Diary of board

Improve the lives of handicapped people

2007-01-04T08:22:00.000-08:00

How I was visiting Paris this last week, I could see how hard it may be to handicapped people to live in some cities.

The difficulty begins with the buildings with more than one floor that don’t have elevators. Since this buildings have stairs that are often so much narrow, curved or with high degrees, the access to these buildings to handicapped ones is some times impossible. Another important point concerns the locomotion in the city. The sidewalks, bridges, entrances of subways and accessibility of buses may make very harder the live of someone with a wheelchair.

But we need to note that there are different types of handicaps and that this multiplies the number of problems to be solved. An example is the signalization that often is only based in our vision. How a huge amount of information is transmitted in this way a problem in sight will lead to so many obstacles.

To change all this situation is not an easy task, principally in antiques cities how Paris. There are so many problems to be solved that it’s hard to begin, and some times small changes needs considerable investments. Imagine the work needed to change the entrances of the subways in Paris or in other city that never stops!

So an important lesson to the small cities is given. To adapt themselves when they are still small will facilitate greatly their mission of facilitate the live of handicapped people. Additionally, an effort is needed to communicate, always that possible, using more than one sense.

Even if it is not easy, all the cities own the obligation of improve the lives of handicapped people. After all, the handicapped people also pay the taxes and they would prefer these changes in place of the constant investments that are made in decoration or in development of arms.

Vacation's end

2007-01-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

I almost had not time to take the vacation spirit and now the vacation is already finished. This was without doubt the fastest end of year's vacation I had in my live. I started my vacation on 22 December about 17h00. It was the time the sun disappeared showing a new Saturday was beginning (thanks God by this holy day He gives me each week). And I am back in home already now. But the vacation finished a little earlier, today by 4h45 o'clock. It was the time my parents awoke me because they were going to airport.

Beside it was not a long time, it was a very good time.

The 23/12 I met my parents in Venice. We had a very good time there. We improvised our Christmas Eve there in the Hotel, it was funny. In Christmas we traveled to Geneva. We had a beautiful view all time along.

In Geneva our time wasn’t very long also, but we did so many things there.

On 28/12 we went to Paris were we stayed to today morning. Here is a photo we took with the Tower Eiffel.

Religion in America

2006-11-19T16:19:00.000-08:00

Over the middle Ages, the access to the Bible was restricted to the clerical people that worked to The Catholic Church. This because of the limited copies of the Bible, the langue barriers and also the speech that only clerical person could read and understand Bible. The situation in that Europe arrived, been so much time far form the Biblical teachings, let space for the firsts movements that questioned Catholic practices.
In the photo that follow we can see an indulgence of the Pope Léon XII, document sealed with the pontifical stamp.

John Wycliffe (1320 – 1384) was an English theologian that questioned the difference between the firsts Christians, that were simple, living without superfluous possessions, and the church of his time. Wycliffe was posthumously burned by the Catholic Church.

John Huss (1369 – 1415) followed. His efforts were mainly to stop the exploration of the people by the Church, how we can see in his words: “One pays for confession, for mass, for the sacrament, for indulgences, for churching a woman, for a blessing, for burials, for funeral services and prayers. The very last penny which an old woman has hidden in her bundle for fear of thieves or robbery will not be saved. The villainous priest will grab it.” (Macek, 16). He was invited to participate at the Concil of Constance, where he went to show his doctrines to the Catholic Church. In this council he went arrested, in spite of a safe-conduct promised him by the Emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg. He rested arrested for a long time, after what he was judged at a Franciscan monastery. There he recognized his doctrines and said that he was ready to renounce them if they were proved wrong from the Bible. He didn’t renounce his theses, and died burned at the stake.

After, many others followed. Ulrich Zwingli (1484 – 1531), Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), John Calvin (1509 – 1564) and John Knox (1514? – 1572) are some examples and with them the protestant reformations got importance. All these movements leaded Catholic Church to the Counter-Reformation that was intended to make substantial changes in itself. There were many changes, between them the creation of the religious orders how the Order of the Jesuits. The Council of Trent took place also in the context of the Catholic Reformation.

But in England, the reformation took place also by political necessities, and had different forms. Henry VIII, started the reformation, and with The Act of Supremacy he reduced the power of the Catholic Church in England and become the head of the Church of England, in place of pope. Henry VIII’s son, Edward VI, implanted some protestants beliefs in the Church of England, changing to a protestant regime. This changes where well received by the puritans, the protestants of England, that now were encouraged to read one of the new translations of the Bible and that now could listen to the church services in English, in place of Latin.

Now in England the reformation had in some manners solved the religious and politics problems brought by Catholic Church. But not for long, because Edward VI’s half-sister Mary, a devoted Catholic, succeeded him. With Mary all the protestants laws were annulled, England returned to pope authority and a persecution started towards protestants. Like in the continent, some protestants were condemned to die burned. Cranmer, the one had influenced all the process of reformation, both with Henry VIII and Edward VI, was one of the protestants were burned.

In the photo that follow we see a picture that represents the landing of the Pilgrim fathers in America, that is the protestants of puritan tendency that arrived in the Mayflower and founded the colony of Plymouth in 1620.

When Henry VIII's second daughter, the Protestant Elizabeth, became queen, she promoted a moderate Church of England, the persecution of protestants stopped and a religious tolerance was experimented. This moderate church stayed also under the Stuart kings, James I and Charles I, and a consequence of this period was a polarization between the Catholics and the Protestants or Puritans. England got divided in regions of Catholic dominance or Puritan dominance, mainly in the East.

