Petit Cheval

Blood Diamond

2007-01-20T00:52:00.000+11:00

I went to the movies couple of days ago to watch Blood Diamond with Leonardo di Caprio , Jennifer Connelly and Djimoun Hounsou. What i can say firstly is that it was great...at different levels!!! Leonardo definitely proves that he is a real talented actor with another extremely solid performance after the one in the departed. He can finally escape from the ghost of Jack in Titanic on top of the world.The movie itself is alright...well ,entertaining most of the time even tough some parts appear to be quite long(140 min!!). The realisation is of extremely good quality and finally we get some movies about africa. Well we can t really say that they are joyfull (Lords of war with Nicholas Cage was about the weapon industry and this one concerns the conflict of 1998 in sierra leone) but it is good to have a story in a part of the world that is largely misrepresented. Only the end arrives to destroy all the story put in place but it is normally expected with hollywood movies! Nevertheless the plot itself of the movie brought my interest: we see for more than two hours characters running for their lives...children becoming cold blooded killers....miltias fighting the government...all about a diamond!!! Yes, a single diamond that rich buyers will quitely buy in western country as a gift or proof of power (diamonds are forever!!). I still remember one of my teacher in primary school, trying to teach us that every single conflict occurs because of the rarity of some items (oil, diamonds...etc). But what still amazesme is how we, as human beings ,automatically put ourselves in this situation of conflict. In itself a diamond is worth nothing...it is the demand for diamonds that raise its interest... I can almost understand, even if i certainly do NOT encourage wars, a fight over essential rare items that are useful for the functioning of societies (take the Iraq's war for example, which is killing thousands of people every day, and there is more genocides in Africa than anywhere in the world) like oil, petrol. But i find it harder to fight for something that is only decorative!!!Don t misunderstand me, it s not that i am being naive but more realistic about the worth of a diamond. My flatmate reckons that because i do not have the necessary money to buy diamonds, i can not appreciate them fully. I do not belong to those classes of society that has the time and money to be able to contemplate such things and therefore participate to the raise of demand for it. Maybe...i am not so sure about it as my mind can not really decide whereas it is because i am not materialistic or that i misunderstood something somewhere. If you put in front of me a diamond worth a million and one worth 200 dollars, i am pretty sure i wouldn t pay attention to any of it or would not see any difference!!

well anyway that was the ideas and discussions that came up after watching this movie...it is always interesting to debate!

Maybe i simply do not like diamonds...:-)

Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy!!!

2007-01-20T00:17:00.000+11:00

It's funny...normally i don t watch TV that much to not say not at all. I lived all my time in Paris without a TV and was really happy with it. The thing is that finally i got one in Australia that i share it with my flat mates...but apparently there is something that i only notice: on Australian Tv every second advertisement you hear the world "Australia"!!! "Australian's favorite car", "Australian's best toothpaste", "Australian's most appreciated show"...etc...and it gets worst with the news with the word Australia being said every two seconds...I don t remember actually any country where i have been where the name of the country would be repeated that much. And this makes me wonder why people love soooo much to evoke the fact that it is concerning Australia and Australians!! I thought about it quickly and i really have no answer to it. Maybe, considering that the country is only 200 years of age, it is a way to show some patriotism. Or another possibility would be that the advertisers or news presenters want to be sure that what they say ONLY concerns Australians!!! i really don't know but as a game (you gotta be pretty bored i admit), just try to watch Tv for 5 min without hearing it!!!

Well that was the little (important obviously) thought of the day. :-)

