The Pope's Contradictions HUMAN RIGHTS, THE ROLE OF WOMEN, SEXUAL MORALS, CELIBACY AMONG PRIESTS, ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT, PERSONNEL POLICY, CLERICALISM, NEW BLOOD IN THE CHURCH, SINS OF THE PAST. from Der Spiegel
Mensagens
The A-Z of Dr Johnson's dictionary A is for Argument. For all his legendary conversational powers, Johnson was ruthless in debate. When he once expressed his satisfaction following a social gathering, Boswell bravely replied: "Yes, you tossed and gored several persons." Johnson's friend Oliver Goldsmith described his technique thus: "If he cannot shoot you with his pistol, he will knock you down with the butt-end of it." B is for Boswell, James (1740-1795). A sexually voracious alcoholic is an unlikely candidate for writing the most famous biography in the English language. Still irresistibly readable, this vast work set the template for the "warts and all" portrait that includes quirky personal detail along with the great achievements of the subject. C is for Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Fourth Earl of (1694-1773). He agreed to be patron of the dictionary but provided no assistance during the 10 years it took to produce. His co...
" La ministra de Medio Ambiente, Cristina Narbona, ha anunciado que, por primera vez, se ha conseguido el nacimiento de linces ibéricos en cautividad, concretamente tres cachorros que nacieron en el Coto de Doñana. Saliega, la madre, ya amamanta a sus hijos , y se espera el parto de otra hembra para los próximos días." "El nacimiento se ha producido en el marco del programa de cría en cautividad de lince ibérico , especie endémica de la Península Ibérica. La consejera andaluza de Medio Ambiente, Fuensanta Coves, destacó que se trata "no sólo de un feliz acontecimiento, sino de un éxito desde el punto de vista científico " el hecho de que por primera vez en Andalucía, en España y en el mundo hayan nacido linces en cautividad." [Historia completa en El Mundo ]
Al menos cuatro familias han localizado en las últimas semanas a sus miembros desaparecidos durante la Guerra Civil gracias a una web en la que puede consultarse el listado nominal, hasta ahora inédito, de 344 víctimas mortales de la contienda que fallecieron en la comarca de la Segarra. "No puedo describir el agradecimiento que me han demostrado y la satisfacción que he sentido", explica el investigador Jordi Oliva, autor del trabajo. Oliva señala que, al observar los nombres de las relaciones que presenta en la web www.mailxxi.com/guerracivil "se comprueba que a quienes va dirigida la búsqueda es esencialmente a familias de fuera de Cataluña con familiares desaparecidos durante aquel conflicto porque casi la mitad vinieron a morir a Cataluña" y casi todos los refugiados muertos no eran catalanes. Oliva empezó su investigación en 1986 por encargo del historiador Josep Benet, entonces director del Centro de Historia Contemporánea de Cataluña. Su trabajo era e...
Why are we so generous? 1. JUST FOR KICKS In 2002, a team of researchers led by psychiatrist Gregory Berns from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, used brain imaging to find out what is going on inside our heads when we cooperate. They discovered that when players work together in the prisoner's dilemma game (see Diagram) , the active parts of their brain include the orbitofrontal cortex and the striatum - areas associated with processing reward ( Neuron , vol 35, p 395). And, last year, economist Ernst Fehr and psychologist Dominique de Quervain of the University of Zurich discovered that we get a similar mental buzz when we punish cheats, even when it means incurring a personal monetary cost ( Science , vol 305, p 1254). 2. IT's GOOD FOR THE IMAGE Punishing others who don't toe the line can boost your reputation, as a recent study by anthropologists Rob Boyd and Karthik Panchanathan of the University of Calif...
Ah, we humans, we enlightened Europeans, enjoyed an almost war-free 13th century. Peace was everywhere in Europe. What's the catch you may ask? " It now moved through Italy, France, and Spain. By 1348, it had jumped to England. Also in that year, it crossed the Alps, and began its sweep through Germany, Austria, and Hungary. (In some places, it moved as fast as two and a half miles a day.) By 1349, it had reached Scandinavia. From there, one front hit the ice walls of Greenland and came to a stop. Another circled back to Russia, north of Caffa. “Having closed the noose,” Kelly writes, “the hangman rested.” In four years, the plague had killed at least a third of the population of Europe: twenty-five million people. In the words of the medievalist Norman Cantor, “Nothing like this has happened before or since in the recorded history of mankind.” Measured against Europe’s population today, the Black Death took the equivalent of almost two billion lives." The Black Death had...
