Monday, January 24, 2011
Brazilian Hair
Melhor descricao de cabelo tonhonhom ou Don King do mundo, que nos caracteriza, locais aqui.... Louis Agassiz numa expedicao na Amazonia levou o William James que com 23 anos desenhava as coisas, e a "diarista" deles la era uma tal de Alexandrina. Eles estavam numa expedicao de "catalogacao". Agassiz, o grande naturalista suico levou William junto, o filosofo e psicologo que desenhava e escrevia pra cacete. Eh a melhor e mais poetica definicao de cabelo ruim em outro idioma....
"...The adjoining sketch is a portrait of my little house-maid Alexandrina who, from her mixture of Negro and Indian blood, is rather a curious illustration of the amalgamation of races here. She consented yesterday, after a good deal of coy demur, to have her portrait taken. Mr. Agassiz wanted it especially on account of her extraordinary hair, which, though it has lost its compact negro crinkle, and acquired something of the length and texture of the Indian hair, retains, nevertheless, a sort of wiry elasticity, so that, when combed out, it stands off from her head in all directions as electrified..."
Isso devia estar pregado em todos os saloes de beleza de escovas progressivas. Sempre fomos os animais exoticos estudados por outrem... Que belo texto.... Very funny.....
Isso foi no Solimoes, depois pegou outro "buque" e foi ter com Tavares Bastos, rio abaixo, a epoca deputado por Alagoas mas interessado nas coisas amazonenses, for sure...
"...The adjoining sketch is a portrait of my little house-maid Alexandrina who, from her mixture of Negro and Indian blood, is rather a curious illustration of the amalgamation of races here. She consented yesterday, after a good deal of coy demur, to have her portrait taken. Mr. Agassiz wanted it especially on account of her extraordinary hair, which, though it has lost its compact negro crinkle, and acquired something of the length and texture of the Indian hair, retains, nevertheless, a sort of wiry elasticity, so that, when combed out, it stands off from her head in all directions as electrified..."
Isso devia estar pregado em todos os saloes de beleza de escovas progressivas. Sempre fomos os animais exoticos estudados por outrem... Que belo texto.... Very funny.....
Isso foi no Solimoes, depois pegou outro "buque" e foi ter com Tavares Bastos, rio abaixo, a epoca deputado por Alagoas mas interessado nas coisas amazonenses, for sure...
Monday, January 10, 2011
My girl
My girl,
I am a man of words only, very little action, but above all words. You blow me away with your extravagant laughter, your contagiousness, your courage above all. Everyone is unique in one sense or more than three… You are more than all of that. You are my Henry V. You took the doubters, you shat on everyone’s head and you still made them laugh with you. Sometimes people have to stop and recognize the greatness in others… You are one of the very few, the proud few, the happy few (polish up your Shakespeare). I am so proud to be your father that I have no words to express my affection. Keep on with your life, share it the way you are sharing it now. What purpose is life without sharing it, right? I will send a fastball in the middle, do not worry. This is because you always help me to become a better person.
You still have a long way to go, keep the consistency. The other paths are treacherous and dangerous leading to tears and pain. Stay the course. We all must. Time always runs out. But love will always be there. A sad Papi turns its lonely eyes to you. Where have you gone, like a DiMaggio…? Now you are far but I carry you in my heart.
Remember uncle, love and only love will endure. And like Neil Young would say further, love only love, will break it down. Thanks for the impeccable behavior of affection. That is what I expect.
The best thing I can tell you and the most truthful one. I hope I can be like you one day….
Love, Papi…..
I am a man of words only, very little action, but above all words. You blow me away with your extravagant laughter, your contagiousness, your courage above all. Everyone is unique in one sense or more than three… You are more than all of that. You are my Henry V. You took the doubters, you shat on everyone’s head and you still made them laugh with you. Sometimes people have to stop and recognize the greatness in others… You are one of the very few, the proud few, the happy few (polish up your Shakespeare). I am so proud to be your father that I have no words to express my affection. Keep on with your life, share it the way you are sharing it now. What purpose is life without sharing it, right? I will send a fastball in the middle, do not worry. This is because you always help me to become a better person.
