" Miss Me Yet?" Of the Mind,Of The Self,Freedom of Thought and Being

He says, " This gives confidence "......

"They are not capable of a dialogue ; they don't believe in it.

The believe in force".

On this gray wet morning, I look out the window ,hoping to see some streaks of blue, the cerulean blue,with a tinge of pink, that will inspire me to draw a happy image.Thoughts crisscrossing my mind, after reading since early morning the news around the globe.

My ginger plant, my alter ego,standing there with its leafs guiding me to be its mirror.

Two of my birds flying around, landing on my head,chirping and greeting me.My lovebird Venus, sits here on top of me,on my Hindu cloth on the wall,and my cockatiel Josie, asking for rubs on her beautiful lemon yellow crest.

I imagine myself five hundred years back in history, walking in Firenze, then wayback in

the time of dinosaurs, dinosaurs????? aiaiaia, and then back to Catherine the Great times,,and then when Marco Polo finding noodles in China,which become pasta in Italy, or better walking along with an Aboriginal in Australia ,in their walkabout searching for the eternal songlines.

and then as an Indigenous from a tribe in the Amazon, after meeting the Mysterious Man in the New York Subway.

Days ago, when I was riding in the subway, I got into a conversation with an interesting man who would not identify himself, beyond telling me that he is a writer and a scientist.

So we engaged in a fast and dense exchange of words about the environment, the Icelandic volcano, while the crackling up and down of the subway train running through the underground.

We get out on the platfrom,he goes his way and I go my way,oh no,not the song, Frank Sinatra sings,which brings me back to Sydney, in Australia,when I was so young and full of dreams, still am, still so young and full of dreams,if not very conscious that my body,this incredible machine,which keeps us either moving or stopping serving me with notices ,which i will ignore till eternity does me part.This body that

reproduced and enjoys making love.

This mind of mine, always wondering ,why this,why that.

For years I would intersperse words through my art,as I rather wished my art to convey through images my vision of life,than by words which I thought could misrepresent in fact what I had imagined or wanted to imagine.

That state of mind,come after I observed my father,a man of words who left in me a very strong impression.

I cannot remove from my memories,the image of him lying peacefully speechless.

I saw Death.

Death come between me and my father and set us apart.

My father was calling my name gently,Mar, Marg,Marguerita, I will always look after you,as i could not do so in Life.... mar I am going away ..... Ma hold my hands.

I see him in profile,like the Sleeping Giant Mountain I saw in Zakopane, in Krakow,years ago.

But my father, the image is closer to me now as ever.

My father taught me to be strong.

My mother too.

No college,no university could teach me more then both of them.

They saw it all.

My mother was in Auschwitz ,tearing grass from the snow, to eat and drink.

Barefoot in the creepy shreds, that the Nazi dressed her with.

No Manolos, no Pradas,no Guccis.

She saw humankind,bare and all.

Stick and Bones, Skull and Bones.

No special effects.

Although Hollywood was making films.

Imagining human suffering or ignoring it all,altogether.

So,here am I.

From the ashes.

How can I remain silent?

I am a part of that reality.

On my skin.

As I was born five years ,few days after my mother was released

from Ravensbrueck.

She walked barefoot through the Skagerak to Sweden.

There upon arrival the few walking skeletons were served with

a smorgarsbord.

My mother stood at the door watching.

The crazed,famished running towards the food.

Their stomachs shrunk by years of famine.

They eat and dropped dead.

My mother just looked.

She was 36 kilos.

And then fro Sweden to Switzerland.

In a bookstore she found a book by Confucius.

"He says in one of his pages, "If You Hate, your Liver gets Sick"....

The Real Suff, The Real World.

After that, one can only see Light.

Fiat Lux.

My father,

Like an outline,a graphic symbol, reminding me of that creative being,who once was touching with affection, strands of my hair and infusing in me a strength to face life and all its challenges.

I like nowbetter how the word challenge sounds in Portuguese, desafio.

Yes, DESAFIO, is my name.

Yes I miss you, my father, as I miss you my mother. I miss you both every moment,day and night.

I returned to my writing.

