FELIPE ARGOTE: THE BLOG: 2010

martes, 24 de agosto de 2010

ONE YEAR OF THE BLOG

By: Felipe Argote

After twelve months of continuous writing, training and installation diagram of the blog, I am very pleased with the support received. Add Sense Currently, according to the meter hits the blog, we have averaged more than 2,100 hits a month from readers.

We thank you for your interest and hope that in this second year can exceed your expectations. It is of much value their commentary although most send it to my personal email always serve as a stimulus. I appreciate any criticism or contribution to the topics as you can see include not only the economy but a wide range of issues.

Here I present a list of all published articles segmented by topic. You can access the article with ctrl + click just in case you did not read before and find it interesting.

martes, 10 de agosto de 2010

THE MAYA TESTAMENT OF STEVE ALTEN

By: Felipe Argote

Hun-Hanahpu

I was at first annoyed by the lies and exaggeration that Steve Alten used to justify the supposed prophecy of the Popol Vuh, the so called sacred book of the Mayas where supposedly prophesy the end of the world in December 2012 through cataclysms.

Then I opted for a provision to read just for what it is: a book of science fiction. Maya really is a language, not an adjective. The Spanish aliens decided to put the title of Maya to all those who spoke that language when they arrived to our continent lived in what is now Guatemala, part of southern Mexico and Honduras.

The Popol Vuh, the so called sacred book of the Mayas is also an invention. The book was written by a Catholic priest named Fray Francisco Ximenez in the seventeenth century, as he translated the so-called "book of the community” received from the Quiche Maya who had saved for many years. Thus the book contains some references, as well includes some contributions of the Spanish priest who makes the book in some parts like the Bible

Quetzlcoatl

In any case , viewed from the perspective of a science fiction novel "The Testament Maya" is very entertaining and original, is worthy of a Hollywood movie. It always seems much more imaginative version of Roland Emerich in the movie "2012, We Were Warned . "

All the movie version has to develop the argument is called the Mayan calendar long count. Alten however, develops an interesting argument from a couple of archaeologists, Julius Gabriel and Mary who are step by step discovering a series of clues that lead them to conclude that indeed the world is in danger of extermination and that their child is nothing less than Hun-Hunahpu, who according to Mayan mythology was the god of fertility and the ball game.

The son of Julius and Mary, with an IQ of 160 is held paranoid schizophrenic and confined in a sanatorium like a maximum security prison. A youg girl student psychiatrist falls in love with him and helps him escape so that, contrary to what she believed in, saves the world from apocalypse. On the way Mick, which is the name of the reincarnation of Hun-Hunahpu, makes love with her so Dominique became pregnant, who gave birth to the twin gods Xbalanque and Hunahpú.

Kukuxklan

The interesting copious 586 page book is that the author develops interesting elements such as the origin of life on the planet, taking in fact the theory of Russian Alexander Oparin, the writer of the famous book "The Origin of Life" and also takes elements from the very famous book by Stephen Hawking "From Big Bang to Big Crunch"

Of course that in Maya mythology, which is inherited from the Toltecs, including Kukuxklán, the feathered serpent, which is the same God Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs, does not appear anywhere the cataclysm, the end of the world, nor the trial end that appears in the Bible of the Jewish religion. Therefore, to read "The Mayan Testment" should be seen only as a historical book, a science fiction novel.

Steve Allen

Written in 2000, Steve Alten's novel predicts the first black president of the United States in 2012 would be from the Republican Party, after being vice president occupies the top position after the suicide of the president, in the midst of international crisis nuclear missiles

From this perspective I recommend "The Mayan Testament" by Steve Allen, for being an entertaining read, interesting, and imaginative.

LITTLE BOY

By Felipe Argote

CHURCHILL, ROOSEVELT Y STALIN

While in Potsdam, a town near Berlin in Germany, Joseph Stalin, Harry Truman and Clement Attlee, discussed the distribution of the planet, or rather the remains, after the unconditional surrender of Germany, in the desert of New Mexico United States ended late the last argument for the defeat of Germany and Japan. The conference was developing smoothly. It was the second part of the conference which began in February at Yalta. That is the reason it is generally referred as Yalta and Potsdam. But the actors of this conference had varied by 66 % compared to February in Yalta. Of the three, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, there was only the Russian dictator there. Franklin D. Roosevelt had died at his desk in Warm Springs, Georgia. He died of brain cancer, despite many years to grieve after surviving polio. Winston Churchill began the conference, but was later replaced by Clement Attlee, who had defeated him on the British elections.

In the midst of the conference Harry Truman discussed separately with Attlee and Stalin. He reported to both that U.S. had developed a lethal weapon of mass destruction. A few moments earlier he had received a telegram informing him that in Alamogordo, New Mexico, had been carried out successful test of a nuclear explosion equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT.