HOW DID IT come to this? When was it decided that the dorks and the squares, the button-down mediocrities for whom a third Friday-night beer is the height of excess, would be calling the shots? Who empowered these teetotaling chumps, these jogging crypto-fascists with spotless livers and unblackened lungs, to decide where we smoke and how we drink and what we eat? The Declaration of Independence professes a commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But apparently when it comes to substance abuse and foods of dubious nutrition, all bets are off. America is in very real danger from a creeping neo-prohibitionism, a systematic snuffing out of our beloved vices. It can only end badly. [Oh yes, i t can only end badly, we're stepping into a Soma-powered world ]
XII Muñones Mustafá Mandalay de Sierra Leona vive con su esposa y sus siete hijos en un campo para inválidos cerca de Freetown. Los rebeldes entraron a su pueblo y a machetazos mutilaron a varios hombres, cinco murieron desangrados. "El presidente Kabbah os dará manos nuevas", dijeron los sublevados, antes de retirarse. A cambio de su mano, Mustafá recibió una prótesis en forma de cuchara. El gran escultor griego Fidias, cuenta Quignard que relatan las crónicas antiguas, fue prestado por los atenienses a los eleos para esculpir un Júpiter olímpico. Los eleos le acusaron de haber robado oro del templo para recubrir la estatua: un sacrilegio. Le cortaron las manos y las devolvieron a Atenas en una bella caja, incrustada de oro y piedras preciosas. Fidias, aún sin manos, fue el más grande escultor griego. "Quisiera desprenderme de mis manos, dice Mishima, antes de suicidarse, abolir por completo el tacto". Margo Glantz.
"First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out; Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out; Then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." Martin Niemoller, 1892-1984
Capítulo LXXIV . De cómo don Quijote cayó malo, y del testamento que hizo, y su muerte “–Las misericordias —respondió don Quijote—, sobrina, son las que en este instante ha usado Dios conmigo, a quien, como dije, no las impiden mis pecados. Yo tengo juicio ya, libre y claro, sin las sombras caliginosas de la ignorancia, que sobre él me pusieron mi amarga y continua leyenda de los detestables libros de las caballerías. Ya conozco sus disparates y sus embelecos, y no me pesa sino que este desengaño ha llegado tan tarde, que no me deja tiempo para hacer alguna recompensa, leyendo otros que sean luz del alma. Yo me siento, sobrina, a punto de muerte; querría hacerla de tal modo, que diese a entender que no había sido mi vida tan mala que dejase renombre de loco, que, puesto que lo he sido, no querría confirmar esta verdad en mi muerte. Llámame, amiga, a mis buenos amigos: el cura, al bachiller Sansón Carrasco y a maese Nicolás, el barbero, que quiero confesarme y hacer mi testamento. [......
Instrucciones para llorar Instrucciones para llorar. Dejando de lado los motivos, atengámonos a la manera correcta de llorar, entendiendo por esto un llanto que no ingrese en el escándalo, ni que insulte a la sonrisa con su paralela y torpe semejanza. El llanto medio u ordinario consiste en una contracción general del rostro y un sonido espasmódico acompañado de lágrimas y mocos, estos últimos al final, pues el llanto se acaba en el momento en que uno se suena enérgicamente. Para llorar, dirija la imaginación hacia usted mismo, y si esto le resulta imposible por haber contraído el hábito de creer en el mundo exterior, piense en un pato cubierto de hormigas o en esos golfos del estrecho de Magallanes en los que no entra nadie, nunca. Llegado el llanto, se tapará con decoro el rostro usando ambas manos con la palma hacia adentro. Los niños llorarán con la manga del saco contra la cara, y de preferencia en un rincón del cuarto. Duración media del llanto, tres minutos. _________________...
There are many ways of recounting the history of the world - via the rise and fall of civilisations, the fortunes of nation states, socio-economic systems and patterns, the development of technology, or the chronology of war and military prowess. This book tells the story through the rise and decline of languages. It is a compelling read, one of the most interesting books I have read in a long while. Nicholas Ostler does not adopt a narrowly linguistic approach - based on the structure of languages and their evolution - but instead looks at the history of languages, the reasons for their rise and, as a rule, also their fall. While it is a history of languages, it is at the same time a history of the cultures and civilisations from which they sprang. The book concentrates on those languages that have been - in some form or another - globally influential: they include Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, Chinese, Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and the main European languages, not least English. [Mor...
