Inglês

Spanglish

Things We Carry on the Sea

We carry tears in our eyes: good-bye father, good-bye
  [mother
We carry soil in small bags: may home never fade in our
  [hearts
We carry carnage of mining, droughts, floods, genocides
We carry dust of our families and neighbors incinerated
  [in mushroom clouds
We carry our islands sinking under the sea
We carry our hands, feet, bones, hearts and best minds
  [for a new life

We carry diplomas: medicine, engineer, nurse,
  [education, math, poetry, even if they mean
  [nothing to the other shore
We carry railroads, plantations, laundromats,
  [bodegas, taco trucks, farms, factories, nursing
  [homes, hospitals, schools, temples... built on
  [our ancestors’ backs
We carry old homes along the spine, new dreams in our
  [chests
We carry yesterday, today and tomorrow
We’re orphans of the wars forced upon us
We’re refugees of the sea rising from industrial wastes
And we carry our mother tongues
  [...]
As we drift... in our rubber boats...from shore...to shore...
  [to shore...

No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent
A part of the main.
[...]
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.

As my official bio reads, I was made in Cuba, assembled is Spain, and imported to the United States – meaning my mother, seven months pregnant, and the rest of my family arrived as exiles from Cuba to Madrid, where I was born. Less than two months later, we emigrated once more and settled in New York City, then eventually in Miami, where I was raised and educated. Although technically we lived in the United States, the Cuban community was culturally insular in Miami during the 1970s, bonded together by the trauma of exile. What’s more, it seemed that practically everyone was Cuban: my teachers, my classmates, the mechanic, the bus driver. I didn’t grow up feeling different or treated as a minority. The few kids who got picked on in my grade school were the ones with freckles and funny last names like Dawson and O’Neil.

Two hundred years ago, Jane Austen lived in a world where single men boasted vast estates; single ladies were expected to speak several languages, sing and play the piano. In both cases, it was, of course, advantageous if you looked good too. So, how much has – or hasn’t – changed? Dating apps opaquely outline the demands of today’s relationship market; users ruminate long and hard over their choice of pictures and what they write in their biographies to hook in potential lovers, and that’s just your own profile. What do you look for in a future partner’s profile – potential signifiers of a popular personality, a good job, a nice car? These apps are a poignant reminder of the often classist atitudes we still adopt, as well as the financial and aesthetic expectations we demand from potential partners.

I tend the mobile now
like an injured bird

We text, text, text
our significant words.

I re-read your first,
your second, your third,

look for your small xx,
feeling absurd.

The codes we send
arrive with a broken chord.

I try to picture your hands,
their image is blurred.

Nothing my thumbs press
will ever be heard.

A Teen’s View of Social Media

Instagram is made up of all photos and videos. There is the home page that showcases the posts from people you follow, an explore tab which offers posts from accounts all over the world, and your own page, with a notification tab to show who likes and comments on your posts.

It has some downsides though. It is known to make many people feel insecure or down about themselves because the platform showcases the highlights of everyone’s lives, while rarely showing the negatives. This can make one feel like their life is not going as well as others, contributing to the growing rates of anxiety or depression in many teens today. There is an underlying desire for acceptance through the number of likes or followers one has.

THE DEATH OF THE PC

The days of paying for costly software upgrades are numbered. The PC will soon be obsolete. And BusinessWeek reports 70% of Americans are already using the technology that will replace it. Merrill Lynch calls it “a $160 billion tsunami.” Computing giants including IBM, Yahoo!, and cash in on this PC-killing revolution.
Yet, two little-known companies have a huge head start. Get their names in a free report from The Motley Fool called, “The Two Words Bill Gates Doesn ́t Want You to Hear...”

Click here for instant access to this FREE report!
BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE MOTLEY FOOL

THE WEATHER MAN

They say that the British love talking about the weather. For other nationalities this can be a banal and boring subject of conversation, something that people talk about when they have nothing else to say to each other. And yet the weather is a very important part of our lives. That at least is the opinion of Barry Gromett, press officer for The Met Office. This is located in Exeter, a pretty cathedral city in the southwest of England. Here employees — and computers — supply weather forecasts for much of the world.