Truman then sent a telegram on July 26 to Japan in which he requested their unconditional surrender, surrender to all territories outside Japan and threatened to prosecute military Nipponese leaders. This became known later as the Potsdam Declaration. He never mentioned the atomic bomb. Japan rejected the ultimatum, though they had lost all their possessions in the Pacific and expected land invasion. According to the agreements of Yalta the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and attacked him in Manchuria, northeastern China controlled by the Nipponese.

On August 6, 1945 began one sunny morning in Japan. In Hiroshima looked like the population was going to spend a normal morning in the plight of the war. This was one of the few large cities that had not been devastated by the B-29 which since 1944 dropped thousands of bombs on population centers of the Japanese islands. Its inhabitants had no idea that during the night had taken off three B-29 bombers. One of them was the Enola Gay piloted by Col. Paul Tibbets. The Colonel had put the airplane name on behalf of his mother. This bomber was wearing a uranium bomb named with the suggestive name of Little Boy. He was accompanied by two similar bombers, one carried scientifics and one with a camera crew.

At 8:15 a.m. the hell arrived from the air. First there was a flash with a white light such as magnesium, which blinded those who directly observed. Those who were nearby were vaporized. Some bodies were changed into a shadow on the pavement. Others were burned, turned to dust when touched. After that, a whirlwind destroyed everything in its path with temperatures of 600 degrees Celsius. Finally, acid black rain, full of radioactivity loaded bathed who remained alive. These would have a slow and painful death. 180,000 people died in Hiroshima, 100,000 at the time of the nuclear explosion and the rest in the following weeks. It was the most devastating attack in the history of mankind. The second took place three days later on Nagasaki. They killed 80,000 people, 50,000 at the time of the explosion of another bomb, this time of plutonium.

At 65 years of this extreme show of barbarism there is no argument to justify such a crime against humanity, killing men, women and especially innocent children in the stupidity of war.

lunes, 2 de agosto de 2010

BORINQUEN

By: Felipe Argote

I was tempted to expect a little more time to know better the island and its people before writing this article, but then I decided to write the first impression it gave to me at the arrival to this country so full of contradictions.

I got a surprise that Puerto Rico was not what I imagined, a Caribbean city like Panama, The Havana and Santa Marta. On the contrary, I found a city like Miami just with Puerto Ricans rather than Cubans. With JC Pennys , K mart , Sears and Macys. All connected by a network of highways. To get a taxi is not enough to stand on the street and raise your hand. _You must call it on the phone. To rent a car it took a row of two hours. In the hotel of 14 channels only 3 are in Spanish even though only 3% of the population is bilingual. This population is mostly white (80%) with a few Afro-Caribbean and no Indians. Although a recent study found that Puerto Ricans have in their high level of Taino DNA, the ancient inhabitants of the island and Guanche from the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

When the Spanish first arrived on the island was inhabited by the Taino Indians . They called Boriken or Borinquen. These were a very peaceful people that gave gold and necklaces of shells to the invaders as they saw them only as decorations. This attitude of the Tainos, contrasting with the Spanish barbarians who did not have the bath as part of their customs and disloyalty, treason, and the ill were part of their tradition, as well as tell their own stories, confused this hospitality with consider repeated stupidity that the natives believed they were gods.

Diego Salcedo was one of the first developed it by contacting the peaceful Taino commanded by the chief Agüeivaná decided to enslave them by forcing them to seek more gold. Such conduct after tamely decided to rebel against their oppressors drowning him in a river. The Spanish story says they did it to see if he was a god. The real story is that however noble the Tainos were not withstand the extreme cruelty of the Spanish who paid with his live for his greed.

Eventually, the huge Spanish technological advantage, their greed, their diseases and brutality eventually submit first and then extinguish the noble race of the Taino, whose genes are, as noted, still running through the veins of the current Puerto Rican.

Perhaps because of this meekness Puerto Rico is a town that has never known freedom, and independence. While since the early nineteenth century a large number of American territories got free from Spanish oppression, was not until 1868, with the “shout of Lares” given the attempted emancipation of the island, which was quickly controlled by the Spanish colonizers. Until 1897 Puerto Rico achieves the called “Charter of Autonomy”, which gives autonomy but not independence to the island by Spain, with the bad luck that exploits a year after the U.S. war against Spain which the nascent empire wrested the past colonial territories to the Spanish crown once invincible. Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines become the property of the United States. As Cuba continues its identity and achieved independence and the Philippines achieved independence but loses some of its identity, as it was forced to change its Spanish language for English, Puerto Rico remains a colony status or something very similar. Cuba gained its independence in 1902 but with a level of U.S. intervention, the Philippines continued its war for independence that started against Spain, then against the United States, where they die more than a million Filipinos, but achieved independence in 1946. Puerto Rico was formed with its commonwealth status that it still possesses.

In the referendums that have been developed on the island to comment on their status or the majority voted to remain what it has termed commonwealth or have voted to become a star in the United States flag. In fact, the independence party has only managed in the last election by 2.5 % of the votes thus lost what they call franchise like a baseball team or a fast food restaurant. A superficial analysis will show the reason for this attitude.

In Borinquén live about 4 million people, although living in the United States four million Puerto Ricans. So it's a population slightly larger than Panama's very similar to that of Costa Rica.

