The Wise Latina Syndrome and Justice for All

drawing by marguerita

Sotomayor now famously said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Latinas are frequently described as "fiery" or "caliente" or "curvy" — but rarely "wise."

 
By Carolina A.Miranda

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1910403,00.html 

A Cry for Peace: Please Listen

collage by marguerita
“Yes! There are many different secret agendas,” he said. “We have to be aware of this.”
We spoke that day mainly about the hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, that specifically concerned Jews and their diverse and apparently limitless character failings.
This sort of conversation, while illuminating, can become wearying over time, at least for the Jewish participant, and so I was happy to learn that Mr. Rayyan had his own sore points.
Another reality worth considering concerns theology. Hamas and Hezbollah emerged from very different streams of Islam: Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood; Hezbollah is an outright Iranian proxy that takes its inspiration from the radical Shiite politics of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. But the groups share a common belief that Jews are a cosmological evil, enemies of Islam since Muhammad sought refuge in Medina.
I once asked Abdel Aziz Rantisi where he learned what he called “the truth” of the Holocaust — that it didn’t happen — and he referred me to books published by Hezbollah. Hamas and Hezbollah also share the view that the solution for Palestine lies in Europe. A spokesman for Hezbollah, Hassan Izzedine, once told me that the Jews who survive the Muslim “liberation” of Palestine “can go back to Germany, or wherever they came from.”Op-Ed Contributor - Why Israel Can't Make Peace With Hamas - NYTimes.com

“We support our brothers in the resistance,” he said


Maybe to only way to achieve Peace, can only be through Enlightenment and knowledge of History and Geography. Never through weapons, armaments and violence, which has certainly been an everlasting loosing battle.
We cannot eat bullets and bloodshed only brings misery to all of the world.
Instead of tanks, firearms,bombs: FOOD and Love.

Not Funny: Et Tu, Monsterbeetles ?

drawing collage by marguerita
A wood-devouring beetle has gained a foothold in New England, and authorities plan to cut down large numbers of infested trees and grind them up to stop the pest from spreading to the region's celebrated forests and ravaging the timber, tourism and maple-syrup industries.
''This insect scares us to death because if it ever got loose in the forests of New England, it would be just about impossible to contain and it'd change the landscape dramatically,'' said Tom McCrum, coordinator of the Massachusetts Maple Syrup Association.Calling it a national emergency, federal authorities have committed themselves to spending tens of millions of dollars to fight the invasion.Beetle Invasion Threatens New England Trees - NYTimes.com


The Interface Between Beetles & Humans


The assessment of beetle quality as "good" or " bad"- even the names that we give to beetles- merely reflect our own value system.Although we have touched on some of the more practical aspects of beetles in our lives, this can hardly be considered an accurate portrait of beetles and their role in the natural world. Beetles enrich our language, art,agriculture- even our diets-
but what to we do for them ?The fact is, we need beetles for our intellectual, spiritual, and biological survival, but they have very little use for us.
Our challenge lies in our ability to recognize beetles as biological treasures, preserving them for future generations of, among others, etymologists, artisans, agriculturists, gourmands, and healers.

The Significance of Beetles

The biological basis of our affiliation with beetles may be viewed from the perspective of nine fundamental values that reveal how humans relate to nature: utilitarian, ecologistic, scientific, naturalistic, aesthetic, symbolic, dominionistic,negatavistic, humanistic, moralistic. These categories were developed by Stephen Kellert of Yale University in the late 1970's, not to define any instinctive behavior, but to identify clusters of learning behavior to understand basic human perceptions of animals.
The elegance of this classification is that it may be considered a universal framework for the expression of basic affinities for and dependance on the natural world. Applying this typology yo our relationship with beetles, we can briefly summarize some of the ways in which these marvelous animals are meaningful in our lives. from Beetlephilia in An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles
by Arthur V. Evans and Charles L. Bellamy