Miguel’s Weblog

A minha esposa adorou a canção, mesmo sem perceber a letra comoveu-se bastante. Seguimos parte do Festival (???) pela VRT.

Recebido por mail:

-Uma adolescente de 16 anos pode fazer livremente um aborto mas não pode pôr um piercing.
-Um cônjuge para se divorciar, basta pedir.
-Um empregador para despedir um trabalhador que o agrediu precisa de uma sentença judicial que demora 5 anos a sair.
-Na escola um professor é agredido por um aluno. O professor nada pode fazer, porque a sua progressão na carreira está dependente da nota que dá ao seu aluno.
-Um jovem de 18 anos recebe €200 do Estado para não trabalhar; um idoso recebe de reforma €236 depois de toda uma vida do trabalho.
-Um marido oferece um anel à sua mulher e tem de declarar a doação ao fisco.
-O mesmo fisco penhora indevidamente o salário de um trabalhador e demora 3 anos a corrigir o erro.
-O Estado que queria gastar 6 mil milhões de euros no novo Aeroporto da Ota recusa-se a baixar impostos porque não tem dinheiro.
-Nas zonas mais problemáticas das áreas urbanas existe 1 polícia para cada 2 000 habitantes; o Governo diz que não precisa de mais polícias.
-Numa empreitada pública, os trabalhadores são todos imigrantes ilegais, que recebem abaixo do salário mínimo e o Estado não fiscaliza.
-Num café, o proprietário vê o seu estabelecimento ser encerrado só porque não tinha uma placa a dizer que é proibido fumar.
-Um cão ataca uma criança e o Governo diz que vai fazer uma lei.
-Um professor é sovado por um aluno e o Governo diz que a culpa á das causas sociais.
-O IVA de um preservativo é 5%. O IVA de uma cadeirinha de automóvel, obrigatória para quem tem filhos até aos 12 anos, assim como o das fraldas descartáveis, é 21%.
-Numa entrevista à televisão, o Primeiro-Ministro define a Política como “A Arte de aprender a viver com a decepção”.

Estaremos, como Portugueses, condenados a aprender a viver com este arremedo de primeiro-ministro?

É ser o último a saber que se vai ser tio e não saber para quando é.

Hoje deparei com este post do Paulo Carvalho. Os meus parabéns. Subscrevo o seu post na totalidade.

Ligar o messenger e ver amigos/conhecidos/família online e desejar um “bom dia” e de repente eles desligarem. Depois quando telefonamos ouvi-los dizer “Então que é feito de ti? Porque é que nunca mais deste notícias?”

É engraçado que este tema de “ser emigrante é…” é um dos temas que mais sucesso tem no blog e que mais reacções desperta via e-mail, e todos dizemos o mesmo!

Upload feito originalmente por joaofreitas

… que saudades!

At my grandparents’ place it was like this… how I miss that!

Quando não telefonamos a dar notícias é porque não queremos saber da família e dos amigos, quando telefonamos é sempre “olha desculpa mas agora tenho que fazer, telefona depois”. Depois quando vamos de férias e queremos visitar alguém nunca dá jeito, está sempre tudo ocupado a ver a novela, a ir ao café ou ao Shopping, depois se vamos embora sem a visita da praxe fica tudo ofendido.

Dá cá uma vontade de telefonar e de ir a Portugal de férias… (não sou o único a dizer isto)!

On this Sabath Day I would like to share with you the 178th Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that took place last weekend in Salt Lake City, USA.

By David Haldane, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

The Mormon Church has to be among the most outgoing on earth; in recent years its leaders have reached out to, among others, Latinos, Koreans, Catholics and Jews.

One of the most enthusiastic responses, however, has come from what some might consider a surprising source: U.S. Muslims.

“We are very aware of the history of Mormons as a group that was chastised in America,” says Maher Hathout, a senior advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. “They can be a good model for any group that feels alienated.”

Which perhaps explains an open-mosque day held last fall at the Islamic Center of Irvine. More than half the guests were Mormons.

“A Mormon living in an Islamic society would be very comfortable,” said Steve Young, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attending the event.

