Archive for the ‘Humanities’ Category

 
On January 23rd the celebrations for the Chinese New Year have started. On Sunday 29th, they have reached a peak. (more…)

Artist Lucian Freud, sculptor Henry Moore and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" author Roald Dahl all rejected honors, according to papers released by the British government on Thursday.

"Psycho" film director Alfred Hitchcock also refused an award in 1962, only to accept a knighthood shortly before his death in 1980.

Other public figures named on the official list include painters Francis Bacon and L.S. Lowry and the "Brave New World" novelist Aldous Huxley.

The British government was forced to publish the document after repeated requests under freedom of information laws.

Previously, rejected honors only came to light through unofficial leaks or if the person involved chose to spoke about their decision to snub the twice-yearly "gongs."

Several well-known writers appeared on the list, which only includes people who are no longer alive.

Poet Philip Larkin refused the chance in 1968 to become an OBE, or Officer of the Order of the British Empire, one of the five classes of the chivalric order set up by King George V in 1917 to recognize service in the arts, science, charities and public bodies. Larkin later accepted a higher ranking CBE, or Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Eveyln Waugh, who wrote "Brideshead Revisited" and "Scoop," rejected an offer in 1959 to become a CBE.

Graham Greene, author of "Our Man in Havana" and "The Quiet American," turned down the same honor three years earlier, only to accept honors later in life. "The Chronicles of Narnia" creator C.S. Lewis also said no to a CBE.

The government gave no details of why people rejected their honors.

In the past, "refuseniks" have cited a range of reasons, from antipathy to the monarchy and Britain's colonial past, to a general lack of interest in prizes or a fear of perpetuating snobbery.

 
With my first time living abroad being in Japan, it is inevitable that I would attempt to make parallels between my experience there and my life here. (more…)

 
Jews and Christians world over donate generously to the Israeli cause, (more…)

 
It was time for a change. My best friends here, Carlos, Monse, and Jacob, had either returned to the US or were about to. (more…)

 
If you open a famous search engine and look for those keywords: plans for environment 2012, (more…)

 
On Boxing Day, a famous American newspaper published a news about a successful romantic relationship between two people with autism, precisely a form called Asperger’s syndrome. (more…)

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I have been paying little attention to the news, or the journalists underline the bad in the world and forget about all the good, but the impression I have nowadays is that our world is full of violence, and we have no more place to repress it. (more…)

 
There are some things you dread. With just the thought of them your entire body convulses, and your mind, for a brief moment, is overcome with fear. (more…)

 
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently commented that the status of Israel as a democracy is in danger, due mostly to its increasingly worrisome treatment of women. (more…)

 
There are no street names in Costa Rica. There are no house numbers. There are no mailboxes. Ok…so how do you get around? How do you receive mail? (more…)

When I was a child, December was my favourite time of the year. It didn’t only mean the Advent Calendar (more…)

In a rare triumph of human rights in Afghanistan, a young woman who was jailed for “zina” (adultery) has been pardoned by President Karzai. (more…)

 
My roommate, Jacob “the Dude” Westman, coined the term “Costa Rica, the new west” on our trip to Cahuita National Park.  (more…)

Advancements in forensic DNA testing are expected to improve the efficacy of our criminal justice system, but is the technology being utilized as it ought to be?

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Photo: Jonah Kruvant (All Rights Reserved)

5% of the world’s biodiversity (animal and plant life) is in Costa Rica, more than Europe and the United States combined, all in an area of the size of West Virginia. (more…)

The county executive said he could not justify carving out $660 from his $2.7 billion budget to pay David McKell, 83, a World War II veteran and former homicide detective, to don his Santa suit for the tenth year running and greet children on Long Island.

"How do you justify that expenditure when a health center is losing money?" Steve Levy, the Suffolk County Executive, said in an interview.

He said that some 750 county employees were facing layoffs as a result of budget restraints, including what he described as a $20 million cut in state aid to the county's health system.

"Let either the private sector come forward with a donation, or, better yet, let's tap the volunteers in the community," he said.

Levy was quickly called a Grinch by his opponents.

Wolfgang Schaeuble said it was "an extremely annoying mistake" for the nationalised mortgage bank Hypo Real Estate (HRE) and the PwC accountancy firm to have let such an error slip through undetected.

The Berlin government has been scathing about Greece's bookkeeping practices during the euro zone crisis.

"I don't believe in looking for scapegoats," Schaeuble told a news conference after summoning executives from HRE and the accountancy firm to his office.

"Everyone promised improvements."

The blunder briefly raised Germany's total debt by more than 55 billion euros, and Schaeuble and the government were lampooned by cartoonists and pilloried in editorials.

