Meridianos & Paralelos
Um blog de notícias alinhavadas quase sempre à margem das notícias alinhadas
sábado, janeiro 29, 2005
«Basic Instinct»
Convidaram-na porque é famosa e ela provou que sim. Pediu a palavra, interrompeu os presidentes do Brasil e da Tanzânia, o ministro das Finanças do Reino Unido e o empresário Bill Gates. Ofereceu a Benjamin William Mkapa um "aporte imediato" de 10 mil dólares para a aquisição dos mosquiteiros que lhe faltavam para travar o avanço da malária entre a sua gente. Pediram-lhe o microfone de volta e ela pediu soluções concretas, actos para agora, reacções espontâneas, gestos imediatos: "right now!", ela disse. Em cinco minutos, a colecta rendeu um milhão de dólares. Convidaram-na e ela roubou-lhes a cena.
«I was particularly moved by President Mkapa and by his urgent need of today, so if you don’t mind I’d like to offer my help and support to you, and I’d like to offer you $10,000 to help you buy some bed nets today. Would any one else like to be on a team with me and stand up and offer some money and help him as well? President Mkapa needs help today because people are dying in his country today and that’s not OK with me today.»
[Sharon Stone, no Forum Económico Mundial, em Davos (28 Jan)]
sábado, janeiro 22, 2005
A Dama da Noite
Foto de Miri Bratu.
Morreu Consuelo Velázquez, a mexicana escritora de boleros, que compôs Bésame mucho. Antes dos 20 anos. Antes até do primeiro beijo, como viria a confessar mais tarde. Morreu aos 84 anos na sequência de “complicações cardiovasculares”. Fêmea trovadora que se pôs um dia a imaginar outra boca contra a sua e escreveu uma canção que nenhum grande amor inspirou. A canção deu a volta ao mundo. Foi gravada em 20 idiomas e permanece uma das mais interpretadas de sempre, segundo a Sociedade de Autores e Compositores do México. Ainda assim, foi Emílio Tuero quem primeiro a gravou. No tempo em que as rotações se faziam em vinil. No tempo em que os boleros eram latinos e se gemiam contra o tampo de um balcão qualquer, afogados em tequilla pura, sem contenção, exagerados, esventrados, desalmados, lamentos pungentes chorados na bainha lânguida das tabernas da noite. Antes de Hollywood, de Sinatra e dos bailes ao som da orquestra.
A devida vénia, Senhora!... Saiba que o mundo continua a morrer pela boca. Á beira de um beijo. Exactamente como se canta no seu bolero. Mucho!
Foto de Helmut Newton.
Besame, besame mucho
Como se fuera esta noche
La ultima vez
Besame, besame mucho
Que tengo miedo perderte
Perderte despues
Besame, besame mucho
Como se fosse esta noite
A última vez
Besame, besame mucho
Eu não queria perder
Te perder outra vez
Quero você bem mais perto
Me ver nos teus olhos
Te ter só pra mim
Pense que talvez um dia
Eu estarei longe
Bem longe daqui
Besame, besame mucho
Como se fuera esta noche
La ultima vez
Besame, besame mucho
Que tengo miedo perderte
Perderte despues
Quiero tenerte mas cerca
Mirarme em tus ojos
Verte junto a mi
Piensa que talvez mañana
Yo estare lejos
Muy lejos de ti
A Arte da Palavra
... Porque vale a pena ler na íntegra: I Have a Dream!...
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacle of segregation and the chains of discrimination.
One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our Nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed to the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is not time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy.
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
Now is the time to make justice a reality to all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of it's colored citizens. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must ever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.
We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.
We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for white only."
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of your trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of persecutions and staggered by the winds of police brutality.
You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our modern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow. I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and every mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.
With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to climb up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that, let freedom, ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi and every mountainside.
And when this happens, when we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."
quarta-feira, janeiro 12, 2005
«B15A»: Força de Bloqueio
Foto de D. Polka.
O iceberg, conhecido pela designação «B15A», tem três mil quilómetros quadrados de superfície e é o maior até hoje registado. Move-se à velocidade de dois quilómetros por dia e bloqueou o acesso às águas costeiras onde os pinguins pescam para se alimentarem. Agora, são obrigados a dar uma volta de 180 km para contornar o iceberg.