The sentiment is echoed by Muslims. “When I go to a Mormon church I feel at ease,” said Haitham Bundakji, former chairman of the Islamic Society of Orange County. “When I heard the president [of LDS] speak a few years ago, if I’d closed my eyes I’d have thought he was an imam.”

Though the relationship has raised eyebrows and provided ammunition for critics of both religions, Mormons and Muslims have deepening ties in the United States.

What binds them has little to do with theology: Mormons venerate Jesus as interpreted by founder Joseph Smith, while Muslims view Muhammad as god’s prophet. Based on shared values and a sense of isolation from mainstream America, the connection was intensified by 9/11 and cemented by the Southeast Asia tsunami. It is especially evident in Southern California, with large Mormons and Muslim populations.

The Mormon Church has become the biggest contributor to Buena Park-based Islamic Relief, touted by its administrators as the West’s largest Muslim-based charity. Relief officials say the church has donated $20 million in goods and services since the 2004 tsunami, equal to about 20% of the charity’s annual budget.

Brigham Young University in Utah, the church’s major institution of higher learning, features what is thought to be one of the world’s best programs for translating classic Islamic works from Arabic to English. Though created primarily for academic purposes, the results have impressed Muslims flattered by the close attention.

“It shows they have a keen interest in the Muslim world,” said Levent Akbarut, a member of the Islamic Congregation of La Cañada-Flintridge.

And Mormons and Muslims say they often are co-hosts of educational and social programs at which, though some may be angling for long-term doctrinal influence, very little open proselytizing of each other seems to take place. “We have a very close and friendly relationship,” said Keith Atkinson, West Coast LDS spokesman.Mormons “explain our faith to anyone who will listen” and “treat Muslims like anybody else,” said Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, one of the church’s top governing bodies in Salt Lake City. But Oaks added that “we don’t preach to people who would be disenfranchised” or likely offended by the effort.

Arnold H. Green, a history professor at BYU, has traced how early Mormons in the 19th century were hounded by accusations that church founder Smith was the American Muhammad. The first Mormons angrily denied any connection to the Muslim prophet but gradually accepted some comparisons, particularly that both religions were founded by post-Christian prophets with strong sectarian views. “As the church grew into a global faith,” Green wrote in a 2001 essay, “its posture toward Islam became . . . more positive” until, today, “the two faiths have become associated in several ways, including Mormonism’s being called the Islam of America.”

Both religions strongly emphasize family. They tend toward patriarchy, believing in feminine modesty, chastity and virtue. And although Islam discourages dancing involving both sexes, Mormons report that church-sponsored “modesty proms” commonly draw Islamic youths.

Both faiths adhere to religion-based health codes, including prohibitions against alcohol, but Mormons and Muslims share something more: membership in quickly growing minority religions that many other Americans have sometimes viewed with suspicion and scorn.

“We both come from traditions where there has been persecution in the past and continues to be prejudice,” said Steve Gilliland, LDS director of Muslim relations for Southern California. “That helps us Mormons identify with Muslims.”

A recent national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that although a thin majority of those polled expressed positive opinions of Muslims and Mormons, the number was significantly less than those favoring Roman Catholics or Jews.

More than half the respondents said they had little or no awareness of the precepts and practices of either faith. But 45% saw Islam as more likely than other religions to encourage violence, and 31% said that Mormons weren’t Christian.

Armand L. Mauss, a Mormon and professor emeritus of sociology at Washington State University specializing in religious movements, said that unlike mainstream Christians and Jews, Muslims and Mormons “tend to make fairly stringent demands for religious conformity on their members.” These practices, he said, include discouraging marriage outside the religion and observing dietary laws, such as the Mormon prohibition against tobacco, alcohol and caffeine.

But the clincher, according to Mauss, is that both communities “have been stung in recent years by the recurrence of scandals over which they have no control.” For Muslims, the obvious example is 9/11.

