The pendung long swing part II

Back in November 2008, I wrote The pendulum long swing just because I didn't believe that passing from white to black was going to end with no backslash. You know what a backslash is: going exactly the same way you came here, but in opposite direction.

America needs tomorrow enormous amounts of energy and determination to contradict the basic law of political mechanics: It's not about what is it, but about what people think it is. And seems that many feel that this tycoon with even less experience than Obama in his first term, a man who even oozes his hair in gold and proudly announces it's clever not to share, may lead the revolt against the same establishment that has been allowing, even admiring, people like him to exist and grow. They ultimately think he can make America great AGAIN. That is, he can lead the pendulum in its way back to some past time that we all know it's never to come back.

Now, after the disastrous attempt to turn back time that Brexit represents in the United Kingdom, we are in the very verge to witness the same in the United States of America. This is not "America at its best" as some influential magazines dubbed the Obama-McCain election. This is an even bigger, even wider, even riskier, pendulum long swing that makes me wonder where are we ultimately bound.

Into the darkness

Otto Dix. Have you ever heard this name? Probably not, yet he's a very notable witness of a dark age, author of numberless drawings and paintings that resemble more the inner landscape of a psycho than an artist. And I wrote about him today without realising the fact that today it's Good Friday!

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Yes, whenever I look at those paintings and drawings, I think to myself: "Oh, man, such a terrible nightmare it has to be so you have no other option than throwing all that shit far away into other people's minds, so your nightmares became their nightmares".

After all, is not art about that? I mean, expressing your own impressions, turning things inside out and making others to vibrate at your own fundamental frequency, no matter how much it takes. This certainly provides some kind of relief. Sharing your fears does alleviate your anguish. Think of that as sobbing on the shoulder of a friend. Sobbing all your life on the shoulder of a friend after enduring some hard visions and experiences. But is it all about art? Some kind of sadomasochist play where some use others and some others want to be used? Who knows what kind of personal inferno is anyone in around you. But there must be something else in art.

Making this 5 minute tour into this hellish catalogue of macabre, sordid world of Dix I have been struggling to find a spark of hope in any of his characters. No way. Not in the stuffy gentlemen, low life prostitutes, nude old and starving pregnant women or mutilated war veterans he indulged himself portraying. Not even in the eyes of the children he depicted. Certainly not in the crowd of skulls and corpses he obsessively captured on his canvases. So what? I was at the very verge of giving it up. I would end wrapping up the whole thing with some over-the-average terrible grin upon the face of a dead man.

Then I took a step back and saw those eyes. The ones that farewell the video, you know. They appeared at first glance as inexpressive as the others, yet those particular eyes wanted me to dig deeper. I did. There were reflections on them. The deeper I would dig in, the more light would hit my own eyes, so I placed them twice along the footage, as if they were set to provide light in the murk. I wonder to myself if Mr. Dix ever noticed them. He certainly enjoyed his children, but I am not sure whether he ever overcome his nightmares.

But those eyes, he should see them. They were shinning into the darkness.

Trentemøller: The Power of Sound

I clearly remember the impression it made in me my first rock concert. It was Iggy Pop in Badalona, on May 31, 1979, and my brother Roberto was with me. Iggy jumped into the scenary and then on to the people watching below like a  modern day war genious, his ever naked torso.

Many years later, it came my first symphonic concert. It was the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès playing some Ravel. Again, I had sort of a vision after it. So many people playing at the same time with so much incredibly precision and harmony amazed me. The music, the performance was so Oh!....

From those times, numberless concerts have come and gone lost somewhere in my memory.

On the early morning of Saturday January, 26th 2013, Danish electronic music producer Anders Trentemøller offered a DJ set session at the Barcelona Nitsa club following resident DJ Fra. It was a six hours high power sound wall for a crowded house that didn't allow Trentemøller to stop before 6 AM. And I spent all that time dancing like those tribal ceremonies around the bonfire, trying to find a place on the floor, but it was almost impossible. I was curious about this particular artist after having discovered him accidentally in Youtube and having talked about him with Sepiamusic Alma mater and neighbour Michael Adler Miltersen, so I took the effort to stand on a line and pass several security checks for the first time in many years.