Power of the Media

2007-01-19T15:54:00.000+11:00

Few days ago i had to give a presentation about communication and i decided to choose an interesting event that occured in 1938 in America: the adaptation of war of the worlds by Orson Welles into a radio-drama play!!! As i was trying to find a topic for my assignement, i found few comments on websites about the panic that occured after its diffusion on radio!!! People that did not hear about the Theather performance seriously thought that an UFO full of martians invaded th earth and were ready to annihilate the enitire human race!!!! I was quite surprised first but then decided to download a recording of the drama organized by Orson Welles, to try to understand how people could get sooo confused about something that obvious!!!!and god i have to admit that i was shocked!! The idea of using main tunes (real music performed on radio by a band....) that would be cut so that presumed reporters on site could comment the invasion of martians was simply genious!!! I could not stop laughing as the recording was going, imagining people already ready to jump in their bunkers or leave with their whole family for a safer place than new york!!!!( as it is reported in The New York Times of the Next day). Moreover, an adaptation of the play was performed in Quito in 1944, creating a massive panic and leading to the death of 20 workers of the main radio station. People were sooo angry in their flea from martians to learn that it was only a joke or a drama play that they actually put the whole radio building in flames killing 20.
From my point of view this extremely intersting story that became a urban legend today showed us greatly already in 1938 the possible enormous influence of the media over a population!!!
Well anyway, i had a great laugh listenening to this but it raised in my mind interesting ideas about how media can control us in some way ( not that i am a defendend of the constant conspiracy theory) and the distance necessary in our own approach of the news!!!

A new view of the world

2007-01-19T13:49:00.000+11:00

For the last assignement at university, we have to provide a review from whatever blog we can find. I decided to talk about one blog that i discovered this year at uni: riverbendblog.blogspot.com, an extraordinary alternative source of information about what (really) happens in Iraq.

The blog Baghdad burning or Riverbendblog.blogspot.com ,was created in 2003, coinciding with the beginning of the invasion of Iraq by America. A young Iraqi women, twenty four years of age, depicts in this blog the evolution of the situation in her country. The blog was awarded in 2006 best middle east and African blog by the webblog bloggies awards and was nominated for the Samuel Johnsson Prize, a prestigious British award. The enormous success encountered by the blog led to the publications of actual books about the blog and even the creation of a drama play, Baghdad Burning: Girl blog from Iraq, performed in America by the six figures theater company. The blogger portrays with a rare intensity her own feelings and opinions about the war and is able by sharing daily details to provide a new original insight into the crisis that the country is facing.
Moreover, this blog can be seen as an essential alternative source of war reporting. As it is pointed in her blog, the main media reporting the war merely comment death numbers of American soldiers or victims but the form itself of a blog, as an incisive opiniated spot, brings definitely an alternative view around the situation. The death numbers are replaced by names: names of people she knew and disappeared in the conflict, and the "objectivity" held by normal journalists are replaced by an interesting "subjectivity" related to her life or the situation and problems encountered by Iraqis. Each post either discusses her own points of view and experiences, or the atmosphere and questions that the Iraqi's are likely to discuss. The reason of the tremendous success of the blog is because it comments smartly the political situation and political's leaders actions in Iraq with a closer point of view and a strong emotional impact appear in each of her posts.
Baghdad Burning transcends the role of traditional journalism by evoking a diiferent view of the news; the one that touches directly the people. The point of view adopted provides a clear insight into what types of problems (water, electricity cut in the capital, governments actions) Iraqis face daily, and provides strong opiniated comments about the dramatic situation (2006 has been the worst year with a crisis that can litterally lead to a civil war). Finally the blogger comments the situation with information that never appear in the mainstream media (control of the miltias, influence and role of Iran in Iraq, what are the political leaders of the Iraqi's government really proposing to the Iraqi's) making it an extremely precious source of information concerning the conflict , along with other alternative sources that allow the viewers to understand better the drama occuring in Iraq today.

A marxist Review of the movie gattacca

2007-01-19T03:22:00.000+11:00

Hi everyone! The last semester of university proposed an interesting course with marxist analysis. Therefore i decided for this new post to share a part of the work that i provided on the movie gattacca and edit one of my assignement into what would be my own marxist review of this fascinating movie! This exercice was extremely enjoyable and brings from my point of view a new reading to the movie...

