Hace un tiempo cuando comencé a trabajar todo el mundo me llamaba Luis, Luigi ya no existía más. Solo los viejos amigos me seguian llamando Luigi pero como todos tienen ahora ocupaciones laborales y demás, las salidas conjuntas se han visto disminuidas. “Luigi” ya casi no se escuchaba…

En mis ultimas clases en el TEC con gente “nueva” era Luis. Así que desde entonces cambie mi nick del MSN de Luigi a Luis. Y un día en el TEC un viejo amigo me hizo notar el cambio en el nick y le expliqué esto… larga historia??? No, historia de vida…

Marca etapas de vida que estamos obligados a vivir… El tiempo pasa, no lo podemos evitar, y lo que sucede es que la sociedad espera lo mejor de cada uno. Lo hacemos???

En un comercial de TV acabo de ver algo que decía que somos realmente libres cuando estamos en el vientre de nuestras madres, después de eso vivimos en una caja… será cierto??? Lo que podemos hacer es tratar de hacer que esa caja sea lo mejor posible… así que disfruten de sus cuatro paredes…

See ya!

If you were not happy with the pictures you saw in class, click, have a look at these ones and say what you think about them.

If you feel you need to watch the video again, click.

If you want to know more about her, click.

If you want to know who Esteban Volkov is, click

I hope you enjoy it!

Hon. Luis G. Fortuño
Governor of Puerto Rico

Remarks at Georgetown University Forum
The Presence of Puerto Rico in U.S. Politics
November 23, 2009

I would like to express my thanks to all of the organizations who worked together to make this Forum possible. The Center for Latin American Studies, the PRSSA – Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association, the Latin American Students Association, Georgetown Unidos, and my alma mater, Georgetown University.

Today marks a personal homecoming, to a place where my interest and vocation to public service was cultivated well.

Like students at Georgetown now, I found that greater exposure to and interest in public affairs back then led to commitment, participation and action. Part of that was co-founding PRSSA 30 years ago.

The work PRSSA began back then has very much to do with the topic of today’s forum, the presence of Puerto Rico in U.S. politics.

What I would like to do is highlight Puerto Rico’s presence in U.S. politics up to our own time and offer an assessment of where we are today and a vision for the future.

For starters, I often point out that Puerto Rico’s presence here on the mainland goes all the way back to my 16th century predecessor, Juan Ponce de León. He was the first Spanish governor of the island. In 1513 – some 107 years before the Mayflower Pilgrims disembarked on Plymouth Rock, Governor Ponce de León launched an expedition that led him to discover, for European eyes, what is today the U.S. state of Florida. He’s the person who gave Florida its name.

So Puerto Rico had a role from the very inception of the European colonization, and the politics of the continent. And as a matter of fact, it had a role in its decolonization as well.

In 1777, the Puerto Rican port city of Mayaguez offered shelter to the vessels and crew of two American privateers who were being pursued by the British. Even more significantly, in 1781, under the leadership of the then Spanish Governor of Louisiana, several hundred Puerto Rican soldiers took part in the successful siege of the British stronghold of Pensacola.

Some 117 years later, in 1898, the tables turned. Spain and the United States were at war. The U.S. moved to end Spanish colonial rule in Cuba and take Puerto Rico and the Philippines.

From the outset, incidentally, the dynamic in Puerto Rico was quite different from that of the other two colonies. U.S. forces did not join an ongoing struggle by local freedom fighters, because at the time Puerto Rico was not the locus of armed rebellion. As a matter of fact, on the way over and when they came ashore, U.S. forces were actually accompanied by a group of exiled mainland Puerto Ricans, one of whom, by the way, was don Mateo Fajardo, the great-great grandfather of Nicole Guillemard, the Director of my Washington office.

Looking back, it is fascinating to reflect upon the fact that Puerto Ricans here on the mainland have always played a very significant role in forging their homeland’s future. We’re going to get back to that.