The beauty of those one-man shows is the combination of machine - organic rythms that appeal to the inner primal human being and its unique and never returning nature, just like those sand Mandalas that are created just to be destroyed in order to symbolize the transitory nature of material life. And Trentemøller understands that very well.

When I walked off the place, it was raining, some people were dealing with maria and flowers just in front of the security guards, and my ears had a continuous tone that disappeared after a while. I think they call this ringing noise Tinnitus.

This was my 1st DJ session ever if you don't consider Kraftwerk concerts, but I had again that vision; The dream continues.

Photos Diego Rodríguez

Obama says he killed Osama (and it's a good day for America)

Yeah, this Nobel Peace Prize climbed to the spotlight and said that the United States, as a whole, had conducted the killing of Osama Bin Laden, responsible for the death of 'thousands of innocent men, women and children'. In fact, since Osama never faced a jury, and never will, we will have to believe the words of Obama. We will even believe how useful was, after all, to keep all those men kidnapped at Guantanamo, since they gave the crucial hint for the chase after some mild torture. And just some hours later, the body of Osama was said to have been thrown to the sea, and the pictures showing him dead may or may not be released to the public opinion, this bunch of stupids that needs to be protected from the truth.

For a country where people still believes Elvis Presley to be alive, that could be a bit too much of confidence!

Many western leaders took a chance on Osama killing to express condolences by the victims of terrorism, but the killing itself took a life of a woman allegedly used as human shield by Osama, for who no one expressed regret of any kind.

All that may sound quite a bit ironical: Some simple maths show that about 303 times as many people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq than in the ghastly attacks of September 11, 2001, and more than 130 times as many people have been killed in these wars and occupations than in all terrorist attacks in the world from 1993-2004, according to data compiled by the US State Department.

More recent figures are un-available — after the 2004 report showed terrorism at an all-time high, numerous experts suggested that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were fueling an increase in terrorism, and subsequent State Dept terror tallies have remained classified.

Is this the justice many people mean when citing the Osama death?

I advocate for the banning of all wars, for the banning of any action that may lead to innocent victims no matter which country they live in. I advocate for a multination police corps able to deter any individual or government becoming a thread to his community or the world. As simple as that.

Yes, I understand that may throw to the basket of oblivion all our armies, weapons and multibillion dollar war businesses. But... wouldn't you sign for that with me?

The beauty of warplanes

Why have I always been fascinated by those hell machines of slim shapes?

Maybe it's just their beauty, innocent and wild like tigers are.  Or mosquitoes...

I don't know why, I don't like war and pain, but I do love warplanes in the sunny Sunday mornings exhbitions.

AT-6B M0 “Mitsubishi Zero”

All photos Diego Rodríguez. Stitched with Microsoft ICE.

An American life

"My ex lost the best thing that he ever had which is me. and i find it so funny he came in and fixed my gas heater for me told me he wasnt in no hurry for a devorce and that he had 2 girlfriends that he only sees his fat ass whore 5 days a week and hes seeing a 22 year old woman with a baby where he works . that he was gonna tell his fat ass whore on his next days off he wanted to bring his new girlfriend along home to celebrate his birthday that if she says no fuck her shes gone hes gonna stay with his new girlfriend in pennslyvania. shes getting what she deserves he said he also wishes shed get her a boyfriend. and to think he told the lawyers he cheated on me cause he was lookin for luv he has no idea what luv is but im sure he knows he lost a good thing

also hes changed cause while married to me he was so jealous accussed me constantly of other men hed smell my underware when id go to town"

Capital Punishment

US President and Peace Nobel Prize Obama recently gave some human rights lessons in Chinese soil. More or less, around the same time he graciously conceded 9/11 only suspect should get death penalty.

Besides that fact that prejudging someone doesn't sound much of a Peace Nobel winner, Obama sticks to the fact that he profoundly unknows why Capital Punishment is so horrendous to civilized cultures.

It's not about how much horrible a crime may be. 'General criminals' should escape death penalty, while others, considered more criminal than the average criminals, like children or pregnant women killers, should get death.

Every crime is horrendous to its own conception. So opposition to death penalty is not about levels of evil. It's about victims.