Domingo à noite foi transmitido um programa na televisão flamenga sobre uma família Belga Flamenga radicada em Portugal. Chamei a minha mulher para ver com os próprios olhos o que eu lhe tento fazer ver desde 1994 e que para ela é difícil de aceitar. Aquela hora chegou para perceber que voltar para Portugal é tarefa quase impossível. Para mim também foi extremamente útil porque pude ver Portugal pelos olhos de uma família Flamenga e não com os olhos da saudade com que sempre vejo. Gostaria de vos deixar aqui as ideias gerais transmitidas por aquela família:

O inferno da Burocracia

São precisos documentos para tudo e mais alguma coisa e os documentos solicitados raramente estão prontos na data estabelecida pelos próprios serviços.

Construir ou renovar uma casa

É tarefa quase impossível porque muitas vezes as pessoas contratadas para trabalhar simplesmente não aparecem ou resolvem por iniciativa própria não trabalharem de acordo com os planos aprovados pelos arquitectos. Para ilustrarem mostraram como exemplo uma parede que deveria ser construída num certo lugar na sua nova casa e quando chegaram à obra depois de um dia de trabalho verificaram que o pedreiro estava a construir a parede num lugar completamente diferente, porque segundo ele, ali ficava melhor.

Simpatia e afabilidade das pessoas

Estavam encantados por terem sido ajudados por toda a gente da aldeia que escolheram quando se quiseram estabelecer em Portugal. Os vizinhos ajudaram no que podiam e na escola todos ajudaram bastante a filha do casal, ao ponto de ela dizer que não consegue ver o seu futuro na Bélgica.

Silêncio

Habituados a viver num País onde o stress é uma constante e onde o tempo para a família é reduzido ao mínimo, foi com espanto que pela primeira vez na vida viram que o silêncio absoluto existe. Disseram que havia dias em que não se ouvia nada ao redor e que aqueles dias cheios de stress e barulho que conheciam na Bélgica desapareceram.

Velhice

Estavam a pensar envelhecer em Portugal mas apenas com a condição de terem um Seguro de Saúde que lhes permitisse regressarem à Bélgica para serem assistidos sempre que precisassem de cuidados de saúde.

_________________________________________________________

Este é um programa transmitido semanalmente com Flamenfos radicados em diversas partes do Mundo.

El toro de Osborne

Upload feito originalmente por Phranet

As soon as I see these toros along the highway, I know that I am arriving home :):)

Mário , Crespo, Jornalista

“… Isto é o fim do Mundo”.

Pivot

Uma professora tirou o telemóvel a uma aluna de 9º ano pois esta estaria a brincar com ele durante a aula.

Não há respeito pelos professores e funcionários. Não há sanções apropriadas para quem tem extrema falta de educação e violência. NÃO ACONTECE NADA.

Fonte: Democracia em Portugal

Agora a minha pergunta à Sra. Ministra: “Qual é avaliação que espera esta professora? Será que ela age mal ou é a aluna? Como é que a Sra. reagiria nesta situação? No meu tempo isto daria suspensão ou até expulsão.“

Source: Wikipedia

The German exodus from Eastern Europe refers to the exodus of ethnic German populations from lands to the east of present-day Germany and Austria. The exodus began in the aftermath of World War I and was implicated in the rise of Nazism. It culminated in expulsions of Germans from Eastern Europe in the aftermath of World War II. These were part of negotiated agreements between the victorious Allies to redraw national borders and arrange for “orderly population transfers” to remove ethnic minorities that were viewed as “troublesome”.

Background

Migrations that took place over more than a millennium led to pockets of Germans living throughout Eastern Europe as far east as Russia. By the sixteenth century, much of Pomerania, Prussia, the Sudetenland, Bessarabia, Galicia, Alto Adige/South Tyrol, Carniola, and Lower Styria had numerous German-majority towns and villages. By the early nineteenth century, every city of even modest size as far east as the Volga had a German quarter and a Jewish quarter. Travellers along any road would pass through, for example, a German village, then a Czech village, then a Polish village, etc., depending on the region.

The rise of nationalism in Europe from the middle of the nineteenth century spread the concept of a “people” who shared a common bond through race, religion, language, and culture, and had a right to form its own state. In these circumstances, various situations could lead to conflict. One such was when a nation claimed territorial rights to land outside its borders on the basis of a common bond with the people living on that land. Another was when a minority ethnic group sought to secede from a state, either to form an independent nation or join another nation with whom they felt stronger ties. A third source of conflict was the desire of some nations to expel people from their territories on the grounds that those people did not share a common bond with the majority in that nation.