BORINQUEN DESDES EL ESPACIO

While in Panama and Costa Rica Gross domestic product per capita is $ 7,000 a year in Puerto Rico is $ 18,000. While in Panama there are 25.000 teachers there are 42.000 in Puerto Rico much better paid. In Puerto Rico, 9.8% of the budget goes to university education.

Borinquen total GDP is U.S. $ 90.000 million. Nearly four times bigger than in Panama or Costa Rica. 44.5% of its GDP comes from industry, 55% of the service sector and only 0.5% of the primary sector. It has a trade surplus of 3.600 billion. Although it has a 16% unemployment and inflation of 14%.

Recently, with the bailout of the economy of the U.S. president Barack Obama has been directed toward an economic boost Puerto Rico in the order of 5.000 billion dollars. This is almost a quarter of Panama's GDP, and very similar to the 7.000 million it costs us the canal expansion.

LOSE LOSE

By: Felipe Argote

Do not owe to rich neither promise to poor, my mom said in her infinite repertoire of proverbs. Such is the case of highways. During the election campaign in this cornucopia of promises when it became the presidential candidate and his campaign, promised a meter in three years, to lower the food basket, reducing unemployment and in turn inflation. Among a myriad of promises pledged to the nationalization of the runners and the gratuity of the same.

Reality is always richer than any theoretical scheme. But the five-year recurrence candidates promising the moon and the stars, but once exalted in power are dedicated to give excuses for the reasons that this same promises are not possible and that people over and over again believe them again is what moves to tenderness for the Panamanian electorate, not to use sadness at how shocking the term is.

But let’s talk about the highways.

It now appears that we the people are going to buy the highways more than double what we receive by 49 percent of the shares of the National Institute of Telecommunications, now Cable & Wireless.

To buy it the government is ready to spent part of the 1.200 million dollars from the Development Trust Fund, whose funds come from the privatization of INTEL and IRHE and some other minor sales. They come from state enterprises that cost more than twenty years to rise, we gave to foreign capital and at least the positive side, the government sold them, the Perez Balladares at least not spent these funds as if he did that of Guillermo Endara to the proceeds of the sale of Cemento Bayano. On the other hand was placed in a fund called the Development Trust with the ban by spending bill or current spending or investment spending disguised. However his interests were deposited to be spent in a institution called the FES. This institution quickly became a piñata for the incumbent government as Mireya Moscoso promised in the campaign to close it. On reaching the government she kept her promise: FES was closed but immediately opened the FIS (Social Investment Fund) with the same features as its immediate predecessor. Then the candidate Martinelli promised to close the FIS. On reaching the government decided that it was not so bad and we're still hoping to at least see the Audit promised.

It is now intended to dismember the fund devoted to buying some of the highways and the other party will come out of depositors' funds Social Security. It expects to pay $650 million for the northern highway corridor and 420 million for the southern highway for a grand total of 1.07 billion dollars.

This means that if the project fails we ran out of domestic savings and no retirement fund of thousands of Panamanians, with serious consequences for the country's financial situation. If the highways are profitable with the current pricing structure, so that users with high rates choked the corridors will not see an improvement in their situation and if prices come down the corridors to the satisfaction of users it won’t be profitable, so we lose our investment as a country.

To paraphrase Stephen R. Covey this is a lose lose situation.

jueves, 8 de julio de 2010

GRIGORY AND THE POINCARÈ CONJETURE

By: Felipe Argote

Because I was watching the soccer World Cup I did not finish what I had been building for years and was about to end: to solve the Poincare conjecture. Due to my negligence Grigori Parelman, a Russian mathematician, 44 years old, was ahead of me solving the puzzle.

I would not worry too much if it were not for the Clay Mathematics Institute had offered a million dollars to whoever solved the conjecture.

It was not so difficult. In 1904, a Frenchman named Henri Poincaré conjecture that the result obtained for the sphere n = 2 dimensional space 3 was an analogue for the field n= 3 of the 4-dimensional space. In other words, in four dimensional space, any variety of dimension n = 3, closed and simply connected, it would be homeomorphic to the sphere of dimension n= 3. But Poincaré, the mathematician who developed the so-called theory of relativity by Einstein then developed his theory of relativity was born in Meurthe-et -Moselle, Nancy, France, failed to verify his guess. This was more than 100 years ago, in 1904. From that point nobody had been able to confirm the guess until it was solved by Parelman. Maybe not this would have been at the news if it were not for the eccentric doctor rejected the prize of one million dollars.

It is not the first time Parelman rejects an award. Already in 2006 had rejected the award from the International Mathematical Union to mathematicians less than 40 years old for his contribution to the discipline.

Grigori Perelman was born in St. Petersburg in 1966 into a Jewish family. In 1982, at the age of 16 years represented the Soviet Union in international math Olympics where she won the gold medal. At the end of the eighties he earned a doctorate at the University of Leningrad. His thesis: Areas chair in Euclidean spaces. Lectured at the Steklov Institute in Russia, then he moved to lecturing at universities in New York, Stony Brook and Berkeley. But in 1995 he returned to the University of Steklov.