I return to my school days when I would publish in the school newspaper my stories and then get published in O Estado de Sao Paulo, my essays about Madame de Stael,who Napoleon was struggling with and censoring .She dared to speak out.De Stael would go on to say :" I cannot separate my feelings ,from my thoughts" something like that.This was the man whom Madame de Stael saw and understood in 1805, as well as we can in 1883. She had known him when he figured as a vain young soldier of the Republic, and discerned his true character even then. There was danger in such a woman. The conqueror felt it, and owned himself unable to cope with her by sending her to reside a hundred and twenty miles from Paris ! If she ventured to approach nearer, he wrote with his own hand (as we see in his published correspondence,) an order to his chief of police to make her keep her distance. " That she crow," he styles her in one of these fierce notes. "That bird of evil omen," he callsher in another. In another he says that " her approach bodes mischief," and he will not have her on French soil. In another, alluding to her father, M. Neckar, the banker and financier, he winds up an angry order by saying : " that foreign family have done mischief enough in France already." How honorable to this lady, the rancorous hostility of such a man in such a place.

"The Emperor has been to see the tomb of the great Frederick. The remains of that great man are inclosed in a wooden coffin, covered with copper, placed in a tomb without ornaments, without trophies, without any objects which recall the great actions which he performed. The Emperor has made a present to the Hotel des Invalides, at Paris, of Frederick's sword, his order of the Black Eagle, his general's sash, as well as of the flags borne by his guard in the Seven Years' War."

After thus despoiling Prussia of her most cherished and sacred treasures, he adds that the "old soldiers of the army will receive with a religious respect everything that belonged to one of the first captains of whom history preserves the remembrance." What a thief what an actor How much did he respect those relics? In the same bulletin he amuses the Parisians by telling a ridiculous story of Lord Morpeth, the British Ambassador, who, he says, was "near enough to the field of Jena to hear the cannons. "When news was brought him that the battle was lost, though he was eighteen miles from the scene, "he took to his heels," says Napoleon, " crying out, ' I must not be taken.' He offered as much as sixty guineas for a horse; got one at last, and saved himself."

October the twenty-seventh, the Emperor, surrounded by his marshals, his magnificent staff, and the leading officers of his court, made what he styles his entree solennelle into Berlin, followed by the Imperial foot guard, and by a splendid body of horsemen and grenadiers. Alighting at the royal palace at three o'clock in the afternoon, after having received at the gates the keys of the city, he held a grand reception. He treated the city, in all respects, as the spoil of war; paying his troops from the city treasury, taking all the wine from thecellars, public and private, for the supply of his various armies, assigning a half bottle of wine a day for each soldier of the two corps who had particularly distinguished themselves at the battle of Jena. The nobility had abandoned their houses at his approach. He ordered all the mattresses and furniture to be taken from their houses which might be required for the comfort of his officers. He ordered also, that the city should furnish, at once, the cloth for a hundred thousand uniforms, a hundred thousand pairs of shoes, and a hundred thousand caps.

"My intention is," this order concluded, "that Berlin should furnish me abundantly all that my army needs, and that nothing is to be considered except that my soldiers should have an abundance of everything they require."

So getting back to

The meaning of I miss you.

I miss you.

I miss my sons.

I miss the love I I am craving for.

Yes, the CARINHO,

My Dona Soledade noticed

in my eyes

when I was

a little girl.

I Miss You.

We need those words in the world.

Maybe we would find Peace, then

Say all

I MISS YOU!

And ONE More for the road by Napoleon via Madame de Stael:

"They tell me that there is a great deal of wine at Stettin. Take all of it, though there should be twenty millions' worth."

http://www3.ub.lu.se/ravensbruck/contact.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703709804575202072055128934.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion

http://female-ancestors.com/daughters/destael.htm

Sarkozy: Malgré la crise, assure "avoir la banane"

drawing by marguerita
Yes,I have the banana!!!!!If reality turns out worse than expected, it would be best if the world’s leading countries were still talking and could agree to do something about it.

Malgré la crise, Nicolas Sarkozy assure "avoir la banane" et a exhorté mercredi les députés UMP à soutenir sa politique, qui "paiera" en 2012 car, à ses yeux, "on ne perd que quand on est faible".

"Je me fais taper dessus mais j'ai la banane. C'est dur pour moi aussi mais en même temps, je rêvais d'être président de la République et je le suis, donc ça va...", a lancé le chef de l'Etat qui recevait, au lendemain de son discours de Saint-Quentin (Aisne), les députés UMP pour un cocktail à l'Elysée.