You still have a long way to go, keep the consistency. The other paths are treacherous and dangerous leading to tears and pain. Stay the course. We all must. Time always runs out. But love will always be there. A sad Papi turns its lonely eyes to you. Where have you gone, like a DiMaggio…? Now you are far but I carry you in my heart.
Remember uncle, love and only love will endure. And like Neil Young would say further, love only love, will break it down. Thanks for the impeccable behavior of affection. That is what I expect.
The best thing I can tell you and the most truthful one. I hope I can be like you one day….
Love, Papi…..
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Rational Irrationality
John Cassidy on economics, money, and more.« Top 10 Main January 3, 2011
Facebook-Goldman: Where Is the S.E.C.?
Posted by John Cassidy
Happy New Year everybody. I’m working on a post about the economic prospects for 2011, but, first-up, a quick memo to Mary Schapiro, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission: Mary, once again the boys and girls at Goldman Sachs appear to be making a mockery of you and your colleagues.
How else to describe the news from Dealbook that Goldman is setting up a special purpose vehicle to allow rich people to invest in Facebook? Under the securities laws, once a company has more than five hundred investors it is obliged to convert into a public company by issuing stock to investors at large. It is well known that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, doesn’t want the hassle of running a public company, not yet, at least, and Goldman’s latest wheeze seems to be designed to let him have his cake and eat it. If the deal goes ahead, Facebook will get up to two billion dollars of new capital to invest in its business but will, for the moment, remain a private company—of sorts.
As part of the deal, Goldman will reportedly invest $450 million in Facebook and Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm which already has a substantial stake in the social network platform, will invest another $50 million, but that is only stage one. In stage two, according to Dealbook, “Goldman is expected to raise as much as $1.5 billion from investors for Facebook at the $50 billion valuation, people involved in the discussions said.” The story goes on: “While the S.E.C. requires companies with more than 499 investors to disclose their financial results to the public, Goldman’s proposed special purpose vehicle may be able get around such a rule because it would be managed by Goldman and considered just one investor, even though it could conceivably be pooling investments from thousands of clients.”
Say one thing for Goldman: the firm has chutzpah. Just last July, there it was acting all contrite and paying $550 million to settle an S.E.C. suit that charged it with misleading investors in marketing some complex securities tied to sub-prime mortgages. Goldman failed to disclose that one of its biggest clients, John Paulson, the hedge fund manager, had helped to select the sub-prime loans underpinning the securities, and that he stood to gain handsomely if the securities fell in value, which they quickly did. Six months later and Goldman again appears to be trying to twist the securities laws for the benefit of itself and one of its clients—Facebook.
Maybe, there’s more to the story than this, but based on today’s reports it looks like Goldman is, once again, running rings around the regulators.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2011/01/facebook-goldman-where-is-the-sec.html#ixzz1A698uyrr
Facebook-Goldman: Where Is the S.E.C.?
Posted by John Cassidy
Happy New Year everybody. I’m working on a post about the economic prospects for 2011, but, first-up, a quick memo to Mary Schapiro, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission: Mary, once again the boys and girls at Goldman Sachs appear to be making a mockery of you and your colleagues.
How else to describe the news from Dealbook that Goldman is setting up a special purpose vehicle to allow rich people to invest in Facebook? Under the securities laws, once a company has more than five hundred investors it is obliged to convert into a public company by issuing stock to investors at large. It is well known that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, doesn’t want the hassle of running a public company, not yet, at least, and Goldman’s latest wheeze seems to be designed to let him have his cake and eat it. If the deal goes ahead, Facebook will get up to two billion dollars of new capital to invest in its business but will, for the moment, remain a private company—of sorts.