“The History of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle”. (Marx)

In the middle of the nineteen century, The German theorician and philosopher Marx explained the evolution of society as an eternal battle and exchange between classes of society. As arguably Marx never explicitly defined the term class on its own; Marxist’s theories nonetheless largely refer to class conflicts to describe the perpetual evolution of history .Sociologists, such as Weber, argue that class divisions appear as a result from the differences in production of wealth and income, whereas Marxist theories propose that the division operate firstly in the process of production . It is in this concept of classes and exchange that ideologies appear to transmit or carry values from different social groups in society and potentially propose a class conflict . I decided for this post to take the case of a particular science-fiction movie, Gattaca, produced in 1997 by Andrew Niccol, to explore key concepts inherent to Marxist’s theories of conflict between classes through an analysis of the components of the movie.

Apparition of classes in Gattaca

Marx presented the apparition of classes at the moment that oneself share common ways of life and interests with another . The class itself is not only linked by a materialistic aspect but share a psychological link which leads to the creation of consciousness of its own class. It is this consciousness that creates suddenly a separation of classes and the apparition of ideologies to justify a certain social hierarchy . The separation of classes in the movie Gattaca is obvious and determined by inflexible factors: Gattaca is a story based upon a futurist but realistic world where equality between human beings does not exist anymore but leads to a drastic selectivity through DNA to elect the persons who can access powerful social standards in society. The hero, whose DNA does not match the requirements to become an astronaut, cheats the law to access a new social status and pursue his dream to travel in space. As the main hero, Vincent, explained at the beginning of the movie, “the underclass was not determined by social status or skin color” but “today, discrimination is down to a science”. Gattaca, from this perspective, propose an original society with stratification between classes and a justification of positions by the “genes” carried by protagonists.

A distinctive separation of power

The hierarchical society of Gattaca mainly proposes a society which functions around the concept of “genetic determinism” and therefore creates an unavoidable system of genomic class/caste . In the movie the division of classes is symbolized by the recognition of characters through blood analysis as “valids”, the ones that operate in the elite, or “invalids”, the ones who can not aspirate to high standard jobs and will be confined as being a cleaner. The inflexibility of the system is justified through the simple will of the parents, who decide to modify the DNA of their children so that they can get access to the elite. The perpetuation of classes is ensured by the elite, or at least families who can afford the genetic modifications of their baby . From this perspective the movie Gattaca differs slightly from a Marxist analysis of class conflict. From a Marxist point of view, class differentiation lies in the ownership of the means of production . In Gattaca, the “elite” class is not defined by the ownership of production tools and the exploitation of workers, the differentiation is anterior to the production process, at the time when a baby is conceived and prepared to be a part of the elite . As the hero decides to deny its genetic origins, to transcend its original position, he is defined as a “borrowed ladder”, as to illustrate that the ascension from the lower class can only be accomplished by “cheating” or at least “borrowing” an identity from the elite. A particular scene in Gattaca illustrates the perfect separation of classes as the hero, who is cleaning a window of the facility, is watching through it the elite going up on an escalator. His boss asks him to not clean the window too well, as he might get “ideas”. To this, Vincent answers that if the window is perfectly cleaned, it would be easier to see on which side he is standing. The “unclean “window can be transposed as a strong sign of class division within the movie .

Justification of the separation

It is by observing the particular place of the hero inside the story that it is possible to analyze the inter-contextualization of the movie and the presence of different societal values and ideologies within the class of the hero and the dominant class, leading to a class conflict. It is very likely to find in science-fiction movies a class struggle between "the have and have not" and a transposition of class conflict, particularly in Gattacca, between those who can pretend to access the elite and the others through their DNA’s . The technological improvements shown in Gattaca can only benefits the higher class of society and perpetuate its inflexible status .The movie creates as well a definition of what a higher social status needs to be composed of, by this inaccessibility to high standards jobs. Progress in genetics has failed to provide a more equal society and given opportunities for a clear hierarchical society to exist. Within themselves the imaginative world created by the author carries ideologies of classes and an inter-contextualization of the social status held by the hero. Therefore Vincent does not have a choice, but to transgress his original class to achieve his dream of belonging to the high-society.

