic magic of it would be its escence again.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Journal: Friends' Day

Today is the Friends's Day. We conmemorate our good friendships by meeting with the people involved in them. We gather all together with the friends of all our entiry life. Some of us celebrate this day by visiting each friend they have but some others choose among the people they know the ones who are closest to them. There's people who share meels in restaurants or at home in orther to celebrate and many others share just a couple of drinks in a bar. Some friends spend the whole day together by doing all the activities they are supposed to do in company of their friends.
Doing a sort of special activity such as going to the cinema or the park is traditional when the 20 of July arrives. Within the agenda of every person, especially young people, there's at least one activity for today that involves spending time with friends. We adore friendship.
But what about if all your friends are far away? I am 1200 km more or least far way from my province, where all my friends are today. And I will think about them today. I will miss them.
Sometimes, when I'm in Buenos Aires (province which I visit quite regularly) I feel like if I am rehersing for my future life. Because this is what is going to be like when I finally move here. I am going to be far. I'm am not going to be able, for example, to plan acitivities with my friends for a day like this one. But I don't feel sad because of this, it is just that I'm experiencing the situation in advance. And I think this is beneficial in a way. Because I will have the chance to make a final decision before coming here definitelly, and I will already have some experience in what to reflect on in orther to decide.
For the time being, I accept this and I take it just like it comes. Because this is what I really want to do. But I know there are going to be hard times for me. Particularly during this kind of celebrations, when the only way to satisfy my necessity of my friends is by a phone call. And not a long one because I don't have too much money for it!
I think today about the distance and what does it do to us and to our relationships. Once I read something like "distance strengthen friendships". And it is a paradox the way in which this comes up to be truth. Being far away I feel close to some people who are not near me, physically speaking.
I am going to spend this day with one of my best friends, who is actually here with me and who is at the same time the love of my life. And I'm going to think about the friends who wait for me in Tucuman, for whom I wish the best.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Journal: Live Earth

On July 07, took place a musical wake up call all over the world which was intended to begin the vital breakdown nedeed in terms of actions to save the planet. The concert was held in the main cities of every continent and was luckily very well attended. Many of the most famous world musicians took part of it in order to support the idea of starting a global popular movement that will force governments to take decisive action to combat global warming.
Unlike many other campaigns similar to this one, Live Earth's organizers looked for the support of people through names instead of money. The idea was to reach the highest number as possible of people comitted to the responsibility of fighting for this common case. What was planned was that all the people involved continue the fighting that the concert proposed, after it. And this can be done in many ways. People can help the planet every day in their daily lives by taking ecological methods of living. Or they can do it in more social way by taking part in organizations which take care of environmental issues and supporting them.
The audience of the concert was asked to support a seven point pledge which ranged from calling on governments of the industrialized countries to bring in a treaty to cut up carbon emissions up to making a prsonal commitment in their own lives to cut back on the emission of greenhouse gases which are causing the atmosphere to warm up.
The idea of the concert sounds great to me but I wonder if it will work. I hope so and I believe that it is better to do this type of campaigns in a massive way, just as Live Earth organizers did it, instead of leaving the responsibility to each govermnet or each country separetly. First of all, because there are still many people arund the world who have no idea about global warming and climate change and about the danger that this problems imply to the continuity of life in earth. And secondly because these are problems that affect all of us, at the same time in the same scale. This are wordly problems, for what we should work to solve them all together. But we can only do it if we all stand up and be counted. This was precisely what the Live Earth's massive message proposed by it campaign of awarness about global warming and I believe it is a good case to join in and to fight for.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Journal: Oriental Trend

