I'm starting with the man in the mirror

Oxfam, which stands for Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, is the name of an international NGO that, in my opinion, is worth supporting.

It was founded in Britain in 1942 with the aim of sending food supplies to starving women and children who happened to be in enemy-occupied areas during the Second World War.

Nowadays, it is still committed to the fight against poverty and injustice, which is done through four different courses of action:

1. Eradicate poverty. Not only are impoverished communities provided with basic resources such as food, water, or sanitation, but they are also trained to be independent of international help.

2. Assist during emergencies. Wherever a natural disaster may occur there is bound to be assistance from Oxfam to help overcome the difficulties and develop resilience to future catastrophes.

3. Campaigning. Nothing could be done without the support of ordinary people. For that reason, an important deal of energy is invested in trying to raise public awareness of the causes of poverty and encourage the average citizen to take action.

4. Advocacy. As important as covering the needs of the weak is dealing with the problem from the root, that is, pressing decision-makers (governments and international organizations) to change policies that reinforce poverty and injustice.

To my belief, this NGO complies with three criteria of capital importance when deciding what charity is worthier supporting. These are:

Reliability. We all want that our contribution gets to its destination.

Organization. As with a machine, every component of the whole should do a specific task without interference or overlapping from other pieces in order to maximize the result and minimize the expenditure.

Effectivity. This is reflected in the closeness of the aim of the NGO to the result obtained, the closer the better. This is a consequence of how accurate, sensible, correct and so on was the decision about the course of action to follow.

Mandela's way

A. The three lessons. It's not an easy task to choose three lessons over the others as they all are very meaningful, but since we are gently pushed to, I'll go for the ones listed below:

1- Courage is not the absence of fear. I've chosen this chapter mainly because I've already died quite a few times so far and I would like to die not many times more from now on. Apart from this new year's resolution I've found very inspiring Mandela's very concept of courage: it has nothing to do with the absence of fear but with how we manage this existing fear, that is, we will be brave if we pretend we are so, we will overcome fear if we act as if we had already overcome it. Given the large number of situations throughout our lives that cause fear, this is indeed a fairly useful piece of advice.

2- Be measured. This lesson is without a doubt very useful when we are faced with stressful situations in which we have to be calm in order to be more able to evaluate the situation and choose the best course of action, and in which we even have to transmit to others that we are in control of the situation. This kind of event is very likely to appear repeatedly in our lives and it would be very convenient if we were prepared to face them just by taking into account this important lesson.

3- See the good in others. If you want to change the world for the better start changing yourself. This lesson describes a way to do that. It is not out of naiveness that you should try to see the good in others but out of self-interest, it is a way of influencing others to behave in a proper way, which for an educator is a priceless lesson indeed.

B. Mandela's gift. This book, as the title states without subtleties, provides a great deal of advice for everyone that can be applied in many different arenas. Who hasn't been in the need of influencing another person at a particular moment of their lives? We live in society and regardless our personal situation we interact with others, and it would be highly desirable that this interaction occurs in the best possible way so that we can fully achieve our vital goals whatever they may be.

Should we pay for public services that we don't directly receive?

In times of economic difficulties, it's very common to revise our budget trying to find unnecessary expenses to eliminate. And if we are undergoing a specially precarious situation it could be understandable that we expressed our reluctance to pay for some services from which we are not going to have an immediate and direct benefit. But in my opinion, regardless our particular situation, we all should pay to ensure that all the basic services are available for whoever may need them.

Firstly, providing education for all the country benefits us all. This is quite obvious: with a highly formed citizenship we will be a more productive country, and so we will be able to export our products or services to other countries improving our economy.

In addition, a widespread health service will help reducing the incidence of most diseases, reducing thus the likelihood of us being affected (from a selfish point of view). This will also contribute to productiveness, considering the country as a whole, in the sense that a healthier and, therefore stronger, workforce will be inevitably able to produce more.

Besides, public security is essential in order to maintain a minimum standard of living for everyone. Without security forces taking care of us, criminal activities would be omnipresent; no one would be safe wherever they may be because crime would be so engrained everywhere that it would eventually reach everyone.

Admittedly, when we pay our taxes it's difficult to think about the value of what we are having in return, but that does not mean that what we are providing as a country is not valuable, perhaps it just indicates that more should be done to raise awareness of the importance of public services.

Summing up, public services are not just valuable but essential in order to maintain a minimum standard of living for everyone, because the well being of our neighbors is our own well being.     

Airplane!

Presently, I am immersed in a book called "peoples and cultures of the world" by Edward F. Fischer. It deals with anthropology and therefore, with language, as an essential feature of human beings. It is structured in lectures, and in the seventh one, titled "Language and thought," it is described how language and thought influence each other. Well, in this chapter we find a very interesting extract about direct and indirect language. In direct language you express very clearly what you want, and indirect language uses lots of subtleties to communicate the speaker's intentions, it could be compared with an understatement. Bosses usually use direct language to speak to their subordinates while subordinates tend to use indirect language when speaking with their superiors. Part of this extract may easily fit in a comedy as a gag in spite of its tremendously tragical nature.

In 13th January 1982, an airplane that was to leave from Washington National Airport took off and just a few seconds later it crashed down, dying 74 out of 79 people. The reason was that ice formed on the wings of the plane because it had been waiting too long to take off after being de-iced. Then it took off, the rotors and flaps couldn't move and it crashed down. The black box recording shows a very revealing conversation between the pilot and the copilot; take note of the indirect speech that the copilot is using to communicate his concerns to the pilot:

Copilot: Look at that ice just hanging there on this... eeer back there, you see that?