Today is said to Grigori Perelman is unemployed, and he has retired of any activity related to mathematics because of his disappointment over the ethics of the mathematical community in general. Moreover the solution of the Pointcare conjecture was not published in any scientific journal but in a website.

To get an idea of what we are talking let’s say that there are commonly four dimensions, three spatial and one temporal. If we draw a square it is two-dimensional. If, however, we draw a cube it is three dimensional. The fourth dimension is time. Then let’s use a hot item today: a soccer ball. This is a two-dimensional sphere in a three dimensional space. It is wide and long but not deep. This is a two dimensional case. Each piece of the sphere is not nothing but a flat piece bent slightly related. The term used to sound more complicated is homeomorphism. Then there is only one homeomomorfic variety of dimension n =2 closed and connected: this is the sphere or soccer ball. Ok ?

To test surround ourselves imagine that something elastic like a big gum. If we can compress it to make it a point not to step out of the surface we have an area two and it is a related area.

The problem is that Henri Poincaré conjecture introduced in 1904 that this result obtained for an area two, a soccer ball for example, in a three-dimensional space, had an analogous four-dimensional space in a sphere of dimension 3. Of course this is complicated to the point that it is very difficult to draw, but I will try. This should be seen like this:

This became one of the biggest problems of mathematics course with implications in physics and geometry until at last our friend Grigori rid us of this heavy burden. We can relax from this problem and return to our peaceful lives. To St. Petersburg where he lives with his mother retired at the age of… 44 years, we say:

Thanks Gregory

WHY HOLLAND AND SPAIN ? WHY NOT ARGENTINA AND BRAZIL ?

By: Felipe Argote

After the drawing everybody knew what numbers were going out. Those are the "Monday morning break office coach" that is, the technical experts on Mondays in the recess of the office in the morning. Never mind. As this is not a sports blog and we spent the last month writing about South Africa, we need to do the analysis, although superficial, of what happened in the world cup. What led to the final to the Netherlands and Spain, while Latin American teams where let behind in the middle of the road.

I will not analize all Latin American countries, because the publisher is strictly on the number of bands that I use on each item, so that they are not that long that takes readers to boredom. Enough is to say that Mexico simply did not have enough. It had no human material to go further than they arrived and the coach Aguirre, who likes to kick opposite players, also has serious limitations. Much less Honduras with the loss of their best players even though many do not know that Honduras had a better line up than Mexico. Nor Chile, that although they have good players and had a good qualifying stage, these figures are not first class. Mad Bielsa, their coach at least did a better global role than in 2004, when he led Argentina, a great team, favored to win the World Cup and was out in the first round winning only one game to Nigeria. Paraguay did what they could without their top scorer Salvador Cabanas, who although only playing in Mexico, he should have to be playing in Europe for years.

Consider Argentina. Despite having an overwhelming front led by Messi, the best player in the world, Iguain, scorer of Real Madrid in the Spanish league, Tevez and Aguero suffered from the spine: they didn’t have a creator. Maradona 's thesis was that the axis of the equipment was to be Juan Sebastian Veron, the leader of the Estudiantes de la Plata football club. This did not work as Leo Messi finished playing the role of creator, to seek the ball down to the lack of this driver, therefore limited in their ability to get goals. Messi did what he could, but remember that he is not Xavi or Iniesta. In the generally he receives at Barza club passes from Xavi and Iniesta but they were not there, because they were busy playing in the Spanish team.

The case of Brazil is sadder. Dunga, a defender, who captained Brazil in 1984 and was coach of the Brazilian team at the World South Africa, decided to disappear Brazilian style, the famous Jogo Bonito, he said they had to choose between the jogo bonito, or to win games as if they were contradictory. So he not called Ronaldinho to the team, I know he is not still the best player in the world, but he is one of the best. In contrast to its ranks was Julio Cesar Baptista who almost did not play in the Rome of the Calcio. It was sad to see Brazil lose to Holland trying to play a practice football against a team that historically has the patent for the practical football: the so-called the mechanic orange.

The jogo Bonito instead was brought by Spain and a little by Germany because of his good creation midfield with Xavi and Iniesta in Spain and Bastian Schweinsteiger in Germany. Who would have thought...?

The next World Cup 1914 will take place in Brazil. It is time for Brazil to retrieve the style against Dunga's philosophy because that style is what has led them to five championships. Argentina should in turn take four years to get at least two midfielders of creation, to retire Veron and Riquelme.

miércoles, 30 de junio de 2010

THE KALAHARI DESERT: MERKATS AND BUSHMEN

To the north of South Africa, southern Botswana and Namibia stand reddish 70,000 kilometers of desert. It is the Kalahari Desert which means "great thirst." It is the territory of the Bushmen and meerkats.