Death penalty is basically a punishment to society. A comeback to barbaric times, a failure. Every time a criminal is executed, even when it's totally clear there’s not another mistake, all the society gets obliged to witness, becoming in turn punished itself. So, Obama assumption that "I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him." is, in fact, very offensive.

There are many things that US President should address to reverse his current confusion on human rights, ethics and democracy. Guantanamo, Hiroshima and so many dark episodes of US history are awaiting.

We were absolutely clear on the shortcomings of his predecessor, and that's why it's so particularly disappointing to face them again in the wake of such high expectations as Obama raised around the world.

The End of Time

In the beginning, there was only Infinite Time.

In it, the Creator Ahura Mazda and his twin Angra Mainyu were both infinite, with no boundaries to their domains, but also finite, because the Void limited their domain in one side.

Ahura Mazda was wise, good-natured, and had the power of omniscience, with the knowledge of the past, the present and the future. For that reason, Ahura Mazda knew the existence of his evil twin and how to overcome him even before actually meeting.

But Angra Mainyu was not omniscient, but ignorant, arrogant and coward. Fear and malice were his weapons.

In the Infinite Time, when there was a perfect balance in the universe, Angra Mainyu crossed the Void, saw God by the first time, and attempted to attack Him, but God offered a covenant, knowing that the time to contain the evil was yet to come.According to this covenant, God offered Angra Mainyu a truce that would last for 9000 years, confining his evil in a finite time, until the Judgment Day would come.

But living in a finite time, Evil renders the things in our world susceptible to decay, death and disintegration. Mountains are formed when the evil pierces through the otherwise plain earth, causing earthquakes deep inside. He is also responsible of droughts, deserts and the stench that comes sometimes from the earth. Smoke and black soot is formed when evil overtakes the fire, making air noxious, polluting water, making plants, men and animals susceptible to fever and sickness and the sun and the moon to eclipses. Human minds can also succumb to the influence of evil, falling prey to evil thoughts and temptations. All this until the end of time comes.

For most religions, like it was for Zoroastrianism, having a complete cosmogony model is a must. Everything must be known in advance.

For monotheist religions, which await the arrival of a messiah, like Saoshyant, time is something that just pushes us against the inevitable decay that can only be overcome by the new kingdom to come. Time is bad. Time is, then, our enemy, so we must fight to freeze it, sticking to our traditional values, until the announced salvation arrives.

Jewish, Muslims and Christians have all taught about the traditional values that must be preserved, claiming, in fact, the need to deny progress.

In this quest, no other religion has proven more successful than Islam in providing comfort to their adherents. Meanwhile, Christianism failure started back in the industrial revolution, and the wealth fare state just made it worse by making the big familiar and clan structures, that usually helped keeping traditions alive, unnecessary. The fall of the family meant the fall of religion.

Now, free from many morale restrains, western societies could devote themselves to material progress. A progress that, in turn, speeded up the pace at which developments were made, creating a new paradigm: Time is good. Time gets us closer to those achievements that will save our lives, or at least make them easier. Religious societies are, by no means, impermeable to material progress. Advances in the medical field are not overlooked by believers, no matter what their belief in after-death is.

Technological gadgets, particularly if they serve to tighten familiar ties, like the Internet or mobile telephony, are quickly adopted, but they make almost no change in the core traditions.

That is the ultimate drama: two societies evolving in different directions, but whose ultimate destiny is tied together in a common, globalised, world.

Until the End of Time.

Is there food in England?

The existence of an English, and by extension, British cooking has always been subject of a controversial debate since, nowadays, only traces can be found, frozen, at the very bottom of the Supermarket fridges.

That's why I got so amazed and stunned when I was overtaken in my car by a van announcing British food for people living in the Spanish Costa Brava. I could not verify whether this was real or not, but I took a photo for others to check.

Other sources say that some other importers have ventured themselves in this unexplored field.

So the question remains open.

Photo by Diego Rodríguez

Massive Destruction Weapons

The North Korean regime has now exploded a number of atomic bombs and launched around several missiles. Its neighbors, frightened, yelling in dismay, calling the US to honor the protection contract they signed long ago.

Is this crossing the line? Is this serious enough to trigger any force action from the US security system?

