Wildlife wonders - creatures up close.

Stunning images by some of the world´s  greatest nature photographs  such as Jim Brandenburg , who has a huge understanding about using the light to create emotions, Thomas Mangelsen , or Anup Shah. One of the pictures of this photographer shows a mother tiger and her cub, the photo has a moving story behind as both tigers and the whole family were killed no longer after the photo was taken . The video lets us gaze penguins swimming at high speed , leaving a trail of bubbles , elephants of Botswana so close that you can see theirs tasks stained from the water , polar bears  in middle of nowhere contrasting  the infinite whiteness of  both ,his fur  and polar landscape with the intense red of the blood .
 Intimate and evocative insights from some of the  masters of nature photography . These pictures have been honoured with awards since they not only  shows wildlife from their camera^s  wide  angle lens but also from the passion and emotion.  


http://bbc.in/1cZvDwG

Let´s call the whole thing off

Louis Armstrong ,  and Ella Fitzgerald were the most incredible couple of jazz that history has revealed . Ella is regarded as the most important singer of jazz of the history , albeit she shone in every single style she touched . As for Louis Armstrong, apart from being one of the most charismatic and innovative figures of jazz, he was someone politically committed . He supported Martin Luther King economically . Louis Armstrong confronted Eisenhower and fought for civil rights of Afro-American citizens.
Although when Louis joined Ella, or Ella joined Louise , they recorded very famous songs such as "Cheek to Cheek" or" Dream a little dream of me " I have chosen this one as it shows the way that different words can be pronounced , it emphasises the differences in pronunciation, southern  in the case of Louis ,as metaphor for the different personalities of a couple who are not able to understand each other , thus is a good way to know more accents apart from the British or American standard ones.

Mandela and me

Mandela´s way has been the last book I have read, a book with   an awful lot of teachings which are well worth  integrating in our daily life if we want to beam proudly.

 When Mandela passed away , I just thought , " Oh, what a pity! " but after reading some biographies and this book from cover to cover  I just can praise him to the skies . It will take  decades , probably centuries until the world give us a new Mandela.. Most of the politician  just milk the system and try to get votes misleading citizens.

There are so many things to praise on  Mandela but if I had to choose one ,well ,better two, I`d choose his perseverance and capacity of forgiveness .

Some weeks   ago , something very important for me" came to a halt ", It has not finished yet ,  but without reason there are not answers , just it  happened .
 My first reaction was to make a fuss , lot of mix feelings and  words  kept going round and round in my head. You feel miserable and lonely ,they switch for  rage , jealousy and desire of revenge .They stir inside you and it is but hatred which propels you within the days .
You  fantasise about thousands of things, most of them the onset of something,   befalling to the person for whom just one word exists: coward ,  word that  used in the vernacular way  means bastard .

You think , "what goes around, comes around" but fate does not work like that (just for Paulo Coelho ). Fate is rather devious  and it does not understand about celestial justice.  It gets pleasure from creating hideous situations , hence I busied myself with wallowing in self-pity. Then, I read Mandela´s way .

Mandela  spoke about being disciplined , which, in my case , meant to move on . He also  said  there is always both , and that means that the reason behind any action is not always clear " humans are complex creatures and people have a myriad of motives" and thinking like that , teaches you that the answer is not always at hand since it can be many answers and motives that I am not able to understand . If you think like this, you are able to forgive , and doing so , you realise sadness  is a normal reaction  and the hole that a loss leaves  will be filled in and it will get smaller with the time until disappear , but it is pointless feeling jealousy or self pity as they will finish eating you up. Mandela spoke about finding your own garden , a place where you can lose yourself and find yourself and haste often leads to error and misjudgement .

In short, I have "used "Mandela as my spiritual guide to find peace, and to learn that someone like me , an impassioned and impatient doer has to  try to understand that there are times that acting less means to reap something more valuable . It is discipline what helps you to push things in your direction and learning from adversities we became stronger  and grow. It´s no use crying over split milk.

Mandela´s way : my favourite chapters

"Courage is not the absence of fear,"
This is how is entitle the first chapter of this book and one of my favourite chapters . Can bravery be learned , what is its shelter? I mean, am I brave one because my heart is brave or because it is my mind? can someone be born brave or coward because of their genes or because of deities ¨whim `, and above all ,can I learn to be brave when I could describe myself as moderately coward ?
According to Mandela, being courageous is the way we react against fear, and how we overcome it . All of us feel fear , not only to tangible things such a physical pain,  but also to intangible ones such as dying or being dumped by the love of our lives . We also feel fear in advance because of situations that haven't happened yet but we live them down to the last detail feeling sadness, pain and dread . So feeling fear is normal , we just have to learn how to deal with it . I have already started to do my bit

" See the good in others"

When we read a book , usually a not very good book, just one of those that  does not   work  beings` inner world  we discover predictable characters that in a linear and bipolar structure  the scale goes from the adjective demoniacal from the adjective angelical , both opposite . But Mandela says that humans are complex creatures and that people have a myriad of motives . Nobody is purely good or purely evil . This chapter has been very important for me because I have learnt that if we try to understand and not to  judge , ito see the good things that someone has and not just the bad  one, we will be more happier as we won´t live constantly on defensive and hence, being happier .