The minister conceded the blunder did shake public confidence but called it a "communications problem" which never really put Germany's fiscal interests at risk.

Schaeuble said the Bundesbank (German central bank) would take a deeper look into the accounting mistakes made.

A Spanish mother has taken revenge on the man who raped her 13-year-old daughter at knife point by dousing him in gasoline and setting him on fire. He died of his injuries eleven days later in hospital.
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“When you write try to leave out all the parts readers skip.” (Elmore Leonard)

I started writing first as a literary translator, after spending years of dedicated study on interpreting books written by other people, experimenting with different styles and genres. Four years ago I began writing my own fiction. I was coming back from Greece where I used to work as a Black Jack and Stud Poker dealer. Expressing myself in my own voice wasn’t a choice but an irrepressible need.

Things worsened when I decided to publish what I had written. I was immediately assailed by an army of dissuaders, who kept telling me that it was going to be ‘very, but very hard’. Nevertheless I was determined to go on with my decision. I had to experience for myself the excruciating process of trying to find a publisher interested in my work.

Some American friends introduced me to the world of self-publishing and independent writers. I was to adopt a different perspective: becoming my own publisher. I did a lot of research on e-books and digital publishing and eventually found an ideal setting for my stories. What convinced me was the idea of creating a kind of text that could be adapted to different tablets, and converted into six different digital formats: Kindle, EPub, Pdf, Rtf, Lrf (Sony Reader), PDB (Palm Doc). The files had to be DRM-free in order to meet my potential readers’ requirements, and provide a wider transportability.

The overlapping of contents’ streams is an ever-growing phenomenon, each one of us is developing a personal way of experiencing digital narratives:

“We are living in an age when changes in communications, storytelling and information technologies are reshaping almost every aspect of contemporary life — including how we create, consume, learn, and interact with each other. A whole range of new technologies enable consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content and in the process, these technologies have altered the ways that consumers interact with core institutions of government, education, and commerce.”

(Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture)

The usual prejudice against self-publishing is that it is the result of an improvised author. Actually, the very concept of self-publishing suspends judgement. There are no filters between the author and the reader, as there is no third party involved. It’s a solitary journey where the writer needs to juggle different abilities and acquire a managerial competence. Independent writers are responsible for everything, from editing and formatting to marketing, in complete autonomy.

E-books keep floating in a virtual world until they are selected by a reader and transported into another dimension. Unlike print editions, e-books turn into digital chameleons waiting for new configurations.

As I sit at my desk, overlooking an orange orchard and the mountains in the distance with the sea behind me, I wonder if I’m over exaggerating the growing sense of unease and dissatisfaction I feel. (more…)

Come and Join us for our launch on the

23rd April 2011

launch starts at 2pm and finishes at 5pm, we are having a family funday for volunteers children from 2pm to 7pm Followed by a concert from 6pm to 10pm.

We are having this event to showcase the reason that we are being set up and to fundraise for future events. As we will be having further family fundays, concerts, fashion shows and auctions, so that we can show the public that we can show that we can encourage people that art & crafts, music, sports and outdoor activities are an excellent medium for recovery of trauma that has been inflicted by abuse.

These mediums are not only an excellent tool to heal the mental, psychological and pyscical recovery, but they heal the soul. So during our events we will always have speakers who can speak about many mediums about recovery and wellbeing. From surivors, researchers, artists and proffessionals who work within the health proffession who have used these forms of recovery for their service users.

We are also going to set up projects after the launch for people who have suffered trauma to be able to set up their own projects to enable them to take charge of their own recovery and enable them to become more socially and economically active. We will be doing this by assisting them to source micro finance to start up their projects.

We will also have a youth section of the foundation, where young people from the age 14-25 will be able to put forward projects that will enhance their communities socially. The membership will chose which projects that we assist bring into friutation. The young people whose projects are chosen will recieve a Community Champion Award from the Foundation and the trustees will oversee these projects.

http://www.globalunityharmony.com

Image by Evil Cheese Scientist via Flickr

What, I ask you, is the worth of a woman?

Can it be measured against the force of a clock,
stuck into a wall,
ticking against time and perceived accomplishment?

Is it to be given compliments
as to the shape of a body or a countenance that draws glances?

Or is it the longer view,
the sound of her voice
without regard to physicality?

Is it two half moons
she wakes with

each day beneath her chin; yet,

above the mid-point of life?

Is the worth of a woman
to disregard herself?
To take herself lightly
in pieces
in jokes
in half smiles?

Decorum.  How charming.

Or is her weight
something
that can not measured
in present time?

Not the
the deprecation
of her soul nor diminishment of the purity of her heart

Rather,

The unbidden, unguarded

Pure moments

In whispers

Where her soul drops as golden tears upon the ones she loves

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