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By The Wanderer, on March 8th, 2010
Last Saturday I took part of a family reunion for the baptism of one of my nieces, daughter of my wife’s brother. I do not remember when was the last time, before this, I was in a Catholic church for any kind of ceremony and this fact made me to use this opportunity to pay attention to the ceremony itself.
The Catholic baptism is like a registration in a specific club, in this case the Catholic one, which will be the social group to what a child will belong at least till the date when that child will be able to negate its parent’s choice. Yes, baptism is (normally) a parent’s choice because, in Portugal, children receive baptism in the first couple of months after birth. Football club lovers very often do the same: their children are registered as associates not much after birth. This is faith!
The script of a baptism ceremony has not changed that much. After a while I got familiar again with all that blah, blah, blah (my memory still works, you know!) and I immediately got into the conclusion that Catholic Church runs slow, very slow. I then saw myself lost in thoughts about religiosity of mankind and in pros and cons for a life totally dedicated to God, just like priests apparently do. All the typical text written for a baptism may drive you to a collision with irrationality if you think it too much! So, you better don’t… This is faith!
The career of a Catholic human being starts with baptism (first anointment, first sacrament), followed by Catechism (Sunday school), First Holy Communion, more Catechism, Confirmation or Chrismation or second Holy Communion, more Catechism and Sunday masses (or whatever day), some extra activities like Scouting, groups of transcendental introspection, music or theatre groups, civic activities like supporting old people and then (aiming the species continuity) marriage. After marriage, children will come. After children, baptism will come again. The last step will be the last anointment which takes place when your soul is still together with your body right before its departure to a nice place very close to God, where it will stay happy ever after. This is faith!
A Catholic baptism is a commitment. It cannot be taken by the child, surely not, but for some reason the parents and godparents are present, holding the child and a huge candle, respectively. Godparents’ mission is very similar to the one assumed by USA, related to the rest of the World, long time ago: make sure everybody accomplishes respective goals while living in peace forever and ever. This is faith!
A Catholic baptism is comparable to a stain-remover spray. Human beings all are born as sinners: we carry the Capital Sin, first committed by Adam and Eve, since the very first moment we are conceived. But God is merciful and gave us Baptism through what we are able to reset our sins counter to zero. The water used for the ceremony has no detergents or corrosive substances. It is, instead, a holy water which is supposed to be enough to clean us up until we commit sin again. This is faith!
May the gods be with us…
By The Wanderer, on February 26th, 2010
This time the idea is to proclaim to the world the immeasurable joy I felt yesterday with the clear and unequivocal victory of Sporting Clube de Portugal, from Lisboa, over Everton F.C., from Liverpool, UK. Not because I am a Sporting supporter (you know, I love F.C. Porto) but mainly because the team they beat is an English (from England) one
Sporting C.P. 3 – 0 Everton F.C.
Congratulations SCP! Bye bye Everton…
By The Wanderer, on February 24th, 2010
Porto, February 17th – I took my 14 years old son to the cathedral of my hometown’s sport club: “O Estádio do Dragão”. My favorite football team, F.C. Porto, was playing against Arsenal F.C., from London, UK, the first round of eighth-final for the UEFA Champions League. I had promised to my son, some time ago, I would take him to a football match in the “Dragon Stadium” and, I thought, there it is my chance: a football game with our favorite team against a team representing the creators of football.
 My son has been educated loving FCPorto because I was educated, since I was 4 years old, loving FCPorto and also because it is good to educate children loving a champion team! We all wish to be champions, don’t we? So, there was I surrounded by blue-and-white colors, with my blue-and-white scarf worn around my neck, and for some reason, before the match started, I found myself trying to explain to myself why I don’t like English people. I really mean English, from England. Not British, not Scottish, not Walsh, not Irish.
First of all it is very necessary to understand the difference between United Kingdom and Great Britain. Although being an impossible mission, I will try anyhow. Literally, UK stands for “United Kingdom” which is a kingdom… united. “Kingdom” refers to a political regime: monarchy. “United” refers to parts which, for some reason, decided to share something. Now, UK is composed by England (the cruel colonizers), Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They are supposed to be united but in fact Northern Ireland and Scotland have been kindly invited, by the power of weapons and lots of cruelty, to “get united” to England. Wales is no more than a vacation colony for the royal house members and other British high-society people. Regarding the designation “Great Britain”, this is just the name given to the archipelago also including Republic Of Ireland.