Its climate ranges from 40 degrees Celsius in summer to freezing temperatures in winter. It has, of course, little wildlife, but in the short winter the river Okavango Delta forms a swamp where come to drink lions, leopards, buffaloes, rhinos, zebras and wild boar among many other animals. This impressive diversity of members of the wild kingdom disappears with the completion of the rains since immigrating in search of better pastures. But they always return the following winter. In areas of this vast desert wild melons grow like carpets and a cactus-like plant called Hoodia Gordonii is a fundamental part in the diet of the Bushmen and whose property has been recently discovered by western physicians to lose weight. In fact it is almost impossible to find a bushman obese.

The Kalahari is the land of the meerkat, a type of mongoose mind which sudden raise to fame after appearing timon a character in the film helm of Disney’s “The Lion King”. Interestingly the position to take on two legs raised and as they take turns keeping watch while the other group members hunt or dig with their curved claws. Meerkats have a complex organization with different roles depending on the position in the social scale.

The Kalahari is the land of the Bushmen an ancient genetic group who was the first homo sapiens-sapiens moved out of Africa into Asia Minor thousands of years ago. Those who stayed are tribes that are not related to what we know as black Africans; as a matter of fact they are related to the Tasmanians. The Tasmanians are a so-called lost tribes located on the island of Tasmania south of Australia. They are entirety extinguished. After hunting them like animals in 1836 when there were only 2000, were persuaded by George Robinson, a Christian missionary "friend" to be located on a small island north of Tasmania called Finders. They were forced to dress like Westerners and converting to Christianity. They could not adapt to this radical change in their ancestral customs were banned. Eleven years later only 47 Tasmanians survived. In 1865 the last male died and in 1876 the last Tasmanian woman. Her name was Truganini .

The Bushmen are very different to anything known even in Africa, although the term Bushman or man of the forest is a term coined by the Netherlands immigrants. Actually the correct term is San. The most peculiar is the language based on clicks where no fewer than 80 click using different lips, teeth and tongue. Some sound like a kiss, others are admitted, entering air into the mouth and other graduates taking air from the mouth. It is believed that they are also related to pygmies.

Since the arrival of Europeans the Bushmen have been decimated to the point that currently they are less than 65,000. In the eighties were discovered potential diamond deposits in the Kalahari Desert, so that the Bushmen have been evicted from their land, and give it in concession to the European company which operates the sites.

The Bushmen have organized in a group called “First People of the Kalahari” and have developed a struggle to maintain possession of their desert lands.

In 2006 the organization won a victory when Botswana’s high court ruled that the San or Bushmen were entitled to return to their lands and hunting without a license, as until now demanded the authorities to press the exit from the mine diamond area.

FIELD HOCKEY IN PANAMA

By: Felipe Argote

It is not required to the general public to follow in detail the national tournaments of dominoes, checkers, or poker. Neither it is necessary for everyone to know when are the national water polo tournaments, racing canoes or equestrian. Usually most of the population follows up the most popular sports like baseball, football and boxing. Otherwise, we are talking with a sports journalist. In this case ignorance is not a merit.

I have witnessed in recent weeks to confirm that, due to the common sense of the Panamanians, very few sports journalists who bother to investigate what happens in sports and many just read the news in the paper and discussed with generic arguments.

So it is a shame that more than a sports journalist insist on saying that Panama cannot play hockey just because ... I’ve never seen it. That is to want to make ignorance a talent.

For six years, I knew that at the Episcopal San Cristobal Institute made the first calls were to start the practice of a sport that is becoming more and more popular in Central and South America; the hockey. In the Caribbean is already one of the most popular sports because of its relationship with Europe which magnified the sport, which is considered originated in India and Pakistan and imported by the Europeans when they were colonies. In fact previously dominated Pakistan and India in international championships , but now they do Germany, Holland , England, Spain , Argentina , Australia and China. In Spain it is called grass hockey. If we had Brazil we have no almost all the finalist of the football World Cup finalists.

It is very likely; due to field hockey is a dynamic very similar to football, although both the technical as the rules differ in this popular sport. As in the United States soccer is not very popular, field hockey is viewed as a sport for women's eminently as they play that wild ice hockey, where players make a cover themselves from head to toe to withstand the hard knocks to the players.

I attended in Panama as a spectator at least two national championships in field hockey where I have seen teams of Coclé, Chiriquí, Colón and Panamá both women and men. Although they do not play as current world champions Germany and the Netherlands neither do the Panamanians football players, or any other sport.

Perhaps these writers should attend these sporting activities and not shocked by what they not know, only to return from the Central American and Caribbean Games to say, “The sport in Panama is a shame!” I have found that in the Games Central American and Caribbean neighboring countries like El Salvador and Costa Rica presented teams of field hockey and Panama was only with the same baseball and football teams! How bad we are! What a shame! Stupid.

miércoles, 23 de junio de 2010

ZAMINAMINA

The news has spread like wildfire, especially on the web. Shakira plagiarized Wilfrido Vargas´song sung by the "Girls of Can" of Dominican Republican in the eighties called "The black man cannot", but known as Zaminamina.