But first back to the genesis of the territorial relationship in 1898. What happened, essentially, is that the promise of a better future for the island as part of the United States was received at face value. The United States was seen – and it has continued to be seen ever since, with good reason – as the world leader, since 1776, for freedom, human rights, democracy and progress.

Back in 1898, local political leaders, virtually in unison, solicited the immediate concession of U.S. citizenship and the opportunity for Puerto Rico to be accepted within the Nation as a territory, on the way to the equal rights and responsibilities of statehood.

The island’s champion for equality, as part of the United States, was a young medical doctor who had also earned his degree here on the mainland. His name was José Celso-Barbosa, the founder of the Republican Party of Puerto Rico.

We’re not here to reflect inordinately on the past. We certainly can’t do it over. But it’s important to understand what is the context, to this day, for the presence of Puerto Rico in U.S. politics. The context is that this Nation has yet to fulfill that justified expectation of equality.

For these past 111 years, we’ve been on a long road towards enfranchisement and full democracy. From 1898 to 1948, my predecessors as Governor were not elected by the people, but appointed by the President.

To this day, as many of you here know, we are represented in this capital city, in Congress, by a single representative in the United States House of Representatives with votes only in its committees. Today, under that limitation, Pedro Pierluisi represents 4 million U.S. citizens, six times as many as any other member of Congress.

The decisive development for the presence of Puerto Rico in U.S. politics is the bond of all of us being citizens of this Nation. In Puerto Rico, we have been U.S. citizens since 1917. As I said in Congress this past summer when I testified in favor of passage of the Puerto Rico Democracy Act, the framers of the Constitution did not intend some American citizens to be deprived of rights that other American citizens enjoy.

A former Speaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, Miguel Angel García-Méndez, put it this way: “For an American citizen, there cannot be another political goal other than equality with his or her fellow American citizens. To seek other solutions – to repudiate equality – is to repudiate the natural destiny of American citizenship.”

García-Méndez, along with former Governor Luis A. Ferré, had a hand in writing the preamble of Puerto Rico’s present Constitution, which points in the same direction. The Constitution, ratified by the people in 1952, declares that “we consider as determining factors in our life our citizenship of the United States of America and our aspiration to continually enrich our democratic heritage in the individual and collective enjoyment of its rights and privileges; our loyalty to the principles of the Federal Constitution; and the coexistence in Puerto Rico of the two great cultures of the American hemisphere.”

Despite, up until now, the lack of Puerto Rico’s full participation in U.S. politics, over the years progress has been made on many fronts.

For the last 30 years on the island, we’ve participated in both Democratic and Republican presidential primaries. We’ve sent delegations to the national conventions since 1904 – and have come to have very substantial representation in the conventions in recent years, but the primaries certainly changed the dynamic.

For those candidates who have come to the island and who have engaged the people by mounting real campaigns, the record shows that it has been a positive experience, for both the candidate and for Puerto Rico. I think of the first candidate, in 1980, who did just that. George Herbert Walker Bush campaigned door to door in Bayamón, with his son Jeb at his side, on his way to winning the first-ever Republican presidential primary on the island.

President Carter and Ted Kennedy, may he rest in peace, also had a spirited primary contest on the island that year, although only Kennedy campaigned on the island at the time.

By the way, a fact that’s indicative of the lack of political empowerment of territorial status is certainly this. Puerto Rico has not received a real visit by a sitting president, in office, since President Kennedy visited in 1962.

This is a situation that hopefully will change very soon. Last year, when then Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton faced off for what was the last major primary of the season, we saw real engagement and interest, both from the candidates and from voters. The candidates made very substantial commitments to the people of Puerto Rico. And one of the commitments seems to be bearing fruit: Candidate Obama’s commitment to include Puerto Ricans in his proposed new health insurance subsidies program led to Administration support for substantial inclusion.