What do I know about UK? A lot of things I would prefer to know nothing about. There is a long historical connection between Portugal and England with very little profits for Portugal, of course. A clear proof of that is the recent “police case” involving a little English girl called Madeleine McCann who was spending holidays in Algarve, Portugal, together with her parents and has disappeared from home while her parents where getting drunk in a local pub… The case seemed to be pretty difficult to resolve but our British “friends” didn’t think so: our Police has been offended, our Justice has been offended, our media have been offended and, at a certain point, I was pretty close to be sure that UK would send Army, Navy and RAF to invade Portugal. All this to undercover a total lack of responsibility of an English couple of (bad) parents.
Some years ago I spent a couple of weeks in two British towns: Manchester and Edinburgh. Scots are very nice people. Yes, they are. English are a crap. Yes, they are. Manchester was an old and dirty town, with no urbanization planning at all, plenty of socially segregated Indians and “cold fishes”. Restaurants had a poor service, food was bad (English cuisine does not exist at all!), hotels staff were rude, taxi service was a mess as much as traffic in general. Is it better today? I have no idea but I do not want to have, anyhow. Meanwhile, I have met several people from England, from Scotland and from Republic of Ireland. Guys, they do not seem to be made of the same material, believe me.
England is the father (or mother) of Apartheid. India is a tremendous example what can English be capable of. They have been there from 15th to 20th century and after they left only the chaos has remained. South Africa (from 18th century), is still, in all aspects, a barrel of gunpowder. United States (the new world) need to thank France and Spain for the help they received to get rid of UK (see United States Declaration of Independence, 1776). However, North-Americans have not yet got rid of a couple of contagious English diseases. What can the world learn about colonization and decolonization through England history? That they are racists? That they are xenophobic? Or, are they an altruistic people thinking only of helping the poors of the world? Every time I think about England I think about leeches. I wonder why…
Port Wine is an English creation. A large British community has lived in Portugal for centuries and a couple of them have found a way to use the northern ills of Portugal to produce a special wine which is today world-wide famous. That is why most of Port Wine brands are in English language. The big Port Wine producers have used for decades the cheap labor of simple and humble people in Portugal working hard to survive. Working conditions were very close to slavery and all profits from wine production were transferred to England, only. The lords of the Port Wine always have behaved as kings in their own kingdom as Portugal have been always very permissive to these sanguinary and snob beings coming from a cold archipelago in the middle of a cold northern sea.
English people do not mix together with foreigners! Everywhere they go they create their own British communities, very much tight blockade. They are only very much opened to other peoples from English speaking countries: USA, Australia and New-Zealand. British hardly have a peaceful relationship with other cultures and they never try to speak other languages. When I was in Britain some years ago, I remember how Scots were very much patient with my “international” English language (a little bit less bad than it is today). I remember most of them have tried to empathize with me and get me integrated in their environment. But those were the Braveheart descendents who hate to be designated as… English. I also remember that English, the guys from England, have shown (they still have) no patience at all with my poor English language. The best I got from these silly monarchists was a couple of them trying to communicate with me using a ridiculous spoken… Spanish language!
Have you ever seen a beautiful English woman? Yes, but it is not easy, is it? For some reason, the rate of gays in England is so high. Or is it because they have got that weird ancient Greek habit of marrying to women but get sex with men? English women are self-convinced. “So what?”, you could ask as English people it is generally like so, but I am just trying to include some more substance to introduce another issue here: family. First of all, I still insist on the premise that a child should not be forced to live with homosexual parents because that is not the normal social pattern (and I hope it won’t ever be!). Secondly, experts in Sociology use to say that weather contributes quite a lot to form a specific social behavior of populations. As the British weather is awful, people should stay together at home longer and like so reinforce the family laces. As a matter of fact, that is not true because British men spend one third of their lives working, one third sleeping and the other third in pubs drinking pints of that awful British beer (mainly the dark one). Our old “allies”, England, usually attack violently what they call Portugal’s 3rd-worldism in many aspects like, for instance, child labor exploitation. I wonder why..