As part of the deal, Goldman will reportedly invest $450 million in Facebook and Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm which already has a substantial stake in the social network platform, will invest another $50 million, but that is only stage one. In stage two, according to Dealbook, “Goldman is expected to raise as much as $1.5 billion from investors for Facebook at the $50 billion valuation, people involved in the discussions said.” The story goes on: “While the S.E.C. requires companies with more than 499 investors to disclose their financial results to the public, Goldman’s proposed special purpose vehicle may be able get around such a rule because it would be managed by Goldman and considered just one investor, even though it could conceivably be pooling investments from thousands of clients.”
Say one thing for Goldman: the firm has chutzpah. Just last July, there it was acting all contrite and paying $550 million to settle an S.E.C. suit that charged it with misleading investors in marketing some complex securities tied to sub-prime mortgages. Goldman failed to disclose that one of its biggest clients, John Paulson, the hedge fund manager, had helped to select the sub-prime loans underpinning the securities, and that he stood to gain handsomely if the securities fell in value, which they quickly did. Six months later and Goldman again appears to be trying to twist the securities laws for the benefit of itself and one of its clients—Facebook.
Maybe, there’s more to the story than this, but based on today’s reports it looks like Goldman is, once again, running rings around the regulators.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2011/01/facebook-goldman-where-is-the-sec.html#ixzz1A698uyrr
Freud in China New Yorker
Dispatches by Evan Osnos.« China on the Couch Main January 4, 2011
Americanitis vs. Chinitis
Posted by Evan Osnos
Becoming a richer, more powerful country has rarely been relaxing. In the magazine this week, I write about the advent of a new era of psychology in China, which reflects the mounting pressures on ordinary citizens in an age of prosperity. There is precedent here. In 1881, at the height of the American industrial revolution, New York doctor George Beard published “American Nervousness,” about the fraying effects of modern life. Every person was born with a limited supply of nervous energy, Beard wrote, and depleting it in the hustle of modern civilization led to “neurasthenia,” a mix of fatigue and confusion named after the Greek for “tired nerves.” Neurasthenia rapidly became a household word in America, a fashionable affliction that carried the air of sophistication and striving. Its famous sufferers included Theodore Roosevelt, Jane Addams, and William James, who popularized its nickname, “Americanitis.” In 1925, a doctor estimated that a quarter of a million people were dying before the age of fifty every year because of “the hurry, bustle and incessant drive of the American temperament.” The Rexall drug company patented “Americanitis Elixir” for the “man of business, weakened by the strain of your duties.”
Neurasthenia eventually lost favor among American psychiatrists—Sigmund Freud, among others, redirected the study of the mind toward the inner workings, not the outer pressures—and it was ultimately sidelined from American diagnostic manuals. But one of the only places in the world where Americanitis maintained a foothold well into the nineteen-nineties was China. It was an easy fit for China because it echoed traditional medical concepts of qi, the vital life force, and it allowed patients to avoid the stigma of mental illness by describing their symptoms as fatigue, headache, or other physical sensations. When Arthur Kleinman, the Harvard psychiatrist and China expert, studied a hospital in Hunan province in the early eighties—the first frantic moments of China’s economic rise—he found that the most common diagnosis at the hospital was none other than neurasthenia. China, in other words, had come down with an acute case of Americanitis.
These days, Americanitis has fallen out of use again; Chinese doctors are far more likely to apply more familiar diagnoses, such as depression and chronic fatigue syndrome. But there many questions about China’s mental-health future that have yet to be settled. Some things worth exploring:
• Kleinman, of Harvard, is tracking whether the sheer speed and scale of China’s economic improvements will spare the country the full traumatic effects of its political upheavals. He’ll be writing about that soon, but, in the meantime, “Rethinking Psychiatry” remains the classic look at the impact of culture on the treatment of the mind.
• In the book “Crazy Like Us,” Ethan Watters argues that the West is exporting a one-size-fits-all approach to mental illness. He draws on the good work of Professor Sing Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Lee has tracked various ways in which China’s changes have been reflected in the minds of its people, including, as he described to me recently, the peculiar case of “Traveling Psychosis,” which produced a string of violent outbursts aboard Chinese trains in the eighties and nineties. The attackers were overwhelmingly young, first-time travelers en route to China’s booming coastal factory towns, without the money to pay for seats. After two or three days of standing in the aisles or toilets, on trains packed to the hilt with two or three times the legal limits, the young travelers began to wound and kill each other. As soon as they were removed from trains, the attackers often went right back to normal. “Traveling Psychosis” is rarely, if ever, found outside China, but as Sing Lee reminded me, it echoed the experience of nineteenth-century America, when the sudden new experience of the railroads left people addled by the experience.