"Know when to say no"

There are many situations in my life that should not happen as often as they happen, one question whose only answer is no , not only  because saying no makes me brave as a fear that I have overcome but because my hear says no, and it means that it is what I want. Saying no followed by an excuse of justification is easy , saying no to someone not vey important in your life rather simple , but what about to say no to someone who is important and you know that doing so you are destroying his /her hopes , that is quite difficult but sometimes people who loves us put too much pressure on us and we have to learn to do it , false hopes lead to feel deceived ,albeit it is difficult in the long run it will avoid a heap of trouble and I would add , anxiety and gastric ulcer.

Stephen Frears vs. Ken Loach

Philomena is the new film directed by the controversial , innovate and daring director Stephen Frears (The Queen, The Deal, Dangerous Liaisons)

Philomena” is one of a number of films this year that could be submitted to the Golden Globes as either a comedy or drama, starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan and based on true events , the films tells the story of Philomena, a Irish Catholic, who was forced to give up her son to the nuns .She became pregnant when she was a teenager and sent to a convent in Ireland . She is obliged to work long hours in the laundry and later she is forced to sign a contract agreeing not to look for his son , his three years old son was sold a wealthy family for 1.ooo pounds.
When she is seventy , she meets a BBC correspondent , Martin,who becomes interested in her story and convinces her of telling her story . They travel to the States looking for her son. Martin  is atheist and cynic, Philomena is a devout  Catholic who keeps  faithful to church in spite of all the suffering and pain inflicted.

The contemporary history of Great Britain has been portrayed by Stephen Frears and Ken Loach . Both director show a gloomy and pessimist vision of Thatcher Government , a period marked by strikes, terrorism  and unemployment . Both director have focused on the working class  and its daily struggles. Ken Loach gives voice to ordinary people , those people who are not allowed to speak and nobody wants to listen to . His films are realist and portrays those aspects of life and industrialization that exist but we don´t see. If  Ken Loach´s films are labelled as social realism, Stephen Frears` films are studies of the modern Britain , his characters are varied and he portrays Britain and its citizens ,all classes of conflicts and themes. 

A example of the way that this directors tackle some controversial subject could be noticed in these two fims : "Fond Kiss"  by Ken Loach tackles a contemporary Romeo-Juliet form of love story but this time it is not the class difference but the difference of ethnicity that is the obstacle. The author tells us something that is part of Britain daily life , a society whose main feature is multiculturalism.

Dirty Pretty Things (Stephen Frears, 2002) takes a crime-thriller narrative style on the African and Turkish asylum seeker working in a hotel who happens to get involved in a syndicate of human organ trading within London. Ken Loach´s  movies transmit a gloomy sensation that linger on some days . Some Frears ` movies make you laugh , or recognize a situation that are commonplace. Different styles and points of view to tell us a story that could happen to anyone( who was British , better said, English)

 

"12 years a Slave"

Few days ago we watched a video about slavery , it outlined its evolution throughout history ,stressing its development and length in the USA(Southern ) mostly because of economical reasons , a complex and difficult issue, that as Mandela said in the book we are currently reading, "No one is born prejudiced or racist( ..) Evil is something instilled in or taught to men by circumstances , their environment, or their upbringing (...)

All this has brought to my mind the movie " 12 years a Slave" based on the book of the same name written by Northup. The movie seems to be  one of the favourite for the Oscars and it is called to received a few  awards , according to the critics it has already swept  the Oscars. The movie is directed by Steve McQueen and starring Chiwetelu Ejiofor , as Salomon , the slave, and Brad Pitt.

Salomon Northup was a free- born African American, from New York , we was enticed with a job offer , kidnapped dragged and sold  into slavery . He worked for different owners in Louisiana and when after 12 years he regained his freedom he sued the slave traders and became active in  abolitionism . The story, the same as the book,  dwells on the brutality  harsh and inhumane treatment endured by the slaves.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10498277/12-Years-a-Slave-the-sad-song-of-Solomon-Northup.html

Background materials for Mandela

The link c BBC hard talk leads me to Wikipedia . I have been googling and I have found this link which is a interview with Mandela when he was in Britain for the Commonwealth conference . He talks about his life , love and earliest days in South Africa´s liberation struggle. I have thought that it may well be this link ...