Viva la Vida

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning and I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing
“Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!”

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand
[…]

War

Until the philosophy which holds one race superior
And another inferior
Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned,
Everywhere is war — Me say war.

That until there is no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation,
Until the color of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the color of his eyes —
Me say war.

[…] And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique,
South Africa, sub-human bondage have been toppled,
Utterly destroyed —
Well, everywhere is war — Me say war.

War in the east, war in the west,
War up north, war down south —
War — war — Rumors of war.
And until that day, the African continent will not know peace.
We, Africans, will fight — we find it necessary —
And we know we shall win
As we are confident in the victory.
[…]

How’s your mood?

For an interesting attempt to measure cause and effect try Mappiness, a project run by the London School of Economics, which offers a phone app that prompts you to record your mood and situation.

The Mappiness website says: “We’re particularly interested in how people’s happiness is affected by their local environment — air pollution, noise, green spaces, and so on — which the data from Mappiness will be absolutely great for investigating.”

Will it work? With enough people, it might. But there are other problems. We’ve been using happiness and well-being interchangeably. Is that ok? The difference comes out in a sentiment like: “We were happier during the war.” But was our well-being also greater then?

Going to university seems to reduce the risk of dying from coronary heart disease. An American study that involved 10 000 patients from around the world has found that people who leave school before the age of 16 are five times more likely to suffer a heart attack and die than university graduates.

23 February 2012 Last update at 16:53 GMT
BBC World Service

J. K. Rowling to pen first novel for adults

Author J. K. Rowling has announced plans to publish her first novel for adults, which will be “very different” from the Harry Potter books she is famous for.

The book will be published worldwide although no date or title has yet been released. “The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry’s sucess has brought me,” Rowling said.

All the Potter books were published by Bloomsbury, but Rowling has chosen a new publisher for her debut into adult fiction. “Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world,” she said, in a statement. “I’m delighted to have a second publishing home in Little, Brown, and a publishing team that will be a great partner in this new phase of my writing life.”

I, too

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
l’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed

I, too, am America.

Quotes of the Day

Friday, Sep. 02, 2011

“There probably was a shortage of not just respect and boundaries but also love. But you do need, when they cross the line and break the law, to be very tough.”

British Prime Minister DAVID CAMERON, arguing that those involved in the recent riots in England need “tough love” as he vows to “get to grips” with the country’s problem families.

National Geographic News

Christine Dell’Amore
Published April 26, 2010

Our bodies produce a small but steady amount of natural morphine, a new study suggests. Traces of the chemical are often found in mouse and human urine, leading scientists to wonder whether the drug is being made naturally or being delivered by something the subjects consumed. The new research shows that mice produce the “incredible painkiller” — and that humans and other mammals possess the same chemical road map for making it, said study co-author Meinhart Zenk, who studies plant-based pharmaceuticals at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

Steve Jobs: A Life Remembered 1955-2011

Readersdigest.ca takes a look back at Steve Jobs, and his contribution to our digital world.

CEO. Tech-Guru. Artist. There are few corporate figures as famous and well-regarded as former-Apple CEO Steve Jobs. His list of achievements is staggering, and his contribution to modern technology, digital media, and indeed the world as a whole, cannot be downplayed. With his passing on October 5, 2011, readersdigest.ca looks back at some of his greatest achievements, and pays our respects to a digital pioneer who helped pave the way for a generation of technology, and possibilities, few could have imagined.

The British (serves 60 million)

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures
And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.
Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years.
Add lots of Norman French to some
Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.
[...]
Sprinkle some fresh Indians, Malaysians, Bosnians,
Iraqis and Bangladeshis together with some
Afghans, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese
And Palestinians
Then, add to the melting pot.
Leave the ingredients to simmer.
As they mix and blend, allow their languages to flourish
Binding them together with English.
Allow time to be cool.
Add some unity, understanding, and respect for the future.
Serve with justice
And enjoy.

