domingo, 22 de outubro de 2023

Reflexão (minha no Observador)

(comentário que deixei no Observador, a propósito do erro do ano da conquista do mundial (1966) pelo Bobby Charlton)

Exmos. Senhores: sei que já outros leitores o fizeram antes de mim. Efectivamente, foi em 1966. Não estou habituado a este tipo de erros nesta plataforma, só na televisão, e em que dimensão...

Daí, este meu alerta: não se deixem levar por este "movimento" que "graça" nos media nacionais. Felicidades. Luiz Carvalho

Futebol - Bobby Charlton

 












quinta-feira, 19 de outubro de 2023

The Spectator - Chivalry is dead

 (sublinhados meus)


Chivalry is dead

My run-in with an oaf

‘Excuse me please, would you mind moving your bag so I can sit down?’ I asked. He took a slug from his can of lager, looked me in the eye and said no.

Picture the scene: the London Underground, steaming hot, a crowded carriage, a long day spent in heels, and a spot of sciatica. Before me was a muscular, able-bodied man, probably in his twenties. I didn’t ask for his seat – I politely asked for his suitcase’s seat.

I thought he was joking. But he looked at me, unsmiling. ‘What, really?’ I asked. ‘This is a priority seat for luggage,’ he told me. He was on a priority seat for inconsiderate oafs.

‘This is a priority seat for luggage,’ he told me. He was on a priority seat for inconsiderate oafs.

Nothing makes you feel more like an old bag than when a man won’t move his bag for you to sit down. No, hang on, that’s not right… aren’t men supposed to let old bags – I mean, older ladies – and anyone elderly or in need have a seat?

A young woman occupying a seat next to the suitcase sprang up and said I could have her seat. She and I widened our eyes at each other as we stood, then muttered quietly: Can you believe it? I know. Chivalry is dead. 

Before the men reading this hit unsubscribe and close the page, bear with me: it’s not your fault. As the comedian Dave Chappelle said, ‘Chivalry is dead, and women killed it.

Chappelle jokes that chivalry was killed by the feminist movement in ‘the magazines’, in which women got advice from other women who ‘don’t know what the fuck they are talking about’. He cites the classic ‘100 Ways to Please Your Man’ article, when everyone knows there are just four ways. (No, I’m not spelling them out. Watch the clip.)

This week, I told a man I know about the suitcase which needed a seat more than me. He told me, somewhat bitterly, that he’d given up offering his seat to women years ago because they would roll their eyes, shake their heads vigorously, or sneeringly tell him they didn’t need it. If that’s how it is, he thought, so be it: stand, why don’t you! This guy is a polite, chivalrous, strong specimen of manhood. If he’s not offering his seat anymore, chivalry hasn’t just passed away. It’s been incinerated.

In the middle ages, Chivalry was a Christian ideal of knightly behaviour which valued honour, kindness and courage. Is there any hope of resurrecting chivalry today? Medieval knights wouldn’t understand our modern world, in which gender trumps biology, masculinity is toxic, and just looking at a woman on public transport can be construed as ‘intrusive staring of a sexual nature’. They would look more like villains than heroes to many feminists, who find the concept of chivalry incompatible with equality as it would treat men and women differently. 

I don’t know exactly when I stopped bristling when a man opened a door for me or offered his seat, but at some point I did. Perhaps it was after having two babies in under two years. Pregnancy, birth and motherhood are the ultimate reminders that the sexes are physically very different. I recovered from birth, nursed for many months and – since I was a freelancer – was reliant on my husband to be the provider for a long period of time.

On this occasion, I wasn’t carrying a baby, I don’t look pregnant (I hope) and I’m not elderly. But the strong, young muscular man had no idea what my need might be. Sadly, he was no knight in shining armour on a noble steed, but a belligerent bloke with a beer can, backside resolutely imprinted on the moquette seat.


Chivalry isn’t about extending kindness to only women, but to anyone who needs the help. It acknowledges and honours genuine physical differences. It is something which both women and men should remember to give and receive when the occasion demands it. 

Today’s modern knights must take heart and gather their courage, and women must remember that chivalry expresses courtesy, not insult. It is a brave man indeed who offers his seat and risks a sneer from the damsel in question. But try it. And if she actually asks for it, you could, at the very least, say yes.

Livros lidos - Henry Kissinger

Apesar de antigo, tem um conjunto de premonições impressionante, algumas já ocorridas.

 









Livros lidos - Astrofísica

 



José João da Silva - Martell

Desde 1981, ano em que o José João me deu esta garrafa, que aguardava o momento de a abrir. Chegou, quando o MO, o AP (estes dois pela 1ª vez), o AD e o JA dos vet vals cá estiveram em casa.

Belo cognac. Grandes amigos. Desde o ofertante, que já faleceu, aos presentes.