Illustration of the conflict through Identity

A marxist theory of class conflict propose that the lower class of society, constituted by the workers, is constantly exploited and oppressed by the bourgeoisie, who owns the means of production . The dual class is present in Gattaca with the designation of valids/unvalids. Moreover the lack of freedom experienced by the hero Vincent, can be interpreted as a result of the oppression from the higher class . The choices left to Vincent are extremely narrow as to become a part of the elite he needs to “abandon” his identity and “borrow” a proper one. The observation of “oppression” in the movie are slightly different from the Marxist point of view, as the oppression only result in the inflexibility of the society and the necessity to transgress the formal social status to achieve purposes. The fight that the hero needs to conduct and which inevitably leads him to a transcendence of his original status is arguably a fight against those who maintain the power and the inflexibility of society. Marx argued that the higher class would always try to “defend the established and the traditional because these correspond to their interest”. . In Gattaca the “established” is immovable, the legal justification for the oppression being the DNA, and therefore Vincent needs to lose all signs of his anterior identity to become part of the high society and enjoy the same freedom of choices as the elite. In the movie he tries to get rid of all significant signs of his “invalid” body to become “valid”: “Each day, I would dispose of all my loose skin, nails and hair. To limit how much of my invalid self I would leave in the valid world” (Vincent).

Critical approach and Analysis of Gattaca

The rejection of the lower society appears clearly in a part of the movie when Vincent and his “perfect” brother are playing on a beach. Vincent cuts his finger to become a “blood brother” but his brother declines. Possibly, the rejection of “Vincent’s defective blood indicates a preference for relationship based on the quality of an individual’s genes rather than on larger bonds of kinship or affinity”. Marx’s observation of class distinguished classes ‘in itself’, where the condition generated it and a class ‘for itself’, aware of its purposes with the apparition of a “conscious solidarity “among it . The latter pattern of class, with the apparition of “class consciousness” and a certain solidarity would benefit the lower class in its attempt to reverse the oppression state in which it has been put . Marxism implies that the manipulation of the proletariat is perpetuated by its manipulation in “false consciousness” and that a revolution in a Marxist sense could only occur through the liberation of the proletariat from “the taint of capitalist ideology”. Nevertheless, in the movie Gattaca, such observation of class “consciousness” does not appeal, as the “invalid” class does not show any solidarity in its core. The hierarchy observed is defined by the improvement of science and the “gene quality” of the citizens of Gattaca. The act of Vincent, which transcends his origins, is an isolated one, only achieved by borrowing a fake identity and a strong denial of his original core. The only possibility for a revolution would be a general denial from the “scientific” law and its perpetuation but it is not what the director wanted to show in the first place. Gattaca’s message, as his title suggests, “There is no gene for the human spirit” is before-all a critical movie on the use of scientific discoveries and “the potential social reverberation of this explosion of knowledge and power” . Interestingly, the movie clearly proposes a class differentiation but suggest that progress in science “is a potential treat to the privilege enjoyed by those persons who can fit into a classical liberalist humanist conception of subjectivity, namely able-bodied, economically privileged, white, straight, male individuals from first world nations .

Marxist theory of class conflict clearly provides a new reading of the movie Gattaca through the exploration of classes. A close reading of the discourse reveals a division of society into dual classes of “valids” and “invalids”, the latter being constantly rejected from the highest responsibilities and opportunities in society. Moreover, the justification of the division in society is operated according to the Marxist theory of power, by the ownership, not specifically of the means of production, but the law and order conducted by the hegemonic ruling class in society. The inflexibility of this culture can only encourage the protagonist to transcend class levels to achieve his ultimate goal: become part of the elite few to travel in to space; the only place where class affiliation and “genetic determinism” does not apply, outside the borders of the world of Gattaca.

Media, lies and power

2007-01-19T03:09:00.000+11:00

One of the greatest thing that happened to me this past year has been to discover a bit more through my studies how media are used not only to protect the public interest but to transmit ideologies and interests from their publishers. A couple of years ago i heard someone saying that Rupert Murdoch was the most powerful man in the world...I knew vaguely who the character was, but it is not until this year and an assignment given on Fox News that i realized how much "unreal"and "biased" news Media can be. As an example of how surprised i got investigating Fox News, here is an analysis about misinformation concerning the Iraq's war published by www.sourcewatch.org

Concerning Viewers of Fox News during the Iraq's invasion :
57% believed the falsity that Iraq gave direct support to Al Qaida and was directly involved in the September 11 attacks.
69% believed that Saddam Hussein was directly implicated in the attack and more than twenty percent thought that weapons of mass destructions have been found in Iraq and used against American soldiers.
20% thought that weapons of mass destructions have been found in Iraq and used against American soldiers.
5% believed all the fake assumptions!!!