Note: All the ingredients are equally important. Treating one ingredient better than another will leave a bitter unpleasant taste.
Warning: An unequal spread of justice will damage the people and cause pain. Give justice and equality to all.

We are now a nation obsessed with the cult of celebrity. Celebrities have replaced the classic notion of the hero. But instead of being respected for talent, courage or intelligence, it is money, style and image the deciding factors in what commands respect. Image is everything. Their image is painstakingly constructed by a multitude of different image consultants to carve out the most profitable celebrity they can. Then society is right behind them, believing in everything that celebrity believes in. Companies know that people will buy a product if a celebrity has it too. It is as if the person buying the product feels that they now have some kind of connection with the celebrity and that some of their perceived happiness will now be passed onto the consumer. So to look at it one way, the cult of celebrity is really nothing more than a sophisticated marketing scheme. Celebrities though cannot be blamed for all negative aspects of society. In reality society is to blame. We are the people who seemed to have lost the ability to think for ourselves. I suppose it's easier to be told what to think, rather than challenging what we are told. The reason we are swamped by celebrity is because there is a demand for it.

Exterior: Between The Museums - Day

CELINE
Americans always think Europe is perfect. But such beauty and history can be really oppressive. It reduces the individual to nothing. It just reminds you all the time you are just a little speck in a long history, where in America you feel like you could be making history. That's why I like Los Angeles because it is so...
JESSE
Ugly?
CELINE
No, I was going to say "neutral". It's like looking at a blank canvas. I think people go to places like Venice on their honeymoon to make sure they are not going to fight for the first two weeks of their marriage because they'll be too busy looking around at all the beautiful things. That's what people call a romantic place - somewhere where the prettiness will contain your primary violent instint. A real good honeymoon spot would be like somewhere in New Jersey.

Becoming

Back in the ancestral homeland of Michelle Obama, black women were rarely granted the honorific Miss or Mrs., but were addressed by their first name, or simply as gal” or “auntie” or worse. This so openly demeaned them that many black women, long after they had left the South, refused to answer if called by their first name. A mother and father in 1970s Texas named their newborn “Miss” so that white people would have no choice but to address their daughter by that title. Black women were meant for the field or the kitchen, or for use as they saw fit. They were, by definition, not ladies. The very idea of a black woman as first lady of the land, well, that would have been unthinkable.

The Road Not Taken (by Robert Frost)

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Masters of War

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.

A Tall Order

The sky isn’t the limit for an architect building the world’s first invisible skyscraper

Charles Wee, one of the world’s leading high-rise architects, has a confession to make: he’s bored with skyscrapers. After designing more than 30, most of which punctuate the skulines od rapidly expanding Asian cities, he has struck upon a novel concept: the firts invisible skyscraper.

As the tallest structure in South Korea, his Infinity Tower loom over Seoul until somebody pushes a button and it completely disappears.

When he entered a 2004 competition to design a landmark tower, the Korean-American architect rejected the notion of competing with Dubai, Toronto, and Shanghai to reach the summit of man-made summits. “I thought, let’s not jump into this stupid race to build another ‘tallest’ tower,” he says in a phone conversation. “Let’s take an opposite approach — let’s make an anti-tower.”

The result will be a 150-story building that fades from view at the flick of a switch. The tower will effectively function as an enormous television screen, being able to project an exact replica of whatever is happening behind it onto its façade. To the human eye, the building will appear to have melted away.

It will be the most extraordinary achievement of Wee’s stellar architectural career. After graduating from UCLA, he worked under Anthony Lumsdenm, a prolific California architect who helped devise the modern technique of wrapping buildings inside smooth glass skins.

If You Can’t Master English, Try Globish

PARIS — It happens all the time: during an airport delay the man to the left, a Korean perhaps, starts talking to the man opposite, who might be Colombian, and soon they are chatting away in what seems to be English. But the native English speaker sitting between them cannot understand a word.