"Je comprends que c'est très dur pour vous, mais la crise nous rend notre liberté car on ne réfléchissait plus avant. La crise nous donne la possibilité de renouveler notre corpus idéologique", a-t-il ajouté, selon des témoins, lors d'un exercice de questions-réponses dans la salle des fêtes.

"La période est formidable pour nous parce qu'on se tourne vers nous, les politiques. Les gens nous seront reconnaissants de tenir le cap. Pas une seule réforme ne nous apporte pas d'emmerdes. On a besoin de vous et ça paiera", sous-entendu en 2012, a-t-il poursuivi.

Faisant une nouvelle fois la comparaison avec son prédécesseur Jacques Chirac, M. Sarkozy a estimé "qu'on perd quand on est faible" et qu'en "1995, les électeurs nous ont lâchés" après "l'échec du gouvernement Juppé sur l'assurance-maladie".

Il s'est targué d'avoir à l'inverse, avec François Fillon, "rétabli l'image de la France" en agissant sur ses "trois handicaps: les 35 heures, les grèves et la fiscalité".

Au risque de déclencher une nouvelle polémique avec les syndicats, le chef de l'Etat a affirmé que "quand il y a une grève comme celle du 19 mars, le pays n'est plus paralysé".

Et de prévenir sa majorité qu'il était hors de question pour lui de bouger sur le bouclier fiscal: "sur la fiscalité, sur le bouclier, prenez-moi bien en photo ! Ma capacité à reculer n'est pas d'un millimètre (...) Si on supprime le bouclier, à l'arrivée, on tape sur les classes moyennes".

Il a d'ailleurs vertement tancé le président UMP de la commission des Affaires sociales, Pierre Méhaignerie -absent- qui avait réclamé une contribution exceptionnelle sur les plus hauts revenus.

"Je respecte tous mes amis mais faire ça la veille d'une grève, c'est assez irresponsable", a-t-il dit avant de lancer: "ne tombez pas dans le piège de la social-démocratie (...) on sera jugé sur l'emploi et l'arrêt des délocalisations".

"Réservé" sur une TVA sociale, M. Sarkozy s'est dit "attaché à ce qu'on taxe les importations des pays qui ne respectent pas les critères sociaux et environnementaux".

Sur la question sensible des rémunérations des dirigeants, il a, à son tour, prévenu que "si le Medef n'y va pas, on ira par la loi", taclant au passage la patronne des patrons.

"Je ne peux pas accepter que Laurence Parisot dise qu'elle n'a pas le désir d'évoquer le partage des profits", a-t-il lâché avant d'ajouter: "on ne peut pas faire boire un âne qui n'a pas soif".

France 24 | Malgré la crise, Sarkozy assure "avoir la banane" | France 24

Blagojevich turns to camera and asks"Is he teasing me or is that legit?"

drawing by marguerita
“In a strange way, I admire him for he has a unique flair for the dramatic.” from the Pink Panther

(We all know from childhood that it’s not nice to make fun of people’s appearance. So I will confine myself to merely observing that whatever covers the governor’s head looks to me like a bowling-ball cozy.)

Is humor out of place on this subject? Probably. In Blagojevich, we are dealing with a sick man. Or, in medical terminology, extreme pathology.

I felt the need to get some expert opinion on just what the ethically challenged governor is a case of. I sought the counsel of the eminent Dr. Willard Gaylin, longtime practitioner and author on such matters — once entrusted with the care and feeding of my own tender psyche. He filled me in.He described what would now be called a “sociopath,” a modern-day term for the older “psychopath.”

It’s a complex, hard-to-treat ailment, and “anti-social” is the key phrase here.Among the prominent traits of one so afflicted is the absence of any sense of guilt or shame. Empathy is unknown. The truth may be told, but only when it serves the often bizarre purposes of the teller. Never for its own sake.How's That Again, Guv? - Dick Cavett Blog - NYTimes.com

Obama & Hill-The Strength Which Lies in Unity

drawing by marguerita
Truth would need to be cajoled and flattered, not pursued with the tactless dogmatism of most philosophers.
While philosophy must overcome its dogmatic thinking, it has at least provided our culture with the tension to spring forward into something new and better.
Nietzsche catalogs a number of the dogmatisms inherent in philosophy, such as the separation of ideas into binary opposites like truth and falsehood;
“immediate certainties,” like Descartes' certainty that he is thinking; and the idea of free will.
Philosophy is interested in giving us insight not into truth but into the minds of the different philosophers. Everything is governed by a will to power, and in philosophy, we see great minds trying to impose their will on the world by persuading others to see the world as they see it.-Nietzche

Hillary Sarcastic :"It's Worth the Trip"

On Saturday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton showed her angry side, admonishing Senator Barack Obama for a campaign mailing that she called misleading.
On Sunday, before a rally of several thousand, she added a heavy dose of sarcasm.

