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viernes, 3 de agosto de 2012

Semillas destructivas: riesgos de la manipulación genética

Seeds of Destruction: Hijacking of the World's Food System
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32030

Interrumpo las vacaciones felinas para recomendar un artículo que alerta sobre el efecto de pesticidas y semillas de plantas geneticamente manipuladas (OGM) sobre las principales fuentes de alimentación humanas. No se trata de exageraciones alarmistas. Lean y saquen sus propias conclusiones.


As F. William Engdahl wrote in "Death of the Birds and the Bees Across America":

Birds and bees are something most of us take for granted as part of nature. The expression “teaching about the birds and the bees” to explain the process of human reproduction to young people is not an accidental expression. Bees and birds contribute to the essence of life on our planet. A study by the US Department of Agriculture estimated that “...perhaps one-third of our total diet is dependent, directly or indirectly, upon insect-pollinated plants.”[1]
The honey bee, Apis mellifera, is the most important pollinator of agricultural crops. Honey bees pollinate over 70 out of 100 crops that in turn provide 90% of the world's food. They pollinate most fruits and vegetables -- including apples, oranges, strawberries, onions and carrots.[2] But while managed honey bee populations have increased over the last 50 years, bee colony populations have decreased significantly in many European and North American nations. Simultaneously, crops that are dependent on insects for pollination have increased. The phenomenon has received the curious designation of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), implying it could be caused by any number of factors. Serious recent scientific studies however point to a major cause: use of new highly toxic systemic pesticides in agriculture since about 2004
If governments in the EU, USA and other countries fail to impose a total ban on certain chemical insecticides, not only could bees become a thing of the past. The human species could face staggering new challenges merely to survive. The immediate threat comes from the widespread proliferation of commercial insecticides containing the highly-toxic chemical with the improbable name, neonicotinoids. Neonicotinoids are a group of insecticides chemically similar to nicotine. They act on the central nervous system of insects. But also on bees and small song birds. Recent evidence suggests they could also affect human brain development in newborn.

Some five to six years back, reports began to circulate from around the world, especially out of the United States, and then increasingly from around the EU, especially in the UK, that entire bee colonies were disappearing. Since 2004 over a million beehives have died across the United States and beekeepers in 25 states report what is called Colony Collapse Disorder. In winter of 2009 an estimated one fifth of bee hives in the UK were lost, double the natural rate.[3] Government authorities claimed it was a mystery. Continue reading "Death of the Birds and the Bees Across America" by F. William Engdahl

Today more than ever, the world's food resources are being hijacked by giant corporations that are turning farms into factories and replacing natural resources with genetically modified "food-like" substances.

F. William Engdahl is a leading researcher on the destruction of the planet's food system and the profit-driven enterprises that are driving this devastating process.

To learn more, pick up your copy of "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation", published by Global Research. Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

by F. William Engdahl
ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2
Year: 2007
Pages: 341 pages with complete index



miércoles, 1 de agosto de 2012

Gatos en Shakespeare

The Cat Of Shakespeare


"Meww" en James Joyce
 Aquí publico un artículo de Amazon que descubre citas de Shakespeare a gatos en distintas obras.


Shakespeare mentions the cat forty-four times, and in this, like nearly all else of which he wrote, displayed both wonderful and accurate knowledge, not only of the form, nature, habits, and food of the animal, but also the inner life, the disposition, what it was, of what capable, and what it resembled. How truly he saw either from study, observation, or intuitively knew, not only the outward contour of " men and things," but could see within the casket which held the life and being, noting clearly thoughts, feelings, aspirations, intents, and purposes, not of the one only, but that also of the brute creation.

How truthfully he alludes to the peculiar eyes of the cat, the fine mark that the pupil dwindles to when the sun rides high in the heavens! Hear Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew:

And so disfigure her with it, that she shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat.

As to the food of the cat, he well informs us that at this distant period domestic cats were fed and cared for to a certain extent, for besides much else, he points to the fact of its love of milk in The Tempest, Antonio's reply to Sebastian in Act II., Scene 1:
For all the rest, They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk.

And in King Henry the Fourth, Act IV., Scene 2, of its pilfering ways, Falstaff cries out:
I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

While Lady Macbeth points to the uncertain, timid, cautious habits of the cat, amounting almost to cowardice:

Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i' the adage.

And in the same play the strange superstitious fear attached to the voice and presence of the cat at certain times and seasons:

Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed.

The line almost carries a kind of awe with it, a sort of feeling of "what next will happen? " He noted, also, as he did most things, its marvellous powers of observation, for in Coriolanus, Act IV., Scene 2, occurs the following: Cats, that can judge as fitly.

And of the forlorn loneliness of the age-stricken male cat in King Henry the Fourth, Falstaff, murmuring, says:
I am as melancholy as a gib cat. He marks, too, the difference of action in the lion and cat, in a state of nature:
A crouching lion and a ramping cat. Of the night-time food-seeking cat, in The Merchant of Venice, old Shylock talks of the
. . . Slow in profit, and he sleeps by day More than the wild cat.
In the same play Shylock discourses of those that have a natural horror of certain animals, which holds good till this day:
Some men there are love not a gaping pig, Some, that are mad if they behold a cat.
And further on:
As there is no firm reason to be rendered Why he cannot abide a gaping pig, Why he, a harmless necessary cat.

Note the distinction he makes between the wild and the domestic cat; the one, evidently, he knew the value and use of, and the other, its peculiar stealthy ways and of nature dread. In All's Well that Ends Well, he gives vent to his dislike; Bertram rages forth:
I could endure anything before but a cat, And now he's cat to me.