We are also hopeful that the commitments will lead to other economic measures. When he was in Puerto Rico, the President saw the pain of the recession first hand. The recession on the island started two years before the recession here on the mainland.

Additionally, as my administration came into office at the mid-point of Puerto Rico’s fiscal year, we inherited a budget deficit of $3.2 billion. The deficit was more than four times the amount that had been certified to us a year ago, during the transition period. And in proportional terms, it was higher than California’s, and for that matter higher than that of any other state or territory of the United States.

Let there be no doubt, within my sphere of action as Governor, my biggest immediate priority – from the outset – has been to put our fiscal house in order, spur private sector growth and establish a solid foundation upon which we can build a new era of economic growth.

It turned out that since June of 2008, the Government of Puerto Rico had stopped paying its electricity bills, as well as its water and telephone bills. It owed more than $1 billion to suppliers.

This January, Puerto Rico was on the brink of bankruptcy…its credibility on Wall Street was in shambles, and our credit rating was on the verge of being downgraded to junk status. In simple terms, we were about to lose the house. But as I told our people last March, I didn’t come to look back. I came to look forward and take action to overcome this crisis.

Thankfully, we saved our credit on Wall Street, by taking immediate steps of fiscal discipline. For starters, I cut my salary, and all cabinet secretary salaries. I eliminated 30% of government political appointee positions. I cut operating expenses across the government by 10% across the board. And I pushed through legislation to freeze all government salaries and benefits for two years…and put in place a plan to incentivize voluntary retirement, transition to the private sector, and as a last resort begin the difficult process of layoffs that’s currently underway, and that other states and jurisdictions throughout the country are also going through.

In Congress and with the new Administration here in Washington, Pedro Pierluisi and I hit the ground running to make sure Puerto Rico was part of the federal stimulus package. Puerto Rico was fortunate to have elected to Congress my running mate, Pedro Pierluisi. For those of you who may not be aware, Pedro is a Democrat. For Puerto Rico, we are a bipartisan team. And I would be remiss if I did not mention the role that members of the New York congressional delegation have also had from the outset, including but not limited to Congressman José Serrano, Congressman Charlie Rangel and Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez.

As of this month, close to $1.5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds have reached our economy, out of more than $6 billion total that we will receive. Hundreds of millions have gone directly to individuals, such as the Making Work Pay and American Opportunity grants that have gone directly to workers and students, along with funds to students through increases in Pell Grants. ARRA funds are being invested in programs like Head Start, Health Reform and Nutritional Assistance, along with improvements to the island’s schools, roads and other basic infrastructure.
To leverage that momentum towards economic recovery, we also launched a local stimulus program. This includes funds to help low-income families buy homes, the construction of new low-cost housing, municipal projects, and guaranteed loans to small and medium-sized businesses.
This past summer, we also pushed through the most advanced public-private partnership legislation in the Nation. The importance of these partnerships is that they will allow us to continue developing infrastructure and state of the art public services in a way that doesn’t cost additional money to taxpayers. And it’s important to emphasize: these partnerships do not involve transferring the title of any public assets…the assets continue to be owned by the people.
Now let’s turn our attention to an issue that relates to Puerto Rico’s current agenda in Washington. As we all know, enacting health care reform is the President’s biggest priority. And the American citizens of Puerto Rico need to be fully included.

All Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care for themselves and their families, regardless of whether they live in a state or a territory. It makes no sense, from a strictly policy perspective, to have a health care system where the same U.S. citizens who receive health care impaired by lesser federal funding can access better funding merely by moving to the mainland.
In that context, for Puerto Rico and the other territories, the legislation the House passed earlier this month represents a step in the right direction. It would be a major step to parity in Medicaid. We would have significant inclusion in the health insurance exchange program.
In comparison, the bill before the Senate is disappointing. We are excluded from the healthcare exchange, meaning that under the Senate bill, our American citizens at lower income levels who are not on Medicare, Medicaid or an employer plan would not have any subsidies like their counterparts on the mainland, to purchase health insurance.
The increase in Medicaid funding would be much less
Fortunately, we have supporters in the Senate who recognize the reality that national healthcare reform cannot really be achieved if millions of Americans are left out. We are hoping that amendments on the Senate Floor or a final bill produced by a House-Senate reconciliation will rectify these issues. President Obama made pledges regarding Puerto Rico’s participation in federal healthcare, and we look forward to his support in the Senate debate and as the House and Senate resolve their differences.
Once again, in this whole process, the voices of Puerto Ricans here on the mainland, along with those of fellow Americans throughout the country, has been essential. Thanks to grassroots support, especially in Connecticut and other Northeastern states, we have champions who have taken up this cause.

It’s no accident that the Puerto Rican population in those states is well established and politically empowered.

It’s also important to highlight the growing importance, over the last 20 years or so, of Puerto Ricans in Florida. More than half a million people from the island have followed in the footsteps of Florida’s founder, my 16th century predecessor, Juan Ponce de León.

Florida’s Puerto Rican community, concentrated in the I-4 corridor of Central Florida, has also exhibited unique electoral behavior. They have proven to be swing voters, with President Bush making major inroads in 2000 and 2004, and President Obama winning them over in 2008.

At the macro level throughout the country, Puerto Ricans have established themselves as the second largest subgroup within the U.S. Latino population. Moreover, there are now more people of Puerto Rican origin residing on the mainland than there are on the island.

Puerto Ricans are well represented at the top in key fields. To cite just one example, the University of Puerto Rico is the source of most of the Nation’s Hispanic engineers. Within that subset, for example, within the ranks of NASA are hundreds of Puerto Rican engineers and scientists. This year, one of them, Joseph Acabá, filled us all with pride when he became the first Puerto Rican astronaut to ascend to the heavens, on the Space Shuttle Discovery.

In the overall equation, Puerto Rico’s role in the U.S. economy is also surprisingly significant. Puerto Rico has become one of the largest high-tech manufacturing centers in the United States. 13 of the top 20 best selling prescription medicines in the United States are also manufactured in Puerto Rico.

As a corporate lawyer by profession, I can also attest to the fact that Puerto Ricans play a role in facilitating trade and business transactions throughout the Americas.

We continue to gain greater visibility through the contributions we make to American society at all levels, and across the professional spectrum. The island has long had one of the highest per capita participation rates in the nation in the Armed Forces of this country. And this year, the eyes of America were on a Puerto Rican from the Bronx who grew up to become the first Latina on the Supreme Court of the United States, Sonia Sotomayor.

Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party platforms in 2008 recognized that action is needed on the question of the island’s political status.

The Democratic Party platform pledge is for the White House and Congress to work to enable the question of Puerto Rico’s status to be resolved during the current four term that began this January. President Obama reiterated that pledge to the people of Puerto Rico in a letter he made public on the day of my inauguration as Governor.

The Republican Party platform supports, and I quote, “the right of the United States citizens of Puerto Rico to be admitted to the Union as a fully sovereign state after they freely so determine.” It also calls for status referenda.

The Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2009, filed by Congressman Pierluisi this past May with over 80 Democratic and Republican co-sponsors, is designed to enable exactly the kind of fair and neutral process of self determination that both major party platforms envision. That’s why today, six months after its introduction, it has 182 sponsors and has been favorably reported out of Committee. The Puerto Rico Democracy Act is ready to go the full House.

The reasons to support the bill are so self-evident they should not have to be argued. Territorial status clearly offends the values of American democracy

The Puerto Rico Democracy Act is not a statehood bill. It would allow the people of Puerto Rico to maintain the current territorial status if they so choose or indicate their preference for one of the options for a form of government that is democratic at the national government level. If they vote for the status quo, there will follow periodic plebiscites to ask the question again, thus providing an opportunity to indicate a desire for a fully democratic status. If, at some point, the people of Puerto Rico opt for change, they can choose among the three alternatives: statehood, independence, and national sovereignty in association with the United States. No impossible smoke and mirrors proposals.