[Cross-section of a testicle] Células, tejidos, el cerebro y los distintos sistemas del cuerpo humano. 'Inside the body' (' Dentro del cuerpo ') es el título de un libro que ofrece imágenes de excepcional belleza y valor educativo. El interior del organismo ofrece su lado más coqueto ante la atenta mirada de las más avanzadas técnicas fotográficas. El arte se rinde a la ciencia y ésta a la expresión artística. [Pictures originally from the Science Photo Library ]
Berlin historian Rainer Karlsch claims that the Nazis conducted three nuclear weapons tests in 1944 and 1945. But he has no proof to back up his theories. The United States needed 125,000 people, including six future Nobel Prize winners, to develop the atomic bombs that exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The uranium enrichment facility alone, including its security zone, was the size of the western German city of Frankfurt. Dubbed the Manhattan project, the quest ultimately cost the equivalent of about $30 billion. In his new book, "Hitler's Bomb," Berlin historian Rainer Karlsch claims Nazi Germany almost achieved similar results with only a handful of physicists and a fraction of the budget. The author writes that German physicists and members of the military conducted three nuclear weapons tests shortly before the end of World War II, one on the German island of Ruegen in the fall of 1944 and two in the eastern German state of Thuringia in March 1945. The te...
Around the Roman Table Columella Salad Columella's writings suggest that Roman salads were a match for our own in richness and imagination: Addito in mortarium satureiam, mentam, rutam, coriandrum, apium, porrum sectivum, aut si non erit viridem cepam, folia latucae, folia erucae, thymum viride, vel nepetam, tum etiam viride puleium, et caseum recentem et salsum: ea omnia partier conterito, acetique piperati exiguum, permisceto. Hanc mixturam cum in catillo composurris, oleum superfundito. Put savory in the mortar with mint, rue, coriander, parsley, sliced leek, or, if it is not available, onion, lettuce and rocket leaves, green thyme, or catmint. Also pennyroyal and salted fresh cheese. This is all crushed together. Stir in a little peppered vinegar. Put this mixture on a plate and pour oil over it. (Columella, Re Rustica, XII-lix) A wonderful salad, unusual for the lack of salt (perhaps the cheese was salty enough), and that Columella crushes the ingredients in the m...
Praise for 'forest friendly' Potter If Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince turns out to be as hefty as its predecessor, at least the millions who will buy it can rest reassured that no ancient forests were harmed in the making of it. Bloomsbury has announced that the latest book in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, due to be released on July 16 and already topping the Amazon bestseller charts with half a million pre-orders, will be printed on paper from sustainable sources. This move will make it the first bestselling book in the UK to be forest friendly. [From The Guardian ]
America's forgotten atrocity A unique hybrid people, the Acadians offered a wiser, kinder vision of settling the continent. Instead, they became the victims of North America's first ethnic cleansing campaign. In August of 1755 an extraordinary plan went into action along the Atlantic seaboard of North America, in what is now the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. In village after village, all male householders were summoned to mandatory meetings with British authorities, where they were captured and imprisoned as hostages against the surrender of their homes and families. Houses were burned to the ground, livestock indiscriminately slaughtered, fields of crops laid waste. Those who resisted were beaten, and sometimes shot, while those who fled into the forests were hunted down like rabid animals. Nonetheless, many people escaped into the trackless wilderness, where some had friends and even cousins among the Míkmaq, the Native Americans who had lived the...
DW-WORLD: 60 years after the end of the Second World War, you've written a book about children born during the Nazi occupation in France who were fathered by German soldiers. What made you decide to tackle this topic? Jean-Paul Picaper: I published an article in France about the son of a GI who wanted to track down his father. At the time, I was the Berlin correspondent for the newspaper Le Figaro. I subsequently received a reader's letter from a Frenchman who was born during WWII as the son of a German soldier, who wanted to know why I didn't write about the tens of thousands of children in France fathered by German soldiers. I told him that if there were really that many, the story was worth a book rather than just an article. Initially I couldn't find a publisher, because they all felt it was such a sensitive subject and would cause too many people too much embarrassment. Eventually I found a publisher who was interested in the issue because her aunt was the...