I know that it is extremely difficult and dangerous to analyse those numbers...but i still get angry...Media are obviously not neutral, but that a major media channel would be used simply to brainwash viewers in the attempt to reinforce the friendship (casual) between Murdoch and Bush or more simply American's interest raises essential questions concerning the equity and purpose of a news channel. Being biased is natural to a certain extent: it is impossible to keep a perfect level of objectivity in front of a situation, the human nature is build in that way. But it is also build with a conscience, and that is what makes me even more angry. Anyway, those things happen everywhere, in every country in a infinite struggle for power by Media owners but the enormous influence that Media have over a population still amazes me somehow. It would probably be very naive to think the opposite. Nonetheless, on top of this survey a declaration of Bill O Reilly surprised me even more 2 days ago (O Reilly is the host of a popular talk show on Fox): he was simply blaming the Iraq's war on the french! Arguing that if only Jacques chirac called Saddam directly to ensure that The UN observers could check the presence of WOMD, the war would have never happened! And being watched by millions he was still able to say: the Iraq's war is on the french!!!it is not that i felt attacked directly as being french (The least i can say is that i cannot really consider myself as being patriotic!:-)) it is the amount of stupidity behind those declarations!!!I couldn t stop laughing first but then got a bit sad eventually...sad for some people that eventually never got the opportunity to receive an education and still consider the little screen as being of educational purpose!!!

That was the thought of the day...hehe...hopefully not only anger comes from observing the world.

Tennis , Sampras and Kangaroos...

2007-01-19T02:25:00.000+11:00

Happy new year to everyone!!!!wish you all the best for this year and blabla..it s sincere!!! Well here we are in 2007... It has been now almost a year that i moved to Sydney to study communication...and for the very first time i can finally watch the Australian Open Live without having to wake up at 4 in the morning and postpone my sleep for my lectures at school!!! Honestly it has been a very long time that i haven t watched Tennis that much. I actually totally stopped the day that Sampras won his last grand slam...the best one..in a memorial game against Agassi at the US open 2002. To tell you how much i appreciated this player, i recently found at my place in Paris recordings of first rounds of Grand Slams by Sampras against some unknown guys!!! That was quite funny, who would ever bother to record a first round of a grand slam to then replay it nicely at home!!!Well enough about my stupidity and let s talk a bit more about Tennis!

Well, from my point of view, Tennis is going through a mini crisis due to the lack of constant potential winners in the main competition...It s a bit sad to say, but as extroaordinary as a player like Federer is...he does not attract the masses. This situation is due to his real lack of opponents, players that are able to push him to his own limits...Nadal could be a potential winner...but he does not exactly has the charisma of an agassi, a becker or an edberg! And it is exactly what the public needs!!! Hewitt, Roddick or Safin haven t been really constant in their struggle to challenge Federer and this provides a clear situation with a big King and all his little subjects. I still remember the extraordinary rivality of Agassi and Sampras, while other really good players could constantly reverse the hierarchy (rafter for example...). Everyone had his own favorite and each competition was extremely indecisive. Today (or at least last year), the only option is to wait for an eventual final between Federer and Nadal or one of the players previously cited! Nevertheless i have great hopes for the evolution of Tennis in the future. There is a young generation that is there ( Nadal, Monfils, who played an exceptional game against Baghdatis, Gasquet...etc) but they still need time to adjust their games and perform constantly at a top level...Let's just hope that this year will make us discover new talents or confirm talented players able to move a bit the hierarchy in place!!!