Ladies and gentlemen, the fundamental issue that the Puerto Rico Democracy Act brings before Congress and the American people is this: The people of Puerto Rico have a right to a form of government that would provide them with equal voting representation in the government that makes and implements their national laws and to determine their preference regarding the islands’ status among all of the possible options.

The urgency of this matter is not only Puerto Rico’s, but the Nation’s. As the President has reminded us, support for democracy begins at home.

I have a vision of Puerto Rico – and of America – where the citizens of the island are not separated by a wall of political inequality built upon the foundation of an interminable territorial status.

I see a Puerto Rico which finally takes its rightful place in the American family, with the same rights and the responsibilities as all the rest.

I see a Puerto Rico prepared to fulfill its potential for social, economic and political development, and that will enrich the Nation as a whole.

This is my vision of Puerto Rico and of America, and of a more perfect Union. I hope you share it. And I hope you will help me fight for it.

Fucker

Yorgo’s nap

3 tapettes

Odge and Azu

Official

Official

This is an old video, but in light of our upcoming trip, I thought it deserved reposting. Enjoy!

                                   Diário de Ana

Me desmancho toda por dentro. Já não tenho mais lágrimas. Quando eles brigamm meu mundo cai. É como se não existisse mais esperança.

Laura e Luís. Pai e filha. Têm pensamentos totalmente contrários um do outro. Luís faz questão de dizer que Laura não existe para ele. laura também tem um gênio difícil. Quer dominar o pai. Luís é indomável.

Os dois me acusam por ficar do lado de um ou de outro. Cobram-me uma posição. Digo que vejo erros dos dois lados. Os dois não admitem e seguem com mútuas agressões verbais.

Minha tristeza rói a minha alma e peço para morrer lentamente. As vezes quero morrer depressa, na esperança de que eles consigam viver melhor.

Que fazer se amo os dois.

As pequenas coisas já não têm mais o brilho que antes tinham.

                                                        Ana

Et le temps s’arrête
Pictures by Luis Davis
Black and White Ilford on Pentax ME Super

JUAS!!

Por favor, no dejen de acceder a los dos vídeos que cuelgo abajo, excelente retrato de José Luis Perez Díaz, “Carod”. De manera que Carod es su nombre artístico. Como Prince. Carod es más español que yo, que me apellido Medina. ¡Juas! Es gracioso ver que Pérez Díez “Carod” cojea de la misma pezuña que su hermano político, Adolfito Hitler, que ocultaba su condición judía, o como su otro hermano político, Josep Lluís Ahmadineyad, que oculta también su condición de judío.

Si bien Hitler y Ahmadineyad ocultaban su herencia genética falseando partidas de nacimiento y Carod, simplemente, gritando, como un cerdo al que le retuercen la oreja, que se llama Josep Lluís. Con eso les vale a sus votantes. ¡Cullons!

Paletos de pueblo, como turistas en Disneylandia

Y es que Pérez Díaz “Carod” se alimenta de la figura del renegado. Carod es un renegado que se chufla en sus orígenes. Y con tan burda maniobra del nombre artístico, se chufla también en la inteligencia de su electorado, ¡con excelentes resultados electorales!