Territorial claims of German nationalists

By World War I, there were isolated groups of Germans or so-called Schwaben as far southeast as the Bosphorus (Turkey), Georgia, and Azerbaijan. After the war, Germany’s and Austria-Hungary’s loss of territory and the rise of communism in the Soviet Union meant that more Germans than ever constituted sizable minorities in various countries.

German nationalists used the existence of large German minorities in other countries as a basis for territorial claims. Many of the propaganda themes of the Nazi regime against Czechoslovakia and Poland claimed that the ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) in those territories were persecuted.

The Nazis negotiated a number of population transfers with Joseph Stalin and others with Benito Mussolini so that both Germany and the other country would increase their ethnic homogeneity. However, these population transfers were not sufficient to appease the demands of the Nazis. The “Heim ins Reich” (Home into the Country) rhetoric of the Nazis over the continued disjoint status of exclaves such as Danzig and Königsberg was an agitating factor in the politics leading up to World War II, and is considered by many to be among the major causes of Nazi aggression and thus the war. Adolf Hitler used these issues as a pretext for waging aggressive wars against Czechoslovakia and Poland.

Support of Nazi invasion by German population in invaded countries

As Nazi Germany invaded first Czechoslovakia and later Poland and other European nations, some members of the ethnic German minorities in those countries aided the invading forces and the subsequent Nazi occupation. These acts would cause an enmity against Germans, and later be used as part of the justification for the expulsions.

Czechoslovakia

According to the 1920 constitution, German minority rights were to be protected and their educational and cultural institutions were to be preserved in proportion to the population. Local hostilities were engendered, however, by policies intended to protect the security of the Czechoslovak state: border forestland, considered by some to be the most ancient Sudeten German national territory, was expropriated for security reasons, and Czech soldiers, policemen and bureaucrats were stationed in areas inhabited only by Germans. There were also economic tensions, as Sudeten Germans suffered more during the Great Depression, because they were more dependent on foreign trade and economic conditions in Germany.

Sudeten German nationalist sentiment affected their politics during the early years of the republic. In 1926, however, Chancellor Gustav Stresemann of Germany advised Sudeten Germans to cooperate actively with the Czechoslovak government. In consequence, most Sudeten German parties changed from negativism to activism, and a number of Sudeten Germans accepted cabinet posts. By 1929, only a small number of Sudeten German deputies - most of them members of the German National Party (propertied classes) and the Sudeten Nazi Party (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei) - remained in opposition.

On October 1, 1933, Konrad Henlein created a new political organization, the Sudeten German Home Front which professed loyalty to the Czechoslovak state but championed decentralization. It absorbed most former German nationals and Sudeten Nazis. In 1935 the Sudeten German Home Front became the Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei, SdP) and embarked on an active propaganda campaign. In the May election the SdP won more than 60 percent of the Sudeten German vote at the expense of the German Agrarians, Christian Socialists, and Social Democrats who each lost approximately half of their constituencies. ^[1]

The SdP became the fulcrum of German nationalist forces. The party represented itself as striving for a just settlement of Sudeten German claims within the framework of Czechoslovak democracy. Henlein, however, maintained secret contacts with Nazi Germany and received material aid from Berlin. The SdP endorsed the idea of a führer and mimicked Nazi methods with banners, slogans, and uniformed troops. Concessions offered by the Czechoslovak government, including the transfer of Sudeten German officials to Sudeten German areas and possible participation of the SdP in the cabinet, were rejected. By 1937, most SdP leaders supported Hitler’s pan-German objectives. ^[2]

Poland

Some ethnic Germans living in Poland were activists in the groups Deutscher Volksverband and Jungdeutscher Partei, and before the war opposed any form of co-existence with the Polish state, and condemned those ethnic Germans who spoke Polish or had contact with Polish culture. Polish national events were boycotted and ethnic Germans who did not act in the required manner were branded as traitors and renegades by these organizations. Such organizations al