Bicentenary full of inequalities

In the year of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, here in Latin-American we’re also celebrating something. Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and some others countries have their Bicentenary. But in this Bicentenary we’ve to look to our past and see how these 200 years are full of inequalities that we can’t be proud. Let’s talk about Chile.
In the first moment of ours independence we got lead for the criollos, aristocracy’s members that have their fortunes and their victories with the sweat and blood of the mestizos who where considerer like a service class. And who governed later? Of course, the criollos. Then these very same criollos “pacified” the Mapuche’s territory and, also, let the British capitals get in Chile, at the niter’s stations exploiting and controlling even the government. Throughout the XXº century, the aristocracy (with the new bourgeoisie) still dominates the popular majority.
In these days of Bicentenary we can still watch the inequalities in Chile. In the moment of the empanadas y anticuchos, miners of the north were trap because of the horrible conditions that they work. And even we can look at the stores in the malls, and see how the treatments that a lot of worker received are. Also some Mapuches were in a hunger strike because of a law that treats them like terrorists. At the same time, you can see a lot of rich people having long and relaxing vacations, even thought are happening lots of serious problems.
In my view, these facts show us how inequals are we. In these 200 years we can see how are we‘re treating ourselves. This idea of unificated nation that the Bicentenary tries to sell us, works just for a few percent of the populations that doesn’t have problems of discrimination, bad labour conditions, etc. We can’t be proud of a Chile that shows the inequalities like something normal, and that we have to hide.

Mass media opportunity

I would like to be wealthy, not because of the money itself but the things I could do with it. I think I’d be contradictory because I’d use that money to encourage the idea of “no money”.
Usually the wealthy people get rich abusing some other people. The powerful people get money in that way. If you have “a lot” of money means that other has “less” money. I’d try to break that vicious circle, exactly, using that money to make the people reflect about that problem.
I’d use the money to get a mass media and spread a “group against the money”. It would be very strange in a mass media. In those all the messages encourage you to spend money and get more and more.
The capitalism system that we are now treats us as consumers, and not like people. That means that all we see has a price and almost all you can get if you got money. But all this stuff is made because there is someone working and sweating for some boss, and getting badly paid. And there you have: poverty and unfair domination.
How do you get to the people today? Through mass media.
I think that would be a great step to something better and one of the few ways to use the money in something interesting.
That vicious circle is disgusting in these days that you have the possibility to get everywhere in the world, and it’s awful that the mass media doesn’t get that message today.

En el San Agustín

All my education was in San Agustín School, a very religious one, but fortunately the priests don’t do classes. They only celebrate the mass.
This is a private school, very expensive, where I got a scholarship; it’s very famous for giving a community education. More than the academic classes, what last the most are the moments you share with yours classmates.
In high school, the subjects Filosofía y Lenguaje were my favorite, because of the teachers. Both of them were great and understanding teachers that did the classes in a hard and funny way. Matemáticas and Historia were tremendous subjects; they made me think a lot, and later they were my new favorite subjects. In spite of this, the use of technology wasn’t pretty advanced (movies and things like that).
These good experiences made me realize that I needed to continue my studies in a career that complements all these areas. I’m a person with a lot of interests in very different areas of the knowledge, so Sociology it’s the right career.
To improve the education I’d maintain the focus in the community, Historia and Filosofía that are very important areas in human life and let you get closer the understanding of what you do. In that perspective I think that the person is very important in the education. These areas are like tools that let you go deep in the knowledge and give all the importance to yourself, your context and what you do with the other persons. It’s like we were focusing the education in the life itself.
To sum up, we can say that the human it’s the center in the education, so more that see the knowledge like something estrange, the education have to show and give the connection with ourselves.

Antidepressant reboxetine no better than a placebo, study finds today

The study comes from the German Institute of Quality and Efficiency in Health Care. They’ve discovered that a famous and highly recommended antidepressant in the UK isn’t more effective than a placebo, even it could have dangerous consequences to the human health.
Scientists of the British Medical Journal said that Pfizer (Edronax's producer, the reboxetine pill) had hidden kind of the 74% of the test of the medicament, and just show to the market the 36% left, only the positive’s results!
In the US this medicament got denied the license in 2001 and Robert Steinbrook, an American scientific, tries to explain the situation.

"Companies have financial interests in the outcome of the studies they sponsor; they own the data, and set the rules for access to the data. Unfortunately, they cannot be relied on to consistently provide dispassionate evaluations of their own drugs and medical devices."

Also he supposed that some Scientifics and doctors may have financial links with Pfizer and the companies who distribute it
This situation can be useful to a sociologist as an example of the bad intentional collusion of the big enterprises and gives it the enough information to doubt about what a scientist says. They’re not angelical y pure people.
Read more...