Éste Carod es un impostor, y es pernicioso. Utiliza el dinero español en detrimento del idioma español en Sudamérica. Perjudicando a sus protejidos indios, confinándolos a su idioma original, sin proyección. La excusa: el arraigo cultural. El motivo real y obvio, hacernos perder influencia idiomática. El sueño de Carod es hacer del español un idioma de minorías. No es casual, que ya zonas no tan limítrofes con cataluña se quieran acoger a la influencia idiomática catalana para gozar de unos presupuestos sensiblemente más abultados, como ya está ocurriendo en municipios aragoneses, que se ven tentados a plegarse al catalán para recibir nuevos presupuestos, ayudas para el catalán, más dinero para la escuela, un negocio de rótulos para el cuñado del alcalde, y la protección de una mafia institucional que trae negocio y se lleva tu alma. Pérez Díaz “Carod” es un enemigo político real. Un catalán de chichinabo, pero un enemigo real. Lo mismo que Otegui, el día que decida escenificar el rechazo a la violencia. Ambos gustan, por cierto, de rodearse de terroristas.

El aragonés (ab)errante ya metió a político a varios terroristas de Terra Lliure. Hizo de mamporrero de la ETA, pero apuntando para acá. Y se caga en la teta que le ofrece Zapatero y su mamandurria barra libre, cada vez que tiene ocasión. Ni como compatriota ni como huésped tiene perdón. Como vecino, su mezquindad no tendrá, o tendría, límites.

No dejéis de ver éstos dos vídeos sobre José Luis, Pérez Díez “Carod”.

Un Político Carroñero I

Un Político Carroñero II

]]> http://5kazekage.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/1408-is-it-your-lucky-number/ Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:13:35 +0000 5kazekage http://5kazekage.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/1408-is-it-your-lucky-number/

Γιατί αν it is ξανασκέψου το, το σκέφτηκες; Δεν αλλάζεις γνώμη; Τότε για δες το 1408, την ταινία του Stephen King… Αααα τώρα το σκέφτεσαι καλύτερα… τι;;; Αποφασίζεις ότι το 13 σου φαίνεται πιο τυχερό τελικά; Όπως κατάλαβες θα γράψω πάλι για τον King γιατί είναι απλά θεός και γιατί το 1408 είναι η πρώτη ταινία βασισμένη σε βιβλίο του που πρέπει να τον κάνει περήφανο. Και περιέργως όχι τόσο λόγω σεναρίου…

Σεναριακά αναφέρεται σε έναν συγγραφέα που ασχολείται με τη horror λογοτεχνία και για να κατεβάσει ιδέες πάει σε μέρη που θεωρούνται στοιχιωμένα, λόγω της ενασχόλησής του με το θέμα έχει γίνει κυνικός και ατρόμητος, όμως το Dolphin Hotel και πιο συγκεκριμένα το δωμάτιο 1408 κρύβει εκπλήξεις. Ότι θεωρούσε φαντασία ο συγγραφέας μας γίνεται πραγματικότητα, και ο King βρίσκει για άλλη μία φορά τον πιο σαδιστικό τρόπο για να βασανίσει τον χαρακτήρα του.

Επομένως σεναριακά δεν υπάρχει επανάσταση. Η σκηνοθεσία όμως σε αφήνει σύξηλο, είναι πάρα πολύ καλή και για ταινία του είδους απλά τέλεια, ακόμα και φωτογραφία με άποψη έχει σε μια ταινία που είναι γυρισμένη σε ένα δωμάτιο. Οι ερμηνείες είναι και αυτές πολύ καλές με τον Samuel Jackson να είναι πάντα ο style-άτος εαυτός του και τον John Cusack να είναι πολύ πειστικός. Και δικαίως κέρδισε δύο βραβεία και έθεσε άλλες τέσσερις υποψηφιότητες.

Το βιβλίο πάνω στο οποίο βασίζεται η ταινία είναι το “Όλα είναι δυνατά” που δεν το έχω διαβάσει ακόμα, επομένως το 1408 με παρότρυνε να κάνω δύο πράγματα, να διαβάσω το εν λόγω βιβλίο και να δω και άλλα έργα του Mikael Hafstrom (ο σκηνοθέτης του 1408).

Υ.Γ.: Αν προσθέσεις τα ψηφία του 1408 θα παρατηρήσεις ότι 1+4+0+8=13 spooky…