They don’t know it, but the Korean and the Colombian are speaking Globish, the latest addition to the 6,800 languages that are said to be spoken across the world. Not that its inventor, Jean-Paul Nerrière, considers it a proper language.

“It is not a language, it is a tool,” he says. “A language is the vehicle of a culture. Globish doesn’t want to be that at all. It is a means of communication.”

Nerrière doesn’t see Globish in the same light as utopian efforts such as Kosmos, Volapuk, Novial or staunch Esperanto. Nor should it be confused with barbaric Algol (for Algorithmic language). It is a sort of English lite: a means of simplifying the language and giving it rules so it can be understood by all.

How fake images change our memory and behaviour

For decades, researchers have been exploring just how unreliable our own memories are. Not only is memory fickle when we access it, but it’s also quite easily with subverted and rewritten. Combine this susceptibility with modern image-editing software at our fingertips like Photoshop, and it’s a recipe for disaster. In a world where we can witness news and world events as they unfold, fake images surround us, and our minds accept these pictures as real, and remember them later. These fake memories don’t just distort how we see our past, they affect our current and future behaviour too – from what we eat, to how we protest and vote. The problem is there’s virtually nothing we can do to stop it.

Old memories seem to be the easiest to manipulate. In one study, subjects were showed images from their childhood. Along with real images, researchers snuck in manipulated photographs of the subject taking a hotair balloon ride with his or her family. After seeing those images, 50% of subjects recalled some part of that hot-air balloon ride – though the event was entirely made up.

Why am I compelled to write? Because the writing saves me from this complacency I fear. Because I have no choice. Because I must keep the spirit of my revolt and myself alive. Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it.

My brother the star, my mother the earth

my father the sun, my sister the moon,

to my life give beauty, to my

body give strength, to my corn give

goodness, to my house give peace, to

my spirit give truth, to my elders give

wisdom.

If Women Had Their Own Currency, Here’s What It Would Be Worth

Charlotte Alter @charlottealter Maya Rhodan @m_rhodan July 31, 2014

After a little girl asked President Obama why there aren’t any women on U.S. currency, he said that adding some female faces to our cash sounded like a “pretty good idea”. Almost immediately, all of our fantasies came alive on the web. What would, let’s say, Ruth Bader Ginsburg look like on a $20 bill? Where would we spend our Beyoncé $10 bill first? Will our grandmas give us a Susan B. Anthony $5 bill on our birthdays and tell us not to spend it all at once?
But then we remembered: because of the wage gap, a dollar for a woman is not the same as a dollar for a man. Although the true extent of the gender pay gap is widely disputed even among feminists, President Obama said in the 2014 State of the Union that women make only 77¢ for every dollar a man makes.

Vogue Magazine’s Complicated Relationship with Diversity

Edward Enninful, the new editor-in-chief of British Vogue, has a proven history of addressing diversity that many hope will be the start of an overhaul of the global Vogue brand.
In March, he responded sublimely when US President Donald Trump nominated Supreme Court judge Neil Gorsuch, who allegedly does not care much about civil rights: Enninful styled a shoot for his then employer, the New York-based W magazine, in which a range of ethnically diverse models climb the stairs of an imaginary “Supreme Court”. In February, after Trump initiated the much-debated immigration ban, Enninful put together a video showcasing the various fashion celebrities who have immigrated into the US. Even before his first official day in Vogue’s Mayfair offices, Enninful had hired two English superstars of Jamaican descent in an attempt to diversify the team. Model Naomi Campbell and make-up artist Pat McGrath both share Enninful’s aim of championing fashion as a force for social change.
One can only hope that Enninful’s appointment is not a mere blip, but a move in the right direction on a long road to diversity for the global brand.

GOAL
GOAL has worked to improve access to food for highly vulnerable and food-insecure households in many districts of Zimbabwe. We identify such households, supply them with monthly food rations, and conduct monthly post-distribution monitoring. GOAL works in the same districts, to improve access to food for the most vulnerable primary school children duringthe peak hungry months. The emphasis is on orphans and vulnerable children. GOAL provides short-term food security support to other vulnerable households by increasing the availability of grain, and by helping enhance their ability to meet basic needs.