| Parameter |
UK |
Portugal |
Units |
in |
| Population |
60 769 000 |
10 623 000 |
1 |
2007 |
| Life Expectancy at Birth |
79.0 |
78.2 |
years |
2009 |
| Infant Mortality |
4.9 |
4.8 |
deaths/1000 live births |
2009 |
| Total Adult Literacy Rate |
99 |
95 |
% |
2009 |
| Divorce |
42 |
26 |
% |
2002 |
| Best country to be a mother? |
No |
No |
Y/N |
2009 |
| Suicide Rate |
6.8 |
6.5 |
% |
2006 |
| Rapes |
13 395 |
433 |
1/year |
2002 |
| Kidnappings |
3 261 |
432 |
1/year |
2002 |
| Domestic Violence |
0.67 |
0.15 |
% |
2006 |
| Sexual offences against women |
1.9 |
0.5 |
% |
2009 |
| Assaults |
5.4 |
0.9 |
% |
2009 |
| Total Crimes |
6 523 706 |
218 360 |
1/year |
2002 |
| Victimisation rate |
21.0 |
10.4 |
% |
2009 |
I am still trying hard to understand what is UK doing in European Community! Usually they are very much against everything, they are not much appreciated by all other members, they seem to exist to serve USA interests, not ours, they have refused to be part of the Eurozone and I believe they will keep out only for selfish economical reasons, they drive left while everybody drives right, they still use the same units of measurement they used in medieval England while others have evolved to the International System of Units (SI) and they still insist on “fish ‘n’ chips” as the best meal for human beings while all other members have long since found beef, pork, vegetables, fruits and so on. Actually, UK should be only another state of USA, another star in the US flag.
What good can come from England? Not good wind, nor good marriage. Stuff like Pink Floyd, Genesis, Dire Straits, Coldplay and Muse is the good we still can get from that land of carrots. The match in London will be very difficult for FCPorto because usually UEFA’s referees have something against Portuguese teams and, even worse, this season my favorite football team it is really down. I guess Arsenal will step forward but I would really love if it were not like so.
May the gods be with FCPorto…
By The Wanderer, on February 17th, 2010
… because we are descending from Gil Vicente!
Naah, this is not 3rd-world… yet! I guess the politicians in 3rd-world countries like Venezuela are much more oriented to provoking USA than oriented to soap operas performed by TV pivots protected by respective husbands or wives placed in top management positions of TV channels or by spoiled “boys” trying to return back to the front of the stage…
Manuela Moura Guedes seems to be a lady totally revamped by plastic surgeries. I believe her intention has been to improve her look but, based on public opinion, I am afraid she failed totally. Peoples tell she is now ugly like hell, her face muscles can no longer move that much, so outstretched they are after several face-lifts. They also tell it seems she used (and abused of) her husband’s position as manager of the Portuguese TV channel called TVi (Televisão Independente) and she managed to have every friday evening a TV News program during what she had only the altruistic intention of just informing peoples, with resource to the upmost pure and unequivocal truth she proudly says to own, about Portuguese politics. It is also told she assumed, since the very first session, a very arrogant attitude to her guests, mainly to the ones who seemed to be her husband’s adversaries and, consequently, her’s too. She has been recently removed from that TV channel and she is blaming the actual prime-minister, José Socrates, for that.
Mário Crespo, a self-called journalist, has recently accused the actual prime-minister, José Socrates, of leading a surreptitious action to remove him from his position as journalist of several Portuguese media. Mário came up to the daylight basing his accusation on… gossips! Apparently, someone who was dining on the same restaurant where the prime-minister was dining with other “sharks” of the Portuguese politics, told Mário to have heard the prime-minister talking about the need of “deactivating” a specific journalist, who was supposed to be him, Mário Crespo.
What about this? An European country, EU member, homeland of its remarkable son José Manuel Barroso, leading the European Commission, a country coming out from a tremendous world-wide economical crisis is nowadays fully busy with… gossips! This is the time for accusations based on things said by a friend of someone who has a friend of that friend who, by accident, heard somebody saying to have been told by another friend of that common friend of all those friends who were having dinner at the very same time in the very same restaurant! This is the 1st-world, not the 3rd, surely not. This refinement, this intellectual deepness, this superb definition of priorities, this unparalleled capacity of turning regular TV pivots the center of all country’s social, economical and political issues, are definitely not qualities one may expect coming from a 3rd-world country.
Monitoring phone calls are now the latest fashion in Portugal. Listening to private conversations on the phone, tracing phone calls, publishing private conversations in YouTube or similar, sue somebody based on phone calls and other similar modern invasive attitudes are nowadays very “in” over here. It is so cute to listen to private calls between the prime-minister and any regular minister or with any of those nice folks who are always very close to the prime-minister with the exclusive intention of supporting him in the hard work of ruling a country.
The part I really cannot understand is the one where the opposition, mainly the social-democratic party PSD, accuses the government of killing the freedom of speech! How come? What are they talking about? In a country where the prime-minister is daily offended, the president of the republic is daily offended, the ministers are daily offended, the party leaders are daily offending each other, the private phone calls and conversations in restaurants are used as political weapons, details of running processes in court are publically known, little newspapers disdain the Precautionary Principle disobeying to official Supreme Court orders,… Lack of what? Freedom?