Gatos - Xuxu e Tri

 O Xuxu e a Tri na primeira vez em que dormiram na cama dele




Passeio na praia

Era muita a vontade de apanhar vento e chuva no frontispício (...), para desperdiçar uma manhã destas. Em 17.10, na praia e no caminho, uma valente borrasca, daquelas que ainda me enchem e me fazem regredir a tempos antigos. O telemóvel tinha um plástico a protegê-lo, pelo que a realidade está truncada. Toda a roupinha se torcia quando chegado a casa. Uma manhã em cheio! :) A repetir!


terça-feira, 17 de outubro de 2023

The Spectator - What’s the real reason so many people hate Israel?

 (sublinhados meus)


What’s the real reason so many people hate Israel?

(Getty images)

Did you know that for the past three weeks Turkey has been engaged in a military assault on Iraqi Kurdistan? It’s been brutal. The Turks, who have one of the most powerful military forces on Earth, have used F-16s, F-4 Terminators and other terrifying hi-tech weaponry to pummel Kurdish positions in northern Iraq.

Families have fled their homes in terror. Livelihoods have been destroyed. 

‘Every day, every night… we are being bombed. Our lands are being destroyed. We cannot grow our crops’, says a Kurdish farmer

It’s unclear how many people have died. According to Turkey, dozens of Kurdish people, mostly militants, apparently, have been killed or captured.

Have you seen any big, rowdy protests in the UK about this worrying act of asymmetrical warfare? Have you seen any footballers wave the Kurdish flag in solidarity with displaced, terrified Kurds? Have you seen social media swamped by furious denunciations of the ‘bloodthirsty’ Turks and outpourings of love and concern for the brutalised Kurds?

I haven’t. I have seen all of that kind of stuff in relation to Israel, constantly, every minute of every day — loud and ever-more self-righteous condemnations of Israel for being a vile, evil, crime-committing nation, a pox on the Earth. But on Turkey’s latest assault on the Kurds? Nothing. Not a peep. Carry on, Turkey — no one’s watching.

There’s a question that hangs like a long, dark shadow over Western leftists’ and liberals’ furious opposition to Israel, and I have never heard a satisfactory answer to it. It’s this: why do you hate Israel more than any other nation?

Why does Israeli militarism offend and horrify you more than Turkish militarism, or Saudi militarism, or American and British militarism for that matter? Why is it ‘genocide’ and ‘war crimes’ and ‘bloodletting’ when Israel takes action against Palestinian militants, but not when Turkey takes action against Kurdish militants? Seriously — what is the answer?

Turkey’s incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan is called Operation Claw-Lightning. It started on 23 April. It is part of Turkey’s long-running war with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the militant Kurdish organisation dedicated to creating an independent Kurdistan and based mainly in south-eastern Turkey and northern Iraq.

Operation Claw-Lightning is a follow-up to Operation Claw, a Turkish onslaught in Iraqi Kurdistan that lasted from May 2019 to June 2020. Hundreds of people were killed or wounded in that operation. These operations, of course, are only the latest flare-ups in Turkey’s 40-year war with Kurdish militants, which has led to the deaths of around 20,000 Kurdish civilians and the destruction of between 2,500 and 4,000 Kurdish villages.

So where are the Kurdish flags on caring people’s social-media feeds? Why doesn’t Sky News have pained-looking reporters in Iraqi Kurdistan talking to families who have been displaced by the Turkish bombardment? Why haven’t tens of thousands of Brits taken to the streets to register their fury with Turkey, as they have done with Israel following its latest conflict with Hamas in Gaza?

The woke set’s myopic loathing for Israel really is extraordinary. We are so used to it now that we take it as normal. But it isn’t normal. There are military tensions and conflicts around the world that are causing great suffering — in Kurdistan, Yemen, Xinjiang — yet none of them triggers the rage reflex in virtuous Westerners anywhere near as much as Israel’s actions do.

Saudi Arabia can bomb a school bus and kill 40 children, as part of its brutal war in Yemen, and most Western campaigners don’t lose a wink of sleep. But Israel just has to start wheeling its military aircraft out of the hangar and they’re up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday, dusting down their Palestinian flags, putting the finishing touches to their ‘Israel is Evil’ placards, and taking to the streets in their tens of thousands to condemn this most wicked, genocidal, apartheid state.

On the rare occasion they do try to justify their feverish obsession with Israel, it just doesn’t add up. The Israel-Palestine conflict has been going on for decades and it’s really tragic, they say. And Israel is supported by our governments, so we have a responsibility to act, they insist. What’s more, Israel occupies Palestinian land and that just has to be challenged, they argue.

But all of these things can be said about Turkey versus Kurdistan. It’s a very old conflict. Turkey is a Western ally; it’s a member of Nato for heaven’s sake. And Turkey occupies what many, many people consider to be Kurdish land. So, again, answer this question: why does Israel offend you more than Turkey does?