A Mother in a Refugee Camp

No Madonna and Child could touch
Her tenderness for a son
She soon would have to forget...
The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea,
Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs
And dried-up bottoms waddling in labored steps
Behind blown-empty bellies. Other mothers there
Had long ceased to care, but not this one:
She held a ghost-smile between her teeth,
and in her eyes the memory
Of a mother’s pride... She had bathed him
And rubbed him down with bare palms.
She took from their bundle of possessions
A broken comb and combed
The rust-colored hair left on his skull
And then — humming in her eyes — began carefully
[to part it.
In their former life this was perhaps
A little daily act of no consequence
Before his breakfast and school; now she did it
Like putting flowers on a tiny grave.

A Minor Bird

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his keys.

And of course there must be something wrong
In waiting to silence any song.

Finally, Aisha finished with her customer and asked what colour Ifemelu wanted for her hair attachments.
“Colour four.”
“Not good colour,” Aisha said promptly.
“That’s what I use.”
“It look dirty. You don’t want colour one?”
“Colour one is too black, it looks fake,” Ifemelu said, loosening her headwrap. “Sometimes I use colour two, but colour four is closest to my natural colour.”
Aisha shrugged, a haughty shrug, as though it was not her problem if her customer did not have good taste. She reached into a cupboard, brought out two packets of attachments, checked to make sure they were both the same colour.
She touched Ifemelu’s hair. “Why you don’t have relaxer?”
“I like my hair the way God made it.”
“But how you comb it? Hard to comb,” Aisha said.
Ifemelu had brought her own comb. She gently combed her hair, dense, soft and tightly coiled, until it framed her head like a halo. “It’s not hard to comb if you moisturize it properly,” she said, slipping into the coaxing tone of the proselytizer that she used whenever she was trying to convince other black women about the merits of wearing their hair natural. Aisha snorted; she clearly could not understand why anybody would choose to suffer through combing natural hair, instead of simply relaxing it. She sectioned out Ifemelu’s hair, plucked a little attachment from the pile on the table and began deftly to twist.

BOGOF is used as a noun as in ‘There are some great bogofs on at the supermarket’ or an adjective, usually with a word such as ‘offer’ or ‘deal’ – ‘there are some great bogof offers in store’.

When you combine the first letters of the words in a phrase or the name of an organisation, you have an acronym. Acronyms are spoken as a word so NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) is not pronounced N-A-T-O. We say NATO. Bogof, when said out loud, is quite comical for a native speaker, as it sounds like an insult, ‘Bog off!’ meaning go away, leave me alone, slightly childish and a little old-fashioned.

BOGOF is the best-known of the supermarket marketing strategies. The concept was first imported from the USA during the 1970s recession, when food prices were very high. It came back into fashion in the late 1990s, led by big supermarket chains trying to gain a competitive advantage over each other. Consumers were attracted by the idea that they could get something for nothing. Who could possibly say ‘no’?

Frankentissue: printable cell technology

In November, researchers from the University of Wollongong in Australia announced a new bio-ink that is a step toward really printing living human tissue on an inkjet printer. It is like printing tissue dot-by-dot. A drop of bio-ink contains 10,000 to 30,000 cells. The focus of much of this research is the eventual production of tailored tissues suitable for surgery, like living Band-Aids, which could be printed on the inkjet.

However, it is still nearly impossible to effectively replicate nature’s ingenious patterns on a home office accessory. Consider that the liver is a series of globules, the kidney a set of pyramids. Those kinds of structures demand 3D printers that can build them up, layer by layer. At the moment, skin and other flat tissues are most promising for the inkjet.

