Effy, a jabuticabeira

    Novo hobby. Comprei um bonsai de origem Brasileira. É um bonsai de jabuticabeira da espécie Myrciaria cauliflora e hoje completa uma semana que Effy, a jabuticabeira, está comigo. Mal entrei (se entrei) na arte do Bonsai e já estou afoito para desfolhar e aramar a jabuticabeira para planejar algo parecido com um hokidachi.

    "Bonsai (Japonês: 盆栽, bon-sai), que significa 'árvore em bandeja'.

Um bonsai precisa ter outros atributos além de simplesmente estar num vaso raso. A planta deve ser uma réplica de uma árvore da natureza em miniatura. Deve simular os padrões de crescimento e os efeitos da gravidade sobre os galhos, além das marcas do tempo e estrutura geral dos galhos. Essencialmente é uma obra de arte produzida pelo homem através de cuidados especializados", (GOOGLE). 

    Tão pouco tempo para tamanho aprendizado. Com a chegada de Effy, eu tenho que me atentar para a chegada e o término das "quatro" estações do ano. Porém, como moro na região Centro-Oeste do Brasil, verão e inverno são as estações que mais predominam aqui. Transplante, desfolhamento, aramação, copa, adubação, torrão, destorroar, enraizador, rega, envazar, broto, são alguns dos novos vocábulos que passei a usar com mais frequência. 

    A partir de algumas leituras sobre o cultivo do bonsai, descobri que o segredo principal dessa encantadora arte milenar é a PACIÊNCIA. O autoconhecimento, a observação do pensamento como também a observação do todo, são alguns dos vários benefícios proporcionados para os/as praticantes da arte do bonsai.  Minha jornada com Effy acabou de começar (: Caso você tenha interesse em iniciar-se no cultivo do bonsai, segue abaixo alguns sítios que podem ser úteis:

http://www.abcdobonsai.com.br/ 

http://macdonaldfernandes.wordpress.com/

http://bonsai.andretoledo.com.br/
http://www.atelierdobonsai.com.br/index.php 

A Fresh New Day

Morning is slowly making its way through the overnight.

Brother opens the door and grabs the clothes iron.
I woke up.

Stretching under the blanket, I tried to force myself into sleeping again - but that was unsuccessful.

My peaceful sleep was gone due to the smell of a delicious breakfast which abruptly invades my nose and brings the duties of a new day into my head.

  

A Raging Thirst

Being thirsty has never been a problem before.

Perhaps, I've never moved - but if that, somehow, happened before, it was only a few and slow steps forward.
So many constructive debates and discussions out there - yet the only thing I can do is to feel thirsty.
For now, I've been drinking fairly well from varied sources, however a raging thirst never happens to cease. 

Constructive debates and discussions move on as well as a craving to drink thirstily.

I see a long journey ahead along with a willingness to keep walking and, consequently, a never-stopping desire to drink.

 

Eu não sou bandido!!!

    Um traficante estava numa esquina movimentada vendendo, destemidamente, produtos roubados e drogas. Eu estava acompanhado com meu irmão (Jefferson). Eu comprei algo da mão do tal traficante e o aconselhei que pegasse a grande quantidade de dinheiro que ele já havia adquirido das vendas e fugisse daquele local antes que os policiais militares o prendessem. 

    Era feriado. O traficante estava bastante tranquilo. Ele me disse, ainda, que aquilo não daria em nada. Então, eu avisei a ele que outros 4 traficantes já haviam sido presos ali, logo, era melhor ele dar o fora com a grana antes que perdesse tudo e ainda acabasse preso. Ele, muito confiante, decidiu permanecer no local traficando e vendendo os produtos que eram frutos de roubo e contrabando.

    Cinco minutos depois, passa uma das novas viaturas da polícia militar em velocidade de perseguição. Tentando disfarçar, ficamos quietos e calados. Logo passaram várias outras viaturas da policia militar tão veloz quanto a primeira. Repentinamente, todas aquelas viaturas começaram a tumultuar aquele ponto onde estava o traficante. De tão atônito que ficou ele não conseguia falar e nem se mover para tentar uma fuga. O mais assustador daquela situação foi que eu e meu irmão havíamos acabado de comprar algo do tal traficante e poderíamos todos ser confundidos com uma quadrilha de traficantes. 

    O lugar era residencial e próximo a uma avenida. Os policiais militares desceram rapidamente das viaturas e, sem distinguir quem era quem, foi logo nos amordaçando da cabeça aos pés com uma fita grossa e pesada usada para amarrar carga de grandes caminhões cargueiros.

    Eu estava desesperado sem saber o que fazer e dizer. Então, muito nervoso e com a voz tremula, eu disse aos policiais que eles estavam cometendo um engano. Eu lhes disse que eu e meu irmão não éramos traficantes. Os policiais  não davam ouvido para o que eu dizia. Aquele evento me fez sentir realmente como um bandido.

    Aquela situação de impotência me deixava mais apavorado ainda porque eu e meu irmão estávamos prestes a sermos totalmente amordaçados e imobilizados como múmias. O pior de tudo aquilo era não saber qual era o propósito dos policiais militares em nos atar e paralisar tão brutalmente, e o que seria feito de nós. E, sim, eu cheguei a imaginar que eles dariam um fim em nós.

    Havia uma única chance de eu acabar com aquilo tudo, pois eu contava com o fato de ser universitário e estava com a minha carteira estudantil. Em nervos e com as mãos tremulas, enquanto falava que eu era estudante universitário e professor, eu me esforçava para retirar a minha carteira do bolso e dar um fim em todo aquele filme de terror. Entretanto, o que parecia ser uma simples tarefa se complicou porque eu estava atônito e tremia muito. Eu não conseguia encontrar a carteira estudantil que estava na minha carteira de bolso.