Dossier's title: Religion in America

Sobtitle: Christianity in the origines of the country

Bibliography:
A Universal History of the United States of America: Embracing the Whole Period from the Earliest..., By Citizen of the United States (~pg 38)
The Hand of God in History: Or, Divine Providence Historically Illustrated in the Extension &...,By Hollis Read (~pg 43)
History of North America (~pg 72)
Religion in America, Or, An Account of the Origin, Progress, Relation to the State, and Present..., By Robert Baird:
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC09647322&id=6vMEAAAAMAAJ&printsec=toc&dq=religion+in+america+history+migration&as_brr=1
The Old Religion in a New World: the history of North American
Christianity, By Mark A. Noll:
http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0802849482&id=b53HUe_NRVgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=religion+in+america+history+migration (morceaux)

Internet:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=200 (Reasons for Puritan Migration)
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/puritans/puritans_menu.cfm (Puritans menu)
http://www.historynet.com/exploration/great_migrations/3036611.html (The Quaker Migration)
http://www.historynet.com/exploration/great_migrations/3035471.html?featured=y&c=y (The Puritan Migration)
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_1741500823_4/United_States_History.html (III Colonial Experiments, IV Growth of the English Colonies)
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritanismo (Puritanismo)

Crazy things of the heart

2006-10-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

To love someone is a thing that is very interesting. I don't know why, but I becoming a specialist in been in mad situations. Maybe it's because I do not really believe in impossible things and because my heart is a little crazy. And I think this lyric below is well suitable to describe this.
But I realy think there are wonderful things that I live, just because I don't matter if the rules say it's a forbidden love. Maybe this love will not work, maybe he will die, but I won't stop loving because of it.

Esse coração sem juízo

Eu não sei porque que a gente
Gosta tanto de repente
De quem não gosta da gente

Esta vida é engraçada
Pois a gente vive amando
Sempre a pessoa errada

Todas as vezes que eu amo
Rezo tanto pra dar certo
Mas eu sempre me engano

A pessoa que eu amava
Sempre me desiludia
Não era o que eu pensava

Meu coração é mesmo sem juízo
Não sabe que eu preciso
Deixar de gostar tanto assim

Meu coração às vezes me entristece
Meu coração parece
Que não gosta de mim

Coup de foudre

2006-10-05T15:44:00.000-07:00

I don't known why, but three weeks ago, I felt something wonderful. It was, more precisely speaking, 15sept2006 when there wasn't anyone happier in the world than me.

The 16sept I decided forget all and try to be a good friend. I can't say I couldn't, I think I was almost there. I got moments that the sole thing I can say is that it was unreal, amazing, this even with some problems.

The next week arrived and the Saturday with it. I met this same girl, and I got a lot of hope, unreal hope. I thought, thought, thought and thought. After, I spoke with friends, and even with people I didn't know and thought a little bit more.

I decided forget, not forget what was passed, it's part of my life, but don't think more in this.

I perceived, it wasn't so easy ten days after, when I was speaking of her again to a friend. Later I said: "I can't be so liked to a person I had saw just three days!".
The things in my live are some times confusing.
Today, Friday daybreak, I heard a music and guess what I thought; in all this history. The music is a little excessively similar:

James Blunt - You're beautiful
2005 "Back to Bedlam"

My life is brilliant.
My love is pure.
I saw an angel.
Of that I'm sure.
She smiled at me on the subway.
She was with another man.
But I won't lose no sleep on that,
'Cause I've got a plan.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw you face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
F**king high,
And I don't think that I'll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw you face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.
You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
There must be an angel with a smile on her face,
When she thought up that I should be with you.
But it's time to face the truth,
I will never be with you.

Now, I can't do anything. But I know someone that gives me peace. He will take care of all this problems, he knows everything... and he's my best friend. Maybe I will remember this history just how a very good moment in my live, maybe because I will have other reasons.
I think I should find the person that compels me be the happiest one. Be the happiest not because the person gives me something, but because I'm there to make her happy. And I think, when I find this person I can marry. This person will be someone very especial.

This is very personal, but there isn't anything wrong, false, so I'm just speaking. Live alone, far from the family, may let you favors emotion over reason some times. But it isn't necessarily bad.
Or I just like to love passionately. Or it may be something I'm eating in the resto-U which makes me be romantic...

One mot in Anglais, autre word en Français

2006-09-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

In June 2006 as I was nearly to move to the old continent, most precisely to France, where there wasn't nobody awaiting me and where I should stay two years of my life, I was a little worried about.

And I was worried because I couldn't speak French very well. But as I was in the last month of the semester, there were a lots of things to do, and I can guarantee you that I was plenty: I can remember that for two days in week I should arrive in university 7h30 and leave it 19h30. That was because I had inscribed myself in extra activities and if it wasn't enough I was doing two courses of French in parallel (I was taking classes as listener at an upper level). I think I wasn't very conscious that I had yet just twenty four hours each day. The two last weeks were enough to turn a person crazy, but thanks God, I escaped - it was suposed to me to finish the work in Neural Networks (I had started a year before), to do seven tests and two more works, and between all of this things I should go meet my friends because I really miss them all - I had done a lot of amazing friends in Brazil, inclusive in the six last months I was there.But to change this sensation of nostalgia, after I have arrived French and passed through some initial problems, I remembered myself that I would have two months to learn French as much as I could before my classes got started. They have started last week, the 11 September. And from all this, here I am, in this blog... After having studied French for two months, I almost couldn't speak English!!! In the first week of classes, I did a test of classification in English and in the test I spoke one word in English, one word in French, one mot in Anglais, autre word en Français. As you can easily realise, I got the first level. But differently from what thought, it looks like it will be funny in the couse.

I really need to remember all the English I had already known and spoken in past!!! And I'm here to try to rediscover the English that exists in my HEAD.