Well, I’m not a real film buff and I don’t have a specific movie who has stolen my heart either. But don’t you think that is because I don’t enjoy seeing movies, actually I’ve seen a lot of this, but no one that I can say “this is the one!” .
I usually remember the movies because the situations and the people that had accompanied me on those moments and the things I had done after or before them, although every film let me something.
One that I keep in mind very good is Inglourious Basterds, a film of Quentin Tarantino, that I saw this summer (I think). Not a great movie, in fact the main actor is awful (you know what I mean, is Brad Pitt) in spite of the play of Christoph Waltz and the script who lumbered in some parts of the film.
The movie tells two parallel stories: 1) Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) – a rude soldier- and a bunch of American Jewish soldiers who during the WW2 generate a special command in Europe with one only mission “kill Nazis” and 2) the life of Shoshana (Mélanie Laurent) who is a French Jewish girl persecuted by the Nazis. The stories get together when both planned two different plots to assesinate the same target in the same moment: the Nazi political cupola (Christoph Waltz is a SS general in charge of the security of them).
Of course is a total fiction movie and, as every Tarantino one, it’s full of blood and more blood. However the thing that I liked and, in my view, is the most important in the film is that includes so much popular images (like Hitler, the WW2, the Holocaust, the revenge, etc.) who got totally broken and cause you a shock in your mind and thoughts. Your think in the first place “How does Tarantino playing with so much history like if it was some kid toy?” You are in a difficult situation; you don’t see that often movies, books and that kind of stuff who break so much regularities.
My favorite part is at the end, when Hitler and the Nazis are killed, is a part where you can think and reflect about the real meaning of fiction and history. You start to realize how much importance you give to things that are represented in a movie and how do you take those emotional concepts and deal with those during your life.
To sum up we can say that Inglourious Basterds isn’t a regular movie, have some shocking images, a very deep message and a tremendous space in blank to reflect about yourself and your environment way beyond the blood and screams during the film. Those are the main reasons about my choice.
I may change the actors, some of them aren’t very good.

A failed coup d'etat

Yesterday, September 30°, in Ecuador some police officers upraised against the government because of a new law that makes more difficult and longer the inside promotion. They occupied the “Regimiento Quito”, the most important police station in front of the Carondelet’s Palace (seat of government and official residence of the president Correa). This surprising situation shocks this country in the middle of the world during the morning.
President Correa went to the epicenter of the chaos trying to talk to the police. Is there when he received the support and subordination of de National Army and a few minutes later the police used the tear gas against him and Correa is held by them in the Police Hospital.
In that moment the government started to talk about a coup d’état, the army went out to the streets trying to get the order back. The president, inside the hospital, declared exception’s state.
At night the soldiers went to the hospital to rescue the president in a violent operation, where a special force police died, but the president was successfully rescued.
This kind of news are terrible familiar in Latin America’s history, the latest in Honduras and all the others countries, included Chile of course, makes almost everybody in this continent involved against these unfair uprisings.
Here we noticed ours weak democracies and how we are in the hands of the ones with the guns. In Ecuador almost died a president and the all nation was in the side of a real coup d’état.
I really would like to hear that the all Latin-American people reject this kind of uprisings that go against all that these weak democracies had barely constructed. I hope that the Ecuadorians find a peacefully solution to this awful problem.

If you had already came...

If I met a foreign tourist, I'd invite him to know a few places in Santiago that I know and that I like. I don't like the typical places or the most famous very much, but I think you can't say that you have visited Santiago without visiting the center. Knowing its pollution, its people in a rush and its "completos" in the streets let you have an approach to a certain type of life, typical of the big cities.
I'd invite him to know east side of Santiago, putting emphasis on Lo Barnechea, a very assorted income family municipality, where you have the richest people in Chile right next to the poorest ones. There's also a place going up to the Andes with beautiful landscape and with great trees.
I'd go with him to the "Barrio Yungay" and trough the Matucana street visiting all the cultural places in there "Matucana 100", "Museo de la memoria", "La Quinta Normal", la "Biblioteca de Santiago", etc. There's a popular place that have a interesting history, let you know the old Santiago.
Well, then we would go to know the “metro” and the famous “transantiago”. Those have been very characteristic of Santiago in the last time.
To finish we would go to have some parties in Santiago's Night, but only if he pays because of the prices, the drinks and the tickets are very expensive! Well, if we were where we usually party, we wouldn’t pay too much, but I’m sure that he would be a serious tourist and he wouldn’t want to go there.
It's difficult to imagine another interesting place in Santiago!