The song, which is nothing less than the World Cup´anthem at of South Africa and it has become next to "Wave Your Flag" K`naan, in the most played tunes in almost every country in the world. Although Africans are more identified with the song of K`nan, even though this is Coca Cola promotion, because it is interpreted by the African Somali origin who always sings to his African roots, but he lives since thirteen in Canada.

Waka waka, as is known the song that plays Shakira, is not a creation of the Colombian performer and composer, but neither it is original performed by Wilfrido Vargas or the "Girls of Can ". It is a traditional African song, sung in Fang language, a variant of the Bantu. This language is spoken in part of Equatorial Guinea, South Gabon, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo and the islands of Sao Tome and Principe. In total the Fang language is spoken by a million people so waka waka sounds like a tongue twister for most Africans , more than 1.2 billion people who speak a language other than Fang.

Waka Waka is an action you or your but its conceptual translation Fang language would be something like you can. As always beckon twister, maybe this song is always so tacky. The letter in its original language is as follows:

Zamina mine hé hé

Waka Waka he he

Zamina ou mine

Zangalewa

Anawam ha ha

On the meaning in english some have posted the following:

"It does not hurt the coup, there is no fear, take off the dust, stand up and go back into the ring"

Totally made up. The true but not literal translation is:

Come ye eh eh

You do it he he

Who sent you?

Who called you?

Yes, is me

The song is definitely not original but neither is Shakira nor Wilfrido Vargas and can girls as we have said. It's a song generally used in the army of Cameroon, but also by the Boy Scouts in this central African country. Although it is traditional, made famous by a band called the Golden Sounds in the eighties, and became so famous that they changed the name of the band to Waka waka .

The original song has another part that does not appear in the version of Shakira but if the can girls of the eighties :

Yango hé hé

Zamina ou mine

Zangalewa

Anawam ha ha

It translates as follows:

I hoped I

Who sent you ?

Who called you ?

Yes, Is me

This song has been recorded by no less than ten bands.

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

From 6000 years ago were known and recovers the diamonds at Ban Rivers. Until the early nineteenth century it was considered that it was only possible to get them in commercial quantities in India and Brazil. But this changed dramatically in 1866 when a peasant named Erasmus Jacobs found a white stone on the bank of Orange River near Hopetown in South Africa. It was a diamond of 4.25 grams. Five years later he was found a similar stone on a hill called Colesberg Kopje near the first finding with the difference that was four times larger: 16.7 grams or 83.5 carats. This second finding determined the start of the call South African diamond fever.

Thousands of miners arrived as a marabunta to make the hill disappear by the effort of their muscles. But they didn’t stop, they continued to diamond digging and pulling up into a hole of 400 meters wide and 1097 meters deep. In 1914 when the mine closed, they had hand moved twenty tons of earth.

It is the deepest hole made by human hands. They only used picks, shovels, muscles and the greed of more than fifty thousand white adventurers from Europe mostly in search of diamonds to get rich suddenly.

The city was renamed Kimberly in honor of foreign minister of England in 1873 John Wodehouse, First Earl of Kimberley.

The term diamond comes from Greek and means unchanging, unbreakable. The Greeks knew from 3,000 years ago. They came from India where they were collected from the rivers Penner, Krishna and Godavari. In India were used as religious icons and a engraving tools for its hardness.

Humphry Davy was a British chemist, in 1813 found that the diamond is not nothing but cooked carbon at high pressure between 45-60 kilo bars and high temperatures of 900-1300 Celsius degrees. They are very special conditions that are only found in the mantle of the lithosphere and the place where a meteorite falls

Since its inception was a company owned and Cecil Rhodes who raised an empire by slave labor of Africans who never seized the benefits of diamond production. Rhodes´ company, De Beers still controls the diamonds market today and is the one that popularized the slogan "Diamonds are forever", declared the slogan of the twentieth century. Currently the company is controlled by the Oppenheimer family.

De Beers has been widely criticized for continuing for more than a century a policy that gives priority to increase their wealth over the people. They are accused of forcing the bushmen, those peaceful people of the Kalahari out of their ancient territory, to facilitate the company´s extraction and appropriation of diamonds from their territories. They are also accused of promoting the so-called blood diamonds encouraging coups and military uprisings to control diamond-mining centers .

Some famous English models such as Erin O'Connor and Lily Cole and supermodel Somali Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid have publicly renounced advertising campaigns for this company De Beers.

lunes, 14 de junio de 2010

SOUTH AFRICA: FIRST HEART TRANSPLANT

By: Felipe Argote

Cape Town, South Africa. December 3, 1967. Denise Darvall, a 25 year old girl dies in a car accident. Nearby, Wshkansky Louise, a 53 year old white man was lying on a bed of the Groote Schuur hospital, terminally ill with a heart beyond repair, added to acute diabetes. At that time Dr. Christian Barnard, born in South Africa and graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1953, give him the news he had got a heart with the necessary conditions for transplantation. His assistant was Hamilton Naki, a black man who was hired as a gardener, but little by little for his great skill has become imperative for the surgeon assistant

The long operation was a success and became the first heart transplant of a human being. The patient said he felt much better with the heart of the girl Denise Darvall. Unfortunately the patient died 18 days later of pneumonia.