Popularity

2006-12-01T16:08:00.000+11:00

Yesterday i discovered an interesting poll on the next presidential elections in France. If the actual president Jacques Chirac would actually try to present himself to the next elections...he would obtain approximatively two percent of votes intentions!!! This proves one's more the difficult political context in which France is ,elections after elections , and how unpopular someone can become in barely five years!!! The typical french is constantly unsatisfied, constantly arguing, in the streets each time a law tries to be approved...to sum up france has been for a long time in a context of perpetual indecision...therefore it is not suprising to see a social crisis in a country where none of the politicians are supported and if one tries to "change something" get the all country after him...So now two new names appeared for the next elections: miss Segolene Royal and mister Sarkozy...Well the only thing that i can bet is that none of them will be popular after five years...and again the only possibility to obtain votes is by criticizing the current government ( that it is from the right or feft wing). The political approach of presidential elections seems to appear as a simple formula years after years: criticize what is done currently and promise a strong change. The promises eventually do not really matter as the critic part seems far more important. I have been reading most of the french newspapers to try to find hints about what both candidates were proposing...and well i can t really tell after all!!!Most of the comments on politicians are made about their attacks towards the opposite one and none of them actually succeed to deliver proper proposals to change a country that dramatically needs to evolve.
In five years i bet they won t have a much better popularity than what chirac was given in this poll...

Violence...and more violence...!!!

2006-12-01T15:37:00.000+11:00

About a week ago a parisien supporter of PSG was shot by a police guy around the stadium, after trying to protect an israeli from being beaten up by a hundred fifty angry supporters of boulogne (one side of the stadium). To this event i would answer with another question...Is it that surprising that people who are seen to abuse of neonazis signs during the game and hassle constantly opponents supporters find one of them shot after all those years???It is obviously not and i am actually surprised that it did not happen earlier and more frequently! Personnaly i went four times to this stadium...and each single time i had troubles getting out of the stadium. All those groups of supporters are waiting like animals that the opponents' side goes out...to then chase them to eventually put on a fight. All this happens constantly right in front of the police forces who do not move a single finger to stop the assaults. So when you go to watch a soccer game in paris, you know perfectly want you are in with...it is certainly not just about enjoying to watch a beautiful game or seeing the team that you support...but more alike to an opperation of self control, especially when you support the opponents. Three years ago i went with a friend of mine to watch Paris-Toulouse. During the whole game we had the parisiens supporters giving us the big fingers; some of them literrally did not watch a single moment of the game but were turned in our direction to insult and make neonazis signs...out of the studium the police asked us to take our sharps off (they were with colors from toulouse). We were both pretty surprised but still did it; we did not want any troubles and we figured out that as Paris won the game, there shouldn t be any troubles outside as the majority of the supporters would celebrate a victory. But we still got chased and kicked...My friend got beaten up right in front of the police, who seemed to watch entertained the show...and we had to run for 10 minutes to escape idiots who just had an idea in mind: fight...and fight more.
Nowadays it is extremely easy with the technological improvements to identify someone in a stadium. The most dangerous people are known by the police forces but it is still not enough...It is propably profitable for someone like sarkozy who can then expend drastic mesures of repression and control...but for how long is the general public going to continue to accept attitudes that shouldn t have their place in society?
Now everyone seems shocked by what happened...but the real problem lies in the hand of the club and the authorities, which both continued to encourage those type of behaviors by their remarkable passivity.

The eternal cycle

2006-12-01T14:05:00.000+11:00

"And as for me, here I am bringing the deluge of waters upon the earth to bring to ruin all flesh in which the force of life is active from under the heavens. Everything that is in the earth will expire."
-- Genesis 6:17

Testsuya Takahashi....you are a god!!!....yes and i repeat it...you are a god or shall be as one....the last sequel of the trilogy Xenosaga finally appeared, and since its creation the impact of the project hasn t changed. I just finished the third part and there is no words to express how i feel...the same feeling that i probably felt in 1998 for the release of xenogears, just a couple of years after , with a better understanding of the transposition of nietzchaen concepts but still the will to continue this fantasic story...Please don t stop and follow your ideas to the end...because this can t be the end....It is just a beggining!!!!
I would like to come back to the final sequence of "also sprach Zarathustra", which is probably one of the best sequence ever invented in a video game. The character and charisma oj jeshua is extremely interesting, being confronted to the will of "simple humans" to carry on their own mistakes. The answers given by Takahashi are as well extremely human as proves the awakening of marie magdalene and the negation of the total annihilation of the human state. Though the human body and mind is surely imperfect, its strength into fighting adversities and accepting his own mistakes provides one of the most powerful ending i have ever seen. The remaining characters have then the most beautiful mission, linking the own past of human history with a future that they will build. To repeat myself thank you mister Takahashi and Bravo!