May the gods be with us…
By The Wanderer, on February 9th, 2010
I remember I really did not like clowns. I still do not. This might have any meaning and surely has had impact on my personality build up, ever since. Today, I still keep in my mind some loosen past images from the time I was a kid and, here and there, was getting into a circus’ tent. I remember I used to spend the time in there, statically seated, kind a frozen, patiently waiting for the moment people used (and still use) to call “The End”. I did not like circus too, when I was a kid! I still do not.
It is not nice when somebody is living any event looking at the watch every twenty two point three seconds while waiting for “The End”. That is life and it will be like that forever, I guess. Part of our life is filled in with stuff we do not like but we need to go through, though. However, nobody really needs to collect idols, I think (…therefore I am). Michael Jackson was a great artist. But Michael Jackson was a pedophile who almost spent his fortune to avoid being incarcerated. Why the hell is human race still venerating him? The guy was an artist, yes he was, but the guy also spent his life denying and rejecting his own race! Michael Jackson was mentally insane and people cry for him?
When I was a kid I used to read Superman, The Phantom, Mandrake The Magician, Lucky Luke, Asterix, Lone Ranger and other super-heroes which I was never able to see as such. I know most people need a hero, an idol. What I do not know is what for. Everybody needs a cartesian reference frame, we surely do, but a hero? An idol? What for? I never had one. Even when going through a deep Catholic practice I never saw Jesus either as hero or idol. I never felt a particular desire of adoring someone or something up to the point of changing considerably my normal behavior, dimming my own being.
Another interesting side of this polygonal life lived by humans is the strong need some people feel of being a regular customer of “Convenience Shops” (or Convenience Store). Some people need to be correct, other need to be “convenient”. When one is convenient, it is not necessarily correct, is it? This behavior, the convenience of being convenient, is nowadays much more than a trend, it is already an institution. See, for instance, you and the way you stand before your job: your boss is not your idol (in fact he might even be disgusting) but it is convenient for you to fulfill all his basic needs, day after day, smile to him quite often showing your Sunday smile, saying “yes” all those many times as per his requirement and ask him about his family and dog (in case he doesn’t consider his dog part of the family) once in a while (but never, ever, do it on Mondays)…
“Ídolos” is the name of a Portuguese TV show on SIC channel, Sociedade Independente de Comunicação, capturing the attention of many people over here, much more now that we are very, very close to the end. The only kids still competing are Filipe Pinto, a Pearl Jam style singer, and Diana Piedade, one of the most Hard Rock oriented females I have ever seen in my life. This contest is, obviously, the Portuguese version of the Idol Series, by FreemantleMedia, which is a daughter of the British show Pop Idol broadcasted in 2001. Idols has been replicated in many countries in the world with the intention of discovering new musical talents. In this contest, the kids competing for a free music training in UK just have to sing (more or less) known songs of some pop/rock idols, without pretending, and try to positively impress a four judges panel:
- Pedro Boucherie Mendes – (what a snobbery!) Portuguese from Lisboa, Portugal, 40 years old, is currently one of the SIC managers, arrogant enough to think he owns the whole truth and nothing but the truth, very worried with the look of the female competitors, which makes him to give them suggestions about the hair, boots and so on. Once in a while he issues some interesting opinions which sound quite constructive.
- Laurent Filipe – (I like his style!) Brazilian, from S.Paulo, Brazil, 48 years old, owns an university degree in Music from Kansas, USA, composer, teacher, musician. He is very constructive, very technical, very assertive. He is also charming and I love the way he dresses. See his website here.
- Roberta Medina – (what a hot judge!) Brazilian, 32 years old, sponsor in the musical showbiz area, including the annual event “Rock In Rio” in Portugal, has already understood that she was repeating the word “charisma” but I guess she did not understand yet that “charisma” has not the same meaning in Portuguese from Portugal and Portuguese from Brazil. Anyhow, she owns lots of sensual charisma…
- Manuel Moura dos Santos – (who the hell was his Portuguese language teacher?) Portuguese, from Lisboa, Portugal, 49 years old, sponsor in the musical showbiz area. This guy murders the language of “Luís de Camões” every time he opens his mouth. He can be cruel like the devil, sounds offensive sometimes and he has been totally incapable of issuing a constructive opinion.
Human beings need idols but do need “convenience shops” even more. It is because of this that sometimes I think I am an alien: my slogan has been “no idols, no convenience shops”. I have not been able to change a single bit of my strong belief that I will be happy ever after if I keep being like so till my very last breathe. As a matter of fact, I do believe that right before I die there will be a second, a single second, during what I will be able to review my entire life. I do believe as well that it will be in that precise second that I want to feel the tremendous satisfaction of watching my whole Dignity smiling to me, in a clear sign of empathy.
May the gods be with you, which they will if you refrain from having idols…
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