“Now I could stand up here and say, let’s get everybody together, let’s get unified the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing,” she said, to a smattering of giggles. “And everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect.”

She added: “But I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and make the special interests disappear.”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/clinton-turns-from-anger-to-sarcasm/

http://www.couponpages.com/local/1999-05/dunk-004.asp

Election Lingo: When I am President of The United States of America...

Which way are we going?
I don’t think he has the temperament and leadership ability to move the country in the right direction.”
“What is your place in history?”
“We want to turn the page .It’s like learning Latin — you have to throw out everything and start over"
“If you will lift that boom a second.This is the problem with not having a bus”
“Let me say I’ve heard that story and there’s not a lot of truth to it”
"If I discover there is such an agreement, it’ll be gone in a bird-dog minute.”

“It took a lot of energy and creativity to get to this point”

“He’s a friend,” . “I wish him the very best and I wish the team the very best.”
Later, while talking to reporters on his campaign plane—the second day in a row he has ventured back to chat with reporters, after not doing it for weeks– explained he had e-mailed wishing him luck in today’s Super Bowl against the New York Giants, and that he had been kind enough to ping him back.“Things have been getting real ugly around here”
“He’s not endorsing anybody. For all I know, he’s a fan of somebody else.”
...it was too hard to call, mentioning what a “close race” the teams had the last time they played, before correcting himself to say, “a close game.”
“It’s just remarkable to be able to see the entire field the way he does”
It’s really funny. It’s like, the halftime commentators–I don’t know how often you watch the ESPN halftime show–they’re going back and forth.
They get it all clear and then you go out in the second half and it’s not at all like they said.”“I’m going to save it forever”
“She was tilting at windmills, with stars in her eyes and her feet off the ground.”
“It’s like not washing your hands when somebody famous shakes your hand.

Hillary's Stew a la White House Meuniere

It’s a story, all right, with Bill at the center. If Hillary expects anybody to get misty-eyed about the first woman president at the inauguration, she’s got to send him home and go back to the original plotline.She said that having Bill on the team was “a great gift. I have always believed you should get the very best people to advise you.”As every sentient being on the planet knows, the Clintons have an extremely complicated marriage, and sticking it smack in the middle of the chain of command caused chaos.Read more: Gail Collins in the NYTimes.

Note:
Meuniere refers to both a sauce and a method of preparation. The word itself means "miller's wife" and that etymology provides insight into both culinary uses. The miller's wife of course had easy access to flour, and so to cook something á la meuniere was to cook it by first dredging it in flour. But the mill was also located on a stream and thus often had very fresh fish available. Many of the elaborate sauces and preparations that were developed in the 18th and 19th centuries had an underlying purpose of masking food that had begun to spoil during the several days needed for transport from fishing ports. By contrast the fish prepared by the miller's wife did not need to be masked under a heavy sauce. A meuniere sauce is very simple--browned butter, chopped parsley, and lemon.from wikipedia

“I guess this is how the West was won,” Mrs. Clinton told her supporters

....during a victory rally at the Planet Hollywood hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Speaking over loud cheers, she added: “We will all be united in November. I don’t think politics is a game. I don’t think elections are just another day in the calendar.”

Opinion :Keep up with the 2008 presidential election

please click on values
“Who knows if it will work,” said the strategist .“But the danger is what you are seeing now. We’re obviously concerned.”“I’m going there a lot for money,” he said. “I ought to go there for votes.”That’s what we tell ourselves.He needs people to look at him and see John Kennedy, or The Beatles, or Tiger Woods in his first Master’s tournament. He needs people to see youth, a break with the past, style under pressure.But recent experience shows that campaigning with color is fraught with peril.When they see black this or black that — even a positive black first — it’s trouble. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”“Neither race nor gender should be a part of this campaign.”How about getting some endangered species as candidates?Blah, blah, blah.Just like that, all the old unmentionables came out of the shadows.“I have a great story about how my family came to America, as good as Gary’s,” as Rice said. “We just happened to have different travel agents.”Whatever the reason, there is a gap, and it’s real.