To be clear, I am not comparing Israel to Turkey. Israel, unlike Turkey, faces an existential threat. It is surrounded by hostility. Hamas is an extremist Islamist movement whose founding charter was full of anti-Semitism. Hamas’s aim is less to build an independent nation state than to punish the Jews. It is currently firing hundreds of missiles directly into Israel. 

Whatever one might think of the PKK, it isn’t doing any of these things right now. And yet Israel is loathed for defending itself from missiles fired by an anti-Jewish terrorist organisation, while Turkey is ignored despite continuing its long, ugly war with Kurdish forces. 

It seems to me that, increasingly, there is nothing very rational or normal about the hatred for Israel that sporadically sweeps the West. Rather, Israel has become a whipping boy for the elites, a nation that has cynically been turned into the embodiment of evil by virtue-signalling Westerners in desperate need for an outlet for their rage and pontification.

If there is another, more convincing explanation for today’s furious anti-Israel sentiment I’d love to hear it. But until one is forthcoming, the rest of us will be justified in wondering if perhaps an old, dark hatred, whether wittingly or unwittingly, underpins the manic loathing of Israel.

Desporto - Sumo (torneio de Setembro)

1 - Takakeisho ganhou, pela quarta vez, o torneio de sumo que se organiza bimestralmente, no Japão. 

2 - Continua a impressionar-me, tanto a réplica de Midorifuji aos seus adversários com o seu 1,71m e 119Kg de peso, como Hoshoriu com as suas soluções técnicas de derrube dos adversários. Isto para lá da simpatia que Ura desperta em todo o público pela sua simpatia, pela ética espiritual e pelas soluções inusitadas que inventa.

3 - Claro que todos eles sem hipótese de chegarem a Yokozuna.


4 - Parece-me estarmos a caminhar para um "atravancamento" de bons lutadores nos próximos torneios. Um Yokozuna (que insiste em estar sistematicamente lesionado), três ozeki e uma série de komusubi e sekiwake trazem um equilíbrio espectacular aos torneios.


Ura

                                                                            Midorifuji


                                                                                Hoshoryu




Voleibol - Almoço

 Almoço em 13.10.2023 no "O Mercado", com Alfredo, Manuel de Oliveira, Soares Pires e Zé Azevedo.



Séries - A Lição

 




Desporto - Rugby (Portugal - Fiji)

 Já há muito tempo que não vibrava nem saltava nem gritava com uma equipa...:)

O jogo de rugby com as Fiji espoletou algo que já estava adormecido.




Cartoons - work chronicles

 









quinta-feira, 12 de outubro de 2023

quinta-feira, 5 de outubro de 2023

Voleibol - 50 anos VetVals

Em 23.09.2023 organizei, com o Alfredo Duarte e o Filipe Melo (em casa deste último), a comemoração dos cinquenta anos dos Veteranos do Valsassina (os mais novos).

Os mais velhos ficarão para outra data conforme combinado com o Carlos Poppe.

As fotos foram tiradas pelo Paulo Azevedo.

Empenhei-me, por tudo aquilo que este núcleo constituiu para mim, em termos pessoais e profissionais, desde que ali entrei, em Dezembro de 1988, pela mão do João Valsassina. Mais tarde, em 1990, surgiu o convite do Álvaro Mendes e do Carlos Poppe para trabalhar com eles na Imotécnica. O Voleibol e a profissão complementavam-se. 

Conseguir juntar as pessoas, e ter o supremo gozo de os ver verdadeiramente contentes e felizes de se reencontrarem. Simples quanto se pode contribuir para a felicidade dos outros!

O Álvaro Mendes tinha razão quanto à minha participação neste núcleo, quanto à geração em que eu devia ter nascido, etc...

Foto  (em pé) Manuel Maria, Zé Eduardo, Filipe Melo, Alfredo Duarte, A. Remexido, C. Barroso, Susana, M. Piedade, Zé Azevedo, Daniel Machado,  J. Infante, J. Pires, J. Orestes, Alexandre Casimiro, J. Deus, Francisco (filho Filipe). De joelhos: C. Amorim, Luis Miranda, eu, Armando Lopes, A. Sobral.



"Team do Sporting" (Manuel Maria, Armando, Remexido, Filipe, eu, C Barroso, L Miranda)


"Team do Benfica" (Daniel Machado, Alfredo Duarte, J Deus, P Azevedo, Zé Eduardo, Zé Azevedo, C Amorim)


bolo comemorativo


canecas comemorativas (com as fotos de cada um no verso). O logotipo foi concebido pelo Armando Lopes


casa do Filipe


distribuição das canecas (o Armando teve direito a duas por causa do logotipo)


NOTA - Faltaram o A. Pires (casamento), o Manuel de Oliveira, o Mário Castanheira (trabalho), o Fezas Vital (pancreatite), o João Mascarenhas (nada disse)