In the past, this kind of actions have only taken place where there is a good enough plunder in a poor enough nation. Quick payoff, they say. Of course, this goes sometimes not as foreseen, and there you get endless bloodsheds, like Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.

North Korea qualifies superbly as poor nation, just like the ones just listed. It is in fact, the poorest in the world. But this humble flower is got too many nuclear thorns now to arise the US military appetite.

So now, what? Don't even try to make an appeal on international or human rights. Don't claim against nuclear proliferation or Massive Destruction Weapons imminent threads.

The international scene main actor, the US, lost its creditl ong ago .

Exactly, on August the 6th, 1945.

Deep and far in America

In the dawn of Obama’s victory back in November, 2008, zillions of people posted their thoughts and hopes and fears about the future.

Many of them were pondering the overwhelming dose of expectations loading the wings of a new administration heading for take off from a ruined runway.

One of these writers was me. I had been listening voices around the world praising the dawn of a new era of understanding and friendship among peoples and cultures. It was hard to resist the tug of enthusiasm and euphoria after eight years of misfortunes.

Another of these writers was a single mother living in eastern Washington.

She had been preparing her family for a new economic glacial era, like back during the cold war. She had been on board a catcher processor off the Alaskan coast two years for the pennies to raise her kids. She had been fearing for her wedding night bed to fall into pieces for the lack of some carpentry skills. She had been praising an old era when dad and mom were honored, horses and men were one, and traditions observed.

A woman who can name a color after a gun’s metal must be definitely a Yankee, I thought.

Individualist, a little obstinate sometimes, growingly isolated by immigrant families in her own community, she may be the perfect prey for a terror campaign aimed to sink a further feet the country into this middle age of petrol mud and foreign blood.

An still she nods. Yes, she can!

She joined Obama’s campaign beginning 2008, and now she lines up waiting for the sun to rise once more. She miraculously escaped the terror trap and instead of folding herself to her winter redoubt opened her arms to a new dawn.

A woman who can endure things like that to protect her family must be definitely a Yankee.

Individualist, determined, growingly aware of a multicultural world, she may be the herald of a new future. No one else can, not even Obama. That's because she's a woman.

A woman deep and far in America.

Oxford’s List of Top Ten Irritating Phrases

Yes, we all have heard them around in any normal business day dozens of times. Hey, Dave, no offence taken!

But the Oxford scholars took a step beyond and scanned books, magazines, broadcasts and other sources to compile a voluminous gargantuan database, containing more than two billion words, that's my definition for 'voluminous' if you ask me, called Oxford University Corpus plenty of overused, tiresome and irritating phrases.

A billboard of the top ten appears in a new book, Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare, by Jeremy Butterfield. Here you are.

Come on, just admit your workmate or maybe yourself could honour most of the entries in less than one hour of normal speech. The chances raise dramatically when you speak on the phone and somehow you feel like flooding space and time with catch phrases.

1 - At the end of the day
2 - Fairly unique
3 - I personally
4 - At this moment in time
5 - With all due respect
6 - Absolutely
7 - It’s a nightmare
8 - Shouldn’t of
9 - 24/7
10 - It’s not rocket science

But you probably have your own candidates to extend or replace this list...

You know, to be honest with you, I dunno, what d ya reckon... ?

The pendulum long swing

It will be noted deep into the future that a big empire under siege by someone called Osama chose someone called Obama as a chief commander.

Well, it did not came that fast. For almost a decade before that happened, the son of a former commander ruled the country into two different wars, a global financial collapse and a dire recession. Why was he appointed for two terms will also be discussed for many years.

Obama, on his side, had no executive experience at all when he was appointed. But he was able to move cheering crowds worldwide, not because of his political standpoints, but because of his personal inspiration. Helping to spread around his own success story, they were millions of donors and four times as much money as his direct contender for the job.

But, simply having so much money to reach out even traditional enemy grounds was not the key point.

He was able to break into history as the first negro because he had been building momentum, and now was riding a huge and shinning pendulum fast upwards. So much fear, so much anger, so much deception sprung him to the skies after an endless campaign, just as it had served to his ill-fated predecessor.

Can he deliver? will Obama live up to his promises? Can the pendulum reach the top, and stay there still?