Ebony and ivory

Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord, why don’t we?
We all know that people are the same wherever we go
There is good and bad in ev’ryone,
We learn to live, we learn to give
Each other what we need to survive together alive

Italian university switches to English

By Sean Coughlan, BBC News education correspondent 16 May 2012 Last updated at 09:49 GMT

Milan is crowded with Italian icons, which makes it even more of a cultural earthquake that one Of Italy’s leading universities – the Politecnico di Milano – Is going to switch to the English language. The university has announced that from 2014 most of its degree Courses – including all its graduate courses – will be taught and assessed entirely in English rather than Italian.

The waters of globalisation are rising around higher education – and the university believes that if it remains Italian-speaking it risks isolation and will be unable to compete as an international institution. “We strongly believe our classes should be international classes – and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language”, says the university’s rector, Giovanni Azzone.

Women in Theatre: Why Do So Few Make It to the Top?

An all-female Julius Caesar (A Shakespeare play) has just hit the stage, but it’s a rarity in theatre. In a special report, Charlotte Higgins asks leading figures why women are still underrepresented at every level of the business — and what needs to change.

Israel Travel Guide

Israel has always been a standout destination. From the days of prophets to the modern day nomad this tiny slice of land on the eastern Mediteranean has long attracted visitors. While some arrive in the ‘Holy Land’ on a spiritual quest, many others are on cultural tours, beach holidays and eco-tourism trips. Weeding through Israel’s convoluted history is both exhilarating and exhausting. There are crumbling temples, ruined cities, abandoned forts and hundreds of places associated with the Bible. And while a sense of adventure is required, most sites are safe and easily accessible. Most of all, Israel is about its incredibly diverse population. Jews come from all over the world to live here, while about 20% of the population is Muslim. Politics are hard to get away from in Israel as everyone has an opinion on how to move the country forward — with a ready ear you’re sure to hear opinions from every side of the political spectrum.

Letters

Children and Guns
Published: May 7, 2013
To the Editor: Re “Girl’s Death by Gunshot Is Rejected as Symbol” (news article, May 6):
I find it abhorrent that the people of Burkesville, Ky., are not willing to learn a lesson from the tragic shooting of a 2-year-old girl by her 5-year-old brother. I am not judging their lifestyle of introducing guns to children at a young age, but I do feel that it’s irresponsible not to practice basic safety with anything potentially lethal — guns, knives, fire and so on. How can anyone justify leaving guns lying around, unlocked and possibly loaded, in a home with two young children? I wish the family of the victim comfort during this difficult time, but to dismiss this as a simple accident leaves open the potential for many more such “accidents” to occur. I hope this doesn’t have to happen several more times for legislators to realize that something needs to be changed.
EMILY LOUBATON
Brooklyn, May 6, 2013

British Government to Recruit Teens as Next Generation of Spies

In the 50 years since the first James Bond movie created a lasting impression of a British secret agent, a completely different character is about to emerge. Britain’s intelligence agencies are to recruit their next generation of cyber spies by harnessing the talents of the “Xbox generation”.
In an expansion of a pilot program, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced Thursday that up to 100 18-year-olds will be given the chance to train for a career in Britain’s secret services. The move to recruit school-leavers marks a break with the past, when agencies mainly drew their staff from among university graduates.
“Young people are the key to our country’s future success, just as they were during the War”, Hague said. “Today we are not at war, but I see evidence every day of deliberate, organized attacks against intellectual property and government networks in the United Kingdom.”
The new recruitment program, called the Single Intelligence Account apprenticeship scheme will enable students with suitable qualifications in science, technology or engineering, to spend two years learning about communications, security and engineering through formal education, technical training and work placements.

One of the things that made an incredible impression on me in the film was Frida’s comfort in and celebration of her own unique beauty. She didn’t try to fit into conventional ideas or images about womanhood or what makes someone or something beautiful. Instead, she fully inhabited her own unique gifts, not particularly caring what other people thought. She was magnetic and beautiful in her own right. She painted for years, not to be a commercial success or to be discovered, but to express her own inner pain, joy, family, love and culture. She absolutely and resolutely was who she was. The trueness of her own unique vision and her ability to stand firmly in her own truth was what made her successful in the end.

