No one expects the spanish inquisition

«(…)Spain had not only discovered America, it had also defeated the last remnants of Arab rule in Granada and in the coming centuries would drive Muslims and Jews out of Spain. Both those groups were responsible for trade and commerce. The Spanish noble, however, detested work, which was forbidden to him by a bizarre code of honour, and saw his God-given task only in soldiering.

The wealth from the colonies flowed through Spain like liquid gold. Central Europe got rich off Incan gold, while Spain’s noblemen wasted away on ruinous estates, the ‘latifundia’.

For three hundred years the Inquisition hunted out heresy in anything that looked like productivity. Anyone who researched, tinkered or read ran the risk of ending up being burned at the stake.»

Ostad Alizadeh

Portuguese And I Know It

Funny in a weird way!! LOL

Wild… wild world

Salt made from human tears draws me to the portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.

Oh salt-laden sea, how much of your salt
Is tears of Portugal!
To cross you, how many mothers wept,
how many sons in vain prayed!
How many brides-to-be brides remained,
So you were ours, oh Sea!

Was it worth? Everything is worth,
If the soul is not small.
Whoever wants to go beyond (cape) Bojador,
Has to go beyond pain.
To the sea gave God peryl and the abyss,
But in it He also mirrored heaven.

No need to weep anymore since geese have escaped their dutch holocaust, a country with its own toilet throwing royalty. In France the last producer of berets was saved. But what truly is a unbelievable is the self stirring pot.

Information overload

 We complain about the lack of time and the hardships of everyday life. Leibniz, a modern guy stated the “horrible mass of books keeps growing.” Seneca, a classical one, “the abundance of books is a distraction.” Even in biblical times in Ecclesiastes 12:12, “Of making books there is no end”

Why Google Isn’t Making Us Stupid…or Smart.

Shakespeare said “nothing new under the sun”!

Entertaining the greek

The trial and execution of Socrates at Athens in 399 B.C.E. has come down to us as the archetype of intellectual martyrdom.

Last Friday the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens gave Socrates a new trial, assembling a panel of distinguished jurists from Europe and America to reopen the case. As the Onassis Centre’s Web site explains, the event was “not a re-enactment but a modern perspective based on current legal framework supplemented with ancient Greek elements and comical theatrics.”

This time the verdict was different–but just barely. The vote by the jury was a 5-5 tie, which meant Socrates was acquitted. The audience’s vote was more decisive: 5 to convict, 584 to acquit. Of course, it was a little late for Socrates.

Lusitânia Restaurada

Estava Portugal; mas não estava;
Jazia Portugal; mas não jazia:
Que o estado e o sepulcro em que se achava
De vida nem de morte lhe servia.
Para sofrer, a vida sustentava,
Para viver, da vida carecia,
Provando cada instante em triste abismo
Um golpe, uma ruína, um paracismo.

(Vicente Gusmão Soares, Lusitânia Restaurada, 1641)