To meditate belongs to an inner part of the human behavior. And the practice of meditation really has a lot of benefits. The problem is that we live in hard times for meditation. The ability of reflecting on something is nowadays surpassed by the power of action and rapid determination to come up with solutions. We don't give our minds time to think or time to digest the information that flows into our brains. We seek for quick answers to everything. And at the same time we don't reflect about ourselves and about our emotional state. We don't even know wether we are really happy or not because we don't slow down and wonder about that. Our lives consist only just of eating, working and sleeping. And there's no room for meditating and for the peace that silence can bring to us. Silence is shut up by noise.
Due to the trend created by several oriental methodogies applied to medicine, cosmetic therapies and cooking, meditation has found a door open to enter in our daily lives. And this door is found through the practise of Yoga, which saves the lack of interest in meditating that grew in people as a result of modernization and globalazation. Is important to mention first that Yoga is any methodology which by practising it, the person can reach the state of being hyperconscious. This is known as "samandhi". But samandhi goes far beyond meditation. And to reach it, a biological methamorfosis of the personal structure is needed. And this requires time and health. In simple words, to find yourself able to do that implies practising the discipline in a strict way and through many years.
For this reason , most of the people is not interest in that state but in practising Yoga in a more relaxed way, especially in the Occident. They just do it as part of a physical training which offers them important advantages. Yoga teaches people how to breath better and relax, how to make muscles work, and it is beneficial for the blood stream and the nerves. There are also more other positive effects that Yoga leaves on people's body and health such as flexibility, strenght and an increased vitality. All this results are felt rapidly and achieved through beautiful exercises which respect the biological rythm of every person.
Beside of being a fashion trend nowadays, to practise Yoga and to meditate are highly profitable for the human body and mind. They are an invitation to find our internal peace and balance. To stop our brains from a useless rush of thoughts. To stop running and to fill us with good vibrations.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Journal: What is dangerous and what is not

To believe that hundred of young people commit suicide every year because of playing video games too much is to blame computers for a social problem, and this is, from parents´s part, not to assume the responsibility for the young.
300 teenagers have committed suicide in Northen Ireland by the year 2005. And their deaths were blame on the possibility that the kids were under stress because of spending too much time in front of computers. Some of the cases are really important to highlinght, because police discovered several chatrooms in which suicides are promoted and in which visitors are challenged to commit it and to be part and agree with death pacts.
But what is really going on is that the exposure of the teenagers to the internet is not controlled at all by parents as well as regulations on web pages are not as accurate as required. Due to this, kids have access to lot of imformation and to people that they parents do not even know about.
By the other hand, the possibility that the kids end up in a suicide does not depend on what he or she reads on the internet or with whom he or she chats, but on the emotional status of the kids. The situation can be dangerous if a kid has developed a suicidal tendency and this one is emphasized by external factors, like the internet and what comes with it.
Playing violent video games and being part of suicidal chatrooms are some of the many factors that can have a bad influence on kids. But to put emphais on them as cause of the high rate of teenagers suicides is not to focus on the real causes of this problem.
Parents and schools should pay attention to the signs that a kid who is emotionally sad or depressed may show, such as low marks and low academic development, feelings of isolation and lack of interest in social activities, drugs and alcohol abuse, etc. And then, the roots of these signs should be treated as well, which in most of the cases are related to the fact that the teenager belongs to a poor family, a single mother family or a divorced parents family, or a family in which one member suffers from alcoholism. Sometimes teenagers are depressed because they are treated with violence at home, they suffer sexual and pshycological abuses or they are bullied at school.
It seems to be eassier to believe that kids are in risk because of computers and internet instead of realizing that what really leaves a teenager to suicide is a complex pshycological satus, which is directly influenced by the complete enviorment in which he or she lives. Parents should think about how poor can be the relationship between them and their children and how poor can sometimes be the involvement of them on their kids´life. This is what is needed to be change and not the frecuency and way in which teenagers chat and play video games.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Journal: Is there to much commercialism in Internet?

Having recently read an article about the way in wich eBay and MercadoLibre are planning to work in the following years, there are no doubts whatsoever that there is too much commercialism in the Internet. Put it in this way, this seems to be something bad. But in fact, this is not.
Commercialism is practically the basis that supports much of the nternet. First of all, to have an e-mail account on Hotmail or Yahoo is technically free of charge. It is possible that you pay for your connection to the Net. But you don´t pay a regularly sum of money just to keep your e-mail account activated, as you are supposed to do with, for example, accounts in banks. And it is exctly with commercialism, more presicely with advertising that the accounts succed to survive. It is probable that you have noticed that within your e-mail page and within any web page there are a lots of advertising links. Well, the people behind those brands and enterprises which offer all kind of services and products through the Internet do really pay monthly sums of money.
On the other hand, commerce itself leaves a lot of money on the nternet, and it is also a means by which it continues existing. The business of buying and selling things through the Net is nowadays lead by the two wordly enterprises eBay and MercadoLibre which until September 2006 have worked together in the market. By offering the best garantees to customers who use these companies and the fewer requirementes for the ones who want to register on them, eBay and MercadoLibre are the most real proof that commercialism is a greater part of the Internet.
The thing is, that this is not as bad as we think. the advantages of Internet are, undoubtely, a lot. And as I said, Internet existes practically because of commerce. Consaquently, there are no rasons to worry if the presence of it is too high on the Net.