Pilot: (No response).

Copilot: See all those icicles on the.... back there and everything?

Pilot: Yeah.

Copilot: Boy, this is a losing battle here trying to de-ice those things, it gives you a false sense of security. That's all it does.

Pilot: (No response).

(Then they're given clearance for take off).

Copilot: Let's check those tops again since we've been sitting here for a while.

Pilot: I think we've got to go here in a minute.

Copilot: That doesn't seem right, does it? That's not right.

Pilot: Yes it is.

Copilot: No, I don't think that's right. Mmmm maybe it is.

Pilot: 120.

Copilot: Mmm I don't know.

(And then they take off. 37 seconds later they crash down).

Probably, if the copilot had been more assertive and had addressed the pilot more directly the catastrophe would have been avoided. Anyway, it would be unfair to put all the blame on the copilot when it was the pilot who didn't bother to take into account the copilot's warning.

A story about gain and loss

Green, painfully green; as painful a green as the sight of all that was dear to you and has been lost in the way. Green, soothingly green; as soothing a green as the sight of the only familiar thing that remains in a world that means nothing to you, absolutely nothing. Right now, this deep green, as soothing as painful, as painful as soothing, is all that I've got, and there is nothing I can do. 

But there was a time when things were different. I used to be a wealthy man, wealthy in every single aspect of life. It could be said that I possessed everything that was worth possessing. 

And I must add, in my defence, that I held everything in the highest regard: it hasn't been a loss through waste what I have suffered. In fact, I was so aware of how fortunate I was that I kept everything I was fond of in the most meticulously arranged place: an enormous storage buried deep underground, solely accessible for those able enough to find their way out of a wickedly tangled maze of subterranean tunnels. Into the storage, a series of aisles were separated by rows of wooden shelves that faded in the distance as one strained their eyes trying to locate the end of the corridors.

And there was an amazing variety of items kept there: everything I had come across during my life, everyone I had met, and even replicas (or were them the original ones?) of everyplace I had been to.

But one day this frightening man appeared. He was as old as mankind, and there are no better adjectives to describe him than evil, ruthless, unstoppable and extremely effective.

He somehow managed to break into my sacred chamber and began stealing my most recent acquisitions. At first I didn't notice their absence, but as time went by and more and dearer items began missing I realized that I was being helplessly stripped of everything I had. I gradually lost my favorite objects, my most precious places, my dearest friends and relatives, and eventually I lost my own self, everything but these pair of green discs that stare at me from this unrecognizable face in the room beyond this crystal-like surface.

"Hi daddy, how are you feeling today?" Asked me a perfect stranger.

The legend of The Tower of The Infantas

Once upon a time, when the Reign of Granada was governed from The Alhambra by the Arabs, there was a Sultan called Mohamed The Lefty who married a Christian captive with whom he had three beautiful daughters: Zaida, Zoraida and Zorahaida.

As time went by the Sultan grew worried about his daughters and sought advice from an astrologer so as to know what would become of the three charming princesses in the future. And this counsel he got: "watch your daughters closely when they reach marriageable age and don't trust anyone."

The Sultan, extremely suspicious, locked his daughters in a golden cage, a tower in the palace of The Alhambra with any imaginable comfort.

And there they grew up and from there they saw them -when they had reached marriageable age-, three handsome Christian prisoners. Despite the Sultan's precautions, they couldn't help falling in love at first sight.

The nursemaid who looked after the princesses managed to arrange keeping the prisoners close enough to the tower so that the princesses could get to know them. 

Soon, they all planned to escape together and get married. And so they did, at least two of them, as eventually Zorahaida didn't have the guts to run away from his father, whom, on the other hand, she respected very deeply.

Legend has it that she always regretted not escaping with her sisters, and that she finally died in the tower, where her spirit will forever remain unless a Christian bachelor breaks the spell. 

Traveller vs tourist

There are some defining features regarding each of them but there are also some similarities. These similarities are mentioned here and there among the bloggers: first there is the common love for discovery, and the second is the growth one undergoes through travelling, learning about oneself and the world.

Concerning the difference between them, some bloggers argue that this difference is so subtle that is hardly noticeable, while others maintain that the difference lies in how we perceive each other: locals tend to see people who travel as tourists, and people who travel tend to see themselves as travellers and others as tourists.

Leaving subtleties apart, most of the bloggers specify quite concretely the particular characteristics of a traveller and a tourist:

Beginning with the negative aspect, it is said that the traveller naturally dislikes tourists, or what is more, he snubs his nose at them; he maintains a quite snob and pretentious attitude for trying to distinguish himself from the tourist. But let's think that this is not so on a regular basis. 

On the other hand, some romantic features are mentioned here and there such as adventurous, gritty, improviser, discoverer and pioneer. Besides there are also mentioned some superficial features refering to the kind of travel they make such as long-term and multi-regional. 

But the more repeated and accurate features (in my opinion) are: the deeper experience and better understanding of the place he gets out of his travels, which is done through previous research and preparation, getting to know the locals, sharing their customs, and taking advantage of every moment of the journey.

As for the tourist he travels in big tour groups (as lambs), with arranged packages, swallowing what guides have prepared for them (or should I say companies?). His main aim is to escape from work and day-to-day stress, he looks for an intermission from everyday life. He tends to do short and luxurious trips, moving quickly from one place to another. He is looking forward to seeing what the new place has to offer from a visual point of view. On the whole he expects to get a superficial experience with little understanding of the culture, the history, the people and the geography of the place.