    Finalmente eu encontrei minha carteira estudantil e, num respiro de alívio, eu a entreguei  ao policial militar. Então, ele certificou-se da veracidade do que eu havia dito. Ele constatou que eu era realmente aluno da Universidade de Brasília. Porém, corrupto e descaradamente, ele disse que aquilo poderia ser resolvido de forma simples. Ele, então, começou a raspar com a unha a minha carteira estudantil na tentativa de acabar/eliminar com a única prova de que eu era inocente e estava ali por acaso. Meu coração batia compulsivamente. Eu estava em estado de pânico, pois eu não tinha ideia do que seria feito de mim e do meu irmão, mas inconscientemente eu esperava por algo ruim... acordei (Ufffffa).   

Obs.: tive esse pesadelo hoje e o descrevi logo após acordar.
   

Fragrance & Memory

    Intrigued by the memories and emotions I had/felt at childhood times evoked by the sudden smell of a particular fragrance last week on the rush of my daily routine I was led to find out studies regarding the connection between frangrances /scent and memory.

      What happens to us is a sort of transportation to the past when we feel a particular scent. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, however, I got very intrigued by the way I was transported to my childhood times to the extent that I could experience and feel the same events and emotions I had/felt before. Perhaps it’s a common sense that there’s an enormous connection between scent and memory – even though we may not be conscious of it, we do experience it. Just like books, music, movies and photos, scent/fragrances may inspire and take us somewhere else.

The day before yesterday I went slack lining with a mate (Jeorge) and while we were coming back home we passed by a small pringles’ can. Then, he picked it up and said he would make a pencil holder out of it. The pringles’ can accidently fell on the floor and consequently produced a kind of distorted sound (a sound of varying waves of a can falling on the floor, I’d say). Guess what??? Yes, just like a particular fragrance I felt last week evoked very fresh moments of my past, that sound of a can falling on the floor brought some marvelous events of my childhood times back - playing with childhood mates (that was awesome).

Well, I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve got to the considerations that those experiences above revolves around our human senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch). Maybe each one of these senses is a particular and complex system of language that some of us may or may not master it (or at least understand it).

Due to contemporary life we are led to rely upon and exercise only some basic languages, e.g. verbal language, written language, and visual language.  However, each one of our 5 human senses do tell us a lot about ourselves, our environment, the people around us and what is about to come (intuition). Currently, there are even some people claiming a sixth sense (watch the movie, by the way) but I must say I should have some more readings about this issue. My final question for this post is: can our 5 human senses, somehow, have a connection to the so called sixth sense? If so, how?

*I would appreciate any consideration about this topic and suggestions for further readings \(:_
* Watch: Perfume - The Story of a Murderer (Directed by Tom Tykwer)
This is a must-see BBC documentary. It's really worth watching:

The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished

    The death penalty or the capital punishment is a term used to describe the act of putting a person to death, in other words, it is the execution of a person after judgment by a legal system, either as an act of retribution, or to ensure that they cannot commit future crimes. According to the Northwestern University School of Law's Center of Wrongful Convictions (CWC), there have been a total of 15,645 executions due to the death penalty in the U.S.; 14,489 of these occurred before the U.S. Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972 and 1,156 occurred after capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. Also, CWC documented over 38 executions since the mid-1970s where there was compelling evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt. Another 130 death row inmates were exonerated, instead of executed, between 1973 and 2008 due to emerging evidence, including DNA analysis. A smaller number of people have been exonerated posthumously. Thus, the death penalty is expensive, it can be used in a biased fashion, and innocent people are put to death.

    Most areas with the death penalty laws also allow for many more appeals in capital punishment cases. Usually, criminals convicted in death penalty trials will gradually use up those appeals over years and years, and it can be very expensive for the state to continually go through the prosecutions. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the amount of money spent on these trials will usually exceed the cost required to keep a person in prison for life.

    The death penalty is biased. Even though most agree that modern laws are usually written without an intentional racial or financial bias, people with more money and social status are often able to get a better defense because they can afford more accomplished lawyers and pay for more impressive expert witnesses. Experts also believe that the racial composition of a jury can often give minorities a huge disadvantage. There are statistics regarding death penalty convictions which are more racially lopsided than some would think.

*(1973-present) Statistical numbers taken from the DPIC (Death Penalty Information Center).

*A comprehensive study in the death penalty in North Caronila found that the odds of receiving a death sentence rose by 3.5 times among those defendantes whose victims were white. (Profº. Jack Borger and Dr. Isaac Unah, University of North Carolina, 2001).

    There is a big possibility of a false conviction leading to the punishment of an innocent person. There have been cases over the years where evidence was disproved after an execution and many cases where conclusive evidence saved someone from execution at the last moment. The chance for a mistake is too great, regardless of the relative effectiveness of the death penalty.     

*Statistical numbers taken from DPIC (Death Penalty Information Center)

*Since 1973-present, over 130 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence.  (Staff Report, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil & Constitutional Rights, Oct. 1993, with updates from DPIC). 

*From 1973-1999, there was an average of 3.1 exonarations per years. From 2000-2007, there has been an average of 5 exonerations per year. 

    Although those in favor of the death penalty believe that it can discourage future crimes, there is not credible evidence that it deters crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment. States that have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than states without such laws. And states that have abolished capital punishment do not show significant changes in either crime or murder rates. The death penalty has not a deterrent effect. Claims that each execution deters a certain number of murders have been thoroughly discredited by social science research.

 

*According to a survey of the former and present presidents of the country's top academic criminological societies, 88% of these experts rejected the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murderer. (Radelet & Lacock, 2009)

    In conclusion, the death penalty is surely more expensive than life sentence, it is unfair with the poor ones and with black people, and it may even lead to the execution of innocent people.