The feud with the wild cat intensifies in Midsummer Night's Dream; 'tis Lysander speaks:
Hang off, thou cat, thou burr, thou vile thing.
And Gremio tells of the untamableness of the wild cat, which he deems apparently impossible: But will you woo this wild cat?

Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, looks with much disfavour, not only on cats but also dogs; in fact, the dog was held in as high disdain as the cat:
And every cat and dog,
And every little mouse, and every unworthy thing.

Here is Hamlet's opinion:
The cat will mew, the dog will have his day.

In Cymbeline there is:
In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs.

The foregoing is enough to show the great poet's opinion of the cat.

Read more: http://chestofbooks.com/animals/cats/Our-Cats/The-Cat-Of-Shakespeare.html#ixzz22JCrbub4

"La gatomaquia" de Lope de Vega

Fragmento de "La gatomaquia" de Lope de Vega

Asomábase ya la Primavera


por un balcón de rosas y alelíes,


y Flora, con dorados borceguíes,


alegraba risueña la ribera;


tiestos de Talavera


prevenía el verano,


cuando Marramaquiz, gato romano,


aviso tuvo cierto de Maulero,


un gato de la Mancha, su escudero,


que al sol salía Zapaquilda hermosa,


cual suele amanecer purpúrea rosa


entre las hojas de la verde cama,


rubí tan vivo, que parece llama,


y que con una dulce cantilena


en el arte mayor de Juan de Mena


enamoraba el viento.


Marramaquiz, atento


a las nuevas del paje


(que la fama enamora desde lejos),


que, fuera de las naguas de pellejos


del campanudo traje,


introdución de sastres y roperos,


doctos maestros de sacar dineros,


alababa su gracia y hermosura,


con tanta melindrífera mesura,


pidió caballo, y luego fué traída


una mona vestida


al uso de su tierra,


cautiva en una guerra


que tuvieron las monas y los gatos.

lunes, 30 de julio de 2012

Gatos muy literarios

Aquí publico una lista incompleta de "gatos literarios". La seleccioné de una página de Amazon. Falta, por ejemplo Shakespeare, que menciona en numerosas ocasiones a los felinos. Tampoco figura Hemingway. Ni Borges.

Cats have mystified and inspired many a writer. Felines have been the protagonists in so many stories. They have inspired songs and poems. They have been heroes and villains, angels and witches, friends and enemies. What is it about cats that stirs so many emotions?


Below you will find a small sample of literary cats.

Andre Norton’s cats. Lots of cats appear in Mr. Norton’s books, including: Catseye, Fur Magic, and The Mark of the Cat.

Dick Whittington’s cat. This English folk tale tells the story of a poor orphaned boy named Dick Whittington. He becomes a very rich merchant and eventually becomes Lord Mayor of London. Dick owes a big part of his success to his cat’s skills.

Dinah. She's Alice’s cat in Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.

Crookshanks. Hermione Granger’s cat in the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling.

Ginger. This orange cat appears in one of the books of The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis.

Kitty. The pet cat of the Ingalls family. It graces the pages of the Little House on the Prairie books, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

La Gatomaquia. This poem, penned by Spanish poet Lope de Vega, tells the story of three cats entangled in a love triangle: Micifuz, Marramaquiz, and Zapaquilda.

Orlando, the orange tabby from Orlando, the Marmalade Cat by Kathleen Hale (1898-2000).

Pluto, the cat in "The Black Cat" a short story, by Edgar Allan Poe, in which the author explores the dark side of human emotions, the psychology of guilt, and the horror of crime.

Puss in Boots. The exact origins of this beloved fairy tale are not known as several variations have been written. The best-known version was written by French writer Charles Perrault (1628-1703).

Skippyjon Jones. A Siamese kitten, he’s the protagonist of the series of children’s books by the same name. Judith Byron Schachner is the author of this popular book series.

Socks, a cat in the book Socks by Beverly Cleary (1916).

The Cat that Walked by Himself, which appears in Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. This tale narrates how cats have kept their independent spirit even when living side by side with humans.

"The Cat Who…" – This is a series of mystery novels written by Lilian Jackson Braun in which two Siamese cats (Ko-ko and Yum-yum) play an important role.

The cat in The Owl and the Pussycat, a song by Edward Lear (1817-1888).

The cats in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, the famous cat poem by T.S. Eliot (1888-1965). Here's a list of these wonderful literary cats: Admetus, Alonzo, Augustus, Bill Bailey, Bombalurina, Bustopher Jones, Cat Morgan, Coricopat, Demeter, Electra, George, Gilbert, The Great Rumpus Cat, Griddlebone, Growltiger, Grumbuskin, Gus (a.k.a. Asparagus), James, Jellylorum, Jennyanydots, Jonathan, Macavity, Mr. Mistoffelees, Mungojerrie, Munkustrap, Old Deuteronomy, Oopsa Cat (aka James Buz-James), Peter, Plato, Quaxo, Rum Tum Tugger, The Rumpelteazer, Skimbleshanks, The Railway Cat,Tumblebrutus, and Victoria.

The Cheshire Cat. The mischievous, mysterious, whimsical cat in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

The Cat in the Hat. The main character in the book by the same name authored by Dr. Seuss.

The cat in Undercover Cat by Gordon and Mildred Gordon. Two movies were based on the book: That Darn Cat (1965) and its remake by the same name in 1997.

The literary cats of Beatrix Potter (English author and illustrator -1866-1943), including Tom Kitten, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit (his mom), and his siblings Moppet and Mittens (from The Tale of Tom Kitten and Roly Poly Pudding), Ginger (from The Tale of Ginger and Pickles), Susan (from The Tale of Little Pig Robinson)

Thomasina, the feline protagonist in The Three Lives of Thomasina, by American novelist Paul Gallico (1897-1976). There was a movie version of the book, too. Gallico also wrote The Poseidon Adventure.