1984 (excerpt)

‘Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?’ […] O’Brien smiled faintly. ‘I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?’
‘No.’
‘Then where does the past exist, if at all?’
‘In records. It is written down.’
‘In records. And — —?’
‘In the mind. In human memories.’
‘In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all
records, and we control all memories. Then we control the
past, do we not?’

Don’t write in English, they said,
English is not your mother tongue…
…The language I speak
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queerness
All mine, mine alone, it is half English, half
Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human…
…It voices my joys, my longings my
Hopes…
(Kamala Das, 1965:10)

TEXTO I

A Free World-class Education for Anyone Anywhere
The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission.
We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. All of the site's resources are available to anyone. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

Disponível em www.khanacademy.org. Acesso em: 24 fev. 2012 (adaptado)

TEXTO II

I didn't have a problem with Khan Academy site until very recently. For me, the problem is the way Khan Academy is being promoted. The way the media sees it as “revolutionizing education”. The way people with power and Money view education as simply “sit-and-get”, i.e., teaching is telling and learning is listening, then Khan Academy is way more eficiente than classroom lecturing. Khan Academy does it better. But TRUE progressive educators, TRUE education visionaries and revolutionaries don't want to do these things better. We want to DO BETTER THINGS.

Lava Mae: Creating Showers on Wheels for the Homeless

San Francisco, according to recent city numbers, has 4,300 people living on the streets. Among the many problems the homeless face is little or no access to showers. San Francisco only has about 16 to 20 shower stalls to accommodate them. But Doniece Sandoval has made it her mission to change that. The 51 -year-old former marketing executive started Lava Mae, a sort of showers on wheels, a new project that aims to turn decommissioned city buses into shower stations for the homeless. Each bus will have two shower stations and Sandoval expects that they’ll be able to provide 2,000 showers a week.

In this life

Sitting on a park bench
Thinking about a friend of mine
He was only twenty-three
Gone before he had his time.
It came without a warning
Didnꞌt want his friends to see him cry
He knew the day was dawning
And I didnꞌt have a chance to say goodbye.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Sugar fear-mongering unhelpful

By The Washington Times Tuesday, June 25, 2013

In his recent piece “Is obesity a disease?” (Web, June 19), Dr. Peter Lind refers to high-fructose corn syrup and other “manufactured sugars” as “poison” that will “guarantee storage of fat in the body.” Current scientific research strongly indicates that obesity results from excessive calorie intake combined with a sedentary lifestyle. The fact is Americans are consuming more total calories now than ever before. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, our total per-capita daily caloric intake increased by 22 percent from 2,076 calories per day in 1970 to 2,534 calories per day in 2010 — an additional 458 calories, only 34 of which come from increased added sugar intake. A vast majority of these calories come from increased fats and flour/ cereals. Surprisingly, the amount of caloric sweeteners (i.e. sugar, high-fructose, corn syrup, honey, etc.). Americans consume has actually decreased over the past decade. We need to continue to study the obesity epidemic to see what more can be done, but demonizing one specific ingredient accomplishes nothing and raises unnecessary fears that get in the way of real solutions.

JAMES M. RIPPE Shrewsbury, Mass.

5 Ways Pets Can Improve Your Health

A pet is certainly a great friend. After a difficult day, pet owners quite literally feel the love. In fact, for nearly 25 years, research has shown that living with pets provides certain health benefits. Pets help lower blood pressure and lessen anxiety. They boost our immunity. They can even help you get dates.
Allergy Fighters: A growing number of studies have suggested that kids growing up in a home with "furred animals" will have less risk of allergies and asthma.
Date Magnets: Dogs are great for making love connections. Forget Internet matchmaking – a dog is a natural conversation starter.
Dogs for the Aged: Walking a dog or just caring for a pet – for elderly people who are able – can provide exercise and companionship.
Good for Mind and Soul: Like any enjoyable activity, playing with a dog can elevate levels of serotonin and dopamine –- nerve transmitters that are known to have pleasurable and calming properties.
Good for the Heart: Heart attack patients who have pets survive longer than those without, according to several studies.

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.