A month later, on January 2, 1968, underwent the second operation to transplant a healthy heart in the body of a terminally ill patient. This time the heart belonged to Clive Haupt, a black man who died in an accident. The recipient was Phillip Blaiberg, a white man. This time the patient spent over a year and a half with the heart implanted. It happened in South Africa in the middle of the racist policy of apartheid. Hamilton Naki would say many years later that if he were out in the photo that traveled the world with news of the success of the transplant he had been put in jail.

So it was in South Africa where was performed the first heart transplant in history and developed a white man and a black one. Both placed the heart of a black man in a white body and this survived.

Bernard married several times. His first wife was Louwtjie had two children: Dirdre and Andre. Andre committed suicide because his parents' divorce. He then married Barbara Zoellner of nineteen in 1984, when Barnard had turned 62. She left him a couple of years later to marry a Portuguese businessman. Barnard later married Evelyn Entleder 24 years when he passed 65. She left him too. Finally Karen married 24 years Setzkorn and had two daughters Armin and Lara. He gave birth to Lara at seventy-four years old.

Hamilton Naki, the black assistant to Bernard in the Groote Schuur hospital was for the official records of the hospital a gardener. Naki not only contributed directly to the transplant operations, he held the position of laboratory technician researched kidney transplants, heart and liver, by special permission, while his formal position was still a gardener. He trained a large number of young surgeons for over forty years. But his salary and position in the organizational chart was a gardener and that he received his retirement pay $286 a month.

Naki was born in 1926 in the Transkei, never finished elementary school, was one of the greatest surgeons in the world but always had to work anonymously with the complicity of the authorities of the hospital but was never paid fair. Those were the days of apartheid.

At the drop of the apartheid the whole truth was known. Hamilton retired in 1991 at the age of 65 years, then changed his truck to a mobile clinic where he served for free to the poor. In 2001 he was finally recognized its merits, after ten years of having retired with a salary of a gardener. During the act of recognizing the surgeon Christian Bernard testified that he was Naki who removed the heart of Denise Darvall, the night of December 3, 1967 with the launch of the first successful experience of heart transplantation. Technically, Haki was better than me said Christian Barnard

In 2003 he was given an honorary degree of doctor of medicine at the University of Cape Town and the National Order of Mapungubwe in Bronze. He lived in a shack without running water or electricity.

Christian Barnard died that year at the age of 82. Hamilton Naki died on May 29, 2005 at the age of 79.

THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY

Born in the Kalahari , N! xau ( the exclamation point is a crack) is famous for being the main actor of the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy ." In the movie a Bushman Tribe receives a gift from heaven, a Coke bottle thrown from the window of an airplane. The gift from the gods to be a source of joy becomes a source of fight until N! xau decided to leave it at what is going on foot to dump it at the end of the world. This is the beginning of an adventure that pits the simple Bushmanlife with the most elemental technology and the stupid rules imposed by civilization. Is said that when he was paid for his performance N! xau released the bills to the wind because they he had no value for him.

MALINCHE BY LAURA ESQUIVEL

Malinche was a daughter of Noble in Nahua, Mexican also be called Aztec becuse they came from a place called Aztlan, and who settled in the valley of Mexico on XV century before expanding to what today is Central. La Malinche, or Doña Marina as she was baptized by spanish collaborated with Hernan Cortes and was one of his concubines. She helped to him to take aztec empire ans was used as translator. After Cortes took the empire he give her to one of his officials. It has been said that she was murdered in her own home.

AN THE MAYOR ? TALKING STUPID THINGS

Throughout the city there are somethings called monuments that have become garbage dumps, or simple mosquito breeding ruins. In Balboa, a monument that are misshapen figures balanced on a log to a dwarf who raises his fingers in sign of peace. The same day ended the Arnulfists government finished the budget for maintenance, the lights and the fountain disappeared and only the grotesque figures left. At Tumba Muerto avenue a group of ladies raised a Roman column holding an event and left it to their fate. Although years ago a red devil bus hit the base of the pilaster, the supposed monument and its significance remain unknown giving the city and ugly picture until it meets the result, it falls over a car or a pedestrian and kill someone.

THE PLOT

FOUR TEENAGERS WERE SWIMMING AT A RIVER WHEN THEY SAW THE ALLIEN BEING IN THE JUNGLE. BECAUSE HE WAS DIFFERENT THEY DECIDE TO BEAT HIM TO DEATH, AS THEY HAVE LEARNED BY HOLLYWOOD FILM AND TELEVISION PROGRAMS. THE FIRST AND SECOND PHOTO SHOW HOW HIS BODY REMAINED AFTER DEATH. THE THIRD SHOWS HOW HE LOOKS LIKE WHEN HE WAS ALIVE, THE FOURTH IS HIS I.D. PICTURE AND YOU CAN SEE AT THE FIFTH ONE OF THE THOUSANDS SHIPS THAT COMO TO AVENT HIS BUDY. WOULD YOU PLESE KILLERS TURN TO THE ALIENS TO AVOID AN INTERGALICTICAL WAR. IT IS NOT A GOOD MOMENT TO WAR WHEN WE THE WORLD ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FINANCIAL CRISIS.

