Our poor rich people

POBRES DOS NOSSOS RICOS - Mia Couto

A maior desgraça de uma nação pobre
é que em vez de produzir riqueza,
produz ricos.

Mas ricos sem riqueza.

Na realidade, melhor seria chamá-los não de ricos mas de endinheirados.
Rico é quem possui meios de produção.
Rico é quem gera dinheiro e dá emprego.
Endinheirado é quem simplesmente tem dinheiro, ou que pensa que tem.
Porque, na realidade, o dinheiro é que o tem a ele.

A verdade é esta: são demasiados pobres os nossos "ricos".
Aquilo que têm, não detêm.
Pior: aquilo que exibem como seu, é propriedade de outros.
É produto de roubo e de negociatas.

Não podem, porém, estes nossos endinheirados usufruir em tranquilidade de tudo quanto roubaram.
Vivem na obsessão de poderem ser roubados.
Necessitavam de forças policiais à altura.
Mas forças policiais à altura acabariam por lançá-los a eles próprios na cadeia.
Necessitavam de uma ordem social em que houvesse poucas razões para a criminalidade.
Mas se eles enriqueceram foi graças a essa mesma desordem ...

...

Wonderful, wonderful poem from Mia Couto that says all about the economy's major problem: nowadays the rich are no more than people with money. And is truly sad to live in a world like that.

By: Lu*

Sixth sense technology

This is the future! Goodbye computers :O

Just incredible. Check out more if you want to. It's really worthy.

Happy birthday to our blog = D

Yes, it all started one year ago with our little Rudolph and one post about each one of us.

Everything went so fast :O

Food For Thought...

My sister’s keeper – One possible end

I already know how the film ends, because I had seen it; so, I just tried to imagine one possible ending that I would have gave it if I were the director.
First of all, I would like to highlight that it was simply impossible to imagine one better ending, in my opinion. There are films which have cruel and really sad endings, and there are others that have those so famous “happy endings”; “my sister’s keeps” neither have one or the other! And that isn’t the most extraordinary thing about it! In fact, is the surprise that we have with the ending that makes the whole film even more astonishing.
So, if I were the director (as I certainly wouldn’t have that fabulous idea) I would have made Anna loose the cause on the court, because the judge knew that Alexander Campbell had defended one drunk driver that had hit one girl with the same age of her daughter when she was murdered.
Anna is forced by her mother to do the surgery. Unfortunately, it goes wrong, and Anna ends up dying. And Kate dies at the exact same time.

I love this film ♥

Lu*

GMF - consequences

Scientists can choose which genes to manipulate, but they don't yet know where in the DNA to precisely insert these genes and they have no way of controlling gene expression. Genes don't work in isolation, changing a few could change the whole picture, with unpredictable and different effects under different circumstances, and GM crops could cross-pollinate with nearby non-GM plants and create ecological problems. And, above all of that, we all know that "we are what we eat", so thin can be one of the major problems: to change the human nature itself.

GM food will end food diversity if everyone starts growing the same standardized crops. Herbicide-resistant and pesticide-resistant crops could give rise to super-weeds and super-pests that would need newer, stronger chemicals to destroy them, and which will seriously harm the food chain.

The GM technology companies patent their crops and also engineer crops so that harvested grain germs are incapable of developing. This is not empowering to impoverished Third World farmers, who cannot save seeds for replanting and have to buy expensive seeds from the companies every time. The new technology also interferes with their traditional agricultural ways which may be more suited to their conditions. The claim of ending world hunger with GM food is a false claim. World hunger is not caused by shortage of food production, but by sheer mismanagement, and lack of access to food brought about by various social, financial and political causes.

It's about time to ask to the scientists:

What were you thinking?!

GMF - Genetically Modified Food

Genetically modified (GM) food includes crops, vegetables and fruit that have been created using genetic engineering methods. The principle aim with GM food is to combine desirable genes from various species to create new genetically-altered crosses with enhanced nutritional, productive and ecological value. GMF’s are known for some people as the solution for the hunger problems in the world.

In other hand, this process of combining inter-species genes, which is called recombinant DNA technology, does not have the checks and balances that are imposed by nature in traditional breeding. Without these, there is a risk of genetic instability. This means that no one can make any accurate predictions about the long term effects of GM foodstuffs on human beings and the environment .

So, that leads us to some questions: would GMF’s solve world hunger problems? If it does, would it be the best way of solve it? Aren’t the major hunger problems caused by problems in food distribution and politics, instead of production?

It’s true that GM crops are more productive, resistance to pests, weeds, disease and stay ripe for longer periods and might offer more nutritional value and better flavor or eliminate allergy-causing properties in some foods; they are also more environment friendly as they require less herbicides and pesticides!

But every rose has a thorn...

Cool Comercial

Nature Needs Heroes!

By: Ciih*