I am aware that this post might seem weird for people who never played the game or are unfamiliar with it. Well for any person normally constituted that likes sometimes to abandon himself into games, i would definitely recommend to try it!!! It s a real experience as you are both entertained while yo will ask yourself thousands of questions about human actions and behavior! The reason why i decided to talk about this game, is because it was through its very first version or episod, Xenogears, that i forced myself to learn english in my youth! Well i can t really say that i feel sorry for myself after all those years...:-)

Transhumanity

2006-12-01T12:52:00.000+11:00

Last night i watched Gattaca for the third time and this movie really proposed important issues on the future developmeent of genetics. The concept of transhumanism was born in the eighties as a support for the use of science to enhance cognitive and physical abilities. This basically means ameliorating certain human aspects such as health, aging and to a final extent death. Nevertheless movies alike Gattaca and certain scientists reserve their opinion the impact og genetics in human evolution, arguing that a development of science would inevitably lead to a misuse of it. Last year i had the incredible opportunity to attend in Wahshington to a congress on incurable illnesses that touch mainly children. The only hope for those childs is to see a development of a gene therapy with a real gene transplant that replaces the diseased ones. Ultimately (and it is in development) it implies the replication of genes by cloning to get identical pure ones. This progress in genetics would be a fantastic advance and bring back hope for thousands of families who can only wait for the death of their beloved ones. In opposition you get the position of the pope and legal procedures who at the moment only refute those development. Then again wouldn t you do anything in your power to save someone you love...and does the future really have to fall in hands of people that are going to use those improvements to obtain more and more power...Certainly...but it s worth the attempt...

A Smile tells a lot....

2006-10-20T16:24:00.000+10:00

an amazing country...full of colors with smiling people all along the way...As i travel all around the world, and discover new countries and culture, something always surprised me when i get into capitals of countries: the people living in direct capitals such as Paris, Mexico City, Roma, Berlin...or Hanoi in vietnam...people tend to be more stressed and preocupied than in the countryside..A smile is something easy to do, a simple action but that allows the communicator to feel eased and welcomed... but that appears apprently more difficult to get in important busy cities!!!!A travel is always a weird mix of natural direct discovery altered by the position of "tourist" or "stranger", which only allows to get a short glimpse at things. It would be unapproriate to come back and say "well i just know everything about a culture simply because you spent some time in a country...The underlying assumptions and connotations that are the corpse of culture are only accessible to someone who spends a long time living along with it...Therefore a travel is always interesting as you simply lose yourself, being so candide, into culture...but at the same time graps things with your external point of view that others can not see...The main thing that surprised me about vietnam are not monuments, neither famous places...but simply the people...In saigon for example, which has 8 millions habitants, i have never met such lovely people in such a big city...with always a smile attached on their faces...
It was the first time that i travelled to Asia as well, and another thing came to my mind as the country was facing a very special time: a storm coming from Phillipines destroyed most of the coastal areas, leaving thousands of people homeless, having to recreate everything by themselves after sometimes having lost close ones...well, as i walked through those destroyed areas (we arrived in HOI AN only 2 days after the storm), i was surprised by the generosity and friendliness of the people even tough they were going through really tough times and the will that they all had to help each other...Last semester at University in Sydney, i conducted a research with others students about culture differenciation between the Asian and Western cultures, and the most stauning point was the relationship between the self and the community in Asia! The survey showed that 75 percent of Asians are group orientated or even think as a group before their own personal interest, which obviously strongly contrast with the individualitic western point of view. Therefore when i saw all those people helping each other i could see from my own eyes a certain reflection of the Asian culture and that gave me a strong will to explore a bit more asian cultures and differences....