MANATEE AT THE PANAMA CANAL

Few know, some of us did not know until recently that there are manatees at the Gatun Lake. These specimens are not originated from this artificial lake, were implanted in 1964 to control the growth of vegetation in the Panama canal. These animals are herbivors and can eat between 100 to 200 pounds of aquatic plants per day. They were part of a project of the former Canal Commission. One was brought from Peru and ten were brough from Bocas del Toro, but escaped during a storm and are now known to exist in the remotest places of Gatun Lake. They are very shy of human presence and can last up to twenty minutes underwater.

WILL THE MOON REACT TO ASSAULT?

In order to confirm the theory of the existence of water in a specific location of the moon, NASA scientists sent an unmanned vehicle to bombard a specific area of the small mass of land that runs our planet. According to the disclosures the maneuver was successful because it felt a splash in the bombed area. However, there are reports that the lunatics (inhabitants of the moon) have considered this an attack. Tempers have been heated in recent weeks, the product of murdering by teenage radicals in Cerro Azul, Panama

On Thursday, May 20, was held in the conference room of the master program of the American University of Panama an interesting exposition by the Engineer Jorge Quijano, Executive Vice President Engineering and Program Management of the Panama Canal Authority. The speaker presented the progress of the canal expansion at students and professors at the master's program. The conference was organized and presented by Professor Gustavo Salom who directs the graduate program of this prestigious university.

WHY COULD NOT U.S. CONFRONT MILITARILY THE ARAB EMBARGO IN 1973?

One of the reasons that Richard Nixon could not respond militarily to the oil embargo imposed by Arab countries in the seventies was the public opinion of the American people after seeing this photograph taken by Nic Ut an Associated Press photographer outside the population of Trang Bang in North Vietnam on 8 June 1972. In the photo Kim Phuc, a 9 years old vietnamese child run desesperately out of her town been bombed by napalm. It was not possible for U. S. to enter another war at the time. United States under President Richard Nixon signed the peacce agreement with North Vietnam in January 1973, six months after this photo and a few months before the oil embargo. Neem is now married and has a son. Richard Nixon resigned from his post as president on 8 August 1974.

NEW TAXES IN JANUARY

In January the middle class will receive another blow to his pocket. But contrary to what some believe, it is not the package of new tax reforms which fall to be discussed in January. This is the package already approved by the Assembly of Deputies in September 2009.
Starting January there will be charges of ITBMS of the following banking services:
1. RENEWAL OF CREDIT CARDS
2. FEES FOR HOUSING LOANS
3. FIVE-YEAR REVIEW COMMITTEE FOR MORTGAGE LOAN
4. RENTAL SAFE DEPOSIT BOX
5. CERTIFIED CHECKS
6. MANAGEMENT CHECKS
7. LETTERS OF CREDIT
8. COLLECTIONS
9. LOAN DISBURSEMENT
10. ATM WITHDRAWAL DIFFERENT TO SELF BANK ACCOUNT

The Maldives, a tropical paradise of thousands of islands located southwest of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean is one of the top three places in the world for diving. There are more than a thousand atolls of which only two hundred are inhabited. Those who have visited it say it is a natural aquarium. However, the product of CO2 emissions will do this paradise completely disappear over the next 100 years. Although some islands such as Kandholhudhoo Island, 60% of people will evacuate in the next 15 years. Sea level is growing at almost a centimeter per year. 80% of the islands do not have a meter above sea level. It is one of the flattest places in the world. In the 2004 tsunami, the islands suffered the flooding of a large wave that caused the tsunami. They beg the world for reducing CO2 emissions. Especially the United States. Its President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, sent a year and half ago a letter pleading with former President Bush to sign the Kyoto protocol. Never received a response

PANAMÁ: WORLD BIODIVERSITY CENTER

The Isthmus of Panamá is the biggest botanical biodiversity on the planet. The density of plant life in Panamá is greater than in Colombia, Brazil and China combined. After many years of construction is expected in 2010 will open on biodiversity museum created by one of the world's best architects: Frank Gehry. This is the creator of the famous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao as one of the 50 most important twentieth century buildings, the Vitra Design Museum in Weil-am-Rhein, Germany, the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, Minn., the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Washington and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California among others.

ONE MONTH

One month after the first publication of my blog, thanks a lot to all of you who have written your point of view or have sent it to my personal email.

According to the counter AdSense, this month we have a total of 785 prints which is much more than we expected at the begining. This has committed us to continue to develop short-term analysis on the most important national issues.

Again I thank all the readers of my blog, with the assurance that there is a commitment to regularly update.

Sincerely,

Felipe Argote

Daja Editions

SEPTEMBER 13TH 2009