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The way in which we see life does not only depend on where and when we have been born and raised.  For reasons I don't know (and don't care) many times I found myself doing things that are  not shared by the standard human being. I go ahead all the same, I stick to my beliefs (the Basque blood ). Of course this does not mean I don't have a backspace key, but I seldom use it.

When Leticia was a baby, she suffered from asthma so she had to take pills, use bronchodilators and many other awful and sometimes painful things as part of her treatment. The first time her doctors had to do an in-depth analysis of her asthma (study of the iGe protein) I chose a medical centre that was under the 'pediatric' section. Well, I though, they will know how to handle this (in the right way, the only 'pediatric' element I saw was a Mickey Mouse poster).  Leticia was about 4... you know what I mean. When we were going to the medical centre I told her about the injection, that it would hurt (yes, it would hurt) and bla bla bla. When the doctor received us, she said: ok, Leticia, now a mosquito is going to bite you on the arm. It won't hurt.  (!) She left and Leticia looked at me puzzled as if telling me: what was this lady talking about? So I repeated: it's an injection that will help us know why is it that you are always having trouble to breathe, Leticia, relax. She trusted me (she keeps trusting me and I know it has to do with situations like the one I have described.)

What I try to show here is that I know many people could have felt with the right to say something about my 'style'. BUT (huge but ) you can always disagree with other people doing it in a respectful way.

"I don't see the point of your being so straightforward to a 4year old girl because bla bla bla". (somebody's opinion)

"I think this is the best thing to do because she will soon realize that an injection is not a mosquito and it DOES hurt and bla bla bla". (mine)

This is just an exchange of points of view. I may have accepted comments (I did receive some because of the type of education I gave Leticia, as you may imagine, this is only a sample of how I see one's child education), even very criticial ones, but I would never have accepted aggresive words. Why would I accept them?

What I think is that certain beliefs will never be changed so it is useless to expose them to exchanges. A reasonable human being knows when it is worth going ahead and when it is not. I cannot understand xenophobia, to give you an example, what is the use of talking with somebody who thinks that a certain human group is inferior? Will I ever change my ideas? Never. Will that person change his/hers? No.

The other day, I was coming home by taxi. I usually enjoy talking with taxi drivers. We went pass the Red Zone and the taxi driver told me: look at those perverts! (transvestites, etc.) They should all be in prison. (?!)  I started trying to say something about freedom of sexual preferences and so on, but he got angrier. No use to continue talking. He spoke old Greek and I spoke Swahili. No translator at hand.

Although I love exchanges and communication as a way of living, I am not naïve and see that certain very very deep-rooted beliefs cannot be changed. This is what mankind (and womankind) looks like in the 21 century. Hopefully, things will be different in the future.  When those deep-rooted ideas can be discussed and even questioned with good manners, they are enriching, for sure, but this is a task that only superior minds can undertake.

I am looking forward to being surprised by your superior minds, miladies and milords.

Au

VARIAS familias alemanas??
Pero, con qué grado de avance de ceguera mental?
De qué edad? Familias de gentes de 80 anyos?
O quizás gente del bello y rico pueblo de Rosenheim, en las cercanías de Munich? Porque ahí sí que hay un nido de ... en fin.
Es increíble.


Del sitio oficial de http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/

The Beginnings: The Concentration Camp is Founded

"On Wednesday the first concentration camp with a capacity to hold 5,000 persons is to be erected in the vicinity of Dachau"

(Völkischer Beobachter, Tuesday, March 21, 1933)

On March 21 1933, Heinrich Himmler ordered that a concentration camp be erected at Dachau. This was the beginning of a terror system in Dachau that cannot be compared with any other state persecution and penal system. In June 1933, Theodor Eicke was appointed commandant of the concentration camp. He developed an organizational plan and rules with detailed stipulations, which were later to become valid for all concentration camps. Also from Eicke came the division of the concentration camp into two areas, namely the prisoners' camp surrounded by a variety of security facilities and guard towers and the so-called camp command area with administrative buildings and barracks for the SS.

Later appointed to the position of Inspector for all Concentration Camps, Eicke established the Dachau concentration camp as the model for all other camps and as the murder school for the SS.

Excerpt from the Tips for Parents in the Girls Go Tech booklet:

Studies show that young girls enjoy math, science and technology just as much as boys do. Yet by eighth grade, twice as many boys as girls show interest in science, engineering and mathematics careers. As a result, only 22 percent of engineers and scientists are women – even though women make up nearly half the workforce. If this pattern continues, many of today’s girls will miss out on the jobs of the future.

Adults like you hold the keys to change. How well a girl learns is often directly tied to a caring adult's involvement in her education. You can encourage a girl to see math, science and technology all around her. You can make it fun for her to explore these worlds. You can help her to find her own answers. Girl Scouting has encouraged girls to explore the world around them through science, math and technology for over 90 years. Today, Girl Scouts of the USA and the Ad Council have partnered to help you. Using this booklet as a starting point, you can show a girl that she need never stop excelling in math, science and technology. This message is a lifelong lesson and a wonderful gift.