Cientistas neo-zelandeses afirmam que 70% da população de pinguins da Antártida poderão morrer de fome nas próximas semanas.
quinta-feira, janeiro 06, 2005
Os Três Magníficos
- Almeida Santos (vice-presidente da Assembleia da República)
- Medeiros Ferreira (ex-ministro dos Negócios Estrangeiros)
- Helena Roseta (bastonária da Ordem dos Arquitectos)
Será estranha a próxima legislatura. Desde que o Parlamento é Parlamento, o mesmo é dizer, desde que elegemos em liberdade e democracia os que nos representam nas bancadas, que a voz dos três enchia S.Bento. Independentemente de qualquer convicção partidária, sentir-se-á a sua falta no xadrez das cadeiras.
Uma vez mais foi Alegre quem percebeu o essencial, na hora da despedida: «Figuras centrais da democracia», assim ele disse, assim ele os nomeou. Nenhuma estranheza, na verdade: é sempre o poeta quem primeiro reconhece vozes outras.
A Terra Pulsa nos Açores
António Cunha, presidente da Protecção Civil garante que «não há danos visíveis» nas zonas onde os abalos foram registados. Apesar disso, foi decretado "alerta amarelo" e reforçados os efectivos nos quartéis das corporações da ilha de São Miguel. O secretário da Habitação e Equipamentos, José Contente, está a acompanhar o evoluir da situação e também já decretou que os serviços operativos do seu departamento entrassem em situação de prevenção para alguma eventualidade.
Os sismos tiveram epicentro a cerca de seis quilómetros a Norte de Vila Franca do Campo, e a protecção Civil admite que poderão estar relacionados com a actividade na falha da Lagoa do Congro.
domingo, janeiro 02, 2005
Desequilíbrios
Disse ainda Armando Trindade que o volume exagerado de petróleo que o mundo vem extraindo representa um grave risco de desequilíbrio na composição da crosta terrestre. São duras e violentas mutações, aquelas a que o homem vem submetendo a Terra. Por isso ela estremece: como um grande corpo em agonia, no desespero de se readaptar às novas circunstâncias que lhe são impostas.
Desflorestação vs Tsunamis
Não fora a assustadora devastação da orla de florestas atlânticas e o avanço das águas poderia ter sido travado pela terra de uma outra forma. No Sri Lanka existe uma zona de território preservada em grande parte pela impenetrabilidade da região, ocupada pelos guerrilheiros Tamil. A instabilidade política tem tido pelo menos o mérito de dificultar a intervenção dita civilizada sobre a paisagem, segurando a mão do homem e travando o derrube de árvores. Em consequência, nessa franja costeira o impacto da catástrofe de Domingo passado foi consideravelmente menor do que nas restantes regiões do país.
sábado, janeiro 01, 2005
As Primeiras Doenças
Foto de Peter Foley.
As primeiras doenças contagiosas já começaram a aparecer nas zonas do sudeste asiático devastadas pelo sismo e ondas gigantes de 26 de Dezembro, declarou hoje um alto responsável da Organização Mundial de Saúde.
O director geral da OMS para as crises, David Nabarro, afirmou que "Há cada vez mais informações que dão conta do aparecimento de doenças diarreicas provenientes de campos com pessoas desalojadas no Sri Lanka e na Índia", mas acrescentou que "Isto não nos alarma porque estamos atentos. O que há a fazer é assegurar que continuamos a distribuir todas as células de hidratação e os tratamentos contra a diarreia".
Segundo David Nabarro, ainda é demasiado cedo para dizer se a mobilização internacional será suficiente para responder às necessidades das populações, tendo em conta as dificuldades de encaminhamento do auxílio, particularmente na província indonésia de Aceh (norte da ilha de Samatra), a mais afectada pela catástrofe.
A OMS solicitou quinta-feira à comunidade internacional uma ajuda de 40 milhões de dólares destinados ao melhoramento das condições sanitárias imediatas das populações afectadas pelo sismo e maremotos.