Remember, o thou mortal soul, that everything that swings out, sooner or later will swing in.

Primer diccionario Catalán-Japonés, Japonés-Catalan

¿Quién dijo que el japonés es dificil?

Esta es la lista que demuestra el origen vernáculo de muchas expresiones típicas niponas, compilado y ampliado por el Profesor Karikate de Okata, prefectura de Mas-nou.

• Yaso kaki, 私はここに既にある : Acabo de llegar.
• Kenotsentu, 私は聞くことができない: No consigo oirte.
• Kiesarah, だれが次であるか : buenas tardes. ¿Quién es el último, por favor?
• Masa maku, 余りに美しい: Eres muy hermoso, quizá demasiado. Hermosa, Masa maka.
• Kagun Dena, 忌々しい: Que una maldición caiga sobre tus descendientes
• Todioh Tio, 私はの男の子憎む: No eres la persona con la que me iría a pasar mis vacaciones en la isla de los famosos aunque me regalaran una Wii.
  

Bueno, como esto se está poniendo tenso, lo dejo aquí. Pronto, más ejemplos recogidos directamente de la calle.

Patenting the justice

I think everyone will agree here that some things should never be allowed to belong to any individual, as the rivers or the air above. These are public domain goods. They were given to us by the mother Earth.

Now, inspiration, ideas, that's another story.

For some other people, by no means what a human being's mind produces can be stolen. It can be bought, trade or given away, never stolen. If they were, there would be no motivation for innovation. In the long run, inspiration, ideas, would disappear.

For some people, they may become also public domain if they serve to a greater cause, like some benefit for the human beings. Free circulation of ideas, they say, bring much more powerful thinking and innovation. We may again agree here on some examples of such benefits. Woudn't it be immoral to own the formula to cure some mortal illness and allowing thousands of people to suffer and die before permitting the formula to be freely produced? Yes, it would. And sadly, it's already happening in the pharmacy industry.

If things went that bad there, you can imagine where computer programs we use daily can go.

For some corporate citizens have being filing patents for years, stealing what was given for free, and making a private asset of them. Now, they seek to make you pay royalties for hundreds, thousands of stolen ideas that were previously innocently spread in universities, forums and an army of willing developpers.

By allowing this trade, you're actually helping strip the authors of their work, and permitting all sorts of abuses, like speculation and manipulation of ideas. A world of great fortunes, tycoons, multimillion suits and maybe some charity.

Would it be better a world of free thinking, based on your own work and merits, based on justice instead?

Some less concerned people use a more practical approach, and only think of free as open source, a way to spread more efficiently innovation, but this doesn't provide enough confidence in the system since it's not a phylosophical position.

Free software, justice for all.

Another ugly tale

Most people behaving bad just don't realize how painful they make life to others. Either because they are stupid, sick, or somehow blinded. Or just not human, as the beast of Gévaudan.

A few, do realize the consequences of their acts, but have built a series of explanations for them. Looking for a better society, purity, glory... the ones in this category are hard to make accountable of their acts. With enough power of conviction, those individuals may reach the top of many organizations, to be named Great and Beloved Leaders by their fellow citizens. I mean, democracy has never been a problem for them to be appointed for the job...

The host and the parasites

Corporate organism, namely companies, are said to search actively a kind of symbiotic associations called 'Mutualism', so each part benefits the other.

But more often, the companies fall prey of a pure ‘parasitism’, the worst kind of symbiosis. Once such a corporation gets infected with them, there's not known way to stop or limit its widespread action.

And among the worst kinds of parasites, there are the consultants. But other forms of infection can be represented by oversized internal shared services departments.

Once they infect a company, a colorful scheme of symptoms gets evident. The top management falls into an endless quest for more projects and certifications to get. We all have seen that quite often.

But... why do corporations get so easily infected?

There is a list of usual reasons for that. In one word, all of them consist of converting the parasitism in the old good symbiosis, just changing the actors and putting the company aside.

The top managers are stakeholders of the consulting companies either by retroinfecting them or even creating them for the sole purpose of infecting the companies they rule, increasing their gains and power beyond the board of directors.

The top managers use the consulting companies as firewalls to limit their own responsibility.