Did You Know?
Women have been
mathematicians since
the 4th century?
Hypatia, an Egyptian,
was the first woman
mathematician that we
know about. She lived
from 370-415 AD.

http://www.girlsgotech.org

Of course the sentence applies to both, boys and girls. The point that this organization makes is that in most families and schools, as opposed to your lucky experience of being treated without a gender bias (an experience I myself totally relate to), girls are intentionally and/or unintentionally influenced to stay away from math, technology and science. And their effort is directed at showing mainstream families and schools that girls can be equally fit for professions in those fields as some boys are (BTW, people who think that way also tend to assume that most boys are better fit for math, technology and science, because they are, well, boys). And that has nothing to do with any idea of women growing up to be better than the men around them. It has everything to do with what you are pointing out: the paths that shall be open to individuals in life should not depend on their sex, but on their personality, skills, interests... that is exactly what this organization is saying.

You and I have been very lucky women, not being told when we were girls what to like and what not to like. But that does not mean we belong to the majority of females around the world. Now the part about the gender issue becoming almost ethereal I honestly did not understand. What do you mean by that?

Alicia, by "it applies to boys and girls" I mean that of course I agree with you (and I am sure that the people behind this organization do as well) on the role of adults in everyone's education. Organizations of this kind are devoted to girls and not to boys and girls because they sense that parents and schools still use a gender bias and tend to limit the scope of choice for females. Would it be best to have an organization fight for the right of females to be engineers and males to be wedding organizers? Sure! But that does not make this organization discriminatory. When you have a group (half the population of the world) generally considered less fit for roles that usually entail better income and more social recognition then I believe raising awareness on that issue is in itself against discrimination.

I believe that for women (and men) to be treated as peers we must first make sure that all of them have access to a non-biased environment where they can choose freely, which is far from true everywhere around the world. I fail to see how trying to open the eyes of moms and dads about the importance of letting their daughters choose what they want to be in the future can be counterproductive.

I now understand what you meant about the gender issue. And that is what this organization is about: forget about traditional roles. I am the one who should apologize, because regardless of my writing in English or Spanish pretty much all my attempts at introducing gender as an awareness-raising issue fail. This might not even belong in this thread. Hopefully someone will check out the website and its message for parents and understand that there is no discrimination involved, quite the contrary.

Atenea

p.s. I am having trouble with the quotes here, sorry.

Roddie, I have not abused generalizations more or less than anybody else in the fora. Your last words directed at me were not only rude and full of implications about my person, but they also carried a condescending tone that I do not appreciate. Your reputation also precedes you and biases the way I and others read your statements. Last time you nicely asked me to ignore your posts, I would appreciate your acting in kind.

Atenea

Gordon Ramsay's pet lamb slaughter 'has turned viewers into vegetarians'

Animal rights' group PETA has praised Gordon Ramsay for showing scenes of lambs being slaughtered to millions of viewers on his TV show.

PETA claims the images of two lambs being stunned with 200 volts of electricity and then being hung up and having their throats cut have turned a number of viewers vegetarian.

Viewers could clearly see blood gush from the open wound and then the immediate aftermath as each lamb still twitched - although they were both said to be dead and that was apparently the result of nerves still acting in their bodies.

http://tinyurl.com/2v6byn

"I BELIEVE that God wants me to be president." George W. Bush

=
"I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of
all people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany," Adolf Hitler
- Berlin March, 1936

=
God is not on the side of any nation, yet we know He is on the side of
justice. Our finest moments [as a nation] have come when we faithfully
served the cause of justice for our own citizens, and for the people of
other lands.: George W. Bush

=
If we pursue this way, if we are decent, industrious, and honest, if we
so loyally and truly fulfill our duty, then it is my conviction that in
the future as in the past the lord God will always help us: Adolf
Hitler, at the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival on the Buckeburg held on 3
Oct. 1937

=
"freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we
know that God is not neutral between them." George W. Bush

=
"Never in these long years have we offered any other prayer but this:
Lord, grant to our people peace at home, and grant and preserve to them
peace from the foreign foe!" : Adolf Hitler - Nuremberg Sept. 13, 1936.

I know! Courtesy of my friend and colleague Hergen Matussik, fellow activist from Tlaxcala. Allow me to share the following lines from Galeano, circulated today in our Tlaxcala list thanks to another fellow activist, Juan Vivanco:

Americanos

Cuenta la historia oficial que Vasco Núñez de Balboa fue el primer hombre que vio, desde una cumbre de Panamá, los dos océanos. Los que allí vivían, ¿eran ciegos?

¿Quiénes pusieron sus primeros nombres al maíz y a la papa y al tomate y al chocolate y a las montañas y a los ríos de América? ¿Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro? Los que allí vivían, ¿eran mudos?

Lo escucharon los peregrinos del Mayflower: Dios decía que América era la Tierra Prometida. Los que allí vivían, ¿eran sordos?

Después, los nietos de aquellos peregrinos del norte se apoderaron del nombre y de todo lo demás. Ahora, americanos son ellos. Los que vivimos en las otras Américas, ¿qué somos?

Eduardo Galeano

Thanks, Inés!

Does it really? In my eyes, it only confirms a peculiar aspect of his personality that in my rancho is simply called "perdonavidas."

What I find most scary (and history proves it) is this God & Politics combo in any of its presentations: whatever your political color, if you are running for a public post, get real and keep your religious beliefs to yourself. I find messianic people not worthy of my trust. And in my dictionary, "theocracy" is a bad word.

Besos,
Atenea