KeywordsArthur Kleinman; China; Ethan Watters; Sing Lee; mental health; psychiatry; traveling psychosis
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2011/01/americanitis-vs-chinitis.html#ixzz1A68ctaKg
Americanitis vs. Chinitis
Posted by Evan Osnos
Becoming a richer, more powerful country has rarely been relaxing. In the magazine this week, I write about the advent of a new era of psychology in China, which reflects the mounting pressures on ordinary citizens in an age of prosperity. There is precedent here. In 1881, at the height of the American industrial revolution, New York doctor George Beard published “American Nervousness,” about the fraying effects of modern life. Every person was born with a limited supply of nervous energy, Beard wrote, and depleting it in the hustle of modern civilization led to “neurasthenia,” a mix of fatigue and confusion named after the Greek for “tired nerves.” Neurasthenia rapidly became a household word in America, a fashionable affliction that carried the air of sophistication and striving. Its famous sufferers included Theodore Roosevelt, Jane Addams, and William James, who popularized its nickname, “Americanitis.” In 1925, a doctor estimated that a quarter of a million people were dying before the age of fifty every year because of “the hurry, bustle and incessant drive of the American temperament.” The Rexall drug company patented “Americanitis Elixir” for the “man of business, weakened by the strain of your duties.”
Neurasthenia eventually lost favor among American psychiatrists—Sigmund Freud, among others, redirected the study of the mind toward the inner workings, not the outer pressures—and it was ultimately sidelined from American diagnostic manuals. But one of the only places in the world where Americanitis maintained a foothold well into the nineteen-nineties was China. It was an easy fit for China because it echoed traditional medical concepts of qi, the vital life force, and it allowed patients to avoid the stigma of mental illness by describing their symptoms as fatigue, headache, or other physical sensations. When Arthur Kleinman, the Harvard psychiatrist and China expert, studied a hospital in Hunan province in the early eighties—the first frantic moments of China’s economic rise—he found that the most common diagnosis at the hospital was none other than neurasthenia. China, in other words, had come down with an acute case of Americanitis.
These days, Americanitis has fallen out of use again; Chinese doctors are far more likely to apply more familiar diagnoses, such as depression and chronic fatigue syndrome. But there many questions about China’s mental-health future that have yet to be settled. Some things worth exploring:
• Kleinman, of Harvard, is tracking whether the sheer speed and scale of China’s economic improvements will spare the country the full traumatic effects of its political upheavals. He’ll be writing about that soon, but, in the meantime, “Rethinking Psychiatry” remains the classic look at the impact of culture on the treatment of the mind.
• In the book “Crazy Like Us,” Ethan Watters argues that the West is exporting a one-size-fits-all approach to mental illness. He draws on the good work of Professor Sing Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Lee has tracked various ways in which China’s changes have been reflected in the minds of its people, including, as he described to me recently, the peculiar case of “Traveling Psychosis,” which produced a string of violent outbursts aboard Chinese trains in the eighties and nineties. The attackers were overwhelmingly young, first-time travelers en route to China’s booming coastal factory towns, without the money to pay for seats. After two or three days of standing in the aisles or toilets, on trains packed to the hilt with two or three times the legal limits, the young travelers began to wound and kill each other. As soon as they were removed from trains, the attackers often went right back to normal. “Traveling Psychosis” is rarely, if ever, found outside China, but as Sing Lee reminded me, it echoed the experience of nineteenth-century America, when the sudden new experience of the railroads left people addled by the experience.
KeywordsArthur Kleinman; China; Ethan Watters; Sing Lee; mental health; psychiatry; traveling psychosis
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2011/01/americanitis-vs-chinitis.html#ixzz1A68ctaKg
